Chapter 52: The Battle of Osaka
10B had thought she'd seen the end of the fighting. That the violence was finally over. Sure, there were a few rogue Machines here and there, but the old strongholds were crumbling as time went by and more and more Machines chose to lay down weapons and agree to peace.
She had truly hoped that things would change, and with humanity revived, she could put aside her swords at long last.
And then the alert came in that Purple Athena, an Evolved or 'Ascended' Machine, like the ones called Adam and Eve that had done so much damage during the 14thWar, had declared war upon YoRHa and humanity, dashing her hopes.
And now 10B was back in a flight unit, heading towards another battle.
And she was afraid.
The stress of combat was enough to drive the humans of the past insane. They had a name for it: PTSD. And after so many centuries of conflict, even androids could become loopy. Therefore, 10B understood why YoRHa had conducted periodic mindwipes and personality purges on its units to prevent combat psychosis from setting in, but she still feared it. Would Commander White authorize them again if the war dragged on to prevent the minds of the androids from shattering under the strain? Would Sir Alexander agree with White and have their memories reset, or would he fight to leave their minds untouched?
The worst part was 10B wasn't sure if she knew which answer she preferred. This was not 10B's first 'life,' but it was the longest, and while she didn't fear falling in battle – her memory-data having been uploaded and saved to the Bunker before deploying – she did fear having her current personality vanish, which would happen if she was given a 'factory reset.'
But she also feared losing herself to the madness, becoming a berserker who'd attack friend or foe, who snap at the slightest provocation or stimuli that reminded her of the battlefield. Because while it may have been like suffering from the Logic Virus, it wasn't. At the very least, that affliction had a cure. There was none for combat psychosis save a bullet to the head and a deletion of all corrupted data. It was a horrible thought that maybe, being reset was a far kinder fate than going mad like that.
A moment later, the Battle-type was shaken from her thoughts when the voice of her Operator, 30O, crackled to life in her ear.
"Heads up, 10B! You are approaching Osaka's airspace! And I'm detecting a whole bunch of aerial Machines!"
"Preparing for battle," 10B replied, activating the targeting systems. Dozens of floating Machines – all of them made in the sleek New Empire design – filled the sky above Osaka as they fired down upon entrenched Resistance positions.
"Firing missiles!" 8B announced, and she unleashed a barrage of ballistic missiles into the cloud of saucer-shaped Machines.
She was not alone, and the four other flying units fired as well. The missiles streaked forth and exploded violently amongst the Machines.
10B then had to pull up to avoid the return fire that came her way, and battle was joined.
To 10B's shock and growing horror, the Neo-Machines (as YoRHa command had dubbed them) were far faster to react than the clunky older models, and were able to fire upon the aerial units, bringing two of them down in a single volley before the YoRHa units piloting them could react.
Worse, in her opinion, was the weaponry brought to bear. The old Machines had been a threat through sheer numbers, and while their energy weapons were powerful, they were curiously large, slow, and cumbersome. Oh, getting hit with an energy ball could result in a lost limb, but they were easy to evade, even without the Auto-Dodge mod-chip.
These Neo-Machines, however, were different. Their 'energy balls' were closer to bullets, being smaller, more densely packed, and worst of all, faster. Much faster. Not as fast as the maso bullets a POD fired, but significantly speedier than the old versions.
The only reason 10B and her two remaining squad members had survived was due to them having installed the Auto-Dodge chips before deploying, and the advanced evasion systems they granted had been enough to just barely plot escape maneuvers.
"Take them out!" 7B, one of 10B's companions, cried out, directing a flurry of missiles into the cloud of Neo-Machines. They detonated violently, ripping apart metal in clouds of fire. A dozen saucers dropped out of the sky, sparking and trailing smoke.
10B unleashed her own weapons a second later, relying on the maso bullets built into her aerial unit to conserve her stock of missiles. The Neo-Machines were faster due to their slimmed down appearance, but as a result were much less durable compared to the bulky older models. A few maso bullets could take a single Neo-Machine out, unlike in the past where a solo Hover Stubby needed close to a dozen maso bullets to be put down.
"Missiles are overkill! Try to keep 'em in reserve for the bigger units!" 19B shouted out over the tac-net, the leader and last member of 10B's flight group having seen the differences as well.
Concentrating fire onto the flying Machines, the trio managed to clear out a significant portion of the saucer-shaped hover units that had been choking the skies over Osaka.
