Chapter Three; Mech-in' It Nikkitrina Feral The next day. **************************************************** "Hey, Nikki," Felina whispered. The silent bundle in the bed remained unmoving. Felina evilly wound an alarm clock, and pulled out the alarm button. Felina tiptoed over to the bed and put the alarm clock, ready to ring at any moment, right next to Nikki's ear. Just as planned, the alarm went off, and a screaming Nikki jumped for the ceiling, landing back on the bed at just the right spot to roll off of it, and onto the floor. Felina never laughed so much in her life. "Come on, you have fifteen minuets to get ready, or you'll be late," Felina tossed a bundle at the bed, "I got a uniform for you to wear, I hope it fits. I got it cut at my proportions, just much smaller." Nikki, still dazed, got off of the floor and flopped on to the bed. She grunted in response. Felina, satisfied her point had been taken, walked off to the kitchen to get breakfast. Nikki quickly pulled the baggy uniform on over her boxers and tank top. 'What, no gun?' she asked herself jokingly. The uniform basically fit, it was just a bit long in the legs, and shoulders. 'Oh well, it's just temporary,' she reasoned as she slowly made her way to the kitchen. "Do I need shoes?" she asked Felina when she entered the room. "Why?" Felina looked up from her coffee. "The ones you gave me were too short," to emphasize, Nikki lifted up an elongated foot for Felina to see. "Nah, I guess you don't need any right now. We'll worry about that later." Nikki nodded and sat on the floor in front of the cereal cabinet. She pulled out a box of Cheerios and began munching. "Coffee?" Felina offered. "No thanks, never drink the stuff," Nikki waved a paw. Felina gave her a funny look and put the pot back down after filling her own mug, again. "Well, better get going. There's some stuff I need to ask you on the way, and some stuff I need to tell you. We're taking a taxi, we'll have our privacy." Nikki stopped chewing long enough to nod, then swallow. "Kay, let's go then," Nikki agreed, and put the box away. Nikki watched Felina unlock the door, and they followed the same path as the other day. Amazingly, no one stopped and looked at Nikki as she crossed the lobby. 'I guess I kinda blend in with the uniform,' she thought, though it seemed a little silly. They headed down the front steps and Felina called a cab. One of the yellow cars stopped in no time, and Nikki and Felina climbed in. "Where to?" the cabby asked. "MechSquad Headquarters, Desert Drive," Felina ordered. "It'll cost ya," the cabby warned. "I brought a hundred, will that cover it?" she retorted. The cabby snorted in approval, and the taxi pulled away from the curb. **************************************************** After five minuets, the cabby closed off the back seats from the front and Felina began her questions. "Are you really 26, or are you eleven, almost twelve, or something like that." Nikki, startled that someone might know of her lie, quickly responded, "Don't be ridiculous, I'm 26." "But look at you, I know these things, you have to be a Maylana!" Felina demanded. "A what?" "Not just a Maylana, but a Starlis Mageto. You are! You look just like one! The gold stripes, the long tail, the long feet, your size, and your weight, they point right at it!" "Hold on! Just explain how the hell you reasoned all this shit!" Nikki yelled. Felina took a deep breath, "I can summarize your past, Nikki. Your parents were killed, you became on orphan, you lived on the streets or in a shelter. You are smart, so you eventually came up with this," she waved a paw in a circle around her, indicating the city, "You found out a way to trick anyone you needed to in order to get a job where you wanted. Your real name isn't Nikkitrina, it's Starlis. You are not 26, you're eleven. You are not strange at all, you were supposed to look like this. Maylanas are masters at genetic engineering. They know just how to manipulate genes to get what they want out of a kitten. I don't even understand the whole of it, but your mom was also your sister through your dad. Your dad and your mom's mom weren't even related. Some how the Maylana gene pool is diverse enough to achieve this, but specific recessive genes caused the mutations in you. You were, well, are made of nothing but recessive genes. Our ancestors, before Maylanas even came to earth, came up with this chain. I'm surprised that all this inbreeding hasn't been the downfall of our species, but its main strength, which is why Maylanas are the Supreme