Bounty Hunter Academy 4, page 33
The wind of battle.
32
Chapter 32
The interior of the duelcube was far larger than I had ever thought possible. When I had looked at the mountainous range from the outside, I had assumed (should the whole shrinking-down thing be possible and not just a bounty hunter joke I didn’t get) there would be a series of low-lying peaks not much higher than the artificial hills found in the ring of synthetic wilderness that encircled the backs of the districts on Cometbreaker Colony. Those heights took only a half hour or so to climb. But the ones inside the duelcube…
They would have taken days.
And I wasn’t even sure if they could be climbed, so treacherous were their sloping, jagged sides. Here and there, I could discern a metallic structure that must have been one of the bunkers I had observed earlier, only now each looked large enough to be a fortress.
In the far-off distance, I could see a vast lake at the foot of the mountains, but unlike most lakes I knew, this one was coloured bright purple, and when I saw that vast body of water, something twisted in my stomach. There was something very wrong about that lake, and I knew instinctively that I would be wise to keep away from it (a task that shouldn’t have been difficult, seeing as how it appeared to be half a dozen ultratectars away).
Beyond the lake and at the farthest reaches of the mountain, a colossal metal wall rose up, sealing off the encapsulated environment. It wasn’t too dissimilar from the training area I had found myself in during the unexpected melee that had occurred during my first day at the academy, only the inside of the duelcube appeared to be far larger.
“Well, how do you like it?”
I spun around. Iptra Morgath was standing at the other end of a wide metal platform covered with the same glowing neon symbols I had seen on the outside of the duelcube. Her pointy, black attire stood out starkly against the backdrop of snow, and the whirling snowstorm that raged all around seemed to aggravate her monstrous features - features that were as jagged and craggy as the steep rocks that covered the snowy mountainside.
“It’s very homely,” I yelled through the swirling wind.
“It is, isn’t it?” Morgath agreed. The bounty hunter looked appreciatively at her surroundings. “I’ve got two other duelcubes, but one is this unbearably hot desert environment, and the other… Well, let’s just say you’d need to be able to hold your breath for an extremely long time if you wanted to do battle there.”
I glanced at the distant peaks, then back at the bounty hunter. “I don’t understand. Why do you even want to fight me? Don’t you think you’re a little bit out of my league?”
Morgath grinned. “That’s true, but I’m curious to see what you can do, now that you’re not completely defenceless. According to your cadet information file, you’ve got plenty of fight in you. At least, that’s what Shade seemed to think when he wrote his report on your abilities.”
I tightened the fingers inside the plasma claw. The blades were gone, but now I knew how to conjure them, should I require them again. On my feet, the heavy metal jetboots kept me firmly rooted against the buffeting blasts of an icy wind that - had I not been wearing jetboots - might have blown me off the mountainside.
“Just please try not to disappoint me,” Morgath pleaded. “I haven’t had a good fight in a long time - not since Shade used to chase me around these slopes. How long ago that seems now, and how bitter to the memory.” The bounty hunter stared off into the distance, then she seemed to suddenly come round. “Anyway, that’s by the by. And none of your business.”
“I didn’t—”
Morgath held up a finger. “Enough. The last time I checked, the estimated time to emergence was thirty-six minutes and twelve seconds. I’d estimate that gives us a good twenty - maybe even twenty-five - minutes to play.”
I raised my chin and tried not to look scared. “Alright. What are the rules?”
The bounty hunter shrugged. “Standard duelcube rules.”
“Which are?”
“Try not to get killed. Ready? Go!”
“Wait! I—”
It was no use. Morgath had broken out into a run. There were no weapons in her hands, but then again, she didn’t need any. Desperately, I unslung the starblade launcher from my shoulder, grabbed the handholds and squeezed off a few shots at the bounty hunter’s legs. This time, I wasn’t up against the hardened exterior of an AMIGO. Morgath’s body would bleed if I landed a hit with the sharpened shards of metal that shot out of the launcher’s barrel. Knowing that, and not wanting to be responsible for the death of a bounty hunter, I had aimed to maim not to murder. But was mercy a luxury I could afford against a bounty hunter of Morgath’s stature?
I soon got my answer.
One by one, the starblades zinged through the legs of my approaching attacker, clanging uselessly against the floor of the metal platform. All the while, Morgath kept running.
Only it wasn’t really Morgath.
It was one of her shadow echoes.
The damn things were impossible to tell apart from the real thing. If there were any differences, I couldn’t see them - and I probably wasn’t going to be given time to conduct an in-depth study on their disparities. Turning my attention to my flanks, I spotted another Morgath-shaped figure approaching from my right. Was this one a shadow echo, too? Or was this a double bluff?
There was only one way to be sure.
Aiming the starblade launcher, I squeezed off a single shot. The projectile flew across the platform before slicing harmlessly through whatever it was Morgath’s shadow echoes were made of. There was another clang, and now I turned my attention to the left, my heart thumping furiously in my chest.
But there was no approaching figure on my left flank.
Nor was there one at my rear. Or in any other direction in which I turned. I was, or so it seemed, all alone on the mountainside. If Morgath was present, she was extremely well hidden.
