Ironshield

by Edward Nile

  “Unfortunately. Pull up, it’s okay.” I hope.

  Dazu hesitated, and upon studying the man further, Aldren saw he was sweating, his hands clenching and unclenching on the wheel.

  “Hey,” Aldren touched him on the shoulder. Dazu flinched.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Aldren said. “I promise.”

  Dazu was shaking. “P-please,” he breathed. “My family.”

  “You’ll go home to them. But I need you to pull over. Before this asshole gets the wrong idea.” They were about to pass Tanner by.

  Dazu let out a whimper as he eased his foot off the gas.

  Aldren opened the door before the truck finished stopping. “Bit early, don’t you think?”

  Tanner craned his neck to look past Aldren. “I would say I’m just in time. What’s he doing here?”

  “Didn’t want to arouse too much suspicion. We’ll let him off here.”

  “Aldren, he’s seen me now. He knows who I am.” Tanner sighed and lifted his weapon. “Get out of the way.”

  The driver’s side door opened, and when Aldren looked over, Dazu was leaping out of the truck and making a run for it back the way they’d come.

  Tanner lifted his submachine gun, aiming down the front sight at the fleeing easterner.

  Aldren didn’t know what he was doing when he dove out of the truck and tackled his partner.

  Tanner let off a spurt of automatic fire as they rolled off the road into the ditch.

  Aldren took a blow to the head and saw stars. He brought his knee up and struck something soft, evoking a curse from Tanner.

  They rolled around in the cold mud, punching and kicking one another, each trying to get on top.

  Aldren moved his head out of the way in time to evade a strike from the butt end of Tanner’s grease gun. He grabbed hold of the still-hot barrel and yanked the weapon from the other man’s grasp before swinging his legs up in a double kick to Tanner's stomach.

  Tanner sprawled back, and Aldren took his chance to roll aside, cutting the gun free of its strap with his push dagger and pointing it at his opponent. "Enough," Aldren growled, tasting blood. Glancing down the road, he saw Dazu's shrinking form fleeing the scene as fast as the small man's legs could carry him. "He's gone, alright? We have a job to do."

  "That bastard saw me. He knows who I am, and so will his friends."

  So far, Aldren had been the only one to directly contact Dazu and the others, the only one to put his neck out and make his position known. The rest of Aldren’s crew were supposed to keep their anonymity as long as possible, to be contacts in future missions in case the Industrialist cells had more advanced lines of communication than they thought.

  "All the more reason to finish this today," Aldren said. "We're not here to kill civilians. Take it up with the senator if you'd like."

  Tanner spat into the dirt and picked himself up, wiping off his fatigues. "Trust me, Mal, I will." He held out his hand.

  Aldren pulled the magazine free and emptied the grease gun's chamber, pocketing the ammunition before handing the weapon back to Tanner.

  Tanner made a sound that was half laugh, half grunt as he pulled another magazine from a pouch on his belt and re-loaded the gun. "Don't be so paranoid, Mal," he said, noting the way Aldren shuffled back. "Unlike you, I follow the rules." He pointed the gun at Aldren and motioned to the truck with the muzzle. "You drive."

  Aldren caught sight of Erin and Leon crouched along the outer wall of the factory complex. They too wore combat uniforms, though of a lighter color than Tanner's, resembling the familiar light brown and red scheme Aldren himself had worn as a conscript of the Civil War. Their weapons were wooden-stocked bolt-action rifles, affixed with bayonets. Weapons from the Revolution

  Leon gave a thumbs-up as Aldren brought the truck past them. Shany would be by the opposite wall, where Tanner should have been rather than waiting to waylay Aldren on the road.

  "If you planned on driving up with me, you should have kept the civilian ensemble," Aldren said as they approached the gate. "Or you could have just followed the plan." He took note of armed men on the guard tower within the wall. Oddly tight security for a simple tractor manufacturer.

  "So you could bring that civilian into the line of fire? What the hell were you thinking, Mal?"

  Oh, I'm sure you were just concerned about Daz, Aldren thought. Same man you were about to shoot down. "Just let me do the talking, alright?"

  Tanner snorted. "It's about all you're good for." He massaged his jaw as he said it. Aldren hoped he'd given the man a nasty bruise.

  A guard came out of a shack beside the main gate, shrugging into a thick coat. Breath misting in the chilly air, he approached the passenger's side. "Paperwork?" he asked once Tanner rolled the window down.

  Shit. Aldren searched about until he found the clipboard underneath his seat. Checking it against the note he'd received earlier, he handed it to Tanner, who passed it to the guard. The man was a white Arkenian, younger than Aldren by a year or two, clean-shaven and wearing a gray coat in vaguely military cut. Aldren noticed a machine pistol at the guard's side. Heavy piece of hardware, for a post like this, he thought.

  The guard studied the paperwork, then looked back up at them. "Couple of new faces," he remarked. "Why are there two of you?"

  "Figured you might want some help unloading." Aldren spoke at the same time as Tanner said: "Training the new blood."

  Aldren gulped.

  The guard narrowed his eyes, looking from one man to the other. Behind him, along the wall, a begrimed figure slinked toward the guardhouse.

