When this was done, Ren and Sato’s mech snatched up another alien and shotput the monster toward a Reaper mech where the impact caused the drone to fall sideways. The alien machine sputtered on its back like an overturned beetle.
Ren and Sato wasted little time. They swooped down in their mech and fell atop the alien machine, smashing it apart like a wrecking ball.
The other operators had similarly come under intense fire from several directions and were fighting back. Simeon and Baila were moving perpendicularly in their respective mechs, fighting a running battle with four alien scud soldiers who’d powered up some kind of flamethrower.
A bright orange-red spray of fire shot out of the alien flamethrower like water from a garden hose, barely missing Simeon’s mech.
The desert floor was on fire as Baila dashed through the flames and fired a rocket that shredded the flamethrower team.
The flamethrower team dispatched, Simeon’s and Baila’s mechs fired a barrage of Mjolnir fire-and-forget missiles that shot up into the air and then dropped straight back down, ripping apart most of the remaining alien Reaper mechs.
Meanwhile, Billy and Dru were dodging blasts from a Swan drone that had flown out of the belly of the alien glider.
I watched their mech raise its arms and spray fire at the Swan drone which dipped and dived, knifing down until it was close enough to drop a small bomb that kicked off the sand and—
BOOM!
Exploded with enough force that we felt the pressure where we were standing.
The percussion knocked Billy’s and Dru’s mech sideways.
Their machine slammed into the sand and was quickly assaulted by a portion of the remaining alien soldiers.
We watched one of the scuds raise a rocket launcher and I raised a hand.
“ON IT!” Jezzy shouted, squeezing off a single, expertly placed shot from one of our cannons.
The round spiraled forward and struck the explosive in the alien’s rocket launcher, setting off a fireball that consumed the other aliens who ran around on fire. This bought Billy and Dru some much needed time.
“Never fear the cavalry’s here,” I said into the commlink as we continued to fire at the alien soldiers.
“We owe ya one,” Billy replied as their mech rolled over and righted itself.
“Can you handle that drone?!” I asked.
“Hells yes we can!” Dru replied. “Whatever it takes, whatever the stakes, we are on it!”
Something moved peripherally in the sky and I turned to see the Swan drone heading back toward us. This time Billy and Dru didn’t fire on the machine. A compartment opened on the side of their mech and out popped a gunmetal gray axe that was as long as one of the Spence mech’s legs.
“How come we don’t have one of those?” Jezzy asked.
Billy’s and Dru’s mech clutched the axe and squatted like a football player who’d just been handed the ball and asked to run forward for a first down. Then their mech set off on a ragged run, blitzing forward before they hit the lip of a dune and went airborne!
My jaw dropped as I watched them vault forward, bringing that metal axe over their head and—
WHAM!
Smashing through the Swan drone, obliterating the alien craft. The metal axe sheared off, but the brothers didn’t care. I listened to them cheering, the antlers on their mech bobbing up and down as they stomped on what was left of the drone and a few wounded alien soldiers while singing, “THE ALIENS GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDEER, WALKING HOME FROM OUR MECH CHRISTMAS EVE!”
“We’ve got company!” Jezzy shouted.
I looked up to see another Reaper mech turning its cannons in our directions.
“DIVE!” Jezzy screamed.
My thumbs jiggered the controls and the Spence mech flopped to the ground, barely avoiding a wall of energized sabots from the enemy mech that stitched the ground around us.
We were pinned down as the enemy rounds shrieked by overhead. A few of the sabots ricocheted off the turret and one hit the cockpit, nearly cracking the glass.
The volume of enemy fire made it impossible to bolt and the Reaper mech was drawing closer, continuing to fire a seemingly inexhaustible supply of ammo.
Staring down at the green button on my controls, I knew what I had to do.
The Spence mech’s right arm went up and just as the enemy Reaper mech jumped at us, I pressed down on the green button and shouted, “SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!”
Nothing.
Nada.
Not a damn thing happened.
“We’re screwed!” I shouted and then—
There was a burst of pure light and the air seemed to catch fire.
A tongue of flames leaped from the end of the Sump’n Sump’n pod and whatever came next struck the Reaper mech dead center.
The resulting sound was like a thunderclap
The blast engulfed the metal monster in a ball of flame, hurling it hundreds of feet up into the air where it broke apart.
“Holy shit,” I said, catching my breath, working to stabilize the Spence mech from the weapon’s powerful recoil.
Jezzy and I sat there in stunned silence and then Billy whispered over the commlink: “Real talk time, Deus. What the hell did you just shoot at that mech?”
“I – I don’t really know,” I stammered.
“Well, whatever it is, I want me one,” Billy answered.
“Deus and Jezzy are packing some heat!” Dru howled.
We wheeled around, ready for anything only to see the aliens in full retreat. They were scrambling over the dunes, heading toward the center of the lowest spot, the area near the communications tower.
I focused on that spot, zooming in on the viewscreen to the depression in and around the communications tower.
That’s when I saw.
Saw him.
Alpha Timbo.
The big ugly bug was standing by himself, clad in red alien armor, holding on to the tower.
“Is that who I think it is?” Jezzy asked.
