Otherlife Nightmares: The Selfless Hero Trilogy (30 page)

Reaching behind, he clasped the holding bracket for the door and pulled it inwards. He dropped the bar into place, then latched everything shut. There was no way to lock the thing unless you were in it.

Catching Thana’s eyes, he made an apologetic gesture with his hand.

“Right, then. Your question. Water-driven piston system. As to materials, I borrowed them. King Vasilios sent them along with his crafters.”

“I see. What am I to do on this venture then?”

“You’ll be guiding our brave nobility in this fight. I’ll be steering. Everyone who could pilot this is on the SO teams.” Runner patted Thana once on the shoulder and moved to take his seat at the front.

“I’d like a more detailed analysis and report of this later, dear heart. This seems convenient and I can see many practical applications of it.”

“Yes, beloved,” Runner responded immediately, with only a hint of a teasing tone.

“Good, thank you.”

Runner grinned and rolled his eyes but couldn’t help but feel lighthearted. Dropping into the pilot seat, he checked the levers. Giving the speed shifter a waggle, he found all was set.

“Brake engaged…water spells are primed…cannon ready. Now, we wait and look like nothing more than a really disastrously made hut. Hey,” Runner said, turning around in his chair. Twenty-two dark eyes riveted to him after his sudden call. “Wanna play a game or something while we wait?”

“Runner, dear heart?”

“Yep?”

“Please focus on your part of the battle. We’ll be preparing back here,” Thana said with a smile, politely shooting him down.

“Kay. Only ’cause I love your smile though.”

Runner blew out his cheeks as he faced his cockpit controls again. Leaning forward and looking out the viewing port, he watched in silence. On came his foe and her army.

Slowly. Inexorably. Deliberately.

She had slowed down drastically when she realized Runner had moved his entire encampment to meet her on an open field. He could only imagine it made little sense to her. She probably had a very good idea of his numbers and the disposition of his army.

There was no possible way to completely shut out her spies and scouts. Instead he assumed she had full knowledge of numbers and complement.

Makes everything easier when you assume they already know everything. Yay, paranoia.

Runner shook himself from his daydreaming as the enemy began coming at them at a fast trot.

“That’s new,” Runner spit out. Leaning into the vision slits that surrounded the cockpit, he checked everyone’s position.

Everyone where they should be.

Frowning, Runner cycled through his log messages, finding nothing wrong there either. His paranoia began to escalate as the enemy closed the distance.

Clumsily he slapped at the raid window to bring it to the forefront and then sat there.

Mouth hanging open, Runner felt the ground come out from underneath him.

Hannah and her entire force had flashing player tiles.

They were in combat.

“Hanners is engaged with an enemy. I…I can only assume our flankers were flanked, or they flanked their flankers. I need to…” Runner said, starting to rise from his seat. Then he realized he couldn’t leave. They needed him here. Thana, Katarina, Nadine, and Isabelle all needed him here.

Sitting back down in his chair, he pressed his left hand over his mouth. Gritting his teeth, he swallowed as the situation started to unravel rapidly around him.

Chapter 12 - Bloodbath -

9:59 am Sovereign Earth time

11/16/43

Runner gripped the steering wheel in both hands. Somehow he managed to take slow and even breaths despite his mind being a frenzy of activity.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy. You said it yourself.

“Do you trust Hannah?” Thana’s voice whispered against his ear.

She was so close her lips had brushed against his earlobe.

Shaken from his whirling thoughts, Runner latched to that question. He did. Explicitly.

“Of course,” he whispered, his voice trembling.

“Then have faith in her. She will do what she believes to be best. I do not profess to see eye to eye with her as often as I would like, but I believe in her.” Thana pressed her lips to his cheek and then drew back from him.

She was right of course. She almost always was. That was the problem with enjoying the company of people smarter than you.

Letting out a shaky breath, Runner could only nod his head. The battle had begun without them.

Each line beat at the other, attempting to draw them in close to striking range of the damage dealers. This tug-of-war would continue until losses started to go up. Losses that Runner couldn’t afford. Couldn’t afford and had to prevent.

That was his duty as a good leader. Spend their lives, yes. But spend them well and efficiently.

With a flick of a hand Runner disengaged the stationary brakes. It wasn’t quite time to engage. In fact, his goal wasn’t even the line or the flank of the line.

Enemy forces stretched out deeply, glinting in the early morning sun. It seemed like they were endless and tightly packed.

All the better.

Runner pulled up the quick slot bars for his pings. Selecting Nadine, he pinged her with the attack command.

A second after he issued the command the sound of cannons could be heard. They went off like a barely heard thrum over the din of weapons connecting with armor and shields.

Then the center of the enemy force exploded. There really was no other way to describe it.

Exploded.

Then Ernsta came down from above. Her scythe slid out leisurely at her side and lazily sliced forward. Translucent souls flooded up to her and disappeared into the wicked blade.

As she began her ascent back to the heavens, her head whipped around and she scoured the crowd below her. Following her line of sight, Runner found Stefan in the enemy lines, swinging his great black blade in giant arcs.

Runner could only guess that Stefan had taken his advice and decided on whose name to yell. Her attention was his and his alone.

Stefan left a path of destruction behind him. The flank he led was hard-pressed to catch up to his advance.

“Time for us to go,” Runner muttered. Taking one last look at Ernsta, he felt a glimmer of hope. Ernsta had circled around again and hovered high above Stefan.

“Hold on, ladies, it’s showtime,” Runner warned. Dropping the shifter into the third speed setting, he sent Boxy lurching forward, the wheels throwing up grass and dirt.

