"We need to bring this wall down" Ryuki radioed in. As Karin and Ross resealed the door with confiscated plasma torches , the rest of the team assembled at the rear wall. They mulled about, half aware of their surroundings as their minds parsed through the harrowing exhaustion that fell upon them.
"Why" Barry remarked. Ryuki raised his mechs' arm and tapped on rightmost wall from the back. It sound solid and sturdy. He then tapped the rear wall. It sounded like a gong and continued ringing for some time. When the echo came back to them a few seconds later, it became obvious that a huge space lay behind what should be a solid bulkhead.
Barry stepped up pushed against the wall. Dust fell from the roof as the wall bent slightly. It was possible to break through but the effort was likely to damage the already weakened motive systems of their mechs.
"How about we cut our way through?" Karin spoke up after she and Ross had finished barricading the entrance into the armory. She and Barry rumbled through slowly as room for maneuvering was lacking. One gun rack began tipping over as they passed it, prompting Ryuki to attempt to steady it. But the force of his manipulator grabbing the frame caused the rack to break in his hand.
With the guns safely on the floor ,they were ready to start. Cutting process was slow and boring. Watching a flare of plasma burn through metal was mind-numbing, like watching the wick of a candle burning out. They worked out a rough square shape with their torches with a few drops of liquid steel running down from the molten scars as they passed the torches over the wall.
Nearly an hour passed seemingly in a daze. The torches burned out and now a slight breeze passed through the gaps in the wall. Ryuki pushed against the cut section with just the least amount of force to push the wall segment down.
Behind it was a large freight funicular leading far up the ships interior. It seemed at least fifty meters up from where they stood. The soft beating glow of yellow emergency lights traipsed across the walls at the end of the railway.
There wasn't enough space on the funicular to carry all their mechs. Only two could fit, leaving the other five team members out in their choice was easy, the ones that were too damaged to be any good in combat were to be discarded. It was the psychological impact of losing the armor that would be difficult to overcome. The possessed crew members and the corrupted mechs were incredibly ferocious and unrelenting. No one was confident that the hardsuits would survive a single encounter.
Ryuki made his decision. While his mech was still capable of moving and shooting, he would take the ground in his hardsuit. They needed to see him take the first step ,to jar their minds into accepting the path they were taking. If it meant bringing danger upon himself, he reasoned that it was a necessary risk. And though his skin grew cold at the thought of facing the horde, his hands and feet sweating profusely and his head throbbing from anxious stress, there was no other way. He was their leader, if he didn't make the choice then he couldn't expect others to have confidence in him.
"Dizzy, take over my mech. We'll probably need to alternate to keep ourselves warm till we find something useful" he said. "Useful? Thats pretty vague. What exactly is useful ?" Barry asked."Something that could get us off this frozen rock" Ryuki replied. Or at least some heavy weaponry.
Ross left his mech behind, leaving two machines, Karin's and Ryuki's. The moved onto the platform, with the mechs crouching a bit to fit into the tunnel. A control panel at one corner of the funicular glowed softly with several yellow buttons and one large green glowing lever. Ryuki's helmet light focused down on it. Some of the labels had been worn away by rust , leaving behind bits and pieces of words. The lever was obviously a control to start the lift, an example of proper user interface. Someone must have realized that the use of this lift would most likely be in the least favorable conditions.
The motors groaned to life after years of dormancy. The squealing gears sent shivers through the team as if someone had scratched a chalkboard. It jolted up suddenly before rising at a steady rate up towards the next floor.
They waited wordlessly as the lift went up. Their eyes darted from side to side, searching for the first sign of trouble. It would be their ears though that would detect the incessant tapping against the walls.
As they approached the top floor, the funicular slowed down to a grinding stop before locking the platform into place. A large sliding hatch stood ahead of them, covered in glowing markers and lit by pulsing caution lights.
Another panel , like the one on the lift, sat next to the hatch. There were no buttons though, just a flat darkened surface. It was a handprint scanner. Ryuki cursed loudly enough that the others heard. Barry peaked and exhaled loudly , as if admitting defeat.
"So what now? We gotta hack the terminal? We don't have the tools to do something like that" Barry complained. As the others mulled about, alternating between arguments and despair, Ryuki removed the armored gauntlet from his right hand and placed it palm down on the scanner.
What was he expecting? This was his first time on this ship and it wasn't even supposed to be here in the first place. He was confused then when the adjoining monitor displayed a green 'Authorized' text before lifting the hatch up.
This isn't right. The latest in a series of bewildering events and somehow this was the worst one. It was the silent implication that something wanted them to continue on that sent blood rushing to his head. All he could think of was a simple question. Why?
