William Leighton *Reviews Welcome*

[Celebmacil]

This is the first "In Character" scene from the history of the latest character that I am making for the Zoids RPG that I play on. I'm not really near done with the thing, but... read on and see how it goes?

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*Storm Rising*

William’s eyes traveled lazily over the glittering waters of the Deldaros Ocean to the west before scanning back to the right, and checking on his wing mate. The silver Storm Sworder was clearly visible hanging in the air about 500 meters off, and slightly higher. Looking good. He thought to himself. They had nearly reached the northern perimeter of their flight plan, and in only another moment the time would come for the eastward swing over the mountains, then the return flight back to base in the south. At that point the transmission light on the radio scanner in his cockpit started to flash, and the speaker crackled weakly with distortion as a tense voice came across. “…Any station this net, any station this net! This is Special Operations Armored Recon Company Trident calling for emergency retransmission, over!” The officer frowned to himself, wondering where the call was coming from as he received it.

“SOAR-C Trident, this is Interception Squadron Eagle Six Alpha, go ahead your traffic over?” He reached down and switched the relay system to active, and the powerful electronic arrays in the recon radome mounted on the back of his Raynos began boosting both voices on the emergency channel back to his base, extending the range. “Glad someone’s listening out there…” The relief was clear in the other soldier’s voice as he continued. “Our Six actual is requesting immediate air support and extraction at our location. We have been heavily engaged by Zenebas Empire forces…” Static broke the connection, as William’s eyes widened in shock. Zenebas Empire? That can’t be right… The Zenebas had been defeated centuries before, and absorbed into the Guylos Empire. There was peace between the Republic and Empire now.

Increasing the power to his communications antenna, the transmission picked up again. “…now located in a defensive perimeter at grid location Bravo-Echo Three Four Niner, Six Seven Two. Zenebas forces have completely cut us off, and we are unable to maneuver. Say again, request immediate air support and extraction at our location, over!” Whoever the operator was on the other end of the call, they obviously believed every word that they were saying and more than likely… William didn’t want to think about that. “Clear Trident, wait one…” The pilot listened breathlessly for his base air controller to respond to the beleaguered soldier across the ocean from him. “This is Florecio Air Station; we are forwarding your request for support. You’ll have to hold on there until we get clearance to launch.” He swallowed hard. That might be too long…

The silence over the radio after that was deafening. Then the Special Forces soldier came back on, his voice slower, sounding resigned to his fate. “Affirmative Florecio… we’ll hold here as best as we can. Do you have an ETA on the support?” William shook his head. Hours… He could be on station over their location with his entire Squadron before approval would likely be given from Regional Command. The ATC came back, sounding bored in the safety of their tower. “No idea, Trident… we’ll work on it.” William’s head lowered, feeling chagrin at the lack of concern from the base. The soldier under fire had heard it too. “…We’ll try to hold. This is Trident Five, out.” They ceased transmitting, and William’s stomach was filled with ice. He thought a moment, checking his weapons status indicators, and running flight computations in his head.

He made up his mind then, and spoke to his squadron over the local intercom. “Skyflash to all Eagles, we have a change in flight plan. We’ll be rallying over Pandora’s Box for a strike mission. Follow my lead.” He turned the Raynos west into a graceful banking arc, and listened as all wings started checking in and confirming the instructions. Once they were all headed for the designated assembly area he radioed the base tower himself. “Florecio Control, this is Eagle Six. I am requesting permission to support SOAR-C Trident at this time.” Deep inside, he already knew what the answer would be. "Negative on that request, Eagle Six you are not cleared. Return your squadron to base.” Bored indifference was all that he heard in the voice on the radio. With the sigh of a condemned man, he started taking steps that could not be retraced.

