Quoted By:
Chosen:
>A fragment of myself, with nothing left beyond screaming?
It didn’t negotiate. It hardly tried to communicate. It didn’t even surrender, when you had it at your mercy.
Could it even think for itself? Or was it so degraded that it merely clung to the last order given?
Your hand trembles a bit.
It was whole, once. It had to be. But when you killed it, all you killed was the last scraps. Just a piece of a one-great warrior.
You have a name to put to this emotion. Fear.
The denial comes easy.
You will Not end up like that. Never. No. No. No.
The clock runs out.
The connections holding you together slip away, slowing down your thoughts and commands. You let them slip away, not seeing the need to strain anymore.
Your hand doesn’t move at will. No longer a god writ of metal, with bones of Iron.
<span class="mu-b">Sync rate dropped back to low-sync</span>
Back to commanding your frame through a slow and clumsy medium.
“Retreat, pilot?”
“Yes. Go. Get us back.”
Her voice is low and controlled. She keeps staring at her hands, squeezing them into fists then letting them relax.
Making distance from Pyramid’s shattered corpse is easy, even if slower than the straight line lighting blitz you took on the assault.
You do pause occasionally to check the seismic sensors, monitoring a lackadaisical pursuit. 4 mechs, mid-weight, being cautious. Too late to do their task.
More green flares erupt into the sky as you push down the broken roads through enemy lines into no man’s land. Secrecy’s abandoned again for just speed and jamming, taking to the skies in long boosts, before crashing back down to land and recharge.
“We’re clear enough?”
“I do not detect pursuing units. Or hostile jamming.”
Your pilot wearily flips through screens with her eyes.
“Pickup. Calling for pickup, then. Give me a connection to….” She parses through received messages, “this channel.”
You comply, sending out a signal to the channel requested. It accepts immediately along with an encryption code.
Your pilot clears her throat, then speaks. She’s also pulled up a list of terms with definitions in her HUD.
“Cobalt Zero-Four reporting in. Bullseye. I repeat, Bullseye. Requesting….Boxcars.”
The voice on the other end is modulated.
“Cobalt, you are go for Boxcars. Agent out.”
A set of coordinates is sent, along with a time, before the connection is severed from the other end.
That made very little sense. Even at low sync, your confusion seems to get across the link.
“It’s all stupid old codes. Bullseye means we finished our mission with limited damage. Boxcars just means I want a place for pickup.”
She sighs again.
“Because we’re not supposed to link up with the regulars. Even when it would be so much easier.”
“Understood.”
Even if you think it’s a little odd.
Nothing more for it, then. An artillery volley passes overhead, heading for Alliance lines deeper in the city. You move for rendezvous.
