Cavalier's Gambit -Ch 6- (Patreon)

Wayne made excited chattering noises as if he were a squirrel.

Or perhaps a very pleased chimpanzee.

In either case, his joy was audible and apparent.

He had no idea why but the “garage” as Horrace had called it was filled with Scout iterations of Walkers as well as several Light-Combat Walkers.

Which were bulkier Scout Walkers intended to fight in combat roles that didn’t need heavy anti-armor roles.

There was even a semi-dismantled Mid-Assault class Trailblazer.

A strange looking Walker that had been built with to limit it’s target profile. It reminded him of several Heavy Load-Walker’s he’d dealt with and their legs being a counterbalance of sorts.

Someone had once told him that it was called digitigrade, but in his head it’d always be chicken walking.

While it was unfortunate looking as a Walker, and the cockpit left a lot to be desired, it’d fit the bill that’d been asked of it. The Trailblazer could often slip in quickly to a battle-line and lay-waste to the surroundings.

Scrambling up the side of a Heavy-Combat Walker he couldn’t help but be impressed by the weaponry. The right limb was a massive and honestly oversized looking rotary cannon that’d probably dump enough rounds into a thing to stop it moving from sheer weight of the rounds alone.

Which was also why the back of this squat and stubby thing had such a large cargo space. It needed room for all that ammo.

The left arm was longer than the right and had an odd hook on at the hand that didn’t look standard.

Of the rest of it one could also see the signs of none of this being as it should normally for the model.

There was a large energy weapon along the top of the forearm that ran up to the elbow. If it wasn’t fully extended the back of the weapon would strike the bicep area, which was rather odd.

Climbing to the top of it, Wayne looked down. Trying to get an idea of how it’d look from the inside.

He didn’t get a clear mental picture.

Getting back down he went to the rear of the Walker and looked out between it’s reverse-jointed legs.

“Ah! This is like a machine gun emplacement!” he stated as sudden realization dawned on him.

Given the legs, it could squat down quite low to the ground.

The hook on the left arm likely worked similarly to how an artillery spike would operate.

Put down in the front to keep the Walker from recoiling backward if it maintained steady fire.

Wayne leaned forward and spotted something he’d missed before.

There was an under-slung bi-pod attached to the right-arm.

It could quite literally operate as a machine gun and hold a field of fire that’d be disastrous to cross.

“You’re right,” said a voice somewhere from his left.

Frowning, he stepped out from under the Walker and looked to where he thought the speaker waas.

It’d sounded as if it’d come from a Scout Walker that was turned over on it’s side.

“Erm, hello? I was right?” Wayne tried, walking over in that direction. “I swear I have permission to be here. From Horrace, that is.”

“Yes, hello. How ya doing?” replied the voice calling back to him. It was indeed coming from the downed Walker.

“I mean, uh… pretty good? I just spent most of my day running through endless simulations but pretty good,” Wayne confessed without realizing his mouth was running. “I could do with a beer or three and a pretty face, how ‘bout you?”

There was a laugh at his comment followed by a clang and a grunt.

“I mean, yeah, definitely on the beers. Pass on the pretty face. I don’t swing for the home team despite rumors to the contrary,” offered the speaker. Followed by what Wayne couldn’t mistake for anything over then a ratchet clicking as it was spun one way, then the other.

Coming around the side of the Walker, Wayne found the speaker.

It was an oil-stained, dirt-laden, overall-wearing mess that was hunched over an armor plate.

The woman’s hair was quite short, brown, and wavy, though it looked quite oily. Scattered about her head though most of it was attempting to be held back in a hair-tie.

Aqua-marine eyes were narrowed as she stared at the panel.

Spinning around, the woman lifted a foot and hammered the edge of the plate several times with her boot-heel. After the fourth time she apparently managed it, if her goal was to get the opposite side out of it’s insertion groove.

“Fuck!” screamed the woman and then groaned, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling of the garage. She was resting now on her rear-end with her palms taking up the majority of her weight as she leaned back.

