IRONSHIELD: First Chapter!

Hello! In anticipation of IRONSHIELD's launch, I'm excited to put up the first few chapters here for anyone who's interested.

Incredible artwork by John Anthony Di Giovanni!

Ironshield

Blurb:

A pile of scrap, held together by an ideal.

Thirty years ago, the budding nation of Arkenia used Kaizer Warsuits, gas-powered mechanical giants, to wrestle independence from a tyrannical empire.

Now, Arkenia is pressured into disarmament by that same power, strong-armed into a deal that will strip them of the very weapons that won their sovereignty.

The Southern provinces agree to the terms.

The Northern Industrialists do not.

Led by commander James Edstein, heir to the legacy of the mighty Ironshield Warsuit, the North defies the Southern Appeasers, intent on keeping their Warsuits, and their nation’s hard-fought independence, from Imperial rule.

Senator Samuel Mutton, veteran of the Revolution and a key leader in the South, wants nothing but peace for his nation, no matter how high the cost.

As the Civil War ramps up, both men are forced to question their morals, forced to decide what matters most.

Victory, or Honor.

Chapter 1

A shell blast blew a spray of dark soil across the shallow trench, its concussive force shaking the ground beneath the soldiers running to and fro within. 

Aldren Mal put his hand over the steaming mug of coffee he carried aloft like a live grenade, hissing as hot liquid lapped against his palm. He didn't care, so long as no dirt wound up in the beverage. General Renalds didn't need much motivation to hand out latrine duty.

Aldren had two ways out of shoveling shit for the next several weeks. Deliver the general's coffee, or get killed. So he ran as best as he could, dodging around his comrades, assaulted by the ubiquitous boom of artillery fire neither his helmet nor the cotton wedged in his ears could soften.

His boot snagged on something and Aldren had a terrifying moment of falling forward before he reached for the trench wall to catch himself. At least a third of the coffee sloshed out onto his other hand. Black and scalding hot, the way General Renalds liked it. Aldren bit his lip, holding back a scream.

Wish I could trade places with you, Yanny, Aldren thought yet again. A lost leg and some war stories, in exchange for civilian life? Aldren would have made that trade in a heartbeat. His younger brother might have believed in this war, in sacrificing all for his country.

But that was because Yannick was crazy.

He'd have probably signed up on his own, if they didn’t draft him. Aldren was bewildered at the idea. To his incredulity, Yannick had been upset -actually upset!- that he couldn't return to this living hell. Having to leave active duty had been a worse blow to Aldren's brother than the lost limb.

Aldren shambled through a hastily formed triage area, skirting past a pair of men trying to staunch their screaming comrade's spurting arm.

Seeing so much blood, hearing the victim's high-pitched shrieking, reminded Aldren all too vividly of his own mortality. Any one of the projectiles pummeling the earth all around could obliterate him on impact, reduce him to a red smear in the mud. And there was nothing Aldren could do to stop it.

'Died bringing coffee to some asshole' wasn't the most flattering epitaph he could imagine.

The coffee continued to swish about, splashing up between Aldren's fingers as he traversed the rocky, mud-soaked trench, shaken every other moment by nearby artillery, flinching under the whistle of incoming mortar bombs and the boom of outgoing shells.

General Isaac Renalds came into view, observing the no-man’s-land between their trench line and Flemmingwood Forest, scanning the trees with a pair of binoculars. The shadows beneath the treetops were briefly lit each time the unseen Northerners fired or received ordnance.

The thin, hook-nosed general looked like an insect next to his kneeling Kaizer Warsuit, the Southern Storm.

A shell blast shook the ground and nearly sent Aldren sprawling, but he managed to grab hold of the trench wall again. The mud was wet and warm, and when he looked at it Aldren shrank back with a strangled wail. His hand came squelching free of the mess of blood and liquified entrails, a sludge of human gore left over from where some poor soul had been splattered against the trench’s side.

