by C. W Tickner
Damen, flanked by Silver and Gold on the platform, took a single pace forward. Grakka’s mech strode forward a pace between the hundreds of flyers and stopped within arm’s reach of the closed door. Damen looked back at him and Harl gave him a slight nod. Damen’s face twisted into a feral grin as he raised a foot. The mech was slow in responding but its leg mimicked the hunter’s with a mechanical sweep of sound.
Damen roared and kicked the air. The mech’s foot shot out, smashing open the door in front. Bright sunlight flooded the building and as Harl’s eyes adjusted, he could make out the dozens of mechs and machines just outside the door. From his perspective, between the mech’s legs, it was a wall of Aylen and metal, blocking any view of the horizon.
Damen flicked something on his chest screen and raised his arms. The mech did not copy him. Silver and Gold ducked under an arm each and in one smooth motion, lifted Damen up so he was suspended off the platform floor. In a sudden burst of motion Damen ran. His legs pumped furiously in circles mid-air and a second later, with a deep thump, the mech lurched forward through the open doorway.
It gained in speed, the piston powered legs covering the dusty ground as it sprinted into the line of mechs that surrounded the building. It made it twenty strides, pushing past the first wave of stunned Aylen before any fired. Perhaps they knew it was Grakka’s mech and that had forced them to hesitate or perhaps the sheer audacity of running headlong into them had delayed a reaction.
When the first enemy gun fired at the running machine the rest joined in. It was a heart stopping noise. A cacophony of rapid bangs and screeching whistles, like standing directly in the epicentre of a thunderstorm.
Every single Aylen in front of the door, tracked the running mech, their arms extended to aim the weapons on their wrists. They turned away from the entrance and that gave the army a chance to leave the building.
Dana went first, breaking right in a speedy manoeuvre. The thousand behind her followed. Small groups broke off from the main force heading directly upwards with orders to get as high as the flyers would go and make contact with friendly Aylen. It was them who would survive the conflict and spread the message about the trapped females if the rest of them perished. The remaining soldiers flew straight for the mechs, seeking a target.
Kane flew the platform out into the sea of mech legs.
‘I’m slowing,’ Damen called, his legs beating the air as he watched from the point of the drone hovering over the mech. Silver and Gold were still propping Damen up when Troy yelled a warning. ‘Incoming!’
A shrill whistle grew in the background, drowning out the battle shouts of the men flying around them.
They had been spotted. Shells erupted in detonating bursts nearby and a ripple of deadly blasts peppered the space between the legs of the mechs they were flying through. Men were blown off their flyers by the shock-waves as they struck the ground.
Dana led the point of the formation, sweeping towards the single Aylen that had spotted them. It had only been a matter of time before they would have been discovered but for Harl it was too soon. Dana guided them around the mech like a swarm and with Kane straining the platform to keep up, they begun to circle around the giant like flies. Teams broke off to drop handfuls of the explosive collars down on the Aylen’s exposed head. Kane slowed the platform as the Aylen ceased firing and swatted at them. The thunder of gunfire in the background still rumbled, vibrating Harl’s chest but at least the other Aylen had yet to notice their single companion, flailing at the air around it.
Damen’s legs whirled and Harl wondered how long the hunter could keep up such a frantic pace. Harl noticed everyone on the platform was staring at him.
‘Go,’ Kane said, tossing him the control box. ‘Remember, get it as close to the head as possible.’
Harl jumped into action, taking his flyer away from the platform and crossing the short distance to the mech. It shifted in front of him like a cliff of steel and several times he had to weave away as am arm whipped through the air towards him. He tucked his legs in and rose up to the shoulder, staying close to remain out of sight. The last thing he wanted was for those piercing yellow eyes to lock on to him. He looked down at the shifting shoulder plate and sucked in a deep breath.
