One Good Soldier

by Travis S. Taylor

  "Hell, Mason, sitting around here like fish in a barrel ain't?"

  "Good point. Shit! Guns, guns, guns!" He turned over backward to avoid incoming while returning fire in the general direction. He probably didn't hit anything but a fucking tree, but it might have at least made some Seppy bastard duck. "All right, Ramy. I'm getting tired of this shit. Our diversion strategy should still be our original strategy. The tanks and grunts on the line hold it until we get support from above. Then they try to poke a hole in the line and rush through to the mansion. By then we might be there, and we'd probably need somebody to cover our asses." Mason liked the plan. Well, it wasn't so much that he liked it as he liked it better than sitting around dodging cannon fire and exploding trees. The marine's plan was bold, daring, sneaky, and only a little bat-shit crazy. Only a little.

  "I agree with that plan. We should shoot it up to the ground boss," Roberts said to the senior colonel.

  "Yep. I'm a little busy over here. You want to take care of that?" Warboys dove his tank over a downed tree, taking cover from an incoming rain of anti-mecha fire. One of the tracer rounds passed just below his canopy and between the arm and torso of his mecha.

  Shit that was close, he thought.

  Too close, sir, his AIC agreed.

  Warlord One's targeting system tracked the trajectory of the railgun rounds back to the generation-old tank that had nearly got him and then locked on with the DEG.

  "Guns, guns, guns!" he shouted. The directed energy burst from the barrel atop his bot-mode tank and traced across the hillside, cutting through several oaks as it did. The DEG blast followed the enemy tank as it bounced through the woods up and down the slope until it finally hit its mark. The energy burst tore into the cockpit of the Arcadian M3A16 hovertank. The bot-mode tank exploded at the seams in an orange flash and then fell forward, sliding to a halt into an oak tree farther down the slope. Black smoke poured from the dead tank's joints and seals.

  "Ground boss likes the plan, but can't be certain when we'll get top cover. Apparently, things are tough all over up there," Roberts communicated back to him. "I tried to convince them that things were tough all over down here, too. They said they would try to get us some FM-12s for backup."

  "Air cover would be nice," Warboys replied.

  "How long will it take you tankheads to walk ten kilometers underwater and against a current?"

  "Uh, my AIC says eighteen point six minutes. Let's shoot for twenty-five," Warboys answered the Marine colonel.

  "Got it. I'll work the plan. Assuming we get approval, let's be ready to move in five minutes. Pick your team and start moving them to the river without looking like you're moving them to the river."

  "Roger that, Ramy. Let's do it."

  "All right, folks, listen up!" Warlord One broadcast to all the tanks, AAIs, and AEMs. "Our mission is to take the governor's mansion. That is where the controls for that QMT facility are supposed to be, so we can't just blow it up from space. We have to march in there and take it away from the bastards standing there. Let's go show them how the United States of America plays king of the hill."

  "Hoowah!"

  "Oorah!"

  The Warlords totaled twelve state-of-the-art M3A17 transfigurable tank mecha. There were two squads of AEMs and three squads of AAIs. Warboys's DTM view of the battlescape showed him at least fifty enemy tank mecha and more than a thousand ground troops, and that was just in the near vicinity. His long-range sensors showed a much larger mass of troops just beyond the main line between them and where the control center for the orbiting QMT facility was.

  "Warlord Two, you and the rest of the even numbers will stay here and lead this attack. I'll take the odd-numbered Warlords and a few AEMs for a swim," Warboys ordered his second-in-command.

  Chapter 23

  July 1, 2394 AD

  Ross 128, Arcadia Orbit

  Friday, 3:38 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

  The Utopian Saviors had been ordered to hit the Seppy supercarrier closest to the planet with all they had. The Demon Dawgs were backing them up and drawing the enemy ship's AA. Deuce and Goat, and Jawbone and Popstar had their FM-12s in bot mode, bouncing across the side of the hull of the giant armored spaceship that was presently facing the planet like fleas on a dog. These fleas were packing armor-piercing railgun cannons, DEGs, and a shitload of missiles, not to mention the hands and feet of their mecha. As they ran across the hull, they dropped HE grenades into any devices, protuberances, antennas, or any other parts of the spaceship that jutted beyond the structural integrity field that protected the hull. The strategy behind the battle plan was that the ship might be forced to die the death of a thousand cuts. The mecha attack on the one enemy supercarrier freed up the already overwhelmed fleet ships to focus their attack elsewhere. The problem was that the AA of the supercarrier was focused on the mecha, but the DEGs kept blasting toward the Madira and the Tyler. Deuce had already noted several hits. But that wasn't her mission right now. Skinny had taken several of the others around to hit the DEG battery. Deuce's team was tracking to the SIF-generator power conduits that ran along the underside of the supercarrier. And like any squad of good marines, they were creating mayhem and blowing shit up along the way.

