Humanity prologue
I've decided that I'm going to make a series out of the one shot I made. I don't know why I've decided this but I have so here you go. If I'm off cannon, it happens. Mostly because I don't care.
Ulquirorra9000 and rogue baron s stories as well as ye-olde battle tech novels (yes I have them, I'm cool like that, I have them all save as .rtf files on my computer, three different hard drives, and in hard copy, I don't know where the friend that gave me the thumb drive with the novels on it got them, I don't care though either, just try and sue me over it, you won't get shit.) work as inspiration for this adventure I'm sending you on… I don't mind misspelling your names people. I haveith not the time to find it spelled correct if I spell them incorrectly.
This prologue will be followed up by a past like thing showing the misadventures of my characters until they get to where they are in this prologue, which will then go into some other stuff, go through my one-shot via copy and paste + adding stuff.
Disclaimer:Insert disclaimer here, even though I'm pretty sure battle tech encourages people to make their own stories. Oh well, I own nothing any way so who cares?)
From viewpoint of Major Fawkes Crawly.
On board the jump ship Equitum Sidereus (Knights Starlight) Just arriving at Atreus jump point.
"Captain; were in system now?" I carefully ask, noting the mass of jump-ships surrounding the capital planet Atreus. A nagging feeling in my head telling me that something was deathly wrong, the feeling reinforced by the bloodied handprint painted on the sides of each of the jump ships.
"Yes Major; but something seems to be off… we should be getting hailing frequency's from the spaceport by now. Navigator Gaulle; pull up satellite footage on the big screen. Technician Manag; tell the crew to keep the jump reactor warm in case we have to leave quickly." Captain Marcus Tallow orders the crew, a bead of sweat forming on his brow, showing his unrest at the situation and worrying me even more than I already was.
The navigator makes a grunt of confirmation and quickly pulls the footage from an orbital satellite onto the bridges main star-map screen, everyone on the bridge looks upon it in varying degrees of confusion. The spaceport, the capital city of the free world's league, were all covered in a thick orange fog and hidden from view at that level of magnification. I look at the captain in confusion and he calmly tells the navigator to increase the magnification of the satellite to ten thousand feet.
The picture blurs slightly as it focuses through the thick orange smog. My stomach jumps to my throat as the picture focuses on the decimated city below. Hundreds of thousands of fallen bodies were strewn across the streets, all of them in varying degrees of decay. One of the female technical officers on the bridge loses her lunch at the image, an image that shouldn't even be possible, Atreus city… Was dead.
"Jesus… captain… What happened? We were only a sol-month late. What could have possibly…?" I lose my voice as I stare in disgusted awe at the scene before me, the gravity of the situation finally sinking in. I look at the captain who flicks over a toggle switch that turns the screen off, removing the horrifying image of the once picturesque city from view.
"Marcus; We have to get out of here, bring us to the Arc Royal, hopefully we can alert them to the situation before anything happens to that system, there is no way that this is an isolated incident." I say to the captain as I repress my own urge to throw up. This horrifying… genocide is the only term that came to my mind.
"Fawkes… what happened here?" Marcus asks me, still frozen in awe. None of us has seen anything like this before. This massive amount of people being indiscriminately killed men, woman and children, almost all civilian except the knights of the free world, returned to the capital for a simple celebration, all dead.
"This is a biochemical attack. I've never seen something of this caliber in all my days, at the academy they taught us about this kind of thing, but the Ares convention prohibits even the simple research of these weapons. This shouldn't be possible. Whoever did this did it to kill as many people as they could. Get us out of here now!" I say raising my voice slightly at him, getting out of the free world space could save our lives. What if this was never given out as a message to the rest of the universe, what if were the only people to know of this? We had to go now.
"Technician Manag; get the jump drive going! Get us to the ARDC now! I don't care how much powers you will need to do it just make it happen!" captain tallow's hurriedly says to the jump technician. I rush from the room to go see my team. My MechWarrior's have to be alerted of what happened to their home. First we lose our friend, now our whole entire world.
I soon arrive at the blast-door leading to my lance mate's rec-room aboard the Sidereus and I palm the electronic panel next to the door. It silently slides open and I step inside, the clank of my boots on the steel deck weighing heavily on my heart, almost mocking me with the consistency of the noise. The message I come to deliver is not a happy one. As I step to the center of the room the noisy din of the radio quiets, Miala Senn and Niels Myron, The only two members left of my lance after the last years bandit patrol, stand up to look at me. Upon seeing my face the smiles adorning there's instantly drop.
"Fawkes… What's wrong? Are we gonna be even later? Awe man the general is going to be so pissed at us!" Niels says at seeing my downtrodden look. I stare up at him and instantly he knew he was wrong, muttering something along the lines of "oops" at my intense stare.
"Were not going to Atreus… guys, I've got some really bad news…" I feel a tear slide down my face, a warm burn of sadness echoes through my head."Atreus…Atreus has been attacked, with… with a biochemical weapon… no one is there to greet us when we land." I finish what I was saying and storm from the room; I still had a job to make sure we got the message to Phelan Kell, and facing the sadness of my teammates wasn't something I wanted to do right now. I make my way to the bridge, wiping my tears off on the sleeve of my coat as I enter the large blast door into the large bridge.
"Captain; Are we clear of the system?" I ask careful not to allow my emotions to cloud my judgment. I seriously look forward to getting out of the sight of my peers and back to my quarters were I can be left the hell alone to think. Too much has happened all of the sudden for me to be able to just simply sort out immediately.
"Yes, were out of the commonwealth right now, it will take a few weeks to get to ARDC space. Comstar is down for some reason. When you key in the news network all we receive is that bloody handprint insignia. Do you think it could be Comstar doing? I mean Comstar has always been really secretive of what was going on in their space, and recent rumor says that Jerome Blake's fanatical followers have taken the place over." The captain theorizes, almost making too much sense, I mean, that bloodied claw… I've seen that somewhere before, on a 'Mech towards the end of the patrol we went on for the past year. It was a Rifleman, and the guy was a pain to put down. I actually had to kill him by stomping on his cockpit, and even then it seemed like I had to shoot him again to stop his Battlemech.
"Just get us to the ardc, I'm going to my quarters, tell the quarter master I want my room to stay locked. I need to think." I say, not commenting on his thoughts. I just turn around and silently march down the steel corridor to get to my quarters, when I reach the room I palm the lock, the door slides open under its own power allowing me in.
I walk through the door and pull a small aluminum block out of the panel on the other side, turning off the power to the external entrance pad and effectively sealing me in until I put the fuse block back into the panel.
I lie down on the bed and think back on all the times on Atreus. All of the times when we were all innocent, when we were happy, when every-one was still alive and we were trying to grow to be the best MechWarrior's ever.
That ends the prologue, now on to the first chapter, which I will promptly write and post, give it a week max. Maybe even later today if I type fast enough and can find the inspiration.