Shorty Read online

  Security drones pass overhead, lasers scanning the terrain for intruders. I barely look at them. What has my attention is a huge lorry with tires taller than I am. The stainless steel bed is full of random parts.

  “Danielle, tell me when the drones are at the other end of their sweep,” I say.

  “They’ll be there in thirty seconds. Whatever you’re doing, now’s the time.” She’s abandoned the phone sex voiceover in favor of military precision.

  “I like your real voice,” I say in a rush as I hustle between two parked vehicles to reach my target.

  “What’s not to like? I enjoy playing with filters. It’s like getting your nails done up here. Not that I’ll ever see you or the other mech warriors.”

  That makes me think. We really do live in different worlds. I’m a ground pounder and she’s a fly girl. Maybe someday we’ll meet on one of the space station resorts that serve the orbital spaceports. Or maybe not. Probably not.

  Something makes all the parts in the junkyard hop a millimeter. I duck behind one of the massive trucks and freeze. It doesn’t take long to feel the vibrations of whatever’s coming.

  “Danielle, can you look around a bit? I think we’re about to have a party crasher.”

  She doesn’t answer immediately, but I sense she’s doing her job. I shoot my infrared gaze into the sky but can’t penetrate the thick smog of the foundry or the persistent dust storms. The rising sun turns everything orange and red.

  “Have you ever seen the Goliath?”

  “I have. About a year ago.”

  She laughs.

  “What? Not like it’s hard to spot.”

  “You’re trying to tell me you’ve been here a year? That’s like three times as long as most people last without being part of a UCOW Expeditionary Force.”

  “Five years.” United Coalition of Worlds, UCOW, the strongest human force in the galaxy after the United Nations of America.

  “Excuse me?”

  Why would she believe me? No one respects the little guy. “I’ve been planetside five years. It’s not hard if you use brains. And if you’re a small target.”

  “We’re definitely talking about this later. Right now, you need to get in that lorry. The drones turned around early and picked up the pace. Zooming straight back to get ready for the Goliath, I bet.”

  And you’re just telling me this now? I pop to my feet and sprint. Sweeping my vision side to side, I don’t spot any security patrols or drones. I jump, land just short of the truck so that the force of my landing compresses my hips between my knees and gives me a kinetic rebound for the real jump. I fling myself into the air without using my jump jets.

  Seventeen tons makes a lot of noise slamming into a pile of metal and ceramic parts, unless an absolute master of jumping times it perfectly to impact the edge of the truck bed with a deft touch.

  “Nice!” Danielle says. “I have video of that if you want it later.”

  The lorry barely rocks under my landing. A thrill goes up my spine as I burrow into the salvaged parts. “Can you still hear me?”

  “The atmosphere is clearer than it was when we started this suicide mission,” Danielle says. “I need to peel off for a while. They going to get suspicious if they see me circling now that the air is starting to clear. The Goliath is heading straight for Foxtrot Foundry. About a hundred kilometers behind him there’s a smaller force of thirty-ton mechs that are gaining on him.”

  “Thanks, Sunshine.”

  “That’s not my callsign, Shorty.”

  I know her real callsign, and I know she can’t use it because she’s on the clock. The UCOW Garrison Force frowns on double dipping. And dereliction of duty. And treason. And about any other crime they might want to pin on her if she gets caught helping me and not paying the right people their kickbacks.

  I wiggle deeper into the tangled detritus of war. It’s cozy, for about five minutes. Then I start to freak out a little bit even though it’s easy to shut off sensory input from outside my armor.

  Like the pilot, a mech needs to rest. I’ve seen rookies make this mistake, especially those who have the backing of a large military infrastructure. They break shit and just expect it to be replaced.

  That doesn’t work in the real world. Not for mercenaries and soldiers fighting for small organizations.

  So I rest when I can and power down as often as possible. Fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there, three weeks when things go really badly.

  An alert chimes in my ear about the time I’m nodding off. Sleep calls to me like a lotus dream. The moment I touch it, it becomes my fantasy and everything I desire. All I want is to stop and rest.

