The Girls From Alcyone

by Cary Caffrey

  Suko sat up wearily, probing her back with her fingers. "Ow…I think my bum's puckeroo."

  Sigrid was so relieved to find her in one piece. She threw her arms around her, hugging her tightly. "Thank God you're okay."

  "How are the others?"

  "They're alive. Okay, I think."

  Sigrid helped her to her feet, and the two hobbled back to the transport. Leta was already there, cutting the binders off the girls. They all looked okay, although a little groggy.

  "What the hell's going on?" Mei asked. "Sigrid, you—killed those guys…"

  "They killed Jia," Suko said—she still couldn't believe it herself.

  "What?" Mei looked completely shocked.

  "They were going to take you—or kill you! I don't know!"

  Leta hauled the body of the pilot out of the cockpit, depositing it unceremoniously on the ground outside. One of the crewmen from the weapons pods was alive, but unconscious. The girls worked quickly to bind him, securing him in the back of the hold. Leta took the empty pilot's seat. She studied the controls; her fingers flitted over the various switches and gauges until the thrusters reignited. She turned to the girls behind her. "You guys might want to strap yourselves in."

  "You're not going to fly this thing…" Suko said.

  Leta shrugged. "I mean, how hard can it be?"

  The other girls scrambled for the empty seats. Mei and Lei-Fei were already clambering into the empty weapons pods.

  "This is insane!" Sigrid said—but she too was giddy at the idea of flying the commandeered craft.

  Leta looked back over her shoulder; satisfied that the girls were all seated and strapped in, she hauled back on the stick—and the engines promptly died. "What the…?"

  Sigrid climbed into the co-pilot's seat next to her; she'd had a few moments of experience flying the beast. "I think you have to press the thingy," she said, pointing at the main-thruster control switch. Leta hit it and the engines growled in response.

  "Are we sure this is a good idea?" Mei asked again.

  "We have to try," Suko said. "We have to save the others."

  Leta got off to an adventurous start, but the robust craft shrugged off her brush with the surrounding treetops. The flight was erratic, if not a little hair-raising, eliciting the occasional scream from the passengers. The more the transport pitched and bucked, the more the girls shouted suggestions on how Leta might steady the craft.

  "Shut up! I'm flying!" Leta barked back at them. "And you can quit that bloody squealing, too."

  Sigrid took command of their navigation, guiding Leta to the other drop zones. At each point, they found a group of girls waiting patiently—most without a care in the world—simply wondering why their communications were down. But several of the teams had encountered similar groups of soldiers. Mercifully, Jia had been the only casualty. By the time they had picked up the final group of girls, Leta was doing a superb job at the controls.

  "This thing flies itself," she said. "No—literally. Once I figured out I could just punch in the coordinates…"

  Just before dawn, the Academy came into view. Sigrid noticed the smoke rising from the compound from more than a kilometer away. As they got closer, she could see that one of the supply sheds had been reduced to a smoking ruin. Some of the staff were still working to put out a fire that raged through the roof of the main building. The attackers hadn't only targeted them, but the entire Academy as well. What the hell was going on?

  The staff hurried to the transport ship as Leta brought it in for a shaky landing. Dr. Garrett was the first to reach the steps, followed closely by Rosa and Chesna. Both instructors were now armed, and pointing their weapons at the transport—as were most of the staff. Some of the instructors were marching off a group of the green-clad soldiers; prisoners, no doubt.

  The portal of the craft opened and they lowered their weapons as they saw a rather mud-caked Leta smiling down at them.

  "Report!" Rosa demanded.

  Leta couldn't hide the pride that shone through her eyes. "Just doing some flying, sir."

  Sigrid rolled something green and heavy through the open door. It landed on the hard earth with a thud and an audible grunt—it was the crewman they'd captured. "Thought you might like another prisoner to question, sir."

  Rosa erupted in laughter.

  Sigrid, Suko and Leta jumped down from the belly of the craft, all of them shouting at Rosa simultaneously, eagerly telling him about the men they'd encountered in the woods, how they'd been attacked…and how Jia was found murdered.

