Mech Zero: The Dominant (3 page)

“Do you find me attractive?”

This question surprised him. He had expected a hundred things, but not this. “Yes,” he said. “Sure.”

She reached for him, pulling his face down to hers. She kissed him. Her lips were soft, and although they tasted slightly of plastic, they were convincing enough. He felt himself becoming aroused.

She pushed him back into the restroom then, and followed him inside pulling the door shut behind them. It was a tight squeeze, but Theller didn’t mind the experience.

He did feel fear at the moment of consummation. What if she were equipped differently than normal women? He soon found she had a very convincing set of apparatus, and apparently it was connected to her braincase with enough artificial sensory nerves to be very stimulating for her. She achieved her climax before he did, and she proceeded to repeat the process no less than five times before he could finish himself.

Afterward, he maintained his bemused, groggy smile. “What was that all about?” he asked.

Captain Beezel looked at him. Her big, blue, artificial orbs were more entrancing than ever. He felt certain at that instant he’d done the right thing by saving them all.

“If we are about to die, I figured we might as well enjoy our last minutes. I saw you sleeping earlier…and when I found you up and relieving yourself….”

“Ah,” he said. “Of course. But why me?”

“Well,” she said without a shred of concern for his feelings, “you are the only other officer aboard.”

“I see,” he said, nodding again. “Staying safely within regulations?”

The captain laughed. “Hardly,” she said.

Ensign Theller staggered back to his seat and buckled himself in. He quietly watched her moving about the cabin. He had to smile, feeling glad that due to his efforts she might just survive this war. Perhaps, if he were lucky, they’d get a chance for a repeat performance.

Four

Mendelian cruisers were built on a vast scale. They would have been called battleships by any other colony, but by calling them cruisers they knew they left witnesses wondering just how terrifying a true Mendelian battleship might be. In design they were functionally equivalent to the designs passed on by the Old Earth Collectivists. Each chamber, tube and weapons mount was similar—but bloated to approximately twice the standard dimensions. Even the corridors were grand, being constructed of thick steel rather than the usual economically thin materials. The Mendelian crews fit these vast ships, being large people. The officers were taller than any
Homo Sapiens
that had ever walked upon Old Earth. But the true reasons for the wastefully-sized ships was psychological. In short, they were intimidating to lesser men.

As Goddard marched confidently to the personal combat sphere, the metal plates rang under his magnetic boots. The corridor he walked within dwarfed him. There was room here for four of his gigantic brethren to walk abreast. If he were to raise his tremendous arms above him, his fingertips would scarcely brush the distant ceiling. To add to the prideful feeling of the ship, the corridors were built with long vistas that ran the length of the vessel. Seeing a mile-long tube of metal such as the one Goddard now walked along never failed to further intimidate visiting mundanes, who always quailed in the presence of rumbling Mendelian warriors.

Goddard was mildly surprised to find Davenport waiting for him in the combat sphere. He’d half-expected the captain to invent an excuse or beg for a postponement. Instead, the dusky over-thinker hung in the air, free-floating in the gravity-free chamber, already wearing his pads and blades.

“Captain,” Goddard said with a nod.

“Admiral,” Davenport responded crisply.

“Remove that equipment at once,” Goddard ordered.

Davenport, who had been staring at him flatly, ready for anything, blinked in confusion. “Sir? This is standard combat gear. This is the exact kit we issue to our boarding parties.”

Davenport’s combat suit was made of tough fabric that could hold up well in vacuum or a dozen other environments. There were protective shells that cupped the elbows and knees. From each of these shells protruded a sharp, triangular blade that resembled the dorsal fin of a shark.

“What of it?” Goddard asked.

“Well, aren’t we testing our skills for shipboard combat?”

“Indeed we are,” Goddard said. As he spoke he donned weighted gloves. “But you are uninformed. As line officers, we would be unlikely to board enemy ships. If we were to engage in close combat it would probably be in a defensive situation. In such a case, we would be wearing our normal uniforms.”

“I see,” Davenport said. He flicked on his boot magnetics and let himself be drawn to the nearest wall. Balancing there, he began unsnapping the straps of his combat suit.

