The Mechaneer

Chapter 21: Devil Rays

I can't believe I let Otto rope me into this, Jack thought.

He couldn't believe the Oligarch had offered, either.

His vision swam with flickering tracer fire from mecha cannon, the sun shining laser-bright through the hole in the Reformer, the shield-churned waves, the incongruously placid sky – and the thousand minute details his Stingray's onboard computer filled the mecha's screens with.

He juked away from a stream of fire and almost unconsciously punched a cannon shell into the attacker. The mecha exploded into a mess of smoke and fire, tumbling toward the platform or the ocean. Jack didn't see which it hit first as he brought the Stingray about to find another target.

Jack hadn't strapped into a military mecha since his resignation from the Devil Rays a decade and a half ago, and hadn't fought even a mecha-on-mecha brawl with the rougher customers in the salvage business for over a year.

With Otto's brother out of contact, the Oligarch believed Jack the eighth-best mechaneer on the Algreil Aerospace platform, rusty or no.

All fine and well, but there was a difference between respecting the abilities of a man you'd recently kidnapped and putting him in the cockpit of a mecha worth at least a couple gigamarks – not to mention capable of avenging a kidnapping with one shot from its anti-mecha missiles.

Leave it to Otto Abeir Algreil to take the risky course.

Leave it to Jack Hughes to take him up on it.

Speaking of which –

Jack dodged around a blast of cannon fire from an incoming Fed. He snapped off a shot that severed the enemy mecha's drop cable. It couldn't maintain altitude on thrusters designed for zero gee maneuvering, but Jack didn't follow up to see if mecha or pilot survived the plummet to the arcology.

Four other Feds focused their fire on Jack's Stingray. He winced as rounds accelerated through compressed space glanced off the relatively thin armor of his wing-arms. He didn't crash. He figured Algreil Aerospace must have upgraded the 'ray's defenses. If he'd been that sloppy during the Civil War, he'd have expected to lose a wing.

"I can't believe I let Otto rope me into this," Jack repeated. He was supposed to be rooting for the Senate, not fighting against it!

But like the Oligarch said, the Animus Hunters worked for the Senate. The people out to hurt Chloe worked for the Senate. Jack might have supported them all his life, but they sure as hell hadn't returned the favor.

Now he had no choice.

He cracked off two shots in quick succession, getting a better feel for the recoil of the Stingray's rifle. Heavier than he remembered. Better muzzle velocity, he supposed, the equivalent of 'range' in frictionless space, but it took some getting used to.

Both shots crashed into dropping Feds. They kept dropping, no longer under their own power.

Jack had never seen so many mecha, at least on the other side. The Devil Rays had usually gone up against one or two nobs and a couple dozen men-at-arms – many of the latter, he thought with a frown, hybrids. Being outnumbered offered dozens of new ways to die.

The Feds, lacking the Devil Rays' atmospheric maneuverability, seemed uninterested in doing more than spraying and praying. Their squat mecha descended as fast as they could without slipping from their cables.

Ellie! Jack risked a glance at the main office of the Algreil arcology. So far, none of the Feds had taken a shot at it – or crashed into it –, but stray bullets clanged off its roof. Armored. Thank the Principle for small favors.

Couldn't hold for long, though.

Otto claimed his people would evacuate, that the Devil Rays were simply covering their retreat. He claimed his people would take Ellie with them. He claimed they would treat her right.

Since the disaster at the Wellach Cup, Otto had kept his promises. Jack and Ellie had shared a suite and been given no Limiters. As long as they stayed on the Algreil arcology, they were free to walk around and see the sights.

All Jack could do now was pray the oligarch intended to keep on keeping promises.

A burst of automatic rifle fire snapped his attention back to the battle. He dove underneath the barrage and quickly snapped his wing-arms forward to aim and fire. He plummeted half the distance to the platform before he locked the Stingray's signature features back into the aerodynamic shape that made the machine such a demon in atmosphere. Didn't stop him from following the targeting computer's directions and plugging the attacking Fed, though.

He soared upwards again, giving him a moment's view of the Reformer. The destroyer's kilometer-long wedge listed slightly from where the Algreil atomic cannon had burned into it. Jack could only hope the Feds hadn't kept the Mother Goose aboard the larger ship. If they had, he'd probably lost the ship for good.

A mecha obscured his view – a black and gold mecha with sufficiently powerful wing-thrusters to move in atmosphere under its own power.

Jack spun away, too slow to keep the Divine Auric Drake's monomolecular polearm from shearing away part of one wing-arm.

Cursing, Jack brought his mecha up and snapped its wing-arms out. The thrusters still worked, at least. He kept himself hovering, facing off with Marcel Avalon.

