Four Canebrakes impaled the injured Pistons. To the east, the main structure of the base was completely destroyed, smoke blotting out the skyline. Two damaged guard towers vented smoke, one completely destroyed with a Piston crumpled at the bottom of the ladder.
Akira confirmed there were no Canebrakes within range and slotted his rifle. He took out his swords, slicing through a pointless metal fence marked by signs that read, No Trespassing, Authorized Personnel Only. He opened a doorway for the team and signaled orders to the squad.
Frost went to the second guard tower. Ghost brought Allen toward the parked APCs, while Tadhg and Akira moved to engage the four Canebrakes.
By the time the machines detected them, Akira had the first target locked on his HUD.
Frost put a .50 cal round into the chest of one of the Canebrakes, and Akira and Tadhg lit up the other three with a storm of bolts. They went down in a flurry of twisted limbs.
“Cover us, Frost,” Akira said.
They made it across the tarmac to the hangars without being detected. Ghost and Allen got into one of the APCs, and Akira continued to the middle hangar with Tadhg.
Inside, there would be an entrance to the tunnels, taking them into the base where his family was sheltering, if they were still here. As he approached the wide doors, Akira heard the hydraulics of a Juggernaut.
“We got friendlies,” he said. “Open it up.”
Tadhg grabbed the door handle just as it exploded outward. The door pinned him under its weight. A Juggernaut powered through the opening, but this one wasn’t powered by a Piston pilot. Instead, a Canebrake aimed the two arm cannons at the APC Ghost was driving. Bolts slammed into the vehicle’s armor in heated orange glows.
The Juggernaut turned one of the spewing cannons on Akira as he rushed it with his swords. He blasted into the air, streaking away. On the ground, Tadhg pushed the door off and got up, drawing his sword. The Canebrake in the Juggernaut mech suit continued to fire, one arm aimed at the APC and the other at Akira.
“Apeiron, if you can hear me,” Tadhg screamed, “this is for Perez, you fucking bitch!”
He swung his sword, hacking through the exoskeleton’s neck rods and the Canebrake’s titanium neck in one swift stroke.
A flurry of electronic shrieks echoed out of the hangar as six Canebrakes bounded out of the underground tunnel that Akira had hoped to access. Seeing them emerge from the depths of the facility ripped hope from his heart. He let out a war cry and charged.
“Bosu, wait!” Tadhg yelled.
A stream of plasma fire tore into the Canebrakes as they fanned out. Akira slid under two segmented arms that whipped toward his head. Hopping up, he whirled and cut through two more arms as three bolts slammed into the head, dropping the machine like a rock. The other five scampered on their spider-like legs past Akira, heading for the APC and Tadhg.
Tadhg fired his pulse cannon, spraying plasma bolts at the Canebrakes. A second one went down in the flurry, and Frost finished a third with a head shot.
The other three made it to the APC, a swarm of telescoping arms lancing through the air. Ghost met one head-on with his swords, while the second bounded around the vehicle, standing up and raising its blades to attack Allen. He fired at the head and chest, pushing it back.
Akira ran toward the vehicle, swords drawn, moving as fast as he could. By the time he rounded the bumper, the Canebrake had turned its plasma cannons on Allen, hitting the soldier multiple times in his chest and back. He crumpled to the ground, but despite his evident agony, Allen didn’t cry out over the comms or even ask for help.
The Piston tried to get up, only to be hit by another bolt.
Akira thrust his blade into the back of the Canebrake, bringing it down next to Allen, who was writhing, blood dripping between his fingers as he clutched the wounds in his chest.
Bending down, Akira found six simmering holes in the Piston’s armor.
“I messed up,” Allen said. “I tried…”
“Quiet, my friend. You did well,” Akira said. He scanned Allen’s injuries, trying to determine which to treat with nano-packs first.
With help from Tadhg and a few shots from Frost, Ghost dispatched the other two Canebrakes, then rushed to Akira and Allen with a medical kit. Electronic wails reverberated throughout the base as they worked to save him.
