Yonabaru grabbed my Jacketed arm, actually trying to tug me along like a child pulling with all his weight on his father’s hand to get to the toy store. “You’re talkin’ crazy, dude. There’s nothin’ you or me can do that’ll make a difference,” he said with another tug. “Maybe this is your idea of duty, honor, all that shit. But believe me, ain’t none of us got a duty to get ourselves killed for nothin’. Me and you are just ordinary soldiers. We’re not like Ferrell or those guys in Special Forces. The battle doesn’t need us.”
“I know.” I shook off Yonabaru’s hand with the slightest of twitches. “But I need the battle.”
“You really mean it, don’t you?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
Rita was waiting for me. I’d taken four minutes.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”
I ignored Yonabaru’s glib comment and ran out of the hangar. Rita and I weren’t the only soldiers wearing Jackets now. My HUD was sprinkled with icons indicating other friendlies. Clustered in groups of two or three, they’d taken cover in the barracks or behind overturned vehicles where they could spring out at intervals to fire short bursts with their rifles.
The Mimic surprise attack had been flawless. The soldiers were completely cut off from command. Even those wearing Jackets weren’t fighting like a disciplined platoon—it was more like an armed mob. For armored infantry to be effective against a Mimic, they had to fan out from cover and throw everything they had at the enemy just to slow them down. One on one, even two on one, they didn’t stand a chance.
Friendly icons blinked onto my display, then winked out. The number of friendlies was holding steady solely thanks to
U.S. Special Forces. The number of Mimic icons was steadily increasing. Half the comm traffic was static, and the rest was a mix of panicked screams and “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I didn’t hear anyone giving orders. Yonabaru’s dire predictions didn’t look far off.
I opened a comm channel to Rita. “What now?”
“Do what we do best. Kill some Mimics.”
“Anything more specific?”
“Follow me. I’ll show you.”
We joined the battle. Rita’s crimson Jacket was a banner for our fragmented army to rally behind. We moved from one lone soldier to the next, herding them together. Until the last Mimic was dead, we’d keep at it.
The Valkyrie flew from one end of Flower Line to the other at will, carrying her unspoken message of hope to all who saw her. Even the Japanese troops, who’d never seen her Jacket in person, much less fought at her side, gained a renewed sense of purpose at the sight of that glittering red steel. Wherever she went, the heart of the battle followed.
In her Jacket, Rita was invincible. Her sidekick, yours truly, might have had an Achilles’ heel or two, but I was more than a match for any Mimic. Humanity’s enemy had met its executioners. It was time to show the Mimics just how deep into Hell they’d fallen.
Lifting energy packs and ammo from the dead, we kicked and stomped a jitterbug of death across the battlefield. If a building got in our way, we carved a new path through with our battle axes. We detonated a fuel depot to destroy an entire mob of Mimics. We wrenched off part of the antenna tower’s base and used it as a barricade. The Full Metal Bitch and the squire at her side were steel death incarnate.
We came across a man hidden behind the burning hulk of an armored car. A Mimic was bearing down on him, and I knew without being told that this one was mine to take care of. I struck, and the Mimic fell. Quickly, I put myself between the Mimic’s corpse and the man to protect him from the conductive sand spilling out of its body. Without a Jacket to filter the nanobots, the sand was deadly.
Rita secured a perimeter around the wounded man. Smoke billowed from the car, reducing visibility to next to nothing. Ten meters away, at about six o’clock, lay a steel tower that had fallen on its side. Beyond that, our Doppler was swarming with white points of light. If we stayed here we’d be overrun by Mimics.
The man’s leg was pinned beneath the overturned vehicle. He was well-muscled, and an old film camera hung from a neck which was much thicker than my own. It was Murdoch, the journalist who’d been snapping pictures at Rita’s side during PT.
Rita kneeled and examined his leg. “I thought you tried to stay out of battle.”
“It was a good shot, Sergeant Major. A Pulitzer for sure, if I’d managed to take it. Didn’t count on the explosion, though.” Soot and grime fouled the corners of his mouth.
“I don’t know whether that makes you lucky or unlucky.”
“Meeting a goddess in Hell must mean I still have some luck,” he said.
“This armor plate is dug into your leg pretty deep. It’ll take too long to get you out.”
“What are my options?”
“You can stay here shooting pictures until the Mimics crush you to death, or I can cut off your leg and carry you to the infirmary. Take your pick.”
“Rita, wait!”
“You have one minute to think it over. The Mimics are coming.” She rose her axe, not really interested in offering him the full sixty seconds.
Murdoch took a deep breath. “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“If I live—will you let me take a proper picture of you? No tongues sticking out, no middle fingers?”
The Japanese and U.S. troops met up just over two hours after the attack had begun. In the time it had taken the sun to climb out of the eastern sky and shine down from directly overhead, the soldiers on the ground had cobbled together something you could actually call a front. It was an ugly battle, but it wasn’t a rout. There were plenty of men still alive, still moving, still fighting.