The Sword of Heaven

“He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe”

• Measure For Measure (3.2.261–2), Shakespeare

Bell sits in the cockpit of the mech. Her left hand absent-mindedly thumbs the trigger of the mech’s rail gun, an upright lever not unlike a stick shift which she would need to jerk forward and press down upon the switch on top in order to fire. Her right hand clasps her pendant hanging around her neck, a sharp-cornered metal crucifix which bites into her soft palm. The display before her flashes, buttons lighting and dimming and lighting again, text that she barely understands scrolling across the screen that shows her what the mech’s eyes see. The language, she decides, must either be that of coding or aliens, a remnant of the otherworldly technology that was used to build this machine. Her skin crawls at the reminder. She clutches her pendant tighter.

A voice crackles through the radio. It’s Rian, and she’s asking Bell if she’s in position. Bell has no idea and says as much. Rian fails to stifle her sigh of disappointment and falls quiet for a few moments to manually check Bell’s co-ordinates. Then she tells Bell that she needs to move about half a mile east and cuts communication.

The dashboard is littered with buttons, switches, levers, and at least one of them must surely be used for movement. Bell cannot possibly fathom which one or ones that might be, and she doesn’t feel particularly inclined to start figuring it out. She’d barely managed to figure out how to open the cockpit before the mech had been dumped unceremoniously out of the airship. She had been responsible for informing the attendants where she needed to be dropped, but given that everyone’s designated positions had been pinned on a map in the middle of the war room for the past two weeks she didn’t see why one of those attendants couldn’t have just looked at it and realised the position she gave was wrong.

Maybe one of them did notice. Maybe all of them did. Maybe they simply didn’t care.

The seat she is sitting in is reclined, much too far back to be comfortable, and Bell has to perch on the edge just so she can reach the mechanisms. It isn’t the safest position but Bell cannot for the life of her figure out how to change the seat’s placement. The floor beneath her feet is covered in fast food wrappers coated in enough grease to cause concern – if such a concern is even warranted anymore – and stuck in a pocket beside her is a magazine that she has been stalwartly avoiding acknowledging. The overall smell of the cockpit cannot be described as pleasant. It stinks of stale takeout and body odour. Nonetheless there’s a familiar element to it and she clings to it like she clings to her pendant.

Another radio crackle.

“Attack proceeding to 300 seconds. Are you ready?”

This is Olecron. There is an aspect to his voice that is attempting to be sympathetic. There is another aspect to his voice which tells Bell that he’d rather be talking to anyone else. Bell tells him that she’s ready.

“Alright. Good luck out there kid.”

Bel is left in silence again. 300 seconds is five minutes. Bell doesn’t understand why they can’t just say that they have five minutes. Perhaps to some 300 seconds could be comforting – because 300 is larger than 5. And perhaps to others it instils a sense of urgency – because seconds are shorter than minutes. But 300 seconds is five minutes and changing the way you say it doesn’t change the simple reality of how time works. You can say it’ll take 300 seconds or you can say it’ll take five minutes and either way won’t change how long it takes before you’re marching to your death.

But five minutes is quicker to say and easier to comprehend, so Bell thinks just saying five minutes is more efficient.

Another text box has appeared on the display – maybe text isn’t the right word. It displays a timer, counting down (in seconds) to the time when the attack will begin. Right now the timer shows 240 seconds, which is four minutes. Then 239, 238, so on so forth. It doesn’t mean much to Bell, but it’s the one thing in this place that she can understand, so she watches it tick down.

Her foot nudges something too solid to be a wrapper. She glances down, half frightened that it will be a moulded half burger or a chicken bone. But it’s a lipstick tube. Pretty cheap looking (although Bell is hardly an expert), half-used and bright orange. Rian’s colour. She must have left it behind by accident. Without really thinking about it Bell makes a note to herself to give it back to her next time she sees her, then laughs to herself when she realises the absurdity of what she just thought.

A sound breaks the relative silence of the cockpit. This sound is not coming through the radio but through the speakers, which means it’s coming from outside, being ‘heard’ by the mech and relayed to her. Bell looks back up at the display.

There is a mech approaching, its footsteps echoing across the dusty plains. It is huge and white and shining despite the dust particles surrounding it, which could be due to some kind of repellent paint or some kind of holy blessing bestowed upon it. Most of the mechs used by the resistance are not named, but this one is. It is called The Sword of Heaven, and it is being piloted by Seraph.

Bell does not know much, but even she knows that The Sword of Heaven’s sensors are far superior to any that the other resistance mechs have. Seraph has probably known where she was for a while before she noticed his presence, yet here he is approaching her anyway.

180 seconds. Two minutes.

