“So Jace, why exactly did you decide to stay here and piss around? Don’t worry, I’m hardly angry at all.”
It was hard for Jace to believe him. Ukko didn’t have a single ounce of emotion in his voice. It seemed more like the kind of voice that was about to send him off to a guillotine. Jace was actually rather irritated. He was told to fight, wasn’t he? Maybe Ukko needs to get a better handle on his troops. But Jace didn’t voice those opinions. This man could take away Jace’s chance to pilot. He could take away Jace’s true passion on a whim. “I was told to check the bunker for survivors.”
Ukko opened the hatch to his cockpit and climbed onto the edge, surveying the area, “Ah yes, survivors.” He stared down at the caved in bunker. There was no possible way to enter anymore. The reinforced concrete debris sagged down a few dozen meters, but any underground tunnels were covered up by the destruction. “And this, as far you’re concerned, is survivable?”
Jace was getting indignant. It sounded like Ukko had the exact same opinion Jace had: there was no point in searching for survivors after something like that. “No. But, that was exactly my-”
Ukko’s voice roared at Jace in a way that almost made it seem louder than the recent explosive salvos, “THEN WHY THE HELL DID I HAVE TO COME OUT HERE!”
“The woman told me-”
“You really think you can toss off the blame? You? The mind broken idiot that has wet dreams about killing?”
“Me? You think I love killing? I’m not a goddamn monster,” Jace tried to stop himself from saying the next part out loud, but he couldn’t accept being compared to some kind of animal that gets off on murder, “unlike you. You go around slaughtering entire towns and cities and think you can call me a monster?” Jace socked himself in the face immediately after it slipped out. He just wanted to pilot MACs, how was this helping him? Just take the blame and move on, that’s what Jace knew he should have done. Jace hinged open his own cockpit. If he was going to try to apologize his way out of this, he would probably have to get on his hands and knees. He didn’t care. He would do anything to stay with the MACs.
Ukko stared at him with his mouth wide open, seemingly incredulous, “You can’t be serious.”
Jace didn’t have to swallow his pride. He had no such thing. He had only desire, and he would do anything to sate his desires. He pressed his forehead to the metal beneath him, “I’m sorry Admiral. I was out of line. I’ll do better next time, I promise.”
Ukko shook his head and closed his only eye, “Listen kid, I am a monster. I’m working on atoning. I had a way to atone for all the shit I do. A way to even things out. When you get to my age you have a hard time ignoring all those ‘God’ and ‘Heaven’ people. It gets to you.” His eye shot open and he seemed to be confused as to why he was saying any of this. Jace was confused as well. “Whatever, you’ll figure it out yourself.” He took a deep breath before looking straight at Jace once again, “But you better do some real soul-searching kind of garbage when you get back. The worst monsters are the ones that think they’re human.”
Jace didn’t need to think about anything. He knew. He already knew. Something was wrong with him. Something in his head had changed. He’d been over this. But he wasn’t some murder loving freak. Humans killing humans was awful. It was why he still felt so disgusted by what he did to the pilot of this MAC. Shooting that man was gross and unpleasant. Jace was quite self-satisfied by this answer. Yes, at least in this way, he was completely normal.
The only thing wrong with Jace, and he could admit this, was that he loved MACs too much.
But everyone needs a hobby.
No one calls a stamp collector mad because of their passion. It might be strange to some, but it’s acceptable.
Yes.
Jace was no different than a stamp collector. A hobbyist.
The way that these machines could tear each other apart. The way that they could lay waste to entire cities and bring them crumbling down. The way they made the air seem to shake and the ground rumble. The way they flew through the sky and the chemical cocktail that they spewed as they went. The way they looked. The way they felt. The way they spoke. The way they thought.
The way they killed each other.
Jace simply loved the metallic deities. The new gods of the battlefield.
Humans weren’t even part of the equation.
“So, I guess the long and short of it is that you decided to go on a rampage and waste our valuable resources on something we could have just handled with our own artillery and scouts. Damn, we’ve already burnt through more MACs than I was projecting for this operation. Hopefully we can salvage some of these wrecks.” Suddenly Ukko looked far more alert. He said the next part quietly, as if to himself, but Jace still managed to hear, “This kid’s insane… but why didn’t any of the others run?”
