Mission 7 - ‘TSU-s’ Stirs

  TA419 - 01/03,

  TSU FOB (Forward Operating Base) Charlie-Delta, Debris Field Beta.

  Commander Sef Abey looked across a grey compound at the silhouette of Chevalier unit 003 - his leader, the fifth-ranked of the Five Great Aces, Lady's Sesha's machine - standing atop the western wing of the storage depot, "Ma'am, all charges placed in area one, team B is at work in area two and team three can deploy to your position at will."

  "Excellent work as ever Commander," Sesha’s voice replied over the comms.

  It had been another routine raid, one of a couple dozen his men had done alongside the fifth-ranked the last few weeks. The commander was about to give the order for team three to move out when he spotted something, "Ma'am, additional contact, charging you. Kamikaze attack, maybe. Confirm?"

  To the Chevalier's left was a somewhat nondescript machine, charging across the building rooftops towards the ace. Abey varied his helmet visor to zoom in further; he'd been on the money. The mech was laced with plastic explosives, glowing drums and even had a light sheen, making it look as though it had been basted in oil.

  "Confirm, Commander. Is area three currently free of our people?"

  "Err, yes, ma'am?"

  "Keep it that way," Lady Sesha replied with an almost audible smile.

  Abey wanted to ask more but held back. He'd worked with the lady both on a dozen of these small raids now and for years before that - and knew not to bother asking. Abey was firmly of the opinion that pilots were all a little insane. Sesha sparring with an enemy Casnel, during their raid on an asteroid base a couple of weeks ago, was still fresh on Abey’s mind.

  He considered his men and even himself brave and courageous, but pilots were a step above. The years spent watching Sesha mercilessly train recruits had been intense. When he'd led simulation missions to board her students' training mechs, it had been hellish for him, never mind the pilots facing such daily tasks. Then again, her students, without exception, were some of the best pilots in the business.

  This is mind Abey watched the Chevalier continuing to stand perfectly still. It didn't scare him exactly, but he sure as hell couldn't take his eyes off the approaching mech as the gap got smaller.

  Perhaps the kamikaze pilot thought he'd gotten lucky, that the Chevalier’s scanners had failed, and it really hadn't noticed him charging at it? If that was the case, Abey felt sorry for the poor bastard. The more he looked, the deeper that sympathy grew. The mech wasn't a combat type. It had no armour, bulkier limbs, reinforced joints. In all likelihood it was nothing more than a construction type, no more suited to this than an industrial digger or crane would be. That made the pilot's charge insane and perhaps, admirable.

  Just three mech-shaped spaces remained between the two machines when the Chevalier finally began to move. A quick pivot, and it stepped in, closing the gap itself and reaching out.

  A second later, it grabbed one of the construction mech's wrists and tugged just hard enough to break the magnetic connection between the metal roof and foot. Using nothing more than a dance-like twist of the waist, the Chevalier easily flug the construction mech into the air. In the zero-G, it floated helplessly forward and away from its target.

  The Chevalier stood back up straight and raised its shield over its torso. Moments later the construction mech, still flailing around as though drowning, exploded magnificently. A red mushroom strobed into the sky; beneath it, area three of the deposit was decimated as something inside also caught ablaze in the heat.

  For Commander Sef Abey, it was all over in an instant, far too casual. The explosion of the domestic use mech self-destructing was short-lived, the red plume soon becoming nothing but dust, and the fires of the base beneath quenching as space flooded in.

  The Chevalier stood unaffected, the Gohbnui shield and armour not even scratched, sword never drawn, rifle never fired. Abey could picture his Lady inside the machine, tongue out and hand posed in a ridiculous symbol utterly unbefitting of a soldier, officer and woman in her late thirties. With a heavy sigh, he turned his comms on again, "Lt.Dun, our lady has decided you should have a half-day. Group three will not be required to proceed. Repeat, return to vessel."

  ****

  Lady Sesha - fifth among the Five Great Aces of Remembrance - stopped making a ‘v-sign’ with her hand; without Commander Abey to be embarrassed by it, it simply wasn't fun.

  "I must insist on a visual comm device next time,” she mused with a sigh.

  Glancing at the wreckage of area three and the shards of destroyed construction mech left the ace feeling a touch bittersweet, "You fought well, little one. You were a pilot in the end. No, I suppose you always were, even if you were never in battle. But there, for just a moment, you shone as bright as any warrior."

