A House United

by Caleb Wachter

  A third shot was deflected as the blubberous woman went low, nearly striking Lu Bu in the foot as Fengxian leapt high, launching a spinning roundhouse kick at the Senator’s head.

  The kick went scant millimeters over the Senator’s head—and in return, the fat Senator brought the pistol up with the clear intention of hitting Fengxian center-mass.

  Lu Bu managed to parry the pistol with her pike just before it locked on target and fired. The flash of heat she then felt between her legs briefly filled her with the fear that she had been hit in the lower pelvis—a wound that would ruin any sane person's day. But when she landed on the deck of the corridor, her legs responded as they should—indicating she had not suffered an serious injury—and she authored a new series of attacks against the Senator.

  Keeping her weight low, Lu Bu parried another four shots from the plasma pistol as the Senator failed to employ her surprising agility to gain a clear shot. After those four shots, however, Lu Bu saw her opportunity and took it.

  She stepped inside the other woman’s guard and jammed the pike’s needle-sharp tip through the Senator’s pistol-wielding hand at the wrist. To her credit, the faux fat woman made no pained sounds as the pistol fell from her fingers and clattered against the deck plates.

  Fengxian snapped a leg kick into the Senator’s inner thigh, following it with another to the same leg’s knee—which promptly gave out, just as Lu Bu had expected and, if she was being honest, hoped.

  The Senator went to the deck, and this time when Fengxian spoke she did so with the pike’s deadly tip pressed against the odious woman’s throat.

  “Are you ready to surrender into House Raubach’s custody for the purposes of negotiation, Senator?” Fengxian repeated the oft-rehearsed query while forcing her breaths to come smooth and easy as her heightened senses gradually softened. “Or should I present my offer to your sister—after presenting her the gift of your head?”

  The woman scowled at hearing the Raubach name, but her voice was melodious and cool as she replied, “There will be no need to involve my sister. I’m ready to enter House Raubach’s custody for the purposes of negotiation.”

  “Good,” Fengxian grunted, clicking her teeth in order to activate the sub-dermal com-link which had been implanted in her cheek prior to undertaking this mission. “Operator: my suit is compromised. Clear a path.”

  “Copy that, Fengxian,” Shiyuan replied via the link, and the locked door behind the kneeling Senator slid away to reveal the open corridor beyond. “Your path to the garbage chute is clear.”

  “Good work, Operator,” she said, clicking her teeth again to deactivate the link. She collapsed her double-pike, returning it to her belt after doing so, and placed restraints on the Senator’s wrists. With that finished, she helped the fat—and somehow still surprisingly heavy—woman to her feet. With Fengxian propping the other woman up on her ruined leg, they made their way to the egress point.

  Chapter II: Baby Steps

  “Blast it!” McKnight cursed after falling down on the physical therapy rails for the fourth time in the last twenty minutes.

  “You should rest, Captain,” Helena, the crew’s most experienced medical professional, insisted. “Your recovery is already well ahead of schedule; the last thing we want is for you to suffer a setback which extends your recovery timetable.”

  McKnight gritted her teeth, wanting to argue the point for sheer obstinacy’s sake. But she breathed a short sigh as she nodded in resignation, “If that’s your professional opinion—“

  “It is,” Helena assured her, drawing a withering look from McKnight who, a few seconds later, reached down to the belt of her uniform and reactivated her powered exoskeleton’s power supply. Her legs were instantly augmented by the slender framework of interlocking panels which formed a nearly-unbroken set of ‘pants’ which looked far more like armor than anything else.

  She grunted as she stood to her full height, “I only made it two feet further today than yesterday.”

  “Which is still eight feet further than the 90th percentile achieves three weeks after correcting such a significant period of paralysis,” Helena chided. “Your recovery is nearly miraculous, Captain; you have every reason to be grateful for its expediency.”