Jace, for just a moment, thought about bringing up the orders again, but he decided to hold it in. He was surely on thin ice with Ukko already. If Jace wanted any hope of continuing to pilot, he should just nod his head and agree.
“You said a woman gave you orders, right? What was her name? Position?”
“She didn’t say, she just gave orders to check for survivors that could give us intel on any extra bombs planted. It was on the full broadcast channel…” Jace was starting to get a bad feeling.
“No… no it wasn’t.” Jace started to apologize again, his head slammed back against the metal, but Ukko held up his hand and continued, “Shit… it actually isn’t your fault.” He started to inch his way back into the cockpit while letting his eye continue to scan the horizon, “Someone’s messing with us.”
“But it was the right frequency, I’m sure of it.”
Ukko started to mess with his own radio. After a few minutes he closed his cockpit and pointed at the sky. His voice came over the local comms directly to Jace’s MAC, “Look, in the sky. Something’s up there. Grab a rifle too.”
Jace wasn’t sure why Ukko didn’t just shoot it down himself if that’s what he wanted, but this was a chance to get back in his good graces. Jace grabbed a rifle from one of the other MACs that had made its way to the bunker and aimed at the sky. The camera on the weapon synced to Jace’s monitors.
There was a weather balloon floating above them. But a weather balloon wouldn’t be loaded down with so much equipment. Jace took the shot and zoomed in on the thing as it fell, trying to piece together what he was looking at.
Ukko was watching it too, “It’s outfitted with jammers, isn’t it?”
“Looks like it… but they’re not nearly high tech enough to cover this whole area, and it didn’t look like the power supply for that thing would have been very high. They didn’t even have solar panels on it for longer operational time.”
“They didn’t need it to last long and they didn’t need to cover the whole place.” Ukko rushed his way to the taller hills nearby and Jace followed, trying to keep up.
Ukko’s machine was far faster, so Jace couldn’t see what he was looking at when his voice came through, “Damn.”
As Jace boosted up the hill and saw the skyline, he understood the annoyance in Ukko’s voice.
The sky was covered in balloons of various shapes and sizes. They bobbed slowly along the path that Jace thought would have been home to the support unit for the artillery pieces he just destroyed. But it was just the balloons. Each one seemingly carrying a similar payload to the one he had just shot down. A familiar voice came through the comms, “Well well well, nice to see you again Traitor. Nice nickname by the way. I don’t suppose you managed to find those survivors, did you?”
“So you’re the one trying to kill off my soldiers. That was a clever little trick you pulled, I’ll give you that.” Ukko seemed to remain calm as he confronted the voice that must have been coming through all of their systems now.
“Little trick huh? I don’t know about that.” Her voice was extremely self-satisfied as she continued on, “Would a little trick manage to kill off eight of your MACs and that whole troop you sent to raid the bunker? A lot of corpses for a ‘little trick’ I’d say.”
“I want you to understand something,” Jace was amazed at the pure and unadulterated killing intent that Ukko managed to infuse into each word, “I’m going to kill you and all of your friends. I will slaughter each and every one of you and make you nothing more than one more example of what happens to those that resist The Stragglers. I didn’t come here to tame and assimilate; I came here to burn every last vestige of resistance between my client and the far shore. So prepare yourself, or don’t, it hardly matters now.”
“Very scary. You must be the great Ukko the Exterminator then. The guy who’s been going around torching all our neighbors and burning the forests and eating children. Dastardly things, or so I’ve heard.” The woman’s voice held a lot of pride. It was a strange change of pace. Most of the enemies Jace had a chance to communicate with were entirely focused on surviving day to day out here. Nearly all of them were only fighting out of a long-running fear of outsiders. Jace wondered if this woman might be one of those warlords that popped up when MACs were introduced out here. Jace’s heart suddenly rushed at the idea of a proper fight. The woman continued, “Go ahead then Ukko, come on over and put me down like an animal. I don’t think you’ll find it quite as easy though. I’ve become a pretty good pilot ever since that merc came and chopped all my limbs off.”
“You’re one of the warlords then? And with that story… The Hermit of the Redwood I’m guessing. You’re the one who single handedly killed off a merc company of twenty some MACs. Oh, sorry, ‘no handedly’ I guess.”
