by Satoshi Hase
“Ensign! There’s too many of them,” one of Shimamura’s soldiers yelled.
“Suck it up, soldier,” Shimamura growled. “Even if we tried to retreat, they’d catch us. All we need to think about now is making sure we use up every last bullet we have before those things get their hands on our guns.”
In the residential area there was nowhere to hide but behind the corners of the houses. Shimamura already knew it was most likely impossible to actually stand in the way of the two groups of armed hIEs. He also knew that in the residential area, there was nowhere to hide but behind the corners of the houses. The knowledge made his orders a heavy, but necessary, cross to bear.
His soldiers were looking at each other, their faces streaked with mud and sweat and blood.
“We’re going to stop them,” he said bluntly.
Behind their defensive line was a top secret, important facility that the enemy was gunning for. That was all Shimamura had been told about it. But, even if he didn’t know exactly what was back there, he and his soldiers were going to fulfill their mission.
Shimamura drew in a deep breath, his right hand stiff with the tension he had been feeling ever since the attack began. He was sure every other member of the platoon was feeling the same.
“Everyone, listen up. We’re going to open fire when they’re within 100 meters,” he said. “Leave the timing to the command group in the back; they’ll give us the distance.”
In the 22nd century, infantry soldiers didn’t need to rely on their own senses of distance to gauge the best time for an attack, as everything could be calculated and timed by a fire timing computer kept back at the command headquarters. Shimamura heard a chorus of ‘yes, sir’ from all the soldiers in the platoon.
From beyond a cloud of dust, hIEs began to rush at the defensive line. Each one had flowers growing out of its head, the part of the body where most of the hIEs’ nervous system was concentrated. Though it first appeared as though they were having trouble walking on two feet, the pace they set was incredible.
〈Distance is 105, 102, 101.〉
Shimamura clenched his jaw and pulled the trigger on his rifle. Gunshots rang out all around, high and loud. The very first gun to spit fire at the hIEs was the 12.7mm heavy machine gun. Gunsmoke and muzzle flashes filled the area with the smell of the battlefield.
The hIEs, who had fanned out as they approached, were taken down one after another as the bullets rained into their ranks. But, like a flowery tsunami, the rush of hIEs continued unabated.
“Shit, they’re using old Soviet assault tactics!” Shimamura cursed, as hIEs without guns picked up weapons from their fallen comrades and advanced forward, continuing to shoot. Seeing the reality playing out in front of his own eyes made Shimamura freeze solid with despair.
It appeared that the enemy only ever had enough guns to arm half of the hIEs in the attacking groups. Once they had closed the distance, using their comrades as shields, the hIE soldiers dropped to their knees and began firing. They aimed for the machine-gunners first. Bullets slammed into the concrete walls that had been used as the bases for the machine-guns, throwing up clouds of dust. Some of the bullets struck soldiers under Shimamura’s command, bringing them down.
With the enemy on an unprotected street, hitting them wasn’t an issue. Plenty of hIEs went down, riddled with holes. But, as soon as one hIE went down, another would take up its weapon and continue firing. No matter how many hIEs they defeated, the actual firepower output of the enemy never waned.
“What the hell’s the point!” a soldier shouted. “We’re not gonna make it!”
“We’ll hold this spot with our lives!” Shimamura roared. “Don’t give the enemy a single gun! Every bullet they get is another one of your comrades dead!”
The flower petals exploding from each fallen hIE filled the air, burying everything in their vivid colors. It was the same at every location trying to halt the advance of the armed hIEs.
Suddenly, the rumbling whine of rotors cut through the air above. Shimamura looked up and saw ten helicopters making their way through the airspace over the battlefield.
With the helicopters hovering 300 meters above the ground, the army had played its trump card; within the spacious cargo bays of each helicopter were squads of heavily armored assault troops. They were the airborne cavalry squadron, belonging to the Central Army Support Division, each using a power assistance suit to equip armor weighing nearly 100 km and weapons normally mounted to vehicles.
“Don’t let your comrades’ sacrifices be in vain!” At their leader’s shout, the heavily armored troops leaped from the helicopters. The helicopters then swung around, approaching key points of the battlefield at high speed and firing on the enemy to break their formation. Helicopters like these had long represented the logical limit of evolution for cavalry units, bringing high mobility and destructive power to the battlefield.
Bearing the wyvern emblem of their elite squad, the elite units descended from the helicopters, relying only on hover packs to keep them from plummeting to the ground below. Their power assistance suits were designed to lend them high mobility and destructive power for a single battle, and couldn’t last long without running out of juice. The airborne cavalry could only be effective for a total of six hours after deployment; three hours if they operated at full power.
Still, thanks to the dedication of the rifle units on the ground, the advance of the enemy hIEs had been stopped. The airborne cavalry swept in from the side, hammering into the flank of the hIEs while their momentum was halted.
The weapons wielded by the air cavalry were on a whole different level from those of the rifle units; their weapons had been designed to take down any land-based military equipment short of tanks. Any hIEs in their line of fire instantly exploded, their parts scattered here and there across the ground.
