The first Eighty-Seven mech that came into view, dropping down out of the sky to land heavily right in front of us, looked sort of like a big metal ostrich. It was about three-quarters as tall as Derecho, so thirty feet. Its lower body was a fat orb, with a couple long, spindly legs that let it run quickly when it was on the ground. The thing had a long tentacle-like neck with the cockpit (another orb) attached to the end that could swing around to face any direction, and four more metal tentacles on either side of the ball that could reach out to about two hundred feet at maximum extension. Finally, it had a pair of wings that folded in and tucked tightly against its side when it was on the ground, or extended out for flight mode. Since it looked like an ostrich, that’s what we called that type of mech. The Intruders weren’t really sending us pamphlets to tell us what they called them.

  As soon as the Ostrich landed, its eight metal coil tentacles were already lashing out at us. But Rachel was faster. I’d already called out a warning about the incoming dot on the sensors, and she was pivoting Derecho around on one foot so the coils coming in from the right side went past our back, right through the open space that was there now. At the same time, she made the arms snap up to catch hold of two of the coils going past our front, and kicked in the thrusters in Derecho’s feet to send us upward. The Ostrich was yanked off the ground with us, pulled by the two tentacles she’d grabbed hold of. Through the course of it, she called down to me, “Target!”

  I knew what she wanted, so my hands were already flicking their way through the slime to move the targeting cursor on the hologram in front of me over to land on one of the other enemy dots that didn’t already have a blue circle around it to indicate that Alicia and Slater (or Shepard and Bellboy) over in Ranahan were dealing with them. I centered the cursor on that enemy, another ostrich just to our left and about two hundred and sixty feet away, and confirmed the target by shaping my hand into a quick thumbs up. Rachel would immediately get the notification ping.

  As soon as that happened, she was already spinning Derecho in a quick circle a couple times, yanking the Ostrich around and around in the process before stopping short as she released it to send the thing flying over to slam into and through the other one. The mechs collided so heavily it was impossible to tell where one of them ended and the other began. It was just one big mess of broken bits of metal.

  Meanwhile, Alicia had slammed her pitchfork-like weapon into the ground, leaving it there with the three tines pointed up as she launched her own mech into the air. In her case, it was so they could come down on top of one of the other enemies. That one was one of the types we called Kodiaks. They looked like, unsurprisingly, big metal bears. Usually they ran around on all fours, but in close combat they could rear up, just like a bear would. When they were running around, they were already tall enough for the bear-like cockpit head and ours to be face to face. Going up on their hind legs made the Kodiaks tower over us in a way that would be intimidating if I wasn’t with Rachel. They were the grunt muscle next to the speed and agility of the Ostriches.

  A fair number of Eighty-Seven squadrons were made up of ten mechs in total. Which was generally five Ostriches, three Kodiaks, and two Shrikes. That last type was smaller than the other two, only about twenty-feet tall when standing up in their humanoid form. Which they didn’t do that often. Usually, Shrikes stayed in their bird-like jet form and used their incredible speed to fly around overhead, doing hit and run tactics while keeping out of direct conflict. They were the scouts.

  Coming down hard on top of the Kodiak with her own mech, Alicia made Ranahan catch hold of the thing’s cockpit head with one hand and one of its shoulders with the other. It jerked and spun, but she managed to hold on. It looked like a man riding a bull. Or, well, a big bear anyway. Actually, I was pretty sure Alicia had experience riding actual bulls, so this was probably old hat for her. She clung tightly to the thing while the pair of double-barreled turrets (they had been on either side of the main body when Ranahan was in its ship form, and were now attached to its chest and back in humanoid form) rotated to aim down, opening up a salvo of shots right into the Kodiak’s back. It was strong enough that the shots didn’t penetrate, but they did some damage. Then one of the other Ostrich mechs came running up on them from behind, and the rear turret stopped shooting the Kodiak under them as it rose up and rotated to face outward so it could send lasers into that thing instead.

  By that point, I couldn't really focus on them anymore. I had just seen that on one of the side screens showing what was going on behind us. But then I had other things to focus on. Mainly the sensors telling me we had a Shrike coming up on our left side very quickly. We were still hovering in the air, so it was basically level with us, and had almost reached the yellow dotted line that showed roughly where the maximum range it could fire from with some accuracy was.