A smile played at the corners of my mouth. I nodded and angled the mech toward him. “He’s all ours,” I said.
“He’s mine,” Jezzy said. “I’m gonna prang that tall bastard. He’s the one who took my leg!”
Ignoring the shots fired by the retreating aliens, we rampaged forward, moving out ahead of the other operators.
Taking out the big alien was something I’d dreamed of for a long time.
It was something I had to do.
I was on a mission of vengeance for Spence and all the others who’d died at the hands of Alpha Timbo and his psychotic band of alien outlaws.
This was personnel.
We were thirty yards away from Alpha Timbo and what looked like the remaining fifteen or twenty alien warriors who were preparing to go down in a blaze of glory.
The alien glider was still hovering overhead, pumping down sabots and rockets at us. Ordinarily, I would have been scared out of my mind, but fear had been overcome by the adrenaline that was surging inside me. In fact, I’d slipped so far down into my zone that it felt like I was at the controls of a first-person video game.
Somehow, I could see the alien rounds (which looked as big as basketballs) fired at us. I was able to discern their trajectories and make the appropriate move, a sudden jerk to the left or right, to evade the incoming fire.
The other operators barked over the commlink, telling me to slow up, to wait for them, but I was too focused on the target.
We were gonna do it all by our lonesome.
Me and Jezzy were going to take out the alien kingpin.
Less than ten yards separated us from Alpha Timbo and I brought the Spence mech to a sudden halt and Jezzy sighted our cannons down on the colossal scud.
I could see Alpha’s eyes rotate around, and pinch to focus. A look of recognition spread across the alien’s weathered face.
Alpha squinted at us and I squinted back, mad-dogging the brute.
I was readying to give the
order to fire when every single one of my inner alarms started going off at once. Run, you idiot! my inner voice shouted. Can’t you see what’s happening?!
Adrenaline has a way of heightening certain senses and dulling others. For instance, I’ve found that it decreases common sense. At least in that instance, because I didn’t run and no, I couldn’t see what was happening.
What I do know is that Alpha’s mouth opened and he smiled like a child who’s been told a special little secret. I’d seen that smile before, in the seconds before he blasted me out of the hoversurf, and a chill crept up my spine.
“Activate your holo app now!” Richter shouted over the commlink.
I did and Richter’s face appeared in a hazy burst of green light.
“IT’S A TRAP!” Richter shouted.
Now you tell me.
Before I could respond, Alpha Timbo flicked his wrist.
And punched a previously unseen button on the side of the tower.
The ground suddenly shook and—
WHUMP BOOM!
A massive metal construct, what looked like some kind of fortress that was tiered like a wedding cake, rocketed up out of the sand, trapping us and the other operators inside.
15
“What the hell is going on, Danny?!” Jezzy shouted.
“Nothing good!”
The construct suddenly came to a jarring stop with us bottled up inside. Our mech’s equalizers engaged, preventing the machine from crashing to the ground. Dust and debris filled the air, obscuring visibility for several seconds.
I caught sight of our surroundings in the viewscreen.
A schematic and map flashed across the screen.
We were positioned in the middle of the construct on a main concourse of sorts, a walkway made of metal grating that was surrounded on all sides by twenty-foot, olive-colored walls that resembled the bulkheads inside a mammoth ship.
The walls were lined with pipes and conduits that were ribbed and glistening. For a moment they seemed to pulse, as if they were a living thing. The walkway led forward and I could see what appeared to be entry doors on the walls up ahead. The aliens had a vault all right. We just hadn’t been told that it was this large, or that the whole friggin’ thing was buried under the sand.
“Way to go, Deus,” Simeon said over the commlink. “You walked right into a trap.”
“Wasn’t my fault,” I replied.
“You should’ve waited, dude,” Billy added.
I looked at Richter’s holographic image and forced a smile. “Is it too late to say ‘my bad’?” I asked.
“Rest assured we will most definitely plumb the depths of your stupidity later,” Richter replied. “In the meantime, check your viewscreen. You and the other operators are on a primary concourse in the alien’s pre-position vault. You are to follow the map, lock in on the vault’s power source, destroy it, and get the hell out of there.”
There was a flash of light somewhere out on the wall and Richter’s image suddenly vanished.
“They spoofed it,” Jezzy said. “Something in the walls is blocking the comms from the plane.”
I studied the viewscreen and the schematic, which revealed an object at the center of the vault which glowed orange. I assumed this was our target, the vault’s power source. In addition, our mechs were visible as blinking green dots that were slowly being surrounded by an ever-increasing number of blinking red dots.
“You seeing this?” Simeon asked over the commlink.
“The black hats have called in backup,” Dru said.
“Look up!” Sato shouted.
I did, catching the tail end of the alien glider as it banked hard. Dozens of alien fighters were visible, dropping down from its belly on leaders. We aimed at the glider, but the instant before we could fire, the surrounding walls shot up another five feet, blocking our view.
Suddenly, objects filled the sky. What looked like balls being tossed from the other side of the walls.
“EVASIVE ACTION!” Baila shrieked over the commlink.
I thumbed our controls, powering our mech sideways as the first object landed—
BOOM!
