Ace

by Adam Moon

douche bag. He snickered a lot and called me kid. He said, “I wonder what it’ll be like for you. How will it feel when your real body dies and your mech. body won’t respond? That’s got to be a living hell, huh kid? That’s got to be like getting buried alive or knowing you’re in a coma.”

  I remained silent until he yelled, “Answer me you little bitch.”

  I nodded and said, “I’m pretty scared.”

  “Well then maybe you shouldn’t have decided to become a part of the military machine. You’re the problem. You and those like you. And I’m the solution. There are kids staving to death while the governments of the world spend our money on a fake war that is never coming.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. I’m an orphan. Most of us on Eighty Seven are. We’re born into this life.”

  If I thought that might soften him, I was way wrong. “That’s a bullshit excuse. If you didn’t want anything to do with militarization, you could’ve launched yourself into the void. You would have been a martyr and a hero to many. Now you’re going to suffer and die like a dog.”

  I started to formulate a plan of attack at that moment because I was pretty sure I was not going to get out of this by doing nothing.

  Before I had a chance to make a move, I heard a tinny voice issue from Bosley’s suit. He put his index finger in his metal ear and said, “Did you say you already hit the all-stop? When?”

  Bosley nodded and said, “Uh huh,” and locked me in a stare.

  I realized that my suit should have gone stiff if the all-stop had been initiated already so I didn’t make a move. I stood stock still as Bosley approached. Luckily, you don’t need to breathe or anything in a skin. I would have tried to ponder why mine was still working but my mind was racing too fast.

  Bosley’s face came so close to mine, our fake noses touched. I was as solid and still as a statue.

  He stepped back and said, “Goodbye kid. If you can still hear me in there, I just want to say that you got what was coming to you.”

  And then I hit him with all of my might in the stomach. His suit buckled under the impact and he took a frightened step backwards.

  Before he could react, I quickly said to my suit, “Activate flight controls. Manual control,” and my suit lifted in the air. I willed it to turn me so my body was parallel to the ground, and then I whipped around so my foot thrusters were right in Bosley’s face. I blasted him full force until his suit crumpled to the floor in a melted heap. His head was reduced to a wax-like pulp. It was over quickly.

  I’d never killed a person before so I was pretty shaken up, but I forced myself to get over it. There was too much to do and I had no idea what any of it was. Should I try and take out the Skeptics one at a time, covertly? Should I get to the controls and send out a distress signal? Should I try and override the all-stop to free the cadets?

  The door to the skin bay opened and I realized I think too much. I should’ve acted. But rather than one of the Skeptics returning, I saw Mr. Humboldt’s suit standing in the doorway.

  “Hurry Jack. We need to act quickly. I had a feeling that bitch was up to something.”

  “Why aren’t you immobilized?”

  “Whoever wore my suit before me was savvy enough to disable the kill switch. I’m guessing Rick Pringle did the same to yours when he wore it.” Then he saw the headless body of the captain and he visibly stiffened. “Did she do that?”

  “Yeah, she killed the tech that came through too.”

  “We need to stop her.”

  “It’s more than just her now. There are seven of them onboard and they’re all wearing skins.”

  “The first thing we need to do is alert the crew about this. They think the suits glitched and that’s why they stopped functioning. I was kind of hoping the same thing.”

  “Ok.”

  Rick and Peggy

  We didn’t even get out of the skin bay before our plans were changed for us. Two suits fell from their cables. They didn’t stand still like idiots though. They moved at me and Mr. Humboldt quickly.

  One of them grabbed me by the throat and shoved me into the wall. The other one picked my instructor up bodily and held him aloft.

  The one who had me demanded, “State your name.”

  “I’m Jack Peterson, a cadet from Eighty Seven. I’m here on a field trip.” I was very afraid. This guy had killer written all over him.

  The one who had Humboldt had a female voice. “Now you,” she said.

  He said, “Billy Humboldt. I’m Jack’s psych. warfare teacher. I specialize in field interrogations.”

  He was dropped to the floor like a lead weight. Then the girl bent down and inspected his suit. “Hey, this was my old suit.”

