CHAPTER 5
Review Corner
mobmal: Ha ha, no. The story has been retconned, so nobody's losing any body parts (except maybe the bad guys, when they blow up :) )
Ulquiorra9000: Enrique's loss is unfortunate. But those who are mean to Noloty (i.e. the bullying cadets) die too, so I guess everything is squared off... or not. I don't know.
Strantor Military Academy,
Strantor, Lyran Alliance,
November 3, 3073
Noloty's C3 network worked like an invisible beacon that collectively put the Uziel on the crosshair of all remaining Chimeras. Missiles leapt from their tubes and rained down upon the 50 tonner. The Uziel sidestepped the attack, but the dumbfire warheads charged it like drones. Ten missiles shredded its armor on the left torso, threatening to breach the arm. It blasted its jets and slid behind the administration building. Two dozen missiles peppered the building, tossing concrete chunks as big as cars every which way. The front side of the building crumbled, yet the Uziel jumped to take cover behind another building.
The Mad Cat and Cougar launched their own missiles in an attempt to disrupt the Kuritan C3 network. Two Chimeras staggered as the missiles flogged their legs. Three more Kuritan Chimeras fired their lasers at the omnimechs. The Cougar bobbed and weaved, using its superior agility to dodge the laser attack. The Mad Cat relied on its armor. It spread its legs and absorbed the punishment, then quickly returned fire. Blue particle beam whipped from its arm, lashing a Chimera squarely on the midsection. The Chimera tottered backward. The gash on its center torso crackled with static charge.
Driven by vengeance, Noloty kept track of the Uziel then made a sweeping loop to cut it off. The Uziel saw her; it abruptly changed direction, aiming for Noloty's rear armor. The Shadow Cat came to the Uziel's aid. It mirrored the Uziel's maneuver to catch Noloty in a pincer move. But Noloty read the trap. She twisted and weaved right before the nickel-ferrous slug from the Shadow Cat whizzed inches away from thecockpit. The slug gored a massive hole on a storage building behind her.
Noloty noticed two Chimeras having a clear path at the Shadow Cat. She locked the Shadow Cat and fed it to the C3 network. The two Chimeras immediately latched on the Shadow Cat and launched their missiles. The Shadow Cat slithered between 2 buildings, but a few dumbfire missiles smashed into its right leg. Ferro-fibrous shards splattered onto a building, wreaking the glass windows.
The Shadow Cat limped to safety, and Noloty swung left to cut it off. But before she could deliver a knockout punch, the Uziel flanked her. Its missiles exploded on the Daimyo's side armor before Noloty could take evasive maneuver. Noloty grimaced, and for a second she considered shooting out with the Uziel, but with 10-ton disadvantage, trading blows would hurt her bad. She banked hard right and engaged the Uziel from an angle, but the Uziel soared to the sky.
The 2 Kuritan Chimeras scored more hits on the Shadow Cat but the Mad Cat flanked them from the left. The missiles from the Mad Cat's boxes swept the Chimeras off their feet. The particle bolt incised the laser-laden arm of the nearest Chimera, and the Mad Cat's ballistic breathed fire, searing the Chimera's arm completely off. The Chimera staggered, steadying itself on its wobbly legs, when the Cougar sneaked out from behind a building and alpha-struck the reeling Chimera. Tongues of fire consumed the 40-ton mech, and the Chimera collapsed in a blaze, but not before the mechwarrior ejected from the cockpit.
Noloty didn't know how to get out of this situation. She was too inexperienced to fight Lyran veterans like this Striking Tigers lance. The Kuritans held numerical advantage but the synergy of the Lyran lance neutralized that lead. She utilized C3 network to concentrate fire but the Lyrans beat it by taking out her lance mates one by one. She started out with a full company against a single lance of Lyran. Now she had less than two lances left in her disposal.
In the end everything came to surrender or die. And no Kuritan would surrender willfully.
In a desperate one last drive, Noloty locked on the Mad Cat and fed the signal to C3 network. If she had to die, she would die dealing as much damage to the Lyrans as possible, and that was by killing the Mad Cat. Hopefully it was Kommandant Ras Farlow. "In the name of the Coordinator, take the Mad Cat to your grave! Give everything you've got!"
The Chimeras launched an all-out attack toward the Mad Cat. Laser bolts and missile volleys poured down onto the Clan omnimech with murderous intention. The Mad Cat was forced to retreat. It backpedaled behind a building, then quickly changed direction. It didn't turn its back from the battle as Noloty expected, but engaged the Chimeras in a 'Circle of Death' maneuver. The Chimeras rained down their firepower upon the omnimech, stripping tons of armor in less than a minute.
