Adventures of a Drunkard Pilot

Chapter 19: Like Riding A Bike

"Incoming!" Mitchell shouted.

I looked for cover, but I was in an open atrium. I heard something screaming through the air, and decided that diving on the ground was good enough. I dove down and rolled one of the bodies between me and the front of the atrium. As I rolled the body on it's side, there was an enormous explosion outside, followed by the scream of wind as we got hit with a blast wave of air.

"Lets go!" Mitch hollered as the wind dissipated. I got to my feet and saw that the body had absorbed a large amount of glass and metal. I also spotted a shard stuck in my left leg, mid shin. I ripped it out and followed Mitch and Arthur, who were running for the now-obliterated door.

"Fuck yeah!" I shouted as i ran outside and saw a very familiar and wonderful sight.

Kneeling down with both fists embedded in the concrete and the cockpit opened in 4 sections, the lumbering body of BRUTUS stood in dirty contrast to the clean shiny buildings. EXCALIBER and ARTEMIS were also stuck in the ground, the 3 war machines forming a triangle. I sprinted over to my Frame, planting off of some broken concrete and flinging myself into the cockpit. I spun 180 degrees and allowed my feet to slip into open boot-looking slots. As by back hit the support and my feet were clamped into place, i reached up and grabbed handles. The handles opened as i touched them and wrapped around my hands like a skeleton. As they wrapped around my hands, the front of the cockpit closed. Not a second too soon too, because as soon as it closed a salvo of small arms fire hit it.

I was covered in darkness for a second as i listened to the light PING of the bullets hitting my armor in a futile effort, but after a second the inside of the cockpit doors came alive in a blanket of small octagons. They flashed for a second, then fused together, and the inside of the cockpit because a live feed of the outside of my armor. I could see the shattered remains of the atrium, now filled with armed soldiers.

"Reactor standby off, controls transferred to pilot, weapons feeders on," I muttered as I reached up and flipped a few switches, my hands flying around the cockpit going off sheer muscle memory. I flipped the radio master switch. "Misfit is green."

"Saber is green," Arthur's voice came into my cockpit from my radio. I flipped a switch, and my body was gently led by the movement input controls into the position that my Frame was in.

"Reaper is green, and very very mean," Mitch piped up. "Extraction point is 7 clicks south in a park."

"Last one there buys the first round," I piped up, and now that alcohol had made a comeback i could hold them to it.

"See ya there," Arthur said.

I grinned, and stood up. The controls transferred my movement into the Frame's instantly, so BRUTUS rose like it weighed nothing. I rolled my shoulders, shaking dirt off of my back and coming to full height. I could see the terror in the soldier's eyes as the lumbering beast in front of them came to full height. I took a step towards them, but an alarm popped up on my screen.

"Static overload?" I asked out loud, but before i could react a bolt of electricity shot out from my chest. It hit the first soldier and chained to the rest, causing the bodies to explode. The alarm shut off. What the hell, i thought to myself as i turned so i was facing south and saw the other guys' Frames arc out electricity too, Arthur's hitting an armored truck and Mitch's hitting a building. I thought about it as i started sprinting down the road to the south. BRUTUS' feet left large craters as i bounded down the road, out in front.

"Mitch?" I asked, as i put the pieces together and came skidding to a stop in front of a tank.

"You rang?" He replied as he jumped around me, planted off of a building, and landed on the tank, crushing it under his enormous weight.

"Did you shoot these from a mass accelerator?" Arthur asked as i sprung forward and ripped the tank barrel out of the remains of the tank with ease.

"Eh, i might have," was the response we got as i hurled the tank barrel into the sky and into the side of an incoming gun ship.

"You ass," I said, sprinting off behind him. As we came up to another intersection, Mitch grabbed a car and held it like a shield on his right, sliding on his knees through. As he went through the intersection he came under fire from a dozen or so heavy cannons. The rounds hit the car he had, and as he cleared the intersection he tossed it at one of the cannons.

"Heads!" Arthur called. I looked up and saw him dart along the rooftop in his lightweight Frame. He had also found a grenade on him. He swan dove into the intersection, lobbed the grenade into the cannons, and rolled it out into the road and in front of me. As i sprinted through the kill zone the 500 pound grenade went off in a massive explosion, taking out all of the cannons. As we kept running, I saw Mitch take a hard right at a T-intersection ahead. Arthur leaped at the building but landed half way up it. As he jumped the front of the building exploded in rife fire as the gunmen in it opened fire.

"Fuck it," I said. I lowered my shoulder, and ran into the building. I could feel BRUTUS shake as i tore through support pillars and concrete walls. I broke through the other side and into a tight street. I saw Mitch come up to my side and heard Arthur along the rooftops behind me.

"3 clicks to the evac point," Mitch said as i grabbed a gun truck in my way and threw it ahead of me and into a pair of jeeps. they exploded, and as I rushed through the fire i saw a dreadnought-like gun ship drop into the street in front of me. I remembered that Arthur had grenades, so i should have something. I reached to my hip and found a large revolver-like pistol there. I ripped it out, centered the sights that popped up on my HUD on the gun ship, and squeezed a pair of rounds off. The artillery-size rounds tore a pair of massive holes in the front of the gunship, which started to drop. I stashed my revolver and jumped. I planted one foot on the gun ship and pressed off as hard as i could. I went flying through the air, and for a second i had a moment of weightlessness as i looked out over the sprawling expanse of New Vegas. It only lasted a moment, however, and gravity soon took over and dropped me onto a roof. The weight of my Frame burrowed me through the building instead of staying on top of it, and i came out the other side a good 50 feet off the ground. I hit the deck, rolled over some infantry, and got up in a sprint.

"Mitch, where the fuck is the Legion ship?" Arthur asked as he vaulted off me and into a helicopter. Shit he was in the lead. And he had a good point; the Legion ship that had been in the sky over New Vegas was no where to be seen.

"Long story," He said as we came tearing into a large grassy park. "Ill tell you later." He came skidding to a halt. "Here, this is the evac point."

"Well," Arthur said, turning back the way we had come. "They might wanna hurry." I looked back where he was looking, and saw 3 large gunships coming in. I looked closer, and spotted Frames, smaller and sleeker than ours, attached to it. My HUD painted them red.

"Fuck, I count a dozen, on 3 transports," I said. Something came to mind, and i reached my hand over my shoulder and found something. I pulled it forward, and was rewarded with the sight of my shotgun. It was an enlarged pump-action shotgun with a drum magazine of 105mm flechette rounds, which are essentially rounds loaded with metal slivers instead of buck shot. I shouldered my shotgun, sighted in on the nearest bird, and fired. My massive frame was slightly rocked by the force of the round being fired, but it was nothing compared to the damage done to the gunship. The flechettes tore into everything, gouging armor and engine pieces. And the Frames. The entire mess caught fire, and crashed into a building. I sighted in and was about to fire at the other 2, and was rewarded with them exploding in a ball of fire before i could fire. I looked at the others, and saw that Arthur had his 155mm bolt-action sniper rifle. he lowered it as the remains of the drop ships rained over the past of carnage we had made, and i could hear him chuckling over the radio.

I heard something behind us, and as i turned around I saw a drop ship, just like the others, but this one was painted green on my HUD. And I saw Cameron Vox hanging out of the troop bay.