The Lightning

I picked off another idiot Vanu medic with my MC12. The green glow their healing gave off just pointed them out to me in the darkness of the night. I was squatting on a cliff on the eastern edge of the plateau the Crown was sat on, shooting any infantry who tried to come up the path below.

The Crown had been taken by the NC yesterday, shortly after I arrived on the front lines of the three-way war on Auraxis. Several kills, mostly headshots, to my name and a decent stint as a Heavy Assault earlier in the day had bagged me tow Sunderer and several Magrider kills. I was proud to be part of the NC.

We were now cut off from our warpgate, but we refused to give in to despair. We were well supplied, and Nanite Systems was supplying us with all the Lightning tanks we needed for our counter-attack.

Soon enough, after another of several airstrikes on the plateau by a pair of Scythes who had been attacking us all day and night wiped the vast majority of the mix of Heavyies, Infiltrators, Engineers and Medics who had been manning the plateau beside me out, I decided to pick up a Lightning.

(A/N- All the following events actually happened to me while driving my Lightning around, but not on the same run like here.)

First, I crashed it into the back of a Sunderer (or Bus, as we called them.) Then after I'd driven the tank out of the garage and down the path to the bottom of the Crown, I sighted a Magrider coming up the road that intersected with the one I was driving on. I turned to engage and drove down a small but steep hill but I failed to notice the small cluster of supplies at the bottom.

My Lightning drove it's front end into the middle of the cluster, leaving me stuck while the Magrider could destroy me in its own time. I tried aiming the Lightning's gun ant the Magrider, but the barrel wouldn't depress low enough. I bailed out of the Lightning and went back to the spawn point to pick up another tank.

I was soon back out with another Lightning and driving down into the canyon in which either TI Alloys or the Hydrophonics plant lay, I could never remember and I didn't particularly give a damn. It was just another objective to me. A Terran Infiltraitor was climbing the canyon so I ended up crushing him under my Lightning's mighty and fast treads.

I narrowly evaded a dumb rocket fired by a Heavy on the bridge before one of our own Heavys gunned him down. I drove the tank up another canyon on the other side, the same one I had been hunkered down in as a green recruit only a day earlier. I got my first kill there. It was a headshot as well. I was dead proud.

After I drove up the other side of the canyon, I ran over a few Vanu soldiers, accidently drove the Lightning off a rather large cliff which it miraculously survived before destroying a Vanu Sunderer. After driving at top speed out of the canyon I had landed in, I began to charge towards the gates of Zurwich Amp Station.

I noticed a lone Sunderer set up just up the road towards the Crown, so I gunned the engine and charged the tank at the Sunderer. I didn't notice the vengeful-looking Magrider coming up behind me as I crashed towards the Sunderer, guns blazing all the way. Or until I had to reload.

Just as I was about to smash into the, Sunderer, the Magrider fired. I smashed my Lightning into the Sunderer, which just so happened to be full of Vanu weaponry as the Magrider's shot impacted on my Lightning's rear armour.

Needless to say, the results were not pretty. The Sunderer and all of it's weapons and ammo had been vaporised, and my Lightning was nowhere to be seen. Because I was rather busy being dead at that time.

I woke to find myself, still in my Lightning. That was surprising. Normally I would have respawned by now. I heard the calling of a unknown animal from outside my tank. That was really strange. All non-human life on Auraxis had been killed off during the war. One of the continents the war hadn't reached yet? There was only one way to find out.

I heaved open the Lightning's hatch, revealing a forest not unlike Amerish. That ment I definitely wasn't on another continent as they were all vastly different according to orbital surveys of the planet.

I stared at the trees, the grass, the life. The peace. And the green sludgy blob of vapourised Vanu technology in front of my tank.

"Where in the name of freedom am I?" I asked myself, deafingly loud in the otherwise quiet forest.

Looking around, I spotted a large, pink dome encircling a strange base.

The energy field may have been different, but it could only mean one thing- A warp gate.

