by Brett Patton
And Matt’s lips curled up. Easy as pie.
He turned his Hellion north. Gleaming leg muscles tensed, and suddenly he was gone, parting the morning mist like a juggernaut.
They had Cochran’s Cove set up like any of a hundred dump-and-dip towns on any water world on the edge of humankind’s expansion outside of the Union. Easy to dump your cargo in the muddy bay, and great to dip your overheated drive in for a quick cool-down and reprovision. Matt had lived for days or weeks in a hundred towns like it, gagging from the reek of dead fish cooked by the waste heat of ships and freight.
The outskirts of town were built from the detritus of space: shells of old drop cans, silo containers, end-of-life solar panels, pop-up Insta-tents. The town proper was the grim, poured-cement architecture of lowest possible price, pocked here and there with artillery fire.
From one of the taller buildings, the thousand-daggers flag of the Corsairs fluttered, bloodred on white. The Corsair ships—and Matt’s hostage—were undoubtedly in the bay. That meant Matt had to go through the town. Where the Corsairs could have entire battalions hidden.
As Matt sprinted into town, the crack of AK-47s split the damp dawn. Matt grunted as depleted-uranium bullets spattered off his Hellion’s skin. They were a small annoyance. He was too high on Mesh; every thought turned seamlessly into action, every movement a sensation of ecstasy.
It was amazing. The painful tear of the suit had fallen away. Matt was only peripherally aware of the thrusts and jabs he made with his arms and legs, and of the flowing and bunching of the biometallic muscles in the dark around him as the Hellion responded to his commands. He was no longer inside the cramped cockpit in the Mecha’s chest. He’d stepped through.
Now the itch of the bullets was joined by the dull pain of heavy artillery. Matt winced as shells struck the Hellion’s chest and arms. But it was still a distant irritation through the pleasure of Mesh.
A smartshell flashed at him, and Matt’s arm suddenly flared with acid-dipped pain. He screamed in frustration as the giant biomech lurched and fell against a pockmarked building. Matt thrust with his half-dead arm, trying to regain his balance, but he couldn’t get up.
CONTROL NEXUS FAULT, his screen read. The countdown to regeneration began: 42, 41, 40 . . .
He flailed on the ground. More smartshells appeared on his viewscreen, dotted lines of destruction arcing at him from the bay. They closed the distance, flicker fast.
“Reposition,” Sergeant Stoll said.
“Trying!” Matt said. The smartshells arrowed at him.
At the last moment, Matt crouched and sprang blindly. His Hellion crashed into another building and flailed helplessly, but the missiles impacted harmlessly on the tarry road.
A new, bigger group of smartshells appeared on Matt’s screen.
Matt levered his Hellion upright, sweat dripping from his forehead. His viewscreen counted down seconds—30, 29—to complete healing, but he didn’t have time to wait. He couldn’t risk another wild leap either. The missiles blazed at him—and this time they’d surely calculated his maneuverability.
Fireflies, Matt thought. His mapping algorithms flashed to the fore, but Matt ignored the screen. There. There. There. He could feel the enemies.
Tiny Firefly rounds, white-hot and semismart, sprung from his Mecha’s chest, flashing toward the artillery. For a moment, Cochran’s Cove burned brighter than midday, all the color leached in the radiant light of the Fireflies. Matt had momentary glimpses of terrified holographic faces before the Fireflies extinguished the artillery gunners forever.
His kill list scrolled four names and reported the all-important status: NO COLLATERAL CASUALTIES. Even more important, the regeneration chime sounded. Matt sprang to his feet.
“Easy as pie,” Matt said.
Sudden heat flared in Matt’s chest, doubling him over. Through slitted eyes, he saw the source of the attack: a tank. His screen tagged it as TAIKONG X-6/LASER PLASMA CANNON.
Matt danced forward. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s play.”
In three long jumps, Matt crashed down on top of the Taikong tank. It cranked its laser cannon toward the sky, but the tank was painfully slow. Matt reached down with a skeletal hand, picked up the Taikong, and shook it like a rattle.
