My Gal Scout

This short story is part of a competition in a message board I go to where the writers make stories out of artist drawings and vice versa. This picture is where I got the inspiration and you can see more of his pretty drawings Here so without further ado here is my story. All 844 words of it.

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Even with the thrusters and a parachute I felt the mech make solid contact with the ground. Right in the middle of the manufacturing park like she was supposed to be, a nice surprise for guidance to work that well on a drop. A quick scan of the video feeds confirmed everything the instruments told me; there were no hostile weapons present, just a bunch of surprised and scared workers who scattered as I guided the mech forward.

I fired a rocket that blew open a loading bay door in manufacturing building six. A quick jump with a little thruster boost dropped me and Scout in the building. Now there were hostiles in the area, exactly the thing I'd expected from an illegal build site. Five guards were arrayed around the room shooting at Scout, but they'd have to get lucky to even do enough damage to slow us down a little bit. I swung the right arm across the mech's body at table height with the machine gun firing steadily. All of the workers fleeing added to the confusion, but anybody involved in this was in trouble even if that created more of a body count than command wanted. I raised the left arm and unleashed the flame thrower and made solid contact with the guard on the walkway who screamed and flailed before he flipped over the guardrail and crashed to the floor below.

The targeting system put up red boxes over the two guards still on their feet so I swung the right hand over and unloaded with the machine gun to tear through the flipped tables and the men behind them. I put Scout into motion and he burst through the huge double doors and knocked one off the hinges as we entered the long hallway. Scout's evasion systems did an automatic quick step to the right as an RPG flew past and exploded against the wall behind us. I replied with a missile of my own that detonated against their security post; blasted it to fragments and filled them with shrapnel. I got Scout moving forward again and watched the display for the isotope sniffer as it kept going up and then red lined.

I turned Scout and again we slammed through a pair of double doors, this time into a lab. And this lab seemed to be where the guards had decided to make their stand as Scout was rocked by heavy gunfire and the mech staggered to the right to stay on his feet from the impact. The only plus side was these guys wouldn't use explosives as they didn't want the laser in the middle of the lab being destroyed. I was just the opposite so with a quick lock I fired a missile that inexplicably connected with one of their bullets and exploded in midair, so I fired another. This missile flew true and exploded the makeshift machine gun nest and sent the men wielding it flying. The targeting screen showed ten guards outlined in red still up and firing and doing a lot of damage to Scout's paint job. I rotated the upperbody of Scout while unloading with all of the weapons I had. The machine gun on the right, the flame thrower on the left, and the small flechette guns above the flame thrower. It was a terrifying display while doing it, I couldn't imagine being on the receiving end. All the soldiers were down on the floor; Some of them dead or dying and the rest cowering for their lives.

I grabbed the package of explosives next to me and opened the front hatch, my least favorite part of this mission. I dropped to the floor with the bag on one shoulder and my pistol in the other. I attached two bundles of C4 to each end of the laser module. I grabbed the ladder to get back into Scout and bullets pinged off the metal next to me. I dropped into a crouch and aimed down my pistol, but Scout reacted first and ripped apart the chest of my attacker with the flechette launcher. I scrambled up the ladder quickly and the hatch sealed behind me. I put Scout into a full run the way we came in. Outside the loading bay security had set up with a lot of men, but nothing pegged as immediately dangerous.

Scout leapt into the air as I put on full thrusters and dropped some mines out the back of the mech as we lifted over the buildings and out of the manufacturing plant while the mines exploded amidst the security forces. Once we hit the ground I detonated the C4. Manufacturing building six went up in a series of explosions. Way more than just the C4 would have done, the result of all the volatile material they were using for building stuff.

“Commander Kyle Warren ready for pick up outside the target zone. Illegal weapon was been destroyed along with the manufacturing building.”

“Good work, Commander. We're coming in for pickup now.”