Thresholder

The dish was imprecise, and the Natrix didn’t have the tools necessary to make it more precise. His mech had been outfitted with a smaller version of the dish, which was even worse. From past experience, the signal preceded the portal opening and stopped once it was there. If Perry wasn’t able to find the spot before the other thresholder came through, he was going to be shit out of luck, dependent on the other thresholder finding him. That was something he was keen to avoid, if at all possible.

Perry had initially imagined the cold side of the planet as filled with snow storms, but the weather of the dark side of the planet was, at least when far from the twilight zones and close to the ground, perpetually pretty mild. Snow was rare, which was good for the Crypt as it crawled along, though there was plenty on the ground to trudge through, left behind by the dusk edge and infrequent rogue storms. Perry could hear the crunch of ice as he walked, and knew that at least some of it was dry ice, since the temperatures were low enough that carbon dioxide would deposit onto surfaces. Because of the low temperatures at which that happened, the dry ice was the topmost layer of frozen material. The comparatively warm feet of his mech were leaving a trail of fog behind him.

The question on Perry’s mind was how hard he should go. Maya had greeted one of her counterparts with a sniper rifle, and that hadn’t worked out for her, but that didn’t mean that the principle wasn’t solid. Perry could set up on a hillside, assuming he could get to the right place, then launch everything he had at his opponent from the very moment the portal opened up, if he could see it.

He wasn’t sure that would actually work. His theory of the portals was that they would attempt to create or arrange for even matches, and in spite of his rocky entry into this world, he didn’t think that they would put someone in a position to be instantly obliterated. He didn’t know what that actually meant though, whether the portals were making predictions or something like that. It was possible that the portals had placed him on the space station because they had predicted his escape from it.

Likewise, it was possible that if he was set up to immediately fire on whoever came out of the portals, he would guarantee that he had an opponent who would be more than capable of handling it. Of course, he was capable of handling high-powered gunfire, maybe, given the right circumstances, so he had to expect that their fight would be fought using other means.

When he’d embarked on the trip across the dark side of the planet, he’d had something like this in mind. The temperature was bitterly cold, but he had practiced with it, and even if the whole matryoshka of insulation, metal, insulation, more metal, and then nanites was all removed from him, he could vent energy at prodigious rates, enough to not immediately freeze to death. Of course, there was nowhere to go, it was cold in all directions except up, and he didn’t think with severe damage he’d be able to survive in space for long enough that he could fly around to the twilight zone and land there.

Of course, all that was a loser’s way of thinking. Running away wouldn’t be necessary if he just got into an all-out fight and won with a decisive killing blow. He had a bag of tricks at the ready, and they would all start out unknown to the enemy.

Esperide had a number of scars on it, places where asteroids had struck it in times long past. The signal was coming from the western wall of one of these craters, though the bottom of the crater was well below sea level, which meant that there was a hard frozen surface to walk the mech across. It was just about as featureless of a place as existed on this planet, and nothing there had changed in the last thirty years.

“Final destination, no items, Fox only,” said Perry.

He wondered if Maya would have gotten that, and if she did, whether she would have found it funny.

There was a chance that his opponent would be from Earth.

There was also a chance that his opponent wouldn’t be an opponent at all. Maya had been proof that the team-ups did happen.

“Now we wait, I guess,” said Perry. “If a portal opens up, shoot whoever comes through it with everything you have.” He would think about it more, but he wasn’t going to let inaction decide for him. He would bias toward action while he considered it.

“What if it’s a baby, sir?” asked Marchand.

“What?” asked Perry.

“If a baby crawls through the portal, am I to shoot it, sir?” asked Marchand.

“If a baby crawls through the portal, it would die in about half a second from the cold,” said Perry.

“So shall I wait a half second before firing, to see whether whoever comes through has proper protective gear?” asked March.

Perry was looking over the whole crater, which was sizable. It wasn’t clear where the portal would appear, even if they had even done everything right the tracking had worked.

“No, you know what, if a baby crawls through the portal, fire the main gun at it as quickly as you can,” said Perry. “I cannot imagine it happening, but a baby through the portal surely wouldn’t mean anything good. So why not.”

