🚀 go-pugleaf

                       TEAM M.E.C.H.A. #48
            By Robotech_Master, Writing to a Deadline

      A Story of High Technology and Events Coming to a Head
             (I'm not even going to TOUCH that one.)

 Continuity Note: If you can't figure out when this takes place,
 you probably haven't been keeping up with the other storylines.


    The Bahamode bike and Cyclones roared up the loading ramp and
screeched to a halt.  Mike jumped off, leaving the engine
running, tossed his helmet on the seat, and all but jumped
through the bulkhead door leading to the corridor to the flight
deck.  He quite startled Ray Sterling and Dr. Odd Science, who
were both there awaiting word.  Mike gave them words, and wasted
none of them.
    "We attack at dawn," he panted, half out of breath.  "Ray,
Odd, I want you to stay with the plane.  Prep it for takeoff and
bring it in over Bob City at approximately dawn, but not before.
Even though we have a pretty good stealth system, with Benedict
around there's no telling what kind of detection systems they'll
have.  Make sure all weapons systems are charged and ready,
including your Alpha fighter.  Odd, be ready to take the controls
if you have to.  Think you can handle it?"
    Dr. Science nodded.  "I've logged simulator time, and I--"
    "Good, good.  Maintain radio silence until we contact you.
Good luck."  Mike turned to go.
    "Wait a minute, Mike--what about you?" Ray asked.
    "We're going to ride hard and get to Bob City before the
deadline.  I'm going to find Adam and have words with him.  You
both clear on what you need to do?"
    Ray Sterling nodded.  "Yessir.  You got it."
    "I believe I--"
    "Good, good.  See you in Bob."  Mike was gone once more.
Back at the mecha bay, he was gratified to see that the others
had equipped themselves and their mecha with additional weapons
in preparation for the battle that was to come.  Sarah Conner's
38-Lite sported an additional RL-6 rocket-launcher for the left
arm, and she'd used duct tape to attach an EP-37 heavy beam
rifle to the one on the right.  Link had also selected a couple
of rifles, and was loading additional minimissiles into storage
panniers on the sides of his bike.  Robert's Cyclone, a VR-041
Saber similar to Adam's, was largely unmodified.  Good enough,
Mike thought.  Robert can scarcely handle it anyway.
    "All right Team M.E.C.H.A. let's RIDE!!!"  Mike jumped onto
his Bahamode battle bike, yanked his helmet on, and they roared
down the cargo ramp like a miniscule motorcycle gang.  The loud
revs of their motors momentarily disturbed the early-evening
Salem silence, but they were soon gone and the silence descended
once more like a blanket.


    Ooze over to that vent.  Okay, good.  Now extend a pseudopod
down through it...
    In the cell block underneath her, a guard was playfully
scratching a white cat, who was purring and, unnoticed by the
guard, reaching out a paw for his keyring.  The angle was bad for
seeing into the cells beyond, but they did seem to be occupied.
Now, if she could just...yes.  It looked like the cat was keeping
the guard pretty well-distracted.  If she could just...silently
now...
    Ariella looked up, and her eyes widened.  There was a silvery
fluid oozing down out of an overhead ventilator behind the guard,
slowly solidifying, taking on a shape.
    The guard glanced up, noticed Ariella's gaze.  "What--?"  He
started to turn to look over his shoulder.
    "Fred!" Shadebeam yelled.
    "Wha?"
    "Yer under attack," the cat told him, calmly.
    The guard looked back at Shadebeam, then down at the cat,
and that was all that was needed.  The silvery blob solidified into
a gleaming black mecha suit, holding onto the overhead grate with
one hand.  "Drop dead, Fred," came from an external speaker.  The
white-furred cat leapt smartly out of the way just before the suited
figure shot the startled guard with a cannon mounted on its free arm.
    The guard slumped to the ground; the white cat barely got out
of the way in time to avoid being fallen on.
    "I'm Summer, from Team M.E.C.H.A.," the hardsuit said.  "I'm
here to get you out of here.  Stand back."  She hurriedly blasted
the locks on the three cells, then removed the binding on their
hands.
    "Thanks!" Deckmaster said.  "I thought you'd never get here!"
    "Is he--" Ariella asked, gesturing at the guard.
    "No," Summer said.  "Just stunned.  But he'll have a
splitting headache when he wakes up."  She looked down at the cat
who peered back up at her.
    "I'm a talking cat," he purred at her.  "Get over it."
    "Mind your manners, twit," Shadebeam told him.  She looked up
at Summer.  "He's Andro.  Feel free to hit him if he acts up."
    Ariella looked at the cat, whose paw was making a famous
gesture at Shadebeam.  "I didn't know cats could do that."
    "Uh, right," Summer said.  "Let's blow this joint before he
displays any more talents."  Deckmaster turned to go, and Summer
added, "Wait."
    "Huh?"
    "I brought you these."  She produced a stack of brown
laminated cards.
    "My Magic cards!"  He shuffled through them.  "Great!  NOW,
let's blow this joint!"
    "You got it!"
    "Wait," Shadebeam said.  She picked up the keys from the
guard and opened up the small locker near where he was slumped.
As she looked through the backpack that was inside, she started to
groan.  "They took my cigarettes!  Those bastards!"  She stopped,
and turned to look at a point in midair.  "Piss off, Symon.  I'm
not in the mood for inscrutibility."  She slung the backpack over
her shoulder, and Andro hopped in.
    "What about her?" Deckmaster asked, indicating the prone figure
of Hunter, still bound inside Shadebeam's former cell.
    "Leave her," Shadebeam said.  "That's Hunter, one of the bad
guys.  Don't know why they tossed her in here - guess she double
crossed them.  But she's not on our side, that's for certain."
    "Okay," Summer said.  "Is that *everything?*"
    "Um," Deckmaster answered.
    "I think so," Ariella told her.
    "Can't think of anything offhand," Shadebeam answered.
    "I can," the voice from inside the backpack said.  Everyone
decided to ignore it and blow the joint, and proceeded to do so.


