Ironshield

by Edward Nile

  But Tanner had already walked away, hopping out of the truck and joining the others from their transport.

  Right, Aldren thought as he climbed out and heard the waves sloshing against the beach. That here.

  Local regiments had prepped the Bay of Rust in advance, laying down platforms made from logs tethered side by side across the white sand. Paths for Warsuits to walk across where they wouldn’t sink in the soft ground. Or at least Aldren thought that was the theory.

  Out on the water, the dark, hulking forms of Arkenian warships drifted along, awaiting the attack to come. Other uniformed young men pointed excitedly at the vessels. “Is that them?!” One particularly high-pitched voice called out.

  Aldren lit a cigarette. “No, pal,” he said, thinking of the Taisen’s massive, hideous shape. “When they get here, you’ll know.”

  **

  In the back seat of a small truck, Samuel brought his wife's silk handkerchief to his nose and breathed in her scent, caressing the folded letter she'd left with him between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. He'd committed the words of love and pride to memory but knew he'd read them over again. Samuel's wife would have come with him had he let her. But Leanne mutton wasn't a soldier, and he couldn't allow her to put herself in harm's way.

  Except she is, he amended to himself. Leanne was headed to Talenport to try to quell the flames sparked by recent revelations. Just because Samuel was leading the army for Arkenia's defense, and just because the man who'd set out to smear his reputation had been proven a liar and an Imperial traitor, did not mean all was forgiven. The public had forgotten nothing of Samuel Mutton's actions or those of his secretary. So Leanne had insisted on going to the hotbed of political strife in order to show face where Samuel could not. It was a volatile, dangerous place to be, but Samuel gave his blessing because it got her away from the battlefield.

  Paulson won't let anything happen to her, old man, Samuel told himself. Pity the person who crosses him.

  No, Samuel wasn't fearful for his wife's safety. Instead, more than he’d been in many years, he was afraid for his own. Not because the idea of death terrified him -he'd courted the bastard long enough not to delude himself about his mortality- but because if he died now, he’d be robbed of more time with his wife. Samuel had just got her back. To be ripped from this world right after Leanne forgave him would be a cruel fate. One he could very well face.

  The truck crested a ridge, and the Bay of Rust came into view beneath. Log platforms stretched over the beach, dark lines painted across pale sand. Trenches, gun emplacements, and sandbag fortifications filled the intervening spaces, and across the entire scene men strode this way and that, carrying ammunition and materials. A few field guns spotted the beach, but Samuel’s caravan was bringing most of the firepower.

  Sunlight broke through gray clouds, sparkled against the water lapping about between battleships.

  Not long now until oil, fire, and blood churned the serene waters into a frothing nightmare.

  ***

  "Position that fueling station about twenty meters forward and move this one a quarter mile to the north," Matthew Kaizer commanded as he looked over the hand-drawn map of the battle plan. Keeping the diesel trucks staggered and apart was important, both to keep one from taking down others if it was hit by artillery, and to give the Kriegers defending the resupply area room to maneuver.

  None of it'll matter, Matt, if that thing makes it this far up the beach. He wanted -needed- to be studying his father's hidden blueprints, to be finding a way to stop the Taisen that didn't involve letting it crawl up the beach through their army. He knew he could approach Samuel Mutton about it, tell the man his theory, get the go-ahead to leave the Warsuit placements in other hands.

  But those plans belonged to Matthew's father, a man who'd been considered a fugitive by Mutton and his ilk. And they'd been entrusted to Matthew at great risk. No, if anyone could decipher and apply Clint Kaizer's plan, it was his son. If Matthew couldn't do it, no one could. And if I'm wrong, better to not give anyone false hope.

  "Good to see you out and about," said James, coming up next to him. Ironshield and Tessa's new machine, formerly Radiance, had been erected that morning. They stood in battle-ready positions in the middle of being checked over and loaded with munitions.

  "I know that look Jim, and yes, it is necessary."

  "Look?" James raised his eyebrows. "Do I have a look?"

  "Just say your piece so I can get back to work."

  "Well, aren't you worried the extra fuel tanks might make us more likely to, I don't know, explode?"

  Matthew tucked his clipboard under his arm with a sigh. "You want to be stuck in the middle of the beach inside a pricey statue? Because that's what's going to happen if you run out of fuel when things get hot. Every time a vehicle goes out there to carry gas to one of your machines, it's a potential disaster. For you, and everyone on the ground."

  "So, you think we'll be able to win before needing resupply?" James asked. "Because even with the extra fuel, that's pretty optimistic."

  "Not really, Jim. If it gets to that point, if the monster the Xangese made my dad build gets on the beach and runs long enough for you to exhaust your fuel and ammo, it means we've lost already." Matthew slapped James on the shoulder. "So, don't let it get that far."

  He walked off to further inspect the line, not looking back for James' reaction. The Ironshield was braver than most, but Matthew knew he had to be remembering the fate of his predecessor. Heinrich Edstein had died here, his Warsuit's engine blown out by Xangese artillery. And James had seen it.

