Even after two hours of bloodshed, Sapland Airbase was still not yet conquered. The skies above, so blue and free of mankind before, was now a chaotic maze of vapour trails, smoke clouds and supersonic metal. Merah helicopters now circled the place, dropping men and occasionally having their gunners take potshots at exposed targets. From their elevation, not only could they see more and more of their forces streaming in from the riverside, but also the remains of more than a dozen souls clumping up the tarmac. Their response, behind their flight helmets, was of indifference and complaint that their landing zones were occupied by the dead.
For the Coalition forces here, victory was an impossible dream. Sending a signal back to the capitol was impossible, as their mix of obsolete and updated equipment had been utterly smashed by the invaders. It would be days before their country realised that war had finally come as they had feared. Those left alive, however, refused to surrender.
There were still cases of sporadic gunfire from the airbase, their sounds all the more prominent with the dying battle. Soldiers shouting orders and screaming in pain accompanied this staccato with an uneasy melody. The cacophony made Dylus, who was heading off towards a particular source of potential violence instinctively, want to get in on the last bits of action, even if his limbs were all but telling him to sit back before he burned out.
Where most soldiers or mercenaries were worn out, shell-shocked or simply on the edge, Dylus found himself curiously unfazed by the sheer violence of today’s operation. Even hearing over the radio that some of his own men had perished in the fighting, men and women he had spent months bonding with, didn’t spark a light in his heart. There was no sense of need for mourning at all. All that was on his mind was the contract, the people he had to probably put down like sick dogs, and whether he could find time to nap under the sun. The more he thought about it, the more it started bugging him quietly.
Soft footfalls joined his own trodding. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was Yumiko. Her eyes were darting up and down his form behind frazzled hair, consciously mind-swiping her peer, and checking on his psyche. She did not waste time in bringing up her observations with her co-captain.
“I register apprehension, Captain.”
Dylus looked curiously at her.
“Is there any? I don’t feel anything for now.”
“There is,” Yumiko stalled, seeing if she could be more gentle about it. She couldn’t, “plenty of it. Will it be a hindrance?”
Sometimes, she was too focused on the mission for her own good as well.
“No. Does that answer make you happy?”
Yumiko’s eyebrows raised, “Happiness is irrelevant to this question. Your answer, however, doesn’t satisfy me.”
His mechanical arm pushed up on his forehead as a sign of dwindling patience.
“Nothing I say ever does, Yumi.”
“You talk as if you’ve known me my entire life,” said Yumiko. Her look towards Dylus was hidden behind closed eyes and a puff of air from her mask. What her tone betrayed to the mercenary was of her annoyance, something she made clear in her follow-up, “but you don’t.”
“I’ve known you for the part of your life that’s brought you to our doors.”
She nearly pulled out her boot knife, relenting when she realised a knee-jerk reaction was so thoroughly unprofessional that she might as well have been a thug with a bad attitude. There was no point in threatening the commander with violence; he’d only respond back with a smirk and an overpowering counter-attack. She relented.
“Fine. Leave it at that.”
The air between both of them was frosty all the way up to the entrance of the Coalition holdout- a canteen that had been overly fortified with smoking machine guns, sandbags and dead vehicles. There, a Merah commissar was setting up the breach into the building, holding aloft a megaphone connected to one of his subordinates’ own radio pack. One could tell his position from the exaggerated red lining that outlined the uniform, the peaked beret sitting on top and the sheathed sabre attached to his dark pants. Dylus and Yumiko approached the commissar, with the former coughing just as he was about to speak into the megaphone.
“Commissar?”
The man looked aside, staring at the skull cap first before looking at Dylus’s eyes. He spoke in a grandiose tone, somewhat irritating the mercenary’s ears, “Captain. I thought you would be guarding one of our captured positions with rapt and due diligence with the rest of your mercenaries.”
“Wouldn’t be fun if we only sat around watching you guys.”
“Finding ‘fun’ in all of this is a strange way of putting it, but I suppose that is how you mercenaries work. How many do you bring?”
Dylus looked behind, mentally counted and then returned to the commissar, “Ten, including me and my partner here.”
“Surely you could provide more? There are a dozen of us here already, it would make you redundant.”
“Yeah, I actually can do more,” Dylus nudged Yumiko, who was annoyed at the physical gesture. However, she immediately understood what he meant and walked forward, slightly passing the commissar’s position. Raising her hand, she screwed the cap of a container attached to her mask and took a deep breath. Her pupils twisted and turned into strange shapes for a brief second, her eyes taking the hue of deep magenta. Those soldiers standing around her felt a dangerous chill down their spines, causing them to stand further away. The commissar seemed displeased with the display of power, commenting quickly before she returned to normal.
