Nemesis (The MechaVerse Trilogy Book 2)

by Jeremy Cunkle

  “Understood. Good job Drogdyn. Continue monitoring developments as they occur and update me accordingly,” Commander Ultor ordered.

  Five Hours Until Time of Attack: (Five hours T.U.A.)

  The nurse attended Mikkhael under the watchful eye of Dr. Hesken. An hour ago, the doctor had rushed into the hospital room, her eyes ablaze with sudden inspiration. Since that moment, overwhelming urgency replaced what only a little while ago had been the uncomfortable calm of waiting. Dr. Hesken had been giving Commander Ultor an update on Mikkhael’s status from the moment of revelation, leading to the current frenzied state of affairs as they rushed to complete one task after another.

  The nurse finished forcing a semi-solid nutrient rich solution through a feeding tube into Mikkhael’s unconscious form. The nutrient goop was the closest thing to a real meal his body had received in over two months and would serve as a necessary precursor for what they would do next. They could keep him alive indefinitely through a liquid diet, but their chances with what they were about to attempt were higher if his stomach was properly full.

  As for Dr. Hesken, her exchange with Commander Ultor remained with her as she continued analyzing the implications of his message. The Commander’s nervousness at the theory she proposed, in order to speed up the process of reviving Mikkhael, was more than apparent. His apprehension combined with his resignation about how much they had all come to rely on the unconscious form now in front of her.

  “How much longer until Mikkhael awakens?” The commander had asked.

  “It is impossible to say. He could wake up at any moment, or never. His vitals, brain activity, and biorhythms, all indicate that he should already be cognizant. However, the fact that he remains in a state of semi-unconsciousness is also a boon. Were Mikkhael to regain conscious right now, his mind would still need time to overcome the side effects of the prolonged coma. As he is now, he remains unburdened by the large amount of sensory stimuli associated with being fully conscious; meaning that his mind is far more efficiently utilizing its full resources in order that, when he awakens, theoretically he will be able to function almost immediately. It’s almost as if his instincts recognize that the most efficient way to go about the process of what is essentially his body rebooting, is to exist in his current state of semi-consciousness. This is purely a hunch, but I believe Mikkhael is holding out as long as possible, until his mind is ready, and I am unable to speak as to exactly when that will be.”

  The excitement accompanying her realization did not mask how much it hurt to watch the man she knew as Cyril, and not the Commander of a powerful rebel faction, sink even further into himself upon her declaration that Mikkhael’s psyche was refusing to regain consciousness. The current weight of responsibility crushing down on the Commander’s tired shoulders was enormous. Dr. Hesken had not wanted to hurt him, but lying would not serve him or anyone else. Seeing him become despondent, she reached out, lending what hope she could offer.

  “Speaking from a gut level, I honestly believe Mikkhael recognizes that he is needed and is desperately trying to wake up. There are certain subtle indications in that regard; but I also believe that while in the coma he fell farther into himself than he had intended. Even if I could force him to regain consciousness this instant, the severity of the side effects would mean that he would require days of recovery before being able to function anywhere near normally. Speaking as a friend, I believe that when Mikkhael does regain complete consciousness, he will be ready to do what is required of him. I have some ideas on how to assist him with speeding up the process of becoming oriented, and we are working on implementing those ideas as we speak.”

  Commander Ultor had simply nodded, and then cut the video feed. He would have to find something else in which to place his hope for a while longer.

  Once the feed cut, Dr. Hesken immediately collected the nurse and explained her intentions, suddenly realizing how desperately they were all depending on Mikkhael. He had become an indelible part of the StormCrows without anyone even noticing how much they had come to rely on him, until he was missing. To all of them, he had become the symbol of their resistance. Resistance to the corruption of the Mars Industries government and its puppet army. In his brief time fighting with them, Mikkhael’s combat prowess grew to the point where he single-handedly served as the rebel vanguard. And now without him, with what seemed like the whole of the PDF army closing upon their home, all hope of a future seemed lost.

  The nurse completed feeding Mikkhael, removing the tube from Mikkhael’s throat. Dr. Hesken was playing a hunch, nothing more. She knew that should Mikkhael wake in time to take part in the fighting, he would need more than just the basic fluids and nutrients fed intravenously that served to keep him alive.

  The semi-solid meal filled his stomach, settling it enough that Dr. Hesken could now insert strong muscle relaxers intravenously into Mikkhael’s system. Vera and other volunteers had spent hours every day during the last two months of his internment in the medical ward, moving his unconscious body through exercises, considerably rebuilding his depleted muscle tissue from nearly a year of dangerous underuse in the low gravity of Mars. Even though their efforts had been successful, there remained a high probability that Mikkhael’s joints and muscles would be stiff from remaining bed-ridden for so long. Her initial focus was on making sure that should Mikkhael even be able to wake in time to take part in the fighting; neither his mental nor physical state would be compromised.

  With the nurse’s help, Dr. Hesken rolled Mikkhael over onto his stomach. They took turns thoroughly massaging his neck, shoulders, back, and leg muscles before moving on to his joints, putting them repeatedly through their full range of motion. Gradually, the stiffness left his limp form.

