Just another year. The slowly-spinning sphere of the pnet Rubicon-3 rotates, far below, the bulky bck shape of the stelr cruiser hanging in high-orbit, out of range of the Pnetary Closure Administration’s autonomous anti-orbital weapons-ptforms. The PCA had blockaded Rubicon-3 in the wake of the apocalyptic catastrophe known as the Fires of Ibis, almost half a century ago, which had scorched the surface of the pnet, as well as the nearest other worlds, in an event that caused the region of space to be designated a ‘burning star system’.Decades ter, and Rubicon-3 is still a barren, bckened wastend, ruins of hab-blocks, factories, industrial parks, foundries, and corporate towers still litter the surface, providing still-salvageable data and parts to those brave, or foolish, enough to risk scavenging. Only now, in the st few years, have the corporations arrived, with the rediscovery of a substance that functions as a source of near-limitless energy. Coral.
Even the PCA’s nigh-impregnable Closure System wasn’t able to keep the corporations from making successful ndfall on Rubicon’s charred, ashen surface, and where the corporations go, independent mercenaries are swift to follow, hunting for lucrative contracts and profitable one-time gigs.
Over the cruiser’s intercom, a voice speaks to the hangar-crew. A gravelly, taciturn growl, belonging to one of the most infamous mercenary liaisons.
“We’re getting close to Rubicon. Wake the dog up.”
The monotone chime of the automated systems kicking in fills the cold, dead air, as the COM warbles.
“Handler Walter verified. Activating cerebral Coral control device.”
On the side of the ship, a hatch hisses open, the escaping pressure and gasses of pneumatics lost in the silent roar of the void.
“Augmented Human C4-621… has awakened.”
The shuttle inside the ship’s deployment-chute glides forward, detaching as the propulsion structure fres into incandescent life, sending the shuttle and its contents spiralling downwards, towards the distant pnet.
Handler Walter’s voice crackles through the speakers into the shuttle’s cradle.
“Time to get to work, 621.”
As the shuttle dips lower, caught in the well of Rubicon’s gravity, the Handler gets to work.
“I’m powering down your entry capsule. On my signal…”
Fragments of metal and space-rock whistle past the downrushing capsule.
“Now! Activate the AC.”
The Closure System starts to bre, a glowing red iris flickering on and expanding as the intruding object enters its range. The nearest weapon, a massive railgun, charges up and fires, a golden crackle of lightning briefly roiling across the weapon’s framework. The projectile, a half-tonne lump of high-grade polycomposite alloy, crosses the distance in less than a nanosecond, striking the side of the small, descending shuttle.
The impact isn’t enough to destroy it, instead sending it off-course, the contents within rattled but retively undamaged. Now out of range of the PCA’s weapons-grid, the shuttle plummets on, down towards the growing bulk of Rubicon…
Over the sprawling yout of an abandoned, ravaged city, the shuttle’s re-entry thrusters fire, slowing the capsule by just enough to give the maglocks time to disengage, jettisoning the cargo in mid-air, just as the shuttles’ systems fail due to the damage sustained, exploding into a rain of shrapnel.
From on high, like a steel angel, the Armored Core unit contained within plunges down towards the city, right hand csped around an assault-rifle bigger than a school bus.
Bipedal, shaped like a humanoid, with a recessed head containing sensor arrays and multi-directional comms-systems, diegetic interface tech. The torso containing the pilot’s cradle is the most heavily-armored, since without a pilot, an AC is just a big hunk of scrap. And, nestled within the cramped, muffled bckness of the mech… is me. C4-621. A Gen-Four Augmented human.
Crashing down through the roof of a towering metal structure, I come to rest in a dimly-lit chamber, my eyes opening as the datalink between my body and my AC is fully-established. A cold chill seeps through me as a purgative floods my cardiovascur system, ridding me of the sedative that, until just minutes ago, had been pumping through me.
I turn my great metal head from side to side, taking stock of my surroundings. Systems check… minor damage, but within tolerance. A repair kit will soon have me fully-functioning again. Ammunition, check. Weapons, loaded. High-impact ordnance… oh dear.
Where my right shoulder still has its Furlong Dynamics four-cell homing-missile uncher battery, the left one is gone. Just… nope. That’s… going to complicate things.
At least the HI-32: BUTT/A Pulse Bde mounted to my left arm is still intact and functional, as is my RF-024 TURNER assault rifle.
