“I’m old?” Shelby asked with a laugh. “Then maybe you should respect your elders? Appreciate my experience and know that I’m trying to help you down the right path?”
“I didn’t mean that. You’re not old,” he protested. “I just meant that you’ve been through all your schooling and isn’t there officer training and all that? I just can’t believe you never had somebody special before me.”
Shelby’s face froze for a moment. She licked her lips and turned away. “I’ve always been working. Always been focused. That’s what I was taught.”
“So what changed?”
She stared at him and then shook her head and looked away. “I just want us to be together. Why do you have to analyze everything?”
Krys shrugged. “I like you. I want to know more about you. See what makes you tick.”
“Tick?”
“Yeah, you know, like an old-fashioned watch?”
She blinked. “Um, no.”
Krys sighed.
Shelby’s eyes softened as she smiled and said, “You’re too young to be so old.”
“My mom told me I had an old soul,” he admitted.
Shelby stiffened for a couple of seconds. When she relaxed, she spoke slowly at first and then sped up as she gained traction. “Okay, well, you changed things. I saw this crazy kid out in the forest who had no idea what was going on. But I saw your eyes. You were curious. Worried and scared, but you wanted to know more. You wanted to understand. It seemed like it would be an even greater crime to take that from you.”
Krys grunted. “Well, um, thanks.”
Shelby laughed.
“Are you still trying to figure me out?”
“Always,” she said. “But I’m happy with you. You are exciting. You’re smart. You’re caring. Why shouldn’t I want to be with you? There’s only a few years between us and we waited until you were legal.”
“We waited?” Krys asked. “We still haven’t done anything! Well, at least not that.”
Shelby chuckled. “True, but not for lack of my trying!”
“What about Mr. Strain and the others? Any progress?”
“I don’t want to do that with anyone else.”
Krys gasped and shook his head. “Oh wow,” he muttered. “That is not what I meant!”
Shelby grinned at his discomfort and then sighed. “It’s complicated. I can’t let anyone know about them. I have to make it known that I need resources and find some ways around certain roadblocks. It’s going to take some time. A lot of it.”
Krys frowned. “But you’re still trying, right?”
“Krys, it took me how long to make progress on your citizenship? Two years? Maybe more. And all because of the confusion regarding who you really are.”
“I know who I am.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she groaned.
“It’s just important that they don’t get forgotten,” Krys said. “And after what happened to them—to us—I want to make sure they don’t get overlooked.”
Shelby frowned and then put a hand on her hip. “Wait a minute, are you blackmailing me?”
“What? No!” he backpedaled.
“Of course I’m going to help them. It helps all of us—why wouldn’t I do it? That’s what I believe in, Krys: that we need to help each other out so we can all reach our potential as individuals and as a race. Now stop changing the topic on me.”
“Oh, um, okay.” His stomach relaxed for a moment until he realized they were back to talking about the ridiculous social contracts again. “Tell me something. If these social contracts are all about convenience, then why are you talking about wanting to take me with you when you leave? And why are you putting up with me not agreeing to one whenever you bring it up? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to just give up and move on?”
“You’re a bad influence,” she muttered. “Convenient, yes, but that’s not what I want.”
“It seems silly. All the stories my parents told me and everything I used to read and watch talked about dating and having relationships that mattered. The new ways aren’t like that. Even worse, I have a hard time finding any of the books I used to read when I want to show you what I’m talking about. Why should I have to agree to a legal contract so I can call you my girlfriend?”
Shelby’s mouth opened and closed. Then she chuckled and nodded. “Okay, that does sound silly. I told you why I’m trying. I like you. I enjoy spending time with you, and I want to do more of it. We get along great, usually, and I think we both have really bright futures ahead of us. So why not share our lives for as long as we can? And maybe, just maybe, some of your outdated romantic ideas have rubbed off on me. Don’t let that get out, though. I don’t want it hindering my chances for promotion.”
“Why would it?”
“Same reason you can’t find your books and shows on the net. The ideas can be considered subversive. Confusing. People can get the wrong idea.”
“I’ve read stories like that too,” Krys said. “I thought they were fiction.”
She blinked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He sighed. “All right, fine, I’ll do it.”
Shelby’s eyes widened. “You’ll sign it? And move in?”
He nodded.
She grinned. “This is going to be great! Trust me, Krys, everything’s going to work out great for us!”
“Okay, let’s do it. But one more condition.”
Shelby sighed. “What now? I can only risk so much for us, you know.”
“For us?” Krys repeated. He grinned. “Don’t worry. What I want is for you to read some books.”
“Some books? Oh, you mean banned books, don’t you?”
Krys shrugged. “Books I have on my systems. I don’t know if they’re banned. If they are, shouldn’t they be on a list somewhere? Otherwise how are we to know?”
“If they were listed that would be as good as making them avail—oh!”
Krys grinned. “I love your beauty and your brains.”
She laughed. “Once I get you under my roof, I’m never letting you go. Consider yourself under house arrest!”
Chapter 39
“Captain Strain?”
Lily sucked in the warm air in surprise. “Go ahead, Sunshine.”
