BATTLEZONE

BY: Gladiator

Edwards glanced at his scope.  To make things worse, huge green techno-blotches were now converging on the factory, most heavily in his sector.  He increased his viewer to maximum magnification.  Infantry -- battalions of men who were willingly allowing themselves to be butchered.  Edwards flipped on the comm unit.  "Reserve...We need at least a dozen Condor's at the eastern block ASAFP!  We're taking on several enemy mech's to each of ours now, last thing we need is a damn platoon to our back."

 "Sixteen have been detached Commander."

 "Great!  And see if you can get some flyboys in here before the troops get too close."

 "We'll see what I can dig up sir, Reserve out."

 An incredible light explosion to his right field of vision ended the transmission and Edwards forced himself a horrified glance at a burning pilot emerging from his cockpit, arms waving wildly, and completely engulfed in flames.  He could see ugly grey; normally blue-green coolant flowing from the downed mech's damaged heat sink vents.  Without warning the man was mercifully cut in two by stray machine gun fire.  The ghastly form came to rest on the Scorched Earth reduced to a twisted heap of carbon.

 Alarms went off suddenly as his cockpit was filled with shockingly dense black smoke and rocked backwards hard twice, like being hit with a boxers one-two punch.  "Gyro Overload" his computer announced.  Quickly he drew his attention back to the uncountable red triangles on the heads-up display.  While preoccupied with the mournful spectacle, he didn't notice yet another light lance that had moved into short range.  He gasped for air, but there was none.  Automatically his ventilators went to max, and he could soon breath.  His panel was lit up across the board.  He had taken a head shot...and should have been dead.  He wondered why the firing had stopped.  Getting the mech back on its feet, and whirling his torso forty five degrees to the right, two-welcomed Davion Rifleman were making short work of the second Locust's limbs.  He added to the cyan laser show by discharging 4 of his own at the third mech.  It crumbled.

 Kurita warriors had been known to charge at the loss of their comrades on the battlefield.  Edwards wondered if this pilot would.  He did.  In seconds the remaining Locust turned and was heading straight at him.  Edwards also broke into a run.  At collision he felt a hard thump as he plowed over the rushing mech.  Such heroic nonsense.

 A miniature lightning storm danced about the Locust's leg joint which was sheared off and its internal superstructure arched from the outside weather exposure.  The enemy made no attempt to escape from his stricken mount.  Anger welled up inside Edwards and he felt his chest's heart pounding increase and breathing becoming more difficult again inside the sweltering cockpit.  So many of HIS friends had already fallen, but today he would avenge their deaths.  Panting, against the stifling heat from his own mech his head felt like a burning hydrogen balloon, and yet he smiled seeing excessive amounts of smoke pouring through gyro vents on the Locust.  The enemy mechwarrior must assuredly be roasting alive inside.  He vengefully gripped the joystick trigger with clenched teeth as hard as he could as if it would inflict more damage and unleashed a hail of machine gun fire sending fragments of shrapnel, plastic and molten ferro armor into the unprotected face, eyes and limited cooling vest of the downed Dragon.  He magnified the viewer and zeroed the cross hairs on the Kuritas' cockpit once the ammo readout blinked 'empty'.  Flowing through the cracks of the starred canopy looked like the remains of some dropped vomit bag.

 He raised and clenched one of his giant free hands in a show of strength and victory matching the renowned Federated Commonwealth's symbol of a fist against the backdrop of a golden sunburst.  Almost with an adverse notion, he lowered his Particle Cannon and blew what was left of the grounded mech to atoms, then brought his crosshairs back to a 0,0 position and moved on to his next victim. 

 "Reserve, where are those Condors!" As the officer responded, Edwards saw the hover tanks race by him.  "Anytime now sir, and keep your head down!"  Edwards knew what that meant.  Overhead the sounds of the roaring Aerospace fighters flew past.  They made only a few strafing runs at the leading mechanized infantry units before soaring off.  He knew they would be needed elsewhere just as much.  Over half of the infantry and been decimated, but behind them were the other five heavier battlemech lances.  The crack of doom opened wider as they advanced closer. Edwards was sure his already damaged front line defense wouldn't have a chance against them.

 The Flamers of the Condor Class hover tanks meanwhile were making mince meat throughout the chaos’d lines of the infantry.  In the trenches, one Combine infantryman dove for cover in his foxhole as the armored enemy rolled just out of view.  A wave of heat as hot as a blast furnace blistered his exposed skin.  Fighting the pain of his injuries his grappled for his partners' legs to pull him down lower.  Toppling over his badly charred body came a melted shoulder mounted rocket launcher and two blown off human legs.

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