    Adam groaned.  The sheer act of groaning caused his head to
throb.  He winced and groaned some more.  What had--Oh.  He
remembered now.  That girl.  "Sonovabitch..." Adam swore.  "Ow.
Hunter, or whoever the hell (TM) she really is, was right.  She
CAN kill.  Damn near killed me.  Ouch."
    Adam got to his feet, nearly falling over again onto the
cold, hard, wet Bob City pavement.  "Urgh..."  He looked around
at all the devastation, visible even through the darkness and the
rain.  "...how long have I been out?"  He checked the helmet
display.  Four a.m.  Which meant...four hours?  Six?  He was
still a little hazy on details.
    First things first.  Adam stumbled across the street and
somehow managed to lift his Cyclone motorcycle to an upright
position.  He walked around it, muttering imprecations at each
new dent he noticed.  But at least the important stuff still
worked.  He checked the action on the .50 caliber gatling cannon,
reloaded the minimissile bay, made sure the CADS blades still
functioned.  Okay.  Now he could report back to Bulletproof and
find out just what had happened after he'd gone byebye.
    "Bulletproof," Adam muttered, straddling the bike.  "Him and
that damn armor complex of his.  Antiquated, outdated piece of
junk.  It can't fly, can't move fast--might as well just have a
tank as a suit of armor like that.  Just a walking phallic symbol
is what it is...can't even get out of the way if something shoots
at it.  Pah."  He spat on the ground.  "Always doing things the
hard way."
    And he was stupid, too.  They all had been, in fact, to be
taken in by that Carol Hunter person, or whatever her name really
was.  She'd been USING them.  Even in his anger and hatred, how
could he have allowed himself to be used so?  How could they ALL
have allowed that?!  For all they knew, Hunter might have been
pushing the Revolution toward defeat, humiliation, or worse!
    Adam tried to shove that to the back of his mind.  He had to
report in.  Trying to clear his head, which was aching rather
badly, he got on the bike and revved the motor.  As the engine
started, Adam thought he heard more engine sounds coming from
somewhere.  "Huh?"  He looked around.
    He was just about ready to dismiss it as an echo when he saw
the headlights.  Four of them.  The Bahamode and Cyclone
motorcycles, riders hunched low over the handlebars.  The radio
crackled.  "Adam!"  It was Mike.  "Stop right there.  You and I
have to talk."
    Adam flicked the thumb switch for conversion to power armor
mode.  "I'm ready when you are," he replied, finger resting
lightly on the trigger of his gatling gun.

