Chapter 5

From the moment we reached base we were in trouble. The men there knew that a walker had been taken, and they were prepared for the enemy to engage them. Good thing they thought that the enemy had tried to draw them out, and not us. But this made it hard for us to get in. They had the base on full alert; every man was out trying to catch the enemy.
We made it over to the rocket launch pad with ease. The hard part was to get a rocket, and to load our walker into it.
“How are we going to do this Bud?”
“First we look for a rocket to nab, then we figure out the rest. Oh, by the way,” Bud said slowly, “When I called for you in the walker hanger? Well, I called to you because the walker has several chunks of durasteel stuck in the forward armor shields.”
“Well that’s not going to hinder us much… will it?”
“One of them is stuck through the main power cable…”
“Oh, shoot… what are we gonna do?”
“After we get it in the rocket, and we blast off, we can turn off the walker and pull it out and seal it. I just hope they still carry the emergency sealant on the rockets. They still don’t know that that stuff is incredibly strong, strong enough to stop the vacuum of space.”
“Look at that one, it’s ready to launch!”
“Ok, you take out the men around it, and I’ll get the walker in the rocket.”
“Kill the men?!”
“No, are you crazy! We still need them, just knock them out!”
“Ok, see you in a bit.”
I left the walker and snuck up to the rocket. I knew the men would be more alert, so I snuck up on one that was alone. He went down silently.
The rest of them were going to make me work. They were standing together on the left side of the rocket. I saw Bud in the walker and he sitting with his guns pointed at the men’s backs. I hurriedly signaled NO, NO! But he didn’t pay attention. But I saw that the cannons weren’t charging up to fire a regular charge, they were glowing blue, a stun charge- for crowd control.
He fired the cannons and one shot took out all three guys. I ran over the cockpit of the rocket and saw that the starter card was already in the slot. We were in business. I lowered the rear ramp so Bud could run the walker in. I saw men running toward us. They’re fast at responding to cannon shots.
I made sure that the walker was completely in and closed the ramp. Bud came through the door behind me, and got in the navigator/gunner’s seat. I guess I was driving.
“Get in and take off!” He yelled.
“All right! I’m going!”
I hurriedly sat down in the seat and started up the engine sequence.
“Two minutes to lift off. Better hope the skies are clear!”
…
“Engines warm, coordinates entered, lift off sequence standing by. Starting engines.”
Mmmmmmm…
“Nice engine start,” Bud commented.
“She’s a bute!”
We lifted off just as the men running towards us got near. If they hadn’t turned and ran away just as they did, they would have been toast. Literally.