Friday, August 1, 2014

Heavy Type - The Jolly Rogers: Shiver my guns! Chapter 3

by Bernard Nova


Chapter 3: The Raid

"Okay. Team, listen up. I have just accepted a mission from the Northern military. Seems that they found this outpost at this particular spot eavesdropping one too many times on their classified stuff. So they want us to do their dirty job of destroying it for them. I plan to move to point alpha and then to point bravo. Why the long way? Like I said earlier, the listening post got super big eyes and ears for eavesdropping. If we move straight to point bravo. We risked getting detected by the enemy." Lips explained over the comms system.

"Lips, Jamie and I would like to volunteer to take the most direct route there as we are in stealth gears. We are far from being easily detected." Pierre said over the comm system. After pondering for a while, he agreed to Pierre's plan and allowed both of them go forward. "Gesundheit!" exclaimed Pierre in his best German. With that he and Ivy sallied forth into the dusk.

At night, the two stealth heavy gears has reached their designated stop at least half an hour. Meanwhile, the main force plodded slowly to along the desert sands. Lips ordered them to switch to walker mode and move at slow speed. This is to avoid huge amount of sand being kicked up and get spotted by enemy patrol from afar. An agonizing one hour has passed. Before the Jolly Rogers stood the first way point, the famed pillars of Lotto. Huge basaltic pillars that were 10 to 20 meters tall in height, 4 to 6 meters in diameters. Unknown to them, a cadre of Jagers supported by 2 Spitting Cobras romp the around the pillars silently, preparing themselves to ambush the Jolly Rogers. The Southern Outpost had spotted them long before they reached Lotto's pillars. A barrage of rockets climbed into the skies and crashed into the 'Rogers in an arcing trajectory. "What the heck?" John shrieked as multiple rockets rained down. He and Ray Vahn had barely enough time to move their Gears out of the line of the fire. However being an extremely advanced Heavy Gear fitted with advanced NNet, both Jaguarundis zipped around the explosions effortlessly, dodging the incoming rockets. Several rockets slammed onto the Razorback. Thick choking, black smoke enveloped the Gear. But when the smoke clear, the Razorback stood fast where it was. Siegfried shook his head violently, trying to shake some sense into himself after the concussion delivered by the rocket hits. Swearing in his mind, he activated the Razorback's VHAC with a flick of his finger on the controls. The Gear raised it's ominous six barreled autocannon. The barrels slowly evolved into a blurred circle as it's motor whined. A blinding flash lit up the pitch dark desert, bathing the area with white phosphorus flash. Siegfried swept the weapon in an arc across the pillars. It looked like an invisible saw had appeared and cut several pillars off their base. The pillars came crashing down onto others like dominoes. Forced out their positions by the falling pillars, the Jagers ran for their dear lives. They were able to make out in one piece but for the Spitting Cobras, they were crushed by the collapsing pillars. Lips hung back his strider during that wild melee so that he was practically unscathed. Training his dual autocannons at the two unfortunate Jagers emerging from the dusty debris, he fired a fusillade of shots at them. Both Gears fell in the resulting hail of slugs.

The remaining two tried to fight it out with the two Jaguarundis. But both proved to be no match for the elite grunts, John and Ray Vahn. They were quickly dispatched by vibroblade slashes and stabs. After the carnage, the Jolly Rogers regrouped and proceeded to way point bravo: their primary objective. The 'Rogers were 2 km from the enemy surveillance outpost when Lip's strider bottom hatch opened and a small, saucer shaped probe dropped out. The probe is an Obelisk electronics Ovni type drone. It floated eerily, it's sensors scanning for enemy in the vicinity. Once all clear, the drone zoomed towards the outpost and stuck itself onto the wall like limpet.

A blast of electromagnetic energy erupted from it. All sensors within the area had been disrupted by the blast. A skull & crossbones symbol appeared on the enemy's HUD laughing, "Ha ! Ha ! Ha!". The force that was guarding the outpost consisted of 4 Jagers, 2 Black Mamba & 2 Nagas were stunned. They immediately perked up, weapons at ready position. A crimson laser beam lanced from a nearby sand dune impaled one of the Naga's cockpit. It fell like a drunken ostrich, head first. Simultaneously, a bang resonated through the sky. A tracer round sped out of nowhere hit the other Naga. A fiery red flash briefly lit the strider's side up then a tumultuous explosion tore it apart.

Both the Jaguars and Jagers surprised by initial attack retreated. Falling back near the outpost, they took up defensive positions with their auto cannons ready to fire at the first sign of hostile contact. From a distance, Lips observed the attack with gusto. Ordering the strider crew to switch conventional mortar rounds to anti-structure round, he zeroed the cross hairs, adjusting the correct trajectory till the HUD blinked red. "Anti-structure round, loaded and ready!" The strider's gunner declared. "Fire." Lips said coolly. Tongues of fire licked the dark sky as the mortar round screamed down, guided by the friendly signals emanated by the Ovni drone. "Artillery! Take cover!" shrieked the Black Mamba pilot through his comm system. No sooner he warned his teammates, two mortar rounds penetrated the Outpost through the roof, shattering it like eggshells. The doomed structure came crashing down on it's roof. The Southern Gears stumbled around blindly in the resulting chaos, firing their guns at random direction desperately in hope of bringing down at some of the attackers. From the still choking debris, a pair of Heavy Gear that looked like Jaguars came charging in, followed by a Razorback Peacemaker. Bursts of auto cannon fore from both sides ensured. A volley of fierce auto cannon fire roared from the defenders for 30 seconds then it was silent. A Jaeger peered out to scan the surroundings. Out of a sudden, a single slug shattered it's head like a light bulb. His buddy turned to see what happened was made to do the nefarious "Dance of Death". That is the result of being hit by multiple auto cannon rounds and the body rattles and shakes from the impact. Peppered with holes, the stricken Gear tried to raise it's weapon to fire back. The Green Jaguarundi stormed in, delivered a high kick on the Jaeger's chest, crumpling it like foil. The Gear flew quite a distance away before crashing into the sands. The Razorback broke away from the Jaguarundis to do find it's own targets to hunt.

Like a tiger on a prowl, it crept up from the Black Mamba's behind. Using his forearm spike, he drove it deep into the Mamba's engine. Geysers of engine oil and a somewhat grisly shower lubricants sprayed all over the area. The remaining two Jagers instinctively fired the assailant but Siegfried being a grizzled veteran has a trick or two up his sleeves. Using the Mamba as a shield, he blocked the incoming shots then he heaved, lifted the Gear over his Gear's head and flung it towards the two Jagers. It exploded in mid-air over them throwing the two to the ground, stunned. The last Black Mamba planted its' feet firmly into the sands and fired single shot bursts at the apple red Jaguar. It swerved left and right like a martial artist, confidently avoiding the incoming shots with ease. Desperate, the enemy Gear drew it's vibroblade and charged towards John's Gear. The Jaguarundi intercepted the charging Black Mamba with an elbow smash in the Mamba's back. With that he sent the enemy to the sands, crashing. The duel was over and so was the battle....

[Bernard Nova] [Heavy Type]

The above article was archived from Heavy Type: A Heavy Gear Fan Fiction Website as part of the Hermes 72 Archive Project. It has been edited from its original form and is used without permission.



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