by M. D. Cooper
Rika asked.
Rika said the words as a statement, not a question.
Niki’s voice was conciliatory.
Piper insisted.
Rika asked.
A predatory note entered Piper’s voice.
Rika considered the AI’s request. The ISF had refitted four Harriet Class carriers and brought them to the Marauders at Genevia. Each vessel was capable of housing a hundred thousand drones, though few AIs could manage such a number on their own.
Piper being amongst those few. Even without his multinodal mind, he was more powerful than any other AI Rika knew of—excepting Bob and Tangel.
Niki asked Piper.
he replied.
The new Harriets had all been brought in by skeleton crews of ISF personnel that had left with the rest of Carson’s fleet two days ago. Rika hadn’t finished her fleet re-org yet, so no new crews had moved onto the ships.
Rika replied.
Niki added with a laugh, then sent Rika a mental scowl.
The AI gave a soft laugh.
Piper sent a knowing wink, and Rika couldn’t help but groan.
IN THE DARK
STELLAR DATE: 06.03.8950 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ViperTalon, stellar dark layer
REGION: Burroughs System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
The boards lit up, flashing warnings for half the systems on the ship, but Rajiz didn’t need to read them to know what happened.
the engineer replied.
“Shit,” Rajiz cursed, knowing Gero wouldn’t dump a burner unless there was no other choice.
Rajiz closed the connection, monitoring the status of the reactor on his console.
“Gonna be hard to do a corrective burn at the edge of the system when we have a missing engine,” Avi said in a quiet voice.
“We’re going to have to figure it out,” Rajiz said, pulling up the plot.
Travel through the dark layer insystem didn’t give the same speed multiplier that it did in interstellar space. Some people said it was friction, others said it was due to the star warping spacetime across multiple dimensions.
Either way, the ship’s sensors showed a multiplier of just over one hundred. They’d entered the DL at a hair under 0.3c, which meant that they’d reach their exit point, seventy AU from the star, in nineteen minutes.
Part of his board went from red to grey, indicating that the port engine’s reactor had been dumped.
Avi told Gero.
the engineer shot back.
Rajiz sent Betty the instructions, trusting her to have no issue wrangling Jim and Jerry.
As they worked, he ran through the numbers on the burn and saw that, even with the cargo shifted, and the ship’s ballast compensating, they would still have to run the starboard engine at only fifty-seven percent efficiency to maintain an even thrust.
In theory, it should be OK. The Burroughs System only had a few small planets that far out, and the Niets barely patrolled them at all.
Granted, he hadn’t expected them to spend so much effort pursuing them out of the inner system, either.
“We’re going to have to burn for over forty minutes in normal space to correct our vector,” Avi said once she was able to run her calculations.
“Not the end of the world,” Rachella spoke for the first time in some minutes. “Will we lose a lot of speed?”
“A bit,” Rajiz replied. “We’ll be down close to point-three-five. Going to stretch our trip to Genevia out to almost four days.”
The PLI woman pursed her lips. “Well, I suppose it can’t be helped.”
CAPETON COMMAND
STELLAR DATE: 06.05.8950 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Capeton Command, Capeton
REGION: Genevia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“You know,” Kora said as she and Gary stepped out of the shuttle’s airlock and walked down the ramp. “I’ve never been up to the Triple-C before. The place is kinda….”
“Bland?” Gary asked. “Boring? Lame?”
“I was thinking…yeah, pretty much that.” She gestured to scorch marks on the docking bay’s bulkheads. “Plus shot up.”
“Adds to the ambiance,” a dockhand said as he ambled past.
Kora snorted. “When your ‘splash of color’ is black and grey, you need to reevaluate things.”
“Can’t say I disagree there,” Gary said as the pair walked across the bay to the concourse that serviced smaller passenger ships.
Kora turned right, following Gary toward the maglev terminal at the end of the passage.
she said.
Kora replied.
Gary stopped himself.
Kora gave a resolute nod.
