Scarlet Steel

The average mercenary company employs anywhere between three and eight pilots, along with an equal number of AI. Larger companies are often too costly to deploy, and equally unnecessary. Those who run alone are rare, but always remembered, despite the fact their stories almost always turn out the same. - Pilots Through the Ages

“Ready to run?” I don’t bother to hide my excitement.

“Go ahead.” Exa responds.

I shove the accelerator and Hoppy takes off, rocks crunching beneath her feet. She’s a little sluggish with the increased gravity, but I get used to it quickly. At least I can feel it responding to my inputs. I do a couple hard starts and quick stops, all of which she handles perfectly.

“Not going to take it slow?” Exa asks.

“Nope! If she’s going to fail, we might as well get it over with.” I slam the accelerator forward again and pull the flight stick right, pulling her into a tight loop. I take manual control of her left leg and throw it out as I turn, putting all her weight on that single leg. She has no problem pushing back, letting me pivot tightly even in a full sprint. I jerk hard in the suspension harness, but everything holds.

“Hell yeah!” I do the same motion a few times, switching which leg takes the force. “I couldn’t do any of this before!”

“If you’re going to do that regularly with this high gravity, we’ll need to reinforce the legs more.”

“Sure, sure.” I stop doing my pivots and change my test. How tight can she turn at a full-on sprint without slowing down? I do progressively tighter loops.

“They’re taking bets on if you’ll crash.” Exa informs me.

“Really? I-” A familiar grinding noise makes my ears ring and I’m thrown against the side of the cockpit as Hoppy slams into the ground. “Ughhh. Please don’t tell me it’s the flywheel.”

“I don’t understand what went wrong.” Exa replies. “Maybe a loose axle? Regardless, we have a spare in the ship.”

“How much money did I just lose you?” I pull open a compartment, open my toolbox, grab out a screwdriver, and scratch a tenth tick into the side of the cockpit.

“Lose? No, Janus is paying out to the rest of us.”

“Wait, you bet against me? Everyone bet against me?”

“It was the safe bet.”

“Dick.”

I open up the cockpit to the outside world and climb out. I don’t even feel warm in this suit. The rest of the group is watching, but none of them are coming to help. That’s fine, this should be an easy fix.

From a visual inspection, the damage is minimal. The armor is designed to take blunt impacts like this, although the left knee took a lot of the force, and a few parts are warped.

“Exa, can you fold up the left leg? Go slow.”

The leg moves in response, and soon enough the shrill shriek of metal against metal fills the air. Exa stops as soon as she hits resistance.

“Great.” More endless work. I just need to get it back to the ship. A quick, dirty fix is plenty good enough. If gravity wasn’t so high, I’d just take out the broken parts, loosen the joint enough to move, and walk her home. Now though? I’d be afraid of something buckling if I reduce the structural integrity at all.

Can I get her onto her feet without bending the leg in 2 g? Maybe, actually. There’s a few cracks in the ground, it’s possible I can use that as an anchor point.

I grab my toolbox and get to work.

“Extend the leg please.” As soon as she does, I shove the wrench into both the knee’s gearbox, as well as the hip’s, locking them in place. Next I disconnect the hip motor from any gears, leaving a bare axle.

“What are you planning?” Exa asks.

“To get her home.” I grab a nanofiber rope from my tool storage and connect one end to the axle. “Spin a few feet of that up please.”

I tie the other end of the rope around a breaker bar. I shove that into one of the cracks in the ground and wedge it between the walls. That seems pretty secure. That’ll work as an anchor.

“Hit the recovery system, get the right leg under her, and use the left hip to pivot her onto her feet.”

“On it.”

Hoppy moves. Between plates folding down from her chassis and pulling on the rope with her hip, it’s just enough to get her good leg beneath her. From there, standing up is easy.

“Nice!” I try to recover the breaker bar, only to find it’s far too embedded in the rock to move. Whatever, I can still salvage the rope at least. I try to climb up the leg to remove the rope from the axle, only to find gravity far too strong to get off the ground. I can’t even reach the hip, much less climb into the cockpit.

“Ah, crap.” There has to be a solution to getting into the cockpit. Everyone is watching. Maybe I can pull myself up in the same way Hoppy pulled herself.

