It wasn't a typical day in the Cobalt Coil. Not that any thing on Solaris is truly typical. But the Coil tends to be different from the rest, more peaceful, more predictable. We don't get a lot of fights, much less lethal ones. If you want to blood your knuckles or knives you go to a place like Bronski's or Mongo's Fun House. If you want to drink a few of your favorites in a pleasant low key atmosphere without the glitz and excessive prices of, say, Valhalla; you come to the Coil. We're a family bar, though we specialize in PPC's. Which made what happened all the more distressing. The fact that I was there and the sun was out made it odd enough. Len, the day man, was off tending to some personal business (I wondered what her name was and, knowing Len, what her husband's name was) so as head bartender, I was filling in by filling glasses when I should have been home filling my bed. I hate double shifts. It was a different crowd by day, same feel but different faces. We got a lot of Techs on break from the nearby arenas, gamblers pumping the Techs for inside information, and a few 'Mech pilots getting set for their next bout. Everything felt friendly, even the gamblers knew not to press their marks too hard in the Coil. I'd just set out a new round when they walked in. We knew them by the red spiked hair and pseudo-leathers, three of the latest youth gang, Satan's Jackals. Groups like these popped up over night, then ran amok for a few days or weeks until they inadvertently moved on something too big and the local Yakuza reacted. Sooner or later another group would surface bearing some nihilistic name and the cycle would repeat. So far the Jackals' number hadn't come up. They came in smiling, showing off filed teeth that I suppose were intended to look menacing. It just made me remember the old adage about how God must love fools or why else would he make so many of them. I've known true pain; only a complete idiot would do something that painful voluntarily (unless they'd doped themselves to the ears, which is equally stupid). One of them sauntered up to the bar while his two buddies began working through the tables obviously looking for someone. I gave them their space. The Coil's-fairly permissives; all we ask is that you pay the bill, keep the peace, and respect the privacy of others. I suspected they were going to break at least one of the rules. "Filtered water, please," Moe said in a faintly lisping voice; new to the teeth, I suspected. I'd dubbed the spokesman 'Moe', and his companions 'Larry' and 'Curly' in memory of the great ancient Terran socio-political satirists. I poured water through the carbon filter, then gave it a flash of ultra violet light; only the best at the Coil. I set it down in front of him on one of the good napkins. "That'll be one centi-C bill; exchange rates for house currencies are on the board," I said, gesturing at the blackboard over the bar. He didn't respond, just downed the water, then turned to see how Larry and Curly were doing. One out of three, I thought. His two companions had gravitated toward a corner table where a lone, quite attractive, middle aged woman sat pointedly ignoring them. I knew here vaguely. She sometimes came in at night. Always alone, she seldom talked and never smiled. By her accent and manner of dress, I'd always assumed she was from the Cappellan Confederation, but she never volunteered much information. She drank heavily, but without any noticeable effect. Occasionally she examined a bit of twisted metal she kept in a small bag at her throat. Moe left the bar to join his buddies at her table. Everything got very quiet. Here comes three of three, I thought. "Ling Mc Cormak?" Moe asked. The name stung her before she could conceal her reaction. "Tolver sends his regards." While Ling was still staring with rage at Moe, Larry drew a butterfly knife. A lot of us in the bar started to move, but whatever Ms McCormak did before she came to Solaris must have included a lot of unarmed combat. I never saw the blow that broke Larry's arm, but we all heard the crack. Moe was almost as fast, thought not too bright. He had a laser pistol out of his coat while Larry was still crumpling to the floor. Curly just looked confused, as if he couldn't figure out how Larry's arm had acquired a new joint. Moe was about to fry Ling when from somewhere in the bar, a pistol spoke. It took me a moment to realize that it was mine. I've carried a gun for some time, not so much for breaking up bar fights, but because I handle the receipts for the Coil. Recently I'd picked up one of those new Thornhill Arms Vipers; this was the first time I'd fired it outside the test range. It did a good job. A substantial section of Moe's chest blew out in a spray of crimson. He hit the floor and everybody else froze, staring at the smoking gun in my left hand. The barrel gravitated to Curly. "I suggest you take your friends and get the hell out of here before I really get mad." Curly got the message. He helped Larry to his feet and the two of them, Larry using his one good arm, dragged the bleeding Moe out the door. He left a long red smear on the worn tile floor. Still everybody watched me. In a place like the Coil most everyone has a skeleton or two buried