Species, and you, Nikki, Starlis, are the Supreme Being." Felina paused to take a breath, and would have gone on, had she not seen the look in Nikki's eyes. She knew now, she remembered now. Felina put her paw on Nikki's shoulder. Nikki smiled. "I remember everything. I understand. I think we're here," Nikki pointed out of the window. A huge machine, running across a field to their right, kicking up dirt in its path caught Nikki's attention. It was huge. It must have been 30 feet high, at least, with massive weapons adorning its shoulders and arms. "That's a Kodiak, only instructors from the government can use those during tests like this. You'll most likely be in a Timberwolf, it's smaller, but faster," Felina explained. Nikki just nodded still amazed. "That'll be 96 dollars and 50 cents," the cabby reminded Felina. She handed him the hundred, "Keep the change." **************************************************** Instead of heading into the main entrance to the building, Felina led Nikki around the back. They came to a small desk with a plastic three ring binder on it. Behind the desk was a grey tom-kat. "Hullo there Felina," the tom-kat greeted them, "Who's your little friend?" "This is Nikkitrina. She's shooting for the Commander's chair," Felina introduced Nikki. "Gimmie your full name, and I'll sign you up," he explained. "Nikkitrina," Nikki said, "N, I, K, K, I, T, R, I, N, A." There was a long pause. "Last name too dearie," the tom-kat reminded. "I don't have one," Nikki told him. He nodded, but asked anyway, "Why not?" "I'm an orphan, technically." He left it at that and pointed towards the MechHanger. Felina and Nikki walked over and got assigned their Mechs. One of the engineers explained the controls to Nikki when she finished fastening herself in. "The stick effects your movement. Side to side turns you, up and down moves just the torso, so you can get better views. Flip the switch and the stick slides along the rail. That turns the torso left and right. Just so you know, the seat moves with it, and just a little will do to turn you a lot. The blue buttons effect your speed. The percents start with zero, or stop. It goes up by tens. Fire main weapon, like lasers, or machine guns is the little red button on the stick. Rockets and other stuff is the big red button under the speed toggle. The rest is self explanatory, you can also give the computer manual orders, which is best during a group fight. Like if you order the computer to 'fan out' the Mechs in your group will scatter in a fan shape around the enemy. Good luck, scream if you get killed, but we'd much rather you use the ejection lever." The engineer jumped down onto the ladder and the hatch to the cockpit closed. Nikki heard the ladder pull away from the Mech. 'Great, how do I turn it on? Oh, that would work,' Nikki spotted a big green panel with a start-up button and instructions. She read them over. Suddenly, the radio crackled, "All ready? Good, start-up and meet at Nav Alpha for warm ups. For you green horns out there, that's the little green button." Nikki pushed the button and switched on and off whatever the instructions told her to. Not long after she heard the computer voice chime, "Reactor online, Sensors online, Weapons online, all systems nominal." Nikki pressed the 'Select Nav Point' button and selected Nav Alpha, which was listed at the bottom left side of the HUD display. It took her just a few minuets to reach it, and she stopped her Mech when she heard the Computer. "Nav Alpha reached." The rest of the group reached the spot about the same time and the instructor gave out orders. "Travel your assigned Nav Sequence, destroying any enemies you find along the way. Remember, every time you stop at a repair station costs you time and points. Do not engage with friendly Mechs, and do not help them. You'll get to kill each other later. Now get going, you have thirty minutes to reach Nav Omega. No bonus points for getting there first, but you get disqualified if you are late, so watch your time." The radio silenced and Nikki punched full speed on her Mech, auto piloting to the next Nav point. **************************************************** "Did you see her go?" the grey tom-kat commented to the Commander pointing out of the window in the control tower at Nikki's dissappearing Mech. "Yes, she was out of sight while many Mechs were still cycling through the Nav Point sequence." "She'll get Commander's Chair easy if she fights as fast as she runs." They both began to laugh a little. "I had no doubt she would grasp this easily. She'll move up in rank fast." The grey kat snorted good-naturedly, "As fast as the water level in a river during Monsoon season." **************************************************** Nikki was almost to the Nav point, but she didn't see any enemies yet. 500 meters to go, and still no bogies. Finally the computer interrupted the silence, "Enemy Power-up Detected". The computer repeated this two more times. 