Mech Corps Page 25

  Everyone looked at Gore.

  “What the hell are you mumbling about?” Hawker asked.

  “He’s an idiot,” Schroeder said and shrugged again. “Not that it matters. Even with all the troops those warships brought, we don’t have the numbers to take the planet. We’ve seen how they fight. We could bring every MEU to Hrouska and they’d still kick our ass. This whole debate is useless bullshit because we can’t win anyway.”

  “You giving up, Schroeder?” Wall asked.

  “Hell, no! I ain’t giving up,” Schroeder replied. “I’m just saying we can’t do shit until we know we can win. And right now, we cannot win.”

  “What about the oxygen?” Rots asked.

  She shrank back as the attention focused on her. It wasn’t exactly kind attention.

  “She’s a rookie,” Hawker said. “Be nice, people.”

  “What oxygen?” Chomps asked.

  “Shock and the tunnel rats said the network of subterranean caverns is filled with almost pure oxygen,” Rots explained. “The xenos can live on the surface, but down in their element, they thrive on oxygen. We could use that against them.”

  Schroeder set her fork down and leaned forward. “Keep talking, rookie.”

  Rots did.

  ***

  “You’re proposing we go back down there with the mechs and drop those what into where?” Parveet asked.

  Chomps stood on the bridge with Rots and Schroeder by her side.

  “Crawlers?” Chomps asked, looking at Rots.

  “Crawlers,” Rots said. “We can deploy them into the tunnels and detonate explosives which would trigger the oxygen to ignite.”

  “Weren’t the xenos already using carbines down there?” Parveet asked. “The oxygen didn’t ignite then.”

  “They were close to those holes,” Schroeder said. “It was vented area. We’re talking about sending the crawler thingies deep into the cavern system and detonating there.”

  “The concentration of oxygen will be considerably higher,” Rots said.

  “And the explosive ordinance will be much more powerful than carbine explosive rounds,” Schroeder said.

  “Chomps?” Parveet asked.

  “We go down on drop ships,” Chomps said. “Deploy one to a different part of the planet, find an opening, and get the little buggers down inside. Rots can remotely operate the crawlers.”

  “You want to take mechs down on drop ships?” Parveet asked.

  “In the drop ships,” Chomps said. “In the cargo holds. The armor can’t handle entry through the atmosphere.”

  “Plus, Gore would crap himself if he was outside a ship,” Schroeder said and cackled.

  “That’s true,” Chomps admitted. “He’s a big wuss in open space.”

  “You won’t get them all,” Parveet said. “No way that’ll happen.”

  “But we will seriously cull their numbers,” Chomps said.

  “We’ll put a hurt on them without nuking the planet then let the warships and their troops clean up the rest,” Schroeder said.

  “Which gives the Jethro time to return to SBE without Chavez and his people breathing down our necks,” Parveet said.

  “Didn’t really think of that, Boss,” Chomps said.

  “No reason you should have,” Parveet said. “That’s my area.” She looked at the three crew members before her and sighed. “I’ll trust you to handle this op. If you think you can make this work, then it’s a go.”

  “We can make it work,” Chomps said.

  “Get to it,” Parveet said. “I’ll alert Chavez and get his people working on an after plan. I like that they get to do clean up. Dismissed.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  The three left the bridge and made their way to the lift. Once on the lift, Chomps and Schroeder both turned and looked at Rots.

  “You can make those crawlers do what you say they can do, right?” Chomps said.

  “Hard to get a signal down there,” Schroeder said. “No point in risking lives if we can’t talk to the little buggers.”

  “Oh, yes, I can make it work,” Rots said. “I’ve developed a quantum RF signal that can penetrate the surface of the planet. I’ll be able to talk to the crawlers without a problem.”

  “Quantum RF?” Schroeder asked. “Do I need to know what the hell that is?”

  “I don’t know,” Rots said. “Do you want to know what it is?”

  “Nope,” Schroeder said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Chomps said. “As long as they detonate.”

