Emblems Saga: Call of the Emblems

The Katti's Chosen

"Fighting in space can best be likened to trying to climb up a greased slide with your hands and feet tied together.
You either make it or die in the most spectacular explosion you'll never see."

She released the breath she was holding as the doors to the lift opened and revealed the hangar bay. The hangar occupied the only other deck of her ship and was situated directly below the main deck. It was basically just a square chamber large enough to hold around 4 mechs comfortably, though she'd seen her father stuff as many as twenty. There was no room to walk through the hanger back then.

After ten years of bartering for food, fuel, and replacement parts, she'd been forced to start scavenging her father's mech. As the mech was the only one left in the entire hanger, it stood out from the stark emptiness like an abrupt pillar covered in a sheet of cloth to keep the dust away. The outline of its flight form seemed to strain the fabric in the artificial gravity, making it appear as if it was fighting to be free of neglect and seclusion.

She slowed as she approached the craft. Aside from coming every few months to find something to trade away for her life on the ship, she rarely came down here at all. Now… she supposed this thing would be getting the attention it appeared to desire.

With a firm grasp and a swift tug, the sheet came flying off. The rippling of cloth and the whirl of the fabric dropped away to reveal the Swift Sword "Myrmidon" Class Fighting Unit. It was long and sleek, smaller than the average sword using mech in order to attain greater speed, and had two sets of back swept wings, that when transformed turned into the arms and legs of the more humanoid Fighter Mode of the mech.

As she settled into the cockpit, the on board computer began to boot up. She ignored it for the time being to focus instead on attaching the restraining straps she'd installed not too long after her parents were killed. She understood now that the inertial dampeners built into the mech would prevent her from being thrown about, but she could never get the image of being thrown out into space if she bumped into something.

Once she was done strapping in, the computer beeped at her and the canopy lowered. It hissed as it sealed shut, and the fans behind her head began whirring as the air recycling system kicked in. For a second or two, she was consumed by darkness until the monitors on the inside of the canopy lit up, revealing what was on the other via several linked screens that projected what several cameras on the outside saw.

She breathed deeply, never having gotten over the unsettling feeling of being trapped inside of a small space, and then pulled a pair of long cloth gloves out of a side compartment. While she was pulling the shoulder length gloves on, a crane overhead descended and grabbed the mech with magnetic claws. She jostled inside the cockpit as the crane lifted her and the mech up and started moving backwards.

Just as she finished pulling the second glove on the crane stopped moving backwards. With a suddenness that made her stomach drop, the crane let go and she dropped out of a hole in the hangar floor. She gasped and latched onto the throttle to her right and the control stick on her left. Her mind raced as she took in the sudden change of scenery from the much brighter hanger to dark space. The computer beeped at her, blinking as a holographic display came to light in front of her, showing a representation of the space immediately around her, with a symbol at the center of the holographic cube that represented her.

She took another long breathe to calm her nerves and adjusted herself in the seat, feeling out with the soles of her feet the foot pedals on the floor and re-grasping the throttle and control stick. For a second, thoughts bubbled to the surface of her mind, questioning what she was even doing in this situation. Could she really fly this thing? This wasn't just any simulation, it was real. Could she? Really?

"Warning," announced Bee over a small speaker embedded into the front console. "Pirate Mech closing to within five kilometers. Recommend: Flee."

"I'm not running away, Bee," she snapped. Despite her annoyance at the AI, she was still grateful for the interruption of her thoughts. Shaking her head slightly to rid herself of the remnants of those thoughts, she pushed the throttle forward and took a moment to enjoy watching the belly of her ship disappeared from view as the mech's rocket accelerated her forward. "Give me their coordinates, Bee."

"Affirmative. Enemy engaged. Painting target."

The holographic display flashed and then a blinking red sphere appeared directly in front of her. Next to it was a small panel describing some basic characteristics of the craft, such a relative velocity and observed mass. These things were important in a space battle, since there was no gravity, mass and velocity become more important. Not that she'd ever paid attention to them, other than to give her an idea of how tough the opponent in the simulation would be.

"Incoming transmission: 'Well look at this, Batta! One of them's got a ship and is coming out to play.'

'Heh, well, have fun. I'll stay back and watch from here.' Transmission ended."

"Bee," she said, her voice shaking. Her hands trembled as the two symbols on the holographic got closer and closer. "Bee, why can't I see him?"

"He running silent. Launch Torch Flare to gain sight." She blinked once before she realized that it was the cat man speaking to her over the communicator from her ship. She released the accelerator for a moment to tap a button on the console in front of her. The image of the cat man suddenly appeared on the canopy screen to her right. "Torch Flare will grant sight to those who see not," he said.

She scowled as she looked down at the console in front of her. Panic swelled up from inside of her and ultimately frustrated her. She could see the pirate was almost a kilometer away and she still couldn't see him, but instead of looking for him, she was looking for some kind of launcher button for a flare. She'd never seen anything or heard of anything like that before and she finally gave up searching when the holographic display began blinking red and beeping.

"I can't find it!" she shouted. The holographic display suddenly went solid red. "Damnit!" She pushed the throttle to its maximum and pushed forward on the control stick. Without missing a beat, she snapped her hand out and slapped the large red button in the center of the console in front of her.

"Incoming transmission: 'Holy shi-It's a mech! This one's lively. Boss sure is nice letting me have all the fun."

The transformation took less than five seconds. The cockpit dropped forward, allowing her to stand directly on the pedals. The upper two wings split in half, becoming the arms, hands, and shoulder blades. The lower wings split and bent, becoming leg like and the main thruster assembly moved up a set of tracks to the lower back of the newly transformed mech.

