Caught On Tape

Chad Daikins put his tools on the shelf and walked out into the twilight, heading from the work shed to his house. After seventeen hours of daylight, night was finally falling. The sun was a golden sliver on the red horizon, and the planet’s rings were just starting to glimmer in the sky above. Soon they would burst from their daytime sleep of subdued color into the vivid glamor of nighttime.

Martha met him at the door with a hug and a kiss before he got the chance to clear the long day’s dirt off of himself.

He smiled at her when they parted. “Martha, I’ve been telling you for forty-three years that if you’d just wait a minute, you wouldn’t get all my dirt all over you.”

She absently tucked a strand of greying hair behind her ear. Her eyes sparkled the same way they always had. “And I’ve been telling you just as long that nothing turns me on like a hard-working man, all covered in dirt.”

“Girl, your fire’s never gonna run out, will it?” Chad pinched her ass, and she giggled and danced away.

“Not so long as you stick around, hubby.”

Chad stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. Her face had weathered as many harsh years as his, but her skin was still soft and warm. “Well, you know we’ve got seventeen hours to burn ‘till sunup. Think you can make it just like old times.”

“Oh, even better than that, hon. I’ve had years of practice.” She tilted her head and caught him up in a deep kiss.

Damn, and I thought our wedding kiss was good! How did I ever manage to… ooh… wha’s that smell? Chad broke their kiss and sniffed at the air inside his house. His stomach started to growl. “Dinner before dessert, darling. What kind of magic have you been up to all day?”

Martha smiled and moved into the kitchen. “You never change, dear. You’re just going to have to wait and see. Now go on and wash up while I finish up making supper.”

Martha called after him as he was headed into the bathroom. “Oh, yeah, some mail came for you today. I didn’t read it, but it had the InCom logo on it. What would they want from you?”

Chad started the shower, and took his clothes off. “I dunno.” He called back. “I’ll tell you about it over dinner.” He tapped the icon on the bathroom mirror that opened his mailbox, then opened the new message. The computer dictated it to him while he chiseled the day’s dirt off and sent it down the drain.

From: /pub

To: .web

subj: offer for you

Dear Mr. Daikins

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Wally Zind Mar hth, chief editor at the InCom publishing office.

It is nearing the fiftieth anniversary of the day that your heroic actions at the Eighth Military Demonstration helped bring our two races together. It is my privelage to inform you that Aleya Tanner, one of our best-selling biographers, has expressed great interest in writing your story of the events of January 34th, 1315 PC. You are still a figure in the popular mind, and the people are hungry to know your side of the story. InCom Publications humbly asks for the right to bring that story to the people. We, of course, are fully ready to compensate you for your time and trouble

My company and I anxiously await your response.

And, may I add as a personal note, that my family and I greatly admire you. You are the hero of our time, and our universe would not be the same if not for you.

Sincerely,

Wally Zind Mar hth

“Humph. That was a long time ago, Wally. And I certainly ain’t a hero, not by a long shot.”

X X X

“…And, oh, yeah, Davey called! His semester is up, and he’ll be arriving on a transport in a couple of days! Oh, won’t it be so exciting to see our baby after his first year at university? It’s just been so long, I bet he’s as thin as a rail!”

Chad swallowed the roast he had been chewing on. It was a little tough, but he still loved it. “That’s great dear. I’m sure you’ll fatten him up right quick!”

“Yeah, and you’ll work it all right off of him, I bet.”

“You know it! It’ll be good for him. He’s been working his brain for a year. I’d say it’s time he gave it a rest and gave his body a chance to catch up.”

“He’s studying martial arts, dear.”

“Oh… well, then he won’t lose it all over the break. He’ll be strong as ever when he goes back! Boy’ll be teaching the stuff in no time. Why, I bet he’ll hold his own against a Siltussian!”

“Right, right... You’re so full of crap, dear.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So, what was in the letter?”

“They want to write my story on what happened at the eighth demonstration.”

“Terriffic! Are you going to?”

Chad paused for a moment. “I don’t know yet, dear. Everyone takes me to be some kind of hero, except me. I can’t say I’m too proud of what I did that day.”

“Chad…”

“This guy thinks of me like some kind of hero. Well, I sure don’t feel like it! Heros save lives.” Chad could feel his old pain returning. “Fifty years ago, all I did was betray my own family, and the whole union loves me for it!”

“Honey, you’ve got to stop. At the eighth Demonstration, you did what you thought was right, and the Human-Zinna Alliance formed because of it. Otherwise, we would probably have gone to war with them again. Just think of how much damage the union would have endured through that fight.”

“I know all that, dear, but my brother is still dead, and it’s still my fault.”

“And you know damn well that your brother was wrong! You’ve gotta stop feeling guilty for Sam’s choices.”

X X X

Chad sat quietly in his study, worrying. He roughly massaged his temples, trying to relieve the pressure he was feeling. She’s right, I know. I’ve been hiding for fifty years on this dirty world, feeling sorry for what I did… but it still seems wrong!

Chad stood and walked over to a bookcase in the room. He unlocked one of the ornate wooden doors and opened it up. Inside was a Union flag in a decorative case, and a bright medal: the Union’s Double Star. President Schumacher had given him the medal after the Eighth Military Demonstration as a reward for his heroism. Next to the medal was another trophy, a delicate crystal spire that shimmered like a rainbow. It was covered in Zinna writing. The Zinna diplomat had given this to him on the same day, thanking him for his courage in defending the alliance between the humans and the Zinna.

The right half of the shelf was taken up by a mechfighter’s helmet. Al took it out and sat back down at his desk. It was a sleek looking device with a dark visor, internal heads-up projectors, and connections on the back for a wet-link. The right side had a hawk with a skull in its claws painted on it. The call sign Talon was painted over the visor. He took a set of dog tags out from under his shirt, where he kept them on a chain. When he handled them, they turned on and displayed an ID picture, a barcode, and the name Samuel Daikins. There was a Human Nation crest on the back.

Chad turned the helmet over in his hands, studying it like he had a thousand times before, trying to find some explanation as to why his brother had joined the Separatists. Just like before, all he found was an empty helmet, with a wicked, melted hole in the visor. The edges of the hole were bent inward, warped by the force of the semi-molten piece of shrapnel that had shot through it. The doctors said he died before he felt anything. Well… he still died.

Chad set the helmet on the desk in front of him and stared at it. The burned hole was like the eye socket of a skull, staring back at him. He could not help but feel that it was accusing him.

Once again, tears started to flow down Chad’s cheeks. You want me to write a story? You want me to tell the galaxy about how I became a hero? Wally, you bastard, you don’t know! No one knows the whole story. Yeah, I saved the alliance, and helped reunite the union, but no one ever found out about the price I paid…

Chad froze after a moment, ealization dawning on him. No one ever found out...

…Oh, duh…

From: .web

To: /pub

subj: re: offer for you

Wally,

I've got a better idea. I'm going to write my story, my way. When I'm done, InCom can publish it. Sound nice?

-Chad

X X X

Chad walked into their bedroom. Martha was sitting on the far edge of the bed in a bathrobe with her back to him, drying her hair. He sat down beside her.

“I’m going to write the story for them.”

Martha looked at him with amazed eyes. “Really? Oh, I’m so glad, darling!”

“Yeah. They’ll get a bit more than they will be expecting, but it will still be a good story for them.”

“That’s wonderful dear! Are you going start it now?”

“Well, I guess I might as well. Just as soon get it over with.” He patted her thigh and started to get up. Well… he looked back at her, sitting in her bathrobe. The eyes she was giving him were so alluring, and her smooth skin felt warm and inviting. He could smell the trap she had set, and wanted it to spring. “Well, it has been a long day.” He could feel that he was already grinning like a fool. “How about a bit of recreation first?”

Her smirk matched his. “You’re on, bud.”

A while later Chad untangled himself from his sleeping wife and crept back into his study. He warmed up his computer. the greenish glow from the screen highlighted the creases on his face and filled the wrinkles in with deep shadows. He could make out his reflection in the screen, and the abuse of decades was plain as day. In his mind’s eye, he erased the lines, smoothed his skin out, and brought the old color back into his hair. He remembered how he used to wear his hair; short and spiked, with tips colored bright red. He wiped away the stubble and put the rock-star grin back where it used to always be.

He brought himself back to a time when he was young, happy, and everything was going right in his life. It was that untouchable age; early twenties, too old to be snotty, but still too old to feel the strain of life. Back then, he had felt like a god.

After a few moments, he started typing.

Ever since I was a toddler, there were two things my parents knew I loved: first, I loved filming things. Whenever they turned their backs, my brother Sam would grab their camera and shove it into my chubby little hands and send me off chasing things. My favorite thing to do was to make action-packed wildlife documentaries centered on the theme of what happens when sleeping housecats are startled awake by a loud three year old shoving a camera lens in their face.

The second thing my parents found out about me was that I loved going fast. The cat would shriek and jerk awake and go running off through the house, and I’d be right on it’s tail, tottering along as fast as my un-coordinated legs could take me. The problem always was that I lacked the agility of our cat; I’d always end up smashing camera-first into a wall as I tried to follow Blossom around a corner. I was never seriously hurt, but my parents’ cameras didn’t fare so well. My parents were smart, though; for my seventh birthday, they went to a military surplus store and bought an old heavy-duty field camera with armor plating. I still use it to this day, without a single problem.

Anyway, it’s because of all that that I love my job so much. I was fifteen when the Military Demonstrations were first broadcasted to the public of the United Systems. The Demonstration became like a new Super Bowl, but bigger and much cooler. They were an annual event that everyone watched. The Demonstration was originally started by the different weapon design and production corporations as an event where they could pit their weapons against each other in live-fire combat, giving their new designs something closer to true combat testing. The Union military took great interest, of course, as it was an opportune time to see the possible replacements and upgrades of their machines given true field tests. They attended, co-sponsored, and even provided most of the pilots. Catching the eye of the military was the main goal, but there were other buyers around too; representatives from privately owned security forces, mercenary companies, and colonial militias all begged attendance. After a couple of tournaments, Haelberg Inc., seeing a massive turnover available, constructed Battlefield Arena in the wastes of planet Jimmy, and opened the stands to the public. There were two kilometers between the massive stands, and the arena was open to the desert at both ends, so the combatants had plenty of room to maneuver. It was outfitted with all of the greatest broadcast equipment, the most astonishing being the holographic displays that projected all the details of the fight up into the skies so everyone had a good view, no matter where the battle migrated. The fights were just what humanity had been craving since the dawn of civilization, especially the mechanized armor fights. The mechs were gladiators on a grand scale: daunting, larger-than-life warriors fighting it out in one-on-one combat. We were a long way from Rome, but the convention still held; the mob loves a good fight. It was just gravy that the warriors were several storeys tall, and blows were marked with earth-quaking explosions.

Everyone was stunned by the first broadcast Game, including yours truly. But, while the masses were getting their thrills watching the big fights, I was taken in by the camera work. Military vehicles move fast, and the cameramen had some way of keeping up with them. Not only did they keep up, but I swore that they were out-maneuvering the combatants. The final fight was what really blew my mind; it was the famous duel between Rus Caivin in the Faber-Honda Doberman Mark V, and Larry Aruik in the Meldera Broadsword Mark III. In the climactic scene, when those two flew off along the ground, dueling at over two hundred and fifty miles and hour, the cameramen somehow paced them, flying close and ducking out and catching all the dramatic angles, and they avoided becoming dead bystanders from missed shots and the mechs’ erratic maneuvers. On top of that, the picture was absolutely clear, and rock-steady.

The moment I saw that scene eight years ago, I knew what I was going to do. I devoted myself to researching the new industry of broadcasting the Demonstration, and finally came up with a name: the Hot Riders. They were a new breed of cameramen who wet-jacked into high-speed flyers and their cameras, allowing them total, direct control over their work. If there had ever been a job built for me, this was it. I finished high school, told my parents I loved them, and shipped off to our system’s capital world, Ellen, where I could get training in wet-jack piloting. They stuck a jack in the back of my head, and I spent the next two years in simulators, then my third in actual vehicle training.

