by Brett Patton
Interviews of grim-faced survivors on Geos, who looked determinedly at the cameras and vowed to rebuild. A long line of young men and women standing in front of a Union Army recruitment center, many of whom had given up their university careers or stepped out of research labs in order to enlist. Their eyes burned bright with fiery anger.
On the screen spun diagrams of Union forces and Corsair territory, while Congressperson Tomita talked about the “irresistible strategy” the Union would use to wipe them out. Images of the Demon flashed on the screen like icons.
But there was no mention of Rayder. No talk about the colony worlds, hanging so close to the red haze of Corsair territory. No far-off blip showing the location of Mecha Base. The news was less than a thumbnail sketch of what was really going on, more theater than reality.
But that’s what it has to be, Matt thought. The Union must have the force to take on the Corsairs.
As I must have the strength to take on my father’s murderer.
Finally, they moved to Merge training just outside Mecha Base. From Dr. Roth’s private Demon dock, the four giant Mecha debarked into the shadow of the giant armor shield, staying out of sight below the main Displacement Drive ship dock.
Even then, space-suited dust motes jetted over the horizon to stare at the Mecha as they worked. In sensory-enhancement mode, Matt saw their tags: some were simple Union Army staff, some Mecha Auxiliary, and some Mecha Corps. Even Colonel Cruz appeared to gaze at them once, briefly. The public comms reverberated with speculation about who the Demon pilots could be. Some of them even guessed that it might be the new cadets, but it was quickly dismissed.
Matt frowned. The hallways of Mecha Base would be less secure from now on.
Matt waited impatiently, edgy on Mesh, as Sergeant Stoll ran through the last systems checks. The maelstrom beneath him beckoned; he wanted to dive deep down into it and carom off the bouncing asteroids, like they’d done the other day. He wanted Michelle to follow him. He wanted to embrace her—
Finally, Stoll’s voice barked out of the comms. “We’re beginning first partial Merge drill. Please follow instructions from Dr. Roth carefully.”
Dr. Roth’s comms icon flared. “Candidates, note the ‘partial’ and ‘drill’ aspects of this exercise. After further assessment, we have decided to approach Merge in stages to avoid potential imbalance between the components. Due to this, you will descend only to Stage Blue as indicated on your overlay. The intent is to familiarize you with the Merge experience.”
Come on, let’s get started, Matt thought. His Demon’s hands twitched impatiently.
“Begin by forming a circle with your Mecha and taking your partner in hand,” Dr. Roth said.
Matt reached out to take Michelle’s hand. Michelle’s talons meshed with his. Something like a mild electric buzz passed through him. Ash reached toward him. He took her hand. Kyle completed the circle. The buzz grew in volume and resolved into something like voices.
No. Not quite voices. Thoughts. Muttering and brittle, like wind-blown leaves.
Kyle was tired. Even fresh in the cockpit, his breath came fast and ragged. He was scared because the Demon was such work for him.
Michelle’s thoughts were of Matt, how he helped Kyle last time. Distance echoed inside her, distance from Earth, distance from her estranged family.
Ash’s thoughts bounced like marbles in a can, sharp and loud. Images of her husband and her sons flashed by like pictures in an album, overlaid with a sense of panic.
Come on, Matt thought. This is easy. This is what happens in Merge.
Everything’s so easy for you. Michelle’s thoughts came, fast and warm. You’re the natural. Superman.
Matt looked down and saw that his Demon’s hand and Michelle’s flowed together like two droplets of mercury Sparks of optical fibers shimmered and sparkled on the edge of the Merge.
Sudden surprise from Michelle collided with anger from Kyle. But Kyle’s anger was muted, diffuse. He was irritated about the Superman comment, but he was more mad at himself for failing to be the best, failing to live up to his family’s expectation.
Matt blushed. If he could tell what Kyle was feeling, everyone could probably see right through him. If they wanted, they’d know everything. His father. His Perfect Record. His real reason for joining the Mecha Corps.
I accept you, Michelle thought.
Yes, you’re all right, Ash thought.
Kyle’s thought didn’t resolve completely, but Matt heard something like: I can’t hate you so much now.
