Escape from Irece: Last Hope
31 December 3142Arjun could feel the sweat slowly trickling off the end of his nose as he and his unit waited in a clearing, surrounded by trees, still holding on to their gold and red leaves in the autumn of Irece’s northern hemisphere. The rest of their small force lay not three clicks away, behind the imposing walls of a military spaceport. Since their previous engagement, the Republican forces had been able to avoid any further entanglements., but that relative calm was likely to end soon. The commtower at the spaceport had just reported that a battalion’s worth of Drac troops had broken off their approach of the spaceport to make an about face and form a defensive line. The Dracs knew they were coming and were waiting for them.
A thought bubbled up from Arjun’s fatigued brain. Well, lets give it to them, then. That thought belonged to the part of him that wanted nothing better than to charge out there, grab a snake mech by the neck, stick his heavy PPC in its face, and pull the trigger. Then keep doing that, again and again, until they were all dead or his mech was nothing but scrap. When he thought of what they had done to the genetic repository, his hands would begin to shake. The thought of vengeance was overwhelming. Where was the supposed “honor” that the Dracs lived by?
Then another part of this brain (probably inherited from his father) reminded him what he was carrying in the belly of his mech, which was nothing less than the future of the Nova Cat clan. A load of metal silos wrapped in a refrigerated container surrounded by enough harjel to choke a whale – that was all that was left of clan Nova Cat’s genetic legacy. He couldn’t afford to be reckless. He couldn’t afford revenge.
Arjun slammed his hand against the metal plating of his cockpit hard enough to grimace in pain. Behind him, he heard Scientist Bateson shift in his seat.
“Arjun, I know it is not easy.” Bateson said, with a soft voice, seeming to read Arjun’s thoughts. “I would like nothing better than to get out there and fight myself, little good that it would do. But we have bigger responsibilities now and must keep our heads clear. What is it they say in the RAF? ‘Stay freezy!’”
Bateson’s attempt at military lingo, combine with the sudden mental image of the diminutive elderly scientist fending off DEST commandoes with a syringe and a microscope lightened Arjun’s mood a little. He said “You sound like my father, and its ‘frosty’ not –”
“The Ninth Battle Cluster is here, sir.” Heath’s voice came over the intercom. Arjun snapped his head up and scanned the tree lines. First came the shaking, as those red and gold leaves began to fall to the ground at an accelerated rate. Through this natural confetti, he began to detect the outlines of large shapes moving among the trees. Soon, they broke into the open. They were clan machines, painted in camo with the Nova Cat logo.
“Kadir, I am pleased to see you here.” Arjun’s father said over the intercom. Star Colonel Kadir Nostra and his father had become good friends during their stay on Irece. Somewhere in a complicated family tree, they were cousins of a sort.
“And you, Gideon.” Responded Kadir. “I bring unfortunate news. An entire battalion of Genyosha troops are on our heels. We have little time for a proper meeting. I would suggest that we combine our forces and hit the Dracs guarding the spaceport as quickly as possible. We must break through their lines quickly if we are to get to the spaceport before we are caught between the two forces.”
Arjun winced. The Genyosha were elite troops. Kadir was correct that they must move quickly. Given the reported size of the Dracs ahead and behind, the total force would be more than double the size of their own. If they hesitated, they might be caught between them and ripped to shreds. There was the briefest pause as Gideon absorbed the information and agreed with Kadir’s assessment.
After a brief back and forth on tactics between Gideon and Kadir, the plan was decided and they moved out immediately. Arjun put his mech in motion, his brain still wrestling between his desire for revenge and the knowledge of the importance of what he carried.
Smoke obscured almost the entire battlefield. Arjun could only make visual contact with a few of his comrades out to about twenty yards, as they all trudged hurriedly toward the walls of the spaceport. For the remainder of the units on the field, friend or foe, he had to rely on his sensors.
