Part II: The love of Man

            It was raining… It always rained in Kasei Vallis. The techs said it was part of the attempt to turn the valley into a sort of artificial reservoir, the mars itself would need the water before the planned nuclear detonations on the caps to jump star Mars' thin atmosphere. She didn't care about any of that, the rain helped accentuate her mood.

The wet tatters of her dress clung to her body, her eyes squeezes shut against the pain. Tears ran down her pale cheeks, across the ugly red bruise to mix with the rain falling from the sky. Her toe struck the edge of the curb and she tripped, fell into his arms.

He looked down at her, compassion and warmth in those green eyes that looked so out of place in that tan face. His crimson locks were matted against his head as he lifted her upright

"Are you alright?"

It was a simple question but it brought flashes of pain, she shook her head and collapsed into his arms, crying into his shirt. It was then that she realized he was an pilot…

            Olivia's alarm shook her awake. She reached over to her bedside lamp and slapped the light on, the sound was emanating from the commset at her bedside. She reached for the receiver and mumbled slowly into it.

            "Hello..?"

            The voice at the other end wasn't the one from her dream "Lieutenant. Report to hangar twelve, it's an emergency." The line went dead.

            Olivia leapt from the bed and fled into her closet. Not bothering with her underwear, she pulled her black and red flight suit over her body, shivering as the chill material made contact with her skin. She could feel Amentet pulse to life several decks below her. She closed her eyes.

            "Good morning Amy…"

            Olivia raced out into the corridor, not bothering to look at the note on her nightstand.

            As Olivia stepped into the corridor a pair of guards and Smith, Severinson's second in command greeted her. He joined her at her elbow.

            "Horus has been stolen by Lt. Skor. You're to intercept and prevent his entry into the urenbrek catapult"

            Her quick stride faltered for a moment. No… several decks below Amentet twitched perceptibly, a response to her pilot's distress. "Are you sure Vice Admiral?"

            "Yes, we've got voice recording of it."

            Voice? "How… why did he take Horus?"

            Smith stopped walking "It has to do with Seth… there's a possibility…"

            Olivia blanched and mouthed the words… Seth… but they said that Seth was lost… with… "It's not possible…"

            Smith nodded grimly and continued on. As they walked, one thought plagued her mind: Why

            "….Lt. Steele come in… this is mission control…"

            Olivia shook herself from her reverie and stared at her command console. She reached forwards to toggle the comm channels open "Command, Steele"

            "Lt. Steele, you are ordered to withdraw from that area, Heracles will take up your position."

            What? A heavy arms Orbital frame? "with all due respect sir… I believe that Amentet and I can take…."

            There was a rustle on the other end of the line as the comm operator switched places with the admiral. His weathered face came into view on her monitor.

            "Lieutenant, if Xarin's goal is to escape from Phobos base and deliver Horus and any information he's gathered on project Aumaan to the UEF, we cannot allow him to see the extent of Amentet's abilities. Is that understood?"

            Olivia balked "But sir…"

            "I don't care about your personal feelings on the matter… the secrecy of the Aumaan units is of the utmost importance. Retreat, now!" the comm channel snapped closed. Olivia felt a hand on her shoulder and turned her orbital frame to face Heracles. The Cyclopesque frame was squeezing her shoulder as if to reassure her.

            "don't worry Olivia," said Jackson "I'll bring him in safely."

            Olivia nodded, toggling the Zero Shift command.

            "Zero Shit detected."

            Xarin looked up "Location?"

            "Five meters ahead"

            "Confirmed? Enemy position?"

            A three dimensional map of Phobos appeared in the cockpit, it shifted quickly to show their current position. A cloud of red dots separated them from their destination, the green dot. Xarin grimaced and interfaced with the Aumaan central processor.

            "Heracles eh?" he sighed lightly, Jackson wasn't likely to go easy on him. Especially after what happened with Olivia…

            The normal compliment of pilots stationed on Phobos shared a sort of bond for they were the only active duty frame runners actually assigned to Aumaan with the exception of Aunbis and Nohmann himself. It was only inevitable that relationships would form between the members of the group… And some of us, more than others, couldn't handle that…

Xarin glanced at the black velvet box on his control panel "Shit"

He pushed Horus onwards into the shaft.