It takes a lot to control machines with your mind. I had to re-program myself, and cut out all the static, garbage, and little mental sidetracks that most people don’t ever really notice. It takes absolute mental clarity to get machines to do what you want; any stray thought can and probably will be misinterpreted as some kind of order, with possibly disastrous consequences. In my third year, I saw half a dozen of my classmates killed or paralyzed by their own machines, because they went onto the training grounds with unclear heads. Most people, especially trainees, were given drugs that helped clear their minds, but they only helped. It was still the pilot’s responsibility to keep his cool. I, of course, was a role model to all my other classmates… well, to some of them. I was good, even great, but I wasn’t the best. (The best usually go military, and live full but very short lives.) I graduated just above the bottom of the top of the class.

All that is what brought me to the Demonstration on January 34th, 1315, PC. I spent some years working for studios, filming over-the-top action scenes. Then I got a golden opportunity from Meldera, Inc. They offered me a job that was right on the money; they wanted me to film their new toys out on the testing grounds. It was just the kind of job experience I needed to get a shot at the Demonstration. I’d be working with mechs, tanks, and scout and recon vehicles in staged combat environments. That was, for me, two years of hair-raising fun. Now here I am, a Hot Rider for the Eighth annual Military Tournament.

The Demonstrations were already half over, and I’d gotten some great footage of the artillery battles, tank demonstrations and scout runs. I was right there in the midst of a pack of Meldera Swordbreaker infiltration craft as they led their lightning strike uphill into a nest of Dobermen and Rottweilers, and ripped through their solid, time-tested defense like it was nothing. It was a thrilling, adrenaline-pumping ride, and the fans were still raving over the footage I had helped capture... and crying over lost bets. Faber-Honda Dobermen, and their bulked-up cousins the Rottwielers, had always been the best general-combat mechs, and the United Systems Government had used them to flesh out their ranks for decades. They were awesome in combat and attack missions, but they shone the brightest when on the losing side. There were very few times when a locked-down team of Dopes and Rots on the defensive had been cracked. The few times that they had lost ground had taken something on the scale of a thermo-nuke shot right into the middle of them to do it. But these swordbreakers were something else: sleek, fast, nimble dagger-like low-flyers designed specifically to break through the dogs’ ranks. Something that could punch through their defensive formations certainly got the military’s attention. I’d bet that the military was already printing out contracts for a wing of new Swordbreakers.

Now the fun was about to begin. The Hot Riders’ garage was full of that static tingle of bottled excitement. We were about to film the first mech battle in the tournament. The military cycled what classification of mech was tested each year, and this year's was a brand new class: next-generation general combat mechs, fully capable of conducting war in deep space. The companies had been working on their entries for five years, at the least. I had been there, filming, while Meldera tested their model, so I knew a bit of what was coming up.

I remember cringing at the memory of the Meldera entry. Those of you who know the vehicle I’m talking about can probably understand what I felt.

This tournament was going to be the biggest since the very first, eight years before, and definitely one of the most gruesome.

And I got to film it!

"Hey, Chad, pass me that wrench."

Oh, yeah, that's me. I'm Chad Daikins, passing a wrench to Walter, one of my fellow Hot Riders. We were both flat on our backs, working on last minute adjustments to our open-air flyers. The flyers were nothing fancy; they were pretty much just wet-jacked motorcycles too arrogant to ever touch the ground. They use a combination of lift thrusters and aerodynamics to keep them airborne. "Here, bud. What's up with your bike?"

"Not much. One of the steering vanes is moving a bit sluggish. It's no danger, but I missed some great clips because of it. No worries, I'll have it fixed in plenty of time. What about yours?"

I finished running a diagnostic test, and then started re-attaching a web of wires. "Well, I think my advanced sweep scanners are out of sync with the auto-adjustment program. My ride's been a bit rough, and you know that I just won't stand for glitchy camerawork."

"Right, right... Nothing is ever good enough for our dear Master Chad, is it?" his mock-butler voice was horrible.

“Shaddup, Walter.”

“Well, you sure talk big, for one who nearly flunked out of basic mechanical maintenance.”

“You know, Walter, you’re really an ass.”

“I know. Funny thing is, you keep me around anyway.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda sad, but I need you. The demonstrations wouldn’t be the same with out you. You know that?”

He grinned; even now he could guess what was coming. “Really, you mean that?”

“Yeah. Look at all these other guys around us; they’re all veterans in this job. If it weren’t for you, I’d be the worst cameraman here.”

Walter chuckled and went on fixing his bike.

I kept working, surrounded by the hubbub of ten other riders around me, all making last minute tweaks to their flyers, suits, and camera equipment. The first battle was minutes away, and we all wanted to be in top form for the masses. Billions of fans depended on us, and there was no way that we were going to let them down. I did not even notice when the pilots of the actual mechs jogged through, fresh from the clinic, on the way to their own hangars where their monstrous machines were waiting, prepped and ready to beat the crap out of one another.

I tweaked, nudged, and ran another diagnostic. I frowned at the readout on the screen, which still was not quite where I wanted to be. Another tweak, nudge, twist, and another failed reading popped up on the display. I whacked at it with a wrench, looked at the display, and finally smiled. “Third time’s a charm…”

And, soon enough, it was zero hour. I saddled up, plugged in, and revved my flyer's engines, ready to go. Using a jack system was always disorienting. I was suddenly aware of two bodies. I felt the cloth of my suit against my skin, the electronics running down my limbs and around my hands, and the heavy pieces of armor bearing down on me. I could feel the weight of the camera on my shoulder, as reassuring as my own heartbeat, and the feel of my own pulse pumping through my veins. At the Same time, I stretched out, and suddenly, the machine under me was me. I felt the force of my repulsors, pushing me up and away from the ground below. It was my engine that I felt, turning over slowly, ready to roar to full life and push me to the edge of sound. I twitched my steering vanes, and my scanners touched the world around me like an extra set of senses. I saw through my eyes, and I saw through the glass lens of my camera. I switched spectrums as easily as blinking an eye. Our door opened, and with a collective “Whoop!” the eleven of us shot out onto the wide battlefield, engines burning with wild abandon. To either side of the vast dusty plane stood massive bleachers, two kilometers apart, filled with anxious fans. The muted sounds of cheering drifted down to us on the winds. The cheers were not really for us, but for the fact that our sudden appearance signaled the start of the fight. Overhead, luxurious dirigibles floated through the skies, full of distinguished guests and the highest-ranking attending officers. These were the years before Holstein’s Formula, and anti-gravity was still far too expensive for anyone but the military and the super-rich to afford to use. Blimps still provided the best luxury seating for the wealthy at spectator sports.

I perched to one side of the gate in the ground that led from one of the hangars, ready to catch the warrior’s emergence. The other Hot Riders took their places over the field, ready to snag the fight and send it live to all ends of the Unified galaxy, and probably beyond. My brother was a mech pilot for the Human Nation, and he said in letters that during the Demonstration, even the fanged tension along the borders between the Union and Separatist space eased up a little. It was like an annual rest week when both sides took a break from taunting each other to sit back and watch a game or two.

I faintly noticed the announcer heralding the first combatant. I glanced at the other gate, with two of my friends orbiting around it, as it groaned open and the elevator lifted. On it perched a nightmare; Meldera’s new Halberd. It was like an ogre and a spider, smashed together and encased in gleaming black armor that scintillated green and purple when the sunlight hit certain angles. Four legs, four flight appendages and a multitude of weapons and arms all branched off from the torso like broken, jointed bug legs. The torso and primary arms were massive, built like boulders. The flight appendages, blade-like combinations of wings and thrusters, fanned behind it as it turned in place on its four thick, sleek legs so that all of those in attendance could get a good look at it.

Again, I could not repress a shudder at the sight. The Halberd was truly the meanest looking mech I had ever seen.

“And for the first mech battle of this year’s tournament,” I heard the announcer chanting to the crowds, “the Halberd will be battling the Assyir Redeemer!”

The gate right under me groaned open, and the elevator started rising from the subterranean hangar. I circled slowly with my lens trained on the dark opening, catching the first glimpses of the Redeemer as bits of sunlight glinted off of its leading parts.

The crowd grew hushed as it came into view. Well, shit. I thought, That is certainly something new… and ugly. I played my camera over various parts; the globulous body, sophisticated lift systems, two massive arms with heavy razor claws, and nests of weapons on its broad shoulders. Then I panned back to capture the whole thing in one shot. The first surprise was an utter lack of legs. It floated several stories above the ground, supported on an anti-gravity system. It was like a bloated, legless crab, red and black, with protruding weapons and sensory equipment.

With the announcer ticking off both mechs’ credentials, I circled slowly around the awkward-looking Redeemer, and caught a wide-angle shot over its shoulder of the Halberd. I loved shots like that, sort of slipping in a shot of one warrior’s perspective of its opponent. Actually, I love any shot that is more than just a straight eyeball of the subject. There is nothing quite as cool as slipping between two colliding mechs to capture the thunder of their fight. I habitually risked broken bones, vaporization, and just plain getting stepped on, but I always came away with a killer, awe-inspiring shot.

Totally focused on my job, I was in tune with all the activity around me: the mechs posturing for the crowd, the other Hot Riders swirling and filming, the announcer signaling the start of the fight.

“Let the battle begin!”

The Redeemer and the Halberd rushed each other, and I revved and followed. A massive thrust system pushed the Redeemer forward, and the Halberd sprang forward on its mechanical legs. The computer and I communicated back and forth, negotiating the best path to the best shot as the two titans collided. They grappled and kick-boxed, the Redeemer smashing with its two powerful claws, the Halberd parrying and thrusting with kicks, jabs and swipes. Then they broke apart in a swirl of dust and burning fuel. They paused, crouched, in that tense moment of two fighters assessing each other. Then the Redeemer opened up with a quick volley of laser fire from the nests of weapons on it back, slicing through the Halberd’s position... the Halberd’s empty position. From high above, held aloft by the thrust from its wings, it shot a rain of cannon fire down on the back of the Redeemer, pounding dents in its thick armor in a hail of explosions. The monstrosity responded with a flare of engines, pushing straight up through the line of fire, trusting its armor to take the punishment. It landed a fierce swipe on the Halberd’s side that sent it spinning through the air, then followed up by birthing a swarm of rockets that jabbed at the Halberd like thrown daggers. Several hit their mark, scarring and burning the bright black armor off of its legs and torso.

I was swinging in for a good shot, when another rider cut me off. He ruined my shot and just about knocked me out of the air. Walter’s voice blared in my ears. “Oh, sorry, did I just steal your shot?”

“Reckless dick.” I switched on the radio, “Hey, if you’re gonna try to get your neck broken, try to do it somewhere else, ya fat little rat-bastard!”

I heard the start of Walter’s laughter before Jones, our Captain, cut us both off. “Shut up and film, or I’ll see to it neither of you greenhorns ever pick up a camera again! Got it?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Ya, mon.”

The Halberd spun as the crowds cheered, and, flying backwards, chipped away at the pursuing Redeemer with the rifles it held in each hand. It dodged frantically between the stalwart Redeemer’s hail of lasers. I danced with them, catching close-ups of firing weapons and tricky maneuvers. Then, I saw the Halberd deploy a weapon I had never been allowed to see when I worked for Meldera. Its chest plates swung open, revealing the wide muzzle of a heavy ion cannon. It charged forward, dashing through the Redeemer’s field of laser fire, grabbed the Redeemer’s claws in its own, and pinned them out of the way. Then it fired the cannon point-blank at the redeemer’s head.

The light from the sudden shot was blinding. The beam of energy slammed into the top of the head of the Redeemer, and was deflected back over the weapons built into its shoulders. Intense heat and storms of energy tore into the crab mech, burning away the weapons and cracking and ruining its armor.

