Mech

by Isaac Hooke

  “Unless, of course, the walkers decide to delay firing,” Fret said. “Until they get a better shot.”

  When Rade reached the far corner, he moved in behind the building, as did the others. Some of the mechs were already perched on that side, of course.

  The remaining HS3s served around the building to take cover with them.

  “Even if they do get a better shot, we’ll have two metal blast shields between us and the enemy,” Praxter said. “By my calculations, those two slabs of metal will absorb seventy percent of the radiation, leaving only thirty percent to reach our armor. By the time it enters your bodies, only ten percent will remain. You will survive, but will probably have to plan on a visit to sickbay, unless you want your hair falling out by the end of the day.”

  “Notice how he switched to second person halfway through?” Fret said. “You, instead of we. Implying that he won’t be affected by rad poisoning in the least. Must be nice to be an android!”

  “What about any colonists who happen to be trapped inside the particular floors where the rays pass through?” Bomb asked.

  Praxter’s avatar shook his head. “They won’t make it. Not unless they’re wearing trauma suits, which I doubt.”

  “I’m detecting gamma ray scatter,” Taya announced. “Well below the ten percent threshold.”

  That meant they had attacked anyway, without waiting for a better firing angle. Worried that other mechs were still in the open, Rade glanced at the overhead map, but confirmed that everyone had hidden behind the far sides of the different buildings.

  “They didn’t care if they hit us or not,” Rade said. “They only want to fry as many colonists as they can.”

  “Why didn’t they use their energy weapons?” Fret said. “Though I suppose it’s a toss-up between energy weapons and gamma rays, because both cause devastating damage.”

  “The range on the energy weapons isn’t as great as the gamma rays,” Scotts said. “Rest assured, they’ll switch to energy attacks when they get closer.”

  Rade shook his head. “We can’t stay here. They’re going to continue to approach, continue to improve their angle of attack, maneuvering around the buildings in their path, so they can irradiate more colonists. And eventually, when they’re close enough, they’ll switch to energy bolts, like the LC said. We can’t allow this.”

  “Maybe we can let the rest of the army know…” Kicker said.

  Rade studied his overhead map. “Looks like they’re dug in fairly well. Essentially trapped on their respective rooftops. I doubt there will be any help forthcoming from that quarter.”

  “Screwdriver, can you radio the lieutenant general in charge of the divisions?” Scotts asked. “Let them know any help would be appreciated?”

  A moment later Screwdriver sent: “Just like your chief said, they’re a bit occupied at the moment. If we want to stop those walkers, it’s up to us. I suggest splitting up into three groups. Mine can take W1.” On the overhead map, the W1 label appeared above the walker positioned furthest to the west. “Your two platoons can take W2 and W3.” The latter two labels indicated the walkers in the middle and east, respectively.

  “Hackles, you’ll take W3,” the lieutenant commander said. “Rage, our platoon will take the one in the middle.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Rade said. “You heard the LC… it’s time to switch buildings! This way!”

  Rade marked the building that rose just to the north of the team, and he jetted across to it.

  Below, portions of the ring of fire had winked out, and Draactals began to climb through the gaps toward the team again. They hollered in disappointment as the mechs leaped away from them.

  “Sounds like a troop of monkeys or something!” Manic commented.

  “They came for death, baby,” Bender said. “Let’s not disappoint them!” He released several cobra bursts behind him while he jetted across, taking down several Draactals.

  Rade reached the building and latched on. It was easier to grab onto this particular building, because it didn’t have a blast shield covering its exterior, and there were long ledges beneath the window frames lining each floor. He maneuvered across the closest ledge, smashing his fists through the windows and looping them inside under the frames to keep his upper body steady as he sidestepped across the thin ledge. He used his jumpjets as needed.

  The other members of the platoon landed on the structure as well. Some of them came from different buildings, as the platoon had been spread out across the four skyscrapers that contained the colonists, so they arrived at different heights, with different fuel levels.

  “Taya, can you mark off the hot zones on these buildings,” Rade said. “Indicating where we’ll be exposed to the gamma rays of the walkers, based on their last known positions?”

  Red swaths overlaid the buildings a moment later. The current building was completely free of any markings.

  “I’ve used different shades of red to show the exposures,” Taya said. “Bright red means you’ll be in direct line of sight of the walkers if you’re passing over that location. Instant death, if they fire. Dark red means some gamma rays will hit you, but they’ll have to pass through other buildings first, and you’ll likely survive. Anything of a lighter color than that indicates a potentially fatal exposure.”

  Rade shoved off of the current skyscraper, and leaped toward a rooftop below. He fired his jumpjets, passing just above a region where Taya had painted the sky red. He landed on the rooftop and raced across to the other side. Then he took a running leap and fired off a burst of thrust at the same time so that he arced across to the next building. The other members of Alpha Platoon followed behind him.

  In that manner, he and his platoon vaulted from rooftop to rooftop, slowly closing with the walker in question. The other mech platoons were similarly mirroring their advance on adjacent buildings, heading toward their own targets. The surviving HS3s accompanied Screwdriver’s platoon.

