Bulletfoot One

by Marshall Rust

“And exactly what the fuck do you want me to do about it?”

  “Something! Anything! We need them out of position.”

  “Fuck!”

  Hammerhand held his shield for as long as he could manage it but already felt the heat from the generator begin to tell on the rest of the Excalibur’s mechanisms.

  They wouldn’t go back and attack the mesa because they simply didn’t have the numbers for it. But the initial attack hadn’t drawn anyone down and Tinker was right. It all had been for naught.

  He stared balefully at the stronghold while he maintained his backward motion and still tried to give his men cover. The enemy showed no inclination to halt or even slow their ongoing barrage.

  “Fuck!” he said again, turned the Excalibur, and allowed it to increase speed to keep up with the other Knights as they retreated.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Hammerhand ran a quick scan of the area surrounding them. He ran across the open ground and without being able to use his shield, it left him feeling vulnerable. Still, he reminded himself, he needed to show that they were vulnerable in their rout, which would entice their enemies to abandon the high ground and give chase.

  It didn’t look good. He needed to think of something quickly or accept that the whole feint had been run for nothing.

  Tinker organized the troops and kept them together and in an organized fake retreat. Hammerhand connected to Cora. They had never really trained to look like a disorganized mess while still acting in a coordinated and disciplined fashion, but he didn’t know how they could do it any better.

  “Cora, please tell me you have good news!” he shouted into the comms.

  The pilot of their Raptor didn’t respond immediately, which was all the response he needed. When she did, her words were not what he wanted to hear.

  “I could move closer and into range—”

  “Negative! You’ll be in their range long before they’re in yours. Hold your position.”

  And pray, he almost felt like adding. If there was ever a time to call on help from on high, this was it.

  Suddenly, the scans displayed movement from behind them. Not on the steps, it seemed, but something that appeared to be airborne.

  He turned, not sure what he was looking at in the growing darkness and smoke that now obscured most of the open area. His gaze drifted from the sky to the mesa itself and while he couldn’t reconcile what his scans had shown with what he now saw, there wasn’t much in the world that moved quite like the Quadruped mechs. They slowly descended the steps from where they had been positioned on the scaffold.

  It was a start, at least. There were five of them and they were already difficult to coordinate, but they made good time given their size, range of movement, and what they had to negotiate. When they reached the third step from the ground, a handful of mechs that had been on the back of the Quadruped at the front caught his attention.

  The design was more than familiar. Balthazars were hard to miss with those rockets on their backs, but they lacked the customizations that many of the raider mechs had. He wasn’t surprised by that, of course, but it was still odd to see.

  The rockets flared, and after a few seconds to stabilize, they became airborne and careened away from the mesa toward the knights. They also increased speed.

  “I have targets!” Cora announced and sounded excited to finally have something to shoot at.

  “Hold your fire. Wait until those Quadrupeds enter your range and fire on them.”

  “Roger that.”

  Her disappointment was palpable, but there wasn’t much to be done about that. They needed to make it still look like they were running away.

  The Balthazars moved quickly and illuminated the area around them while Hammerhand continued to run. They were almost three-quarters of the way toward him when he finally turned again.

  His initial reaction to activate his shield proved pointless when he saw they carried melee weapons. He turned it off immediately as a couple landed in front of him while the others pursued the retreating knights.

  The two in front of him backed away when he activated his hammer, but he adjusted his weapon and tried to catch one of those that soared over him. It wasn’t a clean strike, but it catapulted away from its flight pattern and landed solidly.

  “Targets in range,” Cora shouted.

  “Fire when ready,” Hammerhand replied and waited while she acquired her targets among the Quadrupeds as they reached the bottom step.

  The Raptor fired a volley that trailed plumes of white smoke behind and impacted precisely with the points she’d defined. The mechs themselves weren’t the target, of course, but the limbs. When the first two had all their limbs blown at the knee, the others were forced into a halt.

  They were unable to move in either direction and instantly became sitting targets for additional attacks.

  The people at the top realized this too and immediately poured from the top of the mesa.

  Hammerhand’s hint of elation that their feint had worked, if somewhat delayed, was cut short when the Balthazars that had chosen to face him began to press their assault. They were quicker than his Excalibur, and the vibroswords they carried were more than enough to cut into vital functions on his mech.

  More importantly, their airborne comrades rapidly closed on the Knights.

  “Knights, cease the retreat and regroup! We have a fight on our hands.”

  They did as they were told. The Balthazars were no surprise, but two of their group narrowly avoided being cut down almost immediately when the flying mechs drove into their line.

  Windchime would show them a proper greeting.

  “Tinker, get them formed up!” Hammerhand called over the comms, brought his Hammer about, and activated the rocket.

  He caught one of the Balthazars and clipped it in the side with enough force to crush most of the armor and damage the fuel tanks. The other backed away quickly as the fuel caught fire, which surged into the tank.

