The Colonel fidgeted in the embrace of his harness.
Waiting.
“Solid boosters armed,” came over the launch channel. Just like it had in the simulator.
T minus 4 minutes and 17 seconds
He reflected on the uniqueness of his situation. Monsters had come to Earth. From Mars, the stars, and dimensions beyond. In response, the nations of the globe had bonded together in “united advanced research and defense.” He’d just recorded his sixteen hundredth hour of flying fighter jets when GUARD was created.
T minus 4 minutes and 3 seconds.
They’d rolled him into this new worldwide military. Pilots were always in demand, and his solid performance in competitive martial arts had elicited strange excitement in his new command staff. He’d been fast tracked into the “Heavy Asset” program before anyone would tell him what it even was.
T minus 3 minutes and 47 seconds
Once there, they’d lauded his combat instincts. They’d tested how he defended key targets. They’d gushed over his focus once a mission began. In the end, out of all the candidates, they’d chosen him.
And to think, all he’d wanted to be was an astronaut.
T minus 3 minutes and 35 seconds.
“Engine gimbal test completed,” said the launch engineer over the radio
“Ecks, gimme a quick sitrep,” he called out as he tapped his foot.
Ecks chirped into his ear, “All systems are green across the board. Intercept course plotted. Target designate ‘Gorghadra’ has yet to enter the city. Evacuation 87% complete. The only anomaly is your rhythmic muscle contractions, Colonel.”
“Is that what you call tapping my foot impatiently, Ecks? Rhythmic muscle contractions?”
T minus 3 minutes and 13 seconds
“If the boot fits, Colonel. Medical claims that your elevated heart rate, dilated pupils and rhythmic muscle contractions are signs of stress. Are you stressed, Colonel?
He chuckled. To himself and to voice in his headset.
Stress. As if this feeling could be described as mere stress.
T minus 3 minutes and 2 seconds
Here he was, strapped into the command module in the center of the head of a mecha that stood over 20 stories high. His onboard fuel reserves alone couldn’t carry him to the combat zone, so his giant robot was bolted to an external tank that held half a million gallons of rocket fuel.
His mission was to pilot this huge mechanical humanoid through a crowded cityscape to engage and defeat an equally large monstrosity that had burst from the Harbinger comet shard and destroyed Chicago. Command called the thing a Planet Eater. And his job was to punch it to death.
Stress? This pressure was too much for such a simple word.
T minus 2 minutes and 52 seconds
“Colonel?”
“Yes, Ecks. I’m a little stressed. I’m waiting.”
“Would you care to explain, Colonel?”
That was odd. Ecks hadn’t asked about his feelings in the simulator.
T minus 2 minutes and 35 seconds
“This is always the worst part. The mission is set, the course is plotted, the green light is on and I’m waiting, Ecks.”
“Waiting for what, Colonel?”
“To engage and destroy the enemy.”
T minus 2 minutes and 18 seconds
“Launch vehicle cleared,” called out the nameless engineer.
“How about you, Ecks?”
“Colonel?”
“Are you stressed?”
There was a pause.
T minus 2 minutes and 8 seconds
“Ecks?”
“I’m considering your question.. We are prepped for the mission and all systems are designed to endure the physical stresses of the launch, if that is your question, Colonel.”
“No, Ecks, it’s not.”
T minus 1 minute and 37 seconds
“This is our first mission together, Colonel”
The Colonel nodded his head. Ecks was opening up as much as possible.
“We have simulated every combat scenario Command could throw at us, but this combat will be our first in the field. I am not scared, or nervous, or uncertain. I have run all diagnostics thrice over and we are in the green, Colonel.”
There was some small thing that Ecks wasn’t saying.
T minus 1 minute and 14 seconds.
“But?”
“But I cannot help it. I am anticipatory of the battle to come. I am ready, willing, and able to fight, but cannot at this moment. It is a frustrating experience. You are correct, Colonel.”
“About?”
“The waiting is the worst part.”
T minus 60 seconds. Time to act. The waiting was over.
“Visor closed and locked, Command. Ready to assume manual control.”
“Roger that, Heavy Asset 3, you are T minus 55 seconds.”
“You hear that Ecks? We’re going for a ride.”
“Roger that, Colonel. We’ll give them hell.”
“Damn right we will, Ecks. Together.”
T minus 43 seconds
The AI would be his only companion on this mission. Command would bark orders. His support vehicles would lend fire support. But Ecks was with him in body as well as spirit. Ecks controlled the thousands of onboard systems with the sophisticated processors taking up most of the command module volume. But the Colonel didn’t mind the lost space, as these processors were what enabled a human to actually pilot the massive mech.
Some of the candidates had been wary of leaning so heavily on an artificial intelligence. They’d washed out due to such fear. But the Colonel knew the truth. Ecks had his back. Ecks was built for a purpose. To enable human combat instincts. To make humans capable. To make humans better.
To make him better.