Aldren wiped his hand on his brown coat and tried not to vomit. He failed, only just managing to hold the half-empty cup out of the way as bitter bile surged up his throat. He retched three times, leaning over the horrid mess of human remains. A cascade of dirt showered down from a shell blast. Pieces of soil and rock plunked into what remained of General Renalds’ coffee.

To hell with it. Aldren marched the rest of the way to Renalds without a thought for protecting the drink. “Your coffee, Gener-”

“Blasted coward, where is he?!” Renalds didn’t look away from his binoculars. “He’s stalling, I know it.”

“Your… Coffee?” Aldren repeated.

Renalds lowered the binoculars, looking at Aldren as though he were a member of some foreign, unknown species. “Ah, ‘bout time, boy,” the general growled after a moment, taking the mug. “Any sign of the Virtue from down our line?”

“No, Sir. No enemy Kaizers spotted.” Lots of our men getting killed while we wait, though. By the War Codes, they couldn’t pit a Warsuit against unarmored troops. Either the Northerners presented a Kaizer, or Renalds’ machine stayed behind while his army moved for the trees. Something they would have done two hours ago, were it not for Renalds’ need to redeem his honor.

“Fucking curs.” The general raised the coffee to his lips.

“Something large in the trees!” One of Renalds’ surveyors shouted.

Renalds tossed his mug aside and brought his binoculars to his face once more. “Where?!”

Everything else tuned out for a few seconds as Aldren stared at the shattered mug, its dark contents trailing the faintest tendrils of steam as they were sucked into the churned earth. Stinking of coffee and blood, half deaf, his hands burnt. All for nothing. “You cocksucker,” he said out loud. Court-martial be damned, he’d punch the bastard.

But Renalds didn’t turn to face him. In fact, neither he nor anyone else seemed to have heard Aldren as they chattered to one another. On the other side of the field, the treetops shifted, moved by some unseen force.

“Is it the Virtue?” Renalds asked aloud. “Is that bastard going to come out and face me after all?”

The guns continued to boom, but there was something different to the explosive cadence that Aldren couldn’t quite place. He felt the change before he realized what it was, cluing in around the same time as one of the men down the line shouted.

“They’ve stopped firing!”

“Sir?” one of Renalds’ field scouts asked.

The general snapped the binoculars closed with a savage grin. “Cease fire and get the Storm’s lift running.”

The horn call went out, accompanied by the squawks of field radios down the line. One by one, the Southern guns stopped blasting.

The battlefield descended into an unusual silence. In the sudden stillness, sounds of cracking branches and rustling leaves drifted across loud and clear, giving way to a louder crash now and then as entire trees were knocked down. Treetops moved more violently, as though each leaf had a mind and will of its own. They writhed like a mass of green insects scattering away from a heedless boot.

Renalds climbed onto his lift, and the winch whirred to life, bringing him up toward the Storm’s opening cockpit, located under the Warsuit’s right arm. The hatch clanged fully open moments before Renalds reached it.

At the same time, the enemy Kaizer emerged from the trees.

The ‘Virtue’ as Renalds insisted on calling it to this day, had been one of Southern Arkenia’s flagship Warsuits before it was captured in the fight for the Northern capital at Gorrad, along with its pilot, Renalds himself.

After the siege of Gorrad was repelled, Renalds was released as part of a prisoner exchange agreed upon between Northern president Connor Orvid and the South’s Nathaniel Davids. Orvid, however, refused outright to relinquish the captured Warsuit. Instead, they’d re-dubbed the machine and sent it to fight against its former masters. The Kaizer now stomping across the pockmarked field was christened Retribution by its new pilot, Industrialist general Theodore Kolms.

Aldren knew that for Renalds, this fight was more of a personal vendetta than a conflict of war. And for this showdown he’d stripped his own army of what little advantage they could have had in the assault, had they been able to press the march. It didn’t take a master tactician to surmise that much.

