Mecha Corps (24 page)

“ ‘It is one of the central mysteries of the human universe how a libertarian nation was formed from predominately Latinate roots,’ ” Matt said, quoting his Union History class on Aurora.

“Thanks, professor,” Soto said sardonically.

“Yeah, that’s from Aurora U.”

“The Aliancia is a reaction to the Union,” Soto said gruffly.

“At least the Aliancia is peaceful.”

“They have to be. For all their words, they know the Union could crush them at any time. They’d be much better off if they’d just join the Union.”

“The Corsairs don’t seem to care.”

Major Soto made a noise like a snort. “The Corsairs are vicious dogs that need to be put down. And that’s no professor talking. That’s me, based on seventeen Mecha battles.”

“What’s it like, fighting the Corsairs?” Matt asked.

“Like I said. Pack animals,” Soto growled. “They don’t care if they live or die. If they’re losing, they’ll crash their ship into your Displacement Drive battleship. If they’re overwhelmed, they’ll leave suicide troops behind.”

“Why do it?”

“They’re sharded. Some are drugged into being berserk-ers ; some are promised eternal life from plundered Union labs; some just kill and maim for the fun on it. The one thing I know is this: carry an Aliancia banner, and that’s fine. Carry a Taikong banner, and that’s okay. Run up the Corsair banner, and you deserve only one thing: to die.” Major Soto’s voice became ragged and rough toward the end of his speech, dripping with emotion.

But his Mesh effectiveness stood at 55 percent. Soto’s Demon raised one hand jerkily and flexed it, as if wondering at the simple action.

“Holy hell,” Jahl said. “It worked.”

“What worked?” Peal asked.

“Talking him through it.”

Soto’s Demon’s arm quivered and fell back to the dock with a crash. On-screen, his Mesh effectiveness had fallen to 45 percent.

“Damn!” Soto said. “I had it. I had it right there!”

Stoll stared at Matt, then stopped to study her screen. “Yes, and you’ll have another chance at it. For now, abort.”

“I can do it again!” Soto cried. “Just a little more. Please!”

“Out, Major,” Sergeant Stoll said, voice firm.

Soto exhaled theatrically, but the screen went blank and the Demon’s chest opened like a pupil. Major Soto emerged, trailing globules of goo. As he joined the group, he clapped Matt on the shoulder.

“Thank you, cadet,” he rasped.

Matt straightened. “You’re welcome, sir.”

“Now, if you can just do the same with your teammates.”

“What, sir?”

“Work with them,” Stoll added, her intense violet eyes fixed on Matt. “Help them through the Merge.”

“I am helping them!” Matt cried.

“Carrying them on your shoulders isn’t helping,” Soto told him.

Matt’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I—I don’t know what else to do.”

“Do what you just did here,” Major Soto said. “Be a friend.”

 

Matt hung in perfect Demon darkness, feeling the warm magnetorheological fluid wash up his body. His heart thudded hard enough to echo in his eardrums. Random thoughts flashed through his mind like rockets:
Why am I doing this again? Genesis—what is Genesis but a beginning? Do Demons start at zero, or is mine special? You should stop and get out now.

But of course he wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t.

I need the Demon,
he thought.
I’m hooked.

“We’ll continue as before,” Sergeant Stoll’s comms icon flared. “Partial Merge. If stable, we’ll move on to full Merge.”

Matt took Michelle’s hand as Ash and Kyle completed the circle. This time, there was time only for a single burst of incoherent thought, like static on an old-fashioned communicator.

The three Demons melted and reformed up to the shoulders. For a moment, Matt lost all sense of self. Then that incredible feeling again, beyond any high. He felt himself rise, as if on a giant wave. A wave he could command.

He shoved forward toward the brilliant light of full Merge.

Wait,
Kyle thought.
You’re leaving me behind. I can’t go as fast as you.

Instinctive rage arced through Matt, but he pushed it down. Instead, he thought,
I’ll bet you never said that on a football field back in Eridani.

Kyle’s thoughts juddered into sharp new forms.
Actually, I did,
he thought.
I was never that fast.

You don’t have to be the fastest,
Matt told him.

But it’s so easy for you. I’ll never have it that easy. I never had it that easy,
Michelle thought.

Easy is nothing,
Matt thought, sending her images of the hydroponic farms on the
Rock. Determination is what you need. You have that, don’t you?

Michelle rocketed forward as Ash joined them.
That’s a thought I can get behind,
she told them, thinking of long days in the dusty mines of Keller.

