As Reiko piloted the Inago out of the warehouse, the night felt different. Rain always made the city scintillate. Each building seemed to be weeping.
She knew the details of her mission, as she’d been informed of them before the meeting. There was going to be a convoy of nine security cars with the governor. They were driving over the West Taiko Bridge, which was about eight hundred meters long. It was a cantilevered bridge, with minimal traffic in the evening. Reiko’s task was to dismantle two of the security cars.
Her magnetic gun should be able to do that with ease. There were three other Katamaris, each with the same weapon. Reiko knew it was a smart decision to use the Katamaris, since they were part of the city defense and no one would bat an eye to see a group of them moving through the city together. Just in case, though, they’d received fake permits for sentry duty along the Spokane St. Viaduct which would pass basic scrutiny.
That’s where she arrived at 20:13 p.m. The governor’s convoy wasn’t due for another forty minutes. Governor Tamura was stuck in a contentious meeting with city officials about the annual budget and one of their inside sources informed them that the meeting was running late.
Her team was using code names. The three other Katamaris with her were Gold, Blue, and Green. She herself was randomly named Red. They paired up and stationed themselves on opposite sides of the bridge. Green was her principal partner and he was meticulously going over their instructions on the encrypted channel. She recognized his voice as one of the officers who’d spoken during the public funeral after the Kansas Massacre.
“You there, Red?” Green asked.
“I am,” Reiko answered.
The 3-D grid of the map visually splayed out on her goggles and she looked at the simulated routes of attack.
“You’re from Berkeley, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I was there a few years ago,” she replied.
“I thought I recognized your voice. I used to serve in Mechtown.”
“Same here.”
“You were in Kansas during the attack?”
“I was,” Reiko answered. “You?”
“I was showing my nephew around the mecha training camps in Kansas,” Green said. “His dream was to become a pilot and I was giving him an early tour. We were on the freeway when the Nazi biomechs attacked and destroyed the road. I didn’t even know what happened until I woke up in the hospital. They said his death was quick. I couldn’t look my sister in the eye. She still hasn’t spoken a word since his passing.”
He became silent.
Reiko empathized with his pain.
“I used to be stationed in East Moscow,” Gold said. “During the winters, it got so cold, the showers wouldn’t work ’cause the pipes in our barracks would freeze. Nazis used to take their prisoners and line them up in weird poses along the wall and pour water over them. They’d freeze to death but stay in their strange poses for months. Sometimes they’d snipe at them and make their bodies shatter. I had a buddy who used to sneak over to the western side ’cause he had a girlfriend there. He got caught and the next time I saw him was on the wall with his girlfriend. They had contorted their bodies and shaped their corpses into a frozen heart . . .”
It was hard to imagine what life could be like in the western half of the Soviet Union, where non-Aryans were slaves, and even among pure Germans, a misspoken word would turn you into a political prisoner, subject to the whims of the Gestapo.
“I fought with the general when we took Texarkana Fortress,” Blue stated. “We found an underground structure filled with prisoners. But they were more like walking corpses. You had to see the things the Nazis were doing, stitching people together and splicing them with animals. They forced them to breed and tortured the babies in front of their parents. I still have nightmares about what I saw. We didn’t take Nazi prisoners. We killed every soldier we caught. We should have kept on going. Governor Tamura should never have stopped us.”
Reiko could feel his burning rage, a sentiment many in the Sons of War shared. She knew it was her turn to share. But she didn’t want to talk about her own experience as she remembered the Kansas Massacre.
