Chapter 2 – Hidden Moons of Arienne-54.

The huge blast doors began to slide open as they approached, the rumble of the mechanism vibrating through the ground, up through the chassis of the Mechs, all the way to the controls in the cockpits. They moved forwards into the decontamination area … the birdbath as they jokingly called it … each of the Mechs lining themselves up over one of the steel grilles in the concrete floor, the blast doors already closing behind them and giving them a perceptible sense of security. Beckett thumbed the switch on the weapons module off, making sure she made her unit's weapons safe, then waited patiently for the decontamination rings above each Mech to slowly drop down from the overhead gantry. Blue-white foam started cascading over the canopy and trailing downwards in interesting, vertical patterns, slowly hiding the view.

Eventually the foam completely obscured the view of the airlock area, so Beckett switched on the belly cam and adjusted the angle until it was pointing down vertically. The floor came into view, her Mech's feet planted squarely on the chevron-painted grill, foam already dripping down her unit's legs and she was able to take in some of the damage on the left one; shrapnel had scratched and dented the armour plaques, a few holes were punched through the hydraulic covers and she could see where the silvery self-sealing flux had repaired some of the lines, allowing her unit to retain its mobility, however reduced it had been. If that was what it looked like from here, she hated to think what it looked like from the outer side.

The decontamination rig came into view; squirting foam over the battle scars as it sank further down until the foam eventually obscured the camera lens. As she raised her head from the screen, the second ring of the decontamination rig began to hose the foam off her canopy, dragging radioactive sand, grit and the invisible, known and unknown bacteria with it. The whole process took nearly three minutes before both rings, now at ground level began to rise smoothly upwards, back to their nesting place amongst the overhead gantry.

She glanced at the light on the inner blast door just in front of her. Saw it change from pulsating red to orange and then turned to look down at the doorway in the far corner. Sure enough, within a few seconds it swung open and two figures in blue decontamination gear stepped out and began a visual check of the Mech closest to them.

From her seat nearly five meters above ground, she soon lost sight of them as they disappeared below the second unit. She turned to the belly cam screen and waited. Soon both men appeared below, black lights flashing over her unit's underside in their search for any clinging slugs or other undesirable critters.

She thumbed the external speaker, "Hey Mike, stop looking up my skirt!"

One of the two paused, head tilting up towards the camera and his tinny voice made its way up to her, "Sorry Beckett, nice legs!"

Eventually she saw them head back towards the door and disappear. The orange light became green and then the inner blast doors swung open, revealing the Mech hanger behind. As soon as they had opened far enough, all four began moving forwards, each heading towards their docking bays. Beckett turned round as she reached hers, used the flashing guide lights to back into her dock and the belly cam to align herself up with the marks on the floor below. As soon as she was correctly lined up, the pulsating guiding lights became a steady green and she waited for the characteristic thump from behind telling her that the overhead clamp had locked onto her unit's engine cover.

She threw a quick glance at the overhead console to check that the light in the centre was green, indicating that everything was correct, and hit the button to kill the engine. Immediately, the gentle rumble and barely perceptible vibrations died, the unit sagging slightly as the hydraulic power was lost, only the overhead clamp insuring the five-ton Mech didn't collapse onto the floor below.

Becket gave the console a once over before the thumb of her left hand pushed the cover up to reveal the biometric sensor on the control handle and she pressed her thumb to it. The braces that held her body to the exoskeleton which in turn controlled the Mech popped open and released her arms, legs and chest from its embrace. Quickly she unstrapped the harness that held her torso to the jockey seat and stood up, stretching and revelling in the sudden freedom.

She stood, removed the CRC from its slot and slipped it into her breast pocket. The contents of the other cards, the equivalent of the old Black Boxes from the twenty-first century, would be downloaded and analysed routinely for mechanical and pilot or 'jock' performance, but the Combat Recording Card would need to be analysed immediately. She turned to the locker at the back of the cockpit and pulled out the bag containing her EVA suit, helmet and the emergency supply kit which apart from the regulation contents also held a couple of personal items, such as a book and the picture of her family which always travelled with her.

