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First Chapters:

Taurine's Night Shift

By

Dissident Love

Author's Note:

This is a story that evolved out of three separate ideas: giant mecha fighting giant monsters a la Pacific Rim, magic and technology working side by side, and a bright, cheerful and competent protagonist who is truly ponderously overendowed. I'm not sure how much I succeeded on the first two points, but hopefully you all just came here for the third one and won't mind too much

As always, this first chapter is subject to change in the future, as concrete details are still being hammered out. Quite often I'm surprised by what I end up typing, and it's only later that I think, "Huh, that works pretty good, actually. I think I'll keep it." There's still a FEW major plot points that are up in the air, but hopefully by the end of this we end up on the same page.

...

See what I did there?

2200 hours local time, and the somehow-sombre chimes echoed ghostlike up and down the gunmetal corridors. The great cavernous loading docks at the north end of the sprawling complex tended to act as amplifiers when empty, and could keep the tunelessly artificial but still eerie little jingles going well into 2201 hours.

Most of the huge bays making up the loading docks stood vacant, a hundred plasteel cables dangling like kelp in an undersea grotto, if such exotic locales still existed without the assistance of bunker-busting mortar rounds or the exploding corpses of the dimensional monsters. Ruby counted softly under hir breath, waiting for the echoing, reverberating tune to fade. Shi had dubbed the 2200 alarm 'Ten Broken Birds', but it hadn't really caught on.

"Iced seng, double sweet, double cream, double tall," shi yawned, four split hooves paddling uselessly in the general direction of the ceiling, two quivering little fists soon joining them. From the direction of hir mini-mess a series of burbles, plinks and gulps emanated. Hir ears twitched and shi frowned, lifting hir head from the cheap milspec pillow, blonde locks plastered to one side of hir face. "The plinks are off."

Off or not, the 'ding' of a culinary mission being completed was all the lure shi needed to get out of bed. Twisting hir body, awkwardly even after all these years, shi managed to get one hindhoof securely planted on the floor before hurling the rest of hir considerable bulk upright. Nerveless nail-tissue or not, shi swore at the chill penetrating hir cloven toes and yanked hir blankets around hir torso, shivering and trotting over to where a frosty metal cylinder was already waiting for hir. "Heat, UP!" shi snapped, clutching the chilled beverage the way some people clutched at a life preserver after three weeks floating down the Gulf. The fact that shi was freezing and was pressing half a gallon of ice to hir breast never once struck hir as incongruous.

The ceiling beeped, paused, and honked a negative.

"Ffffff..." Ruby hissed, taking an enormous swig from the pitcher, hir tongue tingling and coming alive almost instantly. "Heat, up now! Diagnose!" shi added, without waiting for the repeated error bleep.

'Station power conservation at Level 3, non-essential support services temporarily suspended.'

"Not being able to see my breath is essential!" shi squeaked indignantly at the ceiling, but shi knew better than to argue with Voice. The stupid thing wouldn't even know it had lost. Besides, shi had other ways at hir disposal.

Five minutes later, still hugging the pitcher of simple sugars and dangerous (and controlled) complex amino acids, Ruby was luxuriating in the steaming cauldron that was hir private washroom. It was nearly as large as hir entire quarters (which was to say, cramped and barely livable), but there were certain advantages to being Assistant Technical Chief of Field Services and Ground Operations. Namely, if certain pieces of highly radioactive military hardware were deemed damaged beyond repair, no-one seemed to notice if it disappeared from the scrap pile and wound up refurbished as someone's personal water heater.

Shi wasn't supposed to have a private shower, so the pipe directly overhead was just a regular chunk of brass tubing with a dozen holes painstakingly drilled into it, positioned roughly over hir floor drain. Scalding water poured down on hir waterproof makeup cases, on hir waterproof plastic magazines and hir military issue waterproof hand towels. It would take hours for the room to dry out, but shi didn't care... by the time it was dry shi would be done hir shift and in desperate need for another good power-washing.

