Full Metal Heroine: A Military Space Opera Adventure (Lady Hellgate Book 2)

by Greg Dragon

  “The name’s Cilas, or Lieutenant, Ate,” he said, looking up from his desk, seemingly annoyed at her for calling him by that name.

  “Someone’s grouchy,” she said under her breath and made to leave his compartment.

  “Don’t be dramatic. What do you want? For me to celebrate being deployed before I’ve had a chance to rebuild my team? There’s two of us, Nighthawk. Well, four now.”

  “Four?” Helga said, furrowing her brows. “Who are the other two?”

  “They’re the reason why I called you. Take a look at these two men. They were the only two to graduate BLAST from Rendron, even though twenty of our people tried. How embarrassing is that?”

  “It’s sad, but considering the chaos with all the fighting going on, I can see why our men and women would have trouble. They were on the surface running training exercises while we were in the middle of a real war up here. Not their fault that they missed the fighting, but during BLAST if you can’t focus … well, you know how it is.”

  “Which is precisely why they qualify to be a part of our team,” Cilas said, and Helga stepped forward and picked up the two sheets of transparent substrate. On each was a readout with details on the recruits. One, Quentin Tutt, was a veteran Marine with a long list of accolades and references from the field.

  She saw from a note in the corner that he had been recommended by Captain Retzo Sho himself. “Didn’t have much say in this one, did you?” she said, and Cilas smiled but kept his lips sealed.

  “How about you? How are you holding up?” he said, and Helga closed her eyes and bit back against the “what do you mean?” that had become her automatic retort to this line of questioning. She hated the question more than Cilas would know, but she recognized that he was trying to be helpful and wouldn’t know that she found it offensive.

  “How are you holding up?” she replied, volleying the question back at him.

  “Sorry,” he said, seeming to understand. “It’s just that I worry about you after the events on Dyn, and it’s not like we ever talk about them.”

  “We’ve talked about them plenty throughout the last few months, Lieutenant. I’m … adjusting, and while it isn’t the easiest adjustment, I’ve been good. Don’t you worry.”

  He shot her a glance that read: you say you’re good, but what I see says different. But he surprised her by not pressing the issue. “I think that you’ll like Tutt,” he said. “He’s a nice enough guy, but one heck of an asset. What that sheet doesn’t tell you is that during BLAST, he slipped out in the middle of the night to help a group of Marines. It was during the invasion, and they found a lizard cloaked in the jungle. Without Tutt, he would have butchered a town full of civilians.”

  “Impressive,” was all she could manage after hearing that story. “I hope that we’re worth it, considering the schtill we go through.”

  “Anyone ignorant enough to think an ESO team is given the benefit of glory doesn’t deserve to be here, so being ‘worth it’ isn’t really my concern—”

  “Thype me, Lieutenant, is everything alright in your life?”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “I make a snide comment, which you know me to do, yet you’re firing off your guns as if I’m some ignorant recruit.”

  Cilas Mec sat back and shook his head. “I didn’t get much sleep. Captain needed an answer immediately, so I’ve been up since the last cycle, doing research.”

  “I can’t help it, I have to say it,” she said, the smile dragging the corners of her mouth. “Are you sure it was the research or an extremely horny pilot that happens to now be stationed on our ship?”

  She stepped back and gauged him, wondering if she’d finally stepped over the line. He was her superior, but she viewed him as a friend, and so she’d toy with the line to see just how far she could go with being herself.

  “Oh, you little, cruta,” he whispered and stared at her intently. There was something behind his glare that she hadn’t ever seen before. He was measuring her up, not just in wit but something more, and then he averted his gaze as if he realized that she too was reading him. “You’re out of line,” he finally said, but it seemed to be more lighthearted than a scolding. She giggled. Oh, how she loved making him uncomfortable.

  “Of course I’m joking, Lieutenant, but do you think this is a good idea? Rushing out with new members that we haven’t had time to learn?”

  “It’s alright, we’ll figure it out. This will be a good opportunity for you to sharpen up on your leadership skills. You’re now considered a senior Nighthawk so they will look to you for guidance, Number Two.”

