When you are in space, no one can hear you scream, for two reasons. One, the distances in space are immense. If you were traveling ten thousand times over the speed limit in a car, it would still take you more than four years solid to get somewhere other than our solar system. The other reason is, of course, that sound cannot be transmitted in hard vacuum.
All this is assuming that there are no reporters involved. Or World Aeronautics and Robotics (WAR), largest employer in space.
"Wow, folks, and WAR's Ganymede Security Team make a telling blow against the invading Big Field CorpTeam! The four robots are being controlled by three pilots, aren't they Dave?," the stereocast television reporter gushed.
Her male co-presenter was chosen as a foil for her friendlyness, dressed like an undertaker and about as outgoing. "Yes, Melissa, the Katana and the Pyros mechs are being simultaneously piloted by Jean-Paul Claude. Its interesting how he manages to cope with moving two bodies at once. He takes a performance hit doing this, of course."
"The Katana mech, for those unaware of Human Assited Robots, or HAR's, is basically humanoid. The legs are extremely powerful, and the arms have monomolecular blades mounted normal to the wrists in place of hands. The Pyros mech, originally intended for deep space construction work, has a humanoid torso, arms and head, with a long skirt concealing it's engines in the lower half.
"The Pyros has heavy maneuvering jets mounted at the waist, and construction girders for arms. This mech is extremely powerful, but slow."
The camera man groaned at Dave, but kept filming.
"Isn't this exciting?! The other two pilots are Crystal Devroe piloting a Jaguar HAR, and Steffan Tommas who is piloting a Shadow! All three of them lost in that Tournament last year! The winner, known as Raven, is now in charge of the facility that the three are defending! And doing a fine job, right Dave?," she said, unconsciously adding some 'bounce' to keep non-sports-fans watching.
"The Jaguar is a human shaped mech that relies on speed and precisely delivered strength. It is equipped with a ten ton concussion cannon, and is intended for crowd control and security work. The Shadow, resembling a ninja from popular culture, can throw quasireal projections of itself.
"The HAR's used are quite lethal in the right hands, but the combination of the Chronos and the Electra Human Assisted Robot, or HAR, may prove more than the three can handle. The Chronos is hard to defend against normally, and the lightning equipped Electra is feeding it more power," the man monotoned. He picked up the cameraman's signal to shut up about ten minutes too late, and promptly shut up.
"It looks like Crystal and her group are going to win anyway, Dave! See? Oh! Wow! The Electra robot is doing something weird!"
Indeed. Crystal had physically felt that last throw, cocooned as she was inside her Jaguar. In the electronically foggy field of war, the radiolinks employed in the Arena and all other work were easily disconnected, and thus physical presence in her HAR was necessary. She was not in much danger, though. HAR's using a Body-In-Mech system entombed the pilot in a formfitting coffin, rather than the hazardous cockpit system employed seventeen years ago. Steffan and Jean-Paul were similarly contained, although Jean-Paul's Pyros was moving slightly slower than his primary, the Katana, due to the necessary radiolink.
The Electra misjudged the Chronos' next phase-through, and fed it too much power. The Chronos grabbed onto all four HAR's, intent on taking it with it if it could.
"Dave, I think... Hey, can we move back, I'm scared now!" The pretty presenter ran for the small shuttlecraft in the peculiar run employed in low-G conditions.
Dave kept reporting. "The Electra robot has oversupplied the Chronos robot, which is now overloading it's Stasis Field Generator. As we all know the Chronos robot, designed by Arjan Schmalz in 2072, is able to phase in and out itself and items that it is holding. The Stasis Field Generator is still little understood today, and it looks like we are going to find out what happens when one is overloaded. As far as I know, this has never happened before. I am retreating to the shuttlecraft, as the battlefield is becoming unacceptably dangerous."
As the camera man and David got to the shuttlecraft, the pilot of the shuttle closed the hatch and started the thrusters.
"Keep filming! We need that footage!," Dave shouted uncharacteristically at the camera man. "No one knows what will happen!"
Steffan, in a moment of desperation, threw a quasi-real projection of his Shadow at the Chronos, sending it up and behind the Chronos to grasp it. The Electra, by now having overloaded it's circuitbreakers, could not break the hold. The Chronos HAR lost control of the Generator as the Shadow projection pulled it's tubelike arms behind it's back.
This sent the five mechs into a frenzy. The distinctive fade-out of the Chronos' phase-out began, but the pilot of the Chronos in a desperation move kicked the four and nullified his Generator, leaving the four HAR's to writhe in the phase-out.
"Crystal! Try and shoot him with your cannon," Steffan yelled over the pilots' intercom.
"I can't! I can't move at all!," Crystal shrieked back. The pain was starting to increase from the numbness of the damage from the last throw.
