by M. D. Cooper
“Now that sounds like a replay I want to watch,” Barne said as he approached. “Gotta say, I’m glad we’ll be at Iberia soon, and we can do this for real rather than just running sims.
Rika cocked an eyebrow at the master sergeant. “I’m hoping that we won’t need to do anything like this.”
“Oh?” Barne asked. “Are you going to share those recreational drugs you’ve been taking?”
Chase laughed, and Rika shrugged. “Maybe, depends what you’re offering in return.”
“How’s about an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Disknee World?”
“The what?”
“Stars, Rika,” Leslie patted her on the shoulder. “Sometimes I forget how young you are and how little you know of the galaxy beyond Genevia.”
Rika looked at the grinning faces surrounding her and shook her head.
“You know what? Tomorrow I’m on Piper’s side.”
THE SHEEP
STELLAR DATE: 12.22.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Karl’s Might, approaching Malta
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Alison slowed her pace as she walked toward the bridge, nervously anticipating her crew’s check-ins.
Ahead, through the open bridge door, she could see Jenisa chatting with Lieutenant Colonel Alice about the station they were docking with. It had a whimsical name: the Maltese Falcon. She hoped that was a good omen.
She stepped into the bridge and nodded to Jenisa before sketching a salute to Alice.
“Any trouble from the locals, ma’am?” she asked the lieutenant colonel.
“So far, so good,” Alice replied. “Looks like our little ship has been through Iberia before, so they have records of us, and the vessel’s in good standing. Good ol’ Karl even had a bit of credit on the books, so our docking fees are covered.”
“Really?” Alison didn’t bother hiding her surprise. “How’d you pull off accessing the ship’s local accounts?”
The lieutenant colonel shrugged. “We’ve been aboard for over two months. I managed to find a way into the secure databanks and get the root encryption keys for Karl’s entire operation. Took a bit of doing, but it was worth it, otherwise we’d have to answer some tricky questions.”
“We still might,” Alison said as she turned to look at the growing shape of the sixty-kilometer-long station. “I bet it’s not often you see five Genevian mechs this deep in what’s now Nietzschean space.”
“At least not five that are well maintained, armed, and armored,” Jenisa added.
The lieutenant colonel’s hawkish gaze flitted between the two women. “Well, when I do my initial scouting, I think it would be best just to take one of you. I was thinking Kor or Randy. People buy AMs as security all the time.”
Jenisa cast a dark look at Alice. “Do you mean that they ‘buy’ that AMs function as hired security, or that people around her actually buy mechs?”
“Both, though I can’t speak for Iberia specifically. I’ve heard talk that there’s a thriving black market in mechs in these parts—especially after someone found a stash of compliance chips.”
“I wonder if that stash is what got Rika chipped, back on Dekar Station in Parsons,” Jenisa mused. “Granted, I’d love to see someone try to chip one of us. Now that we’re all Mark 4 models, that shit won’t fly.”
Alison took a moment to gather her thoughts, and then unslung her PR-111 rifle and trained it on Alice. “OK, Lieutenant Colonel, this has gone on long enough. I’m relieving you of your command—such as it is on this little mutinous mission.”
To her surprise, Alice appeared entirely unfazed.
“Took you long enough, Sergeant. I’ve been waiting for you to turn on me ever since we dumped out of the DL into Iberia. I almost had my ghosted scan in place, but frickin’ Kor pulled an update before I was ready, and saw…well, that there’s nothing here—certainly not somewhere they’d take Rika, at least.”
“Ghosted scan?” Jenisa asked. “Damn! Is that how you convinced us that we were chasing a ship to the jump point back in Blue Ridge?”
“Gold star, Private. For Iberia here, I’d built up a scan model with more insystem traffic, and a larger Nietzschean base on Malta’s moon, but it took just a bit longer to get it to mesh with the live data, and then…well, then you all knew the jig was up.”
Alison’s brow furrowed. “You…don’t seem too bothered by this turn of events.”
The lieutenant colonel leant back in her seat and folded her hands behind her head. “In all honesty, it took you a few hours longer to get ready than I thought. Made for some juggling on my part, but I think we’re still in good stead.”
“I can tell that you’re talking to Kor,” Alice said with a smug smile. “He’s got some skill, I’ll give him that, but I rerouted everything to run through the backup comm interfaces and then cloned the interfaces in the software layer so that when he disabled primaries and backups, it disabled primaries and then a null interface, leaving the backups in my control.”
