533 Kilometers Beyond Federacy Borders
April 4th, Stellar Year 2146
"Sorry, Kiriya," Shin whispers, unaware that he's speaking aloud.
"I can't keep that promise."
He stares at the Grauwolf's blade as it builds vibration. Not out of shock, but spite and stubbornness. He refuses to feel fear. He won't give the enemy that satisfaction.
He won't give them his head either. He drops his hand to his pistol.
".:I would save the apologies for your mechanic, Shinei:."
Kiriya's voice is a jolt through the brain. Shin's eyes widen. His hand goes from the gun to his ear, touching the cool metal of the Para-RAID, as if to make sure it's really there. Then he glances again at the Grauwolf poised above him, at the glint of its high-frequency blade in the twilight.
At the huge black shadow coming down on it.
With a noise like metal thunder the mass of a Vanagandr crashes into the Grauwolf and obliterates it into so much scrap, shards flying in a glittering shrapnel cloud. The Vanagandr soars onward, hits the ground, kicks up snow at its feet as drifts into a pack of Ameise that stand only knee-high to its black-and-crimson legs. A moment after they cease to stand at all, crushed into the snow.
Four 14mm gatling guns alight in devastation. Lead sweeps across the field. Legion drones scream as they die, not with their ghostly voices but with the sound of splitting metal and sputtering electronics, the weighty gush of liquid micromachine blood upon the ground. With uncanny agility the Feldress swivels to face a Lowe. The drone's cannon is already primed, the nearby Ameise having given it a target. It fires - and at the same time the high-frequency lance atop the Vanagandr's back shoots forth.
When the smoke clears, the Vanagandr stands strong. A black scorch is burned across the hull of its cockpit, and a few of its prodigious composite plates are cracked open. But the Feldress doesn't so much as tremble, and the Lowe sags dead on its eight legs, speared cleanly through the processor.
Legion drones return fire and the Vanagandr bursts in a sideways dash. Enormous legs course tremors through the ground as volleys of missiles and shells rain down. It dodges most. It ignores the rest. And when the enemy's attention is well and truly drawn, no more guns trained on the immobilized Reginleif, that's when the fun begins. The Feldress whirls in a pivot, slide-drifts into a line of Ameise and crushes them all into shards and shrapnel. Spent casings rain down from all four guns. Screams of 14mm fire that drown the world. Massive gunpowder charges detonate, propelling the high-frequency lance into the hearts of the larger Lowe, and at each blast a sonic shockwave tears a corona of snow off the ground in a spherical pulse.
Emblazoned on both the front-most legs is the Personal Mark of a headless horseman atop a rearing horse, all in plain white silhouette. Pale Rider. A custom Vanagandr five tons heavier than the standard variant, mostly from the engine and armor. Kiriya's Feldress did away with the standard 120mm cannon and co-axial machine-guns, instead armed with four heavy gatling guns and a high-frequency lance meant to be used at a distance of 25 meters or less. His Feldress was, in effect, the ultimate close quarters vanguard.
".:You really do like to get yourself into trouble, don't you?:." Kiriya asks, and though his tone is light enough, Shin can still sense the anxious undercurrent running beneath his voice, the faint flutter of relief to have made it in time.
".:Sorry:."
Kiriya sighs. ".:I told you - save your apologies. And don't talk too much. I can tell you're hurt:."
Shin's bothered less by his broken ribs and more at the thought that Kiriya of all people should be worried about him.
An expanding circle of Legion corpses forms a barrier around Pale Rider like some nightmarish palisade, and for a time the drones clamber over the corpses of their allies to reach their enemy. And then when that proves too troublesome they turn their attention on Undertaker - and the Vanagandr bursts through the mountain of scrap, casting out a tumbling spray of debris. It jumps and lands and crouches protectively over the wrecked Reginleif as its guns roar in all directions.
There are dozens of drones. Perhaps a hundred or more, but in that moment they are all beaten back by the single Feldress. Return-fire saturates the air, a density of lead and shrapnel like a horizontal metal rain, a monsoon of the battlefield.
In combat, a minute might as well have been an eternity. A minute held a million deaths: to a single bullet flying at just the wrong trajectory; to an explosive shell coming down too close; to a vibrating blade too swift to dodge. An operator needed every ounce of skill, mobility, and luck to survive that deluge. Conversely, to sit still for an entire minute in open combat and somehow survive was either a divine miracle or an impossible fluke.
