by Jason Luthor
“Sorry,” I tell him through heavy breaths. “I was just trying to save the ship is all.”
He starts to look worried as he watches me sucking wind. “You okay? We’re coming up on your DZ.”
“Yeah. Just need a second.”
“Good, because that’s about all the time you’ll get.” He nods to the launch tubes. “Take your second but it’s almost time to drop.”
“Thank you, chief,” I tell him with a salute. He returns it but still looks worried when he starts walking the opposite way. I get back to my tube just in time to see someone sliding up next to me. They’re in full armor, including a huge death’s head helmet with breathing filters and glowing eyes, and they’re lugging around a rifle as long as my full body. Behind the massive armor plating and shoulder guards, I don’t even recognize who it is until she talks. The voice sounds synthesized because it’s passing through her helmet’s speaker, but it’s clear enough.
“Good job, sir,” she says, trying to hold back excitement but obviously a little thrilled. “We watched the whole thing through our vid feeds.”
“Kali?”
“First Sergeant Kumar, technically, but Kali makes it easier to get my attention when the heat’s on.”
“Alright then.” I smile. “Guess this is the time when we get serious.”
“You look so relaxed though, sir.”
“After everything I’ve seen? I’m not relaxed. I just know there’s no point getting scared and anxious. All that happens is you shake yourself up and make it more likely you’ll mess up when things get hot.”
“I still get jumps before a drop. My stomach always feels like it’s going to fall out of me when I’m in the tubes. I love dropping, but I think that’s a little because of the jumps I get.”
“Yeah, well, it’s my first time, so I’ve got more reason to be scared than you.”
“You just got done taking down a massive Creeper by yourself. I don’t know how you could be scared of anything.”
“For the same reason I don’t get worked up. Because I’ve seen too much. At the same time, of course fighting’s scary.”
“So, you’re both scared and not scared? It’d be hard for me to work like that.”
I look over at her and instinctively wrap my metal fingers around her armor-clad arm. “It’s always scary for me. I’m scared to death about everyone that could die. But . . . I can’t let myself get worked up about it. If you do, you’ll just lose track of what’s going on and put everyone else around you at risk. That’ll just get even more people killed.”
She looks at me for a long second as she cradles her rifles in her arm. Finally, she nods, that massive helmet of hers dipping for a second. “Thank you, sir. I think I get what you’re saying. We have different ways of looking at fighting, but I think what’s important is we get the job done either way.”
“Well, stop calling me sir, okay?” I laugh as I pull away. “I’m not your commander.”
“Alright, Heavy Metal.”
That’s when we both get the message in our ear from the deck chief. “All decs in the pipe. Repeat, all decs in the pipe. We are at Zero Point and coming up on your DZ. Final message, all decs in the pipe.”
I look back up at her one last time. “Kick some ass, sergeant.”
“Only if you promise to bring down that Panzer.”
I give her a last thumbs up as I step through the door that slides open in front of me. It’s obvious when I step inside that the tube’s made for someone a lot bigger. Someone wearing a suit of armor like Kali’s. It’s at least twice my width around, and almost a dozen feet high. In a suit like Kali’s, you could easily stand inside even with your rifle in your arms. Instead, it’s just me, waiting as the door closes behind me. I end up standing there, in pitch dark, just listening as the tube starts to pressurize. All I can think about is how they said these tubes fire you out like a gun, and it’s a thought that keeps running through my head as I feel my body shaking while the tube pressurizes.
“Jackie,” I hear over my ear. “It’s Tommy. Private channel to you. You don’t have to say anything.” I don’t, but I smile. It’s nice to hear a friendly voice before getting fired into free fall from a flying warship. To say the least. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I believe in you. And that I’m proud of you. I know you don’t need me to remind you of your orders but remember to give yourself a few seconds in freefall before breaking away from the decs. We want you underneath the flak field that the Panzer is maintaining. Anyway, I can only keep this channel open for a few seconds. Just . . . Go finish this, Jackie. I know you can do it.”