“Who’d you call?” Alison asked through gritted teeth. “Are you a traitor as well as a mutineer?”
Alice tapped a finger against her lips. “Are those things really separate? Can you mutiny and not be a traitor by default?”
Jenisa glanced at Alison, a worried look in her eyes.
“I was asking if you’ve sided with the Niets,” Alison clarified. “Mutiny against Rika and the Marauders is one thing, but allying with the Niets is another.”
“Now you’re just being insulting,” Alice sneered. “I wouldn’t ally with Nietzschea. But now that General Mill is gone, most of the Marauder leadership is just a bunch of mid-level generals who never managed much more than a supply chain back in the war, all vying for the scraps left behind.”
“Wow, there’s just no scenario where you actually behave like a nice person, is there?” Jenisa scoffed.
“Well, your squad leader here has me at gunpoint, so I’m not really predisposed to niceties.”
“Neither are we,” Alison took a menacing step toward Alice. “We took it on faith that you weren’t a piece of shit, but turns out we were wrong. Each one of us is wondering if your little stunt here has put Rika’s rescue at risk. If anything ha—”
Alice groaned. “Oh, save it, Alison. Unless they’re all regrouping at Blue Ridge, you can kiss being in Rika’s Marauders goodbye. They’ve moved on, and you’d spend years trying to catch up. Now, what you can do is help me with my mission and get some real good done, rather than just following Rika as she galivants around, blowing shit up.”
“Your mission?” Alison asked, her resolve wavering.
“Yeah, the one General Julia gave me before she returned to Ontario.”
“She sure takes a long time to spit things out,” Randy said from the entrance to the bridge.
Alison glanced back at the AM-4 and nodded. “Smells of desperation to me, too.”
“She has to have some reason for this,” Jenisa said with a shrug. “Otherwise why fly out here? And why do it with the five of us to boot?”
“She is right here,” Alice growled.
Alison took another step toward the lieutenant colonel, eyeing her up and down. “So why didn’t the general just order Rika to do whatever it is that you’re out here d
oing?”
“Because it doesn’t jibe with the vaunted field marshal’s plans, and since Tanis Richards has Rika’s GNR wrapped around her little finger, General Julia tasked me with this mission.”
Randy said privately.
“So what’s our objective?” Alison asked.
Alice’s lips pulled back in what would be a smile on most faces, but was just showing teeth on hers. “General Julia has reason to believe that President Kalvin is hiding here in the Iberia System.”
Randy whistled and shook his head. “Well that’s a nice story. Thought you’d’ve come up with something better than that.”
Alice twisted in her seat to give Randy a penetrating stare. “It’s common knowledge that the Niets never found him after the surrender.”
“Who cares?” Alison asked. “Kalvin isn’t president of shit anymore. Plus, he presided over the fall of Genevia.”
“That’s not true,” Alice said while shaking her head vigorously. “The GAF brass was running the show for the last five years. Kalvin was desperate to try other strategies—ones that I, for one, think would have worked.”
“I’d just love to hear those,” Randy said with a groan. “What proof do we have of any of this?”
“I have my orders from General Julia,” Alice said. “I wasn’t supposed to share them, but I’m passing them over now.”
Alison shook her head. “We don’t have the codes to verify these and, stars…this is weak intel. Just that he’s possibly here in Iberia down on Malta, using the pseudonym ‘Clarence’.”
“I know it’s weak, but there was a resistance movement back on Kansas, so there’ll be one here. We just need to connect with it, and I bet they’ll have leads for us.”
“We’re being hailed by the Maltese Falcon’s space traffic control,” Jenisa said from her station. “They want a visual conversation.”
“Well?” Alice asked. “Are you going to shoot me or let me talk to them?”
“Stars, I’d love nothing more,” Alison muttered as she toggled the safety on her PR-111 and lowered it. “We’re going to take this one step at a time, though, and I’m going with you when we dock. If people buy AMs, they probably buy SMIs, too.”
“Sure,” Alice grinned. “That’ll make me look wealthy. Your model is worth a mountain of credit.”
“Opening the channel,” Jenisa said, and Alice proceeded to speak with the space traffic controller, lying their way onto the Maltese Falcon.
