Antumbra - A Lost Cause

Downward Spiral - Chapter Thirteen

Ensign Gregory pulled into a steep incline, flashes of light streaking past close enough for him to feel the heat. The resistance had been greater than anticipated, but he wanted to push closer. He needed to push closer. He needed his death to mean something. He wanted to cause as much damage to the enemy mobile base as he could before he was shot down, and poured his all into dodging the incoming fire whilst still shooting back. He felt the G-forces squeezing him into his harness as his limbs became heavier, balancing on the flight base whilst he took aim. It was like staring into the mouth of hell, but he couldn't burn yet, not until he made them hurt. Not until he made these sons of bitches suffer. He'd blamed himself, it was his panic and his blunder that made him engage the enemy unit head-on rather than use the particle beam rifle as per protocol. Kinetic violence was sloppy and unreliable, but particle beams all but vaporized all in their way, leaving just molten globules to fall to the surface. But on that fateful day the enemy had come in too close, gone for a point-blank shot, and he tried to push them back, and Gregory had panicked. He had reached out and grabbed the enemy, smashing it with the butt of his rifle, shattering their arm. They had recovered most of the pieces, save for a finger, and that's when blame started being handed out, screaming as he dared the enemy to shoot him down, he blamed them. If they hadn't.

"Why didn't you just shoot him?" Everyone had asked. "Why not let him shoot you?"

Gregory had no excuse. He continued to attack, screaming as he fired on the IRT Argonauts that defended the forward base as it hung in the sky. If they hadn't started this war, none of this would've happened. He aimed past the enemy Argonaut, straight for the base. He wanted to cause damage, he wanted it to burn. Concentrating his attack on one of the propulsion units, Gregory found himself falling into a focused rage. Make them hurt, make them all hurt. He thought of his wife, their boy, and how they'd get by without him. Everything he'd done, he had done for them, for the family name. It wasn't fair, but he had no choice. They wanted a martyr, he'd take this whole base down with him. He returned fire, taking down more units as the enemy scrambled to protect their base. He couldn't believe he hadn't been hit. His machine had been tuned up specifically for this mission. Captain Wilhelm himself had overseen the overhaul, assuring Gregory that he'd give him everything he needed to launch a one-man assault. And best of all, the machine was rigged with a self-destruct on the reactor, making sure he not only erased himself but anyone within a mile radius when it went, so if he was about to be shot down he could still go out on his own terms. Captain Wilhelm had been so gracious, so thoughtful, he didn't want to waste it. He'd push this machine to its limit.

"This is for you, Hillary... Jacob..." Gregory muttered as he reached top speed towards the Habitat. The flack was coming in hard, he could feel his flight base taking hits, losing thrust. He reached onto his back and took the heavy shield out, the massive plank of metal large enough for him to crouch behind, and soon started absorbing the incoming fire, even its thick alloys starting to bubble and boil away. This was it, he thought, he would get in close and take them out. All the pain, all the humiliation, all the anger, it'd all be burned away.

His shield took another hit and failed, crumbling as its structure was compromised. He tossed it away, leaving himself exposed, but kept shooting until his weapon's charge depleted. That was it. If any enemy beam hit him he'd be finished, but he was moving at top speed now. The warnings and gauges all went red, and he was forced to abandon his flight base, the vehicle exploding in a flash, and he switched to his onboard propulsion. He was exceeding the limits of his Argonaut, forcing it too much, and it wasn't designed to fly by itself. He fired, unable to even target, and hit random areas on the propulsion unit. It held, and Gregory had to accept the fact that he wouldn't make it close enough to actually sink the mobile base. He sighed with relief. He'd taken out so many units it didn't matter. They'd suffered a blow, and he was content. His engines failed, and he felt himself becoming weightless as his machine began to freefall, enemy units desperately in pursuit to eliminate him before he fell out of the sky.

"Don't worry you bastards," he said as they failed to catch up, but they were still just in range of his self-destruct, "no evidence. Not this time, not again." Gregory gave one last prayer for his family, and unlocked the self-destruct protocol. He opened the protective cover for the switch, and with a final curse to his enemies, flipped it.

Nothing happened.