“Yeah, those plates are kinda fucky,” Wayne muttered. “I ended up tack-welding one side in, then the other. Little baby tack-welds. Super tiny.

“After I got the bolts in I’d just cut the weld. Little high grit sandpaper and a touch of paint, no-one will know.

“Though it’ll come out like a damn jack in the box if the bolts fail. Might as well be a weapon.

“Though uh, I had to be careful not to fuck up the frickin’ temper of the metal though. Won’t stop anything if you screw that shit up.”

The woman had turned his way and listened to him as he spoke. Her eyebrows slowly going up with each word.

When he finished she grinned at him.

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I’m a mechanic, not a body-shop worker. Plates aren’t my thing,” complained the woman and kicked the offending armored sheet. “Motors, gears, transmissions, gyros, anything and everything about machinery. I’m good with all that.”

“Yeah, I get that. Pretty sure mechanics don’t normally work on armor. That’s the job of the… armorer… or something, isn’t it?” Wayne commiserated. “I’m Wayne, by the way.”

“Jenny,” the woman said with a small nod of her head. Then she wiped at her face with the back of her hand. Smearing what looked like grease across her cheek to jaw. “You know what? You’re right.

“I’m going to go punch Britha in the face. Then maybe Horrace. Because they said this would be a pleasure trip compared to others.

“So far? So far I’m just dealing with shit all day every day. Shit. Never ending shit.

“And after I get this plate put in, then I get to recalibrate a brand new gyro for it, because some dumb fool walked this thing into a jet-wash and got sent flying!”

“Yeah, sounds annoying,” Wayne agreed. When he’d tried to calibrate his own gyro he’d given up on it quickly. He was nowhere near smart enough to make heads or tails of the math required to get it working right. “I’m too stupid to fix that stuff. I had someone do it locally.

“Honestly I’m not much of a mechanic at all, really. I put my own Walker together though and… well… you do what you gotta when your a Scrap-worlder.”

“You put together your own Walker?” Jenny asked, looking genuinely curious.

“Yeah. I have no idea what the frame used to be. Just some Light-Scout or something. It’s got a good center of gravity with just the skeleton and all the bones were good,” Wayne answered. “No rust, no cracks, nothing at all. Just… missing everything, haha.”

Jenny’s mouth turned up at the edges and then she blew out a breath.

“Kinda sounds fun,” she said with a sigh. “More fun than this.”

“Uhm, I’m not a mechanic but ah… want a hand?” Wayne offered. “I was just gonna wander around for a few hours then hit the sack.”

Jenny sniffed, then rubbed at her nose with the back of her wrist. Smearing dark grease across her nose now.

“Yeah, that’d be nice. Thanks, Wayne,” Jenny murmured. “Wanna help me hold this plate down and see if we can get it put in place between us? I’d like to try doing that way first if only because… well… I don’t want to spend the time cleaning up the welds later.

“If we can’t do it by hand, well, we could tack-weld it like you said.”

***

Wayne brought the laser rifle around, dropped the targeting reticle onto the target he’d expected being there, and dumped the round he’d charged up.

With a noise that reminded him alot of a high-tension wire being struck the rifle discharged.

The red glowing lance of violence blared out and struck the Combat Walker at the hip joint. The over-charged beam struck the ball-joint perfect.

Wayne was quite pleased to see his opponent had lost all of his weapons except for a heavy ballistic rifle. It’d originally been strapped to their back.

Ducking back out to the right Wayne pushed the shoulder of the Lugh up to the wall of a ruined building. Panting, Wayne considered what to do.

Despite the fact that it was down to just a rifle now, it was still a weapon that could be problematic for Wayne depending on the ammo it was loaded with.

Up to this point he’d done well to hit-run, manuever, and reposition after every contact.

Except this time, he didn’t instantly break away and shift.

Waiting there he flipped his rifle around and stuck it around the corner. The optics on top of it providing him a crosshair as well as a very small window to look through.

