The Styx Strikers

by Thor Zollinger

  “Roger. Can do.”

  Radioing up to Sven, “Why don’t you hold off firing any more shots until we get you out of the compound. We don’t want to make your Mom any madder than she is already.”

  “Roger. Ceasing fire.”

  The rest of the guys headed back towards the garage for machine number two.

  Chapter 16 “Battle Practice” –––––––––––––––––––

  Out of all the machines in the Styx base, the guys were still having problems with two of the mechs, the largest one and the smallest. The Deimos and the Panther were still out of commission along with a couple of the sand rails and one of the Myrmidon tanks. Hai had taken over the Chimera medium mech, he liked the reflective armor and electronic counter measures (ECM) it carried. Most of the pirate mechs he knew from studying the news reports were equipped with lasers. The reflective armor defended against lasers quite handily, and with the ECM system onboard their missiles would have a hard time locking onto him. Bjorn’s Mad Cat Mk-II had the same defensive configuration. Hai had one other ace up his sleeve no one else had, his medium sized mech was equipped with jump jets. The Chimera had the ability to use a set of onboard rocket thrusters to jump over obstacles or out of the way of incoming fire, also making him much harder to hit in battle. Hai thought more defensively rather than offensively than the other guys did.

  Picture Pack: Chimera

  Jake and the crew met at the base every weekend they could manage over the next few months. They had figured out a better road to take into the base which avoided the deep ravine on the way in and out, but it was still a pretty rough ride no matter which way they drove in. The guys had downloaded some of the manuals and had studied up on the operational systems in the mechs and the support equipment at home. Ariel had also found a set of logs in the main computer which detailed base operations over several years once Hai cracked the passwords and security on the system. It wasn’t very complicated, the prior owners hadn’t expected anyone to ever enter the base besides themselves. The mystery of their departure still existed. Even after reading all of the final log entries, Ariel was still puzzled over why the military had abandoned the base.

  Arriving on Saturday morning, the crew would have the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday to run training exercises with the mechs. They wanted to be ready if the pirates showed up again.

  “Well, that was fun. Again.” Sven complained since he had gotten the most bruises of anyone on the trip in. “That drive in is a killer. Jake, you need to take over the lookout job next time, it’s beatin’ me up.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You should be getting used it by now.” Tarra commented. “This place is starting to feel like a second home now. More like a job, really. My Mom is starting to ask what we’re doing while we’re gone, since I always come back home exhausted. She can’t understand why we’d want to go outdoors if it isn’t ‘relaxing’. She isn’t buying the ‘we’re just going fishing’ or ‘we’re just paddling around the lake’ routine anymore.”

  “Yah, I know what you mean.” Jake added as he stood up to climb out of the Ripsaw. “My Uncle and Aunt aren’t too pleased either. They seem to think we should be spending more time at the ranch. And with all the studying I’m doin’ they don’t understand why I’m not further along in my college studies. I’ve been digging through all these dang mech maintenance manuals trying to figure out how to keep the stupid things running. We need to hire some mechanics.”

  “Well, quit your whining.” Bjorn interjected. “Every time you’re in that thing you’ve got the biggest grin on your face.”

  Jake grinned impulsively and made his way out of the vehicle. This is so rad! he mused to himself as he climbed out the hatch. Jake hopped down off the back of the Ripsaw and followed Tarra up the ramp towards the upper base door above the hanger entrance. Ariel, Bjorn, and Sven were right behind them as they keyed the door open and went inside.

  “Ahhh, home sweet home!” Ariel stated as they walked into the main corridor. Taking the duffle bag full of food from Bjorn, “Tarra and I’ll make us some lunch. You guys can work for a little while first if you want to.”

  The guys peeled off and headed towards the briefing room to get the keycards for their mechs. Bjorn reached for his Mad Cat keycard and fished it out of the box, “Alright guys, lets fire ‘em up and see if we can get the mechs linked up in training mode like the manuals describe. Then we can shoot at each other instead of picking off trees and stuff. If we burn up too many more trees someone is likely to figure out where we are.”