Spinning wildly, the wheels caught and then Boxy shot forward.

“Boxy needs a coat of red paint!” Runner screamed, leaning forward over his controls. A wild grin spread over his face as he sped onwards.

Frustration, anger, fear, and hate boiled out of him. Such a joy it was to try to save fools who wanted him dead. Save idiots who wouldn’t help him help them save themselves. Spending his own sanity like fucking currency for the benefit of others.

Breathing hard, heart pounding, and fingers clenched on the steering wheel, he saw a chance to really blow off some steam.

Angling himself to the back corner of the enemy formation, he called over his shoulder. “Right side, everyone line up and blast the fuckers! Light ’em up!”

He pushed the gear up to the fourth position, and Boxy’s pistons hammered at the gear train as she barreled forward.

Wonder how high they’ll bounce? I’ll ask Srit later. Maybe she’ll be able to pull the data.

Then Runner’s view port filled with enemy bodies soaring through the air as the cow catcher launched men and women upwards into the sky. Bodies slammed into the front and sides of Boxy and blew backwards as they tumbled over the reinforced wood.

Runner screamed at them even as they died. Obscenities and curses spewed from his lips like steam from a broken radiator. Targeting randomly, he cast
Scott
into the forces ahead of him.

Fear in such a close-packed group only created confusion as they tried to bolt in every direction.

Booms of elemental spells from behind him overshadowed the crunch and thud of bodies being bowled over.

Bursting free on the other side, Runner shifted the speed down to the second gear. Spinning the wheel to the right, he began driving along the rear of the enemy’s forces.

As his screams faded, Runner sat panting. He rubbed at his eyes in a futile attempt to clear his vision. Little black dots spun and swam crazily through his sight.

To his right, his cannons continued to fire into the massed enemy center. Those in the middle tried to push backwards, only to be pushed forward by those attempting to escape Boxy and his team’s spells.

The panic wouldn’t last. Professional soldiers adapted and fairly quickly. It didn’t have to last that long, really. Just long enough to inflict solid casualties and create confusion before they could pull back and rethink their strategy.

Reaching the midway point, Runner pulled Boxy to the left and straightened her course out. They were facing the general’s vantage now. He’d marked the location before the battle had even started. She hadn’t exactly been stealthy about it.

He could even see her standing atop her platform. Young, attractive, dressed in a uniform that hid any figure she had. Blonde hair chopped short was the only detail he could make out beyond that. He could see her watching him. She was transfixed by Runner’s approach.

Training the tip of the plow on the general, Runner felt his heart speed up even further, if that was even possible at this point.

He let Boxy coast along at second gear for a few more seconds to help recharge her spell-driven engine. Then he threw the monster into fifth.

The roar of Boxy’s engine could be heard as she guzzled her magical fuel.

Runner slapped his hand down on the cannon’s trigger while screaming incoherently. It thumped out a shell that ripped through the air.

Underestimating his speed and the approach, Runner overshot the trajectory. The general’s tent behind the platform blew up and turned into a fireball. Runner could only hope it took out anyone inside. That and it had actually contained people.

Reacting faster than he would have given her credit for, she leapt from her viewing tower as Boxy blew through it and ran down officers, retainers, messengers, and soldiers alike.

Shifting his poor Boxy into second gear, he began the task of spinning her around for another pass.

Behind him, spells detonated repeatedly as the Sunless called out targets and literally erased them from existence.

Lining himself up for a second pass, he couldn’t find the general. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, he seized on every other target he could identify.

Pushing Boxy into her third gear, they rumbled into the devastated camp. A few tried to defend themselves, though they had no target and didn’t truly understand what Boxy represented.

Other than death.

Sweet. Glorious. Death.

Not really wanting to make a third pass, Runner cycled Boxy back to second gear and aimed them at Isabelle’s flank.

“Target at your own discretion as we engage. Kill order is healers, mages, archers, melee damage, and finally tanks!” Thana called out.

Runner snickered darkly as they closed in on the enemy ranks. Slowly it built from a chuckle to a raging maniacal laugh.

He oriented himself so that they’d exit near the edge of the fighting so as to not endanger his own troops.

Pushing the lever to the fifth gear, he felt Boxy surge once more. Half of Boxy’s defense lay in her agility. How quickly she could move through the battle before anyone got a chance at her. Should they be forced to a stop, it’d only be a matter of time before someone figured out a way to get at them that Runner had not accounted for.

Thinking time came to a close as a woman rebounded off the metal plow and grazed off his viewing slit. She stuck there for a second, then sailed up over the top of Boxy but not before Runner took an insane screenshot as his mind splintered apart.

Runner lost himself in the haze of flying bodies. The sudden silence in his mind acted like a twisted counterpoint to the sound of bodies being crushed and thrown.

Looping back around, clearing the line, he began what he knew would be his final pass. The fuel spells would need time to recharge. They’d be near empty after this at the rate he had been expending them.

Sending out a quick “Defense” ping to Nadine, Runner drove Boxy straight through the middle of the enemy forces. The goal now was simple. From one side of the army to another. Right up their center.

The cannon trigger flashed as it became available again and Runner fired it immediately. The shell exploded out in front of him, spraying dirt and bodies into the air.

Runner swerved a little to course correct around that area. Those people were probably already dead and didn’t need Boxy’s loving caress and tender attention.

Spells detonated, bodies flew, and quite a number went under the churning wheels. Time felt frozen and unending as they rolled along. Runner’s mind spun crazily and his emotions became raw ugly things.