by Edward Nile
James couldn’t say that surprised him much. After all, Mutton had faced off against Retribution in much the same way.
So, James made sure to take control before whatever the man’s scheme was could unfold.
Squeezing a button on his control shaft, James loaded a fresh round into the forty-millimeter gun and pointed it at Samuel Mutton's head. The shell thunked into the barrel, loud enough the Appeaser bastard had to have heard it.
"What's the plan, Mutton?" James said over Buckler’s exterior speakers. "Get me to break off from the group so your men can fire at my engine block from the rear? It'd be a poetic end, I'll give you that."
Mutton shook his head. The man hadn't brought a radio from what James could tell, but he held something else. A piece of paper. Seconds passed, until it became clear to James that Mutton was waiting for him to open his cockpit to talk.
And are you going to? Or will you hide in this shell all day? Tess is right, a death under a Warsuit's foot is what he deserves. But if you do that, you'll be no better than him.
"Ivan, you got a shot?"
"At him? Not unless I shoot through you."
"That works. I'm going to open my pit. If his men fire on me, blow a hole through Buckler's engine and end him."
"Did you knock your head on something?" Tessa demanded.
James switched off the radio before she could say more, then unbuckled himself from the Warsuit's harness and pulled the hatch lever.
Could do worse with my last breaths. The air that filled James' lungs as he let the hatch swing down was cold and tasted of sulfur and iron. It reminded him of the military bases he'd been all but raised in, of days spent watching drills and test firings with his parents.
James leaned out the cockpit and locked eyes with Samuel Mutton. The last time they'd seen each other, James was sitting on the floor of a holding cell. Now, it was Mutton who looked up at him.
"Hello again, James." The Edinville senator didn't seem frightened, or angry. Samuel Mutton looked sad.
Well, what's it going to be? James wanted to ask, but couldn't get the words out. He remembered Samuel Mutton from his boyhood. So often dining with the Edsteins, back when they all wore the red and brown.
Sam Mutton had been kind to James, bringing him sweets and toys, the little wants of childhood so easily overlooked in the course of military life. The man had been like family, back then.
Alright, Mutton. James turned his saber and scraped it free of the ignition cradle. If you have me shot down now, you're the one who'll have to live with yourself. For all of five seconds.
Grabbing hold of a service rung, James swung from the cockpit and climbed down. Once his feet were on solid earth, James closed some of the distance between himself and Mutton. Mimicking the senator, he stuck the point of the Ironshield saber into the soil and let it stand there.
Mutton held out the letter. "Things have changed. You have to—"
James moved in and punched the older man with all his strength.
Mutton careened over and fell to the ground. He looked up at James, spitting blood, massaging his jaw.
Soldiers yelled curses from the Appeaser lines, raised rifles to point at James. But no one fired a shot.
Mutton really did want to talk.
James scooped the piece of paper from where the senator had dropped it. He shook dirt from the page and read it. It was a telegram, presumably from the president in Arkenridge, if the footnote was to be believed.
Salkirk a Lytan traitor. Stop. Xang planning mechanized assault on Arkenia. Stop. All other imperatives secondary. Stop.
"You were right, James." Mutton rose slowly to his feet. "You were right all along. The nation needs you and your people now, more than ever. Arkenia needs the Ironshield again."
Chapter 32
“If you two idiots turn back now, you might get lucky,” said Genlu from where he sat, hands bound behind his back and leaning against a rock.
“Right, and give your people another shot at finding us,” Mayla retorted without removing the binoculars from her eyes.
Aldren lay on his stomach beside her, looking out beyond the shelf of stone with his mouth agape.
Their first day stumbling through the mountains, they had to get off the road to hide from a pair of khaki-clad Xangese soldiers. Aldren had been lucky enough to spot them by the shine of a button as an errant strand of sunlight hit it, otherwise the two figures would have blended into the drab background entirely. From that point on, the trio avoided the roads, weaving their way between boulders over treacherous, moss-slicked soil and stone. The three of them had traveled this way, heading steadily farther northeast, until they found this overhang, with a perfect view of the fishing town spread beneath it.
They also found a pair of Xangese scouts. Mayla had left one of them alive, mumbling through one of Aldren’s dirty socks shoved into his mouth as he thrashed about. He was tied up beside Genlu, his partner’s body staring blankly at the sky near him. Aldren would be none too comfortable being near the corpse either, if he weren’t peering down at something infinitely more terrifying.
“What is it?” he breathed.
“Looks to me like a massive weapon manufacturing facility,” Mayla replied, still scanning the town with her binoculars.
“I meant what the fuck is that?” Aldren gestured beyond the warehouses and smoking factory chimneys to the gargantuan form overshadowing the docks.
