Defiance

  “Pilot Kramer, This Units is charged with your protection,” the Arkathan battle computer said. “You were not reacting in a sufficient manner. Increasing power to thrusters. Prepare for acceleration.”

  Dodging another long stab from a whipsaw arm, Jessica rotated her mech's torso. She forced NoName to hold on to the hammer with just one arm, disengaging the grip of her other armored hand. She wrapped up the second extended whip arm before Melino could retract it.

  “I am reacting, you stupid bot! Give me the controls!”

  Jessica locked Melino's long, segmented limb under her own, and felt the hum of its vibroblades chatter against her hull. She continued her twist at the waist, pulling him closer.

  “Now, stomp it! Give me some thrust, and light him up!” she shouted.

  “Inquiry. Stomp what?” NoName asked.

  “The jets, gate-damn-it, the jets!” Jessica raved. “Burn this guy's arm off with the back jets while I have him tangled up!”

  “Colloquialism understood. Engaging,” NoName said.

  “Oh, tell me this is not happening,” Jessica said. NoName overheated the turbine's output, and a third of the captured arm melted and fell as Jessica's jets went through it like a blowtorch through a worm.

  The drone cameras surrounding the two mechs all flicked their camera flashes in synch, capturing the attack for the replay feeds.

  “Now we reel him in. Slip our free arm up his burned-off tentacle, and pull. That’s right, NoName, keep pulling and twisting,” Jessica said. “Get ready. We're going to spike him.”

  The burning remainder of Melino's arm flailed, slapping against her cockpit glass before disappearing from view. Jessica ignored it, concentrating on her system of incremental twists and pulls. She brought the black and purple mech in closer.

  “Pilot,” NoName said. Damage signals flared from her legs and back.

  “Not now, damn it,” Jessica said through gritted teeth. “Prepare to reroute plasma to the hammer.”

  “Pilot, there's—”

  “Stand by, I said!” she shouted. “Ready...”

  Melino's mech was fighting it, but NoName’s heavier construction helped pull the enemy mech in closer. Jessica started to rotate the hammer, edging the sharp end of the shaft towards the enemy's Lower hull. If she did it right, she could run him through, puncturing his reactor.

  The purple mech edged closer, its jets glowing, thrusting hard to maintain the distance, trying to avoid the hammer's spiked pommel. She grinned, ready to skewer her opponent.

  Without warning, Jessica's autopilot lights came on, then her hammer wasn't there at all. Melino's good arm, which still held her bgdh-1, retracted, sending her battle implement sailing over his shoulder. The crowds erupted in bellowing surprise.

  “NoName!” Jessica said. “You... just let go of our only weapon, you stupid, idiotic... chip-for-brains!”

  “Enemy mech’s damaged arm's exterior vibrospikes were still functional, pilot,” NoName said, “and were inflicting mounting injury to This Unit as proximity increased. Calculations determined—”

  “Shut up, NoName, or Judah, or whoever the void you are,” she said. “Stand down! I'm calling the gate-damned shots, here.” She slammed an override button on her console. NoName's voice muted with a subdued chirp, but his targeting displays and indicators still registered on her cockpit's interior screens.

  Both of Melino's arms shot out at her, trying to stab her as she charged in. She dodged the damaged stub, but the maneuver put her into the path of the longer, claw-tipped appendage. It raked across the top of her hull, carving a groove into the side of her transparent canopy armor. She and Melino locked eyes. A maddened, rictus grin was on his face as he worked the controls in a frenzy. She could see the combat drugs streaming into his system from neon-lit lines.

  She trapped the damaged arm again, yanking his mech into her. She initiated a spinning back kick, the jets in that leg adding their power to the movement. The arena's audience streaked across her field of view as the rotating acceleration crushed her back into her seat.

  NoName’s heavy heel sank into the target mech's chest armor, ripping off the damaged arm at the shoulder. The purple mech toppled again, charred parts of the segmented arm scattering across the floor. He landed with a long, tumbling skid, and his own autopilot lights came on. If this had been a one-on-one death match, now would be the time to deliver the killing blow. This was just a fancy Light Exo match, though, and there were two more mechs to face. Melino was stunned, and could wait. She needed that hammer back.

