Kur's Dissension

by Jester X

This is a story about a man who won't accept the miserable hand that fate has dealt him, so he takes it upon himself to make a change. The only problem now is that fate is fighting back. It's up to Kur to fight to keep his dream alive without letting fate

Kur's Dissension

Chapter 1

Well there I was, a 22 year old grease monkey working on some rich guys AC. It really amazes me how he got so rich, he fails half the sorties he accepts and his AC comes back so torn up that I don't think there is one panel of original armor on the whole thing. "Damn it!" it's so frustrating when you drop a wrench. Now I have to climb 30 feet down to the ground and 30 feet back up. Today just sucks. After I finished reattaching the head I decided to take off early. That's about the only advantage to being a Global Cortex employee, if there is no work to be done you don't have to stay. I was almost out the door when my boss found me, "Hey Kur! Where do you think you're going?" Damn, that just means more work. "I'm guessing nowhere right boss?" "Hehe you know it. I just got a call from Flameberge, he says during his last mission he got his one of his legs blown off my a plasma cannon. Real mess, everything's welded to everything else." I really didn't need this today, a job like that could take all night and I was tired. Turns out all of the shops transport trucks were either out of service or in use, so I had to take a construction MT to the job site. It's an ok MT, almost as tall as an AC, they are designed for heavy lifting and flight, not much in the way of armor, just enough to keep the pilot alive if an I beam fell on it. It doesn't drive like an AC either, there is just a cockpit with four foot pedals, a couple of joysticks and a multitude of buttons and levers. After two and a half hours of flying and walking, I finally made it to the dessert where Flamberge's AC was standing on it's 3 remaining legs. It wasn't the best AC I had ever seen but it was one of the prettiest. it's paint job was fire engine red with orange and yellow flames going up the arms and legs. I noticed the weapons he had also, a standard laser rifle, a small rapid fire back mounted plasma cannon, and a decent sized plasma sword. Not a very efficient design for a quadruped. I bet he ran out of energy and that's why he couldn't fend off whatever shot his leg off. I got out of the MT and climbed down to meet Flameberge. "So what seems to be the problem?" I knew I was being a smart ass but I didn't care. Flameberge hasn't liked me for as long as I can remember. "The leg got cut off, ass wipe. Now get your worthless ass over there and put it back on!" Normally when I am treated this way I take my good sweet time to do the repair but I was dead tired and just wanted to go home. Well my boss was right, the leg was a complete mess. there was no way I could reattach it and have it work. I broke the news to Flameberge and watched in glee as he stomped around bitching and moaning about how much a replacement leg will cost him. I told him he should just pick up his leg and boost home. That left me in the middle of the dessert at midnight with no sleep in the past 38 hours. I decided to sleep in the cockpit of the MT and make my way back to the city in the morning. "Holy Shit!" I almost jumped out of the cockpit when I heard the noise. I looked at my watch, 2:34 a.m. Well at least I got a couple hours of sleep. I was about to lay back down when I heard it again. it was a thunderous bang that echoed in my head. this time though the sound was louder, witch means that whatever made it was closer. I started my MT and turned it around just in time to see two ACs rushing at me at full over boost. One of them looked black as midnight until it got closer and I could see it in my MTs lights, it was then I realized that the AC wasn't black but a deep deep red, almost like molten steel that has cooled enough to barely glow. It looked to have a heavy well armored core and a fast hover leg part. I could make out the weapons as well. A thousand round machine gun, some sort of missile launcher, and what appears to be a moonlight plasma sword. I was pretty impressed, it's not every day you see a moonlight, only the best and richest Ravens can afford one of those. The other AC I could tell was the source of the ear rupturing explosions. It was a bright blue AC with white outlines and it was a midweight no doubt about that. The only thing that set it apart from another midweight though was the huge cannon hanging off of it's back. It was gigantic, the cannon came down on one side of the ACs head and some sort of satellite dish was on the other side. I have been an AC mechanic for 4 years and I've never seen anything like it. The ACs other weapon was a left arm mounted shield. I though it was strange that there was now weapon in the right hand but then I thought that a right arm weapon might make the AC overweight. I was in such awe over the battle that I almost forgot I was about to be run over. I quickly stomped on the outer most foot pedals and boosted strait up into the air. The head of the blue AC just nicked my MTs foot causing it to rock violently in the air. I looked down and saw the blue AC stop suddenly and boost backwards as the red AC kept sliding away due to it's hover legs. that is when the blue AS took a knee and it's cannon lowered