A wave of nausea washed over him as he skipped off the drone and landed on the shoulder plate. There was hardly any friction, and with the bulk of the armour, he almost lost his footing when the plate moved under him. It was a stupid plan, he knew it. He was risking himself because he couldn’t let anyone else do it. Admittedly no one else had volunteered but that was a moot point.
‘You’re a bloody fool, Eriksson,’ he said and tugged the control box from his chest. He fought the magnets until he wrested it free and slammed it down on the armour plate. The Aylen spun, trying to swat a particularly troublesome group of men who were tossing bombs down at its hand.
Holding on to the magnetised box so he didn’t slip, Harl waited and wondered if their plan had failed.
A second later the box whirred and the movements of the flailing Aylen ceased until only the explosions from the collars could be heard detonating as the bronze soldiers threw them down on the suddenly still Aylen.
It was roaring, furious at the fact it could no longer move within the confines of the mech’s exoskeleton and was now at the mercy of hundreds of men flying around its body, unleashing a constant stream of multicoloured rifle fire. Only its head shifted left and right and it could only watch in horror as its mech took control.
Damen switched from Grakka’s mech, which had endured as much firepower as a war and took control of the new target. Harl knew things would get difficult from here on out.
As they had planned, Damen forced the mech suit’s weapon arm straight.
Trying not to catch the sword on his back on anything, Harl climbed down and ran the length of the arm to the firing button on the control pad beside a mangled Aylen hand.
A team of men had dropped dozens of collars onto the hand and the fingers that could reach the line of glowing buttons had been brutally severed. The giant hand twitched. The Aylen, encased in its own armour skeleton roared in helpless protest.
Harl unslung his sword and as Kane had instructed, stabbed down through the centre of the middle button. He regretted it immediately as the pounding rhythm of shots burst from the end of the gun barrel on the back of the hand. Damen raised the arm at the nearest enemy, expertly aiming the shots at its head. Before any reacted quick enough to return fire, three nearby mechs were down, spraying oil and blood in a cloud of black smoke.
When the enemy realised what was happening the firepower directed at Grakka’s mech, turned on them. Bullets slammed into the metal around Harl, severing pipelines and breaking open armour plates. He had to get the sword out but the vibrations from impacts were making it nearly impossible to grab the hilt and press the button. If he didn’t get the sword free then the plan would fail. He was thrown forwards as an explosion rocked the air around him and managed to fall on the sword. Snatching the hilt with both hand he found the button and yanked the sword free. His flyer was hovering beneath the mech’s hand and he’d have to jump to get on it. He cursed the stupid plan and climbed over the side, sliding down the shredded hand until his feet landed on the triangular hover board.
Riding the flyer through a hailstorm of yellow and red fire Harl reached the shoulder plate and swept down, skimming the metal and snatching up the magnetic control box. A jagged splinter of metal ricocheted up off the plate from an impact, smashing into his shoulder and he tumbled backwards off the flyer plummeting down in the maelstrom of deadly projectiles.
Chapter 53
I imagine some of the things I discovered whilst creating this paradise could help if we ever find another home. I will input the data into the system and back date them as old discoveries.
He landed hard on the shoulder plate barely clutching his sword and spotted the control box sticking up beside him. Scrambling to catch the box before he sli
d off, he wrapped an arm around it and glanced around to see his flyer hovering beside the edge of the plate five metres away.
Fighting to keep the sword in one hand and the box in the other, Harl clenched his teeth against the pain. He knew that without the suit he would be dead a dozen times over. He staggered up and stumbled towards the edge, struggling to counter the movement of the mech and stay upright.
When he reached the edge of the plate he jumped in a heart stopping leap to land on the flyer. He almost overbalanced with his hands full but the drone angled to check the weight distribution before levelling out.
When he cleared the radius of the mech, the shots lessened and only the scream of the Aylen could be heard above the booms as it was blasted apart by its own allies in a storm of flashes and explosions.
Dana and the army of bronze soldiers had swarmed to a nearby mech and were already attempting to blow the hand off the next target, to allow Harl access to the firing button.
