TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  The Immortal 
  Warrior at the 
  Battle of Vorhaven
  by Kevin Killiany
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Battle of Vorhaven • Page 2
  Vorhaven, Kathil 
  Capellan March,  
  Federated Commonwealth 
  2 November 3062
  The three MechWarriors ran ahead of her, their silver neuro-
  helmets flashing in the sunlight. They were fast, but she was 
  determined. 
  They would not escape the Immortal Warrior.
  The three tried to trick her with a dodge toward the woods on the 
  right, then dashed left. In an instant they’d disappeared behind a 
  sharp corner of the cliff-sided mountain. Clutching her weapon 
  tightly, she slowed and flared wide around the turn, giving herself 
  room in case they doubled back and tried to dash past her in the 
  opposite direction.
  She needn’t have bothered. The three had used her caution to 
  gain distance and were now well ahead of her. She felt her feet 
  thudding against the grassy soil as she churned her legs to maxi-
  mum speed, closing the gap.
  Suddenly the three MechWarriors stopped, facing the cliff-sided 
  mountain. She saw them pull to attention and salute something  
  up on the cliff. She didn’t know why her targets had forgotten the 
  Immortal Warrior was closing on them and she didn’t  pause to 
  see what they were looking at. They were in her sights and they 
  were doomed.
  Shrieking her best Immortal Warrior yell, she was upon them. 
  She made a clean hit before they could respond. But, whirling and 
  twisting, the MechWarriors danced away from her, laughing as 
  they ran.
  “I got you, Billy!” she screamed. “You’re it!”
  “Missed me, missed me!” Billy called back, not even slowing as 
  he dodged around a knot of adults. The other two MechWarriors 
  were already halfway to the food tent, the open vests of their 
  Halloween costumes flapping about their arms.
  “How goes the battle, Jessie?”
  Jessie turned to face the mountain, and saw Grandpa on the porch. 
  “Billy cheated,” she announced.
  
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  “I agree,” Grandpa nodded judiciously. “You tagged him fair and 
  square.”
  There didn’t seem to be much to say to that. Billy and the cous-
  ins were now too far gone for her to ever catch them. Besides, her 
  new uncle was on the porch with Grandpa.
  Uncle David wasn’t really a new uncle, of course; she’d seen 
  pictures of him all her life. But he was a MechWarrior—a real one—
  and he’d been away since before she was born. She’d never really 
  met him before the Halloween party two nights ago and this was 
  the first chance she’d had to look at him closely.
  He looked like Grandpa, she decided, only a little shorter and his 
  hair was not grey. She wasn’t sure, but she bet he didn’t have a 
  brown circle with no hair on top of his head either. 
  “You going to eat that cinnamon roll,” Uncle David asked, “Or 
  just run around with it?”
  Jessie looked down at the roll, which a moment before had been 
  a weapon, though she’d never decided which one. It was smooshed 
  slightly, the melted sugar frosting sticking to her fingers.
  “Grandma made it,” she answered.
  “I was hoping she did,” Uncle David smiled. She liked his smile. 
  “I was also hoping you’d want to give it to me.”
  Jessie considered for a moment. 
  “I already had two,” she announced. “And Grandma’s got more.”
  “I’ll bet she does.”
  Making her decision, Jessie climbed onto the porch and surrendered 
  the roll to Uncle David. His hands were not as big as Grandpa’s.
  “Thank you, Immortal Warrior,” he intoned seriously.
  She giggled as she scurried into the house, propelled by a friendly 
  swat on the bottom.
  *  *  *
  Billy was hiding from her again. 
  
