Chapter Twenty Three
“Sixty seconds!” Michelle called out over the channel. She was keeping an eye on the missile strike that Angela had just ordered thirty seconds ago, letting her know when it was time to get the hell away. If she was too close to where the Meteors impacted then not even the rugged Rogue would be able to save her neck.
Still, Angela had a job to do; and it was an important one. She had to get the Destroyer's attention and keep it away from the main battle line that was currently engaged with a flood of UNE tanks and soldiers. However this was easier said than done. She had been peppering it with rounds and flying around it trying to make the big bastard see her, but right now it seemed more preoccupied with the thunderous noise the Japanese, Chinese, and Russians were making. Nothing she did was working and she was quickly running out of time.
“Switchblade and Aphrodite, I want you to flank this thing! We need to get it away from the line now!” she yelled into her helmet and felt her own voice reverberate through the enclosed space around her. Her words were harsh and cold, but there was no helping it. There was literally a ticking clock counting down on them and she would be damned if her actions led to pilots being caught in friendly fire.
“Roger!” her two friends answered almost instantly.
Looking out over the scarred and smouldering battlefield, Angela saw both Lisa and Michelle rush out ahead of her and get behind the massive Destroyer that seemed to be impervious to pain and distraction. The moment both girls were clear, Angela gripped her trigger tightly and sprayed death down range once more. Hundreds of massive bullets specially designed to fight the UNE smashed into the thick scales of the Destroyer and either broke apart instantly or merely bounced off. How the hell were they supposed to hurt this thing?
“Forty seconds!” Michelle now called out loudly and her voice was panicked. And why shouldn't it be? They had less than a minute to get this thing away from the line or a very major international incident was going to take place, and Angela would have been the one who had ordered it.
Failure was not an option for her however, and she knew that. If there was ever a moment to do something stupid, it was now. She just hoped it worked and she didn't end up getting herself killed in the process. Her entire being was focused on what she had to do next and she was so focused on how she saw this playing out that she nearly forgot two very important parts, getting the item she needed to get the monsters attention and telling the others to get out of the way and give her some space.
“Sarah? Do you still have some of those timed rounds left?” she asked quickly and for a moment there was a pause on the radio channel as everyone listening in probably tried to figure out what she was up to.
“Y... yeah. I haven't used my compliment yet. Why?”
“Do me a favour and activate one and then eject it from the chamber! I'm going to need it!”
“What the hell are you going on about?”
“Just do it!” she ordered, wishing her best friend would at least trust her judgement enough to do what she was being asked without raising more questions. The order seemed to get the job done though, and as Angela rose into the sky and engaged her flight engines she saw a massive artillery shell come tumbling out of the barrel of Sarah's large cannon and fall to the ground with a loud thud.
“I need everyone else to get away from the Destroyer! Stay away and get ready for the Meteors! How much time do I have?”
“Twenty seconds! What are you doing? Why did you just make Sarah eject a live explosive round?!” Michelle answered a second later and the doubt in her voice was palpable.
Angela chose not to answer. It was insane. Completely and totally insane, and what was worse was that she herself knew it. But she couldn't think of anything else in that moment. They had lost the attention of the monster that she had promised Alex that they would take care of, and now there was a missile strike coming in that could potentially wipe out of the front firing line if they didn't get the damn beast away from it. If she had a better plan, one that didn't involve her nearly blowing herself up, then she would do it.
Without a second thought, Angela kicked her Rogue into motion and sped off towards Sarah. Without even stopping she typed in a quick command to force the Rogue to pick up the live round from the ground and then turned back towards the battlefield, a literal ticking time bomb held in her hands. Now she just had to hope she could get to the Destroyer before the thing blew up in her face, and she also hoped that she had enough time to lure it away and then get away herself before the missiles hit and tore her machine to pieces.
Yep, this is the dumbest thing I have ever done, she thought to herself as her machine screamed through the air, only a few feet above the pockmarked ground. It easily eclipsed the kiss she almost planted on Alexander back by the lake.
