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Personal Mission Log — Day 0:
I hate suits.
Not the clothing itself, mind you — got nothing against those. (I actually clean up pretty nice, or so I'm told.) It's the people who wear those suits on a daily basis that I can't stand.
Take this clown from the Post Terran Minerals Corporation who just gave me my mission briefing. He just took a full hour to say what he could have said in three sentences: 1) "We're in deep trouble," 2) "We're throwing a ridiculous sum of money at you in the hopes you'll clean up our mess," and 3) "We're giving you a ship and pretty much nothing else."
Wonderful.
To be slightly more specific, the PTMC has recently lost contact with every one of their mines in the Solar System. Before their security feeds cut out, they were able to determine the problem — all of their mining robots have gone completely maverick. They've killed most of the human workers, taken the remaining ones hostage, and are using the power from the mines' fusion reactors to replicate themselves into an invasion force that's headed straight for Earth.
In order to keep this quiet enough to stop their operation from being shut down, the PTMC has enlisted a hired gun — me — to infiltrate the mines, prevent the robots' advance, blow the reactors, and save the hostages if possible.
Still, though, I know why I'm really here — to protect the PTMC's bottom line. These are businessmen, not military commanders or idealists, and money's the only thing they care about. For pete's sake, my designation for this mission is "Material Defender" — could they be any more obvious?
Day 1:
At least they saw fit to give me a decent ship. I've been fighting for most of my life, in the air and on the ground, and the specially modified Pyro-GX is like nothing else I've ever flown in. It's basically a set of binary thrusters completely surrounding a zero-G core, with fully adaptable primary and secondary weapons systems. Oh, and a cockpit, too.
Speaking of which, it's real nice to be back in a cockpit — it's been way too long. There's just something about the feeling of a joystick in your hand…the raw power you get by squeezing a trigger with your index finger, sending bolts of raw energy speeding out into the ether, and blowing some poor schmuck robot to smithereens.
Heh. Freud would have a field day with me.
The way the PGX handles once you actually get it in the mine is pretty nice too. With the antigrav core and thrusters on every available surface, I can move the ship anywhere I want and any way I want throughout the available space. Upside down, sideways, diagonally…there are absolutely no limitations on my approach to each encounter.
I keep saying to myself, "The enemy's gate is down."
Day 3:
Made it through a few mines now. Had to have the PTMC techs upgrade the PGX with the "Rebirth" upgrade module — it really is a great ship, but the things were originally built 15 years ago and the visual sensors were for shit.
Once I was finally able to see what I was shooting at and figured out the best way to configure the thruster controls, things got a bit easier…but not much. I'm going into the 'bots home turf, and they're holding all the cards.
Not to mention that the mines are twisting, crooked networks of interconnected tunnels, with most of the good equipment hidden behind secret access panels that apparently no one bothered telling PTMC HQ about.
Thank goodness for the PGX's wireframe automap. Without it, I'd have no chance of figuring out where the hell I am half the time — a pen and paper weren't very high on my initial requisition list.
Day 15:
Nobody ever told me about the sounds.
The banshee scream of the Class 1 Driller as its Vulcan Cannon chews my shields to ribbons…
The crunchy grumble of the Missile Platform as it sends a deadly volley of concussion missiles in my general direction…
The frantic keening of my lock warning system getting more and more insistent as the homing missile I can't shake moves in…
Even the sound of the mine doors closing behind me is starting to make me jump. If my survival weren't dependent on my sense of hearing, I'd claw my ears off.
Day 21:
Ambush has become my way of life.
When I see a door, I wonder what's behind it — when I see a corner, I wonder what's around it. I've received enough unpleasant surprises to learn what not to do…hopefully I'll figure out what *to* do before I end up getting killed.
The tension is starting to get to me. My shoulders keep stiffening up, and I'm spending longer and longer stretches recovering in the PTMC stations before I can summon up the will to go back in.
I don't know how much longer I can do this.
Day 27:
It's over.
I've fought my way through all of the PTMC's infernal mines, from the Moon all the way out here to Charon, where the King Bastard Robot apparently made his home.
I nearly went mad, hearing his rhythmic wum wum wum wum wum wum wum wum bore into my skull the second I opened the door to his chamber…but I got him. Poured everything that little ship had into him for what seemed like hours, until he finally succumbed.
I hate suits.