  “Too late for that, I think that one hillside is pretty much toast already.” Sven laughed as he speeded up to head out into the corridor and down the length of the hanger to get to his Rifleman on the opposite side. Jake was already climbing into his Vulture, which was parked on the near side of the bay across from the main offices.

  Picture Pack: Rifleman, MadCat-II

  “Reactor Online. Sensors Online. Weapons Online. All Systems Nominal.”

  Jake put the neuro helmet on and pressed the ‘Systems’ button on the left console. Scrolling through the menus, he found the heading he was looking for ‘Auxiliary Functions’. Under that heading he located the ‘Training Mode’ function and selected it. A window came up on the screen allowing him to ‘join’ a campaign as either a member of team one or team two. He selected team one. He also noticed the box entitled ‘Sortie’ was blank and pressed the sortie button on the screen. Another window opened, allowing him to select a training sortie from a list of pre-programmed training exercises courtesy of the prior base owners.

  “Hey guys” Jake spoke into the radio link. “There are probably a hundred pre-configured training sorties already in the system to choose from. Do you want to try one out?”

  “Pick one and let’s see what it does.” Sven was game.

  Selecting the first sortie on the list, ‘Defend Sunshine Ravine’ a topo map came up on Jake’s display showing NAV Alpha, a ravine a few kilometers from the tunnel entrances. Jake could see the base marked on the map. Jake’s first objective was ‘Defend NAV Alpha’, the secondary objective was ‘Eliminate Invader Units’. Team two came up filled with a lance of seven ‘Bot’ mechs and four tanks.

  “Whoops, that’s too many attackers. We need to delete a few of those when we run this for real.” Since Hai, Dan and Zane hadn’t arrived, they weren’t ready to go out on exercises quite yet. Jake could see the Bot mechs on his topo map, indicated as red icons out at NAV Beta. “Hey check it out, guys! Bot mechs to shoot at, we don’t have to shoot each other!” Jake pressed the ‘Initiate Exercise’ button and the windows closed out of his view. The Bot mechs started moving on the map, heading straight for NAV Alpha.

  “Whoh, look at that, they didn’t even wait for us to get into position.” Bjorn was following along from his mech on the display screens.

  “A couple are splitting off from the main group” Sven observed, “Whoops, they disappeared. They turned off their radar and went covert. Guys, these Bots are a lot smarter than the ones on our sim at home. Those three went silent and are circling to attack from a different angle.”

  “I think you’re right. Wow, this is going to be fun! A full blown military simulator to play with. Nice!” Jake was enthusiastic. “We might even get our butts kicked if we’re not careful. Whoops, the other mechs just went silent too.”

  The guys watched the exercise play out, the Invader mechs quietly took up positions around Sunshine Ravine, NAV Alpha, went active on radar briefly turning it on and off trying to spot any defenders as they moved in, then declared victory when no resistance appeared. “Well, that was interesting.” Bjorn chuckled. “I’m killing this one and I’ll set up another one for us to watch. Let’s see what ‘Basalt Ridge Assault’ looks like.”

  After watching a few more exercises play out on their tactical screens the guys decided to take a break and have some lunch.

  During lunch the rest of the c
rew showed up, Dan, Hai, and Zane came bounding into the mess hall. “Hey guys, what’s up?” Dan asked? “Yowsa! Is there any ham left? I’m starving.”

  “Since when is that news?” Ariel chided. “You’re always hungry. Don’t they ever feed you at that machine shop your Dad runs? Hi Hai.” Ariel quipped. “I’ve got a roast beast sandwich over here for you.”

  “Hey Ariel, are you going to join us in a mech today?” Zane asked. “We’ve got the training mode figured out. You should jump into the Shadow Cat again today.”

  “I suppose I could. Tarra, what do you think?”

  “Go right ahead, I can man the Command Center. It’s just like being in the cockpit with you guys from in here anyway. You know I don’t like driving those things.”

  “Yah, but once we get the Deimos and the Commando running we’ll be short two mech pilots.” Zane was trying to be practical.

  “No thanks. I like my comfy Command Center better than getting bounced around in one of those noisy tin cans. You can keep ‘em.”

