she said, gesturing to a door that led in the general direction they needed to go.
Barne ran to the door, flattened himself against the wall, and then reached out and turned the knob. Rika leapt through into the hall beyond, her GNR pointed right, and her JE78 covering the left.
she announced and turned to her left, walking quietly down the hall toward an intersection. She reached it and scanned the area again, picking up movement in the corridor to their right—the direction they needed to go.
She nodded to Barne and he moved to the other side of the hall, holding his rifle ready.
He had visual before she did and opened fire, taking out two enemies in seconds.
Rika said.
Barne replied as he peered down the left hall.
Rika moved down the right, and Barne followed after, covering their six. Behind them, the sound of raised voices came from the room they had crashed into, and Rika picked up the pace, not wanting to be caught in a crossfire.
Ahead, a door opened and three guards rushed out. None had their weapons ready, and Rika made short work of them.
At two more intersections, Rika paused to listen and scan, each time leading them further into the south wing of the villa.
Rika said, gesturing to a set of double doors at the end of the hall.
Barne replied, and fired a trio of rounds at a pair of guards that had darted across the hall behind them.
Rika flipped her GNR to its electron beam mode. The next time one of the guards leaned out to take a shot, she fired.
A straight line of blue lightning streaked down the hall—a nimbus glow of blue cherenkov radiation further emblazoning its passage. It hit the guard square in the chest and burned a hole right through him. Lightning arced all around his body, blowing out the overhead lighting and setting a wall on fire.
Barne said as he kept an eye out for more pursuers.
Rika turned back to the doors at the end of the hall. She could pick up five figures on the other side of them. Two seemed to be seated, with another one nearby. Another pair was on either side of the doors.
She took aim at the figure on the left side of the door and fired her electron beam again. The force of the electrons travelling a hair under the speed of light blew a hole right through the wall and the person beyond. Rika smiled as the wall splintered, and the left-side door groaned before the top hinge came free and fell to the ground. Rika peered around the door to see Leslie and Jerry strapped to a pair of steel chairs in the center of the room.
Behind them stood a tall woman with mousy brown hair. She wore a cozy-looking red sweater, navy leggings, and fuzzy white slippers. If she was the nefarious Cheri, her wardrobe did not mirror the reputation.
The guard on the right side of the door moved into view, and Rika fired a ballistic round from her GNR, taking the top of his head off.
“Rika! No!” Leslie cried out as Rika stepped into the room. Barne was close behind, taking up position behind the remaining door, watching the hall to their rear.
The woman punched Leslie in the back of the head—a blow that was well delivered, and Leslie’s eyes grew unfocused.
“So, you’re the great Rika,” the woman said. “These two have told me a lot about you.”
Rika looked at Leslie and Jerry. Jerry’s mouth was covered by a gag, but other than that, he looked OK. Leslie had a few bruises and a chunk of her hair was missing, but she didn’t appear to have any broken bones that Rika’s quick scan could see.
“And you must be Cheri,” Rika said cautiously. “I have to admit, I’m a bit underwhelmed here.”
The woman didn’t even have a weapon. Rika raised her GNR but Leslie pulled her head up straight and cried out. “Rika, run! She has the Discipline codes.”
Cold dread washed over her. The moment the GNR pointed at Cheri, a spike of Discipline hit Rika, and she lowered the weapon.
“That’s better,” Cheri said. “Getting your location was easy; too easy, if I know Jerry, here—which I do. Still, I sent Gamine in with a team to see if they could pull it off. I suspected that Gamine couldn’t manage, but then I’d still get what I wanted: you. Except you’d deliver yourself, all nice and tidy. Gamine was getting a bit too big for her britches, so it was really a win-win for me.”
Rika took a step back. “How?”
“How did I get the Discipline codes from Jerry?” Cheri asked as she stroked Jerry’s head. “Oh, I just used a nifty little tool I got a while ago. It breached his neural security and extracted the code from his mind. It was easy to find; people always try not to think about the thing they want to hide the most, but in reality, it’s all they think about.”
Rika shook her head in denial. “No, there’s just no way…”
Cheri’s eyes narrowed. “Rika. Kill Barne.”
The words flowed into her mind like ice water, and the tingle of Discipline grew stronger. She turned to Barne and saw true fear on his face as he stepped away from her.
“Rika, no, please,” he said, raising his rifle.
She darted forward, swatted the gun out of his hand, and reached for his throat. But she couldn’t bring herself to hurt this ass of a man. He was her friend—she hoped he was, at least.
Rika pulled her hand back, gritted her teeth, and lowered her head. She remembered what Barne had said, about mechs that somehow fought Discipline.
She turned to Cheri.
“No.”
This time it was Cheri who looked concerned. Though it was just for a moment; then a wicked smile crossed her lips. “Rika, Kill Barne now. That’s an order.”
Even before Cheri had spoken, the Discipline sent searing pain into her mind. But not just her mind—it made her entire body feel like it was on fire. Like her skin was melting off, and the only way to put it out was with Barne’s blood.
Blood she would not spill.
The pain brought her to her knees and she gasped for air, fighting against the searing agony. Still, she managed to raise her head, and she stared into Cheri’s grey eyes.
“No!”
The Discipline hit her harder this time, tearing at her mind, bringing unimaginable agony. It was as though white-hot knives were in her brain, slicing away every part her, cutting her to pieces.
The pain subsided for a moment and she gasped for air, realizing that she was now sprawled on the ground with her JE78 a meter away. She wondered when she had dropped it.
“Rika!” Cheri yelled. “Kill Barne now!”
Rika glanced to her right. Barne still stood weaponless, and she wondered why he hadn’t made a move to grab his rifle and kill Cheri. She was unarmed; it would only take a second.
Maybe he wanted to see if she had the strength. Or maybe he worried that killing Cheri wouldn’t erase her last standing order—which it probably wouldn’t.
Crippling waves of pain wracked Rika’s body, but somehow she managed to get back up to her knees.
She whispered, “No.”
Then she got her feet under her, and managed a crouch.
“No!”
Cheri kept screaming at Rika to kill Barne, to kill Leslie, Jerry, all three; but Rika barely heard it at all. What she did hear was Barne give a soft laugh behind her.
“I knew you had it in you, girl. Go get her.”
Something snapped in Rika’s mind. The compliance chip was still functioning, still delivering its debilitating waves of pain, but somehow it didn’t hurt anymore. Instead, the pain had become power; a rage that had been building ever since that dickhead technician named Jack had gleefully assembled her, and used the compliance chip and its Discipline to control her.
Years
of real pain and anger gave her strength to fight against the artificial agony.
Rika sprang forward, flying over Jerry and Leslie to land behind the woman who was now the focus of all her rage. Rika stretched out her arm, the motion feeling slow in her pain-fueled rage, and snapped Cheri’s neck.
She expected the pain to stop, but it didn’t. It seemed to get worse—something she had not thought possible. Rika realized that her heart rate and blood pressure were both dangerously high. She fell to her knees, looking up to see Barne rushing forward to tear the gag from Jerry’s mouth.
“Compliance systems off!” Jerry shouted.
The pain was gone in an instant. All that remained was the pounding of her heart in her ears. Rika pulled herself to her feet and scanned the room. The guards that had been closing in behind them were almost at the door.
Rika raised her GNR and fired three bolts of lightning, blowing a hole in the door with the first, and then tearing holes in four guards with the next two.
She saw three other guards run down the hall, two of them tossing aside their weapons as they went.
Barne had already cut the straps holding Jerry, and the LT stood on shaky legs, giving Rika a grateful smile.
“Holy shit, Rika. You are one hardcore woman.”
Rika smiled and rapped her fist on her chest. “No way, LT. In here, I’m a squishie, just like you.”
FLIGHT
STELLAR DATE: 12.16.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Northeast Berlin
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Theban Alliance
Jerry and Leslie were embracing and taking deep breaths, while Barne checked the corridor to ensure that no more of Cheri’s guards were interested in becoming statistics.
“Did you get eyes on the ammo?” Rika asked, remembering their need to find ammunition for her GNR-41C.
Jerry pulled himself away from Leslie and nodded. “She showed the rounds to us.” He turned and led them through a door in the back of the room to a well-appointed office.
“I’m really sorry about this, everyone,” Leslie said. “This is all my fault. Cheri asked what we needed the rounds for, if we’d retrofitted a GNR onto a mount of some sort—stars knows none of us could fire that thing without it tearing our arms off.”
“No, it’s not your fault,” Jerry replied as he approached a cabinet on the wall. “You just slipped up.”
“Slipped up in the den of the lion, and let her know that we had an SMI-2 with us,” Leslie replied. “Sorry, Rika; looks like you’re a hot commodity.”
Rika nodded absently. She was still processing the fact that she had beaten Discipline—that she had weathered the torture and come through the other side. Even so, the rage she had tapped into scared her. It was worse than what she had felt during the war, worse than what she felt when she killed the woman who attacked Barne at the warehouse.
It was raw, and primal, and not something she thought she could control.
“Hey, mission control to Rika,” Barne said, snapping his fingers in front of her face. “You OK? I gotta say, I think that counts as the second time you saved my ass in as many days.”
Rika focused her eyes and smiled. “You got a big ass, Barne; it needs a lot of saving.”
Rika looked to Leslie, realizing what the woman had been saying, and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s OK, Leslie. For all we know, Cheri would have done this out of suspicion alone. Never trust someone who combines fuzzy slippers and sweaters.”
“Uh…I frequently wear fuzzy slippers and sweaters,” Leslie replied with a grin.
“Well…maybe you should stop,” Rika replied, her voice dead serious.
Leslie’s face fell and she took a half step back.
“Leslie, seriously! Who doesn’t like comfy sweaters and slippers? I was kidding.”
“Rika! Don’t do that! I just watched you snap a woman’s neck like you were twisting the cap off a bottle. You’re a bit scary, you know that?”
I’ve noticed, she thought, her eyes turning downward.
“Hey! Leslie, be nice to Rika,” Barne said as he gave Rika’s arm a light punch.
Leslie’s eyebrows were nearly at her hairline. “What happened with you two, anyway? I thought you hated her, Barne.”
“Rika?” Barne asked. “I’d never hate her. She’s a Marauder. She’s Basilisk.”
Rika gave Barne a smile, and as her gaze swept across the room, she noticed Jerry was sagging against the cabinet he had been trying to open.
“LT, you OK?” she asked.
“Yeah. Cheri wasn’t gentle when she pulled the compliance codes out of my mind. I thought I was doing better, but…I seem to have developed one clusterfuck of a headache.”
Leslie rushed to his side and half carried him to a chair.
“I think…she might have the ammo in there,” Jerry said, pointing to the cabinet.
Barne looked it over. “Locked.”
Rika approached the cabinet, placed a hand on the left door, and prised her fingers into the small gap between the top of the cabinet and its right-side door.
It was solid, but Rika gave a quick jerk and the door tore off its hinges. She pulled the left one open and spotted a slim black case. Her rad counter crept up, and she flipped the latch, opening it.
Inside lay the dull grey forms of five depleted uranium sabot rounds in mint condition. Just what her GNR-41C wanted to fire.
“Stars, you’re handy to have around,” Leslie said. “Who needs bolt cutters when we have Rika?”
“That’s me, your one-stop utility tool,” Rika chuckled, surprised that Leslie’s statement didn’t sting—and that her own response wasn’t caustic.
“Can we keep her, LT?” Barne asked.
Jerry pulled himself up straight in the chair. “Of course we can, Sergeant. Like you said—Rika’s Basilisk.”
Rika felt a lump form in her throat, and redirected the conversation before she had to find a cloth to wipe tears from her eyes.
“We have a car a ways down the valley,” Rika said. “But I don’t think you can make it that far, Lieutenant. We can steal one here, or I can carry you.”
“I don’t think my head would appreciate being slung over your shoulder for a run through the forest,” Jerry replied. “Let’s steal one of Cheri’s cars. Bitch won’t be using them anymore, anyway.”
“Want me to carry you through the villa, at least?” Rika asked.
“No. We need you ready for a fight,” Jerry said as he rose. “I might use Leslie as a crutch for a bit, though.”
Barne had been watching the entrance to the office and now moved out into the foyer beyond, which was still clear of any hostiles. Careful not to get too far ahead, he led the way down the corridor to the intersection.
“This way,” he said, and turned right.
Rika posted herself at the intersection until Jerry and Leslie were past; then she moved in behind them, walking sideways so that her two-seventy vision could see both ends of the hall.
They were nearing the end when someone stepped out from an intersection behind them. Rika fired and then caught sight of a telltale insignia on the figure’s chest.
she said to the team, zooming in her vision to see if the person—a woman—was still alive. Rika let out a long breath as she watched the officer touch her armor and then scurry out of sight.
Rika relayed.
Leslie asked.
Barne asked, as he reached another intersection and checked down the halls.
Jerry replied.
Rika ran an active scan, looking through the walls as far as she could.
Jerry said.
Rika replied, a sheepish tone to her voice.
Barne said.
Rika added.
Jerry peered back over his shoulder.
Rika said, and tossed the ammunition case to Barne.
Barne groused.
Rika said as she turned down the left corridor. She checked her magazines and saw that her GNR still had twenty-two ballistic rounds and enough charge for six more electron beam shots before she would start tapping into her reserves.
All Rika had to do was disable the cruisers and take down the air-cav—which may be human-piloted—without killing anyone.
She considered her options. Not killing anyone wasn‘t really her specialty. Perhaps there was a side-window she could get to that would give her a good angle on the four cruisers.
Rika spotted a staircase and took it up to the second level. At the top of the stairs, she rounded one corner, then another, and almost collided with two of Cheri’s guards.
Terror filled their eyes and Rika grinned. These two, she could kill. She punched one in the face, caving in his nose and cheekbone, while the other fired his rifle into her side from only two meters away. The rounds ricocheted off and one struck him in the chest. Rika felt a twinge of pain and realized that a bullet had slipped through a point in her armor where two of the plates overlapped. She fished it out and noted that it was clean. No blood. Score one for her carbon-poly skin.
“Stop!” A male voice called out, and she turned to see a cop down the hall, leveling a rifle at her.
“Uh…no?” Rika responded, and dove into a room to her left as the policeman fired.
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