by M. D. Cooper
“Sure,” Rika said, and lifted the case, carrying it over to where Barne had directed.
“I gotta ask,” Barne said from behind her. “Why did you save me? I didn’t order you to.”
Rika set the case down next to the drain and shrugged. “I don’t know…it never occurred to me to do anything but help you. I know you don’t really want me here, but I’m on the team.” She gave him a slight smile. “Even if it’s like how your rifle’s on the team.”
Barne’s face reddened as he opened the crate and carefully drained its contents.
“I’m sorry about that. I can be a bit of an ass sometimes.”
“A bit?” Rika asked with an arched eyebrow.
Barne laughed, “OK, a lot. And probably more often than ‘sometimes’.”
“How bad do you think they’re hurt?” Rika asked, changing the subject. No point in making Barne feel like she was going to forgive him just yet.
Barne grabbed the hose and began spraying out the case. “Hopefully not too bad. Jerry’s sweet on Leslie, and if Cheri’s worth her salt, she probably picked up on it. A few good bruises and cuts on Leslie, and Jerry probably spilled it.”
“Shit, I thought he’d let her take a bit more punishment before he ratted us out.”
It was Barne’s turn to give her a raised brow. “He wanted to make sure they hit me here before you came back. That way you would have the element of surprise, not them. He knew I could take whatever that woman had to dish out.”
“So you don’t think he ratted us out?”
“No,” Barne replied. “He wanted us to live so we could come save them. Which is why I’m so glad you decided not to make a run for it. Looks like his trust in you wasn’t misplaced.”
“I guess I have a trustworthy face,” Rika said with a smile.
“Or something. Just don’t shriek again, like you did when you tore that woman’s arms off. Scared the shit out of me.”
Rika laughed and clapped Barne on the shoulder. “Good, I think you could use a little less shit in you.”
THE ROMANY
STELLAR DATE: 12.16.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Enlisted Commissary, MSS Romany
REGION: Interstellar Space, near the Praesepe Cluster
Chase settled into his seat in the Romany’s commissary and eyed what the cooks were trying to trick him into eating. It looked like steak and eggs, but he doubted that the Marauder ship had enough steak to feed their entire crew such a meal.
“Wondering what the mystery is with the meat?” a voice said from across the table, and Chase looked up to see Ralph—one of the squad sergeants from Chase’s new platoon—settle into the seat across from him.
“Aren’t you?” Chase asked.
“Nah, we’re just out of port; it’ll be the real thing. Once we’re a week in, then you can start to worry about what the protein really came from.”
Chase stabbed a fork into one of the steak tips, and gave it a tentative bite. “Damn! This is real meat…or such a good fake that I don’t care.”
“Oh, you’ll know when they start faking it,” Sergeant Casey said as she sat next to Ralph. “We’ve got good cooks, but they’re not that good.”
Chase took another bite and shook his head. He’d never expected to be sitting on a warship, talking about how shitty—or how good, in this case—the chow was with his ‘toon-mates again, but here he was.
For a woman, he thought to himself.
But he knew that was oversimplifying things. Rika wasn’t just any woman; she was the woman. He was going to find her, and then…and then they’d figure something out.
“What do you know about where we jumped to?” Chase asked.
Ralph shrugged, but Casey gave a conspiratorial smile. “Command’s not talking, but I can recognize the stars out there, easy. We’re still in the Praesepe Cluster.”
“That’s not saying much,” Chase replied.
“Well, what if I said that we’re on the rimward edge of the cluster…and that we jumped very close to a system?”
“Still not following,” Chase said with a shake of his head, but Ralph exclaimed, “Thebes!”
“Got it in one!” Casey grinned at Ralph. “Thebes is key. Powerful, small; some might say it’s ripe.”
“We’re attacking a sovereign nation?” Chase asked, his eyes wide. From what he knew of mercenary outfits, they disrupted trade routes, harassed settlements, or operated as hired security. But he had never really thought about them being part of an invasion force.
