Author Topic: To Climb Back Again  (Read 17497 times)

Dubble_g

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To Climb Back Again
« on: 24 April 2018, 07:58:59 »
Hi guys, bit of a regular writer here on the board. Trying something new again. Hope you like!

* * *

It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air—there’s the rub, the task.
—Virgil, Aeneid


Some godforsaken place
Some godforsaken world
Some godforsaken day


They swore an oath.

The enemy would be coming soon, and none expected to live. But. But if one of them should survive, they would go, leave this place, travel back to Outreach, and bring word of what had happened.

So they each drew their knives, the last three out of a company of 100, and ran the blades slowly down their palms, waiting a stinging moment for the blood to well from the narrow wounds, and pressed their palms together. Sitting at the bottom of a wide, rain-filled crater, they pressed their palms together, and swore in blood.

“I swear,” said Furey, always the fastest, always the first in battle. Cat-quick, piercing-eyed. He held out his hand, palm up.

“I swear,” said Cairn, black-haired, grim-faced, as though cut from stone like his name. His massive hand covered Furey’s completely.

“I swear,” said Maeve, her grin an alloy of amusement and contempt—of the oath, of their chance of survival, of the pathetic comedy of life itself—but she held out her hand, nonetheless.

“Good,” said Cairn, nodding. He rolled his neck, cracked his knuckles with a sound like a rifle shot. “Good. Now let the bastards come.”

They’d heard the distant clank of tank treads all morning, the choking rumble of their diesel engines. There were ’Mechs out there, too. Battered, rusted, multiply-rebuilt things, but ’Mechs nonetheless. Over the past week, they’d seen a four-legged AgroMech with an autocannon crudely welded to its front, a HaulerMech with an improvised machinegun, some kind of round bulbous machine armed only with a giant club, as well as more deadly things—a spindly Nexus, a barrel-armed Falcon Hawk.

Furey laid their weapons out just below the rim of the crater. A trio of ancient 6mm GZ92 assault rifles, with a dozen 100-round drums of caseless ammunition. A shoulder-fired SRM launcher with four HEDP missiles. Two frag grenades, two smoke, one flash-bang. A vibramine set to 30 tons. Three slightly bloodstained survival knives.
 
“Doesn’t look so bad, when you see them like this,” Maeve commented sadly.

Furey sighed. The only thing the GZ92 did reliably was jam, just four missiles wouldn’t do anything to a ’Mech or tank except make themselves a high-priority target, and they’d found about half their grenades to be duds. “Right,” he said. “We will be fine. Totally fine. Nothing to worry about.”

“Good job, Fearless Leader,” said Maeve, patting him on the shoulder. “Very convincing.”
« Last Edit: 25 April 2018, 07:28:05 by Dubble_g »
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

DOC_Agren

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #1 on: 24 April 2018, 12:21:33 »
and we are off  please welcome the fans 8)
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

Kidd

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #2 on: 24 April 2018, 12:33:34 »
Maeve (Wolf) of Outreach? Furey - a Jag bloodname? Cairn or Carns? But... that's a contraction...

and away we go, indeed.

theCrowe

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #3 on: 24 April 2018, 15:02:23 »
Good start for a burgeoning commando merc force.

If you need help, and you can find them, maybe you can hire... The Dubble_g team.

Nav_Alpha

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #4 on: 24 April 2018, 17:04:00 »
Tagged!

Very intrigued


"Hold your position, conserve ammo... and wait for the Dragoons to go Feral"
- last words of unknown merc, Harlech, 3067

snakespinner

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #5 on: 24 April 2018, 17:20:21 »
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeee's back. :beer:
I wish I could get a good grip on reality, then I would choke it.
Growing old is inevitable,
Growing up is optional.
Watching TrueToaster create evil genius, priceless...everything else is just sub-par.

Dubble_g

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #6 on: 25 April 2018, 07:38:02 »
The gang's all here, including DOC's friends and admirers! Welcome, all.

* * *

“We just have to hold out until relief arrives,” said Cairn, and they all laughed. They’d been saying that for weeks, but the only thing that had arrived recently was the artillery barrage that had blown the crater they sheltered in out of the ground.

The crater sat right in the middle of a two-lane road running through the city’s business district. At two meters deep and six across, it fit them comfortably, or as comfortably as was possible in the festering wound of a dying city. It was at the crest of a slight rise, giving them a good field of view either way down the road, and drainage meant it was relatively dry despite the weeks of constant rain, though a shallow pool of mud-brown water had still collected at the bottom. The shattered buildings lining the road had long since lost any glass they’d had, reduced to smoke-stained concrete and steel bones, whose dirty ugliness the rain had—miraculously, wondrously—managed to make look even worse.

The sky was grey and overcast now, though mercifully, not actually raining.

“You know, I can’t even remember what we’re fighting for this time,” Maeve said. “Who even are they?”

“Oh the usual,” Furey shrugged. He barely even knew the other two, much less the enemy. “Either oppressive imperialists or dangerous rebel terrorists. Lunatic fanatics or heretical unbelievers. Take your pick. All of the above, possibly.”

“They’re dead meat, is what they are, they try and come up this road,” offered Cairn. He picked up the SRM launcher, setting it upright, braced between his legs. He took an over-under magazine holding two missiles and clicked it into place at the front of the launcher.

The hulk of a burned-out wheeled Chevalier light tank sat at the bottom of the rise, at the edge of a four-way intersection. Its metal armor plates were blackened, dusted with white ash, rubber tires melted, its turret pointed uselessly, accusingly at the sky, as though to fire on the indifferent gods who had left its crew to die.

“And what about our orders?” Maeve tried to wipe the dirt from her face with the back of her hand, but succeeded only in smearing it further. She looked at the pool at the bottom of the crater in thought, then shuddered, shook her head. “Did we even achieve anything here?”

Furey jerked his thumb over his shoulder, towards one of the roofless, windowless buildings lining the road. Two side walls had collapsed inwards, and now leaned precariously against one another, like long-lost lovers, like hands in prayer. “The planetary network servers,” he said. “Take and hold, those were the orders.”

“Mission accomplished,” Cairn said, shaking his head. The server farm had been booby trapped, and the ensuing explosion had killed the other four in their squad. “Congratulations, us.”

“Congratulations, our glorious leaders: Colonel Hardy and Major Claymore,” Furey said dryly.

“Why one of us has to live,” said Cairn. “One of us should make sure they never lead again. At least one,” he amended.

“One of us could go for help,” Maeve suggested, leaning on her stomach against the side of the crater, head just above the rim. Her armor, like all of theirs, was cracked, battered, dirty, and a mismatch of pieces from both their own side and the enemy.

“You could go for help, you mean,” said Furey, picking up one of the GZs. He slapped home a drum magazine behind the trigger. “Or to put it more simply: You could just go.”

Cairn snorted. “And which way is help, do tell?” They had, near as they could tell, been surrounded since the first week of the fighting. Furey tossed Cairn the loaded GZ and he caught it, one-handed. “Better to stay and fight, at least take some of them with us.”

“I’m the smallest, the fastest,” Maeve continued, not watching them, but some distant point down the road. “I could go for help. I should go.” She stayed where she was.

