1.34
It took nearly a month but eventually, Cameron was finally able to get the Headsman under control. Three and a half weeks of near eighteen-hour days, some of which done through lack of sleep and food had drilled into him the rhythm and flow of A.R.M.S. movement. Now, not only could he confidently walk, run, and jump without worrying about a possible accident of balance, but thanks the Headsman, he could perform more advanced evasive maneuvers. Sharp carving banks to get around tight corners, short burst dodging maneuvers, boost enhanced leaps to clear near fifty meters in a single bound, and even the ability to use the Headman's boosters to adjust his trajectory mid-air. Cameron was proud of himself, happy for the first time in weeks, and more than confident in his combat abilities.
That was until the day when Logan’s voice boomed out over the arena as he banged the head of his mace into the ground, “Alright Kid!” He said, instantly drawing Cameron’s attention, “Looks like mech school is over… for now. Time for your final exam.”
“Final exam?” Cameron asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked at Crusader about fifty meters away.
“Yep,” Logan said, the head unit of Crusader nodding, “And I know just the thing to put you to the test.”
“And what’s that?”
Cameron could hear the smile on Logan’s face as his voice crackled out through the speakers.
“Tag.”
Cameron’s own lips turned upward spreading across his face, “Tag, huh? You ain’t scared of losing for a second time?”
“Two things kid,” Logan said, “First of all, we didn’t reach a conclusion to our first little game. Second, I was going easy on you.”
“Oh easy on me eh?” Cameron said, nodding slowly, “If you say so… boss.”
“Don’t believe me?” Logan asked, cocking his head to the side, the helm of the Crusader mimicking his gesture, “Think you’re hot shit now just cause you have a fancy ass Assault-type now?”
“Pfft, no” Cameron said, chuckling for a moment at his mentors words, “I know I’m hot shit.”
“Alright… let’s see it then. I’ll be it.”
“Oh you will hu- oh shit.” Cameron didn’t have time to finish the statement, as Logan took a boosted leap high into the air, flying through the space until he was directly above the Headsman. Then, with the twin jet cannons on the back of his Crusader roaring at full blast, he plummeted to the ground like a meteor, crashing into the floor, mace first.
Cameron jumped back, the boosters in his feet cushioning his landing and keeping him mere inches off the ground. He dropped low and banked hard to the right, blasting forward and circling around the backside, in Crusader’s blind spot.
“Gotta be quicker than that boss,” Cameron said, in a smarmy smug tone, leaning back and creating a gap of space between himself and Logan.
“Don’t get cocky,” Logan growled, silently cursing his Crusader’s 6.4 speed stat as he turned, dashing forward in an irregular zig-zag pattern, slowly pushing Cameron near the back of the arena. As he chewed up the distance between them, he reached out, lunging in wide arcs with his mace.
“Not cocky, just confident,” Cameron said, easily ducking and weaving through the strikes. He bided his time, counting and memorizing Logan’s attack pattern, waiting for his moment. It was when Logan tried to level his next strike at Camerons head, stepping into a backhanded swing that Cameron made his move. He ducked low, reaching back for the handle of the massive black sword that was magnetically holstered to center of his back. He knew he’d found it when he felt the humming warmth of a physilight proxy form in his hand. With a grin, he gripped it tightly and ripped it loose, aiming a slash of his own towards Crusader’s midsection.
“Gotcha,” He breathed.
“Do you?” Logan shot back, twisting his body sideways to reduce the size of his silhouette as he brought down the heavy tower shield close to his body, reaching his waist just in time as Cameron’s blade bit deep, cutting across the shields length, nearly shearing it off with one blow. An unfortunate turnout, but one that Logan could work with. Before Cameron could free his blade from the thick shield, Logan twisted his arm hard, putting Cameron at an awkward angle, bent low forward and off balance.
Now it was Logan’s turn to smirk, speaking softly, but just loud enough to be broadcasted over the speakers of his Crusader, “Gotcha…”
With the power of Crusader’s reinforced hydraulics, Logan brought a foot up and buried it into the Headsman’s stomach. With a considerable grunt, he kicked hard, and whether it was due to Crusaders hydraulics, or the Headsman’s lightweight chassis, he sent Cameron flying thirty meters and impacting into the wall. Looking down, he smiled, as he kicked Camerons sword outside of his shield, sending it clattering to the floor.