SHEEPDOGS
STELLAR DATE: 12.22.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Quadaros
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“This really is just the ass-end of nowhere,” Lieutenant Saris said from her seat in the large pinnace’s cockpit.
Colonel Borden nodded absently as he looked at the scan data that was filling the forward display. He was far less concerned with the system than the ship they were pursuing.
“There!” he called out a moment later. “The Karl’s Might, they’re approaching that station…the Maltese Falcon.”
Saris snorted. “Someone has a sense of humor.”
“Well, the planet is Malta, it kinda makes sense,” Corporal Pars said from his place at the communication console. “Saris is right, though. This place is just a big bucket of nowhere. I mean, I’m sure it’s nice and all, but based on the chatter, I’d be shocked if five billion people lived in the system.”
“Uhhh…the way you say that makes me lean toward ‘no’, Rel.”
“So what is it?” Saris asked.
“How can you be so sure?” Pars asked suspiciously.
“A census?” Pars shook his head in disbelief. “I swear, sometimes I can’t believe we’ve found ourselves in the most amazing future anyone could ever have imagined, but they have things like…censuses. Is that right, or is it something like ‘censi’?”
“Still, that should be simple,” Saris added her two creds to the conversation. “I get why it’s not as easy for these people, but Pars is right, it’s still hard to grasp.”
“This ever feel surreal to you, Colonel?” Pars asked, glancing up at Borden. “I mean…we’re close to seven hundred light years from Sol…and well over three thousand from New Canaan. I get why we’re out here, specifically, but don’t you ever really wonder why?”
Borden glanced down at Pars, his eyes narrowing. “Sometimes I wonder why you’re out here, Corporal. Maybe there’s a transport back in New Canaan that needs you to babysit it.”
Pars reddened. “I didn’t mean it like that, sir…it’s just surreal, that’s all.”
Borden set a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I know, I was just messing with you a bit. I agree, it’s surreal. When we left Sol, no human had ever visited a single one of these star systems. Now a low population is in the billions.”
“So…does that mean you just made a joke, sir?” Pars asked.
“Son, do I look like the sort of man who jokes?”
Saris laughed from her seat at the pilot’s console and glanced over her shoulder at Borden, who decided to ignore her.
He’d volunteered to go after Alice because he didn’t want the mechs to be divided further; Chase needed to be able to focus on finding Rika. Also, Alice was a pompous bitch, and he looked forward to taking her down a notch.
But one thing he hadn’t given enough consideration to was the fact that after spending seventy days alone with just eight other people on a fifty-meter pinnace, some relationships were bound to form.
Like the one between himself and Saris.
It was a risky thing, sleeping with a woman under your command; something that was rearing its head from time to time with Saris. She’d become a bit possessive, and he was going to have to have a chat with her or break it off…or both.
You’re too old to fall for the young, bright-eyed girl, he chided himself.
A part of him still felt guilty. His wife had died in the attack on Carthage two years ago, and though he knew she’d want him to be happy, he wondered what she’d think of him having a fling with one of his junior officers on a long trip.
Borden chuckled softly as he watched the system scan continue to update.
It was Rel’s turn to laugh.
“So what should we do?” Lieutenant Saris asked after a minute.
“Is our EM signature suitably changed?” Borden asked.
“Yes, sir,” Pars replied. “I registered us as a Kerry 17, a local build of ship that’s used for a lot of courier runs. So long as we get an external berth and no one aboard the station looks out a window and sees us, we should be in the clear.”
“Then let’s make for the Maltese Falcon at best speed,” Borden replied. “Time to figure out what that woman is up to, and why she needs five mechs to do it.”
“My money’s on a heist,” Pars replied with a laugh, earning him a sour look from Saris.
“Shut up, Corporal.”
“Shutting up, ma’am.”
FALCONS
STELLAR DATE: 12.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Karl’s Might, Maltese Falcon, Malta
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Alison checked her cloak one last time to make sure it was adequately covering her gun-arm. It looked good, so long as she kept it close to her body and didn’t swing it too much when she walked.
She’d detached the barrel, hanging it from a sling over her shoulder. It dangled down between her legs and she’d tried not to smirk at the image it created—but with a bit of a legs-spread walk, she was able to keep her thighs from hitting the barrel.
Sitting on a ledge that ran along the inner bulkhead of the small bay adjacent to the ship’s port-side airlock, she confirmed that the GNR’s barrel wouldn’t show then, either—so long as she didn’t slide back.