Chapter 30: The Battle on the Northern Island

Chapter 30:
The Battle on the Northern Island

 

THE COMBAT RADIO FREQUENCY filled with shouting voices.

The enemy’s unanticipated early arrival had thrown the battleground into chaos. Cargo trucks and freight containers had been abandoned where they were, rather than withdrawn from the area of active fighting as they should have been, but the troops themselves were largely in position and ready.

The Victor’s black figure rose above the horizon. It was still more than ten kilometers away, yet its heartbeat traveled the distance loud and clear. The gravitational waves were solitons, which didn’t attenuate like normal sound waves. Even though the sound wasn’t particularly intense at the source, the heartbeat traveled far.

It overpowered Heurtebise’s imitation.

THRUM!

Toji would never forget the first time that heart had begun beating.

An unknown, unstoppable enemy had been advancing upon Nerv HQ, and Shinji and Eva-01 were mortally wounded and dying in a hangar. The scientists and engineers were performing what amounted to an elaborate funeral, to allow the Eva and its pilot to pass on in peace, rather than in a runaway reaction that might very well have taken a good chunk of the world out with them. But then came the heartbeat, full of vigor, announcing their rebirth. For no tangible reason, everyone present was electrified—almost delirious with excitement—as they waved their arms and drummed along to the beat with whatever was handy.

Now that heart beat in the chest of their enemy. It was a teeth-grinding humiliation.

THRUM!

In the seat of the N2 Flanker, Toji shouted, “This is an outrage… An outrage!”

Toji had only come here as an early observer, and he didn’t know what to do now that the battle had begun. After a moment’s indecision, he lifted off from Misha’s Frying Pan. Directly in front of him, he saw the pure-white Heurtebise pick up the positron rifle and take aim.

Each heartbeat reverberated through his graviton floaters. He turned the plane and headed north. As if she’d been waiting for this moment, Hikari fired.

 

Heurtebise’s positron rifle glinted in the sun like a brass instrument. A brilliant flare blossomed from the muzzle, and moments later came the shock wave and the roar.

Visible on the horizon twelve kilometers away, the Victor blocked the positron shell with its invisible, A.T. Field-like power shield. The antiparticles struck the shield at near light speed and released a tremendous burst of energy that scattered across the shield’s surface, either dissipating or turning into steam. The soldiers in the basin saw a blinding flash, followed by a loud bang.

So it was with battles between giants. To the human senses, the colossi lagged behind the beat, and the result felt like slow motion. They weren’t actually slow. The human mind could easily understand that airplanes flew fast despite appearing slow from the ground, but because the giants had a humanoid shape, the subconscious couldn’t help but assign them a human scale, thus creating a gap between perception and reality. The giants seemed to move as if underwater. This disconnect between senses and perception could be jarring and nightmarish.

Even when Heurtebise’s second shot fizzled on the Torwächter’s shield, Lieutenant Colonel Clausewitz of the Euro Sixth Rapid Response Unit wasn’t about to become pessimistic. The plan hadn’t assumed any other result.

“That’s the way, Hikari!” he shouted. “Keep shooting. Lure that bastard into the trap! Stick to the plan.”

<<Yes, sir!>> Her voice crackled. Steam from the second shot of her positron rifle had caused significant interference in the radio spectrum. But she got the message and proceeded as planned.

The enemy’s early arrival had thrown the multinational forces into extreme confusion, but they’d recovered surprisingly fast and had deployed in an orderly manner.

The first wave of troops to arrive on Novaya Zemlya had been about to begin their second practice exercise. They were ready. The rear guard, who’d only just arrived, were still near the airport on the island’s southern side, and their reaction was far more chaotic.

Even though the graviton wave mirror trucks—the linchpin of their strategy—had malfunctioned and summoned the enemy a full week ahead of schedule, Clausewitz remarked, “All things considered, I think we can say we’re performing admirably.”

When the Lance of Longinus first began encircling the Earth, the weapon had cast a light upon an area from North Africa, across Europe, and into Russia, and had turned 1.9 million people into crumbling pillars of salt. But that was just the first taste of the apocalypse. The disasters that followed had claimed a far greater toll, even in Europe alone.

But now the Euro forces needed to make the bringers of destruction pay for what they’d done—no matter the cost.

This wasn’t merely a question of national pride. They needed to do something before humanity fully gave way to despair.

THRUM!

The black Torwächter’s stolen heart kept beating as the giant turned toward Heurtebise and began its advance. When Super Eva had last faced this enemy, the Torwächter had wielded an ornate, ringed staff, but this time, the giant had shown up empty-handed. The reason would soon be apparent.

