Tears of Gliese

Chapter One - Deepcut

Outskirts of Lograin, 08H15, 24th of July, 2771

Lieutenant Matthias Templeton bowed his head in thought. Somewhere above him, beyond the walls of the interface cavity that surrounded his body, the Hammerhead's helm obediently did the same.

"Lieutie, I'm gonna take one. Don't let anyone bump me, all right?" Matthias heard from Unit Three.

"Understood, Mitchum, enjoy your bowel movement," he replied softly over the loudspeaker.

Four days ago, Mitchum had been taking a dump inside his Suit's interface cavity, aiming for a single-serving plastic bag as he did so, when Unit Six had decided to give his fellow section-mate a playful shove. The Suit's auto-balance capability had righted its frame at once but the driver had fallen hard, caking the underside of his ass with his own product.

Matthias had been forced to tear out his subordinates' loudspeakers to quell the uproar; he supposed he hadn't been too far from witnessing a fist-fight between the two Suits. It would have been a sight to watch, if not for the fact that they weren't far from the wolf-den that had once been Lograin Air Base.

"Skyskimmer on the move, sir, her heading will take her over us," Sec-Two's Unit Nine informed him.

"Pull your hoppers down, we're returning to the hole," he ordered.

Mini-drones hovering near the treetops quickly descended and reattached themselves awkwardly to their parent Suits' napes, the high wind making things difficult for them. The two sections then began to move out.

Their hiding spot wasn't far off. Not too long ago, the bank of a nameless seasonal river had collapsed, creating an alcove they had in the meantime covered by shoving several trees down over it. The secret camp's camouflage had then been reinforced with skillfully deployed camo-netting.

The largest tree was a Douglas-fir with more than sixty tons of wood in her, and she creaked and groaned as the Suits used her canopy's branches to descend to their camp. The spot was just as they had left it, the dried river-bed below already deeply churned by footpads.

They heard the aircraft's approach without managing to see it. Skyskimmer was the new reporting name for the Earth Federation Force's air-superiority fighter. And yet only a few months ago, their enemy had had no air force to speak of.

Despite having no direct knowledge as to whether it carried a pilot or not, the aircraft had nevertheless been tracked pulling gees well beyond what any human being could be expected to withstand. The eyes in the sky were dead ones, but somehow possessed of intelligence, and they were complemented by a missile system that had proven deadly against the most heavily-armored land units fielded by the Capicuan Defense Force.

As they waited, Mitchum finally had his bowel movement, Sara and Junichiro began to play Red Hands and the remaining units leaned against the rock face to rest. The sounds of armor grinding against stone were occasionally punctuated by metallic clangs, as one Red Hands player managed to overcome his opponent's reflexes and slap an outstretched gauntlet. On the third clang, the lieutenant ordered them to stop playing. The order came out a little more brusquely than he wanted.

He grimaced and focused his thoughts on the mission instead.

The special detachment had been on the move for the last twenty-four days. Their mission, operation Deepcut, had officially begun the moment sixteen Hammerheads were launched out of a specially adapted Quasar heavy carrier. The gigantic aircraft's rear cargo door had been removed, along with whatever else could be purged without compromising its structural integrity, and its crew had been supplied with parachutes. Lift-off had been a nightmare, not even his escape from Lograin coming close to the risks surrounding taking flight in the midst of the Great Rains, but even so the aircraft had managed to lift its hundred and forty-four ton-mass payload ponderously into the air with the aid of rocket-assist. There was no hope for a safe landing under such conditions; the aircraft was abandoned mid-flight near Leiben after delivering its precious cargo eight hundred kilometers northwest of Lograin.