Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) (61 page)

Capreze and Rachel stepped aside and let the aircraft fly right inside.

“Jay!” Capreze yelled. “Come on!”

Jay saw what was happening, but he didn’t care. He was in a mindset of violence and rage. Mythical creatures could have fallen from the sky and he wouldn’t have noticed. All he saw or heard was the blood and moans of the undead.

“Go get him,” Capreze said to Rachel. “He’ll keep going until he runs out of power.”

Rachel ran her mech to Jay and grabbed the massive battle machine by the arm. Jay lashed out, but Rachel ducked the swipe and slammed her mech cockpit right up against Jay’s.

“HEY!” she shouted. “Get it together, Chief Mechanic! We need you alive, Jay! So get your fucking ass inside that Stronghold right now!”

Jay blinked for a moment and shook his head.

“Rache?” Jay asked. “That is you, isn’t it?”

“Always has been,” Rachel replied. “Now move your fucking old ass.”

Jay looked about at the undead he’d ripped to shreds and smiled. “I kinda lost it.”

“It happens to us all,” Rachel replied as she started to jog back to the Stronghold, crushing deaders as she went. Jay followed right behind.

Capreze was the last to get inside and he breathed a huge sigh of relief when the hangar door locked shut. Railers and riders took aim and put down the few dozen deaders that had made it inside before the door closed and the hangar smelled like gun powder, blood and grease.

Capreze smiled as he climbed down from his mech.

“Reload, make repairs and take a shit if you haven’t already in your pants!” he shouted. “Because we’re going back out there in fifteen minutes!”

“You think we can take them now?” Rachel asked as she hopped down the last few feet from her mech.

“I think we’re going to try,” Capreze said. “Otherwise we’ll be trapped in here forever.”

“We kicked their asses!” Dog said. “We can whittle them down, easy!”

“Jethro?” Capreze called out.

‘Yeah, Commander?”

“Show them what’s happening outside,” Capreze said as he turned to one of the massive vid screens in the hangar.

Everyone went quiet.

“Did you all forget where we live?” Capreze asked as they all watched images of their friends and family as they reanimated. “This is the wasteland, people. There’s always bigger numbers out there than in here.”

Sixty-Four

“Are those guys wearing pajamas?” Bisby asked as One Arm walked up to the battlefield.

“Battle suits,” Mathew said. “Must be BC from Melissa.”

“They don’t look like they’re fighting anymore,” Bisby said. “At least not for our team.”

“The dead always rise again,” Mathew said. “Wasn’t that some war slogan or something?”

“Fuck if I care,” Bisby said. “How do we get past all those dead fucks and get to the Stronghold? One Arm can barely walk.”

“Not true,” One Arm said as he snapped the welded struts from his leg. “I am repaired.”

“Repaired? How the fuck did you do that?” Bisby asked.

“The nanobots that you infected me with when you took me over,” One Arm said. “They never left my system. I just ordered them to make the repairs needed. While I shall never forgive you for the offense you have done to my person, I shall thank your Jethro for his invention.”

“Ha!” Mathew laughed. “That’s gotta burn!”

“Fuck you, Jespers,” Bisby growled. “So now what?”

“Now we fight,” One Arm said casually.

“You do realize there’s still hundreds of thousands out there, right?” Mathew said.

“Good,” One Arm said as he started to run into the thick of the deaders. “Then it will not be over too soon.”

***

“Holy shit!” Jethro said. “Look who’s here!”

“How the hell…?” Jay asked. “I thought that thing went down when Biz and Harlow took on the Canadian mechs?”

“Well, it’s up and fighting now,” Jethro said. “And readings show two humans inside.”

“Jeezus,” Capreze smiled as he watched the one armed mech dive into the deader horde and start smashing and ripping everything that came at it. “What are we standing here for? Let’s get back in it!”

“Just give me a second,” Jethro said. “I’ll make some room.”

***

Floodlights illuminated the nightscape once again, changing darkness into light. The Stronghold gun turrets whirred to life and took aim at the thousands of deaders that pressed against the hangar door. When they opened fire the undead became a black-red mist that lifted into the air, swirling about the floodlights like a one-colored rainbow.

