Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) (26 page)

The combat unit’s upside was an attractive one though: they carried more than five times the armor and three times the operational payload of the Moca.

The APU ceased to operate after only a couple of minutes, leaving him to wait patiently while their big brothers half a kilometer ahead continued to pressurize. He soon received another memo ordering renewed progression.

Toni was fortunate; his trajectory took him towards the source of the smoke. What he saw there, however, disappointed him greatly.

What was left of an open-box mining vehicle, not so different from something he’d expect to see on a farm, smoldered inside a deep crater, its front so heavily damaged any possible seat would have been crushed beyond recognition. It still carried part of its load of plantation seeds, the remainder of its cargo having been wastefully strewn over the ground. Pushing on, he came upon a second object thirty meters down, apparently the remains of a robotic arm, gouges on the ground nearby suggesting that it had been flung there from the wreck. Moments later he came upon another mining vehicle even more badly damaged than the first, its chassis having been mercilessly riddled by cannon fire.

There wasn’t the slightest suggestion of armament on or around the wrecks. Had they even belonged to the Unmils, or had the ASC patrol simply obliterated the first vehicles they came upon that didn’t wave a white flag on it? He heard a metallic sound behind him, turning quickly to find the lieutenant’s Suit holding the robotic arm in its gauntlet, inspecting it carefully. A text appeared on his display.

» HAVE YOU COME ACROSS ANY CORPSES OR BODY PARTS?

It was from the lieutenant.

» NEGATIVE.

» ANY WEAPONS?

» NEGATIVE.

» KEEP YOU EYES PEELED. COOLED DOWN YET?

» SORRY SIR. I LET HIM GET TO ME.

» NO SHIT. I COULD HEAR YOUR TEETH GRINDING OVER THE COMMS. KEEP YOUR COOL AND CARRY ON.

They pressed onwards, their progress occasionally punctuated by pauses for pressurization and observation. Toni’s eventually found himself moving through flat plantation land, finding only green, unripe seeds still hanging from their trees. Every couple of kilometers they came upon uncultivated islands of forest where floral species unknown to him abounded, dark and dense and sinister, and packed with troops of tail-less macaques, their red rumps contrasting starkly with their storm-grey coats. The islands exploded with avian confetti every time they set their turbines running, dismaying him as the flocks rose high enough to be visible for kilometers around.

It was morning, chronologically speaking, when LOGIS finally hit hilly terrain, the islands and plantations fast asleep except for the three kilometer wide swath of alarmed fauna in Main Force’s wake. Soon they would be sound asleep as the giants that had woken them disappeared into the forest.

He envied them for that.

“Execute order: Upper Limbs Autostride. Execute order: Deactivate Right Ocular.” Toni ordered his OS.

His right eye plunged into darkness and he lifted the flip-up display that covered it, stretching his arm out to feel his way along the interface cavity’s wall for the light switch. Finding an inset switch he turned it, remembering too late that it opened the hatch. The cavity’s interior was suddenly flooded with light as the hatch popped open, paralyzing the Suit’s right appendage as musky air poured in from the gaping hole. Cursing to himself, Toni used the daylight to find the light switch to his left, turning it before he tried to shut the hatch once more.

It failed to close.

Cursing again, he turned the hatch switch repeatedly, finding to his frustration that it wouldn’t budge more than an inch before returning to its open position. Too late his left eye saw a lowlying branch and collided against it, the deafening clang making him bite his own tongue as he struggled for his balance. Still Looking through his left eye, he realized he’d fallen behind and picked up his pace, finding it much harder to maneuver without binocular vision. With his right eye he searched the interface cavity’s interior, finding to his surprise and satisfaction that the collision had sealed the troublesome hatch. Hastily he removed a small pill from the pouch on his HINT and slipped it into his mouth, swallowing it dry. He regained stereoscopic vision to find a memo floating before his eyes.

» HOW MANY PILLS HAVE YOU TAKEN TODAY?

» FIRST ONE NOW, SIR. DID YOU NOTICE?

» EVERYONE DID. NEXT TIME KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE TREES. STILL GRINDING YOUR TEETH?

