Chapter 3

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<OhMyGod- >, I looked up. <Ah... there it is. OhMyGod- It's coming back down!> I tried to force myself to get out of the area, but I couldn't move at all. All I could do was look up at that huge mass falling down at me. What's worse: I was still flying up at it! 

I still hadn't convinced my body to move when the fortress caught up with me (or, rather, I caught up with the fortress), and I watched in horror as the hull passed within feet, maybe inches, of my mecha. Finally, I got my hands to move, and I pulled back, killing the thrusters by half, moving as far away from the hull that I could. 

After a full second, the top level of the SDF-1 passed me, and I watched it fall, fall, fall... and hit the ground. 

At this point, I realised how much of a target I was making. And just in time, too. A blue stream of light ripped past my field of view, blacking out the screen for a moment, and almost blowing the external audio pickups. I flipped my mecha around, trying to dodge whatever else was going to be shot at me, and saw what looked like a pyramid with thrusters flying at me as it fired another shot. I twisted my mecha again, just barely dodging the beam. I tried the head laser, but they weren't getting any power. <Great! I've got nothing to defend myself with! Except... Hmmm.>I flipped my mecha around, trying to steady myself for the rapidly approaching pyramid-thing as I changed my grip on the gun pod, holding it like a club. The pilot of the pyramid-thing had different ideas though, and fired yet another shot at me, grazing the sensor plate and blacking it out again. This, unfortunately, surprised the hell out of me, and I let go of the controls for a moment. This meant the mecha flailed for a moment, tossing the gun pod in a random direction, and the thrusters shut down completely. 

Fortunately, the gun pod's random direction was exactly the right one. It flew directly into the path of the pyramid-fighter, crushing its front end and killing the pilot. The pyramid suddenly realised the reality that gravity truly was and dropped like a rock. Just like I was doing in my mecha. 

I was fumbling at the controls, trying to get a grip on the sticks and pedals, and trying not to lose my breakfast from the sudden loss of relative gravity and not doing a very good job of any of them. I finally managed to get a grip on the controls and brought the engines back up while getting the mecha upright again. My screens were working, but not entirely too well: The left peripheral view was completely gone, and the forward view was black on the left side. At least I could see where I was going. 

And I could see the SDF-1 coming back up at me. <What is this thing? A yo-yo?> I thought as I dropped myself onto the deck... directly into the line of fire between some eggs and a few other things. <Are those things Destroids?> I thought as I dropped my mecha prone, clanging onto the metal underneath me. Then the floor started moving. Down. It wasn't the entire fortress, just the... elevator I was lying on. 

I stood the mecha up as soon as I figured it was safe. Looking around, I saw I was lowering into a large bay, and I was surrounded by a battalion of destroids, all waiting to get onto the elevator I occupied. 

I got off as quickly as possible, stepping past the battloids as they got on. <I hope they know what they're doing.>I was quickly surrounded by people (Technicians, I think), shouting at me, but I couldn't hear them. It flipped the comm switch with no effect. "DAMN IT!" I yelled angrily. When they jumped at the noise, I figured they could hear me, but I couldn't hear them. 

"My external pickups are fried, so I can't hear you. And I've lost my gun pod. Oh yeah, I can't transform anymore either. You guys got any ideas?" 

One of them started jumping up and down and waving up and down, so I moved towards him, carefully avoiding the other techs. He started moving , so I followed him. <Wonder what he's up to...> He started running towards a large staircase that ran flush with the wall up into the scaffolding, presumably so one of us could get to the other. 

I limped over where the stairs were level with my cockpit and flipped the switch that had closed the canopy on me earlier. The view screens flipped off and I felt my seat start to move. <Whoa, what's going on here?> Then a panel above me opened and I saw that I was leaving the mecha through the head of the VF. At least, where the head of the VF was supposed to be. The seat clicked to a stop when it had completely left the mecha. At this point, I noticed that the stairs were still ten feet below me, and I would have to jump. No problem, except that if I missed, I'd continue falling another twenty feet to the deck below. 

Taking a deep breath, I poised myself for a leap. 

Then my mecha lost it's balance. So did I. 

Forward to Chapter 4.
Back to Chapter 2. 

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