"That's our sector cleared," 19B said happily.
"There's still a lot of them crowding the airspace," 10B noted, scanning the battlefield. "Seems that the new Machine models caught some of us off-guard."
'Like they did to our squad,' she thought bitterly, thinking of 12B and 15B who'd been shot down earlier.
"I'm going for a strafing run over at the harbor!" 7B announced a little bit later. "There's too many transports sitting in the water!"
"Negative, 7B! Most of those ships are empty! Don't waste ammo on them! Focus on the Neo-Machines digging in around the docks themselves! Flush them out! Don't let them get a foothold!"
"Fine! Moving into position!" 7B replied with a grumble. 19B muttered something about hotheads before sending a ping to 10B.
"Tenny, with me. We're going to help 7B with pest control."
"Yes, dear," 10B said, rolling her eyes behind her blindfold-visor.
"Not over the tac-net!" 19B squealed in embarrassment.
10B just smirked, before turning her attention onto the Neo-Machines as they swarmed the docks.
Numerous warehouses were being converted into FOB's for the enemy, the androids who'd been working there when the Neo-Machines struck wiped out. Although in some rare cases, elite units had formed tiny pockets of resistance, valiantly holding off waves of enemies while using shipping containers and nearby heavy machinery as defensive bunkers.
10B swooped down towards one such spot of heroic defense, sending a few missiles into the clusters of Neo-Machine foot soldiers trying to overwhelming a squad of androids using a crane as a sniper's nest.
As the Neo-Machines on the ground exploded, 10B turned her guns onto the Machine units climbing up the sides of the crane, shooting them off with pinpoint precision, making sure to avoid accidentally hitting any of the Resistance units on it.
"Thanks for the save!" a grateful android called out from the crane, waving a hand in gratitude as 10B flew past. His idents informed 10B this android was in charge of the small group she'd just rescued.
"There's a squad further back near the refueling station at Section O-3. Can you make it there reinforce them?" 10B inquired, and the leader of the snipers nodded.
"We can." He then stood up and brandished his sniper rifle like it was a war flag. "Come on, boys, we've got a city to save!"
His men cheered and clambered down the crane, darting through rubble strewn streets towards the checkpoint.
Seeing they had matters in hand over there, 10B returned to the sky, blitzing a few more ground bound Machines. Then, a little bit later, the order came in from 19B to regroup in order to help another aerial unit that was trying to keep a group of Neo-Machine ships from venturing up the Yodo River.
Sending back an affirmative ping, she shot off towards the next sector, and wondered how long this war would rage before peace returned.
The sky was on fire. It was rather pretty, in Pepper's opinion.
'Maybe if I close my eyes, I can pretend those explosions are just fireworks,' she thought to herself, shutting her eyes. But after a moment, she opened her eyes back up. It hadn't worked. She couldn't ignore the truth; her home was under attack and it wasn't going well for the defenders, even with the arrival of some YoRHa units.
Pepper was a Resistance member who'd been working in the docks at Osaka, refitting and repairing the vessels that came through. She'd enjoyed the work, even if she did have to take orders from an annoying loudmouth.
However, now she had a gun in her hands and was running through the streets, evading the murderous Machines that had stormed the city mere hours ago.
It was just like old times, as if the war against the aliens had never truly ended.
'I knew the peace was too good to last,' Pepper lamented.
The fighting was intense near the docks, and slowly spilling out into the rest of the city as the Machines overwhelmed the defenders.
Pepper had been running late that morning, which was why she wasn't at the harbor when the invasion started. She'd been forced to detour back to her apartment to grab her rifle as the cry of the sirens split the air.
And boy howdy was she glad she'd done so! She'd seen androids gunned down by the slim new Machine units like helpless targets because they hadn't had their weapons on them.
Thus, here she was, stalking through the streets, looking around carefully for Machines to shoot and allies to regroup with. The last party she'd had was forced to split up when the Machines had pushed through and tried taking Shin-Juso Bridge. Unwilling to allow the invaders to have it, Pepper had given the order to have the bridge blown to smithereens.
And now, she was all alone on the northern half of the Yodo River. The part of Osaka that the New Machine Empire had focused the most on during its initial amphibious landings.
The rivers and bridges in the city were normally to the advantage of its defenders. They made for excellent choke points, and blowing them up kept the Machines from advancing, and they would then waste time and resources building new ones.
