The overwhelming smell of gunpowder was a treat for the senses.
The reverberations from the cannon rolled through the machine in waves.
The heat that seemed to pour out from the MAC produced a hazy summer day’s feeling.
The cooler winds of mid fall that passed through the shrapnel holes were more than welcome as they warded off the core’s ambient heat.
Jace fired off another shot into the thick woodland dip in the ground. Smaller hills rose up on every side. The Stragglers had managed to push the enemy back to this point. Apparently they had some sort of bunker down there. Jace focused on repositioning his MAC after his shot and getting away from the thick cloud of gun smoke and bright flash of his canon that had now telegraphed his position. Jace looked back down into the divot in the Earth and saw a fire growing where his shot landed. “That’s him, right? Clean hit?”
“Hmm…” a massive explosion erupted from where the fire was, bringing down the nearby trees and shaking off the leaves and needles from others, “I’m gonna vote yes.”
A new voice chimed in, cheering loudly, “Hell of a-fucking-shot Traitor!”
One more voice entered the fray, “Thank God. This guy was a real shitter, wasn’t he? Three days later and we finally get him. God I want a shower.”
“A shower? No no no, you could probably bottle and sell that stuff easy. By the way, drinks tonight? I’m sure we’ll find some booze once this bunker is cleared out.”
“I’ll start selling my sweat once you stop losing in cards. I’m sitting on a small fortune and at least half of it is from your God-awful luck. Any more money in my pocket and the Admiral might requisition it.”
“Yeah, she’s got you there. If you lose anything else this month, you’ll be on quarter rations.”
“I’m already on quarter rations.”
“Why do you sound proud?”
The three spotters continued to have their back and forth. Apparently they were childhood friends who joined up when Ukko slaughtered their village. Jace wasn’t sure if that was true though. With the amount of soldiers that used that same origin story, Ukko would have had to burn down a couple countries worth of homes.
Jace changed his frequency. He didn’t mind the soldiers. They were all fine. He didn’t really mind the new nickname either. It was true enough. But Jace was having a good time right now, so he wasn’t terribly interested in joining in on any time-wasting banter or worthless camaraderie. In Jace’s mind, there was nothing so enjoyable as using his MAC against another MAC. A battle of pure bliss.
“Ukko, we got the guy.”
“Not half bad Jace. You’re getting better. A little bit of patience can go a long way in an encounter like that. And they’re already telling us how impressive your shot was. I’m looking forward to the debrief.”
“Not half bad? I’m probably working with a whole degree of barrel droop on this cannon. It’s a miracle I hit anything at all.”
Ukko laughed. It sounded happy, but apparently Ukko had changed in the past few weeks since their battle in the valley. All the soldiers seemed to be debating whether he was more tame or more bloodthirsty now. Opinions varied by the day. “Well, yeah, it’s a bit of an older model, that’s for sure. Who knows Jace, it might be building character or something like that.”
“I think the teacher is supposed to say that line with a bit more certainty.”
“Good thing I’m not a teacher. Are you going to head in there with the others? The bunker runs pretty deep, so we’re hoping to find some good stuff to replenish our supplies.”
“I think I’ll stay in the MAC.”
“You’ve really got a hard on for these things, don’t you? Well, guess I can’t blame you. I’ve got two eyes invested into this machine now. These metal beasts sure can be greedy.”
“They can’t be that greedy if they’re willing to take that second eye of yours. It was pretty shoddy in the first place.”
Ukko laughed again. Usually he would get angry when this topic got brought up. It seemed like was in a good mood today, “Yeah yeah. Poor old Ukko and his crumbling body. You’ll get old one day too you know?”
Jace’s heart seized up for a moment, but he realized it was just a joke. Jace had no desire to grow old. He sunk deeper into his pilot seat, taking in the healing nature of the cockpit. It felt wonderful. Jace just wanted to fight and die. He just wanted to live his whole life in the cockpit of a MAC. He realized recently that that was his new dream. It was all he could think about these days: dying in some intoxicating battle against a worthy opponent.
Ukko’s voice interrupted Jace’s euphoric daydream after a few moments, “Well, go ahead and come on back. Sounds like Guinevere needs you for another test. The scouts are supposed to handle this stuff anyway.”
