Ukko walked beside the old man and spent the entire time wishing he had just stayed in his truck. He knew that wouldn’t have changed things, but he liked to pretend sometimes.
Life was getting to be too difficult.
The old man let him radio his soldiers and cancel his last order. Ukko explained that if he didn’t call them off, a little girl in a big machine was going to come barreling through. He also explained that she would be firing entirely indiscriminately and would probably make hole-digging impossible. The old man was quick enough to accommodate Ukko when he realized his source of enjoyment was at risk.
Luckily for Ukko, his soldiers were a bit more than half decent at their jobs. His personal security detail had been following undetected and a few of the nearby soldiers just asked outright to tag along. The old man just laughed and drawled out some tired line about everyone getting their turn eventually.
As much as Ukko didn’t enjoy being shot at by hidden snipers and threatened with extermination via MACs, he still decided he liked the old man, “You mind if I get your name? I could always just call you ‘old man’ but,” Ukko gestured at himself, “we might both get confused.”
“Ain’t that the truth. I reckon the both of us are already senile and ain’t nobdy told us.”
“Or maybe they did and we just can’t remember.”
The old man laughed so hard he literally sat down halfway through. Ukko was worried for a bit that he was going to die, “That right there’s a good’un, have ta tell my boy that one. Most everyone just calls me chief on account of that being what I am. I ain’t senile yet, but I did take one heluva hit to the head a few years back now, ‘fore the robots came. My name’s lost ta the forest and she keeps her secrets, lemme tell ya.”
“Oh, so that kid of yours nursed you back to health then? Came back home to help his dad? That’s a good son, wish I had a kid like that. The only kid I have around would be more likely to kick my unconscious body until she gets bored.”
“Kids these days and their phases.” Chief looked to the sky and wiped some sweat from his brow. Even though it was early afternoon, the sun was already dipping behind the mountain range, casting a nice cooling shadow down into the valley, “Can’t say I understand any of it, no sir. My boy though, he didn’t take care of me, wasn’t around. He just up and barged into my house one day. Boy was beat ta hell and back and threatened ta kill me if’n I didn’t feed him.”
Ukko waited while the old man seemed to gather his thoughts. Or, maybe more honestly, Ukko didn’t really know how to respond.
“The boy’s good though. He brought the robots. He tamed all of us and brought us together in this here valley. Turned us from a bunch’a infighting neighbors int’a real fightin’ force. Course, none of that really matters ta me. It’s probably good for tha people here tryin’ to make a life without you folks taking it all away, no offense course. Fer me and the boy though, it’s all just for our little dreams. Maybe that’s what makes us family.”
Ukko decided against asking anymore questions. In fact, Ukko decided to do his best to forget everything about this old man. It was worthless information now.
As much as Ukko hated to admit it, this was exactly the group that he was being paid to exterminate. If they were just a handful of armed mountain men or something, Ukko could look the other way, but this was obviously different. They checked all the boxes, no matter how much he might like the old man. If the guy, this old man’s son, really was one of the mercs that brought MACs and started up a bit of civilization, then they all had to die. Simple as that. The Alley wouldn’t look the other way and Ukko knew he had no chance of convincing them to coexist.
The path ahead narrowed even further. It actually seemed like someone purposefully caused some rockslides to turn the valley into a path barely wide enough for a single car. Ukko lamented the work this made for him. He’d have to carefully widen the path without burying his whole convoy in a downpour of earth and stone and trees. He shuddered at the idea that they may have to genuinely break out shovels and do this all by hand.
But, before he could become fully depressed by the thought, his attention was taken away by a shiny object in the distance. A series of spotlights had been set up to illuminate the narrow path so that even though the sun was completely hidden behind the mountains, the path was still bright as day. That artificial light was bouncing off of a human sized metal object at the other end.
The old man spoke up, “Well then, here we are. You oughta tell those sneaky folks who’ve been followin’ along to come on out. My boy’ll wanna fight them too. Weapons and armor and all that’ll be on those racks there. I reckon I’ll be seeing ya soon.”
Ukko looked at one of the distant weapon racks. It was filled with swords and spears and maces and the like. Every single piece of equipment had red stains on it. “Not quite new condition on these antiques, huh?”
“I’m just hear ta dig. Ya should be thankful I even replace the stuff at all.”
