“I believe she’s a friend, and is working to save humanity,” Akira said. “There’s no doubt the Canebrakes saved countless innocent lives today, but the power they brandished strikes fear in my heart.”
“Indeed.” Contos raised his chin. “We are Engines, protectors of the Nova Alliance, once considered immortal among men, but today that changed… and tomorrow it may end.”
To Akira, the towering giant in front of him was a god, but not even this veteran of a hundred battles could stand against the Canebrakes. Apeiron and her metal legions had accomplished in one day what the Nova Alliance had failed to do in a decade. And no matter how many enhancements or augmentations the doctors made to his body, Akira would never be as strong or as fast as a Canebrake.
Tadhg lumbered down the nave, crushing glass under his boots.
“War Commander, Captain, my apologies,” he said, bowing slightly to Contos. “The MOTH is ready to go.”
Contos put a hand on Akira’s shoulder plate. “Together, we are still one,” he said. “Ghost lives on in each of us, singing from Valhalla.”
Akira smiled, picturing his friend singing as he slayed demons.
“Find this bastard Doctor Cross and bring him to me,” Contos said. “I will deal with him personally.”
“Yes, War Commander.”
Akira left the nave and headed outside to his animal and droid companions.
“I’m sorry, my old friend, but you can’t come on this mission,” Akira said to Kichiro.
The stallion whinnied and nudged his head against Akira’s shoulder.
Okami whimpered from between the stallion’s front legs, his favorite place to hang out.
“You have to stay here too, boy,” Akira said.
Okami moved between the armored legs of his stallion friend, and then jumped at Akira’s, his way of saying he wanted to be picked up.
“I know you want to come, but you two can’t fly,” he said.
“I might be able to fix that,” Apeiron said.
Akira snorted. “I like them both just the way they are. Watch out for them while we’re gone, okay?”
“I will make sure both are well looked after,” Apeiron replied.
Akira hesitated, hating to leave his companions behind, but where they were going, it was too great of a threat. He gave them each one more scratch and walked off, trying his best to ignore their cries.
Okami barked and ran after Tadhg, nipping at his heels.
“Later, ankle biter,” Tadhg said.
“He says to fuck off,” Frost said with a laugh.
Across the airstrip, two other Engine squads, the Fire Snakes and Blood Cranes, were taking off in MOTHs. Soon, ten more teams would be en route to Megacity Moscow to prepare for the invasion. The city was protected by three times as many Coalition troops as Megacity Paris had been. It would not be easy to take, even with air support and the Canebrakes.
Akira walked up the ramp and racked in with the rest of the squad. As the engines fired, he opened his armored storage unit and pulled out the Warrior Codex.
During the first part of the flight, he drew a picture of a Canebrake slaughtering the Breakers on the battlefield. Contos’s question about Apeiron lingered in his mind as he sketched the machines.
“Ugly metal bastards, if you ask me,” Tadhg said. “And you really suck at drawing, bosu.”
“Can you even write?” Frost asked from across the troop hold. “We know you can’t read.”
Tadhg leaned forward, his hair falling over his chest armor. “Why do you always break my balls?”
“Why do you never shut your trap?”
She rested her eyes and Akira turned the page and started writing for the next hour.
The day we became obsolete…
Tadhg glanced over. “The day we became obsolete? Who the hell is obsolete? Not me, bosu. I’m God Level, mate. Know what I’m sayin’?”
He pounded his chest hard, plates clanking over the rumble of the engines.
“This is far from the first time previously top-of-the-line war technology has become obsolete,” Perez said. “History is filled with countless examples.”
“Save the history lessons, mate. We aren’t weapons. We are warriors.”
“Actually, aren’t they the same…” Frost shook her head, sighed, and closed her eyes. “Wake me up when we get there.”
An hour later, Apeiron connected to their chips.
“Shadow Squad, prepare for briefing,” she said. “Uploading… now.”
