Mecha Corps (19 page)

“And where, exactly, is that?”

Soto grinned. “You’ll find out soon enough. Tomorrow we ship for Mecha Base, and believe me, it ain’t a hospitality cruise.”

Against the blue backdrop of Earth, the Displacement Drive ship UUS
Ulysses
looked more like a battleship than a converted asteroid. Except for a few rocky outcroppings along its equator, almost none of the asteroid remained. Everything else was hidden underneath human-made structures: squat buildings with tiny, slitlike windows; giant dish antenna arrays like impossibly perfect craters; huge swathes of battle-scarred steel armor; swollen gun emplacements ; and even the carbon-lined pits of reaction jets.

Matt pressed closer to the tiny window of the shuttle to get a better look. Yes, those were fusion-reaction jets, the kind you’d see on a large freighter. That meant
Ulysses
had its own maneuvering capability. It was no immobile rock, completely dependent on its Displacement Drive. Matt marveled at the thought of an antimatter generator core large enough to move an asteroid. That was almost unimaginable power.

At the same time, a small voice asked,
Where is the balance between the power of the Union and the power of Dr. Roth? The
Ulysses
is impressive, but is it anything more than a giant Mecha transport?

And Congressperson Tomita had just given Dr. Roth carte blanche. How did that change the balance?

But those questions were academic. Matt had too many more personal and pressing issues surrounding his future survival in combat and advancement through the Corps. What was it going to take to master the Demon? Did he have what it took? And should he tell everyone what happened on his first exercise in order to seek out advice?

And what about Michelle? She sat in the front row of seats directly across from Kyle. They’d been talking about their exercises for the entire shuttle ride. Apparently, they’d both been able to rescue their fictional ambassador. But they never mentioned the Corsair’s Mecha. Did they even come up against one, or was that a surprise reserved for Matt?

Stark jealousy twisted at Matt’s guts as he watched Michelle and Kyle talk on and on with gestures, grins, and playful touches. Michelle’s hair floated free in zero g. She tried vainly to pat it down, as if she were trying to impress Kyle. Matt gripped the arms of his seat and tried to tell himself it didn’t matter.

“Grab that any tighter, you’ll break it off,” Peal said, nodding at Matt’s white knuckles.

Refusing to comment, Matt turned pointedly to look out the window. Guns on the Rhino-class warships surrounding
Ulysses
swiveled to track their shuttle. They passed by one close enough to read its insignia: UUS
Renegade
.

On the side of the
Ulysses
, a gray metallic expanse of armor split and retracted, revealing a pitch-black cavern the size of a city. The shuttle carrying the cadets advanced inside.

Coming out of the sun dazzle, Matt gasped. The
Ulysses
was almost completely hollow. Warships of every imaginable configuration berthed on every surface of the giant cavern like stalagmites of death. Rhino- and Hedgehog-class battleships. Cheetah-class fighters. Even a hulking Elephant-class troop transport.

And, among the ships, Mecha. Hundreds of them. Hellions, mostly. They stood dark and menacing, reflective surfaces like obsidian in the dim space. There were empty foot clamps along the floor for hundreds more.

Michelle and Kyle had fallen silent, each pressed against their windows, looking at the Hellions. Did they feel the same desperate pang that he did, the same uncomfortable need to get back in the cockpit?

The shuttle rotated toward an expanded-metal deck, where four giant red Mecha stood. Their Demons.

Up close, the Demon was a seamless personification of power. Bright red and mirror-smooth, its lines were more spiky and angular than the Hellions. Hundreds of apertures clustered along its sides, and striated metallic musculature flowed over its body. Serrated ridges ran down its upper arms and across its back. Its legs trifurcated as they joined the torso in three strong attachment points bulging with muscle. In comparison, its head was tiny, with a mere slit of a visor and two tiny protrusions, like horns, on top.

Only one Demon was complete. The three remaining Mecha swarmed with people in space suits. Biometallic skin was pulled back to expose mirror-finished sinew and muscle, glowing with fiber-optic data. One Demon’s visor was open, exposing an array of conventional sensors grouped in support of four organic-looking orbs that looked uncomfortably like the eyes of an insect.

