Mech

by Isaac Hooke

  “Did you see that little bitch?” Tahoe said, raising his voice to pitch it after the man.

  Rade shook his head as the retreating man’s shoulders stiffened, but the individual in question kept walking. “Yeah. Look, I have a confession to make.” He lowered his voice, and said: “What if it wasn’t a woman?”

  Tahoe seemed taken aback, and he said, loudly: “It wasn’t a woman you slept with?”

  Rade cringed. “Quiet, man!” He looked around, hoping nobody heard. The AI was no doubt listening in, so Rade opened a private comm channel and switched to Implant to Implant communications.

  “Let’s keep it mental, going forward,” Rade sent. His lips didn’t move, he merely thought the words, courtesy of the latest upgrades to his Implant.

  “Mental it is,” Tahoe replied, his voice echoing in Rade’s head. “Brother, I didn’t mean to insult you with my surprise. I don’t see anything wrong with it, of course. It’s just I was taken aback for a second, because I never took you as the kind of guy who was interested in other men.”

  Rade gave his friend an annoyed look, and sent: “Tahoe, I’m not gay.”

  Tahoe grinned widely. “I know.” He punched Rade hard in the shoulder. “I was messing with you, brother.”

  “Funny,” Rade said.

  “You’re into aliens of course,” Tahoe sent, leaning back against the bulkhead. “It’s understandable.”

  Rade could have rolled his eyes. “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I,” Tahoe sent. “Actually, you’re right. I’m still playing with you. So, if it wasn’t a man, it has to be an Artificial of some kind. A Skin Musician? No, there wouldn’t be any aboard. Unless you managed to sneak your way into the captain’s private sex dungeon or something.”

  “Taya…” Rade transmitted.

  Tahoe’s eyes widened. “Taya? You had sex with your mech? Man, that’s some wild, twisted shit!” He seemed to catch himself, and then sent: “I mean, I still respect you of course, Chief. You can sleep with whoever, and whatever you want. I guess I’m just trying to imagine the mechanics of it, is all. There aren’t very many orifices on a Brigand class mech you could use, at least not without some major lubrication. Maybe one of the missile launchers, after you removed the serpent? You shoved your own serpent into the slot and had your way with her.” He grinned widely.

  “Tahoe… not funny,” Rade sent. “It was a bad idea to talk to you about this. Never mind.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Tahoe transmitted. “I’m being an ass. I’m good at it, sometimes. You obviously sexed her in VR. Still, I have to admit I’m a little stunned. When I told you to unleash your inner sleaze bag and have fun with the crew, I meant the human crew, not the war machines. Especially not the machine you pilot into battle. But hey, who am I to judge? It’s probably going to feel a little odd though, piloting her going forward. I mean, we’re supposed to bond with our mechs. Just not bond with them, if you catch my meaning.”

  “Which is why I didn’t go all the way,” Rade sent. “I didn’t sleep with her.” He gazed down. “I might have touched her virtual pussy though.”

  “Was it wet?” Tahoe asked eagerly.

  “More than you can imagine,” Rade replied, unable to resist a smile. He quickly dropped it though. “I had to stop though. And not because of Shaw. But for what you were just saying. The awkwardness that’s going to result between her and me if we’re deployed again before the platoon is assigned new mechs. Also, when I was holding her virtual body in my arms, I couldn’t shake the words of a certain RDC we had back in bootcamp, who warned me that fraternization with those in the same unit was a very bad thing.”

  “RDC,” Tahoe sent, his eyes defocusing slightly as he looked the word up in his Implant. “Ah yes, recruit division commander. I’d forgotten that term. Bootcamp. They always make up names the real navy never uses. I can certainly see it as being a big distraction. I mean, if you start some kind of relationship with your mech, even one that’s just physical alone, I can see you being reluctant to place her into dangerous situations. Staying back, when you should be rushing forward, and potentially causing harm to your other team mates by doing so. Or maybe you’ll just favor her, which again could cause harm to the others, especially once they figure out what you’re doing. Men follow a chief because they trust him utterly. With their lives. If that trust is ever broken, the chief will have a very hard time leading. Last thing you need is men questioning your every order.”

