by Jake Bible
Fighting Iron 2
Perdition Plains
Jake Bible
Copyright2016 by Jake Bible
www.severedpress.com
One
“How many are left?” Clay asked, focusing his attention on the never-ending wilted grasses and ancient craters that pocked the landscape ahead of the mech. “Gibbons? Talk to me!”
“Calm down, Clay,” Gibbons replied, his voice squelching as one of the cockpit speakers gave out. “Dammit. I’ll add that to the list of repairs.”
“Switch to coms,” Clay said. “It’ll be easier. And screw the list of repairs. If we don’t ditch these rollers, we won’t need repairs, we’ll need coffins.”
“You will,” Gibbons said. “I don’t have a body.”
“What do you call the mech?” Clay asked as he piloted the fifty-foot tall battle machine into a jump over an exceptionally large crater. It landed easily on the other side, barely missing a step.
“It’s not a body, Clay,” Gibbons responded. “Just a vehicle for my consciousness.”
“Isn’t that what a body is?” Clay asked. He checked the plasma cannons, but they still had not reached a useful charge. “I’d call my old bag of bones a vehicle for my consciousness.”
“Three,” Gibbons said.
“What? Three? Is that some AI spiritual code?” Clay asked.
“No, pal, that’s how many rollers are still pursuing us,” Gibbons replied. “You asked how many are left and I answered. And AIs do not have a spiritual code.”
“You don’t know that,” Clay said. “Who made you the universal spokesman for all AIs?”
“Clay? Can we focus on the problem at hand?” Gibbons insisted.
Clay grunted in response.
An alarm bleeped at him.
“Incoming RPG!” Gibbons cried, his voice painfully loud in Clay’s ear.
“I see it!” Clay said as he slid the mech to a halt, spinning to face the oncoming rocket.
“Clay? No!” Gibbons yelled as Clay ran the mech directly back at the rocket.
“Gotta get in under its detonation time,” Clay said, his eyes focused on the thin stream of white smoke that came flying at them. “We’re out of ammo and the cannons are barely glowing. No choice, Gibbons.”
“There is always a choice, Clay,” Gibbons responded, but said nothing else. Clay was the pilot, and he’d chosen a course of action.
The mech reached the rocket, the rocket reached the mech. A massive steel hand plucked the rocket from the air as the mech spun in a quick circle. Before the mech had turned 360 degrees, Clay let go of the rocket and sent it racing back at the three rollers that had relentlessly pursued them since the NorthAm border.
Two of the rollers swerved out of the way. The third did not and suffered for the driver’s lack of defensive skill. It could be assumed the driver suffered as much as the roller did since the entire vehicle went up in a ball of fire, sending shrapnel exploding out in a mushroom of flame and black smoke.
One of the other rollers caught a huge rubber tire in the windshield and came to a sudden halt, blood spraying out from the shattered plastiglass. The third roller stopped as well. NorthAm soldiers leaped from the doors, half-hurrying to their comrades, the other half taking knees and lifting carbines to their shoulders.
“Clay,” Gibbons said.
“I see ‘em,” Clay said and turned the mech on its heel. He didn’t bother looking at the scanners as the soldiers opened fire; he could hear the bullets ricocheting off the mech’s frame just fine. “Status?”
“No serious damage,” Gibbons said. “We’ve repaired worse.”
“Yeah, we have,” Clay said and diverted as much power as he could to the mech’s legs while still maintaining control. A full-out run would have been ideal, but the abundance of craters made that a near impossibility.
It wasn’t until they were half a kilometer away before the gunfire stopped, although the bullets hadn’t hit the mech for a good dozen meters. Half an hour later, the mech hit the horizon, and the rollers were lost from sight, only a pillar of black smoke rising into the sky left as evidence of their existence.
Clay slowed the mech to a fast walk.
“Run diagnostics,” Clay ordered.
“I already am, Clay,” Gibbons replied. “I do know my job.”
