In the meantime, her implant helpfully informed her that she hadn’t eaten since the modest breakfast she’d had early that morning.
Now, dusk lengthened shadows across Eresos’ surface, and her body needed nourishment. She’d be fine without it, but if Roach had been looking out for the wellbeing of his team he would have ordered a stop.
“What’s wrong with him?” Beth subvocalized over a two-way with Ash, and she could hear the tension in Paste’s voice—from the simulated exertion, no doubt, but probably also from the anxiety that stemmed from not knowing what Roach was planning. Ash certainly felt that, herself.
“I don’t know,” she rasped back. “He’s not the same as he was.”
“Think it’s something to do with that thing he lives inside, now?”
Ash considered that for a moment. “Not sure. He seemed to change even before that. When he came back half-dead from chasing that quad…his behavior worried me back then. Now, though…I don’t know. He’s different, for sure, no matter what’s causing it.”
“He needs to get his shit together. We’re counting on him. Everyone is.”
“I’m not sure he cares. About anything, other than killing Quatro.”
“Well, we have that in common.”
Ahead, the woods began to thin—a telltale sign of an upcoming glade, for which this region had taken its name. Not all the glades had villages, but this one did, according to Ash’s HUD.
Indeed, she soon spotted the first structure. And then the next.
Something struck her as odd, and at first, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Then, she had it:
There aren’t any lights on. It’s getting too late to get around unassisted. And not everyone would be inside. Not on a night like this.
Of course, a bulletin about Quatro in the area would have gone out to every village, and maybe this one had blacked out intentionally, to avoid attracting attention.
That makes sense. Still, an eerie feeling dogged her as they began to pass the first houses.
She used her S-level security clearance to access Darkstream’s database of implants and v-lenses. The company made and sold the devices everyone used to access the system net, and they took the liberty of tracking each one’s location, which was a fact known only to certain operatives.
If you had the knowhow, you could disable that ‘feature,’ but most people didn’t even know it existed in the first place, even though the fact of it was buried somewhere inside the End User License Agreement. The clause had even been published on the system net, but not many people spent their time on the system net reading articles about privacy and security issues.
When Ash consulted the database, she could find no indication that any v-lens or implant was active inside the entire village.
“It’s deserted,” Ash said.
Marco nodded in confirmation. Knowing him, he’d probably done the same thing she had.
Roach had stopped in the center of the village green, and now he revolved slowly, taking in the structures surrounding them.
From the way the other MIMAS mechs twitched, Ash could tell that they found Roach’s behavior just as creepy as she did.
A cracking came from Ash’s right, and she whirled just in time to see the quad that was crashing out of the building two meters away from her, eyes glowing bright red in the dark.
It charged, knocking her backward onto the ground while it sank lengthening claws into her mech’s shoulder.
The night sky flashed scarlet.
Chapter 19
Comet Four
Using the alien mech’s thrusters, Jake was capable of rapid acceleration—much faster than the comet hoppers—and in the void of space, there was nothing to impede that acceleration, other than the comets of the Belt. As long as he succeeded in avoiding those, he could pile speed on top of incredible speed.
Jake might have accelerated indefinitely, reaching Hub in astonishing time—if he’d had unlimited fuel. The alien mech was a technological wonder, and the dream had already highlighted comets as an excellent source of hydrogen fuel.
He availed of that, of course, but it did entail stopping, and after each refueling he needed to begin his acceleration all over again.
The Ravager attacks did not help matters, though they grew less frequent as he neared Hub.
That worried him, since it probably meant that any Ravagers in the neighborhood had been diverted to the effort to take out the only major settlement the Belt had.
Someone’s intent on scrubbing humanity from this system quickly.
But who? And why wasn’t Bronson more concerned? If he’d been Bronson, he would have prioritized the defense of Hub.
Losing it would represent a huge blow, strategically, since this was the system’s only presence out here. On the other hand, repelling the attackers would send a message that humanity was not to be trifled with.
Bronson has to listen to the board, I guess. But that didn’t mean Jake forgave the man for abandoning the people of Hub, and for ordering Jake to do the same.
At last, Hub came into view: seven large comets, all roughly the same size, and all connected to a central control center using super-strong nanotethers that were tens of thousands of kilometers long.
Hub’s design allowed for the addition of more comets without upsetting the structure’s rotation, and it allowed for their subtraction as well. In the event that something went catastrophically wrong with one comet, the other six would continue to spin, unaffected.
The comets averaged around a mile and a half in diameter. Residents used small craft to visit their neighbor comets, whether for business or pleasure. Each comet had a single landing bay, all of which faced inward—a testament to the fact that the inhabitants considered theirs to be a community cloistered from the rest of the universe.
And it pretty much is.
Except, now it was overrun by Ravagers—the peaceful paradise compromised, possibly ruined forever. Hub’s inhabitants had stopped posting updates of their plight shortly after the post Jake had read. He’d tried sending several messages, to his family, to old neighbors, to members of the Council, and to everyone else he could think of.
