by Richard Fox
She looked at the sword hilt on the dinner table. She resisted the impulse to pick it up, remembering Remi’s admonition about what was and wasn’t a toy.
“How does it work?” she glanced at the hilt.
“The blade is hollow, but a graphene lattice fills it as it extends, making it stronger than a solid sword. A disruption field in the hilt can cut through energy fields and body shields, if the strike is lucky. The art of swordsmanship was nearly extinct, then energy shields found their way onto the battlefield and into service of the rich and powerful. Assassins turned to blades, so did bodyguards. Corporations brought fencing back as a sport to find and train bodyguards. Lucky me.”
“You must have loved fencing. Why stop?”
Remi looked up at her, his eyes sad.
“It wasn’t real anymore. Modern fencing uses shields and body fields, but when a strike hits home, there’s just a buzz from the computer judges and the two players reset. After using a real blade in combat…I couldn’t bring myself to train to fight with rules. When the stakes are life and death, there are no rules. Trying to compete in a tournament setting felt like I was practicing to fail in a real fight. Prince Vincent deserves better than that. You deserve better than that.”
“You couldn’t go home again? Not after Jutland?” she asked.
“No. I guess I couldn’t.”
She finished off her stew and looked over the ration box.
“I guess we have that in common. Yours figurative, mine literal. Prince Francis thinks I’ll never get back to Styria Station. If there’s an assassin around every corner even after I get married, I might as well lock myself in my room for the rest of my life. What do you recommend for dessert?”
“The lemon poppy cake isn’t terrible,” Remi said. He found a packet and slid it toward her.
She looked at the dessert and her face fell.
“We had a baker on the station, one of the few people that actually cooked. He’d make lemon cookies, always kept a stash of them for me under the counter. Claimed they were some ancient Earth recipe from a secret sisterhood or some nonsense.” She tossed her spoon in the stew packet and turned her head away.
Remi glanced at his gauntlet.
“Would you like to see the station, my lady?” he asked.
Cosima’s face lit up. “What? How?”
“Follow me.”
They left the way station and walked into the night air, the buzz and snap of insects surrounding them. The thick strip of the Milky Way fell into the trees on the opposite shoreline. Cosima followed Remi to the edge of the dock, the waterlogged and rotten wood creaking as it swayed atop the water.
She halted, not daring to put a foot on the old wood. “I can’t swim.”
“My lady, if I won’t let you be shot, I certainly won’t let you drown.” He held out a hand to her.
Remi, his face lit by starlight, smiled at her. It was the first time she’d seen him look anything other than completely serious, and she decided if there was anyone she could ever trust, it should be him.
She took his hand, and he helped her onto the dock. He placed her hand around his elbow and escorted her farther over the lake. Sidonia’s silver rings hung low over the horizon.
At the end of the dock, he pointed toward a tall set of distant trees. “There, any second now.”
True to his word, the spires of Styria Station came into view. Running lights of spaceships swirled around the station in slow motion. She could pick out the main docking bay, a rectangle of yellow light against the station’s light gray hull, could see a merchant ship docked against the dorsal bays.
“Oh, there it is,” she said. Her hand squeezed Remi’s arm tighter, and she pointed to her former home. “You see those emerald lights on top of the two high spires? Everyone who calls themselves a spacer in House Zollern has done a float between the two.”
“A float?”
“You spacewalk up one spire with a bunch of friends, then push off and let your momentum take you to the other. You float over the entire station. Just you…”
“What if you miss?” Remi asked.
“Then you use a repulsor to get you back onto the station, and your friends call you a dirty Flying Dutchman until you do your float right. I did it on my first try,” she said with ill-concealed pride.
“You’re much braver than I am, my lady,” Remi said.
Cosima felt an itch on her arm. She looked down and saw a dark spot on her forearm. She looked closer and went pale when she saw it was an insect.
“Remi…what is that?” she said in a high-pitched voice.
