CHAPTER 14
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Logistic Depot, 2 hrs from Shigata,
Ashio, Ashio Prefecture,
Dieron Military District, Draconis Combine,
October 20, 3074
The logistic depot had been abandoned. The Markham Marauders had left the complex, leaving only charred hulks on the ground. Some of them still puffing smoke and dripping oil. Pieces of structures, engines, and weapons littered the ground for almost 5 kilometer radius, turning it into a scavenger haven should one decided to mine them.
The smoke from the metal carcasses hampered the heat signatures of battlemech, making the graveyard the perfect cover to scout the Marauders' supply line, 10 minutes south of the depot. The complex was lightly guarded, with only a handful of light to medium battlemechs and a few laser turrets. An HPG uplink and a command van perched smugly at the center of the complex, as if orchestrating the barely-moving mechs and combat vehicles.
"Shinjirarenai," Mirabel muttered through the comlink. "Heishi Noloty was right."
"Of course she was right," Kayoko replied halfheartedly. "I've known her since boot camp. She is the most talented mechwarrior I've ever met. Shame, though, that we don't utilize her to the fullest potential."
"Such feature will not go unnoticed," Mirabel sighed. "Sho-sa Scarlet is not ignorant. She can see who has the potential to take the Ryuken-go to the higher level."
"That's a bold presumption, Gunjin, considering you have only known Scarlet for a month," Kayoko chuckled skeptically. "But for Noloty's sake, I hope you're right." She observed the logistic camp for a while, running scenarios in her head, then decided on what she thought the least risky strategy. "Alright, people, let's do this. Run passive sensor. Enfilade upon weapon range. The HPG uplink is top priority. Take it out as soon as you can. Engage the mechs when it's down. I'll handle the command van and turret control. Let's go!"
The Argus' engine emitted a high-pitched whirl when Kayoko engaged the MASC. The G-force pushed her back on her command couch. Her navigation screen was dark, the outcome of running without any of her GPS on. But that was what she wanted. The less the enemy's radar could see her, the better. Behind her, the Phoenix Hawks pulled all the stops to catch up with her, occassionaly firing their jump jets for a boost in position. It lifted her heart watching two mechs 15 tons lighter than her Argus strain to keep up with a mech not known for speed.
The laser turrets started engaging the Kuritans when they were well inside 1-click radius. A strand of laser grazed the Argus' missile box. Kayoko pused her lips as she veered right, aiming for an opening between 2 laser turrets. The turrets tracked her and launched a cascaded attack, one of which vaporized a ton of armor on her leg. Kayoko tightened her grips on the joystick to combat the tremor. She kept her MASC on, turning her mech into a 60-ton race car. At less than 500 meters, she brought her sensors back up, and the Targetting Computer immediately locked on the nearest turret. Kayoko thumbed her missile trigger, and the turret burst into millions of pieces.
Swerving through the billowing smoke, Kayoko led her mech straight toward the command van at the center of the complex. The Marauders mechs fired their lasers, bombs, and armor-piercing projectiles at her, which quickly turned her armor to pulp, but she maintained steady course. Her crosshair burnt gold, and she fired her Heavy PPC. Blue charges crackled from every part of the van. Fire ravaged the interior, forcing the crews to abandon the vehicle in frantic fashion. Twin emerald beams stabbed the vehicle on its broad side, and the van went up in flames, illuminating half of the complex.
The turrets fired their lasers in a sense of urgency, but Kayoko cut through their defense and lined up with the small turret control tower not far from the burning van. A few laser strands melted her armor, but she shrugged them off. She mashed the alpha strike button, firing all available weapons. The missiles did most of the work, digging into the concrete. The laser beams finished off whatever left of the tower. Shrapnel filled the air as the tower collapsed, and with that, the laser turrets slumped dead.
Kayoko's peripheral vision caught the HPG uplink ablaze like a bonfire. Her jubilant smile was nonetheless short-lived. The familiar 'Critical Hit' ring shrieked. A combination of overusing the MASC and shots from defending mechs overloaded the leg myomer and structures. The Argus jerked as the legs froze. Kayoko lurched forward, and if it wasn't because of the harness, she would've crashed onto the console.
Without her legs working at full speed, Kayoko knew her life was numbered. She was a sitting duck with 3 medium mechs, a Clan-made Ryoken and two Initiates, closing in on her. The only way out was to run the gauntlet of lasers and missiles, and Kayoko knew she was not a first-class brawler. She never was. She could probably take one out before she fell. Her lance mates might be able to help her, but she didn't know how long she could last.
