CHAPTER 10
Review Corner:
Ulquiorra9000: we'll see them again in the future
Jumpship Dragneel's Keel,
Malory's World System, Kentares PDZ,
Draconis March, Federated Suns,
February 28, 3074
After being spoiled with the roomy cockpit of the Sagittaire, the cockpit of the Quasit felt claustrophobic. Noloty had barely any elbow room. She couldn't reach the farthest lever without hitting her knuckles on the dashboard. Half of her damage control screen was covered by her own legs, with made damage assessment a chore. Worse, the cockpit was too small for ejection seat. So in the event of critical hits or reactor meltdown, she just had to watch the fireworks.
The mech's stat wasn't encouraging either. Although it was protected by as much armor as a Phoenix Hawk, it was just a heavy industrial, not a full battlemech armor. Nobody knew how far it would fare against battlemech weaponries, because nobody was insane enough to take one onto the battlefield. While the max speed was an attractive 86 kph, the mech had no jump jets, the bread and butter of Noloty's defensive maneuver. She was constricted to the ground, protected by inferior armor with no ejection seat.
If there was any consolation, the Quasit -51P carried the high-tech Plasma Rifle as its main battery. While not very destructive against battlemech armor, the induced heat was devastating. Two good shots of this 'dirty' weapon would force light and medium-light battlemech pilots to eject. Unfortunately the Quasit only had 1 ton of plastic foam as ammunition. The Plasma Rifle glory was only good for 10 shots. Ten shots and the Quasit had to rely on a single machine gun with half a ton of cartridges for the rest of the fight.
Standing at the rear end of the diamond formation, Noloty could only watch with utter jealousy as Kayoko marched proudly in Musashi, her much-revered Argus -5D. On her ten o'clock stood a Phoenix Hawk -7S, a brutal close-ranged laser boat with a Large Pulse laser and a quartet of Medium Lasers. On her two o'clock perched an Uziel -2S, a sniper with 2 PPCs and an SRM6 for close-in encounters. And there she sat inside an industrialmech, wondering if she could contribute anything to this well-rounded lance.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is Kobayashi Maru!" the general frequency was frantic with distress calls. "We are stranded just off Pier 5! The boilers are sabotaged! We are losing power! Multiple hostiles inbound! There are 500 civilians on board! We need immediate assistance! I repeat… we need immediate assistance!"
"Form up on me!" Kayoko kicked up her Argus in high gear. "Make your best speed to Nav Point Delta! Go! Go! Go!"
Noloty pushed the Quasit to an awkward gallop. The Plasma Rifle was molded in a long-barreled 'shotgun' that almost tripped the mech multiple times, so much that she had to carry the weapon in an upward angle. The suspension was good as it ran through hills and vales, but she was still bummed, watching the Phoenix Hawk and Uziel cleared obstacles in a single jump.
Within 10 minutes they arrived at Pier 51. An ocean liner was stranded half a click from the dock. Smoke billowed from the stern, a sure sign of engine trouble. Armored fighting vehicles congregated at the pier, trying to assist in some way, but unfortunately all of them were wheeled vehicles. There was no armed ships around, and the few tug boats that were already moving to bring the ocean liner back were forced to return to dock upon the advent of two lance of Harassers with a lance of Drillsons.
"Fire at will! Smoke those hovercrafts!" Kayoko yelled and engaged her MASC. The Argus burst into sprint, followed by the Phoenix Hawk and the Uziel. The Uziel's PPC quickly torched a Harasser at an extreme distance. The Phoenix Hawk charged the incoming hovercrafts and lit up the front line with its lasers. The cool water helped the heat sinks dissipate the heat, ensuring the mechwarrior to fire the energy weapons aggressively. Kayoko's Heavy PPC made short work of a Drillson, and her twin Streak SRM6 worked on the second.
Noloty was last to arrive at the scene, and she quickly aimed at a Harasser but recalled that she only had 10 shots. She wouldn't waste it on a Harasser. She switched target to a Drillson gunning for the ocean liner, took a hard good aim, then fired off. A bright white energy bolt leapt from her rifle, and smashed into the Drillson's front hull. Half of the hovercraft glowed in red, and the 50-ton vehicle veered off course.