[Celebmacil]

“Control, we can be on station and provide support in less than two hours from here. If we wait… there may not be anyone left to extract when someone gets there. You know that?” It wasn’t going to matter what he said, but William needed to try and convince them that he was right, that something needed to be done immediately. The tower came back, sounding more annoyed and even more calloused than before. “Eagle Six that is NOT your concern. We have regulations, follow your flight plan.” His lips split into a perverse grin. Sometimes it sucked to be right, but he would be damned if people that he could help died because of regulations. “Sure thing, Control… I understand. I’ll get right on that. Eagle Six out.” He switched the radio off, and settled into his seat. It was going to be a long flight, and that was only the beginning.

The other ten air Zoids in his unit were visible, glittering motes of death converging on one another as they began forming up over the ocean while William and his wingman approached at full speed. “Eagle flights two and three, fall in behind lead wing. Echelon left formation, and go to full trim. We’re operating on borrowed time, I’ll brief en route.” His pilots were good, and he knew that they could make a difference for the troops out there hunkering down in the dirt. He only hoped that it would be enough of a difference, and worth the price that would ultimately be paid. There’ll be time to think about the consequences later, Captain. The pilot shoved the throttle control all the way forward, and the Raynos accelerated in the cold morning air to nearly two thousand miles per hour. All the squadron followed, contrails streaking behind as they rushed to the aid of brother soldiers that needed their help.

The sun was no longer to their front when the far eastern coast of Europa finally passed beneath them, then became only a smudged black line behind in a matter of seconds. Captain Leighton’s eyes flickered across his HUD readouts, again confirming his weapons and systems status. The trip at full burn had built up the core temperatures of the Storm Sworders to near critical, but his Raynos had better performance and hadn’t had to push as hard, so he was faring a little better. The AERIE tracking system in the sensor dish had their exact position plotted, and they were only a few minutes out from the location that Trident Five had reported earlier. He needed to get a situation report before they started their final approach, so William opened a secure channel on the Republic frequency. “SOAR-C Trident, Interception Squadron Eagle Six here, what’s your status?” More than a mile was burning past them every other second.

He waited what seemed to be an eternity, but William there was no reply. He called again, and still got no response. They were going to be on top of the Company soon so they were going to have to go in without any idea of what was happening to help him form a picture of what was going on and plan accordingly it seemed. “Eagle Three, you’ll follow my attack run. We’re going Hi-Lo-Hi. Watch for danger close.” He’d have the other flight hold back. “Eagle Two, stay up top and watch for visitors or targets of opportunity, you have the call on engagement.” That was probably the best that he could do for the time they had, and his flight leaders knew it. “Affirmative Eagle Lead, Three is on your six.” They were professional pilots, all of them. “Check from Two, Skyflash. We’ll watch the show.” They needed to be more than professional; they needed to be good enough to hold the tide.

He hoped the bad guys wouldn’t be looking for them right off as they flew over the inland plains. In another minute, he could see many plumes of dark angry smoke rising into the sky off in the distance, and angled the Raynos a bit to get a better view. “I have visual contact on bearing two-seven-four, Eagles… keep sharp.” Down below them he noticed several formations of dark spots moving in the same direction as they were, it looked like a company of Zoids. Crap… no lack of activity, I guess. Then he could see a large hill, tall and majestic, the focal point for the battle that the Republic forces were engaged in against the Zenebas. “Okay flight two, we’re going in now. Flight three, go to attack speed all the way through.” Pointing the nose of the Zoid down, William decreased power and slowed to subsonic speed as he dived through the clouds on the enemy below. They weren’t taking fire yet, but that would change.

[Celebmacil]

As the Raynos screamed in at almost six hundred miles an hour, the pilot’s eyes and hands were busy. The targeting reticle glowed dim green in his HUD as the crosshairs centered on a Red Horn that was engaging a Republic unit, oblivious to the danger above it. The locking box slid smoothly onto center mass, drawn to the core emissions, and a shrill tone in the cockpit indicated that a positive lock had been obtained by the weapons control computer. William’s thumb flipped up the safety cover and hovered a moment, then toggled the firing stud twice. A missile dropped from its launch rail each time and fell away, free in the air before its motor ignited in a brilliant white flash. They streaked away into view, a line of smoke trailing from them as William pulled up and leveled off. The Raynos buffeted hard, rocking in the turbulence of the air as it closed on the skirmish line of Empire Zoids, and his finger tightened on the Pulse Cannon’s trigger.

