EngineMasters: Retribution, page 26
“I need an Engineer,” Cal pointed out.
“You didn’t seem to mind when I went out with Timo.”
“Yes, I did,” Cal said. “I told you not to go, remember?”
Dawn swallowed. Now that he mentioned it, she did remember. If I’d listened, I wouldn’t have ended up killing Mainland EngineMasters, she thought bitterly. And Timo wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Despite her anger at what he’d done, making her complicit in unnecessary EngineMaster deaths, she hoped her clan-mate would be all right.
“You did what you had to do, Dawn,” Cal added. “But now I’m asking for your help.”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Now you want me.”
Cal turned to her, his expression serious. “I’ve always wanted you, Dawn. Even when you went off with that Clan Hauser Pilot.”
Dawn let out a laugh. “I knew you were jealous!”
Cal shook his head, but a flush spread across his cheeks. “I didn’t want you in that way, I promise you.”
“No?” Dawn smirked. “Think you’re too good for me, Bassoli?”
“Not at all. I just prefer partners who are more than half my height.”
Dawn gasped indignantly. “Fuck you, Bassoli!” she cried, punching him in the arm. He winced and stepped back … then smiled at her, and Dawn grinned back as she felt the wall between them crumble. Only a real friend could get away with making fun of her height. And despite everything, Cal was the only real friend she had.
“Engineer Fletcher!”
Dawn looked up. O’Leary was beckoning to her from beside Crimson Hunter II’s cockpit.
“He’s ready, Engineer,” the crewman said as she and Cal approached. “Reactor’s still problematic, but …”
“That’s all right,” Dawn said, clapping him on the arm reassuringly. “We’ll take it from here. Thank you, Crewman.”
O’Leary nodded and hurried off, and Dawn turned back to the engine. “All right,” she muttered, clasping her hands together. “Let’s get this thing going.”
She climbed in and dropped down into the Engineer’s pit, buckling herself in and pulling on her helmet. It felt good to be in Crimson Hunter II’s cockpit again; familiar and comforting. Engineering Devastator had been enjoyable in its own way, but she didn’t think a Beta-Class was where she truly belonged.
“All systems green.” Dawn said, hands flying over the controls as she brought the engine to life. “Powercore at …” She grimaced. “Seventy-six percent.”
“Only if we intend to actually do any fighting. More than enough to power the comm.”
“Hold on,” Dawn said as she prepped the comm for transmission. “Done; comm’s all yours.”
“They won’t, will they?” Dawn asked. “Not on a Clan Corrin frequency.”
“Well, you’ll have to be bloody quick about it,” Dawn said.
Dawn held her breath as the comm’s faint standby buzz changed pitch.
Seconds passed, and Dawn held her breath in anticipation. After what seemed like an age, the comm buzzed.
No one replied. Dawn hoped that meant they were paying attention.
The comm squealed in Dawn’s ear, and she winced as she hurriedly terminated the transmission.
“They’re jamming us,” she said, gritting her teeth in frustration. “The Islanders, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Dawn said. “Oyelowo sounded more than a little fucking suspicious. I hope—”
Sirens began to wail outside the cockpit, accompanied by flashing red warning lights.
“Fuck!” Dawn cried. Through the engine’s cam, she saw two squads of auxiliaries burst into the hangar, armed with shell and fusion rifles. One squad hurriedly took up position in front of the hangar doors while the other covered the elevator platforms.
“EngineMasters of Crimson Hunter Two,” a sergeant bellowed from a handheld megaphone. “You will disembark at once!”
“Cal?” Dawn asked, her hand hovering over the shield ignition controls. “Any bright ideas?” She really didn’t want to light a neutron shield inside the hangar—it’d play havoc with the docking bay’s diagnostic equipment—but she would the minute the auxiliaries opened fire. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not especially keen to get marched back to the cells.”
Dawn grimaced, desperately looking around for another way out. Even if they reached the elevator, the auxiliaries would deactivate it before they reached the roof. Still, there had to be some kind of emergency exit for use when the power was down; safety protocols demanded it.
