E-Day III: Dark Moon (E-Day Trilogy Book 3), page 12
“It’d be a lot easier if you had a little more patience,” Chloe said.
Alone with Tadhg, Chloe’s mind wandered to the man’s journey with Cyrus to Atlas Station.
“Cyrus isn’t going to tell me what you two found at Atlas,” she whispered. Her thoughts swirled to all the people she’d been imprisoned with there. “But I need to know.”
Tadhg glanced up at her. “Not my place to say.”
“Look, maybe you and Cyrus think you’re protecting me by not saying anything. But I don’t need two white knights that think they know what’s best for me.”
“I’m not trying to do anything,” Tadhg said. “Cyrus said…”
“I don’t care what Cyrus said. I lived with those people. Some of them were my friends. I need to know.”
She folded her arms over her chest, letting the remaining wires dangle.
Tadhg let out a sigh. “Really, I—”
A voice came from the doorway before he could continue.
“We found the hybrids,” Cyrus said. “Most of them were in a hangar. They died together.”
“How?” Chloe asked.
“Maybe Thacker tricked them with the promise of an evac, but killed them instead.” Cyrus shook his head. “No one… No one survived, Chloe. I’m sorry.”
A flare of anger burned in Chloe’s gut. “Did you find Giana?”
Cyrus said nothing.
He didn’t have to.
“Thacker… that piece of…” She wanted to cry and scream and curse.
But that wouldn’t do anything to bring back Giana or the others.
Instead, she focused on what would.
She continued working on Tadhg’s cap with newfound determination. Then she stepped back to check her work.
“Okay, it’s online. All you have to do is start trying to move them,” Chloe said.
Tadhg stood from the chair and lifted the left arm. It jerked, and then trembled, fingers curling in fits.
“It will take some getting used to, but it looks functional,” Chloe said. “How does it feel?”
Tadhg curled the fingers in and out, slowly controlling the shaking. Then he raised the right arm and hand.
“Feels like I got some catching up to do,” he said, watching his fingers clench into fists.
“Step one is done,” Cyrus said. “You have your new arms. Now we need you to pass as an LDC Trooper, bust Captain Harback out of prison, and steal a MOTH.”
“Don’t worry, my friend.” Tadhg smiled. “That’s the easy part.”
— 10 —
A Praying Mantis fighter streaked over the island, the thrusters burning blue in the night.
Jackson and Tumea both got down on their bellies in the mud. Three hours had passed since the repaired machine began moving on the other side of the mountain where the shuttle was located.
Judging by the tremors under their bodies, it was getting closer to discovering the ship, and the survivors there.
Tumea began to crawl. Jackson did the same, not stopping until they had enough cover to stand again. They got back up and continued the hike through the jungle.
Branches and leaves struck his new armor as he climbed up a hill. He tried not to think about who the armor had belonged to before him. But it was hard not to think of the now dead Coalition Breaker that once wore it.
They didn’t exactly have armor suited for Engines in the mountain armory, so he was forced to go with one big enough for his body.
Since he had left his own equipment behind, he’d had the option of facing the machines virtually naked or putting on armor from his old enemies. He’d chosen the latter, and even though it made logical sense, he didn’t like it.
Spikes protruded off his shoulder plates and elbow pads. Antlers rose off the armet he wore to protect his face.
He also carried enough explosives to blow up the superstructure.
At least, that was the plan, if he could get close enough.
But that was unlikely. Plan B was to distract the machine and draw it away from the shuttle.
Tumea had climbing equipment and a bandolier of flares to do just that.
They were nearing the peak of the mountain now, where they hoped to finally get a clear view of the superstructure.
Tumea stopped in front of a bluff that rose fifty feet up. Moss clung to the sides, and vines hung down.
She motioned for him to help her up.
After slinging his rifle, he cupped his hands to give her a boost. She was heavier than she looked, but he still picked her up and raised her into the air. He held her steady until she leapt off and grabbed a handhold.
From there, she climbed all the way to the top, where she vanished.
Jackson waited for a few long seconds, enough he started to worry until a rope uncoiled down, whipping around in front of him. He snatched it, then started scaling the rock.
Wind rushed against his body as he pulled himself toward the ledge above. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw how far they had already advanced. It was over a thousand feet to the beach below.
When he finally got to the ledge, he saw only sparse vegetation growing on the rocky ground. Tumea was nowhere in sight. He unstrapped his rifle and began to cross the sixty-foot-wide ledge with views of Ha Long Bay to the west.
The moon hung high in the smoky sky, penetrating it with ghostly rays.
“Down, down,” came a voice.
Jackson spotted Tumea hiding in a cluster of rocks overlooking the western side of the mountain. He hurried over to her and took a knee.
The vantage provided a clear view of the jungle and the gargantuan superstructure. Red beams flitted back and forth from the repaired turrets on the command center.
Tumea held up a pair of night vision optics to her helmet. She lowered them for a moment, pointing at the jungle in front of the machine.
