by Evan Currie
“It seems like a formal affair, ma’am,” Strickland said. “Not quite what we were expecting.”
“Not surprising,” she said. “They’ll want to put us off balance.”
Not to mention get us out of our armor, she subvocalized and pulsed to him.
“It is good tactics.” He nodded before subvocalizing his next words and pulsing them back. Do you think they know the armor is powered?
Sorilla shrugged. “We’ve been here before.”
Unlikely, however, we’ll leave the grunts in the rooms to guard it, she returned via the pulse com. Be sure to secure yours to biometrics.
“Right,” Strickland responded to both statements in one.
“Clear on this side, sirs, ma’am,” Nicky said from the left room.
“Same here,” Corporal Hardy said from the right.
“Okay, good. The major and Sentinel Kriss will be with me,” Sorilla said. “You will stay with the gear. No one touches our kit, clear?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Sorilla sighed. She didn’t like dropping the armor in what amounted to possible enemy territory, but if that was what the mission called for…so be it.
A knock on the door almost made her start, and she half turned. “What is it?”
The door opened and a slim, redheaded woman stepped in, bowing her head.
“I’ve been sent to help you dress, ma’am.”
Of course her instinct was to tell the woman that she hardly needed help dressing, but Sorilla stomped down on that firmly. She nodded instead and gestured into the room. “Thank you. I’ll be with you shortly.”
The redhead quickly entered, giving Kriss in particular a wide berth as she darted for the room on the right.
“Here’s hoping that doesn’t mean they have some insane ball gown I need help to get into waiting for me,” Sorilla scowled, much to the amusement of her men and the slight confusion from Kriss. She looked around at them. “Well? Get to it then.”
They split up, Strickland and Kriss to the left while she went right. The others took positions, guarding each door in turn. Neither side let the door close as they started getting ready.
*****
Strickland was mildly impressed, but unsurprised by the suits waiting for Kriss and himself. They were of classic-cut—men’s fashion rarely changed, in his experience—and these would have fit in reasonably well in most upper society affairs on Earth. That wasn’t what impressed him, however.
What impressed him was that the suit prepared for Kriss was reasonably fitted.
“They either work very quickly, or they’ve entertained Lucians before,” he said, examining the cut of the clothing.
“They have not, to my knowledge,” Kriss said, “and I would know.”
“Impressive, then… They must have been planning it,” Strickland said. “But it’s still a neat feat.”
His own suit was rather obviously cut a little large. They’d not compensated enough for the armor, though they had clearly tried.
Well, he’d worn worse.
Strickland killed the magnetic seals on his armor.
*****
Sorilla swept the room, and the young redhead, carefully. It was clean, aside from the monitoring devices, of course. She didn’t even get a hint of the accelerant on the redhead, which, if she was right about that hyperspectral spike, meant that the girl was unarmed.
No gun at least. Still a rather large list of other items she could be carrying.
No venom or toxin spikes either, aside from the ever-present, low hydrogen-cyanide spike that seemed inherent in the world now that she knew to look for it.
The red dress on the bed caused her to raise her eyebrow, however.
“I’m pretty certain you don’t have my size right,” Sorilla said, mildly amused. She might have been insulted by the clearly oversized dress, but she understood where they’d screwed up.
Guessing dress sizes was tricky at the best of times; doing it through powered armor was basically impossible. She shucked the poncho she’d been wearing over her armor, tossing the garb to the floor as she killed the magnetic seals on her armor.
“I think I’ll need a belt,” Sorilla laughed.
“I’ll make alterations as needed, ma’am,” the redhead said quietly. “Do not worry about that.”
Sorilla cast a skeptical eye in her direction, but figured one way or another she’d deal with it. She reached up and pulled the chest piece away from her body, a sucking sound filling the room as the oxygenated gel that connected the suit’s multiple internal sensors to her body tried to keep from giving up its grip on her flesh.
The redhead’s eyes widened as she saw Sorilla’s naked chest within the armor, darting to the open door wildly. She started moving, but Sorilla reached out and caught her.
“The door stays open.”
“But…but, ma’am…” The redhead looked panicked.
Sorilla shook her head. “It stays open. Look, what’s your name?”
“I…I…” she stammered. “Rebecca, ma’am.”
“Hello, Rebecca, I’m Sorilla,” Sorilla introduced herself. “I know this is strange for your culture, but I’m a soldier. There’s very little about my body I’m worried about hiding, otherwise I’d have killed the spying devices your boss put in here.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened even farther, something Sorilla was honestly shocked at, and she looked slowly around. “Spying…?”
“Full video and audio,” Sorilla nodded. “So trust me, I’m not worried about my own men catching a glimpse. So just relax and breathe slowly.”
The girl looked like she wanted to hyperventilate, but finally just nodded and seemed to calm down. Sorilla took that as a good sign and finished shucking herself out of the armor, feeling a lot like peeling skin off, and then walked naked into the bathroom while leaving a trail of blue oxygenated gel in her wake as the armor stood there on its own, open and dripping on the carpet.
