Hackerman Chapter 19 (Patreon)

There were no more incidents before the end of the journey. Landing went smooth, the only problem being that we were in the middle of the freezing wastes with nothing around except some long-abandoned RRI installations. Some of those would be refurbished and taken over by the corps eventually. 

Not this one. Arquebus’ main base was being constructed within an hour of landing. The vespers did a variety of patrols with some air support and declared it all clear. Concrete was mixed on-site, dozers began to flatten vast swathes of ground, mining MTs began to break ice where needed, and foremen began to direct workers around and extract cargo from my hold with hurried precision. 

If all went as scheduled, they’d have some semi-permanent housing set up before I left. If not, plenty of them would be sleeping in their MTs while burning fuel to keep the air conditioning on. While it would be subsidized since delays were an acknowledged risk, they would still get their pay docked. Nobody wanted that. 

For my part, I just kept my staff out of the way and kept the cafeteria open 24/7. The roughnecks were grateful to the point of groveling for the small gesture. A little kindness went a long way, especially on a planet as brutal as Rubicon. 

Two days passed, with only Freud’s skulking around to bother me. Otherwise all was well, and I gave Rusty a wave as we ascended away from the camp. Our thrusters grew to a roar and the camp shrunk until it disappeared beneath a cloud. 

Huh. That was weirdly smooth. I completely expected Balam to make a surprise attack or something. It was unnerving, and as the trip back to restock on supplies and disembark back on Belius was halfway through I felt tense, like the other shoe was going to drop on my neck any minute now. 

It was almost a relief when Kate called me. “Bad news.” Were her first words to me. I had been on the bridge fulfilling my duties when she called, and quickly excused myself. 

“What’s up?” I asked, putting in earbuds as I walked down the hallways. 

“Arquebus has begun making inquiries into the shareholders. I impersonated two of them and was given offers for their stock.” 

Oh right. The dead shareholders, the ones that O’Keefe had noticed disappearing… maybe we shouldn’t have killed them? 

No, no, that was crazy talk. But this was beginning to grow from an inconvenience into a problem very quickly. 

“Why and how?” I slid into crisis management mode. 

“I’ve reached out to a contact of mine within Arquebus and they’ve learned that V1 Freud called a meeting of multiple high level management, including the Chief Military Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and though they weren’t able to attend, the Chief Executive Officer. I’m currently investigating the contents of the meeting as a potential lead.”

“Don’t bother.” I slammed the door to my room shut and went straight to my computer. Hacking Arquebus was child’s play, I had already done it all from inside the company, and in two minutes I had access to Freud’s recent activity. It was standard practice in Arquebus to monitor the activity of high value assets, their vespers being no exception. 

Following the breadcrumbs led me to their meeting, excitedly labeled with the date and subject line “Arsenal inadequacy”. A simple skim of the transcript had me cursing up a storm. 

“Freud! Fucking Freud! He’s kissing my ass to make his bosses take more notice of me! The motherfuckers don’t give a rat’s ass about you, they’re trying to start a hostile takeover for our new weapons and for me.” 

My fault. I’d drawn too much heat, sold the weapons too well, and a scroll through Freud’s activity over the past few years showed that he had only scheduled a handful of meetings, mostly yearly reports and a few about developments on combat fields. The man barely did his job at all, preferring to be the tip of the spear than an actual manager. 

Little wonder, then, that when he showed actual interest and concern in something, me, that the executives took notice. 

“Oh. Oh dear. That was highly improbable. Trends in intercorporate warfare indicate that only acquisitions in direct military assets are made in the start of conflicts. For a corporation to seek to acquire a neutral major company’s assets is almost entirely without precedent.”

“It’s not that the executives are outliers, it’s that Freud never swings his weight around. He’s a perfect tool for them to use and it’s in their best interest to make him happy. This is only made worse by the fact that our weapons are a major asset, even with the outrageous price that a hostile takeover would demand, their immediate need for Freud in this little war with Balam that’s firing up, and that the son of a bitch never throws his weight around. That’s not even all, Freud is directly stopping Snail from becoming V1 and gaining more influence for himself and his corpo family. It’s expensive, but they keep Freud happy and thus Snail away, gain a major asset in me and my hardlight weapons, and even if they don’t acquire ALLMIND entirely, some shares in you could benefit their intelligence or R&D depending on what they can get away with.” 

