Chapter 6: The Duel

A little late, but better late than never...

The emergency reserve fuel indicator lit up in Kella’s cockpit. She completely ignored it. She was transfixed on the explosions flashing across Duckett’s Landing. Was she too late? Kella dropped altitude in order to pick up speed. She’d be damned if she let her prize get taken out in some Podunk landing strip in the middle of no where.

She flipped the beam rifle from its pack and armed it. The massive weapon was slow to fire and hard to aim, not to mention unwieldy, but as long as its battery had a charge, she could fire. Thankfully, the weapon had its own battery and wouldn’t drain her already exhausted Scythe’s resources any further. Before she could get a closer look at the battle raging below a buzzer sounded.
“Damn it all!” she cried out as she pushed her Scythe into a barrel roll. The Military Cavs had caught up. Kella gave a quick glance at the scanner and noted it was only one Cav. It was probably a scout for the main group.

“I’m a little busy at the moment!” she said as she finished her barrel roll half-way through and with a minor twist, brought the rifle to bear. The Cav seemed unprepared for the sudden reversal and hesitated. It was all Kella needed and she depressed the trigger. A beam of highly-charged plasma lanced out from the muzzle and contacted the Cav’s left leg, severing it at the knee in a spectacular explosion. Unable to maintain balance, the wounded machine tumbled from the sky.

Grunting in effort, Kella yanked her Scythe back around to Duckett’s. The situation hadn’t changed it seemed. She was now close enough to the field to get a visual of what was really going on. The Praetorian was desperately trying to get to a launch position while at the same time playing a game of tag with an elite mech.

“Nice toys they have for a hole in the ground,” she said as she watched the elite spin stylishly away from a mini-missile barrage. “That stupid computer,” she said disgustedly as she raised the muzzle towards the elite. She was at max range, and while it was moving as quickly as it was, hitting the elite mech was out of the question. It would, however, give it something else to think about and buy some breathing room for her plane. She tapped off two rounds in quick succession.



Hues was completely absorbed in his combat with the massive plane. It was still rolling, and he had yet to get a clean shot off at it. His frustration was mounting, and his maneuvers were becoming sloppy. He had to calm down, concentrate. He took in a large breath of stale air to calm himself. He finished his high-end turn and brought his rifle to bear on the plane only to have another buzzer start screaming.

“What now?” he roared as he winged-over, evading the unseen attack. Once he cleared the turn, he glanced at the scanner and saw that the attacker was an incoming mech. He’d initially ignored it, thinking it was the scout for the main Cav group. That mistake had almost cost him everything.

Disengaging from his duel with the plane, Hues maneuvered to a higher altitude for a more favorable attacking position on this new enemy. He’d deal with it quickly and then get back to his main target. He brought his rifle up once more, but saw a flash through the scope. He quickly lowered the weapon and put up his Knight’s forearm. The beam was refracted safely away by his mirror shield. That was a close call. Why was everything being so damned difficult today?

An explosion ripped through the back-plating of his Knight knocking Hues almost senseless. It had taken him by surprise, and he hadn’t been braced for the shock. Shaking his head to clear his swimming vision, he sent his machine into a spiraling dive to gain distance from the massive plane. Several warning indicators flashed up on his HUD and he realized that they were mini-missiles from the damned plane. He was sure he was out of range of those missiles! How far could they possibly go?

Another warning buzzer prompted him to immediately raise the Knight’s forearm again refracting an incoming beam. This was getting out of hand. He floored the boosters and rapidly gained altitude.



“Finally, a solid hit,” Gavin hooted. “You shouldn’t underestimate me!” Laughing, Gavin slowed the craft down. He had finally arrived at the proper position. Now he just needed to turn the beast of an aircraft around and line it up with the runway for takeoff.

The plane moved slowly, but the nose came around. Lining up an indicator on the glowing holo-display with a superimposed image of the runway markers, Gavin brought the craft to a stop. He fired the anchor tethers and locked the breaks to keep the plane stationary while the PDE’s spun up to max. Thirty seconds more and he’d be airborne. Maybe luck was on his side after all.



Kella couldn’t see the Elite. It had suddenly pulled a death climb and disappeared from her visual scanner. She couldn’t seem to detect the sleek bastard on her sensors either. This fight was all about good, old fashioned instincts. Where would this guy come from? From sunward? From the cloudbank? If she were him, she’d come in from the cloudbank as close to sunward as possible. “And that would be about here,” she said as she leveled her beam rifle.

It happened in an instant. She saw the flash of sunlight and instinctively pulled the trigger. She watched the energy lance out, but at the same time watched her HUD light up like red fireworks. A dozen buzzers began wailing and warbling and she pushed her Scythe over into a stall dive.

It wasn’t enough. She knew it. She fired every last booster she had to pull up and away from the incoming missiles, but they had her. The impact knocked her around the cockpit and she cracked her head on the support strut. Her world exploded with light and sound. Seeing stars and not really understanding what she was doing, she pulled up again with all her might. She stopped hearing the cacophony of warning sounds and her vision began to swim red.



“Shit,” Hues said as he tried to control his own wounded machine. He’d fired a full barrage of missiles as soon as he’d tagged her from the cloudbank, but apparently she’d seen his maneuver and was waiting. The beam had sliced completely through his Knight’s right arm and most of the chest armor. He had felt the heat as the reflective armor melted away. He also watched as the clever pilot pulled a crazy stunt and he wasn’t entirely sure which did more damage, his missiles or the pull-out of the dive. Regardless, the machine was toast for sure and he couldn’t afford to give any more thought to that enemy. His own situation required his full attention.

Unable to perform the high-G maneuvers with his damage, Hues slowly turned back to the field and checked his available weapons. He had a small blaster pistol. The enemy’s beam had severed the arm holding his beam rifle. How the hell was he supposed to take on that fortress of an aircraft with a pistol? Maybe he wouldn’t need to. Hues unloaded the power clip and loaded a special round.