  Then, they wheeled a new machine into position near the bed before maneuvering Mikkhael into a sitting position, fully resting the weight of his body on the contraption. An engineering team had just completed the machine at the doctor’s request, built specifically for patients who did not live in the full gravity of Earth and became unconscious or unable to move for extended periods. Such patients risked losing difficult to replace muscle mass and basic agility. In the one third gravity of Mars, when compared to Earth’s, muscle deterioration from prolonged bed rest was especially detrimental to making a full recovery.

  The machine they manhandled Mikkhael onto appeared as if it were a giant black box that swung open from one side, similar to a magician’s chest standing upright. The pair worked quickly, wrapping separate sleeves around Mikkhael’s torso and extremities. Tubes of air were interspersed throughout each sleeve. Pre-set algorithms began gradually filling the tubes of air as soon the sleeves encasing them were in place, rendering each sleeve skintight. From each sleeve hung dozens of adjustable length brackets, which they clipped onto various points all the inside of the machine.

  The brackets served as supports, maintaining Mikkhael’s body in a natural sitting position as his unconscious form hung listlessly. Because there were nearly a hundred clips distributing his weight, no part of his body would feel strained. The stool they seated him on was then scooted forward, sliding the front half of his body from the neck down into a mesh like material that used an electrical charge in order to adapt its shape, congealing around him. The nurse then swung the back half of the machine closed, which similarly adapted to the back half of his body from the neck down. A vacuum pump activated, creating a tight seal between the front and back materials, wrapping them solidly around his body. Air was then pumped in to fill the gap between the walls of the black box and the mesh material encasing his body from the neck down.

  Then they lowered a padded band onto his head, connected to a multi-jointed arm straight out of a horror movie. Intermittent screws pressed into the padded area of the band, which were then gradually tightened, encasing his head solidly in the band.

  Once their efforts were complete, Dr. Hesken worked the controls of the medieval torture device, inputting programmed directions. Air
began filling various bags and tubes throughout the machine, expanding them, while other bags contracted as air was vacuumed out. The expansion and contraction of the bags and tubes worked in conjunction with one another to begin moving Mikkhael’s limbs, working his joints.

  His arms, legs, and torso shifted as they performed the exercises, the machine was even able to exercise his neck muscles and joints. Slowly and methodically, the padded metal band encompassing Mikkhael’s head forced his head to dip, making his chin touch his chest. Then the ring was rotated so that his head slowly dipped right, then backwards, and then to the left. The process was sped up just enough that the rotation of his head now performed a circle, slowly and steadily in the manner of someone stretching their neck by rolling their shoulders and head.

  After twenty minutes of gentle exercise passed, the nurse slid two wands through ports in the front of the machine. Each wand was placed under one of Mikkhael’s hands. An identical pair of wands was inserted under the arch of his feet. Electrical pulses were then sent through the wands, forcing his hands to clench into a fist and his toes to curl. The electrical pulses were small, just enough to cause the muscles to contract. Hundreds of pulses were repeated over the next few hours as they forced his body to exercise and stretch.

  The mesh material surrounding Mikkhael’s torso and extremities was manipulated by bags of air in between the material and the black box encasing his body. The bags filled, and then emptied quickly, in such a way that it caused his unconscious body to perform exercising motions with the assistance of small hydraulic pistons placed throughout the machine. Through this method, they forced him through simulated bike riding, sit-ups, and even walking.

  The exercise went on for hours, alternating between different muscle groups. The idea was not to actually work on building his muscles at this time. Dr. Hesken was ensuring that when Mikkhael regained full consciousness, he would be fully prepared to fulfill his role.

  * * * * *

  After speaking with Drogdyn, Kurtis called a squad meeting, to which Soren, as their lead mechanic, invited himself. The five gathered under the watchful gaze of the Mech armor and the guards, some of whom moved closer to overhear what they said. “Drogdyn believes the preliminary attacks against the mountain will be performed by drones and bombers, and Argos thoroughly agrees with that conclusion. The PDF already know the location of some of the entrances into Mount Olympus. That kind of evidence cannot be hidden with satellites constantly trained on the mountain, spying for them. At any moment, the PDF will likely throw a large force of bombers and aerial drones at the mountain, searching for additional entrances as well as locating our defenses, testing them for their capabilities. Since the enemy will have no shortage of drones, our expectation is that the first force they send will simply be exploratory, and then rapidly increase in numbers and capability from there. I fully expect more than a few Chimera’s to eventually drop enemy Mech armor on top of the mountain as well.”

  Kiryl grinned in eager anticipation at the announcement, confusing Soren. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Kurtis nodded in agreement as he turned to Alyona, “I want to get DawnsLight, Atalanta, and Intrepid on top of the mountain and prepare a greeting for those drones. Since the top of the mountain is essentially a windswept plateau, the lines of fire should be entirely clear, allowing you to begin significantly thinning the number of drones before things get serious on the plain down below. In the meantime, I’ll remain behind and do my thing from here in the hangar. A team of technicians should be arriving at any moment with the computer rig from my quarters.”

