Every Clan has one, one rebel. The Bunnies ended up with two, because Caitlyn Mainer got cloned, which led to its own problems. Caitlyn prime was a rebel against her Clan being a vegetarian in a land of carnivores, so of course her clone (Bunny Caitlyn) was an epic baconphile, an expert in fine carnivorous excesses. It had been Caitlyn that discovered Anwyn, a forbidding looking dark world that surprisingly had the best maple smoked bacon in the known Galaxy, even if hardly anyone knew it. Caitlyn and her chieftain John were on a secret mission to secure supplies of superior bacon, to ensure the fighting spirit and endurance of the Defenders of Bunny in the upcoming war. The Terrorists were on a mission to stop them.
Tarabon Voss was founder and head of Bacon Aggression Truth; Stop Hatred Ingestion Totally: known to the mecha community as BAT SHIT crazies. He had lost everything when his Cogwork Cavalry forces had tried to enforce the embargo of Deneb VII, source of the Omega Bacon during a trade dispute, and had his forces wiped out by Clan Omega, Abominable Snowmen, and Red Comet. Each Clan made a point of not only defeating his troops, but destroying as much of their supplies and support materiel as possible to underscore how little they approved of his interfering with the bacon supply of their separate clans. His court martial cost him his career, his marriage, and his sanity. He knew who to blame. Everything he had lost was because the Clan’s seduction by the demons of bacon. He founded BAT SHIT to break the cycle, to put an end to bacon fueled Clan aggression forever, and bring peace through cold cereal (preferably sugarless, high fiber) at breakfast. He would kill whoever it took to make this dream come true.
John was pushing along at a good pace in Suicide King, his favorite Red Ant. While he rode Red Fury to war, his Inferno was hardly a low profile machine, and this mission was about stealth not firepower. Caitlyn was providing the muscle in the form of her Holmes Chiani. Enough muscle to keep off pirates, but configured to look like a regular personnel transfer or message delivery, rather than escort to a load of gourmet war winning bacon!
Tarabon Voss saw the Red Ant and Holmes step through the gate, hauling the trailer of demonic hate fuelled violence in flesh; the vile and seductive bacon. He was ready, he was motivated. He was not alone.
With the cry of “BACON IS DEATH” the terrorists struck. Bombs planted around the gate detonated with stunning force, causing the bacon trailer to flip on its side. Under the confusion of the explosion the BAT SHIT Orcus and Keradon charged in. Filled with righteous fury, and sure the evil carnivorous Clansmen would be shocked by the potential loss of their bacon, the Terrorists war cries dissolved into screams in the next instant.
While a Red Ant is a pathetically light platform for any Clan chief to be running around in, when you advance them far enough, they become dangerous, if fragile opponents. The blast of explosives washed over the Red Ant, but no mecha could ever be affected by indirect explosions below nuclear; their crystal matrix armor was far more resistant than the strongest steel, and shock buffers allowed them to ride out the blast with no more disruption than that of an elevator coming to a stop. Suicide King unleashed its Black Widow, coring an Orcus from stem to stern; the mech hanging for a moment on the spear of coherent light like a pig on a spit, before its shattered engines roared their no-longer contained nuclear fury into the sky. He shouted a command to his clone-daughter “Look out, it the BAT SHIT crazies!” before dodging a hail of Panther Wheel fire.
Bunny Caitlyn knew her father’s love of Red Ants was going to get him killed, and she was sure it was today, but no way was she leaving the Clan’s bacon for these vegetarian vigilantes. I mean, they won’t even eat it, they would bury it in a televised funeral like they did when they hit Clan Hell’s Horses on Mylar. They still laughed about that. No way BAT SHIT were doing that with Bunny Bacon. No way.
Toggling her Tesla Missiles she bracketed two of her targets while riding out the icy blast of a Black Ice in return. They were in deep trouble if they didn’t end this fast. Struggling against the slowing effect of the ice, she toggled her Y31 Phaser array, and used the slowing effect of the ice to hold her aim steady as the Phaser’s sustained burn pierced the heavy crystal matric armor and triggered an ammunition explosion in the leaders Keradon. She keyed her radio onto a broad band challenge frequency.
“Bad kitty; no bacon!”
BAT SHIT crazy or not, numbers mattered, and they had them. It was time to Bunny up.
++++++Bunny HQ++++++
Charles looked concerned, “Look, the war starts in two hours, and neither John nor Caitlyn can fight. She was still conscious when she dragged what was left of John’s mech, and the bacon, back, but she nearly bled out. Neither one will fight for days.”
Christine was more than just the personnel officer, she was wife to the chieftain, and mother of Caitlyn. She knew how much of the Bunnies reputation and spirit rested on John’s initial furious assault seeking out and destroying enemy leadership and champions at the beginning of every war. It fired the clan, and frustrated the enemy. If rumors got out he was hurt, morale would suffer, and the enemies morale would soar.
