Chapter 11: Front 6.5; Daily Life Aboard The Fluchtig – Part 2/2

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A blocky head made itself known around the corner of at tall metallic silver wall, quickly followed by a sleek grey body, in one hand a powerful pitch black rifle with a narrow nozzle piece.

 As the machine slowly rounded its cover, the stocky head's orange visor seemed to glint knowingly as the whole body of the beast hulked around to raise its rifle.

A flash of sparks erupted from that narrow nozzle and coursed forward a jet-stream of yellow light.
 Even as the light exited the weapon the body of the large machine recoiled as though in agony as a similarly bright line of orange struck back, smacking the monotone coloured mech square in the torso.
 It stumbled back a few paces, attempted to raise its weapon a second time, before finally a third hazy line closed the gap and destroyed the stricken grey Vijaik.

Una breathed a quick sigh of relief at this minor victory, though there was little time to relax. She moved her hand over a control lever on her right in order to increase the ventilation for that side's arm and meanwhile slipped her left hand over the reload sequencer.
 To her side came a hushed but stern voice of 'encouragement'.

"One."

 The voice belonged to Scarlet who stood hunched in the small angular space that lay behind the monitors of her Vijaik.
 At first the veteran pilot had observed Una's practise by looking down from the open hatchway above but over time she had increasingly dropped into seemingly unsuitable parts of the pilot's cabin to get a better perspective and to allow the cabin hatch to close for the full simulation experience.

Bizarrely in Una's opinion, Scarlet seemed to automatically fit into these tight spaces, never bumping her head off the ceiling or knocking any equipment by accident.

 The cockpit of the standard 'Neo-MBT' Vijaik consisted of one large monitor to the front and a series of smaller read-out and back-up camera screens scattered to either side of the pilot, held aloft to about waist height by a collection of spindled arms that could be moved about in-conjunction with one another.
 
In front of all these monitors stood the actually controls;
 Pedals on the ground which allowed the pilot to use all their limbs for controlling if talented enough - Massive railway-esk clasp levers that controlled the hydronics and cooling systems sat to her side.

And as she now turned her attention back to, after being sure to check all her smaller screens and data flows first, the two handle like objects and boards of switches that lay between the monitors and the pilot's seat.

 The two main handles could technically be used for everything given the right circumstances. They gave the impression of two large rods connected by a semi circle that the pilots held on to at one end.
 This half-sphere contained a litany of smaller indents that could allow for a whole array of functions to be activated but generally the two handles were used to control the mech's arms, as well as a method of activating the machines thrusters.

Like her first time aboard it, the simulation was still startlingly real even when teamed against regular computer opponents.
 The setting on this occasion was an old abandoned space station of some sort. Una found herself in its hanger bay, a frontless room that looked out on a vast expanse of space, while around her lay discarded crates and intricate walls - All making for the perfect cover in a close range firefight with some broader gaps to the edges of the gargantuan room to force trainees into using more long range tactics.
 Her turn to make a move, Una put her matt-green and navy blue 'Neo-Vijaik' around a corner of its own, sweeping the head unit from side to side for a complete view and looking to her spare cameras for more details as to what lay behind aswell as in front of her.

It was while reading a set of data that an alert sounded in her mech, a thin whining noise, emitting from a speaker above her to the left; 'Th-That means an energy pulse to the left side, right?'
 To confirm this she reflexively glanced to a graph like object that now pinged a single line of energy moving rapidly for her.
 It had only been a couple seconds since the alarms began but that alone had been too long. Reacting far too slowly she finally kicked her machine to the right, the enemy projectile scraping violently against her Vijaik's lower abdomen.

'Crap.' She cursed at her slow response time, quickly working to get her machine level again with the floor of the space station beneath it. The main monitor now picked up her query, another none-descript grey mech hiding behind an old abandoned transport at the furthest end of the large hanger.
 'It's even warmer in here with Miss.Scarlet. Must they make these simulations so awkward?!'

