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For Great Justice
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2
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He reached up. Inevitability slid from its powered sheath on
an
animate, flexible cable, and snapped into place automatically. His
hands fell into position automatically, conditioned by muscle training
too rigorous to ever fade. As instinctively, Fish locked the weapon
into his fire-control programs. He searched for appropriate coolness,
found no words. Not my
job. Takagi does one-liners. A shot cracked out,
startlingly loud in the bystanderless silence. I hope they're watching from
somewhere. This is too important a lesson not to be seen. Somewhere
above he heard the roar of a helicopter. Of course, the zeppelin would
be recording everything, but other media coverage was always to be
preferred.
The laser's fins leaped into
cherry-red brightness, slow intimidating warmup cycle abandoned in the
pilot's terror. The invulnerable metalglass of his cockpit lay in
shards around and over him, smashed by a single shot from Fish's
powergun. No more playing around; the armed man was dangerous, kill
him! Game-trained reflexes operating, the pilot brought his laser into
play and opened up with the tri-cannon as well.
A haze of smoke and fire masked his view. Infrared and radar
flashed confusingly, masked by explosions and unexpected jamming, but
the laser sliced a grid around Fish's last verified position.
Tri-cannon shells blasted small craters everywhere, even in the air. He's shooting them down again!
the pilot thought, amazed even through the pulsing adrenaline of
combat. The roar of weapons, insanely loud without his shielding
canopy, almost masked the thump of boots on the head of the mech. Above
him. Behind him. The pilot looked up, a flashing glance away from his
target that turned into a stare of appalled realization.
"Game over, man," Takagi said. Staring up the lance-like tube
of
the odd-looking weapon at a tiny bluish glow, the pilot understood in a
leap of desperation what was coming. "All your base are belong to us."
For a long moment, the cockpit was awash with intolerable
flame.
Its guiding mind evaporated, the massive battlemech subsided into quiet.
Fish landed with a thump beside Takagi. His high ballistic
trajectory had been mostly without power, and it seemed appropriate
that he should land without the magpack's assistance. The hybrid had no
trouble keeping his balance, didn't even thrust out a hand to steady
himself as he came back to ground after his impossibly boosted jump.
"I love this game," Takagi said.
"Sometimes I wish there was another mode than Deathmatch, though."
"Like what? Capture the fucking Flag?" Fish grimaced. "Trust
me,
it gets old real fast. Giant robots, though...that never seems to go
out of style."
"Suits me," said Takagi.
"They're just so much fun! I wonder why they do it, though? Can't be
much fun for these poor sods."
"I guess it is - until we show up."
"Point."
"If you two geeks are finished," Moore said, "containment's
on
the way. This one's for the museum, I believe. Since it's mostly
intact, and all..."
"Precision comes with
practice," Takagi said. "A few more of these, and we'll be taking them
down without even breaking the glass."
"Now that I'd like to see," Moore said,
laughter in her voice.
"Give it a hundred years or so," Takagi answered. "But in the
meantime, we're due some R&R right here and now. Care to track
down
some straightliner who knows some decent nightlife?"
"Processing," said the control operator. "Downloading data."
The
channel suddenly flooded with bar and restaurant reviews, patron
statistics and a mass of related data. Then it fizzed and cleared, as
mission control AI clamped down on non-business-related material.
"Huh." Takagi laughed. "Takagi and Fish
en route to base. Mission status concludes. End transmission." |
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