Mission 10 - Breakdown - Part 1

  TA419 - 02/04,

  TSU Troy-Class AssultCarrier Curadh, Officer’s Quarters.

  Moncha opened a door that had remained shut for hours; "Leave me alone," its sole occupant growled, but Moncha paid that little heed.

  Reaching for a light switch, he dragged a chair over to beside the bed, where a young man had draped a duvet over his head, knees tucked under his chin.

  "It wasn't your fault, Chas," Moncha said.

  A sharp pair of eyes glared out at him, "How wasn't it? Together, we could have beat him, but I- I..."

  "Sometimes comrades fall, sometimes we have a bad day; these things happen, kid."

  "But it's not just today, is it! How many people have I killed Commander? What about those twelve at the refinery?"

  Moncha froze. He’d thought this depression was caused by them losing at Platform 2 - at that other G-type Casnel dieing while the sound attack immobilised Chas - but this, this he wasn’t prepared for;

  "You're not supposed to--"

  Chas threw back the duvet, his bloodshot eyes boring holes fiercely at Moncha in the room's half-light, "Wasn't supposed to know? I checked the goddamn files! My rifle, the heat from it, I eviscerated them, and I didn't even realise it, didn't I?! Didn't I?!"

  Moncha blanched. He'd thought that file out of Chas's reach, but tech had never been his speciality. If possible, he had intended to keep that incident a secret, at least until he felt Chas could handle it.

  "The Casnels are strong, Chas, sometimes stronger than we realise. Back at Vanadis when we met, we just barely survived being that close to a Vijaik rifle; a Casnel's is just, a lot more powerful. I should have been more careful, not you. You didn't mean it, it--"

  "Wasn't my fault? Just like that guy yesterday, his death isn't my fault, even though both could have been prevented if I'd just been better?"

  Moncha took a deep breath, "You made a mistake, more than one; we all do. You'll pay for it by carrying it with you, probably for the rest of your life. But you’re brave, Chas. You'll get back up again, I know it."

  "Brave?" the boy's pale fist clenched at the bedsheets, "I'm just selfish, egotistical. I couldn't bare to see everything and not do something, but that doesn't make me brave. My stupid pride is getting people killed."

  Moncha shook his head, "Bravery isn't about not being afraid. Bravery is about being terrified and doing the right thing anyway. I can't deny that you made a mistake, but you'll get back up again. I believe that. You won't let that mistake be a waste; you'll make up for it - I know you will."

  The older man stood and placed a large, warm hand on Chas's shoulder. The boy couldn't even resist, toppling over. He was as good as asleep by the time his head hit the sheets.

  Moncha placed the blanket over him, a worried look on his friendly face. All he could do was hope that this wouldn't break the boy, when they needed Casnel pilots more than ever. Perhaps that was wrong; maybe if Chas weren’t a Casnel pilot, he’d be sent for psychiatric treatment following all this, or sent to stand trail… but that was pointless to think about. Casnel pilots were simply too important.

  ****

  TA419 - 02/04,

  TSU Assult-Carrier Curadh, Captain’s Office.

  “I’m sorry, Admiral, I really am,” Fred Synapse said simply to his computer screen. A deep shame welled in him and perhaps an even more profound tiredness. Even with two Casnels, he’d been unable to not only beat the Chevalier but to even stop it from destroying a second Platform. He had failed.

  “No,” the Grand Admiral replied, “you and your people did all you could. We just…” his voice trailed off, and a hand rubbed at sleepy old eyes absently. Synapse felt the Columbae looked even more tired than himself.

  “What now?”

  “I’m not sure. My spies are getting concerned; they know the enemy is closing in. I should pull them all out, but then…”

  Synapse nodded. The brave men and women the Admiral had gotten abroad Remembrance ships were all the difference between saving some installations and saving none at all. And, of course, there was still the question of Rememberence’s ultimate aim in all this.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “For now, I’ll shore up Platform 1’s defences, clearly, it will be a target at some point. I need you to continue as you have been. Saving those you can. I also have something in mind that might allow us to avoid repeats of yesterday: a way to move the Casnels over great distances in an emergency. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” Synapse saluted, doing his best to put on a stoic face. “The ship’s following me, by the way; their number has grown again.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, put them to good use, won’t you?” The Admiral nearly laughed. Synapse nodded. They both felt very tired.

  ZZZZ

  "Your qualifications check out perfectly. Almost a little too qualified, some might say," the interviewer, a soft-spoken, coloured man, said across from him, seated in an overpriced leather chair that accented the unsubtle practitioner's workspace perfectly.

