Mech 2 Read online

“Thank you, Brigadier Druzman. But I need one more thing.”

  “What’s that?” snapped the Brigadier.

  “I need workers. Robots, mechs, something that can withstand intense radiation. I need a lot of them, and fast, up on Crom.”

  “Crom? You don’t mean—”

  “Of course I do, sir.”

  The Brigadier stared at him for several seconds. “You’re working for him now, aren’t you? For Beauchamp. He’s crazy about that ship. As crazy as you are. Huge waste of money, if you ask me.”

  “Will you give me the resources I need, sir?”

  “No. Not without proper authorization. You’ll go through channels on this one, Droad. No more showboating will be tolerated.”

  “Very well,” said Droad, he signaled for Ensign Tolbert’s attention. “Joelle, if you would be so good as to show the second clip I have on that data-bean.”

  The Brigadier jumped. “Belay that! Give me that thing.”

  Tolbert handed it over. Her eyes were wide and flicked back and forth between the two men.

  “Droad,” said the Brigadier dangerously. “You have caused quite enough trouble around here today.”

  “I’ll be going then, sir—as soon as I have my authorization for the workers.”

  The Brigadier glared, while Droad gave him a flat, calm stare.

  “Beauchamp already has a squad of mech Marines up there. What more does he want?”

  “A second squad would help.”

  “A full platoon? Didn’t you lose a full platoon of mechs on Garm, the last time we gave you one?”

  “I’ve got one left. Their commander. And he’ll be the one commanding this new platoon. I’d like an order to that effect on the hardcopy as well, if you would.”

  Brigadier Druzman heaved a sigh. “I don’t want to see whatever else you’ve dredged up. We want this war with the Vlax to stop, not to fan it to new heights. Don’t you understand that, Droad?”

  “Of course I do, sir. Could I have my data-bean, sir?”

  Druzman tossed Droad’s data-bean into the air and caught it in his fist. “I suppose you have copies of this,” he said.

  Droad smiled in response.

  The Brigadier sighed again and handed it over.

  “Excellent,” said Droad, making the bean vanish. “I’ll be on my way then. As soon as you give me the mechs.”

  “Why mechs? They’re incredibly expensive. We only have a few hundred combat mechs in the system.”

  “They do the best work. But just imagine sir, if I’m right. Do you want an enemy force to gain control of the Zürich? Do you want to take that chance?”

  In the end, the Brigadier signed orders releasing a fresh squad of mechs into Droad’s hands for transport up to Crom. He was also given orders for Rem-9 to assume tactical command of all combat mechs on the Zürich.

  “Bring them back in one piece this time,” growled the Brigadier.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  As Droad left, Joelle Tolbert came to him with wide eyes. She whispered her question. “What was the second vid on the bean?”

  Droad smiled. “There wasn’t one.”

  She breathed deeply, then flickered a smile. “I thought no one could bluff Klaus Druzman.”

  An answering smile played over Droad’s lips. “We live in surprising times.”

  Twenty

  “Droad, I can’t thank you enough for this support,” said Commodore Beauchamp, beaming. “You sir, are a miracle-worker.”

  “And I thank you Commodore, for your diligent efforts in getting the Zürich ready for service. On that point, what is your status?”

  “I’ll get Lieutenant Minard,” Beauchamp said. “She has every detail at her fingertips.”

  The two of them stood in Beauchamp’s office. The walls were covered with small framed shots of various vessels the Commodore had served on throughout his career. The first of them was a rockrat, Droad noted, a one-man asteroid miner.

  The Commodore proceeded to work at contacting Minard, but without success. Finally, he summoned an underling with his handset and rumbled at him for a while. When he broke the communication, he looked disturbed.

  “What is it, Commodore?”

  “Minard. Always so punctual. She’s missing. Very strange goings-on down there.”

  “What are you saying, sir?”

  “Eh? Yes, well,” said the Commodore, straightening his uniform. “We’ll sort it out. No need to worry about any glitches on our end.”

