by M. D. Cooper
“You’re right about that. But I knew it before I boarded back at Hintin. Gregor sent me; he was curious who was looking into him. From what I can tell, there’s nothing to worry about, though—just a lovesick boy, chasing after a girl.”
Chase slammed his drink down on the bar, spilling its contents as he stood, and took a step back. “You’re a Marauder? You fucking slaver! Where’s Rika?”
“Hey, easy now,” Sally raised her hands defensively. “I don’t know where she is, but she’s listed as active duty on the roster.”
“Active duty…so she’s fighting in a war somewhere,” Chase said, his tone accusatory.
“To my knowledge, the Marauders are not currently fighting in any wars. But she’s probably fighting somewhere.”
“You know she’s a slave, right?” Chase asked. “She was sold at auction.”
“I saw that in her record. The way we see it, the Marauders saved a Genevian war hero from a horrible future somewhere. She’ll have to work off the money we paid for her, but she’s no slave.”
Chase gave a cynical laugh. “Most people don’t make a huge distinction between slavery and indenture, you know.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not a charity,” Sally shrugged, and took another sip of her drink.
“It’ll take her years to pay that off!”
Sally nodded. “But it’s a small price to pay for freedom.”
“If she survives,” Chase spat. “I know how you mercs operate. Chew people up and spit them out.”
“Hey! Check your attitude, Sergeant. I was enlisted in the GAF, too. Staff Sergeant. Did my share of time in the shit. I’ll tell you one thing for certain: we treat our own a lot fucking better than we got in the war. If Rika survived that, then she’ll do fine with the Marauders.”
Several of the bar’s other patrons had turned to stare. Sally pointed at Chase’s stool. “Now sit the fuck back down and finish your drink. What you didn’t spill all over the bar, at least.”
Chase was at a loss for words, but followed Sally’s instruction and retook his seat on the stool. He picked up his glass, took a long look at it, and then downed the remains in one swallow.
“Another one for my friend, here,” Sally said to the bartender before giving Chase a conspiratorial smile. “It’s on the company dime, anyway.”
Chase felt like an ass for losing his temper. It wasn’t going to get him any further with Sally, and he was glad that she didn’t just tell him to shove off and leave. Still, it took him a few sips of his next drink to ask the question burning a hole in his tongue.
“So, can I see her?”
Sally smiled. “You really have it bad, don’t you?’
Chase chuckled softly. “Rika’s an amazing woman; you’d understand if you knew her. She’s…she’s so strong inside, like a diamond.”
“Forged in the war’s crucible,” Sally said.
“Breaks the metaphor, but yeah. She thinks that what they did to her broke her…ruined her. But she’s wrong; they made her better.”
“You into mod girls?” Sally asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No…well, yeah, a bit. But that’s not what’s special about her. Shit, I can’t believe I’m telling all this to you.”
Sally winked. “It’s one of my specialties.”
“Huh…I can tell.”
“Look, Chase, you’re a good guy. Your heart is in the right place, and you’re not afraid to call a broom a broom. I was serious about you enlisting—the Marauders could use a man like you.”
Chase had been mid-drink, and he coughed, getting more than a little on Sally.
“Sorry,” he said, and handed her a napkin.
“Don’t worry, I get that a lot,” Sally said with a grim smile. “So, should I pass you a contract?”
Chase knew that if he said no, his chances of seeing Rika again in the next decade were slim to none. He wiped his mouth, took a deep breath, and nodded.
“Yeah, send me the contract.”
NIGHT
STELLAR DATE: 12.15.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Warehouse on the northeast edge of Berlin
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Theban Alliance
The rest of the team had gone to sleep; though not before Barne gave Rika a stern admonishment not to ‘try any sneaky shit’ during the night.
She had to admit that she’d considered it. Jerry had not given her any specific orders to remain in the warehouse, and so long as she could maintain a mental belief that leaving the warehouse was in the best interests of the team, she could fool the compliance chip and not be disciplined.
But she had nowhere to go, and she suspected that somewhere in the armor she now wore was a tracking system that would bring the Marauders right to her.
There was also a part of her that liked being part of a team again. No one here was responsible for buying her, and Leslie and Jerry didn’t seem to have any issue with her being a mech. Barne wasn’t happy about her, but she suspected that was because he was used to being the biggest muscle; but he hadn’t called her ‘meat’, so that was a plus.
For now, she’d play along and see where things went.
Well, you do know where this is going; you’re going to assassinate a president.
Rika knew that a younger version of herself would have been horrified, or perhaps morbidly curious about doing something so crazy. But she’d spent a lot of time on the streets. ‘Kill or be killed’ was something she had embraced long before the military had carved her up and made death her full-time job.
As a scout mech, she had relied on her GNR-41B sniper rifle to take out more than a few…thousand enemies. She didn’t feel any special remorse at the thought of actual assassination—a realization that worried her more than a little.
All her work to become a normal person since the war ended—as much as was possible—seemed to have been nothing more than a veneer over what still lay beneath.
The killer.
She pushed those thoughts down, and brought Team Basilisk’s intel on Pyra and their target location on her HUD.
