As the red dots disappeared, the shaking and crumbling of their building slowed.
Lionel felt safe, at least for now. But what did safety buy him?
He couldn’t do a thing. No new weapon or invention could possibly save him from this fate. Lionel was sure the enemy’s main force would come charging in soon enough. Then the butchering would start. Lionel could only sit and stare, hoping an epiphany would come to him. Some sort of realization that would save his life.
He stared at the screen, desperately trying to understand why the enemy was waiting around. The amount of destroyed MACs piled up by Callista and Jace wasn’t exactly small. Any country would start panicking after the loss of even a few.
No matter how Lionel thought about it, he couldn’t understand it.
At this point their only two MAC pilots were running on fumes. Jace’s machine was inoperable. He never even used the new system. Callista was off in the ruins, using her precious energy to dig up shelters that were probably already nothing more than mass graves. Lionel wondered why the hell that woman didn’t come back here and at least try to protect the ones that were paying her.
Lionel didn’t want to die, especially not at the hands of The Alley. There were not worse ways to go.
He struggled with his back and legs as he sat on the floor next to a nearly broken Guinevere, “Do you think Solace is still standing? I’m starting to worry that I’ll end up dying sober.”
It wasn’t really a joke. Lionel desperately wished to obliterate his mind before being drawn and quartered, or whatever The Alley does, but Guinevere responded in the hollow voice of one who has lost their spark, “Do we… do we deserve this?”
Lionel, to be frank, believed he deserved a great many things. Death was not one of them, “Guinevere, if there was retribution and divine punishment in this world weapon developers wouldn’t be so rich.” Lionel wanted to say he deserved quite a lot. He’d accomplished so many great things in his life, so many advancements, but when faced with reality he could only say, “We deserve nothing, and so anything can happen.” He looked at his hand and thought he should ball it into a fist, but to throw a tantrum at this point would be in poor taste, “We just happened to stumble upon a bit of bad luck, that’s all.”
Guinevere tucked her head tightly between her knees. She didn’t cry, but Lionel had been alive long enough to know a broken person when he saw one. She would be worthless now. It was a shame, really, she was quite talented. “Lionel,” she uttered with her head buried, muffling the sound, “we’ve been friends for a long time now.” Lionel had an awful feeling growing inside him. The feeling of knowing you shouldn’t have started a conversation with someone. And those three wondered why he secluded himself in his office, “Would you… would you kill me if I asked nicely?”
“No.” Lionel’s response was immediate. Killing was something… something for others to do. Lionel had a familiar fear trying to burst out. The fear that everyone who’s gotten too old ends up with. He wanted nothing to do with death, not directly at least.
“Please?” Her voice was so small. Lionel, in all honesty, was surprised her heart didn’t outright stop from the horrid thoughts that must be festering in her head.
“Guinevere, it won’t change a thing. You just have to-”
“Don’t you understand!” Her head was now raised and her voice filled with a boiled over anger, “They’ll find that machine. They’ll know what it can do. I’ll be chained up and tortured while they force me to make these killing machines!” Her voice, usually so calm, was beginning to go raw. She had that scraping sound you hear out of drill instructors after a long day, “If only,” She was really screaming now, “if only I had a damned cliff!”
Lionel knew there was something more beneath the surface of that comment, but it wasn’t his place. Her point was a good one, but Lionel was of the opinion that being forced to work on MACs was better than being summarily executed by boorish soldiers. He had a feeling, given his own disposition, they would make his death especially degrading. Lionel shook his head and left the screaming, and now truly crying, Guinevere. He had nothing to say to her. She’ll realize soon enough that she will have a better chance at changing the world while she’s alive. Martyrs are rare; most deaths are just meaningless.
He wandered back toward the main console, one of the few that was still working. He passed plenty of mechanics and technical advisors, most of which were in varying states of horror and suffering. Crying for their families or muttering about how it was all so unfair.
Lionel sat down at the console, mostly just to ignore his surroundings, but one of the green dots on the screen caught his attention. Callista was moving outside the city limits.
Toward the main enemy force.
