by TS Hottle
"In all honesty," said Sheridan, "I think they just wanted to scatter us, send us running to New Lansdorp or to the existing settlements. Whoever did this does not understand the Thulian mindset. We plan for generations, not the short term."
Of course, you do, she thought. Being nearly immortal gives you that option. She wondered if now would be the time they formally invited her once more to move to the Colony. Her last two rejuvenation periods had passed her by. Too busy, she told herself the first time. The last time, she'd decided centuries without either Akrad or Priya held no appeal.
"We found this near the blast zone." Sheridan held out a metal fragment. "Looks like Compact ordnance, but I thought needles would be kept under lockdown, especially after those nukes went missing on Marilyn."
As Hert placed a warming wrap on her lower back, she turned the fragment over in her hand. It had a symbol etched into it, probably by hand. An infinity symbol overlay a crude sun. She didn't know the symbol but suspected someone she knew did.
"Try not to overexert yourself for the next few days," said the Gelt healer. "The lower back is particularly delicate in humans. I recommend bed rest until you recover."
A younger Suicide, one from only a month or so before she came to Amargosa, might have spat out one of several dozen retorts. No one told Suicide to rest, not even her father. In fact, she inherited that stubbornness from her father. Instead, she nodded and pulled her tunic over the warming pack. "Mind if I keep this?"
"Depends," said Sheridan. "What do you want to do with it?"
"I plan to report to the provisional government. Maybe someone in New Lansdorp can trace this."
Sheridan frowned. "I know someone who can tell us what this symbol is."
"But…"
His expression became sheepish when he met her gaze. "Unfortunately, that person is on Thule."
And Thule is now unreachable, Suicide added silently. Colonel, what are your people up to? "A friend of mine may know. I've seen this before, and I suspect he knows what it is." She looked down at her left palm. The skin looked like skin except for the inky black letters in small print spelling out "No service." It figured.
The colonel gestured for the tent opening, and she followed. "Commander, how do you plan to get to New Lansdorp? According to Nardino, your ship is pretty much scrap metal."
"I don't suppose the maglev is running."
He shook his head. "Passenger service has been ordered to bypass the Colony. Only freight is stopping here, and only relief supplies at that."
Suicide's poker face must have disappeared because the colonel added, "I'll requisition you a barrow. Should get you to New Lansdorp in about four hours."
She did not look forward to driving what was likely a salvaged farm vehicle over roads that still had bomb damage from the invasion. "I'll need my supplies and some weapons from the Falcon."
"Give me a list," said Sheridan, "and I'll send someone for it all."
"Including the fuzzy dice under the pilot's console."
"Fuzzy dice?"
"You have to know Lieutenant Austin."
The barrow did not have the best suspension. Suicide guessed that it had been one farmer's truck, into its waning kilometers when the Gelt incursion capsules fell, confiscated by Gelt settlers brought by the idiot Laral family during the invasion, then commandeered by the Colonial Guard after liberation. Such was the story of a lot of vehicles. Until the factories up near the pole resumed production, everyone on Amargosa, human or Gelt or even the odd sapient lycanth, would be driving salvage and war surplus.
The roads, on the other hand, surprised her. For a hundred kilometers out from the Thulian Colony, fresh plasphalt had been laid. Beyond that, road crews and construction bots had done a decent job patching the bomb damage. The worst holes and gouges in the pavement had been flagged with barriers erected until more robust construction systems came from the core worlds.
Still, sitting in a barrow for two hours with two more to go left her back throbbing. She supposed she would have to spend an evening in a spinal stretcher. She hated them. The bots practically tortured her before she felt she could move again. On the other hand, she might do permanent damage to herself if she did not get proper treatment.
"My God, do I sound like that when I nag JT?" When one sounded like one's mother, her own mother said, it was probably time for rejuvenation.
The barrow had a decent communications panel on it that lit up when she came within two hundred klicks of New Lansdorp. The blackened ruins of the old city loomed on the horizon. They were all that remained from a fusion blast. It would have been a good time to call into the provisional government. She called up a different comm code once her wrist chip synced.