The smoke came from a combination of artillery shells fired from the spaceport defenders and fires that the Nova Cat and Republican forces had intentionally started after they burst through the Drac lines. That first engagement had been brutal and fierce, but the First Sword of Light battalion they had faced had gotten the worst of it. Concentrated firepower had forced a path through the Dracs’ more stretched defensive line. Now, the First Sword of Light forces had been joined by the Genyosha and they were in hot pursuit. The Nova Cats and Republicans were sprinting through the smoke and fire to the relative safety of the spaceport and their dropships. Arjun could hear over the comm his father and Star Colonel Nostra organizing the rearguard action behind him. He longed to turn around and support them, but had held firm to his responsibility.
The towering walls of the spaceport suddenly loomed out of the smoke. Arjun let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he had been holding. We are almost there! As his mech passed through the gates and out of the haze of smoke, a panorama opened up that took Arjun’s breath away anew and caused him to slow almost to a halt.
The spaceport was crawling with people. They were civilians – men, women, and children. They were packed into trucks, cars, bicycles, scooters, and rickshaws. Some vehicles were so overly full that people hung off of them precariously. Other people were streaming between the vehicles on foot. Slowly, like a human swarm of ants, they were converging on the Republican and Nova Cat dropships parked along the tarmac of the spaceport. In the distance, he could see people surging against the ramps of those dropships as the personnel on board tried to maintain order. Clearly, word had gotten out about how the Dracs were treating Nova Cat civilians. Desperation had overtaken these people.
“By the light of the father,” Bateson whispered behind him.
Steeling himself, Arjun pushed his mech forward again, carefully trying to avoid the fragile human bodies around him. Heads turned as more and more mechs emerged from the smoke. There was frantic movement and the sea of bodies began to part. Arjun tried not to think of how many people must have been trampled by their fellows in the process.
As Arjun closed on the Fortress-class dropship that had been the home for the Republican forces for these last few years, his mind was focused on how to negotiate the entrance ramp that was now being taken over by the desperate refugees. His first signal of danger was the frantic shouting over the intercom, closely followed by a laser blast over his mech’s shoulder. The laser blast continued on to intersect a large civilian truck, melting it instantly, along with the human bodies it carried. People on the ground screamed and spread away from the melting inferno.
Looking to his right, Arjun saw a lance of heavy and assault mechs in the green colors of the Genyosha breaking through the nearest gates of the spaceport. He began rotating the torso of his Peacekeeper to bring the new targets in line with his massive weaponry.
His father’s calm voice rang out over the intercom. “Joey, Griff, Vibeke, you are with me. We will hold their forces here. Everyone else, get on the dropships, immediately.” Arjun turned and saw his father’s Vulture bringing up the rear of their spread out forces. Star Colonel Nostra’s mech was nowhere in sight. He keyed up a private line to his father.
“I am not getting on that ship without you!” He yelled.
There was a pause. “Its not an option, Arjun. You know what is at stake. Now go! That is an order.” There was another pause, and then “Arjun, I love you. Now go!” Clouds and fire engulfed his father’s mech, as he launched forty streak LRMs at the onrushing Drac units.
Arjun resisted. Then Reggie’s voice came over his intercom. “Come on kid, don’t let your father down.” With a howl of frustration and anger, Arjun rotated his mech and accelerated onto the ramp, heedless now of those in his way. People dove from the ramp in terror to avoid his mech’s heavy footfalls. As he entered the internal hangar, he roughly pulled the mech into its docking bay and began ripping off his neurohelmet.
“Arjun—” began Scientist Bateson behind him.
“No time!” Arjun interrupted. “I need to make sure my father gets on board safely.”
He shoved the hatch open and began to descend the ladder, taking rungs two or three at a time. As he neared the bottom, he leapt off and collided with one of the refugees streaming into the bay, knocking them both to the ground.
As Arjun pushed his way back onto his feet, he realized that the man he had knocked over had been carrying a small child who had fortunately landed on the man’s chest as they fell. The child rolled off the other man and looked up at Arjun. The fear and uncertainty in the boy’s eyes was offset by the tenative smile of recognition on his lips. Even with his mind elsewhere, Arjun was momentarily stunned by recognition of who the child was.