» NO SIR, NO TEETH GRINDING.

» GOOD. DONT FORGET TO KEEP AN EYE ON FOURTEEN AS WELL. DOESNT MATTER IF YOU HAVE TO GRIND YOUR TEETH TO DUST, ONCE WE RETURN ILL GET YOU NEW ONES. GET THE JOB DONE.

» YESSIR.

» YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT THE ASC LEFT FLANK HAS FOUND THE MISSING MINERS. THEYRE JUST BONES ON A FIELD NOW AND THEIR EQUIPMENTS MOSTLY ABSENT. DONT TELL HIRUM IF YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR JOB EASIER. DID YOU KNOW ROSA WAS ACQUAINTED WITH SOME OF THE MINERS?

» NO SIR.

» HES NOT REACTING TOO WELL TO THE NEWS. IF NECESSARY I WILL PULL YOU FROM HIRUM AND HOOK YOU UP WITH HIM. ARE YOU GAME?

» MOST DEFINITELY, SIR.

Toni had to wonder about the lieutenant. Was he texting the other units as well, or only his? Not that he disliked the attention, but somehow it made him feel pressured. The thought was interrupted by a flash update on his display.

» FORWARD UNITS REPORT AVIAN UPHEAVAL ONE CLICK EAST, IN PROXIMITY OF FRIENDLY FORCES CENTER. UNMIL ACTIVITY SUSPECTED. STANDBY FOR ORDERS.

And there it was, the ever more familiar ripple up his spine. It wasn’t as bad as the first time he’d received a similar warning over an hour ago. That time it had been the Hammerheads’ turbines that had startled the wildlife. But the timid animal in the corner of his mind reminded him that the Suits were currently running on pressurized gas alone. He felt a second ripple up his spine and began to gear himself up for action.

» HERE BROTHER ONE. FROM NOW ON AND UNTIL CONTACT WE WILL USE HAND-SIGNS ONLY. ALL EYEBALLS ON MY UNIT.

Toni turned to his section leader, finding Unit Fifteen with its gauntlet held high above its head, its index finger on display. They hurried to comply, forming a single column behind his unit with Grimm bringing up the rear. A quick look to his flanks made Toni feel a little anxious; they were now clear of friendlies, the remaining sections well on their way to set up a possible axis of retreat in the company of combat engineers.

Section one’s mission was clear. Upon imminent contact they were to rendezvous with the two resupply sections of the ASC platoons two hundred meters behind the skirmish line, and then assist in ammunition resupply of combat units on demand. In the previous hour’s false alarm they had gotten as far as where they were now, pausing in single column as Dunn awaited a signal from Main Force.

The delay proved to be a short one.

Dunn gave the signal to advance and stomped ahead at high speed, leaving the remainder of his section to try to keep up. Toni momentarily felt his footpads leave the ground, and he realized that he was actually running in his armored Suit for the first time. He deeply disliked the shuddering noises and pendulous movements his inner ears were picking up, the timid part of his spirit hoping that something wouldn’t be able to take the stress and break down.

Shortly after, the column slowed and took a more winding path among the trees, as if their section leader was looking for something and not finding it. They came to a full stop beside a clump of trees, no resupply Suits yet in sight.

Following their secleader’s signals, the section formed a loose line facing east and advanced carefully for about a hundred meters before pausing again and putting a knee to the ground. Toni chose a particularly broad tree to shelter behind, although he was still afforded a good look of the front line.

The Hammerheads were strewn out about a hundred meters ahead, with perhaps fifty meters of spacing between each hulking unit. Some had deployed Remote Mortar Assemblies further back, the systems still under the control of the drivers via a thirty meter armored cable. The units stood immobile, the dark grey camouflage that covered their chassis working well enough to make it difficult for Toni to count their exact number. The seconds passed by as he watched, and no resupply sections deigned to make an appearance and link up.

