The Iron War: A Xander Cain Novel

by P W Hillard

  Another gauss round claimed its prey, this time hitting it in the waist, annihilating the connection between torso and legs. The suit tumbled to the ground, a loud clang ringing out. It clawed its way across the ground, trying to drag itself to safety. Xander left it to the other freelancers, turning his gun on his next target. Another shot, another impressive kill. It almost wasn’t fair, the cannons making a mockery of mechsuit armour.

  The remaining Black Rose forces began to fall back, tentative steps backwards becoming a full rout, the suits fleeing, breaking into panicked runs, their backs turned from their attacks. It was too easy, three shots claiming them easily. They should have surrendered, their rider’s inexperience again being a deciding factor. That wouldn’t last forever, combat was a brutal crucible that would quickly separate out those with true skill.

  Tank crews were clambering out from their tanks, joining the fleeing infantry around them. Xander fired a pulse from his plasma cannons, intending to corral the running troops. Getting their perspective would be useful. He was surprised by the result, flickering sparks of blue spitting from barrels mounted on each side of the torso, pulsing out like machine gun fire. The ground scorched where they hit, the asphalt melting from the heat.

  It had the desired effect, several of the infantry throwing down arms, terrified by the brilliant blue energy and its destructive power. Some of the others continued their scattered fleeing.

  “Let them go,” Xander said over the radio. “We can’t catch them all, and we don’t have time to chase them down.”

  “What about those who surrendered? I make it, maybe eight? Nine?” Anya had stomped around the enemy line, pointing her remaining cannon at the soldiers. It was overkill, her lasers a far more effective weapon, but the show of it was the point.

  “We’ll question them. Quickly. See what we can grab out of them, then let them go. We haven’t got anywhere to keep them, and we need to keep moving.” Xander shifted the paladin around, facing back down the street with it. The carnage before him would be unbelievable, had he not committed it himself. He immediately doubted the decision to sell the mech, the idea of these kinds of weapons seeing common use terrified him. Mechs and tanks opened like tin cans, smashed apart like toys in the hands of an angry child.

  “This test seems to have been successful. You gave them a sound thrashing,” Matthias said. He sounded unsettlingly cheery. “I should be able to give some accurate projections after I complete some computations.”

  “No need,” Xander said, his head unit and its cameras still locked ahead. Glass was beginning to fall from the building he had hit, cracked by the impact, falling to the street below as razor-sharp snow. “I think everyone gets the idea.”

  “Smashing. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The paladin crouched, its knees bending out behind it as they brought the suit lower. The captured soldiers had assembled themselves into a line, glancing around at the imposing mass of metal that surrounded them. It looked almost comical, like something from a children’s book, giants staring down at dwarfs. The men had piled up their weapons, the guns crushed beneath Anya’s heel. Xander would have liked to round them up into the cabin, interrogate them face to face, but he didn’t have time. The fleeing forces would already be informing those at the complex, giving them time to sure up their defences.

  “So,” Xander said, his voice booming out from the speakers built into the paladin. He had turned up the volume slightly, to give him just that little bit more edge. “Black Rose. Got anything to say to us?”

  “Yeah,” said one of the soldiers, an older man with a short grey goatee. “Fuck those guys.”

  Xander didn't know what to say. It certainly wasn't what he expected. Xander had braced himself for either silence or another rambling screed. "Go on."

  The soldier removed his helmet, his hair beneath just as white as his beard. “Fucking weirdos. Bald heads, all that metal stuck in there. If they weren't paying so well, we wouldn't be anywhere fucking near 'em.”

  “So, you’re mercs?” Meg was stood behind them, her weapon pointed downwards. The lenses of her lasers would be doing the same, mirrors shifting behind the glass.

  “Eh, no. Not officially anyway. We're more of, well, you could say, pirates, of a sort.”

  “Pirates,” Xander said. “As in, board your ship and steal your cargo pirates?”

  “Yeah,” the bearded man said, nodding along.

