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  The major walked back over, smiling and shaking his head, and said, “Colonel Keithel is not happy. All of the highest-ranking officers in the fleet will be watching the live competition videos and attending the awards ceremony. When they see this mech and you, an Inactive Reservist, they are not going to be happy. But, the regulations read that you can enter because you are the top mech pilot in the IR. As a matter of fact, I think you are the only one. I hope you do well. I saw in your records where you finished in the order of merit at the academy. Off the record, I think it was dead wrong for them to have put you into the Inactive Reserves. With the initiative you showed today, just to enter like this, we could have used a guy like you. Frost! I could use a guy like you.”

  By the way he spoke, Harmon could tell he was from Joth. There were officers in the fleet from the planet Joth. They were commissioned from other graduate schools with officer training courses. There were just none from the celebrated Tretrayon System Academy. The graduates of that school looked out for their own, and it showed, since all the top brass in the fleet were academy alumni.

  Rinto laughed after the major walked away. “I can’t believe you’re in. Boy, you better win. I’m putting big money on you and this monster,” he said.

  Rinto Gilthon was a grey-haired man with a drooping mustache. He was approaching eighty years old, but he only looked fifty with the expensive, age arresting procedure he had received. He had spent the first ten years of his adult life as a salvager, collecting scrap in space. He used a ship handed down through several generations in his family until there had been an accident with its fusion drive. The resulting explosion had killed his crew and mangled his right arm as well as damaged his ribs and a lung. He would have died if not for the procedure he had received years earlier. His small ship had limped backed into occupied space. But, by the time he received emergency care, the damage was permanent and medical repair nanites couldn’t save his arm or lung.

  He opted then to just go with a mechanical arm instead of regrowth. He sold what was left of his ship and started the scrapyard. He decided he didn’t need to go back into space with his lung the way it was, anyway.

  Rinto had other employees of various races working for him, but he tended to favor Clip and Harmon. Maybe it was because he was a lifelong bachelor with no children of his own that caused him to feel that way. The exposure to the reactor on his ship had made him incapable of having children of his own. That and the fact the boys didn’t have any family but each other because they were orphaned when their town was buried. He didn’t let other employees take items from the scrapyard without paying for them. They had told him about the weapons cache he had “given” them, and he had just laughed. He should have listened.

  Before Harmon climbed into the mech, Clip stopped him. “Hey, when you go into freefall, call me. I put a few surprises into this thing,” he said, patting the thigh of the war machine.

  There was no telling what Clip had programmed. “Wait, what did you do?” Harmon asked.

  “It iss a ssurprisse,” Zerith chipped in, his tail waving.

  “Great, the most important thing I have ever done is ahead of me, and you guys are experimenting,” he said. Then he laughed, “I guess this whole machine is an experiment. What could go wrong?”

  He climbed into the mech, fired it up, and moved over to the ready line to get his missile racks, grenade launcher, and ammunition. His mech—fourteen feet tall—was huge standing next to the others. The other, more modern mechs were between ten and twelve feet tall with smaller bodies.

  In mechs—like everything else—the body and its components had been reduced in size over time, becoming smaller and more compact. The smaller of the two types of mechs present, at ten feet, were used by the Marine Recon units. They were designed to scout ahead, and they were faster and more agile than the others used by the Corps.

  He got out to speak to the sergeant in charge of the weapons point when he heard a voice behind him. He recognized the speaker and thought, here we go. It was Marteen Yatarward, a classmate from the academy.

  “What are you doing here, and what in the blazes is that? You couldn’t make it into to the fleet, so you built your own mech?” he asked, as those around him laughed. “It looks like a piece of chinto squat. Probably smells like it inside, too. You’re just going to embarrass yourself. Why don’t you just pack it up and go home, if it will make it that far?”