She and Daniela had been transferred to East Kansas after her junior year in Berkeley to get some hands-on experiences along the Quiet Border. Reiko still remembered the moment when she heard the explosions outside her apartment. The whole half of the hallway in front of her blew up. She was knocked to the floor, hitting her back against the wall. Random clusters of debris surrounded her and smoke devoured all free space. She stumbled out of her room. A neighbor who she’d never spoken to was dead, the lower half of his body crushed by a slab of concrete. There was a sharp pain in Reiko’s head and she felt something dripping down her cheeks. She tried to touch her face, but her right arm didn’t move. She looked down and saw that her hand was covered in blood and the lower part of her arm had been smashed. There was a gasping sound back inside the room. Daniela was lying in a pool of her own blood, badly wounded. Reiko went to her and she was barely awake. “W-what happened?” Daniela asked.
“I don’t know,” Reiko answered.
“The—” Daniela started to say, but then passed out.
Reiko used all her strength to lift Daniela and put her arm around her shoulder. She stumbled toward the exit, dragging Daniela. Reiko noticed a gap in the wall and looked through it. Outside, there was a monstrosity like she’d never seen before, a black behemoth drowning in fluidic skin that appeared molten and alive. It was taller than any mecha she knew of and the vein-like strands on its surface were wiggling, even wrestling with their neighboring tubes. There were ebony wings that were throbbing in irregular pulses, scar-like fissures rippling across its surface.
“We should get going,” Reiko said in the present, trying not to think about the attack.
No one pressed her.
Normally, there would be swarms of security, but officials who were part of the Sons of War had blocked off bridge traffic for the governor’s route. Someone from the Sons of War had issued orders so that a police detachment under their command failed to show up. Another official had ordered an electrical blackout caused by an “accidental surge,” meaning only emergency lights were being used for the bridge. This meant surveillance cameras in the area were also disabled. The strip of West Taiko City surrounding the bridge was barren of activity and the neighboring apartments had no electricity. Reiko did note there were seven inactive jeeps used by bridge maintenance workers that were parked at the base. Fortunately, they’d all been relieved of their duties for the evening.
As though the gods were with them, the rain cleared up. It was only a quarter moon, but it was bright, and everything seemed aligned in their favor.
“Wiggler on scans,” Green said. Wiggler was their code name for the governor.
She visually checked the nine cars in total and replied, “Wiggler confirmed.”
The Katamaris were to let the convoy get onto the bridge. About a hundred meters in, they’d commence their attack. According to the intelligence they’d received earlier, the governor’s car was the third from the front.
The first car drove onto the bridge and as there was no traffic, they moved quickly. She aimed at her target, the seventh jeep.
“Commencing,” she said, and used the magnetic gun to lock on.
There was a perfect sync and the car levitated under her direction. Even though she’d lifted hundreds of cars before, this one was different. Reiko raised the car up high and hesitated. Killing Nazis was one thing. But the occupants of this car were fellow soldiers doing their duty. Even if this was ultimately for the greater good and she’d been aware of what she’d have to do, because the fate of the people inside depended on her voice command, she struggled to give the order.
“Red,” Green called.
Reiko released the trigger and tossed the car over the side of the bridge. Almost at
the same time, three other security vehicles got the same treatment from the other Katamaris. She locked on to her next target and repeated the same action. She did not know if the personnel inside would survive, but she reminded herself they were doing their duty, just as she had.
The Katamaris all succeeded in the first phase.
She looked at the remaining armored car, which contained the governor. Reiko did not know who was assigned the task of killing him, but assumed it was one of the other Katamaris. Her job was complete. Just as she was about to make her exit, Gold contacted her.
“Something isn’t right,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“My target’s vehicle didn’t register internal heat signatures.”
Internal heat signatures would come from human bodies.
“It could be shielded,” Blue said.
“I checked. There isn’t anyone inside.”
“What’s that mean?”
But Reiko already knew. “Check the governor’s car.”
“You think—”
“I don’t know.”
Gold approached the governor’s car and ran a thorough scan. “Empty according to this,” he said. “Permission to confirm.”
Reiko wasn’t sure who he was asking, but she replied, “Granted.”
Gold smashed the door off the side of the car and checked inside. “It’s empty. The cars are being automatically driven.”
“There was never anyone inside the convoy,” Reiko replied.