JT's face appeared on screen looking serious. "Suicide, I've got some bad news."
The infant had disappeared? Terrorists got to Tishla? "What's that?"
"Tishla says I make a lousy father."
Some days, she wanted to slap him. This was one of them. "I knew that the moment I met you, kid."
He stared back at her with his hand on his chest, exaggerated shock on his face. "I'm hurt. Really." He became serious once more. "What's up?"
"I don't know how to tell you this," she said, "but your ship went down. Someone in the forest firing shoulder-mounted railguns at passing aircraft. The Colonial Guard is rounding them up."
JT's expression went blank. "And the Goldeneye?"
"Scrap," said Suicide. "Hit the starboard jet and toasted it. That blew the main orbital thruster on that side and took the stabilizer with it."
He looked at someone off screen. A silent conversation took place on his face that ended with a definite no. He sighed. "Looks like I'm out of work for a while unless the provisional government wants to replace the ship."
She shook her head. "Told you not to get too attached to her, kid. If you're following in my footsteps, you're going to lose a few of them over the years."
"Yeah, but my call sign isn't 'Suicide.'"
She laughed, which she rarely did in front of him. "No, but I wouldn't brag about yours. Who came up with Little Wing, anyway?"
"Um… You did. And you can pick your own?"
"Too late now, Little Wing." She waited for the sting to set in. "Listen, I have to pay the provisional government a visit, find out who's in charge while Governor Best is laid up."
"I'd have thought it'd be Governor-General Jovann or that Thulian Tishla appointed as her representative."
"Probably divvying up the workload as we speak. We know it sure as hell ain't the Compact."
JT made a sour face. "I think we're done with the Compact."
Suicide did not want to say it out loud, but she had thought the Compact, especially Mars, had lost Amargosa long before the liberation.
The tube in Douglas Best's mouth told Suicide everything she needed to know. Whoever tried to kill him did not stop until a Colonial Guard sniper shot her. Best only survived because the shooter never had a chance to put a bullet in his head.
Thinner tubes snaked into Best's arm and both legs. The nurse bot, with its displays and sensor tentacles, had not moved since Suicide's arrival. The governor himself looked white as a sheet, which said little. Best was not only a euro but Jefivan, not exactly noted for their healthy color.
"Bet he misses the rains of his homeworld," she muttered.
"Actually," said a man's voice behind her, "he usually said that's what he hated most about Jefivah. That and the irregular seasons." The man, tall, thin, with an equally thin mustache, wore the brown duty fatigues of the Colonial Guard. He held out his hand. "Colonel Sebastian, chief of the governor's personal security."
She shook his hand. "Lieutenant Commander Cui Yun, retired. I occasionally do work for the provisional government these days."
"The famous Suicide," said Sebastian. "Always wanted to meet you. Governor Best speaks highly of you." He looked around. "Where's that shadow of yours?"
"Lieutenant Austin? He has a farm to
out in Harlan Township." Actually, JT hadn't been to the farm in weeks. If Sebastian needed to know, he would have found out already. "Who was the shooter?"
Sebastian's lips pressed thin. "We don't know, other than she was human. She self-detonated after I shot her. So maybe someone connected with Colonel Kray looking for a new cause?" His eyebrows arched as he spoke it.
Right, she thought. No one talks about that monster since his field execution. "Didn't know he had any supporters left."
"Neither did I, but you'll find this interesting. The weapon used was a Gelt firearm."
"Gelt don't like firearms. They're all about blades and energy weapons."
"Precisely. Explains why she missed the governor's head." Sebastian tilted his head. "Heard you had a little adventure out by the Thulian Colony."
Her hands went into her pockets, a habit she developed from whenever her father would dress her down for something. "Someone was firing shoulder-mounted railguns at passing aircraft, almost like they didn't want anyone getting to the Colony before they could burn it to the ground."
