Metal Monsters

by G. D. Stark

  “All right, boys,” Squid said, calling us together. “Captain Yost and I have gone over the objectives. We’re headed to Phalix to defend a mission-critical manufacturing facility. There is currently a Sfodrian garrison there which we will support and advise. The platoon will be divided into three squads. Sergeant Hanley will lead Red, I’ve got Gold and Corporal Falkland will lead Blue. Green and Gold squads will embed with the militia and provide tactical advice and muscle as needed. Blue will act as a tactical reserve, and will be equipped with L-24s. Based on what we’ve learned, we believe the mercenaries are targeting the knights with some sort of nano-weapon. Tommy, your team is to watch for these bastards and knock ’em down. Defend the knights at all costs, and let’s see if we can grab one of those weapons if we can!”

  The sound of throbbing antigrav fields made it to my ears as a large gray transport approached and landed in the field.

  “There’s our ride, men,” Squid said. “It’s go time.”

  We divided into our three squads and marched onto the transport. I recognized it as an A-67, albeit a stripped-down model, that was painted a somber gray and marked with the image of a fist grasping a handful of sticks.

  We were followed by the Sfodrian militia guys, many of whom looked like as if they’d been dragged right from their beds and dumped off here. They gave us plenty of space, staring at our armor with a mixture of curiosity and fear. They were obviously not a company that had worked with any of our guys before. Once we were airborne, a Sfodrian militia overseer briefed his men on the situation and explained our presence, letting them know that we were “noble allies of Sfodria” here to “help keep them alive as good servants” so they could continue to work “for the glory of the state”.

  I gripped my Feemper and tried not to think about the situation. I took a deep breath and tried to let the tension of upcoming battle roll through me and wash away. Defending the knights was something we had to do, but as I sat in the belly of that throbbing A-67, I began to concoct a plan of my own.

  I brought up the tactical overlay on my display. The enemy was in the foothills only a few clicks away from the LZ. Green and Gold Squads had connected with the militia while I led Blue Squad along the railway tracks parallel to the rolling hills where we assumed the knights would most likely engage the enemy. We could hear the thumping of scattered mortar fire hitting the town behind us.

  “They’d better knock out those mortars,” Edgerton said. “They’re going to break everything we’re trying to save.”

  “They’re on it,” Ward replied, pointing to a flight of drones soaring overhead.

  “Why aren’t we seeing more activity in the sky?” Jones said.

  “It’s some sort of old treaty,” Zelag said. “Don’t you read the briefings?”

  “Why bother when I have you to do it for me?” Jones replied.

  “Zip it,” I told them. “Red is on the move.”

  My visor displayed Wardogs in blue, enemy units in red, with Sfodrian friendlies in green. The Sfodrians had a few fortified positions on the edge of the city behind us, but the garrison had been bunched up in a vulnerable position in the open space in front of us. Our guys must have convinced their officers to take better positions, because I could see they’d now spread out and settled into some of the higher ground.

  I saw the Axiosi moving towards us now, and I noted they were taking the path we’d anticipated. My tactical overlay showed their armor was position towards the front with some mobile artillery behind the infantry. The drones were harrying the artillery, taking out the occasional cannon, but a few of them were being knocked down by tracking lasers.

  “There are a lot of guys coming in,” Ward said. “They might walk right through those militia. It’s a pretty even match numbers-wise and the Sfodrians are in no shape to hold their ground.”

  “They’ve got Wardogs with ’em now,” Jones said. “Squid and Jock’ll stiffen their spines.”

  “Or shoot a few of them as examples,” I said, then saw something worrying on my tactical display. “Hey, is anyone getting ghosting off to the right of your tac-screen. Like something might be moving into range?”

  “Not seeing it,” Ward said. “No—wait—yeah, something blipped there for a sec, then nothing.”

  “Probably jamming,” Jones said.

  “Jamming usually covers everything in range, not just specific troops,” Edgerton said. “I’ll bet it’s some sort of advanced cloaking.”

