For the first time, Dan got the opportunity to watch the reaper drones launch from the Viceroy’s aft cargo bay while on the ground. He leaned back, enjoying the thrum of their turbines as they shook the roof below him and soared toward Drummond’s forces. There might have been anti-aircraft guns in Bakersfield proper, but out in the suburbs, they were overextended and unprotected.
Missiles rained down upon the advancing robots, great explosions leaving gaping holes in their lines. Then, Dan’s radio crackled as Abe gave the order for the mechs to advance. One by one, the metal behemoths stomped forward, shouldering aside buildings.
As soon as they cleared the edge of the suburbs, giving them a clear line of fire at the dogbots charging down the interstate, the mechs opened fire. Abe kept the mechs moving to make things a little more difficult for anti-tank fire. Some of the heavy weapons teams still fired at them, but between the mechs’ weaving, confusing direct-fire weapons and active defenses throwing up handfuls of chaff into the path of guided weapons, very few hit. Those that did were quickly absorbed by the spellshields.
Still, Dan frowned slightly at the engagement. Abe’s men had to be running low on mana. Most of them were between rank two and three, enough to make their mana reserves notable, but not enough to power an energy hog like a mech indefinitely.
Regardless of their reserves, the mechs tore into the dogbots with their knee-mounted anti-personnel weapons, tearing apart their metal forms by the dozens. Meanwhile, their main and shoulder-mounted cannons swiveled independently, targeting the heavy weapons teams and destroying them one-by-one.
Dan’s frown disappeared as the human weapon teams began fleeing, only to be cut down from a distance. Shell burst after shell burst exploded over their retreating columns, shredding the unarmored enemy.
Then, when the wall of dogbots was sufficiently thinned out, and without human guidance, the powered armor advanced. Each repeater round ended a robot as they moved forward into the fray, the smaller-caliber bullets from Drummond’s drones just bouncing off of their heavier, magically reinforced armor.
The mechs pulled back and lowered themselves to the ground. Dan shimmied down from his roof, not quite trusting his anemic mana to make a force bubble, and jogged over to the giant war machines. He got there just as Abe and his men exited the menacing metal structures on unsteady legs, covered in sweat.
Overhead, the Viceroy fired another lance of light and energy that tore a line into the scrubland, melting the sandy soil into glass and frying a dozen soldiers. Dan threw his water bottle to Abe, who greedily popped it open and emptied its contents into his mouth. Wiping the sweat off of his face, Abe handed the water bottle back.
“Listen, Boss.” He shook his head, the forlorn look in his eyes belied by the giant shit-eating grin on his face. “We absolutely need to get air conditioners into that thing. After maybe twenty minutes, it starts running hot. Ten minutes after that, and I’m pretty sure you could toast bread in there if you held it up against the metal.”
“Sam says the entire thing is a heat sink,” Dan replied, looking over the hissing metal of the mech. “Right now, we can barely get around the power problem, but an air conditioner wouldn’t do much. Even if we pump cooler air onto you, the machine itself will be well over a hundred degrees. We’re trying to work on a way to vent the mech’s heat as it moves and fights, but that part is still a work in process. Unless you have enough spare mana that we can use to vent excess heat, I think mech piloting is going to be hot and uncomfortable for the near future.”
“A shame,” Abe grinned like a maniac. “If we could fix the heat problem, that would be a load of fun. Even with it, there’s something therapeutic about stomping your way through buildings. I think that was the closest I’ll ever get to being a kaiju, and I have to say, it was exhilarating.”
“I’m sure it was/” Dan smiled back. “Now, do we have any idea how the battle’s going?”
Abe grabbed a towel offered to him by a soldier and wiped the sweat streaming from his face before responding. “I’d ask Jennifer to verify, but I’d expect that the battle is pretty much over. Between your spells and the mechs, we broke Best pretty quickly, and I’ll bet you a month’s pay that the field of dead robo pups over there represents almost the entirety of Drummond’s mobile forces. I think he was trying to take advantage of our attack to spring a surprise of his own and catch Best in a pincer.”
“Shit,” Abe hissed, pullin back the hand he’d pressed up against the mech so that he could lean on it. “That thing is still hot as hell. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if both sides are suing for peace right now. I’d be surprised if either of them had any fight left in them after this drubbing.”
Dan tapped the camera that kept him in touch with Tatiana. “Tatiana, can you set up a three way call between you and Jennifer? I want to get a status update.”
“A three-way,” Tatiana purred back/ “Sexy.”
Dan winced as Abe started laughing.
“A what way?” Jennifer’s confused voice sounded through the speaker, causing Abe to redouble his laughter. “What in the hell is going on here?”