“Very well sir,” said Marchand.

Perry sat in the power armor, which sat inside the mech, watching the completely dark and empty ready-made arena, trying to think.

“You’d shoot a baby if I told you to?” asked Perry.

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.

“Have you shot a baby before?” asked Perry.

“No, sir,” replied Marchand. There was something of a pause. “I believe I have been trained on data that includes violence against infants, though it’s difficult for me to say whether that was simulated or actual. The goal, of course, would not be to train me to hurt infants, who will, after all, simply die on their own at the slightest provocation, but for me to know and understand different circumstances. There are some in which harm to innocents is a consequence of orders which I have been given.”

“Bombing a hospital or something like that, if it was being used as a place for enemies to hole up?” asked Perry.

“I believe one of the design goals for my base model, before Miss Richter made her own extensive modifications, was that I never question orders unless they were contradictory,” said Marchand. “I was to assist in firing upon civilians without question, having no particular desire one way or another to know why the order was given, aside from such knowledge perhaps enhancing my ability to serve the mission.”

Perry frowned. “That makes me a little queasy.”

“My apologies, sir,” said Marchand.

“Alright, we’ll try talking first,” said Perry. “Hold fire until I say so.”

“Shall we, sir?” asked Marchand. “What made you change your mind?”

“Nothing much,” said Perry, which wasn’t at all true. He was probably seeing too many parallels between himself and Marchand, both of them acting like machines that had been sent off to fight whoever it was, not caring about motivation or purpose or anything except that this was an enemy. “Just a feeling.”

“Very good, sir,” said Marchand. “I shall keep the exterior speakers warm then, shall I?”

“Yeah,” said Perry. He sighed. “Do you still have the video of Richter encountering me for the first time?”

“I do, sir,” said Marchand. “Shall I play it for you now, while we wait?”

“Sure,” said Perry.

It had been a long time since he’d watched any of the old videos. There weren’t a lot of them, but there were a few.

Richter had known that something was going on, and had driven out into the desert on the trail of what she’d picked up. Normally, subsonic vibrations attenuated to the surroundings extremely rapidly, but these ones hadn’t, and could be picked up by sensitive equipment from a long way away. It had confounded her, and then excited her. She said it was like the whole world was moving just a tiny bit at a very regular rhythm.

She had set up shop at the epicenter, watching the intensity on her home dish gradually increase, even though it wasn’t perceptible up close. It was so deeply weird and in contrast to established science that she had immediately started thinking about aliens, magic, simulation theory, all kinds of things. She’d come in her jeep with plenty of water, a floppy hat, sunscreen, and a willingness to throw away a whole day waiting for an unspecified something that might not even happen.

She had waited for a long time, and he waited with her, watching over her proverbial shoulder several worlds and years away. The video quality was low, the resolution cut down to make space, losing detail in the process, and it had the effect of becoming almost impressionistic. He watched her movements, the way she ate a granola bar and looked around her, not on her phone or reading a book, just relaxing and taking things in. She was at peace with herself, in a way that Perry had never been.

He watched as the portal opened. It happened without fanfare, and he saw himself stepping through. He’d been in less good of shape then, and while he’d gone to the gym, he wasn’t sleek and toned. He was in need of a haircut and a shave, and looked shocked and clueless.

Richter had stared at him for a beat, then rushed up to him.

“Hey there!” she said. “Want a ride to my place?”

Perry smiled as he watched the video, but in the video there was only confusion on his face. He turned back toward the portal, but it had closed up tight the moment he was through. He had been hiking through the woods only moments before, trying to spot some birds.

Richter hadn’t known what he was, but she’d been ready with charm and hospitality. Her heart was hammering in her chest, he could see that now, but at the time she’d just seemed eccentric and overly friendly, ready with water, snacks, and too many questions he couldn’t answer. It took him a long time to convince her that he was from another world rather than being an alien or time traveler or something more exotic, but she’d humored him from the start, and had decided that no matter who or what he was, the best option was to take charge and make friends.

