Warmachine

Warmachine #2

The first indication Lomax had that he was under attack was aquiet chime from his Bulwark APS followed a split-second later by thedetonation of at least half a dozen explosive warheads being broughtup short mere feet from his hull. Nice to know the point defence wasworking properly.

Not long ago that sort of attack with that many rockets would haveoverwhelmed the system and he would have taken at least one good hit.But that was an upgrade cycle ago. The people shooting at him hadn'tknown that, obviously. Unlucky for them.

Lomax growled. He had hoped he the opportunity to test theBulwark's new capability wouldn't come up, at least not withoutseeing it coming. It didn't matter that there was no serious damagereported, it mattered that they had got the drop on him. It hurt hisprofessional pride.

Wheeling in place and bringing his weapon system out from standbyhe sent out an active sensor ping, but he didn't need to. He couldalready see the ones responsible. They must have been wearing suitsor cloaks to mask their signature, but having fired their launchersthey were all now lit up like Christmas Trees. He could see themfumbling around behind the blown-out windows of the ruin on hisright, oblivious to the bright splotches of thermal exhaust they weresquatting in. Lomax grinned.

Twisting so his walker was parallel to the building he angled theshoulder down and gave his manoeuvring jets a burst, throwing bothhim and his Machine clean through the building and out the otherside. Warning notifications and klaxons filled his eyes and ears buthe dismissed them all. He knew for a fact the building had beenbarely left standing beyond its frontage. An impressive and noisything to crash though and something that might scratch the paint, butnothing that would do any lasting damage. He'd been right.

Through the dust and debris he could clearly see the tiny figureswho'd dared fire at him. Those that hadn't been crushed, at least.Most of the survivors were scrambling away in blind panic, though onewas simply struck dumb staring at the warmachine that had found them.

Lomax pumped up the volume on his external speakers as much aspossible and said flatly:

"Scamper, morsels."

It was loud enough to shake what remained of the ceiling, and aportion of it bounced off of his hull. The tiny figures startedrunning, heaving on their friend who had just been standing around,others leaping down from higher floors and rolling as they landed.Lomax grinned wider, and felt the soothing coolness of the Machine'sstimulants mix into his veins as he brought his chaingun up. TheMachine had lots of weapons to choose from. He liked his chaingunbest.

All the little targets were taking the same path. They didn'treally have a choice. The rubble was passable either side of them butthere was only one path clear enough to run through, and given thechoice between struggling over rough terrain and getting shot orrunning down a lethal alleyway and getting shot they had all decidedthey'd prefer to take their chances. Lomax did not care, he justopened fire, feeling every explosive round feeding into the gun as alittle shudder of joy down his spine.

Accuracy was not his primary concern and he tracked the gun up anddown, hosing down the alleyway with abandon. Conservation ofammunition was for those not being pumped full of stimulants. Onetarget caught a round full in the back and burst open like a blister.Another skidded on the sprayed remains and collided with a refuse binleft behind from when this had been a working city, stumbling backand folding into an open drain cover, disappearing from sight. Lomaxlaughed and laughed, uncaring of the one or two lucky stragglers whocleared the alley and vanished. He just kept firing.

The warning of an impending overheat was what stopped him and henoticed with some sheepishness that he was firing at nothing. Weakthermal signatures were bouncing from up ahead, probably from wherethe targets were discarding the bulky, cooled suits in an effort tomove faster. They would never move fast enough.

Digging the toe-claws of his Machine into the concrete Lomaxlaunched forward, blasting with the jets mounted on his back to givehim the punch needed to knock through whatever was in his way. Heclosed the distance in seconds, and blundered into a trap.

The buildings here had been cleared away, leaving an areacompletely exposed and with nothing to hide behind. At the other endof this killzone was a tank. Tanks were a joke. No-one used tanksanymore. They were antiques, not what you used to fight a proper warnowadays. Again, no-one seemed to have told these people that. Histargets had found themselves one and fixed it up. This was laughable.

Or it would have been, if it hadn't been for the improvementsthey'd made to it.

The tank might have been a museum piece barely worth it's scrapvalue but the hypervelocity gun jury-rigged and strapped to the topwas still in working order. The Bulwark APS didn't have a chance,simply offering up a wan, defeated noise that told Lomax the impacthad been too fast to intercept.

It told him this after the shot had all-but disembowelled hisMachine and sent him staggering back, crashing into the buildingsbehind him. Suppressants flooded his system to block out the painfrom the feedback and Lomax gritted his teeth so hard he felt theymight shatter.

With supreme effort he coaxed his Machine back onto two legs. Twovery, very unsteady legs. More warnings flashed in front of him andthis time he couldn't dismiss them. They were too severe. The armourwas breached through and through, he was leaking coolant. Hispower-core was in danger of rupturing and – worst of all – hischaingun had been put out of commission. Lomax was too furious toswear using words. Seeing red, he glared at the tank and saw his punytargets swarming over it, desperately trying to manually reload thegun for another shot.

Screaming and lurching forward – swaying side to side like afoal learning to walk – Lomax fired off the whole rack of grenadesmounted on his shoulder. They arced towards the tank leaving sootytrails behind them before they burst in the air above it, shreddingthe people fumbling with the gun and painting the upper hull of thevehicle a violent shade of red. Lomax did not stop moving.

Skidding to a halt by the tank he reached down with his oneworking arm and seized the gun that had so wounded him. One foot onthe front of the tank he wrenched back and after a moment of protestpulled the gun free, swinging back behind him and then bringing itcrashing down over and over again until there was nothing left butmetal.

The sickening feeling of withdrawal settled over him as herealised there was nothing left to kill and some of the drugs startedto leave his system. The depth of the damage that had been done tohim sunk in, but his resolve stiffened. He was battered and bloodybut he was not out. The chaingun would be fixed, but he would makethem all pay for what they'd done to him first. They'd regret evershowing their faces.

Another soothing wave of stims pumped into him and he sighed.Today was going very well, he thought. Very well indeed.