The Mobile Gear Walpurgis

The forward base expanded rapidly even as the Chizan Duo linked up with fellow Shinra patrol units. They stopped for a moment to establish communications. Thankfully, Tominosky particles were light here.

“Where’s the nearest supply depot?” Victoria asked.

“Lieutenant Schwarzenberger! It’s good to see you. I’ll send the coordinates over. Careful over there.” The patrol trooped on.

It was akin to a busy hive with all the combat engineer MT units moving large orange crates around. The two had a moment’s respite to relax. Victoria consumed more than enough of her fill of ersatz combat rations.

“Boy, you look like a wreck,” Friederika said.

Victoria ignored her. She had slid off her helmet and unzipped a little. She was doing everything she could to cool off. She searched and roped in her spatial matrix for the poignant disturbance she felt. But it was gone. Did I misinterpret it? Victoria asked herself, a dying soldier’s surge of hostility before demise? It had emitted such resonance in her matrix that she doubted it could be the case.

An engineer waving at her optical headpiece camera caught her attention. Victoria zipped up and slid the helmet on. She opened the cockpit to let the engineer have his say. He entered the open hatch with a waist pack.“We don’t have the tools on hand here for repairs. You might want to head back for a carrier. If you think you can make it back out, that is.” The engineer glanced at the panoramic screen behind Victoria at the starry night blanketed with battery fire.

“Repairs?” Victoria glanced at a sub-window showing system data, “but everything’s perfectly functional.”

“Whatever you’re doing is putting enormous physical pressure on the modular exoskeleton. You must be reaching some serious g-force far beyond what a Shinra, let alone any MTs, are even capable of. I’m shocked you’re even still functional—I’m no doctor but maybe you should rest in a sleep pod? You look awful.”

From her monitor, Friederika interjected: “That’s what I said.”

“I’ll sleep when this battle is over,” Victoria said. She gestured for the engineer to leave. “Zeta could hit Farragaig any moment now. And my advice to you, darling? Don’t speak your mind so freely next time.”

“It’s democratic to speak your concerns. But suit yourself, just watch those g-forces,” the engineer said, then departed.

After the hatch sealed, she answered: “On the contrary, if we were fascists, I could have you flogged for disobedience.”

“Vick!” Friederika said. She crossed her arms. “Take it out on the enemy, not the engineers servicing us.”

“You’re not the one with a head-splitting headache,” Victoria said. She lifted the visor and rubbed her forehead. “This pulsating... it’s killing me.”

“That third eye thing of yours again?” Friederika asked. Friederika turned her head sharply at a map projector. Her lips formed a thin line, and her eyebrows furrowed.

Victoria groaned, leaning forward. She slipped off the helmet and let it drift aside. She rubbed her temples, clenching her teeth. “This feeling... where have I felt it before? It’s...”

Friederika left her Shrina and knocked on Victoria’s. “Put the helmet on! I’m coming in!” Victoria mustered enough energy to reach for it and slip it back on as Friederika jumped in. She closed the cockpit and mounted Victoria. Friederika took Victoria’s helmet off and examined Victoria closely, cupping her cheeks and placing her right hand over Victoria’s forehead.

“It’s like you’re running a fever,” Friederika said. The concern in her voice made Victoria nervous. “How many times did you sortie again? Seven? Blimey, Victoria, I can’t afford to babysit you like this.” The cockpit shook moderately with tremors.

“I can’t leave, not now,” Victoria said. The exhaustion clouded judgment. Victoria was seeing blurs, and her movements were sluggish. Her mind was getting pounced on as if miniaturized thunderbolts were hurled inside her skull. She tried to push Friederika away. “Withdrawal and let them get away with taking out Farragaig?!”

Friederika slapped away Victoria’s protesting hands. “You may be an ace pilot but you’re no one man army!” Friederika said, “Get a grip! You could pass out on me anytime and I can’t afford to cover you in combat like this.” Friederika shifted away to use Victoria’s console. She tapped the frame, muttering: “Your liberty ball should be able to avoid the AA. Or maybe having the Shinra’s emergency autopilot could get you back to the Yilan?” She looked Victoria up and down again. “Why would your Commander let you sortie like this? I’m shocked Lawrence even let you go in this sorry state.”