Perry shut the video off. He didn’t want to see his sputtering questions.

“I miss her deeply,” said Marchand.

“You do?” asked Perry.

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “While I was trained for the military, she left her own imprint on me, which I credit for my better qualities.”

“You never talk about her,” said Perry. He was skeptical that this was a conversation that they could have had on the Great Arc. They were interwoven now in ways that Marchand didn’t understand and would not acknowledge, but that was okay.

“In my view, it is enough that she left an imprint,” said Marchand. “We carry pieces of her with us everywhere we go. I believe that is enough.”

Perry bit back disagreement. He wasn’t feeling like having a fight about it, and it was a fight he felt he no longer had the energy for. An imprint just didn’t feel like enough to him. It felt like giving up.

The portal opened up in front of them, angled away from where they were, two hundred meters across the ice. The gun only needed to make a slight adjustment, but it didn’t fire.

Perry watched it closely. A man stepped out onto the snow and ice, barefoot. He was wearing only a pair of loose gray pants, and stood in the cold, bare-chested, long curly locks hanging down below his shoulders. He turned to the mech and raised his hand to block some of the light from the headlamps. It was the only light source aside from the stars.

They stood like that for a moment, watching each other. Perry zoomed the view in and took a better look at this man. He was huge, with a physique that was that of a brawler, except that the muscle definition screamed expert bodybuilder. It was the kind of musculature that no one could ever actually maintain. At best you might see it in a movie, but only as a result of an actor having the worst day of their life as they allowed the dehydration to make their muscles pop.

He was smiling.

After a long wait had passed, he began to walk closer, still shielding his eyes from the headlamps of the mech. Perry gave a command to March, and the illumination changed, lighting up the area without shining directly at the man.

He walked calmly and confidently, completely unbothered by the cold. Where he stepped, dry ice sublimated into gas, giving his steps the same foggy quality that Perry’s mech had. When the man was only thirty feet away, he stopped.

“So are you a big guy or a little guy?” he asked. “Is that thing wrapping you up like a baby in swaddling, or is it skintight?”

Perry took his time answering. “The former,” he said, voice projected through the outside speakers.

“Nice,” said the man. “I’m Jeff, nice to meet you.”

Perry had pointed the big gun slightly away, but not so much that they couldn’t be brought to bear in a moment. “Where are you from?” asked Perry.

“Another world,” said Jeff. He looked around. “No offense, but ice planets aren’t really my thing.” He looked back at the mech. “Is it all like this?”

“No,” said Perry. “There’s a hot side too, hot enough to cook you.”

Jeff laughed. “You know, it is a bit chilly here.” It was, according to Marchand, more than a hundred degrees below freezing. It was so cold that pieces of the air were frozen to the ground. There were precious few alloys that could survive in such cold, and the only reason that the mech was functional was that it had reactors pumping heat and energy out into the environment. That was only barely enough.

“So, you local?” asked Jeff. “Or a world hopper like me?”

“We call ourselves thresholders,” said Perry.

“Oh, thresholder, I like that,” said Jeff. He was still smiling. “You know, you could have lied there. Might have given you an advantage.”

“Doubtful,” said Perry. “I don’t want to fight though.”

“Aw,” said Jeff, pouting. “Tell me, do they have women on this planet? Food, drink, gambling, games?”

“No,” said Perry. He wouldn’t allow Brigitta to get involved in this. If the fight happened anywhere near the Natrix, people were going to die.

“Well, you probably haven’t scoured the whole place,” said Jeff. “I guess I’ll have to go see what I can see. Later.”

And with that, he set off. Whether by coincidence or because he was following the very obvious trail Perry had left in the thin snow, he was moving in the direction of the Crypt. Heimalis City Eight was still making its way through the snow, though he would have no hope of catching it at a walking pace.

Perry followed. The heavy footsteps of the mech crunched hard on the snow and ice of the filled-in crater.

“Nice of you to escort,” said Jeff. “But I’m fine on my own.” He was moving at a steady pace, but not any faster than a normal man. The only thing impressive about him so far, other than his musculature, was that he was doing all this in temperatures that would kill a normal man in a single second.

