Isaiah Jones versus the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

chapter 42 The Woman from Okinawa

by Joey Da’rrell Cloudy

 

 

‘Summoning the Golum of Ghana’  

“Sankofa teaches us that we must go back to our roots to move forward. That is, we should reach back and gather the best of what our past has to teach us so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward.”  

January 1st, 2121,  

Marcus Garvey Port, capitol of the United African Alliance  

formerly Accra Bay, Capitol of Ghana  

“Motherland.” The old man said, squinting his emerald eye a bit, reading the title aloud. His mellifluous baritone echoed through the expanse of the empty stateroom of the now permanently anchored 100-year-old ‘Hemisphere’, once the largest sailing catamaran yacht in the world when she was first built in 2011, the 145 feet (44 m) long sailing catamaran now sat perpetually anchored, the crowning jewel floating in a VIP reserved slip in the center of the harbor directly in front of the Port Garvey Museum of African Arts and Letters.

Outside, he watched a pair of super cargo ships as they passed each other, their decks piled several stories high with freight. The multicolored steel cargo containers rose like impossible stacks of children’s blocks piled upon the deck as they silently glided beneath the great Franz Fanon floating suspension bridge that spanned the entrance to the Lake Fanon River just before the river entered the hollow ziggurat, while scores of crocodiles slept in shadow on the gentle slope of its concrete banks.

The mega-cityscape glistened as its monolithic structure straddled the expanse of the river; its great grey 1000 meter concrete superstructures erected nearly a century ago by primitive first-gen robots now stood painted in garish psychedelic colors of the equator. Their towering poured cement walls 100 stories high adorned with dancing lights of graffitied advertisements shimmering wet in a steady warm rain. The unpainted sections of poured wall stood like the fossilized ribs of an anorexic pachyderm in strobing shadows across the bay.

Across the river along the docks of old Free Town settlement, a distorted black funhouse mirrored reflection of the Unreal City from here he could see the glistening wet streets reflecting the neon lights of the bars, discotheques, and whorehouses. A squad of bored street cops, decked out in the newest ultra-light weight seven foot tall, three-quarter ton, titanium urban assault Titan 21 model armored suits, busied themselves chatting up the local street walkers standing in the cover of doorways and store awnings.

Older gas-powered fiberglass models, painted yellow with black and white checkered roof ‘Tro-Tro’ drones, were still in use over there. They sputtered by backfiring and belching clouds of blue-grey smoke. There were middle-aged transports as well as old first-gen hydrogen fuel cell, carbon fiber clunkers. A cornucopia of human misery was always on display along the docks’ narrow residential roads; legions of thieving junkies, homeless beggars, and orphaned gangs of bush babies lined the rain-slickened streets.

A small group of a dozen or so Chinese working girls all huddled together next to a congregation of cloistered nuns in ebon habits trimmed in bright white, waiting for the next auto-hoover bus underneath the shelter of the hinged solar panels that functioned as awnings for the myriad of the shore’s shop owners. The great Port Garvey docks; constructed nearly a century ago when the AI MOTHER awakened to build the Unreal City, city of colossal ziggurats, harbors full of boats and ships of every size and shape and color. A floating ghetto around a seaside ghetto just across the river from the haute couture culture of the museum’s elite patrons.

He headed across the room to the bookshelf on the portside bulkhead as a young girl in a white muslin linen dress and sandals enters, her hair neatly parted down the middle, secured with ivory ribbons into perfect little Afro Puffs. She has his large emerald eyes but otherwise looks exactly like her great-great-grandmother at that age. He reaches out and gently touches the cover of a deeply tanned leather-bound novel, the first he had ever written, quite by accident of course. That is why she was here this morning; the little griot wanted to hear the stories again. The Devils bowl, he did hundreds of sketches and watercolors of anything that caught his eye. hair in cornrows and dressing in the same white muslin linin ensemble he favored for formal affairs dinner parties aboard his sloop Exodus.