  Yatarward was an ass, and he always had been. He was one of those people who always put others down to bring himself up. He had probably been a bully in secondary school, as well. Harmon didn’t know since Yatarward was from an exclusive beach town on Tretra. His family had old credit, centuries old. Not only was he an ass, he was a bigot, too, and the only reason Harmon hadn’t beaten the squat out of him at the academy was a deep-seated fear of losing his scholarship.

  Before Harmon could answer, another voice chimed in. It was a feminine voice, and it made him smile. “Why don’t you shut your face, Yatarward?” Evelyn Stacey asked. “You’re the only one around here who sniffs chinto squat enough to know what it smells like. Besides, what are you doing here? I heard your unit didn’t really have a tie and was able to enter two mechs. Did you whine and moan your way into a slot? Just like you did to get into the fleet? You went crying to your daddy.”

  Harmon turned and looked at her. He had not seen her since graduation night two years ago. She, like Harmon and Yatarward, had lieutenant’s stripes sewn onto her uniform. She also had another patch that Harmon and Yatarward didn’t have. She had become a recon platoon leader in the Marines. Yatarward had simply become a platoon leader in the Marines. His family ties couldn’t get him into the recon unit, though, Harmon had heard. Not that he hadn’t tried.

  She smiled at him and said, “Hey, Stranger.”

  “Hey, Evelyn, it’s great to see you,” Harmon said, ignoring Yatarward.

  It was great to see her. They had dated for the last two years of the academy. She was still just as beautiful. She was easy to talk to and easy on the eyes, with freckles on her nose and a beautiful smile. Her hazel eyes stood out against her dark auburn hair. It was cut short to make it easier to manage in a helmet and in a mech.

  They had agreed that a long-distance relationship just wasn’t going to work out. With her on active status in the fleet, and him moving back to Joth, they would never find time for each other. It sucked, but it was life. You had to move on, though both regretted it the moment they agreed on the decision.

  “Ignore him, he’s just afraid you’ll beat him again. Like you did at almost everything at the academy,” she said, and looked back at Yatarward. “You know good and well that Harmon should be on active status, and you should have gone home. You sure didn’t finish in the top fifteen percent. I don’t care what your final ranking was. You’re probably the reason he didn’t get in.”

  Several of the Marines eased away from the three of them. Officers arguing with each other was not an environment any enlisted Marine wanted to be a part of, even if they were corporals or sergeants. They still listened from a distance, though, because they were curious to hear what was being said.

  “He didn’t get in because he couldn’t cut it. I’m in because I was selected. I didn’t screw my way in like some people I know,” Yatarward said. Harmon figured Yatarward knew it wasn’t true, but the jerk resented her for getting into recon, something he didn’t have the skills for.

  Harmon balled a fist and stepped toward Yatarward. He was no longer at the academy, and getting an active slot was irrelevant. He was going to give Yatarward the beating he deserved. Evelyn quickly stepped between them.

  “He’s not worth it. He’s just trying to get you kicked out of the competition because he’s afraid he can’t beat you. It’s just words, and you and I know it’s not true. Forget him,” she said.

  “You better pray I don’t face you in the combatives,” Harmon told Yatarward.

  “Whatever,” Yatarward said, though he was c
learly nervous.

  When it was Harmon’s turn to arm his machine, the sergeant looked up at it and said, “The lift won’t put the missile racks up that high. It’s designed to go as high as a twelve-foot mech’s shoulder.”

  “No problem,” Harmon said over the external speakers.

  He dropped his mech down to one knee as smoothly as a man might kneel so the lift could reach his shoulders. Other pilots watched the exchange and noted how well the mech moved. The longer, older leg design seemed to move better than the new models they had. Even Yatarward noticed it, but he stayed silent.