“Didn’t say you don’t,” Clay responded as he stood up from the pilot’s seat and stretched. “Just being thorough.”
He moved across the tight space of the cockpit and kicked the toe of his boot against a small lever. A waist-high basin appeared, and Clay unzipped his trousers to relieve himself.
“Been holding that for three hours now,” Clay said. “Feel lucky you aren’t ruled by bodily functions, buddy.”
“No need to rub your humanity in my face, pal,” Gibbons said.
Clay shook and zipped. “I wasn’t,” he said. “I was just pointing out that you don’t have the physical limitations that I do.”
“We all have physical limitations,” Gibbons said, his tone short. “We exist in a physical world.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Clay responded as he sat back in the pilot’s seat. “What time is it?”
“1750,” Gibbons responded. “Sunset is in approximately eighteen minutes.”
Clay stared out at the glowing sky before him. Huge, billowing clouds of white and grey clung to the horizon like heavy puffs of mist over a lake, sending orange and red rays of light streaming in all directions.
Clay knew the reputation of the area, though. The white clouds would soon become grey, and the billowing would turn into a constant blanket of dreary gloom. He sighed.
“Find us a crater large enough that we can hunker down in for the night,” Clay said. “I hate being exposed out on these plains.”
“Will do, pal,” Gibbons said. “Your bio-signs tell me you are exhausted. Get some sleep, Clay. I’ve got this.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Clay said and stretched out so that his feet pressed up against the front of the cockpit. He reclined the seat and tilted his well-worn leather and felt hat over his face, blocking the last of the bright sunset. “Wake me if you need me.”
“You know I will,” Gibbons said.
“Yeah, I do,” Clay replied.
He was fast asleep before the sun was lost to the land.
Two
When Clay came to, he was on his side and staring at faded brown dirt. He looked down and saw he was strapped into the safety harness of the pilot’s seat. He had no memory of doing that, but life in a mech meant many half-awake moments that he couldn’t recall the next day.
Carefully, he undid the buckles on the harness and braced himself against the seat so he didn’t fall against the side of the cockpit. Clay shook the sleep from his head and oriented himself.
Dirt outside the cockpit hatch. The mech was obviously on its side.
Gibbons had found a large enough crater and hunkered down, just like Clay’d asked.
Despite the cockpit being closed and latched tight, Clay could smell the damp earth outside. A faint glow through the hatch told him that sunrise was coming.
“How long was I asleep?” Clay asked as he stretched awkwardly in the sideways space.
“Ten hours,” Gibbons replied. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Clay responded. “Room enough to pop the hatch and let me out to stretch my legs?”
“Just barely,” Gibbons said as the cockpit hatch unlocked and eased about a half meter wide until the front came to rest against the crater’s dirt side. “Scanners show no rollers or other threats.”
“Good to know,” Clay said as he squeezed through the hatch’s opening and scrambled his way up and ou
t of the mech then the crater.
The sky was a steely grey, with a heavy cloud bank covering everything. No surprise.
“Storm coming?” Clay asked.
“Not according to the radar,” Gibbons said. “But you know how the plains can be. Unpredictable at best.”
“At best,” Clay echoed.
Clay relieved himself by the side of the crater, zipped, and began walking, welcoming the feel of open space. He was born to be a mech pilot, but a cockpit was no place to spend one’s life at all times. Clay needed to work some circulation back into his lower extremities, get the feel of land under his boots for a few minutes before they continued on their way.
But which way?
Clay grumbled as he stopped in the knee-high grass and turned in a slow circle. He wasn’t supposed to be there. The coordinates in the mech’s system said he needed to get through NorthAm. Northeast. He was going the wrong way. West was not part of the plan.
Not that he knew the plan exactly.
“Gibbons?” he called.
“Yes, Clay?” Gibbons replied.
“Double check the coms log,” Clay ordered. “Make sure we didn’t miss a hail from those rollers. There has to be some reason they chased us away from the NorthAm border with guns blazing and no questions asked.”
