Chapter 16: Emergency Service

Chloe screamed. Because Rudy's dismembered mecha was tumbling toward her? Because it had been dismembered? Because the latest black mecha assaulting the arena could only belong to an Animus Hunter?

'All of the above' seemed as good a choice as any.

“Get that platform up," Boss snarled. “If – hell, when the field goes, we don't want Mr. Algreil falling farther than he has to. Move, you wretches!"

The rest of the crew moved, all right – toward the smaller personnel lifts to the arena exits. Their fear of being crushed by the falling mecha or in the ensuing clash of titans apparently overwhelmed their fear of Boss's snarls.

None of them stayed with the elevator platform.

Chloe slid down the ladder she'd been sitting on, leaped the last ten rungs, hit the ground running. She sprinted to the platform control console. Her hands flew across it, so fast it seemed to her it started moving even before she got there.

Her thoughts caught up with her about the time the platform started its terribly slow rise to the arena. She spared a glance at the distance she'd jumped. Principle! She was lucky she hadn't broken a leg.

“You got plenty of guts, girl," Boss said between gasps. He'd been closer to the console and made the same run for it, but he was almost three times her age and almost as overweight as he was muscular. “Or plenty of stupid."

“Definitely stupid," Chloe said.

He barked a laugh.

Swallowed it as the electromagnetic field above them shuddered again.

“What happens if he falls?"

“You won't have time to worry about it," Boss said. “So don't. Plenty to worry about if he doesn't."

“Emergency releases," Chloe said.

“And coolant. Spray the whole monster with it when it comes down. I told the eggheads it ran hot. But they don't have to deal with it coming in damaged, now do they?"

Chloe felt gratified to hear the senior mechanic agree with her unspoken conclusions about the Epee. She suspected he'd have kept his opinion to himself if he'd known she shared it. “I'll get the coolant." She'd already seen which of them could move faster, and she already knew how to work the hose.

She didn't ask what Rudy's chances were.

She didn't ask what hers' and Boss's were, either.

She suspected both answers would be along the lines of 'slim to none.'

The field above buckled again as noble and Animus Hunter bombarded each other with telekinetic force. The arena, what little Chloe could see past the Epee's wreckage, blurred with dark shapes and shimmering glass.

She wondered how long the structure itself would hold, wished she hadn't.

She tried to focus on prepping the coolant tube. Failed. Her thoughts kept drifting to the packed stands. So many people –! Why would a noble come here? Why would an Animus Hunter?

For the same reason?

For her?

She shuddered.

So did the arena.

So much for the electromagnetic field.

The Epee, exposed to a full gee it was never meant to operate in, tumbled almost half the shaft to the still-rising platform, crunching horribly. If the mecha had been a person, it would have been dead a dozen times over, but the stumps of its limbs still twitched with artificial muscle.

Could Rudy survive that?

Would it be kinder if he hadn't?

“Boss," Chloe cried.

“Coming down," the pit boss said. His hands didn't fly across the controls, but he wasted a lot less time fussing with things he didn't need. The platform shook again, started to lower toward them.

Chloe had to fight the urge to look away from the mecha's remains as it came into view. Its red armor looked too much like Rudy's flight suit. In her mind's eye, she saw the mechaneer lying broken and dead like his machine.

Which would happen for sure, she reminded herself, if she and Boss couldn't get him out of the Epee before its shattered engines overheated.

She yanked the coolant tube up and shoved its control gauge to full. The force of the superconductive fluid erupting from the nozzle almost pushed her from the gangplank. She clung to the hose for dear life, guiding it more with her legs than her arms.

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Coolant splashed and sizzled. The hiss of smoke joined the cacophony from above.

Chloe angled the coolant along a path from the gangplank to the cockpit. For a wonder, the piloting compartment seemed untouched by the structural damage wracking the rest of the mecha.

The fluid stopped roaring through the tube.

Chloe and Boss exchanged glances.

If they'd run out of coolant, either the tank leaked –

– or arena security had drawn it to fight fires up above.

All those people, Chloe thought again. Merciful Principle, don't let that be the pattern of their days!

She couldn't do anything for them, though. She still might be able to for Rudy.

She grasped the useless coolant tube as tightly as she could, sucked in a deep breath –

Jumped off the railing.

The tube swung around on its gurney, like an acrobat's rope on a carnival ship. Except for the absence of an anti-gravity safety field, anyway. Or anything like a decent handhold.

For once, Chloe's worries proved unfounded. She slid off just where she wanted to be, almost to the Epee's cockpit.

Despite the coolant spray, the heat sizzling through her boots and wafting from the mecha's chest made her wince. Gingerly, she sprinted across it.

She realized she'd come unarmed – useless. “Boss," she shouted – even raising her voice, she could hardly hear over the maelstrom above – “toss me an emergency release!"

“Too far, girl," Boss shouted back.

“Just trust me!" She had a hunch.

