Authors note: My first attempt at something resembling a story. Feedback and critique welcome. It is intentionally set nowhere particularly and in no specific era
Wallers Plain
17:00 standard time
The rain was pattering against the cockpit windows as Asher hung folded over the command couch's back trying to reach a small, well to be honest, he had no idea what it was. But seeing how nothing in the mech was really working, had led Asher to assume it was important to the operation of his locust. Trying to wiggle a bit deeper in behind the seating, he cursed softly but the seat remained steadfast. The Locust was a sterling scouting machine, but no one would accuse it of being roomy. Infact the cockpit was downright cramped in the best of times and now it was a mouse sized maze, and he was trying to fish out a small breaker whom like the fabled minotaur hid somewhere deep down beneath the seat. He gave up for the time and sat back down. This was going to be a long haul. Reaching into the field kit he pulled out something to drink and a protein bar. With provisions in one hand and a recorder in the other, Asher felt he might as well spend the time waiting to make notes of how he ended up parking his Locust nose first in a tree.
It had all begun as a run of the mill scout mission. Hit a few waypoints and make sure everything was quiet. Wallers plain did have a pirate problem, one returning with the same regularity as the common cold. About once a year they came around, demanding their tithe. The pirates were not exactly sneaky, so they had been tracked for a few weeks and while his unit did not have the tech to accurately predict the landing zone. They did have plenty of light fast vehicles and a few mechs. Asher sighed as he plodded through the cheat sheet. Heading out the unit's base at Wallers Pocket, up to Tellmars hold and ending the run of with a sweep of Wallers plain. The last one being the most likely to be used as a landing zone. He noted “No contact – Situation clear” on all three. And then it was the dammed rock, how it threw his balance all to heck and how he took a nosedive down a levy. He had passed out slamming his head and once he came too again, he found the Locust being jammed in the branches of a sizeable spruce. This had saved him from having to try to wrangle a downed mech without arms back up. The Locust being stuck with a pair of stubby pods made it very well balanced and agile, but it was a pain trying to get back up from the floor.
It was also dark, only a lone backup system booted had up. There was not much he could do with the breaker now located someplace under the seat. At least Asher hoped the breaker was the issue. If not, he would have a dressing down the size of an Overlord. Not to mention being on grease and coolant duty until he retired.
Wallers plain
19:00 standard time
“Rector online... Heat within expected values... That is a good start.” Asher had managed to find the breaker and only sustained a small cut pulling it out. He now sat sucking on his bleeding knuckle as his mech slowly came to life. The fact that the fall had not jostled the rector shielding was good news. As the different system monitors blinked on it was a rollercoaster of emotions. The legs were O.K. and he had not lost too much armor. The communications system was sort of working and the gyro reported no known issues. But that was about where the good news ended. The medium laser did not only report as not working but did not register as existing at all. But seeing as it was mounted at the very front of the mech, the chance that it tore loose during the fall was pretty high. As for the side mounted machineguns they were technically still there but both had a solid wall of error messages. Asher shook his head and continued to flip through the readouts. As the mech cleared the boot up sequence and reported that all core systems were operating within acceptable parameters he slid the neurohelmet down from its perch and hooked it into the cooling west and command couch. He then gently started to move the mech out of the tree that had been its resting place. Getting back up to the road was a bit of a fight on its own. But five minutes after he left his impromptu cradle, he stood on the road. He saw the pair of fast-moving stars passing by overhead and made a mental note to amend his report, it did in fact look like everything was not going to be all clear.
“What a damm day” he said to himself as he set off towards the base.
Wallers Pocket – Alexander Strategic Solutions base.
19:30
Lars Alexander stood rubbing his neck as the locust limped in. He had seen worse but that was back in the days of being part of a planetary defense force and thus having someone else paying the bills. Now it was his bill hobbling towards the repair cradle, dragging it´s machineguns behind like a pair of wilted flowers. As for the laser, well it was gone and there was little point in worrying about it. He would send a team out once this pirate malarkey was over to try and recover it. With some luck it would be salvageable.
“Commander Alexander, I am so ****** sorry...” Asher had hurriedly climbed down from his mech and was now approaching his commanding officer. “I swear it was n...” His voice trails off as he meets the eyes of the man who is not only his boss but also the man who took a chance on a unknown mech jock like Asher. There is a measuring look to the eyes of Lars. Asher takes a deep breath. “... It was my fault. I got careless and I did not keep an eye on my environment.” Asher lowers his eyes and waits for the dressing down he knows is coming.
Lars looked the young man up and down, he would be lying if he said the discomfort of Asher was not bringing him a little be of enjoyment. After all the kid had managed to end up parking a 1,5 million c-bills walking tank in a tree. But to his credit he had also managed to get it running again and made it back to base mostly intact. Lars cleared his throat.
“Mr. Fallston, you do understand the core idea of a recon run, right? Gather information and return to base. Parking in a ditch is not conducive to that. But you managed to get my mech back to base, and that is more than some people I have commanded over the years.” He laughed, not dismissive but warm. “Kid, next time keep an eye on the road. Now get over there and help the techs hammer your machineguns back the right way.” As Asher scampered off towards the cradle, Lars could not help himself smiling. The kid is not half bad, he thought to himself. If he lived long enough to see maturity, there was a great scout in there. His smile faltered as a small voice in the back of his mind repeated the “if he lives” part. Death was a way to common workplace incident when said workplace was the cockpit of a battlemech.
