Bulletfoot One

by Marshall Rust

  "They’re using too much fuel," one of the Lancers noted. "The fire burns too hot and turns the sand into glass. What a fucking waste." He shook his head in disgust and the mech responded, but this time, there was nothing amusing about it.

  "I don't think Athena hires her folks with saving resources in mind," Taylor replied from the Sherlock that moved on the right flank. "Lavish usage of resources is a way to show the people she rules over that she's better than they are and they would be better with her than without."

  "I suppose," the Lancer pilot conceded. "Still, it's the kind of waste that heats the blood, if you know what I mean."

  Jessica13 did know what he meant. Waste like that was foreign to her, having lived her whole life recycling every drop of sweat and not letting anything go to waste. Burning grass for the hell of it or even to send a message was plain wasteful. At least this time, her confusion over the waste debate didn’t even try to raise its head.

  They continued their determined march as more of Athena's mechs began to move closer to the group. Battle lines drew into a formation that would allow the Cinders to take the front of the line. It was an odd tactic, but if they got in close enough to Hammerhand's group, they would be able to do significant damage with their flechette guns and flame throwers.

  Then again, Hammerhand could come in and hold the front line against them, use his shield, and knock them back with his hammer. It would be a risky tactic.

  When they ignited their throwers, she realized they had no intention to attack and instead, merely held their ground and started fires in front of them. The flames caught a little too quickly. They had soaked the ground with fuel, apparently, and the blaze spread swiftly and covered almost thirty meters to force the Knights to a halt.

  The fire wouldn’t go so far as to ruin the mechs if they elected to go through it, but it would make them vulnerable. There was also the possibility of shorting something out, which would bring the small group to a sudden and unwanted halt. No one wanted to have to do sudden repairs while they walked through a veritable wall of fire.

  Hammerhand didn't appear to be concerned, however, and strode forward to stand in front of the flames. A mech the size of his would have little trouble pushing through and it would take a few hours for something like a gas fire to even begin to heat the heavy armor the Excalibur was known for.

  But the Knights’ leader made no effort to approach the flames as yet. Jessica13 tilted her head curiously and remained where she was at the back. The man stepped forward, lowered his weapons, and looked like he intended to speak to their opponents on the other side of the wall of fire.

  "My brothers!" Hammerhand called and his speakers carried his voice well over the roaring blaze between them. It was hard not to pay attention when he spoke. "Why do we fight?"

  It was an odd question and yet a good one at the same time. She wasn't sure why she hadn't thought of why these men would follow Athena to the point where they risked their lives against opposition who could actually fight back. Bullying folks in towns and villages into giving up their resources was all well and good but usually, when faced with stiffer resistance, pirates and the like tended to turn tail and run. To them, it was always better to live to fight another day, and she couldn't blame them for it.

  There was no answer from their adversaries and they appeared to be as surprised by the question as she was. The group of Cinders she'd noticed before were flanked on both sides by almost two dozen Lancers in formation, what looked like their escort out in the Wild.

  "Why must we fight?" Hammerhand asked again. "You engage yourselves in acts of depravity and evil that would corrupt any living soul, but know this—there is a way out, a way to disengage yourselves from such horrors that you have witnessed and even committed. You have fought for a side you must know to be in the wrong and a group that must be brought to answer for what they have done, but you need not be among those punished. You need not be among those who fall in the name of justice."

  She frowned, not at all sure what his point was. There were those who had fought for too long at Athena's side to question her methods and morals now. Maybe there were newer arrivals who could be convinced to turn against her. Or better yet, maybe he considered something more long-term. His words of peace and mercy would resonate in the men and women across from them, and maybe after they'd had time to think, they would see the wisdom of it.

  Perhaps, in the long run, there would be those who elected to surrender rather than fight, knowing there was a way out now.

  Jessica13 hoped for all those things but somehow doubted any would be the case.

  "Instead of fighting alongside a tyrant who you must know will turn against you too, eventually, you could fight alongside the Knights Mechanica as our brothers," Hammerhand continued, took a step forward, and extended a hand to the mechs on the other side of the fire. "Make restitution for your sins. Pay penance for them by standing beside those who cannot protect themselves against those who would take advantage. Your lives and souls may yet be saved from the darkness that has consumed you. You have hurt and killed the innocent, and you must know that in time, you will meet justice, one way or the other. Stand with us and you will be spared and be able to face that with the knowledge that you have done something to right your wrongs. Do not, and that justice will meet you a good deal sooner than you would like."

  Athena's knights appeared to confer with one another if nothing else, as their body language seemed to indicate that a discussion was in progress. They didn't look like they would take Hammerhand's offer and really, no one expected them to. Each of them had elected to side with Athena for a reason, after all.

  But they would have the offer firmly in mind when he powered through their lines like he was some kind of machine of vengeance from above.

  A Lancer finally stepped forward. The hatch twisted open and the pilot climbed out to stand on the shoulder of his mech. He stared at the silent Knights Mechanica and she used the opportunity to study one of the enemy.

