Metal Warrior: Steel Trap (Mech Fighter Book 3) Read online

  Dane heard a low whistle from among some of his men, and he could only agree. The AMP suits that they were used to were already strong enough to push around regular civilian cars. This added might would make them superhuman!

  “And these, you should take special note of.” Otepi paused to one side of the suit, tapping where the suit appeared to hump at the back. The marines eagerly filed around to take a better look as Otepi brought out her data pad to finger-scrape a few commands. A dull light flashed across the face-plate as the suit activated.

  “And what we are looking at here, gentlemen . . .” she said distractedly as she typed. In response, the sheathed plates that formed the humped back started to move, slide, and release.

  The back, shoulders, and chest of a regular AMP suit had defensive plates—thinner sleeves of metal that rose outwards a few inches to form a crumple zone around the main suit body. In these Orbital AMPs, they had a similar design, but what the expanding back sheaths revealed were what looked like two metal cannisters.

  “Rockets?” Dane guessed.

  “Thrusters,” Otepi corrected. “They raise a little from the back and are able to fire not-very-powerful but prolonged bursts of combustive gases. In an atmosphere like ours on Earth, it would aid with jumping and gliding—but it wouldn’t make you fly. In a zero-G vacuum, however, where there is next to no resistance, it is perfectly adequate to control movement. You will have to use your arms and legs to direct and orient your direction.”

  “Cool!” someone at the back said, earning a sharp glance from Otepi.

  “These are not meant to be cool, gentlemen. They are meant to be effective.” She then tapped the large, metal, and meaty right forearm of the suit in the place where the light laser was situated on the smaller AMPs. On these, it wasn’t there.

  “Instead of lasers, you will be supplied with these.” The captain swung around, hands on her data pad, for a light to illuminate an alcove in the wall, showcasing the range of weapons that each Orbital AMP suit would now be carrying.

  “Compression grenades. Micro-missile launcher set on the left arm.” The captain rattled off a list. “Flash grenades and special disrupter grenades—these are designed to cut and disturb electronic frequencies for short periods of time. Think of them like a localized EMP blast.”

  “A standard Field Blade,” she pointed to the knife held in place on the display wall, “as well as a Field Halligan.” She pointed at the bar that was almost as long as the Field Blade and looked like a cross between a crowbar and a mattock. At one end was a collection of outward-facing spikes, while at the other appeared to be a set of mechanical pincers. Dane had a recollection that such things—without the pincers—were used by firefighters to get into and out of buildings.

  Does that mean that they’re expecting us to deal with fire? Dane didn’t like the idea of that.

  “We believe this will be useful for overcoming metal obstructions,” Otepi said. “If you have to perform a ship-boarding maneuver.”

  Boarding maneuver, Dane repeated silently to himself. When we board an alien spacecraft. Or mothership. Even though Dane had fought the Exin directly, even though he had seen them, and he had even defeated them—it still didn’t sound possible.

  “Of course, you will see no projectile weapons here, because projectile weapons would be insane in pressurized compartments.” Otepi nodded, pointing at what Dane would have sworn were guns on the display. One was a large AMP-suit rifle (the size of a general purpose machine gun to a human) while the other was the size of a pistol—or the size of a submachine gun if held in non-suited hands.

  “These are energy weapons, using the same technology as the smart lasers on your forearms.” Otepi dared to give them all a savage grin, “only with a lot more oomph. Unlike blast weapons, they fire continuous beams, so . . .” Otepi frowned, then shrugged. “What the hell. It’ll be better to show you—suit up, marines!”

  Dane felt his jaw tighten into a grin as the lights above the cradles around him started to illuminate one after another. And the one on the right, the very first one, had his name glowing on the wall.

  L. CPL WILLIAMS, Dane.

  >ORBITAL AMP 023 Activating . . .

  >Cycling accelerator unit . . .