Or invisible.
My throat tightened. Morgath had already made it abundantly clear that she favoured the use of stealthsuits, as was evident by the method she had chosen to get aboard the Reclaimer. What was to say she wasn’t now using one again?
You’ve got to out-think her, I told myself. That’s your only chance - your only chance! I was no match for Morgath in the brawn department. And I had about as much experience taking someone down as I did filleting a bakta eel. But maybe if I could spring a surprise on the lethal bounty hunter, I might be able to manufacture an opportunity to either incapacitate her or force her to yield at gunpoint. I had no idea whether fights in a duelcube could be won by one bounty hunter voluntarily ceding to the other or whether they just fought until someone couldn’t stand up under the weight of their wounds anymore (I suspected the latter). Even if they could be won through submission, however, I would have felt extremely anxious trusting Morgath to honour a promise of surrender. The incapacitation option would, therefore, be far more preferable. And with that, I knew what I had to do.
I just had to figure out how the hell to do it.
wAkEy, wAkEy, TEgA…
I let out a fierce grunt. Glancing down, I saw that the stomach wounds I had inflicted upon myself during my fight with Wallace were still burning with those same insidious black flames. So far, the Nyalinth hadn’t made any serious exertions to take control of my body, but how long was that going to last? A few powerful blows from the bounty hunter and the monster within was sure to become the monster without.
rUn, TEgA…
I turned the full force of my hatred on that reprehensible voice. I had no desire to take advice from a parasite living inside my body that didn’t even pay any rent. As far as I was concerned, it could jump up and die. And I wished it damn well would have, then I would have been free from its never-ending interference.
rUn, TEgA…
“Damn you, I’m not running,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
The howling wind picked up, and I felt its chill bite into the exposed parts of my flesh. On the distant mountaintops, a huge chunk of snow broke away, and a minor avalanche tumbled down the mountainside.
rUn, TEgA…
I balled my hands into fists. “Get out of my damn head.”
The howling of the wind grew stronger yet.
rUn, TE—
“For the last time, I’m not damn well—”
I glanced down, stunned at my furiously pumping legs. Without so much as passing the request through the decision centre of my brain, my legs had decided to set off across the platform towards the nearest of the mountainside fortresses. Realising it would be madness to stop and go back, I begrudgingly put my full effort behind the attempt. The fortress, however, looked too far away to reach without hours’ worth of trekking through built-up snowdrifts. How was I supposed to get there - how was I supposed to get anywhere? - in this frozen, forsaken wasteland?
“Going somewhere?”
I looked to my left, and my heart almost lodged itself in my throat.
Morgath was matching me pace for pace, sprinting at my side as if we were working as a team. Instinctively, I activated the plasma claw and lunged out with a powerful slash, but the blades cut through yet another shadow echo. Interestingly, when the beams of pure plasma sliced through the Morgath’s image, they left a series of indigo streaks behind that did not appear to fade.
As I approached the end of the platform, the choice of what to do next came flying at me like one of the starblades I had loosened at Morgath’s shadow echoes. As far as I could see, I had only two choices: turn around or dive into the thick snow. Seeing as how the latter would have rendered me as helpless as a space rat caught in a grav trap, that left me with only the ‘turn around’ option.
And that wasn’t a very good option.
Not a very good option at all.
fLy, TEgA… fLy…
“Damn it, get out of my—”
I drew in a sharp breath of cold air as I approached the end of the platform.
The jetboots!
I had completely forgotten about the jetboots!
With what was probably not regulation movement, I swung the starblade launcher around my shoulder, shook the blades off the plasma claw and bent down mid-stride to pull the controllers from the back of the jetboots. As I leapt into the air at the end of the platform, I slammed my thumbs into the buttons on the controllers, pushed up the sliders that powered the thrusters, and the jetboots spluttered to life, firing me up across the snow towards the distant fortress.
Remembering what I had learned about getting the jetboots to fly in a straight line, I shifted my weight around, trying to hold my body as straight as possible but without the ramrod straightness that had caused me so much trouble when I had first attempted to use the jetboots to fly from the escape pod to the Reclaimer. The blizzard flung a thick white fury in my face and in my eyes - so much of a fury that it was almost impossible to see. The gleaming metallic walls of the fortress that had seemed so clear from the platform now disappeared behind a cloud of white, and I was forced to rely on instinct alone to navigate through the icy tempest. Soon, my face felt like it was frozen solid, and I felt sure I was going to need to spend some serious time in a reJEN tank set to frostbite mode - if I didn’t end up as a Tega-shaped chillstik, permanently trapped inside Morgath’s duelcube.
“Where are you flying to, little bird?”
I looked frantically around. The voice had been Morgath’s. There was no mistaking that derisive, gravelly tone. But I could find no sign of her in the surrounding clouds. And besides, she hadn’t been wearing jetboots. How, then, was she supposed to fly through—
I drew in a sharp breath as a metal spire came out of the blurry white, its sharpened pinnacle pointed directly at the spot between my eyes. Shifting my left foot around slightly, I narrowly altered my course, and instead of putting a hole through my head, the spire merely tore a great gash out of my (already quite badly torn) spacesuit. I made a silent prayer that I was not going to have to use that spacesuit for any actual spacewalking anytime soon, then I pulled back on the thrusters of the jetboots, levelled myself out and slowly lowered myself down to the fortress floor.
