Lisa nodded, saying nothing. By bruising Fiore’s pride, she’d prompted him to give her exactly what she wanted, and it had been almost as easy as pushing “play” on a vid using her implant.
Of course, to tell Fiore he’d been played would put him on guard against the tactic in the future, and she wanted to preserve it, in case she ever needed it again.
So she maintained her silence as she exited the cell block, which she knew would likely make him think his words had had the impact he’d wanted.
“Do visit again,” Fiore shouted after her. “It would be my pleasure to educate you as much as is needed.”
As Lisa returned to her office, she received a message from the council of Habitat 1, notifying her that their entire fleet of beetles had been stolen.
That was as good as confirmation of Fiore’s boasting.
So he was telling the truth. Cooper really is coming.
“Let him come,” she muttered to the empty room. “We’ll be ready and waiting.”
Chapter 11
Vaguely Humanoid
“Another day, another comet, eh boss?” Ellis Green said with his easy grin. “You want me to double check your pressure suit?”
“The computer should have it covered.” Peter Price had once been a lot more diligent about manually checking over the suit’s seals. That had been when his son had worked with him, and he’d wanted to instill good habits.
I should still be that diligent.
Jake might not be here, but Sue Anne was still counting on him, and it wouldn’t help her if he died because he’d been negligent about his pressure suit.
All the same, he didn’t ask Ellis to check it. Instead, he stepped inside the airlock and waited for the man to join him.
“Where’s Noah?” Peter asked as the inner door sealed.
Ellis’s eyes flitted away before returning to meet Peter’s once more. “He said he’d be right out.”
“Uh huh.” Slept in again.
“What do you think we’ll find inside this ice ball, boss?”
It was a joke. Peter hadn’t found anything unusual since he’d uncovered the mech with his son, which had turned out to be a tremendous windfall. Darkstream had paid him two billion credits for his share of the find, and he’d used the money to lease another comet hopper from Darkstream, and to hire two men and three women to help him increase the number of comets he could turn into homes each year. After a few months, he’d made enough credits to lease a third.
In exchange for all that, he’d allowed Darkstream to take his son away from him. To go kill Quatro on the surface of Eresos, millions of miles away.
To lose his soul.
He tried to return Ellis’s grin, with one of his own. It felt halfhearted on his lips. “There’s only one way to know what we’ll find,” he said as the outer hatch opened to let them out onto the ice. “We just have to find it.”
He knew Ellis was only trying to build up a rapport with him. The three of them had to live together, after all, in fairly close quarters. It got lonely out here in the Belt, far away from the inner system, and far away from Hub, the Belt’s only real city.
But part of Peter still didn’t want to accept that he’d lost the dynamic he’d had out here with his son, and that he’d never get it back. There’d been something special about there just being the two of them, going it alone against space and ice, carving out a living, as well as enough money to pay for Sue Anne’s medical treatment.
He was sure Jake had never enjoyed the experience as much as he had. Most likely, Peter was just as foolish as any father who tried overzealously to share his passion with his son.
That didn’t change the fact he missed Jake dearly.
He walked around the comet hopper, which Jake had always called the Whale, and now Peter did, too. He reached the compartment that housed the half-kilometer coiled drilling hose.
By now, Ellis didn’t need to be told what to do. He approached a panel near the bow of the ship, which extended outward to reveal the antenna array. That done, Ellis would instruct the array to use step-frequency radar to scan the comet, so they’d know what they were in for in terms of the ice’s density.
“Noah,” Peter said, using his radio to broadcast his voice throughout the Whale. “Have you activated the water harvester?”
“I will now,” came the reply, and Peter rolled his eyes before returning to the task of preparing the hose to blast the comet with boiling water.
At least, I’ll blast it with boiling water eventually.
Because Noah was so late in getting started on his part of the job, it would be some time before the water harvester collected and heated enough liquid to begin drilling.
“Boss,” Ellis said. From his gestures, Peter could tell he’d been reviewing the radar scan’s findings, but his hand had paused in midair. “The scan found something.”
“Is that another joke?”
“No. Seriously. Just a few meters below the surface. Take a look at this.”
Ellis made the flicking gesture that would transmit an image to Peter’s HUD, but before it rendered, something emerged from the comet, breaking through the ice and crawling out onto the surface.
As it got to its feet, it was vaguely humanoid, though it wasn’t much higher than Peter’s belly button. That said, it seemed to hunch slightly, gleaming dully in the dim light.
The thing had dark gray, metallic arms like elongated shields, and its thighs and shins had the same shape, only shorter. Peter couldn’t discern a face anywhere on its elongated head, which extended forward as well as backward. The thing didn’t even seem to have any eyes, or sensors of any kind. None that were evident, anyway.
Without warning, the machine’s arms snapped downward against the ice, sending it sailing off into space with startling speed—deeper into the Belt.
“What was that thing?” Ellis asked, his voice filled with awe.
“I have no idea,” Peter said. “But I’d better go back inside. Darkstream will want to know about this right away.”
“You really think you’ll be able to sell this one too, boss?” Ellis asked, jocularity already creeping back into his voice. “I mean, it got away, didn’t it?”
