Two other mechs had shown up with Ash, and their arrival singlehandedly turned the tide of the battle. Within twenty minutes, the last Darkstream soldiers had died, fled, or been captured.
Within seconds of that, Ash Sweeney and Beth Arkanian were out of their mechs, wrapped in a tight embrace as they shared a passionate kiss.
Jake approached Lisa from a cluster of buildings nearby, where she gathered there’d been a pitched firefight. “That’ll be far from the only station defenders. The ones that ran will marshal more of the garrison.”
“You’re right. We need to prioritize taking a landing bay. Once we have the soldiers your shuttles picked up, we should be able to secure the rest of the station with minimal casualties.”
Nodding, Jake said, “We’d better get moving.”
Chapter 28
Valhalla's Defensive Arsenal
“How you holding up, Clutch?”
Jake glanced across the entrance to Landing Bay Theta, where Marco’s MIMAS was crouched, ducking out periodically to fire on the Darkstream soldiers. They were mounting a much fiercer defense of the landing bay than anyone had expected.
Inside his own mech, Jake smiled. Marco could already see how he was holding up, but he knew that wasn’t the actual point of the question.
The point was to use his old nickname. His Oneiri nickname.
“Hanging in there, Spirit. You?”
“I say we charge these corporate bootlickers. Draw their fire, return some suppressive fire of our own, and let our people pour in behind us. We’ll have the landing bay in no time.”
Jake considered the suggestion for a moment. It was risky, but risky was exactly what they needed right now.
“All right. Let’s try to lay off the rockets—the landing bay won’t be of much use to us if we blow a hole in the side of the station.”
“Roger that. Let’s do this.”
They charged in as one, Marco’s rotary autocannons firing at full bore while Jake unleashed thin rods of light—pinpoint laser strikes meant to neutralize the hostiles without doing too much damage to the station itself.
Behind, Quatro poured into the landing bay. The first two squads of aliens were armed, and they laid down suppressive fire of their own. That allowed dozens more unarmed Quatro to flood in, charging along the sides of the landing bay and clearing out the human soldiers crouching behind cover. The effort ended in several dead aliens, but the Quatro seemed to recognize the urgency of the day, and they didn’t shy away from kamikaze tactics whenever the situation called for it.
They’ve been downtrodden for too long—by the ones they call the Meddlers and by humans, too. They’ve had enough.
Within minutes they’d secured the area, after a handful of soldiers threw down their weapons, surrendering in time to save themselves.
The resistance leaders had all agreed that anyone surrendering would be granted whatever asylum was still available to them in the Steele System. Jake ordered his soldiers to take their guns, and they bound them hand and foot, but they were permitted to live.
Marco was already out of his mech and running for the landing bay’s compact control room, which sat in the corner that was farthest from the large airlock. For his part, Jake busied himself with contacting Councilman Pichenko and letting him know that a landing bay had been secured and that the shuttles were cleared to enter.
“Uh, Jake?” It was Marco, subvocalizing.
“What’s up?”
“I had a glance at the station’s sensor data from the last couple hours…you’re not going to like this. Every last UHF warship Darkstream has at its disposal has turned toward us and is headed our way. The Javelin’s already here, but it seems to be waiting for more ships to arrive before engaging.”
Jake’s stomach turned to ice, and the mech dream treated him to a mounting drumbeat. He turned to face the control room, and his eyes met Marco’s through the glass. Enhanced visual sensors told him that the other pilot’s eyes were wide.
“Can we use the station’s guns against the ships?” Jake asked.
After a long pause, Marco said, “Maybe. But it would involve hacking into Valhalla’s weapon systems and convincing the computer to target the warships as enemies. That’s no easy feat, especially since we have little more than an hour to do it.”
“We have to try. And we’d better finish taking the station before the warships get here, too. Otherwise, some Darkstream tech can just switch the targeting back. We’ll need all our mechs outside, engaging those ships.”