And with that, the old man, this ‘chief’ hobbled his way back to his holes.
The fact he was aware of Ukko’s security detail meant they really couldn’t get away with anything. The only choices seemed to be playing by these people’s rules or going ahead with the extermination right away. Ukko didn’t like the idea of starting a fight in this sort of location. There was no doubt he would end up taking more losses than he would want to. And considering this is just the beginning of the contract, losing a big chunk of his forces would surely prove to be a death sentence later down the line.
He thought for a while longer, though it was mainly just an excuse to rest his aching bones at this point, before starting his way down the path toward the shiny man.
All this medieval armor and weaponry was starting to make Ukko think he was dealing with an honest to God psychopath.
And that hunch was right.
“Halt thou recreant. Not a soul shall pass this crossing without doing battle with Sir Montagne.”
The man was kitted out from head to toe in a knight’s armor. Some sort of late Germanic style maybe, though Ukko wasn’t too knowledgeable on the subject. “Mountain huh, very clever. Now, when you say ‘crossing’ are you referring to this path?” Ukko thought it would be best not to bring up the idea that ‘Sir Valley’ might make more sense.
“Yes, it is indeed clever. The French may be a wicked and sickly people, but they have their uses.” After venting his anti-French opinions a while longer, the knight continued, “The crossing is indeed what lies before you.”
“Alright, just checking because it doesn’t really ‘cross’ anything. Calling it a crossing seems a bit forced.”
“You dare insult me blackguard? Draw your steel and let us see whose wit is sharper!”
“I don’t think a single witty thing has been said, but all the same,” Ukko pulled his revolver out of its holster. He was glad he held onto the thing. A lot of pilots don’t even carry sidearms these days, but Ukko was a firm believer in packing on as many guns as possible, “I think I’ll-”
Before Ukko could fire a shot, his revolver flew out of his hand in an explosion of steel fragments. Ukko’s hand had a few scratches but otherwise he wasn’t injured. He instinctively looked for cover and prepared to tell his soldiers to open fire, but Sir Montagne’s voice boomed metallically from inside his helmet, “This is a holy land and it shall be treated as such churl! Only the weapons God intended for mankind shall be used here. If you dare to debase this site once more,” the voice that was so stereotypically knightly suddenly shifted into the standard bloodthirsty voice of the present era, “I’ll give the order and you and all your friends will be turned into powder. Our MACs will make short work of you all. I’d rather not have to do that. The Chief doesn’t like burying dust. Bad omen or something.”
Ukko gripped his hand tightly, squeezing as hard as he could. The issue wasn’t his hand at this point, but rather his wounds from the fight with the House Keeper that hadn’t fully healed. Something was still wrong with his head, but it would be for the best if he could keep that a secret. Squeezing his hand at least kept him focused on this nonsense instead of the searing pain now blasting his eye socket, “So you open fire if we use MACs or guns or any other tech that would make this whole situation proceed a lot faster. Great.”
One of Ukko’s security detail members grabbed a mace off a nearby weapon rack and spoke up, “Well, this is easy enough. I’ll just thrash him around and we can be on our way.”
“We should probably think about this first. Hell, his hidden army might just open fire if we kill him.”
“Only one way to find out sir.”
The woman approached the knight and readied her mace. She was known as a pretty good hand-to-hand fighter amongst The Stragglers. Ukko had usually left her training sessions covered in bruises and occasionally bleeding internally. She shouldn’t have much trouble with this crackpot. Ukko tapped his radio again, sending out a message to his troops to prepare to retaliate if fired upon. Luckily, for whatever reason, he wasn’t shot at for touching his radio this time.
The two faced each other. The knight bowed as deeply as his armor allowed and Ukko’s soldier gave him a one-finger salute in response. She rushed him for the opening move. In hand-to-hand combat, she was a fervent believer that striking first was what mattered. She brought the mace up high over her shoulder, telegraphing an obvious vertical strike. Her real play was coming from her left foot which was already stretching out for a kick to the knight’s knee.
She was probably hoping to topple the opponent and use his weight against him, but things didn’t work out.
The knight was good. Far more impressive than Ukko gave him credit for. In fact, it almost made him regret thinking of the man as some casual psycho. He was clearly competent where it counted.