He wasn’t sure that it sat well with him. Still, he supposed it was better than oppressing civilians on some backwater world. An invasion force would at least be fighting a military.
“What’s wrong, Chase?” Ralph asked. “You look like you just ate something that didn’t agree with you.”
“Just thinking about what the action might involve.”
Casey shrugged. “Hard to say. For all intents and purposes, the Marauders are pretty new—even though we have a large force. The Old Man has been selective in what jobs he’s taken, but it’s usually stuff that will piss off the Niets in some way or another.”
“Plus a few jobs for the Septhians, here and there,” Ralph added.
“Yeah,” Chase said with a nod. “They covered some of that in orientation. “But they didn’t say anything about taking on something like the Theban Alliance. I kinda thought we’d be going after bad guys.”
Casey shook her head. “Seriously, Chase. You were in the Genevian Armed Forces. Can you really say that there were ‘bad guys’ in that last war? Sure, the Nietzscheans were—and are—raging assholes, but our government wasn’t exactly sunshine and roses, either.”
Chase didn’t reply—his thoughts were on Rika, and what his own government had done to her. She had never told him any stories from the war, but he knew what the mechs were made to do. Any mech that made it to the end of the war had a lot of blood on their souls.
“Not to mention that our fleet admirals were built from buckets full of stupid,” Ralph added.
“I’m curious,” Chase said, pulling his thoughts away from what Rika might be doing at that moment. “How did the Old Man get so many ships, anyway? He wasn’t in Fleet Command. He was ground assault, right?”
“Right-o,” Ralph said. “I was in his division, back in the war. We kicked a lot of Nietzschean ass, but we kept losing because we had no space-support. Slowly, as dumbass fleet commanders got blown into space-dust, the General drew more and more ships under his direct control. Even though he wasn’t fleet command, he was the senior officer after a lot of losses.
“He was good; could do more with twenty ships than some admirals could manage with a thousand. So, the top brass let him keep them. Gotta say, it was nice knowing that if you needed to call down starfire, it would hit.”
“There were a lot more than twenty ships outside when we jumped here,” Chase said.
“A lot of people didn’t just lay down arms when the government surrendered,” Casey said. “Some joined the Marauders. Plus, there are two other outfits I know of that are made up of Genevian ships and soldiers.”
“I heard a lot went pirate, too,” Chase said. “Mind you, I was inside the Nietzschean Empire. They’re not subtle with the propaganda, and I didn’t buy most of it, but I still didn’t expect so much organization. I just figured that most defectors were solo operations, hitting soft targets for supplies and credit.”
Ralph nodded. “Yeah, there are a lot of solo ships out there; people who think that they can make a difference on their own. Every few months, a handful come to the Marauders with their tails between their legs. Old Man takes ‘em in, but he breaks their crews up to integrate them. At the beginning, a few took advantage of his refit and resupply, and then took off again.”
“Bastards,” Chase said. “I may be new here, but I can appreciate what the Old Man is building. Maybe if he’d been in charge of the Genevian Space Force, we’d still have a nation.”
&
nbsp; Ralph raised his glass of milk. “I’ll drink to that. Maybe some day, we’ll kick the shit out of the Niets and get it back, too.”
The three touched their plastic cups, though Casey shook her head. “I don’t want Genevia back, but if the Old Man were to set up a little corner of space under himself, I would settle down there.”
“So,” Ralph said after he downed his milk. “What is it that got you to enlist? Got tired of living in Niet-land?”
“You could say that,” Chase said. “I wasn’t like you two; when the orders came down to surrender, we just had our asses handed to us. The ship’s captain turned off the shields, and allowed us to be boarded. I was pissed—more than pissed. I’d just watched half my platoon die, and he was just giving up. Some of the crew fought when the Niets boarded us; I would have, if I could have gotten to a weapon in time….”
“Heard a lot of stories like that,” Casey said. “What happened?”
“They tossed the whole lot of us onto Mortlach. Took me half a year to get off that shithole.”
