Future Winds (17 page)

“What? I don’t want this,” Ness screeched trying to hand the rifle back.

“Trust me kid, in due time you will be grateful to have one. Its value will be on par with water and food on this planet. Now get out of here!”

Ness stumbled backwards through the darkness towards his block. His heart was pounding against his chest and he felt nauseous. He wanted to ditch the gun and just run but was afraid his DNA could somehow be extracted. Walking cautiously into the dark room, he harbored the weapon behind his back. Up in his bunk he had a cubby for clothes, just big enough to stuff the rifle underneath his linens. He climbed up into his bunk and hid the weapon away. In the coming days he would figure out how to dispose of it safely but for now he just wanted to lay down in the safety of his bed where no guards would scream and yell at him, no perverts would eye him over, and no insane killer with an eyepatch would
strangle
him to death.

Ness laid in his bunk for hours, before his long strenuous work day began, crying silently. He missed home, his mom, and the simplistic nostalgia of his long gone youth, left behind on earth abandoned to a tumultuous fate. In this new world he had to be strong, not only physically to survive for himself, but mentally to try and be a positive inspiration for his younger brother amidst the world of selfishly spawned chaos and hate.

***

The tiny holographic image of Amy, who had spent most of her time up towards Leon, advising him on various aspects of the armadillo’s control system, vanished and reappeared beside Kaito. She was being projected from his control panel and began explaining his custom system’s capabilities.

“Alright Mr. Shimizu, the railgun has been fit with a tartan twenty-seven explosives adapter. Via flipping the red switch on the right side of your control panel, you shift over to firing from your explosive rounds reserve. These must be manually loaded via attaching the forty round magazines underneath the tartan adapter and, when attached correctly, will fire with semi-automatic ease.

Wow, that mouthful to explain this thing accepts magfed explosive rounds.
Kaito thought as he cracked open the crate next to him and heaved out one of the many magazines. They felt as though they weighed a ton. He assumed that under regular circumstances, two men would typically work together in attaching full magazines, and detaching empty ones, while a third man would fire the weapon and the fourth drove the vehicle, but it was only the two of them and Leon had to keep them on the move and away from the goliath.

Struggling to lift the magazine high enough to fit in the magwell, he stopped to catch his breath before thrusting the encased steel up into place. A loud click confirmed it was attached and he fell back into his seat.

Forty rounds before I have to do that again,
he thought.
Better make every single one count.

“Glad you could join us this fine night,” one of the pilots’ voices said over the radio.

“Thanks for having us,” Leon responded, “What’s the plan here?”

“We have been scoping it out for a while up here,” a female voice with a Chinese accent said entering the conversation over the radio. “Figure the best course of action is to target the thinnest section of the limbs and attempt to sever a couple completely off. When you are in place, we will begin with its front left leg and then move on to the front right. We don’t know how fast the creature is capable of moving when agitated, so you need a good lead on it before we start.”

“Let me know when you feel like you are in optimal range, Kaito,” Leon said as he sped the armadillo up to get ahead of the giant’s path.

“I am always in range,” Kaito laughed.
Wow, that was dum
b, he thought, second guessing his lame attempt to make a joke. “But really, I
should
be good,” he confirmed, squinting in the viewfinder as he drifted his aim up and down the goliath. “A hell of a lot bigger in person huh?”
With four legs and two arms, it is almost like an enormous stone centaur. With its’ tusks and plant life growth all over its body, the mountain is a stranger, distant from any mythical beings ever conceived by man.

“We should be good,” Leon said into the radio.

“Alright open ‘em up,” the male pilot said as he and the other began volleying an array of weaponry at the goliath from above.

Kaito started to launch the explosives through the air and towards the giant. The first one fell significantly short and, after recalculating the lob of the massive shells, he fired again--successfully hitting above the foot. Every shot climbed higher until effectively pelting the same location as the hellcats struck, the weak most part of the giant's leg.

Upset with the attack, the beast raised its front legs up in the air and let out a loud, deep cry that sounded like tall metal structures colliding into one another. With the creature’s pitch backwards, every shot Kaito took missed, exploding on a different section of the giant's body. Then it slammed its legs into the ground with enough force to toss the armadillo up into the air.

“Holy shit,” Leon grunted from upfront as they landed back on the ground.

Kaito realigned his shots to hit the designated area. One after another, he blew away chunks of rock from the giant that was now chasing after them.

Every stomp of his feet shook the ground so violently, it sent a shockwave pulsing through the ground and the armadillo would raise briefly up into the air, allowing the safety gap between them and the giant to close rapidly.

Kaito, beginning to panic, squeezed the trigger faster until empty hollow clicks suggested his magazine was empty. He pushed the mag release button and the empty steel dropped to the floor with a loud bang. He reached into a crate and pulled out a full mag. This time, with ease thanks to the strength granted by a fear induced adrenaline rush, he slammed the mag into place with a
click and continued firing.

Just as soon as he had attached it, his trigger pulls resulted in empty clicks. Already he had burned through another forty rounds. Kaito released another empty mag and dipped into a crate for another full one.

“He is closing in fast,” the vehicle’s AI, Amy, called out.

With one of the stompings of its feet, the vehicle again kicked up into the air. This time Kaito went along with it. When the armadillo descended, he smashed his head up into the roof and fell to the floor with blood running down the front of his face.

The magazine that he was holding fell with him and was now half empty. With loose explosive shells rolling around on the floor, Kaito flicked the blood from his eyes away with his wrist then went back for another full mag. With all his strength, he heaved it up and into place before taking a seat back at the controls of the weapon.

