----------------------------------------
Chapter 3
----------------------------------------
The Captain had been telling the truth when she claimed an old friend awaited Moncha in the hanger bay - 'Old friend indeed...'
The 'Casnel G-Type 2, Beta' had been a gleaming white and silver machine - Small compared with alot of its fellows, standing at only 15 metres, it was highly experimental - And these days thoroughly battered.
Moncha had last seen it 6 months ago, during the final battle of what was quickly becoming known as 'The Remembrance Incident' - Of course most felt that name was crass. The so-called 'Incident' had lasted for months and been an all out guerrilla war - Taking the lives of thousands of soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Curadh had found itself at the forefront of many of these small battles, with the Casnel Beta as their spearhead.
Moncha hadn't been the machine's original pilot, though it was now him sitting in its new cockpit. They'd been handed the machine after rescuing a research facility under Remembrance attack - By rights it hadn't been ready for combat, a point which the young man who had come with it had been quick to point out.
The lad and Moncha had butted heads, bickered endlessly and eventually, became good friends - Comrades. But the boy had made a mistake, one Moncha had tried to stop but failed.
On a few occasions they had come face to face with Remembrance's ad-hoc leader, Thee Bane of Konpei, who'd gotten his hands on a Casnel of his own. Against Moncha's better judgement, the young man had entered into a sort of rivalry with the enemy ace - Only a Casnel can properly fight another Casnel.
And then it ended. Six months ago, in the final battle of the incident - The young man had faced off against the Bane and lost.
The Beta type Casnel was after all, just a prototype, not meant for combat - Its Goibniu concentration was around 44%, but almost all of that was dedicated to its generator, weapons and thrusters - The idea was something of a glass cannon, an incredibly fast and hard hitting machine with little armour.
After multiple battles the Bane had clearly realised this, and in a single move, rammed an arc staff straight through the torso armour and gouged out the cockpit, along with Moncha's young friend.
He sat now in the new cockpit, the original had been a complicated affair but this one was similar enough to his normal mech that he'd quickly gathered the controls.
Moncha hadn't been expecting to ever see the Beta again - After the battle he had personally recovered what was left of it - Personally forced the cockpit open to see what remained of his superheated comrade. And personally signed off when it was shipped away, to be studied and perhaps used as the basis for new models. Looking at it he could only presume that's what they had spent most of the last 6 months doing, the repairs were lacking put lightly.
Across the once gleaming white surfaces, were patches of grey and dull silver where cheaper metals had been used. The high power rifle had also not been replaced, instead issued with a regular medium range weapon and draped over its shoulders was a cape off all things - In effect, now all it had going for it was its speed.
The Curadh's head engineer had tried to explain the cape was experimental, capable of turning invisible in some way - But Moncha had shaken the man off, today it would be nothing more then an odd fashioned accessory - After all if the Phoenix really could see you, even sense the future, then what good was a camouflage trick going to be?
He still remembered the chief's face when he'd asked for all the 'spares' to be attached to the Beta-Repair.
Moncha collected parts, 'borrowing' weapons and ammo whenever they entered a port - 6 months ago he had pretty much drained that supply but he had been fast collecting more - Some disposable missile launchers were quickly affixed to the mech - A spare rifle and some extra arc staffs too.
Not much but he planned to take no chances today.
He floated a little ahead of his two wingmen in their regular Vijaiks - In the rear-view camera was the form of the Curadh having stopped just outside the debris field. Said graveyard loomed before Moncha now. Regardless of how far you looked left or right, the field seemed to stretch forever - An endless constellation of rusted, rotted metal shards - A sea of husked out abandoned warships, the odd floating limb of what had once been a fellow mecha.
A still fresh site of death, one with many a ghost for the major. Once he had taken it all in he turned to his communication board;
"Alright lads, you ready?"
"Ai Sir!" Came back the reply.
Moncha smiled, his two wingmen were some of the best - The young man who had once piloted the Beta had been too - His soul Moncha supposed, could still be lingering on this very battlefield.
There had been a time not long ago that Moncha hoped him, his two wingmen and that young man might be his very last ever squad - That after all the fighting they had been through, they would just get guard duty for a few years. But the young man was long dead, and this mission was far from guard duty.
He threw the machine's control forward, the mech beginning to almost rattle as the speed increased dramatically.
"Come in Major Sir? Major you are moving out of formation, come in?" Called out the voice of the Curadh's radio operator.
A second, further away voice cut across;
"Put the major directly through to my terminal Ensign."
The stern voice quickly became alot closer - "Explain yourself Major. Why are you increasing speed while your subordinates have slowed to a crawl?"
