by Christi Smit
Rivers silently wondered to himself what Captain Locke’s kill count was. It was probably higher than anyone could guess. That alone was a haunting thought. The weight of those deaths, human and monster would crush regular humans, but not Gabriel Locke. All Rivers knew for sure was that he was happy Locke was on his side, and not storming the defender’s lines he found himself in at exactly that moment. The Titan sergeant dismissed the thought and returned his mind to the present, pulling the trigger of the marksman rifle, killing three more traitors who stuck their heads out to fire down at the defenders.
Pyoter on the other hand was having the time of his life. He never thought he would love a weapon more than his machine gun he had almost lost on board the Fateful Moment, but the borrowed breaching cannon was quickly becoming one of his new favourites. If weapons were females, his machine gun would be his regular lover and the cannon he now held his secret mistress.
This thought caused the giant Titan to smile, his grip on his new mistress tightening as it roared, its barrel spewing rounds of molten shrapnel at the traitors on the second floor of the south building.
He did not kill as many traitors as he would have liked, but the breaching cannon was perforating the walls of the building, turning it into almost see-through mesh on the courtyard’s side. This gave the Lancers more targets to fire at as the traitors’ cover disappeared with every round Pyoter fired.
The smiles on the defenders faces’ vanished when western edge of the south building collapsed and crumbled. The remaining man-killer vehicle stormed through the rubble, its side-mounted guns opening fire before the dust even cleared.
Lancers died and Titans dove for cover. The armoured vehicle ground to a halt, its cannon rotating to aim at the overturned truck Pyoter was hiding behind.
‘Run!” was all the giant Titan could utter before the cannon fired and the truck was consumed by an angry explosion.
Pyoter would survive, his armour protecting him against most of the fireball melting his previously sturdy cover, but the Lancers with him were not so lucky, all of them perishing as soon as the man-killer round hit the overturned truck. Some were blown to bits while others were killed by shrapnel from the explosions.
The vehicle needed to die, but Pyoter was too far with his breaching cannon to bother it, and Rivers’ rifle would do nothing against the thick armour of the man-killer.
Something would have to happen, and soon, otherwise the enemy vehicle would kill everyone in the courtyard within a handful of moments.
Rivers was suddenly aware of his mortality, and knew that even Titans could bleed and die. Rivers voiced words from a prayer his mother had taught him as a youngling. “Reach down from the sky and shield us lord...” he said, his voice trailing off as he watched the man-killer’s cannon rotate to fire again.
A voice answered his prayer, but it was not in the form of words, only a throaty roar. Moments later the wall on the top floor above the vehicle disintegrated and Rivers’ prayer was answered.
Chapter Eight
Checkmate
“Mark my words. Your faith is misplaced in these cowards posing as heroes. You fools put all of your hope on the shoulders of these...Titans. Can’t you see? They are only men and women, they are not special, and they will not be our salvation. You can clad the weakness beating inside their chests with technology and layers of armoured plating, but it does not change what they are underneath. I urge you to vote against the deployment of the Titans against the Beast on Arkelis. Instead, give me the authority to use our fusion weapons against these monsters. Let me crush them with my vessels. I can singlehandedly win this war for the council. Do not deny me! I seek only the obliteration of the nightmares that hunt us through the void.”
-Council Member Vincent, High Lord and Commander of the Northern Sectors, Recorded during the Arkelis War Summit
Rivers could not make out what had jumped from the hole in the wall above the vehicle at first, his tactical vision struggling to see through the debris and smoke the sudden explosion from within the western building had created.
But the tactical vision was a powerful tool in a Titan’s arsenal, piercing the smoky veil as the human shape object plummeted towards the armoured man-killer.
Rivers almost cheered when his Suit OS locked on to Nathan’s armoured body falling feet first.
The Titan brothers had made it, and they were joining the fight against the traitors with quiet the entrance.
There was no sign of the rookie yet, but there was no doubt in Rivers’ mind that Nathan would not leave his brother behind, let alone a brother Titan.
Nathan hit the top of the man-killer’s turret, buckling the armour right above the commander’s hatch. He punched with all of his artificial strength, aiming his armoured fist at the joints locking the hatch in place. It only took one hit, the joints and bolts bending and shattering under the force. The turret’s cannon barked off two more shots, the shells fired blindly and out of sheer panic, aimed in the general direction of the defenders’ lines.
One shot missed and hit one of the broken up smoke stacks, shacking the ground and showering the defenders with dust and debris. The second shot, however, hit home. It exploded only a few feet to the left of Rivers and Sabian, engulfing the marksmen and their commander in flame and shrapnel. The screams in the courtyard drowned out the screams from the inside of the south building.
The man-killer did not get a chance to fire a third round. Christian had dropped down from the hole above the vehicle, landing with shield first on the cannon’s barrel. The barrel was a thick tube of hardened steel and rare alloys, but the Titan’s velocity and force was enough to bend it, bend it enough to hinder it from firing again.
Christian rolled away from the vehicle, dodging smaller calibre fire from the sides of the doomed man-killer, his entire body still rocking from the connection with the barrel, his arms pained and his shield dented. Christian did not waste any time, he headed back into the west building, making for the fourth floor to where the Titan brothers’ companions were waiting for the all clear. They had left Jessica, Tristan, Sam and Nash there for safety while they took care of the danger below.
