Ironshield

by Edward Nile

  Was this why you wanted me out of the fight, Dad? James wondered. Did you know, even then, what would happen to us? Heinrich Edstein had died at the Bay of Rust, the last major battle of the Xang War, when the enemy nation had decided to escalate from island skirmishes and sea battles to a full-blown assault on the Arkenian coast.

  James had seen it happen...

  This was another checkpoint. It had to be. Outside the personnel truck, the guns and cannonry hardly sounded any nearer than they had two hours ago. Another checkpoint for their convoy leader to receive updated directions. Another false alarm.

  James knew it, and judging by the bored and irritated expressions on the other red and brown clad men across from him, so did they. At this rate, the decisive battle of the Xang War would be over before they even reached the front.

  His father was no doubt repulsing the Xangese cruisers and landships from the beach at this very moment, and James was missing it. It was a concern he saw etched on the features of his comrades. Men raised on stories of war, afraid they'd miss their chance to see it for themselves before peace time made life mundane forevermore.

  For youths raised in a nation almost constantly at arms from its inception, the prospect of peace was beyond dull.

  "God damn it! If we keep stopping like this, all the squints will be dead already," one man spat around the edge of his cigarette.

  "Watch your mouth, Smokes," another private rebuked. "Don't forget why we're fightin' in the first place."

  Quar. The island people were of the same ethnic stock as the Xangese, ancestral victims to the larger island's tyrannical reach. This war had begun as an attempt to safeguard the independence of Arkenia's more vulnerable ally.

  Now, Quar’s enemy was at Arkenia’s doorstep.

  "Ack, I don't know about you," Smokes retorted. "But I'm in this to protect our own. I don't give a faint fuck about what some yellows do to their own on their little rock, eh?" He gave James a nudge.

  James shrugged. He'd managed to stay quiet for most of the trip, afraid too much talk would reveal who he was. If an officer caught him sneaking toward the front, he'd be put in the stockades until his father came to scold him.

  Smokes shook his head. "Swear this fella's a mute. Anyway, I—"

  The hatch at the back of the truck swung down, and a lieutenant beckoned them out. "Last stop, lazy sods. Gear up!" His shout was punctuated by the whistle and boom of artillery, unmistakably louder now.

  "No way we're here," Smokes said. "It's just another fuel stop, right?"

  He kept repeating this to himself as James and the others collected their helmets and rifles and filed out of the truck.

  "I'm tellin' ya we ain't there yet," Smokes all-but moaned. "It's just another check-up." His protests devolved into angry shouts as MPs grabbed hold of him and dragged him out of the vehicle.

  Meanwhile, the squad James had smuggled himself into was directed to a line of one-hundred-eighty-millimeter field guns. Even as they were assigned to unmanned cannons, others in the line sent up sprays of sand as they fired, the unmuffled sound drumming against James' eardrums. Cotton wadding was passed to each trio as they were split off to different pieces of artillery. James found himself tasked with reloading his group’s large gun.

  Ahead, the daylight sky was filled with the black clouds of diesel fumes and gunsmoke. Burning war cruisers drifted and capsized in the turbulent waters beyond the piled sandbags of gun emplacements as hails of artillery fire passed back and forth between the defending forces and the Xangese. Shells arced over the beach, trailing thin streamers of smoke before exploding in fiery bursts, often in the midst of scrambling Arkenian soldiers.

  James didn't need to look hard to spot Warsuits. Kaizers stomped across the battlefield, even wading into the sea in some cases, massive iron feet submerged in the frothing shallows as their cannons and machineguns rained ordnance down on the approaching Xangese vessels attempting to establish a beachhead on shore.

  The line of defending Kaizers was staggered to give their guns maximum coverage, making sure that when an enemy craft made it past one Warsuit, its fellows could catch the enemy before it could get too close to shore. This also left openings for the field guns and infantry on the ground to work with, increasing the overall effective firepower.

  Along the beach, Kaizers thundered on platforms of felled trees lined up to create wooden walkways that helped dissipate their weight so the Warsuits would not sink in the soft sand. Between these walkways were avenues for field guns and infantry.