The shouts of the injured contested with the earth-trembling strides of mechanized feet and the roar of massive diesel engines. Aldren closed his eyes, already smelling the distinct smell of fumes on the spring air. After all the shit you made us go through, I really will punch you if you fuck this up. Rank or no rank. Aldren would have a better chance at staying alive in prison.

The Storm’s massive gear joints rattled and clanked, its pistons pumping like muffled gunshots, steel screaming in ineffectual protest as thousands of tons of machinery rose to a full towering stance. The Storm stood. When it came to a Kaizer Warsuit, the word ‘stood’ didn’t do the action justice. Eighty feet of iron monstrosity reared into the sky like a slow volcanic event.

Sunlight glinted off the Storm’s multiple periscope lenses, gleamed against the muted gray of the Warsuit’s carapace. Like Renalds himself, his machine was austere, without any of the pomp or flare others added to their Kaizers. Some said this was an example of the general’s commitment to the cause of disarmament, refusing to revel in his use of the very weapon the South fought to get rid of.

As for Aldren, he thought the man was just an unimaginative bastard.

One splash of color could be found in the red and blue Arkenian flag fluttering on a pole jutting between the Kaizer’s exhaust pipes. The red Arkenian star, sending out seven crimson rays, one for each province in the Arkenian nation. Three of those sunbeams represented Industrialist provinces, provinces who chose open rebellion over relinquishing their Warsuits.

Many, on both sides of the conflict, wanted three red sunbeams removed, but to President Nathaniel Davids, that would amount to acknowledging the secession of the Arkenian North and give legitimacy to Industrialist claims.

If Arkenia -all of Arkenia- didn’t decommission its Warsuits and heavy naval destroyers, it would mean not only the continuation of war with Xang, but a new conflict with the Lytan Empire.

No, Aldren thought as he watched the Storm take its first step into the shell-blasted no man’s land. So long as the Industrialists held their ground, there would be no peace. If Aldren was honest with himself, he wasn’t sure the bloodshed would ever truly stop, regardless of who won.

The previous quivers of artillery fire were nothing compared to the earth-shaking tremors these behemoths created as they stomped toward one another.

Whereas the Storm was designed to look more or less humanoid, the much older Retribution resembled a large cylinder with legs and arms. Bristling with cannons and machineguns, Retribution came equipped with a massive serrated bayonet beneath its main gun on the left arm, hooked at the end for tearing away enemy armor.

A soldier nudged Aldren, motioning for him to move. Uniformed men all around scrambled to get out of the way of the impending battle.

Aldren evacuated the immediate area with the others and watched from down the trench line as the Warsuits faced off.

From Retribution’s back fluttered the Industrialist flag, a white gearwork sword on a black field.

The Northern Warsuit stopped halfway across the field and waited for the Storm to meet it. With each booming step Renalds’ machine made, black fumes spurted from its twin exhaust pipes, the smoke gathering about its head in acrid clouds. More noxious smoke billowed downward from secondary pipes set along the machine’s body, wreathing the trenches in a bitter smog.

Aldren coughed and covered his mouth, as even from this distance he tasted the sting. His eyes watered, but he didn’t have it in him to move for higher ground like the others. Something between terror and awe kept him rooted in place, hiding beneath ground level like a hare in its burrow. He’d never seen a Warsuit in combat before. And, despite his fear, despite his reticence about the war and his place in it, this was something Aldren knew he had to witness.

The Kaizer Engines, and the Warsuits they powered, were the great marvel of modern science, wonders of human engineering. But something about the gargantuan shape blocking the afternoon sun bespoke of the distant past, its booming steps taking Aldren back to a time of oversized beasts wandering free in a world untouched by man. It also made him think of something else. Wreathed in smoke which refracted the red fury of engine flares, its carapace catching the fire and sunlight as though the machine were alive with flame, the Warsuit made Aldren think of the Demons of Scripture. Here was a being of dark myth. Mankind had tamed the Demon and made it their own.

Did that mean this was hell?

