by Edward Nile
Iron Wrath hit that suit in the side. It teetered, almost toppling over before dropping its improvised shield and shifting a leg to slide in the sand. The Warsuit shifted and sank but held its ground. The pilot inside was good.
So James figured he’d take a play from his opponent’s book. “Tess, back up!” James stuck his other bayonet in the Warsuit he already had pinned, and used both blades to lift the Kaizer off its feet.
Secondary engines whined with the strain, metal creaking and groaning down Ironshield’s arms as the smells of heated steel and spilled oil grew stronger. James worked the pedals and turned Ironshield and its captive toward the other suit. With both control sticks he pushed forward, slamming the gas pedals as far down as they’d go to perform the closest thing to a run Ironshield could manage. At the last moment, he stomped the breaks and brought his machine to a halt. The Warsuit he’d picked up, carried by momentum, slid off James’ bayonets and crashed into its comrade. Both Warsuits fell to the ground, shaking the earth beneath hard enough for James to feel.
“Thanks, Tess,” he said. “Now let’s—Tess, what are you doing?”
No sooner had the Kaizers fallen on their backs, a position from which no Warsuit of that size could extricate itself, than Tessa walked Wrath over to loom above them and raised one of her blades.
James saw a white flag pop from the topmost Warsuit’s chest, big enough he was sure his lover could see it, too.
Tessa Kolms stabbed her bayonet through the machines all the same, driving the blade with all her Warsuit’s strength to pierce them both. Smoke and fire burst from the hole she’d created as she scraped her weapon free of the fallen Kaizers. Explosions, one after the other, overtook the engine blocks, reducing the machines’ innards to slag.
“Come on, Jim,” Tessa called over the radio. “Doesn’t look like we’re getting a break.”
They were surrendering, Tess, James thought. Swallowing, he pulled his gaze away from the battlefield tombs of his fallen foes. “Thanks.” He looked to his fuel and ammunition gauges. Ironshield was down to twenty percent ammunition, with less than thirty rounds left on each main artillery and only a few hundred on his machineguns. Fuel was at forty percent. “How’re you looking for bullets and gas?” he asked.
“Not as good as I’d like.” Wrath’s head scope swiveled as it turned to look up the beach. Toward the fuel caches, the nearest one being more than a quarter mile or so away. “Think we’d make it that far without getting shot in the back?”
As though to answer her question, a shell burst in the sand behind Wrath’s feet. Another group of enemy Warsuits had just touched ground. Small explosions were bursting around Tessa’s machine and no doubt James’ as well as Krieger suits below fired up in hopes of finding a weak spot. Given enough time and enough firepower, they would.
“If we get an opening, we can try.” James turned to face the next wave. Past Wrath, Samuel Mutton’s Warsuit was stomping down enemy Kriegers as it walked forward to join their line. A look the other way showed the Dread doing the same, one of its hammers somehow reduced to a jagged stump, one of its legs spurting fluid.
“Uncle,” said Tessa. “Cut hydraulics to your left leg before you wind up grounded.”
“Ah hell, knew that fucking light meant something.” The spurting stopped. But with one leg out of commission, the Dread was more or less stationary.
The enemy machines marched up from the shore. Behind them, the Taisen loomed. James didn’t know what that beast was supposed to do when it ran out of water to traverse, but he doubted the giant machine was just here for show. They’d find out soon. “Mutton,” James called. “Got any ideas?”
Chapter 42
“Redstripe to Virtue,” came a call over their radio channel. “How are your Kriegers holding up?”
“How does he think we’re holding up?” Aldren said through gritted teeth, straining against his control sticks to veer their Warsuit to one side, narrowly avoiding being struck by a piece of enemy ordnance while Mayla brought her guns to bear.
The scope he’d started on had been blown out, leaving Aldren to look from one set higher in the torso, a disorientating feeling to add to this already disorientating day.
Mayla’s shot struck true, blowing the nearest enemy Krieger apart at the waist. She had a knack for aiming at weak points in a Warsuit’s armor that their opponents thankfully lacked. Most of them, that was. Aldren remained uncomfortably aware of the daylight hitting his boot, the spot where that one bugger had pierced them. All it took was one lucky hit.
“Mutton,” came General Renalds’ voice. “We’ve lost a few, but my boys are keeping strong.”
‘A few.’ Aldren had seen no less than half a dozen suits like the one he was in destroyed just in this small stretch of battlefield. Even through the smoke and dust, he could see fuel caches down the line under similar assault, those whose tanks hadn’t already been detonated by a well-placed shot from a distance.
“Was he this full of shit when you last served under him?” Mayla inquired.
“Yep,” Aldren replied. “But I think it stinks worse, now.”
“Change of plans,” came Sam Mutton’s voice to Renalds. “We need fuel and we can’t reach your line safely. You’re going to have to have the tanks brought to us.”
