by M. D. Cooper
Kor punched Fred in the shoulder. “I’m saving that conversation. That’s a contender for the hall of fame.”
“What did I do to get saddled with you yahoos?” Fred asked as he followed Borden to the room’s center.
“Look, just tell that freighter to dock at Bali Station out by The Moon,” Gemma was saying to one of the administrators. “It’s what you tried to tell us to do.”
“Fat load of good that did,” the man muttered. “OK, I gave them the orders. What do I do if they don’t change course?”
“What do you normally do?” Borden growled.
The man glanced over his shoulder, paling further at the sight of the bulky man who was dwarfed by the pair of AM-4 mechs.
“Uh…we tell them again?”
“And then?” Gemma pressed.
“Well, after a few more attempts, we’d fire a shot across their bow.”
“Good,” Gemma nodded. “If they don’t comply, we’ll just go right to that option.”
The man swallowed and nodded.
“How do things look?” Borden asked once the man had sent the message.
“Well…” Gemma glanced at Fred and Kor. “Pretty much everyone in the system knows that Maltese Falcon is under attack by mechs—or they will, once the calls for aid reach them. The surface government and the other stations are all on the horn, alternately demanding updates, asking if they’re safe, and offering assistance. The public is mostly listening to shelter-in-place orders, though there’s some looting. Based on what I see, we have five hours before that cruiser out at the edge of the system gets word that things have gone south here.”
Borden nodded slowly, stroking his chin. “We’ll have to assume that they’ll get updates from other stations and their own base on The Moon. So five hours from now—at the latest— they’ll be boosting for us here. I make their best time to be, what…just over a day?”
“Give or take an hour, yeah,” Fred replied. “Depends if they brake or do a fly-by and drop assault ships before slowing to come around.”
“That would be preferable,” Gemma replied. “Rika’s fleet is three days out, based on their last updates. We just have to hold on that long.”
“Updates?” Kor asked.
“What sort of surface weapons does Malta have?” Borden asked the two men sitting at the consoles. “Can they hit the station here?”
“Uhhh…the Niets got rid of most of it. There are a few missile silos, but most of the defensive stuff is on The Moon,” one of the station’s administrators replied.
“John, what are you doing?” the other man hissed.
“Are you an idiot, Sal? These are our people. You heard the rumors: the mechs are coming to destroy Nietzschea. They smashed them at Albany, Sepe, and then at Blue Ridge. Now they’re freeing us.”
John turned in his chair and looked at the group surrounding him, some of the color returning to his face.
“Right? That’s what’s going on. You’re not just some pirates coming through to strip us bare, are you?”
“Rika’s Marauders are not pirates,” Fred said without equivocation. “Our business is killin’ Niets.”
“And business is good,” Kor added.
“Easy now, guys,” Borden said with a laugh as he shook his head. “You’ve heard right, John. The Marauders have joined up with the Alliance, and our mission is to topple Nietzschea. We’re the vanguard. We got started a bit early here, but when the fleet arrives, there won’t be anything the Niets can throw at us that we can’t handle. All we need to do is hold out three days, like Gemma said.”
“See,” John said, punching Sal in the arm. “I told you they were the good guys.”
Sal didn’t say anything, only giving John a dark look.
“What about the moon base?” Gemma asked. “Where that destroyer took off from. Can they take out the station?”
“Maybe?” John asked, a note of concern entering his voice. “They have rails…so if they decide to blow this place away rather than wait for the cruiser…yeah.”
“Sounds like a new objective,” Daphne said, speaking for the first time.
Fred chuckled. “That it does. Take the station, take the Niet destroyer, take the moon. Easy, what should we do tomorrow?”
“Take the planet?” John asked. “I found the ship Del came in on. Well, I found the one he left on. He and two of those creepy-ass Huro Girls have your friend.”
Kor punched Fred in the arm. “See? Creepy, not sexy.”
The main display changed to show an image of Alison strapped to a hoversled as it was being pushed by one of the Huro Girls onto a pinnace.
“Fuck!” Fred swore. “Where are they now?”
John shook his head, looking apologetic. “They’ve already hit atmo. They’ll be headed for Cerulean. That’s where Jaka Huro has his base—or at least, that’s where everyone thinks he has it.”
“That’s where the other woman went, as well,” Sal added sullenly.
“Other woman?” Fred asked sharply.
The holo switched to show Lieutenant Colonel Alice, along with a rather scared-looking man.
“Yeah, we managed to trace her to a shuttle that left over half an hour ago,” John said. “That thing made a beeline for Cerulean.”
“When I get my hands on that bitch,” Kor muttered.
“Easy now, private,” Borden said not unkindly. “She’s secondary. Getting Alison back is top priority.”
“Right after not getting blown out of the sky,” Gemma added.