Jace loved the idea of piloting a MAC with the Trahir system on board. It would make for the perfect place to die. The smells and visions that seemed to grow from inside his mind when he was hooked up to it were nothing short of pure bliss. It was like the distance between Jace and the machine was being evaporated when the system was on.
However, Jace did not enjoy sitting in the testing chamber. It was no MAC cockpit, so the experience always felt dulled. It was a sterile lab filled with desires and dreams that were completely foreign to Jace. He was vaguely aware that the more comfortable the MACs became to him, the less he seemed to understand the world outside of his MAC. He didn’t care. He was fine. He was happier when it was just him and his machine.
Jace’s desire for the Trahir system was slowly losing out to the comfort of his current metallic companion. “It’s been a month since she started working on that thing. She can’t do it. Lionel’s project seems to be nearly done, why don’t we just start using that. It’s the same stuff, right? If both options get us the power we want, then why aren’t we going with the one that’s ready for field trials?”
Ukko’s voice lost any and all merriment, “You do as you’re told Jace. You belong to me. I don’t need your input. I demand your obedience. That’s all you need to understand about anything.”
Jace didn’t let up. Ukko wouldn’t be likely to kill him until Guinevere’s or Lionel’s project could be field tested. Jace was still the most useful pilot for these tests, “Why does Guinevere get to work on the Vice Admiral’s machine? What about that? I’m sure Lionel could have had it back in action by now. Better than before. This operation would have taken three minutes instead of three days if we used that machine to flatten the place.”
Ukko clearly had unbridled hatred soaked into his being when he responded, “I just said I don’t need your input.” He paused for a while before speaking again with each word liberally coated in murder, “You seem to think you’re a part of The Stragglers. When you return, I’ll make sure you understand your position amongst us. Just hurry up and get back for the testing.”
Jace shut his mouth and started back toward the main force. As much as he wished things were different, it was entirely up to Ukko as to whether he would be allowed to sortie on these missions. He didn’t need Jace out here. Jace could just be kept in confinement until they need to test the Trahir system again.
Jace didn’t want to go back to that confinement. It was as if something would squirm around in his head more and more the longer he was in that peaceful environment. He would hold Guinevere, though he wouldn’t know why, and something within him would threaten to break. But he would keep holding her. Jace felt as if something that threatened who he was now was lying in wait in his subconscious. All it needed was the right sort of peaceful environment and it would rear its head.
Jace wasn’t sure what would happen to him if that subconscious took over, but he was sure that the him he was would disappear. It would be locked into a cage, and the only part of Jace left would be some husk of a human. Jace wasn’t entirely mad, he was well aware that he had changed since Atlantis. He just didn’t want to think too hard about the ‘whys’ of it all.
And there was no point to those thoughts anyway. Jace knew deep down that there was no returning to that Jace from Atlantis. If he tried, if his subconscious dragged him down that path, he would break. That was why he would become a husk. That was why he wanted to stay in his MAC. His thoughts in these monsters were so easy. So simple. And maybe, Jace thought, a new Jace would be born after enough time in these machines. A Jace that didn’t need to think at all.
He’d like that.
A new voice screamed into the radio. It was the full broadcast channel for The Stragglers. It was a channel that was off limits save for emergencies, “IT’S FULL OF-”
And in that instant, the ground seized and lifted upwards. The gyro sensors in the MAC went haywire and the machine started to fall toward the ground. Jace saw the scene from his cockpit’s perch before crashing into the grassy earth.
What he saw was amazing. The ground around them was bubbling up. It was like some sort of waves had formed just beneath the surface and were rolling across the land. Trees swayed this way and that, falling to forty-five-degree angles as the wave passed them by. Some couldn’t hold on and would then collapse. Some of the largest trees fell onto those bubbled up points of land and would break the grass and dirt apart with the force of the impact. A gout of fire and smoke would burst out for a moment before the rooted together soil came back to close the gap.
