Ironshield

by Edward Nile

  **

  Hunched over by the stabbing pain in his gut, Matthew Kaizer hobbled down the next corridor, dark blood dripping from where it seeped through his fingers. The soldier had been maybe eighteen years old, if that. Just a kid. Matthew hadn’t seen him until it was too late, until the bullet hit his stomach. Matthew’s return shots had been frantic, wild, but they’d done the trick, leaving the boy a limp mess on the metal floor. Of course, that didn’t help Matthew’s predicament now.

  Nothing like getting shot to remind me what I’m not, he thought, groaning through a clenched jaw. He was a goddamn mechanic, a mechanic who’d decided to attack Xang’s secret weapon head on, by himself. And it looked like he’d die because of it.

  Not yet, Matt, he told himself. Not until you do what you came here to do. By the muffled booming from the front, the Taisen had opened fire with its guns as it rumbled onto land. Matthew couldn’t imagine the Xangese going through all this effort without having packed some serious artillery. His people were running out of time, no doubt fighting tooth and nail as the Taisen made its way onto Arkenian soil.

  Almost there, Matthew told himself. His boot slipped on some of his own blood, and he just managed to catch his fall by grabbing a hot pipe. Matthew screamed, stumbling back into the opposite wall, a new agony joining the others as he looked at the red welt across his palm.

  Other shouts answered him from behind, and Matthew fumbled for the rifle hanging off his shoulder while a pair of Xangese men emerged from the corridor he’d just left.

  His rifle slipped from blood-slicked fingers, and as Matthew saw the soldiers raise their own weapons, he knew he was dead. Made a good run of it, he thought as he raised his hands.

  Matthew heard the creaking groan an instant before the soldiers did. Unlike them, he knew enough about machines like this to predict what came next. Matthew threw himself against the bulkhead again and wedged himself against a wall panel half a second before the Taisen lurched to a groaning halt, throwing his assailants to the ground.

  He expected the Taisen to continue moving any instant, thinking there was no possible way the defenders had effectively stopped its motion. The beast lurched and rumbled for maybe a few feet more, but whatever was happening out there had essentially halted its progress.

  Can’t count on that lasting. Matthew dashed off, continuing in the direction he’d been heading as the soldiers’ shouts followed him. So did their bullets, striking sparks against bulkheads and ceiling.

  Several hurried twists and turns later, bleeding, feeling as though the bullet wound in his gut were tearing wider with each stride, Matthew threw himself into what appeared to be a small, insignificant generator room and bolted the narrow door shut behind him.

  He turned and studied the small space, every wall covered in metal pipes where they weren’t twisted to make room for blinking panels replete with switches and buttons. The droning noise of the generator itself was close enough to drown out the rest of the Taisen’s perpetual roar, filling Matthew’s ears.

  His memory had taken him this far, but now Matthew pulled out a piece of his father’s blueprint, a collection of torn scraps from sheets of various shades taped together to form a map of the generator and surrounding components.

  Someone hammered at the door to his back. They’d get in, given long enough.

  Well, Dad, Matthew thought, wincing at the increasing agony of his wound. Here I am. Show me the way. It looked like gibberish, the twisted lines and hand-scrawled notes barely resembling anything of the reality Matthew looked at now. That was, until he allowed himself to see without really looking, until he let go of what the image should have been and let the truth reveal itself. As Matthew looked at the paper with an impartial eye specific lines popped out to him, lines he could trace to their corresponding pipes along the walls. He followed one of these lines in particular, one that ran from behind an electrical panel to the bottom of the generator. And a note next to it.

  Flip the lever.

  Matthew got onto his hands and knees. The movement nearly had him flat on the floor as his bleeding gut threatened to drag him into unconsciousness. His vision blurred in and out of focus as he crawled forward and, by the lone light of the single bulb that shone from the ceiling, peered into the shadowy crevice by the pipe to see a tiny lever, its rust-colored metal matching the rest of the generator so well that someone not looking might not see it at all.

  With a burned, bloody hand, Matthew gripped the lever as something solid banged against the door. The soldiers were using some sort of ram, trying to burst through. It wouldn’t take them long now.

  It was a fresh pain, clutching the lever, but Matthew grunted his way through it and yanked with everything he had.

  The light went out, the droning of the generator stopped.

  By the renewed shouting of the muffled voices outside, whatever he’d done had had a similar effect out there. Was that all it was, Dad? he wondered. Going to have to do more than shut the power off. He reached into the pouch he’d brought along, past a bunch of tools it turned out he didn’t need, and pulled out a small flashlight. After nearly dropping it from shaking, slippery fingers, he finally managed to press the button and place the flashlight between his teeth to read. Matthew searched the paper for his father’s next instructions, his fingers leaving bloody, smeared prints over everything they touched. What was it his father said to do after pulling the lever?

  One word jumped out, made bolder than the rest, hidden in a set of generic instructions but clear for Matthew to see.

  Run.