'Three turrets, nothing but medium lasers,' she realized, as green bolts of light shot out of the immobile enemies. Nikki slowly backed her Mech out of the laser's range, and destroyed one after the other with her large laser. She took her time, making sure her heat levels stayed in the green range. In a little over a minute, the turrets were destroyed, and Nikki moved on to the next Nav point. The same thing happened for the next five stops. The only difference being the number of turrets rose by one each time. On the sixth Nav point Nikki spotted only one bogey on her radar, and the Mech detected only one power-up. Nikki used her zoom option and saw another Mech patrolling the area. It was a Kodiak. 'That isn't right. Only instructors are allowed in Kodiaks. Maybe I'm just done and he's meeting me there. The radar's just screwed up, that's all.' Nikki reasoned, and decided to report it over the radio band. She put it on the open frequency, because she didn't know the one for HQ. "Headquarters, this is Nikkitrina, I'm at my last Nav Point and have identified the enemy as a Kodiak. So far he has not made any attempts to attack, but I'm pretty sure he knows I'm here, he looks like he's watching me." The radio crackled, "This is the Kodiak in front of you Nikkitrina. I'm damaged a bit aren't I?" Nikki looked at the small screen displaying the stats for the Mech, "Yea," she responded. "Well, the other 'test-ees' did that, and you are supposed to kill me. Not literally, but the last three Mechs to come through here have had their pilots ejected out of them. It's a rush really." The radio went silent. Nikki wasted no time and ran. She flipped the little switch the engineer showed her, and sharply turned her Mech's torso to face the enemy again. She flipped the switch back, locking the torso at a 90-degree angle to its original position. She ran circles around the larger, but slower mech. It managed to hit her very little. The even more confusing thing she did was stop and go. Every now and then, lasers would fly behind, and in front of her, but almost never hit her. At the same time, she hit the Kodiak with everything she had. Still watching her heat. The last thing she needed to do was shut down. After five minutes, Nikki's ammo was running low, but lasers never run out of ammo, so long as she stayed in one piece. Nikki's entire Mech was damaged in some way and every part of it showed up yellow on the stats skeleton on the HUD. Luckily, the same thing was true to the Kodiak. Suddenly, Nikki got a burst of inspiration. 'Go for the legs, if he looses one, he'll fall over flat on his face.' She lowered the scope till it was even with the Kodiak's left leg. She opened fire. The leg turned red on the display, and when the smoke cleared, Nikki could see the hole she made in the leg, and the charred wires inside. Nikki fired a single medium laser, and the entire Mech began to light up red. The left leg bent, and buckled and the Mech went down. "Can you get out of there?" she asked the radio. "Working on it!" the radio crackled. The canopy popped open and the ejector seat flew out, with the MechInstructor in it. Nikki headed for the final Nav Point, with ten minutes to spare. **************************************************** Nikki got back later than everyone else. Most of them passed up the last Nav point, and got their score cut up a bit. Nikki went to the little desk where she met the grey tom-kat, and picked up her score. They listed the competitors in order of score. Nikki was second. The name above hers was Kris Faska. He got 20 points more than her, because he destroyed the turrets faster, and actually engaged the Kodiak. He didn't kill the Kodiak though, but it didn't loose him points, it just didn't give him any more. Nikki scanned the list again. NAME --- POINTS --- POINTS MISSED Faska, Kris --- 3453456 --- 46544 Nikkitrina --- 3453436 --- 46564 Feral, Felina --- 3453398 --- 46602 Crathe, Stacey --- 3443320 --- 56680 Crat, Mathew --- 3441328 --- 58672 Stevinson, Eric --- 3421890 ---78110 Macke, Michelle --- 2439190 ---1060810 Steele, David --- -456 --- 3500456* Total Possible Points: 3500000 * - still on course Nikki looked at the time. 