  Droad stared at him for a few seconds. “Look, Commodore—I hope I’ve demonstrated by arranging these extra mechs that I’m on your side. The new squad will be here shortly, and we’ll unpack them and put them to work. They should exactly double our speed of progress.”

  “Yes, and I’ve said thank you. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No. It isn’t. I need more than your thanks, I need your trust. I’m very much in favor of this project. In fact, sir, I would say I’m the best friend you’ve got in the Nexus right now.”

  Beauchamp cleared his throat. “That’s just it, Droad. I mean, you aren’t really in the government, now are you? As soon as someone figures out your sponsor is dead, they’ll pull the plug on you. Sad to say it, but I think you understand how these things work.”

  Droad crossed his arms and sat on the Commodore’s steel desk. This brought a frown to Beauchamp’s face, but Droad pretended not to notice. “In the mean time, let me help you. What’s happened to Karin Minard?”

  Beauchamp looked troubled. “She’s missing.”

  “Down in the pits? What has she been doing down there?”

  “Overseeing the cleanup. We had an incident, you see. There was a serious leak—you aren’t going to take any of this back to Nexus when they recall you, are you Droad? You understand the damage that talk of errors can cause for a project like this?”

  “I want nothing more than to see this ship through to completion as fast as possible.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you what we know. Some of our men have been vanishing. Not mechs, just the—ah, human robots. We’ve all but stopped using humans now. With your new squad of mechs, they would just get into the way.”

  “What’s been happening to them?”

  “They just vanish. There are a lot of dangerous things down there, under this ship, you have to understand. It’s pressurized, but the area is really just the bottom of a crater on the surface of Crom. There are sinkholes, crevasses.”

  “If there’s a radiation leak, so what?” Droad asked. “Isn’t that exactly what this ship is built for, throwing bombs under it for propulsion?”

  “We have to lift off, to get started. We have to have a big open area under the ship, or we’ll put too much pressure on the oblation shield when we lift off. With some of our initial tests—well, mistakes were made. We aren’t experts at battleship construction here at the Nexus, you understand. This is our first one.”

  “Karin fell into one of these holes?”

  “Possibly. She’s never late, but she can’t be found. Her transponder is dead or out of range.”

  “How many people have you lost like this?”

  Beauchamp shrugged uncomfortably. He did not meet Droad’s eyes. “Two or three.”

  Droad nodded. “You mean nine or ten.”

  Beauchamp sputtered, but didn’t argue.

  “Commodore, let’s pull all the humans out of the lower decks. Let my mechs do the work. We’ll have the humans work on the upper decks and armaments. Rem-9 and I will proceed with the investigation into what the hell is going on down there.”

  Beauchamp agreed. “But Droad?”

  “Yes?”

  “You should know, that’s what Karin was doing down there—before she vanished. She was investigating these disappearances.”

  Droad headed down to the lower decks with Rem-9 clanking along behind. Once alerted about possible dangers, Rem-9 had become almost insufferable. His optics never stopped whirring and rarely were both directed a
t the same target at once.

  “Don’t you get a headache looking every which-way at once?” Droad asked him.

  “There is a mild sense of disorientation when scanning two remote regions at different ranges simultaneously,” said Rem-9.

  “But you do it anyway.”

  “My physiology makes it easy to examine multiple targets. It’s much more efficient than having a single focal point for visual input. I’ve trained my mind to accept the incoming data as presented.”

  “Sometimes, it’s hard to believe you were ever human, Rem-9. You talk more like a true robot.”

  “Possibly, sir, that’s due to my remoteness from my beginnings.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I recall nothing of my former life. This biomechanical body is all I remember.”

  “I see. You think that puts you into better balance?”

  “I believe so.”

  Droad thought about it. He would have to bring it up with Zuna, when they saw her. She seemed much more human than most mechs. In fact, if he were to put a word on it, she seemed almost ‘ditzy’.

  They reached the lower decks and Rem-9 insisted Droad don a full hazard suit. He had to admit, the mech was right. If some of those dust particles floated up here, sparkling in the air, they could lodge in his lungs and poison him.

