Trish was going wild along with the rest of the crowd.  “I knew it!  He is 
definitely at least B rank material!”  I wasn’t really paying much attention 
to her words as I was her breasts as she jumped up and down in celebration.  
Once the crowd settled down we had to wait a few minutes for the next match 
witch was in the warehouse level.  The match was ok but not as good as the 
Claymore match.  The rest of the matches were much better as the ranks 
increased.  The last match was the most exciting as it was the match to 
determine the A-1 ranked Raven and it was going to be the only match in the 
zero gravity space station area.  Trish was excited as I was and couldn’t 
stop talking about the time her father beat the current champion once in a 
mission some 15 years ago.  I thought I would be annoyed that she talks about 
her father so much but I really wasn’t.  I was more intrigued than annoyed 
because hearing about somebody having such a good relationship with their 
father was kinda refreshing.  The last time I saw my father, I was 3 and he 
was beating my mom.  It was nice to know that not all dads were like mine.

    The competitors for the championship match boosted into the arena and the 
zero gravity generators kicked in causing the ACs to float into the air.  The 
current champion was a midweight reverse joint AC painted metallic silver.  
The weapons were a double barrel shotgun in each hand, a grenade launcher on 
the right side of its back, and a medium sized missile launcher on its left 
side.  The ACs name was Mercury and the pilot was named William Folton.  The 
other AC was a lightweight biped with machine gun weapon arms, pursuit 
missiles, and a bright yellow paint job.  The Raven, who only goes by the 
name Gerard, named his AC The Ascended.  It sounded to me like the kind of 
name one of those religious freaks from the forest would give their ACs.  

    The announcer sounded the buzzer and the match began.  The crowd was 
cheering before the ACs even moved.  Since there was no gravity in the arena, 
the ACs had to rely on boosters to get around.  And get around they did.  The 
ACs were coming at each other from every angle.  Neither had a blade so I 
never understood why they tried getting so close to each other.  Gerard 
launched a pursuit missile pod when he got close and the pod split into 15 
small missiles all heading for the AC named mercury.  I counted 4 hit the AC 
and the rest, trying to turn around for another shot, turned right towards 
the crowd on the other side of the arena.  Nobody but me seemed concerned at 
all and soon I understood why.  The missiles were intercepted well before 
they reached the crowd by a curtain of small lasers shooting from the ceiling 
of the arena.   William decided to answer missiles with missiles and launched 
4 fairly large missiles at The Ascended, who dodged every one of them and 
boosted in to shoot machine gun fire from both of his weapon arms.  Mercury 
dodged most of the bullets by doing a jump rope type maneuver while firing 
from both of his powerful shotguns.  

    As the Two ACs exchanged fire, the four missiles that William fired 
turned and hit The Ascended in the back.  He never saw them coming and must 
have been kicking himself for the rookie mistake he made.  It was lucky for 
him though that 3 of the missiles hit his large pursuit missile launchers so 
most of the damage was directed away from the AC but the launchers were 
ruined.  The force of the missiles exploding also sent him flipping head over 
heels and forward towards his adversary.  As for Mercury, he lowered his 
grenade launcher over his shoulder and fired a shot at the still flipping The 
Ascended.  Gerard must have seen it coming because he fired his over booster 
and shot strait down just avoiding the grenade.  Mercury, who was now 
flipping backwards because of the recoil of his powerful grenade launcher, 
hit his boosters and flew up and then down on a collision course with The 
Ascended.  The crowd was still on their feet cheering the whole thing on.  
Half of the fans were cheering for Mercury, and the other half for The 
Ascended.  It was like the had no idea there was a person inside the AC 
risking his life for their amusement.  They were cheering for the weapon, not 
the warrior.

    The Ascended looked up to see William’s AC headed for him with both shot 
guns blazing.  He boosted towards the kamikaze AC with both of his arms 
letting lose streams of bullets.  Neither AC was willing to budge in this 
game of chicken and they collided in the center of the arena and simply 
floated around not moving.  The Ascended was covered in holes and had a huge 
dent in its back where the one missile had hit directly.  Mercury was also 
covered in holes and had several good sized dents from the missile barrage he 
took to the chest.  Both of the ACs looked like they damaged their heads in 
the impact and I figured they probably knocked each other out in the 
collision.