Lost in the closest thing to a religious experience he’d ever had, Aldren didn’t hear the other soldiers calling his name until one of them, Aldren’s friend Wellend, shook him by the shoulders. “Al, we’ve got to get out of the trench!”

Aldren looked around, blinking to dispel his daze. His comrades had all moved up out of the trench as the smoke grew thicker. The area behind the Storm was completely cleared of personnel, to prevent casualties when the Kaizers began their duel.

Renalds’ Warsuit kept up its stomping approach. Even from here, Aldren could feel the ground shiver. Retribution waited, its Gearsword flag fluttering with the machine’s exhaust discharge.

Wellend pushed Aldren from behind to keep him moving. Aldren shambled along until he was helped up a wooden ladder by the others. All around, men unfolded wooden chairs and laid out coats and blankets to sit on. A few passed around flasks and placed bets. Near Aldren, a pair of soldiers struggled to get a field radio working. Finally, after several curses and slaps, the device blared to life. A moment later, Renalds brought his Warsuit to a stop in front of his opponent.

The voices of the two pilots crackled from the small radio.

*

Hearing the first artillery volley come to a stop, Striker Crimson, commander of the Southern army, strapped on his leather mask, adjusted his saber, and pulled his tent flap aside to look out beyond his camp. No damage to their lines yet. No smoking shell holes within a hundred meters of the Southern fortifications.

When the Industrialist gunners finished calibrating, and the firing began anew, it would be a different story. Striker knew he couldn’t stop the battle from taking its inevitable course any more than he could stop the war itself by will alone. But he could make the bloodshed to come worth it. And he would. With God as his witness, today he would capture the Ironshield. Arkenia’s future depended on it.

As though to replace the drum of artillery, another sound drifted from the rocky hills marking the Industrialist lines.

Cheering.

Civilians dotted the farthest gray slopes to the east and west like multicolored ants. They climbed hand in hand, or sat in the sun on blankets and chairs, those who hadn’t come prepared with parasols to shade them. Beyond Graytop Hills was the main Industrialist war camp of Quarrystone, by all reports a veritable city comprised of not only soldiers, but their wives, children, and servants as well. That wasn’t taking into account the assorted cooks, prostitutes, and other camp followers who traveled in the wake of almost any large army.

Thousands of civilians made Quarrystone camp their home. And, in a tradition dating back to the Revolution, when Arkenia threw off the Lytan Empire, hundreds had flocked into harm’s way to watch history unfold. Today, Striker didn’t blame them one bit. Because today, for the first time since the two Warsuits fought side by side in the Xang War, both Ironshield and Redstripe would be on the same battlefield. This time, as opponents.

As far as the Industrialists were concerned this was a battle, not only for the honor of their nation, but for the honor and good name of their fallen hero, Heinrich Edstein. His son, the young commander James Edstein, inherited not only the Ironshield title, but the title’s namesake. To the Northerners this was a personal fight, a son defending his father’s name against an unknown usurper, a masked stranger taking the reins of the legendary Redstripe to wield against its former comrade.

No. In their place, Striker Crimson wouldn’t miss this moment either.

The black and white of the Industrialist flags and banners fluttered among the teeming spectators, indistinct in the distance. Striker knew some if not all the Gearsword symbols were embedded within the shape of a bronze-toned triangular shield, an addition made by those rebels loyal more to the Ironshield than the Northern president.

Beyond the flap of Striker’s tent men called out to him, holding aloft blue banners bearing but a single red diagonal stripe. A play on the Arkenian flag made to honor Redstripe’s legacy. The accolades left a bitter taste in Striker’s mouth. There was something disturbingly obsequious, to his mind, in being so effusively applauded by one’s own soldiers. Compared to the distant hollers of the Northern civilians upon those hills, the cries of the Southern troops rang hollow and false in his ears.

Be that as it may, Striker had to hold up morale, so he swept out of his tent and walked with his head held high.

His personal guard closed ranks around him as he headed down the shallow slope to where his Kaizer waited.

