TEN
ALAMO, PART I
Aspencade Fortress,
Helic Republic, Delpoi Continent,
Planet Zi,
August 15, ZAC 2121
It was way past midnight when Saskia came back from New Helic City, and she barely closed her eyes for an hour when the alarm screamed bloody murder. Her logic dictated that it was just a routine drill, but the thought quickly tapered off when a series of explosions rattled the barrack. Curses quickly dispersed into panic babbles when anti-zoid cannons barked, filling the night with blitzing light and rhythmical blasts. Air-raid sirens wailed like banshees, and emergency strobes blinked in furious pace.
"All hands! Man your battle stations! This is not a drill… repeat, this is not a drill! We are under attack!"
Saskia stepped outside, and a horrifying scene greeted her. A few buildings were already on fire. Cannons and machine guns roared, spitting fire into the dark of night, eager to hit something but more often than not just wasting ammunition. Zoids rolled out from the hangar but quickly cut off by streams of missiles and laser bolts coming from phantom attackers. Shouts of men blended with cries of zoids and explosive booms.
Yet, in all this carnage, Saskia didn't see the enemies.
A Pteras took off from a hangar but two missiles ripped its chest open as it barely left the ground. Half of its left wing disintegrated in a murderous fireball. The Pteras screeched as it spun out of control, then rammed itself into a barrack directly in front of Saskia's. Half of the barrack's tenants were still inside fighting to get out when the Pteras dove headlong into it. Metal and concrete bits filled the air, seconds before the Pteras erupted, spitting charred splinters like spores. The shockwave knocked Saskia back inside her barrack, flat on her back.
"Get out of this place!" somebody took charge of the situation. "Get on your feet and run, soldiers! Out out out!"
Rubbing her head, Saskia rose to her feet and jumped out of a window. She sprinted toward the hangar, dodging zoids that stampeded out to defend the base. Technicians and pilots ran in and out of zoids, and zoids growled and grunted in impatience. Tools clattered everywhere. Elbows and knees nicked her body as she stepped in. Her friend Huy and Hotep were already working like a couple maniacs, trying to release as many zoids as possible.
"Who did this?" Saskia grabbed some wrenches and made her way to a Gorheck.
"Who else?" Huy snapped as he ran a final check on a Gun Sniper. "It's that elitist, Hollier-than-Thou Guardian Force, that's who!"
"But why? Why all this deaths and bloodshed? Why Aspencade?"
"Who cares? Get that Gorheck out of here to fight or we're all gonna eat Guardian Force lead!"
It was, indeed, rather incomprehensible. Then again, all violence instigated by the Guardian Force didn't make any sense. Attacking the President's daughter? Attacking Aspencade Fortress? Attacking Helic convoys? What did they want, exactly? What were they fighting for? If they just disagreed with General Krauser's proposal, this bloody hostility was not the best way to demonstrate their cause.
Or was she missing something?
The Gorheck pilot slid into the cockpit with ease, and Saskia helped him with his straps. He was just a kid, not much older than herself, and she caught a glimpse of nervousness in his eyes. Saskia couldn't blame him. It was a massacre out there, with mostly young and inexperienced Helic zoids were being cut off by the veteran Guardian Force. Some hadn't even shot their guns.
"The Gorheck can feel your anxiety, Sir," Saskia tried to calm him down. "Be strong and be brave. Give him your confidence."
The Gorheck pilot nodded shortly, then closed the canopy. Saskia gave him a thumbs up before retracting the escalator and all restrains. The Gorheck made a short guttural sound before breaking into a small gallop toward the exit door.
But before it got too far, a massive zoid blocked the exit door. Its dark red eyes contrasted the dark night outside, and its white body shimmered in the dimly-lit hangar. A Guardian Force emblem was engraved on its hips. It took Saskia a second to recognize the Heavy-Arms Konig Wolf, a rare zoid that existed only at the top echelon of Helic Military.
