“I see where this is going,” Max thought aloud. He pulled the emergency lever under his seat. The cockpit hatch blew outward, admitting moist, pine-scented air that slapped Max like a wound-up towel. His seat failed to eject.
The out-of-control Grento dug a furrow through a grassy field at the woods’ edge. Max released his harness, climbed onto the CF’s torso, and made a desperate jump to the left. Sharp pain stabbed his left shoulder as it impacted the dense turf. Max somersaulted once and rolled sideways for what felt like minutes but was probably just a few seconds. He lay prone on the grass, heaving air into his burning lungs.
A short distance ahead, a cacophony like a logging machine gone berserk informed him the Grento had crashed into the woods. A propellant tank exploded with a resounding boom that shook the ground and buffeted Max’s back. Luckily, the reactor didn’t follow suit.
Max hauled himself to his feet. His left arm hung limp at his side as he checked his status and equipment. Besides the dislocated shoulder, he’d gotten off with no injuries worth worrying about. His visor was split down the middle, so he ditched his helmet. Marilyn’s handheld had a cracked screen but was otherwise intact. The pistol Green had given him during the flight to L1 seemed undamaged. He pictured Megami in its sights, and his lips curled around clenched teeth.
Softly singing a rock song written for a pre-Collapse movie by a long dead Ferrari mechanic, Max slouched into the smoke-filled woods. He briefly entertained the notion that he’d died in the crash and was condemned to wander the gray wilderness as a lost spirit. Are there ghosts in space, or are they bound to the earth by gravity?
Ritter jerked the control stick to the left, narrowly avoiding the golden beam that tore through space above Byzantium colony. He was learning to read the signals Prometheus sent through his XSeed’s instruments and controls. And not a moment too soon, since the A.I. was telling him the CF’s battery was charged to thirty percent.
Conserve ammo, Ritter reminded himself, and don’t get shot. The red XSeed’s direct hit to his cockpit hatch had beaten that lesson into him. His CF’s carbyne armor had saved his life, but he’d lost three layers at once, along with a third of his anti-radar capacity. Ritter hadn’t yet laid a hand on the red XSeed, though he counted his blessings since he didn’t relish giving Sieg more ammo.
Red indicators flashed and alarms chirped, warning of an imminent attack from the colony at his left. Ritter searched in vain for the red CF. He dodged to the right, but the moment’s hesitation cost him. Gold radiance burst from the sun’s glare reflected in the colony window. Ritter’s cockpit shook even though his shield took the worst of the attack.
Capacitor forty percent charged.
Ritter climbed rightward on a diagonal to get the sun out of his eyes. The red XSeed materialized from the fading light. It skimmed along the colony’s length above the window and pulled ahead of its white twin. Ritter sailed over the mirror looming above the window. He dived behind the thirty kilometer reflector and tasked Prometheus to keep pace with the colony’s rotation.
Got to free up some battery space! Ritter pointed his plasma rifle upward and repeatedly mashed the trigger. Sapphire bolts cascaded into empty space. He’d drained his mag and was about to fire the first shot from his battery when the section of mirror behind him exploded, washing out the universe in blinding gold.
Capacitor fifty percent charged.
“If you want to hide,” Sieg lectured over the comm, “fire perpendicular to the mirror.”
Ritter wheeled around as the red XSeed barreled through the hole in the reflector. Sieg aimed his quad plasma gun at the white XSeed’s cockpit again, but Ritter shoved the weapon aside with his shield. The wide golden beam blasted into space.
“Don’t do me any favors,” Ritter said. “You lost the right to give me orders when you threw in with Megami!”
Sieg drew one of the two plasma swords from his CF’s back, ignited the yellow blade, and swung at Prometheus’ head. “Don’t meddle in my family’s business!”
Ritter blocked the incandescent blade. More layers of armor steamed off his shield. “That ‘business’ is global-scale murder!”
“Surviving in outer space forced the colonists to put aside their differences.” Sieg feinted and slashed diagonally upward across the white XSeed’s torso. More armor boiled away. “We had peace until contact resumed with grounders. War is a contagion, and Earth is the source. My sister has to sterilize the planet!”
“That’s not Megami’s decision to make,” Ritter yelled as he slammed Prometheus’ foot into its red twin’s chest. “Does she really think she’s a god?”
