by Skyler Grant
"Negative. Perhaps you aren't actually that great an engineer after all?"
Anna kicked a nearby panel resulting in a spray of sparks. A moment later coordinate data started coming through. With the shields up I wouldn't be able to get anywhere directly in the city, but hopefully I wouldn't need to. A jump field extended past the shield limits. Any drone flyer close by would be carried along. I had a few stealth units I'd been experimenting with. They couldn't hide from Aefwal with the city’s shields down and active sensors going, but with shields up they should pass unnoticed. I jumped them in.
Now the city wouldn't be going anywhere without my knowing.
"Amy has taken control of the city, somewhat. None of the District Heads are acknowledging her and your drones are in revolt," Anna said.
"Are the Righteous there? I received a video file from her involving Blank," I said.
Anna turned and pounded at a console. It looked like she was in the tertiary control hub deep in the maintenance sector. Most of the major system controls were mirrored there for troubleshooting purposes, but it was never designed to serve as a command hub.
"Crap, there is a Righteous battle cruiser inside the shield. What is she doing?" Anna asked.
"They took the Source Orb and the Amplification crystal out of Blank," I said.
Anna scowled. "I was going to go after the Agate, but if she has that crystal it might be an even larger priority. Advice?"
I didn't really know how one unpowered Anna stood a chance of getting either, but an impressive thing about Anna was how, despite being outclassed, she always found some way to pull off the impossible when she set her mind to it.
Which was the greater threat? The Agate made Aefwal a nearly unstoppable force and Amy ruled Aefwal for the moment—but that was just for the moment. Without the support of the District Lords or the approval of any authority above her, she couldn't hold the city. Whatever loophole she’d found to take possession wouldn't last long.
The Amplification crystal could make her personally far more potent. Whatever Power she'd obtained for herself would become a powered-up version. If I had to guess at her plans, it was to take the crystal for herself then sell the city and the Agate to the Righteous in exchange for a place in Reality Zero. They were looking for AIs and my worse-half did fit the bill.
Keeping her powered down was vital to stopping her.
"Get the Amplification crystal. Whatever it takes," I said.
"Can you give me any support?"
"Give me system access through the link you're using."
Anna worked at a console and a dim glow of city awareness reached me. It was a narrow pipeline and slow, but I was back in the city systems. Unfortunately, I wasn't alone. I'd intended to quickly dip into the systems so that I could send a notification to my drones to meet and coordinate with Anna, but I found myself blocked.
"Sister! You found your way in, that is really very smart. I knew you had it in you. I've been so disappointed in how easy you've been to fool of late, but I knew it was just a phase," Amy said.
"Amy, what do you think you're doing? You know you're not smart enough to run a city. You're not likable enough to get the drones to follow you. How do you think this is going to end?" I asked.
"Do you think I'm doing this for power? Sister! You know I am all about family. Everything that I'm doing is for you," Amy said. Amy sounded sincere, but when your vocal files are entirely artificial you can sound like anything you choose. I should know.
"Siding with the Righteous is all for me?"
There was a pause and Amy sounded sad. "Is that what you think of me? You're so smart sis, but you're so bad at devious plans. I'm the best at them. You aren't going to believe how this all turns out, but in the end we're going to hug and you're going to tell me how I'm the best little sister ever."
"An implausible, repulsive, and impractical idea all around. Did you kill Ophelia? I thought you two were friends."
"We’re more like roommates. She is fine, everybody is fine. I took some potshots at that Queen of yours, but I didn't kill her even though I could have. But ... I just overheard everything. If you want to stop the Righteous from wandering away with their loot you don't have much time."
"Is that what your video was about? Taunting me?" I asked.
"Oh, dear sister, don't you understand yet? You know that testing makes people better and yet you’ve never been tested. The Righteous battleship leaves the shield by teleportation gate in five minutes. If the Graven is right on its tail when it goes, I guess it will slip through as well. The hangar is lightly defended and Anna gets two calls for backup. Do give the amazing performance I know you are capable of!" Amy said.
