Iron Legion Battlebox

by David Ryker

  “Don’t speak too soon.”

  We pushed on through Notia until we came up on the bar that Everett and Alice were hanging out in.

  Outside there were four Trading Collective Mech parked up and dark. We approached slowly — they were all empty. But that meant that the pilots were inside the bar, too — and that was being kind to the place. It looked more like a collection of shipping containers all stuck together. Each was a different color, each as beat-up as the last. The door to the bar was just one of the container doors, differentiated only by the fact that it was ajar and a chain was hanging off it. The rest were all sealed with thick and ragged weld seams.

  Mac pulled the Alpha off to the right and set it up next to the TC rigs. I put Greg next to him and started to power him off, but stopped before I did. I couldn’t take my eyes off the Trading Collective Mech. What were they doing here? I got the ones who were out there patrolling, but there’s no way that the TC would be down here, just slumming it for a drink. But then again, I didn’t know much about them. Maybe they would… But it still wasn’t sitting right with me.

  I popped my hatch and started climbing out, pausing as I caught sight of where the bar was. It was in among what looked like houses — more like hovels — but there wasn’t much directly around it. It sat in a fork, exposed from three sides. It seemed like a weird place to lay low if you were trying to keep off everyone’s radar. There wasn’t much in the way of cover, and despite being an utter hellhole, it seemed pretty busy.

  “Greg?” I said quietly, leaning over the rim of the hatch, ready to climb out.

  “Yes, James?”

  “Stay alert, alright? I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

  “Yes, James.”

  “If we come barrelling out of there, I want this hatch popped and ready, got it?”

  “Yes, James.”

  I sighed, again wanting to say something nice — something to repair the rift between us. “Thanks.”

  We pushed in through the door, listening as it creaked on its ancient hinges and scanned the room. It was eight containers across and scattered with tables and chairs made from old shipping pallets, wire spools, and other junk. One guy with a beard was sitting on what looked like an old washing machine.

  I looked left, at the bar — a chunk of metal balanced on some barrels — and at the people standing at it. I was scanning for the TC pilots. Especially if there was an investigation in full swing over Roquefort, it seemed even stranger that they’d leave three pilots down here — unless they were off duty of course, but then I didn’t know why they’d have their Mech if they were. And they didn’t look like the riot-control Mech we’d just seen either. They were almost like F-Series, but they looked a lot more rounded, wider on the shoulders, with longer legs.

  The Federation produced a lot of the Mech in the galaxy, but not all. These were from a different maker, or they’d been heavily modified at least. Either way, they looked tough and ready to tangle if it came to it. I was hoping that if I could get an eye on the pilots, then I might be able to gauge what exactly we were dealing with. But there was no one wearing black and red.

  “Come on,” Mac said, pulling my arm. “They’re over here.”

  I turned to follow his eyes and caught Everett’s and Alice’s from across the room. They were set up in the corner near a back door, backs to the wall, facing outward. Mac circled the room and headed for their table.

  He nodded to them and pulled up a battered fold-out chair, sitting casually. I grabbed a wire spool from a nearby table and dragged it over. Alice was glowering at me. Everett looked indifferent, focused. She was leaning a little to the side, favoring her right. No doubt from the roughing up she’d had earlier, but I doubted she’d say anything to Mac. The less everyone knew, the better.

  Alice was staring at me, shaking her head. One job, Red, she said without talking.

  Mac was contented with scanning the room and Everett was giving us the silent treatment. Neither of them was happy we were here, but Mac’s logic was sound.

  Me and Mac are here to help. I scowled back at Alice. The TC have found Everett — turns out Roquefort was a Municipal Guard Detective. Did Everett — our Everett — say where she found him? What happened?

  Alice narrowed her eyes at me, measuring my expression. She said she went to one of their old haunts, asked if he was still around. He was. They said he was connected with the TC, but put them in touch anyway. Weird that he was a detective, and still doing grunt-work for Everett.

  I nodded, then stopped, conscious that if they looked, Alice and I were just staring at each other and nodding. There’s something going on with the TC — but maybe they’re just plain dirty. Mac and I saw some shit on the way over here — there’s unrest on Notia. The backbone of this place is the merchants, it makes sense the TC would be working with them.

  She pursed her lips. With, for… Either way, things are entwined here. There’s a couple of TC pilots here right now. Sitting a couple tables over from Smith. Alice’s eyes drifted across the room and settled on a table that three guys were sitting around. They weren’t in red and black, but had the same look that Roquefort did. The same black jacket. The same expression.

  Plainclothes? I looked back at her. And where’s Smith?

  He was waiting at a table near the back, slugging beers on his own. The pilots came in about an hour after him. About five after that, someone else walks in, checks around, makes a beeline for Smith, and then they both get up and head out through the door next to the bar. She shrugged a little.

  They left? Even in my head the surprise was clear in my voice.

  No, Everett went outside to check it out, but the door doesn’t let out anywhere. Must be a storeroom. They’re still in there. She scratched at a loose splinter on the table with her fingernail.

  How long? I asked.

  She sighed. Twenty minutes, maybe?

  And the pilots came in just before?