in their past. Something like this exhumes them suddenly and tempers get very short. McCormak looked around with naked fear in her eyes which the rest of the crowd picked up like a broad beam ComStar broadcast; I could feel the panic building. When a hunted animal finds its last refuge invaded, it gets vicious. A lot of people think of the Coil as their retreat. With exaggerated slowness, I holstered the gun. I keep it in the small of my back where it won't get in my way. Then I got a bag of poly-dust we use for cleaning big spills and proceeded to blot up the blood stains. The tension was still mounting, nearing the flash point. I returned to the bar and picked up a stick of chalk. "Well, one bad idea deserves another," I remarked with forced levity, very aware of the eyes burning holes into my back. One the corner of the board, I wrote those three little words that mean so much in the Coil, "PPCs, Half Price". "Furthermore, as head barkeep of this establishment, so mandated by our lovable proprietress - raise your glasses to her, ladies and gentlemen - I offer this challenge. If any of you can come up with a legitimate variant of that drink so appropriately named for the Particle Projection Cannon; a variant which I do not know or cannot guess with reasonable accuracy how to make, I'll stand a round to the bar!" That was all it took to remind them this was their place. So what if it wasn't Friday night, let the owner complain. I was saving a lot of customers. I started pouring PPC's, and somehow word got out that Friday night at the Coil was arriving Tuesday afternoon. A lot of regular showed up and a few newcomers found out what half- price night (or afternoon) is all about. I only got stumped once. If you are ever called on to make a Redjak PPC, just cut your grain alcohol with coffee liqueur, then cool it with a few chips of dry ice; "as cold and dark as Ryan's heart", the man said. The atmosphere livened up, and as sure as the PPC's were going like ten C-bill rockets, someone started in with a story. In deference to the day's excitement, the subject of bad ideas developed. The stories ran from cases of poor judgment, like the Major who tried to lead a command lance through a peat bog, to the mind-numbingly ludicrous, like why someone would try to put a nose-mounted Tomadzura autocannon class twenty on a Sparrowhawk Aerospace fighter. We were getting a good chuckle out of that one when Ling took us into the world of high-tech slapstick. She'd just polished of a Redjak PPC (it had become the drink of the hour after my ignominious defeat), and set her glass down with a thump. We all looked over. She was reported to be a first rate freelance Tech who had, according to very reliable rumor, turned down impressive offers from some top flight 'Mech units. I guess she just preferred the anonymity of Gameworld; made sense if she was running from something, and who of us wasn't. We sensed that the thump marked the beginning of another tale. And the old timers knew it would be good. It always is, when someone opens up for the first time. "I spent a lot of time Teching for a unit called Clave's Centurions," she said, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips. Without being asked, I fixed her another drink. "in its time it was a respectable sized unit. A full company complete with air wing. We were serving a long term contract in the Free Worlds League. We'd pulled garrison duty on Bridgid's Bounty, a small agricultural world out towards the Periphery. Bridgid was not very big or strategically located, but it hadn't seen a lot of combat. As a result, it was a very rich food source. Bridgid was originally colonized by descendants of an ethnic subgroup of old Terra, Scottish Highlanders. By your faces I can tell some of you know of this odd race. Fiercely proud, independent and clannish, they did not like outsiders; they never forgave House Marik for their forcible inclusion in what they sardonically called the Puppet State League. Without a good sized garrison to keep the locals producing, the food shipments off planet tended to be erratic at best. But then, Bridgid was so far off the beaten path, old Janos didn't want to station a top flight House unit there, so he used mercenary 'Mechs and a contingent of regular ground troops. There was not much a bunch of warlike farmers could do against BattleMechs, so things were peaceable, usually. The fire lance of our unit was led by one Captain Yoshi Decchio. He was only an adequate mechwarrior but he had excellent connections, which explained the command. His machine helped. It was a mint condition Thunderbolt with the large laser replaced by a salvaged Lord's Fire PPC. He'd painted it sunset red and named it 'The Killing Fury'. It was a good war machine. Blake's fire, a Thunderbolt with a faintly competent pilot is dangerous. All he had to do was leave it alone and he would have had a first rate fighting machine. But old Yoshi thought he was much more than a hot 'Mech pilot, he was a Tech as well. And not just any Tech; he was a creative one. Now, you're all grinning, but let me say I have known some warriors who were darned good Techs. Yoshi was not one of them. The entire Tech section spent a lot of time trying to undo