The live round she had clasped in the unmoving hand of her Rogue weighed heavy on her mind. How long had passed since Sarah had ejected it? Five seconds? Ten? It might not seem like a lot of time, but in this case it was an eternity. The explosive round was a heavy artillery round that was used during a bombardment to kill off stragglers or before an attack to effectively create a minefield where there wasn't one before. It was an effective weapon, but Angela doubted that the creators of it hadn't had what she was about to do with it in mind when they first got the idea. Hell, she didn't know anyone who would think of something as stupid as this. Besides Alex that was. For some reason this seemed right in his wheelhouse.
“Fifteen seconds!” Michelle warned in the exact same moment that Angela found herself hovering right above the abomination that was tearing a path towards the front line; a wake of dead and crushed UNE tanks behind it.
“Get ready to attack!” she yelled.
A bead of cold sweat rolled down her cheek and tickled her, but Angela ignored it. She also ignored the roiling pain in her gut and the fact that her heart had suddenly seized in her chest. Worrying about that stuff would come after this; if she lived. Now it was time for action, and that's exactly what she set out to do. She had been told once during her first few weeks of training that combat was chaotic and you never knew how things were going to turn out. That statement had never been more true than it was right in that moment.
With no time left on the clock and everything on the line, Angela released the explosive device held in the hand of her machine right on top of the monsters head. She wished she could have stuck around to see what happened next up close and personal, but she didn't want to be anywhere near this creature when the round detonated or when the missiles hit their mark. Instead she had to settle for watching it on a small screen in front of her that was fed video from one of her three rear facing cameras. Still, it was a hell of a show.
Two feet from landing right on top of the Destroyer's head the round exploded, sending a mass of smoke, shrapnel, and a large concussive wave flying in all directions. Even though Angela had gotten far enough way from the blast she still felt the concussive blast and was tossed around slightly inside the cramped and dark cockpit of her Rogue, the sound of the explosion ripping through the speakers and assaulting her ears savagely. Despite all of that she quickly realized that her plan had worked; almost a little too well.
While doing very little actual damage to their enemy, the blast did distract it from its rampage towards the line of Japanese Mech's trying to beat back an onslaught of UNE tanks. Instead it was now focused on the one who had caused the latest attack: Angela. Almost as quickly as her heart could beat, Angela watched with revulsion as all eight of its beady and independently moving eyes suddenly focused on her with nothing but malice and hatred. It had decided—if it was even capable of thinking for itself—that Angela would be the first one it killed, and it was now turning to face her. It's red scales glinted slightly in the failing light, it's beady eyes locked on her and her alone, and its four massive scythe like arms slashed through the air in a menacing way.
“Seven seconds!”
“Prepare to fire!” Angela growled, determined to end this bastard here and now.
The next seven seconds were some of the longest that Angela had ever had to endure, and each tick in her head that counted down another instant seemed to drag on and on. She flew low to the ground now, keeping her distance from the monster chasing after her but also staying low enough that it wouldn't give up or try another tactic. She had it hooked and all she had to do now was reel it in, hoping that she could stay far enough ahead of it before the Meteors smashed into it and hopefully blew it to a billion little meaty pieces.
Pulling it as far away from the front lines as she possibly could, Angela directed her Rogue back towards the Hive in order to get some satisfying collateral damage from the UNE tanks still swarming out from the depths of their ship. She was vaguely aware of Michelle counting down the remaining time in the back of her mind, but in that moment Angela was so focused on staying alive and causing as much damage as possible that she didn't pay anyone or anything else any more attention. No, her eyes and entire being were focused on the little radar readout on the console between her legs and she kept her eye on the Destroyer closing in behind her, the mass of UNE tanks in front of her, and the six Meteor missiles screaming towards them.
When the missiles did find their mark, the sheer power of their destructive force was awe inspiring. Even being away from the initial blast area hadn't saved Angela or her Rogue from harm, and as the explosions of the massive weapons sent chunks of earth, smoke, rocks, and fire flying in almost every direction she found herself being tossed about. The concussive wave ripped through the air and blasted through the protective cocoon of Angela's cockpit, hitting her and her machine with so much force that she was tossed out of the air and crashed hard into the sandy beach only a few hundred meters from the Hive that sat in the ocean.
Despite being rattled by the massive explosion that tore a massive hole in the once flat and welcoming Japanese beach, Angela forced her Rogue back up and ready to finish this fight then and now. Her ears rang from the sound of the detonation that her computer hadn't been able to block out and almost every inch of her body ached, as if she had been thrown down a steep hill with nothing on. But still, she pushed through that pain and the confusion left after the missiles and shook her head to clear the cobwebs, unsure what she would find when she looked out over the scene she had just helped create.