  The explosion was so powerful that he could feel it in his bones, and he backed away slowly as well. Beyond the blaze, his gaze settled on the full numbers of those who had been at the top of the mesa and now raced to join the attack.

  Most of the FEMA troops had already reached the ground and pressed hard to try to reach the combat area. It was about time the Prophet appeared as well. What the hell was he waiting for?

  “Fucking shit.”

  With things as they were, Hammerhand had to trust that Windchime would be able to hold the Balthazars away from their front line long enough for the Prophet to get his shit together. While they waited, he would have to help the front line to slow the newcomers as best he could.

  “I’ve prayed for a day in which there would be no end of enemies to fight!” he roared at them and raised his shield once the approaching defenders opened fire.

  Tinker moved beside him, plugged in, and ran a rapid check to make sure no on-the-spot repairs were needed before he withdrew again. Hammerhand turned and brandished his shield.

  The defenders would think they had the Knights bogged down in combat and that soon, the superior numbers would bring the victory. If the Prophet held his charge for too much longer, they would be right.

  The Knights’ leader couldn’t help a twinge of pride in his team. Tactical plans made far from the field of battle tended to go out the cockpit in the moment when the fighting started. It was to be expected, but that didn’t mean the troop didn’t have the coordination to continue to fight when they needed to and to cover each other and give their enemies hell at the same time.

  He couldn’t have coordinated it better himself, and because he was able to trust his men, he was able to focus on the part of the battle that required his attention.

  His shield began to overheat and he put up the notification on the HUD of the mechs that took cover behind it so they’d know the moment when they would have targets to shoot at.

  In the second when the shield fell, the volley decimated the front li
nes, which mostly consisted of Cinders trying to sneak in to where they would have the advantage. They had expected it to drop eventually, but they were too far out of their preferred range and he watched a number of them erupt in flames when their napalm tanks were pierced and ignited.

  It slowed the charge somewhat as those coming behind needed to circle the group, but it also allowed them to move beyond his shield and gave them a clear shot at the men who took cover behind him.

  A couple of the Auburn Lancers fell when superheated plasma bolts melted through the frontal armor plates under multiple direct hits. It seemed like the enemy had abandoned their attempts to disable him and instead, now focused on those who fired at them.

  Hammerhand restored his shield to give the Knights cover out in the open. Windchime led a group forward to engage the attackers, and the Balthazars used their ability to fly up and away from the fight to try to harass those who broke from the Knights’ line.

  Although that would never dissuade the crazy bastard. If what their leader heard over the comms was right, it sounded like Windchime had managed to catch hold of one of those who attempted to escape by taking flight, climbed a few dozen feet into the air with him, and forced him to collide with his comrade.

  All three plummeted at a furious pace and he could hear the impacts. He didn't have time to make sure Windchime was all right and could only assume the man knew what he was doing.

  The other defenders began to close on the Knights formation, and Hammerhand dropped his shield. He gave his people a signal to fire once more when it came down, and they didn’t wait for a second after.

  In the moment when the defenders began to draw away to find cover, he took a step forward, raised the hammer high, and swung it hard onto the mechs in front of him. A group of Cinders had hidden behind an improvised shield brought out for mobile defense. A small notch appeared where the shield dug into the hard titanium of the hammer’s head, but it made no difference as the Cinders were crushed under his blow.

  There was no spark and nothing to blow the napalm tanks, and he took a few long strides back, raised his shield again, and highlighted the crushed mechs. This identified them as potential targets to blow when the remainder of the defenders pressed forward into a new assault.

  Mercy dictated that he should probably wait for those pilots who might have survived his assault to exit their mechs. Under almost any other circumstances, he would have followed his natural instincts. In this case, though, they needed almost any advantage they could find, and that meant subjecting the possibly surviving pilots to a horrifying death by fire.

  A couple of the Sherlock mechs acquired the targets and fired tracer rounds into them.

  They had to make a few attempts to achieve their purpose. All that was needed was one good strike and they would go up in flames. The heat built slowly and it wasn't long before the three exploded and swept the mechs around them with fire as well.

  It was something at least. The tactic had broken their charge again and slowed any kind of advance, but it was a delaying maneuver at best. The slower, heavier Raptors began to set up as soon they came within range.

  Once their missiles joined the assault, the Knights wouldn’t last very long. They had managed to hold their own in the fight thus far, but they had taken losses. While these were limited to their Auburn allies—his team had sustained damage but no deaths—it was still too many losses, he thought belligerently.

  "Where the fuck are they?"

  He took care not to air his doubts on the comms, but as every second ticked past, he began to suspect more and more that they were on their own.

  They would have to call a full retreat. It would mean guiding those who would follow into the ravine and he’d have to break through the Balthazars at their backs, but a retreat at this point would save more lives than it cost.

  Assuming, of course, that nothing went to shit when they withdrew.

  He growled with annoyance before he keyed the comms. "Tinker, bring us—"

  His words were cut off by the loud horns that broke through the evening air and rose well above the noise of furious combat.