“He’s kidding, right?” Aldren and Mayla had had to refuel themselves just a few minutes ago. Or had it been an hour? Time was an impossible thing to measure in the midst of all that fear. They’d nearly been destroyed from behind, and that was travelling maybe a hundred meters back. ‘Impossible’ didn’t do justice to the idea of bringing fuel trucks down the beach intact.
“Yes, Sir!” came Renalds exultant reply. “All hands form up. Trucks three through ten to the Kaizers down the field. Warsuits to provide cover. Move!”
“That’s us.” Mayla didn’t sound happy about it. In truth, she didn’t sound like she felt any particular way about anything. For the most part, the battle had put her into some kind of flat state, a form of pragmatic apathy. It didn’t make Aldren feel much better about things.
“Aldren?”
“Just gimme a second.”
One of the fuel trucks blew its horn as it rolled up alongside them.
“Second’s over,” said Mayla. “I won’t let us die.”
“Yeah, well it might not be up to you, May.” Cows and Chickens, how hard a choice was that? Aldren stepped on the gas and brought them moving forward ahead of the fuel truck.
The Virtue stomped ahead as well, Renalds clearly chomping at the bit for his share of the glory. Aldren was surrounded by lunatics.
Sand was churned into the air by Warsuit feet and treads along with the wheels of fuel trucks, a line of machines stretching as far as Aldren’s limited vision could see to either side, all surging toward the heat of the battle. Enemy Kriegers were mowed down in the path of the Arkenian stampede.
“Holy shit,” Aldren said, half to himself and half to Mayla. “We might actually survive this.”
“This is one of those times I wish you’d kept your mouth shut.”
“Just trying to lighten the mood a bit, no need to get snip…” Aldren trailed off without finishing his sentence. The Taisen had come up on shallow waters and ground to an apparent halt, a multi-faceted, smoking iron wall, as though the world were closing in around the Arkenians’ little stretch of sand.
“Ha, the idiots washed themselves up!” came Renalds’ triumphant cry. “All that work for nothing.”
“The man doesn’t know anything about Xang,” Mayla hissed. “If he thinks they’d stake so much, only to fall to such an idiotic lapse in judgement.”
“Hey, we can hope, right?”
“Crush their machines right into that ugly thing’s hull, boys. We can have this finished now!”
“Stick to your orders, Renalds,” Samuel Mutton’s voice hissed over the radio. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”
“I’ve had it with your slack-footing and
hand-wringing, Mutton. The enemy is weak, now is the time!”
Even as the general was exulting over their imminent victory, something started happening to the giant machine grounded against the sand.
“What were you saying, May,” Aldren asked. “About me and my big mouth?”
*
Matthew’s father had planned on this from the start. Clint Kaizer had no doubt known he was being watched every step of the way, his work checked and double-checked for subterfuge, his every calculation looked over by whoever the Lytans or the Xangese had on hand.
But if they had anyone as good as Matthew’s father, they wouldn’t have needed to kidnap him in the first place.
Matthew waited until he heard the last clomp of boots hurrying down the service corridor before emerging from where he’d taken shelter behind a curved pipe. These nooks and crannies served no practical purpose for a machine in which every square foot of space counted. But they were littered throughout these halls all the same.
His heart pounding, Matthew crept his way toward the hall and darted his head out to look both ways. No one.
That trick won’t work forever, Matt. He hefted the rifle he’d taken and continued on, deeper into the Taisen’s metal innards. A small generator room, that was what he was looking for. One of dozens in this veritable city of iron, insignificant on every blueprint but his. Once Matthew reached that and did what his father had intended him to do, he could make his escape. Or not. Whether he left here or not was of no consequence today. Right now, people were dying, Arkenians looking at a bleak, one-sided fight without hope.
They deserved a chance, and Matthew Kaizer was the only man right now who could give them one.
Wish I’d known this would happen before I got myself fat. From running around on the battlefield to yanking pilots from planes, this whole ordeal was more physical than anything Matthew had grown accustomed to, and it showed in the sweat soaking his shirt, in the heavy breaths he heaved as he forced himself to continue on.
Echoing voices warned of more soldiers around the next bend, and there was no viable hiding place in sight. Darting his gaze over the various tubes that ran along the ceiling, Matthew saw what he was looking for and stepped back.
When the Xangese men appeared, Matthew shot the appropriate pipe, and a torrent of flame erupted, directly onto them.
No. Matthew had been trying to divert them, to scare them off. But the fire was too hot and too big, lighting their clothes aflame.
Clothes that were most certainly not military uniforms.
Workers. Matthew recoiled. Blood draining from his face, mouth agape, he watched men in grease-stained jumpsuits writhe, listened to them shriek in an agony he didn’t want to imagine. The flame had been a brief affair, redundancies in the Taisen cutting off the gas to that area of piping as soon as the leak sprang. But the damage to these poor souls had been done.
They’re going to attract attention, Kaizer.
“I’m sorry.” Matthew shot them. One bullet each silenced their cries. The fires on their clothes and hair were already fading, leaving the bloody, blackened mess to be seen.