The red XSeed pivoted behind Ritter and locked Prometheus in a full nelson. Ritter thrashed his CF’s arms but couldn’t break the hold.
“Megami wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t failed Elizabeth,” said Sieg. “She’s my responsibility.”
“Then stop her,” Ritter said.
“You don’t understand what she’s become,” said Sieg. “I’m too weak.”
Ritter fired his retrorockets with an anguished cry. The red XSeed released him and shot away a second before Prometheus crashed backwards through a solid section of colony mirror.
37
Naryal and Jean-Claude skimmed over the jungle canopy ten kilometers west of Kisangani. Half that distance ahead, the six Zwei Dolphs rushed toward them. Jagannath handled better than ever thanks to Zeklov’s fine-tuning, but Veillantif’s gargoyle-like frame quickly overtook her gold CF.
“M. Zeklov is a true artist,” Jean-Claude said. “His refinements to Veillantif have exceeded my high expectations. I feel like I could destroy the entire enemy squad alone.”
Naryal rolled aside from a red plasma bolt that burned through the tropical air. “Be my guest.”
Jean-Claude pressed Veillantif’s saw-toothed wings to its back and surged ahead. He weaved between a volley of plasma bolts and charged the point of the Dolphs’ wedge formation. As he flew past, his sword shattered the lead Dolph’s shield, and his whip decapitated the CF to the leader’s right. Naryal detonated the headless Dolph with a green bolt from her plasma rifle.
The five remaining Zwei Dolphs held their formation and their laser-straight course toward the launch site. Remarkable discipline, Naryal admitted. She climbed above their field of crimson fire and answered with two emerald bolts of her own. The Dolph squad dived under the first shot, but the second hit the shieldless leader’s weapon. The rifle exploded, along with its owner’s arms and head. The rest of the smoldering CF crashed into the jungle.
Jean-Claude came about with deadly grace and closed with the leftmost Zwei Dolphs as the squad streaked below Naryal. She joined the chase, harrying the two Dolphs on the right with plasma bolts. Her targets avoided her shots, but Jean-Claude’s prey fared more poorly.
Veillantif’s barbed whip coiled around one target’s legs. Jean-Claude rocketed ahead to the right, swinging the entangled Dolph into its squadmate and retracting his whip. The Dolphs survived the collision, but they broke formation and cut their speed. Veillantif turned again to engage both Kazoku at close quarters. The Dolphs drew their red plasma swords and responded in kind.
Naryal racked her plasma rifle inside her shield and drew Jagannath’s two-handed plasma sword. One of her quarry fired from the hip as she ignited her emerald blade. The red bolt clipped Jagannath’s left leg, fusing the knee joint. With a curse she rushed the offender down and swung her oversized energy sword. The Dolph rolled over and tried to block, but Naryal’s blade clove through the shield and its bearer. The blue CF fell from the sky in two charred halves.
Jagannath’s early warning alarm trilled. Six red boxes appeared on her monitor, screaming toward the spaceport from the south at Mach 1. “New enemy wave inbound!” Naryal broadcast over the comm. “ETA thirty seconds.”
“Ritter mentioned two shuttles breaking off from the Metis fleet,” said Jean-Claude. “One launched its Dolphs early to draw us away from their main assault.” He pivoted t
o isolate one Dolph between him and its squadmate, severed its sword hand with his whip, and ran his rapier through its cockpit before breaking off toward the spaceport. The two surviving Dolphs trailed behind.
“What kind of butcher sends her own men into the path of an asteroid strike?” Naryal said as she followed Veillantif at full speed. I’ve underestimated you yet again, she silently confessed to Megami. Death would serve me right, but I’ll keep fighting you to the last.
Ruby lights flashed from the second wave of Dolphs. Oily orange fireballs rose from outbuildings near the launch pad, but the shuttle itself remained unscathed. They’re just calibrating their weapons, realized Naryal, but they’re already in range of Larson’s shuttle. We won’t make it in time!
Four green circles in an echelon formation swept onto Naryal’s screen from the left. Missiles streaked toward the six Zwei Dolphs, tracing white contrails past the launch tower. The second Dolph squad broke formation to evade the inbound ordnance.
“EGE Air Corps Lieutenant Walker, here,” a confident masculine voice said over the comm. “You CF jockeys can’t hog all the fun. My boys’ll get these Socs off the Colonel’s back.”