  Still, Xangese landships crawled over the sand, their narrow wheels ungainly on the soft ground. Their ammunition, however, worked just fine, bringing the enemy's firepower into range of the Arkenian rear lines.

  James picked up a heavy cartridge and slammed it into the gun, turning and covering his ears as one of his partners cranked the lever.

  The gun's booming retort sent a jolt through him. It sent a vibration through the ground that would have knocked him off his feet had he not been expecting it. Before the first shell casing hit the ground, James was shoving the second projectile in place, eyes stinging from the sulphuric smoke of spent gunpowder. He didn't dare stop, not even as he saw his reason for coming here wade its way into the water ahead.

  Thicker built than other Kaizers, Heinrich Edstein's Ironshield was alive with billowing engine smoke and flashing guns. The flowing form of a Xangese steam-driven frigate was torn to fiery pieces by consecutive rounds from Ironshield's main guns. An enemy corvette veered past the wreckage to Ironshield's right, strafing the Warsuit as it tried to flank its rear, where the engine works were most vulnerable.

  Redstripe cut its way through the water, seeming impossibly fast for something of its size, trailing diesel smoke behind it.

  Reload, turn, fire, repeat. James kept up his task, keeping the field gun booming. Men shouted up and down the line as shells burst beyond the emplacements, everyone intent on keeping the rate of fire going. And with each new round, James got a brief look at the mechanized battle happening beyond the shore. Redstripe cut through a Xangese landship carrier with heavy machine gun fire before splitting it in two with a downward stroke of its blade, as Ironshield continued to wade further into the explosive maelstrom. James' father was trying to put his Warsuit between a harried group of Arkenian ships and a fleet of Xangese cruisers. What the easterners lacked in gas, they made up for in ingenuity, using elaborate if largely outdated steam engines to keep their vessels just a touch faster than those of the Arkenian navy.

  "Hold fire!" Their spotter brought his binoculars down. "What's Ironshield doing?" He shook his head. "Adjust trajectory, bring the sights a half inch to the right and three degrees up, or else we'll start hitting General Edstein –agh!"

  He fell, fresh blood coursing down from a nick in his forehead.

  James fumbled and dropped the shell he'd been holding. Grabbing his rifle instead, he cocked it and looked over the top of the sandbag wall. A column of Xangese infantry in dark green ran shouting up the beach, led by a spluttering landship.

  Unlike Warsuits, the Xangese machines featured exposed gearworks and open cockpits. It seemed people were more expendable than steel, in Xang. The landships lacked any humanoid characteristics, resembling train engines more than anything.

  A sandbag to James' left exploded, spraying coarse grains into his eyes.

  "Fuck!" Blinded, he returned fire until his weapon ran dry. Through squinted eyes he saw the blurred shape of a Xangese soldier crumple to the dirt. It was James' first kill, but he didn't have time to reflect on it. Ducking behind the bulwark, he popped open his canteen and poured the lukewarm contents over his face to relieve the sting in his eyes. "Aim it down," he spluttered. "We've got to take out that..." The words died in his throat. Their gunner lay slumped over the field piece, a fresh exit wound gaping between his shoulder blades. Through the gore, James saw the paleness of exposed bone.

  The spotter was occupied trying to bandage his bleeding head. If
their cannon was to take its shot, James had to be the one to do it.

  James heaved the gunner's stiff body aside, for the first time feeling the unresponsive weight of a corpse. This done, he scooped up the fallen shell, brushed clumps of moist sand from the brass casing, and pushed it into the bloodied field gun. Next, James cranked the positioning lever, dropping the gun's barrel with a high-pitched squeal of protesting metal until the weapon was aimed just above the sandbags.

  Might still be too high, he thought, seeing how close the landship was. James watched the machine's top-mounted cannon swing in his direction.

  In one panicked move he dropped down, slammed the cannon’s lever, and threw himself to the ground at a roll as the gun bucked.