  They quickly discovered there was quite a bit of damage down here. The vid lines were out, and the wireless was hopelessly fuzzy due to the radiation and high voltage interference. Poking around in the lower levels, it was Rem-9 that noted something odd.

  “Sir, I think the emergency equipment has been tampered with.”

  Droad appeared at his side and they investigated a module of emergency supplies. The fire axe, in particular, was missing. They checked, and quickly found that all the axes were missing.

  “Odd,” said Droad. He didn’t like the look of this. Who would take a dozen red axes? Where had they gone?

  “Droad?” asked a tiny voice in his helmet. He could barely hear it.

  “Hold on,” he told the caller. He headed up two decks and got a better signal.

  It was Beauchamp. Droad listened in growing alarm. He turned to call down to Rem-9, but found the mech captain had followed him up the ramps and was indeed standing about ten centimeters behind him.

  “Oh, there you are,” Droad said. “We have to go up to the bridge. It may be starting.”

  #

  The first set of contacts was metallic in composition. There were over thirty of them, all about the size of a Vlax rook. They were coming in fast. But it was the second set of contacts, behind the ships, that worried Droad more. They looked like asteroids. Flying rocks rolling through space, coming in at several hundred thousand kilometers per hour.

  The rooks, if that’s what they were, had begun to decelerate. But the rocks had not.

  “The Vlax have gone mad!” said Beauchamp. “If one of those big stones gets through, just one, we’ll destroy every habitat they have. It will be Armageddon.”

  “I thought everyone wanted peace at the Nexus, Commodore,” said Droad.

  “This is no time for flippancy, Droad.”

  “Indeed not,” said Droad, watching the incoming intel from Nexus Command. They had the big viewscreen on the battleship’s bridge operating now. This was a very good time, in Droad’s opinion, to get this ship fully functional.

  “The deep patrol forces are gathering to go out there and meet them. Suicidal, really. The Vlax will be wiped out. We can meet them with twice their number. And our patrol ships outgun them ship for ship.”

  “And what about the rocks?”

  “Our laser bases will take them out. That’s all they’ve ever been used for, up until now. This system is full of debris. Every dozen years or so a large asteroid orbits too close, or comet comes in from our heavy Oort cloud.”

  “There must be dozens of asteroids, all at once.”

  “We are overbuilt for it. These rocks are small. All I can think is that the Vlax hope we’ll use our base lasers on them and forget about their ships.”

  Droad rubbed his chin. “How long until they get into range?”

  “The deep patrol will reach them first, within twenty-four hours, I should think. If anything survives that, they’ll come into range of our bases about fifty hours after that.”

  Droad grunted unhappily. “We don’t have much time then.”

  “Eh?” said Commodore Beauchamp. “Not much time? Not much time for what?”

  “To get this ship operational and launched, Commodore.”

  Commodore Beauchamp laughed. “What are you talking about, Droad? She won’t be ready to fly for two months, probably more like six.”

  “While I’ve been here, I’ve carefully monitored your operational status. With the exception of the Orion drive, which I admit is a problem, this ship could launch today. Once out there, she won’t have everything she’s capable of, but even a single good mobile laser could take out that rook fleet before any of them could get close enough to fire on us.”

  “Yes, but Droad—”

  “I suggest we do just that, Commodore. We must launch before they get here, and we must destroy them and the asteroids before they get too close.”

  Commodore Beauchamp stared at him as if he had gone mad. “I appreciate your fervor for this ship and this project, Droad. Really, I do. I can’t say I ever thought I’d meet a Nexus hack—excuse me, that’s what Fleet people call political appointees, you understand. No offense meant.”

  “None taken.”

  “Anyway, I never thought I’d meet someone from Nexus who was more fanatical about the Zürich than I am. In fact, you’ve made me wonder what others must think of me!”

  “Nothing but the best, I’m sure.”

  Beauchamp grinned. “Of course. Anyway, I’m telling you, the regular patrol ships will take care of those rooks, and our moon bases will take care of the rocks.”

