Gun Runner

by Larry Correia

  Jackson checked his surroundings and realized with a shock that they were tumbling through space. The explosion had flung them off the orbital. The mech had taken severe damage. Multiple systems down. Exact location unknown. Multiple feeds cut. The repair bots were working like crazy, crawling all over the Citadel, putting things right. He directed them to concentrate on sensors so he could figure out what was going on.

  The Warlord—Jackson couldn’t find him.

  He checked his countdown clock.

  Nine minutes.

  Which meant he’d been out for a few minutes.

  Jackson checked his vitals. He was still trashed. Nanite-induced migraine of doom, and a hand that was more hamburger than hand. And the spine bomb was still ticking. He had to get himself taken care of before the fleshy part of this partnership shut down permanently. He accessed the medical system and saw that it had already gone to work on him. These fifth gens had the equivalent to an automated field hospital crammed into them. It made sense. The pilot was physically the weakest link in the system.

  Serious head trauma. Possible brain damage. Recommend pilot does not link directly to the system until properly tended. Severe risk of stroke and/or death.

  Tell me something I don’t know, Jackson thought sardonically. The Citadel could tend the hole Jane had cut, but there wasn’t anything it could do about the nanites. He could only hope that her tiny army was doing its job.

  Gunshot wound. Attending.

  A tiny robotic arm came out of the wall and reached for his hand. It whirled through several tools, before spraying the foreign material out of the hole with some sort of disinfectant. Then it filled the hole with some sort of gel, which immediately began to harden. In a minute it would be solid enough to remove the TQ, though it warned him he would need to seek out a real medical professional to attempt to repair the shattered bones. Though the Citadel did offer him the option to just amputate now and get it over with.

  “No, thank you.”

  Foreign body detected in back. Analyzing.

  “Don’t do that. Scans might set it off.” But then again, with how little time he had left, he didn’t have much to lose. Jane hadn’t been able to, but this thing had the best portable first-aid system on the market, way better than what they had on Tar Heel. So it was worth a shot. “Be careful. It’s a bomb. Can you remove it?”

  Negative. But rather than just give up, the Citadel’s AI continued to puzzle through the problem. A moment later it offered him a partial solution. Jackson looked over the proposal on his screen. Basically, it meant injecting the same hardening agent it had used on his hand, directly into the firing mechanism of the bomb in the hopes that it would temporarily block it. It would still be there, and the container holding the poison would certainly start to dissolve on its own soon afterward, but it might put a few extra minutes on his clock…With only a forty-five percent chance of killing him outright.

  That was better than a coin flip. “Go for it.”

  Apparently, the gel had a local anesthetic in it, because he didn’t even feel it stab him through the chair.

  A few extremely tense seconds later, his spine hadn’t melted. And Jackson quit holding his breath. Back to work.

  Visuals and telemetry were coming back online. Sure enough, the Citadel was tumbling through space in a field of debris. There was still no sign of Warlord. The debris were too hot, so if the Spider was among them, he couldn’t pick it out.

  Jackson looked back at the orbital, saw the black scorch mark where the CX tank had been, but other than that the place seemed to be in one piece. But Big Town was really far away. Too far away. He had to ping it to get a distance measurement to be sure. Then as the Citadel turned, he saw Swindle, which was really close. Frighteningly close.

  He was heading for the atmosphere.

  “Shanks.”

  Too many of his thrusters were damaged to beat gravity. He was going down no matter what. The Citadel was drop-capable. It could handle reentry. Normally that meant being launched from a ship on a specific trajectory, aimed at a landing zone, usually with extra beryllium shielding that would get scorched and discarded in upper atmo. Not tumbling and shot up. This would take some finesse to not hit the air like a brick at 27,000 kph.

  That meant plugging back in.

  Jackson went to fly-by-mind. The Citadel told him that really wasn’t a good idea. He insisted. A warning from Raycor popped up on the display, which said he had to agree that that Raycor was in no way liable for what he was about to do against their advice. Jackson hurried and signed the user agreement with his bloody fingertip.