The channel goes clear as my ears keep filling with the sound of air being pumped into the room. The suit keeps me from feeling the pressure, but I can feel everything around me rumbling. The shaking gets more and more intense, and the whole time I’m standing there, not able to see anything. I can’t even see my feet. Maybe I don’t want to, because the shaking finally peaks in one insane moment when the floor beneath me bursts open like a lens and I get sent firing out of the tube. I’m a second from rocketing toward the earth when my earpiece fills with comms traffic.
“DEC Team One away. DEC Team Two away. DEC Team Three . . .”
“Strike One is in the air. Strike Two is launching. Strike Three . . .”
I hear it all at the same time that light is exploding into my eyes. The blackness opens up and suddenly, the city bursts into view. It’s everywhere, stretching into the horizon. We have to be miles up, but we’re shooting down so fast that the skyscrapers beneath us are getting bigger and bigger with every second. I shoot a look to my right and see who I think’s Nina, not more than a dozen feet away from me. She’s got her arms crossed around her chest, her fingers locked around that huge rifle of hers as she’s rocketing toward the ground. It’s like watching a statue hurtling downward at a hundred miles per hour. Past her, there’s one long string of DEC troopers, all clutching their weapons as they plunge toward the ground, their faces already looking groundward and legs loosening to brace for impact.
Along every city block for miles, I can see crowds of troops moving along the buildings, vehicles passing along the streets and tanks exchanging fire from blocks away. Explosions erupt along the concrete pavement as rocket vehicles detonate and armored transports go flying through the air, raider and militia forces exchanging fire. Seeing it from the sky, it’s like watching a patchwork of explosions and gunfire extending into the distance. I’m watching it until I hear the roar of engines overhead, and I realize there’s a formation of Talons streaking by. I watch them as they angle downwards, and then . . . that’s when it all becomes real. When I see it, and see what it’s capable of.
The Panzer.
It’s walking, slowly but steadily, down the middle of the wide streets that run between buildings. The taller towers of the city rise around it, but it’s easily the size of most of the structures in the area. It’s a walking building itself, with broad shoulders that are covered in armored pauldrons. Blue, neon light flows in lines down its shoulders, making their way like rivers into its armored fists. The plating across its chest is thick, and probably impossible for most bombs to blow through. As I try to see any weaknesses, I realize its torso is exposed compared to the rest of it, but even that’s pretty heavily armored. Even more overlapping layers of armor run down its legs. Even with all of that though, it looks agile, like if it needed to sprint, it could.
I’m so fascinated by the thing that, for a second, I forget the air around me’s getting lit up. I blink and realize that there are more guns and missile launchers across the thing’s shoulder than there are on the Dynamis. Reality snaps me awake when, out of the corner of my eye, one of the DEC troopers gets blown off course by an explosion, what’s left of his splintered body going flying in an uncontrolled spiral into the nearest building. Two more troopers explode apart, just gone in an instant. That forces my eyes back ahead of me, looking away from the carnage, just in time to see
the world on fire. Every gun mounted across the Panzer’s collar is turning our way, filling up the air with so much gunfire that all of a sudden, I’m in a bullet hell.
“Flak guns!” I hear someone screaming in my ear. Thousands and thousands of red streaks are flying by, creating a wall of firepower aimed for us and the Dynamis behind us. My instincts click in and my thrusters kick into action. Maybe everyone else has to hit the ground, but that’s not my mission. The jets on my back fire off, sending me shooting away while the panzer guns are focused on everyone else. My gut squeezes when I think that a lot of good people are going to die before even touching the ground, but . . . I have to put it out of my mind. I angle toward the Panzer, the buildings underneath me coming closer and closer before I veer off to the side, dodging a wave of bullets that starts chasing after me. All I can manage is to angle myself behind the cover of the nearest building. For a second, I’m out of the crosshairs, but just for a second. I rocket through the rows of towers on either side of me, roaring out from behind cover and angling back at my target, this time flying at it from behind its shoulder.