  Quickly, I designated that as a priority target and activated the defensive measures. A cloud of what looked like thick blue smoke was sent out of Derecho’s shoulder area. The smoke had some sort of electronics-baffling stuff that would not only really screw up the Shrike’s missile target-locking, but literally make any projectiles coming through stop short, instantly taking away all their momentum and partially smothering the actual explosions that followed. Granted, the smoke couldn’t actually stop lasers or other energy-based attacks like that, but at least it helped.

  Rachel was already reacting to the alert. With a quick flick of her fingers, she transformed the mech into starfighter mode once more, already pointed straight up as she kicked in the thrusters and sent us rocketing that way. The twin missiles that the incoming Shrike had sent at us were frozen in the cloud and exploded like that. But we were already almost a quarter mile up by that point.

  The Shrike, which looked like a mix between a fighter jet and something like a hawk, tucked in right underneath us and started firing its lasers from two cannons mounted on either side of the bird head cockpit. A couple of those shots grazed us, but our shield flickered to life and absorbed most of the damage. That was another one of my jobs, to adjust where the shield was focused. Since I couldn't see anything on the sensors ahead of us, I put most of the shield energy to the rear, so it could take a few extra direct hits. That would give Rachel time to make her move.

  That move, as it turned out, was to take the ship into a rapid corkscrew that carried us into a dizzying loop out and around until we reached a couple nearby mountain peaks. We were spinning so quickly, I definitely would've gotten sick if it wasn't for the inertial dampeners taking most of the edge off. Rachel managed to time the spin perfectly so that we were coming in at the exact right angle we needed to be at to pass right through a narrow space between the two rocky outcropping on top of one of those peaks.

  The Shrike, being so focused on shooting at us, didn't notice the problem in time. It collided with those rocks hard enough to shear both wings off on either side. The rest of the thing plummeted down into the valley below while Rachel leveled out of the spin. Immediately, she shifted the thing back into humanoid form and came down to plant both feet on the side of that mountain. Just like that, we went sliding down, kicking up rocks and dirt all around us while she raised our left arm and made the cannon there rise out of its casing near the wrist. Taking careful aim even as we skidded down the mountain, she fired several times in rapid succession. The first shot missed the other Shrike as it bared down on us. But its returned fire missed as well, hitting the ground above us as we slid out of the way. And the rest of Rachel's shots found their target, hitting the thing along one of the wings and near the cockpit.

  That did enough damage for the Shrike to break off its attack and loop around. Or at least, it tried to. Before the thing could actually get out of the way, Rachel hit the thrusters on our feet and legs, launching us off the side of the mountain before she made it literally grab onto the alien ship by both wings just as it tried to bank away. I could hear ripping metal screaming in protest as she ripped the Shrike’s wings off and made it plummet to the ground as well.

  A bare couple of seconds later, we were back in jet form and went rocking around to rejoin Alicia and Slater. By that point, they had finished dealing with the Kodiak. Ranahan was kneeling in the midst of the scattered metal remains of the thing after they’d actually managed to blow the thing into chunks. Not without taking a fair bit of damage themselves, judging by the scorch marks along the other Freestyler mech’s chest, and the way one of its arms was missing several armor plates, but at least they were still functional. Ranahan would heal simply by reverting to animal form and staying that way for a bit.

  Meanwhile, that pitchfork weapon that Alicia had planted in the ground was operating on its own, firing a bunch of laser shots at one of the Ostriches, which kept dodging until one of the shots landed a hit on its leg. It stumbled, then a dozen more hits put it down for good just as we reached them. Ranahan straightened up, while Derecho transformed and came down behind it, so our mechs were both back to back, with barely ten feet or so of open space between them.

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  Of the ten mechs in this Intruder squadron, two Shrikes, one Kodiak, and four Ostriches had been dealt with. That left one Ostrich and two Kodiaks intact. One of those Kodiaks was barreling right at us from the left side, while the other came right at Alicia and Slater in Ranahan. The last Ostrich was unaccounted for. I had to glance at the enemies list on the side of the screen to make sure there wasn’t a notification about the other two taking it out while we were gone, but it was still listed as active. Nothing on the sensors though. It had gone quiet for the moment, which felt like a bad thing.

