by M. D. Cooper
Rika felt guilt stab at her. Had Kelly just killed herself to save them?
Rika tried not to smile at the hilarity of their situation as she fired at the vague figures of the Niets where they advanced along the edges of the street. She heard a scream, and then another as her shots found their marks.
Kelly called up again.
Another round tore through the rapidly disintegrating car and pinged off Rika’s armor. She didn’t have to be told twice. She scampered across the pavement, diving head first into the hole Kelly had made. She splashed out of the way a second before Silva came down after her.
Rika surfaced and looked behind to see that the tunnel had collapsed. She was about to congratulate her teammates when a split formed in the tunnel’s ceiling above them.
They pushed up over ten kilometers per hour in the tight confines, barely keeping ahead of the collapsing tunnel. Rika was beginning to wonder if the drain dumped right into the river, or if it went to a treatment plant, when she slammed into a metal grate.
Kelly and Silva were there a second later, and the three women pulled at the bars, wrenching them open and escaping just as the tunnel collapsed behind them.
Rika’s chest was heaving, desperate to oxygenate her muscles, and working her CO2 scrubbers overtime. She sank to the bottom of the river, fighting a wave of claustrophobia; her mind trying to remind her body that her armor’s systems could keep her going underwater for an hour, if needs be.
Her feet finally hit the riverbed, and her sonar picked up Kelly and Silva hitting the muddy bottom a few meters on either side of her.
It took the three women nearly ten minutes to pull their way through the sucking mud at the bottom of the river, and when they finally heaved themselves onto the shore, they felt like they’d run for a day.
“Don’t move!” a man’s angry voice called out. “Identify yourselves!”
“Corporal Silva, Alpha Company, 89th battalion, Division 253,” Silva said through her armor’s speakers. “Any chance we can hitch a ride with you guys?”
“Mechs?” the man, a corporal as well by his insignia, asked as he rose from cover and peered down at them. “You’re pretty small for mechs.”
“SMI-2’s, scout models,” Silva replied.
“Better come with me,” the man grunted. “Major’ll want to know that we have mechs.”
The trio of women followed the soldier—a man of medium build in light armor, mismatched at that—through the streets of Denmar, to a squat building sporting a sign which proudly declared, “Denmar Metropolitan Police – Precinct 49”
They walked past a pair of guards in heavy armor who looked them up and down, but didn’t speak. Inside, several officers stood around a portable holo projector showing the layout of the city. Rika could see areas highlighted in blue and red. The river divided the two colors, but there were a few places where the red had crossed over to the blue side.
Rika recognized a major, a captain, and two lieutenants.
“What the hell are you?” the major asked as he looked the three women up and down.
“They’re the new SMI-2 mechs, sir” the lieutenant to his right offered. “Scout models.”
“Scout mechs? I remember hearing something about that. Woulda preferred some K1Rs, but I suppose you three will do. You make it through those Niets on the far side of the river?” the major asked.
“Yes, sir,” Silva replied. “Took more than a few of them to their graves while we were at it.”
The major looked them over once more, shaking his head at their mud-coated armor and raising an eyebrow at the thermite burns covering Kelly. “I’m sure you did. Looks like you’ve been through hell. What happened out there, anyway? Yesterday we owned this world; now we’re buggering off.”
“I don’t know, sir,” Silva replied. “We got hit hard. A lot of nukes and captured K1Rs took out our company, then our battalion.”
“And you survived?” the major asked, his brow arched.
“Sir, mechs don’t die. Sir!” Silva gave the standard response the mechs had learned to offer when their superior tactics and survivability made them the last ones standing.
“Let’s hope that holds true,” The major replied with a shake of his head. “As you can guess, we’re not long for this bit of ground. Last birds are ready to take off and we’re pulling out. You three meats have the luck of the draw; you’re on rearguard.”
Kelly clasped Rika’s shoulder with her robotic hand.