“You could go,” Furey agreed, and loaded the second GZ “But you would miss all the fun.” He held the GZ out to Maeve. She took it without looking.

“Now, I need someone to go place the vibramine down at the corner there,” Furey set his own rifle down, and scooped up the mine. “Somebody who is small and fast perhaps any volunteers oh why thank you Maeve.” He held it out to her. She made no move to take it. “Okay, to be fair let us put it to a vote. All in favor of Maeve doing it say aye: Aye.”

“Aye,” said Cairn.

“It is decided then. My, but I do love democracy,” Furey placed the mine in front of Maeve. “Do not worry, we will cover you.”

Maeve looked at Furey then, shook her head in disgust, and picked the mine up with both hands. “I could go,” she repeated, scrambling over the edge of the crater. “I should go.” She went—down the road towards the intersection, crouch-running in short spurts among the wreckage, moving from cover to cover, hugging the side by the crumbling buildings, mine tucked under one arm.

Furey and Cairn braced themselves against the edge of the crater, rifles against their shoulders, watching the scurrying finger shrink and blur with distance.

“Now it’s just us two, I’ve been meaning to ask you: Where you from, Furey?” Cairn asked suddenly. They’d been in different platoons, before, and only the dreadful attrition of the last few weeks had brought them together.

“Nowhere,” he said.

“Everybody from somewhere.”

“I used to be. Not anymore.” Furey shifted slightly, following Maeve’s progress. “You?”

“You have to ask?” Cairn chuckled shortly. “Come on, Furey, I didn’t get this big by eating my veggies and taking vitamins.”

Maeve was at the corner now, down on one knee by the side of the blasted tank.

“No?”

“No. Which means I know what your name means, Furey, I know where it comes from, Furey. And if it’s not stolen valor and you came by it honestly, then I know you never planned on getting out of here alive, Furey. Death in battle is all you guys have left. Well listen, Furey, I do plan on getting out very much alive, and I’m not joining you on any sui—”

“Cairn,” Furey said softly. “Shut up.”

At the corner, Maeve shot to her feet, and sprinted back towards the crater.

“—or helping fulfill any deathwish you might have. You swore an oath, which means you have to get out of here, get back to Outreach. Qui-fracking-aff?”

“Shut up and get the launcher, Cairn.”

Maeve was still running, head down, arms pumping, rifle across her back bouncing with each stride. Shouting at them now.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Dubble_g

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #7 on: 26 April 2018, 06:45:20 »
Faint tremors were shaking the ground, tiny avalanches of rock and dirt skittering down the side of the crater and sloshing into the puddle at its bottom. “The launcher, Cairn,” Furey repeated, eyes down the sights of the GZ, forearm braced against the rim of the crater. He could hear Cairn cursing, fumbling, trying to bring the missile tube up to his shoulder, his GZ clattering to the ground.

The infantry came first, a score of hunched dirt smudges sliding along the sides of the buildings. Furey smiled at first when he saw them, their dirt-streaked faces, their grime-caked armor—surely this was the long-awaited relief force? But no, some were crouching, dropping prone, raising their rifles at the fleeing figure of Maeve.

He thumbed the selector to full auto and fired a long, rolling burst down the road. The GZ chewed through the 100-round drum in 10 seconds with a sharp metallic snake-hiss, kicking several of the men-smudges into the dirt. The rest ran or sought cover, firecracker flashes winking from among the debris, crackling gunshots echoing between the buildings.

Gyrojet rounds, rocket-propelled slugs that keened overhead or erupted against the ground in detonations of asphalt and smoke.

Just before the GZ reached the end of the drum there was an outraged, grinding sound and the trigger locked in place. Jammed. “Oh Kerensky’s blue balls,” Furey hissed, smacking the rifle with the heel of his hand. “Not now, not now.”

“Take mine,” grunted Cairn, just as the ’Mech rounded the corner.

It was the HaulerMech, a modified Powerman, painted bright orange save for hashed yellow and black striping around the engine exhausts, looking a bit like one of those ancient pressurized diving suits, with fat bulbous limbs and exposed joints. Some kind of Gatling minigun had been strapped to the right arm, with an ammunition drum slung under the elbow. The pilot sat high on the front of the chest, protected by nothing more than a ribcage of duralloy bars.

“Cairn—” Furey shouted, scrabbling for the man’s discarded rifle.

“See it,” grunted Cairn, eye against the launcher’s sight. “Don’t stand behind me.”

The Powerman fired first, barrels whirring, shots kicking up a zig-zagging trail of dust plumes that intersected with Maeve’s running figure, slammed into her back, head jerking up, then kicking her tumbling, sprawling limply across the pavement.

There was a double whooshing-sound as Cairn triggered both missiles, a flickering tongue of smoke and flame out the back of the launcher and then the missiles leaped away, corkscrewing drunkenly through the air, detonating against the side of the ’Mech, obscuring it in searing flashes of light and smoke.

“Got him,” said Cairn.

The ’Mech walked forward, out of the roiling smoke. The left arm dangled limp, useless, burst myomer muscles twitching from a gaping hole like a nest of snakes. The left leg was twisted at an angle, giving the ’Mech an oddly splay-footed stance.

“Mission-fracking-accomplished,” muttered Furey, raising the borrowed rifle and firing off a burst at the orange monster. Bullets pinged off the armor in bright yellow sparks. Beside him, Cairn was swearing, wrenching the empty missile magazine free, hauling up their last two missiles.

The HaulerMech raised the Gatling again and took another lurching step forward.

In the shadow of the Chevalier tank, the vibramine’s perimeter sensors detected the footfall. Its tiny onboard brain calculated the range and direction, and then catapulted the main body three meters into the air, facing towards the Powerman, where it detonated, spewing a murderous hail of tungsten carbide pellets. These plunged straight through the HaulerMech, knocking it onto its back, blasting apart its engine, setting fire to its fuel tank, and turning the unprotected pilot into a pink and white pulp smeared across the back of the cockpit.

At the top of the rise, Cairn and Furey watched the swirling mass of grey and white smoke tensely for a long minute, until it began to settle, revealing the inert outline of the Powerman.

“Now, that got him,” nodded Cairn. “One from beyond the grave, Maeve. Atta girl.”

Furey said nothing, just watched the infantry scrambling backwards, dragging some of their number between them. He let them go. Save ammunition. He let out a long breath, closed his eyes and rested his chin against the top of the GZ.

And felt the vibrations, steady, growing stronger.

Furey opened his eyes, blinked. Nothing but the last strands of smoke still curling about the fallen HaulerMech. Looked over his shoulder.

“Cairn, behind us!”

At the far end of the road, maybe just under 500 meters away, was another ’Mech. Not some cobbled-together walking junkyard, a real BattleMech, a killing machine. He knew the model: A 50-ton RJN-200 Raijin II, with a profile like a Terran ostrich, spindly legs holding up a rounded body, a forward-jutting cockpit between two bulbous humps, each bristling with the barrels of energy weapons. This one was painted a headache-inducing jumble of white, greys and black, without any visible unit insignia.

