Mech 2 Read online

  “I see your weapon has no power settings. I will turn off all kinetic force on my own.”

  Eyes wide, the young man nodded.

  They stood en garde. Aldo fenced with him for ten strokes. The boy had promise. With years and a proper tutor, he might make a name for himself.

  The first touch came at the boy’s left foot. Aldo pinned it to the ground, then quickly withdrew, retreating.

  Gasping in shock, trailing bright blood through the grass, the Lieutenant came on, but he could no longer lunge. Naturally, this was Aldo’s plan.

  Aldo caused the other to stumble, dancing away from a thrust that the young man couldn’t follow up upon due to his wound. Aldo charged in then, and the Lieutenant parried the onslaught with growing desperation, retreating on his bad foot, which obviously pained him further with every passing second.

  Aldo beat down the Lieutenant’s sword. He drove the point of the other’s weapon into the ground and grabbed his wrist, pinning it and the sword. The boy could not move his hand nor his weapon. He held on, however, grunting and straining against Aldo’s strength until Aldo laid his rapier across the back of the young officer’s neck.

  The Lieutenant froze. With a single downward flick, that sword could remove his head effortlessly. His eyes were all whites and rolling irises. He blew out breath like an animal run down by dogs in the forest.

  “I would speak with you for a moment,” said Aldo, now that the young man was at his mercy.

  “What are your intentions, sir?” asked the Lieutenant, trying not to let his voice raise into a panicked squeak.

  Aldo nodded with appreciation. “You are a brave one. I will leave you with the best advice in the world for a swordsman.”

  “I am listening.”

  Aldo bent down to the other’s ear. “Never start a duel unless you know you can win.”

  The other did not nod, as he did not want his spinal cord severed. “I’ll remember that,” he said.

  “Now, drop your weapon and I’ll allow you to live.”

  The Fleet sword slipped away and clunked onto the ground.

  “I must apologize, however,” said Aldo, “for there must be some—unpleasantness.”

  The Lieutenant didn’t answer. Aldo thought maybe his pants had become wet, but he did not want to humiliate the boy by looking.

  “You see, I can’t have you coming after me for a second round.” So saying, Aldo flicked his weapon to life. It blazed with purple kinetic force. Plasma ran like flame down the length of the blade.

  With a single, clean stroke, he swept off both the young man’s legs. He severed them just below the knee. A spray of blood threw hot drops in every direction. The blade flashed as it struck each leg, instantly cauterizing the wounds.

  “The Fleet will give you a regrow. You will be fine in—six months.”

  The stricken young man fell to the dirt. The fresh, burnt stumps wept blood, but did not gush with arterial red. He would survive. He craned his neck around to stare up at Aldo. Each word he spoke fell like a coin from his mouth. “You dishonor me by leaving me alive.”

  Aldo shrugged. “What? You want me to kill you at such a young age? I will not put another questionable death on my record for your pleasure. Learn, heal, improve your technique. Life is worth living, boy!”

  He left the Lieutenant there in the park and walked rapidly away from the scene. Law enforcement didn’t always understand these messes.

  He thought about the boy’s complaint at the end. He snorted and chuckled to himself. There was simply no pleasing some people.

  #

  Aldo Moreno continued his trek to the north after the duel in the park. He left Bern behind, there were far too many Fleet people there around Nexus Command, and he’d been a fool to stop there at all. A week later he found himself in a quiet valley that reminded him of home. He found an inn that had a good feeling to it. Warm lights gleamed from within. Wooden bric-a-brac—cut-out shapes of birds and beasts—decorated every window. The light cast from each window shaped itself into squares and curves of yellow on the sidewalk.

  He stepped up to the door, and rang the tiny, tinkling bell. He smiled at that. It was quaint to find such an affectation of the old colonial days today. True, he was out at the northern borders of canton Bern, but this bell was something from the distant, windswept valleys where travelers were rare. An inn, out in the wilder valleys, was really someone’s rambling house. Usually an elderly couple ran it, most of their children having long since left. They took in occasional boarders to make ends meet. This place had that feel.

