But yeah, there is only a faint warning on our scanners when they surface to fire. Maybe five seconds after that they submerge again, but missiles are in the air then. And we try to intercept them with laser fire. Almost all other ammunition are spent already. We are good, but not that good. Some mechs will die, as will pilots and other personnel too. Some weapons will overheat, some generators will fail to keep up with the energy demand.
But there are some good things in this situation. Because the enemy uses only missiles, the only shield type we use now is missile shields. All others are turned off, so every available scrap of energy could be used to keep lasers firing. If they ever use any other weapon type, we would die. But at same time this could explain why ice weapons were so effective against those lizard-things. So, our few remaining ice mechs are our best hope to survive longer. When all others try to hit missiles before they get too close, heavily protected Freons, Nifthels, two Severs and a last Jottun try to hit the surfaced part of enemy before they disappear back into the swamp. Thanks to them, and their superb marksman skill, we have now five more or less intact lizard mechs... or should I say one intact and four that could be repaired if we have time to do so.
Drake sure is an interesting fellow. Or his staff is, although most of them look alike to me. Some of his pilots are best that I have ever seen, but his mechanics do miraculous work too. They salvage from our scrap mechs everything usable, and then somehow take that pile and make something useful. There are autonomous laser turrets, shield stations to protect quite a large area of the platform. There are mechs that look way beyond repair, but still they could be used to make something. Some are scanner towers, others energy generators. Some are heavily shielded targets, whose only function is to look menacing so the enemy would target them and let other targets be that are in a relatively safer position. And that first captured lizard is moving already.
Managed to get closer look when they walked it around platform. It really is heavily built lizard. It moves around using four feet, but it's bottom (belly) drags so close to earth, that it's movement is more like crawling than a walk. But I bet that style is effective when you try ambush an enemy from the bottom of the swamp. Any lower and it would burrow itself in the ground. I really would like to get in to cockpit of that thing. With a recording device. But no, it still is off limits for me, and most of the others too. I wonder what Drake will do with it? If we survive that is...
Seems to me that our last hope is sole surviving flying mech. Mechanics managed to make one operational enough , so it was sent out again. It's mission is fly fast and find hard ground. Any ground. We need to get moving and escape here.
But now we try to survive as best as we can. Last salvo landed and the enemy is long gone. Time to thank any deity that you think is out there watching us and make all ready for the next attack. Recovery team is moving out, maybe there is something we could use. Ammunition would be really appreciated, and shields too. Working mechs would be too much to ask, but even the scrap ones are useful, we could use them to make our platform a little stronger. Talking about the platform, it sure took a beating again. It has collapsed in a few places, and there are holes in it again. So we are a little closer to that point when we have nothing to loose any more.
Time to get something to eat. Food we have plenty of, so many are dead already that rest of us will be long dead too before we run out food. Can't go too far from my post, but some pilots always take their rest at the same time, so there are some to chat with. Nothing new though, mostly we talk about our mechs, what is broken and how to fix it. How many missiles we did intercept. How bad food is. What we will do when we get back home. Normal stuff.
But now there is some disturbance amongst the engineers. They seem to be doing some sort of experiment where the lizard-things are stationed. Some sort of gigantic tube is lifted to the top of the working lizard. Tubes at the other end looks little like a drill, and another is like some sort of rocket engine... Missile? Kinda big? What would be it's target if that is a missile. City or fortress? Or is that a vehicle of sorts, something that can go faster inside the swamp? What ever that is, mechanics are busy securing it to the lizard. This sure looks interesting. When they were done, the lizard moved slowly forward, inched over the edge and submerged. What are they doing. Defense? Attack? Scouting?
Alarms wailed! Another attack. All scrambled again to their own places and so did I. Sky was full of incoming missiles and laser beams before my cockpit hatch started to shut down. Already my mechs were shooting missiles that were coming in my designated target sector. I really wasn't needed to do anything in this kinda fight. Mechs won't move, and the only thing to do was aim and shoot, aim and shoot, over and over again. As fast as you could. And lets be honest, computers are way faster in this kind of job than humans. All I could do was keep up continuous firing in the general direction were missiles were coming and hope to hit something. Computers actually selected the closest targets and most of the time even hit. And even if it was a miss, usually there were another one behind first one. But it felt good when you are doing something, so with one mech I did the shooting, the rest were controlled by battle A.I.