"Incoming transmission: 'Well well well… At least tell me who you are? I want to know who'd try and fight me in such a piece of junk.' Shall I open a connection?"

She took a moment to consider saying no, but the fact that he called her mech a piece of junk, despite that it was, just rubbed her the wrong way. "Yes, Bee. Also, I still can't see the bastard. How the hell am I supposed to fight this guy?"

"Connection established."

On the left side of the canopy, a small window appeared with the face of a man in it. It looked like a man, anyway, if one could look past the abhorrently thick scar running down the middle of his face. The scowl, since that was all he seemed to be capable of doing, grew thicker once the pirate had seen her in return.

"A girl! You're going to try and defeat me little girl in a 20 year old mech piece of trashy garbage? Hahahahahahah! Don't make me laugh! You'll make my scars hurt! Hahahahaha!"

She snarled and hit the comm. panel, shutting down the connection. Fear forgotten, her blood boiling, she pushed the right pedal down as far as it would go with her foot. With her arms out, she reached to her side and made a grasping motion, the arms of the mech doing the same, and in a single flourish pulled her hand back just as she'd done when drawing the katana earlier in training.

A brightly glowing beam of greenish hued energy erupted around the edges of the physical sword that was drawn by the mech. The sword itself was as long as the mech itself was in flight mode and despite the size, looked rather dainty and easily breakable in the her mech's hand. The blade, called a Vibration Sword or Vibro-Sword, glowed green from the vibrating particles it emitted that gave the weapon a sharper harder edge, despite the vacuum. These particles came from the reactor at the core of her mech, half of which the fuel display told her was now being shunted to the glowing sword.

The combined action of hitting the pedal on the floor and drawing the blade out and activating it made her mech burst forward and slash upward with the vibro-sword. But the action did nothing to the pirate because he wasn't there and only managed to cost her precious fuel.

"No! Bad… Gah!" The cat man suddenly broke down into the stuttering gibberish he was speaking when she first heard him talking. "Translation: "You idiot! Now he can see exactly where you are! Turn that damn blade off, now!"

"What?" she shouted, realization dawning on her. "Oh n-"

She was cut off when something smashed into the side of her mech. Sparks flew, warning sirens blared, and lights blinked haphazardly as she fought to keep control of her mech. The retro-rockets on all sides of her mech that controlled her position in space fired crazily as the autopilot attempted to correct, but only made things worse.

"Hehe, too bad girly," the pirate gloated. "Looks like you can't I win and you lose. Not like any other outcome was possible, what with the garbage heap you're flying around. Time to die."

A red blare of light filled her canopy as a vibro-axe, which operates similarly to a vibro-sword, came to life. The pirate mech, big hulking box like robot, was revealed in the red light as the pirate swung the vibro-axe over his mech's head.

"Bye bye," gloated the pirate just as she managed to calm her mech down into a defensive stance, with her vibro-sword held out in front of her. Without waiting a moment, the thrusters behind the vibro-axe wielding pirate came to life and propelled the pirate mech forward. The pirate lifted his axe up for a blow that she knew would surely kill her.

"No!" she shouted. "This can't be the end! I still haven't found that bastard who killed my parents yet!" Despite this, after looking down at the control console that had shifted as to be in front of her just like when she was sitting in flight mode, seeing the fuel gauge near empty deflated her bravado. Regaining her spatial balance had cost her too much fuel and now this battle looked over, and she wasn't coming out on top. "No," she groaned. "I can't have come this far only to die. What do I do?"

"De-activate sword, fly like free spirit over pirate position, and strike from shadows," the cat man said, his voice urgent. "Do it now!"

Seeing no other alternative, she moved her hand so that the green glowing sword in the mech's hand twisted to the right and de-activated. At the same time as that, she pressed another of the pedals on the floor and grunted as the straps bit into her side when her mech went sideways, the inertial dampeners sluggishly trying to catching up.

She watched, slightly amazed as the pirate sailed right passed her and slashed at the space she previously occupied. Then the rest of the cat man's orders registered in her mind and she realized that now she had the upper hand. She cried out as she stopped flying sideways and pushed her mech forward.

Her sword re-ignited for only a couple seconds but it was long enough for her to slash the boxy mech completely in half. The pirate's death scream followed by static filled her cockpit speakers and she breathed a sigh of relief. Her heart was racing and her hands were shaking, but she'd done it. She'd won her first real space battle.

Before she could pat herself on the back though, the fuel gauge blinked red, notifying her that it had started to draw from her reserve fuel tank. That tank she kept half empty as it was, so she'd need to hurry back to the ship if she wanted to keep alive.

"Bee, I'm low on fuel. I'm coming back in for a fill up."

"Affirmative. Fueling droids prepared to receive. Shall-Warning! Warning! Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Pirate has boarded this vessel. All hands prepare to repel!"

She swore under her breath as she pressed the transformation button again. As soon as the mech was back in flight mode, she pushed the throttle to the max. The inertia from accelerating so quickly made black spots appear over her vision, but she ignored them as she watched from this distance a second boxy pirate vessel disappearing into the hanger bay where she'd exited from.

A/N: From here, I'm going to delve into more plot taking place elsewhere, so be prepared for this cliff hanger to hang over your heads for a couple chapters. Twists Ahoy!

Next Chapter: The actors are assembling. Across the galaxy, people are led by fate toward a crossroads.

Constructive criticism and comments welcome. Thanks for reading.