Noloty prepared her second shot but the Drillson returned fire with its laser. She swiveled her joystick, looking to sidestep, but the water hindered her movement. The long laser beam gorged her right torso. The Quasit wobbled as the armor gauge turned red. The Drillson corrected its course and launched a 10-missile salvo. Noloty slammed her joystick hard to her thigh. The Quasit slumped, almost submerged in the water, as the missiles flew inches away from the cockpit.
Noloty pulled the Quasit back up, and as the Drillson lied idle for its weapons to recycle, she buried another plasma shot to the hovercraft's hull. Something caught fire on the deck, and black smoke covered the hovercraft. The Drillson hovered aimlessly for a while before the driver jumped out of the hovercraft in a lifebuoy, followed closely by tongues of flames that took complete control of the 50-ton vehicle.
The Harasser that Noloty let escaped turned around and fired a missile salvo at her flank. With the water hindering her movement, Noloty didn't have time to sidestep. She raised her arm to block the attack, and instantly regretted it. The industrial-grade armor caved in like toilet paper. Her damage report screen went livid, flashing and screaming incoherently in between jarring explosions from cascaded missiles. Lucky for her a few missiles missed the mark. Had they all connected she would have lost her Plasma Rifle.
Noloty raised the Quasit's stripped-to-the-bone arm and returned fire with her Plasma Rifle, but the superheated plastic foam splashed into the water. She groaned, watching her wasted shot ended up in a cloud of steam. One missed shot was a huge loss, and she knew that.
"This is Kobayashi Maru! We're under heavy fire! Starboard hull is compromised! We are going to die!" the ocean liner cried for attention.
"Dammit, guys! Clean these mess up fast!" Kayoko barked in urgency.
Noloty turned her attention to another Harasser, looping around to take another shot at the ocean liner. She cut it off and waited until it fired its missiles, then slammed home a long streak of plasma. The Harasser turned red then swelled into a red hot fireball.
She didn't have time to admire her work. The previous Harasser charged her again with a dozen missiles. Noloty ducked as low as her mech allowed. Two missiles exploded in her chest, shredding nearly a ton of industrial armor, but failed to breach it. The remaining missiles went past her cockpit. The Harasser made a pass to get another shot, and Noloty fired her machine gun. Fifty-caliber bullets rained down on the hovercraft, punching holes on the thin-armored hull. Smoke wafted from the deck, and the Harasser staggered, but managed to pull away. Noloty held the Plasma Rifle with both hands, determined that the measly little bugger wouldn't escape her plasma shot twice. The blinding white bolt leapt from the nozzle, and the Harasser went up in flames.
Noloty's lance mates carried the brunt of the battle, destroying 8 hovercrafts between the two of them. But as soon as the hovercrafts were subdued, a company of VTOLs staged an aerial assault at the hapless ocean liner, wrecking havoc on its superstructures. Three massive explosions tore bad gash on the liner's port side, and the ship began to list.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is Kobayashi Maru! We are taking water! Casualties are in the hundreds! Blood! Blood everywhere! Please help!"
"All hands! Kill the choppers!" Kayoko yelled as her Argus lobbed a long, azure particle beam at a Warrior. The helicopter burst and plummeted into the water in a mad spin.
"Hit the blades! Hit the blades!" Noloty broadcast, utilizing her experience against Markham's Marauders VTOLs. The helicopter was a smaller target than a Harasser, so she held her Plasma Rifle with both hands for stability, then squeezed the trigger. The superheated plastic foam leapt through the air and singed a Donar. The fuselage split into three parts, then splashed into the sea.
As pieces of the Donar sizzled into the water, two Cavalry Attack helicopters launched a combined missile volley at the Quasit. Noloty twisted and turned as hard as she could, but there were too many of them. Three missiles exploded in her chest, wiping out the remaining armor. The Quasit staggered under the assault. Acrid smell of burning armor seeped into the cockpit, turning her stomach upside down.
Desperate, Noloty took a quick aim at a Cavalry and tapped the trigger as soon as the Plasma Rifle recycled. The Cavalry instantly went supernova. It plummeted into the sea and hissed as the superheated fuselage made contact with the cool water. She turned to the other Cavalry and let her machine gun rip. Bullet tracers filled the air but the Cavalry turned hard right, dodging Noloty's salvo. It made a half loop and started to engage a barrel roll to the opposite direction when a blue streak from the Uziel ended its course.