But Peter didn’t answer. Suddenly, he felt even less receptive toward Ellis’s jokes than he’d been before.
Chapter 12
Militia
“It’s interesting that Daybreak didn’t position any snipers up here,” Lisa said, her pressure suit’s audio picking up her own footfalls across Habitat 2’s gunmetal gray roof.
Ahead of her, Tessa shrugged her slim shoulders. “Doesn’t surprise me, honestly. I doubt Daybreak expected to be attacked. They were negotiating with Darkstream, and other than the company, who would have the resources to oppose them?”
“Us.”
“Us and the Quatro. Who no one knew were even on Alex. Besides, we lured them into the valley, which a rooftop sniper wouldn’t have been able to hit anyway.”
Lisa didn’t answer. As always, Tessa’s tactical analysis was dead-on, but that didn’t mean she needed to be praised endlessly for it.
She’s confident enough as it is.
If only Tessa had been able to appraise Darkstream just as accurately. Lisa had a lot of affection for Tessa, but the woman’s hatred for Darkstream made their friendship a little strained at times.
“Andy’s been talking you up, lately,” the former soldier said, turning so Lisa could glimpse her amused expression through her faceplate. “Says he’s impressed with everything you’ve accomplished, this last little while. I do believe the boy is growing smitten with you.”
Lisa offered a terse chuckle. “If he is, it won’t be for long. Andy’s as fickle as a pickle.”
“How fickle is a pickle, exactly?”
Shaking her head, Lisa grinned to herself as they reached the edge of the roof and she gazed out over Alex’s blue expanse. “Just a cheesy saying my dad used to trot out way too much.”
Dust devils chased each other across the terrain, putting on a little performance for the two friends. After long months cooped up in a beetle, with nothing to look at but this, Lisa would have thought she’d have tired of the planet’s beauty.
Not so. And, watching more loose shapes of dust form and dissipate, over and over, she doubted she ever would.
Tessa turned to her. “Unlike Cooper, we have the advantage of having advance notice of the coming attack. We can put snipers up here.”
“Yeah. Although, they’ll be most effective if we can anticipate what direction they’ll hit us from. Otherwise, we’ll have to allow time for our snipers to move across the roof. Which might take too long for them to have any effect at all.”
Tessa sniffed. “Shouldn’t be hard to anticipate where Cooper will hit. We can just keep an eye on the satellite images—providing Darkstream allows us continued access to them.”
For the second time today, Lisa responded to her friend with only silence.
The older woman sighed. “I know how fond you are of your employer, Lisa. But whether I’m right about them or not, I hope you realize that we can’t leave the safety of Habitat 2 up to the timing of their arrival. If they take their sweet time to get here…well, I don’t need to spell it out, do I?”
“I’ve already thought about that, Tessa. And I agree.” Her friend did have a point. The charge that Darkstream’s bureaucracy could be slow and cumbersome held a lot of water. “I’m going to start training a citizen militia. Providing the council approves, obviously.” A new city council had just been elected by the habitat’s residents, and Lisa had no intention of subverting them. “I think they’ll approve it. Darkstream won’t like it, but Habitat 2 is too important to leave its fate to chance.”
Through Tessa’s faceplate, Lisa could see that her eyebrows were hiked up as far as they would go. “You surprise me more every day, Lisa. I honestly didn’t expect to hear you say that. Not without a lot of convincing.”
“Well, don’t expect me to start endorsing your crazy theories just yet. This is strictly about pragmatism.”
Tessa smiled. “I’m choosing to see it as a sign there’s some hope for you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Think we’ll get Andy firing a gun and shooting straight?”
“He won’t be thinking straight enough to shoot straight. Not with you around.” Then, Tessa’s smile turned down a couple notches. “You know, Daybreak did leave a few Three Points members alive.”
Lisa tilted her head to the side. “Wow, Tessa. Really? Are you really about to say what I think you are?”
“There’s no one who hates Daybreak more than them.”
“Out of the question. They’re staying in their cells, and they certainly aren’t joining any militia. The council would never sign off on it, for one.”
Tessa turned from the edge of the roof and started back toward the nearest airlock leading down into Habitat 2. “Well, here’s hoping recruitment goes well for you. If it doesn’t, and Daybreak shows up with Darkstream still nowhere in sight, you may find yourself singing a different tune.”
Chapter 13
Not Just a War of Expansion
Whatever else was true about the quad the Quatro had stolen, tracking it did not offer much of a challenge.
That was because it apparently had the power to obliterate trees, leaving only splintered stumps and a shower of bark. The MIMAS mechs could do that to smaller trees, at a full run. Gabe had no idea how fast the quad was moving, but the wreckage it left in its path…
Suffice it to say I’d rather it didn’t do that to my mech.
Despite his growing trepidation, it brought him a measure of relief to do something other than fight in a battle.
Killing had never been a problem for him before, but since the start of this war, it tended to cause him paralyzing, guilt-ridden flashbacks of the first missions on Eresos, to subdue the Quatro population.
He didn’t know why it was flashbacks of killing aliens and not fellow humans that haunted him, but he didn’t pretend to know how the human brain worked.
