Earthfall

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “We’re in!” Talon shouted over the com-link.

  That was her cue.

  She broke off from the androids and bolted toward the other Mech. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Talon’s Mech’s cockpit sealing. She hurdled the broken-down chassis of a fighter ship, sparks showering and bullets trailing her. A few times the pain in her gut almost made her stumble, but she managed to keep her balance.

  When she finally reached the Mech, she froze in her tracks. The cockpit was already occupied and closing, only it wasn’t a Tribunal inside. It was Tarsis. His visor was lifted so she could see his messy beard and the pull of each of his strained breaths. The veins of his face bulged, so blue that he looked like a Gravitum Generator ready to burst.

  “I can never repay the gift Talon gave to me, but take care of them, Sage,” he rasped. “Let’s hope your people are right about the Spirit.”

  The cockpit sealed and Tarsis pulled down his visor. Pistons hissed as its body lifted until the gargantuan hulk of metal stood at its full, imposing height.

  “No!” Sage shouted.

  She slammed her metal fist against the Mech’s chassis, but as she did the Tribunals took notice and started riddling it with bullets. She ducked down behind its leg and looked back to search for Talon. His Mech was bounding across the hangar, the two surviving Ceresian prisoners using its legs for cover.

  “Sage, are you in?” Talon asked frantically over the com-link.

  “She’s in,” Tarsis said before she could respond. His Mech’s feet slammed down and it bent over, revealing the illuminated spine along its back. A white light there began to brighten, and a humming noise even louder than the countless firing rifles greeted Sage’s ears.

  There was no time to think. With the entire room’s attention turned to Tarsis, she took off to catch up with Talon. She picked up a large shard of metal from a wrecked fighter with her artificial arm and used it as a shield. It didn’t take long before it was assaulted by a barrage of bullets. She immediately discovered why. The eyes of the remaining androids were slowly going dark, and they were crumbling without even being shot. ADIM was no longer controlling them.

  She used her human hand to reach into her synthetic forearm while she ran and activated the HOLO-Recorder Cassius had given her so he knew they were coming. Keeping the shield upright in the face of so much fire was almost impossible, even for her artificial arm, but it at least helped distract her from the hole in her torso.

  In front of her, Talon was able to keep the legs of his Mech churning. The further he went, the better he got at piloting the thing. It went from swaying side to side, to maintaining a straight line, and then firing the chain gun built into its arm toward the Tribunal ranks.

  “Sage, are you going to shoot?” Talon shouted. “We’re almost at the wall!”

  Any possible response died in Sage’s throat. She caught up with Talon’s Mech and as soon as she did she glanced up and saw a wall of soldiers impeding them. Yavortha stood in their center, fully armored and aiming a rifle. Through the visor of his helmet she saw a patch over the eye she’d taken from him. His other one glared straight at her. The rest of the soldiers were focused on Talon’s Mech.

  “Bring it down!” Yavortha thundered.

  Sage couldn’t use her shield to guard both her flank and front. She was forced to zigzag to avoid the Hand’s shots. Running straight had been easy, but every cut she made further distressed her wound. On one turn her foot gave out and she slipped, and as she did a bolt of white energy speared over her shoulder and pierced the wall of the Ascendant. The entire ship lurched to the side.

  She extended her artificial arm as far as she could. Her metal fingers dug into the leg of Talon’s Mech just in time before she, the Mech, and anything else near the breach was sucked out.

  “I bet even the android never would’ve thought of this!” Tarsis laughed over the com-link. “Flying a Mech out! Take that you bastards!” The sound of gunfire echoed through the com-link he had never switched off.

  Everything else around Sage went quiet. She gathered her bearings as she and the Mech tumbled through space, and then drew herself up its body until she was right beside the cockpit. Through the narrow slit of glass set in it she could see Talon staring out, dumbfounded. A bullet suddenly grazed her artificial bicep. She pulled herself flat against the metal chassis and used her artificial arm to roll over, dodging a few more shots. She could hear Tarsis and Talon conversing over her com-link, but there was no time to ask Talon what was going on. Yavortha was clambering up the leg of the Mech, his sidearm in hand. Another soldier was with him, but he kicked the man off in order to get a boost.

