Mission 11 - Chas Goes on an Adventure - Part 1

  TA419 - 07/04,

  Set of ‘Freedom News’, Nine O’ Clock Broadcast.

  "And now, in other news, people across the northern hemisphere will be able to see quite the light show tonight, Jalbert,” the rather altogether too brightly dressed young news anchor read.

  "Yes, Ella. A particularly dense in metal asteroid was destroyed by our brave TSU-Space forces a couple of days ago, and its fragments will be burning up in the atmosphere tonight, creating quite the beautiful display." the older, rather stately co-anchor added.

  A very trained eye might have been able to make out some discomfort on both reporter's faces. They weren't being forced to report lies, of course; that would be illegal. It just so happened a budget review had been spontaneously scheduled within every news provider TSU held stakes in, which happened to be most of them.

  It was a decent show, set on a reasonably typical set. A curved desk for the two to sit at - although no cityscape or the like in the background - both anchors and the director disliked that. They rathered the transparent glass planes that showed the pulpit of journalists below.

  Jalbert and Ella both were good anchors. The gap in their age had never bothered them; in fact, the programme had received positive ratings for the genuine sense of comradery between its two leads. There was none of that tonight. Neither wanted to lie. Information channels of all kinds were on fire. TSU was genuinely trying to censor not just the mainstream news but all forms, even message boards and the like.

  Jalbert and Ella were, therefore, like every other reporter on the planet tonight. Lying, despite having seen the photos of some giant metal ‘thing’ (which most could guess the identity of, given they’d reported for years on the successful launch of those Defence Platforms) exploding in the night’s sky a few days ago.

  Jalbert had nearly lost his career once before; he couldn’t again. Ella was a rising star; how could she throw that away? They weren’t stupid or corrupt. They realised every other reporter on the planet probably had a similar reason not to do their job, but what difference did that make? And so on they spun their stories of freak light shows and meteorite showers.

  TA419 - 13/04,

  TSU Troy Class Assult-Carrier Curadh.

  Chas didn't so much think as act on instinct. He needed air, real air, not a circulated atmosphere. ‘Why?’, he had to keep asking himself. Why had they punished him for that? For shooting down an enemy rather than killing innocent people. Was the captain just a fool or downright senile? Why? He’d been trying to right it in his mind for days, but it just wasn’t working. Punished for doing his duty without killing anyone, an empty decoy ship - while those he had killed counted for nothing.

  He left a note, a weak excuse and grabbed some things.

  There'd been another mission today and yesterday and every damn day, and while for normal vessels that would be a pretty all-hands-on-deck big deal, for the Curadh, this had simply been life these past couple of months. People grow used to things, especially soldiers.

  So, appearing at the hangar, things were quiet. A small night shift was repairing some rather bland mechs from the escort ships. Down one of the hangar's long U-shaped legs lay his Casnel. He supposed some basic tests were being performed.

  Kicking off the upper gangwalk, he swept his eyes to check that everyone was behind the safety line. No one noticed him; after all, he was a pilot. Were they not a rouge unit, Chas would surely have been made an ace by now, given all sorts of medals for the sheer number of sorties.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  He didn't see himself like that - not anymore, for certain - but clearly others did. They waved and smiled, almost shyly. That turned to looks of confusion when he pulled the dividing lever and closed his helmet, as the glass screen lowered to split the U shape into an ‘L’ side with the maintenance crews in it and an ‘I’ side with just Chas: Chas and his Casnel. Once he floated up and entered the cockpit, he spun up the engine; now, their faces were alarmed. Too slow.

  G-Type unit 001 stepped over to a massive manual lever. The launch door began rising. A few moments later, it began lowering just as fast. The mechanics finally having got hold of someone on the bridge to force the door shut from up there.

  It didn't matter. The Casnel grabbed the massive armoured door with one hand and pushed it back up, easily stepping out under it. Chas ogled at his machine, how effortlessly it repelled such massive pneumatic forces.

  Now he was in space, big, open, endless space. But that wasn't enough; that was hardly what you'd call air. Chas set the Casnel into a gentle trot. He wondered if they'd shoot at him, but then again, so what? What could they possibly do to a Casnel; to him?

  It was strange, this machine and the Chevalier of the same number, they were the source of all his problems and yet... He felt safe inside it, protected, guarded by precious Goibhnui walls, a lightweight and strong metal. Heat resistant and moldable. The one true wonder metal in this world that could single-handedly make a machine faster, or stronger, or guard against the hottest attacks.

  He was safe in here. He could use it to find some real air.

  ****

  'Atmospheric Reentry' was, technically speaking, a mark of the G-Type Casnel line. The First Casnel, its technical predecessor (though notably not built by Bailey Mechanics), had been able to enter Bhaile's atmosphere during the war. Bailey had been attempting to repeat that using a lot less Goibhniu. It was mostly untested.

  Chas hadn't precisely been thinking straight, perhaps not for some time, he'd admit, but he was glad they'd been above Abhaile. Would he have attempted to land on the mother planet with its much stronger atmosphere if they'd been over it? He hoped not, but he honestly couldn’t say for sure

  The descent would have put any carnival ride to shame. Abhaile had a barely survivable atmosphere, but that was still significant re-entry friction. The cockpit had shaken as though every fixture and joint were coming loose. Preventing the machine from spinning had been a full-body workout.

  The G-Type's armour had been singed all the way back to its core layer, any paint lost, and most of the cameras and sensors too. It now gleamed a bright base white against the sand of Abhaile, the white of refined Goibhniu with one exception; when Kigen had sliced Chas’s machine back at Platform 2, the damage had been shallow across the mech’s torso and face. The torso damage had been repaired with Goibhniu, but the facial cut with Lanthruedas, and now that cheaper metal showed as a thin line just under the Casnel’s ‘eye’.

  The cockpit had opened, which was fortunate. Chas didn't have a plan if it was sealed shut. The TSU map data installed in the Casnel suggested he was near Abhaile's capital city, maybe a day or two's walk away. That intrigued Chas. A nice long walk seemed, well, nice. A walk to a city, compare it to others he'd seen, a little sightseeing - he was owed that much surely?

  Still he would have to hide the Casnel somehow, least that had been his concern. His rough landing had partially buried the already shorter-than-normal mech. By the time he'd gathered several larger rocks to place around its perimeter, the dust-laden air was starting to cover the white metal in a thin layer of sandy red.

  Satisfied, Chas grabbed a water canteen and his compass. He couldn't remember where it had come from, but by chance, it had been in his pocket when Vanadis was destroyed and felt like something of a good luck charm - and of course, by following it and what the map had shown, he could simply beeline to the city and back when he was done.

  He'd dressed as casually as a TSU officer could on short notice, that is to say, military black pants, a white button shirt, and lace-up boots. He had found a fairly civilian-looking jacket though, and left off his rank badges for obvious reasons.

  With this equipment on him, his course set, Chas began to ‘stroll’ into the Abhailen desert, finally sucking in grateful lungfuls of real air.