Resist the Red Battlenaut (29 page)

Vore
. It was
Vore
.

Cairn was holding Larvis Vore over the chasm of the command center, and it sure looked like he was about to let go of him.

 

*****

 

 

"Did you ever have one of those days?" said Cairn. "One of those days when you've just finally had enough?"

Vore howled with terror as Cairn shook him over the great chasm of the command center.

"Well,
I
have," said Cairn. "Like thirteen
years
ago." He swung Vore back from the edge, then swung him out over the chasm again. "The first time I laid eyes on
this
mother-fluxer."

"Please stop!" Vore's voice wailed in an upper register now, spiking with sheer panic. "Don't
do
this! What about the
good times
?"

"Like when you had the
bomb
put in my head, you mean?" Cairn swung him up, then down. "Like all the times you
used
it to make me do whatever you
wanted
?"

"I would never let you
blow up
! We were meant to be together!" said Vore, and then he howled as Cairn swung him up and down again.

"You know what your biggest
mistake
was, though?" said Cairn. "Hiring me out to the
Reds
to bring in
Solomon Scott
. Using our past connection as your
prisoners
to
screw
with him and get him to come
here
.

"Do you know
why
?" Cairn stopped swinging Vore and held him up to face his Battlenaut's faceplate. "Do you know
why
that was such a big
mistake
?

"Because
he
put the past
behind
him a long
time
ago," said Cairn. "And I
realized
that if
that
sorry sack of plang could do it, then
I
sure as hell could, too."

With that, Cairn extended his arm. Vore thrashed like a snake on a hook, trying in vain to grab hold of something--anything, even Cairn's armor, that would let him hang on to his life a little longer.

But it was hopeless. And then it didn't matter anymore.

"How does a monster say
goodbye
?" said Cairn, misquoting one of Vore's favorite lines. "
Raarrhh!
"

Then, Cairn opened his Battlenaut's hand, and let go.

Screaming, Vore plunged down into the vast space of the command center.

"I guess you were right, Sol." Cairn turned and looked at Scott. "I did the right thing when the time came, didn't I?"

Scott wasn't sure what to say. Cairn
had
done the right thing, but what good would it do? They were still surrounded by heavily armed Reds, and the Apocalypse was still in full swing. The only thing that had changed was that the universe had one less lowlife to drag it down.

And Scott had one more friend to help him face the end. There was something to be said for that, he had to admit.

"Yeah, Cairn." Scott gave him a thumbs-up. "Nice job, man."

Before either of them could say another word, the Red troops opened fire on Cairn. Those who had a clear shot at him--a dozen, at least--blasted him with slugs from their automatic rifles.

Cairn couldn't shoot back, he had no weapons, but he didn't go down, either. The pumped-up defensive capabilities of his civilian Battlenaut were enough to shrug off the concentrated attack.

Storming into the torrent of firepower, he swept two soldiers off the ledge with one swing of his arm. They flew down into the chasm and hit the array, their bodies dancing in fountains of crimson arcs and sparks over the twisted silver branches.

"Stop him!" shouted Bern. "Stop him now!"

The Red Battlenauts already had Cairn in their crosshairs and opened fire with slugs and lasers. Their guns, much more powerful than the troops', staggered him, driving him back just as he pushed three more men off the ledge.

The flurry of fire came close to Scott, who stood near the middle of the action. For an instant, he let it cascade around him, trying to make sense of the swirling chaos. He felt naked without his armor, beaten by Bern, uncertain what he could possibly do to change anything in the face of insurmountable odds.

In the past, he'd found inspiration by asking himself one question: What would Bern do? But that wouldn't work anymore. Maybe it was time for a
new
question, one that was still relevant in the face of this madness.

Maybe it was finally time to ask, "What would
Solomon Scott
do?"

When he thought about it, the answer was pretty damn obvious.

With a sudden surge of willpower, he shook himself out of his daze. Whipping around, he charged a Red trooper who didn't see him until it was too late. One broken neck later, he kicked the trooper's body off the ledge and turned with the dead man's rifle in his hands.

And he let it sing.

Red troopers dropped like flies in a cloud of pesticide--one, two, three, four, five. They were all so focused on Cairn that Scott plowed through them unopposed...at first, anyway. Once he took out his seventh man, half the survivors turned on him and cut loose.

Firing behind him as he ran, Scott bolted around one of the Red Battlenauts, using it for cover. The Battlenaut was so involved lighting up Cairn's armor that either it didn't notice, or it didn't care.

Peering out from behind his cover, Scott saw that Cairn was taking some serious heat. The Reds were pounding the civilian Battlenaut with ridiculous amounts of ordnance, making it jump around like a puppet.

