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Chapter 4
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"Lieutenant Gemon, Yazan, what do you think it is you are doing?" The Captain's voice issued over the communications line as the two in question continued to set up an intricate minefield a short distance in front of the good ship Curadh.
"Major's orders Ma'am, don't worry boss knows what he's doing."
Captain Marie Synapse, daughter of the somewhat more famous, 'Head Captain Synapse' as was, allowed her brow to crease ever so slightly. All around her in the large semi-circle room of the ship's bridge, were various officers trying their best not to look in the captain's direction.
Even those who hadn't heard Major Moncha abandoning his orders, had by now learned of the news by hushed whispers.
The original plan was gone, the entire mech team was acting on its own initiative and the Curadh was simply holding position on the edge of the debris field.
The Captain had reminded composed, never raising her voice, never demanding anything, simply sitting in her raised chair overlooking the room. There was a few more moments of silence until finally, with the smallest of sighs;
"I appreciate your loyalty to the Major."
No reply. Captain Synapse had in her short months as the ships CO, spoken and argued frequently with major Moncha, but far less so with his two perpetually grinning, somewhat blockheaded subordinates. That said she prided herself on reading the people under her, and in the brief engagements she had witnessed of the two wingmen, it had become clear to her that they were far from 'stupid'.
You would be forgiven for seeing 2nd lieutenants Yazan and Gemon as two muscle bound pilots, who left all the thinking to Moncha - Indeed if you spoke with either of them for long, they gradually would grow quiet - Their jovial smiles would retract into more polite grins and they would simply stop talking back. Many took this as them being too slow to keep up with any conversation deeper than friendly banter, but the Captain disagreed. It was her belief that the two simply knew when to shut up and listen carefully.
After another long minute of silence, she decided to continue;
"Lieutenants I've just been informed of what I had hoped for - At point delta 5 you will see an interesting heat signature, a battleship - Heavily damaged and abandoned, but with a generator that never quite went critical."
Still no reply - "Gentlemen your loyalty to the major-- No to this ship and all its crew is truly admirable, but I ask you to now trust me also."
A long pause before finally, "If that broken ship wasn't there, then the Major's plan would still be best though, right Captain Ma'am?"
"Yes, I suppose it might be."
"Heh-hey, no worries, sounds good to me, right Gemon?"
The Captain allowed herself a moment of deep relief.
****
It had been 23 minutes since Moncha and 'Red' had begun their attempt to wound the Phoenix.
They had both used up their rifle ammo, both lost melee weapons, fuel and whole lot of paint - They were both coming to a breaking point.
Moncha sat back in his chair after dodging yet another counter attack, he watched as 'Red' once more made another attempt of her own to little avail. He took a heavy breath - "Well only a couple more plans left now." - Not waiting for his resolve to dissipate, Moncha pounced in an instant - rammed forward the acceleration, ran his hand along a switch board like it were a piano and braced for impact.
His now more grey than white, Casnel soared towards the ever glowing shape of the Phoenix, all around the Casnel the disposable missile launchers fired in sync, a massive barrage of grey cylindrical missiles coursed forward, a moment later the emptied pods ejected and the Casnel emerged once more out of the plume of smoke left by the launch.
The Phoenix turned almost lazily, it blocked a few of the projectiles with its vambrace, but let others simply smash into it, the massive explosions they delivered not leaving even a scratch. Moncha's Casnel continued forward, now dodging yellow bolts of flame as the enemy returned fire - With a sleek motion the battered Casnel unsheathed a long spear, the head glowing with an arc of super-heated energy, as well as a more regular sword shaped Arc-Staff in its other hand.
Finally closing the distance Moncha's mech lunged the spearhead forward, aimed squarely at the Phoenix's beating heart - The beast in turn grabbed the passing shaft in one of its massive claws, the spear shattering to pieces instantly in its grasp.
But Moncha didn't pause for a moment, the sword in his other hand swinging forth for its own attempt - The Phoenix blocking handily with its other arm.