  We couldn’t worry about that now though. Not with those Kodiaks coming in fast. Immediately, Rachel and Alicia-- God, I really needed to start thinking of them as Casper and Shepard when we were out like this-- started working in sync. While Casper made our mech twist sideways and lift both hands to produce those dual-cannons from each arm, Shepard was already making Ranahan drop down to one knee and slam a heavy metal hand into the snow there. Well, through the snow and several feet down into the ground beneath it, really.

  The two of them were focusing on the Kodiak that was coming at us from the side, since it was closer, ignoring the one that was charging toward Ranahan head-on for a moment of coordinated teamwork. First, Rachel sent dozens of rapid lasers into the oncoming mech. So many that it would’ve seemed impossible for her to shoot that rapidly and have any real power behind them. And she didn't. The lasers were little more than a light show, dialed down to the lowest setting. They were only intended to catch the intruder pilot's attention and make them focus on that rather than on what Ranahan was doing.

  Speaking of which, the other mech was still kneeling with its hand pressed into the ground. I quickly shifted one of the screens to focus on that so I could watch eagerly, while keeping one eye on the incoming Kodiak as the barrage of low powered lasers bounced off its head. Ranahan was completely motionless in that position, the only sign anything was happening at all being the faint blue glow emanating from the arm. It was the slightly smaller one of the two Freestyler mechs. In Stomper form, the thing looked like a skinny, even emaciated humanoid, save for rather thick, ball-like shoulders. Most of the horse paintings that were so visible in Streamer (starfighter) mode were basically indecipherable, broken-up images in this mode, but there was a very clear, straight-on horse face across the exact center of its chest. It was a thin metallic figure with oversized ball shoulders and a horse face right in the middle. And despite looking skinny, Ranahan probably had the highest physical strength out of all the Kites in Rachel’s squad. But that wasn’t the most impressive thing about it. No, the most impressive thing was actually what Shepard was doing right now. She called it her ‘Stampede Mode.’ which was basically the reason why it had those big ball shoulders. Basically, the arms of the mech could vibrate incredibly quickly while putting out this energy that made other things vibrate. Those vibrations could get incredibly powerful. Especially if Ranahan grabbed hold of the thing Shepard was trying to affect.

  Yeah, she called it stampede mode because it shook the ground like a stampede. That was the safe name she had for it, the one the public was allowed to know. I wasn't supposed to know about the other name, vibrator mode. Rachel always coughed and hushed her if she started to use that one around me.

  Whatever she called it, right in that moment, she was sending a whole bunch of incredibly powerful vibrations through the ground and right at the oncoming Kodiak. The thing was taken by surprise as the ground it was running over suddenly started shaking wildly underneath its feet. Its two left legs went sliding outward, while the front right leg went forward, and the rear right one went backwards and kind of inward underneath the thing. And just like that, the big bear mech slammed down onto its torso, sending up a huge spray of snow and dirt in every direction.

  It might have recovered quickly after that, but my sister knew what she was doing. And so did I. Through all that, I'd been training our sensors on the Kodiak’s legs. And as soon as it looked like the thing was about to lose control, I sent the signal to Casper in the top seat. Instantly, she sent us rocketing upward and over there in a flip that should have been impossible for a machine this big to pull off. We spun gracefully through the air before coming down hard on that thing’s back just as it finished collapsing.

  As we landed on the thing and made it collapse even more, Casper called out for me to latch us on. My hands slid through the goo as I sent the command that would make a handful of large, heavy-duty grapple things shoot out of the sides of Derecho’s feet. They burrowed their way into the Kodiak, and then we were solidly attached to the thing. So, when Casper triggered the thrusters in her mech’s legs and back, we were sent rocketing forward with the Kodiak under our feet. It was violently dragged across the ground, leaving a deep trench and sending pieces of metal flying all over the place. It was in rough shape very quickly, the whole front-end of the thing being violently torn apart.

  By then, the other Kodiak had reached the spot where Ranahan was. The keyword there being was. Because even as the bear-like mech gathered itself and lunged that way, swinging one truly massive paw, Shepard had already pulled her own mech’s hand out of the ground and was smoothly pivoting as it rose. The Kodiak paw missed by what felt like inches (it was clearly at least ten feet, but that might as well have been inches at these sizes and speeds), as Ranahan sidestepped to get behind the Intruder and drove its own metal fist hard into the back of the thing’s neck in a downward slam. It wasn’t quite enough to knock the bear mech down, but it did stagger it slightly. Which was enough to distract it so the pilot couldn't react as Casper had me retract the grapples on the one we were skating atop. They came loose, and she kicked backwards while making her mech’s feet rise with the half-broken Kodiak still slightly attached. Then she reversed the thrusters to stop us dead in the air while kicking hard so the Kodiak was sent flying forward to crash heavily into its partner. Both were sent tumbling end over end by the impact, tearing up more of the forest and mountainside.