“Dai? What are you—” His question was stopped by a sound that snapped Arjun back to his original focus. The ramps were being closed. He looked frantically around for his father’s mech. It wasn’t on board. When he looked back around, the man he had knocked over had grabbed the boy again and was merging back into the crowd of people milling about the hangar.
Warning bells announced the imminent lift off of the dropship. Arjun felt and heard the rumble of the engines as they began to warm up. All around him, people were looking to one another dumbly for guidance. Most had probably never been on a spacecraft before.
“Get secure! Find something to hold onto and get down!” Arjun yelled at the crowd as he sprinted over to an intercom by one of the maintenance areas. He dialed up the bridge. The response over the comm was clipped and to the point.
“Hangar, this is the bridge. Report.” Arjun recognized the voice of Petty Officer Jack Nan.
“Jack, this is Arjun. Why are we lifting off? My father is still out there. There are people all over the place down here and no on is secure.” He shouted back.
“Arjun?” There was a pause. “I am sorry, kid. The orders came direct from your old man. The Dracs are flooding into the spaceport. There just isn’t time. Everyone down there will have to get as secure as possible. We have to go.”
“No!” Arjun punched the bulkhead in impotent rage. The immediate pain in his hand was distant, like it belonged to someone else. Nonetheless, it brought him back to his senses.
“Jack, can you send an external feed on my father to maintenance area…” Arjun looked around to try to determine his location. “maintenance area eight.”
Another pause. “Arjun, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Just do it, Jack.”
“Ok, I will make it happen. I have to go. Things are getting hectic up here. Just make sure you are secure, alright.” The comm went dead.
Arjun rushed over to the monitor that was set in the wall of the maintenance area and turned it on. People were moving all around him, looking for safe places to prepare for the launch. In the back of his mind, he heard the rumble of the engine as the dropship prepared for lift off.
The monitor blinked on, showing him a scene of scorched earth. The smoking remains of mechs, the burning wreckage of vehicles, and the indistinct outlines of sprawled human bodies filled the screen. His father’s Vulture was surrounded by the smashed remains of Genyosha, Nova Cat, and Republican mechs, but more Genyosha mechs were surrounding it as it backed slowly away. One arm of the Vulture was gone, and the missile racks appeared to be dry. Arjun’s throat tightened.
Gideon’s mech took several laser and PPC blasts to its torso, followed by a barrage of LRM missiles. The Vulture stumbled but remained standing. It returned fire with its functioning lasers. The heat in his father’s cockpit must have been extreme.
As if in slow motion, Arjun watched a Maelstrom push forward from the crowd of Genyosha mechs and close the distance with his father’s Vulture. It released a barrage of fire that tore through his father’s remaining armor. Arjun could tell by the way the Vulture locked up that the fusion engine had gone into automatic shutdown. Slowly, the massive metal machine tipped over and fell on its side. Arjun was dimly aware that G-forces were beginning to act on his body. But it wasn’t his body really. It was somebody else’s body, far away. He was on that battlefield, watching helplessly as the Maelstrom approached his father’s stricken mech slowly and deliberately. Automatically, a hand (his hand?) gripped a handrail to for stability. His body sunk to the floor of the hangar, driven by some combination of G-force and despair. He knew what was coming next, but he couldn’t avert his eyes.
The Maelstrom strode up to his father’s Vulture and calmly leveled its PPC at the cockpit. It fired, and in an instant his father’s cockpit was transformed into a smoking crater.
As the Fortress dropship rose in the air on a plume of fire, the cacophony of the unruly passengers in the hangar grew. They screamed and wailed as g-forces they had never known before clawed at their bodies and tossed those of them who were unprepared and unsecured wildly about the chamber. Unknowing and uncaring, Arjun added his own voice to their lament.