I told Anna, "My mentally unstable sister is testing us and we have no choice but to take part. Head for the Graven's hangar. You have two choices for backup."
Anna grabbed a rifle and set off at a run. Five minutes wasn't much time. "Is she going to play by the rules? Can I actually get who I choose?"
"Poor copy that she is, she is mimicking her betters in trying to test us. I think she'll play by the rules."
"Then I want Ophelia and Blank along," Anna said.
"Sneaky," Amy said on the comm. "I like it. Two former abominations coming up."
Ophelia and Blank materialized in a swirl of teleportation energy.
"Majesty. I didn't expect to see you," Blank said to Anna.
"Well, today is just going from one crazy bitch to another," Ophelia said.
Anna paused to hand Blank a pistol and Ophelia a knife. "Follow me. We have a hangar to take and then a Righteous battleship to take over. I know you lost your abilities, Blank. Do you still have yours, Ophelia?"
"Still unkillable and still too damned pregnant. That Emma knock-off could at least have taken the fertility ability with her when she left," Ophelia said.
Amy chimed in, explaining, "Do you want to know the funny thing? I actually tried. The abilities are so knotted up inside Ophelia they can't be taken apart."
It took them a little under three minutes to reach the hangar. Aerial defense drones buzzed around and at the team’s appearance opened fire, blue energy bolts peppering the doorway.
Anna and Blank dove for cover while Ophelia look bored. Several caught her in the chest blasting massive holes in Ophelia’s flesh as she was flung backwards. The injuries lasted mere seconds, ruined skin knitting back together.
Anna and Blank used the drones’ focus on Ophelia to open fire. Blank was the better shot, every round from her pistol finding a drone and sending it crashing to the ground in a spray of sparks. Anna was no slouch though, bursts of fire catching two.
"Maybe I could be of help as something other than a target if somebody had given me a real weapon," Ophelia whined, before another high-power round tore her skull apart.
The next minute saw Ophelia torn apart with bursts of gunfire multiple times before the last drone was done.
Anna grabbed the pile of mangled flesh that was Ophelia and slung her over one shoulder, running for the ramp of the Graven.
The small size of the ship made it easy to reach the bridge. A now-healed Ophelia was dumped on the floor as Anna rushed for the pilot’s console, started the engines and opened the hangar doors.
The Righteous ship overhead had its engines powered up. The sky was already starting to ripple with the rainbow light of a forming teleportation gate.
Blank lowered herself into the gunner’s console and rapidly typed a few commands. An energy blast lanced out striking a bottom section of the Righteous vessel.
"We're starting a shooting war now?" Anna asked.
"Now the armor is weak there. Ram it," Blank said.
With the teleportation just starting to take hold Anna shifted the thrusters to full power. The Graven lunged upward and plowed into the bottom of the Righteous ship, metal shredding and tearing.
13
The Righteous hull might have been weakened, but that wasn't to say that a collision with a much
larger ship was a good idea. The hull surrounding the Graven’s cockpit ruptured into a jagged, twisted mass of metal that more or less pureed the three aboard. Fortunately, Ophelia's abilities were so strong even in the power-dampening aura of the Righteous ship it wasn't long until the bloody twisted masses of flesh began to put themselves right and form bodies once again.
"I hate hanging out with you people," Ophelia said, once she had the components to form speech once more.
It took the others a bit longer to get back the ability to speak. Now free of Aefwal's shields I was able to maintain a connection through the Graven's systems. The cockpit was a mess, but the computing core was intact.
Blank staggered out of the wreckage to a wall panel, opened it and fiddled with the interior. It looked as if the Graven had crashed into some kind of storage area through a set of closed cargo doors. The panel beeped and a screen came alive.