Yoshi's creative efforts, and not just on his 'Mech. A few of the other pilots confronted him with weapons drawn warning him to stay away from their 'Mechs. After that he restricted himself to that poor Thunderbolt, and undefended camp equipment. Once he rigged up the field kitchen saying it would now fix an entire meal with the transmission of a preset radio code from the battlefield. It took us three days to clan up from the test run; by the time we finally left Bridgid we still hadn't received half of the replacement equipment we'd requisitioned. But it was the Thunderbolt that took the worst of it." She paused to sip her drink as we all smiled, remembering the oddities in human nature we'd run across. "One thing always irked Yoshi," she continued. "With all the firepower a Thunderbolt could discharge, it struck him as unreasonable that any but the heaviest armored machines should be able to withstand even a single volley. He though about it, and came up with a rationale. Damage spread. Due to the decline in computer technology during the course of a battle, damage tends to get spread all over the surface of a 'Mech. Unless you get a lucky head shot, most weapons will chew armor for a while before getting through. Of course, I'm talking about the heavy and assault 'Mechs, but the same principle applies to the lighter machines if you talk about the lighter weapons. Now if you could find a way to place your shots more accurately you should significantly shorten your battles; how many times have you seen a machine come back from combat, mauled but still running? Ever thought what might have happened if even half that total damage had been applied to a single location rather than being spread all over the 'Mech? Yes ... frightening thought! But how to solve the problem of damage spread? It was a good bet that targeting technology wasn't going to advance just because Yoshi wanted it to, so he put that 'great brain' of his to work on the problem, the same brain that created the one-shot camo-pattern paint bomb! But this time he actually made a few rational conclusions. A large part of the problem was the actual dispersement of the weapons themselves. The targeting computers of today are not near as fast as those of the Star League. And combat is a high speed affair. Those computers have a very difficult time working out range and trajectory solutions from a number of different firing points in the short time between volleys. When you think about it, it's a small miracle if several of your weapons manage to hit the same 'Mech sized target at ranges in the hundreds of meters. So Yoshi decided to give his targeting computer an easier time. He would clump his weapons in one area. Since that PPC was already on his Thunderbolt's right arm, it seemed the place to load up. He managed, with lots of work, to transfer all three medium lasers to a blister mount on the right wrist; it sort of balanced the weight of the PPC. Still not satisfied, he moved the Delta Dart LRM to the right shoulder. He left the machine guns on the left arm, considering them useless in 'Mech combat, and kept tinkering with the right torso SRM. He never found a place for that. Of course the right arm was not designed for all this added weight! He stripped off some of the armor, then added a lot of internal reinforcing that strengthened the arm - but drastically cut its range of motion. To effectively fire, he had to brace the right arm with the left hand, sort of like a standard pistol stance. The Captain was inordinately proud of his 'innovation', predicting it would herald in a new era of 'Mech design. We all smiled and went about our business. Yoshi triumphant in the Mech Bay Test firing seemed to support Yoshi's claim. On the range, one shot from that right arm combination proved to be devastating; he could accurately place the missiles and PPC on a single target. This made Yoshi more insufferable than usual. He swaggered around offering to help the rest of the unit warriors modify their machines, even suggesting that the fighter pilots move all their weapon systems to the nose of their aerospace fighters, so the navigation computer and the targeting system could work in tandem. We all tried to ignore him, knowing that the success of any 'Mech variant is only proved in one place, the battlefield. Three weeks later, the new improved 'Killing Fury' got its field test. We later found out that the locals had pooled their funds and hired a mercenary unit called Force Delta. It was a company sized 'Mech unit with heavy armor support. The first we knew of them was when they soft landed less than twenty klicks from our base. The air lance went out and came back tattered; they had good air defense. Meanwhile our 'Mechs got ready for the upcoming assault. Capt Decchio's fire lance was to take point defense in the hope that heavy defensive fire might slow their advance or even force the invaders offplanet. Old 'Killing Fury', listing noticeably to the right, moved out with the Catapult and two Shadow Hawks that filled out his lance. The area for the expected engagement was a perfect shooting gallery, a broad expanse of nothing but fields and grass that stretched for dozens of klicks in each direction. It had a narrow river