The Iron War: A Xander Cain Novel

by P W Hillard

  Both men sprinted, their footsteps a loud rhythmic slamming as they reached their top speeds. Neither slowed as they approached the turn towards the park, each choosing to keep their momentum. As they reached the end of the street, Xander turned sharply, his free hand digging into the concrete of the building that stood at the corner, jerking himself around and to a stop. Alexi chose to drop his suit into a slide, sparks flying into the air as metal scraped across concrete. They both squeezed the triggers on their weapons, bursts flying free. Their first shots went wide, blindly snapped off to disorientate the pairs expected opponents. The next barrage was on target, carefully chosen to cause maximum damage.

  Their sudden rush had caught the defenders unawares. There was a trio of QT-34's alongside a cluster of infantry, all arrayed ready to face the attack they knew was coming. They hadn't expected such sudden ferocity however and hesitated for a moment. It was long enough, and shots from both mercenaries hit the mechsuit in the centre of the line, two solid bursts raking its armour. It fell backwards, crashing to the ground, its pilot either stunned or dead.

  The defenders returned fired, shots sailing past Xander as he tucked back behind cover. Alexi wasn’t as quick, having to stand from his impressive slide. He dove for cover, but not quickly enough. One of the QT-34’s was on target, it’s shots slamming repeatedly into Alexi’s left arm, the same one that had taken the brunt of the missile fire earlier. Something shattered, metal tearing free, leaving the arm dangling limply from cables, lubricant splashing from severed pipework.

  “Ah, fuckers. That’s going to cost in repairs,” Alexi said.

  “You good?” Xander snapped off a few more shots around the corner of his cover. The defenders were sensing blood, advancing towards them slowly. Xander turned away as return fire landed against the side of the building. “They’re trying to pin us down. Can you flank to the next street from there?”

  “Maybe, it’s a tight squeeze though, will take a few minutes.”

  “We don’t have a few minutes.” Xander peeked around again, this time firing a lance of energy from his right laser. The beam swept across the road, incinerating the infantry it touched, leaving a black scorch across the street. The other infantry slowed, re-evaluating their advance. Lasers were terrifying weapons, thankfully rare outside of mechsuits.

  “They’re advancing at us, correct?” Alexi said.

  “Yeah, about two hundred meters out.”

  “Ok, I have an idea. A crazy one.”

  Xander fired again, blindly this time. “It’s better than nothing.”

  “Anya,” Alexi said. “Do you read me?”

  ***

  “I hear you, Alexi,” Anya said. She was leaning against the wall of the compound, the arm of her mech crushing the top of the concrete wall. Anya didn't care, if her employers wanted to try and take it out of her pay, she could just claim it had been damaged in combat. Combat no-one had expected. “There's a fair bit of interference. You must be close to whatever is scrambling the comms.” Jamming was difficult, and more effective the further the distance the message was travelling. It required specialist equipment and was often deployed to prevent surface to orbit transmissions.

  “Lock on to this grid reference I’m sending you and launch your missiles,” Alexi said, mentally uploading his coordinates to Anya’s HUD.

  “Are you sure Alexi? This is danger close. Real danger close.”

  “That’s the idea, Anya.”

  Anya lifted the weight of her mech off the wall, shifting it into a kneeling position. Her missile launchers slid into place; circuitry wired into her brain transmitting her thoughts to the weapons. Anya plotted her missile’s courses, the complex maths handled by her wetware. “Ok, incoming launch, take cover.”

  ***

  There was a loud whistling, just for a moment, as the missiles screamed downwards. The enemy mechsuits were close now, their constant firepower pinning Xander and Alexi in place. A moment later, the street became a firestorm as missiles collided with the concrete. The destructive power of the barrage concentrated into a tiny area. The ground shook, the road shattered, fragments of stone showering Xander as he took cover behind the building, holding his suit close to the wall.