  “If that’s the Unity bastards, they’re going to run into us about the same time the Axiosi regulars come through,” I said. “Let’s move forward so we can hit them sooner and disrupt their schedule. Keep your heads down; we don’t want them to spot us if their scanners haven’t picked us up yet.”

  Some of us got behind rocks and others took cover in an old block building by the railroad tracks. The ghost on the display popped in and out a few times. I entered the building by kicking in a rusty door and found a convenient window facing the direction where I thought the cloaked units would appear.

  “Squid, Falkland here,” I told him. “I know we’re supposed to wait for the knights, but we’ve got a situation developing here.” The ghostly blur appeared again closer than I had expected. Damn, those Unity guys were moving fast.

  “Copy that, Corporal. What’s the problem.”

  “Looks like we have some cloaked mercs moving towards us. We’re going to bushwhack them, then join up with the knights.”

  “I copy. Good luck, Tommy. Over.”

  “What is it, Tommy?” Zelag said, pulling me back to the moment.

  “We’re going to ambush them, catch ourselves a cyborg, then drag him back with us. No more guessing. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch him alive and talk to the freak ourselves.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Jones said.

  “They must be hunting the knights, right?” I said. “So, how about we give the research guys some source material and grab some intel of our own.”

  “That sounds fine with me,” Morrel said.

  “Feemper might straight-up kill a cyborg,” Jones said.

  “Yeah, but it might not,” I said. “We’ll just do our best. Just cover the knights first.”

  “It would help if we actually knew where they were,” Ward muttered. “Arrogant bastards won’t even share a com.”

  “Don’t bitch about the clients,” Zelag said. “They’re paying us.

  “Hey—there it is,” Waterose said.

  I saw it too. The entire tactical display on my screen was blurring out.

  “Wide-array jammers,” Ward said. “We don’t have anything that strong that’s man-portable!”

  Our tech was solid. The tactical overlays had saved us more than once, but militaries are always staying on top of tech. You invent better armor, they invent better guns. You invent a faster drone, they invent a faster anti-drone laser array. With Pyrrha’s tech level, I thought we might be able to rely on our displays, but it was obvious that the two sides had anticipated tactical scanning and created countermeasures for it. “Back to the stone age,” I said, turning off the tactical overlay. “Eyes open for the cloaks.”

  As dismaying as the blackout felt, the fact was that losing our tactical imaging was probably a net plus for our guys. Wardogs were accustomed to fighting under all tech levels and conditions and with both sides being jammed, which meant we would be able to move around more easily without being seen. Heck, if I didn’t know better, I might have thought Captain Yost called for the blackout.

  The ground started to shake—I looked around to see what was causing it—then saw a flash of green and silver tear past our position, followed by another in orange and black.

  “Knights!” Edgerton yelled. “There they are!”

  The cloaked units weren’t the mercs, they were the knights! The tactical situation suddenly made more sense.

  “Follow them!” I ordered, and we ran from our positions to follow the rolling behemoths. I watched as the first tw
o went tearing down through the field towards the rear of the Sfodrian militia. We couldn’t keep up, but our armor made us almost twice as fast as an unassisted runner. As we ran to follow the knights, three more came up from behind us, zipping around us. A strange voice came over my com, haughty and cold. “You are not in your prearranged position. Are you lost, Thomas?”

  “Who is this?” I replied. “Get off the comm!”

  Another huge robotic form rolled past me, this one in red and brown.

  “Just passed you, mercenary,” the voice said.

  I was talking to a knight. I wondered if it might be that guy in red and brown from the other night. Actually, if he was willing to talk, that could be useful, even if he was just taunting me.

  “I don’t know how you got my com, sir, but we are at your service,” I said, showing a damn big pile of restraint.

  “It is unnecessary,” the knight said, then the com cut out. Jackass. I stored the incoming ID so I could talk suit-to-suit with the guy again if the need arose. The knight was already 500 meters in front of me.

