Bioforms 0/0 aka, biomass used vs biomass available
Powered Armor 0/0 aka occupied and functional human equipment vs total equipment
Lost Machina Artefacts 0/0 aka functional and armed protochronian technology vs total protochronian artefacts
I peek over the lip of my rudy trench, inhaling boiling air from my suit’s rebreather. Of course those last shots hit my air supply too. My HUD adjusts the amount of life support left, numbers spinning as four autocannons pivot towards my groin.
“Got a leak here, lettin' out emergency air—better grab a top-up, mate, quick as ya can!” Says the suit in its distinctly incorrect Australian accent.
Of course it had to be an aussie. Getting reminded about those two assholes is the last thing I need right now.
*click click click* echoes through the trench as firing pins slam against empty champers. Long since dry of bullets.
“Can it you stupid bot. Can’t you tell the pilot’s already dead?” I snap, giving its servoes a power-armor enhanced kick.
Steel snaps under my boot, hydraulic fluid sprays across the groin and stomach of my armor, as if the dead pilot’s soul lingers, wishing to mock his murderer. I glance down at the cyborg, was the pilot even male? Impossible to guess after the augmentations they’d undergone to become a Juggernaut assault mech. Bile rises in my throat at the thought of being cut apart and fused into the warmachine. Limbs severed, replaced by cannons, missile launchers, or treads. Absolutely disgusting.
My helmet chirps at me, automatically opening the channel to my ‘squadmate’.
“Pawlo? Awre you awight?” Asks a lisping voice too young to be on the battlefield.
Especially this battlefield.
“I’m fine,” I wince, trying not to let the pain show. “Suit is buggered. Ah, can you check that bunker for a spare?” I manage to say, struggling to keep my voice even as I duck beneath the edge and face my only remaining ally. She’s picking her way through the trench, heading towards a tunnel entrance. It's some kind of ammo depot or bunker. The girl’s suit is identical to mine, eight feet tall, made from layers of composite armor to deflect multiple hits from any angle.
Even after hours in that suit, it still surprises me that she can move it at all. Given her handicap of being three and a half feet tall. We really should have used something other than artillery shells as stilts, they’re too rigid. Seems like they’re tripping the suit’s crush limiters. All the pesky little bits of software that keep the powered armor from actuating limbs beyond what is humanly possible. Without those nannies the hydraulics and servoes would hyperextend every joint until the limbs came free. Yikes. Getting bent into space slime is quite low on my list of priorities. Another warning light flashes in my HUD, this time for radiation poisoning. I’ve exceeded a month’s threshold. Cancer is almost guaranteed now, my only hope is to seal the bulletholes in my armor or acquire a new suit.
Logic whispers an answer to my problems. I’m the one fighting for us, it’s only right for me to take the working armor. Forget that Kerrigan would last whole minutes in my busted suit before it cooked her alive. Disgust overloads me, hating that I even considered the thought!
“Otay Pawlo.” Is Kerrigan’s response, oblivious to my vile machinations.
Nausea hits me harder than bullets. A one two combo with her innocence that hammers my ribs. She trusts me completely, if I asked she would not hesitate to swap suits. Might even ask if the air was supposed to burn as she handed me the only good rebreather.
A tear rolls down my cheek. No, This is my battlefield, I won’t lose myself. Not like I did back on Earth. Kerrigan is my ally, we will live or die together. They might have taken Earth away from us, but we’re still human! A blind scanner ping ripples through the trench, bouncing off our armors before the alert appears in my helmet. Too late for countermeasures. The source must be close. In seconds those radio waves will tell someone exactly where we are. Probably enter us into their network of targeting computers and send an artillery shell at our predicted locations.
“Kerrigan! Run!” I shout, checking the rounds in my flechette pistol.
But I already know the answer. The pistol’s electronic readout displays 0/100.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Kerrigan’s shuffle turns into a frantic straight-legged waddle, flailing as the suit compensates for a kid pilot. I don’t want the last thing she hears to be my shouting. It’s not like anyone gave her a choice of being here. So I activate the com once more.
“Thanks Kerrigan. Be quick now.” I gasp, doing my best to keep the pain to myself. No reason to make a child half my age worry about bullet wounds. Besides, I already rubbed some dirt into them, nothing more I can do now.
My armor, slick with hydraulic fluid slips off the Juggernaut, sending me cartwheeling over autocannons and empty missile racks. Their dry clicking chases me into the mud twenty feet below. Suit dampeners cushion the blow, sending fire through the bullet holes in my side and shoulder.
