by M. D. Cooper
“OK, if we’re going to get ourselves killed like gallant knights of old, we should get Leslie and Barne in on it. They’re going to want to help.”
Rika sprang out of her chair and wrapped her arms around Chase. “I knew you’d understand.”
Chase gave a rueful laugh. “So much for a long and illustrious career in the Marauders.”
* * * * *
“You’re fucking nuts,” Barne declared, folding his arms in disgust and turning away, staring out the porthole in Rika’s cabin.
“It’s got merit,” Leslie allowed, “but you need something more than a lover’s spat—even one that ends up with Chase in the hospital. The only way you’d go to Stavros is if you’re wanted for murder.”
“Murder?” Rika repeated. “You think?” She knew it would come to that, but had wanted someone else to make the suggestion. She had already said enough crazy things today.
“Yeah, there are lot of outfits that wouldn’t care if you beat the crap out of Chase, here. But something like a triple homicide would be a different story. You’d be labeled a psychotic mech that no one would want anything to do with,” Leslie concluded.
Barne turned back to the group. “Triple homicide?”
“Yeah. Consider this,” Leslie pitched. “We’ve got some sort of four-way love thing going on here, but Barne and Chase both prefer me for…well…reasons, and you kill us all in a fit of rage and betrayal.”
Barne shook his head and groaned. “Stars, you are all pathetic. Amateurs. You need to go for the trifecta: betrayal, love, and money. I’ll weave a tale about embezzlement from our time on Pyra, some secret credit stashes, a three-way sex scandal, and an attempt to put a control chip back into Rika’s head to keep her subservient to the team. When it’s done, you’ll think you’re guilty.”
“Does that mean you’re in, Barne?” Chase asked, amused.
“Yeah, I guess I am. If I’m going to help ruin your future, Rika, I might as well do it right.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Rika said matter-of-factly. “I can’t face a future in which Silva is stuck there, and Amy has that beast as her father.”
“Not to mention where they’ve restarted a mech program like ours,” Leslie added. “What a legacy to leave.”
“I’m right here,” Rika reminded them, her tone sour.
Leslie grimaced. “Sorry, Rika. There’s nothing wrong with being what you are; it’s how you got that way.”
“So, when do we execute?” Chase asked.
“I’ll need three days,” Barne said flatly. “I have something I need to prepare, and we’ll have to get Patty onboard. We need to steal two ships, and I can’t do that on my own.”
“Two ships?” Leslie asked.
“Yeah. We can’t ride in there with Rika. We’re going to need our own covers, and she’s going to need backup and evac, right?”
* * * * *
Rika ran her hand down Chase’s back, feeling the muscles ripple beneath his skin as his lips pressed into hers. Then his mouth slid past, nuzzling under her chin.
He reached down and fondled her breasts before sliding a hand down between her legs, causing a long moan to escape her throat.
They continued like that for several minutes, their hot, sweating bodies writhing together until they climaxed and fell back to the bed, their heavy breathing filling the room.
“I swear, if you’re this good in sims, I wonder what real life would be like…” Rika finally said.
Chase chuckled. “I don’t mean to sound smug, but I am formidable in both sims and reality. But you know I don’t want you to change; at least, not for something like this. You’re too important for that.”
Rika turned onto her side and placed a hand under her head, relishing the feeling of her hair slipping through her fingers.
“Oh, yeah? ‘Important’?”
“Yeah. You have a lot of good to do here, in the Marauders, in the cluster. Stars, if the general can really help strengthen Praesepe, maybe we can push back the Nietzscheans.”
“I don’t think the general wants to just push them back—he wants to destroy them.”
“Even better,” Chase nodded. “People like you are a big part of that. You inspire those around you; you’re a natural leader.”
“Well, ‘til we do this op,” Rika sulked ruefully. “Then, like you said, our names will be mud.”
“Did I say that?” Chase asked. “I thought that was Barne.”
“It was you,” Rika replied. “Mud. M-U-D.”
“I have no recollection of that. I think you’re working too hard, Rika.” Chase winked. “Either way, taking out Stavros and The Politica will help rectify that.”
Rika nodded. The Politica wasn’t her concern, but she realized that maybe it should be. If they took out Stavros, someone else would move to the top of his fascist regime. She supposed that was where the Marauders and the Septhians would come in. If they could defeat the Politica fleets while their upper echelon was in disarray, it would be a victory for the cluster.
It occurred to her that this was not so different from the mission in Thebes—or what the plan had been, at least. Except this time, it really was for a better cause; this time, she wouldn’t have a problem pulling the trigger when the time for assassination came.
Stavros was a dead man walking. He just didn’t know it yet.
DUCKING OUT
STELLAR DATE: 03.13.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Interstellar pinnace, near Chyso
REGION: Scarborough System, Theban Alliance, Praesepe Cluster
“Pinnaces Romany-Gamma and Romany-Epsilon, return to hangar G3 immediately!” the voice on the other end of the comm channel yelled in strident tones.
“I think that Chief Ren had better ease up,” Chase said with a soft laugh. “He’s gonna blow that vein in his forehead if he goes on much longer.”
