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<span class="mu-s">Side Story: The One That Got Away</span>
Written by an anonymous guest writer and edited by Cognis.
Laila was having a bad day. Up until last week the war had been text book; drop out of an aircraft, support the cavalry with artillery, put a hunter killer into any miners that demonstrated they could actually fight. Then the battle of Yagvosk happened. The Neviki bastards had hit the town hard with a unit of wack job mercs in tow. Next thing she knew her unit had been pushed back to Yagmur airbase where those same mercs managed to halt a red rider charge before blasting her out of her cobra as she tried to flee. The last thing she saw as she looked back after ejecting was her platoon mate’s machine getting taken out by an enemy flyer as it ran from a pair of IFVs.
Days of evading neviki patrols and brush survival on the plateau had only made her mood worse. She thought she’d finally had some luck when a passing supply convoy of neromians had picked her up. Turns out that after the airbase fell all forces were busy pulling back from the Yagmur region. There were no spare mecha for her so the commander had done the easy thing and passed her off to be someone else’s problem. This saw her heading back to Zivograd in a creaky old buggy crammed beside wounded bouncing on shit suspension to await re-attachment. She’d stood patiently at a neromian occupied dockyard waiting for the honourless logistics officer to get sick of giving her the silent treatment, just to hear that she still couldn’t get a new mech: procurement was busy offloading frontliner units and cavalry, and Khan Makmud’s vanguard were being given tertiary priority; the need for specialists in light armour being less than the need for frontline meatheads eager for the grinder now that the invasion’s toehold had turned into a foothold.
This left Laila essentially useless, in the rear with the gear, missing out on any chance of glory, of uniting with her company and exacting recompense. With nothing to do but mope and await a billet assignment. She’d done the most natural thing when you’d want to mope, and found a bar to drink some of the frustration away.
She was too busy doing just that, seated on a stool in a dockside bar, sipping cheap brew when a man’s voice broke her out of her reverie.
“Feeling down, beauty? Maybe a free drink will cheer you up?”
She responded without looking up from her drink, too tired to bother masking her dark mood.
“Move along bondsman, I’m not interested in a roll.”
“Well it’s a good thing I’m not lookin’ to roll you… well not today at least. You’re Laila Soldati am I right?”
>Cont