And where there was a warp gate, there was a way back to Indar. Sure, the whole place was a barren desert punctured by the occasional base or piece of tank or plane wreckage, but it was home.

A second thought crossed my mind. What if the warp gate was Terran or Vanu? My map hadn't had the continent added yet, so that would be useless. Reaching back inside the tank for my trusty sniper, I hoped it's 10x scope could act as some improvised binoculars.

What it revealed was slightly unusual. There were none of the usual pre-fabricated metal walls or screens displaying the symbol of the controlling faction, there were strange buildings that looked like they had been made of white rock. There were no screens, but vertically hung flags with a symbol I didn't recognise emblazoned on it, two wierd creatures orbiting a half-star, half-moon.

A unknown continent, with a unknown fourth faction. And I had nothing but me, my wits, a sniper rifle, a sidearm, a Lightning and limited ammo vs a whole new faction. It was Tuesday though- this was to be expected.

I now had a simple choice- go straight for the possible warp gate, force my way through and back to Indar, or I could recon the area. Having no idea about whether there were any MBT's or tankbusting aircraft flying around, I decided the best option would be sheer brute force, smashing through whatever got in my way to the Warp Gate, hostile or not.

However, after several hours of driving through forest that pushed my driving skills right to their limits, something I should have expected stood in the way of my progress towards the Warp Gate- a outpost. A very strange, but heavily garrisoned outpost.

Needless to say, I clambered out onto the Lightning's roof to take a look at the town through my scope.

It was very heavily garrisoned. But not by humans. I had no idea what the hell these things were and they obviously had no concept of camo, as they were as easy to see as a medic at night. I saw no tanks, but there were some of the wierd four legged things with wings. One seemed to be slightly faster than the others. I dubbed it Mosquito. The flying ones I decided were their equivalent to Light Assaults. Some had horns. I named them their medics/engineers. The others were bigger, but had no wings or horn. They were obviously the Heavies.

They were all just milling about like they were on R&R, none on guard. Obviously they didn't expect action in this sector. I would teach them the error of their ways as I aimed my MC12 at Mosquito's wing.

This would have to be a one in a million shot. I'd hit Scythes before which were going much faster than this, but never at a range this long.

I layed down in the prone position on the tank turret and pressed my eye up to the scope. I aimed at one of Mosquito's wings- I could now see Mosquito was a light blue, with a patch of multi-coloured hair. Just a easier target then.

I pulled the trigger, and let the bullet fly. It tore right through the wing, and sent Mosquito spiralling towards the ground. That was unusal. Normally it took a couple of shots to down any enemies back on Indar.

29 shots left.

I placed my rifle back into the Lightning before I got in afterwards and pressed the accelerate pedal to the floor, hoping to catch the outpost by suprise.

I could have just shelled the outpost into submission and continued onwards to the Warp Gate, and if I had foresight, I would have. But instead, I drove my Lightning, at top speed, towards the town, hoping to create a hostage situation if possible.

As I began to get closer to the outpost, I realised that none of the creatures were at the edge of town, like any sensible soldier would have done after a sniper kill.

I noticed that the buildings looked undamaged, unlike the other outposts on Auraxis. I had a revelation- these weren't soldiers, these were faction civilians. That ment I was far, far, behind the front lines.

And that I could definitely cause a hostage crisis. I drove straight to the centre of town where the mass of civvies was crowding around Mosquito, who was unconscious on the floor in a small crater.

The mass of civvies turned towards my Lightning and began talking to each other in a series of noises I couldn't understand. They obviously hadn't learned English or any of the other languages spoken on Auraxis. I'd already checked VerbalCom and TextCom but both were empty of all chat whatsoever.

I opened the hatch and fired my pistol into the air.

49 shots left for that.

I guessed one of two things would happen at this point- either the civvies panic and run and I get to mow em down under the Lightning, or they are sensible and do as I tell them. What happened next was neither of these.