FAN FICTION
LAST STAND IN DANGERZONE-5
by Khyron_Prime...16 June 2004
The sky is blue, but not the kind of blue that reminds me of good friends. The grass is green, but its a green that can't resemble that in New Macross City. Its absurd, these places, but even though I'm supposed to be rough and tough, the Dangerzone always makes me wish I was back at home.
We're enjoying the silence of the night, but that doesn't mean any of us are calm--the mobile reconnaissance mapper is constantly beeping a sound that reminds me of a dance club on Kabarra.--Beep...BeepBeepBeep; but its not enough. My unit was deployed to Dangerzone-5 two months ago, and it only took two days before I got a taste of why we were there.
The power armor leapt out of the pit and crushed poor Jannon's battloid like a tin-foil Veritech. The guy was fast, and his suit wasn't like an ordinary one. Computer scanners had given-up on full identification, so my mecha-identify classes came back to me in a hurry: He had extra shields on his shins, but it was still a straight Dolza conversion Zentraedi power armor: Armored wrists, a gun-pod built into the left one--like a cat...He fried Major Stefano...
So now, when Mayra looks at the MRM, she's already thinking-up battle strategies. Ko-Lar is snoring without the aid of a pillow or a bedrest, but his occasional mumblings tell me that there's a war in his head, too. I'm looking over about every minute to make sure our battloids are still there--Haydon knows I would enjoy the initiative in the next battle.
It isn't the same as serving the Mechs back in Alliance space--here, where there's no cities, no buildings, and no civilians, there's nothing to comfort the soul except for what lies ahead when we get back to base. Major Stefano always reminded us that our missions were to protect the people of the Alliance and hope that some of our enemies had heard of our culture, but now he's smoldering in a battloid some two-hundred kilometres back, and its getting difficult to hear his voice repeat itself.
The briefing was regular enough: Dangerzone-5, rated moderate in hostile activities, recently found to house forces of uncultured Zentraedi whose plans include domination of an uninhabited system adjacent to Interplanetary Alliance zones. Culture Forces had been sent-in earlier and barely escaped with their lives; so without deliberation, I'm readied to go in and clean up the place with the Mechanical Forces. Base 172 is a nice place, but its always painfully forboding in its desire to throw soldiers out of Alliance airspace.
With that, I hear the hard Beep on Mayra's screen. It wakes-up Ko-Lar like a gunshot, and he almost slips in his haste to gather around the console. Mayra's working like crazy to find the mecha--she checks on analysis, and zooms unto the object, locks on its shape, and the identification shows-up: A standard classic-model battlepod with some stolen Alliance missile mounts; must've got 'em from one of ours...
Ko-Lar grunts and voices his idea to take the guy on one-on-one. Of course, the guy's a real warrior, and I wouldn't want to steal his thunder, but as a weakened squad, we've got to stick together. So when Mayra announces the call to launch our battloids, it brings a grin to his face--he is already on the tac-net when I step into position and kick the ManMech interface; he's riled-up, and so am I.
My battloid takes the fore of our delta formation, and all I can envision is my fist putting a whole into that battlepod and pulling it out with blood dripping from my hand. Mmm. This one's for you, Major Stefano.
Mayra's yelling a battlecry, I'm gnashing my teeth, and Ko-Lar's laughing like a hyena, ready to make minced meat out of a single battlepod. Nobody's mentioning the odds, 'cause as all of us are tasting revenge already, there's no reason to decline a three-on-one opportunity...Then the beeps change, and there's three--five--eleven dots coming on our readings, and Ko-Lar stops. Mayra cuts her cry. My mouth opens in a gasp of air.
And Ko-Lar starts laughing again. And Mayra screams louder. And all I can think about is how many enemies I'm gonna relieve of duty in my final Dangerzone tour.
Let's rock.
