Quoted By:
Interlude- Thunder in the Mountains
The vibrations from the massive feet moving transferred up to the cramped cockpit. Her mech followed along the side of the road, ranging slightly ahead of her slower support.
Her comm crackled.
“You seem to be taking to the Deva fairly well. Armstrong was a miracle worker to get it fixed as fast as he did.”
“It’s slow and the cockpit is so cramped that I’m running it on VeeDeeEye only. You can’t run this on manual, and if you were watching me earlier, you know this is shit piloting.”
“You’re looking fine, Thea. The bitching doesn’t suit you. This is the most I’ve heard you complain about a mech since I met you.”
“I spent the last month enjoying the benefits of the best copilot in the empire, and the second largest cockpit I’ve ever gotten to pilot from. To go back to painkillers and a crash harness deserves the complaint.”
“A core isn’t a copilot.”
“I know you had a shit experience with Delta….”
“Syncing with Delta was like diving into an oil slick. That occasionally set itself on fire. While you were trying to get to the surface.”
“Beta is great. No complaints. Worked out boundaries beforehand, helped me with my augs without prompting.”
“So great you went to bat for him against the old man. And that you’re willing to take a downgraded mech in the offtime.”
“Not like Kinston has a spare Dominus walker lying about. We couldn’t paint one of those blue and call it a Frame. They’re in every parade, even a civvie would call it in as one. I can’t fake a Frame being active without something exotic. An Angel isn’t in the standard warbook.”
“As you say.”
The Mastermind walker several hundred yards behind her stopped its march, turning towards a nearby woods thicket.
“I’ll stay in cover until you bait them in. My seismics say we’ve got two lances, at least. Don’t be a hero.”
His machine twisted, crunching its way into semi-concealment. The skull-face of the machine ducking inside of trees.
Hopefully they don’t watch their mag-scanners.
She did one last checkover of her Angel.
Extending and retracting the blade, loading and unloading the gauss rifle, and gave the ground a quick burst of particles to test the secondary battery. It was all so slow by comparison.
That core spoiled her.
A pill dampened the pain of the Interface, and Thea stepped forwards to face the coming storm.
A/N
Spoilers stuff that will mean nothing to anyone who doesn’t play Battletech. So, I actually played this out on the tabletop in Megamek. Thea’s a 3/3 Manei Domini pilot with VNDI, Pain Shunt, Multi-modal eyes, along with 1 point of Edge, piloting a Deva-Invictus. Caldwell’s a 2/3 elite pilot in an Atlas II with 1 point of Edge. They’re running more advanced units than their opposition, but the battlefield is the battlefield.
This is a writing experiment and will only happen in interludes, because Beta’s not around.
