Esau
Corporal
Reged: 06/25/02
Posts: 74
Loc: Stevens Point, Wisconsin
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A woman from Talics Past?!
#83303 - 02/17/04 06:05 PM (24.197.244.193)
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The early morning sun crested the horizon and bathed the landscape in its warm glow. A flock of birds flew over head and a gentle breeze played through the trees as the Mechs and Tanks moved toward the Clan Rabid Badger command center. The facility was still at a high level of alert, activity buzzed all around, picket units, tanks, and Mechs moved around the outside.
Talic and his group of Mechs showed the signs of battle, carbon burns, shattered sensor arrays, and crushed armor. None of them had gotten off without some form of damage, both of the Warhammers had taken extensive damage and Talics Marauder was lumbering slowly. With every step a shower or sparks rained down from the Marauders hip, the leg seemed to be barely dragging along, limping like a battered but victorious warrior.
“Yankee 1, this is the tower, you are clear for docking, welcome back.” Talic keyed his mike and responded.
“Tower, Yankee 1, confirmed, glad to be back.” Talic could feel his Marauder lumber its way toward the hanger bay. With every step he felt a pang of anger and embarrassment. This wasn’t supposed to happen, he knew that his crew chief wouldn’t be happy in the least about the damage. Neveron had become an expensive place to wage war, and while not having the Mech destroyed is always a good thing, the amount of damage that one takes could cost as much or more than it would to simply replace it. Talic sighed as he backed his Mech up into its bay, carefully he edged backwards until he felt a gentle bump and the sound of the external couplings connecting. He keyed in a few commands and the systems began to shut down, the canopy opened and he looked up into the face of his crew chief.
“You alright sir?” Halley was an attractive young woman, but her looks hid her true nature, she was an animal, and as tough as nails. She reached down and helped Talic out of his Mech, he stood there in front of her and shrugged.
“Hips blown, PPC is shattered, and I think my ECM is busted. Old girl got me home though.” He reached down and patted the side of the cockpit. On it was painted a picture of Betty Paige, holding a riding crop and smiling evilly. “Anyway,” Talic stood up. “I need a drink.” He turned and made his way down the ladder, he was met by Jim and Tony who had been waiting for him. The three of them walked off toward the ready room, leaving Halley standing there looking at the mech.
“You old bitch, you better not ever let anything happen to him.” Halley smiled and ran her hand over a carbon burn just behind the cockpit. As if in relief the Mech hissed loudly and blew off steam, sending hot gas in all directions. Halley smiled and whispered quietly. “I love you too.”
Lt. Josephine gave the order to stop, they seemed to be in the location that they had been directed to go to. There was a repair facility off to her left and she assumed that they where in some kind of staging area. She reached up and opened the hatch to the outside world. The sun was getting higher in the sky and it felt good to feel it on her skin. Pulling herself up and out of the tank she jumped to the ground and removed her helmet. A wave of raven hair rushed down past her shoulders and she shook her head letting it swing freely. It only took a few moments for the rest of the tank crews to emerge from their vehicles and join Josephine. There was some chatter, one man was describing the destruction of the hunchback to another who hadn't seen it. With wild arm movements and sound effects he dressed the story up like a prom queen. Josephine knew that it was a very lucky shot by a Warhammer, but she needed to keep their moral up. It had been a hard couple days.
“Ma’am, I see some jeeps coming this way, and a command vehicle.” Her tank driver brought her back to the present and pointed off to his left. She looked over and saw what he pointing at. A small group of vehicles was coming toward them. Josephine pulled up her field glasses and focused on the coming vehicles. There where 3 jeeps, armed with machine guns, 2 Vanguard tanks with massive barrels on them, and a TWAC command vehicle.
The rest of her men heard the rumble of the coming tanks and all conversation stopped. Josephine leaned over to her tank driver and whispered. “If anything happens to me, you know what to do.” She turned her head the rest of the way to face his and he nodded without saying a word. Josephine checked her hip and felt for her side arm, it was there and she loosened the holster. Then, after taking a deep breath she marched in front of her men and stood between them and the advancing column.
Jim was the first one to enter the ready room, the six of them would be alone for a bit, the rest of the battalion was out on patrol, watching for those Wobbies again. Coming in quickly one after another the 6 of them where finally home. Talic looked around and then spoke. “Ok, get out the beer, lets get to the debriefing.”