He caught her mace-holding hand in his left, stopping it before it could gain any downward momentum. In the same beat, as her leg came in for a kick to the knight’s knee, he lifted his right foot. He was far more agile than Ukko gave him credit for as well. It was high enough to dodge her kick and he was fast enough to bring down his foot onto her shin. A loud snap seemed to echo through the valley, followed by a quick and disciplined scream from her.
She tried to back away, but on one leg she simply wasn’t fast enough. The knight swept his longsword at neck level and cut both arteries and gouged halfway into her windpipe.
The red gore bubbled up out of her neck as she spasmed on the ground for a few moments before falling still.
Ukko’s security detail watched the entire bout with pure professionalism. Even though it was one of their own that had just died. They’ve gotten used to sights like these. All of Ukko’s security detail learned firsthand just how short life could be. He wouldn’t take on a new applicant unless they had witnessed death up close like this. In a world where warfare was ruled by long range attacks and MACs, some soldiers never saw real blood.
Stolen story; please report.
The regulars, the soldiers from the first few trucks of the convoy, were like that. Most of them turned away. Many of them puked. One of them actually fainted, though that could have been from heatstroke.
Ukko could do nothing but watch as two men seemed to manifest from the surrounding greenery like ghosts. They picked up the body by the hands and legs and started to drag her away.
Her broken shin sagged and made her proportions almost alien-like.
Ukko felt a fierce anger washing over him. He had made it a rule to be around for the burials of all his soldiers. But here… Ukko was sure she was being taken to that old man to be tossed in a hole with no dignity.
She deserved better.
Ukko started to step forward toward the knight, but another of his security detail placed a hand on his shoulder, “You really think we would let you?”
“You really think you can stop me?”
“We feel the same as you right now sir. We take pride in our position as your security. We’re family here. And this degenerate maniac playing make-believe just killed one of ours.” The man took his hand off Ukko and walked toward the weapon racks, “We’ll get our revenge.”
Ukko could only sit and watch as five more of his security detail walked onto that narrow path and met the same fate.
The knight hadn’t taken even a single hit.
Ukko’s head had only been getting worse. Something horribly wrong was arcing across his body now. He stopped trying to hide the spasms and now focused on not screaming out in pain.
What an awful time to show weakness, Ukko thought.
He decided to push past the next security detail member for a couple of reasons:
One: the longer this goes on, the higher the chance Ukko ends up succumbing to this pain. He didn’t want to think about the aftermath of that situation.
Two: he was tired of seeing his people die.
Ukko may be older and frailer than he was a few decades ago, but he was probably one of the few members of The Stragglers that had actually been in real life or death hand-to-hand combat.
He grabbed a spear from one of his dead comrades and positioned himself across from the knight.
“Oh? Perhaps you are not such a knave after all. Many of those I do battle with wait until their lessers are thoroughly exhausted before facing me.” For the first time, the man flipped open his visor, revealing a sight that would, unfortunately, stick with Ukko for the rest of his life. The face underneath the metal was mostly gone. There was a crescent of a human head that looped from his chin to his temple. Most of his left eye and half of his nose still existed. This wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. It was clear this man was a MAC pilot who had given up chunks of himself in order to better control his beast. The part that made Ukko’s skin crawl was the haphazard methods used to augment the man. His head was cut clean at that crescent and a sheet of clear material showed everything inside. A black box rose from the gore where his right eye would have been, and another box seemed to be fused with some brain matter toward the back.
And, even from where Ukko stood, it was clearly leaking. The pinkish liquid infused with strange chunks of matter cascaded down his face. A hose connected at his neck seemed to be pumping in liquid to replenish the runoff.
Ukko felt his own eye. It was still throbbing in pain and he felt sure that splinters of bone would soon come thrusting out of his skin.
Was this what Ukko was bound to become?
He’d lived for so long. He’d been a pilot for so long. But he was careful. He used the power canisters. He rarely used his own body to operate the machine. But still, after so many years the side effects were bound to show up, even with limited use.
Ukko just wanted peace.
But perhaps that was too much to ask for.
Power is never free and prices must be paid.
Just like those loan sharks that infest the military market always say: a repo crew will always come.
Ukko tried his hardest to ignore the horror show in front of him. It was a distraction, that was all. He gripped his spear toward the bottom of the shaft. If he wanted to win, he would have to rely on making distance between his faster and stronger opponent.