  It had been a long time since he’d felt at home in a place. When the door opened, Aldo had high hopes. Matching those expectations, a weathered woman answered the door. She smiled at him and her apple cheeks glowed redly. A hundred broken red capillaries shown beneath her smiling blue eyes. The sun, Kale, had beat down on this woman’s face for many long years. And she had never bothered to edit her face, preferring the honest look of the land.

  Aldo smiled at her in return. He was politely ushered inside and set at a table in the common room. She eyed his sword, but didn’t object or try to make him leave it outside. It was a gesture he appreciated.

  There was one other person in the common room. A woman, surprisingly pretty. She had a hard look to her, however. She had seen much, he could tell in a second.

  She looked up at him, and stared at him a second or two too long. Was she suspicious? Did she run from someone? To put her at ease, he nodded, smiled and took a seat at a neighboring table. The innkeep soon brought out a bubbling pot of hot stew, a basket of crusted bread and a carven mug of wine. He took everything graciously and dug in.

  He ate for several minutes, in truth he was ravenous, without looking at the woman. When next he glanced at her, she glanced back, at the same instant. Both looked down at their food, disturbed.

  Aldo snorted and shook his head. Why had this woman discomfited him so? He was normally smooth with the ladies. He had charm and wit and a rogue’s good looks. Best of all, he knew these things, and worked them to his advantage.

  He was quite surprised when a shadow fell over his table.

  He looked up and saw the woman stood over him. She was taller than most. He blinked at her and smiled.

  She reached out and tapped his sword, which lay in its black leather scabbard across the table in front of him.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin before answering. Still delaying a reply, he leaned back steepling his fingers and smiling. “That is my sword.”

  She frowned. “What’s it for?”

  He almost laughed, but saw that she was in earnest. Could she be from off-world? “It’s my protection,” he said. He reached out and touched it, smiling wistfully with half his mouth. “It’s more than that, really. It’s my livelihood—even my companion.”

  “You fight with that thing?”

  “Indeed. Are you new to this world?”

  She nodded.

  “Then please, take a seat. Let me enlighten you. And you can share your wisdom with me in turn.”

  She hesitated, then brought her food to sit with him.

  Aldo smiled. He had the feeling this was to the beginning of a lovely evening. He soon learned her name was Sarah and she had a son named Bili. She was alone on this world, a fugitive of Garm which had suffered greatly some years ago.

  “Oh yes,” he said, “I’d heard of that. Some kind of plague of beasts? Quite terrible, I understand.”

  “No,” she said. “No, you don’t understand.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  And so she did. She told him the most horrific of tales. Aldo was no stranger to blood or odd things found in wild places—there were still creatures on his planet that humanity had yet to classify. But her story was one of fantastic woe and destruction. He could scarcely credit it. But here she was, and somehow, he believed her. He believed every word. It was the dullness to her voice, the haunted look in
her eyes. She was very real.

  #

  Aldo felt, after only a week, that he was perhaps in love with this strange woman from another world. He had seen many terrible things; he had fought for his life on many occasions. He had, in fact, made a profession of risking his life and trusting his arm and blade to keep him alive. He had met very few men who had faced death with such regularity, and never had he met a woman who had done so. In Sarah Engstrom, he had found such a woman. He did not know it until he met her, but he had been missing something in his life.

  “I did not know a person such as you existed,” he told Sarah as they lay in darkness in his room.

  “I’m one of a kind,” said Sarah, running her finger over his chest muscles.

  Bili slept in Sarah’s room across the hall. After the boy fell asleep each night, since that first wonderful surprise, she had moved with stealth into Aldo’s room. From the very first time it had been a shock for Aldo. She had bypassed his lock as if it were nothing. He had greeted her with the tip of his blade a centimeter from her fine throat as he commanded the lights to power-up. He thought now, that of the two of them, he had been the more surprised. She had smiled at him, despite the nearness of his rapier, which sizzled under her chin.

