by Ernest Filak
“He had been brainwashed. I won’t believe anything he’s saying without a confirmation,” Sergeant Major appeased the soldiers’ worries.
“And what if the boy’s telling the truth?” the other Sergeant was relentless.
“This hasn’t been the first or the last time that the company wants to screw us. I haven’t served under the royal banner yet. Who knows, maybe in Their Royal Majesties’ service I will become a prince? How would that sound: Prince Andy Gall, huh?”
The Star Troopers burst out laughing. Whistles and obscene comments could be heard around. The soldiers’ spirits improved considerably, which was definitely what the officer aimed at. He allowed all the dirty epithets that were being thrown his way. Finally, he raised his hand. Everybody went quiet.
“All right, my ladies. We’re not to go out into open space. We’ll arch our way around and under the cover of the trees we’ll approach our former positions in the shooting range. Some of our people must have survived. We’ll see if the radio works and we’ll collect some supplies. However, if something happens to me, in that pocket – he clapped his left thigh – I have the coordinates of our backup evacuation point. Is that clear?”
The Star troopers nodded.
“Let’s go. Scouts ahead. The rest remain within eye contact. The electronics are down. We don’t know what other surprises loom ahead.”
“Sergeant,” one of the soldiers spoke up, “our laser rifles are not working.”
“You can always use them to beat the shit out of somebody, soldier,” Gall remarked. “Besides, you have your pistols, your knives and teeth. You’re not defenseless.”
The sergeant looked around observing his soldiers, who were listening to him intently. Morale was back among the troops. The most important thing was to set a simple goal. Getting to the base. After that there’ll be time for the next one. The bastard was good at it. But even the best ones make mistakes. He’ll make his own soon. It’s enough to wait for that moment to come.
The wounded man I had been helping earlier rejected my support. He’d rather use the revolutionary now. I shrugged my shoulders. No means no. I grabbed my backpack and walked up to Theodore.
“All right?” I asked.
“It’s better. I’ll live,” he said.
“Quiet!” the Star Trooper walking closest to me growled. “Let’s go.”
He pushed me with the barrel of his rifle. I tripped on a root and fell down. Did he really need to take it out on somebody? I never provoked him. I stood up calmly and started walking, keeping right behind the backs of the Star Troopers who soon started disappearing in the bushes. Sunshine and Theodore were walking right behind me.
The forest wasn’t very dense here. It didn’t form a solid mass in which we would have to find passable routes. It would be like talking a stroll if it wasn’t for our constant careful listening for the sounds of a possible attack from the air, which we were all dreading.
I could bet all the money in the world that everybody was thinking about the same thing. Who was the enemy for whom the massacre was such an easy thing to do? One company that was theoretically ahead as far as arms technology was concerned crossed my mind: InCorporation. For a long time now there had been news in the media about introducing fully autonomous units onto the battlefield. Maybe that’s what we saw. Did Uroboros and InCorp begin fighting and was there now open conflict between the companies? Such things had happened before. The biggest players on the market had financial resources that enabled them to come forward with a small army.
I kept thinking about things like that all the way through. Theodore pulled at my arm, bringing me back to reality. Sergeant Gall raised his clenched fist and then lowered it. We surrounded him squatting. We couldn’t get any closer to the ramparts surrounding the shooting range. Ahead of us was an open terrain. To the right there was a hill, on top of which the ruins of a building were still smoldering. Thick greasy smoke was coming slowly our way.
“Get smoke grenades ready,” Gall ordered and his command was carried out immediately. “Nobody stays behind. On my cue: one, two, three! Grenades!”
Four oblong shapes flew up in the air. Soon we heard a hissing sound and the brown smoke got thicker.
“Let’s go!”
We ran forward. I could hear throaty grunts around. We were submerged in a chemical stink. I couldn’t see anything and lost my bearings. Somebody ran into me and we fell over. It was Theodore! Where was Sunshine? I felt something hard under my knee. Feeling with my hands, I recognized the familiar shape of a rifle.
“Wanna make off?” I hissed into Theodore’s ear. “I have a gun.”
“Throw it away,” he snatched the rifle out of my hands and ditched it. “We’re going with them. Now!”
He pulled me behind. I felt like screaming. Holy shit! We wouldn’t have another such opportunity anytime soon. I would have gotten out of his grip and ran away alone, but the sonofabitch was holding me tight. Was he out of his mind? We now ran into a rampart that was all ploughed with bullets and burnt by laser explosions. After a while we rolled onto the other side of it. We were greeted by three terrified Star Troopers. Fortunately, they didn’t open fire.
“Is everybody here?” Sergeant Gall was counting the soldiers.
“Nobody’s missing,” the other sergeant confirmed.
It was a fact. Even the revolutionary made it. Sunshine came up and we said hello like after a long journey. We were safe and sound for the time being.
“Where is the rest of the battalion?” Gall turned to the three stunned soldiers.
“What do you mean, where?” the Star Trooper with the stripes of a corporal asked. “It’s just us. And a few wounded.”
“Where?” the paramedic asked.