  “Pressure alert. Pressure alert. If this warning has been received in error, please contact your manufacturer. Pressure alert.”

  Fun fact, battle mechs are environmentally sealed. Which means I can feel the pressure unless I want to start venting atmosphere I may need later. It’s time to move.

  I power up, wondering where the drones are and why haven’t heard from Danielle for the last fifteen or twenty minutes. I can feel the Goliath pounding ever closer. I can also hear cutting saws and bulldozers pushing piles of junk aside so they can get at the good stuff.

  One of the harvest crews dumps something on me. If I wasn’t already in the lorry I’d be worried I was getting driven over.

  A thought bothers me. What if they dumped me out while I was half asleep and I am getting driven over by a bulldozer?

  “Danielle, do you copy?”

  “I have you, Shorty. I’m off on the horizon, so don’t expect direct observation from me. The Goliath is about to make his wrath known, so be warned.”

  “Thanks. I feel like I’m getting crushed. Can you see what’s happening?”

  “I’m too far away and the angle is bad. From what I can see, it looks like they’re still just loading lorries and running them inside FF.”

  I brace my arms and legs to support my torso, somewhat like a Jiu Jitsu fighter trying not to be crushed by an aggressive opponent. This will work for a while. I’ve done it before. Sooner or later though, I need to move or hope the load gets transported inside.

  That would be the best scenario. I was actually hoping to wake up inside my destination with all the riches of Foxtrot Foundry at my disposal.

  Having a powerful imagination is another key skill to master in order to survive on Doomsday.

  “I need to clear out. The sky is getting hot. Lot of ships heading to another battle on the coast. Something’s happening. If you’re not inside, you should consider aborting,” Danielle says, her voice distorted by static.

  Unfamiliar emotions—self-doubt and fear—ice me down.

  Man, it would’ve been cool to get just a little rest.

  I run cables out from my left gauntlet, five snaking cameras to see what’s outside of the pile of junk concealing me. I notice a couple of things right away, most notably that I’m really high now. The truck has driven up the temporary road and is about to dump me into a sorting area inside the foundry’s outer wall.

  “I got a problem, Danielle.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  Thousands of tons of junk spill into a huge, walled-in area I’m unlikely to escape from. Some clever bastard was thinking. This place is like a quarantine zone for machines.

  “Sunshine!”

  No answer.

  “Are you gone or am I out of credit?”

  Nothing.

  Retracting my camera snakes, I push out of my hiding place. The walls, seeming much higher from in here, allow a limited view of the sky. Rockets streak away from FF, reflecting on the debris in the air. Static deafens me so I mute my radio and glance frequently at the alert icons, which don’t tell me much.

  Hundreds of rockets are streaking across the sky.

  “Danielle, are you there?”

  A lorry backs up to the ramp above me and rains down metal, ceramics, raw materials, and broken machines from the graveyard maze around Foxtrot. T
hrowing up one arm to protect my cockpit and sensors, I move to a corner and build a shelter from old armored cars and oversized gears.

  Dust fills the sorting chamber until the only way to see is with advanced optics… which aren’t the best.

  “If you can hear me, Danielle, I have to climb out. If security sees me, especially the QRF, I’m toast.”

  My expensive overwatch ship is gone or ignoring me. I am left to hope and pray the QRF are still on patrol or manning the gate in anticipation of the approaching Goliath.

  “Not convenient, Sunshine.”

  “Not my callsign,” she says from a great distance.

  It’s no use. She’s out of pocket and no help to me now. Maybe she’ll come back. Maybe she’ll flirt with me before I die.

  Outside Foxtrot, the Goliath launches its attack. If we were friends, I’d be happy. But the arrogant juggernaut isn’t good at sharing. And I may have spread a few nasty lies about him to the mercenary job board. Who would have thought we’d meet like this?

  Really, what are the odds?