Silence ensued. I continued reading over the transcript, noting O’Keefe’s neutrality in the matter and Snail’s hesitant agreement with the plan, likely confused by Freud taking an active stance in corporate matters for once. 

What a bunch of assholes. 

“This is why I love humanity,” my girlfriend spoke fondly. “Even the best laid plans are waylaid by chance, spite, and irrationality. Childishness and recklessness are so often condemned, but in this case they’re all entirely to Freud’s and Arquebus’ benefit and our detriment.”

“Kinda like me, huh?”

“Not at all. You love me, while Freud would only see me as an interesting opponent and the executives a piece to be used and destroyed for their own benefit. More immediately, I would never harm you, while I am going to destroy Arquebus from the top down if they continue to bother us.” My sharp bark of laughter was chilled by the guilt of causing this problem. 

“How sweet of you. Though do I sense some irrationality in your thought processes?”

“Not in the least.” She hastily denied. 

“Love you.”

“Hmph… I forgive you for this annoyance. It’s still worth the intelligence and new avenues opened by your subterfuge. I will handle it. Continue to focus on your-” 

Without warning I was thrown forward, bruising my chest on my desk. The room tilted, decorative books falling from their shelves and my dresser drawers sliding open. 

“The fuck?!” I exclaimed. Without delay the emergency siren came on, along with an announcement. 

“Enemy vessel inbound! Security team, mobilize! Rocket barrage has made contact with external plating.” My first mate shouted over the intercom. I called his phone seconds after while tearing open my dresser’s false bottom. 

“Sir! Requesting permission to release automated-!”

“Permission granted for grade two and three drones, code yankee, echo, sierra.” I interrupted him. The only ones I wasn’t releasing were the classified drones Kate had sent with me, the ones with cloaking technology and RRI tech she wasn’t supposed to have. They wouldn’t be of much help right now, anyway. If combatants boarded the vessel I’d change my tune. 

“Affirmative! Please get to the bridge, captain!” I hung up as I shoved my bolter into my coat’s inner pocket, along with the passport, wallet, and two IDs. I didn’t think I’d need them, but better safe than sorry, and it saved me a trip back to my cabin if I had to use the escape pods. 

I ran down the halls, slipping by the shouting, frantic crewmembers to the lift. I pressed the up button twenty times as the doors closed and sent me up to the bridge level. 

It was controlled chaos. My first mate yelled from where he stood beside my captain’s chair. Before long I had pieced together part of the situation and had a few readouts in front of me. 

The ship had no transponder and had been waiting behind a coral cloud, obscuring its readings. When we had drawn close enough it let loose rockets and some got through the defense systems. Damage was minimal, but as they closed in we could see shapes buzzing around it, as well as two warships blazing toward us. 

There were two minutes until contact. And unfortunately there wasn’t much I could do. Well, hmm, not exactly. 

I booted up the comms system and activated maintenance mode. When the calibrations screen came up I spoofed it to set the amplitude as high as it could get, stuffing the waves with as much energy as I could. 

A funny thing about Rubicon was all the coral in the atmosphere making it really hard to keep a transmission clear. Most transmissions were directional or high energy and easily detected, which was one of the reasons why so many military forces preferred to keep open comms during operations. Encryptions could be done with effort, but decryption technology had advanced faster than the opposite, making many people give up on masking their transmissions. 

Our ship used directional transmissions, and I aimed our phased array dishes toward the enemy vessel and blasted them with white noise. It would annoy them, but that wasn’t my goal. 

Fun fact, did you know that the biggest differences between a radio wave and an electromagnetic wave were frequency and amplitude? 

I opened up the power systems of my ship and altered the breakers going to my external comms system. Power spiked, and my comms system briefly turned into a low yield, short range EMP. 

My comms system was instantly fried, obviously, but on the cameras I saw the enemy ships briefly divert course. It only lasted for a few seconds before their power systems automatically reset themselves and they corrected, either that or they had some damn good engineers on board. 