2225 hours, and hir oval bulkhead door flipped up and discharged hir into the corridors. Dressed in a pair of heavily modified grease-piece coveralls and with the instantly-recognizable orange hard hat perched atop hir stubby little antlers, the young deer-taur pounded the last of hir iced seng, tossed the can back over hir shoulder and into hir quarters, and squared hir shoulders, ready for whatever the night could throw at hir.

"Five minutes early, too!" shi beamed, fingertips wiggling at nothing as though strumming an invisible harp. "We're off to a good st-"

The entire complex lurched drunkenly to the side, shear walls and steel beams screaming in protest. There was an explosion from the direction of the loading docks that blasted a short, fierce hurricane of gritty, smoky recycled air into hir face. The taur was knocked to hir knees, carefully clipped tools rattling like windchimes. Shi couldn't even manage an unladylike curse word before one of the light fixtures so recently located overhead smashed into hir helmet, snapping like a twig and slamming hir muzzle into hir sternum.

Shouting filled the air; shouting and sirens and the long, sustained death-rattle of some distant part of the complex taking a great deal of time collapsing.

"My fault, really," shi muttered, heaving hirself upright once more and fighting the urge to go back to bed. "OK, fine. Make it interesting. Bring it on! I can take it!"

By the time shi merged with the general flow of traffic, a hundred pounding boots and paws and hooves of every make and model, shi was smiling once more. It was going to be an exciting shift! More than just unplugging and watering the psybats, more than just grinding and buffing the dings and scratches out of the Suits, more than just loitering by the watercooler and flirting with the Sunset Shifties who were on the way out. It sounded like things were happening! Important things! Things that might hopefully finally get hir noticed by Central!

"WHAT'S GOING ON?!" shi shouted to a three-stripe jump pilot, a bull-shouldered badger that towered over the mostly-dainty deer.

"FUCK IF I KNOW!" the pilot shouted.

"THANK YOU!" Jump pilots, shi sighed. Act like you own the bloody place. Not like you're the REAL pilots or anything...

Ruby's top speed was nothing special, not since hir junior track and field career had been derailed by medical exemptions from physical education, but shi did hir best to canter briskly, rump swaying back and forth like a metronome. While most of the sidelined taurs in hir area had their athletic careers derailed by pubescent mammary development, with two or four or six (or more!) breasts developing magnificently over the course of a single summer, hir own issues had been sadly less relatable.

The size extra-small coveralls that shi had adopted to cover hir torso clung to a slender, trim body. Shi kept fit with weights, and could military press an impressive amount, which was practically a job requirement as a Field Services tech; if shi couldn't pop a c-piston out of place and lower it into the maintenance cradle, shi wasn't much good to anyone on the docks. Hir quartet of cervid legs were shapely and tapered but could also support tremendous weight. More than one new recruit had lost a chunk of their first paycheck betting against hir being able to drag a nuke cell from the back of the docks to the front.

By hemming and heavily trimming the pantlegs of a pair of extra-large taur-covers, shi had managed to more or less abide by the complex's uniform requirements. While on shift shi was always careful to keep as much tawny, speckled fur as possible covered, leaving only hir hands, hooves and most of hir face exposed, but that still left hir looking as though shi were trying to carry around a surface-to-dimensional-anomaly missile against hir belly.

It was only the heft, sway and jiggle of all that flesh that clued folks in to Ruby's true nature.

The officers, enlisted men and recruited refugees split left and right, up and down, heading for their assigned stations. It was shift changeover for a sizeable portion of the base, but no-one would dare leave their post during an emergency until relief had arrived. By the time the little taur reached the long, wide concrete access tunnels leading to the docks, it was just hir and a dozen similarly-dressed technicians.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?" fully half of them asked, eyes wide and fearful. There was only an answering shrug from the rest.

