Mech Warrior: Born of Steel (Mechanized Infantry Division Book 1) Page 10

  “Oh no, for the famous Doctor Sylvia Heathcote, military scientist, my employers have arranged something personal. Sounds like they want to meet you…” the man said with a wolfish smile. One that told Sylvia that, as much as he relished the idea that she would be no more, he didn’t relish having more work to do.

  “Why would they want to meet me, of all people?” Sylvia said tersely. “I haven’t got anything to offer them, if they’re looking for money.” Which was mostly true. She had savings, of course—but she hardly thought a few thousand dollars would be worth all of this…

  Ah. And then she blinked as she saw the man wave her ID once again. Is that what this is? These looters think they can blackmail me? Threaten me into handing over military secrets?

  “So, it looks like you’re coming with us. At least for the moment. Make yourself comfortable and shut up,” the man growled. “Because as far as I’m concerned, you were an accident—and I have no problem with telling the bosses that another accident happened on your way out. Got it?”

  Sylvia looked at the man and considered screaming one more time.

  Not now and not here, she told herself. She had her ankles and her wrists tied, and she was pretty badly beaten up and dehydrated, from the feel of the monster headache about to take over her reality.

  Not yet, she promised herself as she nodded.

  “Good.” The man let her go and stood up with a heavy groan. “Grab that crate,” he shouted to the others. Sylvia saw that two of the four looters reached for a heavy wooden pallet box with something stamped on the side. Trinity? Triton?

  “No kicking,” said the burr of her handler.

  Sylvia just hissed at him as he seized her by the waist and threw her over his shoulder as easily as a sack of potatoes.

  They left the covering mask off Sylvia’s visor this time, and the doctor caught a flash of rubble and concrete before her vision was obscured by the cloth of the man’s responder suit. She didn’t have any idea where they were or where they were going, either.

  Dammit! the doctor thought.

  17

  Watkin’s Place

  >Biological Scan Complete…

  “I got it,” Dane breathed, watching as the glowing red specks on his HUD overlay morphed into the faint flare of an arrow, pointing in one direction.

  “You’re tracking the blood trail?” Osgud said sternly. “Not anything else?”

  “Not anything else,” Dane nodded. As far as I know, he thought. It had taken a few minutes to work out how to use the scanning protocol controls. But it turned out that each AMP suit, being designed as a multi-purpose fighter and emergency response vehicle for their damaged world, could also isolate biological signatures and then run scans detecting identical signatures nearby.

  Creating a handy treasure map, Dane thought. Only the “treasure” might be something icky at the end, not a pot of gold.

  They had found the doctor’s phone by the bullet-scarred tree, showing that it had to be Doctor Heathcote who had been nearby.

  “But what do you think she was doing in a car?” Dane frowned at the sight before them.

  “Clearly getting away from the people shooting at her, you idiot,” Osgud said, nodding to the rear of the vehicle, which was doing a passable impression of being a cheese grater, with all the bullet holes it had in its rear.

  “Private Williams?” Osgud nodded, and Dane took the lead, following the trail of blood deeper into his old home.

  Red Squad quick-marched as best as they could over the rough terrain, pausing only to recalibrate the scanners and to lock on once again to the blood trail.

  “We can’t be that much further behind them,” Osgud was saying, indicating the suits they were wearing.

  Annoying, Dane thought, but he had to agree with Osgud. These suits supported their humans inside, and nearly walked themselves, tirelessly, as soon as you started to move your body. There was no doubt that they could cross difficult terrain that their quarry would have trouble passing. Several times already, the four AMP wearers had bounded over cars and drifts of rubble when the blood trail had to pick careful paths around them.

  “We’re going to have to start thinking about the containment strategy.” Osgud surprised Dane by thinking tactically. “Our best option is that the doctor is wandering around mindless. Probably injured, but the other possibility, given the bullets, is that…”

  “She was taken,” Dane agreed, throwing a glance up the side of one of the broken-open buildings as a heavy block dislodged itself and fell to the ground with a giant crash.

