THE BUG EATERS

As the sun was rising like a big red bruise in the sky, a serious threat was called into the radio room. For the first time since the establishment of the checkpoint system, a mech had been spotted and was confirmed to be heading in the direction of Lamplight. A radioman burst into Airam’s office with the news and frantically woke him up to organize the response. Fifteen minutes later, The Liberator was on the move with two trucks full of LDF soldiers as backup.

“I should be piloting,” complained Rayli from the back of one of the trucks. “I’m the better pilot. Airam knows I’m the better pilot. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I know The Liberator better than anyone.”

“I know, but you agreed he was better with Phantom Soul, right? That’s why you let him take the chair?” Faina asked.

“He is good with Phantom Soul, sure, but I mostly just didn’t want to start a debate with him in the middle of a crisis. We needed to be able to respond quickly. I just wish he had actually given me the opportunity to talk it out with him in advance of something like this happening. He’s really starting to weaponize his authority here.”

“Well, he is the leader,” argued Tulio.

“I think I just liked him better when he was willing to lose an argument. He doesn’t do that anymore. The best you get is an ‘I’ll take it into consideration’. Maybe it’s about maintaining his image to keep the mercs in line? Maybe his ego is getting bigger? Probably both. It sucks either way,” Rayli slumped her body sulkily.

“He’s maintaining discipline. As the LDF grows, he spends all day negotiating with people. If he never worked out how to get his way, the whole project would have already fallen apart.”

Driving over a particularly rocky stretch of ground, the truck bounced and shook uncomfortably.

“Hey, be more careful!” Rayli shouted angrily.

“How do you expect me to do that?” Kravitz shouted back, “I’m doing my best! It’s not my fault the ground is this uneven, and I need to maintain this speed or we’ll start to fall behind Airam.”

It was hard to hear him, but he was right. At full speed, The Liberator would easily outrun Kravitz’s truck. Airam was piloting it just fast enough that the trucks would be able to keep up, but not giving them any slack beyond that.

“Sorry!” yelled Rayli.

“What do we know about this mech?” asked Faina.

“Not a lot. The guys manning the checkpoint hid pretty much as soon as they saw it in their binoculars. Its trajectory though, definitely Lamplight, and we know that it’s fast.”

“And we’re absolutely sure it wasn’t just cutting through our territory to go to the labs in the radlands? Or trying to do some elaborate flanking maneuver targeting one of the other factions?” questioned Tulio.

“Yeah, we’re sure. It’s very directly going towards Lamplight.”

“Why?”

“It’s a KA mech,” suggested Faina, “and we stole a KA mech. They know we’ve been using it, probably know we killed the pilot, and they want revenge. They’re aiming to draw The Liberator out so they can attempt to destroy it.”

“Not get it back?”

“Maybe, but that’s usually a lost cause. Mechs almost never get captured, even if we got lucky once, it’s always safer to plan around the idea that you’re going to be destroying them,” Rayli explained.

“I see,” said Tulio.

“Get ready everyone,” Kravitz’s voice boomed from the cabin. “The enemy mech is up ahead. And it looks like, uh, like a spider or something. It’s creepy.”

“That’ll probably be a MASOCHIST,” said Rayli, as she put on her goggles, “which shouldn’t be a big problem for Airam. They’re not usually packing much armor. We can help him out by disabling its legs so that he can deal a decisive blow to the cockpit.”

“I’m going to have to brake pretty quickly so we don’t end up in its range. Brace yourselves!”

Faina held on tight to the walls of the truck bed as Kravitz hit the brakes and swerved the vehicle across the sand until they had a good view of the enemy mech. It was imposing, but still over half a meter shorter than The Liberator. Each of its four legs was protected by a machine gun that would shoot at anything that got too close, but those didn’t look like they could actually harm another mech. Its main weapon was a cannon on top of its main body that had swivelled in Airam’s direction. Still, he had Phantom Soul, so the cannon would likely be useless.

“Something’s wrong,” Faina said, “you said that their goal would be to destroy The Liberator, but why would they send something that obviously doesn’t stand a chance against it.”

“I guess they’re still underestimating us,” Rayli said, waving her hand.

Faina passed MVMs to Rayli and Tulio and then prepared one for herself. It would be difficult to hit the mech at this distance, but the truck would have been at risk if it had ventured any closer. The other truck had stopped at a similar distance from the mechs and would also have people preparing their weapons.

“Word must not be out yet to the KA about Phantom Soul, it’s got to be either that or they just don’t believe what they’ve been hearing,” Tulio said.

The Liberator had slowed down. Airam was waiting in order to maximize his advantage. The spider mech fired its powerful main cannon. Phantom Soul’s shimmering wall appeared to block its shot. Everything went as smoothly as possible.

