Chapter 7: Vijaik Ace – Part 2 – ‘Thee Scarlet Scourge’

Vijaik Ace - Chapter 2;
Bela's 'Jubilance' soon faded as she stared out at the scene before her - As she had fought one Casnel, while the other had taken its subordinate units and gone to intercept the Mithril.

Guaran and Wiseman had clearly given the effort of a lifetime alongside the ships own defensive weapons - However they had been quickly overwhelmed by the enemy's sheer numbers. The shock to Bela's own system had actually been an unrelated line of fire from one of the enemy mothership's anti-air guns - Which had clearly begun to panic after witnessing the destruction of one of their precious 'top-secret Casnel-cargo' at the hands of Bela.

For her part Bela began to dodge further attempts to strike her with ease, while starting the trip back towards the wreckage of her own home vessel. She absentmindedly grabbed at one of the passing syringes that had been dislodged in the earlier attack.
 The faded words: "Enhancer" and "Property of the Abhailien-Revolutionary-Special Division Forces" embedded on it.
She plunged it into herself without a second though, much like she had the previous one.

Her silence had been brought on by the sight of the battle's progress, she pondered that the radio must of been busy with noise this whole time, however her deep concentration in the previous bout had most likely prevented her paying any attention.
 The Mithril lay in scattered ruins, a riddling of energy fire having lazily obliterated the space-vessel. The lax remains of her comrade's Heavy-Vijaiks accompanying their home's remains. Scattered amongst the discarded metal plating and lifeless corpses - As well as atleast the remains of two enemy Ogres - She spotted her new query, her new prey.

The enemy was now made up of 4 unscratched Ogres units with their bulky frames and spiked shoulders - As well as the remaining Casnel - 'Unit 05' or so the number on it read.
 A couple of other unit's, some old MBT-2s like the ones her comrades had piloted only minutes ago, those these painted in green, and such-like that had been damaged in the fighting seemed to be retreating back to their own ships.
 'Bela' pondered the chance there migth be more unlaunched mechs still to come out and play but decided the best course of action now was to put all other thoughts out of her mind and begin her advance.

The second injections effects began to take hold, she readied herself for the arduous task ahead - 'No one kills my subordinates without paying the fine' - She thought to herself, but even as she did the drugs effects started to block all thoughts of fallen allies out, and leave only the enemy.

As she placed a hand atop the control stick, a voice crossed across her concentration;
"Oi, you in the red machine. Surrender a'rigth? Got orders to bring atleast one of you in and... Well, made a bit of a mess of these other two" - The voice uttered in a gruff tone, with just a hint of palpable pleasure towards the act of taking lives.

'Bela' grinned ruefully, the communication had come over an open channel but it was clear it hadn't been from a surviving ally.  She flipped the switch to open her reply, starting her sentence with something of a crooked laugh;
"You sound pretty young boy, ain't you afraid of what I just did to you buddy?" She asked in a cold slur.

The reply came back without hesitation, "Heh, that idiot was a rank amateur, no glory in talking out a machine that poorly manned even if it was a Casnel!"
 Much to her surprise the enemy pilot had answered boisterously.
She had been expecting him to just repeat his surrender order but his cocky arrogance excited her, the flurry of battle hurried her blood once more - All around her allies lay slain due to her carelessness, her lack of leadership - But in that moment none of it seemed to matter one bit as her lamentation towards her fallen comrades continued to fade silently away.
 
There was sport to be had.

****

Letting the G-force ram into her once more, Bela began her approach at Mach speeds. She spun and weaved through the vacuum of debris filled space. Deftly dodging the cacophony of counter-fire both from those she approached and the warship left in her dust - With the gap closed she drew forth her Calibre blade, the large chainsaw-bladed sword glowing as it powered up.

With a seemingly pre-planned accuracy she flung the heaving-sword forward which cartwheeled straight into one of the hapless Ogres. Piercing it's outer armour the machine flailed backwards, Bela made use of the break in fire to close the last of the distance between her and the quintet of enemy machines - Pulling up only at the very end so that her mech's feet collided straight into the already damaged enemy like a stepping-stone.
 Said enemy was now even further off balance, she clambered with the handle of the sword then boosted her machine downwards - Both dodging more incoming fire and dragging the Calibre blade like a guillotine through the green mecha's armour - And of course down on-top of the helpless pilot inside, killing the man instantly as his cockpit enclosed around him like a metallic tomb.

