Chapter 147 The Core Meltdown
Baron was not as precise a biter as a surgeon. With the sickening, bone-meddling savour of a wild apex predator, he bit.
His huge jaws had caught hold of the densest bunch of glowing violet nerves which united General Vance to the floor of the crawler. The tearing noise of the fibrous, bio-mechanical roots was like heavy ropes under the pressure of great tension. A violet spray went all over the bridge, hissing where it struck the metal grating as it froze.
The physical body of Vance bent back, and his mouth was open in a silent, agonizing scream.
The scream, though, through the loudspeakers of the crawler, was indescribable--a digital, screech of system malfunction which shook the reinforced glass of the bridge.
The shock of the central nervous system of Vance provoked an instantaneous, savage convulsive movement in the comparatively defensive mechanism of the crawler. The tentacles which gripped Ryker to the floor trembled, and the connection with the iron-like grip was relaxed by a tiny portion of a second.
It was all Ryker needed.
He tore his arm off, and the Star-Metal sword flashed into being. He cut off the rest of the tentacles which held his legs with one fierce, vertical stroke. He never stopped to take his footing. He threw himself forward, and applied the impulse to push his blazing orange sword straight into the bosom of Vance, with his mutated transparent body.
SHIIING.
The wound was cut off by the superheated Star-Metal cauterized, and the biological tethers which were still binding the General to the command console were cut.
Vance was leaning forward in his upper part, entirely out of touch with the crawler. The bright violet light in his eyes was flickering, fading and completely faded away. The hive mind was legaly killed.
"Spit it out!" Ryker screamed at Baron, and drew his sword.
Baron dropped the cut mass of roots out of his jaws, turning back and spitming the acidic purple fluid. He moved back to his human shape, with a heaving chest, cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand.
Delicious as battery acid and rot," Baron sneezed as the cold of the outside world poured through the door that had been broken.
We got him, Ryker said, and stared at the dead half-corpse of Vance. "The swarm is broken."
The crawler was not over with fighting.
There was a thrum of low, frightening sound below their feet. The violet fluid that oozed out of the severed connection point of Vance did not immediately sit on the floor; it started boiling. The emergency lamps in the bridge were turned out of a dull purple to a blinding, crimson of furious anger.
"WARNING. PRIMARY BIOMASS CONTAINment BREached," said the robot voice of the crawler, was no longer covered with the consciousness of Vance. "PLASMA-ROT CORE UNSTABLE. MELTDOWN IMMINENT. EVACUATE."
He was the regulator, he thought, his eyes opened. The core temperature was under control, through the brain of Vance. The engine is running out of control with him!
What is the size of the blast radius on a plasma-rot core? Baron requested, and his eyes flicked to the main tactical display, which was now showing a countdown clock.
T-MINUS 60 SECONDS.
Big enough to swallower this crawler and all in half a mile, gritted Ryker. "Which has our barricade.
Ryker gave him a well known, hopeful tap on his comms and wished that the EMP residual residual staticality had cleared off enough to allow him a short range burst. "Elara! Ferrous! Fall back! Crawler is becoming critical! Get the people behind the second line of blast walls!
His reply was a hiss of static, then, in an infinitely frightened manner, that of Elara. "Ryker? We read you... dropping aside... clear out of there!
"Run," Ryker ordered Baron.
They didn't look back. Out of the bridge they ran, ripping through the bio-congested walkways of the crawler. These walls were literally cooking around them, the gelatinous vines were blistering and exploding due to the heat that was not under control emanating out of the engine block beneath them.
They struck the overthrown ramp and leaped down into the snow-storm.
The cold was a stunner to the system but the cold was the least of their concerns. The crawler and Iron City barricade was still surrounded by thousands of lost, EMP struck soldiers on the no-man-land.
T-MINUS 30 SECONDS.
At the back of them the huge command crawler was starting to whine, in high pitched, mechanical whine. The violet light was bleeding through the armor plating, and was shining so brightly that it made long, spooky shadows on the snow.
