Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) (40 page)

“It isn’t a very good one,” Stomper replied.

“Best one I have,” Masters said. “We have to take out as many as possible before they hit the Stronghold.”

“The likelihood of you surviving is small,” Stomper stated. “As I have mentioned before.”

“You have, Stompy man,” Masters responded. “And I am touched by how much you care for my safety, but shit has to get fucked up. And if anyone is going to fuck up the most shit then it’s gonna be Mitch Mother Fucking Masters!”

Masters closed his cockpit and strapped in. He smiled as he watched the deader horde get closer and closer.

“Let us do this shit,” Stomper said.

Masters broke out laughing. “Fucking A right, Stomper!”

***

Hundreds of thousands of deaders marched towards the two mechs and the Stronghold beyond. Their putrid flesh hung from many of them in strips and strands, flapping in the slight breeze that blew across the wasteland. The burning hunger that fueled them was stoked more and more as the sound of a whistle blasted in a staccato rhythm over their heads. Those that could drooled frothy pink saliva from their mouths in anticipation of the food that awaited them. 

The whistle never lied; there was always food after a march.

Pope John Paul Ringo George rocked back and forth in his mounted throne as he blasted the whistle over the bullhorn he held in his hand. His eyes watched the power of what he had spent decades building. His pride swelled at the sight of the sea of Disciples that pushed forward, every molecule in their undead bodies responding to the conditioning.

He laughed inside, making sure the whistle didn’t lose a beat, and thought about how stupid everyone else was for not believing in the Disciples. All the military might; all the Reaper chip technology; the fortified city/states; the UDC’s Stronghold.

All they had needed was the will to mold the Disciples into what they should be. And a good whistle.

But that whistle faltered a moment as the Pope watched what the two mechs ahead prepared to do. The Disciples stumbled and almost stopped, but the Pope quickly recovered and got them back into lockstep.

“JP?” a voice asked over the handheld that sat next to the Pope. The Ranchers had switched to handhelds as soon as they knew their communications on the coms would be overheard. “I believe the attack is coming.”

The Pope didn’t bother to respond. He could see the attack was coming and everyone had their orders. He just smiled around the whistle and kept blowing out a steady beat.

***

“Okay, so we’ve talked about this,” Masters said as he tucked his mech into a tight ball. “Take a couple steps, pull your arm back not quite halfway then bring it forward fast. Let go as soon as your arm passes your body. Aim low and straight. Don’t fucking launch me into the air!”

“Don’t launch you,” Stomper repeated. “Got it.”

“You fucking better,” Masters said. “Or this will get ugly quick.”

“Very ugly,” Stomper replied as he lifted Masters’s mech up and started forward, drawing his arm back. “Low and straight. Low and straight.”

Masters’s Tumbler mech arched through the air for the first several yards then came crashing down onto the hard dirt of the wasteland. Masters gritted his teeth at the impact, but couldn’t fault Stomper. It was a pretty good first throw for a giant mech that had never bowled before.

“FUCK YEAH!” Masters shouted as the Tumbler raced towards the first few rows of deaders. “Here I fucking come, bitches!”

The mech slammed into the wall of deaders, crushing dozens of them as its momentum kept it going for several yards. Rotten bodies flew in every direction. Arms split off and spun this way and that. Heads shot into the air. Legs were left without torsos. A path of squirming, undead destruction was left in the Tumbler’s wake.

Masters didn’t waste a moment. He had the Tumbler up on its feet and he was swinging and slashing with abandon. His fists pounded deaders into pulp; his feet ground them into the dirt. He fought his way back out of the mass of undead and then sprinted back to Stomper.

“Let’s see if we can hit the spare this time!” Masters crowed. “Bowl away, Stompity Stomp!”

Stomper picked Masters back up and took careful aim. His AI had analyzed his first throw and he quickly realized where his errors had been.

“I shall get some spin and curve on you,” Stomper announced. “That will bring you back around and make it easier to exit the horde.”

“I like how you think,” Masters said.

Stomper took his steps and let Masters go. The Tumbler rolled to the left in a wide curve then began to turn back towards the deader horde. It hit the front line at an angle and ripped a path through them twice as long as before. Masters barely had to work to get up, kill some deaders, and then sprint back to Stomper.