From the perspective of the high-altitude aircraft observing the scene, it was clear to see the numbers of flower-covered hIE soldiers dropping dramatically as they were devastated by the airborne cavalry attack.
Soldiers who had been caught in the more hotly contested areas welcomed their heavily-armored saviors with rousing cheers, but the cavalry soldiers did not stop. Dealing with the first wave of attacking hIEs was only part of the task they had been given. Cavalry soldiers who had been positioned high up on the surrounding buildings aimed their guns down at the streets and prepared for the second wave.
Snowdrop’s own armored units—flower-covered, gun-wielding abominations lashed together from the remains of other hIEs—marched forward in a single army. Cars in the mix multiplied the speed and weight of the hIEs, and the ratio of hIEs with guns to those without was about fifty-fifty.
A communique from headquarters came in to the paratroopers from the airborne cavalry. 〈The enemy is currently organizing up to a fourth wave of attacks. We have also confirmed a figure we believe to be Snowdrop.〉
The airborne cavalry that had descended on the area of Kichijoji Street were bathed in intense fire from the attacking hIEs. Among their other tasks, the most important was to surround and destroy Snowdrop. Based on the experience of taking down Kouka, a unit from the same class as Snowdrop, even a whole company of airborne elites would have a rough time destroying their target.
A helicopter bearing a second company of airborne cavalry approached from the north of Mitaka Station, aiming to hem in their target now that they had found it. However, just as it reached the operation area, the helicopter with the second company that would decide the fate of the battle started to waver in the air and send rescue signals to the observation aircraft. It then pointed its mounted machine gun at the airborne cavalry soldiers on the street below and opened fire.
〈Condition unknown. I can’t control the vehicle,〉 came one final report from the pilot over the wireless, before the line went dead. Flames began bursting out from within the helicopter, which should have been the Japanese army’s ace in the hole. The soldiers inside were firing from the belly o
f the machine, trying to destroy it before it could do anymore damage. The helicopter exploded, throwing flames and shards of debris into the air.
It was a situation that hadn’t been proposed to SESSAI as part of the tactical calculation, as SESSAI’s operators hadn’t been able to grasp it as being a possibility.
They hadn’t considered the possibility that someone on the human side would betray their fellows to Snowdrop, nor would they have been able to conceive of a reason why. But, with a traitor on the inside, the helicopter could have been infected with flower petals before it left the ground. With the flowers dug into the helicopter’s computer network, it would have fallen under Snowdrop’s control as soon as it was within range of her command signals.
The nightmare didn’t end with the helicopter. When the helicopter exploded, countless flower petals were scattered on the wind from the blast. The humans had believed the sky would be safe, since it was beyond the reach of the flowers. But it only took a few stray petals, drifting on the wind from the explosion, to take over the other helicopters. With their automatic control functions taken over by Snowdrop, the helicopters careened toward the soldiers on the ground. Fiery explosions and debris rained down from the sky. Airborne cavalry soldiers who hadn’t gotten out of the helicopters before the fall plummeted to the ground like stones.
hIEs flocked like hungry ghouls to the fragments of the fallen helicopters, and the fallen soldiers’s weapons. The battlefield had turned into a hellscape. Like a petrified forest, the whole city was full of lifeless green and blooming flowers. Every piece of equipment the flowers covered had its system over-written, and thus became another tool for the enemy.
Snowdrop’s army now had more firepower at their command than the humans in the assault. The airborne cavalry didn’t have the defensive capabilities to become a mobile, protective battery installation in the same way that a tank could; without the speed of the helicopters to aid them, they were no better off than the other infantry soldiers under siege.
The human soldiers desperately created a defensive line, using trucks with machine-guns mounted to them, all the way along the road. But, no matter how many hIEs they shot down, there were always new ones ready to pick up their fallen comrades’ weapons and continue the fight. Snowdrop could send every single hIE under her command against the soldiers. The soldiers, on the other hand, couldn’t expect the civilians trapped by the siege to pick up their weapons after they fell.
The 13th and 15th rifle infantry platoons, the units that had first started the fighting, had already been annihilated. Only half the strength of the four rifle platoons and air cavalry that had come to their aid still remained. Snowdrop’s hIEs had completely cut off the force protecting the south side of Inokashira Park from any reinforcements.
“We’re screwed,” one of the soldiers muttered.
It was already clear how the siege of Mitaka was going to end.
“You tried really hard,” a young girl’s voice said, as if responding to the soldier. “But, it’s all over now.”
A single little hIE girl was sitting among the purgatory of the battlefield, kicking her legs as they dangled off the side of a trailer, where other hIEs were wielding the 20mm machine-guns dropped by the airborne cavalry.
“You humans really are dumb,” the girl continued. “You don’t mind risking your own lives, or throwing away someone else’s life, just to get your hands on—well, you know. And you’re not even all fighting for the same thing.”
The flower-covered trailer had none of the aesthetics of human work. To Snowdrop, who was a machine created with the purpose of extending life, humans were a part of nature to be subjugated. The very tools humanity had created to avoid dead ends in its own evolutionary path had given birth to enemies that were culling them systematically.
Covered in flowers, Snowdrop’s armored convoy would have looked like the procession of a post-war victory parade.
