Taking a moment to first moderate his loudspeaker’s volume, Toni answered him in a low voice.
“Nothing. But something might have fallen from the sky. I’m seeing a streak of smoke up there. Pretty far away, though.”
“Ahuh. I see it. Can’t be it, too fresh.”
“Maybe – I have visual on contact directly ahead!” Toni breathed, his heart skipping a beat.
Three hundred meters beyond his position, near the maximum probable range of a grenade throw, stood the enemy Suit, proud and tall and drenched in blood. Hanging from its gorget like an oversized neck-tie, was a bloodied and mangled corpse clad in ROWAC’s pixilated cammo fatigues.
The corpse swayed ever so slightly in the strong wind and Toni watched, horrified, and tried to understand the psyche of the pilot who had hung it there. The attempt failed. Kaiser he could understand, but not this.
This is something else, someone else entirely, he suddenly realized, and a cold fear gripped him as the monster silently surveyed the terrain before it.
This isn’t gonna work! His mind screamed as he began to careen towards panic. Once he arrived there, however, the dark stranger inside opened an eyelid and bid everything turn to ice. The storm in his mind suddenly abated, and he found himself gripping the double-pack charge almost to the point of tearing its tough fabric. Relaxing his grip, he peered out towards his enemy and willed his fear to die away, until all that remained was the grim realization that he was laying his eyes on the bringer of his death. He decided to accept that truth, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to move a muscle otherwise, remembering that he hated cowards more than he would hate to die.
With a luminous flash three sudden plumes of soil sprouted into the sky, uniting at the speed of sound into a wall of earth and blocking the enemy Suit entirely from his sight. The following moment the concussive shockwaves reached him and, despite his semi-prone position behind the shelter, his Hammerhead was almost lifted into the air. The noise to his right made it plain that Park’s unit, more exposed as it was to the elements, had impacted violently against the ground.
He began to count the seconds through clenched teeth, each signifying in his mind an opportunity to attack not taken advantage of. When he reached five he snapped, pulled the pair of blue cords from the device in his hand, and lobbed it out towards the rising dust cloud. The throw was better than he had expected it to be, but no sooner had it reached the cloud than, still high above the ground and quickly descending, it detonated spectacularly.
“What?” Toni had time to say, before an arriving Park explained his error for him.
“Three to four seconds, get it? That’s the delay time of the hand-grenades we’re using to initiate these charges. Just ‘cause you can throw that far doesn’t mean it’ll get there.” His Suit was still covered in soil from his fall, but his voice remained calm nevertheless.
“But if our expected range is two hundred meters, then we were too far back to begin with ...” he realized, but his conclusion was cut short by a streaking missile that punched through the dust cloud and roared over their heads.
A moment later a painfully intense flash of light filled his field of vision, and the remainder of the minefield detonated simultaneously, lifting an entire wall of earth into the sky and then towards them. Toni barely had time to throw his weight into the ground, and then the collection of shockwaves reached them with the power of a small nuclear weapon. His unit was abruptly launched backwards, uprooted trees crashing around his rolling frame as he lost notion of his horizon. He came to a sudden stop at the roots of a particularly sturdy pine tree, which nevertheless balanced back and forth like a metronome in slow motion. Then another shockwave, one with less weight behind it but far more snap, collided against his reclined form and the trees that surrounded him, and the majority of the old pine’s branches came crashing violently to the ground.
All the forest’s leaves fell like confetti and Toni felt somehow he had had that vision before, a lifetime ago when two thermonuclear weapons had changed his life.
You’re dead, the stranger in his mind gleefully informed him, it doesn’t matter if you die, ‘cause you’re already dead.
He knew what the voice was implying. It was time to find the monster and kill it. And after that was over and done with he would go find Ian and kill him too. The thought brought a cruel smirk to his lips, and he stood once more, noticing that his second bluecord charge was nowhere to be seen.
Nor was Park, for that matter.