“That was outstanding!” Masters shouted.  “Shall we go three for three?”

Before Stomper could answer the air whistled with the sound of incoming RPGs.

“Ah, shit,” Masters swore as he realized he’d have to go back to fighting like always. The brief fun of deader bowling was over. “Time to get to fucking work.”

***

“Do we have a count?” the Pope asked. “I would like to know how many Disciples we should mourn.”

“Close to two thousand,” Brother Reynaldo answered. “The mech attack was innovative and effective.”

“Do I hear a hint of approval, Brother?” the Pope asked.

“Only the approval of anything done well in the wasteland, JP,” Brother Reynaldo responded.

“Well said, Brother,” the Pope laughed. “We do have to give credit where credit is due. Any accomplishment is an accomplishment of God.”

“Amen,” many voices said over the handhelds.

“Shall we show them our innovations, Brother?” the Pope asked as he placed the whistle to his lips.

“I believe it is time, JP,” Brother Reynaldo answered. “Let the Disciples be bound for Glory!”

More amens rang out over the handhelds as the Pope gave three short bursts then two then three then one long burst on his whistle. The deaders started to pick up their pace. In seconds they went from a march to a trot. The deaders that weren’t as structurally sound began to fall back and their places were taken by the stronger ones. The trot turned into a run which turned into a sprint. The deaders lowered their shoulders, their chests hunched over, their hands almost touching the ground.

The fast were on the hunt.

“Glory to you all!” the Pope shouted through his bullhorn. “Glory to the Disciples that bring down the blasphemous metal! Go forth, my children! Wreak your vengeance upon the unclean mechs! DESTROY THE STRONGHOLD!”

The Pope gave two more short blasts on his whistle and sat back and watched as the mass of deaders rushing forward split into two then three then four separate groups. The outer two groups went wide and looked to box in the two mechs, while the center two groups attacked straight on.

***

“I may be leaking hydraulic fluid from my groin region,” Stomper said.

“Yeah,” Masters agreed as he watched the deaders coming at them. “I just pissed myself too.”

Forty-Six

“On your eight!” Lt. Murphy shouted at Specialist Grendetti. “Aim for the knees!”

Specialist Grendetti spun about and fired his RPG. The rocket blazed and shot towards the three Cans that were headed towards them as the Special Ops team ran towards Bisby’s downed mech.

The RPG nailed one of the mechs square in the right knee, shattering the leg and sending the mech falling back into the other two. The wounded mech was quickly tossed aside and out of the way as the two Cans continued their run at Bisby.

“Hit the cockpit!” Specialist Sol shouted as he opened fire with his assault rifle. The bullets ricocheted off the CM like ineffectual bugs. “Mother fuck!”

Lt. Murphy realized that even if they made it to Bisby first they had no cover and were just sitting ducks. It was suicide. She smiled at the thought.

“Sticky packs!” Murphy ordered as she dodged the line of BC bullets that strafed the ground next to her.

“Got ‘em!” Specialist Kafar called as he sprinted towards Bisby’s mech.

“Prime them and get ready to detonate!” Murphy ordered.

“What?!” Kafar shouted. “We won’t get clear in time!”

“Yes, we will!” Murphy countered.

The team was almost to its destination when Kafar pulled the sticky packs from his pack and prepped them.

“How short?” he asked Lt. Murphy.

“10,” Murphy asked as the team dove behind the cover of One Arm, bullets flying about their heads.

“10?!” Sol shouted. “Not enough time, LT!”

“Bullshit,” she replied as she grabbed a sticky pack, activated the detonator and threw the explosive at one of the approaching Cans.

The sticky pack nearly fell short, but the Can walked right into its trajectory and the explosive stuck to the mech’s leg. The rest of the team got the idea and all stood and threw the ones Kafar had handed them.

The first pack detonated and the Special Ops team barely had time to duck back down behind One Arm as tons of BC shrapnel filled the air. The rest of the packs detonated and One Arm’s fallen body shuddered from the impacts of the chunks of BC.

“HEY!” Bisby shouted from inside the mech. “Are you fucks done playing with your fucking fireworks? I could use some help to get the fuck out of here!”

