Piyo 3
Seth saw a girl on the beach. He walked up to her. She reached out to him. He reached back out as well.
The girl suddenly, violently transformed into a massive snake head. It went soaring off into the sky. Four more came soaring out around it. Seth grabbed the neck, pulled himself on, and straddled it as tightly as he could, riding the head into the sky.
His heart slammed through his chest, his face flushed, he felt like he was breathing hard for the fist time in his life. This was what he was living for, this was why he was here. He felt the rush of the wind against him as he went soaring off into the sky, riding the snake.
Seth opened his eyes. He had flipped all his covers off of him. His roommate was snoring in the corner. His heart was still beating but he looked around just to find his normal surroundings.
3:30 AM. Might as well get up.
Seth raised his cannon and perforated another enemy drone that had managed to latch onto the hull of the ship.
“Mark 10.”
Stephen replied over the radio.
“This is it for me, Seth. This is the operation that does me in. I’m going down, Seth.”
Seth lowered his weapon and turned his unit around to look back at his team.
“I’ll be sure everyone is there when we flush you down the toilet with full military honors.”
Reid cut in.
“We could probably find a shoebox big enough to fit him into.”
Stephen tagged two more, Reid three, Seth five. That was the last of them for the time being.
Control chirped onto the communication link.
“Good work, guys. We’re sending up the recovery platforms now. We’ll reach the next drone field in a few days, try to contain your boredom, alright?”
The three gathered themselves by the recovery area and waited. Seth looked off into the stars, reflecting for lack of anything better to do.
He’d grown up in the desert, lived there most his life under the burning sun, achieving nothing. He’d been led out into space by visions he could hardly understand but he could not help but be compelled by. They’d led him here, to this ship clearing out mine and drone fields in space. They’d been out for seven months now, it was wearing on everybody. In his heart he’d wondered, was he led out of the desert just to be put in another one? Seven long months. When would he be let out of here?
“What did you guys come here for?”
Reid and Stephen turned to him.
“Economic benefits.”
“To get out of NYC.”
Seth continued to look into the sky.
“Hmm, I get you. I joined because I wasn’t doing anything with my life. I want to do something meaningful while I’m still young, you know? I want to… feel like I’m being fulfilled, like I’m doing everything I can to live a whole life. Does that make sense?”
Stephen passively assented. Reid took a more sarcastic tack.
“Yeah, clearing minefields is a real meaningful use of your time.
“It’s a more meaningful experience than what I was getting then.”
“All you do is work on your mech, read books, and play video games. You barely go anywhere even when we’re off duty. How’s that meaningful to you?”
Seth turned to Reid and pointed at him without thinking.
“Those are passions for me. What do you know about passion? Is eating out every day a meaningful experience for you?”
Stephen interrupted them.
“Can you two please shut the hell up. You do this every day.”
They both could visualize him rubbing his temples and politely disengaged. Command patched in again just then.
“Heads up, we’ve detected a vessel about to jump into the area. If it’s the one leaving these fields around then we might be going home earlier than expected. Hold for resupply and prepare for combat, relocate to the sixth side for when it arrives.”
Resupply was always awkward for Seth’s mech, it was quite non-standard by this point. Normally this level of modification would not be permitted but given his status as a contractor and the general looseness promoted by being out of port for seven months, nobody gave him any trouble for it.
It was originally a Gecko model, but Seth had renamed it to Heron. He used to see them in his restless dreams almost every night, though they had disappeared from his mind since he reached space. Despite that though, it just felt like the right name for the craft. The customizations had come from the fact that he got it from a mentor of his. It wasn’t his craft, though he was the one to name it. He had continued to work on it after he got to space, a sort of passion project on top of it being what he used for his job.
“Keep your heads on a swivel, enemy craft will be dewarping momentarily. Sunshields up.”
Moments later, a brilliant golden light bathed the scene. If you didn’t have your sunshields up already they would have activated themselves in response to the brightness. It faded over the course of a second, giving way to a brilliant show of beams and tracers already crossing the void between the two ships. The dull red glow of missiles like shooting stars soon joined the display.
The three spread out into their battle positions. Reid’s voice came crackling out.
“One small-carrier, four destroyer escorts. I’m thinking a Type 256 carrier with Type 32s, guarding it.”
Seth readied his shoulder mount grenade launcher.
“Think they’ll be carrying mechs?”
Reid prepared an energy rifle and marked his zone of fire.
“The carrier is likely holding drones and mines but older types tend to have poor anti-suit measures. They’ll probably have a team dedicated to anti-mech combat.”
They could both already visualize Stephen rocking back in his cockpit and covering his face with his eyes. He confirmed it himself not a moment after Reid finished.
“I hate this. I hate this so much.”
