Jean Preston - Sledgehammer

An old Hun rode his bike languidly by the Citadel. His spiked helmet sat on his head askance, and his brown leather jacket was stained and faded. He revved his engine loudly and honked his horn.

“I’m a little lost!” he bellowed. “Does anyone know the way to the main road?” Nine of his comrades came up behind him. They swigged on flasks and looked around causally, they spat.

“HULLO?” he shouted. He retrieved his pistol from his coat pocket and lazily took a shot at the main building.

They waited a few seconds, then heard the creaking of old gears. The underground garage was revealing itself.

“Time to go boys,” said the old Hun.

Six tanks emerged from their underground lair. They drove in single file at surprising speed. The Huns burst down the road, fanning out into a loose formation. The cannon of the foremost tank erupted, firing a beam of blue light. It hit one of the Huns, vaporising him instantly and sending his bike careening across the road. The other Huns skilfully maneuvered away from it, and continued on their journey, passing out of view. The tanks followed.

Another beam was fired, searing the ground and catching the wheel of a bike – the owner was sent tumbling forward, crushed by his own machine. The tanks formed a firing line, all six fired in sync, one after the next. The Huns fell one by one.

The tanks stopped. A hooded figure emerged from the bowels of the metal beast. With bandaged hands he took out a pair of absurdly large binoculars and scanned the horizon. He looked back the way they had come, and saw a line of bikes, hundreds wide.

“TURN AROUND,” he squealed, then retreated into the tank, sealing the valve shut. With lumbering inefficiency, the tank’s cannons twisted around to meet this wave of steel, flesh and fumes. They only had time for one volley, but this alone sewed terrible misfortune among the bikers. Blue light engulfed them, tearing their ranks apart, causing brother to crash into brother, debris clogged in spokes and embedded in chests. But still they came. With terrible speed and terrible cruelty in their hearts.

The zipped past the tanks, the tanks maneuvered laboriously, creakingly and achingly slow, trying to follow them. Grenades were tossed into the tracks, disabling them. Saburo’s bike still held Loma’s plane part, some modifications had been applied to it. His driving partner unlatched and slid it under one of the tanks. The bikers dispersed, as soon as they had come, like swallows fleeing a hawk. A few parting shots were fired, then all was silent. The tank commander unlatched the valve and went out for a second look. The plane engine exploded. A white hot ball of hellfire was born. The explosion scorched the tanks black, and cooked those inside alive. Saburo had been instructed not to look back, but curiosity got the better of him. Two mushroom clouds appeared in his sunglasses. The tanks stopped firing.

The bikers ground to a halt. A hearty cheer broke out. This – despite their abysmal casualties, about a quarter of their entire force by Saburo’s reckoning. The cheers died down.

On the horizon 12 tanks appeared, hurtling at full speed. They crashed through the blackened remnants of their predecessors, an explosion of black dust and flame, they persevered through and started firing. A bike next to Saburo exploded. Saburo and the others started their engines and squealed off the road, dispersing into the wilderness. The tanks dispersed and pursued.

Outside the Citadel, Loma gave the order. Thousands of soldiers walked out of the forest. They had come from towns and villages across the south. Saburo had spread word wherever he could of the Immortals and the impending siege. There were half-mad savages just looking for a good scrap, there were lost souls desperate for revenge, there were untrained pups with noble intentions but most of all there were starving mercenaries, desperate for a sniff of the old world technology promised within the Citadel.

The grounds of the Citadel were empty and eerily quiet. The farms, barracks, trenches all abandoned. Loma’s army advanced, in little teams. There was no uniform, flag or even cause that united them, though they advanced shoulder to shoulder all the same. Soldiers piled up, hugging the wall of the Citadel’s entrance. Some lit lanterns. They poured in. Loma was first amongst them, Kirwyn followed close behind.

Through crumbling corridors they trampled, more and more troops poured in. They found the staircase leading to the lower catacombs. They tramped down, guided by lantern light. They navigated through the concrete tunnels, brushing plastic curtains aside. The walls became less plane, filled with primitive scratches and colour, words they did not understand, figures, machines. An army of figures, running, and then kneeling and then lying before the gods. Painted in white, with tendrils trailing from their limbs, their heads were elongated, they stood nobly, surrounded by ant-like red figures.

They heard a scratching noise echoing through the tunnels. Loma stopped, her guards did likewise and assumed defensive positions. The night-vision of her helmet failed, her screen flickered and died. She took it off and tossed it aside. She heard mumbling voices, chanting, it seemed, in unison. She tried her rifle, but it was useless. She threw it to the ground and unholstered a pistol. The scratching noise grew ever louder, rusted metal on stone.

Saburo stopped his bike. His passenger had been picked off. All around him he heard the carnage of battle. Distant muffled gunfire, explosions, screams, they all faded to nothing. All he heard was his heartbeat. His hands shook wildly, he couldn’t breathe. He grasped onto his handlebars and put his chin to his chest, closed his eyes.

Bill rode up loudly beside him and stopped.

“Lead them into that clearing!” he cried.

Saburo nodded with tears in his eyes and revved his engine, bursting forward, skidding along grass, bumping through roots.

Saburo zipped between trees, struggling to control his bike on the uneven ground, his tires kicked up soil and stones. Behind him a tank steamed through the canopy, firing shots of light carelessly, incinerating trees. The surviving bikers had learned of the slow turning speed of the cannons. They adapted, speeding and slowing at random, driving erratically.

He entered the clearing, trees whipping past his face. He was well ahead of the tank, but could see signs of another one approaching – trees flattening in its wake. A shot was fired at him, leaving a circle of burnt grass. He stopped, revved and his bike kicked upwards, he rode on one wheel, zig-zagging towards the tank. Beams of light whiffed past him, he turned abruptly and rode away, back into the heart of the clearing. The tank had grown weary of him, it turned its head slowly to find choicer targets. Both tanks were now in the clearing.

Bill emerged from the forest, he burst through grass, driving between the two tanks, firing pistol shots that dinged off the armour pathetically. The foremost tank turned its head laboriously to meet him. It fired a shot at near point blank range. Bill unexpectedly sped ahead. The shot hit the rear tank in its side, molten metal dripped from the gaping hole in its shell, it turned and tried to break, too suddenly, it skidded and crashed into a hill bank, crushing the main gun. It sat, smoking.

Saburo was in awe. He revved his engine and followed Bill through the canopy. Several Yellowjackets did the same, some burst into flame as the remaining tank continued the pursuit.

“He’s fucking furious!” screamed Bill, cackling in the wind.

A Cossack in a brassy old bike joined their formation. “I know a good spot,” he cried. “When I hit my horn—” he did so, a high pitch reedy tone blared out. “-Everyone stop. Understand?”