Legion Candidate, Chapter 1

Nothing makes Tilt feel good the way being saddled up in the cockpit of a mech does.

That was why she was saddled up long before the enemy approach alarms started blaring around outside while she scrambled to unhook her cuffs from the little anchor she’d installed behind the headrest.

It sounded good in interviews and on posters, and on the magazines her dorky little smile would never see the front page of. Been that way as long as she could remember. Hell, lines like those got Tilt to track down the local resistance group and sign up as soon as they’d give her the chance. Couldn’t exactly knock ‘em for the sales pitch. Fight the Domon Imperium, protect your loved ones, and look good doing it.

There was a rumble of activity outside the Deicide, people frantically running up and down the piers of the mech bay. Ah, shit. Tilt would’ve cursed around the ball gag in her mouth, except her front was already covered in drool and the last thing she needed was another lecture from Kara. It was hard to arch her back and twist her arms the way she needed to to get the clasp undone, and every little adjustment had her rocking on the dildo in her ass. She wasn’t going to make it.

There was an ominous little hiss as the cockpit unlatched followed by a halo of light around her blindfold. She didn’t make it.

“Every time,” Kara snapped as she crawled up onto Tilt’s lap to reach up to unhook her wrists. “Gods, you’re leaking all over the place too. Is your jumpsuit in here?”

Tilt nodded and moaned a reply through the gag only to frustrate her mechanic dearest. The disgusted groan sent a shiver down Tilt’s spine and made her contract around the toy. Oh. Oh. So close. Too close. She giggled like the filthy little pervert she was.

“Necromancer’s touched down,” Kara said in a hushed tone as she finally got the chains on Tilt’s cuffs unhooked. “It’s worse than the broadcasts said.”

Any levity in the moment faded. Tilt pulled the gag out of her mouth and rolled on her hip under Kara to pull the toy out and discard it on the floor. It was disgusting, but this was a matter of speed now. Kara would clean it up after the sortie anyways.

“Time till contact?” She choked out, dryly. Before she could ask for water, a gel ration was stuffed in her mouth and her jumpsuit shoved into her lap. Kara was so sweet!

Kara was already gone before an answer could be provided. Tilt pulled up the blindfold just in time to catch the cockpit re-sealing. Well. That sounded like deployment orders. Tilt pulled her panties off the floor with her foot and tried to get them on. She was too hard to make it really fit, which meant she was going to leave a very obvious stain in her jumpsuit when she got out. The uncomfortable looks she’d get tickled her brain so pleasantly as she shimmied into her jumpsuit.

Everyone thought Tilt was a disgusting freak. Kara knew Tilt was a disgusting freak. The difference was that everyone thought Tilt was a freak because she’d climb out of the cockpit smelling like blood and sex and assume the world’s greatest pilot was some stim-addled adrenaline junkie, and Kara knew about what she spent her time doing before or during missions.

The one thing everyone hated about Tilt was that she never thought about a deployment going sideways. When they heard the Necromancer had set their eyes on CD-15-04 — Administrative zone Central Domon, System 15, Habitation Center 4 — they’d all hoped that their army would head straight for the capital. No such luck. As Deicide’s reactor purred under her seat and the radios blinked to life, it sounded like it was the worst-case scenario.

The Necromancer General’s legions began marching directly at their base after touching down. They made planetfall on the wrong continent to even look at the capital as a potential or future target.

The Deicide took a large step back off the pier once she’d gotten her harness on, and strode gallantly out the hanger before all the other knights. Eight matching frames the rebellion had hijacked en route to the capital. High mobility linebreakers.

How the hell were you the first to sortie?

One of the pigs. There were a couple of them at the base. She couldn’t believe they let them pilot. It was one of the knights too, not that it meant much. A bunch of the pilots that had stolen the frames with Tilt had gone down in the years since. A warm body that could put the frame to use was better than relegating it to being Deicide’s spare parts.

“Dee’s so much more comfortable to sleep in than the barracks.”

You don’t want to sleep near the pigs, you mean.

Tilt stretched in her seat as the line of knights built up in the hanger behind her, all waiting for her to get her ass moving. She thought about taking off the cuffs, but they were comfortable even with the chains dangling from them. Weighty. She liked that.

“Your words, not mine.”

The wheels dropped behind Deicide’s legs, and the jets all started spinning up in sequence. The air cushions at the bottom of her feet filled and displaced a bunch of dust and debris, rightfully thrown into the face of the pig behind her by the giant tires as the Deicide burst forward down the hill to get to the relay point.

Do you have a plan, Captain?

Tilt really hated when the pigs called her captain. They did everything they could to group her in with them. Never want to let someone like Tilt forget what she was, right?