  “So, exactly pirates then, no “of a sort” about it.”

  “I prefer privateers myself, not above taking a bit of money to go poking around very specific trade routes and the like.”

  “So how the hell did you end up down here?” Xander wasn’t a fan of privateers, no mercenary was. Ground combat was strictly regulated by the Articles. Mercenary companies operated under a license from the guild that allowed them to evade fines that would be levied to direct corporate actions. Space combat, specifically actions sufficiently away from populated planets, required no such license, and privateering was a particular problem along valuable routes.

  “The money. Why else? They offered a lot. And I mean a lot. Enough to make it worth the risk. There’s a couple of different outfits here, seems like they rounded up pirates from all around the Iron Belt. Even gave us some tanks and shit! Imagine that!”

  “This makes sense,” Alexi said. “That’s why we’ve seen so little air support despite those AA guns. Can’t imagine there are many people able to fly helos amongst pirate crews.”

  “Aye, they had rows and rows of choppers and we have no clue how to fly the fucking things. There are maybe five working ones? At a push. Well, three now.”

  “Two,” Xander corrected.

  “Well, there you go. Look, I don't mean to come off as ungrateful for not blowing us to shit with whatever the fuck guns you're using, but what's the plan here?” The pirate gestured around him with his left arm, his helmet tucked under his right.

  “Depends on what else you tell us. Who hired you specifically, got a name?”

  “Grant. Mikal Grant, first officer of the Black Sam, I would shake your hand, but well…” Mikal gestured at the mech before him.

  “Not you,” Xander said, his sigh audible through the speaker. “The Black Rose contact.”

  “Oh right. Right. No. They never gave a name. They don’t even use them between each other. Creepy fuckers are always slinking about. Everything was very hush-hush. They had us shipping them all over the fucking shop and all. All across the belt.”

  “That’s not a good sign,” Meg said. “Means maybe they’re telling the truth, about Belt wide war.”

  “That’s the plan. We were supposed to be hitting corporate targets, making them think another corp is hitting them so they punch back. Set everyone off brawling. Seems to have worked. Well enough for them to start claiming credit at least. Though I reckon your little broadcast might have had something to do with that.” Mikal was smiling wide, his wrinkled skin folding at the sides of his mouth.

  “You’re awfully forthcoming,” Xander said. None of this was good news, but the ease at which the pirate spouted it off was concerning him.

  “Listen,” Mikal said, sitting on the warm asphalt as he did, crossing his legs. “You don’t get to be an old pirate, without knowing which way the wind is blowing. “I saw that thing you’re in fight. If you’re bringing that thing against them, those Black Rose fuckers are in for a world of hurt. I’m guessing you’re headed to the elevator? Only worthwhile thing around here.”

  Xander ignored the question. “Those are your fellow pirates there, your friends.”

  “Sucks to be them. They knew what they were signing up for. You have to look out for number one, at the end of the day. I thought you would know all about that, being a freelancer and all?”

  “That’s not how we operate. Mercs have a code, integrity. Honour between us.”

  "Yeah?" Mikal raised an eyebrow. “We'll see about that. I w
onder how much that all really matters? There's a war out there now, one across the Belt. You think the corporations are just going to down tools now they know they were egged on? They've been itching for this, a chance to get right proper stuck into each other. Of sure, it'll be sweet at first, lots of lucrative contracts, but if you think your system with your guild and your licenses will hold up in a real war? I think you're chatting shite.”

  Xander considered his response. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say. The worst part was that Xander wasn’t sure Mikal was wrong at all.

  “Look, I’ll tell you what. You’ve got what, nine of my boys here? We can help you get onto the elevator. We know our way around. A lot of them lads based there are from our lot, reckon I could convince them to be your lads, rather than Black Rose’s.”

  Xander crouched down a little further in his mech, bringing it as close to the pirate as he could. “I trust you about as far as I could throw you. And honestly, I would love to be able to find out exactly how far that is. In this mech, I reckon I could get a mile maybe.”