"You two! The temporal energies from that stupid timewaster is translocating us too far! Clamp onto each other, or we'll end up apart as well as God knows where!," Jean-Paul commanded, as his Pyros latched onto his Katana with it's strong, iron-girder like arms. Crystal's Jag and Steffan's Shadow obeyed, trying as best they could to hang onto the other mechs.
This happened just in time, as the energy hit a peak and the four HAR's disappeared in corrugated painfully white and black light.
------------------------------
In a remote desert on a completely different dimension, a metal capsule fell from the sky. The impact created an immense dust cloud, quickly blowing away on the constant wind. The capsule opened, revealing a small white robot Judge.
"Area within a thirty mile radius is now a Zoids Battlefield! All non-competitants are advised to leave the area. Area scanned... Battlemode 0982. Wolfpack Team versus the Lightning Team!," it said in it's nonsexual artificial voice.
The three command wolf Zoids vaguely resembled American timber wolves, but made of metal with energy cannons mounted on their backs. They were painted a horrible shade of purple-blue, and the pilots' jeers filled their opponents ears.
"Ready... Fight!"
Their opponents were Lightning Cyks, resembling Earth cheetah's with the ubiquitous energy cannon back-mounted. They utilized incredible speed to avoid the Wolfpack's attempts to disable them, returning fire much more accurately. Within two minutes, two of the three D-Wolves were frozen. This lot of opponents, this 'Wolfpack', were cannon fodder at best.
As the lead of the Lightning Team, Jack Cisco, fired what would be the last shot, it was absorbed into a sphere of white and black light, which was suspended in mid-air. The sphere slowly descended to the ground, melting the sand into glass then mixing shades until the contents were clearly visible.
The leader of the Wolfpack wasted no time in calling foul. "Judge! Interference in the battlefield!"
The white robot paused. "Deliberating... Deliberating... Today's fight has been declared invalid by the Zoids Battle Commision."
Cisco fumed at this, but didn't waste his breath complaining. The Judge's decisions were final. "When is the rematch?"
"Tomorrow at the same time as today's match." The capsule shut over the Judge, blasting back to the satellite orbiting the planet.
The leader of the Wolfpack got out of his Zoid, running over to the interferers. He was pissed at them, but also grateful. He looked like a weenie now, but his Zoid wasn't totaled.
"Who the hell do you think you are?," he demanded. These new Zoids didn't even look like Zoids! None of them had four legs. Heck, they didn't remotely resemble two-legged Zoids!
The one that looked like some futuristic ninja got up to it's feet, looking around. The other three got up too, somehow looking lost.
"Yeah, you! Get down here, NOW!," the Wolfpack leader yelled.
Jack Cisco got out of his Lightning Cyk. "Who are you?"
The one with the blades knelt on the ground, and a panel on the back slowly opened. A man with orange-red hair and green eyes got out.
"Where are we?," he asked.
"You're gonna be in a world of pain if you don't tell me why the hell you interfered!," the Wolfpack leader snarled.
"Calm down, Mike. I would like to know, though," Cisco asked.
Two other pilots got out of the ninja-lookalike robot and the plain, lanky one. The Wolfpack leader, now known as Mike, drooled slightly as he saw the cute blonde babe.
"I'm Jean-Paul," the redhaired man said. "These two are Crystal Devroe and Steffan."
"Well, it sure is nice to meet you," Mike said.
"After all, I was about to beat you," Cisco pointed out.
"Ah, shaddup!"
"Where the hell are we," the black haired man asked. "And why are their HAR's so screwed up, Jean-Paul?"
"Relax, Steffan. It seems that while cleaning our clocks, the Chronos miscalculated and translocated us across dimensions."
"Wha?," the Shadow's pilot gaah'ed.
"We left our planet and are now on this one," Crystal acidly translated. "Why were you fighting? You don't seem to have any problems with each other now."
"You've never heard of Zoids, or Zoids battles?," Mike asked, clearly confused.
Cisco, more intelligent than the Wolfpack, decided to explain clearly. "In this universe, an elite of warriors fight in set battles for money and status. The robots we use are called 'zoids', and the times of the fights are determined by the Zoids Battle Commision. The fights are refereed by the Judge."
"What would it take to join these fights?," Steffan wondered. "We need more money."
"We need resources to build a Stasis Field Generator," Jean-Paul mused out loud.
The three ex-WAR employees slowly grinned. This could be fun as well as profitable.
* * *
The three command wolves looked across the crater containing the judge at their opponents. This time, Crystal, Jean-Paul and Steffan were supposed to be on the battlefield.
Crystal was using her now modified Jaguar HAR. Beyond being altered to conform with the rules and regulations, a pair of fore-arm energy laser cannons were mounted on the fore-arms, and sharp spikes were now on the tips of the Jaguar's fingers. (The stock Jaguar did not have these as it was designed for crowd control, not crowd slaughter.)
Steffan was using his stock Shadow, again altered to conform to rules and regulations.
