The secondary explosions, combined with the initial attack, critically damaged the UrbanMech. The war machine shook and staggered. Hamner valiantly fought to maintain control, but the havoc wrought unbalanced the ’Mech beyond the point where the gyros could compensate adequately. The ’Mech, borne along by its momentum, was sent spinning by the explosions, slammed into the courtyard’s eastern wall, and slid down on its face.
As for Styles, his vision cleared on a vastly changed battlefield. The exploding shells painted the collapsing UrbanMech in bright yellows and oranges. A few errant shells pinged off his ’Mech, doing negligible damage. Still, as his computer displayed the damage to his ’Mech on his right flank, he turned in that direction to assess the threat. While that decision would later spawn heated debates over countless beers, Walter couldn’t fault him. I would have done the exact same thing.
From within the spider cave, Snorri triggered both of his medium lasers. One missed and went wide to the left of the Hermes. The other bubbled armor on the ’Mech’s left thigh. Aniki’s Clint likewise hit with a medium laser, evaporating the rest of the armor and piercing the left hip. Ferro-titanium bones glowed, with the hip joint melting. The ’Mech lurched left as its torso’s weight drove down on the left leg.
Then Aniki’s autocannon shot hit. The slugs gnawed through the blue armor and shattered support structures. The fire cored that side of the ’Mech. Billowing gray smoke rose through the gaping hole in the torso. The ’Mech’s left arm twisted and popped free. The flamer ignited, sending the arm jetting back like a missile. Its short flight slammed it into one of the giant gravestones, and it exploded.
Bloodstone thrust a finger at the viewport. “Can you believe that?”
Somehow Styles managed to keep the ’Mech upright, even with a frozen left leg and a severely unbalanced machine. The assembled MechFighters cheered the effort. Many of them wore the astonished expression Walter supposed Styles wore. “He’ll be drinking off that for a long time.”
Bloodstone nodded. “Highlight of the tournament, so far.”
Aniki moved around to her right and into Style’s rear firing arc. Snorri remained hidden in the spider’s cave, and neither of them shot. Styles could have triggered his weapons one more time, but the fight was long past winning. Slowly, so as not to unbalance his ’Mech, he lowered its right arm and pointed the medium laser at the ground.
“Wow, faster than I imagined. Unless Snorri was clumsy getting past that webbing, the twins emerge without so much as a scratch.”
“The sort of victory I doubt you will see in two nights, Mr. Richards.”
Walter turned and looked up. “How did you get in here?”
Wen Xu-Tian shrugged coyly. “Friends are useful.”
“You don’t have any friends.”
“A condition we both share.” The former Liao official looked at Bloodstone. “Please, excuse us. We have some business to discuss. I’m sure Wallace wishes to keep it confidential.”
Bloodstone stood, dwarfing Wen. “Do I need to get security?”
Walter shook his head. “No. Regrettably, I know him. And I do think this conversation should be private.”
“I see you do like your mysteries. No problem.” Bloodstone shook Walter’s hand. “I’ll see you in two nights.”
Walter stood as the larger man walked away. “Okay, so you’re here. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve given it much consideration, and have some very specific instructions for you.” Wen rubbed his hands together. “Please, sit down again. It’s in everyone’s best interest that you don’t miss a single word.”
Chapter Eleven
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Aftermath
Solaris VII (The Game World)
Rahneshire, Lyran Commonwealth
24 December 3001
“Mr. Richards? Is this a good time for a word?”
Walter continued lacing up his cooling vest. “You never pick a good time, Agent Fujitaka. The fight starts in forty minutes, and I’m all peed out.”
“Fortunate then, that your time isn’t up for that.” The stocky woman in a severe business suit glanced at her tablet. “I’ve actually come to ask you a few questions.”
Something cold and sinister slithered through Walter’s guts. “How can I help you?”
The commission agent glanced around the empty dressing room, and despite being alone with Walter, kept her voice low. “It has come to the commission’s attention that there is a heavy amount of betting against you in this fight.”
