Waiting is Warfare

Rain poured down in thick sheets, dense enough to severely limit visibility. I couldn't see the enemy troops--not a single soldier, tanks, or mech--but I knew they were out there ever since my radar and communications equipment stopped chattering. The storm battered my cockpit's canopy with seventy kilometer winds, slapping rain against the clear surface in wave after wave of wet exhalations, to no effect. My Avalanche was unmoved.

I tapped my fingers against the control panel. Every storm had a time signature and if I could find it, I could fight in time with it, giving me a slight advantage. The problem was that I couldn't find it. The rapid-fire lightning strikes cracking across the sky were too close to missile explosions, the low rumble that followed sounded too much like fighters entering atmo. My body kept interrupting my mind, reacting to the stimuli of battle that hadn't started yet.

Unable to find the beat of the storm, I finally clenched my fingers into a fist and waited in one-sided silence.