by Lee Bond
Just then, not fifteen feet from where Chevy were stood, bitter tears stinging his eyes, quiet Turner took a gauntleted fist to the side of the head that felled the lad where he stood and 'ere he knew what he were doin', a foolish old man in a metal coat found himself runnin' for all he were worth, full tilt and all engines open.
He'd failed his Dark Iron Bastards.
He would not fail his Hounds.
Not this day, not never again. If one fell, they would all fall, and 'ere that moment, the whole of all the worlds in the heavens would tremble.
There would be another day to strive for peace an’ tranquility.
Today?
Today demanded blood.
Unbidden, a howl most angry sped past old lips, loud and angry enough to blot out the banshee's wail and Enforcer's bang.
***
Suit was running through the litany of viruses and worms and damned near every type of electronic espionage the Universe had ever seen, trumpeting the defeat of each deadly digital bomb with a brief flash of green light.
But there were so many, so very many, and with Suit’s efficiency already down thanks to both the alien tech and the five-point FARS attack, it seemed to Terrex that they were either going to kill the wardogs before the air was clear of assault, or those things were going to burrow all the way in and kill Suit dead.
“Trobax, clean. Feller-15, clean. Rootkill, quarantined. Vel-vel-boom, quarantined. Unknown … waylaid down a false path. Unknown, firewall. Unknown … firewall. L0zeR, clean…”
Terrex ducked out of the way of the one calling herself Sveta, grunting in anguish as one of the wardog’s incredibly illegal splitterstaves –how in the hell she’d managed to get one of the deadly Novinian weapons was a thing Terrex truly wanted to know- slid noisily down his armored side; wherever the splitterstaff touched the no-longer immaculate armor, brilliant amber arcs flashed, and wherever those arcs flashed, warning lights by the goddamn truckload burst into life. The warnings faded as quick as they came, though, mimicking the amber lightning’s life and death across his armor.
Terrex wasn’t a religious man, but he was thanking some kind of deity at the moment that the woman hadn’t yet managed to land a solid slap down with that bloody amber staff, or that it appeared to be at less than full charge; if he stopped paying attention to her and what she was doing, Sveta could easily incapacitate him.
So, a boot to the gut sent the prettyish wardog scrabbling backwards, cutting her free hand up on some uprooted ferrocrete when she tried slowing her departure. Windim howled into her place as if he’d known what was going to happen to her before she’d seen it coming, both hands full of guns.
“Correllian pistols, charged with abroxius crystals and firing whickerbullets.” Suit supplied helpfully.
“Fuck my life.” Terrex stamped down on the ground beneath his feet hard enough to crack the ferrocrete into sizeable chunks, one of which he booted at the determined looking Windim’s head. The Arcadian stepped around the missile, at which point Linders appeared out of nowhere, bearing an honest to goodness club.
Before Suit or Enforcer could adjust to this sudden turn of events, Linders and his club were right there. Terrex got a good look up the man’s nostrils before the club banged right into his helmet, sending the Enforcer reeling inside the Suit. After that, Norcross started laying in with a short, ugly and frankly brutish looking weapon that was uncommonly close to a sawed-off shotgun, but delivering rounds that were capable of cracking the armor in his legs.
“Weapon specification unknown. Post-Cordon tech evident. Running through the database…”
“You fucking hearing this, Clint?” Terrex demanded as he looked for and failed to find anything remotely resembling an escape route; now that he was being braced by Norcross and his unfortunately efficient shotgun, the others were lurking in the background, blatantly taking a breather or otherwise being assholes. The one called Turner, for example, was standing there, having an actual smoke break.
“I not only hear it, I see it, and I’m recording the shit out of it.” Clint’s stressed voice came through loud and clear, and Terrex grunted in appreciation of the other Enforcer’s diligence. “When we’re done here, we’re going to burn Eli and Chastity Crane-Hawthorn of the Regilline Crane-Hawthorns right into the fucking ground. Trinity won’t … ouch, holy shit, that looks like it hurt. Are you okay?”
Terrex ground his teeth and backed up towards where Turner was having himself a quiet smoke, one leg no longer working as well as the other; the one was now nearly nothing more than a collection of loose plates held together by the overall frame, the majority of the forward facing shields having only just been completely blown apart by one of Norcross’ deadly shots.