  A pulse of jets carried her over to the weapon, where it lay on the arena’s steel floor. There were four grooves gnawed into the handle from Melino's vibroclaws, but the plasma lines to the hook and spike appeared intact. Damned half-brained computer and its 'calculations,' she thought, hefting the warhammer in her mech's giant hands.

  Melino's shattered, shell-shocked chassis attempted to right itself, its autopilot lights still engaged. An explosion and roar of the crowd drew her attention to the Wardancer and Sixthson.

  The battle was not going well for Flevver and his trashcan mech. Vicious gouges from Kierra's plasma blades covered the squat mech's patched hull. Mech parts littered the area around the two walking combat vehicles, most of them Flevver's. Flaming stumps from a pair of cut-off arms billowed flame, and the little green mech wobbled on its thick, slashed-up legs.

  The Wardancer pulled her mech back into a crouch as the crowd cheered, the two plasma blades crossed in front of her. Jessica's external microphones picked up a thumping battle remix of a popular First Gate dance song coming from the Wardancer's speakers. The pink and white mech sprang forward, lopping off the last weapon arm from the junkmech with surgical precision. The buzzsaw fell to the floor of the arena, joining the rest of its fellow smoking components, and the audience roared.

  Ugh. Wardancers. Always thinking they were the stars of their own music hologram show, complete with soundtrack, she thought. Jessica flipped a toggle, engaging her own external speakers, and pulled out her protective mouthpiece.

  “Quit toying with him, fancy-pants,” she said, her words echoing across the arena. “Just get it over with, already.”

  The Wardancer finished the follow-through of her leaping assault, landing in a crouch. The android mech pilot turned her attention, and blades, to Jessica.

  Cockpit shields didn’t prevent a pilot from cooking to death, trapped in a paralyzed wreck. Flevver Sixthson did not waste the distraction Jessica provided, and punched out of his burning mech before the Wardancer could set up a final attack run. The dwarf humanoid’s splintered cockpit glass blew out with a muffled pop, and his dented ejection pod rocketed him to relative safety. Jessica and the Wardancer both watched the capsule corkscrew across the arena floor towards the crowd.

  The Wardancer, Kierra, raised one of her mech's plasma blades towards Jessica. A foreboding song played from the lithe mech's speakers, some grating revenge ballad Jessica never heard before.

  “Someone in this arena owes me a kill. You just took his spot, Kramer,” Kierra said.

  “You'll have to wait your turn, tiny dancer,” Jessica said. Melino’s my knockout. I'm going to finish off floppy arms, over there.”

  “Not today, daddy's girl,” Kierra said. The Wardancer charged up one of her blades, dumping extra power into it. Performing a vertical double spin, the tall mech hurled the energized weapon.

  Jessica hit her jets as Kierra released the blade, strafing to the left of the glowing short sword as it flew... far to her right?

  Jessica tracked the flying blade's laser-straight path... right through the torso of Melino's black and purple mech. The crowd roared as the autopilot lights blinked out, and the swaying mech crumpled. Kierra’s plasma blade did the same thing Jessica had intended for her own attack. Flames and dissipating plasma blew out of the back of the mech as its containment fields failed. Melino’s cockpit fell, with him still knocked unconscious, into the inferno.

  �
��Thanks for setting up my win,” Kierra said. “Maybe they’ll give you an assist on your feeble stats. Care to join him, Jessie?” The Wardancer’s music changed to a Skevvian track with a deep bass beat. It was brawling music. Jessica felt like obliging her. The roar of the crowd turned to calamity as flames and camera drones surrounded Melino.

  “Gate damn it,” Jessica said, pangs of conscience hitting her. “NoName, give me full power to the jets.”

  Kramer slammed on her thrusters as she boosted to Melino’s burning mech. She cocked back the massive hammer in NoName’s hands, swinging the weapon to and through the side of the burning wreckage.

  The arena’s crowd roared its approval as a glimmering egg shape soared from the flames at the massive impact, carrying the helpless Melino to safety. His blackened cockpit assembly trailed fiery debris as it bounced and slid across the mile-wide arena. It tumbled and skid to a rest against the far wall. There, a small squadron of crashbots surrounded it, pulling the human pilot to safety.