She grabbed Charles by his Mjolnir necklace and turned him to face her. “Tell no one. The rumor will be that I am staying by Caitlyn’s side until she is out of the regen tank. Have Knockers prep the Inferno Red Fury, I have piloted it often enough that it knows me. Have her clear me a route to the gantry that no one can see. Tell her to put a filter on the comm system, everything said by me over the comm system goes out with John’s voice overlay. No one knows he isn’t leading, we kick ass and take names until he comes to and takes over. “
In any military unit, this would be illegal. This was the Defenders of Bunny. It was different here. Charles grinned and intoned with mock seriousness: “A woman’s place is…..”
To which Christine snarled “Defending her family, on point if necessary!”
XO of the Bunnies, he knew what battles were worth fighting. He simply chuckled “Hail Freya!” joking as he gave her both the ancient title of female chieftains, and compared her to the goddess of passion, and keeper of half the heroic dead.
All day long she lead the attack, the feedback from the heavy mecha that was just one ton beyond her safe range caused her to bleed both internally and out the nose. What she lacked in skill, she made up for in desperate fury, and the example she set drove her husband’s famous Black Company to new heights of heroics. She killed again and again, letting Charles as XO make the necessary adjustments to the plans in response to the shifting tides of battle, she waited with Melissa as the heavy assault elements to repulse any enemy attacks.
Night fell, she went to the med center to watch her daughter and husband healing in the regen tanks. Curling up on the floor, she stroked the bunny Easter to still the shaking in her hands from the neural feedback until sleep took her. Two hours later her implants triggered her waking. Now time to fight as herself.
Christine took the field with the 4077 MASH. Sucking back the Hatoraide and stim packs, she chewed the maple smoked bacon as she waited for the grease to still her quaking stomach as she led fresh troops onto the field for another day’s worth of battle. Fighting cautious, as her reactions were slow, she found the rage of Red Fury would come upon her sometimes in the battle, as if her own Christmas Tree was somehow infected with the madness of the Red Fury as well. By the night’s end, her exhaustion had taken what shreds of control were left, and she let her rage take her into the battle’s heart without care, wreaking havoc far beyond her usual.
Day 2. Caitlyn rose from the tank to see her mother looking like a refugee from a zombie movie. Briefing her quickly, Christine whisked her daughter and self off to the mech bays for Day 2 of the war, and day 2 of double duty.
All day long, John’s Red Fury led the Black Company up and down the lines, striking heavy blows against the enemies strongest. All day long, Christine rode the feedback, until at last she burned the mental circuitry in place, as if Red Fury’s own MIU taught her the ways to control his power without punishment. She felt a new level of control and confidence fill her as she carried war to the enemies of her Clan.
Two hours of rest by her husband’s regen tank, this time with both bunnies Bradley and Easter cuddled up next to her twitching, bleeding form, before her implants woke her again, to do a day’s fighting for the second time that day.
Day 3
John awakened to find the med center in a bustle. They were strapping Christine into one of the regen tanks, and when he reached out with his command nodes to find out what the HEL was happening with his wife, he saw a nested “Eyes Only” file marked for his attention, from his wife.
DATA INLOAD “Holy Mother Frigga!” John swore when he saw what his wife had endured for him, and for their Clan. His rage rose up like the oncoming storm, and he stalked to the mech bay to vent his fury upon the enemies of his Clan. It would not heal his wife, but as she had bled for him battling for two, he would have to repay that in kind.
Walking down the main aisle of the mech bay he roared his challenge to his Clan. “We stand on the world named Valhalla, hall of heroes. Who would live forever when Valhalla called? Clan War XV raged, and somewhere upon the field was victory, if we dared to take it!”
Red Fury raged across the battlefield, his escorting Dreadnoughts and Jottun raced to keep pace with the Inferno as it tore through enemies like a starving man through bacon. All day he battled, and the war hung at the balance point, victory not yet determined, but increasingly, not really important. Honor demanded that she who carried the Clan, who did a husband’s duty and a wife’s both, be upon the field when it was settled.
Very few mecha had the capacity for double pilots. One of those was the Nephillax, the golden mecha piloted by Kings Of The Mountain. Christine had stood upon that mountain, crowned by gold and glory. John passed orders for Knockers McGuinty, chief tech, to prepare the jump seat of “Taste My Rainbow”, for it would bear two into battle.
Stalking into the med bay, he found Stephanie Robbins typing orders into the med bay computers for Christine’s care. She turned when John took Christine off the re-generator bed, and the alarms all began to sound.
“Where do you think you are taking her, you idiot!” Stephanie shouted “That woman’s place is…”
John’s voice was iron as he interrupted her.
“That woman’s place in her cockpit, in the vanguard, facing her enemy, defending her family, to live or die upon the field with her troops. She has earned it. She will have it. If it is my hand on the controls, it will still be her will that drives her unit on to death or glory. I will not let that be taken from her.”
Sunset burned blood red as it flashed back from the golden hull of the Nephillax. Behind their leader, their champion, Christine’s troops followed her onto the field. One last battle, to win or lose it all. She took her rightful place upon the battle line, even if another s hand must guide the controls.
.
Submitted by John T Mainer 28840-For my wife Christine who will fight for both of us when business takes me far away at war’s beginning.