by DN Farrell
Although the one which was killing marines, in the 72nd Company, had gone of track a little and was punitively picking up marines, throwing them high in the air, punching them with its huge right hand and so on. But this MECH was wasting its time, when its laser cannon was capable of slicing the marines like a hot knife through butter, so why waste time acting like king kong!
Kell decided that this was the MECH to focus on, so he ran up behind its right foot, while it stood there fully exposed, receiving dozens of blaster rounds per second, which where bouncing of off its tough Induranium armor. Meanwhile Kell just deftly climbed up the back of its right leg, then its back and up and around its right shoulder, until finally he climbed around the neck of the MECH.
There was only one weak point on a MECH, unless you happened to have a laser cannon yourself, and this point was the connection between the head and the neck. Kell used his left hand to hang onto one of the large three Induranium shielded braids, which came out of the pivot joint, at the base of the neck. The three braids connected the power from the body of the MECH to the head unit, but there was no point in using a laser rifle against Induranium, it lacked the power necessary to cut through it, but the neck joint was covered with a plasticky rubbery like material, which his rifle could get through.
Holding on with his left hand, he used his right hand to cut through this material. He gave it a second blast in just one point, then as the laser cartridge emptied, he flicked the rifle around like a six shooter, in the old wild west, and then reloaded with one hand while still using the other hand to hold on. Meanwhile the MECH was gyrating wildly, as the operator was enjoying the feeling of power and invincibility, which came with being a MECH operator, "But not for long!," Kell thought to himself.
Emptying the second cartridge into the same point, in the rubbery plasticky material, finally it cut though the ten inches of tough material, thus revealing the inner workings of the MECH. Kell reloaded for the third time and this time he blasted the interior of the MECH, with his laser rifle, slicing through all of the inner workings and making the MECH suddenly stand still. "One MECH down and one to go!' He thought to himself and with that he started to figure out how to take out the next MECH.
It then occurred to Kell, that if he could somehow make the left arm work, then he could take out the other MECH. Taking out a fourth cartridge, he blasted a decent sized hole through the rubbery plastic material and then jumped inside of the MECH. The operator was still in his pod of course, but there was nothing which he could do, other than to either sit there or use his escape hatch, for all power had been severed to the head of the MECH.
Climbing over towards the left arm and shoulder unit, Kell took a look at the motor housing, using his light intensifier software, to see through the otherwise blackness of the huge suit. Thinking Quickly, he called out to the communications grunt Scarpoogenes, hoping that he was still alive!
"Scarpoogenes you there?" kell called and all he heard back was silence, then he called again, but this time he received a response. "Sir I'm still here just about, that thing is killing us!" Exclaimed Scarpoogenes!"
Kell shouted back down the comms line. "Scarpogeenes do me a favour and get me an exact GPS reading on the MECH which is firing at you!"
Again there was a silence, but after thirty seconds, Scarpoogenes came through again "That'll be hard to do sir."
Kell retorted "It sure beats dying, just do it!" he exclaimed.
Another minute or so past, Kell could hear the fire fight and knew that every second which passed another marine died, but all he could do now was to focus on rewiring the computer on the MECHS shoulder and arm unit. Once rigged up, he reached over to the laser cannon relay and set it up so that it would fire where the computer pointed it.
Finally Scarpoogenes came through the comms unit and gave a grid reference "12U UA 84323 40791, 12U UA 84 40". Kell quickly typed in the grid reference, fused several wires together and hoped for the best. "Hurray" he thought, as the arm and shoulder unit started to move and directed themselves towards the other MECH. About five seconds later, with the arm lined up there was a continuous "Zing" sound as the laser cannon cut in. Since Kell wasn't quite sure where in the MECHS body it had hit, for safety sake, he started messing with the grid reference slightly, hopefully chopping the other MECH into pieces, as the left arm started moving up and down slightly, while still firing its laser cannon continuously.
After about two minutes of constant "zinging", he wound down the laser motor. He had spent two minutes firing and hadn't received any laser cannon fire back, so chances where that all was good. He spent the next minute scrambling out of the body of the MECH and once he got out of its neck, he got a nice surprise, the other MECH was a pile of spare parts, lying in the dessert sun, while the MECH he was sitting on was pointing at it with its left hand, it would have made a hilarious picture, if the reality was not so dreadful.
Chapter Six – Extraction
Running at speed, Kell got back to the landing area in less than a minute and over the next few minutes all the remaining marines of the 47th and 72nd made their way back. When everyone had assembled, Kell shouted at McGregor to come back with a body count. Another minute or so passed and then McGregor returned with a downbeat look on his face.
"Well?" asked kell, knowing the answer would not be good.
"Sir only seventy men still alive and half of them are injured." He said and then after a few seconds pause he said that "Lieutenant Chapman didn't make it!"
