Metal Warrior: Steel Curtain (Mech Fighter Book 8) Read online

  Good, Dane thought, giving them a brief nod as first Isaias and then the others stepped down from their cradles. The AMPs were an impressive sight at nearly seven feet tall, but Dane knew that would only put them on an equal height with the four-armed Exin warrior caste.

  “Assemble at the Gladius! Await further orders!” Dane heard himself bark as his gaze turned to what was stored behind the AMP suit cradles.

  Yes, each of the AMPs were impressive. They were large. But they were still nothing compared to what Dane was now striding toward.

  The Traveler Mechs.

  “Security protocol!” There was a sudden squeal of a static voice as Dane strode toward the rear of launch bay two where it was kept perpetually dim with only a few floor lights. He saw a flash of green light and felt a tingling sensation across his skin as the biological scanners read him and identified him correctly as one of the few humans who did have access here.

  “Access granted!” The robotic voice once again squealed. This time, as Dane walked forward, the path ahead was lit up by brighter lights, illuminating his path to one of the two remaining metal constructs left here—the rest already having been loaded into the Gladius’ and the Ares’ holds.

  “Dane!” It was Bruce, jogging up behind him after his own security check. Dane’s friend was going to join him in operating one of the new, alien-built War Mechs, and together, they had the ability to remotely control five more each.

  “They’re beauties, aren’t they?” Even the usually taciturn Cheng, an ex-sumo wrestler, had to be impressed with the strange new creations.

  Or old creations, Dane had to admit. How did he know how old they were? They certainly looked pristine, but that didn’t mean that they were.

  Both of them were easily twelve feet tall with a hunched appearance, the shoulders reaching above the helmet, with a short torso to boot. They were bipedal with legs attached to a forward-jutting wedge chassis of body and cockpit rolled into one, and had two long, three-jointed arms that they held folded ahead of them like ancient, predatory dinosaurs.

  But that was where the comparisons to reptiles and predators ended. Because, while the path lit up around them, Dane found himself looking at two stilled metal creatures made from fluted blue-and-silver steels interspersed with plates of ruddy copper, edged with crystal veins. At their shoulders there swung backwards two iridescent sheets like wings that Dane knew from past experience looked gossamer light, but were actually as hard as sheet metal.

  They were improbable and impossible beings sculpted by the ancient alien race known as the Travelers—or the Passed On—who had shared this new type of Mech with Dane since they were no friends of the warlike, expansionist Exin empire.

  However, this is all that we are going to get out of them, apparently, Dane had to consider. He remembered his time on that strange, crystalline planet. They had pretended to be isolationist, to be above such things as galactic wars—and yet they definitely didn’t want the Exin to win!

  “Suit up,” Dane murmured under his breath as he walked toward the Traveler Mech. The small suit lights on its undercarriage and sides lit up as his genetic profile approached. The creature took one tentative step forward on its own and leaned forward, almost placing its snoutlike chassis head to the floor as Dane reached it.

  The wedge-shaped chassis petaled open backwards, revealing his own AMP suit already integrated inside. The Traveler Mechs were more than large enough to accommodate a suited-up Marine as a pilot, and advanced enough to temporarily fuse their own systems into the AMP while it was inside. From his previous trainings in the suit, Dane knew what he had to do. He turned around and held out his arms, feeling the soft pressure of the metal coils snake around his legs, waist, and shoulders.

  “Hss!” He let out a brief hiss of breath as he always did when the Traveler War Mech lifted him easily into the air. Not because of any discomfort (Dane hardly felt any pressure applied to his body whatsoever, in fact) but because of what was about to happen.

  He was lightly pulled into the body of the Traveler Mech and saw only darkness as the chassis closed around him.

  He saw nothing.

  Then he felt pressure, movement around his body, as the Traveler Mech automated itself around him. Again, nothing was uncomfortable—but it was quite unsettling.

