by M. D. Cooper
“Hey, easy now,” Rika said, raising her GNR. “You let her go, you live.”
“Oh yeah?” the man growled. “I want to talk to your commander. Not gonna negotiate with a fucking mech.”
Rika sighed. “I am the commander. You’ll deal with me. You have my word—you drop her, and step out of your armor, and no harm will come to you.”
The Nietzschean glanced around at the dozen mechs moving into the galley, placing themselves between him and the hostages.
“You can’t get out of this alive otherwise,” Rika said quietly. “Loosen your grip. If she dies, the deal is off. We’ll make it slow, too.”
She wasn’t sure if the man would respond to the threat; she worried that he may be ready to die, but not to suffer.
By some miracle, though, her offer seemed to work. The Nietzschean opened his hand, and the Pyran woman fell to the ground. Rika rushed forward while Ben gestured for the enemy soldier to step back, Kerry yelling for him to get out of his armor and get on the ground.
“Thank you…” the woman rasped, a wan smile on her face.
“Least we can do,” Rika replied, examining the woman’s familiar-looking face. “Wait a second. Did you used to work in a coffee shop in Berlin?”
The woman nodded. “Yeah…” her voice came in a pain-filled rasp. “I got out just before the Niets bombed it last year…so much for being safe from them. But how—”
A fit of coughs overcame the woman, and she held her throat tenderly.
“Easy now,” Rika said, pulling off her helmet. “I’m Rika, and you’re safe. The Nietzschean fleet is destroyed, and you’re safe.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “You’re her…the woman who saved the president!”
Something like that, Rika thought as she nodded.
“You came back for us,” the woman wrapped her arms around Rika’s armored body. “Oh, thank the stars, you came back for us.”
LAKESIDE
STELLAR DATE: 08.30.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Ol’ Sam, ISS I2
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance
Rika glanced at Major Tim and shrugged before raising her hand to knock on the wooden door in front of them. An instant before her steel fingers touched the surface, Tanis’s voice came into her mind.
She paused for a moment, and then lowered her hand and turned the knob, walking into the house.
Major Tim, whose eyelids were usually never more than a millimeter away from a narrow-eyed scowl, was looking around with clear amazement.
Rika understood his sentiment. It wasn’t every day you found yourself inside a city-sized warship, about to enter a wooden house sitting near the shores of a lake.
She wiped her feet as best she could on the greeting mat, which bore the words, ‘Mom said we could put anything on the mat’, taking care to pull a twig out of her left foot before proceeding down the short hallway.
A few paces ahead, the hall opened up into a wide living room, complete with a huge fireplace and five deep sofas arrayed before it.
“Please, sit,” Tanis said, appearing in the entrance to the kitchen on their right. “Would you like anything? I have coffee…and orange juice, I think.”
“Coffee, please,” Rika said, and Major Tim nodded.
“Coffee as well,” he requested.
“Cream and sugar?” Tanis asked as she turned back into the kitchen, which possessed the same rustic charm as the rest of the house, featuring a massive wooden table that was scuffed and scored from decades of use.
Both Rika and Tim declined the condiments and turned to the living room’s seating arrangements, each choosing a different sofa. Tim picked the one closest to the door, while Rika chose the one she gauged best able to support her weight.
“Don’t worry,” Tanis said as she entered the room carrying three cups. “It can hold you. I made them to support folks with a lot of mods.”
“You made the furniture?” Rika asked as she accepted her cup from the admiral.
“Well, Joe and I,” Tanis replied as she settled into the sofa next to the fireplace, a smile on her lips as she looked up at the thick beams above their heads. “We made most of this house. It was in rough shape when we first took over, but we managed to get it into good condition. Expanded it a few times—has a lot of character now.”
“Forgive my surprise, Admiral Richards,” Tim said, his customary scowl back in place. “But where do you find the time for that?”
“You know how things are in the military,” Tanis shrugged as she set her cup down on a side table. “There’s a lot of hurry up and wait. We once waited for sixty years in this house, Joe and I. We had some time to kill.”
Rika coughed and nearly sprayed coffee out of her nose. “Sixty years?”
Tanis nodded. “It was when we were drifting from Estralla de la Muerte to The Kap. We were so low on fuel we had to conserve everything for the deceleration, and with the sabotage…well, we were paranoid, so only Joe and I were out of stasis.”
“That’s right,” Tim said, nodding slowly. “This used to be a colony ship. That’s why you have these habitation cylinders.”
“Back when she was the Intrepid,” Tanis leant her head back and closed her eyes. “Back when all we wanted to do was get away from the chaos of Sol and build a nice, peaceful colony.”
“You seem to be a bit off track on that goal,” Tim commented, and Rika shot him a sharp look.
Tanis reopened her eyes, a rueful smile appearing on her lips. “Yeah, little did we know that the colony we built at The Kap was to be our happily ever after. Sometimes I think we should have just stayed there—but at the time, New Eden was so close, just a few decades’ travel away.”
