by Sam Bradbury
I gave Rico a secure-that-shit look before turning to address our group, opening my mouth to speak when suddenly the ground quaked, there was a great roar and we were about to get our first look at a MAWLR.
Chapter Ten
What was left of the buildings thumped to the ground around us. Again the tremor and this time we turned to see a shape appear behind a set of burnt-out skyscrapers to our left – more an impression of a shape really.
Metal shone dully. I saw heavy armour and malevolent-looking gun turrets as the thing rose, dwarfing the buildings around it, leaving us open-mouthed in shock. We were looking at a gigantic mech, like nothing I’d ever seen before.
MAWLR – Mounted Artillery Walker/Long Range – one of those Hig master weapons talked about in hushed tones by grunts. It was a spider-mech, its legs ten-times-larger versions of those on the troop transport, fully articulated and all-terrain. Scaled shielding covered them, as well as the vast command centre and multiple gun turrets at its head, an ugly bulbous facility built for one purpose. Death. It towered over us now, hydraulics screeching, propulsion units roaring. It seemed to pause as though looking about in order to orientate itself to the metrics of the battlefield, but if its targeting systems had tracked us then they obviously decided we were too small fry to bother with. For the MAWLR there was metal more attractive and it came in the form of the ISA cruiser Compulsion, hovering above the extraction point.
From our position on the ground we heard the whine – the whine of the vast mech’s petrusite cannon as it reconfigured to target the Compulsion.
And opened fire.
The petrusite beam hit the Compulsion, but not full on. I watched as the cruiser seemed to shudder in the sky. Behind it were the other two cruisers, the Arcturus and the Dauntless, both of them hanging still – sitting targets for the MAWLR. They were already under fire from Helghast fighters and battleships and only just standing firm. They had moments left. Below them the first exhausted, ragged remnants of our army were gathering, ready for Intruders to carry them to safety. I felt my world lurch. So close to home – suddenly it all seemed so far away.
Over the comlink came the voice of Captain Mandaloniz. ‘Dispersive armour is holding. All cruisers, this is the Compulsion. Lock weapons on the MAWLR and fire.’
The sky went orange, purple and red as the combined firepower of the remaining ISA cruisers opened up on the MAWLR. This was one heavily armoured Mech, though, and the cruisers were firing from long range. Not only that but they had Helghast airborne divisions to cope with too. The salvo sent the MAWLR crashing to its left to avoid a rain of missiles from above. The ground shook as ordnance detonated around us.
Now came the voice of Captain Mandaloniz again. ‘Captain Narville,’ he announced, the strain audible in his voice, ‘we can’t hold this position much longer. If you’re going to get here, you better make it fast.’
At the same time, Rico and I made a move towards the HAMRs. Just as the MAWLR took a step away from us and crushed them – easy as a grunt stamping rations tins.
There was a moment of shock, then I was shouting into the pick-up, ‘Gomez, can you hear me?’
Thinking: You made him stay, Sev. If he’s dead, it’s on you.
I’d needed him alive and driving. Thought he’d be safer there.
Maybe he’d left his position.
But there was no answer. Not from Gomez nor from Solowka. Just dead air and the sight of the two crushed HAMRs, wheels at odd, dislocated angles, turrets bent, like a pair of crushed and discarded tin cans. More wreckage in a city full of wreckage. I tried not to think about Gomez, who loved driving because it made him happy, and his ma and pa, home on the farm.
‘We gonna need new transport,’ I said flatly, after a pause. One of the ISA group dropped his eyes and pointed back behind us. ‘We saw a couple of Exos back that way,’ he shrugged.
Perfect. ‘Come on,’ I said to Rico, indicating to the men at the same time. ‘You guys get to your evac posts, now.’
The fleet was under fire both from the air and from the ground now. Our forces were scattered and confused, desperately trying to make their way to the crater any way they could, hammering on the Helghast defences, who hammered back with tanks, infantry, RPGs and, worst of all, the arc cannons that were shredding our Intruders. We were fucked, unless …
Unless Rico and I could use those Exos to clear a path – for the whole convoy to use. A safe corridor. That was what we needed.