Moncha cocked a grin, "Just a little change in plans Ma'am, nothing to worry about."
"Major this is a direct order, come back now, this reckless course of action--"
"Eh that hurts my feeling Ma'am, nothing reckless about it - Right the wrongs of the past, that's what you wanted right?"
Still cool and composed, just a miniscule hint of frustration crept into the captain's voice, "Major, this impulsiveness is not the way to handle things."
"Heh, impulsiveness is my best trait! Cya later Cap'ain."
And then the radio cut out, Moncha now out of signal range.
****
It was beautiful, it shouldn't of been but it was.
It passed by in an instant, a golden streak across all his monitors for a second and then gone. Weapons of war are never beautiful, Moncha knew that better than most. Sure he'd known men who named their machines, referred to ships as 'she' - But that was different.
Spend enough time on the battlefield and you came to know all weapons as simply the tools trying to take the lives of all your comrades, and you too of course - Perhaps you came to know your own weapon as a partner of sorts but that was it.
Yet with each glimpse he caught of the Phoenix as he progressed deeper into the debris field, filled him with a horrific sense of beauty - This howling, gigantic golden bird soaring through the skyline.
In his long career he could only think of one other time he had felt that way. Back in the First War, when he had been a regular fighter-jet pilot - He had seen it once on the horizon, the so called 'First Casnel' - In a way the older sister of the Phoenix.
Although it had been regular sized and silver not gold - The first Casnel had glowed like a God, invincible in battle, a guardian angel to pilots like Moncha, a sign that perhaps the Union really could win what would become the first of many conflicts with the Abhailiens.
That glimpse, that feeling had stuck with him for a long time - But never had he ever dared fear that he might one day find himself standing against that beauty - His hands, for the first time in years, trembled not from sadness or anger - But fear.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
It almost felt like he should bow, prostrate himself to the being of such immensity flashing before him.
Breaking him out of his trance came a laser signal, contacting over the open channels he had left on - A gruff, grizzled voice shattering his trance;
"Oi, who the bloody hell are you meant to be then?"
Moncha rose an eyebrow and then laughed, the tension droping immensely;
"States-Union special branch, Major Moncha, Combat Commander extraordinaire - I can keep going but that's probably too much classified info as is. And you are, Miss?"
There was a somewhat surprised scoff across the line - "Pah, who says I'm a woman?"
Moncha grinned slightly - 'So that's how this is gonn'a be?' He thought to himself - The connection being what it was he had simply guessed the gender, the voice was deep and patchy enough to be either or neither - But the captain had said Remembrance were engaging the Phoenix and that had narrowed the number of people that could possibly be hiding out here...
After Moncha failed to respond for a few seconds, the hidden voice continued on, "Fine whatever, you can just call me... 'Red' got it? Now what I want to know is what you're here for? Are you back-up for 'it' or? And answer carefully, I've got a mega-particle-launcher trained on you waiting for your answer!"
Moncha stroked his chin thoughtfully - "Actually its your lucky day, though it may a beauty, today is clean up duty."
"What's beautiful about that monster?! And why should I believe that? Prove it!"
'Red' barked back.
'I suppose that makes sense, this person has been fighting 'beings' like the Phoenix for years, the novelty of fighting man-made demi-gods probably wears off after a while...'
Moncha chuckled, "I don't need proof, because you already believe me - My Intelligence operators say you've been out here for half a week, that means you've seen the Phoenix destroy TSU machines too right? So you know I can only be here to either retrieve or destroy it."
"....Fine then, say I believe you - What's the deal, you an elite Casnel strike team? Or you got a few regular squads spread out all around here getting ready to pounce?"
"Neither, I've got two Vijaiks and 1 ship, but I'd rather keep them in reserve." Moncha chirped back jovially.
"Yo- You What!? Who did you have to piss off to get this job!?"
The Major smiled at that remark, "She's actually nice once you get to know her. Anyway speaking of squads, how's yours doing?"
Red's tone lowered a little though she replied without hesitation - "4 dead within five minutes of meeting that thing. All newbies recruited in the last few months, they never stood a chance - We were only here to scavenge materials, not fight.
Me 'an one other guy've spent the last few days evading that thing but his machine finally gave up the ghost about a quarter hour ago - He abandoned it and is floating around out there somewhere - Waiting for his oxygen to run out..."
Moncha internally cursed his luck, "So just you and me? What you got?"
Drawn-out dry laughter, cackling really, filled the air-waves; "Ha-ha, bugger all! I'm in a regular old Vijaik Heavy - Ran out of ammo days ago, running on fumes - I got two Calabar blades and maybe half an hour of fuel left. The particle cannon thing was just bluff, though you probably figured that much."