  Rade nodded. “The last thing indeed. I’m starting to feel better now that I didn’t go through with it. A whole lot better.”

  Tahoe pursed his lips. “Yes. It’s probably for the best.” He studied Rade, giving him a curious look. “You don’t have feelings for the mech, do you?”

  “I don’t know, really,” Rade replied. “I don’t think so.”

  “What about her?” Tahoe pressed. “Is she emotionally attached to you?”

  Rade nodded. “She admitted as much. Says she should have turned off her emotions a long time ago, and that working in such close proximity with me over so many missions, across different colony worlds, has caused her to bond in ways she’s never imagined. She has a huge crush on me. And I thought… I guess I wanted to do her a favor, when I visited her last night. I wanted to give her the date she’s always wanted. I wanted to fulfill her dreams. To pay her back for all the times she’s saved my life. At least that’s what I told myself. I didn’t think it through.”

  Tahoe grinned. “You did, except you were thinking with the second mind all men have, brother. This one.” He pointed between Rade’s legs. “It happens to the best of us.”

  “I suppose so,” Rade sent.

  “You still haven’t filled me in on all the details,” Tahoe transmitted. “I want to know everything. Virtual reality was used for the visual component, but how did you go about emulating the physical part? Did you find a virtual pod somewhere near the officer’s deck?”

  “Actually, I used her cockpit,” Rade replied.

  Tahoe wrinkled his nose ever so slightly. “Oh. That could have gotten messy, if you’d actually gone through with it.”

  “Yeah, there would have been some clean up involved,” Rade admitted.

  Tahoe stood back, smiling. “Maybe when we finally reach Earth, you can get with her. Is this her last deployment?”

  “No,” Rade transmitted. “I think she has a few more. As in twenty years’ worth.”

  “Oh, too bad,” Tahoe sent. “Or actually, you can get with her once she’s assigned to a different Team. Then you don’t have to worry about the whole fraternization part. She’ll be your remote girlfriend. The great part is, through VR, you can have sex with her each night. At least while the two of you are on the same planet. And once her commission is up, you can wife her up. I know Fret would approve. He’s always talking about how great it would be to have a robot wife… how you could turn her off if she ever started nagging you, and turn her on again when you were ready for sexy time. Plus, you could deactivate her while you were away on deployments, so you could guarantee she never cheated on you.”

  “Yeah, if I was so cruel…” Rade transmitted. He chuckled softly. “A remote girlfriend. And a virtual one at that. A war machine. You know, I’d only be creating a relationship like the one Shaw and I tried already. And you saw how well that worked for us. Remote relationships are the hardest to hold together.”

  “I suppose so,” Tahoe sent. “Then I guess you’ll just have to go with plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?” Rade asked.

  Tahoe grinned widely. “Working your way through the entire female component of the crew while we’re underway!”

  Rade patted Tahoe on the shoulder. “Bro, you gotta stop projecting.”

  With that, Rade and Tahoe resumed their morning jog through the corridors.

  23

  The days passed far more slowly than Rade would have liked. He did his best to distract himself from what was coming, but he still felt th
e tension. It would only worsen when the battle started, especially considering that he wouldn’t be able to participate. He’d feel every impact on the hull, and wonder if he was listening to the vessel tearing itself apart.

  The fleet made the final Slipstream jump to the system under assault, but the target colony was some days away yet. Rade learned from the lieutenant commander that there were twenty Nemesis ships in orbit above the colony, with an equal number of United Systems vessels. The enemy had deployed troops to the surface to besiege the large colony, and the United Systems in turn had also inserted reinforcements to protect the city. Most of the battle was taking place on the plains outside the dome, which had been breached and repaired multiple times. The United Systems ground troops and their air support had managed to push the invaders away from the colony and onto those plains, but they were in desperate need of reinforcements.