A MYSTERY
STELLAR DATE: 12.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Chusa District, Cerulean, Malta
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“Tremon!” a voice whispered close to his ear. “Tremon!”
“Stars, what?” Tremon muttered, pulling away from the insistent voice. “It’s only three in the morning.”
“Something’s going on,” the voice said, and Tremon groaned, finally realizing it was Yakob.
The man wouldn’t wake him in such a fashion if it wasn’t important, and that knowledge caused Tremon’s mind to claw its way to full consciousness—or something approaching it—and he rolled over, trying to focus on the silhouette of his friend as he crouched next to Tremon’s bed.
“What is it?”
“Up on Maltese Falcon, there’s some sort of attack going on.”
Tremon pulled himself upright. “An attack? Who from?”
A holovid appeared over Yakob’s hand, its harsh light finally illuminating the man’s face. Tremon rubbed his eyes, focusing on the vid as it showed a woman racing across a concourse on the station, then ducking behind a balustrade. After a moment or two, she leapt up onto the next level, swinging over the railing in a single deft move and disappearing from view.
“That was a mech,” Tremon whispered. “An SMI…what? Three? Her build looked strange.”
“Not a two or a three,” Yakob said. “Not exactly. Quality work, from what little I can see, not like she got upgraded in a chop shop or something.”
“I don’t know if this is worth waking up in the middle of the night for,” Tre
mon said as he turned the holoimage, looking at the woman from all sides. “Other than all that blood, she seems to be in remarkably good repair.”
Yakob changed the vid, and it was from a different view, a feed from another observer. “Public nets are full of these. Dozens of people caught it. Watch.”
He started the playback, and Tremon could see that the observer could see the mech woman up on the mezzanine level. She stepped toward the railing, and suddenly a blast of fire erupted from the barrel of her built-in weapon. There was an explosion, and then the observer turned to look at a light hauler that was little more than a smoking ruin.
“Fully armed, too,” Tremon said, then groaned at his own pun. “Too early, sorry.”
“That’s not all,” Yakob continued. “There are reports of fighting all across the station. The Niets even sent a destroyer loaded with troops from The Moon. It docked and then came under attack from inside the station. I don’t know for sure what’s happening with it yet…for all I know, the Niets might have lost that ship.”
“Shit,” Tremon muttered. “You can stop hovering now. I’m getting up, I’d rather not discuss all this while tucked under my covers.”
“Right. Sorry,” Yakob said, standing up and giving Tremon room to rise.
After Tremon stretched out his knee, they reconvened in the apartment’s kitchen, where Yakob prepared a pot of coffee while continuing.
“The taps I have into Huro’s network show a lot of chatter there, too, but most of it is encrypted. Oh, it was his hauler up on the station that ate that mech’s uranium round. He had several of his girls up there; two are dead that I know of, two more at large. There are rumors of a bunch of others that were cut to pieces in a park.”
“Shit,” Tremon muttered as he glanced out the window. “Why didn’t you say so?”
He couldn’t see the apartment block Jaka Huro had taken over—it was beyond, by a few other buildings—but he stared in its direction nonetheless.
“I was going to, but you didn’t want to talk in your bedroom.”
“Oh, OK. So what do you think this is all about?”
“Beats me. Huro made a play for something, and it went sour. Maybe he was trying to nab that mech. They go for a good bit on the market.”
“Fuck,” Tremon muttered. He opened his mouth to say something, but then put his head in his hands. “Fuck fuck fuck. We really ruined those poor people’s lives, didn’t we?”
“The war ruined their lives,” Yakob countered as he opened the chiller and grabbed the cream.
“Yeah, but the war was waged by people, and those people did a lot of bad things.”
The other man shrugged as he collected a pair of cups from the rack next to the sink. “That’s war.”
Tremon lifted his head and stared at Yakob. “Don’t you feel a little bad for those mechs? Most people that survived have a chance to move on. To put this behind them. But not the mechs. The Niets didn’t turn them back into people, just took away their weapons and armor and sent them back out. How do you move on from the war when it’s staring you in the mirror every day?”
Yakob grabbed the mugs and set them down on the table where they clacked against one another loudly in the early morning quiet. “What makes you think it’s not staring at us every day?”
Tremon met Yakob’s cool gaze and wondered if the other man was referring to himself, or Tremon.
Or maybe both.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Tremon asked.
“About mechs? Nothing?”
Tremon grabbed his glass and then the cream as Yakob set it on the table. “I mean, why are we awake? What’s our plan?”
Yakob blew out a long sigh, while Tremon poured his cream into the empty cup, something that gave him a strange pleasure whenever he did it. For some reason, everyone else in the universe prepared coffee backwards. They put the coffee in, then the cream, dirtying or wasting an implement of some sort to stir them together.
Simply preparing the drink in reverse solved the issue. Put in the cream, and the act of pouring the coffee mixed them together. No wasted stir stick or dirtied utensil.