Okay. We were Alpha Squad. We could do this. We took off, sprinting in the direction we’d been shown.
‘Captain Narville,’ I called as I ran, ‘find us a highway we can use.’
‘Higs are plugging all the gaps right now,’ he came back.
‘Find us one that’s not so plugged and relay the coordinates to the convoy. We’ll clear a route through with the Exos.’
‘Copy that.’
Moments later the coordinates came back. We had our corridor. A main artery through what had once been a busy Pyrrhus suburb. It was all on us now: me and Rico. We were getting these boys out. Never leave a man behind.
The Higs were everywhere now, and as we came upon a battle site we could see they’d taken down Zulu Squad. Not without cost, though, and among the wreckage and bodies of ISA were smouldering Helghast hovertanks and Bulls, bodies hanging out of them. The area had a quiet, ghostly feel that prickled my skin. In the middle of the highway stood the two Exos like a pair of dormant guards.
Inside one was an ISA corpse, a ragged black hole where his left eye had been. Rico snatched his ID tags before pulling the corpse from the cabin in order to clamber inside himself. The other Exo, mine, looked as though it had suffered greater damage, but, following Rico’s lead, I climbed in, trying to remember the last time I’d piloted one of these things. Back on the Maelstra Barrens it was. I was no hotshot then and wouldn’t be now. We left that kind of thing to Dorweiler.
I clipped my feet into waldo stirrups, then looking at the console in front of me jammed my finger at the right-looking switches. Red and green dashboard lights winked on. Motors engaged and the hydraulics sighed. Powering up, the mech began to hum, louder now. I took hold of the two joysticks and moved the twist grip gingerly. The Exo rose a little with a movement that was far more graceful than I remembered.
Dorweiler once told me that the trick to piloting a mech was to imagine its metallic limbs as extensions of your own. I pictured him in the mess hall with a mug of beer in one hand and a burger in the other, grinning at me with bits of meat and bread between his teeth. ‘Just slip your arms and legs in and forget all about them. Then they ain’t your arms and legs any more – what’s your arms and legs is the Exoskeleton; them’s your limbs now. Get that right you can make thirty tons feel like it ain’t nothing.’
We’d see.
It was still warm I realized, but no matter. No time to think of the dead. There would be time later for them. For now I was following Rico as he powered his own Exo up and set off, jabbering coordinates over the comlink once more. I felt resolved. Once more I thought we could do this. We could really do this.
Chapter Eleven
Moments after getting the Exo moving I was feeling right at home. At Rico’s suggestion I checked the weapons systems, which, despite the Exo being so beat up were in good working order, and we took off, going fast.
Over the comlink came Rico. ‘Power levels normal. Switching to auxiliary systems.’
We came to the top of a low hill overlooking the smoking and blackened remains of what had once been a residential area. It was bisected by one main highway – and that was our route to the crater – but even as we watched we could see Hig armour moving to block it. And they had themselves an arc cannon or two into the bargain. Narville was right: they really were plugging the gaps. As we pounded down the hill towards the highway, ISA buggies and APCs were arriving, gunfire raining down on them from buildings to left and right.
‘We’re spread pretty thin, Command,’
came an anguished cry from one of the ground troops.
‘Okay,’ replied Rico, ‘let’s get back on track. Follow us in.’
Into the maze of broken-down buildings we went. ISA tanks began appearing to our right, supporting us, and straight away we were taking heavy fire. From the rubble of the city came the screech of an RPG round which exploded with a sharp report and a blinding orange flash, rocking the whole of the Exo. I felt perspiration make its way down the back of my neck, a weird ticklish feeling – a feeling that was out of place on the battlefield somehow. I found myself wanting to scratch, but worried about letting go of the twin joysticks, and suddenly the humour of the situation was almost too much for me: piloting an unfamiliar mech across a nuclear city while facing an enemy barrage. What’s bothering Sergeant Tomas ‘Sev’ Sevchenko the most? The droplet of sweat tickling his neck.
A crackle of static in my headset. Rico. ‘Two arc cannons ahead.’
Jesus.
‘Incoming armour. Locking on.’