"Someone doesn't like the Thulians." He glanced at the governor. "And our friend here became a Thulian during the occupation, partly so they could treat him for radiation after his crash."
"I never heard about that," she said. "If I wasn't here fighting the occupation force, I was on Hanar. So, I didn't get a lot of news."
"It was while the Compact and the Realm were trading punches over Amargosa. The Realm fusion bombed Bromdar. Twice."
She resisted the impulse to ask how anyone could tell. "Is that treatment helping him now?"
"I can answer that."
Suicide and Sebastian turned to see a tall man, euro like Best, but with that odd skin tone people took on after centuries or even decades under Thule's orange sun. He wore a long white coat, and his curly brown hair went beyond his collar. "Dr. McGann. I'm the chief thoracic surgeon for Homo sapiens here."
Suicide introduced herself. The colonel did not.
"The governor is very lucky," said McGann. "The Gelt are not the best at firearms or their ammunition. The governor took hits from large slugs that did not break apart."
"You sound as though you prefer combat rounds that do the damage they normally do," said Suicide.
"Hardly. But I know what our troops demand when they're under fire. That the Gelt are not very skilled at projectile weapons works in our favor."
"Well, it's hard to make a portable heat dish," said the colonel. "And we confiscated all the shock pistols. Very nice of the defecting Gelt to tell us how to detect them."
"If you had not stopped the shooter when you did," said McGann, "she most certainly would have hit the governor in the head. I can regenerate and repair most of the body, but unless someone has perfected resurrection technology, I can't save the brain." He looked over at his patient. "The governor will need at least another day, maybe two, on the ventilator. I've induced a coma to allow the nanite matrix to rebuild his lungs. Thankfully, he became one of us, so he has some natural regenerative powers."
"If he's now a Thulian," said Sebastian, "why is he so pale?"
The doctor shook his head as though he had been through this conversation hundreds of times before. "The governor is a native of Jefivah and only spent a few weeks on Thule, right before the collapse of the Pass, actually. I'm sorry, but unless he takes up sunbathing, he'll always show the effects of growing up on a rainy planet."
Sebastian gently touched Suicide's elbow. "Can I talk to you in private?"
"Of course," said Suicide.
The colonel excused himself and her. They stepped out into the corridor and down to an alcove reserved for patient visitors. As an entire section of the wing had been cordoned off after Best's near assassination, no one occupied the room.
"I know someone from the Colony left the governor's youngest daughter with you," he said. "Where is she?"
"Ask Ellie Nardino. She won't tell us, and they entrusted her with Carolyn Best."
"I suppose there's a pack of sapient lycanths watching over her, but we don't dare barge into their territory unannounced and fully armed."
"Naomi Best is with someone the governor trusts. That's all I'm going to say at the moment." She looked around. "So, who's in charge with the governor down?"
Sebastian smiled. "We know the First Citizen of Hanar is on this planet, and don't deny it. I probably even know where she is. What does she see in that kid, anyway?"
"Human salvage." She kept her expression deadpan. "I'm asking which of our 'amicably disputing powers' is in charge?"
"Governor-General Jovann has assumed Governor Best's duties. But she is not asserting Metis's claim on Amargosa. The Metisian Republic, however, has sent five warships, straight out of the shipyard, to guard the new hypergates. Hanar has parked six of its own ships in orbit. They're all taking their orders from us. Until Governor Best recovers or his wife can be found, we're pretending Amargosa is its own world."
"Same as before. And the Compact?"
The colonel sighed. "The lackeys on Earth are making clucking noises. Acting President Leitman voiced his carefully scripted outrage. It's like the invasion. We're getting more help from outside the Compact than from within."
Suicide stepped off the maglev the next morning after spending the night in New Lansdorp. She could do nothing more in the capital. Until someone procured her or JT Austin a new craft, they would not be flying anywhere.
