by M. D. Cooper
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 backward, 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.
As she crumpled, she faintly heard 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?”
A tech who bothered to learn the names of the mechs? That was a change.
“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 body—or 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 her 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.”
She 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.
She stepped back and grasped the door that would cover Rika’s rack and turn it into a tomb. Rika found herself wishing that the tech would leave the door open so that she could see; so that she could watch the tech work, so that she could have some contact with another human.
She tried to ask for it, but found that her Link had already been shut down in preparation for an enforced sleep and repair cycle.
“Sleep tight, Rika,” Jenn said with a smile as she closed the door and sealed Rika in darkness with her tears and soundless sobs.
THE END
RIKA CRUCIBLE
RIKA’S MARAUDERS – PREQUEL 2
THE FNM
STELLAR DATE: 01.07.8942 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Farthingway Airstrip, Luddow
REGION: Nottingham System, Genevian Federation
The words came directly into Rika’s mind, sen
t from her team leader, Silva, who stood a few meters away, cleaning the multifunction barrel of her main weapon, the GNR-41B.
Rika didn’t need to look in Silva’s direction to know what the corporal was up to—her helmet, a featureless ovoid, fed a three-sixty view of her surroundings into her mind, tapping into specialized mods and the upgraded optics processing center in her brain.
In the same way, she could also see the approaching mech that Silva had referred to.
Not that there was any reg in the Genevian Armed Forces against crossing one’s arms, it was just difficult to do when your left arm ended in the meter-long barrel of a GNR.
Silva snorted.
That fateful night, which had seen the women of Team Hammerfall fighting through the streets of Denmar City, was a month in their past, but it still felt like just a few nights ago to Rika.
Rika chuckled at the thought.
“Private Vi reporting for duty!” the new mech said as she reached the pair of women, stopping her forward motion unsteadily, and then saluting Rika.
Rika barked a laugh and shook her head, pointing at Silva. “She’s in charge here, not me. I just point this thing where she tells me.” She finished the statement by waving her GNR in the air.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Private Vi said, and turned to Silva, repeating the salute.
Rika glanced around the airfield, hoping no one saw the gesture. Anyone with more than five minutes in the GAF knew that privates didn’t salute corporals, and no one saluted a mech.
The meat doesn’t deserve respect.
Luckily no one had spotted the gesture, and Rika breathed a sigh of relief. If anyone thought that Silva and Rika were making their FNM salute them, it would be a round of Discipline for all.
Rika wondered if Vi had earned a taste of the mind-numbing pain the GAF used to keep mechs in line. Usually they gave the FNMs a good taste in transport so they wouldn’t make any trouble at their destinations.
“You salute me again, and I’ll bend that GNR around your scrawny neck,” Silva growled at Vi through her armor’s speakers. “You only salute officers, and there’s not a single damn commissioned mech in the entire GAF. You read me?”
“Uh…yes. Sorry, Corporal,” Private Vi stammered.
“It’s OK.” Silva’s tone softened. “Just don’t let it happen again. If any of the squishies see shit like that, we’ll all get to taste a Discipline sandwich. You’re straight off the factory line, aren’t you?”
“Factory?” Vi’s voice carried a waver, something that wasn’t easy to do, given that none of the mechs had mouths anymore. The GAF had taken that feature, along with the mechs’ arms and legs—and faces, and skin, and humanity….
“It’s what we call it,” Rika said with a shrug. “So far as the GAF is concerned, we were made. We’re products with model numbers—just like those crates of ammunition over there.”
“They said I’m an SMI-2,” Vi said, raising her three-fingered right hand and bending the fingers slowly, like she was still learning how to use them. “Is that a good model?”
“Scout Mech Infantry Mark II,” Silva intoned. “You, my dear sweet Vi, now represent the pinnacle of Genevian warfare. The best of the best. The tip of the spear.”
“Which means we get bent and bloodied a lot,” Rika added. “So what did you do?”
“Do?” Vi’s voice was confused and wavering again.
“Yeah,” Rika gave a sharp nod. “What did you steal? Who’d you kill? How did they set you up for this shit gig?”
“I volunteered,” Vi said with no small amount of regret and sorrow in the semi-mechanical voice that emanated from the speakers on her armor.
If it were possible, Rika’s jaw would have fallen open, gaping wide enough for the nearby pigeons foraging in the grass to fly into.
Silva beat her to the exclamation. “You fucking volunteered for this?”
