Series by : Johnathan Hollis, Correspondent
Shaking off the last of my hangover, I sipped at a cup of what vaguely resembled coffee, in the break room of the Brotherhood staging building. As I tapped ashes into an old ration can, I heard a blood curdling siren go off. The red light over the mecha bay doors on the far side of the warehouse was spinning and flashing in time with the bleeting siren. I dropped my smoke into the coffee and ditched the cup as I grabbed my jacket and raced for the doors a few steps behind the pilots. This was it. This was what I had been waiting for. This was war!
My memories of the deployment are a bit fuzzy. Everything was such a blur. I remember riding the elevator, and climbing across the scaffolding that held the gantry into the mecha cockpit. I remember strapping into the observation seat behind Sean Collin McFae, my host pilot. And, I remember a lot of shouting, activity and banging, as equipment was shunted about the bay, and bodies rushed from task to task, but I have no idea what actually was going on other than my personal movements and feelings. I was terrified.
A command on the intercom in my ear, and a sudden rush as the mecha platform, holding the mechas of the Brotherhood, was hydraulically loaded into the drop ship, and bang, as the bay hatch shut fast. The feel of pressure as we shot upwards into the upper layers of the planet's atmosphere and the sudden shock of weightlessness as we broke it's gravitational pull. And finally the displaced feeling you get when you go into trans-galactic worm hole travel from one location to another. Then, the silence, as we floated over our target planet and awaited further instructions from the drop commander.
"All right back there?", Sean Collin inquired, looking over his shoulder at me. His face appearing distorted thru his neural helmet. It was my first time seeing one of these in actual use. It's light metal frame was illuminated by numerous small glowing electrodes and neurological impulse sensors, while the front, instead of being a piece of glass or plastic as you would expect in a normal helmet, was instead a shimmering field of energy that projected a heads up display or HUD that the wearer could interact with. I nodded back to him. "Good. Just relax for a bit. We wait here until the intel guys sort out where the field of engagement is gonna take place. This is a bit out of the ordinary tho. Usually in these clan war fights, we get a bit more warning. They are mostly for settling small disputes in a way that doesn't involve any loss of civilian life. Better than conventional war, 'ya know? Don't know what the hell the planning commission guys are up to this time." He chuckled.
Suddenly there was a flash of light that completely blinded me and a shock of impact. A siren wailed in my intercom. Voices from numerous pilots shouted out alarm and then a louder and more commanding voice broke in. "Unknown enemy contact. Impact damage to drop ship shields. Emergency drop! Emergency drop! This is not a clan war! I repeat, unknown enemy engagement from non-clan source. Emergency drop!" Then my entire world seemed to shudder as the drop platform opened and Sean Collin's Ammonite mecha went into free fall along with the other half dozen or so mechas in the squad. I could see other drop ships out of the starboard view plate, and the sky was full of hundreds of free falling mechas. The drop ships were in various degrees of damage, some plummeting towards the planet surface, beginning to spew flames and debrie as they hit the oxygen rich atmosphere. My own screams were drowned out by the input of combat sounds entering my intercom from the drop ship command channel.
Impulse engines and speed reduction jets slowed our descent as we, not quite as gently as I would have liked, made surface contact. Mechas of the brotherhood crashed down around us like a giant metal hail storm. The shouting from the drop ships stopped, and the squad audio channels kicked in. "This is Franklin, Clan Leader, Brotherhood East, to Brotherhood East Squad. Four by four formation. Heavies to the first and third squads, light support in the second and fourth. Be ready, no intel on our opposition. Com's have been established our original opponents. Those bunnies are taking heavy casualties on the planet's south continent." There was a pause and then Franklin spoke again, "You're a damn good bunch of 'bot drivers. It's been an honor. Let's win this or make 'em pay for the privilege."
Then, over the horizon I saw them. A series of gigantic black mechas with gargantuan batteries of missile batteries attached both at the shoulders and both breasts of the their chassis'. A strange germanic eagle, painted in subdued silver was portrayed across the chest of each one, and smoke poured from their dampers as they moved into the engagement. "Let's do this.", Sean Collin murmured. And we began to move forward.
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(To be continued...........)
Submitted by Ron Frye#879655