Short Story - Phoenix - Part 4
"Lieutenant Gemon, Yazan, what do you think it is you are doing?" the Captain's voice called over the communications line. She was watching in front of her bridge’s windows as the two in question continued to set up an intricate minefield a short distance from 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 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 remained composed, never raising her voice, never demanding anything, simply sitting in her raised chair overlooking the room. There were a few more moments of silence until finally, with the smallest of sighs, "I do appreciate your loyalty to the Major."
No reply. Captain Synapse had, in her short months as the ship’s 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 second 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-Five, 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 trust me now also."
There was a long pause before finally, "If that broken ship weren'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 profound relief.
****
It had been twenty-three 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 a whole lot of paint. They were both coming to a breaking point.
Moncha sat back in his chair after dodging yet another counterattack; 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 instantly, ramming forward the acceleration, running his hand along a switchboard like 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 - and 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 grabbed the passing shaft in one of its massive claws, shattering the spear to pieces in its grasp.
But Moncha didn't pause for a moment, the sword in his other hand swinging forth - The Phoenix blocked 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 other's 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, The Scarlet Scourge, using its two smaller tail cannons:
The woman in the antique of a machine easily sidestepped these smaller blasts mid-flight, swung her gigantic greatsword overhead, 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 Phoenix, ready to see how much damage Scarlet's attack had landed.
----
The Calabar greatsword shattered, its thousands of reinforced, chainsaw-like teeth ground to dust instantly; against nothing but the unremarkable back of The Phoenix, the giant blade fell apart.
The next instant, the monster turned at shocking speed and simply slapped 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 hoped that would do it, a direct hit to its open back, but no; this was the beauty he'd witnessed all those years ago, the invincible God of war.
He had prayed not to use his final backup plan, but it was what it was, he reasoned.
As Scarlet's machine shakily dodged a retaliatory volley from all three of Phoenix's weapons, Moncha began to prep his mech.
'Even if it survives the blast, it must weaken it enough. Just enough for the minefield and the Curadh's main guns to finish it, surely...'
The internal lights of the cockpit all turned red; warnings began to flash. It annoyed Moncha a bit; it seemed overly dramatic. A final big red button appeared on a touchpad 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, and he steadied his breathing. Once pressed, he would have ten seconds to get as close to The Phoenix as possible - 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 break my concentration like that?!"
He wasn't really angry at Lieutenant Yazan, 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."
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"You what!?" Moncha said back.
"Can't tell you the plan, Sir. Captain also reckons that's how Phoenix knows the future, like mind reading, so less you know, the better. Just head for those ‘cords’; we've covered the rest."
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 a comically oversized 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, savouring the feeling of adrenaline, he turned the thruster output to maximum, and began to run away.
****
Everything rattled; the G-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 Phoenix, being the better part of three times the size of Moncha’s Casnel, benefitted from three times or more the speed, with no weight drawbacks. It was posing some rather serious issues for the Combat Commander. He was having to weave in and out of the rubble, moving at Mach speeds, while The Phoenix simply smashed its way headfirst through the fallen detritus.
Moncha had been a fighter pilot many years ago, but now he was older, and the pressure each G he gained exerted on his out-of-practice body was immense. 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 prey it took its name from.
On the plus side, this was a sprint, and he'd had the head start. A machine like 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 tightly into his chair as he disabled just about everything but controls and thrusters. The lights dimmed, and 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 purely for the first time in years, with 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 night 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 evidently made hurriedly, just barely tall enough for him to pass through - a second before he was back in open space.
A moment later for 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. 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. His mind blanked; he blacked out. It could only be for a few seconds, but in the depths of his mind, Donald Moncha was suddenly alone. The forces pressing on him gone, his machine and the enemy gone. In that darkness, he asked of himself a simple question: why?
Why was he still fighting? He had dreamed of becoming a soldier worthy of standing next to Captain Synapse, but he was gone. The image of the public execution flashed by, forever seared into the Moncha’s mind, the day TSU betrayed them, the day he finally saw the union for what an uncaring machine it was. But then why? The ship was the closest thing to family he had, was that it? Did he believe the principles of someone like Marie Synapse, that you could only make a change by being within the system? Did he simply have nothing else to do - that last one felt deeply depressing to him.
There were no forthcoming answers; Moncha’s eyes fluttered open again, right back where they’d left him. 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 managed to right himself enough to look at the results.
The ship had been rigged; its generator had gone critical, and an unimaginable explosion filled the space before them. The entire camera was filled with an endless white orb stretching seemingly forever. Moncha felt sure that if he looked upon it unfiltered, he would probably have gone blind.
"It was a nice plan; I guess by the time it knew what was happening, it couldn't act. Still, I wonder if it couldn’t have gotten away somehow; maybe it chose to stay at the epicentre.." he said.
A second Vijaik-Special floated by, and between the two, they hoisted the Major's heavily damaged Casnel between them.
"There are 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 its edges showing 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 have survived something like that?" Gemon added sullenly.
Moncha paused to give it genuine consideration. It 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 today, even if the hunt for Phoenix was 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. He wondered if the soul inside, just one ghost of their past, could finally be free now and when he two might follow.
Epilogue
Major Moncha could hear his squamates ruckus before rounding the corner into the breakroom. 1st Lieutenants Yazan, Gemon and their newest member, Petty Officer Helt, were all gathered.
The two middle-aged pilots were in the middle of teasing the young Helt, causing Moncha to crack a fond smile. Noticing his presence, Helt turned his attention to the veteran field commander, "Major Sir, these two are taking me for a complete fool! They keep insisting on some mad story where the three of you fought a giant golden bird-Magi!"
Moncha grinned broadly, shooting his two wingmen a quick look; "Aye, every word of it is true, Helty, though that's ancient history now - long ago."
Helt pouted, clearly feeling conned, but before he could protest, Moncha raised a hand to indicate they all take things more seriously for a moment.
"So listen, lads, just heard from the Captain, we're getting another new member - but this one we can't bully like Helt - she's a Magi, like a real high-level proper one."
Helt began complaining about always being last in the pecking order while Yazan sidled over to Moncha's side, whispering, "You mean a real person, though right? Not a brain put into a machine of nothin' odd like that?"
Moncha nodded, having already cleared that question up himself and a satisfied Yazan returned to his usual expression.
In the years since The Phoenix, Moncha had frequently been reminded of when he met the golden bird; its beauty had still never been surpassed in his mind.
And he swore to himself that this time would be different. This time, they wouldn't correct the mistakes of the past but rather make the future a better place; at least, that's what he hoped. But that chapter in the Major’s life is a story for another day…
End
