by Brett Patton
Matt raised a hand and flexed it. The Demon’s sharp, precise fingers flashed in the light of the young sun. He was ready. And in that moment, he knew: I can do anything!
Matt grabbed the edge of Mecha Base’s armor and hurled himself out into the maelstrom.
In the hail of dust and rock, Matt’s Demon automatically adapted. His arms fell to his sides, merging with his body to form a continuous, streamlined shape. His legs flowed together. Matt’s Demon was now a giant red shark looking for prey.
Inside, the ping and tick of hundreds of rock fragments filtered through the suspension gel. Matt laughed at the tickle of smaller grains and winced as larger shards stung. Tags floated in his vision, identifying dangerously large pieces of rock and the different kinds of spiraling gasses. A conic of the maelstrom showed increasing density down by the protoplanet’s core, where space rocks had ground smooth like river pebbles in a constant ebb and flow of tide with gravity.
Let’s see what’s up above, Matt thought, exhilarated in the wonder of exploration. He’d never felt so free!
Brilliant white matter-antimatter jets flared on his backside, rocketing his Mecha up through the dust and gas. Red-brown clouds gave way to the blackness of space.
Icons flashed in his POV:
DEMON 00002: “BERITH”: MICHELLE KIND— FULL OPERATION
DEMON 00003: “ASTAROTH”: ASH MOORE— FULL OPERATION
More data overlays tagged the stars. The sun closest to him was labeled 09-428A.56.182.10. The orange cloud of condensing matter below him was labeled 09.428A-02- (FORMATIONAL). Other stars were tagged with their names. The only one he recognized was Rigel: 10,870 LY MEAN DISTANCE.
Rigel was almost nine hundred light-years from Earth. Which meant they were nearly twelve thousand light-years away from humanity’s first home. Matt shivered. The brilliant pinpoints of light seemed so distant, so incredibly unattainable. Space itself was quiet, like 3:00 a.m. on a frontier world, where nothing and nobody was moving. Anything could happen.
A comms icon flickered: K. PETEROV ➙ ALL.
“Help.” Kyle’s voice was soft, almost a whisper.
Kyle? In trouble? A sudden thought overwhelmed Matt, amazing in its intensity: He deserves it! Let him struggle!
But it wasn’t Matt’s thought.
Get off me! Matt yelled in his mind. Again, something recoiled from him, receding far away into the darkness.
Michelle’s comms icon lit. “Kyle, are you all right?”
“It’s too close,” Kyle’s voice quavered in fear.
“What’s too close?” Michelle asked.
“I don’t know!” A scream.
Matt powered back down into the maelstrom. In his POV, tags identified Mecha Base and the rest of the Demons. All three still huddled under the protective armor. Kyle’s Demon was doubled over, twitching. Its tag read:
DEMON 00001: “RAMIEL”: KYLE PETEROV—OPERATION ENABLED
Matt jetted to a stop in front of Kyle, briefly lighting his Demon with dazzling antimatter exhaust. Kyle reached out as if for help. Whimpers came through the comms.
Dr. Roth’s words came back to him: It’s more challenging than Meshing with a Hellion. Don’t expect your previous experience to be a guide.
Matt gritted his teeth. He knew what Kyle was cowering from. It was the same thing he was barely controlling.
“Push it away,” Matt told him.
“No! I can’t! It’s . . . like something alive—”
Finally, Dr. Roth broke the silence. “Figments of your own mind. Subconscious feedback is a by-product of the Demon’s enhanced neural Mesh. Cadet Peterov, you have thirty seconds to complete Mesh.”
Matt grinned. Suddenly, he knew exactly what to do.
“You aren’t going to let me win this one, are you, Kyle?” Matt gloated.
“What?” Kyle’s voice, suddenly sharp.
“I’ve already flown the Demon. Hell, I’ve been out of the dust cloud. I’ve seen the sun. It’s easy. Easy as pie.”
Kyle growled.
“I mean, come on. Next you’ll let me steal your girl.”
With a roar, Kyle’s Mecha rocketed at him. Matt’s screen showed new status:
DEMON 00001: “RAMIEL”: KYLE PETEROV—FULL OPERATION
Kyle barreled into Matt, raking the Mecha’s sharklike form with his long claws. Matt rocked from the impact, but Kyle’s sharp-bladed fingers only scrabbled for purchase on Matt’s seamless hide.