  “Look, I’m just being whatchamacallit.”

  “Backstabbing?”

  “Pragmatic,” Mikal said. “Look as fucking insane as your fancy-ass fucking robot is, you're going to need boots on the ground. More than that you're going to need fucking ships in orbit. What was the plan, ride the elevator to the top and hope someone gives you a lift?”

  “We have a ship,” Xander said. At least, he hoped they did. At the top of the tether was a space station, both a massive counterweight for the elevator, keeping it held taut, and a docking point for downward journeys. Heliustech supposedly had a ship docked there in a privately-owned berth, though Xander had no real way of proving that true aside from trusting Sergei.

  “That’s all well and good, but where do you think all the pirate ships are parked? Who do you think controls the station? You’ve got a fight up there just like you do down here. Unless, of course, you’re willing to cut a deal?”

  ***

  Tamara watched their new guests take their seats, planting themselves one by one on the bench at the back of the loader's cabin. She felt her hand rest on the rifle that hung from her shoulder. She turned to look at Trevor to see he had done the same. The grip nodded and winked his blackened eye, the result of keeping the rifle to close to his face when he had first tried it. The mercenaries had laughed, apparently, it was common.

  The pirates had been bound by the wrist, a packet of plastic zip ties having been tossed from an open mech cabin. Tamara wondered why a mercenary would have them, before realising it was for this exact scenario. Keeping a small baggie tucked away in a storage bin seemed preferable to having to keep rope or handcuffs, or worse not being able to restrain a prisoner at all.

  Mitch was stood between Tamara and Trevor, though his hands were on Tamara’s tablet rather than his weapon. He couldn’t help himself, he was a cameraman to the bone, and recording the pirates being marched in was a shot he couldn’t miss.

  “Why don’t you take a picture? It lasts longer,” spat one of the pirates.

  “I am?” Mitch was confused. The pirate was a young man, thin and wiry. Mitch was all muscle and looked like he could drive the pirate into the ground like a railroad spike if he wanted to.

  “Come off it, Neil. Don't make us look like pricks now,” Mikal said. There was something about the older pirate that the others seemed to respect at an almost instinctive level.

  “Sorry,” muttered the younger man.

  “I don't mean for my comrades here to be so blunt, miss. Really need to learn better. This is pretty cushty in 'ere ain't it? Like one of them high-class hotels. One of these must cost a fortune.”

  “They aren't cheap, no,” Sergei said. A pistol was tucked into the waistband of his trousers. He had been started with a rifle, but after a few attempts at that, he had been downgraded to the smaller weapon. One he could hopefully do less damage with. Sergei was not a good shot. “So, I would appreciate if you just sat there, quietly, not doing anything that could damage the loader or hinder us.”

  “I wouldn't dare,” Mikal said, his eyes wide. He turned his head sharply towards the other pirates. “And neither will any of these lads.” The other pirates shook their heads as one. “We are going to need your radio at some point. If what we discussed is going to work. Can't convince our lads to swap sides if we can't reach them.”

  “We’ll sort that when it comes to it.” Sergei crossed his arms, his stomach wobbling as the loader resumed its slow crawl.

  “Good, good. Anyone want to tell me what the deal is with that mech? The lost tech one.” Mikal let out a long laugh. “Oh, don’t look so confused. It’s obvious. A working lost tech mech. That was something to see. The boys at the elevator ain’t going to know what hit ‘em.”

  “That’s the plan,” Tamara said. “You’re right, it certainly was…something.”

  “Fucking terrifying is what it was,” Trevor said. He shivered, his hair flicking side to side as he did. “One shot. One shot was all it took to drop a mech. Not even just knock it out, it fucking obliterated them. That's some scary shit. After seeing that I'm fairly certain we should leave this lost tech shit in the ground.”

  “I get where you're coming from, but at least for us, it's good footage. Tell me you got good drone footage of that fight, Mitch?” Tamara never seemed to stop, always looking for the next big thing. She lived for clicks, and her tone would be shocking, were the two other studio employees not used to her.