Vi ducked her head. “Well…I didn’t know they’d do…this…to me. They told me that if I volunteered for special service, the government would take care of my mother—she’s sick, and we’ve lost everything running from the Nietzscheans. I signed the documents at a courthouse, and then they loaded me onto a bus—”
“We know the rest of the story,” Rika interrupted. “Taken to the factory, naked, scrubbed, limbs amputated at the elbows and knees, skin stripped off….”
Vi shuddered and nodded wordlessly.
“Sounds like the GAF is widening their net,” Silva said as she took a step toward Vi and placed a hand on the mech’s shoulder. “I know we come across as a pair of hard-cases, but that’s just from being in the shit for too long. The Factory is behind you. You won’t ever go back there. Now you’re with us, you’re Team Hammerfall.”
Vi’s featureless oval head lifted, still getting accustomed to the fact that she could never look away from anything. No matter what was around you, no matter how horrible it was, or how delightful. Mechs could never look away.
“Hammerfall?”
“Yeah,” Rika placed a hand on Vi’s other shoulder. “The three of us. We’re Team Hammerfall. We’re the baddest daughters of steel in the GAF, and Nietzscheans piss themselves ‘til they’re dried husks when they see us coming.”
Silva groaned.
“So…are you two going to train me?” Vi asked.
“Didn’t they run you through the ‘Boot’ sims when they shipped you over here?” Rika asked, trying to keep the ‘dear stars you’re so fucked’ sentiment out of her voice.
“I got racked and shut down for transport. When I landed on the far side of the field, they unracked us right next to the cradle. A sergeant sent me over here to you two.”
Rika glanced across the field. There were no military transports on any of the cradles. The only thing big enough to ship a bunch of mechs was a squat freighter three kilometers away. “You came in on that thing?”
Vi turned her head to face Rika, then she dipped it and shook the featureless ovoid side to side. “I gotta learn not to do that,” she muttered. “I can’t tell where you’re looking by looking at you, and I don’t need to turn my head to look anywhere…how do you two deal with it?”
“Your brain will adapt. Takes a few days to even get the hang of it—which is why they usually stick the FNMs into a Boot Camp sim on the way over.”
“Which I guess didn’t happen if they’re sending mechs out from the Factory on civvie ships now.”
“What does that mean?” Vi asked, her voice warbling once again.
Rika gave the woman a light punch on the arm. “Well, Vi, it means you’re the FNMest of the FNMs. Momma Silva and I—”
>
“I hate it when you call me that,” Silva interjected.
“Are gonna teach you how to fight like a girl,” Rika continued.
Vi ducked her head in a nervous nod. “What does FNM mean?”
Rika gave Vi a light knock on the head with the barrel of her GNR. “ ‘Fucking New Mech’, Vi. Don’t worry, though. Every woman who’s come into Hammerfall has lived long enough to call someone else the FNM.”
“Where have they all gone?” Vi asked. “Did they move to other teams?”
Silva kicked a rock. “Yeah.” Her tone was sour, laced with anger and pain. “Team Dirt Nap.”
“How many of your team have died?” Vi asked quietly.
“Too many,” Silva whispered, turning her body away to look out over the low hills stretching to the south of the airstrip. “Gunny just hit me up over the Link. We’re going to take you out on a little dry run, Vi, make sure all the kinks are worked out.”
Rika turned to one of the crates nearby. “OK, Vi, I’m gonna show you how to rack and stack your ammo. From now on, you gotta think of yourself as a one-woman tank. You’ve got the firepower of a whole platoon of squishies, but if you run outta ammo or power, you’re just scrap metal. You read me?”
“Uhh…yes, Rika.”
Rika strode over to the first crate and popped it open, pulling out a multifunction rifle. “Good, now here’s your AR97. You’re not gonna love this thing as much as your gun-arm, but you may consider an affair with it from time to time.”
She handed the gun to Vi, who took it awkwardly and cradled it against her gun-arm.
“I’ve never fired a weapon before, Rika,” Vi said quietly. “Well, not outside of sims.”
“Neither had I when I joined up with this lovely outfit, but don’t worry, I’ll get you squared away.”
“There’s a latch on your back for it,” Silva turned her back to Vi and pointed at hers. “Stick the AR97 on it for now. We’ll show you how to use it when we’re away from all these eyes. I don’t want them thinking mechs don’t know their shit.”