by Aer-ki Jyr
That both confused and worried her, until she remembered that her mech had lost its right arm.
The Archon curled her right arm up, feeling it swing free with the telltale flexes of the control straps on shoulder, arm, and fingers. When the limb had been disconnected the control mechanism had released its counter pressure, now that her actual arm controlled nothing on the mech. The fact that her left arm was stuck in place meant her mech’s arm was stuck, so it wouldn’t allow the control straps to move.
That also meant her mech still had power, despite the fact that her faceplate was dark. When the control straps lost either connectivity or power they went limp, so as to not trap the pilot in place.
“Qui,” she said, with the word reverberating through her head painfully. “Emergency release.”
Suddenly all the clasps and straps disconnected, which she expected would drop her down onto the footpads…but it didn’t. Instead she was thrown back against the hatch, knocking herself unconscious again.
Jasmine woke up when the mech moved, rolling over onto her left side and holding her head. To her surprise her fingers felt a piece of metal sticking out above her left eye, which was apparently imbedded firmly, for when she tried to pry it loose all she accomplished was doubling herself over in pain. She curled up into a ball and tried to squeeze away the attack that seemed to be pounding her from inside her defenses, which wasn’t fair at all.
Just as her tensed muscles seemed to start to win out and bleed off the most intense pain coming from her head the mech jerked again, bringing it right back…then she found herself slipping across the floor and being dumped onto the wall as the mech turned over.
Next thing she knew she was tangled up in the control straps with blood dripping down her nose, then a painfully bright light drove a dagger into her head wound. Multiple hands found her shoulders, arms, and legs, pulling her loose from the straps and out of the broken cockpit into daylight.
It wasn’t until she was on a floating medical platform that she realized the daylight was actually the floodlights coming from a mech. Once passing out of those she was pushed across a patch of darkness, leaving her to look up at the starry sky before an injection rendered her unconscious again as the medics loaded her onto a waiting mantis.
Jasmine woke up with a jerk, lifting her torso up off the medical bed as if she’d been struck by an electric charge. Within a second her eyes were open and she was leaning back on her arms, looking around. Years of challenges and trials getting stunned unconscious and reawakened again had created a quick-awakening habit in a small portion of the Archons, with Jasmine being one of the most violent wakers…as if part of the urgency of her last waking moment carried over to the present.
“Easy, easy,” a Clan Kerensky medic urged. “You’re safe.”
It took a moment for Jasmine’s head to partly clear, but a knife of fog still lay in her forehead. She reached a hand up and felt the slick plastic patch on her forehead over her left eye, remembering the piece of metal that had been stuck in there…back in the cockpit…of her downed mech.
“What happened?” she asked, finding her voice to be rough. “How long have I been out?”
“Five days,” the medic said. “We needed to keep you under for the bone restructuring. You had a piece of debris imbedded in your skull. No brain damage, fortunately, but that piece of your skull had to be regrown. It’s covering the hole now, but thin. You’ll have to take it easy until the regen patch thickens it up, and you’ll need to eat a lot.”
“Define ‘easy,’” she said, looking around the small med bay. There were six other bed-like platforms, each with built in padding and heating elements, but no cloth-like accoutrements. There was a small, pillow-like bump, but otherwise Jasmine had been lying out in the open along with two other patients.
The room was warm enough that didn’t seem to be a problem, and Jasmine was wearing a deep aqua colored uniform, several shades brighter than the pale one the medic was wearing, indicating that she was a patient.
“Nothing that touches your head, or has the potential to,” the medic said, well aware of the Archon’s extraordinary training habits. “You should be fine running, if you can stand the headache, and agility drills, flexibility, etc. Your core workouts are a go. Unless you have any particular difficulty, movement would be helpful in the healing process. The thickness is enough to keep the new bone in place short of a puncture. Make sure you don’t bump your head on anything.”
Jasmine nodded, immediately regretting the motion and steeling herself against the pain, knowing she was going to have to work through it. “What was the result of the battle? Someone obviously pulled me out of the wreckage.”
The medic frowned, glancing at the other patients. “Only three mechs were left standing, though some loose patrols showed up at the end. All but two of the predators were taken down, but they stuck around long enough to level every building in the Star Claw base. They retreated and left us to pick up the pieces.”
“What about the lizards on the ground? Around here, assuming this is the Kerensky base?”
“It is, and they’re all gone, as far as we could tell. We lost a perimeter turret, nothing more.”
“How many survivors?”
“I’m not sure about the Star Claw base personnel. Most were killed, with the survivors being flown down south. As far as mechwarriors go, we only suffered 18% casualties. Scorpions had 15% and Star Claws had 26%. I guess the armored cockpits are worth the expense…save for the piece that cracked off and imbedded itself in your head.”
“By casualties, are you including me? How many are dead?”
“Wounded count as casualties. 3 Kerenskies, 4 Star Claws, and 1 Scorpion are dead among the mechwarriors. 8 Kerenskies, 3 Star Claws, and 13 Scorpions skeet pilots were killed. We brought a few wounded Star Claw Archons and Knights back that were engaging the lizards on the ground, but I don’t have casualty numbers for them. All their surviving security forces were evacuated south, along with the critically injured. We kept those that could be returned to combat soon around here, because we’re going to need every man we can get.”