The shower felt decent. She kept the water cool as she rinsed the gel off, then washed the sweat out of her hair. Rebecca was waiting for her when she stepped out, a towel in hand and the dress hanging on the door.
“Thank you.” Sorilla accepted the towel and started to dry herself off.
Rebecca grabbed another towel and moved up behind her, forcing Sorilla to step down hard on the instinct to grab the girl and clear enough room between them to reach her weapons and bring them into play. Instead she let the girl wrap the towel around her head and start vigorously drying her hair.
“Rebecca,” she tried, “I can dry myself.”
“It’s my job, ma’am.”
Sorilla sighed, but that was enough to stop her from complaining any further. She wouldn’t get in the way of a professional doing their job; that just wasn’t acceptable behavior unless it was on mission.
“Fine.”
She found herself dried and then carefully powdered, a set of fresh underwear from a sealed package was fitted on her, and then it was time for the dress. She had to admit, privately, to being impressed by the speed Rebecca made in adjusting the fit of the dress to her needs. There was no time for a custom dress, but with a few artful folds and quick stitches, Sorilla found herself neatly encased in a tight-fitting, strapless gown that would probably be worth a fair chunk of a month’s salary back home.
She examined herself in the mirror, turning as Rebecca looked on from the side with a critical gaze.
“You do nice work,” Sorilla complimented her.
“Thank you, ma’am. I wish we had time to do it properly,” Rebecca said, sighing. “However, in the time we have, this will do.”
Sorilla smiled. “The mark of a professional, Rebecca, is never being happy with a job that isn’t done right…even if it’s done good enough. I have no complaints.”
Rebecca flushed a little, but nodded and thanked her again.
Sorilla stepped out into the room proper and looked over her weapons where they were settled beside her armor. She sighe
d. “I don’t suppose you have a solution to how I’m going to wear these?”
“With this dress, ma’am?” Rebecca looked more than a little scandalized.
“Right. Didn’t think so.”
There was no way she was going anywhere unarmed, that was just not an option. However it was going to be tricky as hell to conceal one of the big Metalstorm guns in a sheer strapless gown.
These are not the sort of problems I’m trained to consider normally, Sorilla thought, amused despite herself.
She grabbed up one of the guns in the hefty holster and propped her leg up on the bed, letting the split in the dress slide aside to expose her lower leg. A couple tugs tightened the strap and she strapped the gun to her shin and calf, letting the dress fall back over it.
One gun will have to do, she decided, killing the electronics in the other so no one could use it, even if they somehow got around the security, and settled it on the dresser next to the bed. Next she secured her armor in similar fashion, leaving it in standby mode requiring an implant check to reactivate.
The only other thing she took was the long fighting blade.
That was tucked into the decorative belt that secured the dress around her waist, earning her a scandalized look from Rebecca but no voiced complaint. All of that complete, Sorilla turned and walked out of the room to find Strickland and Kriss waiting for her, both dressed in ill-fitting suits. Strickland’s was amusingly bad, while Kriss they had actually managed to guess at pretty close.
I suppose not wearing powered armor is good for some things after all.
“You both look…good,” Sorilla said, not bothering her hide her smirk.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Strickland grumbled. “I hate monkey suits when they fit right. This is just ridiculous. We should have packed dress uniforms.”
“Next time,” Sorilla said, looking around. “Shall we?”
They nodded, and the trio turned and left the rooms. It was time to meet the Elder.
Chapter 10
“Wow.”
Grant tipped his head in acquiescence. “She does clean up reasonably well.”
Eri snorted. “You have a talent for understatement, as always.”
Grant sighed, knowing his employer too well for his own comfort. “May I please beg you to be careful, sir? She is armed. You do realize that, I hope?”
Eri laughed. “Of course she’s armed, Grant. If she weren’t, I wouldn’t let that woman in the same room with me. I would assume she was trying to get me to drop my guard.”
Grant sighed, closing his eyes. “As you say, sir.”
The object of their attentions had just entered the grand ballroom of the Red Room, flanked by a rather nondescript human on her right and the Xeno on her left. Grant was mildly irritated to note that the Xeno had clearly been better fitted for his suit than the human. It was a small thing, but it hurt his sense of propriety all the same.
With them on either side of her, the woman in question looked all the more striking in the flowing red gown they had provided to her. She had a dusky skin tone, normally matched only by those who worked in the sun most of their lives, but unmarred by the leathery look that generally followed.
As she walked, his sharp eyes were able to just pick out the dark of the gun holster he knew was attached to her following leg. She was leading with the bare leg, letting that show through the split of the dress and effectively distracting most of the assembled crowd’s attention from the big gun on the other.
Grant had to give her credit for that. If she’d been in his employ, he would have been inclined to increase her pay and give her much tougher assignments. As a potential adversary, however, he found himself concerned as to what she was going to bring down on all their heads.
“Have me introduced,” Eri ordered.
“Yes, sir. Just a moment and I’ll fetch Ranger Dalton.”
*****
Sorilla’s eyes swept the room, implants again recording everything and everyone. The faces here were more likely to be influential on the colony’s culture than the random sampling she’d grabbed earlier.
