by A. R. Knight
61
Distractions
Opal and a few others, sitting up there on a ridge, the hazy red dust skipped up by the martian wind making sight difficult. Her first real mission. Chill seeped through her camouflage. Fingers numb through gloves. The terramorphers were building Mars' atmosphere, but they had years more work before the Red Planet would be as green as Earth.
Opal’s target was the third rover, its thick wheels suited to the road-less rough of the martian desert. Those big empty spaces between the domed cities where millions looked forward to the day Mars would have enough protection from the sun’s damaging rays to allow for true freedom.
The first rover appeared, then the second and third. Each one colored in the beige and crimson of the Red Voice. A movement tolerated until its ambitions overstepped the comfort level of the corporate boards that funded the Mars projects. Classified as terrorists now.
Opal swallowed, glanced at the two people arrayed to her left. They had rovers one and two. The goal to puncture the fuel tanks. One super-heated laser blast and they’d go up in flames.
Opal sighted the third rover, moved the scope till the tank was dead center. The rovers were methodical. No idea they were seconds from death. Opal’s finger tightened, waited for the command to fire. Lucky to have such an easy target for her first mission.
“Hey, guess what? I’m alive!” Merc said, leaning into the doorway. “These close calls are just the best.”
Opal blinked away the red sands, the remnants of the nap, and looked up at the fighter pilot.
“Fun for everyone,” Opal said. “Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”
“After the tenth or eleventh hour, sleep gets old. Reason I stopped by -”
“Besides waking me up?” Opal interrupted.
“I need your help,” Merc said. “I’m not ready to climb yet, and the Viper needs some love before we hit Europa.”
Merc seemed so much happier right now, eyes bright and smile wide. What was Erick giving him? The pilot still sported a thick bandage across the middle of his chest, though Opal understood it was more about holding restorative ointment in the right place than keeping blood from pouring out.
Still, Opal’s legs felt restless. Hands too. Could use some dirty work.
For a small fighter, the Viper needed a lot of love to keep itself in fighting shape. Opal counted five main systems that required checking: the engines, which, unlike the Whiskey Jumper, ran on electric batteries. The Viper was too small for solar panels to do much, and any available exterior space that could afford it was stacked with better deflection plating to ward off lasers.
Speaking of, Opal slotted in a pair of charged batteries for the weapons. Mounted beneath the cockpit, the pair of cannons offered flexible aiming and, with the stored electricity, could fire a thousand shots before needing a recharge.
“So what do you think about Cadge?” Merc asked, adjusting the calibration on the Viper’s shields.
If the luxury presented itself, giving the Viper’s shields tweaking for atmosphere or vacuum flight helped conserve energy. Without the heavy winds and air buffeting the fighter, Merc could afford to send power from the engines to the shields, giving the Viper more punch-taking armor. Opal tried figuring the optimal mix for Europa’s outer atmosphere in her head, but Merc’s question knocked her concentration off balance.
“He was a fighter,” Opal said.
“Yeah, but you fought with him before, right?”
On Mars. On that ridge. Cadge wasn’t there, but he was on the radio. Part of the clean-up crew. When Opal fired that shot, took out the rover, it would be Cadge coming to confirm the kill. Not that she knew him then.
“Martian rebellion. We didn’t work together much.”
“You good? Sorry if I touched a nerve.”
Had Merc, though? Opal wasn’t sure. Not that anyone liked a companion getting killed, but Cadge wasn’t exactly friend material. Not like Merc. Cadge never made her laugh.
“I guess I’m trying to figure out how I feel about it,” Opal said. “It’s as though a friend of a friend died. Or a coworker.”
“That figures, seeing as that’s exactly what happened.”
“Don’t be a jackass,” Opal said. “Ruins your pretty-boy image.”
Merc was one, too. He was ten years younger than Opal, face still flushed with that whole invincibility complex. Some easy work patrolling Earth's skies shouldn't have prepped him for taking that shot on Europa. How he stayed so upbeat, despite nearly getting killed, was a mystery. One that Opal didn’t want to solve. It would spoil him.
“O2 levels are good. Recycler’s showing green,” Opal said, looking at the life support system’s readout.
That made four of the critical pieces good to go. The last required getting in the fighter. To keep the weakest part, the transparent cockpit, stronger, the manufacturers welded the glass to the metal frame and coated the connection with distortion plating. That meant entry came from below.
The Viper’s landing gear put the base about two meters in the air, so Merc crouched as he moved underneath the cockpit and pressed the code into a small keypad. With a whoosh and a hiss of releasing pressure, a three-foot wide circle opened in the ship. Merc pulled himself through it and up into the pilot’s chair.
Through the glass, Opal watched as Merc ran through the preflight checks. The computer was essential - flying blind meant not having a good idea where anything was, whether something was following you, or how fast you were going relative to your target. Merc boasted all the time about how he’d be fine with an outage, but Opal had seen that before. Back when electro-magnetic pulses were the Red Voice's main way of equalizing the battlefield. Opal only needed to see one transport loaded with troops crash blind into a hillside to know how important the damn computers were.
