Templar Header [https://i.imgur.com/xVOD5AQ.png]
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Chapter 7 - Beau Idéal - Part 2
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We have arrived at long last. The Caravel sits on top of the coordinates we've been following all this time. Everyone is at their battle stations, space suits on. Hangar bay doors wide open, the Crusade and the Type-C behind it, standing ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Outside the wide opening is quite the view. Our hunt has led us to be just a couple miles out from the wreckage of the Grand Weapon, an ultra-high-energy weapon TSU-s built at an unfathomable cost. A weapon our very own Supreme Commander, 1st ranked among The 5 Great Aces, Omeas Agite, destroyed a few months ago.
Now it’s just these miles upon miles wide debris fields. Endless sheets of silver metal, bashed-up solar panels, wiry protrusions and more. And surrounding that is a graveyard.
You see, before the Grand Weapon was blown up, a massive battle occurred here. We won, the TSU forces were obliterated, and the husks of around two hundred warships and over a thousand mecha and fighter craft surround the weapon's corpse on all sides. It is a truly heinous depiction of destruction that all but blots out space in that direction. It is also rather eerie, all those vessels, most of them bigger, newer, stronger than our little Caravel, dashed to the rocks like nothing.
The debris field presents us with something of a problem – there is nothing here at the coordinates themselves, no space station or ship or asteroid base – just empty space. If the Casnel production facility is inside that somewhere, then us going in to find it will be asking to get ambushed. So, for the time being, we are waiting, perhaps hoping the enemy might hint at where they are in that endless void of space.
—–
Suddenly an alarm rings across the ship; every frequency is filled with a final call to battlestations from the bridge. The Crusade's back glows blue as it rockets out of the hangar. It begins.
Two seventeen-metre-tall, grey knights are approaching us from the debris field, just like the one from Shane's video. Domed heads with glowing visors, flared pauldron shoulders, massive rectangular tower shields – The new Casnels. It takes a matter of seconds for the distance to close: The Crusade launches into an instant lance strike. The lead grey-knight blocks with its shield. This greeting impact has all three machines stop and stare down one another.
Closer to me, Birigt’s machine more gradually leaves the hangar, his orders are to guard the ship and as such his mech stops only a short way in front of the hangar's mouth.
I realised then that the enemy are equipped only with a shield and a glowing golden arc-staff each. Are they concealing their rifles? Or does the fact these are probably prototypes mean they are without a proper loadout? If that is the case, it changes the balance of power drastically.
The Casnel has three advantages over ordinary mechs: Excessively long operating times, ridiculously strong armour and crazy powerful energy output for their weapons. If that third point is mute in this case, then our chances are much higher. I can almost imagine the cocksure grin spreading across Captain Katherine's face on the bridge as she realises this too.
But then something totally unexpected occurs. Just as the adrenaline starts to flow and we all brace for the fighting to begin in earnest, over an unknown frequency or perhaps over our own having been hacked into, a new voice speaks to us all.
“Hark, humble warriors, you have strayed too far from your shambled home continent this time. I shall grant you the honour of my title, the newly dubbed Union-Ace. I am he, The Lightning Bolt! Lay down your weapons and exit your...'Vijiaks' now, and I might yet accept your surrender, for you must surely know this battle is without meaning, and your success is impossible.”
It’s a voice entirely filled with arrogance and self-assurance to an almost comical degree, but it nonetheless sends a chill down my spine. A true ace with a Casnel at their disposal, someone on a level much higher than even the Seekers. The metaphorical scales of the battle seemed to be tipping back in the enemy's favour, and yet, without hesitation, the Crusade moves into a full-on assault.
In a flurry of movement, its lance-mounted rifles spray in one Casnel's direction while a slash of his flaming calabar sword lashes out at the other. Both are blocked with ease but clearly, that is the signal for the battle to start for real.
I'd watched Templar fight twice before, and both times, he has always seemed entirely in control – his speed overwhelming, his strikes definitive, his defences unbreachable – but this is a very different fight. The two Casnels quickly set into a formation, taking turns striking at the Crusade with arc-staffs burning so bright they could damage even Templar's Goibnui shield and lance.
They swap in and out, blocking rifle shots for one another with those massive shields, creating openings for the other to exploit, constantly trying to circle around the Crusade's back, making full use of space to attack from any and all directions.
