File 36: Bikers with Big Guns

"There you go," X said to the awakening reploid. "I've fixed the wiring problem. You should have no more leg pains."

"Oh, that's good," he said wearily.

He turned to the woman who'd come in with him. "He's on ten per Vextril, so he'll be groggy. Just have him sleep it off. If he stops making sense, take him to an emergency care center."

"All right. Thank you sir."

"No problem. Here's the bill. The due date is in a month unless you contact my secretary prior and get a payment schedule set up. The shop number is right there."

"All right. Could you help me get him back to our car?"

X did so, then walked back into the shop. He had no more appointments today and was looking forward to playing games with Axl. Maybe even introducing him to the Battle Network. He was getting old enough to participate with supervision. But then Violet called out from the top floor office, "You've got a personal call on line 4, X!"

"All right! I'll take it down here."

He checked the number. It was Blues. They'd been getting along a lot better, so he didn't mind taking it. "Hey man."

Unfortunately, he was dead serious. "I have a proposition to make. It is a very dangerous mission and you're the only one I can think of who can do it."

X laughed. "You're a Maverick Hunter. You've got plenty of top notch reploids in your space center."

"I'm not kidding." He glanced aside. "Turn your volume up. I have to speak quietly."

He did so. "What's got you all riled up?"

"Sigma has gone maverick. He's overthrown a space station and plans on crashing it. Our calculations show that all life on Earth is in danger. We have less than fourteen hours."

"Sounds like an excuse to party."

"X, be serious. I'm not supposed to be speaking to you on duty. I'm not even supposed to be considering what I'm going to ask you to do. But I feel this is the only way to save the world."

"That's Rock's job, not mine."

"You want to know why you're the one I ask? I need someone with strong battle abilities to go to Area 51. There you will find a secret government super weapon called the Eclipse Cannon. I need someone to infiltrate the base, overthrow the top class security, make certain the Cannon is in working order, hack into the government security systems to unlock it, then fire it at the falling space colony. The Eclipse Cannon takes half an hour to target and another half an hour to fire. There will only be room for one shot. This must all be done in under thirteen hours, preferably much sooner."

"Damn."

"Sigma nearly killed his brother Signas, who was the only other Hunter who knows the Eclipse password. And there's not a single Hunter I can trust to do all that in one go under the time limit. However, I know you can."

"Okay, look, I do pranks. I try not to break major laws, at least when I'm not drunk. And I'm pretty clean today, being on the job and watching Axl and all."

"If you do this, I will bring Axl to our base. I'm sure you'll agree it's the safest place at the moment."

"That's true." He grinned. "I didn't want to be a hero, but this sounds like too much fun to pass up."

"Great. Good luck little brother."

X brought up his phone directory and started copying numbers and names. Given the short amount of time, there wasn't much room for planning. But he'd try with the slight idea he had. "Hey guys!" he yelled into the shop. "Drop everything! Everyone down here, pronto!" They gathered, curious. He handed out lists. "We have a mission that needs to take place in Nevada. And we need all the men and weapons we can get our hands on in under three hours, preferably less."

"Three hours? These names are all over the world."

"Arcanine, you're in charge of checking our machinery, and I may be adding units on. Everyone else, call up all these people, and more if you can get a hold of them. We will begin teleporting ourselves in one and a half hours. Now go, and no hesitating."

"What do I do, dad?" Axl asked with a tug at his arm.

"I'm going to leave you with Blues. Don't make any trouble for him."

"But I want to help too."

"If you were older and trained with weapons, you would be helping me with things. But for now, this is too dangerous."

"Oh, fine."

Duff McWhalen and Squid Adler were in Hangers 11 and 12 playing Underwater Battleship when a low level alarm sounded. "Oh shoot," Adler said.

"Alien seekers?" Duff asked.

"Probably."

Before long, Izzy Glow came over the intercom system. "All hands to stations! We may have a live firing!"

"Live firing?" just about everyone on base said.

"The Eurasian Station is attacking, we're not certain how. We're waiting on details. But there may be problems with the keys."

Adler contacted Izzy through his com. "What problem?"

