by M. D. Cooper
Rika eased open the door and was resealing it when the SMI finally responded.
The three mechs retraced their steps through the station, Rika deducing from the feeds that Constantine was still in the viewing room observing the Pinnacle’s progress—or more likely celebrating its success by now.
Rika advised Kelly and Keli of her intentions, passing a message on to Shoshin about where they planned to intercept the Nietzschean Emperor—at the same fountain Rika had stopped at earlier.
The concourse widened there, and there were places for Kelly and Keli to hide on either side, further down the wide passage, where they could cover her. Rika already knew where she’d hide: atop a beam that stretched over the concourse, out of the way of any flying drones or other pedestrians.
Four minutes later, the three SMIs were in position, waiting for the emperor to pass by.
Niki said.
Without warning, the six soldiers in the lead lifted their rifles and fired their railguns at the beam where Rika was crouched.
Before she even hit the ground, electron beams were lancing down the corridor from Keli and Kelly’s positions, striking the Niets and driving them back.
For a moment, Rika thought the enemy would retreat, but then a heavy kinetic slug hit her left arm, ripping the armor plating off, then another hit her thigh just below the end of the organic section, pulverizing the side of her leg.
Shit…what are they firing?!
Niki was screaming for Rika to keep falling back, when suddenly she felt her body rise in the air, while her GNR was yanked straight down until it touched the deck. She tried to wrench it free, but her entire body moved instead, writhing in the grip of an a-grav field that felt like a giant’s fist squeezing her to death.
Suddenly, Rika realized that no weapons fire was coming from Keli and Kelly and that the combat net had cut out. She looked behind herself, and saw that a blast door was sliding down, trapping her with the emperor and his soldiers.
As she rotated above the deck, forcing herself to calm and take stock of her situation, she heard the man in the strange uniform speak to the emperor.
“Say hello to one of Tangel’s little pets—a mech named Rika.”
“I’d rather have you alive, Rika, but if you grab your rifle, these fine folks will all open fire. You’ve some impressive armor, but trust me. You won’t last a minute.”
“Emperor Constantine,” the man said as he turned away from Rika. “You should direct your people on the Pinnacle to arrest two engineers named Jeremy and Annie. They were the ones to solve the issues with the ship’s engines. However, they also planted a backdoor in the system that will allow them to destroy the ship, plus any other craft the NSAI upgrades are installed on.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Rika yelled, realizing that somewhere along the line, she’d been played and had run headlong into a trap.
“Why, my dear Rika. I’m surprised your Tangel didn’t tell you about me. My name is General Garza. Of the Orion Freedom Alliance.”
Rika tried to shrug, but the a-grav field had tightened further, and she could barely manage the movement. “You must not have been a big enough deal to mention, Garza.”
“Yeah.” He winked. “I get that a lot.”
“We should kill her,” Constantine said as he approached cautiously. “Those things are monsters.”
“Oh, she’ll die soon enough,” the general said with a nod. “But unless I’m wrong, this mech has ISF nanotech, and her ships have stasis shields. Our little Rika here is a prize unlike any other.”
There was no response.
ESCAPE
STELLAR DATE: 05.07.8950 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Capeton Command, Capeton
REGION: Genevia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
She turned to see Keli standing in the middle of the concourse, partially visible due to scoring on her armor. The mech’s GNR barrel was resting on the deck, and her shoulders were stooped.
At first, Keli didn’t even stir, but then Kelly grabbed her arm and pulled hard, almost toppling the other mech over.
Keli finally seemed to shake free of whatever had her riveted in place and nodded, following Kelly as she ran to door that led to a maintenance shaft.
<
br /> * * * * *
She was watching the engineering teams pass around drinks and flasks as they congratulated one another, when something suddenly seemed wrong to Leslie. It was a slight change in the room’s atmosphere. A tiny dimming in the excitement.
Then she spotted it: two Nietzschean MPs had just entered through a door on the port side, while three had come through on the starboard end of the room.
Shit, Leslie thought and passed a marker to the pair.
The MPs were just wearing regular ship uniforms, which meant they were lightly armored. Helmets rested on their heads, but the face shields were pulled up as they moved through the crowd, closing on Jeremy and Annie.
Sucks to be you guys, Leslie thought as she took aim at the two MPs on the port side. She released a slow breath and pulled the trigger, then shifted a centimeter and pulled it again.
The pair of soldiers crumpled, each shot through the eye.
Leslie slid off the cabinets and dropped to the deck, gliding through the crowd as carefully as she dared, but not worrying about bumping the odd person as she moved toward the two engineers in her charge.
