by TS Hottle
Suicide didn't see, but sensed, Mitsuko shiver.
"I'd rather go back to the village," said the Spec Force officer.
Partlow let out a laugh. "Where's your sense of adventure, Loot?"
"In orbit, aboard the Tachi." She stood up and looked around. "Where do we look?"
Suicide thought for a moment. "Jayne Best is Thulian, which means she's had a permanent type of rejuvenation. Very few humans have had that."
"Davra," said JT. "She had it. Said it was the worst three months of her life."
"Who's Davra?" asked Partlow.
"Andraste," said Mitsuko. "One of Suicide's protégés from the Amargosan occupation. Got infected with incendiary nanites by a warlord."
"What happened to the warlord?"
"Eaten alive," said JT, deadpan. "Anyway, Madam Best is Thulian. Juno is heavily into genetics. They want her genes."
Suicide looked down at her palm, hoping the Tachi's map of Bennaville was accurate. "They'll take her someplace equipped for tissue samples." She manipulated the map on her palm tatt. Eventually, she found a likely place to look. "Koch Medical Center. Before this new faction moved in, it was still operating as a sort of remote hospital run out of Samueltown."
"Any other possibilities?" asked Partlow.
Suicide shifted the map. Two more hospitals came up. One had been burned to the ground during the riots that preceded Walton's collapse. Another become a shelter for squatters. Juno might have chased them out. Or even killed them. "Nothing. If we strike out here, we're going to have to question a local. That'll set off a few alarm bells."
"Like walking into a hospital occupied by Juno isn't," said JT. "How's our ammo?"
"Well," said Partlow, "we'll encounter resistance. And they are using KR-27s."
Suicide took the wheel once more. "Let's roll."
Koch Medical Center looked like a dozen boring structures used for hospitals since long before the Interstellar Era. It consisted of a series of boxes crammed together haphazardly, as though the architects simply threw in wings on a whim. Usually, hospitals built this way sat in seas of plascrete or plasphalt, sported multiple landing pads for both emergency crews and commuters, or had an ugly parking garage attached to the back.
Suicide, however, had never seen one surrounded by a ring of what looked like giant Venus flytraps. "That's something you don't see every day."
"How do they respond to bullets?" asked JT.
"Wouldn't know. I've never seen anything like this. Aphrodite has big carnivorous plants, but usually, you can cut your way out."
Three figures in black uniforms emerged, their faces concealed by helmets. From the bulges beneath the uniforms, Suicide could tell they wore light armor, torso only. Their limbs might have been protected by nano-fabric. She knew JT had taken a bullet at point-blank range wearing such a tunic. The bullet did not penetrate, but when she met up with him after the liberation, he still ached from bone refusion.
He must have been thinking of that incident as well because he stood up with his KR-27 and shot one of the figures in the knee. "Go for the limbs. At least, you'll break a bone."
A wounded soldier went down when their knee buckled. The others brought up their weapons and began firing. Suicide swung the barrow lengthwise at the shooters, one hand on the wheel, the other on JT's arm to steady him. The four of them piled out of the barrow and lined up behind the bed. Suicide picked a random deity to thank for the barrow not having a combustion drive train. She'd seen too many such vehicles explode when someone shot the fuel tanks.
Partlow and Mitsuko began firing alongside JT. More soldiers emerged from between the big plants. Someone hit one in the throat, sending a jet of blood out from between the helmet and body armor. The nearest plant opened its maw, bent down, and enclosed the stricken soldier. Within seconds, the victim slipped into its now-closed maw. They could hear the crunching sound as the plant devoured the hapless shooter. The rest kept shooting at the barrow.
A small round object landed just behind them.
Partlow picked it up. "Is that a Gelt…?"
JT snatched it and threw it back into the advancing line. The device exploded, sending the plants into a feeding frenzy. Even the intact soldiers did not escape the melee. One of them must have had more grenades as a plant exploded into a fireball as it chewed on its prey. The shrapnel hit the two nearest plants, causing them to drop their mangled meals, now little more than bloody pulps.
