Night Life 5
The AT bays at headquarters were quiet. It was a rarity, as usually there were things to be fixed or checked, armored troopers being armed for duty. But it did sometimes happen, when things were quiet for awhile, when there weren't dead pilots to be cut out of their suits.
I'm getting too cynical for this. K-11-2 thought it, and was cynical as he did so because he knew it wasn't true. To anyone who watched it seemed a simple unannounced inspection, the section leader poking and prodding the suits as he went past, checking their readiness.
To K-11-2, it was more akin to prayer. It had the same meditative qualities, the same silent beseeching. As he walked past each suit, between the usual checking of armor plates, the tugging on the weapons, the examining of the visor, there was a moment where he would silently place a hand on its breastplate and ask it to bring its wearer back alive.
It almost certainly didn't help. But he was out of other things that might. He'd upset the Chief by consistently going over the training time allotments and the budget for it. He'd begged, borrowed, stolen, and chicaned his way into as much better gear as he could get his hands on; twenty-millimeter military issue cannon, tungsten rounds, spare parts and electronics packages that weren't in the budget. He barely spent an hour a day on activities that did not directly relate to commanding the K-11 team, and that much because he knew if he did less then it was likely the psych types would decide he'd gone off the deep end.
Responsibilty weighed heavily on him. They thought he could teach them enough to survive. K-11-2 wasn't sure he had anything to teach. His survival was based on his instincts, not on something he could explain to others. But he had to teach them anyways, and hope his teaching was enough that some of them would make it.
K-11-32's suit. Hand against the breastplate. I don't have many friends left. Bring him back. K-11-44's suit. Hand against the breastplate. He's a good kid. Excitable, but smart. Be good to him. Bring him back. K-11-48's suit. She's a mother. Her kids need her. Bring her back. K-11-50's suit. She's still young, full of fire. She thinks she can save everyone. Bring her back. And so on for all fifteen suits.
His own, however, only received such a benediction when he wore it. Convenience, perhaps. Or perhaps he simply felt it needed to be invoked a little more often then these rare moments. He had the chance to do this once a month, if that. He deployed several times a week, sometimes as many as five. If this by chance happened to do any good, he wanted all the good he could get out of it for those deployments.