One Good Soldier

Friday, 3:44 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

'Goddamnit! They know where we are!' Colonel Mason Warboys and the odd-numbered Warlords had their M3A17-T hovertanks in bot mode. The mecha splashed out of the water at the foot of the dam and into the enemy tanks with a vengeance even though they were outnumbered a little more than two to one.

'Watch out, One! Guns, guns, guns!' Warlord Three shouted.

'Shit! Guns, guns, guns!' Warboys maintained a constant bombardment from his DEG into the Arcadian tanks' line as they advanced on them and went to the smaller but more rapidly directed forty-millimeter gun on top of the DEG turret for in-close and rapidly maneuvering targets. The forty-millimeter gun usually ran in anti-artillery and anti-missile mode. Warboys had put the guns to use by giving his AIC control of them and telling her to shoot any enemy thing it felt necessary to shoot at. While in bot mode, the turret-mounted railgun looked like a half dome head atop the bot's cockpit, with the barrel sticking out for a nose. Below the tank torso two large metal feet thudded into the soil, squishing up mud and the underlying vegetation.

'There's another one targeting you, One! I got him. Fox Three!' Mason saw an anti-mecha missile scream out from Warlord Seven and twist out in front of them toward an enemy tank. The enemy tank dropped backward and fired his countermeasures, setting off the missile just in time to save his ass. Mason didn't like that.

'Stay on him, Seven! Guns, guns, guns!' Warlord One fired his main gun across the river at another rushing tank-mode enemy vehicle. A bright blue-green pulse of energy separated the turret from the main body of the Arcadian M3A16 tank. Mason turned and leaped across the river, running headlong at the exploding enemy mecha. As he jumped over the fireball and on top of the tank beside it, he rammed his heavily armored fist into the enemy vehicle and punched through to the inner workings of the linkage between the torso and the right arm. Infantry railgun fire spitapped against the armor plating of his tank, and a couple of larger rounds shook him violently. He looked up in time to see a third tank dive-tackling him.

'Watch out, One!' Warlord Five shouted. 'Guns, guns, guns!'

Warboys could see the glint of a DEG blast digging into the back of the bot-mode tank that had tackled him. He rolled over, stood and stomped into the back of the enemy tank. The force of his foot stomping into the mecha broke through the armor plating. Sparks and steaming black and red hydraulic fluids spewed from within it. Warboys grabbed at the main gun turret on the dead enemy tank, ripped it free, and then tossed it like a hammer thrower at the enemy tank-mode tank chasing after Five. The turret bounced into the second tank, knocking it sideways just as it fired. The blow caused it to fire a DEG blast into the dam by accident. A crack formed in the dam, and water started pouring through it. Warboys spun to his knee, firing his main DEG through the pilot of the enemy mecha. Five fired his guns just over the colonel's shoulders at another target.

'Colonel, on your six!' Warlord Three burned a blue-green DEG bolt across the sky just behind Warboys, taking out a tank that had caught the colonel unaware.

'Thanks, Three. Son of a bitch, we are outnumbered here!'

'You got that right, Warlord One.'

'Warlord One, it looks like the Seppy bastards have figured out that we are here,' Warlord Nine noticed. 'We gonna get some help anytime soon?'

'Just keep pounding at the fuckers, Warlords! Whether we get help or not, we kill as many of these Seppy motherfuckers as we can, until there ain't a one of us left. Just like that time on Mars! Got it? We've got to punch a hole through here and get these jarheads to the mansion!' Warboys had to go to guns and fired blindly behind him as he ran and leapt toward an outcropping of rocks for cover.

'Hooah! Colonel!'

'One, Duck!' Warlord Five shouted. Mason saw two Arcadian tanks trying to sandwich him and trap him at the edge of the river.

'Shit!' He took off running in an orthogonal direction while he continued to fire the forty millimeter behind him blindly. His AIC tracked on to one of the tanks with the auto-cannon and slowed him down some. He scanned to his left and caught a glimpse of the mecha glinting in the red light of the setting sun as it slowly dropped behind the hill to their left.