by M. D. Cooper
Scarcliff barked a laugh. “I may have been behind coining that one, too.”
“Keep dreaming,” Leslie said over her shoulder as she walked away. “We all know it was Captain Ayer herself that came up with it.”
* * * * *
Leslie settled into the copilot’s seat in the pinnace. She’d considered not taking the toon’s assault pinnace down in the drop. If there were going to be SAMs chasing them again, the ship she was in would be the first target the enemy selected.
However, it was also the ship best able to defend against incoming surface to air fire.
She glanced at Chief Warrant Officer Charles as he shifted in the pilot’s seat. His helmet had a snarling dog painted on it, with the words “Mad Dog” written above. The artwork was impressive; Charles had done it himself.
He’d already painted almost every pilot’s helmet in the company, and was pressing Rika to let him paint all the mechs’ as well.
“You ready to roll, Chief?” she asked.
“I’m ready with a side of fuck-yeah, Ellll-Tee!” Charles drew out the two letters and gave her a lopsided grin.
“Easy now, Chief.” Leslie chuckled at the pilot’s enthusiasm before reaching out to Heather.
A siren sounded in the drop bay, and the deck opened up in front of the dropships. The cradles tilted, and in preprogrammed sequence, the ships were accelerated down the ladders and out into space.
“Yeeehaw!” Charles cried out as the well-lit drop bay was replaced by the black expanse of space.
Leslie couldn’t suppress the smile that forced its way onto her lips. She’d dropped with Charles on other missions, and his enthusiasm was infectious. It was one of the reasons she’d wrangled him into her ‘toon when she heard he was assigned to Rika’s company.
Like all the dropship pilots, Charles was not a mech. The cockpits on most ships could barely fit a human, let alone a mech—barring SMI-2s.
Even so, he was heavily modded for piloting a ship, and did it with a grace and skill that few possessed. He had his own customized control suite, a three-dimensional interface that only he could see. He waved his hands through it, turned invisible knobs, and adjusted other controls with gestures that made no sense to Leslie.
Not that she needed to know how he flew the ship, just that he had a damn good record and flew the smoothest drops Leslie had ever been on.
She brought up the pinnace’s scan data on the holo in front of her and watched as the dropships spread out into a wide pattern, each covered by four fighters. Every vessel was over a kilometer from each other, their jinking patterns loaded and synchronized.
“You think we’re going to see action?” Charles asked.
Leslie shrugged. “I hope not. If someone on Iapetus can attack this many ships with impunity, what’s to stop them from hitting the ‘Lark or the ‘Dream? We’d be better off finding a new location for our training facility.”
Charles laughed as he executed a burn to slot the pinnace into its descent vector. “What better way to train us all than a hostile environment?”
“I can think of a lot of better ways.”
“I guess, maybe,” Charles said absently as he reviewed the ship’s trajectory. “Hey, LT, since this is going to be by the numbers, think you can sing a song for me while we come down? I hear you’ve got an amazing set of pipes.”
Leslie resisted the urge to reach out and hit Charles in the back of the head. “I’ll show you pipes. Just fly the damn ship.”
* * * * *
Charles kept the pinnace in a holding pattern over the training compound while the dropships settled onto the facility’s southern edge, disgorging their troops by the numbers, mechs fanning out, covering corners before moving out to sweep the surrounding buildings.
The structures had once been hangars and repair facilities at a small airport used by light and sport aircraft. On the far side of the buildings were three landing strips for aerodynamic descent.
People got up to strange things in their free time.
For some reason, the airport had fallen out of use, and Barne had been able to secure it for a surprisingly low price.
As Leslie surveyed the facility, she could make out a construction crew on the northern side of the airstrip erecting a simple fence that denoted the edge of Marauder territory, separating it from the half-abandoned commercial district surrounding the compound.
It wasn’t a very defensible location, but Leslie approved of Rika’s plan. If they were to get to the bottom of what was afoot on Iapetus, they wanted to be attacked.
Once the squad leaders declared their assigned quadrants clear, Leslie directed squad two to secure the landing field for the cargo carriers on the northern side of the barracks.
After the compound was deemed secure, and the fighter escort had boosted away, Leslie directed Charles to lower the pinnace from its overwatch position to settle in front of the command building.
She lowered the ramp and stepped out onto the hard surface the moment the ship settled down. Ahead, Rika walked out of the command building, a wide smile on her face as she surveyed the deployment.
“Lieutenant Leslie, congratulations on the drop. A hell of a lot better than mine.”
Leslie met Rika’s smile with one of her own. “It’s easier when no one’s shooting at you.”
