Chapter 93: The Show

  As Chloe walked into the Algreil Aerospace private box for the Etemenos Cup, so luxurious compared to her custom and tastes, so oversized for its three present occupants, Ellie and Milissa both turned to look at her.

  The smile she had forced onto her face and the twinkle she had worked so hard to put into her eye were gone.

  “So,” Ellie said, “you let him fight.”

  It was not a question.

  It didn't need to be.

  Chloe shook her head, though. “No, Mom,” she said quietly. “I asked him not to.”

  “And...?”

  “He's going to do it anyway,” Chloe said. She took the blue reactive gel chair in the middle of the box's front row. The red one beside it was intended for the Oligarch of Algreil Aerospace – who, depending on one's perspective, was either languishing in an Etemenos prison cell or preparing to fight for all their lives. The one Chloe sat in was for the oligarch's wife.

  Which, Principle willing, she would soon be for as long as Rudy had to keep the job he'd already come to hate.

  Her mother sat on her right, her best friend on her left. Below, her fiancé went to fight – for her, for her father, and at least as much as anything because fighting in tournaments was another thing he loved.

  She should have been happy.

  Should have been.

  Ellie said, “You're okay with that, Chloe?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Chloe said. “Rudy believes in himself and he believes he needs to win for us to be safe. Even if our lives weren't on the line, though, he'd fight because he loves tournament mechaneering, and I would be okay with it.”

  Which wasn't exactly true, of course.

  Chloe knew it.

  Ellie knew it, too.

  Neither of them said a word about it.

  “Well I don't see,” Milissa said, “why we were talking about running away. Whatever anyone says, there's no way this Zelph person is more powerful than my brother, and the Crimson Phoenix certainly clipped his wings.”

  Chloe and Ellie both smiled at the Kyrillos girl's bravado.

  She really was a fan.

  Chloe... wasn't.

  She felt queasy watching Rudy fight even mock battles. Knowing that he was about to take the field against someone who wanted him dead and possessed more than enough skill and power to make it happen made her want to throw up.

  “I hope you're right, Mili,” Chloe said.

  “Of course I am,” Milissa said brightly. She should have been absorbing tension like a sponge, sitting next to Chloe and Ellie. Maybe she was learning to control her empathy better. Maybe she'd been close enough to Rudy to start losing it entirely.

  Or maybe she was such a fan, she pushed her nerves down to root for her favorite.

  Once again, Chloe found she envied her friend.

  The piped-in sound of an idol-orchestra's complex, blaring fanfare cut through her thoughts.

  The second round of the Etemenos Cup had begun.

  From directly beneath them, Rudy's crimson Epee, enhanced with systems Boss and company had cribbed from their captured Imperial Guard mecha, soared into the vacuum between stands and senate chamber like a mechanical comet.

  Chloe had to smile to see it. Milissa applauded wildly.

  In the distance, she could just make out the black speck that was the “Hand of the People,” Grand Admiral Errard Zelph.

  Chloe's smile, though not Milissa's applause, died.

  No announcer's commentary piped into the box. Chloe reached over and whispered about it to her mother.

  “I turned that drivel off,” Ellie said with a sniff.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Chloe said, squeezing her mother's hand. The last thing she wanted to hear was Fed announcers crowing about every blow the Hand of the People landed on Rudy.

  The two mecha floated toward each other, Rudy on his Epee's thrusters, Zelph on pure telekinesis. They stopped a little less than a kilometer apart and faced off.

  Chloe took a deep breath.

  Zelph's organic-looking mecha cricked its neck. He extended one hand, wreathed in shadow from whatever photon-absorbing effect his powers seemed to have.

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  Rudy didn't move.

  Chloe gripped the arms of her chair. The reactive gel conformed to the pressure until it had completely sheathed her fingers. She leaned forward, still holding her breath.

  The Hand of the People reached out. Darkness writhed towards the Crimson Phoenix.

  Rudy spun away from the black blast and swooped down from above. His Epee's claws cut only empty space as the Animus Hunter easily dodged.

  Chloe forced herself to breathe. These were only probes, she knew. Depending on how dangerous each combatant considered the other, they might take their sweet time before either used a move he expected to connect.

  Ellie's hand slipped over Chloe's. Gently, she massaged the tension from Chloe's wrist.

  Chloe looked to her mother with a plaintive smile.

  “He wouldn't fight if he didn't think he could win,” Ellie said. “You have to believe that, honey.”

  Chloe wished she could. Trust Rudy's character? Of course. Trust his competence? Sure.

  Trust his judgment?

  She looked back to the match rather than answer her own unspoken question.

  Rudy launched a pair of lightning-quick kicks at Zelph, but again the Animus Hunter seemed to dodge effortlessly. Crimson Phoenix and Hand of the People plunged into a sharp spiral, trading blows that didn't so much as glance off each others' hulls.