  The three walkers were located in neighboring streets, mostly because they were too big to fit more than one of them at a time between the buildings.

  Taya continued to report scattering radiation along the way, which told him that the walkers continued to fire as they approached, killing more colonists holed up in the shielded skyscrapers.

  The outside atmosphere had displaced most of the breathable air in the colony by then so that Rade’s surroundings were steeped in a thin, yellow smog. Its smears could be seen below, contaminating the air above the streets. He was reminded of the conditions that usually developed when a forest fire burned outside a city on Earth.

  “We’ve been hit!” Screwdriver said.

  Rade glanced at his overhead map, and saw that half of Screwdriver’s group had turned black. All the HS3s were gone.

  “Shouldn’t their mechs, and the HS3s, still be active?” Bomb said. “They can survive gamma ray attacks.”

  “They were obviously hit by an energy attack!” Pyro said. “Look, spheres!”

  Nemesis spheres had slid up from the sides of the building where Screwdriver’s team resided, and ambushed them.

  “Help them!” Rade said. He halted on his current building, and swung his cobra toward the nearby tower. He fired, bringing down Nemesis spheres.

  But then more spheres arose from the four sides of the building around Rade and Alpha platoon.

  “Ambush!” Skullcracker said.

  “Take cover!” Rade dove behind the closet superstructure, a rooftop fan of some kind. A spherical chunk disappeared from its right side.

  There was a Nemesis sphere directly in front of him. He dove to the roof, swinging his cobra up, and fired. It crashed just in front of him. Behind him, where he had been crouched, another portion of the fan had vanished, courtesy of the energy bolt the fallen sphere had unleashed.

  In a few moments it was over. All the spheres had been downed.

  “Status report!” Rade glanced at the health indicators, and was relieved to see everyone in the green.
Their mechs, however, didn’t fare as well.

  “Mech lost an arm,” Fret said.

  “Lost a chunk of one of my missile launchers here, no biggie,” Bender said.

  Similar minor damage was reported throughout the platoon.

  “We survived, but why did Screwdriver’s team lose so many?” Rex said.

  “Review your map archives,” Tahoe said. “Far more spheres attacked them. The HS3s probably attracted them.”

  “For once, I’m relieved we don’t have HS3s with us,” Fret said.

  Rade checked his map, and saw that Hackles’ platoon had also been attacked, but they too had survived with minimal casualties. Those members of Screwdriver’s group that had survived the initial surprise attack also fared well.

  “Let’s keep going!” Rade said.

  He began leaping from rooftop to rooftop once more.

  The buildings here were about half the size of the skyscraper they’d left behind, and many of them were covered in Draactals so that the platoon had to fight their way through. Rade was bashing away with his shield arm just as much as firing his cobra and zodiac. Draactals grabbed onto his mech with their mandibles, and he’d have to smash them off his body.

  He kept the target walker in view to his right. It continued toward the main skyscrapers, its side to the platoon. He approached it from that flank, and when the platoon was one building away, he leaped toward it with a boost from his jumpjets.

  “Fire at will!” he ordered.

  He had been careful not to overheat his cobra up to this point, and so he unleashed several shots in rapid succession, targeting the different panels that protruded from the left and right sides. The other platoon members likewise shot up those gamma ray generators, pocking them with holes.

  The walker swiveled its giant head around toward the mechs that had gathered on its back, and its eyes lit up.

  “Energy attack!” Rade shouted.

  He leaped down, off the side of the walker, and the energy beam passed just above him. The walker had angled the attack to avoid causing any damage to its own hull.

  Rade skidded along the side of the walker, and slammed his left hand into its hull, forming a handhold. Then he swiveled his zodiac into place in his right hand, and unleashed it at point blank range. The others were doing the same where they clung to the walker around him.

  “It’s not going down!” Lui said.

  “We’re going to have to combine our shots,” Rade said. “Synch your zodiacs with me. In the meantime, switch to cobras… we have Draactals incoming.”

  Draactals were leaping off the surrounding buildings, and landing on the sides of the walker. They slid down, striking the mechs, trying to slough them off.

  Rade struck one of those Draactals with his laser, and swung to the side before it could hit him.

  But then another Draactal landed right on him, and its mandibles bit into his upper arm. It must have torn into some electroactuators, because the arm speed dropped by about fifty percent. Rade managed to bash the creature away before it could cause any more damage.

  “Zodiac has recharged,” Taya announced.

  “Get higher, people!” Rade said. “I’m targeting the head!”

  Rade clambered upward, forming handholds with his mech by smashing his arms into the hull. He reached the upper edge, and slowly aimed past the edge.

  Another Draactal landed on his back, and he beat it off, then he returned his attention to his aim. He switched to the zodiac’s scope, and confirmed that the other members’ electrolasers were synced to his. He lifted the crosshairs over the edge, until he could see that head, still twisted backward, searching for mechs to target.

  When those two eyes turned toward him, he lined up the crosshairs over one of them, and squeezed the trigger.

  Electrolasers fired across the platoon, and thundered into that eye all at the same time. Instantly it went dark, and a moment later the other, undamaged eye turned black as well, and the walker ceased its advance.

  “It’s down!” Tahoe said.

