Nemesis (The MechaVerse Trilogy Book 2)

by Jeremy Cunkle

  Chemically charged death raged across the field of battle, followed with targeted attacks by Intrepid’s main cannons, picking off the few shell-shocked survivors. The suddenness of the overwhelming sense of destruction instantly ended the fighting. No one was willing to stand against such fury. No one left was able to.

  Kiryl’s pain was not so easily sated, however. Intrepid stalked the hills and plain of the battlefield, searching for prey, hunting down those who moments ago dared stand against his allies. Death reaped its unholy bounty in that desolate place, descending to collect the souls promised it until there was no longer anyone, or anything, standing against them.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN – CALM IN THE STORM

  “They sicken of the calm those who know the storm.” – Dorothy Parker

  Being back in the sacrosanct halls of Mount Olympus was already becoming a difficult burden for the members of the Omnos squad. They had now fought in two major encounters, and already the effects were becoming permanent. Living amongst people who fashioned themselves as rebels, martyrs for a great cause, yet never placed themselves directly in harm’s way, was not something the Omnos squad members could relate to or ever come to understand.

  In the same way that they had withdrawn from society, after their parents, family members, and friends, were killed on that fateful day nearly seven years ago, Alyona, Vera, and Kiryl found themselves unconsciously withdrawing from those ordinary rebels, the ones that risked almost nothing for the cause they served. Only this time they were unable to build another airship and escape the constant reminders of their pain. The faces that haunted their memories forevermore joined with the new ones they imagined for the enemy pilots they killed, rendering it increasingly difficult for them to be around other people, never knowing what would trigger another flashback.

  Everyone had a role to play in the enormous organization that comprised the StormCrow faction. For the members of the Omnos squad, it was specifically to operate under an unspoken contract; one well understood by all parties. Hundreds of personnel supported them from in the base so that the Omnos squad members might fight in their stead. Even so, the arrangement did not help them cope with the feeling of being something different, something the other rebels would not, and could not, understand. The problem was, they also did not fit in with the other Mech armor pilots either. The other pilots did not know their story, or the reasons they fought, nor did they care enough to make the leap of faith necessary to find out; instead, the other pilots jealously regarded them as showoffs and not sincerely buying into the rebellion. The other camp was already comparing their every move and action to Mikkhael’s demonstrated abilities, and the comparisons were unflattering at best.

  Either way, they were not welcome in the rank and file. The Omnos squad members were outcasts in every sense of the word. With Mikkhael still in the medical ward, Kurtis was slavishly focused on culling and repairing Aurora’s code, unjamming the Interweb and communication network, as well as finalizing his own AI. The Omnos trio sought out whatever means they could in order to help, to consume the time, weathering the awkward periods of peace between missions.

  Kiryl lost himself running the maintenance crews for their Mech armor. With Alyona’s assistance, they vetted and approved thirty engineers and technicians as maintenance crewmembers for the three Mech armor, placing the teams under the leadership of the capable mechanic Soren. They had originally intended to service the units themselves, thereby limiting the possible leakage of critical technological knowledge to the StormCrows, but events on the ground were moving too fast, forcing them to adapt. Breaking the maintenance crews into teams of five allowed enough tech’s to work two shifts per unit, vastly increasing the pace of repairs and maintenance required in between runs. Many of the new engineers had spent time either maintaining Starkindler or working on the reconstruction efforts, and were therefore familiar on at least a basic level with the considerably different way the highly advanced units functioned and were serviced.

  The Omnos squad members continued to maintain restricted access to the advanced parts used in their units, forcing Kiryl to do most of the sensitive work himself, or with Alyona and Vera’s help, potentially leaving an overabundance of tasks to be performed and not enough hours in the day to complete them. The engineers and technicians Kiryl recruited to assist with maintenance were relegated to the more routine maintenance tasks, such as constructing new sheets of armor and fabricating more munitions. Luckily, between the large number of fabricators brought with them from Earth, and the extended amount of downtime in between missions so, far, the sensitive maintenance needs were essentially caught up for now, leaving the rest to be finished by Soren and his teams.

  Kiryl set objectives for the maintenance crews to accomplish, and then left the training necessary to accomplish those objectives for Athena to oversee and manage, as he headed to his next major objective. He shared responsibility with Chief Engineer Thorsten for managing the teams rebuilding Starkindler, and their efforts were making dramatic progress, but required his frequent attention. The teams of volunteers and technicians had nearly completed the many layers of armor needed for the frame, placing a high priority on the internals of which Kiryl was the most familiar. The spare parts brought from Earth were now sorted and catalogued. With Athena’s help, a blueprint was created for assembling the rest of Starkindler. That left the last ingredient a complicated mix of time and labor. Fortunately, that was the one thing the StormCrow volunteers had more than any other.

  With Mikkhael confined to the medical ward and the level of his debilitation being kept a secret, known only to a select few, time was running out for everyone else to pitch in and restore an advanced Mech armor for him to pilot before the whispers turned into open upheaval about his lack of presence. Only the appearance of the Omnos squad and DawnsLight, Starkindler’s near twin, had so far staved off the inevitable questions that were growing more pointed about where Mikkhael was and why he continued to be absent from the battlefield.

