The long window on the top floor of the hanger let the eerie green light of the tortured landscape drift in, filtering through the mountains of mechanical clutter that have piled up on every available wall. When they arrived on the planet, June recalls that the sunlight was golden and the skies a clear blue. This edge of the world was lush with pine-like forests broken up by river valleys and prairie lowlands. Now the black clouds twist themselves up into thunderheads. Viscous rain hisses as it scorches the sallow rockscape below it. That’s what you get after a year of sustained, unmoving warfare. Either side had tried it all, as they always do; vaporising acid bombs, irradiated artillery bombardments, magic-saturated storm generators, anti-magic pulse emitters, and particle lance cannons. Lots of particle lance cannons. Commander Viskar was fond of them.
The tall Commander was stood on the deck of the hanger, hands on his hips, before a giant box many times his height. His technicians waited with clasped hands and anxious looks for his next impulse; a long and strange philosophical musing if they were lucky, an insane, suicidal order if they weren’t. It was neither.
‘Well open it up then.’
June could hear the sighs of relief from the technicians as she approached.
‘What is it?’
Commander Viskar turned, a frankly manic grin on his face. ‘Oh June! Perfect timing. I’ve ordered something.’
June looked up at the box. It was taller than the first rung of walkways used to service the top of their dropships. ‘I can see that.’
‘This is it, June. This is what we need to end this war. The tactical edge that’s eluded me for so long. A real engine of destruction, this one. A harbinger of annihilation. Forged by the Chrome Monks of Maan, combat AI coded with the gene-memory of the fallen 66th Terror Corps, and quashed in the cosmic psychic storm around Arka, I present to you: the Soul Reaper!’
The technicians, who had been waiting for him to finish, all pulled on ropes at the corners of the box. Falling apart, the box revealed a bipedal mech of huge proportions.
June frowned. ‘Huh.’
‘Got it on sale as well,’ beamed Viskar. Then his expression shifted to confusion. He looked at the leaflet he’d been carrying around for months which displayed a mech on the front. He looked up at the mech in his hanger. Then back at the leaflet. Then back to the mech. They were not the same.
‘Huh,’ he grunted.
The mech before them had a huge bowl resting on top of it, above the main chassis and the cockpit. In its left arm was a many-bladed appendage, as if someone had decided to design a Swiss Army Cleaver. In its right arm it carried a ladle. A huge ladle.
One of the technicians on the walkway above peeled away a protective sticker on its upper chassis. In stencilled white lettering, it read: Soup Reaper.
Viskar’s face paled into anger. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’
June sucked in her cheeks to stop herself laughing.
‘Who the fuck ordered this?’ Viskar roared.
For a moment no one answered.
‘Oh, it was me,’ said Viskar said, rubbing his temple. ‘Curse my dyslexia. Ah, well, that’s a big part of our budget for the month gone. Wasted.’
He looked miserable.
‘Perhaps not,’ said June, stepping up to the Soup Reaper. ‘Mech, state your purpose,’ she called up at the great machine.
A mechanical voice, a few octaves deeper than thunder, responded: ‘To make soup.’
‘You see?’ cried Viskar, slapping his forehead. ‘Useless!’
‘Now hold on,’ said June, turning back to the Soup Reaper. ‘Mech, what do you make your soup out of?’
Red lights flashed on in the cockpit like bright, predatory eyes. ‘My enemies.’
A flicker of a smile appeared on Viskar’s face, as the many blades of the Soup Reaper began to slice back and forth.
The technicians took a step back. June shook her head.
Paddy Dobson
13th August 2021