  I wiggle free of the debris and start climbing a wall. It’s a slow, laborious process because the wall isn’t made to hold seventeen tons of awesome. I’m small, but the laws of physics are a persistent annoyance even to me.

  The wall of the sorting chamber crumbles twice, forcing me to start over at the bottom. It’s been carved into foundational bedrock or I’d never get out.

  Rockets and plasma weapons fill the small portion of sky I can see. Danielle continues the silent treatment. I tell myself I’m doing better than normal because I’ve got plenty of ammunition. Haven’t fired a single shot. So it’s a perfect mission so far, is what I’m trying to say.

  I grab the top and rest. Three minutes pass as I allow my heat sinks to cool. I’ll need them ready to go if my escape gets nasty.

  Which it will.

  “Activate full sensor array and countermeasures.” My words sound metallic on the closed circuit. Unlike most AI enhanced mechs, mine isn’t allowed to talk back. It’s set to use the minimum number of words. As for personality, it has none. Icons glow in my HUD. My commands have been acknowledged and carried out.

  During normal operations, the ambient light inside my cockpit is green. When I run a clear, unfiltered visor everything is painted orange, red, or brown depending on the time of day. Right now, everything is a shade of cool blue.

  Maybe I should give my AI a voice… maybe buy the voice filter Danielle’s been using. What would be a good name for the deadliest combat AI on Doomsday?

  “Enemy forces: three. Each sending a scout drone ahead of them. Friendly forces: none. Terrain: steep, winding passage rising toward our location. Time: contact—”

  “Our location?”

  “Yes. Chandler Michael Dane III and CAI017Doomsday.”

  I’m not always freaked out when Combat Artificial Intelligence 017 Doomsday communicates self-awareness, but when I am, it makes me want to piss through my fluid reclamation membranes.

  Ceiling and door lights flicker which I take as a sign that CAI has deployed sensor countermeasures.

  “Continue,” I say as I slide over the edge of the junk pit and look for a doorway leading out of the large workroom.

  “Time: contact is imminent. Recommendation: avoid contact.”

  “Can’t argue with that. But there’s no place to hide.” I move to one side of the door and ready short-range weapons: shotgun, plasma pulse hammer, and the spike. The last death-tool snaps in and out of my left forearm vambrace on command, silent as good engineering and modern lubricant can make it. I feel it lock and release several times, which is reassuring.

  There’s no way I’ll be able to use my helicopter blade sword in here. Might save it for a more photogenic venue, some place Danielle can film an aerial shot. Because that’d be cool as fuck.

  “Drones in fifteen seconds,” CAI warns.

  Energy primes my plasma hammer, a box on the front of my torso. When I trigger the short-range weapon, compressed gas will discharge into a layer of carbon fiber, mitigating its dissipation and superheating the durable microlayer being slammed forward faster than the human eye can follow. It’s like shooting gel into a balloon so the balloon can flash forward and burst on contact, except about nine hundred and eighty-three times faster, with corresponding shockwaves.

  Drones swarm into the room, one low and three high, scanning every surface with laser rangefinders.

  Bracing my feet, I deploy the plasma hammer, slamming half vaporized drones into the walls.

  “Grenades recommended,” CAI says.

  “Hate it when you read my mind,” I say, launching from my left shoulder arsenal. They’re small, but they bounce and fill the hallway nicely. “Deploy drones to check damage.”

  “We have no drones. Cables recommended.”

  Crossing to the doorway, I extend metal sheathed cables from both hands until they reveal everything around the corner. Foxtrot Foundry security bots lie in smoking ruins.

  “Plasma hammer, powering down.” CAI says.

  No response required, none given is my motto.

  I clear the area and map the first hallway. Everything goes in the database. CAI sorts and stores measurements and other observed details of the facility.

  “Recommended: locate security hub where I can hack the Foxtrot system and locate the items on your shopping list.”

  I don’t respond with pleasantries. Talking to your CAI is a rookie mistake. It’s not a person. No need to be polite or get emotionally attached. Says the guy looking for a woman’s sultry voiceover.

