SORTIE:01
Burning always burning
Molten sphere of rage within
Waiting explosion.
Crew Quarters, USNS Hepahestus
Forge-class patrol carrier
Asteroid Belt, Sector Delta-Whiskey
Avril 21st, 2213
0630 hours Shipboard Time [SBT]
Smoke cursed aloud as his head smashed
into the top of his bunk. Clutching his aching head, he took in the
collection of memorabilia affixed to the walls and ceiling.
And the slumped, sleeping forms of his
mostly female ground crew in various stages of undress, some still
clutching their poker hands. Must’ve been quite a party, he
thought.
Too bad I don’t remember any of
it.
He scanned the cabin for the cause of
his current headache. His eyes narrowed to slits as he found it.
He threw a pillow at the shrilly
beeping 21st century alarm clock, only accomplishing a
muffled trill.
He sighed heavily.
Gently removing the tattooed arm that
was draped across his hips, he swung out of his bunk. “Sorry, Xell,
I’ll see you when I get back,” he whispered as he bent and kissed
the redhead softly on her forehead.
Stretching, he muttered, “Damn.”
He grabbed his flight suit off of a
rail and slipped out, quiet as a ghost. As the hatch slid shut with a
soft hiss, the pillow flopped to the floor.
The alarm wailed out anew.
- - -
He flicked his smoldering cigarette and
watched it tumble through the zero-gee of the hangar module. Smiling
thinly, he slipped his skull-and-crossbones emblazoned balaclava over
his head.
He kicked off the floor and floated
upwards towards his Mech’s cockpit. He put out his right arm as he
neared the opened hatch. He gripped the edge of the hatch and swung
himself in, twisting to face the other way as he landed in the seat.
He donned his helmet as the hatches
sealed. Screens and gauges came to life as he flipped the switches,
bringing his machine to life. His helmet hissed softly as the side-
and top-plates slid out, covering his face as the holo-projectors lit
up, creating a VR Heads-Up Display.
His right eye flared blue as the
cybernetic combat system built into his optics activated, revealing
the ‘V’ shaped optical slit.
<<PLEASE ENTER VOCAL
AUTHORIZATION CODES>>, scrolled the letters across his HUD
screen.
“Kakurenbo,” he whispered, softly.
“Victor-Yankee-Kilo-Niner-Niner-Three-Romeo, Lieutenant Commander
Vinzent Azraleodias-Dubois, callsign Smokescreen.”
<<ACKNOWLEDGED, COMMANDER,
WELCOME ABOARD>>
“Good to be aboard, buddy,” he said
into the empty air, sinking into the well padded seat.
A faint ping and violet glow announced
the appearance of a feminine face with flowing hair framed in the top
right corner of his screen. Smoke stifled a groan. Of his two AIs,
this was the one that had the better ability to 'read' him.
Of course, considering that we’d
based her off my dead fiancée, why shouldn’t she be able to</i>,
he thought with a pang. Yet he quipped, “Ho, Valkyrie of my Heart,
how goes the electronic life?”
“Save the charm, you horrible boy,”
came back the sultry voice of his AI. “You’ve barely slept and
it’s obvious you’re not in a good mood. Couldn't you have
traded your flight with someone else?”
He laughed, a soft chuckle. “I can't
do that, now can I, Vyky? Have to be a proper role model and show a
good example. So, how’s the old boy?”
“The old boy, as you put it,
is fine. All systems green and weapons loaded. Ready whenever you
are, Commander.”
“Thanks, Vyky,” he replied with a
cheeky smile behind his mask. “Somebody's
going to hate me in the morning.”
Vyky looked horrified, “Commander!
You wouldn’t!”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?”
- - -
Bridge, USNS Hepahestus
Forge-class patrol carrier
“Sir, I’m registering a sudden decompression in hangar module 1, pod 5.”
The XO, Antione Jazareth, turned around
sharply and asked, dreading the answer, “Whose machine is in that
hangar?”
“Commander Dubois’, sir,”
answered Ensign Pomela Andretti, a Venusian volunteer assigned to the
bridge crew. Which had been in spite of her protests, Antione noted
inwardly with a grimace. “Bulkheads are sealed, logs indicate 10
minutes before the event of decompression. Detecting and reading IFF
now, sir, the Commander is in flight and, erm, oh, dear.”
“What is it, Ensign?”
“He, er, erm, he seems to be heading
straight for us, sir. Err, directly at the bridge, sir,” came the
nervous reply. Several of the bridge crew exchanged puzzled looks.
The XO held her face in her palm,
frustration radiating off her in waves.
“What the frack is
he doing!?”
- - -
Zetsubou
Wolfhound-class
prototype Mech-Armour
You are the machine, and the machine
is you.
A shiver ran down his spine as the
thought ran through his mind, the voice of his old flight instructor
ringing clearly through his head. He blinked and shook his head.
He sped through space, skimming barely
inches above the hull, his fingers drawing sparks as they brushed
against the armor plating. He felt a tingle in the tips of his meat
fingers.
Meat is weak. Steel is strength.
Draw strength from the Steel into your Meat.
