Cavalier's Gambit -ch 3- (Patreon)

Groaning Wayne leaned to the left, then the right, and then backward.

It did almost nothing for his back at all.

He’d done what he set out to do in the end.

“Fucked up my back,” groaned Wayne, standing upright again.

In the end, he’d picked up a shift for almost every hour in the day. Earning more than enough to actually get an armory visit as well as a basic rifle and Walker-Sword.

Given the amount of strength a Walker could put out, melee weapons required a different construction method and materials that weren’t normal for such things.

“Supposedly the same spisht they put on tanks,” Wayne mumbled and leaned forward in his Walker to look to his side. The long sword that was attached there hadn’t moved.

His back reminded him angrily that he’d overworked himself again. A deep and sharp pain that left him leaning to one side again.

“Fuuuuuuck,” he whinged and staid hunched to one side.

“Hey there noober,” said a voice over the radio inside his cockpit. It was the same voice earlier who’d given him instructions and gotten him into the right position.

Looking across the sparse controls and electronic equipment he’d installed he checked the transmit button.

It was off thankfully so no one had heard him complaining.

Lifting his left hand he moved the switch upward.

“Noober, reporting in,” Wayne remarked with a grin. “Time to go?”

“Time to go,” confirmed the speaker.

He hadn’t actually met anyone on this contract in person so far. It’d all been over the radio, email, or messages through the Walker contract brokers. He wasn’t afraid of someone trying to do something weird, but he couldn’t deny it was strange to not even get names or callsigns.

“You’re in position for entry point? Your IFF is responding in… it’s fucking broken, or something,” asked the speaker.

“Yep! I’m in position. Sorry about the IFF. I tore it out of a derelict,” Wayne apologized. “Only got myself to count on so… new stuff as I get contracts.”

“Yeah, yeah, orphan, homeless, blah, blah, bootstraps,” grumbled the curmudgeonly sounding man.

“Hey, hey, are you writing my biography or something? How’d you know all that. Are you a wizard? You’re a space wizard, aren’t ya?” Wayne asked.

The response he got was a long inhale followed by an equally long exhale.

“Get spaced, Noober,” the man said with an actual laugh. “Alright. Fine. We’re good. Proceed ahead.

“Just like we discussed, clear, confirm, continue. If you find any of the secondary or tertiary objectives, handle it.”

“Right-o, Space Wizard,” Wayne said and began moving Patchwork forward. “So, what’s your name? Is it Harry? Are you a Space-Wizard, Harry?”

There was a pregnant silence followed by the click of someone turning off the com-system.

Wayne clicked the switch to the off position.

“Oooh, don’t put a spell on me, Mr. Space Wizard. Or actually, could you please? Maybe something for my peasant orphan homeless back?” Wayne asked nobody, Patchwork clanking along the once paved sidewalk.

Piloting Patchwork with his thoughts, Wayne reached over and flicked several switched.

While he could pilot it with his thoughts, he still had to utilize a number of mechanical switches to get things moving. He didn’t have the funds to get everything to fully operate off his implant.

“Oouiiiiee, listen to you purr you nasty ugly bitch of mine,” Wayne said with a grin as the heavy, and disturbingly cheap, rifle in Patchwork’s arms began to buzz.

An early pattern of the Yatuni “Y-UN A1” kinetic rifle.

It was easily the size of himself and fired rounds that would qualify it for taking on anything with an armor rating of a three or lower. Able to punch right through anything that was qualified as “light armor” on a vehicle.

The background check and paperwork for it had taken only a day which had bothered him. He’d always heard it took much longer to get such things pushed through.

The rifle, or Yuna as he thought of it, didn’t work right.

The reason he’d been able to afford such a weapon at all, was because it normally was able to fire an entire assortment of rounds. A round for any situation, in fact.

Except this particular rifle had been broken, worked on, and miserably ruined.

It could only fire three things.

Things that made people explode, things that went through armor, and things that exploded when it struck armor.