“Your blood oxygen level has decreased due to shallow breathing levels and your pulse is dropping below sixty beats per minute. Are you feeling well?”
“I’m burning up in here,” Lily complained. She pressed her lips together and exhaled through her nose. “I’ll focus on taking deeper breaths. Are there no environmental controls for the cockpit?”
“There are no additional climate controls available. Ambient temperature is thirty-four point four five degrees centigrade. Cockpit temperature is thirty-nine point four four degrees. Your core body temperature is thirty-seven point eight nine degrees. You are outside of your optimal temperature range.”
“Thank you,” Lily mumbled. The biomechs were built with heaters but no one had given thought to providing any cooling in the cockpit. The musculature of the massive robots was cooled with the fluids that were pumped through them. They used a synthetic blood filled with nutrients, a protein-enriched glucose solution for maintaining optimal energy levels and keeping the tissue able to repair and maintain itself.
Her own blood felt like it was ready to boil. She called up the topographical overlay and studied it. They had a little over sixty-five kilometers to go until they reached the ag colony she’d been assigned to take her platoon to. They were on the equatorial line and heading west, towards one of the areas known for rebel activity. Lily pushed them hard, traveling as fast as Hawkins’s juggernaut could move in hopes of reaching the approaching sunset.
Lily almost laughed at herself but managed to contain the humor. She was afraid her heat-induced hysteria would trigger an algorithm in Sunshine’s system. Still, the irony of naming her biomech after something she loved, Sunshine, while she raced to find darkness so she could
cool down was priceless.
“Private channel requested from Lieutenant Hawkins,” Sunshine’s smooth and pleasant voice intruded on her dark humor.
Lily roused herself and took a few deep breaths of hot air in hopes of waking herself up. “Put him through.”
“Captain, sorry to bother you, but my bot’s acting up. We’ve been pushing it hard and I’ve got something catching in one of my legs.”
“Sunshine, display diagnostics on Lieutenant Hawkins’s biomech.”
The screen flashed in her field mind’s eye, showing the juggernaut as it walked. She rotated it and watched as it took a step and appeared to limp. She focused on the foot and ankle, making them larger, and saw how the armor plates were rubbing or catching on each other.
“I see it, Hawkins,” she confirmed. “We’ll take a break and see if we can’t get it fixed.”
“Acknowledged. Thanks, Captain.”
Lily felt she should be annoyed at the interruption to their timelines but the thought of getting out of her biomech and getting some fresh air excited her. “Sunshine, open platoon channel.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Omega Platoon, come to an immediate halt. Lieutenant Hawkins’s juggernaut requires technical assistance. All other support personnel are to perform quick systems checks on all armor units. Second Squad, set up a perimeter. First Squad will be on standby.”
She slowed Sunshine to a stop and watched her aerial overlay as the other four biomechs stopped with her. The light and medium tanks in Second Squad redeployed, setting up at five equidistant points around them just like they’d trained. The final four vehicles, two armored troop transports and two supply transports, pulled in beside the biomechs.
“Keep your biomechs ready,” Lily said into the still open comm channel. “Now’s the time to water the grass if you need to. I’m going to check on Hawkins’s ’bot.”
She heard responses from the leaders of sections or, in her squad’s case, the individuals. When she was sure there was nothing that required a response, she spoke. “Sunshine, commence standby protocol. Reactivate on my command only.”
“Acknowledged.”
She felt the biomech shift slightly and then heard the seals on the control cocoon hiss as it opened. Fresh air caressed her skin and made her desperate to rip her mask and helmet off. She waited a lifetime in the three seconds it took for the pod to open enough for her to reach up and disconnect the breathing mask from her face. She gulped in the fresh air and was swept away for a moment by the long forgotten scent and taste of Venerian air.
“Captain, I am detecting a spike in your heart rate. Are you well?”
Lily jerked herself out of the flurry of memories and grunted. “Yes, I’m fine.”
She reached up and manually disconnected the implant. The sudden loss of input left her stunned and empty. Lily gasped and lurched forward at the intense blindness the abrupt signal loss caused her.
She reached up after a few moments of fighting her blind panic and pulled her helmet off. She blinked her eyes open and had to squint against the sun. Everything looked different. She saw the world she’d grown up on, but it felt different than it had a few moments ago.
Lily hung the helmet up on the post and leaned forward. She kept going, barely catching herself as gravity tried to pull her out of the cockpit to the ground ten meters below. She shook her head and heard the droplets of sweat striking the metal of her robot. She had to lean back until the sudden dizziness passed.
“What’s going on?” she wondered aloud. She glanced down at herself and gasped. She was drenched. She spun around and looked at the padded cocoon she’d been lying in and saw the puddles of sweat resting in it. “I must be dehydrated,” she reasoned. She reached up and ran her fingers through her short hair and came away with a hand dripping with sweat.
She glanced out of the open cockpit at the members of her platoon that she could see. She watched as Ela began to climb slowly down from her dreadnaught’s cockpit. Lily wasn’t sure but the lieutenant looked to be moving a little unsteady herself. She was glad to see she wasn’t the only one affected by the warmth.
