Rainforest, Mesa Region

Tharkad, Donegal Province

Lyran Alliance

"I wish we could have made a bigger fire." Bradley lamented, looking at the small pile of burning wood and the pot of water above it, "I'm cold."

"Use the survival blanket." Cairo suggested, opening a sashay of instant coffee and adding it to the water, "We can't risk the Blakists spotting us: they'll know by now that at lest one of us survived and that my Templar was a command Mech."

"Still cold."

"Live with it. Anyway, haven't you been on survival training before?"

"A few years ago; when I was a cadet. But it was at the end of the Civil war, so things where all up in the air and it was cut short."

"Just great: I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with a half-trained officer." Cairo saw the look in Bradley's eyes, "I'm sorry, it's not your fault: I miss my family."

"I've never had a family: I was orphaned when I was 3, spent my life in care."

"Can't have been fun."

"It wasn't, but I learned a lot from it."

"Like what?"

"To take what chances at happiness life gives you." She laughed, "I guess I should have."

"Huh?"

"There's someone in the unit I've got a little crush on, some I think likes me."

"Who?"

"Lieutenant Slone."

"Kerry?" Cairo thought on it for a moment, "I can see that: she's a good person."

"You don't seem that surprised that I'm…"

"Gay?" Cairo laughed, "I'd guessed: my cousin Lexei's gay, so I know the signs."

"And you don't have a problem with it?"

"We're MechWarriors: our lives can be short and violent, full of death and destruction. If we can find someone, someone we can be truly close to, to spend what little time we have with, what dose it matter if they're the same sex as us?"

"That's deep."

"I know: I get like this sometimes."

"Ok, we have a small town, with a roadblock in the middle." Cairo looked down through a pair of compact field-glasses from the hillside, "Blakists: three troopers and a pair of hover-bikes."

"So we go round?" Bradley asked, feeling uncomfortable about the sub-machinegun in her hands.

"Nope: it's too far out of our way, and we need to get back to base as fast as we can."

"What do we do?"

"Well, these nice Blakists are going to lend us a hover-bike…"

"Halt! Who goes there?" The Word of Blake sentry raised his assault rifle as the two figures approached though the twilight gloom.

"Hey pall, wan' a party?" A slurred voice came back as the two strangers, dressed in ragged clothes stepped into the light, reviling a man doing his best to support a woman, bottles of alcohol in each hand.

"Why are you out after curfew?" The sentry enquired, smelling the drink and sweat on the strangers.

"Just looking for a good time." The man smiled, his eyes unfocused, "Nice bike! Can I take it for a spin?"

"No." The sentry sighed, "Look, you'd better get home…"

"I intend to." Cairo flexes his wrist, the Stetta auto pistol shooting out into his hand. His arm came up, his finger already pulling the trigger as the gun came into line with the trooper. The burst of semi-automatic gunfire caught the sentry in the head, turning his face into a mass of blood and ripped flesh.

"Alarm!" Another of the sentry's yelled, trying to bring-round a belt-feed light machinegun set up behind a pile of sandbags. But Bradley leapt into life, bringing up her sub-machinegun, firing a burst of 9-mm rounds that traced a line of red and black craters up the man's chest.

The third and final Blakist tried to run, only to take a trio of 1-mm caseless rounds in the back, and fell to the ground, as dead as his companions.

"Was that really necessary?" Bradley asked, "He was trying to run away."

"Normally no, but I've learnt that levering a live Blakist behind is like turning your back on a Tiger: it invites attack." Cairo walked over to the nearest hover-bike and examined it, "This'll do."

"How do we start it?"

"We don't do anything: you keep an eye out while I hotwire this thing."

"You know how to do that?"

"You have you're Life experiences, I have mine."

"I heard you're farther was a policeman?"

"So I rebelled a little as a kid." Cairo connected the last two wires, the hover-bike's engine roaring into life, "You going to walk or get on?"

To Be Continued…