by Greg Dragon
FULL METAL HEROINE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2019
Thirsty Bird Productions
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recorded or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Cover Art by Tom Edwards
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Prologue
The lukewarm water sputtered twice, shaking the metal pipe which ran along the inner wall of the satellite’s reinforced hull. There was a groaning sound, as if the plumbing was painfully trying to release something, and then the water came, its flow strong and steady, cascading down onto the scalp of an expectant Tasmin Rose.
It was warm and delightful, though she had been warned not to let it get inside her mouth, or she would be sick for days. She didn’t know the source of the water, or why it was terrible, but a shower was a luxury, so she took the risk.
Scrubbing at her oily flesh with ragged fingernails, she kept both her mouth and eyes shut, as it washed out the shampoo and soap that covered her slender body. This was the best part, the peace, feeling the warm water run down her shoulders in a subtle massage.
Today was her birthday, and this was the gift that she had saved up to treat herself. To planet-dwellers and those lucky enough to live on starships, the idea of a shower being a gift would have seemed absurd, but on a hub, where baths in recycled water was the norm, this was indeed special.
Not to mention, everyone had been so busy that there had been no real acknowledgment of her birthday. It was a bad time of year—it was always a bad time of year—and though her mother, Jackie, had given her a beautiful bracelet, it was her father’s forgetfulness that hurt the most.
Tasmin was seventeen now, old enough to join SatSec, which was what everyone called Satellite Security. She would sign up as a recruit, and if they deemed her worthy, she would be flown off to a starship, where she would train with real Alliance personnel. She would learn how to shoot, punch and kick for self-defense, and most importantly she would be working, earning real credits to support her family.
Showers like this would be an everyday thing. She’d probably have her own, with other women, clean and available whenever she wished. The thought made her anxious for tomorrow’s meeting, where she was to meet the head of their SatSec detail to see if she qualified.
She knew that anytime now, Armon would yell for her to come out. She had purchased five minutes, and it was going on six, but he was always kind, and let her go over a couple of seconds. But the minutes ticked by and there was no yell, and though she enjoyed the thought of showering for as long as she wanted, this was too abnormal to be okay.
Tasmin grabbed the wrench and cranked it, shutting the water off. She thought she heard gunshots, muted but still loud, and she parted the curtains, stepped out, and then stopped. Gunshots? Not now. She strained her ears to listen for more and then she heard the screams.
Tasmin lived on a satellite, built to transmit messages from Vestalia all the way to the planet, Meluvia. It was one of the hundreds constructed for this purpose, its alien technology providing the quickest form of communication. At the height of its day, before the Geralos, these satellites were the glue that kept the allied planets connected.
Ironically, they were the first things hit when the Geralos attacked Vestalia, and were rendered useless for communication and thus became repurposed once the humans fled their planet. Now, they were hubs for Vestalian refugees.
Hubs were dangerous places, where the strong preyed on the weak, and there were no laws on the ones that lacked leadership. Since the Alliance had its hands full with fighting the Geralos, people inside these camps were made to fend for themselves.
Satellite Syr, which was where Tasmin called home, was one of the six remaining hubs that still orbited Vestalia. For seventeen years she had lived in this place, orbiting a planet that she could never visit.
Tasmin was what they called a boomer, a person born and raised in space. All she knew was satellite life, and she regarded its people as her extended family. She had dozens of “aunts” and “uncles” growing up who would defend her against predators and feed her when she was hungry.
The scream that she heard made her blood turn cold, and she froze in her tracks wondering who had gone off the rails. A loud thump made her flinch. Whatever was happening was very real, so she reached for a towel and dried herself quickly.
Another thump made her gasp, as if something fell against the door. It sounded like a war had broken out on their level, and with each shot she flinched, and with each scream, she grew weak. Tasmin’s hands began to shake, making it difficult for her to dress, but she eventually got her clothes on, and was ready to investigate.
Armon had constructed this shed around his shower to give his customers privacy whenever they were inside. It was built from old parts, welded to make it robust and impenetrable. There were shelves with towels and rags, soaps—which cost extra—and all manner of exotic oils. It was a poor man’s spa, but one of the greater luxuries of this level. Now it served as a panic room for Tasmin, whose brain was exploring the worst thoughts about what was going on outside.
When she was fully dressed, she crept to the door and tried to crack it open to see, but the portal wouldn’t budge until she really gave it a shove. That was when she saw Armon topple over lifeless in a slumped position.
There were bodies everywhere, and her heart hurt. She hoped that her parents and younger sister weren’t among them. She put her hand over her mouth, stifling the scream that threatened to jump out from her throat, and she collapsed to the ground, holding her arm.
Sobbing like mad and crying without tears, Tasmin felt a pain in her cheeks as if the very bones were inflamed. It hurt so badly that she wanted to die, but what she had seen walking out there had frightened her into a state of frozen shock.
