Armored-ARC

by John Joseph Adams

  “Sir,” HARRE said, “that is not a viable mission. Given the statistical population densities I estimate that there are thousands of Panesthians between here and Major Kewlett’s lines, far too many to move in the remaining time.”

  “So we need to stop those lead machines pretty quick, eh, Harry?” No response.

  “Sir Marvudi,” Yow said, buzzing. “Delbert wishes to know what your plans are?”

  Karith looked down at the two Panesthians, staring up at him with broad black eyes, mouthparts moving slowly in and out.

  “I’ve got a few ideas.”

  Yow and Delbert conferred urgently. Yow said, “We were hearing that you were in the RGK?” Dimly, muffled by the automatic filters on the comm system, Karith could hear Nicolette howling and growling along with her battle song over the deep coughing of her lasers and her jet’s roar.

  “Was. I was in the RGK.”

  “We are honored. You can stop them?”

  “No, I probably can’t.”

  A small Panesthian, a tenth Yow’s size, buzzed unsteadily out of the sky and landed on the face of Karith’s mech. It squeaked and buzzed, peering into one of the darker radio portals in his faceplate. Raising one foreleg, it rapped its claw on the portal. Faintly, Karith heard a muffled tapping through the confines of his cockpit. He raised a giant metal hand but hesitated to pluck the child off his face.

  “Sir Marvudi,” Yow said, “allow me?”

  “Of course.” Karith laughed nervously, reminded of when the nurse had handed him Karri. He had been afraid to touch the little thing for fear of breaking it.

  Yow, ponderous on his big wings, buzzed up to Karith’s mech, even more unsteady than the youngster had been. When he was about to touch the child, it squeaked and zipped over Karith’s head and down his back. Seconds later it was in speedy but erratic flight toward the warrens.

  Yow thumped back to earth.

  “Harry, put Yow in contact with Major Kewlett directly.”

  “That is against protocol, sir. The connection should properly go though you as the liaison advisor.”

  “Well, I’m going to be too busy to handle it, Harry. Just do it.”

  “Done, sir.”

  “And put me through to him too.” Karith said, “Good luck, Yow.” He stood and turned away from the retreating Panesthians, striding toward the hills and accelerating into a thundering trot over the rolling ground.

  “Kewlett, go.” The major’s chewing was furious now.

  “Sir, Marvudi here. The locals won’t be much use. I’ve got them herding all the civilians they can toward your lines, but they won’t be fast enough. My air is currently putting the hurt on the lead boiler units, slowing them down. I’ll get into it and slow them down even more.”

  “The hell you will, son. I’ve got boilers coming up out of bogtaken tunnels not two miles to my east. Tunnels! Who the hell”—snap—“ever heard of that? I need you and your air unit back here.”

  Karith let the mech run by itself for a little bit and slewed his map over to examine the city where the Major was holed up. Red icons dotted the suburbs on the far side. Energy weapons lanced down from the sky and kinetics flickered across the battlefield. Zooming in, he could see Treads, Crawlers, Walkers, and Blasters.

  “I concur with the major, sir,” HARRE noted. “We are facing a far superior force. Doctrine advises us to consolidate in defense with other units in the area.”

  Karith confirmed with a glance that HARRE had not put his quoting of the book out over the open circuit. “Can’t do it, Harry. Major, I wonder if you’ve seen what the boilers do to civilians they catch in the open? I think I can reverse the boiler’s focus if I hit a piece of their primary infrastructure. They’ll turn around to protect that instead of expanding for the moment. It’ll keep them out of your rear area. Normally I’d just call in an orbital strike but—”

  Nicolette chimed in, privately. “I don’t know Karith, they look pretty determined. I’ve got them taking cover for now but I’m seeing heavy-treads, heavy-rollers, and full complements of cutters and blasters for each.”

  Snap. “Marvudi, there’s civilians here in the city too. The boilers don’t care one way or the other. Now get your ass over here ASAP.”

  Karith isolated Nicolette’s circuit. “No Crawlers or Hummers?”

  “Not yet.”

