Lovely so Song got herself killed, and our mecha will be outnumber 3 to 1 if we end up being forced to fight again due to stopping for repairs, or whatever else might force a battle."Confirmed kill, Commander Green," the lieutenant says, retracting her mecha's energised spike from the cockpit of the lifeless enemy machine. "We're fine here. Smith is uninjured, but his Vespula is shot. I'm sending him back to the ship." There's a pause, and she can't help but add: "Why were they flying sweeps out this far? And so soon after the last one? Did they know we were coming?"
Sigh. So we're dealing with maximum prototype mecha... hopefully she isn't a episodic antagonist.The rest of the Commanders words are lost in the din of of her scanner's alarms -- an object moving through the debris field, at high speed -- another Banner, this one not even bothering with its rifle, flying directly at the Lieutenant's machine, cutter extended. She engages her mecha's thrusters and easily evades, flying backwards to let the Banner's considerable bulk sail past into space. The Vespulas, like what the other two scouts operate, are extremely fast. The Lieutenant deployed in such machines in skirmishes with Jovian insurgents and knows them well. The ISMX17 Provespa, what she pilots now, makes the older scouting mechas feel as awkward and toothless as the ancient training machine she learned to fly in back in pilot's academy.
So the sub Lieutenant cares deeply about his comrades to perhaps an unreasonable amount, and the newer generation of soldiers on the other appear to buy into the propaganda... they even have a nice new saluteThe enemy pilot moves fractionally in space, just enough to seize the remaining Vespula and hurl him directly into the Lieutenant's path. She's forced to pull up and abandon her attack, pulling up and circling back around for another pass. To her surprise, she receives an unfamiliar comms request, and accepts without thinking.
"I'm not a spoiled little rookie out on my first engagement," says the flat but nakedly angry voice of the enemy pilot -- a man -- in her ears. "I'm not going down so easily."
Gritting her teeth, the Lieutenant retorts: "All heretics will fall before the might of the true Emperor" and flies at him again. This time, he just barely blocks.
The downside of taking the time to acquire reliable data."Keel thrusters hard burn! Rotate us 30 degrees Starboard! Get us away from the station!" Andre's sharp voice snaps, and the helmsman hurries to comply. You get the familiar but alarming sensation in the pit of your stomach of the ship abruptly changing course. It's a little too late -- a faint, shuddering impact, like something heavy being dropped in the distance, can be felt even here in the depths of the hull.
The upside of aquiring reliable data when you've got an ace sniper."I can assist," Perbeck says, confidently. "I'm not piloting this thing for nothing."
"You're certain?" Andre does not ask it doubtfully, so much as warningly. This plan going wrong may make the Rose suddenly become a major target.
"As long as the scan data you're feeding me is good, I can make the shot," Perbeck agrees.
So pilots of the Huntress model are Champions of Sir Issac Newton? Also I get the feeling that if Lady Perbeck someone manages to survive this war, and die of old age she'll insist on being buried in a mecha sized coffin.The ISM16 Huntress is not a common sight on the battlefield. It performed exceptionally well during the testing phases, and was rapidly approved for a limited production run, but there, it hit several snags. The pilot who conducted the prototype tests was selected for extraordinary reaction time, aim and spatial awareness in order to compensate for the challenges inherent in such an ambitious design, and this has turned out to be its own sort of problem.
A mecha sporting as its main weapon a railgun nearly the full length of its body, a piece of a calibre not conventionally issued to anything short of a small warship, and perhaps for good reason. Managing such a weapon in space requires highly sensitive and powerful thrusters, enabling a sufficiently skilled pilot extreme maneuverability, but leaving most pilots to careen helplessly through space for long seconds after every shot, in addition to the necessary sacrifices in armour and durability that had to be accepted for an already costly model. And even assuming one has a pilot who is physically capable of operating the mecha to its true potential, there is the harder question of whether or not such a person should. All mecha sized weaponry is dangerous, and can cause tragic collateral damage, but there is a world of difference between a standard anti-mecha rifle and a fully realised rail cannon. A single careless shot is capable of destroying allied mecha or even ships or, worst of all, puncturing civilian habitats. And in space, of course, should the shot in question ever miss, the projectile -- tiny, but with the stored kinetic energy of a large bomb -- it will simply keep going until it does hit something. It has been determined that a pilot must pass a rigorous battery of aptitude and personality tests before even being issued such a machine on even a trial basis, and the Huntress has never seen true mass production as a result.
For Lady Perbeck, operating the Huntress is as simple as breathing. She expertly weaves around the enemy mecha, warding it off with a brief burst of fire from its light, secondary weapon, before powering up the thrusters to zip away. The Banner in question is not, currently, her target.
Hm. This is certainly different than how she came across to North earlier, but that is probably due to the station being near destruction."Yes, ma'am," he agrees again, not sounding at all like her comments have reduced his desire to rescue what was left of a comrade who had, after all, disliked him intensely.
Perbeck sighs. "Just don't get blown up yourself. I'm already writing to one family once we're out of this."
"Lady Perbeck, we are nearly in position, do you confirm? Ensign Li, the chipper Titan mecha control officer, sounds uncharacteristically grim. Combat can do that.
We're going to have people crammed into living quavers to acamodate a shuttle of civilians... well such is the life of a soldier."We have a lifeboat shuttle requesting permission to dock with us, ma'am," Mazlo adds. Sure enough, Phoebe Station, clearly as doomed as the lunar facility, is ejecting a small swarm of shuttles, most going into hard burn to put as much distance between them and the battle as possible. Already, some are taking fire, intentional or not.
The Rose moved out from behind the station and hit one of the corvettes, and it returned fire at us, breaking through our shields. Perbeck hit the enemy corvette after this.What does resources include exactly? Cause with those civilians coming on board, we may not be able to take a hit to the food stores.
Also, bit confused, it almost sounded like Perback hit us. Or almost did. Did she hit her target and what hit us?
What does resources include exactly? Cause with those civilians coming on board, we may not be able to take a hit to the food stores.
Also, bit confused, it almost sounded like Perback hit us. Or almost did. Did she hit her target and what hit us?