FIVE

Note: Thank you always for Kat and Tony for the continuing reviews. To EvAnGeLzZz, I always thought that "heart feelings" is a proper term, like "heartfealt confession". But who am I to complain? English is not even my mother language. That's why I need proofreadings. Thank you for the correction. Unfortunately, I can't answer your other questions without revealing too much. So please continue to tune in. I will try to post new chapter once a week.

Skull Mountain Arena, Solaris VII,
Freedom Theater, Lyran Alliance,
November 3, 3062

After losing the game at 4-Cross, Difalco seemed to disappear. I never saw him again, nor heard him taking the stage at any arena. And I never heard about the Grey Wolves, either. Captain Morton informed me that he lost the blood trail from Thor's Shieldhall. His squads could not find any trace of the thugs, as if they were never at the bar. He was certain that those guys were Grey Wolves, but he was not able to get a solid proof.

So I kept my game running. I won some games at 4-Cross, and then moved up to a bigger arena, the Skull Mountain. It was a hilly arena, nicknamed 'Golgotha' by locals because of obvious reason. This arena was one step closer to Light Championship, and often top-ranked fighters ruled the Skull Mountain before moving to Cathay.

As I guided my Wasp to the position, I pondered about my life in Solaris. I came to Solaris to work as a technician. I even rejected Daniels' offer for the first time. But now, I could not stop fighting. The magical atmosphere of death and destruction sucked me deeper and deeper into Solaris' arenas. I was too engrossed in fighting to realize that it had been more than a year that I last saw Evee. How fast time flew! Her voice was still ringing in my ears, and her lips still felt warm on my cheek. I could not believe I have lost her that long ago. Sometimes I thought about what she was doing on the other part of the galaxy.

Was she thinking about me? Had she moved on? Was she thinking about Kyle Garret? I did not see why not. It was fine if Evee needed somebody to lean on. Carver V was a hard campaign, and Kyle was a fine young gentleman. I could have understood the situation, especially because I was not there. But they were both freeborns. They were perfect fits for each other. Unlike me, Kyle would understand her completely. True, Kyle had a fiancée, who was just as smart and attractive as Evee. But would it stop Evee from finding comfort in Kyle? Would it stop Kyle from taking advantage of Evee's vulnerability? And why should I be bothered by these thoughts?

I could not believe I was thinking about these things while I went to battle.

I shrugged off my imagination and focused on the battlefield. There were 8 combatants, placed on the outer rim of the hill, facing the top. When the game started, they would either sprint to the top or looped around the hill to fight others. I cleared my mind and focused only on the other players. The strongest mech was a Talon, piloted by a Lyran ace by the name of Arnold Schwartz. Another strong player was Mo Keenan, a Liao loyalist in a Raven. The rest were archetypal newcomers.

The horn blasted, and I quickly switched to passive radar. It was the smartest thing to do, considering I was the smallest combatant in the field. The Raven went to fight an Owens, and the Talon charged a Koto. That left a Garm to fight me. This was a fairly new mech, almost twice as big as my Wasp, equipped with an LBX-5 and missiles. On the good side, the Garm was ammo-dependent. However, one shot of that LBX-5 could shred my armor to pieces. I had to be careful.

The Garm charged me full speed, trying to get its fragmented cannon to firing range. I hid behind the hill, and when it was close enough, I fired up my jets to soar high above its head. My sudden maneuver stunned the Garm; it trailed me but its gyro movement was not quick enough to put me on its crosshair. I landed 75 meters behind it, making 90-degree angle with its back. I raised my right arm and singe its rear armor, which dripped to the ground like steaming blood. I followed up with my missiles, one of which hit the Garm's right torso from behind, pushing the mech forward. Smartly it used the momentum to turn 90-degree angle and barked its gun. I threw myself to the left, and a couple fragments from its cannon hit me on the right arm. No big problem. I fired my pulse laser again, showering its right torso with lasers. The Garm quivered with the loss of mass, and then lit its missiles.

I brought my mech to a full sprint, evading the rashly shot missiles and continued to harass its right torso. Reading what I was doing, the Garm twisted to the right to protect its LBX-5, but by doing so it put me on his own blind spot. I quickly reversed my direction and hit the Garm on the back. Molten ferro-fibers sprayed into the air as my missiles smacked the weakened armor, glowing like a bulb lamp. More and more armor was shed, and soon enough the Garm caught fire.

Hitting someone on the back was not a Clansman way of fighting. But over the time I found out that most rookies did not have adequate piloting skill, so shooting from the back was an effective way to beat them quickly, conserving armor for better opponents. I did not feel remorseful when I peppered the Garm's back, nor I felt sickened fighting for money in Solaris. Actually, this game had become addicting. Not the money, but battles. I was bred for battle, and Solaris indulged my lust for battle.