    Every fan in the sold out arena was dead quiet and on the edge of their 
seat.  Trish was wide eyed and seemed to forget that the temperature had 
dropped 15 degrees since we’ve been here.  I was trying to figure out who 
would win if they found both pilots dead in their cockpits.  Finally, the 
bright yellow AC began to move.  it’s right arm weapon went to it’s head 
witch shook, telling me the pilot was groggy and forgot where he was for a 
moment  finally he boosted over closer to the still motionless Mercury and 
aimed his two machine guns at the ACs chest, obviously to try and kill the 
Raven inside.  Just as The Ascended was right over his prey, the grenade 
launcher on the motionless Mercury lowered and fired a shot that blew a hole 
right through Gerards AC, and probably Gerard.  

    The fans were hysterical.  The climbed out of their seats and into the 
arena in their frenzy, obviously forgetting that there was no gravity in the 
arena.  After several tens of thousand of people floated away the rest of the 
crowd stopped their rush and just cheered.  “Did you see that Kur?  It was 
amazing!  William played possum and waited for the right moment to attack!  
He is brilliant!”  Trish was so excited I thought she might jump into the 
zero gravity arena along with the rest of the idiots.  I managed to calm her 
down enough to walk her back to the turbo lift and we got inside along with 
20 or so of the other level headed fans.  Once outside we walked around the 
arena enjoying the various vendors and street performers.  We crossed the 
street and walked through the park talking about her missions as a Raven and 
my job as an AC mechanic.  

    It was nearly 2:30 in the morning so we decided to call it a night.  We 
walked back to the truck and I drove her to the Global Cortex Ravens quarters 
building.  I walked her to her room and decided to go for the goodnight kiss. 
 “Well I guess this is it, I had a great time Trish.”  “Yeah, me too.  I 
haven’t had that much fun in a long time.”  So far, so good, just keep it 
going Kur.  “Well. I’d love to do it again some time.  Maybe we could, I 
don’t know, do something.”  God I’m smooth... not.  “Hehe, that sounds like 
fun, but I’m kinda booked for the rest of my stay here.  I’ve got a meeting 
tomorrow with a small corporation for a sponsorship, and then I am going out 
with my dad the next day and I’ve got a mission the day after that.  I’m 
really sorry Kur.”  Well that sucked.  I didn’t know if she was telling the 
truth or just blowing me off.  Either way, I was crushed.  I know it’s only 
been one night, but I was falling hard for her.  “Ah it’s ok.  Hey maybe 
we’ll meet again some time.”  “Yeah I’d like that.  Hey here you go, this is 
my e-mail address and my phone number.  Keep in touch.”  She handed me a card 
with a number and e-mail address on it.  I just hoped it was her number and 
e-mail address.  “I’ll do that, well I guess this is it then.  Goodnight.”  
“Goodnight.”  To my surprise, she stood on her toes and kissed me.  It wasn’t 
a long passionate kiss, but it was a nice kiss that lingered a little.  I 
guess she didn’t want to attach herself too much since we wouldn’t be seeing 
each other for a while, if ever.  “Bye Kur.”  With that, she shut her door.  
I just stood there like a dumbshit with my eyes closed and licked my lips.  
“Huh, cherry flavored.”

to be continued
hey what’s a story without a love interest? 

    
    I couldn’t sleep when I got home.  I just laid there thinking about Trish 
and trying to find a way to spend more time with her.  It was nearly 4:00 
a.m. and I still wasn’t asleep so I decided to go to Stephanie’s warehouse 
and see how the work on my AC was coming along.  When I got to her building I 
noticed that all of the mess from my battle with the Titan MT was cleared 
away and construction was beginning on the destroyed warehouse and 
surrounding buildings.  The huge crevasse was still there though.