"NOW!!" Moncha roared over his radio - They hadn't discussed this, there was no joint plan per se, in fact the longer the battle went on, the less 'Red' said anything over the open comms at all - He merely hoped against hope that as fellow warriors, they had read each others intentions correctly - And he wasn't wrong.
The Phoenix fully occupied with Moncha's desperate assault could only defend against Red, no as Moncha was now sure, Thee Scarlet Scourge, using its two smaller tail cannons:
The woman in the antique of a machine easily sidestepping these smaller blasts mid-flight, swung her gigantic greatsword over head, and came down like almighty thunder against the Phoenix's open back.
Moncha whopped for joy, throwing his machine into a downward push to get it away from the incoming retaliation - He stared up at the Phoenix, ready to see how much damage Scarlet's attack had landed.
----
The Calabar blade shattered, its thousands of reinforced, chainsaw like teeth ground to dust in an instant, against nothing but the unremarkable back of the Phoenix, the giant blade fell apart.
In the very next instant the Phoenix turned at shocking speed and simply slaped the Scarlet Scourge's dilapidated machine away like some pesky insect.
It wasn't for long, but for a few moments Moncha just stared at his screens - He really had hopped that would do it, a direct hit to its open back, but no - This was the beauty he'd witnessed all those years ago too, the invincible God of war.
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He had hoped not to have to use his final back up plan, but it was what it was, he reasoned.
As Scarlet's machine shakily dodged a retaliatory volley from all three of the Phoenix's weapons, Moncha began to prep his mech - 'Even if it survives the blast, it'll have to weaken it enough, just enough for the mine field and the Curadh's main guns to finish it, surely...'
The internal lights of the cockpit all turned to red, warnings began to flash - This annoyed Moncha a bit, it seemed overly dramatic. A final big red button appeared on a touch pad in front of him;
[Are You Sure] - It read stupidly;
"Of course I'm sure, what did you think I was trying to do when I bypassed half your safety programming, of course I'm sure."
His hand hovered over the confirm button, he steadied his breathing - He would have ten seconds to get as close to the Phoenix as possible once pressed - And Moncha was aiming for point blank.
One last deep breath and --
"M-Jo- Y-o the---" Intruded a garbled voice, echoing around the small space.
In a moment of genuine anger Moncha slammed a fist against his armrest, "What do you want, why the hell are you in radio range, and why did you have to go breaking my concentration like that?!"
He wasn't really angry at lieutenant Yazan of course, but it was no small feat to ready yourself to press 'that button'.
The radio growing a bit clearer, Yazan responded jovially as though simply catching up with an old friend in the pub, "Captain actually has some pretty good ideas boss, I think you should head for the co-ordinate I'm sending ya."
"You what!?" Moncha said back.
"Can't really tell you the plan Sir, Captain also reckons that's how the Phoenix knows the future, like mind reading so less you know, the better - Just head for those cords, we've got the rest covered."
Moncha paused a moment, staring around himself - He had no weapons left, Scarlet must be minutes away from running out of fuel and he was sitting in front of comically big red self-destruct button.
Barely hesitating he put on a big grin, "Ya know what, fine! On my way lads!!"
Resetting the self-destruct protocols, Moncha re-entered the fray, firing off a ream of machine gun fire - Said gun was meant purely for small targets but it did enough to get him the Phoenix's attention back. The majestic golden mech turned to face him as though amused by the petty attack.
Moncha licked his lips, turned the thruster output to maximum, and began to run away.
****
Everything rattled, the Beta type Casnel had been made for speed and Moncha was about to make it earn those specs. The Phoenix had taken the bait, himself that is, and to his relief Scarlet had backed off, or run out of fuel, Moncha didn't have much time to worry about that.
The Phoenix was also fast, since the moment he had laid eyes on it he known that - But moreover it was big.
In space, an environment with no friction, size doesn't particularly slow you down - So the Phoenix being the better part of three times the size of his Casnel, benefitted from three times or more the speed, with no weight drawbacks. This was posing some rather serious issues for Moncha, he was having to weave in and out of rubble moving at mach speeds, while the Phoenix simply smashed its way headfirst through the fallen detritus.
