by Skyler Grant
The drone bay was dissolving, shelves of ammunition and unused drones drifting away while the ones we had activated zipped off.
I saw the ship that served as the enemy drones’ base, a squat ugly thing. Enemy drones outnumbered our few recently launched friendlies. The AIs behaved as citizens of Olympus should. Those drones, my corporate family, dove through the hordes suddenly playing defense to collide with the craft beyond triggering their payloads at the last moment. They were committing suicide to try and take out the attackers.
"They planned this," I said.
"Yeah," Ismene said, and that cool professional tone she'd been holding onto until now was gone.
We'd both lost family today.
We were both going to die today.
"Is it going to be burning to death or freezing to death?" I asked.
"Burning. Gravity has us," Ismene said.
Burning, we were falling to Earth.
"Is Olympus going to be okay?" I asked.
"Gravity has them too," Ismene said.
I saw the last of the drones make their brave hopeless run on the killer of Olympus.
"I think I'm going to cry now," I said.
"I think I'm going to join you," Ismene said.
That was how I died. Sobbing and falling from the heavens. Sobbing as ice became fire and the world melted around me. Overcome with grief as my best friend wailed in my ear.
82
I wasn't as dead as I expected. The last time I'd closed my eyes it was in agony and I felt certain that moment would be my last, and yet here I was. All I'd seen was terrible brightness, and now all was dark.
"Ismene?" I said to silence. If somehow she was alive too she wasn't answering. I still felt my arms and legs. Perhaps I was dead, however much we took our cues from the past few Olympians who believed in the religions of the past. Aphrodite was a symbol, an ideal and not a Goddess. The Underworld was a fear and not a real place. Yet what else was I to think? You don't survive a fall from orbit.
If I was dead, at least I would be in good company. My mother, my father, my friends. I'd just witnessed almost everyone I'd ever known or loved die, or be on their way to dying.
I couldn't move. I tried straining my muscles and felt resistance, but I wasn’t entirely trapped. If this was the Underworld it had things that could yield. I shoved again and heard something groan atop me, and there was light.
I squinted, the colors seeming altogether strange for a moment. It was like I couldn't quite recognize them before they settled down into familiar hues and the scene revealed itself around me.
I was in some sort of large pipe, a massive hole in the ceiling above me allowing in daylight. There was water, foul smelling and thick. It was as if, with the return of color, my other senses returned as well. Sewage, I was lying beneath rubble and surrounded completely by sewage.
I looked myself over. I couldn't see much, almost my entire body was still covered in the black body armor that hosted Ismene.
My parents were dead and Olympus had fallen. The thought was overpowering for a moment and my world wobbled. I started crying. I remembered crying before, just like I remembered dying.
I didn’t cry as much as they deserved, but I cried enough for now. I could put it away. I had to figure out where I was and what had happened. Why I was still moving.
I cautiously rose to my fee and tried a few steps.
I was moving pretty well, and I shouldn't be. Olympus Station wasn't aligned with Earth's gravity, we ran about two thirds. We'd been tweaked and optimized to live perfectly in that environment, but a trip down to Earth should be painful. Of course, falling from the sky should be even more painful.
I didn't hurt, I felt amazing. I mean, I was a mental wreck and possibly dead, but physically I felt invigorated.
I had to accept what my eyes were telling me. I was in a sewer, and that sewer had to be somewhere on Earth. I studied the rubble that I'd just come from. It didn't make sense. There was a vibrant assortment of moss on it, and rat skeletons were liberally sprinkled around the ruins. The few hints of rebar were well rusted.
Of more concern was how to get out. Tunnels in either direction extended into pitch black. I wasn't eager to follow them. The hole above was also out of any sort of easy reach.
I studied the distance. With a running jump off the rubble I'd be able to clear the hole on Olympus. Here, just how functional my muscles were in the extra gravity was an unknown.
I took a few test runs and leaps. On my third attempt I was able to briefly touch the edge of the lip with my fingertips and I'd been holding back. I couldn't clear it, but if I put my all into it I should be able to grab hold.
My next run I did just that. My gloved hand grabbed for a piece of rebar as I scrambled to hold on and I pulled myself upwards and out into the light.
Earth, and not a particularly nice part of it. Grey buildings and grey streets that might have come from any industrialized part of the world. Not that Earth geography was a strong point of mine. I could have told you the general layout of each of the major stations in orbit, but those were places that mattered.
I heard a sobbing cry coming from a nearby alley between several abandoned buildings. I wasn't going to ignore the first signs of life I encountered, especially if someone was in need of help.
It didn't take me long. Three men were lounging against the walls, and none looked particularly healthy. They wore leather jackets with the symbol of a serpent on the sleeves. A fourth man was currently on top of a woman and fucking away.
The woman was blonde, one eye blackened and her lip split, with her short almost completely torn open. I was watching a rape happen. No, I was watching a gang rape happen.
Rape was a rarity on Olympus. It happened, but never to anyone I knew. It was something I'd never seen.
One of the men had caught sight of me and I saw his lips quirking in a smile. A young woman alone, he likely thought yet more fun had just dropped into his lap.