"We're still waiting on reports," the firefly said. "But from what I hear, people knowing the keys have been killed. Is there any way to fire without the password? The vice president has been asking."

"No," Adler said. "There's no way in hell that thing can fire without the keys."

"Then I hope enough people who know the keys are alive."

Three hours later, a mass of bikers gathered in the Nevada desert. Many of the bikes were armed, armored, or both. There were a dozen light tanks and one large military hovercraft with an air cannon installed. All of the Blasted Machine Shop workers were there, even Violet. She had a special bike that X was instructing her on.

"You've got that all?"

She nodded. "Sure. I should manage."

"Good. You be careful today."

She smiled. "What, you worried about me?"

X laughed. "Maybe. That or I won't have time to look out for you. All right, if you've got that down, I have to address this crowd."

"Good luck to you too."

X grabbed a megaphone, then leapt into the air. He activated his hover jets and hung himself about ten feet in the air. "All right, you rowdy lot!" he called into the megaphone. "Are you ready for some action?"

The crowd cheered. He waved at them to calm down.

"I thank you all for coming on such short notice. I especially want to thank whoever is running that massive cannon tank over there."

There were hoots from that end.

"I want you all to know that this is a matter of life or death. This won't be easy and you may wind up shot or even dead today. But, as you may know from the IC channels, there is a hijacked space station up there that is going to crash down here, killing everyone. I have brought you here because I have a plan to blow that station to smithereens and keep on living. And you're going to help me."

More cheers.

"Out there," he called, pointing toward the west, "is Area 51, home to a super weapon called the Eclipse Cannon. It is more than capable of blasting the station out of the sky. But for some reason, the government isn't firing it, even though we have paid millions in taxes every year for its existence. So we the people are going to overtake Area 51 and fire the Cannon right under their noses! We must strike fast and strong. They have excellent security and we have less than ten hours to break into that place and complete our objective. As I said, this is very dangerous and I don't expect us to get through without trouble. But if that station falls, we'll die anyways. So, are you coming with me to Area 51 and the Eclipse Cannon?"

Everyone there yelled, "Yes!"

"Thank you all. Now, you with the giant air cannon, I want you to assault the weapon towers. The light tanks need to breach the security fence. Then the rest of us will swarm in and throw out the posted officials. My crew will attempt to get to the Cannon to make certain it can be fired. We'll need you to guard us from military backup. All of you take care of yourselves and each other. Now, let's go take that Cannon!"

As everyone started up war cries, X dropped out of the sky, got on his meta-bike, and took off for the front of the pack.

At Area 51, Grizzly Slash was explaining the situation. "So with Sigma gone rogue, his brother near dead, the cabinet minister of war dead, the president in the hospital, two Global Force generals dead, and the other general under emergency care, we can't get the keys. Signas may be revived in eight hours. The humans may take that long or longer. But it's iffy, and by that point, it'll hardly matter."

"Good grief," Adler said. "How did anyone let the situation get to this point?"

"No one expected Sigma to do this," Izzy said.

The alarm sounded as the alert went to a higher level.

"What now?"

Grizzly blinked at the screen. "We have bikers. Approximately one hundred headed this way. And a handful of tanks, including a Class-S hover tank."

"Bikers?"

A loud explosion sounded outside.

"They're firing at us?"

"Let's go secure the base."

The four reploid leaders dashed off to various stations, increasing base security. But the light tanks were already pelting the west wall. Cracks were appearing.

"Adler!" Duff called out. "Obstructive measures!"

"Right!"

The two underwater reploids had been hired to keep the water system clean, a vital part of the Eclipse Cannon system. From under various pools of water, they started materializing icy or stony blocks to place in the way of the invaders. In the blistering Nevada heat, the ice quickly melted and water drained into the soil, turning it to mush. The stone blocks kept any open paths for bikes unavailable. Then the west wall came down.

The hovercraft blasted its way into the base, obliterating most of Alder and Duff's blocks. It began firing at the larger weapons. The smaller light tanks came in next, heading for the south wall to pummel it too. And then the metabikers came in. Those few with tires had to head for concrete to avoid the wet sand, but most were hovercraft. These ones moved over the rocks and began firing at armored personnel.