In just seconds Jethro had cleared enough space for the hangar door to open and the mechs to come rushing out.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Dog said.

“Negative,” Capreze replied. “Lock everything down. This is a mech fight.”

“Then give me a mech!” Dog shouted. “Jay, you have to have another mech I can use!”

“You can’t have it both ways,” Capreze said. “You’re in charge until we stomp the fuck out of these things. Keep the Stronghold safe and everyone calm.”

“He’s right, boy,” the Mayor said over the com. “Your place is no longer in a mech.”

“The voice in the ear thing is getting old,” Dog grumbled to the Mayor, but didn’t offer up any more arguments.

***

One Arm was in control and Bisby and Mathew had no problem with that. They were both experienced mech pilots, but One Arm had more experience dealing with massive hordes of deaders. After all, he was a rogue mech from the wasteland.

With his one fist, One Arm gripped a broken transport and slammed it down again and again, creating stamps of crushed deaders. He spun about, sweeping the transport to clear the area directly around them and then started in again with the smashing.

Bisby perked up when he saw the other mechs come running out to help. The com was still down, but he was pretty sure they would know that One Arm was friendly. Anything that attacked deaders with as much joy as One Arm had to be seen as an ally.

***

“I’m getting nothing,” Capreze said. “Jay?”

“Their coms must be fried,” Jay replied. “We’ll just have to get close enough to shout.”

“Then let’s get to crushing some fucking deaders,” Rachel said. “There’s a lot between us and them.”

There were thousands upon thousands between the three mechs and One Arm, but those numbers dwindled quickly. From a few hundred thousand down to just a couple hundred thousand. The mechs, all four of them, used everything they had. They were horribly outnumbered and should have been overtaken within minutes, but they refused to yield.

Capreze, Rachel, Jay, and even One Arm, proved that there is nothing more deadly than a determined mech, dead or alive.

Everything Capreze had fought for over the years was at the front of his mind: his late wife, his daughter, the mech pilots, the mech base, the city/states, and even the wasteland itself. Not much was left and Capreze knew he had failed many, but he also knew that there were many still that depended on him to see them through the hell that had been brought to them all.

With all of that fueling him, Capreze fought.

He unloaded his 50mms until they overheated and seized. The few RPGs that he’d been able to reload in the hangar went flying into the deaders, sending showers of body parts into the air. When every weapon was spent he shifted to the one weapon that never needed to be reloaded: himself.

There was no thought, no premeditation, no calculation, as Capreze waged war against the deaders. He used everything to his advantage. He grabbed transports and broken rail cars and wiped areas clear of deaders, sending hundreds flying about the wasteland. When he tired of that he would grab the undead up by the handful and slam them down into the dirt, smooshing them between his massive fingers.

When he was overrun by deaders, their boney hands clambering up his exoskeleton, he’d just fall, crushing the ones on his back then rolling over and crushing the ones on his front. At no time did he feel overwhelmed.

The need to protect everyone was supplanted by the need to destroy every single fucking deader he could. And he gave into that need 100%.

***

“Damn!” Mathew said. “Look at him go!”

“Who’s that in the other mech?” Bisby asked. “That’s Jay there. I can tell that bumbling fight stance anywhere. But who’s the other one?”

Mathew watched the mech fight. He saw how it rolled and kicked, punched and grabbed. He watched the movement and the transition from guns to melee and back again. There was something about it that he knew.

“That can’t be,” Mathew said. “It can’t be at all.”

“That’s her isn’t it?” Bisby said. “That’s our girl?”

“Rachel’s dead, Biz,” Mathew said. “That can’t be her.”

“But that clone, remember?” Bisby said. “It could be-.”

“She’s dead!” Mathew shouted. “Why even do this, man? I know she’s dead.”

“Let us find out,” One Arm said. “So that you two flesh bags will shut up.”

“Whoa!” Bisby and Mathew shouted as One Arm leapt into the air and landed just a few feet from Rachel.

One Arm opened the cockpit, swatting at deaders that started to climb up him immediately to get at the two pilots inside.

“Pilot Bisby? You will want to provide cover while Pilot Jespers speaks to the woman he believes is dead,” One Arm said as he swatted more deaders away. “Pilot Bisby? Now.”