Dive bombing past a swinging arm, Harl headed for the shoulder plate. Once again the new target was too focused on shooting the dying Aylen to notice them until it was too late.
A vicious back swing of its weapon hand knocked dozens of men off their flyers, sending them hurtling into a downward spiral to the arid ground two hundred metres below.
Over the shoulder, Harl was able to drop the magnetic control box in place without having to get off the flyer. The flailing hands slowed, signalling that Damen had control of the mech.
Harl stayed on the drone and flew down to the hand. Bronze soldiers were lobbing handfuls of collars down on the fingers as Damen held it still. The bleeding palm was upturned in a forced gesture of acceptance as the bombs tore chunks from the grey flesh.
He circled the hand until all that remained was a messy stump of yellow gore. Why couldn’t Kane have made a control unit for the firing mechanism? He hopped off the flyer and stabbed the sword down into the centre of the button then looked up at the platform hovering in front of the face as the stream of shots erupted from the end of the gun.
This time Damen killed two nearby Aylen before the others noticed giving Harl a moment before the inevitable blasts came at him. They had killed ten Aylen and if they kept up this rate of fire maybe they could get far enough away from the building and break free from the army in a final rush for freedom.
Seeing the strange behaviour of its comrade, the nearest Aylen turned on him
The sound of the shots rattling against the armour plates was overwhelming and when a shot slammed into the gun’s control panel the sword slipped as the button split apart. Harl dived for it but Damen moved the hand and the sword bounced, tumbling over edge. Harl’s fingers skimmed the hilt and he knew he’d rolled too far as he slid half over the side and stared down at the looming drop below.
Damen tilted the hand and the momentum ceased. Harl scrambled to his feet. That was too close, he thought. He cursed. Their plan relied on the sword and by losing it they had failed.
Damen was shouting something down at him but to Harl it was inaudible above the background noise. It took Harl a second to realise there was no sound of explosions or bullets puncturing the air. The nearest Aylen had stopped and were turning to run. Had they scared them off? A hundred Aylen defeated by a thousand humans? But as the nearest moved aside he saw he was looking at the barrel of an artillery gun several kilometres away. The flyers around the mech followed Dana, darting away from the machine to scatter in every direction.
Harl watched Kane fly the platform straight up to flee the target area and he grabbed his flyer but he was too late.
A high whistling sound reached Harl’s ears as the giant barrel flashed in the distance. He dropped down, flying off the shoulder as Damen used the mech to shield him from the direction of the incoming-’
The shock wave was like being hurled through the air by an Aylen and the noise was a keening ring. Pain lanced in his eardrums as he was blasted spinning through the air in a soaring arc and landed hard on the floor amidst a sea of blinding lights.
He felt no pain as he died, only the piercing ring of his protesting eardrums and a final pang of regret.
Chapter 36
I will put myself under and wake when the crew wakes, possibly with a promotion. Dr Mia Haynes, signing off.
Harl groaned and figured he was not yet dead. The pain in his bones told him he should be and he tried to sit up and look around. The smell of burnt hair was the first sensory detail he took in. The heat had scorched his eyebrows and eyelashes through the eye gaps in his helmet. The suit had saved his life.
Those who were too slow to escape the blast radius were smoking husks dotting the scorched ground around him. The mech was a dented tangle of twisted metal, laying on its front a few hundred paces away in a spreading cloud of dust and smoke.
He scanned the ground, trying to recognise the faces of the bodies around him and spotted his sword in the blade down in the soil. With a tremendous effort he stood and resisted the urge to cry out in pain as he walked slid the weapon out.
Catching sight of the platform he realised the others had survived and Kane, Troy and Damen were floating down to inspect the mech before the nearest Aylen could close in on them.
Men on flyers, who had been blasted away from the initial explosion returned. Dana tried to round them up but bullets began to trace lines through the air overhead as the Aylen opened fire again.
Harl held the sword in a futile gesture of defiance but without a flyer he felt like he was just waiting to be stepped on by the oncoming mechs.
