Adventures of a Drunkard Pilot

Chapter 15: Failure to Extract

"NO!" I shouted as i watched Arthur fall from the dropship. I slid to the door on my stomach, my hands catching the sides of the door frame to keep myself from falling too. I let my head poke out the door, only to see Arthur land in a heap from the 15 foot drop.

"Take us down!" I heard Mitch yell from the cockpit. He had gotten up and ran in there after Arthur slipped.

"I cant!" The pilot replied. "There's too much fire coming from below!" I noticed then that a large group of New Monarchy soldiers had taken up positions around Arthur in the wreckage of the carrier deck. I could faintly hear alarms over the sound of the engines, and the carrier was starting to list slightly to one side.

I heard a pistol cock. "I said take us down!" Mitch roared. He had pulled a pistol on the pilot.

All while that was happening, Arthur had gotten to his feet and started firing at the soldiers making their way in to him. I got to my feet as the dropship started to pull away.

"NO!" i shouted, darting into the cockpit. I saw the pilot in the left side seat, with Mitch standing between the 2 seats aiming his .45 at the pilots head. I pushed my way past Mitch and sat myself down in the empty seat.

"We have to go back," Mitch forcefully spat at me.

"No shit, fuckface," was my reply. "Delta, override the controls and put us down right next to Saber."

"Overriding controls now." Delta replied.

"PPPPPSSSHHHHH -ester Actual, this is Saber, abort land- PPPPPSSSHHHHHH- ay again, abort landing. Get the fuck outta here" Arthur came on the radio. "PPSSSHH- arrier reactor has been breached, I say agai- PPPPPSSSSHHH -eactor has been breached."

"D, clean up that signal," I shouted, hopping out of the pilot seat and running back to the door. We had gotten quite a ways away from the carrier, but i could still see Arthur dropping soldiers left and right. "Saber, this is Misfit, we're coming back just hold on!"

"Negative Misfit, get the hell out of here!" Arthur responded, "These bastards set an auto-destruct on the reactor. we have maybe 60 seconds before it cooks off. Forget me and go!"

"Controls overridden," Delta said in my ear.

"Bring us down there, full speed," I told him. I looked over at Cameron, but she had seemingly passed out. I grabbed her M4 out of the mount above her seat and took aim out the door. "Saber, we're going for a Kentucky Sweeper. Get ready!"

"Ah fuck," Arthur and Mitch both groaned. Delta took control of the dropship and turned us back towards the Carrier.

"SHIT!" I heard Arthur yell, "Misfit, we have skidders down here. forget about me and go!" Before i could respond, Arthur screamed in agony. I couldn't see him from the door of the troop bay, so i ran into the cockpit to try and see him. As i got up to the cockpit i looked in time to see Arthur's entire left leg from mid thigh get torn off by a skidder.

"NO!" I roared as we darted closer. We were still a ways out, and i could see a skidder dropship, what looked like a flying VW bus, hovering above them. The skidder grabbed Arthur, who was still kicking and swinging, by the neck and tossed him into the ship. Right as we got close enough the skidder jumped in too and the ship shot across the sky.

"Follow it!" Mitch roared.

"We cant!" The pilot insisted. "The Frames add too much weight to the ship we cant go fast enough!"

"FUCK!" I shouted , punching the wall with my robotic fist hard enough to leave a large hole. "Get us back to base, now!" I walked back to the troop bay, where Cameron was still passed out. It was then i saw the pool of blood under her.

                                                                                  ARTHUR

As the skidder threw me into the dropship, I was caught by another skidder. I grabbed one of my knives out of its sheath and buried it in the skidder's throat. It let out a muffled gargled scream and dropped me. I landed on my remaining leg, but the blood from my stump had already made a puddle, and my leg slid out from under me. I fell, hit my head on something, and blacked out.

I slowly became aware of movement around me. I started to move, but remembered what had happened just before i blacked out, so i just laid there.

"He should be awake soon," I heard someone say.

"Good," a familiar voice replied, "Come find me when he is." I heard a hiss of a door open, then close. I slowly opened my eyes, and saw that i was in a medical room on a surgical table. i turned my head to the side slowly, and saw that the first voice that spoke up belonged to an overweight man with a doctors coat and a receding hairline who was facing away from me. I looked down and saw that not only was i not tied down, but someone had put a crude prosthetic leg on my stump. I looked to my other side and spotted a small tray with surgical gear on it. It look as though there had been a lot of assorted gear, but now the only remaining pieces were some bloody gauze, an empty syringe with an extremely long needle, some small mechanical parts, and a vial of what looked like blood. I quietly grabbed the syringe, tucked it under my right hand, and laid back the way i had woken up. I closed my eyes, and coughed slightly.

"Huh?" i heard the doctor say. I heard nothing for a second, then footsteps as the doctor slowly walked over to me. I felt his coat brush up against my arm, and opened my eyes. I saw pure terror in his eyes, but before he could say anything, i grabbed the back of his head with my left hand, and with my right jabbed the needle into the inner corner of his right eye. the needle slipped in perfectly. I felt his body go tense, then completely relax. I paused for a second, then pulled the needle out. The doctor stood up for a second, then collapsed in a pile, drooling all over himself.

"Oops," I somewhat offered. I had lobotomized him. I slid my legs over the table and slowly stood. The prosthetic felt almost as if it were my real leg. I took a step, and it held steady. i took a few more towards the computer that the doctor had been at, and had just reached the counter when the door slid open and another doctor walked in. We locked eyes for a second, but before they could do anything, i grabbed a thin metal plate that the doctor had apparently been eating off of and hurled it like a frisbee. It caught the doctor in the throat, and tore through it completely, decapitating the doctor in the process. The now-headless body fell to the ground as i looked at my hand in wonder. Before i could do anything else, I heard someone else approaching.

"Well," a familiar face said as he walked around the corner into the room and looked at the 2 bodies, "looks like you're awake."

I stared at him, half not believing my eyes. "Rojas."