  Matthew had nothing he could say to reassure his friend that he wouldn't share his father's fate. So, it was better to say nothing.

  Then again, he thought, looking toward the embedded gold of Tessa Kolms' Warsuit as it glinted in the sunlight. Jim's got someone else to worry about, too.

  Chapter 39

  Redstripe stood tall in all its old might and glory, its crimson streak freshly touched up, its blades sharpened.

  Samuel leaned against a parked truck and looked at his machine as it was silhouetted by the ruddy light of the setting sun.

  On one side of it stood Ivan Kolms’ reconstructed Northern Dread, A top-heavy, hunched thing, each arm sporting a heavy pickaxe-shaped wedge of steel below large guns. Made for puncturing through enemy armor and tearing other Warsuits down.

  Arkenian resources bring the man his weapon back, and he doesn’t even have the courtesy to change the name. It only went to show how deep the anger of the Industrialists ran. Samuel could imagine what Ivan Kolms’ brother would be like, were he released from his prison cell and put in the cockpit of Retribution.

  Of course, that not being the case, that machine was once more titled the Southern Virtue in an equally divisive decision by Isaac Renalds. It stood a little to the south of Redstripe, tactfully apart from Ivan Kolms’ machine.

  Then, there were James Edstein and Tessa Kolms’ Kaizers. Samuel had been tempted to place those two in separate positions, fearful their relationship would cloud their judgment. In the end, he’d seen that for the mistake it would be. Heinrich and Emilia Edstein had fought hard, both for each other and the country, and no less so for being side by side. Samuel himself, Heinrich’s friend, had been near the man in the end.

  And sometimes I wish I hadn’t. He woke up in a cold sweat sometimes, after seeing Ironshield turn its back to the unseen battleship in his dreams. So close, he thought every time. If I’d only been a little faster, reached a little further… It was a regret he’d carry with him the rest of his life. A failure that left James Edstein an orphan and Arkenia short one of its greatest warriors. Samuel sipped his coffee. He’d taken a page out of Paulson’s book, pouring a shot of whiskey for ‘flavor.’ It wasn’t too bad.

  I wonder, Heinrich, he mused. Had you survived the battle here, would I have sided with Davids, after all? Or would you have convinced me, my friend, where even Leanne could not? It was an inter
esting possibility to think about. Interesting, but a waste of time, to ponder over what could have happened. Might as well think what could happen if the Xangese sink on their own before they get here. No such luck, Sam.

  The radio he’d brought with him crackled from the hood of the truck. Tossing the contents of his mug onto the sand, Samuel turned and adjusted the dials until he could discern the words being spoken.

  “Xangese ships spotted,” came the message from one of the scouting vessels. “ETA at beach at Oh-eight-hundred. They’ve got… God, I don’t know what that is.”

  “Yeah,” Samuel said to himself. “No such luck.”

  *

  “They did a decent job,” James said between swigs of vodka from the bottle he and Tessa shared.

  She raised an eyebrow at him as she took the next sip. “Who did a decent job at what?”

  James gestured at her Warsuit. “Stripping the chrome from that, making it look like a respectable machine. After the fighting’s done, they’ll be able to get rid of the gold shit.”

  Tessa smirked. She downed some vodka and passed it to James, then lifted her saber from the blanket beside her. It had once been Elliot Salkirk’s, embedded with jewels, even its handle plated in gold leaf. She’d had the jewels and the gold on the handle removed, replaced with a textured leather surface. The gold hilt and guard remained. “I’m not sure.” Tessa looked from the saber to the Warsuit. “The gold’s kind of grown on me.”

  James chuckled. She had a point, he supposed. Contrasted with the dull, dark iron of the rest of the machine, the embedded gold was particularly striking. “Not very discreet,” he pointed out, continuing to drink.”

  “It’s a hundred-foot metal man, Jim,” said Tessa. “I think stealth’s out the window already.”

  “Fair enough.” James passed the bottle back to her. Balmy, salt-flavored wind wafted over them, the spring sea air still carrying the faint trace of winter’s bite. They huddled together, James with his shirt half-open, his sleeves rolled up, Tessa with her sleeveless uniform, baring her scarred arms.

  “Are you nervous?” James asked.

  “What kind of question is that?” Tessa looked at her feet as she answered. She’d removed her boots and socks, and wiggled her toes in the cool sand.

  “A redundant one,” James responded. “I am too, you know.” He pointed past their Warsuits, out to the water. “He was right about there.”

  James saw her look over at him from the corner of his eye.

  “My father,” he elaborated. “He and Ironshield were right about there, heading back through the water. That’s where he got hit…”

  “I’m sorry,” Tessa said. “He was a good man, a good soldier. Your mother, too.”

  James nodded. “I wish they could see us, now.”

  “Maybe they can,” Tessa stretched out, and looked up toward her machine. “If they are watching, they’re in for a show.”

  “You never told me what you’re naming it,” James said.

  “Because I thought it would be obvious.” She leaned over and pulled his arm around her shoulders. Kissing his ear, Tessa told him.

