by Jessie Wolf
I switch back over to the broad band link. “What’s the matter, Victor? Afraid of a little girl? Come on make your decision already. I gave you your choices, what will it be?”
“I fear no woman!” he roared. “You will be either dead or my slave you little bitch! When all is said and done House Nakatoma will be history and the Imperial throne will belong to House Light!” as he was screaming over the link I heard them. There were only two but it would be enough to even the score board.
The A-110’s came in low over the battle field. The rebels first indication they were even there was the arrival of laser guided missiles slamming home on their chests’. Next came the auto-cannon fire as it stitched two lines across the tops of them. The heavy pulse plasma lasers were right behind the ACs’. The Hog’s kept up their attack run right into the rest of the rebel force that surrounded us. How they missed us I’ll never know, but if I survive this fight I’m buying those two pilots a drink. Right now though I need to hit Victor before he can recover from the attack.
As the Hogs go screaming overhead I get a hard target lock on Victors Ares and fire all four of my main weapons. Both of my PPCs’ hit Victor in the waist joint. My PPLs core into the chest area burning away paint and melting armor. I don’t waste any time and kick Vicky into an all-out sprint I need to get into Victor’s rear. If I let that beast get a shot off we’re dead.
Seeing me nail Victor, mama and Alice attack their chosen targets with everything they have. I don’t have time to worry right then though I have my own hands full dealing with Victor and his Ares. He may be a sycophant and a back stabbing piece of shit, but he knows how to pilot that beast. He fires his PPC but misses wide of me burning a ten to fifteen foot long path in the ground behind me. Two of his lasers hit Vicky in the right side of her chest. The other two also go wide, but I hear nothing from the rail gun or Gatling gun. A quick scan shows that both of them were knocked out in the airstrike by the A-110’s. Talk about a stroke of luck. I need to capitalize somehow on this.
I push Vicky once more to her limits. I get a hard lock again I fire with everything I have. Once again the PPCs’ hit the Ares in the waist, melting the armor plating there even more. As it melts it runs down into the hip joints and waist turret ring. If enough gets in to those joints it’ll lock them up making it even harder to maneuver. The PPL’s hit half away up the arm with the PPC vaporizing the armor there. Damn all I’m doing is damage to his armor. I really need to get around to his rear and hit his back where the armor is thinnest. I keep moving but Victor is still turning with me trying to get his bearing on me, but I’m just too fast for that.
I watch as his PPC begins to glow as it powers up to fire. At this range if he hits me with that thing my worn out armor won’t stop it. It’ll just bore through to my insides as if my armor was paper. That’s when I get a real surprise. His PPC blows up taking his left arm with it. Holy shit, either my PPLs did more damage than I thought or it was hit during the airstrike and then my PPLs’ finished it off. I didn’t care it was gone and it gave me the breathing space I needed. The explosion of his PPC Victor stumbles to the right I can tell he’s fighting to keep it up right.
I change course and head straight for his left side firing only my PPCs’. They pack more than just heat when they hit. The kinetic energy of the accelerated projectiles just might knock the Ares over in its unstable condition. They both hit it in the shoulder pushing it further off balance. It’s still not enough Victor is just too good a pilot. I drop Vicky’s shoulder, increase my speed and rammed into him. The impact is enough to topple the behemoth. As it falls Victor tries his best to keep it from falling on its face. In doing so he damn near trips Vicky, if not for the fact I was fighting the rebound from the impact Vicky would have gone down too.
I slow down and make a quick turnaround. Once I am facing Victor again I see his APS is face down. With its left arm gone and the right damaged beyond use there is no way he‘ll get it upright anytime soon. In that position he can’t even get out of the cockpit. With Victor Light out of the fight I turn my attention to seeing how mama and Alice are doing. What I see lets me know the fight ain’t over yet. Mama has her hands full with David Moor and his one hundred ton Mars. Alice is faring better with Charles Daniels in the ninety ton Tyr. Her speed and greater skill along with knowing every inch of her Panther more than evens up the odds. So it looks like I’m going after the Mars and give mama a hand.
