by Brett Patton
“You said you’ve had teammates die . . .” Michelle trailed off.
“In combat. And—” Soto looked away.
“And what?”
“It’s an expression.” Soto sighed. “It’s what we say when someone can’t use Mecha anymore.”
“Can’t use it anymore?” Matt sat up straight.
“You know how it feels,” Soto said. “Using a Mecha uses you up. It’s a high. You get used to it. Then you get to need it. Then the Mesh doesn’t . . . work anymore. Suddenly, it’s gone. It disappears on you. It can take years, sometimes decades, but it happens. When you can’t use a Mecha anymore, you’re . . . dead. Or at least that’s what we call it.”
Matt shivered. Is this what he had signed up for? To be burnt out by a machine?
“All Auxiliaries are dead,” Stoll added.
“You were Mecha Corps?” Matt asked.
Sergeant Stoll shook her head. “No, I never made it through the training. But I’m still dead, by that definition.”
“What about you?” Kyle asked, nodding at Soto. “How have you kept using Mecha for so long? How can you use a Demon?”
Soto smiled a wan sad expression. “I was a damn good pilot. Almost as good as Lowell, Mesh-wise. I conserved my time in the Mecha, reserved it for battle. Plus, I’ve become a damn stubborn old man.”
“How long do we have?” Michelle asked.
Soto shrugged. “Years. Decades. Who knows? But the Hellions’ neural buffering made them easier to take. The Demon—it seems more like a Rogue. Rough stuff.”
Michelle nodded, her eyes wide. Matt knew she was going through a lot of the same feelings they all were experiencing, but she managed to put on such a consistently brave face.
“My first partner died in a Rogue,” Soto offered to the group. “I felt the whole thing,” Soto said. “That was back when we went in pairs. It was on Forest. The Corsairs had taken Amazon, the capital, and we were going in to rout them out—you know, spare the civvies and save the princess, all that shit. Except in this case it wasn’t a princess; it was a mean old governor who’d gone Corsair on us, and he’d had a dozen Aliancia tanks waiting on the main approach to his palace. They unloaded on us . . .” Soto trailed off, his eyes going misty in memory. “Took out both my Control Nexuses, but got Jim right on the edge of the cowl. Drove a biometallic shard right into his eye. Felt the whole thing like it was my own. When I stopped screaming, our second partners had arrived. They turned it to our advantage. I ripped that one tank apart, the one that shot Jim. I pulled the men out like they were meat. I shredded them . . .”
“We felt it,” Matt spoke up. “Ash.”
“It was like she was being . . . deleted,” Michelle added.
“Not deleted. Shredded. Ground away,” Kyle’s voice was low and slurred. His gaze was loose, unable to fix on anyone in the group.
“You should be in Accelerated Recovery. You’re descending, my friend,” Soto said.
“Been worse than this,” Kyle slurred. “Been worse in ROTC. Been worse in school.”
Soto chuckled. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“It’s true!” Kyle asserted. His head bobbed and almost hit the table.
Soto got out of his seat and nodded at Sergeant Stoll. “Come on. Let’s get him to the infirmary.”
“Don’t need it,” Kyle slurred. But he didn’t struggle as Stoll helped him out of the chair.
“I’ll come with you.” Michelle started to rise.
Soto held up a hand. “No. You need to rest.” A glance at Matt. “You do too.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said.
Still, neither Matt nor Michelle moved to leave. Soto, Stoll, and Kyle floated toward the exit. Soto shot them a final glare from the door, but didn’t say anything else.
Silence ticked by for a time. Michelle looked out over the Hellions in the docks, black chrome figures subtly menacing in the dim light. “I feel . . . hollowed out.”
“You’ll feel better.”
Michelle banged a fist on the table. “Maybe I don’t want to feel better! I don’t want to forget about this! And I don’t—I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you mean?”
Michelle’s eyes jittered around as her mouth worked soundlessly. Finally she managed, “Mecha Corps was my dream. My ticket off. Now I get here, and I’m going to have my life sucked out by some machine?”
Matt nodded, remembering his earlier thoughts. But it didn’t matter. He’d do anything to annihilate his father’s murderer. He needed that new memory, one to play over and over again.