Already, Striker could see smoke plumes in the air to the North. Ironshield was approaching the battleground, making its way down the rough-hewn steps of the striated hill, its descent shielded by naturally formed walls of stone.

Men parted aside with little prompting from Striker’s Red Guard, who had fierce reputations all their own. Everywhere men saluted as Redstripe’s pilot passed. He kept a straight-backed posture, doing his best to exude confidence and pride. Meanwhile he just wished he could reach under this damned mask to scratch his nose. Sweat dripped beneath the leather as Striker baked in the late spring heat. Such was the price of this charade he lived.

“Commander Crimson!” Shouted a particularly loud, slurred voice. Striker turned.

Edmund Paulson, secretary to Senator Samuel Mutton, stood jammed between two disgruntled soldiers, waving Striker over. The portly secretary’s shirt was rumpled, his cheeks rosy. The blasted man was drunk. Again.

“I assume you come bearing a message from the senator?” Striker hated how the mask muffled his voice. It was difficult to get his disapproving tone across when he sounded like he had a sock in his mouth.

Paulson hiccoughed with a grin. “I guess you can say that. I’m supposed to tell you how the spy’s execution went.”

Yannick Mal, the Southern conscript turned Industrialist spy. Yes, Striker remembered. The man's smuggled information was the entire reason President Davids chose to execute this major offensive, a two-pronged assault proposed at the start of the war but not implemented for fear it would sacrifice too many Southern resources and leave them vulnerable should they fail. Thanks to the spy's observations in Talenport, the more reactionary Northerners were convinced the South was in secret accordance with Lytan. Senator Mutton had been vocal in opposing the landing of Imperial supply ships, but he'd been overruled. The Industrialist strength mustered here at Graytop and at Flemmingwood to the west were the result of that decision.

If the North truly believed Southern Arkenia was giving its independence up to rejoin the Lytan Empire, there was no telling to what lengths they'd go to oppose them.

Practically overnight, the Industrialists had turned from entrenched rebels under siege, to threatening the invasion of Southern lands. Davids didn't want to see it, but he'd awakened a monster.

Striker only hoped Senator Elliot Salkirk hadn't given that beast more claws. "Were due honors given… as your employer suggested?" 

Paulson looked sideways. "The sentence was hanging," he said. "No friends or family were present. As for the witnesses who were invited…" Paulson seemed on the verge of saying something diplomatic. "Salkirk turned it into a fucking circus,” he said instead, spitting onto the dirt. "Flaunted his Kaizer, let his boot-lickers have their way with Mal before he swung. I've seen roadside lynch mobs with better manners."

Striker nodded. It was as he'd feared. Members of the Southern Senate, Salkirk among them, seemed bent on stoking the fires of Northern fury.

It should have been you, Mutton, Striker thought. If you’d been willing to carry out your senatorial duties, Yannick Mal would have met his end by firing squad. Instead, the Industrialists have yet another betrayal to add to their leger, and a legitimate one at that. Striker wasn’t about to hold out hope that the circumstances of the young veteran’s execution would remain any sort of secret. Yannick Mal had given up a leg fighting for the South as a conscript. He’d gone turncoat afterward, yes, but he still deserved a better death than the one he received. Allegiances weren’t black and white in a nation divided against itself.

“Thank you for letting me know.” Striker shook Paulson’s hand. “Now, go report to Senator Mutton in Edinville. And while you’re at it,” Striker did manage to add some bite to his voice now, mask or no mask. “Tell your employer how you’ve been drinking on duty. In front of a senior officer, no less.”

Paulson smirked. The reek of whiskey penetrated Striker’s mask. It was no wonder the red and brown clad soldiers to either side of the secretary were so sour-faced.

“Oh, I’m sure it will be news to him, Commander,” Paulson said with a wink. In the next instant, Edmund Paulson was gone, disappeared into the military throng.

Striker shook his head and put the drunken secretary out of his mind for now. People shouted, pointing north. Ironshield was in sight. Striker hurried his way toward his own Warsuit. He didn’t want to be late.