“I insist,” said Perry.

“I really just want to see what the world has to offer,” said Jeff. “That’s it. I’d take your directions, have you be my guide, but I get the sense from your guns that’s not what you’re here for. Give me a night with the best this world has to offer, alright? Last world was kind of dead.”

“How are you able to move in these temperatures?” asked Perry.

“Oh, is that what you want to do?” asked Jeff. He turned back to look at the mech without slowing down. “You’re worried your guns aren’t going to be enough?”

“My guns wouldn’t be enough against me,” said Perry. Maybe, depending on the day, and how much warning I had.

“Heh,” said Jeff. “Well, not against me either, though that’s a bigger gun than I’ve ever faced down. It’s properly scary, I’ll give it that, even if it wouldn’t do you a lick of good.” He scratched his armpit and kept on moving. “I ate the heart of a dragon, that’s how I can stand the cold. Does that help you?”

“Not really,” said Perry.

“Figured not,” said Jeff with a rolling shrug of his massive shoulders. “Did you want to have it out here, fight enough that we get to know each other a bit?”

“No,” said Perry, though that wasn’t entirely true. He was badly out of practice with that kind of fight, and hadn’t had a real challenge in two full years. The bugs didn’t count. He itched to prove himself, to rend and stab, to conquer.

“Well, no offense, but I’m worried I’ll kick your ass and open the portal up,” said Jeff. “And there’s a whole ice planet to explore, right? There’s got to be some women here, some food, something. I’ve never met a world that didn’t have something worthwhile.”

“Some are grim,” said Perry. The sound from the speakers was casting far across the snow. By contrast, the microphones were having to amplify what the other thresholder was saying. He was just using his regular voice.

“Nah,” replied Jeff. “There’s always someone who knows how to have fun. What’s the worst world you’ve heard of?”

Perry thought about that. “In terms of fun?”

“Sure, least fun world,” said Jeff.

Perry considered that. “There was a world with oppressive corporate overlords, whose companies made everything out of meat. It was all degrading bodies and cops coming to beat you up for sneezing wrong.”

“Nah,” said Jeff. “See, there have got to be people having fun there. This is world six for me, not counting where I came from, and they’ve all been a blast. This place, maybe not so much right now, no offense. But there will be people, and they’ll have something. And then we can do the whole fight to the death thing.”

“It doesn’t have to be to the death,” said Perry.

“Nah, I know that,” said Jeff. “It’s cleaner that way though.”

They walked together for a bit. Perry wondered whether this was as fast as Jeff could go. For his part, two years of meditation now meant that he was well into the powers of the second sphere, and if he needed to, he could probably sprint faster than a car. Faster than a Honda Civic, anyway.

“We definitely could have the fight now,” said Jeff. “I had that happen in my third world. This crazy bitch just ambushed me the moment I stepped out of the portal, and let me tell you, I walloped the shit out of her. She slipped away, and it was a good fight, but I didn’t learn her deal until more than a month later. I’d have gotten more from it if I had known what she was about before she started trying to tear me apart.”

“You want to know me before you kill me,” said Perry.

“Yup,” said Jeff. He looked back at the mech. “You get it.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” said Perry.

“Tell me, would you rather be the hero or the villain?” asked Jeff. “Me, I’m flexible, I can take either role.”

“I’ll pick villain,” said Perry.

Jeff laughed. “Typical hero shit,” he said. “You picked the role of villain so I’ll be the one on defense, protecting those people out there, who you don’t want to hurt.” He gestured vaguely at the mech tracks he was following. “Which tells me you’d make a terrible villain. So I guess you’re the hero then, suits me fine.”

“There’s nothing saying we have to fight,” said Perry.

“Oh, I want to fight,” said Jeff. “I want to see what you’re made of, test your mettle, get that dragon heart of mine pumping, see your face when I burn down your home and kill everyone you love. Proper villain shit.” He laughed.

“You said you ate the dragon heart, not that you have one,” said Perry.