They shook hands, and turned to watch as Staff Sergeant Chris and the squad sergeants oversaw the unloading of the equipment from the dropships—likely receiving direction and chastisement from Barne, who was still back in the command building’s CIC.
“The loading go smoothly?” Rika asked as they watched the activity before them. Leslie initialized a HUD overlay showing the scan data from the surrounding terrain and skies above. She was certain Rika was doing likewise. Just because the drop hadn’t been hit didn’t mean they couldn’t be attacked now.
“Without a hitch,” Leslie replied.
“Major Tim was surprisingly accommodating,” Rika said, and gestured to the contrails the fighters had left in the sky from their thrusters.
Leslie chuckled. “I bet that before we left, the Old Man took the major aside and told him that if anything happened to you, there’d be hell to pay.”
Rika looked at Leslie with surprise. “Think so?”
“Well, I didn’t see it happen, but I’d be shocked if it didn’t. Seriously, Rika. You went from hardware purchased at auction to company commander in under a year. How is it that you don’t see how much the Old Man is in your corner?”
Leslie watched as Rika’s brow lowered and her lips twisted in thought. “I guess it is a bit of a meteoric rise.”
“That’s an oxymoronic figure of speech.”
“I didn’t invent it.” Rika shrugged.
“If you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem.”
Rika laughed. “Only a day away, and already I’d started to miss you. By-the-by, did you bring those additional items I asked for?”
“What do I look like? Of course I brought them.”
“Brought what?” Chase asked from behind the pair.
“Shit!” Leslie exclaimed. “Since when did you become a ninja? That’s my gig.”
“Learned from the best,” Chase said.
Leslie saw Rika reach her hand back and clasp Chase’s.
“Leslie and I are going on an excursion into the city tonight,” Rika told him.
Chase glanced at Leslie and back to Rika. “Girls’ night out, I take it?”
Leslie considered their options. There were only five SMI-2 mechs in First Platoon.
Leslie waved her hand dismissively.
Rika said.
Rika got a distant look in her eyes, and Leslie patted her on the shoulder.
Rika replied.
Rika smiled.
RECONNECTING
STELLAR DATE: 08.10.8949 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Marauder Training Compound
REGION: Iapetus, Hercules System, Septhian Alliance
Rika lay back on her side of the bed and breathed a long sigh of contentment. “Having a real bed sure is nice. Starships are just not made for couples to get up to shenanigans.”
Chase rolled over to face her and trailed a finger through her hair. “We’re lucky that the Old Man has a lax attitude when it comes to this stuff. No sane command would let me work under you.”
Rika turned her head and smirked at Chase. “Thought it was me that was working under you just now.”
“Yeah, well, let’s keep that arrangement to our quarters. I like having to salute you.”
“Ha!” Rika shook her head. “Nice double entendre there.”
“I try. It’s hard, working for you.”
“OK, easy now. You’ve proven you can be punny, Chase.”
He rose to his knees and swung a leg over Rika, straddling her. A part of her was impressed by how he could maneuver around her body without scratching himself; either that, or he didn’t care.
“It always amazes me,” he commented absently as he traced a finger down her chest.
“What does?” Rika asked absently, staring up into Chase’s dark brown eyes.
“How warm you are.”
“I’m cooler than you are. Twenty-eight degrees at rest.”
Chase reached down and picked up her hand, placing his palm against what passed for hers. “Yeah, but your hands are warm too. Why is that?”
“Part of our chameleon abilities. We can warm our entire bodies to uniform temperatures. Also tied into our heat dispersal. I could make it warmer.” Rika warmed her hand to thirty-four degrees. “There, it matches your hand now.”
“Heh, that’s hot,” Chase said as he reached out and touched the socket on the end of her right arm. Though Rika liked having her GNR attached, she didn’t sleep with it. Not after that time when the barrel had whacked Chase during a bad dream.
And Rika often had bad dreams.
“Why don’t you keep it this warm all the time?” Chase asked.
“Uses extra energy. Twenty-eight is my average dispersal temperature, when I’m not exerting myself. You’re lucky I’m not an FR model; they have these cooling strips on their arms that can get pretty damn toasty. I’d probably burn you during our escapades.”
Chase pushed her arm back above her head and leaned in to kiss her.
Rika drew in a deep breath as their lips touched feeling his naked body press up against her carbon-poly skin, his firm pecs pressing into the stiff mounds on her chest.
She had long ago forgotten what real tactile contact across her body would feel like—but given the difference between her face and the rest of her ‘skin’, she wondered if she would be able to handle the sensations.