In his head, his flight instructor, an
'ancient' of the fabled Steeled Fists’ squadrons of Earth, droned
on. Fine, fine, old man. And now I’m almost half Steel, so I
hope that you’re bloody happy, his inner thoughts
snapped at the recalled words.
As he gazed ahead through his
electronic eyes, he saw the bridge beginning to retract into the
hull.
He threw his throttle open as he rolled
left, his thrusters flaring. He accelerated, head up and looking
straight, closing the distance as the bridge seemed to speed up its
descent. He twitched a finger, and an audio track, a rousing mesh of
19th century classical and 20th century heavy
metal, roared out into the air of his cockpit. His two AIs looked on
with frowns.
He grinned behind his mask, the
skin-hugging cloth stretching slightly.
Lookie, lookie, the Big Bad Wolf's
come out to play, kiddies.
- - -
Bridge, USNS Hepahestus
Forge-class patrol carrier
Antione stood in the middle of the
bridge, quivering with her anger and balled, white-knuckled fists.
She spat a curse as she realized that the bridge would not be fully
retracted in time.
“Comms, get that maniac on the horn.
And someone wake up the Captain now. Engineering, can you
please speed up the bridge's descent,” she barked.
“Tactical, what exactly is he playing at?”
“I believe he's playing a rather
dangerous game of tag, my dear XO.”
She spun around and found herself
staring at the chest of the ship's captain and standing way too close
to him for her own comfort. She held back a surprised gasp and
stepped back quickly, snapping off a salute. How had he got on the
bridge with no one knowing!?
“Sir, I,” she began, and floundered
as the captain waved her off in a dismissive manner.
“Do what you must, Anti, I'm just
here to observe.”
Lips pressed thin, she turned back to
Tactical and gave her orders. The crew went to work after a second's
pause, their training kicking in despite any misgivings that they
harboured. Their movements and actions were quick and efficient.
Antione looked on with pride and then turned her attention to the
view-screen that displayed the recalcitrant Mech.
She stood ramrod straight with a
fingertip to her lips as she murmured, “If you want to play, you
daft idiot, I can play right back.”
- - -
Zetsubou
Wolfhound-class
prototype Mech-Armour
The bright lances of lasers
and the tracer trails of solid projectiles crossed space, weapon
turrets tracking the swiftly moving Mech.
Ignoring the comms alerts
and proximity warnings, he concentrated on slipping through the
fields of withering fire. He'd had already weathered the initial wave
of weapons fire, shrapnel having left furrows in his lower legs.
“Score one for the Home Team,” he thought out loud. “But I only
need to score once.”
His eyes narrowed to slits,
the glow of his artificial eye brightening. He danced his machine
across the void, spinning, flipping and somersaulting but maintaining
his forward trajectory.
Turrets swung round, muzzles
spitting death. He zagged left, then rolled up and over, coming down
in a loop from another track that led in from the bridge's starboard
side. A battery of missiles fired, their payload rushing towards him
with corkscrew contrails. He spun sideways, feinting a dive and then
pulled up hard, accelerating. He swung round in a shallow fish-hook,
spinning and rolling as the missiles gave chase. His eyes swept his
HUD, small reticles appearing over the approaching swarm.
“Aw, crap. I should
never have suggested that Seeker payload as a defensive measure!”
The swarm drove into him,
the explosions lighting up the void.
- - -
Bridge, USNS Hepahestus
Forge-class patrol carrier
Some of the bridge crew
gasped, not completely comprehending the . An ensign stood up from
his station, hands planted on his console with disbelief on his face.
He opened his mouth to speak.
“Status report!” barked
Antione, cutting off the ensign.
“N-no trace of IFF, sir,”
replied Pomela, shaken by the event. “But the Seekers' explosions
may be interfering with the scan of that sub-section of space, sir.”
“Visual. I need a visual!”
“Lenses are still blinded
by the Seekers' mass detonation, sir, they're compensating.
Compliance in under thirty seconds,” came the reply from Tactical.
“Goddammit, someone get me
a visual confirmation of the kill! Can we run weapon-cam playback?”
“Working on it, sir,
running through the vidfeeds now.”
Antione held her arms
crossed in front of her chest, solemn and serious. She stared at the
armoured shutters of the bridge.
“Wind back the shutters,
lads, but continue the bridge's descent.”
Antione glanced askance at
the Captain. “Sir?”
“Old school method visual
confirmation, my dear, we do it by eyeball,” said the Captain,
holding up a pair of ancient binoculars. Must have be one of those
presents that that idiot found on one of his 'treasure hunting'
trips, thought Antione with a touch of irritation.
She spun around when she
heard a gasp rise from the bridge crew. The rescinding shutters
revealed a massive dissipating cloud of dissipating smoke.
Which in turn revealed
glimpses of a pair of glowing optics set in a scorched and blistered
stylized wolf's head. With the smoke wafting off it, it truly looked
like a monster out of a fairy tale. The bridge went still as a grave,
the crew almost glued in place, some halfway out of their seats.
Then, suddenly, a metal
finger flicked out and tapped the viewport, a bell-like sound ringing
softly through the bridge.
The comms system pinged once
and the speakers spoke.
“Tag, you're It.”
---
... being the first chapter.
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