  Alexi didn’t wait, sprinting out from cover even as the final missiles were falling. One of the QTs had lost its legs, crawling across the ground towards its dropped weapon. Alexi didn’t stop, simply putting a round through a shattered armour plate as he ran past, his broken arm trailing behind him. The second QT was still standing, though it was stumbling about, the pilot stunned. It saw Alexi coming, managing to snap off a shot at him. It got lucky, the round dug into Alexi’s weapon, the hot metal sticking into the side. Alexi tossed the trashed gun aside. He reached across and gripped his limp arm, tearing it free in a spray of lubricating fluid. He swung it like a club, smashing it across the side of the QT. His opponent stumbled, turning to run and Alexi kicked out, his boot striking the back its knee. The QT fell to the ground face first and Alexi dived onto its back, gripping his knife as he did. He raised the blade, ready to plunge, and then a shot rang out.

  Alexi’s mechsuit fell to the side, a hole punched straight through it, a single armour piercing round taking its toll. The suit dropped to the already smashed concrete, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  “Fuck,” Xander turned, snapping off a burst into the downed QT, ensuring that the loss of Alexi at least claimed his foe. He pulled back around the corner as a huge chunk of the building blew free, another powerful round fired at him. There was a sniper, out there somewhere. “Damn. Anya, you read me?”

  “I hear you, Cain.”

  “Alexi is down, and I’m pinned by a sniper. Any chance you have a missile left in the tube?”

  “Two left, just in case. You got a location for me?”

  Another round slammed into the building, punching through the wall and exploding out by Xander’s side, missing him by inches. “Give me a minute, working on it.”

  Chapter Three

  Xander hugged tightly against the wall, the armour of his suit scraping loudly. He was breathing deeply, considering his options. There weren't many. If he tried to flank around it would take too long, the antiaircraft guns would be on the move by then, their location compromised. No, he had to find some way to run the gauntlet, to get close to the sniper. Only then did he have a chance.

  “Ok, Xander,” he said to himself. “Think about this. They must be using some kind of fin stabilising sabot round, to get that kind of penetration. That means they can’t be using thermals, or they would have just shot me through the wall.” The fingers of his suit drummed against the building, his wetware translating a subconscious habit to the mech.

  Xander thought about his location. He was a few hundred meters from the park, a wide-open area with a large lake in the centre. The shots had to be coming from directly ahead, and the sniper would want cover. They were likely at ground level in one of the far buildings, probably crouching in the entry ramp for a subterranean carpark. Xander couldn’t recollect seeing one, but the angle of the shot that had hit Alexi was too low for the sniper to be elevated.

  “We need to do something, Xander, got that idea yet?” Anya said. “Two shots, that’s all I’ve got.”

  “He must be using normal cameras…Anya, I’ve got an idea. Hang on, yeah ok, I want you to fire one missile two hundred meters north of the last barrage. I want the next one two hundred meters north of that again, to hit three seconds after the first.”

  “Plotting it in, Cain. If you’re thinking about doing what I think you’re doing you’ve got a brass set on you.” Anya let out a quiet chuckle. “Firing solution ready.”

  “Ok, fire when ready.”

  ***

  The first missile slammed into where the pavement met the grass of the park, shattering the wrought iron fence that separated them. A cloud of dirt and concrete sprayed into the air, catapulted by the force of the blast. Xander didn’t wait, diving out of cover and pushin
g his suit into a sprint, barrelling down the street towards the park. A shot rang out, the sniper wasn’t stupid, but the round went wide, missing Xander’s suit by a foot and slamming into the twelfth floor of a skyscraper at the far end of the street, shattering windows and stone. The trajectory confirmed what Xander suspected, the sniper was down low, firing at an upwards angle.

  He kept running even as the cloud of debris began to clear. The second missile hit home and Xander could feel the force of the explosion, his armour shuddering as the blast wave hit it. Another wall of dirt flew high and Xander made a point to sidestep, shifting the position of his mech. It was a good choice, a second shot echoed through the park, flying through the spot his mechsuit had been just moments ago. He was past the dirt wall now and with his mech exposed, slid to the ground, careening across the mud towards his target. The lake.