  “That’s something.”

  “Yeah. It’s only a matter of—” Her reply broke off and faded out under the howl of her motivator engines.

  The ground started to rise sharply and Karith leaned into the first foothill, clawing with his hands. “Sir, I’m going to cut through these hills and try to get behind them. If I can smash something important enough, their subroutines will switch over to protect and rebuild before they tear into these warrens.”

  He waited a tense moment. Finally, the major spoke. “You really think you can do this, don’t you, RGK?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fine. Go make something happen.” Snap, chew. His voice was tense and rising. “Keep me apprised.”

  “Roger that, sir.” Dead air.

  Karith’s HUD tracked him as he accelerated through the hills. Red machine units seethed along the valley floor while he passed up high in the opposite direction.

  He kept an eye on the battle on the east side of the city, watched it grow into a big smear of red on his screens. Hopefully he could keep the tide of red below him from sweeping into it from the west.

  “Sir, Captain Shepard has taken a direct hit to one of her lasers. Her lift bodies have been depleted by seventeen percent. Without a repair depot—”

  “Nic,” Karith said, “how you doing up there?” Her icon soared above him on his HUD.

  “Just fine, Karith. Too high and the railguns can target me, any lower and the treads can lock on with their main guns. And I keep running into needle streams from the bloody crawlers.”

  Karith studied the model HARRE was making from the sensor-drone feeds. The boilers were digging in under Nicolette’s onslaught.

  Reaching up and grasping a knob of rock, he levered himself up over a ridge and rolled down, armor crushing boulders and snapping trees.

  “Okay, Nic. Go take out a few of those railguns if you can. Make yourself some breathing room.”

  With an exultant yell, Nicolette flipped her airship into a backward loop and pulled out to race down the center of the valley at treetop height. Looking down a long draw, Karith saw her flash past the mouth of it, lasers on full, burning the ground and enemy units in her path in a fountaining rooster tail of flame and smoke.

  The airships over the city wouldn’t be able to go all out because of the civilians on the ground. He was just grateful the machines hadn’t achieved a stage with aircraft yet.

  “Sir, Captain Shepard has dropped off my radar.”

  “Yeah, I expected that. She’ll fly nap-of-the-earth all the way until she takes out those guns.”

  “That is very risky, sir. The concentration of smaller-caliber weapons on the ground along her route is likely to be extremely high.”

  “Yup. Moving that fast, though, they’ll probably miss her.”

  “But with concentrations of fire—”

  “What else, exactly, is she supposed to do, Harry?”

  HARRE’s response was immediate. “Retreat with us to the main perimeter, sir. The concentration of antagonistic force here is too high to justify operations in this area.”

  “Can’t do it, Harry.” Karith flattened himself against the side of a ridge on the edge of the red zone and lifted a sensor pod to the crest. Leaving it in place, he backed up, sidled along the ridge, and put another one up. “All right. What do we have out there?”

  HARRE had started building a real-time model of the plains beyond the ridge as soon as the second pod was in place for triangulation. A smoky, torn landscape unfolded before Karith’s eyes, filled with endless banks of raw functional machinery, thick power cables snaking along the ground and through th
e air, trenches and canals filled with oily water and mud between metal walls, and fences as far as the eye could see.

  “Okay, Harry, we need something important enough to sting ’em good, right here so those units in the valley are the nearest units for defense.”

  While HARRE scanned, Karith adjusted the mech’s missile batteries.

  “Surely, sir, Nicolette’s action against the railguns will draw the boiler’s attention.”

  “You’re bloody right it will, Harry me lad, but that’s too far away. What are the units in the valley doing now?”

  “I’m afraid they are up and moving again, sir.”

  “Bog take it. We need to hit something fast. What do you see out there?”

  “There is a class seven power node quite close to the mouth of the valley, sir.”

  “Seven?” Karith was looking over the situation back at the city. Kewlett was holding on the east, barely.

  “Yes, sir. It seems to be feeding most of the machinery and infrastructure in this area.” HARRE lit up a rough circle several miles in diameter at the valley’s mouth.

