Sisterhood of Suns: Daughters of Eve

by Martin Schiller

  Celina hastily reassured her friend. Please Clio! Don’t do anything to her. I don’t think she’s a threat.

  At least she hoped that she wasn’t. She had no desire to see what measures her AI could bring to bear if she were proven wrong. She also stayed right where she was, and made no move to walk over and retrieve the envelope.

  “My name is Reesy,” the girl continued. “And I’ve listened to your music—the women from the Atalanta used to play it for me all the time. Will you hear what I have to tell you? Please?”

  “The Atalanta?” Celina asked. It sounded to her like the name of some kind of starship. Despite herself, she relaxed a bit, and became even more intrigued.

  “Yes,” Reesy answered. “It was a long range scout ship from your Sisterhood. It crash-landed on my world. We call my planet ‘La Escaul’, the School. Have you ever heard of it?”

  Celina shook her head. She didn’t know very much about the stellography of the ETR, or its planets.

  “I wrote my story down and put it in the envelope with everything else, but I also wanted to tell you about it in person,” Reesy said. “Please—don’t be afraid of me.” She gently patted a spot on the mattress.

  Celina finally decided that it was safe to approach the bed and sat down next to her. Then Reesy began to tell Celina her tale; of the School itself, the crash-landing, of their discovery by the Sisterhood, and then about the military occupation and the intel operation that had followed it.

  Reesy didn’t stop there though. She went on to describe the crippling reparations that the Sisterhood had demanded after the war, the introduction of glass to her people, the Loyalista resistance movement, and even revealed that many of the musicians Celina had hoped to include in her performance had actually been detained in jail by the police.

  The worst of it was yet to come however. Reesy went on, detailing the mass arrests of anyone opposing the Ernan government, or the Sisterhood. She also told her about the bombings, the assassinations, and all the people who had simply ‘disappeared’ in police custody, never to be heard from again. Then, about the unmarked, mass graves and the right-wing death squads. And all of it with the Sisterhood’s full knowledge, and blessings.

  Throughout this, Celina said nothing, and listened closely. And as she did, she began to feel deep shame, and then a rising, angry sympathy with Reesy, and her cause. All of her original doubts and fears had vanished completely, replaced by a stony determination to see the wrongs that her nation had done to these people, righted.

  Instead of making any attempt to bring the envelope with all of its incriminating contents back with her, she used her Realicorder to copy them—after agreeing to let Reesy don a mask to disguise herself.

  Finally, the time came for them to part. In the short while that they had been together, Celina had come to like and respect the Loyalista girl, and they exchanged a spontaneous hug, and wished each other luck. They both knew that they would never see each other again.

  When she returned to her room, she was unsurprised when her securitywoman came for her a second time.

  “We have another bomb threat,” the woman advised her.

  Celina didn’t argue, and went with her to the elevator. This time, she wasn’t nervous. She knew that Reesy was making her escape.

  That night, after she was allowed to come back to her bedroom, sleep eluded her. Her mind was spinning with everything she had seen and heard, and her plans for the future.

  When she returned to the Sisterhood, she was going to contact her friends in the news media and disclose the entire sordid affair. She didn’t blame the women of her nation’s military for their part in it though. In her mind, they were also victims, and had been put in a terrible position by their government.

  And all in the name of greed and exploitation. What Thermadon was doing in the ETR, was wrong and it had to be stopped. She was also keenly aware of just how dangerous a proposition that really was.

  Celina had no fear for herself however. It was people like Reesy and her friends that worried her. Thanks to them, she had learned that the Sisterhood was not the fair, friendly, or egalitarian state that she had always believed it to be, and she knew that it would not be gentle with anyone who stood against it. No matter how famous they were.

  Just like Reesy and her brave Loyalista rebels however, Celina now had a sacred mission to undertake, and there was no room in it for trepidation, or weakness. To make things change, risks had to be taken, and prices, paid.

