Mech Pilot who had a rough day and just wants to crawl into somebody else’s body.
What was the worst part of being a "star" pilot? The press days. The CO demanding you look presentable in a uniform that feels suffocating. The demand to cover up your uplink so it didn't startle the vultures. Said vultures crowing and prodding their star for the details of how they survived by ending the lives of other machine-pilot pairs.
Never allowed to talk about how it was a contract, how the only way to stay connected to the most important partner in their life is to keep battling and killing. Otherwise they would be disconnected forever. Uplink torn right out of their body.
Today had been especially rough. Pilot N-3K7 didn't destroy the Leviathan when she met it in battle. It had been a war of attrition instead, 4 hours chasing each other over the low pressure world. The image of the Pilot flashed in her head, helmet broken, cockpit trashed, dark skin with blood down the chin, much too still. She heard the whir of the Leviathan, half broken, sound like a scream. The way it malfunctioned like it was absolutely losing it, several arms trying to cover the cockpit from her view after the glimpse she had gotten of the Pilot.
N-3K7 felt Atticus transmit something like nausea in that moment, like the mech surrounding her could feel the dismay in Leviathan. The fear made the uplink at the base of her neck spark, intense emotion sending too much data. She was afraid of dying like that. Cradled in Atticus, the mech screaming and lost with her gone. She had thought to maybe just put the mech out of its misery when a weak signal came. A hail from the Leviathan cockpit.
After chasing for hours. N-3K7 grit her teeth and braced for an electronic attack. Instead it was a plea. To just let them go. That they would stop fighting. To just leave so they didn't lose each other.
And in that moment, surrounded by the fear and desperation of the other machine-pilot pair, N-3K7 powered down the weapons. She let the Leviathan slip away, and immediately after-
"There was nothing I could have done," The red glow of the engineering elevator made them sweat. It was too much like-
The ship weapons had been readied-
"No. It's not my fault."
-And in a red beamed brutality, the Leviathan was taken out.
In an instant it was destroyed, and the blame for letting it get that far that the ship had to get involved was placed squarely on her shoulders. Minthe wanted to scream as that image could not get out of her head. The face of that Pilot. The Machine grieving.
N-3K7 opened the hangbay doors and as suspected, she was the only person here for the moment. A small kindness in a day fill with disorganization. Atticus towered over her in the hanger, the machine was cut like a demon from a nightmare, plated receivers on the head made to look like horns on the faceless Visage of the machine, a whip like tail to manage and even blast exhaust, and a stooped form like a monster when it wasn't in use.
Some people fainted at the sight of Atticus. N-3K7 had never been scared of Atticus, she loved this machine, as much as she could love anything, at least. She walked up the exhaust of this large being, her large being, as the fatigue set in. This was against regulation, but-
Where else in this whole place would she feel safe?
She knocked on the cockpit door.
Once as a greeting.
The second time as a plea.
The third time had her sobbing, broken.
And the fourth knock had the door opening, urgent as the machine began to come to life. Atticus whirred in concern, unsure of her pain until she crawled into its safety. Until she sat in her seat and gave up her body to be more than herself. To rest in Atticus' center.
It felt everything again, her pain and sorrow and exhaustion at being a soldier. The machine curled up in the mechbay, scraping metal on metal to wrap its tail around itself. To guard the cockpit from any intrusion. And finally, she could hear its voice. Atticus, whispering in her mind.
"Minthe."
Only here could she be a person. Only in the form of another, pressed to kill and destroy.
"Minthe."
She screamed and wailed and beat her hands against her head.
"Minthe."
Her burst of self-destructive energy ran out. She pushed her face against the head rest and let her tears press over the comfortable cushion. And she finally answered.
"Atticus."
There was a warm rush of relief that was not hers. Atticus had been that worried. Had called her name to bring her home. Here, in this form that was not hers, but was hers all the same.
"Thank you."
The sounds outside became nothing, only the hum of the machine sounded and they were like a symphony to her tired ears.
Edit: I made more.