  “Then let’s get to higher ground!” Rade said.

  He clambered onto the back of the walker. More and more Draactals kept appearing, using up room. Rade shot down a few of them, and jetted upward toward the closest building. It was taller than the others in this area. Fuel was getting low, so he decided not to jet all the way to the top, considering it wasn’t completely engulfed in Draactals. Even though his calculations showed he had enough to return to the skyscraper, it was best not to waste fuel at this point.

  He landed on the side of the building and climbed upward until he had a view of the other walkers. The platoons of Hackles and Screwdriver had taken care of their respective targets, and like Rade’s, were quickly abandoning the robots for higher ground, as Draactals were clambering up the legs of the motionless walkers, as well as leaping down from surrounding buildings. He saw at least three more mechs per platoon fall before they could jet away.

  Rade climbed to the top of the building and then went to the far edge. All of the nearby buildings were lower in height, and covered in Draactals.

  “We’re not going back to the center of town, are we?” Fret asked. “We can just stay here and sit out the attack. Moving from building to building as necessary, buying ourselves some time until the fleet can return and send in the cavalry.”

  “Assuming they return…” Lui said.

  “You’re getting to be as gloomy as Fret,” Pyro said. “Worse, even, since he was the one advocating for the fleet’s return this time.”

  Rade zoomed in on the skyscrapers that held the colonists. He could see chunks missing from the top of one of them; apparently the walkers had come close enough to use their energy attacks, and had eaten through the blast shields of that particular skyscraper. Smaller Draactals were using the openings to crawl inside.

  Higher, the rooftop was crawling with more of the aliens. If any Centurions had survived, there were no signs of them.

  “We can’t sit out the attack,” Rade said. “As much as I’d love to. You see those breaches in the central building? Smaller aliens are crawling inside, infesting the rooms and hallways. We’re going to have to follow them inside, and stop them.”

  “How do we know it’s not too late for the colonists already?” Rex said.

  Rade noticed for the first time that Rex was displaying his scar on his avatar.

  Good man.

  “Snakeoil, do we have any blueprints on the building?” Rade asked.

  “No,” Snakeoil replied. “But from what I know about Breach Resistant designs, they usually have an airlock on every level that activates when the blast shield closes. The aliens will have to break through each one as they go. I’m guessing it’ll take them two to three minutes per airlock. There are seventy floors in the building, and thus seventy airlocks.”

  “There’s your answer, Rex,” Rade said. “It’s not too late. We have to stop them before they can breach more airlocks. The colonists have no one else… we’re going in.”

  “Damn it, I knew I picked the wrong day to get up out of bed,” Fret said.

  27

  Rade gazed at the Draactal infested rooftops below. Well, there was nothing for it. If he wanted to return, he was going to have to fight his way through them.

  He leaped down toward the closest rooftop and landed amid the seething Draactals. He fought his way through them, bashing, firing his cobra, shoving with his shield. The others joined him, staying close to his side, driving a wedge through the aliens. When he reached the edge, he leaped across, firing a spurt from his jumpjets. He landed amid the next group of Draactals, and continued the process all over again.

  In that manner he made his way back toward the center of town, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. As he moved to the higher rooftops, the Draactals began to thin out, until there were none at all, and the platoon’s progress increased. Now the biggest concern was reaching the final target ahead, whose sides were yet covered in aliens. The rings
of fire that Rade and his companions had created had mostly burned out, thanks to Draactals spreading around all that jellied gasoline.

  “Screwdriver, can we get some blueprints on the building in question?” Scotts asked.

  “I’ll do better than that,” Screwdriver replied. “I’ll send you everything I have for the entire city. Above and below ground.”

  “Thank you,” Scotts said. He forwarded the transfer request to Rade, who sent it on to TJ for the obligatory virus scan.

  “It’s clean,” TJ said.

  Rade installed the map data into his embedded ID, filing it away for future reference.

  He and his platoon reached the final building before the target; the surviving Hoplites and Titans from Hackles’ platoon joined them. But Screwdriver and his mechs were nowhere in sight.

  “Screwdriver, sit-rep?” Scotts asked over the comm.

  “Lost too many men,” Screwdriver said. “We’re going to have to sit this one out. Sorry. We’ll do our best to offer you backup support from where we are.”

  Rade glanced at his overhead map. Screwdriver’s group was quite a few buildings away, but Rade supposed they were still well within cobra range.

  He gazed down into the streets below, and saw that most of the aliens had congregated around the base of the central skyscraper, because it was the only one currently breached.

  He returned his attention to the upper regions of that building. The current rooftop was close to the same height, though it fell short by ten floors.

  “I’m basically out of fuel, by the way,” Fret said.

  “Me too,” Bomb said. “That last jump took everything I had. I’ve been too liberal with my incendiaries.”

  “All right,” Rade said. “Cyclone, Bender, you’ll carry Fret and Bomb respectively. Fret, Bomb, your mechs will stay behind, and offer support fire.”

  The cockpits of the two mechs opened, and Fret and Bomb slid out onto the leg rungs. They retrieved laser rifles from the storage compartments, and loaded up into passenger seats of Cyclone and Bender.