The Battle Plan

Fortunately for Morenna, that couldn’t go on long; they had work to do.

Relatively soon, they were back in order and heading up the hall to the door against which it ended.

“Our target is in here,” Aldan explained as they reached it. “In the chamber beyond is a repair bay for beetle tanks. There’s only one that’s assembled, and plugged into the factory; by now it should be powered up.”

“A beetle tank?” Ophia screeched. “Aldan!”

“Well, bro doesn’t lack ambition,” Rakkan remarked.

“You must think pretty highly of us,” said Morenna.

“Um…” Hesitantly, Espa raised a hand. “I guess this makes me the dumb one, but…what’s a beetle tank?”

“Don’t worry, sister,” said Uthien with a kind smile. “If anything, it’s odd that this many of a group of seven know what a beetle tank is. They were the heavy cavalry units of the Machine Men. It’s a construct about the size of a carriage, bristling with weapons, with functionally impervious armor. They were notoriously difficult to take down, even for the heroes who defeated the Machine Men. Even late in the war, when they had strategies for every type of clockwork.”

“Ah, okay,” Espa said, nodding. “Thank you, Uthien. In that case, I’m with Ophia. Aldan, are you nuts?”

“Listen,” Aldan said patiently. “I’m glad you’re all aware of the scale of the threat. When I say that we can do this, it’s because I know the enemy, I know our strengths, and I have a strategy. The beetle tank has two weak points: its weapons, and its treads.”

Espa raised a hand again. “What are treads?”

“See that thing?” Crossing to the window, Aldan pointed down into the cavernous factory floor, directly at the City Crusher. “Its feet are treads. They’re clusters of interlocking wheels that drive a kind of circular conveyor belt of panels; they’re able to handle more difficult terrain than wheels. But that many moving parts are inevitably a weak point, no matter how much the Machine Men tried to armor them. Its weapons are the same; it’s got arms like that, which have to have moving parts, and the joints inevitably expose parts of the machinery or they can’t function as joints. That’s where we’ll attack.”

He turned his back to the windows, looking at each of them in turn as he explained.

“Ophia, we’ll need you to ice the target areas as much as possible. The machinery is probably tough enough to break ice, but it will start to falter if you continually re-freeze it; wear and tear will grind down anything. Save your fire spells for the second phase. In addition to its weapons, the beetle tank will use its weight as a weapon, so we have to stay on the move and not let it run over any of us. Ophia will help by freezing its treads, denying it traction, and putting up ice barriers as necessary, but we can’t afford to get complacent about that.

“While she weakens its weak points, Morenna, we need you to take the fight to it and attack its joints and wheels. You’re best at precision strikes, and your enchanted steel sword is our only weapon that’s harder than Machine Men alloys, except maybe Uthien’s tungsten spheres. I…actually don’t know how those compare, nobody was using tungsten back then. Uthien, I’d say watch for openings and strike from a distance as you see them.”

“Got it,” Uthien agreed.

“You have a point,” added Morenna, drawing Blackwing and frowning at its blade, “it didn’t take even a scratch after hammering those clockwork soldiers. That surprised me.”

“Lightsmiths haven’t been sitting on their hands for four hundred years,” Aldan said with a smile. “We have advantages the Machine Men never faced. Morenna, this will be the opposite of your fight with the soldiers; there’s only one target and your mastery of movement will give you the advantage.”

“Sure,” she said, “get on top of a rampaging beast and do surgery at its weak points until it drops. I’ve done that a time or two; it being mechanical is a change, but the basic strategy should work.”

“Whoah, wait a second,” Rakkan protested. “When have you ever done anything like that?”

“No personal questions!”

“Right, right, sorry,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “I forgot the rule.”

“Once phase one is done, the rest is easy,” Aldan continued. “With its weapons and treads disabled, it can’t move or fight back. We have leisure to take it apart. Three life mages, my light beams, and Uthien’s tungsten balls will get through that armor eventually. Ophia, your fire-and-ice trick won’t make it explode because there’s nothing pressurized near the surface, but we know it will make that armor brittle enough to shatter. As long as we keep our cool, stay fast on our feet, and remember the plan, we can do this. Right, Uthien?” he added with a grin.

“That’s exactly how they handled it, brother,” Uthien agreed. “Disable the moving parts, dismantle the armor once it’s immobile, then rip out the exposed gears. Variations on that strategy are exactly how the ancient heroes brought them down.”

“I believe in us,” Aldan swore, “each of us individually, and especially all of us as a unit. This will prove to our father, to Zaurgan and anyone else who may be plotting against us, to the court at large and to the people, that we are a force that can do anything once we stand united. Are you with me?”

They let out a cheer—most of them. Even Morenna nodded and smiled, though.

“Then weapons up, and let’s get to it,” said Aldan, turning to the door and grasping the huge spoked wheel attached to its front.

He pushed on it…then pulled the other way. After a few seconds of tugging, her grunted with the effort, before finally letting go.

“Ahem. I, uh… It turns out I need the help of a life mage for this part.”

“I gotcha, bro,” Rakkan said, grinning and swaggering forward. Grasping the spokes, he began turning the wheel.

Heavy clunking noises sounded from within the immensely thick door, and then it began to slide away to the side, revealing a wide chamber beyond.

Piles of armor, miscellaneous clockworks, and unidentifiable pieces of machines were strewn around the edges of the space. In the center, though, sat a rounded hulk taller than any of them, perched upon treads like the City Crusher below, and with segmented arms bristling from its body.

At their entry, the beetle tank rose, extending upward from its treads slightly, and pivoted to face them, bringing its arms into position.

“Here we go,” Aldan said grimly. They raised weapons and began to fan out.

And then, suddenly emitting gouts of steam from its joints, the beetle tank began spinning in a circle.

While the seven of them stared, it spun around five times, then suddenly stopped, shivered in place for a moment, then burst into a full speed forward charge.

Right at the wall of windows which overlooked the factory below.

The flummoxed youths watched it crash through, then listened to it hit the ground far below with a deafening clatter, followed by an explosion.

“…huh,” said Espa. “Well. You did say some of the clockworks might…misbehave.”

“Does…that…count as a victory?” Ophia asked. “This doesn’t feel honorable.”

The noise which answered her was even louder than the crash, coming from the huge cavern beyond. It was not a crash, though. It sounded like…

All seven rushed to the window, where they looked down to find the four-story City Crusher rising to life. Its huge body turned, bringing multiple colossal limbs up to point directly at them.

“Okay,” Rakkan complained, “which one of you jokers just pissed my pants?”