But for Pale Rider it was neither. The massive Feldress was designed for these short bursts of violent intensity, whether to single-handedly devastate an enemy formation, or to hold the line as one against many, a linchpin to buy time for an allied force. Its engine would burn through energy packs at an eye-watering rate, and the reactive armor, by its nature, was purpose-built to be replaced after taking damage - but the decisive, overwhelming power Pale Rider could employ in that interval was unmatched.
In the minute it took for the rest of the Federacy's forces to break through the Legion ranks, Pale Rider hit its limit, red alerts flashing all across every screen in the cockpit, nearly all of its armor blown away and depleted, one of its machine-guns destroyed entirely by a Grauwolf's missile. Even the core plating atop the cockpit was compromised. But it was enough.
Shin watched through the breach in Undertaker's cockpit as a volley of shells and missiles rained down on the enemy line, explosive peals and ringing thunder, blooms of fire across the encirclement. A formation of Reginleifs poured in through the opening with machine-guns screaming. A line of Vanagandrs behind them barraged ordnance at everything the smaller Feldress couldn't kill.
Pale Rider had taken the Legion's attention and forced them to turn their guns upon itself - and in so doing, turn their backs to the main force. In effect, Kiriya alone had formed the anvil, and now the hammer struck.
The rear ranks still had their backs turned when the expedition force fell upon them, and they were shredded through in seconds. A salvo of indirect cannon-fire dispatched the middle lines, and when the drones closest to Kiriya turned to face the new threat, Pale Rider's three remaining chainguns tore them to pieces.
They fell like wheat cut down by a lead scythe. It was mere seconds before they routed, their casualty limit reached at the moment when the sun finally set and the twilight ended as the Legion turned to flee in all directions.
A few Reginleifs gave chase to rack up their kill count. The Vanagandrs rained fire in predictive trajectories, catching several just before they could melt into the treeline.
And when the last of the gunfire had winnowed out, and the expedition force began to sweep the battlefield for survivors, Pale Rider took two stumbling steps to the side, sagging at the starboard, battered almost beyond repair.
".:Hime-sama was worried about you:." Kiriya said, seeming to predict what Shin was about to ask - why had he come here? ".:About two weeks ago, she told me to follow after you. So I came as quickly as I could. Your group slept nights. I didn't:."
Shin held his silence. He sat back in his pilot's seat, not thinking (his mind was almost unable to think, the adrenaline still muddying all lucidity) but feeling. He absorbed the texture of the flight suit against his skin, rip-stop fabric over a soft cotton lining, all of it moist with sweat and blood. The feel of the drive-stick still tight in his hand, metal and rubber cold from the air streaming through the breach in the cockpit. He closed his eyes and recalled the moment he saw the shadow of Kiriya's Vanagandr coming down on the Grauwolf.
What had he felt when he realized he was saved?
That he wasn't going to die?
He could find no answer. Not in that particular stretch of seconds. But at the very least Shin knew he wasn't disappointed to be alive. He had thought he might be.
".:Two weeks ago?:." Shin said. His face was expressionless, but his voice managed to give the slightest impression of humor. ".:So Frederika can see the future now, too?:."
".:Obviously not. She just had a feeling you'd be in trouble:."
".:A feeling, huh?:."
".:Yeah:."
Kiriya smiled then. Shin could sense it through the Para-RAID. It was neither a proper smile nor a dignified one. It was the ugly, naked smile of someone who came within a hair's breadth of losing something precious, only to make it through just barely safe. The kind of smile that moved the entire face, creasing skin and flexing muscle in unsightly patterns. Kiriya would never have made that smile if his face weren't hidden behind 55 tons of steel.
Probably 45 actually, Shin amended in his head. He's missing most of his armor.
".:I'm really glad I didn't take that nap earlier:." Kiriya said, and breathed a long, uneven sigh that said more than words could carry.
Shin closed his eyes. He realized then what he felt: Tired.
".:Hey, Kiriya?:." he said in a murmur, voice gravelly with the weight of sudden fatigue.
".:Yes?:."
".:Thank you:."
There is a pause, and in it falls a quick and complete silence. Even the Feldress outside seem to become still somehow, though Shin knows that can't be the case. There's simply too much work to be done after battle for everyone to just stop. And yet it seems exactly like they have. Shin can hear no sounds, not even his own labored breathing. The peace of it all is overwhelming.