  He was once again one with the machine. Only this time his giant robot body was the one that hurt more than the frail real one. Jackson immediately began prioritizing repairs and correcting their movement. He’d never done an orbital drop before, but the training had been directly downloaded into his brain by the Hampson device all those years ago, so the information was still there. This was doable.

  But it was also Swindle he was dropping toward, which was a suckhole on its best day. Luckily, the continent he had visited previously was in view. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t. He tagged where he thought LaDue’s base was as his ideal landing zone. If he didn’t disintegrate on the way down, he’d walk in there, tear the doors off her hideout, and make her get this bomb out of him.

  “Jane, Captain, Tui, I don’t know if any of you can hear me. I don’t even know if you’re still alive. I tried to catch Warlord but I lost him. I don’t know if I’m going to make it, but if I don’t, I love you guys. It’s been one hell of a ride. Jackson out.”

  The shredded chunks of Big Town around him began to glow orange.

  Jackson was concentrating so hard on calculating reentry that he didn’t see the Spider flying toward him until it was too late.

  The mechs collided.

  Chapter 38

  The Spider used a few of its legs to grab him and the rest to try and rip him apart. It had seven limbs left, and each of those limbs extended claws or flashed with the crackling blue arc of a plasma cutter.

  Jackson fought back, using his own cutter to slice a line along the Spider’s body. He got one foot onto it and shoved, creating enough distance to aim his autocannon down into its belly Shells exploded against smart armor, but didn’t punch the Warlord’s cockpit.

  Alarms sounded. Warnings flashed. The exterior temp was skyrocketing. They were both going to burn up, and Warlord was too focused on killing him to care.

  Engaging all his thrusters, the Citadel rolled, spinning the Spider toward the planet. Waves of shimmering heat rolled off the enemy mech. The Big Town debris turned into molten balls of fire as they careened back and forth between them.

  A claw punched the Citadel’s chest and ripped off a panel. He was bleeding liquid armor. But Jackson caught that leg, threw all the power he could to his arm, and twisted hard. Metal tore as Jackson ripped the leg clean off. He immediately started using it like a club, slamming it against the Spider’s cockpit.

  All his exterior sensors could pick up was fire, but Warlord still wouldn’t let go.

  * * *

  “LaDue, we’ve got enemy dropships inbound.”

  Wulf watched as the Original’s leader pause as she checked the image being sent to her combat exo. They’d assaulted the mountain base. The rangers had fought like wild beasts, and a few pockets of resistance remained. But if Warlord was sending reinforcements from Big Town…Wulf looked toward his father nervously. Could they have come this far just to have to give up now?

  “That’s no dropship,” LaDue said. “Zoom in. Focus.”

  Not a dropship? Wulf looked up and saw a fireball streaking down from the sky.

  “They’re towing over meteors and dropping them on us!” someone screamed.

  That made sense to Wulf. He was no soldier, but he’d learned enough to know that whoever ruled the skies, ultimately ruled the ground beneath. Warlord was so bitter that if he could no
t control Swindle, he would rather burn the whole world than let someone else have it. He had been taught that it had been a massive asteroid impact which had made the dinosaurs extinct on old Earth. Swindle was a land of giants, like old Earth had been. It seemed an appropriate way for giants to die.

  “Hold your horses,” LaDue never panicked. Wulf supposed that was why she’d ended up as their leader. “It’s not a bombardment either.” LaDue was listening to a report from one of their spotters on Big Town. “It’s two mechs locked in a fight to the death. I think that, boys and girls, is Warlord and Sergeant Jack.”

  The Originals, exhausted from battle, began to cheer as they watched their nemesis plummet to his fiery doom. Warlord was evil personified. He was the devil. Wulf had thought of Jackson Rook as an intruder, an outsider, probably a liar, and most certainly a fool. But he had done it. He had really done it. And the devil had been cast out of heaven.

  Already Wulf could tell the fireball would strike over by Horonds Bay, close by. A large and dangerous body of water, home to one of the mighty kaiju.

  LaDue was looking at him. Her face was stern through her exo. “Don’t even think about it, Wulf. We’ve got the rangers on the ropes. We’ve got to push them off this mountain now or this was all for nothing. I need you.”