Just like all the other questions that tumbled in his increasingly tired brain, there was no real answer. There wasn't a single sign that anything on board the ship had anything to do with them. It was a transport ship, its wide hallways perfect for transporting bulk cargo and shipping crates. And it was carrying a giant hidden armory that would have violated every safe harbor regulation in the Republic. It was a ship disguised as a civilian freighter, no doubt to transfer weapons illegally.
When the lights switched on, some of which blew out immediately, they saw why this hidden bay was so cavernous. Rows upon rows of heavy armor stood in parade formation in front of them. Tanks, multipede walkers, power-armor and combat mechs.
It was enough to lead an assault on city or trade station. So much weaponry secreted away. There were few who would need so much. And all of them were not friends of the Republic. The Cantilerry family of space pirates had a grudge on the Republic, they certainly would have loved to raid trade hubs with this armory. Or perhaps this was a shipment of arms to the Black Death mercenary corporation. The Steel Wolves or the Couldron-Borne could have been smuggling them. There would be no legitimate reason for a Republic cargo ship to smuggle these, there just couldnt be.
No. No that wasn't true. War has a way of making those with the penchant of morality to delve into the dark heart of the battlefield. There were always those who espoused any means necessary to gain victory. The ones who supplied arms to those who shouldn't have them. And all for the purpose of securing victory. It didn't matter what would happen to the weapons and the partisans who used them. They could disappear and wreak havoc in the shadows. As long as the Republic was the victor.
An arms shipment to a rebel group, that was what this was. Hidden armories filled with weapons for use in clandestine wars. Death squads. The rebels would be allies for the brief time they agreed to our conditions. And when both sides were satisfied with the results, they parted. There was a news report, an archived holovid in the Steelhelm library. It was a rarely watched video, an investigation into the lives of a group of farmers affected by a still smoldering civil war. Twenty years prior, the rebels who declared themselves the saviors of this farm village had tore the local warlord to shreds with suspiciously advanced weaponry. For a time it seemed life would return to normal for them. Then the internecine conflicts started. One group fought the other for control. The fundamentalists slaughtered those who opposed them. The communists did the same. The investigation revealed that two thirds of the population of the village had fled. Only those too poor to leave stayed behind.
This ship was that courier of death. A sad realization, one that was never really dwelled upon until now, when all that was left to them were their thoughts. Ryuki surveyed the war-chest and spotted something of interest. A spiky mane stood above the combat mechs with streaks of gold and silver. He approached it ,ignoring the obsidian eyes of the dead mechs that looked upon him.
It was much larger than a standard mech. An ornamental pattern of swirling golden fire was etched into the black and blue armor of the mech, with streaks of red passing through like a ribbon. Or a river of blood. The head had a visor instead of the open quad-optic scanner. Light reflected from his headlight bounced through the veridian visor to reveal a set of six lens arranged in triangles of three, arranged like the eyes of a person.
Cleaning the dust off the armor revealed an inscription. The mech was called "Lionheart" and the company it belonged to was the Hellriders. That was a familiar name. The Hellriders were a companion group to Ryuki's team. In fact, their last mission was with that company ,before being court martialed.
The Lionheart carried a backpack with two rotary rail mounts on it for a missile rack and folding autogun. In its hands were a pair of autocannons with underslung flamethrowers. On its angled chest was a set of flare launchers and a huge flood lamps. On the shoulders were a set of rocket pods and at the collar were two impact grenade launchers arranged like propped up lapels. On its forelegs were another set of rocket launchers with a large radiation warning symbol plastered over them. Ryuki walked towards the rear of the machine to find six rocket booster ports, one on each leg and four sitting underneath the rotary rails. The back nozzles were spread apart by a center-pack made of a fuel tank and two swiveling arms. The arms sat atop the fuel tank and held in their arms two folding rifles with an ammunition autoloader mounted behind them. Two long flexible antennas were folded over on the back . This was a fierce war machine, its design was definitely for a battalion commander. It gleamed in the low light like a suit of knights armor. But it carried so many incendiary weapons. The ammo bins were all marked with fire hazard warnings, more marks on the torso and the legs. Nearly a dozen fuel pods for the flamethrowers were arrayed on a waist mounted bandolier, each with an autoloader sitting under it.
It had to be for urban warfare. It was too specialized for anything else. A smugglers ship filled with urban combat mechs. The implications were obvious, had the hatch not opened. Ryuki wasn't sure what triggered it but had no intention to leave without investigating. A retractable ladder spun down as if the mech knew his intention. He climbed aboard and then waited for the electronics to warm up. The hatch closed , leaving him in the dark with only silence accompanying him.