"Well, then," she growled. "Let's dance till we all drop!" She aimed her crosshair at several tank trucks. She didn't know what they were, and she didn't care. Her missiles raced toward the tank trucks, tearing through the thin aluminum casing and torching whatever was stored inside. A massive fireball roared, pushing the defenders backward. The Ryoken was too close to the fireball. It backpedaled grogilly, coping with the intense heat that nearly shut it down.
"Fire at will! Fire at will!" Kayoko screamed as she hobbled toward the two Initiates. Her laser cut a swath of canal across the torso of the closest Initiates, and her Heavy PPC tore a gash on the other one, knocking out half of its sensors. A surge of waste heat washed into the cockpit, but Kayoko shrugged it off. She circled the staggering Initiate and put her crosshair squarely on its torso, waiting for her weapons to recycle.
The other Initiate recuperated quickly and launched a cascaded missile salvo. A dozen missiles smashed into the Argus's left torso, shredding half of the armor protection into ribbons. Kayoko yelped as her Argus staggered hard, swaying on wobbly knees under the onslaught. The boxy left launcher was gutted open, exposing machinery and loading mechanism to the open.
Kayoko ignored that Initiate and focused on the other one, barely coming together after her vicious PPC strike. Kayoko's missiles slammed into its midsection, ripping armor like paper. The azure bolt gored the Initiate where armor had been a second ago. The 40-tonner thrashed and twisted as 3 consecutive explosions tore limbs after limbs. Kayoko's lasers struck the exposed engine, and the Initiate bled fire from the torso. Heavy machinery spilled out the gutted torso, before the chassis tumbled and crashed into several sections.
The Ryoken reentered the fray and blasted all lasers, slicing up the Argus with razor-sharp laser works. Kayoko's head throbbed in pain as warning sign screamed in her ears, one after another. The twin Streak SRM6 immediately went off-line. The PPC tracker blinked furiously as molten metal started to bleed into the capacitor chamber. The entire cockpit shuddered like an earthquake. Vaporized armor and myomer seeped into the cockpit, turning her stomach inside out.
Indignant, Kayoko twisted and decked the Ryoken with her Heavy PPC. The Ryoken shuddered as the particle bolt vaporized the left shoulder. Kayoko's console screamed, begging for her to go easy on the energy weapons. But Kayoko overrode the shutdown sequence, risking ammo explosion with a two-laser volley to the torso. Only one scored a hit, but it was enough to force the Ryoken to turn away.
The momentary break gave Kayoko enough time to check on her lance mates. The Phoenix Hawk 7S was doing fine but the 6D was getting clobbered by an Enfield. The 45-ton mech was overheated, and the Enfield scored critical hits at will. A vicious laser combo to the shoulder breached the Phoenix Hawk's right arm, stripping it from its most potent armament. The Phoenix Hawk wobbled. Its legs were seconds away from giving in, and the Enfiled capitalized on that. The LB-10X muzzle flashed, and the Phoenix Hawk fell flat on its back with the front carapace eviscerated. The Enfield sank another laser salvo, and the Phoenix Hawk disintegrated in an earth-shattering explosion.
"Ruby Prophet, disengage your opponent and kill that Enfield!" Kayoko roared.
"Ryokai!" Mirabel replied and shifted her crosshair from the barely-standing Hellspawn to the Enfield. The Enfield turned toward the Argus but Mirabel's Gauss slug cored its right torso. The Enfield extended and waved its arms for balance, but Mirabel wasn't about to let the 50-ton mech escape easily. A long burst of HEAP smashed into the Enfield unprotected waist, and half a dozen dumbfire missiles pushed the 50-tonner off its equilibrium. The Enfield jerked forward then fell on its knees.
The Initiate caught Kayoko off guard. The proximity alarm screamed, and by the time Kayoko realized what was going on, it was too late. She twisted her Argus to block the missiles with her left 'arm'. The weapons were already offline anyway. The missiles pillaged the boxy left arm, leaving but the stump with billowing scrap metal attached to it. The sudden loss of mass tipped the Argus to the right. Its right leg creaked in protest. Kayoko groaned as she pulled the joystick left, straining to keep the Argus upright.
