Chapter 28

Note: Big thanks to The Colonel for the new specs of Apocalypse X01

Iron Skull Arena,
Solaris City, Solaris VII,
Freedom Theater, Lyran Alliance,
April 4, 3070

The gigantic skull, painted in rust-o'leum grey scheme, felt like a bad omen especially to Jeremy. The amber light in its eyes seemed like piercing right through his own, and the large grin – the only opening to the inside of the skull – spread gloom and drear throughout the entire arena, as if mocking the fates of the mech jocks who were about to lose their lives in the upcoming match.

Jeremy had fought in this arena several times and never cared much about the skull. Today, however, was different.

"You have twenty minutes before game time," Amber walked right beside him. "I'd brief you about your opponents, but looks like you're more interested in the skull than the other battlemechs on the field."

"No, nothing, I just…" Jeremy tried to come up with something intelligent, but decided some things were better left unspoken. "Come on, brief me. Fire away."

"You're in a party of eight, with a Catapult-K, Jinggau, and Rakshasa on your left," Amber flipped her notepad around, trying to make sense of her own handwriting. "A Penetrator, Grand Dragon, and a Thunderbolt will be on your right. A Warhammer will be directly in front of you, but the iron skull will shield you from it, so worry about it last. The Grand Dragon and the Catapult-K are mortal enemies, so they will try to engage each other first. Don't stand in their way. The Penetrator and Warhammer may ally, but since the Warhammer is across the skull, you just need to worry about the Penetrator. Kill it first before it has a chance to ally with the Warhammer. Watch out for the Rakshasa. It's a damn good mech, but the pilot is an opportunist. Get out of its way fast. If it doesn't see you, it won't shoot you. The Thunderbolt is a slow relic. You can kill it first or last, it's up to you."

"Much obliged," Jeremy said apathetically.

"Much obliged?" Amber snorted aggravatedly. "Where's my 'Thank you Sweetie'? Are you distraught?"

"No, no, I'm not," Jeremy replied awkwardly and proceeded to give Amber a shower of kisses. "Thank you Sweetie! I don't know how I can live without you…"

"Alright, alright, don't overdo it," Amber playfully pushed Jeremy's face off hers. "Now go and kick ass!"

Jeremy gave her a quick wink then went inside to his mech. Major Tom struck another deal with VEST to upgrade the Apocalypse. Kilroy and some VEST technicians were working tirelessly to solve all the bugs, and judging from their body language they were satisfied with everything.

"They call this the X01 model," Kilroy said as Jeremy came close. "Top speed is 85 kph, 20-kph improvement over your last version. This baby will go blazing in the arena! They did drop down the UAC10 to RAC5, but with more continuous rate of fire, your hitting chance is upped 30 percent. Just don't overdo the trigger. RAC5 is still a Davion junk, and they never really work out the jamming problem. SRM4's are upgraded to MML-5, an increase in range. And your ER Large Laser has been upgraded to – now listen to this – the new Plasma Cannon. This is a new weapon. Tests show that this weapon is a giant killer, if you know what I mean. But we don't have enough data for combat reliability, so you'll have to play it by ear. The key word is 'moderation'. Watch out for heat; you don't want to toast yourself."

"Thanks Kilroy," Jeremy squeezed Kilroy's shoulder. "Your contribution to this stable is immeasureable."

"Everybody's contribution to this stable is immeasureable," Major Tom rolled next to Kilroy, Stan following not far behind. "We hit rock bottom but now we are in a position to move forward and expand. VEST chose to partner with the Ground Control Stable because we go cheap. We go cheap because you, mechwarriors, technicians, all of you, are willing to sacrifice yourselves for the good of the team."

"Does that change your perception of me?" Jeremy quipped.

"My perception of you never changes," Major Tom shot a quick smile. "It's your perception of yourself that needs encouragement."

"VEST is working on another prototype based on Apocalypse X01 model," Stan interjected, cold as always. "If tests are good, they will lend us the prototype. I will test-run the prototype."

"Good for you," Jeremy nodded appreciatively. "We could use another mech."