  Deuce clanked at over seventy kilometers per hour across the hull and flipped her mecha behind an AA box that was pumping out green tracer rounds into the fray around them. There was clearly some U.S. pilot in the targeting solution of the box. One of her buddies, most likely. She rose to her feet, bringing her DEG to bear on a Seppy Gnat that had been trying to lock her and Goat up. Goat flipped his mecha over her sideways and atop the AA box. Then he bounced to cover somewhere out of her visual several tens of meters behind her.

  "Guns, guns, guns!" Deuce tracked across the horizon at the enemy fighter as it flew over the horizon of the ship's hull. "Shit, I missed!"

  "Don't worry, Deuce," Goat said. "There's plenty more where that one came from! Fox three!" He let go a mecha-to-mecha missile that careened around a radome in front of him and twisted upward into the tail section of a Seppy Stinger that was pulling away from him. "Shit!" he shouted as the Stinger burst into a fireball.

  "Goddamn, Goat, quit complaining. You got the Seppy bastard!" Popstar noted.

  "I was aiming for the fucking radome! The goddamn sensor pulled off and locked up the fighter!" Goat replied.

  "Don't worry, Goat," Deuce grunted. "There is plenty of shit to shoot at!" She ducked for cover behind an exhaust vent that jutted out of the deck behind the AA box as the Gnat that had vanished over the horizon of the ship screamed back up, going to bot mode. The Gnat hit the hull running at top speed and serpentined across the hull of the enemy ship toward her. The Seppy splashed her with DEGs but missed. The directed energy beam cut through empty space and kept on going and continued to track onto Deuce right up until she took cover. Then the Seppy Gomer cut the DEG off just in time to keep from blasting a hole in his own ship.

  This Gomer has a hard-on for me.

  Yes, ma'am! Her AIC started plotting possible trajectories for the enemy mecha.

  And I still want to take out this fucking AA gun behind me.

  Well, then, do it!

  Right.

  "Deuce! On your six!" her wingman warned her. Another enemy Gnat was starting to get a drop on her.

  "I got it, Goat! Guns, guns, guns!" She leaped backward, firing both shoulder cannons and the giant DEG gun she held in her left armored mechanical hand into the AA box. She held the trigger in place until she saw the AA barrels stop firing, and then she carried her motion through a backflip with her feet thrusters at full throttle over the second enemy bot-mode mecha that had snuck up on her. Deuce went to missiles for it, and guns for his wingman that had been putting the pressure on her. "Fox three! Guns, guns, guns! Take that, you Gomer motherfuckers!"

  She hit them both, but only took out the one in front of her. The Gnat that had been behind her managed to break out of her firing solution, and it got off a round of me
cha-to-mecha missiles that were tracking in on Deuce's position way too fast at that short distance. The missiles arched upward from the mecha just as her guns had taken out the enemy fighter in front of her. As the missiles arched up and then back over, they acquired a radar lock on Deuce's FM-12, and the enemy fighter that had been behind her gave her the slip.

  "Fuck! Goddamnit to fucking hell!" She rolled onto her back, firing at the incoming missiles with her DEG, triggered her electromagnetic countermeasures, burst some chaff, and then kicked her bot up into a full run using the ship's structural features for cover. "Eagle mode!" she cried as the missiles twisted and turned around the structural outcroppings of the Seppy supercarrier's hull. Deuce's fighter rolled over into eagle mode with the forty-millimeter cannons above and below the fuselage of the fighter and the DEG still in the left hand. The main drive of the fighter now was capable of flying the vehicle at top speeds and to outmaneuver the missiles. But just as she jinked around an outcropping on the ship's hull and was about to go full throttle and out of the missile's lock, an enemy Stinger twisted overhead and exploded, throwing fragments in her path that slammed into her nose. The impact of the unexpected explosion tossed her eagle-mode fighter tail over nose toward a sensor-array platform just ahead of her, and the missiles still had her locked up. Twice she managed to soften her tumble by putting her hands down, but the fighter was spinning beyond recovery.

