by Richard Fox
“Last q-shell or last rail round?” Elias asked as they ran down the dimly lit tunnel.
“Both, what do you have left?”
“One rail shot, enough gauss to keep their attention.” Elias went around a corner and tried to raise the city’s defense command with no success. They turned a corner and found their path caved in.
“Shit,” Bodel said.
“There’s another way back to the hangar.” Elias looked across a map of the tunnels and turned around. “It’ll take longer.”
A brief quake shook the tunnel. Then another.
“We’ve got a walker. Big one,” Bodel said.
“Surface.” Elias kept running until he came to a hatch in the ceiling. He pushed it up as a long quake shook through the tunnel. He peeked his helm over the edge as red light cast across his face.
“They’re burning through the roads,” Elias said.
“So much for taking the tunnels,” Bodel said.
The roar of Eagles and the boom of cannons carried through the air. Quick red pulses played across Elias’ face.
“Well?” Bodel asked.
“Mountain positions are fighting, got the walkers’ attention. Come on.” Elias crawled out of the hatch and into an Ibarra Corporation lobby. Plastic mock-ups of construction robots and 3-D printer foundries filled the room.
Elias felt tremors through his suit and saw the legs of the giant walker crush an abandoned car a block away. Elias pushed through the wrecked front doors and ran down the street, past a burning Eagle that ripped down the side of a building before it crashed to the road.
Elias pointed to an intersection. “I’ll anchor there, hit the walker when it comes around.”
A rail cannon shell shattered the side of the building, penetrated through another and ripped through the other side. The entire building collapsed in an avalanche of glass and pulverized concrete. Hunks of masonry showered down and a gray fog swept over the Iron Hearts.
They ducked into the broken remnants of a grocery store and waited for the building to collapse completely.
The shadow of the walker loomed through the fog.
“You’re not going to get an anchor in that mess.” Bodel pointed to the debris filling the streets.
“No, but there’s another spot.” Elias climbed up the broken remnants of the building to a broken metal beam that had once formed part of the building’s frame.
Elias lifted his right foot and slammed the heel against a join between two beams of the frame. His anchor whirled as it drilled into the metal.
“You’re crazy,” Bodel said.
“Bring it here.” Elias waved Bodel away. The other Iron Heart shook his head and made his way over the rubble as fast as his footing would allow.
Elias felt his anchor bite into the frame and his heel tightened against the frame. He reached up and grabbed the side of the frame, standing parallel to the ground.
“Carius would have my ass if he saw this,” Elias said.
“Incoming!” Bodel ran by, firing over his shoulder.
Elias activated his rail cannon and brought it down next to his head. Electricity arced between the vanes as it charged. The walker’s legs appeared beyond the edge of a building, then stopped.
Red light built up through the windows between Elias and the walker. Elias reared back as a beam burst through the structure and blasted a hole through the next several blocks. Elias felt intense heat against his legs and chest as the beam blazed just yards away from him.
The beam died away and Elias swung his body back up to face the walker. The Xaros was plainly visible through the neat hole it had blown through the building, its cannon pulsating. Elias aimed his rail gun right into the walker’s core and fired.
The recoil ripped his anchor point out of the frame and sent Elias careening through the rubble filling the street below.
Bodel rushed over to his friend and found his feet sticking out from under the wide remnants of a wall, his anchor still embedded in a hunk of steel. Bodel grabbed Elias by the ankles and pulled him out of the rubble. His rail cannon was a twisted wreck, the rotary cannon broken loose from its mount.
“Elias? Elias!” Bodel shook his friend’s armor.
Elias sat bolt upright, his rail cannon sparking and jerking from side to side.
“Did I hit it?” Elias asked.
The smoking remains of the walker lay in two neat pieces, one half crumbled over behind the building Elias and the walker had both shot through.
“Are you OK?” Bodel asked.
Elias kicked at the metal still attached to his anchor.
“That was a damn stupid idea,” Elias said.
