Mecha Corps (17 page)

“I hoped for a more auspicious debut.” For the first time, Dr. Roth’s tone was judgmental.

Matt flushed. Nothing could change what he’d done.

“Which brings us to the key question. You killed a simulated civilian. You refused to obey a direct order from your controller. You disobeyed your commanding officer. You Merged with an unauthorized craft. Is there any possible reason you should still be a Mecha cadet?”

Matt looked down. Panic overwhelmed him. He’d never pilot a Mecha again. His dream . . . that Corsair . . .

But Dr. Roth waited, his expression unreadable, as if expecting an answer. A justification.

And there was no way that was a normal exercise, or even a test.

Matt squared his shoulders. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” Dr. Roth’s expression didn’t vary a millimeter.

“I should be a Mecha cadet. Because I did it. I did something nobody else could do.”

Dr. Roth nodded just once. “Exactly.”

Matt fell back exhausted in the stinking swamp, streaming tears of joy. He’d done it. He’d left it all out on the field that day. And he’d won.

Paramedics rushed up, bending over Matt. One of them scanned him with a little monitor and frowned at the readout. Another came back with a stretcher. Strong hands lifted Matt.

“Take him to the lab,” Dr. Roth told them.

“Not the hospital?”

Roth shook his head. “No. The lab.”

Matt frowned.
What does that mean—the lab?
Why would they take him to the lab? What was Dr. Roth going to do to him? Matt struggled against the paramedics. Rough hands held him down.

A hypo-spray descended, and Matt’s world faded to black.

—Winston Churchill

—Robert Heinlein

The thought was like a whisper in the darkness, echoing down a long rock tunnel. Sharp memories of the dark corridors under Prospect beat at Matt.

The same whisper, stronger, more urgent. The feeling of chilly steel talons raking through Matt’s mind. The smell of mildew. The prickle of static. Like the Mind Raze machine all over again.

Like the first time he got in a Hellion.

No longer a whisper. Loud, grating, like a steel sheet sliding across a rough-hewn stone floor. Far away, he felt himself thrash against his restraints.

Matt struggled through the darkness. Shadowy shapes coalesced and gained form. He oscillated in that strange place between dream and reality, sucking a void on one side and the chrome rails and crisp sheets of a hospital bed on the other.

Beyond the bed, cold blue-green light outlined hulking humanoid shapes.

In bed? In a hospital?
What was wrong with him?

Memory came crashing back. His flight in the Hellion. Meeting the Demon. Dr. Roth’s orders. He wasn’t in a hospital. He was in Dr. Roth’s lab. Matt convulsed, held down by straps at his wrists and ankles.

His heart pounded triple time as his vision cleared. He lay on a simple chrome gurney, clad in an interface suit. Beyond the bed, Dr. Roth sat in front of a panoramic NPP display. It showed an outline of a human body shot through with brightly colored tendrils. Most of the threads glowed brilliant yellow. Orange and red skeins twisted through the spine and brain. Small specks of green and blue sparkled at its extremities.

But the colorful screen paled in comparison to the wonders beyond. Black metal latticework framed a hundred-foot-tall transparent wall. On the other side, dim bluish lights illuminated a gigantic red Mecha: the Demon. The Mecha wavered as if through heat waves, and haze in the chamber made the vision seem almost dreamlike.

Not haze. Water.
The chamber was full of water. And it was huge. Other shapes hulked in the distance, individual details hidden by algae and sediment.

More Demons hidden?
Matt thrilled at the thought.
Or some other Mecha?
A powerful desire gripped him. What other wonders did Dr. Roth have in store? When would he unveil them?

Dr. Roth swiveled around to look at Matt. “Interesting. A notable resistance to forced neural interface. Let’s try this again directly. Who are you?”

“What?”

“It’s a simple question. Who are you? Answer it.”

Matt shook his head. None of this made any sense. But what could he do? “I’m Matt Lowell. Mecha Cadet Matt Lowell. Why am I here? Where am I?”

Roth came to the side of the bed and bent over Matt. Roth’s irises were dark, almost the same color as his pupils, and his eyes were oddly immobile, as if they were made of lead. His entire expression was so alien that Matt had to tamp down an instinctive revulsion. He forced himself to meet Dr. Roth’s stare.

