CHAPTER 10
Review Corner
Colonel: It's fixed. Thank you for your continuing support.
Xolara Arena,
Xolara, Solaris VII,
Freedom Theater, Lyran Alliance
January 26, 3075
The match barely started and a BattleAxe was already on Isamu's tail. He could hear the crackle of charges as the particle bolts zipped past his cockpit, missing the Marauder's cockpitby a mere centimeter. The missiles followed suit, blitzing on his left and right. Two of them struck the Marauder's paper-thin rear torso. Lucky for him it was a rushed shot. A few more hits on the back and he would be in a big trouble.
Not a good start for someone trying to prove that he could fight efficiently.
A train of obstacles popped up 150 meters ahead, blocking his way to the pile of rubbles he thought of taking cover behind, and forcing him to make a sharp turn to the left, straight into a 3-way battle between an Ostroc, a Quickdraw, and a Crossbow. The BattleAxe fired its short-ranged missiles, but Isamu turned tighter, barely dodging the missiles. The explosions rattled his teeth as the missiles blasted the obstacles.
One of survival strategies of wild animals was, when chased by a predator, to present easier prey for the predator to catch. Isamu learnt this during basic arena training years and years ago. He couldn't shake the BattleAxe off its back, so it may be enticed to get an easier kill. So Isamu linked his PPCs and Gauss rifle together and lined up his crosshair with the Ostroc, which was too busy shooting at the Quickdraw. His shots tore a grotesque slash on the Ostroc's back. The Ostroc staggered, puffing black smoke. The Quickdraw and the Crossbow didn't waste the opportunity. They quickly trained all weapons and poured lead and gunpowder on the hapless Ostroc. Within half a minute the Ostroc was practically dead on the field.
And Isamu's plan worked. The BattleAxe couldn't let the opportunity go to waste. It shifted target, raining down its particle bolts and missiles on the Ostroc, racing against the Quickdraw and Crossbow to be the one that put the kill under its belt, because at the end of the day kill score meant extra c-bills.
Isamu didn't wait to see the result of that scene. He put his Marauder in high gear, putting a small hill between him and the group, and went for another target. A Clan-made Linebacker, fresh from stomping all over a Catapult, turned its guns toward him. Isamu knew how dangerous a Linebacker could be. Although giving up 10 tons, the Clan mech had 30 kph on the Marauder.
The Linebacker didn't waste time. Its dual PPC flared, quickly devouring the Marauder's front armor. Isamu winced. The armor tracker quickly dropped to orange. And his HUD flickered, switching intermittently between a full reading of the enemy's status and static. The Linebacker followed up with missiles to shred the remaining armor of the Marauder's torso. Isamu covered his face under his arms as parts of internal structures whizzed left and right inside the cockpit. Warning sign blared in his ears. The Marauder lurched to the side, but Isamu lowered mech to get a more stable stance.
Isamu fought the urge to fire every weapon in his arsenal, and instead opted for more conservative approach. He fired his Gauss rifle, forcing the Linebacker to sidestep left, then fired his left PPC. The azure bolt hammered the Linebacker on the right torso. Isamu fired his left PPC. The bolt grazed the Linebacker's left shoulder, not enough to breach the armor, but strong enough to interfere with its electronics.
The Linebacker used its blinding speed to get into the Marauder's blind spot and snipe the 75-ton mech from the rear. But Isamu twisted and leaned heavily on the Marauder's left leg. The blue particle bolt blasted through the void where the Marauder was a second ago and carved a long swath of canal on the concrete wall. The Linebacker fired the other PPC, and the Marauder's leg crackled blue. Pieces of armor platings dropped off like leaves.
Isamu quickly pulled the Marauder up and ran circle. He fired another round of PPC as soon as the weapon recharged. The Linebacker broke into a sprint, dodging Isamu's onslaught with the agility of a light mech. But Isamu anticipated the Linebacker's path, then fired his other PPC. The shot carved another hole on the Linebacker's left torso. Green coolant oozed from the opening, a sure sign of critical hit.
Losing some heat sinks quickly put the Linebacker into heat trouble. Its gait became sluggish. It fired its missiles to keep the Marauder busy, but a slab of concrete wall suddenly appeared between the two mechs. Isamu lowered his mech to take cover, and the missiles slammed into the obstacle, sending concrete debris every which way.