            Jackson smiled to himself as Horus emerged into the shaft some distance away from his orbital frame and his compliment of Cyclopes. He verbalized a command, increasing the zoom on the green orbital frame. He watched the machine dismember the two raptors that engaged it.

            "For you, Olivia, I will bring him down."

            He bade the Heracles upwards towards the green orbital frame.

            In mere seconds, Horus was engulfed with enemies. Through the command screen, Xarin could see the Uhlenbeck catapult, Aumaan's drive system. All he had to do was get through this massive cloud of enemies. Switching Horus from melee to ranged combat mode, Xarin boosted the orbital frame through the remains of one of the Cyclops machines, almost daring the rest to follow. The massive blades that formed Horus' hands split horizontally into two sections, unleashing a hail of metatron energy from the newly formed cannons.

            The hail of fire raced towards the AI controlled orbital frames, shredding them as their at compelled them to attack the superior fore. Horus leapt in short boosts of its thrusters, maneuvering itself left and right ascending and descending. Below the carnage, Jackson and Heracles waited. The machine's amber eyes seemed to burn with the pilot's anger

            "How in the hell…." He paused "Heracles identify weapon…"

            The masculine voice of the machine's AI replied "Weapon identified as phalanx rapid fire energy weapon. Confirmed driver installed as part of operations system on Orbital Frame Horus"

            "Shit"

Unlike Jehuty or even Anubis, Horus was designed with the rapid-fire phalanx cannons as an installed weapon. This came as a surprise to Jackson who'd planned to use the unmanned orbital frames as cover before his initial assault. He slammed his hand upon the screen, momentarily fuzzing it.

            "Damn you Skor…"

Heracles stopped short of the debris field that remained of his covering squadron. Hatches on the immense orbital frame opened revealing row after row of metatron energy projectors. The machine visible twitched as countless beams raced towards the hovering Horus.

The green and black machine paused before reacting, it boosted towards the wall of the catapult and used one of its blades to shear the armor plating from the wall. Impaling the plate on one blade, Xarin used the armor as cover while he returned fire at the Heracles.

The larger frame boosted left, hoping to get around its smaller cousin, but Horus wasn't having any part of it. As the larger frame moved, a shower of fire greeted its motion. Jackson cursed and switched his sub-weapon before opening a communications channel

"Having fun, Skor?" sneered Jackson.

"Oh shit… Jackson. Get out of my way."

"Why!" he spread his arms and Heracles mimicked the motion "This seems a perfect setting to enact my revenge."

"Revenge?"

"Yeah… for what you did to Olivia. How could you destroy such a beautiful creature?"

Xarin snorted loudly "Bullshit. Olivia and I were only together once, and that was before I transferred out to Heliopolis"

"You should have known she was in love with you!"

Xarin's eyes widened and then narrowed for a moment "I don't care. I made it clear to her that I wasn't in love with her. Bea is calling me. I need to get to her, if you're not going to get the hell out of my way, then we'll move you."

"We?"

"Horus and I will bring her home, now get the hell outta my way!"

With that horus accelerated towards the larger frame, using it's make shift shield as cover from the orange energy bolts loosed from Heracles' cannons.

"Just a little closer…"

Jackson switched subweapons just as Horus entered the range of it's halberds. The four orange beams struck the makeshift shield dead on, blowing it from horus' grasp and knocking the frame into a spin. Xarin quickly recovered only to be greeted with a hail of fire from the larger machine

"How do you like that Skor? You're not so bad assed when you can't get in close are you." Jackson sneered across the comm lines.

Horus spun away from another barrage and halted it's upwards flight. He's trying to force me away from the catapult. He eyed one of the metatron conduits. Perhaps it's time to show him that Horus isn't just a beefed up raptor…

"Maybe so, Jackson, but you'll never catch me to find out. Asshole!" Horus boosted away from the larger machine as a hail of phalanx fire greeted his retort. In his rage, Jackson chased the machine across the central spire with his ravenous fire.