After a bit of tuning, Lionel was able to patch into the open frequency. The wiring and towers set up for any of Atlantis’ private lines were completely trashed, but the satellites that provided the open frequency still worked well enough. The issue, of course, was that the enemy would be listening, “Callista, come in.” Lionel paused for a few moments trying to think of a good way to ask her what the hell she was doing without giving the enemy too much information. The best he could come up with on the fly was to say, “Are you able to return to base?” This way he would at least know the status of her MAC.
After a long and oddly vexing length of silence Callista responded, “The enemy wants to meet up. I was hoping you got their message as well.”
Lionel was in no way an athletic man, but he was in a jeep and speeding toward Callista faster than one would expect given his age.
A parley, Lionel thought, why on Earth would they want a parley with us? They could crush us in an instant if they committed the forces they have. Hell, even if they just kept shelling the city they would win this fight. The only secret weapon Atlantis had was now an immobile pile of scrap metal. Surely they knew that one of the city’s two MACs were now totally destroyed.
Lionel drove as fast as he could, sparing no time to mourn the smoldering ruins of the once great city. The cries of the injured and dying couldn’t stop him either. He was a man on a mission: a mission of self-preservation.
He wasn’t exactly the best at negotiations, but surely he could save his own life. After all, he was a large enough help on the new system to tie his life to Guinevere’s. Yes, he could become an engineer for The Alley and live happily ever after. Well, as long as the stupid girl doesn’t decide to kill herself before this is all said and done.
Oh God, Lionel fervently prayed, keep her alive a while longer.
The busted-up city was difficult to navigate. Massive shards of glass from skyscrapers skewered the ground. Metal I-beams stuck out like haphazard grave markers. Slabs of concrete made roads entirely impassable.
Lionel drove under a sure-to-collapse skyscraper that was leaning up against another, forming a canopy over the road. He covered his mouth and nose as he sped through a cloud of gas that was wafting from some buried and broken MAC.
He forged onward, making his way toward the city limits.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take long to catch up to Callista. Her machine was nearly out of power; practically dragging its feet through the barren desert landscape that surrounded the city.
The loudspeakers of the machine greeted him in Callista’s lifeless tone, “Lionel? Good. I don’t think I’m suited to negotiations.”
Lionel had no doubts about that.
There was a dust cloud rising before them. Some odd amount of enemy MACs were coming to greet them out here.
Lionel brought his car to a stop and signaled Callista to do the same. Her MAC kneeled down and her cockpit hinged open. All around the machine the heat distorted its surroundings like a mirage. Lionel realized the machine was totaled. In that condition it probably couldn’t even return to the city without some serious work.
Part of Lionel was angered that it had been brought to such a state by serving as a makeshift excavator. But he had more important things to worry about.
Three enemy MACs stopped frighteningly close to them. Their own cockpits remained shut.
Lionel was nearly brought to tears looking at the metallic deities. Each one was pristine. The paint was unchipped and the metal showed no signs of rusting. Their weaponry consisted of enormous cannons, house sized rocket batteries, and handheld guns that looked a good decade ahead of what Lionel had been forced to work with. Each one had its own color: bronze, silver, and gold.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The bronze monster had intricate carvings worked into it. Bulls and bears and griffons and beasts Lionel couldn’t put a name to adorned each and every inch. Every one of them was in endless battle with the other. The armor flowed like a never-ending tapestry of animalistic warfare. It was a slim and agile-looking machine. Reverse jointed legs matched the images of Satyrs that pranced around the scenes of combat, painting an image of merriment in all the death and destruction. It had a long rack of missiles from shoulder to shoulder. The arms came down normally until the elbow joint. Instead of a normal forearm and hand the machine had a large gear with a small arsenal of shortened weapons it could switch between. The waist had a box hanging off the back. Wires sprouted from the box and connected into the core at six points: three on each side. All the machines shared this last feature.
The silver MAC had no special designs. A heavily armored upper body sat on top of a comically large tank hull. The treaded machine looked more like a mobile fortress. Lionel was curious about the efficacy of such a design. Mobility was one of the main selling points for these new beasts of the battlefield. However, the double-stacked gun emplacements that protruded off both sides of the core looked threatening enough to warrant the machine’s existence. Three barrels per emplacement, each longer than the machine itself. Strings of flags, the kinds you would usually see a ship flying, were strung between each barrel and whipped around in the wind. The head looked more like a radio tower than anything else. Although the cannons were more than impressive, far more than a normal MAC could carry, the real attention getters for Lionel were the towering thrusters that were housed on the sides of the tank-like bottom. They were bigger than any he’d ever seen and made him question his previous idea that the monster might be slow. Lionel desperately wanted to see the stats of this thing.