“Smoke. Run for the buildings,” shouted Furey, grabbing a grenade. He pulled the pin, lobbed, grabbed the second, lobbed. The first hiccupped a small cloud of smoke, then went dead, but the second began spewing thick white clouds like an overactive geyser.

“I can take him,” Cairn bit out between clenched teeth. He swung the launcher up and around.

Furey threw his rifle out the crater and was already scrambling up the side. “Do not be an idiot, Cairn. Run!”

“I can take him.” Twin micro-missiles whooshed from the launcher, twisted down the road and exploded against the Raijin’s armor.

It halted, twin humps swiveling.

Furey stooped, grabbing his rifle, and began sprinting towards the nearest building—the prayer-wall ruin of the network servers. “Run!”

There were four claps in quick succession, huge pulses of sound that slammed into Furey’s back, and knocked him flat. Missiles. Rain was falling all around him—clods of earth, chunks of road, and then half a missile launcher, a severed hand still clasped around its trigger.

Furey crawled, not daring to look up, GZ held crosswise in both hands, inching towards the buildings, cover, safety. There was a block, some shattered remnant of a Roman-revival pillar, in front of him. He aimed to crawl beside, around it, give himself some cover.

An electrical pulse that stood all the hair on his arms on end shrieked overhead and smacked into the base of the building wall in front of him. The concrete and steel shuddered, groaned. Then slowly, but with gathering speed, leaned forward, crashing down, crashing down into the road, burying Furey in a storm of broken slabs and steel bones.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

zephir

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #8 on: 26 April 2018, 16:41:55 »
<-- is happy!

Dubble_g

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #9 on: 27 April 2018, 07:36:07 »
zephir <-- is happy!
:beer:

A dead city
Somewhere in the Periphery, I think
Probably spring, 3070


He awoke in darkness. He blinked several times rapidly, heart palpitating, terrified he had been blinded. No, not perfect darkness, his adjusting eyes saw, there was something pitted and hard in front of him. There was light, though, not much, a faint glow just beyond the whatever-it-was blocking his vision. He tried to lift his head and his helmet cracked against something unyielding. A great slab of something, braced against the block in front of him, forming a kind of right-angled triangle with himself at the base.

Probably what saved him from being squashed.

“Thank you, block,” he said. It glowed faintly in the dim light. With pleasure, maybe. Glad to be of service. Okay, he was maybe concussed a little. Needed to focus.

Move? He could move. Crawl, wriggle like a baby, like a worm, like the lowest creature, drawn like a bug towards the light, an irresistible phototaxis. Caterpillar forward, centimeters at a time. His mouth scraped raw and dry. He tried to spit. He coughed and dribbled a little instead. Charming, he thought to himself.

A decade of war, seeking his own death on his own terms across the vast gulfs of space, and here it was, this was it. His great destiny, the ultimate end to a centuries-old bloodline of warriors. Squashed like a bug in the ground. Swatted aside. So much for the glory of the S—but ah, ah, ah. That name was death now. Better to just keep crawling, no matter how futile it might be.

They would not kill you for crawling, would they? Actually yes, they probably would. They killed for all sorts of stupid reasons. Exhibit A: this planet. Might be better to sit here and die, let nature take its course. Less dramatic, maybe, but no less final.

Though the light did seem to be getting closer, stronger. There, seeping between a loose pile of rocks and gravel. He bulled forward, helmet first. That is using your head.

Yes, definitely concussed.

He felt the pile of rubble move, and froze it place. Waiting for a fatal shift that would bring the slab crushing down on him. But no, nothing. He kept pushing forward. Air, there was definitely air out there. A Raijin as well, perhaps, but he would jump from that cliff when he came to it. His shoulders were out from under the slab now, he pushed harder, dragging first one, then the other leg free.

Furey took a moment, looking around. The front façade of the server complex had fallen outwards, scattering itself across most of the road. He was near the base, near where the wall had originally stood, which might have helped too—the wall had less far to fall here, and the debris had been travelling slower.

The crater that once squatted in the middle of the road had been widened somewhat, with several new bays and inlets blown into its circumference. The front half of the missile launcher was still there, with Cairn’s hand still attached. A helmet not far away, then a boot, a sliver of bone sticking up from the top.

Furey reached up with both hands, fumbled for his chin strap, hooked his fingers under the rim of his own helmet and let it clatter to the road. It had been badly dented, he saw. He patted his own head nervously. Still seemed fairly rounded.

He drew up his knees, rested his elbows on them, and put his forehead in his hands. What now?

You swore an oath, said Cairn.

A blood oath, said Maeve.

“Well, you are both dead now, so hush up,” he told the ghosts. His hand throbbed accusingly. He looked at it, at the ragged red line down the palm, red livid skin on either side. A pulsing, faint moan of injured flesh among all his other clamoring aches and pains.

You swore an oath, said Cairn, implacable, which means you have to get out of here, get back to Outreach. Qui-fracking-aff?

Furey clenched his hand into a fist around the fresh scar. “Qui—” he murmured, “—fracking-aff.”

He braced his other hand against the slab that had fallen on top of him, and pushed himself to his feet. Easier said than done, he knew. What did he have? A knife, little else. He tottered to the crater, slid down the side, looking for his rifle, the one that had jammed.

He found it easily enough, half-submerged in the fetid pool at the bottom. Picked it up and saw immediately the barrel had been crushed by falling concrete. As useful as a comb to Kerensky. With a disgusted sigh he threw it back, and let it sink beneath the surface with a few protesting bubbles.

He sat on the lip of the crater, feet dangling over the edge. Which way to go? He was almost certainly surrounded, overrun. In all likelihood, the unit headquarters had moved, the DropShip might even have blasted off. Almost certainly hopeless.

But then. He’d sworn an oath. In blood. Blood still meant something, even to one like him. Was all he had left. There would be no legacy, no future generations. No glory. It all came down to blood, in the end. Sworn, spilled, avenged. It would be enough.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Kidd

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #10 on: 27 April 2018, 09:27:54 »
Hmmm okay

snakespinner

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #11 on: 27 April 2018, 18:03:24 »
He survived, now the hard part, revenge. :thumbsup:
I wish I could get a good grip on reality, then I would choke it.
Growing old is inevitable,
Growing up is optional.
Watching TrueToaster create evil genius, priceless...everything else is just sub-par.

Kidd

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #12 on: 27 April 2018, 22:42:52 »
Jags don't kill that easy

Motsognir

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #13 on: 28 April 2018, 01:33:45 »
Awesome! Thanks. Great to see another story Dubble_g.

Dubble_g

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #14 on: 28 April 2018, 06:57:20 »
Awesome! Thanks. Great to see another story Dubble_g.
:thumbsup:
Jags don't kill that easy
>:D
He survived, now the hard part, revenge. :thumbsup:
;)

He found his feet, and listened. A faint chink, irregular but repeated, of metal striking something. Down there, just past the burnt-out Chevalier, at the bottom of the rise. Well, he had to start somewhere.

Furey checked the knife in its sheath at his hip, then began making his way down the low hill, as quietly as he could, trying to time his steps to match the distant chik-chik-chik of metal. He stepped over Maeve’s crumpled, fly-blown body without looking down. Around the helpless, turtle-on-its-back form of the fallen HaulerMech. Around a corner and under a still-standing archway.