Gary passed Kora the two locations, with the most likely route between them highlighted. She looked over the passages Rhon would travel and noted a narrow corridor with a few service passages branching off from it.
Gary corrected.
ageways are what we have up here.>
Kora snorted.
She resisted an eyeroll and sent an acknowledgment as the pair hurried to the maglev, catching a train just before it left the terminal, and riding it the short distance to the service docks.
she said as the pair strode through the corridors.
Gary countered.
Kora said.
The detective nodded.
Gary grunted in response, and they rode the rest of the way to the service docks in silence. On the way, Kora put in a request with the station police for access to their Link triangulation system. It confirmed that he was still routing through a node at the dock where he worked.
she said to Gary.
She decided not to belabor the issue with the man, and when the train reached the station, they exited with her leading the way. Four minutes later, they reached the narrow corridor, Kora confirming that Rhon had only just left.
“Gary,” a voice said from behind the pair. “This doesn’t seem like the way that friends would meet up. And with an unannounced guest as well.”
Kora turned to see Rhon step out of an alcove, a smirk on his lips and a pulse rifle in his hands.
“Really, Rhon?” Gary asked, his eyes on the weapon. “This is how you greet a friend?”
“You’re more like an acquaintance.” Rhon looked past them and nodded, the gesture eliciting a sigh from Kora.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw two women and a man, all of whom were also holding rifles. “Hey, we were just looking to talk in private. We weren’t looking for a shootout.”
“Well, we’ve never been known to turn one down,” Rhon said as his people searched and disarmed them. Once satisfied they were secure, he gave a curt nod. “OK, that’s not true, but you get the picture. Let’s move.”
“Where are we going?” Kora asked, while sending a message to Gary.
“Don’t think that you can tell the cops where you are,” Rhon said. “I have them in my pocket. No one’s going to know where you are till I’m satisfied that you’re on the right side.”
“Which side is that?” Kora asked. “I’m new to this whole spy thing. I could use some pointers. Like…is it the side that just liberated us from our occupiers, or is it someone else? Did they do something to free me from oppression? I’d like to thank them if they did.”
Rhon only shook his head, and gestured for Kora and Gary to keep walking.
They passed through a variety of narrow service corridors, leading ever deeper into rarely visited sections of station where rust and grime hinted at an older, and much less pristine, history for the place. Eventually they came to a pumping station that didn’t appear to have pumped anything in decades, and Rhon gestured for Kora and Gary to stand in front of a large pipe that rested on the deck.
“This is stupid, Rhon,” Gary said. “We’re all on the same side, we just want some intel.”
“Any reason you were going to ambush me?” Rhon asked, sharing a knowing look with his three compatriots.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kora tapped a finger against her chin. “Maybe the way people keep trying to kill Rika…oh, and me by extension, since a nuke going off in Jague would have ended my time in the ‘verse a bit early as well.”
“A lot of things are unsettled.” Rhon nodded, his expression softening. “But you’re not exactly on the ‘trust without question’ list, Gary. You were working with Weick, and he sided with the Niets. And you’re a total unknown, Kora.”
“You can look me up,” she said with a shrug, watching Rhon’s hands as the man interlaced his fingers and then separated them over and over.
It was a self-soothing sign, which meant he was agitated, but that didn’t point to any particular action or guilt.
The man nodded. “I have. You have a good record, though I’ve come to learn that cops are easy to buy—at least after they’ve worked for the Niets for years. So who owns you, Detective Kora?”
“I’ve been assigned by Chancellor Tremon to find out how the KK100 ended up on Belgium,” Kora said. “We know who had it, but we’re not entirely certain how it got there. I want to trace its provenance and find out if there are others seeking to do Rika and her Marauders any harm.”
“So you’re investigating the resistance?” one of the other captors asked, but Rhon held up a hand and shook his head.
Kora shrugged. “I’m following leads. If they take me to the resistance, then that’s who I’ll investigate. If they take me to Nietzschean sympathizers, then I follow to that end.”
“Sounds like a witch hunt,” Rhon muttered.