She hated taking the maglev. It took away her sense of control. That, or commuters got on her nerves. Never mind that she traveled from New Lansdorp through Amargosa's Misty Mountains to the Central Plains. These were not commuters. These were cross-continent passengers. At least the provisional government had made rebuilding the rail line a priority after liberation. Some, Suicide had heard, thought the government did more on time and under budget than when it was an extension of Mars. She believed it. Prior to the Gelt invasion, Mars had begun a policy of benign neglect towards Amargosa. If anything threatened the food supply coming from the Earth-like world, Mars would react. Otherwise, who cared? The planet would demand its chance to sign the Compact within five years, anyway.
Technically, they were under Metis now. And Metis had yet to sign the revised Compact, giving humanity the president it hadn't had originally. The liberated Amargosa had been a bone thrown to keep Metis from legally seceding. Sooner or later, Metis would have to decide its own fate, at which point, so would Amargosa. And the mood toward Earth, Mars, and the rest of the Compact had soured since Tishla had shown up, invoked some obscure Realm law to order the Gelt troops' surrender, and a Thulian agreed to be governor in exchange for allowing a colony for his people.
She supposed she might move again soon. For now, she kept her little shack north of the Townships. It was peaceful, isolated. She could keep an eye on JT Austin, not that he couldn't take care of himself now. Nothing lasted forever, and a peaceful Amargosa seemed fleeting at best. She had not intended to return to duty, officially or otherwise, before the invasion. Perhaps Tishla would let her live out her life quietly in the wilderness on Hanar.
A Tianese man, standing rigid with the posture of a lifelong Marine, met her at the station. Years under Amargosa's sun had darkened his skin and turned him leathery. He may have stopped rejuving since few Amargosans underwent the procedure. Suicide considered forgoing further treatment. Did she really want to live forever? This man, however, seemed to thrive on the elements.
He peered out at her from under his rancher's hat, his Polygamy War-era Marine jacket faded from the same sun that had darkened him. "So much for retirement, Cui."
Suicide smiled at the casual use of her surname. "How've you been, Quan?"
The old soldier shrugged. "Between Austin flying for the provisional government and Cybercommand taking Yuwono away from me…"
"Cybercommand drafted Eric Yuwono? The same kid that said he was done with the military?"
He gestured for a tracker waiting in the lot adjacent t
o the station. "Done with the Marines. Said he hoped he'd never pick up another KR-27 again. My best hand, and he's off to become a super spook."
"I didn't know we had a Cybercommand presence here. The Navy's gone back to ignoring us, and the Marines have shut down Youth Corps here."
"If it means telling Mars to fuck off, I'm all for it." They climbed into the tracker. Quan guided the vehicle out onto Ragnar Township's pitted roads. "Home?"
"Quan, you don't have to…"
"By the time we reach your little shack up by the lake, the Colonial Guard will have its act together, a Compact ship will be in orbit, and the only question will be which of our three benevolent overlords you'll be working for."
"True." She said no more.
The tracker bounced along roads no better than game trails in some places. Suicide recognized the familiar path to the Founders' Mine, the underground complex that became the nerve center of the resistance during the occupation. Quan bore to the left, taking them away from the mine and into the foothills of the Amundsen Mountains, the chain bordering the Plains to the north.
Abandoned mining equipment and silent Tesla coils dotted the landscape. Two coils sparked with activity, so someone still operated inside the mine. She doubted any mining actually took place now. That operation had ended long before the resistance moved in. Some strip mining took place near there. An occasional ore transport moved along a hillside path like some lumbering dinosaur. Nature, however, had reclaimed most of the area.
Quan rounded the base of a familiar foothill and began the climb up a series of switchbacks. After a couple of kilometers, the road flattened out. She could see the lake where she had lived for the past four years, except for her time on Hanar.
Her shack had disappeared, replaced by a smoking crater.
RETROACT: 395 IE
Shandug, Tian
The tears streamed down Yun's face. How could the gym teacher humiliate her like that? It had been as though she channeled her father. Yun never liked the woman, with her bizarre Earther accent, rippling muscles, and that stupid orbital drop tattoo on her arm. She lived to intimidate her students, and she seemed to zero in on Yun the most.