Then, as Faina and the others were just about to fire, the spider jumped several feet into the air and to the side with incredible speed. Sand sprayed up into the air. The mercenaries in the other truck hadn’t held back for long enough. They fired their MVMs and all three of them missed.

“What the hell are we supposed to do if it can move like that?” panicked Rayli.

“Just do your best to hit it! Don’t worry about where your shot lands,” said Faina.

Picking out a specific leg to disable would be too difficult. Hitting the cannon would be near impossible. Hitting it at all would be better than nothing.

They fired together. Two rockets connected with mech’s hull while the third one flew off into the orange-gray clouds behind it. They failed to do anything significant to its armor, but the shots connecting at the same time was enough to knock the hostile mech slightly off-balance. Its frame was pushed with the explosive impact and its legs had to scramble to keep stable.

Airam took the opening. He activated a Phantom Soul routine that Faina had never seen, or even been told about, before. The hardlight punched through the air like buckshot from a gun the size of a building. They shimmered gold as they spread out from in front of The Liberator and tore holes into the MASOCHIST. The enemy mech’s legs gave out and its body crashed to the ground with a deafening thud.

Taking no chances, Airam followed up this attack with the combined firepower of The Liberator’s cannon and HMG arms. Sparks and debris flew out from the mangled remains that were left in their wake. Faina was stunned. That was yet another mech, another one of Daybreak’s apex predators, taken down right in front of her.

Then heat, pain, whiplash, and freefall.

Something struck the truck’s cabin with explosive force and threw the vehicle onto its side. Faina landed on her shoulder at a bad angle and felt the impact spread through her upper body. Everything burned.

The world was refusing to stay still around her even as she stood up and planted her feet as firmly as she could. Sound arrived late and wrong, with a piercing ring sitting over it all. When Rayli started to scream, it seemed to come from very far away and right beside her at the same time.

Faina had to assume that Rayli was most in need of help out of everyone. She grabbed her tight and tore her away from the wreckage of the truck. Her shoulder responded with new heights of white-hot agony.

Tulio was already up, seemingly unharmed, and scrambling to his feet. His face looked determined. He had even managed to save an MVM from the wreckage.

In the distance, Faina saw that the other truck had met the same fate, and there were craters in the sand surrounding its burning frame. She couldn’t make out any survivors. A whole volley of missiles for each truck? And from where? Her head was still spinning.

The Liberator was still standing over the destroyed MASOCHIST, but was now turning in their direction. Had he spotted the threat?

“Kravitz, Kravitz, fuck, fuck, no,” Rayli was shouting.

Faina looked back at the truck and through its shattered cab window at Kravitz’s charred remains. Flames were engulfing him as black smoke billowed into the sky. She spun around again to look for whatever had done this to miss. The answer was impossible to miss.

Bounding towards them on all fours was the most terrifying mech she had ever seen. It was shaped like a beast of an animal, but its head had no ‘eyes’, just huge toothy jaws resembling the grin of the Cheshire Cat. Its sharp white teeth stood out in contrast to its jet-black hull. Missile launcher systems were perched behind its left and right shoulders.

“Everyone get out of the way!” Faina shouted to her companions.

It was too late. The mech was too large and too fast. It closed the gap between them in seconds as it barrelled through them on its way to attack The Liberator. Faina held tight to Rayli as the pair tripped and crashed into the sand. As she fell, she saw the mech’s giant clawlike foot slam down onto Tulio.

“No!” Faina screamed, her voice shrill from pain.

Her cry was drowned out by explosions as the animal mech fired another double volley of missiles, this time at The Liberator. From the ground, she didn’t get to see if Airam managed to throw up Phantom Soul’s wall in time.

This had been an ambush. They had wanted the weaker mech to be spotted by the sentries at the checkpoint, to draw out The Liberator, and to then catch the LDF by surprise with the real threat. The animal mech was a mech-killer, a mech created for the primary purpose of assassinating other mechs.

She got back to her feet, leaving Rayli on the ground, and did her best to stay calm. The mech was opening its terrifying jaws and preparing to leap towards The Liberator. Steam surged from exhausts on its ‘neck’ and blue light filled its mouth. Energy ignition, like Faina’s knife, but on a colossal scale.

As it leapt, Airam activated Phantom Soul to slice at it. It wasn’t known how the two abilities would interact, so both sides were gambling. The blue-edged teeth of the predator mech turned out to be more powerful, scattering the glistening hardlight in all directions. The scattered hardlight then bit into the face and shoulders of the beast mech, gouging into the metal and pushing it back away from The Liberator. It closed its jaws, having failed to bite its target, but it was still hardly much worse for wear. It would attack again.