Marco swallowed visibly. “I know the MIMAS mechs are rated for space combat, but the capability’s never been tested—”
“It has, actually. By me.”
Nodding, Marco said, “All right, then. In order to mess with the defensive arsenal’s targeting, we need to take the station’s control center. Fast.”
“Agreed. Maybe we can lower the station’s temperature while we’re there. That’ll make the Quatro’s superconducting ability a lot more powerful.”
Pichenko contacted Jake, then, interrupting their conversation.
“Councilman. What can I do for you?”
“Jake, a shuttle full of Quatro was just shot down by one of Valhalla’s turrets. The guns must have been reprogrammed to recognize us as hostile.”
That made Jake curse. The station’s weapons weren’t supposed to target any human ships.
“Councilman, tell the pilots to back off until I give the go-ahead,” Jake said. He returned his gaze to Marco, switching back to their two-way channel. “I just received word that Valhalla’s weapons are targeting our shuttles. The need to take the control center just became even greater. Let’s move.”
Jake turned to deliver orders to his remaining force in the landing bay.
Hopefully Lisa and Ash are making out better than we are.
Chapter 29
Fight for It
Except for Arkanian and Sweeney, who were both inside their mechs, Lisa had no backup as she jogged through the corridors of Omega Quadrant, assault rifle at the ready.
There was Andy, of course—currently being carried in Arkanian’s metal arms—though sadly, Lisa couldn’t count him as meaningful support.
Not yet, anyway.
“How are you doing, Andy?”
He sniffed. “Other than being carried by a glorified tin can, I’m fine.”
But something about Andy’s tone was different. Lisa thought she detected a note of hope, where none had been before.
It turned out that after Lisa had walked away from him on the space elevator, Andy had also taken advantage of the downtime to undergo the MIMAS training sims. Now, they were headed to an underused cargo hold where three empty mechs were waiting, vacant and ready for new pilots.
Resistance was sparse in the Omega Quadrant, which was a little surprising, given this was the quadrant where Darkstream housed most of its military personnel.
They don’t think there’s much here worth protecting. And they’d be right, if it wasn’t for Ash.
They avoided the quadrant’s weapons lockers, as well as any areas that Beth and Ash warned were likely to contain troves of sensitive data. Those places likely would be heavily guarded, which would slow them down at best.
At last, they arrived at the cargo hold. Ash punched in her access code, which still worked, thankfully. It seemed no one had thought to revoke her access during the chaos of the invasion.
Lisa supposed they could have simply blown open the cargo hold if need be, but that would have risked structural damage to the station while likely drawing unwanted attention.
She’d piloted MIMAS mechs during the handful of training sims she’d had time to undergo, but nothing in real life was ever quite like it was in the dream. Why that was, she still hadn’t figured out, since the simulations generated by lucid were essentially perfect.
Maybe memory gets in the way of the mind’s acceptance of the dream.
Whatever the reason, chills went up her spine as sh
e approached one of the three real-life mechs, in a way that hadn’t occurred when she’d beheld the MIMAS simulacra.
“I’ve granted your implant exclusive access to the MIMAS in front of you,” Sweeney said. “Go ahead. Open it up.”
Lisa willed the metal giant to open to her, just as she had countless times inside the training sims. It did, a portion of its back popping out to lower and become a ramp for her to climb. She swallowed the required sedative, which Arkanian had already supplied her with, and then she clambered into the machine.
She felt the mech close around her, enveloping her snugly. The constriction combined with the total darkness to induce a brief wave of claustrophobia, but that passed as the mech dream took her and she became the mech.
Its arms were her arms—its strength her strength. Even its weapons felt like natural extensions, and she noticed that inside the mech dream, that didn’t feel odd at all. On the contrary, it seemed totally natural. And why shouldn’t it? Lucid had the ability to tweak one’s consciousness, so why not tweak it in a direction that made her a better pilot?
