A Pleasant Reassignment

The smell was always the worst part of battle. Yama figured that with how much people liked war, they’d evolve to do it without smelling so horrible. Alas, the universe cared not for Yama Kikuchi wanted and constantly sent him to muddy places full of bloody, sweaty men. The acrid scent of sulfur lingered in the air and the stench of feces bombarded his nose, both from the fearful living and from the grateful dead.

While Umbramire was home to green hills and dark swamps, Yama found his surroundings decidedly fell into neither category. He was in Umbramire; the wet heat confirmed that much—like another man perspiring on him at all hours of the day and whispering in his ear, “remember you sweat.” Perhaps a few weeks ago, before the back-and-forth bombardment had leveled the land into a flat, brown-grey field of mud, it had fallen into one of those categories, but it hardly mattered when compared to other problems. In the absence of whatever trees had called the land home were several sleek machine guns, their angry gazes trained on Yama’s 7’3”, mercury-grey, Nimese bulk.

Several Atlasian soldiers followed behind him, their glassy blue skin, grey uniforms, and black ceramic plates painted brown with dirt and sludge. There were less of them than the last artillery hole they had ducked into, and Yama knew that there would be less at the next. Such was war.

For weeks, the Atlasians led by Heidi Becker had laid siege to one of the mad khan’s—Temujin Ganzorig—resupply points in Umbramire. They had first set a static generator to cover the sky in a blue dome, preventing any Tatans reinforcements from teleporting in. Afterwards, they had wheeled in their favorite artillery pieces, which was all of them. With the fort close to falling, the Atlasian commander under Becker’s command ordered his soldiers and his mercenary shock troopers to charge forward from their own quickly constructed fort.

Yama was of the latter group, having been transported to the battlefield only today to aid in the final capture. His adoptive father had given him the job, but that didn’t make him stop wondering why Atlas decided to fight Temujin and his raiders. Temujin’s incursions burned through the western edge, but not Atlas, so why Atlas decided to continue this bloody scuffle was truly a mystery. As far as Yama knew, the Emperor of the Northmen—Sigmund Iceborn—and his many western lords were keeping Temujin and his forces contained to Umbramire and the land of the Aurcourians, much to everyone’s dismay.

Why Yama kept taking the jobs from his father was a mystery to all, including himself; it wasn’t like he couldn’t take other jobs on his own given his combat record. Father knows something I don’t, Yama reasoned as he slid another energy cell into his cylindrical laser rifle, causing it to whir to life.

A blocky Atlasian tank trudged along nearby, and Yama bolted to get behind it. He didn’t check to see if the rest of his crew followed, knowing that was a good way to get domed. Besides, he would be shipping out to a new battlefield within an hour of the fort falling, and that was if he got a meal on the way out.

 

(Perhaps bolt is a strong word,) our hero says, entering the narration. (With my hunchback, I don’t run so much as I let my muscle grafts pull me back like a crossbow and send me hurtling forward. I stumbled across the battlefield like a 600 pound drunk, and I’ve done it enough to get pretty quick with it.) He sighs, skin itching like he’s sitting atop a nest of locusts, muscles throbbing like he’s been bit by them all. (I’ve got the stumbling part down, it’s the fall that keeps tripping me up, hard.)

 

He peeked out from the bulwark, blasting a turret along the fort’s three-story walls. The red beam scorched the metal plates around the mounted gun and the blue skinned Tatan behind it, but the torrent continued after a brief sputter. Through Yama’s grime-pocked scope, blue flesh grew like vines over the charred patch of skin, and Yama assumed it crackled like oil jumping from a pan. What kinda drugs are they on? Yama thought dismally as he ducked behind the tank. This wasn’t the first time Ganzorig’s men had taken a shot and gotten back up. It wasn’t even the tenth and it was pissing Yama off.

He cranked the dial on his gun to the max, causing it to vibrate in his hands as he took another shot. The red beam fled from the long, cylindrical barrel like lightning before torching the gun and the man behind it. “Let’s go!” Yama yelled over the crackle of his rifle as he ran to the next hole. Only two more to go, he thought wearily, knowing that the bloodiest fighting waited inside the fort.

Those holes would have to wait. No sooner than Yama had emerged from his cover, a massive weight knocked him onto his back. Grey mud shot up around him, with several wet, bitter chunks falling into his mouth and eyes. Frantically wiping the mud away, Yama’s shoulders slumped when he saw what had hit him. A black horse—taller than he was by half—with a long, pointed snout of razor-sharp teeth had charged him. Juts of bone rose above its neck, sharp enough to stick a head on and joined together with an accordion of pale, glossy flesh. The rider on top had cut through several Atlasian soldiers with their saber, long as one of Yama’s arms and humming with a faint energy. A phaseblade, there goes my armor, Yama lamented as the horse prepared for another charge. He could stumble-sprint around camp and beat the shuttles that milled about, but a Tatan steed was an entirely different beast, with more muscle than even him.