    I showed my temporary ID to the security guards at the door and made my 
way to the high speed elevator, the ride was as much fun as I remember.  As 
the steel doors opened I noticed my AC right away.  The entire thing was 
covered in black artificial muscle and looked surprisingly human.  Well like 
a skinned human.  I could see biceps, quadriceps, and even pectorals and 
abdominal.  The night shift workers were busy attaching the last of the 
muscle to the neck and head of my AC.  I walked around behind it and found 
the over boosters and boosters were still there but they were somehow 
different.  I asked one of the workers about it.

    “Oh yeah, we modified your boosters to be more efficient.”  “So they will 
use less power than before?”  “No, well yes, they will use just a little less 
power, not much less though, but we have doubled the output.  It was really 
quite easy actually.  All we had to do was replace a few key parts and tweak 
some others.  The corporations know that the boosters are capable of more 
power but they want pilots to keep upgrading to their better more expensive 
parts.”  I knew all of this already of course and I would have done the 
upgrades myself but hey, if they are going to do it for free, I’ll let them.  
“Uh, we have also increased the power of your generator and radiator by 30% 
and 28% respectively.  Um, what else.  Oh yeah, we increased the range of 
your radar by 65% and your FCS sight lock is a little faster now.  We were 
going to increase the accuracy of your cores anti-missile cannon but Ms. 
Stephanie told us not to.”  I guess I am going to have to do a few upgrades 
myself after all.  

    I talked with the mechanic about the ins and outs of AC repair for about 
an hour.  I would rather have had a rabid dog chewing on my face but I 
decided to be nice to the guy.  By the time I finally got him to shut up, the 
foreman walked up to us saying that all of the muscular system was attached 
and ready to be tested.  I was pretty excited over this news and ran up the 
stairs to the platform witch led to the open hatch of my AC.  I got inside 
only to find that my cockpit was different as well.  I turned around and 
found the foreman standing behind me.  

    “What’s the deal?  Why did you change my cockpit?”  “Ah yes, well we knew 
from our experience with the Titan MT that a manufacturer cockpit 
configuration wouldn’t be enough to control the new muscular system.  We had 
to replace your computer system with one of our new prototypes, it’s nearly 3 
times faster than your old one, but most of that power goes to controlling 
each and every fiber of the artificial muscle.  Also, the new system is more 
reliant on the physical ability of the pilot.  In an old system, the AC could 
only move so fast and the pilot had to slow down his own movements to match, 
especially in a slower AC like yours was.  With our new system the AC moves 
as fast as the pilot can and the only limit to how fast it will move is the 
point where the artificial muscles snap under the strain.  But that would 
take an extraordinary amount of speed for that to happen.  The pilot still 
has to strap into the control arms in the cockpit, but now the pilot, well 
you, must also wear a special uniform.  It’s much the same as a regular Raven 
uniform but this one sends information to the ACs computer.  The purpose of 
the suit is that it can detect what muscles the pilot is using and relays 
that data to the computer witch then activates the corresponding muscle on 
the ACs body.”  Man this guy never shuts up.  I just want to test my new toy 
and this guy is acting like an over protective parent teaching his kid to 
drive a new car.  “You should also know that you will be slightly more 
maneuverable in this test because the armor isn’t installed yet.” 

    I climbed back into the cockpit and found the uniform hanging from one of 
the control arms.  I put the suit on and strapped into the control arms and 
inserted my key.  The AC rumbled to life and the new computer began it’s 
initialization process.  A very pleasant sounding female voice came on 
through the speakers in my helmet.  “Systems activated.  All systems 
functioning normally.  There is no armor on this Armored Core unit, 
recommending that armor be attached to this Armored Core unit before going 
into combat.  Detecting pilot in the cockpit.  Please state your name Raven.” 
 “Oh, uh, my name is Kur.”  “Welcome aboard Kur, are you the owner of this 
Armored Core unit?”  “Yes.”  “Would you like to assign a name to this Armored 
Core unit?”  “Yes please.”  “Please state the designation you wish to assign 
to this unit.”  I have been thinking about what I want to call my AC and have 
been having a lot of trouble with it.  I did however find a name that seemed 
to suit my AC, especially now that it has muscles.  “Kong.”  “This Armored 
Core units designation is now Kong.  Is this correct Kur?”  “Yes, yes it is.” 
 “Very well.”  