"Come one you fat fuck, can't you do any better than that?" the orbital frame folded it's blade arms and hovered before the metatron conduit. The machine seemed to stare down at Heracles as if glowering over a superior foe.

"Aaargh!" Jackson sent the Heracles charging at Horus, its gauntlet aglow with metatron energy "Dodge this!"

            The nimble green and black machine boosted to it's left, away from the Heracles who, with it's larger mass, was unable to dodge the metatron conduit. It's gauntlet entered the conduit engulfing the machine in a terrific explosion. Horus hovered some distance away from the machine

            "Vital forms detected"

            Xarin smirked "Thank you Horus."

            Heracles drifted from the explosion, its outer surface was charred and the energy lines running through the frame had taken on a yellow color "Damn you Skor."

            "Frame damage quota exceeding fifty percent." Intoned Horus.

            "Jackson, fall back. I don't want to cause any more damage."

            "Never!" Jackson slammed his fists against his holographic HUD "I'll never give in to you!"

            Xarin shook his head "Look, all I want to do is find Bea and Ausaas… so please…"

            Jackson shook his head and sent Heracles launching upwards "NO!" he shook his head "A man like you doesn't deserve to be happy! I'll see you rot in Aumaan's brig!"

            As Heracles raced upwards, Xarin spun Horus, using the right hand blade to counter the punch and the left to impale the machine. Locked together, Horus glared into Heracles' cycloptic eye.

            "Look I didn't mean for any of this to happen" he tapped a few controls on his panel beginning the process called transplantation, the equivalent of a metatron computer download "I just want to find the woman I love… Horus says that he's still receiving a metatron signal from Ausaas, and I know in my heart that Bea's still alive…"

            "Driver transfer complete" intoned Horus.

            Xarin nodded "So I'm sorry but this is something I have to do…."

            Horus reared back and activated the halberd sub weapon. From it's blade cannons, a green blade of energy emerged, Horus used its new weapon to sever Heracles' head before boosting towards the catapult. 

"Heracles is down. Target one is proceeding towards Uhlenbeck catapult."

Sevrinson grumbled unhappily "Recall Amentet! Order her to engage target one at once!"

The tracking officer shook his head "No good sir, Amentet is too far from Target one to arrive in enough time to successfully engage him."

"Sir!" a third officer called out "We have motion on Heracles. It appears as if he's trying to re-engage target one!"

"What!"

Heracles floated listlessly, orange energy arcing from it's wounds. The pilot within its cockpit ground his teeth in rage for he was utterly blind without the head of his machine. He clutched his head in his hands.

"Why damn you! Why!" he stared at the ceiling of his machine "he doesn't deserve any of this! None of this!" Not after leaving Olivia like that… She deserved better…

The HUD before him sparkled to life almost as if it were responding to its master's cries. Jackson's tears struck lightly upon the semitransparent surface.

"Warning. Your mental status has dropped below fifty percent, further drops in mental status will result in a drop in combat performance."

He looked up at the HUD through tear-streaked eyes "Heracles…"

"Yes?"

"What is the superiority estimation index of this frame?"

"In comparison with target one, the loss of primary viewing systems as placed us at a seventy five percent deficit. I do not suggest maneuvering under these conditions."

"Duly noted. Heracles can you patch into the Aumaan security systems?"

"Confirmed."

"If we route the internal sensor feed through the visual cortex could you create a composite image for use in navigation?"

"Affirmative"

"Do so."

Horus blazed through another wall of enemies, the machine seemed impervious to its smaller cousins now that they'd lost the coordination fostered upon them by the larger Heracles. It scythed its blades through another set of enemies when a warning erupted in the machine's cockpit.

"Heavyarms type Orbital Frame moving into combat position"

Xarin looked at his subwindow "What"

Horus shook visible as a burst attack from it's once felled foe smashed through it's defenses and hurled it into the "ground" considering up and down in space are relative. The machine leapt to its feet as the pilot cleared his head.

"Damage index now exceeding seventy five percent"

"Thank you Horus" How the hell is he still moving?

