by Bear Ross
“A fine day for a match, what say you, Honored Mikralos?” Beliphres said.
“We say it will be a fine day when it is over, Honored Beliphres, despite your flubbing,” Mikralos said. “Is your being in position? The alternate solution?”
“Indeed, he is,” Beliphres said. “He has company, as well. The Masamune offspring.”
“A wise contingency,” Mikralos said. “We cannot have these underbeings getting out of step.”
Mikralos looked to the Ninety-Nine guard at the entrance to his viewing pod, and strobed his running lights at the being. The armored trooper nodded, pulling back the chain curtain to the pod. Prath entered the stretched sphere of a room, his height causing him to duck through the metal-veiled entrance.
The Ascended made his formal greeting to Mikralos, then turned to the unfamiliar Gatekeeper in the room.
“Ah, Master Prath,” Mikralos said, “allow us to introduce the Honorable Beliphres, Recovery Operations Director for the Fifth Gate Zone. Beliphres is entrusted with the rejuvenation of that zone's economy after the unfortunate containment bombardment.”
Prath bowed and extended his up-facing palm in greeting to the newly-introduced Gatekeeper.
“Ascended, we understand you are the crew chief for the Kramer pilot,” Beliphres asked.
“Indeed, I am, Honored Beliphres,” Prath answered.
“A most unusual configuration, your mech,” Beliphres said. “One can see elements of a cargo loader, here and there, but it seems to be hacked and pasted onto the bones of a dissimilar chassis. It is not a beauty contest winner, but one can see the utility in such a design. Was this... intentional?”
“Indeed, it was,” Prath said. “Honored Mikralos was generous in his assistance, and we utilized the best components available to us in the abbreviated time.”
“We are intrigued, Master Ascended” Beliphres said, twirling a claw in amusement. “Tell us, when your pilot is killed tonight, what are your plans for further employment? We are considering forming an arena sports organization of our own, once certain domestic troubles are... settled.” Beliphres’s chassis lights pulsed slow and smooth shades of purple.
“I...” Prath said, pausing to find the right words, “I do not foresee the death, or defeat, of my pilot, Honored Beliphres. She is quite the skilled contestant. A good shot, too, so I'm told. Incidentally, were there not a series of building fires in your sector, a few days ago? What was the cause of that disturbance? Nothing untoward or unseemly, I hope.”
Mikralos smirked at the mocking, extra-formal concern in the Ascended’s voice, directed to Beliphres. Cheeky primate, Mikralos thought.
“A minor matter,” Beliphres said, “soon to be resolved, Master Ascended, worry not. Incidentally, we are quite sure your pilot will not live through the match. Call it... a hunch. Regardless of her fate, we would retain your services after the business of this execution is concluded. You can expect an agreement to be forwarded to you, and you will, of course, sign it. We shall contact you, shortly.”
Beliphres waved a claw in dismissal. The Ninety-Nine guard placed his glove on Prath's' shoulder. Prath bowed to Mikralos, who acknowledged the gesture with the flit of a silver tentacle, and excused himself.
“Your charming personality never ceases to amaze,” Mikralos said to his fellow Gatekeeper.
“Oh, we know how to handle beings of his sort, Mikralos,” Beliphres said. “After a minor period of adjustment, he will come around. A hobbling here, a castration there, and the Ascended will happily comply. We are nothing if not persuasive.”
Prath parted the curtain of Mikralos’s privacy chains and found himself in the viewing pod's antechamber, stunned. They weren't even trying to hide it, he thought. I'm already passed on, like property, to a slave master. Insanity.
He turned to one of the Ninety-Nine guards at the hallway entrance.
“Selfsame requires comms with ‘The Future, The Way,’ priority utmost,” Prath said.
The trooper's black eyes narrowed as the Ascended spoke in fluid Niner dialect, and his hand went to the butt of his pistol. Prath put his large hands up in a non-threatening manner. The Ninety-Nine's partner made sure his master Mikralos wasn't listening through the curtain, and joined them.