"Thought it was a stun grenade," said JT. "But Gelt grenades have longer fuses than Compact weapons."
"Also, less reliable." Mitsuko rapped on his head playfully. "You having memory problems, Austin?"
"Yeah, ha ha. You didn't spend four months getting shot at by those bastards."
"I thought you were crushing on a Gelt woman."
"She's not a bastard."
"Quiet!" Suicide slung her KR-27 over her shoulder and took out the pistol Partlow had given her. Keeping it at ready, she stepped around the barrow. "They've got full KR-27's. Let's grab them and head inside."
"What about the…?" Mitsuko cut JT off running past him, around the barrow, and up to the nearest moving plant. She drew her sword, stabbed it in the head, then proceeded to slit its thick stem (throat?) all the way to its belly. The thing actually screamed, then collapsed. A half-crushed skull fell out of the stalk, its helmet split neatly in two. Partlow opened up on another one with his KR-27 on full auto and stitched it from head to the bulbous sac near the dirt that likely was its stomach.
JT and Suicide followed suit. Soon, they had created an opening in the line of plants. No more soldiers emerged.
"Probably expected random locals or maybe thieves." Suicide dropped her rifle in favor of one the dead soldiers had dropped. The weapon did not require a palm print. "This place is not setup for a full assault."
"It's not even setup for four idiots in a barrow," said Partlow. "Lucky for us."
"Who you calling an idiot?" said JT, grabbing another abandoned KR-27.
"Quiet." Suicide stepped between two of the dead plants. The front entrance lay ahead, unguarded. "Either this is a trap, or we just got very lucky."
"Maybe we should call in the Goldeneye," said Mitsuko. "Get the whole team."
Suicide stood with her hands on her hips, staring at the door. She grabbed a piece of debris and threw it toward the door. Nothing happened. "All things being equal, I'd have called for an extraction and taken the whole team." She turned back to the team. "But Boolay had to swap out the transponder and take the ship back up into orbit, make it look like a freighter and hope the protectorate plays along. We've got the Khirovsky staring down at us." She studied them: A Sapper officer with a sword, an ex-Spec Force CPO also in Bonaparte's Sappers, and one hermit on the cusp of his twenties, all now armed with fully equipped KR-27s. "Well?"
Partlow had the most skeptical expression, as well he should have. They were not exactly prepared for a full-frontal assault and extraction. "What the hell. I've been bored since the Amargosan liberation."
"I'm in," said Mitsuko.
"Me, too," said JT.
Suicide gestured with her KR-27 toward the door. "Let's do this."
They started up the stairs and found the lobby empty. Of course they did. This was no longer a fully functioning hospital Why would they find nurses and medadmins at the front desk? Active screens listing departments and on-call staff?
A woman emerged, stepping out of an elevator, her skin dusky and not too dissimilar from Mitsuko. Or herself, Suicide realized. The woman looked impossibly young, moving with the deliberation of someone of advanced age. Not from stiff joints or lost coordination, but with the inevitable weight of experience.
Suicide had not rejuved since leaving Aphrodite, aside from a quick stay at a clinic on Tian before she departed for Amargosa. She felt the physical weight of age, of what would have been her early forties had she never rejuvenated, and she knew that was nothing compared to some she had seen on Amargosa. This woman appeared
to have had the Thulian treatment, looking barely out of her teens.
JT had not been paying any attention to that. He brought up his rifle. "Hey. You. Turn around."
The woman looked at him and went wide-eyed. Her eyes went wider as she clearly noticed the other three well-armed people.
"Hands behind your head," JT continued. "Now."
She complied and started toward them.
"That's far enough." He stepped toward her. "The Thulian woman. Where is she?"
"I…"
"Where is she?"
Suicide put a hand on his arm. "Austin, take it down a notch."
"Tell us where she is." JT's voice leveled, the volume down.
The woman trembled. "She… She's on the third floor, in the tissue lab."
"Take us."
She turned and headed back for the elevator.
"Up the stairs," said Partlow. "Not getting setup."