  Many of the people watching over Mikkhael were convinced that if Starkindler were rebuilt, he would again find his purpose, a reason to live, subsequently rejoining the battle for their freedom. Everyone in the StormCrow faction was dedicated to repaying the impossible debt they owed him for saving Eve, and destroying so many of their enemies. Knowing the situation on the ground, and then combining it with the guilt hanging over the Omnos squad members for the way they contributed to the mental collapse that placed him in the medical ward, the pressure to finish Starkindler could not possibly have been any greater.

  As if that were not enough on Kiryl’s plate, there was more bad news. A second force, under Lieutenant Jacobson, had finished setting up the sensor network thus finishing the task that Xilan started, and the initial results were disturbing. With all of the sensors finally functioning the way they should, the amount of information being gathered for the sector was proving a fair substitute for the satellites. Word filtered down, however, that the reports monitored by Kurtis, were showing far more PDF activity in the area then they had expected. As such, they only had a few days to perform the final maintenance on their respective units because Alyona wanted them to head back out on another patrol, yet an additional priority Kiryl needed to keep in mind.

  * * * * *

  As the medical officer for the Omnos squadron, Vera took a different tack, focusing on Mikkhael, who continued to pass the days in an induced coma in the medical ward. She started each day by checking on him, seeing if anything had changed, and spending at least half of every day with his unconscious form. Dr. Hesken and the nurses were grudgingly getting used to her presence, but they were still unsure about the way Vera and the other team members changed their accustomed dynamic. After each visit, she spent a few hours refining the mental-boosting stimulants used during combat. Many of the most damaging side effects were being reduced as the new formulations became more precise, but there still remained room for continued improvement.

  After
a particularly long day, a marathon session spent reformulating the stimulants under the direct tutelage of Dr. hesken, Vera was headed to her quarters, carrying the days’ work with her, for Athena to evaluate back in the privacy of her room. Vera was exhausted from long days of fighting followed by several more long days spent in the medical ward, and then the lab, pushing her meager focus into setting just one-step in front of the other until she could finally collapse in her bed, only to repeat the process the next day. In her fugue state, the only thing she could currently think of was the proximity of her bed, and being able to collapse in it, while she passed through the narrow tunnels closest to her personnel quarters. Despite her best efforts, her eyelids were losing the battle against gravity as she rounded the last corner to the sanctuary of her room, nearly bowling Eve over in the process.

  “Hey watch where you’re going asshole!” Eve yelled as she dodged adroitly, barely avoiding a near collision. As their eyes made contact, Eve recognized who had nearly run her over. She turned red in the face, balled her hand into a fist, and stepped threateningly toward Vera, prepared for violence.

  Vera backed up, eyes wide in fear as she held several vials in her arms protectively, each representing weeks’ worth of effort. She knew that it would be difficult to defend herself from Eve’s righteous fury even if she had been prepared. “Please wait! Let me at least put these down. This is months of work of trying to fix what is wrong with Mikkhael and the rest of us.” She pleaded with Eve, asking her for that undeserved bit of grace.

  Eve stopped, her fist hanging in midair as she eyed Vera, silently evaluating the vials cradled protectively in her arms. Whether it was the reference to Mikkhael or that all she asked for was to safeguard the vials she carried, the simple fact that Vera made no effort to defend herself disarmed the tense encounter. Eve’s fury deflated as quickly as it had risen to the surface. Vera made no effort to move or do anything except watch. As irritated as she was, Eve was not about to beat a hapless woman, making no effort to defend herself, senseless in the personnel quarters.

  “What do you mean for Mikkhael?” Eve finally stammered out, her anger at being nearly run over by one of the people she felt was responsible for Mikkhael’s current state, making her voice shake with emotion.

  Vera looked down in a sight of deference at her hands holding the three vials, wisely avoiding eye contact in an attempt to sooth the tense situation. “You’re well aware that the chemical boosters we use during combat have debilitating side-effects and Mikkhael used more than anyone. He abused the dosages to near lethal levels time-and-again in order to gain every advantage he could while fighting. I’ve seen the reports, the boosters nearly killed him before his last mission to save you. I have been working with Doctor Hesken, formulating new compounds that aren’t nearly as self-destructive. They do nothing to correct the mistakes made in the original drug cocktail, but then again they were never intended to be used in such a manner. I am trying to make sure that when Mikkhael wakes up, he won’t be able to abuse the boosters or suffer any of the side effects he currently deals with after fighting.”

  Eve’s harsh laugh echoed through the carved tunnel. “You really think after everything he’s been through, after what you did, that he’s going to fight again? He’s barely even ALIVE!” She screamed at Vera.

  This time it was Vera’s turn to laugh. “You have no idea what that man has been through or of what he is capable. Get ready, because he’s going to surprise you in ways you didn’t think possible. I can promise you one thing, his fight isn’t close to over.”