“Oh, you really know how to make a girl laugh. Yup, I guess that’s me, though I usually just call myself Cass. I suppose the title fits though, I’m a bit of a homebody. In fact, that’s part of the reason why I’m so interested in tearing you limb from limb. You see, I hate having to leave my home. And now, because of you and your gaggle of idiots, I’m being forced to get back in this evil, wretched machine. So, go ahead, follow the balloons and you’ll find me. I guess I could keep tricking my neighbors into killing you all off, but now that the cat’s out of the bag… well, might as well get things over with, right?”
“That’s wonderful. It’s almost like you’re threatening me. Hell, it’s almost like you think you could win. You see, too many of these little groups we’ve been facing have just been surrendering lately. No fun in that. But you won’t surrender, right?” Ukko seemed to stay in a bloodthirsty kind of state. The last proper fight they had was in the valley. All the battles from that point were just small encounters where either the twenty-meter-tall metal golems scared the locals into submission, or the enemy would fight tooth and nail with guerilla tactics. Ukko probably needed something like this, some sort of chance to clear his head after that battle in the valley. Ukko added on to his already clear threat, “And hey, even if you do surrender, when we rip you from your machine and put a gun to your head, we’ll make sure to remember just how much you wanted to fight.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Jace knew he had no place in this exchange. This was a conversation between two leaders. It simply didn’t concern him. All the little questions that were building in his head seemed worthless now. It wouldn’t have been too difficult for her to eavesdrop on the conversations during his three-day hunt of that MAC. She would have been sure to hear all the chatter referring to him as ‘Traitor’. She would have figured out more than enough to trick them the way she did.
Jace simply didn’t care.
In fact, Jace’s mind was focused on something else entirely:
This woman, this foul creature, referred to her MAC as ‘evil’ and ‘wretched’.
It made Jace’s blood boil. To think, a pilot of something as beautiful as these machines could debase them in such a way.
Jace shuddered as he thought about all the horrid things that woman might have said to her machine. The way she made it feel as she railed against it.
She had to die. It was simple really. It wasn’t as if Jace specifically wanted her to die. He already decided he had no interest in the human side of that conversation. Rather, his MAC was telling him loud and clear what had to happen. If Jace’s MAC wanted to kill, then Jace would kill.
Jace would give a proper send off to the enemy MAC. He would free it from that torturous owner and let it die a good death.
If his MAC wanted the woman dead in that process, Jace had no intention of getting in the way. Her life, when compared with the life of her MAC, was worthless.
He patted the controls and started on the path toward his new foe, following the balloons.
A small part of Jace, a part of Jace that he was keenly aware used to be bigger, was hoping that this battle would be his last. That he could free that MAC and manage to die in the process.
But, for some reason, Jace felt like he was just a little bit less interested in dying.
~~~
“Jace.”
“She’s part of the contract now, right? She’s a dangerous individual with a MAC, so she needs to be dealt with.”
Ukko was trying to think through the situation at hand. It’s not like Jace was wrong, this hermit needed to die. But…
Ukko looked around at his troops. Jace and two other pilots in machines that hardly looked fit for a fight.
Of course, Ukko could probably handle this whole situation himself. At the very least he could win at the cost of all three of their lives, but Ukko didn’t want to let his soldiers meet an end like that. He wouldn’t do that to them. Ukko wouldn’t lose any sleep if Jace died, but Guinevere said they still needed him for the finishing touches to the Trahir system.
A searing pain lanced through Ukko’s head. He tried not to think about it.
Unfortunately, there was just no denying it: Ukko wasn’t fit for combat. He had a feeling that if he tried to actually fight with this hermit, he would wind up dead.
Ukko didn’t want to die.
This was all because of what happened to her… if she didn’t die then Ukko would still have the object that made his regret clear.
Ukko had done terrible things. It wasn’t just the extermination missions or the cruel executions… it was those goddamn canisters. They stained him. If God existed, if there truly was an afterlife where Ukko would be judged, that was the sin he would be cast down for. He could make excuses for the other crimes, excuses that he himself could accept, but those… there was no excuse. His only chance at survival was that little girl. Guinevere said one more test, just one more test on Jace and the Trahir system will be in the final stages.
