by Ernest Filak
If the Mech had been disabled by an electromagnetic impulse, then all the electronic components would have blown. The plastic covered module I was holding blocked conductivity. Time and time again I had fought little wars about it with Guzenko. I wondered if he had listened to me. He always said I was crazy about it.
“Because you are,” Ingrid confirmed.
I didn’t say anything. I found it! In one side I found the handle of a switch, which felt like something taken out of a door. I turned it. My wonderful Guzenko! He did apply the solution. I only had to check the battery terminals. They were all holding tight and I didn’t feel the acrid smell of the gel that they were filled with.
The Star Trooper patiently waited for the results of the checkup. The only sign of his fatigue was quicker breathing. I helped him lower the cover. We closed it gently.
“The back side is ok,” I said.
“Get inside then,” he granted his approval.
He ran a tape around my leg and attached a small packet to it. I had a bad feeling about it. I saw a grenade pin sticking out of the little packet.
“This is an insurance policy, in case you wanted do something stupid.”
He wound the rope around his hand and let the rest of it hang freely.
“You’re like a doggie on a leash. One wrong move and this thing will rip your leg away.”
I didn’t bother to say anything. I could expect something like that of a Star Trooper. I had only managed to put my leg on the cover of the Mech’s knee when I saw a silver shadow gliding over our heads with the characteristic whizz of scythed air. I jumped inside, banging my head against the metal collar that surrounded the entry hatch. I really felt like closing it behind me but I didn’t do it. The hatch was part of the front protection cover. I was aware of the fact that a few soldiers were aiming their guns at me right now. Sergeant Gall gave very clear orders forbidding us to lower the cover. They had thought of all kind of safeguards, but they didn’t foresee the sudden arrival of the enemy.
What was I supposed to do? I sat down on a terribly uncomfortable aluminum chair and fastened my seatbelts. At the same time my overprotective soldier threw himself in the nearest niche he found on the ground. I wondered if he remembered about the string.
“He hadn’t forgotten.”
What a louse. I turned on the main power button. A row of red lights lit up. I wanted to scream out. The fucking power steering, tracking, navigation and a few other things were not working. I had to quickly turn them off as they unnecessarily overloaded the battery.
Something hit the ground. I clearly felt vibrations. They were close, very close. The Sergeant lifted up his head but very quickly lowered it again. Something was getting closer to us. It was coming very slowly. I managed to start the Mech and get ready for the unknown danger. I didn’t know if it was even possible, considering that I had just a few seconds and equipment about whose real potential I didn’t have the faintest idea.
I slid my hands into the arms of the Mech. I blindly found the actuators of the grippers. The previous operator must have had shorter arms, and it seemed to me that I should have set them further inside to fit me. I slowly raised my right arm. Without power steering it demanded a lot of effort and worked slowly but worked! The Mech extended his arm with attached weapons directing it towards the danger that was approaching. I wondered what exactly it had at its disposal.
“There is a 22 millimeter canon in the right gripper and 30 millimeter in the left one.”
“What kind of ammunition?”
“I have no idea.”
“You can see more detail than me. As soon as you notice anything, please mark it up for me,” I asked. Ingrid functioned better than the HUDs of combat helmets.
“I will do anything for you, honey.” She said it in such a sexy voice that it activated some deeply hidden chords of my psyche. I automatically got an erection. The constructors of the Mech didn’t really foresee such a situation. The pressure in my crotch wasn’t very comfortable.
“Ingrid,” I moaned, “do something about it. I can’t focus.”
“But there’s nothing I can do. Unless you want to shoot out quickly?”
This was not the best moment. I gritted my teeth. I wouldn’t let myself be used. I have to have some respect for myself, don’t I?
“Give me the back light.”
At my request Ingrid created a viewfinder grid. Of course it was created by my brain in which she was temporarily living. I had realized earlier that it worked much better than the computer-generated tracking.
“After the first shot I’ll introduce the necessary corrections,” she said.
In other words I had to remember that the first bullets could fly fuck knows where. If so, I had to lure the enemy to come as close as possible. I carefully turned right. This way I shielded myself with the left side of my shell from the oncoming danger. I couldn’t prepare myself any better. And the time was nigh.
The Alien ship came to a halt in the place where the revolutionaries had suffered the greatest losses. Dead bodies were piled one on another. The oblong shape of the vehicle was turned with its back to me. Or at least that’s what I believed to be true. It didn’t really look like a fighter plane or tank. It was technology raised to a totally new level. The uneven bumps on its body shone in the light of stars, not revealing any visible characteristic traits. I must have been standing too far away to see them.
The vehicle turned and it was now standing with its side to me and facing the wall of the shooting range. I now saw what the thing was engaged in. Its front part had a retractable arm that it extended towards the bodies. Before my very eyes the tip of the arm grabbed the head of a dead soldier and ripped it off with a crunch. The same fate befell the next corpse. This thing was only interested in the heads. The rest remained untouched.