  “The security hub on the last raid was heavily defended. Let’s keep that as a someday-maybe option, depending on what we find.”

  3

  What we find is a conveyor belt loaded with parts. It’s heading downward into the bowels of the planet. Weird.

  The strangeness doesn’t bother me because we have hit the jackpot. I’ve hit the jackpot. Not we, I…

  My CAI has me thinking this is a team event when it’s just me and my gear. The mech suit is a tool, a weapon of war and nothing more. My actions make it good or bad—or more importantly—make me rich or poor. The Combat AI isn’t a part of my team and neither is it my buddy.

  I know because I once tried to get it to buy me a beer and it refused.

  Danielle’s voiceover filters tickle my memory when I need to focus on exploring the deep recesses of Foxtrot Foundry. Why’s she gotta flirt? Maybe she’s as lonely as I am.

  “Sensor scan,” I order.

  Seconds tick by. I crouch and turn in a slow circle, weapons ready. The ceiling is high, for juggernauts of war and industrial transport machines.

  I’ve got plenty of headroom.

  The CAI icon pops up in my HUD. “There is no patrol due in this area for another three minutes and fifty-nine seconds.”

  Which way to go? Should I follow the parts or head topside where my escape will be easier but possibly with a smaller payoff?

  The devil is in the details.

  During one of my embarrassingly frequent periods of unemployment—whenever my mech is busted or out of fuel—I do some manual labor. I know about assembly lines.

  This conveyor belt is made of steel-belted rubber, an industrial grade designed to withstand extremely heavy loads. It can stop kinetic projectiles just from sheer thickness. The wheels beneath it are large and reinforced. The gears and chains could shift mountains.

  The parts the belt is moving don’t do it justice. This assembly line is made for something bigger, top-of-the-line battle mechs or even spaceship parts.

  “I’m going to follow it.”

  Neither my CAI nor Danielle respond. Both have access to my private, encrypted tactical channel. Their indifference wounds me deeply. Sure it does.

  Twice I duck into doorways to avoid wheeled security drones. Once I see a humanoid figure at the end of a hallway but he or she or it is preoccupied with a hand slate.

  “Recommended: acquire the
enhanced ammunition magazine for gauss rounds. It will work for Shorty.”

  “Thanks for the heads up, and watch who and what you call Shorty. That’s my cross to bear, you bucket of bolts.”

  “My construction is bolt free. Nor do I have other moving parts.”

  I scan the hallway for enemies. Grabbing the magazines, I spot several rail guns that will fit my mech. Each has advantages, so I pick one at random and drag it free of the fast-moving conveyor. It takes too long to lock to the magnets on my back but the time investment is worth it.

  Ammunition, batteries large and small, precision ball bearings that are only made in one system near the other side of the galaxy, and best of all, a system backup for all my combined computer components including the CAI. This place has it all.

  The internal security is as weak as I suspected. The only real danger is the Goliath outside. Dust shakes from support beams as it pounds its way through the outer gates—exchanging rocket fire with the defense turrets and QRF security mechs.

  Thanks for the diversion, Goliath.

  “Recommendation: leave old batteries in favor of new. These are top quality.”

  CAI is driving me toward the edge. He… she… whatever… talks more while on mission. The rest of my life on Doomsday is blissfully quiet. If I wanted a nagging CAI boss, I would have bought one of the upgrades.

  “Fine, but if these crap out in two days I’m having you decommissioned.”

  “That would be prudent, I agree. Simple mistakes shouldn’t be tolerated from advanced thinking machines. Especially those programed to kill.”

  “You can’t kill anything without me in the cockpit.”

  “True.” CAI pauses. “Does this reassure you?”

  “Nothing on Doomsday reassures me. Do another sensor scan. We’ve been too lucky down here.”

  “Scan underway.”

  Several hangers flank the next level of the conveyor passage. Three are empty, but the fourth has a newer version of my mech—still about ten years out of date, but undamaged from combat deployment. If I could swap the guts of my current machine, including the CAI, I’d do it right now.