The Shinji Ikari One Shots
رسالة ميلاد جديدة (Risalat Milad Jadida)
I open my eyes and throw up my arm to shield them from the biting sand. I am in the desert still. How long has it been?
I pull down my goggles from my forehead and wrap my keffiyeh again, tighter now so it will keep the sand out. The wind howls around me, pushing my body as I rise from my shelter among the ruins that could have been a house once. I cannot see for the Shamal bred sandstorm. I know, somehow, that I must keep moving. I must go North. So I walk into the wind.
It strikes me then that I am not in the desert, not truly. Or perhaps I am, and I never truly left. Perhaps the waking world is but a dream bred by starvation and exhaustion. For when I close my eyes, it is to the desert that I return.
I walk forward, every step as if lifting a mountain, every foot fall like stepping on iron nails.
This is the Walk Through The Garden of Ibilis, as the corps called it. One hundred and twenty kilometers of the remains of the cradle of civilization during Al-Dabaran, the most vicious sandstorm of the year. Even the fools who make this place their home do not venture out into Al-Daraban. Good brothers and sisters have no business in this hellstorm.
The janissary corps proudly say that this final test showed they were only partly human. Only janissaries make the walk through the garden of the devil, and so it must be that the caliph's greatest soldiers must be partly of hell itself.
When the beginnings of the storm are seen, all of the ready recruits are brought before it. They are given a day's ration of water, their desert uniform, and a funeral blessing is said. Those who will be claimed by the storm are too weak to serve the empire yet die in its service. Those who survive, even if they should perish from the experience after reaching the end, are called janissary.
The wind stops me, but only for a moment as a gust blows so strong it feels like I have struck a wall of sand. When it is gone, I still remain. I keep walking.
There are many ways to serve the state as Devishirme. I could have been an administrator, worked my way up, become assistant vizier of a province one day. I do not recall ever having a choice though. I was to be of the janissaries, the great heathen soldiers of the caliphate.
Am I a heathen? I wonder this as drag my foot forward once again. The sand has gotten in my boots and grinds my skin within my socks.
Am I a heathen? A heathen is one who does not follow the true faith. But do I not pray facing the kabba, do I not know that there is but one god and the prophet, peace be upon him, is his messenger?
No, I must be a heathen, I concluded at that moment. For one follower of the prophet may not hold another in bondage, and I am devishirme. I am the personal belonging of the Grand Empire, the caliphate which rules from Al-Andalus in the West to Alyaban in the East. I am told I am from Alyaban, once called Japan. I do not remember it. At this moment I remember nothing but desert, hot wind, and sand. Sand everywhere. Sand in places sand should never go but having made it there is digging itself a settlement out of my hide.
I kept walking.
The wind is howling louder than before now, louder than I thought possible. The world around me shakes and I fall to the ground on my ass. You know your luck has truly run out when an earthquake comes to claim you in Mesopotamia. I ducked my head against the wind, my scarf loose again. There was sunlight coming through the storm, it must have reached a lull. And then there was a shadow before me.
I lifted my head and saw then a woman. She stood over me in black veils. She wore niqab, only her eyes showing among the black fabric. Somehow through the storm I see her eyes perfectly, and I am transfixed. They shine red like brilliant rubies.
"Who are you?" I ask. I should be screaming to be heard over the storm, the wind roaring by even as the sand has now seemed to clear into a haze. Yet I only whisper.
When she says nothing, I understand. There is peace now around us, despite the noise and violent shaking of the earth. This is the end.
"You are death then." I say and drop my head, laughing to myself. "Hey you should be able to tell me then, am I a heathen?"
I hear no response and raise my head. She is gone.
The plane touched down as Shinji bolted awake.
"Gentleman…" The pilot's voice said over the intercom. "Welcome to the imperial province of Alyaban, Aziz Airbase, Hakone District. Please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened and…"
Shinji rubbed his eyes then yawned, stretching best he could. The transport compartment of the massive cargo plane was mostly empty today. It was nice actually, not unlike a civilian airliner. He remembered something about it being a feature copied from the pre-impact days, when the nation that gave birth to the new caliphate bought planes like this from the Americans. The small compartment sat above the titanic cargo hold, far too big to be practical as a troop transport. It was said that if the plane was loaded with three tanks, the crews and all of the support staff could ride in comfort above.
Decadent yankees, but such thoughtful people.
Shinji was given his duffel on the way out. He caught it on the bounce when he took the short jump from the plane to the tarmac. No point in waiting for the cargo bay doors.
It was hot, but not so hot as the imperial province, where he had come from. Shinji found it even bordering on comfortable, though he wished he could open a couple of buttons on his uniform. The hip length red coat and blue striped slacks of his service uniform were great at keeping the desert heat out, but this humidity was something else.
His bag over his shoulder, Shinji passed into the arrivals lounge and went to the desk, orders in hand. There was a bearded regular forces corporal behind the desk, looking down. Presumably at his phone or something. Shinji raised a hand to his mouth and coughed.
"Huh? What do you… Oh! sergeant, um, a-uh thousand apologies, what can I do for you today?"
Shinji passed his orders over the desk. "I just transferred from Riyadh. I was told to report to the Easab Research Bureau, however nobody saw fit to give me any directions on how I am supposed to get there from here."
The corporal scanned his orders and quickly picked up the phone and began to dial. "I shall summon a car for you this instant."
Shinji watched the man chatter out commands into the phone in the local language. If this was the regular army way of doing things, no wonder the janissaries were so often sent out to bring things to order. Had one of the corps been caught distracted on duty he would have been stripped and lashed before his comrades. And what was this speaking the local tongue?
"Master janissary, a car will be waiting for you shortly. Please follow the green line to your left." The corporal said, holding the orders papers over the desk.
"My thanks." Shinji replied, accepting the papers and tucking them back into the pocket of his uniform jacket. He was turning on his heel when the regular began to speak again.
"So, sergeant, it must be… I don't know, interesting I suppose, to return to your homeland."
"My homeland, corporal?"
"Japan I mean. Your name is Japanese, so I thought…"
"You have not worked with many janissaries, have you corporal?"
"Well, no Sergeant, I haven't. I'll be honest, I've been rear echelon my entire time in."
"Didn't your mother ever tell you, corporal? Janissaries all come from the same place and it is not the Alyaban province."
Shinji stepped away without finishing the well worn joke. Janissaries go home when they die, 'cause they all come from hell.
