- Text Size +
Story Notes:

All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Chapter Notes:

So, hold your shock. Are you holding it? I've actually finished this story before uploading it. A rarity from me to be certain haha. So no being incomplete for months. Will be uploading a chapter every week.

As to the story itself. Its something I can spring off of more than anything else. A starting point in a sci-fi setting. We'll see if future stories work out as well as this one did.

“When things are at their worst, they can always get worse.” –Imperial Saying

The raid was nothing like how the holovids depicted. Actually. In many ways, it was worse. The holovids didn’t capture the choking and stagnant smoke from burning homes and people, the distant and not so distant crackle of gunfire, nor the way the vessels hovering above the colony’s atmosphere blotted out the sun. Fighter engines screeched in Elana’s ears, the wind kicked up from their departure whipping her flight jacket up around her.

The hanger was a bustle of activity, combat boots clattering loudly to and fro with a semblance of strained order. Pilots hurried towards their fights as fast as they could; meanwhile others like Elana were rushing towards the lines of 50 meter tall mechs standing inert at the other end. It had happened so suddenly that the mech pilot had barely managed to slap her fatigues on, her red short red hair still a bedraggled mess. Her breath came out hard and heavy as she sprinted across the hanger, ducking a weaving her way around flight crew.

“Elana! The fuck is going on!?”

A short and runty figure started running alongside her, the man looking around the place with a pallid expression. The young woman shrugged as best she was able though it was unlikely it registered with the run. “Raid! Dunno who yet, just heard the sirens! Better get to your mech!” She got out in puffing breaths.

“Raid!? What suicidal pirates would be dumb enough to attack this deep in Republic space!?”

“The really ballsy kind I guess!” She managed to get out a breathless chuckle.

A chuckle that only masked just how stunned she was as well. No alert from the ships in orbit, nothing detected on the forward sensors. Whoever they were they’d hit so hard and so fast that there hadn’t been time to react before boots were planetside and the sirens went off. The city was ablaze, the smoke and smell of death and destructions carrying even this far. The vessels hovering above were laying down an orbital bombardment, some of the shells coming a little too close to their base for comfort. They needed to get mobilized and head to the city fast.

Elana practically leapt into the elevator leading up to her own mech and smashed a sweating, shaking hand on the controls to ascend. The thing lurched beneath her as it slowly, far too slowly for her comfort started upwards. She leaned over the side and started yelling down to the man below. “Get to your mech, Levi! We’re sitting ducks here in the base!” She shouted.

Levi didn’t need to be told twice and started stumbling and tripping past the launch crews doing last minute checks on the mechs. His was right next to hers, so wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think he’d be ready around the same time she was. None of the other elevators had been used that she could see and looking out on the mad scramble below Elana couldn’t spot the Captain or anyone else in her squad. She bit her lower lip, nervously flicking a red bang from her face as she pressed the ascend command again, as though it might make the elevator go faster.

A loud explosion boomed out in the distant, though not distant enough to feel comfortable. Elana braced herself against the rail of the elevator, the ground shaking from what had doubtlessly been a shot fired from one of those massive ships above. There was a slight ringing forming in her ears, compounded as another shell impacted the earth. This didn’t feel like a pirate raid. It seemed like a well-organized military attack.

“LT! Your systems are all ready to go! Fuel cells locked into place! Weapons primed and ready with live rounds!” A voice came over from the com on her elevator’s control panel.

Small as it was, it jerked the mech pilot back into reality. “Understood, get your crew clear.”

The elevator lurched to a halt with the ambient hiss of hydraulics following. She vaulted over the rail and onto the parapet, bootsoles clattering loudly as she ran towards the cockpit in the mech’s head. The mech itself looked vaguely like a human shaped suit of armor, boasting a rather sterile blue steel color and a 09 stamped onto its right chestplate. The head was open and ready to receive its pilot. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Levi had gotten to the top right behind her. Time to get out there then.