Moncha had been a fighter pilots many years ago, but now he was older and the pressure each G he gained exerted on his out of practise body was immense - And even that didn't seem to be enough, the Phoenix was still gaining on him, running down his tiny machine like the massive bird of pray it took its name from.
On the plus side this was a sprint and he'd had the head start - A machine like the Phoenix was probably running calculations, trying to work out where Moncha would go, rather than how fast - It had patience, no need to rush, no need to use its maximum speed.
And yet still it gained on him.
Reaching down shakily, Moncha grabbed his helmet and put it on, sealing his space-suit and then diverting the life support systems to power output. Next he made sure he was still strapped into his chair tightly as he disabled just about everything but controls and thrusters - The lights dimmed, half the screens shut off entirely - His speed edged an inch higher.
His rear-view camera and even his radar were off now - He was flying pure for the first time in years, as little assistance from the computers as possible, he couldn't even see the Phoenix anymore, just a screen rapidly vibrating, showing him the lay of the land in front - His mech moved as a bullet streaking across the nights skyline.
It happened fast, a moment passed and there it was, the co-ordinates - A husked out old battleship, a second to align himself with the open hanger doors - A second to realise there was a second opening at the end of the hanger, small and clearly made hurriedly, just barely tall enough for him to pass through - A second before he was back in open space - A second later for the Phoenix to crash straight into the battleship, crumbling and crippling the metallic walls, tearing through the ship inside out in its pursuit of him - Roaring as its violent claws tore the metal apart, frustration at not being able to read the major's plan evident - The golden beast of legend thrashed and raged against the abandoned old ship.
And then the whole thing blew up.
----
Moncha desperately held back the urge to vomit and fall unconscious at once, slamming a hand to reinstate the life support and turn off the thrusters. He collapsed into his chair, exhaustion taking over, clunks surrounded him as the Casnel began to slow down, clattering into passing debris as it did.
Finally there was a more deliberate noise as the Vijaik-Speical of Lieutenant Yazan caught his machine from the outside;
"Nice one Sir."
Moncha didn't respond, his head was spinning, everything ached but just barely he manged to right himself enough to look at the results.
The ship had been rigged, its generator had gone critical, an unimaginable explosion filled the space before them - His entire camera was filled with an endless white orb stretching seemingly forever - Moncha felt pretty sure if he were to look upon it unfiltered he would probably of gone blind.
"It was a nice plan, I guess by the time it knew what was happening, it wasn't able to act." He finally said back.
A second Vijaik-Speical floated by and between the two they hoisted the major's heavily damaged Casnel between them;
"There's two Remembrance tags out there Sir, moving away from us - Should we peruse?"
'Must be Scarlet and that subordinate of hers, so they survived too huh?' - "No, leave it be, they've earned that much."
Moncha continued staring at the massive ball of energy filling space, only the very edges of it showing any signs of fraying and dissipating. It had all ended so suddenly, so violently - "You, ah, You are sure it was in there right lads?"
There was a concerned murmur from his two fellows;
"Yes sir, it was right in the middle of the explosion just before the scanners all went dead from the shockwave."
"Just like that huh?"
"You don't think it could of survived something like that?" Gemon added sullenly.
Moncha paused to give it genuine consideration, it really had all happened in an instant - "I don't know, I really don't - I know this though, I'm going to owe the Captain a hell of an apology."
They laughed and gradually made their way back to the Curadh. No one would dare question their loyalty to TSU-s after that day, even if the events of Phoenix were mostly covered up - The Captain would indeed expect a heck of an apology and it was far from the last time the Scarlet Scourge and Moncha would cross paths.
But as he was carried away, Moncha simply kept staring, at the incredible second sun in the sky - A platinum colour fitting of the Phoenix itself - And he wondered if the soul inside, just one ghost of their past, could finally be free now.
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