Six bandits dropped from the carrier. Mostly lights, optimized for anti-suit combat. Five approached, one heavyweight hung behind them. The lights were armed with assault shotguns and plasma blades. Perfect tools for taking down more junior pilots, however, those able to stay in good positions could easily keep ahead of them.
One charged directly into a shot from Seth’s grenade launcher, another charged directly into Stephen’s own shotgun, trying to shank him. More bad pilots, it had gotten old a long time ago.
“I’m gonna go deal with that heavy, guys, good with that?”
Reid had been a one-time rival of Seth’s, but it had gotten exhausting to compete with someone both as dedicated and as, for lack of a better term, feral as him.
“Alright. Have fun, Seth.”
Stephen was razor-focused on keeping the lightweights back in range of where the ship’s guns could hit them, despite how easily he could have dispatched them directly, but he was cautious like that.
“Be careful, just be sure not to shoot at me, alright?”
Seth took off, the Heron was built for speed, he punched straight through the lightweights and the opposing ship’s guns. As he left the range of the team’s short range communications he could hear the increasingly distant, familiar chatter of Stephen calling out…
“Heeeeeeeelp”
…and Reid replying
“You’re more likely to die of a stress-induced heart attack than enemy action at this point, Stephen.”
“Help me.”
Seth rapidly approached the enemy ship, the heavyweight simply standing there. Full boost applied, Seth neutralized the nearby ship defenses by launching AP grenades. Still, the hostile mech just hung there in the air. Finally, still on full approach, he raised his rifles and fired directly into the center of mass of the heavyweight. In response, the heavyweight simply raised its massive cannon and fired a golden ball of energy back at him. This forced him to do a fumbling dodge out of its path, nearly striking the hull of the carrier. The blast from the shell exploding next to him pushed him the rest of the way, slamming him into the steel plating.
Seth’s frame struggled to rebalance itself. He would have, and should have died right there, but a sudden shot from Reid’s energy rifle had forced the heavyweight to move out of position, evidently his team had been watching him. They were good friends.
He got a good look at the situation for the first time. The carrier’s nearby defenses had been crushed, but that frame was something else entirely. It toted a superheavy cannon connected to a backpack of some kind on its back. It had a shoulder mount chaingun and grenade launcher to make up for its overweight hand-cannon. Its incredibly thick armor was also notable, but what made it the most interesting to Seth was the boa painted on the right side of the chest, and the snakeprint motif going down the arm.
Was this her?
He reared his grenade launcher and fired a shot while dodging backwards to gain some space. The heavy moved out of the way of the grenade shot and dodged forward with him, maintaining spacing, opening fire with its chaingun while it charged its energy cannon. Realizing his mistake, Seth instead flew upwards and tried to boost closer to his opponent, trying to get around its slower, heavier weapons. Again, however, the enemy preempted him, turning upwards and boosting backwards, firing another grenade and detonating it to force him backwards. He opened fire with his rifles aiming for something breakable. No dice, his concentration was broken when the opponent released the charge on its cannon, forcing him to back out of the way, the energy field interfering with his systems.
He knew there wasn’t anything he could do, he wasn’t prepared for this, but still, he refused to back down.
Side compartments popped open on his rifles and fired a screen of micro missiles. He gave full power to his thrusters and charged headlong at the enemy. The enemy’s chaingun was preoccupied intercepting missiles. Seth fired straight forward, the armor was thick but that level of lead couldn’t help but stagger the opponent a little bit. His plan was to try to spear the opponent with the sharpened, reinforced tips of the rifles given his lack of a close range weapon, but the energy cannon suddenly loosed a projectile, taking his leg, leaving him to slam hard into the opponent, limp from the shock and rebalance.
His heart was slamming. He was breathing hard. He just sat there for a moment, in shock. Anything he did was a losing move. His arms felt weak, his hands shook too much for any sort of precision. He didn’t feel any benefit in moving at all, he couldn’t do anything.
His opponent didn’t waste a moment, she rotated around to his side and began to fire the chaingun again. Snapping back into the moment, realizing what was happening, Seth ripped the ejection cord on one of his shoulder grenade launchers and tried to get clear. He managed to get just far away enough before the magazine went up that it didn’t destroy his frame, only claiming usage of his right arm. The explosion had managed to stagger his opponent as well, did she not predict him ejecting it in time?
He just needed to do something, he just needed to hit her once. He just needed to get one lucky hit in and he could turn it around. He just needed to do something.
Seth slam-boosted upwards. The loss of balance from his severe injuries caused him to jerk in unpredictable directions. The heavy was having trouble keeping a bead on him. He had a chance. He jerked himself backwards, eventually getting a lucky move, being able to get in view of the backpack connected to that massive energy cannon. He wasn’t thinking anymore. He raised his remaining rifle and attempted to get it aimed at the pack, a grenade would have been better but in his greatly weakened, rushing state of mind, he simply chose what he felt could be most reliable.