Ukko needed to live through this fight, but Jace needed to as well.
Could Ukko count on Jace to handle this fight and live through it?
It was hard to pin the man down anymore. Ukko didn’t have a clear read on what that man was thinking. It worried Ukko.
Could he call in reinforcements?
Truthfully… probably not. The Stragglers had been run ragged with this contract. He didn’t have many MAC pilots left. He didn’t have many MACs left either. With the time it would take to get the few troops he had left up to this position, this hermit could lay more traps and fortify her position further.
Did Ukko have to put his trust in Jace? There had to be some other way. Ukko wouldn’t lose now. He couldn’t. He was so close to-
“Ukko, I’m going. You can try to stop me if you need to, but this MAC needs to find peace. I won’t just leave it.”
Jace’s machine started to walk down the path that was marked out by those weather balloons up above. It was fairly clear terrain as far as the eye could see. Maybe some kind of farm land or ranch land.
The other two machines stood by at Ukko’s side.
The sun was coming down in the sky and it lined up perfectly with Jace’s machine, creating a strange golden halo around the battered beast as it continued to walk, leaving craters in the soft ground wherever it stepped.
Ukko felt pathetic as he realized he had no choice but to follow.
There was just nothing he could do. He couldn’t try to fight Jace. No matter who won that encounter, Ukko would lose in the end.
Ukko also had the feeling that Jace wouldn’t respond well to any orders at the moment.
The MAC needs to find peace? No sane individual would say something like that. Ukko always had a feeling that Jace’s mind had been crumbling ever since they took him on. But this… Ukko was starting to believe that Jace had finally snapped. Something in the man’s head was no longer in the right place.
All Ukko could do as they marched toward the setting sun was hope that this insane version of Jace could still pilot his MAC.
The hermit’s voice started to broadcast to them over and over.
At first, they would shoot down the nearby balloons and the voice would stop.
But never for long.
She would always come back, taunting them, chiding them, sometimes she wouldn’t even be talking to them. She would just go on and on as she talked to herself about any topic she could think of.
Ukko wanted to turn his comms system off, but then the team couldn’t communicate.
They were in a spread-out pattern, though seemingly always on the path of those balloons in the sky as they progressed across the never-ending farm ground.
Ukko wasn’t sure if the land had been abandoned or if all the crops had already been harvested, but they were mostly just walking on soft soil that seemed to grab at the feet of the MACs with every step.
Her incessant voice wouldn’t stop, and the land wouldn’t stop.
Ukko’s head hurt.
With each and every step, another jolt of pain would squirm around inside of his body.
How much longer did he have? How many more steps? How many more minutes in this machine until he turned into a creature like that knight?
Or worse… how many more minutes until some demonic being reached out of the Earth and clasped onto Ukko. It would drag him down further and further.
Oh God, it wouldn’t stop. All the way down. All the way down. It would grow hotter and hotter until he couldn’t stand it. He wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut as he screamed and screamed. He would beg the monstrous thing to spare him or kill him or release him, but it wouldn’t listen. His screams would turn to nothingness as his body crumbled from the inside out, but no death would come. He would just be hung up on a pole down in some hellish landscape, forever subject to the little beasts that would gnaw at him. Their appetite would be insatiable, but they would never eat more than what Ukko would grow back. Forever. For all eternity. Ukko was trapped. Ukko was condemned. No. No! I raised her like my own! I saved her from it all! She was healthy and happy and… and she would have been able to grow up normal if I just had more time! Those canisters had to be filled with something, they had to! If they weren’t, then I would have died! What would have happened to the girl then? She needed me! I was saving her! I atoned damn you! You can’t just ignore that!
A metallic clank ripped Ukko from his sweat drenched vision. Ukko panicked as he grasped at the controls that suddenly seemed to feel so foreign. What could he touch? What could he do that wouldn’t drain his life away? He needed to escape this metal grip and save himself, he needed to-
“Ukko, if you don’t hurry up and move, we’ll both sink in this muck.”
It was Jace’s voice. Ukko’s chest was heaving, and his heart was beating so fast he thought he might actually die. Done in by a heart attack? He wasn’t ready. He grabbed onto the controls and tried to move his machine.