  “Nice. We’ll do the old high lob low fastball. We may not get another chance.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nicolette’s voice sounded. “All right, this little strip of sky should be clear now.”

  “Excellent. Glad you’re still alive, Nic.”

  “Yeah. Where do you want me?”

  Karith launched three top-down missiles over the ridge.

  “Hit here.” Karith passed her the power node as a target along with the flight paths of his missiles which were dodging and weaving through an upward rain of fire from the machine’s defenses.

  Three more missiles streaked from his shoulder racks and over the metal landscape, straight for the node. The flash and expanding concussion wave was followed closely by another from the last of his high flyers.

  Nicolette screamed past, lasers digging a fiery trench straight through the node. Karith resisted HARRE’s automatic instructions to duck behind the ridge, instead drawing a bit of fire off Nicolette. The ridgetop exploded under a firehose stream of metal splinters and energy weapons, even as he returned fire. He leaned into the storm, trusting his armor. The incoming fire drummed against him like pounding horizontal rain. Energy beams scored bright streaks across him, raising his internal temp. He could feel the heat on his skin as he shook and rocked from the force of it all.

  He stood firm, sending streams of metal from his arm mounted kinetic weapons ripping into the defensive pods scattered around the fantastic metal landscape. HARRE orchestrated a symphony of destruction with the shoulder and hip turrets.

  Karith’s inner-ear protested. Suddenly, dirt piled into him from the side. He found himself stumbling.

  “Contact!” HARRE yelled.

  Looking down, Karith saw a walker fastened to his mech’s lower abdomen, sparks flying where its plasma cutter chewed into his hip joint.

  “Shit!” He smashed the spiny metal thing with his fist. Three more scuttled out of a newly opened hole in the ridge’s side. Their leggy angled shapes scrambled past a machine he’d never seen before, a conical spinning drill bit as big as the rumbling combustion engine backing it.

  “This is a new behavior, sir.”

  Karith smashed at a second walker as three more leapt onto his chest and shoulders. He caught himself screaming in anger and gritted his teeth. He triggered a burst of explosive rounds into the driller thing and leapt at it, pushing it back into the hole it had come from. Spinning, he flailed at the walkers cutting into him from above.

  The dirt under his feet gave way and he slipped face first into another cluster of walkers scrambling out from between another driller and the edges of the hole it had made. He choked back another yell and curled up into a ball. They looked more like fantastic metal spiders than anything else, long legs supporting a bulbous body. One of them was digging into his abdomen again. He felt and heard something give down by his feet, a tearing, crumpling sound. Not his mech’s feet, his actual feet. A whiff of ozone reached his nose.

  “Sir, units in the valley are turning back toward us.”

  Thrusting with his mech’s feet against the top of the second driller, he fired another burst of explosive rounds into its engine as he jumped away, or tried to jump away. Two more walkers dragged at him and upset his balance. The dirt and brush at the bottom of the ridge rushed up to meet him. Impact tightened his harness. Sparks flew in three directions across his face.

  He grabbed a handful of walker and ripped it away. It went limp when he slammed it against the ground, pieces breaking off. He flogged his armor’s upper torso with the remains of the thing and felt it impact other walkers.

  “Karith!” Nic’s voice was frantic. “I can’t see you!”

  “Wait one.”

  A walker lost its grip and fell to the ground. Karith stomped on it as he struggled to his feet again. Sparking, it blew up, clouds of smoke boiling out of it.

  “Sir, your armor is compromised at plates T-12 and T-13.”

  “What?” Nic screamed over the link.

  “I’m fine! Relax.” The screaming sound of a plasma cutter was starting to vibrate his cockpit. Frantically Karith swept his hands over his head. Ah-ha! He grabbed the thing and crushed, dragging it to the front where he could see it. The cutting stopped. Metal corpse in hand, he flung himself to the ground on top of the two still on his back and rolled away. One stayed down. He fired into its body and it spasmed, smoking.