  The lieutenant commander made a point of emphasizing that the enemy utilized gamma ray weapons.

  “Because of the Nemesis gamma ray technology, most of the troops we’re sending down are AIs,” Scotts said. “So even if you weren’t grounded, you wouldn’t have been deployed.”

  “But you admit that there are manned teams going down…” Rade said.

  “Yes,” the lieutenant commander said. “But they’re staying well behind the main fighting, mostly coordinating with the AIs to pick off units that make it past the defensive lines. They’re also responsible for defending any breaches in the geodesic dome.”

  “How are the citizens handling it?” Rade asked.

  “Not well,” Scotts said. “Because of the sheer size of the population, there wasn’t time to evac everyone before the Nemesis arrived. So most of them remain trapped in the city. About eighty percent of the population has taken shelter in Breach Resistant buildings, and we’ve distributed environmental suits to the other twenty percent of the population, with designated depots where they can pick up oxygen tanks. Attacks usually come every six hours, along with dome breaches.”

  “Sounds rough,” Rade said.

  “It isn’t pretty,” the lieutenant commander agreed. “So, trust me when I tell you, you’re not really missing out.”

  “But I’d still prefer to be down there, than up here,” Rade said.

  “So would I,” Scotts said. “Believe me.”

  The evening before the fleet was scheduled to arrive, Rade found himself alone in the quarters he shared with half the platoon. The team was away at the gym for one of their twice-daily workout sessions; Rade was still staying behind as per the doctor’s orders, letting his rotator cuff acclimate to the weight of his arm. Not being able to work out was driving him crazy, but the last thing he needed was another injury to waylay him for even longer.

  So, while he lay there on his cot, reviewing one of his old recordings of Shaw, Tahoe, and Alejandro in happier times, he was surprised when the hatch chime sounded. He wondered if his team members had become locked out. It happened occasionally, usually on the older ships, and required removing a panel next to the hatch to ratchet it open manually.

  A glance at his overhead map told him that only one person stood outside the door. The ship’s AI had identified the visitor in question as Cynthia.

  Frowning, Rade accessed the remote interface on the hatch, and opened it.

  Cynthia stood in the doorway, dressed in civilian clothes—black slacks and a pink blouse. She probably borrowed the items from one of the senior officers, since she would’ve been wearing only “cool vent” undergarments inside her environmental suit.

  She searched the bunk beds that lined either side of the room until she found him with her eyes.

  “Can I come in, Mr. Galaal?” she said.

  “That’s why I opened the door…” Rade said. He wondered vaguely why she wasn’t under guard, but then remembered her confinement had been lifted at the same time his platoon was let out of the brig.

  She nodded, and entered. Rade closed the hatch. The ship’s main AI would be seeing and hearing everything that took place in the compartment, of course, but he didn’t need the rest of the crew gazing into his quarters when they passed. Not that he was worried too much about gossip.

  Cynthia squeezed between the beds until she stood near his cot, then she sat on the closest bunk.

  “I noticed your friends were gone,” Cynthia said. “And I wanted to talk.”

  “All right,” Rade said. “Let’s talk. How’s the military been treating you, by the way?”

  “Fine,” she said. “The first few days seemed like a series of interrogations, but it’s getting better.”

  “What did they do to the spores you carried aboard?” he asked.

  “They’re in isolation,” she replied. “Some military scientists transferred over from another ship to study them. Apparently, no other vessel wants to risk carrying them aboard. I’m not allowed to participate in the examinations of those spores, but I’ve been forced to share everything I know about them and the Anarchist.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t just take a memory dump from your Implant,” Rade said.

  “Oh, they did,” she told him. “Plus, they also deactivated it, and applied the same patches as they did to your Implant. They didn’t have to remove any code however, because the Anarchist didn’t infect me, as I already told you.”

  “Well, be thankful for those patches,” Rade said. “Because it means the Anarchist won’t infect you going forward. I wonder how the entity’s interrogations are going anyway…”

  “Probably well,” Cynthia said. “Because he’s installed his neural network in a human designed AI core, it wouldn’t be hard to dump the contents of that neural network into another storage device for perusal.”

