Til Valhalla

by Richard Fox

  “I’m tired and pissed off too.” Liu sucked smoke in through his nose. “We’ve got amphetamine pills in the medical truck. I can issue those at my discretion.”

  “You think there’s any left?” Chang huffed. “The medics are the worst addicts in the battalion. Plus, we get the soldiers wired up on those now, they might crash right as we get to the front.”

  “Then we just give them more pills.” Liu took one last, long drag, then flicked the butt into a hole in the bridge. The lit end spun over and over, then landed on what looked like a slight outcropping against the cliff, light from the cigarette shining off what looked like rain-slick metal. “Huh…that’s funny.”

  Liu looked down through the binoculars and focused them in close.

  An Armor clinging to the cliff face looked up at him, the butt rolling down the front of its helm.

  Liu backpedaled, slipping in a puddle and coming down hard on his backside.

  “Scared of heights?” Chang asked.

  The crack of breaking rock sounded over the rain, and a massive metal arm shot up through the hole in the bridge and clamped down on Chang’s head. The officer was yanked through the gap, limbs breaking against the edges, and vanished.

  The assembled group of Chi-com looked at each other in surprise, taking a second to process what just happened.

  “Run!” Liu rolled over and tried to move, but his feet slipped out from under him and he slapped against the wet road.

  The bridge heaved up as the Armor’s helm and shoulders rose through the gap, metal squealing as the metal giant crawled up over the edge. A Chi-com soldier opened fire with an assault rifle, the bullets pinging and sparking against the Armor, doing little more than gaining the suit’s attention.

  The Armor backhanded the shooter, slapping the soldier into the front edge of a tank and snapping his spine as he folded backwards.

  A growl rose from the suit’s speakers and heavily accented Mandarin blasted out, louder than thunder.

  “Sha xi ni!”

  I will kill you.

  The Armor opened fire with the rotary cannon on its shoulder, mowing down Chi-com soldiers as they scrambled away. Stomping forward, it slammed hands to either side of a tank turret, heaved up, and ripped the turret off, the legs of a crewman dangling from the bottom. The Armor tossed the turret over the guardrail and down the cliff.

  Liu got up to a crouch and ran, waving one hand over his head and screaming for his men to open fire. Machine guns mounted on personnel carriers and built into tank turrets rattled, sending green tracers zipping overhead. He ducked behind a tank and opened a box with a handset inside.

  “Shoot! Shoot with the main gun! What are you waiting for?”

  An explosion flashed ahead, casting shadows past the tank and briefly illuminating the convoy.

  “Gunner, load sabot!” a panicked soldier shouted. Liu wasn’t sure if the crew was responding to his command or reacting to contact as they’d been trained. The tank’s engine revved and smoke belched all over him. The turret turned with a hydraulic whine and Liu peeked over the back of the tank, hands over his ears.

  The Armor ran straight for him, burning vehicles in its wake. Flames formed a backdrop like it was a hell-forged demon sent to take his soul. The Armor slammed both fists against the forward edge of the tank and the back kicked up, sending Liu flying.

  Liu hit hard, losing his breath to the impact against the asphalt. He crawled toward the EMP generator truck, its engine cranking as the driver tried to get it moving. The Armor’s rotary cannon opened up, stitching through the dome of the EMP equipment, some rounds ricocheting off the front.

  Liu slunk between the treads, the reek of oil mixing with water all over him. He heard the Armor’s footfalls behind him, and his initial adrenaline dump wore off just a bit…and fear filled his chest.

  There was a boom of a tank’s main gun and the whoosh of a passing round. The Armor was tough, but even they couldn’t take a sabot round.

  He knew the sabot missed when the EMP vehicle rocked violently back and forth, then tipped over, slamming to its side. The Armor towered over Liu, using the EMP truck as cover while fire blossomed from the spinning barrels of its rotary weapon.

  Liu squawked and bolted away. He ran past a tank as it rolled backwards, desperately trying to put space between it and the Union Armor. A pair of electric snaps sounded behind him and the tank blew up. The blast wave pitched Liu forward and he rolled down the highway.