“Why not?”
Reiko took a pained breath. “Because this is a trap,” she said, wondering if their mission had already failed. The thought of Governor Tamura escaping vexed her.
On cue, a massive explosion followed and the blast swallowed Gold’s Katamari. Reiko thought the governor’s car had self-destructed. But her sensors set off an alarm and she spotted a dark mecha racing toward them. It targeted the remaining three Katamaris, which included her own.
Reiko recognized an Anubis class, with its black armored plating and its four arms rather than the traditional two. It was twice their size and held up a massive naginata. Designed for urban warfare, the Anubis was built to be swift and maneuverable. The corps had long planned to upgrade the older Guardian-class mechas. But after the biomechs smashed the Guardians in Kansas like they were cavalry against tanks, the development of the Anubis was expedited.
“I am Major Usagi Higa of the Suzumebachi. Identify yourselves,” the Anubis pilot demanded.
“Stand down, Major,” Green barked back.
“You’ve attacked the governor. The governor is a servant of the Emperor. Any action against the governor is an act of treason against the Empire.”
“Our fight isn’t with you, Major. If you stand down, we will not harm you.”
In response, the Anubis fired three missiles, each intended for a Katamari. Blue triggered the magnetic gun to steer one of the missiles away. Another came directly at Reiko and she triggered her magnet, trying to use her weapon to steer the missile into the bay. Blue’s missile didn’t hit its intended prey but rather a piece of the bridge. The ground shook as a huge chunk fell out, causing Reiko’s Katamari to stumble and foul her aim. Just as the missile intended for her was about to hit her, it instead flew straight up and around, blasting another segment of the bridge. Green had used his magnet to deflect the missile headed for Reiko, instead of the one aimed at him. With nothing to stop it, that missile smashed into his Katamari and exploded.
“Green!” she yelled. “Green! What’s your condition?”
His face came up bloody.
“I’m alive.”
The Anubis locked more missiles onto them. Reiko knew that her Katamari was designed as an anti-mecha unit—there was a reason mecha corps had invested a decade and billions of yen in the magnetic gun. Even then, considering the way the initial attack had taken place, she didn’t know if they’d survive. In direct combat, the Anubis had too many advantages. But if they could use their environment strategically, there might be a chance. Reiko checked her surroundings. The Suzumebachi was too big to be moved by just one magnetic gun. It would take all three of them working in coordination to stand a chance. But before that, she composed an encrypted communication and sent a message to her contact at the Sons of War. “Mission failed. Trap. Governor is not in convoy. We are under attack.”
Just then, the part of the bridge damaged by the missile collapsed, dropping fifty meters into the water. There was now a wide gap in the bridge that was too big to jump over.
She had an idea. To Green and Blue, she ordered, “Lock your magnets on the Anubis.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“Toss it down that opening. Wait for me to distract it and magnetize on my signal.”
She scanned the Suzumebachi, checking its customized parts to see if there was any section that might be more susceptible to an attack. Her sensors showed the bridge with its six crew members, sleeping quarters below that with capsule pods, the BP generator humming above, and missile launchers above the chest on the upper part of the yoroi. Reiko aimed at a maintenance jeep, lifted it up, and hurled it at the Anubis, smashing it into its flank. The damage was minimal, but Reiko had caught its attention. She raised another jeep and was about to throw it, but the Anubis sprinted toward it and destroyed it with its fist. It then launched itself at the Inago. Reiko raised her gun and targeted the naginata it wielded, pulling it the other way. The Anubis tried to hold on and got dragged away by its own exertion. Reiko drove the Inago closer to the Suzumebachi and raised her electromagnetic pulse to its highest level, pulling it toward her, then flipping polarities to cause a forceful repulse reaction. The Suzumebachi fell backward. Reiko opened the guns on her chest plate and let loose a barrage of armor-piercing bullets. Hundreds of them poured into the Anubis.
