The Mechaneer

Chapter 12: Rival Battle

Ellie never took great pleasure in her husband's collection of mecha tournament recordings. She usually napped through them. Seeing such an event in person might have done wonders for her opinion of the sport.

Seeing it from the private booth of Otto Aber Algreil cemented her dislike.

She wished she could speak openly to Jack about the conditions of their captivity, or about Chloe’s fate.

Any time she opened her mouth to speak, she felt electric blue eyes on her and fell silent.

After the shock of the initial attack, Ellie had been injected with powerful Limiters. She’d hardly had time to think before her entire nervous system was overwhelmed with numbing waves of endorphins. She’d woken from her stupor the next day in a plain, unmarked cell. Outside the gravity field holding her in, she’d seen the Algreil Aerospace logo. She’d called out, but no one had answered.

For days, the Algreil corporate security men had asked her about Chloe. Then they injected her with what she at first took for more limiters, but soon discovered were simple indicators. When her brainwaves indicated the kind of thought that went into a lie, they flashed red.

Ellie insisted she didn’t know where Chloe was. True. She claimed she had no idea. False. She eventually admitted Chloe had left the Mother Goose to look for a memorabilia shop. True. And, perhaps, for other employ so what had happened to she and Jack wouldn’t happen. True.

“For all I know,” Ellie had said, “she’s already off this horrible planet.”

That came up false. Ellie supposed, deep down, she didn’t really think Chloe would leave without finding out what had happened to her and Jack.

She glanced at him.

He looked more tense and angry than worried.

He also, she noticed with a flash of anger, looked like he was watching the matches below as intently as his former commander.

She gripped his hand and hissed, “How can you pay attention to that nonsense at a time like this?”

He sighed. “What else are we supposed to do?”

“Jack…”

“Colonel Hughes has a good eye for mechaneering,” Otto Algreil said. “Since none of us can effect any change in our status at the moment, he’s spending his time in the most productive manner available – observing potential competitors.”

Ellie glared daggers at the Oligarch.

He shrugged.

“Otto’s right, Ellie,” Jack said, sighing. “You and me may as well enjoy the show, ‘cause we’re not going anywhere.”

Ellie recalled how nonchalantly Otto had turned Jack’s punch and sent him reeling. Jack knew his way around a fight, with or without a mecha, but the Oligarch made him look helpless.

She supposed both men had a point.

It didn’t mean she could relax, though.

“Why does Mr. Algreil include himself in the category of those who can’t change their status,” she asked. “I would think with his great influence he could do whatever he wanted.”

“You’d think so, eh?”

“Otto can’t do anything but wait for Chloe,” Jack said.

Ellie stiffened. “You don’t intend to let him –”

“Not a chance in hell.”

She was surprised at how little the Oligarch reacted. He seemed to have lost all interest in their conversation.

“There’re no secrets we could keep from him and not a damn thing we can do to him,” Jack said. “Might as well speak freely.”

“I can’t speak at all with him watching us,” Ellie spat.

“I have no intention of watching you,” Otto said, his attention fixed on the arena. “With a rematch between the Divine Auric Drake and the Crimson Phoenix coming up, this tournament actually looks something more than pathetic. Besides, I’m interested in that Black Rook. Takes a hell of a mechaneer to make it this far in a Civil War line mecha.”

“You’ve never heard of him either?” Jack asked.

“Not a word.”

Ellie spared a glance at the four mecha still in the tournament. Three of the losers had departed under their own power, and the last had been hauled out by a pair of civilian machines that looked painfully similar to Goslings Two and Three.

Of the four remaining, the resplendent black and gold military mecha looked the most impressive. Two of the others were considerably smaller, one black, one sleek silver. The last, a tall, somewhat ungainly machine, struck her as absurd with its garish red paint.

She said as much.

“The machine’s good,” Otto said, “but the pilot is embarrassing his family.”

Ellie looked to Jack.

“His little brother,” Jack said.

Ellie, recalling girlhood with seven siblings, understood immediately.

Then she cocked her head and pointed to the black-and-gold standout. “Why is such an advanced-looking military mecha here?”

“The same reason all Otto can do is wait,” Jack said. “‘Cause the Feds came in about fifteen seconds behind him and scooped up the Goose with a goddamn destroyer, that’s why.”

“A destroyer!”

“Yeah, the Reformer. That’s Second Admiral Marcel Avalon out there, calls himself the ‘Divine Auric Drake.’ Otto claims the Feds are after Chloe, too. I figure it’s probably true, what with that damn Animus Hunter.”

“As you can see,” Otto said, “all I want is for you to help me help you.”

Somehow, Ellie didn’t feel convinced. “Why did you drug me into a stupor, then? Why don’t you let us stay together? Why am I kept under lock and key like –”

He raised an eyebrow. “Like an animal?”

Ellie’s hands shook. She fought the urge to lunge over and rip at the oligarch’s throat – she resisted only because she knew she’d never succeed.

Jack lay a hand on her shoulder and guided her into her chair. “Take it easy, Ellie,” he said. “Don’t give the son of a bitch the satisfaction of provoking us.”

“I’m merely expressing my views on a matter of public debate,” Otto said. “Ain’t democracy grand?”

Ellie slumped back in the chair and hung her head.

Jack’s big fingers massaged the tension in her back, but for once they didn’t help. Desperate for something to take her mind off the oligarch’s presence, she turned her attention to the match.