“Negative, Ascended. Comms not necessary,” the second Ninety-Nine bodyguard said. “Subject already inbound to this pos.”
Prath smiled.
“Well, if you gentlebeings don’t mind, then,” Prath said, “I’ll just go find my seat, and watch the show.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
BERVA PROXIMA ARENA
MAIN PERFORMANCE FLOOR
Jessica Kramer and her mech, NoName, screamed from the starting circle, a tumbling path of columns left in her wake. As she slammed into them, one after the other, the strained snarl on her face became more and more severe. Altering her orientation so NoName’s hull fit between the columns seemed to help, but slowed her down.
She throttled back, and a klaxon sounded. Incoming.
Sidestepping, she sought cover behind a fresh, untumbled row of the vertical cylinders. A missile spiked into her last position, a dozen feet away, blasting the rubble and sand down to the arena’s steel floor plates.
She brought her indirect cannon online. She could hear the weapon’s hydraulics engage somewhere behind her.
“NoName, bracket his last known position. Triangle of thumper rounds around it,” Jessica said. “Fire.”
The crowd roared as the indirect cannon over her mech's right shoulder swiveled into position. Three deep concussions, one after another, thudded through her armor. Shoot and scoot, girl, she thought. Make him keep moving, too.
The engagement pattern continued for what seemed like an eternity, but a timer in her cockpit display showed the passing of only a couple minutes. The incessant harassing fire added to her tension. Every time Jessica popped her jets to get take a peek at Masamune through this damned sea of posts, he would launch another missile at her, or send a light burst of suppressive cannon fire her way. He was somewhere around the center pyramid, judging by the angles of attack and the trail of broken columns. A straight shot to the middle, she thought. Is he even trying?
Jessica mashed the controls to the left when NoName's alarms went off, once again, warning of another incoming missile strike.
This time, she wasn’t quick enough, and the missile slammed home. The force of the explosion was countered by two segments of her cockpit's reactive armor. The timed counter-detonations dampened the incoming strike, but it was deafening, having a flat charge go off next to her head. Recovering, her nerves raw with adrenaline, she kept moving, then stopped.
I’ll have to work my way to the center, she thought, and hopefully, he expends his load-out by then.
Her momentary pause over, she boosted hard for the central pyramid. Though she thought she was now well-practiced at moving through the crowded array at a slight angle, her armor's hull skipped off an errant concrete rod. Her speed sent NoName careening as the arena’s crowd roared and camera drones flashed their strobes. A dozen columns toppled as she tumbled, scattering into segments that broke even more nearby columns. She righted her armor. The cascading domino effect left her surrounded by a wide clearing of toppled column segments.
“Great,” she said.
Jessica used her controls to grab a fallen segment from the ground just as NoName warned again of another inbound missile.
“How many of those gate-damned things does he have, NoName?” she shouted.
“Starting load of top-attack missiles was six,” the computer said. “One remaining, Pilot, after this one impacts.”
“Hey, bot, see all these pieces of armor lying on the ground around us?” she said. She bobbed the piece of concrete in NoName’s hand like a ball. “How about this one?”
NoName made a small twitch in his swirling console feedback icon.
“Reference understood, Pilot,” NoName said. “Calculating. Throw... now.”
&n
bsp; The incoming missile, its homing sensor focused on the mech, was confused by the flying rubble coming at it. Seeing the piece of debris as a closer extension of its original target, it exploded twenty feet in the air. A boom echoed from a gray and tan puff of smoke, and chunks of column and missile fragmentation fell to the arena floor.
“Grab another one of those segments and keep it with us,” Jessica said. “Just in case.”
“Acknowledged, Pilot,” NoName said.
Masamune Kyuzo's external cameras looked back at the trail of bashed and battered columns in his wake, a swath cut direct from the starting circle to the center pyramid. It was like wading through a tall thicket, only one made of concrete. The arenakeepers must have arranged things for maximum inconvenience, and it was slow going.