Pulling a redcord double-whammy from his webbing, he gripped it firmly and lowered his center-of-mass, and then he set off back to his initial position to reestablish visual with the bakemono.
As he laid his eyes once more on the remains of the minefield, he found a wall of dust about one kilometer across rising high into the sky, where the savage winds were proceeding to demolish it. Without a second thought he stepped into it, his visibility suddenly diminishing to no more than a few meters. Forwards he marched, heedless of the risk and eager to meet the alien who was tearing his world apart.
Because whatever its form, he absolutely refused to consider it human. And that made it all so much easier, for once something was no longer human there was no need to speak of honor or fair treatment. He understood what Ray had done for the first time, and knew also what logic had made his friend kill the dark-man in the first place. If only he had done the same to Kaiser, his mate might still be alive for two Earthlings dead. There was a lesson hidden in there somewhere; no good deed goes unpunished, no need to be the good guy, not authorized to be a hero, no –
Snapping and ripping sounds suddenly made themselves heard, and he bounded blindly towards its source, managing only to plunge into the massive hole left by a landmine’s detonation. Collapsing to his kneepads, he twisted into a roll and smacked his backplate against the sopping ground at its center. The force of the impact caused him to pendulate in his HINT for the briefest of moments, making it clear that he had probably not been too far from double-slamming against the cavity’s rear wall.
More snaps and suddenly Toni was roaring as he rolled onto his four appendages, and he coursed his way out of the fosse in bounding strides, leaving a twisted and torn double-whammy behind to soak in the muddy water. Pulling another charge from its webbing, he bounded over the terrain, falling twice as his body slowly became accustomed to maneuvering and compromising with the new HINT. A louder snap, followed by a crimson fireball that illuminated the haze directly ahead, made it clear to him what was happening. Passing the double-whammy from left hand to right, he accelerated to maximum velocity until a silhouette became plain to his eyes.
It was too large to be a Hammerhead.
It turned suddenly towards him but it was too late; Toni had already pulled the red armbands out of his charge the moment after the switch from one hand to the other, and he slammed the device high upon the upper thorax of his enemy as frame collided against frame. The detonation was catastrophic, and Digger Three’s right appendage blew apart as the force of the explosion separated both Suits as quickly as they had united.
Toni screamed in pain, the HINT’s violent flurry as it emulated its synchronized appendage’s final moment causing old wounds to tear. He double-slammed against the cavity’s interior and then the Suit collided against the ground, the interface crane’s pendulation wreaking havoc in his inner ears as he tried to stop his roll and recover. Finally sliding to a stop, he peered at his right appendage, finding only a stump at his elbow, loose PAMs diverging from his spaulder like bananas and loosely surrounding their endoskeletal gas conveyors. It looked like Mr. Fandango’s Class of Fucking Robot Anatomy.
“STERBEN!” He suddenly heard screamed from a very loud loudspeaker, and he rolled instinctively as brilliant lines of white light flashed all around him.
Finding his feet, he fixed his eyes on the source of the light-show and pulled another double-whammy from his webbing. He attempted to pull the red-band, discovering that he had no han
d to pull it with. His next instinct, pulling the band with his teeth, failed due to the Hammerhead not possessing such an innovation. All that remained as the laser pulses closed in on him was to place the band between his kneepads and give the packs a stiff pull. He then lobbed the grenade towards his adversary and threw himself into the dirt. The detonation caused Toni’s Suit to slide, and he dug his stump into the ground to anchor him firmly there.
Wobbling slightly, Toni stood once more and rushed forwards in desperate search of his adversary, finding the Unmil on its knees as it attempted to re-shoulder its rifle. Forgetting the grenades, he rushed his adversary and launched a vicious kick towards its helm, only to discover that it somehow no longer had one. It was with his trailing appendage that he finally struck the Suit, causing him to lose balance and plough into the ground on the other side and onto his right spaulder.
