by M. D. Cooper
Rika pulled the weapon off its mount and turned to the thick blast doors leading into Central Command.
Rika toggled the pair of safeties on the plasma gun and prayed that its containment vessel hadn’t taken any damage. The metal glowed white-hot as Rika spent the gun’s entire load of star-stuff on the doors.
When she was done, they were still intact.
Ben called out from behind them,
Rika and Silva barely had time to dive out of the way before a rocket streaked past and slammed into the glowing steel, blasting the doors apart and sending molten steel flying in all directions.
Rika pulled herself back to her feet and checked for any damage. Part of the armor on her leg was burned away, and bits of slag were stuck to her torso, but that seemed to be the worst of it. Silva rose beside her without a single mark—from the explosion, at least—and began to move toward the door.
Rika followed after, scanning the area beyond the smoking portal. Ben and Al caught up to them and moved in behind. The four mechs walked into the large room like four wraiths emerging from a storm.
Rika surveyed the space; there were at least forty Politica officers present, many pulling themselves back onto their chairs and looking dazed from the blast. The center of the room was dominated by a large platform topped by a massive holotable. A trio of admirals was rising from behind it—two looking dazed, the other furious.
A moment later, Rika caught sight of Stavros. He was standing on the left side of the holotable, an expression of utter rage on his face. Behind him stood an SMI-2 mech, and, struggling in the mech’s arms, was Amy.
“Stavros, you motherfucker, let her go!” Silva commanded, taking a step forward. As she moved, the other mech held Amy at an arm’s length and angled her GNR to point at the girl’s head.
“Go for it,” Stavros taunted in a growl. “Take another step. See what happens to Amy. Kelly here won’t start with her head; I bet we could take off a few limbs first.”
Amy’s face was wet from tears, but she wasn’t crying at the moment; just trembling as the mech’s—Kelly’s—hand gripped her neck.
“Kelly!” Rika called out, desperate to get through to her former teammate. “Kelly, we thought you were dead. I’m so sorry you ended up here, but you have to let Amy go. This man is a monster. You’re Hammerfall; you can resist him.”
Kelly only shook her head, and Stavros laughed.
“Kelly knows her place; doesn’t talk, like the good meat that she is.”
“You’ve lost, Stavros,” Rika spat. “Your Politica ends tonight. The mechs are free, and you’ll never take them down. You wanted an unstoppable army? Well here they are; only they don’t work for you. They’re free men and women.”
Stavros barked a laugh. “ ‘Free men and women’? You’re not men and women, and you don’t know how to be free—you don’t want to be free! I know you, Rika. I know how you struggled to be a real woman, finally losing ownership of your body and getting sold at auction. The Nietzscheans were right about one thing: If you’re stupid enough to become a slave, it’s all you deserve to be.”
Rika watched as Ben and Al moved to the sides of the room, covering the door and the occupants. Something moved on the concourse, and another rocket flew from Al’s launcher, punctuating Stavros’s words with an explosion.
Rika took a step toward the platform.
“It doesn’t matter what you think. It’s over.”
“No, it’s not over,” Stavros sneered. “I don’t know how you’re doing this, but in a minute, my AI will have completed the override, and your mech army will be back under my control.”
Silva didn’t reply, but Rika could feel the rage flowing off her friend.
She nodded.
Silva voiced forcefully.
Rika readied herself for Niki’s distraction and almost jumped when a massive sphinx appeared above the holotable. It stood nine meters tall and looked completely solid. The thing let out a fearsome roar, and Kelly turned her GNR toward the iridescent sphinx while Stavros jumped back.
Without further hesitation, Rika took a running start, jumped onto the platform, and clamped her hand around Stavros’ head. He screamed in protest, and drew a sidearm, unloading its magazine into Rika’s chest.
At the same time, Silva fired a shot at Kelly’s shoulder, then another at her elbow. Her hand spasmed, and Amy fell to the ground, scampering away.
Stavros screamed something unintelligible at Rika, but it was too late—the nano had been delivered. A bloody mark on Stavros’s forehead provided evidence of the deed.
A moment later, the dictator fell to the ground, screaming and clawing at his head.
Rika took a step back, raised her GNR, and blew Stavros’s head off.
Rika saw Kelly stumble backward, and then raise her arms in the air. “Don’t shoot,” she pleaded. “I surrender.”
One of the admirals stepped forward; it was Alexi, the one who had told Stavros of Leslie’s performance at the club the prior evening.
“You may have killed Stavros,” he granted, his expression resolute. “But The Politica is not just one man. You cannot destroy us all.”
Behind the admiral, Niki’s avatar disappeared from the holotable to show hundreds of Marauder and Septhian ships jumping into the system.
“We can’t,” Rika agreed. “But I think that maybe they can,” she gestured to the vision before them. “Signal The Politica’s surrender.”
“Never,” Alexi spat.
A weapon’s report echoed through the Command Center, and Rika turned to see Barne stepping over the melted doors and aiming a rifle at the admirals.
“Anyone else want to bluster, or are all you assholes ready to call it quits?” He didn’t pose it as a question.
Rika strode toward the two remaining flag officers. “Signal the surrender. Now.”
One of the admirals nodded quickly. “Yes, uh… just give me a moment.”
Rika turned to see Silva holding Amy in her arms, rocking back and forth. She watched her friend as mother and daughter took their first breaths of freedom.
A smile graced Rika’s lips.
Mission accomplished.
RIKA’S MARAUDERS
STELLAR DATE: 04.20.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Central Command, The Isthmus, Sparta
REGION: Peloponnese System, The Politica, Praesepe Cluster
Not all of the Politica ships and stations surrendered without a fight; holdouts fought on for a week and a half. But whenever groups of mechs landed on stations or breached ships, surrender came shortly after.
The Septhians had claimed the Peloponnese System for their empire, and the Marauders were hailed as heroes.
But Rika didn’t feel like a hero as she stood at attention while General
Mill paced in front of her. His expression was unreadable, and his posture was that of a man uncertain of what to do next.
“I should have you court martialed,” he began finally. “You disobeyed direct orders, lied, falsified logs, stole two pinnaces, faked murders, lied—did I mention disobeyed direct orders?”
Rika nodded. “Yes, sir; you did, sir.”
The general stopped and leaned against the table in a small room off The Isthmus’s Central Command. “Don’t ‘yes sir’ me, Rika. What am I going to do with you? You took out Stavros and toppled The Politica. We’ll have to clean out the systems Stavros controlled, but with Peloponnese in our hands, it shouldn’t take long. Stavros was paranoid; he kept things too centralized.”
“I noticed that, too,” Rika agreed cautiously, uncertain if calling the general ‘sir’ again was wise.
General Mill glowered at her and blew out a long breath. “Well, the Septhians are falling over themselves with happiness and gratitude. We’ve given them another string of systems to add to their empire, and you’ve freed all these mechs, who seems to be treating you like their savior. I can’t tell the Septhians that you were acting against orders, and I certainly can’t discipline you in front of all these mechs.”
Rika squared her shoulders, ready for the general to ask for her willing resignation. Though it pained her to no end, she would sign it. The sacrifice was worth it.
He turned away from her, rolled his shoulders, and sighed. “You’re a good soldier, Rika. You’re a Marauder—albeit a reluctant one, at first. I’m not going to leave you high and dry.”
“No…sir?” Rika asked, not sure where this was going.
The general turned to face Rika once more, a grim smile on his face. “No. I’m going to do what we do to all cock-sure officers who need a taste of real responsibility. I’m going to promote you.”
Rika looked down and realized that the general held a pair of captain’s bars in his hands.
“Sir?”
“I thought I told you not to ‘sir’ me. I’m all sir’d out. Take the bars and get out there. You need to start figuring out how to rehabilitate all those mechs you just freed. Find out which ones are interested in being Marauders; whoever joins is going to be in your command.”
* * * * *
“You look stunned,” Chase commented as Rika stepped through the still-ruined doors of Central Command and out onto the concourse. “He didn’t can you, did he?”
Rika looked at Chase; the bruising on his face gone, but his arm still in a sling. He seemed unfazed by everything that had gone on over the last few days, and was the same man as always—smiling, ready to lend a hand and get the job done.
How did I stumble into him on Dekar Station? Hal’s Hell was the last place anyone would have ever expected to meet the love of their life, but that’s just what had happened to her. Maybe the universe doesn’t hate me…
“Well?” Chase pressed. “What happened?”
Rika slowly opened her hand to reveal the captain’s bars. “I got my own company,” she revealed softly. “He wants me to organize the mechs—those that will join us.”
Chase’s eyes grew wide. “Whoa! Captain Rika? I have to salute you, now!” He reached out with his good arm—not to salute her, but to pull her in close. “Think I can join your company? I’m not a mech, but I’m pretty good in a pinch.”