When the light show died down, the Halberd’s pilot released the redeemer and darted away. The crowds erupted into a pandemonium of cheers at the unexpected spectacle. The Redeemer, from the thick armor at the top of its head, all the way up and over its back, was a twisted black ruin. Everyone thought the fight was over, except for the two pilots, and those of us close enough to see the light still gleaming in the sensory bank on the crab’s head. Its engines flared brighter, and it shot off in hot pursuit of the Halberd. The two machines pulled into a tight dive, with us coming close behind. I was tight on the tail of the crab. My friends were all around, above, below, and on every side, catching every possible view of the thrilling high-speed chase. At one point, we passed dangerously close to one of the larger dirigibles. I even glimpsed a few astounded faces through the windows. I was surprised to see a few Zinna faces in the gondola, but shrugged it off and focused on my job. The Redeemer was gaining on its prey, and the ground was rushing up fast. The Redeemer had had all of its weapons boiled away, so it was going to have to win by close-quarters combat.

The Halberd veered sharply, now flying along the ground, with the Redeemer looming close behind, twisted and broken and blackened. Despite the sleek styling of the Halberd and the redeemer’s bulky physique, the hulking, legless crab was the one that had the advantage in speed. Within seconds it was on top of the Halberd. It lifted one arm high, and delivered a savage blow down on the Spider-mech. Its claws dug deep into its back and shoulders, and the force of the blow knocked it into the ground, all while flying at hundreds of kilometers per hour. The impact was brutal… or, we all expected it to be.

For the second time, the Meldera pilot and the glistening black spider took everyone by complete surprise. It hit the ground on its shoulder and tucked in, rolling with the impact. It rolled onto its feet as the Redeemer and I passed directly above it. I kept my camera trained on the Halberd as it flexed its legs and sprang up, assisted by its wing thrusters. It rushed almost straight at me, dominating my view, and passed so close that I could have touched it. I followed it with my camera as it jumped in a high arc, up and right over me, to land squarely on the Redeemer’s back. The crowd let out a collective gasp as it snapped its weapons out of the way, and jabbed its wicked claws down through a crack in the armor casing. The machine groaned as it flexed and pulled, tearing the gash wider and exposing the vulnerable interior of its opponent. It stood up, keeping its footing on the frantically dodging crab, and shoved the barrels of both of its rifles into the tear. There was a muffled roar, and the beams punched straight out the Redeemer’s underbelly. A moment later, the entire machine exploded outward in a mammoth fireball. Bits of shrapnel screamed past me as I dodged away, turned backward in my seat to capture the roiling fireball as it enveloped both mechs.

The smoke cleared away quickly, shoved by the desert winds. I captured the close-up as the Halberd, blackened but still healthy, landed lightly on its feet in a hail of debris and wild cheering.

X X X

Three more fights went down that day, in the first elimination round. I flew with them all, catching the glorifying scenes and giving the whole Union a chance to bask in the power of the eight new machines, and keep track of which ones moved on to have a chance at being the military’s next big new toy. The fights were astonishing, punctuated with the thunderclaps of detonations and the bright bursts of laser fire. The crowd got their fill of carnage, that’s for certain. I gave them close-ups of angelic battles high above, and I gave them the grit and grime of fights down in the desert sands. Every tool of destruction was used here; armor-piercing gutter rockets, high-velocity, heavy-slug repeaters, particle beam weapons, lasers and plasma cannons. Armor was slashed and bashed in a flurry of claws, blunt kicks, energy-augmented battle-axes and swords. One company had even made another go at an energy-bladed weapon, but, as usual, it malfunctioned soon after the punishment began, and the mech behind the beam sword got creamed (the love for the mythical idea of “light sabers” had never died down, but it still remained just a myth).

Despite the carnage, the casualty rate remained low. The crowd witnessed a variety of ejection systems put to the test, and they all worked like a charm. Even the pilot of the Redeemer crawled from his smoking pod in time to see the Halberd land, triumphant. Then he gaped with the rest of the crowd as the spider-ogre did a brief, earth-shaking victory dance, arms crossed over its chest, wings fanned to the sky, and legs kicking out in a quadruped jig. I tried to keep control, but I lost. My camera work became quite shoddy as I gave in to gut-busting laughter.

Aside from the first two combatants, most of the entries that year were variations of the standard man-shaped mech. They were all very creative variations, but still, the dominant form was humanoid. The military liked that; it was far easier to adjust to piloting a mech with a configuration you are used to. When you jack into an intense system, like a battle mech, you go, deeper, I guess. I felt like I was in complete unity with my flyer, but from conversations I had had with mech pilots, the connection they make is a hundred times more powerful. I cannot imagine how much trouble it must be for the Halberd pilot to get used to using only his own two legs after a session in the quadruped. I bet it would have been a real sight, seeing him go down a hallway, stumbling over legs that were not there.

There were two other very interesting entries, though. Since reaching a state of peace with the Zinna, Samwise Inc. teamed up with one of the Zinna corporations and made a human-operable mech, using the design of a Zinna Stardancer. It was certainly the oddest thing that loped onto the battlefield that day. The main body was a sphere, with a wide eye on the front. If you consider the eye to be the North Pole, then the four long legs were equally spaced around the equator. The South Pole fanned out into a disk, with three thruster/wings on it. The human Stardancer had long-range weapons on its legs, but its primary fighting style was grappling, kicking, and dismemberment, mixed with impressive maneuvers and incredible flight abilities.

The other big spectacle was Faber-Honda’s entry, called the Wolfhound. It was man-shaped, but the most beautiful humanoid mech I had ever seen. It had a build like a slightly stocky armored knight. Its armor was simple shades of tan, with highlights of black and green. It had a broad chest, heavy ass-kicking legs, and plates like a shogun’s armor skirt hanging off its waist, protecting its hip joints. Two massive, sphere-turreted thruster systems were mounted on its back for flight. Its primary hand weapons were clustered repeaters bundled with medium cannons. Heavy plates on its forearms were able to open up and spread out into shields that swept up past its elbows. When not in use, the two guns were clipped onto its waist, like holstered pistols, and the shields collapsed down into Popeye-arms. Its engines were not regular flight appendages, like were so popular for making highly maneuverable space vehicles. Rather, the primary thrusters were close to the body, mounted right in the sphere-shaped turrets. Major and minor directional vanes bracketed the thrusters like some mutated hybrid of pincers and wings. When the Wolfhound was not in the air, the wings were pulled in flat against its back, covering the thrusters, and hanging down to about its knees. Wide, flat-barreled energy cannons hung off of each of its shoulders, reaching about as far down as its wings, stowed out of the way until needed. The cannons and wings together gave the effect of a cape. All together, the Wolfhound was like a royal knight, or a caped shogun, on a grand scale.

Except for its head. Its head was really… different. When it first slipped past my camera lens, I actually did a double take. It took a lot of getting used to. At the very front was a single, dominant eye. From there, it swept back into a wide crest that extended out over the sphere turrets on its back, and spread almost as wide as its chest. At the back it curved into two blunt horns. It was like a broad triangle, with the eye at one point and a horn at each other. It really looked good; it was just so unconventional that it took me a bit by surprise. It just did not look like something a human would have designed.

Faber-Honda had been a favorite of the United Systems Forces for decades, ever since the first Doberman had come off the assembly line, but they really had outdone themselves this time. The Wolfhound was in the last round on the first day, and it really stole the show. It flew like an eagle, and killed like an avenging archangel. It had a flawless balance of grace, finesse, speed, and brutality. On that first day it fought the Baron X-77, a vaguely man-shaped mech, but with a torso built like a tank. The Baron boasted an impressive, inexhaustible arsenal, but it never stood a chance. The Wolfhound flew spheres around it, almost giving us hot riders a run for our money. Before long, the Baron was hacked, smashed, burned, dismembered, and on the way to the scrap heap, trailing smoke and pieces of itself along the way. It had had the firepower to make it. It could even fly, even operate in space, but it was not built with the maneuvering capabilities to ever stand up to something like the Wolfhound.

That day, audiences were left breathless, awed by the spectacle and entertained to the absolute limit. Generals and executives grinned from ear-to-ear, awaiting the next battles like kids at Christmas. They did not much care which particular mech won; the corporations had met, and even exceeded, the goals they had set. No matter the outcome, they were going to get the new toys they had asked for.

X X X

Chad sat back and took a look at what he had created. He had never thought of writing before, but he was rather enjoying it. His old fingers were certainly benefiting from the exercise from using the keyboard. True, it would be easier to jack in and dictate the story directly from his brain to the computer, but it seemed wrong, somehow.

He put his hand on the back of his neck, feeling the cover over the old jack that was still implanted there. It’s probably full of dirt, anyway. I’d probably fry if I tried to use it with these new systems.

It had been decades since the last time he had jacked into any type of system. The frontier life, working the land, had taught him to respect the power of his own hands and other events of his past had left him afraid of sinking back into any machine again.

Well, I have to say I’m proud, but I’m not nearly finished. I’d say it’s time to bring in someone new.

Chad brought up an old video, one that he had filmed under a double moon years before. After a few minutes, he began typing…

X X X

When I introduced myself, I said I had always liked camerawork, and going fast. Well, filming’s great, but nothing beats a fast ride. That night, after the first mech fights, we scattered, looking for some way to celebrate. Sarah and Walter ran off to Alrona, hoping to get trashed at the legendary club The Dead Gladiator. Some of the others went to the local joints to rub elbows with other pilots. Captain Jones went over the shots we had snagged that day.

As for me, I waited until everyone had cleared out, then I hopped on my flyer and shot out under the stars.

Imagine this: a force, more powerful than any we know. As advanced as we claim to be, we still do not understand it. It binds the universe together and keeps it running. Through all the travesties, and the breakthroughs, the horrors and the joy, it keeps going, running smoothly.

What do you think? Is it gravity, or love? I often wondered, when I was young, if perhaps they were the same?

Anyway, the thing I am getting at is that gravity is huge. It runs the show. It controls everything. Well, when I plugged into my flyer and revved it up, I got gravity to loosen its hold, just a little. At those times, I felt like an angel, soaring on silvered wings.

That night, both of Jimmy’s moons, Sephora and the green Sally Po, were high, and shining near full. I drove away at full speed, and the city-like complex built around and under Battlefield Arena where we kept our garage fell behind, along with its lights. Soon the stars shone out boldly around the moons. The arid, ancient desert spread its arms and welcomed me in, inviting me to dance over its surface. The pale, clean light gleamed off of the fenders of the flyer, the flyer that was me. I was flying, racing to my limit, and faster still, as effortlessly as the wind. I ran out across the desert that night, becoming just another zephyr in the prevailing nighttime winds.

At night, or in moments of solitude, sometimes I face something far greater than myself. A memory, or an image or a piece of music opens up something in me, and lets me get a touch of something truly magnificent, and it opens up a feeling like a gap in my soul, a hollowness in my chest. Flying that night, I felt the gap open, as the stars and moons assaulted me. The feel of the wind over my body charged me, and pulled the gap wider. I think I even started to cry. It was like I was suddenly aware of infinite magnificence of the universe, and thus aware of my own tiny place in it. For a while, I couldn’t even find myself as I was sucked up by all of space and time.

And then, the strangest thing happened. As I took in the splendor of what I was experiencing, I felt the hole start to fill. It was like a kind of joy, but one that was connected with the world. I realized what was going on, that I was feeling a bit of that magnificence in me, and then I know I started to cry

I had been almost there. I had just about grabbed onto a chunk of that nameless thing that religions, philosophers, and dreamers had been seeking forever, when a flash and a roar snapped me back to reality.

Something huge dropped from the sky about a mile away from me, held on wings of blue fire. After a brief bit of inactivity, I saw it stand up and start moving. I turned and went closer to investigate. It was moving in slow, repetitive motions, getting faster and faster. As I approached, I finally made it out. It was the Wolfhound, and it was shadowboxing.