  “Number Two? Me? But, you’re Cilas Mec, and I’m just—I have one mission under my belt. They’ll bend over backward to impress you, but why in the worlds would they listen to me?”

  “Helga, leadership isn’t about coming into a unit cracking heads and rifling off rhetoric. It’s about balance, and it’s about winning trust, but above all of that, you need to be confident in yourself.”

  “That’s easy to say when you’re a big strong man though, Cilas. I’m a tiny woman, and some will resent that, and then there’s my age. Why would someone as old as Tutt ever take orders from someone like me?”

  “With that attitude, of course he won’t follow you. Ate, Cage was ten years my senior, yet I ranked him, and you know what? It didn’t matter because it worked. You passed BLAST, top ten if I recall, which made selecting you to be on this team one of the easiest decisions of my life. And here we are, you, the last of my original Nighthawks, doubting yourself and asking me a lot of annoying questions.”

  Helga laughed. “Well, thank you for being patient with me, Lieutenant. I am really just bothered with the timing.”

  “We have no choice, Helga, we need operators. The Nighthawks is an eight-person team, and if we can’t grow, then we may end up getting dissolved.”

  Helga nodded and picked up the second man’s sheet. “Recruit Raileo Lei. This one’s fresh out. He passed BLAST, but he was only fifth-class graduating out of the cadets,” she said.

  “Everyone’s not gifted, or born to do what we do,” Cilas said. Helga knew he was right. Only five percent of cadets made it above what they termed third-class. The lower the number, the better you were ranked, and second-class cadets became officers or tried out to become ESO operators.

  “He made it through BLAST. Not only that, he was a top ten finisher. I don’t know what happened in the cadet academy, but they obviously didn’t recognize something within him. I like him because he’ll be hungry to prove that he’s better than fifth-class. Hunger means that he will be ready, and given the time, we need them ready more than anything else.”

  “Have you ever met a first-class cadet from any of the ships?” Helga said.

  “Lamia Brafa was the only one, and you saw all the things he could do.”

  “I guess,” she said, feeling sad, as she remembered Lamia Brafa and their intimate chats. “Lei seems alright, and he passed BLAST, so I’ll hold off any opinions until I meet him,” she said.

  “Good, because we’ll be meeting them tomorrow at 0:240, then take a transport to the Aqnaqak, where we’ll be briefed on our mission.”

  0:240, Helga thought. That’s pretty early, even for us. The Alliance used a system that gave their Navy simulated cycles based on an automated time. Their clocks would start at 0:000 and end at 1:440, where it would reset, becoming another cycle, or “day.” The time he proposed their departure for exactly two hours before the first shift. There goes my plans for getting wasted before bed, Helga thought.

  The early hour to meet and deploy was nothing new to Helga. As a Naval officer you had to become accustomed to duty being synonymous with inconvenience. As an ESO, you were no longer afforded the luxury of personal time, and with sleep being a rarity since her time as a prisoner of the Geralos, she had grown accustomed to the constant out-of-body sensation.

  In the late hours after her meeting with Cilas, she had g
one to the bar and sat by herself, nursing a bottle of wine. Her mind was a minefield that she still hadn’t figured out how to maneuver. She would joke and laugh, which made her feel good, but in the next moment she’d be ready to cry.

  There had been too many deaths, and people she loved gone from her life, so now the prospect of meeting two more Nighthawks scared her because she knew what would come of it. They would grow close, as ESO teams were prone to do, and then they would die, or get captured, leaving her all alone.

  Her family had been decimated, and her estranged brother was a mystery. On Rendron, her starship home, the people she called friends from her childhood all seemed to have had an agenda, so she shut them out, forcing herself to be alone. Cilas was her friend, and though she never admitted it, she was secretly in love with him. But he was Joy Valance’s, and she loved Joy like a sister, which only made for further torture of her soul.

  Solace came in the bottle, but the bottle could be addictive, which meant that it too couldn’t be trusted. She pined for some stability, someone to love her and be there no matter what. She had considered purchasing an animal for her room, but the thought of it being a prisoner made her not go through with it.