  A shadow overtopped him and his sensors registered a flash of heat. He ground his back against an outcropping of rock, spun, and smashed his fist into the power plant of the boiler clinging to the rock face. It exploded. Eyes going up, he casually fired a burst into a walker stirring at his feet.

  Nicolette’s airship floated over him, just below the ridgetop. He stared in consternation for a moment. Most of her lift spheres were discolored from heat and impact.

  “Nic?”

  “Well what was I supposed to do, you jerk?”

  “Sir, this area is riddled with tunnels. I deem it likely that more drilling machines are on the way and recommend retrograde movement.”

  “Harry, if you ever say ‘retrograde movement’ again, I’ll erase you. It’s bogtaken ‘retreat.’ What are you doing down here, Nic?”

  “Just thought I might lend a hand.”

  “That’s crazy. Get out of here, back up high.”

  “Fine, screw you then.”

  She sounded upset but jetted away down the ridge, picking up speed until she lifted into the air.

  Up and down the ridge, earth slid and a literally earthshaking rumble started. Karith turned and sprinted back the way he had come, into the hills. “Harry, what are the machines in the valley doing?”

  “Approximately a third are returning toward their damaged power node.”

  “Damn it. The rest?”

  “They have reached our drop zone and are continuing toward the city.”

  “Nic, I need you to hit those boilers in the valley again.”

  “Roger that.” Her voice was cold.

  “Hell, Nic, that was stupid and you know it. What if a walker had gotten up into your lift spheres?”

  Silence.

  “Whatever, Nic. I’m on my way down.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m going to hit them from the rear. That’ll get their attention.”

  “Are you crazy? There’s a hole in your armor!” Her voice was frantic.

  Karith found a draw going his way and started loping down to the valley.

  Major Kewlett broke into their common circuit. “Marvudi, can you hold that valley yourself?”

  “Why?”

  “I need your air.”

  Nicolette’s voice was cold as iron. “No, Major, you’re not pulling me off Karith’s top cover.”

  “That’s up to him, little miss.”

  Karith raised his eyebrows. It had been a long time
since anybody dared call Nic “little miss” or anything like it. He examined the situation model as he ran, Nic’s lasers coughing in the background.

  HARRE said to him, privately, “Sir, our armor is breached. We must return to the depot for repair.”

  “There is no depot, HARRE. The MarsFree is gone and the next ship is hours out.”

  “Yes, sir. There are, however, class three repair facilities with the Major. We should consolidate with other units in the area.”

  Karith stopped just below a hilltop overlooking his drop zone and a little closer to the city. Panesthian civilians were a glittering brown carpet moving along the ground toward the city. The boilers were already upon the near edge of the mass. Curled and flaming bodies littered the torn earth. The boilers ground on, weapons burning, ripping, and smashing. Dimly, Karith could hear a roaring sound, the frantic buzzing and wailing of the dying Panesthians.

  Taking up a stable posture, he readied every top-down missile he had. Nicolette orbited overhead, lasers coughing in his ears. Rippling explosions of smoke, steam, and molten metal stuttered across the valley floor. He could see the boilers digging in to shoot up at her, but not all of them. Some still moved toward the city.

  “Major, you’ve got plenty of air.”

  Snap. “It’s not enough, son. This damn city is oozing civilians. My mechs keep breaking through the tops of their bloody burrow-buildings when they try to move. The airships are the most effective weapons platforms I’ve got for offense, and I need ’em all. You’re not the only one. I’m pulling air off all my outliers.”

  The major had a point about the air. Strange that a quirk of architecture made air assets more precise and civilian friendly than ground units here.

  HARRE was using data from all the sensor pods they’d dropped earlier in the day to build the current situation model. The boilers were deep into the suburbs now, and breaking into the burrow-buildings themselves too. They weren’t empty.

  “Bloody hell.”

  “What was that, son?” Snap, chew.

  “Can do, Major. Nic, go.”

  “Damn you, Karith.”

  Karith didn’t say anything. She sounded on the verge of tears, which was just odd. Nicolette did another low screaming pass over the boilers in the suburbs in front of him and curved away toward the city.