I would have expected thunder, but I didn’t get it. As this machine went through the motions of battle, it landed with little noise. It was a titan with the grace of a ballerina. It was such a great, powerful machine, blatantly a creation of man, and yet it seemed to belong here, moving so unobtrusively under the eyes of the heavens.

I wanted to know the man behind this machine, so I opened up a channel. “Good evening, pilot. Mind if I cut in on this dance?”

The voice that came back was full of stories. “Who’s that?” the great head swung around, seeking me out.

“My name’s Chad Daikins. I’m a hot rider. Pleased to meet you.”

The eye locked onto me, and the machine turned my way and pulled off a vague salute. “I’m Jeckel Ryusoto, ace pilot.” This last was said like it was meant to be a joke.

I slowed as I approached his machine, pulling to a stop a decent distance from him. “Good night to get out, huh?”

“Definitely.”

“So, what’re you up to out here?”

“Oh, I just took the Wolfhound out for some exercise. I'm just practicing a bit for tomorrow’s battle. I guess I still have some of the charge from today’s fight racing through my blood.”

“I know just how you feel. I think this was one of the greatest days of my life.” I looked up at the Wolfhound, amazed. How cool is this? I thought, I'm gonna get a free show! “Hey, while you’re out here, would you mind if I practice my trade, as well?”

“Sure! It’d be good to have some company tonight. Lemme know when we’re rolling.”

I pulled my camera out of its bin behind me and hooked it up. I aimed it way up, to the mech’s head. “Down here, buddy. Give us a smile.” The crested head turned down, gleaming at me with that huge eye. Jeckel raised his robot’s arm and waved his huge fingers at me delicately. With a smile on my face, I said, “All right, buddy, we’re rolling! Dance your dance, and we’ll see if I can keep step!”

“Yo! We go!”

And, just like that, we were in instant motion. He pulled off all of the moves in and out of the book, doing things that mechs just didn’t do, and I was right on him. I ducked under kicks, followed punches, rolled with his dodges and feints, catching the motion with my camera. It was one of our greatest technological achievements, pulling off human maneuvers from way back in the ancient times.

As for that magnificence I had grabbed onto, well, I certainly didn’t just let it go, off into the night from whence it came. I held onto it, deep inside, and fed off of it. I could feel the pure strength flowing directly from me, into my actions. That night, my machine and I truly did become like something natural. There was no static, not a single stray thought. It was just me and my flyer. Every move I pulled was right. Every shot I caught and committed to electronic memory was perfect: pure motion and excellence.

“Hey Jeckel?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s make a documentary out of this. Tell me a little something about yourself.”

“Well… sure.” The Wolfhound pulled into an old-style boxing pose, with shoulders hunched and balled fists, jabbing at the air, ducking and dodging around. “I was born on Io, and lived a pretty normal life there. When I was twenty, the boredom finally got to me, so I joined up with the military. I ended up driving a bulldog for a couple of years, and then switched over to a Rapier in the Special Forces just in time for the Zinna war.”

“You’re a veteran Rapier pilot?” Rapiers were small Meldera mechs, designed for hand-to-hand and melee combat. The Special Forces loved them because of their effectiveness in covert ops and penetration missions. “Did you fight at the battle of Teratha 9?”

“C’mon, kid. Didn’t you read the file on that fight? If I had been dropped there, I certainly wouldn’t be standing here today. Only one SpecOps soldier crawled out of that meat grinder, and he hasn’t stepped into a mech since.” There was a ring of bitterness in Jeckel’s voice.

I stuck my foot in my mouth right there. The Special Forces had lost half of their total forces in that deathtrap. “Sorry, man. That was a slip. But you saw some real action?”

“Oh, hell yeah!” The shield on the Wolfhound’s left arm deployed, and the right pulled a huge battleaxe from between its main thrusters. After a few practice swings, Jeckel got into a rhythm, and resumed talking again. “I dropped into the battle of the Four Stars, on Blister. I also had a few excursions on Mareta, Hogwash, Third Malignant, and a few other stops before the war ended.”

“Sounds like a good run.”

Jeckel made a move that could only have been a mechanized beheading. “Yeah, I did pretty well. It could have gone on longer, but I rather like that the Zinna war ended as soon as it did. I’ve only got to fight one more Stardancer, and I’m glad that it’s not going to be to the death.”

“You mean in this competition? You’re fighting the Stardancer tomorrow?”

“Yep. Second match. The first fight’s gonna be between the Bengal and the Halberd.”

“Yikes. That’ll be one hell of a show.”

“Yeah. I'm just glad it isn’t me fighting against the Halberd. That thing gives me the creeps.”

“Tell me about it. I had to work with them for years when I was filming for Meldera.”

“No kidding?”

“Nope. Before today, every scrap of footage on the Halberd had my name on it.”

“Anything you could tell me about?”

“Nah. They never let me see any of the good stuff, and they got me to sign a security vow, anyway.”

“Ah. That’s a shame.”

I kept moving, all the while, circling, coming high and low, going out far then rushing in, while the moons and the stars spun overhead. The fluid motion of this machine and its axe, glowing in the silver light, was purely captivating. I was feeding off of the new fuel inside, slipping right into his dance and making all the right moves that my part called for. I had truly found my niche.

“…Chad?”

“Huh! What?” Jeckel had kept on talking, but I had slipped light-years inward.

“I asked if you ever spent any time in the service.”

“Oh… sorry. I was kinda out of it… more like into it, I guess.” Amazingly enough, my piloting never broke stride. It was like I was operating on two totally different levels.

“No problem. So, did you?”

“Nope. Hot Riding has been my dream since I first heard of it, eight years ago. As soon as I finished school, I jumped ship and went to a planet where I could get some training. Once I got my license, I got a few good years of experience at studios, and then picked up a few years with Meldera. Now, I’ve finally gotten here.” I ducked under his swinging axe, keeping my lens focused on that great, gleaming eye. “It’s thrilling, bro. I’m twenty-three, and I’m living out my biggest dream.”

“Awesome. So, what are you going to do when the Demonstrations are over?”

I pondered for a moment. My response could only have come from someone who had only lived for twenty-three years. “Well, if I behave myself, I’ve probably still got over a century ahead of me. I guess I’ll have to find some new dreams.”

“That’s awesome to hear. It’s a rare story. With the way things are going, I get the feeling that it might be a long time before we hear that kind of talk again.”

Thousands of light-years away, across the Barrier line, humans once again had their weapons pointed at each other. They were sitting, eying their enemies, their family, just waiting for the diplomats to fail their mission. Somewhere out there, my brother was sitting in a mech, waiting too, with his finger on the trigger. The problem was, he was sitting on the other side. I didn’t need any reminders of the state of the Union. “I know, man. We’re probably coming onto some dark times. I just hope some of our dreams make it through.”

Jeckel was quiet for a while. His mech’s energetic motions fell into a steady pattern. It was a simple motion, and I could tell that his mind had to be elsewhere. After a time, he spoke up. “Chad?”

“Yeah?”

“Snack time. Care to join me?”

“Sure.” I brought my flyer down to the ground, and stowed my camera. The Wolfhound knelt down, and Jeckel Hopped out of the hatch on the chest. We took off our helmets and walked toward each other. He was taller than me, and he had the look and carriage of a man who had seen far more than I ever would. His eyes held the promise of stories that no one would ever want to hear.

He offered his hand, and I took it, and shook it. He refused to let go, however. He squeezed it, firmly but not painfully, getting my attention. His grey eyes, bearing fine halos of wrinkles, dominated my sight. He held my gaze, searching, for a very long moment. I felt like I was captured, right then. This man had a charisma that simply overpowered you. Whatever he was looking for, I had no choice but to wait under his scrutiny. I tried to figure out what he was doing, and learn something about him, but he revealed nothing. Jeckel seemed to have as many masks as his face had layers of skin. Finally, he released my hand. I stood, staring at him, baffled, as he rummaged through his pockets, and took a few granola bars out. He offered one to me. “Lunch?” His face held no explanation of what had just happened, but the look in his eyes made me feel like I could trust him.

“Yeah, sure.” I took the offered bar, and we sat on the hard desert ground, which was still reradiating a tiny amount of the heat it had stored from the day’s baking.

Jeckel broke the silence when he was halfway through his granola. “You may not know it, but your kind are exceedingly hard to find these days. We’re not living in very friendly times, you know.”

“Yeah, I noticed. What do you mean by ‘my kind’?”

His face sort of twitched then, like it was almost showing a hint of a smile. “You’ve got dreams. Most people these days don’t, or just don’t ever believe that they’re attainable. All they do is work and bitch about the union, sleep and bitch about the separatists.”

“Well, thanks, I guess. I just do the best I can, even with all the crap that’s going on.”

“I want you to promise me something, Chad. Watch yourself on the field out there. This is a dangerous place to work, more so this year than it ever has been. In these dark times, we need to make sure that people like you don’t get pulled under and lost.”

I looked at him hard, shocked in the least. I had no idea what he was talking about. With a mouthful of half-chewed granola, I told him just that.

“You’ve got hope, and energy, two things in very short order in the population of the Union. If things get any worse, we’re gonna need people like you to rebuild.

“Something is going to go down real soon at the Demonstration: something really nasty. There are people who are out to shatter a lot of dreams.”

“I- uh… how many dreams are we talking about?”

Jeckel Ryusoto looked me dead in the eye and said; “Just about everyone’s.”

X X X

It was hard getting to sleep that night. I was a little weirded out by that whole meeting with the Wolfhound pilot. I had no real reason to trust Jeckel, but I had always followed my instincts. I had met the guy, talked face-to-face with him, and there was something that had made me want to trust him. He had dropped his masks and spoken with a quality of sincerity and openness that was hard to fake.

I just wanted to know what he was really up to. He must be some kind of agent, sent by… AIA, IAPD, ISF? Either way, he was on our side, trying to stop something big from happening. Who was it? What were they planning? Why did he have to go and get me all jumpy over it? Why’d he tell me, of all people? He certainly wasn’t keeping his cover doing that. Damn, I just wanted to sleep and film the fights! And what was all that sappy crap about hope and dreams? I'm no different from anybody else, but this wacko mech pilot out to save the world starts blabbing at me like a bloody greeting card!

We were living in a time when our race was, once again, split and at odds. On one side was the long-standing Union, working for the overall good, trying to govern hundreds of worlds and work peacefully with our neighboring races. The other side was the large force of the Separatists. The Separatist movement had been started mainly by people who had given voice their concerns over the state of our culture. Interaction and co-habitation with alien races had been becoming far more frequent, and our own ways of life had slowly been inundated with thoughts and ideas of the other races. Many people had been concerned by the loss of so many parts of our own culture, so many pieces of our history and who we were. And they were right to think that; we are a different people from the ones who had been forced into the galactic scene centuries before by the Siltussian Invasion, and we have resigned some ideas to the past in our race to the present.

But one trait that has remained is one that we would have benefited most from losing. People shared good ideas and concerns, and before long, the completely wrong kind of people took those ideas and ran, gaining strength and power, and turning a genuine, rational concern into a tool for something big and ugly. Racist fanatics, religious fanatics, close-minded idiots and ignorant fools, all took the reigns of this movement and used it to achieve their own goals. They used the banner of cultural purism as a means to gather power and take care of private agendas. They made wild claims about the other races working to subjugate and enslave humanity. Together they called themselves the Separatists. They gathered power as a political party, gaining strength and numbers over two decades. Their cries for action and attention went largely unheard by the Union, however. They were a large group, millions strong, but they did not have the opinion of the majority, and the majority ruled. Eventually they and their large following claimed a section of space and seceded from the Union, forming what they called the Human Nation. With the power of several major private corporations, owned by members of the Separatist party, they had built up their own army during the years prior to the split. The Union was trying to negotiate some peaceable way through the problem, but most agreed that the whole situation was bound to end up in a real conflict.