“Ugh.” Terrex looked to the HUD, shook his head resentfully when he saw the med readout. “Didn’t quite get my femoral artery, but most of my fucking upper thigh is meat for the grill now.”
“These guys are ridiculous.” Clint muttered over the comms. “I mean, they’re not kicking your ass quite as thoroughly as these wide-awake Arcadians elsewhere, but damn.”
“Weapon identified. Solomax spreader from the Cruvix Galaxy, Tenperedine solar system, planet Hawthorne. Fueled by substrate extrapolation. Pellets are comprised of compressed quantum energy.”
“Goddammit.” Terrex leaped as best he could off to one side so that he could avoid another one of Norcross’ deadly shots. He managed to spare his ruined leg another shot, but wound up getting quite a few quantum pellets across the backside, which in turn sparked up another round of pestering HUD-warnings about Suit integrity and other fine and wonderful things. “Clint, I could use some fucking help here.”
“Uh, that’s a negative at the moment, Terrex, looks like Slizzer’s in some serious trouble. Her man Dom Breton is a fucking savage. Well, they’re all savages, but …”
“Fine.” Terrex picked himself up off the ground just in time to receive an unfair boot to his damaged leg, an attack delivered by lazy Turner, who still had a fucking cigarette in his mouth! “Fucking Christ!”
“Don’t be that way, Sally Ann.” Turner said around his ciggy. He watched on as Enforcer tried dancing out the way, but wi’ that damaged leggy o’ his, he weren’t doing much more than a stately waltz down t’the other side o’ things. “’ere, come back, let’s do this proper.”
Terrex couldn’t believe his eyes and ears. Turner was advancing on him, pressing him towards the other wardogs, but he didn’t have any weapons from Offworld planets or from the other side of The Cordon in his hands. At least, none that Suit could detect, which … which didn’t mean all that much, not really. With efficiency bubbling around the sixty-five percent mark, there was every chance that Turner had a Deglerro Fusion Core tucked into the tip of his cigarette.
“You got this, Turnsy?” Norcross demanded from just behind their Enforcer.
“Oh, aye, I think me I do at that.” Turner twitched, and suddenly, he were right there afore Enforcer, up inside the man’s armored defenses, broad forehead driving towards helmeted melon at approximately the speed of light. Or so it always seemed to Turner every time he reached down into the place where the old Iron used to seethe an’ fester; down in that place now, there weren’t much to start, but o’er time, it did act like a well, collecting summat as he could use to his advantage. Like t'were summat summoned up by perfume of blood, the music o' death, the strings o' violence, hey? Never lasted long, hey, nowt at all.
But when it were full, oh, he did have the upper hand, hey? The last one to hold on t’such power’d been a full loon by the name o’ Meechy, and rumor had it he’d been got by his employer’s splashy gun.
Terrex didn’t even know what to do, so surprising was the sudden attack. Turner’s forehead smashed into his powered helmet with a nearly incomprehensible amount of speed and strength, viciously and uncompromisingly shattering the entire front of it into a half-dozen pieces. The last thing Suit did before the HUD followed suit was give off one big ala
rm.
Then his head was unprotected. Terrex blinked against the brilliant –brilliant to him, as he’d grown more accustomed to the low-light emanations of the HUD- light and reoriented on Turner, who was coming at him just as fast as before.
“There you is.” Turner said around a mouthful o’ smoke. “Luvverly dance partner you is, hey? Here, I been workin’ on this particular pass for a month or more, let’s see how you like it.”
Now partially exposed –which meant so perishingly close to death, especially in light of the weapons brandished by the other wardogs- Terrex knew damned well he was going to have to play things incredibly safely, so when Turner came at him with another high-velocity attack –this time, a flurry of punches aimed at midriff, which was a tactic designed to fool him into leaving his head unprotected- the Enforcer stepped in to the blows.
The damage caused to the chest and stomach of the Suit was punishing, but necessary. Terrex felt the other wardogs moving forward to assist their friend, albeit at a leisurely pace, so while Turner remained devoted to the delivery of his blows, Enforcer raised one closed fist and slammed it into the side of his enemy’s head hard enough to crack bone like an egg.
As expected, Turner dropped like a stone.