T minus 37 seconds
The Colonel smiled as he looked around at the readouts of this glorious machine. It was more than a machine, it was an extension of himself. A trillion dollar marvel of engineering had been built to defend the Earth itself from threats beyond understanding and someone’s bright idea was to entrust it to him.
T minus 30 seconds
He would not fail.
“Heavy Asset 3 you are go for main engine sequence start.”
“Roger main engine sequence start, Command. Main engine sequence started.”
T minus 20 seconds
There was no conversation left to shout over the roar of the engines. Ecks was physically and mentally prepared. The Colonel’s foot no longer tapped.
T minus 10 seconds
“Throttling up main engines!”
9
The world was in danger.
8
Ghorghadra was just the first.
7
The first of many.
6
They threatened his people.
5
His home.
4
The planet Earth..
3
No more.
2
The Monsterpocalypse was underway,
1
And he was going to end it.
Zero.
“Solid booster ignition!”
“We have liftoff,” came over the radio, but he didn’t have time for it.
The pressure. The blackness pressing in on the edges of his sight. He went through the controlled breathing and muscle contractions that had been drilled into him to remain conscious as a massive, controlled explosion propelled him upwards.
Towards the stars.
The literal weight of the world pulled on him, grasped at his mech and tried to haul it back down. He continued his exercises as the pressure built and built and built.
And then there was silence.
He looked at the stars. At the black sky above, and the curved globe below. In this moment, there was no pressure, no battle to come, no weight at all. Just him, and the stars he’d always dreamed of seeing.
“Colonel?” chirped Ecks. Right. There was a battle to be won.
“Begin combat assembly separation!” he replied; focused once again.
“Separation complete, Colonel.”
“Begin controlled descent.” Toward the enemy.
“Descent begun, Colonel. The enemy is aware of our presence.”
“Target the tubby bastard, Ecks. Let’s see if it can break our fall.”
“Roger that Colonel”
“Command, this is Heavy Asset 3, moving to engage. Requesting new callsign.”
“Roger that Colonel, new callsign approved.”
A massive blob of copper and brown stood out on the surface below them; impossibly huge and moving into the city. Gorghadra, their first enemy, had arrived at the battleground. Spreading fear before it in a wave. Well no longer.
“Excellent. Let’s see how these Planet Eaters like battling Defender X!”
Now their enemies would fear them.
- Details
- Written by Jeff Mitchell
- Category: G.U.A.R.D.
- Hits: 3870
We were young when the first war happened. We watched as the greatest war we had ever heard of unfolded before our very eyes. Things from the deep, from the darkness, from the wilds - it was as though the universe itself was waging war on our doorstep. We all wanted to be members of G.U.A.R.D., to pilot Defender X itself against the array of enemies trying to take our planet, but right in the middle of things, it suddenly stopped.
It's unknown what happened, but the invaders all disappeared at once. Even the creatures from the deep wilds and the aliens all seemed to vanish. The global network had collapsed, information was spotty at best, but once it came back up months later, no trace could be found of the hostiles at all. Even the collaborators who we were sure would turn on us dropped off the radar. That didn't stop us, as soon as we were of age we signed up for G.U.A.R.D. anyhow, we all bought in to the films and TV specials and enlisted, which brings us to present.
"Eight years since last contact." the message on the board was the same as it always was when PFC Ryan logged on to his terminal. It was a markedly ancient piece of equipment, like most of the things around the base since the end of the war, it hadn't been updated. Like the others he had signed up in a rush of patriotism, what he wasn't counting on was spending his time watching for something that most believed would never happen. Or that he would at least get to stay in a place that didn't smell of dampness and barely functioning electronics. The building that G.U.A.R.D. had for this particular watch post was less of a forward watching station, and more of a bunker converted to the purpose of being a scanning station since it was "cheap" and "still standing". The concrete was cracked in places, the occasional earthquake caused dust to filter down from the ceiling, and so would the launching of a bot if it ever actually happened. The only equipment that ever got used since the end of the war were the tanks, and that was just to make sure they still moved. The "large assets" as they were referred to couldn't be touched without special authorization from high command, something unlikely despite Commander Mitchell's constant protests during readiness meetings and briefings with command. With the way the base looked, most of the grunts on site joked that it was funded by the Commander himself, and that he didn't even take a salary just to keep the base barely operational. The man was a relic of the old guard, and ran a tight ship despite the fact that he had pretty much been forsaken by high command. He'd had his budgets cut, the majority of the base assets "reallocated" to "higher priority" locations that rhymed with "long term storage". Meanwhile when the troops would get the occasional requisition form it was hard enough to get working pens much less parts for vehicles and tech upgrades.
