by M. D. Cooper
“That’s it?” she asked. “No final surprise?”
“I had an antimatter bomb ready to go, but Niki disabled it,” said the node core, sounding dismayed that the bomb hadn’t gone off.
“Antimatter?!” Ron exclaimed. “Shit, thanks Niki.”
“Why didn’t you mention it?” Rika asked her AI.
Rika laughed and reached out to pat the node. “Well, Piper, you gave us a good run.”
“I matched my skill levels to that of common AIs and humans,” Piper responded. “If I’d been playing for keeps, you’d all be dead.”
“Oh?” Ron asked. “How so?”
“I would have dropped down through the tower and blown the entire top level as soon as your company was on it. The upper levels of the tower could support the collapsing topmost level—though roughly ten thousand people would have died, by my estimation.”
“Damn,” Ron muttered. “Good thing you were playing at ‘mere mortal’ level.”
“Or ‘care about people’ level,” Rika added, then accessed the command net.
Rika smiled as Ron let out a curse. The other company commanders all reported successes, though Adira had lost two dragons in her assault.
All around her, mechs were rising from the full-immersion sim couches that applied the realistic a-grav-generated sensations for the simulated combat. Better than just a mental sim, these couches put real twitch reflexes to the test, just like actual combat.
Next to her, Chase sat slowly, carefully rubbing his head.
“What happened to you?” Rika asked with a slight grimace.
Chase glanced over his shoulder to where the rest of M Company was sitting up.
“The Van fell on me at one point. Damn sim is really good when it comes to making you feel it.”
Rika laughed. “Think you need time in the autodoc?”
“Funny, Rika.” Chase rose and stretched before offering her his hand. “Did you have fun?”
“I did, yeah. Tomorrow I think we’ll focus on ground targets and use the fighters to keep the towers in check, see how that goes.”
“You going to hit the dirt again?”
Rika considered it for a moment. “No, I think I’ll take the Lance, and get Piper to add in a Nietzschean fleet or something.”
“He sure enjoys this a lot.” Leslie approached, a cheek-splitting grin on her lips. “Though he’s pissed that my team just slipped past all of his defenses. We ran three groups, and alternated misdirection strikes. He didn’t even know we were on his core-level when I strolled into his chamber.”
“Now that sounds like a replay I want to watch,” Barne said as he approached. “Gotta say, I’m glad we’ll be at Iberia soon, and we can do this for real rather than just running sims.
Rika cocked an eyebrow at the master sergeant. “I’m hoping that we won’t need to do anything like this.”
“Oh?” Barne asked. “Are you going to share those recreational drugs you’ve been taking?”
Chase laughed, and Rika shrugged. “Maybe, depends what you’re offering in return.”
“How’s about an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Disknee World?”
“The what?”
“Stars, Rika,” Leslie patted her on the shoulder. “Sometimes I forget how young you are and how little you know of the galaxy beyond Genevia.”
Rika looked at the grinning faces surrounding her and shook her head.
“You know what? Tomorrow I’m on Piper’s side.”
THE SHEEP
STELLAR DATE: 12.22.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Karl’s Might, approaching Malta
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Alison slowed her pace as she walked toward the bridge, nervously anticipating her crew’s check-ins.
Ahead, through the open bridge door, she could see Jenisa chatting with Lieutenant Colonel Alice about the station they were docking with. It had a whimsical name: the Maltese Falcon. She hoped that was a good omen.
She stepped into the bridge and nodded to Jenisa before sketching a salute to Alice.
“Any trouble from the locals, ma’am?” she asked the lieutenant colonel.
“So far, so good,” Alice replied. “Looks like our little ship has been through Iberia before, so they have records of us, and the vessel’s in good standing. Good ol’ Karl even had a bit of credit on the books, so our docking fees are covered.”
“Really?” Alison didn’t bother hiding her surprise. “How’d you pull off accessing the ship’s local accounts?”
The lieutenant colonel shrugged. “We’ve been aboard for over two months. I managed to find a way into the secure databanks and get the root encryption keys for Karl’s entire operation. Took a bit of doing, but it was worth it, otherwise we’d have to answer some tricky questions.”
“We still might,” Alison said as she turned to look at the growing shape of the sixty-kilometer-long station. “I bet it’s not often you see five Genevian mechs this deep in what’s now Nietzschean space.”
“At least not five that are well maintained, armed, and armored,” Jenisa added.