“Damn! You got off Mortlach?” Ralph asked, his eyes wide. “Half our freaking people are still down there.”
“Yeah, how’d you swing that?” Casey asked.
Chase shrugged. He knew, but he wasn’t ready to share it yet, so he related his customary story.
“They were letting people off for a while. Since I didn’t fight the boarding, I was on the ‘good’ list. I’ll be honest…it made me sick to leave. So many left behind.”
Ralph and Casey nodded in agreement.
“Maybe some day…” Ralph said.
Casey snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up, Ralph. It would take the overthrow of the Nietzschean Empire to get our people off Mortlach.”
“A guy can dream, can’t he?” Ralph asked.
From the faraway look in his eyes, Chase wondered if there was someone down on Mortlach that Ralph was holding onto hope for. Not that there was much hope to be had, with a place like that.
“So, Chase…nice little bit of evasion there, but you were dicking around out there for years. Coulda joined the Marauders long ago. Why now?”
Chase figured it would slip out some time. “Looking for someone.”
“Oh, yeah?” Ralph’s eyes lit up, the eagerness in his voice solidifying Chase’s earlier suspicion. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“What makes you think it’s a girl…or even romantic?” Chase asked, not entirely comfortable discussing his search for Rika with people he had just met a day earlier.
Casey chuckled. “It's a girl because you’ve glanced at a couple of the prettier Marauders to pass us by, and may have let your eyes linger on my tits; though I’ll give you a pass since I spilled gravy on them when you did it—”
“You got nice tits,” Ralph interjected with a grin. “I glance at ‘em all the time.”
“Yeah, Ralph, you have the subtlety of a supernova; I kinda notice. Plus, I have to keep a napkin handy for the drool.”
Ralph took on a wounded look while Casey leveled a stare at Chase.
“It’s good to know your teammate’s motivations. Helps them bond,” Casey said. “OK, we know it’s a girl, and suspect your interest is romantic. Where is this girl, that you’d join up with the Marauders to find her?”
As Casey spoke, a look of understanding dawned on Ralph. “Casey! Chase’s girl is in the Marauders!”
Casey snapped her fingers. “By the Old Man’s wrinkly ass, I think you’re right! Look at Chase, red as a tomato!”
“Don’t talk about tomatoes,” Ralph said with a shudder. “I fought on Boston where they have those freakish tomato forests. Fucking juice off the stems could peel the camo layer off your armor. And house-sized tomatoes? Are you fucking kidding me? Some things just can’t be unseen.”
“Seriously, Ralph? They were just plants. I fought on Boston, too,” Chase said.
“Don’t change the subject again,” Ralph shot back. “The girl. Who is she? Is she on the Romany?”
Chase sighed and shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen. She’s not on the roster, and no one knows anything about her; but before I enlisted…well, let’s just say that I have it on very good authority that she’s in the Marauders.”
“Name,” Ralph said.
“Yeah, tell him,” Casey said around a mouthful of eggs. “Ralph knows everyone, and if he doesn’t know ‘em, he knows someone who does.”
“Rika,” Chase said. “Her name’s Rika.”
“What’s her specialization—if she has one?” Ralph asked.
“She’s a mech,” Chase replied, his tone guarded.
“Really?” Casey sat up.
“What model?” Ralph asked with a look of concentration on his face as he reached out across the Link.
Chase hated that people thought of mechs—well, Rika, mostly—as models. Even if it was a good way to identify them.
“She’s an SMI-2,” Chase replied.
“Ohhh yeah,” Ralph grinned. “SMI-2s were all chicks; they were some hot meat.”
Chase felt the blood rise in his face once more. “Ralph, you seem like a good guy, but if you call Rika ‘meat’ one more time, I’ll cave your teeth in, got it?”
“Dude—” Ralph began to say, but Casey put a hand on his shoulder.
“Cool it. Both of you. Ralph, apologize. Chase, ease up on the macho reactions, ‘kay?” Casey said.
Ralph sank back in his chair and stared at Chase—who returned the expression. Suddenly Ralph smiled and nodded.