The final MAC was brilliantly golden and almost blinding in the desert landscape. This MAC had a far more familiar design. It was mostly humanoid and seemed to be the standard size. It had a large sword hinged onto one arm, but the main armament was a sort of sniper cannon that it held in both hands. This was a weapon Lionel wanted to get his hands on. It had no magazine. Instead, a series of pipes and wires ran from the weapon to that box on the waist that appeared on each machine. It was likely a sort of laser weapon, but it looked far superior to the prototypes Lionel and Guinevere had been working with. The armor was mostly rounded and smooth. It had a futuristic feel that meshed easily with the slightly medieval aesthetic. The head was topped with a statue of some winged beast, though Lionel couldn’t see it that well considering how high up it was. Two large, finned boosters were attached to the back and had a blue glow while they were active. A ridiculously sized tabard with a strange insignia was draped over the shoulders and reached down to the knees of the machine.
The insignia, Lionel quickly realized, was not The Alley’s.
A loud voice boomed from the bronze unit and announced the frequency they would be tuned to. Lionel quickly adjusted his settings and put on the headset.
“Welcome venerable warriors. We applaud your ability to survive through our onslaught. Indeed, such prowess should be rewarded with-”
“You…” Callista decided to interrupt the monologue, immediately making Lionel’s heart drop. Surely she knows better than to interrupt the people that are possibly deciding whether or not to spare them?
“Ah, yes, I believe you were the individual who responded to our call of-”
“Please, someone else talk.” The amount of pure disdain Callisata packed into that simple sentence was quite impressive. Lionel knew it made sense. A person like Callista and a person who talked like that would have a very hard time getting along. If this was a casual get-together Lionel wouldn’t care, but when they were essentially here to beg for their lives…
Lionel was very very worried that he was about to be turned into some sort of puddle or pile of human remains. Callista said she would be bad at this sort of thing, but this was beyond what Lionel expected. It is in no way smart to antagonize the people that could flatten their city in an instant.
Lionel was about to force his own way into the conversation. He wasn’t exactly a fan of public speaking, but he was surely better than Callista.
Before he could get a word in, a new voice came through his radio, “Ah, sorry about him. He’s a bit… uh, particular about how he talks. Very… professional. Don’t worry Alexi, this is just a little meet and greet. You’ll be in charge of the real negotiations. You know, when there’s a bunch of cameras and fancy tables and what not.”
“Please don’t placate me Ukko, it only insults my intelligence.”
“Of course, but the real negotiations will need someone of your caliber, so let me handle this little parley, alright?” Ukko’s voice was clearly old and haggard. Lionel suspected this man might be even older than him. Older MAC pilots were a rarity among rarities. Usually older brains have a harder time being toyed with, so younger pilots have the upper hand of stuffing themselves with more augments. Lionel tried his best to think up ways he might be able to use this information to, hopefully, save his life.
The man, Alexi, obviously wasn’t very happy about being interrupted, insulted, and then patronized, but he respected Ukko’s request.
Lionel coughed a few times, hoping to get that incessant old-man flem out.
It didn’t work and his voice came across a bit grotesque, “Ah, Ukko then? I’m Lionel. I’m actually a lead researcher on our MACs here and-” Lionel coughed quite violently, whether it was because he was lying or because of the wad of viscous fluid in his throat, he wasn’t sure, “Sorry, must be the smoke. At any rate, I would be glad to handle the negotiations for Atlantis.”
“Great, I imagine you’ll do as well as anyone. Between you and me, we don’t usually involve ourselves in the whole ‘negotiation’ bit. See, our employers, The Alley, they want us to raze this patch of ground. Can’t quite remember why, but they were pretty specific about what they wanted done to, well, to all of the living folks here. They were looking to recolonize or build something or make a new weapon test site. It doesn’t matter.”