“Think they’ll take shots at us?” Rika asked.
“Nah,” Patty replied from her seat at the controls of the linked pinnaces. “We left the note for Ayer; she just has to manage the scene. You’re a horrible murderer, Rika. Kidnapped me, too! I never knew you had such a dark side.”
Rika shrugged. “What can I say? I like to get my way, even if it means murdering my teammates.”
Leslie gave a short laugh. “You say that entirely too easily. I’m starting to wonder about you, Rika.”
Rika scowled at her playfully. “If you weren’t banging Chase and Barne on the side, none of this would ever have happened. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
“I was just trying to work you up to a foursome,” Chase said defensively. “I didn’t expect to pay the ultimate price, just for a little tail.”
Rika twisted around and looked at Leslie’s ass. “She may have some sort of cat fetish going on, but I don’t see a tail.”
Leslie winked. “I won’t lie, I’ve thought about getting one; it would be a pain in the armor, though. I’d have to coil it up on my back or something.”
“I bet you could get a sheath for it,” Patty said. “We have flexible casings for exposed conduit on some of the ships; the stuff is stronger than hull plating because of how it can move and transfer heat from energy beams.”
Leslie raised a hand to her chin and stared pensively into the distance. “If we don’t get fired…or court martialed…or have our skin torn off by the Old Man, I think that I may look into that. It could really help with balance when I’m racing across rooftops and stuff.”
“In my little foursome fetish dream, you had ears too,” Chase jibed with a mischievous grin. “Can’t have a tail without ears.”
“You know, Chase,” Leslie turned to him with her brows raised and her hands on her hips. “You’re entirely too vanilla for this crew; if we all make it back, you have to get some mods. You’re into them—on Rika at least—it’s time for you to put your skin where your eyes are.”
Patty made a choking sound. “That was the worst adaptation of a metaphor I’ve ever
heard, Leslie. Seriously. That sounds like he needs to have his skin put on Rika.”
Leslie laughed. “Yeah, that needs some work,” she admitted.
“Barne’s not modded,” Chase pointed out. “Why do I have to get changed up?”
“Barne? Seriously?” Leslie asked. “He has an artificial arm.”
“Yeah, but it’s just cause his organic one got shot off; it looks like a regular arm.”
Chase coughed into his fist. “Uhh…not sure I want to know, now.”
“Oh, wow!” Patty exclaimed emphatically.
“No, seriously, I don’t want to know,” Chase repeated.
“I’m not talking about Barne’s wanker,” Patty rushed on. “Either Ayer didn’t get the message, or they’re making it look good; they’ve sent two fighters to intercept.”
“Well, pour it on,” Leslie suggested.
Patty looked back, incredulous. “Leslie, seriously. I’m flying two pinnaces that are locked onto one another; do you really think I can outmaneuver a pair of HA-U8 fighters?”
Rika looked out of the cockpit’s window at the looming shape of Chyso, the gas giant planet they were passing. “Lose ‘em in the cloud tops?”
“Those fighters are more than capable of tracking us through the clouds…” Patty retorted, though her voice faded at the end.
“Unless…” She thought for another second. “Taking us in.”
“Romany is joining the pursuit,” Chase reported.
“Good,” Patty replied.
Rika glanced at Leslie as they both settled into auxiliary seats in the cockpit and quickly pulled down the harnesses.
Leslie called up a holoprojection of the ship and space surrounding them, and Rika looked it over, wondering what Patty had in mind.
Chyso was a busy place, its orbital plane filled with moonlets, asteroids, and gas—nearly all of it being mined and harvested. The planet itself was rich in deuterium, and no fewer than seven orbital facilities worked to pull out the gas and sell it to starships.
The planet was also located 55 AU from the Scarborough System’s star; currently passing a busy jump point.
This made for a mess to navigate through, but it also meant that the Romany’s fighters couldn’t take long-range shots at the linked pinnaces without risk of hitting other ships or stations.
Rika could see that Patty was using that to her advantage and keeping as many civilians between them and the pursuing HA-U8 fighters as she could. Even so, the fighters were boosting hard, slowly closing the gap between the ships. They were not, however, breaking local speed and burn vector ordinances. If they continued to follow the rules, the pinnaces should reach the cloud tops first.
“They’re totally letting us get away,” Patty called out as she banked around a small moonlet, careful to keep her engine wash off the orbital plane.
“You sure about that?” Chase asked as one of the fighters flew right through a loose grouping of cargo haulers.
“Well, mostly. I know half those guys; they won’t take a shot at us.”
“Not even with Rika the Murderer aboard?” Leslie pressed.
Patty nodded, then qualified, “Well, unless they sent Ron. He’s kinda pissed at me after the pot I won in a recent Snark game. I don’t think he’d make a kill shot, but he might get a little excited.”
“Oh, shoot. Ally’s kinda pissed at me too. I borrowed one of her dresses and spilled red wine on it.”
“Patty, seriously, do you make a point of pissing off all the other pilots?” Leslie demanded.
“I cleaned the dress; it’s not like nano can’t fix a wine stain. But Ally says ‘it’s the principle of the thing’.”
