by Isaac Hooke
“Hurry,” the AI sent.
The torso swung toward him and the cockpit hatch dropped open. Rade jetted inside and the inner actuators snugly cocooned him.
A missile alert sounded. Sky reacted before he did, leaping to one side and launching its Trench Coat.
The world became orange outside, and Rade felt the cockpit crumple slightly, the metal pushing into the fabric of his jumpsuit.
The orange faded away but the world was spinning rapidly around him. He struck something—it took him a moment before he realized it was a skyscraper across the street. He plummeted toward the street.
Rade fired air brakes and stabilized the mech, though he still struck relatively hard: the solar panels in the asphalt spidered around him.
“Sky, are we all right?” he said.
“Fine,” the AI returned. “That missile caught me off guard, that’s all.”
A shadow blotted out the sun. Rade glanced up: one of the ATLAS units was leaping down toward him.
He raised his shield to deflect the incoming projectile barrage and unleashed his electrolaser in return. The thunderous bolt slammed into the right shoulder of the descending mech, and the war machine spun uncontrollably the rest of the way down, smashing into the pavement.
Rade leaped onto the ATLAS and fired his cobra into the cockpit at pointblank range, aiming it so that the beam would travel down through any Marine occupant, as well as into the core of the AI. At that distance, the weapon easily sliced through the layers of steel and flesh, cutting through the mech entirely and into the street beyond.
The ATLAS slumped underneath him, terminated.
Rade glanced at his overhead map.
Other members of the platoon had loaded into their Zeus mechs and were similarly engaged, fighting against the ATLAS units at different locations upon and around the building; Lui, Tahoe and Skullcracker seemed to be pinned down on the rooftop behind their various covers. Tahoe had forfeited his Zeus earlier against the kraks, of course, and it seemed that Lui and Skullcracker had lost their own mechs in the recent engagement.
Rade jetted upward, landing on the next surface of the multilevel roadway that connected the skyscrapers to one another. He thrust upward yet again, moving to the next layer. That particular street had collapsed at its midpoint, leaving a jagged edge jutting out into space above the city. That suited his purposes just fine.
Rade made his way toward the uneven edge, aware that the unsupported roadway could yield beneath the weight of his mech at any time. About two meters from the brink he paused—his target, the base rooftop, was in sight below.
He wished he still had some missiles left. No matter. From his current vantage point, he could take out the enemies one by one.
He aimed his cobra down at the rooftop and fired the laser sniper-like, downing two of the ATLAS mechs that pinned his friends.
A missile alarm flashed on his display.
Rade immediately deployed the Trench Coat.
But it seemed the missile wasn’t aimed at him, per se.
The roadway twenty meters behind him exploded from underneath and the entire section came toppling down.
Rade jetted away from the debris.
An ATLAS mech came up from nowhere below, pummeling into him. It held its Gatling to his left forearm and fired. The arm was sawed clean off at the elbow.
Rade flung the electrolaser of his right arm toward the ATLAS, but before he could fire, the two of them plowed into a nearby office building.
Rade smashed through the glass and was sent flying between desks and cubicle separators, finally grinding to a halt about twenty meters inside. He couldn’t stand up, not in those tight confines—the space was designed for a human being, and for a mech his size it was like being thrown into the equivalent of a cramped air duct, if a wide one. He would have to worm his way back to the opening his impact had caused. That, or shoot himself some more space.
He glanced from side to side. There was no sign of the ATLAS.
“Where did it go, Sky?” Rade asked. “And why the hell aren’t these things showing up on our overhead displays?”
In answer, threads of Gatling fire ate through the floor and ceiling directly in front of him, fired from below.
Rade fired his jumpjets in reverse, sliding backward across the floor, deeper into the building.
He struck the glass on the opposite side of the building and burst clean through.
Aware of his ever dwindling jumpjet fuel supply, he countered his motion with aft thrust and angled himself so that he plowed into the building on the floor immediately below the one he had left.
