Here Without You, Baby
Chapter Eight: Rogue Ops
By: Sci-Fi Raptor
Disclaimer: I don't own Zoids or Battletech/Mechwarrior
I said a la favella los colores
The streets are getting hotter
There is no water
To put out the fire
Mi canto la esperanza
Se mira Maria on the corner
Thinking of ways to make it better
Then I looked up in the sky
Hoping of days of paradise
-Santana (Maria Maria)
"Chaos erupted today as the Rogues made a surprise attack on an Amnesty International convoy. The desert sky ignited as they fired countless PPC emissions at the cargo trucks. The explosions were followed by the impacts covered over 1000 square feet of desert, and melted much of the surrounding landscape.
"Before the Rogues left the battlefield, they sent a communication to the commander in charge, saying 'You can't hide anything from us. We know everything that you do and everything you will do. Don't think this charade is fooling anyone.' And left in an unidentified ship.
"Natives of the region claimed that the convoy was illegally transporting Z5 Terra bombs within the convoy, citing the devastation of the truck's explosion and residues left behind as evidence. Local leaders denounced the Terran government's use of such clandestine tactics, and demanded that the people should have been told.
(Footage of one of the leaders talking) 'Its outrageous that the Terran government used Amnesty International as a cover for building another military outpost. They had set limits on what they could and couldn't do and, as always, have flagrantly disregarded them. Its about time that they let us have the self appointed government that they have been promising us for so long, and get the hell out of here!'
"Admiral Molotov had this to say about the allegations: 'Obviously, it was just another act set up by the Rogues to keep us from transitioning from our current Martial Law to a Representative government. These crimes will not go unpunished, and they will be brought to justice'
(Reporter) 'Admiral Molotov, is it true that the Rogues have destroyed another military fortification in the Eise peninsula?'
'As we have stated before, we have never had a military fortification in that region as per our treaty.'
(Reporter) 'Admiral Molotov, what do you have to say about allegations of there still being death camps?'
'That those allegations are completely false and that these so-called "death camps" have never existed. That will be all.'"
I ran for twenty minutes, and I was pooped. So I stood by the road, and did the thing I saw a hitchhiker do on the road when he was picked up. A lot of cars passed by, and no one stopped, so I started walking as I waited for a car to pull up. At least I'm moving.
Then I heard a car pull up, and I turned to see if it was someone who would help me. When I saw the car, I recognized it from somewhere. I looked inside, and there she was; she looked like she had been crying for some time.
"Need a ride?" she said weakly. I got mad again, and started walking again, but stopped when I heard her sobbing. "I'm sorry alright" was all she could say. I took a few deep breaths, and went into her car. She put her arms around my neck, and started crying again. "I'm so sorry" was all she could say.
(Change scene)
The energy was headed straight at us and I felt that there was nothing that I could do. It seemed she felt the same, so all we did was hold hands and see each other's faces for the last precious seconds of our life…
"NO!" I screamed, suddenly sitting up.
"Victor, what is it?" Marlene said groggily; I had also woken her up. Seeing that I was really upset about what I had dreamed about, she got up and sat in front of me, holding my hands. "It's okay Victor."
I suddenly wrapped my arms tightly around her and started crying. "Don't leave me," I begged. "Please don't leave me," I started crying.
"Its okay Victor. I'm here for you, and I'll always be by your side," she said, trying to calm me down. I held onto her tighter, and cried uncontrollably.
We woke up early in the morning, and quickly made our morning rounds. By 7 AM, we were in the briefing room with the rest of our team, waiting for our orders. Surprisingly, Admiral Molotov himself had come to give it to us. This had to be big.
"We cannot afford to be embarrassed by those rogues one more time. I have therefore decided to suspend your search and destroy operation."
"What?" the unit exclaimed in unison.
"There are more pressing matters to be attended to, and I cannot afford to have this operation fudged," he said, and dimmed the lights. A holo-projector activated and showed the briefing. "You will take this package to the spaceport to make sure that this component is delivered to the weather satellite."
"Um, sir, why are we doing such an easy mission?"
"BECAUSE I CANNOT TOLERATE ANY MORE FAILURES!" he yelled angrily. He paused a few moments to calm himself down. "Those rogues have screwed up everything that I've been trying to do, and this unit hasn't found one hint of their whereabouts," he said, then coldly, "Therefore I have decided to go to more traditional means of finding them, making actual use of your abilities, no matter how nominal," he turned the lights on, and uploaded our specific objectives into our CORE modules.
"Must be that time of the month again." I murmured to Marlene as we left to get our gear. She gave me a soft jab to the ribs. "Ow…" I feigned; I got a giggle from her.
We made our way through the military base, and got our mission gear. Then we went to the waiting convoy.