The Torwächter reached behind its back, grabbed the edge of its obsidian-like rear plate, and snapped off a sliver. At the moment of separation, the end of the thin handle transformed into a large, jagged spindle-like weapon.

“Is that a hammer?” Clausewitz’s chief assistant asked. “An ice axe? Those angles are strange, but if that’s supposed to be some kind of blunt weapon, it won’t have much range.”

“Or maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye,” Clausewitz said. “Let’s make the Torwächter use that weapon so that we can get some data. UAV Team 3-Alpha-East, do you have any autonomous decoys ready to attack?”

Within moments, gunfire rang out from the ground. Several unmanned mobile howitzers began firing from the trenches. Once fired, their 150 mm caliber shells discarded their sabots to reveal a long, slender, pointed spear of depleted uranium. The projectiles struck the Torwächter’s shield and were instantly obliterated into smoke and debris.

The Torwächter responded with a wide swing of its arm and a flick of its wrist. The weapon’s handle bent, and the thirty-meter-long spindle thrust forward. Cutting through the air, it made an eerie, low-pitched sound that could be heard throughout the battlefield.

“It’s an atlatl!” Clausewitz shouted. The spindle launched forward, attached to the handle by a cable. “A spear-thrower! Except the thrower and the dart are connected by a sling!”

The giant swung its arm again.

Attached to the sling cable, the spindle’s parabolic trajectory transitioned into a large, sweeping circular motion. Another swing, and the projectile accelerated, around and around. Suddenly, a huge crash shook the air.

“It broke the sound barrier!” Clausewitz said. The jagged mass created clouds in its wake and then passed them on the next revolution.

The spindle struck the howitzers’ position, and its overwhelming kinetic force—and the enveloping shock wave—smashed through the armored vehicles and the ground beneath them. But the spindle didn’t stop. It simply bounced upward and continued circling at supersonic speed.

Other nearby howitzer emplacements began to fire, joined by guided rockets belching flame.

“Who else started firing? Stop them! If that giant turns course…” They wouldn’t be able to lure it into the trap.

But Clausewitz needn’t have worried. The black giant responded by lengthening the thread. In a single swoop, the spindle scattered the howitzers that had joined the attack like they were toys. Armored vehicles and chunks of dirt and rock flew upward and began falling in all directions.

The brutish weapon circled freely at any length within a 1.4-kilometer diameter.

The Torwächter walked forward. The whirling spindle made the air howl and the ground rumble. Both the giant and its weapon approached the center of the battlefield. The spindle’s shock wave carved arcs across the ground, and dust and debris rose like a curtain. The airborne Heurtebise could hardly see the Torwächter through the haze.

Impressive to be sure, but still only brute force.

“We shouldn’t take this thing lightly,” the assistant said.

No one offered disagreement. And yet, there was something absurd about having to fear such a primitive weapon, while the Torwächter’s shield—and regenerative abilities—shrugged off humanity’s weapons, which possessed far greater range and firepower.

Nerv Japan claimed to have destroyed the other Torwächter. They hadn’t offered any proof, but previously, the pair had always appeared together, while today only one had come. Does that mean the report was true? Clausewitz thought. If so, I’m thankful. Especially since those two plates together could have opened a gateway to another space—a source of enemy reinforcements, or our worst nightmare…another salt pillar massacre. Only having to face one plate is good news, but today it’s behaving differently. That damn giant tore off a piece and made a weapon out of it.

“Anything goes, huh?” Clausewitz said and then clicked his tongue. “What the hell is that plate, anyway?”

Whether attached to a Torwächter or Armaros, the plates never separated from the ground. They matched their bearer’s movements, emerging from the earth or submerging into it as needed.

Nerv Japan had come up with an oddball theory. The largest of the giants, Armaros, previously had two rear plates that connected to the ground. After the Japanese Eva destroyed a Torwächter, Armaros was seen with only one plate. And the Torwächters could use the Earth’s surface as a warp gate. Connect those two facts, and…

The assistant must have been thinking the same thing, because as he double-checked Heurtebise’s status windows, he said, “The Japanese claim the plates don’t have an end on the other side of the ground. If you followed Armaros’ plate, it would lead you through the tunnel network to the Torwächter’s back. They made sure to clarify that this is only conjecture, but the circumstantial evidence is there.”

“Our strategy stays the same,” Clausewitz said curtly, “but I’ll take that into account. For now, my biggest concern is that weapon it’s swinging around. It’s going to be even more trouble than it looks. With one swing, that spindle could take out half our mirrors. Remove the option from the formation list for the graviton wave mirror trucks to surround the target in concentric circles. And let’s see if we can sever that sling with some long-range fire. In three, two, one…”

The A.I. chimed. <<The Torwächter is speeding up and is now entering the mirror array.>>