  Caught off guard by Vera’s confidence in Mikkhael, Eve reached for a reply, not about to let her have the last word. “You better get it right this time, and not just for his sake,” was all that she could think to reply. She had been unaware that Dr. Hesken had been working with Vera, helping her fix some of Mikkhael’s most pressing issues should he wake from the coma. That, and Vera’s faith in Mikkhael, even in his current state, made her wonder how much she did not know, leaving her momentarily vulnerable to the woman she considered an enemy.

  Vera stood there awkwardly for a moment before working up the gumption to ask something she had wanted to know for a long time. Taking a risk, she shyly asked Eve, “He umm, how was he? I mean… before he got hurt?”

  “You mean aside from the fact that the entire PDF military had tried to kill him, or everyone here looks at him like he’s going to single handedly save them and end the war all by himself? Or do you mean the fact that his best friends,” she said, enunciating each syllable with pure acid as it dripped from her mouth, “from Earth show up unannounced with some possessed war machine instead of the replacement for the one that was destroyed, like they were supposed to. And oh yeah, not only do they have their own toys as well, that they’ve been out playing with, but they are too busy playing with them to try and work things out with him. Great. He was doing great.” Eve rammed her shoulder into Vera’s as she stalked past her, forgetting about the vials as she threw Vera against the wall.

  Vera scrambled to ensure the safety of the vials, clutching them tightly to her breast, a potent mix of chagrin and embarrassment causing her to blush, in retrospect realizing how obvious her mistake was. She ensured the safety of the vials before turning to yell at Eve’s back. “We weren’t unannounced. Aurora filtered our communications and didn’t pass them through to Mikkhael. Kurtis is working on figuring out why that happened.”

  Eve did not slow down as she turned the corner and disappeared from sight. A mumbled, “Whatever!” drifted in her wake in place of a middle finger, leaving Vera standing awkwardly by herself in the middle of the tunnel, still holding her precious vials. Slowly Vera turned and once again headed back to her nearby quarters and precious sleep.

  * * * * *

  Alyona helped Kiryl vet Soren and his teams of mechanics, and then ensured they had everything they needed before she allowed herself a moment of selfish indulgence. Since arriving on Mars, she had fulfilled her self-assumed responsibilities with a dogged sense of resolve. Now however, she would be damned if she did not finally cave in and do the one thing she had wanted to more than anything else.

  She stopped answering any further questions, placed her wrist communicator on “away” status, called for an electric scooter, and headed to the medical ward to visit Mikkhael. Once she arrived, she froze as she stepped through the doorway, surrounded on all sides by the septic white space that demarked all hospitals. Not only was she suddenly extremely nervous, the fact of which made her laugh internally as she realized how silly it was to be nervous about visiting someone who was unconscious, she also had no idea where to go. This was her first time inside the medical ward. In front of her to her right was the nurse’s station. Alyona turned to ask for help and instead fell silent as she came face-to-face with Dr. Hesken.

  As soon as Dr. Hesken recognized her, she immediately tensed and moved to confront Alyona. “Get out.”

  The simple and yet forceful statement hit her head on. The nurses immediately stopped what they were doing, moving to stand behind Dr. Hesken, doing their best to intimidate Alyona with their numbers. Alyona could not say why, but their hostility only made her more determined to see Mikkhael. “I’m not leaving until I’ve seen him. I’ve waited this long … too long.” She stated with far more confidence then she felt.

  The awkward silence stretched interminably, yet lasted for only a minute, hanging pregnant in the room until Alyona caved first. “I need to see him, please,” she said, her voice trailing off to a whisper in the end.

  Without any clear reason why, Dr. Hesken relented, nodding solemnly as she grabbed her data slate, “Come. I’ll not let you go in there alone,” she said, and then began walking brusquely down the hall.

  Alyona remained silent as they passed room after room, the sheer size of the medical ward surprising her. After passing through several sets of badge-secured doors, they finally arrived at one set off by itself. Dr. Hesken eyed her warily for a moment, e
vidently seeing what she needed, before silently making her final decision as she unlocked the door. Then she stepped aside, allowing Alyona to pass.

  Slowly, Alyona nervously slowly stepped a few feet inside the enormous room, taking in its contents. A bed occupied the center of the room, with equipment squeezed into every imaginable space possible along the perimeter. Alyona had never been comfortable in hospital settings, a role which Vera happy filled. A strong a sense of displacement washed over her, threatening to overwhelm her as she stood alone in the strange room with its glaring white lights and eccentric medical equipment. Then she saw him, or rather his body, lying on the medical cot, covered in a thin white sheet up to his chin. With a sense of dread, she rushed forward to the side of the bed, assuming the worst, and then with an almost palatable sense of relief she saw the sheet rise on his chest a bit before settling back as he took a breath.

  Mikkhael’s eyes were closed. There was no reaction to her presence, none. He appeared to be sleeping peacefully, lying on his back. His head was shaved, and there was an IV as well as leads for other sensors attached to him, the tubes running underneath the sheet to the equipment at the bedside; otherwise, she could have mistaken him for being asleep in his quarters, or just about anywhere.

  Alyona’s outreached hand stopped halfway as she looked him over, trying to make sense of it all. That was when Dr. Hesken approached her, standing next to her silently as she began reading the monitoring equipment from force of habit.