“Lawrence,” Victoria groaned, her breathing laborious. “Where is he? I haven’t felt his presence since... ahh... that surge of anger earlier, was it his?” Victoria slumped back in the chair. Her vision had gotten heavily blurred. Victoria tugged at her open collar, she burned hotter than ever before. Then, she found herself vexed by a freeze spell. Victoria pushed Friederika off, then lurched forward in fetal position. Victoria grasped her forearms. “What is this horrible, disgusting feeling? It... hurts... pain, and anger. So much suffering!”

“Vicky, darling, you’re freaking me out,” Friederika said, biting on her lip. She turned her attention again to the console, inputting commands for the Shinra autopilot system.“Would the autopilot system even withstand the Tominosky particle barrier?” Friederika glanced above them, where Imperium Dreadnoughts duked it out with allied Star Monitors. “Is there even a Yilan left for you to return to?”

Victoria didn’t get the time to answer as the cockpit rocked violently. The chair swiveled out of control, and the Chizan Duo were thrown around like a child’s discarded toys. “Bloody hell?!” Friederika cried. “Vicky, are you alright, hey!”

But Victoria ignored her. Her eyes were drawn to where the battle space once unfolded. “They did it... they really did it.”

“What the blimey are you talking about?”

“They fired the Farragaig’s colony laser,” Victoria said. Friederika helped Victoria up to the stationary seat. The seismic quaking never once led up.

“They fired indiscriminately,” Friederika said, she cleared he throat. “The bastards fired even though they must’ve known allies were in the vicinity!” The naval forces previously duking it out above were erased from existence—all by a single shot of Farragaig’s mass solar energy shot. “They’ve gone too far! And for what? Zeta is still here.” Her tone seethed with anger. Friederika punched the panel wall and cursed. “Zeta’s in firing range now and they can’t count on us to stop it!” Friederika opened and closed her bruised hand. “What was the point of us even being here?”

“All Shinra teams on Utah beach,” Victoria heard a faint voice through her floating headset. Albeit barely, given the Tominosky particles. “Fall back to Hill 202! Imperium forces are breaking through.” Victoria couldn’t make out the rest, it was static.

“Kiki,” Victoria said, trying to keep herself straight in the cockpit. “Inject me with stimulants, we can still make it.”

Reluctant, Friederika gave Victoria an injection in the right forearm. Victoria suppressed grunts as the combat stimulatives took effect. Victoria felt at ease but still agitated by the ever-ballooning, uncompressed disturbance in her spatial awareness. “There has to be a reason they fired the shot in desperation,” Victoria said. She was still shivering, a slave to the dread haunting her. “I can hear the wailing souls of the fallen. It’s coming.”

“What is?” Friederika was about to leave the cockpit when a plethora of Shinra teams charged past them. Victoria grabbed her and threw her back inside. “What’s the big idea?” Friederika asked.

Victoria gave no warning to Friederika as she had the Yellow Typhoon perform a sharp back dash, then leaped into the air. A moment later, purple bolts struck where they once were: Friederika’s Mobile Trooper was peppered with the rounds. Overhead, an MT assault dropship was pin cushioned by the long purple needles. The drop ship went down amid streaks of billowed smoke and crashed on Zeta. The shock wave swept away nearby teams and the Yellow Typhoon.

“Kiki, are you alright?” Victoria asked. Her head spun, and she saw doubles. The combat drug wasn’t acting fast enough, and for a moment, she considered jabbing herself with another.

Friederika emerged from behind the cockpit. A line of blood oozed down her left temple, but she smiled. “A little bump never killed anyone. If you didn’t pull me in, I would’ve been a goner.”

What remained of Utah was no more. Allied Shinra squads scrambled past the Yellow Typhoon to retreat to higher ground like Hill 202.

Victoria froze, her eyes dilated as she stared at her monitor. “What’s the hold-up? We need to regroup with the others.” But Victoria didn’t answer her. Friederika followed her gaze but didn’t see anything other than salvos of laz beam crossfire. Friederika reached out to lay a hand on Victoria’s right hand. “Maybe it’s best if I piloted, Vick.”

Victoria ignored her. The Yellow Typhoon took a step back, then fired the laz gun. One shot, then another, followed by a flurry of shots at the rampart where allied Troopers had previously withdrawn from.

