“I thought this was a desert planet?”
“There are snow deserts, dipstick.”
“If, Daine, you would take a moment to stop being an insufferable know-it-all, you would see that there are, in fact, PLANTS.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“Make me.”
“EVERYONE SHUT IT! Garron, scan for life and electronic signatures. And Daine, the brief said specifically a sand desert. That’s why our mechs are modified for sand.”
“I hate all of you.”
“I haven’t even done anything yet!”
“You haven’t done anything YET TODAY, Kardin.”
“Only things within range of my scanners are us, sir.”
“What the hell?”
Clanise contacts me on a private channel. “Sir, does this look at all familiar?”
“Kind of, but I can’t place it. Why?”
“Doesn’t this remind you of anywhere?”
“I just said that it does. What are you hinting at?”
“This is the gate we used to escape the Rook pilots on Zyto.”
“Crap.”
An explosion rattles the gate we just stepped off of. If we hadn’t moved to take up tactical positions, we would’ve been toast. I switch back to the main channel. “EVACUATE! NOW!”
A Rook mech erupts from the ground in front of us, guns primed. More are appearing around us. They must have had shielded bunkers or something.
“SURRENDER OR DIE.”
They open fire, as we gate out. We land on our clan’s home-world, fortunately. As soon as Jen’s iMech is on it’s feet, I ram it with my Keradon.
“WHAT THE HELL?”
“I WILL PERSONALLY COURT-MARSHALL YOU INTO OBLIVION!”
“It wasn’t me!”
“That’s bullsh-”
“I switched the gatekeys.”
“Daine?”
“I wanted to see how funny it was. It wasn’t.”
Jen cuts in: “Last time, they chased commander halfway around the planet.”
I’m still seething. “We are in the middle of a clan war. Do you have ANY idea of what this could have cost us?”
“…Right. We are.”
“Now. Where’s the right key?”
“Garron still has it.”
We look at Garron’s Holmes. Apparently some of the shots came back with us. We see Garron’s form detach from the smoking remains of his mech.
“How resilient are Niodes?”
Garron radios us from his headset: “Doesn’t matter. We easily left half of my mech behind, including the part with different gating niodes. We’re not going anywhere, until we get a new shipment from Central.”
“Everyone go and do target practice or something. We have no time for this incompetence. Do NOT even THINK about pulling this stunt again, understand?”
Submitted by Toby Easterbrook/844872