With each exchange of blows, Templar is starting to take ever so slight hints of damage. Each strike he blocks leaves deep black indents on his shield, and each attack that lands burrows into his outer armour. He is almost entirely on the defensive now.
I wonder about how Birgit must be feeling. As a mechanic, my job is over. We support our pilots in the weeks, sometimes months, between battles, and if the ship gets hit, we will no doubt be called upon to try and repair it – but in that actual battle, the clashing of blades and rifles, there is no place for us inside that torrent of warfare.
But Birgit is a pilot, he has a mech; and yet he must know that to get even a little closer to the rapidly spinning tornado of dueling knights would be almost certain death.
I imagine him trembling in frustration, his fist clenched as one of the Casnels pulls a feint, ducking out of its sword strike at the last minute, allowing the other to get past Templar's shield and land the first clean blow on the Crusade’s torso. The golden arc-staff bores against the white plate armour for just a few seconds before the Cruasade swats the smaller enemy mech away with the blunt side of its lance, but the hole left behind by those few seconds is a deep black scar on the old knight’s chest.
'Some people just aren't born to be heroes' – My own words, how much might they be tormenting Birgit now as he is forced to watch this helplessly?
After about the tenth exchange of swords, one of the two grey Casnels suddenly breaks away and that arrogant voice from before calls out again, “Pah, what can you vermin hope to do against Casnels with this little false knight of yours? Why do you insist on obstructing the peace our people could attain if only you would lay down arms? Wilhem, handle this; I shall destroy their pitiful ship.”
Templar moves to stop the Lightning Bolt’s retreat, but the other Casnel, this ‘Wilhelm’ person, takes that single moment of hesitation to lash out at an unguarded Crusade. Thankfully, with an uncanny speed, the Crusade manages to twist its waist and block the slash – however, precious seconds are lost – The Lightning Bolt, true to his title, is rushing straight for us, our only line of defence, the Type-C.
Well, that's not entirely true, the Caravel's own weapons spring to life, thin lines of yellow flak fire erupt out like fireworks, and larger pink beams in sets of two begin to cross the skyline. The Casnel dodges most of them with apparent ease until finally, a round of those pink beams, fired from the ship's main cannon – a cannon salvaged from an old battleship – hits it directly in the shield. Particles scatter as the pure energy rallies against metal, a miniature light-show against the black of space.
A few seconds pass, the Casnel not slowing for a moment. The pink recedes, the round spent. The Casnel remains. No, even the shield itself has held firm; a mere dimming of its paintwork is the only proof of a direct hit from our cannon.
I swallow hard; this is the true technological advantage of a Casnel on full display. It's as good as over.
My eyes fix on Birgit's mech. Its massive rifle is trained on the incoming enemy, and its lanky body acts as our final shield. Yet he still hasn't fired even once.
A terrible thought comes over me: Is Birgit too afraid to fire? Is he about to die without even defending himself?
The Casnel is just seven metres away. I could sprint over there. It’s that close.
It will cut down Birgit and tear apart our little ship all before Templar can catch up.
Five metres – A different voice pipes up to yell over the open frequency;
“My name is Birgit Kazats, and I'm a goddamn pilot too you asshole!!!”
One metre, the arc-staff is curving down unreasonably fast. It will melt through the paltry standard-MBT armour of the Type-C.
Birgit fires.
BANG.
The flash of light that ensues is so close to us in the hangar and so bright that I'm temporarily blinded. I reflexively look away before blinking rapidly, trying to get the hot pain to go away.
When my vision finally clears, I look up to see something truly incredible: What does it actually mean to be ‘heroic’? Is it heroic to risk your life? Is the courage needed to put everything on the line for a hopeful gamble heroic? Is being recklessly foolhardy heroic? I don't honestly know, but what I do is that what I see is without doubt as impressive as anything Templar has done.
Birgit had waited until the absolute last moment, until the executioner’s axe of the enemy's sword was centimetres away from his machine, and then at point blank range fired a shot containing every last ounce of power the Type-C has at its disposal. The explosion, a mix of that energy blast and the gun itself exploding from the abuse.