“If it’s stupid but works…” Bodel grabbed Elias’ anchor, gave it a twist to detach it and tossed it aside.
A light burned through the sky, like a fragment of the sun was coming to Earth.
“That’s him,” Elias said, “the General.” He got to his feet and stumbled against Bodel.
“I’ll tell the hangar we’re coming.” Bodel pointed Elias at Camelback Mountain and led him forward.
****
The mountain shook as another blast from the walkers hit. Hale stumbled against the tunnel wall. Dust showered down from the metal tracks bolted to the rock ceiling.
Hold together a little longer, Hale thought.
“Almost there.” Cortaro ran past Hale and hopped onto a ladder against the wall leading down a rough circle cut through the floor. Steuben, Jacobs and Weiss followed Cortaro down the ladder.
Yarrow picked Hale off the wall. “Sure hope that shortcut works.”
“You and me both.” Hale got to the ladder, braced his hands and feet against the frame and slid down. He looked between his feet and saw the floor of the next lower level. He heard the crack of plasma fire before he cleared the ladder well. A Xaros beam cut through the air beneath his feet and ripped the ladder apart.
Hale released his grip and swung his rifle off his shoulder. He charged up the plasma coils and hit the deck solidly. A Xaros drone filled the hallway, stalks splayed out like a spider’s legs. Hale fired from the hip, ripping a gash across the drone’s side and breaking off a pair of stalks. The drone staggered backwards and thrust a stalk toward Hale.
He dove to the side, rolling out of the attack and onto one knee. He put two shots in the drone’s shell and spilled its pyrite across the floor. Hale spun around, searching for the Marines that came down before him. Behind him was a partially collapsed hallway, the floor sloping downward.
Cortaro stuck his head over the edge.
“Nice shooting, sir,” he said.
The rest of his team, covered from head to toe in dust, climbed over the edge.
“The drone hit something special,” Jacobs said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “That happened.”
Yarrow landed behind Hale.
“I miss something?” the corpsman asked.
“At least the drone didn’t knock down the tunnel we need,” Hale said. “Come on.”
The tunnel curved, leading them to a rounded stone wall marked BATTERY 12. A hole the width of a coffee can ran through the wall.
“Drone came out of there.” Hale pointed to the hole. “Cover the entrance.” He grabbed a lever attached to a hydraulic rig and pulled it down. A blast door several feet thick swung open. Inside the battery, empty armor suits lay around the breach of a rail cannon. Smoking craters marked the impact of the drone’s killing blows.
“See if she’ll still fire,” Hale said as he crept toward the open firing port. The rail cannon was smaller, the vanes stubbier than the Breitenfeld’s, not meant for long-range void combat. Outside the mountain, a Xaros walker like Hale’d faced on Takeni and Malal’s vault pounded redoubts with its main gun.
“Got charge in the capacitor,” Cortaro said, “but no round in the chamber.”
Steuben grabbed a handle to a metal plate embedded in the floor and lifted it up. A matte-gray tapered dart twice the size of a Marine lay just b
elow the floor.
“I will need help,” the Karigole said.
“Sir, you aim. We’ll load,” Cortaro said. The Marines gathered around the shell and hefted it into the air, their power armor struggling with the weight.
Hale swung himself up into a chair bolted to the side of the breach and tapped a control panel. A cracked screen came to life, displaying garbled text.
“No help there,” Hale said. He looked around and saw a pair of hand wheels on either side of the breach.
The Marines heaved the round into the breach, Cortaro cursing up a storm the entire time.
Steuben looked up at Hale. “Now would be appropriate to fire.”
“Have to aim over open sites.” Hale pointed to the hand wheels. “Move the declination right and elevation down.”
“I don’t know what a declination is but…” Weiss grabbed one of the handles and spun the wheel. The gun shifted to the left and Weiss changed direction.
Hale climbed onto the top of the rail cannon and looked down the barrel.