“You make it sound like that is a surprise.” Walter slowly shook his head. “You know my career better than I do. I’m a circuit fighter who is being asked to punch way above his weight class. My luck is bound to run out, and wagers are reflecting that.”
She flicked a finger of the surface of the tablet balanced against her forearm. “The patterns suggest otherwise. While none of the simulations we’ve run show anything but the slimmest of chances that you win this four-way, only five percent of the time are you shown being the first one shot out. Despite that, the betting is running heavily in favor of that outcome. It is also running against you managing to shoot anyone out. All of this is indicative of your intention to throw the fight. Are you under duress?”
“What? No.” Walter snorted. Not unless you consider “duress” being told to throw the fight as the only way you can prevent Wen from revealing Ivan and Sophia’s presence on Solaris VII. Still, his instructions said nothing about going out first.
She gave him a hard stare. “Really?”
“Really.”
“The commission has programs that protect fighters like you. Just come clean and we can help you.”
Walter frowned. If he were to “come clean,” he’d have to explain how Wen was pressuring him. That would mean letting the ’Mech Battle Commission know about Ivan and Sophia. That information might not get back to the Collective as quickly as it would from the former ambassador, but someone would sell it.
“Agent Fujitaka, I appreciate your speaking with me, but I can’t help you.”
“You can let me help you.” She pointed to the tablet. “Suspicion has already been cast on you. Even if you defy the betting trends, the commission could decide to deny you a permanent license. You’ll never be allowed to fight here again. This is your future we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, I get that. So, if you want to help, answer me this: what kind of result gets rid of that suspicion?”
She cocked her head. “Win, of course. If you can.”
“What do your simulations say about that?”
Fujitaka switched the tablet off. “That would be proprietary information, but as I indicated before, the chances are quite slim. Not even whole numbers.”
“I’ve been in worse fights.” He shook his head. “Thanks for your insights, Agent Fujitaka.”
“Yes, of course. I shall let you finish your preparations.” She gave him a thin smile. “We’ll be talking again soon.”
Walter waited for her to leave, then banged his forehead against the locker door. The commission’s intervention just made a bad situation worse. Wen Xu-Tian had demanded he throw the fight, but not to go out first without having taken anyone else down. While Wen would have loved for Walter to suffer such a humiliation, getting his license pulled would prevent Walter from being able to continue a lucrative career. That worked against Wen’s goal of continuing to extort money in the future.
He scratched the back of his neck. The thing about Wen was that he was too clever by half. Once he had the fix assured, he’d try to maximize the betting. So, after he leaked word that the fight had been fixed for Walter to go out first, he’d actually bet against that outcome. At the same time, he’d bet for Walter to finish second or third. To make any serious money, he’d have to borrow money to make those bets, but with the outcome assur
ed, Wen had no risk of failing to pay his debts.
If Walter did go out first, Wen would be financially destroyed, but he’d inform the Collective about the surviving Litzau family. Even if the folks he’d borrowed money from decided to kill him, it wouldn’t matter, since he’d left the information with ComStar to pass on in the event of his death. If Walter won the fight, Wen would probably break even financially, and would then likely betray the Litzaus out of pure spite.
And if the commission pulls my license, I become useless to Wen, so he’ll sell information to the Collective. Bile burned into his throat and soured his mouth. There is no winning in this situation.
Walter reopened his locker and pulled out his neurohelmet. “First things first. Defy the commission’s predictions. Then, when Wen is rich, figure out what to do with him after that.”
As the doorways opened from his staging area into Aftermath, Walter discovered a new reason for unease. Aftermath, while neither the biggest nor newest of arenas, had a cult following. It had been built specifically for holovid events, with no general seating. The entire floor plan layout made the arena resemble the bombed-out shell of a small city, complete with water gushing from broken mains and fires burning where gas lines had been severed. Gutted cars, piles of rubble from crushed buildings, trashed appliances, and all the other war zone detritus littered the battlefield.