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Birgit had probably missed, I can only guess he'd been aiming for the Casnel's heart; instead, he hit its midriff to the left, where a human's ribcage would be – but that hit is more than enough – a half-metre in diameter hole remained once the energy was spent and that hole went the entire way through. The Casnel is floating backwards from the impact, the impact point sparking dangerously, its shield having been let float free.
“WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!!” The shout echoes around my helmet. A few dozen voices are cheering in unison, including myself among them. Birgit has just done what a bare handful of others have managed in history; defeated a Casnel, and in one shot no less.
“N-no, Nooooooo!” Roars that voice across the airwaves. Interrupted, our cheer stops as fast as it began.
All eyes turn back to the grey knight, and against all belief, it's still moving. Its shield is gone, its entire left side is drooping, like it has had a stroke, but its right hand is holding the arc-staff steady, and it’s coming forward again, charging towards the Type-C with a simple overhead slash.
I and probably everyone else watching realise that Birgit must’ve killed his battery to fire that powerful a blast – he doesn't have time to restart the generator – he's frozen still, defenceless.
“I will not lose to a worthless Peon!! I have a cause; justice on my side! I fight for peace. I can not lose to rebellious, foolish trash like you!” The enemy roars. His voice has lost its confidence, replaced by a raging anger.
“Sorry guys, I really did try my best. Hope I bought ya'll some time at least,” Birgit says over the open channel.
Even as he does, the Casnel's blade has landed. It slowly digs into the Type-C's narrow shoulder, chewing through metal absurdly fast in a continuous shower of sparks, it will gouge out the cockpit any second now.
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A bell rings.
I wonder if the death of a comrade, a friend, a hero; is always accompanied by such an odd, hollow, church-bell sound…
A voice echoes in my head, not from the radio but somewhere else far, far away – words spoken without vocal cords, a strange hollow dissonance to them, yet not unpleasant – warm and firm.
[“Death Comes To Us All – And To Fools Like You All The Faster!”]
The enemy blade must be inches away from the point of no return, but at the very last moment, it is plucked free.
Cutting across my line of sight, with the hangar doors as the picture frame, the white-hot comet races across the picture’s mid-point, a vertical line drawn by the singular point: Lance first like an arrow, it rams into its grey contender.
The sheer impact is enough to send the Casnel tumbling, its blade left behind, embedded in the Type-C but going no deeper. The Crusade doesn't stop there. Reaching out, it grabs the grey knight by its domed head and begins to move rapidly away.
The movement is rough; were there a floor, you can easily imagine the Crusade dragging its enemy’s face through it. Finally, once quite a distance away, Templar lets the flailing Casnel free before putting the Crusade into rapid reverse.
“Nooo, no! This cannot happen to me! I am an Ace, I am the best of the best, the rising star of TSU, Damn It!! I am above such lowly excuses for pilots. I have goals, I have history on my side! I won’t be slain by no name pirates!”
The intruding voice screams, his rant growing more distracted and random. A moment later, that sparkling wound created by Birgit goes critical; the complicated mechanisms that were so crudely melted through finally reach their breaking point. The Casnel explodes from the inside out.
It's no ordinary explosion, either. It makes Birgit's weapon failure earlier look petty. This is a reactor meltdown, its safety system too damaged, the Casnel bulges and warps, its internal parts inflate outwards, and its solid metal shell almost seems to move like a liquid, squirming and writhing in strange shapes as it melts internally and cools externally all at once. And then all is white.
For a short time, a second sun appears in the sky near us, a total sphere of pure, overwhelming heat and energy.
The Lightning Bolt falls in a display befitting his precious title – and Birgit, who dealt that killing blow – goes down in history as one of only a handful of Vijiak pilots to ever destroy a Casnel.
****
It took a while for the excitement, the adrenaline running through me, to wear off. By the time it had, a few things occurred. We got Birgit and the Type-C back inside; predictably, his poor mech is a mess again. Its right hand was blown off when the cannon exploded, and there's that deep gash in its left shoulder. The paint job is ruined, too, though I don't mind so much this time.
That rifle used to save us all today is in ribbons. The long barrel is just a mangled, zig-zagging piece of burnt metal, and the main body of the gun has fried every single internal cable and circuit board. Even Chief Gros will need some time to put our Casnel killing gun back together.
