The Big Damn Fight

Geraldine stared up at the many-limbed orb before her, squinting in the orange emergency light. The hulking sphere reflected the cage lamps oddly, twisting light this way and that, and the shaking was rapidly permeating the station didn’t help in the slightest. “This is your mech.”

“Absolutely.” The word was oddly-shaped, coming from Raime, but all in all it summed up all the Executive knew about the polished chrome sphere with the levitating, weapons-bristling arms - it was flashy, overpowered and probably the least efficient thing to come into her sight since the last time she blinked, but it was resolutely absolute, and ever so wonderfully beautiful.

Raime began to admit to herself, not for the first time, that she might have a weakness for sleekness.

“This is your mech.”

“I’ve never seen it before in my life. Ohh, look at that finish…”

“This is your… mech?” Geraldine tilted her head quizzically. “It doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. How do you even get in?”

“I think…” Carefully, Raime laid a hand on the sphere, and a hatch hissed open. “Yes. It’s compatible - no, it’s been configured to my systems. Magic hands!” She wiggled the aforementioned magic hand at an astonished Geraldine, and ducked into the hatch.

The private glanced around nervously. The shaking was getting worse, and it sounded like the aliens had begun their full-on invasion. This was it, she knew, this was the moment they’d all been trained for. It was her duty to report to Chult, pompous bastard or no, and do her bit in defending Draconis-II… nay, civilization itself, against the Menace.

Instead, she opened her big fat mouth and asked, “Have you got room for two in there?”