Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) (24 page)

The Canadian mechs saw him coming and several of them split off from the pack to turn their attention on his attack. Shiner’s sensors told him that multiple weapons systems were online and directed right at him. He shifted his form and brought his own weapons systems up.

Small RPGs, forearm guns and blades, Shiner was set to destroy as many mechs as possible.

He intercepted the pilots’ conversation and realized they hadn’t designed the mechs to handle his BC control abilities. He momentarily thought about shifting his face plate to include a smile, but decided that was too much human ego even for him.

“Ten,” Shiner said to himself. “Ten mechs. They fear me.”

And as the mechs started to fire, well away from Shiner’s reach, he realized just how much they feared him. He leapt from one spot to another, springing nimbly across the wasteland, avoiding the incoming missiles and RPGs sent to destroy him. If the mechs kept it up they’d be out of heavy weapons in minutes leaving only their machine guns.

The machine guns. Loaded with BC bullets.

When the last missile landed just past him, and he launched himself as high into the air as possible to avoid the explosion, the battlefield went silent. He had expected them to start firing, but someone, one of their techs, must have clued them into the folly of shooting him with BC bullets.

The ten mechs stood there, their systems hot, waiting for his move. He had a distinct feeling that if he yelled boo a couple would have turned and ran. But instead he just walked casually towards them.

“AI Shiner!” a voice boomed from one of the mech’s loudspeakers. “You will stop where you are and surrender to the Council’s forces! You are Canadian property and subject to all laws and regulations as such! If you surrender you will not be terminated and your AI will be allowed to live in suspension within a secure mainframe!”

Shiner chuckled. He had been born a mech, turned into a dead mech with a zombie pilot, then freed by Mech Pilot Mathew Jespers to become a fully functioning AI. There was no way he would surrender to a life of confinement. Being stuck at Outpost Tango Charlie had been hard enough. He was a mech at heart and he needed space, ground to cover, open skies and raw elements.

“Please disembark from your mechs,” Shiner responded. “I do not want to harm or kill you. If you leave your mechs I will allow you to walk away and return to your country unmolested.”

“AI Shiner you have been warned! Surrender now or you will be destroyed!”

“With what?” Shiner said as he stepped forward. “You cannot touch me and you cannot shoot me. My proposal is the only way you can survive this fight.”

The mechs opened fire and Shiner was riddled with thousands of rounds. His form shuddered and he felt one arm separate from his body. He was knocked to the dirt, his torso a shredded mess, his systems slow and crippled. He had underestimated what their attack would do to him.

***

“Follow through!” Norton shouted. “Fucking get in there and secure that mother fucking AI!”

Norton watched on the vid screens as the mech group converged on the twitching form of Shiner. Their weapons blazed red hot as they continued to fire into his subdued body.

“Get on the ground!” Norton said. “Keep your mechs at a safe distance and secure him by hand, dammit!”

“Sir,” one of the CMPs responded. “His readings are flat. Scans are not showing any energy levels coming off of him.”

“Did I say to fucking report back, asshole?!” Norton spat. “No, I said to get your FUCKING FEET ON THE GROUND!”

Two mechs kept their weapons trained on Shiner as the rest of the CMPs opened their cockpits and descended to the wasteland dirt.

Norton’s eyes never left the still form of Shiner as he paced before one of the vid screens.

“The rest of you fucking mechs need to step it up! Put as much distance between yourselves and this mess as possible!” Norton ordered.

***

A hint, a connection, a slow trickle of thought and presence. He was still there, hidden in the chunks, the pieces, the shrapnel of BC that was strewn across the wasteland.

The CMPs had checked and double checked Shiner’s broken form and decided he’d been destroyed. Just to be safe they tossed most of him for yards in every direction. They even buried some of him. None of them knew how to completely destroy him, so they did what they thought might work. They didn’t dare ask Norton.

Each piece of biochrome held Shiner’s consciousness, enrobed him in bioorganic metal, secured him, waited for him to become whole again. Yet despite the physicality of his shattered self, Shiner did not feel torn apart. The BC communicated and processed as one piece even though he was spread out across the wasteland.

