Uncharted Forest

Corporal Clove pulled the control sticks back in reflex with a creature dashed out from the foliage before his mech, barely stopping in time from crushing the tiny thing with its armored feet.

"Clove!" The mech commander yelled out, annoyed by his driving. "What the fark was that for?"

"Sorry, Sarge!" Clove apologized. "Something just ran in front of us and I braked to prevent running it over!"

"What?" Sergeant Sath frowned as he manipulated the cameras mounted forward of the MAW to see what was in front, only to see a spider like creature crouching before them. "What in the world is that?"

"Sarge... isn't that an ASAG unit?" The turret gunner cried out as he peered through the gunsights on the spider golem. "What is that unit doing out here all alone?"

"Fark me if I know!" Sath cried out. He turned to the rear monitors seeing the rest of the convoy had stopped and been waiting behind when the radio crackled.

"Zero One to Zero Two, What's the hold up ahead?" Their Platoon commander asked.

"Zero Two, erm, we have an A S A G in front of us," Sath reported and he undogged the hatch over his head and climbed out. "Please advise, over!"

"Zero One, what? An ASAG?" The disbelief in the tone was clear from the commander over the radio.

"Zero Two, that is an affirmative and that thing seems to be trying to get our attention on something!" Sath reported as he watched the spider golem bouncing up and down urgently while using its forelimbs and gesturing deeper towards the forest.

"Zero One to Two, standby!"

The mech platoon commander's Lieutenant came over on foot while Sath and the gunner had climbed down and stood next to the ASAG which seemed to be going into a fit from all the bouncing and jerking it was doing.

"Which unit is it from?" The Lieutenant asked as he watched the strange antics of the spider golem. "Is it damaged or something?"

"Hmmm, looks like it's from 2nd Battalion from its markings," Sath replied as he crouched next to the ASAG. "They are sort of sentient, maybe this unit had its brains or something damaged?"

"But why is it all the way out here?" The Lieutenant looked around their surroundings while frowning. "Could 2nd Battalion lost an ASAG?"

"It looks battle scarred," Sath rubbed the pockmarks of bullet impacts on the armored hull of the ASAG which was pulling at his uniform and gesturing towards the west. "Strange..."

"You hear that?" The gunner, Lance Corporeal Moote asked as he gestured everyone to stay quiet while readying his cut down M2 Magesplitter carbine. "There!"

"Sounds like ... thunder?" Sath frowned. "No, wait, that's gunfire!"

The ASAG seemed to understand their words as it ran towards the direction of the distant rumblings and gestured at them.

"Is there an Operation here that we do not know of?" The Lieutenant frowned. "Fark this, button up! Let's follow the little one!"

He ran back to his unit while Sath and Moote climbed back onto theirs. "Zero One to all units, hold and dig in for possible combat!"

"Zero Three to hold position, Two, follow that ASAG!!"

-----

Clove piloted the mech as best as he could around the trees while trying to keep his eye on the ASAG which was smaller, nimbler and faster in the forest compared to his hulking five meters tall mech.

The mech smashed through tree branches in its way as it moved over roots and Sath yelled, "Be careful of the tree branches! I don't want you to damage the gun barrels before we even get to use them!"

"Yes, boss..." Clove whispered under his breath as he fought the controls to keep the mech from toppling over the roots. "Damn trees!"

As he crossed one specifically huge specimen of an ever blue tree, he spotted the ASAG waving urgently with its tiny arms as if telling them something. "Sarge?"

"Yea, I saw that!" Sath replied. "I think we are near! The external pickups are not picking up any more sounds of gunfire. We might be either too late or the party is over!"

"Zero Two to One, approaching contact zone!" Sath reported as he nodded to the gunner, Moote to arm the guns. "Alright, boys, lock and load!"

The MAW has a crew of seven, the pilot, the mech commander, turret gunner, two loaders, and a gun each on the side hull with the single .50 caliber machine gun in ball turrets. The left and right ball gunners removed the safeties from their guns and swung the ball turret powered by electric motors around, making sure the controls were working smoothly.

The ASAG crept up to a tree and peeked over which was quite amusing to the crews of the mech as it helped scouted the way. It suddenly shot its body back and hopped madly in place while gesturing its larger cousins to move in.

"Zero One to Two," The radio spoke. "Proceed with caution! If any friendlies are under fire, you have weapons free!"

"Zero Two, copy that!" Sath replied. "You heard the boss! Go!"

Clove grinned as he finally had his wish come true. He had earlier armed the head mounted pilot controlled twin .50 cals machine guns and was gearing to go into battle with guns blazing.

He pushed the mech forward, and the six legs responded, covering the distance easily and not long a strange scene appeared on his right as he sort of over shot the distance.

A ring of Orcs was standing or mounted on wolves surrounding what appeared to be two Marines with their backs against a tree. They all stared wild eyed directly at the suddenly appearing mech which Clove could see the shocked slack jaws of the Orcs to the firearms in their hands clearly on his monitor.

