MECH

by Tim Marquitz

  Two bings sounded in her ear.

  She grabbed the cluster of bombs in one mechanical hand, pulled it away from the wreckage, then paused, turning off the laser. “What is it, Gullet?”

  “Distress signal acquired.” The Grey Gull had a smooth man’s voice, roughened with age. She imagined that if he were human, he’d be tall with dark hair and eyes with cinnamon colored skin. She could even see the gray at his temples.

  “Beacon?”

  “Human voice. Non-looped.”

  That got her attention. A human voice on a distress call that was not looped meant a live, interactive human. Soldiers in damaged ships sometimes got left behind in the retreat. It was rare to rescue a solider after a battle but it did happen. The only question now was, “Friend or Foe?”

  “Unknown. No IFF. Localized comms channel. Universal distress signal.”

  “You aren’t making this easy, Gully, my boy.”

  “Easy’s not in my nature, Valk.”

  Surprise forced a laugh out of her. “Now which one of those mechanics programmed you to say that, I wonder?” All of the mechanics knew the pilots talked to their mechs. Some of them got sassy and programmed in non-standard responses to keywords. She was going to have to find out who did it and hug them. Then give them a whole series of random comments to program in. She’d been meaning to do that for a while now.

  “Open a channel to the distress call.” She listened as the Grey Gull dampened the other comms channels and brought the distress signal to the forefront.

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the Starlighter…what’s left of her anyway. I’m in trouble. Losing air fast. Mayday. Is anyone out there?”

  She typed Starlighter into the database to see what kind of ship it was. Nothing came back. Frowning, Thrima typed every permutation of Starlighter she could think of. Again nothing came back. That meant it wasn’t one of theirs. Biting her lip, she considered the implications of this: the man in trouble was the enemy. “Well, shit,” she muttered.

  “Hello? Anyone there? Please? I thought I heard someone. Mayday. This is the Starlighter. I’m in trouble. Venting air. Don’t have more than an hour left.”

  Thrima punched her thigh, irritated with herself. She’d forgotten she told Gully to open the channel. He’d heard her speak. She wasn’t used to interacting with anyone except her mech while she was working.

  “Please? Anyone? Don’t let me die.”

  It was this last plea that did her in and broke her heart. Against her better judgment, she answered. “This is Captain Thrima of the Imperial Salvager Grey Gull. Identify yourself.”

  “Thank the Light! Captain, I’m Rayson March of the Starlighter. I’m in trouble. I request assistance under the Spacefarer’s Code.”

  “What is your rank and designation, Rayson March?” The pause went on longer than she liked. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer, the comms came to life again.

  “Sergeant Rayson March. Designation: Supply Coordinator. I got caught in the last fight. I wasn’t supposed to be in it. I was delivering supplies when the attack came.” He paused again. “Will you help me, Captain?”

  A non-combatant. Thrima swore silently before she answered him. “You realize that if I bring you onboard, you’ll be a prisoner of war, right?” She grimaced. This was one part of the whole conflict she hated. “They will question you. They will…probably execute you as a traitor to the empire. It might be better for you to stay where you are and die a peaceful death.”

  “Peaceful? Gasping for air? Are you crazy?”

  “Would you rather be tortured? I’m not naïve to the questioning techniques of the Inquisitors.” Thrima closed her eyes. “Suffocation is peaceful. You get tired. You go to sleep. You die. Or, I take you in as a prisoner and you deal with the nerve inductors and the drugs until they get everything out of you they think is useful. Then they execute you or put you in a dark hole until you’re forgotten.”

  “An oubliette.”

  She opened her eyes. “Yes.”

  “Would you really leave me here to die?”

  “We’re at war, Sergeant. You should be dead already. I’m choosing not to put you through more pain.”

  “If you’re going to kill me, call me Rayson. It’s only polite.” The comment was flippant, then he rushed on. “Don’t you think I have the right to choose my death? I didn’t join the military thinking it was going to be safe. I knew there was a chance of capture and death. Isn’t that what your empire espouses? The right to choose the life and death appropriate to the culture?”

