Mecha and Madmen

Captain Rutan looked sadly at the computer display in front of him. He'd always believed he had a great potential in Galactor, right up until that business with the sonic boom over Katse's newly acquired and beautifully decorated fairytale French chateau. While picking up every single fragment of antique glass - by hand - from every window he'd shattered in his triumphant arc of "Promote me, I'm so fast and stupid" across the valley, he'd slowly come to realise that he had limited his promotion possibilities rather badly. Since then he hadn't been assigned anywhere within a hundred miles of an active base. And this mech really did seem to confirm it. Why else would he be commanding a flying pig?

The communication system crackled into life. "Mecha-Babirusa, stand ready for action. Yellow alert. Threat approaching."

One of the other mechs, a properly designed one whose crew was not embarrassed by its very existence, had engaged the Phoenix and was trying to lead it away from its base, and they were heading this way. Which was good for that base, but not for the one that was being built near here. It was Rutan's assignment to protect the secrecy of that unfinished base, which was not the easiest thing to do in a 20 metre tall bright orange Babirusa pig mech. He sighed. "Take us 20 kilometres sou-sou-west. Avoid inhabited areas. Keep altitude below 80 metres."

The crew were jolted around uncomfortably as the Mecha-Babirusa trotted then galloped to its takeoff speed. With a huge leap it was airborne, skittering on its jet trotters for aerial stability as its rectal rocket kicked in. It wasn't the fastest of mechs, but it was surprisingly quiet as it lumbered through the sky.

The navigator seemed reasonably competent. "Possible landing site 2 kilometres, 30 degrees. Second possible landing site 5 kilometres, 283 degrees."

"Terrain?"

"Site 1 has nearby tree cover, the second is a quarry."

"Go for the site 1 then."

"Yes Sir. Changing course."

The radar controller yelped in surprise. "Something on the screens, Sir".

Rutan sat up in his seat, alarmed. "Surely not the Phoenix already?"

"No. I don't think so. Bloody hell! It's a huge bunny!"

The crew crowded around the viewscreens, and those who couldn't get to a screen were straining to see out of the small windows. The bunny was the height of a 6 storey apartment block. It was hopping quickly and violently across a field towards their planned landing place. A clear trail of destruction behind it showed the direction it had come from.

"Do you think it's one of ours?", asked the gunner, redundantly.

The captain rolled his eyes. "Oh no, that'll be the thing they use to collect dairy products from all the farms around here. Put milk in, get butter out. Saves time."

"Wow, really? What will they think of next?"

Rutan slumped back down again, his sarcasm exhausted in the face of such gullibility. Some of his crew obviously weren't promotion material either. "Somebody check its transponder signal."

"Yes Sir, it's one of ours. The BunnyMech, apparently."

"Wow, like Galactor makes butter? I though we stole it all! That is just so cool. And making it in a huge bouncy rabbit, that is just like the coolest thing ever."

"Are you the only gunner on board?"

"Oh yeah, Cap'n Sir, you only need one gunner for this mech 'cos its missile launchers only ever point one way."

"Pity, I was hoping you were expendable. Never mind. Let's get this thing back on the ground. Gently, for once, please."

The mech stumbled slightly on landing and the gunner fell out of his seat and bumped his head. Rutan wondered idly whether the man had enough brain to get a concussion. Now that they were closer, they could see that the BunnyMech looked more like a child in a bunnysuit than a rabbit. It grinned unblinkingly at them. Rutan grinned back. If he'd been sentenced to a flying pig for breaking all the glass in Katse's chateau, what on earth must the poor bastard assigned to this fluffy monstrosity have done?

"Raise that thing on the vidscreens. I want to talk to its captain."

"Aye Sir."

One of the viewscreens flickered and showed the inside of the BunnyMech. Its captain was dressed in a fluffy white bunnysuit, complete with floppy ears, and a red mask with big sharp teeth painted on it. Rutan watched him shift from foot to foot while holding onto his console for support - although the man's face was completely obscured, he was quite obviously very uncomfortable. Several of the crew behind him looked as though they were feeling quite ill.

"Well, Captain Bunny, where are you hopping to this fine summer's day? Aren't we a little late for hiding easter eggs?" Rutan grinned behind his mask as he heard his navigator sniggering behind him.

