| From: | Brian Angliss <ANGLISS@****.PSU.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Hoi Chumms! Gotta TINY problem here... |
| Date: | Tue, 28 Sep 1993 23:46:11 -0400 |
>>>>>[Hoi there{sound of explosion off to right} chummers. Seems we had
better
change those coords for the extraction point in the 'Skills. Seems that Drake
got ahold of them somehow...here, switchin over to external sensory feed:
<*>External Sensory Feed Engaged<*>
Night. No sky except what is covered by dark, forboding clouds. The far off
and still too near glow of the lights of New York creates a faint line out of
the horizon and the hills. Trees are still covered by leaves, at least your
sensors tell you their radar signature is too high not to be, and thermally
most of the hills and air around you is as black as it appears visually. A
light rain is falling as you buzz a house or two at cruising speed: below Mach
1, but still far to fast to easily navigate the sudden branches of the valleys
that your inhumanly fast Nape-Of-Earth autopilot processor does with the ease
only a computer can acheive. All is peaceful...except for the long-range SAM
that just exploded off at 5 o'clock high.
Drek, not another one! I'm approachin the coords and they haven't even botheredto cover
thier emplacements! And I can't turn round either!
Behind you, in a tetrahedral arrangement in the air, pointing up and back, are
four dim visual shapes that are emmitting bright IR signatures. Your expert
system tells you what you already know about them: they are two Aguilar-EX
assult helicoptors and two EFA varients, with non-standard armaments, the exact
nature of which are not apparent to your computer, although you recognize the
ripples on the choppers as 12.7cm unguided rockets, to catch you on the ground
and keep you there, and Ares Dragon Dogfight AAMs on the planes, as well as
four anti-panzer cluster bombs that you recognize from your UCAS Army days.
I don't like this! I'm readin bout four o' five SAM batteries around the
coords, all lockin in on my BABY! time to lay some fire down. You all ok back
there?
You feel, "inside you" for lack of a better term, the panicky vital signs of
three individuals, identified as Slash, Collussus, and Diana. Diana seems to
be concentrating elsewhere as her vital signs have just gone down to those of
an individual in a deep coma. As you take all this in, you are also launching
two of the four AGMs you have loaded in your main turret toward the extraction
point coordinates. As they exit the tubes, you automatically arm them and
notice that you fired the two with High Explosive warheads, a correct but still
unconscious and therefore dangerous choice. You track them down, keeping them
on target even as you register an AAM launch and one of the EFAs moving into
position over you to utilize its cluster bomb.
Trackin, trackin...HIT! Yehaw! scratch 3! Col, get that Heavy up and runnin
and take down them Effers. And Slash, get into the turret and get the missiles
reloaded! Hurry, and...DREK!!!!!
You are hit, not by the cluster, but by the AAM, in the port side, damage is
light but you lost the use of your rockets on that side. The firing circuits
are dead. Easily repairable with some time, time you no longer have as the EFA
has released its cargo of the cluster.
HOLD ON!!!!!!!
Wild maneuvers and some motions that make your joints and rivits and hardened
chassis groan under the stress and you have escaped the falling explosive death
only to see it detonate behind and to your starboard side on a small, unpreparedfarmhouse.
There will be no survivors from that accident.
Frag it...now I'm pissed........
A cool hatred that you know well settles over you with the deaths of innocent
lives. You know no-one is truly innocent, but non-combatants dying are the
reason you went AWOL with this vehicle in the first place. Pulling high-G
maneuvers that throw the unprepared passengers all against their restraining
straps and cause the unmodified Slash to go temporarily unconscious have done
their job; getting you beneath and behind the EFAs, with them in your sights
for your cannons. However, you are currently engaged in arming and reloading
your missiles and in damage control, so you are unable to fire them at the
most perfect time. But you feel Collussus, with his biologically buffered
metal body move into place just prior to firing the cannons. Both the Vigilant
Rotary Autocannon and the Vanquisher Rotary Assult cannon fire in their mount-ings,
roaring to life as they spew leaden death through the air. EFA number one
explodes in a nearly blinding flash of thermal and visual energy. You are
very grateful for your sensory dampening.
Tanks, Col. Now I remember why you and I get along so well. As I've said
before, you and I could go far.
Before you is the second EFA, slightly out of range of the cannon, but still
easily in range of your least intelligent missile. No use wasting a 1.5
million dollar missile stolen from an UCAS armory, and your ECCM tells you that
you that it's ECM is severly degraded due to a mild thermal overheating of
the electronics, so you fire and take the second EFA's wing off cleanly. You
watch passively as you fly past the fireball at the crash site. You know there
will be no survivors from that impact.
Good shot, FM. Now, let's take down those choppers.
Sure thing, Col. You want them or should I?
I know that voice, FM. They're all yours, unless you need me.
You throw an about face, which in this mechanical monster of technology, winglets, and
overthrust engines is not an easy task. You begin barreling down upon
the Aguilars, pouring the power on as you do so. You pass Mach 1 just as you
slide between them. The blast of air that knocks into both knock them aside
like tinkertoys, and only one recovers before slamming into a hillside. The
other is not so lucky, as it was far too close to a short cliff-face. It's
rotors tear themselves off and it explodes on impact, leaving a black, burning
smear that will remain on the cliffs for years.
Drek... Now I have to go back...
Bitch, Moan, Gripe, Complain, Mumble, FM. That's all you ever do...
But you realize just then that somehow, Diana's lifesigns have returned to
normal, and you register a slight wisp of a smile on her face. Off in
direction of the last Aguilar, your sensors register a small blip that wasn't
a small, human shape with no thermal signature, very little visual signature,
and moving at over 300 meters per second along with the Aguilar.
What the Drek?....
Suddenly, the Aguilar seems to shake in the air, as if a giant hand had just
reached up and grabbed it from below. As you near it, you realize that your
metaphor was almost accurate. You see the small human, a black man dressed in
a white long coat and top hat and carrying a short cane, has driven his cane
through the reinforced and armored glass of the canopy and is doing something
to cause all the shaking. As you fly past, you can almost hear the scream as
you see the canopy fill with a red substance you'd rather not contemplate the
origin of, and the black man disappears.
Only to re-appear INSIDE you. You are totally surprised and try to maneuver
to throw him into the walls, but Diana just smiles at him as he remains standingupright
even with the cabin inclined over 50 degrees. You hear Diana weakly
say "thank you, Baron. You are free to live your life out as you see fit. Go
in peace..." as she loses consciousness. As he fades out, you not only
recognize him as Baron Samedi, a Loa of death and raw sensuality, but you think
you see him smile at Diana, tip his hat at her, and acknowledge you with his
cane...but you cannot be sure where it comes to matters of the Loa. You are a
creature of metal and flesh, not energy created through will.
<*>End Sensory Link<*>
Well, thats it folks. Slash is still out, though he's groanin like he wished
he was dead. And{sound of multiple larget explosions} that takes care of the
ground batteries and any chance of gettin in to NY from these coords. So I'm
headin off ta a place I know really well, kinda like the backa ma hand, if ya
know what I mean. I'll send off the coords to Solitiare and get her to send em
out via courier(read Sammy Airlines).]<<<<<
-- FM(23:44:36/09-28-54)