Merc gave the thumbs up a minute later. The Viper was ready. Could leap out of the hangar and rain laser-light on whatever Marl threw in their way. Those drivers probably felt like this. Confident, prepared. But when Opal had pulled the trigger, the third rover blew up all the same.
62
Gin
“You know, Mox, I always thought you were a capable man. That cannon you strap to your chest gives the impression you’re a deadly person. And yet, you let Cadge make off with the girl?” Erick said, laying a card face-up on the table. “Could have saved the man from himself.”
The kitchen, this late, was only home to Mox and Erick. Neither one, it appeared, liked to sleep on the normal side of night. Not that night had a real place on the Whiskey Jumper, but given how important circadian rhythm was to proper function, Erick established diurnal cycles on the ship. Lights dimmed, or had hues adjusted to mimic the blues of a low-lit night on Earth. It’d been one of the first things Erick did after Davin hired him on.
“Outnumbered,” Mox replied.
“How many were there?”
“Three.”
“That should be nothing for you.”
“It was.”
Despite his instincts to learn about his patient’s past, Erick wasn’t able to get much out of Mox. Partially, that was the man’s mode of speaking. Simple sentences didn’t lend themselves to descriptive insight. A more cursory review might assume Mox to be a bit simple himself, but there were signs otherwise. Card prowess being one of them. Davin still hadn’t told Erick how he’d found Mox, what he’d done to persuade the metal man to join their band.
“Do you trust the android?” Erick asked.
Their new companion. Viola and Trina working on the thing. It was creepy, seeing something that lifelike and knowing behind the eyes there was only circuitry. No soul. Erick laid down a Jack.
“Trust a machine?” Mox replied.
On with his father, Erick worked with different cultures. Stumbled into their towns and offered medical treatment for food, a night indoors. Fascinated with the parts of Earth that avoided the future for a love of the past. Complex machines were seen as enemies, a stealing of man
's gifts by their own creations. Erick sympathized, until the last trip, when they'd lost a man to an injury, one a surgical bot could have repaired without issue.
“I think they’ll have it working for us,” Erick said as Mox put on a hand on the Jack, then drifted it over to the deck and drew. “Should help you on the ground.”
“You’re not coming?” Mox said, looking at his new card.
A joke. An offensive one, if Erick were inclined to take being called a coward seriously. He had nothing against firing a weapon. Pulled the trigger himself more than a few times. His father first pressed a rifle into Erick’s hands when he was ten. It was necessary to be armed in the wilds though. Not every group welcomed outsiders. But given the option, death stripped the color from a person’s face, whereas the right care could lift that same face to new hues. Bring back sparkling eyes, a laugh. What argument was there over which path to choose?
“You know what happens when the doctor gets shot?” Erick said, reaching for the deck.
“What happens?”
“He finally gets a day off,” Erick said, drawing the card.
“Funny,” Mox said.
Mox played his cards. Erick didn’t bother showing, sliding his hand across the table. Third game in a row the big man had won.
“How long till we get there?” Erick said.
Mox grinned and shuffled the deck.
63
Plots and Plans
Marl slapped away the offered glass, but Castor caught the vessel before its contents could splash on the floor. Even that blossomed a flower of irritation. Everything about today, about yesterday, about tomorrow was a cascading waterfall of crap landing on her head.
Ferro and his troopers were incompetent. Big, bruising bullies that scared away Eden Prime’s business interests and pestered the ones already here to where Marl spent all her time assuring people that their “crimes” were forgiven.
Alissa had reminded her that these were fighters, not police. That keeping them safe was important. That the Red Voice would need them again soon. Hopefully sooner wasn’t far away, because Eden Prime wouldn't last long otherwise. So now she sat and waited for Ferro to show his face and tell her they would work on their manners. The same conversation they’d been having for weeks.
Only this time, Marl had something new to say.
Castor leaned against a wall, the man glued to his comm, swiping through news feeds and commentary. Not that there wasn’t a chair for the man to sit in, there were two in front of Marl’s desk. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Castor use one of them. Marl was about to ask why when Castor’s eyes went to the office entrance, then flicked back to her with a nod.
The door opened, straight across the office from Marl’s desk, and the man she was waiting for strode in. Ferro’s straight-up stance and habit of putting one foot forward than the other, so he was always leaning towards you. He wore the same plastered confidence every time Marl saw him. It didn’t matter that the news was never good.
“Your escaped prey are coming back,” Marl said.
“Davin Masters?” Ferro replied. “The man is foolish, but I cannot deny a wish to face him again. He fought well.”
“Apparently. Alissa is sending a frigate to intercept. With luck, we won’t have to worry about Masters again.”
Ferro took a second to process.
“But if it fails?”
“There are two androids arriving shortly. You’ll assist them with whatever they need. And if the Wild Nines manage to get here, you’ll make sure any civilians you haven’t scared away yet are off the street. No casualties.”
“Is it worth it, to risk the frigate for one small group?”
“Depends, Ferro. How many other homes do you have, if this one gets taken from you?”
“You think the Red Voice is weak.”
“That’s why Alissa sent you here, isn’t it?” Marl said. “Getting what’s left of you off of Mars as fast as she can.”
