There was a familiarity in the distant, undulating shapes. The shoulders rising and falling, the gunbarrels like needles sewing their way through the air- their pattern was instantly recognizable. After all, he had seen those same movements from much closer.
"Command Wolf, two of them," he said, watching the face on the other side of the vidcom line. A smile cracked across the weathered lines.
"And the third?"
"Playing hard-to-get."
"Ah. She will pay attention soon."
"That she will," Volks chuckled. He gently tapped the joystick, and the creature beneath him shifted its feet, inching the crosshairs to the left. The Command Wolves were closer now, and the differences between the two could be discerned. Leading the pack was a Mark II, a fairly common variant. At its current range, it was no threat to him. The other Wolf, however, was a long-range AC model. It was trailing behind the leader- no, it was slowing down.
His finger tensed over the trigger. "Permission to engage?"
"Granted," smiled the man in the vidcom.
Volks pulled his finger back, and the Snipe Master rocked in place as the main rifle threw a shell downrange, severing the Command Wolf AC's right forepaw in the middle of a step. The Wolf tumbled forward and drove its snout into the dirt, throwing a cloud of dust into the desert sky.
"All right, you're clear to move in, Piotr. I'll keep my eye on this one."
"Good," crackled the voice of the man through the vidcom. "Igorova is hungry."
A shadow fell across Volk's cockpit as Piotr's Zoid began to stalk forward, its tall shoulders blocking the sun as it passed. It released a low gurgle as it advanced, audible through the Snipe Master's cockpit and the vidcom. The Zoid beneath Volks shifted uneasily.
"That machine… it's one hell of a monster."
"Igorova is no monster," Piotr protested. "Igorova knows her place on the food chain."
Kand threw his arms up in exasperation as his teammate's Command Wolf loped back towards his own downed machine. "Jeez, it took you that long to notice?"
"Not my fault that your beacon didn't go off," snapped Igel. "Get up."
"I can't!" roared Kand. "The system's frozen. I might be able to reboot-"
"Get rebooting, then," fumed Igel. "Somebody's got to take out that sniper."
Igel rocked the control sticks of his Command Wolf away, turning back towards his opponents. The sniper still sat on the distant hill, its gun silent. The Zaber Fang was still advancing at walking pace towards him, easily three or four kilometers off. This Team Thanatos seemed to be quite generous.
Or just plain stupid, Igel mused. He flipped down his turret controls and advanced the Command Wolf's throttle to maximum.
Kand's Wolf is going to be a little pricey to repair. But the enemy team's just got those two Zoids. I've beaten a Zaber Fang once before, it was tricky but not impossible. Plus, we've still got Genna waiting in the wings. We've got this- and the prize money- in the bag.
A series of beeps from the center console told Igel that the Zaber Fang was now in range of the beam cannons. He angled the Command Wolf's nose outward, breaking his intercept route, and coaxed the turret's crosshairs onto his opponent.
"All right, Team Thanatos! I hope you're ready!"
The beam cannons fired off in sequence, raining high-energy pulses onto the Zaber Fang's anterior surface. As the blasts dispersed against their target, the sun-baked dirt beneath the enemy Zoid's feet erupted into a tan haze.
Got him- that ought to throw those old sensors for a loop. Now the trick will be to flank it.
Igel twisted the control sticks in the opposite direction, sliding the Command Wolf to a stop, pointed straight towards the vulnerable sides of his opponent.
"Now… I'm going to end this!"
He shoved both control sticks as far forward as they would go, and clamped his finger down over the add-on thrusters' trigger. The Command Wolf accelerated like a cork from a champagne bottle, throwing Igel back hard enough to hit his head against the firewall. As he hurtled forward, he realized that he might have given himself a concussion, but he knew there would be time to have that looked at after he won. At his current speed, tearing through the unarmored flank of a Zaber Fang wouldn't take much, and the Snipe Master was an absolute pushover at close range. Victory was nearly assured, until a characteristic pink flicker through the dust dispelled that notion.
"An energy shield?"
It's a custom Zaber Fang with a shield? So none of those attacks hit?! Dammit, that means it never got scrambled- I've got to break off!
Maybe it was the panic, or perhaps it was his recent head injury- Igel had no way of telling what caused the mistake. But at that critical moment of decision, he veered right instead of left- instead of ducking behind the opponent's tail, he was racing towards the fang-lined head. He pulled back on the control sticks and skidded along the desert's surface like a stone over water, skipping helplessly toward his enemy. As he sped closer, the shape behind the energy shield became more clear- it was no Zaber Fang.
