"Welcome back, sports fans. This is Duncan Fisher coming to you live from the Factory season championship match! What a fight it's been tonight. Heavy 'Mechs slugging it out with all the best weapons the galaxy has to offer, and only one will leave as this year's Factory Champion! Twelve entered the arena when this match began, and now we're down to just two. Some of the greats of the sport have already fallen tonight! Fen Chen, Peter Dexter, Ellie Niels, even Marcus Wilder, just to name a few, have already watched their Destroids burn from the comfort of their ejection pods. Now it's up to veteran superstar Alex Haight and phenomenal rookie Miria Stewart to determine who will be this year's emperor of the scrapheap!"

In the cockpit of her Rifleman, Miria Stewart listened to Fisher's patter with one ear and her crew chief's run-down of the damage to her ride with the other. She already knew basically what Fisher was saying - she'd been listening to him provide the play-by-play for more than four dozen matches over the course of the year she'd been on Solaris - and basically what Gut was saying as well, since she'd been aboard the Rifleman for the hits that had partly crippled its right leg, dinged the waist rotator, and disabled the right torso close-range weapons cluster.

That was okay. Haight's Loki wasn't in much better shape, and anyway, Miria had his measure. They'd been the last two once before, in a Medium match in the Jungle earlier in the season, and when the dust had settled, her Centurion had been the one still standing.

"As you know, MechWarriors and their crews aren't allowed to make repairs or reload ammunition during commercial breaks - only replenish coolant. Both crews have cleared the field and the safety lights are green, so let's get it on!"

The horn sounded. Miria smiled and set her Rifleman in motion, scanning her radar. Haight would try to keep her at long range - with obstructions, if possible, and in the ruined cityscape of the Factory, that wasn't much of a trick - so that he could use his LRMs to best effect. She'd seen him all but demolish Peter Dexter's Nova Cat with that trick earlier, keeping buildings and rusting water tanks between them so that Dexter couldn't use his heavy lasers, then raining warheads on him until his gyros gave out.

There! To the left, range about 500 yards - a flash of motion, the glint of one of the arena lights off the transparisteel of the Loki's cockpit blister. Miria pivoted as far as her Destroid's damaged waist rotator would allow, still running east, and waited. She had a little surprise for Mr. Alex Haight.

Right on cue, Haight salvoed his missiles. He'd jammed every Universal Hardpoint on that fancy new chassis with long-range missile launchers, it seemed, and with every salvo a full 60 of them came boiling out of the tubes and arched skyward before tilting down and spiraling in, their seeker heads following the Loki's radar lock.

The full Scott Bernard, Miria thought to herself with a smile, and then played her trump card. The Rifleman suddenly stopped, standing perfectly still, its phased array radar antenna twirling. The crowd in the shielded boxes above the arena walls gasped and fell silent. Was Stewart giving up?

Most Solaris fans had never seen a Rifleman in action. With its ungainly long, jointless twin-cannon-barrel arms, light armor for a heavy Destroid, and vulnerable-looking radar array, it just wasn't considered suitable for arena combat by most pilots - and it was relatively expensive because of all the sophisticated sensors it packed. Most Solaris fans, whose interest in Destroids extended only to the ones that fought for their amusement, didn't even know what the Rifleman was for.

They - and Alex Haight - were about to find out.

For a half-second, Miria Stewart's Rifleman stood perfectly still. Then it shuffle-stepped slightly to the left, recentering its torso on its legs, and raised both of its arms. Laser trackers built into the visor of Miria's neurohelmet followed the pupils of her eyes as she quickly looked from one incoming missile to the next. On the head-up display in front of her, blinking scarlet target-lock boxes appeared around missile after missile. She waited as long as she dared, targeting more and more, then squeezed the triggers on both of her command joysticks.

With a suddenness that startled many of the spectators after the eerie stillness of the last second and a half, the Rifleman's twin 88mm autocannons suddenly opened up. The weapons, one in the upper barrel of each arm, spat fire and steel into the air with a thunderous roar, spent brass clanging and jangling off to either side. The strobe effect of the muzzle flashes made the spent shells seem to hover in neat parabolic arcs before tumbling to the ground and bouncing off the chunks of rubble. Its torso and arms tracking with swift, nearly imperceptible computer-controlled movements, the Rifleman jackhammered away for five solid seconds, hurling 104 88mm high-explosive shells into the air.

Haight's missiles met the cannon barrage in midair, a little past apogee, and the high ceiling of the Factory was suddenly full of light and flame as the two annihilated each other. The spectators oohed at the fireworks show, but by the time it happened, Miria was already moving. She knew Haight was going to be a little ticked off by that maneuver, and she was trying to anticipate what he was going to do about it.

"Ha haaaa!" Duncan Fisher crowed on the play-by-play channel. "In all my years on Solaris I've never seen anyone pull a stunt like that. Not many people outside military circles know that the Rifleman was originally designed as an air defense weapon - that's why the Salusians call them Defenders. I bet Alex won't forget that again soon!"