  It was not right. “Father,” Wulf begged.

  “Someone must confirm Warlord is dead.” Father stared at LaDue, just as unflinching as she was. “And you gave Sergeant Jack your word. If he is still alive…”

  “Then his clock is almost up.” But she relented. “We’ll at least give him a hero’s burial. You two go. But be careful. I’ve lost enough good men today.”

  The rest of their cell turned back to the battle. Wulf and Father turned and began to run through the woods, boosting the power of their exoskeletons, taking huge strides. Wulf followed the fireball and ran.

  * * *

  A large burning chunk of the Citadel’s leg broke off and flittered away. Then another smaller piece. Inside the mech were fail-safes to seal off compromised areas. Those slammed shut, basically shutting off his leg from the knee down. But the seal was becoming white hot, and Jackson knew it would fail. Those internal parts had never been meant to be exposed to the friction of reentry. He had to slow their descent now or be torn apart. Warlord sure wasn’t going to do it. The man was a maniac.

  Jackson blinked first. He gave his thrusters every ounce of power the reactor could spare. And their speed began to slow. Ten thousand meters to impact. Alerts all over the Citadel were ringing, but Jackson had this. He was going to pull them out of this dive.

  Then one of the Spider’s legs moved in an unexpected way. A warning sounded in Jackson’s mind, but before he could react, a spike extended from its knee. It was a quick movement from a powerful mech. The exterior of the Citadel was superheated, and the battered smart armor lacked its regular stopping power. The spearpoint tip punched through the torso of the Citadel, breached the cockpit, narrowly missed punching a hole right through Jackson.

  The air in the cockpit screamed out.

  Warlord retracted the leg. Pulled it back for another stab. The pressure dropped. The Citadel automatically closed a visor over Jackson’s face to protect his eyes and give him oxygen. The Citadel tried to keep the spike away, and Jackson sliced a chunk from another of its legs with his cutter. His metal hand slipped. The spike moved to stab at his heart again.

  Jackson opened the short wings on the Citadel’s back, intended for atmospheric flight. It was like the violent opening of a parachute. The wind slammed into them. Warlord tried to hold on, but the force was too sudden, too great, and the Citadel’s skin ripped right through his claws.

  They went flipping violently away from each other. Swindle rushed up to meet him. Six thousand meters. Five. He tried to gain control. The AI was compensating to slow their descent, but too many thrusters were broken, their body had taken too much structural damage. They were falling like a rock. He passed four thousand. Three.

  One of the wings had been hurt, because there was a sudden pop, and Jackson jerked to the left. He cut the thrusters, hoping that wing wouldn’t break. At two thousand meters he began to gain some control.

  Below him was land. Off to the right was water all the way to the horizon, glittering in the sun. To the left was a sloped shoreline. A water landing would be softer, but he’d been warned about what lived in the water here.

  He was at eight hundred meters, trying to level out. Then six. Four. Two. One. He leveled off.

  In front of him a knobby rock of an island jutted up out of the water. There was a cliff face, topped with a wooded hill, and a line of Swindle’s super-giant trees growing along the crest. He was going too fast for a controlled turn but running headlong into the cliff and becoming a meat-and-carbon mash really wasn’t part of his plan today. He arched his back, trying to give the wings more surface. He rose. Saw the hill before him, and felt one brief flicker of hope, thinking he might actually clear the trees, and then he knew it was an impossibility. He was moving too fast. At the last moment, he swerved just a bit, hoping to thread a small opening between the trunks.

  Branches sheared off his wings. He twisted, sideswiped a trunk. Something slammed into the mech, breaking the cockpit open and delivering a stunning blow to his head. Then the Citadel shot out of the other side of the trees, scattering leaves and branches in his wake. A moment later he hit some water. Skipped. Tumbled. Struck some sort of beach. Then tumbled beyond into a higher flat area. The mech finally came to rest on a grassy sward.

  The Citadel’s system was overwhelmed. There was a forced restart. Jackson was violently kicked out of the system, and back into his own body.

