Perfume

‘Heavy weapons on the’ cried Jonas over the Vox just as a hail of bullet fire cut him down. Another good man down Lucien thought to himself.

‘We’ve lost Jonas’ Lucien called out, ‘heavy weapon emplacement at ten o’clock.’

The men of the Advanced Recon Squad were trained for war and underwent chemical conditioning to turn them from base humans into Jaegers. Jaegers were stronger, faster, tougher, and deadlier. The Advanced Recon Squad, dubbed “The Meat-shields” were part of the Red Templar Regiment’s 10th Company, the assault specialists. The Meat-shields were living up to their name, a squad of twenty was now whittled down to five.

‘Funny, I thought it was quarter past three’ chimed in the voice of Lieutenant Tolmerian. Gallows humour, Lucien thought, always the same with Tolmerian. You could count on him to crack a joke in any dire situation.

‘My chronometer put’s it at half six’ Lucien called back, ‘you might want to get your suit recalibrated.’

‘Is that an offer?’ Tolmerian spoke as he let loose a volley of fire his mazer gun, ‘you could at least buy me a drink first.’ The Vox erupted in a hail of laughter as the last of the Meat-shields and tenth company enjoyed the brief moment of humour. They were few and far between these days.

Tenth Company had been dispatched to secure the planet of Skatrax, or what had become known as the gateway to the Tazomir Gauntlet, or the gateway to the Outlaw Stars. The Red Templars were tasked with taking control of the gauntlet in order for the Conglomerate’s military forces to flush out the separatists and reclaim the Outlaw Stars. ’Get in close and show these bastard traitors the wrong end of your blades.’ The voice belonged to tenth company’s commanding officer, Captain Arthal. ‘It is only the Iron Knights’ fifth company’ he yelled, ‘they are piss poor at close combat!’

Lucien opened a pouch on his belt and withdrew a small crystal bottle with the word “Dior” engraved into it. He inserted the contents of the bottle into one of his powered armour’s combat drug dispensers, fortunately his supply of Red Mist had run dry yesterday, and clicked the button to release the liquid through his helmet’s air supply. His heart began to beat faster as the aroma tickled his nose. Blood coursing through his veins, making his already incredible physical abilities even greater. As the blended smell of almonds and jasmine danced with vanilla, jacaranda and caraway he could feel himself becoming lighter, almost as if the scent were lifting him off his feet.

For Lucien, these strange elixirs had become combat narcotics. Each one had a different effect, this one was a particular favourite. It altered his perception of events; everything came to him in slow motion, giving him the ability to evade every attack. His only problem was the effect didn’t last long. He had at most two minutes of use from the elixir, and five before his body entered withdrawal. These elixirs weren’t magic potions or drugs created in a lab, no they were simple bottles of perfume that somehow had profound effects on Lucien. Lucien was an oddity, every Jaeger regiment had one. The Black Hawks regiment has a medic that injected various types of hydrocarbons into his blood stream. Give him paraffin and he became the smartest person in the galaxy, kerosene gave him herculean strength, we learned the hard way not to let him near any diesel.

Lucien leapt over the barricade and rushed towards the heavy weapons encampment, bullets flying past him in slow motion. To his fellow Jaegers he was a blur, a gale force wind of purple and blue armour. As Lucien neared the enemy; he unsheathed his twin blades, Romulus and Remus, before making the final push to bury them into the chest of the Iron Knights’ Fifth Company Captain ‘Die you treacherous pig.’

The captain let out a warbled cry as blood filled his throat and Lucien became a hurricane of fury; he ducked and weaved avoiding small arms gunfire, combat knives, and the short range blast of a Fusion Gun. Time however, was not Lucien’s friend. The timer on his display read 045; he had less than a minute before the perfume’s effect wore off, and it wouldn’t be long before withdrawal set in and robbed him of any use that he had. He made short work of the Heavy Weapons team in the emplacement with 20 seconds to spare; only to meet a member of the Iron Knights’ first company, a veteran in the heavy Ironclad armour. The veteran in black armour was slow but he could hit Lucien like a runaway freight train, and he was armed with two wrist mounted hell-guns and a set of twin thunder talons. His opponent made the opening move and barrelled into Lucien with his armoured bulk and pushing him through the thick slab of plascrete and further into the emplacement. Plascrete was great for defence, but when you take a hit from the human equivalent of the Flying Scotsman, it can cause a bit of damage.

Lucien picked himself up, his heads up display flashing damage icons on his armour and informing him that he had broken three ribs, along with five-seconds of time left. He tried to rush the armoured behemoth before him but fell short when the Iron Knight’s hell-guns belched twin streams of white hot flames, nearly cooking him in his armour. Lucien’s time was running out; the last few seconds of elixir time had run out, he now had minutes to beat the giant in black armour before he was all but useless. Lucien rushed to close the distance but met the end of the veterans twin thunder talons. As Lucien’s life ebbed away, the Veteran spoke ‘Die you treacherous pig!’