Contents
Title Page
Free Books
POWERED - Book 1
Chapter 1: Mech
Chapter 2: The Dusty Bucket
Chapter 3: Gabriel Roach
Chapter 4: The Crazy Part
Chapter 5: Clearly a War Machine
Chapter 6: Mind on the Mission
Chapter 7: Trying Not to Kill
Chapter 8: Toe-to-Toe with Beasts
Chapter 9: Confession
Chapter 10: White and Scarlet
Chapter 11: Pockets of Resistance
Chapter 12: Accelerate Vengeance
Chapter 13: Beetle
Chapter 14: Your Favorite Video Game Character
Chapter 15: Burpee
Chapter 16: Firing a Real Gun
Chapter 17: Living Hell
Chapter 18: We're All Starting to Hate
Chapter 19: Plenty to Worry About
Chapter 20: Test Run
Chapter 21: Beetle Chase
Chapter 22: For Our Sisters
Chapter 23: Do Not Flinch
Chapter 24: Dangerous for Basically Everyone
Chapter 25: War Never Asks
Chapter 26: Quatro
Chapter 27: No Warning
Chapter 28: Claustrophobia
Chapter 29: Stranded
Chapter 30: Oneiri
Chapter 31: Taken
Chapter 32: Subterranean Ship
Chapter 33: Drop
Chapter 34: Stars
Chapter 35: Miscalculation
Chapter 36: Heavy Ordnance
Chapter 37: Crumbling
Chapter 38: First Words
Chapter 39: Our Planet Now
Chapter 40: Fullerenes
Chapter 41: Collectivist
Chapter 42: Red Company
Chapter 43: So Long as the Walls Hold
Chapter 44: Shut up and Shoot
Chapter 45: Act Fast
Chapter 46: How Many Teeth
Chapter 47: Parabola
Chapter 48: Makeshift Tank
Chapter 49: Steam
Chapter 50: A Losing Engagement
Chapter 51: Attack Angle
Chapter 52: Beating Heart
Chapter 53: Fear and Revulsion
Chapter 54: Sharing
Chapter 55: Take No Prisoners
Chapter 56: Clutch
Chapter 57: A Troop of Giant Aliens
Chapter 58: Retreat
Chapter 59: Quadruped
DYNAMO - Book 2
Chapter 1: Into the Shadows
Chapter 2: Quads
Chapter 3: Classic Conspiracy Theorist
Chapter 4: Valiant
Chapter 5: Two-Legged Murderers
Chapter 6: Mating Ritual Initiated
Chapter 7: Fury and Justice
Chapter 8: Adventurous Benders
Chapter 9: Act like a Soldier
Chapter 10: Played
Chapter 11: Vaguely Humanoid
Chapter 12: Militia
Chapter 13: Not Just a War of Expansion
Chapter 14: Extermination Is Also Acceptable
Chapter 15: Operational Details
Chapter 16: Eyes Aglow
Chapter 17: Feedback Mechanism
Chapter 18: Creative Karma
Chapter 19: Sucker for Punishment
Chapter 20: Alliance
Chapter 21: Infiltration
Chapter 22: Imminent Danger
Chapter 23: Back in Business
Chapter 24: On Patrol
Chapter 25: Constable Station
Chapter 26: If I Bleed, I Bleed
Chapter 27: A Lot to Answer For
Chapter 28: Contract Violation
Chapter 29: Significant Deviations
Chapter 30: Jump
Chapter 31: This Thing Is Moving
Chapter 32: Coma
Chapter 33: That Which Nullifies
Chapter 34: Try Something Else
Chapter 35: All the Cards
Chapter 36: Oxygen
Chapter 37: Billy's Bunker
Chapter 38: Slave State
Chapter 39: Play with Explosives
Chapter 40: More Hectic than Expected
Chapter 41: Paste
Chapter 42: Nature's Original Shape
Chapter 43: Our Best Idea
Chapter 44: Training
Chapter 45: A Monster or a Coward
Chapter 46: Supposed to Be the Best
Chapter 47: Defensive Formation
Chapter 48: The Long-Term Doesn't Matter
Chapter 49: Lay Down Your Guns
Chapter 50: Payload
Chapter 51: Dynamo
Chapter 52: No Choice
Chapter 53: Subsumed
Epilogue: Progenitor
MELTDOWN - Book 3
Chapter 1: All Combat Units
Chapter 2: Under Attack
Chapter 3: One Rocket Each
Chapter 4: Swath of Destruction
Chapter 5: The Beast
Chapter 6: Good and Evil
Chapter 7: Sucker Punch
Chapter 8: Phantoms
Chapter 9: Sympathy for O'Toole