  Droad nodded and began pacing. “I don’t think you’re seeing the big picture the way I am, Commodore. Here’s what I see,” said Droad, ticking items off on his fingers. “First off, we have an obvious attack by the Vlax, after a previous devastating base destruction. The attack includes two waves as we see it now.”

  Commodore Beauchamp shrugged.

  “But in addition, we have sabotage going on right here, aboard this ship,” Droad said. He told Beauchamp about the missing axes, damaged surveillance systems and other oddities he’d seen on the lower decks.

  “You think these events are connected? You think the Vlax know about this ship?”

  “We must assume that they do. We must assume the worst. To do otherwise is to shirk our duty in defending this world.”

  “What else have you got?”

  “The very nature of the attack is my greatest piece of evidence. Have the Vlax previously made suicidal attacks? Do they usually suffer mass casualties when they execute their raids?”

  Beauchamp snorted. “Hardly. We’re lucky to damage a single rook. They are masters of deception and surprise.”

  “Exactly. So, why then are they throwing away their ships on this attack?”

  Commodore Beauchamp leaned back in his chair. He nodded slowly. “I don’t like it, but you have a very strong point. We have to assume the worst, as you say. We have to assume the Vlax can win this, or at least they think they can.”

  “Will you prepare this ship for lift-off?”

  “I’ll form a list of emergency steps and follow them. I’ll meet with my officers. We’ll come up with a plan and put it into motion. We will get the Zürich ready to do her best in her unfinished state. With whatever armament she can bring to bear.”

  “We will need Nexus Command’s approval to launch her.”

  Beauchamp made a huffing sound that Droad soon realized was a laugh. He’d never heard the man laugh before. “Don’t worry about that. If the Vlax blow through our patrol ships somehow, Nexus will be screaming for me to launch. Hell, I’ll give the o
rder myself if need be.”

  Droad met with Rem-9 out in the corridor. “Any hints about the saboteur?”

  “None, sir.”

  “No suspects wandering the halls down there with axes?”

  “No sir, the only person I’ve met down there besides my own troops is Zuna.”

  “Hmph. Well, keep patrolling. Whoever it is, they are bound to strike again. This is the moment they’ve been waiting for. Whether they are Vlax or alien, they must be trying to stop this ship from becoming operational.”

  Sending Rem-9 below decks to keep an eye on things, Droad retired to his cabin. He made warning calls to everyone he could think of, including Sarah.

  Twenty-One

  Sarah was in a panic after Droad’s call. Her eyes stung. How could these things have chased her here, all the way across the ocean of nothingness between stars? What else was happening, out there among the other human colonies? Were monsters and wars occurring everywhere?

  She walked out onto the verandah of her hotel room and stared up at the swirling moons and the stars that shined between them. She felt very vulnerable. She felt as if she were only seeing the tip of a vast iceberg. These aliens were quite possibly all over the cosmos. Horrible things might be happening on neighboring worlds, such as Ignis Glace, Thorsen or even tiny Cigni. Worse, she thought to herself, things might have already happened. They wouldn’t know for years. Word of some battle might come to them, lasting for days or months, watching the transmissions of millions of colonists as they cried for help and finally died out. Extinguished.

  It was a terrifying thought.

  She turned around and found Aldo standing in the doorway, watching her. He looked into her eyes and she could tell he saw the horrors she imagined there.

  “You are troubled, my lady.”

  “Greatly,” she said. Then she told him what Droad had told her. Either the Vlax were coming to destroy them, or it was the aliens. Either way it didn’t matter much. Things were going to go badly soon.

  “We have to get out of the city. The people of Bern will go mad. They will clog the ground and sky as they try to get away.”

  She nodded. Who would sit still with dozens of huge rocks tumbling through space toward you, any one of which could destroy the entire city? The planet was pock-marked with craters anyway. It was an underlying worry of everyone on this world that each year would bring ‘the big one’ or worse, one that no one saw until it was too late. In the colonies first century, their third largest city had been taken out by a strike. After the next election, the funding to build the proposed—but long postponed—moon bases was suddenly found by the newly elected senators.