  Thrima didn’t say anything. She shifted in her seat, feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

  “Captain, my religion states that if I do nothing to save my life, I will be committing the unforgiveable sin of suicide.” His voice was very soft. “I would rather face the painful care of the empire’s Inquisitors and execution than die with such a stain on my soul. Please. Help me.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was right. The war was being fought over the ideology of freedom of culture. Her side wanted it. His side wanted a homogeneous religious culture for one and all, whether they liked it or not.

  Rubbing her temple, she answered, “I’ll get back to you in five.” Then she manually flipped the comms channel to mute. She wanted to hear him but not for him to hear her.

  “Gully. Activate holding cell one. Full atmospheric pressure.”

  “Activated.”

  Every Salvager had a series of holding cells. Just as rescue was rare, so was the capture of prisoners of war. But it did happen. She opened the comms channel to CnC.

  “Command, this is Captain Thrima.”

  “Go ahead, Captain.”

  “Command, I have a prisoner of war. Bringing him onboard the Gull. Name: Sergeant Rayson March. Designation: Supply Coordinator. Ship: Starlighter.”

  Warrington hesitated before answering. “Use all caution, Captain. Prisoner of War noted.”

  “Will do, Command. Out.”

  She flipped the command channel to the background and un-muted the distress comm. “Sergeant March?”

  “Yes, Captain Thrima?”

  “I’m going to bring you aboard. You will be a prisoner of war.”

  “Thank the Light! Thank you, Captain. Thank you so much.”

  “I don’t need thanks. I need your obedience. You will follow my orders exactly.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  The Grey Gull didn’t carry a smaller vessel like a shuttle, with the exception of the couple of escape pods which doubled as quarters for those rescued. The holding cells were just that. If, by some act of God or nature, the Salvager was destroyed, prisoners were not high on the priority list. Thus, improvisation was needed when it came to retrieving Sergeant March.

  Dancing the Grey Gull through the debris field like a manatee through kelp, Thrima had little fear that anything could hurt her mech. By design, Salvagers could take one hell of a hit, even if they had no punch at all. It was like being the opposite of a glass cannon.

  From afar, she’d seen the giant freighter that had gotten hit in the fight. Now, with her on top of it, her sensors said that this freighter had all the shiny she could ever want. Thus, along with retrieving the enemy, she had his freighter to salvage.

  “Sergeant March, amplify your distress signal’s power but narrow the beam. I’m sending one of my probes to it. When it gets within distance, you’re going to have to make the leap from your damaged vessel to it. When you grab the probe, let me know and I’ll have it return to the Salvager. Do you understand?”

  There was a pause. “How long do you think it will take your probe to get to me and then back?”

  She shrugged. “Twenty minutes I believe. You should be able to see me. I can make the probe go faster on the return trip if needed.”

  “I can see you. You’re hard to miss. Twenty minutes is enough time. I have thirty-five minutes of air left in this suit.”

  “Then I guess
you’ll have to hustle into the cell once you’re onboard. I’ll have the probe drop you off near it.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  Thrima didn’t answer. Part of her wanted to slow down the probe so that Sergeant March would die en route. Part of her knew she couldn’t do that. No matter how much she disapproved of the empire’s methods for getting information, she was not a murderer. She had to follow protocol no matter how much her instincts didn’t like it.

  Muting her side of the comms channel to the prisoner, Thrima looked at the ceiling of her command module. “Well Gully, let’s get back to work. Let me know when the probe enters the storage area.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Thrima looked at her sensors and brought the Grey Gull in line with the next bit of technology to salvage.

  For the next fifteen minutes, she salvaged a navigational computer, an intact servo, half a dozen heat sinks, and even a focusing array. It was a good haul. The freighter was a gold mine of needed technology. Just as she was about to start cutting into what was left of the command center to get at what appeared to be an intact targeting system, the Grey Gull binged for her attention.