Jace’s MAC was no different than one of those large trees in this moment. When it fell, the V shaped nose of the cockpit, meant to deflect incoming blows and protect the pilot on a budget, dug deep into one of those bubbles of earth. Jace had no chance to bring his metallic arms in front of the cockpit. The full blast rocked his machine. The metal plating in front of him started to glow red and orange as it was slowly melted from the heat. The electronic screens warped and bent until cracks shot across and made spiderwebs of fractures, completely destroying the monitors.
The shrapnel holes that were delivering the cool autumn breezes now served as injection points for the fierce fire. Spikes of searing flame poked through each hole, turning Jace’s pilot suit into a polka dot pattern of melted plastic-infused fabric. It seared to his skin and boiled his insides.
Jace was familiar with this kind of heat. He stayed as calm as possible and waited for the land to reconvene and close up the explosive gap so he could move his MAC with less worry of falling into the hellish fires below. What seemed like forever was likely only a few seconds. Jace rolled his machine onto its back and quickly put it into a kneeling position. The leg armor should help to absorb the heat if the ground opens up again and this position kept the core safe from any extreme temperatures that would threaten to turn his MAC into an impromptu nuclear bomb.
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He surveyed the land to see the damage. Toppled trees covered the expanse and roaring fires started to eat away at anything flammable. The forest would quickly become a hell hole of blazing fires. A few of The Straggler’s MACs that were in the area were each trying to avoid the disaster in their own way. Most were positioned like Jace, trying their best to wait out the worst of it while trying not to destroy their machines in the process.
But one pilot decided the best way to escape was to boost up into the sky and try to fly away from the nightmarish landscape.
There was a reason why none of the other pilots tried such a maneuver.
This could just be a case of self-sacrifice. The residents of the bunker might have chosen to blow themselves up rather than suffer the crimes that The Stragglers were sure to commit. That would be the best situation for the surrounding MAC pilots.
However, the best situations rarely come to pass. Especially not out here. This land was filled with the sort of people that would fight to their last breath.
The MAC, a basic variant just like Jace’s, dragged along a chem trail through the clear blue sky as it tried to make its way to the convoy. It couldn’t have been an easier target. A flash of light and suddenly an extra trail of smoke and chemicals sprouted from the beast. A chunk of metal came falling from above on a collision course with the ground, glinting as the afternoon sunlight hit the mangled object.
After the first flash, a series of at least eight more struck the airborne target in a matter of seconds. The metal golem, a clear target in the open sky, was bounced this way and that as shells hit from every direction. More chunks of metal rained down and the MAC itself went into a spiral as it suddenly lost altitude. The crisp blue sky made for the perfect backdrop to see the black metal MAC as it fell and fell and ultimately sank deep into the ground. A large vibration shook Jace’s MAC. Surprisingly, the fallen MAC’s core didn’t go off, but the message was still received by every pilot that saw or felt the crash: they were in the enemy’s kill zone. There would be no escape.
Jace hunkered down where he was. It seemed like the underground explosions had let up entirely, but that didn’t exactly mean safety from being swallowed up, MAC and all. The explosions surely created prime real estate for sinkholes. One wrong step in an eighty-ton piece of metal and Jace would find himself buried in a deep dark crater. These run-of-the-mill MACs didn’t exactly have robust life support features. He would surely suffocate. Jace took another look at the shrapnel holes which had been providing him with a cool breeze. The melting flames had widened them all considerably. Jace was starting to wonder if the armor would stop anything at all in this state. On the one hand, it helped with visibility given that all of his monitors except for a small screen on his left were now damaged beyond repair. The small screen was a secondary monitor linked to the camera on his cannon. Pointing his weapon wherever he wanted to look would be a bit too conspicuous, so Jace tried to get used to viewing the outside world through the holes that coated his MAC.
Most of the other damage was fairly inconsequential, at least as far as Jace was concerned. The MAC could still move and fight. The heat had compromised some mobility and some capability as far as the finer adjustments for weaponry, but it was more than enough for Jace to work with.
“Traitor, report.”