His long white cornrows were still black in those days, before the 3rd great war or the two civil wars that followed nearly destroying the newly formed African Alliances union, he looked down at the titanium cybernetic prosthetic grafted to his right leg just below the knee. Ocie looked down at his leg also, always fascinated by the robotic appendages’ pistons, gears, and wiring. She would get a tool kit and practice repairing it when he wasn’t feeling well.

There were newer carbon fiber ones covered with synthetic skin that matched your own, but she liked his antique first-generation cybernetic leg. Ocie reached out and touched the metal leg, always fascinated by its structure, the thick black cables that led up to his thigh disappearing beneath the skin where the sensors connected directly to the nerves in his body. “Does it still hurt Tata?” Ocie asked, looking up at him, her green eyes brimming with empathy. “No little Griot, not anymore.” He replied as an involuntary smile crept across his battle scared visage. Then he began the story.  

Prologue: ‘Proof of Concept’  

May 5th, 2030 Washington DC, United States.  

The Hiltons’ Promenade Room is filled with subtly Botoxed, spray tanned, bejeweled old money, capped toothed, power couples in designer evening attire, slowly dying of ennui and constipation sitting slopping shoulder to shoulder with the poor’s rubbing knobby elbows with the military’s big wig brass, the pentagons barred and stared blue collared hey big spenders. Tray Knots had worked as a defense contractor for the last 2 decades, he needed the US to get on board with his new war dog program to finance it before going into production.

He was growing weary of the pentagon and Washington dragging their feet, pleading poverty, while every other corporation in the nations reporting record profits to their share holders. His share holders at Knots Robotics Industries wanted a piece of the action and tonight he was going to give it to them. After they watched tonight’s video he was certain he would finally have the new defense contract secured, in order to continue the project at tax payer rather than his share holders expense, increasing the future value of their shares and his corporation.

Tray Knots was an Oxford degreed engineer now in his mid 50s w greying blonde hair tall lean with Hollywood leading man good looks that had helped make him a top earning salesman when he started Knots Robotic Industries. He wasn’t kidding himself with all of the youngster fresh out of college kids out there; if he didn’t land this contract tonight the board of directors would see to it that he would be retiring early. The lights dimmed a flat screen the size of the wall behind the stage lit up  

with the Knots Robotics Industries logo levitating over a spectral fluttering American flag stood the companies red white and blue southern cross logo. Fade in and they see a pair of grinning camouflage wearing army tech standing next to the original mechanical mule a 4 legged jeep designed for caring up to 500 lbs. in its twin hardened saddle bags across the most rugged terrain nick named big dog. Next they see the modified for combat versions with the new ai targeting system guiding the 3 mini guns on its new harness, its saddle bags filled w 5000 lds of ammunition.

The three gun headed beast had a full array of infrared sensors as well as night vision radar sonar ultrasound and communications jamming systems it could remote open simple things like garage doors cars tv home doors business alarms completely isolating any area they were released to roam. Flipper tech hacking local Wi-Fi signals. Reload itself picking airdrops and recharge with a solar kite. after all of the shooting at dog target and ballistic Jell-O lab coat wearing technicians adjusting its gun harness a contraption built much like a steady cam rig supported the weapon as it three short barrel mini gun whirred to life spinning firing 300 60 caliber round bullets per minute into ceramic target disc mid flight. When it was over they all watched in horror and macabre fascination as the footage switched to night vision outside of a village somewhere in the upstart new African independent nations borders.

The war-dogs walk on rubber non-slip covered metal claws, they lower their back packs, detached their guns to the ground silently. now the metal arms that held guns fold out hidden 18 inch steel blades extended from their prehensile arms. the pack of a dozen robotic dogs silently trot into the farming town of one-thousand four hundred and thirteen people and kill them all in their sleep with out firing a single shot. They were metal and plastic quadrupedal ninjas, with machine gun attachments optional. The lights came up as Tray Knots straightens his ties Windsor knot, nods and smiles while the ghouls all applauded. He had given them what they wanted; proof of concept.  