A new voice broke in, sounding like it belonged to a cheerful little girl happy to be home from school. Lionel felt an odd sense of horror as he looked at the three magnificent machines and realized one of his executioners may well be a child. He also felt an odd sense of admiration. Using children in MACs was against a plethora of treaties, but it was rumored to be very effective with the right augmentations. The little girl, with a voice that was all cheer and smiles, said “Heya Admiral, that thing you said you didn’t want to happen is happening. Should I go get things ready?”
There was a bit of a pause. Lionel was starting to wonder if they were about to be vaporized when he realized they were probably talking through their own private channels.
The sun was steadily falling behind them, turning the burning and smoke-consumed city an even gorier shade of red. Callista was standing far above him on the hinged-open cockpit. She stood facing the three machines, not sparing a single glance for the smoldering city behind her.
Lionel wondered how attached she might have been to that city. He always knew she was more emotional than she let on. After all, he was one of the few individuals that had seen her credentials. He’d seen the things she’d done. The things she was a part of. Guinevere and Jace may have always seen her as the strong and silent type, but in reality she was an emotional cripple. It’s why she couldn’t pilot the new MAC. It’s why she can’t get more augmentations. It’s why Lionel was worried about having her here.
Lionel was more than happy to let that city die as long as he could live. That was how normal people should think. Self-preservation, that’s what’s important.
If her machine wasn’t trashed, he would have ordered her back to the city. As much as he hated seeing a MAC used to dig up dirt and corpses, he much preferred that to risking her saying something that gets them both turned to paste.
Lionel didn’t like the idea of dying in a desert.
Not at all.
The voice, Ukko’s, started to speak again, “Sorry about that, just some logistics. Picking up where I left off probably doesn’t matter. Hell, I can’t be expected to remember anyway.” He laughed in the sort of way superiors laugh in front of people whose jobs may well depend on laughing along. Well, considering he’s a mercenary, it may actually be a death sentence not to laugh along with this guy, “So here’s the deal. We were thinking of using this opportunity as a bit of a strike. The Alley hasn’t agreed to any of our contract fees lately. Cheapskates always low ball us. So, since you killed all their regulars in our assault force, we were going to use that and the city as leverage. So what do you say? Let us in until the negotiations are over?”
“What about me?”
“What about the city?”
Lionel and Callista’s voices nearly overlapped. One of utter desperation and the other a bit too cold and empty.
The voice that responded was just as jovial as he’d been this whole time, which made the words sting all the deeper, “Well, who knows right? Hate to say it, but this is really more of a formality. If The Alley’s scouts report us talking it’ll be good for our negotiations. Honestly, all this trouble for a pay bump. Almost makes me miss the union days.” That same laugh barked through Lionel and Callista’s radios.
Lionel started to speak again. There had to be a way to convince them he was worthwhile. What did mercenaries need? What could he give them? God, Lionel didn’t want to die in a desert.
The three MACs started to vent off gases and get their engines back to an operating level. The dust storm they kicked up nearly blinded Lionel in his car. He slammed on the gas and backed away as quickly as possible from the machine-made sandstorm and the possibility of being burnt to a crisp by their thrusters.
Maybe… maybe if he could get to Jace. If Lionel could show them the system then maybe-
A lime-green beam of light burrowed a hole through the dust cloud. There was a white flash followed by an orange and red glow. The bronze MAC. The beautifully worked metal full of intricate scenes out of a storybook suddenly had a smoking hole in the middle. It lumbered forward a few steps, the reverse jointed legs managing to keep it upright, but its fate was already sealed. The molten glow was too close to the missile racks on its back and the pilot was more than likely dead. There was no stopping it now.
The explosion was large and then larger. The wave of heat and the following shockwave had Lionel screaming in pain. But the next explosion was bigger still. Whatever was left of the core had gone critical.
Lionel’s jeep was thrown back a hundred meters. Only by dumb luck did the roll cage save him, and luck more stupid than that saved him from the ensuing blaze. The reinforced bottom of the jeep was facing the explosion, shielding Lionel from the worst of the disaster.
Callista’s voice came piece meal through Lionel’s sparking radio, “My city… you all… die.”
Lionel didn’t need to see the battle. He huddled behind his jeep and waited. Callista’s machine was nearly unusable when she showed up. After that shot, she was probably completely out of power.
Another explosive wave washed over Lionel’s jeep.
That woman really wasn’t suited to negotiations.