“They’re pushing from the left! Two more vehicles with heavy machine guns!” warned Hind as his tri-barrels flickered into life, the metal heating to a bright white each time he fired, smoke rising from the super-heated weapons.

Mai pounded her thigh in frustration. The enemy had been continuing to harass them each and every step of the way. It was clear they knew that the knights were trying to get back to rebel controlled territory, and therefore they knew the routes that they had to take if they wanted to do so.

“Where the hells are they getting all these vehicles?” Jock cursed as sparks flew from his sigh, Mai bit her lip as his mecha staggered under the heavy fusillade.

“We’ll be sure to ask Biyu what the hells is going on once we get home,” she tried to keep her voice light, but she was worried about the number of vehicles and people that the gangers were throwing into the fight. A lot had been locals, but it seemed as though a lot of players had thrown their lot in with the gang.

Maybe they’re getting fed up with a minion calling the shots. It gave her a grim sort of satisfaction to know that she was considered to be such a threat. But it also made her even more worried for her friends.

“My guess is that they don’t have mecha blueprints so they’re spending all the bio-mass that they have to create these vehicles. Quantity over quality,” Ma’s voice was grim as she spoke. It was a cold sort of logic. Swamp the superior forces with numbers, wear them down in a war of attrition.

“I’m down to less than fifty millimetres boss,” Hind reported as his battle-scarred mecha slammed into cover behind a burning vehicle. “That’s one hundred paces, or a fuck-ton of ordinance.”

She appreciated his attempt to keep things light, but they were in a bind and everyone knew it. They were still at least five hundred paces from the nearest part of rebel-held territory, and they were still being jammed.

Smoke rose from across the city in the direction that they needed to take.

And there’s no smoke without fire, she thought. Her people were fighting to get to them, and the enemy were holding them off.

A trio of missiles raced down the street, blasting into, and through, the cover that Hind was using, the force of the explosion throwing his mecha through the air as if it was a rag doll. It slammed into the road, gouging a furrow half a pace deep as it slid along the ground, tumbling over and over.

“Hind!” screamed Jock, breaking cover as he sprinted for his friend as he lay helpless in the open. Tracer stitched its way along the road as an enemy gunner walked his fire onto Hind, and then hammered away at the helpless knight.

There was a flash, just a small one, a few sparks rising into the air.

“Stay back Jock!” screamed Hind. “My suit’s go …” whatever he was about to say was lost in a cloud of flame as his suit detonated, the blast knocking Jock’s mecha on to it back.

“No!” Jock’s voice was filled with anguish as he sat in the middle of the street, staring at the remains of his best friend’s mecha. Pushing himself to his feet, he screamed wordlessly and charged towards the enemy, every weapon on his mecha firing.

“Follow him dammit!” ordered Mai, cursing as every step ate into her bio-boost reservoir. Dakota, Ma, and Wu still had more bio-boost than the rest of the surviving knights, but that was a nominal amount as they’d had to expend so much bearing the brunt of the fighting.

Explosions racked the enemy position as Jock’s fire hit home, bodies tumbling away in all directions.

“What hells is that?” Dakota gasped as an eight-wheeled armoured vehicle came skidding around the corner, the wheels perpendicular to the direction its nose was actually pointing in, dust and gravel filling the air as it carved through the ground.

Mai tried to lay her sights onto it to see if her retinal monitor would be able to identify it. A large cannon jutted from the turret on top. Without warning, it flashed white hot and then her friend was screaming in agony.

“My arm! I’ve lost my arm!” Mai desperately spun on the spot to check on her fiend. Dakota’s mecha was wreathed in flames, practically half of the suit carved away by the vehicle’s beam.

“All knights, forget the infantry, kill that fucking vehicle!” she didn’t check to see if they obeyed her, sprinting over to her friend’s mecha as Dakota continued to fill the comm channel with her pain.

Reaching the damaged mecha, she picked it up, carrying it into cover behind a damaged building, laying it down as carefully as she could.

Popping her suit, she stepped out and hit the emergency release on Dakota’s canopy, stepping back as she was showered in sparks from the catastrophically damaged suit. As soon as it was open, she formed a knife and cut her friend from her straps.

Bile rose into her mouth as she looked at the human wreckage that had once been her friend. Dakota’s arm was gone from just below the shoulder, her whole left side an oozing mass of burnt skin. Blood wept out of a wound on her scalp.

“Dakota, I need you to activate your HEAL SERIOUS WOUNDS,” she patted her friend’s cheek gently. There was no response, her friend overwhelmed by the pain. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me.”

Ripping a medic kit out of her mecha-pilot coveralls, she activated her own HEAL SERIOUS WOUNDS as she set to work trying to save her friend’s life.

“Vehicle’s down boss. No enemy that we can see, we’re clear for the moment. We’re bingo bio-boost,” Jock’s voice was heavy with grief, his mecha’s shoulders slumped. Looking up at the rest of them, Mai could see how exhausted the rest of her knights were. Every suit was heavily pockmarked from the battle, the paint scraped and blackened.

“I’m the only one with a bit of bio-boost left,” she said. “Not much use if we’ve only got one suit.”

“Use it on Dakota,” Ma pointed at their friend. “You’ve got her stabilised, but that much bio-boost would let her HEAL herself.” There was a chorus of assent, and Mai bit back a choke at the sacrifice her people were making to save one of their own.

Popping the bottle free from its housing, she opened Dakota’s mouth and tipped a small measure in. Unlike most liquids, it didn’t really need to be swallowed, as it was composed of nanites. However, human nature being what it was, people drank it as though it was actually water.

Dakota stirred as the nanites were absorbed in her body. Mai continued to pour what was left of the bottle into her friend’s mouth, smiling as her passive HEAL skill slowly brought her back to consciousness.

“Oh fuck that hurts,” sobbed Dakota as she opened her eyes. The burns on her side were mostly gone, but her arm would require Dakota to fix it as it went beyond anything Mai could do for her using HEAL SERIOUS WOUNDS. “Shit, how the fuck am I supposed to clap now?”

Mai laughed, harder than the joke deserved, but it was good to see her friend trying to come to terms with her injury.

“Can you regrow it? Did I give you enough bio-boost?” she laid a hand on Dakota’s back, helping her as she tried to sit up.

“I can. But I’m not going,” Dakota’s lips went tight as she leaned over to whisper into Mai’s ear. “This is going to reflect the humanity I thought I had but lost.”

She let out a sob of pain as a cybernetic replacement grew out of the stump. It was painted in urban camouflage, and Mai could see at least two different weapons ports. Holding it up, Dakota flexed the fingers.

“Almost as good as new,” she smiled up at the rest of the knights.

“Bad arse, Dee, bad arse,” Jock popped open his canopy. “Looks like we’re walking from here.”

“Looks like you’re fucked,” a voice that Mai didn’t recognise called out. Head snapping round, she cursed as she saw they were surrounded by shimmering shapes. “I really hope you don’t surrender, but we’ve got orders to take you in.”

Sighing, teeth gritted, Mai raised her hands and placed them upon her head, signalling her people to do the same. At any other time she would have laughed at mecha putting their hands on their heads, but it was all she could do to not howl in rage at how she’d let her friends down.