Nathan peeled off the hatch like a homeless man attacking his last can of sardines. His strength was immense, the metal hatch never resisting the Titan warping it with his strength. Wide eyes stared up at Nathan as he tossed the mangled hatch away. One man in particular was shitting himself when Nathan reached for him.
The commander of the traitorous ground forces tried to draw his pistol, but Nathan grabbed his arm and twisted it, breaking it instantly. Nathan held the man up with his right hand, his armoured hand grasping the commander’s rat-like neck tightly, but not tight enough to strangle the vermin.
“Scream. Your men aren’t hearing you,” Nathan whispered to the man, his visor inches away from the commander’s pain filled face.
At first he made no sound, but Nathan urged him on with a punch to his side. The man obliged as his ribs shattered inside his body. His men heard the agony escaping his lungs, fear reaching for their traitorous hearts.
“Mercy,” the commander managed to say through all of the pain.
A bullet ricocheted from Nathan’s shoulder before he replied. His attacker died moments later at the hands of a Lancer close to the Titan’s position. “Mercy?” Nathan genuinely asked. “Where was your mercy when you attacked this planet? Where was your mercy when you killed women and children?” Nathan’s grip tightened around the man’s neck.
“Please,” the commander begged. “Spare me,” he said, his voice soft and weak, struggling to breath as his lips formed the words.
“Beg all you want, no-one will listen to your cowardly words,” Nathan said.
He did not wait for the man to say anything else, crushing the commander’s neck in his grip. Instead of just discarding the body, Nathan jumped down from the vehicle with the dead commander’s lifeless body still clutched in his armoured hand. He walked in clear view of the e
nemy, lifting their commander’s limp body high for all to see.
“Look!” he yelled through his helmet’s speakers. His voice echoed throughout the courtyard, drowning out most of the gunfire and screams. Nathan threw the body disdainfully to the ground, stepping over it towards the enemy hiding within the south building. Another Alpha Wolf had joined the fight, and this one was hungrier and enjoyed the hunt even more than Locke did.
Rivers was about to call out to Pyoter, who was picking himself up from the man-killer’s first attack, to join Bear, but the sound of coughing behind him drew his attention first.
Rivers knew the sound. He recognized it as the sound of blood drowning the lungs of a dying man. He turned to where the final round of the man-killer had impacted and horror gripped him for the first time in many years.
Sabian was crawling from the impact zone, his legs were missing from the knees down, one of his arms mangled and his emerald armour melted and broken.
The words could not come at first. Rivers froze as he watched Sabian, crawling painfully towards one of his fallen marksmen. Emotion gripped him as he watched Sabian, his body almost destroyed, still worrying more about his men than his own excruciating pain and survival.
“Gabriel! If you can hear me, Sabian is down. I repeat Commander Sabian is down!” Rivers yelled over the radio. The Lancers heard him as well, some of them rushing through gunfire to come to the aid of their beloved leader.
There was no reply at first, but Locke answered Rivers after a handful of moments. “Then the situation has changed,” Locke said. The Titan captain was out of breath, gunshots echoed in the background as he spoke. “Kill them all,” was all he said before going silent again.
The Lancers would take care of Sabian, but the Titans needed to finish the fight, and they needed to finish it soon.
Rivers called for Pyoter to join him and both of them rushed the traitors’ lines, taking the fight to the enemy.
None of them knew that Corporal Jay would soon give them even more bad news, and that news would force the Titans to do something that went against everything they stood for and fought for.
They hated the mere notion of it, choosing to never even utter the word.
Retreat was not something the Titans did willingly.
The Beasts were coming.
The chaos in and around the extraction zone had drawn the attention of every mutant for miles. The bloodshed on both sides was an irresistible and delectable potential feast for the beasts. There was always this feeling in the back of everyone’s minds that the amount of monsters they had fought and killed were not even close to the amount of civilians that had inhabited Santor. Scores of people were missing, and the encountered monsters could not have eaten or killed all of them.
That feeling was proven correct when Scout Titan Jay had radioed in that the nightmares everyone thought were dead or missing had finally shown their disfigured faces. And they were swarming towards both his and the other Titans’ positions.
Locke had ceased his hunt to ask how many and from where.
Corporal Jay’s answer was short and to the point, and enough to send chills down every friendly who heard his words. “Unknown and from everywhere,” he had replied to Captain Locke.
Godwaker had fallen silent after that.
Traitor soldiers on the ground and in the air had been left leaderless, and were now left to choose their own paths to salvation or damnation
The soldiers had chosen to escape, to run and make for whatever shelter they could find, no doubt their pilots had been reporting the exact same sights to their ground troops as Jay had reported to the rest of the Wolves.
The enemy air units that were still in the air had chosen to keep fighting, following their commander’s last orders and making the enemy pay for as long as their engines kept them in the air.
Corporal Jay was being assaulted by a wing of enemy fighters while the beasts climbed the inside of the building he had been sniping from. His time was running out.