  As soon as the suit had petaled open, Dane settled himself inside. He felt the foam pads swell and support his frame as he clicked home the X-webbing. The breastplate closed with a slick click, and the face-plate helmet settled into the mantle collar to whir with a locking motion. Dane felt the rush of excitement that he always felt. Gone were the dangers and frailties of his virus-ravaged legs. He was now caparisoned in metal. He was reborn.

  >Recognizing User . . . L. CPL WILLIAMS, D . . .

  The holographic HUD on the interior of his face-plate flared into life, revealing the deployment hangar in perfect clarity. Glowing green insignia floated over the other members of his Orbital Marines.

  “Joey?” he asked, expecting to hear the reassuring confidence of Corsoni on the other end—but there was no answer. With a frisson of panic, Dane realized that he had no idea where his suit engineer was. Would Joey even be assigned to him on this mission?

  >General Systems Check . . . GOOD . . .

  >Filtration, Biological, Chemical, and Radionic Protections . . . GOOD . . .

  >Connecting to Federal Network . . .

  The lines of code scrolled down the inside of his suit as each operation came online. Dane saw a new insignia on his screen, a small circle revealing the local gravity—currently set at one.

  “Marines!” Instead of Joey’s voice in Dane’s ear, he heard Captain Otepi’s. “I’m running you through the initial suit-training program. Follow your on-screen directions.”

  In response, a flaring neon green arrow appeared directly in front of Dane.

  >Objective 1: Deploy . . .

  Dane stepped forward and found that he was at the front of the line. He jogged through the length of the hangar to where a set of metal double doors rolled back to reveal darkness. Before the doors was an equipment locker. A number of weapons were highlighted in his screen with glowing neon green. Dane picked up the field gun, the smaller pistol, and the hand-to-hand weapons before turning to see the green arrow directing him ahead. No grenades needed for this mission then, he considered.

  >Mission Parameters: Assault . . .

  Assault. That would mean they would be expected to be in combat training of some kind. Probably dummy rounds, maybe live rounds.

  “Marines!” Dane called out. “First eight with me, last with Bruce.” He calmly split the available Marines between him and the other Lance Corporal, Bruce Cheng. “Stay alert. We’re not sure what we’re facing, so diamond-patrol formation where possible.” He waited for the first eight marines behind him to collect their weapons before he burst into a jog, forward into the dark.

  He was on a wide metal ramp, his suit lights blazing, and it was leading down. He had the impression of a vast space rising above and before him. A large underground warehouse, he guessed, as the ramp hit the bottom of the floor. His suit lights gave him visibility only a few yards ahead. There were obstacles. Old metal oil drums, low concrete walls . . .

  “Thermals, radionics,” Dane called, and his HUD was swept with scanning lines. No heat.

  But there was movement.

  Converging blue glows were coming towards them, and they were coming fast.

  Blue is radionic . . . the thought flashed through Dane’s mind. That meant electrical. Radio waves. Radiation.

  “Heads up!” Dane said, as the first sharp orange line lanced towards him, striking his shoulder with a sizzling noise.

  >Suit Impact. Right shoulder-plate -15% . . .

  “Urk!” He gasped involuntarily as he spun. Although he wasn’t hurt physically, it felt like he had been kicked by an elephant. He continued to turn, hitting the metal floor of the cavern with his shoulder and combat-rolling over to the edge of the concrete wall.

  “That was a freakin
g laser!” Dane called as he saw his eight-man squad scatter in a ragged semicircle. Just as he did, another lancing energy beam hit the floor and then the ramp.

  “Lance Corporal! What’ve we got?!” It was Bruce’s voice over the intercom.

  “Hold position, Cheng! We’ve got unknowns with energy weapons. They’re waiting for us!” Dane said, turning to pop up from the concrete wall and fire the field gun.

  Wham! He felt the weapon thrum with explosive power as coils along its length lit up with a glowing orange light and spat out a burning white-orange line of fire. It shot into the darkness at the blue sensor image, and it illuminated as it went. Dane saw a distant humanoid shape, something that gleamed silver-gray, but whose body shape was subtly different. Strange legs. A pronounced oval head—

  Exin! Dane thought, taking his finger off the trigger by mistake and forgetting what Otepi said—that the weapon would continue to hold the beam as long as he did.