Wallers plain
20:00
Two dropships had touched down. The planetary militia, a motley crew of light hovercrafts was dealing with the one who set down on the east side of the base. So it fell to Strategic solutions to deal with the one on the west side of the base. It was a bit unfortunate that the base and a lake now had them split apart. Lars had sort of hoped to have the skimmers to reinforce his own lance. It was dangerously light, apart from his rather meaty Phoenix Hawk. It consisted of Asher and his now sort of working Locust, a Valkyrie piloted by one of the old timers with the callsign Trinket and a Wasp piloted by Taptap, a local who was brough on to fill out the ranks. That meant that between three mechs he had about the firepower of a decent medium mech. Good mobility, but running only works for so long.
On the bright side, nothing indicated that the dropship had come in heavy either. So with some luck they might be able to wrestle a victory from the grasp of death. Lars tapped the stud on the com unit. “This is runner 1 to all runners, sound off...” He waited as each member checked in. Once everyone cleared, he started out from the base and was soon running as a comfortable 80 kilometers an hour. He did not like to spread the lance out yet. Pirates always had a certain element of unpredictability.
Wallers Plain
Time: FUBAR
Asher threw the sticks of his mech sharply right and nearly smashed his head on the side of the cockpit as his Locust dug it's clawed feet into the dirt of the plain and for a split second defied gravity as it started to fall sideways before the gyro-stabilizers pulled the mech more upright. As the Locust changed its path a cascade of dirt and stone exploded where it should have been. Asher turned his head and the compacted view shifted to show him what was behind him. Not that he did not know, but an irrational part of his brain tried to sell the rest of the head on the idea that the Hunchback that trailed him had gone away. Under normal circumstances the Hunchback would make for a fairly easy encounter. The mech was not really that fast and it´s main gun was short range. Sure, it could take the Locust out in one hit, but not being hit was very much the Locusts thing. But all that goes out the window when you take a turn and run headfirst in to said mech. Asher noted that the only reason he was still alive was because the other pilot had been as surprised as him. That gave him a few seconds to shift his mech to the left and juke around the larger mech. Now he had not expected that the bloody thing could swing its torso around 180 degrees. This was what had led to the sudden shift in direction and the resulting situation of him currently not as much piloting the mech as it was falling with grace.
Behind Asher the Hunchback lumbering around and starting to pursue. The large bore cannon mounted on its right shoulder barked and a series of shells barely missed the unbalanced locust as it drunkenly weaved back and forth. Managing to get the mech under control, Asher tried to find a way to shake the Hunchback and all be praised maybe even get a lick or two in before. He had no illusions of what would happen if he tried to fight a stand-up fight. Even in a fully operational Locust the fight would be short and brutal. Ashers Locust was far from fully operational. The main laser did whatever the heck it wanted and the machineguns, might as they may be against soft targets, did very little against the thick hide of a battlemech. “No, today we dance my dear…” Asher said to himself. Another sharp report from the Hunchback tore a tree to his left into shreds, but also opened small path. Asher did not even notice how some stray rounds had started to crumple his left side armor. His focus was fully on weaving through the trees but as he burst out the other side of the small grove the turkey like shape of a Jenner was slowly turning towards him. There was no way left to run, much like the Locust, the Jenner was designed to run and gun. Slower but also much more heavily armed. ”****** this shit… “ Asher knew that as soon as the Jenner had him dialed in it would be game over. Then he smiled, the Jenner looked somewhat rough. Like it had been patched, and then and those patches patched again. Not an uncommon problem for pirate mechs, armor plates were expensive and not all that necessary when hitting small communities. Asher gave the mech all the juice it had, sending it forward like a cruise missile. He could see the pirate lining him up, four angry laser eyes and a set of very explosive teeth in a hungry grin. “Eat this…” he screamed as he threw the mech sideways, the gyro screamed as it fought and then lost gravity and momentum. He thought he heard something snap and break before he clamped down on his secondary trigger and emptied the machineguns of his spinning and tumbling Locust.
From the outside it looked like the mech took a wrong step and like a drunk brawler fell towards his opponent. But the effect was the Jenner overcorrected and only the short-range missiles home. It was way too little, way too late and with the sound of freight containers hitting each other the Locust barreled into the cockpit of the Jenner, then the momentum carried both mechs over. Of course, none of this ever registered with Asher as he had lost consciousness shortly after the mech lost it´s fight with momentum.
Somewhere
Time: a construct of the human mind.
But as he came too, the familiar sounds of dropship travel wrapped him up like a warm blanket. Then the sobering realization that his unit had months left on their initial contract set in. He saw the shape of a med tech coagulate in front of him. “where am i…” He croaked out. “yah been press-ganged son” the med tech said. “You r´ with the Ghosts of Hecate now”. Asher did not know what to do with that information, but he heard a click and then the steady hum of a pump. Before he could really manage to put anything else together. Sweet numbness flooded his mind and he fell asleep.
Fin.