Lying flat in the tight confines, he fired his electrolaser at the surprised ATLAS lurking inside, striking it in the jumpjet area. The lightning bolt tore through the tanks and ignited the fuel; the jetpack remained intact, but all of its fuel nozzles lit up at once, momentarily floating the mech helplessly off the floor and into the ragged half-sphere it had cut into the surrounding area with its Gatling.
Rade waited for his weapon to recharge.
The enemy’s jet fuel completely burned away and the mech dropped to the floor.
Come on, recharge, damn it!
The ATLAS spun around, and pointed the Gatling guns in both of its hands directly at Rade.
On his HUD, the red light of the charge indicator turned green.
Rade squeezed the trigger. A lightning bolt forked from his hand.
The super-heated plasma tore into the enemy torso. Direct hit to the reactor core. The auto shutdown mechanism of a pierced reactor prevented a runaway explosion from occurring, of course; the key word being shutdown.
The ATLAS collapsed like an oversized rag doll. Radioactive material oozed from the rent in its torso.
The cockpit cracked open and a Marine emerged in a frantic rush, blaster in hand. He jetted toward Rade’s Zeus, firing.
Rade crabbed to the side, but in the relatively tight confines he couldn’t move fast enough; the blaster carved a hole into his right shoulder.
The attacker continued to jet toward him, apparently intending to mount his mech. Rade swatted the soldier aside with a well-timed swing of his left arm—or rather, the stump that remained of it. The Marine skidded across the floor and his motion arrested when he slammed into a heavy metal desk.
Rade pivoted toward his opponent; he noticed he could no longer raise the upper part of his right arm due to the damage to his mech’s shoulder area. He was restricted to forearm movements only—basically the range of motion produced by curling his bicep.
That was good enough.
As the enemy stood up, the charging indicator turned green and Rade unleashed another bolt.
The soldier’s body ripped in half, splattering the desk in a ribbon of blood.
Rade swiveled about and wormed his way back toward the ragged entry hole he had carved into the side of the building. He reached the edge and paused to survey the cityscape below. The rooftop of the forward operating base was still in view.
Tahoe, Lui and Skullcracker remained crouched behind one of the thicker central superstructures on the roof. Around them resided the wreckages of several ATLAS mechs, and the dead bodies of Marines. Most of the Zeus mechs had returned, and they had assumed sniping positions along the outer edges of the rooftop, crouched behind the remnants of their shields, scanning the streets and buildings around them.
The pulse platforms along the perimeter had turned inward; their turrets moved in rectangular seeking patterns. Those platforms had likely contributed to the victory—Bender or TJ must have hacked the units to track the unidentified mechs.
Up until that moment Rade had been ignoring the comm chatter, but he listened intently in that moment.
“Still two of them out there,” Facehopper was saying. “Anything, Manic?”
“Nothing over here,” Manic said. His was one of the two mechs, other than Rade’s, that had not yet returned to the rooftop.
“Nor here,” Mauler added. He was the
other.
Rade glanced at his overhead map and saw both Zeus units resided a street away.
He continued to survey the landscape below. From his vantage point he saw enemy reinforcements swarming through the streets to the south. He thought he saw a glint of metal among them. He zoomed in. Sure enough, amid the hordes of kraks, he spotted centaur units, hundreds of them, the lasers mounted to their four-legged bodies itching to fire.
“Be advised,” Rade transmitted. “We have enemy reinforcements to the south. Kraks and centaurs. Hundreds of them. One klick and closing.”
The guest connection area activated on his HUD and Facehopper’s name appeared. The chief was accessing his video feed to evaluate the situation.
“Roger that,” Facehopper said. “Get your ass down here as quickly, and as inconspicuously, as you can.”
Rade could have climbed out right there and jetted down, but there was a good chance the enemy reinforcements would spot him, especially with the bright sun glinting off the metal of his mech. No, if he wanted to climb down inconspicuously, the best place to do that would be on the side facing away from the enemy.