Palms sweating and head feeling heavy and fuzzy she hopped into the cockpit ran a diagnostics check briefly on impulse. All systems were ready to go. She flicked a switch, another hiss of hydraulics bringing the face of the mech down. The main control module slid up to meet her and her chair, she managed to note, had been messed with. Fuck, it had taken forever to get the thing just right. She managed a nervous chuckle as she set her hands on the controls; clearly the stress was getting to her.   

The scaffolding that held Elana’s mech in place slid out of the way and gave her room to get out. The crews below, noting the whirring of the servos in the mech coming to life, were quick to scramble out of the way of the massive piece of hardware. The metal feet of the mech clomped forward, moving along the clear path with the natural freedom of movement as any human might have displayed. Thanks to the screens open before her Elana was able to avoid squishing anyone on her way out of the hanger. Now that would be ironic, her first kill being a friendly.

The sight of the moving suit of armor was impressive to say the least. The 50 meter marvel of engineering towering above the rank and file, making the fighters look like little toys in comparison. Normally Elana would have felt some surge of power, handling hers. Now however she had more pressing matters. Like how close the next round of bombardments sounded, smashing into the earth and messing with her mech’s balance. A few quick adjustments fixed that problem right away.

She emerged out onto the tarmac of the open base, vehicles swarming around with some carrying troops and others wounded. The numbers of actually surviving wounded on those transports looked rather depressingly small. Elana winced as she finally saw where the bombardment was commencing. The east end of the base where most of the infantry barracks were located were almost completely leveled by the barrage from orbit. Her fingers tightened around the controls. That was where Cap had been staying.

The sound of metal against tarmac sounded out beside her and a window opened to her side, Levi’s pallid and sweating face filling it. “Shit, where’s everyone else?”

“Looks like the Cap might have gotten taken out on that last barrage. Dunno where the others are. Maybe they got away, but looks like we’re on our own.” She managed to sound surprisingly calm despite being piss scared.

She started checking the command frequencies as they stepped out of the way to give the crews space to work. “What’re we going to do then, Elana?”

Fuck if I know was what she wanted to snap. It wasn’t like she was like a senior officer or anything. “We establish contact, get our deployment orders and a better idea what we’re up against. Dunno about you, but I’d rather not be walking blind into whatever this is.”

That seemed to calm him somewhat, though he still looked jittery as hell. Elana put it out of her mind and kept flicking through frequencies, picking up a great deal of static. What wasn’t static was pretty incomprehensible regardless, lots of yelling and explosions. Elana licked her lips until she found something. Looked like the planetary commander’s channel.

“This is Lieutenant Elana Fairbrook, Super Heavy Armor Squad 6. We’re at Gamma Base just outside of the capital. I’ve got one other squad mate with me, but my superior is MIA. Need deployment orders.” She managed to say crystal clear.

After a moment a response. “Lieutenant, you don’t know how happy I am to hear we’ve got fresh SHA units. This is Colonel Varus Bradshaw. I’m sending you deployment coordinates inside the city now.” The voice was crisp and clear, calm under fire clearly.

A map window popped up on her HUD and Elana promptly transferred it over to Levi. “Sir, if you don’t mind the candor, what the fuck is going on?” She asked as they started rushing down the road leading out of the base. Looked like they had left not a moment too soon. A minute after they were stomping and clomping down out of the base a massive explosion rocked the world, shaking the ground. The hanger behind them was a twisted wreck, flames and smoke rising steadily.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!” Levi cried, looking remarkably close to panic.

“Calm down. We’re heading into a warzone. Remember the Cap’s lessons.” She managed to avoid screaming at him, running her fingers through her hair. When did she need to be the one keeping a grip on things? “Any idea who these guys are, Colonel?”

After a moment the colonel’s voice came again, sounding remarkably grim. “The Colossus Armada. The 4th Raiding Fleet by the looks of it.”