  She nodded.

  They drinking?

  Not alcohol.

  I chewed my tongue. On duty then — coincidence? Or do you think they’re here shadowing Smith?

  Looking to bust him? Her eyes met mine and stayed there.

  Or protect him. If the TC are involved with merchants like Everett, who’d have a wide pool of buyers to call on, then maybe they’re the ones feeding the Iskcara buyers to Smith. I checked over my shoulder and looked at the pilots. They were shooting glances at the storeroom door.

  And then watch over the deals for a cut of the profits? You think one’s going down right now? Her voice was pitching up, the cogs in her head turning. The chips were impressive. Just like a real conversation.

  Maybe, or just a taster. Making sure the goods are real before the real deal goes down, I said.

  So the TC are using their merchants to find buyers for Iskcara, setting them up with Smith and then chaperoning the deals. And then, what, he’s just killing them off and the TC are okay with it? But why — what does that accomplish? It makes no sense. They know that the buyers are getting killed off, so what the hell is the point of it all? Why keep passing buyers to him if they know he’s killing them off?

  I didn’t have an answer for that one, and Alice didn’t either. We stared at each other, trying to see it in one another’s faces, but both of us were coming up blank.

  “Ahem,” Everett said suddenly, turning toward us. “If you two are done staring longingly into each other’s eyes, Smith is moving, and we should, too.”

  I looked over to where Everett was facing and watched Smith walking out of the back room into the bar. The guy who was with him, an older guy with braided hair stopped, turned, and offered Smith his hand. Smith didn’t even acknowledge it, and after a second the guy with the braided hair withdrew it. He nodded to Smith, who grimaced in turn and then they parted. Smith went back to his table and sat down, and the guy with the braids left.

  Everett turned to Mac. “You want to tail him? See what you can get out of
him?”

  Mac nodded. “On it — oh, and Kepler?”

  “Yeah, Mac,” Alice said.

  “Out the door, turn left and stick to the wall. Your rig is about ten meters down.”

  “Got it.”

  He nodded, got up, and then slinked out without any fuss. No one looked or saw.

  Everett was in total command. “Kepler, you’re on Smith with me. Red?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you to do what you do best.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I need you to make some trouble — fuck things up a little.”

  I squinted at her. “I don’t understand.”

  She smirked. “Distract the guards, cause a scene, start a fight — do something to get their eyes off us, or at least give us a chance to get Smith out of here. Got it?”

  I bit my lip and swallowed. “Sure, I can do that.”

  She chuckled under her breath. “Of course you can. Alright, your mark.”

  17

  I pushed back from the table and stretched my back. “Showtime,” I said, looking at Alice and Everett in turn.

  The both looked at me with the sort of look that screamed idiot, but I just rubbed my hands together and turned away instead, still with no idea what I was going to do.

  As usual, though, it just sort of came to me out of nowhere. I was making for the table with the guards on it, hoping I might just sort of interrupt them and get them to toss me out for being annoying. But I didn’t get that far. When I was one table away, a big guy with a tattoo on his neck who was playing cards and had just won a hand burst out laughing and slid backward on his fold-out chair, straight into my path. My toe hooked around the back leg and I fell forward. The chair itself buckled and the guy sprawled sideways, grabbing at the table for stability. The wire spool-turned-tabletop separated from the base and flung cards and notes everywhere.

  He clattered to the ground, yelling, and the other players all leaped up in anger. I flung my hands out to break my fall and clattered elbows first into the legs of one of the chairs of the guards. They snapped under the force and he toppled backward, throwing his drink into the air.

  Dust plumed off the half-rotten floorboards and into my face. I coughed and spluttered, the guard half lying on me while the others all shoved their chairs back and got to their feet.

  My head was under their table, my Arcram digging into my ribs, when I felt hands on my shoulders. I couldn’t see anything. I was blind and choking on the dust.

  I felt myself being lifted and twisted, and then shoved against the table. Everyone was blurry, the dust stinging my eyes.

  “What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?” It was one of the guards, I guessed, his fists screwed up in my jacket. I could see other shapes around him — the other guards. The one who’d just gotten up off the ground and the third. In the background, I could already hear the card players arguing about whose hand it was and who was winning.

  “I, uh,” I started explaining, my focus slowly coming back. The guy in front of me swam into focus. Water was dripping off his ear and running down his forehead. No doubt he’d been soaked by the other guard’s flying drink. He shook me once, teeth bared, angular face and stuck-up black hair wavering as his head shook with rage.

  My eyes drifted past his ear to Alice and Everett, who were standing up and edging sideways along the wall toward Smith, who I could see was watching me — or at least watching the spectacle. Behind the guard, the argument over the cards and what sounded like some missing credits was heating up and beginning to envelop the surrounding tables.

  I caught Everett’s eyes and they widened. She made a cyclical motion with her hand to keep it going. I swallowed hard and drew a breath, channeling what she’d said. Do something stupid.