  There was a metallic ping, then the field gun burst into pieces, shrapnel whistling above James, taking nearby Arkenian soldiers out as they fled the harried firing line. The spotter was among the dead, what remained of his bandage soaking blood from a missing scalp.

  Shaken but unharmed, James scrambled to his feet. Had he managed to hit anything? Peering beyond the bulwark, James spotted the motionless landship, its turret a blasted ruin, cockpit reduced to a horror of twisted metal and shredded meat.

  Knowing he wasn't in the clear yet, James ejected the magazine from his rifle and reached to pull a replacement from his belt.

  Before he could reload, a furious Xangese face appeared over the sandbags. James fell back to get clear of the enemy's sweeping bayonet. The green-clad man leapt clear of the barrier before James could get his weapon loaded, and next he knew, James was blocking the man's blade with the stock of his rifle.

  The enemy shouted in his harsh language, slashing and stabbing at a frenzied speed.

  On his back in the dirt, James inched backward. He brought his feet up to kick his attacker. The man's dark eyes were bloodshot, his feral snarl filled with animal rage, spittle flying over his shaven chin.

  There was no one around to help James, and this man wasn't going to stop until one of them was dead.

  The point of the bayonet bit into the wooden rifle stock and stuck there. Seeing his chance, James turned, using his full body weight in an attempt to wrench the enemy's weapon away. A kick to the chest stopped him, and James' own rifle was yanked from his hands instead.

  The Xangese used his foot to pry James' weapon off his blade while James was still processing that he was unarmed. Some part of him said he should do something. Kick the bastard, feel around for a weapon. A rock, anything. But by the time these desperate ideas took root in his terrified brain, the two-second window of opportunity was over. His assailant was standing over him, bayonetted rifle raised like a spear over his head for the killing blow.

  A massive shadow fell over them like a sudden eclipse. The easterner looked up, mouth open in awe.

  Machinegun fire flashed across from above, sending sprays of sand and creating sparks against the busted field gun before cutting through James' attacker. A cloud of red mist flew up from the Xangese soldier as he crumpled to the ground.

  Father. James looked up. Ironshield, it must have come back ashore.

  But it wasn't Heinrich Edstein's Warsuit that loomed impossibly large above. The Arkenian Virtue, Major Renalds' machine, stepped aside with the clank and rattle of its many gears, its engines rumbling in the effort of moving hundreds of tons of steel, sending plumes of black smoke to swirl around the metal monstrosity.

  Virtue's guns let off squirts of rapid fire on Xangese stragglers as Renalds made his way down the sloped beach.

  James dragged himself to his feet and all but collapsed against the side of the bulwark. Pushing a torn sandbag away, he looked out toward the water of Declaration Bay. What he saw could only be described as a picture from hell.

  Flames danced across the water where spilled oil had ignited. The fiery, torn husks of ruined battle cruisers drifted from either side. Wrecks, both Xangese and Arkenian, crashed lazily into one another, with hardly a living man at arms on either side left to fire a shot. The sky was blackened with smoke, the noxious clouds painted crimson by the fiery hellscape below.

  Redstripe let off a cannon blast, destroying what remained of a Xangese ship, still firing from a lone machinegun turret.

  They'd won. The Xangese invasion had be repulsed.

  Ironshield turned and began its walk back to shore, its hulking form displacing the water in great waves. Heinrich's Warsuit had taken surface damage to its chest armor, leaving its metal plating cragged with the pockmarks of bullets and artillery fire. But, other than that, the machine had come through practically unscathed.

  James had the insane urge to avert his eyes, like a child caught being disobedient. From so far away, so high up, it was impossible for Ironshield's pilot to spot his son amid the soldiers teeming ant-like across the charred beach.

  But James felt the urge all the same. Because when he looked at Ironshield, he didn't see a Warsuit. No, Heinrich Edstein spent so much time in or around the great mechanical beast that looking at his machine felt like looking at the man himself.

  And when a Xangese frigate emerged from the smoke behind Ironshield and lifted the largest naval gun James had ever seen, it wasn't just a machine being threatened.

  "DAD, NO!" James cried out, for all the good it could do.