Chaper 10: Until I Am Satisfied
Chapter 11: Emergency Bulletin
Chapter 12: A Unified Oneiri
Chapter 13: The Quatro Way
Chapter 14: Without a Spacefaring Enemy
Chapter 15: Sabotage
Chapter 16: Blaring Prophecy
Chapter 17: Avalanche
Chapter 18: The Glades
Chapter 19: Comet Four
Chapter 20: Whirlwind of Metal
Chapter 21: The Gatherers
Chapter 22: Shower of Shrapnel
Chapter 23: Cordage
Chapter 24: Crescendo
Chapter 25: Definitely Fearless
Chapter 26: Peppertree
Chapter 27: Lockdown Mode
Chapter 28: Defeatist
Chapter 29: Cascade Error
Chapter 30: DuGalle
Chapter 31: One-Note Dirge
Chapter 32: Charred Roots
Chapter 33: Simpatico
Chapter 34: Sea of Blades
Chapter 35: The Altar of Expansion
Chapter 36: Scratching an Itch
Chapter 37: Data Dump
Chapter 38: The Debt
Chapter 39: Silence
Chapter 40: River Rock Redux
Chapter 41: We Stick Together
Chapter 42: Her New Army
Chapter 43: Vanguard
Chapter 44: Engage Together
Chapter 45: Champion
Chapter 46: Makeshift Gunships
Chapter 47: Concentrated Fire
Chapter 48: Everything at her Disposal
Chapter 49: Instant Headache
Chapter 50: Locked in Combat
Chapter 51: Balance of Power
Chapter 52: Full Potential
Chapter 53: Surge Forward
Chapter 54: Torn Asunder
Epilogue: The Demands of War
INFLICTION - Book 4
Chapter 1: Live by the Ledger
Chapter 2: Full of Empty Words
Chapter 3: Engage Every Hostile
Chapter 4: Warzone
Chapter 5: Window into Your Skull
Chapter 6: Robot Horde
Chapter 7: Far from Stable
Chapter 8: Bonds
Chapter 9: Access Controls
Chapter 10: Electronic and Biological
Chapter 11: Too Clever by Half
Chapter 12: Signs of Insubordination
Chapter 13: On Her Own Terms
Chapter 14: It's Time
Chapter 15: Textboo
k
Chapter 16: This Is Awkward
Chapter 17: Repelling the Actual Attack
Chapter 18: Imminent Doom
Chapter 19: A Pair of Rockets
Chapter 20: Commit More Horrors
Chapter 21: The Brightening Sky
Chapter 22: Surrender, Then
Chapter 23: A Risky Play
Chapter 24: Early Arrival
Chapter 25: MIMAS Sim
Chapter 26: Worthy First Targets
Chapter 27: As Anticipated
Chapter 28: Valhalla's Defensive Arsenal
Chapter 29: Fight for It
Chapter 30: Oneiri Team
Chapter 31: Make It Happen
Chapter 32: Miracle Timing
Chapter 33: Gated Community
Chapter 34: We Aren't Darkstream
Chapter 35: Last Goodbye
Chapter 36: Deficient
Chapter 37: State of Play
Chapter 38: Return to Habitat 2
Chapter 39: Many
Chapter 40: Detach Parachutes
Chapter 41: The Lie
Chapter 42: Do Not Think
Chapter 43: High-Risk
Chapter 44: Redemption
Chapter 45: Intelligence
Chapter 46: A Selfish Impulse
Chapter 48: Just as He Always Did
Chapter 49: That Was His Prayer
Epilogue: No Matter What
Supercarrier excerpt
Chapter 2: Thessaly
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other Books by Scott
The Mech Wars Collection
By Scott Bartlett
Mech Wars, Books 1-4
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POWERED
Mech Wars: Book 1
© Scott Bartlett 2017
Cover art by Tom Edwards (tomedwardsdesign.com)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This novel is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, businesses, or events is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Mech
Jake Price swapped out his assault rifle’s empty magazine for a full one, sucked in a quick breath, and leaned to fire around the low garden wall that served as his only cover. A tight burst, and then back again. His ammo was almost depleted.