Not safe to stop Bela began her next maneuver, she threw the sword once more, out from one mech towards another with shocking force. Unluckily for her, the blade had hit the second enemy much less effectively - Yet had been enough to allow her hulking red-machine to skirt behind the enemy unit in an almost elegant gliding motion, like that of a murderous ballerina.

The Casnel and remaining foes were forced to watch as their own gun-fire careered into an ally, who's machine's backpack thrusters in turn exploded brilliantly. Bela broke from her temporary-cover leaving the disabled enemy suit to float harmlessly away, the pilot inside left hapless to fight any further.
 "That's two!" Bela snarled vehemently as she continued to move from side to side of her cockpit with energetic synergy in-time to the rapid dancing movements of her mech - Her safety belts and straps long made obsolete.

Once more she coursed forward towards the three remaining enemies, ducking and striding like an enraged gundog through a field filled with rabbits - Finally the enemy cottoned onto her movements.
 A line of well placed fire escaped Casnel '05's rifle colliding straight into Bela's right leg, which in turn exploded vibrantly in show of orange fire.
 Undeterred and with still a high degree of momentum carrying her, Bela continued onwards. Now getting too close for the Casnel to try another shot it seemingly panicked. The sleek black machine reached out and grabbed the nearest Ogre before essentially shoving it out in-front of itself;
 "Do something you idiots, what sort of wingmen are you?!" - The enraged voice of the Casnel's Pilot roared over the still open radio lines.

Pushing the Ogre to the fore served its intended purpose of blocking Bela's path but not for long. Without ever considering swapping course, Bela drew her remaining Arc-Staff.
 The Ogre fired it's outdated weapons but the Bela's Vijaik was faster, its Arc-Staff cutting a line straight through the underprepared Ogre and out the far side. The machine erupted it's way to an explosive oblivion.

"Wh-where'd that bitch go!?" Cried out the ever angered voice of the enemy 'leader'.

Bela had made use of the enemy explosion for cover, a leg missing and some damage taken to her machine's cameras by that last set of close range flak - Many would of taken now as an opportunity for a hasty retreat or more cautious tactics.

Instead Bela layed a hand gently over her eyepatch; 'And where would I retreat to exactly?'
 From it's perspective the last remaining enemy Ogre floated with it's back to the Casnel labelled as unit-5 - Searching the copious debris of the battle thus far for signs of the enemy mech.

Then he saw something glint, a machines head. Rapidly raising his cameras he caught sight of the enemy Heavy-Vijaik closing in on from what was to him upside down.
 Without time to react he watched as what looked like the machine reaching down and grabbed him by the helmet.
What followed was a serious impact as the Bela's red-Vijaik propelled itself round to a hold onto Ogres back - Raising it's Arc-Staff up to the cockpit menacingly and turning both machines to face the Casnel.
 The Ogre now effectively made for both Bela's shield and hostage.

"Heh,heh, HEH, didn't expect this to be so much fun missy! Gotta admit you ain't half bad, one more kill and you'll be an ace!" Came the still loud but now additionally snarky voice of the Casnel pilot over the radio.

'Bela' grinned broadly at the idea of this being only her 5th stolen life; "Ha! I've been an ace since you we're still in diapers punk." She replied lazily, ready to enter the fights final stage.

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With the Ogre rendered useless in its current conundrum, the remaining duo of fighters hung lifelessly for a time, eyeing each other up and waiting for the other to make the first move. The standoff held like this until finally the Casnel made its choice.
 With barbaric laughter raging over the comms, Unit-05 fired straight at the chest and by proxy cockpit, of his own ally's machine.

Then he fired again.
And again.

----

The betrayed mecha went up in flames, the energy rounds moving straight-through it and into the heavy-Vijaiks own torso. An explosion followed but to the Casnel pilot's surprise the red Vijaik held in one piece - Admittedly a-blaze, but not exploding and with no sign of an a newly exposed cabin.
 Evaluating the situation as quickly as possible the Casnel Pilot opted that the Vijaik must simply have thick frontal armour and made ready to finish the battle.

For her part Bela glanced around herself at the myriad of flashing warnings signs and other arbitrary equipment - That last attack had rendered her machine all but immobile and had the Vijaik been a normal design - With it's cockpit in the torso region - She would of surely already lost, 'luckily' the cabin for the heavy-Vijaiks could be unusually found in the head of the machine.

'Didn't expect him to blast his own friend like that. Tch guess that's it then' - Bela lamented to herself.
 