August 18, 2034 Franz Fanon River, 42 kilometers west of Port Garvey, Ghana,  

capitol of the African United Alliance/Year 2 of the 3rd Great War.:  

Chapter 42:  

Summoning the Golum of Ghana  

The Reluctant Warlord / Betzalel:  

Birth and Baptism;  

‘Second Coming’  

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”  

—W. B. Yeats  

War Pigs  

“Generals gathered in their masses  

Just like witches at black masses  

Evil minds that plot destruction  

Sorcerer of death’s construction”  

—Black Sabbath  

Betzalel rose from the ashes of Exodus at the height of the 3rd Great War, a conflict that began 10 years after Isaiah’s first voyage to Africa. The Western Alliances unpiloted hunter killers the Cerberus were the most fiendish weapon ever unleashed on the battlefields of an unsuspecting Africa, worse than biological weapons or chemical weapons or land mines or any other weapon that killed indiscriminately as a sniper in ‘occupied territory’:  robotic warriors like their flying drones, the weapon of choice for cowards. The western powers would be the first to field troops in fully powered tactical combat armored suits.  

Their new Kevlar covered armored suits were more than just bulletproof; they were powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. Electric, but the first-generations  armor didn’t have a very long battery life when powered up and used at maximum output.  

But it gave the operator ten times increased strength with a top running speed of 74 kilometers/hour for about 20 minutes before the battery died. It still offered great protection without a charge, but minus the increase in strength or speed. It proved to be enough, and when the western invaders attacked, they slaughtered our defenders, wading through the African Defense Forces ground troops like a scythe through dry grass.

The AI MOTHER, created a decade ago by Isaiah, collaborated with a team working clandestinely  with AUA allies in Japan hidden away in an old pipe fitting and machine and tool shop that specialized in titanium manufacturing techniques. Their owner the cybernetics engineer Eiichi Tarō had made one of only three titanium hull sailboats other than MYC (Monarch Yachts Corporation: Monarch Ti-44 solent rigged sloop) the SS Exodus in the world.

The seven worked together tirelessly with the AI MOTHER to build the union’s first midweight Titan 21 tactical combat armored suits. They were light years more advanced than the simple Kevlar or steel plates currently in use as armor. With the help of allies across the globe, the AUA began to manufacture the new armored suits as fast as possible. The results were immediate; with the ADF on an even footing the western invaders were quickly defeated without a technological advantage on the battlefield, the African forces made short work of the foreign marauders.

It proved to be too early to celebrate; the west was being pushed back, but then they began their bombing campaign targeting our titanium mining facilities across the continent in a brilliant if predictable move. The AUA did not lose all ability to manufacture armor, but they had lost all access to more of the precious titanium ore necessary to manufacture exoskeletons and plating for their troops Ti 21 armor suits, with the mines blasted shut by the devils. The destruction of so much infrastructure, along with the bombing of the Africans’ manufacturing facilities, they nearly succeeded in crippling the war effort. Without titanium for new armored combat suits, we would lose everything to the plundering invaders.  

The Woman from Okinawa  

“…God will be cut.”  

-Hattori Hanzō   

‘The Ghost Dancing in the Shell’  

(chorus);  

(Medieval Japanese / Bulgarian Choral Harmony):  

|| A ga maeba, kuwashime yoinikeri  

|| A ga maeba, terutsuki toyomunari  

|| Yobai ni, kami amakudarite  

|| Yo wa ake, nuedori naku  

|| Tou kami emi tame  

-from Ghost In The Shell  

Isaiah had an idea he only shared with his most trusted colleagues and he along with Eiichi Tarō, and MOTHER designed and built the first Heavy weight Titan Ti 24 tactical assault armored combat suits. 

Brotherhood:     

(Homage to Claudius Ptolemy)        

I am a man: little do I last        

and the night is enormous.        

But I look up:        

the stars write.        

Unknowing I understand:        

I too am written,      

and at this very moment        

someone spells me out.         

-Octavio Paz     

Isaiah was cutting the frame around the hatch up he was about to pick up his bottle of water when he noticed the bulkhead looked wrong from the aft corner of the galley. A panel had come loose from the wall during the transport, that should not have happened, but Upon closer examination he could see it wasn’t broken, it was on a spring hinge of some sort. He gave the panel a push and it rotated back revealing a hidden passage about six inches wide and 18 inches tall inside was what looked at first like a section of stainless-steel pipe, but it was in fact an urn that locked into catches at the base and top. An envelope was affixed to the cylinder with a heavy rubber band, and it had his name on it. He opened the envelope and read the familiar sprawling cursive handwriting of Beaumont.    