  ***

  Reesy exited the VIP floor using the service stairs. She encountered no one on her way to the ground floor, and as she let herself out into the alley, she was certain that she had pulled it all off flawlessly.

  A second later, her eyes caught movement in the shadows to her left. Inexplicably, a woman was standing in front of her, her features partially hidden by her dark cloak. Despite this, Reesy could still make out the gleam in her eyes and the predatory smile on her face.

  “Sleep,” the figure said. There was an intense pressure between her eyes and after this, nothing...

  …Amandra sa’Tela bent over Reesy’s prostrate form, and withdrew a small injector gun from the folds of her cloak. She pressed this to the girl’s thigh and squeezed the trigger. There was a small hiss of compressed air as the gun sent a tiny pellet into Reesy’s flesh. Immediately, the nanites that were infused into the pellet’s outer coating went to work, repairing the miniscule damage to the girl’s skin and consuming the tiny blood droplet the injection had created. When they were done, there was nothing left behind to even suggest that anything had ever been introduced.

  Simultaneously, the microelectronics in the pellet came alive, and began sending a faint, but trackable signal. From here on, Reesy would be monitored from space, and she would unwittingly lead the RSE to her fellow terrorists, and give them a map of all their local cells.

  And when they were ready, the Kalian reflected, they would catch them up like fish in a net. It wouldn’t replace Captain n’Kyla’s life, but it would go a long ways towards exacting a stiff price for her murder.

  Returning the gun to its hiding place, she leaned in and whispered softly into Reesy’s ear. “You will remember nothing,” she said to her. “Except that you slipped on the stairs leaving the building and hit your head. You met no one here. You were alone at all times.”

  “I—hit—my head,” Reesy repeated brokenly. “I—I--s-saw no one.”

  Sa’Tela gave her cheek a pat that was almost affectionate. “Good. Rest now. You will wake up in one minute.” With that, she engaged her cloak’s camouflage function and disappeared.

  CHAPTER 7

  Claire d’Layne Naval Base, Nuvo Bolivar, Magdala Provensa, Esteral Terrana Rapabla, 1048.10|06|05:14:29

  The Marine trooper never saw her death coming. She was standing at a check point waving ‘lectris through a barrier when the round caught her in the side of her skull. Even as she fell, her fellow troopers reacted, scurrying for cover and hastily returning fire. One of them, disregarding the possibility that she might become a casualty herself, crawled out to the body and began to drag it back towards the safety of a nearby vehicle. A second trooper joined her a moment later, and together they managed to pull the sniper’s victim out of the line of fire. It was too late though; their comrade had been fatally wounded.

  The clip ended on this somber note. No one who had been watching it said a word. A few, Kaly included, made the sign of the Lady in sympathy for the fallen Marine, and as a ward against evil. Her partner, Cabo Vasquaaz, crossed herself and whispered a silent prayer for the woman’s soul.

  “Bian dea, Ladies—and gentlemen, “Major ebed Karri said, making certain to include the scattering of Specia males who were sniper qualified. “What you have just seen is the handiwork of a Loyalista who calls himself ‘the Angel’. Apparently, this is a Republican Orthodox Church reference to a messenger of Death. It’s also a calling card that he’s left behind at some of his kills.”

 
A plastipaper card came up on display. It bore the motto, “Mortan a e invadiya Ermanyaa!” with an image of an angel weeping bloody tears.

  “This is supposed to strike fear in our hearts and give the average citizen some kind of hope. Fortunately, we don’t subscribe to all that primitive male-based shessdrek—with apologies to you guys--and we are not afraid. This ‘Angel’ konnar is just the latest threat to be sent against us.’

  “Your job as snipers, from here on, is to hunt this kunta down, and take him out of the equation. To help facilitate that mission, you will be provided with clips just like this one. I expect each of you to review them, and come up with an analysis of the Angel’s technique so that we can create an effective strategy for catching and killing his sorry butt.’