  Lights gently flared into existence a heartbeat later, and Dane found that he was cradled inside a supportive X-harness before the angled cockpit windows. Instead of the leather-and-canvas straps that the Marine Corps used, there were strips of something like soft, flexible metal around his wrists, arms, legs, and waist. When he moved his arms, the arms of the Traveler Mech outside swung into action.

  The short space between him and the cockpit screen glittered with the sparkle of a blue holofield, as alien and human commands appeared, scrolling and flashing through the air.

  >Good afternoon, Dane . . .

  The words were accompanied by a smooth, neutral-tone voice, one that Dane thought was subtly feminine.

  “A-Mech,” Dane greeted it. It had been disconcerting at first to be talked to by the machine he was to pilot. But Dane was assured that each one only had a very low-intentioned artificial intelligence built into them—no greater than the intelligent routines built into the Marine Corps AMP suits—only the Marine Corps hadn’t given their AMPs humanoid voices.

  >I am ready for Operation: Hammer Blow, Sergeant. Do you want the tactical briefing as we disembark?

  Alongside her words and voice, Dane saw that the field flickered with the results of scans and operational procedures. Internal temperature readings, biological and health scans of himself (all good) and readings of their surroundings. Slight flashes of hazy, almost transparent amber highlighted certain areas that could be hazards or were of importance outside the Mech—the most prominent one being the open hold doors of the Gladius itself.

  “Williams?” It was Bruce on the suit-to-suit communications array. Dane turned (and the giant metal body turned with him) to see the accompanying Traveler War Mech raise one hand in a salute.

  “See you on the other side,” he heard Bruce say, and Dane saluted back.

  “Good hunting, brother,” Dane said, before turning back to the Gladius as Bruce made his own way to the Ares.

  >Operation Hammer Blow CLASSIFIED . . .

  >>Senior Commanding Officer OTEPI . . .

  >>Strike Operation (Special Forward Task Force with Gold and Silver Squad Orbital Marine support) . . .

  The neon words scrolled in front of Dane as they were spoken by A-Mech while Dane strode toward the welcoming hold of the Gladius.

  They were technically the support squad for Captain Otepi, who would be attacking the space-based ansible transmitters.

  >Mission Parameters:

  >>SFTF to make first strike against ansible transmitter target . . .

  >>Gold Squad to deploy to planet surface and secondary targets . . .

  >>Gold Squad to identify and destroy the means of powering ansible transmitter . . .

  >>SFTF to provide air cover and close aerial support once initial target mission achieved . . .

  “All right.” Dane heaved a sigh as he stepped into the Gladius to see the five other Traveler War Mechs standing solid and silent along one side of the walls. The much smaller Gold Squad AMPs stood on the other side, like a perverse before-and-after photo.

  “Uhr, Sarge?” He heard Hendrix’s worried murmur through the suit-to-suit transmitters as, one by one, his Gold Squad regarded the new encapsulation of their senior officer. This would be the first fielding of this new technology, and Dane knew that everyone would be jittery.

  “I’m still in here, Private.” Dane managed to chuckle, taking his place beside the other automated Traveler Mechs. These would follow his commands and behavioral patterns when down on the surface of the planet to achieve the mission parameters, Dane knew. Really, the firepower in these alone might be enough to blow away buildings, but the Marine Corps had insisted—and Dane felt
infinitely better about this—that he have actual human marines down there with him too.

  “You all get the memo?” Dane called out, for his voice to be beamed to the others in their suits. “The ansible transmitter is apparently powered by some kind of planet-based giant battery complexes. Our job is to take them out, and when we’ve done that—the whole of the Exin front line goes dark!”

  “BOOYAH!” Dane heard his marines chorus.

  And Dane had to admit—clad as he was in this new, advanced alien mech—he almost shared their confident enthusiasm too.

  “We’re locked and loaded and ready to launch, Sarge!” the voice of Joey Corsoni came to them over the ship’s speakers. A moment later, the command group orders flickered over Dane’s holoscreens and over every one of the other marine’s internal HUDs.

