Hunters of the Deep

by Randall N Bills

  Within the ’Mech’s bowels, the initiation sequence terminated and the reactor spun online; power surged in abundance, yet still lay trapped for the moment. Leaning slightly forward, he keyed the identification sequence. Her warm voice filled the cockpit with its embrace.

  “Voice Identification, initiated.”

  “Petr Kalasa, ovKhan of Delta Aimag, Spina Khanate, Clan Sea Fox.”

  “Voice authorization confirmed.”

  Petr knew most warriors did not even notice the mechanical voice as they went through the motions of unlocking their ’Mechs. For Petr, however, the voice was part and parcel of his Tiburon. The first sign of the power about to be given into his hands: power to destroy, to kill . . . yet the power to create and build.

  He bathed in the sound, luxuriated in it.

  “Code Identification, initiated.”

  “There is always a price to be paid.” Despite the constant prodding by his aide, Petr knew well the price to be paid for any action. Any warrior held such knowledge, or he did not live long; any merchant courted the knowledge, or he failed. As both, and leader of an Aimag, he was doubly aware of it. Confusion swirled within for a moment at the doubt that surfaced in his mind; he wrenched it about with the force of his will. Of course, I do.

  “Code authorization confirmed. Command is yours.” The voice went silent and power poured into the cockpit, igniting a rainbow of colors across the control panel. Leaning slightly forward once more, he brought the various ’Mech systems online. A quick glance through several screens showed weapons fully loaded and charged, while the armor schematic portrayed a pristine picture, ready to protect against the hellish energies about to be unleashed.

  Almost squirming with glee, Petr settled back into the command couch, grasped the throttle in his left hand and moved it partially forward while using the foot pedals to direct the movement. The vibrations welling up from the first footfall spread a savage grin across his face.

  Too long since he sat in this seat. Too long since his own Aimag encountered another, thus initiating the Rituals of Combat. Too long had this warrior been gone from his home port.

  Petr returned to his true calling.

  Petr waited impatiently for his turn. Staring out the forward viewscreen at the one-on-one duel unfolding a half kilometer distant, he could almost taste the tang in the air from discharged particle projector cannons and the cordite from exploded missiles and spent autocannon shell casings.

  “I see Beta Aimag has improved since our last meeting.” Jesup’s voice exploded in the neurohelmet, dislodging Petr’s thoughts.

  “And I see your sarcasm is improving as well.”

  “Of course, oh great ovKhan.”

  “Regardless of my distaste for Sha, they are Sea Fox Clansmen. Of course they would improve. It has been almost three years since our last chance to test our mettle against them, of—”

  “There,” Jesup interrupted, as the arm of Torrin’s Mad Cat III tore away under the horrific assault of twin hypersonic Gauss rounds from the Beta Sun Cobra. The fight ended immediately, the Beta warrior victorious.

  Petr gripped his joysticks, infuriated by the loss.

  “Stravag.”

  “Torrin or the Beta MechWarrior? After all, the other warrior clearly held the upper hand.”

  “You, Jesup.”

  As usual, Jesup’s loud laughter actually managed to loosen the tight knots across his shoulders and neck, to cool his temper rather than boil it.

  “Come now, oh magnificent ovKhan, surely Torrin will learn from this exercise. He will not be so quick to confront a superior foe next time without using the terrain to his advantage, quiaff?”

  “Aff,” Petr managed to growl out. A smile even peeked out momentarily from the thundercloud of his face following another merry burst of Jesup’s laughter.

  How does he manage not to be killed by my own hand?

  “It would seem to be my turn,” Jesup said casually.

  Petr once more gripped the joysticks, wanting, needing to take his place.

  “Seize the day, Jesup.”

  “Aff, ovKhan,” the response came back, for a wonder free of its usual embellishments.

  The Thor next to Petr’s Tiburon lumbered forward and quickly picked up momentum; it could not match his ’Mech for mobility, but considering its seventy tons, Jesup’s Thor held respectable speed.