  Walking onto the dock, she saw a tall man talking to Cilas, and as she grew closer, she recognized him as the new recruit, Quentin Tutt. On approach, he moved fast, saluting her with respect. After returning it with less enthusiasm, she clapped him on the shoulder and told him to relax. “Team members don’t salute, Tutt, it will get us killed in the field. I know you know that, but just a reminder that we’re a team now. It’s different from the Marines.”

  “I’m learning, ma’am, and I apologize. It’s a bit of an adjustment,” he said.

  “It’s Ate, Tutt, and I’m just giving you schtill. Welcome to the team, Sarge. How are you feeling?”

  “Excited and honored,” he said, flashing a genuine smile. She heard feet behind her and saw the other man walk up. It was now exactly 0:240, and she knew that Cilas would erupt. Nighthawks being exactly on time was never good enough. You were there thirty minutes prior, or fifteen if you ran into any sort of hiccups. To show up exactly on time meant that you were not serious about the mission.

  Helga looked over at the Lieutenant, who motioned for Raileo Lei to follow, and he took him to the side to give what she assumed was a primer on attendance.

  “So, you’re a bit of a badass,” Helga said to Tutt, as she leaned against the bulkhead to rest her aching bones.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Tutt, you know what you’ve done,” she said, too tired and groggy to care. “You’re a Marine with an impressive record. How does someone like you feel being a Nighthawk? Just last year, for me, you would have thought I had been given a trillion credits, that’s how happy I was to attend my first brief. But I was a second-class cadet, freshly graduated and stupid, while you’re already a seasoned veteran.”

  Quentin Tutt seemed to be taken aback, and he looked her over before answering. “I’m numb,” he said. “I guess it hasn’t dawned on me yet. I think of being on a dropship, flying low over an enemy moon, knowing that at the sound of a chime, I will be dropped into a vat of schtill. This sort of feels that way, especially being in the presence of Lieutenant Mec. I know that this mission is going to take me to a place where all I have are you three, and that nothing in my past has prepared me for.”

  “What makes you think that?” Helga said.

  “I look at you two, the survivors of an elite team of eight. The lieutenant is composed, but I’ve seen enough to know what’s below the surface. As to you, ma’am, you don’t hide it so well, and the evidence is in you for me to know. Nothing I’ve done will compare to our missions, will it? I’ll be put to the test, and that’s what I want.”

  “I’d like to think that you’re more than ready, Sergeant Tutt, and it’s because you’re humble and from what I see, pragmatic. As to Lei there, I’m beginning to wonder, but I was just like him before I got a dose of what it meant to be a Nighthawk.”

  She found that she did like Quentin Tutt and his deep voice. There was a lot about him that reminded her of the late Cage Hem. They were both exceptional fighters, who were veterans before becoming ESOs, and they had similar physical attributes: tall, with bulging muscles, and catlike movements despite their size.

  “Lady Hellgate,” Raileo said, as he walked up and stuck out his hand. It was a bold gesture for someone you didn’t know, and it violated all of the social norms of their Vestalian heritage. The touching of palms was intimate, as much as referring to a superior by their callsign. Unlike Quentin, this man was rude, and Helga was immediately put off by his actions.

  “Ate, or Helga will be sufficient, Mr. Lei. Pleasure to meet you, welcome to the Nighthawks.” She kept her arms folded, refusing his hand.

  The transport docked, and Cilas beckoned them forward to wait by the bay doors for them to open. “Aqnaqak awaits,” he said, flashing a smile. “Back in the schtill, and I can’t wait.”

  4

  Upon disembarking from the transport, the differences between the Aqnaqak and the Rendron became immediately apparent. Their hangar was a crowded hub of activity, which was a stark contrast to the Rendron’s, which had ships lined up in orderly rows, mechanized robots, and dock hands to fetch anything that the pilots would need before disembarking.

  In this hangar all she could see were Marines rushing this way and that, standing around chatting. Off to the side, below the wing of a Phantom, two young men wrestled with their shirts off.