“Shit, Ayer’s on the horn,” Chase cursed, turning to look back at Rika. “She doesn’t sound happy at all.”
Rika took the call and entered a virtual space in her mind where Ayer stood with her arms crossed, and a very real rage evident on her face.
“Rika, you are charged with murder and treason against the Marauders, as well as a dozen other violations of the military code of conduct we adhere to. You will cease burn and alter vector for escort back to the Romany immediately. Do I make myself clear?”
The scene Barne had created in Rika’s quarters seemed to have been very convincing. When Rika had seen it for herself, she’d gagged at what had appeared to be several, fully dismembered bodies.
A brief fear flitted through Rika’s mind that Ayer really did think she was guilty of the crime.
Barne had said that close examination—which the Romany’s forensics teams would be able to manage without trouble—would reveal that the bodies were fakes, comprised of cloned replacement limbs and banked blood to provide DNA evidence.
By now, Ayer had to know this. Her charges of murder meant she was going along with it—though the anger in her voice did not seem contrived.
“Do you think I’m going to come back to face your justice?” Rika retorted. “Chase called me ‘meat’, so I made him into meat. Barne and Leslie, too.”
“You can’t murder Marauders in cold blood and get away with it,” Ayer spat. “We’ll come after you, we’ll find you, and when we do, you’d best hope the capture team kills you, because what the tribunal will order will be far worse.”
“You gonna chip me again? That’s what they were trying to do.”
Ayer nodded once, her eyes cold. “If we have to.”
“Enough,” Rika said with finality. “I’m done with the Marauders. I’ll find an outfit that really understands what I can do—one that appreciates me.”
“Rika.” Ayer’s voice was dripping with acid. “You’ve become a monster. Only fools and other monsters will take you in now. This is your last chance; with a compliance chip, we can rehabilitate you.”
There was a look in Ayer’s eyes that Rika couldn’t place. Is that sorrow? Or just raw anger at my disobedience?
“Never going to happen. I’ll die before I get chipped again,” Rika swore, the vehemence in her voice authentic even as she wondered at Ayer’s meaning.
“We’ll see,” the captain replied. “Know this: I’ll find you, and when I do, there will be hell to pay.”
Rika cut the communication and considered what had just taken place.
There was more than one message hidden in those words. Ayer will come with the Marauders once Stavros is dead; she believes that Stavros will try to chip me if I act too boldly—he might do it anyway. Lastly, if Stavros catches on to me, I may want to consider death over capture.
The virtual space disappeared from around her, and Rika looked around at the cockpit once more. She had made the conversation available to the team, and they too were contemplating Ayer’s words.
“Does that mean she thinks we can do it?” Chase wondered, “Or that we’re going to get our assess handed to us?”
“I don’t think she’s certain one way or the other,” Leslie guessed. “But the Marauders will have our backs, either way.”
Rika looked at their position and saw that they were just a few thousand kilometers from Chyso’s cloud tops now. She silently counted down from ten; when she hit two, they dropped into the upper strata of the gas giant.
Patty continued to dive deeper, passing bulbous cumulus clouds, until they hit the planet’s ‘deck’. There, the gas changed from atmosphere to something much closer to ocean.
The pinnaces began to shudder as the grav fields’ dampening motion struggled to compensate.
“Patty, is this necessary?” Chase asked, his voice carrying a nervous lilt.
“Yeah…it seems excessive,” Leslie added.
“You want it to look good,
right?” Patty reasoned. “We’re within tolerances…barely.”
They stayed in the cloud soup for another three minutes—then Patty pulled out, and the shuddering ceased. Rika breathed a sigh of relief as they soared through the upper levels of the planet’s cloud cover. A minute later, they were back in space; their scan showing no sign of either the Romany, or the two fighters.
“Well done, Patty,” Chase appraised. “You timed it just right. They’re still on the far side.”
“We slowed down below the deck; they came all the way around and passed us overhead. I have a clear shot to the jump point, now. They won’t catch us unless they fire RMs up our asses.”
Rika leaned back.
We did it; we’re clear.
Which was, of course, the easy part.
A NEW TEAMMATE
STELLAR DATE: 03.14.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: The Isthmus, Sparta
REGION: Peloponnese System, Politica, Praesepe Cluster
“You’ve lost your mind, Barne,” Rika pronounced in disgust. “What in the stars were you thinking, bringing her along? She outed us to Captain Sarn!”
To say Rika was a little surprised when Barne revealed the ‘something extra’ he had brought along would be an understatement. She had no idea how he had smuggled the AI from the Persephone Jones along for the trip, let alone convinced her to help.
Help that seems all too suspicious.
“Explain this to me again from the start,” Rika ordered, ignoring Niki’s statement. “You were talking with this AI the entire time we were flying back to the Romany?”
The look on Barne’s face indicated that he had not expected this sort of reaction from Rika. He even looked a little scared.
“Well…it’s not often one has a couple of weeks to spend with an AI. She was going nuts without stimuli, and I was curious how a ship like the Jones ended up with an L3 AI.”