  Liu’s vision swam as he put one hand to the side of his head. His nose was almost touching a black rectangle and the grumble of an engine grew in his hearing as the ring from the explosion subsided.

  He was right in front of tank treads.

  Liu rolled to one side as the tank lurched forward, almost crushing him into paste.

  Ahead…he saw the antenna mast of his command and control APC. A radio. Help.

  Liu laughed wildly, got up to run, and promptly fell forward. He looked at his feet and saw one boot mangled and bloody from shrapnel thrown off by an explosion somewhere behind him.

  He did his best to hop forward, grateful that his body was in full flight mode and that a new wave of adrenaline was blocking the pain. Bursts from the rotary cannon snapped overhead, but he kept his focus on the antenna and the chance at salvation.

  A new sound came through the storm. The whomp whomp whomp of helicopter blades.

  “Ha! Let’s see how you like this, you son of a bitch!” Liu shouted over one shoulder. The Armor had punched a fist through the driver’s hatch of a tank and had its helm angled up to the sky.

  Liu collapsed against the side of his command vehicle…and saw a line of bullet holes down the center.

  An attack helicopter swung around a hillside, its floodlights blinding Liu for a second. He heard the whoosh of rockets overhead, and another slap of a concussion wave slammed him to the road, sending him hydroplaning past the vehicle.

  Liu looked up to the dead face of his radioman lying next to him. The soldier’s skin had gone pale, bled out from bullets that ripped through his abdomen. Liu slapped the ground and pushed his shoulders up. The rear hatch was still open, a radio handset dangling out from its twisted cord.

  The Armor appeared, spots of flame clinging to its legs and arms. The iron giant ripped the gun turret off Liu’s vehicle and leaned back, the turret gripped in one hand. The Armor hurled the improvised missile to the sky.

  It clipped the attack helicopter’s main blade and the aircraft spun out of control. It floundered like a fish on a line as it fell below the highway and crashed into the sea.

  Liu cursed and crawled to the radio handset. He grabbed the lip of the hatch and pulled himself up next to the vehicle, then snatched the handset. It was slick with blood and rain, but a hiss from the earpiece told him it was still functional.

  He heard a garbled transmission but stopped himself from putting it to his ear when the Armor took a step forward, its massive foot close enough to kick.

  Liu looked up at the Armor, its surface pitted with bullet strikes, steam rising from servos. The rotary cannon twisted toward Liu and locked with a click. Even though he was so close to a walking death machine…a sense of peace came over him.

  Liu felt at his chest for his cigarettes, but they were lost. Liu spit at the Armor and raised the handset.

  A single shot rang out.

  ****

  Rain pelted against Roy’s Armor as he stood next to the shot-up command vehicle, his optics locked on the dead Chi-com officer at his feet.

  Sigmund marched up from the other side of the vehicle, gauss cannon barrel smoking.

  “Not bad,” Sigmund said.

  Roy bent his cannon-less arm at the elbow. “I was short a weapon,” he said. “The rotary shells can pierce the top armor of their tanks, but I had to almost be right on top of them to do it…default aggressive.”

  “Default aggressive. Violence of action. Carries the day,” Sigmund said. “Why didn’t you use the heavy gaus
s rifle mag-locked on your back?”

  Roy’s helm snapped up. “I…was saving it for the Dragons,” he said.

  “You didn’t forget it was there?” Sigmund turned slightly and motioned for Digger and Payne to catch up.

  “Saving it for the Dragons,” Roy repeated.

  “What in the hell just happened?” Digger asked. “One minute the sub’s stopped and then—correct me if I’m wrong—the Chi-com drop a tank on us and we’re trying to swim when the emergency protocols activate. Then we climb up that bastard of a cliff and the Rupert proceeds to rip them to pieces. Good job on that, kiddo, proud of you.”

  “I did see a tank under the water,” Sigmund said. “Looks like it fell off the bridge and hit the battery swap station the robot sub was using.”

  “Why…would you put a swap station right there?” Payne motioned toward the ocean. “You’ve got the entire Pacific. And you seppos put it right where a tank could roll off a bridge and crush it.”