Rika and Kelly complied, and a minute later there was nothing but a few empty streets between them and the oncoming Nietzschean army.
Rika began to worry. They had been through so much, fought so hard, but here they were, staring down the enemy once more. You’re not going to make it off this rock, a voice said in her head. She forced it away, thankful when Silva gave the order to move.
The three women fell back block by block, covering one another, and taking shots at any Niets they spotted. The going was slow, and they got caught in one brief skirmish, then another. Five minutes later, they were on their
own, moving toward the evac point, praying the squishies wouldn’t leave without them.
Kelly pleaded.
Rika’s heart went out to Kelly. Rika didn’t have anyone…anything at all waiting for her back in the world, other than a good long binge-drinking spree. Kelly had kids. Two girls who were growing up while their mother slogged through the ashes of a dozen ruined worlds.
Rika was on the east side of the road, farthest from the enemy they could see furtively working their way up the boulevard a half kilometer distant. She took aim and fired a uranium rod from her GNR, blowing the head clear off a Nit who took too long to get behind cover.
As she spoke, a Nit came around a corner only twenty meters from Silva. Rika could have sworn the side street had been clear, but the enemy must have been well concealed. He was in heavy armor, almost as tall as the SMI-2s, and the weapon he held unleashed a barrage of high-explosive rounds at Silva.
Rika raised her weapon to fire on him, but caught sight of another Nit on her side of the road as he threw a grenade at her. She dove out of the way and scampered behind a car for cover. The grenade rolled under the vehicle and Rika’s breath caught as the explosion lifted the vehicle into the air and flung it over her head.
She fought through the shock and rushed her attacker, swinging a fist at his neck, feeling his armor dent. He fell back, trying to bring his weapon to bear, but she swung one of her clawed feet up and snatched the weapon from his hand before planting the other foot on his chest and wrapping it around his torso while grasping the underside of his helmet with her left hand.
Rika heaved up with all her strength, trying to pull the helmet off so she could put one between her attacker’s eyes. The man—she thought it was a man, from the build—let loose a terrifyingly unnatural scream as she wrenched the helmet free.
She flung it aside and stepped back, aiming her GNR-41B at his head, ready to pull the trigger…when she realized he was already dead. In her rage, she had pulled his helmet off from the front, tearing his jaw, and much of his face, off in the process.
The scream was still echoing around her, and it took Rika a moment to realize that it was coming from her—all the sorrow, fear, and rage that had been building up inside her, pouring out of her armor’s speakers. She wasn’t going to lose her family, not today, not at the hands of these assholes. She forced herself to cease the scream—though she wasn’t even certain how she did it, and then looked across the boulevard to see Kelly cradling Silva’s body
As Kelly lifted Silva’s limp body, Rika caught sight of a pair of ghastly holes in the corporal’s abdomen. Biofoam was spilling out of her armor, staunching the flow of blood and sealing the wounds. Silva’s head lolled and Rika thanked the stars that Silva was still conscious.
Kelly didn’t have to be told twice; she took off at top speed. Rika followed, running backwards, firing at everything that looked like an enemy, lobbing parties every hundred meters.
Behind her, Rika’s three-sixty vision caught sight of the last troop transport, its ramp still lowered, the last of the squishies rushing into its safe confines.
“Hold the door!” she screamed over her speakers, wishing they had taken the time to get the new Link encryption keys from the major. “Don’t you fucking leave without us!”
Against all her fears, the ramp stayed down as Rika and Kelly closed the final hundred meters.
Rika saw Niets flooding in from every direction, and the transport’s auto turrets flared in the early morning light, tearing into the enemy, forcing them back.
Rika saw the missile flash out from amongst the Niets. It was headed straight for her, and she had a moment to examine it and consider that it looked like an eclipsed star, black in the middle with a flaming ring around it.
She broke herself free from the mesmerizing vision in time to dodge out of the way—and see the missile slam squarely into Kelly’s back.
