World of Hurt Read online

  World of Hurt

  George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Thank You

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Author Notes

  Chapter One (Book 3 – “The World Over”)

  World Of Hurt: Mech Command – Book 2

  By George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  To all of the amazing fans who enjoyed Book 1, New World Disorder, and who’ve come back for the further adventures of Danny, Jezzy, and the other mech operators, and to all of the amazing indie sci-fi writers out there who’ve blazed a trail for the rest of us.

  Thank You

  Editor

  Diane Newton and the great team at Veritas E&P (along with Justin Sloan).

  MECH COMMAND TEAM

  Beta Readers/Editors

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Edward Rosenfeld

  Leo Roars

  Tom Ogden

  Copyright 2018 by George S. Mahaffey Jr., & High Concept Books

  Cover art by: Shookooboo

  This is a work of fiction and all rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  1

  The sun dropped like burning gold over the horizon as Jezzy and I barreled out of the hangar in our mech against the echo of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” Darkness was near and against the last tatters of daylight, I watched an alien glider, a long cylindrical, silver-hulled craft studded with slats and stabilizers, slice through the sky.

  My viewscreen showed the outline of drones and several dozen alien soldiers landing at various points inside The Hermitage’s fence. Now you may be wondering what I was thinking about at that moment that I spied the aliens attacking The Hermitage.

  Adult diapers.

  Seriously, that’s what I was thinking about because I was damned sure I was gonna lose control over my bowels. But then I sucked in a breath and as the AC/DC song was ending, I flashed back to the first day of the original invasion. I’d been at home at my mom’s crappy little house in Maryland, watching cartoons when the power winked out and a strange sound began to build. Strolling outside, I closed my eyes and listened to something that sounded like bees buzzing in a hive. The kind of sound that seems to be made up of a hundred little vibrations. That’s what happens when hundreds of people are screaming at once, running down your street, shouting at you to take shelter. I looked up and saw an alien glider hovering over my neighborhood and I swear to you, for whatever reason, I was not scared.

  A feeling of … serenity washed over me, the very same sensation I was experiencing at The Hermitage. Instinctively, I knew, watching the scuds land and scurry across the campus, that I was at exactly the right place in the right time. My vision seemed clearer, colors brighter (even in the semi-darkness), and sounds more distinct. I quickly zoomed in on the enemy soldiers and saw that they were wearing the blood-red armor of the Syndicate, the alien empire whose reign of terror was supposedly over.

  “What the hell?!” Jezzy shouted, seeing the same thing. “I thought we beat those guys?!”

  “I guess they couldn’t quit us,” I replied.

  “Back for sloppy seconds.”

  I throttled our engine and the Spence mech lurched forward, stalking across the grass as terrified campus workers fled past us. I listened to the sound of the pistons and gears on our mech popping, creating a kind of rhythm that I began grooving to.

  The other operators were already on the attack, blasting away at the alien soldiers and a cluster of enemy drones, mechanized fighting machines, some of which were as large and fearsome as our own.

  “TALK TO ME, JEZZY!”

  “WE’VE GOT ECHOES ALL AROUND!”

  “IN ENGLISH!”

  “BAD GUYS, YOU DING DONG! WE’VE GOT LOTS OF BAD GUYS MOVING IN TO SURROUND US!”

  My eyes dropped back to the viewscreen. There looked to be about thirty or forty alien soldiers spread out just ahead, five battle mechs and the enemy glider I mentioned before, which was doing a lazy loop overhead. Basically, the bad guys had enough hardware to keep us and the other operators busy for quite a while. Lovely.

  I mentally plotted a path forward just as a pair of alien soldiers appeared over the faraway slope that led to the training range.

  “What’s the possibility that this is another test?” I said to Jezzy, studying the two enemy soldiers. “Y’know, another simulation.”

  “This is totally not a simulation,” she said.

  “My gut tells me that it is.”

  “Are you really this stupid?”

  “You’d be surprised how stupid I am,” I said.

  One of the alien soldiers whipped out a rocket launcher and fired it. The rocket burst forth in a puff of smoke from the launcher, screaming skyward in an arc and then came down at a hard angle—

  BOOM!

  Detonating close enough to knock our mech to the ground. I looked back at Jezzy who frowned. “Still think it’s a simulation, smart guy?”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Why is it that nobody ever listens to me?”

  “That’s the curse of being a devastatingly beautiful woman.”

  She groaned, and I powered the mech back up into an upright position. I thumped the controls and juiced the engine as Jezzy fired at the aliens. She gunned down one of them, but the other scud was fast. The sucker moved like a halfback, dodging our fire while pulling out what looked like a grenade. The alien flung the grenade toward us when—

  Another form lurched into view.