Meanwhile, their underlings, their warriors and workers and citizens, were led to believe that they were doing something good with their lives.

The whole situation had me worried sick. The Demonstration was one of the largest single intergalactic gatherings known. Members of every race in the Alliance, and a few others besides, packed the stadiums full to see humanity’s biggest spectacle. That made it possibly the one event the separatists hated most. They loved watching the games as much as anyone else, but they hated seeing fellow humans being subjected to alien influence. To leave an even more bitter taste in the Separatists’ mouths, the eighth Demonstration was not just another tournament. It was also the place where the Human-Zinna alliance was to be formed. Like with the Siltussians, it was an event that would bring a former enemy, a race we used to hate, into the Union’s embrace.

If the Separatists were intent on stirring up more trouble, on kick starting the looming civil war, then they could not afford to pass up the target the Eighth Demonstration provided. It was even possible that they could push the Union into another war with the Zinna.

And I should have guessed. Jeckel’s warning was not the first I had received, actually; I just hadn’t realized it before that night. My own brother had sent me a message weeks ago, telling me to stay away from the games. It had been brief, devoid of any details, because it took quite an effort to get even the smallest message past the blockade by that time. The way I read it, I figured he was just trying to push his own agenda. It was obvious he wouldn’t want me hanging around a place full of aliens and alien-lovers.

Now I knew that he must have known something was going to happen at the games. Either way, he would have asked me to stay away, and just ditch my life’s dream, but it made me feel better to think that at least some part of him was acting out of a desire to protect me.

Still, I ignored him, and I stood with my decision.

X X X

Chad stopped typing, giving his hands a rest.

Well, damn. I really used to think about the world like that.

It had been a strange trip for Chad. Watching the old video, writing about the meeting with Jeckel and the Wolfhound, had released a flood of memories. He had been so idealistic, so poetic, so captivated… so young. He could recall that old feeling. It was a special fire that had burned for him while he was at the Demonstration. It truly had been a rare outlook at those times. With the separatists chewing at the heart of the union, and the threat of civil war looming in everyone’s hearts, that kind of lust for life had been hard to find, even in the young hearted.

Chad let out a soft sigh. He had gotten old. There was no particular time that that feeling had left. It just sort of went away over the years. Writing this story was breathing new life into his faded old memories, like seeing what your favorite shirt used to look like, before the last few hundred runs through the washer. He was recalling everything, all of the little tidbits that had once mattered so much to him, and it just made him feel empty. He had to look at what he had become, really examine himself, and he just felt a longing for what he once had been. He had spent the last fifty years as a person; a simple man who lived his life, and stopped at that. everything else was lost, forgotten, or locked away beyond reach. But he remembered; at that time of his life, and especially in the space of those few days, he had been more than just another man. He had been a Human.

Sucks how a few seconds can take possession of the rest of your life. Sucks more that everyone else can think of it as a good thing. I lost something so wonderful that day…

But, before that, came day two of the mech fights. Yeah, that was a good day.

His fingers resumed their dance.

X X X

The garage door opened up, and we buzzed out for another day of action. The weather was dry, bright, and blazing, as it always was on Planet Jimmy. There were only nine of us that day. Walter and his buddy Sarah were out of commission. They had headed out the night before to cut loose at some of the clubs in Alrona. If you have ever been to one of the Alrona nightspots, like the Dead Gladiator or the Cosmos, then you know that those two were definitely unfit for work the day after.

As for the rest of us, it was business as usual. I ran out at full throttle, then slowed down as I did a sweep over the stands. I passed my lens over the crowds, and they cheered and shouted catcalls and generally made asses of themselves on live intergalactic broadcast. Their images were projected up in the giant holofields in the sky, and simultaneously pumped out to the far reaches of humanity.

In the giant screens and holographic projections overhead, the pre-game hooplah was playing, getting the crowd psyched for the coming battle: schematics of the combatants, live images of the machines being prepped for battle, and last-minute interviews with the pit crew, pilots, designers, and other crew members. It was always tradition to get the final thoughts of the pilots themselves before they were sealed up in their mechs and sent off to battle. The pilot of the Bengal was willing enough to cooperate. He shared his sentiments and predictions while standing before the open hatch of the Bengal, as assistants put his armor in place and made sure his combat gear was in perfect order. With a final farewell to his family and fans, he clipped his helmet in place and crawled into the waiting cockpit.

The Halberd pilot, one Jamel Whitherspoon, was not so cooperative. He came out of the ready room in full gear, with his helmet shut tight. He only offered the briefest muffled words to the press before sealing himself in the Halberd’s cockpit. It would only be a few minutes before the fight began.

I was amazed at the diversity of the crowd. I had run into the occasional alien in trade school, but I had never seen that many in one place. The face of a crowd of human fans was similar to what it always had been, only now it was perforated with groups of Kelltrezzish in flowing vivid robes, and burly Mord with hot dogs and sodas reveling at the spectacle. Siltussians had their own section, with bleachers specially designed to support their massive frames. I saw scatterings of others, as well: non-aligned but still friendly species. This year, the light from energy weapons and explosions lit up the faces of over a dozen races.

If only Sam could have seen me then. Troubles or not, he would have cringed at the sight of me surrounded by so many aliens, taking part in an event that promoted almost entirely uninhibited mingling of the races. As far as I was concerned, Sam was entitled to his own (jackass) ideas. It bothered me that he had gone as far as actually running to Separatist space, but it was his life to do with as he pleased, and I hoped he didn’t get himself shot if it came to a war. He could go drive mechs for a bunch of racist “ultra-humans,” but I’d be damned if I’d let him screw up my life, and my opportunity to achieve my dream career. I loved him; he was a good brother and a good person. He just had some misplaced ideas. It pained me every day to think that he had been blinded by the leaders of the Separatists.

Well, he had his ways, and I had mine. I like aliens just fine. We have a lot to gain from them. Could you imagine travel without the advances in star drive technology we’ve made by working with the Kelltrizzish? And who has taught us more about war, in terms of both combat, and philosophy, than the Siltussians? I can’t imagine ending my day without a draft of Mord Ale. (I don’t care what you kids say these days; Murk’s Dark is still the best brew. I think it’s sad that someone actually found a market for sparkling light Mord ale.)

The road, of course, goes both ways. The aliens get quite a lot from us. We have the best food, and the best literature. We’re the ones who got the wheels rolling to move the other races beyond a state of non-war and into a real alliance. And, after ages of beating the crap out of ourselves, we have, hands down, the best to offer in military technology.

Keeee-runch!

That was how the first fight started on the second day, with a clash of metal-on-metal, and that is how the day went. The first match was between the Meldera Halberd and Teuttel Inc.’s Bengal. Dark and nimble, the Bengal was like a ninja on eagles’ wings. Filming that fight made me feel like I was caught in the middle of a battle between something raised from a hell of ancient fantasy and a dark warrior of Asian legend.

The Halberd rushed, like it had the day before, throwing itself headfirst into the fray. The Bengal dodged right out of the way, and landed the first blow. I was right behind its shoulder, and followed the swing in all the way to the thunderous hit. Bengal’s humming blade hit on the Halberd’s upper arm, biting deep into the armor and shooting sparks all around. It was an angry wound, with edges glowing red from the heat and friction of the vibrating blade.

The Bengal took to the air, and I went with it. The shields on its upper arms rotated around, taking aim with the plasma weapons that were built into them. For a brief moment, the Halberd was pinned to the ground by a rain of tiny suns.

The Halberd dropped, rolled, and hopped out of the storm with a brief roar of its thrusters. It landed with its rifles drawn, and started piercing the sky with lances of pure energy. The Bengal was good, but it still had trouble dodging and blocking the shots from the Halberd. A few beams made it past the shields, and took their toll on its body. The Bengal skipped backward through the air, and the Halberd pressed forward, marching slow and menacingly.

Occasional missed shots impacted with the heavy energy shields around the bleachers, crackling in rainbow waves of deflected energy. The ripples of color seemed to match the astounded, terrified, thrilled gasps of the masses. The crowd was in an uproar over the battle taking place before their very eyes. Even larger shadows of the tyrants were projected in holographic replays in the skies over the arena.

It could not last for long. The Bengal still had a lot of tricks left. There were rocket packs stowed between its wings, a heavy beam rifle in its left hand, and the ever-present sword humming for carnage. It was just starting to shift, and open up with a new tactic, but the Halberd pilot beat him to it. The Bengal had turned to put most of its mass behind its right shield, and was raising the muzzle of its huge beam cannon around the edge of the shield, when the Halberd lifted up into the air, amazingly fast, giving birth to a small swarm of rockets. The Bengal made to dodge the swarm, when the Halberd appeared right over it. It kicked down with all four legs, sending the dark ninja slamming into the ground. From high in the air, the massive quadruped made a precise, surgical shot in the brief moment that its enemy was motionless and exposed. The blaze of energy stabbed down, shearing the Bengal’s left shield off at the joint.

What followed was one of the most brutal exhibitions of mechanized combat ever caught on tape. Maybe I was still running on a bit of the whatever-it-was that I had felt the night before, but I'm still amazed at how I kept up with the blistering speed of the end of the battle. The Halberd landed, poised for battle, and the Bengal jumped to its feet, with its cannon raised. Before it could get the shot off, the Halberd shot the weapon through the reaction chamber. The heat from the blast roasted me in my suit, and completely vaporized the Bengal’s left arm. Massive, bladelike claws snapped out around the Halberd’s balled fists, forming a demon’s hand. It closed the space between itself and its opponent and unleashed a maelstrom of pain. The Bengal swung its sword, but the Halberd caught it at the hilt, squeezed, and snapped it and the hand holding it clean off. It tore huge chunks of armor off of the ninja’s belly area, shredding a deep gash into its torso. When the Bengal started to fall back under the attack, the Halberd wrapped one claw around its head, and hoisted it up off of the ground.

The ninja struggled, bashing with its stump, kicking, and loosing its rockets. It was almost pathetic to watch. The Halberd pilot had already won. The rest he did, he did because he wanted to. He liked it.

With his free claw, he jabbed up into the gash in his opponent’s belly, digging in way deep, up to the wrist. He twisted, yanked, and started to pull out the Bengal’s power generator. Cables and connections stretched and broke away while he tore the generator from the Bengal’s body. The whole machine convulsed, groaned, then went totally limp as the last connection snapped free. The Halberd tossed the limp body away, and lifted its fistful up high. It turned around, displaying its trophy to the whole crowd. It was like a demon, a pure bundle of malevolence, crushing the heart of a hero in its fist.

The crowd was overflowing with adoration.

X X X

The arena was cleared, and the Wolfhound and Stardancer’s info started playing on the mega-screens, interspersed with commercials. There was about an hour between each fight; enough time for the arena to be cleared of most of the really big chunks of debris and for the next two combatants to make their final preparations. Fans bustled around, got in line at the concessions, or the rest rooms, or to place their wagers. (After the massive turnout at the first Demonstration, the government on Jimmy had decided to legalize gambling in the state where the arena had been built, so they could tax the winnings.)

For us, it was time to rest up in the garage before sticking our eyes to our cameras again.

I was sitting on one of the couches, just starting to enjoy my drink, when I felt a chill run down my spine. At the very edge of my periphery I made out a figure in dark clothes, wearing a full helmet. He seemed to be staring straight at me. When I turned toward him, he snapped his head sharply forward, and walked briskly away. Before he left, I caught a glimpse of the insignia on his suit; it was the gold dagger of the Meldera Corporation. He was the Halberd pilot.

“Creepy fella, isn’t he?” Walter sat down next to me, with a drink in one hand and an oozing hiris (a Keltrizzish junk food, somewhere between a chimichanga and a vanilla shake) in the other. Since he had been too hung over to fly, he had sat in the ready room, watching the game on the panel of direct-feed monitors with Jones. He still looked like crap.