The admiral's voice rolled across an open communications channel. "Algreil Aerospace mechaneers," he said, "your situation is hopeless. Your defiance of the popular will shames you, your reckless endangerment of yourselves and the members of your corporate family condemns you. Still, I offer you this last chance: surrender now, deliver the Hughes family to me, and abate the wrath of those who should be your guardians."

Jack didn't respond.

Otto did. "You have yet to produce one shred of official sanction for this attack, Marcel," the oligarch said. "You're the one whose situation is hopeless – not only am I going to personally kick your ass, I'm then going to personally drag said ass before President Ferrill and watch her court martial you in front of the whole senate to cover her's."

Avalon heaved a deep sigh.

He said, "So be it."

The Reformer's main guns flared. Jack winced away from his screen as it filled with light.

For an awful second, he though Avalon's ship intended to punch straight through the Algreil shields – and that it could pull it off.

When his vision cleared, he realized his mistake.

It didn't make him feel much better.

The Reformer's guns couldn't break the arcology's shields, but they could blind the mechaneers defending it. Under the cover of the exploding shells, the destroyer's surviving mecha bays disgorged another wave of Federal mecha. Another hundred, added to the seventy or eighty already approaching the arcology.

Jack had the uncomfortable feeling he knew how the nobs had always felt.

"Devil Ray Leader," he said, opening a channel to Otto. "What the hell do you plan to do about that?"

"Not a damned thing," Otto snapped. "And close the channel unless you've got something worth saying."

"They're gonna make it to the platform," Jack said.

"No shit?"

"Ellie's down there!"

"You will be, too, if you don't pay attention." Otto snapped off a shot past Jack's hovering mecha, forcing the onrushing Divine Auric Drake to halt his charge.

Jack didn't know if the oligarch intended to fight to the death or if, as so many times in the past, he had something up his sleeve.

Jack didn't have time to think about it.

He charged the off-balance Divine Auric Drake, lashing his Stingray's monomolecular-edged tail at the vulnerable haft of the Fed mecha's polearm. Avalon rolled backwards and stabbed, shearing more of one of Jack's wings away.

The move left their mecha at close quarters, though, where the Devil Ray martial arts worked best. Jack slammed his smaller mecha up against Avalon's and locked its hand around the overextended polearm. His tail lashed out and sliced deep into Avalon's free arm, probing for something explosive to touch off. In the atmosphere, the whine of mecha weapons cutting into their targets grated on Jack's ears. He cut the external audio feed before it drove him nuts.

The Divine Auric Drake broke Jack's grip. He smashed his fist into the head of Jack's Stingray, rocking the smaller mecha back and dislodging its tail. A swift kick sent Jack reeling out of grappling range and left him feeling like he'd broken all his ribs and most of the rest of his bones, albeit only for a second.

He bit back the pain and arrested his fall. If the Stingray hit the Algreil platform, he'd suffer a lot more than second-hand pains.

"Back off, Jack." Otto's voice crackled over the comlink. "I'll handle the admiral. You keep his buddies off my back."

Jack glanced at the cameras giving him a one thousand and eighty degree view of his surroundings. Otto's Stingray blazed in from below and behind. A trio of Fed mecha apparently patterned on similar designs to the Divine Auric Drake spiraled down from above their commander, probably leading the second wave. Below, the first Feds had reached the Algreil arcology. Jack saw a pair break off toward two tiny figures at the edge of the platform. He wondered what people were doing gawking at the battle on foot.

He took it all in with a second's glance, then followed Otto's orders.

He assumed the smaller, thruster-winged mecha following Admiral Avalon were production model Wyverns, which meant their pilots were the Fed elite. They didn't have aerodynamic wing-arms like a Stingray, but then, Jack's 'ray retained only a feeble excuse for an airframe.

All down to skill.

Theirs, honed by constant simulation and skirmishes. His, originally forged in civil war, now rusty from more than a decade of disuse.

Otto expected him to win outnumbered three to one how, exactly?

Jack bit back a curse. He'd dissed these mechaneers alongside Otto at the tournament. Ellie would chew him out something awful if he lost to them now.

Ellie.

No way these bastards were gonna get to her.

He locked his tattered wing-arms into place and shot toward the edge of the shield encircling the Algreil arcology.

The first Fed came through on a hot burn, a spread of missiles rippling at seemingly random angles from the compressed space ahead of him. Jack launched chaff to throw those off and emerged from the cloud pointed straight at the Fed mecha. His 'ray passed within a meter of the Fed, trailing its tail. One swipe sliced off three of the starburst-like thruster-wings.

The fourth, adequate in space, failed the mecha at one gee. A Fed pilot's ejection seat shot out.

Jack moved on to the next Wyvern.

This one learned from his buddy's mistake. He led with a pair of blades as long as a mecha's arm. The immense swords danced in front of the onrushing Fed mecha, forming almost a solid wall of deadly monomolecular edges and composite metal.