There were a line of four black sheets, wrapped mummy-like around human forms. A shirtless man was waist-deep in a hole beside them, in what had once been an inner courtyard, slowly shoveling the hole deeper. A wadded lump of blood-red shirt sat beside the hole, on which a gyroslug carbine was resting.

Gravel crunched underfoot, and the grave digger suddenly looked up, squinting.

Iya ki?” the man asked.

Some Periphery patois, presumably. Furey gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Sorry, I only speak Standard.”

T’chu parl? Ya nai?

Furey kept smiling, took a few casual steps closer to the man, and the carbine lying on the ground. “Sorry, no. I am not nor do not chu-parl. Whatever that is.”

Vzet tomo? Abek Blake?” The man looked tense now, eyes tightened. His eyes flicked from Furey to the carbine, and back again. The hand gripping the shovel handle visibly tightened.

“The Word of Blake,” Furey said slowly, taking another step forward. “Can go—”

The man exploded out of the hole, leaping forward, shovel scything around in a roundhouse swing. Furey was faster, pouncing, catching hold of the handle, jerking it towards himself, yanking the man off balance. The grave digger stumbled, let go of the shovel.

Furey reversed the grip, and brought the flat of the shovel whistling against the man’s head. A jarring impact, and the man staggered. But didn’t fall. He was grappling for something at his waist. Not a gun—a communicator. Furey swung again, snarling, teeth bared, using the edge of the shovel this time. It sheared across the man’s face, shattering bone, drenching the shovel blade in blood and brains.

Furey dropped the shovel. Kicked the body, so that it slid slackly backwards into the hole the man had just dug.

He picked up the carbine. Folding metal stock, 20-round box magazine. He slid it out, checked how many rounds were left. All 20, red-rimmed around the base, to indicate the type of ammunition, he guessed. He clicked it back into place, feeling the balance of it. No laser or night sights attached, just a plain old notch-and-V combination. How medieval.

There was a helmet under the shirt, a bit like an ancient knight’s sallet, with built-in goggles that contained a heads-up display. It was too small for Furey’s head, but he tilted it, tried to get the goggles in front of his own eyes and check the unit’s GPS map. Useless. The thing was damaged or corrupted—seemed to be stuck on the factory settings, showing only a map of Clayborne on Circinus. Perhaps there simply were no GPS satellites on this backwards planet.

Furey shook his head, tossed the helmet aside and stood up again. Someone had left this grave digger here, assigned him this job, so somebody would come looking when he neither reported in nor returned to base. Stood to reason that someone would come looking. If it were only a few someones, he would ambush them, kill them or take them prisoner, go from there. If there were more someones, he would wait, hide, and follow them, see where they went.

One entire wall of a building facing the courtyard had been blown down, leaving the floors exposed, like layers of sediment. Upturned desks, swivel chairs and cabinets were scattered about each floor—the death rattle of some prosperous architect’s office, perhaps, or the sales offices of the company that had sold the HaulerMech sprawled out front.

Furey clambered up a flight of half-broken stairs, leaping across a meter-wide gap in the center, feet dangling over air for a few precarious seconds before he hauled himself further up. He shimmied up a bundle of dangling power cables next, and rested, panting, on the third floor. He lay down next to a ragged, bowling-ball sized hole in the floor that offered a view of the courtyard, laid the carbine next to him, and waited.

The overcast sky, with a fine sense of timing, decided to resume raining.

He drifted in and out of brief, turgid sleep, haunted by visions of himself naked and surrounded by taunting enemies, cat-masked, bear-masked, wolf-masked enemies, pointing and laughing, laughter like sliding stones and metal drums.

He jerked awake.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

mikecj

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #15 on: 28 April 2018, 07:14:51 »
Nicely developing as ever!
There are no fish in my pond.
"First, one brief announcement. I just want to mention, for those who have asked, that absolutely nothing what so ever happened today in sector 83x9x12. I repeat, nothing happened. Please remain calm." Susan Ivanova
"Solve a man's problems with violence, help him for a day. Teach a man to solve his problems with violence, help him for a lifetime." - Belkar Bitterleaf
Romo Lampkin could have gotten Stefan Amaris off with a warning.

Dubble_g

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #16 on: 29 April 2018, 07:14:27 »
Nicely developing as ever!
8) Thanks, mate.

There were people in the courtyard now, five that he could see. Dressed in mismatched, dirty uniforms, with visored helmets and carrying carbines, just like the dead grave digger down below. Two were cautiously inching towards the open grave and the line of bodies, while the other three hung nervously back.

Only five? More outside? Ah, Founder take them. Hit hard, fast, worry about others later.

He crouched on one knee, feline stealthy, slow-fast-faster-stop. Brought up the gyroslug carbine, and gently clicked off the safety, using the sound of the men’s own footsteps to mask the sound.

The first two were at the edge of the grave, looking down.

Hard and fast.

A breath, let out. A shout from below: “Eelay mor! Koiz-ay mor!” The three on the edge of the courtyard started, turning around to look at the other two. Furey fired. Three quick shots—a cat-yowl yell as each round’s rocket kicked to life—and the three fell, two just dropping soundlessly, the third writhing and kicking feebly in the mud.

The two by the grave were reaching for their own carbines now. One seemed tangled in the strap, couldn’t get the gun over their head. The other fired blindly, wildly, micro-rockets crashing into the walls and floors of the office building.

Another breath. Furey squeezed the trigger again. The firing man clutched at his chest, fell to his knees, then pitched down on his face. The last figure was screaming, cursing, desperately trying to wrestle the carbine free, its strap now caught on the rim of their helmet.

Furey stood, and walked to the edge of the roof, carbine still trained on the last soldier.

Finally, the soldier fell to their knees as both rifle and helmet came free, then both promptly clattered to the ground. The soldier sensed Furey, froze and looked up.

A woman’s face. Her hair was dyed an odd shade of orange-red, a swirling abstract blue tattoo just visible at the collar of her uniform and on the backs of her hands. He lowered the rifle slightly.

“Well?” she said.

Impulse decision. Furey held the carbine in one hand, grabbed the power cables he’d clambered up in the other, kicked off the edge of the roof and let himself slide down, dropping the last two meters to land heavily on the ground.

The woman just watched him dully, unmoving. Green-gold eyes, almost like a cat’s. Like a cat’s.

“Is this all of your squad?” he asked, eyes darting left and right.

“Yeah,” she said. “Was.”

Inwardly, he sighed in relief: she spoke Standard. “You have a vehicle? A truck or APC?”

She shook her head, slowly.

He grimaced, angled his gun up and held it at high ready so it was no longer pointing at the woman. “Food? Water?”

Life was slowly leaking back into those eyes, those glittering eyes that had stayed his finger. Adjusting to the reality that there was still life. Resignation replaced by curiosity. “Each got a canteen, if that’s what you mean. Couple of energy bars, if you can call ‘em food.”

Furey crouched by the one who’d fallen face-down, risked looking down and found the canteen, ripped it from the man’s belt and brought it to his lips. The tepid water was like icemelt in a Huntress summer. He drank, coughed, spluttered, drank some more.