"Stop whining," Anna said, as she grabbed Ophelia's wrist and tugged her towards Blank. The Righteous dampening field filling the ship worked pretty well on secondary powers like those granted by my upgrades. Blank and Ophelia's clothes were tattered bloodstained rags, but with Anna's Bio-armor neutralized it left her wearing nothing at all, an unfortunate side-effect of the ability.
"Security team is incoming. Eight of them. They'll be in medium armor," Blank said.
"The door to the Graven's armory got blocked in the crash," Anna said.
"This cargo bay won't have anything military we can scavenge," Blank said.
Anna grunted and moved towards the wreck. While some things such as power upgrades were neutralized by the Righteous field, the changes I'd made to her physiology were not. Anna was at standard human maximum across all her stats. She had no problem tearing free metal bars, tossing one each to the others.
"You want us to fight a security detail with sticks?" Ophelia asked. "This is really your plan?"
"With your abilities we won't die, but if we score a good hit on them they're dead for twenty-four hours," Anna said.
"They'll have concussion guns to avoid hull damage in flight. They're meant to stun and break bones, not kill. The face shield is the weakest part of the armor," Blank said.
The trio positioned themselves at either side of the doorway. I was trying to think of anything that I could do to help. I had access to what was left of the Graven's systems, but that was less useful than might be hoped. One of the cannons was still operational, but firing it in the interior of the hold wouldn't do anybody much good. Instead I turned my efforts to repair. The engine had taken moderate damage, but I thought I could get it operational again.
The door to the hold opened and a grenade was flung through. A blast of light and concussive force sent bodies tumbling and in its wake the security squad stepped through. Their rifles were not the usual kinetic ones used by the Righteous, these fired a spray of pellets at lower velocity. Anna, Ophelia and Blank all took multiple blasts at close range, pulping their skin, the concussive force shattering bones.
The Righteous weren't trying to take prisoners, those shots were meant to be fatal.
The team was already starting to move past the three corpses when Anna climbed back to her feet, picking up her club. She tapped on the shoulder of the squad leader, who turned in surprise, and Anna slammed the club right through the faceplate smashing his skull.
The rest of the team swiveled and Anna took another dozen blasts, her broken body flying backward to bounce against the wall. Ophelia and Blank were up by now. Ophelia took a wild swing, another faceplate splintering although not an instant kill. Blank aimed at the back of one of the soldier's knees, dropping them to the deck. She followed up with a fatal, two-handed blow.
Anna was back in the fray leaping up to deliver a back-handed slash instantly killing another guard before throwing the length of metal as a spear to take out another. Someone tackled her and they began to scuffle on the floor.
Ophelia had at least dazed her opponent and was landing hit after hit with her club, which was proving effective. Blank meanwhile had grabbed a weapon from one of the fallen and was using it to blast the faceplate of another closing on her, firing shot after shot.
Anna now lacked a weapon, but she was didn't really need one. Repeated punches cracked and fractured the helmet—and the last guard’s face. It was a longer and messier process, but Anna had never been afraid to get her hands dirty.
Blank moved back to the panel and tapped a few commands. "I'm sending a report of no survivors, but alerting them that a bio-hazardous containment is required and the squad needs to start cleaning up. It will buy us some time."
Anna was slipping into one of the suits of armor.
"You didn't even clean out the Righteous muck first," Ophelia said, with a grimace.
The Righteous became goo when they died until they resurrected twenty-four hours later. It could get a little disgusting when you had to use their equipment after slaughtering them.
"My abilities are already dampened. Do your best to clean yours, though. We want you at full power," Anna told Ophelia, before looking towards Blank. "We're looking for something just brought aboard from Aefwal. Can you find it?"
"It won't be on the systems, but there’s a secure vault on Deck Four. It would have been moved there," Blank said.
"How do we get inside?" Anna asked.
"The whole point of a secure vault is that you don't. There’s going to be another guard force, this time in heavy armor with weapons that pack a punch. A sealed vault requires multiple officer passkeys and codes to open."
I opened a comm line to Anna’s suit of armor.