“Warning.” Suit’s voice whispered up from somewhere around Terrex’s neck. “Warning. Old man in a metal coat, approaching. Warning … warning … power drain detected. I repeat, power drain detected. War…”
And that was when, yes, just as Suit had been trying to get across, an old man in a metal coat slammed into Terrex the Enforcer like a freight train, complete with the sound of gears shrieking…
***
Clint sucked in a hiss of air as he caught sight of grizzled old Chevy Pointillier crash into Terrex in what was best described as a perfect tackle; both men became airborne at that moment, flying through the air towards what appeared to be one of seventy million walls just … there.
“Do we have any kind of contact with the outside?” Clint demanded of his Suit, groaning loudly when Terrex had his head bounced off the corner of a ferrocrete block. Chevy didn’t fare much better, beaning his melon on the mangled end of a fender that’d been inexplicably driven into the dirt.
“I could attempt to co-opt the comm signals of the wardogs manning the front entrance created by Chevy and his team.” Suit offered instantly. “The intrusion software presents a terrible challenge, though. I’m analyzing Terrex’s data. Some of the viral pieces are definitely Offworld in nature, constituting a declaration of war against Trinityspace. If I try to get through, there is a ninety percent chance I will become infected.”
“Mhhm.” Down below, Terrex was picking himself woozily up from the ground, but it was already too late; Chevril Pointillier was already back at the Enforcer, an increasingly angry look on his face. Two wardogs were overlooking Turner’s condition, while the other two –one of whom was now toting one of the FARS-cannons- were making their way over to where Chevy and Terrex were duking it out.
Elsewhere, Agnethea was just finishing off Shuman, Abby was regretting his choices leading up to this moment in his life, and Slizzer was perilously close to death.
“I hate moments like this.” Clint needed to make a choice between Slizzer and Terrex, and it needed to happen now. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do …”
***
The side o’ ‘is ‘ead had sprung itself a fairly good leak, hey, wi’ bright red plum sauce spilling out and coating the whiskers as had grown up there –if there were one thing about this Outside, it were that it rarely afforded a man the opportunity to freshen up as you were s’posed to, hey- in the most unflattering shade.
Still, though, Chevy reckoned he were in better shape than yon Enforcer. Critical eyes used to drinking in everything they saw and applying a long career in understanding things did tell the old Arcadian that the Enforcer –who looked to be in his forties- were having a rough time; wound in his leg, still surrounded by planks of metal shielding, well, that were leaking fluid all over the outside of the armor, weren’t it just, and collision w’ unfortunately placed wall had dented the man’s head in considerable fashion.
That being said, Enforcer didn’t look like he were going to stay down, so.
“Let’s show you how we do it down Ickford way, you perishing pup.” Chevril Pointillier surged forward, ticktock coat humming loudly in his ears. As he drove towards Enforcer, the Gearmaster couldn’t help but notice that there were a definite … improvement to the basic functions o’ the long coat.
Terrex blinked away the pain as he popped his gauntlets off so he could try to palm away as much of the blood obscuring his vision as he could. He didn’t want to lose the heavy metal gloves, but it was either be able to punch the Arcadian to death basically blindfolded –all the while risking getting done for by one of the bored wardogs- or free his vision so he could fucking do something.
Faint warnings about power failure still ringing in his ears, Terrex finished cleaning his face up as good as he could just as Chevy stepped in to range. Using his bad leg to balance on, the Enforcer simply brought his leg up the moment the Arcadian became too committed to his forward charge to do anything but slam into it.
The impact, when it came, allowed for fresh waves of nauseating pain to radiate outwards.
“Luckily,” Terrex –who, like all Enforcers, was in the habit of talking to his Suit- said aloud, “I’ve got other things to worry about.”
Chevy grunted and tried to turn aside from the leg in his guts, but Terrex was there and ready wi’ a bareknuckle fist that blasted him right in the old cheekbone. “Bless you, lad, for that wake up call, hey?”
And wi’ that, Chevy grabbed hold o’ the leg still planted in his guts as if Enforcer were hoping a fresh ‘un’d sprout there and twisted for all he were worth; aided by his coat, which were –to his ears- ticking along near about three times fast as it ought, the twisting motion did cause a fair handful of intricate meshed plates to shred into nowt but metallic confetti.