“You really need to hang onto that kid,” He said, walking towards a now collapsed Headsman, happy to see it hadn’t phased out, meaning that Cameron was still conscious, “It’s kind of the first rule of warfare isn’t it?”
“You… fucking… dick…” Cameron wheezed out, getting to his knees.
“Don’t know why your mad at me,” Logan said, approaching the Headsman, “I told you not to get cocky. No one told you that you needed to attack me, but you were the who decided to send it. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
He walked up to Camerons side, planting a food onto his ribs and kicking him over, violently rolling him on his back.
“Stop milking it and finish it already,” Cameron said, looking up at the towering Crusader, “Let’s get this shit over with.”
“As you wish kid,” Logan said, giving a shrug. He raised his mace high, knowing it’s massive size blocked out the light of the arena from where Cameron was laying.
“Tag.”
The last thing that Cameron saw, was the massive spikes of Logan’s mace tearing through his cockpit, before everything went black.
Cameron shot up in his chair, gasping for breath, roaming his hands over his chest. Sure, he knew that it was just a virtual environment, but it still didn’t stop him from confirming that his body was intact.
“Man!” Aurora exclaimed, giggling with an enthusiasm Cameron had never seen before, “That was cathartic as hell…”
“If you wanna keep talking shit me and you can go in there next,” Cameron said, growling his response. As he did, he winced in pain, running up to his face, “Gah! I think he hit me so hard, it bypassed my consciousness and went straight to my body.”
“Oh, don’t give a girl hope like that Cam,” Aurora said, patting his shoulder as she started to unplug the wires running into his helmet, “You may make me want to be a pilot, just to do this whenever you piss me off.”
“Are you ever going to be nice to me?”
“That depends,” She said, giving a hard yank at a handful of cables, “Are you ever not going to be a cocky jackass?”
“I think he’s been humbled enough for now, Aurora,” Logan’s voice entered the conversation from behind Cameron, “Go a little easy on him will ya?”
“Fine,” She said with a sigh, plucking the helmet off his head and tossing it on a nearby table.
Cameron look up at Logan, who was doing his hardest to keep a smug grin off his face.
“Not. One. Word.” He said, pointing at the older pilot.
Logan held his hands up in surrender, “Lips are sealed kid. Just came over to see if were ready to dust off.”
“Dust off?” Cameron asked, eyebrow raised in curiosity.
“We got a job,” Aurora said, answering his question, “Well, technically you got a job. Which means I have a job when you inevitably beat this limited edition mech to shit, and I have to buff out the dents.”
Cameron blinked, looking between his mentor and his mechanic, “Well… that was quick”
Logan shrugged, “Nature of the beast, bud. Shit’s expensive. Gotta keep the lights on somehow. Now come on,” He said, motioning for Cameron to join him as he turned to make his way outside of the facility, “We got an appointment to keep,”
A quick shower and change of clothes later, Cameron was following behind Logan as he was led into one of the many cafes that dotted the landscape of Arsius Station. The bitter smell of Coffee mixed with the sharp sting of tobacco filled his nose as they stepped inside, closing the heavy wooden door behind him, and flooding the small space with the choking combination of darkness and smoke.
“Back here,” Logan said, meeting Cameron’s eyes and nodding in the direction of a doorway, draped in beads and nestled into the back corner of the shop.
Nodding, Cameron followed, squeezing past the swath of wide bodied, muscular mountains that made up the A.R.M.S. pilot population. It was something he was still getting used to, the vast majority of people possessing the same warrior aesthetic as him. Hell, a vast majority of them could probably snap in half if they wanted to. He pushed those trivial thoughts aside however, as he parted the beaded door and stepped into a small room, playing host to a small, circular, wooden table and a fidgety bespectacled man that looked as if he’d rather be anywhere than here.
“Mr. Bennett, I presume?” Logan said, flashing a salesman’s smile as he extended a hand towards the man.
The man nodded, quickly shooting to his feet and reached out to shake Logan’s hand, his tiny, trembling fingers getting completely engulfed by Logan’s massive paws.
“Y-Yes sir,” the man said, speaking barely above a nervous whisper, “Preston Bennett, COO of Celephis Oil.”
“Celephis Oil?” Cameron said, speaking up as he looked over Logan’s shoulder, staring at Bennett, “Never heard of it.”
