by M. D. Cooper
A Nietzschean soldier in light armor leapt out at her, but Rika swung her GNR into his face, sending him flying clear through the wall. She took aim at the launcher and fired her electron beam.
Roughly six hundred milliseconds after it launched the rocket.
Rika raced across the room, praying she could shoot the rocket, but knowing she may not be able to spot it fast enough in the raging storm.
As she reached the window, a brilliant flash momentarily blinded her, and Rika screamed,
The only response was the howl of the winds tearing through the broken window, and Rika felt despair well up inside her, ready to jump out into the storm and find him.
A lull in the storm revealed an assault pinnace lowering through the clouds, the shape of the crawler—still intact—clearly visible beyond it.
A shot rang out from behind Rika, and she turned to see an SMI-2 mech standing next to the room’s bed, firing through the wall at the Nietzschean that Rika had forgotten about.
Rika felt a wave of relief wash over her, and she took two long strides across the room, crashing into the other mech, their armor screeching as they crushed one another with their mechanical embrace.
“Silva,” Rika whispered. “You always did have impeccable timing.”
Silva pulled back and tilted her head as she regarded Rika. “And you always did go off half-cocked.”
* * * * *
All of the Theban hostages had been brought into the lodge and were arrayed around the central fire pit for warmth, a few service-minded souls moving amongst them, distributing food and water.
Chase walked in carrying a young girl in his arms while her mother followed after. Once inside, Chase handed the girl to her mother and strode to where Rika and Silva stood, surveying the crowd.
“All in a day’s work, eh?” he asked, pulling his helmet off as he reached Rika’s side.
“You think the building is clear enough for that?” Rika asked.
“Patty’s finished scanning it. Her bird can see right through this thing, so yeah, I figure it’s worth the risk to breathe some fresh air.”
On her right, Silva lifted her helmet off and shook her hair out. “I like where your head’s at, Chase. Literally and figuratively.”
“Well, if we’re throwing caution to the wind…” Rika pulled her helmet off as well, but configured her flow armor to be transparent and let it rise up over her head.
Just in case.
“OK, Silva, enough with the mysterious, ‘I sensed trouble’ bullshit you gave earlier. How did you find us?”
Silva chuckled. “I got word from Major Harl. We’ve been running rescue ops on Hudson here ever since this new group of players showed up and wiped the star’s ass with the Nietzschean fleet. I didn’t know for sure what their game was, so Patty altered the pinnace’s callsign and told them we were local police search and rescue. Earlier today we finally got wind of what really went down, and heard about this Rika woman who was apparently the hero of the day.”
Silva paused and gave Rika a warm smile while also shaking her head.
“When I heard that this Rika had somehow stolen five warships and led a rescue op to save the Allied Field Marshal on Pyra, I knew it had to be my girl.”
“Bravery does run pretty strong in her veins,” Chase said, resting a hand on Rika’s shoulder.
“Not to mention recklessness,” Silva said, her brow lowering before she winked. “Either way, we finally told them who we were and got connected with a Major Harl. He told us where you’d gone, and the rest is history.”
“And Amy?” Rika asked, almost scared to hear the answer.
Silva’s lips split into a broad smile. “With Patty on the pinnace. We’d found a place to live on Pyra, but they were finishing renovations after the last dust up with the Nietzscheans, so Patty got leave, and we all came here for a little vacation.”
“You know how to pick a locale,” Chase said, laughing softly.
“Yeah, well, good thing,” Silva said, giving Rika a pointed stare. “Saved a lot of lives here.”
Rika shrugged. “I would have had it handled.”
“Niki!” Rika exclaimed, blushing as she glanced at Silva and Chase. “OK…maybe I was a little scared.”
“It’s OK,” Chase said as he clasped Rika’s shoulder, pulling her close. “Being scared when you think you’re going to die is normal. Means you have something to live for.”
RETURN
STELLAR DATE: 09.05.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Pinnace PD-17
REGION: Hudson, Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance
Rika and Chase spent another two days with Patty, Silva, and Amy, helping to rescue stranded people on Hudson.
Though they were saving lives, she felt guilty leaving Lieutenant Scarcliff in charge of the company. She remained in communication, and Tanis had messaged Rika to let her know she had a watchful eye on the Marauders as well. In the end, Rika found herself to be rather proud of how well the mechs managed without her.
