Daemoness

Lewis watched her through transparent armored paneling as she frantically worked the controls, reaching overhead and toggling switches as arterial red light pulsed within. Lewis roared into his comms, “Power down! Power down! Go! Go! Go!”, then returned his cheek to the buttstock of his heavy rifle. The reticle hovered over center-mass of her neurohelmet. He couldn’t be sure, but he suspected she was beautiful.

He drew the trigger gently back and broke it, felt the gun press back into his shoulder as it spat, heard the sound of the recoil spring, a scratching song conducted to the tiny bones of his ear through his cheek. Baubles and dishes chattered in the muzzle blast. He watched a flash disappear into a tiny black smudge where her temple had clearly been, and then there were two burning lights, pools of alternating blackness and crimson, eyes fixed upon him like spears skewering a boar. It was like staring down the barrels of particle cannons as the bolts cut loose.

The bullet stood no chance of piercing the canopy, but it had done its job, had bought the boys rushing across the broken urban wasteland below precious seconds. He reset his trigger with a soft click and squeezed again. “You fucked with the wrong favela, bitch”, he muttered.

Another flash, another smudge. The reticle hovered over her face, split below the visor with perfect teeth set in a savage grimace. He watched her exhale slowly, then set back upon her hatchetman’s controls, slow, and smooth, and deadly quick. He fired three more times, impacts overlapping but failing to distract, before the bolt locked back.

The other machine, the one that was stalking the hapless pilot, that had already torn ragged chunks from her limbs and chest, was nowhere to be seen. But it was close. Near enough to be heard, near enough to be felt as it crushed the earth beneath heavy strides. It was as if the rhythmic shaking of the ground and the rattling of canned food on shelves were the kinetic symptom of a demonic infestation in the building's very bones. Down the hall, a baby cried. Closer by, through paper thin walls, came the soft sobs of an elderly couple. Death was near, and the world knew it.

Lewis mused...better the devil you know, or the devil you don't?

I suppose that depends on how many times you've shot the fucker in the face.

“Hurry up, ground squad, she’s almost done!” he urged as he rammed a fresh magazine into place and released the bolt. From his galley window perch, he could see they were only halfway to the towering hatchetman, a score of men sprinting at breakneck speed, naked but for rags and dust, harmless but for the IEDs slung across their backs.

He knew them. Every last one of them. He had watched them growing up in the streets, playing football with abandon. They were the best the favela had to offer, the future of this tormented people. But laden down with climbing gear and demolition charges, they were moving too slow. If the boys got to her monster’s feet before she woke it back up, it would be a miracle, and she would have hell to pay.

He brought his eye back to his scope and felt his blood run cold: the ruby-and-black strobe was gone, and he saw the pilot in the clear, even dimness of her cockpit lights. She wore her fury like a glittering crown of electric thorns, a fulgurant rage so potent enough to hover at the edge of materialization. He watched her spit and clamp her teeth in a shining sneer as the maw of her LB-X autocannon and a trio of rapid-fire lasers came to bear.

Death was here, but fuck it. Daddy didn't raise no quitter.

Lewis, empty of breath, squeezed the trigger. He felt the gun buck and heard a god-shocking roar, louder than any word his weapon had ever spoken. He watched with liquefying bowels as the beautiful monster, malevolence in the flesh, vanished in a flash of blinding light. Sparks arced up and cascaded down as a huge chunk of the hatchetman's head imploded and sprayed away in a shower of debris. The machine seized, limbs spastically locked in a parody of a fatal brain injury. It listed backwards and toppled.

He released his grip on his rifle, stunned, betrayed at the thought that it had waited until now to reveal its true calibre. "The fuck!?"

A metallic clinking of spent bullet casings and silverware rose to his awareness, pressed past his confusion, married to a rapid, rhythmic thud that vibrated his body. Down in the street there were whoops of elation and screams of terror as something huge hove into view, a gleaming crest fanning out behind it's head, something akin to an ancient feathered war bonnet.

"Fall back, boys. Hold off salvage until the coast is clear."

Rules for Opportunistic Civilians

Don’t think for a second that people are just going to sit back doing nothing as their neighborhoods are dissected by lasers and ploughed by gauss slugs. Trample the people, stoke their rage, crush their hopes, violate the safety of their homes, vaporize their friends and families, and riddle their streets and alleyways with unexploded ordinance and high-energy capacitors…eventually they’ll come for you. They’ll pour out of the ruins like roaches and rats, and will chew your legs out from under you. And when your invincible machine’s melon is busted, they’ll tear you out of your cockpit and spread your parts to the four corners for all to see.

Here’s a rule for that, converted for BattleTech: Destiny, and couched in the mayhem of the BattleTech: Beyond Electrodrome unofficial arena expansion.

Thar she be.

The goal, the joy of the BattleTech: Beyond Electrodrome setting is CHAOS. Attacks from all directions, surprises, soaring hopes and crushed dreams. Unusual weapons, unusual tactics, unusual enemies. Opportunistic civilians are all of the above. They’re hopes and prayers made of meat and coated in high explosives. One man’s Hail Mary is another man’s “god fuckin’ dammit!".

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