John’s mech shot out of the tunnel like a cannonball, the 80-ton monster not even slowing down to check to see if the coast was clear. Any mechs remaining that the pirates might have brought with them would meet his fist in short order if they got in his way.

  Sadly, he didn't see any mechs, enemy or friendly, but his IFF readings picked them up outside the main entrance. A massive pile of rocks filled part of the exit out of the cave, which would take him a significant amount of time to climb over with the Charger. He wasn't pnning to do that unless he had to.

  "Alpha 2, Bravo 1. Sit rep." He called out, looking for the Griffin pilot, another elderly woman he knew only as Trix. She left the Free World's League decades ago and has only used her old callsign as her name ever since. She was originally going to be the one to repce the old man as the CO, but he stuck around long enough that she no longer wanted the job. Upward movement wasn't the goal for the guards; it was just a retirement gig where old warriors could still go out and do what they were good at from time to time.

  "Alpha 2. Chasing a Shadow Hawk and a Quickdraw back towards their dropships. The Quickdraw is limping, but they will be under the cover of their guns shortly. We have taken a significant amount of damage, but all our mechs are still operational."

  "Roger. Hang in there, air support incoming. 5 mikes (5 minutes for radio comms) or less. Bravo 1 out."

  "Alph- What? Air support? What are you talking about, John?" She said, the surprise decration catching her off guard.

  "Watch the skies. Bravo 1, Out." John replied. He shut down the Charger in a clearing rge enough that he could pull the Pelican out, giving up on any hope of subtlety.

  Dismounting, he jogged out to the middle of the clearing, pcing the figurine on the ground and filling it with magic. In moments, it expanded, the massive dropship even dwarfing the Charger. He didn't wait around to admire it, rushing inside and climbing into the cockpit.

  "Okay, I'm almost out of autocannon ammo, so let's just top that up (3500 tokens). Eight Anvil-II missiles in the pods." He said, spending his gatcha tokens to reload the gun. He flipped through the menu real quick to see if there were other upgrades he could add, and it was quite the list. The ship was designed to mount a variety of different equipment pods, so much so that he thought that whatever world it came from, it must have been the go-to ship for most operations. A Jack of All Trades vessel, just like him. He didn't have any time to look at that right now, but would soon.

  The Pelican hummed to life, and John took it out of the back of the cave, through the valley, and into the mountains. His sensors easily broke through the interference, and he could see the two Union dropships nearly two miles away. The two pirate mechs were limping towards them, the three Guard mechs staying far enough back that the dropships couldn't hit them, but could still pelt the pirate mechs with long-range fire.

  "Well... three thousand metres seems to be the range of these missiles. Let's see how mechs fare against them." He mused, locking onto the Shadow Hawk and letting loose a flight of missiles. The two missiles shot out of the pods, white smoke trailing through the sky as they rocketed towards their target.

  The unsuspecting mech staggered under the dual explosions, the warheads on the missiles much rger than the ones mounted on mechs. It still stood, though there were now two rge craters in its torso armour.

  "Yeah, at 1000 tokens a volley, that will get expensive." He maneuvered the Pelican in closer, to the maximum range of the 70mm autocannon that was fully automatic, unlike the mech versions. It looked about a mile away to him, the dispy reading fifteen hundred metres. He fired the cannon in short bursts, the beaten zone* covering both pirate mechs. He kept an eye on the dropships, but neither of them seemed to be able to reach his Pelican from this range.

  He kept at it for the next minute, the HEAP rounds individually only doing a small amount of damage, but they were quickly taking their toll on the two pirates. He thumbed his radio over to a general broadcast frequency, hoping the advanced communication equipment onboard his ship would be compatible with the mechs below.

  "Pirate mechs, this is Lance Commander John Wayne of the Bckstone Guards. Shut down your mechs and exit your cockpits. If you surrender now, I will spare your lives. If you choose to continue to resist, I will be forced to use a bigger gun. I assure you, this SLDF prototype has a lot of toys strapped to it." He said, bluffing that st bit.

  Silence answered him, but the two mechs had stopped moving. Finally, a strained female voice came over the radio. "Fine, you bastard. We surrender."

  "Good. That goes for your two dropships as well. I am faster than them and have a longer range. I have no problems following them out to wherever your jumpship is and capturing that too."

  "...Fine. Congratutions, Lance Commander. You have captured Susie Morgaine-Ryan. I hope you know what you are getting into, because Ryan's Rebels will come down like a hammer on this pnet once they know I am here."

  "Would you rather die instead, Princess? I assure you, I can make that happen. Now, get out of my new mech, before I need to put more holes into it."

  "Grrrr... Asshole!" She said, then cut off the comms.