Shinji followed the hall to a receiving area at the front of the terminal. A local woman, a kafar with her hair up in ponytail and wearing dark sunglasses. Her hair. Shinji noticed it as they pulled away from the terminal. Sitting in the back of the staff car he had a good view of her head.
The woman's hair was so positively dark it was like looking at oil. It was so dark he could see deep purple in it's sheen.
"Y'know, I never heard of a janissary coming home to see family before." The driver said. Her arabic was heavily accented, even if her command was sufficient to sound casual.
"I am here on official business."
"Oh, sorry. It's just you look like, y'know, Japanese."
Shinji looked into her dark sunglasses through the rear view mirror. "I was recruited from the Alyaban province. Even if I had time for such things as visiting, my family is the corps."
"R-right…"
The rest of the ride was silent. His orders had not specified his purpose in coming here, but Shinji was starting to believe this place needed a great many more of the corps, perhaps even for a janissary governor to be appointed. The locals, even the regular army staff, was still calling it Japan decades after the conquest, and discipline was lax. But being a governor was hardly a sergeant's billet, so his purpose would remain a mystery for now. At least until he reported in. Of course that required finding out who he was even to report to. What sort of outfit was this anyway, who runs a place like this?
The staff car brought him to a rather small building for a research bureau, but being built into a hillside gave away that it was merely an elevator station to an underground facility. As did the pair of top of the line Type 26E ambassador class mobile walkers guarding the front doors.
The Ambassador was the empire's standard five-ton light walker, the Type 26 being the successor to Impact War vintage Type 1 Saracen. It was not inaccurate to say that the Type 1 had won the empire. When the caliphate was declared and the armies of conquest went forth, it was the Saracen in the vanguard at every front. At the time, no other nation had mobile weapons, and even now the yankees were playing catch up. Light walkers such as these were the majority of any mobile force, having supplanted the main battle tank by virtue of greater flexibility and wielding the same cannons as the MBTs as battle rifles.
The Type 26 Ambassador stood four meters in height, a Type 1 coming to the chin of its successor's spade shaped head. Thick double jointed legs on radial four claw feet carried the bulky torso, itself covered in armor shaped not unlike an egg, if an egg had openings for appendages and supported broad plates of skirt armor. Within the torso was the cockpit, a cramped affair in light units.
Beneath the skirt, which fell to half the length of the unit's legs, were the propellant tanks and thruster arrays. The primary forward and jump thrusters were directly behind the pelvis joints, so they pushed at the center of gravity. On high performance units like the Type 26 block E, one could have a picnic beneath the enormous skirt armor protecting these required.
Both of these units were in civil Green and White. Even from the car Shinji could see where some enterprising soldier had begun painting calligraphy around the bearing housings and armor seams.
The car pulled away and Shinji approached the doors, duffle over his shoulder and hands loose at his sides. He stopped, per protocol, when the guardians turned their heads to him. The pilot had a panoramic view within his cockpit. If he turned his primary sensors in your direction, he was looking at YOU. Shinji did not wait for the pilot to request his identity.
"Sergeant Shinji Amir ibn Alyaban. I have transfer orders to report to the Easab Research Bureau."
There was a crackle and the pilot of the unit on the right side of the door spoke. "Please wait." The pilot spoke capital dialect, nearly literary arabic. Because of course he would. That is what was taught to janissaries and light walker battalions were almost exclusively made up of janissaries. Even the smallest scout mechs were ridiculously complicated to operate. Thus the only practical options were soldiers trained from childhood in them.
Shinji knew the protocol. The pilot would be calling into his supervisor, who would verify the orders with the staff office. Then it would be a clerk getting on the satellite uplink to the provincial headquarters for biometrics to verify his identity.
Shinji took the time to admire the mechs. He had been trained in hunchbacked two seater Type 1s and had done his lightweight certification on a Type 26C. The C was still the predominant machine in the mobile forces. The D and E types were only in use in the palace guard and the SOG commands as far as he knew. Including these two he could count all the active duty E types he had seen on one hand. Even the simulators had only been updated for them last year and those stats were widely regarded as far too conservative. Those overly conservative simulations still had most pilots injuring themselves by simulated Gs, so the real acceleration, whatever it might be, was something of a legend in the regular pilot corps.
Shinji didn't find it so bad, once you got used to the ridiculous thrust power and knew how to stop it getting away from you.
"Hey brothers." Shinji said with a wave. "If you don't mind me asking, I've only ever touched an E-type in the sims. How is..."
"Get inside and stop asking about classified information in broad daylight, Sergeant."
"Yes, Sir. Do you know who I am to report to?"
"The Commander. Someone will meet you at the bottom of the funicular."
Shinji smirked at the loanword from english. It was just amusing, even the shape his lips made as he mouthed it was funny. The building's lobby was little more than a bank of ordinary elevators and one very large armor plate door with an amusingly normal sized call button beside on the right. Shinji pressed the button, which lit up as such buttons do. There was hum of electrical motors and the bulkhead door slowly slid open, left to right. Shinji entered the car and took one seat for himself and another for his big bag. He would normally tuck it beneath his seat, but as the chamber held sixty seats in five rows of twelve and he himself was the only passenger, he doubted anyone would mind.
As the car slowed to a halt, Shinji picked up his bag and moved to stand in front of the door at attention. It was only well to make a good impression. It only now occurred to him that he should have asked if the commander was a janissary as well. If his orders had been right and proper he would have known his new commanding officer's name before completing the transfer and had a chance to research. The whole process had been contrived. He had received his orders less than twenty four hours ago and twelve of that had been on the plane. All he had in his bag was one change of clothes, his gun belt, and his toilet bag. The rest of his possessions, including his uniforms and even his pilot's suit, would arrive in the coming days.
The door was opening now. Shinji snapped his heels together and raised his hand to his brow as the door passed him by, eyes locked just over head level respectfully.
"Sergeant Shinji Amir ibn Alyaban of the Sultan's own third janissary mobile battalion reporting for du…" Shinji stopped and dropped his salute in shock. "Dad?"
"That's commander Ikari to you. Son."
Shinji glared at his father. He was wearing a white lab coat over a red pullover and dark business slacks and shoes. Commander my ass, Shinji thought, he is not even wearing a uniform. The sweater was especially odd, but it was cooler down here… or maybe that was just the mutual disdain.
