NESSIE

BY: Punisher

As the carnage continued on Twycross a science technician aboard the Vindicator noticed something strange occurring. His monitor showed a marked increase in chronoton particles. It almost looked like the ship was in hyperspace except he knew they weren’t moving. He knew he should tell someone.

He moved up to the command section of the bridge. Admiral Thrawn was briefing the Emperor, they both noticed him as an Imperial guard stepped forward to stop his progress.

“Technician, I am in the midst of conducting a major offensive. This had better be important.”

“Yes sir. I am detecting a space-time anomaly at 056 starboard. It may have been the cause of our being projected into this unknown space.”

Thrawn and the Emperor paid attention. The Emperor spoke first. “And? What else?”

“Nothing your excellence. I am continuing my analysis.”

“Let us know as soon as you have more information.”

The Steiner fleet was enroute to Twycross to relieve some of their Federated Commonwealth counterparts.

“There it is sir. Twycross…armpit of the Inner Sphere.”

“Naw…it ain’t so bad. I pulled two tours of duty there.”

“It’s just in the ass end of space is all. I’ll bet those Davion guys’ll be glad to see us. Let us face off against the Dracs for awhile. I’ll move us into a standard orbit and….”

“Captain, this is communications. Twycross is under attack!”

“Sound general quarters. Looks like we’ll be making a hot drop. Helm. Move us around to the heat of the action and we’ll drop out of orbit right on top of the dracs…that way we can bring our dropships’ weapons to bear and surprise the hell out of them.”

By then the Vindicator had come into view.

“Sir, I don’t think it’s the dracs.”

“What the HELL IS THAT?”

“Admiral Thrawn, a new enemy fleet has just rounded the planet and is moving to intercept.”

Thrawn replied in a tone that inferred that his reply should have been intuitively obvious to anyone, “Remove them.”

The Emperor cut him off, “Save your petty display of brute force admiral.” He reached out with the force and threw the entire Steiner fleet into the anomaly. In the wink of an eye they were gone.

Aboard the Steiner command ship it was as if they had blinked and then were in orbit around another planet. “What the hell just happened? What planet is this?”

“I have no idea sir. At first I thought it was a sensor glitch…but everything checks out…I don’t get it….Sir it looks like almost the whole planet is at war!”

“Should we help? Whose planet is it?”

The tech stared hard at his displays…he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Sir, I think it’s Terra.”

The captain did not hesitate. “Go to full condition red. Deploy the mechs.”

“Aye Aye….dropships away!”

Melissa Packard drove her 100 ton Atlas out the door of the dropship. They were still 1,000 feet MSL (off the ground) but the Steiner techs had mounted strap-on solid rocket motors to the mechs allowing them to deploy while the dropships were still in the air. This saved them a lot of vulnerable time while deploying on the ground. The tactic usually worked. That is it worked as long as the solid rockets worked.

And Melissa’s didn’t.

They fired but the techs must have miscalculated the tonnage…or the thrust….or something—because she was falling like a rock.

The Atlas smashed into a shallow lake, its legs sinking deep into the muck on the bottom. Melissa struggled with the Mech trying to get it to rise out of the water. Mechs could operate submerged…but the longer she was underwater the more likely it was something critical could jam…she got the right leg moving.

Then something hit her cockpit. Startled she paused. It wasn’t hard enough to be a weapons hit. Something else hit her cockpit. She moved the mech forward. It struggled in the muck but started to come free. Something else hit the cockpit…this time Melissa was able to see what it was. It was a human body! Someone was catapulting human bodies in battle!! How despicable could these warriors be?

Infuriated, Melissa drove her Atlas forward and as it rose out of the lake she saw the most hideous thing she would ever see. A group of creAtures, almost as big as her mech…they were furry and almost all teeth and claws…and yet she couldn’t shake the impression that these things were partly human. They reminded her of huge malformed bears. They were throwing corpses at her!!

Then she realized the human bodies were not corpses after all…but were still struggling even as they were thrown.

Melissa had seen enough. She moved the targeting reticle to the creatures. She didn’t know what they were. But in a few seconds they’d be dead. She squeezed the trigger. The AC-20 cannon blast super-heated thousands of gallons of water. Mercifully, the steam prevented her from seeing the gory carnage which followed.

The rest is history. (See SB2: MSG 101)

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