Smoke and sand still clung to the air and made it hard to see through it to where the Destroyer had just been brutally attacked with some of the most powerful weapons the Navy had at their disposal. With the advanced camera's that Angela's Rogue had installed she was still only barely able to glimpse a massive shadow behind the curtain of smoke. From this distance, and with this much interference it was still impossible to determine how well the attack had actually worked though. Not that it mattered to Angela. She didn't plan on underestimating the Destroyer and thinking that they had managed to kill it so easily.
“All units, fire!” she ordered instead.
In an instant the sound of multiple weapons being fired rang out through the already noisy battlefield. Deadly chunks of specially shaped metal flew through the air, the only clue of their existence coming from the bursts of bright flashes from the tracer rounds mixed in to allow the pilots to know where they were really targeting. These flashes that streaked across the darkening sky like tiny little shooting stars punched through the thick cloud of dust and dirt that still fell around the Destroyer and disappeared, their final destination totally unknown.
Angela's own weapon flashed and bucked in the hands of her Rogue, her finger pressing down on the trigger at her hand in intermittent bursts, just like she had been taught. Using controlled bursts allowed her to get better accuracy down range and also made sure that she wasn't wasting her ammunition, something that could be a big problem if this fight continued to drag on. That was something that Angela didn't want to think about right now. She really hoped that the Destroyer had been ripped apart from the missile strike and that they were just finishing off what was left of it.
Sadly, what you want to happen and what actually happens in combat are two totally different things, and that was something that Angela was having trouble getting used to. No sooner had the smoke and sand begun to clear from the air did she realize that they were in much deeper trouble than she had originally thought.
Watching the hulking, disgusting, and nightmarish figure of the Destroyer rise high into the air as it let out a terrible roar of rage, Angela knew two things for sure. The first thing was that this fight was far from over. The damn thing had taken a direct hit from several missiles and it was still standing! The second thing she quickly came to figure out was that she had just pissed the bastard off, and that was never a good thing.
“H... how is this possible?!” Sarah breathed, her voice strained and hollow sounding over the radio. The fear and confusion hiding in her words were felt throughout the whole squadron, and Angela herself had to choke back her own horrified remark.
“Six missiles had no effect?” Lisa growled, probably the only one of them that was more angry than scared.
“Did they miss?” Michelle asked.
“No! I saw them hit! We definitely hit that bastard! I don't understand why they had no effect though!”
Angela listened to the words of her friends and looked out over the massive creature before her. Its four massive scythe like arms swung wildly through the air and its mouth was open wide in a terrible roar, it's sharp and deadly looking teeth on full display. She knew better than anyone else that those missiles had hit their mark. It had damn near killed her! But she also couldn't deny the fact that they seemed to have had no effect whatsoever on the monster. Not even its evil looking eyes had been hurt in the blast. Just what the hell was this thing made of? Was there any way they would be able to beat the thing? Or would this be the one that killed them? And where was Alexander? What was taking him so long?
“Hang on a second!” Sarah suddenly cried out and now her voice had a little more emotion to it. It caught Angela by surprise, and judging by the sudden silence on the channel she figured that it had caught everyone else by surprise as well. “One of its scales is cracked! Just below its neck! There is a giant crack in it!”
A tendril of hope forced its way into Angela's heart suddenly. Without even thinking about it she suddenly jumped into the air, using her thrusters to get above her enemy so she could see for herself just what kind of damage had been inflicted. And just as Sarah had claimed, she herself could now make out a faint crack in the giant scale at the base of the Destroyers skull. It was small, and barely qualified as an injury, but it was a crack none the less.
“I see it!” she yelled, letting that hope blossom in her before she could reign it in. It was Michelle, with a cooler head, who said what Angela should have been thinking in that moment.
“Six of the most powerful missiles we have in our arsenal only caused that small little crack! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's not very reassuring! It's barely even a scratch!”
“She is right,” Anya now chimed in, her heavy Russian accent making her stand apart from the rest of the squadron. Angela had actually forgotten about her, until she spoke that is. “We have nothing that can kill this beast!”