"You finally converted for the opportunities then?"
"No, that would be you Shinji."
"Under the circumstances I really did not have a choice. So godless kafars run military research bureaus now?"
"We take the military side of our work with a grain of salt. We are mostly scientists, with just a few of you slave soldiers around to mind us." Gendo said. His very posture, slouched with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his lab coat, offended to Shinji. The total disregard for what Shinji had gone through, calling him merely a slave, the whole implication of it being something he chose. It made Shinji's blood boil and he glared at his father.
"So… what do you require of me? I presume you sent for me specifically."
"Indeed. Come with me, we will speak in my office."
Shinji slung his bag over his shoulder and followed his father with clenched jaw. They made turn after turn past innumerable identical doors. Shinji never saw or heard another soul. His father's office was only outwardly unique by the set of double doors. Within was something else entirely. The floor and ceilings were black stone and bore mystic motifs that Shinji thought the religious police would find most interesting.
"Alright dad, what are we going to talk about?"
"Tell me, do you know why the empire came out so well from the impact wars, Shinji? The answer of a scholar of war, not the political drivel." Gendo asked, his voice echoing as he walked away from Shinji towards the lone desk in the room.
"It was mobile weapons. The main battle tank was rendered obsolete by a faster and more versatile technology. Likewise, the AT fields produced as a by-product of the super solenoid engines rendered most conventional weapons ineffective, excepting the electromagnetic cannons but those were in their infancy at the time. The only other way was overwhelming force. It took a bomb to swat a fly. Mobile weapons can take and hold territory faster and more effectively than anything else around."
"Exactly. Now why do you suppose only one country in the world, a kingdom which made it's very existence on scarce hydrocarbon fuels, would be the one to develop such weapons powered by super solenoid technology, which itself rendered the basis of their prosperity obsolete?"
Shinji shrugged "The caliph, I guess the king back then, was wise."
"Rat piss, the king was rich enough to fund the project and stupid enough to take chances on a technology his American protectors had rejected as impossible and had the utter lack of scruples required to see it through. That and that alone is why the world is as it is now and it doesn't matter one iota. The form government takes, so long as it functions, is meaningless so long as this technology is developed and supported. The war that is to come will be won solely on the basis of our mastery of it."
"Okaaay."
"You haven't the faintest idea of the importance of what I just said, do you?"
"To be utterly honest sir, no, I don't."
"Rather than waste time explaining then, I shall give you the condensed version. I need a pilot for an experimental mobile weapon. You are suited to the task. Due to the expense of deploying said weapon, your duties will actually be rather sparse. You will receive your regular salary as well as hazard pay and you are expected to be available at all times. In anticipation of when your services as a line pilot are needed, you are authorized to requisition a mobile weapon of your choice for your personal use from the armory. We have more mechs than pilots."
"Oh… alright then."
"Amuse yourself in whatever tawdry things soldiers fill their time with until you are summoned. When you are, respond promptly. You will receive additional briefings when they become necessary. Report to-"
The already dim lighting in the room shut off and was replaced by strobing red and howling klaxons.
"Is that my summons then?"
Gendo Ikari rose from his desk with a scowl. "Come along son. And drop the smartass."
Shinji followed his father into a private elevator within the office and they swiftly arrived at a rather unremarkable, in Shinji's experience, operations center. Technicians in beige regular army work uniforms overlooking computers set en console with the front wall filled with flat panel monitors. His father took a seat at the rear of the room, a small desk with a single touchscreen console and a microphone. Lacking anything else to do, Shinji took up a parade rest behind and to the right of his father's chair.
"Report." Gendo said in a conversational and rather bored sounding voice.
"Sir, thirteen minutes ago an unfamiliar AT field pattern was detected in the freight delivery canal which services the city, approximately thirty kilometers out. Shelter orders were given and automated blast doors were erected right away. Once the field pattern began to move beneath the water's surface we sounded the alarm. At present speed, the pattern's origin will arrive at the waterfront in thirty seconds."
"Waterfront cameras, panoramic on the wall."
Pages of statistics and signal monitoring disappeared and the entire wall of monitors now showed a full view of the city's docks, pieced together from dozens of cameras to look as though one stood before them and turned one's head side to side. Breath was held throughout the room as a enormous bow wave rose up then broke as a shadow descended upon the docks. That which had lept from the water fell to the earth, giving many of the cameras quite the shake and apparently destroying them by vibration alone as views went dark, soon replaced by back ups from other angles.
Others gasped, swore, a few high pitched voices even shrieked. Shinji just stared. It was a forty tonner, perhaps more depending on material, and about thirty five meters if the scaling overlaying the image was correct. Lightweight for that stature, but it was very thinly built. Most of the gangly body panels were painted in a digital mottle of greens. The joints were shrouded in dark covers but the exaggerated shoulder plates and the main sensor head, mounted across the chest instead of above the shoulders, were a worn white that might have once been reflective.
"Hm."
"It appears my son has an opinion to share." Gendo said. "Since none of this little battalion of analysts have done their duty and provided an analysis yet, let's start with you, sergent."
Shinji frowned at the back of his father's head. The man had not even turned around.
"The design does not appear similar to anything in our forces nor anything intelligence says the yankees are working on. Streamlined, and the limbs are too fragile looking. And look at the feet, just folded out claws for stability. It looks like it was designed fro hydrodynamics, not ground combat. My guess is the shoulder armor is the remnant of what was a larger casing with a stealth coating. You may have only detected it when you did because it approached as something like a conventional submarine or was towed beneath the water by a larger vessel."
"Very good. Does anybody else having anything to add?" Gendo said, looking around. His condescending voice was like an irate schoolteacher's. The sort that made clear the question was not meant for a real answer and the one he had received should have been from them, not his son who just arrived.
"No? Very well then."
At this point, the skinny mech finally moved, raising both of its long arms with claws spread. There was a brief flash of pink before the cameras all went dark in a wave. Panicked voices began to shout and report. Gendo only sighed and finally turned in his chair to look over his shoulder at Shinji.
"Would you go kill it now?"
"Me?!"
"Well that is what soldiers like you do, isn't it? Men of wisdom like myself point you at something and you go wipe it from existence."
"Oh, well of course., I have my sidearm in my bag, will that do?"
Gendo glared at his son, but did not hide the quirk of his lips at that last piece of wit. "We have something a little better. Dr. Akagi, nice of you to finally join us. Show Shinji to the P-type and deploy immediately."