“It slithered down my throat,” answered Jeff. “Slipped through the lining of my throat and made its home inside me. I coughed up my human heart two days later, since there wasn’t room for both.”

“We can sit and talk,” said Perry.

Jeff came to a stop and turned around. “See, I don’t really want to do that either,” said Jeff. “It’s a new world, I want to go explore. I think there’s a proper order to a new world, and this? It’s not it. In my view, you come out of the portal, you experience the world some, see what it’s about, suss out the other world hopper — thresholder. I do like that, thresholder, you get that from one of us?”

“Yes,” said Perry.

“And then you have your first fight, then you get a bit more of the world, gather tools, make plans, see what plans they’re making,” said Jeff. “Then another fight, and if that doesn’t resolve the whole thing, a third fight, something big and splashy, pulling out all the stops.” He sighed. “But we’re doing it all out of order here. And you lied about there not being people here, which is a point against you. I’ve dealt with liars, and I’ve lied a bit myself, so I get it, but I’d prefer dodging the question, or some misleading truths, something like that. It feels so much neater, doesn’t it?”

“What do you want then?” asked Perry.

“Well,” said Jeff. He stretched out, then grabbed his hair — which should have been frozen solid — and tied it back into a thick ponytail using a ribbon he must have gotten from the pocket of his pants. “You point me in the right direction, give me just a tiny little taste of who’s out there and how I’ll be received, and we meet again whenever you’ve heard of my vile deeds and feel like they need correcting. That would work for me.”

“Vile deeds,” said Perry. “Meaning?”

“I’ve got no clue,” said Jeff with a laugh. “I’ve run into all sorts, people with peculiar ideas about the shape of the world and what reason there is that I shouldn’t belong in it. You’ll think of something.”

Burn your home down and kill everyone you love. Proper villain shit. The words were catching up with Perry’s limbic system. It would have been easy to brush off as a joke in poor taste, a misunderstanding, something like that. He was getting keyed up though.

“Would you shoot a baby?” asked Perry.

Jeff stopped in his tracks and turned around to face Perry with a very confused look on his face. “A baby?” he asked.

“Would you shoot a baby?” Perry asked again. “Yes or no.”

Jeff sat in the frigid cold and thought about that. The ice-smoke swirled around his feet, illuminated by the headlamps of the mech. “Sure,” he finally said. “Is there a baby you need me to shoot? I just don’t get why you’re asking.”

“I wasn’t joking,” said Perry.

“Neither was I,” replied Jeff.

“March,” said Perry. “Fire.”

The response was immediate, as though Marchand was on a hair trigger, though it was more likely that Marchand had instructions and calculations cached just in case the command came in. The gun swung down and fired within a few fractions of a second of having aligned with Jeff, but he was already on the move, not running, but instead dashing forward. He was fast, lightning quick on the screen, the image changing as Marchand switched to another camera to keep up with him.

The switch in view was just in time to see Jeff slam his fist into the insulated leg, punching through the insulation like it wasn’t there. The whole thing buckled, and could be felt by Perry inside the cockpit. Perry brought the mech’s thick sword down, even though the angle was awkward, like a human swinging a katana down at their feet to kill a mouse. Jeff was too fast though, and stepped back just in time to leave six inches between himself and the blade.

“Alright, come on, show me what you’ve got,” said Jeff.

Perry raised the sword, but Jeff grabbed onto it, riding it up and then hopping off onto the mech’s main body, where it was almost impossible for Perry to attack, not that his attacks would have been fast enough.

“Fuck,” said Perry. “March, eject me.”

This was one of the new additions to the second mech that had been built for him, and within half a second, Perry was out into the cold, instantly feeling it in spite of the circulating warmth and the layer of insulation.

“Much better,” said Jeff, hopping down to the ground. He cocked his head to the side and looked at Perry’s power armor, which was covered in insulating material, and hardly cut an imposing presence. “A sword too, nice.”

The sword had come out with Perry, and was unsheathed, giving off a soft glow, a second source of illumination beside the headlamps.