“Walk toward me,” Sweeney said. “I want to make sure everything’s properly calibrated.”
Lisa took a step forward, and when she did, she felt the storeroom tremble around her. A pile of boxes shifted nearby, then toppled over.
The sense of power, combined with the knowledge that this was real life and not lucid, was almost overwhelming. She yearned to fight something—to kill an enemy. That surprised her, since she didn’t condone violence for violence’s sake. This urge to find an enemy just so she could kill it…
Makes me realize how hard Jake has it, piloting a machine that regularly urges him to kill. And how hard Roach had it.
According to Ash, Roach was still out there somewhere. Still on this station, a living weapon that outmatched even the one Lisa had just taken control of.
I can’t let this thing make me rash. MIMAS pilots aren’t invincible. That’s a lesson that’s been learned the hard way, several times over.
“Me next,” Andy said, with more excitement than Lisa had ever heard from him.
Arkanian carried him to one of the other mechs, and a silent command caused it to lower its rear ramp to admit him.
The former Oneiri pilot deposited Andy inside the tough fabric cocoon, and Andy held himself there with his arms.
The MIMAS sealed around him.
Moments later, the mech came to life, turning toward Lisa and raising its arms.
From inside the mech—from inside the dream—came Andy’s voice.
“This…this is incredible,” he said. If Lisa hadn’t known better, she would have said he sounded choked up. “I think I just got my life back.”
“You have it for now,” Sweeney said, her tone flat as she turned toward the exit. “If you want to hold on to what you’ve gained for more than a few hours, you’re going to have to fight for it.”
Chapter 30
Oneiri Team
Eager to end the battle for the control room quickly, Jake charged straight into the barricades the Darkstream soldiers were taking cover behind.
Though the barricades folded out from the walls, they were titanium-plated, and fairly sturdy. Still, they weren’t built to withstand the might of an alien mech.
The barriers buckled under Jake’s weight, and he made short work of the surviving soldiers. One took a hastily morphed blade through the neck, and another through the stomach. Jake didn’t have time to shake them free as he spun, heavy guns sprouting from his shoulders to take down the remaining three soldiers.
It was a gruesome affair, and as the dead soldiers slid from his retracting blades, Jake winced inwardly at how little chance unarmored humans stood against mechs. No matter what followed today, the past year had forever changed the way wars were waged. If humanity couldn’t adapt in time, they would surely die out.
Judging by the way the Darkstream soldiers had chosen to organize their defense of the primary control room, Darkstream hadn’t yet been pushed to a scorched earth policy, or whatever the space-based equivalent would be. They’d chosen not to do their fighting from inside the control room itself, and the reason was obvious: they recognized its importance and didn’t want it damaged.
When Jake climbed out of his mech to enter what was effectively the station’s brain, he found it empty. The technical personnel had apparently been evacuated well before the battle, probably as a safeguard against the control room getting compromised.
That probably means this is going to be every bit as difficult as Marco thinks. If Darkstream had been prepared to abandon the control room, it confirmed that the security measures against tampering would be robust. That wasn’t entirely surprising, but it could mean the difference between winning and losing in the coming battle against the warships.
“Get to work, Spirit,” Jake said. “I need the station’s turrets to identify the warships as enemies. And lowering the temperature for the Quatro will only be effective if we do it soon.”
Marco looked at him with what closely resembled a glare. “Clutch, hacking the defensive arsenal is going to be difficult enough—you can’t just tell me to hack a second unfamiliar system at the same time and expect results within a meaningful timeframe!”
Smiling, Jake walked over to his fellow mech pilot and slapped him on the shoulder. “No problem, Spirit. We’ll just lose, then. No big deal. Don’t worry about it—no one will blame you.”
He turned away, leaving Marco wearing an expression that combined confusion and anger in equal measure.
Jake left the control room to find five MIMAS mechs approaching down the corridor. He was about to scramble inside his own machine when he recognized two of the mechs as Ash’s and Beth’s. He strode out to meet them.