“We can’t stay here,” Akira said. “Help me get him up.”
Ghost hesitated. Akira knew what he was thinking. There was no point in moving Allen, and doing so would put them all at risk.
Allen knew it too. “Leave me,” he mumbled.
“Fighting with you was an honor,” Akira said quietly.
“The honor was mine, Captain.”
They stayed with him for another minute, comforting him as he struggled for air. On his tenth breath, Akira felt his hand go limp.
Ghost felt for a pulse, and then shook his head. “He’s gone.”
Akira carefully removed Allen’s helmet, exposing a youthful face with freckles and handsome brown eyes.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Akira said. He reached down and closed his eyelids.
Tadhg and Frost joined them, their heads lowered in respect.
“We got twenty-eight minutes to find your family,” Frost said.
“What’s the play, bosu?” Tadhg asked.
Akira looked up at the sky. Hros-1 burned closer, and the cannons weren’t firing yet. He feared the worst.
He got up and started toward the wreckage of a MOTH smoldering in the entrance of a hangar. The Engines skirted the debris and ran for the open elevator shaft.
“Let’s go,” Akira said.
They dropped, descending hundreds of feet, activating their thrusters to slow their fall. Akira brought up his rifle as he landed, scanning one of the underground hangars where the corvettes had launched. The open chamber revealed a scene reminiscent of the subway they had discovered.
Hundreds of bodies lay near the blast doors where the Pistons and Juggernauts had held their ground, providing the shuttles a chance to escape. There were civilians, too. Akira checked them individually, gently moving bodies, while the rest of the squad spread out to check the fallen soldiers.
“Captain,” Frost said.
Akira ran over to her, dropping to his knees next to a muscular young man gripping an energy sword in one hand. His head was a few feet away.
“No,” Akira choked.
The rest of the team gathered around as Akira carefully put the head back with the body.
“I don’t see anyone else,” Frost said.
“Kichiro isn’t here either,” Ghost said.
“Maybe your family got away on a shuttle. Looks like maybe Zachary fell trying to save them,” Tadhg said.
“Zachary wasn’t my nephew,” Akira said, looking at the other Engines in turn. “He was my son. His real name is Takeshi.”
He shook as he held the body, thinking of the last time he had held the boy on a day that had changed the course of both of their lives, almost two decades ago.
He remembered returning to the rubble and finding Yui shielding Takeshi. The child had coughed dust as Akira gently lifted him from her dead arms. Even then, with cuts and scrapes on his dust-covered little body, Takeshi had not cried.
He had always been a warrior, and despite Akira trying to lead him away from such a violent life, it seemed fate had other plans. His son could not escape the blood flowing through his vessels.
Akira had always blocked the memories, but as he held his dead son, he remembered the early years of his childhood.
Thoughts of what could have been flooded his mind. But he knew in his heart Kai and Lise had given him a good life, a life that Akira could never have provided as an Engine.
“I left him with my brother and his family. I thought they would protect him from the life I led. I was wrong. I should have protected him.”
“I’m so sorry, Akira,” Frost said.
Ghost, who was the only one who had known the truth, put a hand on his shoulder plate.
Akira stood with his son in his arms and started back toward the elevator, the squad following quietly.
As they blasted back up to the surface, a transmission broke over the encrypted short-range comms.
“All squads, and any survivors, we’re regrouping at Edo Castle.”
Akira had not expected Contos’s voice, after both of the shuttles had evacuated Gold Base. But it did not surprise him that the War Commander would stay behind with the survivors, and it meant Kichiro could still be alive.
Maybe the rest of your family is with them, he thought.
A long silence hung in the air as Akira started moving toward the APC to regroup with the Pistons and Okami. Halfway there, Tadhg balled his fist.
Across the tarmac, a black stallion stood under a canopy of cherry blossom trees. Over one hundred figures suddenly moved out of the darkness with the droid out in front.