After a final glance around, she pulled the lever which released the airtight seal and with a hiss of released pressure, the canopy swung slowly upwards, the familiar smell of the Mech Shop flooding in; a curious mix of hydro-fluids, hot steel and humanity. LT reached down from the maintenance walkway and gave her a helping hand to climb out. Then, with a doleful look on his face, sighed and shook his head at the bullet-pitted side of the cockpit. Beckett bit her lip and pretended to ignore him, knowing full well the maintenance crew would be up all night repairing the Mech, but also just as aware of the fact that they would prefer to do that a hundred times than not have her come back at all.

She and LT moved slowly round the cockpit level walkway inspecting the damage and then descended to the waist level one to take a closer look at the damage to the leg. The merc's rounds had ripped away some of the armour plates from the outside of the Mech's 'thigh' and buckled and torn the inner casing; the large holes and warped steel revealing the pistons and servos beneath. It had been a miracle that none of the rounds had damaged the pistons; a buckled piston would have left her stranded and unable to move. LT pulled a knife from his pocket and scraped away at some of the self-sealing flux. Almost immediately the golden hydro-fluid began to well up and seep down along the pipe. Beckett could see the sheared ends of the tightly woven mesh where a round had clipped the hydraulic pipe.

They completed the inspection at ground level, walking round the huge four-toed feet which allowed the Mech to keep its balance in just about any terrain; LT taking notes as each new sign of damage was inspected. With a final pat on his shoulder and a quiet apology for the long night ahead for him and his crew, she turned to find the other three members of the unit studying her Mech with critical eyes. "What?" she growled out suspiciously.

"What do you think Castle?"

The largest of the three men pursed his lips as if deep in thought and then shook his head with conviction, "Nope, I reckon Mike's got it wrong … my legs are much nicer!"

With a rude sign, Beckett turned and headed for the exit, the others following behind, their laughter and easy camaraderie making her grin quietly to herself. They nodded to the guard in the hallway as they stopped outside the debrief room and Beckett knocked on the door. A gruff "Enter" answered the knock and all four filed into the room.

Captain Montgomery was staring down at the 3D heliographic map on the tactical table, hands resting on the curved steel edge as they supported his weight. He raised his head and stared silently at the four of them, dark face inscrutable, forehead shining in the overhead lighting. His eyes travelled over each of them in turn and then returned to Beckett. "You Ok?"

She nodded, "Yes Sir, unit's a bit beat up, but I'm fine."

He remained silent for a moment, staring at her then allowed a slight sigh to escape his lips before nodding and straightening up. "Good, now, show me what happened exactly."

The four of them moved to the table and both Beckett and Castle removed their CRCs from their breast pockets and slipped them into the overhead display unit. There was a slight disturbance in the air near the 3D miniature representation of the old mining facility abandoned long ago and then the two Red Team Mechs materialised to the southwest of the structure. All five leaned forward and Beckett began explaining how they'd been scouting the derelict structure after reports of 'enemy' movements in the area when a four-man merc team had appeared out of nowhere.

Montgomery swung his head sharply at that, staring hard at her. "You didn't pick them up?"

Beckett shook her head, "No sir, the scanners showed nothing, just the structures and terrain. If it hadn't been for the moons rising to the east … I caught a glint off something, one of the canopies possibly, just in time to see them coming over the lip of the crater," pointing to the depression in the terrain to the north of the structure.

Montgomery looked worried, a frown creasing the otherwise smooth forehead. Recently there had been too many unusual incidents and Red Team's scanners failing to pick up enemy units was just one more inexplicable and worrying incident. Units using the ore-rich tourmaline outcrops to fool enemy scanners was part of the day-to-day combat equation, but these units had been out in the open … probably out of sight within the crater's depression, but they still should have been detected by the scanners.

