A chirpy, computerized voice responded. “264 kilometers southeast,” a tentacle with a crescent wrench attached pointed the way, “15-minute flight in atmo at optimal subsonic cruise.”
“And if I’m taking a tevver with an average speed of 50 kilometers per hour?”
“Calculating. Approximately seven point six two hours with terrain.”
“Well then, guess we’d better get started. Come on, Yig.” Turning back towards its hatch, the servbot dropped unceremoniously to the sand, where she could just see it scuttle obediently towards the tevver before Baz resealed the compartment. Looking up to the empty space within the cockpit as she walked towards her own hatch, Cress spoke to the air. “Oh, and, uh, Yellow 129.01—”
“We’re working together. I suppose that makes us partners, of a sort. You can call me Baz.”
“Well...we’ll do our best to get you operational again. Baz.”
Four
* * *
Log #0373850.72
It's hard not comparing her to Yig. Yig is perfectly obedient, comes with a multitude of attachments and accessories, and can serve as an extension of my consciousness. However, Yig blends in here like a spaceship would in an Amish colony of Earth That Was. This human is perfectly obedient (for the moment, if mouthy), has no tools or attachments, blends in perfectly with the local environment, and seems to have figured out how to attract sand inside of my hull like a magnet.
My Yig unit was granted to me shortly after my installation into this hull. It's often commented among AI on the similarities between our relationships with our servbots and the relationships that humans have with their pets. Their intellect is on the same level and they serve in mostly similar functions. I didn't originally think that, but this unit has grown on me now that I have fully customized its settings.
As long as the human can continue following instructions, the two of them should be able to gather all the parts I need to get off of this hell rock.
* * *
The sun had made good progress while they had been planning, and it glinted fiercely off Baz’s chassis, its surface a dark mirror reflecting the brilliant rays. The ship’s underbelly, protected from the light, seemed a matte black akin to a deep void. Raising her hand to cast a slight shadow on the nose, Cress realized the entire ship seemed to have that same property—reflective with light, a fathomless deep flatness without. Stepping back, Cressida took in the entire length of the unearthed ship for the first time.
The fore of the ship had two aggressive cannons on each side of a peaked snout, and Baz’s body quickly grew from there to accommodate what looked to be two missile racks and main fuselage. The wings, starting just forward from and above center, arced out, peaked, and then raked back at sharp angles, their jagged trailing edges cutting a sharp silhouette against the sand. Its mounting gear was easily retractable, with wide feet able to adapt to many surfaces. Tapering down to what appeared to be a spherical turret, the aft of the ship also held a pair of near horizontal ventral wings—for what, Cress wasn’t sure. But everything about the ship’s exterior screamed swift, decisive action.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s not polite to stare?” Apparently Baz had external speakers, as well. “Time’s wasting. Get going.”
***
Cressida checked on the tevver’s autopilot. 10 minutes into the drive, and she already longed for silence. Baz had been inundating her with information via Yig, and its militaristic bark, lecturing her on everything they’d already gone over in detail at the ship, was grating—and probably pointless. What could a spaceship that had been out of commission for 20 sols possibly know about about her home planet that Cress didn’t?
She’d visited Deadsand before with her father, and with the transport trucks on earlier runs. She’d seen the way the townfolk lived, in their terraformed domes, lush fauna all but dripping water. Those whose dresses weren’t worn down by the incessant sand and wind, dresses that covered well-fed, clean, healthy bodies. It wasn’t that Cress envied them... it was just infuriating, to know that all of their comfort and security came as the result of her sweat. Bara Skar’s sole purpose was to provide ore for the system’s core planet, Bara Prime, and since the wormhole and all travel within other systems had been cut off, that was really all there was for her.
Sand. Sand, and the mines. And apparently, this riving AI.
“Remember, when you get in there, these soldiers will be highly trained. They’re combat-certified, and have most likely also gone through lie detection, interrogation, and infiltration classes. They’ll be able to spot the slightest weakness or uncertainty, and if it looks for a second like you don’t belong—”
“YIG. BAZ. Whatever. Stop! Please… just… STOP. I get it. You’ve already been over it half a dozen times. If you insist on gabbing at me any longer, I’m gonna lose it.”
