Dynamo (Mech Wars Book 2)

by Scott Bartlett

Slapping the machine’s calf caused a ramp to detach from its back, popping open to lower itself to the ground. Jake clambered up it, tossing a REM sleep-inducing sedative into his mouth as he did.

  Soon, he was inside the mech, the back sealing up once more as he slipped into the dream.

  Then, he was the mech. He was its massive frame, and he was the artillery that bristled all over it.

  Inside the dream, he was fury and justice and death, in metallic form.

  Now to find some enemies to visit that death upon.

  Charging through the camp, taking care not to knock over any of his fellows, he yelled, “What’s going on?” His voice crashed like thunder.

  A member of the Plenitos garrison turned toward him, white-faced, shaking. “Quatro,” he said, and that was all he had time to get out.

  Behind him, one of the beasts crashed through the trees, heading straight for them. The soldier hunched, raising a wavering shotgun to his face to point in the alien’s general direction.

  Jake stepped over the man, heedless of the shotgun, which looked like little more than a twig from inside the mech—from inside the dream.

  “I’ll handle this,” Jake muttered as both his hands separated into segments, coming to rest against his wrists while twin rotary autocannons spun up, delivering hot death straight into the Quatro’s hide. Dark spurts of blood flew into the night air, and the beast crashed into the ground well before reaching them.

  There were plenty more where that came from, apparently. Before long, it seemed the Quatro were everywhere, some of them charging the human ranks, making liberal use of long bayonets, while other hung back among the trees and returned fire with the various guns strapped to their backs.

  The strangled roar of a rocket leaving its tube sounded nearby, and Jake’s eyes fell on the Quatro that had loosed the projectile, which headed straight toward the soldier still cowering at Jake’s feet.

  Jake ran forward, arms extended as though to catch the rocket. His fractured hands yet rested against his forearms, however, and he continued to fire his autocannons, armor-piercing shells peppering the oncoming missile.

  The rocket exploded a meter away, and its momentum carried the explosion forward, bathing Jake’s arms and head and torso in flame.

  Jake was the mech, and what it felt, he felt. Pain lanced through his body, and he screamed with the agony of it.

  He would not let it stop him, however. Striding forward despite the physical torment, he reached behind his back to detach his heavy machine gun, swinging it around to fire at the Quatro who’d launched the rocket.

  The alien twisted around, desperate to evade the storm of bullets. And it succeeded for a time, the ordnance tearing up trees instead, causing them to explode into hundreds of shards of dry bark.

  Then Jake caught up to it, extending both bayonets, and plunging forward with them.

  The Quatro backed up, so Jake engaged both flamethrowers, directing the streams of fire in the direction where he anticipated the Quatro would go.

  It worked. The creature’s fur caught fire, along with the tree it crouched behind.

  The alien recoiled in pain, but Jake followed, and this time his twin blades found the Quatro’s flesh. The monster slumped to the ground.

  Not taking any time to congratulate himself, he turned back toward the camp, which had descended into chaos during the seconds it had taken him to deal with the rocket-launching Quatro.

  The invaders had infiltrated the human ranks, pushing past them, making dangerous progress toward the middle, where the personnel carriers were that housed the quadruped mechs.

  Jake dashed toward them, and as he did, he noticed a particularly large Quatro briefly silhouetted against some burning trees. It looked to be missing an ear, and it was making straight for the quads, unnoticed by most of the human defenders, who were locked in furious combat with yet more aliens.

  Jake did notice the beast, and he sprinted toward it, even as it reached the personnel carriers, disappearing behind one of them.

  Seconds later, as Jake rounded the same corner, he saw what had happened: one of the personnel carriers had been blasted open, revealing the high-tech cargo inside.

  The one-eared Quatro stood before the nearest quad, standing perfectly still, in stark contrast to the chaos around it.

  Jake surged forward, right bayonet extended to take the beast in its haunch. But before he could, the quad opened up, its top half rising to admit the alien, who slipped inside it.

  Both halves met once more, and the quad rose up, turning, its eyes aglow.