"What now?" Izzy asked.

Grizzly growled. "We must use lethal force. They can't get hold of the Eclipse Cannon under our watch."

"Right," the other three agreed. They began attacking.

The bikers responded by getting out of the way. Most were not fighters. Zero had come in on Dyne's bike. He leapt off and fought Grizzly one on one. Arcanine jumped off Iron Panther's bike and into one of the pools of water. His special weapon, plasma discs, got a reaction from Duff, who tried dodging. So Arcanine took the whale on.

X opened his com unit. "Okay Violet, now!" He and Violet started special programs on their bikes, transforming them into Ride Armors. They appeared to be much worse; the bikes did not have enough materials to make the full eight to ten foot Armors whole. But X had developed special force fields that worked just as well as true metal plating. And since these were much lighter than true Ride Armors, they moved quicker and leapt higher. X's Black Cat grew large claws and ten plasma gun barrels. Violet's metabike used an ice cannon and hover jets. She jumped in after Adler, who was overloading other metabikes with electricity from the safety of the water. She'd never battled in real life before, but she got some help from a trio of humans with rifles above the water. Between her ice cannon and the rifle sharpshooters above, Adler didn't stand a chance.

That left the firefly to X. Izzy was flying like crazy, trying to keep up a volley of laser fire while dodging hits himself. And as if that weren't enough, he'd teleport every so often. X instructed Black Cat to project Izzy's teleport paths on the force fields. He kept after the firefly, slashing and firing where he would appear. Finally, he connected and impaled Izzy with a plasma blade while he was trying to reappear.

X checked everyone else, but it seemed the takeover was over. Zero hadn't taken much time with Grizzly, so he had dropped down in the water with Arcanine and Violet to defeat Duff. Now all three were jumping out of the pool. "The Leaders are down!" he called over the public com channel. "Where's the rest?"

"The artillery section is all down," one of the tank operators reported.

"A number of personnel are fleeing through the north gate," someone called.

"Let them go, we have the base. My people, into the cannon station. The rest of you, keep watch."

There were lots of cheers and chatter going on over the public channel. X let it go on. He morphed his bike back and parked by the cannon station.

Squad 16 connected to Blues' nephew instantly. They believed that he was supposed to be babysitting Axl anyways, but with the emergency going on, he was tied up. So while Proto was busy on the IC network, speaking with government officials and running the Hunters, the others didn't mind sitting in the den with Axl telling him stories of their missions.

"So he was readying his cannon, and I couldn't move because of the spikes," Tiger Lily was saying. "I ducked, to take the least amount of damage. And then his cannon blew up in his face. It was a homemade model, and a very poor one at that."

"Bad for him," Axl said. "Too bad."

"Would have been worse if that cannon had fired," Cloud Jumper said. "Then the explosion would have been bigger."

"I've seen cannons, but dad won't let me use weapons. Says I'm too young."

"How young are you dear?" Silphia asked.

"I'm seven months old. And I just learned how to skateboard."

"Blues." Alia called over the IC. "There's some urgent news for you from Global Force. A band of rebel bikers has overtaken Area 51 and the Eclipse Cannon has been cut off from their network. We can't access it either."

"What about the vice-president?"

"Haven't heard, but I doubt it."

Good, he thought. X was in and they had over nine hours left to fire the cannon. "We need to keep an eye on what they're doing, but our priority is continuing talks with Sigma to get this over with without violence."

"Those are doing poorly."

"If you need me to speak to him myself, page me and I'll be up there asap."

X was using every method he knew to hack into the Eclipse OS.

Iron Panther came up to the operator's station. "X, the cannon needs a few adjustments and parts installed. We've located those parts and are working on it now."

He nodded. "Good. Has someone checked the barrel to make sure it won't explode on us?"

"Glitchy's in there checking on it. I told him what to look for."

"He can do maintenance on guns, so he should be fine. Carry on."

Panther smiled. "What are you grinning for?"

X chuckled. "We're going to fire a giant cannon! I'm having a blast. That and that silly firefly had a weapon I copied. Hilarious."

"But you keep saying you hate that system."