  Given the numbers Athena had committed to the burning town and again in this location, she had begun to feel that they had vastly underestimated the forces their adversary had at her disposal.

  The man opposite looked lean and hungry and was most likely completely shaven as most mech pilots tended to be. He wore a patchwork coat of a variety of colors and mismatched pieces and looked much like the coat Athena had worn on her mech, she now recalled. Most of the scraps appeared to be some kind of leather about the size of a hand each, with a few patches of canvas sewed in as well like they were placeholders.

  His helmet consisted of the same kind of work that even displayed a few sections of canvas too and covered his skull. The over-sized goggles he wore made it look like his eyes were popping out and created the impression that the headgear was way too tight.

  He started to speak but lacked the powerful external speakers Hammerhand's Excalibur had so it was difficult over the roaring flames between them. She couldn't actually hear a word but it seemed fairly obvious that he attempted to convey the fact that he wasn't open to the idea of being accepted by the Knights Mechanica. He beat his chest and shouted to the other mechs, calling what might have been a challenge and was very obviously an attempt to rally them with far more noise and gestures than Hammerhand ever needed.

  Jessica13 pulled her rifle out and looked down the scope to see more clearly. He pulled the helmet and goggles from his head and she realized that his skull was covered in thick black tattoos. They appeared to be rather crude and depicted a wide variety of animals—some of which she had never seen or heard of—but the most distinctive was on his forehead and seemed to look down at him.

  It was rough like all the others but the depiction of an owl was unmistakable. It seemed impossible that Athena would have made all her followers mark themselves with her sigil, as forcing them to do something they didn't want to do would be entirely counterproductive to her efforts.

  If they had been convinced to do it on the
ir own, however, it painted a very different picture. It seemed unthinkable that they liked the idea of her looking over their every action, seeing everything they did, and showing them that they could never escape her grasp, but the man seemed proud of it. If that was an idea they considered desirable, she wondered if there was anything that could be done to pull them away from what Athena wanted them to do.

  She wondered how they had become that way. They had likely been selected from those who were already terrible like pirates and quickly beaten, pounded, and forged into weapons who would follow Athena's orders without question.

  "I don't think they'll go for it," Jessica13 said softly.

  "Give them a warning shot," Hammerhand said through her commlink. "Target the one who’s out of his mech."

  "Understood." She already had her rifle trained on the man and took a deep breath. He was still showing off his tattoos and his allegiance to Athena to the cheers of his fellow fighters when the hellebore round punched through his skull. The soft bone offered almost no resistance and the bullet drilled through and into the mech to knock it back a step before the AI inside was able to correct it.

  The cheers around him ceased when they realized their apparent leader had collapsed with most of his head splattered across the outside of his mech.

  "He should have known better," Tinker said. "You don't climb out of your mech in a combat situation. That's asking to get yourself killed."

  "Agreed," Hammerhand said and raised his hammer.

  The crack of the rockets on the back no longer caught her by surprise and his weapon quickly increased its speed as it swung into action.

  By the time it impacted, she could almost hear the wind whistling around it as it pounded into fire-covered earth. The speed that propelled it generated a shudder and a powerful boom that seemed to drive the fire away from the head of the weapon.

  The effect on the fire itself was negligible as it quickly regained the ground it had lost since it was still soaked in fuel. Athena's fighters took an instinctive step back, however, as Hammerhand advanced through the flames, the spectacle rather gratifying.

  "Get out from behind the shield and keep on firing," he said and activated the barrier. The heat made the vents around his feet open to cool the mech as he moved through the blaze. He was through in a few strides, and from the look of the men ahead, it didn't appear as though they wanted to actually fight. The stood frozen as if their will had suddenly and painfully been dragged out of them.

  Jessica13 pushed out from behind the shield but remained on their side of the fire while the other knights crossed through and advanced in formation. The enemy suddenly seemed to realize that their dead leader had elected to fight rather than surrender and hastily began to prepare.

  She lined up another shot. The Cinders' pilots appeared to more anxious for action than the Lancers, unsurprisingly, and that made them the perfect place to start her attack. They had some armor but it was mostly frontal, and as they turned to face Hammerhand head-on, she had a clear shot at their fuel supplies.

  It was tempting to simply act quickly but she forced herself to wait as they started the throwers. Only when she was sure they were drawing from the supplies on their back did she choose the one at the front who attempted to push his flames against her leader’s shield. She pulled the trigger.

  The result was a little less immediate than she thought it would be. The pressure was suddenly lost in the fuel supply and the flame was quickly drawn back into the thrower itself to travel up the pipes and into the fuel. It took almost five seconds for the full effect to come to fruition, but by the time the flame reached the tank, she had turned away. The blast was bright enough to light up the entire area around them.

  She grasped the rifle and let the mechanism load another round before she selected her next target. The Lancers needed to retreat slightly as the blaze from the destroyed Cinder was too intense for them to approach. A couple of the others had been eliminated in the same blast.

  The Knights moved around the flames, but Hammerhand simply kicked the ruined mechs out of his way and marched between them with his shield up. The enemy finally opened fire.