  Alyona nodded her reply as she turned to look at the Launchpad leading out of their hangar. In order to gain access outside of the mountain, the Launchpad used a tunnel that bored through nearly a mile of rock, in the process passing through two separate airlocks. Above their heads, there were several more miles of rock providing a ceiling that rendered the base all but impervious to the vaunted nuclear attacks.

  Ideal for launching away-missions, the location of their hangar presented a challenge for the team as to how they would get their units to the top of the mountain. Due to the lack of atmosphere on Mars, and subsequent near total lack of air pressure, Kiryl’s unit Intrepid would have no chance of flying to the top of the planet’s tallest mountain. There was plenty of doubt as to whether DawnsLight and Atalanta could make the climb while flying as well.

  Soren broke the impasse, interjecting with a solution. “We have long considered how best to defend the mountain and solved the obvious problem with your plan. Just as an aircraft carrier has an elevator to carry planes from where they are stored below decks to the launch pad, so too do we have strategically placed elevators throughout the base in order to carry Mech armor to the top of the mountain.”

  At their obvious welcoming of his suggestion, Soren turned to one of the guards, having him call Captain Cartwright and ask for his approval. A quick video conference between Soren and the Captain occurred, after which Soren turned to them. “The Captain has approved your use of the elevators and informed me that there are already hardened defensive positions built around areas where some of the elevators are located. He believes they should accommodate your much larger units and will be quite useful for what you have planned. I have a question of my own though, what will you do when the PDF unleash their Mech killing drones, the Reapers?”

  This time it was Alyona’s turn to grin, a feral expression that promised a moment of reckoning for anyone that opposed her or her friends, once again confusing Soren with its eager intensity. “This situation calls for instant strike abilities that can only be obtained through the use of laser weapons. The effective use of energy based laser weapons on the field of battle has always been dictated by the amount of energy available to the weapon at any given point in time. For their laser weapons, the PDF use a system of battery cartridges that are charged before a fight and act similarly to bullets. Once the charge in those cartridges becomes drained, the pilots are forced to rely on the meager output of their reactors to charge their weapons. That limits the distance their rifles can fire to a span of less than two miles if they hope to have any chance of doing any damage against a normal target such as one of your Furies. The most common way to increase the amount of energy transferred by the laser is to decrease the distance to the target. Not only do our units have massively more powerful reactors, we will be fighting from static positions, allowing us to vastly increase the amount of power available for our laser-based rifles because we don’t need to move. The drones are mobile, and their power requirements are dictated by their mobility, which in this instance acts as a weakness we will prey on.”

  Vera finished typing commands into the data slate in her hands. When she finished, Soren’s data slate, as well as the data slates of the other mechanics in the hangar chimed in unison, announcing their receipt of new orders. “Soren, have the three units listed in the orders I sent you equipped with the specified laser rifle and designated supplemental battery packs please. Inform our AI Athena, of the location of those elevators. In the meantime, we will suit up and prepare to head out as quickly as possible.”

  The meeting ended as Vera, Kiryl, and Alyona headed to equip their pilots suits prior to boarding their units. As they did so, the maintenance crews, under the direction of Athena, located the laser rifles Vera indicated and began attaching the rifles to their units. These rifles had yet to be used during combat as their power requirements mandated they be operated from a stationary position, and were one of the few remaining surprises the Omnos squad had for the PDF. Other teams worked to remove spare munitions from the reserves on the backs of their units that should not be needed for this mission, swapping out the modular nodes with ultra-capacity batteries. Additionally, two of the modular nodes were mounted to hard points on the exterior of the units where JATO’s frequently sat. Each node contained an air defense drone they could deploy to supplement their defensive abilities.

  The ma
intenance crews were finished by the time the three pilots were suited and had boarded their units, already having powered up the units and placed them on standby. Each of their HUDs showed separate routes that would take them to different locations on top of the mountain. An alarm wailed inside the hangar as the three titans left their maintenance bays and began walking towards the internal hangar door, opposite the airlocks leading outside. The door led to a service tunnel barely large enough to accommodate their oversized Mech units. The service tunnel was one of several interspersed throughout the mountain, connecting all of the primary hangars with the maintenance hangar and the R&D division.

  Once in the service tunnel, they split up, proceeding in different directions. Their units hunched down to avoid the low roof as they plodded along for about twenty minutes, guided by markers on their HUDS, until they came to the marker indicating their respective elevator. Each of the three elevators were hidden in bays along the sides of the service tunnel by a faux wall that slid open as they approached. The walls had obviously been recently keyed to recognize their approach and allow them passage.

  Soren had a surprise waiting for them on each elevator. Separate crews of technicians had obtained a single standby battery for each elevator that until moments before served as part of the reserve power supply for the base. Each battery was the size of the automated trucks called mules, and their dense capacity meant that even the tremendously powerful Omnos squad Mech armor would take hours to charge them via their reactors. Each of the batteries charge was already topped off, waiting to be linked to their units, and escorted by technicians in environmental suits that accompanied each unit to the top of the mountain. As the elevators slowly made the three mile climb to the top of the mountain, the technicians connected the batteries to each Mech with a long cable.