Captain Bunny's voice was muffled. "I heard the Phoenix was around, I'm diverting attention from some mining operations. What about you, Captain Flying Pig? Looking for some more windows to smash? Go 10 kilometres south, there's enough skyscrapers in the business district there to keep you busy picking up glass for a year." The crew of the BunnyMech laughed, evidently Rutan's little accident was more famous than he had realised.

"I'm also waiting in case the Phoenix comes too close, I don't want to engage it near the base I've been assigned to protect. So... this mining operation... are you actually digging for minerals or are you really digging a big rabbit-hole to hide that ridiculous rabbit mech of yours in?" This time the crew of the Babirusa were laughing.

"This BunnyMech is indestructible! It's deceptively powerful."

"Absolutely right. It has the power to make the enemy laugh so much that they rupture their spleens."

"Oh, and they're going to take your flying pig as a serious threat?"

"At least it can fly."

"Yeah, I saw it rocketing through the sky like a drunk turkey in a blindfold, but it can't land, can it? I watched you just now, you nearly destroyed two of your own engines landing in a flat grassy field. Either your pig is a pig to fly or you got a crew too stupid to train."

"If you look behind you, Captain Bunny, you'll see that there seems to be a big pool of vomit. Oh, and there's another one by the navigator. Could it be that your mech is guaranteed to induce travel sickness in anyone who has a digestive system? If you ever take on the Phoenix, your crew will be too busy puking to fight. Whatever did you do to deserve the torture of being assigned that ridiculous mech?"

Captain Bunny growled behind his mask - it seemed Rutan had hit a nerve. "You want to see what this mech has got?" He pointed at a green button on his console. "Have a taste of this Sonic Device." He brought his fist down onto it.

The bridge of the Mecha-Babirusa became a world of insane, searing pain. Rutan screamed at the ground pilot to attack the BunnyMech's ears with the Babirusa's scything tusks, and the Babirusa lumbered slowly across to the BunnyMech where, with a jolting sweep of its head, it lopped the fluffy ears off to half their height. The pain reduced to a dull ache.

The MechaBunny struck back with its optical lasers, superheating the tusks until they began to bend under their own weight. Rutan fired the Babirusa's Mind Control Ray at the MechaBunny, and the lasers and the last effects of the Sonic Device faded.

Rutan sat back in his chair, stretched his neck and straightened his mask. On the vidscreen he could see the Bunny's captain curled up contentedly in his command seat, and his crew rolling around in the closest thing they had to mud. Groans of awed revulsion echoed around his bridge. They'd all been conditioned to the presence of gore, dismemberment and death, but watching people dressed just like them wallowing around luxuriantly in pools of their own vomit was not something any of them had ever expected to see. "Captain Bunny? Can you hear me?" Rutan felt almost concerned for his antagonist.

Captain Bunny wriggled into a more comfortable position, accidentally kicking at his console. Simultaneously the BunnyMech's lasers fired again and it leaped high into the air. The MechaBabirusa's mind control ray antennae were melted by the lasers and the BunnyMech rammed into the Babirusa's side, impaling itself on the blades there. The Babirusa fell heavily onto its other side with the Bunny on top of it. The crew of both mechs got rather bruised.

Rutan realised that they were pinned, the Bunny was so heavy that they could not manoeuvre the Babirusa back to a standing position. He couldn't see anyone on the vidscreen link to the other mech. "Shit! Get that thing off us! Bring the trotters round and fire the jets at it." The engineer and ground pilot managed to get two of the legs into the right position and fired concentrated bursts of flame at it. The Bunny's fluffy coating went up in flames as though it had been soaked in gasoline. After a few short minutes of panic, the Bunny was a mass of blackened metal, the pistons used to power its mighty haunches now clearly visible, but the Bunny still pinned the Babirusa down.

Captain Bunny appeared on the vidscreens again. "What the fuck happened?", he bellowed. His mask was hanging off, his bunnysuit was smoking, and all of his crew looked sweaty and uncomfortable, with little bits of carrot stuck to them.

"You were lying there, happy as a pig in its own excrement, and then you twitched and kicked your console. Get off us!"

"You stupid bastard! You fired your pig ray at us, didn't you? And then you burnt us? You asshole!" Captain Bunny turned away and shouted something at his crew, who were looking sore and nauseous. The Babirusa rocked violently as the burnt Bunny tried to disentangle itself. "You idiot! You welded us together when you burnt us!"

"Oh, crap." Rutan rubbed at his forehead. "Okay, we can spin our blades and see what happens, how about that?"

"You'll tear my mech to pieces! It's a miracle you didn't already cut the fuel lines. Maybe I can condense my lasers and cut through your blades."

