Sabaki
Achilles dropped into his Mobile Trooper’s cockpit, it was a special prototype Kämpfer. He landed in the suspended linear seat, and he wasted no time with last-minute diagnostic checks, the various instruments hummed and whirred. He left nothing untouched. It was now or never. All systems were go.
A fiery red bush popped in. Achilles didn’t bat an eye: He had sensed his presence coming of course.
“Please consider this, milord,” Adrian said. “Allow me to assign someone else... allow me to go in your stead.”
Achilles waved him off. Adrian obeyed, begrudgingly. The hatch sealed shut. Without skipping a beat, he turned the engine key and the Kämpfer rumbled to life. The cockpit’s paneling went from a universal muted hue to projecting a three-sixty-degree panoramic view of the outside environment. Though the cockpit is located in a reinforced chest compartment of the MT, the main modular optical feed is linked to the MT’s headpiece cameras.
The Kämpfer got up from its slumbering bed, one after the another he equipped himself; first with a photon naginata, and then a laz repeater rifle. It wobbled for a bit on its way to the nearest deployment tube. It had been years since Achilles was last in a MT—but he merely brushed off the rust like it was mere dust, the control and system layout were vastly different (and superior) to a Tacoma—but he adapted quick.
Adrian floated nearby, arms crossed. Always such a worrywart, Achilles said inwardly. He couldn’t suppress a smile. The man had something to say, so he amped the audio pickup.
“...You should at least let me—“
“No,” Achilles said.
“At least a few escorts—“
“No,” Achilles said.
“Milord...”
“We lost our best aces at Azincourt,” Achilles said. The Scourge of the Imperium, Devil of the Confederacy, the Yellow Reaper—she slaughtered them all. Frustration fueled him, his glory robbed at every twist and turn, by her, by Lawrence, by the Emperor’s cowardice to press forward. But no more, no more will he suffer any further setbacks. He was going to choke fate with his own hands. He had one Kämpfer foot on the deployment sled. “They’ll merely hold me back.”
“But even so...!”
“I’m giving temporary command of the Xanthus over to you, if you see any Golden Sash rebels, kill them,” he said. He was situated on the sled now. The hangar whined with a alarm, and Adrian and other personnel darted out of the way. The deployment tube hissed steam and sealed shut.
A strong force rocked the Kämpfer, his world a blur of lines as the MT was jettisoned with strong velocity through the underbelly of the Xanthus. And now . . . He was a uncaged bird, free at last!
Achilles jerked the joysticks, the Kämpfer sped off in a certain direction. No one had a concrete idea where the Emperor’s Xanadu went off after it entered the Cilicia Domain, but Achilles did, his spatial matrix picked up his grieving pings; it was heavier and heavier on his mental web, a heavy rock on a thin net. His map radar indicated the Varangian Guard–Golden Sash MT skirmish was well underway, and with them distracted, it only made his job easier. Would they turn back and turn their guns on him to avenge a dead man? Achilles could only wonder, the excitement spurred him on.
To his surprise, however, a few peeled off from the firefight and were also coming down on the Emperor’s flagship, the Xanadu. The VG gave mad chase to the GS Mobile Troopers—he could see on a sub-window their freakish Frankenstein of Tacoma–Shinra parts. The two parties barreled along, seemingly unaware of the Kämpfer, at incredible speeds. No end to their back and forth of deadly laser tag.
Achilles slowed down, he landed atop a stray asteroid.
It was only then that the GS rebels stopped in their tracks, they spun around and neutralized their pursuers with relative ease. At first, Achilles let them have their way—it meant less trouble for him. The rebels picked up pace again, Achilles shadowed them slowly. Did they know where the flagship was? Was the Emperor’s position leaked? But by whom?
The Xanadu was by its lonesome, save for a few VG that must’ve stayed beyond, but like the cannon fodder from earlier, they were smeared clean by the arrival of the GS rebels. They descended slowly upon the Xanadu, and, uncharacteristically, they refrained from firing it then and there. One of them gestured for the other to head for the command bridge, perhaps to see out the Emperor? Were they planning on taking him prisoner?