For me, it was almost as if time was running in slow motion. Calculations ran through my head. Three men relatively prepared to fight. The fourth had his dick out and buried—I couldn't let that threat go too long, but it wouldn't be immediate.
A knife sheath at the waist of one, two others with pistol bulges under their jacket. A shotgun leaned against the wall, it must belong to the rapist.
I dove for the shotgun. One of the pistoleers was already approaching me, he wasn't expecting that. None of them were.
I got the shotgun into my hands and angled upward before pulling the trigger. The blast caught him in the throat and chin, and he staggered backward. I followed up and used him as a shield to crash into the second one with a pistol. The gun was already out and there was the deafening roar of several shots firing blindly past me.
I was small, but I knew how to use what force I had. I slammed the gunner’s wrist against the wall with several rapid blows that left his fingers loosening and sent the pistol tumbling. I was waiting for that. No blind shooting here, I caught it, took a step back and fired a shot into his throat.
The gun was a piece of crap and the rounds a small caliber, but they didn't have to be great with a throat shot. I heard a step behind me and swiveled. Pain flared along my side.
The knife-wielder. I'd taken him by surprise with my turn, but even so he had the opportunity to get in close and his blade had found flesh. My support suit provided some deflection at least, still he'd dug a nasty furrow out of me.
I didn't try to use the gun again, not at this range. My free hand drove a blow upwards to shatter his nose. Blood poured and he was no trained soldier. He took a step backwards and I delivered two shots to his chest that sent him collapsing to the ground. Then I saw the fourth man behind him. Off the girl, pants around his ankles, and a pistol in his hand.
"Not good enough, you crazy bitch," he said, and three shots took me in the chest. They didn't penetrate. I must have some kinetic dampening from the front, but weak at the sides. The kni
fe blow at my side had penetrated, but the pistol shots at my chest hadn't. I was bruised, I maybe had a broken rib, but I was still up.
I raised my own pistol to return fire and it clicked empty. These guys really needed better guns. Another shot took me in the chest. There was another gun out there, but I didn't have time to go digging. The knife would do. I grabbed it from where it had fallen and rushed the shooter.
A few seconds later and I was quite certain that man would never rape a woman ever again. I'd also taken several more shots to my stomach. I'd never killed anyone before, not for real. Now I'd seen both sides of death and I felt like I was going to throw up—or that might have just been the major internal damage talking.
I found myself losing consciousness again.
83
When I came to the second time I wondered at first if I was forever doomed to reawaken in cesspits. At least, I seemed to have traded a sewer for a junkyard, piles and shelves full of ancient computer equipment surrounding me on all sides.
I was stretched out on some kind of workbench, numerous sensor leads placed against my armor and some kind of diagnostic data showing on screens that weren't even properly holographic. I groaned, my ribs were killing me, but I needed to get up.
"Hold on there, pretty lady. You don't need to go aggravating your injuries none. You're safe," said a red-haired middle-aged man who was short of stature and had a wiry built. “Really,” he said wheeling a chair over.
As if I would take his word for it. A second attempt to sit up made me dizzy with pain and the entire world started to blur. "Where am I?" I asked.
"Priscilla got herself back together after what those bastards had done to her. Made a stretcher and dragged you out. I'm Sparks, by the way," said the man. With that hair, I could see where he got the name.
"You a doctor?" I asked.
"Priscilla got the doc. You got the mechanic. Hooked you up and I’m topping off your tank, your suit has a mighty thirst," Sparks said
"You are SantaFe?" I asked. The accent wasn't hard to pick up.
"Fair used to be. Ain't none of us here who is what we were," Sparks said.
"I'm—" I said, starting to introduce myself, but Sparks cut me off with a wave.
"Don't know and don't want to know. Diva already named you. You're going by Princess," Sparks said.
Olympians didn't have royalty. I suppose if we did I might qualify, high nobility at least.
I suddenly remembered the people I'd murdered. And my parents. Olympus. I threw up, or at least I tried. I managed an impressive series of dry heaves. Sparks was quick at finding me a bucket, but I didn't need it.
"Princess dying?" asked a new voice. A woman ducked her head in. She was wearing an impressive amount of jewelry and makeup and her hair was dyed a brilliant shade of pink. It looked like she was somewhere in her early thirties and beneath all the getup rather pretty. It wasn't all fashion with her though, I also noted a submachine gun at her hip and she was wearing an ammunition belt across her chest.
"Nah. Don't think so. You're still with us, right Princess?" Sparks asked.
I got my stomach under control and took some deep breaths.
I was no stranger to putting myself aside and focusing on the mission. These people seemed friendly, I desperately hoped they were, but it still wasn't a time I could allow myself to be weak.
"I'm with you," I said.
"Then let me thank you properly. Priscilla is my cousin and those damned snakes would have killed her, if you hadn't interfered. I'm Diva," Diva said, extending me her hand. I tried to place her accent and couldn't. I knew that didn't mean anything. In orbit everyone was going to be a proper member of society and a home corporation. I knew it wasn't the case on Earth, here the barbaric and the unemployed still roamed free.
I shook her hand and found she had a strong grip.