Toni saw the detonations before he felt them; wherever he had counted a Hammerhead, and in some places where he had not, brilliant flashes blinked in and out of existence as a cascade of sparks erupted from the units. Then the very air around the Suits erupted violently, enveloping the surrounding trees in unnatural ruby-red flames. The shockwaves from the detonations arrived first, coming across as a particularly stiff cannonade that rattled the bones in his body as well as the structure of his Suit. The combined wave-front from the secondary explosions arrived a moment later, lifting Unit Seven clear off its footpads and into the air.

Mining quadrant, 08H35, 14th of June, 2771

You’ve been taught how to stand in your Suit
, Toni reminded himself as he stared hazily at the treetops above, the sky beyond darkening fast.

Something was wrong with his Suit, although he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. He rolled over his left side and onto a prone position. Pushing himself with difficulty up onto his kneepads, oblivious of the roaring chaos, he finally realized that his right appendage was unable to move. Finally managing to lift himself upright, he peered to the right side of his Suit’s torso.

His appendage, undamaged although it was, appeared as though it had been pulled halfway round to his back, and there appeared to be an object of some kind protruding from his right breastplate, exposing its interior. Slowly he realized that the hatch had popped open, the repeat event currently leaving him able to see almost directly into his chest, where the interface cavity resided. That explained the pungent air that was presently searing Toni’s lungs. He tried to close the hatch with his left gauntlet; as he’d expected, it didn’t budge. Almost as an afterthought, he gazed at his surroundings.

He easily found east due to the wall of flames which fed on the plantation, belching coal-black plumes of smoke into the sky as if giving birth to a storm.

Movement to the south suddenly caught his attention. Dunn’s Unit Fifteen was a hundred paces away, motioning frantically to Toni to retreat westward. The two Mocas beside him were scorched but otherwise operational, and they accompanied their secleader as he turned west and set off at a run, several damaged Hammerheads quickly overtaking them at a sprint.

The last of the Hammerheads burned fiercely with crimson flames as it bounded along, heedless of the thick smoky trail it was leaving in its wake.

The vision made no sense, and he dully decided that if it didn’t make sense it didn’t really matter.
You are not authorized to be a hero
, he reminded himself once more.

The remembered words reminded him of Hirum. Turning north, he searched for his partner’s unit, and found it still gripping what remained of the tree it had been sheltering behind. Toni bounded towards him, and he began to choke on the fumes that were circulating more briskly in his cavity. Dimly he wondered if it was some sort of chemical attack.

Dimly he decided he didn’t care.

Reaching Hirum’s unit, he pressed the PTT on his rifle-grip, trying to hail him over the comm. and failing to do so. He checked his communications panel and did not like what he saw; his OS had just completed a self-diagnostic test, having confidently concluded that radio comms were no longer possible due to action of enemy frequency inhibitors. He activated his loudspeaker.

“Hirum ...” he bellowed loudly, the smallest hint of feedback in his ears, “Let’s get the hell outta here. Ya hear me?”

The Suit did not budge.

Toni tried to pry Unit Fourteen’s hatch open with his gauntlet, not managing to find any handhold to better apply his strength.
My hatch can’t stay shut and his just won’t open
, he thought, somehow finding the irony amusing.

Unit Fourteen’s titanium face turned slowly towards him. Its placid expression seemed to fit there, as if hugging trees in a burning forest filled with monsters was the thing to do nowadays, didn’t you know?

“Awake now?! Good! Now let go of the fucking tree, mate ...”

Its round oculars stared at him uncomprehendingly. Cursing, Toni grabbed a hold of Unit Fourteen’s torso webbing and gave him a violent yank, shaking himself so badly in the process that he teetered on the verge of unconsciousness. Two more firm pulls and he was finally able to get Hirum moving at the cost of an uprooted tree.

Hirum backtracked placidly under his mate’s towing force, hugging the tree as if it were some hideous teddy bear, clumps of earth still falling from what remained of its roots. Toni suddenly perceived movement from the smoldering forest. Instinct took over and he slipped behind Fourteen’s bulk.

An earsplitting concussion hammered its way through his skull as Unit Fourteen tore apart, sending incandescent metal through Unit Seven’s hatch and against his right arm, encased in its hydraulic interface. Lava-hot spalls punctured through steel and flesh alike, the impacts shaking him as if he were being ravaged by a predator. Screaming, Unit Seven fell hard upon the earth, splintered wood raining down all over as an orange haze cloaked the unknown assailant from his sight.