  The percussive force of the cannon sent a shockwave through the water, swelled the waves lapping against the corpse-strewn shore. Ironshield took the shot in the back, right in its engine. Heinrich Edstein's Kaizer pitched forward and crashed to its knees, flames erupting from its back like hellish wings.

  James knew it was impossible, but remembering that moment in the days to come, he'd always think the Warsuit looked surprised, somehow.

  Redstripe swept around with a great cascade of seawater. The faster machine moved toward the attacking ship, trying to get to the frigate before it could land a second blow.

  Redstripe raised a bladed arm to strike the enemy. It was still several dozen meters away.

  They won't reload in time, James thought. He's gonna make it.

  The Xangese cannon's next round exploded past Redstripe.

  Ironshield raised its right cannon arm, reached toward the shore, like a man grasping at something beyond his reach.

  The shot punched through Ironshield's back and out its chest. Fire leaked from every seam in its plating as the shrapnel of fractured parts burst outward in a blossoming of flames and steel.

  James saw it all unfold, the universe slowing down for this one moment.

  Ironshield fell forward, crashing into the sea. Amid plumes of white steam, the Warsuit sank.

  Redstripe followed through with its slash, cleaving the Xangese frigate in two. The ship went down, but it was too late.

  Heinrich Edstein, the Ironshield, had died with his machine...

  James lost his sense of time and direction, traversing this maze of scrapped Warsuits. Lost in memory, he couldn't find the will to care if someone caught him, be it his fellow trespassers or the guard.

  He lost track, that was, until the carcass of one Warsuit loomed above him, larger than all the rest.

  James looked up and fell to his knees. "Dad..."

  No wonder Matthew warned him to avoid this place. Since Quarrystone, James hadn't bothered to find out what had become of Ironshield. He realized now he'd been afraid to know where the Appeasers decided to stick the machine which had borne the deaths of two people he loved.

  They'd removed its arms and legs, and even from the front, James could tell the engine had been gutted. But it was Ironshield nonetheless. His father's legacy, James' failure.

  A dark hole gaped where the cockpit had been. That damned cockpit Redstripe had torn open, then shot into, killing an innocent girl.

  James removed a glove and put his palm against the biting cold metal, feeling a bullet mark with his fingers. It should have been me, Tess, he thought. But, as usual, I didn't act quick enough. "I'm sorry." The words came out in a choked sob. "Dad, Tess, I..." He bow
ed his head, letting hot tears fall, letting the pain of cold steel burn against his hand. I miss you both so much. After finding out he’d lost his mother, James thought he’d suffered the worst of it, that the pain would dull with time. But it didn’t, and every subsequent loss ached just as much, agony piled on agony, ready to consume him, waiting for the thin scabs to crack open and bleed anew.

  James started climbing. Kaizers always had hand and foot holds built into their outer plating, to allow maintenance crews access as much as pilots. Between these and the naturally rough design of Ironshield's exterior, James had little trouble scaling the surface of his machine. The only question he thought to ask himself was why he was doing it. He couldn't answer that any better than he could explain why he'd entered this place to begin with. Any more than he could rationalize why he still carried the Ironshield saber, even after it had exposed him, forcing him to run away once more. Forcing him to leave his wife.

  There were a lot of things James did for reasons he couldn't understand. Everything since Quarrystone had been a blur of events and actions with no rhyme or reason. Even, to his shame, his marriage.

  Drifting, he thought. That's all I've been doing. Drifting from place to place, from one life into another. Like all those corpses floating in what was now called the Bay of Rust, James was adrift. No will, no direction.

  And yet, here he climbed.

  Get down, urged a voice in his head. Get out before you're caught.

  James reached up and grabbed hold of the cockpit's jagged edge. He pulled himself inside.

  They must have cleaned it. Removed the blood and whatever else had been left behind when Tessa Kolms met her end. Cleaned, but otherwise untouched. Bullet holes marred the interior bulkheads. One particularly large puncture, no doubt from Redstripe's finishing shot, allowed a streak of moonlight to slant across the wrecked control seat.