How far are you willing to go to get it? a little voice whispered. How much are you willing to lose?
“Everything,” Matt said.
“What?” Michelle asked.
Matt shook his head. That wasn’t entirely true. Not anymore.
After a time, Michelle sighed and stood up. “I think Soto’s right. Time to pack it in.”
“I’ll walk you back to your quarters.”
A head shake. “No need. Finish your drink.”
Matt looked at the drink bulb in his hand. It was still half-full. He put it down on the sticky-mat holder.
When he looked up, though, Michelle had already pushed off for the exit. She never looked back at him.
The next morning, a loud chime from Matt’s door screen pierced his Mesh hangover. He groaned and went to open the door.
Outside was a burly Mecha Auxiliary. His nametag read K. SU, and he wore sergeant’s stripes. “Demonrider candidate Lowell?” he asked.
“Yeah?” Matt realized he’d only half-finished putting on his gray Mecha Cadet uniform. He shoved another leg into the loose coverall.
“Please accompany me.” Sergeant Su gestured at the corridor.
“Why?”
“Mission debrief.”
“What mission?” Matt echoed.
“Demon Merge, attempt twenty-one, failed with casualties,” Su said, reading off his slate in a monotone.
Matt jumped. Twenty-one attempts. Failed with casualties. That didn’t sound good. That didn’t sound good at all.
“What’re they going to do?” he asked.
Su shrugged, looking bored.
Matt pulled on the rest of his uniform and followed Su deep into Mecha Base. Here, the periodic ticks and pings of the micrometeorites from the maelstrom fell away to a smooth and absolute silence, like the deep interior of a refugee Displacement Drive ship during those long times when the drive was idle.
Su stopped in front of a door with a screen that read: CONFERENCE A: OCCUPIED. He gestured for Matt to go in first.
It was a room out of one of those cheap legal dramas they produced on every refugee Displacement Drive ship in the Union. Functional white plastic chairs. Morguelike stainless-steel tables arranged in a hollow square. On the near side of the tables, three chairs were anchored. On the far side sat four grim-faced men: Colonel Cruz, Major Soto, Dr. Roth, and Yve Perraux. Colonel Cruz and Major Soto wore immaculately pressed gray uniforms, crisp and perfect and decked with colorful bars. Dr. Roth wore a white lab coat over a rumpled black coverall, as if he’d been pulled away from some critical experiment. Yve wore a dark blue pinstriped suit with the Union star on its lapel.
Major Soto looked up as Matt floated in and nodded at one of the seats on the other side of the table. Matt sat, his fingers numb, his mind racing with questions: Are we going to be charged with something? Is this the end of my career in the Mecha Corps?
“Where are the rest?” Colonel Cruz snapped.
“On their way, sir,” Su said, behind Matt.
Matt sat and waited. The four men never spoke. They just stared into space, as if afraid to meet each other’s gazes.
The door creaked open and Matt turned to look. Michelle and Kyle floated in, accompanied by another Auxiliary. They took the seats flanking Matt, neither saying anything. Kyle’s lips were compressed, and his face was pale and shiny with sweat. It was clear he hadn’t completely recovered from
his Demon misadventure, even after Accelerated Recovery.
“Let’s proceed,” Yve said. “Due to the nature of this debrief, we’ve been authorized to use FTL communications. I’m bringing in Congressperson Sou Tomita, Chair of the Union Advanced Technologies Committee.”
The wall screen behind the four men lit up, and a watery, bit-rotted image of Congressperson Tomita looked down on them. He didn’t look happy. Not at all.
When he spoke, though, his words were soft, almost kind. “Cadets, let me begin with my condolences on the loss of your teammate. Losing even a single Union citizen is a terrible tragedy.”
“Thank you, sir,” Michelle said softly.
“The rest of what I have to say is less pleasant. First, let me summarize, so our facts are in order: To date, there have been twenty-one Demon Merge attempts. Twenty of these were only partially successful.”
“They were intended to be partial Merges, for training—,” Dr. Roth cut in.