  As Helga made to say something to Cilas about the chaos, a tiny transport car rolled up with four men inside. One was a corporal who looked them over as if they were trespassing on his turf. Upon recognizing Cilas and the ESO insignia, his eyes suddenly widened with surprise. He stepped out and saluted sharply. “How can I direct you, sir?” he said, and Helga noticed that there were food stains on the front of his uniform.

  It was too much. She was disappointed. For all of the things the Aqnaqak had done, there seemed to be a lack of discipline on the ship. Noisy grunts were one thing, and she could understand the hangar—though as a pilot it annoyed her—but food stains on the uniform supplied by Alliance command? She wanted to step forward and slap him.

  “Ate,” Cilas said, and she blinked past her shock to look over to see what he needed. “Did you hear the Corporal?”

  “On the directions? Yeah, um, we’re to be taken to the ready room for a briefing,” she said.

  The group of men laughed, but Cilas didn’t seem to be amused. “Yeah, I’ve said as much to him, but the question was on food. Should we grab breakfast, or do you want to wait until after the brief?”

  Her eyes drifted down to the corporal’s food stain where she examined it closely. Is that porridge? she thought and then forced her eyes up. “I can wait until after, if that’s alright.” Helga couldn’t believe that in her daze, she had missed his question completely. Am I losing my mind? she wondered suddenly. I need to slow down on the drinking.

  The men that were in the back of the transport got out as soon as she spoke, and the Nighthawks filed in to take their place. They rode through the rowdies, and Helga looked around. She seemed to be the only one surprised by the condition of the hangar. “Are you all about to deploy?” she said, hoping to get an explanation from the corporal.

  “No ma’am, what you’re seeing right now is the result of housing troops on an already crowded ship. The fight with those lizards left a lot of Marines without bunks. We’re holding them here until we can work out a worthwhile transfer. Some may be coming to your ship, others to Helysian, eventually.”

  “I had no idea,” Helga said.

  “I’m surprised, since the Rendron took the bulk of them,” he said.

  Helga looked over at Cilas, who nodded knowingly at what he said. Captain Sho must be a genius, she thought. He found a way to stash the troops without disrupting operations. The more she learned
about her captain, the more she respected the man. He was a leader in every sense of the word, and the youngest captain in all of the Alliance. Not to mention, he too had graduated second-class, and had formed the Nighthawks when he thought that he could do a lot more for the war effort.

  “Here we are,” said the corporal. “Commander Tye will meet you inside there.” He gestured to a small door at the end of the hangar where they parked, and Cilas hopped out of the vehicle and returned his salute before motioning for them to follow.

  Helga rushed ahead to catch up with him, and he pushed open a door to a sizable compartment with a set of four chairs arranged in the center, facing a table laden with equipment. Next to the table stood a woman who patiently watched as they came inside, but it was hard to see her in the low light until she touched the wall and the room brightened.

  “Welcome to Aqnaqak, Nighthawks,” she said. “Come in and have a seat. My name is Commander Cinnila Tye, and I am the Executive Officer of this ship. It was my summons that brought you here, so I appreciate you rushing over to hear what I have to say.”

  She was an older woman, mid-forties, with years of experience stamped on her raw-boned face. There was a confident smile beneath her shaved head, tattooed with lines, ordered and crossed out—which Helga assumed were kills from when she was in the conflict.

  “Badass,” Helga whispered, impressed by the decorated veteran. The commander gave her a measuring look, as if surprised to find a woman in the small ESO Company. It wasn’t lost on Helga, who was used to it by now, especially since this was Aqnaqak, the legendary Geralos-conquering battleship.

  Cilas grabbed a seat in the front of the compartment and she followed his lead, sitting down on his right. Quentin and Raileo sat next to her—she still wasn’t used to having new team members calling themselves Nighthawks. She thought about how they once were eight, and then they were two until the summons had forced them to recruit these men. She wasn’t even sure if the two of them were ready. Raileo was a fighter, one had to be growing up on a hub, but he was fresh out of the academy, and she wondered how he would perform in the field.