"So don't screw this up!" Stan came closer, his stare pierced Jeremy's like a couple of daggers. "I want that prototype, and if you screw me up, I will kill you! I don't care what you've done to the stable!"

Jeremy never knew why Stan didn't like him. Perhaps it was his upbringing as an heir to a ruling family in New St. Andrews that Stan wasn't comfortable with. Or perhaps he was the antithesis of Mickey and Hyolee, Stan's adoptive children. Or perhaps he was just being prejudice toward people that came to Solaris to find money and fame. It didn't matter anymore. Stan could hate him all he wanted. He could live with that.

"Wish me luck," he said, shooting a quick smile to Stan, Mickey, and Hyolee, then boarded the elevator to the cockpit. Kilroy and Amber rode with him. At the cockpit, Jeremy slid into the chamber and quickly activated the start-up sequence. Kilroy helped him with the straps and Amber stayed in the elevator but made her presence known to him.

"Alright, Jeremy, you showed us how to fight as a team," Kilroy finished up his pre-fight check up. "Now show us how to fight in the arena!"

Jeremy gave him his thumbs up, and as soon as the canopy sealed shut, he pushed the throttle. The Apocalypse rose to meet his demand and galloped toward the bay door with a steady gait. He noticed that its steps felt lighter, probably due to the new suspension that was intended to sustain faster speed. It would be beneficial in a high-speed battle.

Jeremy's arrival marked the completion of the match initiation, and soon enough the fight ensued. Jeremy barely throttled up when a stream of PPC slammed into his torso. Whether the shot was intended for him or he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, it was hard to tell. The armor absorbed most of the destructive force but his console went haywire. Static bled out of the screens, and the neurohelmet recalibration signal put his brain into a temporary seizure, so much he thought he was going vegetative.

"Frakker!" Jeremy grimaced. He pushed his joystick forward and the Apocalypse's strong myomer launched the mech into a sprint. He swiveled his torso to find out who sucker-punched him, but then decided he wouldn't pursue hasty retaliation. Amber lied out a game plan for him, and he chose to stick with it.

So he set his course toward the Thunderbolt who was taking pot shots at the Grand Dragon. The Thunderbolt acknowledged his advance and turned all its guns at him, but Jeremy thumbed his RAC5. A stream of armor-piercing shells ravaged the Thunderbolt's midsection, shedding ferro-fibrous layers like scales. Jeremy kept pressing, knowing that he was risking weapon jam but he didn't intend to fight the Thunderbolt anyway. The continuous impacts sent the Thunderbolt into near-constant staggering, holding it off from firing its own weapons. Jeremy continued his course until a vicious grind stopped his RAC5.

"Davion junk!" Jeremy sneered, then let loose his long-range missiles through his MML tubes. Half of the missiles struck the Thunderbolt on the side, causing it to lurch forward, robbing it from possible counterattack. When the 65-tonner regained its footing, Jeremy was way off its firing arc, and the Thunderbolt had just to find another target.

Jeremy set the course to the middle stage to fight the Penetrator, knowing full well he was taking on a much better opponent than the Thunderbolt. But if the Penetrator did ally with the Warhammer, then they would sweep the battlefield. Both mechs were legendary in their own time. It might not happen, but it was a risk he didn't want to take. One of them had to fall to ensure he walked out of the arena with money in his pocket.

So when he had a clear line of fire, Jeremy fired his Plasma Cannon. A purple globe took form at the tip of his cannon, then jetted toward the Penetrator with hypersonic speed. A blinding bulb of fire bloomed as the superheated plastic bludgeoned the Penetrator left torso. Molten armor sprayed in every direction, and the 75-ton battlemech twisted, teetering at the edge of its heels, fighting hard to keep it from stumbling backward.

The Penetrator quickly regained its footing and its dreaded sextuplet pulse lasers flashed with vengeance. Short laser bolts zipped left and right, turning the Apocalypse's tosca-painted armor into red-hot globules of smelter. Jeremy yanked the joystick hard, turning the Apocalypse to the opposite direction. The Penetrator overcompensated Jeremy's maneuver, and the laser bolts zipped past the Apocalypse, but the jump jets helped the Penetrator to quickly reverse direction, recalibrate its targeting system and continued to assault Jeremy with its pulse lasers.