Of course she had a plan, she always did - She probably always would. When the Casnel moved in to finish her off, she could eject the escape pod - Using her own machines destruction as cover and then hope that the fresh debris field behind them would cover her escape.

'The only snag is why bother? How many pilots is it I've sent off to their deaths now I wonder?'
 Her early medication had began wearing off. The cloud of battle in a matter of moments began to lift - The reality that she was the only survivor remaining from her unit once again - At last hit home as she sat in a graveyard of her recently deceased comrades.

Casnel 05 made one last move - With a loud battle-cry of sorts from its pilot it surged Arc-Staff first straight through the Red-Vijaiks Heavy's main body.
 Bela held her hands on the eject lever, if she pulled it too soon the enemy would surely see her, too late and she'd be caught up in the explosion. The enemy sheathed his sword, it's work done. The torso of the Vijaik flickered brightly.
 The Casnel drifted back away to better observe it's handiwork.

A few more moments passed. Bela stared out contemplating the value that would remain in her life should she choose to escape. And than it flashed past her eye, almost dreamlike, the image of names scrawled in white and one in black.    Names with no one to remember them, soldiers who'd receive no parade.

She pulled hard on the eject lever, from his perspective the Casnel-Test pilot saw the final explosion of The good ship Mithril's lead machine - Unaware of the small red escape orb jettisoning out behind the dazzling scene.  
 The battle had ended.

****

Scarlet floated silently through the wreckage of her short lived home, periodically there would be a heavy Thump as pieces of debris glanced off the side's of her small life pod.

 After what felt like a few minutes of contemplative silence she reached around herself to collect the needles and other miscellaneous artefacts that had fallen from her glove box, and took to replacing them back in their compartment.

She held on to one in particular. Rather than a syringe it was a small-cylindrical plastic-tablet tub.
 The colour of it's plastic faded and the instruction label long since smudged and torn away.
 She taped with her free hand at some of the instruments available to her but they unsurprisingly had taken such a beating that she couldn't even be entirely sure the escape-pod was still air tight.

This in mind she opened her helmet's visor with little hesitation. Satisfied that her cabin was indeed still holding air, she gulped back a tablet from the small pot before laying back into her chair and watching her hands slowly stop shuddering and her ears finally stop ringing.
 Half-heartedly she flipped the encrypted distress signal on one of her keyboards.

'Now to wait.'

It would be some years till the full details of what would become known as 'The First Year of the Second War' would find their way to the official history books. Overshadowed by the momentous inciting incident of the war at Glas-Noa-Ni, of three Casnels being stolen - What became dubbed "The Skirmish of the 4th", would be listed as a fairly minor incident in most textbooks.
 Despite the rather unusual destruction of a Casnel seemingly being of fairly historical note, in truth TSU made large efforts to prevent that news becoming publicly known - And with the destruction of the entire present IAFS force, there would be no one in the years to come willing to officially document the story.

Those willing to dig a little deeper would of-course find some information on the skirmish:
 The names of the warships present and the presence of Casnels would never truly be wiped entirely - Furthermore one might even be able to find the names of both the Captain and mech-team commander of the ship 'Mithril' - Though both are listed as dead - And that's only If you dug hard enough.

However due to the nature of IAFS being a somewhat ad-hoc rebel group, no full records or staff listings would be created - As such to even the most intrepid of historians the names of most of the crews on either side of the battle became considered lost to time. With no-one feeling it worth the effort to investigate such a minor incident all that thoroughly.
 There would be no plaque. No military funeral. No bodies to send home. Simply a footnote in the books of future Space-farers to come:

*8 - Another battle would take place on the 4th day of the year 3E424 (Just three days after the 'Glas-Noa-Ni incident') between IAFS and TSU forces - Both en-route to resupply their respective flagships (IAFS's Tradech and TSU-S's Egypt).
 Due to a delay the two would engage in battle resulting in 'The Skirmish of the 4th' which led to the total destruction of the IAFS vessel 'Mithril', and its believed all her crew and deployed units.
 The TSU force is also thought to of suffered heavy damage, including the loss of a G-Type Casnel Mk2 labelled '04' - And was forced to abandon its rendezvous with the Egypt - Instead meeting with the much nearer allied ship 'Curadh' - A Submarine designated vessel which took possession of the Casnel labelled '05' and remains of '04' following this incident.
 
Footnote Extract from the book: 'Military strategy of the Third-Era - years 0400 - 0450 Published in the year 3E0470

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