  It was Simeon!

  He heaved himself forward in his shimmering, stainless steel mech. “HOW ‘BOUT YOU LET THE BIG BOYS DO THE FIGHTING?” he said over the commlink.

  I watched Simeon effortlessly throw one of his machine’s metal hands out—

  CRACK!

  Hitting the alien grenade like a baseball, sending it back toward the enemy soldier where it airburst, turning the scud into bone-confetti.

  Simeon turned back to us. “You taking notes, Deus?”

  “We could’ve done that!” I shouted.

  “But you didn’t!”

  “You didn’t give us a chance!” I screamed, but Simeon was already on the run. We followed after him as he rounded the corner of an outbuilding, blasting through ribbons of smoke from several small explosions when—

  BAROOM!

  The side of the outbuilding exploded to reveal two alien Reaper mechs which resembled battle tanks grafted onto pairs of heavy piston-like legs. Blood red fangs had been painted on the fronts of the turrets, in between the heavy chain guns and dual rocket pods that swiveled in their housings, bolted onto the alien machine’s bulky arms. Above the weapons were two bubbletops, one on the front of the machine and another on the back where a pair of controllers sat.r />
  I swapped looks with the alien controllers, and then Simeon charged one of the mechs, so we bum-rushed the other one—

  WHAM!

  Hammering into the machine before it could get a shot off, knocking it back into the outbuilding.

  The enemy mech crashed through the building’s outer wall and spun to the ground. Then it forced itself over like a toppled turtle and commenced firing on us.

  “INCOMING!” Jezzy shouted.

  I toggled the mech’s controls, dancing between the incoming fire, just as I’d done during the various training sessions.

  A few of the energized rounds from the alien mech whacked our turret as we dove to the right, taking cover behind a mound of debris.

  Most of the lights were out and visibility was shitty in the outbuilding, so we maneuvered according to the viewscreen for several minutes.

  I could see the alien mech stalking about, searching for us, so we slithered beyond several girders and a structural beam, using them as cover. I glanced up and spotted a door, the only way out.

  “We’re too big to fit through that,” I said, pointing at the door.

  “So let’s make our own door,” Jezzy replied.

  “It’s gonna be pretty expensive if we damage this building.”

  “They can bill me!” Jezzy shouted.

  I squared our mech’s metal shoulders and decided it was indeed time to make our own door. We rose and flashed forward—

  BOOM!

  Barnstorming through several layers of drywall and metal studs.

  We crashed forward through the walls, fell to our metal knees, and turned just as—

  BOOM! BOOM!

  Explosions buffeted us. The other mech was unleashing a volley of rockets. The Spence mech rose and focused on the incoming fire, expertly dipping to the left or juking to the right, managing to evade every rocket the mech fired. Looking back, I figure my ability to do this, to slip down into a “zone” of sorts at just the right moment was because of everything I’d endured before and after the invasion. You have to remember that for many years as a child we were flat broke and constantly moving around. The point is, when the aliens came I was already used to the bottom falling out. I was familiar with struggling and confronting adversity and so the fight against the attacking aliens just seemed like another hurdle (an admittedly greater one) to overcome. I guess you could say, I’d been preparing for something like that fight on the campus for most of my life.

  We dove out of the way of the last rocket and crabbed back and around until we’d flanked the attacking mech which was still searching for us.

  “OVER HERE, JACKASS!” I shouted through the mech’s bullhorn.

  The enemy machine looked up and Jezzy fired four rockets into it.

  The alien mech was like Wonder Woman diverting bullets with her bracelets, and it managed to deflect all but one of the rockets.

  But one rocket was all it took.

  BOOM!

  The rocket slammed into the area just below the alien mech’s turret, severing the ligament that appeared to control its forward movement.

  Machine oil jetted in thick, ropy spurts.

  The enemy mech made a rasping sound as it wheeled spastically, marshaling its energy in an effort to pivot and fire at us.

  One of the rounds from its cannons thwacked off our cockpit. That annoyed the hell out of me for some reason and so I lowered our mechanical shoulder and shot forward, going airborne—

  WHAM!

  Drop-kicking the other mech!

  Our machine’s metal feet bounced off the alien mech’s turret.

  Our mech went one way and the enemy mech went another, slamming to the ground and spinning sideways. Little wisps of smoke issued from the stricken mech.

  We rose before the alien mech could and I rotated our machine’s mechanical arms for a kill shot. I could see the beady eyes on the two alien controllers go wide and then Jezzy emptied our cannons into the enemy’s bubbletops, shattering the canopies, shredding the controllers. We paused as sparks flew.

  The mech sputtered, in its mechanical death throes.

  And then it went up in flames.

  We sat in silence for several seconds, watching the mech sizzle and pop.