  Harmon received the same equipment every competitor received. The two racks of missiles held nine missiles each. He was given one thousand rounds for his railgun. It was fed from a back compartment through the right arm to the railgun itself. His larger mech could have held more, but he received the same load the other machines did. He was given a grenade rifle with a twenty-round magazine to put into the slot on his left leg. Jump fuel was available if he needed to top off, but Zerith had already made sure he was full. He and Clip had also checked his environmental system. It could pull from outside the machine and deliver filtered air to Harmon, or it could become self-contained for as long as the power held out, and the oxygen scrubber worked. He was ready.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Four

  The briefing for the mission was held in the hanger directly behind the dropship. The ship being used was the HDS 40, the newest heavy dropship in the Tretrayon Defense Fleet. It could carry forty fully-equipped mechs on board. The ship was designed to quickly descend toward a planet surface and release the war machines at any time. It could, if needed, also provide limited air support for troops on the ground with its forty-millimeter quad machine guns.

  There were thirty-four mech pilots in the briefing room, including Harmon. He could tell by their uniforms that most of them were Marines, but there were a few Ground Defense Force pilots in the mix. Those pilots had to be the very best the ground defense had. There were several mech units in the ground defense, but this was a marine competition, so the GDF had only sent a handful of their very best.

  Harmon recognized one of the pilots, a GDF Active Reservist. They were under a different command than the Marine Inactive Reserves. Jonoah “Twiggy” Bentalt, had been a classmate of his as well, and he had been commissioned into the Active Reserves, opting to drill once a month and three weeks a year. His family owned a huge farming outfit on Tretra, so he never considered full-time duty. Twiggy looked over at him and crossed his eyes. Good old Twiggy.

  “You will drop from ten thousand feet at one-minute intervals,” said the major giving the briefing. “There is a target ring at the designated landing site. Control your descent, and do not overshoot the mech ahead of you. Once the first mech hits the ground, the following mech will land no sooner than forty-five seconds later and no longer than one minute, fifteen seconds later. Each mech will follow under the same time structure. This will give you enough time to move out of the drop zone toward the simulated contact. Do not hesitate on the landing site. Get down and get moving.”

  “Once everyone has moved to the firing range, you will be timed and evaluated on how you eliminate the threats. There will be the standard twenty threats, per the Advanced Mech Qualification Range. The only difference between this and the normal range is that the threats can shoot back. Simulated, of course, but if the computer says you are hit, depending on the location, you will lose points. If the computer determines that you were immobilized, you will lose additional points.

  “A destroyed mech does us no good in combat. I suggest you use the terrain to your advantage.

  “After the mech range portion of the event, you will move out on a ten-kilometer road march. At the finish line, you will locate the extraction point for the dropship and load up. The dropship will bring you back here where you will dismount and run two miles to an obstacle course. It will be followed by individual marksmanship, firing both the standard grenade rifle and a laser pistol. The day will end with a combatives tournament.”

  As everyone was jotting down mission notes, the major asked, “Are there any questions?”

  Hands shot up all over the room. When he called on the first Marine to raise her hand, he realized his mistake.

  “Do you think the Furies have a chance at the System Warball Championships, and what do you think of their new defenseman, Branze Gortrip, who was acquired in a trade with the Dust Devils?” she asked. Snickers could be heard from the back of the room.

  “Are there any questions pertaining to the task at hand?” he asked.

  * * *

  The pilots loaded their mechs into the dropship and backed into slots designed to lock their machine into place. The last thing anyone wanted was a loose mech during high-G maneuvers. It was assumed that anytime a dropship full of war machines was needed, it was a hostile environment. The ships had shields, but they could only take so much before lasers burned through or kinetic rounds overloaded the system. Erratic flight was the first line of defense for a dropship.

  Harmon’s mech would not lock into place because of its size and shape difference. He countered by reaching back and gripping the bracket with both claws, locking his fists into place. The crew chief, a sergeant, walked the line, checking each bracket before takeoff. He raised his eyebrows at Harmon but moved on. The word had spread that Harmon had found a loophole in the competition, and everyone liked an underdog.