Elana’s felt a chill hand seize her heart and the servos of her mech nearly stalled as she missed an adjustment for rough terrain. Levi, seeming impossibly, paled even more and swallowed visibly. Visions of monsters tearing apart tanks in their bare hands, crushing companies underfoot swam on the surface of her mind. There was a pregnant pause before Levi found his voice and managed to speak up.

“A-Are you certain?” He asked.

“Considering I’m seeing them tear through our infantry like their paper dolls, yes, I’m pretty sure. Their ship’s broadcasting signals match up with them as well.” The colonel sounded irritated by the pointless question.

Static suddenly filled the com and Elana felt her stomach drop through her feet. She didn’t know of the command post had been taken out or there was just interference but there went their only line of command communication. Regardless, they still had their objective. The pair brought their rifle’s to bear, the weapons more than capable of annihilating a platoon with a well-placed shot and managed to reach the suburbs quite easily. It was here they got their first sight of the enemy.

Elana zoomed in at sight of the silhouette. At first she thought it was another mech crouching down with its back from them. That was until it, or rather she, stood. Clad in a patchwork suit of flak armor with a pistol upon her weapon belt she towered a 50 meters tall. Rather well endowed with red hair pulled into a tight ponytail. As she turned and managed to lock eyes on them Elana noted that she had something squirming between her lips. With no small measure of disgust and horror the young pilot made out the kicking legs of some hapless civilian.

Sneering, the Colossus slurped up her meal and swallowed, bringing her pistol to bear against the mechs at range. The round pinged harmlessly off of Elana’s frontal armor. The giant woman’s eye’s widened as a pair of rifles were brought to bear against her. Fueled by vindictive anger both pilots opened fire without mercy, the form of the massive woman falling onto her back and crushing a good number of residences. She didn’t so much as twitch, blood pooling in the streets and flooding them.

Elana stepped closer to the corpse and scanned the area. No more hostiles. Looked like this one had just been looking for easy picking. “Well that wasn’t so bad.” She remarked as her mech shifted from one foot to the other, servos whining as she did. The pilot winced as she detected a ground vehicle crunch under the machine’s heel like a soda can. Well that was probably coming out of her cred stick.  

Levi, for once, looked vaguely relieved. “Yeah. Let’s hope they’re all that dumb. Can’t believe she ate that person though! She looks so…”

“Human? Apparently they were once upon a time. Least that’s what people say. Who knows? Let’s keep moving into the city, see if we can’t contact the colonel again.” Elana said, discretely scraping the car from her mech’s heel before getting a move on.

They were rather fortunate it seemed. No more contacts outside of the city just yet and as they entered what had been the gleaming capital of a thriving colony world there was only signs of battle to see. Well, as much of a battle as it could be. Above there was the roar and screech of engines as the fighters engaged the Armada fighters, the dogfights at least seeming somewhat equal though the Colossus piloted craft were vast they still crashed from an engine taking a laser burst.

The streets were a mess of mangled bodies. Impressions of footprints were dug into cracked asphalt. More disturbingly were the red splotches and squished corpses within them. People, vehicles, traffic signals, hardly seemed to matter to these giants. While some of the prints seemed to match the ones of their last kill, there were some that doubled that. Then there were others were buildings in wide streets had been knocked aside, the step of one foot filling the street.

Once in urban conditions it got a little easier, check your corners, stay low, watch the scanner for life signs and check your feet for civilians. The latter wasn’t a problem. The civilians had either all been killed, captured, or were wisely hiding in the buildings away from the giant things trying to kill them. The echo of their mech’s metallic steps pretty much made stealth impossible so they just had to hope the Colossi they met might be caught off guard.

This was distinctly not the case when she checked around a corner and was greeted by a hail of controlled and disciplined fire. The rounds pinged off her armor, but one scored a glancing hit on her cockpit and rattled her. Her sensors were brought all out of whack and she pulled back behind the measly cover provided by the building. Glass was blasted away by the rounds, the integrity of the structure compromised.