  "Oh, not at all, Sir, I'm proud of my degree, but my weakness is experience," Chas said back with a rehearsed congeniality.

  The interviewer smiled at the textbook response, "Very well, but that in mind, why this job?"

  Chas paused. It was a typical question by the standards of interviews, but the interviewer's tone suggested he wanted a genuine answer.

  Taking the pause as a queue, he continued, "Unlike our competitors, Vanadís is proud to be a subsidiary of The States Union itself. As such, while we operate with a high degree of autonomy and are civilians - we follow several military protocols. The denial of military assets in times of incursion, severe penalties for leaking information and so on. An emphasis on routine and military precision. You understand that, yes?"

  'Ah,' Chas realised now that the question was more of a chance for the interviewer to offer a final disclaimer before hiring any muffin expecting a relaxed civil service job.

  "That's fine Sir. I am aware of the contractual requirements and am prepared to follow them to the letter should I get the role."

  "Good, I'm glad to hear that. Still, the question stands: why our company specifically? The prestige? The pay? The stability and credibility of a sudo-civil service job for TSU?

  In particular, you're coming to us as a test pilot. Do mechanised humanoid fighter craft have some significance for you?"

  "Oh, I just like--" Chas paused. His head felt the muddy apathy of sleep. His body suddenly became aware of the sensation of bed sheets, warmth and pillows.

  'This is a dream,' Chas realised. It had happened, though perhaps the memory had its minor kinks.

  The realisation that it was a dream should have woken him - he would have liked that - perhaps if his alarm had gone off or even a sliver of light had crept into his room, it would have - instead, that half-awareness caused the dream to devolve as it so often did, and grab as his mind might - the awareness of it just being a dream faded all too soon:

  "Why did you choose to become a test pilot, Mr. Collins," a different voice asked. The scene morphed seamlessly, a slightly larger room with softer light - a couch he'd ignored for a plastic chair. The interviewer replaced with a middle-aged caucasian man.

  "I just like giant robots, is all. Might as well enjoy your work, right?" Chas said lazily.

  Vanadís would schedule mandatory therapy occasionally whenever the therapists didn't have many bookings. Both because it looked great from a PR perspective and to prevent an employee from ever having too quiet a day, 'such a shame that would be', Chas mused bitterly.

  He disliked these sessions. A therapist couldn't get to know you in a one-off hour randomly every few months. Nor did Chas want one, yet here he was with the same benign questions as last time.

  "Could it not be Chas," the therapist droned on with a sigh, perhaps just as bored but no less trying to be more familiar," --that the mech is a shield of sorts for you? A giant suit of armour against that man, perhaps?"

  Chas bristled. Someone had been reading his file.

  "I don't see what that has to do with anything. That man is long gone. Can't someone just like something without some stupid deeper meaning?" his voice rose as the sensation of that man, as the feeling - as though his hands still caressed him even now - rushed over him.

  "Oh, but it does matter, Chas Collins. It matters if you kill a man, don't you think?"

  "Wh-what?"

  "Killed a man, Chas. You did, remember? Actually, several now, is it not, or do enemy pilots not count? You've taken at least seven enemy operator’s lives, but perhaps those are just the act of your 'giant robot', and you're no more at fault than the trigger, or the shell casing, or the gun barrel. Just a component in the deaths of seven men. A faultless bystander in their demises. And the deaths of whole platoons inside those boarding pods you take such glee in hitting. You do know each Type-A can carry up to twenty-five soldiers, yes?

  Or perhaps you don't even consider dozens of the enemy truly human? But that still leaves one, doesn't it, Chas, one your fear let die on your watch. Oh, my bad, one plus twelve others. Twelve pure, innocent civilians. Or were they the rifle's fault, too? Are the civilians your enemy kills daily the same? Did Kiyo Kigen or his Cheavlier, your old test machine, the one who killed that warrior? ”

  Chas stood out of the chair. It bounced off the wall behind him with a dull clatter, "Shut the fuck up asshole. I didn't kill him or them or anyone, I-- I just like robots alright, fuck man--"

  Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz.

  Chas's fist came down with great force on the side table alarm clock. It's beeping more than enough to wake him from the hazy half-sleep.

  His groggy eyes stared at the container of tablets, still wobbling from the impact; "Worthless," he muttered. If they couldn't put him to sleep well enough to prevent dreams, then they were a waste of time. He'd have to up the dose again.