  He crashed into Sage. With her artificial hand she held him from being able to shoot her in the head, but he was able to position his pistol to unload the rest of his clip through the arm itself. She couldn’t feel anything, but slivered shards of metal and circuits sprayed across the vacuum.

  She wasn’t sure why she screamed, but she did. She kicked off of the Mech, rolled behind Yavortha and put him in a choke hold. He elbowed her in the stomach and twisted away, his groping fingers wrapping around Sage’s calf and wrenching her leg backwards.

  The muscles in her quad tore. She willed her artificial arm to move, but not even the fingers twitched. After Yavortha’s close-range onslaught she couldn’t control it. He flipped her over and wrapped a hand forcefully around her neck. Her back slammed against the chest of the Mech.

  Yavortha pinned her human arm down with his free hand so that she could neither fight nor reach the switch to speak through her com-link and allow Talon to hear her. All she could do was stare into his ravenous eyes as he squeezed the life out of her.

  That was when the massive arm of the Mech swiped across her view and slapped Yavortha away. She couldn’t hear if he said anything, but despite weightlessness rendering his Mech mostly useless, Talon was attempting to help her.

  Yavortha grabbed onto the arm when it stopped moving and he pushed back toward Sage. She quickly stole a glance down at her artificial arm. She may not have been able to move it with her mind, but she wasn’t useless yet. With her fleshy hand she grabbed it and began to shift it into various positions, hoping to find the one which would cause her wrist-blade to shoot out. Before she could, Yavortha’s elbow slammed into her throat, knocking both of them away from the Mech and causing them to twirl through space.

  That was when it finally worked.

  The blade sunk into Yavortha’s chest. Blood spiraled out across the vacuum. She screamed at the top of her lungs as she used her human hand to lift it. The blade sliced up through his body until her broken, metal arm was sticking out of the top of his helmet.

  They continued to spin through the vacuum together, her and the Hand of her former master. She was completely out of breath by the time she was finally able to stop screaming and tear her gaze away from him. A cluster of ships was bearing down on their position. Her vision was too blurred from pain to tell what was what, but one of them had to be the White Hand.

  She yanked her blade out of Yavortha and attempted to raise her arm to contact Talon when a dazzling display of flashes and explosions coruscated across space in front of her. She felt her back cradled by the open hand of Talon’s Mech, and then darkness closed in around her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN—TALON

  It Won’t Be for Nothing

  Talon tried to tell Sage what he’d discovered about Cassius after they reached the Ascendant’s hangar. “There’s no time to argue, Talon!” Sage barked, and turned her attention to the two surviving Ceresian prisoners accompanying them. “Get in Tribunal suits and put on the helmets.”

  Talon exhaled. He glanced down at Elisha, cradled in his arms. They were getting sore, but he’d let them fall off before he let her go. There has to be another way out of here, Talon thought as he squeezed her tighter. Who knows what he really wants with us…or her.

  Tarsis grabbed him by the shoulder. “Talon,” he said weakly. “It doesn
’t feel right going back if we already have her. He’s a killer.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Talon said. He glanced around and saw that the other Ceresians were busy changing and Sage was performing makeshift repairs to her suit. He leaned in close and whispered: “I think you’re right that he was the one who destroyed Kalliope. I think he orchestrated all of this.”

  Tarsis’ eyes went wide. “How do you know?”

  “Call it a feeling.”

  “We’re going to need more than that.”

  “If we let him pick us up, we’ll be in debt to the man who murdered all those people.” It was easy when he could blame the Tribune for everything, but if he was right, that meant he’d been standing next to the man who murdered his best friend, and almost his daughter, for weeks. And as long as Cassius had ADIM at his side there was nothing he could do about it.