As the Linebacker coped with the heat, Isamu swung by the wall and buried a two-PPC strike on the Clan-mech's torso. The Linebacker staggered hard. Sparks burst from short circuitry, and the coolant caught fire, setting half of the Linebacker ablaze. Losing control, the Linebacker fired one last desperate shot at the Marauder, but Isamu easily dodged the attack. He lined up his crosshair with the red-hot center of flame, then let everything lose. A catastrophic explosion split the Linebacker into three, two of which disintegrated into scorching debris. The remaining hulk crumbled in flames.
Isamu had been a slugger all his life, charging the opponent head on while firing his weapons in a contest of machismo. It was what ignited the crowd. He didn't like fighting tactically, and he pondered why his fighting style was dictated by the Ryuken-go. Obviously he needed a mech and the Ryuken-go was the only one who provided him with one, but telling him how to fight his fight was out of the line. Why did he agree to it? Was it because he wanted Ryuken-go's support? Or was it because he wanted to secure a place in the Ryuken-go because he wanted to be with Kayoko? The fact was hazy.
His radar beeped proximity alarm, and a Crusader 8S, an old design with Steiner's new Heavy Gauss rifle on its left torso, challenged him for the top spot in the arena. The lethal weapon was strong enough to crush the Marauder's hull in one shot. Fighting conservatively didn't sound so bad now, after all.
Turning south, Isamu volley-fired his PPCs, keeping his mech's heat manageable while putting the Crusader on its heels. His bolts were way off the mark, but they made the Crusader anxious. Twenty missiles leapt from the Crusader's arms, arcing in the air with long trails of smoke. Isamu turned sideways, using the Marauder's arm to blunt the attack. Itching to finish quickly, the Crusader veered right to get into its striking zone, then blasted its killer cannon. But Isamu yanked his joystick hard to the other direction. His Marauder jerked left, missing the slug, then sent its own Gauss shot down the range. The Crusader took it to the sky, and the slug whizzed harmlessly under its legs.
Coming into 300-meter range, Isamu opened up with his pulse lasers. Heat spiked inside the cockpit. The Crusader's streamlined armor turned into blotchy exoskeleton. Globules of molten armor sprayed into a wide area. The Crusader shrugged off the attack and fired its lasers. The twin energy beams cored the Marauder's left torso, turning armor plating into red-hot smelter.
Isamu led his mech to take cover behind a concrete wall that just popped up behind him. The Crusader, eager to finish off the Marauder, launched its ballistics in quick succession, but Isamu beat them by two steps. Half of the wall burst and crumbled, scourged by the Heavy Gauss slug and the missiles, but the Marauder was untouched.
Isamu continued his course and noticed that the Crusader didn't follow him. He predicted that the Crusader was running low on ammo. With only 8 shots of Heavy Gauss rifle and 1 ton of ammo for both LRM-10, the Crusader would have to space out, or it would be forced to fight with only 2 medium lasers.
It was the break Isamu needed. He positioned the Marauder at oblique angle from the Crusader, then fired his PPC. One bolt only hit the wall behind the Crusader, but the other one decked the Crusader's midsection. The lanky mech buckled. Isamu took a hard lock on the Crusader then fired his Gauss rifle. The metallic ball crushed the Crusader's upper left arm, leaving the arm dangling on a few strands of myomer.
The Crusader fired what might be the last ammunition for its LRM-10 launchers. Isamu twisted right, exposing the missiles to its left side. The Marauder leaned right, compensating the missile blasts that shredded the armor on the left arm down to the internal structures. The Crusader's Heavy Gauss slug whistled in the air, but Isamu brought down his mech low. The slug merely glanced off the Marauder's dorsal armor, creating nothing but fissures.
Crouching low, Isamu fired a one-two PPC punches at the Crusader's center mass. Both strikes met their mark. The Crusader wobbled on unsteady knees. Smoke gushed out of the massive crater on its front abs. Isamu straightened his Marauder and charged forward, firing his pulse lasers with reckless abandon. Fire belched from the Crusader's lower torso. Isamu lined up his Gauss rifle at the Crusader's chest, but held his trigger upon seeing the Crusader bleeding fire and sparks. The lanky mech wouldn't get up, and that Gauss shot might save his life on the next enemy.
With 2 kills and moderate damage, Isamu inspected the arena. Only a handful of mechs remained, one of them was a badly damaged Guillotine 5M. The right arm was gone, and the left was not too far behind, although the ER large laser was still operational. The front armor was shredded as if the mech just survived a melee. Black smoke twirled from several gashes. It still moved under its own power, but the leg armor was shredded to ribbons, a few good hits might disable it.