  The Mech hit the lake with a loud crash, water spraying high into the air. Xander sunk below the surface, keeping his Mech lying flat. It wasn’t deep, but if he was right it didn’t need to be. Lowering himself below street level should block the sniper’s line of sight, of course, if Xander was wrong, then he was an easy target, the water would be no trouble for the powerful sabot rounds.

  He counted the seconds, there should have been another shot by now. Relieved he was somewhat safe, he rolled his mechsuit onto its belly and began crawling across the bed of the lake. Mechsuits could switch to an airtight mode, when needed, and he had switched it on with a flick of a mental switch as he had barrelled towards the lake. Xander scanned around with his head-mounted camera, looking for what he was after. He found it quickly, a pair of long plastic tubes dangling into the water.

  Xander followed them, his camera tilting upwards towards the bank. There was a long vehicle parked there, the tubes running into a hatch that had been left open on the side. It was split into two parts, attached with a pivoting mount in the centre, like a trailer to the back of a car. Each half was thickly armoured and sat on six dense rubber wheels. Xander had seen similar command vehicles before, essentially conjoined APCs converted to carry complex electronics. The rear section had a large dish rotating slowly, likely the source of the communications interference. Running something like that needed a lot of power, the tubes no doubt pumping water into the vehicle’s reactor, keeping it cool so it could run for longer.

  It was a common trick, one that confirmed his suspicions that they were corporate forces, despite the lack of insignia. The water-cooling system was a penny-pinching measure, one designed to keep the poorly paid corporate units in the field for longer periods. Now, it gave Xander the perfect shot.

  He aimed his weapon, and squeezed, firing a burst towards the open panel. The rounds smashed through, the exposed interior allowing the shots to crash through into the reactor itself. Xander felt a little sorry for the men inside, if the shrapnel and spalling hadn’t gotten them, the cabin would very quickly be filling with extremely hot steam.

  “This is Freelancer four to Heracles, Heracles do you read?”

  “Heracles reads you Freelancer four. Comms jamming seems to have cleared up,” replied the operator. “Dropship gamma made it back up safely and reported the hot LZ. Status on your team?”

  “Freelancer five is down, rider status unknown. Freelancer six holding position at the LZ. I’m uh, well I’m at the bottom of a lake. Pinned down by a sniper. I could really use some orbital support.”

  “Negative freelancer four, orbital assistance is off the table for this op. Our contract was delivery only.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Xander said. “This was supposed to be a garrison op only, non-combat. Just stand there and look intimidating. I think the terms of the original contract are out the window. Look, I will pay for the orbital assistance and then take it up with my contractors. Unexpected extraneous expense clauses exist for a reason.”

  The line was silent for a moment. “Agreed freelancer four, what can we do for you?”

  “I’ll need a single strike, a nutcracker ideally. I’ll relay you coordinates in a moment.”

  “Acknowledge freelancer four, Heracles on standby,” the operator said.

  ***

  Xander stood up from his watery bunker, he was upright for just a second, before dropping down again with a huge crash of water. A shot sailed past where he had been. He hadn’t seen where it had launched from, though it had come from the direction he had been looking. It was a start. He rolled across the bottom of the lake, reappearing in the same spot would be foolish. He popped up again, faster this time, immediately dropping down. Xander rewound the camera footage with a thought, scrolling back through it at slow speed. The sniper hadn’t fired this time, Xander had been too quick, and the enemy was clearly experienced enough to know it would be a wasted shot.

  There! Xander was right, there was a suit lying flat against a ramp leading down into a subterranean car park. The suit had a huge rifle mounted to a tripod. It was a clever setup, the ramp was screening the bulk of the enemy mech, making it difficult to target it. Difficult, but not impossible.

  Xander came out of the lake firing. Not his anti-armour weapon, but rather his lasers. Steam hissed from his suit as the water cascading off him met superheated energy. His shots were careful, aimed at the enemies exposed head unit. It wouldn’t damage it, not really, the anti-laser coating would make that difficult. What it would do is blind the sniper, brilliant laser light scrambling his cameras, for just a moment. It was long enough.