From far off, the fortress had looked impressive enough, but it wasn’t until I was standing in its central courtyard that I realised how utterly huge the thing was. It was so big, in fact, that I felt we didn’t really need the whole duelcube to do battle. The fortress alone would have more than sufficed.
There were six towers, each joined by a colossal wall that held off the worst of the blizzard. The pinnacles of the tower stretched far into the sky (although they were still far short of the mountain’s summit and the distant metal ceiling that was the roof of the duelcube). At the top of each tower, just below the pinnacle, was a ball of what looked like blue duraglass. There must have been some purpose to those six blue spheres, but what that purpose was, I couldn’t guess.
Not that I needed to.
It was more than enough to be hidden from Morgath’s sight. Now I had time to think, I could put together a plan to take out the bounty hunter and finish this whole miserable business once and for all.
“You know, you’re pretty nimble on those things.”
I craned my neck to stare up at the sky where three Iptra Morgaths hovered impossibly in midair. They wore no jetboots or jetpacks, nor did they have any kind of thruster-type device strapped to their bodies. How then—
How then…
—were they hovering in midair?
“I can see you’re confused,” the bounty hunter called down. At her back, the swirling snowstorm built towards a crescendo that threatened to engulf the entire duelcube and everything in it. “Your face is a little hard to read from this distance, but I can still sense your confusion all the same. Perhaps this will explain the mystery.”
One of the Morgaths unzipped the top half of her jacket, revealing a shimmering silvery material underneath. It was a material I knew well, despite having only worn it on a single occasion. But as that occasion had been particularly memorable (as all occasions involving fully armoured diplomatic TR-34 defence dragons tend to be), the memory had stuck well.
A panzersuit…
One of the most infamous pieces of technology ever to emerge from the workshops on Cometbreaker Colony - a device that allowed the wearer to move through the air using the power of magnetism alone. Supported by the strong magnetic fields that can only be found in space colonies, the panzersuit had long since made itself one of the first picks in the equipment locker of any bounty hunter going after a target suspected to be hiding out on a space colony.
So…
The duelcube had the same magnetic fields - or at least a shrunken down version - as a space colony. That made sense. After all, if bounty hunters were going to fight inside a duelcube, it stood to reason that they would make sure they could do it while wearing panzersuits.
“You had that on this whole time?” I asked as the three Morgaths lowered themselves towards the courtyard floor. It was hard to know which one to direct my question to, so I just spoke to the Morgath in the middle. The one with the…
I tried to conceal my gasp. Iptra Morgath was an expert on reading facial expressions, and if she saw my wide-eyed reaction to what I had just discovered, she might suspect something was amiss.
She might suspect…
That I could now identify one of her shadow echos by sight.
When I had sliced the plasma claw through Morgath’s shadow echo back on the platform, I had naturally assumed it was nothing but a wasted shot. But the attack had left behind four streaks of bright indigo that stood out quite clearly against Morgath’s dark attire. I had assumed that once Morgath recalled the shadow echo, the image would reset, effectively removing the marks from the plasma claw.
But that was not what had happened.
And now I was the keeper of an extremely useful bit of information that might allow me not only to spring one hell of a surprise on the bounty hunter but also to incapacitate her or make her admit defeat. I just had to leave one more mark on the other shadow echo, and then I would know which of the three Iptra Morgaths was a shadow echo…
And which one I could shoot in the thigh with a starblade launcher.
“What are you thinking about?” the bounty hunter asked in a tone half edged with curiosity and half edged with malice.
“I was just thinking,” I said, desperately bending my mental effort to construct an appropriate lie, “that it’s not fair that you can use your dazzle when I don’t even have one.”
The three Morgaths frowned as they sunk towards the courtyard.
“That’s hardly my fault,” said the one on the left.
“You’ve had plenty of time to develop your dazzle,” said the one on the right.
“Plenty of time indeed,” said the one in the centre. “I had developed my dazzle by the time I was six years old. There were some kids at school who used to chase me around because they said I was ugly. Which I was, to be fair. Even my mother said so. Anyway, as if so often the case with us bounty hunters, circumstance turned out to be the catalyst for the development of my special ability. With my first shadow echo, I was able to lead those fools first on one wild space rat chase after another, then, when I finally grew bored with games, into the firing chamber of one of the colony’s zero-point energy extractors.”
“You killed them?”
“No, of course not. The safety scanners detected the presence of organic lifeforms in the chamber, and they were safely removed - well, after six hours, anyway. After that, they never bothered me again. And all because of my dazzle.”
The three Morgaths touched down on the courtyard at exactly the same time. Glancing at the Morgath on the left, I again observed the indigo marks that had been left by the plasma claw. Perhaps if I attempted a running charge, I might be able to leave a mark on the other shadow echo, too.