    The computer didn’t say anything after that so I decided to try and move 
around a little.  I moved my head around and found that my ACs head was 
moving normally.  There were no workers around, they all moved out of my way 
and found a seat next to the elevator.  I tried taking a step forward and 
found that the AC worked flawlessly.  I decided to see just how fast these 
artificial muscles could move.  I lifted my hand up as fast as I could and 
was surprised to find the ACs hand moving as fast as mine did.  I began to 
walk and then run around the warehouse as fast as I could.  The AC had no 
trouble keeping up with me at all.  As I was running I looked down to see the 
muscles flexing all over the AC.  The whole experience was so exciting that I 
jumped only to find myself flying through the air.  My AC could only jump as 
high as it was tall, about 40 feet before the alterations, but now I had to 
be 5 times that height and still rising.  When the AC finally stopped going 
up, I checked my altimeter and found that I was almost 250 feet in the air.  
It wasn’t as high as I could jump in the reverse jointed AC Stephanie made me 
use but then again I wasn’t trying to jump very high.  

    When I landed I tried jumping again.  This time I tried to jump as high 
as I could.  My AC shot into the air at a phenomenal rate.  The numbers on my 
altimeter were just a blur as they changed trying to keep up with the actual 
height of my AC.  I finally topped out at 499 feet.  Just about even with the 
jumping ability of the reverse joint legs of Stephanie’s AC.  I landed again 
and tried out my improved boosters.  I began running forward and hit the 
booster only to take off into the air.  I had to lean forward very far to 
even myself out to fly strait.  I increased the power to maximum and found 
myself flying twice as fast as I could before.  It was fun but I was having a 
hard time controlling it.  I cut the boosters and landed where I started the 
test run.  I was still having a lot of fun so I didn’t want to stop just yet. 
 I decided to try something that I knew my AC couldn’t have done before.  As 
a matter of fact only lightweight ACs are supposed to be able to do it.  I 
leaned forward and bent my knees. I kicked my right leg out and up and leaned 
back as fast as I could.  I pushed off with my left leg and found my self 
upside down and still rotating.  My AC landed on it’s feet but I was still 
rotating backwards.  I ended up stumbling backwards a few steps but kept 
myself upright. 

    I looked over at my audience to find them clapping and cheering me on.  
“That was great Raven!  You’re the only heavyweight to do a back-flip ever!  
Now try a front flip!”  My com system cut off and I decided to give it a try. 
 I started to do a slow bouncing jog and when I felt I was ready, I swung my 
arms up near my head and jumped into the air.  I threw my arms forward and 
down and tucked my legs up.  My AC spun in the air and I splayed my arms and 
legs out for the landing and landed flat on my face.  “Kong, do a damage 
report.”  “There is no damage to the unit.”  Well that’s good.  They built it 
tough.  I got up and decided to call it a night.  

    I walked the AC over to the platform and pulled the key out.  “Systems 
shutting down.  Good-bye Kur.”  I got out of the cockpit and shook hands with 
the foreman.  “So, how was it?  Any problems?”  “Just one that I could find.  
The boosters are very hard to control.  I could barely keep the AC flying 
strait, it wants to pull up and to the left all the time.”  “Ok, I’ll have 
somebody look at that for you but I think that some of the problem could be 
due to the lack of armor.  The shape of the armor helps to control the AC in 
flight and cuts down on aerodynamic drag.”  “Makes sense to me.  Anyway, the 
computer says there is no damage from the biffed front flip but I’d prefer if 
you had somebody look it over to make sure the new computer is functioning 
properly.”  “All right, I’ll get somebody on it.”  Just then I noticed 
Stephanie walking into the room.