"Captain! Captain! There's something else on the screen!" The Babirusa's radar controller looked terrified.

"What is it?" Both Rutan and Captain Bunny spoke in tones of dread.

"It's the Phoenix! Headed this way! Low altitude, erratic course."

The Phoenix banked from side to side as it followed the weaving path of the MechaChocobo. The Chocobo dodged from side to side on its agile legs, doubling back on itself, evading every one of the missiles aimed at it. The mech captains watched their dots approaching on the screens, terrified.

"Captain Bunny, all I have left are missiles and they're going to be difficult to aim from our current position. What about you?"

"Plasma cannon. If it hasn't had all the shit burned out of it."

"Would a trial shot be in order?"

Captain Bunny imitated Rutan's cultured accent in a whiny tone. "'Would a trial shot be in order?' You got no insults now my BunnyMech is the only thing standing between your sorry ass and oblivion?"

"Now that your BunnyMech has lost its fluff and half its face has melted, it looks most intimidating. I'm sure it would give anyone nightmares. Burning your mech was the best thing that's ever happened to it."

Captain Bunny was about to return the insult, but the radar controller called out that the Phoenix was now getting very close indeed. "Power up the plasma cannon!" Sparks flew out of the weapons and power management consoles as a rising whine indicated that it was charging. But something wasn't right. Warning lights began to flash and a siren wailed. "Abandon mech! Abandon mech! Power surge in the weapons system!"

The crew of both mechs raced for the exits, struggling down stairways turned sideways and jumping for their lives. They raced for the cover of the trees. Then they kept on running as they remembered that trees are made of wood and wood burns. Then they fell over because the ground was shaking - the MechaChocobo was now very close to them, with the Phoenix in close pursuit. The Chocobo raced along like a metal clad, fifty metre tall moa. With lasers and plasma cannons and a long tail for balance, and thick plumes of greasy black smoke pouring out of its exhausts. So, not much like a moa at all, quite a lot more alarming and dangerous and not extinct yet, but you get my drift. The crews threw themselves to the ground as the Chocobo passed them. Then they desperately tried to crawl to cover as the Chocobo doubled back - it had found the conjoined Bunny and Babirusa blocking its path. The Chocobo was now heading straight towards the Phoenix, so it reversed direction again and changed pace for a mighty leap over the two crippled mechs. Just as it was in mid-air over them, the Bunny's power system finally gave out and its plasma cannon exploded. This blew one of the Chocobo's legs off, and it did its best to hop for a little way before crashing to the ground behind the other two mechs. The Phoenix landed a little way in front of it, and the Gatchaman team made short work of disabling the Chocobo's other weapons before dashing inside for a few minutes, then dashing back out again with couple of briefcase sized objects and heading back to the skies in the Phoenix.

The Chocobo's remaining crew limped and staggered through its emergency exits. The crews of the Bunny and Babirusa stayed under cover, cowering in terror as they realised that there was no way they could outrun a mecha explosion. But the expected mecha explosion never came, since the Chocobo was grass powered and grass, unless very well fermented, is not known for its explosive potential.

Even with casualties, the Chocobo crew outnumbered the combined crews of the MechaBunny and the MechaBabirusa and they quickly rounded up the two captains, who weren't dressed to blend into the natural environment around them. Captain Chocobo, in his battered Day-Glo rooster suit, glowered at them from his stretcher in the sun. His leg was broken and the lack of painkillers, in addition to the loss of his mech under such disappointing circumstances, was making him a little temperamental.

"So, Captain Bunny and Captain Babirusa. Care to tell me what happened?"

The two captains looked at each other. Rutan shouted first, "It was his fault! He shot the MechaBabirusa with his Sonic Device!"

"You started it!", screamed Captain Bunny. "You disrespected my mech!"

"I don't care who started it", continued Captain Chocobo in a quiet, dangerous voice, "It finishes now. How did it happen that you were not only blocking the route of my mech, but also managed to blow one of its legs off? Why are both of your mechs stuck together like that? Are you two really on such good terms that you want to make little baby mechs in your own images?" Rutan and Captain Bunny exchanged disgusted glances as the crew of the Chocobo snickered. "We were only three minutes away from breaking the record for a Galactor mech surviving while pursued by the Phoenix. Three minutes! And until you got in our way, we were doing so well that we could have lasted for another half hour! And within that half hour we would been safe in the tunnels of the Gervena base. Those cases that Gatchaman took away contained hard won ISO personnel data! The secret identities of Gatchaman could have been encoded in there. But, we'll never know now. Because you two managed to organise things so that Gatchaman were able to take them back. We've called for emergency support, they'll be taking you - and any more of your crew they can find - back for a bit of good old Galactor military justice. It's captains like you that give the rest of us a bad name. I doubt you'll be around much longer to continue enhancing your reputations." Captain Chocobo brushed back the comb on top of his head, which had become a little floppy, and rolled to one side to talk to his second in command. "I don't want to look at these two any more. Take them out of my sight."