  “What is it?”

  “Active low level communication system within sensor range.”

  Thrima paused everything she was doing and went on high alert. “Active? What kind of comms system? Where is it? What’s the chatter?” Active communication systems could be everything from a malfunctioning piece of communications equipment to a small force of enemy fighters looking to capture a Salvager. Capture was hard but not impossible. No ship was invulnerable.

  “It is on the other side of the freighter. Communications signal is encrypted.”

  “Move us to the other side of the freighter. I want to see what’s over there. Identify the source of the chatter. Also, decrypt that signal.”

  “Acknowledged. Would it kill you to say please, Valk?”

  Thrima scowled at the ceiling. “Okay, I really need to knock some heads in for that.” She made a mental note to talk to maintenance when she got back.

  Another bing sounded in her ear.

  “That was quick, Gullet. What do you have for me?”

  “Rat probe four is entering salvage storage.”

  Thrima grimaced. She’d forgotten about Sergeant March. “Right. On my way. Have the probe take Sergeant March to Holding Cell One.” She unbuckled herself from her seat and grabbed her helmet. It didn’t matter that there was atmosphere throughout the mech, except for the holding bays. One could never be too careful in a debris field. For Thrima and her mech, custom emergency protocols—personal and mechanical—were second nature.

  After clipping her helmet to her belt, she floated out of the command pod and through the interior shafts of the salvage mech. It had been a while since she needed to traverse the Grey Gull’s corridors. She felt more like an enthusiastic puppy bumbling about instead of a graceful sea creature.

  As she approached the final corridor, she heard Sergeant March say, “I’m in the bay now, Captain. Where do you need me to go?”

  “Gully, open the channel to Sergeant March.” Thrima paused for a count of two, then answered. “The probe should’ve stopped near the holding cell. Just enter and the door will close behind you. Once the lock is pressurized, the interior cell door will open. Enter and wait until the interior door closes to open your suit.”

  “How?”

  She frowned at air as she approached the bay airlock door. “How? How what?”

  “I mean, there’s no gravity. How do I get from the probe to the cell?”

  “You just push off. Use the probe as leverage.” The little hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention as goose bumps ran down her arms. Something was not right. The question struck her as a false hint at helplessness and she knew no soldier was ever helpless, non-combatant or not.

  “Sorry. Just not used to no gravity.”

  Before she could answer, three beeps sounded in her ear. “Go, Gully.”

  “Active stealth ship is sending out the comms to web communications. Encryption is a simple connection ping and response signal.”

  Thrima was glad that her mech’s comms came through her earpiece when she wasn’t in the command module. Heart beating fast she put her helmet on. “Show me, Gully.”

  As the helmet snapped into place and her suit automatically pressurized, a small window opened against the helmet glass. The image showed a small craft attached to the other side of the freighter she’d been salvaging. Beyond it, as the image panned out, were a series of dark, round objects, no larger than a meter wide. They floated haphazardly in a grid formation. Mines. All connected through a simple call and response signal. If that signal broke…

  “You lied to me, Sergeant March.”

  “As you said, Captain, we’re at war.” Gone was the polite helplessness, the plea for life. In its place was the determined tone of a man on a mission who would do whatever was needed to get the job done.

  Thrima moved away from the bay airlock. “Emergency protocol, Valkyrie Two.” She pulled herself up the corridor as fast as she could. “You broke the Spacefarer’s Code. I know about your ship and your mines. What were you going to do? Blow up the Scoops or wait until the Scoops made it home?”

  “I know I broke the Code. This is war. I will do what I must to bring the Light to the unbelievers. I know you won’t let me take this Salvager if you can stop me. But I also know what this plasma gun will do to the inside of your mech.”

