Mutants of Gaia

A Chronicle of Ever Present Chaos

Many believe Gaia to be purged of mutants.

They are wrong. Relentless optimists sit in warm cities along the equator safe from the creeping ice of the far north and south, sipping honeyed tea and eating real meat blissfully ignorant of the mutant scourge. Our people may have cast themselves across the heavens but for each new colony, each new star discovered, new horrors emerge and on Gaia we are responsible for them. Horrors from the Dark Ages when Gaia was known by another name and the ice had retreated to the very fringes of the world. That Age ended, as all ages do, and humanity retreated to the glass dome cities of the greening deserts, blasted off to Luna, Ares, Nova Ignis, and beyond, we remained as the shield of man. For decadence brought monsters, monsters of our own making, monsters from ourselves.

The promised science of gene manipulation was the undoing of that secular civilisation. Gene therapy, eugenics, human engineering, call it what you will. As with all technology initial success is followed by stagnation and then disaster. And we reap the disaster sown by our ancestors, may the Agnostos Theos show their ignorant souls mercy.

I, Lysander, Captain of the Snow Rangers, stand amidst the tundra of the far north admiring the ruins of a town once thought idyllic. Thick snows cover the land. Smoke plumes through a red clay tiled roof, sure sign of mutant infestation. While they walk like us, have two arms like us, fight like us, and some even manage speech like us, they are not us. Aberrations born of the past that cannot be suffered to live. We have hunted this band, led by the ferocious warlord Cronus, for nigh on two moons. A cannibal, of his own children no less, and a savage warrior. I have lost many men and a brother to this monster. Though these creatures do not reproduce like men but like cells and a mutant hive is a fearful place to be.

A pair of ST-BTs, Lightning and Thunder, roll through the forest behind me. Trees bow before them, the heavy artillery on Thunder's shell primed and ready. One quick blast and this will be over. I peer down the sight of my beamcannon and tag the two-storey building billowing with smoke. Thunder rumbles toward the cliff edge overlooking the town, the cannon lowering slowly. Thirty Snow Rangers creep behind the tanks, armour thick with snow and prayer beads heavy with frost. We lost our Priest, my brother Aenaes, in the last skirmish with Cronus's warband and so I must sing the prayers of battle. I have nursed my sorrow for Aeneas over long, frigid nights, and it is now a molten core that warms my spirit and drives me onward. We did not find his body and I know that means the worst but I will reclaim his skull from Cronus's belt even if it is my final act in this accursed plane of existence.

As I pray to the Agnostos Theos I hear a branch snapping in the dense woodland and the shriek of mutants echoes through the forest. Crude wooden javelins pierce the air. Such primitive weapons splash harmlessly in the snow and ricochet off my armour, but I know their tactics. Mutants play with our preconceptions daring us to charge in but that would be our destruction. These harrying tactics are from the lowest caste of mutant, the weak, the feeble, the desperate, used as fodder by the higher castes, and until all hives are reduced to cinders practically infinite in number. Cronus employs the same stratagem as before ensuring his annihilation. 'Form up,' I order via the comms in our helmets. Silently the men assemble into a crescent, our backs to Lightning. Beamcannons whir and we wait.

From atop the trees and across the snow they come. Flakes of snow fall from high up branches and the high-pitched whooping of the fodder class with it. The thin limbed, orange skinned monsters, emerge from everywhere. Mounds of snow burst open with feral creatures, horns sprouting from behind their ears, screeching and crying for blood. They are armed with swords and spears crafted out of the armour of dead Snow Rangers. Some carry ancient rifles and incendiaries.

'Captain, I have target lock,' Operator Isocrates says.

'Take the shot,' I aim my beamcannon at a mutant high up in an ancient fir tree, his archaic rifle is aimed at me. The beam burns the air and punches a hole between his eyes. The red-yellow corpse drops from the tree into a cloud of snow. A frenzy overcomes the mutants and soon hundreds are hurtling towards us on all fours, swinging swords, jabbing spears, and firing ballistics. Beamcannons whine singing the air, melting the snow, and igniting the trees.