Xarin had little time to ponder the question as a hail of fire erupted around the orbital frame

"Warning, enemy back up forces now in battle position"

Heracles' onboard weapons couldn't have unleashed that volume of fire it has to be…Xarin's thought trailed off as he caught sight of the origin of the energy blast: at least a dozen Mummyhead orbital frames had entered the shaft and were now supporting the Heracles. Horus launched upwards to meet his renewed foe.

"I suggest you retreat and engage the enemy one by one in a distant combat condition."

"Suggestion noted" Xarin smirked as Horus' blades shredded another one of the mummyheads. The machine thrust its arm out, impaling one of the machines through the sphere at it's neck: the central processing core. It repeated the process with another one of the unmanned frames.

"Assuming control of enemy battle unit."

The energy lines upon the two speared units shifted from orange to green as Horus turned their firepower upon their brethren. Scores of explosions littered the central spire as the mummyheads shore their fellow AI controlled frames into glowing particles. Through that maelstrom flew Heracles, fist cocked and ready to strike. Horus hurled one of the mummy heads into the machine's path, Xarin watched with dismay as it was swatted aside.

"You'll have to try harder if you expect to beat me, Skor!"

"Is that so…" Xarin eyed the still sparking seam in the Heracles' chest.

"Yes.."

"then take this!"

Xarin thrust the mummy head towards the Heracles and opened fire with it's halberd weapons, the twin orange lances impacted upon the shield of the larger frame. As it approached through the beam it reared back, exposing the wound on its chest. Jackson never saw the azure beam that impaled his frame until it was too late.

"Is that good enough?"

Jackson cursed loudly, roaring with rage as his machine tumbled to the wall of the shaft.

"All enemy units have been destroyed. Damage index exceeding sixty five percent, I suggest immediate departure from the combat area."

Xarin nodded "I concur. Activate the catapult"

Below the frame, a massive torrent of metatron-based energy whirled to life as the six concentric rings of the catapult whirred to life. In the center of that tempest was Horus, its arms out stretched like a bird preparing to take flight. The frame began to glow with a brilliant energy, forcing Jackson to shield his eyes. As the glow surrounded the machine, an unearthly sound filled the shaft

"Bea… I'm coming…"

The machine leapt forwards as the catapult projected it through folded space.

"Commander?"

"Hmm?" Harry Nussbaum looked up from his glass of tea "What is it lieutenant"

"Phobos has just launched something in the direction of the Earth, it should pass within our field of detection in five minutes"

"As soon as it enters our rang, put it on the main screen."

"Aye sir"

Xarin closed his eyes as Horus hummed around him. The orbital frame had gone into sleep mode with minimal scanners on line. It would take about a half a day to reach the Serenity, the commercial freighter Xarin had purchased to transport him to the Asteroids so he could begin his search for Ausaas and Beatrice.

Since the frame was in sleep mode, it didn't register the passive scanners playing over its smooth green surface.

Horus' gold sheathed image appeared on the primary monitor. The analyst looked up at the machine.

"Sir! The machine appears to be an S-type orbital frame!"

"What?!" Nussbaum whirled to his left "Tactical, I want a firing solution now!"

"Sir" the tactical officer peered into the scope that served as the targeting systems for the massive main guns situated on the cruiser's outer hull. "Bearing three-two-three mark four. Z minus twelve degrees."

Harry nodded "guns, disabling shot. We want him alive."

"Aye sir"

So… this is their next move…

"Deploy V2 squadron when we have confirmed capture.

"Aye."

The impact of the primary cannon from the UNSF Thunderchild was more than enough to shake Xarin from his sleep. The machine shook as if grasped in the hand of god as it was hurled from the metatron induced space compression.

"Warning, Interruption of space compression has resulted in damage exceeding fifty percent. Warning enemy battle cruiser approaching, the enemy is deploying numerous V2 type mobile weapons. I suggest you retreat and engage them one on one in distant condition."

A second blast rocked the Orbital Frame hurling Xarin against the HUD. The pilot slumped in his chair as crimson globules of blood hung in a halo about his head.

"Warning, damage has exceeded twenty five percent, enemy backup forces now in combat position. Warning pilot vital activity has dropped to ten percent. I suggest you take immediate action to correct this situation. Xarin… can you hear me?"