“You smell like candy,” Chase whispered as he kissed her. “Cotton candy. You secreting some around here somewhere?”
“It’s a new facial cleanser Leslie gave me,” Rika said with a laugh. “But if I want to hide candy, that’s my business.”
“So you do have candy!” Chase proclaimed and nibbled at her ear.
Ear nibbles always made her giggle, and sometimes ruined her mood, but Rika didn’t care. Being near Chase was what mattered. Being grounded and feeling human was always welcome.
“Do you think the other mechs take lovers?” she asked suddenly, turning her head to look into Chase’s eyes.
He shrugged. “Some do, some can’t.”
“Well, we technically can’t make love, either,” Rika reminded him—as if she needed to.
Chase leaned down to kiss her. “Rika, I don’t need to push inside you to ‘make love’ to you. Being here with you now, living my life with you, fighting on the battlefield with you—that is making love to you. Making love is everything we do.”
Rika appreciated the small lie, but she knew he’d like to have real sex. She would too, especially at times like this when it felt like her insides were on fire.
Rika tamped down her urges as much as possible and smiled. “Who would have thought a stone-cold killer like you was such a romantic?”
Chase’s smile faded. “I’m not a stone—what would make you say that?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Chase.” Rika frowned, wondering what about her statement had rattled him. “We’re all killers. It’s what we do.”
“I know, but sometimes…sometimes I’d just like to forget that. Don’t you want this to end someday? Do something else with your life?”
“Like what?” Rika asked.
It wasn’t the first time Chase had made comments like this, but she could never get him to elaborate on his feelings—instead he would just shut down. This time, she tried a different tack.
“I’m a war machine. It’s what I do, I’m not in the ‘get old with great-great-grandchildren at my knee’ profession. I’ve accepted that.”
“What if I haven’t?” Chase asked.
“What does that mean? I thought you liked being in the Marauders.”
Chase sat up, still straddling her. “I do like being in the Marauders. It’s a good job, we seem to be working for the good guys, so that’s nice. And I’m with you, which is what I want most. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in this outfit. We’re more than just killers, Rika.”
“Of course we are; we’re a family. Basilisk, and now M Company. We’re saving people, Chase. My people.”
Chase nodded. “And after that?”
Rika pushed an errant lock of hair out of her face. “I don’t know. I don’t think that far ahead. I’m not too sure I can succeed at what’s laid out ahead of me now.”
“And what’s that?” Chase asked.
“I want to drive the Nietzscheans out of Genevia,” she replied, her voice lowering. “I want to kill every last motherfucking one of them, scour them from the stars.”
Chase’s eyes widened, and Rika realized her statement came across with more vehemence than she’d intended.
“Why?” he asked. “What did Genevia ever do for you?�
��
“It made me this,” Rika said, lifting her right arm and rotating her wrist. “It made me strong and powerful. Did it abuse me? Yes. But what would have happened to me if I wasn’t turned into a mech? There weren’t a lot of survivors from the world where I got convicted. Becoming a mech may have saved my life.”
Chase nodded soberly. “Yeah, I looked Kellas up. They got hit hard. But still…why do you love Genevians so much? They aren’t that accepting of mechs.”
“Chase.” Rika reached up and touched his face. “You’re Genevian. So is Leslie, Barne; stars, everyone in M Company is. The Old Man. We’re all Genevian.”
“Do you need all of them? Am I not enough?” Chase clasped her hand in both of his. “We could flee deep into the cluster. Past the edge of FTL. Nietzschea won’t bother going into the inner empire; it’s not worth the effort.”
Rika frowned. She couldn’t understand why Chase was saying this, he wasn’t a coward. She’d seen him in combat multiple times, and he’d never backed down from a challenge.
“What’s brought this on?” she asked. “The Marauders are our family, we can’t just abandon them.”
“A family that’s going to get you killed,” he replied.
“Is this because we got shot down? Are you worried that I’m going to die?”
“Yes!” Chase almost shouted. “You did almost die. If your crazy pilot hadn’t dived under the ocean, you’d be toast. Don’t you see that?”
Rika shrugged. “I guess…though we might have survived that, too. Stars, people die from all sorts of stupid shit all the time. I won’t live in fear just because of what could happen.”
“What will happen,” Chase corrected.
“What do you mean?”
“We all die, Rika.”
There was a sadness in his voice that told Rika there was some story, some trauma from his past that he’d not yet shared with her.
“What is it, Chase? What’s got you thinking like this?”
He rolled off her and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. “Nothing—other than what we’ve already gone over and over and over.”