Matt’s arm Merged up to the forearm.
“Good. Merge stable. Stage Blue achieved,” Sergeant Stoll’s voice came through the comms, distant and jarring.
Their minds opened like windows. Suddenly, everything was laid bare. There was something they were heading for. Some distant unity where everything would be all right.
The unity flickered. Waves of fatigue passed over Matt. They’d never reach it. It was too far away. Every step felt like he weighed a thousand pounds.
What’s wrong? Michelle thought. Her fear reverberated through Matt’s mind.
I don’t know, Matt thought, straining forward.
It has to be all of us, Michelle thought. Kyle’s tired.
Then get him moving! Matt thought over a sudden spike of anger. He pulled forward as hard as he could. Pain flared sharply in his arm. In his POV, the cool blue stage indicator flashed orange-red.
“Unbalanced Merge,” Stoll said. “Abort exercise.”
“No!” Matt said. “I can do this!” He thrust forward again as hard as he could. Agony cascaded through his arm and into his chest. Michelle and Ash yelled with the pain.
Stop it! You can’t do it by yourself! Michelle called in his mind.
Help me, Matt told her.
I am! You’re too strong!
“Abort exercise now, cadets! Acknowledge orders!” Stoll’s voice was harsh.
Acid thoughts swirled in Matt’s mind. He could do it! If they didn’t hold him back! Just a little more! He almost didn’t see the stage indicator, now mottled black and red.
Please stop, Michelle said through waves of pain.
Yeah, please, Ash added.
I can’t. Please, no more, Kyle thought.
Through one final, brilliant flash of rage, Matt groaned. So close! So little to go!
But they’re right, a little voice told him. Stop. Stop now.
Matt sighed. That was right. He should know that. You didn’t leave your teammates behind.
His arm peeled away from Michelle’s Mecha, becoming separate once again.
“Exercise terminated. Return to dock,” Stoll’s voice barked.
Three more days; twenty more attempts at partial Merge. Every time, they got a little better at maintaining their balance.
Stoll added their Mesh effectiveness readouts to their screens, so they could see how they were doing in real time. Matt’s bounced from the high 80s to mid-90s. Everyone else’s was spiky. Michelle was most consistent, usually in the low 80s. Kyle would jump from the 70s to the low 90s. Ash’s numbers went from high 60s to mid-80s.
Every evening after their exercises, Soto would get into one of the Demons and try his own hand at it. Matt watched one of the sessions, where Soto’s Mesh effectiveness hovered at 38 percent. Sergeant Stoll stood in the hangar, frowning down at the numbers on her slate.
“Is that bad?” Matt asked.
“Twelve points below activation threshold,” Sergeant Stoll said, not looking up.
Peal and Jahl entered the hangar.
“Is the major trying to kill himself again?” Peal asked.
“He’s getting better,” Stoll told him. “Stable Mesh, but below activation threshold.”
Jahl leaned over the slate to peer at Major Soto’s cockpit image. “Come on, Major! You know how many Mecha pilots had great careers with effectiveness in the low fifties?”
“Trying,” Soto said. “It’s just . . . intense.”
I
s Soto scared? Matt wondered. What can I do to help? He thought of Yve, so easy to talk to. What would he ask?
“Where are you from, Major?” Matt asked.
A long breath. “Nuevo Leon.”
“You’re Aliancia?”
“Not really,” the Major said, his voice firming. “My parents joined the Union when I was four. I grew up on battleships. Prometheus, mainly.”
“Because of the Corsairs?”
“No.” After a pause, Soto continued: “There are a lot of people in the Aliancia that don’t fit well with their charter of ‘nonviolence, by individuals or groups.’ ”
“ ‘It is one of the central mysteries of the human universe how a libertarian nation was formed from predominately Latinate roots,’ ” Matt said, quoting his Union History class on Aurora.
“Thanks, professor,” Soto said sardonically.
“Yeah, that’s from Aurora U.”
“The Aliancia is a reaction to the Union,” Soto said gruffly.
“At least the Aliancia is peaceful.”