The gyros and servos whir and hiss as the locking protocol is disengaged. Free to move…
The COM chimes in.
“Descent to ISB2262, ‘Rubicon-3’, complete.”
Handler Walter’s reticent voice breaks through the distorted comms-line.
“Your position is… Grid 135. Off target, but within permissible range. There’s a catapult ahead. Use it to close the gap.”
In my ear, the A.I of my AC chirrups, “main system, activating combat mode.”
The shoulder-mounted uncher slides up and locks into pce, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. I feel my blood thrumming with a fresh cocktail of potent combat-stims, designed to keep me fighting no matter what, short of my own death or the complete destruction of my AC. This old junker wasn’t built with an ejection module impnted. If I go up in smoke, that’s it. Game over, man. Game over.
I start moving, my body jolting slightly with each titanic footfall. An AC is no small thing. Even my LOADER 4 is about 30 metres tall, and it’s one of the smaller, more basic models. Then, I start gliding forwards with the back-mounted scramjets, slithering over the metal floor grating like an overweight figure-skater.
There’s an entry point up on the wall, a rge, square hole leading through into the rest of whatever this facility was, over a hundred metres off the ground. With thudding roars, the jets built into my AC intensify their efforts, and I sail upwards, ascending with surprising speed and grace, to nd with a bone-shaking judder on the upper lip, sliding through and pausing on the other side.
The room beyond is rge enough to have its own rail-system, likely for transporting cargo containers and personnel from one end of the facility to the other. It is, however, occupied, by several machines, bipedal like my own, but much smaller. Muscle Tracers, or MTs. The prototype for what was improved upon and developed into the war-machines known as the Armored Cores.
Walter’s voice cuts in again, clipped and business-like.
“Clear out those guard-mechs. Take it as a chance to test your AC.”
I sigh. I’ve been in stasis too long. Years between jobs, and my debt’s not getting any smaller. This might be my st chance to score it big…
“Yes… Han…dler…”
I raise the rifle in my right hand, and curl one colossal metal finger. With a chugging roar, my assault-cannon spits 2-meter-long, tungsten-tipped rounds at the nearest MT.
It jerks as the three-round burst tears it apart, before it explodes, scattering misshapen scraps of itself onto the rails.
Two more turn at the sound of gunfire, one blurting out in shock, before detonating just as quickly as the others.
Up on a raised railway, there’s a hallway sealed by two separate bst-doors, but the code-directory built into my mecha begins automatically transmitting the opening cypher, the gates sliding up and daylight spilling in across the rusted tracks.
Walter’s gruff voice interrupts my brief moment of staring at the first natural light I’ve seen in… oh, months at least.
“Your AC’s taken damage. Patch it up, 621.”
I silently trigger the self-repair kit, the charged swarm of nanobots contained within reconstructing the shell of my machine. The left missile-uncher doesn’t get reconstructed, though. Must be too catastrophic even for that to work.
Along the final section of rail, there’s the catapult. A freight-uncher designed to send impact-proof cargo crates from pce to pce faster than couriering it.
Walter continues, “See that contaminated city down there? That’s where you’re nding. Access the catapult.”
I follow his instructions, stealing a gnce at the pale, snow- and ash-covered cityscape sprawled out beneath, about five-thousand metres away. It’s strangely… beautiful, even though the horror of the cataclysm that shook the star-system is clear to see.
The maglocks on the catapult cmp my huge iron hooves into pce, and I crouch forwards slightly, preparing for the jolt of take-off.
“Time to fly, 621.”
The engines built into the back-unit of my mech whine, charging up as the arms begin to bre, red lights strobing, a warning to any long-ago personnel to stand clear.
With a sucking, howling rumble, the catapult triggers, and I’m flung forwards, sailing out into open sky, the drop beneath me so distant, as I imagine, for an instant, that I can feel the rushing wind against my skin. Of course, that’s just a pleasant fiction. It’s been years since I was able, or allowed, to feel wind against me. Besides, I have a job to do.
The huge pilrs and trellises of the Grids lining the surrounding area are like a forest of stone trees, metal and concrete canopies blocking out most of the light. Walter’s promise echoes as he reaffirms it to me.
“If we get our hands on Rubicon’s Coral… we’ll make a killing. Plenty for a merc with a fried brain like you to buy their life back.”
The mountainous ground beneath me levels out just as I begin to touch-down, my steel tread shaking the earth and smashing a few coniferous trees to sap and splinters like weeds. I straighten my metal hips, upright again, and begin jetting forwards.
