“It makes sense,” Ritter said. “She is our head of Naval Intelligence.”
“More sense than you know,” said Naryal. “All my efforts to unearth the identity of Davis’ grounder paramour came to dead ends. I knew she had to be someone well-protected. The signs were right in front of me all along. Omaka is the mother of Davis’ child!”
“That’s why he conspired with her?” asked Ritter.
“That is why she betrayed him,” Carlos corrected him.
Naryal nodded her approval. “Davis took her son. Megami found out and used the knowledge to turn Omaka. Now the Secretary-General is covering her tracks, and the Admiral has put a death mark on Zane.”
Ritter broke the ensuing silence. “Can you call Colonel Larson on the Yamamoto?” he asked Naryal.
The Governor shook her head. “Reporting Omaka will do no good. Even if Larson believed you, we have no solid proof. I think Megami is about to make a move, and Omaka will likely be involved. Our best option is to catch her in the act.”
Ritter made his decision and rushed through the side door past one of Carlos’ men, who cried out in protest. A small, bubble-canopied helicopter stood in the middle of the street with the Scorpion’s female driver at the controls.
“Where are you going?” Naryal called after him.
“To tell Jean-Claude and Zane,” Ritter shouted without looking back. He hopped into the helo’s cramped cabin and grabbed a headset. “Follow those combat frames!” he ordered the pilot.
25
Zane flew down the deserted street, chasing Jean-Claude’s weird combat frame. To Zane’s eye, his opponent’s CF was a baffling collection of wasteful ornaments and inefficient stylistic touches. Its barbed wings, for instance, were too small to generate much lift and just seemed like dead weight.
“Let’s clip those wings,” Zane said to Dead Drop. The excitement of battle had tempered his rage at the slaughter of his brothers. Besides, Jean-Claude had helped him find Dead Drop, so Zane would try not to kill him. He aimed his arm-mounted cannon at the dark red wing behind Veillantif’s left pauldron.
The bronze gargoyle ducked as Zane pressed the trigger. The plasma beam flew over its target and incinerated a soft drink billboard by the harbor. Jean-Claude’s CF might’ve packed some extra weight, but it was agile.
And fast. Veillantif turned about, drew a thin two-edged sword, and rushed Dead Drop. Zane jerked his control stick to the right and felt a stab of panic at the unexpectedly sluggish response. Jean-Claude’s thrust missed the Black CF’s left side by a hair.
Gotta replace that maneuvering thruster! Zane rebuked himself.
Jean-Claude pressed the attack. He slashed his CF-scale rapier in a rising diagonal that barely missed the backward-jetting Dead Drop but sliced a corner off the steel warehouse to Zane’s right. The cut’s edges glowed red.
Zane stopped and righted Dead Drop with a burst from its main thrusters, cut the engine, and let the CF’s feet slam down on the already cracked road. Standing on firm ground to steady his shot, he took aim at the onrushing Veillantif. Again Jean-Claude’s monstrosity moved clear of the plasma cannon’s barrel, swerving to the right just before Zane fired. The purple flash brought down an empty parking deck on the corner in a cloud of dust and smoke.
He knows not to be there when I fire, thought Zane. Let’s pin him down!
Veillantif hurtled into striking distance. Zane anticipated the heat rapier’s thrust and caught the gargoyle’s sword arm in Dead Drop’s right hand. Veillantif’s arm jerked back, almost pulling Dead Drop off its feet.
That monster’s as strong as it looks!
Zane pointed his cannon at the gargoyle’s ugly head. Veillantif twisted its arm free and struck at Dead Drop’s weapon. Zane angled his cannon upward at the last instant and blew off the rapier’s superheated blade. Jean-Claude planted Veillantif’s taloned foot against Zane’s cockpit with a jarring thump, thrust out its leg, and sent Dead Drop reeling back.
Jean-Claude threw down his giant rapier’s bladeless hilt and snapped his shield toward the ground. The sharp point detached, trailing a chain of back-barbed segments that coiled on the broken street. The asphalt bubbled and steamed in a hate haze. “This can end whenever you wish, my friend,” the Prince radioed to Zane.
“You just figured out I’ve been toying with you?” Zane retorted. Not since his purge of the hateful Dolphs had he felt so alive. He catapulted Dead Drop off the ground with a short rocket burst and leveled his cannon at Veillantif’s upper chest.
