Iron Empire

Twenty-Six: Trust Issues

I wasn't going to make it.

My HUD blinked. I was in range.

I pulled the trigger.

From a distance, my brand-new shotguns did nothing but scratch up the Legion's hull, but with every step closer the damage intensified exponentially. The Legion was fleeing as fast as it could at this point, trying to back up enough to get a bead on me, but the slow-moving artillery platform could only delay my advance so much.

The hull of the mech cracked like a struck eggshell, fissures spreading across its face. The Legion desperately fired its cannons, but the shots missed me by miles. Its auto-aim program was only designed to target distant enemies.

I laughed in delight as my shotguns split the Legion wide open, shards of metal spraying my cockpit. The Legion, besieged, stumbled back before toppling off the top of the sluice gate, its command capsule soaring away.

"Legion down," I shouted, "I repeat, Legion down!"

Cheers echoed my declaration.

"Alright," Taewi called, "now we'll deal with the last of the Apollo mechs and we can call it a day!"

The remaining Axion forces were in shambles, and most of the remaining Apollo mechs destroyed. Victory was ours.

Then to my horror, the ground around exploded into a cloud of dust. Impacts at the base of the dam shook me in my seat.

More mechs. We had taken too long, so Axion had brought reinforcements of their own. Worst of all, because I was standing on the sluice gate above their drop zone, I was only a mere hundred meters away from all of them.

Regiments. Goliaths. Legions. I counted thirty new mechs, dropped just in time to ensure that Stalnoy stayed in Axion's hands for good.

If the enemy noticed me standing above them there was no amount of fancy piloting I could do to avoid being obliterated. Slowly but surely, one of the Regiments turned its head, gazing up at the top of the dam where I stood, frozen.

Something flashed in the air about a kilometre away. The sky glittered, lights twinkling like falling stars. However, the stars weren't what were falling.

At long last, we had reinforcements of our own.

armour plating glinted in the sunlight as the Chinese-Canadian Alliance arrived in full force.

My comms crackled.

"Hey, guys! Miss me?"

It was the voice of Commander Martin Telbus.

"Sorry I took so long," Martin laughed, "I had to stop back at the Firmament to pick up a couple of new mechs and an old friend."

I grinned.

If Axion's reinforcements were strong, ours were even stronger.

Modified Goliaths, customized Valkyries and even a Canadian Barricade or two made up the biggest show of force our insurgency had ever deployed. I counted over forty Alliance mechs.

At their head stood none other than our mysterious ally the Exodus, crimson armour gleaming in the sunlight.

The Chinese-Canadian Alliance's mechs surged forwards, closing the gap between the two squadrons.

The Barricade was a favourite design of Dan Stonewood, inspired by the German Valkyrie and built to be tough as nails.

Resembling the horn of a rhino in shape, a piston lifted the mech's frontal armour plating to create a shield, protecting the mech's cockpit while turning it into an imposing battering ram.