The Garm twisted and revolved violently, but I never gave it a chance to use its weapons. Hitting its back repeatedly, I shredded its thin rear armor and started digging into the internal structure. A few hits on the crack and I saw sparks, squirting like a waterfall. As a desperate move, the Garm bolstered its jets and turned toward me. Missiles and fragmented shells raced at me as it fired everything it had. I twisted and ducked, missing most of the ballistics, but two missiles stabbed me on the left torso. I endured the quake, and then there was silence.

The Garm needed several seconds to reload, and it was my turn to soar. I felt my body melted into the command seat when the Wasp took off, and I bore the heat spike when I rained down my pulse laser at the 35-ton mech. Its LBX-5 nozzle started to deform, and I sent my SRM to the big gap, seconds before it spit its shell. The entire right torso blossomed into an orange fireball as the ammunition bin went off. Chunks of burning metal filled the air, and the Garm teetered on its heels before slumping to the ground, flat on its back.

By this time, the Talon ace had broken off with the Koto, and decided that I was a more appealing target. For such a small frame, the Talon had an immense firepower in its PPC, comparable to Wolfhound-3S series. It fired its murderous blue bolt from 800 meters away, blasting a pile of rock just several meters from my position. The ace obviously knew how to use his weapon, so I had to regard him with utmost respect.

I tiptoed behind the hill, putting the terrain between the Talon and me to neutralize its PPC. From my scanner I watched its movement. A smart player that he was, the pilot refused to play my game. He knew quite well that I had to get close to score a hit, so he waited at the farthest corner of the arena, searching for my cockpit to spring from behind the hill.

I had to change my strategy. I would assume he was a good shot, so I could not afford exposure. Perhaps a simple trick would work. I swung around the hill until I was inches away from clearing, then tugged my joystick behind, leaving only my left arm dangling for him to pick up.

The Talon took the bait. A bright azure flash blitzed on the field, and my left arm exploded. I felt a sharp thrust to the left that threw me to the right side of the cockpit. My head slammed into the wall. My console screeched, telling me that my mech suffered from a critical hit. The Wasp rocked back and forth, desperately coping for the sudden loss of mass. An instant later the consoles died; a sure sign of electrical failure due to the PPC's high charge. I simply let go of my joystick and let my mech fall to the ground.

The Talon smelled blood, so it raced to meet me, closing the gap to 500 meters. My plan worked, so it was up to my marksmanship to deliver the hard blow to the Talon. I fired my jets, and while the Wasp went airborne, I hit my alpha-strike button. Lasers and missiles cored the Talon's left torso, already damaged from its fight with the Koto. Fire immediately swathed its left torso, and the Talon fired its lasers to answer my move. But they floated harmlessly behind me, as I descended and touched the ground.

At 400 meters, the PPC's effectiveness was reduced, so I switched target to the Talon's right arm. Two short laser bursts weakened the armor, and two missiles shed half of the molten metal. The Talon writhed and twisted hard, but I used my speed advantage to outmaneuver the Talon, placing myself behind its back, trying to repeat what I did to the Garm successfully.

But I underestimated the Talon. The pilot reversed direction and swiveled the torso to other direction, catching me on the other side. He was good, really good. His PPC grazed my thigh, and the subsequent lasers burnt the myomer bundles. Once again my cockpit trembled, and my gauges froze. My Wasp careened as the damaged leg dragged it down. And the smell of burning myomer in the cockpit made me sick.

Lucky for me, all those frenetic moves the Talon made pushed its heat level to the critical volume, so it slowed down and dumped some coolant. I barraged its left torso, and my missiles burrowed deep into its weakened structures before erupting. The Talon staggered hard, shoved around by the explosion and the sudden imbalance, and then dropped to one knee. The explosion destroyed its left torso, taking out everything attached to it including the lasers. Fire and smoke billowed from the wound, and it took the 35-ton mech half a minute before it rose to its feet, assuming a fighting stance.

I was impressed by the pilot's aptitude to control the situation, but he was my enemy. I had to subdue him. I figured he was aiming for my damaged leg, so I reversed direction, exposing my good leg at him. He blasted his PPC, but I was too close to him. The PPC bolt streaked across the field and slammed into the hill. Again the Talon slowed down and flushed its coolant. I continued harassing its right arm, and soon enough it started to smoke. Once again it reacted by firing its PPC, and once again it missed. With its backup weapons disabled, its fall was only a matter of time. I knew it, and he knew it.

However, the ace would not go down without a fight. I circled the Talon, but he abruptly reversed direction and hit my torso, using his right arm as a battering ram. A loud twisting sound swathed the cockpit. I clenched my jaw, and then groaned as I used my jump jets to get away from it. The hit cleaved my center torso, pulling off a large crack from the right shoulder down to the waist. It was a nasty crack, and he would exploit my wound to the bitter end. That was what I would do if I were he.