She shot a glare at the servbot, and was relieved—and shocked—to find it silent. The green light was flashing—she could almost imagine accusingly. I will not apologize to a robot, Cress thought. It had it coming, I was just— The light flipped to blue.
“Apologies, Cressida. Link to Firebringer disconnected. Out of range. Shifting to servbot capacity. How may I assist?”
Thank gods.
***
The oversized jumpsuit sagged as Cress strode down the street. This Losf guy may have been some pilot, but it was, she reflected, a rather sedentary job. She prayed the belt, wrapped twice around her midsection, didn’t look too out of place. And that she didn’t look too much a fool, dressed in clothes twice her size. But Baz was—annoyingly—right. Rip off the insignia, and the Peacekeeper’s pristine uniform blended into the crisp town more than her worn villager’s sandsuit ever would. Now all she needed was the personality to match.
Being a crewleader in the mines, at such a young age, was on her side. She had the authority… if only she could summon it. Cress looked past the fine clothes, the smooth, clean stone roads, and focused on the job. Yig had provided the coordinates to the city’s military repair shop, and she should be able to just drive the MTEV in, wave some credentials, requisition a trailer and the electrant, and buzz back out. Easy.
But no burning way was she going in there blind. She had no problems with Baz’s plan, in theory, but when did anything ever go according to plan? Their village was supposed to have had enough ore to harvest from that site for another sol. Plenty of time to find a new dig site.
Plans.
So she scouted. Cress saw two guards, mounted in converted industrial walkers, stationed on either side of the gate. A chassis-mounted laser cannon hung casually from each walker’s right arm. It seemed a bit excessive for a simple machine shop, but then, she supposed wryly, when you’re ruling over your people with an iron fist, you don’t want to give any of the malcontented downtrodden the temptation to misbehave.
Cress couldn’t see much from outside the compound, but did notice two ancillary exits, one towards the back, headed directly out of town. Probably just an easy access gate for vehicles coming in from villages that needed a tune-up. And that wasn’t cheap. The last time they’d had to bring an SL-46-230 in for repairs, it had set them behind a whole week’s worth of ore. And it hadn’t happened since Cress was 12… With prices like that, you quickly learned to become your own mechanic. Focus! That gate wasn’t guarded. She filed that tidbit away.
Sauntering back to the tevver, Cress passed several restaurants, the exotic smells beckoning her cruelly. She knew the biodomes had fruit trees and grew vegetables and fed livestock, but those were reserved for people with money. All she’d ever known were nu-bars, and bastani as a treat once on her birthday. Pity the only money onboard the Firebringer was digitally locked under either Losf’s or Baz’s name. Galaxywide currency hadn’t been accepted planetside since the Founding. And now certainly wasn’t the time to be drawing attention to herself by stealing. Though I’m sure I could get away unnoticed…
The tevver was still where she had parked
it, with Yig trying its best to look like spare parts haphazardly tossed in the passenger seat. She’d draped her sandsuit over top of it to try and increase the illusion. It wasn’t that convincing, but luckily, Cress mused, all the people of Deadsand seemed far too wrapped up in their own lives to spare a glance for a dusty rig.
It was time. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Cress began the tevver’s startup sequence. As she rounded the corner towards the compound, the walkers came into sight again. She’d worked with them in the mines, but never before had they carried this sense of menace. They were just tools… so perhaps what mattered was who was making use of them. Just act casual. But how did a person who carried the credentials she held act? She thought back to Baz’s insistent drilling earlier… it’d mentioned everything she should say and do, but how should she say and do it? Had it mentioned that?
Not at all. Then, it dawned on her. Baz hadn’t had to tell her how to act—the ship had shown her. Its military bearing, its sharp, authoritative tone and no-nonsense approach was exactly what she needed. Squaring up her shoulders, she strove to feel the confidence she portrayed, as the tevver rolled up to the gate.
