Fratricide

6: Fractured

Daniel rolled over bodies fallen in the street, the collapse of bones registered only marginally as the internal frame of the pod compensated for the interference. He continued over a bridge and turned to fire at another struggling front line of infantry attempting to hold back an unstoppable wave of XR rigs cutting and vaulting the barbed wire barricades. The only reprieve for the infantry was the connecting strikes of RPGs that would knock the XRs to the ground, sometimes tearing robotic limbs directly from the chassis.

Recent developments in the war had produced devious variations on the standard RPG payload. Instead of an explosive, some had been fitted with a mix of phosphorous and thermite, dousing rigs in a compound so high in temperature it could melt straight through armor. Flak cannons based on the same concept could rain fire on infantry that was virtually impossible to remove once it came into contact with armor, clothing, or flesh. Too many times Daniel had seen screaming men and women with thermite slowly burning off their limbs, incapable of restraining themselves against swatting desperately at the substance and spreading it to their hands, rendering them horrifically mutilated and incapacitated. It was this Greek fire, as it had come to be known, that robbed more soldiers of the glory of a noble death than anything else.

Today, it was the one thing keeping the XRs from breaking past the barricade and decimating the unarmored infantry. Teams of two, one shouldering a cannon and the other reloading at the necessary intervals, were spread across the battlefield. Daniel was stationary on top of a bridge, a point that was supposed to be defended by the square set up as an ambush for any unwary rigs. From his vantage point Daniel rained down supporting fire along the exposed flank of the front line. Soldiers dropped, but many were able to get to cover behind concrete barricades. Instead of breaking through the barricades, a feat which his rifle was more than capable, Daniel decided to conserve his ammunition and find another way to break the line.

Before he made it to the other side of the bridge Daniel saw an XR get hit square in the torso plating with a rocket packed with Greek fire. Even in midday, the bright flash of the phosphorous was blinding. The rig took a couple more steps and fired its right arm gun behind a barrier to shred the cowering RPG team while they reloaded. It was hard to tell if the pilot knew he had been hit or was simply determined to push through the fire until the last possible moment. The front plate ejected off the XR violently as the pilot leaped out unscathed with an assault rifle blazing in his arms as he rolled behind cover. Daniel whistled; good pilot.

The end of the bridge was covered in concrete barriers and barbed wire over twenty feet high. Daniel opted to accelerate up the adjacent building. He topped out on the roof and fell behind the front line. He popped out from a back alley and began spraying his rifle indiscriminately, tearing apart the RPG teams and machine gun posts. Bodies crumpled and others fled the sudden attack from the rear. XRs seized the opportunity and charged the barricades, cutting barbed wired with massive chainsaws and crushing concrete with even larger hammers. The defenders on either side of the fissure were now forced to delegate their efforts to the flank and the front line in an attempt to save the retreat. The poor bastards didn't stand a chance.

Daniel was in his element. The XRs could move effectively in close quarters combat, but the pod's capabilities were radically superior and far more unpredictable. When one looked at an XR, it wasn't hard to figure out how the legs and arms contributed to the movement of the vehicle in combat. It could walk, run, and jump. The two arms contained machine guns that were usually fired when the arms were held at ninety degrees to the shoulder. On the back of the rig other weapons and tools were stored for adapting to different tasks. Some held hammers, chainsaws, swords, knives, cannon attachments, flamethrowers, R&D was always putting out new stuff. For all their capabilities, they had nothing on a good pilot in a pod.