Mech pilot Kira's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Kira had set the trap, but the hunters sprang it early. A scout drone buzzed her comm. Four hunter mechs had breached the tournament grounds. They were sweeping toward bay nine, following the stolen jump core's signature. If she stayed to fight her match, they would corner her first. She had minutes, not hours. She climbed into the wolf mech and lit its capacitors. The frame hummed under her. She had pulled the targeting array out weeks ago, so she aimed by feel now, reading the machine like her own arm. She rolled it into the corridor between the parking bays and waited for the sound of heavy feet. Her comm crackled. San Holo's voice came through, rough and calm. Kira had known him a long time. He and his gang had watched over her from the shadows for years, helping when she never asked. His voice steadied her more than any weapon. "Don't run," San said. "We're already here. Push them into the open and we'll close the door behind them." A metal hawk dropped from the rafters and circled overhead. It was his, sleek and polished, its wings catching the bay lights. It marked the hunters for her, flashing red over each one as they entered. Kira raised her mech's palm and let the laser core warm in its cradle. The first hunter turned the corner. She fired low, cutting its leg, then teleported behind it before it could aim. Her old move, but the hawk had told her exactly where to land. The hunter crashed. San's gang mechs poured in from the far tunnel and pinned the other three against the wall. Then the floor shook. A fifth mech stepped through the gate, taller than the rest, plated in black metal she had never seen. The hunters turned their weapons on it. It walked through their fire like the shots were rain. Its arm swept once and two hunter mechs folded like paper. Kira froze. She knew the engineering. She knew the careful welds. "Dad?" she said into the comm. Scotty's voice answered, tired and gruff. "I told you the laser would draw them. So I built something that draws them harder." His mech crushed the last hunter's cockpit under one foot. "Nobody hunts my daughter. Not while I'm breathing." The bay went quiet. Five hunter mechs lay wrecked around her. The stolen core in her chest still hummed, still trackable, but the hunters who chased it were scrap. San's hawk landed on her mech's shoulder. Her father's black machine stood over the ruin, waiting. Kira breathed out. The immediate threat was dead. But the Mech Research Facility owned that core, and now it had lost a whole hunter team on tournament ground. They would not send scouts next time. They would send everything. And Max Warhorn had just watched her father's unstoppable mech tear through his arena on live feed.