At Circle's End

by Ian J. Malone

  Danny checked his armor integrity. Twenty-three percent drop. Damn it. Hamish’s Harbinger had done a number on him from that balcony. View Standard.

  As it turned out, the shop had actually been a garage of some kind. There was a lowered suspension rack in back with an old truck on it. The vehicle’s hood was up. There was also a workbench filled with old tools next to a row of dusty barrels.

  Danny eyed the barrels. Reiser did say there’d be toys out here.

  “Mr. Black, this is Mr. White. Do you copy?”

  Reegan’s voice was barely audible through the static though Danny was still able to make it out. Surprise hit him. “Mr. White, how in the world are we talking right now?”

  “I hacked into one of the old Ester Industries satellites in orbit and used it as a springboard for a pirate signal. Nobody can hear us talking except for Shotz, and he’s up here with me.”

  “Where are you guys?”

  “Ops, Overlook.”

  “You got ground telemetry?”

  “In real time and living color, sir.”

  Danny steepled his iron palms. Reegan, you beautiful bastard. “Stream it to my HUD. I want to see where the rest of my so-called friends are at.”

  “Already done.”

  The words “packet received” appeared in Danny’s lower-right field of vision. Open. The system complied, and within seconds, he was looking at a comprehensive topographical map of the quad, complete with real-time imagery of all ground movement. Huh, weird. There were only three visible life signs in the immediate vicinity, and one of those was him. The other two, Danny guessed, were Hamish and Mac. He panned out for a wider view of the area. Now, where are you headed? A fourth figure—Lee or Link, presumably—was moving off toward the northeast corner of the complex. The fifth player, however, was nowhere to be found.

  Misdirection, calculation, precision. Danny swiped through a few more screenshots with his eyes. This smacked of Lee Summerston.

  “Danny, you copy?”

  Danny sighed. Not now. “Yeah, Doc, go ahead.”

  “I see where Mr. Black took a pelting in that last exchange. Everything still performing okay—no side effects?”

  “I’m fine, Doc. Just needed to catch my breath and reassess my game plan.”

  “How’s your juice level?” Katie asked.

  Danny blinked up the dosage monitor. “Just crossed the halfway point. Bridge integrity’s still solid, though.”

  “What about—”

  Danny cut Doc off. “Guys, I’m not trying to play the diva card here, but I’m smack-dab in the middle of a training exercise with four hostiles on my ass. Now, either pull me in for armor diagnostics, or cut me loose to finish the job you asked me to do. What’s it gonna be?”

  Katie supplied the answer. “All right, Hurricane; bring the noise.”

  Danny reengaged his fire controls and returned his HUD to IR for a tight shot of the area outside the garage. As expected, the two immediate life signs were still there. The smaller one—Mac—had shifted into a firing position from the warehouse on the southwest corner. The larger one—Hamish—was directly across the street. Both were closing.

  Enough of this Marco Polo crap. I need some room to operate. Danny picked up one of the larger wood shards and hurled it at one of the barrels. It produced a dull, tinny gong sound. If you’re not full, you’re close. Danny checked his marks and chinned his comm. “Hey, guys? We’re friends, right?”

  “Yeah?” Mac’s voice trailed upward in question.

  “Good. In that case, I’m giving you a fifteen-second heads-up to back off before I come out of here.”

  Hamish bellowed a laugh. “Are you calling yer shot, then?”

  “Nope, just giving a friendly warning to a couple of old bar buddies. Ten seconds.” Danny engaged the heat reflectors in Mr. Black’s skin. His armor integrity would take a hit for this, but that was okay. He’d have more than enough left to protect himself against the likes of their weapons, plus it would totally be worth it to see the looks on their faces when it was over.

  His reflectors engaged, Danny reconnected his ordnance inventory for a single, live grenade, which he loaded into the right launcher.

  “Whoa, Danny, you can’t do that,” Reiser rushed out on Channel Nine. “That’s—”

  “Hey, Jon?” Danny interrupted. “Mac just threw a truck at me, remember? I’m just leveling the playing field is all, so how about you back off and let me work?”

  Reiser jumped quickly onto Channel Ten. “Star, Wulver, back off now. Repeat, back off now. I mean it—run.”