“Mesh stable below Stage Blue; entering Stage Green. Partial Merge balanced. Begin full Merge, cadets.”

The Demon flowed together and re-formed into a streamlined new shape. This was like a slim arrowhead, fashioned to plunge into the heart of evil. Bright red and almost two hundred meters long, it bristled with fusion pods and exhaled white-hot antimatter energy. Simple, streamlined arms held close to its side, it combined the characteristics of both battleship and Mecha.

Matt gasped. For the first time, he saw what the Merged Demon could be. Not just a battleship, but a battleship with the power of a hundred and agility greater than the fastest fighter. Or it could be an armored ball, nearly impregnable. Or, on a world, it could stride through cities like a flaming giant, laying waste to everything in its path, or plucking a single person out of a crowd with immense precision.

“Excellent!” Sergeant Stoll exclaimed, surprised and breathless. “Merge complete in Stage Green. Exercises will be as follows—”

“No exercises!” Kyle’s voice was high, ecstatic. “Fun!”

“Cadet Peterov, obey your superior officer,” Major Soto broke in.

“No! She’s nothing! I’m everything!” Kyle yelled.

Oh, shit,
Matt thought. A suffocating blanket of elation and desire washed over him. Kyle’s thoughts. Matt gasped for breath. Michelle cried out. Matt felt her terror.

“I did it!” Kyle cried. “I’m not weak. I’m not tired—”

“Abort Merge!” Sergeant Stoll ordered. But her voice was tiny, distant, lost in Kyle’s exultation, Michelle’s fear, and Ash’s pain.

Pain? Pain from Ash?
Matt reached out to her in his mind. Waves of agony and fear lanced through him. Something clawed at Ash. Something hungry.

The Merged Demon shuddered. Blinding flashes of Ash’s life came to beat at them:

A tiny baby wearing a face mask held close against a warm chest, as hot desert sun spilled yellow over jagged, barren cliffs. A child running to the cover of shade, his skin shading from pink to red in the yellow sun. A man, smiling kindly, his callused hands like sandpaper. A city like an oil refinery, shimmering in stainless steel and complex piping, ugly and utilitarian. A ring and a wedding and long days of decision and offers and Displacing and always trying for Mecha Corps, even though she knew she would never make it, even though the very thought was insane. And then the invitation.
Please report to Earth.
The feeling of indescribable joy, of discovering her life again. Her husband, trying to smile, trying to be happy for her. Crying children. The moment at the space port where she’d put her bag down and turned back to them, knowing she couldn’t do it, knowing she couldn’t get on the shuttle. Seeing them waving her onward. Tears, yes, but tears of joy. Her quivering hand as she picked up the heavy bag, almost dropping it. Her entire life laid bare. Every image overlaid with feelings of sickness and dread, until Matt felt physically ill. He forced down his rising gorge. Throwing up into his respirator in a canister filled with gel would be a terrible way to die.

“Abort now!” Stoll yelled, voice cracking. “You’re entering Reverse Mesh!”

A chill hand twisted Matt’s guts. Reverse Mesh. He saw Serghey, slumped over in his harness.

Blinding, searing pain wiped Matt’s coherent thought. Ash’s memories winked out, one by one. Her scream reverberated, almost ultrasonic. Memories vaporized, as if in front of a wall of atomic flame. Memories twisted and distorted, turned in on themselves. The acid pain of leaving. A sharp pang of mourning.

The Merged Demon’s arrowhead shape twisted and bulged, losing its former mathematical perfection. Biometallic muscles rippled and flexed. Suddenly, it wasn’t a battleship or a Demon. It almost looked like a wild animal. A wolverine, curled in on itself in a fit of self-destructive rage. A mouth with fusion fangs formed at the front of the Merged Demon. It ripped at its own armor, flashing antimatter brilliance and leaving long, blackened scars on the shining red metal.

Matt screamed from the pain. It wasn’t just Ash. It tore at all of them.

“I did it!” Kyle’s voice, high and screechy. Suddenly, Matt
was
Kyle: privileged son of a Union Senator, living a life where everything was planned, everything was calculated. He went to the right schools, he played the right sports, he hung out with the right people, so he could be one of the Just and Right people guiding humanity to new heights.

But hidden deep in those thoughts, some dark thing twisted the meaning of “right.” It rode Kyle like it rode Ash. And Kyle pressed ever harder down on Michelle. Matt sense her gasping breaths.

