Griselda is waiting in front of my apartment.
“Where have you been?” she asks, and steps closer to me. “You’ve lost weight.”
“I haven’t been eating much,” I confess. My appetite has vanished.
She takes a deep breath, and I see tears in her eyes. “I—I couldn’t believe when I heard about Hideki. Why didn’t you call me?”
“What could I say? That I couldn’t help my best friend from getting shot because I was too weak?”
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”
I sigh angrily. “I don’t want to talk about this. I—I should go inside and sleep.”
Pain flashes across her face. “Things’ll be different after graduation.”
“What do you mean?” I ask even though I know exactly what she means. She’ll be integrated into the German machine, far away from the United States of Japan. Friendships from those on the opposite sides of the Axis will be regarded with suspicion, and all our communications will be monitored (if they aren’t already).
She shakes her head. “Will you visit Berlin?”
“I doubt I’ll get the chance. I—I probably need to start looking for a job.”
“What about university?”
“I got one of the lowest scores on the military supplement,” I admit, feeling worse now that I’m actually telling her how badly I’ve botched everything.
“I’m glad you’re not joining the mecha corps,” she says.
“Why’s that?” I ask, disappointed. If she’s trying to make me feel better by saying that, it isn’t working.
“I just am,” she states. She wants to talk more, but as I think about the test again, I feel a cold fury swirling inside me that keeps me resolute and stubbornly quiet. It’s not her. I don’t want to speak with anyone right now. “Sayonara,” she finally says, kisses me on the cheek, and leaves.
I feel like the worst friend in the world.
* * *
• • •
A week passes. It’s night, and my insomnia is torturing me. Without sleep, time creeps at a maddening, slow pace. Anytime I let my mind drift, I keep on replaying regrets. I know I shouldn’t be listening to sad music, but I find a compilation of tragic songs from my favorite portical games and have them cycle on repeat.
I take long walks to try to tire myself. I find myself in front of school again. The Taka is still there. It’s being used during the daytime by several of the students going to the mecha schools for basic orientation, a way to familiarize themselves with the controls. This isn’t a customized mecha but one that still has a traditional cockpit to minimize space and weight. It wasn’t so long ago when I spent a whole evening reading up on all the specs and watching it in simulations.
“What are you doing out here?” someone asks me.
I look up. Climbing down from the Taka is Noriko.
“Going for a walk,” I answer her. “You?”
“Training.”
“They let you take her for a spin?”
Noriko shakes her head. “Just a little. I’ve mostly been simming it.”
“How does she handle?”
“Faster than the combat mechas, but more vulnerable to—”
That’s when we hear a boom that causes the glass in the school windows to shatter. Off in the horizon, we see a plume of fire clambering up the sky. The fiery pillar greedily sprints up and gets company from four more explosions, each seemingly louder and brighter than the other. Alarms are blaring, and sirens are drowned out by the continuous destruction that builds. I hear the distinct steps of mechas moving away from the blasts. But they’re not normal ones. The silhouettes sketched in a fierce orange-black resemble the bipedal machines I’ve seen on portical footage—like the type the NARA use to patrol the Quiet Border. They’re called Javelins and are essentially tank turrets with a boxlike hull and two robust legs that’d resemble a horse’s hind legs if they were made of metallic alloys.
“Have you simmed for gunnery?” Noriko asks me.
“I have. Why?”
“Let’s go.”
“Where?” I ask her.
“Find out what’s going on.” She starts climbing back up.
“But—but I don’t know what to do.”
“The controls on this are easier than the sim.”
She doesn’t give me time to question myself or her as she re-enters the mecha. It’s a long climb, but I follow her up to the stomach and enter the bridge of a mecha proper for the first time in my life. The space is cramped, and the ceiling is so low, I’d hit my head if I jumped. The heat is also suffocating inside, but I don’t care. I’m happy just to be there.
The whole circumference of the bridge is transparent from the inside, with only the floors visible (and even that can be changed in the settings to vanish). Granada Hills looks smaller from this height.
Noriko takes the pilot seat, which is in front of a console with several controls she straps onto her arms. It’s a simplified haptic panel that responds to her actions while also taking manual controls she can input directly. I take the weapons panel, which consists of three display screens showing the front, back, and side views in a split angle. Noriko was right. The interface is intuitive and easy to use with a touch screen and audio inputs. I use the portical to get a detailed list of available weapons. The Taka doesn’t have her full arsenal since she is being used for training. There are the two shoulder guns and a missile launcher. I also spot a weapon I don’t recognize that’s titled gunsen. A fan?
I check the guns to make sure they’re armed. They have only half the load, and the safety locks are enabled, which means I need a pass code I don’t have. My first two guesses fail. Usually, these will lock up completely after a set number of failed attempts.
“What’s weapon status?” Noriko asks.
I tell her about the pass code.
“So we have only the gunsen available?” she confirms with me.
“What’s that?”
Noriko grins. “You don’t know the fan blade?”
“No.”
“It’s sweet.”