“Sorry, man. You’re right. I picked up a lot of bad habits back in the war. We were all meat to the brass. Mechs saved my life more than once, too. You’ll never hear that word pass my lips again, unless I’m talking about our delicious victuals, here.”
Chase was surprised by Ralph’s words, the man’s recognition of his misstep shaming Chase for having such a visceral reaction.
“Me too. I just really want to find her. I’m worried we’re going to get into some crazy action here, and one of us won’t make it out.”
“No chance,” Casey said. “Marauders do the fucking-up of shit, not the other way around.”
Ralph let out a sound that was half snort, half laugh. “Casey, that has to be the worst metaphor I’ve ever heard.”
“We turn the enemy into shit fuckers?” Casey asked.
“I vote that we abandon all analogies combining fucking and shit,” Chase said. “How’s about ‘we rub their faces in shit’?”
“For fuck’s sake!” a woman said from a few seats down. “People are trying to eat, here!”
“Sorry,” Chase muttered.
“Either way,” Casey said. “Now that Ralph’s on the case, he’ll ferret her out. Not a lot of mechs in the Marauders. People will have seen her.”
Ralph grinned and nodded. “Sergeant Ralph is on the case. I’ll find your smecksy mech girl in no time! I might have to extract payment with some leering, and maybe a bit of drooling, mind you.”
“Way to own your misogyny, Ralph,” Casey said.
Chase couldn’t help but smile at Ralph’s enthusiastic grin. “You’re a class act, Ralph. Seriously, though; I appreciate it. Finding Rika is…well…I just have to do it.”
RESCUE
STELLAR DATE: 12.16.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Northeast Berlin
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Theban Alliance
The fireworks had been amazing. Rika had stared out the truck’s window at them for a full five minutes before fire drones finally arrived and began putting them out.
She imagined that they must be even more impressive in the sky than on the ground.
News feeds on the local nets had been abuzz about the fire, but there was no mention of anything suspicious about it—though it was far too soon to tell. Rika doubted that inspectors would be able to start crawling through the mess until the next day.
Barne drove the truck several kilometers, and then parked it in a garage next to another, equally nondescript t
ruck—though this one was black. Together, he and Rika swapped all their cargo over and swept the truck clean. Barne had informed her that it was long-term storage parking, and that he’d rented the space till the end of the month.
They would be long gone by then.
The drive to the next location was short, just ten minutes, and they pulled into another warehouse area before reaching a self-storage lot.
“We going to set up shop here?” Rika asked.
“No,” Barne replied as he opened the storage unit’s door, revealing a smaller car.
By the time he had driven the car out, and she had parked the truck in the storage unit—which it just barely fit into—Howe was beginning to rise in the eastern sky.
“I haven’t asked, because I assumed you had a plan, but how are we going to get to wherever Cheri is?” Rika asked. “Jerry said it was halfway around the world.”
“He was exaggerating,” Barne replied as he leaned against the car. “It’s near Jersey City—about seventeen hundred klicks up the coast. They have high-speed highways here, and this baby can do four hundred an hour. We’ll be there by lunchtime.”
Rika nodded and opened the back of the truck, and then she jumped up and opened a crate. She tossed two rifles down to Barne, followed by a duffel bag full of ammunition. She turned to another case and opened it up, pulling out her gun-arm and helmet.
“You think you’ll need that?” Barne asked, as she jumped out and pulled down the truck’s overhead door.
“Maybe. I’d like to keep them close.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Barne replied with a shrug.
Five minutes later, they were pulling onto the highway, the car sliding onto a high-speed maglev ridge and accelerating to top speed.
Rika opened up a panel on her leg and pulled out her charge cord, sliding it into one of the power sockets in the car.
“Glad it has that,” she said. “Wouldn’t want to go into our big rescue with only half a charge.”
Barne gave a soft laugh. “I know what you mean…I don’t have to plug in—not modded enough for that—but I do need to eat a ton to keep going.”