Captains Rutan and Bunny were marched away to the trees, where they were chained up and left. The crew of the Chocobo were still busy trying to get themselves patched up, and so nobody paid them much attention or even stayed particularly close to them.

"If one of my men is nearby, I'm sure he will come and untie us", whispered Rutan.

"You're joking, right? This is Galactor. Every man for himself. All our men will be long gone."

"Don't be so sure, Captain Bunny. I've always treated my men with exceptional fairness."

Captain Bunny snorted derisively. They remained chained to the tree, while support helicopters came to ferry the most badly wounded away to what everyone hoped would be a hospital. Now there were even less troops left to watch them, and it would have been easy for a uniformed outsider to sneak up and cut them loose. But nobody came. Rutan sagged in disappointment.

"Hey, cheer up. Maybe they all got rounded up already."

"No, you're right. There is no loyalty in Galactor. How do you think they'll execute us?"

"Fuck knows. Hope it's quick."

"I don't want to die", whispered Rutan.

"Does anyone?" Captain Bunny waited for an answer, but there was none. He realised that Rutan was silently sobbing. "Hey, snap out of it. Things are bad enough already without having to listen to this. Tell you what, do you want to know why they gave me that BunnyMech?"

"Go on."

"You know when you smashed all those antique painted windows? Well, I was right there at the time. I was involved in moving all the luxury items to that chateau. Crystalware, fine vintage wines, artwork, that sort of stuff. I was in charge of the transport with all of those loaded in it. Anyway, there was just too much temptation in there, and me and the guys stopped off behind some woodland to try one of the bottles. Nice stuff, I remember. We had to park the transport on the edge of a precipice, it was the only place we could hide it. So we're just standing there sharing out this old brandy when you went shooting across the valley with your stupid sonic boom. Out go the windows in the chateau. And out go the brakes on the transport. Freak accident, who'd have ever thought that would happen? And there's nobody on board to steer it. The transport goes down the hill, rolls over and over and tears itself to pieces, everything inside gets smashed. The only thing left is a fruit bowl, the least valuable thing in there. So the BunnyMech was my punishment."

"Oh. Do you hold that against me?"

"Yep. But I figure now we're equal. Because if I hadn't fired that first shot we'd still have our mechs. And our necks."

"We still have got our necks. If only we could get out of these chains."

"We can get out of these chains. I had gadgets built into this suit. But what are you going to do if you escape? They'll go after your family."

"I've only one sister and she's a Devil Star. She's worth more to Galactor than I am. There's nobody else."

"Fine, I'll cut you loose. Don't wanna listen to any more of your yammering anyhow."

"Are you sure you won't come with me?"

"No. I'll stay here. I'd never be free, knowing my family would pay for my life with their blood." Captain Bunny used a small electric drill hidden in the left sleeve of his bunnysuit to cut through the chains. Rutan wriggled loose as quickly as he could.

"Thank you, thank you so much."

"Do one thing for me."

"Anything. Absolutely anything."

"Dump the pig suit, you look just as stupid as I do. You'll get less attention running around in your underpants. And then go to my family, tell them what happened, how your sonic boom got me disgraced and how I fired the first shot and got us into this mess." Rutan pulled out his voice recorder as Captain Bunny told him the family address and how to get there. "Give them this message from me. Tell them, that I forgave you. And tell them that God forgives all."

"That's all you want to say?"

"That's all. They'll understand."

"Thank you so much. I'll take them your message. There are no words to say how much I appreciate what you've done for me." Rutan packed away his voice recorder and crawled away down the hill.

Captain Bunny grinned to himself as he settled back to wait for the military transport that would take him to his judgement. "See you in hell", he whispered. There was no revenge in dying together. Of course he and Rutan were quits. He would be killed by Galactor, and Rutan would be killed by his family. Posthumous vengeance is probably the coldest type you can get.