  I was pretty sure the pilot of the Kodiak we had been riding on was already very dead by that point. And the other one was right behind him, as Shepard made Rahanan grab the trident turret out of the ground, switched the thing to its melee mode with the sharp points sticking up (blades extended to cover the gun barrels), and launched the Kite after them to slam the thing down through that cockpit.

  Then it was over. Except no, it wasn’t. That other Ostrich was still out there. I quickly ran all the scans I could, while Shepard and Casper put the mechs next to each other again and did their own visual check. I compared notes with Bellboy, but we came up with nothing. It was all-- wait.

  “There!” I turned an exterior camera, one located down near the leg, to the left and zoomed in. There was a cave, half-hidden by fallen snow and trees. We could just barely see the Ostrich mech in there. But it wasn’t waiting to ambush us. It looked like the thing was powered down.

  “Uh, that’s weird,” Bellboy noted, his voice coming through the comm clearly enough for us to hear the thick confusion. “Why would they-- are they hiding? That’s not a good hiding place.”

  “Only one way to find out what they’re up to,” Casper noted. “Let’s check it out. Can’t call the mission complete until we cross this guy off. Come on.” With that, she made Derecho start striding that way, as Shepard and Bellboy in Ranahan followed suit. As we approached, the two humanoid mechs had to enter one at a time. Obviously that could’ve been a trap, so our guards were up. But nothing happened. The Ostrich really was powered down, and it looked like the cockpit was open and empty. Yeah, it certainly seemed like the last Intruder had fled.

  “Does this mean we went and captured a completely intact Eighty-Seven mech?” Shepard asked curiously, as we all stared at the thing. “That’ll make Rinweld pretty happy.” Her southern accent was a slow, casual drawl.

  “Yeah…” Rachel-- Casper sounded distracted, and I could tell she was looking at a smaller, more humanoid-sized opening on the far side of the cave. “Look, you guys stay here and guard this thing. Call it in so they can come pick it up. Rhythm and I are gonna check out that opening and see where that last Intruder went.”

  Obviously, the other two had some objections to that. But Casper was the leader for a reason, so in the end, they went with it. So, with the touch of a button and verbal confirmation, the two of us were instantly transported from the cockpit to the ground. That was always a weird feeling, sitting in one spot, only to be standing somewhere else in the next second. It made my whole body tingle. But hey, the short-range teleporter on the Kites made it much easier to get in and out on the field. I couldn’t even imagine trying to climb down this thing, or having to transform it back into starfighter mode first. This was faster, even if it did make my stomach a bit queasy.

  Casper, of course, could’ve just opened the hatch and jumped down without any trouble. But I didn’t have that kind of power. Freelancers were the big heroes. Rachel and Alicia could jump a couple hundred feet easily, move at speeds that were difficult to track, and do all kinds of wild things. Squires like Slater and me were… not quite totally human. We could take a fair bit of damage without dying, healed quickly, and were about as strong and fast as a really good athlete. We were backup. We were the assistants.

  And now I was about to play backup for Casper as we went deeper into this mysterious cave that the last Intruder pilot had fled through. Well, me and Derecho, who had transformed back into his animal mode (currently a bobcat) and was pacing alongside my sister. Together, the three of us moved toward that opening.

  What was this place? Why was it here? What was that Intruder doing? Why did he just park his Ostrich here and leave like that?

  “Only one way to find out,” Rachel abruptly said, giving me a lightly teasing salute when I looked that way, since I couldn’t see her expression through the futuristic knight-like helmet. “That is what you were thinking about so hard over there, right? Why our little friend went running in there instead of helping his squad? Let’s go find out.” With that, she pivoted, that long duster coat swinging behind her as she went right for the opening, Derecho trotting along beside her.

  And I followed. Of course I did. She was my sister. I would follow her anywhere. Whatever was through that cave, Rachel could handle it.

  Rachel could handle anything.

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