“Well, if Huro is up to no good, there could be a sweep here in Chusa. If that happens, we need to be prepared to hit the bolt-hole.”
Yakob grabbed the pot of coffee, which held enough for two cups, and filled Tremon’s mug and then his own before sliding the pot back into the machine.
“Think that’s likely?” Tremon asked, and Yakob shrugged as he sat.
“The cops are already on alert; my taps show the day-duty officers already being called into their precinct stations. They’re mobilizing.”
“Could all blow over,” Tremon said with a shrug.
Yakob nodded in agreement and took a sip of his coffee. “Could.”
Tremon picked up his mug and drew in a deep breath of the liquid, savoring the smell of the brew.
He wondered if the fact that he and Yakob hadn’t moved on from Malta had something to do with the coffee on the world. It was some of the best in Genevian space, courtesy of the volcanic soil that had just the right pH balance for growing the perfect beans.
He rose from the table, cup in hand, and walked to the window, looking up at the points of light in the sky, knowing that one of the larger ones was the Maltese Falcon. As he was staring out, a sound from below drew his attention, and he glanced down into the alley.
He could just barely make out two figures moving through the shadows. One appeared to be holding a weapon on the other, and he could hear some hushed swearing.
Then the pair passed through a beam of light shining down from a window.
It was a man and a woman. He didn’t recognize the woman, but he certainly recognized the man. It was Lorne, one of the few men in Huro’s organization.
“Huh…now that’s suspicious,” he muttered.
“What is it?” Yakob asked, rising and stepping to Tremon’s side.
“That’s Lorne down there with some woman.”
Yakob swore softly. “Shit. That’s the woman that went into the diner up on the Falcon with that mech. I just pulled her face from a feed.”
“Any idea who she is?” Tremon asked.
“Sure do,” Yakob said with a grim expression. “She was in the roster Gloria sent us. She’s one of Mill’s Marauders.”
RISKS
STELLAR DATE: 12.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: MSS Fury Lance
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Rika strode through the ship on her way to meet with her command team. She was pondering some changes to their force deployment, when Niki broke into her thoughts.
The idea that the ISF colonel had just sent a message from less than a light year away that instantaneously crossed nearly three thousand light years to Khardine—somewhere Rika hadn’t even known existed until a few months ago—and was then routed to her a few seconds later was still mind-boggling.
It was an amazing tactical advantage, though one they had to use sparingly, as every use of a QC blade caused some of the rubidium atoms to lose their entanglement.
From Borden’s prior update, Rika knew that the colonel’s team had to be close to their objective. While she’d been hoping for a declaration of success, given Niki’s tone, those hopes were unlikely to be fulfilled.
“Lay it on me.”
[Reached Malta. Secured Maltese Falcon station. Alice has gone downworld, Alison captured by local gang, also downworld. Rest of team present. Taking Niet destroyer, plan to secure moon base and hit Cerulean city on Malta. One day till Niet cruiser arrives at Malta.]
Rika stopped and whispered a curse. “Dammit. There’s no way we can make it to Malta in a day. We’ll just be reaching the heliopause. Once we dump out of the dark layer, we’re l
ooking at two more days to get that far insystem, even if we burn like mad.”
“Right, but what about Alison? They can’t just leave her with some gang for days,” Rika countered. “Even if I gave Fred a direct order not to go after her—which I wouldn’t—you know he’d still try to rescue her. Mechs don’t leave mechs behind.”
“Yeah, maybe someone has a miracle in their back pocket.”
* * * * *
“I might have an option,” Vargo Klen said after Rika explained the situation in the Iberia system.
“Oh?” Barne asked. “Does it involve telling us at which point you used to be the governor of some planet?”
Vargo snorted. “Right. Like it would be that easy. How big’s the pool?”
“Seven thousand credits,” Chase supplied.
“What?” Vargo exclaimed. “That’s it? Leslie’s tail is at fifty.”
“Wait…my tail?” Leslie asked, looking around the room where the battalion commanders were meeting. “What are people betting on? That it’ll get chopped off in battle?”
“Gruesome,” Adira muttered. “I’ll bet against, if that’s what the wager’s about.”
Barne patted Leslie’s shoulder. “Nothing like that, just how long you’ll keep it for.”
Leslie hugged her tail to her chest. “Forever!”
“Shit,” Chase muttered. “I’m out a hundred credits—though I still have two hundred on it getting chopped off at some point.”
“Chase!” Heather exclaimed. “It’s our good luck charm. How could you bet on that?”
“Yeah,” Leslie glowered at Chase, then glanced at Barne. “I thought you said there was no pool for that.”
“Uhhh…Barne made me do it,” Chase admitted, and Leslie threw him a dark look before turning back to the sergeant major.
“Barne? Care to explain?”