The impact flung Kelly forward and Silva slipped from her arms. Both women rolled to a stop on the pavement.
Rika skidded to a halt and dashed back as she heard the transport’s thrusters flare to life, its turrets still firing. The sound of weapons and engines faded away as she grabbed Silva and tossed her over her right shoulder before grabbing Kelly by the arm and streaking across the pavement to the transport.
The ramp was half closed and the shuttle was five meters off the ground when Rika used every last bit of energy she had to leap into the air, pulling the limp bodies of team Hammerfall with her. She slammed into the transport’s deck hard enough that she could feel the vessel shift under her from the impact.
Rika lowered Silva off her shoulder and set Kelly’s body down on the deck—her eyes finally seeing the massive hole torn right through her friend’s chest.
Nooooo… Rika moaned in her mind as she collapsed to the deck, faintly hearing one of the squishies whisper, “what the fuck are these things?”
* * * * *
Rika stepped into the mech bay and couldn’t help but notice that nearly all the racks were empty. She was the only SMI-2 present, though Silva would join her after she had healed up and debriefed the colonel—probably not in that order.
“Hey, SMI-2-253-89A-3,” a young woman called out. “Over here. Let me get you out of that armor.”
Rika wondered who the woman was talking to, and then remembered that was her serial number. She had spent so much time alone with Hammerfall over the last day, using only first names. She had forgotten that to the military she was just a piece of hardware.
She walked to the woman who gave her a smile. “Rika, is it?”
“I’m Jenn. I heard you guys like to use names; sorry I didn’t look it up at first.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Jenn replied. “You went through the wringer down there…your armor is pretty much scrap—let’s get you out of it so you can relax.”
Rika nodded and Jenn helped her out of the layers of ablative plating and nano-carbon mesh until she stood ‘naked’. She looked down at her body: fit, lean, grey-skinned—until just before her knees and elbows, where her cyborg limbs began.
“Step back onto the hardmounts,” Jenn said, and Rika took a step back, feeling a pair of hooks catch on the two mount points on her back. The hooks lifted her into the air, and the tech grabbed a special tool and slipped it into a cavity above
her right leg.
Jenn gave the tool a deft twist, and the leg loosened in its socket. She pulled out the anchor rods, gave the limb a twist, and it came free. She followed the same procedure for Rika’s other three limbs, until she hung from the hooks as just a torso and four stubby appendages that ended in meta sockets.
“OK, Rika, let’s get this helmet off you,” Jenn said as she selected another tool and slid it into a recess under Rika’s jaw. She gave the tool a twist, and the featureless oval helmet split in two, exposing Rika’s head underneath.
Rika’s three-sixty vision snapped off, and she slowly opened her eyes; the only organic part of her visible on the outside. Her vision swam for a minute before she was able to focus on the bay and the tech in front of her.
It was refreshing to finally see another person as just that—a human with skin, hair, clothes, all represented in the proper colors. Not a composite view of optical, IR, and UV, overlaid with threat indicators, bio-analysis, and motion predictors.
Just a human.
Rika bent her head down and looked at her own body—what was left of it. The soft curve of her small breasts, her narrow waist—a bit thicker, with the antimatter bottle tucked inside. She could almost pretend it was soft pink skin—if not for the ports and anchor rod holes dotting her flesh. A tear formed in Rika’s eye and slid down her cheek.
“I know,” Jenn said, true compassion in her voice as she wiped the tear off Rika’s face. “My dad got picked up in a sting and is serving as a mech, too. It was a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ sort of thing, but I know he’s kicking ass for the good guys. What they did to you is brutal, but you’re really helping. We’re going to win this war, I just know it.”
Jenn placed her hand on Rika’s chest and gently slid her back into the rack. She carefully hooked up the bio-support tubes and recharge cables to Rika’s body before clamping the safety bracket around Rika’s waist.
“Wouldn’t want you to slam around in there if we hit any bumps,” Jenn said with a wink.