“Stop,” Hale said as the weapon lined up on the walker. “Down…stop.”
A shadow flit across the open port.
“Think we got something’s attention,” Jacobs said.
Red light cast through the gun chamber as the walker beat against the mountainside.
The walker moved closer, throwing off the shot.
“Lower another—” Someone grabbed Hale by the ankle and yanked him clear of the breach. A pencil-thin beam cut through the metal where Hale had been.
Marines fired on a stalk tip bent over the lip of the firing port, blasting it—and a generous portion of the façade—to smithereens.
Hale spun a hand wheel, trying to gauge the elevation correction he needed from the side of the weapon. He spied a lanyard connected to a metal handle against the breach, the analog firing system.
A beam hit the side of the cannon, boring through the electromagnets.
Hale lunged forward and grabbed the lanyard, pulling it down as he fell to the deck.
The cannon fired with a clap of thunder loud enough to pop Hale’s ears. The buzz of a thousand insects filled his head as he struggled to his feet. He took his rifle off his back and stumbled to the open edge, his balance reeling from the disruption to his inner ears.
A stalk tip hooked over the edge. Hale batted it aside and leaned over the battlements. He found the drone and pounded it into oblivion with plasma bolts then he looked up. The walker lay on its side, its weapon’s array shattered by the blow from the rail cannon. The walker burned beneath the setting sun.
“Well done,” Steuben said as he lifted Hale up from the edge.
“What?” Hale asked, loudly.
“I believe you suffered some hearing damage.” Steuben waved Yarrow over.
“Are you saying something?” Hale looked back to the crumbling walker. Two armor soldiers jumped over the construct, firing wildly behind them. A tear of light so bad it stung Hale’s eyes came around a mountain spur.
Blinding light filled the gun port. Hale felt a tug on his shoulder and his feet lifted away from the floor.
He was falling. His eyes were flash blind, his ears still ringing, but his arms and legs swinging about without purchase convinced him he was falling. His body slammed against something and a vice grip closed around him.
“Steuben? Cortaro?” He fell against the ground and shook his head to clear it.
Hale’s eyes recovered enough to see a pair of giants standing over him. He fought to stand on wobbly legs. They were inside the mountain’s main entrance, a mess of broken stone blocked the way to Phoenix. The rest of the hangar was empty but for broken machinery.
Steuben helped steady Hale.
“What happened?” Hale asked.
“The Xaros leader was about to fire on us,” Steuben said. “I took immediate action to save our lives.”
“Did you…did you jump off the mountain?”
“I did. The chance that I could cushion our fall with my grav-liners or that Elias would catch us seemed better than trying to stop a disintegration ray with my face,” Steuben said. “I did not anticipate there being so many rocks coming down at the same time as us.”
“Thank me later.” Elias’ hand retracted into the forearm housing and a crystalline blade with gold filigree came out. An aegis shield unfolded from his other arm. “Hope you two are up for a fight. This is as far as we go.”
“I’ll lower the blast door,” Bodel said.
“Fight what?” Hale asked. An electric hum filled the hangar. The hair on the back of Hale’s neck stood up as talons made of coherent light stabbed through the rocks blocking the exit.
The General tore his way into the hangar. The ground blistered and ignited into small fires beneath his feet. The Xaros Master pointed to the faceplate hanging from Elias’ chest.
+YOU+
Hale screamed in pain and fell as the word pounded through his head.
****
The General’s word hit Elias like a spike through his mind. He backpedaled a step, fighting to focus. The Xaros Master was a wash of blazing light and heat through his optics.
Elias bashed the fist of his shield arm against his chest.
“Come on then.” Elias held his blade in a high guard and charged. He slashed at the General and hit nothing but superheated air as the General jinxed aside in a flash of light. Elias ducked behind his shield and caught an energy blast against the aegis armor that knocked him off his feet.