This hit Kell hard, so he went down onto one knee and looked over the carnage. Out of five hundred men in his Battalion, only seventy where still alive!
"Chapman told me earlier, he had a bad feeling about this, I guess he was right!" He exclaimed, then dragging himself up heavily, for no amount of biomechanical machinery could make up for the feeling of heaviness, the weight of command, which he was feeling right now.
"McGregor, if Yuthers is still alive get him onto Central and let's get the hell out of here!"
Within less than a minute, Kell was onto commander Raton again, who guaranteed support, saying that it was on its way, all they could do now was wait. Looking around landing zone Alpha, everything looked peaceful, although if he listened hard, Kell could just about hear the shearing sound of weapons fire in the distance. The next Battalion was located about five or six kilometers away in a southerly direction, the aim of the attack being for the four Battalions to each surround the outer parts of the city of Kal and work their way in towards the city centre, in a pincer movement.
Obviously this wasn't going to happen! Taken out the five MECHS, was a stroke in favour of Battalion Alpha, but it would only be a matter of hours before the other MECHS, which were chewing their way through Battalion Bravo, would wander over in this direction, since they were so close, then it would be lights out as even Kell, with all his daring and ingenuity, couldn't take out five MECHS, without any heavy artillery!
Kell ordered the men to be arranged in defensive positions, just in case, and all they could do was sit and wait until the extraction team came and hopefully the other Battalions would receive extraction teams as well, although it would be difficult, as the MECHS would slice the Landing craft into little pieces!
"Sir contact from the extraction ships!" Exclaimed Yuthers.
kell motioned for him to put them through. Standing there, looking in a northerly direction, Kell spoke to the extraction ships pilot leader "Kell here, we're in landing point Alpha, everything's cool here, we took out the MECHS, but we're down to seventy men, we just need one ship, send the extra ships to the Bravo Battalion."
After a few moments the extraction pilot leader replied " Colonel we're coming to get you, expect us in five minutes, we've only got four ships, so we'll see what we can do about the Bravo Battalion, but if there's MECHS there, then there's no guarantee we will be able to extract them."
Then turning around, Kell shouted at his men. "Prepare for extraction in five, everyone take up extrac
tion positions."
Exactly to the minute, five minutes later, the automatic ground blaster cannons, which the enemy had laid out in the dessert, began to operate. Within a matter of seconds, Kell and the others could clearly see a trail of fire through the sky, as the Landing craft rapidly decelerated. The ship suddenly became clear and could be seen wobbling slightly, while being hit by the ground blaster cannons and in response the four mini-gun turrets, on the Landing craft, where giving out a bluish purplish light, as its blaster cannons fired back.
Once the ship was in a few hundred feet of the planet surface, the automatic blaster cannons, which had been set up to fire heaven ward, discontinued and because Alpha Battalion had taken out the local resistance in the landing point, the ship was free to land without any further enemy fire at all.
Chapter Seven – Chaos in Outer Space
Within seconds the men and women of Alpha Battalion, all seventy of them, were in the Landing craft and the ship headed into space. Once again the automatic blaster cannons started firing and the ship bounced around, which made for a very scary planet exit, a quick climb and a lot of turbulence, as the ship bucked back and forth, as blaster shot after blaster shot bounced of off its armor. Thankfully the blaster shots did not hit any weak parts of the ship and within seconds, even though they felt like hours, they were up and through the outer atmosphere and then back into space.
The Landing craft, was now flying smoothly and Kell looked out of the Aft Plexiglass viewing window, where he could see the small planet rapidly disappearing into the distance. But even from here, thousands of kilometers into space, he could see heavy fire on the outer parts of the city of Kal.
Once in space, Kell checked in with the two pilots, who appeared to be in a very stressed state.
"What's happening guys?" He asked.
The main pilot Lieutenant Jaspers, a small figured Laterian woman, replied tersely "It's hell Kell, it's hell!" She exclaimed and then turning her head momentarily to face Kell, she said "The Virgils gone and the Tigerius is under heavy attack." She said matter of factly.
"Gone, what you mean gone, as in blown up?" Kell asked.
She simply nodded. "We're heading back towards the Trigerius, presently it's three hundred million kilometers from here, at full Pulse speed we can be there twenty five minutes."
"Three hundred million kilometers from here, how come?" Kell asked her.
The pilot replied in a quick staccato "Tactical retreat, it's just waiting for us before it goes into warp drive."
Kell sat down beside Sergeant Major McGovern and the last two remaining officers, Lieutenant Tripp and Lieutenant Raven and gave them a quick update.