There was little time for her to bemoan her discomfort as the enemy loosed a second orange arrow of light across the hanger.  This time Una was a little more quick on the update, ramming forward the two controls shafts to force her rear thruster into their maximum output.
 This in turn lobbed her whole machine forward, narrowly avoiding a second impact but instead causing it to smack harshly into one of the large metal borders of the room - Her mech quite literally faceplanting into the surface.

The cockpit shock with force emulating what such an impact might actually feel like and nearly launching Una free of her chair.
 Shaking her head in an attempt to recompose herself, she began righting her mech's position once more.
 Then levelling her weapon on the point which her monitor had detected she took aim and pressed down on the firing indent.
 Like before her weapon released a faint beam of counter fire, in much the same fashion so too did the enemy.
For it's part Una's shot went wild, hitting the transport instead of the enemy, said transport exploded violently, seemingly destroying the enemy machine by complete accident.

Una whopped aloud before blushing at the action and glancing nervously towards Scarlet but the older woman seemed entirely unamused. Looking back to her screen Una tried to work out why, quickly assessing what damage the last encounter had left her with.

"Two...Just about."
 Before she could get far into this activity another impact left her stunned. To the direction of the hanger's open face a third enemy unit had appeared, it shot immediately this time causing severe damage to Unit's cabin bulkhead, a large metallic cylindric surface at the very centre of the mech, that prevented damage to the cockpit behind it.
 This time hoping to impress, Una foregoing reading the damage report of this latest hit, instead going straight to raise her weapon and return fire once more. 'Still 3 charge uses left, no need to check.'

Her gun didn't fire. The enemy's did.

Simulation Over;
Party A - (1st Crewman O' Conchabhair) - Unsuccessful

Una blinked at the report screen;
 "Bu-but, what? how, I-" She stumbled unbelievingly.
 Scarlet sighed ruefully from besides her before making her own way up to the roof of the cockpit, releasing the hatch-way and than taking a seat lightly on the rim of the entranceway above Una's head.

"Tell me girl why exactly do you keep trying to right yourself when there ain't no gravity?
 And what's the point of audible alarms if you stop to look at the reports? What exactly for that matter made you decided to suddenly not check the damage immediately once the threat of the second unit passed eh? And most of all, do you normally make a habit of breaking cover before doing a visual sweep in all directions, including the one you just came from?"

Una swallowed hard, it was a scatting evaluation, although far from the worst she had received recently.
 In an odd way it struck Una that while certainly still incredibly intimidating, Scarlet was actually a better teacher then she would of expected. She shouted alot sure and her oppressive spectating of the simulations was a little stressful, but in between there had been plenty genuine advice - Further the woman truly seemed to take note of every movement Una made during practise before pouring over the numbers and results of every simulation as evidenced by this most recent set of comments.
 It came to Una as she activated the simulators shutdown sequence and made her own way out the open hatchway to stand alongside Scarlet, that at the very least these last 5 days had shown her that in spite of all the fear the woman had instilled in her during that first training session, along with her brash an unruly personality - Scarlet was in reality still just a person, if an unusual one.
 No longer did she get shivers when around the former pirate, though she was secretly grateful to of not yet had to of faced Scarlet in any further practise bouts.

"Alrigth girl, now listen here. I don't know what the 'Princess' or any other 'official' would think of this but as I see it there are two types of pilot--"
 Una nodded along attentively as Scarlet broke the short-lived silence following the botched simulation;

"- There is Nilas and her highness's type, the one's who see it all as numbers, well not literally numbers but the type who calculate. When they want to do something, they think about how to do so right?
 They think about the order they'll hit enemy A,B and C in. On the other hand-"

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Una had noticed that at times like this the older woman had a habit of moving her arms around expressively -
"-- you got pilots like myself and that Sabban lad. We don't think about the machine, we feel it you understand girl?
 Instincts, I don't think that I need to press button A, then 2 followed by 3C, I just do it, I let the battle flow around me.
Well it's my reckoning that's what you are, you're intuitive, you can feel the controls but problem is you spend too much time trying to read the screens and than tryin' to pick out the right controls.
 In that last 'attempt' you spent half your time reading a novel and the other half trying to find the ground."
Scarlet stared intently at Una as if to confirm the statement.

