For Great Justice

Page 1

ish looked down from the deployment platform and groaned. "Another fucking mecha. Why do people keep building these stupid things?"

    "Because they're awesome," Takagi said. He slammed the rack of minirockets into his launcher. "At least, they're big and scary and they're in all the cool movies." He grinned. "And hardly anybody's seen what happens when a couple of guys with all the guns they can carry go to town on one."

    "Time to fix that," Fish said. His magpack came alive with a whine. "I'm the bait, you're the hook, right?"

    "I'm pretty sure it's my turn, yah," Takagi said. "You can crack the cockpit if you want, though. I just wanna see the look on his face."

    "Done," Fish said. He was wearing a powered exoskeleton, not for protection or strength, but because it was the only practical way to use the magpack at the same time as his autocannon. Anything else just played havoc with balance and stability. "Let's move."

    He stepped off the ramp, dropping in a controlled fall away from the zeppelin toward where the massive armoured mech was stalking along the street. He looked up, saw Takagi waiting on the edge, timing his fall to a nicety. Below, the street was clearing, even faster now that a few cars had been blasted into smoking shells by the robot's cannons.

    Weirdos, Fish thought. They put together these stupid mecha, march them out into the street and attack corporate headquarters, or banks, or sometimes yakuza outfits. And then we come along and ice them, and everything goes quiet. Then a few months later another Robin fucking Hood pops up, and gets his ass blown away before you can say Gundam Fucking Wing.

    His feet slammed into tarmac. The mech was a hundred meters away, striding toward him, obviously unimpressed by his gossamer fall. I'm just one man, Fish thought, after all. I'm not even wearing armour. So I've got a gun? You've got a bigger one. Watch this, right?

    The massive triple-barrelled gun on the mech's left shoulder started to spin. Artillery chaingun? Whoo. Too many videogames, I think. Emphasis rotated forward on its powered armature, and Fish locked the autocannon's fire control into his vision-actuated firing firmware. As the mech's tri-cannon started to belch fire, Emphasis came alive with short, precise hums, each sound a meticulous twelve-round burst punctuated by the whine of servos as Fish adjusted his aim with microsecond timing.

    There was a series of midair explosions - sensors on the watching zeppelin recorded twenty-six, but Fish was too focused to notice and too indifferent to count. Then the mech's pilot stopped firing, incredulous. "Yes," Fish said, aloud. "I shot the shells in mid-flight. Do you have any idea how good you have to be to do that?" Admittedly, he added to himself, first-class fire-control software and predictive SI help with that, as well as Deep One genewriting for perfect neural control. But feeding the mystique is important.

"Show-off," said Moore's voice in his ear.

    Fish grinned. The mech swivelled slightly on its gimballed waist, and the radiating fins on the right-shoulder weapon started to glow. "Laser time," the control operator added.

    "I'd noticed," Fish said. He stood still, fired a long burst that raked diagonally across the body of the mech and ended strafing across the laser weapon. "Oh look. Armour." He glanced upward, as if in silent prayer.

    Emphasis rotated back to vertical, locked again by the armature to the frame of the exoskeleton. The radiating fins were glowing dull red now. The mech strode forward, tilting forward at the same time as if looking down at the tiny figure that dared defy it. Nearly time to cut me in half, yes? It's all about the timing. Got to make the dramatic pose. Unconsciously, Fish's thick lips curled in a derisive smile. Fucking lamer.