Dear Isaiah, ahoy my young friend, if you are reading this letter then it means you have discovered that I stowed away on your ship in order to travel with you on your adventures at sea. I am sorry I had to lie to you. I did have a stroke, but there was more to it than losing mobility as you can see. They found stage 4 cancer; it was in every organ except my brain. I knew I would never sail her alive and I did not wish to burden you with all of this depressing big ‘C’ and death by asking you to take the urn containing my ashes with you, so I had the workmen build this secret cubby to stash my remains. I was lucky, at least I got to see her finished at the factory while I still had the strength to travel there. The prototype Monarch Ti-44 is the first of her lineage. (Note 1. Monarch Ti-44 specifications) The Monarch line takes its name from the butterfly, With the butterfly rigged black sails and a wind over the stern she looks every bit like her name’s sake. When I was a child, they blackened the sky like storm clouds migrating south to Mexico. Now, I can’t remember the last time a saw a butterfly. Monarch is of course another word for royalty.      

  I am certain you would have made it across the Atlantic or around the world in whatever little boat you could afford, but I knew the moment they gave me my prognosis and told me I only had a few months left to live that I wanted you to have her. I remember when you first contacted me by email asking about our rudder and integrated keel designs and arguing with me about the virtues of your precious catamaran over our monohull. You did not understand our company philosophy and why we refused to also make catamarans, you debated not just passionately but intelligently. The difference between our monohull boats and catamarans is simply a matter of philosophy. Catamarans depend on being able to outrun the storm and our boats are built to weather the storm. No matter how good your forecasting equipment is, sooner or later you are going to have to get caught in bad weather and our ships are designed to ride the storm out.  

I had no idea you were a child at the time you demonstrated in those letters a deep knowledge of nautical history, as well as ship building and every aspect of nautical engineering. For the longest time I assumed that you were an old shipwright for some other company around my age, at least. Imagine my surprise when I learned you were only 6 years old. I knew 10 years ago that you were a born sailor.

There are many good sailors out there with a vast amount of technical knowledge but no instincts for the rhythms of the waves, wind, and the currents of the sea. You have the part that cannot be taught. The technical aspects I am certain you will learn in good time. I have faith in you and your mission. Every man has faith in something even if it is only in himself then he is the god. Faith has nothing to do with religion or God faith is the engine that powers every great human endeavor faith makes you stand where others will fall, faith makes you move forward when all hope is lost. Faith keeps you breathing when you are becalmed. Keep breathing, keep moving, keep getting back up, keep the faith.

The prototype Monarch Ti-44 Monarch is one of only four built. By now you have figured out that the hull is titanium and that the true appraised value of the ship is not $200,000-$500,000 but between 10 and 10.5 million do not worry she is fully insured and there is a trustee for the ship to maintain her in perpetuity, so she will never be a financial burden. After you have read this, if you can put me back in my spot, I promise you will not hear another peep out of me, I will just relax and enjoy the rest of the voyage with you.     

Godspeed Captain Jones.   

Your friend in spirit.     

Beaumont Ulysses Johnson.     

Isaiah gently carried the stainless-steel cylinder engraved with the ship builders name date of birth and date if death with him onto the main deck sat down near the bow and meditated while Eiichi looked on confused by his weeping.    

 Isaiah retrieved the urn Ilchi asked “What is that?” pointing at the silver cylinder Isaiah carried. “It’s the remains of Beaumont Johnson the shipwright who built Exodus and willed her to me before he died 12 years ago.” He handed the letter from the late nautical engineer to Ishii for him to read to the group. 