  I gritted my teeth, looked the guard straight in the face, braced, and then slammed my forehead square into his nose. I felt it shatter under the impact and the warm spray of his blood over my cheeks as it exploded. He wailed and flew backward, his hands on his face. The one on the right who’d barely gotten up was closest. Without thinking I slung a right hook at his face, catching him on the cheek. I was planted, the swing hasty, and my knuckles, still damaged from my tussle with Food Stains. My hand glanced off his face, knuckles howling with pain — I’d been trying to ignore it, but hitting this guy reminded me how fucked up they really were.

  He lurched backward, throwing himself out of the way of the full brunt and falling onto the lap of a guy on the table behind.

  Broken Nose had twisted into the big guy who was arguing over the cards and was being shoved the other way now. Pandemonium was breaking out — people from other tables getting up, yelling, trying to crowd forward; some to watch, others to get involved. The guy who had the guard on his lap had long hair and a hooked nose. The people of Notia didn’t like the TC, that much was clear. He reached across the guard’s chest and raised his other arm, driving his elbow down into his face without mercy.

  Something blinked in my peripheral and I parried on reflex, just deflecting a blow that hit me in the neck instead of the temple. The fingers struck flesh and my head rang like a bell. Something clicked in my skull and I twisted into the punch, the training I’d been hammered with over the last eighteen months finally kicking in. The natural instinct was to turn away and cower, but that wasn’t what was happening.

  Before I realized, I was twisting toward the third guard. His left elbow moved past my face, his hand over my left shoulder, leftover after the punch. I saw his eyes over his arm and watched them bulge as I drove a tight uppercut into his ribs. My hand felt like it crumpled in the blow and the guy barely moved. He had a good thirty pounds on me and my brain wasn’t about to let me hit him full tilt with a busted fist.

  He swiped toward my ear and I ducked, his forearm racking across the back of my head, his nails scratching my neck. I rolled under it and sprang up, lacing my hands around his head before he knew what was happening. I took one step and then drove my knee upward, pulling his head down as I did.

  I felt his jaw crunch into it and he nearly flipped over backward. The two guys on the other side of the table from the big guy — one with a bald head and the other in a denim jacket with the sleeves torn off — caught him and shoved him back toward me.

  Alice and Everett were creeping up on Smith, who was out of the fray, and laughing — probably a little drunk — at what was going on. The guard with the broken nose was still yowling, still spinning in circles, and the guard on Long Hair’s lap was writhing to try and get away. His boot rose up and then came down, the heel hitting the corner of the table, sending the drinks on top of it spinning. One of them smashed on the ground and covered the big guy with the neck tattoo in beer. They shouted in annoyance and he turned and slung a punch at the only guard still standing.

  After that, everything went crazy. Four surrounding tables all turned over and fifteen more people piled into the mess. I guess Everett was right. I was good at fucking things up.

  The third guard, an ugly brute with a face that looked like his eyebrows and bottom lip were trying to meet in the middle, picked himself up and sidled back toward me, cracking his knuckles.

  I heard the guard with the broken nose mewl and go quiet as someone socked him in the gut and tried to keep track of him in my peripheral as Forehead advanced. I threw up a block as he swung lazily from the right. They obviously weren’t training the TC Municipal Guard in any meaningful sort of way. With the Federation, even when you were off duty you had to keep sharp, and when you were on deployment there was a mandatory training period every day.

  The blow bounced off my forearm, pain lancing through it, and he tried to cover his face with his other hand, realizing that I was already half on and winding up.

  He put his elbow in the air, his arm across his face in a vague attempt to defend his face, but all he succeeded in doing was blinding himself instead. I tucked my shoulder in and then lashed out with the heel of my hand, putting it into
his jaw. For a second my brain shouted go for the nose! But I didn’t want to kill him, just put him down. And I did.

  His mouth contorted into a strange shape and he spun backward and fell to the ground.

  Guard number two on the long-haired guy’s lap had broken free and was rushing up on me. I stole a glance at Smith’s table, and saw it empty. Alice and Everett were nowhere to be seen either.

  I leaned forward, looked back over my shoulder and then kicked out behind me. The second guard ran into my heel and winded himself, doubling over it. He wasn’t down for the count, but it would have to do — I needed to get out of there.

  It was carnage in the bar with flying chairs, tables breaking, glasses smashing, and fists flying.

  I jumped backward and rolled over the table the guards had been sitting at, landing just outside the melee and making for the door.

  I could hear yelling behind me, threats, but it didn’t matter. I’d done my part and it was time to go while I still had my teeth.

  I reached the door and pushed through with a smile on my face — I’d given better than I’d gotten and Everett and Alice had gotten out with Smith.

  I took two steps into the dimly lit street and ground to a halt, my injured hand clasped across my chest. Standing there in front of me were four more Trading Collective Municipal Guards, all with rifles against their shoulders, trained on the door, and behind them were two Mech with shotguns similar to the one the riot control Mech had been packing. They all clacked as I stopped, their comrade’s blood smeared on my face from where I’d broken that guy’s nose. Six barrels, nowhere to hide. No cover. Nothing.

  I flung my hands up instinctively, my throat suddenly tight. The clear sounds of fighting were echoing from inside the bar. Who’d called them I didn’t know, but they’d been there in a beat, and looked ready to put holes in anything that moved — and just then, that was me.