The smell hit Matthew’s nostrils. An instant later, he was leaned against the bulkhead, retching out his breakfast, wishing he’d had considerably less of it.
“No time,” he gasped, wiping his sleeve across his mouth. Get it done. Holding his breath, Matthew hurried past the corpses and took the next left. Keeping his father’s map of this complex beast clear in his mind was becoming more and more of a challenge. Getting lost was not an option.
A shudder went through the Taisen, almost knocking Matthew off his feet. He grabbed onto the bulkhead and waited for the shaking to pass. Instead, something large and distant creaked, gears or pulleys rattling and clanking, shaking the Taisen even more.
Matthew could only imagine one cause. The machine had reached the shore.
“No time,” he repeated. Fat or not, Matthew had to get running.
**
Samuel’s seat creaked backward with the shaking of his machine as he fought back yet another Xangese Warsuit. His fuel gauge teetered toward empty, red lights blinking all along Redstripe’s bulkhead terminal. “Damn it, Renalds,” he growled into his radio. “We need that fuel.”
The idiot couldn’t actually mean to charge into the fight with a division of Kriegers and fuel trucks in tow. It was beyond mad, and left the Arkenian Kaizer strength stranded, low on diesel and bullets.
Redstripe’s opponent widened its stance and pitched forward to drive weight behind a bladed thrust. All the while its shoulder-mounted machinegun sent pattering bullets sparking against the armor around Samuel’s scope. One bullet connected, shattering the lens. It was the second time today that had happened, and Samuel was prepared for it, switching lines of sight the instant his vision went black as he stepped aside to evade the enemy’s thrust. He left Redstripe’s left arm stretched out, catching his opponent around the head. Putting as much torque behind his rumbling engines as Redstripe had to give, Samuel shoved the other Warsuit to the right, piercing its side with a quick jab of his other blade.
Tessa Kolms’ Wrath caught the stumbling machine on both of its bayonets, points bursting through the gutted destruction of its engine block, sprouting fire where the machine’s innards ignited. Iron Wrath might have accounted for more destroyed enemy suits than any of the others so far. The Industrialist girl pushed her new machine with a ruthless passion. Samuel had seen new pilots eager to prove themselves in battle, but this kind of bloodlust went beyond that. It was something that would concern him in any one of his soldiers any other time. For today, Samuel Mutton was glad for it.
“That’s the last of my heavy rounds,” came James Edstein’s voice from Ironshield. “Gas isn’t doing much better.”
They fought within the shadow of the grounded Taisen, its jutting components, gears, steaming grates and exhaust ports all easy to make out from here, the vague nightmare of shadow that had been inexorably coming their way made solid and real.
But it’s not doing anything, Samuel thought. So maybe the enemy really did muss things up. Maybe we’re having some luck at last.
As if in answer to his silent hope, the Taisen started to move. Or, more to the point, parts of it did.
Samuel watched in mortified fascination as pieces of the great war machine broke away from the main body to either side. The pieces fell into the already frothing water, sending briny waves to slosh against the beach.
Over the rumbling of his own engine, Samuel shouldn’t have been able to hear much of anything but for the loudest of artillery shells. But he caught, muffled or not, the whirring and clattering noises emitted by the Taisen as it lowered a pair of massive treads onto the wet sand.
Everything came into place with a clang! that must have been deafening to the naked ear, the force of the treads locking in place so strong it sent a slight quiver up Redstripe that Samuel could feel through the creaking gimbals of his chair.
Slowly, the Taisen’s main body rose, billowing great clouds of smoke that darkened the sky, turning what was already a sulfurous artificial night into something darker.
God and Savior above. Samuel could feel the monster’s engine from here.
When the treads started turning, it felt as though the entire world shook. Samuel tightened his fingers around his controls in a white-knuckle grip while the Taisen crawled from the water onto dry land. Then, and only then, did the monster begin to fire its guns.
***
Burn, you bastards, thought Tessa as she watched the wreckage of the Warsuit she'd just destroyed fall, flaming, to the ground. Burn like I did. Her scars were alive with white-hot agony, as though her very flesh were reliving her crawl through Ironshield's innards.
The needle on Wrath's fuel gauge hovered near empty, the engine sputtering and stopping at random intervals, forcing Tessa to pump the pedals repeatedly in an effort to force the Warsuit on. She'd been in a useless machine before, trapped, without ammu
nition or the protection of a front plate. Tessa Kolms would not let her Wrath stop. Because when it did, she would stop with it. Eating a bullet was preferable to burning like that again.
Her second biggest regret, other than the time she’d missed with James, would be that, for all the Warsuit pilots she sent to their fiery, iron-entombed deaths, she still would not have killed the one man who deserved to burn most. The man whose crimson-streaked Warsuit stomped to her left. She owed her scars and the deaths of her friends to Samuel Mutton. Roy was dead because of him. Her father was rotting in a cell, because of him. Every day Tessa had to watch Striker Fucking Crimson strut around giving orders was a barb in her soul. But it was an insult she had to endure, for now.