Rade swiveled his body toward the north-facing side of the building, and crawled through the cramped office area using his right arm and the stump of his left. Without full shoulder control, his right arm was almost as useless as his left, and his legs did most of the work.
“Feel like a damn turtle,” he said.
“Would you like me to take over?” Sky asked.
“No. I got this.”
He broke the floor-to-ceiling window on the far side and hauled himself through, plunging downward. During the freefall, chatter came over the comm.
“There he is!” Mauler said.
For a moment Rade thought Mauler was targeting him, and he was about to issue a warning, but then the heavy gunner spoke again.
“Gotcha!” Mauler said. “Scratch one tango.”
Rade landed and proceeded toward the main building.
“That leaves only one more,” Facehopper said. “Unless someone hasn’t reported a kill.”
“Probably me,” Rade said. He relayed his count.
Facehopper double-checked the kill count and then confirmed: “That’s all of them. Rage, stay where you are.”
Rade had reached the edge of the forward operating base and had been about to jet up, but belayed and took up a guard position instead.
“Tahoe, Lui, Skullcracker, load up into the passenger seats of Snakeoil, Manic and Trace, respectively,” Facehopper said. “TJ, take us out. It’s time to proceed to our booster rocket hook-up. I want us moving out at an angle to those reinforcements: first due north, then due east.”
“Everyone, head to the north-facing side of the building,” TJ said. “Two squads. Same assignments as before, minus the missing mechs. Traveling overwatch formation. Rage, you’re on point in S1.”
“Roger that,” Rade said. He waited for the first member of S1 to jet down—Mauler—and then took the lead.
thirty-three
The retreat toward the outskirts of the city proved little different than the incoming journey, though they encountered no further patrols from the north. Probably a good thing. They hugged the outer walls of the buildings and kept to the shadows as much as possible. They utilized bounding overwatch once more for major intersections.
The first time he paused to provide overwatch, Rade noticed that other Zeus units were just as badly damaged as his own. Mauler’s mech had no foot below the ankle, and he sprinted with an exaggerated limp. Bomb’s Zeus had lost both arms, and looked like a running ostrich. Others were missing hands and forelimbs, with pieces torn from shoulders and knees, and in Fret’s case, a large chunk missing from the cockpit. Many of them still had some remnants of their shields intact, while others had lost them to the acid from the kraks or the Gatlings of the ATLAS units.
In about twenty-five minutes they reached the perimeter of the city. There, the two squads made their way through the collapsed towers and domes of the farmsteads beyond, heading toward the distant mountains. They spent a few moments to discuss various contingency plans, and then proceeded in silence.
Rade eyed the ruins around him with extra caution, and whenever he reached the edge of a particularly suspicious structure, he extended his weapon in front of him—or as much in front of him as his curling his bicep would allow—and “pied” the edge with his electrolaser. The outward swerving motion was so-named because when viewed from above the shape formed by his motion was reminiscent of a pie.
“Got pursuers!” Snakeoil said from his drag position on S2. “Centaurs!”
“Confirmed,” Facehopper said. “S1, dig in and cover our retreat. We’re on bounding overwatch permanent from now on, mates.”
Rade dove behind the remains of a dome and tracked the enemy. Centaurs were pouring from between the distant buildings that lined the city perimeter, emerging onto the farmland.
He aimed at those units in the forefront. He didn’t have a shield or a laser because of the loss of his left arm, but he still had a lightning bolt-dispensing electrolaser. The enemy was at the far ranges of said weapon, but he zoomed in on the scope and fired anyway. The sonic boom resounded across the farmsteads.
Got one.
He waited for the recharge period, and unleashed another discharge. A second enemy down.
“S1, go!” TJ said.
Led by Rade on point, the members of S1 used the farm ruins for cover, weaving in and out of the thick cylinders of the fallen towers and shattered domes while S2 covered them.
