Iron Legion Battlebox

by David Ryker

  Mac laughed and then spat between his boots. “Jesus Christ,” he breathed. “He says we’re in.”

  Fish had mapped the patrols, which circled the compound from one side to the other, and then doubled back, stopping at the mountain wall. One passed by every two minutes or so, but there was a curved section of wall that provided a blind spot while the patrols were approaching from either side. One patrol wouldn’t see the approach due to the wall, and the other would be moving away as we came. Then, though, they’d double back, and by that time, we’d need to be within a hundred meters of the fence.

  “We’ll have to be quick,” Mac sighed. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get the HAM in there that fast, though. The F-Series can really motor when they need to, but I’ll attract too much attention and be left out to dry when the patrol circles back.”

  “You said that that eastern gate was unmanned, right, Fish?” Alice asked.

  “No, he said he killed the guards on the eastern gate,” Mac corrected her.

  “Right, well, that’s sort of splitting hairs, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “that gate’s close to the base entrance, right? But the hangars are on the other side. Why don’t we just split up? If you guys can create a distraction, draw their attention to the far side of the base” — she looked up at Mac and Fish — “we can slip in the back, find the prisoners and get them out, and then we’ll hit them from behind. All you have to do is—”

  “Stay alive until that happens.” Mac scoffed. “I didn’t think this plan could get any worse.”

  “Look, it’s all we’ve got, alright? Fish got us our hole, we’re getting those soldiers out, and we need you to do it. I can see some ships on the runway there — if Fish can slip in and plant some explosives or something, get one of them to go up, it’ll put them in a frenzy. You can fortify yourself on the far side of the base, hit them with a rail pulse, put one right into the support strut above one of the hangar doors, bring the whole fucking thing down. Trap them inside.”

  Mac narrowed his eyes, thinking, but didn’t speak.

  “They’ll all come out, guns blazing, thinking it’s an attack. And while they’re all running the other way—”

  “You slip in the back.” Mac bit his lip. “Fucking hell, I can’t believe I’m actually considering this.”

  Alice shrugged. “Hey, it’s a good plan.”

  He laughed. “Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far.”

  We geared up as the sky began to flood with yellow, the sun yet to creep over the horizon.

  24

  Mac and Fish gave us the most cursory of nods, and then set off around the base, sticking to the trees.

  Alice and I stayed behind, watching the distant walls as the guards circled them slowly, rifles slung across hips. We could see the tower Fish had cleared, but wondered how long it would be until the guards were discovered. We didn’t think very long. From what he’d said, Fish had unlocked the gate there, but left it closed. All we had to do was push.

  “I don’t like this,” I mumbled, not taking my eyes off the base.

  Alice sighed. We were both rigged up, sitting with our hatches open. We’d managed to fix up the F-Series that the blonde had been piloting, replacing some of the wiring, and had gotten it running again. Alice had even managed to find the pulled AI core and reinsert it, though hers seemed to be a lot more docile than Greg. I wondered why that was, but I didn’t pry. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a verbal joust with another AI while Greg was too much for me already.

  “You’re not supposed to like it,” she muttered back. “It’s war.”

  I swallowed and cast a glance at her, her features hard and set, eyes narrowed. I could see the pulse in her neck hammering slowly. Boom. Boom. Boom.

  I peeled my eyes away from it and turned them back to the task at hand. All we could do now was wait. Either Mac would get into position or the guards would find the dead bodies and raise the alarm. I honestly couldn’t have guessed which was going to happen first. And I definitely couldn’t have called it that it was going to be neither.

  Mac’s voice crackled over the comms. “Shit!”

  “What is it?” Alice asked hurriedly.

  “We’re too late.”

  “Talk to me, MacAlister. What are you seeing?” Her voice was strained and her pulse had quickened.

  “We’re on the northern rise — shit — the fucking transport is wheeling out. Christ. I’ve got to hit it from here. You’ve got to move. Now or never.” We could hear the clanking of the panels shifting around him as his mech began to squat, the rail canon growing out of his back. I looked left, seeing the glow of the muzzle in the trees. They weren’t even a quarter of the way around. Shit. If he fired from there, every Free ship and troop would scramble to this side of the base.

