by David Beers
Hector was strapped in next to Petra. She’d heard of his dual sabers, and she saw the black handles strapped across his massive back. The two of them were in the front row, and he was staring forward while not appearing to look at anyone.
Her Titans were to her left and behind her, as well as the Martians, though their armor was closer to the Titans’ than Hector’s. It was a dull red like the world they stemmed from, and the faceplate covered their entire face. The heads-up display or HUD was inside their helmet instead of outside like Petra’s, and the large faceplate gave them more real estate for it.
Petra put the Martian-to-Titan ratio at seventy-thirty, which made sense. Hector would want to surround himself with his own army for battles.
A new and strange thought came to her. Does he think one of us might try to kill him? Does he think I might try to kill him?
She glanced at the large man next to her. If he feared anything, none of it showed. His helmet sat between his feet, and his face showed only calm. No anger, no fear, no bloodlust.
He’d told her, “I’ll keep you alive, Petra, but you have to stay close” as if she were a child who needed his help, yet he hadn’t said it to mock her, and at the time, she hadn’t taken offense. Only looking back now did she see where she could have grown angry at such a slight.
Petra was a Titan. She didn’t need help or support from anyone.
If she’d told Hector that, he would have simply nodded, exhibiting this same calm, and she would have felt even more childlike.
“Digger One ready to launch in ten…nine…eight…”
Hector bent down and picked up his primitive helmet, then placed it on his lap. It had no HUD in or outside it.
“Seven…six…five…”
Petra pulled up her helmet and turned her own HUD on.
“Four…three…two…”
The bottom of the ship suddenly grew transparent, and Petra found herself staring down at flames. The dreadnought’s dock had opened for them. The ship lunged down, and the flames appeared to engulf Petra. Her HUD’s display showed that the internal temperature wasn’t rising, but she shuddered as they plunged through the fiery atmosphere. She couldn’t see to the bottom of the fire, the orange and yellow too thick for her to view the planet’s surface.
Lasers broke through the bright mask of color. The Terram were obviously able to see them as they rushed downward. The ship rocked to the right, then back to the left, the AI trying its best to avoid the ground attacks and aerial explosions.
Petra looked at Hector.
He was still staring forward. His face hadn’t changed expression.
Petra turned her attention to the floor again.
A laser burst through the flames and hit the outside of the ship about five meters from where she sat. Petra rocked to the left, her body straining against the seat’s restraints. The laser spread across the floor, the armor outside holding. She didn’t know how long it would continue to do so, though, not after the jolt she’d felt.
Hector still showed no emotion. No surprise.
The AI’s voice came over her helmet’s comm. “Digger One impact in seven seconds.”
The cloud of flames disappeared, and Petra was staring at burned sand. There was another jolt as the ship’s legs, which had unfolded from the sides, dug into the ground beneath it. The floor turned opaque again, and the ship vibrated as the mighty drill began its work. Now was the most vulnerable time for everyone inside the Digger. There was nowhere to move, no way to dodge an attack. They could only wait for the machine to finish what it was made to do.
Minutes passed in silence, each one feeling like an eternity to Petra. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. She wanted out of this container. She was ready to do what she’d been trained for, yet when she stole another glance at Hector, she saw none of those emotions in him. He didn’t seem to realize where he was or what was going on around him. It was as if he were watching a movie that only he could see, one that evoked calm in the viewer.
The AI spoke again, the only sound besides the ship’s machinations. “Unloading in ten seconds. Prepare for battle.”
Hector took his helmet off his lap and placed it on his head. He reached over his shoulders with both hands and grabbed the sabers’ hilts. His massive hands held them firmly in his lap.
Petra took her Whip off her belt as the opaque floor beneath her began folding in on itself.
Hot air rushed into the ship from below, the earth almost as hot as the outside from the drill’s work. Petra’s HUD told her the drop would be about twenty meters, and her chair straightened and tilted so that she was straight and her feet were facing the tunnel.
The straps unlatched and she fell. She kept her Whip furled; opening it now would surely slice open one of the people dropping next to her.
Within seconds, she hit the ground. Her suit absorbed the impact and her Whip unfurled, ready to defend and attack. She quickly scanned her surroundings, finding that they weren’t in a tunnel but some sort of arena. Petra looked back at the ceiling, and she saw that the Digger was still locked in, keeping the dangerous flames outside from whipping in and waiting for more soldiers to arrive and drop through the tunnel it had created.
All of those observations took mere seconds, then she heard the first attack.
She turned to the right, looking like a metal warrior inside her armor. The stands in this arena were lined with soldiers, squat-looking humans who held rifles.
Not even a moment later, she heard Hector in her comm. “Stay close to me, Bird. They mean to shoot you down from the sky.”
He’d never called her such a thing before, but there wasn’t time to consider it. The calm was gone from his voice, and when Petra looked up, she couldn’t have mistaken him for anyone else.
Hector was bounding through the crowd of soldiers. Anyone in his way dropped to the ground as he rushed past them. Petra took off after him, following the tunnel he’d created through the enemy.
