by M. D. Cooper
“By paying off my team to coerce me?”
Niki laughed.
Rika sighed and stepped into the rack, unlocking her mech legs, and then lifted her right leg out and slid it into the corresponding natural leg, then followed with the left.
“Wha…damn, that feels weird. There’s just one joint in the leg.”
“Yeah, but this feels a lot different.”
She stepped out of the rack, and looked down at her legs, then placed her hands on her thighs and slid her fingers down them, bending over until she touched her ankles.
As Rika stared at her legs, she thought of how she looked almost like a natural woman. As the idea filtered through her mind, her skin turned a pinkish hue, matching her face perfectly, her breasts and genitals appearing.
Rika gasped and straightened, only to see that her AI had activated the cabin’s holomirror. “Niki…she tricked me. Tanis, that sneaky bitch…she tricked me.”
“I told her I didn’t want to get my natural body back…and look what she did to me.”
“Nooooo,” Rika whispered. “I was a street rat, living meal to meal.”
Rika did her best to hold back tears as she turned, looking at herself from different angles. “Niki…I don’t want to be a real woman. I’m not a real woman.”
“That’s different, Niki.”
Rika drew in a deep breath. She knew Niki was right. Looking like a human was no big deal; it was going to happen eventually. It wasn’t like she couldn’t go back to being herself again.
She took a tentative step and wobbled for a moment. “Wow…feet are tiny! How do people balance on these things?”
“I…uh…I don’t have anything to wear. I have zero clothes, Niki.”
Niki laughed, and Rika got the impression her AI was shaking her head.
Rika nodded. “If you say so.”
From the neck down, her skin—including that of her prosthetic limbs—switched back to the familiar matte grey flesh that was her norm.
Rika sighed. “You’re really trying to get me to branch out here, aren’t you?”
With a slow nod, Rika converted her skin to look like a dark blue shipsuit. She looked herself over and added a white stripe down the side, so that she didn’t look like a giant blueberry. Drawing a deep breath, she walked to the door and paused.
“Why is this more frightening than going into battle?” she asked quietly.
“It was rhetorical, Niki.”
Rika palmed the door control—with an actual palm—and stepped out into the passageway, nearly running into Tex. “Sorry…er…Colonel?”
Rika forced herself not to blush “Yeah, First Sergeant, it’s me. Just trying on the limbs before I have to go onstation tomorrow.”
Tex smiled at her over his shoulder as he continued on his way. “Human looks good on you, Colonel.”
“Uh…thanks, Top.”
Tex flashed a grin at Rika. “You can call me ‘Top’ any day, Colonel.”
Tex just gave a jaunty wave as he continued on his way.
Rika laughed aloud.
Rika replied.
Niki sent a strong sense of disagreement.
Rika was certain that Niki couldn’t be more wrong.
<‘Oh?’> Rika asked, hoping the exclamation signaled a change in subject as she walked past The Van, who also wore human limbs, grinning like a fool as he stumbled down the corridor.
“Hey, Colonel Rika, lookin’ almost as good as me!”
Rika knew she was managing a damn sight better than The Van, but she had a lot more experience walking with partial limbs than he did.
Still, his grin was infectious, and she returned it. “Good work, you’ll be running on the ship’s track in no time.”
“Damn straight, ma’am.”
Rika paused and put a hand against the bulkhead, scrunching her toes as she did, reveling in the feeling of the tiny digits slipping over the deck plate.
“What about the ships on the dock? Can he do anything about those?”
“So we’ll have to hit those ships the old-fashioned way,” Rika surmised.
Rika let out a rueful laugh. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like what you have to say next?”
Pushing off from the bulkhead, Rika rolled her shoulders and drew in a deep breath. “Then I’d better get used to combat on my girly legs.”
INTO THE BREACH
STELLAR DATE: 09.20.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Fury Lance, Docking with Crag
REGION: Sepe System (independent)
“OK, boys and girls,” Rika said as strode before the mechs assembled in the Fury Lance’s main docking bay, while trying to pretend she wasn’t wearing a Nietzschean uniform. “There are a lot of moving parts here, and everyone needs to be at the top of their game. We’ve trained with the new mods, I’ve even figured out how to hold a Nie
tzschean rifle with these freakish fingers.”
Rika held up her five fingers and wiggled them for the amusement of her battalion.
“Most of you should count yourselves lucky that you don’t have to do that. Kelly and Keli can attest to it, as well.”
“Which part?” Kelly called out from the ranks. “Fingers are easy. But touching a KZA rifle is enough to make me vomit.”
“Well, choke it down, Corporal,” Rika replied. “No spewing in a firefight. Remember. Timing is everything. Potter is managing sync for M Company, and Dredge is your go-to guy for N Company.”
“Ma’am, if I may,” Lieutenant Crudge spoke up. “Why are we N Company? What happened to ol’ A, B, and C?”
“New tradition for mechs,” Rika replied. “We start at M and go up from there. I know, N is for ‘Nietzschean’, but think of it as ‘Niet-Killers’, if it makes you feel better.”
Rika surveyed the mechs and the battalion leadership that was arrayed before them, wishing fervently once again that Barne was with them. Leaving him behind with Silva had been a tough choice, but it had been necessary. Silva may be a natural leader, but Barne was the one who knew how to get shit done when the chips were down.