    “So our hero Mr. Kur returns to us.  Do you think you could have done 
more damage to my AC?  It is going to cost me 300,000 credits to fix that 
thing you know.”  Jeez she has such an attitude.  “Hey I got the job done 
didn’t I?  I’d like to see how damaged your AC would have been with some 
other Raven at the controls.  If I were you, I’d just be happy the mission 
was completed and that you even had an AC to repair.”  “Yes I suppose you are 
right.  Anyway, Your AC is going to be completed ahead of schedule and as 
soon as it is I will expect you to be on your way.  However, I will be hoping 
that you will continue to do missions for my company, with pay of course.”  
“Well I will have to think about that.  I haven’t had the best experience 
here at... what is the name of your company anyway?”  “I’d prefer to keep 
that secret for now but I assure you that the missions I want you to do will 
not all be as difficult as the missions you have done.  Besides, I pay very 
well when I hire Ravens.  I feel that they deserve more money than most make 
for the service they provide.”  “As I said, I’ll think about it.  But don’t 
hold your breath, it may take a while for me to get back to you.”  “Fine, 
I’ll be waiting, but don’t take too long, I’ll hire another Raven if I don’t 
hear from you.”

to be continued

    It was about 6:30 a.m. when I finally got home and went to bed.  I woke 
up at 11:45 and decided to get moving on furthering my career as a Raven.  I 
got in my truck and drove to the Global Cortex main office and made my way to 
the main computer system.  I already had a Raven ID and the government thinks 
I am a Raven.  All I have to do now is get Global Cortex to think I am a 
Raven so I can quit my AC mechanic job and be a Raven full time.  I already 
have an employee file, I just have to convert it to a Raven file.  It sounds 
easy but it really isn’t.  Ravens aren’t actual employees of Global Cortex, 
they are more like contractors.  Global Cortex hires Ravens to do jobs for 
the customers and provides facilities for AC repair and housing if needed.  
So what I have to do is create a Raven file and delete my employee file, but 
if anybody recognizes me, I’d be screwed.  

    I decided to wait a while before creating my file until I could figure 
out how to do it safely.  It was my day off so I decided to just go back home 
and rest and think about my problem.  I was on my way down the hall to the 
exit when a man in a suit in front of me called me over.  I met him half way 
down the hall and he introduced himself as the vice-president of supply and 
resources.  “I have a bit of a problem that I need you to help me rectify.  I 
know today is your day off but your supervisor noticed you in the building 
and gave me a call.  Now the problem is that we have just acquired a team of 
very successful, very rich, Ravens from Mars and they are in a great deal of 
trouble on their current mission.  Now ordinarily we don’t send help for 
Ravens who get in over there heads but this team of Ravens could increase our 
profit by 10% or more so we are making an exception.  What I need you to do 
is take an MT and, along with several other MT pilots, you will help the 
Raven team get home safely.”  This guy has got to be kidding me.  “I’m sorry 
sir but I am a mechanic, I have no experience with piloting battle Mts.”  “I 
know that, that’s why you will be taking a construction MT.  You will provide 
a distraction so that the team can escape.”  “So you’re sending me out there 
to die so that some rich, apparently not so talented team of Ravens can come 
back and give you more money?”  “Yes, that sounds about right, get to the 
warehouse and get your MT.  Don’t worry, you will be paid if you survive.”  

    Well I didn’t have much of a choice, if I refused, I’d be fired, and if I 
get fired, there would be no way for me to be a Raven.  So I made my way back 
to the warehouse and found the construction MT I was to pilot.  It was the 
same MT I piloted earlier when I found my AC in the desert.  Kind of fitting 
because that’s where I am going now.  I climbed the ladder into the MT and 
sat in the cockpit.  I was happy to see that Global Cortex equipped the MT 
with a couple of weapons, not very good ones but beggars can’t be choosers.  
All I had was a small handgun and a very small missile launcher bolted onto 
the MTs shoulder.  “I’d give anything to have my AC right now.”  I started MT 
up and walked it into the huge transport jet and found 9 other MTs just like 
mine strapped to the walls.  I found my place and the transporter crew 
strapped my MT in.  