  “It charged off hydroelectric power,” Sigmund said. “The cliffs made—you know what? It doesn’t really matter now, does it? We could ask the Chi-com if they did drop a tank on us on purpose,” he said, kicking the command and control vehicle, “but none are available for questioning. We’re here…and I’m not exactly sure where we are. No satellite connection…no GPS.”

  “This is the A1 highway,” Digger said. “I made this drive when I was a kid…brother was a surfer and we didn’t have the money to fly to all his competitions. Think we’re north of Rockhampton.”

  “How far to the front at Brisbane?” Sigmund asked.

  “Maybe…nine hundred kilometers.”

  “Shit.” Sigmund looked out to the ocean, then back up the highway to the carnage. “Wait a second.”

  When he lifted a foot, the anchor spike shot out. He ripped the tip through the side of the command vehicle and diesel spilled out from the ruptured fuel tank. The puddle spread past Liu’s boots and stopped.

  “They’re running low on gas,” Roy said.

  “And I didn’t see any tankers on the way down here,” Sigmund said. “We are Armor, and we must not think like crunchies. Our batteries can keep us in the fight for days. A full tank of diesel can get the Chi-com only so far…They must have been on their way to a logistics base.”

  “Rockhampton,” Digger said, pointing south. “Most likely spot. There’s infrastructure for a loggy site. Back at Omen, your people said the Chi-com had ordered a full advance. Logistics tails don’t just get up and move too. We’re on their supply line that runs from the Brisbane front clear back to China.”

  “This storm…add in the fog of war…we’ve got an opportunity while we’re in the enemy’s backyard,” Sigmund said.

  “In the absence of orders—attack,” Digger said. “Isn’t that something the Americans say?”

  “That traces back to Erwin Rommel, I do believe,” Sigmund said. “But close enough. Let’s get to Rockhampton and…” Sigmund pointed to the wrecked bridge, then drew his hand back.

  “Just follow me,” Digger said.

  Chapter 16

  Roy leaned against a mountainside, the last of the storm whipping around him, pelting him with pebbles and rain as dawn broke to the east. If he was dismounted, the gusts and weather would have cast him down, but he was Armor. One hand had cracked the rock to secure purchase, and both feet were dug in. He would move when he was ready. Mother Nature had no power over him.

  In one hand, he held the new gauss rifle, his secondary weapon in case Sigmund’s original plan fell through.

  “Don’t give your silhouette away again,” he told himself. “Don’t screw up again.”

  A countdown timer appeared on his HUD and he looked up to the ridgeline just a few yards away. He primed the energy coils in his back and bent slightly at the knee servos.

  The timer hit zero and he jumped up. His free hand caught the edge of a boulder and he swung his feet up and over the ridge. He slid down, knocking away loose rocks but thankfully little dust as the rain had tamped down the dirt. Spotting a slight outcrop, he slid onto it.

  “In position.” Payne sent over the IR.

  Roy snapped his anchor spike out and drove it into the rock. It drilled down and he looked out at the small city spread across a valley. His targeting systems picked up a fuel depot, dozens of blisters connected by pipes and feeding into long lines of vehicles waiting to gas up.

  Airships with cargo pods the size of small ships were docked on a massive concrete pad. Lifters moved around like ants deconstructing a loaf of bread dropped in the jungle. Warehouses. Foundries…a target-rich environment if he’d ever seen one.

  The anchor drilled lower…and the rock split beneath his foot and tumbled down the mountainside.

  “Fouled point,” Roy sent through the IR. He spotted another flat area farther down the slope. “Relocating.”

  “Don’t make yourself a target,” Sigmund said. “Use your secondary—”

  “Anchoring!” Roy hit the spot hard and drove the anchor into the rock. It bit down and felt more secure than his last spot. He extended the twin vanes of his rail gun up and out of the housing and leveled them toward the logistics base.

  “Lance is in position,” Sigmund said. “Sending targets. Fire in sequence.”

  The fuel park highlighted in Roy’s HUD and he adjusted his aim. He didn’t have to hit an exact spot, but he aimed for a diesel blister dug into the earth and surrounded by a wall of sandbags.