It stretched along the coast for what looked like five or six hundred feet, and God knew how far out into the sea. Smoke and steam billowed from dozens upon dozens of pipes as gears turned and pistons pumped. Long ramps stretching from extra wide concrete docks were practically crawling with mechanical loaders. And with Warsuits.
“What did you expect to find, another rice field?” said Mayla, her voice bitter. “You going to stare or do your job and document this?”
Aldren had almost forgotten about his camera. He fumbled in his pack until he found it.
Snap, went the device as Aldren pressed the button, committing the rear profile of the monstrosity to film. Snap. A zoomed-in shot of massive naval guns atop the giant machine’s deck. Snap. Warsuits being loaded in. Mounted guns poking from ports along the giant’s thick steel armor. Snap. Massive wheels churning water, presumably to keep the leviathan afloat.
With each picture he took, Aldren became more fascinated, and more horrified with what he was seeing. Something so large simply could not have been forged by human hands. But here it was. “How does it even hold itself together?” he asked aloud.
“Hmmm,” Mayla put down the binoculars. “A good point.”
“It is?”
She scooted away from the edge of the shelf. “Xang doesn’t have the technical knowledge to make an engine that could power that rig,” she said, storming over to Genlu and drawing the pistol.
“Diesel’s new to your country. Too new to pull off something that sophisticated without help. So, who designed it?”
“Now you ask too much, whore,” Genlu spat. “There’s no reason for me to know that, so I don’t. See, that’s how smart people stay alive. We don’t poke our noses where they don’t belong.”
“No,” Mayla hissed. “Smart people stay alive by not pissing off the woman with a gun and nothing to lose.” She whipped the gagged soldier beside Genlu across the face with the pistol and barked something in Xangese.
The soldier’s eyes widened, and he looked from Mayla to Genlu and back before shaking his head.
She ripped the gag free, slapped him again, and pressed the gun between his legs. Whatever she told the young man next, it got to him. His lips trembled, and a dark wetness spread at his crotch.
“May…” Aldren began.
She cocked the hammer back on the pistol and repeated her question in a lower voice.
The soldier stammered out an answer, shaking all the while. Aldren made out one or two words he recognized but didn’t know the meaning of and one or two, like gaji, that he did kno
w.
When he was done, Mayla backed off. Genlu, on the other hand, rounded on the soldier, spittle flying as he shouted at the other man, trying his best to kick him.
Mayla knocked Genlu down with the butt of her gun, leaving the man groaning in pain. “Fuck,” she spat.
“What did you find out,” Aldren urged. “What the hell is going on?”
“Kid says they’ve been getting the designs from an old white man. An old white Arkenian man they keep locked in a storage house.”
She asked the frightened soldier another, more terse question.
“Crint,” he said, his accent thick. “Crint Kaizer.”
“Well, there you have it, Sargent,’ said Mayla. “We know how they’re building that beast.”
Aldren couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The inventor of the Kaizer Engine had been missing since before the Civil War, presumed dead even by the Industrialists. How had he ended up all the way out here?
“New priority,” Mayla announced. “We’re not leaving without Kaizer.”
“Whoa, hold on just a damn minute,” Aldren said, his voice taking on an embarrassingly high pitch. “I’m here to observe understand? Not to fight, not to carry out rescue missions. What I will do is take these pictures and my notes back to Arkenia. Then, whatever they decide to do is out of my hands and yours. Maybe the president will mobilize to help Quar again.”
Genlu laughed.
“What exactly do you find so funny?” Aldren wanted to kick the fucker, but it wouldn’t feel right after watching Mayla put the beating to him.
“Aldren.” Mayla gripped his arm tight and looked him square in the face. “They’re not taking that thing to Quar. They’re taking it to Arkenia. That monster was built to attack your home.”
Aldren looked between her and the prisoners. “You’re shitting me,” he said.
“Typical, ignorant gaji.” Genlu laughed. “It would take a fool like you not to see it’s better to eliminate the larger enemy first. The Dao can crush the bitch’s islands whenever he desires.
Aldren shook his head. “No, that still doesn’t make any sense,” he argued. “Building something like that, the resources it would take. All for what? To get back at a country that interfered with your local politics years ago? Arkenia’s already had its large weapons dismantled. They wouldn’t be able to stop you. So why risk so much, spend so much? Why get yourselves in hot water with Lytan?”
“Because it’s not their money. Look.” Mayla handed him the binoculars.
Aldren took them and crouched back by the edge. He adjusted the lenses until he had a good enough view of the area to pick out details “Lots of scary machines and smoke,” he said. “Don’t know what else you expect me to see.”
“Look to the eastern edge of the dock,” Mayla replied. “You’ll understand.”