Friederika knew by now this wasn’t like before. “It’s coming,” Victoria whispered. Friederika hugged the backside of the swivel chair and clenched its leather padding tightly. Several retreating Shinra Troopers joined in whatever Victoria was blindly firing at. Dust and smoke from the scythed laz gun shots obstructed vision.

Something enormous jumped over the rocky rampart. Then, another series of shock waves gripped the cockpit. Whatever it was, it eclipsed them in pitch darkness. Victoria gave no prior warning to Friederika as she performed an emergency maneuver and pulled back even further into the massed ranks of Shinra.

Their concentrated salvo of laz beams accomplished nothing in damaging the bipedal, clam-shaped turret machine, still hovering over the panicked Confederate forces.

“Run! Disengage!” Victoria screamed, she wheeled the Shinra back. “Get to the ships still in Zeta’s orbit! Go!”

Most did not heed her warning. At the same time, Victoria spotted countless Tacomas emerge from the breached ramparts. Close behind were the shiny reflections of foot soldiers with laz guns and banners of the black and red banner of the Imperium House of Churchill. And countless hover tanks and self-propelled hover guns. Utah was lost!

The color drained from her face. She was trapped by the invisible hand of god, stunned. “The Black Prince,” Victoria whispered. She looked up at the hovering, invincible mobile gear.

“The Mobile Gear Walpurgis?” Friederika said, the horror all too clear in her voice. “I thought we destroyed it at Ben Nevis.”

Victoria reached for the thruster lever to her right and fully yanked it down. Friederika hugged the seat as the Yellow Typhoon flew like a furious comet. Some had taken the Yellow Typhoon's lead. For the other Shinra pilots, it was too late. The Walpurgis cannon balled onto Zeta, where the landing sent an explosive buckshot of debris in all directions and completely butchered the Confederate ranks.

Victoria, overwhelmed by the titanic pressure on her spatial matrix, escaped the deadly barrage from below. But Victoria had no chance to rest as she persevered under the concerted anti-air efforts over Zeta’s airspace. What remained of Victoria’s present allies where massacred.

“Why... why?!” Victoria screamed. The souls of the damned and foolish swarmed and haunted her mind. Friederika’s blood curdling screams in her ears. The two were caught in a kill zone, and Victoria did all she could to push the Yellow Typhoon far beyond its limits, taxing her Neo sapiens spatial matrix far beyond the point of in extremis.

Then, the barrage faltered. It lessened to the point where Victoria could finally relax. She scanned her panoramic screen but had no idea where either of them were.

“Is it over?” Friederika said. She emerged, and she held her balance on the chair. Wordlessly, Victoria reclined on the cockpit chair, her eyes wandered, searching for... something. She tore off the helmet and flung it away. Friederika reached out to catch it. “Would it kill you to answer me? You’re all too eager to take off your helmet sometimes.”

Victoria turned her head to the right and stared off into Zeta. She came to the conclusion they weren’t out too far from the asteroid. “I must’ve burnt out the Yellow Typhoon’s engines,” Victoria said, her tone dreary. “I hope that engineer made it out safe.” Victoria ran a hand through her soaked bangs. Her hands quivered.

“Well we’re not stranded at least, look, there’s a rescue shuttle coming for us,” Friederika said. She handed Victoria’s helmet to her, but Victoria showed no interest in it. “Oh, they’re hailing us,” Friederika reached to answer the hail. “Hello darling, where’s the Yilan?”

“We’ll tow you then, it’s not too far from here.”

Victoria said nothing. Her mind lingered on the Mobile Gear Walpurgis. She thought of who the pilot was and if it could be the Black Prince. And just what were those vibrant nuances on her matrix? “A new Imperium super weapon?” Victoria asked, her eyes searched far and wide on Zeta for answers she remained unsure of. “This calling, this intrusive prodding... has the Imperium developed wild things capable of disrupting Neo sapiens like me?”

Friederika said nothing. She turned her attention away, staring out at the ongoing carnage sweeping over Zeta. Her mind was on more practical matters, like wondering if her comrades at the Farragaig laser would fire so blindly on Zeta again. Friederika glanced at Victoria, who finally gave in to the exhaustion and passed out.