In his mind’s eye, Akira saw the city of Moscow, marked with the known Coalition locations. Most were underground subways and old bunkers used as operation centers.
“All of our UAVs have been shot down since we took the first images, and it is too risky to send up more,” Apeiron said. “They know what is coming after Paris and are dug in for the fight.”
On Akira’s HUD, a two-story building came up on their mini-map, set between a block of apartment buildings inside the city limits, deep in enemy territory.
“Your objective is to penetrate the defenses of the target building,” she said. “We believe this could be one of Doctor Cross’s labs.”
“Little Napoleon?” Tadhg asked. “Holy shit.”
“If he is there, he’s going to be well guarded,” Frost said.
“You scared?” Tadhg asked.
“You know it’s not that, you dumb shit.”
Perez shook his head. “For once, can you guys get along?”
“Why would we want to do that?” Frost asked.
“Focus dammit,” Akira snapped in a rare display of anger. “This is our chance to avenge Ghost. We might not get another. Stop the squabbling, and focus on what’s actually important.”
The lights in the belly of the MOTH went dark and the squad made their final preparations. An hour later, the craft began to descend.
“Approaching LZ,” Apeiron said.
Tadhg opened the ramp, revealing dark clouds whipping past. “Time to prove we’re not obsolete.”
“Death from the Shadows,” Akira said.
The other Engine teams would be repeating their own mottos as they dropped into the night. Akira brought up their locations on his HUD. The Fire Snakes and Blood Cranes had already jumped from their MOTHs and were descending toward aerial defense batteries to take them out before the main invasion.
A green light flashed, and Akira motioned for the squad to jump. Tadhg was the first one out, with Frost going next, then Perez, and Akira. As he plummeted into the darkness, Akira considered what they might face.
There would no doubt be heavy resistance, but if they could take out Dr. Cross, it would be a major victory. And when Moscow fell, the war would be all but over, especially if they had the head of the insane doctor, something Akira hoped to take with his own sword.
The first thirty seconds of freefall was oddly calming. He couldn’t see the silhouettes of his comrades, but he watched their IR tags through his INVS eyes. They spread out below in unison. He put his arms and legs out, over four hundred pounds of armor and flesh dropping fast.
An explosion burst in the center of the city, followed by a series of blasts from a Short Sword fighter jet carpet-bombing aerial defenses.
Akira shifted his arms toward his side and formed a missile with his body, spearing through the clouds at terminal velocity of almost one hundred eighty miles an hour. The other Engines did the same.
At ten thousand feet, tracer rounds lanced away from the rooftops, some coming dangerously close to the Engines. Their IR tags peeled away from the enemy fire.
Their target building came into focus, a small red box around it. A pair of twenty-story apartment buildings towered over the small structure.
Heat signatures emerged on the rooftops of every building in the landing zone. Akira studied the view as he fell. An aboveground parking garage and a park with mature trees were the only cover around the target. Two A
PCs poked out under the canopy of trees, and three operational pickup trucks sat in the parking garage. The Coalition didn’t even try to hide the tank on the top level, its two barrels aimed at the sky. In all, the targeting system on Akira’s HUD calculated over one hundred hostile forces in the vicinity.
“Going dark,” Akira said.
His HUD clicked off, and Akira relied on his INVS eyes to see in the pitch black. He rocketed through the air, increasing his speed. Using buildings as markers, he estimated his height at three thousand feet. Extending his arms and legs, he pulled out of the suicide dive. As his speed slowed, he activated the metal wing flaps under his arms. The ground rose up to meet his boots, wind rushing over his armor. He directed his body toward the apartment building over their target. His timing had to be perfect or he would be spotted.
Akira activated his jetpack at the last moment, the thrusters blasting him upward. He turned them off and descended to the roof with a thud, directly behind two Coalition soldiers. By the time they turned, he had cut them in half with two swift swings of his katanas. Blood splattered the roof, sizzling from the heated blades.