“Enough chat. Back to work. Scavenge the AC wrecks ahead and find a valid mercenary license. We’re illegals here- you’ll need ID to operate.”
My first contact with an actual enemy, not some automaton, comes sooner than I’d expected. A trio of MTs bigger than the guard-mechs I’d fought earlier, whirl as their scanners pick me up.
“An AC! Where the Hell did THAT come from?!”
“Affiliation: unknown! Is it a merc? Whatever- just shut it down!”
I sptter the nearest with a salvo of missiles, the explosions tearing chunks out of the one next to it by sheer proximity, then hose down the one on an elevated cliff-edge, sending it to the scrapyard as well. The st one, still clinging to functionality despite missing an arm, fires its remaining weapon at me, the small-calibre rounds plinking off my chassis like pebbles.
Walter growls, “Guerrils from the Liberation Front. They’ll get in the way of our work. Eliminate them.”
I turn and rev my Pulse Bde up, my scramjets whining as I skate forward, swinging the glowing teal energy-weapon in a savage, clean arc, slicing the MT in two as it sparks and colpses, the two halves exploding with subdued crumping noises.
Powering on through the trees, I jet out into the boundaries of the city, water spraying in trails behind me as I send ripples cascading out around the feet of my AC. More MTs are ahead, and I take one down before its pilot even notices me, my gun bucking against the vicelike grip of my metal fingers.
Walter cuts in, pinging me a data-packet.
“I’m picking up signals from AC wrecks. Follow the markers.”
Holographic locator beacons wink into existence through the optics of my AC, and I begin heading for the nearest, to my left. The ruined city stretches out all around me, and I feel an unexpected pang of sympathy. The people who had lived here… how must they have felt, as their deaths rushed towards them in raging hellfire? Did they resign themselves to their inescapable fate? Did they try to flee, regardless of the outcome? Did they rage back, cursing the ones responsible for the end of their world? Hmm…
In the colossal wreckage of a fallen tower, most likely one of the support pilrs for the Grids, there’s an AC, a burned-out husk of metal and parts. A few more MTs are surrounding it, but I don’t think they were the ones who took the bigger mech down. Two of them look like eggs with legs, stubby cannons built into their fronts, with two of the humanoid ones backing them up. They spot me as my scramjets whine loud enough to crack gss. A woman’s voice, unbelievably young, screams through an open broadcast to her fellows.
“There! That’s the AC from the report!”
Another voice, male and slightly older, barks, “Find out who they’re working for!”
My gun coughs hot death, and the nearest of the MTs goes up in fmes, a cry cut short as the comms melt.
The two humanoid ones are packing sbs of solid armor-pting. Crude, but durable. Walter harrumphs.
“Looks like they’ve got shields. Good thing you’ve got a bde.”
I engage my Pulse Bde and bisect the first as it rushes me, the parts cttering down behind as I spin into the second strike, smming the second shield out of the way and bsting five rounds rapid into the third of the mechs. The st, the young woman from the comms, charges, her egg-shaped MT cnking as she fires everything in her magazine at me, screaming in rage and horror. I weave, my jets zipping me from side to side, most of her wildly-inaccurate fire spraying in all directions. I trigger my Pulse Bde again, now that it’s recharged, and ssh the short-lived jet of heated energy through the shell of the mech, ending it, and its pilot, in one brutally-effective hit.
Sorry, whoever you were. But I can’t lose this chance. I NEED to get my body fixed, get my brain un-fried, and get my life back…
Walter barks, snapping me back to focus.
“Extract the pilot data. I’ll analyze it from my end…”
I skate over to the downed AC, the auto-extraction program kicking in to bring up a data-packet listing the AC’s license info.
License code: Thomas Kirk
Registration number: Rb18
Callsign: Thomas Kirk
Rank: 26/E
Affiliation: Independent
License expired
I pause. This one’s no good. Let’s see what my handler has to say about this before I go off looking at the others.
Walter’s silent for a few moments, then his voice crackles back through the comms.
“This one’s already expired. Keep looking.”
I shrug my huge metal shoulders, and power up the scramjets, taking off in a long-distance leap, nding with a cacophonic spsh and skating away towards the next holo-marker in a spray of oily, stagnant water.
