Lodestone TLR-99

Playing trampoline

"Look, hang on a second." Mehr dialed in the sequence of buttons known only to herself - the one that temporarily knocked out Ops' ability to hear speech from the cockpits - and lowered her voice to a more intimate level. "You're saying, you've been piloting this thing for five years, and you don't like flying?"

Kath took a slow breath in, and then out. "You weren't supposed to find that out about me."

"No, it's OK. I'm just surprised, you always seemed so confident every time we come barrelling out of that launch ramp..."

"It's like Boss used to tell me. Pretend hard enough that you know what you're doing, and you can even fool yourself." Where "Boss" was the affectionate nickname given to her drill instructor, a figure who - it now dawned on Kath - may not have fully known what they were doing, either. "Figured out a long time ago that if I yelled loud enough and hyped myself up, I wouldn't care so much about the G forces."

"That's what all that stuff is about, that catch phrase you shout every time we do launch procedures?"

"Yeah. Past that, I'd really prefer we stay grounded. Can't dig my heels in if we're airborne."

Mehr surveyed the sandy landscapes around them, the wrecked base and all of the shattered remains of unoccupied assault vehicles. "I've got an idea, Kath. Let's find a way to enjoy this. Gimme the controls for a minute."

"No. You do it, and I'm punishing you later," Kath said with a stern seriousness that didn't suit her. But she felt the mechakinetics lock in place as the limb controls ceased responding to her. "Let go, damn it."

One of the cockpit compartments popped open in front of Kath, and from it emerged a rubber hand. "Trust me. I'm not going to put you in danger," came Mehr's voice over the remote link, as the hand reached forward and patted Kath gently on top of her dirty-blonde head. "You know full well that I couldn't do that to you."

Kath wordlessly acceded to the will of her co-pilot. The Lodestone's servos revved up and began moving beneath her, reaching for the piles of scrap metal, the wrecked tanks and transport cars, the way a child might play with their little toy cars. After a few slightly stomach-upsetting minutes, all of them had been congregated into a nice flat circle on an empty stretch of sand. The troop vans and tank turrets had been carefully positioned "orange side up"; the portions of their self-detonating ablative armor, that hadn't already been set off by incoming missiles and HEAT shells, faced upwards and ready to defend their already-wrecked metal carcasses from one more strike.

The Lodestone stepped on top of the pile and stood up as straight as it could. Someone in Ops was probably noting their primary pilot's increased heart rate and wondering what was going on out there.

"Mehr, seriously, what are you doing?"

"I learned this little trampoline trick in the simulator. This stuff triggers pretty easily, turns out, if you thrust off of it. You holding on tight? It'll be fun," Mehr reassured, failing to calm her partner in any way whatsoever. "I'm going to count down."

"Don't, that just makes it worse!"

"In T-minus Ten... Nine..."

"Oh God what are you going to--"

"Eight... Seven... Six..."

"--I want out I want out I want out--"

"Five... Four... Jumpjets armed..."

"Let me off let me off--"

"Two... One..."

"Go to hellllllll--"

Kath's eyes slammed shut as a massive jolt shook through the Lodestone, feeling like the muted, compensated impact of a Howitzer, but the sensation traveled upwards, as did the Lodestone itself, shoving Kath into her seat. She wasn't sure how long the sensation lasted, but it eventually gave way to the feeling of floating. She dared not open her eyes, for fear that the endless blue sky would suck her in.

Not even Mehr's voice was much comfort. "You OK out there? We're about 500 feet up."

"No! No, I'm not OK!" Her eyes remained firmly clamped shut. "Put this thing back down and unlock my controls, you jerk!"

"I'm going to float us over to the dustoff point."

"NO! No, we're walking to dustoff, I don't want to do this!"

"I'll take it easy on the G-forces, Kath, I promise."

"Banana! Banana! Bananaaaaa!"

"Oh, you're the one safewording now?"