They reached S2’s position and leapfrogged them. At that point, Rade steered his aim to the left and right while he passed the bigger ruins, checking that no one waited there to fire a rocket or M7 energy weapon at them.
S1 took cover fifty meters beyond S2 and once more provided covering fire.
“Snakeoil, inform the lieutenant commander of our situation,” Facehopper sent. “See if he can get a couple of mortars or missiles lobbed our way from orbit, or some viper shots.” Vipers were the heavy lasers of starships. They could be employed to devastating effect from orbit.
“The LC says he’ll see what he can do,” Snakeoil replied a moment later.
The request was probably highly unusual, but Rade suspected the Brass would approve the strike, given that the projected damage zone was beyond the outskirts of their precious city. Assuming the senior command didn’t mind razing a few destroyed Franco-Italian farms.
The platoon continued to proceed forward, each squad alternately leapfrogging and overwatching the other. After five minutes of that they finally reached the outer perimeter of the last farmstead and its ruins. Beyond awaited a wide plain, roughly a kilometer long, which ended in a scorched pine forest on the shoulders of the mountains.
Both squads dug in behind the various shattered domes available there and fired into the incoming enemy.
“Uh, they keep coming,” Fret said.
“Snakeoil,” Facehopper said. “Tell the LC that now would be a good time for that orbital strike.”
“He says it’s coming,” Snakeoil replied.
The platoon members continued firing upon the enemy for another full minute. For every target that fell, another replaced it. The enemy line was slowly moving toward them.
“We can’t stay here,” Manic said. “They’ll overwhelm us. Look to the north and south. They’re already trying to outflank us.”
“Manic is right, mates,” Facehopper said. “Looks like our orbital strike isn’t coming. We’re going to have to move out onto the open plains and make a run for that burned-out forest. TJ?”
“I want traveling overwatch,” TJ said. “Those of you with intact shields are going to be in S2.” He called out the new squad assignments. “Use your autopilot to advance in a random zig-zag synchronized by the AIs. S1, head out. S2, provide cover.”
Rade took point once more, leading S1 out onto the open plain while S2 provided cover. He switched co
ntrol over to Sky, and his mech immediately began zigging and zagging. He synchronized the randomness setting with the other mechs, ensuring that none of them would ever align—it wouldn’t do to allow the enemy to get a ‘two birds with one stone’ kill. Though at the current range, it was highly questionable whether the enemy lasers would penetrate the armor of more than one mech at a time.
While Sky handled the forward motion, he swiveled his torso to the rear and switched to the point of view of his electrolaser to provide support fire. He zoomed in and tracked the tangos emerging from the outskirts of the farmstead to the north, where some of the enemy were attempting that outflanking maneuver. With aiming help from Sky to compensate for the random motion of the mech, he fired. His target went down. He released another lightning bolt. Another target fell.
The enemy were firing in turn, but so far the random zig-zagging prevented any of them from landing a strike. Rade wondered when the enemy would copy their tactic—so far, the enemy robots continued only in straight lines. He suspected they were willing to sacrifice a few units in the name of speed, because a direct path was always faster than a randomly deviating one.
“S2, move out!” TJ said.
S2 moved onto the plains behind them. Rade and Trace continued to force back the flankers to the north, while others concentrated on the southernmost flankers.
Soon the front ranks of the main enemy force emerged from the farmstead directly to the west. Rade focused his attacks on them while Sky continued to randomize his advance. It was probably a good thing TJ had assigned most of those with intact shields to S2, because they were bearing the brunt of the attacks. Even with their random motion, several of them reported hits.
While Rade tracked targets, he noticed charred runnels appearing in the landscape around him, denoting near misses from lasers—not all of the enemies were firing upon the closest targets.
“Getting fried back here,” Snakeoil said on the comm. “My shield is almost gone.”
“Keelhaul, swap out with him,” TJ said. “Snakeoil, use your jumpjets... abet your forward motion. Move to point. But stay low, damn it.”