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Stars filled the dark black sky. It was the one thing that was most appealing about living in space - the stars. No matter how dark it got, they always shone. The pilot of the Azrael MKII, Raphael, was too busy admiring them to care about anything else. Her golden colored eyes floated from one to another, almost in the same manner her unit floating in the great expanse of nothing. She was heading the long procession of units and aircrafts for the ceremony, whereupon all EULA members would parade around and do political stuff.
Dr. Alexi MacDonall was by no means a trained pilot. In fact, the only training she had on flying was the run-through via ZERO SYNC her unit gave her prior to flight. Beside her was her good old friend, Sam Jack Dunn. He was the longest living patient of hers, and she had applied his mechanical eyes, and attached his mechanical arm. Behind her was Andras' squad of the Black13, flying in classic arrow formation. Behind them was her home ship, the Archangel. And behind and beside it were Seraphim ships. All in all, it was a small EULA force moving through space, past the moon-colony.
She vaguely heard a voice over the comm speaking, giving an inspiring speech. Judging by the Aussie accent, it was Dunny. He probably didn't even know he was broadcasting his encouraging rant through to the whole procession. Everything was calm and relaxed. Space-fireworks rocketed from civilian ships, and Alexi forced her Raphael to wave at them. It was her job.
Dunny's voice had just gone silent over the links when it happened. A deep, explosive boom echoed through the mecha's as something blew up on the moon-base. Before anybody knew what it was, the side of the Archangel shuddered, and part of it exploded out. Golden hues wide, the doctor watched in horror as the two Seraphim class cruisers broke formation and deployed their units. On the radar of her unit, a massive blip appeared from seemingly nowhere. A JURD battle ship made it's presence known. They had been ambushed. Turning Raphael's head to observe the enemy aircraft, she could only groan as a Hydra, and countless Legionaries departed from the hangers, shooting out like avenging silver bullets. In a flash, they were all opening fire on the Archangel. She could hear her fellow pilots panicking and scrambling about. Everything around the doctor had gone to chaos.
As the voice of ZERO SYNC hummed and guided her on weapons, Alexi took the initiative and started picking off the Legionaries. Directing jamming spikes at them for starters, she moved on to a strike with the mag-coil pistols to rip through the armor of the joints, where upon she would switch to the lightning cannon to fry the interior of the JURD units. It pained her greatly to do the same to the Seraphim mecha's that had turned on them, but it was a necessary evil.
Just as she was getting into the groove of taking out the weaker units, she was hit from behind. A massive beam of energy ripped the right arm clean off of her unit. Letting out a cry as the joystick sent a surge of electricity through her body, Alexi quickly let go it the control. Warning sirens and lights immediately started to blare within the cockpit of her mech.
While the air was alive with calls and information from other pilots, all links from Alexi were dead. With losing the arm, it had somehow pulled the link for comm systems out, leaving her a mute. Growling in frustration, Alexi slammed her foot hard down on the left thruster, propelling the Raphael out of the way of another beam. Unfortunately, the heavy hitting Hydra as launched it's tail-supply of fifteen beam projectiles. Pulling a fast maneuver, the Scotswoman managed to avoid most of them. Still, her unit was taking a heavy hit. Not being able to tell friend from foe on her radar, the woman cursed Dunny for his old-school view on dogfights. Now she had to scan manually for help. Looking back and forth, she circled the Hydra, trying to hide in a visual-blind spot. Remaining behind it's back, she searched for somebody - anybody who could help her.
She was s**t out of luck. Dunny had engaged a JURD commander, Andras was in the middle of the fight, toying with Legionaries... Everybody was busy.
Helpless, the doctor allowed a whimper to slip out of her lips. Her right arm had gone numb, and she could feel warm moisture seeping through the thigh of her pants. Glancing down long enough to assess the odd sensation, she didn't exactly like what she saw. It wasn't like she could stop and treat it, though. The shock had friend the nerves temporarily, and her stupid reaction of pulling her arm out of the sleeve had caused her to drag it across something sharp. Great, so now she was disabled AND bleeding heavily.