The Ixan soldiers were closing in, and they’d already taken out the rest of Jake’s team.
Of course, today wouldn’t have gone half so poorly if his dropship pilot hadn’t insisted on putting his team down in the middle of an open square bordered by Ixan snipers. Jake had lost half his people as they tried to sprint across the open space, zigzagging to give themselves a nonzero chance of survival.
Right now, his chance of surviving seemed pretty close to zero. But he’d been in tighter spots than this.
And he had to complete the mission.
Ripping a grenade from his tactical vest, he lobbed it at the approaching soldiers as he scrambled the other way, staying low to the ground and praying he wasn’t kicking up enough dust to give away his location.
When he judged he’d put enough distance between himself and his original position, he flipped onto his back, ripped his pistol from its holster, and waited.
There. The Ixa started coming around the wall, fleeing the impending explosion. Jake inhaled, lined up his shot, and fired as he exhaled.
Boom. Headshot. Boom. Headshot.
Jake was already up and running as the grenade went off, rumbling through the ground and sending a wave of heat against his back.
His mission was to rescue a diplomat who’d been foolish enough to try negotiating with the Ixa. They’d taken him hostage, of course, and then the demands had started.
The Commonwealth needed to send a strong message: they weren’t interested in entertaining Ixan demands.
And Jake was the messenger they’d chosen.
Intel had the hostage in a basement two streets over, and an indicator blinked on Jake’s HUD, with a dotted line outlining a suggested route.
Screw that.
Following the AI’s suggestion meant staying predictable. Instead, Jake tried a door, and when it wouldn’t open, he slapped a charge just above its doorknob, taking cover behind a nearby dumpster.
The charge went off, and the door creaked open. Perfect. Now, if he could just…
“Jake.” Someone shaking his shoulder. “Jake, come on. We’ve arrived. Time to work.”
He opened his eyes to the gunmetal gray of the tiny cabin he shared with his father aboard their comet hopper.
As it often did, reality brought a resigned sigh to his lips. “I was about to get a hostage back from the Ixa.”
“The Ixa aren’t here. I’m here, though, and I’m telling you it’s time to clock in.”
“They could come,” Jake muttered as he sat up, blinking rapidly to clear his grainy eyes.
“Not in time to get you out of work,” Peter said with a grin. Then his smile fell away. “You were jolting in your sleep again. I think you’re spending too much time lucid, Jake. It’s not worth sacrificing your sleep for.”
“It’ll be worth it if the Ixa ever show up.”
“Sure,” Peter said, nodding. “Or the Gok, or Amblers, or maybe the Quatro will develop spaceflight to come out here and pester us. Until they do, though…”
“Yeah, yeah.” His father wasn’t mentioning what the single orbital telescope in this system had discovered: the fact that almost all of the nearby star systems had exoplanets with atmospheres filled with oxygen, carbon dioxide, and methane—which made it pretty likely those planets harbored life.