Unfortunately for Jace, the comms system was still functional as well. Someone else was now broadcasting on The Straggler’s full broadcast channel. Ukko wouldn’t be happy that this girl wasn’t just using the specific unit lines, but given the shitstorm that just ensued, Jace supposed it made sense to contact everyone and anyone. Why the girl was using his nickname was beyond him. Jace wished he could just have peace, quiet, and a good fight to bring his life to an end. “We were ambushed. It seems like the bunker was filled with explosives, though I can’t verify any specifics. It also seems like the hills surrounding our location are teeming with enemies. I thought the scouts assured us this little group was the last remnants of resistance for this location.”
“It was. It looks like someone else has decided to join in. Maybe all of these mountain hermits are finally coming to the conclusion they can’t beat us back alone. It was bound to happen.” The scout’s voice was nonchalant, as if this matter didn’t concern her, “How many casualties?”
“I’ve seen one MAC go down, I’m not sure about the others. I haven’t seen any signs of MACs going critical though. As for the team sent underground, I’m guessing they’re all dead.”
“Can you move in and make sure? If we could get a few of them out of there it might provide us with some valuable intel.”
“No chance. The enemy is sure to have the bunker zeroed in. The moment I get close, that will be the end of it.”
There was a pause, likely as she was confirming orders on some other frequency, “Your machine can move?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, your orders are as follow: get to the bunker and pull out a body that’s still breathing. We’ll proceed from there.”
“That’s suicide.”
“Your leader says good things about you, I’m sure you can pull it off Traitor. We can’t approach your position until we know there aren’t any more subterranean bombs that’ll go off. It’s better for you to die out there than for one of our convoys to sink into the Earth, right? Report back when you’ve accomplished your mission.”
Jace sighed, but he decided not to try to fight the order. Maybe Guinevere just put the finishing touches on the Trahir system and they didn’t need Jace anymore. Maybe that was why Ukko hadn’t checked in. Or maybe he decided to use one of his own pilots for the tests. Maybe he was tired of dealing with Jace. Jace started to wonder if he shouldn’t have talked back to Ukko. Maybe he should have just shut up and done as he was told. What if Ukko decided that Jace can no longer be a pilot?
Jace, in a movement that even surprised him, slammed his fists into the controls.
He didn’t want to die like this. He didn’t want to get flattened by artillery while he tried to dig up corpses. He wanted to die fighting. He wanted to die in his MAC facing down other pilots, but he had to prove he was valuable to Ukko.
He dreamt of death, but it was a specific death. For all his skills as a MAC pilot, for all his reckless courage when he was fighting in this machine, his dream only served to make him a coward.
For all his desires of death, he was the most cowardly pilot around during times like these.
He shook his head. It wasn’t cowardice. It was as if some voice inside of him was telling him how he needed to die. And, for some reason, Jace trusted this voice with his entire being.
If Jace wanted to please this voice, if Jace wanted to achieve his dream, then he would need to do this and do it well. He needed Ukko to take him on as a proper pilot.
Jace peeked through the holes at some of the other MACs that were currently operational.
None of them were moving toward the bunker.
It looked like this was a mission specifically for Jace then.
Or, more likely, none of them wanted to jump the gun until their names were called.
He took his time with his breathing. Slow and steady.
He would just have to be better. That was all. He would just have to survive an un-survivable battle.
Jace was under the assumption that the enemy force was just using stationary artillery pieces. If they had MACs, they would have committed by now. Jace and his surely injured comrades wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight after all.
It was the perfect killing zone to catch MACs. Mobility had been hampered by the underground explosions and now surrounding artillery covered the entire area. Jace’s only hope would be to draw some fire and try to pinpoint where the artillery pieces were hidden. Then he would have to land a shot on those exact locations.
It would be far more difficult than hunting the MAC that was hiding near the bunker.
As Jace continued to piece together a plan in his head, he saw a familiar sight through one of the smaller holes in the right side of his machine. There was the faintest sign of a purple banner peeking above a pile of fallen trees.
It was the MAC that belonged to the man who had been put in charge of this operation. Jace didn’t know him too well. He’d heard the man came from money and was hoping to make a name for himself as a mercenary by building up a powerful MAC with checks written in his father’s name. The Stragglers attracted people like this. Ukko’s history of slaughter led many to believe they could join up, raze a defenseless town or two, and bolster their reputation with titles like ‘Leader of the ‘blank’ Offensive’.