Striker grabbed hold of the cable, stepped onto the platform, and let himself be carried up Redstripe’s side by the whirring winch.

One of the early generations of Warsuit, Redstripe was built with speed and hand-to-hand combat in mind, sporting a great sharpened wedge of steel on each arm. Cannons and machineguns sprouted from its otherwise ornamental head, while the Warsuit’s chest plate was designed with minimalism in mind. Lacking as thick a carapace as other Kaizers, Redstripe depended on its maneuverability. It could hunch down and fold its limbs much easier than any of its counterparts, minimizing exposure to its center of mass. Detractors and rival Kaizer pilots sometimes referred to Redstripe as the Iron Spindle, due to its slim frame.

Sunlight played over Redstripe's dulled steel plating, putting the Warsuit's titular feature into stark reveal. A diagonal slash of red painted across the machine's chest, following the line where Samuel Mutton, the Kaizer's original pilot, had split the wall of a Lytan fort during the Revolution, splattering gore from an unlucky group of Imperial soldiers upon its chest plate. 

To Striker, it hardly seemed a moment to be proud of. But the people needed their symbols.

While Striker rose, he passed workers scrambling to and fro upon the scaffold built around Redstripe, tightening bolts, double and triple-checking axles, and loading massive canisters of ammunition to the various guns.

A young mechanic opened the cockpit with a hydraulic hiss and stepped aside as Striker ascended the last few feet and climbed onto the hatch. Striker drew his saber and ducked into the dark confines of the Warsuit. 

Inside, he grabbed hold of the leather-padded seat and lowered himself into it. The buttons and display bulbs arrayed in front of him were all dark. Redstripe was still asleep. 

To Striker's left side was a control stick, complete with small levers, buttons, and switches. On the right side, a cylinder, its flat circular top broken by a slot at the center. Striker raised his saber. Down the middle of the blade, encrusted with a red enamel, was a jagged groove, its pattern unique to this weapon.

Striker slid the blade into the ignition cradle, feeling and hearing the tumblers click into place as he drove it down to its hilt. Then, he turned it.

A shuddering boom resounded throughout the Warsuit. Lights flickered to life all around Striker, casting the dark cockpit in a ruddy glow. He depressed a button in the handle of his saber, and its controls popped free with a metallic shwick. 

Buckling himself into Redstripe's harness, Striker flicked switches along the bulkhead terminals around him, turning the lights from red to dull green as he brought Redstripe's secondary engines to life. 

By pressing a button, he closed the hatch with a deafening clang, entombing himself within the dim cockpit with no sound but the roar of the Kaizer Engine around him, a cocoon of diesel-fueled power. 

"You're clear to move, Commander," an engineer's voice called over the radio.

Striker nodded to himself. Already he felt the growing heat from the engine, made worse by the enclosed space. The ventilation system kept the pilot breathing, kept the heat from reaching lethal levels, but just barely.

Striker pulled off his mask, reached up, and brought the periscope visor down, fitting the leather padding over his face as he used a dial on the side to flick between Redstripe’s various lines of sight. No obstructions on any of the scopes, good.  Settling on the centermost lens, Striker grabbed hold of Redstripe’s control handles and pulled upward while working the pedals beneath his feet. With a mighty roar, Redstripe reared upward, clanking and rumbling as it did so. Striker still remembered when he’d first felt the terrifying sensation of the world bucking up around him. No matter how experienced one became with a Warsuit, one never really felt in control.

Seeing the world through the magnifying scopes created an overwhelming sense of vertigo. Several feet of thick steel stood between Striker and the outside world, but thanks to a series of mirrors, tubes, and lenses, he saw the field ahead as though it were laid at his feet. As if Striker himself had become the giant.

Wisps of black smoke drifted across his line of sight outside. The ventilated air carried the redolence of diesel, a flavor Striker could taste on his tongue along with the blood-like hint of iron. 