“What’s up?” Jasmine asked, sensing something in the medic’s tone.
“One of the Star Claw skeets tracked the retreating predators back to their base. She ran out of fuel getting there and had to be picked up halfway back, but she gave us a target to strike back at. There’s a cruiser on the ground, with a shield tower in the early stages of construction.”
“When?”
“That’s up to Cora and Paul. Rumor is they’re working out some master strategy that involves bringing in some more of the Clans with high marks in mech combat.”
“Where’s the base? Is it accessible to mechs or down south in the forest?”
“I’m not sure. I only hear bits and pieces, but I get the feeling that it’s going to be several weeks at least, and if you keep that patch on you might be fit enough to join in the assault.”
“If they’re bringing in more Clans it’ll be more than a few weeks. It takes four weeks for a jumpship to travel straight back to Sol.”
“You’ll have to ask your peers about that. I just know there’s a timetable with how fast the enemy defense shield is being built.”
Jasmine glanced at the other patients. “How are they doing?”
“Worse than you, but they’ll all recover.”
“Is that a regenerator?” she asked, spotting the shiny V’kit’no’sat technology on one man’s arm…or rather what was left of it. It’d been severed just below the elbow.
“Special occasion. Cora authorized its use. I didn’t even know what it was until they briefed me.”
“We can only recharge them on Earth,” Jasmine explained, “and we can’t make any more if they’re damaged or lost, so we have to be careful with their use.”
“Alien tech I’m told?”
“Need to know,” Jasmine said as gratefully as she could. “Very few non-Archons know of their exist
ence, and we’d like to keep it that way for now.”
The medic frowned, but didn’t ask any further questions.
Jasmine sighed. “The previous owners make the lizards look like harmless children by comparison. One enemy at a time is all most people can take.”
“I can believe that…the damn thing is regrowing his arm. Our current tech can only regenerate patches of existing structure,” he said, pointing to her head. “Growing an entirely new limb is…downright amazing.”
“Keep it to yourself until we can copy more of the tech. There are billions of people back home that we can’t share it with.”
“I understand. I’m just glad for his sake that you’ve acquired the devices.”
“Me too,” Jasmine said, swinging her bare feet over the side of the table/bed and letting them dangle there as she fought against the blinding ache in her head. “So…who had the luxury of using me to play Barbie?”
“Barbie?”
“Who dressed me?” she said, realizing he was too young to get the cultural reference from 200 years ago.
“Actually I’ve been your assigned medtech since they brought you back, so guilty as charged. Any complaints? I had to guess as to your size.”
“Enjoy the view?”
“Amazed would be more accurate. You Archons are put together better than the gods.”
Jasmine smiled. “Thanks, on both counts. I can shower with this patch on, right?”
“The seal is waterproof, yes.”
Jasmine stepped down off the bed and felt a spike of pain in her forehead as soon as her foot hit the floor. She stumbled, but held herself up with a firm grip on the side of the bed. “Are you married?”
“Ah, no, I’m not,” the medic said, surprised at the question.
“Girlfriend?”
“All the way out here? No, no girlfriend. I came to serve the Clan. Plenty of time for dating when you’re not in a war zone. Why do you ask?”
“I was wondering if I could proposition you for a co-ed shower. My head may be hurting, but my nose seems to be working just fine. I reek of sweat and blood.”
“Your place or mine?” he joked.
“Whichever one is closest,” she said, standing up a bit straighter but still clinging to the side of the bed for balance as she squinted against the pain.
The medic pointed back over his shoulder. “About 30 steps that way there’s a small unit you can use. It’s for us to use post-surgery.”
Jasmine reached her left arm up and the medic dipped his shoulder underneath and helped her walk past the other patients and into the shower/prep room. It wasn’t nearly as small as he’d made it sound, but it was one single circular shower pod about 2 meters wide. He pulled the door to the room shut behind them with his free hand and flipped on the lights as he walked her over to a changing bench.
“Don’t bother,” she said, pointing him towards the shower. “Just get me inside.”
“Mind your step,” he said, making sure she lifted her bare feet up over the ledge and onto the slightly elevated interior. The floor was made of soft, squishy, gripable material, but he still kept a firm hold on her as she leaned against the inside of the translucent circular wall.
Jasmine reached down to her pants’ waistline and began to pull them off, but couldn’t bend forward far enough without tipping over. “Would you mind?”
“If you insist,” he said, cautiously.
“I’m not shy. Strip me down and turn the water on…and you have my permission to ‘enjoy the view.’”
“Would you like a massage while I’m at it,” he joked, starting instead with her shirt and carefully pulling her right arm back in through the sleeve.
“So long as your hands are covered in soap,” she said, leaning the right side of her head against the wall, only to have him gently pull it off again to get the shirt over her head.
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell if you’re joking or not on that one.”
“Water is fine, unless you’d like to feel me up in the name of cleanliness. It’s all I can do to keep standing.”
“You sure?”