There were uniformed men, but they dressed in a way she didn’t recognize, and they had women and children lined against the wall, surveying them as if they were produce. Tasmin assumed that they were Geralos, those alien lizard men. She had never seen them before and was shocked at how normal they looked.
Where were their SatSec protectors? Had they been killed? Usually, there was a patrol ship nearby, watching for situations like this. There were always attempts, but SatSec would fight, and if it was more than they could handle, there was a starship a jump away. From what she understood about the hubs during a time of war, to attack them was suicide, since they were strategically placed in areas where reinforcements were immediate.
Now they had been boarded and innocent people were dying. Was the Alliance on the way, or was that too much to hope? This attack had come silently, and happened so fast. She had always assumed that if ever they were attacked, they would see it coming to warn SatSec or the formal Alliance.
What was she to do? She, a gambler’s daughter, who made delivery runs for a pittance that was spent on luxuries like a five-minute shower? She couldn’t think straight, praying her family was in that hostage line, but she had heard about the lizards and what they did to their human captives.
Would they eventually find her? They seemed to be walking the hub, checking for survivors.
“Go check that thing the
re in the back,” she heard one say with an accent that reminded her of Ilevar Kite, one of their neighbors who had been born on Genese. The command forced her eyes to widen, as she stared at the water drying on the wall. Genesians, here? And killing fellow Alliance members?
No, there had to be some sort of mistake. They were all Alliance. The Geralos were the enemy, not Genesians, Meluvians, Casanians, or Louines for that matter. If those were Alliance members shooting and killing the innocent people of the hub, then how could she deal with that? Who would she be able to trust?
The one silver lining in them not being Geralos was that the people lined up against the wall would be the elderly, pregnant women, and children. At least that’s what she hoped, being that her mother was very pregnant, and kept her little sister close. This meant that her father was probably dead, and she felt the pain in her cheeks rise again with new fury.
“Is that a door?” a gruff voice said.
“Hold your position, let me see,” said another, this one sounding Vestalian.
Tasmin followed the pipe up with her eyes. In a manner of seconds they’d break in and put a bullet in her head. She was no wimp, she was Tasmin Rose, daughter of Romul and Jacqueline Rose, and big sister to Celeste, who deserved a chance to grow up with family.
She pushed the pain down into the void and scrambled up to look for a place to hide. Inside the shed was a crate, a drain, and the pipe, but on the walls were a variety of clean towels, and a large bucket to dispose of them in whenever your time was up.
I wonder if I could fit, she thought, trying to imagine herself crouched below the filthy rags. No, there is no time, but what if I found a weapon?
She imagined herself being a tough Marine, ripping the pipe off the wall and bashing in the brains of the first man to enter. As he went down, she would disarm him quickly, and then step out screaming her family name. She would dash to the side, forcing them to miss, while dropping all the bad guys with deadly accurate fire.
Too many vids, you silly girl, she chided herself, and then her eyes rolled up to the large hole in the ceiling where the pipe came through. Tasmin ran forward and jumped, grabbing the pipe and planting her feet on the wall to start her climb up and out of there.
She never thought that as a child, scaling these pipes would develop skills she’d need as a grown-up, but here she was, and she was always fast, so she scrambled up and out, and kept on climbing until she was above the shed, where she stepped off and laid flat on the top.
She heard laughter from below. “These poor dirt bags made themselves a shower,” the Vestalian said. “Come check this out, they have towels and everything. Man, they’re tapping their own coolant system to wash. How messed up is this?”
What’s messed up is coming to our home and shooting us down, Tasmin thought. She wanted to see what was happening with her family, but she dared not move for fear of discovery by any of the men below. It got quiet, and she was tempted to crawl to the edge and peer out at the hostages, but she remained where she was, frozen, practicing patience in this desperate hour where one mistake could cost her life.
“We’re moving out!” shouted one of the men from the back, and from the finality in his voice, she assumed him to be the leader. She heard the boots on the deck as they stepped over Armon to get back to the rest, and after counting down for thirty seconds Tasmin crawled to the edge to look.
Before her lay the giant hub that was the only world that she knew, its tall walls reaching several meters up to a patchwork of pipes and wires out of her reach. On the deck, stacked like a honeycomb, were the five floors of old crates that they used as homes. Each ranged from 16 square meters to the 36 square meter units owned by the gangs.
From where she lay it was a city, but it was all she’d ever known of civilization. But instead of people talking and moving between these blocks, what she saw were bodies, lying in pools of their blood.
At the front, where the massive blast door—which served as the fourth wall—had been raised, stood an army of men, leading all of the survivors out through the transparent atmosphere shield. Parked in between the hub and the bright blue planet was the silhouette of a ship, big enough to block the entire entrance.