A lusty –and startled- scream erupted out of Terrex’s mouth, a high-pitched warble that did have all t’other wardogs in the area chortling in appreciation o’ the man’s freshly acquired injuries; they’d all of them been in similar situations, hadn’t they just, and they well knew how cumbersome and awful it were to heal from that kind of grievance.
Chevy dropped the leg and moved back in…
***
“Think you we should help or summink?” Thierry asked, shifting his FARS-cannon over to the other shoulder.
“Which one?” Norry demanded humorously. “Enforcer or Arcadian? Looks to me like Chevy’s one to keep some things close to his chest, hey? Oh, King’s Pucker, he’s also one to fight dirty, in’t he just?”
Thierry hissed and shook his head. “Galvanized kick to the pills? Our man Chevy … well. Where to start? Christing Cunt! An eye gouge? King’s Massive Cock, just when I think I can’t love our man more, he turns all back alley gearhead on us!”
Sveta and Windim, hauling Turner –who had a knot on the side o’ his pate big enough to drown an entire city were it to erupt- arrived on the scene, wi’ Linders bringing up the rear, toting the FARS-cannon mesh.
Sveta applauded when Enforcer drilled an elbow into the back of Chevy’s head, and when t’others turned her way as if to ask what she were thinking, cheering for the enemy, she said, “Well, ‘e’s all down there on ‘is own, hey? Needs a bit o’ moral support? Think you how he feels, gettin’ ‘is arse handed to ‘im by an old man in a metal coa … oh my fucking King, do him right in, you old bastard, I swear when you get up here I’ll plant one on your lips like to which you never did experience! Did you see that, lads? Nutted that fucker right ‘cross the brow! Our Enforcer must be cross-eyed ‘ere now! Oh, am I glad I did get out o’ bed to answer Eli’s call!”
Turner shook his head to clear it o’ the last of the fuzzies. “I feel like we should be doin’ summat. Very least, we should let ‘im know I is not
dead.”
Norry shook his head firmly. “Nah. ‘tis well and good for the old man to work this out on ‘is own, hey? ‘sideswhich, you lot ever see anything like this in your entire lives? An actual Gearman standing toe to toe wi’ an enemy instead o’ usin’ the many tricks at ‘is disposal?”
Linders applauded as Chevy jammed three rigid fingers right into Enforcer’s throat, sending the armored fool to ‘is knees. “Never. Our new man down there, ‘e’s got some secrets, hey?”
“An’ ‘ere comes the coup de grace.” All the dogs, they did stand there in mute silence, near enough to quietly saluting their commander as he did drive piston-powered fist direct into the front of his foe’s face. They didn’t need to hear the bone and all crunching, nor did they need to witness the gasping last breaths to know Chevril Pointillier had done for his foe.
“Welladay, let’s us all go down there and have a quiet word wi’ our Chevy, see wot’s in the cards next.” Norry and all headed on over to where their Gearmaster stood, head down, chest heaving like a furnace bellows.
***
“You live?” Chevy blinked. Beside a bruise that looked as though it might sprout a face and personality all it’s own, Turner’s goofy grin were all the answer a man needed. “But how?”
“Ah,” Turner replied languidly, “’tis a thing some few o’ us suffer from, hey? ‘tis like as if the emptiness where crudey-crude did reside fills up wi’ summat that do spin like the gears we used to carry. Does give uz strength and speed and resilience as we were used to, once ‘pon a time.”
Linders put a hand on each side o’ Turner’s shoulders. “What our lad here fails to mention is that in every other case save ‘is own, like as not them as have this wee little trick to ‘em, they do go stark fucking mad soonest rather than late, and then all of uz are called to bring the raging dog down.”
“How is you not know I hain’t already there?” Turner demanded plaintively. “I could be daft as when I is on me own!”
It were just then that Sveta carried through wi’ her promise to plant one on the old man’s lips, and as the two of them were locking lips –Sveta grinned ‘gainst Chevy’s dry lips as she felt considerable heat rise from her elder’s face- the rest o’ the crowd did hoot and holler and clap. Turner started humming some old song from the Inside and Norry were well about to start clapping along wi’ it when a fairly bright beam did flick into life.