“Okay, Kyle, that’s enough. You’re fully operational.”
Kyle kept clawing at him, growling unintelligibly. He brought his hands together in a familiar gesture, and brilliant yellow warnings lit on Matt’s screen:
FUSION HANDSHAKE ENABLED
Oh, shit.
Matt slithered out from Kyle’s grasp just as the shockwave hit. Expanding ripples of fusion power roiled the dust and gas. Matt and Kyle went spinning away in opposite directions.
“Cadet Peterov, cease weapons use immediately!” Stoll yelled, angry as all hell.
Kyle’s Demon lit attitude jets and stopped its spin. For a long time, it didn’t move. Finally, its visor snapped up to fix on the other Mecha.
“Sorry. I—I lost control,” Kyle said, through a ragged breath. “I’ve got it now.”
“It’s all right,” Matt told him, as he stopped his own spin. “I know what you were fighting.”
“Thank you,” Kyle said, softly. His comms icon read K. PETEROV ➙ M. LOWELL.
Matt turned his own comms to the private channel. “You’d do the same for me.”
“Of course,” Kyle said, his voice strengthening. “We’re Demonriders.”
They started with basic piloting exercises, diving deep within the gas clouds, down to the core of the protoplanet. Building-sized chunks of rock churned within a hailstorm of smaller boulders, hidden in a fog of pebbles, dust, and gas. Huge shapes rolled out of the mud like juggernauts, passing within meters of the darting Mecha.
Each Demon had become a streamlined, sharklike shape. Each slightly different, as if reflecting the rider inside. Matt’s was the sleekest and most pure. Kyle’s was covered by swept-back spines, like a porcupine. Ash’s was long and narrow, a pure thunderbolt of energy. Michelle’s was shapely and smooth, but her arms were still separate from her body. She used them to push off a caroming ball of rock, changing direction in an eye blink.
“Michelle, did you do that deliberately?” Matt asked.
“Do what deliberately?”
“Keep your arms out to push off rocks.”
“I didn’t really think about it.”
Matt decided to try it himself. He shot at an asteroid-sized chunk and imagined vaulting off of it like a pole-vaulter. His arms separated from his body, and one of his fingers transformed into a long, thin pole. The pole touched the asteroid and bent. Matt felt it shivering as tension mounted. He slowed, stopped, and then rocketed forward from the force stored in the pole. As he shot off the rock, the pole and his arms melted back into his sides.
Matt laughed like a maniac. It was incredible! He raced through the mud, caroming off house-sized boulders.
A skyscraper-sized rock loomed in front of him. Matt yelled and hit the thrusters, but it was too late. He crashed right into the asteroid.
The Demon’s pilot chamber reverberated, and Matt gasped for breath. His viewpoint spun. Arms appeared and flailed. White-hot jets blasted to regain his balance.
Two asteroid-sized rocks came right at Matt, threatening to crush his Demon between their bulk. Matt fired every thruster full on, trying to get away. But the asteroids clapped together behind him, spraying his Demon with shards from the impact.
Matt flipped over and put his hands out in front of him, triggering a Fusion Handshake. The shock wave vaporized the sharp rock fragments and pushed him back like a rocket.
“Hell, yeah!” he yelled. This was the best feeling in the world.
“Enough play,” Dr. Roth’s voice cut in, his comms icon lighting in Matt�
�s POV. “Sergeant Stoll, have the cadets begin their exercises.”
They were asked to play a coordinated game of hide-and-seek, deep down in the core. Hiding in the dark, caroming off giant asteroids, weapons lighting the darkness. For a short time, it was like being a kid on Prospect again, playing Union and Corsairs. Set against the most mind-blowing backdrop in the universe.
Suddenly, Matt’s backside exploded in heat and fire. He screamed loud enough to rattle his face mask. Bright light blinded his rear sensors. He whirred around and caught a glimpse of a tiny metallic sphere whizzing by him.
“Weapons drones,” Sergeant Stoll said over the comms. “Consider them adversaries.”
