by M. D. Cooper
Either that, or they don’t have any sensors in the elevator shaft. That would be foolish in the extreme, but not terribly surprising. They’re cocky bastards, after all.
As the cars descended, she watched the first one—presumably containing the enemy’s commanding officers—pass below ground level, and let out a curse.
They must be going for the maglev line beneath the building.
Amid her descent, she was finally able to connect to the four mech frames they’d passed in the loading bay, and triggered their activation sequences. Once again wishing that Niki was around to help, she directed the crude NSAIs in the frames to get to the elevator shaft, and follow down once she’d passed their level.
Below, she could see the first car stopping, and assumed that it must have reached the maglev station below the building.
Sure enough, it slid to the side at the lowest level, making room for the car Leslie was hanging from. The view confirmed that this was the bottom of the shaft, and she quickly scrambled up the side of the car, hoping that she hadn’t made any noticeable noise. She settled on the roof, waiting for the car to stop and its passengers to disembark.
Above her, she saw the four mech frames tear the lift doors off at the loading dock’s level, and three of them clamber down the sides of the shaft.
She instructed the fourth one to wait, attempting to relay a signal through it while still at ground level.
For a moment, there was no response, and Leslie worried she’d be entirely on her own.
Then Potter’s voice came into her mind.
Leslie was about to respond, when beamfire flashed above, and the mech that had been standing at the doors exploded, the lower half of its body toppling into the elevator shaft as the top half became shrapnel, spraying into the other three mech frames.
“Shit!” Leslie swore aloud, tearing off the access door on the car’s roof and dropping down into the small space.
Rika was no longer in the elevator car, but two Nietzschean naval chiefs were, both frozen in surprise at the partially visible figure that had just dropped between them.
Leslie didn’t even bother firing at the pair, instead racing out of the elevator as the bottom half of the mech frame slammed into it, smashing through the roof of the car, and crushing the two Niets.
She found herself in a long corridor that connected to the maglev platform. Ahead, she could see Rika’s form being carried on the shoulders of the Nietzschean sergeants. She fired at them, hitting one in the legs, but then the enemy made it around a corner, forty meters away.
Passing an instruction for the remaining three mech frames to follow as best they could, Leslie took off down the corridor, cursing the need to slow as she approached the corner.
While still a dozen meters away, she flung two microdrones ahead of herself, their optics revealing four Niets crouched behind a barricade, their weapons aimed at the corner, ready to shoot anything that came around it.
Beyond them, she could see that the Nietzschean officers were already boarding the maglev, the soldiers who were carrying Rika double-timing it to reach the train.
Leslie snatched the empty grenade satchel from her waist and disabled its stealth before flinging it out beyond the corner. She didn’t wait to see if the enemies fell for her weak ruse before easing around the edge.
As she’d hoped, the four guards were distracted by the flying satchel. Combined with her stealth, the weak diversion helped her make it past their barricade. Once clear, she picked up her pace, racing toward the maglev, though the doors began to close while she was still some distance away.
No! she screamed in the confines of her mind, driving her body to its limit in an attempt to reach the train.
Behind her, a voice cried out, and projectile fire streaked past her head.
She was nearly at the train when a pulse blast hit her in the back and sent her flying across the platform and over the edge. She landed on the maglev rail as it activated, the magnetic field crushing her body against the lower half of the rail.
Pinned, tears of rage and frustration streaming down her face, Leslie stared at the departing maglev train.
The train that held Rika.
“Don’t move, or I’ll blow your head off!”
She looked up to see a Nietzschean standing at the edge of the platform, an ugly, snub-nosed coilgun pointed down at her.
“Think so?” she asked, wishing the Niet could see the sneer on her lips.
He looked like he was about to reply, when an electron beam tore through his chest, fired by one of the mech frames that had finally made it past the elevator car’s wreckage.
The current on the maglev rail shut off, and Leslie clambered up onto the platform, watching as the Goon-Mech frames finished off the Nietzscheans.
Fuck…what do I do? She wondered.
Then an idea came to her, and she signaled the closest mech frame to open up its operator’s pod. A minute later, she was inside the Nietzschean machine, racing down the maglev track.
“I’m coming, Rika,” she whispered.
CAPTIVE
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Unknown
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Rika felt consciousness slip in and out as she was jostled about for what felt like forever. Rough hands grasped her, wrenching her to and fro, the feeling barely perceptible over the pounding in her head.
Try as she might, she couldn’t get a response from Niki. Her internal connection to the AI only flashed a routing error, and her external wireless connections—and her QuanComm connection—were also unresponsive.
She was barely able to move a muscle, and her mechanical limbs could have been fried for all she knew. Centrally located in her skull, directly below her reptile brain, were the heavily shielded repair mods; though she could access them, the systems only reported ‘Assessing Damage’ when she asked for status.
Fuuuuck! she silently raged, furious that she had allowed herself to fall into such a crude trap; her anger warring with the fear that was clawing at the edges of her mind.
She was utterly helpless, and in the hands of the Nietzscheans.
Time seemed to pass with excruciating slowness, though when she checked it, the chronometer still functioning within her mind told her that it had been eleven hours since her capture.
What!
Rika felt a fresh wave of panic. She wondered how her body had not managed to repair critical systems in that amount of time. She reviewed her internal system logs only to find signs that the Niets had tried to crack her armor several times, but that her anti-intrusion defenses had responded with nano attacks.