Better than going back to a bloody cell, she told herself. The logical part of her mind started to ask what they’d do once they escaped, but she crushed the thought before it was fully formed. One fucking problem at a time, Fletcher.
“Crimson Hunter Two,” the sergeant repeated, “This is your final warning. Disembark, or you will be fired upon!”
“Acknowledged,” Dawn said, making the necessary adjustments. “She’s all yours, Pilot, though the boarding gantry isn’t—”
She grunted as Crimson Hunter II lurched into motion, smashing aside the extended boarding gantry. The auxiliaries opened fire, micro-shells and fusion blasts striking the engine’s flanks. Dawn hit the shield ignition switch and it flickered to life around them, glowing faintly as it began to absorb the incoming fusion energy. Auxiliaries scattered, still firing as Crimson Hunter II approached, but Cal ignored them and strode to the hangar wall. He raised the engine’s massive gauntlets, grasped the rungs, and the cockpit shook violently as he began to climb. Dawn winced as the rungs creaked alarmingly … but they held, thankfully, as hand over hand, Crimson Hunter II approached the ceiling. They moved at an almost glacial pace, and the engine shuddered as micro-shells burst against its shield. But it was only small-arms fire; no one would be stupid enough to risk employing engine-mounted heavy weapons inside a hangar. Still, every small kinetic impact weakened the shield by one or two percent, so it wasn’t something Dawn could ignore indefinitely.
“Can’t you go any fucking faster?” she called over her shoulder, as impact tremors continued to shake the engine.
Dawn scowled and turned back to her instruments. She increased power to the shoulders and arms, adjusting powerflows and keeping a careful eye on actuator torque levels. Arm power wasn’t something she normally had to worry about; an engine’s hands weren’t designed to support its entire weight over an extended period of time. If they fell …
But suddenly the hatch was right above them, and Dawn’s stomach lurched as Cal reached out with Crimson Hunter II’s right gauntlet to yank on the manual release lever. The hatch swung down and away from them under its own weight, and Cal dragged them up into a dark, narrow shaft. They passed beyond the auxiliaries’ line of sight, and relief rushed through Dawn as the incoming fire abated, finally allowing the shield to recharge.
About ten meters up they reached a second hatch, which Cal unlatched and carefully pushed open. Daylight flooded in, and Dawn squinted at the abrupt change in brightness as Cal hauled them out of the shaft and onto the station roof.
44
Cal grunted as Crimson Hunter II unsteadily rose to its feet, its joints groaning as if in sympathy with his own exhaustion. Hopefully, both he and the engine would have enough energy for whatever they were about to face up here.
Astra Base’s massive flat roof was shrouded in smoke, and he could barely see more than thirty meters in any direction. The roar of battle surrounded them, and the occasional fusion blast lit up the smoke with a blue-white flash. Overhead, the sun was barely visible, a hazy yellow disc with slanting beams that cut through the smoke. It all felt horribly reminiscent of his final engagement with Zhao … the smoke, the noise, the awful sense of—
He switched the cam to infrared, revealing the glowing shapes of engines all around him, perhaps a dozen on each side. A red-and-black Clan Corrin engine—Exsanguinator—suddenly appeared out of the smoke and fired its repeater cannon at him. Cal winced as micro-shells burst against Crimson Hunter II’s shield, but he returned fire with his own repeater cannon and Exsanguinator staggered as dozens of overlapping explosions blinded it.
“Ignite left shock blade,” Cal said, gritting his teeth as he maintained his relentless salvo.
“No point straining the powercore more than necessary,” Cal said, finally releasing the trigger. The repeater cannon spun to a halt, its overworked barrels glowing a dull red. Cal didn’t give Exsanguinator a chance to recover, raising his blade and striking its torso with an extended Full Moon. It lurched back as, with a final flicker, the shield died. Cal lunged, impaling his opponent’s waist with a squeal of tearing metal and a shower of yellow sparks. He braced Crimson Hunter II’s feet, gripped the blade—and tore it loose, ripping out a good chunk of Exsanguinator's lower torso. The gutted engine swayed, but before it could fall, the canopy burst open and both ejector seats blasted skyward. The vacated wreck crashed to the ground, and Cal watched the ejector seats disappear into the haze, leaving trails of white smoke behind them. He wished the EngineMasters luck; hopefully they would land safely and get picked up by a carrier returning to the Mainland.
