My mind began to race as I stared at the com request. My HUD informed me the com request had come from the helicopter hovering with its guns seemingly trained on me.

I wondered who this could possibly be. Friends of the baron I killed? His enemies? Competitors for the tech "gold rush" the base represented?

Whoever they were, talking was the last thing I wanted to do. The base would be going up in smithereens soon. I had to be as far as possible from it. I couldn't waste any more time.

My original plan was to slip away with what I could without anyone the wiser. It looked like my plan was falling apart and fast.

I contemplated shooting the helicopter without any warning. I was pretty sure a single round would do the job. I had seen this rifle in action before and I knew it packed one hell of a punch.

The helicopter did have a lot of firepower. A full barrage of its rockets... could it kill me?

Deciding to hear what was to be said before making a decision, I opened the channel and waited.

"Your Lordship Vagnar, apologies for my earlier aggressive action. My sensors had trouble identifying your armor until the last moment. Your friend or foe identification also seems to be disabled."

Lordship Vagnar? Who the hell is a Lord Vagnar? Wasn't that noble's family name MacArthur?!

This was all wrong. For a moment I couldn't put it all together. I knew this was important information. Eventually, I began to piece it together.

The noble that brought me here wasn't any baron. He wasn't even a MacArthur. He was an imposter! But why?

Your Lordship was a greeting used with those ranked count/earl. I killed a count?! If he was a count though why the cloak and daggers? I couldn't figure enough of it out. There were too many unknown facts.

"Your Lordship, please respond."

While trapped in my own thoughts I had not paid more than secondary attention to the increasingly stressed and suspicious words of the attack helicopter pilot.

"Please activate your FOF transponder, my lord."

I realized this state of relative peace wouldn't last much longer. The pilot was only showing grace and not blowing me away with his rockets because he thought I was his Lord.

When he realized the truth... things would begin to happen very quickly. I decided to take the initiative. Initiative in a fight can mean the difference between winning and losing.

"My Lord? Please... HUH?!!! FUCK!!"

I could completely understand the pilots surprised reaction over the com channel. It only made sense as while he was mid-sentence I raised the long barreled rifle and aimed directly at him with little hesitation.

I watched the concentric blue and green HUD markers began to extremely quickly fill in the range and angle of the required shot. When I received the confirmation of my aim I pulled the trigger.

My aim was true. Honestly, I would have been very disappointed if I missed a hovering target only half a kilometer away.

The pilot had tried and failed to jink his aircraft to the side in an attempt to avoid the round, but he was too late to achieve the maneuver.

He wasn't too late in responding to my aggression with a little of his own aggression, however.

A split second before my bullet hit the aircraft and sent it spinning to the ground, two rockets leaped off of their racks and charged at me with insane speed.

A loud and shrill tone started beeping out with increased speed and magnitude inside my head. System information and my own logic told me exactly what the tone meant.

It was a lock on tone. Within half a second the tone was nothing less than a shrill screech.

I ignored the almost unreadable data lines and trajectory indicators that now populated my eyesight and relied on instinct alone to dodge the rockets.

I activated my shield on instinct as well. I wasn't sure the shield would stop the rocket, but it was better than nothing.

Even in the "bullet time" mode, I seemed to enter when stressed and in combat, the rockets were so fast I didn't even move before they had already traveled halfway to me. One rocket trailed slightly behind the other.

I activated the large booster on the spinal column of the Icarus and felt my body slam into the seat of the cockpit. It felt as if an elephant was standing on my chest.

My speed indicator showed a speed three times the armor's max speed for a few seconds. The armor's feet even lifted off of the craggy ground during the boost.

I didn't do anything fancy. I simply tried diving under the path of the rockets. I didn't really have the skill to try anything fancy.

I'm sure as a first-time pilot, my split-second reaction would have made a few eyebrows raise. I had only been piloting for less than 40 minutes. I should be proud of my reaction speed.

The rockets, however, didn't give a damn about patting me on the back or my vain pride.

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The first rocket was successfully dodged. The rockets had trouble redirecting it's flight path to intercept me and struck behind the Icarus armor, missing by nearly 30 meters. Flames and a shockwave with some shrapnel harmlessly bounced off my rear shield.

The second rocket that trailed behind the first... did not miss, however.

With the extra distance and time to recalculate my new speed and trajectory, it accounted for the change and swiftly altered course.

For a moment after the first rocket exploded I thought I had successfully dodged the rockets completely.

The rockets streaked out of the sky with a large twist and struck the ground at nearly exactly the point my shield made contact with the ground.

I only saw my shield flash white hot for a split second before I felt the hand of God reach down and smack me. I was launched into a wild spin and flew across the ground.

When the CALIPSO armor finally came to a rest my mind was rather fuzzy. Alerts flickered across my now dim view warning me about a concussion and cracked ribs.

Damage readouts for the CALIPSO swarmed in my view as well. An outline of the CALIPSO was presented with sections colored orange and yellow. Shockingly little green sections were shown.

My shields showed a 31 percent charge. I couldn't appreciate the fact that the shields had held and saved my life though as my head and body seemed almost disconnected. My entire being ached.

In time, I was able to pull the CALIPSO into a sitting position and then stand. I could tell something was wrong with my controls. The CALIPSO was unsteady and not answering my mental commands properly.

