Deadman - Book 3 Chapter 38: The Entombed

Through my binoculars I could see the facility. It was much like the factory I’d sieged with Graves, Leah, and Mercy. A massive raised square of old world production, funneling arms, armor, and ammunition straight to the siege at Medina. Unlike the one I’d attacked before that housed irradiated mercs and a rebellious Marshal, that in retrospect had some excellent points, this one had guards in power armor, drones, and turrets guarding it. It had nearly the same level of defenses as the fort that housed Masters and his cabinet. To attack it alone would be a death sentence, even for me. I was fairly certain that I couldn’t recuperate from my body being completely evaporated. Luckily, I wasn’t alone.

To my right stood thirteen power armored deadmen. I could feel the radiation leaking from their suits and suffusing the air around us. Each suit was based in deep black paint, sharply contrasting the shining silver of those worn by the Ren’s. Most of the deadmen had also added their own personal touch to their armor, just as they did with their domes in Pott’s. One of them had added a gaping maw full of sharp teeth to his helmet, another had painted intricate patterns like circuit boards in white across their armor, one had simply splashed red across it as if it was stained in blood, and their leader had painted plants and flowers all across it, reminding me of the tea gardens that occupied many of the cellars in Pott’s homes. These decorations weren’t exactly camouflage, but then, the point of the armor wasn’t for them to hide.

I activated my shield bracelet, drew my sword, and nodded at Daisy, the leader of the Entombed.

She returned the nod, raised her hydra staff high in one hand, and brought it down to point at the factory. At her gesture, the ground shook as we began running toward the factory, straight at the front door. This wasn’t about being subtle, this was about shock and awe.

The squad pointed their Hydras and started to unload the combined power of 117 lasbarrels on the factory’s entrance. Before the defenders could react, five turrets, two drones, and four guards were evaporated.

The defenses whirled around and started firing, unleashing an almost equivalent amount of counterfire onto us. My vision was a blur of lasfire, bullets, and explosions dispersing across my shield as well as the ones surrounding my allies as we charged.

Before we could completely close the distance, five power armored figures in jump packs landed in front of us, all wielding the heavy power-hammers and mauls favored by the Remnants.

I leapt at the nearest one, activating my sword’s vibrating edge, and drove it through his chest before he could firmly find his feet. The Entombed with faux blood splatter across his armor secured his Hydra to his back and jumped at the next nearest, his servos squealing as he launched himself forward. The arms and fists of his armor were heavily reinforced and crackling with the same energy as the Remnant’s hammers. He slammed his fists into his enemies chestpiece, breaking through the hammer’s handle in the process, and cracking it. Once he was on the floor the blooded armored Entombed smashed a hammerfist into his helmet and killed him.

Two of the Entombed stayed behind with us while the rest pushed forward to the bunker eliminating defenses. One of them dodged swiftly around hammer blows, before jamming their hydra under their enemy’s helmet and firing until he fell, headless, to the ground. The other, lifted her hydra, clicked some kind of switch on it, and a spear point arcing with electricity jutted from it. She beat back both of those that remained with a series of rapid strikes, forcing one to back into me, and another to fall into the hands of the one marked in blood. Once we’d finished those five off, we moved to join the rest of the Entombed at the bunker’s entrance.

I saw those ahead of us tearing gun emplacements out of the ground, jumping onto drones to fire their hydras point blank, and gunning down unarmored STAR soldiers that were still struggling to rally.

Before we could fully assemble to make our way into the facility, a dozen more power armored figures emerged from inside, laying down las-fire, and pushing toward us. As they exited the factory, it began to sink back into the ground, sealing us away from the entrance.

We met the Remnant forces head on, one of the Entombed moving ahead too fiercely and being pummeled with mauls and hammer until they couldn’t move anymore. The rest of us met them as one, and the difference between the power armor the Remnants used and what had been modified for use by the Entombed became abundantly clear.

The Entombed moved fast, looking graceful where the Remnants looked like walking statues by comparison. They also hit harder, catching the silver suited remnants weapons in their black gauntlets with ease and tearing through their armor with force far beyond what they could muster.

Julian had explained the changes he’d made to me, and the entombed themselves had frequently discussed them amongst each other as we walked. The original power suits had a well constrained power supply that gave out the same output at all times to ensure user safety, it also limited the users movements to a certain degree, not allowing a normal human to move to fast and end up pulling their limbs from their sockets, or pivoting with enough speed to break their own backs. The Entombed suits didn’t have those limitations. The power supply waxed and waned with usage, allowing them to draw more or less power based on what they were doing. That leaked a significant amount of radiation, but for us, that was no issue. They also allowed full range of motion at any speed, which didn’t impact deadmen due to their far greater toughness and strength when compared to the average human. In a head to head fight, it was basically the same difference as that between a regular human and a deadman, except the suits the Entombed wore could also block bullets.

There was a weakness of course, and that was in the manufacturing. The factory the Deadman had control of was only able to produce things based on plans that had been approved before the war. Each of the suits the Entombed wore had to be modified individually. Julian had only managed to create sixteen suits so far, most of which were with me in this fight.

One of the silver suits managed to bring a hammer blow down onto my arm as I was distracted watching my allies. I felt my bones crack and pop from their socket. I grunted, shifting my sword to my off-hand, and blocking a follow up blow aimed at my head. I kicked out and the silver suit was thrown back into one of his allies. While they were in a pile the Entombed with the spear drove her blade through both of them at once. Their bodies jerked for a moment then went still.

I gave her a nod, as my shoulder re-knit itself together, then I popped it back into place without a sound. I looked around, the other entombed had managed things well, all the defenses were crushed, defenders slain, and we’d only lost a single soldier.

Daisy, moved over to the Entombed that had died. The power armor had what I realized were song lyrics written in white all across its black surface. Daisy kneeled at the corpse for a few moments then pointed to another of their number, this one wearing pure black that was unadorned.

“Burke, carry her body back to Pott’s.”

He nodded, moved over to the body and lifted it with ease before running for our deadzone exit. In some circumstances I would have suggested waiting to transport the dead until the operation was complete, but considering the value of the Entombed’s suits, I understood Daisy’s priorities and said nothing.

Once Burke was out of sight Daisy turned to everyone else. “Alright, we don’t have much time. You remember the instructions Julian provided. We can’t enter the Factory, but we can make it significantly harder to re-open and operate. You know your roles, get to it.”

The Entombed moved in pairs to different spots above the Factory. We weren’t going to be able to break in. The factory bunkers were meant to survive a nuclear holocaust after all. Our goal instead was to make it difficult, perhaps impossible to re-surface. Julian had found a weakness in a number of the mechanisms related to raising and lowering the facility, and I watched as the Entombed targeted those weaknesses, using a combination of their hydras, explosives, or even raw strength to reach and damage them. They needed to move quickly, as it was unknown when the Remnants would be able to send reinforcements our way.

I heard the dull thud of an explosion below ground, followed by a kind of horrific metallic creaking sound. I looked over to see each of the pairs returning to Daisy and my position.

Daisy nodded at them. “Good job. There’s only the emergency exit to worry about.” I could practically hear the smile in her voice when she gave her next order. “Let’s seal that off too, do them the honor of making them Entombed as well.”