The Storm Cometh

Dotun lay prone, on the extended arm of his bipedal mech "calling calling", which was in full shutdown mode. His Anzio 20mm cannon was stretched out on its bipod before him.

The Anzio was an anti-materiel rifle, a relic of a time gone past that was used to destroy hard targets, by delivering destruction from the safety of ranges that exceeded that of conventional weapons.

He was a ranger assassin, who specialized in finding and tracking clan enemies, and eliminating them before they could become a further threat.

He looked down into the valley, through the rangefinder from his vantage point hidden in the treeline on the valley wall.

For some reason best known to them, the two offworlder mechs he had been tracking seemed to be unaware that they had picked him up along their retreat from the botched raid on his clan homestead.

The offworlders looked like they had stopped, or were trying to set up some sort of camp in the valley. Their mechs were in semi-shutdown mode, with everything but weapons, sensors and engines powered down. One of the mechs had taken a knee, as a prelude to the pilot disembarking, but the chest cavity housing the cockpit of the mech was still closed. The other mech stood and looked around, visually surveying its surroundings for movement, while its sensors scanned for the telltale electronic signature of an engine or weapon system from any enemy.

The mech on its knee vented green plumes of smoke from some of its joints, as it forced coolant through its overheating systems to bring temperatures down to acceptable levels, and prevent a total shutdown from overheating.

Overheating was the last thing a mech pilot would want happening in the middle of a battle or a retreat (tactical or otherwise) from a battle.

They seemed somewhat at peace, utterly oblivious of the death that stalked them.

Dotun wasn't sure why they thought stopping, or camping in the valley was a good idea...maybe they thought that it would be safe since the clans always avoided entering the valley, especially after sundown.

"Maybe they weren't familiar with the rumours regarding the valley?" he thought to himself.

As the thought of sundown crossed his mind, he peered through his rangefinder and checked the distance to where both mechs crouched in a semi-shutdown mode with their engines off but their reactors running.

Checking the leaves in the trees for movement, he estimated for wind speed and direction. He noted that the wind in the valley was almost down to zero, and the conditions were just right for the kind of shot he would have to make.

It was just over three kilometres to the nearest mech, and at that distance, the 20mm depleted uranium round from his Anzio, would exit the barrel at two thousand six hundred and fifty feet per second and cover the distance to the target in just under four seconds.

The effective kill range for his weapon was four and a half kilometres, so the round would punch a hole through the six-inch Ferro armour that the offworlders loved, and kill the pilot as surely as night would fall.

Dotun switched the rangefinder into scope mode, as he slowly drew back the bolt on his rifle – chambering the first of three depleted uranium rounds from the detachable box magazine. He did this to muffle the sound of the bolt – not wanting to alert his targets, to the fact that they had drawn unwanted attention to themselves.

This was because he didn't want them springing to life and making a dash for the far side of the valley, not this close to sundown.

This close to sundown, he HAD to wrap this up quick and leave the valley, as even this high up in the treeline, wasn't a safe place to be.

There were rumours that barghests hunted in the valley, and there had been several sightings of an unusually large U'ral as well, and both species of nocturnal predators only came out after the sun went down.

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The U'ral watched from among the rocks on the ridge overlooking the valley. Its black scaly hide, blending in with the volcanic rocks that lined the ridge.

It had been ranging, exploring its kingdom – its home, and had stopped at the top of the ridgeline to survey its valley – its KINGDOM.

Movement from the eastern edge of its kingdom had drawn its attention. A human habitation sat right past the edge of his valley.

These humans and their struggles for territory or dominance were a source of amusement to it. Sometimes, it would sit at the top of the ridge and watch them march back and forth in the dull armoured suits, always skirting around the edge of the valley but never entering his kingdom.

It had made a couple of appearances or brief sightings, to let them know that the valley was a place they should avoid, and avoid it they did.

At least until the new set of humans appeared on Terra, with their bright armoured suits.

It had watched the new humans in their shiny suits deploy to the south of the human habitation, and it had watched them advance.

While ranging earlier, it had heard the sound of a firefight and explosions. Uninterested in human affairs though, it had chosen not to watch the struggle with those in the dull suits.

The smoke and noise from that direction told the tale of a fight for territory or power – or both. The noise seemed to recede southwards, so the shiny suits had lost that particular encounter, and were leaving – in a hurry.

The U'ral was on its way down from the ridge when a flash of light and movement alerted it to intruders entering the valley from the southeast.

Two intruders in shiny suits had come into its home.

It watched the two humans in their armoured suits come marching into its home uninvited, and it decided it did not like these new humans in their shiny suits. They did not know NOT to enter its home, but they would soon come to know.

Circling round to approach from the east, the U'ral began following the two intruders in their shiny suits. The deeper they went into its kingdom, the more a problem it appeared they were going to be. The dull suits weren't this stupid, not even the lone one he had spotted below him at the edge of the treeline. It was following the two shiny suits, cautiously. The U'ral thought to get rid of this one first, but the further the other two went, the more of a priority it became for them to be dealt with.

