My name is, or was, Probationary Pilot Lee.
I don’t know why I bothered telling you that, because you’ll
have forgotten it in five minutes time.
I’m a reserve pilot in one of the lances in the Heroes
clans. My senior pilot is Lt. Mac, who by dint of being the clan’s biggest pain
in the ass means we get shipped around a lot every time our current C.O. gets
sick of putting up with him.
I pilot an Imech. The Grissom. At one point it was the
bosses personal mount, but that was a long time ago. She’s the second oldest
mech in his fleet. Well, at least by ownership, because there are prizes he’s
won that are older by build date. She’s a solid old bird, upgraded way past the
manufacturer’s specs. The boss is good like that, he makes sure everyone is up
to scratch and nobody is left behind.
Surprising really, because the Grissom spends more time
crated than she does out of her box. What with the constant shipping and the
fact that she is now only used for training runs or as a mid line mech in a 35 ton
specialist formation, there’s not a lot of call for us. In fact the sum total
of times we’ve been called on to face a 35 ton enemy specialist has been zero.
We have therefore never seen combat. Sorry, I’ll correct that. Grissom has seen
plenty of combat, just not with me. I’ve never seen combat.
Until today.
The powers that be threw a new formation into the mix and
the boss had to scrape together a 45 ton group. Sure he had some sensible picks
from his 50 ton formation like Luisons, and there were the new Dread and Novum
to throw in there, but the bulk ended up being drawn from the 35 boys. I was
the last to be called up. Tail end charley, rear rank, one of two with a Holmes
class alongside me. We’d had no time to drill in this formation. We were more
than likely going to be facing massed ranks of Vizi and Nephilax mechs and the
only reason we existed was to try to grab some bonus points if the opportunity arose.
The boss had already been out with the heavies and he had
partnered with Senior Pilot Kyrouac. Hunting together they had managed to score
a pair of tentative bronze medals and now was the time to look for targets of
opportunity. I’d already gotten into the rhythm of going to the toilet every
twenty minutes when the klaxon went to call us to action stations.
We hit the fields and it was immediately apparent why the
boss had jumped in when he had. We took six wins in a row because pilots had
registered and were eligible for challenge, but they were sitting in their
super heavies. Six capitulations and I still haven’t fired a shot.
The next fight was different. The enemy at least had some
valid mechs, but they were interspersed through heavier mechs that were disallowed.
I saw the fire and explosions in relief over the top of the ranks in front, but
nothing came near me. Seven wins, no losses.
SP Kyrouac was seven and one. He’d lost to a Star League
pilot with a higher threat rating and better tonnage. We were going to be
trying him next.
It started out well enough. Squadron chatter had us getting
kills at a faster rate. The thing was we needed to because he had more mechs.
The sound and explosions crept closer. I could see them two ranks forward of me
now, and that was past our good stuff and into my 35 ton squadron mates. The
boss had already had to eject and we were fighting by rote and training. I kept
reciting the training litany… Fire, cycle weapons, fire… get ready to sway if
you see them about to take a shot.
Word came down that we had hit his back rank, but he had his
heavies there. Luisons, and they stopped us in our tracks. Two ranks went down
before them, and suddenly the explosions were in front of me as mechs were snatched
out of the line ahead. They advanced into fire and caused damage, but it wasn’t
enough.
There weren’t any more friendly mechs in front of me. I don’t
recall advancing, but I did. Me and my running mate against his final two
Luisons. One of them lit off, and the Holmes next to me cooked off.
Fire, cycle weapons, fire… I sighted up a Blast Plate and
thumbed the trigger. The shot was good and the Lui in front of me staggered,
but didn’t go down.
Cycle weapons… why am I worried about a full bladder at a
time like this? Grissom had been fitted with one of the new MAK-47s that the
boss had hocked up deeply to be able to deploy. It flashed active and I fired
again. The shot went straight in through the hole that the Blast Plate had left
in the armour and his power plant went critical. I didn’t have time to stop and
think.
What came next… ready to sway? The last Lui had me lined up
and I saw the flare of a flame weapon ignition. I panicked. I jerked the steering
yoke and soiled myself.
