Wisdom in the Dark

Chapter 16 - Jak

Jak could see the attacking Kotik Sylphs on his sensors before the village air traffic control could hail him. It was the last thing Jak wanted with so many Pyc villagers still in the Holowycz Forest.

Jak grunted in frustration and slammed his fist against the metal arm of his crash couch before answering. “Pyc Village traffic control, this is Jak. We are making our attack run.”

Jak spat another curse as he hit the button on his console to switch communications channels. He made sure to keep his tone calm yet strong, as a leader was expected to do.

“Squadron this is Jak. Pyc Village is under attack. Prepare for attack run and report in.”

Jak’s wingmen reported in with practiced precision.

“Ctik standing by.”

“Jasny standing by.”

“Akos standing by.”

The overly formal military communications procedures they used was almost as comical as the fact that three Sylphs were called a squadron. But it was the way things had been done for many cycles before Jak or any of the Pyc villagers were born, tradition Jak was expected to uphold.

“Attack run on my mark,” Jak said. “Mark.”

With ease born of thousands of hours of training Jak pushed his Sylph into a dive and cut through the thin Callistan clouds. The Sylph’s altimeter scrolled down the meters as Jak dove, the wispy clouds giving away to green ground rushing up to meet him.

The Sylph’s brain fed Jak the combat data. Three enemy Sylphs vectored toward the village, while the lightly armed and armored militia attempted to defend it with missiles and heavy machine guns. Jak didn’t know how the Sylph’s brain could distinguish between friend and foe – lost knowledge Jak could never hope to understand – but it had never steered him wrong in either his Sylph in the Wodniki Village on Ganymede or his current Pyc Sylph.

As Jak continued to dive, he saw the enemy had left their rear exposed. They weren’t even supported by infantry in the surrounding area. Rookie mistake.

A mistake that would cost them.

Just as Jak reached a dangerous altitude the Sylph’s hard voice filled his ears. “Jak, you are about to crash.”

Immediately Jak reached to his right and pushed a control lever forward. Though little changed in the tight, spherical cockpit in which Jak sat, he could hear and feel the changes to his Sylph all around him. Outside, two of the Sylph’s rear boosters swung down to become legs while arms extended from under the aircraft’s wings to brandish the Sylph’s rapid-firing autocannons. The Sylph’s fuselage reoriented itself upward, and the machine took on a humanoid shape without a head. While all of this happened Jak remained almost unmoved in the spherical, gyroscope-balanced cockpit within.

Jak’s Sylph continued to descend downward toward the Kotik Sylphs. The Kotik Sylphs remained in fighter-mode, most likely preparing to strafe Pyc Village. Jak was surprised when none of the Kotik pilots veered off to avoid Jak’s death-from-above attack. Apparently, their intended target was more important than tactical sense.

Jaks’ Sylph meteored directly at the lead Kotik Sylph, and Jak landed directly on top of it. He pointed his Sylph’s autocannons down at the Kotik Sylph and pulled the trigger, unleashing hundreds of heavy depleted uranium rounds. The rounds chewed through the Kotik Sylph’s armor, and only then did the Kotik pilot within react.

The Kotik Sylph transformed exactly like Jak’s Sylph, unfolding into a humanoid robot roughly two-stories tall. As the Kotik Sylph transformed Jak was knocked off his target and was suddenly put on the defense as the Kotik pilot swung his Sylph around and fired almost point-blank at Jak’s Sylph. Jak could feel as much as hear the enemy autocannon rounds rip into his Sylph’s armor. His armor readout on the display in front of him turned from green to yellow, then orange as more damage was done. The Sylph’s powerful voice warned Jak of the damage and impending breach into the craft’s internal structure.

With a hard turn and pull of the control stick Jak juked his Sylph up, left and back to get out of the direct path of the Kotik Sylph’s weapons fire and to gain distance. As Jak backed off his Sylph he could see the other three Kotik Sylphs had changed into their robot-modes, each identical to the other.

Jak juked hard right and sprayed the enemy with forty-millimeter autocannon fire. While half of the rounds missed and impacted the terrain surrounding Pyc Village, the other half impacted on the torsos of the two Sylphs to his left. At the same time rockets began to shoot by the enemy Sylphs – the militia’s anti-air weapons. Ctik, above and right of Jak, added his own fire to the fray. The rounds from Ctik’s Sylph hammered home into the first Sylph Jak had hit, center left in the ever widening Kotik formation.

The now heavily damaged Kotik Sylph began to fall. Either the Kotik Sylph’s control systems were damaged, the pilot was injured, or both. Jak watched the enemy Sylph’s trajectory, his anxiety growing.

“That Sylph is falling towards Pyc Village,” Jak called over the comm.

“I got him,” came Jasny’s reply.

Jak caught a glimpse of Jasny’s Sylph vectoring down towards the rapidly descending Kotik Sylph before he was forced to dodge once more, the other Kotik Sylph he had damaged before to his nine o’ clock went on the offensive, and Jak was hard pressed to avoid the enemy’s shots. One lucky shot hit the leg of Jak’s Sylph and he fought his machine to not spin out of control.

“Damage, left leg,” came the Sylph’s ephemeral voice in the back of Jak’s mind rather than his ears through the connection in Jak’s helmet. At the same time the armor diagram on Jak’s heads up display changed from yellow to orange on the Sylph’s leg. I can’t take too much more of that, Jak told himself.