The barbed meal whip lashed out with a crack that shattered nearby windows. Superheated coils wrapped around Dead Drop’s left arm above the cannon’s barrel. Jean-Claude doubled Veillantif’s grip on its shield and pulled. Dead Drop’s feet crashed back to the ground.
A red chorus of alarms filled Zane’s cockpit as the heat whip ate through his first layer of armor. With its left arm snared, Dead Drop’s plasma cannon was next to useless. Zane pulled the barrel free with his CF’s right hand. He flipped a switch that energized fingertip contacts fed by Dead Drop’s powerplant, and a violet blade sprang from the black cylinder’s mouth.
Veillantif released Dead Drop’s arm and rocketed back from a vicious swing of Zane’s plasma sword. A rush of adrenaline spurred Zane to ignite his thrusters and charge after the retreating machine. For all its agility, Veillantif couldn’t compete with Dead Drop’s raw speed. Dilapidated buildings blurred past on either side as Zane closed with his quarry.
The heat whip corkscrewed toward Dead Drop’s right side. Zane parried and ran his incandescent purple blade down the metal coil’s length as he surged forward, charring and fusing barbed segments. He gripped his sword in both hands, cocked the hilt back to his right shoulder, and aimed the coherent energy beam at the gargoyle’s leering face.
Veillantif rotated at the waist. Curved spikes spun around its wings like the teeth of enormous chainsaws as its right pinion slammed into Dead Drop’s left shoulder. The surprise blow knocked Zane off course and into a derelict storefront. He felt like a rag doll in a tumble dryer as Dead Drop rolled through the decrepit building. The dizzying ride ended when the whole structure collapsed on the black CF.
Zane hung in the red glow that bathed his cockpit and his mind. His chair’s straps dug into his chest through his sweat-drenched shirt as gravity pulled him forward, which was now down. His burning lungs heaved.
“Do you yield, Monsieur?” Jean-Claude asked over the comm.
Zane fired Dead Drop’s rockets and blasted blindly out of the rubble. Jean-Claude had clearly expected a different answer, because Veillantif was crouching to dig through the wreckage. The gargoyle brought up its shield, but Zane’s plasma blade cleaved off the leading third of the rounded delta. Zane reversed Dead Drop’s grip and stabbed at Veillantif’s chest.
“You guys knock it off!” The boyish voice shouting from the comm wasn’t Jean-Claude’s.
Zane paused in mid-strike. “Ritter?”
Dead Drop’s external mics picked up the whir of rotor blades. A small helicopter descended into view over Veillantif’s left shoulder. Ritter and two brown-skinned women were crowded into the rotorcraft’s cab.
“We need to talk,” Ritter said.
Zane fixed his eyes back on Veillantif, which stood in a defensive stance behind its cloven shield. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“Just listen,” shouted Ritter. “Admiral Omaka is a Coalition spy. She’s gonna help Megami attack the EGE. We need to get back to the fleet!”
“Serves ‘em right,” said Zane. “Now buzz off. I’ve got a duel to finish.”
Veillantif’s shield crashed to the debris-strewn ground. Its chainsaw wings stopped spinning, and the heat haze surrounding them faded. “I concede,” Jean-Claude said.
“What?” Zane asked flatly.
“You have removed my primary weapons,” said Jean-Claude, “and you know my technique. The odds of your next attack crippling or destroying my combat frame are overwhelming
. I am beaten, M. Dellister. Congratulations on your victory.”
“I’ve never won a fight where the other guy didn’t end up unconscious or dead,” Zane confessed. “How does this work?”
“The terms of your challenge specified that the victor takes the spoils—in this case, the experimental plasma rifle back at the Moroccans’ warehouse.”
“You’re just letting me have it?” Zane asked.
“That would be a grave mistake,” one of the women in the helicopter said with a faint Indian accent.
“I am a man of my word,” Jean-Claude said. “I ask only that you return to the Yamamoto with Private Ritter and myself.”
Zane turned off his sword and returned the hilt to its place as the plasma cannon’s barrel. The whole weapon retracted into Dead Drop’s scorched arm. “I’ll think about it—after I fix Dead Drop.”