In his mind, Matt reached out to Michelle. The waves of Kyle’s hate and pride hit him full force. He rocked back, reeling.

“Abort, abort!” Stoll screamed. Such a tiny voice. So easy to ignore. She seemed to be saying something about defenses.

Mecha Base’s guns swiveled to lock on the Merged Demon. A new warning flashed in Matt’s POV:

Dead. We’re all dead,
he thought wildly.

“Final warning!” Sergeant Stoll yelled. “Abort Merge now!”

Michelle’s pain pierced Matt’s heart. Something was on her now. A thing of spikes and shards, a thing that tore at her very being. Memories from Earth cascaded through his mind: at home in a rare quiet time, looking out over the Florida swamp, with the evening sun warm on their necks, just content to be there.

A sudden thought. If he couldn’t conquer it, maybe he could cut off its power.

UnMerge,
Matt thought, and pulled away with all his might.

There was a noise like thunder and a terrible tearing agony. Matt imagined his limbs ripped from his body.

The Merged Demon went rigid and split into four pieces. Three quickly re-formed into standard Demon shapes. One hardened into a hulking humanoid shape covered with ridges and spikes. Kyle. Kyle’s Demon.

“Good!” Sergeant Stoll’s voice was ragged. “Cadet Peterov, release Mesh now!”

“No!” Kyle’s voice warbled, only partially human.

Kyle turned on the others. Apertures opened on the spiked Demon’s chest. Fireflies flashed. Matt’s chest rang with the impact, and he cried out from the pain. Ash’s Demon tumbled, ending up tangled in the struts holding Mecha Base’s armor. Michelle’s Demon shot away into the maelstrom. Kyle chased her down.

“Cadet Peterov, release Mesh now!” Soto yelled. “That’s an order!”

Matt flung himself after Kyle and Michelle. The tickling pings and patter of the maelstrom’s rocks and dust were almost comforting. Michelle had transformed into a familiar, streamlined cruiser shape, but Kyle’s Demon retained its strange, spiky, humanoid appearance.

Kyle’s Demon fired Fireflies again, and brilliant explosions sent Michelle tumbling. She recovered her balance and thrust deep down toward the core.

Matt enabled his Fireflies and fired. White-hot explosions bloomed on Kyle’s backside, sending him spinning. He caught himself on the edge of a large rock, glanced back once at Matt, and then dove down after Michelle again. He quickly closed the gap.

“Kyle, stop it!” Matt screamed. “That’s Michelle!”

Kyle turned on Matt and fired a cloud of Fireflies. Matt launched a Seeker. Destruction flashed in front of them. Giant, house-sized rocks vaporized. Matt felt their fragments like pebbles on his metal skin.

“Fun!” Kyle laughed.

“Play later,” Matt told him firmly.

“No. Play now!”

Michelle stopped and fired. Kyle flew right into her Seekers, and his scream echoed in Matt’s ears. Kyle’s Demon went limp and caromed off one of the big asteroid-sized chunks of rock. For a moment, its spikes sagged, and it almost regained a standard Demon shape. Then the spikes and ridges rose again.

When Kyle rose, a compartment opened on his side. He drew forth a weapon Matt knew all too well: the Zap Gun. The difference was that a Demon’s Zap Gun was at least five times the size of his Hellion’s Zap Gun.

“Big fun!” Kyle’s voice was loud, childish.

“Disable antimatter weaponry immediately!” Soto yelled.

“I refuse!” Kyle giggled. “Sir!”

“Using antimatter weaponry in the protoplanet’s core could cause enough damage to destabilize Mecha Base’s orbit,” Stoll recited, as if dazed.

Matt’s world suddenly went white. Searing chunks of molten rock battered him. His Demon spun wildly. He grabbed for purchase and stopped himself on an asteroid. He blinked in amazement, catching his breath. A wide swath of matter was simply gone. Rocks, asteroids, dust, gas. He could see all the way up to a pinprick of black sky.

Another flash. Matt heard Michelle yelling incoherently. White-hot fire engulfed the wheeling asteroids of the protoplanet’s core. House-sized boulders ceased to exist. Entire asteroids were consumed.Against the brilliant backdrop, two tiny black pinpoints danced.

Two of them. Michelle was still alive. Matt pushed his Demon as fast as it would go. He felt it change shape, becoming a streamlined, needle-slim spike to weave through the cascading rock and gas of the core.