    Summer, Ariella, Shadebeam, and Deckmaster were making their
way down an alley, trying to get as far away as possible from the
old prison to give them time to plan their next move, when Summer
noticed something on her radar sensor.  Five metallic
objects...all showing Team M.E.C.H.A. power plant IDs.  "Hey,
guys, this way!" Summer said, pointing.
    They ran up the side street.  The five mecha came into view
as they approached the end of it, and Summer began to get the
feeling that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

    The four mechabikes approached Adam's position in the
rain-slicked streets of Bob City.  If it hadn't been for the
anti-water treatment on their helmets and optics, none of the
mecha would have been able to see well enough to find the other.
But in this case, the rain was no obstacle.  It was just part of
the atmosphere.
    "Adam!  Hold it right there and drop that gun.  You're coming
with us."  The Bahamode pulled to a stop twenty yards away and
converted to battroid mode.  The Cyclones did likewise.
    Adam shook his head.  "No way.  Coming here was a rather
foolish mistake on your part."
    "I'm not nearly as foolish as you," Mike replied in an even
tone.  "You betrayed your teammates, tried to kill an innocent
man, and then cooperated in the kidnapping of that innocent man
and two of ours!"
    "Two?" Adam wondered in spite of himself.  "Ariella I know,
but who--"
    "Summer, you bastard!  Summer!" Mike yelled.
    Adam was surprised.  "What?  I didn't have anything to do
with that.  Haven't seen her.  Really."
    "That doesn't matter.  You're going to answer for what you've
done, right here and now if necessary!"
    Adam felt his pulse quicken, intensifying his headache.  More
than anything else, he just wanted this OVER WITH.  "If that's
the way you want it, then I'll be more than happy to oblige you!"
The rain-slick streets of Bob City were about to see another
mecha battle.

    "Let's take him," Robert said.  "He's a walking dead man."
    "Not so fast," Mike said.  "You three stay back.  This is my
fight and mine alone.  Besides, one-on-one is much more fair,
don't you think?"  Mike's own pulse was racing.  He was about to
go into mecha battle with a man he'd once thought to be his
friend.  How Gundam could you get?
    "If you say so, Mike."  Sarah set the safeties on her
weapons, and hovered ready to get out of the way.  The others
assumed a similar nonparticipatory stance.  Mike kicked in the
thrusters and rocketed forward, 75mm rifle blasting.
    Adam watched his friend's mecha racing toward him with a
sense of detachment that astonished him.  It was as if he stood
outside his own body, and the being that was running it was a
total stranger.  He just stood there, the shoulder targeting
device positioned in front of his eye, the crosshairs centering
themselves on the Bahamode's chest, showing red, pinging a
lock...
    Adam pulled the trigger.  The armor-piercing gatling gun
began to turn.
    Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.  Adam could
swear he could almost see each individual bullet fly through the
air toward Mike.  The gun sounded slow, distorted.  BAM. BAM.
BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM.  To either side of him, the 75mm
shells Mike had fired haphazardly tore up the cement, sending
water and gravel splattering all around.
    And then the holes appeared in the front of the Bahamode, and
Mike felt pain lance through him in one, two, three places.
Blood spattered the cockpit seat, walls, controls.  Bright
crimson fluid coughed out his own mouth coated the interior of
his helmet visor.  The Bahamode mecha fell to its knees, to its
face.
    And then everything was moving in normal speed again.  Adam
looked from the smoking muzzle of his gun to the downed mecha.
It wasn't moving.  Not even to try to get up.
    Sarah dashed to Mike's side.  "No--no, Mike--no, it
can't--oh, God, NO!!!!" she half-sobbed, reaching for the handle
on the back of the mecha marked RESCUE.  The tears coming from
her eyes half-blinded her far more effectively than anything the
Bob City rain could do.  She got to the handle, tugged.  The
others got there, helped her.  The head of the mecha slid
forward, the seat moved upward.
    It wasn't pretty.  He was still breathing, but blood was
everywhere.  He'd taken .50 caliber hits in THREE places--how was
he still alive?  His mouth moved, trying to make words.
"...Summer..."
    And then Summer was there.  The hardsuit faded into a
fifteen-year-old girl.  She grabbed his hand.  "I'm here, Mike."
Mike's eyes showed relief for just a second, then he lost
consciousness.
    "Oh my GOD!!!" Sarah shrieked.  "Somebody do something!"
    Adam watched this from afar.  Saw the blood on Sarah's hands,
blood that he realized was figuratively on his own hands.  The
blood dripped into the gushing gutter, staining it pink for but a
moment before it was carried away.  And again.  And again.
    "No...Mike...no...NO!!!"  Adam looked at his hands,
half-expecting them to be covered in crimson.  Then he turned and
ran away.
    And the rain continued to fall.


                           IS MIKE...?

                        WHAT WILL ADAM...?

                               WOW.

               FIND OUT MORE, IN THE NEXT EXCITING

                      Si nPd uRs tUr i!a l!
                       rUe vEo lGu tYi o!n
                              -----
                          The Revolution
                            Is Coming