The temptation to slug it out with the Guillotine was overwhelming, but Isamu realized what was at stake. The Marauder's front armor was not in the best condition either. So he stayed outside the large lasers' range and sniped the Guillotine with his PPC. He was not a good shot, and missed the first 3 salvoes. But the 4th one found its mark on the Guillotine's left torso. The Guillotine twisted. Half of the armor evaporated.
But even though the Guillotine was a shell of its former self, it was still a force to be reckoned with. Its jets blasted, catapulting the 70-ton decrepit mech 100 meters into its striking range. Its large laser flared, singeing the remaining plating on the Marauder's leg. Acrid smell of burning armor reeked into the cockpit. Isamu retched and gagged, scrambling his console to turn the air purifier to the max.
The Guillotine smelled blood and dashed forward, eager to bring its wicked short ranged weapons to bear. But Isamu anticipated the move. He steadied the Marauder's legs and mashed his Gauss trigger. Metal shards geysered as the nickel-ferrous slug bludgeoned the Guillotine's abs. The armor caved in and half of internal structures collapsed. The Guillotine keeled over, staggering in a plume of smoke. Isamu took a long, hard lock at the crumbling mech, then fired both PPCs. The engine was overloaded by electric charge, and the Guillotine turned into a reddish ball of fire, spreading burning debris over a wide area.
That put the Marauder back in the grudge match against the BattleAxe.
Coming off a three-way battle against the Quickdraw and Crossbow, the BattleAxe once again lined up its weapons with the Marauder. Particle bolts whipped from the tubes and scourged the Marauder's left arm. The upper arm was blown off in such a force the gauntlet spun in the air before crashing on the wall. The Marauder's joints groaned as it leaned forward. But Isamu connected all power outlets to the leg myomer bundles to hold his mech straight. After all he had done, he couldn't afford to fall down.
The BattleAxe launched its long range missiles, but the Marauder deftly swerved right, taking advantage of the sudden loss of balance. Only two missiles glanced off the Marauder's shoulder. The rest of them hammered the concrete wall. Isamu sent his answer, a string of short laser strands straight into the BattleAxe midsection. The torso armor melted and sagged, exposing the internal structure. Isamu fired his Gauss rifle, which twisted the BattleAxe to the extreme end, then capped the onslaught with the remaining PPC. The BattleAxe's arm came off flying, just like the Marauder's arm not five minutes before.
The BattleAxe compensated for the loss of mass, then launched everything it had. Isamu twisted right, exposing the remaining armor plating he had to blunt the attack. The entire cockpit rattled and groaned as the missiles swarmed the Marauder from every direction. Each blast felt like a grenade explosion under his seat, and he could only hang on for dear life, hoping his mech would outlast the firestorm.
Miraculously the Marauder survived with only armor damage, although not much of it left. Isamu felt the urgency. He linked his long range weapons and fired them all at once. The particle bolt and the trace of his Gauss slug blended into one giant lance that stabbed the BattleAxe in the center. The remaining ammo bins erupted like a volcano, and the BattleAxe blasted into pieces.
While the Marauder still ended up warped and mangled, Isamu thought he made improvement. He used terrain for cover, something he rarely did. He managed the heat well. He picked his shots to prolong his engagement, and he fought with brain, not just brawn. He just hoped Kayoko's boss would deem him worthy to fill in the rank of the Ryuken-go.
Kayoko was all smiles when she greeted Isamu at the hangar. "Guess what?" she chimed as Isamu climbed down the Marauder. "You're in the semifinal!"
"For real?" Isamu pulled Kayoko close and mashed his lips against her. "It didn't take long, did it?"
"No, and that's not the best part," Kayoko winked. "Guess who's also in the semifinal!"
Isamu's smile was full of vengeance. "Jeremy Stewart."
"The golden boy from Ground Control Stable. With this Marauder, you have a good chance to beat him!"
"Yes, if your boss let me use it one more time," Isamu looked at Noloty in the distance. "I think she still doesn't like me."
"I'll deal with Noloty," Kayoko beamed. "I know her well. She is my best friend. Don't worry about her. Worry about how you're going to fight Jeremy Stewart on your next game. Hit the simulator often. And don't forget to work out. It may be the deciding factor."
"I swear, this time around it'll be his turn to suck void!" Isamu grinned; vengeance bleeding from his eyes.
