For All Mankind:

 

“Radio check, one, two, buckle my shoe,” Magnolia chirped over the headset.

Reiss stared out at the empty Nevada city around the spaceport. Six weeks ago, the entire United States was lively and populated. The factory they passed by in the helicopter would have been producing more of the Autonomous Defense Weapons. The same ADWs that were employed during the US’s Operation Red Dawn, their failed attack on Mars that cost them three Grigori Archangel Prototype Mechs and over a hundred Throne and Cherub model ADWs. A week later, the entire United States was wiped off the map. He couldn’t believe it when he heard it. Every living being just erased in a second when the Barons retaliated.

“Three, four, open the door. Knock, knock, Reiss, are you there?”

“I can hear you, Mags.” Reiss turned his mech around to look at the damaged starship. Magnolia and her team had been working on it for an hour and a half now while he stood guard. All part of the mission—well, most of it. To his right, sitting by the edge of the platform was what Nine Circles had called “The Retort”. The superweapon they were to deploy once the shuttle was ready, and they were above Mars.

“Good. Any status update on our friends at Port Alpha?”

Reiss looked out to the East. They couldn’t see Port Alpha, but they would have heard gunfire and explosions by now. Nine Circles had sent them into two teams before the complex went nuclear thanks to a rouge AI. The first would be the distraction while the second would get the starship working to finish the war. Teams Apollo and Artemis, twin teams with almost identical goals. Apollo was assigned the most mechs including his buddy Sam Washington, the Last American, and the only survivor of Operation Red Dawn. They had Major Hoffmann’s lapdogs, Beaufort and Elfriede, Sam, Deagr, and Casket. Meanwhile it was just him and his lone mech against the odds. But they at least gave him one of the arsenals to stay stockpiled.

“Nothing yet,” he told her. “How are the repairs?”

Magnolia chuckled. “If you told me that I have to fix a shuttle I’ve only had two hours to read the blueprints before I had to fix the damn thing…” she trailed off. She was nervous. This was Humanity’s last shot to survive, to win the war against the Barons. “But,” she picked herself back up, “I know that my crackshot engineering team can handle anything! Let me hear you, boys and girls!”

Reiss heard her team shout, “For all mankind!” in unison. He ran a system diagnostic to see how his mech, Baum, was doing. The Great Early Council of Humanity, GECH, had reinforced his torso with another titanium plate. Out of everything, that was the most armored simply to protect him inside. Not that there was much to protect anyways. Pilots like him were barely qualified as human given the process to even operate a Grigori. The pilot seat wasn’t comfy, it never was. Magnolia asked how he could deal with being encased and jabbed by a thousand needles, wires, and worse. He had a job to do: protect Humanity, protect Mankind, no matter the cost to himself. His medium mech, adorned with his white and blue colors, was more than enough to get the job done.

“So, Treebranch,” Magnolia said, “you mind telling me what exactly is in our special case?”

“Would if I could.” His system check came back clear. Ninety-three percent of Baum was operational.

“Oh, come on, not even for your favorite Engineer Specialist?” she teased.

“You’re my only Engineer.” He surveyed the landscape and the sky again.

“You’re goddamn right.”

“Even still, I had special orders from Nine Circles to keep it hush-hush until the time comes.” Baum picked up incoming signals.

“Heads up, we got a dozen Thrones incoming from the West. They fight in threes, watch out for the rockets and they’re packing high explosives. It’ll rip apart your armor so stay mobile. We’re seventy percent getting the basic shields online. Cheap Yankee technology!” There was crashing on Magnolia’s end. “Make that fifty percent.”

The Throne ADW jets were behind the towering buildings around, 7000 meters and closing, by the time he could get there he should be able to ambush them. He took the M303 missile launcher in his right hand and a submachine gun in his left before leaping off, cracking the ground. When he reached the skyscrapers, he peeked out to see their white silhouettes emerging and their blinking blue lights at the nozzles. He aimed the missile launcher and activated the lock-on. He fired the first three rockets before cycling to the next case.

Three direct hits before the rest scrambled into a defensive pattern. He fired the next three but only one landed with the rest hitting flares. He took cover behind the tower to load the last rockets when Baum picked up a new signal.

“New targets. Cherub VTOLs, a pack of thirty coming from your left,” Magnolia pitched in.

“Just when I thought things were going to be easy. Confirmed. Moving to engage.” Reiss rushed out of cover to intercept. The Thrones came in for a gun run against him. He bobbed and weaved through smaller buildings, using them as cover, until he was out in the open. He fired at the jets with his submachine gun on their second pass. He had to become the bigger target. He was around 400 meters before he reached the Cherubs. They were lightly armored so it wouldn’t be a problem wiping them out.

Baum rocked forward as a burst struck his left side. Reiss felt the pain spike through his side but pressed on.

“Unit Baum at eighty-nine percent integrity,” the automated system read out.