  Jackson lay there breathing, trying to orient himself, something hissing. He was facing mostly down. He tried make it stand up, but the mech seemed broken beyond repair. Nothing more than a battered hunk of technology, failing to respond. His display was just a loop of error messages. Everything hurt. Especially his head. Stupid nanites.

  The impact had savaged the cockpit. He could see sand and water through the holes. The frame was crumpled, but not in a way that locked him in. He wasn’t trapped, so Jackson slowly unbuckled himself from his harness so he could drop free. He had to pluck med needles out of his body and peel the electrodes off his skull. He’d gotten cut. Something had jabbed him in the side, the spike that had punched the cockpit, or a piece of metal that had spalled off it, maybe. At least the hole in his hand was sealed by something that looked like hard plastic.

  He crawled out of the mech and painfully got to his feet to get his bearings, blood seeping from his side. The hissing he’d heard was from the water that was spitting and steaming on the hot exterior of the mech. When he breathed, the air bit his lungs. And then he realized his mask was gone. He looked around for it, looked back at the debris scattered along the beach, but it was gone. He was breathing poison.

  The sound of thrusters suddenly roared overhead. A shadow passed over the ground around him and moved out across the meadow.

  Jackson looked up and saw the Spider. Battered though it was, it was still in good enough shape to fly. Warlord landed it in the meadow, a hundred meters away.

  Jackson looked around for anything he could use as a weapon. A rock. Anything. But there was nothing around him except weird Swindle grass. The best he could come up with was a broken metal strut. He picked it up to use as a club. It was hot to the touch.

  The Spider sank back on its remaining legs to something resembling a sitting position, and the cockpit slid open. Warlord climbed out, his suit still intact, his mask clear. He reached back into his cockpit and pulled out a fine rifle. One the Tar Heel had sold to him.

  “It seems today is just not your day, Rook,” Warlord shouted. “In fact, I’d say your day was headed for the crapper.”

  “I wrecked most of your army, broke your toys, damaged your station, and caused an uprising. I’d say your day’s been worse.”

  “But I’ll st
ill be alive to have a better tomorrow.” Warlord walked across the top of his mech and shouldered the rifle. “I can’t say the same for you.”

  “Why don’t you come over here and fight me? Mano a mano. It would be all primal. You’re big on that.”

  Warlord smiled. “It’s the end of the line, soldier, but I’m going to make sure to drag it out.” He took aim and fired.

  Pain exploded in Jackson’s leg. It collapsed beneath him and he fell.

  “Now, I’ll leave you to the beasts. I’ll leave a drone to record you being devoured, and make sure it plays on every display in Big Town, on a continual loop, as a demonstration of what happens to anyone who betrays me.”

  Jackson groaned at the pain, but shouted out, “So the big bad warlord has no balls to fight.”

  Warlord laughed.

  “I can still take you. Fight me, you stinking mouse piss of a pilot. Five to one and we’re only here because I should’ve kamikazed us both through atmo.”

  “You tedious little man. I think I should shoot you in the mouth too.” Warlord aimed.

  Crack!

  But that shot wasn’t from Warlord. It had been aimed at Warlord.

  Blood erupted from his back as the king of Big Town stumbled.

  Jackson turned to see where the gunshot had come from. At the edge of the woods was someone in an old battered exo, carrying a rifle. Jackson could just make out his face through the visor. It was the boy from the Original’s hideout. Wulf. And Wulf kept on shooting.

  But Warlord was too fast. He had more mods than just the implant that enabled him to meld with a mech, because he shrugged off the injury, and leapt across the top of the Spider to slide smoothly into the cockpit. The hatch closed behind him.

  “Run!” Jackson shouted at Wulf.

  A second later, one of the Spider’s guns opened up on the boy’s position. There was no way Warlord was linked in yet. That response was rushed, reflexive, but the unaimed fire forced the boy to dive for cover.

  More shots came out of the woods from a different position, hitting the Spider but with no real effect. But Warlord flung a bunch of ordnance into the woods in response. Shredding trees and starting an inferno.