I level out and get a close look at its head for the first time. It’s a huge, helmeted skull. I’ve seen something like it before, from back when I first escaped the Tower. That Panzer had gotten its head knocked clean off by something. This one’s head is still attached, but with its forward face plate down. Half its skull is detached from the top and folded forward, forming something like a deck, and on that deck? I can see the Tank, her hands folded behind her as she watches the world burning around her. Buildings are getting chewed into by guns and missiles are exploding in the air, forming an endless bloom of orange and red fire across the sky, but she doesn’t even seem to flinch. It’s cold. Then again, she’s got protection. There are rotating guns mounted along the sides of the panzer’s skull and down its neck. They’re shifting back and forth, targeting anything in the air and firing. For just a second, all the guns are focused somewhere else, and my thrusters go into overdrive as I fly straight at the target. Straight for the Tank.
And that’s when alerts start screaming in my ear while my visor’s targeting reticule focuses on a dozen barreled missile launchers turning my way. I grit my teeth and pull up hard, flying to the sky just as the launchers start firing off. I start pulling up even faster, my ears ringing with alarms as a popup in the corner of my visor shows a dozen missiles twisting toward me like snakes, every one of them dragging trails of smoke behind it. “ECM!” I scream out of force of habit, my visor suddenly lighting up blue. In my rear camera, I see several pods emptying out of Pocket Space and falling down toward the chasing rockets that are still streaking at me. The pods start to blink as they plunge toward the ground, disappearing into the distance, and for a second, I hold my breath. Then I watch as the rockets chasing me twist hard, pulling away and back toward the earth, chasing the pods.
I suck in a breath hard as I start to twist back toward the Panzer. The ECM pods are designed to do that, give off false signals and pull missiles off of me. I’ve just never had to use them to peel off so many before. It’s all processing through my head as I finally get my eyes back on the Panzer. Just in time to feel rounds from the flak guns pummel me across the chest. I go whipping backward, the world spinning for a second and my stomach burning from the force of the impact. Then, just as I’m getting leveled out, I feel it before I hear it. Heat and fire, and force, sheer force rupturing my insides and sending me spinning out of control and toward the ground as my ear fills with a thundering boom.
A missile. Everything hurts. Every muscle is screaming, and I can tell my body is rushing to heal up the damage, but I still feel like there’s a hole in my stomach, like things that should be there aren’t. Disintegrated, at least until the Creep in my system does its job. The world is flying toward me, skyscraper walls passing me by on all sides as I go turning and twisting toward the ground. My visor is flashing red, over and over, warning lights telling me about the impact that’s seconds away. Three hundred feet. Two hundred feet. But, no matter how hard I try , I still can’t pick my head up as I pass beneath one hundred feet. I brace as best I can as I hit the concrete with enough impact that I send cracks tearing through the pavement. When I hit the street, I go bouncing along the ground for what has to be half a city block.
Sirens are ringing in my ear as my visor flashes red. When I try to open my eyes, everything’s blurry. The edges of my vision are black, and it takes me a second to realize where I am. I can feel the broken bones in my arms and the fractures running through my hips patching up, but it feels like a hot knife just cutting away into me. The pain’s so overwhelming that the black at the edge of my vision starts creeping further into my eyes, and I only sort of understand that walking down the street, those huge legs of it sending tremors through the ground, is the Panzer. The sound of the air vaporizing with energy blasts fills my ears, and I start to realize there are lift tanks streaking across the road, escaping from the crossroads before rounds of gunfire start chewing their way up the pavement. My vision starts to clear just in time to see the streams of bullets all converging on me, and I suck in a deep breath as I brace for the pain. Pavement goes splintering into the air as the pounding of the bullets fills my ears, but just as I’m getting my hands up in a useless attempt to protect myself, I feel a giant arm wrap around me and lift me off the ground in one single motion. I see the spot where I’d just been sitting explode apart as the gunfire tears the street open, while this giant armored soldier carries me through the crossroads and behind the cover of a building. I almost don’t realize what’s happening until I look up and realize from her helmet that it’s Kali, her back to me and her massive rifle turned around the corner, huge hypersonic spikes firing out of its barrel. Past her, on the other side of the crosswalk, I can see where members of her team are doing the same. After a second, she turns around to me. “We need you on the board, Heavy Metal.”