He was about five meters in front of her when he did something she wouldn’t have thought possible; he slammed a massive foot on the ground and launched himself into the air. He was going to clear the stands surrounding the arena without any MechGear to support him. Petra almost paused in awe at the feat, but adrenaline kept her pushing onward.
Seconds after he’d landed in the stands, she leapt about two meters in front of where he’d jumped, not confident she could make that leap even with the suit helping.
Petra landed and her Whip went to work. She sliced through the first two Terram she saw. Their backs were to her as they aimed their weapons at the terror sweeping through them. Petra glanced up to watch Hector, once again feeling the urge to stop what she was doing and watch this creature. For the first time, she thought he might not be human or mutant, but something altogether different—a new creature. Lasers shot at him, sabers tried to bring him down, yet he kept moving. His muscles were visible, almost unaided by armor, and his sabers cut through people as if they were plants on a farm.
She watched as he lifted one of the sabers to his shoulder, the back half of the laser pointing behind him. It shot out like a bullet, striking the chest of an enemy Petra had hardly noticed.
The saber’s laser recharged, and he kept moving across the stands.
Petra heard him again. “Come on, Bird. You’re falling behind. Don’t let all this glory be mine.”
Inside her helmet, she couldn’t help but smile. Other Martians and Titans were clearing the stands now, and Petra had no idea what Hector was telling them in their comms. For all she knew, he could be telling them to cut her down, yet she didn’t think that was so.
The Terram were falling, and Petra bounded toward Hector, moving past the dead and dying. She caught up, and together they killed more of the traitors, more of those who had sold out the Commonwealth for the first flash of gold they saw.
Together, they took the stands, clearing the way for the soldiers who would come after. When they reached the end, Hector
turned to look at the Martians and Titans. Some lay dead, but the vast majority stood staring at him.
Petra was next to him, but she knew no one in the stands or below on the arena floor saw her. They were looking at the majestic warrior who’d led them into battle.
“Ave, Hector!” nearly everyone shouted, caught up in their clear victory.
Petra said no such thing and was shocked at Titans giving such praise to this man. Anger mixed with her bloodlust and she turned her head slightly to the right, looking at the helmeted beast.
“It’s okay, Bird,” he said through her comm. “Don’t be too angry at them. They still love the Commonwealth; they’re just overwhelmed right now. Come, there’s more to do and no time to rest on one win.”
If Petra could see everything in a room at nearly the moment she walked in, this man could tell the emotions of a person with almost the same speed.
Hector hopped down from the stands, leading his army into the halls of death.
There was no final battle, no great fight between two stone-cold killers. The Terram fought as hard as they could, battling in the small tunnels they’d built, using hidden weapons to kill Martians and Earthborn alike. The Commonwealth simply kept coming. They threw more and more soldiers into the tunnels, what seemed like endless numbers of them. The scanning technology allowed them to send reinforcements where necessary, and so few Diggers were shot down that a steady supply of warriors continued streaming out of the dreadnoughts above.
Petra followed Hector through the tunnels, killing where there was room for her to do so but mostly watching the huge man mow down all comers. He’d taken a few wounds on his uncovered arms and legs, but he appeared to not feel them. As his backup, Petra thought he might be a machine and wondered if she were to cut into him, would she find metal pieces where bone should be?
For hours they fought, going deeper into the planet as the Terram fought and died, retreating farther into their home.
Finally, the word came from Petra’s Primus. “No more advancing. We rest and heal for the next six hours. Martian and Earthborn unit leaders should be prepared for more messages to come.”
Petra felt the adrenaline leave her system. Her body suddenly grew weak, and it was a struggle to remain standing. Her HUD showed they’d been fighting for almost five hours, clearing tunnel after tunnel.
She looked behind her. There were a lot fewer soldiers than there had been in the arena. Many had fallen as Hector advanced. Terram lay dead throughout the tunnels, and weapons were scattered over the ground, both rifles ripped from the walls and pistols that had fallen from now-cold hands.
Hector turned to look at the men and women who’d followed him for the past few hours. There was no one left to kill in this tunnel. They would have had to continue deeper into the planet to find more of the enemy. Hector sheathed his sabers on his back, then removed his helmet and held it against his side. Blood covered the metal helmet, and Petra saw that it covered his face as well. She could only imagine what her own suit looked like—a bloody massacre.
“Today, you’ve all proven your worth to the Commonwealth. Go, rest and heal. There’s much fighting left to do.”
Petra heard no “Ave, Hector” this time, and she was glad for it. The warriors were tired, and they weren’t concerned with anything but finding a place to rest their heads or a meal to shovel into their mouths before the next battle came. She understood that since she felt the same. This had been no Subversive battle. The Terram had been well-armed and fought hard but were simply overwhelmed.
The tunnel cleared out, but Hector didn’t move, and neither did Petra. She could still hear the battle raging nearby, or at least feel the vibrations. The war hadn’t stopped because the announcement came, but over the next hour or so, silence would take the place of the violence.