Jet engines screamed at full throttle beside his ears, and it took a while to realize the sound wasn’t coming from outside his skull. Aside from the head-splitting headache, Toni felt little pain, although he was beginning to feel a warm wetness beginning to spread over his right arm and groin. Refusing to deactivate oculars, he attempted to access the integrated tourniquet under the HINT’s armpit. It was no use; every time he came close, his gauntlet collided against the open hatch or his spaulder, forcing his real hand to stop short of its objective. Working against time, Toni decided to deactivate his Suit.

The interior of his interface cavity was a mess. Although partially shrouded in a haze, he could still make out a few branches and an armful of leaves, fragments from Unit Fourteen and a lot of draining hydraulic fluid. He followed the fluid to its source, realizing sickeningly that it was mixed with blood. Desperately he pulled at the tourniquet near his armpit until the tightness satisfied him, his eyes carefully avoiding the wounds. Within fifteen minutes he would need to relieve the pressure. As if to underline the situation’s urgency, Toni felt the ground begin to vibrate. He reactivated Unit Seven and took a quick look around.

No more than twenty meters off, an armored Suit unlike any Toni had ever seen lumbered into view. It was heavier than the Hammerhead beyond a doubt, and its aerodynamic rifle was still smoking from what looked like radiators along its barrel-length. The unit managed to look squat and sleek at the same time. Its narrow skull turned to watch him closely.

The air around the unidentified Suit suddenly became alive with supersonic fireflies, each accompanied by a sonic boom, several of them impacting the walker’s superstructure with a festival of fireworks. Unaffected by the impacts, the Suit bounded back east with surprising agility and fired off a casual shot with his rifle, the sound it made no louder than a petard. The microsecond flash produced by the weapon elucidated Toni as to its nature.

Toni heard the characteristic chainsaw-like roar of the Hammers’ 30 millimeter cannon a full second after the fireflies’ appearance, putting them three or four hundred meters away. He searched for the enemy Suit once more, finding to his relief that it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Locating his rifle beside him, Toni sat up to reach for the weapon, and something slid down onto his Suit’s lap with a metallic clang.

He looked at the object for a while. It was torn in two just as its Suit had been, though where the other half was he wasn’t inclined to speculate. Hirum’s corpse was still encased in its interface, hydraulic and electric wires in disarray, only his right arm remaining, his left having found someplace else to rest. His eyes were semi-closed as if about to fall asleep, an illusion not helped much by the fact that most of his cranium was missing. Toni lifted the corpse delicately from his lap, laying it to rest beside Unit Fourteen’s exposed APU, horrified by how light the body felt to him. What remained of its head bobbed sickeningly as he laid it down, giving him a brief peek at where its brain should have been. Unformed thoughts swimming in his mind, Toni picked up his rifle and began to move east.

It didn’t take more than a minute for Toni to find what he was looking for. Somewhere between eight to a dozen Hammerheads had opted to engage the Suit, and the hilly forest was alive with ricocheting fireflies and earth-shaking concussions. Every few moments a brilliant white flash could be seen from the converging point of the Hammers’ wrath and, some of those times, the flash struck its target, precipitating another eruption of the unnatural red fire. They were moving fast, faster than Toni could keep up with, but every time he slowed down the memory of the lolling empty skull returned to him. He pressed onwards, moving across plantation land where fires raged and Hammerhead scrap was everywhere to be seen. His APU sputtered into activity, the sound it made somewhat unhealthier than when last he’d heard it. Finally he put a knee to the earth inside a shallow depression and ordered his Suit to shutdown.

Toni lost track of time for a while as his darker half showed up to pay the world a visit. By the time he finally snapped back into consciousness, he found himself sitting on the cavity floor, his right arm disinfected and bandaged, the tourniquet loosened, and smelling like a latrine.