“Wait—” Ritter said, but Zane fired his thrusters, shaking the dust from Dead Drop’s armor as the black CF arced back toward the warehouse.
“Let us return to the airstrip, Chevalier,” Jean-Claude radioed to Ritter. “We are needed back at the fleet.”
“I’d like to join you as well,” said Naryal. “The General Staff will want to hear of Megami’s planned attack.”
“You may accompany us as my honored guest,” Jean-Claude said.
Ritter cut in. “If Megami is planning an attack, we could be heading into a battle. Should we see Carlos about patching up Veillantif?”
Jean-Claude chuckled. “The damage is mostly superficial. Besides, I have a spare heat rapier and shield aboard our transport plane. Come! Time grows short.”
Max reached behind his pilot chair and stowed the duffel bag holding his few personal effects on the navigator’s seat. The Yamamoto’s flight deck was practically deserted with most of the air wing still out searching for Zane, so Max had no reservations about making his exit in broad daylight.
“Are we joining the search operation, Max?” Marilyn’s synthetic voice filled the Thor Prototype’s open cockpit. “I haven’t received flight clearance. There may be some clerical oversight.”
“No, darling.” Max reached down and patted the plane’s white, soot-streaked side. “This bird’s too cooked for active duty, but she’ll get us where we’re going.”
“Excellent,” said Marilyn. “Where are we going?”
Darving’s peripheral vision caught a flurry of motion below him and to his right. Wen advanced across the deck. The tropical wind whipped her blue jumpsuit and strove to undo the black bun atop her head. “Somewhere the Socs and the EGE can’t find us,” Max answered.
“Max,” Wen cried when she entered shouting distance. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m showing myself out the same way I came in,” Darving said. He calmly resumed securing his bag.
Wen reached the cockpit ladder and gripped the sides. “You’re no quitter. This is a childish stunt meant to make me feel guilty.”
“It’s not a stunt,” said Max. “You got something to feel guilty about?”
“I know the counteroffensive to Operation N shook your faith. “We did the best we could with the intel we had. It’s not your fault.”
Max bowed his head and sighed. “You know what? You’re right. You spent months coming on to me—sorry, ‘cultivating the asset’—when I was at Seed Corp. You convinced me to defect, and you talked me into committing war crimes. My faith’s not shaken. My eyes are open.”
Wen hesitated only a moment before climbing the ladder. She raided Max’s bag for his spare helmet, threw the duffel over the side, and jumped into the navigator’s seat. “Point taken. I’ve worked too hard on our relationship to let you dump me and fly away.” She donned the oversized helmet. “I’m going with you.”
“Emotional blackmail won’t work,” said Max. “I’m deserting. If you’re on this plane when it takes off, you won’t be able to come within sensor range of an EGE ship without Larson ordering you shot down.”
“Seven airborne craft inbound,” Marilyn interrupted. “The Yamamoto’s radar has detected one cargo plane eight kilometers to the northeast approaching at five hundred kilometers per hour and six combat frames twenty kilometers to the east closing at twice that speed.”
Max pulled up the main camera feed. Six dark shapes hung over the green eastern horizon. They soon grew from formless blobs to vaguely humanoid shapes. Max’s stomach dropped through his chair. “Zoom in.”
Marilyn trained her telescopic lens on the boxy dark blue combat frames. She had to steadily zoom out to keep the onrushing formation in the shot.
“Dolphs!” Max cursed.
“The Fifth Shenlong Squadron encountered an SOC combat frame team over the People’s Republic of the Congo ten minutes ago,” Wen said. From the sound of tapping keys behind him, Max deduced she’d pulled up the latest intel reports on the navigation panel. “The Socs shot down half the squadron while suffering zero casualties.”
There goes my stealth exit, thought Max. He called the tower. “Darving to control. We’ve got six Coalition CFs coming in hot. Five are Ein Dolphs. The sixth has a command crest and custom armor.”
“Roger, Captain,” the Air Boss said. “You’re cleared to sortie. I’ll recall the wing.”
“Time to go,” Max told Wen as he brought the Thor Prototype’s flight control systems online.
“I said I’m coming with you,” insisted Wen, “and I meant it. Besides, you’ll need live intel out there.”
The Dolphs rushed closer. If Max didn’t take off immediately, they’d be on top of him before he could launch. He closed the canopy and fired up the Thor Prototype’s engines.