To the credit of the CORE engineers, Cairn's Battlenaut was holding together under conditions that would have smashed other Battlenauts like piñatas...but Scott knew it wouldn't last forever. At some point, the focused fire would exceed the armor's every tolerance and turn it into confetti.

Cairn needed help, and fast--but what the hell could Scott do? He had cover, but the troops were blasting away all around him, trying to pick him off every time he bobbed his head out. Two of the bastards were stealing pages from his playbook, using the other two Red Battlenauts as cover in a bid to outflank him.

It was starting to look like he and Cairn would go down in a blaze of glory...which, frankly, didn't bother him that much. Given the circumstances, he could think of worse fates--like spending the rest of his life with Bern-gone-bad as the rest of humanity clawed its way back from oblivion.

Maybe it was even appropriate, when he got right down to it. He and Cairn would come full circle, dying together the way they almost did thirteen years ago.

Leaning out from behind the Battlenaut's leg, Scott cranked off ten more rounds, nailing two more troopers...and then he pulled the trigger again, and nothing happened. Out of ammo.

He ducked back just as a hail of slugs poured his way. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the empty rifle, catching glimpses of Red troops moving in on both his flanks.

Stealing another look outside his cover, he saw Cairn's Battlenaut jittering madly in the maelstrom. He watched just long enough to see Cairn fall to one knee under the onslaught, going down slow.

Clenching his teeth, Scott got ready for what was left of his life. All he had to do was pick a direction and charge like a lunatic into the fire...push past the pain as the slugs punched into him and keep going. Take as many of the Reds down as he could with his rifle butt and bare hands. Do it in the name of Captain Rollins and the men and women of the
Sam Nicholas
and
Augustus
and all the millions and billions who were dying and about to die at the hands of his grandmother.

Die like a
Marine
, like a
Diamondback
, like a
man
. Because
that's
what fucking
Solomon Scott
would do.

Breathing fast, he turned the rifle in his grip, bracing the barrel against his side.
Count to three, just do it, count to three and then go
. He looked right, then left, sizing up the outflankers, trying to pick which one looked weaker.

And then he decided to run forward instead, straight ahead at the biggest bunch of them. Because he had more possible kills that way, a bigger bang in the making...and anyway, why the hell
not
?

Closing his eyes, Scott took a deep breath, then let it out and had another. Not far away, he heard Cairn cry out from his battered Battlenaut. It wouldn't be long now until the end of it for him, too.

Scott opened his eyes and grinned like the world's biggest son of a bitch. Swinging the rifle butt in front of him, he stepped out from behind the Red Battlenaut.

Just as a missile hammered into the Red from behind and exploded.

Stunned by the blast, Scott stumbled but didn't fall. As debris showered around him, he looked back along the missile's path, hunting its source. When he saw it through the smoke, his son-of-a-bitch grin came back bigger than ever.

The towering figure was plated in blue and silver armor. Light flared from its shoulder-mounted launchers as they sent two more missiles streaking toward the Red Battlenaut.

Scott couldn't stop grinning as he ran toward it, away from the incoming missiles. Nothing had ever looked more welcoming to him than that oh-so-familiar war machine, that beautiful engine of destruction.

The Mark VI
.

 

*****

 

 

The Red Battlenaut exploded behind Scott as the second and third missiles from the Mark VI slammed into it. The shockwave from the blast nearly knocked him off his feet, but somehow he kept running toward his armor.

His heart thundered as he raced up and banged his fists on one leg. He could think of only one person who could possibly be piloting the Battlenaut, and he badly needed to hear her voice.

"Donna!" He kept pounding his fists as he yelled up at the gleaming giant. "Donna, is that you?"

He was rewarded with the sound of her voice over the Battlenaut's speakers. "Yes and no."

The sound of gunfire distracted Scott. Looking back, he saw the Red troopers regrouping and popping off potshots in his direction. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It
is
me." As she said it, the Mark VI lowered itself to its knees. The canopy slid open, revealing an empty cockpit. "But I'm not inside the unit. You didn't
know
Fong tricked this baby out with
remote control
, didja?"

The shots from the troopers were getting closer. "I do
now
!" One nearly chipped off his earlobe, and he started scrambling up the hull toward the cockpit. "Mind if I take her for a spin?"

"Just don't scratch the paint job," said Donna.

Scott slid down into the cockpit and closed the canopy. "I love you, honey!"

"Oh my God!" said Donna. "That's the first time you've ever
said
that!"

"I was talking to the
Mark VI
, actually," said Scott.

"Solomon!"

"But what the hell." Scott strapped himself in, pulled on his helmet, and played the keypads, prepping his weapons. "As long as you don't mind
sharing
, we can work something out."

"Less talking, more fighting!" snapped Donna, and then she closed the comm channel with attitude.