Its huge humpback and savagely clawed legs were not the sleek lines of a Zaber Fang, nor was its long, rectangular jaw even remotely catlike. What it did seem to have in common with a Zaber Fang were the two gigantic, tusk-like teeth descending from its upper jaw. That square, squat cavern of a mouth opened, priming the fangs for the arrival of a meal. Igel knew exactly where they would end up. The cockpit slammed to a halt and shook violently as the horrifying Zoid clamped its jaw shut over the Command Wolf's neck, snapping the mechanical spine underneath. The screens went dark, the system froze, and the seat continued to jolt back and forth as the enemy Zoid chomped further into the already-dead Wolf.
But… I've been disabled… thought Igel to himself, his dizziness compounding his fear. Why is it… still… biting?
Piotr roared in laughter as the Zoid beneath him tore into its prey, ripping apart the chassis and staining the Wolf's white paint with dark lubricants. Igorova needed a treat every once in a while, or else she got too feisty for Piotr to handle. Luckily, the Judge had not called him off yet- and Igorova would be done soon. The Zoid found what she had been searching for in the Command Wolf's chassis- a dense sphere covered in cables. The massive jaws greedily lifted it out of the Wolf's body, as the Zoid gurgled excitedly.
"Go ahead, Igorova. You have earned it."
Encouraged by its pilot's words, the mouth was forced shut, and the Zoid core was crushed, the last spark of life completely extinguished. The Command Wolf stopped thrashing, and its pilot hung limp against the undamaged cockpit wall.
Volks manually removed the Command Wolf Mark II's signature from his targeting computer, whistling nonchalantly. "Two out of three down. But where's little miss special?"
"Igorova will find her," gloated Piotr. "She has strong nose."
"That won't be necessary."
Another vidcom channel appeared on Volks' and Piotr's heads-up displays. A woman with brightly-painted lips and short brown hair glared back at them.
Piotr's grin widened. "Ah, Genna Tieg. We were wondering when you would show up."
"Normally, you would think a team leader would, I don't know, lead their team, instead of letting them get picked off, one by one," sneered Volks.
"She is just as much coward now as when she ran away from organization," Piotr whispered smugly.
"So you know about-"
"The Backdraft?" Volks interrupted. "Oh, Genna, we know everything."
"Well- that's not going to do you any good. Not now. The ZBC cleared me of any charges."
Volks rolled his eyes. "But I bet the Commission doesn't pay your bills… and jobs, they just aren't as easy to come by."
"Which is exactly why you two nosy creeps aren't going to win today," growled Genna as her vidcom disconnected.
A new blip appeared on Volks' wide-scan radar. The targeting computer quickly singled it out on the heads-up display, highlighting the distant newcomer with a glowing box.
"So she was hiding behind a hill… that's all it took to fool the wide-scan. Dammit."
"See? We should have used Igorova's nose," laughed Piotr. "What is our friend piloting, Zoid Hunter?"
"Well, it looks like-" Volks glanced back at his heads-up display to find that his target had disappeared. "Um, hold on…"
"Volks! There is something coming this way, and quickly!"
Volks spun the Snipe Master in place, attempting to relocate his opponent. What he eventually found was a gigantic column of dust, rising from behind a dark blur. He could not decipher what the blur actually was, until it had already bowled his Snipe Master over, tossing it off the hill and into the ground below. The Zoid wailed in agony, but responded quickly to Volks' commands to rise. The source of the dust had halted a kilometer behind him, and already its shroud of dirt and heat haze was drifting away.
"I'll be," grunted Volks, his breaths sharp with pain. "I know where all their money went. They cheaped out on those Command Wolves for a reason."
Piotr's vidcom image was now bouncing slightly- he was on his way to support Volks. For all you could say about the guy, he was at least a team player. "Well, what is it?"
"It's a Houndsoldier. It's a Republic high-speed type. Sort of like a Saix."
"Hard to track with your rifle," muttered Piotr.
"And too fast for you to catch."
Volks' despair was only increased as a hail of beams surrounded his Snipe Master, with one scoring its left shoulder. The Zoid shrieked, but remained steady. The Houndsoldier's beam cannons rotated back into place as it turned towards Volks.
"You, sniper creep. You're first."
"C'mon, you coward!" Volks screamed, bringing the Snipe Master's rifle to bear on Genna's Houndsoldier. The larger Zoid broke out into a sprint, the gap between the two shrinking exponentially. Volks desperately pulled the crosshairs towards the Houndsoldier, but keeping a steady bead on the Zoid was impossible. Still, if he did not act, his defeat was assured. He wrestled the crosshairs slightly ahead of his target's position, and pulled the trigger.