In an ideal circumstance, Bell would begin the conversation. But she doesn’t know how to use the radio. So she waits for Seraph instead. She waits for fifteen long seconds. She begins to think that Seraph is not going to acknowledge her. Then the light of her radio shifts from red to green and Seraph’s voice fills the cockpit.

“You’re out of position Bell.”

His voice is firm, devoid of all emotion. He speaks to her like one would speak to a robot. Bell tells him that he’s out of position too.

“This is an exceedingly important attack, Bell,” says Seraph. His voice is still firm but there is now a subtle underlying note of desperation that could be written off as the distress of a commander if Bell did not know better.

She does not reply because she has nothing to say to that – because she simply doesn’t care. Seraph waited for a response that would not come and loomed over her in the mech he piloted. Many found The Sword of Heaven to be an intimidating sight, even within a mech themselves. It was huge, a shining blade that pierced the skyline, a beacon that blinded those who looked too closely. Bell, too, had found it intimidating once. Now she wished it wasn’t there solely because she wanted to see the look on Seraph’s face.

120 seconds. Two minutes.

It’s enough pressure for Seraph to break the silence.

“Bell, please,” he says, wheedling and pathetic. “This is bigger than both of us. Please, just take your mech and-”

Bel reminds him that it is not her mech.

Seraph hesitates.

“Bell,” he says, now attempting to sound diplomatic – diplomatic in the way a parent is diplomatic towards a toddler in the midst of a tantrum. “I know that you’re upset, Bell, but your brother was a traitor.”

Bel reminds him that her brother was far from the first to consort with an Insolarian.

“Maybe not,” says Seraph. “But he was the first to do so under my command, and frankly if I had my way all those who had fraternised in such a way in the past would face the firing squad as well.”

Bell reminds him that Jewel was not a member of the Insolarian government or its military. Bell reminds him that Jewel had been exiled from her own planet for her rebellion against its leaders. Bell reminds him that it is the Insolarian government they are at war with, not the Insolarian people.

“‘So God created mankind in his own image,’” says Seraph. “‘In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.’  The Insolarians are not the image of God. Even if Loud’s fraternisation was not traitorous, it is blasphemous. We share the same God Bell – you too must be disgusted with what he did.”

Bell clutches her crucifix. She swallows and tells Seraph that she never would have had anyone killed for it.

“You speak so harshly to me,” says Seraph, his tone mournful. “In spite of all of the affection I hold for you – still you wound me with your words.”

Bell tells him what he has for her is not affection. Bell tells him that he is a liar and a hypocrite. Bell tells him that she will never forgive what he has done.

“I’m sorry,” says Seraph, and Bell would have been surprised to hear those words leave his mouth were she not sure that he had only spoken them to placate her. “I’m sorry I broke my promise, but you have to see things from my perspective. Had I released him – what kind of impression would that have made? I’m leading a war, for God’s sake. Your brother’s life isn’t more important than my authority.”

Bell tells him not to take the Lord’s name in vain.

“This is serious, Bell. You think I enjoy bearing this power?”

Bell thinks he does and she says as much.

“How can you be so cold towards me?” Seraph sounds genuinely disbelieving and it’s almost enough to make Bell start laughing again. Almost. “After what we did – the night we shared together – you’re telling me you have no affection for me at all?”

Bell remains silent. She feels the shape of Rian’s lipstick against her foot – the only evidence it was she, not Bell, who had piloted this mech last night, who had brought it to the dark enclave where Seraph waited – and remembers that she, too, is a liar. For whatever reason, she can’t bring herself to feel guilty about it.

Thirty seconds. Half a minute.

Seraph notices the timer too. “Shit,” he says, and he must be truly rattled because he would never dare utter such an oath in front of anyone else. “Bell, we have to go.”

Bell tells him that she isn’t going anywhere with him.

“This isn’t a game, Bell!” Seraph is yelling at the top of his voice – it’s a startling change from his usual register and it might have threatened Bell once upon a time. “I am your commanding officer, and I am telling you that we have to leave. Now.”

Bell does not respond.

Seraph lets out a frustrated sound, somewhere between a snarl and a shout. He moves The Sword of Heaven forwards. He’s going to grab the mech she’s in and haul her into battle.

Bell is not a soldier. Not in the way Rian is. Not in the way Loud was. She’s only piloting this mech because it’s required of her, because her brother was found guilty of high treason and traitors must have their place filled by their next of kin. She’d been hopeless in all of the tests they could put her through in the short window of time between Loud’s arrest and this battle. She didn’t understand the controls and she didn’t care to. She’d only ever hit her mark when it was practically on top of her.

The Sword of Heaven bears down upon her.

Bell releases her grip on her crucifix. Then she jerks her left hand forward and presses down.