As I near an old main road, a series of bright lights shine down, tracking over the water ahead as damp, swirling whirlwinds whip up out of nowhere. Something above is… moving, close enough to see, but too close to really make out what it is. Several Rubicon Liberation Front MTs in the roadway are firing up at the shadowy object, before it decides to retaliate. Walter gasps, “What?!”
One of the RLF soldiers bres through his comms, shouting a warning to his comrades.
“SG! We’ve got Subject Guard!”
A woman orders, “Get out of there! You can’t handle them!”
However, her commands are too te, not that it would’ve made much difference anyway. The roadway disappears in a hail of missiles, the bsts taking out everything in the road. I’m just lucky I hadn’t been spotted. If I’d been eager and come straight for the second signal without waiting, I’d have been RIGHT there in the road, probably fighting the RLF, when that thing would’ve arrived and cut short my need to find any ID… fuck, I’m still alive…
Walter expins what the hell just happened. “That’s the PCA’s pnetside force… keep a low profile. We don’t want them breathing down our necks…”
As if to underscore the seriousness of his tone, more explosions rock the buildings ahead, as the huge, hovering shape fires off another barrage of rockets at something, most likely another squad of RLF MTs.
Tangled in the wreck of a rge helicopter is the second AC I’m looking for. I go for the data-packet, thankful that this wasn’t totally destroyed by the PCA craft’s bombardment.
“Analyzing…”
License code: G7 Hakra
Registration number: Rb29
Callsign: G7 Hakra
Rank: 22/D
Affiliation: Bam Industries
License expires in 12 hours
Better. This one’s still valid, but it’s a corporate license. Is using it worth the risk…?
Walter verbally shakes his head. “Corp license- easily traced. Forget it.”
With the skies clear once more, I turn in the direction of the st holo-marker, hoping that this one will hold the answer to our prayers. There are some small, hovering combat drones, but they’re easily swatted out of the sky by a single rifle-shot, leaving me to contend with their source, the RLF, and their remaining MTs.
It seems that some of the resistance had been fortunate enough to either survive, or avoid, the PCA sweep, and now they’re setting their sights on something a little more manageable: me.
Weaving through the onsught of bullets and rockets, I dispatch whatever’s in my direct path, ignoring the rest. I’m not being paid to hunt these idiots. I’m under contract to Handler Walter until my debt is paid or until he no longer has use for me. Or I die. Either way, I have my orders. Find a license, and that’s all.
The walls and buildings around us are surprisingly well-preserved, despite having no windows or gss in their frames. The elements haven’t really worn away that much of their outer surface, either.
More RLF guys are clustered on a rooftop around the next AC I’m looking for, hovering drones scanning for threats in all directions. I get a lock on four of the little propeller-mounted weapons, and fire my shoulder-uncher, a quartet of homing rockets streaking through the air and wiping out my targets in a short volley of detonations. The RLF squad-leader spots me right after.
“Corp AC! Wait, is that an independent?!”
Another voice barks, “Destroy it!”
I feel the ‘ch-chnk’ of my uncher reloading, and Walter’s orders fill my ear.
“You’re outnumbered, 621. Use your missiles!”
I jet upwards, painting three of the closest RLF machines with the tracer, before letting them have it. One of the MTs goes up, while the others jump and lurch with the impacts, allowing my assault-rifle to put them both out of commission shortly after. On a high-rise, two mechs are firing missiles at me, and I dart backwards, the water just in front of me erupting in a fountain of filthy liquid. I repay their ‘kindness’ by sending them a few missiles of my own.
Keep the change, ya filthy animals.
After a few more brief exchanges of fire, I stand alone, my weapons cycling fresh mags into their respective receivers, and let the heat built-up during combat to vent with a hissing rush of white vapour.
Landing next to the final downed AC after a short jet-powered hop, I begin accessing its data.
“Let’s see about this license.”
License code: Monkey Gordo
Registration number: Rb37
Callsign: Monkey Gordo
Rank: __/__
Affiliation: Independent
License expires in 15 days
Shit. Unranked. That’s not good, is it? Walter certainly doesn’t think so.
“It’s still valid, but the pilot’s rank is no good. We can’t use this. Wait… I’ve picked up one more wreck, 621. Transmitting marker. Go and check it out.”
A fresh holo-marker winks into being, high up on an artificial cliff rising up from the heart of the city. It’s high up enough that even my AC won’t get up there, but Walter’s clearly studying the environmental data coming in from my AC’s live-feed. A second, smaller, holo-marker pings on, highlighting the location of something very helpful.