Two more tanks rounded a rough stone building, lasers blazing. The Hellion’s biometal glowed in the lasers’ attack. The pilot’s chamber was suddenly a convection oven. Matt felt his exposed skin crisping. But he never flinched. Flexing the Hellion’s muscles, he crumpled the tank and threw it at the other two. The Taikong wreckage struck the ground and spun, taking laser fire and spraying molten orange metal. The tank struck one of the others. Both went up in a brilliant burst of fire.
But the last Taikong kept coming. It was different from the others. It gleamed like Matt’s Hellion, though its flanks didn’t ripple with biomechanical muscle.
The Taikong’s laser tracked Matt as it sped forward. The dull red threads turned bright yellow. Matt pushed through waves of heat and grabbed at the tank, but his Hellion’s fingers only scrambled for purchase on its slick surface. Matt tore at the tank’s laser cannon. It came off in a burst of plasma and sparks. Matt glimpsed the faces of the white-painted men inside the tank—eyes wide, mouths open in a scream.
Matt took the tank in both hands and held it. He felt something welling up, something that felt very, very good and that strained for release. A low rumble built within his Hellion’s core. Blue waves of force exploded from both of its palms. The tank blazed white and vaporized.
Seconds later, the dull boom from Matt’s Fusion Handshake echoed back from distant swamplands.
Matt hung limp, for a moment drained by the power of the Fusion Handshake. He hadn’t even known it was enabled. He hadn’t thought. He’d just . . . imagined it.
“Cadet Lowell, update situation,” Sergeant Stoll said.
Matt panted and said nothing. Easy as pie, and fun like nothing else.
“Update situation!”
Sergeant Stoll’s tone was urgent. Matt looked up—
—right into the eyes of an Imp-class Mecha, painted with the thousand-daggers insignia of the Corsairs.
Matt froze. Corsairs didn’t have Mecha. Nobody had Mecha except the Universal Union. For several long moments he remained openmouthed, unable to move.
But Imps were ancient. His toy Imp had been hugged to sleep for a dozen years while he dreamed of the day he might drive his own. But Imps were pure mechanical tech. Not much more than overgrown Powerloaders. Nothing like his Hellion.
The Imp lumbered at him. It was almost comically slow, but then it managed to slam into him with a force like a billion-ton cargo freighter. His Hellion’s feet came off the ground. Matt gasped, the wind knocked out of him. For a moment, Matt wanted to laugh. He was flying through the air in the arms of a childhood toy.
The Imp shoved his Hellion through the side of a concrete building, sending metal desks and wall screens and filing cabinets and office chairs flying in every direction. Boulder-sized chunks of the building showered the Mecha. Matt glanced the kill list, which showed NO COLLATERAL CASUALTIES.
Then the Imp started trying to pull Matt’s arms off.
Matt screamed. A high and pure note, echoing in the tiny pilot’s chamber. His Hellion’s muscles tensed around him, writhing in sympathetic pain. Matt pushed frantically at the Imp, but the old Mecha was strong. Immensely strong.
But he wasn’t going to get beaten by a toy. Matt couldn’t get his hands together for a Fusion Handshake, but maybe he could use an RCM. He triggered the missile, then wondered . . .
What’ll happen when it explodes between us?
BOOM. The Hellion’s chest cavity rang like a bell, and Matt’s vision went blurry.
But the Imp was off him and reeling. Matt shoved it backward and triggered his Fireflies. They scorched out the Hellion’s torso, enveloping the Imp.
But the Imp stepped through the brilliance, seemingly unhurt.
Matt
didn’t think. He rushed. Speed was his advantage. The Imp barely moved before Matt had his hands around its head. Matt looked down into the dark eyes of the old machine and softly said, “Good-bye.”
As he triggered the Fusion Handshake.
It was awesome. It was ultimate power. It was the end of all things. Matt shivered in delight. The ancient Mecha went purple with heat.
But it didn’t disintegrate.
Matt had a single moment of complete and utter shock. The Fusion Handshake ended things.
An icy hand twisted his guts, and a rough and terrible voice whispered in his ear, This isn’t just an exercise. This is a test.
A potentially deadly one.
The Imp reached for him, and Matt ran.
Toward the bay. Toward the Corsair ships. That was the only way he would complete this mission. Run in, smash and grab, get out. He had to stay away from that hellish Imp. It could have any mods, any weapons.
