The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter I
Part VI: The Damned Ghosts of War
The interceptors, coordinating at speeds from hell as if they were one armored spear, thrust through the opening that the remaining interceptor units sacrificed themselves to create.
Clayden glanced behind him quickly as the last of the interceptors went down, crippled by a small group of followers who then savagely ripped and tore the armor to get at the prize within.
*What a horrible way to go,* Clayden seethed under his breath.
Directly ahead of them was their prize for surviving the initial battle flames: the Titan. Its colossal frame lurched forward, easily maiming and destroying all the infantry before it. The smaller assault vehicles easily melted into torrents of liquid metal, decimating the ranks into bloody steam. It stood at a height of 85 meters, making the largest of the heavily armored tanks (the size of a large three-story house) look like meager little ants. Immense spikes uniformly ran up its back in the form of a wedge. Its dark blue hue made use of the smoke and battle carnage for a strange form of camouflage, looking as if it were not stable in dimensional space. Its head was encased in dark silver armor, with one small red slit placed a little above the center, glaring coldly at its seemingly puny opponents. From each ear socket, a plume of thin, multicolored daggers vertically extended into the open air with vicious intent. The entity’s body was smattered with Egyptian hieroglyphics and pictographs, all of which dealt with war and conquest.
“Carter!” he yelled as a shock Titan burst into an explosive flower, hit by one of the largest ultra-heavy battle tanks. “Can your telepathy block the Titan’s sensors?”
“I don’t know,” he coughed. “It has never been tried before.”
“Well, I think it’s time to make history,” Clayden answered back with a chuckle. From his waist pouch, he pulled out a grenade-sized disk and pre-armed its quarter-kiloton mini-thermonuclear payload.
The interceptors were closing the distance, but to Clayden it seemed like a vast eternity as he prepared himself for almost certain death—wishing he could’ve lived in a world that was not constantly at war between brothers and sisters, between Titans, demons, gods, and monsters.
*Who are the true monsters?* The answer he decided was that they all were. Humans were no better. *We’re just trying to survive.*
Survival was the only thing left now.
“I hope everyone has made peace with themselves, cause I haven’t even begun!” Power surged from within him; his demons had been driven away. “If we’re going to die, let’s take this bastard thing with us!”
Suddenly all fire directed at the Titan stopped as the assault team closed in. The Titan realized what was happening and turned its head toward the assault team right at its face. Small, ant-like things grappled onto its feet, vainly cutting at its layers of armor. It picked up its foot and tried to shake them off. A few flew off, dropping to their dooms, but most of them clung on.
Two of Clayden’s men who did not hold on very well flew off into the distance, sucked into the carnage between the infantry and the clone warriors.
“Fireteam one, start blasting away all those turret weapons on its chest! Hopefully we can start some explosions.”
“Carter, tell HQ that I want them to keep firing at this thing’s upper portion, otherwise it’s just going to swat us off like ants. Tell them to keep its mind on them and not us,” he ordered as he sliced his lance into its foot actuator, getting closer to its internal parts while other members of his platoon began to scale up the Titan’s leg. Some fell and died, but the rest never broke their morale.
The remaining interceptors set up a defensive line of fire as the wave of followers caught on to the plan and began to rush toward them.
The first volley of shots raked the armored upper torso of the Titan as shrapnel and peeled-off armor fell on the two platoons. Each step it took was like an earthquake for Clayden and his troops; if you fell, you died.
Clayden furiously cut into the foot, thinning out the thick armor plating, revealing its delicate inner workings. He slashed them effortlessly, impairing the foot’s movement. One of his men had made it to the knee, furiously stabbing his lance into the armor, hoping to impair its movement. Most of the 17th had made it to the thing’s back, continuing to scale as clones fired at them from the ground. They knew that they were not coming down; they had made their peace and were going to sacrifice themselves for the continued survival of their city.
“Carter!”
“Yes,” he answered as he continued to slice away at the Titan’s foot, revealing more of its delicate inner workings.
“Are you ready to interface with the Titan?”
“Yes,” he answered as he connected a thin cable from his armor to one of the alien’s exposed sensor cables.
“You know what to do?”
“Create a little chaos with its systems, no problem. It’s never been tried before, but I’m sure I can do it,” Carter responded sarcastically, chuckling, as he sat down inside the hole he had created.
The remaining interceptors met the followers’ charge, being cut down instantly, but not before decimating their enemies’ ranks down to about ten. The few surviving interceptors broke and ran for cover. Now the way was clear as they thrust to meet Clayden and his three remaining troops still on the Titan’s foot. Guttural calls of destruction tallied from the followers as they closed to engage.
“Okay guys, let’s protect Carter. Form a defensive circle,” Clayden ordered as a new uneasiness grated through his mind, as the Titan now stood still, blasting away at the dwindling ranks of the infantry.