And after it ends, Kiriya smiles again. This time the expression is graceful and serene, profound with sincerity. It's a smile he'd be unashamed to show, unlike the first.
".:Think nothing of it. You're my brother:."
—
Grethe joined them at the campfire that night with her short-cropped blond hair hidden beneath a mass of bandages that draped down to cover her left eye. Her right arm hung suspended in a cloth sling. The most distinctive feature she wore was a massive pout.
"I can't believe you didn't even look for me, Shin-kun," she grumbled. She held her steel mess cup between her knees, holding her spoon in her left hand, dipping it awkwardly into a steaming, fragrant portion of fried rice. "Oh, this is actually pretty good!"
"Thanks," Shin said. "Does it matter that I didn't look for you? There were already people searching for survivors."
"Tsk. You can't be so careless, Shin-kun. Girls won't like you if you don't show some consideration."
"I was injured."
She pointed her spoon at him like a scepter, a single grain of rice falling into the fire.
"That's exactly it! Imagine how romantic it would be!
"A girl, scared and injured, unable to move when suddenly a handsome boy still wounded from battle comes to her rescue. He offers her his hand, but when she takes it she realizes his grip is shaking because of how much pain he's in… but even so…! He's pushed himself so hard to save her! So she offers her shoulder to him, and they lean together as they walk back to camp… How wonderful would that be?!" Grethe closed her eyes, her one hand on her cheek as she pictured the fantasy.
"I think that would be a little inappropriate, Lieutenant-Colonel."
"I'm not talking about me, you brat!" she shot back. "It's advice for your future."
She nodded seriously. "One day, Shin-kun, you're going to meet a beautiful, serious, but slightly clumsy girl to fall in love with. She'll be very smart, but also a little dumb at the same time, so you have to be ready for that. And remember, a lotta girls do like a guy who's strong and stoic, but if you're too careless and sullen all the time then they won't like you at all. And how sad would that be?"
Kiriya sat on a folding chair at the other end of the campfire, his arms crossed, chuckling as he followed their conversation. "You should talk to my younger sister, Lieutenant-Colonel. She also watches a lot of cheap romantic dramas."
"What-!" Grethe sputtered. "Cheap? Cheap? A Rose Blooms on the Battlefield is a cinematic icon!"
"Frederika holds the same opinion. She is seven."
The pout returned as she turned her cheek to them. "Need I remind you both that I am your commanding officer?"
"I think you should remind yourself first," Shin replied.
Kiriya nodded. "You were the one to start a conversation about romance with a boy ten years younger than you."
Grethe's indignation lasted just a second longer. Then indignation became a distinct resignation as she buried her head into her hands.
"…Yeah, yeah I guess that's fair." She polished off the rest of the rice in her mess cup. "Excuse me a moment, gentlemen. I'm just going to wash off my utensils. And my shame. Good job on the fried rice, Shin-kun, very big improvement."
"Thank you."
Kiriya held up his own steel mess cup shortly after Grethe left.
"You made this? And it actually tastes like food?"
Shin shrugged.
His older kinsman seemed suddenly, ridiculously on the verge of tears. "Hime-sama always said your cooking was poor because you didn't care, but this is downright delicious. Shin, I'm so proud of you."
Shin shrugged, made uncomfortable by the clear sincerity of his praise.
"I just had one of the cooks show me what to do. He basically made everything for me."
"Oh, I see."
"But," Shin added. "I did want to cook something you and the Lieutenant-Colonel would enjoy." Somehow it wouldn't feel right, otherwise. Not after both Kiriya and Grethe had nearly died to save his life.
At that Kiriya smiled again, and the orange of the fire reflected off his irises and made his eyes seem very warm.
"Could you cook it on your own next time? Seasonings and all?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Kiriya leaned back in his folding chair, setting his tin aside and folding his arms behind his head.
Up above them the stars shone very clearly. The Milky Way formed an enormous, brilliant splatter of celestial light stretching farther than any hand could reach. A painter's motley of whites and burnt browns and faint reds and blues. The stars themselves numbered in the infinite, each of them shimmering just slightly with their gentle radiance. It was a beautiful sight after the brutality of the day.
"When we are all together again," Kiriya said, not taking his eyes off those stars. "You, me, and Hime-sama, why don't you make that fried rice so we can all eat it together. She would be thrilled to see that you can cook something that does not look and taste like rubber."