The arm looked ugly in its blood-soaked bandages, and he realized he wouldn’t be able to reinsert it into the interface. Inspecting the device as it floated before him, he began to cut into wires and hoses with his pocketknife, adding even more hydraulic fluid to the mixed puddle of blood and oil on the floor. Before much time had passed and with the assistance of a few conveniently removable pegs, Toni managed to detach the HINT’s right appendage and toss it out the hatch. Renewed sounds of battle became apparent to his recovering ears, and he peered hard at his surroundings through the broken hatch.

The terrain kept its secrets, whatever they were.

He popped three painkillers at once, hoping they would be enough. Strapping his right arm carefully to his chest, he slipped once more into the HINT, ignoring the scent of his recent urinary contribution to the device. Activating his Suit, he tried to spy the source of the sounds. Gradually he became aware of Hammerheads communicating via loudspeakers to the east. Whatever they were saying, they sounded desperate. The sound of several turbines at full throttle became clear and began to intensify.

From the east, Toni finally spotted several Hammerheads sprinting in single file at speeds he had never imagined possible. The larger trees were spared by the group, the smaller ones simply being shouldered aside as they tore desperately towards the west. He counted four Suits, the rearmost lagging behind by a fair margin. It seemed to be that driver who spoke as they passed obliviously by at a hundred paces.

“GOING FOR IT. BEST OF LUCK!”

The Hammerhead released an object from its gauntlet and then put its footpad into the ground in a braking action, the extremity excavating enough earth to impress a dump truck driver. Before coming to a full stop the Suit snapped about and fired off a short burst with its cannon. Several missiles rocketed from its spaulder-pods while smoke grenades popped off around him, effectively obscuring the titan from view. Then the Suit detonated in crimson flames, the fireball expanding quickly to envelope the surrounding trees. The enemy Suit appeared unscathed from the forest to calmly survey the carnage.

Toni made ready to engage, but the Suit immediately noticed the Moca and turned its rifle to towards him.

A powerful blast suddenly lifted the hostile Suit off its footpads, engulfing the Unmil in a miniature mushroom cloud before gravity pulled it back to earth. It struck the ground on its back, the impact causing the leaf-less trees surrounding it to shake as if they had suddenly come to life. The detonation appeared to have originated from the Hammerhead’s discarded object.

Toni took advantage.

Activating all armament, he opened fire on the Unmil simultaneously with rocket-pods and rifle. The sound of all systems firing at once rang him like a bell, the sight of the impacts against the hostile Suit’s chassis making the agony worthwhile. Quickly he changed clips and prepared to reengage.

A brilliant flash from the Unmil’s upraised rifle coincided with the complete disintegration of Unit Seven’s right appendage. PAMs popped as the Suit rolled to its left, and Toni hastily decided it was time to become scarce.

He rolled out of the depression and began winding among the trees as fast as his one-armed Suit could carry him, glancing back occasionally to see whether he was being followed. Seeing nothing, he decided not to risk it, and he took advantage of the long descent to pick up speed. A tree behind him suddenly exploded into splinters, followed by another a moment later. Giving his dancing compass a cursory look, he took a westish course and prepared to go aerobic.

A full minute afterwards, Toni’s APU was running to an ever louder clattering sound and a burning smell began to intrude upon the interface cavity. His dismayed oculars stared at the open hatch, watching as diffuse smoke billowed from its interior, when a tree close behind suddenly exploded into splinters. The laser beam burned its way through the wood and struck the fugitive unit below its pressure vessel, where its APU was situated. The impact sent Unit Seven rolling down the hill, colliding hard enough against trees to uproot one and spilling four hundred liters of Resinin oil over the landscape. Toni impacted twice against the cavity’s interior wall, and he mentally thanked Ruka for the padding she’d thought to fit there. Taking advantage of his momentum, he rolled himself back onto his feet and took off at a sprint, his lungs beginning to burn on par with his legs.

Strangely enough, Toni suddenly found it much easier to run, and before long he accelerated to a pace beyond anything he had thought possible for a Moca. He managed the following hill so fast that only the occasional tree strike was enough to reduce speeds to their original level. Two minutes later he took the moment to read the accumulating warning messages on his display. The information was like a blade through his heart: