by M. D. Cooper
“Yeah, well, it’s like a parliamentary government inside my body. Lots of yelling and drunkenness.”
“So not much has changed?” Thompson asked as he approached.
Jessica held up a hand, allowing the glow to intensify as electricity arched between her fingers. “Nope, not much at all.”
“Shit! That’s…kinda terrifying,” Thompson said, a worried look in his eyes. “And maybe a bit sexy.”
“That’s the point. So what’s the plan. You have me, Usef, Iris, and we’re getting Jinx a new body.”
“She’s pretty impressive in the one she has,” Thompson gave the AI’s loader frame an appreciative look. “Can’t wait to see what she does with some real gear.”
“Will it be like yours?” Jinx asked.
“Uhhhhh,” Iris twisted her lips. “Maybe? Sabrina has been futzing with all the spare frames, ‘tricking them out’ as she puts it. I’m bringing the least garish of the lot up.”
“OK, while we’re waiting on that, what do you have, Thompson?”
The large blond man watched the refugees leaving the arena and then swept his gaze around the room. “Not as many as I make it seem like. I have eleven who have training and skill, and another six who know which end of the rifle is the dangerous one. If Camilla is ready to go, that’s one more.”
Jessica eyeballed a few of Thompson’s trigger pullers who were in the arena. A few looked like they were competent, but she’d seen more than a few smooth-looking operators disintegrate in combat.
“OK, this is how we’re gonna play this, Thompson. You run a delaying action here. Slow down the Heegs that are following the route from the maglev station. Edgar is back on the ship, and he has control of half the doors on the station now. He’s your guy if you need help. I’m going to take Usef, Iris, and Jinx up to the Heegs’ HQ and find those AIs.”
A troubled look came over Thompson’s face. “I don’t know if we can hold them off for that long.”
“You don’t have to. Just delay as long as you can, and then get to Sabrina. Once you’re all aboard, she’ll undock and the Heegs will be none the wiser.”
“And you guys?” Thompson asked.
Jessica winked. “Don’t worry, we have the Sexy.”
“The what?” The blond man frowned. “Are you telling me you named a ship ‘Sexy’.”
“Damn right, we did.” Iris winked at Thompson, then nodded at Jinx. “Your frame’s here.”
They turned to see a blue and silver AI frame approaching, easing past the last group of refugees exiting the arena.
“Wow!” Jinx exclaimed. “It looks amazing! Is it really for me?”
Jessica eyed the frame, which looked relatively normal, though it had more of the small fins on the arms and thighs that Sabrina had been adding to all the spare units. It also seemed to have a small engine on the back.
Sabrina laughed.
“Jess, can you pop open the core socket on the frame?” Iris asked. “I gotta get her out of this sucker.”
“Sorry about that,” Skeez said, as he walked out of a nearby passage, leading a large cart brimming with all manner of equipment. “I wanted to make sure she was safe in combat. And holy snark, is that her new frame?”
Jessica glanced at the peculiar man. Stars, how many weird engineers are we going to attract? “Yup. Now go, get a move on already.”
“Yeah, OK.” A look of worry formed under Skeez’s white brows. “Just…uh…keep her safe, OK?”
“I’ll be fine, Skeez,” Jinx said, not unkindly. “Go. Get on the ship.”
“Yeah, going. Take care.”
He turned and his cart following after.
Jessica turned her focus to Jinx’s new frame, sliding aside the layered panels to access the core housing. “OK, ready here.”
Iris looked into Jinx’s eyes. “Do I have permission to pull your core?”
“You do,” Jinx’s tone was filled with anticipation. “Yank me!”
Iris pulled the core out while shaking her head. “You’re far too trusting, Jinx. I’m going to have teach you about the ways of the galaxy.”
“OK!” the word burst from the core in Iris’s hands.
Jessica couldn’t help but laugh at the AI’s raw enthusiasm as Iris slotted her into the new frame.
“Good thing we set these things up to also support these old-style interfaces,” Iris said. “Inner Stars cores are…archaic.”
“What do you mean?” Jinx asked, speaking from her new body as Iris closed it back up.
“That was fast,” Jessica commented.
“This thing is like a dream,” Jinx said in hushed tones as she lifted a hand and curled each finger. Then she looked at her old frame. “I can’t believe that’s what I used to have as a body—though it was a step up from being trapped in a nav comp.”
“Gah, I bet,” Iris muttered. “What I meant is that your old core, the cylinder format, has some limiting factors. You’re not close to hitting them yet, but some day we might want to move you up to the new quantum tesseract style.”
“A tesseract?” Jinx asked, and Iris held out her hand, showing an image of what a modern—for New Canaan—core looked like. “They’re not actually four-dimensional tesseracts, but they kinda look like the three-dimensional view of one.”
Jinx whistled. “That’s amazing.”
“Are we going to get underway at some point?” Usef asked from where he stood next to the passageway leading out of the arena.
“Sheesh, Usef,” Jessica muttered. “All work and no play—”
“Gets the job done,” Usef interrupted.
Jessica glanced at Thompson. “Stay…uhh…safeish.”
“Safeish?” Thompson grunted the question out as his brows lowered.
Iris grinned at their former crewmate. “You know…we won’t shed a tear if you get a leg blown off or something. Then we can replace it and make you about one fifth less of an asshole.”
“Maybe he could get his asshole blown off,” Jessica muttered. “That might help.”
“I’m soooo glad we got to have this little reunion.” Thompson grunted.
Jinx asked Jessica and Iris privately,
MISSED MISDIRECTION
STELLAR DATE: 05.03.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Skippy’s Storage, Chittering Hawk Station
REGION: Virginis System, AST Space
Jessica nodded.
Jessica had taken the rear of the formation, letting Usef range ahead, and she gave the AI a smile.
Jessica replied.
More tempting words have never been uttered, Jessica thought before replying.
The group moved on in silence for another minute, and then Usef said,
Jessica triggered her medium armor’s stealth systems and was glad to see Jinx figured it out as well. She imagined Iris was helping the AI out with all the new toys she had.
Half a minute later, a platoon of AST soldiers ran past and Jessica had to resist the urge to fire on them. The more soldiers that moved away from the command decks the better.
Wait, what am I thinking. If I shoot them, then even more will come down.
Jessica fell back, reversing course to follow after the platoon of soldiers.
The colonel snorted.
Jessica didn’t dignify the man’s comment with a response, but then she recalled all the times she’d pretended to have to pee to facilitate escapes.
Too bad there’s no way to effect the strategic use of a toilet right now. It’s been too long since I’ve done that.
The platoon of AST soldiers reached Skippy’s Self Storage and moved into the facility, spreading out—probably searching for another entrance to the arena.
The soldiers split down to four-person fireteams, and Jessica moved toward the rearmost group—which had moved around a stack of crates to check them over. Creeping toward them, she drew her lightwand and moved behind one of the Heegs.
The blade came alive, and she sliced up under the enemy’s helmet, cutting into his head while reaching out and clasping a hand on his nearest teammate’s shoulder, discharging enough energy to fry the woman’s armor.
Ahead, the next two enemies spun to face her, but Jessica had already deactivated her lightwand and ducked behind a crate while her skin’s charge diminished, allowing her armor’s stealth to hide her once more.
Leaving the two to check on their dead and disabled comrades, Jessica slipped across the main aisle toward another fireteam that was checking inside one of the storage chambers. This group was tightly packed, and once she was close enough, Jessica released a torrent of energy into the Heegs, disabling three and lighting one on fire.
The screams brought another fireteam over to investigate, but by then her stealth was back up to ninety-eight percent effective and she slipped past the enemies.
When they’d moved past on the concourse, Jessica had counted thirty-six members of the platoon. She’d already neutralized six, which meant if she did another ten, they’d be in disarray and hunker down until reinforcements arrived. Too many more than that and they’d just break and run.
She killed two more behind a stack of crates, and wiped out a three-person fireteam that almost found the entrance to the arena—not that it mattered overmuch, but she decided it would be prudent to diminish their numbers as Thompson was still working his way toward Sabrina’s airlock, fighting Heegs that had found other access routes to the arena.
As Jessica worked her way back toward Skippy’s exit, another platoon arrived. The ‘toon sergeant was hollering orders at his soldiers.
AST soldiers didn’t wear any visible rank insignia, but if there was one thing she’d learned in all her travels, it was that all platoon sergeants had an indelible quality to their bellowing that made them instantly recognizable.
He ordered them to bottle up ‘this psycho killer’ as he so eloquently put it.
If you asshats weren’t running around invading other star systems, I wouldn’t need to be a psycho killer.
A healthy dose of silent judgement flowed over the Link from Usef, but he didn’t say a word.
The AI cut her off.
Jessica held back a laugh as she watched from an alcove between a pair of crates as the new platoon deployed. Unlike the first group, they stayed in squads. The ‘toon’s lieutenant was standing off to the side while the sergeant directed three squads to sweep the facility while the fourth squad held the entrance.
The first platoon was in disarray, but the sergeant from the second one strode straight through Skippy’s and started yelling at the other platoon’s sergeant.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that the Heegs were all bound and determined to kill her, she would have laughed at the poor man getting tongue-lashed by the second sergeant.
Iris sighed.
Jessica watched the three squads who were carefully sweeping the area, multiple members of each group holding large motion trackers, which she suspected were better than the ones built into their armor’s sensor suites.
They were moving in a predictable pattern, leapfrogging one another, and creating a few consistent openings she could slip through.
Easing out from her cover, Jessica crept carefully through the dimly lit facility until she came to the first squad. They were moving along the left-hand side stopping at each storage chamber to sweep it when the squad on the right side did the same.
There was a gap in their timing, though, where the center group that was covering them bunched up before catching up, and Jessica angled toward it.
She was almost there, when the sergeant hollered from behind.
“Fourth! What are you damn laggards doing? Why don’t you just leave a bigger gap in your coverage there? Maybe the enemy would like to drive a truck through!”
As the man spoke, Jessica was right between the two squads’ positions and she froze as a fireteam moved to walk through the space where she stood.
Fuck!
Her gaze swept across the space and she realized that where she stood, over fifty of the enemy had direct line of sight on her—should they realize she was in their midst.
She got ready to run for cover behind a large shipping container when an explosion came from the concourse outside and then beam fire tore into the squad guarding the storage facility’s entrance.
The soldiers around Jessica froze, then moved to new positions to cover the entrance as the squad outside fell back into the facility.
Oh, so noooow the sergeant switches to the Link when giving orders.
Even so, Jessica was now in the clear, and moved quickly across the final sixty meters to the exit. She was ten meters away, when something exploded to her right. Then another blast went off to her left.
An alert came up on her armor indicting that foreign objects had adhered to it, and she looked down to see black speckles covering her.
