Chapter 63: Front 31.5 – Ambush – Part 2/2

As she darted her way back through the asteroid field to where supplies could be found, her mind began to lift a little from the enhancer's loving embrace - Her thoughts began to come more freely, her senses more clear.
 The battle she now remembered, was at something of a stalemate - The Curadh had lead the Tristian flotilla to an asteroid filed, now with every blast any of the ships fired, the effect was dampened or blocked entirely by the field of massive boulders.
 Moreover the Curadh's 3 Vijaik Specials were spread out amongst the asteroids, firing borderline at random to confuse the firing equipment of the Fluchtig, after all the battleship was firing based of sensor data, shooting at the invisible submarine that glided through the waves of space - In this manner the Curadh was taking on three enemy vessels all by itself.

The mech side of things wasn't much better - Sure there were 15 Neos out here, 5 Neo C's like Scarlets and 10 of the regular 'M' model - But of those 11 were accounted for.
 It was the downside of having three ships, it meant you had three massive targets to protect. A minimum three of the fairly mediocre mechs like the Nemo were required just to cover the weak points of each warship, with a tenth machine to command the battlefield and an eleventh to guard the supply caravan.

The 'supply caravan' was where she was headed now, that wasn't its proper name but she couldn't think of anything better to call it at present - Effectively it was just an unmanned cargo vessel, rudimentarily controlled remotely from the Fluchtig's bridge and packed to the gills with spare weapons and ammo - It saved time for resupplying in a drawn out battle like this, rather than having to go back to the warship's hanger bays every time, and since it was small and mobile, it only really needed the one Neo to protect it.
 That said, 1 protecting it, 10 protecting the fleet - That only left 4 machines at large. Scarlet, Sabban and she could only presume 'that blasted elf woman', all three were fighting with-in the asteroid field, creating disturbances to confuse the enemy ship's guns and so on.
 Last time Scarlet had been conscious enough to check, Hoki was set up somewhere behind the fleet, using her high power long range rifle to try and provide support - Chances she would hit anything moving so fast, were slim to none but if they got lucky she could probably buckle one of the enemy in a single blast.

Finally there was the Casnel, out there perched atop the Submarine. Anything got even a little close to the Curadh and the Casnel would open fire with its arm mounted super-cannon - In effect it was by itself doing the work of the 12 or so Nemos guarding the Tristain flotilla.
 Stalemate.
Atleast that's how it had been when she launched, but as she now slowed down her machine's rapid approach and took in the site of the defence line, something looked off. Two Nemo's were retreating, floating back to the Fluchtig's open hanger-bay, both looked damaged - It hurt to do so but Scarlet forced herself to count the rest of the line - With two retreating there should of been eight in front of her, but instead, only 7 - Had Kolme deployed more units into the debris field, or?...

She fiddled with her communications board, normally she ignored it entirely when under the influence, but curiosity had got to her - Soon voices filled her cabin, rebounding in her head like the morning of a hang over - The voice of Kolme and the Fluchtig's bridge officers giving orders to fill the gaps in the defence line were the most clear.
 Also in there somewhere she gathered the current status, 2 damaged machines plus one completely destroyed - The battle was no longer a stalemate...

Before long she made it to the dull grey shape of the supply caravan, the Nemo pilot guarding it began to broadcast to her - She didn't recognise the voice but could tell the pilot was disinterested, probably not expecting her to reply to him;
 "Come in Neo unit 3, this is unit 13, status? Repeat, come in--"

"Aye, fine - And the fleet?" Scarlet murmured, it hurt her throat to suddenly speak, but it seemed only polite.

The pilot on the other side clearly jumped in his cockpit out of surprise - "What, ah, er, right Ma'am?! 2 units have been damaged but the pilots are alive, one critical the other fine, both members of the Rinie's squad.
 We lost one of our guys, I mean, that is to say one of my squad mates from the Valliere ma'am, didn't eject from his machine in time - He was Warrant Officer--"
 Scarlet cut the feed, no one from the Fluchtig was yet hurt - Good to know but in her current frame of mind, worrying about the squads from the other two ships, people she hadn't personally become allied with, was a waste of combat processing speed.

She mindlessly grabbed what she needed from the supplies, new ammo, two new arc staffs and the last spare rocket launcher they had - Happily mounting it on her free shoulder - Some spare rifles were present but she always preferred the physically ammunition where possible, especially when precision weapons were near useless when trying to navigate the asteroids.
 Happy with her haul and unhappy with how clear her mind was rapidly becoming, she pressed open the glove box and drew out her next dose, the cold feeling of the syringe against her bare fingertips made clear to her how in need of this next shot she was.