  Almost a kilometer and a half distant, a Beta Warhammer IIC began to make its way forward. Though Jesup’s opponent was considerably outside his weapon range, Petr couldn’t help but bring up the targeting reticule on the forward screen; centering on the enemy, he zoomed in, waiting, hoping for it to flash the golden tone of a lock. After a moment, he pulled the reticule off target, lifted away his hand. Jesup would claim this victory, not him.

  His would be waiting, as he knew it would from the beginning, against Sha Clarke.

  Strange.

  The difference between watching combat and finding yourself in the thick of it was like reading about an interstellar jump and experiencing the heart-stopping, wrenching reality of having the fabric of your existence torn asunder, then to be pummeled and prodded until you reappeared light-years distant. The two could not compare.

  For Petr, combat consisted of a series of time dilations that spun down and back in jerking scenes that could be disorienting, to say the least. Fifteen minutes could pass between one eyeblink and another.

  Now, as he watched the fight between Jesup and his Beta opponent unfold in the distance, the time dilation gyrated in the opposite direction, the minutes elongating until each second felt like a life’s age, each minute a living, breathing epoch, ready to devour him with his own impatience. His own need to fight.

  Two cerulean beams of man-made lightning cut only swaths of air, as Jesup used the Thor’s superior mobility to keep just a microsecond ahead of the Beta’s gross firepower. Even while jumping, Jesup managed to land several laser shots and half a barrage of missiles into the lower flanks of the Warhammer, burning and blasting away armor.

  A game of armor and firepower versus mobility. A game requiring the utmost from a warrior. A game he desperately hoped Jesup would win, tipping the balance of wins and losses firmly into Delta’s camp.

  A game he did not believe Jesup could finish.

  Another flurry of fire drew his eye once more. Azures, crimsons and flickering oranges filled the sky as the battle unfolded. Another leap with its jump jets launched the Thor across a rocky ravine, dropping it down desperately close to the Warhammer, but on its flank, where it would take precious seconds for the Beta ’Mech to turn in order to bring both PPCs to bear. The Thor unleashed everything at its disposal. Terrible energies washed over the Warhammer, stripping armor and shaking the behemoth as though it still stood in the storm only recently petered out.

  Though he appreciated the gutsy move, Petr winced at the oven he knew the Thor’s cockpit became with such weapons fire.

  Jump. Petr leaned forward. Jump. Tried to will it. “Jump,” he said out loud.

  Whether because, in his arrogance, he believed he had sufficiently damaged the Warhammer, or a moment’s hesitation brought on by the crippling heat, the reason did not matter; the Warhammer made the torso twist in almost superhuman time and unleashed cobalt fury before the Thor could escape. Both PPCs’ cascading energy converged on the already damaged right leg.

  Armor sublimated, liquefied, ran in sluggish rivulets, bared the internal structure to the sun-hot energies that destroyed the right leg bone with equal ease: the upper leg simply ceased to be. For a moment the Thor stood—a tree that had lost its battle against the logger but for a moment refused to yield, desperate and ashamed to give in to gravity.

  Petr imaged he could feel the impact of it slamming into the ground even at this distance.

  Petr’s fists slowly tightened until tendons creaked and the blood pounded in his forehead like the thundering of the Tiburon’s feet sprinting across the tundra. Now it would be up to him to tie
. An overall win was no longer possible.

  Pushing at the rage, unclenching his fists, he slowly brought it back under control. As any good Sea Fox merchant could tell you, at times a win was not possible. In such circumstances, a tie would have to do.

  And since defeating Sha would be a win in Petr’s book, it would more than do.

  13

  Tumbled Heights, Near Halifax

  Vanderfox, Adhafera

  Prefecture VII, The Republic

  14 July 3134

  “What other outcome did you expect?” Sha said, his voice a winter breeze wafting through the desert wastes of Petr’s heated cockpit.

  “Come now, ovKhan, we both know where this will lead. Accept it. Give in to the inevitable.”

  The almost imperceptible whiff of blood he previously smelled now screamed in his nostrils as a river of life streamed slowly down his right biceps from the shoulder wound. Petr hunched forward, trying to rest his right elbow firmly on the command couch armrest. He still needed to manipulate the joystick, but wanted to take as much weight off the shoulder as possible. Eddies of waste heat caressed the hairs on his legs and arms, while sweat drenched him, mingling with his blood, quickening its flow, hastening his eventual death.