  “The clips that you will be reviewing are all from his gun-cam. The Loyalistas are distributing them as propaganda to show that the big, bad Sisterhood is vulnerable—and killable. Ladies and gentlemen, we will turn that around, and demonstrate that our forces are not only strong, but capable of eliminating the best that the Loyalistas can scrape up from the sewer. Dismissed.”

  As one, the sniper teams stood, and left the conference room. Like the rest, Kaly headed immediately for a secure terminal, and opened the vid-file that was waiting for her in her inbox. It proved to be a difficult thing to watch on many levels.

  She’d seen plenty of women die in combat before, but this was different. Just like the clip the Major had played for them, the footage she watched showed the victims from the perspective of the shooter, and most of the time they were unaware of what was about to happen. The Angel seemed to prefer killing sentries, and crew members of armored vehicles, and as she viewed this, the clinical part of her noted the sniper’s precision. Most of his hits were head shots from an undetermined distance, and he took advantage of any gap in the available cover to make them. There were a few exceptions—very few—where his victim was merely wounded, and managed to run to cover. The rest died in place.

  The worst clip for her was as brief and as violent as all the others. A crewwoman was sitting in the open cockpit of her AHPC, manning the controls of its heavy energy cannon. Her helmet was on, and her visor was down to shield her eyes from the sun. A second later, she turned her head and looked directly at the sniper. The expression on her face wasn’t one of alarm, but curiosity and puzzlement, as if she hadn’t quite decided what she was seeing.

  The round went out a second later, and her head bucked backwards. Then she sank slowly out of view.

  She had been the same general age as Kaly, and could have been anyone that she had known, or grown up with. Anger filled her as she replayed the segment, mixed in with a dry, technical appreciation for the Angel’s skill.

  But something darker than rage accompanied this, and it surprised and horrified her. It had raised its ugly head at various points during the ‘vid, increasing whenever her fury peaked, but she had tried to ignore it. When that proved impossible, she had denied it. The death of the AHPC crewwoman had been too stark though, and too powerful, and it had managed to overwhelm her defenses.

  To her utter shame and confusion, she had experienced a wave of sexual arousal. To make matters worse, it wasn’t the first time she had felt this unsettling sensation either. It had happened before, during her first combat experiences, and it had stalked her from the shadows of her consciousness ever since—a dirty, filthy thing, that had no right, or reason to be.

  Disgusted with the Angel, and with herself, she ended the ‘vid. As a soldier, she hated the Loyalista sniper for what he had done to her sisters. But now, she also despised him for the horrible truth that he had forced her to confront. She would see him dead for both of these crimes.

  Too distressed to continue with her assignment, she booked a session with Claire d’Layne’s resident Psych doctor. She had to talk with someone. Right away.

  After a few minutes together, the doctor finally managed to make her feel comfortable enough to unburden herself. When she did, it all came out of Kaly in a torrent of emotion.

  “What’s wrong with me?” she asked, weeping openly. “What’s happening?” Too ashamed to meet the doctor’s gaze, she looked away.

  Dr. n’Susyyn smiled compassionately. “Kaly, there’s nothing wrong with you at all.”

  “But those feelings!” Kaly stammered. “They’re—they’re not—not—right! It’s sick!”

  The psychologist gently took her hands and held them. “Kaly, what you experienced is nothing new. Other women have felt it, and before them, so did the men. All of them were perfectly normal people—soldiers like you—just doing their jobs.”

  “They did?” An expression of hopefulness suddenly brightened Kaly’s features.

  “Yes, they did and they have. You’re not alone either,” N’Susyyn explained. “For all her other problems, your ex-Troop Leader, N’Elemay, also had the same feelings. More than you.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes, she did,” the doctor answered. “The stresses of combat do very strange things to the human body. They trigger a rush of chemicals and complex emotions, and the psyche reacts in many ways to this sensory overload. One of these is exactly what happened to you. Even the ancient Greeks experienced it in battle and it confused them just as much.’