He glanced around, relieved to see no other engines nearby. The smoke had thinned a little, blown out to sea by a light breeze, and he found himself near the roof’s eastern edge. A relatively flat plain of grassland lay between the Astra Base and New Jericho, marred by scorch marks and littered with wrecked engines from both sides. Several Mainlander macro-carriers had been forced to land before the city walls and were deploying their engines under heavy fire from the defenders. Cal winced as a pink-and-green Mainlander engine exploded beneath a barrage of macro-shells, flaming debris flying in all directions. In return, the Mainlanders turned their weapons upon the wall itself, blasting apart the reinforced concrete with macro-shells and fusion beams. It saddened Cal to see so much needless destruction.
“We have to stop those Mainlanders attacking the city,” he said, pointing with Crimson Hunter II’s gauntlet. “Once they’re in among the buildings it’ll be almost impossible for them to withdraw, and that’s when Islander Command will initiate their skydrop.”
Dawn shook her head.
Cal sighed. Dawn was right. He looked down over the edge of the roof, frowning at the sight of a pair of wrecked Clan Shin engines. Thanks to their newly upgraded Gen-IVs, the Mainlanders had already done better than expected—and a horrible thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Where’s Doombringer?” he asked, trying to keep the concern out of his voice.
Cal didn’t dignify the comment with an answer.
“I was rather preoccupied with checking up on you,” Cal said irritably.
“Especially if they’re with General Song,” Cal agreed.
“I was as surprised as you when I found out,” Cal said. “She’s leading First Maniple. The Islanders—”
45
Dawn tensed at the unwelcome sound of Pilot Torres’s voice. The transmission had come over the Clan Corrin frequency, but she’d have recognized that scornful tone anywhere.
“Mainlander engine at our six,” she said, carrying out a scan even though it confirmed what she already knew. “It’s Morningstar.”
Cal sighed and slowly turned Crimson Hunter II around, as if reluctant to face his clan-mates. Former clan-mates? Dawn wasn’t sure. She glanced at her powercore control monitor, and her heart sank. Down to fifty-one percent already. That long, nerve-wracking climb out of the hangar had degraded the reactor even further. Don’t fucking fail on us now, Crimson Hunter Two, she thought grimly.
When she looked up from her instruments, Morningstar stood facing them, shock blades ignited and flickering with energy. The yellow-and-white engine had taken a nasty fusion blast to its left shoulder pad, scorching its Clan Corrin symbol. Apart from that, the Gamma-Class engine appeared undamaged.
Octavia said smugly.
“Now might not be the time to deliver a bloody history lesson, Cal,” Dawn muttered over the internal comm. “They don’t trust us as it is. Calling Mainland High Command a bunch of fucking liars isn’t going to help, is it?”
Cal sighed in frustration—and what Dawn hoped was agreement—before switching back to the Clan Corrin frequency.
Octavia laughed humorlessly.
Dawn gritted her teeth; all this bickering was getting on her nerves. When were they going to stop talking and bloody well fight? It wouldn’t be easy—but after her and Heikkinen’s painful encounter with Morningstar earlier in the battle, part of her relished the challenge. She only hoped that Cal could keep his mind focused and his heart hardened. Against such a skilled opponent, they couldn’t afford even a moment of distraction or uncertainty.
“I’m here, Zane,” Dawn said tightly, struggling to keep her emotions in check. “Nice to see you again.”
Dawn gasped. “What the fuck do you—”
“Cal,” Dawn hissed over the internal comm, “they’re mocking us. You’re not seriously going to let her talk to you like that?”
“Fuck you, Torres!” Dawn cried. “What fucking right do you have to judge us like this? You’ve no fucking idea what we’ve been through since the engagement at Nova Base!”
