Fool's Gold: Carson Lyle's War - Part One (15 page)

The timer ticked zero. Vostro through the throttle to forty percent and steered the mech toward her first planned grid.

A tone sounded in her helmet, indicating an incoming coded message. It caught her off guard. Why send a secure message now? She brought up the message on one of her screens and keyed in the countersign for validation. The message opened as text. She was surprised again to see it had the Colonel's encryption signature. It read:

The pride of the 501 is riding with you. Just take it by the numbers, alpha to zulu, and do us proud. Good luck, Leeann.

She felt pride well up inside her. She had thought the Colonel was actually pulling for the civie, but this message told her otherwise and it made her feel good. It was odd that he called her 'Leeann', but he was probably just trying to put her at ease. She had been wound up pretty tight since all of this started, so it made sense.

Vostro deleted the message, per protocol for secure messages and switched her sensors to passive mode to reduce her electronic signature. No need to hold up and electronic sign for the civie to see a kilometer away.

"Just take it by the numbers, alpha to..." She paused and brought up her nav-display. She saw where she'd just left from waypoint Alpha and in the lower right corner, she saw waypoint, "...zulu." The 'Z' icon blinked in a canyon formation five clicks due south for a few more seconds and disappeared, as if it were never there.

That tricky, old son-of-a-gun, she laughed. "That's why you're the Colonel."

She plotted an indirect course to the canyon.

This is going to be over quick.

Chapter 29

Vostro brought her mech to a stop at the base of the hill leading to the canyon's south wall, on the side opposite the entrance.

The civie would have been stupid to stay at his waypoint. But he was also at a disadvantage and he'd want to sucker her into a fight on his terms.

She eased the mech up the hill slowly, just enough to get the optics to take a snapshot of the canyon floor then quietly back away from the edge of the hill.

Vostro brought up the image on her screen. It gave a pretty good view of the canyon. The long shadows that blanketed the canyon floor were the only real problem. She couldn't see him in the open, so he would be using the shadows for cover.

Not a bad idea.

She eased the mech back up to the edge of the hill and pointed the optics at the largest rock formation. The shadow was completely black and engulfed the back half of the rock and several dozen meters directly behind it completely. She couldn't make out anything there. She could switch to infrared view, but with the mech in passive mode there would be a quick spike in E.M.F. that the Twelve might detect.

Vostro turned up the optic zoom incrementally until something caught her eye. On the far side of the large rock, the shadow looked to bend around something on the edge. She still couldn't see it clearly, but it looked out of place with everything around it.

A large rock suddenly fell from the formation near the bend. It must have been knocked off by something near it...like a mech.

She brought up the targeting system. Vostro thought about eye-balling it and aiming manually. She could get off two, possibly three shots before he'd be able to react. In this low-grav, missile or cannon fire wouldn't track far from where she aimed to put it. No, she wanted to make him crap his pants when the warning tone of a weapons lock went off in his cockpit. She brought the sensor array active. The reticle, on her visor, went from amber to red in less than a second. Vostro thumbed the safety cover for the missile launch on the top of the control stick up, making the button active.

"That's it, you son of bitch. Good night."

Her thumb tapped the button twice. Two missiles were loosed from the left shoulder pylon of the fifty-four. At the same instant, she gunned the throttle, accelerating the mech toward the edge of the canyon at a forty-five degree angle relative to the direction the missiles flew. She thumbed the button on the right side of the throttle. The hoppers fired as the Fifty-four stepped off the edge of the cliff.

The missiles found their mark, spraying a shower of rock fragments and dust in all directions. If they had been live missiles, the explosion would have been spectacular and that mech would have been dead.

She feathered the hoppers as the mech dropped from the ninety-meter cliff. The Fifty-four dropped slowly, almost floating toward a safe landing on the canyon floor. Vostro had her cannons trained on the dust cloud that hung around the rock formation. As soon as her mech had solid footing, she'd unload on the civvy again, bringing the Colonel's little experiment to a quick and satisfying end.

Still twenty meters from the ground. Vostro heard something in her cockpit that took an extra second to process.

The target lock alarm.

It was immediately followed by a heavy laser impact to the left knee of her mech.

More alarms sounded as the gyros were knocked off kilter. The mech was going to hit the ground hard, even in half-G.

Chapter 30

Lyle watched the Fifty-four dropping to the ground, spinning from the impact of the hit to the leg. The fall wouldn't do the Fifty-four any good, but it wouldn't be enough to disable it either.

He almost didn't see Vostro at the top of the cliff before she fired on the other rock formation. If he'd have been watching the entrance, he wouldn't have seen her at all. He'd have to buy Chief Diego the synthehol drink of his choice for that bit of intel.

He needed to get his mech behind her. Lyle threw the throttle up to full. The Twelve lurched forward with Lyle rotated the torso to keep Vostro in view.

Before the Fifty-four hit the ground, the torso turned sharply to the right and the hoppers fired at full burn. It was enough to break the mech's fall and even lift it to a near standing position. The right arm extended, as the mech came up, and Lyle found himself staring down the business end of a sixty-millimeter cannon.

He saw the muzzle flash, followed immediately by the piercing
BANG
of the training round hitting the mech in the left shoulder. The impact caused the whole mech to lurch to the left.

BANG!
Another hit to the left side.

Lyle was assaulted by alarms in the cockpit. The simulated damage readout showed the whole left arm assembly, including his own cannon, was gone. The computer would shut it down, completely, to simulate the damage…except it wasn’t simulated. Lyle could see it dangling in front of his cockpit, in the low gravity, by a few bits of cabling still attached to the actuator.

