I charge, the fighting drawing me in like a gravity well. Somehow, I know how to find the thick of the battle. My HUD reconfigures to the scattershot clutched in my hands. I pull the trigger, tearing mouthfuls of concrete from the walls, blasting Harvesters on the other side. Dust swirls. Rain punches down. I take out a Harvester charging for Ratchet, swerve around to hack at another and sending him smashing sideways. A Berserker tries to send a jacketed slug through my chest, but I’m ducking and weaving, a stray streak of blue blaster-fire searing by my shoulder. I slam my elbow into his jaw, teeth rattling loose, before nailing three slugs into his chest, blood spraying on someone’s visor. I’m spinning around. Eyes darting. Hands clenching. Ready for the next target.
The stormtech growls with warning. I jerk sideways, a railgun blast arcing past my neck and erupting a junction box, blue sparks showering out. A Harvester chops at me with his combat knife and clangs against a pillar, wood splinters spraying in my face. Ratchet hacks at him with his blade, gets him down but turns to be overpowered by two more. I rush to help him but a shuddering blast in my back sends me crashing down, my armour clanging against the concrete. A forest of legs around me, helmets knocking, arms reaching for me, trying to claw me up. Hostile faces swarming above me, the glint of knives, mud showering. A boot slams into my face. There, another Reaper about four metres away, in the same position next to me. He turns to notice me just as the blade comes stabbing down, punching through his visor and pinning him there. He goes limp. More bodies slam down between us and he disappears. Hands lock around my legs, more boots against my helmet, scattering stars across my vision. Ratchet is gone, swallowed up by battle. Bodies piled up around me, grunting, twitching, the world a deafening smear of anger.
Someone pours engine solvent onto my helmet. It condenses on my faceplate, leaving oily streaks on my chest. Armoured figures slam down on top of me, crushed against me in battle.
I’m in a body pile. We’ve seen this before, so many times. If the weight of armoured men doesn’t crush me, I’ll burn alive when Harvesters torch the pile. I struggle, thrashing against others. Legs kicking out, cracking against my visor, stomping my hand into the mud, trying to keep me down. Sweat trickling into my eyes, fogging my vision.
I’m dead.
I’m dead.
No.
I pour all my fury into the stormtech, demanding everything it’s got. It goes ripping down unearthed parts of my body and slithering deeper and deeper inside. I convulse, a sudden electricity jumpstarting my body, and I’m tearing upwards, out of the body pile like I’m swimming through it. Fighting my way through it. Fists shattering into helmets, smashing across jaws, clawing at faces. Metal crunches and dents as I reach the edge and grapple with a Harvester, bloody teeth gnashing. I slam my helmet into his throat, hear him wheeze as I throw him sprawling backwards and smashing apart a barricade, splinters showering. I sense a knife being plunged down and grab the Berserker’s arm mid-strike. I rip the blade out of his hand and stab him through the chest and out the other side. I kick him backwards, his legs thrashing as he goes spinning over the edge. I chop at a hand trying to claw at me, the arm going limp and it’s owner roaring, and I lunge forward and open up his side with a hard slash. I reel out of the way of a blade thrust and kick the assailant staggering sideways and slipping in the mud. I rip out my sidearm as he rears back up to stab me again, blasting him before wheeling around to shoot another Harvester flanking me, the two of them twisting as they go down. Splattered with mud, I burst out of the fray, handgun raised, teeth bared, heart pumping.
I see what’s happening.
We’ve made a massive push for the central building, at the cost of many men. Reapers and Harvesters alike are being cut down around me. Screaming and splashing into the mud. The air’s heaving with crisscrossing gunfire. Marble pillars vaporized to ash, metal exploding in glowing-hot chunks. Corridors choked with the crush of desperate men. Entire fireteams of Reapers so desperate to tear down their enemies they run straight into a line of fire, heedless as they’re punched full of smoking holes. An injured Reaper is still fighting, refusing to retreat, even as he’s swarmed by a squad of Berserkers, cutting him in half in front of his fireteam. Men peel away from cover, preferring to dive into the fray instead of quietly flanking their enemy. A Reaper sprays an autocannon in wild shuddering bursts, bringing an entire concrete walkway smashing down on a dozen Harvesters.
I watch an entire battlefield go insane.
Harmony did all this.
They knew what we’d become.
They lied and deceived and tortured us.
All to make the perfect soldiers.
I look down at the blood coating my hands, a slow horror building in my throat.
I’m exactly what Harmony wanted me to be.
A monster.
We win the battle, but there’s no joy. No celebration. We’re broken ghosts, staring at the mangled corpses sprawled at our feet. Ratchet’s sitting by himself, eyes bloodshot, shoulders slumped. I want to go over and comfort him but I’m afraid of what he might do. What I might do.
I’ve heard the Canine King’s been killed. I don’t know who did it or how they got him. The mad warlord is just another corpse on the