The two smaller mecha had paired off, which, to Ellie’s eyes, made this second round a virtual lock to produce the actual champion. She couldn’t imagine anyone beating the gilded mecha. She prayed Otto Algreil’s brother wouldn’t do so. She couldn't wish anything good on the oligarch or his house.

The arena's idol-orchestra fanfare announced the commencement of the second round.

Since she didn’t see any hope for the smaller pair, Ellie concentrated on the real fight.

The two mecha approached each other warily, their demeanor entirely without the aggression she’d seen in the first round. The Algreil mecha – the Crimson Phoenix, according to the program projected on the box's windows – assumed a stance she recognized as part of the Devil Ray martial disciplines; Jack used it on those rare occasions he’d had to use Gosling One to fend off pirates. The navy admiral jetted forward with his spear-like monomolecular blade held crosswise before him.

With a sudden burst of acceleration, the Crimson Phoenix shot forward. Ellie didn’t even see him break his stance. Somehow, he managed to swing his mecha’s spindly, thick-wristed arms into a parry to the Divine Auric Drake’s thrust and then to strike the black and gold mecha’s chest before it could recover.

They spun about, both resuming their stances almost before Ellie could see them.

“What a waste,” Jack said. “He shoulda tried for a head shot, gotten a quick kill.”

Otto nodded. “I wish I could say he’s only doing it to give the company’s new model a better showing, but truth is, he’s just a cocky little prick.”

Ellie stared at the men. She’d never seen better piloting, and they were calling it trash!

She looked back to the battle.

The mecha had circled, the black and gold machine spinning its weapon behind it. In the anti-gravity sphere in which they fought, they moved without even using their legs, like men duelling in water.

“He’s weak from the above-left with that stance,” Jack said.

“You expect someone with a moniker like Crimson Phoenix to, you know, actually use the vertical axis? You obviously don’t know my brother.”

“How the hell did he place on Etemenos?”

“This is what we’re reduced to,” Otto said, sighing.

The mecha passed, out of reach for the Algreil machine but close enough for the Divine Auric Drake to lash out with his long-hafted weapon.

He must have missed, because they slid to opposite sides of the field and righted their courses.

The next exchange came more quickly. Contrary to Jack and Otto’s assessment, at least one of the pair actually employed his machine’s ability to fly up and down. The Divine Auric Drake rolled upwards and banked in for a downward cut.

Though she wanted the Fed to win, Ellie winced when his blade cut home. Surely it had bisected the cockpit, and anyone inside it.

The Crimson Phoenix didn’t crumple.

The Divine Auric Drake shuddered.

Ellie’s ear twitched in confusion.

She spared Jack a glance. He was nodding, apparently satisfied with something.

She whispered, “What happened?”

“Watch, Hon,” Jack said.

Watch she did.

Slowly, inexorably, the blade lifted. A pair of red mecha hands clasped it from both sides. Its deadly monomolecular edge, the reason it could cut through a mecha's superdense composite plates, was cupped harmlessly between the Crimson Phoenix’s palms.

“That’s some kinda reflexes your brother’s got,” Jack said.

“He’s got potential,” Otto allowed. “Wasted potential, but potential all the same.”

The monomolecular blade wrenched from its haft. When the Crimson Phoenix released it, it drifted harmlessly toward one of the magnetic fields partitioning the arena.

Ellie asked, “Is it over?”

“Depends on how Admiral Avalon takes it,” Jack said. “Otto?”

“He’s not the type to back down, even if he is sloppy. Besides, he’s got a score to settle with Rudy.”

As predicted, the Divine Auric Drake launched a series of snap kicks at the Crimson Phoenix. His thrusters flared to keep him in reach as each blow sent shudders down both mecha.

Ellie didn’t see how any machine could survive such a pounding, but the Crimson Phoenix rolled with the blows as deftly as any man on foot. After the fifth strike, he jetted left. The sixth blow crashed home without the almost palatable force of its predecessor, and rather than simply roll with it, the Crimson Phoenix launched his counterattack.

The Divine Auric Drake’s leg wrenched at an odd angle. Ellie winced, wondering if Admiral Avalon used a direct neural interface and, as such, felt injuries to his machine as to himself.

If he did, he didn’t show it. His fist shot out and caught the small of the Crimson Phoenix’s elbow, driving the vulnerable point against his own unnaturally extended leg. Before the punch could even show its effects, he reversed it and thrust a slap into the red mecha’s face.

The Crimson Phoenix reeled. His left arm hung useless from the elbow down, and he stumbled backwards, apparently dazed.

The Divine Auric Drake gave him no time to recover. He pounced, his thrusters firing at full power, his hands outstretched.

They collided.

Ellie looked away.

“Heh,” said Otto.

Ellie risked a glance.

The Divine Auric Drake’s chestplate had crumpled beneath a perfectly timed right jab and his own momentum.

Slowly, he drifted back and sank to a kneeling position.

The Crimson Phoenix reached out and gripped the black and gold mecha’s head. His fingers tightened. Claws slid from them, slicing flakes of armor away.

Ellie gulped. Did he mean to kill the admiral? From what she’d seen of Otto Algreil, she could well imagine a member of his family killing an opponent in cold blood.

Then a buzzer sounded.

The Crimson Phoenix stepped back and nodded.

The Divine Auric Drake straightened up and returned the nod.