“Right, sure,” Bisby said as he moved to the edge of the cockpit and opened fire with his 9mm. He made sure every shot was a head shot and he couldn’t help but smile as he watched the deaders fall headless to the ground below.

“Your move, Pilot Jespers,” One Arm said. “And you will need to make it quickly.”

Mathew got as close as he could to the edge of the cockpit and looked out at Rachel. She parked her mech and opened her cockpit also, both hands holding 9mms.

“Hey, Matty!” Rachel smiled. “Surprised?”

“Tell me something to prove it’s you,” Mathew said as he looked at the younger version f the woman he loved. “Just one thing.”

“Remember the watchtower at the old base?” Rachel asked.

“Of course,” Mathew nodded.

“Get to it, you two!” Bisby shouted as he reloaded his 9mm.

Rachel blew the heads off six deaders then looked right at Mathew. “Six times. It was our record.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Bisby groaned.

Mathew watched her for a few moments as she killed more and more deaders. “Okay, it’s believable,” Mathew said. “But we’ll have to talk more for me to be sure.”

“How about we not do that talking right now!” Bisby yelled as he reloaded again. “Can we shut the fucking cockpit?”

Rachel smiled at Mathew. “I love you, Matty,” she said. “You’ll see.”

She closed her cockpit, slicing the arms off two deaders trying to get inside. She immediately turned and began stomping everything that moved.

“Feel free to keep killing,” Bisby said as he took a deep breath and leaned back. “I need a nap.”

***

“My count is twenty thousand,” Jay said. “How are you holding up?”

“Still going,” Capreze replied. “You?”

“I could use a gallon of shine right now, but I’ll make it,” Jay said.

“We’ll all make it,” Capreze replied. “We’ll be scarred, but we’ll make it.”

The two mech veterans continued their onslaught. With each foot stomp and fist punch, more and more died. Soon the twenty was down to nineteen thousand. Then seventeen thousand. Ten thousand. Between the four mechs they systematically demolished the deader numbers.

Twice a mech was taken down, toppled by the weight of deaders as they swarmed over it. But another mech was there to swipe the deaders off and pull the mech back to its feet, ready to keep fighting.

After several exhausting hours, the mechs all stood side by side, looking at the last of the deaders. The ones in suits.

“Those aren’t normal,” Jay said. “That’s Melissa’s BC tech on them. I think I’ve stomped that one there at least ten times and it won’t fucking die.”

“Need some help?” Melissa asked as the hangar door opened and she rode out on one of the cyces. Charlie, Dog and Immy were right behind her.

“Can’t let you guys do all the work,” Dog said. “You’ll start to think that all we need are mechs in the wasteland.”

Melissa hopped off her cyce even before it rolled to a stop. She leapt at the first group of deaders and rolled up to them. Her hands grabbed the first two and the BC suits instantly changed, popping the heads off the deaders inside. Charlie, in full shock suit, blasted three more suited deaders, keeping them from getting Melissa. Immy and Dog joined Charlie and the three of them created a protective shield against the deaders that circled them.

Melissa reached out and changed suit after suit with just a touch. BC covered heads began to roll everywhere. Dog kicked a few and smiled as they sailed through the air.

In less than fifteen minutes Melissa had ended the last of the deaders. The group, including the mechs turned in a circle and looked at what they had done all night long. Piles and piles of motionless deaders covered the ground. The smell was almost unbearable, but it wasn’t the worst they had to face. The worst was still to come as they cleaned up, sorting friend from foe.

“We find everyone,” Capreze said as if they had all been talking about the subject. “Everyone gets remembered and put on the fire. I mean everyone.”

They all nodded.

The sun broke the horizon and the bright rays turned the gore covered battlefield into a bright tableau of oranges and reds. They all waited until the orb was fully up, none wanting to break the spell and scare the sun away.

They all knew they needed the light.

Sixty-Five

“I’m sorry, June,” Capreze said. “I know this is hard.”

June nodded, but she didn’t seem sad. “It was the child of a rapist, sir,” she said about her miscarriage. Taking 10,000 volts to the body was not good for the fetus. “I’m fine with what happened.”