"I do, but some are good. And this one's a riot. It's called the ******* laser."

Panther cracked up. "You kidding me?"

"I haven't tried it out, but I think I'll wait until I'm alone."

"Whatever boss. You figure out that security so we can fire this lovely cannon."

He had a password program running, but a full run would take 10 hours. So he got up and investigated the office. As usual, there were little knickknacks and personal items scattered about. In particular, this person seemed to like astronomy and meteorology. There was a calendar on the wall themed on the moon. He scanned through it and noted dates marked as birthdays, anniversaries, or such.

Then he went back to the operator station. He tried all the dates marked on the calendar. Then he played with astronomy terms starting with various eclipses. Total eclipse, partial eclipse, solar eclipse, lunar eclipse… it finally accepted EclipseShadow as the password.

Zero braced himself between the cannon walls and inspected the barrel.

It was a plasma type weapon. The telltale tubes were in a perfect spiral. According to Panther, this was just a humongous gun. So Zero inspected the inside as if it were his Z-buster. He checked for scratches, making sure he wasn't doing any scratching himself. He checked for cracks and signs of metal fatigue. He checked for poor welds or compromised tubing. Thus far it seemed in perfect working order.

He made it to the top section and finished his inspection. Yes, it was ready to fire. He glanced down the thirty-foot barrel. Nothing should stop this thing from going. He could hear the mechanics below talking about parts, programming, and other technical things he could not follow. Checking the barrel manually was about the only thing he could do now. For the moment, he closed his eyes and relaxed. The top of a giant cannon was an odd place for meditation. But a little bit each day kept him at ease.

He hoped no one below was messing with Angel.

Something sounded off.

He looked down. He could hear conversations below. Earlier, he could make out the words perfectly. But now he couldn't. He just heard gibberish.

He tapped his ear. He should probably have X check them.

Then the cannon barrel went fuzzy, like static snow. Everything refocused in three seconds, but not to the way it was. He was now looking down at Earth. From a space station of some sort. Then the Earth turned to static snow and the Eclipse Cannon barrel returned. He was still braced at the top of the cannon.

Zero felt a shiver in his system. That was not a good sign. But he wasn't sure how to interpret it. He looked ahead of him, at the cannon's wall. It had a slight reflective quality and he could make out a blurry image of himself. He heard gibberish again, but it couldn't have been from the guys below. He was too far up the cannon to be hearing them at this volume. And it kept getting louder and irritating, like fingernails on chalkboard, or metal scraping metal added to the throbbing tick of a clock.

He covered his ear with the one hand, but then realized the feedback noise was coming from inside his head.

His first instinct was to drop down and talk to X about it right away. He couldn't remember ever hearing this internal noise before and it probably signaled a major problem. But then he noticed his reflection becoming clearer, more like a true mirroring. Only the cannon walls could not do that.

And it wasn't exactly his reflection. It was too… too feminine to be him.

Then the ticking clock paused to sound out 'klong!,' at a massive volume in his head. But it wasn't one o'clock. Right?

"Hey Zero!"

He cringed at the com message, but the internal noises vanished, as well as the creepy mirror effect. He looked back over and it was just a fuzzy faint version of himself. "What is it, Panther?"

"You done with the barrel?"

"Yeah, let me get down."

He dropped down and listened. He heard everyone clearly. Shaking his head, he made an internal note that X had to hear about this. It was too weird to be normal.

'Please enter the keys for firing sequence…'

'Key 1 (Global Forces)'

'Key 2 (Maverick Hunters)'

'Key 3 (Authoritative Government Branch Official)'

So this is what Blues meant by unlocking it. No one was going to let this weapon be fired accidentally. But now that X was in the system, there might be a way to bypass everything. He began to check out various programs in the system, especially the maintenance program. There, he found a tantalizing clue.

'To proceed with the 100 Blank Firing Test Sequence, use maintenance password 'Apple17' on the Eclipse Cannon base computer C. Replace live load with blank load if live load is in place. Otherwise, load blank load. The Cannon will go through full targeting and firing sequences. Check that the following occurs:' and then it listed a long list of actions, down to the half-second. It ended with, '100BFTS will cause slight wind downdrafts in target area, but no real damage will be done.'