A deformed rush by ten angry followers met head-on with the last five of the 25th Assault Platoon. Mutated body parts flew erratically off Clayden’s first foe.
Some of Clayden’s comrades went so far as to say that when he fought, he became possessed by an angel of war, turning him into a demon of battle. It was said that the war gods would sometimes grant certain warriors that they deemed worthy a power, and that power was cold rage.
Two followers ganged up on Private Newsome, who was standing near Clayden. The first follower to engage him was the size of a bear, with jaws filled with many razor-sharp daggers. Its body was covered in thin, vomit-covered spikes. The other one was the size of a normal man and almost looked normal, except that both of his forearms had three-foot-long blades growing out from them. Newsome lunged at the large one with all his collected strength, knocking the monstrosity onto its back. Small spikes pierced his armor as the acid on the spikes began to burn through it.
He quickly twirled to engage the one with the blades as it sliced at him. He deflected one arm, but it nicked his chest armor, almost slicing through the hard outer shell. You see, if your armor bleeds, you bleed; it’s just like taking a normal hit if your armor is pierced through the first layer. The large follower jumped back up and delivered a powerful punch to Newsome’s back, the inertia pushing him fatally into both blades of the smaller follower.
Blood gushed out of Newsome’s body as it went suddenly limp. They instantly began to feed upon his carcass. There were three followers left. Then zero, as Clayden decapitated all three in one mighty slice.
Suddenly the Titan stopped its advance and lifted its immense arm to scratch its head, massacring the entire 17th like head lice. Dark red blood congealed on its head, wearing it as a headdress of victory.
“Ahhhhh…” Carter screamed as a small stream of blood trickled out of his nose.
Clayden jumped over to him as the last of the Followers was dispatched by Private Derringer.
“Carter!”
“Carter, are you OK!”
“I’m alive,” he slowly stood up as pain washed over his brain. “Something’s strange,” as a quietness begot the battlefield. Carter gazed up at the Titan’s hand frozen in mid-air on its way to crush them, with thick blood raining onto the remaining members of the 25th.
“I think you got another first today, Carter,” Clayden laughed, gazing up at their almost certain death as blood dripped onto his battle-scarred silver armor.
“Let’s plant the thermos and cut ASAP!”
Clayden ordered while Carter tried to regain his sight, but was having no luck.
“We have about 100 seconds until it can move again.”
The tide of battle had been turned as the human infantry rallied and began to drive the clones and mutant followers back. The now-outnumbered infantry fought with a ferocity greater than their enemy. They were fighting for their city, for their loved ones, for the human race, but most importantly for their own survival.
“NO!” Carter screamed in agony as his brain absorbed a powerful energy surge, pulsed back in defense by the Titan; he fell limply onto the cold, armored surface of its foot.
“Carter!” Clayden jolted toward his friend just as he planted his thermo. “Wake up! You can’t die now!” His friend lay there unmoving in his armored shell.
“Carter!” Clayden said weakly, gently cradling his friend’s head. “Carter!”
An armored hand grabbed his shoulder forcefully. “Sir, we got to go NOW!”
Two of the last remaining interceptors pulled up in a whirlwind of dust.
“Carter…”
“He’s DEAD!” Derringer shouted. “The thermals are set and the TITAN is starting to move!”
Clayden sat there sorrowfully, apathetically.
“If we DIE, his sacrifice will never be known,” Derringer paused. “Let’s go!”
A wall of carnage came racing toward them as thousands of retreating clones and followers raced chaotically back toward their Titan, rousing Clayden back to the reality of their situation. He threw Carter over his shoulder and leaped down to the sodden, blood-soaked earth. Private Derringer and Sylver followed him onto the backs of the interceptors as the Titan began to move.
“Sir!” Sylver yelled. “Look behind you.”
Clayden rotated his head to see the Titan’s leg shatter from the inside out, quickly engulfed by a multitude of small mushroom clouds.
Winds thick with radiation immersed the chaotic swarm of battling clones and human infantry, annihilating them instantly with a plague of intense flame. The Titan tottered backward as other thermals placed on its back triggered internal explosions, bursting it apart from within; flames and armor blasted off its once-mighty frame.
It fell backward in a massive eruption of molten annihilation, destroying everything in a half-mile radius of death-head’s judgment. And afterward, when the battlefield has been eradicated of all life, the land shall forever seethe with hate from the damned ghosts of war.
Grey, a cloud of gray unveiled itself……revealing an old, tattered church between the gentle cradle of two hills. It stands alone with its ancient spire reaching to meet its father in the purity of heaven. One lone oak, twisted by the tentacles of time, keeps the tabernacle company through its slow, painful march into the jaws of decay. Then the gray transforms into a cloudy, featureless visage and whispers…”remember.”
**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.**
Ecoheretic 