    I turned on my com link and listened to the other mechanics talking about 
the mission.  “I can’t believe this!  I’m just a mechanic!”  “This sucks, we 
are all going to die!”  “Would you all shut up, you are making me nervous!”  
“You should be nervous, we are going to die.”  “I heard there are 50 enemy 
ACs waiting for us.”  There were all scared, so was I.  I was probably the 
only one here that has ever been in a battle, but this is an MT with paper 
thin armor, not a big powerful AC with 30 inches of armor.  “Ok somebody 
needs to be in charge here, we can’t just got out there without a commander.” 
 I recognized that voice, it belonged to Jimmy, a little tiny guy about 19 
years old.  He was pretty smart and could have been a very successful 
business man had he been born into a rich family.  I decided to speak up, 
mostly to shut these guys up, and partly because Jimmy was right, we needed a 
commander to keep an eye on things.  “Ok, everybody quiet down and listen.  
If you’ve had any battle experience please say aye.”  Nobody said anything, I 
guess they were all rookies.  Huh, like I’m some kind of veteran or 
something.  “Ok then I guess we will have to find another way to pick a 
commander.”  “You be the commander Kur.”  “Yeah you be the commander, I don’t 
want to have that responsibility.”  “Wait a minute, why do you all want me to 
be the commander?”  “Because you seem like the only one that isn’t convinced 
we are all going to die in a few minutes.”  “Fine, I’ll be the commander, but 
you all better do exactly what I say when I say it.  If we all get killed I 
want it to be my fault, not the fault of one of you not following orders.”

    The men were all agreeing to my terms when the doors flew open and the 
pilot announced over the com system that we were all to jump out.  The straps 
holding our MTs unlatched and fell to the floor.  I led the rest of the men 
to the door and jumped out.  We all fell 1,000 feet to the desert floor and 
began boosting to the north.  We came to the battle scene in a large crater 
in the middle of the dessert.  “Ok guys, I want you to get on the edge of the 
crater and stay far enough back to stay out of sight.”  The men obeyed and 
surrounded the crater.  “Ok now target the enemy AC closest to you and get a 
lock, do not fire until I give the mark.”  I waited until my own targeting 
system locked onto my target 4 times, witch was the maximum, and gave the 
word for every body to fire.  Pretty soon there were 40 missile flying into 
the depths of the crater.  “Ok everybody back up and get out of sight.”  I 
stayed up to see if the missiles found there mark and sure enough they did.  
All 40 missiles hit there target and the enemy had no idea what hit them.  I 
also counted and found that there were 20 corporate ACs on the field and 10 
ACs on our side.  I also counted 5 destroyed enemy ACs and 2 destroyed of ours
.

    Myself and the other MT pilots got another four locks and fired our 
missiles into the fray.  They were ready this time and only 8 or 9 of the 
missiles connected.  We did however provide enough of a distraction for one 
of the ACs on our side to destroy an enemy AC with a well placed plasma blade 
swipe.  My team of MTs small missile launchers were out of ammo so all we had 
left were our handguns that had a very short range.  “Ok men lets get in 
there and put these toys to use.  Stay on the outskirts of the battle and 
keep moving.  If you get an AC on your tail try and fly over it’s head, they 
look like they aren’t meant to fly as long as we can.”  With that, all 10 of 
us boosted into the crater and fired at the closest enemy ACs we could find.  

    “Glad you could join us boys.  I’m Darren, I’m the commander of The 
Martian Cavalry.  Get these corporate jackasses off our backs and we’ll make 
it worth your while.”  Now that I was closer to the battle I took a look at 
the situation.  We had 10 construction MTs and 10 ACs that looked to all be 
the same design.  They were all middleweights painted red-orange with green 
trim and equipped with a plasma blade I didn’t recognize, a fairly powerful 
looking rifle, and a small sized missile launcher on the back.  The enemy had 
19 ACs left and they too were all the same design.  They were 
light-heavyweight designs painted bright blue and equipped with a shotgun, a 
spread howitzer, and a spread shot slug-gun.  I could see why the battle was 
taking so long,  neither side had any hard hitting weapons.  The enemy had 
only spread weapons that aren’t very effective at long range and the ACs on 
our side only had a rifle and the missile launcher that was almost useless 
against the armor of the bigger ACs.