 “I knew Beaumont Johnson, he told the group, the Monarch Ti 44 Solent rigged sloop SS Exodus was more than just a ship, it was his dream ship the culmination of a life time’s hard learned lessons sailing around the globe. He built her to make his final voyage around the world to every ocean and every sea, she was a nautical cathedral of titanium, a wave smashing juggernaut that could survive in any seas or ride any storm, there will never be another like her.” He raised his cup filled with warm sake.

“To Beaumont Ulysses Johnson! Godspeed!” they all raised their cups and drank in his honor. Japan’s greatest living sword maker Sumiko Hanzō the daughter of the legendary sword maker Hattori Hanzō spoke next with great solemnity.

“It feels as if we are tearing apart the Eiffel Tower to make a cannon. Almost sacrilegious.” Isaiah continues slicing the keel off with a cutting torch. Ilchi could not lose face, his honor demanded he volunteer his own titanium sailboat, the Titan Lady, to the war effort. Isaiah understanding the significance of the gift bowed respectfully.

“Haisha moushiagemasu.” his 6-foot 2-inch frame dressed in his trademark white muslin attire. humbly thanking him.

“あなたの金属を無駄にしません。” “Anata no kinzoku o muda ni shimasen.”

“I won’t waste your metal.”

They were six of the most serious men and women he had ever met, each as stoic as his ex-Marine father, one by one each made a toast; to the ships, to Beaumont, and to the mission. The gunsmith was last and after five cups of sake they were all quite drunk now. They decided that they would use the ashes in the metal, adding the carbon in his bones to strengthened the armor. As Isaiah reach into the urn picking the bones for buddha with willow and bamboo chopsticks he found a small glass container the size and shape of a Mezuuzot. He had no idea it was in with the remains. The master gunsmith from the DRC Ringo Tsoumou read it to the drunken group of scientist, engineers, and mobster/monks. Beaumont’s Ulysses Johnson final prayer:

“Ruth 16: And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:” She raised her cup once more as did they all staring into the blazing forge.

“I won’t waste your metal.” Arigatou gozaimashita!

“I won’t waste your metal. Hanzō continues.

“Like the thousand-fold technique of the samurai’s sword, an undertaking of this magnitude calls for more than perfect technique, this weapon too, will call upon the power of prayer in its forging.” Ringo Tsoumou the DRC gunsmith pulled out an envelope stuffed with 30k yen tied with a black and white ribbon from her coat pocket adding its carbon to the forge. Eiichi left on wobbly legs and returned a moment later with incense and a bowl of rice with chop sticks standing in it.

The saffron robed gangster priestess knelt in front of the urn and began chanting a sutra, as the others came forward, one by one, and offer respect to the legendary marine engineer /shipwright. Each picked up granular incense from the bowl, held it to their forehead then dropped it onto the forge, then bowed to the urn before turning and bowing to Isaiah. “Doumo arigatou gozaimasu.” Isaiah replied bowing deeply. The Seven-Scientist sworn to secrecy toiled away tirelessly for the next nine months camouflaged by “Eiichi Tarō, whose metal-fabrication facility, Nissei Industrial Co., in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, has been supplying Japan’s shipbuilding industry with piping and other specialty parts since the late 1950s.”   

The African Defense Forces held their ground, but were stuck in a quagmire against the western alliance along the northern front against the combined might of the US, Israel, and Britain; after 10 years of watching the young nation they were finally making their move on the resources of the fledgling newly formed African United Alliance who had formed a single nation nationalizing the continents resources and economy under a single currency all guided by the sentient AI MOTHER constructed by a then 16-year-old Isaiah Jones, his Promethean gift of fire to his new home nation. Now, a decade later a thriving young nation has come under attack just as the AI MOTHER predicted 10 years ago.

The roaming packs of robotic Cerberus had the ambushed 108th light mobile Calvary division and had them pinned down at the bend near the edge of the Fanon River in Ghana. The robotic patrols attacked after Sgt. Asante’s ground troops shot down a squadron of drones acting as the beast air support. The mechanized war dogs swept in on them before they could even celebrate bringing down the predator drones, The four-legged mechanical abominations were called Cerberus; because of the three miniguns mounted on their backs with up to 5000 lbs of ammo in their armored packs fully loaded they resembled water buffalo or hippopotami more than dogs.