The remaining Thrones moved in unison, firing off their rockets at him. Reiss reached to his side and yanked off a blastwave grenade, activated it, and threw it in front of him. The force grenade blasted the rockets to pieces and when the Thrones passed through the flames, he hitched himself atop the lead jet. “Sorry, I’m running on a tight schedule!” He jammed his hand into the body of the jet, digging his fingers into their core, and connecting them to his augments. He activated their chain gun then spun it around to hit all its friendlies before forcing the last Throne to crash into the pack of Cherubs. He tossed another blastwave grenade to wipe them out.

“All targets destroyed. Status report.” Reiss enjoyed the minute of relief to catch his breath.

“Shields online. As for the rest—”

He heard an explosion from the spaceport and saw the trails of more Thrones fly past.

“Mags!”

“We’re okay! You have more signals. Buy us six minutes. Looks like our distraction party finally went offline.”

Reiss counted a hundred targets: twenty Thrones, forty Cherubs, and forty Dominion light tanks. None of them were the main target. “You get three.” He leapt back into action, heading to the spaceport to rearm at the arsenal. Where was the target? He needed to make more noise.

“Anything else while I’m at the store?”

“Remote launch Arsenal Code Gatling.” Reiss shouldered the missile launcher. He needed to take out the jets first then the VTOLs and deal with the tanks last. Just as he reached the arsenal, the GE Portable Gatling gun flew out. He heard the thunder of the tanks’ barrels letting loose a volley against the spaceport.

“It’s not like I’m working in here!”

Reiss fired off all the rockets as he sprinted across the ruined city with his right arm and the submachine gun with his left until both were empty, taking out the Thrones and some of the Cherubs. He chucked them both at the Cherubs just as the Gatling gun reached him. The auto-tracking managed to reduce their number by eighty-percent. He scanned the radar for any strangle blips. Nothing. Just the Dominion tanks that were about to be mopped up.

How loud did he need to be to draw out the target’s attention? Was Nine Circles’ intel off? They were deployed to the right spaceport that they were sighted around. It was the farthest from the other group. The Retort should be enough on its own. It was a miracle that Nine Circles managed to get it out before the base detonated. Only twenty percent of the staff managed to escape the blast radius. They lost twenty-three million people. God only knows how they’re going to recover from this when the war was over.

He knew he wasn’t going to see it, but he imagined that there would be some divine miracle to save them all. How much land was fertile after their battles? The water was mostly contaminated and most of their technology was compromised. When the War with the Barons was over, what would keep Humanity together? What would stop another war or five from breaking out over the dwindling resources? GECH was gone, at least the main command structure. Would they try to take to the stars?

In retrospect, none of these mattered. He knew how the mission was going to end. He accepted it and he chose to carry the burden of truth so that his team wouldn’t know. He’d rather they fight like heroes than know what was to come. What they were actually here to do.

“Reiss, you there?”

He was knocked out of his thoughts and back into the battlefield. He was standing over the smoldering remains of the tanks. The barrels of the Gatling gun were cooling off in the cool Nevada breeze.

“I’m here, Mags,” he answered after a minute.

“Good. I was worried we lost you. I can’t imagine the strain of piloting that tomb.”

“Can I get a status report?”

“Back to business, I see. I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Hit me with the worst.” Reiss slowly started heading back to the spaceport. With each step he cracked and crushed the streets below. Buildings were crushed by the casings and debris of the ADWs. The missile launcher he threw was embedded in a skyscraper. The submachine gun sat atop a semi-truck. He was half tempted to break radio silence to contact Team Apollo to see if they had seen anything. But the Barons would pick up on the signal just as they did at Mount Weather. Maybe that’s how they found out where the American’s had all their bases.

He wondered why they didn’t just blast them all to bits like they had with the United States and that terrified him.

“Bad news first: we—”

Baum’s emergency alert blared over her.

“OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” Mags yelled as the headset was yanked off.

Reiss went to face the speeding massive blip coming towards him only to be struck head on by it. The treads on the vehicle ripped through his armor, tearing it away, before he was able to boost himself to the side losing more armor in the process. Baum crashed into a dome building and rested in part of the wall.

“Unit Baum at forty percent integrity!” the automated system screeched.

He forced the mech to stand and face the opponent. It was a wheel, a gigantic wheel with sharp tracks. He watched it roll int circles and was able to catch a glimpse of the flag painted on the side: Russia. The Russian T-55 Baron Grinder, another autonomous weapon taken over by the Barons, with its engine on the side. Last time he saw it was at the Armavir Airbase during the Fall of Russia. No matter. It stood in the way and had to be destroyed. But how did he not see it? Baum gave another alert: two more large blips emerged from the west. Two large six-legged dog autonomous weapons raced across the city. They were adorned with gauss cannons on their backs. More American tech, Virtue Hound models mark five judging by the weaponry.

“Three on one,” Reiss muttered to himself. “Are they toying with us? Do they know?”