Pyra was the second planet from Howe, which was the name of the primary star in the Albany System. It was strange that the system’s star and the system itself didn’t share the same name; it was also odd that no planet or star in the five-system Theban Alliance bore the name ‘Thebes’.
Not that any of that mattered.
Pyra was a well-settled world, boasting a population of five billion. Most of that number was concentrated in mega-cities, leaving the majority of the planet’s seven hundred million square kilometers of land open for farming and recreation.
The world had continents at both its north and south poles, making for a colder climate in the temperate zones than was common on terraformed planets. However, from what Rika could see, the locals had a real affinity for winter sports. She wondered if that was cause or effect.
She focused in on the location of the capital city, on the outskirts of which lay the warehouse the Marauder team was occupying.
The city, named Berlin, was nestled in a wide bay on the east coast of one of the world’s continents; just a few degrees below the northern tropic line. Unlike the mega-cities elsewhere on Pyra, Berlin had an older, more cultured feel. Local laws restricted building heights so that none could come close to the height of the capitol buildings. Rika noted that long-range urban shots would likely be out of the question.
She brought up the dossier on her target. President Ariana appeared to be popular with her people, having been recently voted in for a seventh consecutive ten-year term.
That was too long for anyone to hold power, by Rika’s estimation. Maybe the Marauders were doing Thebes a favor by ushering in a change of the guard.
As Rika reviewed the president’s daily schedule, as well as the briefs and dossiers of her guards and staff, the local time slipped past midnight. She noted that it was now the twelfth day of the third month on the local calendar. Strangely, a month named Julius.
> She set a countdown: eight hundred hours on the morning of the fifteenth. That gave her just over one hundred and eight local hours until she pulled the trigger.
It was going to be a long wait.
She straightened and stretched her arms overhead. The feeling of being armored still comforting; though the change in balance was taking some getting used to.
Rika turned and looked behind her at the sleeping forms of the other three members of Team Basilisk. Other? Does that imply that I am one of them?
She walked quietly to the crate containing civilian clothing, and grabbed a long robe. At first, she had wondered why the team had equipped her with full armor—it wasn’t ideal for blending into an urban population—but when she saw that the local fashion tended toward long flowing robes, it made more sense.
The robe they had supplied her with was more than simple cloth. It contained impressive EM-masking technology, and would even flow around her body in a fashion that masked her double-kneed legs.
She carefully pulled it over her head. The robe was made of tan cloth, with intricate white whorls across its surface. She left the cowl down, and crept to a staircase that led to the warehouse’s roof.
Her augmented vision revealed the steps least likely to creak and groan under her considerable weight, and she made it to the top without waking anyone below—she hoped.
The door on the roof was unlocked, but she saw a sensor on it, and punched in the code to deactivate it—that much the team had trusted her with; then she pushed open the door.
Rika drew in a deep breath, relishing the scent of the clear night air as she leaned her head back and gazed at the stars above.
“Wow,” she whispered, taking in the stellar beauty above her. The Theban Alliance lay on the rimward edge of the Praesepe Cluster, which consisted of a thousand stars, all within one hundred light years. Pyra was in the stage of its local year where the night sky was dominated by the display, illuminating the city and forests surrounding it with far more light than even most moons reflected.
Rika walked by the light of that brilliant display to the edge of the warehouse’s roof, taking care to follow a route that would not pass over the team below, and leaned against the decorative cornice lining the top of the building.
Genevia—now a part of the Nietzschean stars—was not visible in the night sky at this time of year. She wished it were; Parsons would be visible from Pyra. She could have gazed at its light, and wondered about Chase: where he was, what he was doing.
For her, it had been less than a day since they had been in each other’s arms; but for him, it had been well over a hundred. Did he think of her? Was he even still on Dekar? Rika doubted that she’d ever know.
She pushed the melancholy thoughts from her mind and gazed around her.
The warehouse was situated on the northeast side of the city, near a long string of wharfs mostly filled with recreational craft—though a few commercial fishing vessels were visible.
Rika wondered about a planet with so many inhabitants using human fishing fleets. Perhaps it was some sort of recreational activity.
To the southwest, seventeen kilometers distant, rose the capitol buildings. Rika gauged the building’s spires to be no more than five hundred meters tall, but no other building in the city crested one hundred. Five kilometers north of the capitol and sixteen kilometers from the warehouse, lay the presidential estate.
The intel the Marauders had gathered showed that the presidential palace’s grounds bordered a national forest, and that the president often went for a run in the morning on its twisting paths.
That would be their primary strike point, close to the palace grounds—Rika didn’t want to be too deep in the woods, if the president’s schedule changed that day.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs, and the soft swish of the door opening a moment later, reached her ears, and Rika turned to see Jerry approaching.
“Quite the view up here, isn’t it?” he asked as he carefully walked across the rooftop toward her.
“Checking on me?” Rika asked.
Jerry shrugged as he reached he side. “Maybe a little bit.”
Rika gave a soft laugh. “I would have, too. Sorry I woke you; I just wanted to take a look at the city with my own eyes. There’s always something missing from the intel. Everyone sees things differently.”
