Author's Note: What you are about to read is from a Work In Progress. The final version may be different, significantly different, from this draft excerpt. This is taken from a chapter tentatively titled "The Taking of Gabriela Robin", at the climax of Part One of the book. If you want to see this finished, and get more like it, back the Indiegogo campaign here. As of this post, we're 83% of the way towards the initial goal of $1000, so your support now is likely to ensure this project happens.
Ramsey ran out of the Grand Hall, down a corridor and out into a pathway that lead to a stairway up the curtain wall. He paused to see the Ireton Gallowglass mecha struggling against the unknown mecha that launched from Dashing Jack’s battleship- itself clearing the skies of Ireton fighters and holding descending cruisers at bay with its guns and missiles. Sweeping across the spaceport below was the tall manlike model, moving with aplomb among the buildings on the surface. It looks like a statue in the image of an armored warrior of antiquity.
Ramsey backed up a space, drew a baton from its boot sheathe, then turned about and ran for the wall’s edge. He jumped over the edge, took the baton in both hands, and bellowed “Roland, draw your sword!”
The baton separated in the middle, as if held together by magnetism. Ramsey held each half as if were a joystick controller. From those halves golden lights appeared and drew into place about him a giant-sized armored frame. Then each core subsystem in turn drew into place, followed by the cockpit interior, and finally the lights filled the frame-drawing in. It became a solid manlike mecha, shaped as a living suit of full plate armor, gleaming royal blue and trimmed in gold, bearing the crest of Roland on its chest, and standing 12 meters tall. The cockpit within lit up, giving Ramsey a 360 degree view about him as the unit’s legs kicked forward to fire the thrusters in its feet while the thrusters in its back synced to fire with them. Ramsey landed with a resounding thud, but he landed on both feet and ready for action.
“Behold!” Ramsey yelled, “Durendal has arrived!”
The Gallowglass units within range of his voice, boosted by the speakers in Durendal’s head, took heart at Ramsey’s appearance. “We’re saved!” one pilot said, “The Solar Guard stands with us!”
Zuzu cracked a wicked grin within the cockpit of Anakim. “There you are!” she said, and she turned her mecha to face Ramsey. “I can stop playing with these fools now.”
Ramsey looked on as he saw Anakim level a long rifle at him. Reading the mech’s movements as if he would a living man, Ramsey ran behind an empty mech hangar just as Zuzu fired upon him. He quickly shifted direction once he passed the hangar doors, ducking out of sight, as the follow-up shots drew closer and closer to him.
As he drew his battle rifle, Ramsey noticed the lack of ordinance meant to flush him out of the hangar. He lurched forward and rolled away from the corner he took, taking a hunch as to his enemy’s intention, and when he saw the long rifle’s barrel break through the wall he got Durendal to its feet and returned fire. Then he aimed up and fired through the hangar roof, where he heard something explode.
“Got one of the smaller ones, my lord!” a Gallowglass pilot said, “But their leader’s moving to flank you again.”
“My thanks.” Ramsey said, intuiting where Zuzu moved and firing another shot that way.
Zuzu hustled around the hangar, trying to out-think her target, only to find him shooting from within the hangar at her as she brought the long rifle up to fire. She reflexively threw the rifle in the way, blasting it in half. She discarded the ruined rifle, tossing it aside, in the few moments she had before it exploded and unintentionally destroying the spaceport’s barracks. More rifle fire came from within the hangar, blowing holes in the wall and forcing Zuzu to dodge. She found a half-wrecked truck, dashed behind it as Ramsey blind-fired at her, picked up the flaming wreckage and then ran for the hangar.
“We bring the pain to you!” Zuzu cried as she crashed through the wall. Ramsey shifted Durendal's feet, stepping out of the line of attack, and fired upon the wreckage. The shot blew a hole through what substance remained, making the rest fall apart in Anakim’s hands. Ramsey fired again, but Zuzu dodged it and pulled a lance from Anakim’s back. The end ignited, and Ramsey jumped away through the roof to get clear as Zuzu went on the attack. As he descended, he put the rifle away; he thought Zuzu would immediately pursue with a charge.
Zuzu did not disappoint. Ramsey drew his beam sword and met Zuzu’s charge with a forceful parry. He spun to one side, off the lance’s line, and tried to get inside Zuzu’s reach- but she did not allow it, reversing the spin to catch Ramsey open with a kick, a kick she delivered and sent Ramsey spiraling through another building as he hurried to reclaim his balance.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught Zuzu launching Anakim into the air to attempt a Death From Above attack with her beam lance. He got Durendal’s feet right and launched into the attack, coming just off her line sweeping up with his beam sword.
Zuzu tried to correct her descent, but didn’t have enough time. All she could do was watch as Ramsey scored Anakim’s breastplate with the tip of his beam sword and then cut her lance in half- but better that then loose an arm or get sliced lengthwise through her cockpit. Now having reversed the attack, Ramsey turned to descend upon Zuzu, only to find her already moving out of the way and igniting a beam sword of her own.
“Zuzu, stop playing with him!” Gori said as he appeared in a window on her viewscreen, “Move to back up Jack in the castle.”
At the same time, Ramsey saw Sibley pop up in a side window. “My lord, Jack’s here with us! We need your arm!”
“Roland to Ireton militia. Report!”
“We’re holding here, my lord. The enemy’s air support thins, and our ships are coming to our aide.”
Ramsey now fixed his eyes upon Anakim. “I see what your game is.”
Then Ramsey saw Zuzu break off and go to the castle.
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