Shinji turned his to watch a woman emerge from the shadow behind them. She wore a lab coat like his father over western clothes, a pencil skirt and blouse with silk stockings. Unlike the kafar who had driven him here, this woman at least had the decency to cover her head with a red scarf that matched her painted lips. She said nothing, but when she turned to leave, Shinji followed.
"I apologize, I think there has been a mistake. I am not certified to crew a heavy, I've only ever driven light walkers, just one man units." Shinji said, looking up at the machine fed by at least two dozen cables and alone in the sterile white hanger.
"It's no mistake." Dr. Akagi replied. It was the first thing she had said to him, and she was not looking at him. Shinji was beginning to wonder if it was a local thing. She was looking down at a tablet clutched to her body by painted nails. "The Type 30 High-Mobility P-Type has a tactical basis in highly mobile light units like the one the ones to which you are accustomed."
The mech was painted in black and deep blues and stood twenty meters tall, a thirty tonner. The feet were humanoid, but wide, and the flared armor above them around the lower legs were packed with thrusters beneath and emerging to the sides at odd angles, their yellow coated inner bells striking against the dark hues of the armor and the outer casings. The wide skirts were at least familiar, but the thick arms and wide shoulders were not. Light walkers had slim shoulders to give valuable space to maneuver between structures. Shinji imagined the armor on these shoulders, protecting a cluster of vernier nozzles at each side, would simply cleave through most buildings.
The head was a swept back two pronged crown, an homage to the janissaries of old, with a command antennae rising straight from the forehead. The whole design had a certain artistic quality to it, down to stylized calligraphy along the chest, noting the model in sweeping red lines. 03 was stenciled in red on the right shoulder. The head itself was tilted forward, red optics looking down at him, with the rear open and most of the cables hanging from within.
"Well, let's get you in it. Lift is over here…"
They rode the crane up together, staff in safety harness clearing way as he walked alone along the shoulder armor towards the head. He spared the ransal a glance, a double set of main thrusters nearly as wide as he was tall and a pair of ejectable fuel cells hung over the long rear skirt. The doctor had stayed on the lift, her heels too treacherous for the curved armor. A technician waved him in and he could see the cockpit was a sphere contained within the cranial armor. Cable bundles were being pulled from the entry hatch even as he approached.
Shinji lowered himself into place and secured the five point restraints, but as the hatch was closed he noticed something that made him slightly concerned.
"Uh, where are all the controls?" He said, looking about. The cockpit was a great deal roomier than the ones he was used to, but there was only the pilot's couch and two relatively sparse yokes with only standard weapon select and fire controls.
"Don't worry. Just relax fully against the seat." Dr. Akagi's voice came over the intercom. "This may sting a little."
She was lying.
It did a hell of a lot more than sting. Shinji felt like he had stuck his finger in a light socket, down to the convulsions throwing his body against the harness. It stopped as the monitors came online, providing him a panoramic view of the hanger. He raised his head from the couch and felt a weight at the back of neck.
"Gah, the hell was that?"
"That…" Dr. Akagi's voice rang in his ear. "Was the neural interface making the initial connection. Don't touch the back of your neck."
He could see her now, standing on the floor far beneath him. She was not holding any sort of handset or speaking into any device he could see. In fact the directional speakers were quite amazing, her voice actually sounded like it was coming from where she stood. The pick up on the directional microphones was exceptional.
"I've never heard of such a thing."
"Very much experimental technology. This is the refined version, the initial experiments were actually quite temperamental. What you feel at the base of your skull is an interface which is communicating directly with your brain. What appears to you to be the monitors of the cockpit are in fact blank. Information from the evangelion's cameras is being piped directly to your vision centers. Likewise, the remarkable sound quality is thanks to data going directly to your aural nerves. When you speak it is coming from speakers onboard. Real bleeding edge, you can read the manual later. Now, we need to get you to the surface. Step forward."
"How?"
"The connection goes both ways. The type 30 is now effectively your body. Command your legs to walk and you will move. Now hurry, the elevator is this way.
It was both as simple as stated and much less so. The response from the mech was beautiful, but it was not a natural movement to walk with flared armor about one's legs or a truly astounding array of rocket nozzles and liquid fuel tanks hanging off every imaginable part of one's body. Once he had backed up to the elevator, there was another challenge entirely to will a set of sub arms to deploy and grab the launch rails. You don't really know what it is like to move limbs you don't normally have until you try.
"Wait, how do I use the maneuvering thrusters?"
"You're an experienced pilot. When you want to move quickly, you don't think about pushing the button and moving the stick, do you? You just think it it happens. Same premise here."
"Good, good. What about weapons?"
"Uh, yeah. We'll see what we can do for you there. The manipulators are pretty solid, all else fails you can put all that close combat practice to good use!"
"Wait, what!? That's a-"
Shinji had meant to say that was a terrible, horrible, no good, and frankly neglectfully poor plan. He was interrupted by the sudden acceleration as the electromagnetic rails engaged and hurled him surface-ward.
Rather quickly such thoughts became irrelevant, as sunlight and the sides of skyscrapers replaced the rushing steel of the tube. Shinji had done EM launches before, but nothing that long or stopping so quickly and it had his stomach in his throat.
However, the whole point of training a soldier is to overcome such little concerns. Verniers ignited and threw the evangelion hard to the right, just in time as a pink lance of charged particles scorched the pavement along the entire boulevard.
How dull were these mad scientists? What moron deployed him right in the enemy's firing arc?!
Questions were filed away for later. That beam was turning the skyscraper in front of him from 'cover' to 'concealment' and it would quickly be 'defeated'. The mech responded like a dream as Shinji lit the skirt thrusters to get some ground clearance and shot away. Warning tones shouted at him of near misses as he danced between buildings, edging closer to the enemy despite still not even holding a weapon.
Direct paths were right out. Charged particle weapons were always dangerous, no matter the output. Even a weak one could just be the sighting laser for the real thing. He could not follow any circle or pattern to approach, the enemy would just shoot through cover predictively.
And of course there was the small matter of a weapon.
"Hey can I get a gun up here?"
"Uh yeah, about that Sergeant." A man's voice, young, crackled in his ear. "I'm Hyoga by the way, I, uh, work in the command center. Anyway, we've been trying to get something up to you, but that bogey has some way to detect the armory elevators we have hidden in the buildings around downtown. Anytime he's not shooting at you, he's been taking out everything we try and send up. Sorry."