Now he'll try and flank me, Miria thought, driving her Rifleman as hard as its dicky leg would allow toward the trench around the perimeter of the Factory floor. The blip on her radar that represented Haight's 'Mech was flickering in and out, moving around oddly - apparently his Loki had an ECM pod on board. Well, no problem. Every toy like that is taking up a slot that otherwise could've had a real weapon in it.

Miria rounded the corner of one of the wrecked building shells and caught a glimpse of Haight's Loki through the gaps in a concrete retaining wall to her right. He was parallelling her course on the other side of the wall, blinking in and out of view as they passed gaps, hoping to beat her to the end and get the drop on her with his close-quarters weapons. The Rifleman's arms could only swivel and pivot at the shoulders and were too fragile for melee anyway. This meant the Destroid didn't do so well at close range, especially with one of its torso clusters, which contained a medium laser and a machinegun array, out of action.

Grinning through gritted teeth, already anticipating his revenge for the way Stewart had just made him look like a fool, Haight drove his Destroid around the corner, pivoting around the end of the wall and aiming all his weapons -

- at nothing!

"What the - ?!" he blurted - just as his cockpit filled with the high-pitched whoop of a warning horn and a red indicator marked LASER flashed on his panel. He turned, looking around - the indicator meant that someone had just painted his 'Mech with a laser rangefinder/target designator - but saw nothing, until suddenly a brilliant white light flooded the cockpit. Cursing, Haight recoiled; the flare compensator in his neurohelmet's visor dimmed the glare within a few milliseconds. The light was coming from above. He tilted his Loki's torso back, looking up.

Miria Stewart's Rifleman stood on the corner of the fake ruined building about a half-block down the retaining wall, illuminating the Loki with the remaining one of the two powerful searchlights built into its chest. Both double-barrelled arms twitched, correcting their aim just a little, pointing straight at the Loki's chest.

Haight swore and clawed at his weapon selector, but just as he did, the Rifleman's twin 88s opened up. Caught head-on, the Loki's chassis shuddered with the impacts, exploding shells raking its armor and jolting the machine this way and that. The 'Mech reeled, arms flailing, as the pounding deranged its gyrostabilizers. Haight's targeting reticule jumped all over the HUD, thwarting any attempt he might make to achieve missile lock.

If I'm still standing when she runs out of ammo, though, he thought, then I'll teach this rookie a lesson!

Miria watched the ammo counters tick down and the temperature indicators tick up as the 88s rocked and rolled, bouncing Haight's Loki around like a mook getting machinegunned in an Ishiyama gangster movie. Just before the cannon temps would have passed the yellow line, she released both triggers, halting the barrage. The Loki staggered, then straightened, its armor cratered and smoking but the structure underneath still largely intact. Miria's sensors beeped a warning at her, letting her know that Haight was trying for a missile lock.

Calmly, as if she had all the time in the world, she resettled her optical targeting reticule dead-center on the Loki's chest, made a couple of fine adjustments, then thumbed the safety covers on top of both joysticks out of the way and pressed the buttons beneath.

Haight saw the pulses of energy through the vents in the sloping armor near the Rifleman's shoulder joints and knew he was finished. Roaring with fury, he salvoed his LRMs anyway, a split-second before the heavy lasers in the lower of the Rifleman's double barrels fired. Twin beams of hard scarlet light raved across the space between the two Destroids, punched through the cannon-fire-riddled chest armor of the Loki, and vaporized much of what lay beyond - delicate control systems, structural members, everything. Haight's automatic ejection system kicked in, launching his cockpit pod clear, as the uncontrolled fusion reactor cooked off. The resulting blast blew what was left of the 'Mech to smithereens, leveling the two nearest building shells and part of the retaining wall.

Haight's last spread of missiles, fired without a lock, swarmed all around the Rifleman, but only two connected, blowing small craters out of the armor while the rest streaked on to give the spectators another fine fireworks show against the ceiling far above. The overhead horn blew long and loud, signaling the end of the match.

"Kapow!! I - don't - believe it! Alex Haight goes down in flames after underestimating the punch of Miria Stewart's Rifleman! Hey Alex - how's the view from the ceiling? Ha ha haaaa! Ladies and gentlemen, Solaris fans around the galaxy, we have a new Factory Champion! Stick around for these messages, everybody - we'll have an exclusive interview with our new champion right after this!"

Commercial: Madman Omar's House of Missiles - "For All Your Missile Needs!"

"Welcome back, Solaris fans! I'm Duncan Fisher, and I'm about to interview the brand new champion of Montenegro's Factory - the incredible Miria Stewart!"

Fisher, a slightly portly, grey-haired fellow whose face and movements still showed traces of the skill and resolve that had made him a Solaris champion himself in his prime, stood on the reviewing stand at the front of the Factory. This was an armored platform jutting from the arena's wall at about cockpit-level to most Destroids. Off to the side, Miria's Rifleman limped into the frame, dragging its damaged leg slightly as it made its way to the stand.