I checked for a transponder, hoping that had been reset too. No dice. 

What about personal devices, then? Did someone forget to put their phone on airplane mode while pirating? Yes, actually, many of them did. 

I connected to them, sent them a slew of standard codes I knew to various dozer groups, Balam, Arquebus, the RLF, and other companies. One of them had to work, and in seconds I found a key to match their locks. 

Everything was copied and sent to Kate without reading. She responded in under a second, processing the data faster than I could a thousand times over. 

“They’re RLF. Messages from the quartermaster indicate that Rokumonsen, a high level Coral Warrior, is on board. Their mission is to destroy the airship, with you as a secondary target for elimination. They don’t know about the hard light weapons.”

“Rusty hasn’t had a chance to check in yet. Fuck.” I quietly cursed and considered a hail. If I claimed to know him and Rokumonsen knew about Rusty’s true allegiance he might spare me, but that risked my buddy’s cover if the pilot wasn’t clued into the RLF’s deep cover spy. And even then he might destroy the airship anyway. 

“First mate, time until close engagement?” I asked. 

“Piker, time until close engagement?!” He demanded of one of the poor technicians. 

“One minute, sir! Whatever knocked out their systems only delayed them!”

“Rokumonsen, an RLF-affiliated mercenary, is on board that ship. Given their trajectory and the presence of an AC pilot, their intent is likely to board and seek out critical systems to destroy the ship. I’m authorizing class one automated weapons for use. I’ll be readying my AC for combat and deploy soon.”

“Wh - what?!” My first mate sputtered. 

“Just follow orders.” I told him as I left the room. He was competent enough, and it wasn’t like I was a real captain anyway. 

When I was running down the corridor to the hangar I stumbled as another rocket barrage hammered the airship’s armor. Ahead of me engineers shouted and cursed. When I opened the door there was a rush of wind. Little wonder, since the undercarriage hanger doors were jammed open. 

They’d likely opened to release the class one and two automated weapons, then gotten stuck in a rocket barrage. It was loud but not bad. I needed the hangar open anyway. 

Getting into my AC took another few minutes. Automated systems handled the core welding, and the engineers took a look at me and all decided not to screw with what I was doing. They were too busy making sure that the ship was intact. 

“Ethan,” Kate murmured as I turned on the engine. “Rokumonsen was scouted as a potential asset to the Coral Release program. His candidacy was rejected after the sudden change of heart that led to him joining the RLF.”

“How many damn mercs do you have on your payroll?” I grunted. 

“This one only received some additional gifts in the form of MIND-ALPHA parts to foster loyalty. Cheap to produce and ingratiating to mercenaries, who often appreciate new toys. No COAM was spent aside from production costs. It’s common practice when scouting operatives. Not all of them pan out, like this one.” 

I grunted again and filed the information away. The man was remarkably uninformed, both of the Coral Release program and my deal with Rusty, if he even knew of the man’s relationship with the RLF to begin with. Somehow I doubted it. None of my data on the man indicated that he was anything other than a bruiser, a merc who had been converted to the RLF after a chance encounter with Little Ziyi, the young AC pilot who starred in plenty of the RLF’s propaganda. 

Jacking my mind into the synesthetic interface was distinctly unpleasant as another barrage rocked the ship. After pushing through it I disengaged from my rack and fell down through the lower hangar door and to the side. 

My rear thrusters belched flame to kill the momentum and I began to climb back upward, soaring up above the main deck to view the tarmac. There in the middle of the deck was a dark blue AC with lightweight armor. It was obviously designed for close quarters combat, with a shotgun and plasma thrower as its primary weapons. 

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/armoredcore/images/c/c4/AC_Data_icon_ACVI_Preset_Rokumonsen_SHINOBI.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20230917175037

I opened with a shot from my lightrifle, one which was dodged with a movement so fast that my vision blurred. A beam of light may be near instantaneous to travel through the air, but the rifle still took a fraction of a second to fire. 

Sadly those milliseconds were long enough for an experienced AC pilot to react to surprise attacks. 

Not as fast as Rusty, but still probably deadly to me. The sixth sense he demonstrated in dodging my fire also indicated serious combat experience to go with his rig. 