“Keep your witch close to you, Captain. I do not want her disturbing my men outside of battle.”
Dylus scoffed and shrugged, “Don’t treat her like an animal, commissar, and maybe we can be friends for much longer.”
The commissar sneered out of sight, going back to tweaking his megaphone. Somewhere beyond where they stood, fighting had erupted somewhere distant on the airbase, resulting in a few contained explosions that ripped apart some unfortunate breachers. Yumiko’s trance ended, having seen shapes and sounds and heights of people, walking back silently towards Dylus whilst twisting the cap of the mask container closed. She completely disregarded the stares from all around her, especially from the suspicious commissar, and confided with Dylus privately.
“Twelve hostiles in the building. Evenly split between both floors. Mostly conventionally armed, but one of their signatures is much, much heavier and shielded. All of them intend to shoot upon us breaching and their bodies are flowing with combat drugs. They are completely unable to accept surrender and will fight to the death. The commissar intends to waste his time shouting an empty sermon to them as soon as you talk to him before ordering his men into a killzone.”
“He’s a commissar, what’d you expect?”
Yumiko stared at him again.
“The entrances here and to the rear are mined. The second an attempt to enter is made, we will lose several men.”
“So we need to make an entrance of our own. Correct?”
“An ideal scenario,” she nodded, “I doubt the commissar will allow his men to do so. Feel free to try.”
Dylus shrugged. He walked over to the commissar, who had only heard slivers of Yumiko’s scathing dialogue, and saw the man’s face twist into that of barely contained displeasure. Even without a mind swipe, Dylus knew immediately that his kind loathed working with mercenaries. Which patriot of the Regalia Merah wouldn’t, really? He ignored his expression and delivered his intel. Once he was done, prompt and snappy, the commissar spent some time mulling over his options. Dylus was warm with surprise, figuring that while the man would like to reduce loss of life where possible, he’d come up with some hairbrain scheme that’d screw up massively. The expression was kept on when the commissar figured out his tactics.
“Alright, Captain. Thank you for the intel-
“Thank her, not me.”
The commissar coughed.
“Thank you for pointing that out. General Harmeng would like some of the enemy soldiers in custody so we can get more intel out of their internal matters if possible. With her revelation, however, that might not be possible. I want you to task two separate breaching parties on the walls, east and north end. I’ll goad the holdout into thinking we’re playing into their trap. If they don’t comply, you blast those walls open and neutralise those men. Understood?”
Dylus nodded. He can get behind the logic.
“Good. I’ll have two chasseurs assigned as support for your teams, the rest will follow after. Act quickly, I will not wait for you.”
“Happy we can come to an agreement, sir.”
The commissar huffed, “Don’t test your luck, mercenary.”
Dylus spun, gesturing for the mercenaries to group up. He made the description of the commissar’s plan digestible within half a minute.
“Ears up, students. We’re going to make our own doors into that mess hall. Who’s got spare charges?”
He knew he was addressing some of Osman’s men. They were the ones that turned a few of the enemy’s ammo dumps into scorched craters. Sure enough, some had spares.
“Two teams. East and north ends. I’ll lead the east team, Yumiko’s got the west. Wait for the commissar to finish his speech, then we break and enter. Understood?”
All of them nodded, checking their rounds quietly. Dylus spent as little time assigning men to the two teams, hearing the rest of the Merah soldiers ready up for their own approach with uncertainty mixed alongside giddiness. Before he left Yumiko, he winked at her. She responded with rolled eyes and disappeared behind the crowd with her men. Wally, who had quietly listened in on the exchange, decided to throw his own comments in. As he wasn’t there physically- instead, in his own home tending to his own wounds- his voice instead came through Dylus’ headset.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“Would it kill you to be nicer to the lady? Hell, even a little more honest with her?”
“I was being honest. Told the commissar off too.”
“She can see through your bullshit, chum. Stop lying to yourself thinking that you can fool her- ow!”
“What, you mean the whole apprehension bit?”
Wally groaned, pulling out a bullet head from his shoulder, “Yes! Are you actually daft? She knows you’re the second-guesser kind of dude. If she’s calling you out on that in the middle of a warzone, don’t you think that’s a real problem?”
“First, your brief spiel about me using my powers, now it's her acting like my mum. We’re not even done with our first deployment, man, I’ll answer those questions later.”
“She’s not some rookie,” Wally’s stern voice couldn’t really be taken seriously given how high pitched his voice could be. Despite that, Dylus listened in, “and she’s not fresh out of the lab. Yumi’s got baggage and she’s still hurting after Ishimura. You keep acting like that part of her life is ‘one of those days’ for you, you’re gonna see her walk out of the company with her blade in your throat.”
“That’s her problem, not mine. Father’s got my back for that last bit.”