It was amazing. Even with the arrival of Admiral Molotov and the loss of our Xi'an hosts, we had actually managed to make some progress. It seemed that we weren't the only ones who were in the underground fight for freedom. Prominent Zoid teams, such as the Blitz team and Fluegal team, had holed up underground and did what they could to harass the Terrans.
After the arrival of Admiral Molotov, all hope seemed lost. But Amy had somehow managed to contact the Fluegal team, and everything just started moving. We started getting more organized, and did more damage. We now have a network of cities, militias, former Zoid teams, and even Terran soldiers on our side. Just recently, we found a shipment of Naval class Z5 Terra bombs being transported to the star port for some reason. We could imagine what Molotov was capable of, and decided that we had to get rid of it as soon as possible. Molly wanted us to take the bombs, and so it was our intention, but the crazy troop leader tried to use it on us, so we just annihilated them.
Our biggest problem was the death camps. Everyday, hundreds are sent there, and hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered there ever since. But the dozens of million of people on Zi don't know a thing about them. Anyone that the government sees as a serious threat is taken there without charge and within a few weeks, dies.
We've been working hard to expose and liberate the camps, but they are too heavily fortified. Our strategy has been to weaken them little by little and when weakened enough, strike. We've attack major industrial complexes, military fortifications, and destroyed thousands of HEVs and Zoids. The estimate for the damage we've given is nearing 500 trillion…
"Joanna…" Renee said, snapping me out of my daze.
"Huh?"
"Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?"
"Hmm… I don't really know."
"Come on, a mother knows."
"Well, this mother doesn't!" I exclaimed, annoyed by her constantly pestering me about my unborn child. Don't tell me. You want to know about my pregnancy too? Argh, you people are so annoying.
All Terrans that join the armed forces are taught ways to have "safe" intercourse. I know the drills like the back of my hand. But I forgot about them one romantic night. A few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant when I went to Renee with complaints about headaches I had been having.
When I told Seymour about it, he freaked out. He nagged at me for being so stupid and forgetting such a simple thing. We had a minor fight about it, but it dawned upon him that not only was I pregnant, I was pregnant with his child. He then no longer cared that we would be one 'man' short, or that there was another mouth to feed. He went around, telling everyone excitedly that we were having a kid, embarrassing me to oblivion…
"Joanna!" Mark hollered.
"What?" I hollered back.
"We've got trouble!"
"What?" I said again as he came.
"CHOAM said that it's located something high-tech going to the spaceport."
"Does it know what?"
"No."
"Well, lets get going then…" I said, the lack of sleep evident.
"Joanna, I think you should sit this one out," Catherine said, as we headed to the vehicles hangar.
"Why? This will be an easy mission and I haven't seen any action since two months ago."
"You know, with the baby coming and all…"
"I can handle it."
"Well, it's just. I know you've been under a lot of stress lately, and I don't think that you should push yourself too much."
"Don't worry," I smiled reassuringly. "Where I come from, women in their nine month of pregnancy do farm work."
"I'm just saying," she said as they entered the hangar. "Just be careful out there."
They made it to the ambush point rather quickly. It was part of the route where two hills were on either side of the road, and they were thickly covered in trees. The Rouges had their normal hit and run vehicles, the Liger X (piloted by "Cathy," as she had been nicknamed), the Mad Cat (piloted by Joanna), the Command Wolfs (piloted by Amy and Seymour), the Rev Raptors (piloted by Renee and James), and the Jenner IIC (piloted by Molly). Mark would provide extract and, if necessary, aerial support.
Cathy, Renee and James would cover both sides of the path when the assault would start. Joanna, Amy, Seymour, and Molly would be at the hilltops and fire. If all went well, this would be over quickly.
They were all shutdown, with only binoculars to let them see. They also had tight-beam communication devices, so that the enemy wouldn't pick up their communications. Only Joanna had her passive radar on. No need to upset them. Yet.
At exactly the right time, the convoy pulled in. One by one, the cargo trucks entered the pass, unsuspecting of their fate. When they were all in their line of fire, Joanna, Amy, Seymour, and Molly activated their respective vessels of destruction, and laid siege on the Terrans. The trucks that did not get destroyed by the initial charge made a mad dash for the pass's exit, but saw the ferocious figure of a Mad Cat and the Liger X. Swiftly, Joanna expelled 8 salvos of 6 Streak SRM's at the trucks, causing them to explode one by one. Cathy went in for the few kills remaining.
"Is that the last of them?" Cathy asked, as Amy sniped the last remaining cargo truck.
"No. It seems that there are two convoys instead of one."
"What? Why didn't you tell us that before?"
"Mark just got the message when we started and just told me when you asked. But he said that the other convoy will still go by here, since they aren't aware of what we just did."