"Why does she get a name and you don't?" I asked.
"We're Independents," Sparks said. It was better than being on the company of barbarians. Corporations hadn't completely abandoned Earth, it was still the source of raw materials that society thrived on. Mines and factories were on the surface, and here the gloves were off. Independents did whatever dirty work came along for a paycheck. It could place their families in the cross-hairs, so they tended to go by handles.
"We figured you must be the same, the way you handled yourself," Sparks said.
Diva said cheerfully, "Well, I figured with the perfect face and the battle armor, you're either a corporate whore or a whore for the corporates. Normally I'd have fun breaking your face for either, but isn't anything about this normal."
I didn't like her. Still, these people weren't trying to kill me or to rape me. With the day I'd been having it made them a welcome change.
"Something like that. How is your cousin doing?" I asked.
Diva's smile didn't flicker, which meant it was likely fake. "Rough, but she'll make it."
Diva turned her attention to Sparks and asked, "She going to need the Doc?"
Sparks lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Don't know. I charged up that suit of hers so whatever combat drugs it has should be coursing through her system. I'm fair sure that is Olympian blood in her too, so she don't go down easy."
I'd beg to differ. I'd gone down entirely too easily in that fight. A few broken ribs or not, I should have been able to stay conscious. I still felt strange though, both incredibly refreshed but also like I didn't quite fit inside my own skin. I felt a bit like I was wearing a suit made out of me. If that doesn't make any sense, you should try living it.
"I'm still not sure where I am," I said.
"You were just on the edge of Viper territory when you found Priscilla. Right now you're in the grey markets district," Sparks said.
Obviously those definitions meant something to the locals, they didn't mean anything to me. I was reluctant to share too much. I was a valuable commodity to Olympus, and probably the same to whomever had worked so very hard to put an end to Olympus Station.
Ismene was silent, I was hoping with the suit charged back up that I might hear something from her. Although I had somehow found a way to survive crashing to Earth, perhaps she hadn't. Maybe there was some kind of hardware failure.
"I'm not getting anything near the functionality that I should out of my suit. I'd taken a lot of damage even before bumping into that gang," I said.
"I'm no expert on that fancy getup, but I had a look. I'm thinking it's multimodal, but right now it's all just stuck on keeping you patched up and in fighting shape," Sparks said.
I sat up on the table. It made me dizzy, but the pain I expected wasn't there. I got to my feet and took a careful stretch. "That explains the ribs. I believe I had a few broken in the fight."
"Well now Princess, if you're in fighting shape and not keen on being raped to death, we could use your help up top," Diva said.
I still didn't like her. "What's going on?"
"Vipers hold a grudge," Sparks said.
"Priscilla wound up leading them back here when she dragged you in. They're looking to settle the score," Diva said.
I might not trust these people enough yet to call them any sort of friends—for all that they were friendly. I was a lot more certain on my enemies. These Vipers might be inconsequential foes compared to the ones who plucked Olympus from the sky, but they were close and that would do.
"I hold a grudge too and I'm scarier," I said. "What’s the situation?"
"I'll show you. Come along Sparks, we need all hands for this one," Diva said.
The next room was a combination kitchen and makeshift infirmary with neither looking particularly clean or healthy, Priscilla was sleeping on one of the tables. A blonde haired and willowy woman in her early twenties was standing nearby looking over her.
"Leave her, Masque," Diva said.
Masque tilted her head and gave me a rather glowing smile. "The hero of the hour. Thank you so much for interfering, not everyone would have."
The next
room held an armory. I'd hesitate to call it well-stocked, most of the firearms were absolutely ancient and belonged in a museum. That said, they also looked well-maintained and there was an ample selection of both weapons and ammunition.
"Stock up, but you're not keeping them after the fight," Diva said.
"What are we dealing with out there?" I asked.
"Vipers have been recruiting like mad, growing their turf. Lots of them, but most barely know what to do with a gun," Sparks said.
That was okay. I knew exactly what to do with a gun. I grabbed a fragment pistol of SantaFe manufacture and a few clips. The penetration power against armor was terrible and it didn't use traditional bullets at all but pellets fed through a kinetic amplifier. I didn't figure armor would be an issue and this way I wouldn't have ammunition concerns. The kickback was almost nonexistent, which was important with my small frame.
Sparks went for a rifle with a grenade attachment while Masque took a submachine gun.
We were ready for violence. I wondered what I was getting myself into.
84
We made our way up a set of concrete steps. The facilities below were beneath a warehouse, the interior filled with half-disassembled vehicles rusting away. There were two men crouched down I hadn't met yet, one was a massive fellow who looked to have had over half his body replaced by cybernetics. With his enhanced strength, with negligent ease he carried a chain-gun. The other man was older with his temples showing grey. He wore a tactical visor and carried an assault rifle.
It was night outside, the streets almost completely dark except for the occasional muzzle flash as potshots were taken. The Vipers either weren't being particularly disciplined or else were just trying to keep us pinned down.
"I've got everyone," Diva said, as she moved to take cover beside the man in the visor.
"That's Lance, our leader. The polished with the really big iron is Hammer," Sparks said.