The cautious side of me asks Noriko, “Are you sure this is okay?”
“If the military or police have it under control, we’ll back off.”
“If they don’t?” I ask.
She grins. “Fingers crossed they don’t.”
Her confidence makes me laugh. But I don’t know how much a fan blade will help against the NARA Javelins. Is there a way I can override the safety locks on our weapons? I think back on the simulations I’ve practiced for the past year. “If I can physically reach the shoulder guns, there might be a way to manually unlock the trigger.”
She looks at the heat signatures of the Javelins and the calculated trajectory before we can intercept them.
“You have eight minutes before we engage them.”
Both shoulder guns are in the upper half of the mecha. I scan the internal schematics again on my screen to confirm. The Taka is very similar to the simulation mechas I’ve driven. There’s a ceiling hatch to the rear of the bridge that opens on Noriko’s command. A ladder drops down. I start to climb up when the Taka takes its first steps forward. Another and another. Noriko engages the wheels on the bottom of the mecha, which allows us to skate in the desired direction. She judiciously uses boosters to increase acceleration.
I go through the hatch and hear the hum of the BPG (Bradlium Particle Generator), which is the main power source for the mecha. The conduit I climb is heavily shielded from the particles as it’d be deadly to humans without protection. It’s much warmer inside than I’d anticipated, though not a surprise since simulations don’t completely re-create temperature shifts. I still cannot believe I’m aboard a mecha. That thought invigorates me and gives me the energy to rapidly ascend.
I feel like I’m in
side the skeleton of a robotic samurai with multiple chutes, partitions, trailing ribs, cooling vents, nozzles, and stringers. Sensors trigger lights to show the way. I reach the left shoulder gun and see that it is disengaged, still lodged within the shoulder plate of the Taka. There is a panel which hooks into the central portical, where it takes its commands. The manual unlock should be to its side. It’s a heavy lever with three slots. I spot removable slabs next to the lever and insert them individually into each opening. The lever lights up, and I pull it to the other side. The shoulder gun begins loading ammunition, and I check the blast deflector to make certain everything is good to go. I spot the corrosive ammo to the side, which is particularly effective as antiarmor shells against other mechas. I do the same on the right shoulder before climbing back down.
“You got ’em?” Noriko asks.
I check the weapons interface, hit the shoulder command button. The guns emerge from the sode spaulders that rotate upward.
“Ready to kick ass,” I answer.
“They’ve taken out the police station,” Noriko informs me.
“What do you mean taken out?”
“They blew it up. They’re attacking key stations and trying to demobilize our forces. I’m monitoring military channels, and our soldiers are scrambling to get into place, but most of the communication relays have been disrupted.”
“How?”
Noriko says, “I have no idea, but I can’t even get a call out.” She points north. “Since they’re heading for the Santa Susana Mountains, it’s a pretty good bet they have reinforcements there.”
“We have to cut them off before they get there.”
“Not them. Just one.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are four of them. Three of them will probably break off to try to stop us while the fourth gets away. That’s either the leader or is carrying something important. So we should ignore the other three and go after the final one, whichever it is,” Noriko wraps up. “How good is your aim?”
“I get good scores in the simulation.”
“Let’s see if all that simming paid off.”
She speeds up as we approach the four bipedal tanks. According to the scans, they’re about eighteen meters tall, equal to a five-story building, and about ten meters in length. From the looks of it, they wield a 138mm cannon, though I might be off by a few millimeters. Their cannon is retractable, and, as a whole, the Javelin is surprisingly rapid for what is a top-heavy structure. The legs are customizable so that many have a different arsenal, along with optional back turrets. I check the scanner for potential weaknesses when I notice several new blips appear on the map. They don’t bear USJ markings and resemble the bipedal tanks in size. Just as she predicted, three of them engage us while the fourth proceeds to its destination. I marvel at her ability to extrapolate the enemy plan so intuitively.
“I think there are eight more Javelins coming our way,” I inform Noriko.
“Eight?”
I count them again. “Coming from the west.”
“We better hurry,” Noriko says. She disengages the wheels and sprints toward the three Javelins approaching us.
“We’re a little close, aren’t we?” I ask apprehensively.
But she ignores me. The turret on the first bipedal tank swivels toward us. She charges straight at it. The cannon fires, but the Taka is so quick, she overtakes the tank, grabbing it by the mantlet. The recoil on the cannon is much stronger than I would have anticipated, indicating a weakness in the hull’s ability to absorb the shock. That, combined with the Taka’s momentum, means as we collide with the bipedal tank, it doesn’t take much to push it back into its companion behind it. The moment of impact catches me off guard, metal smashing into metal. There is a boisterous clangor, the crunching jolt shaking the entire bridge. The sensors indicate part of the arm guard is being pushed to the limits of its pressure capacity. My seat belt keeps me in place, but the whiplash strains my neck. Imagine two massive sumo wrestlers charging into each other, only wearing armor, and even that doesn’t quite compare to the amount of pressure both are exerting on each other. The Javelin stumbles over, hitting the second and taking it down. It’s an ingenious move, all the more so as Noriko says to me, “I didn’t know if that would work.”
“Glad it did,” I reply.
I spot the third Javelin preparing to fire. I unleash the shoulder gun with a spray of corrosive artillery that pours into the tank. This causes the armor on its hull to disintegrate and the tank itself to wobble. Noriko uses that momentary lapse to take out her gunsen, which she spreads open. It’s less a fan than a half-moon-shaped blade she wields to slice the tank’s turret off. She stomps down with the Taka’s boot into the Javelin’s knee. The hinge shatters, causing it to topple over to its side.
The eight other Javelins don’t wait for us to attack. They launch a volley of shells in our direction. Noriko hides behind the last tank, which takes half the blows. She use the gunsen to dispatch another. But the three remaining blasts land straight in our chest. The power of the attack is immense, and the Taka shakes wildly. We stumble backward. I would have lost control, but when I glance over at Noriko, she is calm and collected, firing the aft boosters to stabilize and regain our battle stance.
I check our status, and inform her, “Right leg is too damaged for normal walking, and our right arm is barely functional.”
They fire again. This time, we don’t have anything to protect us, and the brunt of the blows smashes our armor. Anything that doesn’t hit us strikes the buildings surrounding us. Fires engulf the structures, and scans indicate casualties. I am saddened to think that someone lost their life tonight.
“Evacuate now,” Noriko orders me.
“Why?”
“I’m going to charge them and set off the internal self-destruct to take as many as I can.”
“Your right leg is badly damaged. You’re barely keeping upright.”
“If you have a better option, I’m ready to hear it. Otherwise, get off.”
I look to Noriko, then think about the life that awaits me back on the ground. “I’m going with you.”
“Even if it means your death?”
“There’s no place I’d rather die than inside this mecha.”
She nods. “Let’s cause some hell. You have free rein to fire.”
She straightens the mecha, engages the wheels again, and triggers the aft thrusters to speed us forward. I’m surprised the wheels give us mobility and make up for the dysfunctional leg. She’s continually checking the diagnostics for terrain condition, gauging wind speed, and making sure everything stays in balance. The Javelins keep their distance and fire at us again. I launch as many corrosive shots as I can, but with our systems out of sync, it’s hard to hit a moving target. The laser range finder is busted, and auto aim is completely off, our cameras mostly relaying static. This isn’t like a turn-based tactical game, where we take turns attacking one another. Everything is happening in real time, and I’d be better off using an old periscope (I doubt there’s one on board) than the portical aiming system.
But something catches my attention. I check the portical display measuring enemy fire. It calculates trajectory, speed, and other factors. It’s the audio timing of the initial triggers that’s bugging me. Of the eight, four match the other four to the millisecond. That shouldn’t be possible, should it? There should be more of a discrepancy . . . Unless they’re slave units, copying the master tank via portical AI. That could indicate that four of them are just imitating the actions of their master. Technically, I could take over, or at the least, disrupt their aiming system.
“Do you mind if I try something weird?” I ask Noriko.
“Weirder than charging to our deaths?”
“Possibly.”
“Go ahead,” she says.
I redirect our portical field to look for
any kikkai connections among the Javelins. Noriko successfully maneuvers past a new wave of blasts, though the houses next to us aren’t so lucky. As we’re racing through, I hear what sounds like music. Noriko is humming a song as she pilots, moving to the rhythms of her voice.
I find a secure connection emanating from the Javelins. Would Hideki’s portical disruption program work? I won’t be able to break the encryption, but I could theoretically hinder the field by sending an overloaded kikkai burst to cause their porticals to shut down. I connect my portical with the Taka’s and send a surge to the secure connections, using the link from Hideki’s program. They surprisingly sync with each other. I look up at the Javelins. No difference. They fire at us again. As good a pilot as Noriko is, we’re able to avoid only five of the shells. Two hit us in the chest, and the third immobilizes our feet. Even with the wheels, we can’t move. My entire panel erupts, and a geyser of smoke sears my right arm. I shriek involuntarily, the pain stabbing me harshly. The smell of my own burned flesh overwhelms me.
Noriko stabilizes us with boosters and strikes the gunsen against a neighboring building so we don’t fall, but smoke is everywhere, and the front of our cockpit has a gaping hole. The bridge is in disarray, and I see that Noriko has a piece of metal sticking out of her side. Our armor has been penetrated, and another direct hit will kill us. It’s a miracle we’ve survived this long. Noriko is doing her best to get us moving again, but without an engineer, we’re helpless.
“Noriko,” I call to her.
She looks over at me. Fear strikes me as I realize this is it. In less than a minute, I’ll be dead. But she gives me a calm, assured, wink. We’re not going to die here, her expression says to me.
I remember what I was trying to do, think again about Hideki, and send the kikkai burst again, hoping for a different result. Nothing changes, and the Javelins get ready to fire. I brace for death.
Mecha Samurai Empire Page 8