Matt grinned. So it was Union versus Corsairs! Again, the feeling that he was born to do this came over him.
Bright laser light flashed behind Matt and Ash yelled in pain. Matt turned and triggered Fireflies. A short burst annihilated the silver drone.
“Thanks, kid,” Ash said.
“No problem.”
It was amazing, like being let loose in a zero-g arcade with unlimited credit. Hell, with artillery! The drones would hide behind rocks and attack in small groups. As soon as Matt and the others learned to anticipate them, it was easy to dispatch the drones. He rushed ahead of the others, a hell storm of annihilation.
“Leave some for us!” Kyle cried.
Matt laughed. He’d do it all! No need for the others! He plowed through clouds of drones, and Kyle, Michelle, and Ash followed.
Matt pulled back from a cloud of drones rounding an asteroid and let the others take them on. Michelle and Kyle tumbled through the drones, clumsily shooting in little bursts. Ash barreled right in, cutting a swath straight through.
I’m still better than them, Matt thought. Another alien thought. He pushed it to the back of his mind.
“They hit me side-on, but there wasn’t any Control Nexus fault,” Kyle enthused when the sky was clear.
“Demons don’t share that Hellion weakness,” Dr. Roth told them.
How comforting, Matt thought.
“Enough of the drones!” Kyle yelled. “Send Hellions. Let’s have some real action.”
“No,” Dr. Roth said. “From what I see of your progress already, you’d kill the Hellion pilots instantly.”
The Decompression Lounge was a small space carved out of the solid rock of Mecha Base. Along one side, a floor-to-ceiling wall of glass looked out over the Hellion docks, where dozens of Mecha stood at ready. A polished aluminum bar ran along the opposite wall, with a pressure door behind it that opened on a small kitchen. Matching minimalistic aluminum tables and chairs were anchored to both the ceiling and the floor to maximize the available space, like they did on an independent Displacement Drive ship. Still, the modest crowd stuck mainly to the “down” side of the bar, seemingly reluctant to give up their illusion of gravity.
Matt grabbed a handrail just inside the Decompression Lounge, surveying the crowd. It was mostly men and women in Mecha Auxiliary uniforms, with one trio of Mecha Corps captains talking about the “giant new red Mecha.” They only glanced at Matt as he entered. The news about the Demon pilots must not have made it out yet.
On one of the inverted tables, a single man in a dark gray suit sat with an empty coffee bulb, staring out over the Hellion docks. Yve Perraux.
Matt launched off, flipped over, and stopped himself at the seat opposite Yve.
Yve looked up at him, his brown eyes tired, almost resigned. “I figured I’d see you sooner rather than later.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I know. Training seems to be going well, from what I hear. Dr. Roth almost smiled.”
Matt laughed, but quickly sobered. Roth might be an odd duck or an insane toymaker, but he was also one of the most powerful people in the Union.
“I didn’t think . . . I didn’t think you survived back on Prospect,” Matt said, to fill the silence. “I didn’t think anyone made it.”
Yve sighed. “I never expected to see you again either.”
Silence for a time. Matt’s mind raced. I saw your transport blow up, he wanted to say.
And even if Yve had made it to orbit, it wasn’t like there would be a Union Displacement Drive ship waiting for him. He’d have to wait for pickup. He certainly didn’t go out on the Rock. Did he throw in with the Corsairs?
“What happened to you?” Yve said finally.
“A refugee ship picked me up. The Rock.”
Yve nodded, his face crumpling into a deep frown. “I’m sorry.”
“What about you?”
Yve’s expression cycled from sadness to ironic humor. “Like many things your father worked on, I can’t talk about it. It’s cliché to say, I know.”
“My father was working on HuMax technology.”
A surprised nod. “I didn’t think you knew.”
“How long has the Union been working on HuMax technology?”
Yve drew in a big breath. “For a long time now. But only very carefully, and in very limited terms. That’s all I know. I wasn’t much more than a grunt when I worked with Dr. Stanford, and I’m on the Mecha side now.”
“Why?”
Yve fell silent. For a long time, it didn’t seem like he’d speak. Then, “The HuMax were monsters, but what they created . . . they were far beyond us. The Union chips at the edges of their accomplishments. So do the Corsairs and the Aliancia and Taikong.”