“Don't give me that crap!” Lisa roared at the top of her lungs suddenly, emotion dripping from each word that fell from her usually quiet lips. “We just proved that this monster isn't invulnerable! We can kill it! We have to kill it!”
“How though?” Angela found herself asking. That little bit of hope that had gripped her heart had now all but vanished, and she was at a loss as to what to do. Sure, they had just proven that they could hurt the Destroyer, but that didn't matter when it had taken six extremely powerful missiles to do it. It would take a nuclear warhead to put this bastard down for good.
“Just watch! I'm going to drive my sword right through that crack and cut this bastards head off!”
Before anyone could say or do anything to stop her, Lisa leapt back into the fray with gusto. For a moment all Angela could do was watch in shock and surprise as one of her close friends charged the Destroyer head on, her one good sword flashing through the air. With speed that only Alexander had been able to rival, Lisa performed her signature move and came within range of the monster in a matter of seconds, a storm of sand being kicked up being her as her thrusters and flight engine were pushed to the max to achieve the terrifying speeds that she had become used to.
“Get back to the line, Switchblade!” Michelle yelled, but it was already too late. Lisa was making her move.
The sleek and agile Rogue closed the last few feet in the time it took Angela to blink. With the massive silver coloured sword held back and away from the Destroyer, Lisa launched herself right at the monsters face like she felt no fear at all. Two massive scythes began to swing in towards her, and for a moment Angela's heart squeezed tightly as she feared that Lisa was about to be killed right in front of her eyes; but she had underestimated the brilliant close quarters fighter. Not only had Lisa seen the attack coming, it seemed that she had been planning on it as well.
With moves that Angela didn't think she would ever be able to replicate, Lisa's Rogue suddenly launched into the air and tucked into a forward somersault, dodging the two brutal attacks and making it look easy. At the apex of her manoeuvre she pulled out of the tucked position and hit her thrusters once, soaring over the unprotected head of the Destroyer. In the very next instant she grabbed her sword with both of her machines hands and then once more hit her thrusters, this time pushing her Rogue down towards the monsters back.
What followed next happened so quickly that Angela's eyes were barely able to follow the movements on display before her. She saw the flash of silver streaking towards the broken scale of the Destroyer and the blur of Lisa's Rogue, and in the very next instant everything settled. Lisa stood atop the monsters back with both of her hands holding firmly onto a massive sword that had been driven in halfway to the hilt. The sound of the attack reached Angela's ears a second later and no one moved or spoke as they stared at the normally shy girl standing there in a heroic pose.
“She... she did it?” Sarah asked in shock after what seemed like a long pause; but for all Angela knew it could have only been a half a second that had passed.
As if the Destroyer had heard the question, it quickly answered it in a way that shattered any hope that remained in the pilots hearts. In one fluid motion it bucked back on its massive spike like legs, turning its back from a giant platform that Lisa stood on into a steep and dangerous cliff face. Even though Lisa was gripping onto the hilt of her massive sword, she seemed unable to stop herself from being thrown off. The fingers on both of her hands lost their grip at the same time and in slow motion she began to fall towards the unforgiving ground more than sixty feet below.
Lisa's Rogue smashed into the ground with a resounding thud, a cloud of sand exploding into the air. Then things went from bad to worse before anyone could even move. One of the massive legs of the Destroyer lifted off the ground and came crashing down on top of Lisa, catching her left arm and severing it from the body of the machine as a small explosion rippled through the air.
“LISA!” Michelle screamed and now everyone was in motion. Sarah began to unload from long distance on the head of the Destroyer, but it was doing nothing to slow it down or stop it. Michelle broke away from the area that she had been holding, keeping an eye on Sarah, Anya, and the rest of the front line and began to unload their own weapons on the monster that was about to kill her best friend. She was too far away to make any real difference though.
Angela herself kicked her Rogue into action and, being that she was already in the air and a little closer, she stood a better chance at getting there in time. However things were progressing quickly and she was having trouble keeping up. Her flight engines roared in her ears and her eyes were stuck on the video feed in front of her, watching as Lisa slowly pushed her machine into a standing position. It was already too late though. The massive form of the Destroyer began to turn towards her and Angela was still too far away. There was nothing she could do but scream and watch in horror.
