by L B Garrison
Amongst the crowd of grounded airships, Rin found Mandy stretching to embrace Cisco around the neck, one foot off the ground in a position that placed her weight against him. It seemed unstable.
Bailey sat in the lit opening of a white and red sky-ambulance with a silver thermal blanket wrapped over her shoulders. She swished the contents of a half-empty water bottle. “Here now, ten second rule.”
Mandy glanced at her. “That’s for food.”
Bailey downed the rest of the water and tossed the bottle on the ground, where it turned to dust. She smiled. “It’s universal, Mandy.”
Rin came to a stop within the light. “Have you asked what happened?”
“Uh, no. I just found them, but everyone is all right,” Mandy replied. “Alex had a few bruises from her fall and they wanted to check her over.”
Bailey scanned the darkness. “Are you talking to the other girl?”
Rin kept her voice even. “Get off Cisco and find out.”
Mandy’s cheeks flushed pink. She patted Cisco on the shoulder and let go. “Sorry. I got caught in the moment. What happened?”
Cisco exchanged a look with Bailey.
“We don’t know,” he replied. “Something hit us. Knocked us off the road. Then windows started breaking and Alex was thrown out.”
“It was Razor,” came Alex’s voice.
Alex stood just beyond the light spilling from the sky-ambulance. Her mud-caked jacket was zipped to the top and her normally ruddy complexion had an orange cast. “She pulled me out of the T30, dropped me in the mud and disappeared.”
Mandy frowned. “Why would she bother doing that?”
Alex stared at the ground. “She had a message. She said she’s coming with everything she’s got.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
R
in’s image sat on the corner of Fischer’s heavy desk and fidgeted with her uniform. Brass framed pictures of officers stood straight and tall, watching her. Cherry wood paneling, various flags and award plaques dominated the Colonel’s office, displaying his distinguish career with panache and a splash of testosterone. White blinds covered the floor-to-ceiling windows provided the only touch of brightness.
In battle Rin had some influence over the outcome. Not here. The Admiral had absolute power over her fate. If she didn’t survive in her current incarnation, the blood on her hands had been for nothing. That she couldn’t allow.
The holo-projectors powered up. Admiral Pillado.
Rin stood at attention and waited several milliseconds for the image to form.
“At ease, ECS Rin.”
Enforcer Core Ship, Rin. Add her hull registration number and it was her full name. At least he hadn’t done that. So, his displeasure hovered somewhere in the mid-range.
Rin relaxed, at least on the outside.
“Why projection only? What of your body?” Pillado asked.
So Mandy could interact with her friends physically, if she desired. “Mandy is easier to control, if I give her small concessions.”
“That is a reasonable method of pacifying her.”
“Yes, sir.” It’s what he might have done. Rin had given Mandy this moment to make her happy, before the inevitable final outcome of their time together. The motivation seemed totally irrational and yet right.
The Admiral had never been one for small talk. “Of course the question is why you need to pacify her. Jazz-mir assures me that you are in control of the schism. Are you?”
“I’m beyond the point where Mandy can interfere with my duty.”
“Given the time you’ve had to win dominance, I should hope so. Now that you’ve decided to grace us with your presence, I’ve proposed a strategy utilizing your power. Ostensibly, Colonel Fischer has asked us here to discuss it. I believe he is more interested in assessing you and knowing that you are stable.”
A knock sounded from the heavy wooden door. It opened partway. A crisp young woman with glossy black hair and a silver arm band leaned through the opening. “I’m Lieutenant Liu, Colonel Fischer’s assistant. He has been detained and asks that you meet him in the Situation Room. Would you prefer I transfer you there, or would you rather walk?”
The Admiral smiled. “All I’ve seen of Demeter is this office and a little forest.”
She moved back into the hall. “Follow me.”
Lights glistened off the granite floor. People in dark uniforms bustled through the echoing hall. The office door closed on its own with a thud. The Lieutenant led them through a window-lined corridor to an elevator. Outside, crimson leaves rustled in the breeze.
“Most of the base is actually underground,” she explained. An inertial field engaged and the elevator dropped. Without the field, Lieutenant Liu would be in freefall.
The silence stretched for nearly a minute. The base’s core must be very deep. Rin decoded and monitored thousands of reports, including the progress Jazz-mir, Trident and Atropos made in hit-and-run raids against Kinderen strongholds. The enemy’s strength grew by the hour.
Generally, small talk was expected in elevators. The planet’s impending doom wouldn’t be an acceptable topic.
“Think it will rain today?” Rin asked, earning a sideways glance from the Admiral.
The Lieutenant shrugged “Probably. We are going to blatantly kick their asses, you know. I believe that. You should too.”
“Rin, when the meeting starts, let the grownups talk,” the Admiral said.
“Understood.” Small talk was more complicated than it seemed.
The doors opened. They moved through a maze of corridors, passed a set of heavy blast doors and into a large bustling room. Displays floated in the air. Several of the workers stole glances of Rin.
The Lieutenant moved quickly through the crowd to stand behind a short, dark-skinned man who was the focus of the room. He leaned over a holo-table display of the continent. Even at this scale, the hundred-mile swath Jazz-mir and Trident had burned around the Kinderen infested area was obvious. It denied the Kinderen building material and created a buffer zone.
“Sir,” the Lieutenant said.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Liu.” The man’s eyes flickered across the Admiral, before settling on Rin. “So, this is the superweapon. She is not very impressive.”
He was goading Rin for some reason. Should she tell him she killed a star a week ago? “My purpose isn’t to look impressive.”
Fischer smiled. “Not easily intimidated either I see.”
“Rin.” The Admiral frowned.
If the grownups didn’t want her to talk, they shouldn’t address her.
The Colonel swept his hand over the table. Vast portions of the forest wilted. The cities became blasted craters.
“I have read your proposal,” Colonel Fischer said. “The larger cities are a complete loss at this point. I don’t object to attacking those. Saturation bombing the Kinderen half of the continent with electromagnetic pulse weapons and spreading hunter nanomechs to destroy the Kinderen should minimize most casualties, if it works. There will be considerable ecological damage.”
Rin watched the Admiral. His expression didn’t change. EMPs weren’t likely to have any more effect on the Kinderen nanomechs than living organisms and hunter nanomechs would be overwhelmed by the enemies’ numbers. This was not a workable plan.
The Admiral walked around the table. “As you read in the summary, we deployed similar tactics in the Orion’s Nebula with great success.”
That had never happened.
Lieutenant Liu’s attention was completely absorbed by the Admiral.
“What is your opinion, Rin?” The Colonel and several of the nearby personnel watched Rin.
“Don’t ask it,” the Admiral grumbled.
“I’m certain the Admiral has weighed all the options carefully and chosen the one most likely to succeed,” Rin ventured. That seemed to satisfy them both. It seemed prudent not to contradict the Admiral until she understood the situation.
“Initially, R
in will defend your current position,” the Admiral said. “After the bombardment, she will provide protection for rescue operations, while the rest of the fleet continues the attack.”
Fischer asked the obligatory question. “She doesn’t seem unstable, but the heat of battle may prove differently.”
“We will verify and make adjustments, if needed, when Mother arrives,” the Admiral replied. “By the time the rest of the Mobius fleet rendezvouses with us, we will be ready.”
The room was full of sensors. The Admiral’s image was detailed enough to measure respiration, skin temperature and voice inflections. His ego led to missteps. Rin wasn’t the focus of their attention after all.
“I believe we have what we need,” the Colonel said. “I’ll begin deploying my forces for defense and rescue operations. I would like a report on Rin’s condition, when it is available. My people will be working alongside her.”
“I have no objection,” the Admiral said. “I will update you on any changes as they develop and meet with you to finalize the details before we begin. If you will excuse us now.”