  Using the foot pedals, he hunkered down a little more in the ravine, hoping the stone contained enough trace metals to throw off Sha’s magscan; the humidity might, might, soak up enough heat to fool a thermal scan as well . . . provided Sha didn’t simply stumble upon his hiding spot.

  “Petr,” that seductive voice crooned, using his first name for the first time, “why delay? Let us end these Rituals of Combat and we shall both view the final few pairings of the Trial of Bloodright; watch as my Beta warrior takes the Bloodname. A fitting capstone to Beta seizing the Rituals of Combat.”

  Petr would not be roused by Sha’s barbed words. After all, that was what got him into this mess.

  Though high in humidity, the day held the quality of emerging from a long darkness into the promise of a new tomorrow. Today spheroids would be out in droves, cleaning their cars and lawns, running errands, visiting friends, making quick plans for picnics and barbecues. The sun danced merry light across lush ground—verdant fields that spoke of a need to be happy, to enjoy the day and all its unspoken promises.

  “I know the promise I need fulfilled today,” Petr spoke softly, as he brought his Tiburon up to a full sprint of almost 120 kilometers an hour. The pounding rhythm of the run felt like the drumming beat of a Marik Jazzilues band he heard the last time they made a port of call, brought a smile to his face, as he began moving at an oblique angle to Sha’s oncoming Sphinx.

  He tapped through several maps to bring up the best topographical of the area, locked his threat assessment screen onto Sha’s ’Mech. Unlike most of the ’Mechs participating this day, both the Sphinx and his own Tiburon mounted medium- to short-range weaponry. As such, they would close to a ridiculously short distance before targeting could be sure and true.

  “So, ovKhan Petr, have you come to settle for a tie for Delta Aimag?” The calm of Sha’s voice emerged in his neurohelmet. The heat in his chest mimicked the burning within the heart of his Tiburon.

  “Why should I settle for a mere tie, Sha, when I can win?”

  “And how, ovKhan, can that occur? Have you created a new math to go with your recklessness?”

  Petr laughed, drenching the airwaves with sarcasm.

  The ’Mechs closed rapidly. Though considerably slower than his own ride, Sha’s Sphinx still held respectable speed. It also mounted massive armor, weighed twice as much as his Tiburon and mounted a mind-numbing ten extended-range medium lasers. Of course, that very firepower could be its undoing. It could fire only a fraction of them without overheating; firing them all would generate heat no number of heat sinks could dissipate safely, triggering an automatic shutdown—and Petr would hold the surat by the short hairs.

  It would come down to superior skill; though the Tiburon carried a far superior targeting computer, they both mounted weapons of the same range. Though each warrior angled for terrain, they would let fly their armaments at the same moments. The better hair-trigger finger, the better hand-eye coordination to line up a shot against such rapidly moving targets, would score first.

  At the last possible moment, Petr planted the Tiburon’s left foot on what he prayed would be firm ground. Stomped down on the left pedal and literally leaned to the left, the whine of the gyro mounted below his feet screaming to a crescendo that sunk into his lower jawbone joint—a painful, sympathetic vibration almost chattering his teeth as the ’Mech wrenched to the left in an amazing display of piloting skill.

  At the same moment, his right hand guided the targeting reticule onto the Sphinx. It flashed a golden hue and the soft chime of lock rang in his ear; his index finger caressed the trigger, setting off his primary targeting interlock circuit.

  A perceptual time dilation washed around him. Petr could practically feel the workings of his ’Mech. Almost became the energy surging through wiring toward the quartet of medium lasers waiting with barely concealed energy to savage a foe of his choosing; became the fusion reactor spiking its power output to compensate for the drain; became the targeting computer as it ran algorithms, plotting numerous solutions, choosing one and unleashing coherent beams of air-shattering strength; became bundles of photons as they slashed into the onrushing Sphinx like giant sun swords, carving off almost two tons of armor like a kitchen vibroblade cleaves off meat from a turkey at Sunday dinner.