'If this Steele guy is going to stay on the team, he has to make it back in 5 min.' Just as she was thinking this, a horribly damaged Mech came into view. It was going extremely slow and had both of its arms blown off at the seams. Commander Feral, whom Nikki just noticed surveying the scene from the corner, walked up to the Mech to join its pilot on the ladder. Nikki watched who she thought must be Steele half crawl, half stumble out of his smoldering Mech. Feral, not so gently helped him to his feet, then promptly threw him down the ladder. Steele grappled for the railing but still ended up landing in a heap, snorting dusty dirt out of his nose. "Steele! What the hell happened!" the Commander thundered. "I'm s-sorry sir," the weasely tom-kat sniveled, "My Mech ran into some, uh, technical difficulties," he stopped when he realized that he had already used that excuse too many times before. "That's not going to work this time. You have one more chance to prove to me you might be some worth to the Squad, as a decoy if nothing else. Did turrets do this to your Mech, by the way?" Feral hissed down his throat. Steele scrambled, "Well, uh, no, of course not sir," then he spotted a funny little she-kat watching with delight from a distance. He pointed at her, "She attacked my Mech when my guidance systems went crazy and I got off course and I must have stumbled upon one of her Nav Points." He smiled inwardly, that had to work. Nikki pointed at herself and mouthed 'me?', looking behind herself afterwards. "Steele, she's a newbie. We always keep newbies under watch on their first mission. The only Mech she came close to was the Kodiak at Nav Sigma." Steele swallowed hard. "It must have been someone else?" he tried. "Get out of my sight," the Commander hissed again. Steele ran off towards the main building. Nikki snapped at him when he ran by. He gave her a frightened stare, and Nikki showed her fangs, sending him running again. **************************************************** "Your next mission is to kill as many of your opponents as possible in ten minutes. No playing allies, no ganging up on one Mech. If someone is already engaged, go after someone else. You will have three opponents. You will be given points based on your hit percentage, and theirs. The less hits you take, the better." Nikki listened to the radio. She reviewed her new Mech's controls. There were no start up instructions, so she was lucky that she remembered them. On the cue, she started her Mech, and scanned her radar. The combatants were in a square shaped field. A few trees, even fewer hills mostly flat dirt separated her from the enemies. Nikki had a plan already. She ran out of her corner of the one-kilometer enclosure and right in front of all three Mechs. They all opened fire at the same time, breaking a rule and costing them points. Nikki sniggered as they all cursed at her over the radio. She then shot forward at full speed, acting like she was going to ram the opposite Mech and one of the others followed her. At the last second she switched to jets, lifted off, and flew backwards all at the same time. Cleared the enemy Mech's head, and watched the idiot behind her ram into the other. They began to focus on just each other, so Nikki had to go after the other Mech, circling the fight. He didn't notice her chasing him because he was focusing on the other fight, sure that the third Mech was behind the fighting Mechs, after all, that was where he last saw her. Nikki wasted no time and aimed for an already yellow leg. She toggled group fire on, and blasted the leg away. It crumbled under the force of the close impact and the stress of running. He cursed at her as explosions ran up his Mech and he was forced to eject. Nikki then waited for the winner of the fight. She sat on top of a hill, and aimed for the red leg of the least damaged Mech. Finally, one Mech fell, showing that Nikki had chosen the right Mech, and he turned to look for her. As the red leg came into view, Nikki let loose with a volley of rockets, ripping the leg out from under the Mech, and flipping the wounded machine on to its head. The pilot ejected, and Nikki heard a voice over the radio. "Well, done Nikkitrina," it was the grey kat from that morning, "You earned yourself a place at the top of the final list. There's only four kats there, you, Kris, Felina, and Mat. The final trial will be in four weeks, till then, you get to try out different Mechs on each other. Dock at the Hangar and meet the rest of them in the