  Alice’s hatch snapped shut. “Move!”

  I sank back into my seat and rammed my helmet on. “Let’s go, Greg,” I snapped, pushing forward into the pedals.

  He lurched forward after Alice, who was already running across the meadow, and slammed the hatch closed. The screen lit up, and red reticles began flying all over the place as he located and marked out guards. “Set a course for the eastern gate,” I barked, jamming my heels into the thrusters. They kicked us forward, landing us next to Alice, who was pounding across the meadow. I could hear the engines of the transport ship beyond the walls spooling as it dragged itself out through the hangar door like a huge slug.

  “Ten seconds!” Mac yelled in our ears.

  We mistimed it, by a lot. The guards could see us coming, but it didn’t matter. The whole plan was shot. “Greg, target th—”

  “Targeting,” he said back, reading my mind.

  Red reticles pulsed over the four guards rushing at us, two from the left, two from the right. They went to their knees, firing their rifles. Soundwaves popped up on screen over one’s head as he started radioing for backup. Alice must have seen it too because she cut them both in half with a stream of Samson fire. I sucked in a hard breath and squeezed the trigger, feeling Greg guiding my muzzle toward the other two. Earth and blood sprayed into the air as the bullets tore through them and the ground around them. Guilt fired through me and squeezed what little food and water I had in my stomach up into my throat like the dregs of toothpaste being rolled up from the bottom of a tube.

  “They would have called for backup,” Greg said quietly as we ran toward the gate. “It was a necessary choice.”

  “I know,” I panted, my arms and legs churning forward.

  “It will get easier.”

  I met that one with silence.

  We were closing in when everything turned white. My screen blotted out completely and all of Greg’s systems stuttered and then rebooted. When the light began to fade, we were still running, and a beam of energy was fading across the screen. Mac had fired, and the damage was horrifying. The blast had struck the midpoint of the support beam running over the hangar. Everything was still for a fraction of a second, and then the air ruptured and shook, the shockwave tearing across the field and blasting leaves from the trees. Everything swayed and shuddered and the sound of air being rent cut through the early morning silence.

  Metal groaned and whined and then the struts gave. Rock fractured up the face of the mountain and then all at once the ceiling collapsed. Our view was obscured by the approaching wall and gate, but the noise was unmistakable. A thousand tons of rubble and steel colliding with a Free ship. It crunched and screamed, and then it exploded in a fireball that licked the side of the mountain and spat out a plume of black smoke.

  “Fucking hell!” Mac yelled.

  “Didn’t you mean to do that?!” I yelled back, deafened by both blasts, even inside the cockpit.

  “I didn’t think it would be that effective— oh fuck, here come the cavalry! Fish, scramble,” Mac ordered exasperatedly. I glanced left as the treeline lit up with a dozen sidewinders that
all curled into the air and snaked toward the base, raining down on the wall and gate that troops were scrambling through. Ground vehicles spewed through the fence and fixed-wings wound into the air all around us.

  Alice popped off two grenades and blew the eastern gates clean off their hinges. We swept inside, muzzles lit. I figured if I never let off the trigger, I wouldn’t have to reconcile pulling it again.

  The scene inside was carnage. One of the hangars had completely collapsed and a huge transport ship had been totally crushed. Its nose was sticking into the air, bent that way under the weight of the debris. Flames shot out of the cockpit windows and covered the hull, burning the fuel that had spilled from the ruptured tanks.

  Hundreds of Free soldiers were mobilizing from all parts of the base, funneling out of the mountain or rushing from their positions on the runway. Fixed-wing and tilt-winged jets drop took off haphazardly and circled around, laying down fire on Mac and Fish as we closed in from the other side, pincering a chunk of their forces and mowing down the soldiers as they rushed away from us. Alice peeled right and I went left, firing wildly at everything that moved. The Free soldiers caught on immediately and split up, doubling back to take out the two crazy F-Series that had just blitzed through the eastern gate.