Achilles made his move. He launched off from cover, firing several shots at the one that stayed behind—but he missed all his shots. Now alerted, the Frankenstein MT tried to get his partner’s attention, but Achilles gave no more opportunities. He fired a gun, grazing the laz gun the MT had, forcing him to abandon it.
Achilles’s teeth clattered. “Calibration must be off...” he reached for the targeting system, but decided against it in the spur of the moment. He was being charged at, and he fired off another shut—it ricocheted off the Shinra-like shoulder pad. Achilles glanced at a sub-monitor, the other MT was heading back for him.
A firefight between the Kämpfer and the Frankenstein MT. He spun and performed intense maneuvers, putting as much distance as he could with the enemy’s ally. The threads of death only barely grazing his Kämpfer.
The enemy was closing in, and soon enough he was going to be sandwiched between the two of them. His repeater rifle’s magazine ran dry, and in his rush he didn’t think to carry extra muntions. He didn’t need them.
Instead, Achilles ripped out a long black belt from his MT’s backpack, both MTs were closing in now, undeterred by what he was planning. The Kämpfer whipped it around, twirling it, and that was when they stopped in their tracks, and tried to divert their concerted drive—but it was too late. The little devices loosed from the belt painted their black canvas battle-space with a torrent of explosions. For a moment, Achilles’s spatial matrix confirmed they were gone—but one barreled through the daisy-chain of bellowing smoke. Achilles yanked at his naginata, and activated it. Likewise, the sole MT did the same, drawing his photon hilt; its glistening purple beam cut through the void of space.
They charged at each other. The enemy MT swung first—but his arms were sliced off. Then, Achilles sliced off his legs, and the Shinra headpiece. He skewered the Frankenstein Tacoma–Shinra center mass, and kicked the football mech away. As he sheathed the naginata, his rear view captured the moment it exploded in a ball of white death—and then nothing.
A nearby laz rifle floated by, a gift by the gods no less. He equipped it, and slowly, like a victory stroll, basked in the sunlight of the star zone’s sun as he approached the Super Star Dreadnought. The Kämpfer hovered above the Xanadu.
And there, sure enough, was the silhouette of Mikhail. Hunched over upon his throne in the bridge’s miniaturized, ornamented palace.
Mikhail looked up at the monstrous Kämpfer. Was he his savior—or was he the herald of death?
Achilles slowly pressed back on the joystick. The Kämpfer raised his weapon, slowly, to let it sink in for the Emperor he will give him his just desserts. Achilles’s pressure on the trigger tightened, the noose around the Emperor squeezed him.
But then, strange thoughts spurred him to reconsider. If he killed the Emperor now . . . If he extracted sweet revenge here and now, his twelve years of a conspiracy against the Emperor led up to this very, crucial moment? But was it the right moment?
The Archduke was reduced to atoms. The Emperor’s other sons died from court politics or against the various border rebels of the Imperium. That just left his youngest daughter, the Princess Alexandria, as the one potential heir to the Barbarossa lineage.
If he assassinated the Emperor now, it would destabilize the entire Imperium . . . It would invite a new Fitna, a Second Fitna.
Achilles unleashed a long, exhausted sigh. A glance at his map radar—the broader skirmish was over. The VG were returning to the mother ship.
Killing Mikhail had no benefit to him—yet. He realized the importance of keeping him alive for just a little longer, because who knew if the republican border scum will strike once more? If he kills him at this junction and unleashed a bloody civil war, it would be completely over for the Imperium. He needed stability now more than ever . . . And it pained him to realize he needed to wait and see what Lawrence Mengde will do next.
Achilles lowered the laz gun. He saluted the Emperor, and steered off for the Xanthus. The VG MAVs ignored him as he zipped past them.
He wasn’t going to sit by idly while waiting for Lawrence’s move. No, he needed to consolidate his power base, cultivate new followers and prepare for the coming civil war. The end of the Barbarossa dynasty was at hand... Mikhail and his byanztine ways were on exceedingly borrowed time. And he will be there at the cusp of its destruction, holding the Emperor’s head in one hand and the fat, slimey head of Zhuo in the other, with the head of the Durazzo fox under his heel. Achilles will make the galaxy his, and if he must fight the gods himself to do it, he will.