Jackson squinted, picking up movement. A pack of three Canebrakes darted across the ground, scrambling over the slick, rocky terrain.
Jackson didn’t see any of the Hummer Worker Droids that had repaired the superstructure. Maybe with their job done, a transport had picked them up.
Tumea tapped Jackson on his shoulder plate, then motioned for him to follow. They crouch-walked, using the rocks for cover to another lookout.
This time, she pointed toward a sea of dense treetops. Jagged rocks formed a boundary around the perimeter.
Jackson knew exactly what was under there.
The shuttle.
While there were no more Praying Mantis fighters in sight, launching the shuttle now would be a disaster with the superstructure nearby.
The ground rumbled, shaking the grit and rocks beside his boots.
They returned to the outcropping where they watched the machine continue its trek. The legs crushed trees, snapping through them with ease and leaving a path of destruction.
The red beams continued to flit back and forth, this time upward toward their position.
Jackson and Tumea hunkered back down.
To his surprise, she pulled out a small leather book and opened it.
What’s the plan? she wrote.
Smart, Jackson thought.
Slowly, he snuck a glance through the gap in the rocks.
The Canebrakes continued to advance, but he wasn’t worried about the pack. Boar and his warriors could handle them.
It was the superstructure they had to stop.
Jackson reached behind his back and unslung the pack. Carefully, he opened a small crate inside, revealing the eight grenade-sized explosives. But these were not grenades—these were far more powerful. Placed carefully, each could disable a leg of the lumbering tower.
If Jackson could manage to get to that control center, he could potentially destroy the entire machine. But without his jetpack, he wasn’t sure how he would make it that far.
Tumea wrote something else on the pad and held it to him.
The craziest idea is the one that will work, it read.
Jackson couldn’t help but grin.
She pulled out a flare and then wrote, I will use these to lure the Canebrakes and distract the machine. You plant the explosives.
They were both equally dangerous jobs that would more than likely result in their deaths. But Jackson had prepared to die the moment he stayed behind to fight this superstructure.
Now he really had the chance to stop it and save people.
Even if they were Coalition.
Tumea appeared just as ready to die for this mission too.
It was odd, but in that moment, he felt like how he used to with his fellow Engines on the Fire Snakes. A comradery that only battle could inspire.
She wrote something else.
See you in hell.
Jackson took the pad from her.
Good luck, he wrote.
She lifted up her helmet and winked with a shit-eating grin. Then she was gone, taking off with the flares.
Jackson huddled behind the rocks. He pulled out the charges, sticking four on each arm.
Rattling sounded over the clanking of mechanical joints.
The Canebrakes exploded out of the jungle below, wailing their electronic voices.
Jackson took another look over the edge, seeing five of the machines now skittering up the cliff. Dozens of bluffs and outcroppings separated his position from the enemy, but they would find him eventually. He had to move.
Not far behind the machines, the superstructure was reaching up with the front two of its six arms, preparing to climb the side of the mountain.
About six hundred feet to his right, Tumea began rappelling down.
She was looking up in his direction. With a nod, she fired a flare. The brilliant red glow streaked over the jungle, then burst over the bay where the fisherman had been captured.
Jackson looked over the edge, seeing the Canebrakes had all halted mid-climb. Their fanned heads tilted back and forth, searching for the source of the flare.
Tumea was already rappelling down to the next bluff.
As she moved, she fired another flare, this time into the trees. It burst against the ground, spreading a red glow through the jungle.
The rattling shook through the trees again, and all at once, the Canebrakes clambered back down toward the ground. The superstructure command center roved upward, the red beams slashing through the darkness toward the rocks where Tumea had rappelled from.
She was under the cover of the leaves now, but Jackson could see her heat signature.
If he could, then so could the machines.
He had to make this fast.
Jackson took the other rope and began to rappel down toward the bluff while the superstructure retreated into the jungle. The command center was rotating, firing beams into the treetops.
He cursed when he realized the rope wasn’t long enough. The next ledge was only ten feet below. He jumped down, his augmented bones and muscles absorbing the impact.
When he looked over the edge, he realized he might have stranded himself.
The jungle floor was another fifty feet below.
He searched for a way down, relieved to see a narrow path of rock that led to scree at the base of the mountain. He jumped another twelve feet, this time rolling after hitting the rock.
The chatter of plasma gunfire came from the trees. Bolts lanced through the darkness. Those Canebrakes would be on Tumea soon.
Jackson didn’t waste another second. He navigated the path at a rapid clip, snapping through tree branches and vines. When he hit rocks, his boots slid on the wet surface.
He slipped, slid, and then fell on his side, clanking as he tumbled over the loose rocks. A boulder stopped him with a thud. Red burst across his vision.
It took a moment for it to clear, but when he could see straight again, the superstructure had turned away from the jungle, seemingly uninterested now, its massive joints groaning.
Jackson pushed himself up and ran toward the trees, looking up in horror as one of the front legs came down right overhead.
He dove to the ground. Then he rolled and rolled again, his body getting stuck in the mud.