Shinji kicked both legs forward and fired a full reverse just as he crossed the shadow of a buildings and narrowly missing the lance of energy that crossed where he could have been.
"Alright Hyoga, maybe you can help me with something else. Can you control my display from there?"
"Uh, yeah sure."
"Good, nobody saw fit to teach how to access menus with my brain. I need supply and damage indicators, a map, and if you can get me eyes on the bogey all the better."
"Yeah, um, got it… now."
Windows filled the corners of Shinji's vision. At the bottom left, a simple diagram of the evangelion and a read out of his power output and fuel levels. The latter was becoming concerning, the external tanks were nearly exhausted and the internal reserves were quickly approaching half empty.
To the right was a map, showing the streets and city blocks with himself a shown as a dot darting back and forth like a deranged insect and another the enemy. It was advancing slowly, it was only a few blocks in from the waterfront.
Above his main field of view was a window showing camera footage of the enemy. The spindly arms were bent at the elbows and firing blasts at waist height. It was a silly design, those shoulders meant those guns could not elevate much past that. Its transverse wasn't very good either, it was shifting footing to move outside a pretty narrow firing cone. Those shoulder plates getting in the way again…
Oh now that was something.
For the first time since the plane touched down and this whole madness started, Shinji smiled. It was a quick and dirty plan but burning fuel like he was that was all there was time for. If he stopped moving he was dead. Just had to figure out a few details first.
Still on the move, Shinji felt for the sub arms. They were curled up flat against the ransal, but awoke. It was an odd feeling in more than one way. Controlling them was like remembering they were there, in the same way one only controlled one's own breathing if it was actively thought about. Doubly odd was that he could feel air resistance against the arms pushing them back.
A red flasher indicated the external tanks were on fumes. Shinji tried thinking about cutting them off and, low and behold, the valves shut. He could get used to this, that took at least five keystrokes to do manually on a type 26.
Sub-arms gripped each tank at the neck as Shinji released them. Normally such tanks would be cleared by explosive bolts, but Shinji has a plan for these. He cut the skirt thrusters and let friction do the work as the evangelion's broad feet dug into the pavement. Forward momentum carried the swing and the sub-arms hurled the black drop tanks ahead. Into the street and into the line of fire.
Shinji did not wait to watch the fireworks as the enemy took the bait and fired. Between the left over fuel and armed but unfired clearing bolts they made a nice boom, threw up some dust. All Shinji saw was a warning indicator of the enemy fire and explosion below him, because right now he was riding the evangelion straight vertical concealed behind a nice seventy floor downtown tower. Firing all the thrusters on full throttle was drinking fuel, but he only needed a little more once he cleared the building.
His view changed from steel and glass to daylight. Shinji reoriented and tapped his main thrust once more to send him over the top of the tower. Feathered power was spot on as the massive black mobile weapon began to fall, arcing steep and heading straight for the enemy mech.
The enemy mech that could not shoot up.
Enemy guns can't elevate? Go vertical!
No weapon? Ramming speed!
The pilot must have figured out the ruse, because that alien little head did swivel up to see him. Not that he could do anything.
Shinji did not impact at full speed. No point crushing himself in the process. A feathering of vertical thrust slowed the evangelion just enough to let the weight of the mech do the work and stomp the enemy into the pavement. Those skinny little limbs made a real satisfying crunch and the lightshow was nothing to laugh at either. The pilot must have tried to fire the integrated guns one more time as they were crushed. Whatever happened, both shoulders blew open after the mech hit the ground.
The head was still moving though, so Shinji decided to test Dr. Akagi's claim about the manipulators. One punch did in fact crush the faceplate and when Shinji opened the fingers to inspect them, found that indeed not even the coating was scuffed. It only added to the weirdness of the machine that he had felt the punch connect in his own arm.
"Command, this is... Evangelion Three. Bogey is-"
"Sergeant, retreat now!"
"Wh-"
"The S2 engine is overloading, it's a self destruct!"
What followed was instinct. Shinji fired everything that still had fuel. It felt like he ended up hitting a building hard. It didn't matter. Damaged mech, injured pilot, ANYTHING and ANYWHERE is better than in the terminal zone of an overloading super solenoid engine.
Wherever Shinji ended up, it jostled whatever was attached to his neck loose. The cockpit went dark before red emergency lights kicked in. That was a good sign. He was still alive, so he must have escaped the worst of the blast.
They show a video during basic induction, which is kind of like grade school for janissaries. The video shows an S2 going off out in the desert with a bunch of little fake buildings set up to show you what happens. When Shinji had moved into the mobile weapons program years later, they had shown the same video, but then you watched battlefield camera of one going off during the impact wars. Then they showed you pictures of afterwards, taken by aircraft but with real nice cameras so you got all the details.
In the terminal zone, there is nothing left. Matter is obliterated in a sphere around the origin point. How big the terminal zone is depends on the size of the engine. Light walker? Maybe twenty meters. Big one like the forty tonner that had just gone off?...
Shinji did some a bit of rough math. He was at least half a klick back from the origin, maybe more but that was a decent guess. So he was in the secondary zone, but not deep in it. In the secondary zone the damage was similar to an N2 mine at range or a fuel air bomb. Reinforced buildings and good armor survived, but took a beating. Anything else was flattened. Conventional concrete might as well be glass. A pilot in a light mech would probably survive, but he was going to be stuck waiting for rescue to pry him out and he wasn't going back to work soon, if at all. Out past that was the tertiary zone, but that was nothing worse than a conventional bomb going off.
Beyond poorly informed calculations of blast radius, there was little to do in the dark cockpit. Shinji had released the restraints and patted down the pilot's couch twice looking for a radio or something. Fiddling with sticks produced nothing, not even any noise of responsive action. It was beginning to get warm though, so he released the brass buttons of his red class A coat and threw it over the back of the couch. That left him in his white linen undershirt, quickly unbuttoned, and high waisted slacks held up by suspenders tucked into shined black boots.
The whole outfit was ridiculous. Moreso since Shinji seemed to be the only one apart from a couple door guards following military protocol around here. Had he known that he would have worn his cammies.
