Mecha Rogue (19 page)

Matt grabbed a baseball-sized piece of the asteroid rubble and flung it at Rayder with one smooth, practiced motion. Pain arced through his bruised collarbone. But his aim was good. The sharp chunk of stone flickered out across the hangar and caught Rayder on the forehead. A pink spray of blood colored the air as the HuMax cursed and staggered back.

In an instant, Rayder's expression turned to murderous rage. He threw himself over the scaffolding and launched at Matt. Now his knife was out in plain view, a sharp and deadly sliver of steel a full twenty centimeters long.

This is it
. Matt's heart hammered in staccato pace as he visualized what he had to do.

What you have to sacrifice,
he thought.

When Rayder was only five meters away, Matt jumped at the other man. He'd need maneuvering room. It required precise control and microsecond reflexes.

Rayder's hand whipped up as he approached. Matt faked in one direction. Rayder's knife followed him like a laser. Then, at the last moment, Matt brought his own arm up, leaving his midsection unprotected.

Rayder took it. His knife flashed up and plunged deep into Matt's gut. Fiery, incapacitating pain shot through Matt's entire body as he bellowed in agony. It was the end of the world—the end of everything.

Matt gathered his strength and brought his other hand up. In it was a head-sized rock. It hit Rayder right in the temple. A hollow
tock
reverberated through the hangar. Rayder's eyes rolled and lost focus, and his spasming hand missed a grab at Matt's clothes. Rayder hit the rubble hard as Matt continued to float off into free air.

Matt's entire shirt was soaked with blood. The spreading warmth was almost comforting over the radiating pain. If he could just rest for a while, just a while—

No!
It wasn't over. Not yet. Matt doubled over, his slitted eyes picking out Rayder's position. Red blood ran down the HuMax's forehead in great gushers. But he'd already staggered to his feet. He leapt again.

Rayder shot at Matt, his furious eyes focused on only one thing: erasing this one human from the universe. Matt looked helpless as he drifted into the big Mecha Dock. Rayder had all the advantage.

Rayder knew it. Triumph lit his expression as he shot across the last three, two, one meters to Matt. His arms reached for Matt's neck. One twist, and it would be over.

Wait, wait, wait,
Matt thought.
Now.

In a single smooth movement, Matt pulled the knife out of his gut and brought it up hard into Rayder's midsection. Matt's vision went red and black through the pain, but he forced himself to shove it hard, up through the stomach and into Rayder's heart. Hot blood fountained over Matt's hands as the knife found its target.

Rayder spasmed in surprise, grabbing at the knife embedded in his body. He pulled the knife from his heart and swiped at Matt wildly. The knife went wide. Rayder's eyes fluttered as he pitched forward. He was losing blood fast. Fist-sized red globules floated slowly down toward the deck in the microgravity.

Matt pushed away from Rayder. The HuMax caught his leg. He might be weakening, but he was still strong. The two tumbled in the cavernous Mecha Dock.

Rayder went for his Taikong pistol. Matt was barely able to knock it away as Rayder fired. The round
spanged
off the steel scaffolding like a gong.

Matt's head reeled. He saw as if looking down a dark tunnel. He was losing blood himself. This damn superman could still kill him!

No. He wouldn't let it happen. He wouldn't let what had happened on Prospect go unavenged. He was no longer that little boy. He might not be a god, but he was man enough to do this one thing.

Matt used all his remaining strength to kick Rayder in the face. The gun popped out of Rayder's hand. Matt caught it and pointed it at Rayder's head. He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

“Keyed . . . ,” Rayder rasped through blood. His red smile was a terrible thing. Rayder tried to twist the weapon out of Matt's hands.

Keyed. Biolocked to Rayder. Matt's mind was no longer speeding. It slugged through the simple equations as the world dimmed. What an adversary. Rayder had almost thought of everything. Almost.

“Take it,” he told Rayder, putting the gun in the HuMax's hands. Rayder grabbed at it frantically. But he was weak. Matt flipped the gun over, under Rayder's chin. His hands wrapped around the other man's. Through the blood, Matt put his finger over Rayder's own and squeezed the trigger.