Shin leaned forward on his chair, elbows on his knees, face toward the fire. The heat of it tingled painfully on his skin and made him all the more aware of the inflammation in his chest. The swollen, tender skin around his ribs. Hairline fractures, the doctors told him. And severe bruising, but nothing especially critical. He'd gotten off lucky, all things considered.
"Now that you're here, Frederika's all alone, isn't she?" Shin said.
"Yes. She knew she would be when she gave me this order." He was still looking up. "But she did it regardless. It was a large step forward for her… but perhaps an unreasonable one, considering her age. Empress or not, I can't think of any seven year old that could tolerate being alone in such a large house."
"Frederika always hated that," Shin agreed.
For such a young girl she could be frighteningly intelligent at times, and she spoke with the eloquence and authority of someone three times her age. Yet she was still a crybaby who couldn't stand being left on her own. In those days before the Empire fell, when Shin and Kiriya had been her knights and caretakers, there were occasionally days when neither of them could be there for her. Every time that happened, she would very loudly and emotionally make sure they knew exactly how she felt about it. They no longer had that duty per se, but Frederika's hatred of being alone hadn't changed in the slightest.
Not until now, anyway.
"What happened back there, Shin?" Kiriya asked suddenly. "In the clearing, by the bridge. It's not like you to get surrounded."
"It was an ambush."
"An ambush? But you can hear their voices at all times, can you not? How could they have stayed hidden?"
Shin shook his head. "I don't know. I was outside my Reginleif when it happened, and I could still hear them, but they were far. The closest patrol was thirty kilometers off." His hand went to rub unconsciously at his neck, but a twinge in his ribs stopped it half-way. It fell back into his lap.
"And then?"
"Then I heard their voices. All of them at once. Maybe two hundred. Probably more. They came out of the snow and the trees. I only barely managed to get into my Reginleif." He spoke each sentence in a short, clipped tone, his eyes on the fire. The reflection of orange on red made his irises seem outright molten in their intensity, as if some inner light, come alive from the heat, was burning in them.
"Maybe I can't hear the drones' voices when they're in stasis, and maybe the Legion knew that… or guessed it. If that is the case, then all they would have had to do was hide the drones in that spot and wait until the right moment to re-activate them."
"But how could they know you would come there? You could have taken another road or avoided the bridge completely. An ambush of that scale requires preparation. An Ameise alone weighs ten tons. They couldn't have buried all those drones in the snow overnight without leaving obvious signs. They must have been hidden there for weeks."
A thought occurred to Shin.
"Maybe they've been hidden there since the day Nii-san's Para-RAID signal came back."
"You mean…?"
"Maybe the Legion's been setting a trap this entire time. "
"But that's impossible."
Shin shook his head.
"Who knows. It could just be a coincidence."
If everything had been planned, then it left far too many questions he couldn't answer. How could the Legion know that Shin would come there? He hadn't known there was an abandoned Vanagandr on the road before he chose that route, let alone that it was his brother's. He'd found the place by pure chance. And even if they could calculate all of that out… why? What did they have to gain from an unseen ambush, that they couldn't just from sweeping their whole force over him? Shin didn't know. Such a plan couldn't even be called a plan. It was more a shot in the dark.
"But it doesn't feel like a coincidence, does it?" Kiriya said.
"No."
Shin didn't miss the way Kiriya tightened his hands, nor the hard, protective edge that entered his eyes.
"You'll be careful, won't you, Shin?"
A log in the fire cracked open, spraying cinders.
"Yes."
Somehow we're still going strong!
Long-running fics can be a lot of fun to write, but they can also be a source of ever-present anxiety. I've written a novel of my own before, and while that was stressful enough, at least the only people I was at risk of disappointing (if I stopped or screwed up) was a small handful of beta readers. And I had the luxury of being able to revise and rewrite as I went along, as much as I wanted to. A project like this is less generous, and while ~100 or so recurring readers isn't exactly a ton, it's still a hundred people I'd disappoint if I gave up.
At this point I've left the honeymoon phase with this project. I absolutely still enjoy working on it and want to see it finished, but that raw fount of inspiration that caused those several-thousand-word-days has tapped out. Which means it's now up to my willpower and discipline alone to see this through.
Anyway, that's just me rambling. As always, you can simply disregard it. Check out the one-shot I posted a couple days ago if you haven't already, if you happen to be a fan of far-too-sweet sappy romance stuff.
- Verbosity