“Ain’tchu gonna rape me?” she asked. “You could, if you want. Ain’t nobody to stop you now.”

He frowned, setting down the bottle. “Would being naked not make it trivially easy for you to incapacitate me and escape?”

“Mmhmm,” she tried to look innocent.

“Then why would you—ah I see.” Furey smiled, despite himself. “Consider your virginity safe from me.”

“My what?” she snorted. “Anyway, got a diaphragm with a spring-loaded razor blade down there. Touch me and it’ll carve your member in two. So don’t even think about it.”

Furey sighed. “The thought of coupling with you had not even crossed my mind until you mentioned it,” he told her. “But rest assured, the vision of my bisected privates is now firmly lodged there.”

“Good,” she grunted. “But Amaris’s hairy arse, you don’t half talk funny. Are you one’a them robot-men?”

“No. What? One of what robot-men?”

“Oh, can’t tell, sorry.” She looked at the ground glumly. “Big secret.”

“So secret it is even known by an illiterate Periphery private.” He arched an eyebrow. “Of course.”

“Oh, I know, you’re one of the Kerensky ghosts.” She brightened, looked up, eyes searching his face. “The test-tube animal fellers. Right?”

“You know,” he said testily. “Regardless of where I am from, I believe it is traditional for the captor to ask the prisoner questions, not vice versa.”

She shrugged. “Gonna kill me anyway, so why not? Just wish you’d hurry it up.” Her voice gone small.

“Keep talking and you may get your wish,” he smiled thinly. “Now: What robot-men?”

“Some of the Blakies got bodies that are half-robot, we heard. Mostly MechWarriors.”

“Like the Raijin pilot?”

“The what-jin?”

Raijin, a BattleMech. Looks like an ostrich.”

“A what-rich?”

“Never mind.” Furey sucked his teeth a moment. The trick was to ask questions she might actually be able to answer, he saw. “Are you still fighting the Marians?” A nod. “You know where the front lines are?” A brief hesitation, then a nod. “Very well then: a bargain. You will guide me towards the lines, and in return I shall release you once we are there.”

“If I say no?”

“What do you think?”

“Figured,” she nodded, sadly. “You know, it’s not like you’re gonna make it there. We got thousands and thousands of guys in the city. All the latest gizmos and whatnot. Tons of ‘Mechs, too.”

“Yes, I have seen the tons of BattleMechs you have. Junkyard rejects, twice-recycled refuse. You let me worry about them.”

“All right then. Deal.”

“Bargained well and done.” He pulled free one of the man’s boot laces, then tied it in a rough loop and threw it towards the woman. It landed at her knees. “Put this around your wrist.”

She picked it up gingerly. “We married now or something, animal-man?”

She wouldn’t understand the honor. He was not sure he understood himself, anymore. “To mark you as my prisoner. Instead of restraints,” he said instead. “For the sake of form.”

She nodded, though more to herself than to him, and slipped it over her right hand, squeezing her fingers together to force them through the loop. “You’re one odd cat, you know that?”

“I am.”

He was. He really was.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Sir Chaos

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #17 on: 29 April 2018, 07:50:58 »
Are Clanners allowed to be that snarky?

I think they used some of Aric Glass´ genes when they concocted Furey.
"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl."
-Frederick the Great

"Ultima Ratio Regis" ("The Last Resort of the King")
- Inscription on cannon barrel, 18th century

Kidd

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #18 on: 29 April 2018, 10:31:28 »
Small wonder she hadnt heard of it, the Ostrich is a very obscure brother of the Ostsol series of Mechs...

snakespinner

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #19 on: 29 April 2018, 18:59:18 »
The Ostrich is a mech that travels with it's head underground.
No cockpit hits that way.
A diaphragm with a spring loaded razor blade, nice one Dubble_g, I take it you have had some interesting experiences in your travels. :D ;D ;)
I wish I could get a good grip on reality, then I would choke it.
Growing old is inevitable,
Growing up is optional.
Watching TrueToaster create evil genius, priceless...everything else is just sub-par.

Dubble_g

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #20 on: 30 April 2018, 09:27:55 »
Are Clanners allowed to be that snarky?
I think they used some of Aric Glass´ genes when they concocted Furey.
Ha ha, yeah, he's got the Dubble G protagonist DNA. Though evidently, he has nothing on the posters in this thread. :P (see below!)
Small wonder she hadnt heard of it, the Ostrich is a very obscure brother of the Ostsol series of Mechs...
The Ostrich is a mech that travels with it's head underground.
No cockpit hits that way.
A diaphragm with a spring loaded razor blade, nice one Dubble_g, I take it you have had some interesting experiences in your travels. :D ;D ;)
Groan ... And snakespinner, if I was boasting I'd tell you about the Danish backpacker I met in Thailand, if I was honest I'd tell you about how I fell asleep on the ferry in Thailand and got massively sunburned, but lucky/sadly, neither adventure involved weaponized contraceptives.

* * *

Still stuck on this festering hole
Bartlett? Battlefield? Blantleff? Somewhere in the Marian Hegemony, anyway
Late March or Early April, 3070


“Were you a dog then?”

“No.”

“Horse?”

“No.”

“Bear?”

“No.”

“Well, what then? Platypus? Anteater? Giant ratite?”

“What is that?”

“Looks a bit like an ostrich,” the woman looked over her shoulder and winked at him.

Furey fought down a grin. Not as stupid as she pretended, this woman.

They were walking down the side of a cracked, rubble-strewn street, towards what the woman claimed were the current front lines between invading Circinus Federation forces and the Marian defenders. The woman walked in front, Furey two meters behind, his gyroslug carbine held in the low ready position, stock against his shoulder, muzzle pointing diagonally down across his chest.

The woman would serve as a pack mule as well as guide, he’d decided: her shoulders were festooned with the straps of canteens from her dead squadmates, and she clanked softly as she walked, stainless steel casings rattling against one another.

“You seem remarkably unconcerned with your current position,” Furey observed.

She huffed slightly, a half-laugh, half-snort. “First thing I asked you was if you was gonna rape me,” she said. “Should tell you all you need to know about my ‘position.’ The Circinian militia is a dumping ground for thugs, murderers, thieves and rapists. Having only one guy I need to worry about killing me is about the safest I’ve felt in ten years.”

Barbarians, he thought. Savages. Although they would say the same of him, he knew. Well, let them stand answered. Let them look at the galaxy they, not his people, had created: Irradiated fields, plague-ravaged cities, poisoned oceans. He could murder them all, and by their very own standards, call it justice. They had done worse to his people for less reason.

“Well, what are you then?” she pressed.

He let the question sit in silence for half a minute before answering. “A fool,” he decided. “A fool who swore a foolish oath, and now cannot think of a way out of it.”

“Yeah, most folks in your position would’ve given up by now,” she agreed. “Name’s Phoebe. Phoebe Artemev.”

“Furey.”

She looked back at him quizzically. “You don’t look that angry.”

“The day is still young.”

She was about to say more, then stopped, mouth open. She tilted her head a moment. “Hear it?”