A bullet rocketed above and clipped one of the men on the flyers. The screams as he fell were a hideous shriek, barely audible above the renewed booms and whistles of bullets shooting through the smoke filled air.
‘Harl!’ it was Troy, yelling from above as Kane brought the platform close enough to the ground for him to climb up on.
‘Thought we’d lost you,’ Damen said and turned to Kane. ‘Get us to the control box, I want payback.’
Kane had to shout over a fresh crackle of bullets as a mech tried to fight off Dana and a few men as they resumed tossing collars onto the enemy.
‘We need to get out now,’ Kane said, ducking as a stream of shots cut through the air above them.
Silver and Gold were clutching the rails as Kane took them up.
‘What about Dana?’ Troy asked, coughing on the thick smoke. ‘She needs to know.’
Blood sprayed over the platform as a bullet hit Silver, passing through him in a flash and disintegrated his body. A second bullet struck the side of the platform and Harl dived away as a hole split in the side, like a bite out of a cake.
The floor tipped as one side dropped. Harl reached out to grab the rail, his legs sliding out from under him.
‘Hold on,’ Kane cried as Troy rolled across the floor and joined Gold, dangling over the side, both holding on to the rail. Damen was clutching the back of Kane’s chair, yelling in his ear. ‘Take us down.’
Harl didn’t think Kane had much choice, the platform was pitching down to the fallen mech underneath them.
Harl was thrown up as the platform slammed in to the armour plating along the spine of the mech and skipped like a stone across water. He crashed down and was wedged half under a rail.
When they spun to a halt, Troy and Gold were no longer clasping the rail. Shrouded in the fog of battle two small blobs were scrambling up from the floor, eighty metres behind where the platform had crashed. One rushed to the other, helping him up and Harl turned back to check on Kane and Damen.
Kane was still in his seat, his blood covered head lolled on his chest as Damen tried to shake him awake.
‘Is he-’ A shell soared into the side of the fallen mech, cutting Harl off as it burst asunder. Metal and dirt rained down on them. A shard of metal had wedged into Damen’s shoulder as he’d covered Kane to protect him from the downpour.
The Aylen were crowding in on them from all sides, swatting Dana and the few hundred br
onze soldiers left as they tried to distract the incoming giants. Harl knew it was too late. He watched Dana bring the soldiers together to circle above them as Damen grunted and reached over his shoulder, pulling the shard free with a cry of pain.
Troy and Gold had run past the platform, towards the shoulder of the fallen mech.
The first Aylen stomped over, scanning its dead comrade. It’s eyes widened when it spotted the downed platform.
Dana swept past the face, down to Troy who held the mech jammer aloft as he ran back towards the platform. She crouched on her flyer and snatched the object as the ugly face of the Aylen grinned down at them. It positioned its gun barrel directly over the platform.
If she could get the jammer to the shoulder plate before it fired then-. The Aylen shifted the barrel as she rose up and hit her with a sickening thud. She tumbled through the air, the flyer still attached to her feet until she slammed into the ground twenty paces from the platform.
‘Dana!’ Troy cried, running to her motionless body.
Harl stared up at the giant gun barrel as it pointed down at them again and waited for the inevitable blast of heat and searing pain that would signal the end of his life.
Kane seemed to come around and looked in shock at the carnage.
Troy reached Dana, scooped her up and ran towards the platform. ‘Kane, go!’ he said, rolling her body under the rail and accepting a hand up from Damen.
Kane shook his head. ‘Can’t make it work,’ he said despondently.
Troy looked up as if he hadn’t seen the two hundred metre tall Aylen pointing its weapon at down them.
Other Aylen crowded closer as if to watch the show. A few swiped hands at the remaining soldiers flying around them but most looked down at them in unmasked anger.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harl said. He had failed them.
‘Nowt to be sorry for,’ Gold said, spitting out a gob of bloody phlegm. ‘Bloody good fight.’