I put a blast from all four of my weapons into the Ares’ legs destroying them from the knees down and take off to help mama. As I pass the Tyr though I just can’t pass up the chance to add insult to injury. I fire both of my PPLs’ into its legs. You can imagine my surprise when the left leg collapses out from under the Tyr. As it falls backwards I hear Alice over our lance com link. “Thanks, kitten, I needed a break. Now I can get in close and finish this.”
“You’re welcome, baby girl. Now put the fracking pig down for good, and give me and mama a hand with that Mars.”
“On my way. Good bye Daniels see you in Hell!” I watch as she pours pure death into the cockpit of the Tyr. All ten of her lasers burn through it as if the armor plating and glass was paper. We never hear the final scream of Charles Daniels nor will anyone. When it comes time to claim his remains all the grave diggers will find is burned plasma and melted plastic. Yes it was wrong to kill a downed and crippled enemy like that, but this was one of the seven architects of this war; and there will be no mercy or quarter for them.
As I move to give mama a hand with More, I get hit in the back by what feels like the hand of God. The heat in my cockpit spikes, the lights flicker, and Vicky stumbles I caught my balance just barely keeping her up right. Before I can ask Vicky display’s where the shot came from, along with who fired it. A group of two Hell Spawn IFVs’ had moved into to try and rescue Light and Daniels. Seeing Alice just burn Daniels to ash must have pissed them off. Well their act of defiance just cost them their lives. I turn Vicky around and fire both of my weapons in my right arm. The thin armor of the IFV doesn’t stand a chance. When it blows the blast almost knocked me down. Something is wrong here, something bad. “Vicky, why are you stumbling around, baby girl?”
“I didn’t want to tell you this, Maiha, but my gyro-stabilizer is damaged.”
“How bad is it, Vicky?”
“At the rate it is going, I won’t be able to stand in five minutes, but that is not our biggest problem.”
“And just what is that?”
“The shielding for my reactor has been damaged. I can’t take another hit in the back. One more and I’ll lose control over the reactor, and you know what that means.”
“Yeah we go boom.” What Vicky just told me was not good news. Hell it wasn’t even bad news. It was shitty, kitty news. “Alright Vicky, I’ll do what I can to keep that from happening. Right now we need to give mama a hand with that Mars.” I turn back to my original target only to see both mama and Alice driving the Mars to its knees. I watch as they hit it from both its left and right sides. They literally cut or blast its arms from the shoulder rendering it helpless. Then over the board band link I hear. “Enough, I surrender. I yield already.”
“Mama, Alice, back off and hold your fire, but if he even farts wrong blast his ass.” I tell them over the lance link, and then switch over to the board band. “Moor, if you want to live you’ll follow my orders to the letter. First order your men to cease fire, and then stand down. Next you’ll pop your hatch, power down, and exit your APS. If you try anything you’re a dead man.”
I watch as the remaining enemy troops cease firing and lay down their arms or abandon their AP Suits. All over the field I hear them calling out ‘I surrender don’t shoot’ or something along those lines. Moor pops his cockpit hatch and begins to climb out slowly. Finally it’s all over but rounding up the survivors and hauling them to face justice.
“Maiha, now that the fighting is done I think you should dismount.”
“What’s the matter Vicky?”
“I need to shut down my stabilizer before it becomes so unstable that it blows up.” Oh shit that ain’t good. If her stabilizer is that far gone it would gut her if it blew. With that in mind I slowly settle her into a knee position with her left arm supporting her in this position. Once down I quickly disconnect saying.
“Do you think you’ll be alright here until I can get the recovery truck out here to pick you up, Vicky?”
(GIGGLE) “Do you honestly think anybody will be able to steal me with all of the friendly troops around here?” (GIGGLE) I couldn’t help it I had to laugh right along with her. I forgot that almost no one but me could get her to do anything than what she wanted to.
“I’ll see you later baby girl. Right now I still have a lot of work to do.” I push her hatch closed and climb down her front. It was slow going. Her normal smooth orderly surface was pitted and warped; some of her built in hand holds were missing. All of this was complicated as there were still some areas that were hot to the touch. Once on the ground I got my first real look at the damage done to her.