“What we are is measured in more than numbers.”
“Stop. Stop it with that crap,” Marl said. Castor raised his eyes from the comm at the words, looked over at her. “The reason we’re sending the frigate to intercept, and hopefully, kill the Wild Nines is because your ideals haven’t won. The inspectors we had to kill only came because Eden suspects I’m working with Alissa. Nobody cares about your message, Ferro.”
“Then why are you helping us, Ms. Reinhart?” Ferro replied.
“Because my sister needs my help,” Marl replied. Which was the truth. Had been the truth for years now. Hard years playing both sides of a total war.
“And we do as well,” Ferro said.
“Then help me in return, Ferro,” Marl said. “Tell your force to lighten their touch. Welcome business with open arms,treat our visitors like you would your own men. Every coin that comes to Eden Prime goes to the Red Voice. Funds what we’re fighting for.”
Ferro stared back at her for a few seconds, then nodded.
“And if the frigate fails, be ready. Because if Davin Masters and his mercenaries land on this moon, if they discover who really killed those inspectors, then, as you say, more than what we are will die.”
64
Born Again
“Wake up.”
Fournine heard the voice, attributed it to a blank space in its memory. Empty memory. Its optical receptors powered up next, looking around the small, square confines of what appeared to be a spaceship. Its internal gyroscope confirmed this. If Fournine were still on Earth, its current rate of speed would be far lower. The gravity stronger. And its name, Fournine. Locked into the code like a tattoo, etched into its base.
A girl moved in front of Fournine, staring at its eyes. Or rather, the cameras behind them. The girl spoke again. Another greeting. Fournine saved the image of the face to the sounds of her voice. It needed a label for the file.
“Name?” Fournine asked, matching the girl’s chosen language.
“Viola,” the girl said and Fournine stamped the file. “Are you feeling well?”
Feeling. A search in its database understood the word to mean emotions, which it did not have. However, the phrase could also ask for an assessment of conditions. Fournine ran its checks. They came back green, although a large number of them were reporting missing pieces. Programs, routines, references. The errors could cause actions, like moving, to result in a leg failing to operate. Right foot forward, left foot sideways, Fournine falling on the ground.
“I am reset,” Fournine said.
“You are,” Viola replied. “I had to.”
“Why?”
“Can’t say. I'll put you back together, then we’ll see what we have.”
“I would like that,” Fournine replied.
Viola pulled out a small circular device attached to a bracelet, which she slipped on her wrist.
“What is—” Fournine started, but Viola pressed the button and everything went black.
65
Interrupted
It worked. She’d rewired an android. Fournine sat there, inert after Viola pushed the button on her remote. It was a simple transmitter that caused a break in Fournine’s power circuit. Press the button again and the transmitter restored the connection, shooting the android back to consciousness. Trina helped too, using her work building the Jumper's systems to excise any troublesome bits of code in Fournine's memory.
The bomb proved impossible to dislodge with the tools on the ship, so Trina killed any mention of the device in Fournine's mind. Viola then spliced together the rudimentary social systems, movement programs.
But an android that didn’t remember how to do any of its deadly android stuff wasn’t going to be much help. So now Viola needed to put back all the good bits, sans bomb. First there was the database of combat algorithms, a nifty package that assessed the current situation and carried out a strategy based on a variety of factors. Opponents, environment, allies, the works. Viola wished she had one for herself.
“Someo
ne’s hitting the brakes,” Puk said, hovering over Viola's shoulder.
“Huh?” Viola replied.
“Telling you. We’re braking. Early. Should be another day till we hit that blue moon’s atmosphere.”
“But we’re not ready yet. Fournine’s not set.”
“Talking to the wrong bot, Viola.”
Viola scrambled for the comm button while slapping at her nexus to start the upload. It would take hours for the android to process the data, to re-install its protocols.
“Can’t talk now, Viola,” Phyla answered the ping. “There’s a ship where there shouldn’t be one, and it doesn’t look friendly.”
“We’re not at Europa?”
“And we might never be. You want to help, get to the hangar and make sure Merc’s good to go.”
Phyla cut the channel and Viola stood there for a second, staring at the comm. A fight, in space? The thing she’d only read about? Only seen in movies? Viola dashed from the room, leaving her comm pumping data into Fournine.
66
To the Viper
Merc slid into the Viper’s cockpit, Opal moving the step-ladder away from the fighter. His weight in the seat caused the Viper’s console to light up, a center display that held the ship’s systems, including the read-out from the Viper’s scanner. Outside the Jumper, it looked like three ships were in the area, a large one and a pair of small blips. Fighters. He’d be outnumbered. Merc punched the starter sequence, and the Viper rumbled as its jets warmed.
His worst, and last day as a member of Earth’s fighter defense started just like this. Heading into the skies on a routine patrol, part of a twelve-fighter squad. There’d been heavy freight traffic that day. Smaller craft dipping into the atmosphere and larger barges dropping their cargo into orbit, the containers activating their own descent controls to land at their destinations. Their job was simple: preserve calm, and make sure nothing dangerous violated Earth’s atmosphere.