In the instant Genna saw the muzzle flash, she knew she had to react. She pulled hard to the right, but the Houndsoldier was a stubborn Zoid at speed, and did not give her quite the response she had wanted. It inched to the right ever so slightly, and as a result, the sniper's bullet ripped off the left-hand lance mounted to the Houndsoldier's neck. Genna had nearly reached her opponent, but now her strategy had to change. With only one lance, the effectiveness of her charge had halved. And if the sniper could land one shot when she was a few steps back, he certainly could pull off another hit, now that she was closer.
Dammit, she cursed internally, veering her Zoid back to the left long enough to find the trigger for the chest-mounted shock cannons. The barrels plucked out a three-round burst before she swung right again, electing to chase down the sniper later.
The Snipe Master reeled backwards as the shock cannon rounds found their marks, knocking the Snipe Master to the ground again. The Zoid attempted to right itself, but gave up in exhaustion.
"Looks like I'm out," sighed Volks. "It's up to you."
"Very well. Igorova is not afraid."
"It should be," screamed Genna, her Houndsoldier now making a beeline towards Piotr's hulking Zoid. "When my Zoid hits its top speed, there's nothing that can survive this lance!"
Piotr only maintained his perpetual grin, and turned his Zoid to face his opponent. "Is that so, tovarich?"
"Damn straight!" Genna replied. "And now I'm going to send you and that monster of yours back to hell, where you belong!"
Even as she said it, Genna felt her lips peel back from the speed. A moment ago, there had been two kilometers between her and the monster, and now there was only one. Soon there would be less than one- she flipped the remaining lance forward and braced for impact.
Volks saw the collision from inside the downed Snipe Master, and soon after, he heard and felt it, the shockwaves beating against his chest like some electrically-charged hammer- but the results of the collision were even more shocking.
Both Zoids still stood, Piotr's huge machine having skidded backwards several hundred meters. The Houndsoldier's right shoulder had been forced into the larger Zoid's chest, to propel the lance through its target's body. To that extent, the lance had succeeded- it had dug a channel straight through the enemy Zoid.
"I… I did it..," gasped Genna, her shoulders bruised from where her seat's restraints had arrested her movement. She was lucky that the Houndsoldier's cockpit was shaped like it was- had the center console been any closer, she would have cracked her forehead open on it.
"Impressive," Piotr grunted, folding his arms across his chest. "But futile."
Igorova began to move again, twisting back and away from the lance that impaled it. The lance snapped off at the Houndsoldier's shoulder, and the lack of its support caused the smaller Zoid to fall to the ground.
"W-what?" moaned Genna, looking up to see the monster's jaws descend on her Zoid's neck. With a crunch and a snap, it broke a second spine that day.
The Judge's metallic tones picked up where the shearing of armor faded. "THE BATTLE IS OVER. THE BATTLE IS OVER. THE WINNER IS- TEAM THANATOS!"
Genna desperately reached for the emergency hatch release, but only realized after pulling it what a bad idea that was. Her cockpit swung open, leaving her exposed to the huge, horrifying Zoid standing over her. She wrapped her aching arms over her head, and hoped that she would not have to watch her own end.
"No kidding, Volks," murmured a familiar voice. "She is coward."
"Yeah, but who doesn't have a little self-preservation in 'em? Besides that shot she pulled off was pretty impressive."
"Da. And Igorova is not without scars."
"Hey, are you just gonna keep sitting there and whimpering?"
Genna slowly lowered her arms, and found the two enemy pilots standing at the edge of the ruined cockpit. The monster Zoid stood still overhead, evidently not hungry enough to bother with her.
"What do you want?"
"What do we want?" chuckled Volks. "No, that's not it at all. The real question is, what do you want? And the answer is, a job. And what do you know, we have one for you. One that's gonna pay the bills way better than trying to run a half-bit Zoid Battle team."
"S-smuggling?"
"Nyet," said Piotr.
"Let's just say… an organization you're familiar with might not be as dead as you think it is. And it might be in a really forgiving mood."
Genna's eyes narrowed.
"And what exactly would that organization have me do?"
"Not much," Volks smirked, drawing a slip of paper from his pocket. He handed it to the still-shaken Genna, who gently unfolded it. It was a picture of a woman, clad in pink, photographed from somewhere far above. "They just want us to find her. Think you can do that?"
Genna took a deep breath, released the seat's restraints, and slowly rose to her feet. Her team was never going to forgive her, and her Zoid was never going to walk again. There were no options left. She steeled her nerve, and spoke.
"Yeah, I think I can."
"You made the right choice," said Volks.
The second man, the one with the accent, wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
"Welcome back to Backdraft."