[dcs_p]Coordinate 16Q Beta 23
Trilobite Moon
Labrea System, Irece Prefecture
Draconis Combine
Fourth Quarter, 3067
[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Duo Maxwell vomited. The inside of his cockpit felt humid. He tried to hold back
the urges he had been feeling for the past 10 minutes, but knew there would be
no stopping it. Even those with the strongest willpower succumbed under
circumstances such as these.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Duo was still in denial. He could not be dying from radiation sickness. His life
had been lived too honorably to have now received a fatal backstab from an
unknown enemy. And yet it was happening, as real as the horrible picture
painted out across his viewscreen before him. The picture had been changing
ever so slowly, but it was mind-blowing in the sheer destructive nature of its
presence. An atomic explosion had altered the entire atmosphere over the
Kennedy Flats, wiping the beautiful sky from existence and leaving only the ugly
splatter of an atomic radiation firestorm.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]The blue glow from the nuclear explosion had been blinding. Literally blinding.
Unmistakable, its now-eerie incandescent ebb stretched out into the surrounding
skyline with streaks of pulsing turquoise shadows. The desert sky had been
overrun with it in minutes. The uncanny hue marked not only the passing of time
since the attack had been launched, but also the passing of several of Duo’s
teammates. Among the dead were his company’s entire scout lance, all of whom
had been caught in the terrible shockwave and their Mechs no doubt damaged
beyond all recognition. The scouts, who had been the first to warn of the
approaching missile, had paid dearly for their reconnaissance work. Though they
were the first to die while performing their job, they would likely not be the last.
The day’s training activities had begun as usual, with a routine a patrol starting
just after 1300 hours. The reinforced company headed by Duo had been sent to
the moon of Trilobite just 6 days ago, assigned a training exercise to improve the
group’s guerilla warfare tactics. Since the Word of Blake’s Denouncement strike
just months ago, the Strikers commanders had begun focusing on such tactics.
While the overall team’s performance in the WOB war had been a successful
effort, there was always room for improvement in both tactics and logistics. Duo
and his company would be facing off against a computer simulated enemy. While
combat would barely be practiced in the exercises, movement and strategic
retreats would be closely evaluated. The idea was to have the simulation
calculate the outcomes of individual battles, and the pilots would determine the
rest through an enactment of tactical decisions. Such decisions would include
each battles initial offensive moves and their follow ups against a weakened
enemy. The real work was all in their minds, except for the test of endurance of
piloting Mechs constantly with little or no shutdown time. The pilots had to stay in
their cockpits for most of the week’s activities.[/dcs_p]