The Vijaik heavy had been a great machine... five years ago. A hulking, doom-headed, bulky mech specialising in ground based combat.
Moncha sighed and shrugged his shoulders before responding, "Well still better than nothing, here have this - Best of luck, I doubt either of us could follow the other's orders."
As he spoke his Vijaik released and tossed across its spare rifle - Out of a clump of metal in front of him at last appeared the hand of his conversing partner, grabbing the passing gun.
"What's to stop me just buggering off while you act as my decoy?" Came the reply.
"You think you can grab that subordinate of yours and make it far enough away to be safe, then be my guest." Moncha stated back earnestly.
There was a brief pause before finally the entirety of the Vijaik-Heavy emerged out of its metal camouflage and onto Moncha's monitor - "Alright then TSU-Flyboy, show me what'cha got!"
****
As a scalding golden blast of energy seared away paint and armour plating alike when it glanced off Moncha's mech - The realisation suddenly came to him, that after so many pilot's recent deaths in the Remembrance Incident, it was entirely plausible that he and this 'Red' person were currently the two best pilots alive in the whole solar system - However this was not the impression one would of gotten looking at the battle thus far.
It had been ten minutes since he had met the lone Remembrance pilot and as planned they had simply entered battle the next time the Phoenix had soared by. A few stray energy blasts and they had its attention.
It was only up close Moncha really saw how abnormally large it was. It was easy to see '36m height' on a piece of paper, but up close that meant a wholly different thing. A single one of the machine's long lanky, clawed arms was as lengthy as his entire mech. It had mass for sure, but was also sleek and angular. Its head a sheer block with two glowing red slit eyes - On its backs were no wings, but instead two long twisting tails, each fitted with a small cannon of their own.
It looked avian despite its massive size - There was a majesty to its elegant, perfectly calculated movements.
He dodged another 3 round burst from its main cannon, each a golden bolt of incredible heat.
Unlike Moncha's Casnel, the Phoenix carried no armaments - Instead they were all fixed directly to it. On its right arm, between massive wrist and elbow, was a gigantic barrel cannon - A cannon that being wired directly to the Phoenix would never run out of ammo, for as long as its generators functioned.
On its left arm forearm a folding vambrace, acting as a small shield - Ordinarily this would be useless for defending a mech, being too small and easily destroyed - But the Phoenix was different, every shot fired at it either missed, or was blocked by this vambrace, which was left without a scratch, as though the Phoenix knew exactly where and when every shot would come in from.
Combine that with its two tails, which could shoot at you in directions it wasn't even looking in - And you were left with no openings.
Moncha had originally planned for close-quarter combat, his speciality but that was proving impossible. He would fire a barrage of rifle fire and charge close with weapon drawn, only for the enemy to block his shots and force him back with a barrage of its own, all while looking in the opposite direction.
Red on the other hand was bafflingly to Moncha, managing much better - The woman was weaving in and out of debris, then popping up as close as possible, dodging anything the Phoenix's cannons threw her way and then attacking head on with a gaint Calabar great-sword. All of this was an incredible feat of Vijaik-mastery that even Moncha found himself in awe of, a tiny crimson blur rallying against the golden gaint.
Of course the Phoenix somehow always blocked this sword with its vambrace, held the position for a moment before flinging her machine away with a swing of its massive golden arms, like a giant of a man backhanding mere children - Even if Moncha and Red attacked simultaneously, in perfect sync, the Phoenix would wiggle its way free, or simply blast its way back to an advantageous vantage point within the debris.
Nearly 15 minutes, half the time Red had told him her machine had left, and neither of them had managed a single scratch on the enemy, not even a dent against its gleaming surfaces.
But what worried Moncha more wasn't his friend of opportunity's energy levels - Or their inability to break this stalemate - It was the simple fact that they couldn't keep going like this even if they had all the energy and weapons in the world.
His head was pounding from the concentration it took to keep up, to dodge the golden silhouettes of fire, any one of which could probably take him down in one shot - His Casnel's cape was now littered with holes where it had been burned through. His body ached from the physical exertion of simply piloting the machine this hard, pushing its specs too go just a little bit faster, to dodge the tiniest bit quicker.
The Phoenix would never tire, never weaken from exhaustion, never need to sleep or eat and as long as it could stop to gather supplies from time to time, it would never break at this rate.
'Alright Captain, you wanted us to right the wrongs of the past - Well you got a Union Ace and a Remembrance Ace here, fighting the fight of our life's against the ghost of said past - Now what the hell do we do?!'