Remi flicked the insect away with a finger.
“A mosquito.”
“What was it doing?” She looked over her exposed flesh and slapped at the back of her neck.
“Feeding, they drink blood.”
Cosima slapped her hand against his chest and backed away from him, wiping her hands over her arms furiously.
“You brought me out here knowing these things were waiting for me?” she backpedaled another step, and her foot fell into air. Her momentum took her over the edge as her arms pin wheeled.
Remi grabbed her hand and yanked her back onto the dock. She wrapped her arms around him and whimpered.
“Nothing to worry about. Your shield would form a cocoon around you, keep you on the surface and float you to the shore,” he said.
“Get me out of here,” she said into his chest.
“Yes, my lady.”
****
To the space control center on Margrave Spaceport, the droid’s drop pod was another lump of junk finally burning its way through the planet’s atmosphere after decades of decaying orbit. With the planet’s rings and the detritus of over a hundred years of human space flight, loose objects descending to terra firma were too numerous and usually too inconsequential to bother with. Only if an object would interfere with space lanes or be large enough to survive reentry and damage something on the ground would the Orbital Guard intervene.
The Orbital Guard’s computer categorized the droid as the lowest-level event and logged the reentry. The sailor on duty didn’t even glance up from his copy of the Enquirer, a photo of Cosima exiting the Orozco center on the cover, when the notification popped up on his screen.
The droid’s pod burned through the atmosphere, lighting up a thunderhead over Lindau Peninsula with an orange glow as it traversed. It held to its ballistic trajectory as wind within the storm buffeted it with turbulence. Sudden course corrections were not the behavior of space junk.
The pod impacted nine miles from its intended landing zone with a slight thump into the wet earth. The droid broke through the shell of its pod and climbed out. An old combat model designed for function over form, it stood seven feet high, blocky limbs covered by chipped plates of titanium-reinforced steel. It cycled rounds into the gun barrels it had instead of hands, and loped off into the woods, each step a pneumatic whine.
The target wasn’t far, and the droid’s programming was set to kill.
****
Remi blew dust from the barrel of his disassembled pulser and glanced at his gauntlet—perimeter still secure. He swallowed another caffeine pill—several came with each ration pack—and ran a cloth over each of his pulser rounds. He had a dozen bullets and his sword to defend Cosima, which struck him as particularly pitiful when compared to the cyberman who’d attacked them earlier.
He glanced at the way station’s control panel and tapped his fingers against the table. It wasn’t time to contact Stolzoff, not yet. It took eighteen hours for the House Guards to do a complete overhaul of the palace’s communications system. If the assassins had the system compromised, sending his commander an update now might put a nice bulls-eye to Cosima’s location for whoever was after her.
With her sleeping in one of the bays, Remi had a few hours for maintenance on his weapon and shield. Sleep wasn’t an issue for him. Even without the caffeine pills, he could go three days without it and remain combat
effective.
He’d graduated from Pathfinder school years ago, the constant exertion of forced marches, combat simulation, impromptu hand-to-hand combat bouts with his fellow candidates—or the fresh and merciless instructors if anyone was caught pulling their punches—had taught him just how deep he could dig for the will to go on. All of that paled in comparison to the fight on Jutland, but staying awake and alert until he could signal Stolzoff for extraction seemed pretty easy.
He remembered this way station. He’d been in the valley, alone and somewhat lost during a land navigation test when a lightning storm rolled in from the east. The instructors had declared a weather emergency and directed him to shelter here…and Shoshana, another cadet, had been here waiting for him.
A day off the lanes, with showers and food and an actual bed to sleep in had been nothing compared to getting to know Shoshana. They’d reconnected after graduating from Pathfinder school and kept their relationship hidden from the Guard.
Personal feelings were a detriment to a Guardsman. Their mission was their principal, that royal or noble who required their total focus and dedication. For Guardsmen to have a relationship and ever be in the position of choosing the safety of their loved one over their charge was anathema to that mission. Had Vincent ever suspected him and Shoshana?