over it's shoulder. the red AC finally stopped sliding and began firing it's machine gun at it's opponent. the small high speed bullets were just bouncing off the blue midweight but soon started to penetrate the armor. I thought the blue AC was just committing suicide until I heard it. BANG!!! It was the loudest sound I had ever heard, I was sure the earth had exploded. I looked down and saw that the red AC was nowhere to be found, "what did it vaporize?" I said under my breath. just then I looked back at the blue AC and saw it laying on it's front face down in the dirt. I lowered my MT near the fallen AC and looked into the horizon. I wasn't sure but I thought I saw the red AC over boost behind a tall sand dune. I used my MT to roll the AC over and I found that there was a small (comparatively speaking, it was actually 6 inches in diameter) hole going right into the cockpit. I figured it must have been where a machine gun bullet finally got through the armor. I climbed down out of my MT and made my way up to the cockpit hatch of the AC. when I opened the hatch all I saw was blood and little bits of bone splattered against the back wall of the cockpit. I looked around and noticed that really not much of the equipment was damaged and a little rewiring of what was damaged and I could pilot this thing home myself. to be continued As I was working on the damaged control circuitry I began to think about my life and where it was going. I was most likely to be stuck as an AC mechanic for the rest of my life, and that didn't sound very fun at all. I only got paid 58,000 credits a year and that is barely enough to survive on. I began to daydream (well it's actually 4:00 a.m. but I'm still awake) about being an AC pilot. I could pull in the big bucks weather I was any good or not. I mean just look at that fat bastard Raven that got his ACs head blown off, he absolutely sucks and he is still filthy rich, well compared to me anyway. most Ravens pull in over 20,000 for a sortie and they can do more than 5 of them a week. All in all they average twice in one week what I make in a year. There was no reason why I couldn't be a Raven was there? I mean sure you are required to have a minimum of 5 years battle MT experience and you have to already be rich enough to afford an AC. Well, I mean ok I haven't had 5 years of battle experience but I have had 4 years of construction MT experience right? and I know I don't have an AC now but if I don't spend any money at all I could afford one in 8 years. oh well I guess I am stuck in this dead end job forever. All through my daydreaming I hadn't even noticed I finished the repairs to the control mechanisms. I turned the key and hit the start button, the ACs nuclear generator began pumping energy to all the other parts and the AC roared to life. now I mentioned before that ACs and construction MTs are piloted in completely different ways. I had never piloted an AC before except a few steps to make sure a reattached legs works correctly. since the AC was now laying on it's back the first thing I had to do was lay down as well. next I slipped my feet into the stirrups and they automatically strapped my feet in tightly. next I placed the belts around my waist and chest and again they automatically tightened around me. next was the helmet that I had to pull down from the ceiling and found the former pilots head still inside. after disposing of the head I placed the helmet on my own head and slipped my hands into the control gloves. immediately I saw a virtual reality display of the surrounding area, witch was the star filled sky being as how I was on my back. now all of these devices are attached to the walls of the cockpit witch is shaped like a sphere. As the pilot moves a body part i.e. his foot, hand, or head, the control arms attached to that part are moved and the corresponding part on the AC moves to match. All MTs used to be controlled in this manner, hence the name Muscle Tracer, but around 60 years ago it was found that it was too expensive and MTs really didn't need that degree of control unless it was a battle MT. Now that I had control of the AC I noticed all of the 18 buttons inside of the control gloves, 9 in each glove. I had no idea what button did what so I tried pressing them one at a time. the first button I pressed caused the shield on the left hand to activate. I pressed the button again and the shield deactivated. After pressing all of the buttons I found that there are 2 for each finger to control but only one for the index finger to be used as a trigger. I also found that the lowest button locks and unlocks the ACs hand so that it can either hold onto a weapon while I use the fingers to control various parts of the AC without the fingers moving around and losing their grip on the gun, provided I had one, this AC didn't. Now that I knew how it all works I need to get it on it's feet. I tried sitting up and found that the control arms attached to my body provided no resistance and I was able to move freely. I sat up quickly and felt the G-force as the ACs body raised with the same speed I did. After a good 3 minutes of wobbling around I finally got the AC to it's feet and in a steady walk. I walked around for a little while getting used to the feel of it and soon I was running and trying out the boosters. after a half hour of this I had to stop because I was