  “They’ll detonate,” Rots said. “I promise.”

  ***

  “Gore? You in position?” Chomps called over the comms.

  “In position,” Gore replied as he stood over a huge hole and stared down in it, six crawlers strapped to his back, each with enough explosives to turn him into micro-particles if anything went wrong. “About to drop in.”

  “Good,” Chomps said. “Wait for my mark. We go as one or risk alerting them to our plan.”

  “You do know they probably saw our drop ships come done, right?” Gore asked.

  “Yes, Gore, I know,” Chomps replied. “The drop ships are currently bait to misdirect the xenos. We went over this.”

  “I know, I know,” Gore said. “It’s just that going down in this hole is kind of like going outside the Jethro.”

  “Oh, my God, you big twat!” Giga yelled over the comms. “Grow some gonads and shut the hell up!”

  “Gonna agree with Giga,” Chomps said. “You cool, Gore?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m cool,” Gore said. “Just not happy.”

  “We ain’t here to be happy, you idiot!” Schroeder interrupted. “Just do your damn job, you oversized tunnel rat!”

  “I know, I know,” Gore said again and waited for the signal.

  ***

  “Giga?” Chomps asked.

  “In place,” Giga said. “But scanners are telling me I won’t be alone for long.”

  “We’re close to ready,” Chomps replied. “Rots is coordinating the quantum RF so the crawlers work together as a cohesive unit once they are active. They’ll talk to each other and learn.”

  “Learn? Why learn?” Giga asked.

  “In case they run into trouble,” Chomps said. “If one gets taken out by a xeno, the rest won’t make the same mistake and can avoid that attack.”

  “Okay, great,” Giga said.

  She balanced on the edge of her hole and stared into the darkness. It was a very long way down. Giga checked her rear vid display and made sure the winch cable was secured to the drop ship that was about twenty meters back. She returned her attention to her scanners.

  “Still showing a lot of activity down there,” Giga said. “We need to move now.”

  ***

  “Wall? Where are you?” Chomps asked.

  “In position,” Wall replied after climbing down into a canyon to face a massive cave entrance. He began unloading his crawlers. “Machines are set.”

  “Do not activate until I say so,” Chomps said.

  “Copy,” Wall replied.

  Something moved in the darkness of the cave.

  “Hold on,” Wall said as he dialed up his scanners. “I have movement too.”

  “Shit,” Chomps replied. “Roar?”

  No answer.

  “Roar?”

  “Where is she?” Wall asked. “We need to do this now.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying!” Giga exclaimed.

  ***

  Roar didn’t dare move. She had her entire mech powered down as she jammed it between two boulders set into the cliffside where she was perched. Just below her, slithering across the wide path she had just come up, were at least a hundred xenos.

  She knew she was cutting it close. Chomps had to be calling her, had to be wondering why she wasn’t responding. All she could do was hope the others trusted her to get the job done when it needed to be done. She’d set a timer and was ready to power back up the second the a
ttack was supposed to launch.

  Which she planned on doing whether the xenos were gone or not. She really hoped they’d be gone.

  ***

  “We can’t wait,” Chomps said from the cockpit of one of the drop ships.

  “Roar hasn’t replied yet,” Gore replied over the comms.

  “We either do this now or call it quits,” Giga said. “I am not liking these readings.”

  “Me neither,” Wall said. “Time is up.”

  Chomps watched the countdown on her tablet and nodded. She looked over at Rots who was busy working on her own tablet.

  “You done?” Chomps asked.

  “I’m done,” Rots said. “Send them in.”

  “We are a go,” Chomp said. “Good luck.”

  ***

  Gore dropped down the hole and started pulling the crawlers from his back. He set them down, turned, and began climbing back up the way he’d come. The surface of the hole was rough and sturdy. He was up and out within seconds.

  “Done,” Gore said. “No problem here.”

  ***

  Giga leapt and landed hard. She tucked and rolled, careful of her cargo, and came up with scanners set to full. Xenos were rushing towards her.