  “What this really is is a part of our natural fight or flight instinct, and there’s nothing ‘sick’ or ‘klaxxy’ going on. It’s just a way of your body coping with something that most civilians will never have to face. Don’t hate it, or yourself. You’re really okay.”

  “But I don’t want it! It feels wrong,” Kaly retorted. “Those women—they don’t deserve it.”

  “Kaly,” Dr. n’Susyyn replied patiently. “You and I both know that you love your sisters, and that you would do anything for them.”

  Kaly nodded, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  “Accept that,” the woman offered. “Accept your mission, and kill this terrorist for them. And let your feelings be. They might embarrass you, but they are a natural thing, and as long as you know that, and the fact that you are ultimately a good and noble person, they will never be anything more. In fact, you should use them.”

  “Use them?”

  “Yes,” Dr. n’Susyyn said. “Use their power. Let them come and go, and when they’re there, let them fuel your anger and your precision. Turn them against your target. At their root, at their most basic level, they’re really only raw power.”

  “Okay,” Kaly replied tentatively.

  Later that afternoon, she summoned up her courage again and reopened the ‘vid file. This time, armed with the reassurances that she had received from N’Susyyn, she managed to get through it—just.

  Then she started in on her notes.

  ‘The Angel is an expert shot,’ she began. ‘His shot placement is perfect—‘The image of the AHPC crewwoman resurfaced, right along with its disturbing associations.

  She pressed on, ‘All his shots seem to originate from ground level positions. He either doesn’t use the high ground, or has been denied access to it.’

  That, or he wasn’t a trained sniper at all, she reasoned. Just a talented amateur. It was the clarity of the details in the middle ground that had brought her to this deduction. The space between him and his victims seemed to indicate that in every case, his ‘hide’ had been fairly close by. She had also noticed that all of his long shots had hit his targets in the torso, merely injuring them thanks to the body armor that most Sisterhood troopers wore in the field.

  To check herself, she reluctantly watched the footage again and it completely confirmed her conclusions. By a sniper’s standards, the Angel worked very close and tended to flub all of his long range attacks.

  ‘It is quite possible that the Angel is not a professional,’ she added, ‘but only a sharpshooter, and has either volunteered for the job, or was pressed into service by the Loyalistas.’

  If true, this was a significant detail. He would make mistakes due to h
is lack of formal training. Kaly certainly hoped so.

  She continued to play the ‘vid and as she did, she tried to put herself in the Angel’s place. This was a technique that her instructors on Larra’s Lament had often suggested to their trainees. By attempting to think like them, it was a way of predicting a target’s next move.

  Now what would I do? she wondered, if I were a scum-sucking piece of shess? How would I set up a ground-level shot?

  She called up the holos from each shooting, and carefully examined them from various angles. She also made sure to look at the adjacent buildings, at the landscape itself, and at every conceivable opportunity that these elements offered for a low level firing position. It wasn’t long before she discovered that none of her choices offered up good solutions.

  On a hunch, she replayed the footage again, comparing them with the holographic layout. It was on her third clip, which featured the same unlucky AHPC crewwoman that she finally found what she was looking for.

  In that clip, and in all the others, there had been a heavy duty ‘lectri van in the area, and when she checked, she saw that the van had left the vicinity just a few minutes after each shooting. Even though it was never the same van, the pattern was identical. It also came as no surprise to her that in every case, the rear of the vehicle was pointing straight towards the intended victim.

  “Well, I’ll be thrice damned by the Goddess,” she exclaimed aloud. That was it. The Angel was using cargo vans to shoot from, probably with a loophole cut into the body of the rear doors, and firing from the bed of the van itself. This negated the chance of leaving behind any shell casings, concealed the flash from the weapon itself, and even deadened the noise. The same van then provided him with a quick and convenient getaway. It was perfect—as long as someone like her didn’t catch on.