Combat Frame XSeed Read online

  About Combat Frame XSeed

  The future is over.

  Civilization on Earth has collapsed. Oligarchs have established a new order in manmade space colonies at the Earth-Moon LaGrange Points.

  A group of powerful colonies form the Systems Overterrestrial Coalition to re-civilize the earth, but grounders view the colonists as hostile meddlers. The Coalition counters the rising violence with giant manned robots called combat frames.

  The independent L3 colonies denounce the war on Earth. In response, Coalition Security Director Sanzen takes L3 leader Josef Friedlander’s wife and daughter hostage. Amid the tense standoff, Friedlander’s son Sieg launches an unsanctioned rescue mission to L1’s Byzantium colony.

  Combat Frame XSeed

  Principal Characters

  TESLA BROWNING: Self-taught engineer credited with inventing the combat frame. Licensed his work to Seed Corporation, where he now serves as head CF engineer. Left his native L3 to build combat frames on Earth for the Coalition.

  ALAN COLLINS: EGE Major. Originally hails from Britain. Lives by the book and expects the same of everyone else. Attack helicopter pilot and executive officer to Colonel Larson.

  ZANE DELLISTER: Enigmatic Coalition Security Corps pilot stationed in the occupied city of Chicago. Arrested after an extended period spent AWOL and remanded to a mental institution. The advanced combat frame found with him was sent to the nearby Seed Corp factory for study.

  MAXIMUS DARVING: Seed Corp software engineer who defected to the EGE. His background and his advanced fighter jet prototype earned him the rank of captain. Divides his affections between his EGE Naval Intelligence handler Li Wen and his custom-made A.I. Marilyn.

  JEAN-CLAUDE DU LIONE: Last heir to the throne of Nouvelle France. Came of age in the free city of New Orleans after his parents were killed during the Coalition invasion of his homeland. Awaits the day when he will return to lead his people. Pilots the custom dueling CF Veillantif.

  SIEG FRIEDLANDER: Son of L3 Prime Minister Josef Friedlander. Graduated from L3’s service academy but resigned his commission when his mother and sister were kidnapped by Sanzen Kaimora. Impatient with the politicians’ endless prattling, he has vowed to rescue his loved ones himself.

  SANZEN KAIMORA: Exo-archaeologist and military history buff chosen as the first Coalition Security Corps director. Convinced that only victory over the earth can secure peace, Sanzen often butts heads with Secretary-General Mitsu Kasei, who favors a diplomatic solution.

  GRIFF LARSON: EGE Colonel formerly of the Federated Mid-American States Militia. Accomplished combat frame pilot who serves as strategic advisor and confidante to General Edward McCaskey. Is said to use a knife for a pillow.

  SEKAINO MEGAMI: CSC Director Sanzen’s young protégé. Though publicly his assistant, Sanzen has given her responsibility for many of his office’s daily operations. Most of Megami’s personal data remains inaccessible even to Secretary-General Mitsu.

  PREM NARYAL: Newly installed governor of the Coalition’s Mideastern Administrative Region. Her sterling track record within the Coalition Commerce Ministry recommended her for the office. An accountant by trade, she maintains an avid interest in combat frame piloting.

  TOD RITTER: Teenage freedom fighter who seeks to liberate Neue Deutschland from SOC rule and avenge his family. Grenzmark aficionado. Currently serving with a German expatriate force in Africa.

  Glossary

  Combat Frame: A bipedal armored weapons platform derived from construction equipment used to build the space colonies. The Coalition’s deployment of combat frames on Earth drastically shifted the balance of power and sparked a new arms race.

  The Earth Governments in Exile: A council of earth leaders deposed by the SOC. They maintain a modest military based from a small fleet in the Atlantic.

  The Earth Sphere Colonization Commission: An economic trust set up by the first space colonists to oversee the colonies’ development.

  The Federated Mid-American States: FMAS for short. One of three major political bodies created from the breakup of the old American Empire. Located in the Midwestern and Western states and Canadian provinces. The FMAS Militia is known to conduct guerilla warfare against Coalition forces in North America.