Dylus’ sudden apathy hit Wally like a brick.
“Eiten, dude. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I started a war for money. That’s what’s wrong, I guess.”
His team was now at the east end. The wall was of corrugated green, unpainted for a long time. It stunk to high hell even without the smell of corpses. Dylus motioned for the charge to be planted, taking the lead. His face remained grim. He knew he said something wrong. He wasn’t sure if he could take responsibility for it now, so focus was simply put on killing the rest of the holdout soldiers inside. Wally, disgusted with his friend, gave him one last spat of words before leaving him be.
“You ain’t home anymore, chum. Nobody’s going to wake you up here if you’re gonna keep pissing around like this.”
Those words made him temporarily unsettled. It wasn’t until the commissar was halfway through his speech that he snapped out of his thoughts. He listened to the speech carefully, mechanical hand handling his gun and the other passing hand signals to the breacher. The words the commissar spoke were pretty eloquent, Dylus admitted.
“I say again! This is your last chance to surrender, Coalition soldiers! There is no need for further bloodshed! Lay your weapons down, disarm any traps that you have and come out with your hands above your heads! We will treat you fairly-
Heh, that’s a load of bullshit coming out of a commissar. They’re going to be beaten into pulps for intel before sunset.
-and allow you to contact your families! If you surrender, we will spare any and all living relatives of yours and allow you the chance to integrate into our republic! Think of them, think of their safety-
There was a loud, guttural roar. It came not from a rumbling tank or a hidden walker. Dylus and the others could clearly tell it had come from a human gone berserk. The sound of someone mindlessly tearing out their lungs in blind, frothing rage irregardless of sanity. The echoes of a man who became the very monsters assailing mankind, trapped in its corner with no hope of survival save for a violent death.
Halfway through the roar, the mess hall shook violently. Dylus could only guess where the source was headed. His expectations were exceeded when the commissar shouted loudly.
“Open fire, open fire!”
Before he could find cover and join his men in their volley, the commissar’s body instantly disintegrated into a mess of bones, blood and fabric backwards from where he last stood. Bursting from the wall was a frenzied, exoskeleton-wearing Coalition soldier, his armour literally burning with temper from the mocking speech of the enemy outside their holdout. Those lucky enough to die from the explosive exit littered the floor, their bodies ravaged by concrete projectiles that broke their frail bodies. The ones who remained alive now faced down a juggernaut who began smashing every living thing in sight with a massive rocket-powered hammer. All the while, its operator was screaming unintelligible curses at the invaders. All of the mercenaries and their assigned chasseurs were horrified, save for Dylus and Yumiko.
“What the fuck?! They were hiding that?!”
Dylus gritted his teeth. He felt a surge of electricity immediately zip through his body.
“Abandon the charges, spread out and engage!”
All of them regained composure on his order. Spreading out, they opened fire on the exoskeleton soldier. They all but realised trying to save the Merah soldiers caught in its path was pointless, so they ended up shooting through them in engaging the target. The juggernaut was so hopped up on combat stimulants that bullets no longer seemed lethal. They became pinpricks, only making them angrier. Dylus watched in-between shots at the grisly display it created, hearing the sounds of gunfire emerging from the other soldiers in the holdout.
The whole area had been painted red, smelling even worse. He almost didn’t notice Yumiko ringing him. Dylus picked up as he reloaded another clip into his rifle.
“Captain, I believe that’s the source of the heavy pulse.”
“You think, Yumi?” Dylus heard someone scream halfway. They stopped with a bloody squelch, “I hope the rest of Harmeng’s boys heard this fucker. If not, then we’re fighting alongside the deaf!”
“I’m registering friendly pulses incoming from afar. A rapid response force from our employers.”
Dylus narrowly dodged a torso sailing his way. Someone’s entrails entered his mouth. It was a noxious taste that he spat out immediately. The mental estimations for their survival in his head was slim.
“They won’t make it in time. The commissar’s force will be down to zero in the next five seconds.”
The slam of the rocket hammer into the tarmac changed his guess.
“Make that right now. Can you lobo it?”
The mere suggestion made Yumiko both anxious and overloaded with frustration. Not being able to detect the presence of something this maddened meant she couldn’t do anything to its mind without harming herself.
“Negative, Captain. If I couldn’t pick up its presence properly, lobo is out of the question.”
Dylus noticed a Coalition soldier aiming at him. He shot, missed and took a bullet to his armour. The bullet was firmly lodged in it, but otherwise he only had the wind knocked out of him briefly. A snarl escaped him.
“Tuah damn it, can you give it a fucking shot? Before it fucks us all into the ground?!”
