Vaughn Heppner: Battle Pod

General Hawthorne was here because he was tired of watching video-feeds. He wanted to see the real thing, to gain the pulse of his troops and see how the new tactics worked. Thus, he had risked leaving New Baghdad to come here to the jungle warzone.

“An orbital strike occurred yesterday about this time, sir,” Colonel Diego said. He was a slim, stern-featured man, with a slender mustache. He glanced uneasily at Captain Mune and the rest of Hawthorne’s security team.

Everyone stood under the canopy of giant rubber trees. Monkeys screamed in the upper branches. Soldiers waited by heavy artillery tubes. General Hawthorne had just arrived in four tracked infantry carriers packed with his bionic bodyguards.

All the bionic men were like Captain Mune. Specialists had torn these bionic men down and rebuilt them with synthetic muscles, titanium-reinforced bones and sheath-protected nerves. Like Hawthorne, Captain Mune and the others wore camouflage gear. Mune had heavy features that were a little too wide and which hinted at plasti-flesh. He wore a peaked cap, and a barely audible whine emanated from him when he moved. Special enhancement glands had been grafted into him. If the need arose, they would squirt drugs into his bloodstream and dull any pain he might receive or stimulate him to even greater strength and speed. He wore a holstered gyroc pistol. Captain Mune was Hawthorne’s personal bodyguard and had saved his life more than once.

“Carry on, Colonel,” Hawthorne said.

“But, sir, the Highborn battleoids—”

“Are one of the reasons I’m here,” Hawthorne said.

Colonel Diego blinked with incomprehension.

“The Field Marshal has the same concerns you do,” Hawthorne said. “As I told him, I’ll take care of myself.”

“But General—”

“Those are my orders,” Hawthorne said quietly.

Colonel Diego hesitated a moment longer and then turned back to his communications team. They had set up a data-net under a camouflaged tent.

“Our presence has made him nervous,” Hawthorne shortly whispered to Captain Mune.

“You’re making me nervous, sir,” Captain Mune said.

“Nonsense,” Hawthorne said. He put on the helmet and lowered the visor. Then he strode purposefully into the jungle and toward the enemy lines.

Captain Mune motioned the security team. Several bionic men took off running ahead of Hawthorne. They were much heavier than normal troops and their boots sank deeper into the moist soil. The bionic men held gyroc pistols and were conditioned to sell their lives for General Hawthorne’s safety.

Listening to his labored breathing as he climbed over a giant root, Hawthorne understood why everyone was so uneasy. If he died out here, Captain Mune, Colonel Diego and even Field Marshal Santiago would take the blame. It was unfair, but it was how politics worked in Social Unity. Hawthorne knew he shouldn’t be here. But he absolutely needed to know firsthand how the war progressed.

It had been a political risk coming here as it left New Baghdad to the directors, giving them greater freedom to plot against him. In that sense, being here was unwise.

The real political danger for him was the fact that the Highborn were winning the war. Unless he could achieve a real victory against the Highborn, Social Unity was doomed. The strike on the Sun-Works Factory had hurt the Highborn, but not badly enough. It had cost Social Unity too much to do the damage. They had even lost the experimental beamship.

He needed to know if this was the place to attempt a critical defeat against the Highborn. He needed to know if it was even possible. So he took this risk, and he risked the lives of others.

An hour later, after they’d traveled several kilometers deep into the jungle, they finally made contact with the enemy.

“Get down, sir!” Captain Mune shouted. He shoved Hawthorne from behind.

The bionic captain’s strength was irresistible. Hawthorne found himself hurled against a mossy rise. He grunted, his body-armor rattled and his faceplate mashed against the damp soil. For a second, Hawthorne’s lungs locked as harsh, whooshing sounds streaked over him.

Explosions lifted him from the mossy hummock and his armor rattled again as he slammed back down. Hawthorne grunted as weights fell on him. It took several seconds before he realized two bionic soldiers shielded his body with their own.

More explosions occurred. Then something fast and powerful boomed overhead. Were those the new magnetic lifters?

“Get off,” Hawthorne whispered. “I must witness this.” He squirmed free, wiped muck from his visor and blinked to get rid of the spots before his eyes.

Captain Mune lay beside him. “Sir, we must retreat.”

Hawthorne raised himself higher and peered down into a jungle valley. He used his chin to select one of his helmet’s special features: telescopic sighting.

He witnessed a Hawk Team. They were Free Earth Corps, traitorous humans who fought for the Highborn. They used a rugged, fuel-efficient, battlefield jetpack. Two of them lifted into the air, armed with portable missile-launchers. A burning SU infantry carrier lay on its side two hundred meters ahead of the fliers. Three SU soldiers tumbled out of the wreckage. Two missiles streaked from the Hawk Team. There was an explosion, and then no one moved on the burning carrier.

“The bastards,” Hawthorne said through gritted teeth. Before he could order his bionic men to take aim, one of the newer bio-tanks raced out of the jungle growth.

Bio-tanks were smaller than cybertanks, and were built upon different principles. The bio-tank was low to the ground and had a single silver dome atop its tracked body. A portal opened along the silver dome and a chaingun poked through. The chaingun whirled into life, shredding the two jetpack infantry. Other FEC infantry hidden in the trees opened fire with their portable missiles. As the flaming streaks closed upon the bio-tank, the vehicle activated its defensive armament. It exploded beehive-shaped charges. The shrapnel took out all but one missile. That missile cracked the silver dome, and it appeared to have angered the bio-tank. The engine revved. The tracks churned, causing grass and dirt to fly behind it. The bio-tank roared for the trees, its chaingun shredding leaves, branches, bark and FEC soldiers.

“Excellent,” Hawthorne said.

“Sir,” Captain Mune warned.

Hawthorne saw it: a great, bounding humanoid, a Highborn battleoid. With exoskeleton strength, a battleoid could make fifty-meter leaps.

A second and a third bio-tank appeared. They must have tracked the battleoid. Their chainguns poured rounds at the armored Highborn.

Stricken, the battleoid sprawled onto the ground. Then enemy lasers struck. They stabbed down from the heavens. The giant beams melted one of the bio-tanks’ silver domes, and the vehicle exploded. More lasers stabbed down, striking the other bio-tanks.

Hawthorne’s visor polarized and saved his eyes. The lasers were striking uncomfortably near.

Before Hawthorne could stop him with a command, Captain Mune hefted the general onto his shoulder and ran. The other bionic men followed. As they ran, SU artillery began to pound the area with high explosives, no doubt seeking other battleoids. High command desperately sought Highborn casualties. Due to Hawthorne’s orders, they were not aware of his presence in this combat zone.

The giant lasers stabbed down again. They beamed down to Earth from the orbital laser platforms. Hawthorne and his strategy staff had yet to find a battlefield answer to that tactic. Knocking them down was the only real solution. The cost in merculite missiles was always too high, as the Highborn savagely defended the orbital platforms.

“Set me down,” Hawthorne ordered.