  “Open the bay doors. All of them!” Thrima ducked into a small maintenance shaft and rolled the door shut. The explosion that rocked the Salvager covered the Grey Gull’s answer, if there’d been one. She was slammed against the side of the shaft, bouncing her head against the inside of the helmet.

  “That was smart, Captain.” Sergeant March’s voice came over her earpiece. “Almost blew me out of the ship. Almost, but not quite. It looks like I’ll be coming home with the Salvager and my own prisoner of war.”

  Thrima didn’t answer the taunt. Instead, she pulled herself through the tunnel like a spider in a web. She knew every inch of the Grey Gull and was reacting to her emergency plan even before she’d made the conscious decision to do so.

  “It won’t take me long to find your command module, Captain. I’m coming for you. I will bring you to the Light. You will understand what it is I’m fighting for—what we are all fighting for—before the end.”

  Turn after turn, Thrima pulled herself through the mech tunnels towards her goal. Panting, with sweat rolling down her face to sting her eyes and taste salty on her lips, she shot out of the tunnel and almost hit the opposite wall. With effort, she forced herself to take a breath and calm down. She opened the pod door and pulled herself in.

  “You’ve accepted your fate. Perhaps we can bring you to the Light after all.”

  Now that she was where she wanted to be, Thrima risked an answer. “What do you mean?” She settled in at the computer and typed with quick, light strokes.

  “You’re not panicked anymore. No longer panting in my ear. No longer on the verge of tears.” He paused. “When I get to the command module, you will open the door to me. Understood? There’s no need to damage this great beast any further.”

  She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin, white line of anger at the thought of the enemy capturing her mech. She forced herself to calm again. This was all part of her plan. He didn’t know where she was. Keep him distracted. “Do you know what a Valkyrie is, Sergeant March, if that is your real name?”

  “It is my name. No, I don’t what a Valkyrie is.”

  “In my religion, Valkyries are women warriors of the God Odin. They shepherd those who die on the battlefield to their afterlife in Valhalla. This is what we do. Along with the needed delicate equipment, we gather the bodies of the slain and bring them home.” The entire time she spoke, she continued to type and to maneuver the Grey Gull into position.

  “I see that you will
need much re-education to the true way. I’m sad that it has come to this.” The sounds of the enemy solider pounding on metal came over the channel. “Open the command module door.”

  “You miss my point, Sergeant. I am named for one of those Valkyrie. My name means, ‘to fight.’”

  “Open this door now!”

  “That’s what I’m doing. Fighting for me and mine.” She keyed the command module door open.

  There was a long moment before Sergeant March asked, “Where are you?”

  “Do you understand? Look out the command window. Do you see where I’ve put my beloved Grey Gull? Your ship is there. And look, I have one of your lovely little mines…”

  “What are you doing? Stop!”

  “On this battlefield, I choose who lives and who dies. I say that we both die.” She brought the mech’s arm, now holding one of the salvaged cluster bombs to the command module’s window. In another arm, she had one of the mines. Last, but never least, she shifted her cutting laser up against the bomb.

  Thrima clenched the handle of the knife she always had with her. She would die with steel in her hand. Part of her wished she could see March’s face as she triggered their doom. “See you in Valhalla.”

  What started as a rumble of metal against metal became a scream of lost atmosphere as explosion after explosion tore the Grey Gull, the freighter, and every other piece of nearby debris into tiny pieces. The escape pod rocketed from its position with the combined force of the ejection system and the bombs going off. Thrima was slammed around the small pod until the world went away.

  Waking up was an exercise in agony and determination. Thrima realized she wasn’t in her spacesuit anymore and her knife was gone. Then she realized every part of her hurt. This meant she was still alive. She jerked into a seated position—or tried to. Her eyes opened and her muscles clenched to move but that was as far as she got. Pain, and her body’s unwillingness to obey her commands, thwarted her.

  “Easy now, Valk.”

  A familiar face, creased and craggy with age, came into view. “Warrington. How? Where?” Even speaking hurt.