There seemed to be no check to make sure they weren't using a live instead of a blank. He told the computer he wanted to run 100BFTS and it willingly told him that base computer C was on the Eclipse Cannon shaft.

X went to the Eclipse Cannon's shaft where his men were working on it. He met Panther in the doorway. "Oh good, we just finished everything here."

He grinned. "We've got a way to fire it. Did you happen to see a computer labeled C in some way?"

"C? Hey Arcanine, any computer C?"

"Yeah, this one over here."

"Good. Chose test firing, then 100BFTS, then enter password Apple17, no space, capitol A. Is it loaded live or is it dead?"

Panther pointed, "Reno was on that."

"It's fully loaded live. Seems they were told, but were waiting."

"Zero, how's the barrel look?"

"Looks excellent. It'll definitely hold."

Arcanine called over, "Hey X, it says to make sure the load is dead!"

"Tell the computer it is. We need to get out of here and into the control room."

"Right."

Area 51's warning system activated the emergency lights and sirens. 'Eclipse Cannon in full test mode. All personnel please evacuate to safe shelters.'

X and his crew went back to the control room. "Violet, would you find the intercom and tell all the guys out there to go into the safe zones? They're marked by three green triangles."

"Gotcha." She located it and warned the others.

The operator station had gone to targeting mode. Only a small box in the corner of the broadcast area noted that this was a test sequence. He checked around for explanation screens and found several, including one that noted, 'Once test is complete, Eclipse Cannon will be unable to fire again for twelve hours.'

"How's this thing fire anyways?" Dyne asked.

"We'll see. I have one shot to get this right." X started finding calculations to hit the space station.

"This stealth vehicle operates exactly the same as our regular space vehicles," Olive Green told Nocturne. "We've got the correct flight path into the Eurasia station programmed into the guidance system."

"All right," Nocturne said. "That should hold no difficulty."

"You're doing a brave thing Nocturne," Blues said. "Your actions will be honored, I promise. But I am very sorry things had to get this desperate."

"It's fine, I understand. For the sake of the world…"

"This is urgent!" Alia said after hijacking their com units.

"Sorry Alia. What's happening?"

"Okay, that group of bikers that overtook Area 51? They're going to fire the Cannon. We can't figure out how they bypassed the keys."

"Where are they targeting?"

"I can't see how that's important. We need to talk to them and… erm…"

"What is it?" Nocturne said.

"They're targeting the Eurasian colony?"

"Hold on," Blues said. He looked at the other two. "We can't proceed with this plan until the Eclipse Cannon either stops or misses."

"Oh good," Nocturne said. "I hope they don't."

"So do I. Alia, can we calculate their targeting sequence and see if they will succeed?"

"It'll take a few minutes. Hang on."

"We might not need a martyr. Still, adjust that flight path to later, just in case."

"Any time now," Sigma said to himself.

"Sir," Dynamo came over the intercom, "the Eclipse Cannon is about to fire."

"By whose orders?"

"Not the government. They haven't revived Signas yet."

"Very well. Our plan will move forward."

"Yes sir."

Moments later, the Eclipse Cannon fired, striking the Eurasian Space Station dead on. Various junk fell from the skies, but most of the debris was blown away from the planet. The government agencies were mystified by how the Cannon fired without proper clearance. It took them a whole year to discover the 100BFTS could be run with a live load provided you guessed the operator's password.

That was mostly because after the successful firing, the bikers decided to celebrate and vanished into Los Vegas.

I so want to suggest to Capcom that they ought to make an SRPG out of the Maverick Wars era. Not like the Battle Network games, though. Those were close, but I have a strong dislike for card-based RPGs. Something like FF Tactics where you could take not just the three heroes, but generic reploid units and teach/customize them into an awesome battle squad. Then something like this could happen.

And Nocturne loses his chance to become a martyr for the sake of the world. Poor guy. I actually did take his character concept (the failed Black Zero) and made a nice story out of that. Unfortunately, The Maverick Prince was another story that got mauled in a server move and I recovered very little of it. I think I'll just rewrite that one totally.

The X5 scenario isn't over yet…