They showed him a way descending to a trench running across the shooting range. The paramedic trotted away towards those who needed him.
“And Captain Nemov?” Gall kept asking.
“In the vehicle. The terrorists shot at them with an energy missile. The whole front melted away together with the driver’s compartment. The hatch at the back is jammed. We can’t open it.”
“Is he alive?”
“I guess he is, Sir. We can hear knocking from the inside.”
Gall came up to the shell of the fighting vehicle. He hit it with the barrel and then, to his content, heard a muffled response.
“Mark, organize picket guards.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The officer quickly found a way to fill up the time for the rest of the team.
The whole walled-in square bore signs of heavy fighting. Fortunately, the bodies had already been arranged along the backstop. They were lying in rows, tens if not hundreds of them. I didn’t feel like counting. The whole equipment was stacked in a large pile. I was cold, shivered from the radiation and the stink of decomposing bodies hit my nostrils. That was enough for one day. But we were not allowed to rest.
“Come here.” We walked up to the destroyed tank.
“You are the technical team. Get down to opening that can,” Gall’s tone of voice suggested he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Have you got any tools?” Theodore asked. “Tongs, hydraulic grippers, anything else?”
“Use your brains and anything that you can put your hands on. With the obvious exception of guns,” he looked at the sun that was hanging low above the horizon. “You have the whole night to do the job. The sooner you manage it, the faster you’ll be able to take some rest.”
He turned around.
“And eat?” Sunshine asked.
The Sergeant stopped for a moment.
“And eat,” he said and walked away.
“And what of we can’t manage?” this questions was obviously asked by the revolutionary that was tagging along with us.
I mock aimed at him with my two fingers.
“Bang, bang!”
He turned pale. Quite a sissy, considering he was a member of an armed revolutionary group.
&nbs
p; “Come on, comrades!”
“Don’t you comrade me here,” Theodore mumbled under his breath, feeling the edge of the hatch. “I barely know your ass.”
“Come on, I watched The Bio&Sonic Massacre about a hundred times. I thought I knew you from somewhere from the moment I saw you.”
That’s how our past caught up with us. The unionist movement used the footage from the CCTV cameras and made a propaganda movie.
The revolutionary wanted to say more but he didn’t manage. Sunshine’s fist landed right on his soft belly. God knows how a piece of glass found its way to Theodore’s hand. The sharp edge was already scratching the boy’s neck.
“If you say one word about it to anyone,” he warned, “I will break that skinny neck of yours with my bare hands, do you understand?”
The revolutionary nodded.
“Do you know anything about mechanics?” I asked him.
“No,” he cried, “I come from a farming planet.”
“Then lie down here,” I pointed to a place next to a hole where a wheel used to be. “Go to sleep. You won’t be of much use anyway.”
The boy was young and inexperienced. I looked with a bit of nostalgia as he was laying his head down on a tire shredded by bullets. I felt sorry for him. Just about a Hadesian year ago I was very much like him. I changed considerably through all that time. I hoped he manages to control his language. I don’t think I would actually be able to….
“Focus. Look around for equipment,” Theodore was a mechanic, so he quickly took command.
I didn’t think that walking around under the vigilant eye of the Star Troopers was a very good idea, even less so considering that I could draw the attention of potential airborne attackers. Fortunately, I didn’t have to venture anywhere far. The only place where I could find anything useful was the shed and a nearby storeroom. Both had been badly destroyed. I took out a metal bar from the pile of junk. It used to be a roof girder. It had to do.
“Nothing better than this?” Theodore wasn’t very content.
“Go and look yourself. Apart from disconnected limbs and ripped out guts you won’t find anything,” I said.
“Give me that junk.”
Together we stuck the flattened end of the bar in the corner of the hatch. It was possible to wedge it.
“Careful now,” the three of us pressed against the lever.
The bar we were forcing bent. The metal turned out to be too soft.
“Holy shit!” Theodore cursed. “It’s not gonna work.”
We had a problem. There was nothing we could do without an actuator. I didn’t know whether we would be able to open that box even having the right equipment. The sun’s last rays glowed above our heads. In a hole in a rampart I saw a metallic flash of the destroyed Mechs. I walked closer to the gap. I could use some binoculars.
A few meters away from me I saw a guard sitting in a hole. He was looking at me suspiciously. I extended my hand his way.
“Give me your rifle.”
“What?” he looked indignant. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Fucking give me the gun!” I didn’t have time for idle squabbles. Every second mattered.
“Fuck off!” He didn’t want to give in.
I don’t know how this disagreement would have ended if it hadn’t been for the sergeant, Gall’s buddy, who appeared out of nowhere.
“What is going on here?” he asked.
“This motherfucker wants my gun,” the private said seething.
“I’m not interested in his gun. I want to look at the foreground through the scope. His rifle has an integrated rangefinder and this particular type cannot be disconnected. It’s part of the butt,” I explained to the officer.
The sergeant made a quick decision.
“Give it to him.”