  “No we won’t.” Tarsis reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a mobile com-link. He wrapped his noisy, metal-backed arm around Talon.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s connected to the Monarch’s com-system. Sorry, Talon, but I told Larana the truth. Screw Vale. She stayed in range just in case she needed to retrieve us instead. She’ll help you get Elisha to safety. My people always will.”

  Tarsis backed away, and left the device sitting within Talon’s clenched palm. There was a glimmer in the bearded Vergent’s tired eyes.

  “Talon, are you ready?” Sage interrupted before Talon could reply. “We’re going to get her out of here.”

  He ran his fingers through Elisha’s messy hair. She was trembling; her eyes squeezed shut. Whether through Cassius or the Vergents, Talon was going to get her out.

  “I’m ready.”

  “On my signal then.” Her human arm lifted into the air as the other Ceresians secured their suits and moved behind her.

  Talon checked his helmet to make sure it was sealed. He glanced at Tarsis. The Vergent smiled the biggest smile Talon had ever seen him wear, and nodded. For a moment he didn’t even look exhausted.

  Then Sage’s hand fell, and before he could think Talon was sprinting behind her, making his way across the bodies and the debris toward the nearest of two Mechs. His was parked against the adjacent wall, not nearly as far as Sage’s.

  The racket in the hangar was deafening. Bullets clanged off of the metal walls and floors. Androids burst and Tribunal soldiers fell left and right across the way. Talon covered Elisha as best as he could, lowered his head, and let his legs churn.

  By the time he reached the Mech his lungs stung from exhaustion. He took cover between the Mech’s hulking legs and gathered his bearings. He had to be quick. He reached out and set the cockpit to pop open, allowing it to only rise halfway so that he could use the lid for cover. He kissed Elisha on the head before he placed her in, and then got to work pulling himself up.

  His arms trembled and his elbows felt like they were going to shoot through his skin. A succession of bullets zipped by his ears, growing nearer every time until somehow he was within the chest of the Mech with the lid sealed in front of him.

  He placed Elisha on his lap, and in the quiet of the cockpit she gazed up at him as if she finally recognized who he was. He opened his visor and smiled at her. “Just hold on tight,” he said. “Nobody can hurt you anymore.”

  She mouthed something inaudible, but that was enough to drive him. He scanned the cockpit. There were two handles attached to long, bending appendages. They controlled the Mech’s arms. His feet slid snugly into two rectangular slots with pressurized pedals loaded in.

  Just like a Mining Mech, he thought. Sort of…

  He hit a switch on one of the handles and the Mech’s legs began to rise, lifting the cockpit ten feet into the air. A HOLO-Screen lit up in front of his face. It provided a wide, real-time view of what was going on in front of him. Through it he could finally see both sides of the battle simultaneously. The android numbers were dwindling quickly, and if he didn’t hurry there would be no more left to absorb fire.

  Once the Mech reached full height, the foot pedestals gained a significant level of weight and resistance. Based on his experience with Mining Mechs, Talon knew he had to push down on them as if he were walking. The machine would emulate his motions.

  It took all the effort in his weak legs to get it started, but once he built momentum the Mech started plodding forward. After a few more seconds it was running, the screen flickering as countless rounds of rifle fire peppered the plated exterior. The cockpit shook violently. Elisha buried her face in his chest as Talon glanced down at her.

  He won’t poison her mind with his lies. He released the control for the arm facing toward the android ranks. Then he switched off the com-link in his helmet connected to his companions, and activated the one Tarsis had given to him.

  “Larana, this is Talon,” he began, holding it to his mouth. “We’re going to be bursting through the port side of the Ascendant’s main hangar in less than a minute. We’ll be inside the floating Tribunal Mechs. I’m not staying on this channel, but our original means of retrieval was compromised. I repeat, we are requesting a pickup from the Monarch!”

  He turned off the device and switched his helmet’s com-link back on. The wall of the hangar was drawing nearer and he needed to make sure he’d be getting through it.