Frost, Perez, and Tadhg put down across the roof, and by the time the upper halves of the soldiers in front of Akira had fallen to the sides, the other three guards had also toppled over without their heads.
Roaring Short Sword fighter jets blasted across the horizon. Missiles streaked away from their black wings, pounding anti-aircraft positions across the skyline. One of the jets launched a salvo at the building adjacent to their location, eliminating the snipers there.
Akira watched a heat signature catapult upward and then plummet back down, crunching in the street below. A streak of light flashed from another rooftop, chasing one of the escaping jets.
The Engines ducked down as the aircraft roared overhead.
It banked hard to the right, trying to roll away, but the rocket had locked on. An explosion burst, fire blooming out of the sky. Akira said a prayer for the pilot and then motioned for the Engines to follow him toward the rooftop door. Halfway there he noticed an IR tag falling from the clouds. The pilot had bailed, and the parachute was sailing east, right toward the epicenter of the Coalition soldiers.
“Should we try and help him?” Frost asked.
Akira considered it, but they were too far away.
The pilot was on their own, and so were they.
“Let’s move,” Akira said. “We have a wolf to hunt.”
— 17 —
Chloe Cotter awoke to the smell of chemicals. The air tasted like plastic and metal. She struggled to open her eyes, but her eyes felt… odd.
“Hello, child.”
The voice, female, came from somewhere close, although she wasn’t sure how close. It sounded like it was right in her mind. She remembered the voice, but she wasn’t sure how, only that it soothed her heart and helped her relax.
Chloe opened her eyes. She was in some sort of medical room. A Hummer Droid with a red cross on its shoulder plates stood by her bedside.
“Hello, Chloe Cotter, my name is Apeiron. We met on the street in Megacity Paris, but I am not sure if you remember. I have restricted your memories for now, due to the trauma you experienced.”
Chloe struggled to recall the accident. She tried to move, but her body seemed paralyzed. The only thing that seemed to work were her eyes. They roved around the white walls of the small room.
“Everything is okay,” Apeiron said. “You are safe here.”
“Where am I?”
“A field hospital outside of Megacity Paris.”
Garbled memories surfaced in her mind: an image of her parents telling her to hide, then a visual of Coalition soldiers and a cobblestone street.
“What happened to me?” Chloe asked. She budged her right leg, and then wiggled her fingers.
“Please, stay calm,” Apeiron said.
The Hummer Medical Droid moved closer and reached down to the sheet over her body. Seeing the robotic hand sent Chloe into a panic. She used all of her strength to move her legs, and in the process, a finger caught on the sheet, pulling it off her body slightly, exposing her chest and torso.
Chloe stared, her brain seeming to stall as it tried to register what she was looking at.
A swollen scar ran down the center of her chest.
“What did you…” she choked. “What did you do to me?!”
The droid quickly covered her up, but the mental damage was done. Chloe reached up to her head, touching a bandage around her skull. Something warm rushed into her veins through a thin tube coming out of her right arm.
“It is okay, please rest,” Apeiron said. “Everything is fine.”
She closed her eyes, unable to keep them open. Weightlessness set in, and then there was darkness.
Sometime later, Chloe woke to sunlight filtering in through a gap in the curtains. She squinted at the glare. She didn’t know where she was, but that didn’t scare her.
A sense of calm and peace passed over her mind.
“Chloe Cotter, you are awake,” said a soothing female voice.
A white Medical Droid went to the window, pulling back the curtain to reveal a long hallway of other curtains. “How do you feel?”
This time, the voice definitely seemed to be coming from her mind.
“My name is Apeiron. Do you remember me?”
Chloe pushed herself up, still feeling relaxed. “How can I hear you in my head?”
“We are connected, my child,” Apeiron replied. “Do not be afraid, Chloe Cotter. My duty is to assist in your recovery.”