We were on the road now, buildings either side of us, a valley of bullets. And there on the road were Helghast tanks, lying in wait for the column, expecting Archers and APCs but getting us instead. Nice to know we still had a few tricks up our sleeve. Our targeting systems adjusted. On the screen in front of me a grid shifted as the Exo found her prey. I squeezed the trigger and sent a couple of missiles into a tank ahead of me. The Hig in the turret screamed as the tank was ripped apart from beneath him and his torso flung to the ground where it lay flapping, entrails hanging like ribbons from his open stomach.
Another tank. My missiles spoke again and the chain gun rattled. Around me were the burnt remnants of buildings and structures, like huge splinters driven into the earth, and from them poured enemy infantry, disappearing in a hail of bullets and red vapour as the barrel of my chain gun glowed red and the Exo pounded forward. Inside the cockpit it was a nightmarish cacophony of battle – the thump-thump of the weapons, the shriek of the engines, the whine of the motors. It was as though all of the last few hours were nothing but a build-up to this moment – that things had reached a pitch: we the ISA desperate and greedy for home; the Helghast desperate to stop us. Each time we seemed to have burst through their defences they reacted with even greater outrage, throwing even more men and vehicles at us. Each time we inflicted upon them defeat they came back at us more viciously, as though they held us responsible not just for the death of Visari but for the nuke too.
Now came the arc cannons, positioned across the highway. I saw the evil bulbous turrets move, trying to find us, and shouted to Rico. We both deployed multiple missiles at range, before the arc cannons got their fix, and the APCs burst open, the explosion rocking the cabins of the Exos even from a distance.
‘Arc cannons are down,’ announced Rico. ‘The road is clear.’
‘Appreciated, Command,’ said an AC over the comlink.
Then came a bang and a flash. A sound like the air was ripping and an RPG round exploded onto the hull of an Archer next to me. An ISA hanging on to the infantry handle dissolved into a spray of blood and bone. Still they were coming at us, positioned on a bridge now and raining fire upon us: a hail of bullets that splattered into the concrete and mud around. I sent a missile to the bridge. Helghast burned and died and we moved on, clearing the route, destroying everything in our path, staying alive – though Christ knows how. If not for the Exo’s arm and superior firepower we would have died in the valley for sure. Behind every barricade was a machine-gun nest or grenadier, so it seemed anyway. So it felt like.
Home, I kept thinking. Home.
Until at last the final Helghast tank was turned into a ball of flame, the remains of their infantry had been mowed down or was retreating and Rico was urging the convoy to break through.
‘Get your asses in gear,’ he was screaming. Where the fuck was the rest of the convoy? Suddenly the comlink had gone quiet.
Then in my headset came the anguished response, ‘Convoy is breaking up, Command. We’re in serious shit out here.’
What? Serious shit? How come …
‘Sir, there’s a –’
He was cut off moments before I heard it for myself. A great clanging of metal that sent my Exo’s tracking systems wild. Still pounding forward, I twisted in the Exo to see the MAWLR on our six and bearing down on us. I twisted back to face front and pulled on the twist-grip, speeding up, Rico doing the same ahead of me. There was the whine of a warning klaxon as the sensors picked up enemy targeting systems attempting to lock on and now I drew level with Rico and could see that he too was jabbing at buttons on the console in front of him. He looked up, caught my eye, the nearest I’ve ever seen him to looking terrified.
Pounding after us came the MAWLR, the earth shaking. We were leading it towards the extraction zone, I realized. Two klicks north, out of sight, with only the raging air battle above to betray its position.
‘Got to lead it away from our boys, Rico,’ I yelled.
‘Copy that,’ he said, and we both turned, hoping the MAWLR would follow.
Be careful what you wish for, eh? It came after us. Now we were coming up on some open space and I was sweating freely now, leaning on the sticks, but terrified of the Exo losing its footing. Hit a hole at this speed and I was going down. Dorweiler, God rest his soul, he had natural padding. Not me, and whoever had designed this thing had gone easy on the luxurious upholstery. I was going down. And it was going to hurt. Just another day in the ISA.