  Reality returned in a rush of victory; the return assault missed completely, sending up multiple sprays of explosive steam as puddles and damp earth flash-heated under the onslaught.

  Petr hunched the Tiburon slightly and continued the almost breakneck zigzagging; he made his way toward a small copse. He finally responded.

  “I will win, Sha, because I will beat you.” His previous luxurious feeling peaked to a climax as his skills became one with his ’Mech. Repeated counterassault slashes of superheated photons failed to even stroke a touch across armor, much less do real damage.

  The small copse covered no more than an eighth of a kilometer on any one side, but it provided plenty of breathing space; that last volley came a little too close. Just like Jesup before him (even more so), one good slap from the Sphinx and all of his previous pinpricks against Sha would be for naught.

  “How like you,” Sha said. Petr hesitated, slowed slightly, struck by the timbre of Sha’s voice. Though computer reproduced, the voice managed to retain a quality of . . . what? Sadness? Regret? Suddenly he understood, and his rage seared his insides as though his ’Mech were overheating. Pity. Sha pitied him? Him!

  Without conscious thought, Petr manipulated the foot pedals and angled the Tiburon back around in a arcing sweep, building his speed back up, bringing him back toward Sha.

  That Sha would pity him!

  “Ah, come back to play, I see,” Sha said in his infuriatingly cool voice; he unleashed a sextet of lasers as the Tiburon cleared the copse, half of which ripped into the ’Mech’s legs like a beast with winter’s hunger savaging its first victim of spring. The damage schematic lit up across the bottom of the display—angry red smears that spoke of imminent black.

  “Stravag,” Petr cursed, riding the storm of damage as armor cascaded off his ’Mech, using the neurohelmet and its feedback keyed to the gyro to keep the Tiburon on its feet. Sha goaded him into it.

  He closed with the copse and then played me like an instrument. Try as he might, his rage only built—at himself, at the situation.

  “You see,” Sha continued, as he alternated salvos, filling the air with slicing beams of death; beams Petr barely managed to avoid . . . most of the time, “that is why you will ultimately fail. Yes, you have your successes. Great successes, I will give you that. However, you think only of yourself. You believe you act in the best interests of your Aimag, but you are mistaken. You act in your own interests. I could not goad you to such rash ac
tions if you thought of the honor your Aimag will lose this day because of your defeat. A tie would have been sufficient honor for both Aimags, but you think only of yourself. That is why you will ultimately be brought down. Any Sea Fox warrior who shows such selfishness will ultimately, must ultimately be brought down.”

  Petr gritted his teeth as another beam carved a furrow of dripping metal across his ’Mech’s torso; she hurt. The strangeness of the conversation almost made the battle surreal: the calm, counseling tone of Sha at odds with the metal-shattering destructive forces being unleashed.

  “You know nothing of me, Sha. I have always put my Aimag first.” Petr grunted as two of his corkscrewing short-range missiles splashed into the Sphinx.

  “But I do know you, ovKhan. Are we not taught to know our enemies as ourselves? No matter the battlefield, knowledge of one’s enemy is essential, or else how can you defeat him?”

  “Am I your enemy?”

  “Of course. Are we not fighting? Well, at least one of us is fighting. I am not exactly sure what you are doing.”

  It shouldn’t have, but the goading drove Petr over the edge. To have pity from this surat; to be insulted when Petr clearly displayed superior skills; to be called selfish by an ovKhan who rumor held disciplined for the slightest infractions; to be lectured about honor; to have been goaded into the open in the first place—Petr knew it for a goad as well, but could not stop it.

  He blanked out.

  Hitching his shoulder against the ache, Petr shook his head, felt like he was coming out of a drug-induced haze. Sha’s voice continued to drone in his ears, a beehive just outside the cockpit.

  “Come, Petr, I am sure it can be marked down as an error. A malfunction. My Aimag will not mention it. I am confident yours will not either,” Sha said.

  Mention what? He glanced at the damage schematic and his anger kindled once more; in addition to all the other damage, the Tiburon’s right arm no longer existed. A vague memory surfaced of blasting away the Sphinx’s left arm.