Jack unhooked his wing-arms, braced, and shot the Fed mecha's left shoulder off.

For a wonder, the Fed kept a hold of both blades. He spun around, righted himself and charged, swords first.

Jack tried another shot, but this one went wide even with the targeting computer's assistance. He risked flicking his gaze to the ammo readout. Crap. He couldn't keep up this rate of fire for long. With the larger bore came heavier, and less, ammo than he'd used in the Civil War.

Upside – he'd shed more weight than he'd thought.

He juked to the side as the Fed came on, just enough to pin the two blades to the hilt in the armor on either flank of the Stingray. Before the Fed could adjust to missing the mecha's vital innards, Jack brought the 'ray's fists down on the Wyvern's shoulders. The damaged shoulder smashed clean off, taking the arm with it.

Jack drew the blade from his flank armor as fast as if it were a scabbard and plunged it into the center of the Fed machine. Coolant sprayed from its pierced engine.

"Nice swords," he muttered, and relieved the Wyvern of its second blade before it plummeted.

A shell ripped through his newly armed wing-arm. The sword and most of the arm exploded in a shower of shrapnel, just south of the thruster.

He let the momentum of the explosion carry him, then abruptly shut off his engines.

He fell, gulping back the bile the gee forces pushed into his mouth. His inertial dampeners must have been damaged.

The third Wyvern appeared above and behind him, on his left. Its pilot spun to line up another shot, faster than Jack had hoped. So much for using the z-axis against an inexperienced mechaneer. Maybe the Wyvern pilots were Civil War vets from the Federal side. Considering the casualties those pilots had suffered, just surviving had to speak highly of any still alive.

Jack glanced at his fuel gauge.

"Ah, hell."

The shrapnel must have damaged the fuel tank on his right thruster. He didn't have enough to make the climb again – not and do more than limp a few kilometers from the battlefield. He'd lost his cannon in the scuffle.

So he kept diving.

The Fed hadn't expected that. He shot three times, missed three times, dove after Jack. He came on full burn, trying to catch up.

Jack grinned fiercely. He added his own thrusters to the mix, speeding his already terminal velocity. He dodged unconsciously, avoiding the shells the Fed rained down. They splashed into the water with great geysers.

For a long moment, Jack surveyed the battlefield. Otto grappled with the Divine Auric Drake high overhead. Incredibly, Avalon seemed to be at least holding his own with the Oligarch. Must've had a few tricks he held back in the tournament. Feds crawled all over the platform, tearing the walls and ceilings from the office buildings. Only three other Devil Rays were still in the fight. Jack didn't know if the rest had bailed out or retreated – or died.

Then the water rushed up to meet him and he stopped paying attention to any battle but his own.

The Stingray's screens flashed red, offering visual rather than neural indication of how much damage he'd done to himself. He'd cut the neural interface an instant before impact. Feedback shock underwater would put him down long enough to drown, and from the looks of his battered mecha, he would have been shocked into unconsciousness for sure.

He spun in the water, gulping at the 'ray's sluggish response. It should have moved almost as fast as in the air, even after an orbital dive. He'd done planetary insertions into water with the mecha during the Civil War.

Of course, his mecha always started with intact armor to spread the damage around.

The Wyvern pilot must have realized what Jack intended to do a second before impacting the water. He tried mightily to pull up. Aided by the atmospheric resistance, he managed to overcome his own momentum.

He didn't count on one gee, though.

Compared to the half-dead Stingray, the Wyvern plunged into the water slowly, almost gracefully.

The impact still tore one of its delicate thruster-wings off. It floundered as its remaining thrusters blazed into the unfamiliarly dense surroundings.

Jack jetted his battered machine toward it. The 'ray moved painfully slow.

The Fed had plenty of time to line up a shot with his massive cannon. His mecha's long, dark green finger closed on the trigger.

Jack shook his head.

The cannon's mechanisms were designed for vacuum and operated, barely, in atmosphere. Underwater, they jammed.

The Fed realized his mistake and tried to hurl the cannon away, but by the time he got it out of his grasp, Jack's mecha slammed into his. Even with one good fist and a mecha full of damaged systems, Jack had the edge underwater. He gripped the Wyvern's crescent head.

"Steal my ship, will ya," he snarled. "Threaten my little girl, will ya?!"

He tore the Wyvern's head off and hurled it toward the seabed invisible in the depths below.

His gaze followed the mecha's head as it tumbled toward the undersea spire of the Algreil complex. Past the submarine shuttles taking Otto's people – and Ellie, merciful Principle, and Ellie – to safety.

The head fell and fell, its ejection mechanism either damaged or unable to operate underwater.

Until, at last, it clunked off something below. A deeper darkness rising from the Stygian world-ocean.

Jack's eyes widened.

A second Federal destroyer bubbled up from the deep.