Bodel leveled his cannon at the General and let loose on full automatic fire. Rounds exploded harmlessly a yard away from the General. The recoil pulled Bodel’s shots up and to the side…and to the chain holding up the aegis blast door. Gauss rounds shattered the chain, sending the blast door down with a crash.
Bodel let out a war cry and charged, unsheathing his blade in a vicious slash to the General’s neck.
The General caught Bodel’s sword arm and slammed a punch against Bodel’s shield. The Iron Heart flew back, bouncing off the floor like a stone across water. Bodel’s arm, torn clean out of the socket, remained in the General’s grip. The arm melted like wax against an inferno. The sword clattered to the ground.
An ammo case behind the General burst open. Ar’ri rushed out and lunged at the General with his sword. The tip cut across the General’s hip, opening a gash across the chain-mail layer. Blue light burst from the wound.
The General slid aside and raised an arm overhead, the fingers turning to a scythe of hard light. He slashed at Ar’ri, who got his shield up and blocked the blow before it could slice him in half. The scythe bit into the edge of the shield…and stuck.
The General whipped around, slinging Ar’ri against the blast doors with a crash.
Caas burst out from a maintenance hatch and stabbed the General in the back of an arm. She twisted the blade and the General’s arm fell limp against his side. The Xaros spun around and sent a blazing fist at her head.
Caas swayed back. The General extended a hooked finger and ripped out the optics on her helm as his hand passed. Caas’ hands went to her helm and she stumbled back.
There was a roar and Elias punched the pointed corner of his shield into the General’s face, denting the faceplate. He arched his sword up and caught the General across the chest, cutting through a plate of red armor. Blue light shone out of the wound.
Elias brought his sword down for a return stroke. The General brought his arm up and the blade bounced off a force field coming off the General’s armor. The Xaros’ injured arm reknit and a blast of light slammed into Elias’ hip, knocking him into the air.
Elias fell onto his back and skidded across the floor with a screech of metal. He brought his shield up and blocked the General’s foot as it rammed down against his chest. The shield glowed red hot as intense heat coursed through the aegis, melting it from the inside out.
“Elias, hold on!” Hale yelled. The Marine had got to his feet, blood running from his ears and nose. H
e ripped an antiarmor grenade from his belt, twisted it twice and hurled it at the General.
The General didn’t bother to react, confident in his kinetic shield until the grenade exploded and shot a lance of molted copper through his chest. The General floated back, one hand covering the wound.
He looked at Hale and his eyes flashed beneath the facemask.
“Ghul’Thul’Ghul!” Steuben ran at the General and buried his heirloom blade into the General’s thigh. The intense heat from the General’s being poured into the weapon and exploded in Steuben’s face.
The General built up a ball of energy in his hand and punched toward Hale.
Caas rammed her shield into the General’s fist. She looked at the General through the view port on her armor, hate in her eyes as she took the brunt of the General’s blast against her shield.
Caas angled the shield to the side and slipped into the General’s guard. She slammed her helm against the General’s face and stabbed up. Her blade pierced just beneath the General’s breastplate and came out just beneath his shoulder.
The General bashed her aside and rose into the air, one hand covering the wound. He backed into the aegis blast doors and tried to meld through…and bounced off. The General whirled around and pounded at the door, ripping at the aegis plate with long claws as he tried to find an escape.
Elias picked up Bodel’s blade and hurled it at the General.
The blade burst through the General’s breastplate. He arched back and a wail filled the air. The General fell slowly to the ground.
Elias reached up and took the General by the neck. The Iron Heart’s fingers burst into flames and fused together as he slammed the Master to the ground. Elias rammed his blade into the General’s chest, pinning him to the ground.
“Let your end be in pain,” Elias growled. “Let your end be in failure. This is for her. For us all!” Elias slammed his open hand down on the General’s head and ripped it off. Elias held the severed head up and looked into the General’s eyes as the light faded away.
Blue ooze poured out of the open neck and vanished in a cloud of steam. The General’s armor went limp and collapsed against itself.