I need to get into the bunker before artillery or some curious little killbot shows up. The battlefield above the trenches is entering a lul, most factions seem to be realizing someone sabotaged their power cells and are struggling to find replacements that don’t overload their circuits. Courtesy of yours truly. A fact only the Novan Technomancy of Steel is aware of.
I think.
I really hope so…
Which is why I’m hiding on what I thought was their last soldier, praying the next Technomancer wave won’t come, or will be another bulletless Juggernaut. Anything more than an unsuspecting soft dick will be the death of me. Flashing lights warn of my left reactor overheating, going super critical. Normally I could shunt spare coolant from my right to even out the load, but it’s nonfunctional from the five autocannon bullets lodged inside. Minutes of air left, enemies incoming, and busted armor.
Sorry Kerrigan, this is as far as I go.
My hud blinks red.
A new warning appears.
“Oi, big one’s on the way—grab your dingo an’ kiss that bitch goodbye!” Says the suit.
“Of every accent in the universe, why did it have to be Australian!”
The sounds of screaming artillery shells and laser fire cease abruptly as the few survivors of this pocket war receive the same warning. Except the Tulvarians who continue their war-hooting. For spacefaring iguanas I would have expected more intelligence from them, or at least vocalizations that are distinguishable from a dozen bovines in heat.
A thin line of black appears in the atmosphere above me. No reading on the HUD means the missile is out of my suit’s scanner range, yet visible. An infantryman’s way of saying ‘InterContinental Ballistic Missile’. I swallow, trying to work spit back into my mouth. The missile is falling straight down, plummeting on an angle of attack that is close to ninety degrees, indicating an orbital launch. Probably one of the warships who are here on ‘observational’ duties.
“Please don’t be a Technomancy bombardment.” I whisper.
I value my own hide quite highly, it’s the best one if I can be allowed to say so. Yes, that’s not saying a whole lot considering I've only had two bodies, but still! Orbital annihilation is low on my list of preferred deaths. For an instant I’m conflicted, death by ICBM would be significantly faster than cancer…
My head shakes before I can finish the thought. No, I can’t convince myself to die. Doesn’t matter how quick or painless it might be, I am going to survive. So is Kerrigan. We will make it back to Earth. Even if I have to stack bodies all the way to space and commandeer a dropship.
Energy batteries whine, thrumming to life for several horrible seconds. Each instant bringing the missile deeper into our atmosphere. A dozen lasers illuminate the sky. Nine go wide, vanishing into the darkness of space at .9C. Effectively the speed of light. Three beams score direct hits, one on the nose and two center mass. I smile, knowing a single laser is enough to destroy the missile. Orbital bombardments via missiles are ineffective because they’re too easy to shoot down. Its a strategic error on whatever captain thought one missile would hit me. A blue sphere glows softly around the missile deflecting all hits, little more than the blink of death.
The missile, dropped from orbit, is shielded.
No one puts shielding on an average missile. It can only be one thing. Someone broke the rules and decided to flip the table. Win the war by erasing everyone, including themselves. Galactic sanctions would be imposed, a small comfort to my soon-to-be vaporized body.
Light illuminates space, a hundred salvoes impact a single ship. Looks like those nameless cunts just gave permission and every faction shot them down. This planet really is valuable to the galaxy. Unlike Earth.
Cunts? Great, the suit’s got me speaking Australian. Just what I need. Damn, two lives and I couldn’t get laid in either one. Life’s just not fair. With my luck I’ll get reincarnated into a box jellyfish and spend eternity eating aussie asses.
A nuclear flash illuminates my world. Colored electric green by the instant sun over me, tattling on the treaty breaker. Why would the Technomancy drop a nuke on little ole me? They'd broken the only rule -tenuous as it might be- during this battle royale. More confusing still, they relied upon the solarium mines native to this world more than any other faction! Why poison the well? Now the nuclear radiation would be absorbed into the mines, irradiating anything that attempted to harvest them for the next millenia, if not two. Worse, the solarium would operate at one tenth efficiency until the radioactive particulates worked themselves out of the crystalline lattice, a galaxy spanning death knell.
My faceplate glass polarizes to a hard mirror finish, deflecting nuclear light for all its worth. I’m too close. Soon the shockwave will hit. Motors whine, slamming the opaque “Hazardous Environmental Litigating Protections” over my faceplate. The HELP system is designed to ricochet bullets and horny exes, like a steel shutter slamming closed. The highest level of protection possible for an armored trooper.
I sigh, surprised to still be alive.
“NUCLEAR DETONATION DETECTED!”
“FIND COVER YA CUNTS!”
“Yeah yeah, thanks a lot. Never would have seen that without you.” I say, chinning the faceplate to silence the alarm.
All goes white.