  Footfalls hit gravel outside though they stopped when Danny approached the door frame—grenade launchers already deployed and aimed backward into the garage.

  Danny grinned and stared down at his empty palm. “Ya know, I sure do wish I had a big red button right about now. It’d be a helluva lot more ominous, don’t ya think?”

  “Oh sh—” Mac started.

  The storefront ignited with an earthshaking boom! starting first with the initial flashpoint then trickling down the structure in a white-hot cascade of steel, wood, and glass. Anything and everything inside that could go up did, and within seconds, the entire strip was a smoldering pile of ruin.

  Strolling through the inferno, Danny put out his hands and sashayed away from the carnage. “You guys won’t begrudge me a quick glory walk, right?”

  “Arsehole!” Hamish coughed from somewhere out of sight.

  “Hey, Top?” Reegan’s voice sounded in Danny’s ear again. “Looks like you’ve got a runner.”

  Danny spun on his heels to see a flatbed supply hauler peel back toward him, Mac at the wheel. She leaned out the door with a sidearm and barked out a series of shots. Bark, bark, bark.

  They bounded off of Mr. Black’s chest, causing Danny to smirk. “Really?”

  Mac blistered into the courtyard then gave the wheel a hard yank right, sending the truck skipping in a rubberized protest to halt in front of Hamish. “Get on!”

  Once Hamish was on, he sighted in on Danny with his Harbinger as Mac gunned it for their escape.

  Danny dove out of the way, and the vehicle vanished in a cloud of asphalt and tire smoke.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Danny leapt to his feet and took off in pursuit, speed increasing with every stride.

  “Thirty kph,” Mr. Black announced. “Thirty-five kph.”

  The flatbed was dead ahead, and Danny ripped off a series of shots toward it, but all went wide in his HUD. Faster.

  “Forty kph. Forty-five kph.”

  Hamish retaliated, and Danny bounced to the side. Another Hamish volley, and Danny vaulted a vehicle to keep up. He hit the ground with a thud, nearly stumbling, but still managed to keep his speed.

  “Forty-eight kph.”

  Hamish withdrew to load into his auxiliary pack as Mac leaned back out with her sidearm. Bark, bark, bark.

  One of her imaginary bullets caught Danny’s shoulder, but the damage was negligible. He kept after her. She hooked left then right at the barracks then shifted through a roundabout and vanished into an alley across the way.

  Gotta keep up. Danny leapt a curb and accelerated. Can’t lose her. Clearing the roundabout and cutting the bend, he exited the alley and sprinted out into the open just in time to see Mac’s brake lights glare right in front of him.

  “Oh, crap!” Without thinking, Danny planted his foot and pushed up—turbines whirring hot—and watched the truck sail by some ten meters under him. Something flashed in his corner vision, and Danny spun his head in that direction. It was an SF-13 Mako screaming off the horizon, its wings out, its belly all but skimming the dirt.

  And shit. Danny’s HUD lit up like a Christmas tree when the fighter unloaded on him with two Diamondback missiles. Fortunately for Danny, only one would’ve made contact were this a live-fire situation, meaning he wouldn’t have been totally dead—just crippled inside of an iron sarcophagus until someone pried him out of it. He hit the ground with a smash,
tucking as best he could, then rolled to his feet and stumbled for cover behind the first building he could find. “Damn bushwhacker!”

  “Sorry, partner, but it ain’t my fault you suck at chess.” The Mako’s engines hummed their aerial song behind Lee’s voice. “Maybe one of these days you’ll learn to think a few steps ahead.”

  Danny gritted his teeth. All right, fine. You wanna dance, bro? Let’s dance. Swiping into his diagnostics screen, Danny checked his armor’s integrity. Twenty-eight percent. Not bad, considering that, in essence, he’d just taken a high-yield warhead to the face. He could feel his bridge to Mr. Black slipping.

  “Heads-up, Top,” Reegan said. “Daredevil’s circling back in for another pass. You’d better clear out now.”

  “ETA?”

  “Twenty seconds.”

  Gonna be close. Danny braced himself then keyed his juice release. Another surge of chemicals flooded into his system, and he bit down hard to ride it out. With eight seconds to go, his head cleared, and his juice meter registered full green.