For some reason, it was slow to respond. It was slow to move. It was clunky and weighted down. Ukko felt so out of place in his own MAC. It felt like he didn’t belong.
Slowly but surely, Jace managed to drag Ukko from the swampy land. Ukko had mostly tuned out the hermit woman, but her voice derided him endlessly, “You can’t be serious Mr. Exterminator? Are you honestly about to be done in by some dirt? Oh that’s rich, I’ll be sure to tell the locals how much better their trap was then mine, and to think they didn’t even put any thought into it!” She laughed and laughed and laughed as Ukko tried to regain his senses. The Earth let him go, but being dragged down like that was his fate as long as the girl remained dead. Until she was brought back, Ukko would always be one step away from that potential hell. “You know, it’s almost amazing how many you’ve killed and yet here you are falling into mud puddles and nearly drowning yourself. It’s actually pissing me off a bit.”
“Ukko, we need to move.”
Jace was completely uninterested in what had just happened to Ukko. Why would Ukko expect any different. There wasn’t a single human being here that would understand him. The Vice Admiral… she would have worried over him. She would have reprimanded him for losing focus. Ukko was so tired… so tired.
He struggled with his MAC to even get it standing. The gears ground and the pistons sounded filthy as the machine placed one foot in front of the other, walking into the sun that was now nearly set.
“We’re almost there now. You’re going through a lot of pain, aren’t you?”
“Pain? No, I’m not hurt. I’m, I’m fine. Let’s just keep moving.”
Jace’s voice came across entirely confused, “I uh, I wouldn’t know Admiral. I can’t exactly tell if people are in pain just because they exist around me. That’d be crazy.” He chuckled slightly, seemingly at the absurdity, “No, it’s the MAC. Her MAC is tired of being piloted by an uncaring beast.”
Ukko didn’t respond. But the hermit did, “Ho-ly shit, that’s amazing. Hey, hey exterminator, your subordinate is actually insane, isn’t he? And you let that guy in a literal weapon of war? Oh I am definitely recording this. Welp, guess I’m going to have to save the world from your little psychopath before he starts getting into some wacky shenanigans like murdering people because a toaster told him to.”
“Say what you want, I don’t care. I’m going to let your MAC have a good rest.” Jace said the words that oozed with a caring aura. Ukko was almost starting to fear the man. Something was truly horribly broken in his head. “You’ll have to die, of course. It’s the only way to let your MAC be free. Don’t worry, your MAC doesn’t mind.”
Ukko brought his hands to his temples. This was getting to be too much. He wanted to go back. The Vice Admiral and him never dealt with this kind of crap. They just lived the life of mercenaries on the road. There wasn’t any insanity. There wasn’t any pain that threatened to make Ukko black out on the spot.
Once the Vice Admiral was back, he would leave. He would leave all of this with her. The Alley won’t be able to find them if they run far enough south. He’ll find another way to make money. She’ll be able to go to school and make friends. Ukko will be like a grandfather. And, when he dies and she cries for him, he’ll be sure to escape the grasp of those demons. If God existed, he would have to care, right? The sort of man a little girl cries for can’t be that bad, right?
He pressed on his temples.
Something went wrong.
His left finger sunk deep. Too deep.
It hurt.
Ukko ripped his hand away and cautiously patted around the left side of his head. Jace and the hermit were still going back and forth. Ukko couldn’t make any of it out though.
His skin was sagging all over the left side of his head. No matter where he poked, it was soft. Ukko tried to hold in his horror. His skull had broken apart in his head.
Where the hell did it go? Where did all that bone go? Ukko kept bringing his fingers up to his head only to jerk them away. He didn’t want to know the extent of the damage. He didn’t want to accept that any of this was happening.
Maybe he was just delirious? After that nightmare in the muck, it would make sense that Ukko still couldn’t think straight. Yes. That must be it. There was no way his skull would just… melt like that.
He kept his hands far away from the controls of his MAC. Something inside of him was screaming to stop. One more movement might just be his last.
Another voice inside of him was screaming at him for different reasons. The voice sounded so foreign, like nothing he had ever heard before. The voice derided him as a coward. As worthless. As a pathetic excuse for a comrade… a pilot. Ukko stared at the insides of the cockpit, “Hello?”