He muttered something impolite, and he kept clambering toward her with a second release tucked into his vest – but he threw.

Boss hung from the side of the Epee, wore thick thermal gloves, and, if his form was any indication, hadn't been much of a grenadier in the Civil War.

The emergency release landed perfectly in Chloe's outstretched hand.

She shouted her thanks and crouched over the cockpit. Sweat ran down her arms and face as she worked the vibrating release. Absurdly, she realized she was whispering thanks to Rudy for getting her hair done; with her old style, she'd have been blinded by sweat-soaked bangs.

The cockpit's hydraulics hissed.

Chloe stumbled back, singeing her hands on the hull when she landed. She hardly noticed. She sprang forward and looked in, terrified of what she'd see, knowing she didn't have time for terror.

Rudy lay in the cockpit.

He looked unhurt.

He wasn't moving.

Chloe jumped down. She tore at the safety belts holding him into his pilot's chair and the neural links running from his crimson flight suit. She grabbed his shoulders.

She worked up the courage to listen for his heartbeat. Breathed a sigh of relief.

Not that his being alive meant he would stay that way, if she couldn't get him out. The cockpit temperature climbed every second she crouched in it; if she took too long, it would sear her hands to useless if she tried to climb out and they would both burn alive.

Her grip tightened. Gingerly, she bent forward and hefted Rudy over her shoulder as best she could.

His weight pushed her against the mecha's screens. She hissed when her back, sans a temperature-controlling flight suit, brushed the hot metal.

“Wake up, Rudy," she pleaded. “I don't know if I can lift you."

Whatever had knocked him out – a blow to the head or overloaded synapses, she figured, and prayed it was the latter – had done a number on him. He didn't so much as twitch.

Chloe gulped down a breath. The air was getting hot now, too. Breathing hurt. Bracing Rudy between herself and the wall, she started to scissor her way up the emergency ladder, silently thanking whatever designer had decided to pad it with nonconductive foam. She locked her legs on the middle, hooked one arm, braced, and heaved.

Somehow, she managed to jerk Rudy up to the ladder.

Now she could get her shoulder under him, use his own dead weight to keep him from sliding. It kept her from climbing, too, forcing muscles used to guiding a mecha to heft nearly twice her weight. Chloe winced as her arm caught against the ladder.

Better not have been a blow to the head that knocked him out, she thought, or I could be killing him by doing this.

She figured he'd rather have his brain shaken loose while he was unconscious than be left to bake alive. Besides, if a neural overload had knocked him out, he might actually survive the escape.

Provided, of course, she could drag him the rest of the way out of the cockpit.

It hadn't seemed very deep coming down: a meter, tops. Lifting Rudy's body that far when her arms were so sweat-slicked she could barely lift herself gave her new appreciation for the distance.

She counted down in her mind. One, two, three –

Heave!

She kicked upwards and swung Rudy toward the cockpit's opening. He sprawled half out.

He started to slip.

“No," Chloe screamed. She made a wild grab and managed only to pull at her already aching shoulder.

Rudy's slide stopped.

“You alive there, girl?" Boss asked. “I've got Mr. Algreil."

“I'm fine,” Chloe lied. “Get Rudy out." Her breath sounded more like a gasp. She started to climb. The arm she'd had hooked couldn't support her weight. Broken? Or just sprained? She'd never broken an arm before, but it sure hurt as bad as she imagined it would. Gingerly, she switched to her good arm and levered herself out.

She wanted to drag herself off the Epee, but its hull scorched her hands. She forced herself to her knees, then her feet.

For a wonder, she actually managed to stand.

Boss was dragging Rudy toward the edge of the platform. Chloe, gulping in a breath of blissfully cool air, sprinted after them. She hooked her good arm under Rudy's and nodded to Boss. He returned the nod and grinned. Neither of them wasted energy speaking.

They lowered Rudy from the mecha and jumped to the platform after him. Chloe rolled, cried out as she banged her bad arm. She gritted her teeth and stumbled to her feet. “I'm okay," she whispered. “Okay."

“Doubt that," Boss said, “but if you can manage it, we've got to get Mr. Algreil out of here. The whole damned place looks liable to collapse, and for all the eggheads claim it 'can't happen,' I wouldn't bet my arse on the Epee not blowing."

Chloe forced herself to nod. Boss picked Rudy up and draped one of the unconscious mechaneer's arms gingerly over Chloe's good shoulder. They walked, stumbled and crawled for the exit the rest of the pit crew had fled through. The elevators had automatically returned, at least. Chloe lowered Rudy to the floor of the nearest and collapsed beside him while Boss worked the controls.

Above them, the psychic battle still raged, howling wind and screeching metal. Chloe shuddered.

Boss's hand closed on her shoulder – her good shoulder, thank the Principle.

She forced herself to look up.

The grizzled mechanic grinned down at her. “You done good, girl," he said. “Guess Mr. Algreil picked better'n I figured, after all."