That said, if we swap out the Type-C's right hand and give it back a regular rifle, it can at least fight a little again. Of course, Birgit's uncanny luck led him to make it out of the cockpit without so much as a scratch, a grin on his face, hugging and high-fiving everyone in sight.
Templar is still outside the ship, guarding us against anything else that might appear from within that colossal debris field. We also found a ship, but not an enemy one, well not exactly. We found a salvage vessel.
Covered in external arms, arc-cutters, cranes, magnet claws – The little thing was busy at work tearing apart the wreckage of the Grand Weapon and the sad remains of the ships and mechs all around it.
Lt. Vitka and a few others have gone over to ensure there are no surprises on board, but it seems legitimate. Someone else spotted another one just like it in the distance, and a conclusion was soon come to: A whole fleet of these little scrap ships are probably here, recycling the abandoned field of battle, and that scrap is perhaps what is being used to make the new Casnels.
That might sound more ‘environmentally friendly’ than you'd expect from The States Union, but ultimately, Goibhniu is exceedingly finite and sometimes, like today, a Casnel explodes wholly, eviscerating the Goibhniu within forever.
However, this creates a new question: Why guard salvage vessels with two Casnels? Those two grey knights were both woefully deficient protection and stupidly over the top. Sure, mechs that strong could take out a half dozen lesser ships in the right circumstances, but at the same time the debris field is dozens of miles long, they couldn't possibly hope to monitor every approach on their own, especially when they weren't equipped with any ranged weaponry.
“Training or a test flight. I'll bet that's why Casnels were here,” Shane suddenly says from beside me.
Gros immediately split us into two teams after the battle; our smaller team of five led by Shane, gets a break first. The back third of the hangar has had its air supply reinstated, while on the other side of the transparent screen, the other larger team is making sure Birgit's machine has no faults we haven't spotted yet.
Once lunch is done, we will swap out, and our group will refuel the Crusade.
Shane's been all smiles for a bit now. For a mech enthusiast like him, this has been quite the day, in his own words; “I got to see the death of an Ace and the birth of a Warrior today, Kris – Not to mention, Master Templar was as impressive as ever!”
I stop eating my sandwich momentarily to reply, “That would make sense. Why attack us though?”
“Arrogance? Or one of the scavenger ships requesting aid. More likely, the former, based on the Lightning Bolt’s personality. And credit to our enemy, any other lone corvette with just two mechs would have gone down in flames within thirty seconds to a pair of prototype Casnels,” Shane replies.
I nod, “Seems reasonable. That still leaves that question...”
We found a duo of Casnels, a fleet of scavengers but no base. By all rights, it could still be the case that the TSU production facility is inside that debris field. If so, our mission may well be over.
And really, no one would blame us for not charging into a potential ambush-laden trap. We gleaned useful information today; we know where TSU is gathering supplies from, and we also got battle and spec data on the Casnels (the one that didn't explode has been dragged into the hangar. It is quite bruised up from its fight with Templar, but it will be an invaluable specimen to bring back. Once the two Casnels split up, Templar was able to overpower his opponent with relative speed. He had partly let the enemy get a few hits in at the start of the battle for the very purpose of gauging their strength). Birgit will probably be in line for a commendation for his actions today, too. We've succeeded, and yet…
To leave now, knowing seventy more of those grey knights are on the cusp of completion, knowing that next time they'll undoubtedly be better equipped with more devastating weapons and maybe even stronger armour.
Can we really say we're done just yet?
Shane is about to answer me, the smile finally receding as he probably considers the same facts as me – When suddenly Johnny calls out from the other side of the room, “Hey guys, look at that!”
We both turn to the hangar's wide open doorway, past the bruised Type-C and the recovered wreckage of the grey knight. Past where Templar's Crusade is standing silent vigil outside the Caravel. Just coming into view, no doubt having already been seen by those on the bridge – Is a celestial body on its infinite cycle through space.
If I were to guess, I'd say the coordinates we've been following, the ones we are currently right atop, are directly in its path.
“Intelligence must have just been here at the wrong times. That's why they didn't find it,” Shane muses.
“We were all asking 'where' the enemy base is, when we should have been asking, 'Is the moon out yet'...” I mostly whisper to myself, quoting something from an old story, as that beautiful white body begins to fill my vision whole.
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