The heavy suddenly ripped backwards, slamming its back into Seth’s front. The loss of balance this caused was borderline unrecoverable given the dire state of his machine.
Seth’s mind was gone. He was looking down at the battlefield from space. He was a spectator watching his own death. This guy was truly amazing, a cut above anyone else, so good there wasn’t anything he could do to even touch him without getting amazingly lucky, and even then, it meant nothing.
He’d forgotten what it felt like to be this overwhelmed, this outclassed, this outplayed. Fighting so many weak opponents, so many lazy opponents, he’d forgotten what real passion felt like. The reason why he was losing now… he got lazy. He forgot his own passion, and now that his moment came, he was outclassed. Despite it all though, he was overjoyed. Who was this guy?
A wrenching sensation came over him. He saw a hailfire of blue plasma missiles force the opponent back as he went drifting away from the enemy’s hull. A screaming lead shell came inches from striking the heavy’s grenade launcher.
“Seth, what the hell are you doing? Why didn’t you just pull back?”
“This is bad. I can’t hit him. Oh, this is bad. Seth, are you okay, Seth?”
Seth sat there blankly. He didn’t want to move. He was bone-tired. He felt himself being pulled into the ground, ready to sleep. Exhausted in every way.
He lurched forward in the cockpit. He boost-turned around and moved back, boost-turned again, raised his remaining arm and grenade launcher, and fired everything he had.
Tracer rounds, smoke from the shells, blue plasma missiles, the repeated glow of energy rifle shots, they all hounded back the heavy, tried to pin it to the hull. They moved away because their ship was about to fire at the suspected ammo magazine, and it was going to destroy the entire carrier. The heavy recognized this as well evidently, it was forcing its way forward through the hail of bullets.
“How is it so fast? It’s a heavy, isn’t it? What the hell?”
It was heavy, but it was moving forward tactically, purposefully. It made it seem like it was moving a lot faster than it was capable of because it could apply its motion so aggressively at the right times.
Four panels on the carrier burst open, what seemed like four rockets came shooting out and rapidly approached the team. As they got closer it became clear, they were four more heavy frames, moving in to support their commander. Reid recognized the situation immediately.
“It’s a Hydra system, that heavy frame can control a number of drone wingmen operating in the area to support itself. They must not have seen a good enough reason to deploy it until now.”
“We need to pull back now, this isn’t worth it. Just get back to the ship.”
Seth’s face was flush. His whole body was quaking. He couldn’t even sit still in his chair, his whole body was shaking so much. He wanted to pass out, dead asleep, but a massive supply of adrenaline stopped him from closing his eyes.
The heavy moved to exit the area of operation, get to a safe position to make a hyperspace jump from. Seth threw away his remaining rifle and tried to eject his remaining grenade launcher. When the system failed, he ripped it off by hand and threw it away. He put his system into full afterburner and charged straight through the approaching drones, chasing the heavy. He kept his unsteady flight path as straight as he could.
The Heron was built for speed, speed above anything else. He was catching up with the heavy. He reached out, hand open. A sudden explosion rocked him from the right, knocking out his afterburner, followed a few seconds later by a massive collision with a large body.
“What the hell are you doing? What the HELL is wrong with you?”
The golden flash of a jump. She was gone. Seth sat in the cockpit. Silent. Processing. Still shaking. Reid went on.
“You’re always been impulsive but you really lost control this time. What if someone died trying to rescue you? I would have gladly abandoned you but Stephen refused to leave you. I’m not going to die because you’re doing something stupid.”
There was a brief pause. He turned off his communication logging and made sure he was on local comms.
“Do you know that guy? Were you going to desert?”
Reid leaned in.
“I would have had to kill you if you made that jump, right? This whole thing could have easily been the death of you.”
He was right. Seth’s chest filled with shame, his arms were even weaker than they were.
“I’m so sorry. I screwed up. I’m just… sorry.”
Reid exited his cockpit and began to attach a tow cable between the two frames. Seth got up and tried to open his cockpit but Reid told him to keep it shut.
“It’s fine, let me just take care of it. Your frame is too busted, let me tow you home. Stephen took care of the drones so don’t worry about them either. I don’t know why he stresses so much, he’s good at what he does.”
“He’s a good dude.”
“Yeah. He is.”
The feeling in Seth’s chest only intensified as Reid pulled him back.
“Thank you so much.”
“It’s alright, Seth.”
They finally made it back into range of their carrier. Stephen was waiting for them by the recovery platform.
“Hey, you dead, Seth?”
“Nah, I’m just starting to live.”
“Hmm, hmm.”
Seth and Reid could both visualize Stephen bobbing his head in mock understanding as he said that.
“Either of you guys play fighting games?”
Both Reid and Stephen said no.
“Either of you want to try? I’m gonna be playing a ton when we get back.”