“Callista, the scouts just reported in. It looks like the main force is still sitting this out. A handful of long range configured MACs are surrounding the city. Their artillery has more than enough ammo to reduce us to rubble and, by the looks of the A and E blocks, they’re more than willing to do so.” Lionel’s voice came through the radio just as Callista closed the distance and crushed an enemy MAC’s cockpit with a well-placed kick.

            “I was just over E block…” normally Callista wouldn’t respond, but she put aside her ‘legendary recording’ for this fight. Everyone made such a big deal out of it, and she was a bit embarrassed to admit it was just a children’s song that kept her calm. But Callista had no intention on trying to remain calm for this battle. She had no allies to worry about and no enemies to spare. 

            “Yes, now it’s an inferno and the buildings are collapsing or worse. You just need to focus on what you can do. We all knew we’d be taking a beating. We aren’t getting out of this unscathed even in the best-case scenario.”

            Callista was fighting fine. Better than fine actually. She may not have been able to use Guinevere’s new design, but the team was able to modify her MAC a bit on the side.

            Still, even with the benefit of the extra modifications, she was fighting far above what she was capable of. She knew this, but she couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it was the shame of failing that test for the new MAC. Maybe it was some love for the city… or the people. Or maybe it really was just letting her rage run wild. She didn’t know. All she knew was that even the artillery shells that would normally be difficult to dodge seemed to move just as sluggishly as the missiles and UAVs. She didn’t waste a single second in the air; each move flowed perfectly into the next. Even the witnesses wouldn’t believe her kill count for this battle.

            She tried to stop thinking. Any change in any aspect of herself might bring this dream to an end. Any mental lapse might take away her little miracle, “The artillery. Where?”

            “Ever a woman of few words. I could give you the coordinates I was given, but the artillery is mobile, and our report is at least ten minutes old. And, in case it wasn’t clear, the artillery is very close to the main enemy force. You can’t do anything about that right now.”

            A signal flashed on her screen. A spotter logged the position of an enemy. It was right behind a now collapsing skyscraper. Callista used the new beam cannon lodged in her machine’s leg to burrow a hole through the crumbling structure. She emerged on the other side right under the enemy MAC. A short five-round burst from her main rifle blew molten chunks of metallic limbs violently away from the rest of the body.

            The enemy sunk toward the Earth like a rock, making a deep crater where it landed and blowing out the nearby fires.

            Callista had no idea what to do, so she just kept killing. It was what she was good at after all, but it wouldn’t save anyone here. No matter how many she killed, the enemy had all the advantages.

            The only card in Atlantis’ deck that could even hope to be of use was Guinevere’s pet project. But apparently both Guinevere and Jace were in a bad state of mind at the moment. Jace she understood. She failed to help him; might have made things worse. But Guinevere? Nothing gets to her. Especially when she’s working on a new toy.

            Callista bit her tongue until it bled. She had no time for this. No time for these worthless thoughts. She had her objective: buy time.

            But no matter what Callista did, she couldn’t ignore the city beneath her. Every enemy bombardment made another block disappear. Worse than that, for Callista’s psyche at least, was that every MAC she destroyed would cause more destruction on the way down. In the best case, the machine would just be inoperable and fall like the massive eighty tons of metal that it was. In the worst case, the generator or the weapon systems would end up with a critical failure and vaporize a handful of surrounding buildings.

            Callista always fought in places far away. Her country, the one before this one, waged all their wars like that. They sent their troops to the enemy’s homeland. When Callista started doing defense work for Atlantis she was always just swatting missiles out of the sky. The few MACs she actually fought were intercepted outside the city limits.

            All of this is to say that every second that passed showed the city eroded away just a little bit more by flames and explosions. And it was a new type of pain for Callista to witness such destruction.

            No matter what she did, no matter how many she killed, the city was dying.

            She slipped between two warehouses right before a well-aimed artillery barrage nearly flattened her and her machine. She made her way inside one of the buildings to restock on ammo. Based on the blips on her radar, this was one of the few resupply stations that was still standing.

            The soldiers inside, normally lazy good-for-nothings drunk on a city-guard’s usual peace, moved quickly and precisely to reload and recharge her weapons. She opened the hatch as the hinged catwalk swung out at chest level. Another soldier was there with rations in hand. It was clear he wanted to ask questions. Probably about his family, his house, his favorite restaurant. All of which were likely gone. But surprisingly the man only said, “Thank you.”

            He started crying, though he tried to hide it. Callista was glad he didn’t ask the questions she thought he was going to. She wouldn’t have lied, and that would’ve surely crushed him.

            Seeing the man dash away tears while saying ‘thank you’ did fill her in a way that the rations couldn’t. It filled her in a way nothing ever had before. Callista waited until her cockpit locked shut before she smiled.

            She exited the warehouse and dove straight back into the fight. Turning at the next block to use her high-powered beam cannon to melt two MACs in half.

            She was still smiling.

~~~