  The thing’s shoulders morphed, and giant, identical cannons took shape. The next instant, Jake was flying through the air to crash to the ground on his back, his head glancing painfully off a rock. If it had been his own head, he would have died.

  By the time he got up, the quad-piloting Quatro was already halfway to the trees, bellowing wordlessly.

  The other Quatro disengaged, then, turning only to conduct covering fire, to facilitate their retreat.

  Chapter 8

  Adventurous Benders

  Unlike most people who’d accompanied Darkstream to the Steele System, Bob O’Toole had never actually worked for the company.

  He’d been a chartered accountant back in the Milky Way, and he’d invested almost all of his discretionary income in Darkstream shares. That had paid off quite lucratively, for a long time—until the stock fell on hard times, when the company was booted clean out of the galaxy.

  Ah, well. No one had ever said that playing the stock market wasn’t a bit of a gamble.

  Since, to continue benefiting from all that stock he owned, Bob would have to follow Darkstream to a galaxy where humans had never set foot before…well, that’s exactly what he did. And although the economy the company proceeded to set up in the Steele System was much smaller than the Milky Way—yet growing rapidly!—Darkstream was paramount within it, and owning a hell of a lot of company stock was just about the best position for an expatriate accountant past his prime to find himself in.

  Long story short, it meant he had a lot of credits to throw around. He could live anywhere in the Steele System he wanted. He could do anything he wanted. Nothing limited him. Why would it? He was rich!

  And so, with all those riches, with all that limitless opportunity, he’d decided to live in Habitat 2, permanently indoors in the middle of a dusty nowhere, to become an avid alcoholic with the help of Phineas Gage, owner and sole proprietor of the Dusty Bucket.

  That had been fine, for a while: hanging off the end of Gage’s bar and calling out the other patrons whenever he felt like it. Then those Daybreak freaks had taken over, coked out or whatever they were, pushing everyone around and hogging most of the booze for themselves. During those dark months, Bob had paid top dollar just to buy enough grog to get a good buzz on.

  But with enough credits, one could do anything. Including bribe Daybreak asshats to let him do basically whatever he wanted, like get drunk whenever he felt like it.

  But those asshats had loved to come into the Dusty Bucket and stick their noses in every conversation. Plus, there hadn’t been nearly as many patrons left to make fun of, what with all the slave labor that had gone on at that time.

  So Bob had taken it upon himself to make friends with the nerds of Habitat 2. He used to slip them little nips of brandy or vodka or rum or whiskey or whatever he had on him at the time.

  It hadn’t taken much of the stuff to make the nerds love him, and once they loved him, they’d started doing little favors for him, like hacking the habitat’s security feeds and giving him direct access on his implant, so he could track where the Daybreak goons were at any given time. His favorite nerd, a fellow named Wyatt, even deleted some footage for Bob, of him urinating on Quentin Cooper’s hoverbike during one of his more adventurous benders.

  Yes, getting friendly with the nerds was a fine thing. Almost as good as having a lot of credits, these days. And when that gorgeous brunette Lisa Sato returned
with Tessa Notaras and their hairy friends to break Cooper’s hold on the place, Bob had made sure to continue maintaining those friendships. Everyone loved free booze, whether they were living in a druglord’s dystopia or not, so he continued to supply them with it.

  It didn’t take long for them to turn up something juicy for him. Something he could use, something he could take to Lisa Sato as an offering. It didn’t hurt to get on the good side of a Darkstream soldier, no it didn’t, and the fact that she was drop-dead stunning didn’t deter him in the slightest.

  “What do you want, O’Toole?” she asked, her mouth twisted into a grimace as he staggered through the door of her office.

  “I brought you a present,” he mumbled, scratching his backside and trying to remember whether he’d showered today.

  “I’d be incredibly surprised to find myself interested in any present you would care to give me.”

  “Prepare to be surprised!” he said, grinning, and then he fired over the files his nerds had dug up for him.

  “What are these?” Lisa said, frowning slightly as she stared into the space just over Bob’s left shoulder, no doubt reviewing the files on her implant.