The lieutenant colonel’s hawkish gaze flitted between the two women. “Well, when I do my initial scouting, I think it would be best just to take one of you. I was thinking Kor or Randy. People buy AMs as security all the time.”
Jenisa cast a dark look at Alice. “Do you mean that they ‘buy’ that AMs function as hired security, or that people around her actually buy mechs?”
“Both, though I can’t speak for Iberia specifically. I’ve heard talk that there’s a thriving black market in mechs in these parts—especially after someone found a stash of compliance chips.”
“I wonder if that stash is what got Rika chipped, back on Dekar Station in Parsons,” Jenisa mused. “Granted, I’d love to see someone try to chip one of us. Now that we’re all Mark 4 models, that shit won’t fly.”
Alison took a moment to gather her thoughts, and then unslung her PR-111 rifle and trained it on Alice. “OK, Lieutenant Colonel, this has gone on long enough. I’m relieving you of your command—such as it is on this little mutinous mission.”
To her surprise, Alice appeared entirely unfazed.
“Took you long enough, Sergeant. I’ve been waiting for you to turn on me ever since we dumped out of the DL into Iberia. I almost had my ghosted scan in place, but frickin’ Kor pulled an update before I was ready, and saw…well, that there’s nothing here—certainly not somewhere they’d take Rika, at least.”
“Ghosted scan?” Jenisa asked. “Damn! Is that how you convinced us that we were chasing a ship to
the jump point back in Blue Ridge?”
“Gold star, Private. For Iberia here, I’d built up a scan model with more insystem traffic, and a larger Nietzschean base on Malta’s moon, but it took just a bit longer to get it to mesh with the live data, and then…well, then you all knew the jig was up.”
Alison’s brow furrowed. “You…don’t seem too bothered by this turn of events.”
The lieutenant colonel leant back in her seat and folded her hands behind her head. “In all honesty, it took you a few hours longer to get ready than I thought. Made for some juggling on my part, but I think we’re still in good stead.”
“I can tell that you’re talking to Kor,” Alice said with a smug smile. “He’s got some skill, I’ll give him that, but I rerouted everything to run through the backup comm interfaces and then cloned the interfaces in the software layer so that when he disabled primaries and backups, it disabled primaries and then a null interface, leaving the backups in my control.”
“Who’d you call?” Alison asked through gritted teeth. “Are you a traitor as well as a mutineer?”
Alice tapped a finger against her lips. “Are those things really separate? Can you mutiny and not be a traitor by default?”
Jenisa glanced at Alison, a worried look in her eyes.
“I was asking if you’ve sided with the Niets,” Alison clarified. “Mutiny against Rika and the Marauders is one thing, but allying with the Niets is another.”
“Now you’re just being insulting,” Alice sneered. “I wouldn’t ally with Nietzschea. But now that General Mill is gone, most of the Marauder leadership is just a bunch of mid-level generals who never managed much more than a supply chain back in the war, all vying for the scraps left behind.”
“Wow, there’s just no scenario where you actually behave like a nice person, is there?” Jenisa scoffed.
“Well, your squad leader here has me at gunpoint, so I’m not really predisposed to niceties.”
“Neither are we,” Alison took a menacing step toward Alice. “We took it on faith that you weren’t a piece of shit, but turns out we were wrong. Each one of us is wondering if your little stunt here has put Rika’s rescue at risk. If anything ha—”
Alice groaned. “Oh, save it, Alison. Unless they’re all regrouping at Blue Ridge, you can kiss being in Rika’s Marauders goodbye. They’ve moved on, and you’d spend years trying to catch up. Now, what you can do is help me with my mission and get some real good done, rather than just following Rika as she galivants around, blowing shit up.”
“Your mission?” Alison asked, her resolve wavering.
“Yeah, the one General Julia gave me before she returned to Ontario.”
“She sure takes a long time to spit things out,” Randy said from the entrance to the bridge.
Alison glanced back at the AM-4 and nodded. “Smells of desperation to me, too.”
“She has to have some reason for this,” Jenisa said with a shrug. “Otherwise why fly out here? And why do it with the five of us to boot?”
“She is right here,” Alice growled.
Alison took another step toward the lieutenant colonel, eyeing her up and down. “So why didn’t the general just order Rika to do whatever it is that you’re out here doing?”
“Because it doesn’t jibe with the vaunted field marshal’s plans, and since Tanis Richards has Rika’s GNR wrapped around her little finger, General Julia tasked me with this mission.”