  “Shit!” Giga yelled. “I’ve got company!”

  She pulled one crawler off her back and threw it at the closest xeno then pulled another loose and threw that. The crawlers came to life and clamped onto the xenos.

  With two gone, it gave Giga room to pull her KYAG free and open fire. She unleashed everything she had on the xenos, shredding them, turning them into black ribbons of dripping goo.

  When the weapon powered down, she freed the rest of the crawlers from her back and called, “Get me out of here!”

  The cable pulled taught and the mech was yanked up into the air. Giga held her arms out to keep from bouncing off the sides of the hole then she was free and flying up into the air.

  She twisted and tucked her legs as she landed so she could reach back and undo the cable. Giga was sprinting at the drop ship, and almost there, when xenos erupted from out of the hole behind her.

  “Just go!” Giga yelled as she jumped at the drop ship. “Take off now!”

  The drop ship immediately lifted off the ground just as she landed on top of the hull. Three xenos reached her and grabbed onto one of her legs, but she pulverized them by transferring the energy from the pinned leg to the free one, kicking the xenos into pulp.

  Then the drop ship was up and racing away, headed straight back to the Jethro. All Giga had to do was get her mech ass inside the cargo hold before they left the atmosphere.

  ***

  Wall watched the crawlers head inside the cavern entrance, but his gut said they weren’t going to last long.

  “Damn,” he mumbled as he pulled his KYAG and followed after them.

  He was firing before he hit the darkness and the KYAG’s laser lit up the cave like a halogen spotlight. A dozen massive xenos were coming straight for him. Wall didn’t care. He had a job to do and he kept firing, clearing a path for the crawlers to get past the xenos and deep inside the cavern.

  But, by doing that, he left himself exposed and the xenos came at him fast.

  “Reach behind you!” Schroeder’s voice yelled over the comms.

  Wall glanced at his rear vid display and saw the drop ship coming into the cavern fast. He took a step back and reached his arm out. The xenos leapt, but Wall was gone as he clamped down on the drop ship just as it passed by.

  The coupling in his mech’s shoulder nearly came apart at the force, but it held long enough for him to turn and grab on with his other hand. Then he was climbing on top for the ride up out of the canyon.

  ***

  Gore’s drop ship, the one with Chomps and Rots inside, was on the other side of a forest. There had been no clear place for it to land without being completely exposed.

  He came out the other side to a wall of xenos.

  “Well, shit,” he said as he pulled his KYAG and started firing.

  He could see there were way too many for him to take on.

  “Gore,” Chomps called. “Get back into the forest. There are two huge trees about a quarter of a kilometer in. Climb them and we’ll get you from there.”

  “Climb the trees?” Gore replied. “In this mech? They won’t hold.”

  “They’ll hold,” Chomps said. “Trust me. You’ll see when you get to them.”

  Gore fired a few more blasts then clamped his KYAG to his back, turned, and ran back into the forest.

  He went a quarter of a kilometer and skidded to a halt when he saw the trees.

  “She wasn’t kidding,” he said to himself as he began to climb.

  ***

  Roar sent the crawlers into the hole then began scaling the cliff until she was on a huge ledge that could have held ten mechs. Problem was she had about a hundred xenos scaling the cliff up after her.

  “Please tell me you can hear me now,” Roar said.

  “We hear you,” Corporal Kell said. “I’m bringing the drop ship to you. Do not move.”

  “I may have to move,” Roar said.

  “Do not do that,” Kell replied. “This is going to take timing and if you move, you’ll ruin that timing.”

  “Yeah, but I got some heat heading my way,” Roar said.

  “Do not move!” Kell shouted.

  Roar watched the xenos get closer and closer.

  “Can I pull my KYAG?” Roar asked.

  “No!” Kell shouted. “That would be moving! And you will need both hands free!”

  “Free? Why?” Roar asked. “What are you planning on doing?”

