CRUZ
02 September 3068Bob Schultz Memorial Field, Warehouse District
Glen Hall, Giausar, Lyran Alliance
Jesus couldn’t take all the credit for the score. Jimmy Cutter, one of the Monkey’s newest techs, had played him a beautiful through ball. Playboy, who was defending him, clearly had not anticipated the pass, and Cruz blew past him to get on the ball. The only man left to beat now was Meatball who was playing goalkeeper. Despite his heavy frame, Garibaldi was surprisingly nimble on his feet and had a pretty good sense of the game (he said it was “part of his heritage,” whatever that meant). But speed kills, as they say. It didn’t hurt that Meatball was still suffering the aftereffects of the dual ammo explosions he suffered on Tomans. Cruz softly lobbed the ball directly over his head, as Garibaldi charged toward him. Then he turned on the afterburners and raced around Meatball to softly tap the ball into the corner of the goal.
After exchanging high-fives with Jimmy and Juice, Jesus couldn’t help rubbing it in a little bit. “Better luck next time, cabrone.” He shouted at Ishmael. Then he smacked Meatball, who was bent over sucking in air, on the butt. “You ran like 2 meters, Meatball. You need to get in shape.”
“Why don’t you try scoring a kill like that on the real battlefield next time?” Ishmael responded. Cruz waved him off, but inwardly he grimaced. Cruz had scored a kill on his very first mission more than a year ago, but since that time things had not gone well. To top it off, in the Monkeys first engagement with the One-Eyed Jacks here on Giausar, he had gotten his Nightsky shot to hell. He had escaped unscathed, but the mech was beyond repair. Luckily, Ford had just finished fixing up one of the Jade Falcon light mechs that the Monkeys had salvaged from Tomans. Still, it was the second mech that Cruz had been shot out of in the last year and a half of action. Score it 1-2, Cruz thought without humor.
“We going to keep playing or what?” said Kati Wilhelm impatiently as she held onto the ball.
“Yes, lets go. I need to show Cruz how to really play,” said Taharqa, as he rustled Jesus’s hair familiarly. Taharqa was a bit of a nut for the game of football. Apparently it had been a popular pastime within his former Clan, the Fire Mandrills. It provided one of the only ways for the various warring kindraa to set aside their differences. It also served the purpose in all military organizations of helping to briefly erase the differences of rank and privilege. Football was also a bit of national obsession on the Trinity worlds where Cruz originated. He was certainly happy that Taharqa insisted on his people playing this game, rather than something like lacrosse, or even worse, that abomination known as “American football.”
“Sorry, but the game is going to have to wait.” Monk slowly approached the middle of the field, wearing his field uniform instead of athletic wear. “We just heard from the Marik Militia HQ. It looks like the Jacks are on the move again. They are making a beeline straight for the warehouse district. The Knights are nowhere to be found so we are going to have to hold the line here without any backup.”
“Whatya mean the Knights are nowhere to be found?” Cruz asked. The Knights of the Inner Sphere were spearheading this FWL counterattack operation on Giausar. Without them, facing the heavy and assault units of the One-Eyed Jacks was a lot less of an attractive proposition.
“Your guess is as good as mine, DJ. They seem to have lifted off, but the situation is still unclear.” Monk never lost his cool. “What I can tell you is that our position appears to be at the center of the Jacks advance, so we all need to suit up ASAP, and get ready for some serious action.”
Despite the tension of the battlefield, Taharqa’s voice came through clearly in DJ’s ear. “Gorillas and Baboons, we will hold position here. Use that elevated freeway as cover and let the Jacks come to us. Spider Monkeys, get into the rear and create some chaos, but pick your targets carefully. You don’t have the weight to go toe-to-toe with those big boys.”
Roger that, DJ thought as he goosed the speed on his new Hellion mech. The One-Eyed Jacks were well known for their emphasis on heavy and assault mechs. Even with the clan-tech weaponry on his ride, Jesus knew that he needed to keep his distance from the bad boys and use his greater maneuverability to his advantage. Speed kills, he thought.
As he passed into the intersection between the giant looming warehouses of the spaceport district, he caught movement to his left and saw a Warhammer mech lumbering down the street toward him. He lifted his ER medium laser and snapped off a shot that went wide. Then he gunned his mech to top speed and passed through the intersection before the other mech could get a shot off. If he was fast enough, he could loop around the block quickly and hit that mech in the rear as it tried to follow him. He briefly hesitated and then engaged the myomer acceleration equipment on his Hellion mech. He felt his body being pushed back into the command couch as his mech rapidly accelerated to roughly 140 kph.
Shit, this is fast! he thought as he rapidly approached a T-intersection. He jerked his mech to the left. Too fast! The right foot of his mech skidded out from underneath him and then his stomach lurched into the air as the entire mech went horizontal and spun out of control toward the concrete slab of another warehouse.
The impact rattled his bones and left him momentarily stunned. The Hellion mech had blasted through the concrete wall and lay in a pile of rubble. It lay face up looking at the new hole he had ripped in the wall and ceiling. He could feel blood trickle down his lips and mouth from his nose, but he couldn’t move his body. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see systems reports of armor loss and some internal damage, but nothing looked redlined.
He began to feel the thudding vibrations at the same time that his seismic sensors picked up a red dot approaching his position. The warhammer was coming to investigate. Cruz knew what would happen once it got here. It wouldn’t even need to use its weapons. It could just take one of its giant metal boots directly to his cockpit and that we be all she wrote for Jesus “DJ” Cruz. He had to get up! He tried to move his body. It was agony, but he gritted his teeth and moved his arms to the controls. The shooting pain brought an involuntary scream from his lips and his vision swam. Dimly he thought he heard someone on the line yelling his name (Hawkeye? Juice?).
The Warhammer was getting closer. Slowly, Cruz brought the Hellion into a crouching position. His left shoulder was damaged, but luckily his legs and jump jets were fully intact. As the Warhammer strove into view and brought up its PPCs to finish off its quarry, Cruz fired all seven of his jump jets and rocketed skyward. The Hellion caught part of the remaining ceiling on the way up, but DJ was able to maintain an arc that moved him up and backwards, out of harm’s way.
His arc gave him a bird’s eye view of the battlefield. The Monkeys and the Jacks were facing off over an empty patch of dirt in between the looming warehouses. Neither side dared to brave the open no-mans’ land and so they traded potshots from behind cover. As the Hellion reached the apogee of its flight, DJ noticed a Templar omnimech in the center of the Jack’s line. Despite his general fuzziness, he was able to recall an important fact from the intelligence briefing that the Monkeys had recieved on the Jacks.
As he came down for a landing, DJ opened up his frequency. “Ramrod is here! Templar omnimech in the center of the Jack’s line. Its the Jack’s commander!”
“Roger that, DJ.” came Hawkeye’s voice. “You ok? That looked like a rough fall.”
“I’m fine.” DJ responded quickly. Now he just needed to figure out how to sneak up on that damn Warhammer…
In the end, DJ still didn’t get a kill. The Monkeys were able to put down Ramrod’s mech, however, and Cruz liked to think he deserved some credit for that. After their commander went down, the fight went out of the Jacks and they quickly withdrew. Cruz was now being debriefed by Monk.
“You are a talented pilot, DJ, but you need to exercise a little better judgement in the future.” Monk explained calmly. “Remember, speed can kill.”