Lily climbed out and down slowly, taking care to make sure she had good hand and footholds on her biomech. She dropped the last meter to the ground and grimaced at the strength she almost didn’t have to keep from falling. She straightened and looked around, peering across the road and the waist-high golden grass of the Venerian plain. She found herself swaying as a gentle breeze blew against her. It was hot air but it pulled at the sweat on her skin and cooled her.
A group of four soldiers, three of them men and one a woman, rushed over to her. “We’re here to check your biomech, ma’am,” one of the men said.
Lily nodded and offered him a weak smile. “There’s water in the transport, Captain,” the woman in the group suggested.
Lily nodded and mumbled, “Thanks.” She turned and headed towards the transport, her legs slowly gaining strength as she walked. She met the other four biomech pilots there and found two of them already guzzling water.
“Nobody said it was going to be this hot!” Jessa said. “Is your myrmidon bad too?”
Lily shrugged, not wanting to show any weakness. “It got a little toasty.”
“Toasty?” Kray repeated. “We look like we all just wore our clothes into the shower!”
Lily smirked and turned to glance back at Sunshine. “It’s worth it,” she mumbled.
The others were quick to agree and then offer up suggestions on enhancements to improve airflow and cooling. Lily half-listened to them as she drank her second pod of water down and surveyed how her platoon had arranged itself. Her pod ran out of water and she frowned as she stared at it.
“All right, head on back,” she said. “If it’s too warm, you can leave the cockpits open until we move out. I’m going to check on Hawkins’s ’bot.”
They grumbled good-naturedly and split up again. Lily walked with Hawkins towards his biomech and saw the techs putting away their tools with practiced maneuvers. She fought to keep her smile hidden. She’d made them drill time and again, almost to the point of rebellion, but seeing them behaving in the field made it worth it.
“He’s all set,” one of the techs said as they passed them by.
Hawkins walked around the ankle of his biomech and reached out to touch the scratches on the armor plates. He nodded. “Looks better.”
“Mount up. We’ve got a couple more hours to go. Maybe more, if we run into trouble.”
“Hate to think we came all this way for nothing,” Alex said as he turned to his biomech and started to climb up its leg.
Lily watched him for a second and then turned back to where Sunshine waited for her. She strode across the road with a firm pace now that she’d rehydrated. She smiled to herself, anxious to plug back into the biomech’s systems and feel the rush of power again. She glanced around a final time and then began the ascent up the robot’s leg and side.
She paused before settling into the pod again. The puddles of sweat were waiting for her. Not that she’d noticed, but her clothing hadn’t dried in the least. She turned and looked around, making sure that only Ela had line of sight to her. She stripped off her shorts and squeezed them, dripping sweat onto the ground. She turned and used them to mop up the puddles and squeezed them out twice more before placing them in a small locker for personal effects. She reached up to her shirt, intending to take it off, when she realized it might make for an awkward moment when they reached their destination. She still had her underpants on, but with the support built into her shirt, she had no options.
Lily sighed and left her shirt on. She sat down in the couch and reached for her helmet when an idea came to her. She reached down and tugged the bottom of her shirt up, exposing her belly and lower back. She let it gather at the top of her stomach and leaned back. It was an improvement, but not much. She’d have to remember to change into either workout clothing or something similar. She pulled the helmet on and
reattached her mask. The hot air didn’t seem as hot after her brief rest.
“Sunshine, reactivate,” Lily commanded. “Engage neural interface.”
“Acknowledged,” her biomech said as the pod began to swing shut and the cockpit hatch moved to seal. The cable clicked into her implant and stole her breath as the connection to the biomech was reestablished.
“It’s good to be back,” Lily whispered.
“Good to have you back.” Sunshine offered a preprogrammed response. “I suggest you initiate proper disconnect procedure next time.”
Lily smirked. “Thank you, Sunshine. I forgot. Won’t happen again.”
“All systems returned to active status. Diagnostics are nominal.”
“Thank you, Sunshine. Open Omega comm channel.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Break’s over,” Lily said. “Assume formation. Scouts at the front. We roll in five.”
Lily flashed through the screens in her biomech again, making sure she hadn’t lost anything, and grinned. She spun her biomech slowly, reveling in the feeling of how massive and powerful she felt. She almost hoped there were rebels ahead. She couldn’t wait to prove just how dangerous she was.
Chapter 40
Krys’s phone chirped, alerting him to a call. He frowned. It was still early during the first work cycle of the day. He’d just finished fixing the almond processing machine and he’d hoped to swing by the ranch to see if Mr. Strain needed anything. Now that the army had arrived, things were a lot more complicated.
He pulled it out and saw that Shelby was calling him. He sighed and considered putting it back in his pocket. She confused him. She went on and on forever about drawing up a social contract so they could be together. Then, when he finally agreed to play by her rules, she didn’t turn it in to get it recognized.
Not answering the phone, he knew, would end up with him being in far worse trouble. He connected the call and greeted her. “Hey Sh—”
She used her command voice to cut him off. “Mr. Evans, please report to the command post immediately.”
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