After two sessions of stretching, taking his boots off to pray, musing on how you find the qibla when you have no idea what direction you are facing, deciding god in his infinite wisdom will understand if you are off and it all circles around in the end anyway, then actually saying his prayers along with a very personal note that getting out of this stuck giant robot sometime soon would be nice, Shinji finally closed his eyes and did what any good soldier does with downtime and nothing to fill it. He took a nap.
Across the pacific ocean, where the Bay Area of California had once been, was the great West coast flood plain of America. The ruins of San Francisco and the surrounding cities, a swamp that had once been the vaunted Silicon Valley, and salty delta all the way East to the great valley that ran the length of the old state.
Impact had driven humans from the area, and the conquests that followed had consumed funds to rebuild. Over the decades that followed, once threatened wildlife had again flourished and hardy plants retook what had once been human space. It was now a place people came, in their spare time now that such a thing existed again, for the peace and quiet. Some came to remember the old world, and some just for the comfort of nature.
"I am half a mike out, fire for effect!"
Asuka was staying low, skimming along the old highway one. Going supersonic was driving a rooster tail up from the sea below, but the highest ridges of the coastal range were covering her approach. In thirty seconds she would pop up and hang a right Eastward. That should, if everything goes right, put her right on the target's ass while it was dealing with a combined missile and railgun barrage from the front.
"Missiles in the air, full kinetic barrage FIRE!" Came her partner's voice over the radio. "Get some!"
Asuka banked right hard, squeezing her muscles against the Gs. Her suit acted sympathetically, fluid bladders applying additional pressure to keep her blood where it needed to be. Mid-turn Asuka jerked the controls into battle mobile weapon configuration. Her throttle became a second stick and both of the yokes locked rigid as the neural connection took over.
The swept wings of the flight pack locked forward with a jerk, the additional drag making the turn all the sharper. Locks released, momentum threw her machine's arms and legs forward, rifle and shield snapping into place.
"Unit two, Aile equipment deployed!"
Some time later...
Shinji's shoulders dropped as the source of the vibration rounded a corner several blocks away. The wide feet of the Type 4 Asad 50-ton super heavy mech buckled the tarmac, the claw like pneumatic driver stabilizers digging through and leaving an ashy haze in its wake. The Asad was a quadrupedal type, it's wide back a platform for all means of artillery and it looked less like its feline namesake and more like one of those Ankylosaur dinosaurs. In its normal configuration it would be a poor choice for an urban setting. The artillery guns these things carried were not meant for direct fire, and the defensive heavy machine guns mounted in blisters on either side of the bulky head were limited to a relatively thin cone of fire directly to the front.
"Ibn Asharmoota…" Shinji cursed.
However this was not the standard configuration. As Shinji grabbed Rei's wrist and made for the nearest pile of rubble for cover, he thought about what he would give for it to be just a standard Asad. No, this was Lev variant, developed in the field when some ingenious engineers decided to strip an Asad of its four shell lobbing artillery guns and replaced them with two antique quad-mounted 20mm anti-aircraft guns on triple axle mounts that allowed them to traverse and elevate almost without limit. With a Lev, if you were safe from its guns, you were in danger of being stepped on. When first constructed, they were used to break stalemates of urban fighting during anti-partisan operations in the slavic states. Their guns alone could collapse buildings and any ambushes were simply drowned out in a wave of high explosive shells. Those were in no short supply, the remaining gun mounts had been replaced with armored ammunition storage containers.
And now there was one loose in a civilian city, under the control of allah could only guess what sort of maniacs. And it was loaded for fighting friendly mobile weapons, those shells blew right through the AT field like it was not even there.
Last but not least, it was prowling. The trapezoidal head was swinging back and forth, and Shinji knew that meant active sensors were blasting the spectrum. This lion was looking for something and he had a sinking feeling what it was.
"Its looking for us." Rei whispered, crouched beside him as he peered through a gap in concrete rubble. There was little left black of her Abaya, her sleeves had torn to the elbow and her niqab was long gone, leaving her pale skin and beryl blue hair exposed. Perhaps she would have cared if not for the eighty-ton war machine.
"Yeah." Shinji said absently, his attention on scanning his surroundings. Little details, irrelevant for the moment, were filed away. The Lev had been waiting where it would be best placed to slaughter the responding forces at the elevators they were launching from. That, along with having access to an SOG variant mech was a big red banner in his mind.
Traitor.
Shinji's eyes settled on one nearby building. It was a mosque. Where the doors had been, the brickwork had been excised in a perfectly mecha shaped hole. When he looked closer, he could see a mostly intact Type 26 recumbent within. He tapped Rei on the shoulder and pointed it out.
"We can use the radio to call in for help. Maybe, if god is very very generous today, it is still mobile. It might not be able to outfight that beast, but at least we could outrun it."
Shinji's boots crunched over scattered tiles and masonry as they entered the mosque. It was a great blessing the attack had not begun during the call to prayer, or the civilian casualties would have been catastrophic.
Light flowed into the mosque, making the clouds of dust glow in a way and shining reflections from the surviving blue tile work onto the walls and ceiling. Seated in the remains of the back wall, framed by two halves of an archway, the damaged walker was sitting, the center of its great body taking the place of the top of the arch. By some sick providence it had come to rest in the mihrab, its back towards Mecca.
Shinji took a closer look at the type 26. It was a heavy weapons type, it's recoilless rifle still mounted over its right arm, the manipulator holding the forward grip. The pelvic section appeared undamaged, no risk of core breach at least. There were three clean holes through the cockpit, the left arm was a stump and the legs were mangled. This walker was going nowhere.
Shinji slapped the side of the mech's cockpit and swore a blue streak.
"My apologies, Rei." Shinji said after a deep breath. "That was unseemly."
"The radio is possibly still operational." Rei said.
"You are right, I will check. You… you should turn around while I open the cockpit though."
"Why?"
"Because there will be a dead pilot within."
"It is only a body. I have seen others."
Shinji got on with it, no time to waste arguing. He found the release lever and applied the small amount of lift needed before the hydraulics took over. Shinji said a small thanks under his breath. While the pilot was dead, the massive exploding rounds has cleanly penetrated him and the back of the unit without detonating. Shinji shuddered to think what the remains of the cockpit had looked like otherwise.
Between the full face helmet and all encompassing pilot's suit, they could see nothing of the pilot's features. Shinji lifted his brother janissary from the pilot's seat and carried him over his shoulder to rest a ways away. When he turned to face the walker again, Rei was in the cockpit, retrieving the secondary radio headset. The alternative would have been to use the primary one in the helmet worn by the late pilot.