"You know, folks, I've been covering this game for a lot of years now, and I haven't seen anybody climb the rankings as fast as this girl's done it in a long time. She's got skill, she's got talent, and she's got guts. I said the first time I saw her fight, this spring, in a light match over in the Steiner Coliseum, that Miria Stewart was going to go far in this game." Fisher grinned, showing off the results of some very expensive dental work. "And I was right. With this win, not only has she earned the title of Factory Champion, she's earned a spot in this year's Grand Championship match. And here she is now! Let's see what the new Queen of the Rubble Pile has to say."

The Rifleman came to a halt next to the platform, quivered just a little, then sagged slightly as its reactor shut down with a drawn-out sigh of settling coolant. A moment later the cockpit's armored canopy hissed, slid forward on its tracks, then hinged downward, revealing the pilot in her command seat.

Miria Stewart disconnected her cooling vest and neurohelmet from the seat, unfastened her straps, stood up, then pulled the helmet off and set it down before climbing to the edge of the cockpit and jumping down onto the platform next to Fisher. Sweaty and disheveled after a long, hot evening on the firing line, she was still a good-looking young woman, slim and athletic, with a pretty green-eyed face and short-cropped dark blue hair. Fisher handed her a towel, which she took with smiling thanks and used to mop her face and scrub at her hair a little, then draped around her neck.

They exchanged pleasantries and the usual sporting-event post-mortem for the viewers, but Stewart seemed a little preoccupied throughout. Finally, at the end, Fisher asked her if she planned to take advantage of her eligibility for the Grand Championship.

"You bet I do," she said. "But before I do that, I have something I'd like to say."

Fisher looked intrigued. Contestants using the postgame show as a platform to talk a little smack was nothing new, but in her short career so far, Miria Stewart hadn't been one to do that kind of thing, and the look in her eyes told the veteran announcer that she had something bigger on her mind than just trash-talking her opposition. He sensed that this was going to be something big, something that would get the broadcast some mad ratings and maybe even boost Solaris viewership across the board.

He was right.

Miria Stewart looked straight into the camera and said, "I'm not Miria Stewart. There is no Miria Stewart. My name is Emilia Miria Sterling. My parents are Maximilian Sterling and Miria Fallyna Sterling, the famous Wedge Defense Force fighter pilots, and I'm proud to be their daughter."

Fisher struggled in vain to keep a gigantic grin from spreading onto his face. He had known there was something special about this girl from the second he'd seen her fight, and now he knew what it was. He'd seen Miria Fallyna Sterling fight once, years before, in a special exhibition match for charity. She'd taken her scarlet VF-1J Valkyrie into the Steiner Coliseum and faced off in battroid mode against a dozen of Solaris's best light Destroid pilots. It had been spectacular. That woman had had moves. Fisher had spent an hour after the show trying to convince her to leave the WDF, at least for a year or two, and fight on the light circuit full-time.

"Twelve years ago, I had just finished training to be a WDF Destroid pilot when GENOM Corporation took my dreams away," Emilia declared, her eyes flashing. "Since then I've been on the run, living a lie, just like most of my friends - the ones who haven't been murdered already.

"Well, I'm tired of running. I'm proud of who I am and who my parents are. So, now that I've proven what I can do in this arena, I'm throwing down the gauntlet. This is who I am. My name is Emilia Sterling, and I'm not going to hide any more. And if you're one of those people who believe GENOM's lies about me and my friends, then I have this to say to you."

She looked straight into the camera again, the intensity in her eyes making some viewers unconsciously shrink back from their television sets. "If you think you can beat me - if you think GENOM's dirty money is worth your life - then come and get me. My booking agents are Tancred and Baikmon. You can find them in the Battlesport Warriors' Guide."

"Defiance" - An Exile Mini-Story by Benjamin D. Hutchins
Special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2007 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

(I happen to think your arena stories are some of your best stuff.)

Hell also hath no fury like a hacked off Meltran.

One has to wonder if he hooks up with other WDF survivors...

Like all these mini stories, very nicely done.

Craig

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Ha! Madman Omar's expanded from mere Iniquity in his old age, apparently.

That said, seeing a Defender KICK ASS is a GREAT treat. Those poor things got the worst rap of any Destroid in Macross. Nice to see one handing out the pain instead.

-OM

That, and she essentially called out GENOM--that's looking for trouble, right there, especially if they decide to bypass the venue she's looking for, and try to assassinate her somewhere other than in the ring....

She looked straight into the camera again, the intensity in her eyes making some viewers unconsciously shrink back from their television sets. "If you think you can beat me - if you think GENOM's dirty money is worth your life - then come and get me. My booking agents are Tancred and Baikmon. You can find them in the Battlesport Warriors' Guide.">>>>>

Hope she's cleared her calendar for the next couple years. :)