  Jessica used the claw end of the hammer’s head to pull Kierra’s giant-sized plasma blade from the wreckage, scattering it far behind her.

  “Pretty stupid, Kierra,” Jessica said, turning to face the beautiful android, “throwing away half of your—”

  The Wardancer’s mech vaulted at Jessica, her jets burning hard. Before Kramer could bring her hammer to bear, a soaring leap carried Kierra's sleek machine up and over Kramer's stout, up-armored cargo mech. The pink killing machine continued its jet-propelled sprint past her and the burning wreck, scooping up the plasma blade from the arena floor.

  Great, she thought. Jessica put her mouth guard back in, switched off her external speakers, and re-engaged NoName.

  “Hey, NoName,” Jessica said. “Think you can behave? Think you can let me be the pilot for a change?”

  “Adaptive behavioral circuits have been monitoring the combat situation during the shutdown,” NoName said. “This Unit theorizes it can assist without overriding pilot, except during extenuating—”

  “Yeah, OK, sure, just shut up, already,” Jessica said. “I need you focused, here, bot, not tugging at my elbow or quoting the thesaurus. Promise?”

  The battle computer signaled its acceptance with a double flash of the console panels.

  “Affirmative, Pilot,” NoName said.

  Kierra's mech paced back and forth in the distance, then she bent her mech into another attack crouch. The cloud of camera drones around her strobed their approval at the lithe pose. The Wardancer’s external music changed as another song blended into the sparring music. It was some Third Gate teeny-bopper crap from a few months ago that always forced Jessica to change her audio data-feed. Kierra must be trying to kill her with disgust.

  “Ok. Give me seventy-five percent power to the hammer,” Jessica said. “I want that thing glowing, but I still need some jets.” Her reactor stepped up its output, a deep whine spooling up behind her. She flicked on her speakers.

  “Kierra, that song's as old as your dance moves,” Kramer said.

  “Such a petty, ugly remark,” the Wardancer answered. “Just like you, Kramer.”

  Jessica pulled back from Melino’s fallen armor, edging her mech closer to the scattered wreckage of Flevver's jalopy. Her external cameras showed her mech's foot was next to the amputated chopsaw from Sixthson’s mech.

  “I'll show you petty,” Jessica said, “you worn-out excuse for a pleasure doll.”

  The Wardancers were a proud and lethal warrior cult, but they did not like being reminded they were originally created on Junctionworld as purpose-built comfort hosts. Long before the Gatekeepers took control, the Wardancer Rebellion ended with mass castrations of their overthrown enslavers, the K'Narr. Preserved containers filled with the offending members of that race still turned up from time to time in excavations and refurbished buildings, much to the consternation of the males in the construction crews.

  The poise and grace of the sleek mech's posture faded, and a blazing display of overpowered jets told Jessica that her verbal goading had worked. Screaming something incoherent and machine-like over her loudspeakers, Kierra charged, her plasma-edged swords swinging in wild loops.

  Kramer's mech shifted its weight from side to side, its glowing warhammer waiting for the incoming assault. As the distance closed, Jessica kicked up the foot next to the buzzsaw, sending it flying at Kierra's machine.

  The Wardancer sliced the buzzsaw clean in two, one of the fragments tearing a small rip into her hull. The improvised distraction kept her from putting both blades into Jessica, but Kierra still carved a furrow up the left forearm of Kramer's mech.

  “I think we touched a nerve, NoName,” Jessica said.

  “Agreed, Pilot,” the computer responded.

  Wasting no time to recover, Kierra charged again. Jessica blocked a flying kick from the Wardancer, raking the warhammer's energized claw across the back of the attacking mech's leg. The pink mech's momentum carried it into another kick, spinning and smashing into Jessica's hip. Another reversal, and Kierra brought both plasma blades overhead, trying to skewer Jessica through her cockpit. Kramer brought her hammer up, blocking the twin thrusts. The two mech pilots grappled, cockpit to cockpit, neither one gaining the advantage, as plasma weaponry sizzled all around them.

  NoName threw an alert on the screen, showing Jessica a view from the lower abdomen's camera. Vicious spikes emerged from behind the Wardancer mech's shin covers. Despite the internal force fields, Jessica’s feet felt the impacts through the floor of her cockpit. Oh, void...