Originally tubular steel, plastic, and sheet-metal mules designed to transport troops’ heavy equipment in rugged terrain, this version had been modified for assaults, so the us troops called the heavily armored weaponized MK IIs war dogs. They were secretly airdropped into the kill zone in unmarked freight containers that burst open releasing the lethal cargo on the unsuspecting populace, they were programmed to patrol a preset area and kill anything larger than a house cat indiscriminately. Men, women, children, heavily armed combatant or innocent unarmed civilian they only hunted in the local towns, villages, and cities.

When they ran out of ammunition, they were resupplied with air drops. They were not remote controlled, like their predecessors the predator drones, these were bots like a pack of maniacal metal Rumbas with mounted machine guns that only stopped killing when destroyed or turned off by their masters. It was the arrival of the Betzalel that turned the tide of battle. The nine-foot-tall titanium plated walking tank stood in the hatch ready for the pilot to land the tilt wing, tandem rotor transport as it passed low over the treelined jungle above the ADFs 108ths defensive position.

Sgt. Asante looked up from the cover of a tree and stopped firing long enough to launch a flare from the 302-grenade launcher under his rifle barrel, the shell arched through the air streaming smoke as the incendiary phosphorus burned red smoke trialing. The flare landed in a clearing a few hundred yards west of his position in the tree line he and his fighters were using for cover. The heavily armored battlefield transport tandem rotor tilt wing attack troop ships four bottom-mounted 44 cal M61 Vulcan gatling guns firing in every direction at once, her gunners laying down cover fire for Omega and the One-O Eight.

The staccato pinging sound of bullets ricocheting off the heavy plates of the aircrafts armored belly. The bubble-gum chewing pilot Cpt Beatrix Ovejero Torres spotted the flare and opened the commlink to Omega squad as the four heavily armed fighters stood in the back of the transport waiting for the signal to go. Through the com she shouted over the sound of the transports tilt rotor tandem blades the steady roar of machine gunfire. Beatrix kept the big bird moving, so the war dogs couldn’t shoot the rotors and bring the tiltwing tandem-rotor attack transport down.  

“We need that LZ cleared Lt!” Captain Torres shouted as she began to turn the aircraft. “Can’t start evacuating the wounded while it’s this hot Papi! I’ll swing us back around and drop altitude to 100 ft you and the rest of Omega squad are going to have to repel down sir!” At an altitude of 1000 ft, as they banked for a wide strafing turn at 25 knots, Isaiah stepped out of the port side hatch freefall. the Ti-24 powered assault combat armors one and a quarter-ton titanium nine-foot-tall Betzalel suit encasing him in the cybernetically enhanced attack platform. As the chopper flew low over the tree line, her four Vulcan autocannons blasting in all directions, Isaiah took a deep breath as gravity embraced him, the ground rushing up to greet him, he counted down…   

“Between the desire  

 And the spasm  

 (one thousand 5.)  

 Between the potency  

 (one thousand 4.)  

 And the existence  

 (one thousand 3.)  

 between the essence  

 (one thousand 2.)  

 And the descent  

 (one thousand 1.)  

 Falls the Shadow”  

IMPACT!  

The one and a quarter ton bipedal tank hit the ground with all the subtle force of a meteor, a walking extinction event slamming into the earth sending seismic shock waves through the ground all around…the air swirling the jungle floors debris all around him, when the dust settled the Betzalel stood alone in the clearing between the advancing robotic four-legged monstrosities and the heavily wounded remnants of the 108th. He had their attention, and that is exactly what he wanted: to draw their fire. The air was choked with the cacophonous staccato song of machine gun fire coming from the big guns of the circling assault transport, the ADF, and the packs of mecha directly in front.

The African Defense Force troops’ Ti 21 series armor came equipped with a Kevlar covered shield that protected the battery packs on their backs or it could be used on your off arm. The heavyweight Betzalel’s anchor chain covered shield was the size of a door, it was made from the repurposed titanium hatch from the Exodus more than twice the size of the Titan Ti 21 light armored models. He planted bottom of the great shield’s beveled edge into the ground, making a temporary wall for cover as he took a knee and drew the strange-looking weapon from his back—a large rifle weapon with a belted power cable attached.

