Test of Faith - Chapter One

Test of Faith - Chapter One

Jezrael Desert

Pleione

Word of Blake Protectorate

22 March, 3075

     "We're about two minutes from getting cut off from the drop zone, guys. I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up left behind in this pile of rocks. Disengage as fast as you can." Faith barked the orders over the company frequency, but there wasn't a company left. The raid hadn't been a total disaster, but things had started to go south quickly. She and her company had spent the last six hours in a fighting retreat across the desert in an attempt to get back to their dropship. Unfortunately, from out of nowhere, the Word of Blake Militia forces had been bolstered by a level II of OmniMechs that she suspected were a Manei Domini formation.

     They had whittled her unit down along the way, and now she could only field five mechs in addition to her Grasshopper. "They're on us too tight, there's no way we can turn and flank out of here." She heard the anxious voice of one of her mechwarriors over the comm as she checked the tactical display. The Blakists were indeed to close, and too fast. The fighting withdrawal was slowing the Capellans down, but if they turned and made for the dropship at full speed, the Blakists would tear them apart.

     She couldn't shake the sinking feeling in her stomach as she realized what she had to do. Her surviving machines were all fast mediums. They could outpace her even at a full clip. The extraction zone was hot, and they didn't have much time, but if they pushed their machines to the max, they could reach it before the dropship had to lift off with the rest of the raiding force. All except her Grasshopper, which couldn't keep pace, and would only slow them down.

     She brought her machine to a halt near a small rock outcropping. "Ok guys, listen up. I want you all to turn tail and run balls to the wall to the extraction point. Understand? I'll speed-bump the robes long enough to give you guys a clear shot."

     A chorus of protests came over the comm, but she dismissed them all. "I know what I'm doing. And you know what you have to do. Now move before I turn around and start shooting at you guys!" She knew they didn't like it. She knew they would prefer a final stand. But that wasn't the best option here. There was no need for them to die, not just to save her ass. But they followed orders, and made for the dropship as fast as their mechs could take them.

     I guess this is it, the end of the line. I have to admit, I never thought my end would come facing madmen alone on some desert. She knew the Blakists would be on her any second. She would go down fighting. But she would never know how this Jihad would end. Would the Confederation survive? Would her friends and comrades survive? For that matter, would humanity survive this massive conflagration that threatened to tear everything mankind had built to pieces? Would her daughter survive?

     A PPC bolt ripped her from her daydream. It slammed into her mech's right shoulder with a crash. As if the PPC shot had been a signal, Word of Blake mechs appeared seemingly out of nowhere. She focused fire on a Preta that stood in front of her, savaging it with an alpha strike that tore gaping holes in its armor, but did not fell the mech. The heat from the alpha strike washed over her, forcing her to blink away the disorientation. More hits rocked her mech, too many to count or differentiate from where they came. Her damage readout paper doll lit up like a Christmas tree of red.

     She pulled the trigger for another alpha, heedless of the heat at this point, but only two of her pulse lasers responded. A 70-ton Deva stepped between her and her target and absorbed the blast, moving faster and with more agility than a mech that size should have. It stopped for a second, as if taking her in, then gestured with it's left-arm blade towards her mech.

     At that instant, she noticed the tiny forms of battlearmored troops around the Deva's feet. Their mimetic armor had obscured them from her view until now. Several of them raised their weapons and fired at her.

     Suddenly, the systems in her mech blinked brightly for an instant, and then suddenly went out. All her displays were blank, the hum of the fusion reactor could be heard shutting down. She smashed the override button, but to no avail. Somehow, her mech was dead.

     She could only watch as the six battlearmor troopers scurried towards her striken mech, and began scaling it. She pulled her neurohelmet off and threw it as hard as she could to the cockpit floor. There was nothing she could do. Either the battlearmor troopers were going to crack her cockpit and kill her, or she was going to end up a prisoner to these madmen who were destroying the Inner Sphere. Her hand rested for a second on the handle of her Sternsnacht Python. It would do nothing to the armored battlesuits coming for her, but for a brief moment, she entertained the thought of using it to end everything right then and there, killing herself before being captured. No, that's giving up. That's punching out. If this is the end, then they have to force it.

     After a few seconds of the terrible sound of wrenching, screeching metal, the cockpit hatch was suddenly torn away, the desert air entering the cockpit. One trooper pointed his weapon at her, and she thought for an instant that he was going to fire. Instead, he gestured for her to get up out of her command couch. She unbuckled herself and started to stand, but as she did so, the trooper grabbed her arm with the articulated hand of his suit and pulled her free.

     For a moment, she thought the trooper was going to fling her to the ground like a ragdoll, but instead, he used the strength of the suit to hold her while he jumped clear of the mech, feathering his jump jets for a smooth landing. When the reached the ground, he forced her to her knees. As the desert wind swept her tangled hair around her face and provided some sense of cool as it passed over the beads of sweat on her skin, she was aware of a sound now that she was free of the confines of her mech. She glanced behind her in the direction of the noise, and she could see an Overlord class dropship burning it's way out from the planet. The rest of the Rangers had escaped.