Levi popped a few plasma rounds off around the corner, judging from the loud cry one of them elicited he’d at least injured one. “Looks like they are using lower caliber mech grade weapons. Solid projectile as opposed to energy.” Her remarked as he popped out a smoking spent energy cell and slid another one into place.

Elana nodded to the window at the corner of her HUD as she recalibrated her sensors. “Looks like it. Long as they don’t hit the joints or cockpit we should be-”

Whatever she was going to say was cut off by the fact the top of Levi’s mech exploded into a shower of white hot metal and shrapnel. A “Got em’!” being heard in the general direction of their enemies.

Elana stared at the now fuzzy screen where she’d last seen her comrade in barely contained shock. Must have been a heavy weapon. An Anti Mech Rocket maybe. Regardless there was no surviving that. Elana was paralyzed for a long moment, staring blankly where Levi had been. Her heart was thudding in her chest and though she knew she needed to move her hands were frozen on the controls. She’d just watch a comrade die figuratively feet from her.

“Lieutenant Fairbrook. What’s your position and status?”

The grainy sound of the colonel’s voice suddenly came through her com, bringing her back into reality. The pilot looked up. Risky. But it was clear if she stayed here she was going to end up like Levi. Certain death or likely death. What a choice. Nonetheless she flicked a switch near her and pulled down on a throttle on the controls. Flames sputtered to life at points around her mech before it shot up above the buildings.

“My squadmate’s down. Engaging a trio of hostiles near the rendezvous point.” She managed to report without stuttering, a heroic effort in and of itself.

“---- point ---- oup---- 12----”

Elana saw a fighter zeroing in on her position as soon as she hit the skyline, though it was cut short by a trio of their own fighters blasting at her engines. The young woman didn’t have time to salute them however as she was busy lining up the targets in the streets below. Her quarry rather lacked the ability to fly, unfortunate for them really as her targeting computer got a nice long look at the slow panic on the trio of giant women before they were cut down by a nice round of energy blasts.

The pilot landed near them quickly, not wanting to press her luck. They were all dressed the same as the last one had been and one indeed seemed to have an Anti-Mech gun. Looked like it was halfway through reloading. Elana reloaded her energy rifle and started down towards the rendezvous point in the city center.

“Can you repeat that last bit, Colonel? You’re breaking up.”

Static was her only answer. Elana felt ice water in her veins. On her own it looked like. She licked her lips, sweat slickening her grip on the controls. The deeper into the ruined city she got, the worse feeling she got. The pilot was extra careful to check her sensors. She also kept very low, watching the skies. Last thing she needed was to get popped off by one of their pilots. At least her own would be able to see her IFF signal.

As she peeked around a corner into the city center she managed to mute a strangled gasp as she forced herself back. Standing there, in the midst of smoking armor and looking rather unconcerned with the fighters buzzing around in the air was the biggest Colossus she’d seen. The few she had today were about the height of her mech, maybe a little taller. She was easily four times that size.

She was dressed in a vaguely military manner. A set of fine looking riot armor adorned her body, the clothing beneath a grey and white camo made for urban warfare. Fingerless gloves wrapped around her hands, her bare arms bearing some manner of black fire patterns on them. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, her blue eyes looking around at the city scape with something that bordered on amusement. A couple fighters actually tried to fire on her, their small rounds pinging off her combat gear like they were nothing. The blonde sneered and swatted her hand out, smashing into them and sending them spinning to the ground like they were flies she’d found particularly annoying. They crashed into a building, spilling concrete and glass upon the streets.

“Krieg. Most of the ground teams are reporting in. Except for squad six, out in the eastern part of the city. Just lost contact with them.” A colossus that maybe came up to her knees reported.

Elana felt fear lance through her once again. Krieg. The leader of the 4th Fleet of the Colossus Armada. Aside from the leader of the Armada, Tsukasa Aiko, she was perhaps the most infamous Colossus in the Armada. Even people that hadn’t seen a Colossus once, like Elana knew her name. Pirate, slaver, butcher, reviled by both the Imperials and Republicans with a bounty that stretched into astronomical levels on her head.