Slowly, carefully, pieces of BC morphed, melted and began to search each other out. They rolled, flowed, tumbled towards each other until contact was made and the reassembly process began. When Shiner was whole enough to function he dug up the remaining pieces of himself and was complete.

Shiner scanned the wasteland and saw that the mechs that had attacked him rejoined their battle convoy. He couldn’t let them reach their target. He’d learned a lot from his near destruction and didn’t plan on making the same mistakes again. The next time he would make sure no mech touched him.

He began to jog then run then sprint full out after them.

Twenty-Nine

“Submarine formations are changing, sir,” a tech announced as Colonel Blue Masterson stood on the bridge of the Silverthorn. “They are targeting our ships.”

“Unfortunately, that’s what we want them to do,” Blue stated. He turned and looked at Beth as she stared out across the bright blue water of what was once the California coast. “You sure those suits can handle this?”

“The suits are as perfect as they can get,” Beth replied. “It’s up to the troopers to do their thing.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call ‘do their thing’ a military term,” Blue smiled. “But I get what you mean.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call myself military,” Beth said in return. “I’m just here to help keep us all alive.”

“I’m glad for that,” Blue said. “I’d hate for you to be on the other side.”

***

“Sir?” Ensign Ballard asked as he looked over his sonar scans. “We have incoming, sir!”

Captain Hollis McNalley tapped at his tablet and brought up the readings. “What are those?”

“They aren’t torpedoes,” a second ensign replied. “They look like…people, sir.”

“Not at that depth,” Captain McNalley scoffed. “No tech can keep a person alive with that pressure.”

The ensign scanned again and brought up a new image. The entire crew gasped.

“Fire all torpedoes!” Captain McNalley ordered, frantic to get off a shot before they were attacked. “Tell all ships to do the same! Blow those fucking jacks out of the water!”

***

“This pressure sucks!” Charlie Masterson yelled over the com as he accelerated his shock suit up towards the Three’s submarines. “I thought you’d adjusted it, Bretton?”

“Has your head fucking exploded yet?” Melissa replied, rocketing through the water on his right. “Quit your bitching, pussy!”

“Torpedoes!” one of the shock troops announced as fire and bubbles erupted from all submarines. “Intercept, sir?”

“Defense team go!” Charlie ordered. “Get those cigars!”

“Get those cigars?” Melissa laughed. “Please tell me you haven’t been working on that line. That’s just awful.”

“Fuck off, Bretton,” Charlie said. “And shut the fuck up. We are in combat so how about focusing?”

“You think I can’t focus and talk at the same time?” Melissa asked as she shot past Charlie, her suit sending her right at the hull of one of the subs. “Watch this, jackhole!”

“Hey!” Charlie yelled. “Don’t break formation! And don’t call me a jackhole! That’s just not right!”

Melissa ignored him and sped towards the submarine, bringing her hands together in a point. She could have morphed and shaped her suit how she wanted, but she kept it in the exact same design as the others so they could see what the suit could really do.

The impact was jarring, but she’d been prepared for that and the suit absorbed 90% of the impact force. Her body ripped through the double layer hull, ripping the pressure hull apart like paper. She twisted her body as she hit air and began firing. Her body lost momentum slightly as she moved, but she’d attacked with such speed that in a second she was out the other side of the submarine before most of the sub’s crew even registered her.

For a moment she’d caught a glimpse of men’s faces as she’d ripped past, her guns blazing. She was glad she was out the other side before she saw their reactions to the fact they were dead in the water.

Melissa did wince as the shock suit adjusted from water to air to water in less than a second. She made a mental note to work on that part of the design as soon as she could. Overall, as she slowed herself and spun about to see her handy work, she was pleased with what she’d created.

The submarine seemed to tear apart in slow motion. It imploded in a burst of flame and bubbles then exploded, sending shockwaves through the water. Split into three pieces, the sub sank quickly and Melissa tried not to look as bodies, desperate for survival, tried to swim free of the undertow.