The horse was a blur as it galloped toward Yama, who dove into it at an angle. Landing on his side, Yama fired another red beam at the horse from hell, grazing its shin and scorching it a darker black. The horse had churned up a geyser of mud in its wake, but as the wet, heavy clumps fell, Yama made out other horses and shuttles savaging the Atlasian assault. His armor bore into him like it was trying to wrestle his grey, hunchbacked ass into the mud. He’d have to deal with the horse on his own

Like the rest of the Tatans, the horse was made of strong stuff and snarled at Yama before charging again, running into Yama, then over him. Wind raced from Yama’s lungs as the hooves hammered at the armor around his stomach, denting it inward, though not enough to break the ribs below. Dumb, big, ugly, nobody had accused Yama of being lightly armored.

 A heavy kick rocked Yama’s face and the world spun as the horse galloped away. This damn officer is playing with me, Yama thought as he rose shakily, using his gun for extra support. One charge would be all it took for the officer to cleave Yama’s head from his shoulders. One more charge would be all it took for Yama to scorch the beast in its face, if only he could get a shot. One more charge was all that Yama was going to get before he was fun no more.

Yama could wish for more, but the universe had never been kind. As the horse charged at him again, Yama ripped a portion of the shaped charge in his side pouch. As the horse neared, Yama let it plow into him, sticking the charge to its stomach and hoping and praying to the Bone Father the adhesive would hold. When the horse galloped over him and past him again, Yama found the tumor along its belly and took aim.

No later than the laser had connected did the charge detonate. A column of white fire swallowed the rider, and the horse fell in two halves like dominos. The bisected halves kicked frantically at the mud around them, and while each kick was shorter and weaker than the last, Yama’s head rang too much to venture another step until the horse had stopped altogether. “Good fucking riddance,” Yama muttered before moving to the next hole and ducking into it. As expected, only two Atlasians joined him on this one. One to go.

A thin orange comet flew overhead and destroyed the tank that Yama had used briefly for cover, coloring the sky hot shades before turning back to their smoky grey. This hole won’t cover me for long, he reasoned as he pressed a button on the underside of his bracer. The air shimmered around his bulky, grey ceramic plates as it was condensed into a shield around him. A series of camera nodes on Yama’s armor would determine whether certain projectiles and armaments exceeded a certain momentum threshold, hardening the field in 0.0001 seconds in the appropriate areas. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s fucking go! he told himself before springing out of his hole.

A bullet turned itself into lead shrapnel on the field of air while Yama’s skilled hands glided his rifle to the one who had sent it. He sprinted to the next hole—one to go, one-to-go, onetogo—before turning off his shield. His hand leaked sweat like a wrung cloth from just a few seconds of shield generation. His gun slipped an inch from his drenched palm, and it wouldn’t be good to use all the energy before they were even in the fort. He had two minutes and thirty seconds left after taking a few hits—based on shaky math and a lot of battlefield averages—and he would rather spend it catching bullets than catching his breath.

A black Atlasian jet zipped through the air and unloaded its guns into the wall, wailing like a chainsaw operated by the angriest gerbil in Umbramire. As it circled away from the encamped gun stop the wall, Yama ran to a less-defended section. He ripped the climbing hooks and pick from his waist, hastily slotting the former onto his boots with beginning his climb, hook in one hand, rifle in the other.

The walls have cover, the-walls-have-cover, thewallshavecover, Yama told himself as he climbed, keeping his head ducked into his massive shoulders and the plates resting on them. He just needed to get to get behind something—preferably a gun battery with a roof—before he could attempt to calm his racing heart and wipe the pools of sweat from his brow and neck and from between his shit smeared taint and balls. He had shat himself somewhere in the hours between the two forts but was forced to move forward before he could wipe. Smell was the worst part of the battles by far, but that didn’t mean touch was slacking in any way.

A bullet grazed Yama’s heel as he rolled behind the sandbags of the battery at the top. Three bodies lay sprawled in the battery, saturating the concrete in a slick blue mess. The air hung heavy with the metallic scent, a grim relief compared to the stench of urine, feces, and death that clung to Yama.

The headquarters lay two miles inward at the fort’s center, with the motor-pool Yama had been assigned to liberate somewhere in between. Thankfully, a tank had already entered a hole in the wall below, and Yama hoped by the time he got to his objective, he might have some backup.

Looking around, Yama saw no other Atlasians on the wall while a heavy gun fired into the sky from two stone throws away. Fuck, he thought before turned on his shield and ran towards it. If we can get more airpower, we can finish this sooner, he reasoned lining up two shots. The first was for a gunner no taller than Yama’s sternum, the second for his guard who had only begun to wheel his machine gun towards Yama. Lava-like char spread up their bodies, and while the man at the smaller gun dropped, the man firing the anti-air weapon did not. Goddamnit! How? How? Yama asked himself as he ripped the man—maybe a child—from the gun battery, ending its defiant roar.

The Tatan swung his uncharred blue arm at Yama, and the Nimese giant caught it like a baseball. The soldier’s eyes widened, and he sunk to his knees. “Nonononono.”

How the boy was even alive after having half of his body turned to coal raised questions in Yama’s mind that, in other circumstances, he would have asked. “Play dead,” he told the boy in Tatan, hoping the Atlasians wouldn’t shoot every corpse they found in the fort. It wasn’t a tenet of Tenshi to not kill children, but Yama had made it one of his own. There was enough violence today, and Yama had a motor pool to capture.