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  Jessie circled through Grandpa and Grandma’s house, keep-
  ing an eye out for signs of her brother. She avoided the rooms 
  at the end of the west wing. Aunt Grace and the twins had taken 
  those over. They’d moved in nearly a month ago, right after the  
  Halloween party where’d she met her new uncle, because Aunt 
  Grace said “things were getting bad in the city.”
  She didn’t mind the twins so much; they were too quiet to be 
  very interesting anyway. But Aunt Grace was always cross and 
  saying how serious the situation was and worrying about Uncle 
  David. Even her mother had stopped trying to cheer her up. 
  She set thoughts of her aunt aside and focused on finding Billy.
  He wasn’t in the fruit cellar and he wasn’t in the pantry. He wasn’t 
  under the library table and he wasn’t in the little attic room with 
  his comic vidbooks. She knew he knew better than to go into the 
  guest bedrooms or the formal living room. 
  He must be hiding outside.
  Jessie stood by the dining room window, considering. Outside 
  the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. No sign of the summer 
  storms that sometimes blew down whole forests. It was a perfect 
  day for being outside instead of in. 
  Her brother was a year and a half older than her, but he always 
  hid in the same places. If Billy was hiding outside, he was either 
  under the side porch, in the feed barn or up in the big lonely oak. 
  That last was a favorite of his, because he could climb the rope 
  holding the tire swing and she could not.
  “Hey,” her big sister Cassie called from the family room, “the 
  video just went out!”
  Jessie ignored her. Cassie watched too much video; all she ever 
  wanted to do was watch kissy stories, anyway.
  She looked toward the oak. Sure enough, the empty tire was 
  swinging without a breeze. Billy was up the tree.
  And a giant metal man walked over the hill.
  Jessie blinked.
  “BattleMechs!” yelled Aunt Grace from somewhere upstairs. 
  “Not the Militia!”
  Throughout the house, Jessie heard the grown ups shouting.
  
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  “We’re surrounded!”
  “Where are the children?”
  “Everybody, get to the cars!”
  “No!” Grandpa’s voice cut across the others. “They’ll cut us down 
  if we try to escape. Get into the storm shelter!”
  “The children! Find the children!”
  Whirling from the window, Jessie dodged around Cassie and 
  ran up the stairs as fast as she could. She heard Aunt Grace call 
  her name, but she didn’t break stride.
  Once in her room, it took her only a moment to find what she 
  needed and less than that to pull on her bandana and loop an ammo 
  belt across one shoulder. One minute after the metal giant came 
  over the hill, the Immortal Warrior dashed from the kitchen door.
  She could hear her mother’s voice through the open windows of 
  the house behind her, calling. She ran harder. No time to turn back 
  now, there was a mission to accomplish.
  The giant metal man, the BattleMech, was standing next to the 
  big oak. It did not move. It just stood, watching the house while 
  two other BattleMechs—one that looked just like it and another that 
  looked different—fired their lasers again and again at Grandpa’s 
  crops. The AgroMechs and tractors were all smoking masses of 
  twisted metal dotted about the burning fields.
  The BattleMech had to see her, but she hoped the Immortal 
  Warrior’s armor would frighten it as she ran across the open ground. 
  It did not fire. Or step on her when she ran in front of its toes. Her 
  heart was pounding as she reached the base of the tree.
  Looking up through the branches, she tried to find her brother. 
  She knew Billy was up there, but she couldn’t see him.
  “Billy?” she called, straining to catch sight of him. “Billy!”
  After a moment her brother’s head appeared over the edge of 
  the broad branch the tire swing was tied to. His eyes were red and 
  puffy and he looked like he had been crying.
  “What are you doing here?” he asked.
  “I’m here to rescue you,” she answered.
  