For Walter, it looked all too real, much too reminiscent of what he’d seen in Rivergaard, back on Maldive. A shiver ran up his spine. What people were enjoying as sport reminded him of life-ending agonies that others had experienced. How many of Angleton’s Angels died in Rivergaard wreckage like this? The fact that he didn’t know, and likely would never know, left him feeling somewhat hollow.
He wondered whether Bloodstone would be having a similar reaction, remembering some long-forgotten battle somewhere. The other two fighters, Camilla Heiniger and Steve Quarry, had been line troops for the Free Worlds League and the Federated Suns, respectively. He had no idea if they’d connect this with real-world experience, or just see it all as expensive set dressing.
The four-way battle had a peculiar setup. Each MechFighter would be in a thirty-ton BattleMech, chosen at random. The organizers had suggested this was the best way to test the mettle of individual pilots—though obviously outfitting them with identical ’Mechs would have done that a lot more easily. Still, uniformity in ’Mechs would have been boring and made the battle too predictable in the later stages, thereby killing small, long-odds sucker bets. Plus, diversity sells lots more action figures.
Walter drew a Valkyrie, which featured the same weapons configuration as the Clint Aniki had driven, but with less armor beneath the urban-gray camo-pattern paint job. Traeger probably guaranteed that the ammo she had left over got loaded in here. Steve Quarry pulled a Spider, which sported a pair of medium lasers. He had a rep for being something of a sharpshooter, so he’d be dangerous. The Javelin for Camilla Heiniger had four medium lasers and enough armor to make that ’Mech serious trouble. But Bloodstone’s UrbanMech would be the toughest kill. It featured a heavy autocannon, capable of ripping through any of the other ’Mechs with a single shot.
Him I look for last. Bloodstone had enough ammo for only five shots, so he’d do well to hang back and let the others eliminate at least one potential target. Walter doubted that’s what the man would do, given his general nature. He didn’t have much of a read on the other two, but if Heiniger could take out Bloodstone, she’d significantly increase her chances of winning.
The staging area opened onto a roadway that ran around the battlefield’s heart, behind broken buildings that ringed the war zone’s center. Walter immediately chose to go left, toward the south end, for no better reason than knowing most fighters tended to follow their dominant hand. He flipped an infrared filter onto the visual light sensor display and immediately caught a heat spike fifty-five degrees off his ’Mech’s nose.
Quarry’s Spider was arcing high through the air on silver flames from its jump jets. The humanoid ’Mech flew away, toward the west side of the battlefield. Red beams flashed from the twin lasers mounted in the Spider’s torso. Walter didn’t know whether Quarry had hit anything. He pushed his Valkyrie into a run and continued along the road. Closer to where the Spider had taken off from, Walter cut right and slid between two burned-out buildings.
The Spider landed and fired two more shots—at Bloodstone’s UrbanMech. One beam missed wide, melting the hulk of a crashed hovertruck. The other beam slashed its way up the UrbanMech’s right side, disintegrating all but the barest scrap of armor on the ’Mech’s flank. One of the previous shots had similarly scorched the armor on the UrbanMech’s left leg, but neither shot had seriously damaged Bloodstone’s ’Mech.
The UrbanMech’s cannon swung into line with the Spider. Fire blossomed and an unholy stream of slugs stripped armor from the right arm, then ripped the limb clean off. The unspent projectiles blew into the right side of the ’Mech’s chest, completely destroying the jump jets. Their fuel ignited in a silvery flare, spinning the ’Mech around. Heat spiked, and the Spider pirouetted and fell over a low wall.
At least I wasn’t the first one out. Before he had a chance to figure out whether that made him happy or sad, four laser beams shot at him from the right. Two missed, but two caught him high on the left flank as he brought the Valkyrie around to face the Javelin. The pair of hits that Heiniger scored made the armor bubble off the Valkyrie, but Walter managed to keep his war machine upright.