Abandoning long-range combat, he wrapped his remaining appendages around his adversary’s lower body and tried to kick the rifle from its gripping gauntlets. Several failed attempts later Toni realized that its musculature and structure were way beyond those of any Hammerhead, and it inexorably turned to face him as if wrestling with a child. The monster finally released its weapon and grabbed a firm hold of him by his webbing, and Toni began to feel himself being lifted off the ground.
Oh well, it’s sayonara time, isn’t it, Chum? The stranger quipped delightedly, and Toni was forced to agree with him.
Thinking fleetingly of his family, he pulled both red and blue bands from his remaining charges with his remaining gauntlet, and then pushed his webbing as far away from his body as possible and towards his killer’s arms.
The detonation knocked him out cold.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Above Base Fido, Nature’s Day, 21st of June, 2771
Toni returned to consciousness inside the personnel cabin of an air force copter. It was probably noisy out there, since all those without earmuffs were presently pressing their hands against their ears. One of the earmuffed soldiers noticed that he was conscious and said something to the high-ranking officer beside him. The old officer, whose appearance suggested that he had just survived hell, leaned over him and spoke a few words.
Toni wasn’t too good at reading lips, but the man seemed to be trying to console him. Toni asked whether the Unmil was dead, and was surprised to discover that he couldn’t hear his own voice. The sad expression on the officer alarmed him. Was he sad because it was not? Or was it because he hadn’t understood the question?
He tried to move but found that he couldn’t, and he began to panic, wondering whether he was strapped down or whether he no longer had use of his body. He closed his eyes, preferring the darkness, and felt hot tears roll down his face.
He returned to the warm void where his savage self roamed, and remained there for a while.
When he awoke again, Toni lay in a cot in a medical bay quite different from the one he had known at Base Fido.
The compartment possessed a surface area larger than Fido’s medical bay, and hospital cots like his lined both sides of its considerable length. To his right was a wide entrance, its double-doors kept open as nurses and orderlies passed busily through to attend the injured. The patients numbered at least thirty.
He suddenly realized that he was able to hear again, and he lay there for a while, weeping quietly and thanking the gods for their mercy. He then closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of his surroundings. His ears felt like they had been stuffed with cotton, but still he could hear nearby patients in conversation, the howling wind outside and even the occasional groan of pain.
Discovering also that he had the use of his left arm, he touched his hand to an ear and felt through its folds, finding nothing jammed in there. His ears were back, but they weren’t in good shape and possibly never would be. His sadness was greatly lessened when he found he could also move his legs. Slowly he flexed them, and felt more than heard his knees snap painfully. It was an acceptable pain, one that told him he might one day run again.
Something struck Toni’s head and he opened his eyes, peering about. Finding a crinkled piece of paper on his bandaged chest, he searched for its thrower, and found a patient of his age smiling in the cot beside him.
“Got your ears pretty hammered, huh?” The boy asked cheerily.
Toni had no difficulty in understanding the question, and indeed the other patients had winced at the loudness with which the boy had spoken.
The soldier turned out to be an aircraft maintenance assistant by the name of Harry Osaka. Four days previously, as they had been prepping a drone with missiles for an attack sortie, someone had made the mistake of maneuvering the forklift a little too aggressively and had collided against the craft, rupturing its fuel tank. The end result had been an escalating chain of fires, deflagrations and detonations that had left two base personnel dead and more than twenty injured, Harry among them.
When asked if he knew anything about what had happened at Base Fido, Harry appeared puzzled, and the base-rat was forced to grapevine with the remaining patients before presenting Toni with the sole tidbit of information regarding ROWAC’s and EWAC’s delaying activities; ROWAC’s commander was dead and a score more injured, both unit commands having been effectively put out of action by the employment of a single nuke. The information was known only due to the fact that the injured had been evacced to Lograin, all other details being classified. Swallowing his sadness for the old natural, Toni thanked the runway jockey for the intel.
They chatted for a while longer, Toni having to strain his ears and Harry his voice until an irritated nurse finally approached, putting an end to the loud conversation. They were duly informed that night had begun, and the curtains were closed and daylights extinguished as if to underline the point.