Faina spotted the MVM lying next to Tulio. Blocking out the pain and suffering around her from her mind, she sprinted towards the weapon. She grabbed it and aimed at the mech.

It was moving erratically in order to make its next move unpredictable. She knew this would be an even harder shot than last time but it was all she could do to help Airam. The force of it aggravated every injury in her body. She suppressed the thought that she might be doing permanent damage to herself. A loud pop and the missile sailed through the air with a white trail behind it.

Miraculously, it connected with one of the shoulder-mounted missile launchers. It had been more luck than skill, but Faina had never been so proud of a shot in her life. When the mech attempted to fire its third double-volley of shoulder missiles, only those from the left launcher were a threat to The Liberator. The right launcher exploded and took an already-damaged piece of the beast’s shoulder plating along with it.

Airam didn’t manage to put one of Phantom Soul’s defensive configurations up in time. The missiles hit The Liberator directly and knocked it off-balance. It tumbled onto its back.

Faina instantly lost all hope as she saw the animal mech loom over The Liberator and open its jaws, getting ready to tear into its meal. She could only watch.

Airam activated Phantom Soul. A thick spear of light pierced through the head of the enemy mech as its teeth were re-igniting with plasma energy. The spear penetrated through the mech’s mouth and struck out through its neck, pointing towards the burning sun. A blue explosion from somewhere deep inside the beast’s throat ruptured upwards and tore its head off. With that, its legs seemed to falter.

The Liberator fired its HMG as it maneuvered to its feet. Airam was being haphazard, not aiming at anything specific, just trying to deal damage as fast as possible without having time to stop and think. He didn’t stop firing for a solid fifteen seconds. The beast mech twitched strangely, like it had real muscles and nerves, before finally going still.

Faina looked around. Her shoulder was still burning. Rayli was sitting, out of breath and covered in black and red scrapes, gazing at Kravitz in the truck. She was clutching the pink plush toy that he used to keep on the dashboard.

Tulio was lying in an ever-growing pool of blood with his entire lower half crushed. Faina realized then, with horror, that he was still alive. His head and arms were trembling.

She ran over to him and threw herself onto the sand to be with him in his final moments. She tried not to look at the shattered bones and splattered guts. It was not going to last forever, but somehow he still clung to life. Faina gently stroked his hair.

Hands shaking, Tulio used all of his remaining strength to reach into one of his utility pockets and withdraw something. He pushed it into Faina’s hands and then coughed up blood as he started to talk. She was horrified by the torrent that flowed out.

“All together. It’s all you need. To… Out… Out of here.” He gasped. “Out. Out. Out…”

Tulio trailed off and Faina could only think about how soft and frail he looked. He had never once seemed frail before. His lithe body went completely limp and his hand fell away from hers. His final expression was one of pure terror.

Faina’s eyes were welling with tears as Rayli cautiously approached and dropped to the ground beside her. Jazael was dead. Tulio was dead. Her old team was dead. Rayli didn’t say anything, the two of them just shared a quiet moment of misery until Airam broke the silence with The Liberator’s speakers.

“Rayli? Faina? You’re okay?” Airam’s voice was energetic beneath the metallic rumble.

The Liberator lurched towards them with slow and heavy footsteps. Despite the missile barrage that had knocked it down, it was doing well. Airam would be entirely unscathed. The light reflected sharply off the metal spikes decorating the mech.

“Well done today, both of you,” he continued. “We’re going to be able to salvage some parts from these mechs. We can use them to upgrade The Liberator and be more powerful than ever! We’re going to make all of this count for something.”

“Airam, now’s not the time,” Rayli replied with hollow eyes. “Just stop for one moment.”

Rayli stood up and walked over to Faina, still holding the plush toy. She put her hand on Faina’s shoulder, the one that hurt, in a gesture that was supposed to be comforting. Faina flinched.

“I’m sorry, both of you. This went worse than expected. Something like this won’t happen again. We’re going to get stronger from here. We’re not going to forget the ones who helped make this all happen either, we’re going to carry them in our hearts as we keep pushing towards the future.

I’m about to radio in some more trucks. They’ll get what we need from these mechs and then take you back to the base, okay?”

The sand stretched out in all directions as far as the eye could see, littered with brown rocks and vehicle parts. It had a reddish color in this area of the desert, like a bloodstain. A half-buried building jutted out from a hill in the distance. It was made of concrete, but its purpose could no longer be discerned. The mountains loomed in the distance, threatening Faina with their knife-tip peaks.

“Sounds good,” Faina said, clenching the silver chip in her palm so hard that it hurt.

END.