Behind us, the MAWLR opened fire. Either it had got impatient or thought it had a lock. Whatever.
The world went white. A blinding flash. I felt a wave of something burst in the air, a shudder that went through me and that rocked the cabin of the mech so hard it could no longer maintain balance. The Exo spun and so did I, cracking my head on one of the uprights. Things went grey, then brown, then the ground was rushing up to meet me, the windshield spider-cracking, me thrown around inside the cabin as we hit the ground with a great screech of agonized metal and a cloud of billowing dirt.
In the sudden calm that followed, as the hydraulics sighed and died and the Exo’s limbs relaxed into extinction, I lay there for a second wondering if I was dead. But then I couldn’t be dead because death surely wouldn’t be as full of suck as this was right now. Death wouldn’t feel like lying in the crumpled remains of a combat Exoskeleton wondering if a gigantic mech was preparing a second bolt of petrusite to finish you off. Death had to be better than that.
I groaned. Around me smoke settled and then parted like drapes. I gasped at the heavy Helghast air, started patting myself down, checking everything was there: hands, arms, feet, legs, ears, nose. Rico must have had a softer landing than I had. Either that or he was made of some kind of indestructible metal. But he came sprinting round the steaming skeleton of the Exo to collect me. We looked about for the MAWLR and saw it on the horizon. It had turned, was heading back towards the crater – the extraction point – to where our troops were now headed. Things were coming apart. I had a moment of simply not knowing what to do, then over the comlink came the voice of Jammer again.
‘Captain Narville, this is Jammer.’ She sounded close to breaking point now. ‘Do you read?’
We both flinched as from above us came a great explosion and we were showered by a fine drizzle of debris. Still the battle raged in the skies. Our cruisers being overrun.
Over my headset Jammer was breaking up. ‘Captain Narville, we can’t stay here. Where are those Intruders?’
We heard Narville reply. ‘This is Narville. If they didn’t make it … there’s no one else I can send. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Jammer.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Rico suddenly.
I looked at him sharply.
‘Velasquez, stick to your orders,’ barked Narville over the comlink.
Like I’m always saying, Rico had a shorter fuse than most people. Hell, he had a shorter fuse than most grunts, who have a shorter fuse than most. So far we’d stood by, done
things the military way, let Captain Narville make stupid-ass mistakes, let him allow the convoy to be broken up so the Helghast could pick us off. We’d only got this far thanks to me, to Rico, to the likes of Dorweiler and Gomez and Solowka. Good men who died following stupid commands.
‘Fuck your orders,’ exploded Rico. ‘I didn’t come here to run from Helghast. I don’t leave people behind. Hang on, Jammer. I’m coming.’
‘Velasquez ,’ snapped Narville, but Rico wasn’t listening. He’d yanked out his headset so he couldn’t hear the captain any more. And he looked at me as though daring me to stop him. I knew better than to try, instead saying, ‘I’m with you, Rico.’
‘This one’s on me, buddy. Besides, you gotta tell Narville to wait, okay?’
I nodded.
‘I’ll meet you at the extraction point,’ said Rico simply. And that was it. He sprinted away and I watched him go, wondering if I’d ever see him again.
Chapter Twelve
Okay, no time to get all misty-eyed – I had to make it to the extraction zone, hope that as much of the convoy as possible had made it through the corridor.
With the air full of thunder, I jumped into a trench and started to make my way back towards the crater, stopping every now and then to crouch as stray missiles exploded on the ground above me, showering me with mud and concrete chips. The noise now was intense, the ferocity of the battle even greater, if that was possible. And when I surprised Helghast troops in the trench they came at me as though they wanted to die – like dying was better than letting me leave alive.
‘Don’t let them escape. Kill them all,’ I heard. Nice of the guy to let me know he was coming. I crouched, tucked the assault rifle into my shoulder and squeezed off a burst that took out his stomach as he came over the lip of the trench. He plunged, screaming, alive enough to shout for back-up, and I put another bullet in his head, changed the clip just as a second infantryman came running. I took him down. He joined his comrade twitching on the floor of the trench and I stayed on one knee for a moment or so, in case they had any pals. No. Good.