With Barne absent, Rika considered ordering Lieutenant Colonel Alice to dismiss the troops, but she hadn’t quite fit in yet—especially since she was the only natural human in the battalion’s HQ.
“OK, mechs, enough dicking around,” Rika said, using a joke that had new meaning for the men and women before her. “You have jobs to do—go do them.”
Roughly half those present disappeared as their holopresences shut off, and the remainder broke into their platoons and squads, left the bay, and headed for their designated egress locations.
Chase laughed over the Link, and she could see his shoulders lift as he walked out of the bay.
“Itchy,” Kelly said, rolling her shoulders. “Clothing is stupid. Why do people still wear it?”
“And why do the Niets make it out of sandpaper?” Keli added.
Rika rolled her eyes at the two women, shaking her head at their eternally cavalier attitudes. “Attenuate your skin, if you can’t deal with it. Can’t have the pair of you slouching around like a couple of cadets.”
“There’s no such thing as a mech cadet,” Keli replied, an eyebrow arched.
“Exactly, Private.”
Rika turned her attention back to her surroundings. “OK, ladies, let’s move. These Nietzscheans aren’t all going to kill themselves.”
Kelly snorted. “Wouldn’t that be nice? I can almost see it now.”
“No way,” Keli shook her head as they walked out into the passageway. “Where would the fun be in that?”
“Good point, what was I thinking?” Kelly asked.
For their fiction, Kelly was a lieutenant, and Keli was a gunnery sergeant. Rika wished they could wear armor out onto the dock, but it wasn’t common for Nietzschean military officers and NCOs when not in combat, so they’d have to rely on their MK99 skin to keep them safe.
What bothered Rika the most was the thought of going into hostile territory without her GNR. All she wore was a sidearm, and the same was true for Kelly. At least Keli had a rifle.
Three minutes later, they reached airlock A17-2, and entered, cycling it quickly before pushing off into the zero-g umbilical.
“Stars, I feel so naked,” Keli muttered. “We’re just one torn umbilical panel away from sucking vacuum.”
“OK, enough chatter,” Rika said as they reached the station airlock, and she palmed the access panel for the external doors to slide open.
The display flashed ‘Equalizing’ for a few seconds, then the door retracted into the station’s hull, and the three women stepped into the station-side airlock.
Rika did her best not to fidget or check her weapon. There would be no reason for a Nietzschean officer to do so. It probably wouldn’t be that suspicious, but Rika expected her team to be under surveillance, and wasn’t about to give the Niets any reason to suspect her.
She’d spent years in Nietzschean space after the war; she knew how they operated. It should be a piece of cake.
Heck, this isn’t even Nietzschean space, just a vassal system.
Of course, she’d never actually tried to impersonate a Niet before, let alone an officer. She barely knew how to behave like a Marauder officer.
The inner airlock cycled open, and Rika stepped out into a long corridor. The three women walked down its length to a room where several other docking corridors converged. At the far side were a pair of unoccupied customs booths.
Rika glanced at Keli and Kelly before walking toward the booths as though she owned the station.
As they walked past the customs booths, Rika detected a brief scan, and hoped that the MK99’s mimicking systems would pass them off as organic humans. Finaeus had said it would, but it was one thing to say that back in the lab, and something else entirely to test it on a station filled with thousands of their enemies.
No alarms went off, and Rika let out a cautious breath of relief.
They reached the far end of the room, and a pair of doors slid open. The three women walked through, only to come face to face with Major Reg.
“Major,” Rika said with a nod, keeping in mind that officers at the same rank did not salute in the Nietzschean military.
Reg just scowled at Rika in response. “Major…?”
“Jessa,” Rika replied.
Jessa was a woman who had looked similar to Rika. She’d been deployed to Hudson, which Rika knew because she had killed Major Jessa in the operation to free the hostages at Trigger Ridge Lodge.
“I don’t recall a Major Jessa aboard Colonel Muenos’s ship,” Major Reg replied, still scowling.
“I wasn’t,” Rika replied. “I got off
Hudson on a pinnace we stole from the locals, and managed to hook up with the Empire’s Glory right as the colonel started his outsystem burn. Lucky thing, too; those fuckin’ Scipians would have burned us out of the black, otherwise.”
Major Reg scowled at Rika. “Huh, he didn’t mention that.”
“Sorry, I can’t speak for what the colonel does and does not tell you, Major. He’ll be coming out before long, Admiral Fels has called him to a meeting.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m invited, too. All the ships’ captains are.”
Reg meant it to be a barb, but Rika could have sung for joy. That meant when her attack commenced, none of the ships would have their captains aboard.
“Well, I have my orders. Need to see about resupply, and some other tasks the colonel has assigned,” Rika said as she stepped around Reg. “You waiting for the colonel?”
“I was,” Reg replied his scowl deepening. “Just messaged him. Seems like he’s busy for the next bit, I guess I’ll catch him at the meeting.”
“Good to hear, Major,” Rika said and walked away, Keli and Kelly following her.
Surveying the dense crowds on the dock, Rika was glad they’d decided to go out in uniforms. One thing that the ISF had strongly advised against was trying to move through crowds while invisible. She observed dozens of near misses as the people wove around one another—going out there stealthed would have been a recipe for near-instantaneous discovery.
Rika glanced at her old friend, then looked at Keli. “OK, you have your orders. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”