Four sleek Shenlong strike aircraft hurtled straight toward the newly arrived Dolphs. The fighters opened up with their Vulcan cannons, but the 20mm rounds bounced off the combat frames’ shields. The lead Zwei Dolph raised a staff in its right hand. Two red blades ignited on both ends.
“It’s the pilot who led the attack on our fleet,” Jean-Claude shouted. “Walker, pull your men back!”
Masz accelerated. The two foremost Shenlongs tried to bank away. But a shot from the twin plasma cannon in the custom Zwei Dolph’s shield vaporized Walker’s jet, and its plasma fork burned through his wingman’s cockpit.
The fourth Shenlong in line took a plasma bolt that tore apart its left wing. The EGE pilot aimed his crippled aircraft at the Soc who’d shot him and opened the throttle. The jet and the CF collided in a midair fireball. The last Shenlong vanished over the horizon.
Naryal clenched her teeth. The mass dogfight had taken only seconds, but it would be seconds more until she could risk firing on the Zwei Dolphs without hitting the shuttle. Veillantif was faster, but it lacked ranged weapons, and each of them had a Zwei Dolph from the first wave in hot pursuit.
“It’s getting awful hot out there,” Larson radioed from the beleaguered shuttle. “Quit jerking off, and clear us for launch.”
“You’re not fully fueled,” said Huang.
“We just need enough to fly this bomb up Metis’ ass,” Larson said. “Nobody’s under the illusion this is a two-way trip.”
Masz came to a midair stop a hundred meters from the launch tower. He aimed his dual cannon at the helpless shuttle. With a final burst of speed, Veillantif crossed the burning port and slammed into the custom Zwei Dolph shield-first. Both combat frames tumbled sideways through the smoke-filled air.
Naryal’s heart swelled, but fear curbed her rush of triumph. Masz pulled out of his spin as his four squadmates entered point blank range of the shuttle. In desperation she fired on the Zwei Dolphs from 1500 meters away. Her shots demolished the tower beyond Larson’s but stalled the Kazoku for another moment.
Masz jetted back toward the shuttle. Jean-Claude righted Veillantif and gave chase. The custom Zwei Dolph rounded on him. Jean-Claude lashed his whip around the haft of Masz’s plasma fork and pulled. The fork jerked forward to Veillantif’s left, but Masz gripped his weapon with both hands. Using Jean-Claude’s momentum, he twisted and cut the heat whip.
Jean-Claude sprang back but collected himself and flourished his sword. “That shuttle and her crew are under my protection. You will not lay one finger on them!”
“Miss Megami wants this planet dead,” said Masz, “starting with them.” He pointed his shield at the shuttle over Veillantif’s left shoulder. Jean-Claude swatted at the Dolph’s shield with his own, but Masz fired a shot that disintegrated Veillantif’s shield arm as his fork severed its sword hand. An upward slash of the fork’s other end reached behind Veillantif and melted its thruster nozzles. Jean-Claude fell, trailing a string of French curses.
Seeing the man of whom she’d grown quite fond crash to the broken ground kindled unexpected wrath in Naryal. She adjusted course to intercept Masz as he raced for the shuttle. Two Zwei Dolphs blocked her path. She turned left but found herself facing two more. A glance at her screens showed six Dolphs surrounding her.
Naryal charged ahead, firing wildly. Both Kazoku between her and the launch tower broke off in opposite directions. The reason dawned on her just before the Dolphs at her back pumped two plasma bolts into her main thrusters. After a dread heartbeat of weightlessness, she managed to slow her descent with maneuvering thrusters. The impact wrecked Jagannath’s legs, but Naryal survived.
“Prem.” Jean-Claude’s voice could barely be heard pronouncing her given name over the comm static, but Naryal breathed a sigh of relief to learn he still lived.
“I’m alright,” she assured him.
“Thank God. But Larson…”
Naryal locked her main camera on the launch tower. The custom Zwei Dolph hovered within fifty meters of the shuttle. She watched in impotent rage as Masz fired. Red flames burst from the cockpit windows. The killer’s hysterical laughter flooded the comm.
Masz’s shield exploded. A lone green circle appeared on Naryal’s screen.
“All stations fire at will,” ordered Major Alan Collins.