  "Open the door and step out, please," the guard stood back, a hand straying to his sidearm.

  Aldren eyed the grease gun propped between Tanner's legs, then the guards up in the watchtower. Both of them were shouldering their scoped rifles, muzzles training on the truck.

  "Get out of the truck," the guard repeated with more force. He started to draw his pistol. Meanwhile, Shany slipped, unnoticed, into the guard shack.

  Sweat ran down Aldren's neck.

  "We're on a tight schedule, kid," Tanner said as, hidden by the door, his hand wrapped around the handle of the grease gun. "Just open the gate.

  The guard pulled his weapon free and pointed it at Tanner. "I said get out of the—" he spun around as the gate clanked open.

  Tanner wasted no time, lifting his submachine gun to fire a burst into the younger man's chest.

  The windshield shattered. Aldren put up an arm to protect his eyes while bullets sparked against the hood, one passing close to Aldren and breaking the driver's side window as well.

  He ducked and stomped on the gas pedal. His side mirror sheared off against the edge of the partially open gate as Aldren rolled the truck into the complex.

  Tanner fired off two more bursts through the broken windshield, bringing down a pair of armed men in overalls.

  Aldren slammed the brakes before they could crash into a building. He flinched when more sniper fire punched through the roof of the truck. A moment later, a screaming guard fell from the watchtower. He landed as a silent heap on the gravel.

  Another shot, another scream. Aldren risked a glance up and saw the other sniper slumped over the tower railing. Leon and Erin were putting in their efforts.

  The truck leaked smoke from its perforated hood. Aldren popped open his door, only to grab hold of it when another rebel emerged from the building on his left. Bullets thunked into the steel door while Aldren fumbled along his belt for the snub-nosed pistol he kept tucked away.

  Tanner pointed his gun over Aldren's shoulder and opened fire.

  "Agh!" Aldren clutched his ringing ear. "Damn you!"

  "Quit bitching and get to work." Tanner opened his door and climbed out.

  Still half deaf from the gunshot, Aldren climbed down out of the truck and fell over, disoriented.

  "Easy there, youngin'." Leon took him by the arm and helped him stand while Erin swept the area with her rifle. They were in a
wide courtyard lined by small, interconnected structures no doubt meant to serve as offices and workers' break quarters. Ahead sat the main building, a hulking block of dark brick, its massive wooden double doors covered in peeling black paint.

  "Somethin' tells me the welcome in there'll be colder than the one this lot gave us," Shany said, poking a fallen rebel with his foot. He wiped his bloody dagger with a cloth. Aldren guessed there had been another guard in that shack.

  Cautiously, Tanner approached the door and yanked on it. It didn't budge.

  Bullet holes sprouted inches away from the man, shedding wooden splinters that flew off in all directions. Aldren heard one projectile whistle by his good ear.

  "Well, them's just poor manners," Shany remarked. "Anyone got a key?"

  "Right here." Tanner had retreated from the door. He put his rifle down and pulled two grenades from his rucksack. Flicking the pins free, he rolled the explosives across the gravel.

  Aldren covered his ears -for whatever good that could do now- and turned aside.

  Twin explosions split the air, sending a tremor through the ground beneath Aldren’s feet. Shards of wood clattered about, and when Aldren turned to look through the smoke, he saw the blast had flung one door part-way open. Beyond the opening, all he could see was darkness.

  "So that's the game we're playing at," said Shany. "Fun."

  Aldren checked the ammunition in his pistol. A full magazine, of course. He hadn't shot anyone, ever. Noticing his hands shake, he bit the inner wall of his cheek. Keep it together.

  "I'll take point," Tanner announced. "Erin, Leon, take the right. Al and Shany, left."

  Tanner was overstepping his authority by not deferring to Aldren, but after the incident on the road, Aldren wasn't about to press the issue. Besides, this worked out fine for him. Let the prick have his glory.

  Aldren's nose wrinkled at Shany's unwashed smell, but he still preferred fighting alongside him over Tanner.

  Tanner raised a fist and counted to three with his fingers. Clenching them again, he strode forward. Aldren and the rest followed.

  He and Shany made a sharp left into the unlit room the moment they crossed the threshold, its shadows accentuated rather than alleviated by the dim luminescence streaking in from the main factory space through a pair of dusty interior windows.

  Stacked boxes and pieces of old mechanical equipment, partially covered by grease-stained tarps, provided cover. Which was fortunate, because no sooner had Aldren and his partner taken their left turn than bullets from the main room shattered a windowpane, pinging against metal and splintering wood.

  Aldren started with each sharp retort of gunfire, amplified painfully in the enclosed space. He crouched and inched his way toward the next corner. That's when he realized Shany was nowhere to be seen.

  Shit. Aldren looked back, but the man was gone. What's he trying to pull now? He poked his head around the next corner.

  Someone shot at him.

  Aldren fell over with a shout and raised his pistol. He pulled the trigger, missing twice. The next bullet from his assailant hit the concrete floor less than an inch from Aldren’s ear. He tried to steady his shaking gun. Both ears rang, and his heart pumped hard, threatening to burst. Aldren’s vision blurred in and out of focus. I'm gonna die, was all he could think.