“Switchblade, you're too close! Get out of there!” she yelled and felt the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes.
“Get it off of me! It's too big! I can't get away!”
The Destroyer had now rounded on the wounded and slow moving Lisa, sparks and small flames clinging to the shattered arm. It lifted all four of its massive and terrifying scythes into the air and was so close to Lisa that Angela knew it would never miss, and she was still at least ten seconds out. The deep and dark feeling of being powerless to save her friend flooded her mind and now the tears flowed freely from her itchy eyes.
“Anya! Target the head! Try to blind it!” Michelle screamed and her own tears were thick in the sound of her voice.
“I can't get a good shot!”
“MOVE LISA! IT'S TURNING TO YOU!” she pleaded, desperate for something, anything to happen. Nothing was going to intervene though. Not this time. Not for Lisa. In a moment the stretched on for an eternity, and with tears in her eyes and her heart threatening to break in her chest, Angela watched as the machine of one of her pilots, one of her friends, was destroyed right in front of her when she was so close to stopping it.
Two of the massive scythes cut through the air almost as fast as they could fly and caught Lisa's Rogue on the waist. With the horrible sound of twisting and breaking metal, the devastating scythes tore through the machine like it was made of wet paper and severed the torso unit from the chest. The upper chest unit that held the cockpit that Lisa was trapped in fell towards the ground and smashed into the soft and purple tinted sand, rendering it useless without the legs or engine that had just been sliced in half. It was dead.
“NO! LISA!” the words crawled up from the pit of her stomach and flew out past her lips, the salty taste of her own tears staining her tongue.
“EJECT! EJECT! EJECT!” Michelle and Sarah yelled in unison.
Suddenly a red message appeared across Angela's vision and she focused on it, feeling the dread clawing at her heart, lungs, and mind. It was an automated message telling her that Lisa had just activated her ejection and self destruct features, her last and only move left to her. But once again it was too late. The Destroyer was already going for the kill, and its two remaining scythes bore down on the chest of what remained of Lisa's Rogue. Even if she did eject she would only end up causing herself to fly directly into the path of both Scythes that would end her life. There was nothing any of them could do.
“NO!!!” someone cried out, but the voice seemed foreign to Angela's ears right now and she had no idea who had just screamed. Hell, it could have even been her.
But that's when everything changed. Everything. In the blink of an eye, as Lisa's cockpit capsule was forced from the chest unit and flung into the air with thrusters that were hidden on the back of it, she was suddenly caught out of midair and vanished a split second later. For a moment Angela didn't even know what had happened. One second the cockpit was there, and the next it wasn't. The two large and deadly scythes smashed into the chest of the Rogue and tore it to pieces, a large explosion ripping through the air as the self destruct was initiated.
It wasn't until her radar beeped and notified her that another Mech had entered their range did Angela realize exactly what had happened. The Aegis had returned. Stopping her Rogue less than a dozen feet away from the Destroyer, she accessed her side facing camera and looked out over a pockmarked battlefield to find the Aegis standing in the sand, holding onto Lisa's cockpit with one arm. It was covered in purple UNE blood, massive scratches and burn marks, and one of its arms was missing, but it was the Aegis alright. Even as the rain began to pour and the Destroyer continued to tear apart Lisa's Mech, Angela found herself smiling. The miracle she had been hoping and praying for had come, and despite looking so banged up, it had never looked so good to her before.
“A... Alex...” she breathed his name, letting the sweetness of how it sounded overpower the salty taste of her tears.
“Keep attacking!” the smooth and slightly stern British voice answered. Even though he sounded wounded and more than a little stressed, Angela couldn't help but notice the relieved sound that clung to his words. Even he didn't think he would make it in time, and yet he kept pushing himself. That was just like him.
“You heard the Captain! Open fire!” Angela now ordered the others, a little more confidence filling her body. More robust gunfire added to the already noisy air and without another word, Alex leapt into the air and tore off towards the back line, Lisa's cockpit still clutched firmly in his hand.
“Get her to safety,” she then whispered, not intending for anyone to hear her words. Despite having her machine destroyed and almost being killed herself, Lisa was okay. Most likely seriously injured, but alive. That's all that mattered right now. This fight was far from over, but Angela wasn't ready to lose one of her friends. And with Alexander's help, that might just be possible.