“Told you they could handle a cleanup op without mama bear around,” Chase said as they sat in the galley aboard Patty’s pinnace.
Though they had two ships to fly back to Pyra, given the choice of a Nietzschean ship or a Marauder ship, the choice of return vessel was clear. Niki had set a pre-programmed flight path for the Fury Lance’s pinnace, and was keeping an eye on it as it trailed behind.
“Is that what they call you now?” Amy asked, smiling up at Rika.
“Not to my face.” Rika gave Chase a sidelong glance. “At least, not normally.”
Amy took a bite of an apple and grinned around the fruit in her mouth. “I think it fits. You’re very protective, Rika.”
Though it had only been a few months since Rika had said goodbye to Silva and Amy, the young girl seemed years older. Given that Amy’s past had already aged her beyond her years, she was now all but an adult in a girl’s body.
Yet another childhood robbed by the Nietzscheans.
“I just like to make sure everyone makes it out alive,” Rika replied. “Or as many as possible.”
Silva walked into the galley and leant against the counter, smiling at her daughter before looking at Rika. “Well, from what I can see, if you’re going to push your mechs out of the nest, doing it with these allies around is as good a situation as you can ask for. Things may get hairy from time to time, but by and large, they’re not going to get too deep in any hock.”
Niki interrupted.
“Oh, really?” Rika asked. “Did they request the Golden Lark and Perseid’s Dream as well?”
Major Tim had been quite put out about Rika’s trip to Hudson. He didn’t seem to care that Patty was a Marauder, or that Silva and Amy may as well be, given what they’d risked to topple the Politica.
After a few terse messages back and forth, Rika had stopped replying to the major. He wasn’t going to be any more pleasant in person, no matter what she said over comms. Best just to let him pickle in his own juices for a while.
“Special courier?” Chase asked, a frown creasing his brow. “MHQ is in the Ontario System. That’s nearly twenty light years away. No way they have heard back yet.”
“I’ve logged over twenty hours reading that thing. I’m still not even halfway through.�
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“Huh?” Rika asked. “It’s like…a hundred screens, tops.”
Niki giggled, and Chase’s frown deepened. “Niki…?”
Niki snickered again.
Rika groaned and gave Chase an apologetic look as she passed the shorter briefing over the Link.
“You’ll probably want to go through that first,” she chuckled. “Anyway, the ISF has this tech called jump gates. It requires a transmission gate and a special mirror of some sort on the front of the ship. With it, they can cross known space in minutes.”
“Shit, is that how they got all those ships insystem so fast? And here I’d wagered that they snuck them all in with stealth tech. Barne’s going to cash in; he had guessed wormholes.”
“Oh yeah?” Chase asked. “How do they work?”
“Bastards,” Rika muttered, then laughed. “You know…I think the whole galaxy is insane.”
“Humans really haven’t spread through the whole galaxy,” Amy corrected. “Just the Orion Arm.”
“Ha!” Chase grinned at Amy. “Now who hasn’t read the brief? Humans have spread into the Perseus and Sagittarius Arms, too.”
“Well, Mom wouldn’t let me read it,” Amy shot a dark look at Silva. “Said it was too depressing.”
Silva directed a glower at her daughter. “I said that it was too much for you to absorb right then. But I guess I probably should…you’re just going to pick up all the details in dribs and drabs anyway.”
“Score!” Amy thrust a fist in the air. “Besides…after growing up with Dad, I think I can handle pretty much anything.”
Rika saw Silva’s expression darken further, but she didn’t say anything in response.
“So, what are you two going to do?” Rika asked Silva. “Stay here in Albany…?”
“Is this you trying to get me to sign up with the Marauders again?” Silva asked.
Rika shrugged. “I don’t even know for sure if there is a ‘Marauders’ anymore. What, with the Old Man being gone.”
“Sure there is,” Chase replied. “Apparently you didn’t tell Silva how your company is named ‘Rika’s Marauders’.”
Rika blushed as Silva laughed. “Why doesn’t this surprise me?”
“I had nothing to do with the name.” Rika waved a hand through the air. “My XO and Flight Commander are pranksters.”