Jeremy nodded, and Annie took his hand, pulling him through the crowd. Her touch caused him to stumble, a look of near fear coming over the engineer, and he struggled to keep up as they passed by a group of his teammates, who stopped talking to stare at the pair.
Annie glanced back at Jeremy and gave an encouraging smile. “A little special reward for all your hard work.”
One of the men called out, “Booyah!”, and Jeremy proceeded to turn beet red.
They skirted the crowd that had formed around the two downed MPs, making it to the door just as an alarm blared and the exit began to close.
She reached the door and threw a shoulder into it, slowing it just long enough for the two engineers to get through before the portal slid shut.
She turned to see the pair rushing toward the networking closet. Jeremy held the door open for Annie and then stood looking around for Leslie.
He ducked inside, and she followed, pulling the door closed behind her.
“What the hell is going on?” Jeremy asked. “Were those guards dead?”
“Sure hope so,” Leslie said as she materialized before them. “Strip. Fast.”
“What?” Jeremy asked as Annie pulled down the fastener on her shipsuit.
“Naked,” Leslie insisted. “Fast! Go!”
He complied, albeit sluggishly. By the time he was still only half-done, Annie was buck naked and giving Leslie a curious look.
“What next, Les?”
Leslie reached into a pouch on her lower back and pulled out a small canister. “Press this against your sternum.”
Annie complied and gave a small gasp as the cylinder began to melt against her skin, flowing across her body, coating it in a matte-grey material.
“What the hell is this stuff?” she asked, and Jeremy glanced at her, blushing at her half-naked body.
“Stars, Jeremy,” Leslie muttered. “You need to chill out. Here’s yours.” She glanced back at Annie, who was looking a little concerned as the coating moved up her neck. “It’s flow armor. Like what my skin is made out of.”
“Wait…your skin is made out of this stuff?” Jeremy asked as he held his canister to his chest.
“A better version, but yeah. It has about as much protection as light armor, better against beam weapons than kinetics. You’ll have the same stealth capabilities I do, as well, though you don’t have nanocloud tech, so your audible stealth won’t be as good as mine.”
“How—” Annie began to say, but suddenly closed her mouth and eyes as the armor flowed up over her face.
“It’s OK,” Leslie explained. “It’s not going to go inside you, though it’s going to coat your eyeballs, which always feels strange.”
“OK…” Jeremy said as he watched Annie disappear. “This stuff’s amazing. Can we keep it?”
“Let’s just worry about staying alive for now.”
A minute later, a pair of Nietzschean soldiers yanked the door open, swept the barrels of their rifles side to side as they checked over the empty space within, and then closed the door.
Leslie replied.
* * * * *
Heather’s eyes grew wide as she turned toward Chase. “They got Rika.”
“What?” He instantly forgot what he was doing and strode toward the captain. She passed him the comm message that had just been relayed through the Undaunted.
It was from Shoshin.
“Shit,” Chase muttered, feeling a tightness form in his chest. “If that was a trap…”
Heather nodded vigorously. “Then we have to assume that it was leaked from the resistance…who knew that Rika was going to be on Capeton Command?”
Chase placed a hand on the console, trying to order his thoughts, when all he wanted to do was tell Heather to fly the Fury Lance to Capeton and fire on everything in sight until they turned Rika over.
“Wieck, Lieutenant Gary, probably everyone on Gary’s team,” Chase said. “It was pretty clear that this was a critical part of the plan.” He looked up at Heather, meeting her eyes. “Shit…I…what do we do?”
“Then our plan to take out most of the Nietzschean fleet has failed,” Heather said, a long sigh slipping past her lips. “Those fuckers…we were so close.”
“We need to call Admiral Carson,” Chase said. “Get a fleet of ISF ships on Rika’s position. We’ll get her out and still take out the emperor. Then we’ll slug it out with the rest of the Niets the old-fashioned way.”
“Fire away,” Heather said as she strode to the main holo, pulling up the fastest route for the Lance to reach Capeton.
Chase gulped a deep breath, mentally chastising himself for forgetting that.
“OK…right, but I’m still not going to sit back and trust that Tangel can drop everything to save Rika. We’re still going to Capeton.”
“I’ve just sent out orders for all our ships to switch to backup idents that we didn’t get from the resistance,” Heather said. “So far from what I can tell, no one’s been fired on, but with light lag…”
Chase nodded. Rika’s plan had placed Marauder ships all over the Genevia System, the idea being that when they began to attack, the Niets would all make their best speed to the Marauder ships, and that would trigger the engine failures.
However, the dispersal also meant that the smaller Marauder ships—particularly the destroyers—would be vulnerable if enough of the enemy converged on them.
“What sort of activity?” he asked.