Frowning, Aldren did as she said. “Still not seeing… Fuck.” He’d expected to spot some other weapon, some new horror of pistons and gears to top what he’d already witnessed. What he found was worse.
Flying above a gate sectioning off a block of buildings that looked too clean and opulent to have any place in this rustic town, its two-headed falcon bold and black against an azure field, waved a Lytan flag.
Aldren closed his eyes, but when he looked again, the banner still rippled from its pole. That answered his question, alright. It was just as the Industrialists had feared, just what they’d warned about.
The Empire still had its sights on Arkenia. Lytan had betrayed their deal, duped them into making themselves vulnerable.
Yanny… Aldren hung his head. I’m so sorry, Yanny. His brother had seen this, seen what Aldren and so many others were too blinded by the temptation of peace to realize. Missing a leg, alone, he’d done what he could to prevent this very thing from happening. To protect their homeland, to protect the place where Ma and anyone else they’d ever given a shit about lived.
This is what you get when you act the coward, Al, he thought. You wanted to turn back. Turn back and let this happen. Hell, you turned your back on your own brother, after he died.
So, what now? There’s a chance, a chance to do something. You gonna keep running?
“Sargent,” Mayla was silent for a moment, then: “Aldren?”
He hoisted himself up, feeling separate from his own body, a passenger looking through another person’s eyes.
“Okay,” he said. “What’s the plan?”
Chapter 33
Memory was a strange thing, as far as Mayla Yin was concerned.
The things she wanted to forget most burned in her mind, overwriting pleasant recollections, leaving the happy moments to slip like raindrops from between cupped hands. Everything that predated one particular day when she was a girl floated adrift in the recesses of her psyche, elusive as half-remembered dreams.
In sleep, she sometimes saw her village as it had been. Children goofing around when they were supposed to be doing chores, dirty-handed farmers with even filthier mouths laughing at their own crude jokes on their way back from the fields. The comforting aroma of cooking fires drifting from chimney holes cut into clay and bamboo roofs.
Strange, how one day could transform it all into a nightmare…
They’ll see me, and they’ll throw me in, too. Mayla held her hands over her mouth where she lay beneath her family’s hut, watching the Xangese soldiers go to work. Or rather, watching them put her village to work.
Mayla didn’t know what they were digging for, only that her parents and the others weren’t happy about it.
A screaming woman tried to scramble out of the hole, but a soldier shoved her down with a stick. Dirt kept flying out of the pit as villagers dug. Every now and then, a khaki-clad soldier would fire off a shot, though Mayla couldn’t tell if they were hitting anyone or just trying to scare them.
All the while, a four-wheeled Xangese landship stood shining in the sun, all copper and brass pipes and guns, its front affixed with a giant shovel that sloped into the earth. Why don’t they just use that? She wondered.
Mayla’s father tried to climb out next. He grabbed the stick that tried to push him down, but was hurled back by a soldier’s boot to his face.
Just dig, daddy, Mayla urged, whimpering. Just dig so they’ll leave us alone. The other children, Mayla’s friends and schoolmates, had been corralled into one of the hog pens. They cried, stretching their hands out toward the hole their parents were digging themselves into. The village was full of moans and screams, along with the more distinct noises of smashing pottery. These soldiers were angry, and Mayla had no idea why. What had her village ever done to them?
Shadows lengthened as the sun made its incremental shift across the cloudless sky. The hut’s shade gave Mayla some relief from the day’s heat, but it was scant. And still her family members and neighbors dug their hole deeper, letting the dirt pile higher and higher beside the pit as buckets of soil were passed up to the few quivering villagers toiling at ground level under the watchful eyes and ready boots of Xangese men.
At last, when it seemed to Mayla that her fellow villagers wouldn’t be allowed to stop until they reached the center of the world, one soldier with more shiny medals than any of the others, a man a little younger than Mayla’s father with a thin line of beard and hard eyes, shouted for the work to stop.
For some reason, this upset those inside the hole even more, increasing their pleading moans and terrified screams.
What now? Mayla squinted, peering past the weeds. They going to make them dig another one? The least the soldiers could do was give the villagers some water.
The man with the shiny medals nodded to the huddled group on the surface. Mayla’s aunt and uncle were among this group, as well as old Yugen, who always told the funniest stories. There was no trace of his usual mirth as the old man drew himself to full height and shook his head.
Shiny Medals drew his pistol and shot Yugen in the gut.
Mayla let out a little yelp at the sound, but it was muf
fled by her hands, drowned out by the screams that filled the air.
Old Yugen was still clutching his bleeding gut when a soldier kicked him into the pit.
Medals jerked his head and shouted a command, and the rest of the group, Mayla’s aunt and uncle included, climbed down into the hole, sobbing and clutching each other all the way.
Mayla held her breath, waiting for the next development. What was the point of all this?