It decided it would go right past the dull suit, maybe a sighting would be enough to reinforce the fear of the valley it had so painstakingly created. If the dull suit was still there when the U'ral finished dealing with the other two, then he would have to make an example of it as well.

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Dotun tightened his finger on the trigger and drew in his breath to steady himself for his shot, and...froze – the bile suddenly rising in his throat, as he broke out in a cold sweat. He smelt the rank reptilian oily musk of the U'ral and his eyes began to water from the acridity, long before he heard the crackling of dead leaves and branches near him.

His heart must have skipped a dozen beats, as he thought to himself "crap, it's not yet sundown, why is there an U'ral in the valley at this time?" He slowly took his finger off the trigger, silently engaging the safety on the rifle.

U'rals were one of Terra's most feared predators. A six-legged scaled cat with eyes that burned purple and looked like it had been carved out of jagged obsidian.

It had a scaled hide could stop a fifty calibre round and was so dark that it literally sucked in the light around it.

U'rals had teeth and claws that could rend steel and a mean streak and tenacity that could only have come from the very depths of hell itself.

They had developed a taste for hunting mech pilots – in their mechs, seeing especially as slow-moving poorly armed mechs made easier targets than the U'rals traditional prey.

U'rals possessed an organ in their tails capable of generating an electrical charge. The charge was initially thought to be used to stun prey, but mech pilots had discovered that U'rals could also release that charge as an electromagnetic pulse – capable of shutting down mech electricals and disabling any mech stupid enough to tangle with one.

Dotun tried to guess where the U'ral was, as any movement now would alert it to his position. Technically, If it was hunting him, then he was already dead.

Even if he somehow made it back into his mech, he would be dead long before he could power on the engine. He closed his eyes and forced himself to swallow the bile, as he waited for the inevitability that now lingered.

Seconds later, he opened his eyes. He was still alive…

The U'ral was still out there, but it wasn't attacking. "If it isn't hunting me", he thought to himself "then that means..."

He risked looking through his rangefinder, and he noticed that one of the cockpits was open, and the pilot had started a campfire on the ground.

Well, that was one way to catch a U'ral's attention.

A slight purple flash caught his attention, and he zoomed in on the rangefinder to see the black outline of the U'ral crouched on the rock face above the two offworlder mechs. It was watching them.

"Either U'rals move faster than clan scouts reports claimed, or..." he started to think to himself then suddenly froze in mid-thought as the second U'ral moved into the periphery of his vision. The U'ral stalked forward oblivious to his presence, its attention seemingly focused on the two offworlders in the valley.

"Shit!" he cursed to himself. Two U'rals in the valley meant it was HOME to a mating pair, not a single hunting U'ral ranging for prey. That would explain the rumours regarding the valley.

The U'ral below him started forward, its tail gathering a charge. The violet of its eyes intensified in a sudden colour flare matched by a similar flare from the valley floor. The low rumble rolling from its throat matched the dull hum generated by the electrical storm building around its tail as it tensed its muscles and gathered its legs beneath it for the sprint that would bring it to its prey.

A sudden yell from the valley indicated that the two offworlders had suddenly become aware of the other U'ral behind them.

Dotun made out the sounds of a rushed mech boarding, as well as the resounding snap of the cockpit lock as the pilot who had disembarked, gained the safety of his mech. There was the sound of mech engines coming from semi-shutdown to full power, as both mechs rose to their feet bringing their fifty calibre auto-cannon to bear on the U'ral they could see.

With a sudden burst of movement, the second U'ral exploded forward into a sprint that would bring it to the valley floor, its tail held out behind it like a rudder tipped with the swirling lights of an electrical storm.

The sound of gunfire broke out from the valley, as both of the offworlders opened fire on the U'ral they had seen, not knowing that death approached them at eight hundred and seventy-nine meters per second...bringing a storm that heralded despair with it – the hum of the storm suddenly hitting an intensity that would be audible for miles.

Dotun peered into his rangefinder and saw the second U'ral approaching the mechs who had, from their panicked reactions, become aware of the second rapidly approaching U'ral. one of the pilots cut loose with a burst from his auto-cannon - with tracer fire tracking the U'ral's change in direction, and the fifty calibre shells glanced off the U'ral's hide like snooker balls off the side rail of a table.

The U'ral's tail snaked out to the side, as it changed direction to avoid the follow-up blast from a rail gun, and it righted itself almost immediately, as the end of the U'ral's tail spread out like a gunsen - a war fan, tipped with spikes. The U'ral swung it downwards like a whip, snapping the fan shut and releasing the fury of the storm it carried as an electromagnetic pulse.

The electromagnetic charge from the tail exploded outward in a cyclic wave of blue light as the U'ral leapt. The bright wave of blue light rolled up into the treeline and dotun's rangefinder went dead, as the concussion from the blast shook leaves from the trees ringing the valley.

There was the sound of metal being torn apart, as total darkness settled over the valley. Then the screaming began.

Pulling his jacket tight around him, dotun settled in for the night, as it was going to be a long one. Anything else would be suicide.