The Gorheck roared and trained its double cannons at the Konig Wolf, but the white canine blasted its twin rifles on its back. The Gorheck was stopped dead on its track. Its crystal fins flew every which way as its thick dorsal hide breached. Its short stocky legs wobbled. Smoke billowed from nasty gash on the hump, and coolant and gear fluid oozed like blood.
The Gorheck tried to steady its feet for a fight, but the Konig Wolf opened all launchers and fired a deadly missile barrage, dead center. The Gorheck sank into a haze of flame and smoke before disintegrated, hurling burning splinters to every corner of the hangar. Ammunition boxes and fuel conduits exploded, filling the hangar with flames.
A large chunk of Gorheck spun out of control and hammered the Gun Sniper Huy was working on. The Velociraptor-like machine twisted out of its balance and came tumbling down, taking Huy with it. Huy didn't even have a chance to scream when the entire 20-tons of metal came crashing down on him.
"Huy! Oh My God! Huy!" Saskia ran toward the fallen Gun Sniper, but before she got to it, the Heavy-Arms Konig Wolf let loose another missile salvo, sweeping the floor and the Gun Sniper with high-explosive ordnances. The Gun Sniper erupted like a volcano, and burning splinters whizzed to every direction.
"He's dead, Leewenhoek!" Sergeant Serow yelled from behind a fire wall. "Get out of here! Go! Go! Go!"
"Nothing we can do to help him, Saskia," Hotep grabbed her hand and towed her toward the exit. "We have to get out of here."
Saskia took one last look at the marauding Heavy-Arms Konig Wolf. Its eyes glowed red, almost like in satisfaction, as it marveled its scorching handiwork. The fire had spread to the ceiling, and cranes started falling off. With one eerie howl the Konig Wolf backed off the hangar.
"Let's go, dammit!" Hotep yanked her arm, forcing her to stand up and gallop behind him. They followed a dozen other technicians to the rear exit which had not been overrun by fire. But burning cranes on the ceiling lost their supports and crumbled down, treading the technicians in a burning pile. Hotep could only look up in anguish as a large metal beam, burning from end to end, pelted him with enormous force.
"Oh Sweet Jesus!" Saskia cried, watching the large beam buried Hotep's body under its fiery hulk. She tried to reach to him, but more burning parts fell down from the ceiling, prompting her with the realization that she was alone, and she wouldn't be for long if she didn't get out of the hangar.
Tears streaming down her face – from losing her colleagues and the acrid, blinding smoke – Saskia ran out of the building, seconds before the huge hangar collapsed into a pit of flame. Tongues of fire rose up to the dark sky as they joined a dozen other bonfires from demolished buildings and bunkers all around the base.
Resistance was fierce but futile. Republic zoids came out one after another, but quickly fell from overwhelming firepower of the Guardian Force. Pteras and Raynos fell out of the sky like leaves in autumn. Cannons and machine guns barked furiously, but one by one they fell silent. Nobody in the Republic side had enough skill to answer the Guardian Force swift attacks. The rookies just came out squandering their lives.
And the ten glorious Gravity Cannons were completely useless.
A loud, sickening creak stopped Saskia from her track. The support for one of the Gravity Cannons crumbled under the assault of two Guardian Force zoids. The long tube rolled off its hinge, crushing base of the Gravity Cannon next to it. The shrill of twisted metal stabbed her eardrums, so loud she thought she was going deaf. Broken parts raced toward her with vengeance, and it took every bit of her physical prowess to evade the charging pieces.
With raging fire all around the fortress and zoids treading the ground obliviously, Saskia scrambled the ground until she found a hole in the crumbling wall of the fortress. She slipped outside, then ran as fast as she could toward her cave, never looking back. The enraged explosions lit her way to the cave, and once she reached her sanctuary she cowered behind the Gilvader's massive claws, crying, praying, waiting for an absolution that may or may never come. She had never been so alone, so scared in her entire life. And the scenes of death would be hard to be erased from her memory for a long time.