“You were originally headed to New Eden?” Rika asked, feeling like she was speaking with a living piece of history. “That system has quite the story.”
Tanis nodded absently. “We were, but we eventually got to an even better system, named it New Canaan, and got eighteen good years before Orion found us.”
“I’ve looked over the briefs on Orion and the Transcend,” Tim said. “That’s a lot to swallow.”
Tanis chuckled. “I’ve been in your shoes, Major Tim, I know the sentiment well. Stars, I had just ‘swallowed’ a five-thousand-year jump forward in time. At that point, the existence of the Transcend was the best news I’d heard in years—it meant there could be a colony world for us. Sera conveniently left out the existence of the Orion Freedom Alliance at that point.”
Tim’s brows rose. “President Sera of the Transcend?”
Tanis nodded. “Yeah, but back then, she was just ‘Sera’.”
“Why would she have done that?” Rika asked.
Tanis whistled and let out a short laugh. “Even she doesn’t really know. Later, she said she was trying to spare us more worry. Granted, when she gave her initial explanation, we were distracted by the Battle of Bollam’s World, so it may be that the right opportunity never presented itself.”
“Was her intent malicious?” Tim asked.
Tanis lifted her cup and took a sip as she regarded the major over the rim. “That’s a bold question, Major Tim. Technically, I owe Sera my allegiance. Like you said, she’s the president of the Transcend now. What if this was a regime that viewed that sort of questioning as treasonous?”
Tim didn’t hesitate before giving his response. “Then it would be best to know that sooner rather than later.”
Tanis didn’t speak for a moment, then set down her cup and shook her head. “I think I like you, Major. You’re a bit prickly, but that’s not a flaw that bothers me overmuch.”
This time, Rika managed to hold back her surprise with more success.
“That sounds like the best kind of leader.” Rika watched Tanis, wondering more and more why they were having this meeting, as the admiral met her eyes and smiled.
“Sounds a bit like you, Rika.”
Niki said privately.
Niki gave a nervous laugh.
Rika realized that Tanis and Tim were both staring at her.
“Thanks, Tanis. I usually just do what seems right at the time.”
The admiral gave a languid wink. “That’s how they get you, Rika. Put you in a position of responsibility, knowing that you feel compelled to do the right thing. Before you know it, you’re flying around the Inner Stars trying to build the largest alliance humanity has ever known, fighting a war on more fronts than you can even remember half the time. Did you know that the Transcend and Orion are skirmishing in the Corona Australis Star Forming Region?”
“The SFR below the galactic disk?” Major Tim asked, brow furrowed as he regarded Tanis. “How would we know that?”
Tanis shrugged. “Well, you wouldn’t, but neither did I until yesterday. I didn’t even know we had any forces down there, but it turns out that they were establishing a new watchpoint before the civil war, and the detachment got cut off. They didn’t even know there was a schism in the Transcend.”
“This is a lot to absorb,” Rika replied. “Just the idea that the Transcend and Orion are so huge blows my mind. Granted, I never really had a clear picture of how far human expansion went. I’ve seen maps that say that explored space ends much closer than even the boundary of the Inner Stars your briefing outlines.”
“Here be dragons.” Tanis laughed.
Rika had no idea what Tanis was referring to, but laughed anyway.
Tim just scowled as he replied, “As much as I would love to chat about this, what is it that you brought us here to discuss, Admiral Richards?”
“No, I suppose there is too much to do to chat overlong.” Tanis shook her head as she reached for her cup once more. “I want to hire the Marauders.”
Tim snorted. “I don’t even know if there is a Marauders to hire anymore.”
“You still have an HQ in Septhia,” Tanis replied. “And you have training facilities in two systems, not to mention a lot of ships deployed throughout Thebes and the former Politica—by my count, at least a hundred, probably more. And though Rika’s company has taken a bit of a beating, there are still another two thousand mechs that were rescued from the Politica currently in rehabilitation.”
“You’ve done your research,” Tim grunted.
“We gained access to the Foehammer’s archives,” Tanis replied equably.
“You what? You—” Tim began, but Tanis held up her hand.
“Major, I am currently running the two largest salvage operations in known space. In addition, the ISF’s first and second fleets are thirty-five hundred light years from home, engaged in a fight to save people who have never heard of us. We don’t have the time—or inclination—to tip-toe around people’s sensitivities.”
Tim’s lips drew into a tight, thin line, but he didn’t respond.
“What’s the job?” Rika asked, shooting Tim a quelling look.
She didn’t care if he outranked her. If he couldn’t keep his mouth in check, she’d walk over there and cold-cock him in the head.
Tanis chuckled. “Oh, just a little mission: topple the Nietzschean Empire.”
As Tanis’s words sank in, Rika didn’t even try to stop the wide smile that spread across her face. “Admiral Richards, I think the Marauders are the right outfit for the job.”
“I reiterate that we’re in no position to take on any job right now, let alone something like that,” Tim interjected.