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  “Jessie, get out of here,” 
  he said. “This isn’t pre-
  tend.”
  Jessie glanced over at 
  the BattleMech, though 
  from under the canopy 
  of the ironwood all she 
  could see was its lower 
  legs. It was so big, and 
  the house so far away. For 
  a moment she couldn’t 
  breathe, it took a shud-
  dering gasp to pull air 
  into her lungs. She felt 
  her eyes sting as tears 
  threatened.
  Jessie 
  shook 
  herself. 
  The 
  Immortal 
  Warrior 
  would not be afraid.
  She looked back up at her brother, still watching her from the 
  branch above.
  “Get down here right this second, soldier,” Jessie ordered in her 
  best Immortal Warrior voice. “We’ve got a mission to complete.”
  “You’re crazy, Jessie,” Billy said. “Get out of here.”
  “Not without you.”
  Billy pulled his head back out of sight and for a moment Jessie 
  thought she was going to have to yell at him again. Then his leg 
  appeared over the side, swinging back and forth until his foot 
  snagged the rope holding the tire swing.
  In less than a minute he was standing beside her.
  “That’s a Quickdraw,” he said, pointing to the BattleMech near 
  them. “It’s fast. There’s another and a Lynx over there. That’s three. 
  Number four’s got to be somewhere.”
  Jessie was uninterested in what the BattleMechs were called or 
  where they were. The Immortal Warrior was on a rescue mission, 
  focused only on the objective.
  “We’ve got to get back to the storm cellar,” she said.
  
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  “We can’t,” Billy said. “They’ll see us.”
  “They saw me come out here,” Jessie said, proud her voice stayed 
  steady. She settled her Immortal Warrior helmet more firmly on 
  her head and started toward the house.
  “Wait.”
  Billy caught up with her and took her hand. Above them, the 
  Quickdraw stood immobile, but they both felt it had eyes watching 
  their every move.
  “Don’t run,” Billy said. “Maybe they won’t ...”
  At that moment the fourth BattleMech stalked around the corner 
  of the farm house. Lower and wider than the Quickdraw, it looked 
  to Jessie like a giant crab or bird. It swung toward them, fire flick-
  ering around little black tubes on its chest.
  “Run!” Billy yelled as the ground between them and the ‘Mech 
  began to churn with machinegun fire.
  Jessie spread her arms wide, shielding her big brother with her 
  Immortal Warrior armor, and ran for the house. She shrieked her 
  battle cry at the top of her lungs as flying clods of dirt spattered 
  against her chest and helmet.
  Ahead of them the cellar door by the kitchen stairs flew open. 
  Grandpa was there, running towards them as pieces of the ground 
  seemed to jump and shatter. She could see her mother behind 
  him, calling something she couldn’t hear. The world was full of a 
  sound like thunder and gravel and the house seemed so far away.
  Suddenly she was scooped from the ground, one of Grandpa’s 
  strong arms around her waist. She caught a glimpse of Billy, 
  tucked under his other arm as he ran back toward the house. They 
  were almost safe, but not yet. Something screamed through the 
  air over their heads. A wave of hot air, like Grandma opening her 
  oven, only hotter and meaner, swept over them.
  Jessie kept her arms spread wide, protecting Billy and Grandpa 
  as best she could.
  Grandpa swung her up and around. The world seemed to tilt cra-
  zily and she saw a corner of the house and roof fly to pieces. Then 
  her mother grabbed her, pulling her down into the cellar, hustling 
  her toward the shelter. Behind her she heard Grandpa slamming 
  the outer door and her brother’s voice.
  
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  Battle of Vorhaven • Page 8
  “I was trapped in the tree,” he said. “There was a Quickdraw right 
  next to me. Jessie came and got me.”
  Above them there was a great cracking and splintering. Jessie 
  heard windows breaking and dishes crashing to the floor. The 
  kitchen was going to be a mess.
  Mother, holding one arm, half carried her and half shoved her 
  down the shelter stairs. Billy came stumbling close behind, almost 
  falling on the steep wooden steps.
  “Everyone here?” Grandpa asked. 
  All around Jessie her cousins and aunts said “yes.” 
  The room was big, but everybody was crowded close to the stairs, 
  helping her and her mother and Billy get safely inside. Some held 
  flashlights so they could see.
  Grandpa slammed the thick metal door, throwing the lock and 
  turning the wheel that slid bolts into the walls on either side.
  Above them, against the door and ceiling, there was a bumping 
  and thumping, like something big was stomping its feet. That big 
  crab-bird, Jessie bet.
  “So,” said Grandpa, looking down at Jessie.
  Jessie looked up at him, looking like a giant in the dim light, and 
  pulled herself to attention.
  “Mission accomplished, sir,” she reported.
  
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