He knew he was keeping Kramer busy, snapping off a missile every time she tried to get her bearings, or sending a burst her way from a secondary cannon mounted in the old battle claw. The cannon was empty, now. He had plans for the last missile, though, if things went wrong.
His mech’s sensors chirped inside his head, the signals registering through his bionic interface. Kyuzo shunted his mech to the side by reflex. Three heavy explosive shells landed where he had been, moments before, leveling the columns like a wind-burst knocks down straw. The shockwave threw him into another pillar, and it collapsed, as well. That computer of hers was damned good, he thought.
They were playing cat and mouse, across the arena, waiting for one another to line up for a long shot down the alleyways of the column rows. He kept the heavy laser charged, diverting just enough power to keep his jets and claw warm.
She was out there, somewhere among the tumbled barricades, but he knew she was impatient. Her urge to charge into close combat would overcome any good advice her computer was feeding her. She would come, soon, he thought. Patience.
His view through his sensors peered up at Mikralos's armored viewing bubble, high above the stands. He kept the firing solutions for the last missile on a constant update cycle.
Gates help you if anything happens to my Kenji, Gatekeeper, he thought.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
BERVA PROXIMA ARENA
LOADING DOCKS
Blues was a Model Ninety-Nine, and not used to wearing a standard security uniform like his base-model brethren. It chafed and bound in different places than his normal utility jumpsuit. It was nice to have a sidearm on, again, though. He had not had much pistol time since his emergence from the bioprinters and rudimentary training, years ago. His usual position in the drone hangar at the Sixth Gate Zone barracks was an unarmed billet, and it felt good to have some steel on his side.
Model Ninety-Nine Drone Technician 83556-a, his official designation, passed the time by snapping and unsnapping the retention hood on his holster as he replayed a Muddy Waters tune in his head. He loved the specialized sub-genre of Fourth-Gate music, which is why he had the normally-forbidden nickname of ‘Blues.’
Just as Nolo’s encrypted message stated, he found himself alone and undisturbed at the loading docks here at the rear of Berva Proxima. No standard being on the staff gave him a second look, and the other Nines avoided making eye contact with him. They all had their purpose in this, and they knew it. No communication was necessary, beyond arrival of The Future, The Way.
And here he was, Blues thought.
Blues guided the large armored transport with hand signals, beckoning it to back up to the loading dock. As the rear of its hull touched the loading dock’s polymer bumpers, a porter-bot emerged from its charging portal in the side of the dock wall. Blues snapped the holster’s hood forward by reflex as the machine fussed at him.
“No deliveries are scheduled at this time, gentlebeing,” the robot said. “Especially during a match.”
The dock drone flashed a holographic display of the upcoming deliveries.
“Ident and loading manifest, Nine,” the bot demanded. “Priority utmost.”
Blues shot the bot through its camera sensor cluster, then put two more heavy rounds into its torso. The labor machine crumpled, sparks shooting from the new holes in its chest.
The back hatch of the armored transport dropped like a guillotine blade, and the Headhunter emerged from the back of the transport. He was serpentine, armored death on foot.
“Hey, Blues,” the Headhunter said, waving a friendly buzzsaw arm at the drone technician.
“Greet,” Blues said, barely able to move at the sight of such fluid lethality.
The giant, red cyborg ripped the loading dock doors down with a swipe of one of his larger claw arms. His mechanical form poured into the cramped service hallways of the arena.
Blues watched as sparks and flame followed the Headhunter up the corridors. Ruined power lines and security cameras torn from the walls were the only traces left behind as the Headhunter disappeared from view, moving far too fast for something that big.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
BERVA PROXIMA ARENA
MAIN PERFORMANCE FLOOR
Jessica Kramer swore as the last salvo depleted her thumper cannon's ammunition without causing any significant damage to Masamune, or so NoName told her. She succeeded in flushing out the red and white mech, though. Masamune could no longer hide behind the central pyramid.