The one thing he was certain of was that chasing the quad did not seem to trigger any flashbacks. He welcomed the reprieve.
Then, he started seeing Jess.
He was loping along the swath of destruction the quad had left in its wake when she appeared right in the middle of it. Her arms were folded across her stomach, and her auburn hair shifted in the breeze.
Gabe twisted to the right, trying to change his course, but he only succeeded in losing his balance, crashing forward. If Jess had been real, he would have crushed her.
But the MIMAS passed through nothing, and he hit the ground hard, the dream translating the mech’s impact as a wave of pain that spread through Gabe’s body.
He pulled himself to his feet and checked all around him, but there was no sign of Jess, other than his racing heartbeat, which manifested inside the dream as a shimmer over everything in his sight.
The dream.
It was only supposed to make people appear like that when Gabe was communicating with them, to provide the illusion of an in-person conversation, which was supposed to improve the quality of long-distance meetings.
It was also supposed to only show him people who still lived.
But Jess did not live. He’d seen her body with his own eyes, after the Quatro attacked Northshire, which he’d been assigned to protect.
She was the reason he’d embarked on this war in the first place. It wasn’t just Darkstream’s war of expansion; it was also his own war of personal vengeance, and for Gabe, the second came before the first.
And now here Jess was, to…what? Cheer him on?
He didn’t think so. He didn’t think she was here to do anything.
She hadn’t been there at all, of course—not really. It was just the mech dream conspiring with his increasingly unstable subconscious to unsettle him.
It was also a reminder, an affirmation, that he really would stop at nothing to secure his vengeance. He wouldn’t even be stopped by the dead girl he was striving to avenge.
Gabe resumed his headlong dash through the forest, determined not to rest until he caught up to the quad. No matter what happened next.
Chapter 14
Extermination Is Also Acceptable
The Quatro had proved themselves formidable warriors during the Battle for Habitat 2, and they were willing to help again in its defense.
But according to Fiore’s boasting, Lisa would need more than just the Quatro to defend her home.
And so, she put out the call to all residents of Habitat 2 interested in fighting Daybreak—anyone who wanted to prevent their home from being taken once again by ruthless criminals were told to meet her in the central plaza at six AM.
She got five people.
Tessa Notaras, Andy Miller, Bob O’Toole, Phineas Gage, and a red-haired man named Rodney Vickers, who Lisa was pretty sure just wanted an excuse to play with explosives.
“Um, do you think it’s the early hour?” Andy asked, scratching his head through his brown hair.
Lisa frowned. “For the opportunity to defend your home, the time of day shouldn’t matter.”
Presumably, no one wanted to become slaves to Daybreak again. But apparently, they assumed that period of oppression had been just a momentary blip, an anomaly, which couldn’t possibly happen again now that a Darkstream military operative had taken care of the situation and more operatives were on the way.
The residents of Habitat 2 clearly felt that someone else would handle things, and that they could simply return to their normal lives.
“Well,” Lisa said, “I guess we’ll make do with what we have, for now. Who knows, if we all work hard, maybe we’ll inspire others to join us.” She cleared her throat. “Okay. First things first. I thought we’d start by putting on pressure suits and going out on Alex for some real-life shooting. I know you’ve all probably fired a gun before, in lucid, and maybe even during your waking life, but we�
�ll mostly be training in the latter. There’s nothing like firing a real gun. Someone I have a lot of respect for once told me that.” Exchanging smiles with Tessa, Lisa said, “All right. Everyone make for the western airlock.”
As they reentered Habitat 2’s narrow streets, Lisa drew up beside Tessa and said, “You’re not really going to let me train you, are you? You know way more than me. Plus, you have way more actual battle experience.”
“Consider me here in an observation capacity,” Tessa said. “I trained you how to fight, and how to endure the rigors of combat. I didn’t teach you how to train others. So I’m interested to see how you make out.” Tessa shrugged. “Besides, it never hurts to brush up on fundamentals.”
“Fair enough.” Lisa chuckled. “I guess I can get you to take over, too, in case I need to use the washroom.”
She’d just started to put on her pressure suit when her HUD notified her that she had an urgent message.
It was Commander Laudano. “Seaman Sato. A subordinate has forwarded me a link to a system net news site, and I found what I saw there deeply disturbing. Unless these photos are doctored, it would seem you have Quatro freely roaming the streets of Habitat 2. I find it curious that you failed to include their presence in any of your reports. Worse, according to this news site, you arrived with these creatures. Now, I have no idea how the Quatro are even on Alex, but what I do know is that the species is responsible for thousands of deaths on Eresos and counting. Clearly, they’re far more advanced than we’ve dared to consider. How they traveled from Eresos to Alex is beyond me, especially considering no unidentified traffic has been detected between the two planets. Maybe they’ve discovered a way to open up some sort of quantum tunnel between their caves on Eresos and on Alex. Either way, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that these beasts have tricked you somehow. But that benefit only extends so far. If you’d like to continual availing of it, I highly recommend you apprehend every Quatro currently inside Habitat 2. Exterminating them will also be acceptable. Laudano out.”
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