“They have to be. For all their words, they know the Union could crush them at any time. They’d be much better off if they’d just join the Union.”
“The Corsairs don’t seem to care.”
Major Soto made a noise like a snort. “The Corsairs are vicious dogs that need to be put down. And that’s no professor talking. That’s me, based on seventeen Mecha battles.”
“What’s it like, fighting the Corsairs?” Matt asked.
“Like I said. Pack animals,” Soto growled. “They don’t care if they live or die. If they’re losing, they’ll crash their ship into your Displacement Drive battleship. If they’re overwhelmed, they’ll leave suicide troops behind.”
“Why do it?”
“They’re sharded. Some are drugged into being berserk-ers ; some are promised eternal life from plundered Union labs; some just kill and maim for the fun on it. The one thing I know is this: carry an Aliancia banner, and that’s fine. Carry a Taikong banner, and that’s okay. Run up the Corsair banner, and you deserve only one thing: to die.” Major Soto’s voice became ragged and rough toward the end of his speech, dripping with emotion.
But his Mesh effectiveness stood at 55 percent. Soto’s Demon raised one hand jerkily and flexed it, as if wondering at the simple action.
“Holy hell,” Jahl said. “It worked.”
“What worked?” Peal asked.
“Talking him through it.”
Soto’s Demon’s arm quivered and fell back to the dock with a crash. On-screen, his Mesh effectiveness had fallen to 45 percent.
“Damn!” Soto said. “I had it. I had it right there!”
Stoll stared at Matt, then stopped to study her screen. “Yes, and you’ll have another chance at it. For now, abort.”
“I can do it again!” Soto cried. “Just a little more. Please!”
“Out, Major,” Sergeant Stoll said, voice firm.
Soto exhaled theatrically, but the screen went blank and the Demon’s chest opened like a pupil. Major Soto emerged, trailing globules of goo. As he joined the group, he clapped Matt on the shoulder.
“Thank you, cadet,” he rasped.
Matt straightened. “You’re welcome, sir.”
“Now, if you can just do the same with your teammates.”
“What, sir?”
“Work with them,” Stoll added, her intense violet eyes fixed on Matt. “Help them through the Merge.”
“I am helping them!” Matt cried.
“Carrying them on your shoulders isn’t helping,” Soto told him.
Matt’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I—I don’t know what else to do.”
“Do what you just did here,” Major Soto said. “Be a friend.”
Matt hung in perfect Demon darkness, feeling the warm magnetorheological fluid wash up his body. His heart thudded hard enough to echo in his eardrums. Random thoughts flashed through his mind like rockets: Why am I doing this again? Genesis—what is Genesis but a beginning? Do Demons start at zero, or is mine special? You should stop and get out now.
But of course he wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t.
I need the Demon, he thought. I’m hooked.
“We’ll continue as before,” Sergeant Stoll’s comms icon flared. “Partial Merge. If stable, we’ll move on to full Merge.”
Matt took Michelle’s hand as Ash and Kyle completed the circle. This time, there was time only for a single burst of incoherent thought, like static on an old-fashioned communicator.
The three Demons melted and reformed up to the shoulders. For a moment, Matt lost all sense of self. Then that incredible feeling again, beyond any high. He felt himself rise, as if on a giant wave. A wave he could command.
He shoved forward toward the brilliant light of full Merge.
Wait, Kyle thought. You’re leaving me behind. I can’t go as fast as you.
Instinctive rage arced through Matt, but he pushed it down. Instead, he thought, I’ll bet you never said that on a football field back in Eridani.
Kyle’s thoughts juddered into sharp new forms. Actually, I did, he thought. I was never that fast.
You don’t have to be the fastest, Matt told him.
But it’s so easy for you. I’ll never have it that easy. I never had it that easy, Michelle thought.
Easy is nothing, Matt thought, sending her images of the hydroponic farms on the Rock. Determination is what you need. You have that, don’t you?
Michelle rocketed forward as Ash joined them. That’s a thought I can get behind, she told them, thinking of long days in the dusty mines of Keller.
“Mesh stable below Stage Blue; entering Stage Green. Partial Merge balanced. Begin full Merge, cadets.”