  “Messages,” Bob grunted. “Sent from our esteemed former councilman, Leonardo Fiore, to Quentin Cooper himself. Recently. Have a look. He really spills his guts, in ’em. Tells Cooper all about our security, or lack thereof. Our defenses, such as they are. And especially about the number of Quatro you brought in here. How fearsome their teeth look, and so on, and so on.”

  “Wow,” Lisa said, inclining her head, her raven hair swaying slightly with the movement. “This is just what we need to nail Fiore to the wall.”

  “Well, that’s not all,” Bob said, scowling. “I’d love to see Fiore fingered as much as the next guy, but that isn’t the most important implication of these messages. The most important thing is—”

  “Cooper’s planning to attack Habitat 2. Again.”

  “Uh, yes,” Bob said. “That’s exactly right.”

  “I’m not sure how he proposes to do that, given we killed most of his thugs, and arrested almost all of the rest. But the fact that he thinks he can do it is worrying on its own. Thank you for this, Bob. If there’s any way I can repay you, anything I can do, say the word—just please don’t say something gross.”

  Bob’s grin fizzled. Come to think of it, he had been about to say something Lisa would likely find gross, coming from an old man like him.

  “Ah…” He cleared his throat. “I don’t need anything. Got enough drink to last me three lifetimes, I reckon. I’m good.” He bobbed his head at her, turned unsteadily, and shuffled out of her office.

  Wonder who wants to have a drink with me. He racked his brain, but no one came to mind.

  Probably, a sip of something strong would give him some ideas.

  Chapter 9

  Act like a Soldier

  Jake trudged through what used to be their camp, looking for a way he could help the battalion pull itself back together. Nothing presented itself—nothing for a mech to help with, anyway.

  Everything that had been broken was broken, and both his giant hands and his vast arsenal had been designed for destruction, not rebuilding. Beth, Tommy, Richaud, and Ash had already extracted the remaining quad from the ruined personnel carrier, affixing it to the top of one of the tanks.

  Now, it seemed, there was nothing left for the MIMAS mechs to do except to remain alert and on guard, patrolling to protect what had already been stolen.

  I failed.

  There was no escaping that fact. Jake had been the one to spot the one-eared Quatro making for the personnel carriers—the others had been busy fighting for their lives. Circumstances had assigned him with the task of making sure the Quatro didn’t manage to access one of the quads. But he’d failed. And now, all of Eresos was at risk.

  “Price.” It was Roach, subvocalizing.

  “Sir?”

  “Get over here.”

  Jake’s HUD flashed with Roach’s location, a hundred meters or so past the camp’s perimeter, well within the trees.

  How’d he end up there without anyone noticing?

  With the mech’s long legs and its unrivaled locomotion, he reached Roach in less than a minute, even though he had to jog around the camp to avoid running over anyone, and then he had to weave through the trees to avoid knocking one of those down and making a racket—never a welcome outcome, especially in the wake of a Quatro attack.

  He found Roach sitting on a thick, fallen tree. From the looks of the stump, Roach had cracked the thing off to serve as his mech’s seat. It was odd to see the great war machine in repose.

  Jake saluted. “You wanted to speak with me, sir?” He decided not to ask why Roach had risked straying so far from the camp. Lately, he’d been trying not to question his superior.

  “I want you to take command of Oneiri Team and push on toward Ingress.”

  For a moment, Jake didn’t know what to say to that. “Sir…take command? Plenty of people in the reserve battalion outrank me, and a lot of the garrison soldiers do, too.” He wasn’t sure why that was the first point he raised, but there it was.

  “They can sort themselves out,” Gabe said. “But they don’t understand mechs, and I don’t want them directing you to do anything. I’ll transmit signed orders to that effect.”

  “I take it this means you’re leaving.”

  “Good deduction. I intend to track down the Quatro that stole that quad, and when I find it, I mean to disable it. Do not follow me, and make sure the others don’t, either. That’s an order, Price. I want you to impress that on the others. An order, damn it. I’ll be blocking my transponder from broadcasting my location to you, but I hope that’s an unnecessary measure.”