  Chapter 44

  “Kolms, don’t lose focus.” Samuel tried to be heard over the young woman’s anguished wails, watching in impotent desperation as a key member of their team broke free from where she’d been helping hold the Taisen at bay to stomp toward her fallen loved one, crying into her radio to a man who was clearly dead. There was no reasoning with Iron Wrath’s pilot, not now.

  As Wrath separated from the enemy machine, Samuel felt the Taisen press down on Redstripe with renewed force, causing his Warsuit to creak and rattle with increasing volume, its engine noise turned to an unhealthy, tearing roar, like a dying animal struggling in its dying moments. His lack of fuel wouldn’t matter soon enough. Three Warsuits couldn’t hope to content with the Xangese beast, even fully operational. Nothing could be done. “You have all fought well,” Samuel said into the open radio frequency. “For my part, I’m sorry for everything that happened. For the mistakes I made.” Samuel continued to grip his control sticks after the transmission. He wouldn’t stop fighting, not until the very last. But, in his heart, he made peace with his end. Arkenia would have to find its way forward without the old guard, without the Kaizer Engines. Someone, somehow, would find a path to freedom again. He had to believe that, if nothing else.

  “Almost there, Mutton.” The voice belonged to Aldren Mal, of all people. Where Renalds had ran away, the spy’s brother, the conscript, was heading toward danger, a tank of explosive fuel with him.

  “Get back, Sargent,” Samuel replied, his voice weary. “It’s over—”

  “With all due respect, Senator, suck my ass. I’m bringing it your way, along with a whole lotta gas.”

  Samuel was opening his mouth to reprimand Mal when the laughter snorted out. How absurd all this was. He was going to die surrounded by his former enemies, while a known coward spouted vulgarities on his way to some futile rescue effort.

  Redstripe groaned louder, the gears at its knees clanging as they were mashed against one another by the Taisen’s pressure. The brief laughter died on Samuel’s lips. Here it comes. If his death was anything like the one his unlikely comrade had just suffered, at least it would be fast.

  Instead of crushing him, the Taisen did something completely unexpected. Its engine, so powerful it shook Redstripe like a leaf on a branch, rumbled to a slight quiver, then choked to a stop. The pressure ceased as the massive Xangese machine went still.

  “What are they doi
ng now?” came Tessa’s choked voice.

  “Probably stopping to better aim their guns,” Samuel said. “We need to refuel while we have the chance.” It wouldn’t win the battle for them, but it’d let them hold out just a little longer. “Mal?”

  “On my—holy fuck!”

  A fiery flash burst from one of the Taisen’s vents, then another. The beast shook with explosion after muffled explosion, exhaust ports and grates sprouting fire.

  Samuel didn’t know what to make of what he was seeing. At first, he figured it to be some new weapon, another trick up the enemy’s mechanized sleeve.

  Then, the flaming form of a Xangese soldier leapt from the Taisen’s upper deck and smacked against Redstripe’s armor close to Samuel’s scope.

  “Mutton,” came a voice Samuel took a few moments to recognize.

  "Matthew?" Samuel said, uncertain. "Matthew Kaizer, is that you?"

  *

  He lay in the wet sand, holding a wadded bit of his shirt against his wound as he watched the Taisen explode section by section.

  There'd been a hatch hidden next to the generator, opening to a shaft with a ladder going straight down to the Taisen's underbelly. It must not have seemed like much when it was installed, amid all the other intricacies of the massive work.

  It was an ugly, scary piece, Dad, Matthew thought. But I'm sorry all that work went to waste. Who was he kidding? The real masterpiece, the real bit of Clint Kaizer's genius, was not the Taisen itself, but it's undoing.

  "Matthew Kaizer, is that you?" chirped his portable radio.

  Along either side of the beach, enemy Warsuits were converging toward the Taisen, intent on wiping out the last of the western Kaizers. For whatever that was worth, now. Xang's assault had failed. Without their lynchpin, they'd run out of fuel and ammunition before they could get far inland.

  Men fell burning and screaming from the Taisen's deck, while ignited ordnance caches and guns burst into bright flowers of white and red flame.

  Matthew grinned at the show even as he raised the radio to his mouth. "You hurry up and get refueled. There's still some fight coming your wa…” his words faltered. Enemy Warsuits had been turning around to make a mad run for the fallen Taisen. But as Matthew spoke, a machine burst apart at the legs, its hydraulics exploding from within. Similar things happened to another Xangese machine. Then another.

  Matthew’s laugh turned into a cough. Both sent stabs of pain through his wounded stomach.

  **

  “My father, he played things close to the chest. Didn’t even send word with the Sargent of what he did to the Warsuits.” Matthew Kaizer’s breathing sounded heavy. “God damn, but he’d have had to do some fine tuning, for them to fail like this now and not during a test.”

  “Kaizer? Where are you?”

  “Enjoying a lay down on the beach,” Kaizer coughed. “You should join me when you get the chance, Mutton. You and a few medics.”

  “Help’s on the way,” Mutton replied. “Redstripe to rear lines, send stretchers and medical evac vehicles down the beach, now. The fight’s over.”