  Dane jumped back, waited, but that appeared to be the only danger.

  “Pull it together, Private!” Osgud snapped at him with a scornful groan. If Dane had thought that Osgud was mellowing a little in his hate toward him, he was apparently wrong.

  “But yes,” Osgud continued. “If she was taken, we can assume that we outclass them easily in our suits…”

  “But we can’t risk injuring the doctor in the process,” Dane cut in, thinking out loud.

  “Whose mission is this, Private?” Osgud turned on him suddenly, even taking a heavy clanking step toward him. “You want to interrupt me one more time, Private? You think you can do a better job!?”

  Crack.

  Osgud had gotten about halfway to Dane’s position when suddenly the rubble underneath him shifted. Dane registered a moment of shock from the man as one giant foot disappeared downwards into a hidden gulf below—and then the rest of him started falling.

  “Osgud!” Dane leapt, belly-flopping on the ground and making his teeth and jaw jar with the impact—even through the padded suspension of his suit plates—to skid toward where the man was dropping through the pile of rubble, dust exploding and shifting on either side of him…

  “Rarrgh!” Dane managed to grab a metal wrist and felt himself slide as he jammed his boot toes and other hand against the rocks…

  “Holy spit! Don’t you dare let go, Williams!” Osgud was shouting and waving as Dane skidded to a halt, his head and half his shoulders hanging over a gulf in the city floor.

  The rubble pile had collapsed inwards on itself like it was made of sand, and now Dane was lying across the fractured bottom of a hole, one hand holding onto the wrist of his acting superior officer, dangling before an abyss.

  Not an abyss, Dane thought. The suit lights around his collar and visor mantle automatically started to brighten as his head was in gloom. He saw that down there appeared to be some sort of tunnel.

  “Watkin’s Plaza!” Dane suddenly gasped, as he realized what was underneath them.

  “What the crap are you talking about? Get me up, you idiot!” Osgud was waving, his legs kicking over the cream marbled floors.

  Dane’s arms started to ache, even with all the added and assisted strength. “Rargh!” he grunted in exasperation.

  “Come on, pull me up! God help us!” Osgud was starting to panic as Dane slid a little closer to the edge.

  “I—I’m trying!” Dane gasped, using his one arm and knees to lever backward…

  “Dane!”

  “Osgud, sir!” It was the others, skidding to the top of the hole, sending more blocks of rubble jumping down around them.

  “Don’t come down!” Dane hissed hurriedly. He remembered Watkin’s Plaza. It was a sunken shopping precinct under Watkin’s Place, and he would have recognized the reinforced floor glass between the two if there hadn’t been all of that rubble and broken building in the way. The Plaza underneath was plush and open-plan, and was one of the largest entrances to the New Sanctuary subway stations…

  “What are you talking about!” Osgud kicked again. He was starting to swing, and that was making Dane’s shoulder scream in agony. “You can’t haul me up. You can barely walk, let alone—” Osgud snarled in panic.

  “The ground,” Dane gasped in effort, pulling as much as he could, backward. “The ground won’t take it…” he was saying, knowing that Watkin’s Place (the above-ground copy) was a pede
strian shopping precinct, with kitschy market stalls at Christmas and Thanksgiving. It was designed for foot traffic, not vehicles, and certainly not great piles of broken buildings with half-ton robot Mechs scrambling over them.

  “Williams, you idiot!” Osgud shouted, thrashing and reaching up for the lip of the roof.

  “Stop moving! You’re only making it worse!” Dane whispered, just before there was a disconcertingly loud and sharp crack from around him, and the ground fell away.

  “Argh!” Dane shouted.

  18

  Life Signs

  Dane and Osgud crashed to the floor of Watkin’s Plaza, with Osgud unfortunately a tangle of metal limbs under Dane’s AMP suit.