Hector squatted, placing his helmet in front of him. He turned it over so he could peer inside, then touched two fingers to the spot closest to the spine. The helmet began to slide into itself. Hector didn’t look up as it shrank. “You fought well today, Bird. Only a few men have seen this happen with my helmet, and I’m not sure if you’ve earned it, but I’m too damned tired to carry the thing back at full size.”
Petra let her own helmet retract into her neckline. “Why do you keep calling me that? Bird?”
He shrugged as his helmet finished shrinking. It was now about the size of his massive palm and twice as thick. He picked it up and placed it on his belt. From his squatting position, he looked up at her. “You looked bird-like when we fell out of the Digger. The rest of us fell like anvils, but you seemed to fly.”
He stood up then. “You don’t have long to rest. I don’t know what reports you have to give, but I expect you to be in the same shape you are now in a few hours. The fighting isn’t going to get easier.”
Petra followed him as he walked. “I’ll be fine. Will you? Did you save anything else? You fight with total abandon. You’ve got to be exhausted, too.”
“No, it only appears that way. I give what the situation calls for, no more. I’ll be fine.”
“What are you going to do now?” she asked as they turned down the tunnel to a stairwell. The door had been blown off its hinges and was lying on top of a dead soldier. He looked to be a Terram, but his head was gone, so Petra couldn’t be sure.
“I have my own reports to give. Meetings. Strategy. On my planet, I made the strategy, but here I take it from your Primus and others. I’ll need to put their ideas into tactics we can use for the next battle.”
“Do you want me with you?” Petra asked.
He shook his head. “No, you need to rest and get ready for the next part, Bird. The deeper the Terram go, the bloodier it’s going to get.”
Hector allowed himself a quick shower and dressed, then sent the briefest message back to Luna, basically letting her know he was alive. Hector knew the Ascendant understood the game his grandfather had launched, but he was going to keep playing his part. He was a husband now, so he would need to keep in touch with his wife as things progressed.
Appearances had to be kept up.
Hector hadn’t been lying to Petra about what would come next. These Terram fought like madmen.
No, he told himself. They fought like men and women about to lose their homes.
Which they were, every one of them.
None of the warriors now inside the planet had headed back to the ships. It would waste too much time, and if too many left, it could allow the Terram to create strongholds in areas that had already been taken. The Terram could probably cause the world to cave in on itself, but the risk to them was too large. Their liege needed the portal near the core as well, and they wouldn’t chance destroying that.
No, it was safe and expedient to use the tunnels and rooms the Commonwealth had taken.
Hector checked his DataTrack, found where the meetings would be held, and made his way through the bloody tunnels. The lower class of military was pulling the dead out of them. They’d all be incinerated in the atmosphere above, friend and foe alike.
The tunnels were small for the big man, and he found himself ducking much of the time. It’d been hard to battle in such small spaces, and he hadn’t been capable of using his physicality to its maximum. So far, he hadn’t needed to, but he wasn’t built for fighting in spaces like this.
He found the room where the Primus was holding his first meeting. Hector hadn’t met him except in meetings like this, but he seemed like a fair enough man. His name was Jovan de Washten, though those close to him called him Jove. Hector knew the basics about him, primarily because he needed to know all of those close to the Ascendant. The man was in his late thirties, was still in great physical shape, and had been third in line to his newly minted position. Most likely, he would never have made it so high, but with Kane’s, then Ares’ dismissal, he’d been promoted.
Hector respected the man and wondered what would happen when it came time for him to choose Caius or Alexander.
Hector took a seat in the back of a room that had been carved from hard rock. He listened and kept his eyes on the Primus as he listed the successes and failures but found his mind going back to Petra.
Hector knew why she was here; the Ascendant hadn’t been subtle about it. He realized he liked the young woman, but more than that, he respected her. It was a different kind of respect than what he felt for Luna. That was a survivor’s respect, born from a refusal to let outside forces fully determine her life. Petra wasn’t like that.
Hector had never let anyone close to him. There’d been no second in command for him on Mars. Each mission had different parameters, different experts, different people he had to learn to work with. All of it had been for a reason, of course—to refine his military leadership capabilities.
He’d watched Petra today, though, and he had been struck by her ferocity, but more, by her intelligence. Someone that size, regardless of the MechSuit she wore, would never be able to use brute force to win a battle. She hadn’t even tried that, and Hector had not had to save her very often. She used her body the way it was made to be used, and she assisted it with an able and quick mind.
Hector had seen every moment she could have attempted to slide her Whip into his back, but he was fairly confident she hadn’t considered it. Perhaps those weren’t the Ascendant’s orders, though maybe they had been. Either way, she’d fought by his side honorably.
Hector would keep her alive through this, though he now knew he wouldn’t have to carry her. She’d hold her own. The question was the same for her as it was for this Primus: which side would she join when the final decision had to be made?
At the mention of Kane, Hector’s mind focused on de Washten.
“Kane’s forces will be here in nine days. That’s our focus.” The Primus eyed each of his lieutenants. “We’ve got three days to complete the sack of Phoenix, then another six days to prepare for his attack. I guarantee you, good sirs and ladies, his will be much more dangerous.”