“Down,” he whispered, crouching. He did hear it—the gravel rattle of feet, many feet, coming down one of the side streets, indistinct voice echoes, and something else. Heavier, crunching footfalls.

Furey glanced left, right. There was a battered ground car, windows missing. The black trunks of downed power lines tentacled across the road. Harmless now; there hadn’t been power for weeks. A half-crumpled storefront beside them, the building’s second level partially caved in, crossbeams that had once held up the roof now descending like a clutching claw.

“In here,” Furey called, taking Phoebe by the elbow and marching her behind the claw’s talons, hunkering down, amid the rubble and shadows.

They didn’t have to wait long.

Two lines of people came shuffling down the road, perhaps two dozen all together, heads bowed, eyes downcast. Almost all were dirty, disheveled, dressed in rags. One balding, pot-bellied man was dressed only in flannel pajama bottoms. Another stumbled after him in a dusty blue suit, with only one shoe and clutching a faded brown briefcase to his chest.

Three armed men strolled on either side of the lines, weapons held lazily or dangling from slings, one smoking, another with a long thin stick he used to strike the civilians about the head, apparently at random.

To the rear marched a BattleMech.

It might have begun its life as an Ostscout, centuries ago, but was now so twisted and mutated through countless deaths and rebirths it was almost unrecognizable. The two arms were now spindly things that ended in manipulator hands, the legs digitigrade and double-jointed (possibly from a Mongoose), and the entire head assembly had been removed and what looked like the top of a tank turret welded in its place.

The chest-mounted laser was missing too, the resulting hole crudely patched with discolored plating. The only weapon he could see was a three-meter long steel beam, held in one hand and rested against the thing’s shoulder like a baseball bat, ground to an edge on one side like a giant cleaver.

There was a flattened drum-like cupola at the top, now thrown open, and a man stood there, visible from the waist up, hands braced against the rim. Which meant someone else was piloting. Maybe, lacking the original head, the machine had no sensors, requiring the pairing of a pilot who could only see out front with a commander with a wider field of view.

The thing moved at a swaying, rolling gait, suggesting there was no neurohelmet either, only the machine’s own internal gyro, without the benefit of the pilot’s senses to smooth the movement out.

“Cutter,” whispered Phoebe in the darkness.

“The machine or the pilot?”

“Yes.”

Yizi, say bon,” shouted the man in the ’Mech cupola. “Jivoo jooay.”

The six men grinned at one another, and ’Mech commander called out again, this time in Standard: “Halt!” The two lines stumbled to a stop, diagonally across the road from Furey and Phoebe’s hiding place, perhaps 50 meters away.

“Single line!” More shuffling, as the two lines merged. The Ost-wreck stalked forward, lifting the blade from its shoulder. “Closer together!”

Furey leaned close to Phoebe. “What are they doing?”

“Playing a game,” she said.

“What game?”

“You’ll see.”

Finally, the six footsoldiers had pushed and prodded the men and women into a single line, standing shoulder to shoulder facing the BattleMech. The soldiers all stepped back a dozen paces.

The BattleMech hefted its cleaver, slashed the air once, twice. The men began to slow clap. Clap … clap … clap … —the torso twisted 90 degrees to the right—clap clap clap—held the blade level, parallel to the ground—clapclapclapclap—then suddenly whirled, twisting back, blade scything out in a flat arc, cutting through the men and women, carving through the line, dismembered torsos and legs flying, blood fountaining, so fast they never had time to scream.

The Mech straightened, dramatically put one hand to its hip, buried its blade point-first in the ground beside itself.

The men on the ground whistled and cheered.

“Each time they bet how many he can cut through,” Phoebe said. Her voice was level, but her hands were shaking. “Each time they bring more. It was half a dozen at first, then ten, fifteen last I’d heard. They’ll try 30 next time, maybe. Thugs and murderers, like I tol’you.”

“The victims are rebels? Insurgents?” Furey asked.

“They look like rebels to you, test-tube man?”

Across the road, the men were kicking, rolling and dragging the dismembered corpses into a trench. Furey watched them grimly. He wanted that ’Mech. It would make their journey much easier. What he needed was a distraction.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Siden Pryde

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #21 on: 30 April 2018, 18:00:52 »
Great fic so far.

snakespinner

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #22 on: 01 May 2018, 01:27:07 »
A real Frankenstein mech.
Really good fic so far. :thumbsup:
I wish I could get a good grip on reality, then I would choke it.
Growing old is inevitable,
Growing up is optional.
Watching TrueToaster create evil genius, priceless...everything else is just sub-par.

Dubble_g

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #23 on: 01 May 2018, 07:37:36 »
Great fic so far.
High praise, coming from a Falcon!
A real Frankenstein mech.
Really good fic so far. :thumbsup:
Thanks mate, been fun writing this one.

* * *

“Give me your wrist,” he said to Phoebe, drawing his combat knife.

He felt for her in the darkness, laid the blade against her skin, under the bondcord. And cut it, with a quick upward flick. “There,” he said. “You are no longer my prisoner.”

“So?” Uncertain, hesitant.

“So go to your friends.” He planted a foot against the small of her back, and sent her shocked, stumbling, blinking, sprawling from their hiding place, out into the road.

The men froze at the sudden sound, some dropping into a crouch, others bringing up their rifles. There was a moment of confusion as they spotted her, with her battered, mismatched armor.

Tiray na! Suiz tomo!” Phoebe shouted, on her knees amid the rubble, holding her hands high. “Ehlyana teki laddan, an Marian mairkure. Ehlyaveh ma trappay, may sui-zayshappay delooi.

Vzet tomo? Compri.” The commander of the ’Mech waved towards the building, a great sweeping arm motion. “Le mairkure. Mitsukay-leh. Jivoo jooay, ankore.

The six soldiers trotted cautiously forward, submachineguns at the ready, flowing around Phoebe where she crouched, as the Ostscout followed slowly behind, blade held upright once again. Once it was past, Phoebe scrambled to her feet, and bolted for the far side of the road, leaped over the power cables and threw herself down again behind a silver ground car, dotted with round black bullet holes like flies on a decaying corpse.

She waited, unmoving.

From the building where she’d hidden with Furey came the echoing eagle-screech of gyroslug gunfire. She listened, counting. Five. Five shots. Now there was the chatter of a submachinegun. A quiet moment, two, three, only the sound of her heartbeat in her eardrums. Screech. That was six. They’d be dead now, she felt sure, all six would be dead. The submachinegun had fallen silent.

Ta t’chay le? Oi! Ta t’chay le? Kotaryon!

Phoebe risked peaking around the front bumper of the car.

The commander in the Ostscout was still visible from the waist up, yelling, bending forwards toward the building, waving a stubby black pistol in the air. The ’Mech took a step towards the building, then another, blade swinging menacingly now, describing a figure eight in the air.

A shadow detached from the building’s third floor, and dropped on the commander, cutting short his orders with a startled scream. Something flashed up there, cold and bright, Phoebe saw, as the shadow—Furey—enfolded the man from behind, raised the flashing light, and brought it stabbing down into the man’s chest and throat, like a piston, over and over again.