The Demon flowed together and re-formed into a streamlined new shape. This was like a slim arrowhead, fashioned to plunge into the heart of evil. Bright red and almost two hundred meters long, it bristled with fusion pods and exhaled white-hot antimatter energy. Simple, streamlined arms held close to its side, it combined the characteristics of both battleship and Mecha.
Matt gasped. For the first time, he saw what the Merged Demon could be. Not just a battleship, but a battleship with the power of a hundred and agility greater than the fastest fighter. Or it could be an armored ball, nearly impregnable. Or, on a world, it could stride through cities like a flaming giant, laying waste to everything in its path, or plucking a single person out of a crowd with immense precision.
“Excellent!” Sergeant Stoll exclaimed, surprised and breathless. “Merge complete in Stage Green. Exercises will be as follows—”
“No exercises!” Kyle’s voice was high, ecstatic. “Fun!”
“Cadet Peterov, obey your superior officer,” Major Soto broke in.
“No! She’s nothing! I’m everything!” Kyle yelled.
Oh, shit, Matt thought. A suffocating blanket of elation and desire washed over him. Kyle’s thoughts. Matt gasped for breath. Michelle cried out. Matt felt her terror.
“I did it!” Kyle cried. “I’m not weak. I’m not tired—”
“Abort Merge!” Sergeant Stoll ordered. But her voice was tiny, distant, lost in Kyle’s exultation, Michelle’s fear, and Ash’s pain.
Pain? Pain from Ash? Matt reached out to her in his mind. Waves of agony and fear lanced through him. Something clawed at Ash. Something hungry.
The Merged Demon shuddered. Blinding flashes of Ash’s life came to beat at them:
A tiny baby wearing a face mask held close against a warm chest, as hot desert sun spilled yellow over jagged, barren cliffs. A child running to the cover of shade, his skin shading from pink to red in the yellow sun. A man, smiling kindly, his callused hands like sandpaper. A city like an oil refinery, shimmering in stainless steel and complex piping, ugly and utilitarian. A ring and a wedding and long days of decision and offers and Displacing and always trying for Mecha Corps, even though she knew she would never make it, even though the very thought was insane. And then the invi
tation. Please report to Earth. The feeling of indescribable joy, of discovering her life again. Her husband, trying to smile, trying to be happy for her. Crying children. The moment at the space port where she’d put her bag down and turned back to them, knowing she couldn’t do it, knowing she couldn’t get on the shuttle. Seeing them waving her onward. Tears, yes, but tears of joy. Her quivering hand as she picked up the heavy bag, almost dropping it. Her entire life laid bare. Every image overlaid with feelings of sickness and dread, until Matt felt physically ill. He forced down his rising gorge. Throwing up into his respirator in a canister filled with gel would be a terrible way to die.
“Abort now!” Stoll yelled, voice cracking. “You’re entering Reverse Mesh!”
A chill hand twisted Matt’s guts. Reverse Mesh. He saw Serghey, slumped over in his harness.
Blinding, searing pain wiped Matt’s coherent thought. Ash’s memories winked out, one by one. Her scream reverberated, almost ultrasonic. Memories vaporized, as if in front of a wall of atomic flame. Memories twisted and distorted, turned in on themselves. The acid pain of leaving. A sharp pang of mourning.
The Merged Demon’s arrowhead shape twisted and bulged, losing its former mathematical perfection. Biometallic muscles rippled and flexed. Suddenly, it wasn’t a battleship or a Demon. It almost looked like a wild animal. A wolverine, curled in on itself in a fit of self-destructive rage. A mouth with fusion fangs formed at the front of the Merged Demon. It ripped at its own armor, flashing antimatter brilliance and leaving long, blackened scars on the shining red metal.
Matt screamed from the pain. It wasn’t just Ash. It tore at all of them.
“I did it!” Kyle’s voice, high and screechy. Suddenly, Matt was Kyle: privileged son of a Union Senator, living a life where everything was planned, everything was calculated. He went to the right schools, he played the right sports, he hung out with the right people, so he could be one of the Just and Right people guiding humanity to new heights.
