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Chapter 50 (YEAR 2052)
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Games of Invictus Chapter 51 (YEAR 2052)
Lucas raised a finger. "How, exactly, did he figure that out?" "I was stupid," Dan grimaced. "I put too much of my old Axion designs into the Prowler. Draco knows my style better than anyone, and in my arrogance, I made a mech that resembled an old Axion design I never got around to building." "So, what now?" The voice belonged to Commander Telbus. He stood with Dan near the front of the room, next to Mallet and a few other commanders. Mallet gave Martin a curt nod. "For now, we resume operations as usual." Mallet's gaze shifted around the room once more. "We're going to make a supply run next," she announced. "Government finance is tight and we desperately need new IRON chips. Black market dealers are willing to sell us shipments, but the prices are getting higher as Axion cracks down on knockoff chip-makers." Another murmur swept the room. It was true, then, that we were low on IRON chips. That meant that it likely wasn't just my supply that had been half-empty. "There is a
Games of Invictus Chapter 52 (YEAR 2052)
"You've got to be kidding me." I stared up in horror at the mech before me. Daylight shone through the glass dome high above, tinted grey by the cloudy Atlantic weather. In the trench far below, the choppy, gunmetal grey sea mirrored the colourless sky. Light bounced off the mech that hung before me, the replacement for my Prowler. A Crusader. I threw up my hands in disbelief. The mech was the smallest of the two British models. Like the Crusader used by Martin, the mech's frame resembled the armour of a knight, titanium plating spreading upward into a squat cockpit and broad, sloping shoulders. The entire mech seemed hunched forward and unbalanced, protected only by the thick lead shield it held in front of it. Upon closer inspection, the shield hung on a track attached to the mech's right shoulder and could slide in and out of position at will to allow for mobility and adaptability. My concern was that this shield was the mech's only defence mechanism. Without its shield, the C
Games of Invictus Chapter 53 (YEAR 2052)
Ahead of us, the two other dropships faded into oblivion, camouflaged. We were an invisible convoy on a much-needed errand. Lucas pushed my feet aside and thumbed a button on the console. The hum from the nuclear reactor deadened slightly. "Adaptive camouflage activated and nuclear signal masked," he grinned. "We are off the radar both physically and electronically." He leaned back in his seat. "Now we wait." Behind me, Kitt sighed dramatically. "Are we there yet?" "I'll toss you from the hangar and you can swim home," Lucas glowered. In reality, the trip from Canada to Italy would take no time at all. The dropship, when pushed to its absolute limit, could fly several times faster than sound. At minimum, it could comfortably fly faster than even the most powerful pre-war airplane. The dropship's stealth, combined with its speed, made the transport easily deadlier than the fighter jets of old, though less maneuverable. Had someone decided to strap weapons to one of these, the Iro
Games of Invictus Chapter 54 (YEAR 2052)
Report: Quinn The interior of a dropship. Three-hundred feet above sea level. International airspace. Seventy minutes later our dropship was once again cruising over the Russian countryside. A massive, concrete dam dominated the eastern horizon, watching over a winding riverbed like a silent guardian. The once-pristine river was a dry trench in the ground, dividing the landscape in half. On the south bank of the river sat a farm, an old agricultural center abandoned years ago. A field of various crops swayed in the breeze, now too overgrown and irradiated to be remotely safe to eat. A small farmhouse sat abandoned next to a ring of rusting metal silos. The northern shore of the river was home to the Stalnoy mining district, a patchwork grid of rusty metal depots and tall buildings slicing into the sky. Two bridges jutted out of the district like arms, clutching the opposite side of the river. Crumbling concrete ramps lead down towards the riverbed at various intervals, boat laun
Games of Invictus Chapter 55 (YEAR 2052)
A short time later my Crusader landed on its feet, stumbling slightly in the dry soil of the drained riverbed. Dust flew up around me, a small sandstorm's worth to any human nearby. Three other plumes of dust and three ready signals told me the rest of the squad had touched down in their mechs unharmed. This wasn't like the infiltration of the Lighthouse powerplant. We weren't hiding anymore. If there were enemies, they were likely now alerted to our position. It would be an all-out battle. I rotated my Crusader's body, trying to get a feel for the British mech. Its large shield hung at my side, ready to defend me at the push of a button. This particular Crusader came equipped with two bulbous plasma launchers, the same weapon I had used on my Prowler. At least I was comfortable with the mech's weapons, if not the Crusader itself. My heads-up display flashed blue as my Crusader's cameras scanned the barren landscape. Because, unlike Moscow, there was very little radioactive inter
Games of Invictus Chapter 56 (YEAR 2052)
Report: Quinn The west coast of Russia. An abandoned mining facility. Designation: Stalnoy It felt like a shove to the back. My head almost hit my control panel as my entire mech tipped backward. My saving grace was my shield, which helped to counterbalance me and stop the wall of shrapnel that flew my way. A wave of flame swept over me, the heat stifling even inside my insulated command capsule. The mech had been a bomb. Axion had built a bomb. How could the mech's pilot survive that? The answer made me sick. Nobody was supposed to survive that. Project Apollo was the Iron War's first true suicide mech. Dust choked my vision, chunks of riverbed turned into a fine mist by the blast. I scanned the area, ready for an attack that never came. To my right, a rock the size of a truck was embedded in the soil, unearthed by the blast and pushed along the riverbed like a curling stone. It glowed red, matching the colour of the front of my shield, and was the only discerning feature in a
Games of Invictus Chapter 57 (YEAR 2052)
The district was a jumble of buildings, some squat, flat warehouses and others high-rises of gleaming glass and steel. The center of the mining district was divided by yet another set of bridges. These short, wide platforms had once been used to transport raw ores across an emergency drainage channel in the days when the swift river was a source of worry. The emergency channel below the bridges, like the river itself, was empty, long dried out when the dam had been closed. Now those bridges served to divide something else. They divided us from our enemy. I was certain that there were many more Apollo left-more suicide mechs ready to wipe us off the face of the planet. Ironically, our biggest advantage against the enemy was Harlow's constant bragging. "Feeling rattled, Quinn?" Harlow crooned. "I should hope so. That explosive power was made for busting bunkers. Each Apollo can overcharge their reactor with the force of an anti-tank mine!" That confirmed my suspicions. More Apollo w
Games of Invictus Chapter 58 (YEAR 2052)
My Crusader staggered, nearly toppling, as a flameless explosion buffeted me backwards. "What the hell?" I gasped. "They were nowhere near me! What hit me?" "I don't know," Kitt replied. The fear in his voice was tangible. "It looked like the air itself struck your shield!" None of the Apollo had moved an inch closer, yet I'd been hit by something like a small explosion. How? "You assumed the Apollo was a short-range mech, didn't you?" Harlow gloated. "But you forgot that self-destruction is not its intended purpose! The Apollo is a giant air compressor, intaking massive quantities of air and jettisoning it in one blast. Venting the air through the reactor creates a fireball of oil vapour, but if it's used as intended the attack is invisible!" "He's shooting us with compressed air?" Kedrick gasped. The Apollo stared me down, unwavering. Now that Harlow had so helpfully gloated about it, I could see two small circular vents on each Apollo's front. Those had to be the source of the
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