The ’Mech twisted violently right, left, like a dog trying to escape its collar, trying to shake the shadow. The rag doll of the dead commander flopped from the cupola, then fell, shaken free. Furey, however, clung to the top.

The ’Mech staggered away from the building, a step or two, then rightened, and began to run. Furey still clinging to the head, the bouncing run jarring one hand free, leaving only one hand holding on. It was running, still running, straight towards Phoebe. It would go past her in seconds. Let it go, she told herself, let it go and take the mad petri-dish man with it. But then. Cutter was a murderer, and petri-boy had spared her life.

She dashed into the middle of the road, grabbed one of the wormlike black cables, plastic insulation still rain slick in her hands, grabbed it, tucked it under her armpit, and hauled. Hauled and ran back towards the car. Hauled until a length, a few meters, was about waist height across the road. Ankle height on a BattleMech.

The Ostscout’s leg caught on the cable, stumbling just for a brief second before the it was yanked from Phoebe’s hands by the force of impact and she was sent sprawling in the dust, but slowing enough, enough for Furey to get a grip on the top of the cupola with one hand, the commander’s autopistol in the other.

Furey stuck his head and shoulders down through the hole, into the cockpit, right behind the pilot, and pressed the gun against the back of the man’s neck. “Stop,” Furey said.

The man froze, bringing the ’Mech to a juddering halt.

“Up. Out.”

Furey crawled backwards out of the cupola, keeping the pistol trained on the pilot, watched as the man extracted his hands from sensor gloves controlling the two arms, grabbed the sides of the cupola rim and slowly haul himself out of the cockpit. He was young, Furey could see, maybe still a teenager even, smooth-shaven, drenched in sweat that ran in rivers down the side of his face. Furey aimed the pistol right between the man’s eyes.

“You are my prisoner,” Furey told the pilot. The man nodded, jerkily. “I could kill you quite easily, just as you killed those people.” No reaction, other than wide-eyed terror. “How does it feel?”

The man—the boy, he corrected himself—said nothing, going almost cross-eyed looking at the muzzle of the gun.

“I asked you a question,” Furey repeated softly. “How. Does. It. Feel?”

“I’m scared,” the boy squeaked.

“And?”

“And nothing!” he cried. “Just scared, okay? Scared. Really scared. I’ll give you anything, please, anything. Only please don’t kill me.”

“You have learned your lesson?”

“Yeah, yes, okay, oh Unity, okay. Lesson learned. I won’t never do it again.”

“Good.” Furey took his finger from the trigger, and let the pistol point upwards. “Warriors must pit themselves against warriors, my boy, otherwise they are nothing but bandits, stra—hmm, parasites, animals, fit only for slaughter. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, sure, I unnerstand, whatever you say.” The kid nodded jerkily. “You gonna let me go?”

Furey smiled, and sighed. “Of course not, animal.” The pistol swept down, halted a centimeter before the kid’s right eye, and fired.

The head rocked back, skull blown out, carrying the whole body with it, toppling off the ’Mech and tumbling six meters to the ground, where it landed with a wet, pathetic thump. Furey stood on top of the Ostcout, looking down at it, disgusted.

These people had hunted his family, killed his brothers and sisters, his uncles and aunts, even as they allowed cancers like this to fester in their hearts.

He caught sight of Phoebe, pushing herself back to her feet, beating the dust from her knees. Well, the cancer from some of their hearts, he allowed.

Ta mair. You could’ve told me, you ayspez divash,” she said accusingly. “What you were thinking? I could’ve helped.”

“My apologies. I was not sure where your loyalties lay. You did help me, though.” Furey looked down at her. “Why?”

She shrugged a little. “Because it was Cutter,” she said. “Didn’t you never do anything just ‘cause it’s the right thing to do?”

He pursed his lips in thought a moment. Victory had always made its own morality, he felt, which meant there was no objective ‘right’ thing to do. He suspected this was true for the Spheroids as much as his own people, that what was ‘right’ was little more than a list of things one was inclined to do in any event, provided one was strong enough to overrule any objections. Altruism, though? “No.”

“Now there’s a surprise,” she said. “Ayspez dicoshon. You could’ve told me.”

“I freed you,” Furey told her, stifling his irritation. He peered down into the fetid darkness of the cockpit, trying to make out its controls. “You can go, if you like.” Offhand, not looking at her.

“What, like, a 10-minute head start and then you begin hunting me?”

He looked back down at Phoebe, frowning. “What an odd suggestion.”

“It’s traditional out here.”

“Ah, well, tradition got me where I am today.” Returning his attention to the cockpit.

She snorted, a startled sound, laughing in spite of herself. “Right. Can see why you’d be against it then.” A brief pause. “You gonna throw down the ladder or what? I know there’s seating for two up there.”

“You would join me?”

“Not like I got anywhere better to be,” she said. “Least you seem half-human. Which is more’n most can say. But next time, tell me when you’re planning on somethin’ stupid like that, ‘kay?”

“I will keep it in mind.” Furey found the rolled-up ladder, attached to the underside of the rim of the cupola. He untied it, threw the end over the side and let gravity unwind it clattering down. Watched her slowly clamber up, reached out a hand and helped her up the last little bit.

She stood for a moment, body close to his, hands on his chest. “Don’t take this the wrong way but,” she said, and planted a kiss on his lips. “Just the adrenaline talking. Don’t get any ideas. You know—”

“Yes, yes, sausage confetti. I remember.”

“Good. Let’s get going.”
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

zephir

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #24 on: 01 May 2018, 12:11:41 »
How deliciously medieval!

snakespinner

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #25 on: 01 May 2018, 18:17:42 »
Phoebe seems to be a willing convert.
Oh well next 3 weeks without internet access  so I will binge read when I return.
Keep up the great work. :beer:
I wish I could get a good grip on reality, then I would choke it.
Growing old is inevitable,
Growing up is optional.
Watching TrueToaster create evil genius, priceless...everything else is just sub-par.

mikecj

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #26 on: 02 May 2018, 07:46:57 »
Nice, didn't see that coming
There are no fish in my pond.
"First, one brief announcement. I just want to mention, for those who have asked, that absolutely nothing what so ever happened today in sector 83x9x12. I repeat, nothing happened. Please remain calm." Susan Ivanova
"Solve a man's problems with violence, help him for a day. Teach a man to solve his problems with violence, help him for a lifetime." - Belkar Bitterleaf
Romo Lampkin could have gotten Stefan Amaris off with a warning.

Dubble_g

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Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #27 on: 02 May 2018, 08:40:52 »
Nice, didn't see that coming
Fun isn't something one normally considers when defending a planet but this comment ... does put a smile on my face.
Phoebe seems to be a willing convert.
Oh well next 3 weeks without internet access  so I will binge read when I return.
Keep up the great work. :beer:
This, on the other hand, makes me sad. Safe travels mate! See you in 3 weeks.
How deliciously medieval!
I strive to be delicious in all things, especially medievalism. Thanks!