High Command justified this by noting that peace was declared eight long years ago, there was no need to continue to fund a war effort against an enemy that the new civilian-based elected high command didn't believe existed any longer. Since what the world was fighting had disappeared so suddenly, after a few years the world went back to how it was before--fighting with each other over resources, carrying on petty squabbles, funding a massive united defense force just wasn't important as the musty bunker around him told. Cables and cracks patched with duct tape, cannibalizing pieces of equipment from one to another just to keep the most important systems running. It was so bad that where people used to flock to the G.U.A.R.D. enlistment offices, now they barely trickled in, and those who had joined out of some misplaced since of unity and patriotism spent their days sleeping and hoping that their contracts would soon be up so they could go back to civilian life. It wasn't all terrible, he'd enlisted with his parents permission when he turned sixteen, and like most he had been excited that he would be a part of the war effort, basic training was intense with recruits being trained in all aspects of the G.U.A.R.D. logistics command, everything from basic piloting of large assets to driving tanks and working the command bunker. Unfortunately like most things once the enemy had vanished, so did public support and funding, and the equipment they had was the same as what they had been using during the last war, despite rumors of there being "private interests" who had developed new technologies since then to locate and combat the enemies of the world. He sighed to himself, despite his low rank he was considered one of the "command staff" here at the bunker, he knew that they only had one large asset left, not that it mattered as they'd never get to deploy it since High Command would have to authorize it, but just once he'd love to see it roar to life.
As one of the maintenance personnel was walking by, Ryan stopped him "Hey Phil, can you fix my bunk again? The bolts rusted out and the entire bed fell to the floor in the middle of the night last night." Phil nodded and simply said "If you can get some bolts requisitioned I'll more than gladly fix it for you, otherwise it's duct tape and bubble gum for you Ryan. The commander has been trying to get cleaning surprise and things to repair infrastructure for the past 3 months, High Command doesn't want to hear anything about it, something about 'surprise budget shortfalls' with relations to facility maintenance. I can't even get a can of WD-40 out here on this rock." PFC Ryan sighed and nodded, only another four months and he was out, "Guess I'll just have to sleep at my console like everyone else then" he grimaced, thinking about the remarkable uncomfortable chairs that had been patched together so many times that they were essentially duct tape over cardboard strapped to a metal frame. Phil went along on his way muttering something about wishing he could open a window for how musty the place smelled. Ryan knew that in reality he was going to go to one of the few working simulators and get a few missions in since that's all there really was to do around this barren rock anymore. Originally they had ten simulators, now there were 3 barely functioning ones that hadn't been updated in five years, but any time something went down, those on base took up a collection to buy parts to get it going again, even the Commander pitched in as part of his "constant readiness" initiative that only he and a few other commanders across the world seemed to believe in.
Peace. Eight years of radio silence when it came to anything of interest. The last briefing from High Command said that they were looking to close down another wave of bases, reducing person ell and stations by half since everything had been quiet for so long. Supposedly the grapevine on base had it that they were threatening to force Commander Mitchell to retire and this base would be one of the ones closed, despite it being the last in this region. Everything was quite. At least, that's what they expected. It was about the moment he was about to doze off as much as he could with the Commander around when all of the sudden the alarm klaxon went off. He groaned as he sat up - surely it was another drill from the long list of things that Commander Mitchell sprung on them fairly often. He pulled up the alerts and sensors on the barely functioning and flickering screen and that's when he saw it - the marker on the screen was one he'd seen a dozen times in his simulations, but even in drills the marker was a green color. This one was huge and red, turning to his comrades he yelled out "PAGE THE COMMAND-" and at that very moment Commander Mitchell walked through the door with the authority and air of someone who had prepared his entire life for this moment.
"Status Report! I need to know what this is yesterday!" he barked at the bare bones team of young enlistees "What is it? We need to know what to pass on to command." The officer on duty scrambled--another young one who had just missed the war--to pull up the identifier on his console and with it seemingly to have frozen, pulled out a dust covered binder from the shelf above his station and flipped through the musty pages "It's Gorgahdra sir! I-i-i thought it was dead!? Didn't they send it to space ages ago?". Turning to the officer, the Commander puts down his comm having called into command "Your job isn't to think, it's to identify these things before they happen, and give us details when they do. Don't be mistaken people, this is the real deal, as real as it will ever get. After eight years of quiet, the storm has come again." About this time the comm in his hand buzzed again and he listened to it carefully before in a marked display of anger and fury screams into it "WHAT DO YOU MEAN DENIED? IT'S A DAMNED KAIJU INCURSION YOU INSOLENT FOOL!" turning to PFC Ryan he says with a stern look on his face "Do we have visual?". Ryan scrambles for the right display and flips through the video feeds, landing on one that shows a towering behemoth of a creature that without mistake was Gorgahdra. "We have visual sir, he's 50 clicks out and closing on a civilian population center, looks like New Portland sir!"
The commander leaned hard on the railing, and spoke in a calm voice to everyone in the room "High Command has denied our request to mobilize the asset, they say that it's not in the budget. They seem to have forgotten that our purpose is to defend this planet and the people on it. What I'm about to do will be court martial-able and can be considered treason, anyone who is uncomfortable with this is free to leave now." The room remained silent and not a single person of the bare bones staff moved.
Seeing that his crew was with him, Commander Mitchell continued "Right then. Mobilize Defender X."
- Details
- Written by Ersatz Gnomes
- Category: G.U.A.R.D.
- Hits: 2022