The small distraction had bought the Atlasian contingent time to move to Yama’s motor pool, allowing for its quick encirclement. None of the Atlasians bothered to go in, instead firing through any window they could find until whatever drugs Ganzorig’s men were on stopped working. Through it all, the attackers and defenders bandied slurs and shouts. When the exchange of words changed from mixed to stern Atlasian, the Atlasians brought in the rest of their fighters from their own fort.

Yama sat on the nose of a small Tatan jet as he waited for the Atlasian commander to relieve him. The commander would be late—they always were with solo mercenaries—and Yama had long ago concluded that waiting with pants full of shit was the worst part of war. A medic had given Yama a shot of InstaKnit to suffuse his foot with nutrients and while it did heal two orders faster, it throbbed like it had a heat of its own. Yama tried not to move much, lest he disturb his foot or make his shit-caked pants squelch.

The Atlasian commander, a portly man with a slightly out of step titanium left leg, found Yama after two and a half hours. “Ah, you’re Shokuto Ishimasa’s man. Tell me, how big was your mother if a 5’8 Nim had you?”

Yama smiled at the almost routine question, if only for appearances. “I’m adopted.” Adopted was a loose term, but it was shorter than a man bought me from the local yakuza so I could rip arms off for him instead, which was a mouthful that left Yama parched.

The man’s face fell. “Oh, I suppose that makes sense.” He held out his tablet so Yama could scan the details of his next job with his dex, a slim prism with a face of glass.

“Where do I need to kick Temujin’s ass now? The north?” The scan completed. “Janus?” he asked skeptically, tapping the dex to see if it was an error. What the hell is father having me do in Janus?  While Yama could do urban work—as this new assassination looked to be—Ishimasa generally delegated that to Danzo or himself.

The commander nodded. “Ja. Seems you’ve been reassigned for the moment. Enjoy your vacation”—he looked down at his tablet—”Yama Kikuchi.”

Yama dropped off the nose of the jet, hitting the ground while the jet craned its nose up in relief. “Don’t kill that blue bastard without me.”

The commander scoffed. “At the rate these forts are dropping we’ll be in Tata in five”—he paused—”thousand years,” he said dejectedly before offering his hand. “Thank you for your service son.”

Yama took the shake. “Can I go shower now and change my pants?”

The man pinched his nose. “Ja. Please do before you stink up the place and we surrender this fort back to those blue horsefuckers.”

Yama schooled his mouth into a neutral smile. Horsefucker, mud-skin. Yama had heard similar insults directed towards him before. Rather than argue, Yama began towards the bombed-out corpse-lane between the two forts. Poached carriers and tanks lay unmoving on the battlefield, surrounded by skirts of flames and towers of smoke. Grey clad medics, marked with red bands around their arms, ran to the moans and the occasional twitch of a corpse so they could investigate. If it was Atlasian, they’d try to put them on a stretcher—usually pointless—and if it was Tatan…you figure it out. Atlas and its iron soldiers—quenched in blood into martensite—certainly had no desire to extend a courtesy that hadn’t been given to them. Sometimes, a bullet or laser would silence the noise and sometimes the Atlasians would want to kick a horse in the mouth, as it were. Yama never participated in these cruelties. The Atlasians would easily do the same to him if they were fighting the Nimese queen. They would only be comrades for this battle, and Yama was entirely fine with that. He served his father—his lord and his father just happened to be working with Atlas right now.

Back at the Atlasian camp, the communal shower sputtered to life, casting its off-white warmth onto Yama’s grey skin. Gore and dirt dropped from him like smudges of peanut butter and jelly from a plate and the heat turned the throbbing in his foot to a dull murmur. The small tank that held the three shower heads didn’t reach Yama’s head—they never did—and he splashed a handful of water onto his face, exhaling and closing his eyes as he did so. As the warm cascade enveloped him, Yama found solace in the cleansing water, if only for the sound of the stream overwhelming the gunfire still lingering in his ears.

“You did good,” a feminine voice said in Nimese from behind him. Yama didn’t dare turn around, lest this specter leave him early. “I’m so proud of how strong you’ve become.” Yama felt a warm hand on his shoulder that lingered for a moment before fading into the mist.

I gotta get going, Yama thought dismally as he turned off the shower, knowing the Volkswaffen shuttles would be leaving to deploy the Atlasian soldiers to their next front.

After dressing in baggy sweats and a simple tee, Yama glanced over the flight log. None directly to Janus where this drug lord is, he lamented, hoping to have at least been able to find a multi-jump ship leaving at this hour. Looks like I’ll have to go to Atlas, then Nerconor, and hitch a ride from there. That’s coming out of my wallet. Usually, Atlas would pay for Yama’s travel to a front, and if he went to another combat zone, they’d pay for that too. But if he went somewhere else? Yama would be shit out of luck.

But at least the shit would just be out of luck. That was a change Yama was comfortable with.

Service and Obedience are the backbone of order

Without it, we have nothing

The Tenets of Tenshi