Scarlet Steel

The Halberd is a medium weapons platform created by Damascus Engineering, specializing in missile barrages, both supportive and offensive. Gravity manipulating missiles allow it to manipulate large parts of the battlefield. Crawling on treads, the Halberd is the smallest mech of its type, but its weaknesses are just as numerous as its strengths. Slow moving with limited short range defensive capabilities means even scouts getting on top of it is a dangerous situation.

I shut down Hoppy and climb out. Four hands descend from the ceiling and floor and clamp down on my mech, holding her in place.

“ERROR secure.” A mechanical voice fills the room.

Is that a problem? If it was, Elara would say something.

The other three bays sit empty. A narrow path runs between them, along the entire length of the ship. This place would be pretty crowded with all four bays filled up.

MaybeI should unpack? I reach up to grab my bags, only to be interrupted by the same mechanical voice as before.

“Scarlet, Juno and Elara request your presence in the cockpit.”

“Oh! Ok, thank you.” I call back. I guess I’ll leave everything here.

I poke my head into the pathway. One way ends in just a flat wall, and the other has a door built into it. I guess that makes things easy.

I step out and glance back. Hoppy looks hilariously tiny in her bay. She’s barely five tons, and not much taller than me when she’s crouched down. These bays could each easily hold a large mech, one around 20 tons.

The door opens on its own as I approach. Behind it is a room that’s packed with technology. In the center is a table with a holographic map of the junkyard hovering above it. At the front of the room are two separate stations, chairs bolted to the floor surrounded by consoles and screens. Elara is currently sitting at one, and although she doesn’t need to reach out to interact with things, she still pretends to. The screens flicker rapidly, and I recognize just enough to know she’s performing system checks.

Juno, on the other hand, is leaning against the table. A portion of the map is missing, replaced by endless files that she’s flicking through. She doesn't even glance up as I enter.

“You ever been in orbit?” She asks.

“No.”

“I keep the ship at 1g, it’s going to be heavier than you’re used to. You’ll get used to it. Lyra’s waving to you if you want to watch her. Elara, take off.”

Against the wall is a massive screen, a camera trained on Mom.

“Can she see me?”

“No.”

The ship shudders as it begins to rise into the air, and gravity increases. I barely notice though, my attention is glued to the screen, watching as Mom slowly disappears below. Soon she vanishes, followed by the house, and even the town melds into nothing. The junkyard in its entirety is visible, my entire world, it's all so tiny from up here. More junkyards reveal themselves from the expanding horizon, dotting the planet randomly. Between the points of life things are just barren rocks. Do those vines stretch all the way between the scrapyards? Or are they just around each one?

The entire planet begins to curve away from us, and still I keep my eyes pinned to where she was. I’ll be back.

The planet stays in place, but the screens around me shift depicting a much larger, bulky ship. A rectangular section near the back is missing, cutting through the width of it. Our ship heads directly towards it.

We come to a stop directly in front of the cutout, and arms extend from the larger ship, hooking on to our hull. It guides us into the hole, combining both our ships together.

“Docking successful.” The robotic voice announces.

“Andromeda, release the Hopper and open door four.”

“Error, no Hopper found.”

Juno sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Register the mech in bay 3 as a Hopper.”

“Internal registration confirmed.”

“Release the hopper and open door four.”

“Release confirmed. Door operation confirmed.”

“Scarlet, come on.” Juno heads towards the door. “We need to get your mech moved over to warm storage.”

“Ok.” I follow closely behind her. “Who’s Andromeda?”

“Non-sentient assistant AI. If you need anything simple, just ask. She’s always listening.”

“Wouldn’t that make her an assistant bot? Not an AI?”

“Nope, full fledged AI, and she likes it that way. Don’t try to change her, it doesn’t turn out well."

“What do you mean?”

“Not my story to tell.” Juno leads me to Hoppy, and I climb inside. 

The door on the other side of the ship is already open, letting me walk directly through another bay and into a much larger warehouse. Ten total bays line the walls, five on each side. Nine of them are stocked with mechs I recognize, facing proudly into the room. Crimson lines run along every seam and edge. Scaffolding surrounds them, and extendable walkways press into them at various points.

All of this would have made things so much easier when I was building Hoppy. Not having to construct ramps to get heavy parts into place, only to dismantle them afterwards would have saved literal months.

Only one of the bays is empty, and I head directly towards it. Turning Hoppy around and backing her in is easy.

“Please hold still.” Andromeda’s voice filters in from behind me.

Clamps come down on Hoppy, and a walkway extends from behind, coming to a stop just a few feet beneath the entrance to the cockpit.

“Hopper secure.” She announces.