  “That brings up a good point though, Zane.” Bjorn mentioned thinking out loud. “Who are we going to get to pilot the other two mechs? We have two or three more tanks we could man too.”

  “I was thinking Ben would be a good candidate, if he promises not to tell Dad what we’re up to. He knows how to fix stuff better than we do, maybe he could help us get the other two mechs running again.”

  “No, he wouldn’t keep our secret. He’d feel obligated to tell Dad. He’s Dad’s foreman, remember.” Bjorn scrunched his face in concern. “Maybe we’d better hold off and think about it for awhile.”

  “Maybe you’re right. We don’t have to decide anything right away.” Sven took the last bite of his sandwich and washed it down with some juice.

  Dan downed an entire cookie in two bites and added, “We’ve all got hired hands in our shops and ranches that might work out, we just have to be careful and pick one’s we can work with. One’s we trust to watch our back in a fire fight.” Dan drawled.

  Bjorn officially changed the topic, “Ok guys, listen up. Remember what we went over last time. You stay together in pairs, and we concentrate our fire on one target as much as possible. We can knock ‘em out faster if we work together. Don’t go rushing into the middle and get ganged up on, stay together out of the center of the fight so we can gang up on them one at a time. Wingmen, if someone fires on you or your primary, block the shots and fire back, but stay put. Don’t go runnin’ off and leave your partner unprotected. Primaries, keep your fire concentrated on our main target until it goes down, let your wingman do his job. Whoever the lance leader is, your job is to designate targets for the lance. Pick targets everyone else can hit from where they are, don’t go picking mechs way out of line from everyone else. Got it?”

  “Roger. We got it.”

  “And remember if it gets too hot where you are, holler and we’ll back out of the fight. We’ll eventually reach a point where we have control of the situation again. At that point stand your ground and fight. We stay together and survive. No hot shot Lone Rangers.”

  “Hey, isn’t that from one of those goofy movie collections we found in the library?” Zane queried.

  “Yes, but stay focused. We have mechs to kill.” Bjorn was all business.

  “And no circle fighting.” Sven added. “That just gets you into the middle of everyone else, right where you don’t want to be. All of the enemy can hit you, and we have to shoot around you. Move forwards and backwards or sideways instead of circling.”

  “All right, then. Let’s move out.”

  The guys walked briskly out of the mess hall and down the corridor towards the mechs. Dan, Zane and Hai peeled off with Ariel in tow to get the key cards to their machines before mounting up with the rest of the team. Coming out of the wardroom, Ariel passed a small robot vacuum cleaner about the size and shape of a lunchbox moving along the edge of the main corridor. Someone had put a sticker on the top of it from a piece of equipment that read ‘Harvey Industries’. Hai had gotten the little floor cleaning bots running again once he realized what they were for and where the controls were in the base operating system. Quite a few of them still worked.

  “Hi Harvey.” Ariel commented with a smile as she walked past. “Dan was in the mess hall again. You’d better get one of your little buddies down there to clean up his cookie crumbs.”

  Dan gave Ariel a grimace and a glare but kept walking. He wasn’t very amused, but she was too cute to get too mad at.

  Ariel found her way to the Shadow Cat. Clambering in, she fired up the mech’s systems and strapped into the command seat and plugged in her gray cooling vest. It was a little big for her, but it was the smallest one they had found in the locker room. “Hello, my pretty. What shall we do today, hmmm? A little tango perhaps?” Paging through the menus, she found the ‘Training Mode’ screen right where Sven said it would be and selected Team 1 as the guy’s names started to appear. ‘Grassland Convoy Assault’ popped up in the Sortie box.

  Ariel’s mech had a long range gauss rifle, which was perfect for her style of fighting. She liked sniping from a safe location behind cover, she didn’t like getting into a slug fest at close range like Dan and Zane seemed to get into every time in their tanks. The tanks were equipped with oversized AC-20 shotguns so shorter range encounters made sense. Ariel’s two quick firing medium lasers were used as a back up just in case she had to defend herself up close. The jump jets were handy too. She could pop up from behind a ridge, fire at the top of the jump when the mech was the most stable, then drop back behind cover and out of the line of fire. The slow recycle time of the gauss rifle didn’t matter as much if you weren’t trying to fire continuously. Hopping up and down was a bit rough on the pilot of a real mech, she had discovered. The ride was a LOT rougher than the simulator at Bjorn’s house.