The room smeared and reformed as the Admiral’s New York City office. He stood by a glass wall. Lights glistened in the night as air traffic moved around them. The dark forms of mile-high glass and steel spires broke through the clouds. Above it all, artificial stars twinkled in the metal sky formed by the Matryoshka shell around the world.
“The battle plan you gave the Colonel isn’t supposed to work,” Rin said.
“Orion society is based on military structure. They play soldier to keep the boredom of eternal life at bay, but they have no stomach for it. This is a war, not a natural disaster. I have a more decisive plan in mind. The Colonel wouldn’t approve. The Confederation President is in agreement and the Orion government can be persuaded.”
Rin accessed Demeter’s records. “The Kinderen have selectively targeted the cities and their resources. Millions are trapped in the rural areas in between.”
“I have more to consider than one sparsely populated colony. We are vastly outnumbered on Demeter and I won’t take a chance on any of our ships being infected by Kinderen nanomechs. We have to destroy the Kinderen occupied areas, plus a wide buffer zone to be sure and only you have the power. Some will survive the purge, the Orions can rescue them.”
Rin clenched her jaw. It’s Ange Noir all over again.
The Admiral popped the stopper on a crystal decanter. “I never had time for children. When you were a new ship and the form of a three year old girl, we had fun, didn’t we?”
Rin never tried to recall those happy lies anymore. “Yes, sir.”
Scotch gurgled over crackling ice.
“It’s just the two of us, Rin.”
The taste of pistachio ice-cream and carnival simulations. Imprinting, he had called it. As Rin grew, she learned another term. Indoctrination.
Her throat constricted. “Yes, father. We had fun.”
He turned to the skyline and sipped his whisky. “Mother arrives in the Demeter system in twelve hours, we will be running a full diagnostic on all your systems and making repairs as needed. You have that long to destroy the schism and get your house in order. If not, I want you to understand, it’s nothing personal.”
Mandy rested her elbows on the flat, lacquered railing of Dandelion Point while she waited for Cisco. The vast walled city of Persephone’s Landing spread out before her. Gray streets formed a wagon wheel with the cloud-piercing Midgard tower standing in the middle, giving the whole scene the appearance of a vast sundial. Sage would love the view. The ache in Mandy’s chest stopped her breath. Sage was dust on a planet far away.
Noon approached. Midgard’s shadow rippled across the red and blue tile roofs as it crept toward Mandy. Her only goal had been getting everyone here safely and that was done. The restless itch in her head faded. Whatever Rin was doing, it was almost finished.
“Mandy? You look like you’re thinking about more than the view,” Cisco said.
Mandy’s heart jumped. She turned, leaned against the railing and frowned. “I was wondering if machines have souls.”
Cisco held a black and white paisley cup in each hand. “I’m sure some machines do.”
“Flattery and a drink? It’s like a date.” Mandy’s cheeks warmed. Hopefully the blush didn’t show very much. She hopped up on the top railing and braced her feet behind the second rail, so she was the same height as Cisco. “What did you do with Bailey?”
He handed her a frosty cup and pressed his back against the rail. “She had a sudden craving for haggis and found a vendor up the street. By the description, I take it that it’s something you eat when you lose a wager. She said I should deliver your drink.”
“Ah.” Mandy took a sip from the straw. Lime and coconut washed over her tongue, finishing with a creamy feel and tickling bubbles. She smiled. “This is my new favorite. Thank you. It reminds me of ocean water.”
“That’s a drink?”
“Yeah, that’s a drink. I worked at a burger place, getting splattered by deep fryers all day and making onion rings. Those blades were sharp. I cut my fingers more than the onions, but when the mopping was done, we would drink ocean waters and talk about what we’d do when we grew up.” She swished her cup around. “You never know the good times till you’re looking back. Funny, I never once said I’d be a war machine. ”
“It’s always the quiet ones.”
Mandy punched his shoulder. “Hey, there’s that sense of humor. Where’s that been?”
His smile was just perfect, the way his eyes sparkled. “It’s been a rough few days.”