“Which, you know what, that’s fine. You’re all the rifle I need, Yuna,” Wayne remarked as he clanked and clomped into a long defunct emergency exit.

He had to partially lean down to fit Patchwork in, turn sideways, and crab walk, but it was workable.

Entering the building he grunted, then reached up to flick the overhead lights he’d welded onto the top of cockpit. There was a whining noise as the bulbs began to heat up before they clacked loudly.

Six beams shot across the darkened room in front of him.

Three went low and in an arc in front of him, the other three went halfway up and away. He’d lined them up so he could get a view in a room with them.

“Oh perfect. Look at that, eh?” Wayne asked no one. “Awww, I need an AI or something. I’m going to start talking to Yuna and getting creepy about it if I don’t.

“Then again… talking to an AI is almost similar, isn’t it? Probably.”

The room itself was a long abandoned bunker.

There was a lot of equipment scattered about and what looked like computer banks, but none of it mattered to Wayne.

What did matter, was the four foot long rodents of unusual size.

A monstrous rat like creature that was easily five feet from nose to the base of the tail and could knock a grown man over with ease.

There were seven here and all of them looking at him.

“Yuna, time for you to show me what those people-turn-into-mist rounds do,” Wayne said and pulled the rifle around. He lined it up while positioning it as if it were a real rifle.

Unfortunately, all the fancy optics and HUD options that a Walker would want for great targeting wasn’t available to Wayne yet.

Simply a matter of cost.

But what was available was a cheap, massive, and partially cracked, red-dot sight that fit on Yuna.

Lining it up on the nearest rat he squeezed the trigger on his rifle.

The resulting crack without a boom was strange to him. It was loud, but not break your hearing loud.

He didn’t quite understand how the rifle worked, except that it propelled it’s ammunition in a way very similar to old fashioned kinetic weapons.

They just didn’t do it by blowing them up out of a barrel with explosives.

The rat that he’d sized up was a miss. It went just over it’s head.

Though it did strike it in the spine.

From it’s back down to it’s tail ceased to exist.

It’d been converted into bologna-mist with speckles of fur as the spine was most certainly not-surgically removed.

“Oh fuck yeah, Yuna, gimmie more,” Wayne called as he pulled the rifle a touch to the right and eased the trigger down again.

He compensated this time to move the red dot down just a smidge and the resulting shot hit the next roden in the face.

Which was instantly re-purposed into chunky paint that liberally coated everything nearby. Splattering about in a way that made him think the round had partially traveled down the big fuckers gullet and into his chest.

By the time the air cleared Wayne couldn’t see the third rodent.

It’d high-tailed it, or was it low-tailed it, out of the room and left him there.

“Eeeeeh, fuck. Yuna you nasty bitch I love you,” Wayne muttered and glanced at the small display on the side of the rifle. The readout was green. “You’re going with me forever.

“I’ll just pay some damn grease-flea to fix you to standard if I need to. You, me, this nasty-ass Walker known as Patchwork, we’re all busted and moving along,” Wayne got out with an unhinged giggle.

Then he reached over and flicked the switch to communicate.

“Patchwork here. Found three, killed two, one ran off. Proceeding. Nothing unexpected,” he reported in a normal tone, then flicked the comms system back off.

He continued forward.

***

Holding the trigger down Wayne slowly eased Yuna from left to right. Each heavy crack of the weapon going off caused Patchwork to jitter partially to one side.

Heavy rounds clanged from Yuna’s muzzle and obliterated anything they touched. Turning rodents inside out and laying waste to everything else in between.

Wayne had discovered a few things on his first mission.

Chief among them was he really needed eye-protection.

He’d gone the extra mile and brought his work-earphones. They’d cut down the noise quite well and he didn’t feel like he’d have to have his hearing worked on.

His eyes, were a different matter though.

“Yuna you shine too bright,” he hissed after he finished the sweep of the rifle. There weren’t any rodents left alive. “I’ve got spots that just won’t go away.”