...The safest place for me to be in, actually is a mech cockpit. Sure it is a big target, and something that the enemy can really try to hit, but at same time it is made to take quite heavy punishment. I could even survive multiple direct hits, if nothing critical went boom... or the round which did the hitting is not from too heavy a gun. But anyway, any shield is better than none, and I'm happy that I still have places to hide.
If these attacks weren't so mindless, we really could be in more trouble, but again we managed to stop most of the missiles. But still, there were explosions amongst defending mechs. So when the next attack started, there are fewer mechs to shoot back. But we will try. Again this ended like always. Enemy was long gone when the last missiles exploded. Recovery team moved out, still alive personnel moved to extinguish fires and check what damage we suffered this time. So we continued to survive...
Two days later that lizard mech came back. Without that attached vehicle (or missile). Wonder where it left it, or why, but at least it returned whole to camp. Couldn't move out from my spot, I was on guard duty, but a targeting system is really useful when you want to see something close up. Engineers seem to be really excited. What ever that thing was doing out there, it looks like it succeed. Lots of pointing in different directions. Data-slate inspections. More pointing. Those guys really are excited. Drake emerges again. More talk with his inner circle. Now there are messengers there... they get messages and are off... something is definitely happening, so I pushed the cockpit hatch open. Lets hear what that message is
Evacuation? Really? Good to hear that we're going to do something other than wait to die, but instructions were more then a little confusing. We should make all ready, so that after the second attack counting now we could move out. But we moved only behind the platform, so we are safe from explosions that are going to happen near the gate. What's the point? Gate won't even notice any damage we could make to it. Do they try to active it somehow, so we could escape here. Messengers didn't know, or didn't tell me. But the whole platform was full of preparations. What ever is point of this plan, it will be executed when the enemy moves away to reload.
So I did my preparations, what little there was to do. My formation was down to four still fully functional mechs. Two Krampus, an Ammonite and a Bishop. That's it. This trip better pay really well if I want to get replacements for all the lost ones. That being done I waited. Then fight off the first attack. Frantic preparations started again, nothing new there. Every evacuation looks pretty much same than any other. Only thing that slightly got my interest were mechanics rolling big barrels in to swamp. Wonder what they were doing? Well, time to eat something and then try to sleep, there is no saying when there will be another opportunity.
Alarms wake me up. Fight was on again, and it did go like all previous ones, no change there. But when the shooting stopped, there were no recovery teams heading out, but all mobile mechs moved to one side of the platform and dropped in the swamp. As did I. Soon there were radio message that barricade detonation was in 5 minutes. What did that mean? Time went by and multiple muffled thumps were registered by scanners. Something was happening on the other side of the platform. Then started another countdown. Main blast in 30 seconds and counting...
That one I felt clearly. It was big. I almost fell with my mech. Swamp rocked for the longest time, or at least it felt like that. Then was a short announcement that recovery was started, and all should return at their original spots in the platform. Okay...?? They won't tell me what's going on, so I can only wait. My turn to be dragged back to surface. That is cowered with snow? And the platform is frozen solid. Evaporating fog is everywhere. What did they do?
Loaded my mechs back to their original places, as did all others. Turrets were put pack too, as were all other hardware also. Soon it was like before our mud dive. Except that ice. Solid chunk of ice. No wonder that we survived the blast behind that wall, but I really would like to know what was the point. Why try to blow up the gate? Then finally fog was thin enough that I could see where gate was...
There was land. Above the swamp surface was land. An island of sorts, not big but still an island. And there was a recovery team dropping those barrels again, this time around that land. Really guys, please tell me what are you doing?
(Possibly to be continued)
Submitted by Kalevi Karvinen#863817