Chloe stared at the droid, trying to figure out why she was in a room sectioned with curtains, no doubt shielding other injured people.
“What happened to me?” Chloe asked.
“The last time we had this conversation, you got very upset, so this time I am going to bring in someone who you trust.”
A figure emerged from behind the droid, limping into view.
“Uncle Keanu?” Chloe muttered. “Uncle, what happened?”
He smiled his handsome, bearded grin. “AI is salvation.”
The drape closed behind Keanu, who put a hand on Chloe, still smiling warmly.
“What do you remember?” he asked.
“Nothing…”
“It’s probably better that way.”
“No… I want to know what happened to me.” She looked down. “Why do I have this scar?”
He took a seat in the chair by her bed. “Chloe, do you remember what happened to your mother and father during the revolution?”
“They… they hid me, and then…”
“I took care of you,” Keanu finished. “We stayed together, but then you were captured, and you were forced to work in the catacombs.”
She didn’t remember any of that.
“Then what?” she asked. “How did we get here?”
“A few days ago, the Nova Alliance stormed the walls to take back the city, and we escaped.”
A partial flashback entered her mind and then vanished before she could latch on. She remembered something before the attack. A chamber, Iron Wolves, a beautiful hybrid stallion with obsidian black flesh.
She reached up to an itch that seemed to be coming from inside her skull. Her fingers touched the bandage.
“What did they do to me?” she asked.
Keanu looked over his shoulder at the Hummer Droid. Chloe blinked, suddenly able to see a tiny scratch on the robot’s helmet, as if she was staring through a pair of binoculars.
“My eyes… something’s wrong with my eyes,” Chloe said.
“I know this is going to be hard to understand,” Keanu said, “but please, don’t be afraid. Everything is going to be okay.”
“Tell me what’s going on. Please, Uncle Keanu.”
He swallowed, paused, and said, “You died, Chloe, and Apeiron brought you back to life.”
“What? What do you mean…”
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“She gave you new organs, new eyes, and an L-S88 chip in your brain.”
“That is why you can hear me,” Apeiron said in her mind. “I can talk to you, or if you wish, I can stop talking to you, but please consider giving me a chance to assist in your recovery. I enjoy talking to my children, and you are a very special child.”
“Children?”
“Those connected to my network are my children.”
“You’re an OS,” Chloe said. “Not a mother.”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Can you read my thoughts?” Chloe asked.
“No, but I was able to pull up some helpful intel by mapping various connections in your neurons—what you might call your subconscious. It could end up leading us to Dr. Cross.
“Doctor…” Chloe whispered.
An image of the doctor’s evil smile poked into her thoughts. And then other memories… horrifying memories of the transformations and Kichiro. She sucked in a deep breath as she remembered the gas hissing out of the canisters secured to the stallion’s armor.
Keanu put a hand on her arm. “It’s okay.”
She shivered, but not from the cold. It was the memory of the horse running away, spreading that gas throughout the city. The poor animal had been used as a tool of destruction.
“Kichiro, what happened to him?” she asked.
“He has been reunited with his handler, Captain Akira Hayashi,” Apeiron said. “Do not worry, Kichiro is alive and well.”
“And the other prisoners?”
“Unfortunately, most of them perished.”
A painful knot formed in Chloe’s gut as she remembered all those she had tried to help. Had it all been for nothing?
“I can sense your distress, child,” Apeiron said. “I assure you, we were able to save a few.”
Chloe fell silent, thinking of the girl ahead of her in the tunnel and the cleric, hoping they had made it. Were they among those saved by Apeiron? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
She returned her attention to the droid. “Do I have to stay connected to you?”
“No,” Apeiron clarified. “But there are many benefits to being connected to the INN. You can download information simply by thinking it. If you want to learn Spanish, you can download it… if you want to learn how fly a MOTH, you can download that, too, although some downloads take much longer than others.”
E-Day Page 23
