Chương 57: KK2 - #13 APOCALYPSE RINGS (1/3)

#13 APOCALYPSE RINGS E very major milestone in History has been linked to a war, and the race for the stars didn't break this millennial rule. In 1942, the Nazis wanted to colonize the Moon because—well… that was such a Nazi thing to do! But the Soviets ended up being the first, exactly ten years after kicking Hitler's ass. However, the newly formed "not-so-United Nations" didn't appreciate the Reds' achievements; particularly Truman's America.

Among growing tensions, the USSR was expelled from the arbitrary Security Council. The inevitable third World War eventually occurred when Uncle Sam reached Mars thanks to Canadian-built post-nuclear engines. As the conflict went sour, the Eurasian Commies got nuked to the ground, and our home world was destroyed. But do you think wiping out the Soviets and their allies from the Inner System would mark the end of the sapien s' belligerent behavior? Uh-uh, my friend!

Hundreds of feuds continued to flourish throughout the system, from Mercury to Kuiper. Pumping up the Lunar-controlled military-industrial complex's profits, corpo-wars and inconsequential revolutions knew no end. The last conflict, branded the "Rings Civil War" by the media-corps, entered its second year, as the stock markets have never been in better shape. Of course, Belter arms dealers and Martian traders were far from the battlefields and the whistling shells.

Speaking of that, one of them—a shell, not a trader. Stay focus, please—finished its course in the adjacent trench, turning all its occupants into a pink mist." Sacrebleu! Our lieutenant went up in smoke!" I screamed through the white phosphorus's thundering explosions.

"Ouch!" The officer's red-hot buckle had hit me in the snout before I could lay low.

"Ali, my dear? Could you please remind me what we came into this mess for?" My partner was slumbering in front of me despite the astonishing din. In the foxhole we took cover in, she seemed indifferent to all the chaos. I had to insist by biting her thumb.

"Ground Control to Ali Koviràn!" She squinted, lifting the headphones of her yellow Walkman—Zéphyr's new gift—to let them rest on her shoulders.

"What? Is it elevenses already?"

"Never mind. What are you listening to?" Another shell whistled over our head before covering the surrounding positions from its white shroud. I heard people screaming in pain. Severely burnt and panicking, they only emerged from their hole to be nailed by the Barrett putting our platoon out of action since the last offensive two days ago. I had to repeat my question, and my human replied: "One of my father's favorite tapes: Boney M."

"You're into disco music now?" I chuckled.

"I thought bell-bottoms were 'ratty'. Quoting you." She grunted." You're ratty, old mop. I like these headphones, by the way—they cover the noise very well."

"Nice gift from the Maiden," I agreed.

"However, I'd prefer being with her—pummeling the Neosterdam's maffia…" A hot shrapnel dug a furrow through the yellow mud, pouring the contents of a puddle on the tip of my tail. I protected the latter under a half-melted helmet before losing my temper: "I understand why she wanted to stay away! Her cyborg body would have sunk in this bloody marsh!"

"Or maybe Braun's presence in orbit makes her nervous…" Ali went on before greeting the drone flying over our hole. The army staff 50 kilometers away estimated the front line's casualties that way.

"Half the fleet of the Outer System is currently fighting the Separatists over our heads. This is the biggest battle since the fall of Beijing in 19—""Nobody cares about your boring history lectures, nerd!" my partner cut me off before putting her headphones back. Rolling her eyes, she started cleaning the plastic anorak she had stolen from a corpse. My sapiens wasn't the only one in a bad mood. Our discussion had angered the Marine, a blar with improbable jam jars whom we shared our shelter with.

"Excuse me, here!" he started chastising.

"Would you mind caring a bit more about what's going on, uh?" A nearby explosion covered our hole, and only our heads poked out. Ali swore; she had just finished cleaning her plastic blanket. But it wasn't so bad after all as the mud protected us from the next pyrophoric fallout. The following acid storm only calmed down when it started hailing lead. Heavy machine guns were crackling in the distance, sometimes with whistles and mortar fire. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve.

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"That's the signal! Charge!" the soldier shouted, jumping out of our foxhole which was only missing a tombstone with our name on it. Alas, the poor jarhead came back a few seconds later… I mean… sort of.

"Dude's been cut in half…" Ali commented while slowly standing up.

"…vertically." From the tip of her index, she poked the dripping half-brain floating in the red bottom puddle.

"Gross-o-rama!"

"He's coming home with a fancy flag folded into a triangle to make daddy proud and mommy cry," I said over what was left of our companion.

"But no time to waste, dear! The city of Nouvelle Patrie may fall, we have to get in this time!"

"I bet you C$500 that Chief-Engineer von Gebhardt has already scrammed!" Ali said before climbing over the barbed wire.