Noloty started to sigh in relief when something came up in her radar. Something BIG. She twisted her mech in the general direction, and her heart sank when a frigate came into view, carrying two LRM launchers with 4 cannon turrets as backup.
"Frigate, three o'clock!" she hollered on the comlink.
"Oh, come on!" Kayoko yelled her frustration. "Noloty, bring down the choppers! The rest of you, smoke the frigate!"
There were still 3 VTOLs taking potshots at the ocean liner, and the Quasit's Plasma Rifle only had 4 shots left. There was no room for errors. Noloty aligned her crosshair with a Harrier and quickly knocked it off the sky with a quick shot to the blade. The other two Cavalry Attacks turned around and smothered the Quasit with saturated missile salvos. Noloty had no choice but to raise her left arm as a shield. Each strike felt like an internal explosion, staggering the lanky industrialmech to the very core. Two good hits incised the left shoulder like a couple of scalpels, and the left arm went off flying in the air. Noloty held her joystick tight, keeping her mech upright in the water.
Recovering from the assault, Noloty fired her machine gun with reckless abandon, forcing the two Cavalry Attack helicopters to take evasive maneuver. The weapon gauge blinked in green, and she fired her Plasma Rifle, breaching the tail of the Cavalry closest to her. The chopper engaged in an uncontrollable spin before splashing into the water. The last one hovered and turned to launch its missiles, but Noloty's .50 caliber bullets eviscerated the lower fuselage. Smoke billowed from the gash, and the Cavalry turned around, conceding air superiority to the one-armed industrialmech.
Clearing the sky from pesky VTOLs, Noloty put the Quasit in full speed to regroup with the rest of the lance. Kayoko managed to prevent the frigate from firing at the ocean liner, at the cost of their mechs. Her Argus lost its main long-ranged weapon and operated only on the medium lasers. The Uziel lost both PPC and its SRM6 was running low on ammo, and the Phoenix Hawk was limping.
"Kayoko, I have two shots left!" Noloty ran past Kayoko. "Where do you want them?"
"Anywhere to sink this bruiser!" Kayoko replied briskly. "Bridge! Burn the bridge!"
Noloty took a good aim at the bridge of the frigate then let loose a long streak of superheated plasma. Tongues of fire burst from the window, and the two LRM batteries immediately stopped tracking her.
"Burn it, Noloty! Burn the sonofabitch!" Kayoko chimed. "All hands! Give everything you've got!"
Noloty engaged a slow prowl while waiting for the Plasma Rifle to reload. The Argus, Uziel, and Phoenix Hawk poured their firepower on the frigate, turning it into a floating inferno. The Plasma gauge burned green, and Noloty mashed her trigger. The frigate's superstructure crumbled in flames under intense assault.
"Yeah! Eat shit and die, asshole!" Kayoko jubilated as the frigate slowly rolled under the water. "Alright, lance, great job! Let's wrap it up…"
"Mayday! Mayday! This is Kobayashi Maru! We are under heavy fire! A lance of battlemechs coming from the north! We are taking too much damage! We are sinking! I repeat, we are sinking!"
"Aw, crap!" Kayoko cursed under her breath. An Argus, two Bushwackers, and a Wolfhound came barreling down from the pier, raining down their missiles and laser beams at the capsizing ocean liner. Half of the ship slipped beneath the waves, and the part still above the water level was ravaged by uncontrollable fire.
"Kayoko what do we do?" Noloty whispered, watching Kobayashi Maru getting pounded relentlessly by a lance of fresh battlemechs.
"I- I- I don't know," Kayoko slumped in her command chair. "There's nothing we can do." Her wheezing was audible through the comlink, carrying her frustration to all lance mates. "I guess that's it. Terminate simulation."
The virtual battlefield suddenly dissolved into static. Noloty opened the hatch and climbed out of the simulator. She took off her neurohelmet and tossed it back into the simpod. Kayoko did the same. Her hair was drenched in sweat, as if she just went back from running in the rain. The other two mechwarriors climbed out and stripped their cooling vests, drenched in sweat.
"Sho-ko Kayoko! Why did you terminate the simulation?!" Tai-I Seether came at Kayoko guns blazing. "I and I alone have the authority to determine when the simulation ends!"
"Sir, the simulation is rigged," Kayoko defended her action. "I just thought there is no point continuing."