She changed direction toward a door on the other side of the lobby. Their footsteps echoed as they climbed up the stairwell. It seemed archaic to Suicide, but she realized the elevator could have been disabled or sent to a different floor. It would take nothing for the woman to trigger a security warning. Stairs, on the other hand, were impervious to hacking, unless Juno had rigged the stairwells with gas, forcefields, or stun arrays.
They emerged on the third floor.
"This way," the woman said. They followed her toward a set of double doors. She casually reached up and slapped her hand against the wall. Bulkheads descended from the ceiling with a bang, locking all five of them in an area no more than sixteen square meters.
"Hey," said Mitsuko as the electronics cradle on her KR-27 flashed. The weapon locked with a series of audible clicks. All their weapons did.
The bulkhead behind them made a scraping noise. They turned to see an access panel within it had opened. The woman with the severe blonde hair stood just outside, a KR-7 pistol in her hand and several black-clad guards behind her.
"Good morning, Commander Cui," said Jez Salamacis. "We've been expecting you."
Retroact: 418 IE
Compact Navy Ground Command,
Nephi, Deseret Protectorate of Goshen
Captain Warwick Souther rubbed his temples. Red had darkened his already dark brown face, and, despite recent rejuvenation, he seemed to be sporting more gray hairs, not fewer. "Let me get this straight, Lieutenant. You deliberately bounced your craft off three buildings, knocking over two, with hostages aboard?"
"Freed hostages," Yun corrected. "And liberated sister wives."
"You know, on Deseret, that just means a non-traditional wife in a plural marriage. Right?"
"We aren't on Deseret. We're pacifying their wayward colony so people like me don't have to… What's that stupid phrase the locals here use?"
"Keep sweet."
Yun stood before the air commander of this province of Goshen in her flight suit and what some inexplicably called a "bomber jacket," false fur-lined inside nano-synth vinyl, the patch for the Hancock's entire flight wing prominently displayed. "Sir, my craft had been impaired by enemy fire. The shortest path to safety went directly between those buildings, all of which were occupied by the rebels. Striking three of them not only kept my craft airborne long enough to ditch in a nearby lake, but it took out two rebel positions and disabled a third. The hostages were safe, and twelve women, under Deseret law, are now free from illegal marriages."
Souther stared at her for several moments, something playing out behind those eyes of his. Finally, he said, "Your call sign. Little Wing. Why?"
Yun reached beneath the collar of her flight suit and pulled out a bullet locket. "His pet name for me."
"Him being…?"
"Lieutenant Akrad Izumi, lead fighter pilot, CNV Hancock."
"And the late Lieutenant Izumi taught you to fly."
"Yes, sir."
"Did he teach you to take risks like that?"
Yun could not stop the smile from crossing her face. "No, sir. That started when I blew out the cockpit window of my ship to kill a pirate."
Souther froze. "You had a suit on, I assume."
"No, sir," she said. "I'd locked down my ship, but I had no access to any sort of pressure suit. I exhaled as much as I could, opened fire on the pirate outside, and hoped the emergency bulkheads would close within sixty seconds."
Souther rose and came around his desk. "Lieutenant, you scare the hell out of me. But you're also brilliant. Today, you are no longer Little Wing."
"Sir, I…" She stopped when Souther grabbed her shoulder and squeezed.
"From this moment on," he said, "your call sign is now 'Suicide.' I don't believe you have a death wish, but you are the craziest fucker I've ever had fly for me."
Suicide.
She hated that name. Too bad it was all but an order.
11
The office had once belonged to a doctor, probably the lead of some specialty long forgotten. Or maybe one of Juno's own doctors now used it. None of that mattered. Jez Salamacis dominated the room.
Up close, Suicide realized the woman was not much bigger than her. Her severe haircut, the blue eyes that seemed to burn through anything or anyone they looked at, and the barely restrained energy in her movements combined to make the woman appear much larger than she was. Suicide knew the type.
"You present us with a problem, Ms. Cui." Salamacis's voice sounded calm, even. "You've come for Jayne Best, and we can't have that." She smiled. "Fortunately, Yun—Can I call you Yun? I'm a storyteller. I have to be if I am to serve Mr. Leitman properly."