But the lack of bridges also meant any Resistance fighters still on the other side were trapped. The easiest one would be to simply walk across the bottom of the river to get to the other side. Pepper had done that once, during the last war, and she didn't really want to do it again any time soon.
She froze when a clanking sound reached her ears. Carefully, she crept over towards it, noting it came from around the corner up ahead.
Peeking around the corner, Pepper spotted four Neo-Machines, marching in a diamond formation down the alleyway away from her.
She checked her ammo levels. 'Two clips left. That's forty rounds,' she noted, before slipping quietly out and aiming at the enemy squad.
Each was armed with an Engine Blade type sword. From what she'd seen, that appeared to be the standard sword-type armament for the Neo-Machines.
Aside from that, their left hands were gone, replaced with a laser blaster. The modified energy balls they fired were smaller and faster, and it was harder to fight them. The fighting in Osaka had gone poorly because of this fact. Every Neo-Machine had a melee weapon and a long-ranged one.
But now she had a squad of them dead to rights, and the gynoid opened fire, shooting two of the Machines in the back. They fell, riddled with smoke-spewing holes, but the other two spun around, faster than the old models could, and immediately started sprinting after her, blades raised high while firing laser balls after her.
Pepper ran didn't stick around, and immediately retreated, weaving through rubble as she tried to escape them.
The Neo-Machines were relentless, however, and they were steadily gaining on her.
She was so busy keeping an eye on her pursuers that she forgot to watch the surroundings, and tripped over a pothole in the sidewalk.
Pepper tumbled head over heels across the dirt, coming to a stop only when she smacked into a Stop signpost.
'Oh. So this is how I die,' she thought, still a bit discombobulated from the fall.
Behind her, one of the Neo-Machines leapt up and tried to slam down onto the gynoid, pinning her down so it could destroy her.
Pepper saw it coming in the reflection of the signpost, however, and rolled out of the way. As she did, Pepper brought her rifle up, firing point blank into the Neo-Machine's chest. That close, it didn't matter how dazed she was. She couldn't miss all of the shots. The bullets tore through the Neo-Machine's body and it collapsed in a smoking, sparking heap.
The Resistance fighter then turned to the last enemy that'd been chasing her, desperate to take it out before it did the same to her.
The final mannequin-like Neo-Machine darted towards her while she was trying to aim at it, and when she pulled the trigger on her rifle, it managed to jink to the side, the bullets tearing into its left arm instead of the torso she'd been aiming at.
"Fast!" she gasped, and raised her weapon to block the sword strike coming her way.
A loud "Bang!" barked out before it could reach her, however, and the Neo-Machine tipped backwards, its head gone in a shower of sparks and metal. Blinking, Pepper looked over her shoulder where the shot had come from, and saw a Resistance android leaning out a window across the street with a sniper rifle in hand.
"Over here!" her rescuer shouted from the building across the street, and she scrambled to her feet and jogged over to join him.
The building he was in had been a convenience store back in humanity's day, and she slipped inside past a magazine rack that'd been pushed in front of the door to form a simple barricade.
Within the hideout, she spotted six Resistance units, all dirty and tired looking like herself wielding an assortment of weapons, while a second, smaller unarmed group huddled together in the corner by the freezers, partially obscured by shadows.
"Name's Sergeant Pepper," she said curtly in greeting as she stepped over to the sniper who'd helped her. "Thanks for the save."
"No prob. I'm Splint, and I'm the corporal here," the android said, gesturing to his group of Resistance soldiers.
"We have detected large numbers of New Empire units moving into the area around Osaka. We believe they are trying to take over our shipbuilding sites!" the Resistance android explained.
"Yeah, no shit!" Pepper snarled, before glancing over to the back where a few figures were huddled together. "And why the hell haven't you scrapped those Machines yet?"
Indeed, it'd taken her a moment to realize that the group hiding with the Resistance members she'd stumbled across were not fellow androids but Machine Lifeforms! Bulky and clunky ones, sure, not at all like the sleek newer models, but Machines all the same.
"Leave them alone! They're not part of this!" one of the Resistance soldiers told her, stepping in front to shield them from Pepper's glare.
Pepper liked to think she was a reasonable being. That she was quick with a quip and slow to anger. But right now, she was very much not happy, or feeling inclined to be reasonable.
"They're fucking Machines! How the hell do we know they aren't traitors waiting to stab us in the back?!" she snarled, pointing her rifle towards them.