  Rosa waved them all quiet. "I'll debrief you all later. I want you all to report to the infirmary. We'll talk, but only after they've looked you over."

  With groans of disappointment, the girls headed toward the main complex, while two of Rosa's staff hauled their prisoner away.

  Once everything was quiet, Rosa turned to Chesna. "You recognize this?" he asked, looking at the stolen transport ship. It was an ancient Rollins Corp Lancer-Class low-orbital drop ship, specifically adapted to ferry troops to and from orbit.

  She scoffed at the sorry-looking craft. "There's only one Mercenary Group I know that flies one of these rust-buckets."

  "Tarsus." Rosa shook his head. "Karl, what have you gotten yourself into now."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Battle Ready

  January 5, 2348

  Sigrid showered quickly that morning. She barely stopped long enough by the basin to brush her teeth and give her hair a quick comb. All the girls were in a hurry—the shuttles would be landing soon and no one wanted to miss such a spectacle.

  Suko was dressed in a slim-fitting long-sleeved shirt and capris. She waited by Sigrid's bunk, with both hands on her hips, glaring at Sigrid and tapping her foot impatiently. "Hurry up!"

  "I am!" Sigrid protested. She took off the damp towel she wore, taking time to fold it neatly over the rod at the end of her bunk—untidiness was always dealt with harshly at the Academy; if things weren't stowed or folded properly there'd be hell to pay. Suko looked on as Sigrid stood before her cubby, tapping a finger on her chin as she considered what to wear.

  Suko sighed. "I already put them out for you." She pointed to the chosen clothes on the bed.

  "You're dressing me now?"

  "I just know how long you take to dress."

  Sigrid held up the one-piece brown leotard Suko had chosen. "But I like the blue one."

  "Then wear that one—or go naked. I don't care. Let's go!"

  Sigrid pulled on the outfit. It was made of a thin fabric that stretched and fitted snugly. Despite the winter weather, a light windbreaker was all she needed to keep herself warm. The girls were becoming increasingly adaptable to all but extreme swings in temperature. Around her waist, she fastened the weapons belt with its two low-slung holsters strapped to her thighs. The two modified Markov PM6 sidearms she always carried clipped into the holstered brackets exactly at the point where her hands hung. The girls were always armed now, ever since the attack over a year ago. Rosa had insisted on it as policy.

  Suko rolled her eyes. "You and your…guns."

  The pistols were modified versions, specifically designed with the girls' new bionics in mind. Each pistol featured built-in scopes that linked directly to her PCM, and were capable of targeting whatever she looked at. She could also instantly select from a variety of smart ammunition of the lethal and non-lethal varieties.

  Sigrid pulled the two pistols out and gave them a quick twirl before depositing them back in their clips. "They're my babies," she said, rather pleased with herself. "Besides, it's not like you're not packing." She reached under Suko's shirt and dug around, pulling out one of the balisong butterfly knives she kept tucked in her trousers.

  "This? Why, this is just a simple, practical tool." Suko took the little folding knife and flipped it open with a practiced flourish before handing it back to Sigrid, who tucked it back in Suko's pants. "Now," Suko said, "get your boots on or we'll miss it all."

  Sigrid had
barely pulled on her boots when Suko grabbed her hand and hurried her outside. Little had changed in their morning routine since they'd first met.

  A light flurry of snow fell from the overcast sky. The peaked roofs of the Academy were already covered with a thick, white crystalline blanket. The ground was muddy and slick where the plows had worked to clear the training area. The Academy grounds had changed quite a bit during the past year. Outside the walls, several temporary structures had been erected to house the company of eighty-five Mercenary Marines who had been commissioned by the Kimura Corporation to guard the girls from further attack. Kimura had initially considered the remote location on Alcyone sufficient to keep Dr. Garrett's research—and their investment—safe, but the attack had demonstrated how vulnerable they were.