Cress didn’t even have to lift the badge—the scanner picked up and recognized her credentials, and buzzed her through. A curt nod to the attendant at the gate, and she was in.
She pulled the MTEV up alongside the building’s main entrance, aimed a severe command to stay at the immobile robot, and sauntered inside. This place was probably the dirtiest corner of Deadsand, and the thin film of machine grease and random heaps of discarded metal set Cressida at ease. They may be military, but there’s a shared kinship among anyone with any mechanical leanings, and these grease monkeys were her type of people. Sure, they charged an arm and a leg for civilian repairs… but that was just protocol, and it came down from the top.
Relaxing her posture unconsciously, Cress lolled up to the counter, wearing her authority with more casual conviction now than when she had been making an effort. Beyond the counter, the expansive room stretched, sparse, a large bay made for housing walkers and haulers and who knows what else while they were dismantled. Along the right-hand wall of the space sat two beat-up desks overflowing with parts and hoses and what looked like an electrant gate cluster from what was probably a smaller walker subsystem. It was from these desks that a man, dirty coveralls hanging down from his waist, sauntered towards her.
“New here? Swipe yer badge.” Huh. Hardly the strict military discipline Baz had prepared her for. She supposed, as long as they got the job done, higher-ups didn’t really spare a machine shop tucked away in a corner of a Bara Skar town much notice.
Cress complied, and as her file details popped up on the screen, the man’s demeanor immediately changed. Snapping to attention, he fumbled to pull up his coveralls, hastily restoring regulation dress. So much for sharing a bond. Cressida was reminded of the elevated credentials she carried, and hastily removed her warm smile to match. Snapping a smart salute, the man continued in a much more deferential tone.
“Afternoon, Corporal Prax. What can I do for you?” He seemed to be ignoring his previous insubordination and hoping she’d do the same. With a knowing pause, she met his eyes. Let’s see him sweat… just a bit. After a few moments, in which he’d shifted his weight at least four times and rubbed his hands against his thighs enough to leave them clean, she answered.
“Electrant. Grade MA-1. I’ll need three drums, 500 liters. And I’ll need a trailer to haul it back. It can be stored in Heat’s vehicle pool until someone’s ready to make a return trip. And I still have a long journey ahead of me, so I’d like it snappy.”
The man jumped to obey, pressing several buttons on the screen in front of him. His tongue poked between his teeth as he typed off a quick message, and pressed send with a flustered jab.
“All set, Corporal. You short of electrant up at Heat? Figured they’d have plenty, there…” Another stern glare made the man trail off.
“You don’t have clearance to get such answers—” a derisive glance at his badge “—Clancy. I’ve been out of the city for some time, and have quite a ways to go until my project’s done. So unless you’d care to join me, I’d suggest you speed things up.”
The beleaguered mechanic quickly sent her back outside, with instructions to drive around back, where she’d be met with the trailer loaded with the drums of electrant.
10 minutes later, the trailer was loaded and hitched to the MTEV, and they were almost clear. Cress breathed a small sigh as she threw the tevver into reverse, awkwardly trying to reposition the rig towards the exit. The tevver’s stabilizing arm, tucked against the right side of the vehicle and sticking out past the rear wheels, scraped gratingly against the trailer in protest, severely limiting her turn radius.
“Ma’am! Ma’am, wait a minute, please!” An overeager mechanic called, jogging out from beside the walker he’d been working on. “Beg your pardon, ma’am, but that tongue is all wrong for this MTEV—you’ll need something a lot longer if you’re hoping to maneuver safely while hauling that load. Sorry the boys set you up with this—I’m sure they didn’t know you were using this type of tevver. Really, you should be using a 15 series, or even a 21.”
“This is the vehicle I arrived in, soldier. It’s not ideal, but it’s what I was given, so we’ll just have to make it work. I don’t need to turn too sharply, this should be fine for my purposes.” A bead of sweat rolled down her neck, as she fought to remain in character. So close—can’t he just let me leave?!
“Well now, that hardly makes sense. This looks like a 14-380, and I don’t think those have been part of our fleet for at least the past 3 sols… servbot, weren’t those recommissioned and sold to the private sector a few sols ago?”