lunch room on the fifteenth floor." The radio faded to silence and Nikki dumbly steered her Mech towards her starting point. **************************************************** The lunchroom didn't look like your average lunchroom. It had a richly atmosphere about it, with cushioned seats, couches, a television with remote control and VCR in each corner, a stack of personal CD players, a CD library, and a row of shelves filled with books. You could see the kitchen doors, and smell the fine foods being cooked there. There were even menus, complete with a waitress. Nikki walked cautiously over to a table for four where the waitress was serving three other kats. Only when Nikki recognized one of them as Felina, did she dare sit down. Felina spotted her and waved her towards the seat across from her. Nikki slowly sat down, eyeing the other two kats. "You sure took your sweet time getting up here," Felina told her. "I guess I took a while to suit down, that's all," Nikki said, then buried her nose in a menu. "You're a newbie aren't you," one of the tom-kats ventured. He had dark brown fur, with black ears. His nose was small and his muzzle was long, all in all, giving him the appearance of a fox. Nikki just nodded, and went back behind the menu. He quickly plucked the menu from her paws, folded it, and placed it in front of himself. "Shy?" he asked her, grinning. Nikki growled at him, snatched her menu back, and buried her nose in it again. "Was that a yes?" the same tom-kat pressed. Nikki was getting annoyed. It's bad enough to feel like you don't belong, it's even worse when the kats you don't belong with, keep trying to squeeze a conversation out of you. "Just leave me alone," she whispered. The tom-kat leaned over to her some. "Kris, just leave her alone," the other tom-kat mouthed across the table. Kris didn't care and he went on anyway. "What was that? It's kinda hard to hear a whisper," he tugged at the menu again. Felina winced, she knew what was going to happen. Nikki slammed the helpless booklet on the table, slugged Kris in the face, knocking him out of his seat, and growled through her fangs at him, "Leave me the hell alone!" Kris recovered easily, sat in his chair again, and wiped the blood off of his nose. By now Nikki had gone off to sit by herself on a couch. She had a set of earphones on, with a CD player next to her. Felina grabbed Kris by the shoulder as he tried to rise. "She'll knock your brains out next time," she warned him. Kris waved her off and went and sat next to Nikki. "He is asking for trouble!" Mat whispered loudly to Felina. "And he's gonna get it too," Felina watched Nikki's expression. Kris picked up the CD jewel case next to Nikki and pretended to read. He watched her carefully, weary of her fists. He looked down at the CD case for a second. 'Hmm, never heard of this band before,' he thought, turning the case on the back. When he looked back up, he met eyes with Nikki's. She was glaring at him. "What the hell do you want!?" she demanded hitting him across the head with the earphones. "Idunno," he responded. "Then leave me alone," she told him, her tone stressed with the attempt to calm down. "Don't you wanna talk or anything?" he asked. "No!" "Why not? You not like kats or something?" "No, it's not that. I just want to be left alone." "But ya see, that's not exactly easy for me," he told her, smiling. "Ok, I had a rough day, a hell of a lot has happened, and I don't feel like I deserve one bit of the reward," she held up her finger in front of his nose to emphasize 'one'. He grabbed her finger and pulled her paw into his. "You beat that Kodiak today. I was one of the three before you who tried, and so were they," he thumbed towards Felina and Mat, "That is one of the main reasons we're here now. We were willing to try against all odds, and with our combined, though scattered efforts, we brought the enemy down. Though it was more like 'you' brought the enemy down." Nikki smiled a little. Kris grinned back at her. "That helped a bit, thanks," Nikki whispered, then yanked her paw away from his, and sat back at the table. Kris followed her. The drinks they ordered had arrived and the waitress was taking food orders. Kris was getting a hilariously evil idea, as he looked Nikki over, 'A little bet never hurt friendly competition.' **************************************************** **************************************************** Some legalities: Mech, MechWarrior, BattleMech, and all other Mech related material are copyright 1996 Activision Inc. All Rights Reserved.