“Yeah, something about that guy just bothers me out.” That brief moment, when I caught him watching me, it had felt like I was staring into a storm of anger. I felt like I had just met someone whose heart really was carved from cold stone.

“Aww… he just likes you, is all. Why don’t you talk to him sometime, take him out on a date?” Walter grinned, then started sucking sauce out of the funnel end of his hiris.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to narrow your options, pal.”

“Hey, ‘tall, dark, and spooky’ isn’t quite my type. And… and I know I'm breaking your heart with this, Chad, but it’s gotta be said… I'm most undeniably straight.”

“Hey, Chad!” a voice hailed me from the doorway. I looked up and saw Jeckel and a woman standing outside our garage, with their helmets tucked under their arms.

I felt Walter lean close to me. He whispered, with a soft lisp, “Well, you get around, don’t you babe? He’s a hottie, that’s for sure.”

“Shut up, Walter.” I got up to go meet Jeckel.

“You go, girl! Go get your man!”

“Jackass.” I walked over and greeted Jeckel.

“Hi Chad. This is Alice Arling.” He indicated the woman standing next to him. We shook hands and exchanged greetings. “She’s gonna be piloting the Stardancer. Don’t worry, I’ll kick her ass.”

“Ha, we’ll see about that! Don’t you even start to think I’ll go under easy.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He turned to me. “Well, we just came from the clinic, and the docs said we were both reasonably healthy enough to go out and murder each other. I just wanted to wish you luck, kid, and make sure you know you’re supposed to make me look good out there today.”

“Hey, no worries! With my skills, I could make a Mord look good dancing!”

Jeckel clapped his hand on my shoulder. “That’s what I like to hear!” he glanced at his watch. “Ah! Gotta run! Our public awaits. You know, if we don’t give them more carnage soon, they’ll start their own tournaments in the stands.” They both waved, and started to head off down the hall.

“Hey,” I called after him, “good luck out there! Kick her ass!”

“You too, Chad. Remember, make me look good!”

X X X

They made themselves look good. The Wolfhound vs. Stardancer fight was as breathtaking as the Halberd vs. Bengal match had been brutal. Alice Arling perched her mech on the points of its long legs like a deranged artist’s concept of an armor-clad daddy longlegs, with her three wings draped behind and folded in close. Jeckel stood like a regal knight, with one hand casually resting on the butt of one of his guns.

The signal was given for the match to start, and the fans held their breath, waiting for the action.

The two remained motionless.

Slowly, gracefully, the Wolfhound bowed to the Stardancer. The Stardancer bowed back, such as it’s form could manage. It dipped down, and the body rotated slightly forward. Then both assumed a fighting stance. The Stardancer crouched low, with its legs braced further apart, and brought its guns and blades to bear. The Wolfhound deployed its forearm shields and drew its axe. Both held their wings out in a more battle-ready position.

In a competition where most combatants just beat the crap out of each other at the sound of the bell, I couldn’t help but smile at this show of grace and ceremony. It was like the noble, honorable duels of old. It will always be at the top of the list of the very neatest displays I ever got to film.

All else afterward was motion, dust, and lightning.

Jeckel attacked with an overhead swing of his axe, and Alice dodged just out of reach. She counter-attacked with a stab with one of her blade-tipped arms. Jeckel caught the blow on his shield, then took to the air. In a flash, his axe was stowed and he brought both guns to bear. He pounded down with a torrent of bolts from eight repeating ion weapons, punctuated with an occasional cluster-slug from the cannons.

The Stardancer earned its name. The “star” part came from its zero-gee fighting capabilities, and the “dancer” part was because, well, it really could cut a rug. Barely a single shot hit, as it blurred around on four legs, swiftly and acrobatically walking between the flaming raindrops. It broke free of the storm and shot off at a dead run, pitching lances of energy from the weapons on its legs. Jeckel gave chase, engines roaring, but could not get a solid lock.

I was hugging the ground, riding parallel to the Stardancer’s path as best I could. Alice swerved erratically as she ran, keeping Jeckel’s crosshairs off of her. I was getting dangerously close to the action, with shells and charged particles tearing the turf all around me, but the footage was beautiful. The Zinna machine truly was a work of art, balanced to be at home on any terrain, or no terrain at all. Its segmented, articulated armor flexed so that there were never any kinks or gaps as it moved. This close, I could see why we had lost so many soldiers in the war against the Zinna. In the presence of this machine, I could handle taking a few risks to get the perfect angles. I knew the people would want a closer look at this machine, too.

When the rain suddenly stopped, I twisted on my saddle and aimed my camera up to the Wolfhound. It was right on top of us, with guns slung and axe in hand. Jeckel cut his engines, and dropped down, dragging his axe with all his mech’s weight. His heavy boots compacted the earth when he hit, pounding out two decent-sized craters. His axe kept plunging down with the strength of both arms and the force of a multi-hundred ton robot falling from the sky. Alice dodged, almost entirely too late. Had the blow hit square, I'm certain it would have cracked the Stardancer open like an egg. As it was, it gouged out a good chunk of armor and did some heavy damage to the main knuckle of one of her legs.

Alice tried to reverse their roles of hawk and wolf. With a vigorous leap, she took to the air and loosed a stream of missiles. Jeckel would not stand for it, however. He went airborne too, thrusters in his feet and on his back burning brightly, and put a bit of distance between her and himself. One of his massive shoulder cannons, heretofore silent and cold throughout the duration of the tournament, swung up and locked into place, steadied by his free hand. The whole crowd gasped, anticipating the first show of the mystery weapons. Little was known about them, except that they were ironically referred to as “micros”. Not surprisingly, the Stardancer shot away before he could get bead.

What a tease, I thought to myself, He could never have expected to actually make that shot. He was just baiting the crowd, keeping them locked in. Ace pilot, and expert showman. How’s he do it?

It was also a bit of overkill. The entire Union was glued to that fight. Every fight with the Stardancer had so much more riding on it than the others. It was a Zinna design, the mech that we could not defeat. In the war, we had had no comparable weapons. The reason why the Union had called for this new class of mech was to have a weapon that could stand against a Stardancer, and prevail.

If none of the other designs could take it out, it was proof that we would have been doomed had the war continued. If the Stardancer won, it would be a sign that we actually lost to the Zinna, and humans never lost. If the Wolfhound lost, then the Halberd would have to take it out.

That wasn’t a very happy thought. I really didn’t like the idea of the Halberd and that sociopath pilot becoming the new representatives of human achievement.

The Stardancer was in its flight configuration, with each leg bent back, then doubled forward so each foot stabbed out in front of the spherical body, so that it looked like some sort of deadly crown flying through the air. This position put the weapons at an optimum position for use during flight, and gave the wings room for free movement. In that configuration, the entire planet was Alice’s stage, if she wanted. She could have gone through the entire system, if she still had the fuel. But, for the sake of the fans, she kept herself reasonably within the arena. She took the Stardancer blasting over the arena, away from Jeckel. She buzzed the stands, sending waves of shrieking excitement through the crowds. Abruptly, she pulled up higher, and began playing through the dirigibles and monitoring equipment that floated over the arena. We were left on the ground, beyond all hope of ever keeping up with her. She was too fast, too agile, and well above the ceiling of our flyers. Much as they disliked it, the hot riders had to content themselves with riding as close as they could get, and compensate as much as they could by zooming in on the whirling aerobatics of the Stardancer.

As for me, I kept my lens locked firmly on the Wolfhound, which was hovering near the ground, watching her show off. As marvelous as the Wolfhound had proven to be so far, it was apparent that it could not match the Stardancer’s speed and maneuverability. I knew it couldn’t be the end of the fight, and I wanted to be sure that I was filming him when he pulled the next ace, whatever it was, out of his sleeve.

Alice looped over a dirigible and arrowed down at the Wolfhound, weapons blazing. Jeckel dodged and blocked the hits, weightless as he skated through the air. The Stardancer pulled up at the last minute, passing right over the Wolfhound’s head. The Wolfhound twisted to face the backside of its opponent, and transformed.

Damn, I remember thinking, No one ever said it could do that!

The massive head shifted down and forward, so the eye was far out in front and the horns latched tightly to the front of its chest, giving it a long, sleek fuselage. The micros and handguns locked into ready position, and the shields on its forearms fanned out, clamping each arm into solid weapon batteries. It pulled its legs up into a kneeling position, so its foot thrusters were facing to the rear. What had been the front side of its boots opened up, revealing the outlet ports of anti-gravity generators.

Within the space of a few moments, what had been a mech was now a completely different vehicle, a gun-laden starfighter.

I was right on Jeckel’s tail as he accelerated, pursuing Alice, but I didn’t stay there long. I couldn’t. I could imagine, could practically hear him mutter about being tired of playing around. He tore into the Stardancer with a vengeance, staying tight on her six. She dodged, feinted, tried desperately to get behind him, but the Wolfhound was far too agile in its flight configuration.

“Hah! You just lost your edge, girlie!” I was just a little excited by the turn of events. The crowd was on its feet, gaping at the aerial battle, flinching when the two passed close by. The shields around the stands were a riot of colors and distorted light as they absorbed the energy from missed shots. Jeckel pounded away, chipping off flakes of armor with shots from his clustered repeaters and hand cannons. Alice fought as best as she could with her rear defenses.

Then Jeckel fired a micro.

A powerful microwave field projected forward, piercing one of the Stardancer’s legs. Lightning surged over the leg. It shook and glowed white-hot as its atoms overacted and bashed against each other. The atomic architecture of Zinna armor- long a much-coveted Zinna secret- could take all sorts of hits without a scratch. Against the micros, however, it never stood a chance. The entire leg vanished in a white fireball, torn apart by its own collapsing atoms.

The force of the blast knocked the Stardancer back down to earth. It smashed down, tearing a massive furrow in the ground. The Wolfhound reconfigured back into the mech formation and hovered over the motionless Stardancer. It drew its axe and flew down, ready to make the killing blow.

Alice rolled away at the last minute, and the axe bit deep into the ground. Before Jeckel could free it, she was on him. She pinned the axe down and wailed on him, bashing him away with a furious assault. Forced to give up his weapon, Jeckel backed off and squared up to continue the fight. He still had his guns, but didn’t draw them. It seemed they wanted to carry on this fight hand-to-hand.

The Stardancer rushed and shot off some nasty blows with its remaining legs. Jeckel caught them on the Wolfhound’s shields, and responded with a combo of jabs and kicks. He got one of her legs locked around his arm for a moment, and used the opening to land a solid hit on the sensory bank. They broke apart, and she stumbled back. Her main eye was cracked, and several of the lesser sensors were ruined. Partially blind, she struck again, lashing out to slice him with the bladed end of one leg. The Wolfhound spun delicately aside, and she stumbled through the vacant area.

She recovered, and tried again. The Stardancer came in with a brutal overhand slash. The Wolfhound stepped inside the blow, gripped the leg, and used the Stardancer’s momentum to flip it overhead. It hit the ground with an explosive crack that rocked the stadium. Jeckel came out of the move and stood in a slight crouch, with one arm held up to block and the other cocked back to strike. The micro was poised in place, reaching over the offensive arm, aimed dead at the center of the Stardancer. It was alive, humming with a full charge.

Checkmate.

X X X

Martha walked up behind Chad. It was late, and he was asleep in front of the screen. He had been up most of the night before working on his story. Now, after a long day in he fields, he had come back and started working on it right away.

She wrapped her arms around him from behind and kissed his cheek. “Honey, come to bed. You’ll ruin your back sleeping in this old chair.”

Chad roused, opened his eyes and looked around. he had been dreaming of a different life, a brief but violent existence he had once lived. “No dear. I’m almost done. I’ll be there soon.” He smiled and kissed her hand.

“Well, allright. It’s not a workday tomorrow, so you should be allright sleeping in. I’ll make you some tea.”

“Thanks, Love. That’d be wonderful.”