  And not only on the knights, she realized, when the earth was kicked up by a few rounds aimed in her direction.

  "It’s time to move," Mini announced and she already understood what the AI had in mind before he even had to say it. She tucked the rifle away on the back of her mech and let him take them onto all fours and bound to the side as the volley directed at them grew more and more intense. She braced herself in anticipation of his next action and he pushed the Minato into a sprint toward the tall wall of flame between them and the Knights who began to engage Athena's men.

  Mini bunched the mech and used their momentum while he drove forward with the more powerful back legs to launch them high above the fire and over the tongues of flame that licked at them. She could still feel the heat, even through the insulators, but in seconds, they landed heavily on the other side.

  The impact was more intense than it should have been and her whole body jolted with pain.

  "Shit!" she shouted and braced herself a little harder. "I really need to fix those fucking dampeners."

  "Agreed," Mini said simply and raced into an evasive pattern that allowed them to approach while taking as little fire as possible. The few rounds that actually found them ricocheted off of the angled armor and they were able to keep moving.

  "Am I to guess that you have a plan of some kind?" Jessica13 asked, still holding on for dear life.

  "My thought was simply to surprise them with our presence, distract them, and give the other Knights a chance to breach their line with a minimal loss of life," he replied.

  "That doesn't sound like a plan," she retorted waspishly. "That's barely even a concept."

  "I am open to additions to the plan," he replied and she could almost hear a hint of hurt in his voice. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the time to explore it or attempt apologies.

  "Can you keep us moving?" she asked. "I think I have an idea but I need to use the grappler."

  "Understood," Mini said, quickly disengaged them from Bulletfoot mode, and kept their movements sporadic and unpredictable as the gunfire around them grew more intense.

  "I will definitely regret this," Jessica13 said. The bumps and bruises from their last fight still made her body ache, and their erratic course at breakneck speed only made it worse.

  Mini guided them toward the line the enemy attempted to hold against the Knights. The Cinders were at the front and coordinated their defense to halt the Knights’ advance and more importantly, try to keep Hammerhand at bay. That was the weakness she intended to exploit. Hopefully, she thought grimly, but pushed the doubt aside and readied herself for what she needed to do.

  It was difficult to aim the grappler while they were in motion, and Mini called up the same software they used to aim the rifle on her back. It wasn't quite as accurate but at this range, it didn't really matter. She found her target and launched the dart to streak forward and drive home in the arm of one of the Cinders.

  She wasn't sure what she had expected to do other than distract it, but the mech didn’t budge from its attempt to keep Hammerhand pinned in place with its thrower. The flechette gun turned toward her and while it was angled a little awkwardly, the effect would be the same. The type of rounds that were fired from that kind of gun would cut through her armor and find her rather vulnerable inside with ease.

  Jessica13 twisted away from the Cinder's line of fire and yanked at the chord that was still attached to its arm. The motion hauled the mech around without her realizing what she had accomplished at first. As soon as reality clicked in, she continued to drag the mech's thrower away from Hammerhand's shield and toward the Lancers that tried to protect it.

  Flames coated the enemy mechs and the screams were audible. The heat wouldn’t damage the steel or even the mech itself overmuch, but they would cook the inside, which happened to be the pilot. The temp
erature would rocket in their cockpits to the point of being unbearable.

  A few tried to climb out, but that only let more of the heat in along with the flames. The shrieks sounded almost inhuman as the men tried to beat the fire away, but the fuel stuck to their bodies and it wasn't long before a few hung half-outside their mechs, wreathed in smoke and filling the air with the acrid smell of burning meat.

  Those that had actually encountered this problem before were easy to find as they acted quickly to scoop up dirt from the ground around them and shoved it onto the places where the flames burned to stifle them quickly before things grew too hot.

  Even with only five of the Lancers dead and a few more distracted, it was the only opening Hammerhand needed. He dropped the shield and advanced quickly on the Cinder that still had her dart attached, which she retracted hastily when she saw the hammer swing in from the side.

  The enemy mech was busy trying to acquire her and Mini for another shot and didn't realize that the Excalibur was behind him until it was too late. The blow from the rocket-powered hammer resulted in an audible crunch that lifted it off its feet and catapulted it into the wall of fire that still burned brightly.

  The sight of Hammerhand bathed by the red glow of the flames and the occasional flicker of lightning was truly awesome to behold, especially when he was surrounded and flanked by his fellow Knights. Power seemed to radiate from his mech as the vents opened quickly and appeared to cool the fire around it as well.

  Jessica13 stowed her grappler, moved herself to the safety provided by the Knights' position, and once again assumed the regular role of a support mech. She reloaded her rifle's mag before she took a handful of crates to where her teammates fought their way through Athena's forces.

  It had seemed like the mechs had only been there to slow them, but they fought with every intention of trying to win. They had to know they had no chance, especially when Hammerhand gave legend to his name and simply crushed them, sometimes two or three at a time, with his hammer. The Knights dealt with those that hadn't been removed from contention already with their own unique sets of skills.