I guess I’m good to shut her down? I lock Hoppy’s legs, turn off the engine, and remain held in exactly the same place.

I climb out of the cockpit and onto the walkway. Juno is waiting for me just in front of Hoppy, and I rush down to meet her. The scaffolding has a convenient ramp system. That’s good. My steps are a little heavier than I’m used to, I don’t know how much I’d trust myself climbing a ladder.

“Before anything, you need to get registered. We can’t move into any contested zone without it.”

“Mercenaries have to be registered? I thought the entire point of them was that they’re free to do whatever?”

That makes Juno pinch the bridge of her nose in the exact same way she did for Andromeda.

“Where did you learn what we do?” She asks.

“From news and a few books I traded for.” I sheepishly admit.

“Your mom should have told you all this.” She sighs. “Andromeda, bring out two chairs.”

“Order confirmed.” She responds. Just a moment later, two mechanical bodies come out of a door at the end of the warehouse. Juno silently waits the entire walk. Eventually Andromeda reaches us, sets down the chairs, and walks away. 

“Sit down.” Juno orders.

I follow her order, and she takes the other chair only after I'm settled.

“Mercenaries are a highly regulated business. We’re not cowboys, we’re not outlaws, and we’re not heroes. We exist because an interplanetary war would be devastating. Instead, our job is to facilitate smaller, less destructive wars. For offensive operations we work in contested areas of the Spur, and only in those contested areas. Every job we take is regulated. There are checks done by your AI before each individual bullet is loaded into your gun’s chamber. There are laws in everything we do, and you’re going to memorize every last word of them before you set foot in your Hopper again. Defensive operations, on the other hand, have much more leeway. Pirates and bandits are common in less secure areas of the Spur, not just in contested areas. When we’re defending civilians, we have broad powers to do whatever is necessary.”

“I thought mercenaries weren’t part of any government? Who makes the laws?”

“Quantums, who else? There’s a group, Argenta, that knows your every move. No idea what kind of quantum fuckery they’re doing, but they know. Break too many rules, and within 30 minutes you’re getting hot dropped on by a lucky fucker in a 200 ton mech. Equally, that same threat forces groups to pay. I’ve seen stories of that thing dropping on some poor bastard’s house and walking away, shrugging off half a planet’s military as it walked to the dropship.”

“I’ll memorize everything!” I quickly say. “I learn quick.”

“Good. First and most important rule is not to kill civilians. Don’t harm them, hell, don’t so much as inconvenience them. If we’re in an area with civilians, you don’t shoot if there’s any possibility you hurt anyone not in the fight. I will tell you before a mission if there are civilians in the area, and how much you need to watch your fire. If you fuck up and kill somone not in the fight, it’s my ass on the line.”

“I don’t think you need to be worried about that. It’s not like I want to hurt people for no reason.”

“Mistakes try to happen, don’t let them. Second, literally everything about your Hopper is horribly illegal inside contested zones. Mechs are regulated to ensure collateral damage is kept to a minimum and to keep cells from cooking off. You can do some limited customization, and field repair is fine, but beginning an op with your mismash of parts? That’s dangerous. Fighting bandits outside of contested zones, however, is much more laid back.”

“Do you have replacement parts?” I ask. “I can swap them out.” Sure that means everything I did to get her running was worthless, but I won’t turn down new parts.

“You’ll work with Janus on that. Third is surrendering. We get paid to do jobs, not necessarily to kill people. If someone ejects their weapons and starts walking away, they’re no longer a combatant. They get treated the same way any civilian does. If you surrender though, you don’t get to retreat and bring a new mech. You’re out of the op. If someone retreats without surrendering, or hits their LADDER system without broadcasting their surrender, they can come back. Don’t let them.”

“Ok. None of that seems that hard to remember.”

“It’s just the broad strokes. You’ve got 600 pages of dense technical writing to memorize. The real conversation I need to have with you is about an AI. Every pilot needs a partner, and AI willing to help are rare. I don’t just have a few of them shoved in a closet.”

“What about Exa?” I ask.

“What about her, indeed.” Juno reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small, flat rectangle. I’ve seen it more than enough in my technical documents to know exactly what it is.

Exa’s holo.

It’s a compact, standardized chip for AI to inhabit. The official solution to most of the problems I had to circumvent on my mech was to ‘let an AI handle it’ followed by nearly indecipherable technical information.

“She’s been off since your dad died.” Juno continues. “I try once a year, but she just yells at me. You want to be a pilot? Help her. Until then you’re a mechie stuck in warm storage.”

I take Exa, the entirety of her, from Juno’s hand. I turn it over. On one side, a circle is embossed in the top, alongside a few buttons. I don’t hesitate to press the power button.

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