Multiple lances of light tore from the three barrels under the cockpit and nearly instantaneously burnt into the side of their target. An Iguan burst into a ball of flame and fell, stricken by that single attack as the missiles he’d fired a moment before slammed hard into the Red Horn next to it. The concussion and blast rolled around the Raynos as it accelerated past the carnage, and Captain Leighton toggled his weapon control to the rear 72mm Cannons. A small sub screen appeared showing the confusion behind him as the weapons dropped in angle, and both started to fire at a Saber Tiger that was now running towards the hill, alert of the threat it was facing. More explosions bloomed from the ground as the three Storm Sworders that were drafting behind him started to score hits on targets as well. Higher up above, the third flight began their dive into the pandemonium below, ready to add their missiles and cannon fire to the fray.

“Okay, go to burners and climb lead flight!” The adrenaline rush was taking hold of him now, and William was breathless and shaking slightly as he yanked back on the stick and slapped the heel of his hand on the throttle, pushing it forward. The g-forces from the full power acceleration pushed him back in his seat hard, and he blinked at the blue sky and clouds to his front as the pressure mounted. ”Lead, this is two. We have no bogeys in the air, and we’re following on Three’s attack run, over.” A grin split his face, despite his disbelief at their good fortune. No air cover for them? Bad day… The Captain’s voice was exultant as he replied. “Copy, Two. Good hunting.” The altimeter showed that they were nearing six thousand meters, and the Raynos was going almost eight hundred miles an hour now. He pulled back on the throttle and pushed the nose down again as he swung back around toward the battle they had just risen from.

Flight three was climbing up now, the four Storm Sworders dodging evasively away from the growing latticework of lasers and explosions that were being directed at them. It would have been worse if the Squadron Executive Officer hadn’t decided to follow after the other two flights. The Empire lines were beginning to waver and break in some areas, rocking from the third consecutive series of hard strikes his craft were now hammering them with. In less than thirty seconds, William and his eleven pilots had succeeded in destroying or crippling almost two armored companies, and had damaged nearly another full one. Looks like we got around a battalion there… He nodded in grim satisfaction at the casualties they had inflicted and rolled the Raynos sharply on its side, cutting into the air with another dive. “Eagle Squadron, we’re doing it again. Keep the pressure on them. We’ve got friends to save down there…”

The world blurred around him as everything rushed past. William was aware of only the systems indication readouts and warning tones in the cockpit, everything else was focused on what was happening outside, and the missiles and beams that were now being fired at him as his Raynos closed into weapons range for a second time. Not as quiet as the last pass… His hand tightened on the control stick, and nudged ever so slightly, and the aircraft responded fluidly, edging around a red-white energy blast that pulsed past the cockpit raising darkened blisters on the paint. Subconsciously his mind acknowledged the weapons lock tone, and his finger released the weapons control going to free fire mode. Sweat was beading on his upper lip despite the cool temperature in the environmentally sealed pilot’s compartment as William lined up on the largest enemy Zoid that was not running to escape the death raining down from the heavens.

[Celebmacil]

The Iron Kong MU stood solid in the rushing panic of the lesser Zoids around it. The pilot inside was the ranking field commander of the newly formed elite Neo-Zenebas Nineteenth Shock Battalion. He was feeling the closest thing to emotion that he would ever acknowledge, lips curled into a grimace of hatred. The carefully laid plans and all the maneuvering of a combined Reinforced Division had been consistently thwarted in this region by a small Republic Unit for several months. The Emperor’s Chancellor had already had their first Corp Commander executed for his failure to stay on schedule for the planned invasion of the Helic-controlled continent. The Zenebas Empire’s rightful ancestral homeland of Delpoi must be taken back, and no excuses would be tolerated from anyone. So it was that Lower-Colonel Pathos had been given the task of tracking the thorn down and removing it from their side.

