Iron Empire

Three: Red Kettle of Death

The Exodus looked like a giant red kettle.

Its big, bowl-shaped body and raised shoulders gave it an ornate look, accented by the gold decals that decorated its armour. The owner had put substance before style, certainly, but there was still plenty of style to spare on the body of the Exodus. A giant, stylish red kettle, then.

It's amazing what nonsense goes through your head when you're dodging missiles launched from said giant red kettle of death.

"Blast!" I growled, and slammed my hand onto the activation key. The odds were good enough.

I could feel my teeth vibrate as the back of the Prototype folded outward on itself, the jagged armour behind my cockpit peeling back like a gate to allow access to something new.

The Prototype's secret weapon.

Only, it wasn't a weapon. It was a crystalline pyramid of electronics and synthetic glass that poked out of the armour a few centimetres above the mech, shimmering in the midday sun. The quiet hum it made failed to convey the true power it contained.

Because of that prism the Prototype was now invisible to the Exodus' tracking systems, electronic signals refracted by a miniaturized signal deadener.

In the past, this would not have been an issue for an enemy footsoldier with a rifle. However, manually aiming a thousand-ton mech was an entirely different story.

These days, having no electronic targeting systems meant that your accuracy was almost nonexistent.

The missile barrage from the red kettle of death stopped almost instantaneously. I turned my head to look at the Exodus as I sprinted behind cover. Its weapons followed me as I moved, red-painted armour refracting light. Who was hidden behind that reinforced hull?

A small LED light lit up my display. A warning, informing me that my time was limited. The arrhythmic ticking of a Geiger counter filled the cockpit, informing me that the Prototype's secret weapon was giving off dangerous levels of radiation.

In this day and age, radiation poisoning was treatable with a single needle and some rest, as easy as banishing a cold. However, with no swift access to medication, radiation poisoning could still be fatal.

Fortunately for me, the signal deadener's fail-safe would automatically shut it off before I was exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. It would prevent me from being poisoned, but would also limit my time in stealth mode.

Sure enough, I felt a thump as the signal deadener returned itself to a lead-lined compartment within the mech. The tingling feeling in my bones stopped, and the Geiger counter ceased ticking along with it. No radiation meant no stealth.

A shadow fell over me. I didn't have to look up to know what was coming.

The Exodus closed the distance between us with one mighty jet-powered jump, rocket launchers blazing a trail of molten rubble against my metal heels.

The Prototype was fast, but not faster than a missile. My HUD flashed a warning as I watched my armour integrity be eaten away, one detonation at a time. I wouldn't last long under this onslaught. The main reactor was close, so close. I could still make it.

Oh, no.

A second shadow fell over me. A massive tower of a mech. A hulking beast made of metal. A mobile artillery platform with legs, four storeys high and the width of a building. A gargantuan Legion rounded the corner next to the reactor and fixed three mean-looking mortars on me.

I had heard jokes about the mech before—it was the quintessential American weapon. All guns. No style. However, with a mech of this size, style didn't matter.