  They both seemed unbelievably fast to Chloe.

  She wondered, for all her power, if she could have fought either one of them if they'd been completely mundane. Surely they'd have crushed her before she could even frame her thoughts to call up her erinyes.

  Fortunately, she'd never have to fight Rudy – and if the Principle was merciful, Rudy wouldn't leave Errard Zelph in any condition to fight.

  Chloe couldn't make out the interplay of blows, blocks, counterattacks and tricks that were the heart of mecha combat. Her gaze flitted across the screens arranged around the window, from which drone cameras piped different views of the battle.

  She wished she hadn't. The Hand of the People finally landed a blow just as her gaze fell on a particularly close view. She could see a crack form on the breastplate of Rudy's mecha. It shuddered backwards from the imparted energy.

  Zelph followed. A torrent of shadowy energy erupted from his back like a living cloak, rupturing harmlessly against the heart of Rudy's machine and the anti-psion field he projected, but biting into the mecha's exposed arms and legs like drops of acid. They seemed more distractions than attacks. Zelph hurled a punch backed by all the telekinetic momentum he had imparted to his mecha.

  Rudy managed to block the blow clean and turn aside another long enough to launch a barrage of miniature rockets into the Hand of the People. If Zelph noticed, he gave no sign Chloe could see, because he didn't let up for even a fraction of a second.

  The Hand of the People did not confer grace and elegance to his power like the Divine Auric Drake. He did not move with frenetic energy like the Crimson Phoenix. Watching him fight was not at all like watching a performance.

  It was like watching a beating, a beating to the death.

  The Epee's claws chewed into one of the organic-looking mecha's arms, kicking out a small cloud of what, appearances aside, seemed to be metal and wire and sparks. Even that didn't slow Zelph. He plowed his fist through the claws, raking them along his mecha's arm, and smashed Rudy's throat.

  Chloe flinched away from the screen.

  Milissa gasped. “No! No, that can't be!”

  Chloe forced herself to look back.

  Zelph had pinned both Rudy's arms and smashed their mechas' faces together. The Crimson Phoenix lolled back, and the Hand of the People twisted both arms free and wrapped them together for an overhead smash. He brought them down before his victim could hope to block and smashed the Epee so hard, it nearly ripped what was left of its head off.

  Zelph had won.

  No way was Rudy still in fighting shape, even if he still feebly tried to raise his Epee's arms. At least one of those arms kicked out its own cloud of sparks when its smashed shoulder armor ground against its rising upper arm.

  Zelph had won.

  But he hadn't stopped.

  He smashed a fist down and shattered the armor on the damaged arm. His other fist came down and the side of Rudy's machine caved.

  Chloe's eyes shot to the scoreboard, desperately seeking the red light that would show Rudy's surrender. Surely the Hand of the People would not risk a charge of murdering an oligarch in cold blood, of violating the most sacred rule of tournament mechaneering on the grandest stage it had ever seen.

  But the red light was off.

  Rudy either hadn't chosen to stop the fight –

  Or, oh, Principle, no, or he couldn't. He could be dead. Or, more likely, he could be stunned, and he would be dead.

  Zelph shattered the Epee's breastplate. His mecha's dark fingers reached down and closed over it. With a twitch of seemingly living sinew, they wrenched the armor free.

  Another blow crashed into the Epee's superstructure. It bent weirdly. A human's back would have to have been completely broken.

  Zelph balled both hands again. They hurtled downwards.

  “No,” Chloe screamed.

  In a heartbeat that didn't seem to come, she swam in silver and power.

  She had wondered if she could call her power up in time to fight either Zelph or Rudy.

  Now she knew.

  The Hand of the People flexed no more. In one second, he was driving killing blows into Rudy's mecha. In the next, his movement was frozen, or so slowed as to be effectively the same. Chloe hadn't even had to think about it.

  The erinyes swirled around her, displaying clairvoyant images far more acute and complex than any machine could ever produce. Chloe could see, hear, feel, touch, smell, even taste everything going on at the point on which her awareness was focused. Everywhere but inside Rudy's mecha, where her psychic senses could not, could never, extend.

  She could look into Zelph's, though.

  She did.

  Why are you doing this, she demanded. Why are you murdering him?!

  Zelph's bland smile rose to greet her. I am not, he thought.

  Chloe stiffened.

  Mr. Algreil, Zelph thought, was never of any interest to me.

  Chloe's eyes widened to match the Animus Hunter's smile. She forced her awareness back to the Algreil Aerospace box.

  She returned to it just in time to see the last, tenth armored Animus Hunter step through its shattered door and level a wicked-looking spear at her chest.