almost out of breath. I walked the AC over to the construction MT and tried to lift it but I could find now way to carry it with out damaging it in the process. So my only option was to get in the MT and carry the AC. On the way home I began to think to myself again, I was thinking about how much money I would get for turning in this AC. the average rate was 20,000 credits and extra for any special parts such as a high performance generator or a huge back mounted cannon of some sort. I figured I would get 25,000 or so and that wasn't a bad chunk of change for a broke guy like me but it wasn't going to make my life any easier or anything. then I began to wonder, "why should I turn it in? I found it damn it. I fixed it, I should be able to keep it." the though kept running through my head like a song you just can't stop. I kept telling myself that it was against the law and I would most likely be put to death if I was ever caught. I was within 5 miles of the city when I stopped my MT from walking. I sat there in the cockpit debating whether or not I could get away with keeping the AC. I could disguise myself as a Raven and sell some of the parts to fix it up. then I could take some missions and..., no that won't work everybody hires Ravens through Global Cortex. I do however have access to the mission request terminal so I could accept a mission and delete it from the memory banks before anybody even knew it was there! well it might work any way. but then again if I am caught it is almost certainly my life is over. Ahh what the hell my life sucks anyway. I'll do it! My first order of business is to get this thing repaired. I have a huge hole through the hatch to the cock pit and several other holes in the armor as well. I found out that the cannon on the back was the newest version of the extremely powerful linear cannons made by Crest. I also found out that it was out of ammo charges. I figured that if I was going to survive a mission in this thing I better get some different weapons, preferably ones with more than 10 shots. My second priority was to become a Raven without actually becoming a Raven. To do this I hacked into the governments main computer system and entered my name in as a certified Raven, I even opened an official account so I could actually get paid for my missions. All I had to do know was go down to the government offices and pick up my identification and paperwork. I continued to go to work for the next few months while I worked on my new AC. I kept it in an abandoned factory in a closed section of the city. there were lots of people in other buildings around me, mostly homeless or running from the law. I sold my home and moved into the factory, I only bought enough food to keep me going and I used the rest of the money to fix or replace the armor and any broken parts. once I had it at 100% I would, every now and then, pretending to be a Raven, sell one of the parts and buy a part more my style. I wasn't much on midweight ACs so I bought and replaced all the parts with heavyweight ones. I guess I just want my AC to be more personal, more like me I guess. I'm 6'4 and 258 pounds and, before I acquired the AC, I spend all my time at the employee gym at Global Cortex. so I guess I am partial to the big, powerful ACs. the heavyweight parts were more expensive but I had the money from selling my house to make up for it. Eventually it was time to buy weapons. by now I had saved up 18,000 credits and I also had nearly 140,000 from selling the shield and the linear cannon. with that money I bought a powerful energy weapon called the Karasawa, mostly because I don't feel like paying to much for ammo. I also bought a moderately powerful plasma sword. I wanted the moonlight of course but I couldn't afford it and the shop didn't have any in stock anyway. I decided to save the rest of my money for food expenses until I get paid for my first mission. My first mission came all too fast. no sooner did I get to work on the day after I completed repairs that I checked the mission terminal in the rec. room. as soon as I turned on the terminal a brand new mission appeared, I checked it out, it was a sortie from kisaragi that paid 18,000 credits and involved destroying a convoy belonging to crest who, supposedly, stole a prototype MT from a kisaragi warehouse. The mission didn't seem too difficult and it paid pretty well, for me anyway, so I decided to accept. After entering my account number I got a printout of the location and time limit of the mission. I ran out the door and right into my boss. "Damn it Kur I know you got work to do in there so you better not be going home." Shit what do I do now? "Hey uh boss, I am really sick here. I think I must have had a leak in my mask when I was working with the silicone powder for the optional parts performance chips." He was looking at me trying to decide if I was lying or not so I faked a cough. That seemed to do it. "Ahh get the hell outta here." I got to the old factory and started up the AC. I hit the boosters and flew out the door. by the time I got to the mission area the transport was almost to the Crest factory, if they made it inside I wouldn't get paid. I raised my arm and saw, in my virtual display, the Karasawa rising to aim at the first vehicle in the convoy. I fired the first shot and to my surprise I missed by almost 20 feet. "You dumb ass