Across the field, Ironshield stomped toward him. The Industrialist Gearsword flag fluttered from the thick-bodied Kaizer's back.

Where Redstripe was almost skeletal by Kaizer standards, Ironshield was anything but. The Northern Warsuit, plated in the thickest armor there was, lived up to its name. Wide, somewhat squatter than Striker's own machine, Ironshield was built for endurance, not maneuverability. Like a man overburdened with too much muscle, Ironshield took short, deliberate steps, its legs built thick and heavy to compensate for the heavier armor. No less than four huge exhaust pipes spewed flames and smoke above the Northern Warsuit. Ironshield sported head-mounted sights, shoulder-mounted cannons, and an untold number of machineguns and artillery hidden behind panels of its thick front carapace. Edstein’s Warsuit was less a mobile armor than it was a gun tower with legs.

Striker allowed himself a moment of apprehension. Yes, James Edstein was young, and a relatively inexperienced Kaizer pilot. But he'd already won key victories, living up to his father's legacy. In truth, however, it was the Warsuit itself that made Striker nervous. Redstripe was designed to complement Ironshield, a nimbler machine to accompany the solidity of the stockier Warsuit. They'd never been meant to fight against each other. It had never been tried before. 

Striker had no idea what was about to happen.

And that made him grin.

He didn’t want this war, but if he was to be in it all the same, he had might as well put himself to the test.

Striker’s mechanical world moved around him with rhythmic clanks and rattles, the constant roaring and shuddering of the Kaizer Engine. Like all Kaizer pilots, Striker had his ears stuffed with cotton to keep the loud din around the cockpit from damaging his hearing. It wasn’t until he brought Redstripe to a stop, sixty yards or so from Ironshield, and noticed a bulb blinking in his visor’s display, that Striker realized he was being hailed over the radio. He pulled back from the periscope and flicked the radio switch. Its blinking alert turned to a steady orange light as James Edstein’s voice crackled to life.

“Redstripe pilot, respond. Striker Crimson, or whatever you want to be called. I’m going to go against my better judgement and give you this one chance to back away. The North has no wish to move on your lands or rights. We only ask the same of you.”

It was a variation of what the Industrialists had been saying since the war began. And from their actions, it seemed true enough, up until this point. But that didn’t matter. If the North couldn’t be brought into the disarmament agreement, Xang would renew hostilities against Arkenia.

Striker almost touched the transmit button to say as much, but thought better of it. What would it accomplish, except to put a voice to his masked persona? It wasn’t worth the risk.

A mutter came over the radio waves, then: “My father fought alongside Samuel Mutton in the Revolution and the Xang war, when he sat where you’re sitting. That man would have at least shown his opponent the courtesy of a response.”

Striker ground his teeth. There was no more bitter draught than these conversations between countrymen whom, as little as a year ago, would stand as allies. He hit a panel beside him, and a telegraph machine popped out, trailing a roll of paper beneath it. He tapped in a response over the airwaves. Within Ironshield's cockpit, a similar device would be typing the message out on a ribbon of paper for James Edstein to read. 

Yes. STOP. That man would have. STOP.

Edstein's heaved breath was audible over the crackling frequency. "I had to try, for all our sakes. I'm sorry it has to be this way."

So am I. STOP. Striker tapped in response. He slammed the telegraph panel shut, pulled the periscope back to his face, then gripped Redstripe's control sticks. 

Across a space that looked all too small, the caps on Ironshield's shoulder cannons blew off.

Redstripe lurched around Striker as he put his Warsuit into motion. As always, he felt as though his stomach remained behind. Metal shuddered around him with every booming stride, and a clank and screeching squeal accompanied the rattle of bearings and turning gears as Striker raised his machine's right arm for an attack. Manipulating the arm with one control stick, Striker pressed a button with his little finger on the other as his booted feet worked the gas pedals.

As Redstripe closed the distance, both Warsuits simultaneously let loose their guns.

End of Chapter 1

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