Martha walked out of the study. Chad watched her go, smiling at how lucky he had been to find her.

His eyes returned to the screen, and the humor left. One more fight…

X X X

The party was amazing that night. People always have and always will eagerly accept any excuse to go crazy. Walter and Sarah managed to sober up just in time to jump back into the fray that night. They managed to keep some control, however. They were regretting missing the previous fights, and certainly didn’t want to miss the final round.

Neither did I, but I almost did.

We were in the garage, preparing for the game the next day. The stands were filling. The fight was two hours away. I was absolutely pissed…

“God damn it!”

…Completely livid…

“How the hell could this happen?”

Walter picked this moment to walk into the garage, bleary eyed and slightly reeking. “Man… what’s up with your flyer?”

I tried not to hit him. “It’s brain-dead, asshole!”

He was visibly shocked. “Hey, what the hell? What are you yelling at me for?”

Jones stepped between us and put a hand on Walter’s shoulder. “Son, this isn’t the time to push any issues. His flyer’s computer is completely empty. We’re still trying to figure out what happened…”

I didn’t manage to hear the rest. I was too busy glaring at my brain-dead flyer. Somehow, the whole system had been wiped clean. It wasn’t just a surface erasure; it had gotten everything, all the way down to the basic operating systems and interface programs. It was going to have to be sent back to the factory to be repaired. Basically, I didn’t have a bike. I was benched for the final fight. Some damn computer glitch or something was ruining my dreams.

“God damn…” Resigned to my fate, I let the issue fume away in the back of my mind and set to looking for something to do. I couldn’t ride, but I figured I should help everyone else out the best I could. The Captain and some techs were pouring over my flyer, trying to figure out what could have happened. One of the technicians who had been working on it last night admitted to having left it connected to the main computer unattended for a few minutes. That could have left the possibility for some sort of accident or virus, or some sort of foul play, but Jones repeatedly assured him that that was a highly improbable scenario. Still, the techie avoided making eye contact with me.

I kept myself busy by helping the others into their body armor and getting their gear ready to go. The armor could be put on alone, but it was tricky, and easier if you had help in doing it. Then there were those like Walter; who could operate a delicate, very expensive personal flyer with ease through a neural link, but didn’t have the manual dexterity to manipulate a simple fastener without being able to see it. If it weren’t for people like me, who were willing to help, he’d probably just go out onto the field and leave his back armor sitting on the bench.

“Man, that’s a real bummer about your bike.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to remind me.”

“They figure out what happened yet?”

I glanced over to Jones and the techies, huddled around my comatose machine. “Nope. Still a big fucking mystery.”

“Shit… hey, if we asked Jones, he’d probably let me duck out partway through the match, and you could take over.”

I thanked him and patted his shoulder. “No, bro. This is your dream too, and I wouldn’t take that from you. You get out and film some great shots. You’re working for two today.”

“Yeah. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

“Sure. Thanks.” I clicked the last clasp. “A’ight, you’re set! Go kick some ass!”

“Hey, the ass-play is the pilots’ job. “ he hefted his camera. “I’m just the midget getting the good angles!”

Yeah, I was friends with that guy. No, I don’t know why.

About half an hour before game time, I saw Jeckel walk by through the corridor. He was wearing a pained expression and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Hey Jeckel!”

“Oh, hey Chad…” he was a bit distracted.

“What’s up with the neck?”

“Ah…” he winced. “The doc gave my jack some last-minute tune-ups before sending me out. He said something about dust and poor alignment of the contacts…. Anyway, it hurt like a bitch. He surely doesn’t believe in the practice of a gentle art.”

“I know what you mean. I think these docs should all have to wear jacks, so they could know what it feels like to have someone messing around in their heads.”

“Amen to that.” he glanced at his watch. “Well, I gotta run. Got a monster to slay. See ya out there.”

“Actually, I won’t be filming this match.”

“What? Why not?”

“Something happened to my bike. Its brain’s been wiped clean.”

“Whoa…” he hid it well, but I saw it. For a brief moment the empathetic disappointment on his face slipped, and I saw him reorganizing, cross-examining ideas with this new information and resorting what he knew to get a new image of the grand scheme. He knew something, something realy bad, and suspected my bike’s lobotomy had something to do with it. It was only a momentary lapse, before he got his mask back on. “Sorry to hear that. I hope they can work something out for you.”

“Well, we’ll see. Anyway, like you said, you got a fight to win. Go kill that nasty beast.”

“Yeah, I do need to go. Later!”

“Good luck!”

“Thanks.” He slipped down the hall, to the subterranean hangar and the massive armor waiting inside.

Ten minutes before our cue, I stood watching the banks of monitors in the control room. Occasionally I glanced through the window into the garage, at the two neat rows of flyers and armored pilots, revved and waiting to break out onto the field. Jones approached me. “Hey, Chad, good news for ya! Melai’s gotten herself a nasty migraine, and can’t fly right. I know it’s not set like your rig, but if you want, you can take her flyer out.”

It only took moments for me to get my armor on.

X X X

Wolfhound and Halberd took to hitting each other with the slamming rhythm of a speed-metal anthem. They sparred, feeling each other out, getting a sense for the other pilot’s abilities. They traded missed and blocked shots. They met with a clang of claws and blades, parried, broke away, and circled each other before rushing again.

Jeckel made the first solid hit. Jamel lunged his mech forward with claws extended to gouge through the Wolfhound’s armor. Jeckel jumped with a flare from his boot thrusters. He grabbed the Halberd’s head for leverage, and flipped his mech all the way over, landing at his enemy’s back. He got in one deep swipe with his axe in the Halberd’s back-right knee before dodging away. He took flight, showering the Halberd in burning exhaust.

Jamel spun his mech around, hardly affected by the wound to his knee. The armor had split, but the mechanics seemed to still be healthy. He grabbed his two rifles from the holsters between his wings and started firing, burning the sky with the blasts of energy. Small cannons on his minor arms added their punch, filling the air around the Wolfhound with packets of high explosive. The Wolfhound dodged and blocked, struggling under the intense barrage of fire, and the Halberd pressed on, engulfing the knight in a nest of fire.

Abruptly, the Wolfhound disappeared under the cover of an exploding shell. The Halberd paused, searching, but finding absolutely nothing. He stood in the near center of the field, looking in all directions, waiting for his enemy.

The crowd shrieked at one side of the vast arena. The Wolfhound, in its odd fighter configuration, rose from behind the stands with a roar and arrowed straight for the Halberd. The ogre barely got off the ground in time. The dirt underneath it erupted up and out in a bright glare, torn apart by a double shot from the micros. The attack left a massive glassy black crater in the center of the scarred battlefield.

It was hard enough trying to keep up with the battle as it was. I had it even rougher, because I could barely control my flyer. More sophisticated machines, including our bikes, had adaptive programs, which molded themselves to run more smoothly with a rider over a period of time. This bike was used to being operated by Melai, and I was used to working with my bike. We were having a few arguments while trying to adjust to each other. The interface was laggy, and the machine hardly did what I wanted it to. It stayed on a safe track and went generally in the right direction, but there were a million little intricacies to my commands that it did not respond to. I was missing some fine shots, and starting to get frustrated with the whole situation. I just kept telling myself that I was lucky to be out on the field at all, and I tried to focus on how the interface was improving moment-by-moment. Still, it wasn’t the best setup.

The Wolfhound and Halberd were in an intense firefight, pounding each other with every weapon available, trying to wear each other down before closing for the kill. The Halberd was on the ground, tracking Jeckel as he flew by. Jamel had both primary rifles raised, waiting to get his shot. Jeckel finished off his bank and was coming straight at the Halberd, taking aim. The Halberd fired…

…And everything went wrong.

The Wolfhound spasmed in mid-air like someone suddenly and violently deprived of their spinal cord, and fell to the ground. The twin bolts from the Halberd’s cannons shot through empty air, slicing angry and red into the sky over Battlefield Arena. The first shot hit the diplomatic airship, rocking it through he air. Its shields crackled under the force of the shot and nearly folded. The second hit partially burned through the cloak of energy and hit the forward part of the balloon with a diffused stream of burning particles. People screamed and ducked, some panicked. The dirigible was canting forward as the gas leaked out through the melted balloon. The Halberd stepped forward over the wreck of the Wolfhound and raised its rifles to fire again.

Fear was clutching at my heart. It was too much to follow. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. It felt like there was a vast chasm opened up inside of me, hungry for me to fall into its crushing depths. I was just a little stunned and confused.

“Stop! What are you doing?” Walter’s scream echoed in my ears. I glanced over and saw him rushing after the Halberd. Massive doors were opening in the sand, and two squadrons of Doberman mechs jumped out and rushed the Halberd. The Halberd got off one more shot at the dirigible before it had to start defending itself against the mob of Dobermans.

I just sat on my flyer, high in the air, trying to grasp what was happening.

Shit, snap out of it! It’s trouble... Jeckel! I revved up and flew down to the fallen Wolfhound. The crowds were rioting to escape, screaming and trampling. The Halberd was ripping through the ranks of Dobermans and Rottweilers around it. There was not much more time left before it would be able to resume its attack on the diplomatic party.

I landed on the Wolfhound’s chest and yanked on the emergency rescue lever. The hatch split and whined open. I could barely make out the form of Jeckel, slumped in his seat deep inside. “Jeckel!”

I think I heard him moaning. “Jeckel! Are you all right?”

“Mmmmmnn… hell no.” he started moving, climbing his way out of the hatch. I helped him out until he was sitting on the lip of the hatch. He glared at the Halberd with balled up fists. His whole body trembled with rage. All he said was a muttered “God damn it…”

“What happened?”

He took off his helmet. “I shoulda known. The doc was in on it. He rigged my jack to short out. I can’t pilot anything.” He was holding his hand over his jack. I saw blood polluted with ash trickling between his fingers and down under his collar. “He’s gonna win. That bastard won. There is no way those Dobies will stop him. He’s got all the evidence planted where it should be. We’re going to war again.”

There was a foul taste in my mouth, in my gut. I had been there for the end of the last Zinna war, and it had not been a good time to be growing up in the Union. This war was going to be darker, longer, and full of much more anger and hatred. More lives would be lost. We would get sucked up into another war with the Zinna, all because of the tricks of the Human Nation.

Yeah, I thought, I’ll do it.

“Let me in.” I started climbing into the hatch.

Jeckel grabbed my shoulder. “What are you up to?”

I locked his eyes with mine. I needed to get into the cockpit before I realized how stupid of an idea it was. “I’m gonna take this mech back up and fight. There’s nothing else left in one piece that can take the Halberd.”

His eyes were both sad and amazed at the same time. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

I paused for a brief moment, uncertain. I looked over at the Halberd and the mob of guards around it. Eight were dead. Twelve were fighting a losing battle. The Halberd was unharmed. “No, but I’m going to do it anyway.”

“Shit…” he released my shoulder, and I climbed into the seat. “Keep your radio open on the general frequency. I’ll help you as much as I can.”

“Thanks, Jeckel. Now get clear. There’s no telling what I might do when I plug into this beast.”

“Right. Good luck.” He climbed onto my flyer, activated the manual controls, and flew off.

I settled into the chair and buckled the harness. The controls automatically adjusted to fit my hands. I keyed the hatch to close and plugged the connection into the jack in the back of my skull.

“Chad.” Jeckel’s voice whispered in my ears.

“Yeah?”

“Before you make connection, you need to know. The Wolfhound runs on an advanced battle system. It is very powerful, and way smarter than you are. Don’t fight it. You’ve got to accept it, and work with it. Just try to keep calm, stay focused, and think as little as you have to.”

“I read you. What is the access code?”

“The code is: Illuminator.”

Sweat was starting to run all over my body. I was tense everywhere. “I’ll see you on the other side, I guess.” I cleared my mind as best as I could. I framed the thought plainly in my mind: Access code input. Illuminator.

System active. Initiate.

The information started coming into my mind. I was swept away.