Whole sections of armor plate were gone, over half of her paint was burned away or blackened by near misses. One of her two sensor dishes or ‘ears’ had a hole that was a foot wide clean through it. Looking around to make sure no one was going to stab me in the back as I walked around to look at the damage to her backside. What I saw damn near caused me to shit myself. No wonder why her gyro was hit, there was a four foot hole in her armor right where it would be. It was a miracle that it wasn’t hit sooner.
A young soldier in the uniform of McHale’s Pirates comes running up to me with a mobile link set. “Excuse ma’am, but are you the Lady Maiha?”
“Yes I’m Maiha Nakatoma. Can I help you?”
“Yes ma’am you have a call form General Star on the battle link. I had it transferred to this mobile.” He handed the mobile to me as he was talking not bothering to give me his name. For once I find his total lack of indifference to be welcome.
Taking the handset for the mobile link I key up the mike. “Go for Wave Dancer. Over”
“This is Black Star Six Wave Dancer. It’s good to hear your voice old friend. Over”
“Same here, Black Star, how’s the clean up going? Over”
“We have rounded up all of the rebel Head of House’s except for the big three. Do you have any idea of their location? Over”
“Sure do Six. Though it’s going to be a little hard to clean up one of them. Over”
“Why’s that Dancer? Over”
“Daniels is a crispy critter thanks to Koneko Mistress dumping about fifty million jolts of high powered light into his cockpit. Over”
“Damn that’ll do it. What did she do stand on top of him and fire all her weapons at once? Over”
I think of how to answer that question, do I lie or tell the truth. I mean what she did could be considered a war crime, then again if Daniels had the chance he would’ve done the same to her. “Just about Star Six. We are going to need all of the heavy left recovery vehicles you cans get your hands on. None of us are in any shape to walk back. Over”
“Your IC is already working on that Dancer and a whole lot more. If you don’t need her we’re done here I’d like to talk to her about joining the Death Dealers. Over”
“OH Hell No! You're not poaching my people you old dog. Besides, Short Stop is underage for imperial service. Over”
I hear Mike laughing over the link and I just have to join in. The old dodger was going to try to do just that. “Ok Dancer, I’ll leave your people alone. Your House Commander is sending out a hover car to pick up you and your team. He said something about you most likely needing a lift after that run. Over”
“Sounds good to me, we’ll see you in about fifteen to twenty minutes. Out” I hand the handset back to the young man from McHale’s Pirates thanking him for bring it out to me. While I was on the link to Mike mama and Alice had moved their APS’ beside Vicky and dismounted to join me on the ground.
I grab mama and pull her into the biggest hug I can manage while screaming at the top of my lungs. “We did it! We actually did it! We won!” I had no sooner put her down than it was Alice’s turn. “Way to go Koneko! We beat the sons-of-bitches. We did it! By God, we did it!” as I put her down mama just looks at me then starts to giggle, then laugh. I can see the stress of years and years of fighting these fools finally leaving her. For the past twenty years she has done everything in her power to control their greed. Now that it is all over and she no longer has to fight them she can relax.
The smile on her face is one of pure joy. “Yes, child, we have done it. We actually won. Against all odds you have won the war, but I fear our fight is not over.”
“What, do you mean mama? All we have to do now is round up the traitors and turn them over to an imperial Judge and it’s out of our hands. What more do we have to do?” I was truly confused by her statement.
“We now must win the peace, Maiha. That battle must be done in the Halls of Parliament I’m afraid. A battle field that you are ill-equipped for.”
“What do mean ill-equipped for? I know how to behave in polite society.”
Mama is interrupted by the sounds of a high speed cutting saw. I look over to where the noise is coming from. On top of the back of Lights Ares is a recovery crew with heavy rescue tools. As I look at them I see that their dressed in the field uniforms of Hogan’s Hero’s mercenary unit. Beside the fallen Ares was a MK-90 Heavy Recovery Transport. Ever since Light fell something was bugging me. “Mama, if you’ll excuse me, but I need to go check on something.”
“What is it, Maiha? What’s wrong?”