  “Yeah, but the contents are probably encrypted in alien protocols,” Rade said.

  “True,” she told him. She gazed into his eyes for a moment, and then smiled shyly, looking down.

  He frowned. “So you said you wanted to talk… what’s on your mind?”

  “I…” She folded her fingers together, and licked her lips nervously. “I just wanted a pretense to visit you. I noticed your platoon mates weren’t here, and I thought, well…”

  “Thought what?” he said.

  “I wanted to ask you if you could do something for me,” she said.

  He regarded her suspiciously. “What’s that?”

  “I want to talk to the Anarchist one more time,” she said.

  He shook his head ferociously. “I don’t have the authorization.”

  “But you have two of the best hackers in the military on your team,” she said. “They could get—”

  “Themselves court-martialed,” he said. “As could I, for giving the order. I’m sorry, you can’t see the Anarchist.”

  “Can you at least tell me where they’re holding him?” she pressed.

  “Even if I knew—the location is classified—I wouldn’t share it with you,” he told her.

  She didn’t answer for a time. Then:

  “I’d like to have a child again,” she said, gazing off into the distance, her eyes becoming dreamy. “I haven’t had a child in fifty years.”

  “Just how old are you?” Rade asked.

  She glanced askance at him, and smiled patiently. “One hundred and twenty-five.”

  Rade shook his head. Rejuvenetics. She looked barely thirty. “Can you even have a child at that age?”

  “I’ve had Egg Renewal Therapy done,” she said. “I always get it done. This would be my ninth child. After the grief my eighth caused me, I swore off children after seventy-five. But now…”

  She slid off her bunk, to join him instead on his cot.

  Rade edged away from her, and she pouted.

  “I know you find me attractive,” she said. “All men do.”

  Rade didn’t answer. But she was right, of course. He was very tempted to give her that ninth child of hers. Still, it felt too transactional. Especially considering her earlier request. Maybe she though
t that by sleeping with him, she could wrap him around her finger. He wasn’t that kind of guy, fortunately.

  “What about the spores?” she said. “Can you tell me where they’re being held for study?” She rested a hand on his chest and allowed her voice to assume a seductive bent. “I’d be very appreciative of any help you could give me.”

  He coldly lifted her hand off him and let it drop in her lap. “You do realize that the ship’s main AI is monitoring everything we say, right? I could get you arrested for these requests.”

  He received a comm request from her, courtesy of her Implant. He accepted.

  “What now?” he asked her mentally.

  “This way the AI can’t listen in,” she replied.

  “Uh huh, that’s fairly obvious,” he said. “I shouldn’t have even accepted this comm request. Look. I’m still not telling you anything. Besides, I don’t even know where the spores are. Why the hell do you want them, anyway?”

  “Because I promised I’d help the Anarchist start again on a new planet,” she told him. “I believe this is all a big misunderstanding.”

  “What’s to misunderstand?” he said. “The Anarchist tried to take over one of our starships, using us as his pawns.”

  “Yes, but look at it from the Anarchist’s viewpoint,” she said. “We’ve essentially invaded his worlds by placing colonies on them. He only just started to recover from centuries of deprivation at the hands of the Draactals, when humans arrived and started terraforming his planets. Wouldn’t you want them to withdraw, too? Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to achieve that withdrawal?”

  “The Anarchist could have tried talking to us,” Rade said. “Instead of firing first. How can you take his side in this? You lost a lot of good people on that colony when it was destroyed.”

  “Yes, and I don’t want their deaths to be for nothing,” she said. “Which is what will happen if I’m not allowed to plant those spores on another planet.”

  “The Brass will never let you take those spores from this ship,” he said. “I’m sorry. You might as well go, because I’m not helping you. And I suggest you give up on this self-righteous quest of yours. Not unless you want to spend the rest of the journey in the brig.”