The ISF’s nano had staved off any breaches, but the intrusion attempts had slowed her recovery significantly.
Niki’s voice came into her mind, sounding different than normal—a bit more like it used to before they were properly paired.
The AI’s words crashed into her like a K1R on a bender.
Rika considered ho
w that could have played out. The Niets had an effective bargaining chip with her in captivity; it could be that they’d simply told the Marauders that Rika would die if they attacked.
She hoped her mechs wouldn’t fall for something like that. Her life was just as likely to be forfeit if the enemy got her outsystem.
Niki sent a feeling of emphatic agreement.
Rika stifled a curse; getting angry wouldn’t help her now, and she shouldn’t have been surprised anyway. Disarming her as much as possible was a logical move on the part of the Niets. Smart. For once. She continued her assessment.
Rika gave a soft laugh.
Over the next half hour, she assisted Niki in finding a power source—a weak, but consistent magnetic field in the deck beneath them. They tasked the final nanoprobes to build a coil to tap the magnetic field using copper from her charging cable and threading it through a small hole they’d bored in the deck underneath her back.
She harbored no illusions that they would.
LOST
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Intersection 48th and Bridge Street, Memphis, Kansas
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“Shit!” Chase swore as Potter confirmed that a stealthed ship had broken atmosphere at an opportune time, and was already on the far side of the planet from the Marauder vessels.
Before Chase could shout ‘Yes!’, Lieutenant Colonel Alice joined the conversation.
He forced himself to take a deep breath.
Alice replied, a steely edge to her voice.
Chase clenched his jaw. He wasn’t certain he believed Alice, but this wasn’t the time to take her to task—especially with her being in nominal command of the battalion.
Alice’s words made sense on the surface, but he wondered if it really was better to move to the spaceport. It was clear across Memphis, and it would take some time to get the B’muths over there.
Still, he couldn’t countermand her, and he figured it would be wise to be in the same room as the woman when she was making her decisions—if for no other reason than the probable need to knock her unconscious and take command of the battalion.
A trickle of sweat ran down Chase’s temple, and he wished he could remove his helmet to brush it aside.
Chase gave a vehement nod in the shade beside a kitchen appliance store.
ORDERS
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Hornton Space and Airport, Memphis, Kansas
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Alison snapped to attention as Lieutenant Colonel Alice entered the Nietzscheans’ former CIC at the spaceport.
The woman was one of the few non-mechs in the Marauders, and the only one in the command other than Leslie. The other non-mechs were mostly engineers, pilots, and ship crew. So far as Alison was concerned, each and every one of them were fully-fledged members of Rika’s Marauders—they bled oil just like the mechs.
But not Alice.
Everyone knew that she was a plant sent from Marauder HQ to keep an eye on them and make sure that Rika remembered she worked for the Marauders, and not Tanis and the ISF.
Bullshit, Alison thought. Rika works for Rika. But everyone knows she’s taking direction from Tanis.
That was the scuttlebutt, at least. It was ISF intel that had enabled the Marauders to launch an attack on the Sepe System. Following that, Tanis had reached out to Rika with the information that the Blue Ridge System was all but undefended; a ripe target within Nietzschea’s borders.
Of course, any goals here were secondary, now, what with Rika’s capture by the Niets. Alison was beside herself with worry—along with the rest of the Marauders.
She’d heard Lieutenant Fuller and Staff Sergeant Chauncy talking about how they should just abandon Kansas—and the Blue Ridge System entirely, if needs be
—to go after Rika.
The sentiment was one she shared wholeheartedly.
Still, Chase hadn’t made the call to leave, so she would bide her time. But if the captain said the word, she’d pack up in a heartbeat.
No matter what the lieutenant colonel says.
“Sergeant,” Alice said loudly in the otherwise empty room while glaring at the holotable showing the layout of the spaceport.
“Yes, Colonel Alice?” Alison replied, turning toward the woman.
“I need you to find the fastest, interstellar-capable ship in the spaceport. Something maneuverable that we can use as a pursuit craft.”
“Ma’am?” Alison cocked an eyebrow. “Is there something wrong with our fleet?”
Alice looked up from the holo and met Alison’s gaze. “Yes. It’s a Nietzschean fleet, and they’ll be looking for it. We need something they won’t suspect, that is able to effect a pursuit and breach. You find the right craft and pick two fireteams to come along.”
Alison’s estimation of Alice shifted slightly. This woman is going to lead the rescue of Rika? That was something she could get behind.
“Yes, ma’am!”
“And, Alison,” Alice said, taking a step closer, her eyes darting around the otherwise empty CIC. “Keep this to yourself. We think the Niets have breached our comms somehow—it was how they got the drop on Rika. The company commanders know we’re doing this; Chase is onboard.”
“So verbal orders only?” Alison clarified.
“Exactly, Sergeant.”
Something about Alice’s voice didn’t seem right, but a gut feeling didn’t warrant insubordination, so Alison nodded. “I’ve been inventorying the ships here, while we wait for things to settle down. I was curious if there are any Niet-owned ones that we could seize, and I found one that may fit the bill. It’s a corvette-sized vessel. Interstellar-capable. It may be a bit small for yourself and nine mechs, but it has weapons, decent shields, and it can pull a hundred gs in a pinch.”