A nearby greaser servbot turned at the summons, pulling itself away from the walker whose knee actuator it seemed to have been in the middle of running a series of calibration tests on. But before the bot could answer, another voice chimed in.
“Correct. Base records show that the SL-14-380 left military service in 133 AE planetwide, and—”
The man’s startled yell cut off the rest. Yig, responding to the servbot summons, had revealed itself in the passenger wheel well beside Cressida. Swearing violently, the man grabbed for his comm. Reacting on instinct, Cress lunged out of her seat, and snatched the radio from his hands. Flooring the pedal, she took off.
The tevver wasn’t turned around towards the entrance, but that wasn’t an option, anyways. Though no alarm had been sounded, the mechanic’s shout had drawn the eyes of everyone nearby. Casting about frantically, Cress noticed the outside gate she’d seen on her scouting trip, just slightly to her left. Correcting the wheel, she headed towards the gate, praying it was weak enough to allow her to breach it.
“—was mass auctioned in 134 AE. 217 MTEV SL-14-380s were sent into civilian service. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Not now, Yig! Pretty sure you’ve done enough!”
The gate quickly grew in her sight, and it looked a lot more solid up close. Probably the reason there was no need for guards on it. Cress braced herself for the impending crash, hunkering behind the wheel expectantly. But it didn’t come. With a well-oiled swing, the gate opened at her approach, leaving free the path out of Deadsand.
Cress drove through, whooping exultantly, her face alight with the flush of victory. At least, until she heard the unmistakable clanking of huge machines falling into pursuit behind her.
***
Even if it had blown her cover, having a servbot along did occasionally have its advantages. Conversation, no. Subterfuge? Sands, no. But the ability to scramble the trackers of the two walkers and five sand rails that were in pursuit was something not every traveling companion could boast.
The landscape of Bara Skar might appear featureless from a distance, but it wasn’t long before the gentle dunes and subtle crags of the wastelands swallowed her up. No doubt they’d be after her, but she’d take
n the tevver far off course, and the winds would scour her tracks long before they’d show up. Sure, there was off-planet surveillance, but that wouldn’t be used for anyone as inconsequential as her. Or, for that matter, Bara Skar at all. The Cyandown family hardly spared the mining planet a thought, so long as the flow of ore continued to Bara Prime.
Three hours since she’d last seen the dust cloud denoting her tail, Cress changed course. But she wasn’t headed straight back towards Baz—there was something else, something far more distasteful, that she’d have to do first.
Firebringers, like every other high-tech AI ship, operated with a neural link. Ship and copilot had to work as a seamless team—the moral, big-picture viewpoint of the human needed to be made accessible to the AI’s analytical processing, its instant reflexes carrying out the will of them both. The first human must have been a brave soul, getting that first implant attached, neural pucks resting along either side of the cervical spine, thin filaments invading the spinal cord and brain… But after that first link didn’t result in death, paralysis, or a hostile takeover, the technology became standard. Pilots could instantaneously communicate at any distance that an encrypted transmission could reach, and their ship could talk back.
Baz had indicated that retrieving the link was important to it personally, that it was a “valuable component and needed to be accounted for”—apparently it falling into the wrong hands could reveal secrets or something. Whatever the reason, it was clear to her that if she wanted any help from the AI it would have to be returned.
Retrieving it, however, was the fun part. Since each link was keyed to its particular ship, the only military implant left planetside that would work with Baz was the one the ship brought with it—currently embedded in the decomposing corpse of its previous copilot.
***
Gravetrees on Bara Skar were sacred. In the barren wasteland, the scrubby plants—clinging so tenaciously to life—were a fitting representation of how the planet’s inhabitants had done the same. Now, their bodies were used to nourish these trees, which in turn provided a windbreak for the village’s current inhabitants. Practical and symbolic, all in one. The trees were clumped together, a smooth rock placed at each root system, lovingly scribed with the name of the deceased.
Metal in the Sand: Book 1 Page 3