"Ok," he nodded, "Play it."

Beckett pressed the play button and after a slight blurring quiver, the two holograph Mechs began to move over the terrain towards the old mining facility. Everyone glanced at the crater to the north, but nothing showed within its walls. About twenty meters out, the crimson Mech turned east and began to move parallel to the length of the structure, the cockpit swivelling slowly left and right as Castle had scanned the area.

The second Mech, a much darker red in colour, almost plum red (though Beckett insisted on calling it purple, much to the guys' amusement), moved northwards, scanning the back end of the facility …. still nothing showed within or close to the crater. It wasn't until Beckett's Mech reached the far corner of the structure and was about to turn eastwards that there was a sudden disturbance close to the crater's lip and the four merc units holographed into the scene.

Montgomery raised a hand and Beckett paused the recording. All five looked down at the table. Had the enemy waited just a minute or two more they would have caught her side on, halfway down the structure's length … and with four of them she wouldn't have stood a chance. More worrying still was why the scanners hadn't picked up the enemy units. The CRCs recorded everything involving combat situations; scanner readouts, weapon usage, Mech mobility, radio communications, video feed from the four cameras installed on each unit, air temperature and toxicity, wind speed and a hundred other minutiae which could influence the outcome of a battle and serve to train new recruits or improve performance of combat patrols.

Yet here, four enemy units had been within a hundred meters of Beckett before they had been detected. Montgomery nodded and Beckett pressed the play button again. Even as Beckett's unit turned to face the oncoming mercs, her voice resonated urgently throughout the room from the overhead speakers, "Bandits at twelve o'clock! Four units, one hundred and closing! Engaging!"

Even as she finished speaking, the room was filled with the ripsaw sound of the chainguns firing, the whoosh of a rocket passing too close for comfort, the all-too-familiar sound of bullets hitting armour plating. On the tactical table, her Mech began to back up, closing in on the wall to her right in search of some protection. The closest of the enemy units, now only about eighty meters away moved sideways to get a clearer shot only to have a stream of rounds from Beckett's chain gun rip through the side of the cockpit. Some of the rounds must have penetrated the engine bay; there was a sudden burst of black acrid smoke and the unit shuddered to some internal explosion. Before she could finish him off, two of the other mercs moved in front of him and closed in on her, rockets, pulsar charges and chain gun rounds ripping up the ground around her, blasting holes in the wall to her right and ripping dangerously into her unit's armour.

Meanwhile Castle had quickly (or as quickly as a Mech could move) rounded the far end of the structure and turned towards the attacking mercs just as the plume of black smoke burst from the first unit's engine bay. He watched out of the corner of his eye as two others hurried to shield their comrade, bursts of fire from their weapons impacting on and around the structure's far corner where the scanner indicated Beckett's unit was taking damage. The fourth of the mercs had turned to face him, still over a hundred meters away, rocket launcher attached to the right appendage, chain gun on the left, its barrels already spinning in readiness to fire.

Castle spun as quickly as possible to take cover behind the corner of building just as the rocket swept past him and exploded against the rocky outcrop to the east of the structure and then just as quickly stepped back out. The other jock, assuming he would remain behind the wall had automatically adjusted his aim, probably with the intention of putting a rocket into the corner to weaken the wall and then fire a burst of the chain gun through it to take out the crimson unit. Castle's sudden reappearance caught him off-guard, both weapons aimed several degrees to the right.

Castle's first rocket followed the targeting laser's path and hit the other unit's leg, the impact causing it to stagger slightly as the jock tried to regain his balance. Before he could bring his weapons to bear, Castle was already running down on him, chain gun blasting at the rocket launcher attached to the enemy unit. It was a risky move; the launcher itself being a relatively small target when compared to the rest of the Mech. Whether it was a lucky burst or a well-aimed one was debatable but the effect was immediate. The launcher, with a rocket already loaded and armed burst apart in a shower of sparks and shattered casing before the rocket itself exploded. The blast completely severed the Mech's appendage sending it cartwheeling through the air before smashing into the structure's wall. It also knocked the Mech sideways, the jock unable to keep his balance, even assuming he was still alive or conscious, before falling over and hitting the ground in a cloud of dust which rose lazily into the air.