  “Sir, do you really think you need to deny us knowledge of your location? I mean, we won’t follow you, but if you run into trouble—”

  “Damn it, Price, this is exactly why I need to block my transponder. You were about to say that if something happens to me, you’d come try to pull me out of it, and that’s what I just ordered you not to do.” Roach’s mech was shaking its head. “Typical.”

  “Sir…why choose me to command Oneiri? I failed. I let the Quatro steal the quad.”

  Roach surged to his feet, crossing the distance between him and Jake in an instant, so that their faces were inches away. Even though Jake was also inside a giant robot, Roach still managed to be intimidating.

  “Is this the result of your training, Seaman Apprentice? Did I teach you to mope around when the going gets tough, or did I teach you to act like a soldier?”

  “The latter, sir.”

  “Then act like one! That’s an order, too.”

  “Sir…why do you think the Quatro retreated? Why not press the advantage, once they had the quad?”

  “They were taking heavy losses. If the battle had gone on much longer, most of them would probably be dead. But they have the quad, now, and they’ll learn the thing’s power, the extent of which we’re not even sure about. They could do a lot of damage with it.”

  Jake nodded. Ever since the Siege of Plenitos had begun, the chief had been exhibiting signs of exhaustion and mental instability. He’d screwed up the launch that had brought them wide of the Quatro force besieging Plenitos, which had resulted in the enemy breaching the walls. Shortly after that, Jake had found him standing on the edge of the woods, motionless, staring at the fractured city.

  And now, he was heading alone into the wilderness, to chase a weapon whose capabilities he knew nothing about.

  But Jake had resolved not to question the chief.

  “It’s possible I’ll find the Quatro dead inside the quad it took,” Roach said. “The mech your father found in that comet killed Zimmerman when he couldn’t control it. But I have to make sure. Do you understand that, Price?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now, get those quads to Ingress. Don’t let me down.”

  With that, Roach
turned and walked into the woods. Jake watched him until the trees blocked him out, and then he listened until the sound of Roach’s mech crashing through the undergrowth faded away.

  Chapter 10

  Played

  “Don’t tell me,” Former Habitat 2 councilman Leonardo Fiore said as he sneered at Lisa through the bars of his cell. “Are you going to offer me leniency in exchange for information? We all know how that turned out.”

  The former councilman was tall, lithe, and tanned. The kind of tan that was difficult to attain inside a sealed habitat, without spending ample time lying in a tanning bed.

  “Actually, I haven’t decided what I should offer you,” Lisa said, returning Fiore’s gaze without breaking eye contact. “What did Quentin Cooper offer you, that made you spill your guts so liberally?”

  “Oh, I’m confident he’ll find a way to reward me. I’m a man with…broad tastes.” Fiore’s eyes slithered up and down Lisa’s body, which made her feel like vomiting.

  Refusing to let her nausea show, Lisa continued to study the man’s lean face.

  She knew what her father would say about a man like Fiore: his overconfidence blinded him to his own shortcomings. It was easy to find that sort of man’s buttons, and once you found them, it was even easier to jam your thumb down on them till he behaved exactly as you wanted.

  “I’m afraid he won’t get the chance to reward you,” Lisa said. “Darkstream is deploying an entire battalion of trained soldiers to Habitat 2. Cooper doesn’t have a prayer of victory. He’s already enjoyed all the success he’s going to.”

  “You’re a fool, girl,” Fiore spat, and Lisa didn’t react to that either, despite how much she hated being called “girl” after months trapped inside a beetle with Tessa Notaras. “Cooper’s spent years preparing for this. You’ve done nothing but set him back a little. He has sprawling facilities that he built years ago, inside hills well outside the beetle routes. I helped him do that. I used my position on the council to redirect what resources I could to him, and I was repaid in kind. Plus, Cooper has soldiers of his own, armed with weaponry I helped him to secure, and beetles built with parts that I procured for him. How else do you explain the sheer volume of drugs that flooded not just this habitat, but all of the habitats? Cooper’s operation is not some two-bit racket. It spans the planet, with operatives in every habitat, as well as inside Darkstream’s own power structure. Those operatives will be on their way, soon. You’re done, girl. Done.”