“You’ll hold commentary until the end of my summary, Dr. Roth,” Congressperson Tomita said, clearly relishing his small triumph over Roth. “The one full success—if we can call it that—was unstable, with a dead pilot and injured cadet as its results. Is this an accurate assessment of where we stand right now?”
Matt shifted in his seat. The Velcro scritched under his uniform, loud in the still room. He couldn’t refute anything Tomita had said. His head throbbed in Mecha hangover, and bone-deep fatigue sat on him like a boulder. At the same time, though, a powerful need resonated through every part of his body: I need to get back in the Demon. If I get back in the Demon, everything will be better. I can get my balance again.
Dr. Roth said nothing for a time. Finally: “An accurate assessment.”
“We were led to believe the Demon Merge would be accomplished much more expeditiously,” Tomita said.
“I expected to be farther along, yes,” Roth said, glaring at Matt. Matt returned the stare, anger warring with fear. Is it my fault? Did I push them along too fast?
“This isn’t a trial,” Tomita said mildly, though his eyes were angry slits. “We are here to find solutions and consider alternatives. Any day, any second, Rayder could attack us again. We must be ready with a unified defense. We’ve requested that the pilots be here so we can better understand the challenges of Demon Merge and the causes of such a spectacular failure.”
Roth shook his head. “The cause is clear. Our data shows that the individual with the lowest effective Mesh, Cadet Moore, received resonant gross feedback from the neural interface, resulting in an unstable Merge.”
Congressperson Tomita turned to look at the three cadets. His image briefly blurred off the screen, and his voice slurred to unintelligibility. After all, this was a feed coming to them from twelve thousand light-years away. When he came back, they were still able to get the gist. “. . . personal experiences. What happened, cadets?”
Matt shared a look with Michelle and Kyle. What could he say? Other than the truth?
“At first, it was the best thing you could ever imagine,” Matt said. “Merge is like Mesh times a hundred. It’s all the same, uh, feelings . . .”
“The Mesh high? You don’t need to use euphemisms,” Tomita said.
“It’s more intense,” Matt said. “It’s almost like the Demon is something else—a person, looking at you, challenging you. And it’s more than that too. You can also share the thoughts of your teammates as you walk through that gate.”
“So, you feel as though you experienced Cadet Moore’s death?” Tomita asked.
“Yes,” Matt said, shuddering. Once again he felt her terror, sharp and hot. The shining faces of her children. The feeling of being taken apart, piece by piece.
“It was like she was being peeled away,” Michelle offered.
“Was there an obvious trigger? Something that caused it?” Tomita leaned forward.
Matt looked at Kyle. He’d refused the exercises. Fun, fun. But was that it? No. More likely Matt pushing them too hard.
Tomita saw the direction of Matt’s glance. “Cadet Peterov. You refused a direct order for exercises. Do you believe that had anything to do with the unstable Merge?”
Kyle turned to glare at Matt, his eyes suddenly murderous. Matt shook his head. He hadn’t said anything. Was a look enough to give it away?
“No, sir,” Kyle said. “I believe it was a result of the unstable Merge, rather than the cause.”
“Then why did you run after the Merge dissolved?” Tomita pressed.
Kyle shook his head. “I don’t know. Continuing instability from the failed Merge?” But his eyes flicked over to Matt again.
“Doubtful,” Dr. Roth said. “Cadet Peterov’s Mesh effectiveness was high and stable during his pursuit.”
“No other insight, Cadet Peterov?” Tomita asked.
Kyle looked hard at the screen, his face paler than ever. He wiped sweat from his brow. “None, sir.”
“And you, Cadet Lowell?” Tomita turned to Matt. “Why did you disobey a direct order to stand down with your antimatter weapon? Was that also Merge instability?”
Matt sighed. “It’s the only weapon that could stop a berserk Mecha holding a Zap Gun.”
“So this was a calculated decision,” Congressperson Tomita said. “Not a whim of Mesh high?”
“If I hadn’t done it, we’d still be down in that mud. With at least two of us dead.”
“Kyle wouldn’t have killed us!” Michelle cried, glaring at Matt.
Tomita stared at Matt for a long time, as if daring him to drop his eyes. “You did enough damage down there to accelerate the course of the planet’s formation.”