“It’s only a witch hunt if there’s no real crime,” she replied. “Twice now, KK100s have been used in an attempt to subvert the mechs. That’s evidence of a crime.”
“Under whose law?” Rhon asked.
“New Genevia signed on to the Scipio Alliance.” Kora folded her arms across her chest. “As such, we’ve adopted Section 2 of the Phobos Accords. There’s a lot in there about the sanctity of personhood. Stuff that a KK100—stars, pretty much the entire mech program—violates.”
Rhon snorted and shook his head. “So the first thing we do after getting out from one oppressor is sign on as a vassal of another state? From what I hear, the Scipians aren’t much better than the Niets. Did you know they have a place called the ‘Hall of Heroes’ that is constructed from the bones of their enemies?”
Kora shook her head, fixing Rhon with an unblinking stare. “I’m not here to debate the morality of Scipio, who we’re not a vassal state of, by the way. They had to sign on to the Phobos Accords too. What I am here to find out is who could have brought Arla into the Genevia System, and did they bring the KK100 with her?”
“Nothing heavy, then.” Rhon coughed out a laugh.
“Seriously?” Gary shook his head, disgust etched into his features. “Are you actually protecting Arla? She tried to kill Rika, and may have given a KK100 to the Niets! She’s not aligned with the resistance—stars, there is no need for a resistance anymore.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Rhon pursed his lips for a moment before continuing. “It’s one thing to be freed by a bunch of mechs—that’s what they’re for: kicking ass. But to be ruled by one of those freaks? I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t sit right with me.”
The other captors shook their heads in agreement with Rhon, their expressions hardening, an unspoken challenge for Kora and Gary to either agree with their sentiment or face some unpleasant consequences.
“You’re such fucking idiots,” Kora muttered. “You’re even dumber than Oda. At least he was just a blind fool hiding in a cave. You’ve been out here in the world. You’ve seen what it was like under the Niets. Most of us were indentured servants at best, slaves at worst. Rika and her Marauders freed us, and all you can do is see a machine, not the woman.”
“And you’ve been blinded by a false liberation,” Rhon shot back. “The mechs are insane, all of them. That’s why we had Discipline in
the war. To make sure they didn’t kill us all.”
“No,” Gary ground out the word. “We used Discipline because the mechs were neither volunteers nor criminals. We picked up kids off the street, kids, and turned them into killing machines. So yeah, guess what, we had to beat them into submission. But you know what? They don’t want payback, they just want to be accepted by their own people—they want it so much, they put their lives on the line time and time again to save us.”
“That’s just what they want you to think,” Rhon muttered.
“Stars, this has gone on long enough,” Kora said, shaking her head in disgust. “You’re just too blind to see what’s really going on.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’m blind at all,” Rhon shot back, his eyes narrowing as he took a step toward her. “You’re the one who’s sucking on the end of Rika’s gun-arm.”
Kora nodded. “OK, fine. If that’s how you see it, then we’ll have to do this a different way.”
“What are you—”
Rhon’s words were cut off as five mechs appeared, two in front of the would-be captors, and three behind.
“I really hate ingratitude,” Lieutenant Crudge said as he slapped the rifle out of Rhon’s hands. “Especially when it comes from people who should be close allies.”
A sneer settled on Rhon’s lips as he gazed up at the AM-4. “So is this where you show us your true colors?”
Crudge shook his head. “Oh heck no. I was just walking by when I heard a ruckus. You’re in Detective Kora’s custody.”
Kora let out an evil chuckle and cracked her knuckles. “See, Rhon, these mechs are actually pretty decent folk. Most of them were either asleep or out with civilized people beyond Nietzschea for the past few years. Me on the other hand, well, I was a cop in occupied territory. I learned a lot of interesting techniques to get the information I need. You ready to get acquainted with them?”
* * * * *
Kora settled into her chair across from Rhon, leaning back and taking in the man before her. He still looked as haughty as before, but had folded his arms across his chest, hands wrapped around his sides.