Turning to face him as he approached again, Rei slid into the pilot's seat with no regard for the former occupant. She held out the wireless headset for Shinji with one hand and thumbed the switch to bring the core to speed and restore power to what systems remained.
Shinji slipped the radio over his head and tapped the earpiece to activate. "This is oh-three, I am with oh-one. Command, do you read us?"
"We read you oh-three, but that bogey just made a sharp turn in your direction. It must be tracking on the power core."
"Can we get extraction?"
"Not fast enough. Is the unit mobile?"
"That is a negative command." Shinji replied, hauling himself up to look at the diagnostic screen. "Legs look shot, we are propped up on debris. Left arm is defeated, right arm appears functional."
"Damn…. Okay okay, the response team was sent out with several recoilless rifle teams. Does your machine have one?"
"Yes! Yes we do." Shinji said, looking at the shoulder mounted cannon with its muzzle in the floor and the bell of it's blast cone facing into the ceiling.
"Alright, uuuuh… Do you know how to check if the shell has been fired?"
"Yes." Shinji answered, though he wanted to say of course he fucking familiar with how to check the gun. Instead of wasting time, he had already climbed the rubble and was reaching his hand into nozzle at the rear of the gun. If the weapon had been fired there would be only empty space at the base of the cone, but if the shell was unfired he would feel the ablative polymer back of the shell that was designed to blow out when fired.
Shinji found the base of the nozzle. All he found there was empty space circled by the breach of the gun and the remains of a shell.
"Command." He said, holding the speaker against his ear. "Shell is fired but it looks like the quiver is full." He continued, inspecting the external box magazine on the back of the ambassador. Normally such a gun would be deployed in teams of two, one light walker equipped with the gun and the magazine. Both units would carry standard arms and the unburdened 'loader' team member would service the weapon while the shooter acquired the target and engaged.
"Well… I hate to tell you this oh-three, but without a miracle that gun may be your only hope here."
"Command, maybe I wasn't clear." Shinji said, hopping down from the rubble and standing beside the right side of the mech. "I have a half dead mech with primary display full of 20mm holes. The only way one of these is going to drop a 50-tonner in one shot, and that is all we are getting when we can't move, would be a perfect shot through the front head armor into the cockpit, with absolutely perpendicular angle of penetration. Even then, you practically have to shoot through the front optics to penetrate. Such a perfect shot and we don't even have a targeting computer to work with!"
"Um, Oh-three… the uh commander has a message for you."
"Well what is it?" Shinji said, stepping around the front of the fallen machine.
"He says… He says oh-one can make the shot. You just worry about getting the weapon prepped. And if I may say, you better hurry, you have approx ninety seconds until the Lev enters range."
"I see… I have a message for the commander as well."
"Ready to receive your message."
"The commander's mother is a-"
"Shinji. It is coming." He looked to Rei, then out into the city. The rooster tail of concrete and tarmac that marked the medium mech's wake was moving closer.
"Okay… Alright." Shinji knelt down near the heavy weapon's muzzle, fingers pawing at the back up iron sights folded down against the barrel. In frustration he opened his utility knife and pried the sight up, the detents clicking loudly into place when it was erected parallel to level. Then he was around the outside of the arm, pulling himself up on the weapon's barrel to reach over and do the same for the rear sight. Rei would be able to look through the iron sights from her place in the cockpit. They were designed for use when the targeting hardware was damaged through the main cameras. They could do what Rei would attempt to do, aimed openly, as a hold over with the old Type 1s and their easily damaged optics.
"What is the plan?"
"The commander says you can make the shot with eyeballs. You are going to only have one chance, and you need to put it through the main optic array and into the cockpit. The angle has to be straight on or it will bounce or not go far enough. You are only going to have a few seconds, maybe a couple more depending on if his sensors got any damage in the fight with the response team."
Rei said nothing for a moment and Shinji was pulling on the stubborn breech block release handle with both hands when she spoke.
"Understood." And that was that. The right arm rose, leveling the gun. The movement shook whatever had stuck the breech block clear and Shinji flipped the straight handle over the block, rotating the nozzle out of the way and kicking the empty shell clear. Now he just had to get a sixty kilo shell out of the quiver and into the gun, close the block again, then start praying.
Shinji had cleared the massive 200mm shell from the carrier, his legs shaking beneath him and both hands squeezing it to his chest, when he felt the ground began to rumble.
"It is coming." Rei said.
"I know!" He snapped back. Shinji dropped the tip of the penetrator sabot on the lip of the breech and moved his hands together beneath the base of the shell, squatting behind it. With all his strength he pushed up and shell leveled into place. One firm push slammed it home in the micro-polished chamber, as if it was gliding on air. Shinji felt and saw the extractor claws click into place before swinging the breech block and it's nozzle back into place.
"Locked and loaded." Shinji announced, skipping off the rubble to the front of the mech. Looking behind the unit, a thought of some importance had occurred to him.
"Acknowledged." Rei replied.
"Alright, now once you make this shot, this whole building has a good chance of coming down on us."
Rei did not look to him, she was making fine adjustments. "Yes. The cockpit should be able to handle the weight and the falling debris will close the hatch, if that is your concern just be in the cockpit."
"Yeah, well gonna give you room to work, I'll-"
"Please inquire as to which street the enemy is approaching on I need ranging."
"Sure sure." Shinji touched the headset and keyed the bridge. "Command, I need to know what street this thing is coming up on."
"Fortieth, it will be two clicks out when it enters your firing arc."
"Thanks." Shinji said dismissing the channel. "Fortieth, two-"
"Two kilometers. Prepare yourself." She said. The rumble was shaking the floor so much the loose tiles of the mosaics were jumping from the vibration. Shinji lifted himself into the cockpit, bracing himself against the lip of the hatch so his weight upon Rei did not disrupt her aim.
"Hey Rei, you got this. You can do this shot."
"Yes." She replied. For the first time since she had lifted the gun, she blinked. When she opened her eyes they were looking at him. "But your confidence is appreciated."
A moment of warmth, followed by another blink, and her eyes were on the street again. Shinji had to twist his shoulders to look upside down at the street. It all happened very fast, as an ambush always does. He saw the massive mech come around the building. Muzzle flashes from the eight vicious guns upon its back. He looked down at Rei, saw her nimble fingers make final adjustments and stroke the trigger. He felt the entire world shake as the blast wave from the gun snapped the air itself like a wet garment. He relaxed his limbs, dropping atop her and tucking around her protectively to fit as the hatch came down.