Mandy took another long, sweet draw. “True. But we’re here now and the view of the tower is amazing.”
Cisco glanced behind him. “I suppose so. They’re common.”
“The future is so jaded. How can you even make something that tall? The weight would be enormous.”
Cisco slid the straw in and out of his cup, making a sort of hee-haw sound. “The cables are braided matter and negative matter, so they’re gravity neutral.”
“Negative matter?”
“It’s a type of designer matter. It falls up when you drop it. Comes to you when you push and moves away when you tug on it. That’s all I know.”
Mandy tried to imagine a cart that moved away when you pulled it, but it would float off the floor, wouldn’t it? She shook her head. Cisco’s nervous fiddling with the straw didn’t help her concentration. “I guess I couldn’t really explain how a car works. Cisco?”
“Yes?”
“Stop that.”
He let the straw drop and looked across Persephone’s Landing. “You can’t see it from here, but the bar where I met Bailey is near Midgard’s base. It’s called the Misty Mood. We were new recruits in a strange place. It’s only been a few years ago, but I guess those were my good times.”
The wind blew and the sun almost peeked through the clouds, but not quite.
“Alex decided to stay,” Cisco said.
“Oh. Rin has to defend Persephone’s Landing. When the other ships arrive, there’ll be an offensive. I’m kind of stuck with her, so I’m staying too.”
Cisco’s eyes scanned the grass.
Mandy watched him while she poked the lime out of the way to burrow the straw deeper into her cup. “If you’re looking for footprints or something, she isn’t here. She had to go to a strategy meeting with a Colonel Fischer. I’d just be a distraction and an embarrassment. We can be separated, apparently, but I don’t know by how much.”
He stared at the park with its gardens and winding roads without focusing on anything. The wind played through his thick hair. “The odds aren’t in your favor.”
“This is bigger than me or Rin, and it’s something else too. I want to find a reason.”
“A purpose? I can relate,” Cisco said. “It’s just, we thought you would stay and Bailey is worried about you.”
Mandy played with her straw. Kind of hypocritical of her, but b
oys made her nervous. “Can I tell you something stupid, and really very selfish?”
“What?”
“I kind of like that someone worries about me.” She took a quick sip.
“Well, I’m worried too. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
A little tropical juice trickled down the wrong way. Mandy coughed, puffing her cheeks out like a chipmunk. God, I look like an idiot.
He smiled and wiped a drop from her chin.
Time to lighten the mood. “Hey, give that back.”
“What about after all this? What then?”
She swallowed. “After?” There probably wouldn’t be an after for her, but she shouldn’t burden him with her problems. It was enough that they had this moment together.
Cisco took something from his pocket and handed it to Mandy.
She took it by reflex. It was a warm plastic card. Glittering pink and green pictograms swirled through the plastic and collected along the lower edge when she turned it. “Well, I don’t have one of these. Thanks.”
Cisco reached out and touched the card. “Let me bind it for you.”
“Uh, sure?”
Cisco’s warm fingers slipped over the card and touched Mandy’s skin. The card vanished in a puff of vapor. The symbols swarmed around their hands, giving the sensation of lukewarm oil. Mandy pulled back, but Cisco held her hand. The symbols soaked into her skin, sparkling for a moment in the creases before fading.
Mandy rubbed her fingers together. It was just skin. The oily feel was gone. “So you gave me pixie dust?”
Cisco let go. “It's a utility linked to one of Bailey’s accounts to cover any expenses you have. Just touch a pay pad. It’s made with some of Bailey’s nanomechs, some of mine and even some of Alex’s that Bailey stole, so she could keep track of her. You can use it to find us. It gives you independence for what comes next. You can go wherever you want, buy whatever you need.”
Could she and Rin leave here if they defeated the Kinderen? Travel the galaxy? So many unknowns clouded the future. A knot formed in her throat. She swallowed. “I didn’t dare hope to find friends here. It means so much that you’re looking out for me.”