Chapter 7: Freefall

Due to an excellent suggestion, I've changed the spelling on one of the character's names, and will be using that spelling going forward.  Good suggetion, Dad.  :)

Kella awoke to red-tinted clouds and a horrible, incessant buzzing. She realized with a start that she was still in her Scythe, so she couldn’t have been unconscious for too long. There was blood in her eyes and it was difficult to see, but she did finally recognize the buzzing. She wished she hadn’t. Her Scythe was empty, out of fuel. She must’ve burned the last of it in her desperate attempt to escape the missiles.

She wiped at her eyes to clear her vision and take stock of her situation. It was bad. Her Scythe had extensive damage all along the lower half. In fact, she was sure that both legs were gone, and from the lack of response, an arm too. Without fuel, she was starting to freefall having hit the apogee of her climb. The ground was going to come up sooner or later, and without fuel, without legs, there was only the waist armor to cushion the impact, and at this height, that armor was about as useful as paper.

She swore. This was not how she had intended to go out. If only that damned Elite hadn’t shown up. That bastard had ruined everything. Maybe he had already crashed. The thought made her smile. Kella knew that she’d hit him almost dead center. Maybe she’d struck the cockpit. On a whim, she pulled up her sensor monitor. She was falling with nothing to stop herself, but at least she would feel better if that other machine had gone down first.

Hairs bristled on her neck when she saw the unit still labeled on the sensors. In fact, it was using active sensors itself lighting up like fireworks in the night sky on her monitor. She hadn’t made the kill after all. She let out a long, colorful curse. It was moving slowly though, she noted. She’d wounded it. And it was moving in her direction, albeit far below her. It was probably still hunting the Praetorian. Maybe, just maybe she could still go out with a small bit of satisfaction.

She checked on her beam rifle’s status. The VI came back reporting, surprisingly, no damage, and it even still had a few shots left. Chuckling to herself, she raised the scope of the rifle and aimed. She started humming to the beat of the altimeter ticking off the distance to impact. It wasn’t far.



Hughes roared in frustration. He’d lost the damned plane! In the chaos of that enemy mech, he’d lost track, and the thing had somehow managed to lift off without him seeing it! How the hell could something that big takeoff and he not notice it? If he couldn’t find it, he could just imagine the tribunal awaiting him. Forget Duckett’s, he was headed for an Arctic Zone posting for sure. And the Military had a knack for picking the most hostile Arctic Zone planets. Hughes shuddered at the thought.

He tapped in a command to run a full sensor sweep. The active sensors would give away his position, but it would tell him where his quarry was. He needed to know. His career, no, probably his life, depended on it. Almost instantly, he heard the warning sounds telling him that what he had just done was a mistake.

Again, the threat was from above. It was that same damned mech! Who was this pilot!? Yelling in challenge, Hughes coaxed his wounded machine into a climb, charging straight at his enemy. He didn’t have any weaponry, and he didn’t want to waste his special round. It wouldn’t do anything against the enemy mech anyway. Instead, he’d use his one good arm to pound the cockpit in. He’d make sure this time. He’d make sure that pilot died.



Kella choked back her surprise as she saw the machine pull up to challenge her head on. Her electrical systems were shutting down, and all that was running was her visual scanner, some of her instruments, and the rifle. Everything else was dead. She couldn’t change course if she wanted to. She was on a course straight down. Her enemy was charging straight up towards her.

“This should be interesting,” she said with a half-crazed laugh and pulled the rifle in closer to the damaged chest to steady the shot. She held her breath and squeezed the trigger. Energy lanced out. The Elite twisted at the last moment and the beam passed it by harmlessly. She was undaunted, however, and lined up her next shot. She only had a moment to aim and fire again before the two collided in mid-air.

She knew her machine was too badly damaged. She wouldn’t survive a fist fight with the sleek Elite, even if it was damaged. It was now or never. She breathed in, and squeezed.

The shot missed.



“Got you,” Hughes said victoriously as he braced himself for the upcoming impact. It would be violent at the speeds they were travelling at, akin to two high-speed freight trains colliding head-on at full speed. It was going to be spectacular. Hughes was sure he would survive the impact; his Knight was built for fist fighting. But his opponent would not, and not with that much damage. He was almost there. He could feel his anticipation, it tingled down his arms. Three seconds.

Two.

One.

And nothing happened. Hughes blinked as a shadow rushed past for a mere split second before blinding light replaced it. The enemy mech had disappeared. What the hell? Hughes quickly realized what had happened, however and reacted instantly. He twisted his Knight around so fast that the armor plating squealed and threatened to shear off. He ignored it. All he concentrated on was aiming his pistol. He only had one shot. He wouldn’t miss. In a fraction of a second, acting on pure instinct, Hughes fired.

The tracking round embedded itself in the fantail of the Praetorian. Hughes didn’t even get to enjoy his one-in-a-million shot as the mini-missile barrage impacted into his flank. His Knight faltered, and then failed altogether. Hughes was knocked around, but he managed to pull the ejection handles. The center cockpit exploded from the burning wreckage of the Knight and shot out into the sky.

The inside of the cockpit immediately filled with crashfoam fusing Hughes into place. The foam would absorb almost any impact within a certain limit protecting him from a crash. The Major hoped to hell that his crash would be within that limit.



Remains of the Knight fell to the ground in spectacular fashion. Burning pieces of shrapnel fell to the earth in an area over a kilometer in diameter. The cockpit cratered into the desert floor, burrowing almost two meters into the hard ground. Several minutes went by with no activity, but soon a banging noise could be heard from the smoldering wreckage. Finally, a panel blew outwards and away from the wreckage as the explosive bolts were triggered.

Hughes crawled from the crater and took a seat on the earth. It was a miracle he’d survived. His Knight had been a good machine. He looked back at the crater in dismay; he was going to miss it. Still, the sacrifice had not been in vain. Hughes pulled out his datacom and tapped the screen. It flared to life and greeted him with a strong green signal. Hughes smiled. This was not over yet.



Meanwhile, the Praetorian had just completed orbital entry. Gavin was taking no chances, and as soon as the course allowed it, he’d peel off from Dulabar’s atmosphere, using the gravity to fling the Praetorian out into space. Once he was clear, he’d activate the Patterson Reactor and enter slipspace. From there, it was merely a three day journey to Tal Rho’an. Of course, he had other problems to deal with.

Gavin had chosen a different helper up in the top-side cargo bay. The little robot was a miniature of the mechs, and awkwardly ambled across the bay floor to the smoldering wreckage.

The designers had designed the Praetorian to accept transfers of cargo in space, and had therefore designed multiple cargo holds. At the last moment, Gavin had swooped in and caught the little Sellsword’s battered machine in the bay. He was no fool and knew that the stunt could only have been accomplished by the harem of computers under his command. But, this one time, he was thankful for their assistance. The mercenary girl was a nuisance, but he didn’t want to see her dead. And he had promised to let her back in.

His robot avatar crawled up onto the remnants of the machine’s torso. Her mech had taken a real beating. Even though he’d been as gentle as possible catching her in the bay, there was a chance she hadn’t survived. Hell, she could have been dead already looking at the damage. Unable to force the hatch open, and not wanting to fire the explosive bolts, Gavin started in with a cutting torch built into the robot. This was going to take time. Hopefully Kella had that time.

“Hang on, kiddo. Help’s coming,” he said.