As Castle ran past the downed unit he fired a burst into the underside of the cockpit. Mechs were not designed to fight prone on the ground and the underbelly was the weakest spot, the thin armour and the electrical and hydraulic machinery under the floor panels made it vulnerable if exposed. Golden bubbles of leaking hydro-fluid glinted through the floating dust particles and he turned his attention back to the remaining mercs.

Beckett could feel her unit taking damage, red warning lights blinking on the maintenance panel even as she staggered under the onslaught of fire. She was close to the wall, almost brushing it, even as she moved backwards, trying to keep as much distance between herself and the enemy Mechs. It also narrowed their field of fire, the wall impeding the second of the two units from getting a clear shot at her, in fact he had decided to circle quickly behind the first one in an obvious attempt to outflank her and come at her from the left.

For the moment she'd have to ignore him, as she did the yelling voice which she subconsciously knew to be Rick's blasting through the speakers. She dropped to one knee, not an easy feat in these top-heavy Mechs, but it reduced the target area for the enemy and allowed her to concentrate both weapons upwards at the approaching merc. She kept both thumbs on the firing buttons, an almost solid wall of tracer from her twin chain guns moving towards her target, striking it, moving up a little then back down to centre on the area where the leg joined the cockpit. Bits of armour shielding, steel membranes and durinium plates disintegrated under the concentrated onslaught, and even as her own unit rocked to an ear-numbing explosion, the enemy Mech burst apart and collapsed, blue-green flames from ignited dry fuel cells and hydro-fluid beginning to leak through the shattered remains.

Tracer swept in an arc across from behind the corner of the building, steadied and settled on something beyond the shattered shell of a smoking structure. She pushed herself to her feet, her unit rocking uncertainly. Beckett bit her lip, moved her left foot, the whir of hydraulics resonating throughout the cockpit even as she felt the sluggish response. The HUD abruptly flared with a red warning light to her eight. Grunting in frustration she swung round, cursing under her breath as her unit lethargically responded. She was still sideways-on when the swirling smoke momentarily cleared and she realised she was much …. too …. slow, the battle-scarred black and yellow unit sitting square on to her, rocket launcher already rising into the firing position and she yelled in anger, she still needed another second or two to turn sufficiently to line up her own weapons …

Suddenly, Castle's Mech appeared through the smoke at a run, the crimson unit smashing into the side of the merc, knocking him off-balance even as he fired. The rocket whooshed past her with only inches to spare, hitting the wall some thirty meters behind her and the blast made her unit shudder even as she completed the turn.

Castle swung an arm as the merc's pulsar cannon angled up towards him and knocked it effortlessly aside before firing a long burst from his chain gun into the enemy's exposed flank. The unit seemed to sag slowly to the ground, golden globules of hydraulic fluid pumping from severed lines and quickly forming into bubbles which floated aimlessly in the negligible gravity. She paused the recording, unwilling to view the enemy jock's final moments of torture.

There was silence from around the table, the holographic images of downed units, smoking wreckage and the yelling voices which still resonated within their heads despite the now silent speakers, held them immobile. As if on cue, they all straightened up and seemed to shake themselves free from the spell of the replayed battle.

Montgomery rubbed his chin, frown still in place as he considered the options. How had the enemy units remained undetected? Had they developed some sort of screening mechanism? Some type of electronic interference which could annul his peoples' scanners? Or was it something more sinister …


· Durinium – Compound armour plating which replaced the old and oft modified Kevlar

· Dry Fuel - HXT Dry Cells. These units produce hho gas (hybrid hydrogen oxygen).