I nod at her. “Yeah, I—”
I don’t get the time to finish. Above us, in the air, a massive explosion erupts from the Dynamis with enough force that we feel the shock wave on the ground. Both of our eyes go to the ship in time to see its side burning. My helmet zooms in and I get a look of a huge dent in its armor, something no normal missile should be able to do. It doesn’t take a genius to realize something’s wrong, and I quickly push past Kali, to look around the corner. When I do, I see the Panzer’s arm pointed skyward, the massive gun mounted on its arms spitting out blue arcs of energy before the barrel pumps back. Almost instantaneously, the Dynamis erupts in another explosion, this time the side burning with fire as it starts to lurch in the air.
“Dark Angel!” It’s Yousef.
I look away for a half second, my hand at my ear. “General?”
“The railgun is operational.”
“What?” A third explosion blasts into the air, and this time, when I look up, the entire side of the ship is engulfed in flame. “Holy shit.”
“At this range, the Dynamis has no chance of standing up to the Panzer. It can take one, perhaps two more shots before it either explodes or plummets into the ground. That railgun is overwhelmingly powerful.”
“It was supposed to be offline.”
“Obviously the information you downloaded was wrong.”
“A trap. Dammit.” I nod a few times as I try to think up my next move. “I’ll handle it.” My eyes go over to Kali. “Can you guys get closer to the Panzer and just unload with everything you’ve got? Just get it to look away from the Dynamis for half a second.”
“Done,” she says as she starts talking into her helmet, barking orders at other members of her team. Immediately I see them jumping out from behind cover, those massive legs of their power armor propelling them at speeds as fast as any vehicle. Gun fire starts chasing a few of them while others stay behind cover, their shoulders loaded up with massive rocket launchers that start filling up the air. The exposed legs of the Panzer erupt in blooms of fire as the rockets hit,
and the Panzer stops, even if for only a second, to adjust to the new threat. Kali looks back at me and nods with her head. “You got this, sir?”
“I got this,” I tell her as I race by, the jets on my back igniting and sending me into the sky. Almost instantly, gunfire’s redirecting toward me, an entire wall of bullet hell forming in front of me as I start accelerating upward, my body arching out of the way of the gunfire and toward the Panzer’s arm. The colossal machine’s distracted as it angles toward the streets, missiles and bullets ripping the buildings into shreds as it fires on the troops below. Everything in me wishes I could make sure they’re safe, but I can’t. I know they understand this is all or nothing. So, I keep accelerating, the giant in front of me growing larger until my boots hit the Panzer’s arm running, my eyes staring down the length of it to the elbow. The monstrosity’s forearm feels like it’s at least half the length of the Dynamis just by itself, and running along the entire length of that forearm is that railgun. It’s long and rectangular, with energy circulating back and forth along the barrel. The casing’s so thick it look like it could take the largest rifle round I’ve got at point blank range and barely take a scratch. I’m thinking missiles might put a dent in it or explosives, but when I try to port in some from Pocket Space, nothing happens. “What the hell?”
John breaks in through my comms. “Dark Angel, your suit is still repairing itself from that fall you took. The Pocket Space tunneler in the suit is down.”
“I need explosives, John!” I stop complaining when I see the blue arcs of light starting to pick up the pace, racing back and forth along the barrel as the arm starts to swing back upward, to the sky. To the Dynamis. “No time. No time.”
“Kid, what are you doing?”
“Stopping this thing,” I bark back as I leap to the side of the gun, my hands gripping underneath a part of its casing and my legs bracing against the ground. The energy pulsing up and down is charging more and more, and I can feel it circulating inside of my suit, scrambling the vision in my visor and shutting down the suit system by system.