Once, a very long time ago, my grandfather took me to the woods to teach me how to pick blueberries. I was watching something similar now. With the exception that the blueberries sometimes burst into the hands leaving blue pulp around. Now I saw white-pink jelly squirting everywhere. The thing couldn’t really manage the helmets of the dead soldiers. The vehicle methodically picked up the fruit of earlier fighting. It was getting closer yard by yard.
The First Sergeant of B Company was lying between the Mech and the head devourer. He kept fidgeting nervously in his position. Star Troopers were obviously not one of my favorite formations, but I couldn’t idly watch a living human having his head ripped off and devoured. I guess I couldn’t. I watched the same thing being done to dead bodies with the greatest repulsion. And the closer the morbid harvest was getting, the more gory details I could see. The most appalling was a transparent tube through which the trophies would roll before they disappeared inside.
Sergeant Mark Stevens didn’t stand a chance of escaping. I wouldn’t really mind if he tried, but I couldn’t forget the string connected to the grenade that he was tightly holding in his hand. In a different situation, if there was a chance that his act would distract the attention and let me get out of this mess, I could perhaps suggest it myself.
“You wouldn’t do it,” Ingrid said.
I removed the trigger covers with my thumbs. You were born once. No matter who you were, the important thing was how you died. If somebody had told me earlier today that I would be fighting to protect the Star Troopers, I would have spit into their face.
“Ingrid?”
“Yes?”
“You know, I have never really…. you know, anobody.…”
“What are you talking about?”
The Alien ship was getting closer. I couldn’t focus. I shouldn’t be making any confessions right now.
“You know I have a problem with expressing my feelings.”
“Hurry up.”
“I think I have fallen in love with you,” I admitted.
The effect was the opposite of what I had expected. It made her mad.
“You think? Wait until we finish with that
beast. We really have to talk about our relationship, Pavel.”
If she was in that kind of mood, it was better not to tease her.
“I have extrapolated its sensitive areas. Aim your bullets here and here,” she ordered.
I obediently introduced the corrections. It was high time. There was only one corpse between the sergeant and the devourer. The stink of decomposing bodies was atrocious. I gently pulled the triggers.
There was a shock and a deafening boom. Both arms jerked up. The idiots who had installed the weapons didn’t think of energy absorption at recoil. And two cannons can give you a real kick. I almost fell on my back. I leaned forward and moved my left leg to the back to support myself. This had to do.
At this moment Star Troopers jumped back to life and opened mass fire. I tightened my fingers on the triggers. A rain of fire hit the devourer, which lifted into the air like a living creature. The explosions rippled against its armor. Some of the bullets went through and inside the monster. I had no idea what ammo I had at my disposal. I hoped most of it was anti-tank. I got into a trance, the kind of stupefaction that you get when the brain is bombarded with too much information and it’s impossible to process it all.
The enemy machine protruded three-finger blades. The scythes began rotating quickly. Death was standing right behind me – I could feel her breathing down my neck. I closed my eyes. Ingrid kept sending data received though my other senses. It was just as if I was playing a console game. The image was devoid of detail and the background began to blur. My Artificial Intelligence generated image was based on my hearing alone.
“Open your eyes!” she demanded, but this time she let me make the choice.
Shit, if it wasn’t for her I would definitely let go and give up. But like any other guy watched by a woman I picked up the fight.
“Die!” I shouted, opening my eyes.
The cannons I had at my disposal were supposed to rip any armor that was less than half a meter thick but this monster was still standing. One of the bullets crashed the transparent tube and the last devoured head fell into the grass. The monster started walking towards the Star Troopers on the wall. One of them must have gotten closer and fired an RPG bullet from the distance of about twenty yards. The cumulative energy ripped a hexagonal fragment off the shell. The devourer stopped and the scythe blades slowed down to irregular frequencies. The brave soldier was blown away by the blast, but two others stepped out with their RPGs.
My 22-milimeter cannon ran out of ammo. Soon the other one would. Smoke billowed from their heated barrels. I didn’t know whether I was in amok or just nuts. Not worrying about the ricochet bullets that were whizzing around, I walked up to the devourer. It was only at such a close distance that I saw the cracks on its armor. Some sections had been pierced through and yellow fluid was oozing out. I forcefully stuck the 30 millimeter barrel into the largest wound. I bet the devourer budged. I fired out the rest of the bullets. It didn’t really matter now what kind of ammo they were. Even the exploding bullets should make a right mess in the inside mechanisms. How do you feel about that, louse?
The machine shook and I was thrown back a few yards. I fell onto my back. It was not a problem for the Mech – I got up. From a distance I observed the last moments of the devourer. I didn’t know if it was a bullet that finally got it. At last the scythe blades stopped. Our ears got hit by a terrifying metallic whizz and then silence fell. Sergeant Stevens appeared by my side out of nowhere. He was holding the remains of the string in his hands.
“The shit broke and the pin didn’t even twitch,” he explained.
He was lucky I had run out of ammunition.
“Can I ask you something, Sergeant?”
“Go ahead, man.”
“What is it that is stopping me from sticking that steaming barrel up your fat lousy ass?” I asked him politely.
“Your conscience?” he suggested.
“Stick it!” my conscience said.
Chapter VII
HES Judgement
“Skipper, hello?” an insistent voice didn’t give up easily. “Captain, Sir?”
