The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter I
Part IV: Six feet of razor-tooth bloody destruction
Frothing bands of clone warriors charged the swift-moving interceptors as they sliced into the weak clone defensive line, eagerly protecting their Titan from attack. A warparty of followers greedily eyed the piggyback assault platoon—more victims for their Titan, they projected, and more blood for their furnaces.
Clayden noticed the bloodthirsty followers, numbering over fifty, as they bulldozed through their weaker clone allies and attempted to overtake his spearhead. The interceptors loosened their barrages of anti-personnel missiles, subsequently decimating the remaining clones in their wake.
“Carter!” Clayden yelled over the cacophony of carnage.
“Yes?” Carter replied, screaming.
“What are our losses?”
Carter closed his eyes and mind-scanned the other platoons for missing members.
“Most of the 10th has been killed by…” A clone clamped onto his free right leg as the interceptor zoomed by. Carter freed his right arm and sliced down on the clone’s shoulder, forcing the soulless creature to release its grip and fall, to be trampled by the treaded tracks of another interceptor, shredding it into small, indescribable pieces of cloned flesh. “…stray fire,” Carter finished as if nothing had happened.
The followers’ varied cyborg forms now began to take presence ahead of the assault. It was a mass of humanoid-type forms: some with immense bio-technoid machetes growing from where arms should be, and with heads half-scabbed by mechanoid deformities. Others had gigantic turrets growing from their chests, firing sporadically at the interceptors and their precious cargo. All of them shared one main drive: to destroy them for their Titan and absorb their enemies’ blood for fuel.
You see, that was the main difference between human body armor and Titan follower body armor. Human technologists reengineered the armor to be symbiotic with the wearer, both the human and the armor benefiting the other—a sort of mutual parasitic relationship where both fueled each other. The armor stole the wearer’s humanity as the human took the armor’s invincibility. The followers, on the other hand, had to absorb the blood of unlucky foes—a very messy and addictive way to live.
Clayden readied himself for battle with the followers as the interceptors blasted away at them, thinning out their plentiful force. Farther down the battlefield to the right, fast, lightly armored mechanized units and APCs stabbed at the advancing, frothing, battle-engineered legions of clone warriors, while the heavy covering barrage from the artillery decimated their ranks. The infantry’s job was to tie up the entire clone thrust along with the quickly advancing shock Titans, gaining precious time for the assault units to close in on the Titan before it got too close to the city’s first line of defense.
“Sir?”
“Yes,” Clayden answered the commander of the interceptor unit through the comm in his helmet.
“Do you want my units to try to pierce through the warparty, or go around them?”
If they went around the warparty they would lose ground, which meant that there would be less time to engage; they didn’t have any time to waste. They had to go through the warparty.
“WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH!” Clayden shouted over the battlefield cacophony.
“That’s what I wanted to hear!”
Commander Nakajima responded wildly, ordering interceptor units one and two to flank the right, three and four to flank the left, as his unit and the fifth carried the remaining assault troops between them, keeping the troops relatively safe in the wedge.
The interceptors charged, firing recklessly into the warparty as they closed the space between them at an accelerated pace.
Clayden held on steadfast while he grabbed his lancer rifle from his back clasp, preparing for the inevitable clash with the warparty. With one simple flick, the rifle transfigured itself into a close-combat lance. This variation was needed because the assault troops had varied combat responsibilities, which could change at any given moment—from defense to offense to infiltration. So the lancer rifle was created, giving the assault troop a multi-purpose role in almost every human military.
The lancer rifle was made up of various modular components that reconfigured to their set programming when ordered. It had three distinct arrangements: in rifle form, it could be loaded with explosive and armor-tipped ammunition and could hold up to 100 rounds in a box clip; the lance rifle could be used both ways, but with an inevitable loss in firepower, holding only fifty rounds of normal ammunition while acting like a bayoneted rifle in close combat; and then there was the lancer—a six-foot-long, razor-toothed instrument of bloody destruction which had the capability to cut through Titan armor. All technology stolen and modified from the Titans themselves, of course.
The frothing warparty slashed at the first thrust of the interceptors as a few were crippled or destroyed by mighty war blades, slashing and crunching their alloyed hulls. The interceptors slowed as they engaged the enemy.
“Get us…” Clayden paused as he lashed with his lance at a follower who broke through the first line.
Clayden jumped from the interceptor to carve the clawed arm off the mad bio-genetic mutant. The grotesque parody of humanity laughed at him while blood and other unknown fluids lapped out of its sliced socket. Its remaining arm had a three-foot blade covered in a poisonous slime which could kill Clayden instantly if it pierced his armor.
The follower lunged forward, but Clayden stepped back instantly and parried his opponent’s blade into the blood-soaked dirt, and then kicked him in the face. The follower flew backward as spiked molars flew chaotically in the air. But the creature did not go down; it lunged forward again, slicing down powerfully on Clayden.
He blocked it with his lance. The follower’s weight and inertia, along with the slushy, blood-soaked mud, made Clayden fall backward onto his back, raking blunted pain along his spine. Then his armor quickly injected him with adrenaline, canceling out the pain, making anger rise and strength envelop him.
Clayden pushed back even harder, throwing the creature away from him, rolling out of the way, and quickly standing back up. Clayden rushed forward, feinting the follower with a fake jab, but then slicing him with a power sweep to the chest, felling the pitiful creature.
“Are you okay, Sir?” Carter asked, still piggyback, as the interceptor drove back around to pick him up.
“I’m fine.”
“What were you going to say?” Nakajima brought back up as Clayden jumped back onto the interceptor.
“As soon as there is an opening, let’s push through to the Titan.” He paused, viewing the bloody carnage as more interceptors went down battling the overabundant warparty. But slowly they were able to make a wide enough crack for the assault group to pierce. “Let’s go now.”
**Written ~ 1997. © Jacob A. Pickard 2025. All rights reserved. This work is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced, republished, excerpted, or used for academic, commercial, or derivative purposes without written permission.**
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