Jackson held up his hands as a massive foot the size of a tank crushed a tree on its way down. He closed his eyes, unable to watch.
The ground seemed to sink around him.
He opened his eyes as that foot rose back up into the air.
I’m still alive.
Jackson stood again, his armor caked in mud. He immediately started running after the leg.
When it came down again, he would make his move.
He watched the foot, trying to perfect his timing. He reached for one of the charges on his arm, heart thumping when he saw he had lost three of the eight.
Fuckin-A!
He plucked off a charge and tossed it at the metal leg, an easy target, considering it was as wide as a building.
With the first explosive attached, he took off for the other back leg, another three hundred feet to his left. While the structure had appeared to move slowly when they had looked down on it, the legs moved far faster than he could.
He prepared the second charge in his hand as the foot came down, a quake shaking the ground.
The leg lifted up again, and he darted ahead, leaping over a crushed log. Another downed tree was just ahead. This time when he jumped, he tossed the charge at the leg. It stuck to the side with a satisfying clunk.
Jackson’s lungs burned from the effort of his continued sprint. He was directly under the tower now. The bottom was nothing but ribbed metal platforms, but there was a crevice bleeding light from the main body, illuminating an interior that he couldn’t quite see.
The middle legs came crashing down on his flanks. This time, they didn’t move right away, as the front two legs were reaching up toward the mountain.
This was his chance.
Plasma gunfire erupted again in the distance, the staccato blasts hissing over the clanking mechanical joints. In the respite came a rattling of what had to be new orders between the Canebrakes.
Had Tumea been killed?
Jackson kept running and delivered both explosives on the middle legs within two minutes. The front legs chiseled into the rock, preparing to climb.
With only one explosive left, Jackson decided to go for the control center. But to do that, he was going to have to climb.
First, he needed to make sure this bastard couldn’t walk.
Jackson searched for a place to detonate the explosives without ending up a ball of flaming gore himself. It didn’t take long before he found a cave entrance.
He ran inside and hid behind the rocks. Then he pulled out the remote that controlled the charges. He selected the four he had thrown, then flipped the switches.
“Try walking now, you metal prick!” Jackson yelled.
His voice was drowned out by a massive concussive blast. The cave shook from the distant impacts, and gravel trickled down.
Hope you made it out, Tumea, Jackson thought.
Moving out from cover, he could see fissures in the glowing red legs of the superstructure.
The mangled legs began to give way. With a terrifying screech of protesting metal, the giant machine collapsed into the jungle with a thunderous clap that sent a tsunami of mud and debris flying in every direction. The ground shook as if Hros-1 had hit.
Ears ringing, he steadied himself as the dust settled. Slowly, he stumbled forward, eyes on the superstructure. It reached up with the front arms, flailing in the air like a crab flipped onto its back.
Jackson searched for a way up the mountain. If he could get above the machine, he could deliver the other explosive right where it mattered most.
Groaning metal screeched across the jungle as the machine struggled to get up.
This time, Jackson didn’t slip going up the rocks he’d fallen down earlier. He managed to get all the way up to a bluff.
When he looked back to the superstructure, those menacing red beams darted through the night like search lights. One of those beams hit the wall of rock below him.
He pulled himself up to another bluff and rolled away, flattening his body against the rough ground. After the beam passed, he crawled over to the edge, glancing directly down on the control tower. Dark, cracked glass windows framed the side.
To his shock, behind one, he saw a figure.
Not a Canebrake, or a droid.
This was a man wearing a black mask connected to ribbed tubes.
The highly modified soldier was one of the Dreads.
Jackson smiled again and said, “Surprise, mother fucker.”
He threw the last explosive right at the window. It stuck to the metal hull about ten feet from the command viewports. The Dread inside tilted his masked face before pointing at Jackson.
Reaching over his back, Jackson pulled out the energy cutlass from the Coalition armory. He raised it as the red blade warmed in his hands.
Days ago, he had stood on the beach looking up at this very machine with his precious axe he was forced to leave behind. The abomination had towered over him, so tall it didn’t even seem to notice him.
“Now I’m standing above you,” he whispered.
Jackson held the cutlass in one hand, and the manual detonator in the other. The control center began to rotate, lifting upward. More Dreads appeared behind the viewports, pointing at Jackson.
The tractor beam and laser turrets twisted his direction, the barrels warming.
“Too late, assholes.” He smiled as he flipped the switch.
The explosion roared in a brilliant orange ball, the force knocking him backward. He fought against the pressure wave to get back to the edge just as flames tore out from the command center.
Mangled turret barrels hung limply, and volleys of fire continued to vent out of the missing viewport windows.
Jackson raised the cutlass above his head, letting out a cry of victory.
He did it! He really did it!
The flames died down, smoke churning out of a gaping hole in the side of the structure.
Jackson looked back over the jungle, wondering if Tumea had survived. He listened for Canebrakes, but only heard the groans and cracks of the dying superstructure.