"You mean Juno." Suicide decided to throw down that card.
For a moment, only the briefest of moments, the blonde woman's eyes flared. Then the artificially friendly look returned. "I mean President Leitman. That man is a patriot."
She twisted the knife again. "Acting President. Baker ibn-Aziz is still President of the Compact."
Again, Salamacis's eyes flashed with anger ever-so-briefly. And again, the friendly façade returned. "True. Our friend, Mr. ibn-Aziz, remains head of state. But I'm afraid his illness is terminal. Unless, of course, we can find a cure." She began pacing. "As I said, your presence creates a problem for us. We need Jayne Best. An extraction would not only expose us to the outside world, but it would up-end our plans to undo a grievous wrong."
"And what's that?"
"Tol Germanicus has lost."
"Who?"
Salamacis turned on Suicide, and this time, the anger did not vanish. "Don't play stupid with me. Your little friend, the pilot, is the son of Tessa Dasarius. And we know you had conversations with Germanicus before Amargosa's 'liberation.'" She sneered the word "liberation" and resumed her pacing. "Regardless, he is not who you think he is. He's not some five-hundred-year-old trillionaire who only now is retiring from the largest corporation in human history."
"The Dutch East India Company?" Suicide knew she meant Dasarius Interstellar.
"Do not test my patience again. I'll send young Mr. Austin's head back to his mother packed in dry ice. The fact is Germanicus has been trying to tinker with humanity, create new humans. Amortal humans. Some of them are AIs, not human at all. Only dangerous facsimiles."
Does anyone say facsimile anymore? Suicide thought.
Salamacis turned and gave Suicide a smile that looked almost feral. "Jayne Best is one of his creations, a perfectly amortal human being requiring no rejuve. That's a noble goal, one Juno shares."
"Along with man-eating plants and highly edible noxious weeds?" It gave Suicide great pleasure to see the woman reach for a knife that wasn't at her side. "Anyway, that is a Thulian project, not a Dasarius one."
"And who created Thule?" asked Salamacis. "Or Etrusca, the original home of Dasarius Interstellar? Who created Dasarius?"
And now JT Austin's voice popped into her head. She could not help voicing what it said. "Who invented the margarita?"
The backhand hit her in the cheek, but Suicide turned with it, absorbing t
he blow. She sat glaring at Salamacis. The woman's ego had fully blossomed.
"Germanicus has been tinkering with humanity since the AI War." She leaned into Suicide's face. "He was the AI War."
Suicide winced as though Salamacis's breath smelled of rot. It did not, of course. "Do you brush? Maybe gargle?"
Salamacis gave a cold smile and stood back up. "Germanicus created three pillars to his plan to control humanity before deciding to step back from history. First is Dasarius. Did you know, Yun, that no Homo sapiens ship travels interstellar distances without using technology controlled by Dasarius?"
"Hadn't noticed." Of course she had. The company's name graced every spacecraft she had ever flown, especially the Navy's.
"We will deal with them in due time." She leaned against the desk. "The second is the Compact. Think about it, Commander. Why are all but a handful of worlds populated by Sapiens controlled by one single entity?"
"Because Earth and Mars used to have a bad habit of lobbing kinetics at each other." Suicide learned that as a schoolgirl on Tian before her tenth birthday. Every Homo sapiens knew that.
"Germanicus manipulated it into being. We now control it. Through President Leitman."
Is that why some of your admirals ignore orders from Quantonesia?
"And lastly, he created this abomination called Hanar. Took Gilead away from its parent world and gave it to that little Gelt whore."
"Careful," said Suicide. "That Gelt woman has a bit of a crush on my friend."
"We will destroy her next. Hers is a mongrel world. The Compact dilutes humanity. Dasarius is a tool of oppression."
Suicide did not know how much longer she could stand Jez Salamacis knitting a flag, so she changed the subject. "What's to become of Jayne."
Salamacis folded her arms. "You speak of her as though she's human. In a practical sense, she is. But in the grand scheme of things, she is raw material. We will harvest her bone marrow, then we will render her into tissue samples. Her DNA will give Juno control of humanity's future."