  “We’re going to be torn apart down here,” I grunted, shielding my camera dome and body with my arm as a fixed-wing swept in overhead and peppered me with minigun fire. I chased it through the sky with my Samson, but it corkscrewed away and then rocketed into the clouds.

  “Just keep firing and look for a way inside!” Alice called back through gritted teeth. I could hear the vibration in her voice from the Samson against her shoulder.

  I stared at the huge hangar door — the one that hadn’t collapsed — but it was beyond the rubble, and there were soldiers pouring out of it. I turned my muzzle right and squinted through the flash. We were getting hit from both sides.

  “Greg, where the hell are these guys coming from?”

  “Preliminary sonic scans show that there is a troop entrance nearby that leads to an auxiliary armory. I believe that the Free rebels inside are seeking egress via that route.”

  “Show me.”

  The wall of the mountain lit up with white lines as Greg took a guess at the layout.

  “And the Federation soldiers?”

  “Deep within the base. I detect large spaces, but I am unable to effectively map them from here.”

  I cursed and turned to Alice. “We have to get inside, but the entrance is too small for our rigs. We have to go in on foot.”

  “You’re not suggesting we go in through the door that all these rebels are coming out of?” she scoffed.

  “You got a better idea?”

  “There is another way,” Greg cut in, spinning me around to leap out of the path of another barrage of fixed-wing fire.

  “Start talking,” I coughed against the harness cutting into my shoulders.

  “There is a ventilation shaft that runs deeper into the base, though I cannot say where it leads.”

  “Show me!”

  A flashing green reticle appeared overhead and I twisted until it flew on-screen, pinned to the face of the mountain about a hundred meters above us. A thin line of smoke was billowing out of it.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

  “I am not,” Greg said flatly. “I estimate your chances of success very low in a ground engagement. This is your best option.”

  “And how the hell am I supposed to get up there?”

  The words ‘Ejection Sequence’ appeared in front of me and flashed. “Oh no, you’re crazy if you think you’re ejecting me!”

  “We will not be able to sustain this rate of engagement for much longer. Ammunition is at forty percent and depleting quickly, and our hull integrity is also falling. This is your only chance, or we must fall back.” His voice was flat and without emotion, but I couldn’t shake the graveness of it.

  “Alice?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You get that?”

  “We’ve got to try something.”

  I sighed. “Fuck it.” My hand reached out and I jabbed the ‘Initiate’ button underneath it. ‘Eject now?’

  “Line me up, Greg.” I sighed, my hands shaking, heart pounding. “Alice? Count us in.”

  “I recommend you install my AI link in your helmet. I may be of assistance,” Greg said with something nearing sincerity.

  I growled, but I knew he was right, and I’d need all the help I could get. I reached down and he opened a panel on the console next to the chair. A chip was sitting in a little cradle there with a label saying ‘AI Mobile Uplink’ next to it. I grabbed it up and clipped it onto the side of my helmet just as Alice began the countdown.

  “Three.”

  Greg turned and made for her mech.

  “Two.”

  He drew level and spun next to it, firing widely to clear out the nearest Free rebels.

  “One.”

  I pushed my head back against the headrest and held on to the harness. I knew it was going to suck.

  “Now.”

  Greg dipped at a weird angle and the hatch popped. My guts hit the seat and pinned themselves there as I shot upward. The chair rocketed into the air with a bang and then there was nothing but windrush. The altimeter inside my visor climbed and then levelled. I looked sideways and saw Alice, flying almost parallel. We crested at the same time and began to tumble together. Greg had angled me toward the mountain and I was right over the vent.

  He and Alice’s rig both turned and fired simultaneously at the rock, the bullets tearing through the grate that covered the shaft until it flipped over and tumbled to the ground.

  Our chutes popped at the same time, suspending us over the cliff. Greg and Alice’s rig were still firing below, but the Free rebels knew what was going on and had directed their fire upward, too.