Now that they had finally pinned this nuisance down on an unknown and inconsequential pile of rocks in the middle of the wilderness, he had been certain that the time had come to end the annoyance that had continuously been escaping their reach. The vivisection of the enemy force was not difficult when they could not run and hide like the lowly animals that they were, and Pathos had been eager to return to base with his troop full of glory and gorged on the blood of inferior Republic soldiers. But in less than a minute, his personal plans had been torn asunder by an impossible occurrence. The Colonel’s advance line had been targeted by a well orchestrated series of strikes from the air, and they were not prepared for this type of force. The Intelligence Division had been monitoring the fugitive Helic unit, and they had not had air capabilities. They knew this and said nothing, THEY KNEW!!! Rage built swiftly in the man.

William’s Raynos rocked hard, shrapnel from a proximity fused missile that had detonated nearby peppered his armored hull with an unnerving rattle, and several damage control sirens sounded, accompanied by flashing warning lights. Just another day over a hot Landing Zone… Captain Leighton whistled to himself tunelessly, the EZ-015B rapidly growing in his targeting scope. Release in less than one second. His eyes widened in sickened dismay as the Iron Kong was wreathed in a corona of contrails from multiple hypersonic warheads firing straight at him. “*Watch your language!*!” He triggered off the missiles he’d been holding and spun the Raynos hard on its side. Nine of the Anti-Armor rockets snapped past him in a deafening barrage of thunder, and his bird bucked, the controls torn from his hand for a moment. One of them had connected with his wing, the shaped charge forming into a molten jet of plasma on contact.

Directly to William’s rear, his number two pilot never saw the others coming as his commander veered out of the way. The young Lieutenant’s Storm Sworder nearly vaporized as the salvo slashed through the main body of his Zoid, rupturing the core and setting off multiple secondary explosions. The next craft in the attack sequence passed through the fiery halo, releasing a spread of missiles on target as the larger shards of the second fighter kept their velocity for a time, flying in a diverging formation from him. The eerie sight lasted only an instant before gravity took over, and they fell to the ground, bouncing into erratically spinning arcs, then tearing through dirt and grass leaving flaming gouges trailing behind them. Switching to auxiliary hydraulic systems, William was doing everything that he could to keep his Raynos in the air with a large, ragged hole burnt through one of its primary lifting surfaces.

The High-Mobility missiles William had directed at the Zenebas Commander’s Zoid had tucked low, skimming along the ground. The terrain-following radars under the nose cones were sending thousands of micro-adjustments through the ailerons every second to prevent a brush with the hard turf mere feet below. Predetermined conditions indicated to the guidance computer that the time to go to active mode had arrived, and the powerful vectored thrust vent array in the tail of the state of the art killers lobbed the arrow-like bodies high into the air over their target. As they reached the apogee of their flight the Iron Kong turned its torso, the heavy particle beam cannon on the shoulder of the Colonel’s Zoid lowering on massive stabilization pylons and locking into place. He now had a perfect trajectory on the crippled Raynos that was fleeing, headed north with oily black clouds billowing furiously from it.

[Celebmacil]

Pathos never lost sight of the lead fighter despite the explosions and distraction from all corners. He could discern that this was the commander of the Republic Squadron that was even now trying to wrest the righteous triumph from his hands. The Colonel would not allow such a thing, for he would personally ensure that their plans would be brought to fruition. No matter the incompetence of the Intelligence that had been passed to him, no matter the odds against them, he would prevail in this battle for the glory of the Empire. Nothing matters but victory… A nimbus of crackling bluish energy was forming around the intake vent at the tip of the beam launcher as matter was drawn from the surrounding atmosphere by the condensing fans and spun into the acceleration chamber, building the power for a lethal strike. Proximity alarms were wailing in his cockpit, but Pathos heard nothing except the rush of blood in his ears.