At this point, there was nothing left to do. If they succeeded, then they would be alive in another moment. If they had not, it would be over before he could even consider it.
And in another moment, they were still there. It was dark but for the meager light of the most basic indicator lamps. He only thought about then that he was holding her, touching her, in ways only a woman's husband should.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes. And you?"
"I think so, yes."
"We may be stuck here for some time."
"Yeah. We will be fine, with main power running we should have enough air for days. They should have us out of here in a few hours."
"Yes." It was too dark to see her face, but something in her voice was… different.
"Janissary, pilot! Can you hear us!" Hyoga was with the crew digging the light walker out of the ruins of the mosque. The backhoe had pulled the largest chunks off, and he was now with a group of every regular army enlisted they could requisition, pulling the rubble off by hand. They had just found one of the massive bullet holes perforating the cockpit.
"Yes! Yes we hear you!" He heard Shinji's voice from within.
"Are you alright?"
"We are unhurt."
"Great great…" Hyoga said to himself, rising and turning to the others working alongside him. "Okay everyone, almost there! Get the hatch clear."
With renewed vigor they dug. The hatch thus cleared three privates pried their fingers under the lip of the hatch and the bypass release thrown, lifted. When the thrown up dust cleared there were… questions.
The cockpit of a type 26 light mobile weapon is not a large space. It is meant for a single pilot, who are recruited below a height threshold. As such, Shinji nor Rei had had opportunity to move since the hatch had slammed shut under the weight of the house of god coming down on it. Shinji was still straddling her. His uniform's red jacket was off, the dress shirt beneath soaked with sweat and his suspenders hanging from his hips. The same jacket was clutched around Rei's face by her own pale hands.
"Um… have you spoken to her guardian yet?"
"This isn't what it looks like!"
It really hadn't been. Really. Shinji had done his best to explain. Even with emergency oxygen generators functioning, it had been stifling in the cockpit with both of them in there. So of course he took off his jacket. She had lost her veil in the attack, it was gone before they got in there. He hadn't torn it off like a savage. Well of course they were both sweaty, it was hot in there.
Nobody listened. They did not really seem to care. And then the imam showed up…
The imam did not want to listen at all. At this point Shinji was climbing out of the cockpit and standing on the street and the general clearance had been given. Quite understandable the poor man had wanted to see to the condition of his mosque and had come directly. That the whole place was now not but a pile of rubble and one dead walker had sent him into hysterics.
"What happened!?" He had demanded and one well meaning soldier possessing of questionable judgement had explained that the initial damage had come from the walker going out of control when the pilot was killed and it ended up going through the wall.
"It looks like a bomb went off and the damned thing is right there!" The imam had countered. The soldier, who Shinji would go on to swear he would find one day, explained oh no, that had been the backblast from a weapon fired from within. That had set him off quite badly.
It had been at that moment that the imam saw Shinji lifting Rei out from the cockpit Shinji had just left himself.
Perfectly innocent as Shinji explained it to the prayer leader. Totally reasonable explanation. The sort of accident you only see in silly movies. Shinji laughed, all just a humorous coincidence. Hyoga laughed. The other soldiers laughed. Rei even tittered.
The imam did not laugh.
The imam had not been moved. And the crowd of gathered citizens come to gawk at the destruction shared his view. What resulted was mixed. A kind woman had brought Rei a veil with which to cover herself, which had been nice and charitable. What was also brought was were department of the military forms 2255 and form 24246. The former being the standard marriage contract and the latter form for reporting a change in marital status.
Thus, on the ruins of a razed mosque, in witness of several hundred citizens and soldiers, a wedding was held. It was probably the first one since the impact wars where the sermon was made from atop a destroyed walker.
"That was… unexpected." Rei said as they left the base identification office. This was the first moment they had been alone since they had been dug out. Things had moved quickly. Rei wore Shinji's jacket across her shoulders in the cold of the geofront. Shinji had his shirt sleeves rolled up and several buttons undone.
"Yeah." Shinji said, staring at his ID and a piece of paper clipped to it. Upon it, in small typed letters was his new address. THEIR new address. It was a two bed one bath apartment. Being married had benefits like that. "Uh, do you need to uh get anything from your place?"
"Clothing and toiletries, it was only a furnished room." She said, looking through one of many folded pamphlets she had been given. Whatever else one said about the military, they were very supportive of family. "Apparently movers will pack and deliver my belonging within twelve hours for a intramunicipal transfer."
"Nice. I just need to grab my foot locker."
"It says here that for senior enlisted a runner will deliver it."
"Hey, senior enlisted, you married a man on his way up." Shinji said, but immediately regretted it. Rei was silent and had slouched, dropping her hands to her sides instead of reading as she had been.
"Hey. I'm sorry, I know this hasn't really been by choice."
"Yes."
"Look I… I won't force anything on ya, I'm not that kind of man."
"I know that. You could have before and did not. You are also honorable. You could have stopped this process if you truly wanted to, but you did not do that either."
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Well… If I had really fought it and left you high and dry, you'd have a lot of trouble. People still wouldn't believe me that nothing happened and that would make it tough. So I figured if I was at fault for messing up your reputation, the least I can do is support you. I won't lie, I liked you before."
"I noticed." Rei said then waited a moment before speaking further.
"You should have said something sooner." Rei straightened back up and there was something new in her voice, though her delivery remained quite deadpan. "Instead of arranging this ridiculous scheme."
"Wha-?!"
"You clearly arranged all of this." She said, turning up her nose and closing her eyes. "The attack was a small price for you to put me in a position to compromise my honor and force this marriage. I am wise to your game and will hold you to your duties."
Rei looked to him. "Husband."
Gave y'all a little more this time, just because I don't foresee ever writing more of this story. It has some unique elements going on but I think there is perhaps too many at once. You have a more real robot vibe, a world mostly ruled by a new caliphate, to say nothing of Shinji's own beliefs.
Google docs and Word make working with Arabic characters within Latin characters weird. Quite correctly, your forward arrow will move the cursor to the left. Despite having taken a semester of the language, that is why I only used the characters in the title. I could have done it correctly, it was just too much of a pain in the ass. Could be a good motto that.