Not for the first time, Remi wondered if Vincent might be whole had he not tried to help Shoshana on that battlefield.
Remi’s gauntlet chimed with a perimeter alert. He quickly reassembled his weapon and reloaded it. The pulser cycled a round into the chamber and vibrated twice to signal it was ready to fire. He held his gauntlet up in front of his face and triggered the thermal view. He saw the perimeter displayed on his forearm, fed from the sensor net, as he rotated slowly.
The forests around their bunker swayed gently in the wind, the shades of red and white making up the thermal view showing nothing unusual. He double checked the location where the sensor was tripped, and found nothing.
The sound of a rhythmic whine crept into the bunker. The clomp of heavy steps against earth.
An icy blast of fear blossomed in his chest as he turned around and switched his view to night vision, magnifying the low ambient light.
There, just a few feet beyond the wall, was the war bot. It swept a gun arm across the bunker, a thin red laser scanning for their refuge. The way station’s camouflage wouldn’t last if the robot got much closer.
Remi had a few rounds, his saber, and no chance against that mechanical monster. He couldn’t beat the machine. Cosima’s only hope was for him to beat its programming.
He cycled his gauntlet shield up to full power, and it vibrated along his arm as the batteries readied. His shield wouldn’t last long against the war bot’s guns and his armor was about as useful as tissue paper.
Remi opened the door to Cosima’s room. She lay on a bunk curled up in a dark green blanket. He got a step into the room, and she sat bolt upright.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Shh!” Remi hissed.
“Don’t you shush me. This is my room and—” Remi slapped a hand over her mouth and held her firmly. Her eyes cycled between surprise and panic.
Remi put his face next to her ear and whispered, “There is a war droid outside.”
Cosima froze at his words.
“We must run. Now.” Remi took his hand away from her mouth and pulled her out of bed. She wore nothing more than a T-shirt and exercise shorts. She hissed when her bare feet touched the cold concrete floor.
They got out of the room, and the whine of the droid’s steps got louder and faster. Remi grabbed Cosima by the waist, tossed her over his shoulder, and ran for the front door.
Rapid thunderclaps erupted outside the bunker, bullets tore through the walls and shredded the room where Cosima had been sleeping. Rounds stitched across the ground, trailing Remi’s steps.
Kicking the front door open, Remi snapped his shield to life. The emerald-gray barrier shivered with energy as the batteries spent themselves as fast as their capacitors allowed.
Remi kept his focus on the end of the pier, not bothering to look at the war droid as it came around the edge of the bunker, the active camouflage sputtering. He sprinted, jostling Cosima up and down against his shoulder.
A bullet snapped through the air in front of him and hit the lake, kicking up a gout of water.
“Body shield! Set to default! Set to default!” Remi yelled as he tore down the pier. The base of the pier exploded from a grenade, pitching the wooden planks beneath his feet. He felt stings against the backs of his legs and stumbled.
“Remi! I can’t swim!” Cosima screamed.
Remi got back to his feet, and the war droid’s aim finally found him. The bullet hit his shield with the force of a mule kick and launched them both into the air. Remi and Cosima hit the water in a tangle of limbs and sank into the darkness.
The war droid advanced to the lake’s edge, its bullets pounding the water where his target disappeared. It stopped as the wet soil proved too weak to support its half ton of weight, and backed off. Its sensors scanned the water, waiting for the target to surface. Humans had to breathe.
****
Cosima’s world was darkness, falling. She flailed against her arms and kicked against Remi, who held her in a bear hug, pulling her deeper into the abyss. The sense of falling ended as Remi fell against something, his iron grip against her unwavering. Cosima lay against his chest and pawed for his face, searching by feel with no light to aid her.
“Let me go!” She smacked her fist against his head, to no effect.