No one had responded.
Maybe I’m too late. Maybe everyone was already dead.
But he wasn’t prepared to entertain that thought. Not yet. Jake had designed his entire life around keeping his sister alive, and the idea that she might have been murdered by an alien robot instead of the carcinoma that they’d all been battling together for years…
He tried contacting his mother once again, and even though he was within real-time communications range now, Brianne Price still didn’t answer.
So he headed for the second-largest of the seven comets that formed Hub. It was called Comet Four, and it was also where he’d grown up.
When he jetted to the outer airlock, which was big enough to admit the old combat shuttles Bronson and the other rogue UHF captains had brought with them when they first fled to the Steele System, he found the hatch smashed open.
The minor violin note returned, from when he’d fought the Ravagers en route to here. This time, that was the only way the mech dream chose to represent his distress.
As though he needed an external indicator of the potent mix of shock and fear that raged within him.
The emergency backup hatch failed to engage.
In the event of a breach, the landing bay was supposed to enter Lockdown Mode, to prevent the comet’s atmosphere from escaping into space.
But it hadn’t. Instead, it had been expelled from the comet where Jake’s family lived in a great rush.
No one could have survived that.
Not unless they’d had advance warning of the attack, of course. There were emergency shelters, installed for exactly such an eventuality, and if you made it to them in time, you could make it. They were kept oxygenated, pressurized, and well-stocked with food and supplies.
At least, they’re supposed to be.
A slim hope. But a hope nonetheless.
Jake jetted past the airlock and through the shuttle bay. The inner airlock was clogged up with everything from the comet that hadn’t been secured—a miscellany consisting of wooden boards, tools, speeders, and even the mangled corpses of livestock. The buildup didn’t create a perfect seal, though. Jake could see light shining through the barrier, meaning it wouldn’t have acted to preserve any of the comet’s oxygen.
He rocketed through the plug, flinging its contents every which way before the various objects hurtled once more toward the airlock, many of them continuing through to the landing bay before the barrier recreated itself.
Only as he’d crashed through had Jake realized that some of the corpses were human.
He tried to put the revelation out of his mind, and as he entered the comet, the Ocharium nanites inside his cells engaged with the Majorana fermions buried beneath the ground, which resulted in a simulated one G.
Of course, it shouldn’t have been that easy, given the giant alien mech that he piloted. But it was—the mech behaved as though it was subjected to one G, as well.
Does it contain Ocharium too? Or has it synced with my body’s experience of simulated gravity using some other method?
He didn’t know, and right now he had no time to puzzle over it.
Peering around his childhood home did nothing to alleviate his mounting anxiety. The central, artificial sun still lit everything as brightly as it always had, from its perch atop the thin spire that stretched up three-quarters of a mile. The ‘sun’ rested in the very center of the comet, and if anything had gone wrong with it, there would have been much bigger problems. A thermonuclear reactor powered it.
Jake could see basically everything in the comet from where he stood, which was true of anywhere you cared to stand inside it. The land curved up and away from him, and residences hung directly overhead, too—as well as copses of trees and lush, green fields.
At least, they’d once been lush. The tiny woods had mostly been burned, and many of the fields were scorched, too. Jake was sure the vegetation had lost much of its original color, also—probably because of the oxygen being vented out of the comet.
Ravagers crawled all over, wreaking destruction wherever they could.
And when his eyes fell on his family’s house, he saw that it had been blasted apart, with only charred ruins left of his childhood home.
Chapter 20
Whirlwind of Metal
Ash tried to buck off her assailant, but the quad was far too heavy, and with it pinning her she couldn’t bring any of her weapons to bear.
The Quatro mech’s claws dug deep into the circuitry and servomotors of Ash’s shoulder, causing the dream to go berserk, in a way she’d never seen it do before.
As two more cracking sounds signaled more quads breaking out of structures, one of her fellow MIMAS pilots rocketed into the one pinning her down.
The thing seemed to be ready for the maneuver, and it only shifted a meter before producing spikes to fire from its shoulders, straight at the MIMAS that had helped Ash, which her HUD said was piloted by Henrietta Jin.
Henrietta extended both her bayonets, knocking the spikes aside before they hit her. With that, she used her right bayonet to parry a swipe from one of the quad’s mighty paws before thrusting forward with her left, putting her weight behind it.
The blade plunged into the enemy’s metal chest, the fluid metal surface seeming to peel back in alarm before attempting to expel the bayonet. But Henrietta took a step forward, sinking her blade farther in.
By now, Ash had regained her feet, and she circled around to the right, training her lasers on the alien’s flank.
The quad writhed, seeming to panic, and Ash brought all her focus to bear, making sure she kept the beams on that one spot.
Something hit her from behind, knocking her forward, and then the quad managed to wrench away from Henrietta’s assault, turning tail and fleeing.
Extending her bayonets, Ash whipped around savagely, swiping at whatever had attacked her with the sharp edge.