  “Sage, are you in?” he shouted. He glanced at the bottom of his Mech’s display to see the shadows of his other companions running beneath his Mech. There were only two left instead of the three. Talon’s heart skipped beats before Tarsis finally responded. He had no desire to lose another friend.

  “She’s in,” Tarsis said.

  With that news, Talon put both arms back to work. He’d grown comfortable enough operating the Mech that he was able to fire the chain guns built into its arms as he ran. The high caliber rounds tore through enemy lines until, suddenly, an explosive round went off by his Mech’s feet, knocking it off balance. He was able to keep it from toppling over, but another direct shot would compromise the cockpit.

  He straightened his course, but another explosive round was already zooming directly toward the viewport of his Mech. He fired the guns wildly, and as he did a bright light filled the cockpit. A portion of the hangar wall split open. Dozens of Tribunals were sucked out along with the round before it could strike him. Talon and his Mech followed promptly behind. For a moment the pressure of acceleration pulled him tight against his seat, so intense that he could hear Elisha squealing. Then it subsided, and they were drifting through space.

  “I bet even the android never would’ve thought of this!” Tarsis hollered over the clamor of gunfire. “Flying a Mech out. Take that, you bastards!”

  Talon released the Mech’s controls. The view on the HOLO-Screen display was fuzzy, so he leaned around it and peered out the viewport. What he saw sucked the air straight out of his lungs. There was only one person left hanging onto to his Mech, and it wasn’t Tarsis or any of the other Ceresian survivors. It was Sage, staring back at him with her dazzling green eyes. A moment later she moved to somewhere else on the Mech.

  “Tarsis, where are you?” Talon asked, confused.

  “Enjoying my last day of existence!” he panted. “Don’t blame the girl, this was my choice.” His scream accompanied the racket of his Mech firing every weapon in its arsenal.

  Talon’s heart began to race. That was why he gave me the com-link. “Tarsis, get out of there, now! That’s an order. Get out of there!”

  “No can do, my friend. They’ve already de-pressurized the hangar and it’s a long run on my own.”

  “Tarsis, I won’t lose someone else!”

  “This is the second ship I’ve gotten you off of.” Tarsis laughed heartily. “When we meet again in the afterlife, you owe me one.”

  Talon could hardly speak. He had to steady his breathing. “Tarsis, please!”

  “You take care of her now. Don’t let this all be for nothing.” He paused as the shooting on hi
s end grew even louder. “Alright you Tribunal Bastards! Come and—”

  His com-link cut out.

  Tears welled in Talon’s eyes as he stared out into space. He sunk his head into Elisha’s hair and wrapped his arms around her as best as he could in the tight confines.

  It won’t be for nothing.

  With one free arm he re-activated Larana’s com-link and held it up. “Lara…” he attempted to say, but his throat was dry from emotion. He cleared it. There would be time to mourn later, but for the moment he had to focus. “Larana, do you see us?”

  “We got a location and are on our way,” Larana answered immediately. “There’s another ship headin’ to your location ahead of us though. Too fast for us to line up a shot.”

  Talon sat back, wiped his eyes and scanned the view on the Mech’s HOLO-Screen. A body in Tribunal green armor flew past. Behind it, two ion-engine trails were racing toward his position, one faster than the other. Judging by how much the ship they belonged to glistened he knew that it had to be Cassius. He grabbed the Mech’s arm controls and swung both of them so that the momentum spun the Mech around and its head was facing directly toward the approaching ship. There were missile launchers attached to the machine’s shoulders, but those left too much opportunity for failure.

  His gaze darted around the confines of the cockpit, looking for something that might activate the rail-gun running up the Mech’s spine. As he did he noticed that he was able to twist the arm controls laterally. When he did a bar of light along the bottom of the HOLO-Screen began to fill up. The cockpit vibrated.

  He couldn’t see where he was aiming. It was a literal shot in the dark, but whether or not he landed a direct hit, the White Hand would have to divert its course in order to avoid it.