  The sergeant climbed the ladder that took him to his drop observation station, a raised area above the door to the cockpit of the craft. He stepped back, hooked his harness to the two secure points behind him, and dropped the visor on his helmet. Ten minutes later, the red lights glowing above him flashed; there was approximately two minutes until drop.

  Harmon felt his pulse rate climb a little. He could see it on the operator status portion of his lower left screen. Had he been tied into a command net, his chain of command could have seen it, too. As it was, Clip was the only one looking at it on a custom-built slate, slightly larger than a personal comp.

  Harmon double-checked the pin for the coordinates he had entered into his mech system. It put a map overlay onto his center screen, and it provided him with a target to aim for on the ground. It would also let him know how he was doing with time. He didn’t want to land outside the designated window and lose points on the first event.

  The lights went out for a full second, and when they came back on, they were glowing green. Both sides of the ship’s walls dropped like a ramp below the wings, and the first mech exited with a leap. Harmon waited his turn. He was designated as the last to exit. In an actual combat jump, both sides of twenty mechs would exit at the same time and spread apart while free-falling. It was something they practiced monthly. Harmon had only dropped four times in the past while in training. He was a little nervous; maybe it was a good thing they weren’t dropping all at once.

  Thirty-three minutes later, Harmon leaped from the dropship. He splayed the mech’s limbs out to control his fall so he didn’t start spinning and cause himself to black out. He checked his display. About eight seconds into the drop, he reached terminal velocity.

  He was falling at about 250 feet per second, or about one hundred and seventy miles an hour. He was glad the mech’s operating system kept up with all of that. The math for this type of thing had never been his strong suit. Its formula included a planet’s gravitational pull, atmospheric density, wind drag, mech position while falling, and other factors that were beyond him. His display showed that he would hit the ground in three minutes and fifty seconds if he did nothing else. Of course, he would alter his drop position to aim for the landing zone and fire his rockets to slow himself down and land, so that time would change slightly. He could see the other mechs below him on visual and on radar.

  Harmon called Clip. “Hey Clip, do you read me?”

  “I got you loud and clear man. I can see you are falling like a rock. What’s it like?” Clip
asked.

  “It’s not as fun as you think it would be. It’s happening pretty fast. Why did you want me to call you while I was in freefall?” Harmon asked, wanting Clip to get to the point.

  “Well, for one, I have this scrambled, and no one can hear us. Also, Zee acquired a few extra pieces for the hardware in the mech’s radar, and I may or may not have hacked the program for a multi-launch command off an experimental anti-air tank,” Clip answered back, looking around to ensure no one was near his hovercraft.

  “You didn’t,” Harmon said.

  “Yep, orient yourself toward the target range, zoom the visual onto the targets themselves, and lock in eighteen of them. The system will program the coordinates in. When the time comes on the range, fire all your missiles at once. I tweaked the targeting program off of something I read about in combat on Earth in the 1990s. It will save time on the range. Oh, and Zee says you’re welcome,” Clip said.

  Harmon looked toward the range; he only had two minutes left. He zoomed in well beyond the visual range of any mech he had been in before and could see the targets behind berms, edging around corners, and up on a roof in the simulated urban environment. It was amazing his mech could see that far. He selected all of his missiles on both racks. Using the aiming reticle on his screen and finger commands, he choose the first eighteen targets. The system gave him the option of pre-selection or engage. He was careful not to engage yet. He could see all twenty targets from his high-altitude angle. The last two were in the windows of buildings, and he only saw their quad barrels.

  Shortly after, he angled his body to guide himself to land on the center circle on his display. He could see that the mech before him had gotten pretty close. Watching his display and trusting the operating system when it counted down, he dropped his feet toward the surface and fired his rockets to slow himself down. To his surprise, the thrust was stronger than the mechs he had trained in, and he was able to slow down and practically fly over to land in the dead center of the circle. He stepped off the landing zone like he owned it.