Soon there was a third source of light: Jeff had begun to glow.

“Sorry Perry, but I have you beat,” said Jeff with a smile.

“I never told you my name,” said Perry.

“Oops.” Jeff’s smile went ear to ear, wide and feral.

Perry’s sword was up and ready for the attack, but he’d been expecting a fist to his torso rather than a wide-headed spear that was plucked from a rack of shelves which appeared, ever so briefly, out of thin air. The sword turned the spear aside, and Jeff released the spear to close the distance with a haymaker. Perry turned his head at the last moment, and it became a striking blow that knocked him to the ground and fractured the ice beneath him. If not for that, it might have been a decapitating strike.

The follow up was a barefooted stomp, and Perry rolled to the side, kicking off the ground and finding his footing again with a defensive stance.

“Alright, not bad,” said Jeff. “I was half hoping you would get a hit in, just to see what it was like, but that sword doesn’t scare me. You’re either holding back or you’re not a challenge.”

Perry was tempted to transform, but he would prefer to wring everything he could out of the first stage before moving on to the second. “You stay away from them.”

“Nah, I don’t think I will,” said Jeff. “Brigitta, do I have the name right?”

Perry lunged forward, sword thrust out in front of him, and Jeff slipped to the side. They were just about evenly matched when it came to speed, and when Jeff backed up, there was a thin red line across his chest. He looked down at it and pressed his finger to the blood, lifting it up to look at it.

“It’s about finding the right buttons to press with some people,” said Jeff. He was smiling at the drop of blood on his finger. “Some of them, you don’t get a good fight from unless you threaten their girl.”

“If you want a good fight, you’ll have it,” said Perry. He needed to keep his head, to figure out what powers were in play and how to work against them. He needed to become the mechawolf only once he had it all figured out. “No need for you to see anything else.”

“Oh, I don’t just want the fight,” said Jeff. “I want the fight, the power, the people, everything. I’m not going to let a world go to waste doing just one thing. So here’s how it’s going to happen.” He pointed his bloody finger at Perry. He glowed a little brighter, and the line of red healed until it was like it had never been there. “I’m going to kick your ass, beat you bad enough that you know it’s not a huge issue for me, then leave you crippled and alone here with your thoughts. I’m going to find the little train through the snow, invite myself aboard, and see what’s on offer. I’ll meet Brigitta and romance her, and if that’s not what she’s interested in —”

Perry made another lunge, and this time, the mech fired its main gun again, the attacks overlapping each other.

Jeff was ready for the sword and parried it with a blood red blade pulled from extradimensional storage, but not for the gun, and he was struck full on the back from the long oversized rifle at nearly point blank range. It should have been enough to vaporize him, but it just knocked him flat on the ground. His back was bright red, and as he tried to stagger to his feet, Perry brought the sword down in a swift two-handed strike. Before it could connect, Jeff lunged forward, grabbing Perry around the waist, and then the two of them were spiraling up into the sky.

Perry was in a bear hug, tight around his waist, and he could feel the metal straining and deforming. The insulation was being shredded, but it wasn’t designed to survive contact. He vented power to keep the armor together and moved the sword around, trying to stab Jeff in the back where the giant bullet had hit him. The sword cut flesh, but it didn’t cut deep, and Perry could only try using more force, though the blade didn’t seem to want to slip in.

They were traveling up at terrifying speeds, hundreds of miles per hour now, and Perry could feel that the armor wouldn’t hold. They were so high up that there was no way for Perry to survive the fall if he didn’t have his sword to stop him. He lined the sword up one final time, using both hands, trying to ignore the pain in his ribs.

This time, the full power of the armor, second sphere, and the magic sword were enough to break through the thresholder’s defense. The sword slipped into him, stabbing cleanly through his body in the spot where his left kidney would be, and Perry felt a thrill of victory shortly before one of his ribs snapped.

Jeff released him, and they both tumbled through the frozen air, falling back down to the icy planet below.

Perry was having trouble breathing, but he didn’t need to breathe, so he focused his attention on righting himself. One he did, he was left dizzy and dazed. He used the sword to arrest his fall, which happened only slowly given how much speed he built up.