  He saw right then that her spirit was a kindred to his. She was all about freedom, action and bravery. He smiled back, and they made love. Each night, she came to him the same way, but unlike her approach, the love-making seemed to be infinitely varied.

  It was possibly the ninth such fine evening when Aldo heard stealthy sounds again. He came awake, being too finely attuned to danger to allow such a sound to go unnoticed. But he knew who it was. He smiled in anticipation.

  The lock rattled slightly, and he frowned. Sarah never took more than a moment to pop it open, such was her skill. At first, he had thought she had a key of her own, but he realized later she was just an expert at picking locks—any kind of lock. He had never asked her how she did it, and she had never offered any answers.

  Aldo blinked and turned his head. It was then he made a surprising discovery. Sarah was already in bed with him.

  He vaulted out of bed. His feet touched the floor and he slipped free his rapier. The door was about to open.

  The first time Sarah had snuck into his room, he had assumed this would be yet another haughty Fleet officer. This time he suspected it again. Another youth out to make a name for himself, most likely. This one, however, had the wisdom of past failures sharp in his mind. He had decided to play the part of the assassin rather than the honorable duelist.

  Aldo bounded up and positioned himself behind the door. It was an old-fashioned door that swung inward on hinges rather than sliding out of the way as would a modern portal. Aldo considered flicking on his rapier, but he knew it would crackle and spark, giving him away.

  Sarah was awake now and alert. Aldo wasn’t surprised. She was almost as hard to creep up upon as he was. He extended a hand, palm flat to indicate she should move slowly and silently. She nodded in the dim-lit room and glided into the bathroom. His eyes followed her shapely form for an instant, then he forced himself to stare at the door, which began to slowly open.

  A thin, pale hand came into the room. It tightly gripped a hand-cannon. The barrel tilted in the direction of the bed he and Sarah had so recently occupied.

  Aldo wasn’t one for hesitation. Possibly, it was a mistake. Possibly, it was only an honest member of the militia come to arrest him for past misunderstandings. Such matters could be made clear in later discussions. In the meantime, without warning, he swept the rapier down in a decisive stroke. The hand, and the gun, fell to the floor. The cannon barked once, causing the mattress to fountain feathers. The inn was authentic in every respect, thought Aldo. They even had down bedding rather than synthetic.

  His hand sought out the other, lighter man and dragged him into the room, shouldering the door closed in case he had an accomplice. Blood gushed everywhere, swamping his bare feet. Aldo frowned in annoyance. Blood and hardwood floors made for bad footing.

  “Who are you?” Aldo hissed, while Sarah stepped back out of the bathroom with a small pistol in her hand. Had she kept that hidden in there all this time? Aldo had to wonder.

  The man was mindless and fought with surprising, wild strength. He was horribly injured and his wrist stump sprayed blood everywhere, but still he strove with Aldo, making a strange gargling sound in his throat.

  Aldo flicked on his sword and slapped the flat of his blade across the man’s temple. The intruder went down in a heap. Out of pity, Aldo touched his blade to the wrist stump, cauterizing the wound. There was a steamy hiss and the room filled with the smell of burnt flesh.

  “He’s a skald,” said Sarah, standing close. She had a robe on now, but little else. She kept her pistol against the strange man’s skull as she bent to look him over.

  Aldo noted that her bare knees dipped into a puddle of hot blood. She didn’t seem in the slightest perturbed by this.

  She looked up at Aldo suddenly, her eyes wide. “They’ve come for Fryx!” she said, standing. “Bili!”

  She was past him and out the door in a second. Aldo, confused, followed her into the hallway. “Sarah?” he called after her. “Let me go in first.”

  But it was too late, she was already in her room. Bili lay on the floor. A smaller puddle of blood pooled around his head. Aldo he felt a wave of emotion. He knew Sarah was tough, she was damned near unflappable. But now she was crying and broken. If she cared about one thing in the universe, it was that boy.

