Mech Wars: The Complete Series by Scott Bartlett

Author:Scott Bartlett [Bartlett, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mirth Publishing
Published: 2018-06-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 51

Dynamo

The Darkstream tanks opened the fight, by pounding away at the enemy as they closed the gap to the hilltop where the tunnel borer was sinking slowly into the earth, seeking the siege tunnel dug by the Quatro.

Judging from the way the quad deftly avoided the anti-tank rounds, the alien piloting it had already grown fairly proficient.

Probably it has some help from the thing’s AI, too.

One round clipped its shoulder, then. When it did, the suit seemed to peel away, reforming soon after.

Can these things heal themselves? They reminded Ash of the versatility shown by the Gatherers. When you paired that versatility with a giant war machine piloted by an alien who was deadly even without a mech…

The Darkstream soldiers surged forward several meters, in formation, the front row taking one knee to fire on the approaching mercenaries and Quatro while the row behind them fired over their heads.

A third row remained behind, using the shallow hill to maintain their own firing solution on the enemy.

Red Company had brought rocket launchers, a fact that they’d concealed by hiding the fighters carrying them behind the lumbering Quatro. But now, the aliens peeled away, and rockets flew, with devastating effect on the Darkstream infantry. Ash watched as men and women were blown apart, their limbs spinning through the air to land several meters away.

“Forward, Oneiri Team!” Ash yelled over the team-wide channel. “We can take a lot more punishment than the infantry. We need to start absorbing some of the heat.”

Five MIMAS mechs surged past the much smaller soldiers. In response, the three dozen Quatro not in mechs rushed forward, firing on Oneiri with the artillery strapped to their backs.

Oneiri Team answered with a deadly mix of armor-piercing rounds from autocannons, heavy machine gun fire, and grenades fired into the middle of the charging alien ranks. Ash wished she still had her own heavy machine gun, as she valued its increased accuracy, but she made do with her autocannons.

Then the Quatro tide crashed into them, and Oneiri switched to bayonets and flamethrowers.

All around Ash became a confusion of fur and flame and death. She spun wildly, savagely, her bayonet sinking into whatever it could find.

Two Quatro went down, followed by a metal clink, which was followed by a scandalized shout over the team-wide.

“Hey!” It was Richaud. “Watch what you’re stabbing with that thing!”

“Sorry,” Ash mumbled, the dream world flashing pink with her embarrassment. She turned to find another target.

The Quatro corpses piled up quickly, and Ash allowed herself a measure of satisfaction—until an explosion drew her attention behind her, and she saw what the quad was doing to the rest of the Darkstream force.

It had already succeeded in taking out one of the two tanks, though Ash had not seen how. The noise of its destruction was what had made her look.

The quad made toward the only remaining tank, but to do so, it had to rampage through the humans not inside machines, shooting, impaling, and trampling the Darkstream infantry with alarming efficiency.

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