“I’ll bet,” Silva said as she gave Rika a rather penetrating stare. “No lie, I’d sure like to kick more Nietzschean ass. It never gets old, that’s for sure, but Amy and I have a life to build now. We’re not in it for war.”
“Mom,” Amy turned in her seat to meet Silva’s eyes. “I may not have read the brief, but I’ve overheard things. The war is everywhere. People are fighting all over the place.”
“Be that as it may,” Silva replied. “You’re my number one responsibility, and while we did what we had to on Hudson, I’m not going to cart you around on one of Rika’s cruisers.”
“I wouldn’t allow it, either,” Rika added.
Amy turned back to look at Rika, hurt evident in her eyes. “I’ve never held the team back,” she pleaded. “You took me across the Politica, and I did my part. I’ve lived with mechs all my life. You’re like family.”
Amy was right, but that didn’t mean a warship was any place for a young person.
“I wonder about New Canaan,” Rika mused.
“Where’s that? Deeper in the Praesepe Cluster?” Silva asked.
“No,” Rika shook her head. “It’s where Tanis’s people settled. “Probably one of the safest places in the galaxy.”
Silva’s eyes narrowed as she regarded Rika. “What are you suggesting?”
“That it’s a place the two of you could go,” Rika replied, realizing that she had sidled right up to the line with Silva.
She had been about to suggest that the two split up, her own desire to have Silva at her side blinding her to how much this mother and daughter needed to be together.
“I don’t know,” Silva said, still eyeing Rika warily. “How do you know that Admiral Richards would let us go there? From what I hear, the ISF people are very closemouthed about where they come from.”
Rika leant back in her chair and grinned at Silva. “I have a bit of an in with Tanis.”
AVATAR
STELLAR DATE: 09.09.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS I2
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance
Nine days after leaving Pyran space to find Silva and Amy on Hudson, Rika was back aboard the I2. This time, instead of a trip to Tanis’s cabin by the lake, she was on her way to meet with the admiral in what the message termed ‘Bridge Conference Room 1A’.
Rika found no end of amusement that this warship was more like a city than a starship. Hundreds of square kilometers of parks, enough housing for tens of thousands of people, two massive hospitals, commercial and restaurant districts….
Heck, it even has three spaceports, and that’s not counting the thousand fighter bays.
Tanis had made an offhand comment that the ISF planned to build at least two dozen ships like the I2—the Carthage, Canaan’s Sword, and Starblade being just the tip of the iceberg.
Granted, those three ships were already gone, departed through a massive jump gate that Tanis had said would be dismantled and moved after the I2 left the Albany System.
As Rika walked down the long corridor toward the bridge, she wondered about the meeting ahead. The message had indicated that Major Tim would be in attendance, plus two colonels from Marauder HQ that had come back on the ISF’s courier ship.
Would they tell her to stand down? Punish her for leaving the Hercules System without orders?
Anything was possible.
Rika breathed a heavy sigh.
Niki snorted.
As Rika was fervently hoping the same thing, she came to a large room that the I2’s visitor map listed as ‘Bridge Foyer’. The space within was devoid of furnishings, but it was filled with holos. Displays with ship’s status readouts, the stellar cartography of the Albany System, fleet tracking, solar flare monitoring, a whole series of screens dedicated to the CME that had burst off Howe two days ago, plus the flight paths of every civilian vessel within scan range.
A path was marked out on the deck, and Rika’s ship map told her to follow the left branch, but she caught sight of a figure in the center of the room, and
turned to walk toward it. As she passed through layer upon layer of holos, she made out a white woman perched atop a low pillar. Long, black hair splayed out around the woman, waving gently like a living halo, as she manipulated virtual screens around herself.
“Priscilla?” Rika asked.
“What are you doing?” Rika asked, looking around at the thousands of displays filling the room.
“Running everything, from the looks of it,” Rika replied. “Are you…stuck there?”
Priscilla glanced down.
“Is it comfortable?” Rika asked. “I mean…couldn’t you change it to something else?”
Priscilla glanced down at the lower half of her body. She completed the sentence with a conspiratorial wink.
“Newbies?” Rika asked. “Are you going to spend less time here, going on rescue missions and stuff?”
“Couldn’t you shorten the shift?” Rika asked. “Rotate out more often?”