Mech 3: The Empress by B. V. Larson Page A

finding brave beings to be inspirational, they considered them to be rank fools, individuals to be despised and marveled at for their credulity.
    Something shook the camera then. There was a booming report from inside the hold. Garth panned the viewpoint around again, but could not quite see—
    The crewmen were standing, firing—some broke and fled. Towering figures strode into their midst, heedless of bullets, beams, or gushes of sticky orange flame from the surviving flamethrowers. Garth knew what they were, and he could scarcely believe his eyes.
    “Juggers?” he asked the monitor in a hushed voice. “How could they have bred them so quickly?”
    There were only four of them, but that was enough. The humans had stood up to opponents of their own size, but these monsters were too much. They seemingly could not be brought down by conventional ballistic weaponry. Each absorbed hundreds of rounds, but still kept striding among the humans who harassed it, plucking off limbs and skulls, then vomiting gore after they’d consumed too much. The problem was the crewmen lacked guns powerful enough to puncture these yard-thick monsters deeply and disrupt the vital organs.
    The juggers represented the final stage of the battle. The humans broke under their weight, and were run down by thunder-footed monsters. Their tails lashed and their jaws worked as they masticated excitedly. It was a feeding frenzy, and the juggers kept at it for a long time, hunting down each human that hid among the cargo crates and devouring them. Only one of the juggers was brought down, and that one still flopped and thrashed on the deck, trying to rise despite what had to be a dozen fatal wounds.
    Garth leaned forward, resting one wiry arm atop the monitor. He wanted to vomit, pass out, or commit suicide. He did none of these things. Instead, he shivered and panted with fear and despair. It was now only a matter of time until these things penetrated the skald bastion.
    A figure cast a shadow over him. Garth turned, half-expecting to see a killbeast loom near. It was a far less threatening figure, however. The pallid girl he’d first met, the one who’d let him in, stood in the doorway. Her silhouette was thin, but shapely, and despite his despairing state of mind, Garth thought her face was pleasant to look upon. He wondered at the absurdity of such thoughts at this dismal moment of his existence.
    “What do you want?” he asked her.
    She tilted her head to the left and advanced. He saw she wore only a thin robe of colored fiber.  He blinked at her as she came closer. She reached out a hand and touched his brow. He flinched away, but allowed the contact. His eyes checked her for weapons—but saw only open, empty hands.
    “Did you come here to gloat?” he asked.
    She shook her head. She lightly kissed his brow where she had first touched him. The action surprised him, but again he allowed it. Was she possibly acting on her own volition? Perhaps her rider slept within her head, and she had seen his sorrow, and wished to comfort him. Hoping for the best, and too drained by the disaster he’d witnessed to care much about the present, he allowed her to sit beside him on a narrow folding workbench.
    One thing soon led to another. His every touch she accepted without protest, but she did not allow him to kiss her mouth. He shrugged, not caring. He nuzzled her neck and ran his hands under her sheer robes. She made no attempt to withdraw, but instead pulled him more fully into an embrace with her.
    Smiling wanly, she tapped at the floor, indicating he should lie there. He did so, smiling up at her. She hiked up her robes and mounted him. Soon, they were in the throes of passion. He was in ecstasy.
    There came a moment of release, and afterward he opened his eyes again. There she was, looking down into his face. Finally, she was leaning down, pursing her lips to kiss him. He had wanted to kiss her as well. He burned to do it.
    The spines stabbed his