by M. D. Cooper
She gritted her teeth. It will be horrible; it will be excruciating, but I can defeat it.
“Cat got your tongue?” Stavros teased.
“You don’t have to do this,” Rika coaxed. “I came to you, remember? Freely.”
Stavros shrugged. “Freely or no, all my mechs, and no small number of my soldiers, have been chipped. I demand loyalty. Utter loyalty. Did you ever wonder why you mechs did so well against the Nietzscheans? It wasn’t because you were superior warriors. Hell, most of you had no idea what you were doing. It was because you feared Discipline more than you feared the enemy. The pain made you strong; you didn’t see any reason to fear the Nietzscheans. They were nothing to you.”
Rika couldn’t disagree more. She had feared dying at the hands of the Nietzscheans every bit as much as from Discipline. She didn’t want either. Nevertheless, there was no point in debating it with Stavros. Let him think he had it all figured out.
“What now?” Rika bit off the words.
“You already have the hardware; it won’t take long to get you equipped, and then we can have that dinner.”
“You eat with your slaves?” Rika questioned pointedly.
“Rika,” Stavros said in an earnest voice. “You won’t be a slave; you’ll be a loyal ally. I will tell you all my plans so that you know whether or not what you’re doing is in line with my vision. It will also ensure that the chip knows when to help you see the proper way forward.
<’Better’? Easy for you to say,> Rika retorted.
Rika realized that Stavros was scowling at her.
“Oh, you were serious?” Rika asked him with a sweet smile. “Which way to the slave factory?”
Stavros shook his head and gestured down the hall. “It’s going to be fun breaking you.”
“It’ll be fun watching you try,” Rika quipped.
DINNER WITH A DICTATOR
STELLAR DATE: 04.01.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Basileus Residence, The Isthmus, Sparta
REGION: Peloponnese System, The Politica, Praesepe Cluster
“I must say,” Stavros said as he reclined on a sofa in a lavish sitting room. “It’s nice having a mech with a mouth; we can break bread together, behave like proper humans.”
Rika nodded as she took a sip of her wine. Even though Niki could negate the compliance chip and its Discipline, just the thought of having the thing in her brought out a rage in Rika that she had not felt for some time.
Stavros seemed to sense it; his words were constantly on the edge of orders, casual statements that were almost directives.
He glanced at Silva, who stood against the wall on his right. “Not like Meat, there. She can’t eat; well, not like a person, at least. Doesn’t matter, though—she’s very good at what she does. After seeing you, I was tempted to give her a face again, but decided against it. I don’t want her to think she’s anything more than a tool.”
“You do realize that we hate being called ‘meat’, right?” Rika said in response. “It’s not endearing.”
Stavros leaned forward. “Oh, don’t worry, Rika; I would never use that word to refer to you, or any other mech, for that matter. I respect you. You are a thing of beauty, both to the eyes and on the battlefield.
“Meat back there earned her name through some very disobedient actions. It was she who made me realize that I should only ever equate loyalty with Discipline.”
“What did she do?” Rika wanted to know.
Stavros waved his hand dismissively and leaned back. “It is no concern of yours. Suffice it to say she knows her place now. But I wonder if you know yours…. Could you kill her? Another SMI-2 mech like yourself?”
As Stavros spoke, Rika realized he didn’t know that Silva had revealed herself to her former teammate. Somehow, though she was battered and broken, Silva had managed to hide that fact.
He must know that we served together in the war. Stars, it was probably the reason he sought me out. That he hasn’t revealed Silva’s identity means that he is just holding onto it for when he thinks it will hurt me the most.
“I don’t kill in cold blood,” Rika stated firmly.
“Oh?” Stavros asked, raising his eyebrows. “And what of your precious Chase, Barne, and Leslie in the Marauders?”
Rika gave a predatory grin and leaned forward; a gesture she knew even Stavros would not be able dismiss with his blasé attitude. “That wasn’t in cold blood. I tasted theirs that day; it was most certainly warm.”