you forgot to turn on your FCS!" I was so mad at myself that I stomped my foot and realized that wasn't such a good idea. My ACs incredible weight drove the massive foot right down to the knee joint through the road I was standing on. "great now my foot is stuck." after turning on my FCS with the toggle switch on my waist belt I aimed my weapon again and fired. the vehicle in the lead of the convoy exploded in a bright blue flash of light. of course by the time all of this had happened the 8 MT escorts were well on there way to where my AC was still stuck. The MTs weren't as dangerous as they looked. each was only equipped with a small missile launcher and a small shotgun. I knew they had no chance of killing me but I still didn't want to pay for repairs. I only had one chance to get out of this with out to much damage. I shot the closest MTs leg off and used my plasma blade to cut the concrete and earth away from my ACs leg. with my leg free I was able to step out of the hole and kick the other MT over that was boosting in towards me. once it landed on it's back I thrust my arm out stabbing my blade into the generator of the MT. I looked on my radar and saw that the convoy was almost to the factory. I immediately over boosted and rushed past and through the remaining MTs and almost flew past the convoy. I shot at and destroyed 3 more or the vehicles and used my blade to slice another in half. And that is when it happened. a huge blip on my radar right behind me. "where the hell did that come from?" I turned my head and saw the AC coming out of the Crest factory. "shit this isn't good!" I was trying to turn around but my AC has very slow turning speed. the four legged AC lifted it's right arm and began firing blast after blast of laser fire into my ACs back. when I finally got turned around I noticed who I was fighting. "oh look at who we have here. it's good ol'e Flameberge." I new that if I could get him to run out of energy I could do some major damage to him when he can't fire his weapons. once I got turned around I fired my Karasawa at his ACs head. he must have known what I was doing because he ducked down. but then I noticed what he was doing. he got lucky, he was just squatting down to use the pulse cannon on his back. that was my que. I hit my boosters and strafed to the left and the right while he fired away as fast as he could. My AC being so heavy couldn't maneuver very well so I only dodged 6 shots and I got hit with 5. by the time I got to him Flameberge was out of energy and had no weapons until his generator recharged. I slashed at his AC with my plasma sword cutting his right arm off. he tried to defend himself by grabbing my Karasawa with his left arm but my ACs arm was stronger so I continued to lift my ACs arm and I reached out with my left hand and grabbed his head. I closed my fingers and squeezed as hard as I could. In my virtual display I saw Flamberge's head slowly crumpling and sending sparks in every direction. I pulled my arm back tearing his head off. now that he had no means of knowing where I was I turned my attention back to the convoy. "shit" the convoy was just a few yards from the factory! I had an idea. I shot 4 shots from my Karasawa into the factory wall causing it to fall into the entrance and blocking the path of the convoy. I ran as fast as my AC could to the convoy and destroyed all of the transports. the prototype MT was laying on a trailer behind one of the now destroyed transports trucks. Well my orders were to make sure the prototype doesn't fall into Crest's hands. so I used my left hand to pick up the surprisingly light MT and I turned around to see Flameberge still wandering around blindly. I walked over to his AC and got behind him. he started to fire blindly into the city destroying several small buildings in the process. I couldn't let him murder innocent people so I plunged my plasma blade into the generator of his AC and boosted back and watched it explode. I really didn't want to kill him and I had never killed anybody before. I told myself that it's not like I had a choice. he was killing dozens of people and I had no other way to stop him. it wasn't until I got home that I realized in my haste to stop him I didn't think to simply disarm him. Well aside from killing for the first time it wasn't a bad sortie. I was paid the 18,000 credits and only had to spend 1,900 for repairs. I normally would have spent 4,800 if I was a "real" Raven, but since I am an AC mechanic and did the work myself, I don't have to pay labor costs, only materials. I left half the money in the account and used the other half for down payment on a new house in the "nice" part of the city. I went to work the next day and decided to check the mission terminal at the end of the day, I couldn't afford to get fired for leaving work early every day. to be continued It took almost a week for me to find a mission that was easy enough for me to pull off and hadn't been seen by any of the other Ravens yet. The mission request was from an anonymous corporation, I was guessing Mirage but there was no way to be sure. I followed the directions to the mission area and arrived an hour ahead of time. The mission area was inside a large building near the middle of town. the inside of the building was pitch black so I had to turn on my night vision display. I could see pillars every hundred yards