The defenders of the extraction point, Lancers and Wolves, had mere minutes before they would be overrun.
Locke did not want to stop, his blood boiled inside his veins, his muscles burning from the hunt, but he had no choice. It was going to be close, and there was no time to waste.
It was time to leave Santor.
“Fall back! We are leaving this hell,” Locke said reluctantly over the radio. “Gunn, are you there?”
“Yes Captain,” Gunn replied. She and her sister drop ships were circling high over the extraction zone, flanked by some of the remaining Flying Tigers. The other Tigers were burning towards Scout Titan Jay’s positions to lend him and the Lancers there some aid.
“Extraction Protocol Zeta,” Locke ordered.
“Understood Captain Locke,” Gunn replied.
“Brimstone’s Embrace?” Locke asked over the radio.
Another pilot’s voice replied, belonging to the owner of one of the Maiden’s sister drop ships. “How may I be of service Titan?” the pilot answered.
“Move to support the package, retrieve it and haul ass back here,” Locke ordered.
“Roger that sir. Turning and burning now.”
Locke called his Wolves back, and one by one they answered. Xander leapt through the only remaining window overlooking the courtyard, shattering glass and landing on the concrete ground. Pyoter and Rivers had just started their hunt when the bad news had been heard, both of them were already moving to where the Lancers were gathering near Sabian’s remaining convoy troop carriers. Nathan joined up with Locke inside the south building, covered in blood from his relentless killing. Nobody except Nathan kept count of his kills in those few moments after killing the enemy commander, and he would keep the number to himself, no-one would ever believe exactly how many traitors he had slain.
Locke stepped onto the concrete where he had been fighting earlier. The dead bodies of the men he had killed surrounded him as he made his way towards where his Wolves were gathering.
Corporal Quinn was not present, he was watching over Doctor Sax and her companions in the west building, waiting there in relative safety and silence until the time to extract came. The final drop ship, the Maiden, would pick them up on the roof before leaving Santor forever.
Pyoter was kneeling beside Sabian’s mangled body when Locke re-joined the squad. Sabian was fastened to a field-stretcher, his body unable to move, vials of painkillers and stimulants pumping through his body, trying to fix what little they could or at least make Sabian’s suffering less.
Locke knelt down beside Sabian, placing his armoured hand on the man’s bloody forehead. “Your new scars will be quite the lady magnets,” Locke said jokingly, trying only to lift the spirits of his old friend.
“At least...” Sabian’s voice trailed off as if he was going to pass out. But the man’s legendary inner strength brought him back from the edge, “...I am still the prettier one.” His voice was strained and full of pain, but he was not going to give up just yet.
“You always were. Rest old friend,” Locke said, removing his helmet to look the man in the eyes. “We are leaving. You will be home soon.” Locke did not mean the Hyperion. The chances of Sabian fighting again or even surviving was slim, but he secretly hoped Sabian’s stubbornness would keep him alive long enough to see the void one last time.
“Promise me...that you will save my Lancers,” Sabian forced out, his breathing was becoming more weak with every passing second. “Promise me, Gabriel...”
“They are as much my brothers as my Wolves are yours. I promise, they will live on,” Locke replied.
Sabian nodded and closed his eyes. The Lancer-medic next to him froze, thinking his commander had died. But after checking his heartbeat he relaxed slightly.
“He goes first, then the civilians. Is that clear?” Locke said to everyone nearby before he placed his helmet on his head again.
No-one disagreed with Locke’s suggestion. Sabian deserved to go first, he had ear
ned it.
Nathan’s posture changed suddenly, his characteristic shoulder roll telling everyone that knew him, that he had heard or seen something. “Here they come,” he said, sounding almost excited.
As the Maiden and the other drop ships dived to pick up the defenders below them, the Wolves and the Lancers who were still able to fight formed a semi-circle around the civilians and wounded.
The Wolves stood shoulder to shoulder with the Lancers, some knelt down to aim their rifles, others chose to stand and fight.
No-one knew who would survive, but it did not matter, they still had some fight left in them.
The Hyperion was taking a pounding from enemy fighters and bombers. The Flying Tigers that had stayed behind on the Hyperion were doing their best to handle the swarm of traitors pummelling the Hyperion’s hull. Luckily the heavy ship to ship ordinance was focused on the vessels in the blockade, not that there were many left of those valiant vessels.
Twelve vessels of different classes had formed the line to protect the Immortal Terran and her allies still rescuing people from the surface of New Horizon. After a few hours of furious void battling, only three remained. But that did not stop them from hurting the traitors trying to break through the desperate blockade. Two cruisers and one cargo vessel with an array of custom weaponry fired everything they had at their enemies. The void around where most of the blockade ships used to be was littered with fields of drifting debris and the frozen bodies of brave crew members belonging to the dead or dying vessels.
Enemy vessels were forced to use hit and run tactics to try and reach the targets beyond the blockade. The debris fields kept them from barging through, striking the allies where it would hurt the most, or what the traitors thought would be the most damaging blow.
Their target was the Hyperion, and Gray’s words with Lord Vincent had ensured that his vessel and his crew were at the top of the lists of things the Lord of the North wanted to see destroyed.