  Slipping on her neuro helmet, all of the data shifted to the virtual heads up display and communications shifted to her helmet. Pressing the remote up over her head, the pilot’s bridge rotated out of the way. Hai had figured out the remotes, they just weren’t activated in the base control software until he enabled them again. “Alright, guys. Lead the way.”

  Tarra popped up in a small window on Ariel’s screen as she was piloting the mech out of the hanger and walking down towards the side tunnel. “Hey girlfriend. I’ve got you on the command screen, you’re looking good from in here. I see seven combatants out on the playing field escorting a column of trucks and artillery pieces.”

  Bjorn answered back. “Roger, we see them on the tactical map. It looks like they’re out where the Bants like to graze. Maybe we’ll see a few Bants during the exercise. Try not to step on any.”

  Bjorn was in the lead, followed by Sven and Jake. The two tanks were next, with Ariel bringing up the rear. “We’ll pull up behind the column and attack the two rear guard mechs first. I’ll initiate the exercise in a few seconds, then I want everyone to go dark. No radar or comms, got it?” Bjorn commanded.

  “Roger, Going Dark. Passives only.” Ariel snapped off the active radar as Bjorn initiated the exercise. Ariel silently followed the group out of the side tunnel past the trees and out into the bright sunshine outside the Styx River tunnels. What a gorgeous day, she thought smiling and turning her face up into the sunlight coming down through the clear roof panel of the cockpit. The sun shimmered brightly through the bright green leaves of the trees lining the upper edge of the narrow ravine.

  As the team exited the ravine the mechs strode out onto the rocky sands and ascended up the slight grade up to the top of the rise. As they topped the rise, the countryside expanded out before them. Ariel could see clearly across the rough broken terrain, cut diagonally by a few rocky ravines. The cracks in the earth were pretty small compared to the huge size of the mechs, much smaller than they appeared from the inside of the Ripsaw. The difference made Ariel laugh. She felt like a giant stomping around the countryside, Gulliver in the land of the L
illiputians.

  The transit took the team about ten minutes to reach the lower grasslands and cross several streams. The Bants were several klicks away on the opposite side of the plain. As the mechs moved in, the Bants moved further away and out of sight over the rise, along with several flocks of startled white water fowl. As Ariel approached NAV Alpha she could see movement off in the distance, the computer-generated images of the enemy mechs and convoy were overlaid onto her forward view screen. Bjorn had slowed to allow the team to form up on his sides so the team could ‘cross the T’ and fire on the rear guard mechs all at the same time. Surging forwards, the team advanced across the remaining two kilometers of ground rapidly closing on the virtual enemy column. Ariel could see there were three mechs at the head of the column, one on each side in the middle, and two rear guards. They were approaching the rear guards.

  Breaking radio silence, Bjorn gave the command, “Commence Firing!”

  All seven machines spat out virtual weapons fire at the target mechs. Bjorn swept the lance to the right across the rear of the column, allowing all of the mechs and tanks to fire simultaneously at the two rear targets while staying on the move. Defensively, they needed to keep moving to make it more difficult for the enemy machines to return fire. Ariel brought up the rear, following Dan and Zane in the Demolisher tanks. Her position made it easier for her, since it was simpler to shoot over the top of the tanks. She didn’t have to worry about hitting any of her own lance with friendly fire.

  Picture Pack: Demolisher

  Nearly everyone in the lance fired on the left rear mech in the column. The enemy Argus pitched forwards violently, as most of the rear armor vaporized and was pierced by rounds, exposing the reactor and turbines inside the body of the mech. Following up with a second volley, the Argus went face down digging heavily into the turf, catching the last truck in the column with it’s right arm. The enemy Summoner on the right took only minor damage, since most of the fire was directed at the other rear mech. Spinning off towards the right away from the column, it turned and returned fire, launching a volley of fifteen missiles and firing it’s high energy PPC (Particle Projection Cannon) directly at Sven, who was at the forward end of the lance.