People living in the Steele System barely ever mentioned that. It made them uncomfortable, so they avoided the topic. They especially didn’t mention that the flux of one star in particular often dropped to below the twenty percent level, for periods that ranged between five and eighty days at a time. On the system net, Jake had seen speculation that the unusual fluctuations could signify a Dyson sphere under construction.
Either way, Darkstream Security didn’t dare explore the surrounding systems, for fear that it would alert their occupants—who might be much more powerful—to humanity’s presence in the neighborhood. At least, Darkstream wouldn’t do that until they achieved a much better foothold here.
Jake crouched beside his bunk to access the long drawer underneath it, pulling it out until the handle hit his father’s closed drawer under the opposite bunk. Piles of neatly folded work shirts and jeans waited inside. His father made him fold them neatly every time he steamed them clean, and then Jake had to arrange the clothing according to outfits. Even when they were in transit between work sites, his father enforced neatness.
“Did we get any messages from Mom and Sue Anne?” Jake asked.
He glanced to see his father shaking his head. “Not this morning,” Peter Price said softly, after a brief pause.
Jake nodded, reflecting that no news was probably good news. If Sue Anne’s illness had taken a sudden turn for the worse, then they would have heard about it.
Even though they’d disembarked the comet hopper hundreds of times, Peter insisted they triple-check every clip and fastening on each other’s pressure suits before leaving through the airlock.
With his helmet on, Jake sighed again, loudly, knowing his father couldn’t hear. He ha
ted this job. He’d never say that, because they did it to help Sue Anne, but this wasn’t how he’d envisioned spending his life. Turning comets into habitats, for homesteaders so paranoid that it wasn’t good enough Darkstream Security had already brought them far away from every government in existence. No, the homesteaders still weren’t satisfied—they still felt the need to get away from Darkstream itself.
Although the comet’s surface was almost as cold as anything ever got—Jake’s HUD told him minus two hundred and forty Celsius—the inside of the pressure suit could be made as warm as he liked. If he wanted, he could make it feel like his whole body was pressed against a radiator.
But that would make work even more unbearable, so he kept the suit’s environment fairly cool.
“Come help me with the hose,” his father said over the frequency they always used, walking over to the hopper’s hull and keying open a square panel that took up much of the aft. The panel slid aside to reveal a coiled drilling hose. The thing was half a kilometer long and as big around as a man’s ankle.
“Where are we setting up?” Jake asked.
Peter pointed. “That flat area over there.”
As his father unwound the hose, Jake walked with its end toward the indicated spot. It was more shuffling than walking, actually. If you had too much bounce in your step as you crossed a comet, you could easily fly off into space.
His father had activated the water harvester before leaving the hopper. That device projected downward from the ship’s keel, where it would heat the ice and collect the resultant water before it could freeze again. As water passed through the system, the ship would warm it further, till it was piping hot.
“That’s far enough,” his father said, and Jake lowered the hose to the ground. They’d have to wait thirty minutes for the ship to heat up enough liquid. In the meantime, Jake helped his father extend the hopper’s antenna array from another part of the hull. The array would use step-frequency radar to gradually scan the comet’s interior, so they could anticipate any problem spots during the drill down.
That done, it was time to stand around and wait. Even if he’d been able to go lucid, he doubted his father would have let him. But you needed an implant for that anyway, and all Jake had was the dorky-looking sleepgear.
His eyes played over their comet hopper, which didn’t technically have a name, though he always thought of it as the Whale. The name fit: the thing was big. It had to be, to carry the equipment necessary to set up multiple comet colonies.
They were on a years-long voyage to establish several such habitats, hopping from comet to comet. Anything smaller than a mile wide didn’t interest them, but luckily there were more than enough suitable candidates for colonization in what had originally been dubbed the Kuiper Belt 2, and those candidates passed near each other often enough to make the whole operation viable.