  He leaned back in his chair, monitoring the situation from above. He sent a message to the Bckstone starport, requesting reinforcements to aid in securing their new assets. They were surprised to hear from him; the rendezvous they had set up wasn't for another four hours yet. They scrambled one Leopard immediately, with the other expected to take off in a couple of hours.

  He nded the Pelican once the Mechwarriors had detained the two pirates. He grabbed Susie, and after binding her with a heavier set of cuffs from the Pelicans' menu of goodies (5 tokens), he stuffed her in his airlock** which doubled as a brig for prisoners. If they got rowdy enough, the crew could just eject them into space, a great means to ensure their good behavior.

  "Yer not gonna get away with this." She spat, falling on her ass when he threw her in there. She was an average-sized woman with brown eyes, light brown skin, and bck hair, done up in a perm of some sort that John recognized from the 1960s, the kind of perm that Uhura sometimes wore on Star Trek. In fact, she kind of looked like her, except more...wild.

  Spoiler

  Drawing from when she was much older and lost an eye.

  [colpse]"Shut up!" John said, drawing his sword. The distinctive ring echoed through the room, causing her to cower away from him, her bravado blown away by the look on his face. "You are going to sit there quietly until I am ready to deal with your nonsense. You and your pirate kingdom just openly decred war on the Oberon Confederation today, instead of working through intermediaries as we bloody well know you have been doing. And you did it just when we unearthed all these fun new Star League Prototypes. We have a regiment of mechs and tanks in there, all in pristine condition. Stew on that as you contempte your new situation, and you'd better be willing to talk when I come back here to get you, else you will never ascend Daddy's throne, Princess."

  He locked the airlock then and returned to the cockpit. His Scouter skill told him everything he needed to know about that pile of human garbage, and he contempted just finishing her off now. He refrained only because she could become a bargaining chip for the King. He lied to her to throw her off bance, to make their next discussion go a little more smoothly. He hoped.

  Forget her for now, let's go find Lucy.

  "Lucy!" John shouted, ripping open the canopy of her cockpit. He found her not far away from the site of the battle, her cockpit having nded next to the zy river that snaked through the mountains. It was covered in scorch marks and still glowed red in spots, the detonation of her mech's engine nearly vaporizing the bottom of the cockpit.

  "My Danna, you came." He heard her say, in obvious pain, as he pushed his way inside. He was stunned for a moment, his mind not wanting to comprehend what he was seeing.

  From the thighs up, she was badly burned, a burst of nuclear fire having enveloped the inside of the mech. Her chair spared her from being instantly vaporized, though the damage was significant. Her lower legs, however, were gone.

  "Of course I did, my Tsuna," He said as softly as he could, straining to keep the rage out of his voice. It was all he could do not to go and hunt those two Spiders down immediately. "Just hold on, I will get you out of here."

  He activated his armour, then, using the rage he felt flowing through him, he began weaving his magic through her. "MIDDLE HEAL! MIDDLE HEAL! CURE!" He chanted, over and over. Her body responded to the magic, healing all the burns across her skin, repairing damaged muscles, and clearing out any lingering radiation inside her body. However, much like his eye and ear, her legs did not regenerate, leaving her with two stubby limbs instead of her long, silky, smooth legs.

  "AHHHH!!! Hah, hah, hah... my Danna... what... what was that?" She said breathlessly.

  He deactivated his armour and started to unbuckle her from the seat. "Healing magic. I did what I could, but... I am not strong enough to repce your missing limbs."

  She looked down at her legs and nodded sadly. "I see. I am sorry I fail-" She started to say, but he shut her up with a kiss.

  "You did no such thing. We are warriors, and danger is an occupational hazard. If anything, this is my fault. I have been so focused on hiding the extent of my powers that I chose to use that mech when I had something else that would have worked far better. So, no, don't you dare be sorry. I am sorry that I failed you, Lucy. Please, forgive me." He said, bowing his head slightly to her.

  "Stop that. You had a good reason to hide your strength. Most would have a hard time accepting everything you have shown me so far. In fact, this." She said, gesturing to her legs, "This will be nearly impossible to expin."

  "Fair enough. Now, let's get you out of here. You need to eat and rest. I have a couple of Spiders to go hunt down, and a pirate princess to interrogate."

  With that, John took off his jacket and wrapped it around Lucy, covering her naked body as best he could, then picked her up. It was a bit of a struggle to get her out, but he managed it. He carried her over to the waiting Pelican, her arms draped over his neck, his injured princess bride. He desperately tried not to bme himself for causing her injuries, but it was clear to him that he was too focused on using the tools provided by the story and not everything in his toolkit.

  He would do better going forward. It was the best he could do.

  * - The beaten zone is the elliptical area on the ground where the majority of rounds from a machine gun or automatic weapon strike, forming the most effective impact area.** - This isn't new; there is a compartment between the cockpit and the cargo area that has, canonically, been used to hold prisoners. John was using it to store his bow in WC3.