  The guy grabbed me roughly and turned my shoulder towards him. “This guy has mine. Shit. I wish we could swap. I had that thing all modded up.”

  I said, “They activated the all-stop. They might do it again.”

  He said urgently, “Get the kill switch out quick.”

  They each reached within their helmets and yanked out the devices.

  He said, “I’m Rick and this is Peggy. Tell us everything.”

  I couldn't believe I was staring at my hero, at a worldwide hero. His name alone was a kind of mascot or a rallying cry. I wanted to ask for his autograph.

  Cache

  After we told them what had happened, we found out that someone from Deep Camp Eighty Seven had issued a distress warning after they came under attack. They detailed everything the invaders had done, including teleporting to the Conquistador. A nearby ship picked up the distress signal and Rick and Peggy were immediately deployed here to assist us.

  Peggy went to a hidden panel and punched it with her metal fist until it caved in. Inside was an arsenal.

  Rick said, “Just how we left them.”

  They’d hidden a cache of weapons just in case a situation arose where they’d need them. I wondered if every skin bay on every warship had a compartment with hidden guns, placed there by these overzealous space Marines.

  There was a cowardly part of me that hoped Rick and Peggy would tell us to find a nice hiding spot while they took care of business, but no such luck.

  When Rick told me to take the rear, I knew I was going to die horribly very soon.

  Seek and Destroy

  He led us from the skin bay, along the corridors inch by inch. At each corner, he jumped out and waved his gun around like a madman. I don’t think his training stuck because that is exactly what we’re trained not to do. Peggy rolled her fake eyes each time he did it.

  Once we knew the halls were cleared, we went above deck.

  We were immediately met by the sounds of sobbing and pleading. On his knees was the first mate. He wasn’t the one sobbing though. In fact, he looked pretty defiant. The women from the ship's crew were sobbing for Samantha to spare his life (I hope to one day be so handsome and popular that women sob to save me, but I doubt that will ever happen).

  Samantha said to one of her own people, “Get Bosley up here. What the hell is that dip-shit doing?”

  Then she pointed a gun at the first mate’s head and said, "Give me the authorization codes to the ship."

  He turned his eyes towards her and just stared insolently. That made her angry because she started to squeeze the trigger when Rick walked out into the middle of the command room and said loudly, “Who wants to be the first to die at the hands of Rick Pimpage?”

  When the room went silent, Rick said, “Fine, I’ll choose,” and then he started to run. He shot two of the Skeptics before anyone had even reacted. Their bodies were blown in half from the gunshot. Rick was dashing this way and that, firing from the hip as he went.

  Samantha brought her gun up in his direction but Peggy slammed her body into her back before she got the shot off. In a whirl of motion, Samantha was rendered immobile by some kind of steel cable used to tie her up. Her gun was tossed towards where me and Humboldt were standing.

  The first mate scrambled t
o his feet and quickly took cover.

  When Peggy was done tying Samantha’s hands, she stood up and surveyed the carnage all around. Rick had laid waste to the command room but there were still two of the bastards firing off shots willy-nilly.

  I hefted my laser rifle up and took aim at one of them but Mr. Humboldt put a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Let the experts do it.”

  Peggy fired off a three round burst and killed one of them. The last guy threw his weapon down and surrendered.

  Peggy tied his hands up more carefully now that there was no imminent threat.

  It was a total anticlimax, for which I was thankful.

  In fact, it seemed like a foregone conclusion to Rick and Peggy that they would be victorious.

  But when Samantha was hefted to her feet, we knew we were fucked. She had a fist sized EMP device in her hand and we knew what that meant. It meant that if she was going to go down, we’d all be going down too. An EMP device so small probably wouldn’t take out all the ships systems but it would take out our suits, for sure. Which meant our consciousnesses would die. That is the exact same thing as death.

  My mind started to race. Where had she gotten the weapons from? How the hell had she managed to get her hands on an EMP? All of that stuff would have had to already be here because you can't take anything with you when you teleport.

  It made no sense.

  Inside Man

  Everything became clear when a young man strode forward and took the EMP from Samantha. We all stood stock still, hoping that it had really ended so cleanly, but we were wrong. He