"You read my mind," said Scott, just as he unleashed a storm of slugs and lasers at the Red troopers.

The men didn't stand a chance against the Battlenaut. Scott's barrage mowed them down in a flurry of flesh and blood, leaving a jumble of bodies and abandoned rifles.

Then, without hesitation, he swung around to see if he was too late to help Cairn.

At first, the massive Red Battlenauts blocked his view--but telemetry told him the CORE unit was still powered up and Cairn was still alive. For the moment, that was all he needed to know.

"Buckle up, assholes!" Scott's fingers danced over the keypads, setting up missile strikes. "It's judgment day!"

He jammed home the trigger button on the stick, releasing two missiles. Watching the forward feed, he saw them streak toward one of the Red Battlenauts like the spears of avenging angels, leaving smoky contrails to mark their passage.

They struck within centimeters of each other on the Red's upper back. When the warheads flashed, they erupted with enough force to throw the Red down hard, opening up the view for Scott.

As promised on telemetry, Cairn's Battlenaut was still in one piece...though it was down on its hands and knees, throwing off some wicked sparks. As long as Scott kept up his momentum, it wasn't too late to save Cairn.

Scott launched another missile at the downed Red for good measure, then swung around. The second Red was already throwing shots in his direction, blasting Scott's armor with torrents of slugs...and charging its chest cannons with rippling golden energy.

Scott hit him with sonics, then queued up two more missiles. Worst case scenario, they might not pierce the enemy's frontal shielding, but at least they might jolt the Red enough for Scott to make his next play.

He thumbed the firing button, and the missiles took off. Then, with a guttural battle cry, he punched the stick forward, charging through their contrails toward the Red.

As planned, the missiles rammed into the Red's chest, blowing out the cannons. The Red reeled from the impact, throwing out smoke instead of slugs--and Scott came in like a locomotive, plowing his shoulder into the charred flashpoint where the missiles had hit.

The Red stumbled backward, and Scott kept pushing, driving it past Cairn toward the edge. Firing its remaining guns wildly, the Red blew out hails of slugs and laser beams, rattling and scorching Scott's armor--but not enough to stop him. He kept shoving the Red further back, moving it toward the point of no return.

Near the brink, the Red found leverage and resisted. Scott pulled back enough to interrupt the pressure, breaking the Red's momentum and focus. Then, he thrust forward suddenly with overwhelming force and cast the Red off the ledge, leaning back hard on the stick to keep the Mark VI from falling in after it.

Looking over the edge, he saw the Red crash into the array far below. As the full weight of the Battlenaut hit, the array exploded--a huge blast at the impact site, then a chain of blasts, one after another, along the whole length of it. With each new roar and flash and shockwave, blazing silver shrapnel filled the air, broken bits of the array's shattered branches punching through control panels, monitors, and human bodies.

Scott smiled inside the Mark VI. He was pretty sure he'd just stopped Armageddon. Without signals from the array, the hallucinations turning allies against each other would surely stop. Even if he accomplished nothing else, at least he'd done that much.

Suddenly, he heard a shout from Cairn: "Incoming! Move!"

Scott jerked the stick back, and the Mark VI lurched to one side--not a second too soon. Just as he got out of the way, searing twin bolts of golden energy poured past, less than a meter from cooking him in his shell.

Checking the rightside feed, he saw the surviving Red Battlenaut, the one he'd knocked down with his first missile attack, back on its feet, aiming its energy cannons in his direction. The first shot wouldn't be its last; he could see a fresh charge building in the cannon apertures, getting ready to break free.

There was barely time to leap out of the line of fire, let alone crank off two missiles...but he did both. The latest energy bolts lanced through the air where he'd just been standing, then cut out as one of the missiles exploded against the Red's left knee.

The Red teetered, unsteady, and limped around to retarget Scott's Battlenaut. Scott sent in another missile, followed by a punishing barrage of slugs focused on the Red's damaged knee--but it still wasn't enough. The Red built a new charge in the cannons, kept them locked on the Mark VI, ready to belch out tongues of killer force...

...and then Cairn's CORE Battlenaut charged in and threw all its weight against that knee. The Red Battlenaut's leg buckled, and the whole unit toppled. On the way down, the cannons fired out of control, stabbing the far wall and ceiling with blistering beams.

Switching on the comm, Scott quickly tuned it to Cairn's frequency. "Thanks for the save!"

"Yeah, yeah." Cairn was breathing hard, his voice was strained, but he still managed to pull off a smartass tone. "That and ten credits'll buy me a cup of coffee."

Checking the feeds on his visor, Scott saw that for once, no new opponents were storming out of the woodwork. "Finally." He blew out his breath. "They've stopped coming."

"Too busy fighting fires and digging out from under the wreckage, I'll bet," said Cairn. "You've sure made a mess of this joint, Sol."

