Forgot the arc.
“Cut!” and the crackle of harmless sparks ended almost as soon as they’d begun. Malcolm fell over as his circuit breakers tripped. His suit blurred into the dull red background.
Hansen stepped back and reformatted to standard optical display. He was taking deep, gasping breaths. His suit’s air system strained between each wheezing exhalation to clear condensate from the displays.
The surface of Malcolm’s armor quivered as the veteran reset it. There was no definable change from a suit that was powered up to cold one, but the difference in appearance was as great as that between a living man and a fresh corpse.
Malcolm rose to a four-limbed crouch but paused there. “How did you do that?” he asked.
“It’s the display,” Hansen explained. His suit’s steel casing vibrated every time he spoke. “Look, let’s stop this for a minute and I’ll show—”
Malcolm gave a brief nod of his armored head. The spectators were turning their heads. Hansen turned also and saw the figure in gleaming black armor striding down the path from the settlement.
“Show me what you can do, stranger,” the figure called.
Ordered. Small—as much shorter than Hansen as he was shorter than Malcolm. Wasn’t in the battle the day before. A battlesuit of exceptional quality. . . .
“If you wish it, milord,” Hansen said deliberately as the black figure stepped through the line of posts that marked the edge of the practice ground.
“Not `milord,’ you fool!” the figure’s harsh mechanical voice snarled. An arc sprang from the right gauntlet.
“Display energy levels,” Hansen murmured. The figure before him shimmered in cold blue. This was going to be . . .
“Yes, milady,” he said aloud. “Krita.”
Instead of striding toward Hansen, Krita’s hand twisted and shot her arc across the four meters separating them. He didn’t have time to think about defense before his displays went dark and left him with his own moist breath.
“Reset,” Hansen muttered. “Cut.”
He spread his fingers, giving him a broad fan of spluttering discharge. Krita waited, spurting and shrinking the weapon vertically from her right hand. At its peak, the discharge fountained ten meters in the air.
A very good suit indeed.
Hansen stepped forward. Krita’s weapon lashed down at him. He caught the blow and shrank his own arc to a tight ball as he took another step—
The arc from Krita’s left gauntlet slashed across his knees.
Falling in a dead battlesuit was very similar to being rolled off the porch in a garbage can. It wasn’t likely to be fatal. . . .
“Reset. Cut.”
Default setting on Hansen’s display was standard optical. He didn’t bother to switch it over to show energy levels; Krita’s battlesuit operated at such a high order that there’d been no significant change in the display when she attacked.
Although—
Hansen rose to a crouch and lunged forward as if to tackle his opponent around the knees. He thought that by leading with his helmet, the focus of his electronic armor, he might be able to get close enough to use his own arc effectively.
A contemptuous sweep of Krita’s hand swatted him down. His scalp and the back of his neck tingled, even at the arc’s reduced charge level. Hansen grounded face first.
He squatted. His display was fuzzy. He wiped the faceplate of his helmet with his steel palm.
Blobs of mud dribbled from his gauntlet like raindrops blowing across the windshield of a moving vehicle. His display cleared. The suit’s electronic defenses worked on fouling; they just took a little time.
Krita laughed. She stood three meters from Hansen with her hands on her hips.
Hansen had cut his chin, and he thought his nose was bleeding.
“Cut,” he said, flexing his right hand. He snapped the long arc across his opponent’s ankles.
Mud hissed away as steam and dust. Krita laughed again, without moving.
“Off,” Hansen said and lifted the palm of his left gauntlet toward the woman’s throat as he charged.
At this range, a bolt might or might not have been effective enough to end the duel; one had, after all, shut down Taddeusz’ battlesuit under similar conditions. Krita’d probably watched Hansen kill Zieborn; certainly she’d had an opportunity to finger the hole the stranger burned through Zieborn’s armor and life. . . .