Her blade found a Quatro neck, and she followed through, parting it from the alien’s shoulders. The massive, headless body slumped to the ground.
I got lucky with that one.
But more Quatro rushed in between the buildings, and Oneiri was instantly surrounded by the massive aliens, who crashed against them like a purple tide.
“They were waiting to ambush us!” Ash grunted as she dropped to one knee, turning a Quatro’s charge against it by sending it up and over her. She surged upward, and though the effort felt clumsy and awkward, it messed up the Quatro’s landing. That gave Ash time to detach her heavy machine gun from her back and riddle the alien with bullets.
“Typical Quatro behavior,” Henrietta said. She hadn’t retracted her bayonets yet, choosing instead to plunge them repeatedly into whatever Quatro deigned to come at her.
“The good news is, I think we have your nickname,” Ash said as she continued to shoot the Quatro she’d tossed. It was now staggering toward her.
“Oh God. This should be good.”
“Razor. For the way you shave these Quatro so good!”
Henrietta chuckled. “It’s actually not bad.”
Another Quatro leapt at Ash, knocking her gun sideways, and if she hadn’t stopped firing instantly she would have hit Henrietta.
Incensed, Ash sent a metal fist into the Quatro’s face, causing blood to spray. It reared back, shaking its head, and she jammed the heavy machine gun in its face, pulling the trigger.
The beast’s head exploded, sending brain and viscera to splatter against Ash’s metal skin.
Two down. She searched for her next target.
It didn’t take her very long to find one. Most of the other mechs were faring much worse than she was. She couldn’t see Richaud and Beth, but a massive pile of writhing Quatro gave her a good idea of where they might be.
Firing a couple grenades into that dogpile, she moved to lend Spirit a hand, mowing down a Quatro before it could complete its headlong charge into his backside.
He was engaged with two other foes, and didn’t seem to notice the assist. I never get any credit, Ash reflected sardonically, shifting the gun toward her next target.
Then, she saw Chief Roach, and she quickly realized that as hard as the rest of Oneiri Team had it, they were playing on easy mode.
Roach was taking on three quads at once—and he was winning.
A whirlwind of metal and ordnance, Roach sent fragment after fragment of himself hurtling toward his opponents, whose measured movements spoke of respect for their adversary.
Ash began to turn to see whether she could help the mechs pinned underneath the Quatro, but before she could, she witnessed one of the quads foolishly charge at Roach, in a desperate attempt to run him through with the lance that sprouted from its chest as it ran.
It succeeded in impaling him, right where Roach would have been—if he’d still had a human body.
As it was, the attack only gave him the proximity he needed to swing two newly morphed scythes down at the quad.
Both blades sank deep into the quadruped mech, and when Roach removed them, it fell lifelessly to the ground.
One of the remaining quads let out a strange sound, which resembled a cross between a roar and a smoker’s cough.
The rest of the Quatro instantly extracted themselves from the battle with Oneiri, following the two quads Roach hadn’t killed yet as they fled the village.
“To me!” Roach called, and a thrill shot through Ash—at their sudden victory but also at the fact that Roach was acknowledging that he needed them. That they functioned best as a team.
“They’l
l attack other villages if we let them escape,” he went on. “We must run them down.”
As the Quatro fled, Roach took aim at one of their backsides with arms that rapidly became energy cannons.
Blue light lanced forward, and the rear third of a Quatro simply incinerated.
“Move!” Roach screamed, and they did.
Chapter 21
The Gatherers
They’d almost reached the safety of the narrow ravine when the Ambler managed to extract itself from the pile of rubble Vickers had rained down on it.
It began to fire on them immediately, and Lisa ordered the others to randomize their movements as much as they could—right before she took a bullet herself.
It hit her in the upper back, and the shock and impact of it sent her to her knees as she muffled a scream with the back of her hand.
Ahead, the mouth of the ravine swam in the heat, as though taunting her.
So close…so far.
Rug swung her head to register what had happened, and when she did, the Quatro’s eyes went wide. “Lisa Sato!” she hissed.
With that, she about-turned, faster than Lisa would have thought possible for a Quatro. Then she ran back toward the Ambler, rearing up to place her paws on a steep rise.
“Help her, Rodney Vickers!” Rug yelled without turning. “I will hold off this metal beast for as long as I can.”
“Rug,” Lisa managed to yell. “No!”
“Go, Lisa Sato. I will not behave recklessly in this. But I also refuse to let this contraption cut our friendship short.”
Nothing can cut our friendship short, Rug. No matter what happens.
But Lisa accepted Vickers’s help at last, and she hobbled stiffly over the uneven terrain.
Thankfully, the land trended mostly downward. Even so, Vickers had to help her descend by holding the back of her jumpsuit for as long as he could before she touched down.
It wasn’t long before they had to go down over a rise large enough that she had to drop for more than a meter.
Mech Wars: The Complete Series Page 46