Note: This is a story that I wrote about one year ago in my language. I recently translated it into English and I'm thinking of continuing this story. It's pretty raw, but I'd really love some feedback if you want me to continue or not. If I get enough feedback, I'll polish this up and follow up with another part. It's also not strictly canon. Enjoy.
Another one of
those damn sandstorms of Triton had started again. He let go of the throttle
and leaned back in his chair. There was no point in being on guard duty in this
kind of weather. He glanced over his completely black front view while lighting
a cigarette. The smoke detector in cockpit immediately went off, filling it
with an annoying screeching noise. He kicked the worn off master alarm button
angrily, like he did hundreds of times before, while cussing at the Marik
engineers who designed this 'Mech. He took a deep puff from his cigarette and
dived into thoughts again.
They had been
patrolling this god-forsaken outer-rim planet for weeks. Approximately three
weeks ago, a previously unknown mercenary group who called themselves Thunderwolves took the planet by surprise and caused major damage in industrial regions.
They even took care of the lightly armored initial response force but retreated
into the impassable mountain region after the more heavily-equipped second wave
had arrived. The dropship they disguised as a merchant vessel was boarded and taken without resistance by Steiner forces. They had no means of leaving
this planet now, but it looked like they neither wanted to surrender nor fight.
They were waiting somewhere in the mountain range, perhaps still hoping that
they could be rescued. A foolish hope for criminals who dared to attack a
planet belonging to the mightiest of Inner Sphere states, the Lyran
Commonwealth.
They were running
out of time too -the stormy season was almost coming to an end. Sooner or
later, they were going to be caught by the sensors of the recon planes and the
jumpships in the orbit. All the entrances to the mountain range were held,
their fates were already sealed. That's why their commanders Aldith ordered the
unit to stay in a 24-hour alert status, in case of a "breakout"
attack before the storm ended. "Typical of him." he thought, he was
one of those serious types, who any outsider would categorize as one of those
bright students with a passion for regulations. It was true too, he graduated
as top of his class from the academy, had great success against pirates and
mercenaries in his initial unit and was finally assigned to 247. Border
Reactionary Forces as a commander. "Genius kid, heh." he mumbled.
Aldith could think whatever he wanted, but if it was up to him, there was no
way these sellswords were going to attack. Perhaps they were too slow to realize
how stacked the odds were against them, but they were surely going to surrender
in a few days. Staying alive trumped any sense of duty for mercenaries after
all. The history of the Star League was filled with records of mercenary units
changing sides in these kinds of situations. He took a long puff from his smoke
and quickly lost in his thoughts again while staring at the muddy view in front
of him.
He grabbed the
controls again after he finished smoking. The pass in front of him was an
entrance into a canyon. At the exit of a valley surrounded by high and rocky
hills, they were waiting with 3 of his comrades. He was the leader of this
4-man group called a "lance". There were other 3 lances nearby who
were holding other exits from the hilly region. Their last transmission with
these lances was made almost 17 hours before, and ended with the usual
"Nothing to report." exchanges. They were supposed to make their next
contact with them two hours ago but the static electricity caused by the
intense sandstorm was interfering with their equipment, it was impossible to
make a stable contact. All they supposed to do was to wait, wait and wait some
more.
Suddenly a strong
wind washed over his 'Mech. The chilly screams of the wind were joined by the
moaning of giant gyroscopes trying to counteract the extra force. These
windstorms weren't doing any good to their 'Mechs. Once a day, in one of those
few hours when the storm became tamer, they had to go out and clean reactor air
intake filters. Trillions of sand particles in the air were finding their way
through the smallest of openings and forming layers of sand everywhere;
blocking joints and filling weapon barrels. Still, these maintenance hours
which were normally the dreaded activity of many mechwarriors was the best time
of the day for him. It was at least a reason to leave the cockpit filled with
its thick, almost drowning air. It was also a chance to look at the machine to
whom he entrusted his life.
His 'Mech was an
80 ton assault-class Awesome-8Q. It was one of the most fearful long-range
support machines on the battlefield. 400 years of uninterrupted service in the
military was the proof of its effectiveness. Two Particle Projection
Cannons(PPC) mounted in either side of its tall and wide torso and one Extended
Range PPC(ERPPC) mounted in its right arm gave it the firepower to even go
through the armor of the heaviest Atlas 'Mechs. For close ranges it had a
medium laser mounted on the side of his cockpit to defend itself in close
ranges where PPCs weren't effective. The other members of his lance were two 50
ton Trebuchets for missile support and one 50 ton Centurion which was
responsible of defending them at close ranges.
A sad voice broke
the silence on close-range comms and pulled him out of his thoughts: " . .
. dude, if this goddamn sandstorm continues like this, we're going to miss the
Solaris Games. I put some serious money on Logan Due." The Trebuchet
pilot Redwyn was talking. He couldn't hold himself and roared: "If you had
done your job right and didn't let them escape after the second contact we were
already at home, watching the games!" "Ha!" said Redwyn,
"If you had taken down their ECM support 'Mech sooner, my missiles would
have killed them.". "Shut up kids." a deep voice joined the
conversation. "Katrina Steiner isn't giving you her dad's money just so
you can complain all day." It was
Titus, the other Trebuchet pilot who they called "Blockhead".
"Shut up Titus, we all know you're one of Steiner's dogs." said
Natalie, the Centurion pilot. Whirring and moans from Titus' 'Mech followed
this sentence, pointing his upper-torso directly at Natalie's Terbuchet in a
threatening fashion. This long wait in the middle of nowhere was starting to
get to their nerves, he felt the need to weigh in.
"I order all
of you to shut up! Sometimes you make me hate you more than this shitty
planet." said Lucius. That night, until the dawn, their comms stayed
silent.
The
image is a still from the movie Prometheus
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