“He is too close. The railgun cannot aim vertically up to hit the target area,” Kaito screamed.

“Keep firing,” Leon barked. “Hit it anywhere to get him off of us!” 

Kaito’s next squeeze of the trigger blasted the giant in the hand as it reached down and swung at the vehicle. Kaito’s drone, Libra, who was attached to the outside of the armadillo, exerted a barrier field which absorbed most of the blow from the beast. But nothing could prevent the force from tossing the vehicle up and out, like a child throwing a tantrum and flinging his little toy car. The armadillo flew for miles until spinning and rolling to a smoky, dusty, stop.

Libra burnt out and exploded after absorbing every impact except the last few rolls. Indicators of system failure, flashing lights and sensor sounds, filled the interior of the vehicle along with smoke detectors from fire that had erupted from the vehicle’s engines. Due to the death of Libra, all shielding power was gone--not that she would have much impact on the fire and the damage exerted throughout the inside of the vehicle where Kaito now lay, passed out, and covered in blood.

***

Jason watched as the armadillo sailed off through the sky and he felt his stomach drop knowing the crew within it were flying off to meet with a reaper to arrange the details of their deaths.

“Launching nova missile to detach limb one in seven seconds,” he said over the radio to Lanfen, trying to stay focused. “Ceasefire on my mark, four, three, two, one.”

The sounds of chaos halted as they stopped firing all of their weapons. Only a single silent missile drifted from Jason’s hellcat and worked its way into the open wound on the giant's leg. The timed explosion soon erupted from the crater after reaching its target depth and, with a radiant light, the leg was severed clean off.

“On to the next one. Reinforce firepower on my target area.”

Jason swiftly and accurately adjusted the wings and weaponry to properly take aim now at the giant’s other front leg before unleashing a barrage of firepower. All weapons set to overdrive triggered alarms and lights within the cockpit: warning of imminent systems failure due to abundant stress on the vessel’s power core.

“Jason, relax. You are going to blow a reactor,” Lanfen warned, detecting the inevitable.

Bits and pieces of the giant’s exoskeleton were being vaporized into dust. Pebbles poured from wounds like blood gushing from laceration of skin and, reluctantly, Lanfen joined in on the added volley of firepower.

“Lanfen, arm a laser guided missile and set it for penetration on the opening,” Jason called over the radio. “We have to compensate for losing our ground support.”

“Ready, fully armed and set to deploy.”

“Ceasefire and deploy in three, two, one.”

Again, silence as a single missile traveled through the air and penetrated the giant’s open wound. The damage was significant, but the two of them had not dished out nearly enough to detach the leg.

Now limping, the giant swung its arms through the air trying to swat off its attackers, but with ease the two hellcats drifted in and out of harm, while re-engaging with their target area.

“Prime your final two missiles Lanfen.”

“Fully armed.”

“Three, Two, One.”

The two missiles made their way to the target zone but were intercepted mid-flight by the colossus who swatted at them with the palm of his hand. They exploded on impact and sent severed stone fingers falling from the sky until they slammed into the ground. Once more the giant let out a cry in pain. Rocks poured from the hand that was split open as if fed through a blender and retrieved only still partially intact.

“Damnit,” Jason screamed as he shifted his wings and thrusters to dip down close to the giant’s target leg, “Distract him!”

“How?” Lanfen shot back.

“I don’t know. Get up in its face. Hit ‘em in the eyes.”

Now as close to point blank as he could be, Jason hailed a storm of lasers into the open wound, before pumping out a half a dozen anti grave grenades and taking flight out. Slowly the explosives ate away at what was left of the ligament that attached the mangled limb to the body.

Burn marks stretched across the giant's face as Lanfen continued firing into its eyes. As its leg finally gave away it tipped forward, smashing into the ground and taking her hellcat with it in a sizeable explosion.

“No!” Jason screamed, “No! No! No!”

His friend and partner was instantly vaporized in the collision. She was killed executing an order he had given her in order to protect himself.

***

Leon reached through an endless sea of black smoke, searching for the bright red release hatch designated for an emergency hydraulic blowout of the armadillo’s door. Finding it, he punched it with all of his strength and the door blew out, taking with it a heavy mass of the smoldering air.

Choking and coughing on the thick smoke that still lingered in the vehicle, Leon crawled over to Kaito who wasn’t moving. Grabbing hold of his comatose friend, he began dragging him out.

His heart felt like it was beating in slow motion. The will to survive was, at core, the fundamental utmost basic of man’s primitive instincts. Amidst times of chaos, the human body is capable of switching into automatic mode, executing the command of a million years of genetic code.

Once outside, Leon tried to get to his feet to carry his companion away from the armadillo that was on fire with a stockpile of explosives still inside. But in climbing up, he immediately fell back down. He discovered he had been wounded from a large piece of metal lodged deep within his leg.

Clenching Kaito by the vest with his sore and blackened fingertips, he continued crawling, dragging himself and his comrade as he grunted and screamed in agony, leaving a thick trail of blood behind him.

Booms in the distance suggest the hellcat pilots were still combating the giant, but Leon had no time to look. He continued clawing and scraping at the ground, trying to reach safety behind a cluster of large, tan rocks.

Blasts began sounding off in the armadillo and Leon pushed himself to slither forward faster while the piece of metal stuck in his leg dug deeper, sapping, and draining him of more energy and blood.

Now leaning against the safety of the boulders, Leon listened to the vehicle emit crackles and roars as the explosives erupted behind him. He peered back as bits of the armadillo’s thick protective shell were blown out with such a force that could slice a man clean in half. Faster the barrage of thunder cried out until the armadillo took off like a rocket and tumbled out of sight.