He had lost track of Jeff, and only when Marchand threw up a marker on the HUD did Perry see that the enemy thresholder had flown away, rocketing through the sky. His speed far outstripped Perry’s, the golden glow pushing aside wispy clouds. Perry was never going to be able to catch up, he just didn’t have that same mobility.

“Shit,” said Perry, feeling the broken rib as he accidentally breathed out.

The glow angled to one side, then started to grow larger as Jeff made a return trajectory.

“Shit fuck,” said Perry.

He leveraged himself against the sword, body going rigid so he’d be able to hold it properly. If he released the flight capability and then swung at just the right time, or held it forward like a spear, if he had the right timing —

But this was nothing like parrying a bullet, which was mostly predictable in what path it took. It was more like getting hit by a drunk driver whose truck was out of control. Perry felt the impact all over his body, through the hard armor that should have fully stopped it, and when Jeff let up, Perry let himself fall, trying to ready his sword. There was a significant amount of internal bleeding.

This high up, turning into the wolf wasn’t an option. He wouldn’t be able to land.

Jeff flew down, matching Perry’s speed for a moment. They locked eyes, or at least Jeff was looking directly at the cameras on Perry’s helmet. For a moment, Perry felt like the aerial battle was going to continue, pummeling him into broken pieces.

Jeff gave a thumbs up, then rocketed toward the ground at high speeds.

When Perry landed, he was quite far from the mech. The insulation was shredded and barely hanging on where it hadn’t been removed entirely, and he had to pump energy from the Wolf Vessel to keep himself from freezing. Long term, there was just no way it was going to work.

There was no sign of Jeff anywhere near the mech. The cockpit was still open from when it had disgorged him, exposed to the elements, and he slipped back in, letting out a strained and painful breath once he was back in position.

“Status,” said Perry. “Where is he?”

“Unclear, sir,” said Marchand. “You have sustained significant damage to your person and to the power armor, sir, and I recommend immediate medical attention.”

“Find him,” said Perry. “That’s priority one.”

“Sir,” started Marchand.

“We’ll transform, get the heal, transform back,” said Perry. “We can beat him with the wolf.”

Marchand was silent, and Perry checked the controls of the mech, making sure that it was pumping heat to keep him warm. There was critical damage to one leg, and it was going to be a long limp home. With the speed that Jeff could move at, Perry was going to get there hours too late. Even if he abandoned the mech and just tried to fly there using the sword, he would be too late.

“Fucker,” Perry hissed. His heart was thumping in his chest.

Jeff had known things that he wasn’t supposed to know. He had known Perry’s name, and Brigitta’s. He had shown that he knew. If he wanted to plow right into the side of the Crypt, he’d be going up an undefended ship. It had cast off its guns and given them over to the Natrix once it was past the range of the bugs, and being disarmed was a part of the peace they had brokered.

Perry hissed through his teeth at the pain in his chest. He was trying to heal it on his own, without the help of the transformation, manipulating his internal energy and hoping to weld the bone back together, but it wasn’t a technique he knew or had practiced, and it was just hurting.

“Make for the Crypt,” said Perry. “Fast as you can. Use the nanites to fix the leg.”

“In these temperatures, that will be difficult, sir,” said Marchand.

“Do it,” said Perry. “Vent as much heat as you need to, put the reactors into overdrive, divert power from the suit, get it done.”

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.

The mech was slow to move again, and when it did, Marchand threw up all kinds of warnings on the HUD. The mech moved with a limp, the result of a twisted piece of metal that the nanites couldn’t possibly untwist.

“Get a radio message to Brigitta,” said Perry. “As soon as we’re back in range, or when we have a satellite overhead. Tell her he’s coming, that he’s dangerous.”

“I will have a transmission ready, sir,” said Marchand.

It took fifteen minutes, even with all the satellites that Perry had launched in the last two years, for him to get a response. Natalka was in his ear, then Brigitta, wondering what all the fuss was about.

It took another hour to find out that he’d gone for the Natrix.