Ryker and Baron ran. They did not take the trouble to engage the remaining troops; they trampled the reeling white armored men, as they were hurdles on an avenue.
"Keep moving!" Ryker bellowed and his feet sank into the icy floor.
The main barricade was also quitting its posts before them. Ferrous was literally pushing the last of the Iron Guard under the heavy concrete pillars of the overpass. Jaxon had wounded militiamen that he was dragging out of the kill zone.
I stood upon the secondary wall with my heart in my throat, as I watched the two forms running down the snow-ways, at us. My left hand was completely useless being burnt and sore after the EMP, however, I lifted my right hand in a desperate attempt to do something, anything to aid them in closing the gap.
T-MINUS 10 SECONDS.
"They're not going to make it!" The command center was yelling at Vane over the radio.
Its crawler was shaking so fiercely that the ice under its huge treads was breaking. Now the violet light was blinding, a little, diseased sun, trying to hold its own energy in.
"Jump!" Ryker screamed to Baron.
Fifty yards away was the barricade. This was not too far to jump the shockwave but it was near enough to seek shelter. Down they both plunged, sliding on their backs through the slick ice, towards the deep crater after which had fallen the former artillery shot.
ZERO.
The crawler of command was blown up.
It wasn't a fiery explosion. It was a silent, spreading dome of violet plasma, pure. A fraction of an inch later the shockwave struck, driving the snow and ice off the ground.
Hundreds of the rest of the infantry nearest to the explosion were instantly vaporized, and their gilt armor could afford no protection whatsoever against the hot stuff inside. The diffusing surge of energy struck the crater on which Ryker and Baron were cowering, and swept over their heads, and dissolved the snow banks that bordered them.
After that, the Iron City was struck by the shockwave.
The movement was such a shaker of the skyscrapers. I fell backwards out of my feet, and bumped sharply against the sturdy breast of Ferrous when he threw himself up to protect me in case of the rubble falling downwards after the overpass overhead. The heat swept us--a wave of ozone and death--a smelling filthy ozone.
And then, it was over.
The screaming ceased, and in its place the old-time, howling wind of the snow-squall.
I grabbed myself into a sitting position, my ears ringing with the sound. Thick and purple smoke and hissing steam filled the front line where the snow had at once been turned to vapour.
"Ryker!" I screamed, my voice cracking. I scrambled up the debris of the barricade, not thinking of the heat of the melted metal. "Ryker! Baron!"
The smoke gradually started to dissipate and was blown off by the cold wind.
In its crawler were no trace or evidence where it had been, save the huge, radiant hole of blasted ground. The rest of the infantry which had not been vaporised was lying lifeless in the snow, their bio-mechanical packs permanently fried out by the burst.
On the near side of the barricade I came to the crater.
There was a hand up and the edge of the melted asphalt was caught by it.
Ryker scrambled out of the hole with coughing. His jacket was burnt, his face smeared with coal, but his golden eyes glowed and shone. Another second later Baron heaved himself, rattling an ashy strand of hair, groaning as he forced his dislocated shoulder into place.
I didn't care who was watching. I embraced Ryker about the neck, and face down into his smoked breast, the tears of my utter relief burning my frozen flesh.
He seized me, his arms round my waist, and hoisted me in the air a moment, before he could take his breath.
I said so, Ryker said, and his voice was harsh in my ear. I have no intentions to die in the snow.
Ferrous came to the brink of the crater carrying his heavy axe upon his shoulder. He gazed beyond the ravaged battlefield, and at thousands of dead bodies, and at the smouldering wreck of the command post.
The dead general is dead again, grunted Ferrous. He even gazed upon Ryker with a renewed grim respect. You broke the White March, Alpha.
We broke it," Ryker said, and laid me down, retaining my hand in his.
He glanced into the mysterious, open wilderness of the North. Vance was killed, and the army that was rotted was destroyed. But the words Vance had said on the bridge were in the mind of Ryker like poison. The climate was changing. The Deadlands were being frozen over.
In case the Rot could not survive the new ice age, what other thing would crawl out of the dark to enjoy the warmth of the Iron City?