Ruby quavered ever so slightly as all of their attentions turned to hir. Sure, you want to get a promotion, but once people think you're the boss they expect you to have answers!

"We'll find out in a minute!" shi smiled brightly, hir breath becoming labored. Shi was fit and shi was strong, but shi was not built for sprinting.Ooooh, that's going to be sore in the morning, shi winced, adjusting the bulge the very tip of hir sheath made where it squeezed through hir front legs. Forty-four standard-sized Suit jacks, sockets and hex-heads made quite a racket, and were leaving a pattern of tiny bruises on hir tender flesh. "Everyone's ready for a long night?"

"We know _you_are!" Akash laughed nervously. The lean, lanky mongoose was hir crew's resident electronics expert, his own collection of tools a great deal smaller and more delicate, and just being within arm's reach of him was likely to set anyone's hair on edge just from the static charge. "There was no PD alarms, right? I didn't hear any PD alarms."

"Then it's not a PD," shi replied patiently, the tunnel curving gently towards the north. Forklifts, reserve crates and endless racks of steel beams and pipes lined the walls now, and up ahead the light of the docks was its normal comforting orange. Greasy smoke drifted near the mesh-covered overhead lights, however, and there was the unmistakable sound of high-impact crash after crash that only grew louder as they drew closer. "It SOUNDS like we had a stanchion collapse. A Suit probably took out a wall. That happened on one of my first tours here, did I ever mention that? They were testing the servos without the Pilot, and some genius thought you could have BOTH legs off the ground at the same time, and it... it... oh, fuck."

The tunnel widened out into a space so vast it would be difficult to imagine it as part of any larger structure. The docks were a series of interconnected bays, each larger than a football field and just as high, stretching off to either side so far that the eye had a difficult time following the lines to where they merged and disappeared. Panama Base had fully thirty-six bays, but only five normally contained Suits. To the left Ruby quickly noted that Alhambra and Gibraltar were upright, piped up and dark, and to the right Himeji and Colossus were equally powered down.

Knowing what problems they wouldn't have to deal with now, shi turned hir attentions back to the devastation directly before hir. The docks swarmed with the technicians from the sunset shift, dirty and exhausted but knowing they had far too much to do before they could be allowed respite. Fire extinguishers were spurting and spraying everywhere, but spot fires continued to spring up.

"Taurine," Monelle wheezed, twisting her hardhat in her great ursine paws. "What happened?"

"What do we do?" This from Oekoe, Panama Base's newest technician, but everyone just called the knobby, scaly mound of muscle and fang 'Crock'.

"I..." Ruby started, mind whirling.

The central docking bay normally held Försåt, the Pride of Panama base, nine thousand tons of titanium composite, diamond-hard ceramic and good old-fashioned cast iron. The truck-sized shoe-mounts were empty, cables and ducting hanging everywhere high above their heads. Ruby's first thought was anger at why shi hadn't been informed Försåt was on mission.

Gazing at the slumped, partially-demolished and freely bleeding Försåt, half inside the dock and half outside, hir second thought was to pray that if there was any justice left in this world, shi and hir crew wouldn't be too late.

It was obvious that the Suit, one hundred and twenty feet of the most advanced technology on the planet (with one exception, of course), had simply crashed through the dock's huge but comparatively flimsy barn doors, shredding them like balsa wood. Ruby couldn't quite see from hir low angle but it looked as though Försåt was on hands and knees, with everything below the waist still exposed to the jungle-scented night air.

"Taurine?" Akash gasped. "What-"

"Don't call me that on shift!" the diminutive Chief snapped. "OK, everyone, listen up! Crock, gear team gets up on the lifts and gets the Suit off NOW! Sunset shift is working the left, you work the right, then get the helmet off! That's priority! Electrics, fire suppression and life support! Monelle, armaments! That Suit is ACTIVE, we don't need it firing something in here! Joshua, in two minutes you WILL tell me why the other pilots aren't here helping us and you will tell them they will answer to me IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO SONNE!!!"