Dammit! That was a good shot!

***

Vostro saw the Twelve's shoulder linkage explode into a shower of twisted metal. The dummy round must have hit it just right. The way the linkage just flew apart, leaving the arm just hanging by some cables was satisfying. But she cursed herself for her rookie mistake. She'd underestimated the civie, but he'd had his shot. Now she was on to him and she wasn't going to stop until he surrendered the duel.

The Twelve had regained its footing and continued moving to her left, along the canyon wall. In turn, she swiveled the legs counter-clockwise and gunned the throttle to keep pace and move in parallel with the twelve. The left leg grunted in protest from the hit at the knee. The computer damage simulator shut it down to sixty-percent effectiveness after the hit it took to the knee, making the mech sluggish to get moving.

With the left arm gone, the civie was left with the laser in the right arm and six missiles in a torso launcher. Still enough to worry about.

Vostro tried to take aim with her cannon again, but the Twelve was tough to track as a moving target with the rhythmic shudder of her mech with each left foot fall. She fired two more rounds. The first struck the canyon wall, at torso level. The second went above the cockpit. Rock fragments rained down on the Twelve, but its movement was unaffected.

They were getting close the rocks she had fired on before. In another few seconds, the rocks would be between her and her target. She would try to corral the civie to the far side of the formation, keeping him against the wall.

Just before the Twelve fully disappeared behind the shadow from the large rock, she fired two more cannon rounds at the right side, splintering it at the edge, and continued moving toward the far side, targeting the gap between the rock and the cliff wall. In a second or two, the Twelve would run out, at top speed, and she would have him.

Vostro reached the wall except, there was no Twelve running through the gap. All she could see was the long shadow cast by the rock. She looked back to the right. The civie hadn't come around the other side, either.

He was hiding behind the rock. What a fracking coward—

Her cockpit was suddenly engulfed in a limegreen light.

LASER!

Vostro jerked the control stick to the right. The damage simulators registered severe cockpit damage. Life support was compromised. Had this been a real fight, her canopy would have been cracked, or worse.

She drove the mech around the right side of the rock. There! Vostro could see the bastard moving out of the shadow. He must have been crouched, hidden in the shadow, just waiting for her to stick her head in the gap.

The Twelve was moving at top speed toward another tall rock formation to the right. That must have been where he was hiding from the start.

She saw the Twelve's torso turn in her direction. Another laser shot came her way, hitting the rock.

The Twelve was out in the open. Vostro was stationary with cover. This time she wouldn't miss.

She laid the reticle right on the center torso. It went red. The target lock tone sounded. Her thumb hovered over ‘fire’ button on her control stick.

It was fun while it lasted, civie.

She tapped the button twice.

Chapter 31

Dammit!

If he would have still had his cannon, this fight would've been over, Lyle thought, after seeing the laser hit the Fifty-four's cockpit.

He brought the Twelve out of its crouch and immediately turned for the rocks two hundred meters away. It was too far, he needed to buy a few seconds.

Lyle rotated the torso ninety-degrees right and tried to take aim with the laser. But the speed made it impossible to get a good lock. He fired anyway. All he needed to do was get her to pause for just a few seconds.

Lyle was still a hundred meters from the rocks when the weapons lock alarm sounded. He tried to swivel the torso back, which sounded another alarm. The waist linkage must have broken again. The torso was stuck.

The incoming fire tone sounded next. Lyle looked at the Fifty-four standing near the rock and the two fast moving streaks of smoke from the shoulder launcher.

All Lyle could do was brace for the impact. It was an excruciatingly long second and a half, that was interrupted by a quick POP POP POP from his mech.

The smoke streaks suddenly veered to his right, followed by a large explosion that rocked both mechs.

Live missile!
Lyle yelled into the comm ink, "What the hell was that?"

His headset was suddenly filled with the voice of the A.I. controller, at the base.
"Cease fire! Cease Fire! Stand down!"

Another voice came over the comm link. This time it was Colonel Mann himself.
"Banshee, Wicker-Man, return to base immediately!"

Lyle rotated the mech to see where the missile hit. A large chunk of the canyon wall was obliterated.

Live missile? I fucking knew it!

But what had saved him? It was then he noticed a new indicator lit in his visor: COUNTERMEASURES. That's what the popping sound was. But he didn't do anything and there was no A.I. to do it for him. How did
that
happen?

He was convinced, more than ever, that none of this was happening by accident. Vostro had live weapons, so someone was trying to kill him. But he had a defense for those weapons, so someone wanted him to live. It was like two sides were playing some sort of sick game and he was the ball they batted back and forth.

Lyle knew they would be going straight to the Colonel before the mechs were even secured in their stalls. He'd damn sure get answers from someone, one way or another.

He turned the mech again and saw the Fifty-four was already heading back. With the torso stuck to the right, he wouldn't be able to follow at top speed.

Lyle's visor indicated an incoming private transmission. He was so angry, at the whole situation, he didn't want to talk to anyone. He flicked his eyes to the DECLINE button for a second and thought about it again.

After twenty seconds, his visor indicated the transmission again.
Can't I have a fracking minute of peace?
It had to be the Colonel trying to feed him his next line of bull.

He chose CONNECT and immediately started venting. "Colonel, if you think I'm going to listen to any damn thing you have to say—"

"I think you better listen, if you want to live."

It wasn't the Colonel. The voice was serious, but also sounded as though it was being fed through a filter.

"What is that supposed to mean? Who the hell is this?" Lyle said. He couldn't hide the edge in his voice.

"I just saved your life…and it probably won't be the last time I'll have to, either."