As their shuttle docked, Matt finally got an idea of the true size of the Demon. It was the height of a ten-story building—bigger than virtually every structure in Aurora University, bigger than anything Matt had seen outside of natural caverns in the
Rock
.

“Holy moly,” Ash said, whistling. “We’re gonna pilot that?”

“Reconsidering?” Peal asked.

“Not a chance, kid.” Ash’s voice was confident, but her eyes were wide.

Sergeant Stoll came down from the pilot’s seat and opened the air lock. Chill air rushed in, bringing the familiar stale-rock-and-steel scent of a Displacement Drive ship. Matt sighed. In a lot of ways, this was like coming home.

They floated down a spotless steel corridor, though an auto-security booth manned by a regular Union Army private. Michelle stayed close to the handrail, her eyes wide. Matt understood. This was her first time in zero g. Looking down a long hallway was a lot more disconcerting than being strapped in a small shuttle. She was probably fighting the vertigo that everyone got the first time out.

“How’re you doing?” Matt asked.

Michelle’s eyes flickered to meet his then went forward again. “Okay. It’s—”

“You’ll get used to it,” Kyle said. “Keep your eyes fixed on one point; that’ll help.”

“Thanks,” Michelle said, swallowing.

Preempted again,
Matt thought

Once through security, Sergeant Stoll handed out new access cards. They showed a complex maze of tunnels and halls, most of which glowed bright red and RESTRICTED. The only green traces led to QUARTERS, MESS HALL, and UTILITY DOCK.

“Quarters?” Ash said, frowning at her card. “On a Displacement Drive ship? How long are we gonna be in here?”

Matt started. He hadn’t even thought about that. It took only minutes to charge a Displacement Drive. You could Displace from one side of the Union to the other in a few hours, even with a maximum Displacement of twenty light-years. The only reason passenger ships took days to make the transit was the time it took to load and unload passengers and cargo. This wasn’t a civilian ship. It wouldn’t have those delays.

“How many Displacements are we doing?” Matt asked.

“Many,” Sergeant Stoll told them.

“How many, ma’am?” Peal asked.

Sergeant Stoll shook her head. “I’m sorry, cadets.”

“But we don’t need to know,” Peal finished her thought.

Stoll turned and led them down the hall. Matt followed the rest of the group. Michelle and Kyle floated ahead of him, talking in low tones. Michelle seemed to be doing better. She glanced back at Matt once, and her eyes weren’t bugged with fear. He gave her a thumbs-up, and she grinned. That was a good sign. Some people had an impossible time getting used to microgravity, and you never knew until they were up in orbit. With his life spent on refugee ships, Matt had seen all sorts. Michelle seemed to be on a good track.

Each cadet got a tiny, individual cubicle constructed entirely of stainless steel. The only soft thing in the room was a thin mattress and tie-down webbing for sleeping. A wall screen showed a montage of Union News: images of Geos’ bombardment combined with earlier video of Corsair skirmishes. On the bottom, a continuous scroll ran: A STRONG UNION BEGINS WITH U. UNION AND CORSAIRS AT WAR! SUPPORT YOUR UNION: ENLIST TODAY.

Matt turned off the wall screen. With the TV off, deep in the
Ulysses
, the only sound was the hum of the antimatter core.

Matt cursed silently. It
was
like coming home. A home he never liked being in and never wanted to return to. All he needed was his Imp Velcroed above his bed to complete the picture of a past he fought so hard to escape from.

 

The next morning, Matt found the group in the mess hall. Peal and Jahl sat at one table. Ash, Michelle, and Kyle sat at another. Velcro pads on the seats kept their coveralls stuck down, and magnetic strips on the tables ensured their gloopy Insta-Paks (micro-g/zero-g rated) didn’t fly off. Matt shook his head and dug a spork into something that was supposed to be eggs and gravy, amazed at how much effort they put into making everyone behave as if there were gravity.

In an independent Displacement Drive ship, they’d have tables stuck everywhere—on the floor, on the ceiling, on the walls. Or it would be a free-for-all with nothing but handrails.