Despite hir unimpressive height, hir entire crew taller to a significant margin, they cowered at the fury in hir voice but retained the presence of mind to nod.

"GO!"

They scattered, but hir mind was already three steps ahead. Shi fiddled madly with the comm units in hir helmet, dragging the vox down to hir throat and shoving the little conductive bud into hir ear. There was an immediate explosion of sound, every band shouting orders and progress back and forth, but shi wasn't interested in most of it just yet. Charging towards the vast immensity of Försåt shi switched to the pilot channels where there were only two speaking voices.

Neither one was Sonne.

"-getting biometrics, but some of the systems must be damaged, I can't tell of the positive readings are wrong, or if the negative readings are wrong!" shouted a panicked voice.

"He's crawling with techies, can't ONE of them confirm?!" That was a thunderous and yet clipped tone, instantly recognizable. His rank was largely unofficial, but that wasn't really important anymore. He was known worldwide as General Rothammer, but everyone on base just called him Da Chief.

Up ahead one of the gauntlets finally fell free, the bus-sized bronze and silver column of armor splitting into halves and tumbling apart to smash cacophonously to the ground, exposing matted and obviously bloody bluish-grey fur. In a flash two red-hatted techies swooped in, perched in a steel basket swaying crazily from atop a boom truck, scanning the forearm and sticking biometric sensors wherever they could reach.

A sizzle of stray ungrounded energy crackled from the damaged chestplate, leaving a blackened scar in the dock's yards-thick concrete slab. Ruby was barely halfway across the dock when the blast of searing ozone washed over hir; shi could hear other techies shouting and fleeing as yet more suppression systems struggled to come online.

Out of the sudden river of greasy steam shi spied a figure approaching hir. Green hat, who is that... damn sunset shift! Why can't they keep a steady roster? "YOU!" shi bellowed. "BOOM TRUCK! NOW!"

The shape moved to dodge past hir, but shi was quicker on hir hooves than most people could believe. Shi skittered sideways and lashed out with a small paw, snagging the front of his overalls and twisting. The skunk was bigger than hir, barrel-chested and heavily built, but he found himself nearly hauled off of his feet by his own inertia's failed battle with hirs. "I need-"

That was all he managed. "YOU NEED TO GET IN THAT BOOM TRUCK," shi repeated, hard enough for the big man's ears to fold flat back. Shi gestured to an unused vehicle, basket low and at the ready. With thirty bays and only five Suits, there was far more equipment than they could hope to know what to do with. "AND YOU NEED TO GET ME UP TO FRS..T'S COLLAR NOW, AND IF YOU SAY NO YOU MIGHT JUST BE THE FIRST FATALITY TONIGHT!"

The skunk (_what does his hat brim say, Vitor? Victor? Vicar? Damn this smoke!)_recoiled once, eyes showing white, but he nodded. He knew when he was outranked as well as outgunned. "Y-yes, Chief," he stammered, almost bowing in his effort to show respect. He'd heard of Chief Taurine, of course, even though he'd only been on base for three weeks. He didn't want to end up on hir bad side.

The overhead fans finally came on, titanium vents in the floors snapping open. The smoke swirled and rose, twisting into pillars of bone-white mist before disappearing out into the night above. Ruby swayed in the boom truck's basket, hooves scrambling for purchase in the metallic netting. Shi hated these baskets, hated heights even more, but Försåt... but Sonne needed hir.

"GET THE RIGHT ARM OFF NOW!" shi hollered into hir vox. The left arm was free up to the shoulder, a nasty wound clearly visible rolling out over the heavy muscles there. Blood trickled and spattered in bucketloads on the dock floor, which was a horrible reassurance. His heart is still beating! "YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES!"