Rika laughed and gave his wounded arm a pointed look. “Patty told me about how they think you need need to get a mod…”
“Hey, whoa!” Chase backpedaled. “Let’s not get carried away, here. This old limb of mine takes a lickin’, but it keeps on tickin’; no need to go cutting anything off.”
Rika laughed and leaned into Chase, meeting his lips with hers. They held one another for several minutes—an island of peace and serenity amid the bustle of soldiers and personnel rushing to and fro on the concourse.
A high-pitched whistle came from Rika’s right, and she turned to see Barne pull up on a dockcar. Leslie sat beside him, and Patty was seated behind.
“Hey, you two lovebirds gonna get busy out here, or do you want a ride down to see the next ship Patty is gonna crash?” Barne continued over her sounds of protest, “It’s a drop ship for some new mech command that the Old Man’s setting up.”
Rika held up her new insignia. “You mean Rika’s Mech Command?” she asked, grinning.
“Hoooleeee shit,” Barne swore. “Well that tears it. I do all the heavy lifting on this team, and what do I get? Chauffeur duty,” he puffed.
“Don’t worry,” Rika soothed him mockingly as she swung up next to Patty and slid over to make room for Chase. “I tip really well.”
“Damn well better,” Barne muttered as he pulled a U-turn on the concourse, nearly running into a group of Septhian navy personnel. “Look out, you! Can’t you see I’m carting the Lord and Conqueror around, here?”
Leslie snorted, and Rika barked a laugh. Chase made a comment about making a sedan chair for Rika so her army of mechs could carry her around. Leslie added another suggestion, and a minute later the entire team was nearly falling off the dockcar, laughing like fools as Barne wove through the traffic, yelling at anyone close enough to hear.
* * * * *
Four months later…
“I’m going to miss you,” Rika told Silva as they embraced on the pinnace’s ramp.
She held Silva’s shoulders and looked into her friend’s eyes—deep and so full of life in her reconstructed face. Like Rika, she was now flesh and blood above the neck; below she was still a mech—though with limbs suited for civilian life, not combat.
That didn’t matter to Rika so long as Silva was happy, which Rika knew to be the case.
“You too, Rika,” Silva admitted. “I owe you…well, everything.”
Rika smiled and wrapped her in a fierce embrace. “It’s mutual.”
“Will you come see us?” Amy asked excitedly, looking up at Rika—though from greater height than when they had first met outside that farmhouse on Faseema four months before.
Rika wrapped an arm around Amy and pulled her in close. “Yes. I absolutely will. Since the Septhians have tasked the Marauders with the defense of half of Thebes, we’ll be passing through Pyra a lot. I’ll stop by as often as I can.”
“You’d better,” Amy warned. “I’ll hunt you down, if you don’t.”
“Oh, yeah?” Rika challenged with a grin. “And then what?”
Amy wrapped both arms around Rika’s waist and squeezed tightly. “I’ll give you one of these!”
Rika laughed and kissed Amy on top of her head, and then leaned over to kiss Silva on the cheek.
“You two stay safe. You need anything, anything—a coffee pot, whatever—you call.”
Silva laughed. “I might save the Rika signal for something a bit more dire than coffee.”
“There are few needs more dire than coffee,” Rika countered.
They made their final farewells, and then Rika stepped off the ramp, allowing it to rise up into the pinnace.
Rika walked down the cradle’s ramp and looked out over the main docking bay of the Golden Lark—one of the two ships now under her command.
A troop of AM-2 and 3 mechs marched by, and beyond them, a group of SMI-2s were checking their gear for a training drop.
Amongst them was Kelly. Rika waved at her former teammate, and Kelly returned the gesture. After the confrontation in Central Command, Kelly had retreated into herself. Rika finally convinced her to join the Marauders and, though they had not spoken further of the fateful events on that night on The Isthmus, she could tell that Kelly still felt guilty about her part in it.
Rika didn’t hold it against Kelly. In her former teammate’s mind, that desperate retreat from the Parson System had happened just a few months prior.
Kelly said that she distinctly remembered dying in Rika’s arms.
The fact that the Nietzschean war was long over was something that she, and many of the other mechs were still adapting to.
That was why General Mill had given Rika command. It was up to her to sort these mechs out and turn them into an elite fighting force.
It would be hard work, but it was work she was ready to do.
Rika left the bay and walked through her ship to the small office she kept near the CIC. Once inside, she settled into her chair and brought up her list of upcoming meetings.
Rika recalled after a moment. She had almost forgotten her curiosity regarding Niki’s proficiency. Almost.
Niki replied.
Rika leaned back in her chair and let out a long breath.
Rika scoured her memories and shook her head