flowing through it about five klicks from our base. Yoshi took point, his 'Mech waist deep in the river, with the Catapult about forty meters behind him and the two Shadow Hawks flanking out sixty meters to each side. The other lances were out behind and to the sides of Yoshi's lance to prevent any circling and the remains of the air lance were on base defense. We non-combatants were clustered around the vid-links watching the remotes from the battlefield. And Delta Force came. All three lances, plus their armor, came right up through the center in the hope of breaking through. Our two outer lances began moving up, but it was a sure bet that the fire lance was going to be fighting unsupported for ten minutes at least. Yoshi loved it. Delta Force was comprised of light and medium vehicles; the biggest thing they could field was a lone, rather battered, Wolverine. But they were brave. Yoshi and the Catapult opened up with long range missiles at max range and Delta Force kept coming. Once they got close enough, Yoshi stopped with the LRM's and cut loose with his good right arm. The Shadow Hawks sniped form the side and the Catapult kept firing, but Yoshi led the fray. For awhile it seemed he might win the battle single handed. You see, the Captain had figured that by standing in water, he could use that massive battery of weapons. frequently without pausing long to cool. So he kept firing away, trusting the water to keep him from overheating. And things hit by that barrage stayed hit; yes, the targeting was working better. His shots tended to cluster nicely blasting whatever they hit into rubble. He was having a grand old time. The heat sensors by his fusion engine told him everything was under control, the magnetic bottle was stable, and plenty of energy was available for weapons fire. The few shots that made it to him were taking off bits of his armor, but Yoshi was used to that; evasive maneuvering never was Yoshi's strong suit, he preferred quick and brutal confrontation. Then the heat sensors on his right arm began to register a rapid heat buildup. He must have assumed it was a malfunction because he switched that sensor sub-system off so it would not give incorrect data to main computers and prompt a shut down. Everything else was fine so it had to be a malfunction, right? He kept firing, not noticing his accuracy was slowly degrading. Our remote I/Rs showed what was going on but nobody bothered telling Yoshi. Officially, we all said that his onboard systems must have let him know the situation, and we did not want to distract him during combat. Actually, we all saw it coming, but we resented Yoshi enough to let him enjoy the fruits of his labor. What, you ask, was going on? Well, the I/R imaging showed a massive heat differential developing in that old Thunderbolt. The main body was running a lukewarm yellow that cooled to green where the 'Mech touched water. But the right arm was bright red. I see some of you are confused; you're thinking like Yoshi and haven't studied your thermodynamics. A BattleMech does not act like a vaccuum bottle with an energy source in it. Once the source is turned on, the energy level is constant with respect to distance in every direction. In anything but a vaccuum, heat has to move from one thing to another according to the principals of heat transfer. Yoshi, while he reinforced the structural integrate on his 'Mech's right arm, hadn't added any thermo-flow systems to help vent the waste heat through the 'Mech's heat sinks. He was generating heat in the right arm a hell of a lot faster than it could passively flow though his machine. All it took was a large laser hit on his right arm at the same time he fired off that mass of weapons. The side of his machine glowed for a moment, and then since the power relays for all those weapons were in the right shoulder, the arm fell off! You could see it happen. The titanium bone fractured from the heat. The armor plate, softened from the blast furnace temperature, flowed like wax. The severed arm hit the water in a cloud of steam, and I swear to you that 'Mech took on a dumbfounded expression. Yoshi just stood there in shock, staring at the slagged stump on his right shoulder, while the rest of the unit finished pushing the Deltas off planet. Yoshi was in shell shock for days and never fully recovered. Some said it was brain damage from the residual heat he'd soaked up from the meltdown. But I think his ego was just shattered beyond repair. The Thunderbolt was history. Enough heat had leaked into it to destroy about all its internal systems. We scrapped it and used the proceeds to retire Yoshi from the unit. I don't think he even noticed us giving him a standing ovation as he shipped off Bridgid. We just wanted to give him a 'hand'!" A ripple of laughter ran through the bar. I picked up Ling's glass thinking that a story that good deserved a free refill. I'd known some would-be innovators in my time, but few came to ends as spectacular as Yoshi. But Ling wasn't quite finished. "You know, I hear Yoshi never even sought another 'Mech, just passed quietly into the ranks of the Dispossessed. I guess he couldn't face the thought of 'arming' up again." 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