“I know you are more than just another cadet. What has been done to you?”

Matt shook his head, fighting panic. Did Roth know he was genemod, or whatever it was, exactly, that he was? In the display, purple skeins flashed and twisted through the body. Roth turned to study it, his expression unchanging.

“I—,” Matt began, then closed his mouth, remembering more of Pat’s advice:
When caught in a big lie, tell a small one.

“I don’t know,” Matt said. That was true enough. He never knew exactly what his father did to him. He looked up and noticed the body outline shaded more into cool greens and blues.

“How is it that possible?” Dr. Roth’s mouth twitched, a millimeter of amusement.

“I’m a refugee,” Matt said. Also true.

“We know that the independent Displacement Drive ship the
Rock
picked you up from an unspecified world when you were six years old. Which world?”

Matt’s heart skipped a beat. “I don’t know.”

The skeins twisted violent red-purple. “I know you’re lying,” Roth said, glancing at the screen.

Matt didn’t know what to say. Should he just come out and tell Roth everything about his father?

“If you want to have any chance to pilot the Demon, I suggest you cooperate. Which planet?”

Desire, hot and intense, spiked through Matt. He couldn’t help staring at the red Mecha beyond the wall.

“Prospect.”

Roth’s eyebrows darted upward. “No wonder they didn’t record the visit. What did they do to you on Prospect?”

“I’ve already told you, I don’t know. I know I’m different, but I haven’t figured out exactly how. I’m still . . .”

“Growing into yourself,” Dr. Roth said, nodding. He went to the screen, muttering into a voice interface and bending close to examine images that rushed by. When Roth came back to the edge of the bed, he gave Matt another fractional smile.

“Matt Stanford Lowell, son of Dr. Oscar Stanford and Pia Lowell. Your father was part of the Union research team lost on Prospect. So, what gifts did your father bestow upon you before he was lost?”

Matt gulped. It didn’t matter anymore. He would never run a Mecha again. No matter what Roth said, he was out of the program. He had to be.

“I assure you, I have no interest in discarding a prodigy such as yourself,” Roth told him. “What sort of gifts?”

“Perfect Record,” Matt said, a bit confused. Was Roth too curious about him to set him adrift?

“What is that?”

“I remember everything.”

“And?”

Matt shook his head. “And nothing.”

“Nothing?” Roth looked incredulously at Matt’s cool-blue body image. “Nothing that you know of, perhaps? How deeply was your father involved with HuMax technology ?”

“HuMax technology?” Matt shook his head.

“Don’t prevaricate. Surely you know Prospect was a former HuMax settlement.”

Matt’s mind whirled. HuMax technology? Was that what his father was really doing? The “special things” the Union trusted him to look into? Was he digging into the history of the HuMax? Was that why the Corsairs—and the HuMax Corsair—had raided them?

“My father . . . was an archaeologist.” Matt sputtered.

“I already know that, cadet. What happened on Prospect ?”

“Corsairs.” Matt’s body image gyrated wildly in bright reds and yellows.

“How is it that you survived?”

“I took a Powerloader. Went at the leader.”

Dr. Roth laughed, a cold, mechanical sound. “How perfect for a Mecha prodigy.” He sat back, seemingly satisfied.

Suddenly, huge chunks of Matt’s past fell into place in his mind, a seamless whole. That HuMax had been real. He was just posing as a Corsair. He’d been after the HuMax data his father uncovered.

But the HuMax were extinct! Everyone knew that!

But maybe the histories were wrong. Maybe some of them had survived. Which would mean that his father had been killed by a genetic Superman, a real monster.

Matt clenched his fists. Corsair or HuMax, it didn’t matter. He’d find him and have his revenge.

And even as Matt’s mind whirled, he couldn’t take his eyes off the Demon, floating behind the transparent wall like a red specter. It almost seemed to be grinning back at him. He’d pilot that. He’d master it.

And he’d use it to make that Corsair pay.

 

Matt stumbled out of Dr. Roth’s lab into the underground night. He stood at the edge of the darkened city. Purple-black clouds wreathed a sliver moon in the projected sky. Discreet red CLOSED signs glowed below the bars and restaurants. A few couples leaned on each other as they staggered down the street, barking drunk laughter. Matt’s access card read: 3:12 a.m.