  Grounder: A derogatory term for a native of Earth.

  The L3 Colonies: A federation of space colonies founded by settlers of Western European extraction. L3 is the only colony government not to sign the SOC Charter.

  Seed Corporation: Originally a farming equipment manufacturer founded in the colonies. A combat frame contract with the SOC turned them into the Earth Sphere’s leading arms developer.

  Soc: A derogatory term for citizens of the Systems Overterrestrial Coalition sometimes broadly applied to all space colonists. Pronounced like “sock”.

  The Systems Overterrestrial Coalition: An association of colonies in L1, L2, L4, and L5 obligated by treaty to improve life on Earth. The SOC’s governing authority is divided between the Coalition Council and the Coalition Secretariat, which is further divided into the Ministries of Commerce, Engineering, Agriculture, Education, Reclamation, Transportation, Terran Affairs, and General Affairs. The Secretary-General wields chief executive power.

  The United States of North America: A remnant of the old American Empire consisting of the former East Coast states and Eastern Canada. Protectorate of the Atlasid Caliphate. Allied with the Coalition.

  Zeklov Corporation: A Russian arms company that primarily serves the remnants of Earth’s ruling class. Second only to Seed Corp.

  Zone Demilitarisée Coloniale: ZoDiaC for short. A secret alliance of colonies, nearly all of which are located in L3, opposed to the Coalition’s military actions on Earth.

  1

  The giant’s approach shook the pines atop the low ridge where Sieg lay hidden. A flock of starlings took flight from the trembling boughs but found no sky. They rose over the treetops, through a patchy layer of cloud, and toward the sunlight reflected through the thirty kilometer window arcing overhead.

  Sieg didn’t linger on the flock spiraling into a pointillist corkscrew in the twisted gravity of the colony’s axis. He trained his field glasses on the stocky, olive drab combat frame tromping through the woods below. Boughs halfway up the trees’ thirty-five meter tall trunks scraped its domed head. The CF held its oversized machine gun at the ready.

  ZoDiaC’s intel didn’t mention Soc patrols this far from the compound. But the demilitarized colonies’ report had already proved less trustworthy than Sieg’s own eyes. The giant approaching his team’s position was a Grenzmark C, a last-generation Systems Overterrestrial Coalition combat frame rushed into production as a stopgap measure. Its presence meant the Socs had tightened security on short notice.

  It’s almost on us. Sieg slid back downslope across the fragrant needles blanketing the ridge. When the rocky crest stood between him and the Grenzmark’s sensors, he sprang to his feet and ran downhill. His life—and the lives of his mother, his sister, and his friends—depended on him taking down the giant before it reached Elliot and Werner. He leapt the last four meters to the ground and landed in a crouch at his work frame’s feet.

  “How bad are we screwed?” Elliot hissed from the cab of his work frame, which stood to the right of Sieg’s.

  “Grenzmark C inbound,” Sig told him and Werner, who manned the third work frame at Elliot’s right. Werner’s dark eyes and pale face brooded in contrast to Elliot’s ruddy-cheeked anxiety.

  “The three of us can take a Grenzie,” said Werner, “but not the reinforcements who’ll answer the pilot’s distress call.”

  Sieg climbed into his work frame’s cab. The construction equipment, plus forged work orders, had gotten him and his friends inside Byzantiu
m colony. But the compact, utilitarian machines were no match for their larger, better armed combat frame descendants. Not in a straight fight.

  The work frame’s window reflected Sieg’s sky blue eyes glinting in his determined face under a crown of neatly trimmed blond hair. He started the machine and strode toward the cleft in the ridge.

  “Where are you going?” Elliott asked over the comm. Sieg answered by extending his work frame’s three-fingered hand toward his friends. He knew they’d take the hint and stay back.

  Suck ups and hangers-on had flocked to Sieg since his father’s election as L3’s prime minister. But Elliot, Werner, and Chase—the pilot who’d stayed with their shuttle to ensure a fast exit—comprised the small circle of academy friends he’d known since childhood. No one else could be trusted with such a vital mission.