Una realising she had heard Hoki say something similar about adaptability before and knowing she'd messed up the simulation, nodded her head in agreement.

Scarlet seemed satisfied with this and began to point empathically to the eye patch that lay over her left eye;
 "See this Rookie? According to the doctors I lose about 22.252 et-cet-er-ra-percent of my vision cause of this here.
Think that stops me piloting do ya?
 No the point is girl it's like all things. My eye's are just one sense, you can hear the sounds of the machine when it's been hit - Ya can taste the change in the air if your spacesuit switches to it's internal air supply.
 You can feel what each control does!"

Una did her best to keep up as this onslaught of theory continued, it seemed to her to go against everything the textbooks had taught them. Piloting was generally about precision, Vijaiks were complicated mechanisms, with dozens of small AI programs operating at all times.
 The pilot may choose where to put an arm but a dozen smaller sequences would occur automatically to make such an action possible - It was in that way they'd been thought to see themselves as computers, a central processor amongst the machine.

Scarlet however seemed to favour a different view;
 "Now that isn't me saying ignore the whole damn thing. You back there obviously knew ya had ammo left, and you thought you'd only taken one minor hit yes? But ya got over confident didn't you, not seeing you'd actually been hit again, a shot was fired by that second enemy, masked by the explosion just before it went down.
 Pegged your arm's servo. Your gun didn't fire cause the connection between it and the cabin was all severed by one minor hit of the dieing enemy"?

Una focused on Scarlet with awe, having been entirely unaware to what had happened.
 Scarlet having explained the post-mortem seemed to pause to contemplate how best to go forward. Una found a slight similarity between Scarlet and Kolme in the way they'd both periodically seize talking, in a struggle to best word something. Although she daren't of suggest any such link between the two out-loud.

At last Scarlet began again by lifting up one of her legs so that it sat folded across the other which still dangled over the edge of the Vijaik hatchway she'd made her temporary perch.
 Without any fanfare she rolled back the leg of her trouser, "Now look, this is what I mean righ-- What's wrong, why the face? You got some sort of problem girl? Hadn't picked you for being that sort."
 She finished, a tone of offence creeping into her voice.

"What? No, ah, er, well umm, I'm sorry.. I didn't know..." Una retorted receding into herself.

"You didn't? I thought everyone knew." Scarlet replied raising her visible eyebrow.

Una shook her head lightly, trying her best not to stare. Beneath the trousers, from the knee down lay a metal prosthetic leg, a sleek contraption of practical, thought not particularly comfortable looking make. Possibly an athletes prosthetic she considered to herself.
 Scarlet laughed that slightly hoarse cackle of hers, "Well if you really didn't know that's al'rigth then. Doesn't bother me either way what ya think of-course."

With a little hesitance Una seized her standing and lowered herself to sit down alongside Scarlet - "Where you, ummm, born with it like that?" She asked tentatively.

Scarlet mussed the question momentarily, "Hmm, no. That's the point I wanted to make to ya, as soldiers you need to understand that every part of our bodies is a weapon."

"A Weapon? I don't think I understand....."
 As if to answer Scarlet now rolled up her jacket sleeve aswell, beneath which lay her tanned arm, covered in deep burn marks and old, wide scars. Una nearly clasped her hands over her mouth in response.

"Look girl if you could stop getting so worked up I might finally get to my example - This is why I end up having to conceal all this cack, 'tis less effort than all the gawking." Scarlet added exasperatedly.
 Una nodded as best she could, still unsure what all this was in aid of.