  Sesha was a true Magi, capable of supernatural feats. Her ability was common among elven folk, perhaps indicative of some blood far back in her ancestry. Her power, she could ‘read’ people.

  For just a moment she would catch a glimpse of their hearts, feelings, intent even, and know them like an old friend for just a second. It might not be a match for the precognition of some Magi, but combined with her honed reactions and skills as a pilot, a moment of the enemy's intent (even at the cost of suddenly empathising with her foe) was a lethal combination.

  Today, it had shown her a young worker, not a combatant. That's how she'd had confidence in her simple trick - a pilot of any higher calibre would have countered it with ease - they would simply have grabbed her mech’s wrist back. But this boy had been young and inexperienced with war, far too shocked and slow to counter her simple wrist grab or to right his position after being flung. And thus, he had died with ease, accomplishing nothing.

  Something still bothered Sesha, however. Her eyes scanned across her machine's readouts, connected directly to their frigate only three kilometres away. This base was unimportant, so the ship's scanners should be able to detect anything even if the base had some rudimentary jamming, yet nothing was here.

  The rogue TSU flotilla she’d spared with at the asteroid a couple of weeks ago and that continually showed up to stop Remembrance attacks. The sniper-ace Scarlet had ‘played with’ at Defence Platform 3: Any number of TSU units that so far in the war had frequently turned up to try and stop them. They didn’t always appear. Remembrance’s attacks were plentiful and random to a degree, but something in Sesha told her that today would be one of those days an uninvited guest appeared. And yet, none were here to greet her.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The enemy might have simply miscalculated. Even that crafty old fox Columbae couldn't guess all their movements, with multiple raids occurring daily. Moreover, Sesha had only brought her single ship; including herself, only three mechs.

  It felt too easy, but then again, Sesha was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Commander, you boys ready?"

  "Aye, Ma'am. All Type-A's loaded. On your word."

  "Good. Return to the ship, everyone. Lets us not hang around."

  ****

  TA419 01/03 - Same Time as Sesha Faces the Construction Mech in Battle,

  TSU Heavy Cruiser Maybach, Bridge.

  'Special' Commodore Helge stood proudly at the back of his ship, the Maybach heavy cruiser's bridge. Before him, to the left and right, two banks of command terminals manned by his subordinates and dead ahead, the panoramic glass view of space. In the far distance a tiny speck of FOB Charlie-Delta.

  "Status update?"

  "Sir," the young ensign on the comms panel nearest him said, "Base command is under attack by a small enemy unit, three boarding ships and one Casnel class mech. They also believe there to be a warship nearby."

  "How long can they hold Ensign?"

  "Ah, not long, Sir? The base Commander sounds, ummm, hysteric, Sir. In my opinion, probably only a few minutes."

  The Commodore's stare went cold, and the Ensign visibly shivered, "Did I ask for your personal opinion?"

  "N-no, Sir!"

  The Commodore scoffed, his double chin flabbing, "Make ready to begin the attack. The base is lost. Our target is solely the defeat of the enemy command mech."

  "S--" the Ensign bit his lip. He had been a moment away from questioning the order to abandon the base so soon but had stopped himself.

  'Good,' the Commodore smiled, 'he can learn fast.'

  Obedience was a core value of what his superiors were trying to create with TSU-s, and this was their test flight. There couldn't possibly be decent on the bridge at such an integral time.

  "Observation and escort units ready, Sir. The 'Thrall' is all green too," reported another officer.

  "Luanch at will," the Commodore said back.

  Technically, this was unofficial. They weren't TSU-s yet, but the admirals backing the upstart organisation had convinced that bothersome dove, Columbae, to let them handle this mission. They would be deploying a new toy, the 'Thrall,' as part of the deal in a prototype testbed called the Paladin.

  To Commodore Helge, they were perfect tools for the job. The Paladin had been a testing model for none other than the Chevalier class Casnel. Now, it would destroy those stolen disgraces.

  But the thrall was even better, the perfect instrument for the new TSU-s division. A captured soldier - an enemy ace at that - experimented on, enhanced, and broken. Its voice gone; some said all its sense were destroyed except when piloting its machine. An artificial Magi, its mind moulded both to be the ultimate fighter and to serve only them.

  They would show the Abhailen lowlifes what fate awaited them: death at the hands of their own broken heroes. Perfect indeed.