Tony Cassino was slowly coming round.
“A doctor! Give him a doctor!”
The last thing he remembered was his order to open fire at the oncoming Alien ships. The rest was drowned in a fog and a throbbing headache. The bridge was ruined and looked as if somebody had smashed a soda can. In the center the floor and the ceiling touched. The crew, or what was left of it, were still trapped in the squashed chairs.
The officer leading a rescue team was leaning over the collapsed commander. In his hand he was holding a torch. He ran circles with its beam, estimating the others’ chances of survival.
“What happened?” Cassino asked.
“Please don’t speak, Sir. We’ll get you out of here soon,” the officer assured him. “Hand me that bloody cutter!”
Another figure dressed in a red and yellow armored suit pushed through the rubble.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Cut through here.”
“This won’t work, Bosun,” a hoarse voice spoke up from behind a cover. “We’ll only weaken the construction and the rest will collapse. There might still be some living people there. We need a cushion to lever up the girder.”
“Shit, we don’t have one and every second counts here.”
“Cut the leg. Not much of it remains anyway.”
“Are you fucking nuts? It’s the skipper. If we have a chance of saving him together with his leg, we’ll do it.”
“At the cost of the others, Bosun?”
The man didn’t answer straightaway. Cassino didn’t feel the pain. He lifted himself up. His left leg was twisted at a very unnatural angle and his foot was clenched under a stalmite beam. Blood was flowing from under the metal.
“Is it mine?” Cassino asked surprised.
“Yes, Skipper,” the Bosun confirmed.
“Cut it off.”
“But….”
“It’s an order, Bosun,” Cassino’s voice was full of self-confidence.
Both paramedics got down to the amputation.
“No stupefying drugs, please,” he commanded, seeing the men prepare an injection. “And get me transportation to a back-up command post.”
“In this state you should end up on the medical deck, Sir,” the paramedic with lower rank expressed his opinion.
“Do your thing.”
The Bosun gave a sign to his subordinate to stop pushing the point. The paramedic bit off the needle cover, took a swing and stuck the injection in the thigh. Soon after that Cassino felt at ease and his surroundings blurred. He knew he was being dragged somewhere, and some arms moved him along the floor. He didn’t recognize places or people. He only noticed bright lamps attached to the arms of the suits.
He woke up in the main transport corridor. The medical officer was examining him.
“Am I going to live, doctor?”
The grey old man didn’t answer at first and ran his scanner over the commander’s body. He checked the readings referring with the various bodily systems. Finally, he snapped his diagnostic device closed.
“Apart from the loss of a leg and blood, I can’t see anything else,” he said. “I would like to verify the diagnosis on better equipment.”
“This will have to wait. I need to get to the back-up command center as soon as possible.”
“Oh, you youngsters,” the doctor mumbled under his breath. Then he turned to his assistant. “Stiffen the leg. The foam should stop the bleeding. Apply a dose of N-stimulators.”
He was about to leave when Cassino grabbed his arm.
“Thank you, doctor.”
The doctor took off his dirty disposable gloves and threw them to the floor. He took a new pair out of his apron pocket.
“Thank me once all of this is over. The moment of taking off the foam and attaching an i-prosthesis will hurt like hell. Now, I’m sorry but others are waiting.”
The medica
l officer took the box with the scanner and walked off towards the wounded who were lying along the wall. On the other side paramedics were placing those for whom help came too late.
Two Star Troopers helped the commander up to his feet. Despite the stimulators and painkillers the leg still hurt.
“Maybe we should get a bed?” a different soldier wearing the stripes of a corporal suggested.
“Don’t you dare!” the doctor shouted. “Others need it more.”
There was no point in arguing with the doctor. The older man was right.
“I’ll be fine,” the Commander assured both soldiers. “I still have one good leg.”
The troopers grabbed him and, joining efforts, lifted him up. Cassino tried to help them as much as he could. They had to walk through two thirds of the ship to get to the right elevator shaft. On their way, they were passing soldiers who were dutifully doing their job. The men looked at them compassionately. They were happy to see their commander, but their joy was spoiled by the fact they all knew how difficult the situation of their ship was. The list of casualties was getting longer.
They got to their destination without any problems. Cassino was satisfied to see that the bridge crew didn’t waste time on a formal greeting of their Commander. A battle had its own rules. Jim Kato wanted to give up his seat which lawfully belonged to the Commander, but Cassino fell into the seat of the deputy with visible relief. He quickly fastened his anti-shock harness. He listened closely to the latest messages and watched computer projections to assess the situation, which had changed during his absence. And their position was really bad, one could even say tragic. The Aliens were talking control over the Hadesian System and, what was even worse, they had taken the initiative into their own hands.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” Cassino’s deputy greeted him.
“What did I miss?”
“The Military Orbital Station is silent. The Aliens keep eliminating defense, and methodically blow away anti-meteor defense positions. They destroy anything that could be a threat to them.” Kato looked exhausted. “All their small units are devilishly adroit. Our short-range missiles can do nothing to them. They keep playing cat and mouse with them.”