  The Grenzie’s approaching footfalls rattled Sieg’s cab. The Soc’s coming right through the gap. It stood to reason. The artificial hills ran to the massive windows that flanked Sanzen’s personal land strip. Water covered the thick panes, forming artificial lakes. Neither the Grenzmark nor the work frames were rated for aquatic use, so the cleft was the only way through the ridge for over a kilometer in each direction.

  Sieg fought the urge to rush his target and stayed behind the cover of an outcrop to the Grenzie’s left. The secondhand work frame had no active sensors, which was a blessing in disguise since using radar would have triggered the combat frame’s sensitive instruments.

  Three more steps. Sieg drew a carbyne-reinforced utility knife from his work frame’s hip-mounted toolbox.

  Two.

  One.

  Sieg’s work frame pivoted into the cleft. The Grenzie’s head swiveled to glare at its smaller foe. The squat metal dome covered a circular array of high intensity LED panels interspersed with mini cameras. Three columns of five horizontal slits made the CF’s face resemble a gladiator’s visor.

  Sieg jammed the control stick forward. His work frame charged the Grenzie with two jarring bounds. The CF swung its 110mm machine gun forward but failed to adjust for its unusually short opponent before Sieg plunged his utility knife through the cockpit hatch in the Grenzmark’s chest.

  The suddenly unmanned combat frame started to list, and Sieg propped it up against a tree. He relieved the Grenzie of its machine gun. The weapon—essentially a handheld automatic tank gun—proved awkward but useable in the work frame’s three-clawed hands. He grabbed an extra magazine from the CF’s skirt armor and rejoined his friends.

  “I knew you’d pull it off,” Werner said.

  “Is the Coalition pilot…dead?” asked Elliot.

  The weight of what Sieg had done pressed down on his chest. Mom, Liz, forgive me. I had to.

  Werner knew how to interpret his friend’s silence. “Let’s move out,” he said. “It won’t be long until more Socs come looking.”

  By silent accord, the three childhood friends turned comrades-in-arms filed past the motionless Grenzmark. Their work frames navigated the woods more stealthily than the combat frame had managed, and they soon reached the forest’s edge. A verdant field stretched from the tree line to a stark concrete wall that, according to Sieg’s informant, encompassed Sanzen’s house of horrors.

  “A hundred meters of open ground looks a lot bigger in real life than on paper,” Elliot said. “How do we cross it unnoticed?”

  Sieg’s hand sought his red and black flight suit’s left breast pocket. His thumb and forefinger closed around a smooth strip of fabric, which he gently drew out. He stared at the pink silk ribbon—one of two his young sister was fond of wearing in her long blond hair.

  Which Sanzen sent my father as a warning.

  “I passed the point of no return when I killed that Soc,” Sieg told his friends with cold subdued wrath. “You two have done more than I had any right to ask. Withdraw to the maintenance hatch, call Chase, and wait for me. I’ll go after Mother and Elizabeth.”

  Elliot’s work frame stepped forward to stand beside Sieg’s. “I promised to help rescue your family from Sanzen,” said Elliot. “No use trying to change the terms now.”

  Werner lined up next to Elliot. Sieg didn’t have to hear his explanation. His quiet friend’s crush on the lively and beautiful Elizabeth Friedlander was an open secret.

  “There are no combat frames visible on the ground,” said Sieg. “We rush the wall at full speed, go over the top, and head straight for the research wing. If we meet any resistance…” Sieg brandished the oversized machine gun in his work frame’s hands. “Keep going and leave them to me.”

  The only reply was a whispered, “For Elizabeth,” on Werner’s channel. It spurred the three friends like a starter pistol, and together their work frames charged from the safety of the trees toward the imposing wall.

  Screaming fire rained down. Werner’s cry cut off as his work frame vanished in a burning cloud. Sieg reflexively jerked his control stick hard to the left. The missile that had been meant for him detonated in the trees. Splinters drummed against his work frame’s back like flaming hail.

  The smoke cleared. A debris-lined crater yawned at Werner’s last known position. Elliot’s work frame lay slumped against a blackened tree, its right arm and leg blown away.