A new body sucked me in, hungering, making me a part of itself. I felt every single part of the machine, from the computer programs to the weapon systems. I had robotics that could demolish a regiment. My generator was thrumming, churning out the power of a city. I had the firepower to take on a fleet. I had wings.

A dozen new senses assaulted me. I felt the seismic vibrations in the ground under my back, and the vibrations in the air. I could see three-hundred-and-sixty degrees on all axes at once. I had active sensors that felt out the world around me in every way imaginable. My passive sensors reached out into space, and I was attached to a network that encompassed the entire Union. I knew what was going on light-years away.

I didn’t want to. It was too much.

I focused on the Halberd, which was destroying the last of the guards. I was surrounded by civilians who were panicking and fleeing. The diplomat’s dirigible was falling, ever faster. There was no one near enough to help them. I was barraged with plans of action. Options, outcomes, predictions, actions, enemy reactions, counter-moves, running everything through my head, seeking the most acceptable path to take.

My heart rate was rising, already above dangerous levels. My mind was overworking, reaching beyond its means, processing everything at once. I was going blind, breaking inside. I was lost in the machine, fighting against the torrent. I started blanking, shutting everything out, cutting off every last source of input. It hurts so much! There’s too much! I was screaming. Every nerve was frozen with fire. I cut, cut, cut away everything, trying to escape from all the information that was tearing me apart. Everything was flickering out, going black.

Finally, there was just me, screaming in the darkness.

A sudden noise echoed through the empty chasm of my mind. It was like a blacksmith using my head as an anvil.

“Chad.”

No. Hearing hurts. How do I shut it off?

“Chad! I know you’re still in there. That was the worst of it. Don’t shut it out.”

Shut it out! It all hurts!

“Just reach out, slowly. You’re still connected. You just need to feel out into your new body, and let it work with you.”

Something flickered. I felt warm, organic flesh. There was just a hint of feeling, of breathing and a heartbeat. Even the feel of my own heartbeat was unbearable. The air I breathed rasped through my lungs like razors. I was sliding back into my body, into my nerves. I didn’t want to feel it. “The sensation is too much.”

“They’re dying out here, Chad…”

“Not Chad…” i mumbled.

“If you are going to do anything, you need to do it now. Hurry! They’re dying!”

Am I dying? I could. I felt it. I could let myself die right now, and there would be no more glare, no more torment, if I just stopped, and released…

NO! Don’t surrender!

Reach out, beyond myself. Reach into my body and accept what I have always lived with. I felt the controls held tight in my hands, the restraints on the seat, and the ever-present tug of gravity pulling me where it willed. I saw the dim interior of the machine that had almost been my tomb.

Further. There was more to me then. I reached out, accepting the new body, the systems and machinery and senses of the Wolfhound. I organized everything, making it work in the way I wanted. The computers adjusted automatically, conforming and molding themselves to fit my mind. The information waited for me, always available if I needed it. Everything was set up right and ran naturally. I was a single organism, bigger and faster and stronger and smarter that I had ever been before.

Gravity was no longer a factor, unless i wanted it to be.

I stood up and took my very first steps. It was smooth, natural, and powerful, and felt just right.

“Yes! Yes, that’s the way! Now attack!” Jeckel was a little fleck, a fly buzzing off to the side whispering in my ear.

“Keep clear Jeckel. This is not a safe place anymore.”

The dirigible was falling, bringing peace in the Union down with it. As I watched, the Halberd shot a Doberman through the belly, killing the pilot inside. It spun and tore the head off of the last guard with its demonic claws and kicked the battered mech to the ground. A final shot paralyzed it from the waist down.

Freed, Jamel aimed and fired, piercing another chamber of the balloon. Its shields were gone, and the armor on the blimp was too weak to withstand the bolts from the particle beam rifles. It accelerated downward with each passing moment.

The Wolfhound knew the Halberd. It knew what would be most effective to stop it. It knew that I had the advantage of surprise. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I grabbed my axe and ran. The blade was fully charged, hot, and humming. I came in from the side, behind him. He wasn’t looking for me. He didn’t expect me, and so he never saw me. My blade slashed down with full force, bashing through the barrel of his right rifle. I pulled up my counter-stroke, straining to put more force into the hit. The blade caught the Halberd in the face and tore off most of its optics.

“Chad! The blimp!”

“I’m on it.” You of all people should be aware that I know everything that is happening around me. I stowed the axe in its slot between my primary thrusters and went airborne. Gravity had no power over me, but it was doing a serious number on the dirigible. It was coming down fast, leaking hot gasses into the air. I could distinctly make out the terrified human and Zinna faces inside. It was coming down nose-first. I flew up at full-speed, spread my arms wide, and caught the front of the gondola in a tight hug. The dirigible was immense, far larger than I was. On my own, there was no way I could have helped it. I just hoped that the gas still inside the intact chambers would be enough to help me get the airship down.

As it was, it was barely enough.

The ground was rushing up to slap us around. I fired my thrusters at full throttle, braking as hard as I could. I converted my legs into the fighter configuration and cranked the anti-gravity generators up to their maximum output. When we hit the ground, it felt like a meteor impact. I had slowed the dirigible considerably, and it survived the landing pretty well, but it was still rough. We tore a gash in the earth over two hundred meters long, biting deep into Jimmy’s surface. At the head of the wreck, I was bounced and battered, getting ruined as several hundred tons of turf kicked at me.

Finally, we stopped. I flexed my motors and groaned my way out of the wreckage, moving like a tired old man. A quick diagnosis said nothing was broken in my organic body. My left micro and part of the left primary vernier were still somewhere in the heap, though. I could see into the cabin of the gondola. It was a scene of carnage, but it looked like almost everyone had survived.

“Chad!”

A red-hot blaze hammered into my back and sent me staggering.

“God damn it! Get out of my way!” that voice wasn’t Jeckel’s. It was strained, high, and insane. The voice was manic, and far too familiar.

I recovered from the blow, stood, and turned to face the Halberd. It stared at me with it’s broken face. My computer immediately identified the backup sensors still operable on different parts of its body. Its rifle was charged and ready to fire again.

“Shit, Chad! I told you to stay away!” I felt my bile start to rise. Oh, god no! “Why couldn’t you just listen?”

“Sam?” I was terrified of the answer. Silence thundered the airwaves for far too long. still, i often wish that had been my last moment, that the next words had never come.

“Just move! This is for you Chad! This is for all the humans!”

Sam? Dear god, why did you have to do this? “No! Sam, this is wrong! Don’t do this! They’ve brainwas-!”

His rifle swung up sharply and pointed straight at my head. “Move Chad! Or I’ll move you! This is more important than any of us! I don’t want to fire, but I swear I will! I won’t let these aliens come to rule over us! I won’t let my race be enslaved!”

“Stop it Sam! That’s not the way it-” He fired. A bolt of blazing energy erupted from the end of the rifle. My reflexes were faster than I could imagine. I popped an arm up, catching the blast on a shield, and before I knew what I was thinking, I had drawn my own gun and started blasting. I wasn’t thinking, just moving on instinct. Repeater bolts hit all over the Halberd, pocking its armor. Three shots from the cannon went wide as he dodged, but the fourth hit solid, and tore the rifle out of his hand.

There was no hesitation. He launched himself high into the air with his demon claws deployed and came down at me with a fury. His enraged, insane snarl crackled over the radio. I ducked out of the way, continuously wailing on him with shots from my repeaters and hand-cannons. I flew off backwards, keeping up my stream of fire. Sam hit the ground, stood, and rushed at me. His four thrusters flared brightly, shoving him through the hail of slugs. I tried to stay out of his reach, but he was too fast. One swipe knocked a gun out of my hand. He latched his other claw around my second gun, squeezed, and sliced it in half.

“Just stay out of my way!” Sam spread the Halberd’s claws wide and reared back to strike.

“No! I won’t let you do this!”

Sam lunged forward and snapped his claws shut with a force that would have ripped my head clean off. I ducked under his arms, drew my axe, and swung up wildly. The blade bit deep, right at a kink in the armor, and ripped off a thumb-claw. I brought the backstroke down hard onto a knee, breaking through the armor and mangling the robotics inside.

Sam screamed at me, made a final slash, and launched himself into the air. The armor on his chest was splitting open, exposing the heavy ion cannon inside. He wasn’t even coming after me anymore. He was lining himself up for a good shot at the smoking wreck of the airship.

“You’re not gonna do that Sam!” I flew up like a shot from a cannon and smashed my shoulder into his side. Armor smashed into armor, and the Halberd went tumbling through the air. I got above him, weakened the armor on his back with a flight of rockets, and dropped down onto him with a vicious axe swing. The blade sliced through cracked and softened armor and sheared off his two left wings. I grabbed onto a third wing, braced my foot in the small of his back, and heaved. the wash of blue thrust poured over me, melting away layers of armor, but i kept pulling, and snapped his third wing out of its weakened socket.

The Halberd dropped like a stone. Sam managed to slow into a crash-landing with his crippled wing and some minor directional thrusters. Still, the hit took off his wounded leg and damaged the others. The sounds coming over my radio told me that Sam had taken a few hits himself.

I think I started to cry. I trembled all over. “Sam, please stop…” I could barely talk. The last time I had seen him, he had been so kind, my perfect older brother. I had looked up to him so fondly. Now I was fighting him. He wasn’t the man that I remembered at all. It was like they had driven him insane. This monster, this enemy, was my brother, and I had just smashed him into the dirt. His whimpers crackled into my ear.

He stood up. He cried out and rose up on broken legs. “Must achieve…” he turned, staggering, and faced the dirigible and the swarm of rescue crews surrounding it.

The newer part of me that was built into the Wolfhound calculated and determined what I needed to do. I approved. I dropped to the ground a few hundred meters behind the Halberd and raised my remaining micro. The shot went through his pelvis and blew his legs out from under him. His torso lifted up into the air, arms flailing madly, and he landed flat on his back.

I slumped back in my seat, breathing hard, and closed my eyes. Stopped him… I sat, listening for a breath, or a groan, or anything to come over the radio to tell me that Sam was still alive.

All I heard was Jeckel’s voice, elated, shouting my name and giving thanks that I had won. Muffled cheers rippled out from scattered spectators in the stands and on the field. They stopped abruptly, and I heard Sam groan like a wounded bull.

“You had to come, Chad! You had to come and ruin everything! I did this for you, for everyone!” His voice was broken by madness and pain. “I’m just… the Human Nation, we’re just trying to make the universe a better place! A better place for people!” he was getting up, standing up on his hands. “We are not the enemy! Stop trying to fight us!”

I analyzed the situation in a fraction in a moment. At this distance, I would never make it to him before he got his shot off. I had to use the micro to destroy his cannon. I swung my cannon back in place, took aim, and prepared to fire. A warning sign came up, glaring, flashing a schematic in my mind. “Oh, no…” The way the Halberd was built, there was no way I could destroy the cannon without causing a great deal of damage to the cockpit and pilot. “Sam, don’t do this. Please, don’t listen to their lies. You know that what you are doing is wrong!”

“I’m sorry Chad.” His voice was broken, like he was fighting against his own mind. “I have to.”

The moment of decision, of sending that impulse, weighed far heavier than any other. It was a single, terrifying moment of action, with two outcomes. On this side of the action lay war, a universe full of hatred and shattered dreams; on the other lay the alliance with the Zinna, and peace in our lives. Easy choice? Well, the far side of the action also held me with Sam’s blood on my hands.

“Yeah,” I choked out, “I’m sorry too.” The signal fired down my nerves. I wanted to pull it back, but it was too late. The shot pierced straight through the Halberd and tore it apart.

X X X

The halberd’s cockpit fared better than I had predicted. They pulled Sam’s burned upper half from the wreckage and buried him quietly. A piece of molten shrapnel had burned through his helmet and head. They told me he died without feeling a thing.

Sam had been operating as a double agent. He