“I know. And I’d do it again,” Matt said, trying not to look at Michelle, but wondering if she was stealing a glance at him.
“You’ll keep doing it until you destroy us all,” Colonel Cruz muttered.
Tomita nodded. “Our colonel poses a valid question. Cadets, how far will you go to Merge the Demon? Far enough to endanger Mecha Base?”
Matt sat silent, as did his companions. There was nothing they could say.
Tomita continued. “Have you learned enough from your last encounters to ensure our safety?”
Matt started to speak, then cut himself off and looked down. Remembering the rush of Mesh and Merge. His first exercise, running out of control to orbit.
Michelle and Kyle stayed silent too.
Tomita’s image flickered again, accompanied by a burst of static. When he came back on, he was nodding. “I’ll take your silence as a negative.”
Tomita turned to address Dr. Roth. “Dr. Roth, do you care to comment on the failures to date, and any plans you have to improve upon the Demon’s Merge capability?”
Roth frowned, visibly bristling at Tomita’s criticism of his Mecha. “The Demon’s Merge capability is flawless,” he began. “However, this project was of significantly greater complexity than anything attempted previously. Upgrades to the biometallic architecture raise the level of neural interface needed. A Demon’s neural interface is significantly more advanced than a Hellion’s, which means it will take more time to master.”
“So your strategy of using raw cadets perhaps was not the best plan of attack?”
Roth crossed his arms. “It’s the only plan. Major Soto’s experiences with the Demon are on record; we have cycled ten other willing Hellion pilots through the Demon with even more dire results, including two deaths.”
“So we keep running these pilots until they too die?” Tomita said.
“I can deploy a thousand Hellions with a thousand skilled pilots anywhere in Corsair space tomorrow,” Colonel Cruz cut in. “I don’t see how Rayder can stand against that.”
“How many thousand-Hellion maneuvers have you deployed, Colonel?” Dr. Roth spat.
Cruz blinked. “None, but it’s a simple scaling—”
“It is not simple scaling. With every additional layer of control, the possibility for failure increases, as does Mecha capture. And
that is leaving aside the location problem.”
Cruz grit his teeth and said nothing.
“Location problem,” Matt said, remembering Yve’s words.
Dr. Roth nodded. “We cannot simply assault Rayder surgically, because we have not located his base of operations. So we must be ready with overwhelming force when Rayder appears next.”
What planet might be hit before this is over? Matt thought. Aurora? Earth?
“Colonel Cruz, I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Congressperson Tomita said. “It’s an admirable trait in a Union citizen. However, you must accept that there are many valid reasons why a mass Hellion offensive isn’t the best approach, even if we know Rayder’s location.”
“There’s nothing a battalion of Hellions can’t take on!” Cruz asserted. “Congress is being a bunch of scared old ladies.”
Tomita only nodded mildly. “You must also accept there are considerations beyond your purview.”
Cruz ground his teeth. “I hate this cloak-and-dagger crap.” He sat back in his chair and glared sullenly at the other men.
“If I may answer Congressperson Tomita’s question,” Roth said mildly.
“What question?” Tomita asked.
“About whether we would continue to use these components”—Roth nodded at the pilots—“until death.”
“Go on,” Tomita said.
“The answer is no. I am bringing in another team, as well as a backup team, on the UUS Ulysses, when it is back from Earth.”
It felt like Matt had been punched in the gut. “You can’t do that!” he cried.
Dr. Roth turned to give Matt a neutral look. “I absolutely can.”
“You’re kicking us out?” Michelle asked, her voice hollow.
Roth shook his head. “I had excellent expectations, given your early results. Unfortunately, you’ve proved to be useless as Demon pilots.”
Useless? Matt thought. Searing-cold defeat and blinding rage warred in him. “No!” he wailed.
“We can do it!” Michelle yelled.
Auxiliaries moved in to flank the three cadets.
“I apologize for Dr. Roth’s unfortunate choice of words,” Congressperson Tomita said. He turned to Roth. “However, I do concur with your overall assessment, Doctor. Ensure the new cadets are ready when they disembark, and let us all pray they’ll be ready when Rayder strikes next.”