  McKnight knew, somewhere in her higher brain, that Helena was right. But it was beyond frustrating that she could still only walk a few dozen feet under her own power before her body failed her.

  When she had been bound to the wheelchair following her injury, she’d had little difficulty simply accepting her condition. She had been paralyzed from the waist down and, horrifying as that might have been, it had also been immutable. She had been crippled, and as a military woman she had been able to come to terms with that reality relatively quickly.

  But now that she was on the road to recovery, her impatience was mounting. She had little issue with being crippled, but now that recovery was within sight she found it difficult to remain dispassionate and rational about the matter.

  “I owe my recovery to you, Helena,” McKnight said seriously, meeting and holding the other woman’s gaze. “Who would have guessed, just two years ago, that you’d be performing life-changing spinal regeneration surgeries?”

  “The medical texts and training programs are comprehensive,” Helena said self-effacingly. “I am satisfied that I was able to implement the necessary techniques.”

  McKnight chuckled at that. Just a few years earlier, Helena’s entire planet had been trapped in the equivalent of the Iron Age, cut off from the rest of humanity and therefore without access to healing techniques much more complicated than basic battlefield surgeries involving butcher's knives and cord tourniquets.

  But now, looking at the statuesque Helena—who towered over half of the male crewmen who had joined McKnight on their sojourn to the Empire of Man, and was far from the most imposing female specimen from her home world—McKnight was forced to reconsider just how rudimentary the Tracto-ans’ medical knowledge really could have been.

  “You give yourself too little credit, Helena,” McKnight rebuked with a firm shake of her head. “I’m not the only person whose life—and limbs—you’ve saved during your time in this crew.”

  “I am only glad that I have been able to rise to the occasion as often as I have,” Helena said neutrally, and McKnight decided it was time to move on from trying to penetrate Helena’s trademark Tracto-an stoicism.

  “Same time tomorrow?” McKnight asked, knowing that Helena would prefer to have at least two ‘off-days’ from her physical therapy regimen per week.

  “If you insist,” Helena sighed, likely because she knew that McKnight would perform the therapy unsupervised if she did not assent.

  “Good,” McKnight nodded. “I think it’s time I went and checked on Traian.”

  Helena nodded, “I have prepared my latest examinations of his…tissues,” she said, proffering a data slate which McKnight accepted.

  The Tracto-an doctor said nothing else, and McKnight could understand the other woman’s reluctance to discuss the Lancer’s condition. The truth was that nobody—least of all Traian—understood what was happening to him. But in the weeks since they had arrived in Imperial territory, his physical transformations had seemingly accelerated in new and increasingly concerning ways.

  She turned and made her way from the medical facility, turning down the corridor which led to the subterranean facility’s brig. She still felt uneasy about forcing Traian to live in a locked cell, but she knew there was little real choice in the matter.

  He was a security risk, plain and simple, and their operation in the Empire was one which require absolute secrecy. It wasn’t that she suspected Traian would ever betray them—she would gladly entrust her life to him. Her concerns stemmed from the increasingly complex network of nanotechnology which had been spreading throughout his body.

  She tapped the data slate which Helena had provided, scanning through the latest changes in Traian’s body and feeling a pang of ange
r at realizing just how helpless she was to intervene. He had joined her crew at her urging, and now he was undergoing some sort of transformation which none of them understood well enough to even comment on, let alone undo.

  She arrived at his cell and drew a steadying breath before gesturing for the guard posted there to open the cell.

  The guard—a Tracto-an man whose left leg had recently been replaced with a mechanical prosthetic—complied, and McKnight stepped into the dark cell beyond.

  “Traian?” she asked into the darkness.

  “Come in, Captain,” he replied, and for a moment she thought she heard something different in his voice—something…metallic. But when he next spoke, she heard nothing of the sort, “I apologize for the lighting. My eyes have become too sensitive lately; you can turn them up if you’d like.”

  “That’s all right, Traian,” she shook her head as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she spotted him sitting on the floor in the far corner. “How are you feeling aside from the photophobia?”