  “Get off me, you idiot!” Osgud was shouting as soon as he had gotten the wind back into his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Osgud…” Dane was groaning, rolling off his acting superior officer and staggering to his feet. The bright LED lights of his suit illuminated the wide place around him, the air filled with shifting dust and stone particles. He remembered a time when this place had glittered like Christmas: lots of glass, lots of steel, lots of lights illuminated the subterranean shopping precinct…

  “Fool!” But the acting superior officer in question was also staggering to his feet, and, as Dane turned, he felt a sudden, violent shove hit him in the back.

  Dane staggered forward on steel and bronze legs, almost falling over, before regaining his balance on the marble floors and spinning around.

  To see Osgud coming for him, striding forward, his arms rising.

  I knew it. Dane was only too ready for this, already sliding one foot back as he raised his own arms in a defensive block.

  “Sir! Williams!” But voices were shouting down from above. Varakis and Greene, and their note of alarm cut through even Osgud’s anger.

  “Are you okay? Shall I radio for aid?” Varakis was shouting. Osgud pulled up short at the suggestion. Dane couldn’t see the other two Mech Marines up there, but he could see the lights of their suits, and the bits of ceiling still dislodging from the hole that he and Osgud had created.

  “No! Don’t you dare call the sergeant!” Osgud shouted, at the same that Dane called up.

  “Be careful—the entire ceiling here is unstable!” Dane shouted over the suit-to-suit communicator.

  “How else are they going to get us out of here, you idiot!?” Osgud rounded on Dane. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be up there by now!”

  Huh? Dane couldn’t quite see how the man had come to think that, as it had been Dane’s hand that had been trying to haul Osgud back up to the surface, after all…

  “It was an accident, sir.” Dane said the last word caustically. “This entire place is a sunken shopping precinct. There should be access stairs over…” He turned this way and that, trying to get his bearings. It was hard in the gloom, but he thought that he had it. “Over there, I think.” He gestured.

  “You’d better be right, Williams,” Osgud snarled. “And consider yourself lucky that I’m not getting Lashmeier involved in this!”

  What!? Dane gritted his teeth, but said nothing. The only reason that Osgud wasn’t telling the sergeant, Dane thought, as he started walking in the direction to where he though the pedestrian stairs were, was that Osgud didn’t want to lose face…

  “Ugh,” Dane groaned to himself, as the distant edge of the shops emerged into view, their windows smashed, and the designer clothes and expensive watches scattered across the floor. The line of shops extended along the main concourse, but there, up ahead, was the statue of some dead general, still standing, next to the crossroads, on one side of which should be the stairs…

  Which were entirely blocked by rubble and broken roof tiles.

  “Oh frack…” Dane groaned.

  “What? You see!?” Osgud took it as a personal sign of Dane’s apparent ineptitude. “You said you knew a way out of here! If I have to get the other trainees to come and rescue you…”

  Rescue us, you mean. Dane glowered. He really wanted to thump Osgud right about now. But he was pretty sure he knew where that would end.

  Me getting kicked back to Sacramento, probably…

  “I grew up in New Sanctuary,” Dane said. “That’s how I know.” He turned around, to the other side of the crossroads. “The lifts at the far end of the concourse are probably broken or have a building lying on top of them,” he murmured. “And the next set of stairs leads up to Lafayette Gardens.”

  Osgud just looked at him, his face a gleam of ghostly flesh behind his faceplate. “Fine. Let’s just get out of here. Believe me, Williams, I don’t want to be stuck down here with you for one minute longer than I have to!”

  The feeling’s mutual, sir, Dane thought, and started to trudge forward, past the statue of some dead general.

  This corridor started to turn almost immediately in a wide, encircling arc. On one side of the tiled walls were supposed to be civic art—framed displays of notable New Sanctuary artists. Each one had been broken or smashed in the bombardment. On the other side were more store openings, each one as ghostly, abandoned, and wrecked as the last.

  Dane was starting to feel worse and worse about seeing his hometown like this, certain that there was nothing of his old life that wasn’t broken, nothing that remained standing…

  Including me? he thought dourly, just as the biological scanner on his suit flared into life.

  Blip!