  Bullets ripped through the air around us like tiny fireflies zooming into the gloomy dawn-riddled clouds. My heart was a blur in my chest and my throat was a pinhole. I could barely move my hands. They were stiff, like talons. I fumbled at my belt, my breath fogging inside my helmet, and spidered my fingers down my leg toward the grip of my pistol.

  In the distance I could hear Mac laying down as much fire as his HAM could produce, and the muffled screams of terror as Fish did what Fish did best, gutting unsuspecting rebels before they could get the fuck out of the way.

  The vent loomed. Greg had put me right on top of it. Alice was next to me, both of us plunging toward it, our chutes speckled with bullet holes.

  I fumbled for my buckle with my free hand and pulled the release, holding on to one side to keep myself in the chair.

  I only had one shot at this. My brain was fog, and all I could see was the vent. Everything else was shimmering. Fear. Adrenaline. They fought inside me as the hole grew below us. Now. I let go and pushed out of the seat two seconds before it clattered into the mountain. I tumbled the last ten feet and curled into a ball, landing in the mouth of the shaft. My heel clipped the near edge and I tumbled.

  I could hear yelling, but I didn’t know if it was my voice or Alice’s. I couldn’t see anything, just flashes of light and darkness. I spread my arms and legs as wide as I could and felt them connect with the sides of the shaft. The friction burned but I kept them pinned, feeling myself slowing. There was a crash and pain ripped through my back. I heard a yelp — definitely me that time. Then a groan — Alice.

  She’d collided with me, which was almost good. Meant that she hadn’t been shot to pieces while she was coming in.

  The friction burned my elbows and hands, my knees. We started to slow, but I couldn’t see anything. I had my eyes screwed up, teeth gritted so hard I thought they’d crack. We kept sliding, tumbling, entwined together, until we landed in a heap. The shaft cut sideways at a right angle and we lay in a pile at the crook, panting, hot, and in pain.

  I could feel her against me, her fists in the fabric of my j
umpsuit, her chest rising and falling rapidly against my ribs.

  “Are we dead?” she muttered.

  I dragged in a slow breath, smoky with whatever was in the shaft. I coughed twice feeling a jolt of pain in my ribs. It felt like one was cracked. “I don’t think so…” I coughed again. “Unfortunately.”

  We unfurled slowly, checking ourselves for breaks, but miraculously, it seemed like we were both okay — albeit a bit beaten up and bruised. Though, being in the Federation, that seemed to be a common occurrence.

  I planted my hands in the soot on the bottom of the vent and looked around. There was only one path — forward. I’d lost my pistol in the fall, but it was lying just ahead. I crawled over and picked it up. It was greasy. I grimaced, thanking my helmet for the filtration system. I’d be choking on smoke otherwise. But where the hell was it coming from, and why was my pistol greasy?

  “You smell that?” Alice asked, pulling up next to me.

  “I’m trying not to breathe through my nose.”

  “Well, do. What is that? Food?”

  I sniffed a couple times. “Smells like…”

  “Cooking meat?”

  I shook my head a little, smirking. “This vent comes out of a goddamn kitchen.”

  We made it along to the end quickly and found ourselves hanging above a set of stoves. Pots of broth were bubbling, but there was no one manning them. I wiped the sweat from my brow and kicked one down, waiting to see if anyone came to check out the noise. They didn’t. With everything going on outside, it was all hands on deck, but we still had to be fast. If anyone saw two pilots heading down a damn vent, then they’d likely try to head us off.

  I gripped the slick edge and swung down, landing square on the stove before hopping to the floor. I stayed low and pressed myself against a set of cabinets that made up the end of a long work island. The kitchen was a huge industrial affair with sinks and work surfaces running the full length of the room, nearly fifty meters.

  Alice landed next to me like a cat and pressed herself against the island cover. She had her pistol drawn. I couldn’t see her face through her helmet, but I knew her jaw was set determinedly. She nodded to me. “Ready?”