  “Oh yeah, lots of it. You want us to upload it?” Mitch lowered the tablet, saving his footage and opening the files, scrolling up to the drone’s combat recording.

  “No. No, I have another idea. One that might sound a bit out there, but if I'm right it could be bigger than the stuff at the studio. You two were the only ones who hung about, so I reckon you boys might have the same hunger I do. We need to get off this planet first, but I think the others might go for it. It was something Sergei said earlier, actually.”

  “Oh, man,” Trevor said. “She’s got that look in her eye.”

  ***

  The road forked ahead of Xander. The left side became an onramp for a highway, a direct line to the upper levels of the elevator complex, where passengers would embark. It was a maze of shops and restaurants, designed to squeeze as much money from people as possible whilst they waited. The right side descended into a tunnel. A sign hung above indicating it was for goods vehicles only. Xander supposed that technically they were following the rules of the road. He wouldn't put it past whichever corporation owned this section of the city to still send out tickets despite everything that was going on.

  Just in front of him, the loader continued its slow march, the other freelancers surrounding it. It was heading into the tunnel, towards its goal. Xander could do nothing but wait. For their plan to work, he needed to time it as close to perfect as possible. He needed to draw away the enemy forces before the loader reached them, whilst keeping his attack as short as possible to avoid getting overwhelmed. Xander had decided to give the loader a twenty-minute head start.

  The drones had done one last sweep of the area, taking what images they could of the enemy defences. They had gathered together, taking up defensive positions around the main entrance. Word had clearly reached them. It was good news in a way, meaning the path for the loader might already be lighter on troops than it had been. It was, of course, bad news for Xander.

  “I recommend not staying in a protracted fight,” Matthias said. “The round we took earlier could have penetrated the armour, were the angle correct. Primitive though they are this era’s weapons do seem effective.”

  “Awesome, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Well now, let’s not be all boo-hoo quite yet. We still have considerable ordinance to deliver. I’ve used the drone images to pre-plot missile targets. That should give them quite the nasty surprise. It’s a pity we can’t have their more permanent support.”

 
“The tunnel will block the signal to their controls. So, we’re on our own,” Xander said. It was hard not to agree with the AI. Drone support would be incredibly useful, considering he was likely to be surrounded. “Or maybe not.”

  As Xander spoke a mech had appeared, peering over the edge of the highway, resting its weapon on the concrete barrier. A dozen others joined it, adding to the threat. Xander let a smile creep across his lips as he recognised their gaudy emblem.

  “Unidentified mech, drop your weapons,” a voice said, pumped through its suit’s loudspeakers.

  “Sandhu, you son of a bitch, you have damn good timing,” Xander said.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sandhu and his men looked worse for wear. His infantry squads were noticeably smaller, his mechs battered, dents and scorches covering their armour. Xander had survived enough fights to know that these mercenaries had been through a tough scrap, a battle they had only just made it out of. From the depleted force arrayed before him, Xander knew not all of them had.

  The Viper Legion men had watched Xander intently, as his strange mech had jogged up the onramp. It was impossible not to, everything about the machine was so different. It’s size, its agility, the way it effortlessly moved. Jealous eyes had watched as Xander had approached the assembled mercenaries. He couldn’t blame them; it was like someone had turned up to a scrapyard in a brand-new supercar.

  Xander mentally commanded the suit to change its radio frequency to the one he and Sandhu had shared. Xander was a little surprised the hyper-advanced suit had a radio and found it oddly comforting that his ancestors, despite all their amazing technology, had chosen to use something simple. It made sense, Xander had put together a radio in the basement of his home as a child, a kit given to him by his father. Xander didn’t doubt that there was some complex communications system hidden within the paladin, but radios were simple and reliable, important assets for something so vital to warfare. From Xander’s experience, often it was the side that communicated the best that emerged the victors.