  “Oh come on!” Aldren shouted to no one in particular. Into the radio, he said: “So do you folk need gas or not?”

  “There’s still work to do,” came Mutton’s reply. “Look.”

  A ramp was lowering from the Taisen, and Xangese soldiers and mechanics, soot-faced and panicked, were flooding down it, throwing their weapons aside and raising their arms above their heads. Xangese Warsuit pilots were doing the same.

  “Don’t suppose you picked up enough of the language in Xang to accept their surrender, Mal?”

  “I can handle it,” said Mayla, bringing her Krieger in front of the human wave.

  “Yin? What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Easy, Mutton,” said Aldren, leaning back to marvel that he was still alive. “She’s only human after all, how could she resist following this handsome mug?”

  “Shut up and refuel the machines, Mal.”

  Aldren looked at the various levers and switches next to his seat. “Say,” he said. “How the hell does this thing work, anyway?"

  Chapter 45

  Two months later.

  "I am an Arkenian senator!" Elliot Salkirk shouted as he was forced toward the scaffold. "A war veteran, a lord, God damn you! This is a fraud. A disgrace!"

  His pleas echoed through a courtyard so silent one might have thought it empty. Were it not, of course, for the sounds of cameras flashing and rain pattering on unfurled umbrellas. Members of the press, invited here as witnesses on behalf of the public, were making sure to document every morbid second.

  Samuel wondered what the Arkenian Star would have to say, now that Salkirk no longer owned it.

  Senators and other political figures stood at attention in the courtyard as well. A small audience, considering this was the first traitor to be hanged in Arkenia since Yannick Mal.

  “It should be more public,” Leanne Mutton said softly beside him, watching Salkirk be marched to his death from under her umbrella.

  “Pictures and reports from every angle don’t make it public enough?” asked Samuel. “Every man and woman in Arkenia is going to see him hanging by his neck, right on the front page of tomorrow’s papers. God willing, Lytan will see it too.”

  “Those men and women should be here, watching.” Leanne pursed her lips in distaste. “He deserves the humiliation.”

  Samuel knew what she meant. He hadn’t seen Yannick Mal’s execution with his own eyes, but Paulson’s report of the affair had been enough to make his blood boil, regardless of what side Samuel fought for. “He does deserve it,” Samuel agreed. “But we’re better than him. Our people will see enough death in the times to come without reveling in it now.”

  “I know.” Leanne touched his hand. It was just a brush of her fingers against his, but it sent warmth washing through him, nonetheless.

  Salkirk continued to shout and struggle, tripping his way up the gallows steps. Once he was on the scaffold, Nathaniel Davids ascended a dais erected across from it and approached the covered podium.

  “Elliot Salkirk,” the president called over the pattering rain. The courtyard was small, and the audience close enough that he didn’t bother with a loudspeaker. “You have been tried and convicted for the crimes of treason, conspiracy to commit murder, among…” Here, Davids flipped through sheets of paper on the podium before clearing his throat. “Among other crimes. A pity we don’t have all day.”

  A few chuckles broke out among the quiet spectators.

  “for these offenses,” the president continued. “You are condemned to die. Do you have anything to say before sentence is carried out?” Davids’ mouth curled in a wry half smile. “Or have you already said your fill?”

  “I have something to say, lecherous old cur,” Salkirk growled, straightening to his full height, bearing himself for all the world as though he were the one in charge, despite his wrinkled and rain-drenched clothes and unshaven face. “You believe your puny nation has won a great victory.” He swept his gaze about the courtyard, pausing on Samuel in particular. “That you’ve bested the might of the Empire yet again. All this you believe, because you struck one of their pawns from the board. But you have only seen a glimpse of Lytan’s wrath. The world belongs to the Empire. You blithering children moaning about your precious ‘freedoms’ would do better to embrace it before you are all destroyed as an example. Death will be the least of what your people suffer, if you do not submit.”

  “A fine threat,” said Davids, clearly deciding the man’s speech was over. The president nodded to the executioner.

  The rope was placed around Salkirk’s neck. From where he and Leanne stood to the rear of Davids’ dais, Samuel was satisfied to see the condemned traitor flinch. Salkirk had found some backbone, here at the end of his days, but he was still a coward at heart.

  “Elliot Salkirk, you will now hang from the neck until you are dead.”

  Salkirk’s teeth clen
ched in something between a grimace and a sneer. “Long live the Emp—”

  The trapdoor fell open beneath him. With a snap, the rope went taut as Salkirk dropped.

  Salkirk wasn’t lucky enough to suffer a broken neck. He kicked and turned, letting out gurgling noises as his face darkened, suffused with blood. The dying man stared at Samuel with bulging eyes.

  When the struggling stopped, those eyes were still open, still staring as Elliot Salkirk’s form swayed from side to side with residual momentum.

  Samuel stayed where he was as the courtyard cleared out bit by bit, looking at the traitor’s corpse. The body of the man who’d tried to have him killed twice. The man who roped Samuel into betraying his own morals.