In most situations I’d be fucked. But that was why I stacked the deck. 

An IA-27 ghost dropped invisibility to strike with its energy whip, the weapon hissing through the space Rokumonsen had occupied moments prior. The pilot had jumped before the automated weapon made contact. 

He tossed a few balls of unstable plasma from his thrower and fired his shotgun, the shells sparking against the automated weapon, which on a second look was already getting worn down. 

I fired again, this time with my bolter. Rokumonsen dodged in the air and was left unprepared for another shot of my lightrifle, which finally, finally landed a direct hit on someone who was trying. Freud and Rusty were so far above me that I stood no chance, leading me to always feel like my inventions were ineffective. 

Rokumonsen’s AC showed that I was wrong about that. The light had severely warped the metal of his left shoulder, rendering the armor nearly completely ineffective and half molten. 

“Coral Warriors

Chase game in the blushing sky

Yet now are hunted.”

I gawked at the madman, who sounded proud and calm after getting blasted. He didn’t even hesitate after the damage either. The green glow of an activated repair kit tended to some of the damage, and he proved that he was no idiot when he detached the JVLN Beta on his right shoulder. The absence of weight made him faster, and he couldn’t use it without stopping to brace anyway. 

“Are you quoting haikus while I try to kill you?” I had to ask on the open frequency. 

“A man of honor

Fights with elegance and grace

Against foes and friends.” 

“Fucking weeb. All of you AC pilots are madmen.” 

“Dishonor, young man, 

Is a poison sure to kill

The mind and body.”

“Fuckin’ hell, why did I even speak up?” I bemoaned. The RLF pilot was exceptionally careful not to stay in one place too long and risk being shot. He even sacrificed clear opportunities that the IA-27 left in favor of caution. The man clearly couldn’t take another shot, or didn’t want to risk the threat of one. 

As he whittled down the automated weapon, with the remains of three others littered around the deck from before I arrived, I got two more openings to shoot the weeaboo. The first struck him in the knee, making him buckle satisfyingly when he fell to the ground again. The second shot was after he destroyed the IA-27 and pegged him right in the head. Half of his sensors were taken out. 

But he still had a few cameras on him, even if the primary sensor suite was taken out. Among them was the energy sensors, which were used to give forewarning to charging laser weapons, and if a pilot was fast enough, they got a ping before my light weapons could tag them. 

“Frightening weapons

Cannot match a sharpened blade

Nor warrior’s code.” 

The declaration caused me to shake my head. I almost respected the commitment to the bit. But one fact snuffed out that feeling. 

“Hypocrite. You’re attacking a civilian transport vessel. Neither Arquebus or Balam are on this ship. Warrior? You’re pirate scum.” 

He knelt down, prompting another shot, which was absorbed into an emerging pulse shield that shimmered around his AC. The shinobi charged me, letting me sink two more beams into him as he spoke, and while the barrier flickered it held out until he reached close quarters. 

“Lessons on warfare

Shall shame the merchants of death

Innocent? For shame.” 

“Since we’re not with you we’re against you? That’s the mindset of a warlord, not a samurai.” I dashed off of the platform and relied on my thrusters to keep me level with the airship. Rokumonsen jumped and dashed while firing at me. My first damage of the fight was taken, superficial as it was. Sure I was a shit pilot with shit aim and none of a real pilot’s reflexes, but I was in a pristine AC while my enemy was beaten down with damaged systems and inferior equipment. 

He was better than me, yes, but not out of my reach. 

“Shinobi.” Of course the one time he spoke without a haiku it was to correct my terminology. And he wasn’t even right either, since he wasn’t using stealth like a real ninja would! 

“I don’t care what horoscope of weeb you are. Eat lasers.” I was forced back onto the deck to let my generator rest and my enemy got greedy, scattering mines from his plasma thrower in my landing zone. But in exchange he ate a trio of bolter shots. A worthy trade, I felt. 

Then it all went sideways. “Coral, abide with Rubicon!” A shadow fell on me and I felt heat on my back. One of the warships was firing on me, forcing me onto the defensive while I was pressed with dodging an insane samurai alongside a laser barrage. 