  Hammerhand knew the sound and a wave of relief washed over him when the Prophet's Desert Warriors began to rush in from the flanks and circled to try to strike at the rear of the defending mechs' line.

  "And it's about fucking time," he muttered, his comms inactive for a moment.

  Tinker pinged him and brought him online again. "What were you going to say before?"

  "Never mind that. Get us moving forward again!"

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  There was no logical way to explain the delay. The FEMA mechs had been out in the open for a while before the Prophet decided to bring his mechs into the fight.

  But now was not the time to determine who was to blame or why the delays had happened. The FEMA mechs attempted to pull back, not quite sure what was happening but very sure that something had gone wrong.

  The Knights had drawn them out and they’d thrown their full contingent of assault and support mechs into an assault designed like a pincer around the Knights and rebels, but all that had gone wrong. They were now flanked and their Quadrupeds and artillery mechs were exposed and under attack by the new force that had come seemingly out of nowhere.

  In all their efforts to repulse the potential invaders, they had neglected the possibility that they might be drawn into a trap themselves. They now attempted to withdraw and connect with their rearguard to protect them, but it soon became clear that it wasn’t enough. The Prophet's mechs and vehicles already swarmed onto the Guardians that attempted to drive them back and their combined onslaught of both bullets and blades cut the mechs down as quickly as possible.

  Hammerhand raised his weapon and gestured forward with it, a clear sign to drive the Knights and rebels forward to take advantage of the moment of desperation and confusion of their enemies. They did not intend to wait or rest on their laurels.

  The Knights wanted to engage the enemy again, especially now that they were in a situation to win.

  The desert fighters made quick work of the artillery and rocket mechs that desperately tried to pull back to the steps of the mesa. There was no cover for the defenders as their assault mechs faced a powerful attack from the Knights, a second prong that was spearheaded by Hammerhand. His shield was up to allow him to close the distance between the two groups, but once he was in close, they wouldn’t be let off so easily.

  He rushed into their lines and used the shield to push them back. Heat flared from the generator and alarms warned him urgently that it was close to overheating from the pressure of the five or six mechs he shoved against.

  In that moment, he let it drop. They fell forward when the wall they had pushed against disappeared, and the hammer swung. The crunch when the mechs were crushed by the rocket-powered weapon was more satisfying than Hammerhand would ever openly admit.

  The battle had finally swung their way. It would have been more difficult if they had tried to fight while scaling the steps or even if they had tried to sneak to the top under the cover of night, but it had been an enormous risk. Their chosen tactic had involved complete reliance on the defensive mechs to break their position and try to pursue.

  It had been a gamble and one they had almost lost, but it had ultimately paid off. Hammerhand didn’t intend to deny that, but he also acknowledged that the situation might have cost them a little too much.

  Not only that but the fact that the price had been paid by the lives of rebels from Auburn and damage inflicted on his men rather than shared with the Prophet's Desert Warriors stung considerably. He recognized the cold anger within and directed it to fuel his efforts to annihilate the rest of the mechs who continued to resist them.

  Those who remained saw that they were caught between a literal hammer and a metaphorical anvil. The desert fighters finished dealing with the Quadrupeds and artillery mechs and began to circle to finish the others.

  The defensive troops didn'
t like the idea of fighting from that position and one by one, they stepped away from the fighting and began to drop their weapons and hold their hands up in the universal sign that they had given up and now surrendered.

  A few still fell as Knights, rebels, and desert fighters alike were a little slow to react to their surrender or maybe too high on the adrenaline of the battle to call it. Hammerhand immediately pinged those he could on the comms and allowed his voice to be carried into the field over the din of battle.

  "Lay your weapons down and you will be spared. Continue to fight and you will be destroyed. Make your choice now and be prepared to live with it!"

  It was meant for his allies as well as the defeated defenders, and all groups were quick to respond. The FEMA company survivors who hadn't dropped their weapons did so almost immediately, while the Knights, rebels, and desert fighters alike responded by restraining their assault for the moment.

  There was something almost unnatural about holding back like this. He’d dealt with raiders for years and that had culminated in the engagement with Athena's zealots, and his instincts were honed to finish the fight himself in violent fashion. There had been times when a few of their enemies had promised surrender before, but it had almost inevitably ended with their attempt to stab him in the back. As a result, he’d reached the point where he learned to not provide them with the opportunity to do so.

  But in this case, they fought not only for the victories on the battlefield but those off it as well, and that would be earned by showing that they weren't the bloodthirsty raiders who had likely had been a problem in this area for so many years. They were different, looked for a peaceful solution, and were there to help to achieve that.

  Hammerhand lowered his weapon and let the head rest near his feet while Tinker ran a hasty headcount. It had been a victory but at one hell of a cost. He wasn't sure he was willing to commit to these kinds of losses in the future. Aside from the high regard in which he held every member of his team, this kind of combat would mean the end of the Knights Mechanica as a whole. Only their skill, determination, and experience had saved them from fatalities, but it had come horrifyingly close to a massacre.