Toni was relieved. The effort of keeping his head turned to his left side had left him with a crick that took a while to subside, and his brow had beaded with sweat at the effort it had required to listen to the chatty mechanic’s assistant. He closed his eyes once more and found blissful darkness to match the silence. A nurse arrived shortly afterwards with a syringe and then it was his pain that was numbed, and he drifted off to sleep with titans colliding in his groggy mind.
An eternity later morning came, and he smeared the sleep off his face with his only working hand. A nurse arrived shortly afterwards to raise his cot and place a tray of breakfast on his lap. Thankfully finding Harry still deep in blissful sleep, he ate his eggs and toast peacefully, caring not in the least for the lack of salt or butter. Someone had finally deigned to update the wall-clock, and he found that it was a quarter past eight in the morning.
Shortly after nine o’clock a senior nurse arrived, gave him a nervous smile and began to search through a transparent plastic bag beside his bed that contained a tattered and bloody uniform. Finding a nametag there, she carefully cleaned and read it, before apologizing to him and hurriedly exiting the room.
Something struck the back of his head and a crumpled piece of paper ricocheted towards an intermediate nurses’ station, earning them a rebuking glare from the squat nurse who was nesting there. Toni turned to find a very alert Harry leaning towards him. Suppressing his despair at the prospect of another neck-ache, he smiled and leaned towards his neighbor, only to have the boy slip him a folded piece of paper. Toni read the message there and felt his heart begin to gather speed.
THAT IS THE SECOND TIME THEY’VE GONE THROUGH YOUR STUFF! THEY KEEP CHECKING OUT YOUR NAMETAG, AND THEY’VE BEEN WHISPERING LIKE THERE’S TROUBLE. WHAT’S GOING ON?
Not trusting himself to whisper low enough, he requested his mate’s marker and scribbled a quick answer.
PROBABLY IN TROUBLE! GOT A LITTLE POISON PILL IN MY UNIT WHO WANT’S TO DO ME IN. CAN YOU WALK?
Harry nodded and, following Toni’s gestures, he limped towards the foot of the cadet’s bed and discreetly removed the chart that had been hung there. As he handed it towards him, Toni mouthed a very genuine wor
d of thanks and then carefully inspected the untidily scrawled document.
An EWAC soldier by the name of Frederic Granger was apparently into his fourth day of internment after having suffered traumatic injuries during combat. The soldier’s right arm had suffered significant tissue damage, and had already been subjected to corrective surgery. Aside from that, the patient had suffered penetrating wounds from more than two hundred incandescent spalls into his upper and lower body (presumably originating from the interior surface of a Suit’s armor), which had had to be removed before stem-cell netting could be applied over his burned skin. The patient had suffered a multitude of hematomas due to his Suit’s straps, a severe concussion that by itself would require at least three weeks of convalescence, and damage of unknown seriousness to his hearing.
The patient happened to possess a deep incisive wound to the right side of his face, although it appeared to have healed well enough to not require further treatment.
The injuries were very familiar, as was their origin, but the name was not. And then Toni remembered what he had done before going into combat against the Bakemono; he had garbed the previous occupant’s uniform over his own to protect his body from the interface’s punishing straps. Carefully he sat up and removed the plastic bag with his belongings from beneath the nightstand. Searching its interior, he found a torn and blood-spattered dolmen and inspected its nametag. It read Frederic Granger A+.
Toni thanked the gods that the soldier’s blood-type was the same as his. Searching beneath its tortured fabric, he found his own dolmen and removed the Velcro nametag with his true identity as discreetly as possible. The gesture did not pass unnoticed by Harry. He hurriedly scribbled message onto another piece of paper.
IS YOUR NAME TONI MIURA?
Toni’s world began to tilt to the side. He had been too cautious about it for Harry to have been able to read his nametag, which was now carefully hidden away in his hospital-supplied underclothes. He took the paper from the soldier and wrote a quick answer.
Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) Page 36