She had also shifted her blue eyes to look right at her.

“Well… looks like I’ve found out why. One of the Normie toys.” She smirked.

Elana felt the thunder of her footfalls, her combat boots shaking the world at least as much as the orbital bombardment had. She was walking right towards her. The massive woman had a huge toothy grin on her face, displaying a set of rather sharp teeth. Like those of a shark really. The pilot had the feeling that at this point it was do or die. Likely the Colonel and co. had gotten the misfortune of meeting this warlord. Or more accurately, met with her bootsole.

With a cry Elana activated her jets and took to the sky, drawing her mech’s combat knife and screeching right towards the towering woman’s face. Her eyes actually widened in shock as Elana managed to slash a shallow cut into her cheek on the first pass.

“Gah! Fucking fuck! Shoot her down already, you shitheads! You waiting for an invitation!?” She yelled, holding a hand to her stinging cheek.

OK, so putting herself directly in the guns of that nice little cadre below had been an extremely poor idea on her part. This was even more evident as, despite evasive maneuvers, a lucky shot slammed into one of her jets and sent her spiraling to the ground below. Elana let out a scream as she braced herself for the crash landing though it was certainly nothing like she’d imagined it might be.

Even strapped in as she was, the pilot was lurched about here or there. Elana felt spots dance before her eyes as her head smacked into a lever beside her seat, dazing her for a bit. The ride was certainly bumpy as she crashed into a couple of buildings, a shower of concrete coming down around the mech.

“Systems compromised. Propulsion unavailable. Locomotion Systems unavailable…”

The perky and rather upbeat computer proceeded to list off pretty much every system status to the dazed pilot. Still, through the head of the mech she could see things through her visor. Her blurry vision made out something getting closer. Why were her ears ringing so badly? Sparks erupted erratically from the console near her and she vaguely managed to get back into something of a focus just in time to hear the computer say something that sent the cold hand of fear gripping her heart.

“…Unsafe cockpit conditions. Initiating ejection in ten seconds.”

Elana’s eyes widened. “Nononono, abort, abort! Pilot override!”

“Five seconds, four seconds.”

Elana started kicking the console in desperation, looking around for the manual override. She tried to reach for it before hissing in pain from the movement. So close.

“Please, no! Don’t! Didn’t you fucking hear me you piece of shit; I said Pilot overrid-aaaaaaa!”

Elana’s words were cut off into a scream as the head of the mech popped open and her seat was ejected high into the air. She closed her eyes and felt rather like she was about to vomit from the rapid movement and acceleration after that crash landing. The pilot started to feel another lurch as she was about to descend, her chute activating automatically. Suddenly the sensation stopped. She wasn’t moving. Much at least.

The pilot, heart thundering in her chest, managed to open one eye. The other soon followed. Below there was meters of empty sky, a drop that was sure to have a nice Elana shaped splatter if she free fell. That actually seemed preferable considering her chute was now dangling between the massive fingers of none other than Krieg, her startlingly blue eyes boring into her. Her mouth, her impossibly large mouth stretched into another toothy grin. The sight of those teeth brought back memories of that poor sod one of the Colossi had devoured. Krieg though. It would be like swallowing a mint for someone as massive as her.

“Mechs am I right? Those damn ejector programs. So… inconvenient.” The blonde drawled.

“I…I… P-please…” Elana stuttered out, pinned to the spot by those impossibly blue orbs.

Krieg drew the pinkie of her other hand against the shallow cut on her cheek, licking at the blood there. “Hey, you actually wounded me so that’s something. I mean, you’re gonna wish your whore mother hadn’t brought you into this world. But hey, can feel good about that.”

Elana didn’t have time to say anything else as the colossus brought her over to one of her rear pockets and dropped her into it, snapping it back into place once its new occupant was nicely acquainted with her shapely rear. The pilot meanwhile was left to stew in the darkness, her mind gibbering with terror.

You must login (register) to review.