Pozoristu Mountain Range
Tukayyid
Free Rasalhague Republic
26 April, 3050



     "Something tells me this is a bad idea," Faith was more musing to herself, but still keyed it over the company-wide channel. The 1st Company of the 4th Tau Ceti Rangers was carefully maneuvering their way through a series of steep valleys and ravines in the Pozoristu mountain range. Her tactical map read blank, and there were no enemy contacts on her HUD, yet something felt wrong.

     "Stay tight through Echo three," came Orkdung's reply. The scouts ahead hadn't yet run afoul of any enemy forces, but ECM had been thick through the early goings of the battle. So far, the battle had gone well. After meeting fairly stiff initial resistance, her lance had kept a steady pace through the first day's fighting. Then they had linked up with the Tikonov Rangers in force, and had smashed through the lead elements of Clan Wolf. Things had gone well, almost too well.

     At the moment, they were moving through a fairly narrow canyon, and she had her King Crab's throttle pushed into the high range as she and Ace led the formation of the heavier elements of the company. There was barely enough room for the two King Crabs to walk abreast.

     "This is the perfect place for-" her words trailed off as some of her readouts briefly flickered. The diminished signal strength of her sensors barely had time to register when lasers seemed to erupt from every angle. Her damage readout had already started to change color, but she could not afford to keep her eyes on it, instead letting her vision dart around for the closest, and greatest threat.

     She thumbed the trigger for her autocannons a brief instant before her comrade on the left did, and the combined hail of shells from the two assault machines tore into a Timber Wolf directly ahead. The combined 50mm and 20mm slugs savaged the Clan Wolf machine, but it still seemed to take an eternity to die. Each second of it's life, her heat crept higher, and the laser vomit from it's compatriots melted away at her armor. Finally, the Clan machine fell, but she had no time to cool off. There seemed to be Timberwolves and Stormcrows everywhere in her field of vision.

     Her pulse quickened and the soaring cockpit heat smashed into her as she swung her guns to the nearest Timber Wolf. She felt her aim rock slightly as an almost unbelievable number of missiles, hurled from the Stormcrow just to the right of her target, peppered her mech and tried to knock it backwards. She fought momentum and struggled to keep her aim true as the Timber Wolf added it's lasers to the fight. In spite of the fact that the rounds from her autocannons tore through the armor and internal structures of her prey, the Wolf stayed alive, twisting it's fresh side to face her onslaught.

     Just then, the second volley of SRM's from the Stormcrow struck her, and she saw the indicator on one of her small-bore ACs wink out. She kept firing through the damage, and through the warnings calmly announced by her mech's computer begging her to allow time for the cooling system to bleed some of the massive amounts of heat that were threatening to overwhelm her machine. The laser volley from her target cut out midstream, and she watched the clanner mech twist and slump to the ground, finally subdued. The mental timer in her head made her brace for what she expected would be a third salvo of missiles from the streak Crow, but it never came, as a seemingly ungodly stream of blue laser fire from behind her almost evaporated the sickly looking omnimech.

     She started to twist her torso to the right to search for her next target, and to find and thank whichever of the laser boats to her rear had helped her by demolishing the streak machine, when the Gauss round struck. Time seemed to freeze for an instant, her vision blurring and everything seemingly fell silent for an instant. She felt an impact, and started to black out by the time the metallic thud of the enemy round reached her ears. She blacked out for an instant, then her senses sprung suddenly to life in time to see a blur of color in front of her and to feel the most intense pain jolt through her left side. Time seemed to proceed excruciatingly slowly, and all she could focus on was the sound of groaning metal and the sensation that some demon was sucking every last molecule of air from her lungs.

     For her last instant of consciousness, all she could think to herself was "It can't end here..."



Dropship Yong Huo
Tukayyid System
Free Rasalhague Republic
6 May, 3050



     Faith could hear a shrill beeping, and her only thought was that she wanted to kill it. For what seemed like hours she tried to kill it with her mind, but it kept going. Then slowly, she became aware of her heartbeat. It was slow and steady, almost too slow. Then the beeping. Then she realized that the two were in sync.

     She told herself that she had to open her eyes. She struggled for a moment trying to open them, before realizing that they were already open and she was blinking furiously against a harsh, artificial light. She tried to cry out, but all she could muster was a soft moaning sound.

     "Relax, it's ok, just relax, Lieutenant," a female voice tried to reassure her. She struggled to move, but was unaware if she succeded or not. She was still disoriented. She could hear the voice again, but couldn't make out any of the words.

     Then suddenly, she was aware of staring into the spectacle-rimmed eyes of  Doctor Ling. Doctor Melissa Ling was one of the Ranger's permanent medical staff, and had been with the unit since before Faith had joined up.

     "Just try to relax. Your system has had quite a shock. Take your time to get your bearings."

     Faith closed her eyes for a moment, trying to focus, before opening them again. "Where are we?"

     "You're back on the Yong Huo. We're still in-system at Tukayyid. You've been out for over a week. You took some pretty bad injuries, and there was some slight brain swelling, so we've kept you under to be on the safe side. You also broke a couple of ribs. Your cockpit was breached, by a gauss round I think they said."

      If she had been out for over a week, that meant the battle must have been over by now. The last thing she could remember was they were only a few days in. That could only mean she missed most of the fight. Part of her wanted to slam her fist into something, and her arm moved slightly, enough to make her aware of the IV still inserted in it.

     "The battle?" she asked. She had to know the outcome. Had they won or lost? What happened in the canyon? Was anyone else still alive?

     "The battle is over. Our side lost in the end." As Faith started to try to sit up, the doctor anticipated her reaction and laid a hand on her shoulder to forestall any attempt. "I'm not the person to give you details about the inner workings of it. The unit is banged up pretty bad, but the command staff and the officers are all ok. In fact, they've been stopping by pretty regularly to check on you. In time, I'm sure you'll get all the details of what happened, but for now, you need to rest. It's going to be a long trip home, you'll have plenty of time."

     A long trip home indeed...