Stavros didn’t reply for a moment, and Rika smiled at the brief look of uncertainty that crossed his face.
She took the opportunity to look around the room and stretched, thinking of ways to take out the eight guards. She was almost certain that if she made her move, Silva would not attack her.
Together we can defeat these guards, I know it. The real question is will Silva help, or will the Discipline keep her from coming to my aid?
Not that it mattered. She still had to wait three days before killing Stavros; three days of listening to him blather on about how amazing he is, and how his logic is infallible.
Stavros took a sip of his wine and stared at her over the rim of his glass with a look in his eyes that Rika did not like.
“Kill it,” he ordered suddenly.
“Kill who?” Rika asked, feeling a pinch on her ass.
“Don’t be coy with me,” Stavros warned. “You know Discipline doesn’t work like that. There is only one other thing that is killable in this room—Meat. Kill Meat.”
Stavros leaned back to look at Silva. “Oh, and Meat? Don’t move.”
Silva hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time she had been standing against the wall, but now she seemed to become even more still; like a statue of a mech, her death’s head staring ahead into eternity.
The pinches on Rika’s ass grew stronger, and she gritted her teeth, refusing to rise.
“Oh, you’re a tough one,” Stavros observed, appreciation in his voice. “Granted, you’ve been through a lot of this. Most people fold at the first hint of the kind of pain Discipline can impart.”
“I served under a lot of assholes in the war,” Rika said pointedly through clenched teeth.
“None like me, though,” Stavros promised.
Rika shook her head. < I can take a lot, and he should know that. Pain is nothing.>
Suddenly Rika leapt to her feet, kicked the low table between her and Stavros out of the way—sending his wine and goblets across the room as she did so—soared over the sofa, and brought her GNR to bear on Silva, switching the weapon to fire projectile rounds at full automatic.
“STOP!” Stavros yelled, and Rika froze.
She slowly turned to look at him. Every one of his eight guards had their weapons raised
and aimed at Rika, and she saw a brief flicker of fear in Stavros’s eyes. Then he began to clap.
“You’ve quite the flare for the dramatic. Come sit with me.”
Rika returned to her seat as a group of servants entered the room and began to clean up the mess that she had created.
“You didn’t say how to kill her,” Rika replied with a shrug as she sat back down.
“I also didn’t tell you to smash my wine bottle against the wall,” Stavros retorted. “But what’s done is done. I’ll have to remember your temper next time I give you an order like that.”
“Give me legitimate targets and you won’t need to rely on Discipline,” Rika countered.
“You don’t seem to understand your new place in the world,” Stavros said menacingly, and Rika felt a wave of pinches on her ass. She grimaced in response.
Stavros rose from his couch and stepped over a broken glass on the floor. “You’ll do well to remember, Rika: my every word is the very definition of ‘legitimate’.”
Stavros began to unfasten his belt and Rika looked around the room at the other people present, all staring into space as Stavros approached her. He grabbed her by the hair and what happened next made Rika glad she could retreat to the place in her mind where cool breezes blew across the tall prairie grass.
* * * * *
An hour later, after Stavros had taken what he wanted and sated himself, he dismissed both Rika and Silva, telling them to go clean up and charge themselves.
The two former members of Hammerfall walked out into the hall, and Rika spat on the bulkhead, wishing she could have taken one of the new bottles of wine the servants had brought in.
She reached out and touched Silva, placing a small batch of nanobots on her friend’s arm. Silva turned her head to look at Rika, but didn’t speak; she was likely under orders not to.
However, Rika didn’t need Silva to speak. A minute later, as they stood on the lift, Niki indicated that the channel was established.
Rika sent warmth and a feeling of support across the connection to Silva.
Rika felt a surge of pity for Silva. How has a woman who was once so strong, so capable, become so weak? How has Stavros broken her so completely?
Rika said.
Amazement emanated from Niki, and Rika turned her attention back to Silva, and to telling her story.
