Circle of Stones

Green. The atmosphere here is green. Or maybe its the sun, or the fact that the planet is covered in a lush grass. It crunches under my heels as I run towards the vehicle platform.

Moments before, I had just been rundown by an enemy Shrike, not a dozen meters from their base. I managed to lob a fusion mortar through the upper portal into their generator room, but the slow reload left me defenseless and my juggernaut armor left me next to motionless.

I had been a sitting duck.

Now I’ve respawned a few meters from our base. It, the vehicle platform, the flag bunker, our turrets — all arranged identically to the enemy. There are subtle differences in topography, especially the further from the bases you happen to measure.

Half way between our base and theirs — roughly 1800 meters in toto — is the Circle of Stones which gives this place it’s name. Like a confused Stonehenge, there is a howl of wolves on the wind emanating from the center. Lightning strikes around the outer ring every few seconds. Long ago, in one of the first battles here, someone erected strategic assets among the stones, and a capturable switch was placed in the center of the Circle.

But that doesn’t matter to me. Not now. Now I am running towards my tribe’s vehicle station rising two or three meters from the ground where I approach. Two strides, one — and I hit my jumpjet, propelling me into the air. My momentum carries me forward, and I kill the jet precisely to let gravity bring me safely to the deck.

I reel on my heels and skitter slightly across the damp deck. When any of us spawn, its always in scout armor: very light, and my forward momentum keeps me slipping for a second more until I add a touch of thrust. Now I am running toward a working Inventory Station at the far, rear corner of the deck.

The closer one is destroyed from the attacks of our enemy, but this one, though damaged, still functions. A one-meter disk on the deck, with twin scanner panels on one side, the Inventory will reconfigure my armor and weapons when I step onto it. I am selecting the desired preset via controls on my wrist as I run. When I am standing in the center, the scan panels spin away from each other around the perimeter of the disk, completing the circuit in just over one second.

With a whoosh and a flash, I am now dressed in juggernaut armor, and my steps are heavy as I clunk on the deck under the weight of the most destructive weapons in our arsenal. In front of me is the vehicle station control pad, another large disk on the deck. On the control pad stands Amanita, selecting a vehicle from a holographic array projected in front of her.

She is wearing assault armor which gives her more protection than the lightweight scout armor, but still allows her to fit into the cockpit of the vehicle I know she is choosing. Amanita is a bomber pilot today, a fact that is confirmed as the hologram in front of her fades, and the huge arms of the vehicle inventory pad swing up from the deck. They spin up and over, like clawing fingers surrounding a raised palm, fingers which shape and protect the magic spawning within.

The electronic and hydraulic hum of the swirling claw ebbs, the fingers relax, the brightness fades and is replaced by a vehicle. At first shimmering and temporal, then quickly quite solid, a Thundersword bomber has materialized, and Amanita is already falling into the pilot’s seat from where she had thrust herself above it.

I continue to plod along the course I set when I left the inventory station. I hear Amanita’s automatic restraints engage and I jump, adding thrust to lift my heaviness as quickly as possible to the tailgunner platform on the aft of the bomber. Amanita gives the afterburner a tap when she hears my boot’s gravitic lock above and behind her.

The short afterburn quickly moves the bomber off the vehicle inventory pad, allowing the next person in line to spawn another vehicle. We are hovering just outside the clutch of the claw as it spins up for someone else, and Amanita taps the maneuvering thrusters on the port side, giving us a starboard sideslip while we wait for our bombardier.

I turn in place, selecting the “Plasma roaster” as my ready weapon and scanning the immediate vicinity for enemy activity. My helmet headset plays Drone Zone Ambient tunes under a near constant radio chatter from both tribes.

The sound of Shadowen’s automatic restraints calls my attention forward as I shout, “ATTACK!” over the comm chatter, and Amanita puts space beneath us and our base behind us and we press into a wide arch toward the enemy base.

Its relatively peaceful on the back of a bomber.

I stow the Plasma rifle and draw out my repair wand, anticipating our mission ahead. But for about a minute more, I am free to turn around on my tiny gravitic deck, and look out over the green fog of this lush world. Gone are the constant explosions of nearby grenades and the rattling chinks of the chaingun. Instead I hear the tranquil drone of our engines and the hoots of my tribe on the Comm as the defenders of our flag repelled another attempt to capture it.

The HUD in my helmet projects Identify-Friend-or-Foe markers for all of my tribe, and for any of the enemy within eyesight or sensor range anywhere on the map. Near the bottom of my HUD, to the right, I see the range numbers toward the enemy flag slow their countdown, and I know we are almost on station.