With a sigh, Wayne looked to the readout for his ammo cannister, which was connected to the bottom of Yuna’s magazine port.

He hadn’t wanted to bother with constantly changing it so he’d put in a belt fed system.

He saw he was about halfway through his ammo supplies. Which really was about where he wanted it to be since he was halfway through the mission, give or take.

With a grunt, Wayne looked up to the wall where he’d found the room indicators up to this point. The numbers and letters made no sense to him and he didn’t know what they meant.

What he did know, was that he’d finally reached his last waypoint.

Lowering Yuna Wayne stuck it to the side of Patchwork. He moved it around till it found it’s locking position and remained there.

“Man, I’m just awkward as fuck. It’s gonna take a bit till I can do this without looking like fuckwit,” growled Wayne.

Drawing his heavy sword he started moving over to the mounds of rodents. He needed to make sure they were all exterminated.

Using his sword he casually stabbed each and every body.

Each one received a stab to make sure they were absolutely dead. While every kill didn’t get him anymore reward, he didn’t want anyone to say he didn’t complete his job as completely as possible.

A big rat lashed out at him as he got close.

The upper half of it slamming into the leg of Patchwork and it’s head bashing into one of the armored plates Wayne had attached.

Then the sword came down and skewered the monster through the ribs.

Shaking his head, Wayne was glad he’d taken this course of action.

Stomping about, he went about his business.

When it was finally complete, he was at the back of the room.

Reaching over, he pulled the switch into the on position to transmit.

“Hey, Patchwork here,” he said, somewhat regretting letting his contract name be assigned based on his Walkers name. “Reached my final waypoint. Cleared out entirely. Waiting for confirmation to proceed to my exit waypoint.

“My data’s updated and the video is live.”

Wayne said the last and glanced up at the camera that was strapped to the upper part of his cockpit. It’d been a requirement of the mission and he imagined it was to review footage and confirm completion.

Turning, Wayne put his spotlights on the wall number and made sure the camera could see it.

Feeling a bit funny, he got down on one knee. It’d likely include most of the dead rodents in the frame as well.

“Received, hold,” said a woman’s voice he hadn’t heard before.

Right… someone was listening on the channel the whole time.

Kinda figured that there was.

I wonder if this is whoever actually hired everyone for the mission, but put the old fucker as the lead so they didn’t have to deal with it.

“Confirmed. Thank you. Would you be willing to take on an extra objective?” asked the woman.

“I mean… maybe?” Wayne responded cautiously. He didn’t want to agree to anything without it in writing but that wasn’t exactly possible given the situation.

“I’ve sent the full amount for completion of the job to your account. You can check it if you like,” the woman stated. “I’ll send you half of that amount if you can follow a new waypoint plan.

“One of the expected routes for another contractor was impassable. There should be a route to clear it from where you are.”

“Half?” Wayne asked.

“Yes. Your original payment was eight-hundred credits, which has been paid,” the woman agreed. Wayne still had a hard time believing that his first job was that much for as little work as he’d done so far. “So an additional four-hundred to clear to another set of waypoints.

“The projected danger and expectations are identical to the one you already did.”

“I see,” Wayne murmured, then stood up. He stowed his sword and pulled Yuna off her attachment point.

“I’ll include re-arming costs,” she added after a pause.

“Done,” Wayne agreed. He didn’t want to ask for more money, that’d just be rude, but four-hundred really wasn’t worth him spending the ammo.

If they were covering said ammo that removed any reason to say no.

“I’ll have to guide you there directly since your… ah… Patchwork doesn’t have the ability to receive in mission updates,” the woman said in a polite tone.

“Patchwork is just that, Patchwork. My first mission and it’s everything I could rip out of a junkyard,” Wayne said with a chuckle. “But hey, you gave me my first gig so consider me thankful. Happy to do any work you’ve got in the future, too.

“I’m Wayne, by the way. What’s your name or callsign?”

“Dema,” answered the woman. He could tell there was a smile on her face now though. “Now, Wayne, go ahead and head to that doorway ahead of you and to the left.”