But the Mad Cat's refusal to find cover freed up the rest of the Lyrans to cripple the Kuritan force. The Shadow Cat sniped a Chimera from the rear, goring its delicate rear armor with a well-placed salvo. The Chimera's torso arced like a bow. It tottered on unsteady legs, enough to disrupt the firing line. The 40-ton mech twisted and pivoted, inadvertently exposing its damaged rear armor to the Cougar which came out of nowhere. The Cougar easily slammed home a missile-laser combo onto the wound, and the Chimera roared in a blinding fireball. Burning body parts pelted two other Chimeras, forcing them to disengage the Mad Cat.
As one of the Chimeras coped with the unexpected heat, the Uziel launched a volley fire. The first PPC bolt turned the center armor of the Chimera to drooping pulp. The second carved a cavernous hole on the center torso. The missiles chewed up the structure, giving way to the whatever came next. The missiles torched the fragile XL engine. Ripples of explosions tore the mech apart from inside. The mechwarrior punched out of the cockpit before the Chimera crumbled in a charred heap of metal.
Noloty aimed her PPC at the Mad Cat but a sneaky autocannon shot from the Cougar threw her shot off. Her azure bolt missed the Mad Cat's by a wide margin. Groaning in frustration, Noloty twisted and slapped the Cougar with her twin lasers. The Cougar absorbed the hit, then returned fire with a razor-sharp laser volley to the shoulder. Molten armor sprayed from the impact. The Daimyo's arms sprawled to maintain balance, and Noloty quickly tucked them back in. Her medium lasers went green, and she fired again, turning the Cougar's front armor into red-hot smelter. Her PPC went back online, and she fired it, risking shutdown, but the Cougar had already moved. For the second time her PPC hit air, and Noloty became increasingly anxious to score a big hit. Sweat beaded on her forehead, but she shrugged it off.
But Noloty was too caught up with the dodgy Cougar to notice the Shadow Cat taking a hard lock on her. Her Daimyo jolted when the nickel-ferrous ball slammed into its side. She was thrown to the opposite direction, so hard she banged her head on the canopy. The Daimyo tumbled forward, flat-faced, and Noloty hung on her command seat, suspended by the harness. Klaxon and siren blended into one big dissonance Noloty couldn't decipher. But she knew what it was. She was in big trouble.
Fighting to clear her vision, Noloty pulled the joystick backward. The Daimyo responded with a lethargic squirm, coupled with ear-piercing screech from under the seat. That last Gauss strike by the Shadow Cat clearly damaged the engine. She tried different movements, but the result was the same. The Daimyo pathetically writhed on the ground while the engine emitted a loud metal-grinding screams that made her want to throw up.
Noloty knew the fight was lost.
Through her radar, which miraculously still worked, Noloty observed the last of the Chimeras disappeared from her screen, one after another, until only four mech signatures remained. There was no other way out of this. She knew what she needed to do. Part of her training with the 2nd Sword of Light was to 'prepare' herself – and her mech - in the advent of defeat. Every Bushido warrior would choose death over dishonor, and Noloty was no different.
She stripped her neurohelmet and tossed it aside. She reached for the self-destruct button at the far corner of the console, and set it for 30 seconds. Then she reached under her command seat and pulled a tanto, a ritual short sword, and pushed the tip of the blade on her own throat. As the countdown wound down, she closed her eyes and felt the edge of the blade started breaking her skin. She whimpered, wondering if she should just plunge the blade into her throat like the old Bushido way, or wait until the nuclear blast take her. She couldn't make up her mind.
Suddenly the hatch of the Daimyo blasted open, and a young man entered the cockpit. He was a mechwarrior, evident from the cooling vest, short, and combat boots that mirrored Noloty's own mechwarrior gear. His rusty-red hair was drenched in sweat. He took a quick glance at Noloty then swatted her blade-laden hand. Her tanto clanged onto the cockpit wall. He turned to observe the console, and realized the Daimyo was going supernova in 10 seconds.
Noloty released the buckle of her harness and lunged at the man, but another mechwarrior, another young man with dark brown hair, slid into the cockpit. Good, she thought. I'm taking 2 Lyran mechwarriors with me. But the red hair pointed at the console, and the brown hair dove straight at it. He punched a few buttons in quick successions, and the countdown stopped at 2 seconds.
"Bastard!" Noloty screamed, but the two Lyrans quickly overpowered her. The brown hair retrieved the tanto from the floor and pointed the sharp edge at Noloty's forehead.
"No!" the red hair said. "We need her alive."
"She's trying to kill us, Lane," the brown hair hissed.
"And we have to know the reason," the one called Lane replied. "Let's take her to Ras. Let him decide what he wants to do with her."
"You're better off killing me now!" Noloty struggled to get off the two Lyran mechwarriors. "You are not getting anything from me!"
"We'll see about that," the brown hair flipped her, twisted her arms behind her back, and bound her wrists with zip ties. "We always get what we want, one way or another."