It could kill him.
Matt heard his own breath loud in the cramped pilot’s chamber. He felt his sweat, suddenly freezing, between his skin and his interface suit. He remembered his first thought about this exercise: easy as pie.
Matt laughed. His Perfect Record only went so far. He could do a drill once and remember it forever, but this wasn’t like that. This was unpredictable. This is something I have to figure out.
Buildings streaked past him, and the Imp fell behind. Through a gap in the buildings, he saw a patch of dirty water. The bulbous shapes of three Corsair ships squatted in the middle of the cove.
There! Get there, get the hostage, and get out. Speed was the key. Speed would do it.
Pain flared in Matt’s back. Suddenly, he was flying headlong. Muddy dirt road passed beneath him. He splashed to a stop at the edge of the moat. Through his kinetic-feedback suit, the water on the Hellion’s biometallic skin felt oddly soothing, like a warm bath.
He’d been shot. On the wraparound viewscreen, a dotted line traced the Imp’s missile that felled him; the screens told Matt both his left and center nexuses were compromised. Damage to its muscles made them feel partially numb, like scar tissue.
He flailed in the water, trying to rise. But the Hellion’s balance was shot. Even a random leap was out of the question.
Matt’s viewscreen showed a large Corsair transport flanked by two smaller fighters. The transport was spinning up its ignition drive for launch. Steam rose from the boiling water around it.
Matt thrust with his legs and managed to flip the Hellion over. The Imp scuttled toward him, a slow-motion death.
Only a single chance clawed at the surface of his mind. “Zap Gun,” Matt whispered.
A compartment sprung open in the Hellion’s side. Thin fingers drew forth the Zap Gun, bristling with potential destruction. The thrumming tension of the weapon’s antimatter heart permeated his senses. So warm. So comforting. So—
“Antimatter weapons are not recommended—” Sergeant Stoll’s voice, her icon glowing on the screen.
But her voice was drowned out by the throb of imminent power. Matt raised the weapon and sighted.
“—for close-quarters combat.” Stoll said.
She’s right, Matt told himself.
But it was a fleeting thought, lost behind a tiny voice that gibbered Easy as pie, easy as pie, or another voice, not his own, that defiantly hooted in laughter and detached amusement. And as the Imp lumbered closer, something so primitive and ancient it shouldn’t even be in space, let alone be able to withstand the blast of a Fusion Handshake, Matt also had to wonder, What other surprises does it have for me?
He pulled the trigger.
The air ripped apart. For long moments, there was nothing but the Zap Gun’s brilliance. There was no Cochran’s Cove, no Mecha Corps, no training camp, nothing but matter being furiously converted into energy.
The Zap Gun’s beam touched the imp, sparking hundreds of shards of blazing, spinning, mirrored light. Where the shards touched nearby buildings, glass shattered and concrete flowed in red rivers. Rebar flashed to vapor, and contents blew to dust. For a moment, the Imp stood as a black outline against the spectacle, and Matt had time for two coherent thoughts.
—damn it, zero-permeability coating, damn it, damn it—
and
—the whole town is burning, the whole town is burning—
before the Imp simply blew away like the last fragile embers of a fire.
His kill list lit with words that gripped his stomach in a painful vice: COLLATERAL DAMAGE: 1 CIVILIAN CASUALTY.
Of course. The Zap Gun should never be used in a town. It was too risky. Of course someone would get hurt. Of course someone would die.
“Mission failure,” Sergeant Stoll said. “Terminating.”
“No.” Matt’s voice was low, almost a growl.
“Cadet, your mission is terminated.” This time Major Soto.
“No!” It didn’t even sound like him.
Sergeant Stoll, slow, commanding. “Cadet Matt Lowell, your mission is terminated. Return to base.”
“No!”
“Cadet Lowell, this is Major Guiliano Soto. You are ordered to return to base. Acknowledge your orders.”
For a moment, it seemed like a good idea. For a moment, Matt saw himself acknowledging the order and going back to the base. But then the desire to compete and be the best tugged at him again.
“Orders acknowledged. I will return to base when my assignment is complete.” He wasn’t going to lose to an Imp.