"What I'm getting at is this--" She traced a line along a particularly harsh looking scar that covered the whole length of her forearm;
 "Got this one back when we made landfall on Bhaile. At that point in the war the Union forces still didn't have their own mechs, well not ones that could match a Vijaik anyway - So their best option was to send speical forces lads to kill the pilots in their sleep or steal our machines in the middle of the night.
 I mean there we were on a foreign Planet, right in their back yard so I can't tell ya the number of times we were 'rudely awoken'. Anyway the point is one night the wall of this old building we had set-up as a base, it just blows apart while we're all asleep."

"The initial spray of bricks and mortar got a couple of us, than came the attack task-group. Well me and the rest were no slouches! We were awake and flipping over tables & beds in no time, returning fire against the incursion while dressed in nothing but our plain cloths, some of the guys where in no more than their boxers or briefs considering we weren't used to the heat.
 Enemy quickly realised they were in for a fight, so through the hole in the wall comes in a grenade. Shrapnel everywhere, split one poor feck's head clean open, I got lucky - Rose my hand up in time, blocked a massive piece of shrapnel and a bullet all in one."

Una stared at the woman as she continued with this remarkable tale, trying to figure out if she was exaggerating the story or not, her eyes fixed on the many scars Scarlet pointed to across her arm one by one.
 She had of course heard how brutal the fighting had got after Abhailien Rebellion Forces made they're full invasion gambit against Bhaile's State's-Union, but hearing it first-hand was something different.
 "And that's how you got that biggest scar Ma'am?"

"Ha! Heck no, that came next. There I am in absolute agony, my arm falling limp to one side, while still trying to fire my pistol with the other. I tell ya the company CO would of killed me for droping my rifle - Well that's if he hadn't already been lying dead via a brick to the stomach followed by a stray bullet to the head - Anyhow the rest of the base finally gets its assess in gear and surrounded the enemy on the far side.
 Seeing how they were routed their unit decides to make one last charge on us.
 Well there were only a handful of us not dead at that point and in comes a full kamikaze assault, and at the forefront of it, charging at little old me is some madman with a friggin sword! A sword, no word of a lie, an actual sword in this day and age!"

"Well I had only one option, my pistol was out'ta rounds, no where to move to or hide - I grabbed my bloodied limp arm and held it up in front of me like a shield. Next thing I know Im' on the ground, the swordsman's dead 'is blade still embedded in me bleedin' arm.
 Apparently one of his other comrades had charged in laced with grenades, I'd of probably died - pretty much all the others bar one or two did in-fact, yup that shrapnel'd torn me shreds or at the very least I'd of lost this arm from the sword-guys second strike, had the very same shrapnel not killed the guy first.
 Essentially he acted as my shield, while the grenade saved my arm. That sword is what gave me this mark."
She finished triumphantly, a wolfish grin plastered on her face as though she were boasting about wining some competition or prize.

Una found herself at a loss for words. Scarlet seemed to pick up on this, with an expression of disappointment at her story not landing with the desired effect she had hoped for;
 "Look the thing is, if I hadn't treated my whole body as a weapon that day and moved with the flow of the fight as best I could, I'd be dead right now. Ya see?"

Una frowned searching for understanding - "But, ummm, isn't that a little too reckless?"

"Reckless! Girl are you dense or something? We're soldiers, being a soldier is reckless - a pretty little thing like you joining up by her own choice during wartime? Now that's just plain stupid.
 Think of it this way, if I hadn't shielded with my arm that first piece of shrapnel would of had me dead in the head, never mind the rest. What good's an arm when you're dead Rookie? And it's more than that, I didn't think about sacrificing my arm, I'm no darn masochist! It was instinct you see?
 The instinct to move forward. I didn't check my surroundings to look for body armour of something to use as a shield cause I'd of already been dead by that point.
 For you girl I recon' that's the only way will make a half-decent pilot out'ta ya."

Una sat quietly once more contemplating the words. Putting aside the extravagant narrative she couldn't help but wonder if the older woman had a point.
 'No point in having an arm if your dead huh? I guess they do say you should respect the wisdom of Elders....still I kinda' want to keep all my limbs.....'

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