Major Higa sent her a communication. “What do you think you’ll achieve by resisting? You’ve already failed. The governor knew about your attack and took a different route. More Anubises will be here to back me up.”
Reiko knew better than to reply. Higa was buying time.
“I won’t hold back any more,” Higa said.
The Suzumebachi had fumes coming out of its armor, but its third arm popped out front. From its palm, a pole extruded out, then formed a circular shield to deflect the bullets. The Anubis put away its naginata and charged at the Inago. Reiko tried to withdraw, but the Suzumebachi was too fast, pouncing on her and attacking her with its three arms.
“Red!” Green yelled. “Do you need assistance?”
“Negative, stay put!” she ordered, even as the Inago was taking a beating.
The Anubis punched the left flank, then the right, doing an uppercut to her shoulder, and another series of rapid jabs to the Inago’s head.
Her portical screamed alarm signs. Auxiliaries were damaged and shielding was down to almost nothing. For a second, she felt dizzy from the battering. But the moment she was waiting for arrived when two punches came at the same time. Reiko quickly evaded backward, the two fists hitting each other. Just then, Reiko used her boosters to accelerate forward, take out her fusion dagger, and slash the wrists of both. One of the hands fell clear off. The second was damaged. The Anubis crashed straight into the Inago, knocking them to the ground. Reiko could tell the pilot was furious. Major Higa didn’t know about the weak connections on the third and fourth hands. But Reiko did. She’d noticed a faulty lock on the mecha’s wrist that would disrupt when hit at the right angle long ago when she worked at Mechtown—and cautioned her superiors about it. Without those two extra hands, it’d be hard for the Suzumebachi to deflect the magnet gun. It also had lost its shield.
Reiko sprayed her armor-piercing bullets again, which, at this close distance, had an even stronger impact. The Suzumebachi was forced back. It tried to attack again with a furious fist. Reiko projected her
plasma shield, which caused a tremendous arc of heat around her. The Anubis was not prepared for the heat, causing its hands to malfunction even more.
“Now,” she ordered Blue and Green.
They fired their electromagnetic guns and locked on to the Suzumebachi. They pulled and Reiko used her magnet gun to push. Between the three of them, Major Higa was completely helpless. They directed the Suzumebachi’s movement using the polarities, and without saying a word, knew the direction they wanted the Anubis to fall. It was almost pitiful to see the way the Suzumebachi was being dragged against its will. The Anubis tried to latch on to the ground, do anything it could to prevent itself from being thrown over. But with only two functional arms and the other two being busted, their combined magnetic force was too much for the Anubis.
They were able to drop the enemy mecha into the opening on the bridge. Its two arms grasped on to a rail. Reiko activated the magnetic beam to repulse the Suzumebachi, then heard a warning blip. The Anubis had fired eight missiles. Reiko intensified the beam, causing the Suzumebachi to drop off the bridge and into the water.
She turned her gun to the missiles, trying to deflect them. Blue was too slow to respond. His Katamari got hit multiple times in the chest. “Blue!” Reiko yelled. “Are you okay?” she asked.
The plating cracked open and the energy levels skyrocketed.
“I don’t think so,” Blue replied. “My BP generator is overloading.”
“You need to eject.”
“My ejection controls are broken,” Blue said with a panicked voice. “I can’t get—” An explosion cut off the communications and left only a husk.
“Dammit!” Reiko cursed as she swung her fists in the air.
Governor Tamura was probably gone, safely hiding, trying to determine who the conspirators were. More Anubises would be arriving soon as well. She checked the status of the other Katamari. Green was badly damaged and she wasn’t sure if it could even move. She’d have to tow it. But what about the remains of the other two? Since their attempt had failed, leaving behind any remnants would lead to an investigation. She got her magnetic gun ready to dispose of the other two into the water, then contacted Green and ordered, “Flip open your wheels.”
Cyber Shogun Revolution Page 2