A nanosecond later, once he was sure his weapons wouldn’t hit Pyv Village, Jak unleashed a barrage of missiles. The sides of his Sylph’s chest swung open and two dozen missiles streaked out towards the damaged Kotik Sylph. Jak wasn’t sure if Kotik Sylph pilot was surprised Jak had used the invaluable, irreplaceable missiles, or if the Kotik Sylph’s systems had been damaged, but the enemy pilot was half a second too slow in reacting to Jak’s missiles. As the Kotik pilot attempted to transform his Sylph back into fighter-mode while boosting away all twelve missiles hit square in its torso. The missiles detonated in quick succession, sending shrapnel and debris in all directions. Jak added a hail of autocannon rounds to the onslaught before the Kotik Sylph pilot could react.

The enemy Sylph hung in the air for a moment before it began to spiral down towards the ground. Jak was pleased to see its path took it away from Pyc Village.

“I can’t break from him.” It was Jasny.

The three-sixty camera feed inside the Sylph’s spherical cockpit allowed Jak to see where Jasny and the heavily damaged Kotik Sylph still plummeted toward the Pyc Village. Jasny and the Kotik pilot had their Sylphs locked in physical combat. The arms and legs of each machine lashed out like two human fighters in mid-air. Jasny continued to try to push the enemy Sylph away from the village with his boosters, only to have the Kotik pilot counter the move with his own.

“I need help!” Jasny called again. “I can’t-“

Suddenly, a hail of rounds found their mark on top of Jasny’s Sylph. The rounds continued to smash into Jasny’s armor until the broke through and blasted into the cockpit. Jasny didn’t even have time to scream. His Sylph stopped moving, and the tracker on Jak’s HUD went dark as the computer is Jasny’s Sylph was obliterated.

“No!” Ctik cried.

Without Jasny to fire his Sylph’s boosters to keep them airborne, both Jasny’s Sylph and the Kotik Sylph it had been locked in mortal combat with streaked toward the Pyc Village dome. The intertwined war machines smashed through the Pyc Village dome’s reinforced composite glass before slamming into residential and industrial buildings – right near the tarmac’s traffic control where Myra and Mytla were. Jak could do nothing but watch as both Sylphs’ hydrogen reactors went critical, the shielding within most likely damaged from the fighting.

Jak tried to warn the Pyc defenders on the ground to get out, but the explosion erupted through the village before Jak could say a single word. A small, new sun was temporarily born. Part of the Pyc Village dome vanished. When the miniature sun finally disappeared there was a black, cratered scar inside the village.

Yells and screams suddenly filled the airway of Jak’s communications system as Ctik and Akos cried in dismay at the loss of their friend and the damage to the village, and Pyc militia were thrown into chaos.

“What the hell was that?”

“Our homes!”

“Where are the squads in the northwest sector of the dome?”

“They’re gone! They’re all gone!”

“Oh, Wotuos, my children? Are my children alive?”

Dozens more voices filled the comm and Jak was overwhelmed by their words and worries.

“Jak, what are we going to do?” Ctik asked, fear and anger filled his voice.

“There’s still another Kotik Sylph, we have to kill it,” Akos growled.

“Jak, this is Durko,” the Pyc militia commander said. “You must knock out the Kotik Sylphs. Our anti-air assets were wiped out in that explosion.”

Jak shook his head. There was too much going on. Too much death. He was supposed to protect his new home and he had failed. He could feel his heartrate spike as his breathing increased. Jak’s mind went blank as he tried desperately to figure out his next move. Myra – if she was alive - would finally see him for the failure he was. Everyone in Pyc Village would see it. What was he doing there? Why had he agreed to his father’s wish of this arranged marriage?

Another desperate call came over the comm. “Enemy infantry!”

From Jak’s vantage point he could see a swarm of people crest a series of hills northwest of the damaged and destroyed part of the Pyv Village dome. Though armed with rifles and body armor they didn’t move like a well-trained, disciplined army. The Kotik infantry bum-rushed the village, their weapons fire heavy but inaccurate.

Jak was brought back to his present situation as autocannon rounds rained down around him. Above him Jak could see another of the Kotik Sylphs aiming directly at him.

Rage filled Jak. Why had they attacked in the first place? Myra had said something about the Lost Factory. Were the Kotik so desperate as to attack their neighbors based on fairy tales? Did dozens have to die and lose their homes due to some silly myth?

A roar escaped unbidden from Jak’s lips as he rocketed his Sylph directly at the Kotik Sylph above him. As Jak ascended toward the enemy he jammed his finger on the control stick’s trigger and poured the depleted uranium autocannon rounds directly into the Kotik Sylph. The Kotik pilot attempted to fight back, only to have Akos attack him from behind. The Kotik Sylph seemed to move and twist in agony like a human before it plummeted to the ground, finally impacting into the grass-covered hills south of Pyc Village.

The fourth and final Sylph seemed to read the writing on the wall, and immediately transformed into its fighter mode before jetting away from Pyc Village back to where it had come from. However, this left the still-charging Kotik infantry without support. Jak saw the realization wash over the Kotik men and women trading fire with what was left of the Pyc militia. The Kotik militia began to break, their retreat lacking as much tactical discipline as their attack.

Jak landed his Sylph right in front of northwest side of the Pyc Village dome, smoke still billowing from the whole created by Jasny’s and the Kotik Sylphs, before giving the order. “Gun them down.”

The retreating Kotik infantry didn’t stand a chance.