"
We
did." Just then, a flicker of movement on the leftside feed caught Scott's eye. Playing the left keypad, he threw the feed on maximum mag--and identified the source.

It was Bern, picking her way through the corpses of the troopers. She was carrying a rifle that must have come from one of the dead men, heading in the direction of the exit.

As if he was actually going to let her get away.

"Hey!" Scott stomped toward her, lobbing out scattered warning shots. "Stop right there!"

When she kept moving--speeded up in fact--he brought the warning shots in tighter. Still, she kept moving, so he tagged her with the sonics on their lowest possible setting. It wasn't enough to do permanent damage, but it finally stopped her flight, making her stumble and cry out from the bombardment of concentrated sound waves.

Unfortunately, she didn't drop the gun. After a moment of disorientation, she swung it up and whirled to face Scott, pointing the barrel at the Mark VI.

Scott, on the other hand, lowered all his weapons. "Seriously? This is what it's
come
to?"

Bern kept the rifle rock-steady, sighted in on Scott's armor as if it could do even the slightest bit of damage to it. "You've just doomed
everyone
. You
know
that, don't you?"

"I think there must be a better way to
save
them than
slaughtering
them," said Scott.

"
Zero hope
," said Bern. "That's what you've
left
us. That's what you've left
everyone
.
Zero
!
Hope
!"

"We'll see," said Scott. "Maybe, when people know more about the situation, when they're aware of the danger, they'll be able to fight it."

Bern shook her head. "The Lethe virus is too powerful. Might as well try to fight God Himself."

"I'm feeling pretty froggy." As Scott said it, a series of explosions rang out through the command center. "Maybe I'll take a leap."

"
Shame
on you," said Bern. "I wish I'd never
brought
you here."

"You and me both," said Scott. "Because then, I'd never have known the
truth
about what you tried to do."

Bern kept the gun aimed at him a moment longer, then slowly lowered it. "Someday, you'll understand. You'll look back on this day and curse yourself for stopping what I tried to do."

"I'm thinking it'll be the other way around," said Scott. "
You'll
be cursing
yourself
."

"Never."

"Really?" said Scott. "Then you
don't
care about humanity? You won't keep trying to stave off extinction?"

"I already took my best shot," said Bern. "The
only
shot."

"The Bern
I
used to know?" said Scott. "She wouldn't give up just because Plan A went down the toilet."

"Maybe you didn't know her as well as you
thought
you did."

"She made me the man I am today," said Scott. "Maybe that's how you can get in touch with who she
really
was. When in doubt, ask yourself what
I
would do...because I learned it all from
her
."

Bern fell silent. Tossing the gun aside, she walked to the edge and gazed down at the ruined command center.

Scott stomped up beside her and shared the view. On the monitor screens that hadn't been smashed, he saw no battles in progress--just ships floating in space and Battlenauts standing idle on planets' surfaces. Now that the array had stopped transmitting, and everyone saw each other for who they really were, the shooting and bombing and killing were over.

Would the situation stay that way when the current crisis passed? Not according to Bern. If her projections held true, it wouldn't be long until the Lethe virus ramped up the violence on its own, driving humankind into an intra-species war that would only end with complete annihilation.

But that was a problem for tomorrow. Today's struggle was done, leaving chaos, casualties, and unfinished business galore...but, also, at least for the moment, a kind of peace.

And absolute certainty in Scott's heart that he had done the right thing.

Switching on the comm, he opened a channel. "Care to help me rescue survivors?"

Cairn yawned. "Got nothing better to do at the moment. What about Granny Genocide?"

Scott played the comm over his speakers so Bern could hear him. "She's going to give us a hand, aren't you? Getting survivors to safety?"

Bern took one last look at the ruins and turned away. Scott saw her on his frontside feed, nodding defeatedly.

"That's great." Scott muted the speakers, hung up on Cairn, and opened a different channel. "Hey, Donna?"

Her sweet voice popped up instantly, clear as a chiming bell. "Yes, my love?"

Scott grinned. So what if the cat was out of the bag about how he felt? They hadn't exactly rushed things, had they? "Could you place a call for me? Could you get in touch with Command?"

"You know I can." Her voice was so melodic, she could have just as well been saying "I love you."

"Tell 'em to get some folks out here ASAP," said Scott. "They've got their work cut out for them."

"Will do, Solomon."

"Oh, and Donna?" Scott smirked. "Tell them I asked for one ship in particular. You know the one."

Donna laughed. "The
Sun Tzu
, Solomon?"

"Got
that
right," said Scott. "And if Major Perseid doesn't like it?"

"He can go flux himself," said Donna.

"Damn skippy," said Scott, and then he snapped the channel shut like he was slamming a door.

 

*****