“Reports say the Necromancer’s legions come in waves. We break through the first wave, the second wave is just scavengers not fighters, and the commanders should be in the wave behind that.”

No plan, copy.

The boys were getting real mouthy, weren’t they?

The rest of the knights filed in behind the Deicide. The rest of the base was still preparing loudly over the radio, and Tilt wasn’t keen on waiting for them. The hills around the base were bad terrain for Deicide, but the ruins of Victoria were the ideal combat ground for all the knights. It was in their best interest to break through and fight there, and buy the rest of the base enough time to set up the guns and dig in.

She’d have loved to still have the toy in her ass with the bumpy ride out to Victoria, getting a little air off the hills, and the momentum side to side as they skated along. But they weren’t charging to meet imperial forces. They were about to square off the Necromancer General’s personal army.

Tilt had heard the stories. Hell, everyone had heard the stories by now. Strange looking monstrosities haphazard in construction and purely deadly in function. Half the height of regular frames. They swarmed like a tidal wave crashing over your forces and then the scavengers would come in after and drag off any machine left on the field back to some hideous factory to make more for the next charge, and then the next.

The wave crested the hill in front of them and the knights all tightened their single-file formation behind the Deicide. It was almost surreal watching the light shimmer and dance off the sharp edges of all those machines. The knights used the frame’s cape and the length of their lances to keep the distance between them even. Tilt’s vision narrowed as she accelerated to meet the line.

Keep the machine’s center of gravity low. The trick to the charge was to angle the lance so you never impaled the thing in front of you; you wanted them to glance to the side to keep the momentum. If something slows you at all, bank to the side so the others can pass and you’ll slide back in line when you can.

Against the big lines of Imperial forces, shoulder to shoulder, it worked like a charm. Everyone wanted to put their shields up or move cautiously during that first charge. The imperial line was intimidating and the artillery whistled overhead. Even Tilt was terrified the first time. But you’d learn eventually that the linebreaker charge was the safest place to be on the field.

Not to mention how hot that rush feels when you’re at the front. Tilt could already feel the wet spot in her jumpsuit before Deicide’s lance crashed through the first mechanical monstrosity in the path.

The first wave of the Necromancer’s legions sounded like a never-ended car crash. The wrenching of steel unending, cacophonous even though layers of sound filtering and noise canceling. Something caught on Deicide’s lance and she maneuvered slightly to the side as the others slid past her. A flick of its wrist and the cobbled together abomination flew off into the swirling mass of screaming metal, and she forced her way back into line in the third position.

Radio crackle from the fourth knight. You’re supposed to go to the back!

Tilt didn’t grace that with a response.

The charge through the wave lasted for ages. The rear sensors couldn’t even see where they’d entered. It was just endless hungry steel in every direction. Tilt moved to the front and back through the line several times before they made it through. By the time they’d made it out the other side she’d gotten tired of staring at pig ass.

The Deicide banked out of the line now that they’d gotten clear of the first wave. The streets of Victoria were so much nicer than the run-up. They were pockmarked and cratered but there was enough functioning street that Deicide could really push the redline.

Tilt could barely hear the pigs’ complaints over the sound of the afterburners kicking in. Dee danced around rubble and picked-over military equipment as she built distance from them. It wasn’t just because she didn’t like them, though that was a major part of it. The data from the city’s early detection systems was easier to parse if there wasn’t a huge ball of friendly reactor signals.

She pinged the EDS passive listening devices to switch them to active mode and waited for her console to light up with micro and compact reactor signals. There were hundreds of them. Each one started getting marked in the IFF system as unknowns — a charitable way of saying enemy I haven’t met yet. Printed out over their most recent remap of Victoria’s ruined streets.

The commander’s frame stood out like a lighthouse. Right in the middle of the old city park. A large, flat space with little cover and nearly no obstacles. The perfect arena for Deicide to show her stuff.

A bunch of the small fry started swarming towards her on the sensors. They underestimated her speed and familiarity with the streets, so they ended up mostly clashing with the pigs in the rear.

The lanky monstrosity came to life as Deicide made some air off a hill entering the park. A titan nearly twice as tall as Dee standing in what looked like a pool of crude oil. Like a fossil climbing right out of the damn oilsands. Something in her hindbrain screamed to run away the moment its head turned towards her.

Hey girl. Wasn’t expecting you for another five minutes.

Tilt hit the boosters. The skeletal outer plates had deep grooves that resembled a rib cage. Reactor vents. One solid hit from the lance could core or compromise the reactor and bring it down. She had three spare lance tips. Four chances. She would only need the one.