"The Virgil's gone, as in blown up, and the Trigerius is under heavy attack, we're heading there and it will take twenty five minutes." He said flatly, while looking over at the others, but all he got back were blank stares from Tripp and Raven, who had obviously being traumatised, by watching their Company's being sliced and diced by those gigantic killing machines.
McGregor however, still had thoughts in his head and words to say. "Colonel if you don't mind me saying so this has being a friggin fiasco!"
Kell nodded his agreement and McGovern went on to say "Kell they knew everything, even were the landing zones would be and that Alpha Company, with you as chief, would be last to arrive!" He exclaimed, anger rising in his voice and his face turning a bright red colour. "They were waiting in the sand for team Alpha to walk across the dessert, they wanted to take you out sir!" McGovern exclaimed some more and Kell just sat back and thought about this for a minute.
Staring off into the rows of marines, who were sitting in front of him, kell just commented back "McGovern your right, we have a spy in the service somewhere, but for now..." He suddenly paused, an irritated feeling running down his back, so he looked at the back of the ship but all looked well, then he continued. "For now we've just got to think about getting back to base, once there we can try cleaning out our house." With that all went quiet and the deep sombre quietness of desperate men and women, would continue for another five minutes.
About five or six minutes later, Kell was looking down at the space between his feet, recounting everything which they had being through, in the last few hours, trying to make sense of it when suddenly that irritated felling kicked in again. With that he sat bolt upright, as the pilot called though the ships comms unit. "Incoming we've got incoming, we're taking evasive action!"
Jumping up, kell looked back out the aft window and just as he did so, he saw a white spec way of in the distance, maybe thousands of kilometers away but still visible, then suddenly Kell felt that the ship was firing at them, but he couldn't see anything as laser cannons are invisible in space, they only make themselves known when they hit something, and hit something they did, as Kell could clearly see the edge of the landing craft light up as the laser beam sliced through the port side of the ship. A tiny hole appeared about twenty feet from Kell and a sudden feeling of suction, as the air started to exit the craft.
"Air recyclers on, close visors air recyclers on!" Shouted Kell as the air whizzed out of the ship. There was a light tug on Kell's biomechanical suit, but thankfully the hole was only an inch in diameter, so nobody got pulled into outer space.
The pilots were neurally rigged into the ship, so in one way the pilot was flying the ship, but in another way the computers were also chipping in. The pilot would focus on defensive flying, while the co-pilot would operate the blaster cannons. The pilots were doing all they could, but really they were not a match for a space fighter. The space fighter was faster than the landing craft and came with a forward facing laser cannon, of equal strength to the one which Alpha Company had being using on the ground, plus the space fighter could easily dodge anything, which the Landing craft could throw at it. Unless they received support, it was only moments before the marines and the marine pilots met their end!
The ship kept on tumbling too and fro, and the marine officers shouted at everyone to keep down, always good advice when a laser cannon, could shred through the ship, as if it were made of paper mache. But Kell knowing full well, that if the space fighter tore a hole in the ship, that they were all going to end up in space anyhow, so he just hung onto one of the ceiling grab handles and watched as the space fighter turned on its turbo drive and covered the thousands of kilometers distance between the two ships, within seconds.
Suddenly he could see the head of the space fighter's pilot through the Plexiglass aft window, as the fighter was now very close to the landing craft, maybe a kilometer or so away. The pilot had a clear shot and he took it. Kell instinctively jumped out to his left hand side, while the laser light went straight through the back door of the ship, initially slicing through the mid-section of marines and also taking out the pilots cabin, but the space fighter kept the laser cannon on and Kell suddenly felt himself sailing of to his left hand side, as one part of the ship was sliced off from the other part, the ship had been cut into two!
The star board side of the ship started to roll rapidly, throwing marines off into space as it went, but Kell was still hanging onto one of the ships marine grab handles, and had no intention of letting go as to do so would result in kell being flung off helplessly into space, spinning uncontrollable, until he hit something or someone rescued him.
The half ship continued to reel and only kell and two other marines managed to hang on. However, the space fighter was not done yet and once again the beam of laser light shredded through the starboard part of the ship, hitting the marine who was nearest to Kell and slicing his suit into two, with what remained of him rapidly tumbling off into space.
Now only Kell and the other marine, which kell could read his name as being Samuels, where hanging on. Quick thinking as always, a space sick Kell motioned to the marine to reach for an escape pod. The Landing craft all had escape pods, twenty each side of the ship, not enough to save everyone's life, but it was something.
The two marines had a tough job
of grabbing a part of the ship with their right hand, then letting go of their left hand and grabbing another object, whether it be a seat or a grab handle , whatever, the key was to get to the escape pods and get of off this rolling half ship fast. Kell was first to make it and quickly belting himself in, he hit the big red button in the middle of the dashboard, which read "Escape" in large white letters, which instantly launched the escape pod.