  Sigrid and Suko walked hand-in-hand through the crowds that now occupied the training grounds. Stacks of the giant hundred-meter-long intermodal cargo containers took up much of the northern corner of the grounds. Even more stacks lay outside. The girls had to step carefully to avoid the traffic as work crews busied themselves offloading and organizing the supplies that always seemed to be arriving these days. Sigrid knew that Dr. Garrett hated all the mess and chaos, but most of the equipment in the compound would be moved into the new annex in the near future.

  The Kimura Corporation was impressed with the girls progress and had tripled their investment in Dr. Garrett's operation. A brand new annex for the Academy had been built higher up in the mountains and was three-times the size of the existing facility. Soon, the girls would move there, and a new group of students would take their place in their existing dormitory.

  The girls had grown accustomed to their isolation on Alcyone—having so many people around felt quite strange. Stranger still were the looks they got from the cargo handlers, who had a tendency to stop and stare. The Marines exercised a bit more self-discipline, but Sigrid could still feel their eyes on them as she walked by, hand-in-hand with Suko. Having grown up in isolation with nothing to compare themselves to, the girls didn't realize they looked little like normal school girls. Years of harsh training had fashioned them into a lean and lethal bunch; all the girls carried themselves with a certain predatory grace. The modifications Dr. Garrett had provided had enhanced virtually every aspect of their biology, giving a healthy extra push where nature left off.

  For years, Sigrid had fretted as she watched the other girls develop ahead of her. She'd been self-conscious about her own body, often wondering if she'd ever catch up. Her growth-spurt had kicked in late; and while she'd been disappointed when her height peaked at five-foot one—and a half, she insisted—at least the rest of her had filled out nicely. She was finally starting to feel like a young woman instead of the adolescent schoolgirl she'd felt like for so long.

  One of the cargo-workers, a young man in his twenties, fell into step beside them.

  "Hello, Sigrid," he said; he hadn't bothered to acknowledge Suko. "Where you headed?"

  Sigrid greeted him with a polite smile. "They gave us the morning off. We're going up to watch the landings."

  "Lucky you. I'd go, but we're pretty backed-up here. Too bad about the clouds though. You're not going to see much."

  "Better than more of Rosa's exercises."

  "Yeah—I've seen that stuff…" He glanced over his shoulder at the crew working behind him. "Look, I gotta get back before my supervisor has a fit. But I was wondering…maybe we could meet later—after my shift…?"

  "Okay." Sigrid nodded and watched him trot off.

  She turned to walk back toward the gates—and bumped straight into Suko. Suko tightened her grip on Sigrid's hand.

  "Ow…"

  "Who was that?" Suko asked, drily.

  "That's, uh, Matthew—"

  "Matthew." Suko seemed unimpressed. "I think he looks dodgy."

  Sigrid felt oddly flustered. "No, he's…he's nice, actually."

  "I didn't realize you were hanging out with the workies now."

  "We weren't hanging out. We were just…" Confused, Sigrid looked at Suko. Suko's chest was rising and falling quickly and her jaw was slightly clenched. Sigrid felt the tightness of Suko's hand around her own and the intensity of her gaze.

  Sigrid stepped closer, taking Suko's other hand. "Suko, he's just a boy—he's nobody."

  Suko's eyes softened and she opened her mouth, as if to say something, but they were interrupted by Leta who ran up to join them.

  "What are you doing down here? You're going to miss the whole thing!"

  She slipped between the two girls, linking both their arms in her own. She looked spectacular, as always. Her damp, red curls hung loosely over her shoulders and down her back, sparkling with flecks of thawing snow. The light sleeveless shirt she wore clung to her, showing off her toned arms and strong shoulders.

  A sudden boom overhead made all three girls look up.

  "Come on!" Sigrid called, towing them along and increasing their pace to a run. The sound was the sonic boom of a shuttle entering the atmosphere high above. The three girls ran out through the Academy gates and up the slope to join the other girls who had gathered to watch the shuttles coming in. They got there just in time and clambered up onto a snowy ledge where they'd have an unobstructed view.

