Barbary Marine Armor
Josie started
awake as the klaxon sounded. "General alarm? What the flying..." She
jumped from her rack, pulled on her vacc suit, and began floating her way
through the jumpship to her station. She hit the deck hard as the jumpship suddenly
began gravity maneuvering, and spat a pirate's curse from her bloody lip.
Throughout the Bloody
Sunday, a Merchant jumpship belonging to the Widow's Fire pirate
gang, everything was chaos. As Josie ran for her battle station aft, she
jostled past other members of the crew. The shouts that she heard were
unnerving at best. Fragments of orders being passed flew all around her.
Closing range...retract the sail...emergency jump...
Josie got to her station
near the engineering hatch, just forward of the after airlock. She hit the
intercom to signal that she was in position, then activated the viewscreen to
see what was going on outside.
Josie wanted to rub her
eyes at the size of the ship that was closing on them. It had to be 500 meters
long, maybe 600. A flat hull, big engines, bigger guns. The Veiled Republic's banner on its side was twice the size of the burning spider on the Bloody
Sunday. She swallowed hard, and her eyes caught the sight of moving specks
against the darker background of the destroyer. Fighters, closing fast.
Josie heard voices
crackle over the radio as the pirates' own fighters went out, trying to buy
time for the jumpship to escape. No chance; the VRNF's fast Pugilists
pounced on the pirate fighters, and the big Gwyars blasted through the
gap, moving into a line astern with a flight of Breton shuttles right
behind them.
The sail was halfway in
when the first shots hit; one by one the Gwyars made their pass on the Bloody
Sunday, hammering the engineering section with concentrated fire. Josie
braced herself as a heavy blast aft shook the jumpship; there was a scream of
air, a momentary loss of power, and the hatch slammed shut automatically to
contain the breach. Josie floated off the deck as the lights flickered back on;
the manuvering drive was out. She could hear the captain calling back to
engineering, asking about the sail; dead silence was the only answer.
Suddenly, there were two
sharp CLANKS on the hull outside, near Josie's station. Boarding lines. The
VRNF must have thought that someone important enough to capture would be aboard
a Widow's Fire jumpship. She radioed the captain, who sounded tired, yet
defiant. Hold them off, he said. We still have a chance to unhook the dropships
and run that way. Another pirate, a guy named Burke joined her. He readied a
pistol and knife, and she did the same as they took up positions on either side
of the hatch. They would depressurize this section, cut up the first marines'
suits as they came through, then run.
But before they sealed
their suits, Burke leaned over and stole a quick kiss. "See ya in hell,
lass," he said with a wink. Then they closed up, and let out the air. They
were ready.
On the other side of the
hatch, Josie could faintly hear sounds of work in the low pressure, like
someone was cutting metal. There was a sudden pop and a faint bang. She braced
her back against the bulkhead beside the hatch as it rolled open; its controls
had been cut out and hotwired from the other side. Instantly, Josie delivered a
powerful backswing with the knife in her left hand...and was rewarded with a
solid CLANK.
Josie looked in
surprise, her arm still outstretched, holding the broken knife against the
chest of the armored trooper. In a whirl of adrenaline, she saw a big laser
slung under the right hand and a mechanical claw where the left hand should be,
backed by an automatic weapon of some kind. Burke was staring equally
dumbfounded. The armored trooper looked down at the scratch in his armor's
paint, looked back and forth between the two pirates, and gave an audible laugh
through his helmet.
That was it. Josie
kicked him in the chest, pushing off to fly forward, running for the next
section. Burke was slower to react, and she heard him scream as he was
backhanded against the bulkhead by the vibro-claw, his torn guts becoming a
bloody spray as his suit decompressed. Josie slammed shut the middle hatch,
pushed hard and hit the closed forward hatch, and frantically pressed the
button to open it. But the other side was still pressurized, and the built-in
safeties betrayed her; she pounded frantically as the pressure equalized. After
seconds that seemed like forever, the hatch opened.
But before Josie could
get through and close it, something doubled her over backwards and left her
limp. She had felt nothing as her body was blown through by the support laser,
was already in dying shock as her suit's air hissed away. The trooper stopped
next to her as she floated in a cloud of her own flesh and blood, and as she
faded, she saw him touch his fingers to his faceplate, over his mouth, and then
to hers.
"C'est la," he
said.
And then she was gone.
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Classic BattleTech Battle Armor Technical Readout |