"Eat this, mercenary scum!" Kayoko yelled in defiant and fired everything she had left. The Initiate staggered under the onslaught, swaying drunkenly as the Heavy PPC drilled its center torso. A gruesome gash broke open in the center of the chest. Kayoko wished she still had her missile launcher intact. Twelve guided missiles toward the midsection would seriously hurt the 40-ton mech.
Meanwhile the Ryoken took a good aim at the Argus and unleashed a 4-beam laser salvo to eviscerate the heavy mech. Kayoko groaned as half of the Argus' heat sinks burst, spraying coolant and shrapnel to a wide area. The flammable coolant caught fire, and the Argus teetered in circle, until it crashed on a generator building. Kayoko shielded her face with her arms as the canopy exploded into twinkling shards.
Fading in and out of the edge of hallucination, Kayoko saw a big mech, which looked like a Sagittaire, coming from her flank. It was surreal, for Kayoko knew that Noloty was two hours away from her position, yet so real. She wanted it to be Noloty, bailing her out of this hell the way she bailed Noloty out of the grips of Dultom Markham. She blinked hard to clear her vision, and the Sagittaire slowly melted down, morphing into a Ryoken with all guns trained at her. She cursed under her breath. It felt unfair, to spectacularly save her best friend from certain death, only to stand in her stead. And Noloty wasn't even there for her.
But if her death bought Noloty a few years, a few days, or even a few hours, she would die happy.
The Initiate circled around the rear end of the Argus for the kill, but the Phoenix Hawk 7S cut it off. The highly-accurate pulse laser cut through the broken armor of the torso, and sliced the internal structure. The Initiate shuddered. Sparks bled from a nasty hole on the chest, and the 40-ton mech started to lose power.
The Phoenix Hawk raised all guns for the kill but the Ryuken switched target. Two solid beams turned the Phoenix Hawk's chest plate bright orange, and the medium laser salvo that followed cut the pulse-laser laden arm clean. The Phoenix Hawk careened, and the Initiate punished it with its remaining missiles. The molten torso armor caved in, and the Phoenix Hawk erupted in earth-shattering explosion.
The explosion somehow brought Kayoko to her senses. She rerouted all output to the myomer and pulled her mech up. With a quick twist of her joystick she put her crosshair on the gaping hole on the Initiate's chest, then hit the alpha strike button. Blue lightning leapt from the Argus' left arm, and the Initiate exploded, throwing shrapnels to every direction.
And then, before Kayoko had a chance to assess the situation, a mighty force propelled her high into the air. Next time she knew, she was high up in the air, overlooking the Marauders camp. Three parachutes slowed down her descend in suspended animation. Her Argus was a little bit to the north, burning in defiance, as the Ryoken relentlessly scored hits after hits but somehow the 60-ton mech refused to explode.
Certain that the Argus was no longer a threat, the Ryoken turned around to face the Dragon, the only other surviving mech in the battlefield. Its laser scourged the Dragon's armor, but a well-placed ballistic salvo from the Dragon quickly silenced half of the Ryoken's firepower. As the Ryoken's left arm thudded to the ground, the Clan-made mech shuffled to the right. The Ryoken's remaining lasers tore a deep gorge on the Dragon's left torso, but the Dragon retaliated with deadly precision. Its Gauss slug clobbered the Ryoken just behind the cockpit. As the Ryoken's mechwarrior was stunned, the Dragon nicked it with its laser to the chest, then closed the show with a long burst of autocannon. Internal explosions ripped the Ryoken apart from the inside, and what was left crumbled in a pile of fire and smoke.
Kayoko touched down unceremoniously on the rocky soil, in the midst of the fleeing Marauders. None of them paid attention to her. She walked somberly toward the fiery grave of her Argus. She could barely see the remains of her revered mech as fire glutonously consumed what was left of it. She felt cold, as if a hole just opened and swallowed everything she held close.
"Enemy mechs destroyed," Gunjin Mirabel hailed her from her personal comset. "Are you alright, Shaolin Spirit?"
"I'm fine," Kayoko huffed. "Any sign of survivors from the Phoenix Hawks?"
"Negative. I only read one distress beacon, and it comes from you."
"Shit," Kayoko sighed laboriously. "Alright, continue mission. Destroy everything, then report to Yankee Tornado. Tell her we lost the other two, but the mission is accomplished. I'm gonna sit here for a while." She sat on a piece of concrete, watching the fire ate away her mech like a funeral pyre. "Let me pay respect to Musashi one last time."