So I ducked as he fired his PPC. The bolt passed my head, but managed to vaporize my antennae. I got up and showered its PPC-laden arm with lasers and missiles. The Talon dodged most of my missiles, but my lasers drilled cavities all along its right arm. When the mech slowed down, I fired my missiles, ending the misery of its right arm. Three consecutive explosions tore the shoulder joint apart, and the right arm dangled on few strands of myomer.

With no weapons left, the Talon wisely shut down and yielded.

Meanwhile, the Raven had beaten the Owens and now fought the Koto. Both had battle scars, shredded armors and mangled weapons. But they kept going at it. The Koto put up a respectable fight against the Capellan's ace, but it was simply outgunned, outweighed, and outsmarted. Its superior speed could not help it against the razor-sharp precision of the Raven, which became obvious would emerge the victor.

From my point of view, I would prefer to fight the Koto than the Raven, although both mechs had reached combat loss grouping. The Raven was an ace almost twice my size, while the Koto was a regular with just 5 tons extra. But I could not hope for miracle. The Koto would loose, that much was ascertained. Well, unless I did something about it. The Raven was busy, so my sneak attack would paralyze it at the least.

Dishonorable? Had I been in Wolf Clan rank, aff, it would have been dishonorable. I could be thrown into Dark Caste if it made public. But here? I was not a Wolf anymore, nobody knew me, and I made more dishonorable acts prior to Solaris. My zellbrigen had been contaminated by Inner Sphere's way of fighting, so what would it matter if I won this fight by pot shots? Besides, Solaris had no rule against sneak attack. All is fair in love and war.

So I waited until the Raven and the Koto were tangled in the middle of the hill. I gunned my engine toward the mechs and unleashed everything I had. The Raven jerked behind, taking the shots with its remaining armor, then swiveled frantically to get me on its crosshair. But I saw a big hole on its missile launcher, and I strafed the hole with several bursts of laser. The entire right torso of the Raven exploded like fireworks, spewing brilliant flashes and metal splinters as the missiles were incinerated.

The ammo explosion split the Raven into two, but at the same time clobbered the Koto that was standing very close to it. The burning splinters flayed the 25-ton mech, peeling the last remaining armor, and lodged into the delicate structure underneath its ferro-fibrous hide. Fire engulfed half of the body while several large chunks destroyed its left arm and its left kneecap. Battered and overheated, the Koto limped away to safety.

I paced my Wasp until I stood directly in front of the burning mech. I would have asked the pilot to surrender, but my antennae were busted by the Talon. I simply raised my right arm and pointed at the Koto, painfully limping through the battlefield. The pilot should have seen me, and if he was smart, he knew that I demanded his surrender. But he kept moving forward with a steady gait as if it did not see me. I did not know if the pilot was dead or he simply ignored me. I hit my trigger, and my missiles showered the mech, turning it into a gigantic fireball. The flashes blinded me for a moment, and when it subsided, only charred hulk remained.

I had won so many games that this one felt just like any other victory. However, when I parked my mech on the repair bay, Daniels was waiting underneath my mech. The glimmer on his face told me that he had good news, although I suspected it was good news for him personally.

"Good game, good game!" he grinned as I touched down. "This just arrived. You have been invited as a wild card to Cathay! Do you know what it means, Parker? Do you know what it means?"

"No," I replied, confused by the sudden burst of excitement from my manager.

"You're going to light championship! You have a shot to win Solaris Light Circuit Champion! You have never entered the championship officially, but you're number 3 in Solaris light circuit roster. That's why you got invited. Imagine how much money we could have if you win it!"

"Am I?" this news sounded a bit odd to me, because I never thought I was top-five in light circuit. "Who is number one?"

"Ah, just a Davion jerk you don't want to know," Daniels replied. "Something…Garret."

"Kyle?" I squinted involuntarily. "Is Kyle Garret the top fighter?"

"You know him?" Daniels threw a funny look at me. "How do you know him?"

"Does it matter?" I pressed him. "Is he on the championship?"

"Yes, he is the top fighter, and yes, he is on the championship!" Daniels responded, clearly irritated. "Don't be afraid! I am familiar with Davion's fighting style, and they're not different than fighters from the periphery! You'll be able to dispose him easily."

"Afraid? On the contrary, Mr. Daniels, I am ready for him," I replied.

"Good! The fight is January 28. You have plenty of time to prepare. Now don't take this lightly! You'll be pitted with 16 of the best mechwarriors in Solaris! You have to work hard, but I know you can pull it off. And remember, winning this will give us 6-million c-bills! Enough to buy a damn new mech!"

Daniels went on with his vent on how the money would save our lives, but I was never interested at the money. I wanted to face Kyle Garret in a duel. It was disturbing, considering I had not felt so strongly about somebody except Evee. I did not know why he bothered me so much despite his kindness, but I just had the urge to beat him.