  Seven trails of light coursed into view of the large window, bringing a small smile to the Commodore's pudgy face. Six were brand new Vijiak-Speicals, two carrying research equipment, and the rest standard weapons. All six piloted by C and B-ranked pilots. Finally the Paladin itself, a grey and perfectly white, holy knight. Long flowing plates of armour and a cross on its visor with a single red eye at its centre.

  "The Paladin will engage the enemy alone. If it begins to struggle, all remaining units will open a barrage on them," –and destroy them both, though he left that unsaid. The Paladin was not their mech, so to speak. If it failed, it was on its creators. Either way, the Commodore's forces would crush the enemy ace and prove his tactical worth, regardless of whether the Paladin had shortcomings separate from them. That said, Helge hoped it would succeed; the thought of ordering whole battalions of these artificial enemy soldiers to do battle with pleased him immensely.

  Gradually the little light streams grew further away as the mechs rapidly covered the mile’s distance to the base.

  Suddenly, the Commodore's jaw dropped; "What the hell is happening!?" he bellowed.

  The seven mechs had stopped, their thruster lights replaced by streaking vertical strobes of laser fire. Within seconds, the two observation units were dead.

  "Radio the field commander. I want him now!"

  The Ensign paled at this order, "No response, Sir."

  "Damn him!" Helge smashed a fist against the armrest of his chair, but that anger soon dissipated, replaced by something much colder.

  The entire bridge watched as the four elite units of the escort force began to fall one by one. The Paladin’s lance impaled one; its sword dug out the heart of another. Point-blank laser fire from its inbuilt cannons took down a third, and finally, it beat the squad leader to submission - no, by the looks of the buckled and bent torso, death - with its mace.

  In a matter of moments, only one mech remained in their panoramic view.

  "Sir?" one of the officers asked.

  "F-fire! Fire all cannons; don't let it move another inch!" the TSU Commodore bellowed.

  The sky was soon filled with bright orange, yellow and red blasts, each the size of a mech itself, fired from the Maybach and her three accompanying vessels.

  The small shape of the Paladin easily dodged such projectiles and turned its attention back to the flotilla. The Commodore could have sworn that red eye was staring right at him even at this immense distance.

  The Paladin began to fly home. It weaved and ducked under the endless stream of ship cannon fire, sidestepping and dodging by a hair's breadth each shoot; avoiding them with inhuman, Magi ability. Soon, the anti-fighter cannons flared to life, spraying thinner traced lines by the thousand as the mech got closer and closer still, yet none could land a clean hit.

  Before he knew it, the Commodore really was staring right into that red eye. The Paladin had flown all the way up to the bridge; its two-metre tall head now took up the entire window.

  Helge's senses left him. Alarms were blaring yet seemed distant. His vision narrowed to be only that single red eye. Around him, officers were running, abandoning the bridge, not one stopping to call to him until, last to leave, none other than the communications Ensign hesitated; "Sir, come on," he said loosely but to no avail.

  With a shake of his head, the young boy made to follow the other deserters.

  Bang.

  The sound of the Commodore’s pistol was not particularly loud over the roaring alarms, as it scored a perfect hit on the Ensign's chest.

  "You–," the young man mumbled before blood flooded his lips and his body toppled over.

  "Desertion of an officer will not be tolerated," Helge said, his eyes blank.

  He raised the gun to point at the red-eye and fired. And fired again. And again.

  Each shot stuck alarming centre of the eye; Helge was proud of his marksmanship, it was only right for a TSU-s officer. Meanwhile, it was a testament to the ship's construction that such repeated shots didn't pierce the glass, likewise a credit to Helge’s luck that the resulting ricochets didn't hit him. That luck would dry up fast.

  The eye receded, moving backwards; "Yes, yes, run away, you pup, run from me!" the faint sound of the empty pistol clicking accompanied Helge’s final cries of anguish.

  Its body was now fully visible again, and the Paladin reared one arm back and pointed its lance directly at the bridge. The implement spun and launched off its wielder's arm, ramming like a giant drill into the bridge's glass. The glass did not last.

  The Commodore screamed. The red eye of the Paladin, watched on silently.

  A commented answer either on that or how you're finding the book so far would be greatly appreciate, though most of all I hope you enjoyed today's chapter. Cya tomorrow!

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