by M. D. Cooper
Rika nodded as Stavros spoke, pretending she cared about how he operated. As far as she was concerned, everything about him was distasteful. That he based his method of conquest on some ancient fascist regime did not surprise her.
They reached the end of the rows of soldiers, and Rika noticed that four large men in heavy armor fell in behind them as they left the docking bay.
Stavros led her down a long corridor while talking about his various conquests and methods of keeping populations in line, providing asides about the art he had seized and the foods he had sampled in his many wars.
Rika listened well enough to make appropriate responses at the right times. She asked questions once or twice, but most of her attention was on the other people they passed in the corridors of The Isthmus. They all wore the white uniform of The Politica, and every one of them stopped to salute Stavros as he strode by.
Most of their expressions were filled with a mixture of fear and respect, but every now and then, Rika caught a glint of hate. Not that this surprised her; Stavros was not native to any of the systems he had conquered. In fact, no one knew where he was from.
Niki made a guess.
Niki confirmed.
Rika had never given much thought to the mechanics of her own thinking; it just happened. Pondering its nature wouldn’t change how…or maybe it would. Best not to examine the inner workings too much.
Rika realized that she hadn’t been paying any attention to Stavros’s never-ending banter. “Serves them right,” she parroted aloud.
Stavros turned his head and cocked an eyebrow before bursting out laughing and slapping her on the shoulder. “Oh, stars, Rika. You’re my kinda girl. You and I are going to get on famously.”
A minute later, Stavros stopped at a lift. They rode it up eighty-four decks before it finally let them out into a stark white corridor, where eight more of the heavily armed and armored soldiers waited in the passageway.
Stavros turned to Rika. “Now, I hope you can appreciate that one of the reasons I like you mechs so much is that you come with a very strong sense of loyalty, engineered right into you.”
“ ‘Loyalty’?” Rika repeated, uncomfortable under the gaze of the twelve soldiers. I can take out two, maybe three; but twelve? In these close quarters? I don’t stand a chance.
Stavros grinned; not a magnanimous, welcoming smile, but a possessive one, like he had just won a game. “Well, I suppose you call it ‘Discipline’. But I like to think of it as ‘enforced loyalty’. I never have to worry about you disobeying me, or operating in any way that’s not in my best interests.”
Rika swallowed. Just as Ayer warned me. She hadn’t harbored any illusions that she could avoid a compliance chip, but she had not expected to get it so soon. Even though she knew she could best Discipline, and was secure in the knowledge that Niki could nullify it, the mental reaction of fear and subservience was still there—a muscle memory that was burned into her, after so many encounters with its crippling pain.
She gritted her teeth. It will be horrible; it will be excruciating, but I can defeat it.
“Cat got your tongue?” Stavros teased.
“You don’t have to do this,” Rika coaxed. “I came to you, remember? Freely.”
Stavros shrugged. “Freely or no, all my mechs, and no small number of my soldiers, have been chipped. I demand loyalty. Utter loyalty. Did you ever wonder why you mechs did so well against the Nietzscheans? It wasn’t because you were superior warriors. Hell, most of you had no idea what you were doing. It was because you feared Discipline more than you feared the enemy. The pain made you strong; you didn’t see any reason to fear the Nietzscheans. They were nothing to you.”
Rika couldn’t disagree more. She had feared dying at the hands of the Nietzscheans every bit as much as from Discipline. She didn’t want either. Nevertheless, there was no point in debating it with Stavros. Let him think he had it all figured out.
“What now?” Rika bit off the words.
“You already have the hardware; it won’t take long to get you equipped, and then we can have that dinner.”
“You eat with your slaves?” Rika questioned pointedly.
“Rika,” Stavros said in an earnest voice. “You won’t be a slave; you’ll be a loyal ally. I will tell you all my plans so that you know whether or not what you’re doing is in line with my vision. It will also ensure that the chip knows when to help you see the proper way forward.
<’Better’? Easy for you to say,> Rika retorted.
Rika realized that Stavros was scowling at her.
“Oh, you were serious?” Rika asked him with a sweet smile. “Which way to the slave factory?”
Stavros shook his head and gestured down the hall. “It’s going to be fun breaking you.”
“It’ll be fun watching you try,” Rika quipped.
DINNER WITH A DICTATOR
STELLAR DATE: 04.01.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Basileus Residence, The Isthmus, Sparta
REGION: Peloponnese System, The Politica, Praesepe Cluster
“I must say,” Stavros said as he reclined on a sofa in a lavish sitting room. “It’s nice having a mech with a mouth; we can break bread together, behave like proper humans.”
Rika nodded as she took a sip of her wine. Even though Niki could negate the compliance chip and its Discipline, just the thought of having the thing in her brought out a rage in Rika that she had not felt for some time.
Stavros seemed to sense it; his words were constantly on the edge of orders, casual statements that were almost directives.
He glanced at Silva, who stood against the wall on his right. “Not like Meat, there. She can’t eat; well, not like a person, at least. Doesn’t matter, though—she’s very good at what she does. After seeing you, I was tempted to give her a face again, but decided against it. I don’t want her to think she’s anything more than a tool.”
“You do realize that we hate being called ‘meat’, right?” Rika said in response. “It’s not endearing.”
Stavros leaned forward. “Oh, don’t worry, Rika; I would never use that word to refer
to you, or any other mech, for that matter. I respect you. You are a thing of beauty, both to the eyes and on the battlefield.