  “Bridge integrity restored,” Mr. Black said.

  Go time.

  “Duck!” Reegan shouted.

  Danny dove aside and watched two trails of digital railgun fire pepper the ground where he’d been standing. Let’s party.

  Spotting an abandoned truck next to the warehouse on his right, Danny sprinted that way. Reaching it, he leapt from the sand onto the vehicle’s ceiling, which he used as a springboard to the balcony. Then he jumped onto the building’s roof and was back on the move. “Mr. White, what’s Daredevil’s position?”

  “Coming in from three o’clock high on an R-line attack vector.”

  Danny cleared the next building in three long strides then sprang to the one after, clearing it as well. He jumped another then another then halted at the edge of a bunker with four buildings to go. From that vantage point, he had a clear line of sight toward the fighter now inbound from the south.

  Danny checked his HUD. Time to intercept, thirty seconds. He dropped into a runner’s crouch.

  “Top?” Reegan sounded uneasy. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to pay an old friend a visit.” Danny watched the Mako circle in for its approach.

  Reegan returned. “Are you about to do what I think you’re about to do?”

  “Yep. Probably.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?”

  “Probably not,” Danny said. “But it’s a safe bet Big Country out there isn’t looking for it, either.”

  If Lee had the Mako’s external armor fully polarized—Danny had no reason to suspect that he didn’t—then a single launcher strike wouldn’t do much good. Still, given the velocity with which Lee was moving, one strike was about all Danny would get, and he’d be lucky to have that. That meant he’d have to hit the fighter in just the right spot at just the right time if he hoped to take it out. Gonna be tight.

  “Contact in twenty seconds,” Reegan said.

  Danny launched into a sprint across the building top then sprang to the one beside it, clearing the alleyway where Mac and Hamish were standing down below. He kept at it, hopping from building to building and picking up speed until finally he was there.

  “Ten seconds,” Reegan said.

  Crossing the final building top, Danny readied the turbines in his legs for full burst. He crossed the threshold and ignited.

  For the briefest of moments, Danny saw nothing but wide-open blue around him. It was downright tranquil.

  A blur of silver roared by underneath him, and turning his body to face it, Danny locked in on the one part of the craft he knew would put it down: the canopy. Fire.

  The Harbinger-XL sang, and the Mako peeled off hard to port.

  “Damn it!” Lee shouted over the comm.

  Danny fell back to the ground as his armor integrity began to fail, this time landing nimbly on his feet like a cat.

  “Daredevil, you have been neutralized,” Reiser said on the community channel. “Return to the airfield, and await further instruction.”

  Danny rose and gave the craft a small wave. “Go take a load off, bro. Maybe those ‘few steps ahead’ of yours will take you to a water cooler or something.”

  Lee muttered a retort as the Mako sped out of sight.

  A vehicle’s engine revved from behind, and Danny turned to see the flatbed racing toward him. It ground to a halt, and Mac and Hamish jumped out, weapons raised.

  “That’s a little forward for you guys, isn’t it?” Danny asked.

  They took aim.

  “All right, have it your way.” Danny spun up the XL to face that of Hamish. Fi—

  “ERG-212 is offline,” Mr. Black blurted in red capitals.

  “What?” Danny tried again but got nothing.

  A slow, gruff cackle filled the comm in Danny’s ears. Link.

  “Greetings asshat,” Link said. “Having problems getting it up, are we?”

  Switch to IR. Danny scanned the surrounding area for Link’s life sign but, as before, couldn’t find him anywhere. “Mr. White, you got eyes on Jester?”

  “Negative,” Reegan said. “I’ve got nothing. Not in your immediate vicinity, not in the field nor in the hillside. I’ve got no clue where he is.”

  “So, as it turns out,” Link announced, “your big, bad Kurgorian armor makes you pretty much invulnerable to anything below heavy ordnance. That includes my rifle. Now, you’re probably asking yourself, ‘How did Link, being the world-class marksman and all-around great guy that he is, pick me off with a weapon that might as well be a cap gun?’”

  “The thought had occurred to me,” Danny answered.