“W-We’re a small operation. Only a two continent coverage on my home planet of Celephis.”
“Explains why he’s talking to us…” Cameron said under his breath.
“I beg your pardon?” Bennett asked, genuinely unsure of what Cameron had said.
“Don’t mind him,” Logan, motioning a hand towards Cameron, before point to the chair behind Bennett, “Please have a seat.”
“Okay…” Bennett said, tentativelly sitting down. Logan followed his lead, sitting across from him, and leaning his elbows on the table. Cameron looked around to find a chair of his own, but failing to find one, leaned against a wall, watching the exchange between the two men as Logan got down to business.
“So,” Logan said, his voice sounding cheerful and polite, “What can we do for you today Mr. Bennett?”
“Bennett looked around the room, meeting the eyes of Logan and Cameron in turn, even looking past them to the bustling sounds of commerce coming from the cafe proper. After a minute, he cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose, fidgeting slightly before finally deciding to illuminate the situation.”
“Celephis’s continents are different than how you’d classify them. Instead of water separating our landmasses, we have live on massive plateaus while a massive ocean of chlorine gas covers a dried up seabed, thousands of feet below our habitable zone, and covering a vast majority of the planet.”
“Sounds lovely,” Cameron scoffed, with Bennett offering a nervous chuckle in return.
“Indeed,” He said, looking up at Cameron this time, “We call it ‘The Caustic Sea’ and suffice to say it’s the defining feature of Celephis itself. On our plateaus, everything is fine and we can live fairly comfortably, but down below it is a no-mans-land, leaving the only ways of traversal between landmasses as low orbit flight, or pressure sealed rail transport. We at Celephis Oil specialize in the latter. Thanks to our lines, we can reach anywhere on a continent in a matter of hours. It’s really an impressive feat that I’d be quite happy to go into-”
“Why are we here Mr. Bennett?” Logan said, cutting the man off, and refocusing the conversation back to the topic at hand.
Bennett, who had been daring to form a genuine smile as he talked about his company stopped cold in his tracks. The smile dropped and he gulped, nodding in understanding, “We have been having some… cargo issues lately,” He said, looking away and not meeting their gazes, “Our Convoys have been getting ambushed by a group of pirates as the make their way through the Caustic Sea.”
“How do you know they’re pirates?” Logan asked.
“Because of the survivors they leave behind,” Bennett said, “Only one of our fifty man security details are left behind… to send a message.”
“And what’s the message?”
“More…” Bennett said, “The Red Wraiths want more.”
“The Red Wraiths huh?” Logan asked, raising an eyebrow as stifled a chuckle, “Sounds… mencacing.”
“Indeed,” Bennett said, nodding in the affirmative.
“Why us?” Cameron asked, crossing his arms as he studied Bennett. He could see how the question made him uncomfortable, the way he shifted his eyes between himself and Logan, a soft red tint appearing on his pale cheeks as he cleared his throat”
“W-Well you see… Celephis Oil isn’t as… Lucrative as business as of late. If I could afford the funding to go one of the bigger GACs I would have, b-but because silver is tight now-”
“You decided to go to two lowly freelancers not worth a shit eh?” Logan asked, crossing his arms and sounding dangerous.
Bennetts eyes went wide, shaking his eye rapidly from side to side as he held his hands up in surrender, sputtering likea a bad engine.
“N-N-No! I-I-I would never insinuate S-Such a thing!”
Logan’s laughter rang out throughout the room as reached and patted the oil executive on the shoulder.
“Just messing with you Mr. Bennett. Trying to get you to loosen up is all. Didn’t mean to scare ya.”
Cameron watched the man breathe a sigh of relief, a soft smile playing across his face as he chuckled nervously, “W-Well played Mr. Rake… You had me going there for a moment.”
“Well,” Logan said, turning back to look at Cameron over his shoulder, “What you think kid?”
Cameron shrugged, looking at him, “I think wide open spaces is the perfect place to open up let loose.”
“I-I feel like I should tell you,” Bennett spoke up again, fidgeting nervously with his glasses as he spoke, “There’s at least eight units that we’ve identified on our surveillance logs from the trains, potentially more. I know at least half of them are Squire units but even still. I-If it’s just the two of you, you’re going in outnumbered.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Logan said, flashing a smile, “That’s just a target rich environment.”