The right forearm split and fell away moments later, techies from all three shifts climbing higher and working with manic speed. Reports continued to flood in over the comms, and Ruby's spirits were lifted by the news that Sonne's vitals were still readable. They weren't strong, his blood pressure dangerously low, wounds detected in every quadrant. Oxygen levels were crashing, breath sounds on one side only, and that was only when he infrequently drew breath.

Victor, whatever his name was, followed his orders well. The basket lurched to a stop some forty feet off the ground, next to the prostrate figure's helmet. Ruby's reflection was split, warped, magnified by the overlapping plates of composite materials and plasma-smoothed glazing, designed to resist temperatures that could melt steel and compounds that could eat through platinum. Techies raced back and forth along Försåt's vast armored back, loosening bolts in preparation for the helmet to be popped. Once the collar was removed, they would need to act fact.

A dozen strong arms wielding a dozen pneumatic wrenches knelt in anticipation, waiting for the go ahead.

"NIGHT SHIFT, WHERE-"

Thankfully, shi didn't have time to finish. With a sound like a building collapsing the right shoulder was freed, filling the air with the stench of burning fur and cooked flesh.

Ruby swung hir own impact wrench up underneath Försåt's chin, spying the cluster of three bolts that were hir responsibility. "I'm not about to let some young punks show me up," shi growled, holding on for dear life as thousands of pounds of torque were brought to bear on a bolt that could have pinned a tank to the ground. The basket jerked and spun as hir substantial mass was suddenly given some angular momentum, and shi had to bite back a cry of terror. "And you! You're not about to get out of this, mister. No, we're going to have a talk!"

One bolt down.

Two bolts.

Footsteps rang out, the pitter-patter of technicians scampering away from what was about to be a very large collision. Ruby was affixing the wrench head to the third bolt when hir boom truck also started backing away, taking hir with it. "HEY!" shi screamed into the vox, twisting awkwardly to try and flag down the driver. "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!?!"

Hir fury was short-lived. The boom truck backed up in a wide, controlled arc until it was parked near the huge, twitching right paw that was being hastily stripped of individual finger armor components. The boom itself pivoted a moment later, bringing Ruby right back to hir bolt, but now without the impending threat of the driver being crushed when the helmet finally came loose.

"THANK... thank you!" shi gasped, digging in to the final bolt head with a vengeance. "Sorry! Good plan!"

The collar had more than one hundred bolts connecting it to the immense reinforced struts of the chestplate and the nigh-indestructible shell of the helmet. As soon as Ruby's last connection was freed a thin crease appeared in what had seemed like solid metal, and a high whistling reached hir ears. Shi did not like the sour, chemical smell leaking through the bolt holes, but the medics were already massing in the wings. High overhead the cranes were being slowly cradled into position, contact magnets winching down with painful reluctance. It would be more than a minute before they were able to extract the helmet on their own.

Is that enough-

Försåt's left arm jerked once, the entire titanic body canting to one side and shearing more hinges off the dock's doors. Another spasm, this one knocking a forklift aside and sending it tumbling cage over tread; thankfully one that had remained unused.

"Sonne!" Ruby shouted into the vox, queueing down to the frequency that should have been broadcasting inside that helmet.

The boom truck squeaked as it dug into the permanently-stained concrete floors, backing up with such speed Ruby was forced to drop to hir knees to avoid going over the railing. Shi would have gotten lower, but unfortunately hir anatomy did not allow for that. The normally-unflappable Assistant Chief watched helplessly as the giant thrashed, shuddering all over now.

And then shi thanked hir lucky stars, and hir observant driver, when the left arm slashed up through the air where just moments before shi had been standing. The padded palm drove hard into the base of the helmet, sparks flying from the collar. Another strike, and another, the behemoth pounding furiously at its own head.

The fourth knocked it away, sending it bouncing erratically into the next bay over and nearly toppling Alhambra.