"Because those fancy new Machines are attacking everything, including the older models," another android informed her and he walked over, before grabbing the barrel of her gun and forcing it to point upwards at the ceiling. "Save your ammo for the real threats, soldier."
Pepper snarled, but nodded, and turned away, aiming instead out the window at a New Empire Machine that was flying past. She fired a burst of armor piercing rounds through its ugly saucer-shaped hover unit, causing it to explode and fall from the sky.
"We've received orders to regroup at Osaka Castle. YoRHa is setting up an FOB there," the android manning the radio suddenly announced.
"Baxter, Molle, take point, don't let anybody out of sight,"
"Fine, let's go," Pepper grumbled. She kept an eye on the Machines, though. She didn't trust them at all.
"Damn, that's a lot of Machines," a grizzled looking android hummed as he peered through some binoculars. Several parts of his body had been damaged, exposing the metal underneath.
He'd been a colonel in the Army of Humanity, and a leader of a Resistance camp in Osaka back in the 14th Machine War. And now he was back in command trying to fend off wave after wave of enemy forces. It was a nightmare.
"Still no word on the reinforcements?" he asked an aide.
"Sorry, colonel. The Bunker says that the New Machine Empire has launched simultaneous attacks all across Earth. They're swamped, and the three flights of YoRHa fliers they sent at the start of the battle was all they could spare," his aide replied apologetically.
"Damn," the colonel muttered. Then, louder, he asked, "What's the status of our forces in the city?"
"The order to fall back and regroup here at the castle and the surrounding area has been sent, and twenty-six squads have confirmed the instructions. That'll give us a couple dozen more bodies for the defense," the aide reported. That was good, in the colonel's opinion. There were already a hundred and seventy-nine androids at the castle, and forty-eight more were holding the line at the Tenmagu Shinto Shrine. And dozens of others were scattered about, fighting a guerrilla war in the streets.
"Order the newcomers to head to the Osaka-Jo concert hall and convert it into another field camp," the colonel decided after a moment to think it over.
"Understood, relaying the orders," the aide replied.
"And the guns?" the colonel inquired. "What's the status on those?"
"We're working as fast as we can to repair them. We have fifty-percent operational right now, and munitions to keep firing for another week, non-stop if we must."
The colonel grimaced. A week's worth of ammo sounded good on paper, but it wasn't as much as it seemed. Not to mention, once the guns were all back up and firing, that week would be cut in half. Three days, max. And then, no more long-range superiority. And against an endless tide of tireless metal bodies? That would be the end of the Resistance in the area.
He spared a glance around the base, and felt a pang of sympathy and regret for bringing war and violence to such a venerable old site once more.
Osaka Castle had been the center of the Resistance forces in the area for many years, and it still had numerous artillery emplacements from its time as a military base. For a variety of reasons, the site had never been decommissioned following the end of the 14th War, and YoRHa had been content to leave it alone.
This meant that all the weapons, from small arms to the heavier stuff, was left behind and sat untouched for years. And at the moment, those guns were the only reason the Neo-Machines had not managed to push up the river and invade deeper into the mainland.
'Hopefully we can reestablish connection with some of the YoRHa supply depots in the east. There was one in Nara, if I'm not mistaken,' he thought idly to himself.
"Bad news, colonel. The line of defense at Universal Studios Japan has fallen," the aide abruptly said, looking up from a nearby radio unit with a solemn frown.
"How?" the colonel asked, gritting his teeth. He'd expected it to fall, it was too close to the docks and the bay for it to be otherwise, but he'd hoped it would have lasted longer!
"The Neo-Machines have deployed some new units there. Some sort of… spider-tanks, according to the survivors," the aide informed him.
"Damn it," he grumbled. That was fast becoming his catch-phrase, wasn't it? A quick glance at the tactical map showed him that there wasn't a lot he could do about it.
"Instruct the survivors to blow the Tempozan bridge if they can," the colonel said after a moment. "Then, tell them to head to one of the rally points and hold there for further instructions."
"Understood, sir," his aide said, and the colonel was left with a bunch of unpleasant thoughts as he watched smoke and flames rise across the western parts of the city.
"And tell YoRHa we will hold out for as long as we can," the colonel replied, before gruffly saying, "Glory to Mankind."
"Glory to Mankind, sir," his aide repeated.
And then, after a few more silent minutes, he went back to planning the defense of the city.
& & & & &
Author's Note: Happy Halloween! Enjoy an extra chapter this fine, spooky day!