Behind him, the Corsair transport rose in a column of steam and shimmering fire from the bay. The afterburn of its orbital rockets sizzled on Matt’s back.
Voices yelled, but he was done listening to them. It was time to finish the mission. Do the impossible. Easy as pie.
As if in response, Matt’s regeneration chime sounded. Matt stood.
One of the Corsair fighters screamed toward the sky, following the cruiser, making Matt think, All I need to do is fly.
Matt thrust into the cove, splashing great white sheets. When the water was deep enough, he dove straight down. His Hellion’s hands came together and changed form. His head tucked in. His legs came together and joined. Suddenly, his Hellion was something like a cross between a shark and a submarine.
Matt shot at the remaining fighter like a torpedo. For a moment, he saw its pilot looking back at him, eyes blank behind his helmet. Other crew members tried to swing weapons toward him as talons sprung from the Hellion’s fingertips to pierce the fighter’s skin. Instantly, Matt felt something like a bond with the fighter, as if it were . . . something he had known for a long time. A friend.
“You will not Merge with unauthorized components!” Major Soto’s voice thundered out of the comms. “Emergency abort! Cut power!”
Matt reached deeper within the fighter, seeking its core, whispering to its simple-minded computer control. A strange thought, sudden in its intensity: Merging is universal. Merging is what all things wish for.
Matt’s Hellion melted into the fighter, veins of his living metal running deep within the dumb alloy, rerouting, reconfiguring, and regrowing. Merging. Changing.
The thing that rose from the bay wasn’t the fighter anymore. It wasn’t the Hellion either. More than anything, it looked like a bat. A spiky black, metallic bat with fusion-tipped fangs.
Somewhere deep inside, Matt hung in his control suit, pressed close against pulsing metal muscles, not hearing Lena’s commands or the curses of Major Soto. There were only two things: the Corsair freighter ahead of him, spewing overheated nuclear exhaust as it raced toward orbit. And the insignificant peninsula of Mecha Training Camp, falling away below.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Matt muttered, lost in Mesh, unaware he was muttering, unaware that he wheezed painfully in the thinning air, unaware of the sweat beading into icicles on his forehead.
Something happened behind him. At first just a feeling. A tremor of incredible power. It coursed through Matt’s mind.
; The merged Mecha sensed it. His POV swung sickeningly as sensory enhancement kicked in. The screens zoomed down through the haze of the atmosphere to focus on Launch Facility 99. Matt started, dimly remembering his ride down in the shuttle. Less than two weeks ago. It seemed an eternity.
The broad concrete expanse of Launch Facility 99 split in two, revealing a grand cavern almost completely full of water. Rippling shadows of brilliant lights and black scaffolding enveloped a barely visible red shape.
In the scaffolding, something moved. Something like a Hellion, its mathematically perfect curves shaped into a brilliant equation of Armageddon. This beast was twice the size of a Hellion, and its rippling metallic skin was tinted bright red. As if it didn’t have to hide. As if nothing could hide from it.
Then, with an eardrum-compressing boom like a close-range energy grenade, the thing leapt from the pit.
A fiery speck rocketed at Matt.
Another surprise, he thought. No time to think about it. The escaping Corsair freighter was close. Close enough to touch.
Matt’s razor-sharp hand prodded at an engine pod. Matt clenched his fist, feeling the exquisite pleasure of tearing metal. The cruiser sang back at him, wishing to Merge. The whole Corsair freighter listed sharply to one side as an engine sputtered. Matt had one glimpse of the curve of the earth against black sky speckled with stars and time for one coherent thought: Oh, shit.
The Corsair ship tumbled out of control, and Matt was stuck along for the ride. Earth and black sky strobed sickeningly as they whirled.
Matt closed his eyes and thrust his hands deeper into the ship. It wanted to Merge. If he completed the Merge, he could save himself.
Something hit him hard. For a moment he spun even faster, seeing nothing. Then the earth steadied beneath them. Clinging to the scarred hull of the freighter was a giant red Mecha. It was easily three times the size of his Hellion.
Even in the depths of Mesh, Matt’s mind gibbered: This isn’t an exercise. This isn’t a test. Someone is playing with me.