  Aldo put his hand on the boy’s neck, there was a pulse. Apparently, they had only bashed him down. Sarah was calling for a medical flyer, and pointed to the nightstand when Aldo stepped toward her. There was a splash of saline water, but Fryx, that strange pet of theirs, was gone.

  Aldo set his lips in a line. He was still very surprised. Could it be that Sarah had not yet escaped her demons? He had thought he was the one endangering her by his presence. Now he realized she was as much a magnet for trouble as he was. In any case, this assault could not be ignored.

  “Bili will live. I’m going after them.”

  She nodded, and he left her there on the com-link with the medical people.

  Aldo took the stairs down to the lobby. There was the old woman. She had been garroted. Her tongue protruded, more red and bloated than her rosy cheeks. Eyes, still wide circles of shock, stared at nothing. There were odd pinprick marks, tiny bloodspots, all over her face. What had these pallid devils done to her?

  Aldo threw open the front door. The bell tinkled madly overhead. He stalked out, looking this way and that. The accomplice who stole Fryx had fled, but most likely would be waiting for his companion somewhere. Aldo spotted him quickly. There he was, at the corner. The skald climbed quickly into a small flitter as Aldo approached. It was one of the newer models, with moving optics and a mind of its own. It was a mech.

  They always took a few seconds to get the turbines going fast enough. Aldo made it there before the vehicle could lift off. He slashed off the mech’s silver optics, which stuck out on stalks like drumsticks. Blinded, the mech began rising slowly into the air, circling and complaining. He could not make out the words over the roar of the turbines.

  A thin, pale hand reached out of the cab with a hand-cannon. Aldo side-stepped underneath the mech which had risen about two meters into the air. He thrust upward, directly into the cab. The thin white fingers went numb and slack. The hand-cannon dropped into the cobbled streets with a clatter.

  It took a few minutes after that to talk the mech into landing, but it finally did. Aldo retrieved the fish tank with Fryx in it. He eyed the quivering, spiny being distrustfully. What was so important about Bili’s pet that men would kill for it? Sarah hadn’t talked much about these Tulk things, only the invading aliens that had destroyed Garm.

  Fryx had survived without serious injury. Half the water was missing from his tank due to an overabundance of sloshing about, but the vessel was s
till functional.

  Aldo carried him back up to Sarah, his mind bubbling with questions. He knew the Militia would have quite a few for him as well.

  Fifteen

  It had taken Droad a week to get up to Crom and a second week to convince enough brass he was on their side to get them to discuss the construction project Senator Fouty had mentioned. Finally, they let him in on the big secret.

  When he learned the truth, it came as something of a shock. They were building a battleship up here? A real battleship? As far as anyone knew, it was the only such vessel in the entire Nexus region of space, and probably very few other human colonies had them. Sure, the Cognitive Collectivists on Old Earth held onto their power with a small fleet of such monstrous vessels, stationing one at each of the closest colonized star systems. But the Nexus was too far out for that. They had stayed free of Old Earth’s grip mainly via distance. Not even the craziest of the Collectivists wanted to take an eighty year trip out here just to conquer a collection of backwater planets.

  And so, for all conceivable purposes, this would be the only battleship any of them would ever see. Droad was suitably impressed. For whatever military purpose you might want to assign it, a battleship such as the Zürich was up to the task.

  The hull and configuration was based on the infamous ships the Collectivists had used to burn down Alpha Centauri B two centuries ago. Their design had many modifications, naturally. Updated, stream-lined and shrunken moderately, the vessel was still a monster of destruction. Fully two kilometers in diameter, the ship was not a sphere, but more of a pie-shaped structure. The bottom of the ship consisted of a vast oblation-shield of heavy metals. Layers of carbonized steel, lead, foam shock-absorbers and heat-resistant ceramics formed the bottom “plate” of the great pie. The “meat” of the ship, the top layer, contained all the weaponry, cargo, magazines and crew quarters.