But heat quickly became problematic, and the Penetrator was forced to give up its momentum. Jeremy quickly switched to short-range missiles and decked the Penetrator dead center. Chain explosions ripped the Penetrator's midsection. Smoke trailed from the impact, a sure sign of critical hits.

Jeremy mashed his RAC5 trigger but the weapon was still jammed. No sweet explosions came out of the barrels, only grinding whine accompanying the inability of the barrels to rotate. The Penetrator used this opportunity to get out of Jeremy's killing zone with its jets. Flying over the giant skull, it blasted its large laser, carving a large hole on Jeremy's right torso. The armor was weakened by the PPC sucker punch earlier, so the bolt wiped out the remaining armor and drilled into the structure. Critical klaxon blared, and black smoke billowed from the cavity.

But just as Jeremy prepared his plasma cannon for a retaliatory shot, part of the skull exploded. His radar picked up a new heat signature – the ninth battlemech – busting out of the giant skull and charged the Penetrator. Jeremy's computer was still unavailable due to the PPC hit earlier, but he could see that the new mech fired everything it had at the Penetrator with deadly precision. The Penetrator, still flying, staggered with each hit expoiting the critical hit in the center, and it exploded before it even touched the ground.

"Amber, there are nine players on the arena!" Jeremy yelled on the comlink. "How could you miss this?"

"What? I didn't miss anything! This is an 8-party game!" Amber's panic voice came within a second. "What is the ninth mech? Where did it come from?"

The new battlemech turned around and immediately charged Jeremy. The drab-painted Black Knight with blood-red shoulder shield, accentuated with a lightning bolt emblem, made Jeremy's heart stop beating.

"Holy crap, it's Mac! It's Mac Storm! How can he…"

Before he finished his sentences, Mac's lasers gouged deep into the right torso. The next thing Jeremy knew was a loud bang and a sharp jolt that pushed him to the left wall so hard he blacked out. Without the pilot, the Apocalypse tumbled to the left as if its structures turned to scrap metal.

"Stop the fight! Stop the fight!" Jeremy faintly heard Amber screaming over the comlink.

The situation turned into total chaos. A couple of SGC UrbanMechs were deployed to restore order in the arena, but the Black Knight was on a rampage. Its PPC stripped one UrbanMech from its autocannon, leaving it with just a measly small laser. A devastatingly accurate Gauss shot struck the other UrbanMech right in the cockpit, and the 30-ton mech stood dead in the center of the arena with smoke and sparks flowing freely from its head.

Slowly Jeremy regained his consciousness and asessed his situation. His entire right torso was gone, along with the troublesome RAC5, one ER medium laser, and one launcher. The electronics were completely dead. Looking out the canopy, an UrbanMech was running around him in circle, not knowing exactly what to do. The rest of the battlemechs were too damaged to engage the Black Knight, and since the Black Knight didn't show interest in any mechs but the Apocalypse, they wisely returned to their hangars.

"You don't know how long I wait for this moment, periphery boy!" Mac crackled from his external speaker. "I thought I killed you at Marik Tower, but you keep nagging me like a thorn in my flesh! This ends now! You are not going to come back from this one!"

The Black Knight raised its arms but suddenly a stream of PPC razed its right shoulder. The Black Knight swayed, trying to regain balance, but another set of missiles pushed it to the side. Jeremy looked out of his canopy and watched in horror as Amber's Vindicator and Mickey's old Jenner went in hot.

Even when they worked together, there was no way Amber and Mickey could survive Mac.

"Amber what are you doing?" Jeremy yelled hopelessly as he tried to get up. "That shot was for me!"

"Get up! Get up and follow Mickey!" Amber went on and started deploying her sword. "Get out of this arena! I'll keep him busy!"

"No, dammit! You can't fight him alone!"

"Jeremy, we're all gonna die if we stay in this arena! You are the only one that has a chance to beat Mac outside the arena! Get up! Mickey will show you the way!"

"No! I will not leave you alone!"

"Sweetie, do it!" Amber's voice turned hoarse as she held back tears. "Do it so you can avenge my death!"