“Sat scans indicate that Vincenzo’s guns were firing four different types of ammo – plasma rounds, heat-seeking slugs, high-explosive rounds, and viral slugs.”
I hate viral slugs! Upon impact, the ammo could literally allow Vincenzo to hack into my fighter’s CPU. On a whim, he could turn off my engines, auto-eject me, or even autopilot me straight into the ocean. Mixed in with four other hard-hitting types of ammunition, I might get tagged and then hacked … or just blown to pieces.
“What’s the second mod?”
Before Zint could answer, I spotted it. Miles cut loose with a volley of mini-missiles from the Jigsaw Saber at close-range. At least one of the beer-can-sized warheads should’ve hit the Wings of Venice. Instead, they all veered off and flew back at the Jigsaw Saber, which barely had time to dump chaff and get clear before they exploded in his wake.
“Some kind of countermeasure,” Zint replied. “Vincenzo’s bird can actually con the missiles into chasing a different target.”
“Neat tech,” I admitted. “If he can paint my bird, he could actually steer someone else’s missiles towards me.”
“That evil thought crossed our minds, too. But you haven’t seen the best of ‘em all.”
“What? The Australians managed to come up with something worse?”
Zint nodded and gestured toward the holo-image. Miles took the Jigsaw Saber away from Vincenzo’s Wings of Venice. Then, at ridiculously high speeds, the Saber broke apart into fragments. I could actually see the crazy bastard hurtling amidst the debris, still in his pilot’s chair!
Then, within two seconds, the pieces reformed themselves into the shape of a humanoid robot with a very large rifle in its hands. Thrusters in its feet and back held it aloft as Miles aimed his robot’s blocky gun at Vincenzo and fired away at full-auto. Vincenzo veered away after taking a bunch of minor hits to his armor, which looked to be the standard fighter stock.
“A flying combat mech?!” I winced. That crap was supposed to only be possible on the cartoons I watched as a kid!
“They’ve been toying with technomorphic weaponry for years,” Zint shrugged. “We always thought it was a dead-end.”
“But why?” I frowned. “He can’t outmaneuver anybody like that.”
“Keep watching,” Zint replied.
I watched Vincenzo make another pass with his multi-cannons and try to blow his Australian counterpart out of the sky. Even piloting the bulky robot, Miles managed to perfectly evade the cannon fire.
“How’s he dodging like that?” I asked.
“Some kind of tactical evasion program’s set into his controls. Anything coming at him will cause it to react. In that mech configuration, he’s way more agile.”
“You mean he can dodge anything we shoot at him? Even missiles?”
“Possibly. Keep in mind that this is a shaky theory that our eggheads scraped together five minutes ago. My advice would be to pattern-fire your missiles and blow them all up at once. He won’t be able to dodge a blast that big.”
“Fair enough.”
Even with all of their fancy mods, I could win this. Yes, they knew about my fighter’s force field. But no one knew about the Eagle’s hypno-emitter. Built into the wings, it’s designed to render anyone who directly looked at it into a mindless vegetable for about thirty minutes.
As the YR-1 disengaged its hoses, the repair drones flew off. My systems were all in the green. I kicked on my aft thrusters and headed for the rendezvous. The second half would start up in five minutes. Odds were that Miles and Vincenzo would finish their little feud (as would Lenore and Ghanendra). That’s fine with me. I can just fly off to the side and let my enemies waste ammo on each other.
It’ll make killing them so much easier.
“Time’s almost up, Mendez. Any questions?”
“Nah,” I replied. “You’ve been more than thorough, sir.”
“It’s what they pay me for,” Zint replied with a stiff, formal salute.
I returned it.
“And don’t forget to finish your letter,” Zint said. “You’re making history today.”
“Oh yeah,” I grinned. “Almost forgot. I’ll forward it to you in a minute.”
Zint nodded and broke contact. The old man must’ve sent dozens of holo-letters to his three daughters over the years. A common tradition among House pilots, holo-letters were started before the duel and then finished by any pilot who survived until half-time. Should a pilot die, the holo-letter would be sent to his/her next of kin. In certain circles, each one was worth six figures (at least).
In our line of work, this counted as life insurance.
Yes, the Mercenary Houses took care of the dependents of their fallen pilots, but they could be cheap at times. The bigger the stakes, the more valuable the holo-letter. For those few duelists lucky enough to retire, holo-letters were worth far more than their crappy pensions. Winning – or even surviving – a duel added to their value. If Zint (a living legend) auctioned off his holo-letters today, he’d be a millionaire tomorrow.
I sighed as I lowered my helmet’s breathing visor and thought of home.
Becky could never sleep whenever I dueled. She’d be glued to the flat screen, like the rest of the world, watching us fly and die. Little Isaac was probably asleep in his crib, dreaming of whatever nine-month-olds dreamed about. This was my third duel since his birth. All my holo-letters were now directed his way, each one explaining different parts of the dueling tradition. I rewound to the beginning and listened to it as I flew, hoping I covered the major points.
I started off by explaining that this had to be the largest duel in years. All ten of the world’s remaining nations and their Mercenary Houses decided to participate. With stakes this high, everyone expected the Secretary General to select a ground-based contest between mechanized battalions. Instead, the U.N., which basically ran the planet these days, called for an aerial duel. Each House would send one fighter with standard-issue thrusters, weaponry, and two weapon modifications of its choice.
The prize: a huge, recently discovered mineral bed smack-dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Rather than split the mineral rights amongst themselves, the ten Houses decided to have a “winner-take-all” duel to the death. While these House duels were an odd way to settle disputes, they were preferable to the nuclear wars of old.
Satisfied that I had covered the basics, I hit RECORD.
“Sorry about that,” I sighed. “My CO wanted a quick status chat. The duel is about to resume, so this is where I sign off. As always, you and your mom are in my thoughts. I’ll win this duel and make it home to you both. I won’t do it just for House and Country. I’ll do it so I can watch you grow into a man and spoil your kids rotten.”
I grinned as my bird broke the sound barrier.
“Sleep tight, son. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With that, I hit a few buttons to end the transmission and sent the holo-letter to Colonel Zint. I pulled my helmet’s visor down and headed for the Adriatic. The sun gleamed through the clouds in a mesmerizing fashion. I felt a familiar anticipation as I armed the weapons systems and waited for my enemies’ fighters to appear on my long-range radar.
It was a wonderful day for dueling.
BEST INTENTIONS
Omar Trinns ran up to the front entrance of the Trifecta Club, an ultra-swank nightspot that catered to Philadelphia’s urban elite. At 33 years old, the 5’7” cop wore rumpled street