Thunder's cannon roars. The ordnance arcs through the air, loaded with a super-low yield atomic warhead. The blast will level the town and, if fortune favours us, reduce Cronus to ash. The SnowTrack-BattleTank flinches back and slides in the snow. Smoke gushes from the mounted cannon. The fodder fall still and for a moment appear broken, but it's only a moment. They scream and wail, attacking with a renewed frenzy. The horde are thirty feet from us. 'Melee!' I order and unsheath the hulking black iron vibrosword from my back. The metal thrums and glows blue when I turn the ignition, 'For Gaia!' Heat radiates from the blade, thawing the snow. A mutant flings himself at me, his own crude sword flailing. I cleave him in two. The smoking halves fall pitiless in the melting snow.

Silence deafens us. Lightning protects us from the force of the atomic blast. Mostly. The sky flares white, a torrid wind blows, and a blizzard rolls in from behind us. Hundreds of mutants lie dead in the snow, hanging from branches, upon the hulls of our ST-BTs and now the living fodder flee. Broken. The Snow Rangers do not give chase for we know their tactics and await the next wave. The real warriors of the mutant hives. If any remain.

'Thermal sightings in the blizzard,' Operator Isocrates whispers in my ear. 'Ballistics?'

'How many? How tall?' I growl.

'Six to ten foot. I count thirty, wait. Sixty.'

Two-to-one, the Agnostos Theos blesses us with hard battles, 'Open fire. Ballistics to torment, beamcannons to kill. I want those mutants furious!' Their pincer attack failed yet we remain outnumbered.

Lightning and Thunder whir up their gun-turrets and spit molten lead into the artificial blizzard. Streams of bronze split the opaque air. Monosyllabic grunts and cries echo from beyond the ST-BTs, these are our foes. Cronus will be amongst them. 'Snow Rangers, on me!' I leap atop Lightning to slip over the other side and glide down the snow coated slope. My own thermal vision highlights six foes charging towards me, but the rest I can hear and feel. The ground rumbles with an unnatural tempo. A vibroaxe bursts from the flurry, a mutant with green-yellow skin, monstrous teeth in a jaw too small, and pinprick pink eyes, screams wordlessly. Instinct saves me as I parry the axe and the joints in my armour grind against the strain of the mutant, a tower of muscle and thick hide riddled with bullets.

Snow Rangers appear on my flanks hacking at the mutant vanguard. His arms are carved off at the shoulder and then his head, steaming from the heat of a vibrosword, lands in the snow. Then they are upon us. Carnage unfurls. Gun-turrets stream lead until they overheat, beamcannon fire follows, the fine white lasers scorching holes in arms, chests, and heads. I lop the gnarled legs out from a snouted-mutant, he grunts and almost oinks as his torso slaps the snow and his guts fall out. He swings his salvaged vibrosword about wildly until I pierce his skull with my own blade. Blood and brain drip from the black iron tip.

There is no time for celebration as three more leap at me, snarling and growling. Eight foot behemoths with the skulls of dead Snow Rangers on their belt and necklaces of teeth. Garbed in mountain lion hides and bear fur boots the mutants thrust, swing, and cleave their way towards me. The first has a wide round skull with a scalp of short horns and black eyes, his swings are wild and indiscriminate. The second is slender, for a mutant, and wields his falchion like a domed city duellist. Yet he snarls from behind four enormous tusks that prevent his mouth from closing, saliva dribbles down his chin in a constant pale green stream. The third is shorter, a mere seven foot, but is all rippling muscle with tree trunk thick arms that swing his war-hammer, made from three Dark Age auto-mobile wheels welded together. I parry the war-hammer and am pushed backwards in the snow. Short Horns' sword cleaves the air where I was while Duellist's falchion clips the peak of my helmet. The metal sings and I am thrown on my side by the impact. I roll away from Stout Hammer's wild swings, his war-hammer creating vortex's of snow, ice, and earth. In the haze of snow I stand and swing at the nearest shadow of torment. Fellow Rangers wage war around me but all I can see are blurry heat signatures. Isocrates was wrong, there is not sixty of the fiends more like one hundred.

My super-heated vibrosword catches the dense steel of Stout Hammer's weapon and carves the head of it in half. The seven foot mutant rages. Roaring and stomping while he thrashes his war-hammer left and right. He is a maddened bull and I am the matador. Short Horns and Duellist keep a wide berth, circling round to my rear, and twitching their eyes around to check for dangers. I let them surround me for I am focussed on killing Stout Hammer. I surge forth and feint a swipe at his leg. He leaps one way, and I slip my vibrosword up and through his chest. His war-hammer was mid-swing and the momentum carries it smashing into my head. A thunderous crack resounds in my helm followed by a ringing static, blood streams down my HUD. The world is sideways, my sword slick with boiling gore.