Time for an anchor shot, or two, she thought, and then the blade comes out.
NoName's sensor tower popped up at regular intervals, relaying data that he was close, but the gate-damned columns had something in them that cluttered the signal. He was nearby. The heavy direct-fire cannon over her other shoulder was ready.
Zigging and zagging, the blast from her jets causing the columns on either side to tumble, she continued to hook in the long way, trying to arc behind where she thought the target was. She was making her way past the center pyramid, jinking and evading, trying to keep herself from giving Masamune a direct shot with that laser he was packing.
NoName buzzed a proximity alert at her, the target lining up for an instant as Jessica tore through the cylinders. Damn, closer than I thought.
She jammed her controls back, trying to swing her deployed cannon barrel between the columns. As she brought the weapon to bear, the concrete cylinder to her left turned bright green, then exploded.
Through the vaporized dust, she saw the verdant line track to her armor. The laser grew brighter, and carved through NoName's shoulder, boiling the thumper cannon off in chunks. She ducked and rolled, trying to get out of the kill zone.
She fired her cannon down the lane, stitching a pair of hits into Masamune's legs. His mech fell to one knee, but as she lined up a shot on his cockpit, he pulled a column down in front of him, disrupting the attack. The round impacted on the pillar, splitting it in half in a cloud of concrete chips and dust. Masamune's jets pulsed, and his mech shot sideways, out of her sights.
Jessica continued to pour cannon fire in the direction of his travel, blowing random pillars to pieces as she held the triggers too long. She yelled in frustration.
“Damn it, this is ridiculous,” she said. “Fire up the chainsword, NoName.”
“Recommend additional distance engagement, pilot,” NoName said. “Competitor's threat capability is still—”
“I can take him, NoName,” Jessica said, interrupting the battle computer. “You saw how close he was. Ready the blade. Now.”
Chapter Sixty
BERVA PROXIMA ARENA
UPPER DECKS
Skreeb Fourth-Hatched looked over the assembled heavy sniper rifle, making one last check that the barrel was headspaced properly, the scope was aligned, and the ammunition magazine locked in tight to the receiver.
He took a puff from his arm's vaporizer, breathed it out, then gazed down from his high vantage point at the death match happening below. From his perch in an empty camera turret’s protective socket, Skreeb had a wide view of the interior of Berva Proxima arena. The two opposing mechs had cut wide, sweeping paths through the arena’s arrangement of thousands of columns.
Neither one was doing bad, or good, so far as he could tell. Skreeb recoiled when the missile strike hit Kramer’s cockpit dead-on, the majority of the arena’s audience gasping in similar alarm at the direct impact. Good thing she had that reactive stuff, he thought.
When the Desecrator nearly bought it from those indirect fire rounds, it caused a similar reaction in him and the rest of the viewing crowd. Not a bad match, after all.
The human child lay in the corner, exhausted after hours of sleeping and crying at random intervals. He understood they did that a lot, in their formative years. It was annoying, and he didn't see how the species survived with such obnoxious pests for young. The thing was awake, now, and sniffling through its plasti-fabric gag.
“What’s the matter, human?” Skreeb said to the Masamune child. “Explosions from the match wake you up?”
The human child tried to speak through the gag. Skreeb ignored it, and went back to viewing the death match below. He was just waiting for the signal from Beliphres to tip the scales. The boss had been very specific: Kramer wasn't allowed to walk out of here, or even leave wounded. She had to die.
“You'd better hope your pa comes through, pink-thing,” Skreeb called back the human child. “Beliphres might make your daddy watch while he puts you through the shredder. If you're lucky, it will be head-first.” He took another drag from his forearm vapor module, and felt the smoke soak into his gills.
Skreeb pulled back from his vantage point overlooking the battle, observing the pitiful thing with disgust. It was crying again.
“What's your problem?” Skreeb said. “What is it now, you hair-covered little vermin? The match is just getting good.”
The gag on the human child's mouth blocked the words, but the fervent squirming was indication enough.