Chapter 62: Front 31 – Ambush – Part 1/2

The corridor jolted violently in front of Scarlet, alarms blared in all directions, people rushing everywhere to get to their stations.

It had been 5 days and 5 hours almost exactly since the Aardig's day party - Many had betted on the truce breaking faster than that, some even lost money on it - Scarlet had not partaken in this gambling, not that she had anything against a little punting, nor did she believe in any superstitious - Still there was no point in jinxing things and it didn't hurt to have a little respect for the cost of life the truce ending would bring as battles broke out across the solar system.

But....
 Had she hypothetically been forced to give her guess, she would of gone with exactly 5 days and 5 hours - It brought a grin to her face now as she made haste across the warship - Perhaps it was purely because of all that Station 5 talk during the party, but whatever the reason Scarlet liked winning.
 She was unfortunately on the wrong side of the Fluchtig when the first shots were fired, meaning it was taking her a bit to get to the hanger-bay, though she didn't mind too much, it would give the other pilots a much needed handicap.

It was the best sort of battle - A surprise!
 There were in Scarlet's opinion just two, or at a push three, types of battle. One was when two enemy forces were close enough to one another, that one simply opened fire and all hell broke losses - Mechs would be rapidly deployed, evasive actions taken, cover sought out - That was what had happened about ten minutes ago, the Curadh had opened fire.
 Rumour was Commander Nate had been ordered to open fire himself about three hours ago by a detailed communication from HQ, but refused to violate the truce so soon, his (in Scarlet's mind) naïve actions had now cost them the first volleys.

The second type was how battles in space were 'meant to go'. With space being so large and relatively empty, it should be possible to predict when two sizable space fleets come into each other's range - By rights you should know days in advance before any two fleets begin to take pot-shots at one another.
 Scarlet disliked that form of battle, it could take days and often mechs wouldn't be deployed until hours into the fighting when the fleets had closed the gap enough for mechs or fighter craft in general to become efficient.

The technical third was when a battle was planned out but then failed to happen - That was maybe the worst type of all - Like when Scarlet and Hoki had been left waiting in the Clover's orbit - Seeing as IAFS had messed up its timings, rather than a predictable, well planned battle, it had instead transformed into a sudden, violent affair when the Casnel did finally turn up.
 That said this third type tended to benefit no one due to the sheer unpredictability of it.

All these were the type of thoughts coursing through Scarlet's mind at present. Of course she no longer had a reason to worry about such things, but old habits died hard and as little as a year ago her old role as a field commander would of demanded she understand the flow and forms of battles, in the usually vain, hope of guiding your allies to success.
 It was out of that habit that she had listened carefully as she made her way across the ship, getting a feel for the scope of the burgeoning battle as she went - The fact the yellow tinted corridors before her creaked, and a distant impact echoed around the vessel, told her by itself the enemy was firing at the Fluchtig.
 From what she could gather, the battle had started with the Curadh trying to disable the Rinie, Tomo & Erfu's home ship.
It was an obvious but logical decision, the Rinie was by far the oldest ship in the Tristain flotilla, taking it out first would both throw the group into a panic and greatly reduce their firepower.

According to the orders from IAFS HQ, the Rinie and the Valliere were to take position in front of the Fluchtig, to create a sort of V shape that would then advance forward and 'ensnare' the enemy Submarine - This was of course a non-sensical plan, the Curadh would either run away in the opposite direction, or in the worst case scenario - Disable the Rinie and use it as a living shield to hide behind, while slowly chipping away at the rest of the group, add in a Casnel that could probably take down one of the three ships all by itself and you had a serious tactical problem.
 It was therefore something of a relief to Scarlet that Commander Nate Novel had decided to ditch the pre-laid out plan, instead telling the Rinie to fall back almost immediately and moving the Fluchtig, the newest and by far fastest of the three ships, to the front - This was a move the enemy captain probably wouldn't anticipate and all going well meant the Fluchtig could take the brunt of the enemy fire, while the Rinie and Valliere fired from behind it - Nate would turn this battle into a one on one ship conflict between the Curadh and the Fluchtig, with the Tristain group's two cruisers acting as support artillery.

Of course this had one rather obvious downside--

 The corridor disappeared, one moment she stood in it, the next it was gone.
While their ships messed around changing formation, the Curadh had gained ten minutes of effectively free target-practise against the Fluchtig and it was starting to show.

Scarlet had acted fast, yanking herself to one side of the hallway and slamming down the emergency bulkhead control - A massive metal door clamped down with killer pneumatic force, cutting off the section of corridor that had just been obliterated by the continued enemy barrage.
 She grinned like a beast, reaching into her pocket to play with the spare enhancer syringe with-in - This was a real battle, no more waiting, scouting, drinking, truces, politics - No today they would simply blast each other to pieces!

She didn't even need to consult a map, she rapidly navigated around the recently damaged part of the ship, through a service corridor and finally into the main hanger-bay.
 Her machine had already been brought up and set to stand-by in her absence - Its single glowing red eye staring towards the launch deck as though as eager as she was. There was only two other mechs left in the hanger, one the old MBT-Mk2 that was hard at work moving supplies for repairing the ship, the other a customised Neo-C like her own - A quick glance, Kolme Nilas'es machine, and the man himself standing by it while talking into two or three communicators at once.