Fireballs blazed aboard the escort cruiser and two destroyers far off the carrier’s port side. Missile contrails arced toward the inbound Socs: one for each Dolph. Six bright red flashes blew the missiles to burning fragments well before they reached their targets. The escort ships’ Gatling turrets opened fire, but the Dolphs ignored the 20mm rounds and answered with a second plasma volley that engulfed all three ships’ armored superstructures in flames.
“I’ve lost contact with the Cole, the Hilarion, and the Naples,” Wen said.
“Max!” a familiar voice hailed over the radio. “This is Ritter. I’m here with reinforcements.” A bulky cargo plane landed on the Yamamoto’s deck. Max stared in admiration of the pilot’s feat, which was like stopping a speeding semi at the dead center of a tennis court during an earthquake.
“You picked a hell of a time to show up, kid,” said Max, “but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Where are those reinforcements?”
A nightmarish combat frame rose up from behind the cargo plane. The baroque monstrosity was mostly bronze with armor and two barbed wings the color of old blood. “Here, Captain,” Jean-Claude radioed from the gargoyle-like CF. “We have grim news. Secretary-General Megami has ordered an attack on the fleet.”
“I gathered that,” Max shouted back as his fingers keyed in the Thor Prototype’s launch sequence with the practiced speed of a concert pianist. “Winged Victory there better have a bite to match its bark, because those Socs ain’t here for an art show.”
“Veillantif boasts the finest Zeklov craftsmanship,” Jean-Claude said.
“Zeklov?” Max replied.
“Yes,” Jean-Claude said indignantly. “Armorers to kings.”
“They’re fine if you want ceremonial CFs for the Supreme Patriarch’s Swiss Guard,” said Max, “or an armored limo for a Chinese bureaucrat, but we’re staring down the barrel of Seed Corp’s top military hardware. I hope you’re ready.”
“I always stand ready to defend those in my charge,” Jean-Claude declared. Veillantif struck its shield with a CF-sized rapier.
Most of the indicators on Max’s HUD flashed green, though some glowed yellow. “Warning,” said Marilyn, “right manipulator not detected. Overall structural integrity seventy-five percent.”
“Good enough for bebop,” said Max.
The
engines hummed eagerly. “Thor Prototype ready for liftoff,” said Marilyn.
“Too late!” said Wen as the six Dolphs rocketed into firing range of the Yamamoto. The five wingmen clutched their plasma rifles in both hands, while the leader carried a long metal pole and a shield like Jean-Claude’s, only bigger and midnight blue instead of burgundy. 20mm Gatling fire bounced off the shield’s convex surface. When the Dolphs returned fire, they’d scuttle the carrier for sure.
“Take cover,” Max broadcast shipwide.
The Dolph team soared over the Yamamoto like a storm cloud. Their ear-splitting rocket exhaust buffeted the deck, but otherwise the EGE flagship weathered their passage unscathed.
“Somebody give me a sitrep,” Colonel Larson ordered via radio.
“This is Governor Prem Naryal,” a brusque female voice replied from the cargo plane. “Admiral Kei Omaka is a Coalition spy. That Dolph team is here to extract her.”
“That’s a hefty accusation, lady,” said Griff. “I’ll need more proof than the word of a Soc.”
“Then simply wait,” said Naryal. “You’ll have your proof when the enemy absconds with their agent.”
Max opened the throttle and pointed his jet’s vectored thrust nozzles at the deck. “I’m not waiting.” He matched altitude with the low-flying Dolphs—now distant blue specks—and cut in the afterburners, launching the Thor Prototype after the Soc CFs.
“The Lloyd George is ten klicks east of the Yamamoto,” Wen said.
Max chuckled. “We can be there in ten seconds.” But it was too late for the Lloyd George’s escorts. Three enormous fireballs blossomed on the glassy horizon. I’ll pay them back for you, Max promised the destroyers’ murdered crewmen.
“CF approaching from five o’clock,” said Wen.
Veillantif’s stylized gargoyle head filled the right side of Max’s canopy. “Looking to join the dance, Your Majesty?” Darving asked.
Jean-Claude laughed. “The correct style is ‘Your Highness’. Let us say I am honor-bound to prove my mount’s worth in battle.”
Combat Frame XSeed Page 19