“So is Mecha tech HuMax?”
“Ha!” Yve barked a quick laugh. “No. Don’t even say that. Dr. Roth is the genius behind BioMecha, and he makes sure everyone knows it.”
Matt slumped back in his seat.
“And, you know, this doesn’t have to be an interrogation session,” Yve added. “It’s good to see you. Put your feet up. Have a drink.”
“I’m sorry,” Matt said. “It’s good to see you too. I’ve just been running so fast, I don’t have time for anything.”
Yve nodded. “There’s a ton of pressure on all of us. There are still plenty of colonels who’d send all the Hellions we have to every known Corsair location and try to end it that way.”
“Then why don’t we do that?” Matt asked.
For a moment, a flicker of unease chased across Yve’s face. “Coordination of a massive Hellion effort is difficult. Perhaps impossible. They’re spread out all across the known universe. Plus, our faster-than-light communications are extremely limited.”
“So they’ll bet it all on the Demon?”
“Yes. Theoretically, a Merged fourth-order Demon configuration is unassailable. It’s the strategically correct solution.”
“But you can’t send the Demon everywhere at once,” Matt said.
Yve’s eyes darted away and locked on Matt. His gaze was suddenly cold, calculating. “No. We can’t. But we can use it for a decisive demonstration or three. And we can be ready when—if—the Corsairs who hit Geos strike again.”
So we’re a symbol of what the Union can accomplish; the ultimate weapon, Matt thought. And bait.
“Geos was Rayder, wasn’t it?” Matt asked.
Yve clenched his fists, then nodded. “You’ll never hear that through the media, but yes. It was.”
“So you need to hit Rayder.”
“Yeah,” Yve sighed. “But that’s the problem. The location problem. We don’t know where he is. They don’t call him the General in Shadows for nothing.”
“I heard Rayder also took over a colony world.”
Yve jumped and looked hard at Matt. “Where’d you hear that?”
“From Dr. Roth.”
“Ah.” Yve waved a hand. “The frontier is more fluid than the average person knows.”
“But Rayder, he actually took over a Union colony?” Matt pressed.
A nod. “Yes.”
Matt sat silent for a time, letting that sink in. Yve continued. “Rayder is the most pressing issue. The Unicrats don’t want chatter about the Union’s vulnerabilities getting out. Ending Rayder would be a gre
at propaganda win for them.”
Familiar faces floated up to join them at the table: Sergeant Stoll and Ash.
“What’s wrong with you guys, hanging upside down?” Ash asked.
Matt, Yve, and Stoll shared an amused glance, the look of people who’d spent a long time in space. “Everything’s relative,” Sergeant Stoll said.
“I don’t know if I can eat like this,” Ash said, looking down at the Hellions in the dock.
But when the food came, Ash didn’t have any problem tucking it in. Soon she was completely oblivious, happily showing off little holograms of her kids to Yve, who smiled a politician’s smile and nodded in all the right places.
How political is he? Matt wondered. What, exactly, does he know?
And what, exactly, will the Merged Demon become?
12
MERGE
Any thoughts of what the Demon might become was lost in the tedium of Merge training. First, Soto and Stoll had them all don interface suits and head down to a room full of screens for more tuning. Matt’s suit glowed a brilliant grass green as strange electric sensations passed through his body. The others showed splotches of yellow and red, which stubbornly refused to go away as Sergeant Stoll worked on each of them with a handheld controller.
Finally, she pronounced them as good as they would get. Ash’s suit still showed a large yellow area over her chest, and Michelle and Kyle had yellow veins running through their arms and legs. Soto and Stoll had a brief conversation about “reducing Lowell’s interface efficiency,” then apparently decided against it.
Matt was happy with that. He didn’t want to lose touch with the Mecha. He couldn’t let the others hold him back.
When they were finally done with suit tuning, they had a whole day of Mesh optimization inside the Demons themselves. Matt drifted, bored, as the others tried to get their efficiencies up above seventy percent, while his hovered in the low nineties. He hoped they’d be done with it soon, because the news media was getting shrill about the Corsairs. His Perfect Record played back images from his wall screen that past night:
