by S. Walker
The air cast came off, revealing a swollen sausage of an appendage, twisted and lumpy with mottled bruising. She deliberately didn't look as Paul gingerly started manipulating it, turning her head away until the only thing in sight was the airlock. "They're enemies to the drones we were struggling with, it's some kind of... cleanup ship, I guess. If a system has what they call 'Consumers' they send a small ship-"
"Small ship?" Emilia huffed a disbelieving laugh.
"-and they just pick them off from a distance with that enormous plasma gun." Paul was doing something just out of view to her left that caused small pulling sensations and horrific popping. She tried very hard not to think about it. "They never come any closer than the very outer edge of the system. I guess that whole problem with drones following people home is a known thing."
Everyone watched as the dark blur retreated, becoming just another pink shadow on a wall full of mottled colors. Emilia aimed a small screwdriver at the airlock hatch, eyes narrowed in doubt. "So why'd they screw it up this time?"
"It was me, actually." Crackle. Pop. A pulling sensation, like rope yanked underneath heavy cloth. Snap. "Their ship is all plasma and magnetic-based. But to an insane level. Like 'space faring' kinds of extreme tech, but with a wild emphasis on biology."
There was a subtle motion as someone edged around her left side, colored slashes on each sleeve identifying their Independent rescuee from earlier. Mark Thompson looked very interested, but also like he didn't actually want to participate, just listen. Jamet pretended not to see him, too-- she was getting very good at this reality filter trick.
"Anyways, the smelter's magnetic bottle looked a lot like one of their distress beacons, I guess. When I fired it up they got very excited: It looked like we were cohabitating a system with the drones, without being attacked. I guess they missed the earlier half where everything got smashed to pieces."
Paul kept manipulating her arm one gentle touch at a time. "So, I am guessing they tried to make contact? Through you, at the facility?" The injector hissed again. "Hold still, please."
She watched a faint shadow move slowly back and forth, occasionally touching the edges of the hatchway with indistinct limbs. "Pretty much. Scooped the entire smelter up, realized it was artificial and tore the hatch right off. I, um, might have stressed my skinsuit recyclers a bit when that happened."
Emilia scoffed. "Weak. Who even does that?" Then she started slowly blushing, ears turning a bright red.
Jamet eyed the coloration. "I was pretty spaced out at the time, Em. But I ended up... let's say having a chat with Under. That's the person pacing around in the airlock right now, by the way. Their ship was getting ripped apart, so I helped their collective survive the fight. But I think," Jamet looked down, then up. Eyes filled with tears. "I think right at the end, that last shot? I think we shot the Kipper."
Paul paused. Emilia turned to give Jamet her full attention. "You what?"
"The Tulip's sensors are... different. They don't display images, they're more like," she struggled for the words. "Like feeling gravity wells. We were right with our guess earlier: They see a Krepsfield and a drone as the same thing, essentially. So when a huge indicator popped up I thought it was one of those behemoths coming back. The one that took out the warship, before." Jamet couldn't meet Emilia's accusing visor. "And all of the drones clumped up on it, like a mothership. I shot it. Well, Under shot it, but I- told him to."
She waved one good hand, forgetting to hold onto the strap. "It was me."
"Putting your cast back on, lieutenant." Paul's voice was gentle. "You should not feel it until later, but do your best not to move anything."
Emilia turned away. "Yeah, don't hurt yourself or anything."
"Em." Paul sounded sharp. "That was not fair, and you know it."
Dead silence for a moment. "Yeah, I know." She waved it off with one small hand, screwdriver flashing in the light. "Sorry, Impossible."
Jamet blinked. "Just like that?"
"Yeah." Then Emilia looked down, hiding what looked suspiciously like wet cheekbones shining in the glow of her visor's output. "Just like that."
It turned out selective reality was extremely good for not noticing a lot of things. "Ahem. Paul, how did the Kipper end up... out there and everyone else- well, here?"
He floated around, coming to the other side of the makeshift table. Paul's entire body seemed to be made for zero-g, elongated limbs transforming from ungainly extensions into graceful motions. He used that grace now, rotating through air until he could face both Jamet and the airlock at once, with Emilia to his right. "It was our captain, actually. He ordered everyone off, including all the supplies we could grab or have transferred." His chin tilted to highlight dozens of containers and powered down maintenance drones spread throughout the dock. "Then I believe he took a page from your playbook and manually navigated the ship away."
Jamet winced. "But activating the Krepsfield would have pulled every single drone to- oh, I see."
"Yeah," Emilia tossed out, sniffling slightly at the end. "He baited 'em into a single shot. So good job on that one, I guess. Really got them all in one go."
A suggestion of light shadow became completely nonexistent as Under pulled so far away from the conversation not even a blur was visible on the membrane any more.
"I'm sorry." Jamet tried again. "I wouldn't have, if I'd known."
"No, it's... fine. Captain picked it, chose to go out." A bit of Emilia's natural sarcasm poked through. "Even managed to pull it off, unlike a certain quitter we all know."
Jamet glared. "If I could throw left-handed-- wait, Janson!"