"C$150, 000 for the head of a simple thief, it's very well paid!" I explained as I crept towards her.

"Corpos didn't like being robbed and the Marine is pretty pissed about its desertion two years ag— Sacrebleu! This is the worst day ever!" A vision of the apocalypse awaited us. The sun was still discernible and yet the curved horizon was as black as ink, crisscrossed with swirling white lines. At our feet sprawled a sea of corpses half buried in a spongy yellow mire. The previous assaults had disfigured the foggy desert where once stood high derricks and giant pipelines.

"Too late to go back," yawned my partner before stretching up. She then checked out a close crater which had vomited torn-apart bodies from both sides.

"Gotta find Gebhardt before the Marine nukes the whole oil fields." The fighting kept raging further. The echoes of explosions and the cries of the wounded were carried by the ill wind from behind the gigantic collapsed cistern we were heading to. At the rhythm of the mortar fire, it took us almost two hours to reach the new front line, surrounded by a vast sea of burning black gold.

Crossing the trenches occupied a few minutes ago by Separatist defenders, we discovered the silent ruins of a cathedral, once a command center. An armored Scorpio-TK12, dropped from orbit, had passed by and reduced many of the conscripts to pieces thanks to its pair of grasping pincers and the cannon ending its curved tail.

"It's heinous…" Ali grunted, stepping in the human potage. The latter covered the nave which led to the altar where the tank had collapsed.

"The TK did that?"

"Apparently. Never saw one of them in action. And I don't want to." Ali waded in the slimy liquid, a mixture of mud, gasoline and limbs sprinkled with depleted uranium. Drawing in it, a faceless wounded woman came to us to ask for help. The condemned soldier suffocated, swallowing her tongue, before my partner put an end to her misery. The gunshot echoed against the crumbling walls, scaring a couple of ravens which immediately took wing from the organ behind us to fly through the collapsed roof.

As the crows' croaky complaints ebbed away, I heard a hissing noise behind us; then the rattling of steel against the stone. I knew what was happening. Ali too—judging by her terrified eyes.

"It's moving, isn't it?" I asked, sat on a poor box and my gaze fixed on the narthex's faded wall mosaic as I feared to look back.

"Yep…" my copilot whispered, slowly drawing her weapon.

"This is—literally—the worst day ever."

"Duck!" Ali yelled before taking me into her arms. The explosion blew us away against one of the aisle's charred abutments. I didn't know what appeared to be the more dreadful between the toxic dust searing our lungs or the pews breaking our spine. The answer was obviously the massive Scorpio-tank emerging from the smoke. Its five rotative red eyes flickered as it was scanning the area, looking for survivors.

On its back, the 406mm Mark 7 cannon expelled the fuming cartridge case which loudly fell on the floor before rolling to the burning choir behind its crushed rear legs.

"Quick! To the pillar!" I ordered as the TK's head tilted. Her face and clothes whitened by the plaster, Ali coughed as an answer.

"Its rear legs have been hit. He can't move from the altar," I tried to reassure her as I started dashing towards "Come!" My partner crawled beneath a bench.

"But the cannon is—" Another explosion smashed a pile of electronic supplies next to us, spraying mud, splinters and shrapnel all around.

"Ali!" I screamed before being snatched from behind as a falling stone almost turned me into a crêpe.

"That was close," my helpful partner answered.

"What do we do now?" I pulled out a piece of stained glass from her shoulder then leaped on the floor. After waiting for the dust cloud to settle, I cast an eye over the altar. The heavy Scorpio had slipped back because of the recoil but remained highly dangerous.

"Jump to the second pillar. I saw an RPG laying against it—use it!" After catching my breath, I left our cover but Ali instantly hauled me back by the tail.

"What the fuck are you doing?" she muttered.

"A diversion!" I yowled.

"Are you juiced? It's firing shells bigger than your ego!"

"Do as I say or we both die, human!" Ali grunted then waited for my signal before dashing to the rocket launcher. The moment I sprang out of the pillar, the Scorpio's head revolved towards me as it clapped its last remaining pincer. I heard a sizzling sound before its front legs expanded to lift its blue armored body covered with blood and oil off the ground. A loud click warned me that the Mark 7 had armed its shell.

Stabilized, this monster of doom was ready to fire as I rushed to the right wing's chapel, jumping from drowned bodies to burning pews. A detonation occurred as I closed my eyes. It wasn't the sound of the deadly 406mm but the soft lullaby of a rocket hitting a gas tank. My skilled copilot had taken her time to aim for the TK's only weakness beneath its segmented tail, and it exploded like a Ford Pinto. The Mark 7 sank in the morass; defeated.

"Well done, part—" A flash followed by a blast blinded me. And everything faded to black.