Matt trudged down the street toward Cadet Housing. Not a single light glowed there. Matt’s legs were shaky and uncertain, and his head swam with fatigue. Probably like the rest of the exhausted cadets, but much worse, thanks to Roth’s poking and prodding. All Matt wanted was a bed and some sleep.

Halfway to Cadet Housing, he passed a couple bent over the light of a phone. The screen’s glare painted their faces stark and cold like death. Tinny voices shouted on the screen. The couple shared terrified glances, then took off.

What was that about?
Matt wondered, turning to watch them. He shrugged. It didn’t matter. All he needed was sleep.

A lone man wearing a Mecha Corps uniform ran down the avenue, slate held out in front of him. On it, nuclear fireballs lit his face with orange actinic light.

Lights flicked on in the buildings around Matt. One, two, five, then a dozen. Cadet Housing lit up, every window blazing. Cadet shadows moved jerkily behind the sheer curtains.

Matt’s access card shrilled. He fished it out of his pocket. The screen read: CORSAIRS STRIKE GEOS. YOUR BRIEFING AT: CADET HOUSING CAFETERIA. ASSEMBLE IMMEDIATELY.

Corsairs? Geos?
It must have been a mistake. Geos was on of the Union’s primary worlds. There was no way the Corsairs would hit the Union’s core. How could they bypass the planetary defenses, the Union warships? It had to be just an exercise.

Still, Matt ran.

When he reached the cafeteria, it was already three-quarters full of screaming and crying cadets. Blinding orange-white flashes strobed from wall screens over the kitchen.

Matt pushed forward until he could see. The flashes were mushroom clouds. From low orbit, they bloomed like toxic flowers over the cities Moore, Heisenberg, and Woo. Three flashes, three great cities erased.

“That was Heisenberg!” a cadet cried. “My mom is in Heisenberg!”

The image cut to scenes of cities in ruin, suburbs burning red like hell under a halo of black smoke. Geos’ sun hung like a dim, iron-red disk in the midst of the boiling clouds. Brown-gray dust coated the orchards beyond the city, casting everything in shades of ochre. A newscaster wiped blood from her eyes and pushed back dirt-caked hair. She opened her mouth to say something, then broke down sobbing.

An inset of the Universal Union Prime, Kathlin Haal, appeared on the screen. Her face was thin and drawn with anger. She promised aid from the Union and vowed retribution on the Corsairs who’d struck the world.

This wasn’t an exercise. The Corsairs had hit Geos, and they’d hit hard.

A terrible anger swept over Matt. He felt himself flush in hate. He wanted to do only one thing: get in the Demon and smash every Corsair in the universe.

A pair of hands grabbed Matt and turned him around. It was Michelle. Her hair stood out in crazy sleep spikes, and her eyes were sunken from lack of rest. Her rawness made her the most sympathetic creature he’d ever seen.

She grabbed him and hugged him hard, just for an instant. “You’re back! We were worried!” She nodded behind her where Kyle stood, looking at their embrace with smoldering eyes.

“Back?” Matt said. “What do you mean?”

“You were gone for three days.”

Three days?
The room swam. How long had he been under ? What had Dr. Roth done to him?

But he couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not with images of destruction streaming on the screens above.

“What’s happening?” Matt said, nodding at the news.

Michelle shook her head.

“Someone nuked Geos,” Ash said, joining the group. She nodded at Matt. “Welcome back, kid.”

“It’s not nukes,” Peal said, slipping through the crowd with his slate held high. “There’s no radiation. It’s—”

“Displacement Drives,” Matt and Peal said in unison.

“What?” Kyle grabbed for the slate.

Peal clapped Matt on the back. “Good deduction. There’s hope for you yet, refugee.”

Matt nodded. It made sense. Displacement Drives weren’t hard to implement; only costly in terms of energy. Drill a Displacement Drive into a bare asteroid, and pop it into a gravity well to build velocity. Then pop it into orbit aimed at the planet. The kinetic energy released would be similar to that of atomic weapons, but there wouldn’t be any radioactive cleanup. It would take a ton of planning to coordinate a simultaneous attack, but it was doable.