Showering our mech in debris, tearing a hole in the vault’s superstructure. More explosives landed, ripping holes in the walkway and surrounding structure as I flattened our mech against a structural beam which thankfully protected us from the worst of the explosions.
As quickly as they began, the explosions ended. I looked left to right and saw that none of the other operators had been injured.
“Ha!” Billy shouted. “They missed!”
“Um, guys …” Jezzy intoned. “Check your screens.”
My eyes shot back to the viewscreen. There were blinking yellow dots all around us.
“Green is good,” I said. “And red is bad … so what does that make yellow?”
“An unwanted guest,” Ren said.
“Where?!” Dru said. “Where are they?! I don’t see shit!”
My eyes hopped in every direction, but Dru was right. There was nothing in sight. And then Jezzy grabbed my shoulder and pointed down and that’s when I saw the first one.
The first monster that was pulling itself out from one of the holes created in the superstructure by the alien explosives. The bastards hadn’t been trying to kill us after all. They’d been trying to unleash whatever was hidden down at the bottom of the vault.
“What is that thing?!” Billy asked.
“If this place is a vault, then that’s the friggin’ guard dog,” Dru answered.
“That thing looks like … a Rottweiler on steroids,” Simeon said.
“Yeah, alien steroids,” Billy said.
The beast had the purple, muscled body of a rhino and an oversized, misshapen dog-like head, with a jaw that unhinged to reveal rows of dagger-like teeth. The thing was held up by six multi-segmented, mechanical legs that moved spastically, pulling the biomechanical monster up to face us. The creature hissed and spat, ropes of yellow saliva dangling from its mouth.
“Reminds me of your last girlfriend, Dru,” Billy said.
“She wasn’t that good looking,” Dru replied. “That sucker is a straight up PPE.”
My brow furrowed. “What?”
“A purple people eater.”
“Who wants to be first one to greet it?” Simeon asked.
“I shall do the honors,” Ren said. “Kon’nichiwa.”
BAM!
Ren fired a rocket from her mech that harpooned into the alien monster. The impact drove the monster back several feet where it just stared at us, tottering like a drunk and then—
BOOM!
The beast exploded not once, but twice, with great sound and fury, sending bone and metal fragments shooting in every direction. A single piece of shiny metal from the thing’s leg slammed into our turret, sticking in place.
“Holy shit! You see that?! They’ve got explosives hidden inside ‘em!” Billy shouted. “Those fuckers are walking, talking, bombs!”
Before anyone could react, more of the things emerged from the holes in the superstructure. Ten, twelve, maybe fifteen more of the terrible creatures.
“RETREAT!” Simeon shouted.
We did, every mech operator shuffling to the left while firing. We all surged laterally, our cannon fire and rockets cutting down the alien monsters which continued to tremble and explode, ripping the alien vault apart.
Several of the monsters threw themselves at us.
One of the things crawled over the canopy, jaws distended, snapping at the ballistic glass. Its teeth sawed across the glass, making a sound like nails being dragged over a blackboard. Then the beast crawled over the explosive-reactive armor—
BOOM!
Triggering the explosives which turned the alien into a purple mist. My eyes bopped to the left and right and watched the explosive-reactive armor on the other mechs blow the PPEs to kingdom come.
Still, the blasts from the PPEs had ripped gaping holes in the superstructure and I
was worried that the whole vault might collapse at any moment. Jezzy grabbed my arm and pointed at a section of wall which I could see separated us from the other aliens.
“WE NEED TO GET OVER THAT WALL!” I screamed, realizing that if we didn’t we might: (a) lose our chance to take out Alpha Timbo; (b) go down with the ship if the vault did indeed collapse; and (c), never be able to destroy the vault’s power source and complete the mission.
“FORM A CHAIN!” Simeon said, leading the way toward the wall.
I watched his and Baila’s mechs flash across the superstructure and take up a position at the bottom of the wall. Then Billy’s and Dru’s mech leaped onto their mechs’ shoulders. This was followed by Ren’s and Sato’s mech, which meant we were the last one to go.
Engine on overdrive, I slammed down on the controls and maneuvered the Spence mech between the remaining bomb beasts. We planted our metal feet on the superstructure floor and then I jammed down on our jump-jets as—
WHUNK!
The momentum and burst from the compressed gas under our feet propelled us forward.
We cleared Ren’s and Sato’s mech and slammed into the wall.
Our metal hands groped for purchase and then we slid down, jump-shuffling from left to right on the wall like a character named Super Mario from a vidgame my grandfather played back in the day
We came to a rest on the shoulders of Ren’s and Sato’s mech.
Using their machine as a foothold, we were able to climb over the top of the wall. On the other side, there were fifty or sixty alien fighters, scurrying around like ants.
They spotted us and started firing rifles. I leaned the Spence mech back and pulled Ren and Sato’s mech up onto the top of the wall.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
The fire from the aliens bounced off our turret as we sat on top of the wall, which felt like it might give way at any moment.
“We’re losing integrity!” Jezzy screamed.
“Since when did I have any of that?!” I replied.
“The shields, you ding dong! I meant our shields!”
World of Hurt Page 11