"Then what do we do?" Molly asked.
"We move this stuff, and wait." Three hours later, the first cargo truck came into view. Molly had the brilliant idea of putting all the scrap near the entrance, so when the last truck came in, they would let it all fall and close that entrance. That way, Cathy and the Rev Raptors could all focus on one end.
"I just realized something," Amy said to everyone as the trucks came closer and closer. "Whenever we attack a convoy, its usually escorted by something."
"What's your point?" James said.
"Neither of these convoys had escorts."
"Yeah, that is weird," Joanna concurred.
Joanna, Amy, Seymour and Molly activated as the last truck pulled in. Molly shot down the support that held the truck rubble up from the last battle and it all toppled, blocking the entrance. But the trucks didn't make a mad rush this time; they stopped.
"Something's wrong here" Amy thought out loud. No sooner had she said that, an outstanding metallic truck suddenly fired missiles at them. But they weren't missiles, they were people with jetpacks on. The famed Nova Cluster.
"Shit, get into the forests!" Joanna warned.
"Why?" Cathy demanded.
"That's the Nova Cluster. We can't fight their HES's with these light HEV's!" Everyone made a mad dash to the forest, while Joanna sprayed as many salvos of missiles as she could at the trucks to keep the Nova Cluster busy; hopefully, some of the missiles would hit.
They all safely made it to the forest, but the Nova Cluster was still in hot pursuit.
"Mark! Get the X ready to fly! NOW!" Joanna ordered.
"I'm already on it. Bay will be open in approximately 2 minutes."
"Dammit!" Joanna swore, sweat precipitating down her face. They couldn't run away from them for that long.
The Terrans zigzagged through the trees, and slowly caught up to the Liger X and Mad Cat. As soon as they were close enough, they fired their MPPC's at their legs, momentarily knocking out their gyros, and making the Mad Cat fall.
"Joanna!" Cathy and Seymour yelled. They both went to her position in hopes that they could lead the HES's away. Cathy ionized the air with her blades, and Seymour fired wildly into the air. The ionization caused some of them to back off, and they all decided to chase Seymour, since the Liger X was basically covering the Mad Cat and itself.
Amy caught up to Seymour, and they both led the HES's away from the X. They split up again, but they only followed Amy. Mark was ready and the bay doors were open, so the Liger X, Mad Cat, Rev Raptors, Command Wolf and Jenner IIC quickly got inside, but they had to deactivate or get located.
"Amy, we're gonna have to pick you up from your ejection pod," Mark said.
"What about the Command Wolf?"
"It's not as important as your life!"
"Alright, tell me when to eject," she said, and kept a constant trajectory. In a few minutes, she broke out of the forest and was back on open terrain. The Nova Cluster would be on top of her in seconds. "Where are you?!" Amy said impatiently.
"Eject in ten seconds" Mark informed her.
Amy counted down in her head, feeling the jolts of the MPPC's that were now pounding her aft. They must have hit a joint, because suddenly, the Command Wolf fell to the ground. Amy looked around and saw the Nova Cluster surrounding her. One of them loomed close enough to her cockpit for her to see his face.
Ten! She pulled the chord as her eyes registered what she saw. Black coverall. Dark eyes. Dark hair.
The thought perished as soon as it had come, and she found herself ascending into the air. Suddenly, she was surrounded by darkness and the world beneath her shrunk. It then was framed by a rectangle of darkness that was slowly closing. Cathy opened a panel that led to the landing gear compartment and helped Amy out. Amy smiled warmly at Cathy, feeling good that she had made it, but Cathy's expression screamed that something was wrong.
"What happened?" Amy asked.
"Its Joanna…"
I think I've seen that woman before, Victor thought at he neared the cockpit. Before his thoughts could progress, the pilot suddenly ejected and went into a black hole in the sky; something cloaked, no doubt.
"Dammit" he said. The team leader told them to try to salvage the Command Wolf, but it self-destructed, sending a few of the soldiers hurling a few hundred feet away. The Nova Cluster went back to their post on the convoy. They went to their mobile barracks and quietly waited as the latest shipload of satellite equipment was being sent to space. The convoy made it to the spaceport without incident, and they unloaded their cargo in a heavily fortified processing unit.
What's so important about this shipment? Victor thought. And why did the Rouges want to destroy it so bad? He had to know. As the cargo trucks unloaded, Victor activated his x-ray scanner and scanned the package.
Holy SHIT
Wow, that was long. Very, very long compared to any of my other chapters. I think this'll be the longest chapter I have or will write for this story. I should break it up, but I think it flows too smoothly.
Well… what's inside that package? The first live animal to be sent into space? Read the next chapter to see (if I'm nice).