  “Honestly, I’ve been feeling a little better the last few days,” he replied, standing up from his haunches in the corner and moving toward her.

  As he approached, she saw his eyes—the whites of which had previously been half-covered in a spiderweb of hair-fine tendrils composed largely of rare minerals—and could not help but gasp in surprise.

  “I know,” he said sympathetically, blinking and making the faint, violet light which now emanated from his eyes flicker. “The light hurts my eyes more since they started glowing. I’d turn it off if I could, but—“

  “No,” she shook her head firmly, bitterly resentful of her childish response to seeing physical signs of his worsening condition. “I apologize, Traian; that was unprofessional—“

  “It was not,” he interrupted firmly. “This isn’t the kind of thing we’re supposed to deal with. Trust me, I reacted a lot worse than you just did when I saw it for the first time. I’m just glad that you came. How's the mission?”

  McKnight silently cursed herself for her lack of professionalism before doing her best to shake it off, “Lu Bu just completed the third leg of her five-stop itinerary. Everything’s proceeding as scheduled.”

  “That’s good,” he said with a nod, but his voice seemed oddly distant.

  “Have you had any more…visions?” McKnight asked into the growing silence.

  “I told you,” he said with a sigh, “they’re not ‘visions’ as far as I can tell. They’re memories.”

  “Right,” she allowed, but in truth she had been reluctant to accept that whatever it was that had essentially infected his body had somehow granted him access to memories which were not his own. It was easier for her empirical mind to apply Occam’s Razor to the situation and proceed with the theory that he was experiencing increasingly detailed hallucinations as his brain warred with the intrusive ‘tissues’ which had invaded every part of his nervous system. “Have you…experienced any new memories?”

  “Just one,” he said darkly. “But honestly…I’m not sure it’s a ‘memory’ at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Traian shook his head slowly, “I…it seemed like it was happening in real time. I couldn’t shake the immediacy of it—or the importance of what I was experiencing.”

  “Can you describe it?” McKnight pressed, knowing that she was pushing him when doing so might be dangerous. He had become increasingly despondent over the past few weeks, but if he had information that might help her then she needed to hear it as quickly as possible.

  Traian cocked his head dubiously, “I…I really don’t want to speak out of turn here, Captain. And you need to understand that I’m far from convinced of these memories’ truthfulness—“

  “Spit it out, Lancer,” she interrupted tersely. “I don’t need you filtering intel for me; I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself.”

  Traian flashed a lopsided grin for the briefest moment, and even in the darkness McKnight saw gratitude in his visage—gratitude for her treating him just like anyone else under her command.

  It was gratitude for treating him like an person rather than some sort of monster.

  “I saw…” he began hesitantly before drawing a breath and finishing, “I saw Mr. Fei, Captain.”

  A pin drop would have been deafening in the ensuing moments as McKnight considered the meaning of what he had just said. “Think carefully, Traian,” she said neutrally, fighting against the rising tide of unexpected emotions which roiled within her, “could you be mistaken?”

  “Mistaken?” he repeated before shaking his head. “No, ma’am. It was Mr. Fei, and he was doing something…I can’t describe it,” he said irritably, shaking his head sharply as if to clear it. “It was offensive or wrong, or maybe…I don’t know…vile? Now,” he added pointedly as McKnight felt a chill run down her spine at what she was hearing, “the part I can’t be sure about is whether or not what I saw was true—but I can be sure that it was Mr. Fei and, somehow, I’m also sure that if it was true then it was happening in real time. The immediacy…almost like a panic…it was unmistakable. The urge to go out and stop him from doing whatever it is he was doing was nearly overpowering, Captain,” he said heavily.

  She considered his reply in silence for what could have been several minutes. Eventually, she asked the most obvious question, “Where was he?”

  Traian shook his head, “I have no idea. But it felt like he was close.”