This is it. I'm going to die. I'm going to die alone, violently, and without anybody to help me, was all she could think. The mantra raced through her head at a million miles an hour. Well, nothing left to do but sit up and face the music. Gripping the left control with her good arm, she equipped the mag-coil pistol and rolled her unit over so she was facing the back of the Hydra. It was a stupid move, but it was the last thing she could do. Pressing the weapon against the armor of the JURD heavy, she pulled the trigger, loading the enemy with bullets until her gun overheated. Tossing the useless weapon aside now, she pulled the lightning cannon off the back of Raphael and sent surges of electricity into the hole she made. Apparently it pissed off the Hydra pilot off. The serpentine tail of the unit swatted her and Raphael away from the hole in the thick metal armor as if she was nothing but a fly on the wall. The sheer force of the more-than-agile extension hitting Raphael sent Alexi's head against the thick glass of the cockpit, resulting in a sickening crack.
This was all getting to be too much for the doctor. Adrenaline coursed through her body, but it left just as fast as it came, exiting her system with the blood through the gaping wound up her forearm. Drawing the second mag-coil gun from the opposite hit, Alexi launched her last jamming spike towards the Hydra. Just as she expected, it had no effect what so ever. So, she just opened up an assault of blasts from the powerful pistol in her hand. The recoil forced Raphael's last arm to shudder, making the entire mech groan under the strain. When that gun, too, was spent, she returned to her remaining lightning cannon. Might as well try to fry it again.
Just like before, it did nothing but anger the JURD pilot even more. A beam licked the left arm off Raphael with ease. Now she was without both arms, and without weapons. C'mon doc, think. Think think think. There hasta be somethin' yeh can do, she thought. Panic soon replaced the adrenaline. There was only two things she could do. Either burn the last of her fuel and try to bore a hole through the thick armor of the enemy cockpit, or play dead. Choosing the former over the latter, she pressed her feet down on the thrusters and aligned herself. Reaching up ahead, she flicked the magnetic boots on, and found the Raphael sucked rapidly towards the gut of the Hydra. Once there, she pressed hard on the right pedal. White light erupted from the foot of the mecha as the fuel powered the fire. Heat soon breached the cockpit of Raphael, and Alexi had no choice but to ease up on the thrusters. The woman could practically hear her foe laughing at her. The doctor was only able to watch as the massive fist of the Hydra pulled back and then launched a catastrophic punch to her light unit. Raphael went spinning out of control through the black. This was it. She was done.
A searing pain wrenched through her neck as her head whipped forward to catch up with her body. Once again, her forehead made contact with the glass of the sights. Completely at a loss for what to do, the woman simply gave up with the Raphael. His lights dimmed, flickered, and then outright quit. The only source of illumination was a slow and steady red glow that pulsated from within. All power had been diverted to life support to preserve the woman inside. Swallowing hard, Alexi lay motionless inside the cockpit. She felt so useless. She was floating, just floating. It hurt every inch over her body to move, and yet, she found herself craning her neck to watch the Hydra. She could see the green glow growing in the beam cannons it held once more. Yep. She was toast.
Maybe not. A thick blue stream of light flew past her crippled mech, landing exactly where she had burned the remainders of her fuel. Then another blast of blue. She knew exactly what that was. It was the primary beam cannon from the Archangel. She could only guess that Dunny, Andras, the Black13 and other mechs had overpowered the JURD and EULA defectors, and were now turning to eliminate the last threat. Before her eyes, the Hydra was ripped to metal shreds as the second beam made impact with the unit.
Letting out a pained laugh, the doctor let her head drop back and rest against the support of her seat. Her eyes shut to stop any tears that threatened to breach her lids. She was safe after all. Her mind went blank as she panted in the cockpit. Safe...
She had passed out in the wreckage that was her unit. She didn't know that it was Dunny that towed her back into the Archangel hanger, or that he was the one to carry her to the med bay. Or that even Andras came to visit her in her comatose state. She wasn't aware either that Sergeant Sam Jack Dunn never once left her side. They had to operate on her right arm, and had to reconstruct a bit of the flesh and muscle where electricity had crippled her. The Raphael was totaled. But she was alive, that was all that mattered. The secondary doctors had to do a blood transfusion to keep her alive, and well renowned doctor had to be on life support for a few weeks. It was deemed a miracle that Alexi MacDonall had lived through that.
Ex-Eyez · Wed Dec 22, 2010 @ 10:19am · 0 Comments |
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