The explosion seemed oddly muted. Gore erupted from Rayder's neck as the back of his head flew away in red-and-white fragments.

“There's your reward,” Matt said, before passing out.

14

KING

Matt came to under bright lights and soft, faraway sounds. Next to him, a bank of monitors showed an outline of his body, with areas shaded green, blue, and yellow within. An angry orange line slashed his belly, right where he'd taken Rayder's knife.

But he felt no pain. No pain at all. Matt moved his hands to feel his wound, but his arms moved slowly, as if weighted down. Liquid sloshing noises accompanied his motion.

Matt looked down. He was lying in a tank of clear fluid, completely naked. White threads shot through the gel, connecting with Rayder's knife slash. Only a vague pink scar showed he'd ever been injured.

Matt explored his injury gently with his fingers. It didn't even hurt. He was completely healed.

More Jotunheim technology,
he thought. More rewards Rayder had reaped from that secret HuMax world. Better even than the Union's Accelerated Recovery.

But—why had they saved him? He'd killed their leader.

Was it possible Rayder was still alive? Could they resucitate him using this seemingly magic technology? What if they were resurrecting him for another cage match, this one in a real arena? Matt's heart bleeped a little faster on the monitor.

A medic stuck her head through the door and floated over to see him. She wore the gray Last Rising uniform with two bars on her chest.

“How do you feel, sir?” she asked.

“I—” Matt paused. Sir? What was that about? A trick? Or was it possible they were grateful he'd killed Rayder?

“Can you get me out of here?” Matt asked.

The medical technician's brow furrowed. “I can, sir, but the healing process is only ninety-eight percent complete.”

“But it won't hurt me to get out now?” Matt asked.

“You'll have a scar.”

Matt nodded. That was okay. He needed a reminder of his battle.

“Get me out of this thing,” Matt said.

“Yes, sir,” the tech said. She went to the screen and punched in a long series of instructions. The gel drained from the cylinder and the top half of it retracted backward. She pulled towels out of a cabinet and came to dry Matt off, working with cool efficiency.

“Rayder is dead, right?” Matt asked, taking the towel from her.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can I see the body?”

“Of course, sir.” The girl drew out a slate and spoke softly into it. After a few minutes, two other uniformed medical staff people came down the hall with a zero-g stretcher. They set it in front of Matt and watched as he unzipped the bag.

Rayder's blood-clotted face. His head, half gone. Rayder was dead. Matt blew out a big breath and dismissed the two staff members with the stretcher.

“Where's Captain Gonsalves?” he asked the first technician.

She looked confused. “Who?”

“One of the men from the asteroid you captured.”

She nodded. “Convert H. Gonsalves, yes, First Class Programming. I am only second class. I don't know where he is.”

Matt frowned. None of this made sense yet, but she seemed to be willing enough to follow his orders. He didn't want to dive too deep into it yet. Best to look for Gonsalves the last place he'd seen him.

“Take me to the bridge.”

She frowned. “Sir, I must remain at my post. However, you may freely move about.”

Stranger and stranger. Matt stood and pushed off for the door. Then he caught himself and turned back to the technician.

“Can you bring me some clothes, please?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, with the same efficiency.

* * *

Matt chafed at the Last Rising uniform. It was dead black, with no adornment, just like the one Rayder had worn. He tried to explain to the med tech that he wanted his interface suit back, but she didn't seem to understand.

Nobody paid him any mind in the main corridor of the Last Rising ship. When he arrived at the bridge, the doors cycled even before he could approach the camera.

The bridge hadn't even been rebuilt yet. Technicians still worked on replacing the broken railing.

Captain Gonsalves stood comfortably by the captain's chair, watching the navigational screens. Esplandian still glowed dimly outside the slit windows. The Last Rising ship hadn't moved at all.

Captain Gonsalves looked down and locked eyes with Matt. “Welcome back, sir.”

Weird. “I thought there were no ‘sirs' here.”