Goddard waited until the man had the suit at half-mast. The tight-fitting material was like a wetsuit, and always seemed to bunch up over the hips and had to be rolled down over the legs. When Davenport had the suit down to the top of his thighs, Goddard judged he was at a critical point of maximum encumbrance. He launched himself at the captain, his two gloved fists thrust out like twin battering rams. Each fist was buried in a weighted, padded glove.

Although not entirely above-board, Admiral Goddard’s tactic was not against the rules. There were only two rules in the combat sphere. The first was to stop fighting when one man quit or was incapacitated. The second was to avoid striking at the head. Too many permanent injuries resulted that way.

Davenport did not fumble with his half-dropped pants, but instead prepared to meet the assault. Both men released ear-splitting battle cries. These were designed to rattle an opponent, to freeze his mind and induce a critical moment of indecision. In this case, neither combatant was affected as they were accustomed to such tactics.

In his split-second of flight before crashing into his opponent, Goddard was disappointed to see Davenport did not try to dodge away. This was going to be a very quick round indeed. The man had no chance tied up in his suit.

But then Davenport did the unexpected. He reversed the polarity of his magnetic boots and fired up toward the ceiling. He had waited until Goddard was too close to change course. Goddard’s fists smashed into a blank wall, rather than Davenport’s midsection.

Goddard reoriented himself and glanced up at the ceiling where Davenport hung like a spider. “A cowardly, but effective ploy,” he commented.

“I was not aware our sparring had begun, sir,” Davenport said evenly. “I thought perhaps your boots had malfunctioned.”

Goddard snorted. “Are you coming down or must I chase you around this sphere while you run like a flea-squirrel?”

Davenport pulled his tight combat suit back up above his hips, but let it remain there, not daring to slip his arms into the sleeves. It was obvious that Goddard, who had coiled his legs beneath him like two springs, was waiting for another moment of awkwardness. Davenport flipped off his boots and floated gently toward the base of the sphere.

Goddard sprang at him when he was half-way down. Grinning, he extended his fists again. Davenport was a fool! He should have crawled down the far wall. Now, he would pay for every irritation he’d ever provided over the long year they’d spent together in space.

As he flew to battle, Goddard thought of his prideful, wickedly clever parents. Like all Mendelians of his generation, he’d been designed in secret by a mother and father who were themselves veterans of duels over rank and status. They knew all too well what their son was going to face in the harsh society of Mendelia. As a result, he’d been born with the outsized body of an Olympic star. He was faster, stronger and quicker of mind than any human combatant the species had produced naturally for a thousand years.

Davenport did not look surprised at the coming aerial assault, however. He calmly flipped up his feet and directed them toward Goddard’s face.

Goddard realized in a moment of chagrin that legs were longer than arms. Davenport’s extremities would therefore strike first. With a curse and a liquidly smooth motion, he did a flip in mid-air. The two crashed their boots together and bounced away, their feet stinging from the combined impacts.

The moment he touched down, Goddard stalked forward, growling. It was a bass sound one would have expected from an extinct creature such as the grizzlies of ancient North America. Davenport moved forward to meet him with matching ferocity.

Goddard fought with absolute confidence as the two began to trade blows. Davenport attempted a kick, which Goddard blocked. Another foot came up, but Goddard caught it, and twisted the ankle. Goddard was forced to release the foot when the other caught him on the shoulder. Goddard took note: Davenport liked to use his feet, a tactic that had always irritated Goddard. He preferred a stand-up battle where his long arms and powerful shoulders could come into play decisively.

Goddard managed to get a half-dozen blows into Davenport’s ribs, but the thinner man still didn’t go down. Goddard grappled, seeking to drive his opponent onto the floor. Once they were down and rolling around, his superior weight would come to dominate and the fight would soon be over.

When Goddard had his hands on the lesser man, he felt an explosion of bestial battle lust. The two tumbled to the floor and began to wrestle with bone-crushing strength. Each had muscles hardened by heightened testosterone levels, perfect genetics and rigorous exercise. Goddard soon had Davenport on his back, although the thinner man squirmed to escape. Goddard pounded him with a blurring series of strikes to the chest.