“You can use that vertical catapult to get some altitude.”
It’s still functional, and I seriously doubt that it’s been here without maintenance for fifty years. I guess the RLF guys have either repaired it, or installed the damn thing themselves. Well, who cares? Going up! Top floor, women’s clothes, accessories, and valid mercenary licenses!
The catapult kicks like the gaxy’s most ticked-off mule, and I’m unched straight up, three hundred metres at least, bringing me level with the top of the pteau, buildings arrayed around a rough courtyard in a crude circle. There’s a deep gouge across the centre of the cleared space, with a furrow carved through it. An AC unit is at the end. A clear crash-nding. There’s a dark plume of smoke coming from it. It’s… new. Did that PCA craft do this just a little ago??
I fire my Quick Boost, flying forwards as I angle my LOADER 4 to come down just short of the crashed AC. “That’s it. Access the AC, 621.”
I let the auto-extractor go to work, waiting for the chime signalling the data-packet’s ready for viewing. Then, it’s in Walter’s care.
“Registration Rb23. Rank fits the bill. Callsign… WHAT?!”
With a whirring roar, the PCA craft returns, its spotlights fixed on me. I’m right in view, the blinding white beams pinning me as a target. It’s packing a LOT of heavy weaponry, from multiple missile-uncher batteries to a pair of huge autocannons.
As it swivels in the air to face me, Walter groans. “So they were onto you all along. I’m in no mood to pick a fight with the PCA… But it doesn’t matter. Take it out now, and they won’t have enough to ID you.”
“Yes… Hand…ler. En….gaging!”
I rocket up and forwards as it soars overhead, my Pulse Bde humming as I carve a rge X in the undercarriage of the enormous combat helicopter, before bsting the same spot with my missiles, Boosting away as it begins firing, chugging thumps of heavy ordnance punching holes in the ground and blowing chunks out of the fasciae of nearby buildings.
I bob and weave, trying to be as unpredictable as possible, the mix of adrenaline, saline, and combat-drugs flooding what’s left of my organic body in a poisonous thrill. I have nothing left of my legs. My left arm is gone beneath the elbow. My right eye is missing, and I’m severely undernourished, kept alive by protein-gel and pouches of processed sludge containing enough vitamins and minerals to stop me from dying, as well as enough meds to kill a normal person.
This is what it means to be a Gen-Four Augmented AC pilot. Most pilots are crazies, tapped-in-the-head. Others, like me, got into so much debt that the only way to clear it was to sell their bodies and brains to bs and corporations, letting them turn us into barely-alive wetware CPUs for their test models of Armored Core units. I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones who survived Gen-Four augmentations. My reaction times are faster than a normal human’s, and I’m still sane, mostly. But those like me… we’re seen as obsolete, now, a group of near-useless old husks. The shiny new Generation Ten pilots are almost unaffected by side-effects from the surgeries, like hearing voices or personality ‘quirks’. They’re the ones who could afford to be the cream of the cream.
As for how I ended up like this, well… I was born wrong. Trapped in a body I didn’t want, with no way to get out of it. My parents died in an industrial accident when I was twelve. My brothers refused to speak to me after I tried to tell them I shouldn’t have been born the way I was. I drifted through life, empty, finding a dead-end job working for a company that made and sold AC components. It was shady as hell, but I didn’t care. All I was doing was working long enough to make ends meet. I showed up, clocked my hours, and went back to my tiny apartment.
Then, they got caught embezzling. Committing fraud. Skimming off the top. Whatever you want to call it. And, faced with an inquiry, the board made the commend decision to frame half a dozen employees and turn them into the secret financial-espionage conspiracy that was responsible. I was one of them, and wound up with a debt in the tens-of-millions of credits. If I were to put a ballpark figure on it, I think I still have to pay off about 18,750,000 credits. Faced with either a slow death in some ultra-max prison, or undergoing Gen-Four Augmentation and trying to pay off my debt, I picked the tter, and wound up a barely-alive hunk of meat crammed into the chassis of a walking metal coffin. Either I pay off my debt and get put back together, the right way this time, or I die trying. It makes no difference to me.
Handler Walter is the first person to be open about the fact that he bought me to use as a tool. I’m simply his test ‘Hound’. The six-hundred-twenty-first he’s used to try and crack Rubicon. And I’m sure I won’t be the st…
