My name is Bolverk Borson, of the Defenders of Bunny. Yes, I am Clan. I had another name once, another life once, but when I got the implants and strapped into a mecha for the first time I knew that person was dead. The Victory Father had me now, and he found a new name for me, and a new home with the Defenders of Bunny. I am not the least of them, but I am certainly not one of the heavy hitters. Four of the ladies and at least three of the men could kick my ass, but what my Jottun-Bane company lacked in weight, we made up in speed. My own Torrent provided enough punch to get us in to scout what needed to be scouted, and held the gate long enough to get my boys and girls out again. Usually with me, but not this time.
There was information shared with us from our old friends in the Red Comet. Seems their intel picked up a ton of traffic going into three different gates into Valhalla. That meant nothing to them, but they hadn’t got the reports we had through the Bouncing Blue Brotherhood Security Service (no BS like BBBSS) that the AFF had lost a full patrol in Gehenna (the other gateway to Valhalla) to “Forces Unknown”. They sent a polite inquiry if we were involved, delivered by the Death Hecklers entire squadron to make sure we were sure it wasn’t us. That made the chief curious. What in the Allfather’s name was going on in Valhalla that was worth narfing off the AFF? They are less powerful than the Highlanders sure, but those skull suckers are more death obsessed than Lemmings with PTSD and hold a grudge better than a red-headed stepmother. You just don’t take out one of their squadrons, either killing or capturing their pilots without a damned good reason. I got sent to find out what it was.
Valhalla was a dead world. Nobody really wants to find out what it was killed over. The Skraig and Gigus planetary interdiction system went wrong here, and they didn’t just wipe out everything else, and colonize Valhalla with Skraig and Gigus mecha to prevent resettlement; the Skraig and Gigus wiped each other out. It took centuries, and humanity got to watch the final years. There were teams sent in the early days to try to preserve the wild mecha, but the only thing that stopped them fighting was anyone else arriving. Valhalla belongs to the dead, a world of endless war. Something stirred their again. I would find out what.
You can’t shut down a gate. Nukes were tried in the old days, but that got expensive and accomplished nothing. You could bury them, and people did. A lot of gates were lost like that. Some gates were buried by chance and tectonic action, rather than design, and their secrets were the great treasures of the Mecha Galaxy. We had such a treasure.
Out on the Rim was Bifrost. It wasn’t a Hel world, well some people thought it was. It tried really hard to kill you, but that made its settlers love it more, and the numbers of tourists it killed drew a certain crowd like an open flame does moths. I vacationed there myself to hunt bears. Let me tell you, their medical centers are first rate, and limb re-attachment has made real progress for a so called frontier world! While there, I was doing some resistance training with my mecha at the bottom of Heimdalsfjord, letting the icy water’s resistance push my body as I raced my mecha across the rocky fjord’ floor, when I chanced across a buried gate. The strong magnetic of the rocks, the swift current and swirling electrics of the iron rich waters hid it from surface sensors. I downloaded its signature, and copied its link information for the Clan. I saw three or four useful destinations, and a couple of flat dangerous and useless ones, like Valhalla. Well. Nothing like having a back door no one knows exists. Now we need it.
I led the strike myself. Jottun’s Bane pushed through with our heavy metal, twin Namtar flanking my Torrent (Bar Wench), followed by Oggun, Luison, Nifthel, and one golden Nephillax scout. This side of the gate was under water too. The pressure readings were intense, we were in the deeps. There was no sign of activity at all, so the chances were this gate was unknown. We would keep it that way. I punched a tight beam signal to my team.
“This gate location to be protected at all cost. In the event we cannot break contact with enemy forces, half will stay and engage, and half will break off to report. Any element under observation will head away from the gate. Only mecha whose sensors both active and passive confirm they are not under observation can break for the gate, and any forces headed back to the gate are under complete EMCON; no signals, no messages, no active sensors. Go quiet, go dark, go home. Those who can’t; buy time. The Clan will be coming.”
Once we broke surface, there were lots of signs of activity. The Gigus and Skraig carcasses were everywhere, but the mecha signals we were picking up were new, and there was a huge reactor signal, the kind you find in large cities or factory complexes. It was shielded, so to pick it up at all meant we were close, but you can’t shield anything putting out that much power completely.
Our mecha fanned out. I held the Namtars and my Torrent in the valley closest to the reactor signal. We were slow, but had the best striking power, so we stayed closest to the most likely threat axis while our lights and mediums ran the flanks. Reports were, really interesting.
This was a weapons complex. Unknown design, some of the materials on my sensors were similar to those used in standard mecha, but more advanced. Similar to those of my Nephillax. Finally one of my overhead probes got a direct sensor feed. It was a squadron of Zadok! Those mecha were prizes beyond all price, like my Nephillax, they were Craftsman produced, and knew no equal. Wars had been fought over just one of them, and here was a base that had a squadron on patrol!
The scream of a Galaxy Eye blotted my probe from the sky, and tore our secrecy to shreds. I broadcast wide beam the command to scatter. I told my troops to bug out for home, while I pinpointed my location for the reaction forces to see. Neat hey? Give them a target they can see, and they will throw everything at it to stop us getting out the word, meanwhile my team gets the word out nice and quiet.
There first reaction force was an insult. About sixty Red Ants boiled over the hill, and we burned them down as fast as they came. I don’t think they cost us more than ammunition and time. Of course, it turned out we needed the time.