“I asked Tatiana to connect us so that you could give us an update on the battle.” Dan sighed, studiously avoiding Abe’s gaze. “Tatiana decided to crack a joke, which Abe thought was hilarious, by the way, and here we are.”
“So what do you want updated?” Jennifer asked. Even over the radio, Dan was pretty sure he could hear the smile in her voice. “Do you want to know the status of our forces or the enemy forces?”
“Both?” Dan questioned. “I charged a bunch of people like an idiot and blew up a couple of buildings, but other than that, I’ve mostly been out of touch down here.”
Jennifer’s voice turned serious. “We’ve taken some losses. A dozen suits are down and thirty soldiers weren’t able to pull back after their bracers were overwhelmed. As for our wounded, we have probably another twenty suits down and ninety infantry that will need nanites in the next month or so.
“As bad as that sounds,” she continued, “it could have been a lot worse. The good news is that the war is pretty much over. Dad and Drummond are trying to work out a peace deal where he agrees to self-exile in exchange for us not sending a couple of Abe’s friends to find him, and one of the infantry teams managed to grab Best.”
Jennifer chuckled darkly. “Apparently, he was trying to sneak out in the back of a supply truck when you leveled his command center. A couple of our soldiers stopped the truck in an effort to, uh, liberate some alcohol, and they found him under a couple sacks of flour.”
“He’s spent the last twenty or so minutes demanding to talk to the person in charge,” Tatiana interjected helpfully. “I’ve counted. The phrase ‘do you know who the hell I am’ has been used seventeen times. The soldiers guarding him seem thrilled. Should I lead you to him?”
“No,” Dan smiled, stretching the kinks out of his back. “Let him stew for a little bit. I think that I’ve earned myself a break. Plus, Will can handle that asshole. He’ll do a better job than me, and he’ll make the bastard squirm.”
Jennifer’s response was overwhelmed by the sound of the Viceroy firing again. Some buildings on the outskirts of Bakersfield proper erupted into flame, immolating the soldiers that were hiding within.
At this point, using the void ship on isolated outposts of men was overkill, but unlike conventional weapons, its ammunition was unlimited. Really, there was no reason to stop the bombardment until Drummond gave up and capitulated.
“Can I at least have some fun with him?” Tatiana asked, her tone sending a shiver down Dan’s spine. “Nothing too serious, just some harmless pranks. There were some interesting things in his emails and browser history. Peter Best was enough of a headache when I worked for Drummond that it only seems fair that I have a little fun with him.”
“Knock yourself out,” Dan replied, his mouth dry. He wasn’t exactly sure what passed for a prank in Tatiana’s estimation, but it was his goal to never actually find out.
Abe tapped him on the shoulder, drawing Dan’s attention. Somewhere, the man had procured a cooler, and he was offering Dan a cold beer from it. Of course, Abe already had his own half-empty.
He took the can and cracked it open before taking a pull. A cold, domestic pilsner. It barely had any flavor, and what it did have wasn’t great, but it served as the perfect companion while baking in the sun on the blacktop.
“I just figured you needed one, boss.” Abe’s smile was all teeth. Near him, a couple of the mech pilots were enjoying their own drinks. “We’re basically tapped out until our mana recovers, so I figured the boys and girls needed a couple brews. Now, if only we had a baseball game to not watch while we roasted in the sun and drank, it’d be absolutely perfect.”
Dan took another sip. He’d never been a big beer guy. Still, it tasted like going camping with his Dad and barely watching mindless sports on a hot summer day. There was something compelling about the normalcy of it.
“You know, Abe.” He turned to the other man. “We’re going to fix all of this. It might not be perfect, and it might not be quick, but there are good people out there. They deserve more than this, being stuck at the whim of assholes, both domestic and alien. I want sports to come back. I want dumb reality tv.”
He finished his beer and crushed the can in his hand before throwing it next to a pile of empties.
“The entire galaxy opened up to us,” Dan continued, staring up into the sky. “Things aren’t ever going to be exactly the same. Still, it all needs to come to an end. We can, and will, fix this.”
He kept looking up as the Viceroy rained fire down upon the retreating troops. The street was silent other than the shuffling of soldiers and the hissing of the cooling mechs. Abe handed him another cold beer.
“I know, boss.” Abe’s voice was quiet, introspective. “That’s why I signed up with you. Unlike a lot of the assholes out there, I actually trust you to try and see all of this through.
“So,” Abe chuckled as he opened his own can with a hiss. “New York is next?”
“New York is next,” Dan agreed, cracking his beer in reply.
