Chương 51: Dancing on Fire

New Toledo, Vidako Imperium Stellarum December 23, 2847 It took two days at the Palacio de las Orquídeas before Arc was able to actually get into a cockpit. Esteban and Marcus were on his team from the moment he had explained the circumstances of the duel to them, that first day in the cigar room. Unfortunately, neither one of them actually piloted a Tagma, which was, as Cassie had pointed out, the closest thing at hand to a Janissary.

The two mechs in question were piloted by, respectively, Lieutenant Pilar de Estrada and Lieutenant Willard Lysholm, the final two members of the ducal guard's mech squad. Pilar was the more agreeable of the two; when she joined them in the cigar room, just after lunch on their second day at the duke's palace, she snapped to attention and saluted Commander Esteban Alarcón Montalban with deliberateness and precision.

She was, Arc observed, not a large woman—but then, a mech pilot didn't need to be a mountain of muscle. And since she specialized in land-based combat, rather than in space, she'd never needed to undergo the training meant to help her pilot under crushing g forces. Unlike you, Iceni nagged him, as Marcus lit another cigar. You don't have any genetic modifications to increase lung efficiency or prevent cancerous growths.

If you really want us to pilot a Kestrel, we should not be breathing in chemical-laced tobacco smoke. It is revolting. We're being polite, Arc told her. We need their help. Putting up with a little cigar smoke for a few days isn't the end of the world. He could practically hear the AI muttering in the back of his mind while Esteban explained the situation to Lieutenant Estrada.

"—which is why Arc here needs time in a cockpit over the next few weeks," the duke's younger brother explained.

"We don't actually have any Janissaries, but the Tagmas are close enough to at least get him started."

"You want me to loan the cadet my mech during the times that I'm off duty," Pilar said. Her dark eyes flicked over to where Arc and Cassie sat next to each other in cushioned seats of soft leather.

"Actually, no," Esteban said.

"I want you to train him. We'll put him in Willard's mech, and you can take him out to the range and show him a few things."

"I expect comp time if I'm giving up my off-duty hours," Estrada said.

"Approved by Lieutenant Colonel Marín."

"You'll get it," Marcus promised.

"I'll bring the old lady a bottle of her favorite tequila." Pilar Estrada nodded.

"Once her orders come through, then, I'm all yours." She turned back to face Arc and Cassie.

"I hope you don't waste my time, cadet."

"I won't," Arc said. After that conversation, he thought that Willard Lysholm might be the more difficult conversation of the two—especially once he saw the man. Estrada was so young that Arc was certain she'd only done a single tour of duty with fleet, and Esteban confirmed it—but Lysholm was at least a decade older.

"She's one of the pilots my brother sponsored to the academy," the older man explained.

"With the understanding that as soon as her obligations to the imperium were met, she served in his guard."

"Willard's another case entirely," Marcus said, but would not explain further. Lysholm entered the cigar room with the attitude of a whipped dog: half afraid that he was about to be struck, half snarling. His face was lined, his hair mostly gone to gray, and he seemed allergic to making eye contact with anyone else—especially the princess imperial at Arc's side.

"It won't cause you any trouble, Willard," Esteban explained.

"The kid'll use your ride while you're off duty, and it'll be waiting for you when your next shift starts. The chair won't even be warm when you sit down."

"It's my mech," Lysholm grumbled, shoulders hunched.

"It's Duke Montalban's mech," Marcus broke in.

"Your ass just rides in it when he lets you. But we aren't taking anything away from you, Willard. Just trying to help a kid out. You can do that, can't you?" Lysholm opened his mouth, glanced over at Cassie, and then clearly reconsidered what he had been about to say.

"I get comp time?"

"You will," Esteban promised.

"So long as I don't have to sober you up at the end of it. Is that understood, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir." Lysholm saluted, turned on his heel, and left the room.

"He's a bit old to be a lieutenant, isn't he?" Cassie asked, her brow furrowed, once the door had closed and the departed pilot wouldn't be able to hear them.

"I'd guess he was busted down," Arc said, turning to glance at Esteban for confirmation. The duke's brother nodded, but it was Marcus who actually answered their questions.

"Yeah." He took a puff on his cigar.

"Yeah, he was. Made it to Lieutenant Commander aboard the Basiliscus, I think."

"And the Licinius before that," Estaban answered, taking a sip of brandy from his tumbler.

"But it was the Basiliscus where everything fell apart. HD 189733 b." Arc and Cassie exchanged a glance.

"A planet?" he asked.

"More like hell," Marcus said, with a grunt. Esteban leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"A gas giant," he explained.

"The way I understand it—and Willard won't talk about it—the Basiliscus got called in to rescue a xeno-archeology team, about five years back. Apparently the Church of the Progenitors funded it. They found some kind of floating derelict station in the upper atmosphere. Sent in a team—""Through an atmosphere that rains molten glass," Marcus added.

"—and everything went to shit," Esteban continued.