Jean-Paul was using his heavy Pyros space-mech this time. While slow, few Zoids could dream of matching it's endurance and firepower. As with the other two, it was modified to fit the rules and regs. The three's team name was War, after the corporation they used to work for.
"We're gonna waste you!," Mike screamed, and his team mates joined in.
"You're gonna be *history*!"
"All those fights to get up to our rank was a waste of time, *freaks*!"
Jean-Paul's eyes tightened at the last comment.
"You're nothing compared to Ibrahim, or Raven. So quiet, losers," Steffan jeered back.
"Attention, all personnel, Area within a thirty mile radius is now a Zoids Battlefield! All non-competitants are advised to leave the area. Area scanned... Battlemode 0982. The Wolfpack Team versus the War Team!"
"Ready.... Fight!"
The two winging wolfs ran to the side, attempting to flank the War Team. Crystal pushed play on her discman, broadcasting metalrock over the airwaves.
Those stupid dogs were as good as gone.
She moved to take care of the left command wolf, as Jean-Paul took care of the lead and Steffan took the right Zoid.
She jumped at the command wolf, executing a flip in midair. The Jaguar HAR latched onto the heavy gun mounted on the back of the command wolf.
Continuing her flip, Crystal slammed the command wolf onto the sandy ground, back first.
A strange vulnerability of a zoid with a backmounted gun is that, if not anchored carefully, rolling it onto it's back is extremely bad for it. Crystal proved this to be true, as she listened to the metal under the tough gun break, shearing the backbone of the Zoid in at least two places. The metal shrieking jangled dischordantly with her music.
Command System Freeze. First command wolf down.
Steffan dodged the first charge of his command wolf, throwing a 'hold' shadow. The command wolf, unused to unorthodox phenomena in battle like this, was caught by the quasi-real projection and held fast.
"What the hell? Judge, foul!," the pilot of the wolf yelled.
"Shadow projections have been allowed by the Commision, and may be used in battle," the Judge intoned.
Steffan moved quickly, executing a flying kick at the command wolf, knocking it down to the ground.
Command System Freeze. Second command wolf down.
While the other members of WAR had gone for precision, Jean-Paul was going for the brute strength approach. He hadn't liked that freak crack.
The lead command wolf ran towards Jean-Paul, obviously intent on some dramatic clawslash or the like. The Pyros crouched, then drove one heavy steel girder arm forwards like a horizontal piledriver into the chest of the command wolf. He listened with joy to the grinding-screeching-wailing tortured metal.
"Bastard!," Mike growled.
"I'm in this to win, not play at tea parties," Jean-Paul retorted.
"Take THIS!," Mike yelled back.
Jean Paul got up, watching the command wolf slowly get up. The heavy Pyros jumped one bodyheight up, then flew towards the command wolf, using it's heavy maneuvering jets and gravity to slam into the Zoid with twice as much force as before.
Command System Freeze. Last command wolf down. The WAR intercom clicked, as Crystal stopped the music.
"And the winner is... the WAR Team!," the Judge proclaimed.
The three WAR fighters got out of their HAR's, grinning. Two of their opponents had relatively simple things to fix on their Zoids, but Mike's zoid was going to be in the shop for awhile. The chest had been caved in. All the engines inside would have to be fixed or replaced. The head and back had been heavily mauled. They, too would need to be repaired.
Jean Paul shrugged it off. If you volunteerily face something like the Pyros, you have to expect heavy damage, whether you win or not.
The Wolfpack, of course, did not see things this way. The WAR Team had just made enemies for life.
"Jean-Paul, you bastard! Lookit what you did! Look, dammit!," Mike shrieked. He'd had to pull the manual lever to get his cockpit to open at all.
"What? If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen," Steffan smirked. "It's not his fault that you're such a bad pilot."
Crystal smirked too, at this.
"Why, yoooouuu...," Mike leapt at the firehaired pilot, but was restrained by his team mates.
"He's not worth that, Mike, we'll get them later, 'kay?"
"Come on, buddy, we've gotta repair."
"Later, losers," Steffan sang to them.
Crystal blew a kiss at the retreating Planet Zi natives.
* * *
Later that day, once day had ceased, the three were around a small cookfire, eating some of the fruits of their labours. Baked beans and fried eggs for tea.
Jean Paul finished his beans with efficiency, then put down the tin and looked across the fire. "Steffan."
"Wrstflgl?," Steffan mumbled around his fried egg.
"There're a lot of people watching these events. The WAR Team needs to be seen in a positive light, so that we can go up in rank and earn more money. So, try and control yourself once you're out of your HAR, okay?"
"Oh, he'll do that. Won't you, Steffan?," Crystal smiled.
"Both of you did well today, picking at those wolves weaknesses. Crystal, nice touch on the music. Now, from rumours I've heard, some rogue group called the Backdraft mi--"
A ship landing cut Jean Paul off. "Might try and take your Zoids!"