“Mm, got it. So, Dema. Come here often? You like to hang around in dark horrible places?” Wayne asked and began moving quickly toward the door. “Because if you’re into hell-holes, man, I’d love to take you home.”

“I… that… you don’t even know what I look like?” Dema asked in a choked voice. He’d bet on her trying to kill a laugh before it could escape.

“You’ve got a customer service voice,” Wayne answered and pushed the door open. He once again had to squat down, turn sideways, and grind Patchwork through the door. Most of them ended up getting their frame broken by him doing this, but there was no alternative. “If you’ve got the voice, that means you probably have a face to match it.

“And if you don’t, well, that’s fine, I’m an equal opportunity kind of guy. That voice of yours is pretty appealing on it’s own.”

“You’re… no thank you,” Dema stated. “Move ahead through here to that room over there. When you’re in that room, you’ll have three doors to choose from. Take the one marked as Five-C.

“Clear as you go. I’ll check back in shortly.”

There was a pop and the line went dead.

Reaching out Wayne hit the switch and turned off his own transmitter.

“Oh sure, sure. I get it. I’m a dirty orphan peasant,” Wayne remarked and then brought Yuna up. “I’d probably turn me down, too, if we’re being honest.

“I’ll just assume she’s already got someone she’s seeing. There we go. That’ll boost my ego.

“For now, I’ve got Yuna, and I can turn her own, and get her to go… off.”

Wayne said the last while lining up the barrel on a rodent.

Two hours later, and Dema walking him through waypoint after waypoint, he ended up several floors lower than he’d expected and deep in the back of the facility.

He’d burnt through a quarter of his remaining ammo before switching to his sword. Every kill after that had been done up close and personal, but he’d been rationing his ammo.

The idea of running out of ammo without the chance for resupply sounded incredibly stupid.

“Aaaand, done,” Dema stated as Wayne panned the camera around the room. “I’ve sent you the payment as well as a purchase credit for the ammo. It’s unstated as to the amount as there’s the likelihood you might end up firing more rounds on the way out.

“Please don’t abuse my trust that you’ll match what you spent to what you pull from the broker’s store.”

“Oh, sure, no worries. I’ll do that. Hell I can tell you how much I spent so far if it helps,” Wayne offered, excited.

The mission had been hard to describe. With ups, downs, and periods where he’d been bored, as well as his heart rate spiking into the next solar system.

“I… no thank you, Wayne. I appreciate it. If we have any more missions like this, we’ll reach out to you directly,” Dema promised.

“Thanks, as I get more, I plan on upgrading Patchwork. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again,” he assured her.

If she was working for a company that handled eradication, than that meant it was almost a guarantee they’d cross paths again.

“Thanks. Go ahead and return the camera to the broker’s store. We’ll pick it up from them later. Make sure it happens within the next calendar month,” Dema said, then went silent.

Wayne nodded his head, then flicked the switch. He watched as the redlight on the camera went dark. Dema was no longer watching and it was no longer recording again.

Reaching up, he turned it around and had it face a metal plate.

Looking around, Wayne wondered if he could take a few things.

There was always scrap that was worth taking in a place like this.

He just had to make sure that whatever he took would be considered worthless to whoever came to clean up. That it wouldn’t be something they’d go missing.

“I wonder if there’s any loose metal I can grab. There’s a lot of stuff that’s up in price right now,” Wayne muttered. “Pretty sure tin and copper were going wild lately.”

Looking around, Wayne spotted a small metalic chunk.

He could tell at a glance that it was most certainly not iron or steel just on the fact that it had the appearance of something that went into a machine. It’d been torn out with part of a glass canopy covering it.

“Perfect,” Wayne murmured then picked it up. It was time to go.

He put his sword into it’s attachment point, rearmed himself with his rifle, and went to exit the mission site.

His loot stashed under his left arm.

A small light blinked on and off on the inner-side of the bracket that held the glass. Slowly turning on, and off, and on again.

Wayne never saw it.