“Stop! Damn you.” Remi rolled over and Cosima felt wet sand press against her back and soak through her clothes. She inhaled sharply at the icy touch. Remi kept her pressed against the ground, his breath hot against her cheek.
“The war droid can’t follow us here, we’re safe,” he said.
Cosima shifted as the cold water seeped up through her T-shirt. “Why aren’t we drowning?”
“I set your personal shield to default, which is zero buoyancy and big enough for the both of us,” he said. “The shield will cycle air, keep the water out until the battery dies.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’d better be the hell away from that war droid,” he said.
Cosima reached up and felt a buzz from the edge of the shield. Her hand passed through the barrier, and she felt cold water. The lake leaked through the breach and dripped against Remi’s head. She pulled her hand back.
Her body shivered as the lake bed leeched heat from her.
“I’m freezing.”
He wrapped an arm around her back and rolled them over. She opened her hips and lay against him, the tiny links of his mail armor pinching her bare skin. She put her head against his chest and heard his heart thundering.
“Cosima, we can’t stay here,” he said.
“Are you asking me for ideas?” Even with Remi’s body warmth, she still shivered.
Remi grabbed her by the hips and pushed her a few inches in the air. He rolled over and put her arms around his chest so she clutched against his back. He tapped on his gauntlet, and a wan red light filled their cocoon. Grass and sunken branches spread across the lake bed around them.
Remi reached through the shield and grabbed a patch of grass and pulled them forward. They inched along the lake bed, handhold by handhold.
“How far is it?” she asked.
“Don’t speak, save air.”
Cosima squeezed Remi tight, feeling safer the closer she was to him.
“Remi,” she whispered, “this is so weird.”
****
A pair of Guardsmen hefted the heavy iron manhole cover aside, red lasers crisscrossing through the new gap in the floor. Stolzoff leaned over the hole and spat. The glob hit a laser and hissed as it burned away.
“Still works,” a Guardsman said.
Stolzoff brought his gauntlet up to his face. “Deactivate portal I-M-3-7. Authorizati
on: Stolzoff November 9.” The lasers vanished, and the smell of mold and sewage came up. Stolzoff spat again, and the spit hit the ground beneath the opening with a smack.
“Go,” the colonel said to the Guardsman. The man lowered himself halfway into the hole and let go. He thumped against the ground, his feet scraping against wet stones. The Guardsman’s shield snapped to life, and a flashlight attached to his pulser lit up the darkness below.
“Clear,” came from the hole.
Stolzoff lowered himself down, his senses recoiling from the stench. The maintenance tunnels beneath the palace were a legacy of the initial colony effort. The first settlers had come with little in the way of advanced tech. Adding in pipe scrubbers to the palace, and all of Sidonia’s plumbing, had earned King Joshua a number of scatological nicknames that none dared utter in the presence of the King’s Guards.
The maintenance tunnels were sealed and monitored for pressure, temperature, and motion disturbances. Nothing larger than a mouse should have been able to move around without a swift investigation. Despite this, the breach in the palace’s communications system had been traced to an old pipe ten yards away from where Stolzoff stood.
The colonel unholstered his pulser and thumbed the flashlight on.
“Come on,” he said to the Guardsman.
Carter had infected the Guard’s computer network with a virus that tapped in to the communications network, but was so unobtrusive it didn’t trip the system’s firewalls or protection programs. It was useless to anyone outside the palace; only Carter could tap in to the system from her workstation. How she’d communicated with anyone outside the palace remained a mystery. Only a data leak from her computer had led to a trail of digital breadcrumbs that ended in this maintenance tunnel.
Stolzoff moved along, shining his light in air shafts blowing fetid air against him. A dance of shadows deep down a side tunnel was nothing more than rats.
“Here, sir,” the Guardsman said. Stolzoff looked up at a wrought iron pipe, mold and rust infecting its surface. The Guardsman knocked against the pipe with the butt of his pistol, and a panel swung loose. Lines of fiber optic cables shimmered within.