Many called the gun the great equalizer of mankind, and Ukko agreed, but a spear did a hell of a job making your average peasant a force to be reckoned with.
He did his best to keep his spasms to a minimum as he stared the knight down, “Come on then you cox-comb.”
“Ha! Now you’re getting it.” He slammed his visor shut and raised his sword and shield as he approached, “It’s all in good fun after all.”
Ukko was hoping to kill the man, but his far more important goal was to stall for time. His message to ‘stand down’ wasn’t quite honest. After so many years as a mercenary the term ‘hope for the best and plan for the worst’ was practically etched into him. In fact, he actually had the term etched into his cockpit on the metal seat.
The knight was fast. He closed the distance and brought down his sword with more than enough force to split Ukko in two. Luckily, Ukko dodged diagonally backward and swiped with his spear as he retreated. The spear point grazed the armor but didn’t do any damage. Ukko’s leg wouldn’t be able to handle many more movements like that. He cursed his old age once again.
“Are ye truly so craven? You come out to fight and merely flee?”
Ukko didn’t respond, deciding instead to save his breath. One of the lessons he had learned was to always split his troops into multiple units and have them travel separately. Figuring out the right distance to avoid enemy scouts seeing too much while also making sure the units could support one another in a pinch took some costly trial and error. But Ukko was pretty sure he had the right formula by now. His second unit would have received his orders to stand down and they should have immediately sent out scouts. Ukko had already seen some of the drones that were pinging enemy positions. They were disguised well enough to avoid detection unless you knew what to look for.
Then again, considering how much these mountain men seem to see that’s supposed to be hidden, they might already be preparing for an attack. Ukko didn’t know. It wasn’t exactly something he had time to deal with currently, he just had to hope for the best.
Ukko barely dodged a horizontal strike aimed straight for his head. He had to kneel down to avoid it which turned into an issue. His legs were in no condition to drop down like that and spring right back up. Ukko realized this all fast enough to change plans partway down. He stabbed up with the spear from his position on the ground, trying to weave his weapon between some gaps in the armor around the knight’s armpit. It could have been the perfect strike. At the very least it could have taken his sword arm out of commission. Instead, however, a searing pain lancing through Ukko’s head caused his own arm to spasm. The tip of the spear veered off course, only glancing off the hardened steel of the knight’s visor. Ukko’s attack was still enough to push the knight back and give him some needed time to get back to his feet without breaking anything.
The knight had no words for Ukko after this exchange of blows. Instead, he simply renewed his attacks with more vigor than before.
Ukko wouldn’t last much longer, but he was sure the counterattack would come soon enough. Once his artillerymen started to lob shells this way, this fight would be over. Ukko trusted his soldiers, but he was really hoping they were doing thorough checks on the mountains. Being buried alive was very far down on Ukko’s list of ways to die.
But, he supposed, being skewered by some madman playing dress up in knight’s armor wasn’t much better.
Just a bit longer. That was all Ukko tried to think.
But the pain and his opponent both grew fiercer.
Ukko realized too late that he was being backed against the rocks that made up the sides of their hallway-like arena. His foot slipped as he misjudged the distance of his next step. He slumped against the jagged rocks as the knight raised his sword high and brought it down.
Ukko decided breaking his legs would be worth the chance of survival, so he pushed with all his might to dodge to the side. He held his spear out in front of him as well, hoping to block the blow if the knight followed up after the chop.
But the knight was far better than Ukko imagined. It was almost funny that in a world ruled by massive beasts of war, a man like this could still be born. A man who dedicated enough time to swordplay to check a blow mid-swing and adapt it into a follow up strike.
The vertical overhead chop was quickly transformed into a horizontal neck-level blow. Ukko pushed the shaft of the spear against the incoming attack, just barely managing to alter the course.
The blade cut through the spear and passed right across his face. It would have been nice, Ukko thought, if this was a movie sword fight. Then he would have gotten away with a cool looking scar that stretched from ear to ear. He could brag about that kind of battle at any bar in the world and get free drinks for the night.
But even a skilled swordsman’s mistakes cause terrible damage.
The sword bit into the left side of Ukko’s face. It chipped through the bone of his eye socket and proceeded to cut his eye in two. The cut became shallower after that as Ukko’s spear managed to interfere with the swing.
