Iron Empire

Sixty-Four: Only Human

Report: Quinn
The Mojave Desert.
United States of America.
Crash site of an Axion warship.
Designation: "Project Terminus"

"It's over!" Draco screamed. "Die!"

I heard the shouts of my allies, the sounds of twisting metal has every mech within a kilometre radius was rocked by a blast that they could not see.

In a single horrible instant, every mech on the battlefield fell, Axion or Alliance alike.

Every mech except mine.

As the dust cleared, I could see hundreds of metal corpses littering the sand. I desperately hoped that the wreckage did not contain any of my allies and that they had escaped safely, but now wasn't the time to search for them.

Now was the time to bring about an end to Draco's reign of terror.

As the dust cleared, I would have given anything to see Draco's face the moment he saw my Spartan standing amongst the field of wreckage, utterly unharmed.

"What?" he exclaimed. "That's impossible! You were directly in range! How are you still standing?"

"Killswitch targets IRON chips," I responded. I reached my hand up to touch the empty slot in the back of my neck. "the secret of the Spartan is that it doesn't use one to balance."

I had finally figured out what Phalanx was, why it was so intelligent. My father had designed it to emulate the human connection that was so important to keep a mech balanced.

In a way, Phalanx was a digital IRON chip, and the ultimate weapon against Axion.

Draco's Pantheon turned towards me, single remaining shotgun at the ready.

"You..." he snarled, "I'll kill you!"

Draco fired, but the shot went wild. I leapt toward him, fire streaming from my plasma cannons, rocket launcher pounding away. The world became a blur of metal and fire in the seconds before I touched down.

Draco's Pantheon staggered backwards, bumping into the sand dune that marked the edge of the Terminus' crater. The mech's weaponry was gone. Its legs were useless. It was a miracle it remained standing.

Draco laughed, a rough, beaten sound that I could scarcely make out through the static.

"Go ahead, Quinn," he chuckled, "End it."

I levelled my plasma cannons at him.

If I didn't kill him, what was stopping him from rebuilding Axion again? I had to do it. Nobody would blame me.

His blood wouldn't be on my hands.

But I never had to make that decision. With the deafening whisper of sand on metal, Project Terminus finally dislodged from its resting place. Loosened by Draco's final explosive landing and no longer restrained by the desert sand, its incalculable weight rolled toward us at a frightening speed.

Draco Fisk's damaged Pantheon stood directly in its shadow.

I don't know why I did it. I could've left him. It would have made what happened later so much easier.

Instead, I found myself running full tilt toward the falling warship, into the shadow cast by the vast chunk of metal.

"Evasive action recommended!" Phalanx thundered. "This area is unsafe!"

"Draco!" I shouted. "Draco, move!"

Fisk didn't respond. I don't know if it was his decision to accept death, or if he truly didn't notice the incoming vessel until it was too late.