“Meat back there earned her name through some very disobedient actions. It was she who made me realize that I should only ever equate loyalty with Discipline.”
“What did she do?” Rika wanted to know.
Stavros waved his hand dismissively and leaned back. “It is no concern of yours. Suffice it to say she knows her place now. But I wonder if you know yours…. Could you kill her? Another SMI-2 mech like yourself?”
As Stavros spoke, Rika realized he didn’t know that Silva had revealed herself to her former teammate. Somehow, though she was battered and broken, Silva had managed to hide that fact.
He must know that we served together in the war. Stars, it was probably the reason he sought me out. That he hasn’t revealed Silva’s identity means that he is just holding onto it for when he thinks it will hurt me the most.
“I don’t kill in cold blood,” Rika stated firmly.
“Oh?” Stavros asked, raising his eyebrows. “And what of your precious Chase, Barne, and Leslie in the Marauders?”
Rika gave a predatory grin and leaned forward; a gesture she knew even Stavros would not be able dismiss with his blasé attitude. “That wasn’t in cold blood. I tasted theirs that day; it was most certainly warm.”
Stavros didn’t reply for a moment, and Rika smiled at the brief look of uncertainty that crossed his face.
She took the opportunity to look around the room and stretched, thinking of ways to take out the eight guards. She was almost certain that if she made her move, Silva would not attack her.
Together we can defeat these guards, I know it. The real question is will Silva help, or will the Discipline keep her from coming to my aid?
Not that it mattered. She still had to wait three days before killing Stavros; three days of listening to him blather on about how amazing he is, and how his logic is infallible.
Stavros took a sip of his wine and stared at her over the rim of his glass with a look in his eyes that Rika did not like.
“Kill it,” he ordered suddenly.
“Kill who?” Rika asked, feeling a pinch on her ass.
“Don’t be coy with me,” Stavros warned. “You know Discipline doesn’t work like that. There is only one other thing that is killable in this room—Meat. Kill Meat.”
Stavros leaned back to look at Silva. “Oh, and Meat? Don’t move.”
Silva hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time she had been standing against the wall, but now she seemed to become even more still; like a statue of a mech, her death’s head staring ahead into eternity.
The pinches on Rika’s ass grew stronger, and she gritted her teeth, refusing to rise.
“Oh, you’re a tough one,” Stavros observed, appreciation in his voice. “Granted, you’ve been through a lot of this. Most people fold at the first hint of the kind of pain Discipline can impart.”
“I served under a lot of assholes in the war,” Rika said pointedly through clenched teeth.
“None like me, though,” Stavros promised.
Rika shook her head. < I can take a lot, and he should know that. Pain is nothing.>
Suddenly Rika leapt to her feet, kicked the low table between her and Stavros out of the way—sending his wine and goblets across the room as she did so—soared over the sofa, and brought her GNR to bear on Silva, switching the weapon to fire projectile rounds at full automatic.
“STOP!” Stavros yelled, and Rika froze.
She slowly turned to look at him. Every one of his eight guards had their weapons raised and aimed at Rika, and she saw a brief flicker of fear in Stavros’s eyes. Then he began to clap.
“You’ve quite the flare for the dramatic. Come sit with me.”
Rika returned to her seat as a group of servants entered the room and began to clean up the mess that she had created.
“You didn’t say how to kill her,” Rika replied with a shrug as she sat back down.
“I also didn’t tell you to smash my wine bottle against the wall,” Stavros retorted. “But what’s done is done. I’ll have to remember your temper next time I give you an order like that.”
“Give me legitimate targets and you won’t need to rely on Discipline,” Rika countered.
“You don’t seem to understand your new place in the world,” Stavros said menacingly, and Rika felt a wave of pinches on her ass. She grimaced in response.
Stavros rose from his couch and stepped over a broken glass on the floor. “You’ll do well to remember, Rika: my every word is the very definition of ‘legitimate’.”
Stavros began to unfasten his belt and Rika looked around the room at the other people present, all staring into space as Stavros approached her. He grabbed her by the hair and what happened next made Rika glad she could retreat to the place in her mind where cool breezes blew across the tall prairie grass.
* * * * *
An hour later, after Stavros had taken what he wanted and sated himself, he dismissed both Rika and Silva, telling them to go clean up and charge themselves.
The two former members of Hammerfall walked out into the hall, and Rika spat on the bulkhead, wishing she could have taken one of the new bottles of wine the servants had brought in.
She reached out and touched Silva, placing a small batch of nanobots on her friend’s arm. Silva turned her head to look at Rika, but didn’t speak; she was likely under orders not to.
However, Rika didn’t need Silva to speak. A minute later, as they stood on the lift, Niki indicated that the channel was established.
Rika sent warmth and a feeling of support across the connection to Silva.
Rika felt a surge of pity for Silva. How has a woman who was once so strong, so capable, become so weak? How has Stavros broken her so completely?
Rika said.
Amazement emanated from Niki, and Rika turned her attention back to Silva, and to telling her story.
Rika pushed Silva against the wall.
Silva’s head drooped, and her chest heaved.
Rika took a step back, nearly colliding with a bewildered-looking man who was pushing a cart laden with food down the corridor.
“Sorry,” Rika muttered. “Keep moving.”
A soldier walked by, giving the two mechs a long look, and Rika grabbed Silva and propelled her down the corridor.
Rika had no idea what to say—Silva had never shared those details during the war. Though, to be fair, they tried not to talk about the things they had lost; it had always hurt too much.