When I finally reoriented myself and looked to the west I saw my worst fear come true.

The two cargo helicopters had peeled off, began moving higher, and creating distance between me and them.

The second attack helicopter was NOT retreating. It was making a straight line dash at me and my armor.

I watched with dread as it quickly ate up the distance between me and it. It made jinking and erratic movements in its flight path as it came on.

Even through the ringing in my head and pain in my head, I knew this would be a do or die moment. The attack helicopter only needed one pass to kill me. I had one chance to end this and stay alive.

I tried to steady my mind and body as I began to raise my rifle. More concentric aiming reticles and aim assist markers popped up as the armor's computer tried crunching numbers and calculating the best place to aim my shot.

Just as the computer nearly finished its calculations and I was almost ready to fire a prompt brought me back to earth like a meteorite smashing into the ground.

HOST BRAINWAVES SHOWING FLUCTUATIONS...

HOST BRAIN DAMAGE IMMINENT.

CANCELING FULL LINK MODE.

As I finished reading the prompt I suddenly felt sick. Before I could react all of the data and sensor reading stopped being fed directly into my head. I was suddenly sitting in the pilot's chair again.

The full synch had cut out. I was now dead in the water. I couldn't pilot the CALIPSO without the full synch.

Terror took me for a few moments as I tried my best to find a solution with my aching and fuzzy mind. I tried reactivating full link mode again and again, but each time my implant shut it down. It gave me messages about safety and an inability to, but it was all just background noise to me at this point.

I felt so tired. I felt like I had been beaten half to death and injected with drugs meant to slow my brain. I felt sick and had to fight the urge to be throw up inside the cockpit.

Eventually, my, mind calmed enough for me to realize I was fucked. Well and truly.

I watched as the helicopter rose and pitched down for an attack run. It would release a salvo of rockets and I would die.

I couldn't move. I couldn't fire back. I couldn't do anything but wait for the end.

I checked my shield readout only to find it slowly regening. The implant noticed my focus and seemed to read my intentions as it showed text prompts asking me if I wanted to divert power to the shields.

I accepted the prompts on instinct and watched as my shield levels started climbing faster.

I huffed out a long sigh. It wouldn't be enough. I knew it. The boosted shields might buy me a few more seconds. That was all.

With nothing left to do to change my situation, I did what I had found myself doing far too often these days. I waited for the end.

I thought hard about everything and came to a conclusion.

I tried. I tried damn hard. I got pretty far too. I could be proud of that. I had killed that damn noble. I had nearly escaped as well. Not many could say they had done what I have.

Just as a began to accept my new reality and watched the helicopter begin to truly bare down on me the world turned white.

Behind the helicopter, in the direction of the bunker, a pinpoint of light came into existence and quickly grew in intensity.

Within half a second every screen in the cockpit was colored in a blinding white brilliance.

A second or two after that the shockwave struck. It felt like being hit with a sledgehammer, or at least what I thought that must feel like.

Pain lanced through my chest and head as the CALIPSO and I were thrown into the air with a furious spin.

My mind seemed to disconnect and not properly record the next few moments.

Eventually, the spinning/tumbling stopped and the CALIPSO crashed into the ground in the same fashion as a missile. My head slammed into the side of my chair and I could feel the trickle of blood run down the side of my head.

My vision swam and I nearly passed out then and there. I fought hard to clear my vision and access my situation.

Many of the screens in the cockpit were now black. Some were filled with static and some flickered with random colors.

After a few minutes of waiting while trying to stem the flow of blood from the scrap on the side of my head as well as the streams of blood coming from my nose, eyes, and mouth, a few of the forward screens began functioning again.

The system seemed to go through multiple attempts to fix the sensors as well as activate several back up sensor arrays before it gave me sight of the outside world.

My jaw sagged at the sight presented to me.

A massive mushroom cloud rose into the air. The magnitude of the cloud shocked me. I had seen a video clip of a nuclear explosion before, but the footage was at a distance. It did no justice to the full experience of a nuclear blast.

Up close the cloud seemed like a massive earth swallowing monster raising itself off of the ground above me.

Dark soot and ash rained down upon everything in sight, my armor included. Small partials of stone and dirt fell from the sky and tinked off from the armor of the CALIPSO.

The sensors picked up extremely high levels of radiation. The anti-radiation systems apparently held though. There was no indication that the cockpit was filling with radiation, much to my delight.

My shield systems were flashing an orange color and showing error message after error message.

I looked over the damage readout results only to find swathes of red covering whole sections of my armor's small simulated outline. Not a single section registered as green and fully undamaged.

Fighting the weariness in my bones and muscles as well as my head I tried my best to find information about the helicopters.

My sensors showed 3 columns of smoke rising into the distance. 2 of the columns far off to the north and one much closer to the west.

I sighed in relief. I didn't believe they could survive the blast, but my addled head couldn't understand logic all that well currently.

With all known enemies now destroyed and no ability to control the CALIPSO available I watched the mushroom cloud and the raining dust, ash, and debris.

I felt the tug of sleep and decided to give in to the urge.

With my consciousness fading, I watched the mushroom cloud until my vision went dark. I sank into the comfort of sleep.

Sleeping felt like heaven. I allowed all my worries and concerns drift away.

I was alive. For now, that would have to be good enough.