If gravity was normal that’d be easy. I could just toss the rope overtop of her chassis and have Exa pull. Although in regular gravity I could just climb up. In 2 g though? No way that’s happening, I’d just make a fool of myself. I do have a roll of twine in my toolbox though. That might be light enough to throw over the top of her? Screw it, I have to try something.

I pull out a length of twine and hold it in one hand. In the other I take the spool and throw it as hard as I can. It gets high enough, but slips off the side. After just a few more tries, I manage to get it over the top! A small exhaust vent sticking out of the top should hopefully keep it from slipping off.

I tie the twine to the rope and use that to pull it over the top. All that’s left to do is to tie a loop into the end of the rope and step into it.

“Alright Exa, pull me up!”

“Just don’t hurt yourself.” Despite her complaints, she spools up the rope. 

Sure enough, I rise slowly into the air! It pulls me right to the entrance of the cockpit and I climb inside. I store my toolbox, hook myself into the suspension harness, and place my hands on the controls.

“Can you even walk with a locked leg?” She asks.

“Sure I can. This isn’t the first time I’ve used this solution.” Bending the good leg causes Hoppy to tip to the right. Once her weight is shifted, I can push upwards, pulling the left leg off the ground for just a moment. I can use that to swing it forward just a foot, taking an awkward, lumbering step. “See?”

“If it makes you feel better, I did bet that you’d figure out how to get Hoppy back.”

“How often do you guys make bets about me?” I ask.

“Often.”

“And you just didn’t bother to tell me?”

“Nope. Informing you is likely to have an effect on the bet.”

“Right, of course.” I’m glad there’s a camera in here and Exa can see me shake my head. “Let me guess, you’re making bets on if I make it back to the ship without falling over?”

“No, of course not. We’re all in agreement that you can manage it.”

“I’d prove you wrong if it wasn’t so inconvenient.”

“See, this is why we never told you.”

It takes more than a few minutes to limp back to the dropship, all under the close watch of everyone else. Ah shoot, I should probably tell Juno the plan.

“Juno, we need to get some repairs done. We’ll be back soon.”

“Exa has made me aware. In the future I expect you to report your own status.”

“I’ll do better when it matters.” I promise.

“No, when things matter you’ll do what you practiced. I can’t have you going silent when things get bad. I’d always rather you say too much than too little, Elara and Exa will filter out whatever I don’t need to know.”

“Alright, well, the flywheel’s seized and my left knee’s bent. Repairs should only take a few hours at most.”

“Confirmed. If a ship drops into orbit before you’re done, I’m calling back the dropship, and I don’t care if you’re done or not.”

“Alright, we’ll be quick.”

I shuffle into the open door of the dropship, and Hoppy gets locked in place.

“I’m going to take a quick nap.” I pull my toolbox out of its compartment and use it to support my head. “Let me know when we get to the ship.” I close my eyes, letting the harness hold me.

A moment later I open my eyes and glance around, only to find myself back on the planet. That’s… not right?

“Morning.” Exa says. “I think that’s the longest you’ve slept all week.”

“What? No, don’t tell me I missed the repairs!" I scramble to check Hoppy’s status, and the console reports no problems. “I asked you to wake me up!”

“Then you should have woken up when I tried.”

The speakers come to life and a voice that’s unmistakably mine comes out of it. I’m mumbling, but the words are clear. “Just a few more minutes.” Following that recording comes six more, with me getting more and more frustrated every time.

“Ugh.” I don’t even remember complaining. “Just shake me next time, or drop me a few inches. That’ll get me moving.”

“You can’t run on no sleep.” She reminds me.

“I’m not on no sleep, just very little sleep.” I flick to console screens back to the outside view of the mech.

Juno and the rest of them have been hard at work. Defensive structures have been erected near to and around the entrance of the mine, made of metal, rock, and Photon Lock Shields projected into the air. Thick cords run from each of the projectors, along the ground, and deep into the mine. Hopefully whatever antimatter engine they have down there has a high peak output, those shields are going to be hungry if bullets start firing.

“Good, you're awake.” Janus notes. “You need to be in the simulator every moment you can.”

“Alright, start it up.”

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