  “Close?” she repeated in surprise. “How close?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, frustration evident in his voice. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help right now, Captain.”

  McKnight decided against pressing him further on that particular front, and instead asked the only other question worth asking, “Was the Captain with him?”

  Traian’s hesitation was all the reply she needed, but his words only strengthened her suspicions, “He wasn’t there,” his violet eyes locked with McKnight’s as he finished, “but Kratos was.”

  McKnight nodded slowly as she processed this information. When she had come to see Traian, she would have never guessed that he might tell her that Captain Middleton and the rest of the Pride’s crew were not only alive, but that they were possibly nearby.

  “You could be wrong about this…” she mused.

  “I could,” he agreed, but his tone made evident that he thought it was unlikely.

  “…but if you’re not…” she continued before shaking that thought from her head. “I’m not sure there’s anything we could do about it even if you’re right.”

  “That’s why I hesitated to say anything,” he splayed his hands in frustration.

  “You were right to tell me,” she hastened to assure him, “and, in the future, I expect to be updated immediately on any further…experiences you have.”

  “Understood, ma’am.”

  “Now,” she gestured to the corridor, “how about we grab some chow?”

  Traian looked initially reluctant, but quickly folded, “Let me get some eye—“

  She interrupted him by drawing a pair of dark shades from her breast pocket and proffering them, “Way ahead of you.”

  He accepted the shades, donned them with a gracious nod, and the two made their way to the mess—with a pair of armed and armored Tracto-ans in tow, as was unfortunately necessary under any reasonable interpretation of protocol when dealing with someone in Traian’s peculiar condition.

  Chapter III: A Giant Jigsaw

  Tremblay rubbed his jaw thoughtfully after examining the latest updates from Corporal Lu’s mission. He had initially been peeved about her sucker-punching him in the debriefing a few weeks earlier, but in truth he couldn’t blame her.

  He had used her like an asset—which is precisely what she was—and though he was correct to have done so, he knew that every action has a generally predictable reaction. That’s not to say that he had wanted to get cracked on the jaw and have a few of his teeth not-so-surgically removed by the f
irecracker of a woman, but in the end he had successfully communicated a critically-important message to that meeting’s attendees:

  Everyone is expendable in pursuit of this mission.

  “These figures look good,” he said approvingly after triple-checking Guo’s numbers.

  “Agreed,” Guo nodded, his eyes never wavering from his console as he spoke, “the Corporal has successfully executed the first three legs of her mission, and Mr. Fisher has met with equal success in negotiating the terms of the targets’ complicity with our plan.”

  “It’s not exactly our plan,” Tremblay chided.

  “The plan’s original author is immaterial,” Guo riposted easily, “once we undertook the task of carrying it out, it became ours. We have already been forced to modify several core components of Lynch’s impressively comprehensive contingency chains—without said modifications, the mission would have already failed at least twice.”

  “True enough,” Tremblay grudged. “I just can’t help feeling that we’re missing something…”

  “Nor can I,” Guo agreed, to Tremblay’s surprise, “which is why neither of us has gotten more than two hours of sleep per night since our teams embarked on their respective itineraries. We are needed here, doing precisely what we are doing, if this mission is to succeed.”

  “It wasn’t like this in the holo-vids,” Tremblay rubbed his eyes forcefully. “Where are all the scantily-clad women, exotic locales, and absurdly expensive dinner jackets courtesy of some alphanumeric wing of Parliament that purports to be an import/export subsidiary? If I’d known a career in Intelligence would be nothing but poring over data feeds—along with the occasional dismemberment,” he added, casting a scowl at the now-invisible scar on his wrist which had been the indirect result of Jason Montagne’s blasted Uncle, Jean Luc, “I would have become a lawyer…or something.”

  “You are what you were meant to be,” Guo said dismissively, “as are we all. And we are nearly in position to do something truly historic,” he added with an uncharacteristic hint of satisfaction.