The Combat Walker he’d been fighting was still there. Though it’d shifted its focus elsewhere. Looking toward one of the other three possible attack position.

Clearly expecting Wayne to attack from the other positions that he’d done so previously. Which would’ve matched to the previous pattern.

Pulling the rifle back into position, Wayne decided to continue with his previous goal. If he could knock out one of the Combat Walker’s legs, he could just take his time after that point.

Taking in a short breath, then exhaling, Wayne decided that this was the best opportunity to blow out the energy cell that powered the weapon.

It was down to about a third of it’s power.

He could take another ten or eleven shots before it’d be empty.

Or dump the entirety of the cell in one go and absolutely obliterate the cell.

Checking his cell-count, he had two left. The other three had already been expended just to get him to this moment.

Wayne activated the cell, removed the safety, and hit the charge function on the rifle. It only took two seconds before it was ready.

Given that it was going to break the cell, there wasn’t much of a reason to patiently charge the shot.

Stepping out Wayne dropped the retcile on the other Walker’s hip again.

Then fired.

The discharge was so blisteringly hot that a heat warning flashed across his HUD.

Screaming across the distance the hit landed right where he wanted it to.

The same hip that’d been struck several times now.

There was a screech of tortured metal as the Walker’s leg bent the wrong way then locked into place.

The Combat Walker tilted to one side, tripped over it’s screwed up leg, and slammed into the wall.

Only to spend to the side, line the rifle up on Wayne, and pull the trigger.

A number of rounds slammed into the cockpit. Cracking the steel-glass and breaking his HUD outright.

Then bulletholes appeared and numerous alarms sprang up on the HUD.

Wayne dropped the weapon and turned off to the side.

Looking to the warnings he saw that the Lugh was absolutely compromised. From the hydraulics to the oxygen, and even the radiator, everything was toast.

“Damnit, fine,” Wayne growled. He hit the cockpit release and then went to the controls for the reactor. He dialed it up to maximum output, then struck the cockpit opening mechanism. “Going to send this forward into the alley and let it blow up. While that happens, imma fuckin’ bounce!”

Wayne hit the latch and then froze before pushing the cockpit open.

“Uh… wait, what do I do now? This is what I would do in this situation but it ends the simulation,” Wayne said.

“I mean… yeah, that’d end the simulation. Probably destroy your target and maybe you,” Horrance mused.

“I run fast, I think I’d be alright,” Wayne countered, then shoved the cockpit door open.

He got down out of the cockpit and looked over to the computer terminals.

Horrace and the other technician were both looking at the screens.

“Push the simulation. Do what he said he would. Have his avatar run out,” Horrace ordered, then he stood up and looked to Wayne. He smirked and shrugged. “I mean, I told you to just go have fun for the last day of testing.”

“Hey, I had fun. I found something to fight against and it gave me a lot of experience. That and I got to experiment with overrunning a cell.” Wayne answered with a smile and then shrugged. “So… you said that was the last test, right?

“I mean, it’s been a fun eight weeks, and my bank account has definitely been looking great after all this, but honestly, I feel like you’ve been paying me for nothing.”

“That’s not true. We had you test our new employee training as well as a number of other tests. You’ve been a great subject,” Horrace argued then gestured to the doorway.

Wayne nodded his head and moved toward the exit. He’d already spoken to the Horrace about what would be happening today.

Now that testing was over, he was going to be leaving immediately, and that’d be it. There would be nothing needed of him further. His contract period was now complete.

“Well, thanks, Wayne. It’s ben a pleasure,” Horrace remarked and led him to the lobby door. He pushed it open. “Be safe out there.”

Wayne nodded his head, waved a hand at the older man, and slipped through the doorway.

Leaving the lobby he stood there on the street.

He took in a deep breath, then exhaled.

Pulling out his phone he flipped open the contacts.

Jenny had sent him a text message.

Upon reading, he found it was a demand that he stop by the garage before he left. Which realistically wasn’t possible given how Horrace had told him the last day would go.