  His next bullet nearly clipped the rebel, making him flinch back and miss his own return shot.

  A shadow leapt from between a pair of old engine blocks, and the rebel sank to his knees, gurgling as he clutched a bleeding neck.

  Shany's eyes glinted as he regarded Aldren. "Can't keep covering for you forever, Sarge," he said.

  Over Shany's shoulder, a silhouette moved behind one of the windows.

  "Shan, get down!"

  A pair of gunshots burst through the glass, and the rebel on the other side fell.

  "All good over there?" called Erin.

  "Aye, thanks." Shany hadn't moved a muscle at Aldren's warning cry. "Think any of the buggers are going to let us take them in?"

  "Works fine for us if they don't." Tanner’s voice came from the far door to the right. "Move in on my word."

  Silence dragged on. Aldren picked himself up and tried to get his breathing under control. Yannick's gravestone came to mind. Their mother, sobbing on Aldren's shoulder, the pain of her younger son's demise ripped open anew. How long would it take them to tell Beatrice Mal both her children were dead? As long as it had taken them to inform Aldren of Yannick's fate?

  With him in the ground beside his brother, whose shoulder would she cry on?

  "Go!"

  Aldren forced his legs to move and followed Shany through the nearest door into a wide, open chamber. Rows of tarnished windows along the ceiling allowed daylight to filter through floating dust particles. More boxes, tables, and assorted machinery lined the room, and Aldren and Shany used them as cover while proceeding forward, still holding to the left.

  "Here, gimme that." Shany took Aldren's snub-nosed and fired it with calm ease. A rebel cried out and fell from a catwalk along the far wall.

  Shany tossed the gun back to Aldren and ran forward, sticking to the shadows. Ahead, the rest of the chamber was hidden, curtained off by a large piece of dirty canvas. Lots of room for enemies to hide.

  "Shan," Aldren hissed. "Shan!"

  The spy ignored him as he made his way toward the canvas.

  In the silence, the sound of tearing fabric was amplified tenfold.

  It's not what you think, Aldren told himself. He was still telling himself that when a roaring sound filled the air. Something massive tore through the canvas and threw Shany across the room.

  "It's a Warsuit!" Tanner, Erin, and Leon opened fire. Aldren could do nothing but stare at the monster that revealed itself.

  A Warsuit, or at least part of one, stared at them through unfeeling lenses, swinging its one arm back and forth. There were no legs or treads on the thing, and part of its chest on the right side was uncovered, revealing a skeletal frame and the cockpit within. Through the thickening smog of the Warsuit's engine exhaust, Aldren couldn't see much of the pilot’s face beneath his gray cap.

  Those are... Aldren almost couldn't believe what he was seeing. The Warsuit's arm was obviously constructed of amalgamated tractor pieces, the frames of the former farm engines hammered and welded into crude approximations of a Warsuit's form to be bolted onto whatever hideous contraption of engineering made the thing function.

  Leon and Erin opened fire, leaning over a crate to aim their rifles. Bullets sparked against steel, making no obvious impact. Even the sharp crack! Of gunfire wasn’t enough to drown out the roar of the Warsuit’s engine.

  Tanner joined in from his corner, rattling off automatic fire with an inarticulate shout. Sprays of bright sparks flashed against the Warsuit's partial chest plate.

  "Fuck, I can't get a bead on the cockpit!"

  The pilot did something with his controls, and the giant mechanical arm swung back and forth, soaking up bullets and smashing things about to either side. Looking between mounds of equipment, Aldren saw an eight-barreled chaingun on the Warsuit's right shoulder spin to life.

  "GET DOWN!" he screamed.

  Brrrrrrmmmmm the chaingun fired, hundreds of rounds per second streaking in a deadly hail of hot lead as casings cascaded across the Warsuit's carapace. The sound was a pressure against Aldren's ears, a palpable force in the room. Wood and concrete were churned in the maelstrom, disintegrated beneath the gun’s relentless rate of fire.

  Aldren saw Leon fall, clutching his arm with a scream. Erin threw herself on top of her husband and stayed down with him as their cover was dismantled by rapid fire, bright red tracer rounds flashing through crates to blast craters in the wall behind them.

  Laying flat, covering his ears, Aldren waited out the barrage.

  At some point the chaingun's continuous drone faded. A last handful of casings clattered to the concrete floor while the spinning barrels rattled empty.

  Kh
thunk went the Warsuit’s weapon as it reloaded.

  "Aldren, shoot him!" Tanner yelled.

  It had to be him. The others didn't have a clean shot at the cockpit.

  Aldren took in a gulp of acrid air, heavy with the taste of metal, gunsmoke, and pulverized stone. Already dead, he thought. With a shout, he lifted himself up and pointed his gun at the cockpit. His first shot hit a section of the exposed chassis. That got the pilot's attention. He looked at Aldren. Or rather, she looked at him.

  Aldren faltered with his finger still on the trigger of his snub-nosed. The Warsuit was being operated by a woman. Young, too, Aldren realized. Younger than Yanny was when he...