The second reaction force was stronger, twenty Holmes came over the hill, and the first touch of their particle slates answered the question of whether they were newbies in factory stock or not. The veteran pilots matched their numbers and maneuverability against our weapons and armour, and it cost me Chalmers in his Namtar Tyr. Twenty to one sounds like a good performance doesn’t it? Too bad both of us were in crappy shape, with our auto-repair straining to make good the damage as we limped away. There were lots of signals behind us, mostly missile mecha, Orrester and Luison pushing us on all sides. We tried to get rid of the numbers by pushing into a narrow valley, its zig-zag course would make it impossible for them to stack forces against us, and a long tail chase would allow Hemidall and Bar Wench time to heal up to full strength. Their mistake!
Or not. It was a bit of a surprise when the scream of a Galaxy Eye announced the presence of the missing Zadok……in front of us. Heimdall lost his leg in the first salvo. The Galaxy Eye alone wouldn’t have been enough, but the middle Zadock delivered a weather report in the form of Black Rain. The missiles hammered Bar Wench and Heimdal both, and my second Namtar fell.
Alone against a dozen Zadok, I wish I could tell you how I went down in glory. Here I am on Valhalla, the planet named for the Hall of Heroes, were the best slain warriors are picked from the battlefield to fight at Odin’s side forever, and I can’t even remember how I fell. The truth is, neural feedback is a stone bitch on heavy mecha, and my Torrent tops the scales at a trim 85 tons. She died hard, we died screaming.
I remember burning, I remember firing, I remember the cockpit breach, and my uniform on fire, the fire suppression system kicking in. I remember explosions, not mine, then explosions, mine. The feedback from a mecha’s death agony is brutal. You are supposed to punch out when you can’t win anymore, capture is better than being a brain fried cripple for the rest of your life, but nobody ever heard from those missing AFF pilots. If I had to die to buy time for my team to get away, and keep that gate secret, well, I guess its time to pay for my commission. I remember puking, and noticing that it fell straight in front of me, which was weird, because that meant that down was face first, and that was no way to fight a battle. I tried to remember what the sirens and warning lights were for, but my head hurt, and the dark was calling.
I came to strapped to a chair, pumped full of interrogation drugs (which didn’t work), with a concussion (which didn’t help), getting the snot punched out of my by the outfit that captured me (which really does hurt, no matter how many times you have been hit before). There you go. Now time to complete my mission, and find out what is going on.
They settled into a routine. They asked questions, I gave them my name and rank, and the last time I had sex with their mother (OK maybe that last one wasn’t part of our training, and may even be impolite, but I am covered in my own blood, and puke, and I really have to pee, and none of these things make me happy). Then they hit me some more.
Who knew I was here. How many people knew about the facility. How did I get past the mines on the gates? Well, that was a good question; it told me they didn’t know the gate we used, didn’t suspect there was another gate, and had secured the known gates with mines powerful enough to destroy heavy mecha. That’s good to know. Of course my concussion is getting worse with all the punching I am taking, and something bad is going to happen in about thirty seconds.
“Stop, stop. I will tell you what I know. Lean closer, Its hard to talk loudly with all the damage to my belly and chest” Which was BS, when they used the shock sticks, I screamed at the top of my lungs, but these guys looked more brutal than bright, so I figured it would work. It did. They both leaned close and I looked them right in the eye and………spewed.
Honestly, head injury plus drugs plus beatings. I was feeling a little sick. I blasted my interrogators with a combination of recycled hatoraide and bacon, I have no idea what those green bits are, I swear I never ate them in the first place. Cool, I think that’s my missing tooth! Must have swallowed it. Honestly, I felt much better now.
They seem upset and pound on me for a while. I black out again. I come too when they are hosing me down. Well, I was a little ripe. Of course, I smell worse every time I pull a Snavurm out of my mech on the Jungle moon, but these look like private security, not real mecha pilots, so probably have higher hygiene standards than us poor working folk.
They got smart. A tech came in an plugged my implants into to a Hermes IV command computer. Those things are crap for running a battle, but they are damned good at reading bio signs, and a good operator could use one as a lie detector with a decent chance of spotting any outright lies.
I took the name Bolverk which was the name Odin used when he walked among his enemies, and spoke only the truth as he deceived them. Truth used right is as dangerous as a lie. I had what I needed to know. Now it was time to deliver my message.
The questions began again, the pressure in my head from the Machine Intellegence and its linked operator pressing into my mind and data feed were harsh, but at the same time, helped me to focus. The machine precise questions echoed in my brain, demanding answers, and getting them.
WHO ARE YOU?: Bolverk Borson, Defenders of Bunny Clan, Jottun’s Bane Squadron
WHY ARE YOU HERE? To find the secret installation on Valhalla and determine its ownership
WERE YOU ALONE; No, my team got the information out before I was captured. My Clan is coming.
WHAT IS THE STRENGTH OF YOUR CLAN?: My Clan is not your problem
WHAT?: My team was told to pass the word to the AFF about their lost pilots, to the Red Comet about their information, to the Smurfs and Bunnies, and their allies Heroes, Heroes II, Island of Mistfit Toys, Mechwarriors, Abominable Snowmen, Star League. Some of them have information sharing agreements with Armoured Core, Raging Vengeance, Eridani Light Horse, and the Northwind Highlanders. No one is telling RND, but they have everyone bugged anyway, so will show up. If the Highlanders show up, you can bet Zeon will be coming. OH MY GOD, IT WILL BE A DISASTER!: No, it will be a Clan War. Clan War XV
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Valhalla calls my brothers and sisters, Clan War will rage, worlds will burn, are you ready?
Submitted by John T Mainer 28840