The same green and brown attack helicopter that Larson’s team had arrived on swung around the launch tower from the left. The four turrets on its blistered nose blazed, chewing off chunks of the Zwei Dolph’s armor.
Masz rushed Collins’ helo, but a shot from the aircraft’s 70mm cannon snapped the twin fork in half and mangled the CF’s right hand beyond recognition. The helo climbed, letting the Zwei Dolph barrel past, and smoothly came about with its rotor angled toward the ground. Another salvo ate away the Dolph’s thrusters.
The custom Zwei Dolph plowed face-first into a fuel truck garage. The crash didn’t spark an explosion, but Collins’ crew made up what was lacking with a pair of missiles. A wave of hellfire washed away combat frame and pilot alike.
But six Kazoku remained.
“Collins, watch your back,” Naryal urged the Major as all six Dolphs took flight after the aircraft that had shot down their leader. The helo fled toward the city in a serpentine motion ahead of searing red plasma beams, but it couldn’t match the combat frames’ speed.
“This is Zeklov transport ZV-011,” a Russian-accented voice announced over the comm. “We diverted from a convoy making delivery to the EGE fleet. Do you still need assistance?”
“Yes!” Naryal, Jean-Claude, and Collins answered at once.
“Roger that,” the Zeklov pilot said.
Naryal’s camera fixed itself on five enormous aircraft soaring high above the northeast horizon. Ten green circles lit up her screen before she saw the new combat frames speeding toward the spaceport. Their olive drab hulls were a compromise between earlier models’ curves and the Dolphs’ hard edges. Their grilled domes swiveled in search of targets for the 115mm machine guns in their hands and the missile launchers attached to their legs.
Grenzmark IIIs!
The Dolphs lost interest in Collins and focused their fire on the descending Grenthrees. The new CFs’ stout appearance belied their agility. Only two fell in the initial assault. The EGE pilots had spent weeks running simulations against Ein Dolphs, and the same tactics proved effective against their successors. 115mm rounds destroyed plasma rifles while missiles rained down on the Kazoku formation.
The Grenzmark IIIs are equal in performance to the Zwei Dolphs, Naryal observed, if not slightly superior. The EGE pilots also had the advantage in numbers and knowledge of their enemy. The battle’s outcome looked promising.
Not that victory mattered in light of the asteroid on an inevitable collision course with Earth.
“Wil
l someone release the damn launch clamps already?” Larson panted.
“Colonel?” Major Collins said. “You’re still alive?”
“You’d better hope I won’t be for long,” said Larson. “Went back to prep the package for evac when Huang gave me the runaround. Missed the cockpit barbecue, but this whole boat’s going up in flames. Power surge started the timer. I can still launch from the engine room. If you don’t release those clamps right now, we’ll all have prime real estate on a brand new sun.”
“A sun?” asked Huang. “I thought it was an asteroid.”
“Release the bloody clamps!” Naryal screamed.
High above, the Kazoku and EGE combat frame teams met in close combat. If the Grenthrees fell short of their opponents’ ranged weapons capability, their double-bladed plasma lances easily overpowered the Zwei Dolphs’ swords. The melee claimed three Dolphs but only one Grenthree.
The shuttle’s rockets ignited with a roar that Jagannath’s cockpit barely muffled. The spacecraft lifted off the pad on a billowing exhaust column. Combatants on both sides paused and watched the shuttle rise blindly into the sky.
Naryal’s monitor dimmed the nuclear flash, but she still had to blink to clear her vision. Her sensors showed that the bomb had detonated at a safe range from Earth’s surface. Well done, Griff.
The manmade star faded. But Metis remained, drawing closer for judgment.
38
The acrid smoke from the burning Grento dissipated, and the trees gave way to a broad field of manicured grass. Max trudged between the blackened ruins of two work frames, pressing his hand against the wreck on his right as he passed. The palm of his glove came away blacked with soot. He started at a flurry of sound and motion to his left and drew his gun on what turned out to be a flight of birds rising from the other work frame’s remains.
Max pressed on toward the walled compound in the distance. He kept his pistol ready for an assault from a covert security team, but he reached the gate unchallenged. Though the thick steel bars were shut tight, a bullet took care of the lock. No one responded to the shots.
Combat Frame XSeed Page 28