Among it all, Snowdrop was singing.
“But it was all a big waste,” she teased. “My path will be open. Soon.”
The soldiers holding the defensive line watched the approaching hIEs, all armed with guns, and the procession trailing behind them. Once Snowdrop began her assault, the line would be broken and the zombie hIEs would spread into the unprotected city beyond.
Just as checkmate was about to be declared, from within the park, which had been shrunk down to just a museum site during restructuring, a siren began to wail.
The ground began to tremble so violently the soldiers had trouble keeping their feet, as a building about the size of a one-story house rose out of the underground of the park behind them. It was solid metal and shaped like a cube.
The soldiers had no idea what they were looking at, but every single one of them felt that something was off about the structure. Its thick metal shutter, which looked like it could withstand a tank shell, seemed to swallow up the residential feel of the area with its very existence.
Snowdrop’s army pressed forward, their sights set on the metal cube.
But, as the soldiers waited to be caught up in the unrelenting blender of the encroaching army, something appeared before their eyes: a tall woman with orange hair now stood in the street between them and the flower-covered hIEs.
Looking over her shoulder at the metal shutter, she quirked the corners of her lips a little. “Looks like things got a little out of hand,” she said. As if to punctuate her line, both of her hands burst into flame. Then, the whole world was filled with light.
The burst of those raging flames was so bright it was observed in Shinjuku, 10 km away from the Mitaka quarantine zone. When the brilliance and blast from the explosion faded, the whole area had been wiped clean.
Over twenty vehicles and fifty hIEs that made up Snowdrop’s assault force had been blown away without a trace. The energy unleashed in that instant had been enough to literally annihilate an entire army of hIEs. That single blow was more effective than the offensive efforts of the thousand plus soldiers who had taken up arms and risked their lives rushing in to fight.
The soldiers knew nothing about Type-004, Methode, the orange haired machine standing before them. They didn’t even know if she was friend or foe. But, having witnessed her power, their will to fight had completely fled them, and they lowered their weapons.
They knew it was no longer a place for ordinary humans. The woman-shaped thing in front of them was wreathed in dragon-like flames, but not a single orange hair from her head was singed. Her flame was hot enough that it caught any lightweight material nearby and sent it floating into the air on an updraft.
“This your first time seeing a full open attack from Liberated Flame?” Methode asked, as if nothing had happened.
Snowdrop walked barefoot across the red-hot asphalt, the hem of her dress dancing in the updraft. “If it’s so great, then you should have used it to roast Lacia,” She said. Under her green hair, her childish face had a smile plastered on, but there was no heart behind it.
With the power to blow everything away like it was so much scrap paper, Methode also wore a mocking, heartless grin. “Would you believe me if I said I’ve been forced to hold back its output up to now, to reduce human casualties?” she asked. “I can’t tell you how annoying it is, having this frame of reference that won’t let me turn all the humans in the world into my enemies.”
Her attack, which had melted concrete and set the asphalt boiling, hadn’t harmed any of the human soldiers. It had only burned away Kichijoji Street. The level of precision she showed with her destructive power was beyond the capabilities of even the most up-to-date weapons systems of the 22nd century.
Methode appeared human on the outside, but it was clear to the humans around her that she was something else. To them, she was a being of terror, wielding a weapon beyond their ability to comprehend.
“Now, I know there’s something you and all the other rabble around here want,” Methode continued. “But just what do you plan to do against me, putting tog
ether a collection of toys like that?
“So your body is the most powerful thing around?” Snowdrop replied. “Then give it to me.”
As the two hIEs faced each other down, it was clear they no longer even noticed that the human soldiers were there with them.
There was no longer any meaning for humans on that battlefield.
If one could imagine the end of humanity’s world, it would perhaps look very similar to that place, where humans had no reason to exist.
***
Even Arato Endo found himself doubting whether there was any meaning in his going there, as he headed toward the battlefield. But still, he couldn’t stop himself from pressing straight forward, like an arrow fired from a bow.
It had taken him thirty minutes, riding the bike from Shinjuku to arrive at the barricade around Kichijoji Station. Luckily for him, he arrived just as the cordon was being thrown into chaos. The helicopters exploding in the sky were throwing showers of Snowdrop’s petals on the area below.
All the soldiers were busy checking their vehicles and equipment to make sure none of Snowdrop’s flowers had infected them. Arato figured he wasn’t going to get a better chance, so he pedaled the bike into the quarantine zone.
Slipping between soldiers and vehicles, he headed for a path that happened to not be blocked off by warning tape. As he rode along the narrow, flower-covered alley, he was impressed at how easy it had been to infiltrate the cordon.
He felt like Lacia was somewhere nearby. She might be through with him, after he had rejected her outstretched hand. But his heart was moved at the thought that she might still be following through on his final order before they had parted; to take down Snowdrop.
“What good will doubting her do me?” he asked himself.
Inside the blockade, the green of Snowdrop’s infection grew deeper the closer he got to the station. The greenery was full of her flower child units and cables that grew and twisted like vines of ivy. There were also palm-sized insectoid units scattered here and there among the green.