Rika pushed Silva against the wall.
Silva’s head drooped, and her chest heaved.
Rika took a step back, nearly colliding with a bewildered-looking man who was pushing a cart laden with food down the corridor.
“Sorry,” Rika muttered. “Keep moving.”
A soldier walked by, giving the two mechs a long look, and Rika grabbed Silva and propelled her down the corridor.
Rika had no idea what to say—Silva had never shared those details during the war. Though, to be fair, they tried not to talk about the things they had lost; it had always hurt too much.
Rika finally understood.
* * * * *
As the revelation sank in, Rika silently followed Silva down to the mech bay, where she and several other mechs assigned to Stavros’s Residence ‘lived’.
The room reminded Rika all too much of the mech bays on Genevian warships. Mechracks, equipment storage, nutripaste stations; everything a mech needed to stay alive.
There were three other mechs in the bay when they entered—two AM-3s and an RR-3. All three were sitting at a table, playing what appeared to be some variation of Poker.
They were not wearing their helmets, and each had the same featureless face that Rika once had.
“Whoa,” one of the AM-3s said, his voice coming from a speaker on his armor. “Who’s the new girl?”
“Rika,” Silva introduced her aloud, apparently able to speak here, with the other mechs. “She signed on today.”
“Willingly?” the RR-3 asked.
“Something like that,” Rika answered. “You three have names?”
“Aaron,” the AM-3 who had spoken first said, and then pointed at the other AM-3. “That’s John, but he doesn’t talk.”
“And I’m Wyona,” the RR-3 chimed in. “Nice face you got there.”
“Thanks,” Rika said as she sat at the table next to Wyona.
“You the only other mechs here?” Rika asked.
Wyona shook her head. “No. Stavros has a couple hundred of us; we’re just the only ones in this mech bay. As much as he likes having us around, he doesn’t like having too many close by.”
“Prefers his goons,” Aaron grunted.
“Goons?” Rika echoed.
“The soldiers that were with him,” Silva explained. “They’re chipped too, but a bit easier to take down than we are. I guess he figures that if one of them goes rogue, the others can kill a squishie a lot faster than they could one of us.”
Rika snorted at the word. None of the mechs in the Marauders used it; it wasn’t the sort of term that helped teams bond. Though it was a lot nicer than ‘meat’.
“You really joined The Politica of your own free will?” Wyona asked. “You realize th
at it’s a life sentence; probably a death sentence, too.”
“I’m pretty resilient,” Rika allowed. “I take it that the three of you aren’t willing members of Stavros’s regime. And you can just question it like this?”
Aaron barked a laugh. “Well, we can’t talk outside this room; not aloud, at least. But I don’t think they actually listen to anything we say in here.”
“Or they’re just saving it all up to hang us with later,” Silva suggested.
“How did you talk to me before?” Rika asked Silva. “Back on Kestry.”
“Mission parameters,” Silva stated with a shrug. “Hard to run a team if you can’t talk. I took a few Discipline hits doing it, but nothing serious; though I guess you don’t really care about that.”
There was an edge to Silva’s words, like she didn’t believe that Rika could actually beat the compliance chip.
“Don’t care about it?” Wyona asked, confused.
“Rika has beat Discipline,” Silva explained, not quite matter-of-factly.
“Seriously?” Aaron said. “No one beats the big D.”
Rika looked at him. “I found out that mechs did it during the war; not often, but it happened. The officers told us it couldn’t be done in order to keep us in line. But it can. I have.”
“Prove it,” Wyona challenged.
“How?” Rika asked. “Should I blow something away?”
“Yeah, take out one of the charging stations,” Aaron suggested with a grin.
Rika raised her GNR, aiming at the nearest charging station, and a flurry of pinches hit her.
“This one special to any of you? Do you want me to actually shoot it, or is my intention enough to prove it to you?”
The mechs looked impressed as Rika continued to hold her GNR level; even John was paying attention.