Finally, at long last, he was putting this cowardly worm into his place. Goddard’s mouth opened with excitement and each blocky tooth was exposed. His teeth were an oddly discolored stone-gray, a byproduct of his extreme breeding.

An explosion of pain arced through his body, starting in his groin. Davenport had managed to get a bladed knee up and into a sensitive spot. The blade did not penetrate the flesh as each man wore a fine mesh of molecularly aligned links. This chainmail was so exquisitely made that it was almost unbreakable, and fit like a sack over each man’s body. The purpose of dueling chambers such as this one was instruction—the men used it to train and release tension, not slaughter one another.  Even so, the stealthy thrust was extremely painful. Without a qualm, Goddard slammed a fist full into the face of Captain Davenport, who slumped down, stunned.

Goddard stood up, struggling to pretend he did not feel the agony in his groin, nor the overwhelming desire to smash Davenport to death. He turned toward the walls and spoke calmly.

“This has been an important lesson. I want everyone to understand that the nature of real combat is never fair, nor predictable. You’ve just witnessed two of your command officers—”

“You are…” hissed Davenport from the floor. “You are recording this?” He had not attempted to rise yet, but he spoke from the side of his mouth. His right cheek still hugged the steel and blood ran out into an expanding puddle with every word.

Goddard glanced down at him. “No,” he said. “I’m not recording it, I’m broadcasting it. Every eye in the fleet witnessed every second of our trial.”

“Why?”

“For discipline enhancement purposes.”

“You cheated,” Davenport gurgled.

Mentally, Goddard marked the captain down as a dead man. Davenport was never going to return to Mendelia. Instead, his ashes would join the admiral’s personal collection. He’d made a long-standing habit of keeping the remains of his political enemies. He kept their ashes in cheap, plastic urns. Each urn was unlabeled, but color-coded with a scheme only Goddard himself knew. A false batch of ash was issued to the grieving parents, carefully irradiated so that no testable genetic material was included. Goddard kept the actual ashes. On moody nights, he would retire with his seven, colorful urns. He had drilled a spit-hole into the top of each urn which he freely made use of. Davenport’s remains would fill the eighth such urn. He would make it a delicate shade of mauve…it seemed like a fitting hue.

“Cheated? Hardly,” Goddard said with calm he did not feel. He removed his weighted gloves as he spoke, casting them onto the curved floor. “You struck the first foul blow.”

“Blades are not—” Davenport began.

“I’m not talking about the cowardly blade to the groin. I’m talking about the boot you launched into my face.”

“We clashed our boots…together,” Davenport said with a tremendous effort. His eyes were closed again.

“I’m sure the vid files will say otherwise.”

“I’m sure they will,” mumbled Davenport.

Goddard had been about to walk out, but he turned. The man
dared
to publicly accuse him of altering evidence even as he lay helpless upon the floor? He felt a rage that almost shook his body. If it had not been for the cameras, he would have finished the seditious captain on the spot. His frequent psychotic rages were a part of his make-up his parents had not intended. After his birth they’d realized their error, but had hidden it carefully, eventually coming to accept their son as he was. After all, truly great men tended to have flaws that were commensurately large. Fortunately, Goddard had the intellect to control his murderous urges when in public.

And so he was able to turn away from the man he wanted to murder more than any other. He waved to the vid pickups and walked smartly out of the combat sphere. When he was out of camera range, he doubled over in pain and made his way to his podship. He would not allow anyone to see his true state.

He traveled to the frontline cruiser of the formation, the
Galton
. There, he retired to his quarters, hissing and cursing as he went. He broke out a personal medkit and went to work on himself, hating Davenport and fantasizing about his doom.

Five

Like many single-star systems, Tranquility’s sun had an Oort cloud of ice chunks and other debris left over from the formation of her planets. As the Mendelian cruisers approached, they first entered this broadly scattered region of frozen garbage. Few living things dwelt here, but there was a singular exception upon one of the larger chunks.