"The simulation is created based on thousands of real combat situations! Terminating the simulations transpires in leaving 500 civilians inside that liner to die!"
"Sir, my lance has reached combat loss grouping. We held ourselves against 2 companies of hovercrafts and VTOLs, and one giant-ass frigate. We have exhausted everything we had to defend the liner, but there were just too many of them. Even if we stayed, we couldn't have done different."
"A relief force is 2 minutes away from your position! All you need to do is to hold the opposing lance for 2 minutes until reinforcement arrives!"
"Sir, why wasn't I told about this reinforcement?"
"Because communication is unreliable sometimes! You have to make do with everything you have!"
"But Sir, we had nothing left. We couldn't possibly hold for 2 minutes…"
"That's why you failed, Sho-ko! There is no such thing as no-win scenario!" Seether growled in Kayoko's face. "You have betrayed the trust of your lance mates and those you protect!"
"Sir…"
"I want you and your team to discuss this simulation and come up with a better plan. We will run this simulation again, and next time I want to see courage! Determination! Resourcefulness! And above all: I want to see you fight until your last drop of blood is spilled! Do you understand, Sho-ko?!"
"Sir, yes Sir!" Kayoko tossed a quick salute, then scampered off the simulation room.
Seether threw his gaze at the rest of the lance. "You are the sorriest bunch of apes I have ever seen!" With that, he walked out of the simulation room, leaving the three mechwarriors dumbfounded.
Noloty correctly assumed that the simulated mission was discouraging for Kayoko, so she set her course to offer her friend some support. She found her sitting alone on one corner of the jumpship, puffing cigarette like an old steam locomotive. She looked at the dark space outside the window, and her gaze had no life.
"I'm sorry," Noloty said as she sat next to Kayoko.
"For what?" Kayoko scoffed. "The simulation was rigged. We couldn't have possibly saved Kobayashi Maru. On top of that, we were choked from critical information. I could've… we could've fought differently if we knew there was another friendlies in the area. It seemed that Seether wanted us to just fail."
"I believe there is a reason for it," Noloty mused.
"Like what?" Kayoko puffed a long trail of smoke.
"I don't know. Maybe to expect the unexpected?"
"Then why did he treat me like I was an embarrassment for the Ryuken-go brigade?"
"You're taking this too far," Noloty sighed. "You are not an embarrassment. You're a good lance commander. You led your lance to destroy 2 companies of enemies plus one frigate, without a single casualty. We still had Kobayashi Maru at that point. That speaks volumes of your leadership, Kayoko. Seether is not blind."
"We both know that you are the better mechwarrior between us. The reason I hold a higher rank is simply because of seniority. Maybe you should take command…"
"Kayoko, please," Noloty held Kayoko's hand. "This is not the time for self depreciating. We have a job to do. We are doing the same mission again, and we must fight better. For my part, I missed a few shots on that mission, and that severely reduced my combat effectiveness. I guess I'm used to lasers and PPCs where I don't have to deal with ammunition. I have to shoot better."
Kayoko looked at Noloty for the first time since they talked. "What else do you think we should do differently?"
Noloty offered a comforting smile. "I may have ideas, but wouldn't it be better to share them with the rest of the team? Who knows they have better perspectives."
Kayoko rested her head on Noloty's shoulder. "The best decision I have made so far was to fight Scarlet to get you on my team. I'm your lance commander, but you don't need permission to speak freely at all times. You think of something, you come to me. Immediately. And promise me, don't ever call me 'Ma'am'."
"Understood," Noloty replied. "You know, we have the rest of the day off. Do you want to run scenarios to beat the 'no-win' Kobayashi Maru, or do you want to take the load off? Play pool, watch movies, gym?"
"You know me, I need a stud to take the load off, preferably a Ghost Bear elemental," Kayoko let out a lewd snicker. "But since he is not available, I'll settle for movies. In fact, there are some Solaris VII recordings from the '50's I want to watch. There was this guy in a Black Knight with really fancy moves. Rumor has it said he was an alumnus of Capellan Death Legion…"
"Death Commando?"
"Death Whatever."
"Well now I'm intrigued," Noloty rose and coaxed Kayoko to her feet. "Show me. We may learn something from him."
"Hey," Kayoko looked straight into Noloty's eyes. "Thank you. For being a friend."
Noloty gave her an assuring nod. "It's my honor to serve you, both as a commander and a friend."