Now she was transforming that frustration into fury. It leaked out into the mercenaries next to her. As Yumiko answered, her mercenaries took on the offensive and rushed down the Coalition holdout.
“I will not, damn you! Not in this life!”
Dylus got back up on his feet. The few moments he spent on the earth before sailing into the air was registering the charging exoskeleton soldier. The mercenary screamed. His skull cap blew off his head. It was indestructible, but the same couldn’t be said of its wearer. Slamming into asphalt and grinding on dirt, it was easy to mistake his early death; he had tempted the Ferryman earlier on, so it only seemed fitting.
In reality, only one person had died from the slam; the Merah chasseur, who screamed his lungs out as his shotgun wildly fired at the madman. The juggernaut manically laughed as his powered hands clasped around the chasseur’s neck. There was nothing there a split second after, only the remains of a skull and its fleshy bits. Unsatisfied, it began smashing the dead body into bits.
Nobody’s going to wake you up here.
Dylus’ vision was a daze. His mouth was utterly dry, caked with bits of filthy mud. Then there were whispers in his ear. He knew it well, too well to call it a comfort. It only came when the lightning grew incensed, patient yet pompous. It encouraged- no, belittled- him into standing. The voice was old, far older than any voice he heard, and struggled with the idea of even sounding human.
Get up and fight.
He coughed. There was blood on his palm. Seeing that only made the mercenary try even harder. The electricity in his body coursed. This was his blessing and his curse. The other mercenaries possessed no such powers, leaving them struggling to even awaken from the impact. Dylus, on the other hand, felt the pain of his body forcefully fixing itself together.
When he rose, Dylus discovered that his tortured grunting had attracted a pair of Coalition soldiers. They rushed at him, their guns pointed towards him and their mouths shouting in foreign tongues to him. Even though he was weakened, the soldiers could feel something off about the mercenary. They stopped and opened fire at him, watching as their bullets tore through Dylus’ exposed skin. Yet no matter how much he bled, Dylus remained standing. The voice was offended at such a show and spoke.
Human inefficiency at its finest. Executing offenders.
When Dylus, or rather his body, started to move, the soldiers were in the midst of reloading. The one on the left looked up and screamed at the sight of a blood-stained mercenary rushing him down. Halfway through he stopped, for his throat and lungs had been messily carved out of his body by a blinding green swipe. The stomach followed suit, so did the rest of his lower half. The soldier fell dead in a pool of his own blood. The other one opened fire in panic.
When Dylus came to, having been ‘placed’ in a strange darkness by the voice, a wave of extreme fatigue drowned his mind. The only thing he registered was the smell of burning flesh and iron, alongside the sight of a body missing its arms and head. Then there was a rumbling. He looked up and only let out a weak whisper.
“Oh shit.”
The juggernaut had chosen him as its next target, roaring and charging at him. Dylus braced himself for the attack as best as he could, dearly hoping that this hostile voice came back to protect him. Unfortunately, there was no such reprieve. The juggernaut had him dead to rights. That was before Wally appeared from the skull.
Lacking his rocket launcher, he instead shot the juggernaut with a laser rifle. Its blinding light wasn’t enough to lethally hurt it, but it was enough to stagger the beast in its tracks and damage it. That was when it furiously changed course. Wally managed his own version of shock, flying backwards clumsily.
The third spin on this battle came in the form of whirling blades and empowering gas. Yumiko had come to deal with the juggernaut, freshly done from making a skewered mess out of a shotgunner. A distraction was all she needed to break their balance as it had become delirious from the laser shot. A spray of bullets from her guns misled it into attacking first, swinging wide and hitting nothing. Only the wind of the hammer’s velocity had touched Yumiko as she unsheathed the first of two blades. The edge carved straight through the belly armour, gutting the exo-soldier. The second came out even faster, both disarming the soldier and destroying the hilt of its rocket hammer. Igniting the fuel powering the weapon, her disembowelment of the helpless target had compounded with the brief flash of flames to create a hellish inferno that obscured her face and mask.
For all that the dying exo-soldier knew, there was a demon staring at him, ready to drag him below the Sun. With a slick motion of her arms, that was exactly what she did - without a head for the journey.
Both blades shut off and disappeared into their respective sheathes upon the body hitting the ground with a heavy thud. Unlike the other two, her breathing was as calm and composed as before. It betrayed a frightening feeling that only Dylus could see as she approached. All he could do was squeeze out a hoarse response of gratitude from his repairing throat, wobbling on his legs and clutching his mechanical arm.
“Mmm… thanks for the save, Yumi-san. I appreciate it”
She coldly stared at him.
“You are welcome.”
Dylus watched her walk away into the distance and bit his lips. His body chose this time to fully give out and he lay flat on the floor. The battle for the airbase was now over. It was time for a nap.