Captain Leighton tried to direct the sluggishly responding Raynos into an evasive pattern on advice from the threat warning receiver that was signaling that someone had an electro-optical lock on him, but the craft just wasn’t moving very fast to his commands. The officer grimaced, near certain that this was going to be it. Taking a precious second of attention away from flying, he glanced into the rear camera view on the display in front of him, and his stomach sank. The Black Gorilla Type was preparing to fire… It was then that the missiles struck. One of them impacted directly on the beam cannon and exploded, showering chunks of machinery in all directions. The next passed under the now falling barrel and penetrated deeply into the shoulder joint, lodging into the primary servo before it went off. Shearing all connections and breaking the multi-ton limb free, the large Zoid reeled back from the hits.

The heavy missiles that it had taken were not nearly enough by themselves to put the Iron Kong out of the fight. Pathos leaned forward in his pilot seat and screamed in sheer hatred at all of existence. Now badly off balance the Colonel brought the left arm up, utterly intent on killing the Republic Soldier that had brought him this woe. Coherent streams of energy blasted from the dual Pulse Laser Cannons as the six missiles the Storm Sworder had fired came in. These were not as advanced as the ones that had done such tremendous damage only a second before, but they were no less effective. The standard heat-seeking armor-piercing weapons did as they were designed to, and burrowed through the armor plates. Delving deep into the Iron Kong, they sought the thermal signature emitting from its power core and punched the heart of the beast. Almost two hundred tons of machinery toppled instantly, dead.

William exhaled then, and turned his Raynos east. “Eagles, this is Skyflash. I’m heavily damaged and out of the fight. I’m returning to base…” The fighter rose slowly, still struggling against the aerodynamic forces that insisted it should come down. His XO responded immediately, acknowledging that he had control of the Squadron and would follow once they expended all munitions. William was dead tired and sickened from the overload that had been forced on his system for such a long time, but he felt elation too. A difference was made and people were saved… That didn’t change what was going to be waiting on the landing field when he landed, William knew. There was going to be some serious hell to pay, and no one else was responsible but him. The joys of command. He shook his head, chuckling mirthlessly. He was who he was, and there was no other way that he could have acted.

Two weeks later he stood tall and proud before a Courts Martial in full dress uniform, facing the panel of superior officers unblinking as the verdict was read. “Captain William Leighton this jury has considered all evidence before it, and found you guilty on all counts brought against you. Your unlawful actions directly led to the deaths of two pilots in an unauthorized training mission that you engaged in against orders.” He flushed at the lie, but there was no way to make the truth heard. “Given the gravity of the charges against you, you are hereby stripped of all rank and grade accorded to you as an officer of the Republic Military and immediately discharged without benefit under conditions other than honorable.” He simply nodded, biting his tongue to keep silent. I did the right thing, and the truth will come out some day. This could not be hidden forever, and that was all that mattered to him.

[aqouli]

You're telling me that was an RPG backstory?

It could have stood alone by itself, and I'd still call it an excellent example of prose. When you can see everything in your head, clear as the mind's eye, and with your vocabulary (nimbus? apogee? One word: WOW), you've stunned me.

You made everything really realistic, right down from the speech and tactical lingo of ace fighter pilots, right down to the primal vitriol of Lower-Colonel Pathos, everything felt like it was /there/, drawing you in.

Engrossing reading, and I'm kicking myself for putting it off because it was so long. Now I feel that it's too short. ^^

I salute you, Celebmacil.

[Celebmacil]

Yep, that is a part of the history for my latest character.

For this one I elected to make a very story-oriented history to create a greater sense of the character with narrative lead-overs to cover the passage of time in a more broad way.

Usually I tend to be more narrative overall, and not do much story development in my bios, and so this time I thought that I would go in a slightly different route to prevent boredom and repetition. *shrugs*

I have a good deal of the next scene written out and may post that as well. It is not a Zoid combat scenario, rather focusing on a gun battle, and more inter-character actions to broaden the story of how he came into his career as a Mercenary Group leader connected with the black market underworld.

Thanks for the input, and any corrections that are needed, sucha as points of awkwardness in the structure and syntax, or ideas to liven the text are welcome. ^__^

Well, back to working on my myriad projects...

[Kouga]

one word: whoa!!!!!!! that was deep..I mean, that made you feel like you were actually there seeing the fight....and the army vocabulary was so realistic....wow!!