“Yes, there has to be,” Gibbons said. “But I can’t find that reason. I’ve been over the coms log, all scanner readings, the hardwired route, everything. At the very least, the NorthAm border patrol should have stopped us and asked to see transit papers. They didn’t even do that.”
“No, they didn’t,” Clay said. “They started shooting instead.”
“They knew we were coming?” Gibbons posed.
“So?” Clay responded. “That doesn’t explain the instantly defensive behavior. Even if they were tipped off that we were crossing, what does that matter? There’s no reason for us to be on their radar.”
“Perhaps news of what happened back in Del Rado and the business with General Hansen and the Mister preceded us,” Gibbons said.
“That was Northeast MexiCali business,” Clay countered. “No reason it would concern NorthAm border troops.”
“Money and power concern everyone, pal,” Gibbons scoffed. “I may be an AI, but even I know that much about human behavior.”
Clay grunted in response. Gibbons was right. News of a power upset like the one Clay had caused would travel fast. Might make those that held the power on the other side of the NorthAm border slightly nervous to have a rogue mech stomping its way through the territory. Clay turned to the east and watched the sun make its presence known on the far horizon. A pink strip under a grey blanket.
“Still doesn’t explain why they didn’t respond to hails or even try to hail us themselves,” Clay said finally. “It was a kill order, pure and simple. I want to know why.”
“Long-range scanners show nothing,” Gibbons said. “If it was a kill order, then it was without a pursuit order.”
“Let’s walk,” Clay said. “Get up out of that crater.”
“You’re staying on foot?” Gibbons asked.
“Yeah,” Clay replied. “Feels good. No offense, buddy, but the smell of morning dew beats the smell of my own trapped farts up in that cockpit any day.”
“No need to explain that to me,” Gibbons said. “I have to take my olfactory sensors offline to avoid them redlining halfway through the day.”
“Ha freaking ha,” Clay said.
He moved a few meters away from the crater, just in case the ground wasn’t stable as Gibbons climbed the mech up out of the hole. Clay waited patiently for Gibbons to go through a mobility checklist, making sure all joints were in good working order. Even fifty-foot battle machines stiffened up overnight. Other than a few creaks, and a muted bang as a stuck strut popped back into motion, the mech was ready for travel.
Clay swore as he realized he had left his hat up in the cockpit.
“Hey, Gibbons?” Clay called.
“Hold on,” Gibbons said.
There was a loud puff of air from above, and Clay’s hat went flying from the cockpit, sailing several meters out over the grassy plains. It floated lazily to the ground, and Clay took his time retrieving it, still not awake enough for any type of hurrying. Clay picked up his hat and set it on his head, a subconscious smile on his face as the familiar sweat-stained band inside molded to his skull.
“Better?” Gibbons asked.
“Better,” Clay said.
“Your pistol is still up here,” Gibbons said.
“That’s fine,” Clay replied as he felt at his right thigh to make sure his knife was securely strapped there. “If we get into a shooting situation, I’ll have you lift me up. My pigsticker is good enough for now. It’ll handle any angry prairie dogs or ornery rattlesnakes.”
They walked in silence for an hour, Clay weaving his way around the many craters, Gibbons stepping over the modest-sized ones, jumping over the big ones. The sun had started to heat the back of Clay’s neck, and he glanced over his shoulder, sad to see the morning clouds burning off behind him, but not in front.
Normally, cloud cover would have been welcome out in the open plains, but in late October, a little warmth from the sun was a pleasant indulgence. An indulgence that wasn’t going to last as he and Gibbons continued forward. Clay pulled the poncho he wore tight around him.
Another twenty minutes and the craters began to lessen until they were thankfully few and far between. Clay was about to mention the terrain to Gibbons, pulled up short instead. He cocked his head, listening, then crouched and placed his palm flat on the ground.
“What is that?” Clay asked.