  His anchor slowed, working hard to dig through the rock.

  “Come on, come on,” he said to himself.

  As Digger’s rail gun fired, thunder erupted—not from the storm, but from the mountain itself. A line of fire appeared, connecting the mountain to the airship dock. A blast wave radiated out from the point of impact, kicking the airships aside and ripping them apart, scattering the lifters like pebbles beneath a sudden tide.

  Sigmund fired and warehouses shredded into aluminum confetti.

  Roy’s anchor finally hit home and an amber warning flashed across his vision. His point was marginally secure. If he fired, he ran the risk of the force from the shot going through his Armor instead of into the mountain.

  Payne’s rail gun annihilated an ammo depot and a fireball rose up in a mushroom cloud, obscuring Roy’s target, but he still had his firing data.

  “Good Lord, I…need you now,” Roy prayed. Keeping his eyes open, he fired.

  Lightning cracked between the vanes as the electromagnetic coils built to full power. The round shattered the air as it split down the vanes and the backblast tried to rip his anchored leg from his body.

  The tip of a line of burning oxygen hung in the air, the ends of his vanes glowing with St. Elmo’s fire. He marveled at the awful beauty of the moment.

  Then the ground gave way beneath his feet.

  Roy flipped around and smashed his metal hands into a boulder. He retracted the vanes as a small avalanche clawed soil away from beneath his torso and legs.

  “Roy! Status!” Sigmund called out through the IR.

  “Fine,” Roy said, looking down the mountainside as his firing point tumbled away, growing the rock fall into rolling thunder. His hold remained true, and he pulled himself up to the ridgeline. “Everything’s fine over here. Target destroyed.” He glanced back at the Chi-com base and saw the fuel depot had erupted into a conflagration. “Definitely destroyed. How’re you?”

  “Get to the rally point,” Sigmund ordered.

  ****

  Roy slid down the last of the mountainside and carried the momentum forward into a run. The point on his HUD to link up with the rest of the lance was just ahead in a clump of trees. He found Digger and Payne, weapons ready, standing on either side of Sigmund, who was bent to one knee.

  “Sir?” Roy slowed to a jog. “I’m not sure this is the time to—”

  “Stop. Moving,” Sigmund said.

  Roy slid to a stop.

  “Rail-gun impacts have a seismic effect,” the
lance commander said. “If Colonel Carius is monitoring for that, then he’ll know we—or any other Armor out here, but who else is there?—just engaged…and if he picks that up, then he can…there.”

  “Using your anchor to communicate again,” Digger said. “Did you get the idea from elephants?”

  “We did, actually,” Sigmund said. “Good for limited messages, but they can be traced back to the source if you’re not careful, which is why I’m not answering this…message. I need to run it through other decryption protocols. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What is it?” Roy asked.

  “Banana,” Sigmund deadpanned.

  “You’re right…that doesn’t make any sense,” Roy said.

  “Banana?” Digger looked at Sigmund. “Are you sure?”

  “I put the code through other protocols and it’s gibberish,” Sigmund said. “The Chi-com may have figured out what we’re doing and are jamming us with white noise that—”

  “I know where that is,” Digger said. “It’s a town southeast of here.”

  “‘Banana’ is a…place?” Roy asked. “Someone named their home...‘banana’?”

  “Welcome to ’Straya, where we do what we want and it can get a little weird sometimes,” she said. “Banana’s out in the woop woop. Now, we want to sit out here until the Chi-com get their act together and come looking for us, or do we go to where that Carius of yours suggests? Because after that rail shot, my batteries are in the red.”

  “We stay off the roads,” Sigmund said. “Nothing but Chi-com between here and Brisbane and we’re low on ammo and power. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 17

  Roy ran, his heavy gauss rifle held low and swinging from side to side to match his stride. Moving on treads would’ve been faster and would’ve saved battery power, but the brutal summer sun had already dried out the soil. Rolling on track would’ve kicked up a dust cloud that would’ve become a giant indicator for any Chi-com forces in the area that something worth shooting was nearby.

  They’d encountered a few wrecked vehicles, some more recently destroyed than others, but no drones or enemy troops.