In the moonlight, Akira saw it was Kichiro, and mounted in the saddle was the War Commander himself, dressed in golden armor. Contos guided the stallion across the tarmac with a group of Pistons and Engines following close behind, their armor singed and scarred.
Akira cradled his dead son, a young man he had hardly known, and walked out to rendezvous with the survivors of Gold Base.
When they met, everyone looked toward the sky, but no one said what they were all thinking.
The cannons had failed.
***
Why aren’t the cannons firing? Elan signed.
Ronin shook his head, unsure.
Their Stingray shuttle was in orbit, waiting for a safe flight path to the Moon. Out the viewports, they had a view of Europe, the megacities all glowing like beacons in the darkness.
Only ten minutes remained until Hros-1 was supposed to hit, and there were still no laser flashes from what Ronin could tell. He leaned to a different viewport, trying to get a better view.
Coughs and hushed voices echoed in the cabin as the timer ticked down to ten minutes.
Throughout the cabin, refugees tried to get a look out the porthole windows.
“Be advised, we are preparing to proceed to new coordinates,” said a pilot over the PA system. “Everyone, please stay in your racks.”
The thrusters fired, turning the Stingray slightly.
Ronin checked on his mother. She was still in shock, staring blankly overhead. Not even the announcement from the pilot had stirred her from the trance.
He thought of something he could say to her, something to console her, but the words wouldn’t form. He was just glad she hadn’t seen Zachary die.
The memory reared up in his mind of his brother stumbling forward, and then…
Ronin wiped away a tear carving down the blood caked on his cheeks. It was stuck in his long hair and all over his body and clothing. The blood of his brother, the woman in the APC, and a Piston.
“Six minutes to impact,” someone announced.
“Those cannons should be firing by now!” yelled a civilian. “Why aren’t they firing?”
“You all know as much as we do,” said a Piston. “Something must have happened to Nova One Station.” It was Murmur, one of the guards who had stood sentry outside their barracks. Ronin had seen him earlier, getting the second group of civilians to safety.
Two King Cobra Spaceplanes suddenly pulled up alongside the Stingray on the port side. Their thrusters burned as they rolled away to give the shuttle some distance.
At five minutes to impact, no one spoke. No one wanted to speculate further as to why the cannons weren’t firing. Four minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes.
But Ronin knew.
The machines were winning the battle on the surface.
Cries called out down the port side of the shuttle. Ronin saw Hros-1 almost perfectly for a fleeting moment. The asteroid streaked through the darkness before vanishing.
Ronin felt a hand on his, glancing over to see it was his mother. She took Elan’s hand too, and for the next few minutes everyone in the compartment sat in silence. Reality hit them all at the same time, even though they couldn’t see the impact.
There was no brilliant explosion, or tsunami of fire on the surface of Earth, and for that, Ronin was glad. He knew, from school, that it would blast enough sulfur into the air to block out much of the sunlight. By the time they reached the Moon, that ejected material would be spreading across the globe, and in weeks, a sheet of sulfur would leave a reddish, dark appearance to the clouds, blocking out much of the sunlight.
Earth wouldn’t be the same for centuries, maybe longer.
An alarm went off somewhere on the shuttle.
“Everyone, hold on,” said one of the pilots.
Ronin pressed his face closer to the window. A cluster of tiny blue lights emerged in the orbit of Earth, growing brighter as they ascended from the darkness toward the shuttle until they appeared like comets with trails of blue.
One flashed by the shuttle, and in the wake, Ronin saw purple Praying Mantis fighters racing toward the shuttle. The turrets fired another salvo as the King Cobra Spaceplanes turned to engage the enemy fighters.
Screams and cries of passengers echoed over the raucous noise of the impacts. Lights flashed overhead, and a red glow spread through the cabin.
Ronin held his mother’s and brother’s hands.
Outside, the King Cobras blasted through one of the Praying Mantis fighters and let loose a dozen missiles that chased the other two. One of the purple ships exploded, but the other banked away while firing off a missile at the King Cobras.