  "Hold on, Deuce! Fox three! Fox three! Guns, guns, guns! I got you." Jawbone's voice came through the net just as Deuce felt her eagle-mode mecha jerk into a completely different direction, throwing her against her restraints painfully.

  Shit, I think that broke some ribs!

  Stay with me, Colonel! Breathe! Hit the bite block! her AIC told her. Deuce chewed her TMJ bite block for a fresh load of stims and oxygen.

  Jawbone had dived in between Deuce and the incoming while letting loose two missiles. Just as the missiles pulled out from her mecha, she gunned them down herself, creating a fireball of hot plasma and shrapnel between their mecha and the enemy missiles. The enemy missiles exploded behind them, as Jawbone then used the momentum of her jump and the force from the explosion to carry her into Deuce's path to knock her free of the sensor array.

  "Shit! What the—" Deuce attempted to shake her head clear, but her mecha still spun wildly. Jawbone held fast to the right leg and arm of Deuce's eagle-mode mecha with both hands of her bot-mode FM-12.

  "Just hang on. I'm spinning you down. Letting go in three, two, now!" Deuce could see Jawbone's mecha breaking off and bouncing back down on the deck, firing its DEGs into some other part of the spaceship.

  "Fuck!" The Marine lieutenant colonel grunted and bit down on her TMJ bite block again, this time even harder, as the eagle-mode fighter steadied itself out of the spin. The effect of the stims washed over her, boosting her energy level from beyond exhausted to just really fucking tired.

  Then suddenly she was thrown back and forth from incoming cannon fire—the goddamned Gnat that she had missed had managed to stay on her through all the shit. The armor and the SIFs held as Deuce shook the previous second's mess out of her mind and accepted her current predicament. That was what mecha pilots had to do. Forget the past and watch the present.

  She had a Seppy Gnat trying to lock her up as she was climbing up into the gray area between the supercarrier's bowl and the bigger engagement ball. The enemy version of the Navy Ares fighter barrel-rolled around her trajectory line, trying to get a good shot at her. And she had pulled so far away from her wingman that there was no way he would get to her in time to help. She was on her own.

  Deuce pulled the HOTAS back to her stomach and pushed full throttle forward, sending the FM-12 into a full-speed high g-load dive toward the enemy supercarrier and back into the bowl. She left her stomach somewhere at the top of her direction reversal, and she had to choke the bile back down as best she could. Her suit soaked up the rest fairly quickly. She managed the vector reversal just in time, as she was about to slip into a swarm of Gnats and Ares-Ts going at it above her.

  She recognized several friendlies whizzing by as she pressed downward into her dive. A U.S. Navy Ares-T in bot mode passed by her so close she could read the pilot's helmet. It said "Poser."

  "Watch out, Marine! You've got a Gomer on your six!" Poser warned her.

  "I see him, Poser!" Deuce replied. She pushed down on the right foot pedal and pulled up on the left one, throwing a hard yaw into her flight path so she could target with her DEG as well as her cannons. She was flying backward and upside down, facing the Seppy fighter accelerating into her flight path. She rolled the nose around, trying to keep the enemy in view. No matter what she did, she couldn't seem to lock up the bastard.

  "Warning, enemy targeting radar detected. Warning, enemy targeting radar detected," her Bitchin' Betty warned her. The cannon tracers flying by her in every direction were a bit of a hint as well.

  There he is, Deuce! her AIC alerted her, already downloading the vector to her DTM.

  Got it! Deuce yawed another thirty degrees and pitched up. Her missile-guidance sensor sounded a tone, and the yellow X in her mind turned red.

  "Warning, enemy targeting lock imminent. Warning, enemy targeting lock imminent."

  "Fox three!" Deuce shouted. "Not any fucking more! Aaaaaahh, woo, hoo!" She grunted through the bone-crushing maneuver, trying to force more blood and oxygen back into her brain. The missile flew out from under her wing toward the enemy fighter and into the thing's cockpit. Just before the missile hit, the canopy blew and the ejection seat launched into space. The Seppy Gnat exploded into a white and orange fireball, almost engulfing its pilot.