  We got in view of the battle and I saw the enemy, their combined arms mostly obscured by smoke. “Hold up here for a moment, men,” I ordered. We were hopelessly behind the knights. Flashes of plasma and pulse grenades lit the whole mess from the inside. The knights were taking places inside the Sfodrian militia, like massive artillery towers. I saw six on the field already, with another six moving in from the west, firing pulses of fire into the Axiosi position. I couldn’t make much sense of the fighting but it looked like our guys had directed the Sfodrians to split up into a main body and a couple of fast flanking units—the incoming Axiosi looked to be getting sucked in to a “U” of Sfodrian units.

  “Double envelopment,” Waterose said needlessly.

  It looked like the knights and militia were cleaning up the enemy. We needed to get down there and hunt a cyborg. So far, all the knights were up and seemed to be doing fine. Heck, maybe the Unity wasn’t even involved in this attack and we were on a wild goose chase. I would have thought they’d strike by now. “Let’s get down there,” I said, and we took off towards the knights. As we got closer, I turned my tactical overlay on again. Most of it was dark, except now I could see the signatures of my fellow Wardogs. From looking at the field and viewing their positions, I could see how the militia had managed to flank and pin the Axiosi down. Now with the knights behind them, throwing down blasts of plasma and massive missile strikes in all directions, it was looking like the fight would be over before we got down to the field.

  “Falkland, I’ve got visual on you,” came Squid’s voice. “What happened to that ambush?”

  “The cloaked units were friendly.”

  “You’re far behind the knights.”

  “Affirmative,” I said. “They didn’t wait for us, Sarge.”

  “No harm, no foul,” Squid replied. “Just get down here as fast as you can and you can help us clean up.”

  By the time we got to the field, the battle was mostly over. The remaining enemy units were pulling back to a defensible position and our guys were standing in the midst of a field of smoking machinery and dead bodies. I hadn’t even fired a single shot.

  “Welcome to the party,” Jock said, meeting up with us. “You see any mercs out in the woods?”

  “No,” I replied. “Looks like you guys didn’t either.”

  “We’ll search the corpses,” Jock said. “We still might find one.”

  A dozen Sfodrian knights formed up into a circle about 100 meters from our position.

  “What are they doing?” Jock asked.

  “Beats me,” I said, watching the twelve lift their massive swords and light them with plasma. Then, to my surprise, they took off towards the enemy position, leaving their troops behind.

  “Dammit,” I said. “Looks like they’re taking on the enemy alone—hey—you got a jeep?” I looked around and saw one parked beside a shattered tree stump.

  “No keys,” Jock said.

  “Edgerton,” I said, moving to the vehicle. “Can you start this piece of junk.”

  “On it,” he said, running over to our position and sitting in the jeep. He studied the dash, then reached under the seat and pulled out a tool kit, dug around, then smashed something into the dash and started making adjustments.

  “He’s a natural carjacker,” Jones said approvingly.

  “Jones, Ward, Zelag—come on,” I said. “We’re following those knights. The rest of you stay with Jock here.”

  The jeep started. “These models are all simple chip-driven,” Edgerton said with a grin. “All I had to do was-”

  “Shut up, Edgerton,” I explained, as I jumped into the jeep with the others and gunned it towards the knights. I watched as the enemy lay down a barrage of fire upon them and they shrugged it off as if it was nothing, laying down arcs of plasma into the retreating enemy.

  “Hey Sir Robot,” I said, trying the com signal of the knight. “You have a death wish or something?”

  There was no reply for a moment, then the com opened. “It is they who wish to die, Thomas,” he said. “We’re simply helping them along. Why are you following us?”

  “I have orders,” I replied. “It’s our duty.” I could see the red and brown knight now, pursuing a squad of enemy soldiers in the company of the silver and green knight. I swerved to avoid a fallen soldier and almost nailed a boulder, then jerked back and overcompensated, fishtailing the vehicle. I got it back under control just in time to be thrown in the air by an explosion. THUMP! I went flying through the air head over heels, glimpsing purple skies then yellow grit as I slammed face-first into the ground. “Tommy!” came Ward’s voice as I blinked and got my bearings. Suit readout showed I hadn’t broken anything, but my shoulder hurt like hell. “We hit something!”