One of the Orcs in red riding a wolf yelled something while the two Marines suddenly dived down flat and Clove grinned as he turned the facing of his mech towards the group of Orcs.

The turret whined as Moote swung the gun towards the Orcs and Sath ordered, "Fifties only! Gunner! Load HE and standby! The rest fire!"

-----

"Aye! Load HE!" The loaders repeated and they hoisted a 3" shell with a thick yellow band on the shell's body to indicate its load type. One of them shoved the shell into the opened breech of the 3" gun while the order dropped a powder bag behind and they rammed both into the gun before closing the breech. "LOADED!"

-----

As the loaders were working, Clove on hearing his Sarge's order to fire, he sighted his forward facing guns at the crowd of gawking Orcs and squeezed the red trigger on his control sticks, sending bright yellow-white tracers flickering out towards the surprised Orcs just the gunners on the side ball turrets fired as well.

The standing bodies of the Orcs suddenly blew apart and seemed to be snatched off by an invisible hand as the tracers through them. Even the wind wolves which had a natural barrier of wind to protect themselves couldn't last even two seconds under the onslaught of heavy firepower.

Drake and Slow kept their heads down as blood rained all over them as the bodies of the Orcs were flung away with gaping holes and missing body parts.

Those lucky enough to survive the opening barrage screamed in fear and ran, following the red coated Orc whom he abandoned his wolf and ran, keeping himself as low to the ground as possible as the dirt ground around the running Orcs were churned up into the air from the .50 cal impacts.

Clove laughed madly in the cockpit and pushed his mech forward to close up the distance between his unit and the retreating Orcs as the visibility among the trees were less than ten meters.

The high powered .50 caliber guns plowed through the Orcs like paper targets, the side turrets swung left and right as they chased the Orcs into the cover of the trees which shook madly from the heavy impacts, sending leaves and twigs raining down over the screaming and dying Orcs.

Some of the braver Orcs tried to return fire, only to be chewed up by unit Zero One as they came in to join the fray from the flanks. As the Orcs dispersed, it became harder to hit any Orcs as they took cover behind the trees and roots.

"Gunner!" Sath called out as he highlighted a spot with his laser designator on his fire control screen, "Fire on my point!"

Moote swung the gun turret to the point where Sath has lasered, "Mark!"

"FIRE!" Sath ordered.

Moote squeezed the butterfly trigger of the 3" gun and the weapon roared, spitting the HE shell out towards the cluster of Orcs cowering behind the trees. Less than a second, the shell buried itself three centimeters into the tree bark before the crashed nose cone of the shell broke the fire runes inside and ignited the bursting charge.

The explosive snapped the hundred year old tree into half and flung splinters everywhere while toppling over. The Orcs hidden nearby were flattened by the blast while blood leaked out from their orifices. Others had splinters piercing into their bodies while their eardrums were ruptured from the exploded HE shell. Those nearest to the blast barely were barely recognized as anything living, leaving behind piles of steaming blood and gore.

The shell shocked Orcs wandered about in a daze only to be cut down by the .50 cal gunfire before the Lieutenant ordered a ceasefire.

-----

Drake covered in blood, coughed from the thick blood iron smell in the air and retched as he kept his eyes away from the piles of broken limbs and gore around him. He ignored his surroundings, only picking up his weapons before stumbling away from the scene of carnage to puke properly.

-----

Slow followed behind while shaking his head at how easily these Orcs which had chased them for so long were just snuffed out in a matter of seconds!

He too kept his glance away from the gore, carefully threading his way over the blood while collecting his weapon before he joined Drake who was puking his guts out and patted Asagi fondly on its 'head'.

-----

"Fark me!" Sath whispered as he looked at the blood spattered all over the forest from the inside of the mech. "This is unbelievable!"

Clove grinned and cheered, "Woooo, we kicked ass!"

"We did more than kick ass!" Sath whispered. "Fark, I pray we are not the unlucky guys assigned to go through all that... shit..."

"Oh..." Clove paused in his delight as the words sank in. "Fark..."

-----

The clearing team retched and vomited as they went through the dismembered corpses and gore, collecting weapons and any intel from the previous owners. Even with masks on, the thick odor of blood made the men sick as they hurriedly checked and cleared the surroundings.

They found several Orcs still barely alive, their regenerative abilities had already kicked in. Dozens and dozens of Orcish firearms were recovered and the one they identified as the leader of the Orcs in that red coat was not found among the dead or dying.

The Lieutenant stood over the two Marines they just saved as they reported their situation and frowned as he heard about the part where they shot the hooman deserter but he seemed to be still even getting hit twice.

"Well. hitch a ride with one of the trucks," the Lieutenant said. "I will relay the information over directly to HQ and see what is their response. For now, get some rest, you two look like shit!"

Drake n Slow gratefully accepted the offer and climbed up to one of the trucks and fell asleep almost immediately squeezing between the stacked crates of supplies.

-----

Clove patted the side of his mech and grinned, "Good girl! You fight awesomely!"

"HAHAHAHAA! My mech is fight!"