He boosted to meet the Baron Grinder first and it speed off to meet the mech before he even touched the ground. The Gatling gun still had seventy-percent ammunition. It was enough to get the job done. The hail of rounds let loose against the Grinder slowly chipped away the jagged blades. Reiss swung the weapon in front of him to meet them as it crashed into him again, pushing the two of them straight through the dome building and two more towers. He grabbed the side of the autonomous weapon as the Gatling was starting to crack into two and threw into the air. He followed it up by chucking his former weapon into the side of the Grinder. The explosion rocked the ground.

A searing pain shot through his left shoulder as a gauss round ripped through the plate armor, taking off his arm. Reiss coughed up blood before another blast hit his back, sending Baum onto its face sliding against the ground.

“Come on,” he told himself between pants, “it’s not over yet. Not just yet.” Baum rolled onto its back, and he looked at the bright sky. The ground quaked as the Virtue Hounds approached him. He debated telling Mags about the mission. What they had to do. The Barons couldn’t get a hold of The Retort. He stared down the mechanical monsters in front of him, their gauss weapons steadily charging up to finish the job. He remembered telling Sam what was going to happen. The stupid Yankee offered to join him. One Grigori Mech against these odds was neigh impossible. No. They needed Sam and Reiss wasn’t willing to take another life with him.

“Hey Reiss.”

The sound of thunder deafened everything, and he saw a fiery red laser tear the Virtue Hounds into two, melting their insides, and silencing their weapons.

“The good news was that I managed to get one charge out of the main weapon.”

Reiss sighed and picked himself up.

“Unit Baum at twenty-four percent integrity,” the automated system croaked. “Please see field repairs as soon as possible.”

He started walking back to the spaceport. This time he managed to get back before anything could happened. If this didn’t get the attention of the target, nothing would. He wasn’t sure his body could take another beating. Baum was barely standing and the only thing stopping him from detonating was a thin sheet of metal in the torso. “A cause worth dying for,” he recalled the words of his recruiter. “God, I hope so.”

“Please tell me you’re done,” Reiss asked as he looked up at the metallic tomb. He looked over at The Retort. He could feel the wires straining to keep his heart going. His left side was numb though he knew his actual arm was still there, but his connection refused his brain to acknowledge it. All it knew was pain before the drugs kicked in.

Magnolia laughed. “The USS Super Nova is up and running! We just need you to load up the Retort in the cargo bay and we’ll take off. For all mankind!”

Reiss grabbed the Retort and started walking over to the opening cargo bay doors. Just as he readied himself to raise it a sudden force knocked him back, a beam slashed through his pelvis, and he dropped the superweapon. Debris crashed all around him followed by a horrifying shriek coming from above. He looked up to see a gigantic shape, distorted and circular, plow through the shuttle. Emerging from the flames sprouting from the wreck, Baum recognized the object.

“Target acquired. Please proceed with priority directive.”

“And lo there would be Bael, the strongest of the Barons, who would destroy Humanity’s final hope in their hour of need,” Reiss remembered the prophecy the Martians left them when their first missiles hit Earth. The shape revealed its true form: a humanoid head with a twisted crown made from ADWs, on its right was what looked to be a cat or something and left of the center was a creature he could not discern. It appeared to have merged with a flying fortress and on its side was its name. The Jade Palace. Outfitted with the American stealth drive they took from Mount Weather. They were adapting. These things could adapt? The thought was daunting, but he didn’t have much time left.

“Pilot in critical condition. Engaging emergency life support.”

With his remaining arm, he dragged himself over to the Retort. Using his finger, the mech connected to the case before the trigger emerged. He grabbed it then pulled himself up against a chunk of debris. This was it. He had to do it. This is when the hero sacrifices themselves for a tomorrow. A tomorrow they’ll never know if they even truly saved. What if Team Apollo fails? What if they all die out after the war?

Bael slowly descended upon him. Their dozens of tentacles were ready to tear him apart and do God only knows what to him before putting him down, if they even would. This would be the last thing he saw. He was glad Mags went quick. She didn’t have to know. Her whole team got to die thinking they were saving the day.

“This is Apollo, we have liftoff! I repeat, we have liftoff!”

Reiss looked past Bael at the sky to see the red USS Last Hope blasting off on their way to Mars. On their way to save the day, to complete the mission. He had faith in them. In Sam. He could die knowing that the war would end. Humanity will have won against the Barons. Speaking of…

He started laughing and Bael looked back from the shuttle to him. He won’t know if he saved Earth but isn’t that a bitch? He triggered the Retort. The “Revenge of Humanity” his commanding officer told him. The “Fist of the Fallen” Sam had nicknamed it. Nine Circles’ prototype bomb. He’d give it one last hurrah.

“FOR ALL MANKIND!”

 

Sam looked out the window of the shuttle when he heard it. A bright green cloud covered the entire state of Nevada. That cheeky Brit. Had to go on and be a real hero.

“For all mankind,” he muttered.