Sonne, finally freed of Försåt's helmet, threw back his head and drew a thunderous breath. One ear slowly unfurled from where it typically lay against the hare's cheek, but the other was clearly punctured in several locations and hung limp, streaked with crimson.

For several moments there was no sound in the dock except for Sonne's labored but clearly welcome breaths, and the tapering chorus of fleeing footsteps. Technicians, medics, underpaid laborers and high-ranking officials only just arriving on the scene, all were transfixed by the sight of Panama Base's Pilot Commandant wheezing, still on all fours, still half inside the dock and half out.

"Victor," Ruby whispered into the vox, queueing for local bands only.

"Valkor," the skunk replied nervously. "Ma'am."

"Valkor, sorry. Please... please drive forward."

"Should we let the medics-"

"You will get a commendation for saving my life, twice, if you just put your foot on the gas pedal for three more seconds," shi pled, wiping away a tear. "And I'm sorry for yelling at you."

"It's all right, ma'am, I was-"

"DRIVE, VALKOR!"

"Right! Right, sorry..."

Cheers started somewhere at the back of the docks and were quickly picked up by the various technicians still struggling to balance on Sonne's back. Technically, only the suit was referred to as Försåt, but the Pilots had long ago made it clear that, as long as a Pilot was in their Suit, they were the Suit. A compromise had to be reached, though, and the helmet was considered the piece de resistance.

Sonne looked blearily around and, wincing only very slightly, smiled at his audience. "Hi," he croaked, coughing once, blood trickling from his front teeth. "I'm... sorry about the doors..."

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH WORK IT'S GOING TO BE TO FIX THOSE DOORS?!" Ruby bellowed, voice carrying tremendously far as shi slowly drifted back towards Sonne's chin. The macro hare winced, since that also meant the tiny, furious deertaur was hollering right into his ear. His bad ear.

"I can-" he started.

"NOT MUCH WORK, ACTUALLY!" shi continued, waving hir arms. "WE CAN JUST DECOMMISSION ANOTHER DOCK AND MOVE THOSE DOORS DOWN HERE!"

Sonne, one hundred and eight feet from toe to brow (and another fifteen if you counted his ears, but he generally left that out), had to resist the instinct to cower from five foot six Ruby. "Are you... actually mad at me, Taurine? Right now?" he murmured.

The cheers were still intermittent, most of the technicians getting back to work. With the immediate danger of Pilot loss apparently handled, the rest of Försåt was being dismantled piece by piece and carted by crane to the back of the dock where it would be vertically reassembled for inspections and repairs. A lot of repairs, Ruby noted with dismay.

"Of course I'm not mad at you!" shi grunted, punching his muzzle with all the relative effect of a stray noodle. "I'm mad at Central! Who let you go on mission? No-one told me! YOU never told me! And don't call me Taurine while we're on duty! And what the hell happened out there? You should feel bad! I was worried! Say something!"

Sonne's jaw shivered as he suppressed a smile. He had the distinct impression smiling right now would only make things worse. "I was unaware I needed the Ground Crew Assistant Chief's permission to go on mission," he said dryly, wincing as his chest plate was finally being loosened. "And I didn't tell you because I didn't want to wake you up. No-one does," he added, a little defensively.

"WHY NOT?!"

"I... choose not to answer until I get a clean bill of health from the Nurse," Sonne said, hazarding what he hoped was a winning smile. "Maybe by then you'll have calmed down!"

"I AM CALM!" Ruby screeched, punching the hare once more before leaning in and burying hir face in his muzzle, tears streaming down hir face. "I AM PERFECTLY CALM RIGHT NOW!"

"Of course you are," he whispered, patting the boom truck's basket with one armored finger as the anthill of military life bustled around them. Rhythmic low-frequency thrums tickled his bones as the other four Pilots, macros one and all, arrived on the outside of the docks, shouting softly to one another. "Of course you are."

Next Time...

The Debriefing

A Quick Checkup

Damage Control