Dizzy and concussed I rise. Short Horns and Duellist snarl as they charge, one from the left, one from the right. The blizzard has begun to settle and I see my Rangers spread out thin across the plain. Lightning and Thunder spew ballistics from atop the creek, the thumping of their cannons providing a drum beat to battle. I jump backwards as Duellist slashes the air where I stood. Short Horns is quicker and darts towards me, his black eyes never once blinking or losing focus, he thrusts his stolen sword at me. I block it with the flat of my blade. I slide backwards in the snow, the knee and elbow joints of my heavy armour squealing from the pressure. Duellist appears with his falchion aimed for my shoulder. The joints lock and I engage the hydraulics to push Short Horns back in time to parry the falchion, sparks fly as I trail the edge of my vibrosword down the curve of the blade and slice through his wrists. The aberration clacks his tusks together and screeches toward the sky, blood gushes from his stumps causing havoc with my infrared vision.

Short Horns shudders and for a brief moment I wonder if he will flee. I charge at him. A giant looms behind him from the thinning mist, a rattle of bones accompanies his steps. Short Horns is impaled upon a stake carved from a birch tree. Cronus lifts him up and tosses stake and mutant like a javelin up the creek. Lightning ceases fire.

'That Tall Bastard split the cannon and clogged the guns!' Isocrates laments.

I spy the skull of my brother, the Priest Aeneas, on Cronus's belt. The cross of his order, a deep scar that is driven into the bone upon selection, etched into his forehead. Cronus peers down at me as if I am but an ant to him. Three horns sprout from his skull, one from his forehead and the other two from behind his ears. His rust coloured skin is mottled yellow and he wears no armour save for the belt of Snow Ranger skulls.

'You scream for mercy. All scream by end,' Cronus's voice is the rumbling of the earth, stone on stone. 'This one,' he strokes my brother's head, 'he scream late, but he scream.' A sickening grin splits his over-wide mouth, a string of meat is wrapped between two canines. He crouches and spreads his arms wider than he is tall. Over ten foot, closer to twelve. Hands with seven claw-like fingers molest the snowy air. 'Join brothers. Scream for Cronus.'

'Where's your Sword of Rippling Flame you hellspawn?' I brace for an attack.

'Stuck,' Cronus grunts and charges. He is a blur, a faint wisp of colour in the grey-white embrace of eternal winter. Seven deadly claws rake across my chest, gouging the inches thick steel. I hack at the arm of corded muscle and flesh sizzles as the super-heated vibrosword makes bacon of Cronus's flesh. He roars and swipes at me more. I test the density of my armour all the while it beeps and flashes warnings at me on the HUD. This is my crucible and my sword talks for me.

'Stuck where?' I ask.

'Dragon hide.'

Dragon? Can mutant's lie? I laugh as I hack through his wrist. My blade jams in the bones. Cronus jerks me off the ground, one hand hanging limp. The other ensnares my helm and he attempts to tear my armour apart. As the gyros and circuits scream I kick off his chest, my sword slips free, and land in the snow. Cronus leaps at me, snarling and salivating. I lift the black iron blade and Cronus impales himself upon it. The smell of burning flesh permeates my helm and I choke down bile.

'Captain!' the voice is familiar but my mind swims as the weight of Cronus's corpse crushes me into the snow.

I awake inside Lightning. Isocrates stands over me, his expression sour. 'Don't know how we're going to repair your armour,' he sucks on a cigar, most of his head covered by a coif.

I sit up and every sinew screams at me. I am a patchwork of stitches, bruises, and fractured bones. 'Cronus?'

'Dead.'

'His belt of skulls?'

'Right here,' Isocrates gestures to the back of the ST-BT. The skulls have been arranged by rank, if known, with plaques etched with names, if known. Aeneas's skull sits on the front row furthest right. I nod and lay back down upon the Tank Operators chair knowing my brother is now at peace. A prayer of thanks flows from my lips and the Agnostos Theos answers with the gift of restful slumber.

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