“Keep your panties on, Pilot,” Lt. Murphy said. “We’ll get you out. Hope you can run because there’s some space to cover between here and the Hybrid.”

“I’ll fucking outrun you all,” Bisby shouted. “Just get me the FUCK OUT OF HERE!”

***

The legs had to go first, was what Harlow learned as she spun about battling Can after Can. Separate the legs then kick them away from the mech. It kept the Cans’ BC from auto-repairing. Unfortunately for Harlow there were way too many Cans crammed together for her strategy to be 100% effective. She’d kick a leg away and it would slide next to a different Can that was missing stability below its torso.

So the massive blades of Harlow’s mech never stopped. They tore through the Can ranks in a constant motion of hack and slash ballet. She separated torsos from legs, arms from torsos; she impaled the drive systems and stabbed the cockpits; she rendered RPG launchers and mini-guns useless.

She made her way through the Cans like she was the four horsemen in one deadly mech. Then started over again as the Cans constantly and continuously repaired themselves.

Harlow saw the Special Ops team working to free Bisby from his downed mech, but she couldn’t focus on that. Not with the way the Cans resurrected themselves. If she had been in a laughing mood she would have chuckled over how the Cans were more deader than the dead mechs in the way they could rise from their destruction and keep fighting.

But Harlow was not in a laughing mood.

Her mech twisted and turned. She ducked punches, leapt over mini-gun fire, dodged RPGs, and just kept moving. Her heart rate was through the roof and she’d never felt so exhausted in her life, but she never quit. She made every single move count even if it was futile against the constant self-repairs.

Two Cans dove at her. She leapt over them both, but was blindsided by a third that had come up on her and tackled her about the waist. Harlow lost one of her massive blades and watched as it was kicked into the wasteland by another Can. She took the hilt of her other blade and pounded it against the Can that had tackled her. The BC smoothed back out almost instantly with every impact. She would dent it and it would smooth. Again and again.

Claxons blared in her cockpit as her mech’s systems became critical. Hydraulics on both legs were failing as more Cans converged on her. She was too close to all of them to be blasted, so the Cans just began to beat the holy hell out of her mech. The impacts became so many that she was knocked about inside the cockpit like a pinball. Even being strapped in, her body was slammed from side to side.

A Can fist came down hard on her cockpit and she winced as the exoskeleton buckled in towards her. Another blow and she was pinned.

“Ah, fuck,” she whispered as she watched more fists aimed at her.

***

Lt. Murphy noted that Harlow was down under a pile of Cans and that the other mechs were turning their attention to the Special Ops team.

“We need to pick up the pace!” Murphy shouted as she and Grendetti helped Bisby hobble towards the Hybrid. “We’ve got eyes on us again!”

The team looked over their shoulders and they all stepped it up. The dozen or so Cans sprinting at them was a great motivator.

They were almost to the Hybrid when the bottom ramp lowered and Campbell, with full dog team and mag-sled, came hurrying past them.

“Get the Hybrid out of here!” Campbell yelled as she passed them. “I’ll give you some time!”

Murphy didn’t argue as she hurried her team to the Hybrid. They made it to the ramp and rushed up into the machine. Each of the team member’s eyes fell on Campbell for a split second, making note of her sacrifice.

“Get us the fuck out of here!” Murphy ordered as she sat down and took control of the weapons system. “Grendetti! You’re driving!”

“Yes, sir,” Grendetti answered as he grabbed the control sticks and turned the Hybrid around.

“Where the fuck are we going?!” Bisby shouted. “Harlow is still out there!”

“She’s not reachable,” Murphy insisted. “She’s a big girl and knew the risks. Not everyone makes it, Bisby.”

“So much for not leaving a man behind, eh?” Bisby snapped. “But then I guess Harlow isn’t part of your team so who gives a fuck, right?”

“Cool it, Biz,” Sol said. “You know we have no chance against those things. If you and Harlow couldn’t take them out then what can we do?”

Murphy kept all weapons aimed at the Cans that were pursuing, but didn’t fire. She wanted to conserve ammo for as long as possible. It was a long way back to the Stronghold.

“Fucking cowards,” Bisby muttered, but a voice at the back of his head knew better. Harlow had gone down. There was nothing that could have been done.