Tasmin wanted to jump down, run the length of the hub and implore them to stop and spare her parents, but she knew that survival was necessary now, especially if she could get them the help from those with the power to do something. Still, she couldn’t help herself, and she jumped down to the deck, sprinting to gain the entrance before they could take off.
Tasmin took to the tighter passageway behind the crates, since taking the open path down the center would have her shot before she could plead her case. It was empty on that path, but dark, which is why the smartest women avoided it. The worst things happened back there, out of the sight of those who could defend you when you needed help.
It was Drew gang territory, a place of pain, trauma, and unforgivable things, but now it was a shortcut, so she threw all care to the wind. When she had run past ten crates, her curiosity forced her legs to slow. She was now behind her home block and needed to know for sure that her family was alive.
Giving up the chase to reach the entrance, she slid between the crates to gain the front. There she saw the body of her neighbor, Luthram Ali, who had been shot in his chest and lay sprawled on the deck. There were two more men that she knew as her uncles, and she closed her eyes and whispered a prayer that her father had managed to survive.
Finding her strength, she reached for the rusty ladder to the right of the crate. She climbed up to the second level of the stack, where she heard whimpers coming from a neighbor’s door. Another body was on the mezzanine, but this was a woman with a gun still tight inside her hand.
Serves you right, you evil cruta, she thought, remembering her as a member of the Drews who preyed on one of her friends when they were mere children.
Another ladder up and she was in front of the crate they called home, but there were no dead bodies on this level. Tasmin tugged on the door and found it unlocked. Inside was vacant, but everything was in place, but for a two-layered cake in the center of the table.
It was blue, her favorite color, and there were plates set for four people. Above it on the wall was a child’s scrawled writing, which read, “Happy Birthday Taz. I love you, big sister.”
Tasmin bit down hard as the hot tears came, sapping her resolve and forcing her down to her knees. “They have to be alive,” she whispered. “There are no bodies, they’re alive.” With renewed hope she got to her feet, wiped the tears with her sleeve and collected herself. “They’re alive,” she said again. “They’re alive, and they need my help.” With that, she spun, exited the crate, and then jumped to the lowest deck.
Even though she’d done that jump many times, this time she fell awkwardly and sprained her ankle. It hurt so bad she feared that it was serious, but she bit down and limped to the front. She had to reach that ship. But the blast doors were closing, and it was preparing to launch.
It was then that she saw it, and her heart fell into her feet. It was the SatSec patrol ship, the same ship that was supposed to defend them from the Geralos.
1
Helga Ate stood in front of the floor-length mirror staring at the thin figure dressed to the nines in her Rendron Blues. The woman stared back at her through heavy lidded eyes. She looked sad and worn, as if she had been through too much for her short young years, and while she held it together admirably, it was starting to come apart at the seams.
The reflection wasn’t entirely wrong, though she would argue that she felt better than she looked. First of all, she was more angry than sad, and there was never going to be enough nourishment and rest to quell the furnace that roared inside her chest. She was a warrior, born to kill, but outside of her armor, you could see it all, the scars that created the woman she had become.
A shaved head, but for a single strip plaited down the center, revealed the dark circles on
her scalp that was her Casanian heritage. Half-breed, mutt, abomination. As a cadet she had heard it all, from the hell that was the academy to her first night in boot camp on a battleship named Helysian. Yes, there was rage in her, sadness and all, but she had to keep it deep inside, buried beneath her heart.
Helga adjusted her badges and tilted her head up, trying to look more like an officer. She smiled and intoned, “Thank you, Captain Sho, it is a great honor!” Though she thought she looked ridiculous, shouting and grinning like that.
“Thype this,” she whispered and turned away from the reflection, snatching her hat from the table as she exited the compartment. There were five spacers hanging out near her stateroom, but she kept her eyes forward as she hurried past them.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” one of them said, and Helga stopped, and turned slowly to see what he wanted.
“How may I help you, Petty Officer … Riles,” she said, reading the place card stamped on his coveralls. She wanted to go—needed to go, her nerves were on edge and it was hard to play nice. Still, she was a ranked officer, addressing a fellow spacer, so she put aside her angst to appear somewhat approachable and waited to see what he would say.
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am, I know that you’re extremely busy, but I wanted to ask how, I mean, whether the books for, thype, I—I want to be—” He stopped and composed himself as the other three men snickered at his nervousness. “I would like to try out for the Nighthawks, ma’am, and wanted to know how best to start.”
Helga looked him and his friends over as if they were different offerings on a marginal buffet. None of them looked impressive, but that didn’t mean anything. She too had been underestimated when she was chosen to be a Nighthawk, and had shown her doubters through surviving a Geralos death camp that strength could come in small feminine packages.
The stammering of the speaker, and the four who were making fun of him, was enough to convince her to offer up some advice.