The western invaders had never seen the new heavy armor, nor the strange weapon Isaiah now wielded. It was an electromagnetic mass driver, a platform of his own design, originally created to demonstrate proof of concept for NASA. The typical platform used photosensor wires to send the signal through the electromagnetic coils. Isaiah improved the design on MOLOCH using a laser traveling through ionized gas plasma field instead of wire. The flyway tube (smoothbore barrel), the polymer coated barrel is functions as a nitrogen cooled heat sink that allows operations of the platform underwater without risk of electrocution.

The gyroscope keeps the recoil from tearing your shoulder from your body with the weapon discharged at high settings. As well as controlling the laser targeting system. It was not technically a gun, there were no chemical explosions; it was a mass driver acceleration linear oscillation coil hyperdrive or Moloch, the troops after this day would call his BFG ‘War-Pig’. It used electromagnetic pulses to launch 7.52 mil/ 60 caliber caseless ceramic rounds at hypersonic speeds. It plugged into the armored suits’ cold fusion cell for a power source. This armor did not need to recharge after 20 minutes; this armor never needs to recharge. Today was the first time this weapon platform had been seen in combat. The results were…impressive.  

PROOF OF CONCEPT Reprise:  

There was an electric discharge like a crack of lightning, the smell of burnt ozone, the hair on the backs of everyone’s necks stood up as the first shot charged the atmosphere as it fired. The mechanical Cerberus in front of him exploded into mangled molten metal shards. He targeted another pack of war dogs coming at them from the west near the tree line with a dozen others. He fired into the middle of the pack, and they were all blown to smoldering slag pieces in a flash of electric light arc.

The machines in front of his shield stopped firing for a moment as their primitive processors began to reassess the new threat. One by one all folded their hinged steel legs and lay down and lowering their guns onto their backpacks, For a long moment the scene was eerily still, you could hear the sounds of the jungle monkeys howling distance, birds take flight, an aged mud grey crocodile rolls over at the rivers edges insects buzzing songs rise to join the cacophony of wild noise for a few seconds before the armor-plated terrors all stood again. Now each of the Cerberus metallic war dogs rises wielding 3 18-inch steel blades held with the prehensile arms that previously held their mini-guns. They stood moving slightly the arms and tail slowly waving mechanized Medusas.  

After fighting the 108th and now Omega squad the hell hounds had finally run out of ammunition… as Sgt. Asante looked on in horror preparing to fire he wondered if they were better off when these things ere just shooting. Betzalel braced the shield with his shoulder readying his blade for their attack. The beast were on him their blades stabbing and slicing at him as his tungsten carbide edged sword ripped through their tubular steel and plastic armored bodies. with Omega and the 108th firing all guns into the horde.

Isaiah ran 3 steps then leapt as far as he could launching the Betzalel 30 feet into the air it Slammed into the ground at the river’s edge 100 yards away. the war dogs moved of one accord and charged after him in the shallow muddy water at the reiver edge. Knee deep in the muddy water the remainder of the war dogs surrounding him he plunged his blade into the water and active the tazer. The current fried the rest of the Cerebrus their smoldering husk collapsed send sparks and smoke into the air…

The Betzalel stood, now rising to its full height as he stepped from behind the great 7-foot tall hatch-shield brandishing the strange new weapon, a wisp of vapor curling serpentine up from the tip of the barrel like smoke. The weapon the size of a Oerlikon 20 mm (about 0.79 in) cannon, though powerful, took several seconds to recharge after firing on maximum setting, the other war dogs were too close; he slung the MOLOCH onto his back and drew the armor’s carbon fiber tungsten edged sword from its sheath, retrieved his shield with his left and began to fight hand to hand against the advancing mechanized horde hacking and slashing his way through their heavy metal ranks.

The remaining soldiers of the 108th saw the name emblazon on the shield and on the right arm of his armor: EXODUS, they all realized what he had done; he had sacrificed his ship, his home for the last 10 years, to build the new armor Ti 24 Betzalel.  