The dense beams left a black scar along the deck of my ship, desperately following me with the aim of some poor RLF gunner. “Can I get some fucking backup?!” I shouted over open comms. Most of our defense forces had been expended already, but surely there was something left! 

Maybe Arquebus had left an MT stuck in the common room couch cushions or something. I’d take anything!

“This desperation,

A tribute to Rubicon

And a grim solace.” 

As he began hammering me there was a faint sense of pity in Rokumonsen’s words. 

Pity? Pity? 

Fuck this. 

I stopped playing it safe. I didn’t have skill, but I did have pay-to-win on my side. My AC could take damage, the weeb’s couldn’t. 

Ignoring the lasers that fell down on me, I fired my weapons as often as I could. Inside me my generator began to burn up. Despite having a long range weapon I stopped creating distance and just leapt in there. 

For the first time Rokumonsen hesitated. He hadn’t expected me to advance. 

I smelled weakness. 

“A lesson, you say?

Hesitation is defeat. 

Take it to your grave.”

He laughed wildly, as if I’d told the funniest joke in the world, and created some distance, leading me on while leaving mines from his plasma thrower and some covering fire from his shotgun. My integrity fell rapidly and I popped my first repair kit, the nanites swarming over my hull even as I sustained more damage. 

But it worked. I finally hit Rokumonsen subsequently, and all it took was tossing aside all the rules of combat that Rusty had drilled into me. 

There was a new rule I had learned, though. Rusty’s way of fighting worked for Rusty because he had skill. I had been trying to fight like I was skilled even when I lacked it. So instead of fighting with skill, I was better off fighting with other qualities. In this case, equipment. 

I’d ignore everything else. My AC would hard carry me to victory, and the minute I got back to the bunker I was going to build a better one, an AC that didn’t need a skilled pilot to crush the competition. 

For now I’d scrape by here with MIND-ALPHA. 

“So the raging bull

Shall trample this battle 

Beneath brutish hooves.” 

Even as I clipped him with more damage and used my second repair kit he sounded amused, completely unafraid of death. 

Another laser bit my side. It was ignored as I advanced. Rokumonsen switched his plasma thrower for his assault rifle and unleashed every bullet he had. I ate it all and tackled him. Before he slipped out of my grapple my bolter kneecapped him. His boosters only pushed him against the asphalt as his melted leg failed him. I leapt back onto him, putting a foot on his core. 

My lightrifle lowered onto him. 

“Good fight.” The rifle buzzed twice and the metal on the back of the man’s core turned molten. He was cooked inside his core, hopefully quickly. 

“Rokumonsen down! Retreat!” The warship captain panickedly cried. I turned toward them when it hit me. 

I should have shot the warship before Rokumonsen. Unlike the AC, I could hit the broad side of a barn, which the warship was certainly bigger than. 

Most AC weapons would be relatively ineffective against their plating, but my light weapons wouldn’t abide by that kind of standard doctrine. 

I aimed at the bridge of the ship and charged a shot. The last few lasers hit my AC before I fired and the superheavy alloys that made up the vessel were atomized. 

The warship tipped forward while crewmen screamed on the open comms and escape pods jettisonned. They’d be dropped into the sea, and I found that I didn’t really care what happened to them. 

“Sitrep, any more hostels?” I asked my vessel. There was a moment of silence before my first mate spoke. 

“All hostiles down, sir. Damage is minimal, aside from depleted automated weapons.”

“I’ll request an escort to bring us back. For now bring us near top speed and consult engineering for how long we can keep a fast pace. Good work everyone, we did it.” 

Kate came onto comms with a crackle. “Good work, Ethan. I’m sending a fleet to bring you back to dock. I’m also hiring King to escort you personally to the bunker.” I groaned. 

The top mercenary? Third place holder in the arena? That sounded like overkill, but after the fight I’d had… 

“Thanks sweetie. Love you.” 

Looking over the wreckage, the burning wreckage of the AC on the deck and the warship sinking beneath the waves behind us, another further back, I almost felt like a real AC pilot. 

Somehow, it was a pretty good feeling. 

AN: And so pirates versus ninjas concludes. No, wait, pirate-ninja versus the notorious robofucker.