Just moments from plunging it in, a new, gruff and familiar voice crossed her open comms line - "Yo Scarlet." Sabban Vint hailed, his machine came into view, clearly here to resupply too. He continued talking;
 "I'm going to tell Kolme and Tomo to push forward the line into the debris field.
 There won't be any defence line left if the enemy keeps picking us off one by one - You, me and Erfu aren't enough to break through on our own, the Casnel's cover fire is just too strong - You want me to add anything to that report?"

Scarlet fumbled the syringe around her fingers - 'Huh, so I was right to think Erfu was the third person running interference, neat.' - She plunged the syringe down and set her course for the far side of the asteroid field, break time was over.
 Within seconds her machine was rattling forward, hearing soon faded back to that cacophony of meaningless noise, the still open comms incomprehensible - The feelings of the cold metal controls on her hands soon dissipating, her vision narrowing again to just the main monitor, to just the single glowing red eye - Forward the crimson lightning shot.

****

There was a stalemate afoot, possibly one that was about to start favouring the enemy, that was what she had gathered in-between doses - The rest was gone now, even the memory of resupplying just minutes ago had been lost.
 What hadn't was a feeling of minor annoyance, the Casnel had stolen her kill earlier and it was the reason they couldn't break through despite having the greater firepower.
 Her mech appeared.

A few minutes of flying at mach speed, dodging and weaving through the asteroids at an inhuman rate and finally it appeared on the far side. Could the Casnel G-Type of looked surprised, it would of.
 It 'stood' seemingly on empty space, atop the invisible hull of the Curadh - Well not quite invisible. The Tristian Flotilla's ship's had managed to land a few glancing blows, nothing fatal but enough to strip back the paint in places, so really it looked more like the Casnel stood atop a black starry-sea of little white islands.
 Like an artist were illustrating space and had forgotten to colour-in the whole canvas.

Scarlet didn't bother slowing down, there was no hesitation, the battle began in an instant.
 She took the full momentum of moving through the debris and kept going, firing off 3 rounds back to back from one of her launchers. The heavy physical ammo slammed into the Casnel, but just as before its thin transparent green shield appeared in a cuboid shape around it.
 Raising its own arm mounted cannon, the Casnel let free a return volley of the deadly green blasts - But that didn't bother Scarlet much, she simply evaded, rolled and glided through the air, never slowing as she continued her approach.

Her mechs chunky reinforced hands reached behind it and grabbed the Calabar greatsword, the chainsaw like weapon spinning to life, its edges glowing red hot - She would collided the massive blade full force into the Casnel, moving at this ridiculous speed, if that wasn't enough to break its shield, then even she wasn't sure what would be.
 Continuing to dodge the incoming counterattacks she grew closer and closer, the Casnel growing larger on her monitor, filling the whole thing until--

Until it didn't anymore and suddenly her screen was purely space again. Her mech yanked its head fiercely around, one of the Vijaik Specials had interrupted her assault, attempted with a much less impressive Arc-Staff, to stab her in the side, she had subconsciously shifted her mechs posture, so that the enemy blade clashed with her own - While the sheer weight of impact had pushed her off course.
 She didn't mind, she would simply fight whatever was foolish enough to be in her line of sight.

The Casnel unable to shoot for fear of hitting its weaker friend, watched as the Scarlet's red accented Neo swung the massive Calabar blade high over head and down with almighty inertia.
 The Vijaik Special, 'no.2 of 3', or so Scarlet believed - Was not a big machine, its thin, lanky arm rose to block her attack and was completely ill-equipped - The smaller Arc staff literally snapping in half from the impact and the Special being thrown off balance.
 Scarlet didn't miss a beat, with her free hand she reached out and grabbed the nearest shoulder of the Special - It was a feature of her custom mech that had taken Chief Pel some time to perfect, she'd made sure Sabban was the test pilot for this feature, feeling he would appreciate it slightly more than Hoki.
 A normal Vijaik's hand is strong, easily heavy enough to crush a person but Scarlet had wanted more and now she had it.
 The fist of her machine dug into the light armour of the Vijaik Special, than as though its fingers were daggers, they dug into its shoulder-blade. She clasped the controls tight and yanked back.

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Success was sweet, out she pulled a massive handful of internal electrics and hydraulics in a fire of sparks - A moment later the Special's whole left side went limp as every system inside the poor machine failed dramatically to cope with the bizarre internal attack.
 She let the handful drift away and replaced both her machine's hands back on her greatsword, raising the blade to eye level, ready for the finishing blow - Somewhere, deeply in her haze addled mind, she wondered which pilot this was - Yazan and Gemon, those were the two who had sung karaoke into the early hours of the night at the Aardig's day party. Somewhere even deeper in her, far, far deeper, a tiny part of her was glad she hadn't properly talked with either of them during said party.

She lurched forward, the enemy flailed trying to get his systems back online, to atleast raise the arm she hadn't torn up, in defence.
 And again for the third time that day, a new enemy interceded - Now it was starting to get annoying.