Tapping in a quick response, he invited her out for a few beers later if she wanted, but couldn’t swing by her garage. He’d spent a number of his evenings helping her repair things, but there’d been a period in the middle where she’d simply vanished for four weeks.

When she returned she didn’t mention anything and had acted as if she hadn’t been gone at all. Though he did note that a number of new Walkers had shown up with things that needed repair.

There hadn’t been any chemistry between himself and Jenny that he felt so he had missed the opportunity to work on a Walker, but hadn’t really lamented her loss, either.

My standards are just too damn high.

Putting his phone back in his pocket, Wayne went home.

For the first time in seven weeks he would be sleeping in his own bed.

Horrace had promised him that a security company was watching over his home and property while he was gone.

After the first week of going back and forth, and having to talk to the security guard on duty and getting himself cleared to go to his own bedroom, Wayne realized Horrace had been on the level with him.

Anything Horrace said would happen, happened.

Anything he promised, came true.

Wayne had been pleasantly surprised to learn that his paranoia and concerns had been misplaced. To the point that he almost felt guilty.

When he made it home, he found a security guard at the door. They were armed, wearing armor, and had been watching Wayne and his approach.

This was a new guard that Wayne hadn’t met previously. Though to be fair, the guards never seemed to stay longer than three days.

“Welcome home, Wayne. I’ve already been briefed on your return, clearance, and have made sure the premises is secure,” said the guard. “Have a good day.”

The guard didn’t wait and simply left.

Wayne nodded his head at the man as he passed by.

“Thanks,” he said.

To which the guard didn’t say anything. They simply walked to their security vehicle not far off.

Entering his home, Wayne went straight to the garage.

Patchwork was still in the same position as it’d been in previously. Yuna was in a set of clamps and held up on the bench.

Last time he’d been here, he’d been tinkering with the rifle. Trying to get it function a bit better.

After having all the manuals for the current models, he’d seen a number of improvements that they’d made that he might be able to add to Yuna.

The white boxed window appeared around the rifle. Information began filling the box rapidly, several line items that actually had question marks instead of anything else.

Sighing, Wayne reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He also closed his left eye so it didn’t start spitting out information about his phone.

Opening up a shopping app he typed in “eyepatches”.

In the end, he hadn’t been able to get the information to stop displaying.

He’d learned all the normal commands that would have been issued to such a program, even how, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t turn it off.

That left him wanting to constantly closed his left eye.

In the end, he’d felt that an eye-patch was easier, cheaper, and less obtrusive than having the eye removed outright.

As he found one that looked like something he wouldn’t mind wearing, his phone rang. The contact on the front was listed as Jenny.

Tapping the accept button he put the phone up to his ear.

“Hey there,” he said with a chuckle. “Sorry, Horrace took me straight out without the possibility of doing anything else. For whatever reason they wanted me out today as fast as possible.”

“Yeah, that’s also why I’m calling,” Jenny grumbled sounding rather annoyed. “I’d normally take you up on that offer to go out for a drink but I have to apologized. I’m going to be working.

“Probably for a week or three. Dunno. Repair work is weird. Never know how long a time I’ll get to handle it.”

“Oh? Oh. Alright. Well, I’ll catch ya later then. Hit me up when you’re back and we can get that drink,” Wayne said.

“Yeah, let’s do that. Alright, take it easy,” Jenny said and then disconnected.

Wayne let his phone drop down in front of himself.

Hitting purchase on the eyepatch he then looked over to Patchwork.

“Well… we’re flush with cash, got some free time, and there’s likely more contracts to work,” Wayne muttered to himself. “Maybe go swing by the contract hall. See if we can’t make any connections.”

Pausing, Wayne stood there, staring at Patchwork. Part of him was thinking that he should get the windshield installed.

Then he shook his head.

He’d rather go to the hall and network.

Now that he had a few missions under his belt he wouldn’t be avoided or shunned. He could actually rub elbows with others and maybe even get some information.