"These Eldritch Mecha Pat, they're weird and I was wondering if your Jadoon had ever encountered one. I'm thinking they may predate human civilization. My Gigus says they belonged to a buncha guys he calls the NoRunners and they've got all sorts of strange sound and chemical bioweapons on 'em, stuff that'll mess with your and a beast mecha's mind. I figured there may be something to that. I also got you this..." I say, handing Patrick a syringe of the serum Drake and I had developed in his immunological facility to counteract the effects of the gas, at the same time sliding over a larger canister of the stuff about the size of a thermos that has been designed with a living mecha as the intended recipient rather than the pilot.
"I may end up needing help from you two if it turns out he and I have gotten in over our heads."
"I'll be running two beast mecha that have been treated for protection against the nerve agents that these artifact weapons employ, I hope Apocalyptor will be okay with that."
“Also, here’s a special emergency transponder that Drake and I developed which will let you find us if we send out a help signal but will keep the coordinates from reading publicly, since we’re still staking a claim over the site and don’t want to have to deal with opportunistic jumpers; the situation is delicate.”
Drake was happy when the drop ship delivered Myco’s mecha to the site. Now they could start the unearthing of the gateway and hopefully find some niodes to be able to activate it otherwise they would have to hope something comes through and “persuade” it to give them a niode or four from the traveler’s niode matrix.
I wait until I’m inside Claymore (my Skriag)’s cockpit before telling Drake what I know he probably isn’t going to be too pleased to hear.
“I called in a favor from a friend Drake. My editor at Galaxy Gathering, Patrick Willis. I know you guys aren’t on the best terms but I’m having him use one of those masked transponders like you gave the dig crews we’d hired where it’ll let ‘em travel to us via Gate but keeps the coordinate data read as scrambled the whole time so they can’t be publicly broadcast on any channels. Figured whatever is on the other side of that Gate is likely going to be pretty ferocious and we could probably use the extra firepower.” The transponder is formed to look like a highly stylized E about the size of a coat button, which I’d assumed stands for Exiles and is yet one of a number of rather nifty pieces of tech Drake had developed for his clan. The ability to send for help stealthily while keeping the coordinate data masked the entire time and giving scrambled output on rebroadcast was of all sorts of tactical advantage in plenty of situations; you had to admire the doctor’s mind even if it was a little warped at times. “Pat could probably spot us the Niode. Got him to agree not to run press on our find ‘til you were alright with it. Journalism ethics, y’know. Waiting for us at the nearest port that’s an excuse for civilization in this system, in that funny Jadoon of his.”
“Well as long as he can’t track me to the base.” Drake smiles, “Lets go see the good Patrick. Do you think he’d be interested in meeting his clones?” A laugh escapes Drake as he heads towards “civilization”.
“Hell if I'd know. Threw me a warning when I’d started interviewing ya that you might end up having me fight an army of myself someday; Something I wouldn’t mind terribly much though, seein’ as I already know my own weaknesses.” I have Claymore project an image out from his augmented eye of me sticking my tongue out so Drake can see I’m taking the whole business in stride.
The port was bustling, at least that’s how Drake imagined it, truthfully the citizens were fleeing in panic at the site of Drake’s Antithesis and squadron of mismatched clone mechs. Must have been one of the worlds his clone raids had happened on, well too late now. The calls will be going out about another raid and clans would be arriving to fight. We’ll have to hurriedly grab Patrick and get back through the gate before any of them arrive. “Myco, we might want to hurry this up my good man.”
They returned to the excavation site and got to work, Drake pointed out the data from the carbon readings. “4.4 Billion years this gate has been buried. No way any civilization we’ve ever encountered before built it. It’s absolutely amazing, and the gate seems to be fully functional. I can’t wait for it to be fully uncovered.”
“Sure thing Drake. Giga Rex, Claymore, you two ready to dig and drill, like we went over?!”
The two beast Mecha nod and get to work, the Skriag directing the Gigus as needed.
From what can be made of it, the gate seems to be in sort of a sleep or hibernation mode that is much more a standby than an “off.”
The clones help the mechs move the debris from around the gate, as the more skilled excavation members handled the delicate extracting of the rock encasing the gate from its vital functions. At last the gate was fully revealed and was even more impressive to behold. The metal seemed to pulse with a translucent gold and silver sheen in the light of the sun. Drake was captivated with it’s beauty, a thing that he thought never to experience.
The gate roared to life suddenly and out poured five black twisted mecha, shooting blackish green acid and arcs of electricity from what appeared to be modified Tesla coils. several clones perished as they ran toward the safety of the camp where their mechs lie. Drake almost joined them, but a clone inadvertently stepped between him and the weapon discharge. Drake dodged towards his Antithesis and quickly got inside, the mech’s AI already bringing weapons online and targeting the attacking mechs.
Several strikes had the Antithesis’s auto-repair working overtime to try and keep up. A sheen of perspiration coated Drake as he worked the controls, these things were excellent pilots and if he survived this he would definitely collect many samples, plus examining their mechs might prove useful too, once they managed to destroy one. So far they were having zero luck with the destroying of these aggressors. Their mechs were more agile than any mech Drake had seen and the few hits they did receive was reduced by shields, armor, and auto repair.
“Myco, we may be forced to flee these guys if we don’t get a lucky shot.”
Giga Rex is trying his best to throw a protective flame wall with his Smelters to attempt and put some distance between us and these NoRunner Mechs.
Submitted by Mycobacter & Drake novum Scientist # 712744, 706289