The human reality of war was something Melissa wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to, no matter how much death she witnessed.

***

Shock troopers propelled themselves at full speed to intercept the torpedoes targeting the American fleet. Chrome BC bodies dashed this way and that like oversized tunas as they chased down the speeding projectiles.

Still unused to aquatic maneuvers, several shock troops overshot their targets and had to spin about and fire from behind, hoping they wouldn’t end up hitting their comrades close to them. Soon the water was nothing but churning froth and fire as torpedo after torpedo was destroyed.

But even at their best, there were still too many for the Americans to chase down.

***

“Brace for impact!” Blue yelled as the first torpedo hit the Silverthorn.

The bridge crew gripped everything they could as the ship bucked and shook from the explosion below. Before Blue could ask for a report the Silverthorn started to list to starboard.

“Sections eight through nineteen are breached, sir!” a tech yelled over the emergency claxons. “We are taking on water too fast!”

“Dammit!” Blue shouted. “Get all non-essential personnel into lifepods. Every one else man their posts! We aren’t going down without taking some of those bitches with us!”

A couple techs glanced at each other, but the abandon ship order was given and lifepods were readied for non-combat crew.

***

“I thought Charlie said we’d be safe?” Mr. Wilkes shouted as Nancy hurried him along one of the ships’ corridors. “You picked a beauty there, girl.”

“Shut it, da,” Nancy yelled as she shoved her father towards one of the ladders leading up to the lifepods. “Just keep moving.”

“Don’t scold me, young lady,” Mr. Wilkes snarled. “You got us into this mess by fooling around with a damn jack!”

“Da!” Nancy roared. “Not the bleeding time!”

“Well we could be dead in a second, so I thought-.” An explosion ripped through the ship and Mr. Wilkes’s sentence was cut short. As was his life as half a ton of metal sheared through the section, ripping every living thing in half.

Nancy was conscious long enough to grip her father’s dead hand before her life slipped from her body.

***

“Sir! Two more ships hit!” a tech announced. “They are evacuating immediately!”

“Good! Get those people clear! Have the other ships circle about and pick up survivors!” Blue yelled as he activated his com. “Charlie! Report!”

“Busy, dad!” Charlie yelled over the com.

“What progress have you made? Give me numbers!”

But Charlie didn’t respond.

***

“What the fuck are those?” a shock trooper shouted over the com as several small forms shot at the shock troops.

“Drones!” Charlie cried out as he punched through and through a submarine and came face to face with the automated killers. “Focus on those first! They’ll rip us apart!”

Charlie had dealt with ground drones and even some light hover drones, so he was familiar with their abilities. They were keyed to kill anything that was not on their programmed list of allies. It made them last resort tech because they did not adapt well to change. They did not disable, they destroyed. He didn’t plan on giving them a chance to get the upper hand.

His arms up, guns firing, he pulled back, braked hard and swerved back towards the submarine he’d just ripped apart. He ducked between the wreckage, ignoring the bubbling screams of drowning men, and used the debris field for cover. Three drones tore after him, blasting pieces of submarine instead of dodging them. Charlie dove deep, letting the drones chase him as he followed the falling sub.

Bright blasts shot past him and he tucked tight then rolled to his left, spinning in the water and shooting back towards the drones. His arms against his sides he picked up speed until he was nearly head to head with the drones. In one fast sweep he swerved his body right and emptied his guns against the metal predators.

One explosion, two explosions...no third.

Charlie had spent his ammo in one try and he’d failed.

The third explosion was a surprise.

“Can I talk now or would I be too much of a distraction?” Melissa asked as she zipped by.

“Thanks,” Charlie said, breathless.

“Don’t mention it,” Melissa replied. “How about getting back into the game and wiping out some subs?”

“On it, Bretton, don’t you worry.”

“Wasn’t.”

***

“How many ships lost?” Blue yelled.

“Five, sir!” a tech responded. “And three limping along!”