Most of the people she scanned were automatically registered as green threats, unarmed by any means she could tell. There were several yellows in the crowd, but it was the red threat levels posted around the perimeter that she considered the only real problems, despite not wearing her armor.
She spotted Dalton speaking with a man she didn’t know, then the pair of them crossed the room to a third and all three turned in the direction of herself and her companions.
“Heads up,” she said softly. “Unless I miss my guess, this is our host approaching.”
Kriss and Strickland shifted in her peripheral vision, both falling back a couple steps as she forced a smile and took the lead again.
It was far from the first time, even as a sergeant or earlier. She had often been the first point of contact with people her teams had to deal with. Men, military men especially, whether they were trained properly or not, tended to underestimate a woman. It was odd, honestly, because they would do it even after seeing what she could do.
So when dealing with various third world tyrants or tyrants in the making—sometimes called patriots if they had paid up their dues with the company—she had often been the lead contact while the rest provided support from varying ranges.
“Colonel Aida,” Dalton said stiffly as they met in the center of the ballroom, “I would like very much to present you to Mr. Eri Constantine.”
Sorilla kept her focus on the tall blond man in the white suit who was clearly the center of the attention of the trio who had approached them. She extended her hand, unsurprised when it was smoothly accepted and turned over flat as the blond bowed over it and lightly brushed her palm with his lips.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Aida,” Eri Constantine said with a pleasant tone.
“Charmed, Mr. Constantine.”
“Call me Eri, please. Everyone here does,” he said firmly.
“Then call me Sorilla,” she said in response. “I’m afraid what everyone calls me would not be suited to the current surroundings.”
Kriss snorted, amused behind her, attracting the attention of the others. Sorilla’s eyes narrowed as she read their body language and facial tics. Dalton tensed slightly, his face briefly flickering to irritated, as though he smelled something bad, but he schooled it to neutral form quickly. The dark-haired man she hadn’t been introduced to yet was better controlled, but she caught his micro-expression and read almost pure hatred in his eyes for an brief instant before he returned to the pleasant smile he had adopted.
Eri, however, merely looked politely at Kriss with a quizzical expression.
“Did the lady say something amusing?”
“Apologies,” Kriss said. “I was just thinking of some of the names she has in the Alliance. I believe the Ross identify her with the mathematical symbol for entropy.”
Sorilla twisted, looking at him in actual shock. She hadn’t been aware of that. “The Ross know who I am?”
“Uncertain if they know you by name. The Ross don’t use such things,” Kriss answered. “However, reports from the Gav confirm that the Ross have your vital statistics on file, under the title ‘entropy,’ with a coded order to capture alive at all costs.”
“Oh fuck me,” Sorilla blurted, unbelieving.
“Avoiding that would be advisable,” Kriss confirmed.
Eri looked confused. “Are these Ross not part of the Alliance?”
“Sadly, yes,” Kriss confirmed.
Sorilla was still swearing up a storm, but she’d managed to contain it to her own mind after the initial shock. She calmed enough to speak up. “The Ross are a perfect example of ‘keep your enemies closer’ to the Alliance. They’re too powerful to destroy, and too dangerous to leave on their own. Be thankful you’ve not dealt with them. They consider humans to be beneath them. We’re not even living things to them, I believe sometimes, just…things to b
e removed from the field.”
“Not only humans,” Kriss said. “All Alliance species as well, save, arguably, the Sturm Gav.”
“We just call the Ross ‘Ghoulies,’” Sorilla said. “They’re…they’re so different from humans that no communication seems possible. I don’t think they consider us to be alive, let alone sentient or sapient. Being captured by the Ross generally means being locked in a hole until you starve or die of thirst.”
“Judging from their interest in you,” Kriss said, “I believe that end would not be your primary concern. Vivisection, that would be my worry in your place.”
Eri had wide eyes. “That seems somewhat extreme, doesn’t it?”
Kriss gestured idly. “Actually, yes, it does. However, the colonel here has personally caused the Ross more trouble than many species have managed in the past. Few are the people who successfully manage to raid not one, but multiple Ross vessels…and even steal one.”
Grant looked the groups over skeptically. “Should the Alliance not be turning her over to the Ross, then, rather than working with her?”
Kriss scoffed loudly at that. “The Ross can rot in an eternal Abyss so far as the Lucians are concerned. If we kill her in battle, that’s one thing…a very good thing even, but we’ll not hand her over to those things.”
“I can just feel the love,” Sorilla said sarcastically before sighing and refocusing on Eri. “I apologize. My previous adventures, such as they were, and the consequences from them are not the purpose of my visit here.”
“Please, Sorilla, no apologies needed. I’m utterly fascinated,” Eri insisted. “I had not previously been aware of such divisions in the Alliance, and the tales of your efforts during your war with them are of great interest.”
“The war was less interesting than one might think,” Sorilla sighed. “I spent most of it sweating in the jungle while the real fighting happened above the orbitals. We took a lot kicks in the teeth in the early days, lost a lot of ships because the enemy just outclassed us by unbelievable levels.”
She took his arm, leading him away from the group. “Allow me to regale you with the tale of Task Group Los Angeles and the crew of the HMS Majesty…”