“Hold on,” Gibbons replied. “Scanner readings are confusing. Seismic activity is not normal for this part of the continent, so I don’t think it’s geological.”
“See anything?” Clay asked. “Army of heavy rollers? The ground is shaking hard enough for at least a dozen or more to be coming at us. So much for that no pursuit order.”
“There’s a dark mass on the scanners, but it is so dense I can’t parse what it is,” Gibbons said.
“Well, parse harder, buddy,” Clay said.
The noise grew, the shaking of the ground grew, Clay’s apprehension grew. He stood and turned in a slow circle.
“That mass? Is it coming from the east?” Clay asked as a distant memory came back to him. Stories he’d heard of the mech cavalry days.
“It is,” Gibbons replied.
“I know what it is,” Clay said. “Get me up top. Now.”
The ground shook even harder, and Clay had to widen his stance to keep from being jostled.
“Oh,” Gibbons said. “Scanners have cleaned up the image. Oh. I see what’s coming now.”
“Get me up top and in the cockpit,” Clay said, his voice tense and urgent. “We need to move. Those things will take us out at the ankles and thoroughly mess up the mech.”
“No shit, pal,” Gibbons said and plucked Clay up off the ground with two huge fingers then dropped him into the cockpit.
Clay didn’t complain about the rough treatment; he just strapped into the pilot’s chair and began looking at a map readout.
“Son of a bitch,” Clay said. “That herd is massive.”
“Three kilometers from end to end,” Gibbons said. “Only one kilometer wide, though. If we run at full speed and cut a diagonal path northwest, we may only get clipped by the far edge.”
“Great,” Clay said as he stared at the map for one last second.
Bison. A hell of a lot of bison.
“Point us in the right direction and let’s get the hell outta here,” Clay said as he engaged the drive systems and pushed the throttle to full.
The mech’s engines produced a loud hum as they burned through the geothermal energy stored in the power cells throughout the mech’s substructure. While geothermal worked fine, it would have been ideal to utilize stores of grey—radioactive water that served no purpose other than to po
wer mechs—but grey was hard to come by and geothermal was just under the Earth’s crust.
The finer points of energy efficiency were not on Clay’s mind as he looked from the view out of the cockpit to the gaining mass of bison on the scanners. A huge blob of destruction was racing towards them, and they had a very small window of opportunity in which to not get taken down.
“Estimates?” Clay asked.
“A million, possibly two,” Gibbons answered.
“Great,” Clay sighed.
“I wouldn’t call it great,” Gibbons said.
“Sarcasm,” Clay replied.
“Right back at you,” Gibbons responded.
Even with the mech’s jostling as it sprinted across the prairie, Clay could feel the vibrations caused by the bison herd. Through the cockpit’s floor, through the pilot’s seat, and deep into his bones, Clay felt the potential death and destruction coming up their butt.
“What happens if one of them has to stop and piss?” Clay asked. “Does it just get trampled to death?”
“My guess is the creature would pee while running,” Gibbons said. “I don’t believe stopping is part of the order of things. Not unless it wants to be a bison cake.”
“Mmmm, bison cakes sound good right now,” Clay said. “I’m freaking starving.” He clicked open a small hatch at the side of the pilot’s seat and rummaged through it until he found a pouch of salted meat. “Is this beef?”
“I don’t think so,” Gibbons said.
“Deer?” Clay asked, hope filling his voice.
“Could be,” Gibbon said. “What color is the pouch?”
“It’s the charcoal one,” Clay said.
“Then it’s close,” Gibbons said. “Antelope from the Sonoran.”
“Oh, right,” Clay said. “Maybe we can snag a couple of bison on the fringe of the herd and take a day to butcher and smoke them?”
“Let’s cross that river when we come to it,” Gibbons said. “Oh… Crap…”
“What?” Clay asked as he tore off a hunk of salted meat and took a large pull from his water. “What’s crap?”
“Crossing a river when we come to it,” Gibbons said. “Take a look.”