I almost ripped the rifle out of the soldier’s hands. I lay on the sand in a shooting position and took a few breaths to calm myself down. I adjusted the zoom to the maximum. It magnified only nine times. Crap. What a cheap piece of shit to fight within city limits. I slowly and carefully assessed the state of the Mechs. Most of them had been totally destroyed, cut into pieces by the blades. Two machines were still standing. I hoped that their operators saved themselves by escaping once they saw the plight of the other machines. I heard the clank of a safety behind my back.
“You know a lot about guns for a slave.”
I focused on the nearest Mech. The front hood was lifted, and there was an empty plastic seat below. Its legs and arms bore traces of ricochet bullets, but they hadn’t been cut anywhere.
“To free your captain, we need the right equipment. This Mech has the contact force of 8 tons per square centimeter,” I said not turning around. My stress levels brought Ingrid to life. In my field of vision she projected the technical data of the mechanical monster. “Without it we won’t be able to do anything on time. I will go fetch it, or you can shoot me in the back right now.”
“Tough choice,” Andy Gall joined in the conversation. I didn’t hear his footsteps. I slowly put the rifle aside.
Chapter VI
We set off at sunset in two teams: me with Mark Stevens, the First Sergeant of B Company, and Theodore with a corporal scout. Our objective was to get to the Mechs, check their technical state and, if it turned out to be satisfactory, take over the machines. Of course, me and Theodore were supposed to deal with the technical aspect, and the Star Troopers were supposed to manage our safety, which meant that if we tried to escape or did anything suspicious they were supposed to blow our heads off. Prose of life. In this system somebody was always looming around your balls with a bat to make sure you get smashed when the time comes. I had almost forgotten it was even possible to live a different life.
The Sergeant taps my boot with a pistol. All right, all right, I don’t have to be urged on. I slide down the rampart on my stomach, head down. The sand is warm, giving off the sun energy it had been collecting all day. I don’t feel like crawling anymore. It would be mighty nice to lie down with a woman in my arms and look at the stars.
“Focus on the task in hand. We’ll talk about the stars once we are back.” My AI is a great chick, she can change shape and loves all kinds of sex, but she has one tiny disadvantage: she’s no romantic.
“You’re moaning again!”
Did I ever claim I was a saint? I know my vices….
“Pavel, not now, let’s have this fight later, ok?”
I know she’s right. I’m angry because I can’t talk to her freely. I’m experiencing very ambivalent emotions. I carefully push aside the grass blades. It has nothing to do with the grass growing in other civilized worlds, maybe except color. It’s green but apart from that it has very sharp edges and is stiff. It breaks under my bodyweight. That’s why I have to hover over it, which is a very exhausting task. Fortunately, our Mech is the one standing closest. Theodore and the scout have to crawl another one hundred yards. I don’t have to hurry. I pass by the bodies of the revolutionaries. I don’t look into their faces and let them rest in peace. The pools of blood haven’t congealed yet and there are clots floating on the surface. There is a lot of blood in a nearby hole and a lot of worms squirming everywhere. I look away. I’m glad I can’t see all the atrocious details in the failing light.
“It’s not far, just a few yards more.” It’s so good to have her around. Feeling with my hands in front of me I knock against something metallic. It’s a gun. I resist the temptation and push it aside. The Sergeant said very clearly what will happen if we do something stupid. If it wasn’t for Sunshine, I don’t know what could happen. Theodore with his paratrooper past should handle the scout easily. With a bit of luck and with Ingrid’s help, I should also manage to get rid of my guard. And two working Mechs, or even one, could work miracles against infantry.
The body of the walking machine loomed in front of me. I knew it very well. I had spent months getting to know its nooks and crannies under Guzenko’s supervision. I didn’t know what had ha
ppened to Igor, but I would bet that he had had something to do with these machines. Having lost his wife and daughter, he kept himself to himself. The Mech was tangible proof that he had joined the revolutionaries.
I finally crawled up to the machine. I lifted myself up to feel the supports of its legs skeleton. I immediately felt the difference. In comparison with the one we explored in the base of Bio&Sonic, this Mech had been produced with the use of worse quality materials. On its shell I could easily feel the welds of the joints. The mechanics failed to file out the sharp edges.
“Well?” the Sergeant whispered a question into my ear.
“Wait.”
I didn’t answer immediately. I had to take a closer look, which wasn’t easy considering there was very little light. The Mech didn’t bear any visible signs of damage. I walked around it feeling all the places which I thought especially prone to destruction. I couldn’t find anything. Ingrid was keeping quiet, which also gave me certain hope. The most important modules responsible for the long-term exploitation of the machine were at the back.
“Hold it,” I asked the Star Trooper to lift the heavy cover of the engine.
I had unscrewed each screw in this section about a dozen times. I felt like swearing. Revolutionary mechanics used star screws, which were hardly found in InCorp products but were standard in other products. This meant that whenever an element had to be repaired I would not stand a chance of repairing it without the right tools. Pushing my hand deep into the bowels of the machine, I found the steering module that I knew so very well. It was thanks to that fucking cube that I had found myself in this shithole.