"The whole thing's classified, but afterwards our lieutenant was released from service."

"You can see it in the man's eyes sometimes," Marcus said.

"The ghosts." Arc sat back in his chair and turned to meet Cassie's eyes.

"You ever heard of this?"

"No, but I would have been thirteen at the time," she answered.

"There's no reason I would have. I might be able to find out more, depending on what level of clearance is required. Or I could just ask my father the next time I see him."

"It's interesting, but I'm not sure it's relevant right now," Arc said, shaking his head.

"As long as he's willing to loan me his mech, I think we're good." 𝝮 And so, on the morning of the twenty-third of December, Arc climbed into the cockpit of a vibrantly painted F-2 Tagma. Whether Lieutenant Colonel Marín's approval had been motivated by the request of her duke's younger brother, or by the presence of a princess imperial, was unclear. Arc hadn't actually talked to her personally, but the orders and approvals had come through.

He, Cassie, and Santiago, the duke's son, took a car over to the base on the east side of New Toledo where they were waved through by the guards at the entrance. Lieutenant Estrada waited for them at the hangar, where two identical Tagma's stood next to each other, rope ladders hanging down from the cockpits. Every plate of armor was painted the same bright red, save for a few flourishes of equally fiery orange. It was the difference between mechs meant to be seen, and mechs meant for battle.

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"Alright," Estrada said, once they'd piled out of the car and made their way into the hangar.

"I'm told you're qualified on a Tyro, so you should be able to walk unit four out onto the tarmac without falling over. This thing is twenty-tons heavier than what you're used to, and it doesn't move as easily. You ever drive an old car or truck?" Arc shook his head.

"Grew up in a big city," he said.

"Never had to learn." Estrada shrugged.

"You'll see what I mean. Everything's just a little looser, a little more touchy. She's got personality, and you've got to work with her a bit. Alright, head on up." She put her foot on the lowest rung of her own ladder and hauled herself up with the speed of long practice.

"Come with me," Cassie told Santiago.

"We'll find a good place to see from." Arc watched them walk away for a moment, and then started his own climb. The cockpit smelled faintly of sweat, grease, and metal, and everything looked like it had been replaced, patched, or refurbished at least once. Still, the harness worked just the same as always, and the armor plating irised closed smoothly enough.

"How's the connection look?" Arc asked Iceni. Primitive, his AI grumbled. Downright savage, like something that belongs in a museum. But I have the necessary protocols for this old software.

"If you think this is bad, I hope we never need to climb into a first gen mech," Arc told her. He settled his hands on the control sticks and waited. He was just about to ask if something was wrong when he felt his awareness bloom outward to encompass a body which was not flesh, but sixty-odd tons of armor, weaponry, and graphene artificial muscle.

The battery readout, armor display, and targeting reticule came up just the same as always, but Arc saw that his weapons loadout was substantially different from what a Tyro carried." Tagma C," he muttered. It was a riot-control variant. Rather than lasers mounted on the shoulder hardpoints, there were only rotary autocannons, each with six-hundred rounds of baton rounds: a steel core surrounded by soft rubber.

Where a Janissary would mount a flame-thrower, on the outside of the right arm, there was a nozzle for ejecting CS gas. He saw that two-hundred gallons of gas would give him thirty-two shots, if he'd actually been planning to use it.

There was no war club, because the Tagma wasn't currently set up to fight other mechs, but he did see a single plasma blade magnetically attached to one thigh, presumably as a backup measure. Finally, a shoulder mounted launcher, loaded with seven laser guided rockets, was labelled PADS: Precision Anti-Drone System. Arc contemplated just how satisfying that would be to deploy the next time a mob of media personalities were shouting questions at him and Cassie while their drones shot footage from overhead.

"You hooked in, kid?" Lieutenant Estrada asked, her voice crackling over the comms.

"Affirmative, sir," Arc replied.

"All systems online. I haven't used a single one of these weapons before, sir, with the exception of the plasma blade."

"That's fine," Estrada said.

"I'm less concerned about target practice, today, than just getting you used to moving around in a machine that's heavier than you've practiced with. I want to teach you how to use those thrusters on your back, too." Arc nodded, glancing down at a separate fuel reserve indicator near his battery readout.

"One ton of thruster fuel."

"Follow me out of the hangar and over to the firing range," Estrada ordered. Arc let her go first, and only once the leading Tagma was clear did he take a slow, careful step. The moment he moved, he knew immediately what everyone had been talking about: Tyro's were clearly built to be easier to maneuver, while a close-assault mech like this was built to do its job—to break the enemy line. If that meant the pilot had to pick up a bit of slack using their own skill, so be it.

The Tagma was heavier than a Tyro, and not as well balanced. It was, Arc decided as he took his second step, something like trying to walk chest deep in water. He had to sort of force his way forward, paying attention to every motion as he got a handle on how the machine moved. Thankfully, by this point in the year he'd not only logged hundreds of hours in the simulator pods, he'd also spent days living out of his cockpit in the Vidakan jungle. It might take practice to adjust, but adjust he would.