or so supporting the ceiling witch seemed to be almost a quarter mile up. I wondered what kind of mission I could possibly have in an empty building when suddenly the lights came on blinding me, and almost ruining my night vision display. I was about to use my communicator to ask what was going on when my radar started to go crazy. I counted 30 bogies on my radar within 500 yards of me but I couldn't see any of them. when I looked at my radar again I noticed that the blips were blue and slowly turning red. I had never seen that happen before so I was very surprised when 16 panels on the floor burst open and out of each hole a strange looking MT flew up and then landed side by side, forming a circle around me and my AC. I did a weapons check and braced myself for whatever might happen. "Thank you for showing up Raven. We are pleased that you were early." who the hell was that talking? it seemed to be some woman with a deep voice over a loud speaker in the building. "We have invited you here to test out our newest MT model G-21.1. It is a model designed to work as a team in large numbers. Now we hope you were not expecting an easy mission because this will most definitely not be. "Great, I'll probably die here and if I don't my AC will be so f'd up it'll cost me more than I make to fix it." I thought about just leaving and living to fight another day but as I turned my head to look back, the huge steel doors of the building slammed shut, locking me in. "Provided you survive the test you will be paid the amount we agreed on in the request form, 10,000 cr. for every unit you destroy or incapacitate." Oh my God! I thought I was getting 10,000 for the whole mission! this is great. "the test will be timed, you will have 10 minutes to destroy as many of the MTs as you can. Begin." I didn't even have time to blink, the MTs moved with phenomenal speed and I had a lot of trouble keeping up with my heavyweight AC design. Made me wish I would have gone with a lighter design rather than my own personal preference. in a matter of seconds I was taking fire from every direction. Missiles coming in from there, machine gun fire from over there, oh and can't for get the flame-thrower from right behind me. I was screwed I was so totally screwed. it was only 30 seconds into the mission and I had 16 MTs buzzing around like flies on shit, I was already about to overheat and my AC was starting to look like a piece of swiss cheese. "Ok Kur you accepted this sortie and you are going to finish it!" in actuality I was scared to death that I might well... die. but I was not about to let that happen. I extended my plasma sword and over boosted to the other end of the building. along the way I managed to slash two MTs clear in half. and I used my right arm to grab a third and hold it near me as a shield. I thought I was doing ok until I heard the alarm. "Damn it what the hell is that?" it took me a few seconds to realize I was in output down status. Over boosting when I was already hot was a bad move. my generator was off-line until it could cool down enough to start back up. that left me with whatever power I had left in the capacitors to fight with. just moving was draining my power and I knew that in this state a few shots from the Karasawa or a couple slashed from my blade would leave me defenseless. I switched my makeshift shield/MT to my left hand, grabbed the Karasawa and released the clips that held it on the side of my ACs leg. I threw the weapon at the approaching hoards of MTs hoping it wouldn't get to damaged in the process. then I threw the MT in my hand at another that was trying to sneak around behind me. I took a moment to survey the scenario. Two MTs destroyed, one seems pinned under my rifle, and the one I threw seems to be malfunctioning. that left me with 12 MTs to go and I only had 9 minutes and 12 seconds left in the battle! "Crap I am going to die!!!" my generator was still 2 minutes from coming back on-line and my power gauge was at 75% of maximum. a few of the MTs managed to get behind me and once again I cursed my heavyweight design for it's obvious weaknesses. then it hit me. I didn't waste a second, I jumped strait backwards and spread my self out as much as I could. The huge AC landed flat on it's back crushing 2 more Mts. the force of the impact drove the air out of my lungs but I still managed to get back up on my feet. I ran backwards towards the back wall of the arena getting the MTs to follow me. In one smooth motion I planted my left foot on the wall of the arena and pushed forward causing my AC to fall forward crushing 3 of the little MTs in the process. when I got up I noticed one of the MTs arms was sticking out of my ACs core. I use my right hand to pull it out hoping that no wiring would come with it. I was lucky, and now I had a weapon, kind of. A strange looking MT came at me and grabbed onto my ACs core with it's hands. I had no idea what it was trying to do until I saw the huge drill bits extending from it's forearms. I tried to shake it off but the MT held on tight. the drills were almost through my armor before I remembered my weapon. I brought my arm down as fast as I could whacking the little MT in the head with the arm of one of it's friends. with the head crushed the MT let go and fell to the ground at my feet. I threw the arm at a nearby MT but missed as it boosted by to my left.