He responded with shots from both his autocannon and the medium laser in his ’Mech’s right arm. Walter’s shots ran low, blasting armor from the Javelin’s left leg and turning it to slag on the right. The superficial damage did nothing to slow the Javelin, and Heiniger evidenced no trouble in keeping her ’Mech upright and functional.
It didn’t seem logical for her to shoot at him when it would have been just as easy to shoot Bloodstone and more likely to put the UrbanMech out. Bloodstone probably would have taken a shot at her, but she’d used a ruined structure to shield herself from his fire. Had she attacked along a line five meters west, the same ruins would have prevented Walter from shooting at her. That would have been the more sensible tactic, but what made sense to Walter might not make sense to anyone else.
Walter kept the Valkyrie at speed and drove straight west. That gave him cover and turned the ruin Heiniger used for cover into an impediment to her chasing after him. The only advantage Walter possessed was that his autocannon was the weapon with the longest range still in the fight. If he could orbit and snipe as Bloodstone and Heiniger went after each other, he might just have a chance of surviving.
His auxiliary communications monitor flashed to life with a smiling image of Traeger on it over a glowing “incoming call” button. “You have to be kidding me.” Walter mashed a finger down, refusing the call. I’m a little too busy to have you telling me that the leasing deposit is refundable if I don’t totally destroy the ’Mech.
The Valkyrie flashed through the center of town and out toward the western road. A blast from Bloodstone’s autocannon chased him, cutting the top floor from one of the nearby buildings. The fire decimated the contents of the apartment it blew through, creating a cascade of debris that poured out into the roadway.
Walter turned left and passed through the debris. Tattered drapes and ragged bed sheets clung to his Valkyrie. Twenty meters to the corner and he could turn back east. A break between buildings further down would give him a clean shot at any fighting in the middle. Speed and range were his only advantages. Provided circumstances don’t erase them.
He turned the corner and raced east. As he neared the break, he began to slow and turn to the left to bring his weapons to bear. He’d only have a heartbeat or two to snap off a quick shot at range. If I’m lucky enough, I take one of the two of them out…
The Javelin filled the break. Heiniger triggered all four lasers at point-blank range. The quartet of beams all hit, s
avaging the Valkyrie’s armor. They boiled armor off both legs and the humanoid ’Mech’s chest. The secondary monitor’s outline of the ’Mech went red on the left leg, and yellow on the right and center chest, matching it to the left flank. One more exchange and I’m done.
Heat washed up through the Valkyrie’s cockpit as Walter returned fire. The autocannon’s slugs shattered all the ferro-ceramic armor on the Javelin’s left flank, and even punched a hole into the interior. His medium laser caught the other ’Mech square in the chest, blackening the area over the engine but failing to breach the armor.
Worse than the damage Walter had taken, however, was his ’Mech’s drastic loss of armor. He fought hard to keep the Valkyrie upright, but momentum carried his ’Mech off at an angle, slamming it into the arena’s southern wall. The collision pulverized armor on the ’Mech’s right arm, and the Valkyrie went down as unceremoniously as had the Spider.
As Walter struggled to get the Valkyrie back on its feet, he expected Heiniger to finish him off. She triggered two lasers to do just that, but she also hit the Javelin’s jump jets at the same time. Only one of the lasers hit, but it immolated the last of the armor on the Valkyrie’s left flank. The beam further destroyed support structures and splashed one of the heat sinks in the ’Mech’s chest.
The Javelin had risen to the height of the building that Bloodstone’s fire had decapitated when the UrbanMech’s autocannon tracked and hit. The metal hail caught Heiniger’s ’Mech in the left hip, sawing the leg off. The blazing jump jet in that leg soared off east, while the Javelin listed west. The autocannon fire continued its destruction, slicing up through the left flank. It crushed the gyros and crumbled components of the engine’s containment vessel. The jump jet in the ’Mech’s right leg continued to pulse silvery flames as it drove the stricken ’Mech headfirst into another building’s upper story.
Catastrophe Unlimited Page 10