  Sieg fixed his camera on the colossal window above. Applying a dazzle filter showed him the stocky outlines of six combat frames silhouetted against the sun’s reflection in the colony’s angled mirror.

  Grenzmark IIs. The current-model combat frames had been waiting in the air over the compound, hidden in the sun. They knew we were coming.

  Sieg’s cold anger burst into white-hot rage. He punched his work frame’s jump jet switch and fired a series of controlled bursts from his machine gun as he rocketed toward the enemy squad. Three of the six CFs went down trailing smoke from their ruptured cockpits.

  The remaining Grentos opened up with their own automatic rifles. Huge bullets flew past the small, fast-moving target until one volley shredded the work frame’s legs. Missing its thrusters, the critically damaged machine crashed to the ground. Emergency airbags deployed, sparing Sieg the full force of the impact that knocked the air from his lungs.

  Sieg mashed the door release and tumbled from the work frame’s cab. He landed on soft mowed grass, lurched to his feet, and bolted for the trees. The whine of the Grentos’ thrusters harried him like onrushing thunder.

  Elliot sat beside his ruined work frame, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle. The color had drained from his normally flushed face. “I’m done,” he panted as Sieg ran to him. “Werner’s gone. He was right next to me…”

  “Don’t talk,” said Sieg. He bent down and slung his arm around his friend’s back. With Sieg’s help, Elliot rose to stand on one shaking foot. Together they hobbled into the forest.

  “I’m sorry,” Elliot said as they limped through the woods. Three searchlight beams swept the shadows of the canopy close behind them. “I tried my best. Just wasn’t enough.”

  “It’s not your fault. Someone set us up.”

  “We’re trapped,” said Elliot. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Sieg knew exactly what to do. From the moment he and Elliot entered the woods, he’d been heading back toward the cleft in the ridge. They might have a chance if they could reach it before the Socs caught up—which would happen any second with Elliot slowing Sieg down. He gathered his injured friend in his arms and made a run for the ridge.

  Time seemed to dilate as Sieg ran. But the trees parted, and his heart leapt when he saw the small pass between the hills. Summoning a final burst of speed, he sprinted through the cleft and set Elliot down at the Grenzmark C’s foot.

  Sieg’s lungs and limbs burned, but the low roar of thrusters just behind the ridge drove him up the steel rungs set into the combat frame’s armor. He reached the cloven cockpit door, pried it open, and fought his gag reflex as he dumped most of the dead pilot to the ground below. Elliot’s cry sent panic stabbing up Sieg’s spine until he saw that his fr
iend was only reacting to the bloody mess that had landed a few meters to his right. They hadn’t been discovered yet.

  Good thing my suit’s mostly red. Sieg took a deep breath and hoisted himself into the Grenzmark’s cockpit. His knife thrust had destroyed the main monitor and split the pilot seat’s back, but the controls mounted on the armrests remained functional. He lowered the combat frame into a crouch and set its left hand on the ground. When Elliot crawled into the giant metal palm, Sieg raised the CF to its full height and set off with the punctured door open.

  “Chase,” he called on the shuttle’s frequency. “This is Sieg. Do you read me?”

  After an agonizing moment, the line crackled. “Chase here,” the shuttle pilot said. “Reading you five, Sieg. Didn’t expect you so soon.”

  “I need an evac, stat.”

  “For five, I hope.”

  “Negative. It’s just me and Elliot.”

  Chase’s voice fell. “And Werner?”

  “He didn’t make it. I’m in a stolen Grenzie with at least three flight-capable Grentos in pursuit. What’s your ETA to the maintenance hatch?”

  “Give me ten minutes,” said Chase. “And Sieg? Stay alive, or I’ll fly this bird to hell and beat your dead ass. Over and out.”

  Sieg set the Grenzie’s feet toward the access hatch partway up the curve of the colony’s end cap. Negotiating the colossal bowl was like climbing the inside of a hollow mountain. The climb proved more difficult than the initial descent from the same hatch what seemed like a lifetime ago, especially with Elliot cradled in one of the CF’s hands.