His practiced eye told him that one of the mechs was unpiloted—it was operating under a basic tag-along command.
“Who’s inside those?” he asked, nodding at the two new mechs that did have pilots.
“It’s me,” said Lisa. “And that’s Andy.” The MIMAS’ giant hand gestured at the other mech.
Andy remained silent, which made Jake reflect that now there were two mech pilots with whom relations were strained—he still didn’t feel comfortable around Beth, either, given that she’d recently tried to kill him. But I need to use every asset available to me.
The realization that he was now thinking of his former teammates as “assets” made him feel too much like Bronson, and he had to suppress a shudder. Turning back to Ash, he said, “You recruited two other pilots as well, didn’t you? Where are they?”
“Sato sent them with Rug to clear out Alpha Quadrant.”
Jake nodded. “Are we putting Notaras inside the extra mech?”
“Not so much,” Lisa answered. “She said something along the lines of ‘I’d rather be gunned down inside my own body, thank you very much.’”
Tilting his head to one side, Jake decided not to comment on that notion. He immediately saw a couple things wrong with it, but it wasn’t worth arguing about right now.
“Darkstream’s battle group is going to get here any minute,” he said. “We need to get to Landing Bay Theta ASAP. I’ve already secured it, and as far as I know, we still control it. I’ll make sure of that while we’re en route.”
“If Darkstream’s retaken it, we’ll just take it back,” Lisa said.
“Exactly. I need you to tell Rug to order the new pilots to meet us there. We’ll need every mech we have in the battle against the warships.”
Other than glimpses of frightened civilians, either hiding from the mechs or fleeing, the trip to Landing Bay Theta was totally uneventful.
That made sense to Jake. Watching five MIMAS mechs and one alien mech charging full bore across the space station likely didn’t do much for the enemy soldiers’ fighting spirit. Either way, Jake didn’t see any sign of hostiles.
I guess they’ve given up the Core. He knew there were still pockets of defenders entrenched in the q
uadrants, but the mechs’ path across the center of the station was clear. Rug and Tessa probably had a lot to do with that—they each commanded a separate force, and were keeping the remaining defenders busy in the Alpha and Epsilon Quadrants.
When they arrived at the landing bay, the other two MIMAS mechs were already there. “This is Maura Odell and Zed Gifford,” Ash said.
Jake nodded. “I’m Jake Price, and this is Lisa Sato, Andy Miller, and…” He cleared his throat. “And Beth Arkanian.”
By her stiff body language, Jake could tell that Beth was feeling just as awkward as he was. “Jake,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, okay? I was wrong to side with Darkstream against you. It’s just that I knew they had Ash, and all I could think about was her safety.”
“That’s a pretty convenient thing for you to say,” Jake said.
Inclining her head, Beth said, “I know. But it’s all I have for you. Besides, you need me.”
“You’re right. I do need you. We all do.” He sighed. “We’ll figure out the other stuff after all this is over. Today is about survival—about pulling out of this mess as best we can.” He looked around at each of the mechs before him. “All I know is, it looks like Oneiri Team is back. Let’s keep it that way.”
Chapter 31
Make It Happen
Jake rocketed out of the airlock with six MIMAS mechs at his back.
“Now!” he yelled, and all seven mechs split off from each other, each adopting a different trajectory. There was no pattern to their movements, and to make them as difficult to hit as possible, Jake had ordered them to be ready to randomize their movements at a moment’s notice.
Essentially, this was guns-D in zero gravity—the type of maneuver last pulled off by the Providence’s Condor fighter pilots, as far as anyone in the Steele System knew.
Unlike those Condor pilots, each MIMAS had a tactical display more immersive than anything that had preceded it, which allowed the pilots much more responsiveness. They didn’t just see threats—they felt them, with a jolt of fear and instinct that carried a directional element. Such were the advantages provided by the mech dream.
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