Gavin Smith - Crysis - Escalation

Armour mode. The CryFibril nanomuscle tightened the suit’s outer weave, increasing the armour’s density. Psycho grabbed the HMG and tore it off its pintle mount. He could see the driver and the gunwoman in the Bulldog’s passenger seat turning around, trying to bring weapons to bear. Psycho lowered the HMG’s barrel and pulled the trigger. The HMG’s .50 calibre rounds hit them at such close range it looked like the two CELL soldiers had just vaporised.

Psycho was vaguely aware of taking fire on his back. He turned around and saw that the two CELL gunmen who’d been catapulted off the Bulldog were firing at him. He fired the HMG back at them. The large rounds churned up the gunmen’s flesh, sent them tumbling across the frozen mud.

Psycho leapt over the side of the Bulldog in a hail of fire, bullets and fragments of brick sparking off his reinforced armour. He started killing with the HMG.

‘Get some, you slags!’ He wanted the CELL forces to know that gods of war walked amongst them.

Everyone was shooting at the mining supply store as Prophet scrambled through it. The threat tracer showed bullet trajectories all around him. It looked like a bullet was travelling through every square inch of air in the store. He could see tracer fire from HMGs and Mk 60s, then chunks of the ceiling exploded as another VTOL started firing down through the building. A grenade landed behind him and exploded. The force threw him into the air and through a wooden partition wall at the back of the shop.

He felt it. He felt every last impact, every explosion. He still felt the pain. Prophet got to his feet. He had found the stairs. He scrambled up them as they started to disintegrate around him. He activated the stealth mode. The lensing field wrapped around him. He took a moment. Just a moment. He wasn’t fighting for breath. He had no need of that anymore. He just needed a bit of time for the partially-alien technology of his suit and his melded flesh to fix the damage.

The floor above the storefront was an apartment. He could see the remains of an old couple, torn apart by stray rounds.

I’m sorry, his remaining humanity thought and then it was business.

They were still concentrating their fire on the ground floor. The rounds were eating away at the mostly wooden building. He could feel it shift beneath him as he walked to the window. Prophet removed the L-Tag grenade launcher from its clip on the back of his armour. He could see one of the VTOLs outside. They couldn’t see him. He was as invisible as Ceph-derived human technology could make him.

He raised the L-Tag to his shoulder and fired. Worked the pump. Fired again. Two sixty millimetre smart grenades flew at the VTOL. The grenades exploded in an airburst next to the aircraft, battering it around. It wasn’t nearly enough to destroy the armoured VTOL, Prophet knew, but it panicked the pilot. He banked hard, clipping a building as he frantically tried to gain height.

Down in the street Prophet could see Psycho using an HMG like a scythe. Good soldier, he thought. Then he started firing the L-Tag again. He used two grenades to clear the streets out in front of the mining store. Then the remaining three he dropped in above the most concentrated areas of fire shooting at Psycho. The smart grenades exploded in the air. Force battered the CELL troops to the ground as fragments tore into their battered and concussive-force ruptured bodies.

Now it was time to go and make a stand with Psycho out in the street. They might die, but they wouldn’t be alone.

All around the room board members watched the images in horror. None of them had problems making decisions that would kill thousands of people, sometimes tens of thousands, but somehow the immediacy of the carnage unfolding in front of them appalled in a way they weren’t used to. Or perhaps, as people who considered themselves powerful, it was the rawness of the physical power being displayed by the two nanosuit operators that was affecting them.

They watched the screens as grenades exploded over the heads of their troops and more were cut down by machine gunfire. The cost in vehicles, and medical and death benefits alone, would be astronomical.

‘It’s like New York all over again.’

‘We have a counter measure in place.’

‘Which would significantly damage the infrastructure of the…’

‘What infrastructure? It’s fucking Siberia.’

‘Chairman, you have the deciding vote. Should we initiate the Cold Protocol?’

‘Do it. Bring the cold.’

Walker kept his head down, hunkered behind a Bulldog that had been riddled with fire. He had seen the thing coming towards him. It was an armoured figure, impervious to their fire like something out of a comic book or a myth. There was nothing they could do but wait for it to kill them. Not even the drugs could control his fear. He thought of Carlotta and Elsa. He could hear it coming closer. It was going to kill him anyway.

The CELL soldier popped up from behind the wrecked Bulldog. He started firing his Scarab at Psycho. The rounds sparking off his armour like all the others. Psycho turned to face him. There was a moment. A spark of recognition. It was gone as HMG rounds sent the CELL soldier dancing backwards.

An auto-cannon round staggered Psycho, put him on one knee. He had no idea where it had come from. The next one almost knocked him over. Only the fact that he was in armour mode saved him. He staggered sideways towards the wreckage of one of the APCs he’d blown up. Its armoured body would provide him with a modicum of cover.

He continued firing the HMG. Mowing people down. He let it be known, through action, that anyone shooting at him would be killed. Anyone who wanted to run, could.

More cannon fire sparked off the carcass of the APC as the VTOL that had been firing at him hove into view above him. Psycho angled the HMG up and sent tracers arcing up at the aircraft. He could hear the rumble of an APC heading towards him. Another cannon round from the VTOL hit him.

They’d brought too many people with them. They had provided too much of a target rich environment. Some sneaky tricks and the capabilities of their armour had allowed them to wreak havoc on troops not trained to a high enough standard to play in this game. Prophet could hear their panic over their comms. The problem was that CELL didn’t seem to be running out of personnel.

He had his suppressed Hammer II in his hand, killing opportunistically. He was using the stealth mode to move unseen through the carnage.

Psycho watched the suit energy in his Heads-Up Display. Every cannon round was agony, staggering him, sending him to the ground, breaking and rupturing things inside him. The energy bar was the countdown to his death. When lack of energy forced him out of armour mode, the cannon fire would tear him apart.

The APC trundled into view. Well that’s that, then, Psycho thought, still firing the HMG at anyone dumb enough to shoot at him. To his surprise the APC turned its back to him. They’re going to debus! he thought, exultantly, that’s madness!

The turret on the APC turned to face him and the auto-cannon round took him in the chest. It lifted him off his feet and threw him back. He was astonished when he realised that he was still alive. Though living in pain.

He somehow managed to get up. The rear of the APC opened. He fired the HMG. The first two rounds killed the first CELL spec op soldier out of the armoured vehicle, then the weapon ran dry. Psycho threw it at the next soldier clambering out, with sufficient force to take him off his feet. The Londoner unslung his gauss rifle, put a quick burst into the one on the ground and then raised the weapon and started firing into the spec op team that was desperately, and foolishly, trying to debus from the APC.