  Voices crackled over a radio next to them, excited voices babbling over one another.

  The Xangese attack force had been spotted.

  **

  Aldren would never get used to waking up early.

  Like every soldier he’d done it time and again, rising with the dawn until it came naturally. But he never acclimatized to it. Even now, roused by loudspeakers from the hasty rest he and his comrades had been allotted before the enemy’s arrival, with battle approaching over the eastern horizon, Aldren found himself yawning as he relieved himself in one of the latrine shacks built along the rear of camp.

  Could be worse, Al. Could be at the farm, milking chickens or whatever the fuck Ma’s doing out there.

  Or better yet, he amended. A Talenport hotel, wallet fat from gambling and my head pounding from booze. Maybe with a girl or two in my bed. Mayla popped into his mind, looking at him in reproach from her hospital gurney.

  Aldren shook himself and buttoned his fly. Well that was never happening.

  If things at Gorrad had been busy, this was madness. Men and women jostled at the mess tables, what could very well be their last meals slopped into tin bowls that they dashed off with, eating as they moved to combat positions under the dark pre-dawn sky.

  Aldren didn’t feel particularly hungry. People evacuated their bowels when they died, and he didn’t want to leave a shit-stained corpse if he could help it. He moved beyond the soldiers’ tents, out toward his Krieger.

  “Good luck, Na’whatever,” Aldren said with a lazy salute to the tribesman bowing to his own painted machine. The man’s gunner stood off behind him, looking pale.

  Aldren chuckled, though he didn’t know what he found funny.

  His own Warsuit stood where he’d left it the night before. Its main body was a squat, twelve to fifteen-foot tall thing, its square bottom bearing wide treads, its top a torso with two bladed arms and a pair of large caliber machineguns. Above that and to the rear, somehow making the hulking machine even uglier, was a metal half-dome with cannons sticking forward from it. The gunner’s pit, where Tanner would soon be.

  The Krieger’s engine block was nothing compared to those on a Kaizer. A relatively small contraption in the rear bottom of the Warsuit, mostly covered by armor plating but for curved exhaust pipes pointing upward.

  Aldren lit a cigarette and leaned against the Warsuit, puffing and watching the first streak of sunlight slice its way along the eastern sea. And, little more than a series of black dots from here, he thought he could see the Xangese fleet.

  His job, alongside a few more Krieger teams, was to protect the refueling stations and, if it came to it, to escort diesel trucks toward the Warsuits further down the beach. If things went spectacularly in their favor, he might not have to do any fighting at all. Aldren didn’t believe for a second that would be the case.

  I should have died in Xang, or about a dozen times before that, Aldren thought. Can’t keep cheating it forever. Smoking, watching the sun rise on what was surely his last morning, Aldren wondered if he’d see Yannick, wherever he was going. If there even was a wherever to go. He’d never believed it before, didn’t see a reason to start now. But it was nice to dream.

  Footsteps on the rungs of the Warsuit behind him. “You go ahead and climb in,” Aldren said, exhaling. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  There was none of the usual scoffing or insults. Tanner must have been as introspective as Aldren, in the face of what was coming. Aldren heard a hatch clang shut as his gunner sealed himself inside.

  Yanny, Ma, I’m sorry. Aldren finished the cigarette and ground the butt beneath his heel. I’ve been a selfish prick my whole life. But maybe this will balance the ledger. It’s all I’ve got to offer.

  “Listen, Tanny,” said Aldren as he climbed down into the cockpit, enclosing himself in the darkness of the Warsuit. “Sorry about the dice game. If we make it out of this, I’ll get you a case of brandy or something.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that, Aldren Mal.”

  Aldren spun about. That wasn’t Tanner’s voice.

  Mayla Yin tipped an Arkenian military cap to him, a wry smile across her lips. “Never thought I’d see you in uniform,” she said. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  “Yeah, well, what else is new?” Aldren glanced to her leg. Even under the pants, there was a clear bulge where her wound was still bandaged. “You should be resting, healing up.”

  “And you should kiss my ass if you really thought you’d come up here and fight without me. I’ve come too far to let this chance slip through my fingers.” Her jaw clenched.

  “I didn’t know I was going to fight, May—”

  “I did,” she said. “Because you’re not the coward you pretend to be. Because you’re Yannick Mal’s brother.” Her voice cracked, saying Yannick’s name.

  Aldren’s eyes wi
dened. “You knew him, didn’t you?”

  Mayla was slow to nod. “Yes,” she said. “You can say that.”

  “It was you, then.” Realization dawned. “Not just Mutton or his secretary wanting a convenient spy. You wanted me on the mission.”

  “You were the right man for the job.” Mayla tilted her head. “Does that offend you?”

  Aldren smirked. “I’m just kicking myself it took this long to piece together, after that comment in the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t sweat it.” Aldren couldn’t wipe the grin from his face. If he was going to go into the maelstrom, at least he’d go with someone he’d fought alongside already. “Wait,” he said. “What happened to Tanner?”