Randy said privately.
“So what’s our objective?” Alison asked.
Alice’s lips pulled back in what would be a smile on most faces, but was just showing teeth on hers. “General Julia has reason to believe that President Kalvin is hiding here in the Iberia System.”
Randy whistled and shook his head. “Well that’s a nice story. Thought you’d’ve come up with something better than that.”
Alice twisted in her seat to give Randy a penetrating stare. “It’s common knowledge that the Niets never found him after the surrender.”
“Who cares?” Alison asked. “Kalvin isn’t president of shit anymore. Plus, he presided over the fall of Genevia.”
“That’s not true,” Alice said while shaking her head vigorously. “The GAF brass was running the show for the last five years. Kalvin was desperate to try other strategies—ones that I, for one, think would have worked.”
“I’d just love to hear those,” Randy said with a groan. “What proof do we have of any of this?”
“I have my orders from General Julia,” Alice said. “I wasn’t supposed to share them, but I’m passing them over now.”
Alison shook her head. “We don’t have the codes to verify these and, stars…this is weak intel. Just that he’s possibly here in Iberia down on Malta, using the pseudonym ‘Clarence’.”
“I know it’s weak, but there was a resistance movement back on Kansas, so there’ll be one here. We just need to connect with it, and I bet they’ll have leads for us.”
“We’re being hailed by the Maltese Falcon’s space traffic control,” Jenisa said from her station. “They want a visual conversation.”
“Well?” Alice asked. “Are you going to shoot me or let me talk to them?”
“Stars, I’d love nothing more,” Alison muttered as she toggled the safety on her PR-111 and lowered it. “We’re going to take this one step at a time, though, and I’m going with you when we dock. If people buy AMs, they probably buy SMIs, too.”
“Sure,” Alice grinned. “That’ll make me look wealthy. Your model is worth a mountain of credit.”
“Opening the channel,” Jenisa said, and Alice proceeded to speak with the space traffic controller, lying their way onto the Maltese Falcon.
SHEEPDOGS
STELLAR DATE: 12.22.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Quadaros
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“This really is just the ass-end of nowhere,” Lieutenant Saris said from her seat in the large pinnace’s cockpit.
Colonel Borden nodded absently as he looked at the scan data that was filling the forward display. He was far less concerned with the system than the ship they were pursuing.
“There!” he called out a moment later. “The Karl’s Might, they’re approaching that station…the Maltese Falcon.”
Saris snorted. “Someone has a sense of humor.”
“Well, the planet is Malta, it kinda makes sense,” Corporal Pars said from his place at the communication console. “Saris is right, though. This place is just a big bucket of nowhere. I mean, I’m sure it’s nice and all, but based on the chatter, I’d be shocked if five billion people lived in the system.”
“Uhhh…the way you say that makes me lean toward ‘no’, Rel.”
“So what is it?” Saris ask
ed.
“How can you be so sure?” Pars asked suspiciously.
“A census?” Pars shook his head in disbelief. “I swear, sometimes I can’t believe we’ve found ourselves in the most amazing future anyone could ever have imagined, but they have things like…censuses. Is that right, or is it something like ‘censi’?”
“Still, that should be simple,” Saris added her two creds to the conversation. “I get why it’s not as easy for these people, but Pars is right, it’s still hard to grasp.”
“This ever feel surreal to you, Colonel?” Pars asked, glancing up at Borden. “I mean…we’re close to seven hundred light years from Sol…and well over three thousand from New Canaan. I get why we’re out here, specifically, but don’t you ever really wonder why?”
Borden glanced down at Pars, his eyes narrowing. “Sometimes I wonder why you’re out here, Corporal. Maybe there’s a transport back in New Canaan that needs you to babysit it.”
Pars reddened. “I didn’t mean it like that, sir…it’s just surreal, that’s all.”
Borden set a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I know, I was just messing with you a bit. I agree, it’s surreal. When we left Sol, no human had ever visited a single one of these star systems. Now a low population is in the billions.”
“So…does that mean you just made a joke, sir?” Pars asked.
“Son, do I look like the sort of man who jokes?”
Saris laughed from her seat at the pilot’s console and glanced over her shoulder at Borden, who decided to ignore her.
He’d volunteered to go after Alice because he didn’t want the mechs to be divided further; Chase needed to be able to focus on finding Rika. Also, Alice was a pompous bitch, and he looked forward to taking her down a notch.