  “Danny?”

  I looked back at Jezzy. “Seriously, what the hell is going on? I thought we beat the Syndicate. I thought the aliens surrendered?”

  “We did beat them,” I said.

  “Um, then why are we fighting them again?”

  What an excellent question! Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good answer. Instead of responding, I forced a smile and threw the mech into gear. We rumbled forward, back out of the hole that had been made in the outbuilding’s exterior wall.

  In the time we’d been inside the outbuilding, the sun had completely disappeared and darkness had shrouded the land. Even though we had night-vision capabilities, I wasn’t familiar with fighting in the shadows and so it took me four or five seconds to adjust to the suffocating blackness.

  We took several steps and the murkiness was split by red flares that shrieked up into the sky. I couldn’t tell who was firing them, but the flares burst overhead like fireworks, casting everything in an eerie red light. Simeon was nowhere to be seen, but the mech he’d attacked was lying on the ground, smoking, ripped in half like an old beer can.

  We stomped to the right and spotted the other operators clustered on a knoll. They were under attack by the remaining Reaper mechs and alien soldiers, including reinforcements who were being dropped down from the glider.

  Powering up the viewscreen, I zoomed in on the glider, watching dozens of alien soldiers riding metal leaders down to the ground.

  “You seeing this?” Jezzy asked.

  I nodded. It just so happened that my teddy bear was at my feet so I picked him up and manipulated his arms, miming my best, bear voice. “What should we do, Miss Jezmyn?”

  I caught Jezzy’s flinty-eyed stare in a reflection of the cockpit glass, and I knew that meant one thing.

  It was go time again.

  “It’s time to do what we do best,” she replied. “Bring the noise.”

  2

  Jezzy reached up and over and selected another song on the CD player. This time it was heavy, old-school rap, a man with a deep, powerful voice singing about fighting the powers that be. Our mech stormed up toward the others and we were quickly in the thick of battle.

  Dru’s and Billy’s mech was under attack by four alien soldiers with rocket launchers and Parallax rifles that belched fire, slinging a merciless wave of energized sabot rounds at their machine.

  The brothers absorbed the rounds and returned fire, mowing down two of the aliens while the others fired a series of shots that carved divots in their turret.

  Realizing they could use some help, we moved with ferocity, surprising the aliens. The music was pounding in my ears as we confronted the first attacker.

  The scud turned on us, trying to get off a shot.

  We were a hair faster.

  The alien’s rifle came up and we kicked the beast fifty-feet into the air where he seemed to dangle for several seconds before Jezzy shot him to pieces.

  The other alien turned and fired a rocket that corkscrewed toward us—

  WHUNK!

  I threw up our metal arm at the last minute, deflecting the rocket that ricocheted up into the air where it exploded.

  Shrapnel pounded the cockpit and we advanced on the alien with a determined gait. The scud tried to run, but we were all over him.

  I shoved our controls down and the alien turned to attack us but I swung one of our arms around and it slammed into the thing’s chest, sending his body into the side of another outbuilding where it splattered like an overripe tomato.

  “I LIKE YOUR STYLE!” Billy shouted over the commlink.

  Our mechs high-fived and then we turned to Ren and Sato who were battling the last Reaper mech. They were holding what looked like a light pole, a shaft of steel fifteen-fe
et long, swinging the thing like a staff, parrying the rocket fire from the alien mech.

  Dru and Billy lashed to the left, drawing fire from the alien Reaper.

  We held our ground, firing our cannons at the same time as Ren and Sato juked to the right. They sprang at the attacker, bringing the length of metal down on it like a sledgehammer. If you’ve ever cracked open a blue crab with a mallet, that’s the same sound that Ren and Sato’s sledgehammer made when it split the canopy on the alien mech.

  The alien controllers tried to get out, but before they could, the girls fired a rocket that set the mech on fire.

  Ren and Sato’s mech swung around and gestured up and we looked to see the alien glider hovering overhead. The damned thing was still heavy with reinforcements, filled to the brim with so many alien soldiers they resembled the eggs on a spider sac. White-hot rage rose up in me as I watched the aliens descending on those goddamn metal rat-lines.

  “Somebody’s coming to join the party,” I said, pointing at the glider.

  “Let’s be the first to greet them!” Jezzy replied.

  Our mech’s arms went up and our weapons systems pulsed.

  Jezzy emptied out most of our rockets and cannons, sweeping left to right, our rounds tearing through the glider’s bay door, blasting the metal leaders apart. A half dozen alien soldiers plummeted down through the air, their bodies breaking apart on impact.

  The other operators continued to pour fire on the glider as we charged ahead, discharging most of the remaining rockets in the Spence mech’s weapons pods.