* * *

Blantzville. Right. It’s called Blantzville.
Blantleff, Marian Hegemony
Early April, 3070


It took him a few minutes to understand the jury-rigged controls. There were no yokes, only sensor gloves that fit over each hand and allowed the arms to mimic the movements of the pilot’s arms. Instead of jump pedals, there were two that controlled forward/backward throttle, while direction control was performed by his own upper body movement. The communications controls were mounted on the arm of the commander’s chair, just behind and slightly above the pilot’s station.

After nearly tripping the 'Mech over its own feet, he managed to get it moving forward, in a jerking, swaying gait managed by the onboard gyro that gave it a stuttering, twitching feel, even when at a stop.

There was only a narrow viewport in front of him, with a thin sheet of ferroglass and totally lacking in any electronics. The cupola, when closed, offered a 360-degree view if the commander twisted in their seat.

Phoebe sat there now, her knees against his back. She’d opened the cupola, letting the cooler but damp air into the cockpit.

She was, she admitted to herself, starting to enjoy this. Oh, this genetic superman driving the ’Mech was probably madder than a sack of hallucinating vinerats, but that made him at least twice as sane as militia thugs like Cutter or Oriax, Achlys and the other Word of Blake advisors that were supposedly on her side. Plus she liked the feeling of size her vantage gave her, and the way a red-clad patrol had stood respectfully by the side of the road when they strode past, eyes carefully averted to avoid being caught staring. She especially liked the way Furey twitched away a little every time her knee brushed his back.

Blantzville was not a particularly large city, with less than a million inhabitants, but as one of the only two cities worthy of the name on the whole planet, it had sprawled itself across the landscape, unhindered by the need to make efficient use of real estate, a leisurely 100 kilometers from east to west city limits. Their stroll through the city had covered perhaps a quarter of that. The business district had given way to a residential zone, of apartment complexes and shops, parks and schools.

Cutter’s radio crackled and muttered to itself, sometimes in slurred Circinian creole, sometimes in the clipped battle commands of Word of Blake commanders.

There was another static hiss and then a voice spoke, cold and imperious: “Cutter, this is Precentor Oriax. Respond.”

Furey let up the throttle bar, slowing Cutter to a swaying halt. He twisted to look back at Phoebe. “Who is that?”

“One of the Blakies,” she replied, face gone slightly pale. “One of their top three—other two are Achlys and Moros. Bad reputations, the lot of ‘em.”

“Robot-men?”

“Never met him or the other two, but yeah, I’d say it’s a good bet.”

The man’s voice grew impatient. “Cutter, you are out of position. I hope you are not playing one of your damn-fool ‘games’ again. Respond. Now.”

There was a long pause, a white noise silence. “I see,” said the voice, and the line clicked ostentatiously dead.

“A charming fellow,” Furey observed, kicking Cutter back into a walk.

“They’ll be on the lookout for Cutter now,” Phoebe pointed out. She looked up at the round dish of sky visible through the open cupola—at the mottled blanket of dove-grey clouds, growing darker now. What little light there had been slowly leeching away, turning the sky the mottled purple of an old bruise.

“Well, it’ll be night soon, so that’ll help hide us. Need to find somewhere to stop though,” she said. “Bet you can’t pilot this in darkness, with no IR, no searchlight.”

“I had considered the problem.”

“Oh, you’d considered it, had you? We talked about this, Furey. Co-mu-ni-ca-tion. Watcha thinkin’?”

“We will have to find a large building, hide the 'Mech inside. I do not think we can sleep in this cockpit in any event.”

“Alright, I’ll be on the lookout for something we’ll fit inside. You’re not worried I’ll escape in the night?”

“I told you, you are no longer my prisoner, you are free to go,” Furey reminded her. “But even if you still were, no, I would not worry.”

“Prisoners don’t try to escape, where you’re from?”

“They do not. Did not.”

“How come?”

“It seemed important, at the time. It seemed to matter.” Much as it was hard to argue against success, it was difficult to support failure. His clan had adhered rigidly to their traditions and customs, and what had come of it? Annihilation. Blown out the airlock of history like a ship’s garbage. Forgotten.

“You talk about it in the past tense.”

“When I was 19, invaders came to my world and killed everyone I had ever known,” he said, flatly.

“Huh.” Phoebe fell silent. “So.” The uneven footfalls threw them from side to side in their seats. “Only clan I ever heard that happenin’ to was whatsit. Clan Fog Leopard.”

Furey bit back a retort. The woman was deliberately trying to needle him. “Fog Leopard. Must you?”

“Must I what?”

“Do that.”

“The least I could do after what you pulled today,” she said, but without any heat. Truth was, in her current helpless position, it was oddly comforting to know she could tease him like this. “So, revenge, that’s your angle?”

“It was.”

“Was?”

“Yes. For years, I wanted to sink my talons into the face of the galaxy, to claw out its eyes, to leave it forever scarred and disfigured. To make sure nobody would ever forget what was done to my people. You know, Clan Fog Leopard.” He laughed, helpless, hopeless. “And now look.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Imagine: A man is injured, his family killed. He swears revenge on the man who did it. He spends years preparing, planning, plotting. Finally, one day, he finds the one who wronged him. And what does he find? The perpetrator has already burned down his own house, cut off his own nose, gouged his own eyes, murdered his wife and hung all his children.” Furey shook his head. “You see? The great, dramatic, shocking revenge I wanted to wreak is precisely what you people are doing to yourselves anyway. What harm could I possibly do to the Inner Sphere that it isn’t already enthusiastically doing to itself?”

Phoebe squirmed a little in her seat. “Well, maybe that’s a blessing,” she said. “Dyin’ is a pretty poor excuse for livin’, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

“Well, I have the oath now. To go back to Outreach.”

“Oh. Right.” Now, she decided, would not be a good time to tell him about Outreach. “Well, you didn’t ask, but dad died in a Marian raid, mom remarried a guy with five other kids, and they kicked me out of the house. Waste of space, they said. Made me wonder why I’d ever been born. So joinin’ the militia was about the only option that didn’t involve either prostitution or starvation. Trained as a tech, until I pissed off the chief tech and got transferred into th’infantry.”

The Smoke Jaguars had valued their technicians about as much as they did any other non-warrior caste, which was to say: not very much. Furey could recognize his instinct about this woman was right though: you had to be smart to be a tech, especially out here on the fringes of civilization.
 
“You, irritate your commander?” Furey asked dryly. “I cannot imagine why.”

“Wouldn’t sleep with him,” she replied bitterly. “Guess you guys don’t have family problems, huh, when daddy’s a needle and mommy runs on 120 volts DC?”

“I was born knowing my birth was seen as desirable, even necessary, for my entire people. I was born known exactly why I had been born, and what my purpose in life would be,” he said levelly. “And for that, you label us inhuman monsters.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Phoebe allowed, and watched the cityscape lurching by outside the view slits. “Shopping mall on the left side. Looks about three stories high. We’ll fit inside.”
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Kasaga

  • Lieutenant
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  • Posts: 804
    • Project: LEGION (An AU by Kasaga)
Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #28 on: 02 May 2018, 09:00:12 »
oh so deep.  You are developing this story just fine.

DOC_Agren

  • Major
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  • Posts: 4910
Re: To Climb Back Again
« Reply #29 on: 02 May 2018, 20:09:08 »
well this is getting more interesting we like 8)
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

 

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