  “You got that?” Dane breathed, looking up to see that the Acting Lieutenant had similarly halted, as well.

  The green-eye icon in the top right-hand corner of Dane’s faceplate HUD was bouncing, and there was a green glowing light off to his right, inside one of the wrecked storefronts.

  Too big to be a rat, Dane thought. These scanners were calibrated to human signals…

  “I got it, Williams. I’m not blind,” Osgud muttered. “This isn’t the direction that the original scans were…”

  “No, sir,” Dane said, frozen in place. But what if it was a civilian? Someone who needed their help? Or what if… Dane was thinking, before Osgud himself voiced the same concern.

  “Doesn’t mean that whomever took the doctor didn’t abandon her down here, or she ran away from her kidnappers…” Osgud said, suddenly squaring his shoulders. “This could be my chance!” he muttered and started forwards into the trashed shop.

  Our chance? Dane thought with an internal groan. Whatever. It didn’t seem like Osgud was going to change. And, in a strange way, it was almost reassuring for Dane to realize that Osgud felt the same sort of need to prove himself in the eyes of Lashmeier that Dane himself did.

  “On me,” Osgud said with a snarl, slowing his steps as he crunched over drifts of clothes that would have been hundreds and hundreds of dollars before the Exin attack.

  “There, at the back,” Osgud breathed, raising his arm laser and sighting down it. The store inside was a complete mess, with silver racks staggering haphazardly against each other or collapsed against mannequins.

  It was a deep shop, and one with several pillars supporting the roof and different departments inside even this one. Dane’s suit scanners could pick up a faint ticking noise as some internal plumbing or pipework continued to try to function—albeit badly…

  And there, at the back of the store where the lights were out, was a movement. Dane saw one of the rails wobble and then clang against its neighbor in the dark.

  “Hey!” Osgud called out, his voice not sounding at all certain. “Doctor Heathcote, is that you? The cavalry’s here,” he was saying, as there was another movement from the rear of the shop. More scrapes and clattering.

  “Maybe she’s hurt!” Osgud suddenly said.

  Fear clutched at both men’s hearts as they broke into a run, heading toward the wounded person…

  Who wasn’t wounded at all. And in fact, wasn’t even a person, Dane saw as the sensors on his HUD flared into an alert.

  >Unidentified Biological!

  “Sckckrckrckr!” So
mething with green and gray scaly skin and four legs leapt from the back of the room at them, extending a small, bulbous head which petaled open like a flower—only one that was encrusted with rows and rows of shining white teeth…

  19

  Multiple Contacts

  “Exin!” Osgud was shouting as he fired off a shot from his arm and fell backward.

  He is right, of course. Dane recognized the scaled color of the skin of the creature from the autopsy photographs of downed Exin seed-craft and what they contained (photographs that had been delivered by none other than Doctor Heathcote, ironically).

  But this is like no Exin I’ve ever seen before… Dane managed to briefly think as he threw himself to one side, in a crash of clothes hangers and shop ornaments.

  “Sckckrckr!” The creature landed with a skitter of clawed limbs on the floor. It sprang, immediately getting clothes stuck to its claws as it spun around to the nearest prey.

  Osgud.

  Thap! The Acting Lieutenant was crouched on one knee, and his right arm was recoiling as he fired a lancing crimson-white bolt of heat at the creature. Dane saw it glare through the air and hit the Exin-thing on the side with a blackened hiss of flesh and scale.

  “SCKRARGH!” The creature bellowed, bounding forward into a leap toward the human that had hurt it. The creature was unlike any other Exin because it wasn’t humanoid in any sense. It wasn’t bipedal, and its body was made of a huge, rounded, green and gray-scaled bulbous shape. More like some sort of wild animal than a member of an intelligent space-faring civilization…

  “OSGUD!” Dane shouted and fired his own forearm laser. Punching out with his fist toward the leaping thing.

  Thap! It struck the thing near the shoulder, batting it slightly off course as Osgud dove out of the way. The thing’s outstretched claws missed him by mere inches, and that was all…