She said new, but it was the small make of machine, like the two she had already damaged, a third Vijaik Special appeared to block her attack - If anything it looked a little newer, like this could be its first battle - That didn't make much sense to Scarlet.
 Had she been more... 'sober', she might have joined the dots to remember that a certain Major Moncha's machine was still in IAFS custody back on Bannerman, meaning the Major had been forced to use a similar but different Vijaik Special - But she was very much so not in that frame of mind, had she been she might even of admired the enemy's teamwork, how effectively they came to each other's aid - But again, she was not, instead she simply felt a tinge of annoyance, a biting gnaw demanding to know why she still had yet to draw anyone's blood.

This new enemy had not exactly blocked her sword, but instead redirected it - Running his own, much thinner Calabar blade against the inside edge of hers, simply moving her attack to miss, rather than try and straight up fight it - 'Smart, he saw what happened when his friend tried to block.'

They floated apart from each other a few metres and instantly the annoyance was gone, in a flash the memory of fighting the Casnel and the other Specials dissipated - The enemy before her had real skill - The others were all above average pilots, true enough, but this guy was a different calibre.
 The thin angular frame of the Vijaik Special gave it a more 'human' look than most mechs - It held in one hand a long, slim Calabar blade and in the other a thin, short arc staff - It held them with form, proper, real sword form, even its legs, though standing on nothing, were positioned beautifully.

Scarlet flipped her blade into a backwards grip and closed the distance, swinging up in a diagonal strike.
 The enemy reacted in kind, twirling out of the blade's path and striking at the opening her attack created - She dodged back but not fast enough. To Scarlet's absolute wild-eyed joy, two thin lines of heat where cut across her armour - Minor damage, but damage no less.
 Her smile was no longer wolfish, it was downright demonic.

The enemy quickly took its own attack, striking out with its longer blade in a fencing maneuver - It was aimed straight at Scarlet's domed helmet, ready to sear out her cameras.
 Her machine ducked under the attack before swiping out in return at the enemies lower half - The Special jerked back only to see a rocket launcher rise up where the Neo had been a moment before, it boosted desperately to the side but not fast enough, Scarlet's projectile colliding against the slanted shoulders of the Special.
 It had been only a bracing blow, but through the cloud of dust came an uppercut of a slash from Scarlet's greatsword - The Special barely dodged backwards in time, a faint cut forming across its frontal armour from the hit.

They parted again, once more sizing each other up. Scarlet tossed aside the now spent rocket launchers, freeing up her mech's shoulders. The Special once more resumed its defensive sword stance.

----
She sprang like some otherworldly beast, her bulky machine catapulting with a two handed over head strike straight down onto the Special - It blocked.
 Its two blades held in an X-pattern above its triangular head, in the weightless environment both machines soared downwards, thrusting against each other for dominance.
 And then she realised her mistake.

She had been goaded into this attack, her Calabar blade was roaring against the small dagger-like Arc staff, the chainsaw like teeth of her blade were slowly chipping away to dust - She broke back away and howled elated aloud to herself in the cockpit of her machine.
 The Calabar blade would break any minute now, any clash of blades could be the one. That left her with just two Arc-staffs resting at her sides. She could do it with those, beat this enemy and gouge out the Casnel pilot's eyes for good measure - Just one more dose of Enhancer, the current hadn't worn off yet, to take another on top would push her even further, far enough to beat a Casnel with just her swords - She could do it, she wanted to do it.
 The syringe was already in her hand, she couldn't remember picking it up, but there it was. The enemy filled her vision, inviting her in for another bout of blades.

"Sc---- R----. All Units, ---eat. Scarlet you o-- -here? We'-- -one. To much dam--- Una's injur--. All Units to Retreat"

Her comms lines was still open from earlier but between the static and the fog in her mind, what did that matter - There was sport to be ha--

"Una's injured--"

'Ah.' She thought to herself, it always seemed to happen - She fought as hard as she could, moved faster than anyone else, hit harder, won against foes multitudes stronger than her - But always she returned to find them dead, allies, comrades, friends.
 The Enhancer in her hand wasn't for a kick, for fun or pleasure - It was to make her strong enough, to make her that 'Ace of Aces' everyone wanted, needed her to be - To make her strong enough to fight Magi and win - To protect, not kill.
 Why was she always forgetting something so very simple?

She focused on their image in her mind, of Una having fought her best and being injured, of Hoki and Sabban probably refusing to retreat until they saw her return, even of Kolme pleading with Nate to let them come find her.
 It took so much to put down the call of the poison in her hand, but gradually, she let the third dose float away - Turned her machine's back on her opponents and disappeared into the asteroid field, dodging the Casnel's energy blasts in her direction all the way home.

There would be other day's to finish off this particular prey.

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