It all happened in seconds.
Over the tinny speakers of Pru’s phone, Anabel emitted a whoop of pure, mad delight, tapering off into relieved laughter.
Then Pru spread newfound metal dragon wings, and launched herself toward the jaws of the beast.
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Con-Tech-Nental News Roundup
The latest on developments, disasters, and designs emerging from across the continent!
Preview: “Are We Partying Like It’s Ten Years Ago Again?”
by Jace Alexander
Reports of new mech technology spearheaded by the constituent companies of the United Continental Confederacy Incorporated have fueled rumors of a growing arms race between Incorporated forces and the Barricade Coalition. Sound like the stuff of a Partition War to you? Denizens of the wireless forums sure seem to think so. Reported sightings of everything from complex force field traps to enormous man-shaped mechs—big as giants!—have filled the unregulated corners of the interwebs. But in our modern world of information sharing, which rumors have substance to them, and which are, well, just rumors? For a limited-time offer, get Con-Tech-Nental’s inside scoop—subscribe today!
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THE SCALES OF THE dragon’s cockpit cleaved skintight around Pru.
This wasn’t a fight she was meant for. This had always been a fight for Alex. What she’d known in theory from the moment she’d first stepped into his uncle’s training yards cemented itself into truth at No Man’s Land, when she’d put him in the sky herself, the dragon wrapped around him and cutting through the wyvern flock, all beauty, all terror.
But Alex was locked away inside a ground-bound UCC suit, and right now, the sky was on Pru’s side. As one, she and the dragon wheeled high above the wyvern’s spurt of plasma fire. Sunlight slit its way through the dragon eye lenses, but still, Pru caught sight of the ground below. Alex, his mech’s legs bent in a protective stance, waited for the wyvern’s next attack. Jellicoe was nowhere to be seen. Presumably, he had already fled. Probably holed up in a safehouse, watching the wyvern alpha do its work from some distant flat-screen, deciding whether to send the rest of the flock to finish them off. Pru inhaled slowly, a decision forming around the knot in her belly. She fumbled for her phone. “Anabel. You still there?”
“Always, Pru-Wu.”
“Can you get eyes on Jellicoe?”
A pause. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“Yeah, well, the plan’s gone kind of haywire, if you haven’t noticed! But I can’t handle the current battlefield and worry about what he’s up to at the same time!”
“I’d have to leave you,” pointed out Anabel. “And Alex.”
“I know.” Pru swallowed. “Do you trust me?”
A long pause. Then Anabel laughed softly. “I always have, Pru. More than you trust yourself, I’m willing to bet, but my judgment rarely errs. I’ll call you when we find the bastard.” The line clicked off.
Praying to all the gods of risk aversion that sending her best wingwoman away wasn’t a horrible mistake, Pru took stock of the scene below. Mama was huddled at the Head Representative’s side, seeking cover from the battle between beasts. Side by side, the two of them moved around platform’s perimeter, like soldiers on patrol. Mama clutched something tight in one fist.
Before Pru could figure out what it was, the wyvern streaked toward Alex’s mech.
Instinct woke her body and brain alike. Pru hurtled after the wyvern. Rebelwing’s mouth parted in a roar. Plasma fire skimmed the edge of one of the wyvern’s wings, toppling it off course. Alex pressed the advantage, his mech bending its knees and leaping upward to meet the wyvern. Two powerful metal arms crashed around the wyvern’s reptilian head, trying to crush the source of its plasma fire. The wyvern screamed. Its wings snapped to attention. The momentum broke Alex’s grip.
The wyvern slid backward across the platform, trying to recover from Alex’s clinch. Its wings emitted a flurry of sparks, as razor scales scraped along concrete. The beast shook its head. Its jaws snapped open and shut, trying to cough up more plasma fire. None emerged. Alex wasted no time. His mech crouched low, like a fighter preparing for a killing blow, and launched itself back toward the tottering beast.
Only to collide with one razor-edged wing. With a sound like a thousand nails scraping down an old-fashioned chalkboard, the wyvern’s wing cleaved through the protective metal casing of Alex’s suit. The mech crashed to the ground, torn in two.
“Alex!” screamed Pru.
The boy who emerged from the wreck couldn’t hear her. Not from outside the dragon. Not without the imprint. Magnified through her dragon eyes, sweat gleamed on Alex’s unarmored skin, as he stumbled from his mech’s ruined cockpit. Without a suit, without a weapon, without anything at all to protect him, as the beast that had been his father clambered toward him, roaring.
Pru tried to turn the dragon around, but the wyvern was so much closer. Its broken jaws, cast in high definition, were full of metal-spiked teeth. Pru flew toward those jaws, one more time, trying to line up Rebelwing’s sights on that spot between the cold blue eyes where the alpha cell rested. She had to make the shot. She had to keep the thing that used to be Etienne from slaughtering his son. Come on, come on, come on, don’t let it end this way, it can’t end this way.
The beast sprang with a terrible flap of its razor-edged wings. Alex flung up useless, human arms. A terrible, desperate sound knotted deep in Pru’s chest forced itself from her throat. The crack of a plasma blast rang through the air. But not from Rebelwing’s jaws.
The wyvern gave a strangled cry. Its wings pumped once. Slowly at first, then with growing speed, it plummeted to the ground below.
Pru pulled Rebelwing up sharp, searching for the source of the shot. Directly below her, Alex lay back on the concrete, chest rising and falling rapidly. Alive. A scant few feet away lay the carcass that had been the wyvern. A smoking, blackened hole lay between dead blue eyes.
Shielding Alex from the wyvern was Gabriel Lamarque, Head Representative of the Barricade Coalition and long-ago hero of the Partition Wars. A plasma rifle was angled against his jaw, his feet spread in a soldier’s stance, long hands still resting on the trigger. He’d shed the UCC flunky armor. Pieces of it were still strewn across the concrete platform. Between the chest plate and helmet lay an oblong pocket. A weapons compartment, where he must have concealed the rifle parts. Anabel Park wasn’t, it seemed, the only Barricader who knew how to smuggle weapons into a UCC zone.
Caught through the eyes of the dragon, in that moment, Gabriel Lamarque looked like the young soldier he must have once been, spine straight, carriage proud and heroic.