Paul nodded, then hooked a toe under the table and crossed both arms. "Yes, we need to figure out how to pick up our big engineering accomplice. Emilia and I have been thinking, and-"
"No! We've got him already!" Jamet grinned wildly. "I picked him up on the way here, the same way the Tulip scooped the smelter. Just without all the tin-can cracking and abducting. He's fine, although they had to put him to sleep. Their 'collective brain' thing works on me... sort of, let's not go into details... but he's got problems with all of the biochipped systems. It makes things go weird, I guess."
"Oh, that is... not ideal." Paul exchanged an eye-to-visor look with Emilia. "The entire crew is chipped, except for yourself."
Jamet blinked, then blinked again. "Oh. I knew that, but I kind of forgot. So that means...?" She waved vaguely at the wall of pink goo.
"Looks like you are going to be an ambassador after all." Paul ghosted a smile her way, then tipped his head at the airlock. "Either that or no one gets off this habitation ring. And unless you have forgotten, we are dealing not just with a single drone problem, but a multi-system one."
Skinsuited figures slowly came into few, floating forward with cautious interest. Jamet looked between them all, noting signs of malnutrition, wary concern and outright hostility. Quite a few people glanced at the co-CEO slashes on her skinsuit and immediately frowned, passing details of her rank to everyone nearby. She watched anger at Corporate find a new target, simmering like a pot ready to boil over.
Well, easy fix for that. With one hand she reached up, finding the clip on her co-CEO rank and detaching it with a hard twist. Colored metal tags and ribbons flipped through the air, gone in a moment. The last of her old self and bad habits. Which reminded her of something else that hadn't seemed relevant in all the chaos up until now. "Oh crap. My personal console was on the ship, the one with my original ID number." She groaned and flopped her good arm over, wrist upwards for Paul's inspection. "I'm going to be Rachel Targer forever, now. No way to regrow my original chip."
He shrugged, looking thoughtfully at the workers. Angry talk turned to confused muttering, open hand gestures aimed Jamet's way. "Was your old identity any better? Seems like this is a good opportunity to wipe the slate clean."
She opened her mouth to deny it… then hesitated and then really thought that through. "Huh. That's a pretty good idea. But I'll n
eed another name." A memory surfaced, half fever dream and half overdose. A portrait made of black marker slashes drawn on the ceiling, first confused about meeting her and then strangely excited. "Emcourt."
"Pardon?" Paul transferred his look to a smiling lieutenant. "What is an 'emcourt'?"
She nodded, face lighting up. That name sounded right, somehow. "That's who I'll be: Jamet Emcourt. You can help set that up? I have no idea what black market IDs cost but it's got to be a lot."
"Ethically speaking, I cannot-"
Emilia made a farting noise while imitating a mushroom cloud with her hands. "If he doesn't, I sure will. Anything to get that stink off you. Clean slate, no greedy Management fingers? Anyone would take that in a heartbeat. But what about the big mothership drones, the ones that chased the warship off? Might not be much of a personnel system left by the time we turn this thing around."
"I hadn't forgotten," Jamet said, eyeing the group nearby. They still seemed upset but consensus seemed to be slowly shifting in her favor. "Lot of Corporate systems about to get hit with something they've never heard of before."
"Yeah," Emilia scowled. "Couldn't happen to a better group of people."
"What about the workers?" She threw back, eyebrows up. "It's not like drones seem to care. The impression I get from the Tulip crew is the drones just... consume everything. Management and workers alike, they don't play favorites."
"Well... okay, maybe not them, then." She waved the screwdriver at the group of watching people, making several flinch like it was an actual weapon. "But it's not like we can do anything about it."
"Actually, maybe we can." Jamet nodded at the hatch and, presumably, the Tulip docked somewhere behind it. "I'm very, very good at negotiation, after all. Not to mention Corporate-- all of it-- is about to be extremely broke when Siers' will is executed. Full financial chaos, no control anymore even if they weren't about to fight an invasion."
Then Jamet grinned, baring every tooth in an acquisitive smile that would have sent the most hardened Fiscal Enforcement Executive running for Security. "And the Tulip collective owes me. That's worth something. Want to see if we can get an alliance going?"
Paul started laughing, atonal voice cracking all over the place. After a moment Emilia did the same, then burst into full-body giggles that sent her completely off the deck in a slow flight.
"Oh noooo!" She yelled between laughs. "There she goes again. What a Corpo."
About The Author
S. Walker
I don't believe anyone reads these. Mostly because I skip them all the time. But it feels weird not to do this considering all of my favorite novels have a final "about the author" page and I'm desperate to at least pretend to be professional.
So, about me: I'm nobody. Or I'm YOU, if you decided to write and got stuck at home for months at a time. I just ran out of new things to read around Thanksgiving, everything else was "coming soon" and I'd hit the end of Reddit multiple times. So I shrugged, grabbed a stack of notecards, went to a sci-fi forum and hit "Create Post". Then slammed 140,000 words in forty five days, finishing up the entire chaotic mess on New Year's Day with a final cliffhanger that got more angry messages than I'm comfortable admitting.
No hyperbole, no joke. That really happened, and you're reading the result. Hopefully if you made it to here SOMETHING about this was good enough to stick around. So for everyone who kept coming back: Thank you.
And about the author?: He's grateful. Maybe next time I'll get to read something you threw out there.
www.reddit.com/r/Susceptible