But now Ukko was truly at a loss. His spear had been chopped in half and he could no longer see. Half of his left eye fell into his lap as the other half dangled on the optical nerve. His right eye stopped working. The lingering issues from his battle with the House Keeper seemed to reach their apex. Ukko released a scream that surely sent chills of horror through anyone who could hear. It was the sort of scream that made listeners both ashamed and frightened.
Ukko couldn’t stop the screaming.
He couldn’t even think.
His entire world had condensed down to the pure and potent pain that was wreaking havoc on his body.
It was only a simple voice that seemed to bring Ukko’s mind back from the brink.
It wasn’t much, but Ukko did manage to stop screaming.
The voice… the voice was not what he wanted to hear. It was that very purpose, the purpose of keeping her away from such a horrid sight, that seemed to bring back his consciousness.
Ukko, with his reclaimed ability to think, realized this too would make for a potent scene: the voice of a dear comrade healing Ukko on the spot and sending him back to win the fight.
But that wonderful scene, that happy-story plot point, continued to elude him.
Ukko regained nothing more than his consciousness. His screaming stopped and the pain became bearable. He could hear and think, but nothing more.
And so it was that he heard the ensuing brawl:
It was the scream of the Vice Admiral as she threw herself into the fray.
That was the sound that allowed Ukko to reclaim some semblance of sanity.
Apparently, she had charged into the fight hoping to save Ukko.
Why, Ukko wondered, why would she do something like that?
And why, Ukko wondered, why would nobody stop her?
What sort of idiots would let a little girl run into a situation like this? For all that she may be a great pilot and was looked at as a high-ranking member of The Stragglers, she was still just a little girl. She didn’t have some extra well of strength and she didn’t have some beautifully tactical mind. She was just good at piloting a MAC.
It was what she was made for.
Ukko heard steel on steel as the Vice Admiral’s weapon, whatever it may have been, connected with the knight.
He had no choice. He wouldn’t let this happen. If he was ever going to be granted even a drop of luck, this would have to be the moment.
He rebelled against every cell in his body as he pushed himself up into a standing position. His legs wobbled, unsure of which way to break, and his head seemed to be leaking a never-ending stream of fluid.
Ukko struggled with his second holster and, as if trapped in a nightmare, found that his scream was coming out as nothing more than a whisper.
Please, just a little luck, Ukko prayed. Just a little.
If his soldiers could just see what he was doing. If they could notice him drawing his backup weapon, then maybe…
There was a strange cracking sound. Ukko wondered which of his bones broke first.
But no new pain lanced through his body.
Instead, there was a distant yelp.
Almost as if from a child.
His backup pistol cleared his holster and he shot it into the air. This time, the cracking sound was surely from his own body as he collapsed onto the ground. Some sort of projectile, a bullet Ukko later realized when he was free from the tormenting pain, had violently ripped his right arm from his body.
It was immediately followed up by a fusillade of small arms fire and then, only a moment later, by a sweeping blanket of artillery rounds. It was as if a thunderstorm was approaching from behind them. Each new group of shells slamming down on the Earth in another roar of rage.
The ground beneath Ukko shook, but this wasn’t something he thought about anymore.
With his left arm he pulled himself forward. He still couldn’t see, so he simply crawled in the direction where he heard the yelp come from.
His legs would no longer obey him and merely added extra weight to his trial.
He was vaguely aware of a turbulent storm of deadly munitions flying all around him, but just as in his fight with the House Keeper, and just as in many fights before, Ukko stayed focused on his singular goal.
In a gesture Ukko would only fully come to understand later, a gesture that would deaden his heart and birth an entirely new Ukko, his goal had come to him.
His hand, biting deep into the dirt and trying to drag his worthless body forward, had a sudden warmth placed upon it.
“Admiral,” the voice gurgled out of a bloody throat, “Admiral you can’t die yet.”
Somehow it was clear, even with all the pain that was surely coursing through her little body, that she was chastising him. Ukko fought against the encroaching darkness. He fought to stay conscious long enough to save the girl.
“Admiral…” her voice sounded so faint. Ukko tried to believe it was his own ears that weren’t working, “you can’t die till you’re happy.”
If Ukko had any strength or power left in his body, he would have screamed.
But he didn’t.