  Kierra hammered the undercarriage of NoName with repeated, close-in knee strikes, spearing and puncturing the hull with brutal force and frequency. Each fearsome blow made NoName’s hull sing, and the glowing force fields around her flickered.

  “NoName, what are those venting spikes doing?” Jessica demanded. “What’s up with the fields?”

  Before the computer could answer, Jessica felt a hot streak shoot up her own leg as a mech-sized spike entered the bottom of her cockpit, ripping the limb open from ankle to knee.

  Crying out in pain, she pivoted the mech's hull, trying to shield its punctured guts and her own skin. The bgdh-1's plasma spike pivoted as well, lopping off one of the Wardancer's mech hands with it. The charged plasma blade hit the arena deck plating, sizzling and sinking in halfway to the hilt, the severed pink manipulator still gripping it.

  NoName flashed a suggestion to turn the emergency rotation into a hip throw, and Jessica, pushing aside the pain, executed the plan. She sent the Wardancer to the ground using its own momentum, and the pink mech bounced a short distance away.

  Jessica reached down to her torn boot. Her fingers came back dark with blood. She could see the arena deck plates through her cockpit floor. She gritted her teeth against the mouth guard.

  “Oh, you're going to pay, you venting bi—”

  Kierra anticipated NoName’s charge, and rolled and boosted her mech to the side before the giant hammer came down. The thunderous strike echoed through the arena interior, its sound matched only by the crowd. Another rained down. Then, another. The Wardancer’s force fields slowed her down, but her speed and grace helped her to keep evading the furious hammer-falls.

  Jessica was losing blood. The hammer’s impacts were getting sloppy. She wished her flask was still full, so she could drain it.

  “Hold still, you gate-damned—”

  The Wardancer mech, still scrambling, boosted its jets to gain some distance, carrying her away from Jessica and NoName in a long arc. Kramer's vision closed in, her headlight from blood loss as the adrenaline subsided. Her hands trembled around the control yokes.

  “Pilot?” her battle computer said.

  “Ye... yeah, NoName?”

  “The day. What day is it? Answer immediately,” NoName said.

  “Day? Isss... Third... no,” Jessica said, slurring and on the verge of blacking out. “Seventh Gate Day? Dunno. Sleepy.”

  “Determination: Cognitive functions
impaired,” NoName said. “Override engaged.”

  The mech's autopilot lights came on, but Jessica found herself in a dream state, unable to focus. There was an audible gasp from the crowd as the exterior running lights signaled NoName's takeover, then a roar of outrage as NoName began maneuvering in a matter far more advanced than a regular command module.

  The hooting and cat-calls of the mob slid over her, and she sneered at the noise. Jessica tasted rubber in her mouth, and spit out the guard. Her eyes rolled back, and things turned surreal.

  She saw NoName point the bgdh-1's head towards Kierra again, mimicking Jessica's gesture to Melino at the beginning of the match. The Wardancer matched the visual challenge with her remaining blade. Limping, his leg damaged and trailing smoke, NoName twirled the hammer like a baton, bidding the warrior woman to come forth with his other hand. Kierra obliged, her jets blazing. The crowd roared, part elation, part outrage, as the blinding flash of drive plasma devoured the distance between them.

  The Wardancer tried to arc again over the cargo mech's cockpit, this time leading with her blade. NoName evaluated, crouched, then shot out with the hammerhead's rear blade, catching her in midair like a gaffed fish.

  Kierra's mech landed hard, bouncing against the arena floor, but NoName maintained control, refusing to let her get away. The computer punctured the plasma-charged hammer's rear beak into the captured mech's back. The slicing, slithering motion of the glowing claw ripped away Kierra’s main jets, grounding her. Cheers erupted as flames and debris flew from the Wardancer mech’s damaged shoulders.

  The pink mech rolled to the side before NoName could land another blow. Kierra’s machine tried a sweeping kick to the solid, sturdy mech’s leg, to no avail. An air of desperation seemed to surge through the Wardancer’s movements, and the crowd’s initial howls of outrage turned to cheers as Kierra regained her feet.

  The jarring motion of the fierce combat roused Jessica to her senses, as if out of a dream. The blur of the last few moments swam before her eyes.