Gonsalves paused, and his jaw worked, as if he was biting back his first response. “There were no ‘sirs' in
El Dorado
, or in Esplandian. But in Last Rising, there is the right of succession and allegiance.”

“Sucession and allegiance?” Matt shook his head.

“Allegiance to Mr. Lowell, successor to Rayder, sir,” Captain Gonsalves said.

Allegiance to me?
Matt's mind whirled. He gaped at them. He'd killed Rayder—

—to become their new leader?

“Allegiance to Mr. Lowell, sir,” chimed the guards and technicians, in unison.

Seven Corsairs met Matt's gaze, patiently awaiting his orders.

* * *

Matt slumped against a bridge rail, his mind swirling in surreality. “You'll all do anything I say?”

“Please wait until the succession order has been fully transmitted to the fleet and outlying agents, sir,” one of the navigators said. “Otherwise, you may not be recognized as the Last Rising's Ultimate Arbiter by second- and third-class citizens.”

Matt's stomach churned. They weren't playing. He'd inherited Rayder's entire organization. And they would slavishly follow anything he ordered them to do.

All of them.

The enormousness of it hit Matt like a hammer.
If I wanted to be an emperor, I have the power now.

It was too much to take. “Don't follow me!” Matt cried.

The technician blinked in confusion. “You are not going anywhere, sir.”

“No! I mean, don't do what I say. Release everyone from mind control!”

“It is impossible to refuse your orders, sir. I'm afraid your second statement makes no sense.”

A hand fell on Matt's trembling arm. Matt jumped. It was Hector Gonsalves. His expression looked both troubled and sad.

“The programming is too deep in the second- and third-class staff, sir,” he said. “I understand your meaning. Unfortunately, I can't comply with either the first or the second statement.”

“Stop calling me ‘sir'!”

“I can't, sir.”

Matt groaned. Captain Hector Gonsalves, formerly such a strong leader—now reduced to this.

“You're aware you're mind-controlled?” Matt asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can I order you to release yourself from it?”

“No, sir.”

“There's got to be a way to reverse the process!”

Hector shook his head. “I'm not sure, sir. I can check with the medical technicians.”

“Please do so!” Matt cried.

But, he realized, why would they have a reversal procedure? Rayder didn't care about anything other than controlling his hordes. Matt knew the Union doctors had succeeded in bringing Kyle Peterov out of Rayder's mind control once they'd returned to Mecha Base, but he didn't know what they'd done, or how complex the procedure had been.

“Is there anyone serving under Rayder who isn't programmed?” Matt asked.

“Not to my knowledge, sir,” Captain Gonsalves told him.

“How big a force does Rayder command?”

Gonsalves shook his head. “I don't know the full extent, sir.”

“It depends on the metric, sir,” one of the technicians said. “By direct measurement, Last Rising is one hundred fifty-three thousand persons approximately, sir. If you include planets and colonies on which Last Rising is a de facto controlling government, we are approximately one hundred sixty-five million citizens. This excludes the approximately fourteen thousand agents in rival IGOs.”

A hundred and sixty-five million people. Matt's head swam. It wasn't a gigantic number in terms of the Union's billions, but it was enough to make Matt shiver with dread. Was he now responsible to all of those people, as their new Ultimate Arbiter?

It was too much to take. Being their leader was worse than being their enemy,
Matt thought.

“If, however, Mr. Lowell is interested in the fighting force he can command, we must factor in the approximately one thousand five hundred piloted and fifty-five thousand autonomous biomechanical Mecha. This force is easily the superior of any interstellar governmental organization, sir.”

Wait. Had the technican just said what he thought he said?

“Your Mecha force is greater than the Universal Union's?” Matt asked the tech.

“Yes, sir.”

Matt shook his head. That was unbelievable. For one faction of the Corsairs to move past the Universal Union in Mecha forces in a single year—it seemed impossible.

One single, driven, desperate faction,
Matt's mind whispered. They wouldn't care about pilot addiction, neural buffers, or any of the parameters the Union had forced on Dr. Roth. It was entirely possible they were ahead of the Union in technology and firepower.