The Grisson stumbled with my rough handling and the autogyros
had to kick in to keep her upright, but the sudden motion had been enough and
the flame swept wide.
I had forgotten to cycle, but I only realised that
afterwards. Lucky for me the autoloaders had done their job, and I waved my gun
arm in the direction of the Lui and pressed hard on the trigger in desperation.
The round went straight through the canopy screen and
suddenly I could see his cockpit had been redecorated in red. I remember vomiting
over my steering yoke.
The next thing I remember is the cockpit being opened and I
was gasping at the cold thin atmosphere. Somebodies hands were gently prying my
thumb away from the trigger. I noticed that the autoloaders had been clicking
uselessly, trying to feed ammo into the MAK that I had long used up.
The boss was leaning into the cockpit, telling me I’d done
good. He was shaking as bad as me, but his was dump shock. He told me we’d be
facing Kyrouac next and we’d be ceding the field so I wasn’t needed. He told me
to go and re-arm, then get a change of clothes and get the techs to hose down
me and the cockpit. He said we weren’t finished and he’d try to make sure
nobody else got into our back lines, but he couldn’t promise.
The circuit was still open when I took the line again. We
were ahead by a point with a clean slate, but Kyrouac needed to be fast off the
mark because he was dead even with the Star Leaguer. In a tied match,
precedence goes to the one who got the challenge and therefore the kill first.
The next two registered were both still sitting in their
heavies. We challenged and they ceded. The last one in the circuit actually came
to fight, but he was lighter than us. The boss was true to his word and made
sure nothing got past him.
By fluke, our scratch formation that was there to simply
grab some bonus points had run the gauntlet and we had a clean slate. The
powers registered our gold medal and the congratulations came in over the clan
channel. Just as important, SP Kyrouac had been the quickest off the draw, and
his kill was registered first to give him a silver.
Three shots, and my war was over. So I thought. With a gold
locked in because nobody could get more kills and we had precedence on a draw,
I thought the boss would recall the heavies and attempt to defend the tentative
bronze. I was wrong.
Intel had it that there were only two pilots that could
displace him, and the big hitters in that circuit had no reason to swap to
lights and get caught out of formation. Therefore they would be defending our
placing by default. But here in the 45s there were still a number who could
clean sweep the board, especially with so many out of formation. The boss had
made the call that we would make a stand here. We had proven we could win, and
if we were the strongest available to deny an attack we should do so. Everyone
we bounced would no longer be able to displace Kyrouac’s silver.
Of course that did mean we had to answer the challenge of
anyone running against the boss in heavy formation. He told us to treat it like
dump shock training and roll with the shots. At least I had nothing left to
evacuate.
I didn’t want to go into the pilots mess afterward, but the
boss ordered me to. I was expecting jeers and catcalls after I had… well… made
a mess. When the standing ovation started, I had to check behind me in case
somebody famous was there.
Everyone looked like crap, but they were all happy. The
General was there, so was the Colonel and the C.O. of Support. The General
pinned Junior Grade Pilot pips on me, and all three saluted. Mac just grinned
and threw me a beer.
I said I didn’t think I deserved all of this for just three
shots. Mac laughed and said he would have to buy more MAK-47s, because the
techs were busy hard welding mine onto the Grissom. The Colonel just shrugged
and said I was wrong, and that in all battles there is a pivotal moment. The
outcome of my three shots were the point when the gold medal was decided.
The General actually seemed to listen. Then he said that
some Heroes were the bravest. Some were the best. And sometimes a Hero is just
the poor bastard that’s in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up neck
deep in shit but still does what has to be done because they are the only one
who can.
Now I’m no longer a probationary pilot, I have the right to
be identified by call sign rather than the name of my mech. I should be
entitled to choose my own, but that’s another downside to being in Mac’s lance.
He tends to come up with names that he can remember people by, and they always
end up sticking. He told me my call sign. When I said I didn’t understand, he
laughed and told me to go and look it up.
Because I know you’ve forgotten, just like I said you would,
I’ll remind you now that my name is Pilot Junior Grade Lee. I pilot an Imech
with a customised MAK-47 hard welded in, a gun that has only fired two golden
kill shots in combat.
My call sign is Scaramanga.
Submitted by by David McCallum #701548