Crew wearing Union Army and Mecha Auxiliary uniforms filled out the rest of the attendance in the mess hall, but overall the crowd was thin. Union Army and Mecha Auxiliary kept to their own tables, sneaking glances at each other from time to time. Neither group paid the cadets much mind.

Which makes sense,
Matt thought. Roth and Tomita wouldn’t tell the Union their fate was in the hands of newbie cadets. They were operating under a veil of secrecy about who was piloting the mighty Demons and where these savior machines were being stored before deployment against the enemy. Everyone in the Union could hope the plan to crush the Corsairs would work, but they didn’t need to know the specifics. To the Army and Auxiliaries, Matt and his group were probably just another batch of raw cadets moving on to Mecha Base for some exercise.

Along one wall of the mess, a tiny strip of window looked out over the metal surface of the UUS
Ulysses
. The stars winked into another pattern as Matt watched. Another Displacement.

Matt took the table with Peal, who was reunited with his brother, Jahl. “Seventy-six,” Peal said.

“Seventy-six Displacements? Since the first one you remember ?”

“Till I stopped counting last night. If I calculate it out, based on average charge time, we’ve Displaced one hundred ninety-eight times since leaving Earth.”

Matt nodded. If they were going in a straight line at maximum Displacement, that put them four thousand light-years away from Earth. He craned his neck to look out the slit window. None of the constellations were recognizable.

If they aimed an infinitely powerful telescope at Earth right now, what would they see? The pyramids being built? Lost civilizations in South America? The speed of light seemed almost laughably slow.

“What happened to you?” Peal asked Matt.

Matt shook his head. “When?”

“When you disappeared.”

Matt hesitated, since he still hadn’t figured out what to say. Was there an angle? Everything was moving so fast. His Perfect Record was no help in deciphering his lost days in Dr. Roth’s lab.

“We already know some of it,” Jahl said. With a shock, Matt realized he wore the Mecha Auxiliary uniform, with a single stripe. “Unexpected orbital excursion in First Exercise, unprecedented capability, et cetera.”

“It’s great to see you again too, Jahl.”

Jahl nodded in appreciation of the acceptance.

Peal was laughing. “We don’t know about a tenth as much as we should. They clamped down on you hard after we pulled those summaries.”

“A few tantalizing phrases were all we got,” Jahl added.

“Enough to know you’re probably the real reason Roth is creating this Demonrider program,” Peal chortled.

Jahl shook his head. “Which makes no sense, since Hellions clearly could be used for a blanket Corsair assault, if we believe the public-capabilities assessment.”

“Unless the Corsairs are more powerful than the public brief,” Peal said. “Which would explain the extensive nonaccessible data on them.”

“What nonaccessible data?” Matt asked, leaning forward.

Jahl chuckled. “If I knew, then it wouldn’t be nonaccessible, would it? Though you probably could help us piece it together.”

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” Matt said. “What I
should
tell you.”

“We’re friends, right?” Peal asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Then between you and me, probably nothing.”

Matt stopped himself before speaking. Was Peal playing mind games to get the info, or had he decided it would be better for his brother and him not to know any more?

For a while, the only sounds were the constant generator hum and the low murmur of voices from the Union Army and Auxiliaries. A smaller group of Mecha Corps in full blue uniforms came in, glanced at the cadets, then took their own table far in the back.

“I saw the Demon,” Matt told the brothers. “It had to come into orbit to get me.”

Peal’s mouth dropped open. “How’d you get to orbit in a Hellion?”

“I Merged with a Corsair fighter.”

For long moments, the two brothers only stared at each other. Finally Jahl held up a hand. “That’s enough. This convo is already flagged, and I don’t need them compiling any more data on me.”

Laughter from Kyle and Michelle’s table made them all turn and look. Michelle grinned and waved at them, as happy as Matt had ever seen her.

Peal said softly, “You were gone, therefore washed out, therefore there was only one logical choice. Or so I suspect.”

“You don’t understand women,” Jahl said.

“And you are such a gigolo,” Peal shot back, rolling his eyes.

Matt stirred the glop in his Insta-Pak. “I don’t know if I want to know any more, anyway.”

Jahl turned to Matt with a measure of compassion. “She may have fallen into orbit, but you can boost out of it.”