“What about Esplandian?” he asked Gonsalves, who was bent over a screen, talking with a medical team.

“It's currently in sorting and programming mode, sir.”

“Stop! I mean, cease operations. Release all citizens of Esplandian who haven't been mind-controlled yet.”

“Sir, that could cause conflict,” Captain Gonsalves told Matt. But, deep down, did his eyes suddenly spark with a tiny fleck of hope?

Unfortunately, Gonsalves was right. If they simply released everyone right now, the Esplandians would use every cutting laser, Taikong pistol, and field machete they had to massacre the Last Rising personnel.

“Ignore that last order,” Matt told Gonsalves. “Cease mind-control processing, but hold the rest of the population in secure areas.”

“Yes, sir.”

Matt nodded at the screen. “If there is a way to reverse programming, begin applying it to the Esplandian citizens first. If there isn't, put all medical resources toward developing a reversal procedure.”

“Reversing programming may be dangerous, sir,” Captain Gonsalves told him. “Last Rising citizens may not continue to follow you after the procedure is complete.”

Matt turned to Captain Gonsalves, laughing. “Good!”

* * *

The equipment the Last Rising used for programming looked like old-fashioned imaging gear, but it was coupled with an injected psychoactive substance that was sealed in biohazard-secure packages. The doctors muttered about “applying inverse patterning in the active state,” and promised to have the results of testing back to Matt as soon as they could.

Matt had a technician to take him on a tour of the Displacement Drive ship as he waited for word on the reversal procedure.

The Last Rising's flagship,
Helheim
, was impressive even in the context of a Union battle-hardened Displacement Drive warship. The fact that it had been built in less than a year made it even more stunning.

It wasn't finished, of course. Work continued as Matt followed the gray-suited technician through the ship's corridors. Groups of diggers worked around the clock, widening and deepening the tunnels within the asteroid, while riggers welded stainless plate on steel scaffolding to strengthen the ship.

Even unfinished, it was a fully functioning, battle-ready warship. Its heavy-matter weaponry was capable of targeting all eight sectors of approach, and it was augmented by antimatter beam weapons fore and aft. Its power-generation core ran the latest Taikong antimatter reactors as well, for a charge-and-Displace capability almost equal to
Helios
—forty seconds. Combined with armor comparable to anything Matt had seen on a Union ship,
Helheim
clearly had only one purpose: to lead assaults on heavily defended territory.

Matt went down to the Mecha Research cavern deep within
Helheim
, where new forms grew in gel suspension. It was like a scene from Dr. Roth's own labs. The pilotless, autonomous Loki were grown in vast numbers. The black Mecha were piloted, and grown much more sparsely. But there were dozens of other shapes in the tanks. Some were low, flattened discs with six or eight arms, like spiders. Others were long and slim, like centipedes or snakes. Still more were hunched and heavily armored, looking strong enough to withstand a full Zap Gun strike. And in between all of those types were one-offs, ranging in size from only a couple of meters across to hulking giants as large as Matt's Demon.

What the Union's been doing to HuMax, the HuMax are doing to Mecha. Experimenting. Tweaking. Changing.

Matt's slate chimed. It was Gonsalves and the doctors.

“We have results, sir,” one of the doctors said.

“And?”

“We have processed twenty subjects through the test reversal procedure, sir. Nineteen showed no significant effects. One is restrained in a psychotic state.”

Great,
Matt thought.

“Keep at it,” he told them.

* * *

Matt went to visit Ione on Esplandian with Gonsalves at his side.

The asteroid was still a mess, barely functioning with a skeleton crew of mind-controlled Esplandians. Whole blocks of housing had been turned into holding cells for the population awaiting processing. Mind-controlled Esplandians had a full-time job shuttling food through a series of security locks that separated the apartments from the rest of Esplandian.

The crew also had to tend to the needs of the entire asteroid, as well as repair the damage from the battle with Last Rising. Matt saw lots of exhausted faces among the mind-controlled crew as they shambled through the motions of their jobs.

It hurt Matt to think about what they were going through, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Helheim
was busy repairing their own damage, as were the three other Last Rising ships.