  Sigrid raised her hands toward the heavy, overcast sky. "I can't see a thing!"

  "You're not using your head," Suko said, snickering. She tapped Sigrid on her forehead.

  Sigrid sighed and silently cursed herself. She activated her optical implant and scanned skyward; the heavy thermal signatures from the shuttle's massive thrusters were clear to see as it blasted down through the clouds. Scanning the electrical signatures provided an even more dazzling sight. The ground shook beneath them as the throaty roar of the re-entry boosters grew louder and louder. Sigrid quickly ramped down the frequency in her audio modules to avoid being overwhelmed by the noise.

  They all cried out when the shuttle burst through the clouds, close above their heads at two-hundred feet. The skeletal craft comprised a tangled framework of thrusters connected by a long supporting structure. It looked surprisingly delicate. Sigrid wondered how it could possibly support the massive hundred-meter-long transport container it carried in its cradle.

  The shuttle's sixteen thrusters flared brilliantly as it descended on the Academy grounds. The Cargo-Handlers hardly gave the thing a second glance as they continued with their duties; even though the leviathan craft looked as if it were about to crush everyone beneath it. With a loud, clanking thud of metal on metal, the shuttle deposited the container expertly on the growing stack in the middle of the compound. After pausing to disconnect its burden, the pilots maneuvered the craft swiftly to the side, hooking onto one of the empty containers. The thrusters flared and roared again as the shuttle climbed quickly back into the thick cover of the clouds. The whole operation had taken less than a minute.

  The girls hooted and clapped in appreciation.

  Over the next two hours, seven more shuttles arrived to deliver the remainder of the cargo from the freighter parked in orbit. Even more impressive, at least to Sigrid, was the busy fleet of smaller transports that emptied the containers and whisked off the supplies to their final destination in the new annex.

  "I can't believe this is all for us," Suko said.

  "And for the new girls, I suppose," Sigrid said.

  It was odd to imagine that a new group of younger girls would soon be moving in to take their place, stranger still to think they would be leaving soon to move to the new annex. She'd have her own room there, in the much larger facility, something all the girls were looking forward to, but Sigrid still felt a certain anxiety about being uprooted.

  And a darker anxiety was lurking even deeper within her. They were about to begin the final phase of their enhancements, and their time at the Academy would soon be over.

  Soon, they would be leaving Alcyone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Annex

  From The Journal of Dr. Lisa Garre
tt

  February 21, 2348

  RE: Project Andraste

  Dear Hitomi-san,

  I've been spending much of my time at the new annex getting things prepared for the final phase of our work. It's hard to believe so much time has gone by, but I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

  Our greatest challenge has been to keep an accurate chart of the girls' progress. We had hoped to see improvements, physically anyway, in the range of twenty-five to forty percent, but the evidence suggests something more in the realm of 135% greater than normal. We've created quite the batch of young Olympians here. Their endurance and ability to adapt to climactic extremes has been most impressive.

  Tomorrow we'll bring the girls to the new facility where we'll begin the final phase of the their modifications. I'll finally be able to integrate the systems and initiate the final sequence. It's time to hook it all up and turn it on, so to speak. We've dubbed the procedure 'Activation.' It seems to sum it up fairly well.

  The new Master Control Program has been tested and retested, and I'm satisfied that the subjects are ready to have it uploaded to their Primary Control Modules. If this works as we expect, all their modifications will coalesce into a fully-functioning Artificial Neural Network, allowing them to operate at maximum capacity.

  We anticipate improvements in their ability to process sensory data by an order of magnitude as their own biological receptors integrate with the bionic Sensory Modules. I would imagine that this will be much like the blind suddenly being given the gift of sight, except that this will involve all their senses at once. It should prove to be a somewhat profound experience for them, and we will record their transformation for complete analysis.

  We've received the data-packet you've supplied us—the Tactical Operations Database, I believe you called it. Once the Control Program is activated, we'll upload this packet to the girls' PCMs for field testing.