“I’m not shy,” she repeated. “And I’m quite stiff and sore from laying on that bed in the same position for days, so if you’ve also got a masseuse’s touch I’d appreciate the body work.”
“Alright,” the man said, trying not to take too much pleasure in his task. “You stand, I thoroughly scrub. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, closing her eyes and grabbing on to the small control panel for the water flow, willing her knees to stay locked as the pain in her head tried to blot out all other sensation.
6
August 18, 2264
Epsilon Eridani System
Corneria
Dozens of short range missiles leapt from the launchers on the line of three Star Force gunships floating in position over a phalanx of Clan Davion and Clan Thrawn mechs. The tiny projectiles shot out in plumes, individually tracking towards the incoming lizard fighters swarming up out of hidden hangars in the snow covered trees to the southwest. Beyond that lay the completed shield generator tower, standing high above the forest canopy but partially shrouded in white flakes from the storm that was blowing in. Barely visible in between were tiny bricks rising up slowly to follow the fighters out against Star Force’s approaching mechs.
The lizards had to split their defenses, however, given that the assault was happening on multiple fronts. The base was located on the far side of the northern pole, with more tree clusters than snowy plains, but there were three ground approach corridors into the base, branching out into a myriad of crisscrossing paths that led to the wider plains further north. The mechs had kept close to the trees during their long run up to the base, which they were still a few kilometers shy of, to stay undetected by the lizards’ sensors.
The ploy had worked, because until the fleet of aircraft came in to supplement the mechs the base hadn’t responded. The gunships had flown at ground level ahead of the main force of dropships, skimming the snow so they could catch up to the mechs to be in ambush position when the base defenders came out, and had just caught up to this portion of the marching mechs less than a minute ago.
As the dozens of dropships set down well back from the base, 8 Clans marched forward on the snowy approaches at a steady pace, no longer running as they had been earlier. The forward line of mechs on each of the three attack groups was comprised of mad dogs that had their shoulder weapon mounts that typically held missiles replaced with anti-air lachars. Due to the erratic paths in to the base the mechs couldn’t see the approaching fighters, so they waited patiently, watching the gunships’ missiles fire off over the trees.
Ten seconds later the first of the surviving fighters flashed by overhead, firing at one of the gunships and hitting its shields with a small plasma orb before the autofire setting on the mech’s weapons tracked and knocked it out of the sky. Several more suffered the same fate, some of which fell into the mech ranks but most had enough momentum to carry them across the angle of the path and into the forest on the far side.
Likewise, anti-air lachar clusters on the gunships mowed through the approaching fighter swarm, which had been diminished in size due to having to split up to attack all three approaching mech groups. Within a minute the Star Force troops took out 90% of the defending fighters, with skeet squadrons coming up from behind to track down the survivors as they fled over the forest and away from the mechs, making sure to steer clear of the invisible flat shield deployed above the base.
With the reports of the fighters all but gone, the leading mechs parted and walked over to the sides of the path next to the trees, letting the others pass by and going to the end of the line. Missile-packed madcats making up the next two lines ran on ahead, spacing themselves out and getting ready for the predators they knew were incoming. The gunships, outfitted for anti-fighter combat, pulled back and left the advance to the leading mechs, flying in a line designed to pull the larger, tougher lizard gunships
directly over the ambush.
Some took the bait while others headed off over the forest towards the distant dropships that were delivering even more mechs to the ground at five different drop points that would filter in to the 3 approach paths to the base. Altogether there were 18 of the flying tanks deploying to counter the attackers, now split up into small groups, two of which passed over the trees and onto the path containing the Clan Davion and Clan Thrawn assault group.
The madcats up front had to pivot around to hit the gunships, because they crossed well to the aft of the formation, but they were still within missile range and turned to target the mechs anyway, with the now trailing mad dogs poking at them with the lachars in their arms. Swarms of missiles rose up and smothered the two targets, knocking down their shields within seconds and pummeling the armored hulls underneath as the rest of the 58 mechs targeted the predators with plasma, lachars, rail guns, and missiles of their own.
Both targets went down into the forest, falling well clear of the mechs, then became lost in the trees and blowing snow with only a few plumes of smoke rising up to mark their location but even those were quickly dispersed at altitude thanks to the storm winds. Reforming their lines the mechs moved on up the twists and turns in the path, gradually approaching the base as their reinforcements gathered kilometers back.
Jasmine was piloting one of the madcats walking out of a Dragon-class dropship along with the other Clan Kerensky and Clan Saber mechs that would join up with the reinforcements from Clan Scorpion and Clan Sangheili further down the line, then make their way to the rest of their Clansmen in the western assault on the base. Each step her mech took made her head twinge, but it was well worth the tradeoff to be allowed to join in the attack rather than sitting back at base while the others went into combat.
Clan Kerensky had lost so many mechs that Cora and Paul had decided to reinforce their numbers with a partial Clan Saber force brought in from Sol, while Clan Scorpion did the same with an element of Clan Sangheili that Jason had personally brought out to Corneria. Not being the best mechwarrior amongst his Clan, he too was going into battle with the reserves…though perhaps that designation was a misnomer, because they had a larger role to play if things took a turn for the worst.