  No. But they couldn’t be Exin, could they? Not here. Not right in the heart of the Nevada Facility . . . Not with silver metal skin . . .

  FZZT! There was an answering return from the enemy’s guns as Dane backed down behind the concrete wall. He felt the shudder of the wall behind him and saw an explosion of sparks.

  “They’re Exin!” he heard Private Harrison call out, somewhere between excitement and fear.

  “Not Exin, Private,” Dane called out, crawling to the end of the low wall to fire from a different vantage point. “Robots. I think we’re facing imitations of the enemy . . .”

  There was a glitch from his suit, as Captain Otepi’s voice burst over their shared channel. “But only slightly less dangerous, Lance Corporal. These drone Exin have been programmed with everything that we know about the threat we face.”

  Great. Dane thought. Our own side has made a group of human-hating robots! He fired into the dark at the nearest blue signal, which had halted.

  The light from Dane’s weapon flashed into the dark, showing a tall concrete pillar, behind which the half form of one of the Exin drones could be seen. His shot hit the pillar and exploded into sparks, but Dane held the trigger and pulled the rifle across the night, highlighting the positions of the enemy as he turned. There were five of them, variously spread out in front of them, and each similarly hidden by concrete pillars, walls, and metal barricades.

  “We outnumber them!” Dane realized, and he heard a victorious yell from Bruce as they opened fire in unison from the ramp. Eight orbital lasers shot forwards into the dark, and Dane’s team added their own lasers to pick at the nearest drone-monsters. There was the flare of flames and a sudden brilliance as lasers found some vital piece of internal machinery in several of the drones.

  “Hopskirk and Harrison, with me!” Dane said, leaping forward to roll to the right of the room across the metal floor. The other two marines followed him.

  Slam! He hit a wall and realized that this entire space had been set up like an abandoned building or a simulated alien craft. There were metal walls and archways throughout the space, leading into alcoves or larger rooms. The neon directional light headed straight forward to the far end of the room, but Dane was sure that would lead straight into more of the drones.

  “We got them!” Dane heard one of the marines in Bruce’s team shout, as Bruce cut off the celebration by ordering his team to advance to the first set of walls.

  “Close it down! Control that space!”

  Dane had to admit it was a textbook demonstration of an assault. In fact, he was starting to think that this first training mission was probably a little too easy—

  Then one of the Exin drones fell from the ceiling, landing on top of Dane and kicking him with its metal legs—and he fell straight through the nearest metal wall.

  “They’re above us!”

  “They’re on the damn ceiling!”

  Dane shook the stars from his eyes to hear the shouts of his other Orbital Marines as he looked up. The metal barrier wall had been flimsy, and it had collapsed inwards into a small dark room. There was a glint of metal as the Exin drone leaped forward, its metal arms ending in cruel metal claws, reaching for him—

  “Ack!” Dane swung the field rifle that he had been holding in front of him just in time to catch the thing’s claws as they came down, spilling sparks as they did so. And gripped onto the metal of his gun, and started to twist . . .

  “Hey!” Dane struggled with the thing, but the metal robot—which had no eyes and apparently no mouth or any way to register him, only continued. Dane felt something suddenly give as the barrel of his brand-new smart laser pulse rifle creaked and then twisted.

  “Why would you build murderbots strong enough to actually murder people!” Dane screamed. The rifle he had been holding onto to try and force the creature back was now being twisted between his hands like a drinking straw.

  “Lance Corporal, if you can’t defeat a glorified toaster, then I don’t think the first admiral has much use for you . . .” came Captain Otepi’s brusque reply as Dane saw his weapon become useless before his eyes. Reacting more in animal impulse than with any skill, Dane bucked, swinging his knees up and sending a kick that would have broken through brick walls into the side of the Exin killbot.