But that didn’t matter to Jace. He had his own selfish reasons for piloting a MAC. He couldn’t turn up his nose at people like that.
But he could use them.
He bailed out of his machine for a few moments to get a visual check on the legs. He still didn’t know much about the mechanics, but he had learned a thing or two from spending so much time cooped up with Guinevere. If his machine wasn’t able to tell him the status, he just had to check for himself.
The legs didn’t look like they had any substantial damage. Just melted armor plating and the like. The augments Guinevere made to him so he could use the Trahir system made it impossible for him to link with other machines. It was unfortunate and it impacted his piloting ability. He would have liked to operate the machine from out here to get a look at how the legs are going to move. He could probably survive that strain just fine without this specialty augment.
He would just have to hope the legs worked properly.
He climbed back up the jagged mess of steel that formed the left leg.
Before he could enter his cockpit, a whistling flurry of objects passed overhead. He saw a handful of flashes to the north and tried to make a mental note of their locations. The following shockwave nearly threw him from his handholds on the machine. He pulled as hard as he could, nearly flinging himself into the cockpit and closing the hatch.
The explosions of the shells hitting the MAC weren’t much. It was as loud as one might expect a cannonade to be. But the shots must have hit the core, because the machine went critical. The light that squeezed through the shrapnel holes nearly blinded Jace, but he tried to keep an eye on what was going on, doing his best to shield himself from any direct flash. The explosion caused a massive cave-in. Nearly an entire wooded hill sunk into the opening. And, thanks again to the bright sun shining down on them, the glint of metal from a different nearby MAC was as clear as day. Jace was already looking west as the next barrage came flying out of the hills. He didn’t bother looking at the MAC being pummeled into a soil-filled sarcophagus, instead he focused on using a shard of metal to scratch some marks into the walls of his cockpit. It wouldn’t be perfect, but a rough map should help him win in a shootout with these guys.
The cannons continued to pepper the hill-turned-hole. They were good shots, but they probably weren’t used to fighting MACs. Jace guessed that any glint of metal was getting a full barrage.
Those artillerymen were probably just as nervous as any of the MAC pilots.
Jace used the momentary distraction to sprint his machine over to that purple scrap of cloth he’d seen. He held his breath as a few of the cannoneers seemed to hone in on his position.
He remembered a pilot that could handle artillery shells as calmly as anything else. She was a true Ace. He admired her so much. Everything she did when she was in that machine was like art.
The incoming shells soared overhead and landed on a MAC that was hiding itself under some burning trees nearby.
Jace’s eye twitched and something in his chest seemed to seize up at the idea that he hadn’t even come close to being equal with that woman. To standing on that same pedestal with her.
Something else threatened to break inside of him as he continued to think about this pilot.
Before anything could fully snap, however, he arrived at his destination. An irate voice called out to him from a hinged open cockpit, “You idiot! Get the hell away from me! They’ll find us and-” Jace hinged open his own cockpit and got a good look at the man, “You! Traitor! I should have known you would screw this whole operation up. We’re all being left to die here because of you! That’s it, isn’t it? That bastard Ukko finished up with your little tests and now he wants you dead. Shit, he thinks I’m just going to sit here and be collateral damage.” He looked at Jace with a face that was full of fear and hate, “You’ll help me break out of this encirclement. Then we’ll go pay Ukko a visit. All I have to do is throw enough money and watch his men tear him limb from limb.” He seemed to be satisfied with his new plan, “Yes, it’ll be perfect. Everyone’s already seen how much he’s changed after that little girl died. Stupid. Who the hell cares about some brat. He’s not fit to be a leader.” He seemed to pull himself out of his fantasy of mutiny and was surprised to see Jace leveling a gun at his head, “What-”
Jace pulled the trigger.
He dropped the gun quickly after. It felt disgusting. The recoil in his hands, the sight of the man’s blood, the pathetic puff of smoke from the end of the barrel. It was all wrong. Jace had no interest in such pedestrian ways of killing. All he wanted to do was climb back into his MAC and find something to fight. He desperately hoped this band of cannoneers was being led by someone who could actually pilot a MAC.
But before he could climb back into the warm embrace of a cockpit, he had to do some work.