  Her answer was in the form of a drop ship lowering directly in front of her, but about forty meters away. It started to back towards her as the rear ramp lowered.

  “You get it now?” Kell asked.

  Roar said a prayer and jumped.

  10.

  “Now!” Chomps said to Rots.

  The rookie initiated the sequence of detonations and they waited.

  “Anything?” Gore asked, sitting in a jump seat at the back of the drop ship cockpit. It was cramped, but he’d insisted. “How do we know if it worked?”

  “Hey everyone,” Wan said over the comms. “You just lit that planet up! Sensors are whiting out from the heat signatures coming from those caverns. Even with the planet’s surface in the way, we can see the fire that’s spreading. Great job.”

  “Good one, Rots,” Chomps said. “You came through.”

  “Thanks,” Rots said.

  “Everyone make it?” Chomps asked.

  “Good,” Roar reported.

  “Good,” Wall reported.

  “Good,” Giga said.

  “I see three drop ships approaching the Jethro,” Wan said. “Chomps, you’ve pulled the trigger. Come on home.”

  “On our way.” Chomps looked at Corporal Han Lu. “Get us back to the Jethro.”

  “Doing that right now,” Han Lu replied. “Jethro is dead ahead.”

  They burst out of the final layers of the planet’s atmosphere and into the blue-black of space.

  Then a warning klaxon started blaring and Han Lu frowned.

  “We have extra weight,” he said. “Containment sensors came online as soon as we broke free of the planet.”

  “We have a xeno on us?” Chomps asked.

  “If it’s one of those things, then it’s huge,” Han LU said. “Checking vids now.”

  Several vid views came up on the front display and everyone’s jaws dropped.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Gore said.

  “I thought we got it,” Chomps said. “I swear, I thought we got it.”

  “Is that a xeno in a mech?” Rots asked.

  “Yes,” Chomps said and undid her seat straps. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “How?” Gore asked.

  “By getting in your mech, going outside, and punching it until it lets go,” Chomps said. “You got a better idea?
”

  “Yeah,” Gore said and sighed. “I’ll do it.”

  “You? You hate open space!” Chomps exclaimed.

  “It’s my mech, babe,” Gore stated.

  “That xeno mech is my mess that I did not clean up,” Chomps countered.

  “My mech,” Gore said.

  “How is that an argument?” Chomps asked.

  “It’s not,” Gore said. “It’s the truth. It’s my mech in the hold, and I’m the one that’s gonna go punch this piece of shit until it lets go.”

  They stared at each other for a few seconds.

  “Want to make a decision?” Han Lu asked. “We can’t land on the Jethro until that thing is off us.”

  “I got it,” Gore said. “You’ll see.”

  “Be careful,” Chomps said.

  “Oh, that is the plan, trust me,” Gore said and opened the hatch to the hold. “Back in a sec.”

  He left the cockpit and closed the hatch behind him, leaving Chomps to stare at the jump seat where he had been sitting.

  ***

  Gore powered up his mech then called, “Pop this can, Han Lu!”

  “Just say open the ramp,” Han Lu replied as the rear ramp began to open.

  Gore was prepared. He had his mech tethered to the drop ship’s winch so that when the cargo hold depressurized, he was sent flying out rocket fast, but stopped instantly when the cable went taught. Gore used that momentum to swing his mech down under the drop ship, right at the xeno mech.

  “Hey there!” Gore shouted even though there was no way the xeno mech could hear him. It shifted positions to face him “Well, shit.”

  Gore couldn’t use his KYAG or he’d risk blasting the drop ship, so he let the cable swing him towards the xeno mech, both fists clenched and ready.

  What he wasn’t ready for was the xeno mech launching itself at him.

  The two mechs collided in open space which sent them tumbling about until the cable went taught again and snapped them back towards the drop ship. Gore didn’t waste a second and started pummeling the xeno mech. Unfortunately, the xeno mech had the exact same idea and stared pummeling Gore. The two machines were a flurry of pounding fists.