“It’s OK,” Jerry said as he ran a hand through his messy tangle of hair. “I wasn’t really sleeping well, anyway. I’m surprised you’re not, though; I always find that cryo takes a lot out of me.”
“I soaked up a lot of calories today. Took in some NutriPaste after the meal,” Rika said. “I can make it a few days without sleep if I’m well fed.”
“Yeah, that’s fine for the body, but what about the mind?”
Rika turned to Jerry, meeting his dark eyes. “Seriously? You care about my mental state?”
Jerry gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Well, it’s not entirely altruistic. I’m not excited about the thought of an overstressed, exhausted mech within arm’s reach.”
“And here I thought you cared,” Rika said, turning back to the view of Berlin and the distant lights of intermittent air and ground traffic, flitting about under the starlight.
“Hey, I’m not exactly excited about having you here against your will,” Jerry said. “But orders are orders.”
“By ‘against my will’, you mean as a slave,” Rika said.
“Hey, you’re not a—” Jerry began, but stopped when Rika shot him a quelling glare.
“Am I getting paid for this job? Can I leave?”
“Uhh…well…”
“Slave,” Rika said in a tone that brooked no further discussion on the subject.
Jerry didn’t speak for a minute, and then he let out a long breath.
“Look, I admit that I didn’t want you here—and before you go and get all pissed off at me, I don’t mean you specifically. I mean anyone who’s not Jenny—she was our last sniper. Got killed a few months ago on another op. We knew they’d send someone to fill her shoes, but we weren’t expecting…”
“A slave,” Rika finished for him.
“You think you’re the only one that knows what that’s like?” Jerry asked, anger seeping into his voice. “I was drafted, just like you. I didn’t want to be in the GAF, but I couldn’t leave, either.”
A sour laugh escaped Rika’s throat as she turned to face him. “Are you serious? You got drafted? I was coerced. Hell, I don’t even know if there is a word that combines ‘entrapment’, ‘coercion’, and ‘blackmail’ into one. I stole food. Food! And for that, I was given the option of enlistment, or execution!”
Jerry’s face fell, and he swallowed. “Shit, Rika. I had no idea. They always told us you mechs were mostly volunteers; that the compliance chips were just to keep any that went nuts from killing the rest of us.”
“Yeah, well now you know. So maybe what happened to me was a bit worse than when you were drafted.”
“Our government was really just a bunch of fucking shitheads, wasn’t it?” Jerry asked quietly. “Ever wonder if we’re better off, now that the Nietzscheans won?”
“Fucked if I know,” Rika said. “Now instead of our government flushing us all down the drain, we’re doing it to ourselves—all while the Nietzscheans watch and make a profit off our backs.”
Jerry nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty rough in some places. But you see that a lot after a war. I’ve been around a bit since then, and some of the other Marauders even longer. Things are shit almost everywhere. Everyone is attacking everyone.”
“Seems nice enough here,” Rika said as she looked over the city. “Well, ‘til we kill off their leaders, at least.”
“Kill or be killed, Rika. That’s the way of it. Twelve thousand years of civilization, and that’s what we humans do best. I’d rather be one of the killers.”
Rika had no response for that. She agreed, but she didn’t want him to think that she was OK with what they were goin
g to make her do.
“Well, now that I know you’re not going to jump off the roof and leave the premises, I’m going to go see if sleep will visit me tonight,” Jerry said as he straightened.
“’Night,” Rika replied.
Jerry tentatively laid a hand on Rika’s shoulder, and she did her best not to flinch. Human contact was not something she’d had much of, other than the evening with Chase, which was beginning to feel like it was in her distant past—or like a dream.
“I meant what I said before,” Jerry said. “The Old Man’s a good guy. He’ll reward you for a job well done. I know it.”
Rika turned her head and met Jerry’s eyes. He appeared sincere; his heart rate was slow and his blood pressure low.
“Thanks. I hope so.”
Jerry turned and left, and Rika resumed gazing out over the city.
Berlin.
Where she would assassinate a president.
THE GENERAL
STELLAR DATE: 12.14.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Combat Information Center, MSS Foe Hammer
REGION: Interstellar Space, near the Praesepe Cluster
General Mill closed the report from Gregor on the situation with the mech girl, Rika. She had been successfully delivered to the team on Pyra assigned with the assassination of President Ariana. However, there had been no time to brief her, or Basilisk, before her arrival.
Even worse, the packet explaining that she only had to work off half her debt to the Marauders didn’t make it into the shipment; just the information for Lieutenant Jerry on how to use her compliance chip to control her if there was an issue.
Still, the coordination officer on Pyra hadn’t picked up any distress signals from Basilisk, so General Mill had to assume that all was as it should be—difficult as that was.
Operation Phoenix was still a go.
Mill rose from his desk and walked to the window in his ready room. It didn’t look out over the stars, but, instead, down into the main shuttle bay of his flagship, the Foe Hammer.
He watched as two B’Muths were loaded under a drop ship, ready to hit the dirt. The massive, four legged walkers were well suited to different types of ground combat, both urban and rural. They were one of his favorite weapons platforms.