"Running it a little thin there, Jessie," the CO said. He looked around, conducted a quick headcount, and stored the names and model numbers on the HUD in his mech. "If you run late again, I won’t suggest you make use of another mech. It'll be an order. Are we at an understanding?"
"Yes, sir," Jessica13 replied with a nod and bumped her head on the top of her helmet. There was no vertical head movement on the Mini, which meant her shoulders moved up and down and made it look like she shrugged instead. Armstrong7 knew better than to think she was being insubordinate and stepped out in front of the rest of the crew. He would act as the shield for the support mechs that weren't fully rigged for combat.
His main gun was raised and primed for the fight they could still feel happening. Every explosion on top made the whole elevator shudder and swung it gently, but the mechanism was strong enough to drag them up to the surface.
"Starting to wish those older models had some projectile shields now, huh, boss?" Jacob14 asked, looking up at the massive mech standing next to him.
Armstrong7 tapped the chest of his mech with the main gun attached to his right arm. "This is all the shielding I'll need. Now stay back, let me clear a path for you, then head out. The folks up top will already have themselves marked off as needing ammo on your HUDs, so choose one and mark it off. If two of you mark off the same Guardian, I will be pissed. If you guys get taken down, switch your selections off so the others know you won't be able to get to them. I swear to the Seven, if you die and let someone go out without ammo up there, I will personally revive you so that I can shoot you myself. Do you understand?"
Of course, all this was covered in the drills they ran from time to time but it never hurt to be reminded that those depleted-uranium rounds would riddle their recently revived corpses if they didn't do the job right. Not that any of them really thought Armstrong7 would actually do it, but as of right now, it didn't really matter.
The elevator came to a halt with a thud and brought all their minds back to the task at hand. Jessica13’s heart suddenly thudded rapidly in her chest again and she squeezed the controls in Mini's arm to keep her fingers from trembling. She was careful to leave her forefinger off the trigger, though. She really didn’t need to have the damaged elevator added to her canteen deductions for the month.
The doors shuddered gently, and she couldn't help but notice the stillness that suddenly descended on the group. The explosions were oddly muted by the reinforced panels but were the only sound in the seconds before the doors would open to allow the noise of the firefight outside to intrude.
The quiet before the storm. She’d never really understood the phrase before now. The anticipation was building, and all she could really think about was that her mouth was dry but she still needed to use the restroom for some reason. She'd asked one of the chavs about it before and they said it was due to the adrenaline pumping through her body. Without even knowing it, her body was getting ready for a fight.
It was like having an AI but for her own body, she remembered thinking at the time.
The doors jerked open. A cloud of dust quickly engulfed them and the clamor of battle was no longer muffled.
Jessica13 wanted to run out and suddenly felt hellishly exposed standing there with the doors wide open. Despite the instinct, she remembered her orders and waited for Armstrong7 to move out first.
She peered past him at the cloud that made everything farther away than ten feet disappear in a rush of brown. Her grimace was instinctive because she knew she would inevitably have to clean that dust out of the joints of these mechs when they were done there.
When, not if.
"Okay, clear!" Armstrong7 roared. "Move, move, move!"
None of the bulletfoots hesitated even for an instant when the order came. They let the huge Argonaut step out first and used him as a shield that allowed them to exit safely. She was out first. Her Minato was smaller than the others and one hell of a lot more energy-efficient, which meant she could weave through the others without too much effort.
It also meant it was her job to supply the folks who were farther away. There was always a downside, Armstrong7 liked to say. Thankfully, she knew the layout of the defensive plateau and would be able to judge the distances despite the dust that flurried to obscure visibility. Behind her, the cliff into which the elevator was built towered as a sheer wall of protection. Beyond that, the battlefield was bounded on all sides by equally precipitous rockfaces that the attackers would have had to scale. It helped that the defensive area was limited and the fight couldn’t spread to force the bulletfoots farther afield and away from the elevator.
"Where's that fucking ammo, Armstrong7?" Jack5 shouted through the comms.
"En route!" the CO replied, turned quickly, and opened fire in the direction of the fighting. She could see a couple of targeting reticles, which revealed where the hostiles were and allowed her, in the support mech, to avoid them while the others continued to fight.
Jessica13 looked into the HUD, selected one of the nearest Guardians, and isolated him to tell the others who she would go to first and the other five did the same. She had enough ammo to restock two of the Guardian mechs before she could make a break back to the elevator.
A series of whistles and chirps sounded in her headset.
"No, we're not
