I scream in pain as my mech crashes the cracked furrocrete paved ground, the long blade arm of the massive Archangel Battlemech slams into the ground only feet from the cockpit of my slowly burning mad cat mark ii.
The radio built into my neurohelmet screams at me, the various voices of my lance mates screaming in terror at the Blakists massive mech, the blind terror in everyone's yells of my falling nearly screaming through my mind.
"I-I'm ok-okay, keep fighting. I will be fine…" I call out through my mic, the heat in my cockpit searing my lungs, a very deliberate and mournful reassurance to my lance mates, my voice drowned out of my own ears by the sharp ground cracking thump of the Archangels movement.
I knew I was never going to survive fighting against that monster. I was thankfully able to destroy its plasma rifle and tear its right arm off. But even then it is still more than a match for my entire lance.
"Sir!" The concerned voice of my female lance mate Maila Senn crackles over the radio "We're going to finish this and get you out of there, just hang on!" I smile lightly, and wearily reach my hands to my head to pull the neuro-helmet off. A wave of vertigo over takes me as it disconnects with my brains alpha wavelength.
"S-sorry I fucked up so bad g-guys…" I croak to the throat mike, my cooling vest begins to no longer help as the heat in my mech raises from the various fires burning within it. The acrid smell of burning myomer and electronics filling my head with each breath.
'LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS FAILING, WARNING REACTOR TEMPURATURE ABOVE SAFE LEVEL, WARNING COCKPIT PRESSURE ABOVE SAFE LEVELS,REACTOR SHUTDOWN FAILIURE COMPUTER SYSTEMS FAILIURE' comes the blaring female voice of my mechs computer, each subsequent warning bringing me closer to my own death, closer to my own humanity.
I close my weary eyes and let my mind drift off of to my past. The times I was on Atreus staring up at wendigo in the night sky. I will never see that again. I will never see the freeworlds league again. I feel a pang of fear course through me; I don't want to die…
"Ha… like I have a choice now" I quietly say out loud to myself, finally resigning myself to my fate. All of the smoke filling the cockpit, the searing air entering my lungs at each breath, the scent of fire, sweat, and blood lingering in the air inside of the cockpit.
Burning to death… what a pleasantly horrible way to go, and to think just an hour or so before I was complaining about it being too damned cold outside… it's almost laughable.
"chsss… Alright!… nners! We're gonna win! AHA!" Neils Myon, our artillery support Mech's pilot joyfully screams, his speech broken by the damage to my radio.
The sharp electronic crack of a ppc hitting an armored plate fills my ears, followed by three more and the sounds of dozens of arrow IV thunderbolt slamming into the same target.
A loud crack of an extremely heavy mech slamming into the ice crusted rocky battlefield outside.
"chsssh… elemental star move up, tear open any cockpits you come across. Kill the Blake scum" the radio says again, an unfamiliar voice of high authority. The meaning of the message lost to me completely in my smoke induced loss of mind. It must not be long now until I finally go…
Hmm and to think, before I even see my adulthood. Is the fate of all those fighting to save the universe from these terrorists. Not yet 17 And I'm already assured of my death. The fierce heat and powdery white smoke casting an almost peaceful environment within the burning mark ii
I finally let my mind slip… lost forever to the darkness. Dreams of my future crushed, just like myself. I fall quickly into the hazy darkness of unconsciousness.
"Major! Oh my god!" burrows into my mind disturbing the dark haze of peacefulness "I am sorry miss, I do not think he will live" Another deep authoritarian voice pounds through my head again.
"Connor, do not speak so quickly of things you do not know. Miss take your leader some place warm and dress his wounds. By the looks of it he will survive. Even If just by a thread" The first authoritive voice comes again, speaking in the odd, contraction free speak of the clanners.
I try to push my way through the haze of my own demise, a freezing chill stifling my mental actions, damn it's cold! Wait… cold… I must not be dead after all. For I doubt the hell that 'MechWarrior's go to would be mind numbingly icy.
I slowly push through the haze as I feel the ice melt away from my mind, a feeling of complete peace taking over in its place. I open my eyes to the soft red din of a battlemech running under emergency power, myself securely strapped into the seat with a field blanket wrapped securely around myself and the seat. I look around at the inside of the cockpit, a picture of the lance, Myself crouched in the center of the shot when I was fifteen, a small smirk on my face, wearing the bdu's issued for officer graduated of the academy of the free world's league. My right hand shot forward in a thumbs up to the camera, Neils sits to my left, a loosely fit flying cap and a pair of night vision goggles sit askew on his head, a large, satisfied smile on his face. In this shot he was only fourteen year old.
Malia stood behind me, her chin wresting on her hand, and her elbow rested atop my head, a coolant vest several sizes to large strewn over a set of grey sweats with the word TRAINEE in blocky black letters displayed on the front of it, a small smile on her face, her green eyes glimmering in the cameras flash, and a light blush of excitement at graduating strewn across her cheeks, she was only thirteen in the picture.
The last person in the picture was our lance mate Hail Collems. He died three months after the picture was taken fighting a band of pirates, who acquired a Hauptman mech that the hellhounds we were running were not prepared to handle.
He sat stooped in the cockpit of the crouched Bushwhacker that played to part of the background of the photo. A serious look on his face with a hint of excitement at graduating from the MechWarrior's academy, He always was the one of us we thought would lead up when they put the four of us together to train as a lance. But I was the one sent to officer school instead.
I smile sadly at the memories. Wishing for the days those short years ago, those were times of peaceful freedom for us. I realize were I am, inside of Malia's mech, the cold outside frosting the glass on the viewport. I shift the blanket off of myself, and see my arms wrapped in slightly bloodied white bandages, as well as my stomach, the skin on my chest and shoulders tinted red from the contact with the burning air in my mech.
"Fawk's, took you long enough to wake up, how do you feel" the soft, sad voice of Malia whispers from behind me, a heavy din of sleepiness and sadness coating her normally cheerful voice.
"I-I'm okay… What happened?" I ask her, my voice feeling rough, the speaking burning my throat.
"… The wolf clan showed up finally and saved us. W-when the fighting was over; an elemental tore your cockpit open and pulled you out… I-I-ac" her voice breaks, I turn around in the seat enough to look at her, tears streaming from her eyes, she lowers her head and mumbles something incoherently.
"What happened?" I ask gingerly, fear welling up in my throat at what her answer might be.
She looks up, a look of absolute sadness strewn across her face, the sight tearing at my heart, I quickly pull myself from the straps of the seat and carefully pull myself around and pull her into a hug to try and calm her enough to tell me what happened… what went wrong that I'm not aware of.
"N-n-ac-Neils is gone." Three of the worst words I've ever heard sadly spoken into my ears, the fear in me instantly turns to sadness, I squeeze her tighter into the embrace and a few tears escape my eyes.
"Fawks I-I d-don't think I can do this anymore… this war… this senseless fighting has taken too much from us." She says through sobs. My burned shoulder stinging from the tears.
"I know… I can't either… but if it's to be stopped… we have to win. We have had our childhood taken from us, our friends, and family… we have gone too far now to let this jihadist scum win… tomorrow we will have to fight again… but for now…" I couldn't finish, I choke up, and decide to just let it be. Losing another of my friends, one who was like a brother to me, one I grew up with. It was almost too much.