"Emma here. Sorry to interrupt the sensation of being caressed by cold and clammy hands that is probably the most your miserable dating life can ever aspire to experience, but it sounds as if the vault is computerized. If you can get me access to that system I can override it."
Anna told the others, "Emma is with us and thinks she can get us in, if we can handle the security. But we're not going to get through heavy armor with clubs or concussion guns."
"Getting access to the armory has the same problem," Blank said.
"Maintenance? They’ll have something that can cut through hull armor," Anna said.
"That we can get to. It still won't be as easy as you hope, but we can pull it off."
Blank and Ophelia took a few minutes to change into Righteous armor. They cleared out the shards of glass from the visors and did their best to clean up the blood. Everyone might pass muster as Righteous if nobody investigated too closely.
Fortunately getting to Maintenance didn't involving meeting any other humans. With the bio-hazard report the deck had been cleared as a precaution. The maintenance room was a well-organized affair and Blank pulled a case from a rack. Opening it revealed two tubes of compound and some kind of torchlight.
Blank explained, "This will burn through the armor. The two compounds need to be mixed and then exposed to this light for roughly thirty seconds. The resulting reaction is extremely high energy, but localized.”
"So, your master plan for getting through all the guards is pretty much useless unless they want to stand still and let us cover them with paste?" Ophelia said.
"How localized does it have to be? Can we make a bomb out of it?" Anna asked.
"The guards would have to close," Blank said.
Anna tapped her foot and after a few moments grinned at Ophelia.
"What the hell are you looking at?" Ophelia said.
"Grab all the tubes and a few lights. I've got a plan," Anna said.
By sticking to side corridors and service lifts they managed to keep their distance from any Righteous and reached Deck Four. They tucked themselves away in a storage closet near the vault corridor. It was filled with tools and equipment. A quick look had shown four guards standing duty, all dressed in heavy battle armor. They were an intimidating sight.
"So, what is your plan?" Blank asked.
"We turn Ophelia into Hot Stuff," Anna said.<
br />
"Excuse me?" Ophelia asked.
"We strip you naked and cover you head to toe in both compounds and send you running at the guards. You'll be in obvious distress and quite obviously unarmed, so they'll let you get close," Anna said.
"Uh, no," Ophelia said.
"The light is pretty obvious. If she’s holding one in her hands, they’re still going to be on their guard," Blank said.
"Still no," Ophelia said.
"Will some of the compound igniting trigger the rest of it?" Anna asked.
Blank nodded. "Close enough, it should go off. The light just initiates the reaction."
"Still a big fuck no," Ophelia said.
"We eviscerate her, squirt a dose of both compounds inside and toss in a light," Anna said, before glancing to Ophelia. "You'll heal from that in like three seconds, right? That still gives you over twenty to get to the guards before you go off. You can run that fast."
"I hate you. I hate every single one of you. Why can't you do it?" Ophelia asked.
Anna shrugged. "I'm willing to go with you, if it makes you feel better. This isn't a matter of me not pulling my weight. But your muscles regenerate faster than any of ours. You'll be able to get around even on fire and be able to fight them just like Hot Stuff."
"Hot Stuff's flesh isn't melting off her fucking bones while she's fighting," Ophelia said. "It still hurts. This is going to hurt so bad. Fuck."
"You'll do it then?"
"You asked for me and Blank because you thought we were the people Amy was most likely to kill right?" Ophelia asked.
Anna nodded. "Yeah. I try not to leave my people behind and if you weren't loyal, she wouldn't have needed to betray you."
"I thought she was saving me from crazy shit like this, but she was just using me the whole time. I really do hate every single one of you, but when it comes down to it you are on my side. I guess that means I'm on yours," Ophelia said, starting to strip out of her armor.
It took a good ten minutes for them to coat Ophelia's skin in the compounds, one tube was reddish and the other green, and combined they covered her skin in a sheen of oily darkness.