Pilar de Estrada led him over to a firing range at the edge of the installation, walled off by fences which had been topped with outward-angled wire. She must have sent a signal, because two large sections of fence on wheels withdrew out to either side, opening a gate into the firing range large enough for the mechs to enter in single file. Inside the fenced off area, nothing grew.

The muddy ground had been trampled by the enormous feet of the ducal guard's mechs, torn with bullets, scorched with flames, and cratered by missiles and rockets. Arc saw that someone had left out a few pop-up targets, but Estrada ignored them.

"I want to see you take a run around the perimeter," she said.

"You're going to have to adapt again for low-gravity, but that's simulator work. Right now I want you to get a baseline level of comfort with the machine. Once you feel like you can move well enough, we'll start on thruster training." Arc turned the Tagma to the right, to follow the fenceline, and pushed off with his right foot, going from a walk to a jog. It was, Arc thought, familiar—much like his first days in the simulator pods, just after Hard Burn, or the first time he'd taken unit seventeen out.

But this time there would be no tumbling to the ground and crushing his own armor. Clods of earth flew behind him as he picked up speed, learning the motion of the assault mech. Twenty kilometers an hour, Iceni told him, and then a moment later, Twenty-five.

"How does it feel?" Lieutenant Estrada's voice crackled over his comms.

"Good," Arc said.

"I can see what you mean, though. The right leg has a bit of hesitation to it. And I don't feel like the left arm has a full range of motion."

"That's decades of repair after repair," Estrada confirmed.

"If there were still any factory-new parts for these old models, our techs might be able to rebuild those joints from the ground up, but no one's been producing replacements for ten, twelve years now. Every factory moved over to the third generation line mechs. Give me a sprint when you come around to the straightaway, top speed."

"Affirmative." Arc leaned into the turn as he reached one end of the field, still following the fenceline, and the moment he was facing back the way he'd come, he pushed the mech to run as fast as it could go. Twenty-seven point nine kilometers an hour, Iceni supplied. It should be over twenty-eight.

"It's that leg," Arc told her, and slowed the Tagma down until he came to a halt near Lieutenant Estrada's mech.

"Alright, I want you to just watch for a moment," the older pilot said.

"We use the thrusters in short bursts, and you're going to need your AI to help you with it, especially to start with. Once you get a bit of experience, and a feel for it, you might be able to do this yourself, but don't even try yet. We can use the thrusters in four main ways: first, to increase our forward speed during a charge; second, to jump up onto a higher elevation; third, to control a fall; and fourth, for evasion."

Estrada sent her Tagma running forward on the straightaway, and then lit up the thrusters on her back. Plumes of fire shot out from the mech, kicking it forward with a sudden burst of speed. Arc could actually see the mech's feet skimming over the ground without touching. Fifty kilometers an hour, Iceni said. Sixty. Seventy… The thrusters cut off, and Estrada's mech touched back down in a spray of dirt.

For a moment, Arc was convinced there was no way she could land without falling, but somehow she kept the mech under control.

"That's a charge," she said over the comms, swinging her mech back around to run toward him.

"Now, evasion. Get your plasma blade out." Arc hesitated for a moment, but then he saw that Estrada had drawn her own weapon in the Tagma's right hand. A beam of brilliant purple light formed a blade that was so bright that, at its core, it turned white. She appears to be coming right at us, Iceni observed. I recommend that you be prepared to parry.

"Shit," Arc cursed, drew his own plasma blade, and ignited it. Pilar de Estrada paused, just before hitting him, and swung her blade in a horizontal swipe aimed directly at his torso. Arc moved his blade to the left, to catch hers, and the two blades crackled and spat sparks of light as they made contact.

"I can see you aren't a fencer," she said.

"Don't worry, kid. I'll take it easy on you. Attack me!" Arc swept his blade back to the right, swiping at the other mech's center of mass, but another plume of fire swept burst out, this time to the Tagma's side, as Estrada angled her thrusters. The blast threw her mech in the opposite direction, taking her out of range of Arc's attack. Then, the thrusters cut out again, and she landed cleanly.

"Do you see how it works?" the older pilot asked.

"This," he said.

"This is exactly what I need to dodge those missiles. In every sim I ran, I couldn't move quickly enough. Can you teach me?"

"That's what you're here for, isn't it?" Estrada told him.

"Give me your best, kid, and I'll show you how to dance on fire. Now, come on. See if you can keep up!" She turned to face across the field and lit her thrusters off again.

"Iceni," Arc said. Yes. I have the subroutines to do it. But you'll need to stick the landing. Arc pushed off with one foot, sending the Tagma lurching forward after the other mech.

"Now!" Iceni lit the rockets, and Arc felt like a hammer hit him in his chest, pushing him back into his seat. Trailing plumes of flame, his mech shot across the field.