  Great shot, Deuce!

  Let's get back on the deck. Deuce toggled to fighter mode and corrected her flight path back into a strafing dive toward the enemy supercarrier's hull.

  "Goat, where the hell are you?" she shouted out to her wingman as she pulled up over the hull of the ship. Her DTM mindview showed him close by, bouncing on the deck, but she couldn't find him visually.

  "Great flying, boss. Now see if you can help me get this Stinger off my ass!"

  "Roger that, Goat. I see 'im!" Deuce increased her acceleration to the deck until she reached the point that she wouldn't be able to flare out of the dive if she didn't back off. "Guns, guns, guns!"

  Tracer rounds tracked out of the cannons and pounded against the SIF-reinforced hull of the Seppy supercarrier on either side of the enemy Stinger. The enemy fighter was in bot mode and chasing Goat around and about the hull. Goat was diving for cover as best he could and running about trying to stay ahead of his pursuer. Deuce kept pouring the rounds into the deck at the enemy bot but couldn't lock up on him. Her speed was such that she was going to overtake the bot and Goat in about two seconds. She'd have to bleed off most of her speed in order to get behind the enemy Stinger.

  "Goat! Go to eagle mode now and pull out at full throttle!" She hoped the Stinger would take the bait. The Stinger's cannons started tracking at Deuce and firing.

  "Warning, enemy targeting radar detected! Warning, enemy targeting radar detected!"

  "Hell!" Deuce rolled about her flight path, still holding the trigger of her guns. She caught a glimpse of Goat's mecha launching from the hull out and up, away from the enemy bot. The enemy transfigured to fighter and took off after him while still firing its topside cannons backward at Deuce.

  She rolled around and around the firing solution of the rearward cannon fire, taking a few tracers into her nose plating. Her armor and SIFs held. As Goat screamed away and the enemy pursued hot on his tail, it pulled their vectors out in front of Deuce's really hot approach. She pulled the throttle full back, slamming her forward into her restraints.

  "Unh! Goddamned fuck!" she screamed at the negative g-load. "Faster, Goat! Faster!"

  Deuce continued to roll and adjust her trajectory so as not to overshoot the enemy fighter. She managed to control her kinetic energy just enough that she pulled up right on top of the Sting
er. As she rolled cockpit toward the enemy fighter, she could see him looking up at her only meters away. The two of them bounced around each other several times, the Stinger in fighter mode and Deuce's FM-12 in eagle mode.

  "Fuck this," she muttered. Deuce pulled out away from the enemy fighter far enough to roll one hundred and eight degrees over, putting her eagle-mode talons and hands toward the enemy fighter. She stomped at the cockpit with her claws and gripped them. The two mecha locked together and pitched forward madly. The nose of Deuce's mecha slammed into the empennage of the enemy fighter. Then she used her right fist and punched it through the armor of the fighter repeatedly until she hit the power core. Finally, the cockpit tore free, and she spun off of the fighter, still gripping it in her talons. Sparks and air vented from the enemy plane, and then the ejection seat blew just as the fighter exploded from within, throwing the wings off in two different directions. One of the wings ricocheted off her canopy but did no damage she could detect.

  "Savior Team One, we have got to get our focus back on to those SIF generators!" She straightened out her flight path and pulled her trajectory back around to the supercarrier. "Jawbone, Popstar? You with me?"

  "Roger that, Deuce," Jawbone replied.

  "I'm on Jaw's wing," Popstar added.

  "Good. Goat, wing up with me, and let's get back down there and get those damned SIFs knocked out!"

  Other than the enemy supercarrier and the hauler that the fleet ships had managed to knock out of commission at the start, the battle had not gone that great. The Roosevelt and the Madira had managed to catch one of the supercarriers in a cross fire just above the QMT facility and did overtax that ship's SIFs and armor briefly. The sensors had shown that they were ablating the hull and that atmosphere was venting from the enemy ship into space. Then RADM Wallace Jefferson realized that the damned Seppy bastards were pulling the same trick on him. The lone ship advancing on them from the rear was just bait.