“Yes lets,” The voice came from the door way and they all turned to see who it was. To their surprise it was Esau, and in his hands he was carrying 2 cases of beer. “Somebody wanna give me a hand with these?” He said as he entered the room, and used his leg to close the door behind him. Jason, who was closest, stood up and took one of the cases off Esau’s hands and followed him to the table.
“Ok, who wants one?” Esau opened the first case and started handing them out to the 6 gathered around him now. Esau opened his and raised it in a toast. The others followed suit and Esau spoke again. “2 dead wobbies and an ally. I’d say that it’s been a pretty good day.” He lifted the beer to his lips and took a long drag. Others did the same and room resounded with the sound of beer being chugged. A few moments later there where some satisfying sighs followed by some impressive belches.
“Now, lets get down to business.” Esau grabbed another beer and went to the display wall. He brought up a map of the CRB territory where they had taken the action. After a few moments some data was brought up and Esau began to speak again. “Ok, here’s what we know,” He took another pull of his beer and continued. “It would appear that the tank column was moving from somewhere in this area when they where ambushed.” Esau pointed with the bottle and then started to draw an imaginary line with it. “They then moved south east to here, and that’s where we bailed them out. Now as far as we can tell those where wobbies that you engaged, looks like you caught them off guard and scared the crap out of them. The Phoenix Hawk and Hunchback where both destroyed by our own, Catfish.” Esau set down his bottle and started clapping in Jims direction. Others followed, friendly punches, shoves and hair ruffling continued for a moment before Esau brought their attention back to him.
“What we know right now is that 10 of the 12 tanks made it out of the fight with the ability to make it here. They are pretty beat up, but our techs should be able to patch them back up again.” Esau took another sip of his beer and turned off the screen. “Now, I’m heading out to meet with them, Talic, Jim, would you two join me please?”
Talic and Jim looked at each other, shrugged and stood up, they both grabbed a few extra bottles of beer and followed Esau out the door.
The column of vehicles stopped a few yards from Josephine and the jeeps trained their weapons on her. She took a very deep breath and took a step forward. The sound of weapons being cocked stopped her dead in her tracks and she raised her hands. Fear started to rise in her body and a cold sweat broke out on her back. This is it she thought and closed her eyes. There was a few tense moments that felt to her to be an eternity. The silence was broken by a mans voice, it sounded familiar and she opened her eyes. Standing outside the TWAC 3 men could be seen, 2 of them looked like hell and the one in the middle didn’t look much better himself.
“Stand down guys, it’s ok.” Esau shouted. Josephine saw the machineguns aim away from her and the gunners relaxing. The 3 men started to approach her and she relax more. Adjusting her uniform as best she could and assuming a confident posture she started walking toward them with a relaxed gate. The sun was high in the sky at this point in the day, but was still low enough to shine into Josephine's eyes, making it hard for her to focus on the men in front of her. The man in the middle spoke first, extending a hand toward her.
“Madam Josephine? Esau Johnson, Command of Clan Rabid Badger, pleased to meet you.” His voice was calm and there was a air of sincere kindness in his voice. Josephine shielded her eyes with one hand and extended her right hand to take his. They shook for a moment before she spoke.
“We owe you a debt of gratitude for what you did. I didn’t think we stood a chance back there.” She did everything she could not to sound weak, but grateful none the less. The sun was burning into her eyes now, and Josephine could feel her eyes squinting closed and starting to water.
“Please, follow me, we’ll review what happened while I have our medical teams look to your men and our techs see what they can do for your tanks.” Esau motioned for her to pass and Josephine nodded, she moved past them toward the command vehicle. She would see groups of people pile out from the command vehicle carrying medical equipment and start toward her men. Feeling as is a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders Josephine sighed and felt good for the first time in days.
Jim turned and made eye contact with Talic. He was startled to see that Talic was ramrod stiff and his eyes held the look of a man who had seen something he had to steel his heart against. Pausing in mid stride Jim stared at Talic. After a moment Jim stepped close to Talic and whispered. “You ok man?” Talic didn’t look at Jim, but answered. “We’ll see.”
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I r a m0t0rist!
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Tenshi
Sergeant Major
Reged: 05/27/03
Posts: 259
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Re: A woman from Talics Past?!
[Re: Esau]
#83324 - 02/18/04 01:19 AM (24.196.181.92)
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Excellent follow-up to an already excellent story, my only complaint is that you've made me so darn interested now that I'm going to be hanging on the edge of my seat for the next installment 
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