  “Hit what, a knight?” I said, regaining my feet. I looked and saw Jones and Zelag rising to their feet. Ward was already at my side. The jeep was wrecked.

  “RPG?” I looked around, shaking my head, but I didn’t figure it out before a plasma bolt ablated on my thigh armor. I felt the area heat up briefly as I dropped to the ground. “Ambush! Get down!”

  Ward and I crawled behind a boulder and he returned fire towards the enemy. I felt cooling topical anesthetic ease the fire from my injured leg and looked down at my armor. It was seared towards the inner thigh. Checking my vitals on the visor, it looked like I could still move. “I’m counting a dozen of them,” Jones growled over the com as he laid down suppressive fire. “Zelag is moving to your position. Keep him covered!”

  We opened up with our Feempers on plasma as Zelag rushed over to our rocky sanctuary. A few bolts of plasma zipped past him but he made it.

  “Go, Jones, go! We’ll cover you!”

  The enemy were firing from behind a ruined wall. We blasted away at them and forced them to take cover as Jones ran towards us, but then one of them lobbed a grenade that hit the ground behind him and exploded, throwing him into the air. BOOM! He went flying tail over tea-kettle, hurled towards us by the force of the blast. I saw an enemy head pop up behind the wall and blew it off with my Feemper on full plasma, an explosion of red showing I’d found my target. Ward and I kept firing, suppressing them as Zelag ran out and dragged Jones to our position.

  “Jones,” I shouted, noting his dented helmet and cracked visor. “Talk to me!”

  Jones mumbled something about horses. Or maybe whores. It didn’t make sense, but at least he was alive.

  “Come on, Jonesy!” I said. “Pull it together!”

  Another grenade rolled past and we hunkered down as it harmlessly blasted a stand of cactus into green jelly. I wiped some of the cactus juice off my visor and linked my chip to Jones’s suit. Helmet integrity down to 65 percent and his status indicated a probable concussion. BOOM! Another blast off to our right announced the enemy had launched another grenade. Plasma fire started to come in at more of an angle and I realized the enemy was trying to flank us.

 
“Jones!” I tried again, trying to hold him up against the rock.

  “Tommy,” he mumbled. “I hit my head.”

  “You tried to fly, dude. Hang in there, we need to keep them from getting round us.”

  “Squid!” I said. “This is Fox. We’re pinned down! You reading our suits from there?”

  “I got nothing,” came the reply. “Where are you?”

  I checked my suit GPS but got nothing. Jammers were still active.

  “We headed towards the knights—another couple of clicks towards the enemy position from you. Any eyes in the sky?”

  “Negative on that,” Squid replied. “Drones were neutralized. We’ll see if we can reach you—sit tight.”

  Another explosion threw chunks of rock over Jones and me, as I held him up. “Damn head injuries,” he mumbled. “Always with the head injuries. Wanna get a diffrent injury sometime, jes for helluvit.”

  “Shut up, Jones,” I said as a bolt of plasma lit a briar tree on fire behind me. “Lie flat here. We need to relieve the pressure.”

  “We’re totally pinned,” Ward said, as he and Zelag crouched behind the rock. “They’re hitting us from ten, twelve and two. They’ll be at our sides in a moment, then we’re toast.”

  “So first we take out two, then force them to retreat. Ward, you fire all your grenades at ten, then suppress twelve on full-auto. Zee, you and me will rush two and take them out. Off the chain in 3… 2… 1!|”

  I was trusting in surprise and our superior armor. It had worked many times before, after all. But the scorched mark on my thigh was a reminder that despite our battlesuits, we were not invulnerable. Zee and I charged as Ward launched a small hailstorm of grenades in the opposite direction, then spun and began hosing down the enemies in the middle.

  Zee launched his grenades as we ran, but I saved mine. We got about halfway there before the Axiosi recovered from the initial blasts, but they were shaken and fired their initial shots too quickly. Nothing came close to either of us, and I took the opportunity to launch a salvo of my own grenades. FOOMP-FOOMP-FOOMP-FOOMP-FOOMP-FOOMP!