  >Operation Hammer Blow is go!

  >Launch. . .

  2

  Target Acquired

  In the busy metropolitan space around Jupiter, ports flared open and launch doors slid ajar. The dome of the Marine Training Platform—home to the majority of humanity’s defenses—flickered with floodlights and the sudden escape of gases as dark vessels slid out into the night.

  They moved in their multitudes, three attack squadrons of twin-nacelle marine starfighters, spearing forward into the night. Satellite drones lit up with lights and the clamor of radio signals as they directed the eighteen crafts into flight lanes, breaking apart into three smooth vectors like the reach of a deadly hand.

  Outside the lanes, the work on the H-orbital had been momentarily suspended, and the forest of smaller logistical and storage platforms spun ceaselessly. The giant cargo ships, looking like three-part trains, hung for a moment, stalled by the military maneuver. The scatter of satellites and drones, some sensing, others transmitting, and all military, watched the perimeters for any threat of danger as the cohorts of humanity amassed.

  In front of this space metal spun the giant wheel of Deployment Gate One, its spokes each several hundred feet long and ending in a vast rim that flashed and flickered with sudden flares of electricity. The starlight between its spokes hazed and blurred, to be lightened and replaced by the crimson glow of tearing and burning particles. As the wheel spun and its motion accelerated, the crimson glow intensified—as did the lightning bursts and sparks. Great arcs of electricity shot out to touch the nearest of the crafts and satellites all around.

  And the central hub of Deployment Gate One, humanity’s stationary wormhole generator, vanished inside the maelstrom of red. It appeared that there hung over the vast weight of Jupiter a new storm—a baleful eye of red . . .

  Spearing ahead toward the center of that spectral storm flew the middle prong of the three squadrons of Marine Fighters. Just six ships, with only two of them, the Gladius and the Ares, containing marines, and the rest belonging to the command of Captain Otepi.

  They were the first in, the first strike—and they vanished into the hole ripped through space-time just as if they had thrown themselves into the maw of some infernal god.

  The counterattack had begun.

  The burning light faded away into nonexistence across the cockpit of Captain Otepi’s fighter, revealing before it the brightened vista of alien stars.

  >Systems Activating . . .

  >>Rebooting Scanners . . .

  There was the orb of the Exin frontier planet, instantly prominent and visually striking.

  “Where is it? Where is the transmitter?” Otepi cursed as her screens washed with the wave of green neon light, pinpointing the Exin devices—the satellites orbiting the distant world, the larger objects—

  >Target Acquired! . . .

  >>Exin Ansible Transmitter Station (5 objects) . . .

  >>Initiating Attack Plan . . .

  >Targets Acquired! . . .

  Orange arrows peeled off ahead of Otepi, zeroing in and magnifying the giant Exin spiderlike satellites, as her ship’s meson pulse weapons started to cycle.

  But then her attack computers blared new alarms. There were three hurtling objects coming toward them, heading up from the dark side of the planet.

  “Exin seed craft!” Otepi snarled. The recon mission hadn’t catalogued them before. Had it been human error, or had the Exin detected Lieutenant Tetlov’s recent incursion into their space? If that was the case, then the Exin frontier planet would be in a state of high alert. They might already be using the orbital ansible to call for immediate backup.

  And we only have four fighters. Enough for a surgical strike of the ansible, but not enough to hold a new front line against any arriving mother ships, Otepi thought.

  However, despite the apparent dangers, there could be no backing out. Not this late in the game. They had to achieve this. There were already two strike groups waiting on the other side of Deployment Gate One for their chance to move against the closest Exin planets. What had been planned as a series of lightning-fast disruption raids could all be lost in an instant.

  “If we’re not quick enough,” Otepi muttered, throwing her flight control sticks forward for the automated piloting controls to give power to her thrusters.

  “Captain!” It was Dane Williams inside the Gladius, which was being held behind them. “What is it?”

  “We’ve got three new targets, incoming,” Otepi said, “but there’s no time. Begin your attack run! Continue as ordered!”