After today there would never again be any doubts in anyone’s mind, friend or foe, concerning where the young engineer’s loyalties lay; because he was born in the US or because his mother was white; he had sacrificed the thing he loved the most— his beloved SS Exodus, his own ship, his home—for the last decade in order to fight beside the troops of his new nation against the invading forces of his former homelanders.   

As Betzalel moved forward slashing through the mechanical demons, the 108th regrouped and joined him advancing to his position to cover his plank as they fought at his side. The rest of the battalion, still alive, began to move out from their positions of cover behind the anthills and Cocoa trees to move towards the remainder of the enemy forces. Sargent Asante saw the break in the enemy line and led the rallying soldiers into the fray with their commander at the point.

It was over by sunset. Isaiah, every muscle in his body ached, drenched in sweat in the jungle heat, his armor and shield splattered with streaks of blood and oil, exhausted he kneeled surrounded by the dead and dying to pick up a piece of debris from the smoldering rubble of the hollow victory. He looked at the land around him littered with hundreds of dead soldiers and enemy ground drones, the Cerberus.

He plugged into the com of the western alliance. He turned the head once attached to a destroyed drone, the camera focused on his war wearied grim green eyes, two emeralds afloat in a sumi-cup, skin beaded with perspiration, hair in neat cornrows; he tapped the lens with the tip of a grimy armored finger. “Tap, tap, tap. Hello, I know you’re in there. I can smell ya. If you want to fight, we can do it the old way, one on one, winner take all. Then no one else has to die. To make a thing like this…you must really be getting desperate, I’m getting bored playing with your toys. Never send a machine to do a man’s job. he said exasperated. You see, We’re not the same, I am not civilized like you, when I want a man dead, I kill him myself. If you want to kill me, next time send something that bleeds. Just be sure it’s somebody you won’t miss.”  

Sgt Asante looked on with a grim smile behind the cigar. “Did they get all that, Sarge?” he asked the lightly armored cigar smoking Ghanaian warrior beside him.  

“Affirmative, that went out on all frequencies, LT.”  

“Good, maybe we can end this madness soon.”  

He stood and walked across the battlefield littered with the bodies of his fallen occasionally kneeling to pluck the dog tags from of what remains until he had a clanking metal bouquet of bloody petals, stamped with the name, rank, and serial number of his dead. He hurried to finish this grim business before night fall when the carrion eaters crawled out of the bush. The entire world heard his broadcast. Hundreds of ADF troops died that day, but thousands were saved because of the actions of the Betzalel the Golum of Ghana and the rest of Omega Squad. He did not want to fight; he was a sailor a mathematician, all he wanted was to sail away. All he dreamed of was the freedom of the sea. 

[Note 1:] [Monarch 44 ft 6 inches; Design Specification       

Length Overall:       

44 ft 6 inches       

Waterline Length:       

39.74 ft       

Beam Overall:       

12.95 ft       

Beam Waterline:       

11.03 ft       

Draft:       

4.98 ft       

Air Draft:       

68.52 ft       

Displacement:       

30,844 lbs       

Ballast Weight:       

10,542 lbs       

Ballast Ratio:       

34.2%       

Sail Area:       

To be recalculated based on new dimensions       

Sail Area Displacement Ratio:       

To be recalculated based on new dimensions       

Engine Power:       

To be recalculated based on requirements       

Fuel Tanks (3 tanks):       

To be recalculated based on requirements       

Water Tanks (2 tanks):       

To be recalculated based on requirements       

CE Certification:       

To be reassessed based on modifications       

For a full, detailed specification of the Monarch 44: DETAILED SPEC (To be provided based on finalized design specifications)]       

the scene where the heroes forge the armor is inspired by a multitude of influences but primarily ‘The Seven Samurai, and Kill Bill the line “I won’t waste your metal is an homage to the scene in the seven samurai where the leader of the seven played by Takashi Shimura /Kambei Shimada tells the poor villagers who have given the ronin the last of their rice in exchange for their protection from bandits; “I won’t waste your food.”

About the author

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, Tx.