“I understand,” Tanis replied. “It’ll be some time before we’re ready to launch major offensives, but I want to start operations within a few weeks at most. And I’m only interested if Rika leads the mission.”
“Me?” Rika couldn’t help the squeak that came along with her exclamation. “Why me?”
Tanis folded her arms across her chest as she regarded Rika, the admiral’s level stare making Rika increasingly nervous as it went on. Finally, Tanis spoke.
“I think I see something of myself in you, Rika. Granted, my lot in life was never as difficult as yours—at least not so early on. I think you have the tenacity and the drive to get the job done, and….” Tanis paused.
Rika was about to ask ‘and what?’ when Tim did it for her.
“So, what else does Rika have that makes you think she can topple one of the most powerful empires in space?” His tone conveyed a clear impression that Rika was not up to the task.
Tanis slowly turned her head and narrowed her eyes as she regarded Tim, a look of disdain settling onto her face. “She has a spirit that can withstand the soul-crushing anguish that is going to come from seeing so many of her mechs die to bring back the nation that turned them into what they are today.”
The admiral’s words dripped with acid, and Tim recoiled as she spoke, appearing to sink halfway into the couch.
If it weren’t for the fact that Rika felt sickened by the thought of what Tanis was saying, she would have reveled in Tim’s discomfort.
“Tanis…I—”
Tanis held up her hand. “I won’t retract that statement. You need to think about this, Rika. If you don’t believe it’s the right thing for your mechs, then I have other, less desperate jobs I can offer the Marauders. But I think that you will all have a special stake in this one.”
Rika considered the admiral’s statement for a moment. “I won’t lie, Tanis. Your words are more than a little sobering. I will need to talk to my teams before I confirm that we can take the job, but I’ll also need to know more about it.”
“There’s another thing you need to consider,” Tanis’s voice was soft, almost compassionate. “You helped Rachel and the others save me with no request for compensation, no hesitation. Every person on your ships stood up and did what was needed without a second thought. I want to repay that.”
“Well,” Rika said with a self-deprecating snort. “We are mercenaries. We won’t say ‘no’ to payment.”
Tanis shook her head. “Don’t sell yourself so short, Rika. Mercenary work is what you’re doing right now. It is not who you are. Regardless, what I can offer your mechs is a complete undoing of what was done to you. I imagine we can find some sort of suitable compensation for the non-mechanized Marauders. Perhaps a rejuvination, or upgraded armor, weapons, whatever they’d like.”
Rika had stopped listening when Tanis said ‘complete undoing’. The words reverberated in her mind like a drum. Priscilla had suggested it was possible, but now Tanis was offering it to all the mechs. It was a real thing.
But it can’t be this simple. There has to be a catch.
“What do you mean by ‘complete’?”
Tanis’s shrug was cavalier. “I mean we can give any of your mechs the exact body they had the day your government butch—uh, did what they did. Or we can age them a bit. A lot of you were very young when you were mechanized.”
As Rika turned that information over in her head,
Tim noted, “That would make them a lot less useful for your mission, though, wouldn’t it?”
Tanis nodded, her lips pursed. “It would. The Genevian mechs—for all of their archaic technology—may be one of the most impressive fighting forces in the galaxy today. The crucible you and yours went through, Rika… it cannot be easily replicated.”
Rika finally recovered from Tanis’s initial offer and laughed as she considered the admiral’s following words. “I don’t know if I should be flattered or offended. I don’t think we’re ‘archaic’.”
Tanis moved her right hand to her left wrist, and in one rapid motion, pulled a sword out of her skin. Rika was amazed to see that it was seventy centimeters long—far longer than what could fit in the admiral’s forearm.
“How…?” she stammered.
Tanis tossed the blade to Rika, who caught it deftly and analyzed it while Tanis spoke.
“Gold-titanium alloy, reinforced with carbon nano strands. It splits apart in the middle, that’s how it fits in my arm.”
Rika slid the blade between her GNR and its mount, testing the flex on the weapon. “I would never have imagined…I can’t see a seam at all.”
“Of course not,” Tanis replied. “What you’re holding is Jovian tech from the height of humanity’s golden age—though we can replicate it now. The blade is only three millimeters thick, as well. I’ve slid that sword through joints on powered armor and shorn limbs clear off.”
“I can imagine…I can’t actually zoom my vision enough to see the edge.”
Tanis chuckled. “No, probably not. The blade is one carbon atom thick at its edge.”
“I bet you sheathe that thing very carefully,” Tim said appreciatively.
Tanis pulled another blade out of her right arm, and carefully handed it to Tim—something Rika appreciated. Her armor could deflect a casual toss of this weapon, but it would cut a squishie in half.
“Then there are toys like this.” Tanis slid a hand inside the leggings she wore—casual in appearance, but emblazoned with the ISF logo—and appeared to pull something out of her thigh. It was a small hilt, not much bigger than a handgun’s charge tube. Tanis ran her thumb along a part of it, and a meter-long beam of light emerged from the hilt.
