Longing By David Miskey#30379

Frank always envied the gods and their massive weapons of warfare. He longed for even the smallest of the war machines. For just having one of the destructive weapons would make him feared. He was captured by the pirates and made a slave to their war gods. His job was to clean up after them while they were away looking for more plunder and captives and to take care of the massive mech between raids. He would not be allowed to pilot the massive weapons of war because he was not really one of them and they did not trust him because of this.

In his free time he would read all the manuals he could find about the mechs he coveted as well as anything he could find about the wars on ancient Terr. In his readings he found some strange stories about people sending war equipment home by sending it a piece at a time. He wondered if he might be able to procure a mech in the same fashion. Would he be able to get work in hangars and get access to the parts he needed? Would it be possible to steal the parts without anyone noticing? If it was possible he would need to rotate between the pirate clans so the missing parts would be less noticeable. He would also need to recruit others to help him steal the larger pieces. He also needed to find a place to hide all of the spare parts.

He began to feel out some of his fellow captives and see if they might be willing to help him in his endeavor. He had to be careful about who he approached for if the pirates found out what he was up to they would kill him. He knew about an abandoned base where he could stash the parts needed to build his own army. He just needed to find people willing to help him acquire the necessary parts to build it. Once he had the parts he could begin building his army and training his followers to pilot the massive avatars of destruction.

He discovered that it was easy to divert the parts and equipment he needed. The pirates had so much plunder that they did not notice when some of it disappeared. He even managed to steal entire mechs without raising any suspicions. He was able to recruit some pilots from among the captives and began to train at the abandoned base.

Soon he knew they would need some battle experience. He noticed that the clans were beginning to send scouts to check out the pirates operation. He decided to use this as a cover to train his troops in battle. If anyone was ever captured or even killed they could just say that they were part of a clan and the pirates would be none the wiser. If he was lucky he might even be able to recruit some pilots from the clans. Once everything was ready he would launch an assault on the pirate base that would make them forget all about the skirmishes with the clans.

 Submitted by David Miskey#30379