The projectile hit the cockpit of the fighter on Ronin’s side of the corvette, exploding in a bright blast. The final enemy fighter flew after the last King Cobra, peppering its wings with plasma bolts until it came apart in a hundred pieces.
Blasting through the debris, the Praying Mantis fighter streaked back around to finish off the helpless corvette. Ronin closed his eyes, preparing for the end.
A second passed. Then two.
Cheering suddenly filled the cabin.
He opened his eyes and looked out the viewport. A third King Cobra Spaceplane pulled up next to the shuttle. This one looked different than the others. A red snake was painted on the wings, and a name on the side of the cockpit: Captain Jake “The Snake” Harback.
The pilot stayed with the shuttle as they flew farther away from Earth. Ronin continued to stare at his former home, noticing some of the megacities seemed to have gone dark.
But how was that possible?
He lowered his head in despair, felt a crash coming on, and fought to keep control of his emotions. It didn’t help that he was parched, hungry, exhausted, and broken-hearted.
The adrenaline had worn off, and another wave of shock returned. Ronin had experienced the feeling, to a lesser degree, during Droid Raider training, when he would suffer in the one-hundred-degree heat, running plays and laps until he vomited. But this was different.
“Tell me what happened to your brother,” Lise said. “I need to know.”
Ronin turned to his mom and explained that a Canebrake had killed him. Lise closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.
“It was fast,” Ronin lied. “He died fighting.”
Elan held up his Commpad, reading the conversation, tears streaking down his face. He reached out and Ronin took his hand.
I’m sorry I couldn’t save him, Ronin signed.
He saved us, Elan signed back.
Lise nodded and her grief seemed to lighten some.
It was true, if it weren’t for Zachary, they would all be dead.
Ronin reached over and held his mom as she sobbed against his shoulder.
“Hey, look!” someone yelled.
Ronin turned to the window. Red lasers flashed from geostationary orbit behind the shuttle.
The Poseidon cannons were firing. But at what? The asteroi
d would have hit Earth already.
They were firing in the wrong direction.
Ronin stared in horror, unable to believe what he was watching. Gasps and cries arose from the civilians as the lasers pounded locations across Earth. The long red laser lines slammed into megacities. Unlike Hros-1, he could see the destruction.
Fires spread out in halos around the cities like miniature asteroid impacts. Observing the fall of civilization seemed surreal to Ronin, like a waking nightmare. Deep down he had held onto hope that the cannons would fire at the last second, that the machines would be defeated, and that he would see his dad and uncle again.
All of that hope was gone now, fading into the black of space like their shuttle. He knew then this was final, evacuating the Earth wasn’t temporary.
There was no coming back from this.
The Earth was lost.
The machines were wiping out humanity, one megacity at a time.
— 34 —
The sun had risen over Edo Castle, but Akira couldn’t see it. A cloud of dust and smoke choked the skyline. They hadn’t seen Hros-1 hit, but they knew it hit when the cannons didn’t fire.
Instead, Apeiron had apparently turned them on the megacities.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Akira had stood in this very place, right in front of the graves of the Ronin warriors, with his family.
Now he was looking at two fresh graves.
This was one of the last places he had come with Yui and Takeshi, on a warm spring day before the battle in the Sea of Trees.
Under the dirt were the bodies of his brother and son.
Akira had insisted on digging them himself, feeling personally responsible for all of their deaths. With every scoop of dirt, he felt the sting of what could have been.
After the death of his wife Yui, Akira had given up the joys and honor of being a father to serve as an Engine, believing Kai and Lise could give Takeshi a better life than a father away at war more than he was home.
That part, Akira had been right about. Lise and Kai had given his son a great life. Takeshi had succeeded in sport and school. But now, after losing a war in just hours, Akira felt the deep sting of regret. All those years ago, he had made the wrong decision.
E-Day Page 44