I started walking toward the Ares. “We have not heard one word out of Victor since he was taken down. I think if he was able to, he would not have let Moor surrender the fight. I think he is either dead or unconscious. At least I hope so.” At the worried look on my face mama realizes what I truly fear.
“You don’t think the pilot was another double do you?”
“To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t put it past that gutless piece of shit to pull that little trick a second time. It wouldn’t take much for him to substitute a trained pilot for himself and make look like he was the pilot. All he would need is a secure video link that over road the cockpit link. If you remember we only communicated by an open board band link.”
“Oh Shit! You’re right, Maiha. We used to do that just to mess with the Opfor (Opposing Force) during training excises.” Alice was almost in a panic as she said this. With that in mind we all took off at a dead run for the fallen Ares. We quickly climbed up the side and over its back. When we reached the area for the cockpit the recovery crew was still hard at work. Seeing a Sergeant who appeared to be in charge Alice waved for him to join us. Once he was close enough to talk without yelling. “Sergeant, have you hear anything from inside?”
“From what we can tell there is someone that’s still alive in there ma’am. We can’t tell who it is though.”
I quickly ask “How can you tell?”
Pointing over to where a tech had a diagnostics terminal plugged into a service jack. “We’re getting life sign readings from the cockpit. From everything we can down load the pilot is out cold, but alive.”
“How soon till you’re in?”
“Maybe fifteen to twenty minutes, ma’am. Why do you ask is there someone important in there?” the man had no idea who was the pilot for the Ares.
“You could say that, Sergeant. The pilot is none other than Victor Light, one of the rebel leaders.”
With a shocked look the Sergeant turns and yells at the rescue crew. “Oy! Get a move on you useless pugs! We need that cockpit cracked open and now!” turning back to us “I’ll have that bastard out of there in just a minute, ma’am.” Turning back to his crew he really gets into motivating them. “I say to get a move on you slugs! I don’t care about salvage now. We just might have Victor Light in there. That’s right you slugs, you heard me correctly. The pil
ot for this APS is Victor Light. Now get that cockpit open, now!”
The recovery/rescue crew doubled their efforts to crack open the cockpit. The three of us have stayed out of the way and let the experts work. No matter how much I wanted to make sure that it was Victor Light in there I know to let the real experts do their jobs. The wait was driving me crazy. I see a private smoking what looks like an Empire Gold. I’ve been good about not smoking, but right now I needed a smoke to calm my nerves. Walking over to him “Excuse me Private can I get one of those cigarettes and a light off of you?”
He looks at me for a few seconds “I don’t know ma’am. You look a little young; I don’t want to get in trouble for corrupting a minor.”
“Don’t worry about that, as the Head of House Nakatoma I’ll take the blame.”
“Ok then here you go.” He hands me his pack and lighter. After fishing one out and lighting it, I take one more for later.
“Thanks, I needed this.” I walk back over to where mama and Alice are waiting. When they both give me strange looks I ask. “What? Can’t a girl enjoy a smoke after a hard day’s work?”
Mama, who has a look of disapproval, says. “Maiha, I know that you’re older than you look and you feel you have more than earned that cigarette, but smoking is not a very ladylike behavior.”
Alice is quick to agree. “Kitten, you know I love you, but you’re not kissing me with that mouth until you brush your teeth and use mouthwash. I’m not kissing an ashtray.”
“Ok, already you disapprove of my smoking I get it. I’ll quit once all this is cleared up. For now I’ll keep it to a minimum. Will that make you happy?” They both say ‘yes’ at the same time. “Boy; talk about your spoil sports. A girl can’t have any fun around here.” When I start to pout the two of them just giggle.
While we were waiting a medical evac team had arrived. Within fifteen minutes they have the back access hatch cut open and out of the way. They were summoned by the Sergeant when they had determined that the pilot was alive. Once the cockpit access was opened one of them side inside. After a few seconds later he yells out. “I need a back board and neck brace. This poor bastard is in a terrible way. From the looks of it he broke his back when he hit the ground face first. He also has what looks like a broken arm.” I watch as another medic scrambles inside the cockpit with the requested materials. Five minutes later they call out that they’re ready to lift the pilot out.