  Without any snarl of pain, the thing was heaved off of Dane’s side and rolled into the far wall. The lance corporal sprang to his feet, reaching behind his shoulder for the first of the weapons there—

  It was the Field Halligan, magnetically locked in its holder down one shoulder, just as his Field Blade was on his thigh. It released as soon as his gauntlets closed on the haft, and he was swinging the strange metal tool in front of him like a baseball bat, smacking the creature on the side of the head as it rolled and jumped back towards him.

  Smack! Metal met metal, and there was an awful crunching sound as something snapped—but the creature’s momentum propelled it forwards, hitting Dane once again in the chest and sending him through the next partition wall.

  >Suit Impact! Back-plate -10% . . .

  “Ugh.” Dane was more winded than hurt as he and the damaged Exin bot rolled apart, but this time he still held onto the reinforced metals of the Field Halligan. When his adversary raised itself in front of him in the glare of his suit lights, Dane saw that its head and neck were obscenely twisted to one side. But still it lived.

  Dane slammed the pincered end of the Field Halligan into the gap between metal neck and metal shoulder and wrenched. He never expected to do much more than to hold the thing’s thrashing claws at bay, and so was surprised when the Field Halligan’s pincers started rending the animate metal. He found that his new orbital suit was actually stronger than this thing was. With a roar, he hauled. There was a flare of sparks and blue fire as the drone’s entire neck, head, and all wires and cables were separated from its body.

  Booyah! Dane thought, just as there was another flash of light over metal, and he turned—

  For his Halligan to catch the next, advancing Exin murderbot on the upraised arm, snapping it awkwardly out of joint. Another scrape on the other side, as one more of the Exin moved into the already-ruined room.

  “Dammit!” Dane swung more wildly, first smacking the first drone back and then the next. He fielded blows and parried attacks as he tried to force them out of his tiny zone of safety, back to where there had to be other Orbital Marines who could support him.

  Smack!

  But even the drones were too fast for him. One claw slammed across his face-plate and screeched as it tore at the glass and metal.

  >Suit Impact! Face-plate -45% . . .

  Forty-five percent! Dane swore. Another swipe like that and it would crush the helmet like an eggshell. But either way, right now he had much worse problems as he was stumbling backwards from the blow, and the killbots were upon him . . .

  Something in Dane reverted to what he knew. Before he had ever been a marine, he had been a Mech-Brawler, and before that even, he had been in plenty of fights on street corners. It wasn’t
something he was particularly proud of, and in fact, it had been his father’s insistence that he take up martial arts that had cured him of that.

  But right now, knowing how to parry and block and kick was coming in awful handy . . .

  Only one of the murderous drones could reach him at one time if he pressed himself back to the corner of the room. A claw lashed out, and he stepped forward, not back, catching it under one forearm as he brought the Field Halligan down in a sharp, thunderous strike to the creature’s shoulder.

  Crack! A spark from the metal—but robots felt no pain, and the thing was lashing out with its other arm . . .

  But now, Dane was inside the thing’s reach. It was easy from in here to bat apart the thing’s attacks, widen the creature’s block with swipes of the Field Halligan—

  And then to lunge forward and use his weapon like a short spear, driving it into the metal of the thing’s chest. There was a sudden shower of sparks and finally a screech of gears as the creature fell backwards.

  Frack! Dane’s halligan was lodged in the thing’s chest as the next Exin clambered over the body of the old. He didn’t want the thing to get close enough to take another swing at his face-plate, but he had lost his rifle.

  The pistol! The lance corporal cursed himself for a fool as he realized that he still had the smaller pistol on his hip. He snapped that from its magnet locks and fired point-blank at the looming alien drone’s face . . .

  There was a flare of orange-and-white fire as Dane held the trigger down, for the weapon to do precisely what the captain had promised. It struck the creature and the beam held, burning brilliantly as it seared at the metal of the thing’s head, Dane saw the metal bubbling before—

  Wham! The thing’s head burst in a flare of flame and sparks, and Dane was leaping forward, grabbing his rifle as he surged through the next ruined room and back into the central avenue.