I turn to face the front of the bomber. I extend my repair wand and direct its tip toward the two other crew members, checking the repair status of their armor. They are both in perfect health, having not discovered a stray round or flak before climbing into the bomber.

So instead I focus the tip of the wand on a spot on the strongback of the bomber. This spot, I have learned through much experience, is the best place for my repair energy to be focused, to stay focused, during the turbulence experienced while we are under attack or evading.

The finger of my left hand covers the button on my right cuff which when pressed will eject a missle-distracting flare in the direction I am facing.

Now I wait.

In front of me, Amanita positions our bomber 500 meters above our enemy — directly above — and Shadowen begins to release our bombs. Stationary bombing begins. A rude tactic, one that on a normal night would get us kicked from the battle, but tonight becomes our boon as there are no Admins to stop us.

A red light flashes in the corner of my HUD, and the waa-waa klaxon in my helmet warns of a missle lock on our position. I turn off-axis, and eject a flare aft-port…and watch as a missle destroys it. The klaxon continues, and I know there is a warrior on the ground who holds us in his sights. I wonder if he is carrying four rockets with his assault armor, or if, like me, he carries a full complement of eight rockets on his juggernaut armor.

Another flare. Missle lock continues. Another flare. This flare barely escapes my armor before it is destroyed — the concussion rocks our bomber out of position, and destroys the enemy’s missle lock. Before I can take joy in the moment, I see bright white beams of energy darting past us from below. A shrike managed to survive the bombing, and its pilot now takes aim at us from below.

Shadowen switches to turret control, and attempts to snipe the flye

r before it snipes us. A rumble, and I focus my repair wand on the strongback. Pulling the trigger, a stream of healing-red energy pours into the hull. I feel like a Ghostbuster, but a crossed-stream would be appreciated now, restoring integrity to our bomber faster than I can alone.

The shrike pilot is effective, however, and every second he takes away what I have restored, and a little more. Now I hear the klaxon again, and my options are thin: continue to focus on repairing our bomber, which is no longer able to sustain a missle strike, or release my repair and turn away to toss a flare, leaving our hull to be gradually but too quickly eroded by the enemy pilot.

Before I can choose, the matter is decided as the bomber disintegrates around me in a caliphony of ruin. My shipmates and I begin our descent 500 meters to the ground. I will fall hard due to my weight, but my dense armor will protect me to a greater degree. I switch to the Plasma rifle as my ready weapon, and begin scanning the space beneath me for the red HUD-mark of the enemy.

Halfway through my descent, I begin thrusting upwards in short bursts, hoping I reach some sort of compromise with terminal velocity. As the green fog thins out below, I see that I am not far from the enemy base. I mix in some forward thrust, and switch to the Fusion Mortar as the weapon in hand.

If I survive the impact, I will try to perfect my previous attempt on their generator room.

Thrust. Thrust! THRUST! My thrusters are depleted as I hit the ground. My vision turns red as my body absorbs what impact the armor could not. I am alive, but my armor is damaged more than halfway. I will fare poorly in combat, however for the moment, I am undetected.

I am not as close as I had hoped to be, still more than a dozen yards from where I can ideally target the upper portal. I switch to the repair pack, and begin to repair my own armor as I walk, ever leary of enemy at the base.

Though several times I see red IFF markers fly about the tower and vehicle station, I remain unseen, and I have increased my armor integrity to three-quarters full as I switch back to the Fusion Mortar.

Fire. The first round rebounds off the ledge and falls to the base, harming nothing and no one. I continue to march.

Fire. The second round lands perfectly on the ledge, just inside the upper portal. This will have weakened any heavy defenders, and also alerted them to my presence. I continue to march.

Fire. The next round archs into the portal, landing somewhere just short of the generator. No one was protecting the upper entrance, or else I eliminated them entirely with the second round.

I am close enough now, and my thrusters have recharged sufficiently to allow me to jump toward the opening. I jump. I thrust. I rise, slowly but steadily, my anticipation growing.

As I reach the ledge, I gain a foothold and fire once again.

The mortar richochetes off the opposite wall, landing just a meter away from me. Its emerald green glow seems like sinister laughter as it detonates, destroying my armor and sending me in pieces into the field at the base of the tower.

“Shazbot,” I say! Shazbot.

I spawn a short distance from my tribe’s vehicle station, already running with a light step toward another ride on the back of a bomber.