  Sergeant Williams, to his credit, didn’t argue or hesitate. The Gladius and the Ares swooped down and away from the four-fighter squad and started their arc toward the distant Exin planet to take out the terrestrial reactors and power stations that fed the transmitter.

  “Fighter Two, with me—let’s clear them a path!” Otepi was shouting over her comms as she saw the targeting arrows line up with the nearest racing Exin seed craft. Gritting her teeth, she began to fire.

  Dane wished that he could be in the cockpit right now. He wished that he had his hands on the firing triggers as he felt the Gladius swerve and accelerate—the distant kick of the giant pulse thrusters combining with the more conventional propulsion rockets to fling them like a comet toward the planet’s surface.

  “On your left!” he called out. Corsoni had patched him into the Gladius’s tactical viewer, so that the forward screens of the battle were playing like a film right in front of him.

  And there was one of the three alien seed craft breaking away from the others and turning toward them, its pointed snub of a nose glittering with the white light of its pulse lasers.

  >Evasive Measures . . .

  Corsoni’s actions and the tactical computer’s decisions flowed seamlessly onto Dane’s own vision. He felt the Gladius outside his suit lurch once again, and they were spiral-rolling to one side as the scatter of lightning beams shot through the air toward them.

  WHAM!

  Several of them had hit the side of the Gladius. Dane’s worried glance moved to the instant damage report . . . Outer Plating (Lower Hull) reduced by about twenty percent. Not enough to break through to the lighter, more flexible inner hull, but enough to make them all shake with the impact.

  The seed craft were a damn sight more maneuverable than the larger Marine Fighters were. But only that. Dane knew that in a straight race, the Gladius had much more propulsive power than the slightly smaller craft did.

  “Hold on to your hats, people!” Dane heard Corsoni say before he suddenly killed the thrusters on one side of the Gladius and threw them into another tight, spiraling turn, this time corkscrewing in the opposite direction.

  It worked. The Exin seed craft raced above the position they had been in before smoothly turning, almost flawlessly, and racing back toward them. And gaining on them in moments . . .

  The Exin planet was now large ahead, filling almost half the screen. But the seed craft was closer. They might never make it to the surface at all.

  “Rear pulse lasers!” Dane heard Joey call, for the automated guns on the hull and canopy of the Gladius to react on soft A.I., swiveling t
o fire backwards.

  Inside the Traveler Mech and inside the Marine Fighter, Dane could feel the reverberations of the craft as they hit the outermost horizon of the planet’s gravity well.

  “Hit! And she’s down!” he heard Corsoni say, and Dane’s fists clenched instinctively as if he was grasping the trigger handles. Externally, the Traveler Mech closed its massive, clawed hands symbiotically.

  >Warning! Surface Energy Event Detected . . .

  Dane had a brief moment to swear to himself as the tactical computers flared with yet more alerts, and some psychic survival instinct in Joey caused him to roll the Gladius once more as the ship shook and flared with the burn of entry plasma.

  There was a brilliant flash of light on the tactical computers, and the accompanied readings surged off of the chart as an orbital defense beam—the same type that Dane had seen used on the Challenge Planet of the Exin—was fired up toward them.

  “Frack!” he heard Corsoni shout. “I thought we were supposed to be too fast for their radar . . .”

  Joey was busy finishing the sentence when there was another flash from the surface, and another solid white beam of light flew up. It missed them with its erratic firing, and now Dane could feel the Gladius trembling and shuddering as it made its entry to the planet. The scan images on Dane’s holofield showed static and noise, and he imagined the ship ablaze with fire as they tore through the alien upper atmosphere.

  “We’re too low for them to target! You did it, Corsoni!” Dane congratulated him—but his own words did little to encourage himself. The engineer had been right. Their mission was supposed to be so fast that their soft A.I. strategy computer had calculated to send them into atmospheric entry before the Exin could get their alien butts into gear, so to speak.