She offered him a minor nod of minimum respect, as she passed by making way to her machine.
 To her absolute dismay, seeing her Kolme called out and began walking in her direction.
Normally she really would of just kept walking, there was sport to be had today after all!! But the fact that Kolme was now in her old position, trying to guide this sudden battle in a beneficial direction, allowed her to feel just enough comradery for the man that she stopped her march with a sigh;
 "Yo Nilas."

"Scarlet-lass, you alright? The others already launched." He said back.

She nodded, "Ya ya, all fine just on the wrong side of the ship is all - Oh and corridor 33 was... busy to put it lightly."

"I see?"
 Kolme said back, probably just relieved her absence wasn't anything more serious.

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"That all?"

"Ah no, one sec, ah... Listen Scarlet, theoretically, just in theory - What would you do if asked to take command right now? Just ya know, I haven't actually ever commanded a straight up battle like this, not as the guy with the commander title anyway and you, like, have experience and stuff - Heck you've beaten Casnels before and--"

Scarlet stepped forward and laid a hand on both his slumped shoulders, staring him dead in the eyes, his cheeks turning a little red at their closeness;
 "Shad-up old man, you got this."
 And with that 'pep-talk' delivered, she grinned wolfishly, turned on her heel and floated up to her machine - 'Now we play for keeps!!'

****

Her main monitor, ever tinted in a faint red, was filled wall to wall with rocks, or asteroids to be more specific - Hundreds of massive slabs, filled with thousands of dents and pock marks, all appearing for only an instant before new ones took their place.
 Their individual colours, shapes and oddities never even momentarily factored as they passed by the viewing screens far too fast.

The crimson and green shades of Scarlet's Neo-C cut a line in and out and in and out of this endless tight field of detritus - She zig-zagged at ridiculous speeds between the endless shifting layers of the asteroid field as though it was second nature, never so much as scratching her machine's paint-job.
 Every so often the ridiculous blur would halt for a few sparse moments, its single red eye and a few dozen smaller pin-prick lights would all dance around its domed helmet in search of anything more interesting than rocks - If it didn't find anything, off the red-lightning bolt would start again, threating the landscape as though it were merely a hunting dog prancing through a dark meadow.
 Here and there she would pull up last minute, to avoided massive beams of energy that crossed their own path thought the battlefield, the barrage of the 4 warship's currently duking it out, anyone of their stray blasts could end her petty machine in an instant should she accidentally cross their paths, though that hardly bothered her - In Scarlet's experience, when faced with a deadly laser, Just dodge the Laser.

The S shape figure of her mech moving across battlefield, nothing on her mind but the hunt. Stopping again her menagerie of helmet cameras scrabbled to peak through a small gap between two particularly large asteroids - Through the space little more than 2 metres squared, her glowing red eye pulsed as it set sight on something very much so not a rock.
 A clump of silver-grey and black angular metal lay on the far side of the small gap, probably taking cover from something or other.

Another pilot would of gone around the boulders, but Scarlet's mind had no interest in such wasted opportunities - With-in a second of spotting the enemy machine, her mech rammed a sleek arc-staff blade through the gap in the rocks - She had no idea what she would hit but cared little as the plasma blade cut into the metallic flesh of the.....
 'Vijaik Special, 1 of 3' - Those were the only words she could feel for it, loose on the edge of her hazy consciousness.
 With-in four seconds of seeing it, she had already let her blade free and yanked at one of her shoulder mounted rocket launcher's, jamming the barrel into the gap and letting fourth a flurry of good old fashion, physical cannon fire.
 The Vijaik Special on the other side, clearly in shock, did its best to make some distance, but few if any could dodge a point-blank surprise attack - The rockets impacted, tearing off the enemies left arm.

Scarlet licked her lips happily - Within 10 seconds of first contact she was now making her way around the large asteroid, ready to fire the next shot, ready to cut open her wounded prey.
 As she rounded into open space, it came. Blasting out of open space, disintegrating the smaller debris it pasted, the hyper-charged sickly green of energy fire. Scarlet pulled back on her pure instinct, thoughts were few and far between at this point - The Enhancer flowed through her veins, alighting her synapses.

She fell back behind the rocks, her moment of attack faded - This attack hadn't been stray warship fire, rather it was no doubt the Casnel, out there somewhere providing cover with its ridiculous fire power to its Vijaik-Special allies.
 But that didn't bother her much, she had dodged just fin--
'Oh.' She thought.

She had indeed evaded fine, but her rocket launcher had not been so lucky, the long pipe shape had been cleaved straight off, she let it drift out of her hand, useless to her now.
 It took effort but she did her best to consciously focus during this break in combat, to check for any other damages - None.
Then to check what weapons she had left - Also none.

She tutted, though another rocket launcher was perched on her other shoulder, its ammo was long spent - She had left one of her arc-staffs sticking out of the enemy mech, the other long lost. All that remained was the large Calabar blade greatsword on her back.
 It was tempting, her first dose of enhancer was starting to wear off a little - To go on a rampage with nothing but a big sword, make a break for the blasted Casnel and cut it down to size. It was tantalising, her mouth watered quite literally at the thought. But no, it was disappointing, but the moment had passed - The Casnel firing on her had brought enough of her senses back to prevent her doing that.

She sighed deeply, forcing herself not to take her second syringeful just yet and set course back towards home - The hunt was young and she needed some more tools for it.

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