Race to Activation

A dirtied hand twitched as it loosely clutched a control stick filled with tiny buttons and a long red trigger handle. The hand belonged to a passed-out woman dressed in a dark grey boiler suit, the top half of which had been tied around her waist. A tank top hung loosely from her shoulders, completely covered in oil stains and general murk, ruining a once-white top. Sweat slid down her scarred and muscled arms. A messy afro was flopped over he eyes, only leaving chapped lips for display, parted enough for her to draw breath.

She was sat in a dim cockpit, closed off and claustrophobic. The only source of light, a faint hue of red, emanated from lights next to switches and buttons scattered around the cramped seating area. The air was musky, thick. A single small screen booted just above her knee, showing a loading bar followed by a diagnostic status report. The black console background faded to a dimmed-down yellow, with a black logo in the middle of the screen: a cartoonish clenched fist. The mouth stretched open to encompass the entire screen and gave way to a user interface. It played a blaring alarm, rhythmic and impossible to ignore.

The girl's head nodded gently, her chest expanding as she started to gasp for more and more air. She jolted back in her seat as her eyes shot open. With panicked movements, she swiped her hair out of the way, revealing a large 'X' shaped burn mark across her right eye. Her hands moved quickly across various switches, flicking them up and down in the hopes of reviving any systems. However, nothing responded, leaving her only with the small console by her knee. The air was getting thicker fast; her breathing got heavier. She yanked it closer by the bar sticking out of its left side, causing a small keyboard to flip out from beneath it. She typed as if her life depended on it, navigating through various tabs and files. With a final press of the enter key, some more screens sprung to life, and a whirling noise spun up, noticeably improving the air quality.

A stiff male voice echoed throughout the cockpit: "Operating system reboot successful. Vital systems online. Running diagnostics."

The woman sighed in relief, slouching back into her chair.

"Warning, unidentified Tarksun launch sequence detected." The voice piped up again.

"Wh-... What?!" The woman lurched forward, coughing from being caught off guard. "Get me visual, now!"

"Load prioritization in progress... Occular systems 86% operational. Initiating."

The predominantly pitch-black section of the cockpit, facing the woman, flickered and danced with static. Until its various screen platings cleared up to reveal a view of the outside. The woman's eyes focused like a laser onto the heap of metal lying about 500ft away from her, semi-buried by the rubble of a white chalk building. She was in a desert environment, with sand reaching off in most directions. Amongst the sea of beige stood tall white buildings, the architecture of which blended simplistic huts with skyscraper-like designs. Although much of the surroundings looked demolished as if hit by an earthquake.

Her hand grasped the control stick to her left and spun a small ball on its side. The visual display zoomed in on the rubble, allowing an easy view of a giant metallic hand twitching.

"Shit... Progress on diagnostics?" She stayed pinned to the screen, staring at the hand.

"30%, the core has sustained damage, output to all systems estimated at 40% capacity."

"How..." She trailed off. "Gonna do a manual run of motor function, skip all auto-tasks to do with it." She sat back in her seat, placing both hands on the control sticks on either side of her.

"Skipping, diagnostic new progress at 77%. Estimated completion time: 3 minutes, 12 seconds."

She moved the controls gently, easing her fingers on and off the red triggers. Outside, rubble could be heard shifting; it seemed as though she was also lying down. She was much less buried than the potential threat. As the debris moved out the way, it gave way to the dirty metallic body of a 50ft tall giant. Its movements were robotic but were clearly capable of finer motor control. Its most distinctive features were the thick dreadlock-like wires that reached down to its knees from its head. They covered most of its upper body, hiding its head completely. It was painted black, with hints of yellow sparking out from between plates or flashing across its dreads.

The woman got her suit's hands raised enough to be visible in her display. Clenching them to form fists and moving them into other more complicated shapes as well. Her eyes flicked back to look at the zoomed-in image of the enemy, who was also slowly pulling itself out of the mountain of material it had been crushed by. She got back to running the tests, rushing to more complex movements.

"Diagnostic complete. Would you like a report pilot?"

"No shit."

"We have sustained major damage to the core, limi-"

"Yeah, I know that one; what else!" She snapped.

"The left lower leg has been impaled, potentially lowering its usability in movement. I would also suggest avoiding a neural network link, as pain inhibitors are damaged beyond use."

The woman hesitated to look, wanting to pretend it hadn't happened. But she tilted the upper body forward enough to see a chunk of metal sticking out of the 'calve' of her Tarksuns left leg.

"All RULES are offline, core power levels are too low to sustain safe RoE manipulation. CLUTCH drive is online, but it's estimated that there would be a 96% chance of a fatal repercussion after usage."

"So I have nothing? No power, no NNL, no left leg, no RULES. And CLUTCH will get me killed?" Her face twisted in frustration and anger. "How the fuck did this happen? What was that flash?"

"Last 2 hours of playback corrupted, unable to retrieve footage of 'Flash.'"

She banged her fists off the side of the cockpit. "Shitty Tarksun! Not even one fight and you're already in pieces!" Her teeth ground, her muscles tensed, and her eyes twitched. She looked up at the enemy, which instantly calmed her down. The enemy Tarksun was sitting up, a slim design, white and red. It was probably the same height as her own Tarksun. Beside it lay a long sniper rifle, damaged but still functional looking. Its head was a round ball with no face but long ear-like appendages reached up from its sides. But what had the woman stunned was that it was slowly clenching and unclenching its fist in front of its head.

"Ha... Hahaha..." She giggled to herself before letting out a roaring laugh. "Fucking bastard is fried the exact same as me!" Without any further hesitation, she flicked various switches and pulled the screen at her knees back in front of her. She was excited, nearly psychotically so. "Cut all power to left arm."

"Cutting power to left arm, excess diverted back to core." The voice could only just overpower the sound of her Tarksuns left arm clanging against the hull as it went limp.

"If we're both fucked anyway, and you rely on a sniper... I think I come out on top..." The words slithered out from a widening smile. "Divert excess to RULE 1."

"RULE 1 initializing... RULE 1 online."

Both her hands grabbed the control sticks. The hull rumbled with anticipation. "I think we just might clutch this one out..."