An Ode to Vixen
For those of you who don't know, I once had a 2005 Scion xB by the name of Vixen. Vix was destroyed in a car wreck last December. Her muse has kept oddly quiet about this up until this point. So...I just tossed this out in a few moments. It will never do her justice and I think I'm going to go cry in a corner now.
Dying was a new experience. We were brought up to expect death in battle, considering how long we’d been at war, not in the normal ‘day-to-day’ activities that most take for granted. That’s why, when it happened, I wasn’t expecting it. That’s why it probably didn’t hurt so bad.
It was a simple supply run to the next installation. Nothing of any real value, just some bits and pieces for the mechs still out in the field. A “grocery run”, if you would. The area I was to transverse was nowhere near a conflict zone and required no advanced planning or tactical simulations to arrange the route. I knew the route, had travelled it hundreds of times and was confident in my ability to complete my assigned task.
There was nothing unusual going on. Traffic was standard for the time of cycle, not too crowded but enough to warrant a bit of attention. Even the traffic directories were all fully functioning; a trying task for the maintenance workers who tried to keep them powered in wartime when funds and fuels were scarce. I happened to be stopped at one of those directories behind another of my frame-type. I was about to raise an inquiry to a modification I’d noticed when there was a sudden…shift. I shifted. Forcefully and without my own will or intentions to guide me.
The mecha hit me hard enough to move me out of my hover-lane and into the next directional shift. I felt the powerful jolt of a being travelling too fast to stop, felt the metal of my frame crumble and crush. Parts shattered, debris flew. A second hit, the same mecha, slamming into my side now. There was a sudden pain to the front and all of this in a matter of kliks.
I never saw it coming though I am fairly certain I screamed.
Then there was a calm and I merely felt numb. My processors sorted the damages and displayed them by priority, many of which lighting in a strong, pulsing red. I couldn’t read them. After those first moments, the pain set in. I tried to call out for help but nothing would -work-. I heard them, the mecha that hit me and-- oh, by Primus, I hit my frame-kin…
I tried to answer, I did. The only thing that would respond was my power train. Somehow it survived the impacts mostly intact. The scent of ozone and overheated, stressed metal was all around and I could process nothing else. I felt the relays failing, fuzes shorting. Somewhere in the distance I heard the emergency response mecha approaching. Eventually, I felt myself lifted upon the back of a transport and carried away.
By that point, I was not so lucid anymore. I recall hearing them talk over me as though I weren’t there at all. I heard phrases like ‘cost evaluation’ and ‘spare parts’ and felt my tanks lurch at the thought. Every mecha knows it’s a possibility in war to be given up on and handed over to the medics for disassembly. No one expects it to happen in the day-to-day life. I wanted to think that what they’d just decided hadn’t been my fate. I wanted to think that I was worth it to them to repair, even if I’d never be quite the same. Some damages just don’t heal properly even with the best of medics. A town like ours doesn’t have the best of medics, it has what’s left over. And what’s left over needs parts to ship down range to repair others so that the fight can continue.
I thought, before, that I could be content with that knowledge…that my death could help save another’s life. Now I just feel numb once more. The feeling is spreading through my systems, shutting down pain sensors and support systems alike. I realize, now, that my fate has been decided without my consent. They’ve written me off as a loss and I never got to say goodbye--.
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Dying was a new experience. We were brought up to expect death in battle, considering how long we’d been at war, not in the normal ‘day-to-day’ activities that most take for granted. That’s why, when it happened, I wasn’t expecting it. That’s why it probably didn’t hurt so bad.
It was a simple supply run to the next installation. Nothing of any real value, just some bits and pieces for the mechs still out in the field. A “grocery run”, if you would. The area I was to transverse was nowhere near a conflict zone and required no advanced planning or tactical simulations to arrange the route. I knew the route, had travelled it hundreds of times and was confident in my ability to complete my assigned task.
There was nothing unusual going on. Traffic was standard for the time of cycle, not too crowded but enough to warrant a bit of attention. Even the traffic directories were all fully functioning; a trying task for the maintenance workers who tried to keep them powered in wartime when funds and fuels were scarce. I happened to be stopped at one of those directories behind another of my frame-type. I was about to raise an inquiry to a modification I’d noticed when there was a sudden…shift. I shifted. Forcefully and without my own will or intentions to guide me.
The mecha hit me hard enough to move me out of my hover-lane and into the next directional shift. I felt the powerful jolt of a being travelling too fast to stop, felt the metal of my frame crumble and crush. Parts shattered, debris flew. A second hit, the same mecha, slamming into my side now. There was a sudden pain to the front and all of this in a matter of kliks.
I never saw it coming though I am fairly certain I screamed.
Then there was a calm and I merely felt numb. My processors sorted the damages and displayed them by priority, many of which lighting in a strong, pulsing red. I couldn’t read them. After those first moments, the pain set in. I tried to call out for help but nothing would -work-. I heard them, the mecha that hit me and-- oh, by Primus, I hit my frame-kin…
I tried to answer, I did. The only thing that would respond was my power train. Somehow it survived the impacts mostly intact. The scent of ozone and overheated, stressed metal was all around and I could process nothing else. I felt the relays failing, fuzes shorting. Somewhere in the distance I heard the emergency response mecha approaching. Eventually, I felt myself lifted upon the back of a transport and carried away.
By that point, I was not so lucid anymore. I recall hearing them talk over me as though I weren’t there at all. I heard phrases like ‘cost evaluation’ and ‘spare parts’ and felt my tanks lurch at the thought. Every mecha knows it’s a possibility in war to be given up on and handed over to the medics for disassembly. No one expects it to happen in the day-to-day life. I wanted to think that what they’d just decided hadn’t been my fate. I wanted to think that I was worth it to them to repair, even if I’d never be quite the same. Some damages just don’t heal properly even with the best of medics. A town like ours doesn’t have the best of medics, it has what’s left over. And what’s left over needs parts to ship down range to repair others so that the fight can continue.
I thought, before, that I could be content with that knowledge…that my death could help save another’s life. Now I just feel numb once more. The feeling is spreading through my systems, shutting down pain sensors and support systems alike. I realize, now, that my fate has been decided without my consent. They’ve written me off as a loss and I never got to say goodbye--.
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