  “Target painted, Heracles. Launch the strike.”

  ***

  The Heracles drifted lazily above the planet; a world known as Hades-Three. It was an industrial world, one deep in the part of the periphery known as the Iron Belt, a collection of systems with unusually large mineral resources. The corporations who dominated periphery space had come to a level of begrudging co-operation in this region, or at least, they had until today.

  The Heracles was a typical jump ship. It looked a little like a dumbbell, a long central cylinder with two massive rings at each end. The rings spun constantly, providing gravity to the passengers within. Attached to the central bar was a series of smaller ships. A mixture of mercenary dropships, passenger transports and industrial hauliers.

  An object dropped free from the massive jump ship, tiny in comparison. It drifted away for a moment, before a light flared to life, a rocket engine firing. It shot off, travelling towards the planet.

  The object was a teardrop shape, a metal pointed canister with a white ceramic bottom. The tip blazed, the rocket firing its full power in a short burst. It hit the atmosphere, the air catching alight, fire surrounding the object. It screamed across the sky like a shooting star. As it fell towards its target, the outer shell exploded, falling away to reveal the weapon itself. It was a thin silver needle, hurtling towards the ground.

  ***

  “Nutcracker away, Freelancer four,” the operator aboard the Heracles said. “Payment authorised from your account.”

  Xander winced. That was going to be expensive. The fines for firing an orbital weapon alone were eye-watering, never mind the actual ordinance. He fell backwards, splashing into the water. He tucked himself tight, the mechsuit forming a foetal position below the surface.

  Known officially as a type seven targeted orbital projectile, but more commonly referred to as a nutcracker, the weapon was designed to destroy bunkers. Launched at high velocity from orbit, the tungsten needle would crash into its target with an unbelievable amount of force. They were rarely used. When the Core Worlds had implemented the rules of corporate combat, they had placed heavy fines on orbital weaponry, outright banning nuclear and chemical options.

  This particular nutcracker struck the top of the building the sniper was hiding beneath. As the tungsten needle passed through the structure, perfectly piercing its centre, the floors of the building seemed to bulge outwards for a moment, before shattering completely. Because the needle was moving so quickly, the effect made it look like the building had popped
like a balloon. Debris washed outwards like a wave, smashing antiaircraft guns. The water of the lake shifted backwards, pushed by the shockwave. Xander held himself tight to the lakebed, relying on the bank to protect him.

  “This better work,” Xander muttered.

  ***

  Xander clambered up the bank. The lake water had soaked into the dirt as it sloshed back into place, making the ground muddy. His legs sunk deep as he stepped, the heavy weight of his mechsuit working against it. The building that housed the sniper was simply gone; its structure flung outwards in the blast. Where it had been was a huge crater, one that led deep into the ground. It was slowly filling with water, the impact cutting into the sewer beneath the city. Of Xander's opponent, there was no sign. Xander knew he was dead, surviving something like that was simply impossible, but he had hoped maybe to salvage the expensive rifle. The nutcracker had annihilated any sign of the suit, likely spreading it over a huge radius in thousands of tiny parts.

  “Cain, can you read me?” Anya said. “Was that a nutcracker!? Are you ok?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine, Anya. Antiair is down. Is everything secure at your end?”

  “Yeah, nothing here. Don’t worry, I’ll hold the fort until you get back,” Anya said.

  ***

  Xander knelt by Alexi's trashed mechsuit. The shot had been a good one, puncturing the reactor chamber, immediately shutting down the machine's power. Xander placed his hands on the front of the armour plating and pulled. The servos in his arm's strained, though Xander felt nothing. Rumour was early mechsuits fed back damage and faults to the user as pain. Xander assumed that idea would have gone out of the window the first time they went into combat.

  Xander stumbled slightly as the armour panel finally came free. The central cockpit was undamaged, the round had skimmed the top of it. Peeling off the outer layer was much easier.

  “Took your fucking time,” Alexi said. Blood was pouring down his face from a gash above his eye, but he looked otherwise fine. “What the hell was that shockwave?”