  “Glad to hear that, Slappy, because I’m about to tell you. Turns out the Auran components you beefed up your armor with—components like, say, I don’t know, the eight-centimeter line connecting your Super Harbinger to its power supply? Not so invulnerable.”

  Danny cursed under his breath.

  “Yeah,” Link said. “I’m Batman.”

  “Fine, Short Round, you win.” Danny rolled his eyes. “You at least gonna give up your location?”

  “Check your four o’clock high.”

  Danny turned toward the hillside and saw a single flare shoot into the air, right next to…

  The hot springs. Danny could’ve kicked himself. “So that’s why we could never get a bead on you. You were using the hot springs to mask your heat signature.”

  “Give the man a cigar!” Link praised. “Wulver, Star. I’ll let you take it from here.”

  Danny offered no resistance as the others drew down on him.

  “Armor integrity at zero,” Mr. Black announced. “Field Training Exercise is concluded.”

  “Well done, Renegades,” Katie announced via the community channel. “Let’s take a break for a while. Danny, I need you back here in the observation tent for diagnostics on your armor. Everyone else, you’re free to chill. We’ll reconvene in about an hour. Ruah?”

  Danny opened his faceplate and traded looks with Mac. “Scragly, did you just throw out a Ruah?”

  “What?” Katie asked. “Cut me some slack; I was just trying it on for size. Shut up, and get over here already. Doc’s waiting.”

  The trio laughed. “On our way.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 13: Disclosure

  Kurgorian Senior Pralah Zan Kai-Ool sat ensconced in his command chair in the Vanxus’ combat information center, golden eyes fixed on the request documents he’d just received. His second in command, Ceda Von Jahara, occupied the seat to his right.

  “What does he want this time?” the ceda asked.

  Kai-Ool stayed the ceda’s question with a hand as he finished the request. Once he was done, he snapped the folder shut and tossed it aside with a snort. “So very predictable.”

  “Sir?” the ceda asked.

  “The chancellor desires a detachment of our warbirds to accompany his fleet for an assault on the Auran colony at Thawnose 4.”

 
“That’s his third offensive this month,” the ceda said. “This is grossly aggressive even by his people’s standards. It borders on reckless.”

  “It’s a power grab, Jahara. Nothing more.” Kai-Ool reclined in his seat. “Reckless though he may be, Masterson is no fool. He knows that by keeping his forces on the offensive, he keeps both the Aurans and his own parliament on their heels. At this juncture, only the former would dare oppose him, and even that’s a reach.”

  The ceda’s brow furrowed. “I don’t like it. It reeks of desperation.”

  “Patience, my friend.” Kai-Ool’s voice was cool and confident. “All will be revealed in time.”

  The ceda licked his lips. “Sir, may I speak candidly?”

  “Of course.”

  “I do not like him, sir. The chancellor. He is arrogant, brash, and self-righteous. A strike at Thawnose merely reaffirms that. I don’t trust him.”

  Kai-Ool chortled a throaty laugh. “Masterson is human. Arrogance defines the species. Thankfully, though, our needs do not require us to trust him or his people.”

  “But how can you say that?” the ceda demanded. “We are arming them with our own technology! Why, in a thousand cycles, would we ever do that were there even the slightest chance those weapons could be used against us one day?”

  “Come now, Jahara. Do you think me so blind or foolish that I’d actually arm a potential enemy without taking certain…precautions?” Kai-Ool clicked his tongue. “Please, old friend—you wound me.”

  The ceda bowed his long, scaly head in subjection. “Forgive my lack of foresight, sir. It was out of line for me to rush to such an assertion. Of course you’d never put our forces at risk, inadvertently or otherwise.”

  “Think nothing of it.” Kai-Ool patted the ceda’s shoulder. “Your concern was for the safety and security of the Kurgorian people. Your motives were just.”

  “Thank you, Pralah,” the ceda said. “What then of Thawnose? Do you mean to give Masterson the ships he has requested?”

  Kai-Ool considered the question. “We will send two ships, the Dexavoy and Sulista, though only for support. Instruct their commanders not to engage unless it becomes absolutely necessary. By the council’s decree, that is all the aid we can render at this time.”