Just like that.

A shimmer on the edge of her vision as Deicide came up on the titan. A reflection in that pool of tar. She maneuvered to the side as the liquid reared up off the ground and reached towards her a little too slowly. There was more of it everywhere. Tilt skated away and made space from the fluid.

Good instincts. Let’s introduce a complication.

The skeleton looked over to the street entrance that Tilt had entered through.

She’d recognize the series of explosions anywhere without even looking back. She’d blown plenty of bridges in her time. A controlled demolition to block off the pigs from reinforcing her. That’s what they get for taking their sweet fucking time.

They weren’t useful anyways.

Pigs were made for the slaughter. There were always plenty of disgruntled things who would jump at the opportunity to taste power for the first time in their miserable lives for a few weeks before they died to something stupid.

Deicide swerved away from the skeleton’s grasping tentacles. They slowed down further away from the core. Tilt spun in a tight circle to dodge a compact reactor that had dashed onto the field in the edge of her vision.

Quadrupedal. Rough tires scavenged from some old all-terrain transport. Looked sort of like an over-sized steel dog. She was halfway through swinging the lance at it to smash it when she hit all her reverse boosters to make as much space as possible and lit it up with the vulcans.

The dog-thing fell apart like papier-mâché and leaked that same black fluid all over the ground.

A dozen other compact reactors started charging in. More of those dog things.

It was probably good she didn’t have the toy in her ass, or any of the other challenges she put herself to. It was the first time in a long time that Tilt had to pay attention.

Every time she killed some of them, more of them flooded in. She was being pushed away from the skeleton.

Look at you go. The voice on the other end of the radio sounded hungry for it. Don’t tell me you’re running away, you little coward.

The pool under the skeleton was mostly gone. A thin ribbon of it had snaked across the ground towards the wrecks of the dog things. Every dog corpse accelerated the fluid. It was using the extra reactors and the puddles to extend its reach. But that meant the skeleton was wide open as long as she could make it back to it faster than the fluid could.

More reactors. Faster ones. Smaller dog-things with real weapons mounted on them. Tilt moved between the fluid-tank dogs and the weapon-dogs, smashing the weapon dogs before they could attack and avoiding the fluid-dogs entirely until she’d moved to a place with a clear path.

FUCK. What’s your problem?!

One of the skeleton’s arms hit the dirt somewhere between the two machines. Tilt missed what happened. Didn’t matter. Now the pilot was distracted too. She hit the afterburners. She would be on it before any human could react and mount a proper defense against it.

The giant skeleton stepped towards the severed arm and reached out with an arm right as Tilt pulled the lance up properly for the charge.

The Deicide hit the dirt and tore itself across the ground until the thrusters gave out. Tilt brought her arms up in a roll-cage around her head. Or tried to. She bashed one of the cuff’s heavy D-rings into her eye. The skeleton had shot out one of Dee’s legs. It was never reaching for the arm, it was aiming at her.

Sorry.

The screens in the cockpit flickered to life just in time for Tilt to watch the skeleton hold its severed arm close to the stump. A stream of that black fluid extended from the stump and started stitching it back together. Tilt might have felt a sense of horror about it if she wasn’t filled with something else.

A single blow to its reactor still would have killed it no matter how quickly it could regenerate.

You’re good though. Really good.

Tilt could have won. Tilt never lost a fight twice. Give her a round two and she’d kill it.

I thought you’d see through that trick. Maybe not as good as I thought.

It was a telegraphed opening. Tilt would have seen it if the weapon-dogs hadn’t forced her to start visually checking all the reactor signals. A split-second of attention would have made the difference.

Tilt raised the lance towards the skeleton as it approached. A smile on her lips. It was wide open. A few more steps closer and the lance could piece the reactor from here.

Two against one was never fair though, was it?

Huh? Two—

Something smashed the lance out of Dee’s hands, sending fragments across the battlefield. Whatever had cut the skeleton’s arm off. It was probably controlling the weapon-dogs.

Her steel wasn’t going anywhere, and Tilt couldn’t feel her toes after the crash. The edges of her vision were dark. She had to stay awake. Kara always told her to wear her helmet, but it took up a bunch of space in the cockpit and it was cramped already. Concussion? Whiplash? It was bad.

The skeleton started ripping off Dee’s arms and remaining leg. Carved out the vulcans just to be thorough. They were taking her prisoner then. Otherwise they could have just cored her machine.

And she didn’t have a sidearm.

Tilt started giggling to herself. Kara was right to take the gun away from her. Her knife too. Kara always took care of her like that. Tilt was definitely going to haunt her if she got the chance after the Necromancer was done with her.