by Brett Patton
“Not a brig, I assure you,” Soto said, reading Matt’s mind.
Matt shrugged and stepped in, with Anne following. Soto was last in the door. He went to close it, but the sound of running footsteps down the hall made him pause. He waited while a slim, dark-haired woman wearing a Mecha Auxiliary uniform slipped in: Lena Stoll, Matt’s first Mecha controller.
As Matt opened his mouth, she held up a hand. “Wait.” She closed and locked the door, then went around to the back of the FTLcomm system and disconnected it from its power and network lines, carefully capping the sockets.
When she was done, Lena stood and went straight to Matt, enveloping him in a big hug. Matt tensed, then softened and returned her embrace. He suspected she’d always been attracted to him, far more than her emotionless visage could express. But at the same time, it brought back memories of Ione. Matt pushed Lena gently away.
“Something I should know?” Anne asked, watching Matt and Lena with amused eyes.
Lena broke the hug and glared at Anne. “You’re not Mecha Auxiliary.” She turned back to Matt. “You’re supposed to be dead!”
“First things first,” Matt said. “I assume it’s safe to talk here?”
“Faraday cage,” Major Soto said, banging on the metal mesh that covered the whole room. “This was a UARL lab before they repurposed it for Mecha Corps.”
“They use it to talk to Dr. Roth now,” Lena said. “Small chance they’d use FTLcomm to listen in, but I’ve disabled it in any case.”
Matt nodded. “It’s good to see you all again.”
Soto came and clapped Matt on the back, nearly knocking him over. “Same here, kid! What the hell happened to you?”
“What’s the Union’s story?” Matt asked.
“You were leading a standard operation when you lost contact with the rest of your team,” Lena said. “They searched for you for two weeks, then announced you lost. They suspect internal Mecha system failure, rather than overwhelming force.”
“Dr. Roth isn’t happy with that explanation,” Soto added.
Matt grinned. Of course Roth wouldn’t be. He loved his Mecha more than anything.
“When was the last time you had a Demon outright fail?” Matt asked. “Beyond regeneration?”
Soto shook his head. “So what really happened?”
Matt opened his mouth, then suddenly realized that whatever he said was going to sound completely insane. In this crowd, that meant get it out now.
Matt took a big breath and said, “I’ve joined the Corsairs. And I want you to join me.”
The room went completely silent, as if everyone was holding their breath.
Soto nodded, just once, and went to sit in the single chair behind the table. He opened the desk drawer and drew out a small 2111-model pistol. Matt tensed, and Anne started.
Soto didn’t point the gun at them, though. He put it on the table, sat back, and put his arms behind his head.
“You’d better be a damn good salesman,” he told Matt.
* * *
Matt started where he should have, trying to keep his eyes off the implied threat of the gun on the desk.
He told them what he’d found out about the Union, showing security footage that was a condensed version of his assault on Planet 5. Seeing the bright, three-dimensional images of the HuMax being slaughtered only heightened the pain of Matt’s Perfect Record. The most terrible thing was that he knew exactly how many HuMax had been subjected to the program, and exactly how many atrocities had been visited on them by the Union.
Soto watched impassively, flinching only when the Demons came through the roof of the facility. Lena leaned forward intently, as if studying the scene, but her usually impassive eyes narrowed in sympathetic pain as the HuMax died. Perhaps thinking, I’m a genemod too. Could they do this to me?
When it was over, there was another silence in the room for a long time. Eventually Soto shook his head.
“This could be faked.”
“It isn’t,” Matt shot back.
Soto looked at the floor, as if unwilling to meet Matt’s eyes. “The Union must have a reason for doing . . . what they’re doing.”
“Yes. They’re continuing the research they started a long time ago. The Union created the HuMax.”
Soto’s eyes snapped up to meet Matt’s. “Now I know you’re insane. There’s no possible way—”
Matt pressed on. “They’re also looking for more HuMax technology they lost in the Human-HuMax War.”
Soto shook his head violently. “I don’t believe it.”
“You were at Jotunheim. What became of it?”
Soto clamped his square jaw down hard, but said nothing.
“You were on Keller. What were they digging for?”
More silence.
“You’re here on Forest, training new cadets. What are they ramping up for? More ragtag Corsairs? Or are they shooting for an army big enough to take down all the Corsair Mecha out there, and the HuMax they’ve lost control of?”
Soto shook his head and said nothing, but his expression was deeply troubled.
“Let me show you something else.”
Matt ran another clip, this one of Esplandian. It wasn’t the best video in the world, or the most coherent, but Matt knew it was showing Soto something he’d never seen before: a neutral Corsair outpost.
Matt let it play through the Last Rising attack, and his fight with Rayder. At Rayder’s first appearance, Soto sat straight upright. “He’s dead!”
Matt held up a hand, and let the video play. The rest was too much. Soto didn’t need to know about mind control, the Last Rising intelligence network, or anything more.
When it was done, Lena was the first to speak. “What are you going to do with this?”
Matt grinned. “Same thing I always thought I was here for: save the universe.”
Soto barked a hard laugh and then looked embarrassed. “Seriously.”
“First, I want to see if you’ll join me.”
“On the basis of a couple of videos—”
“You know it’s more than a couple of videos.” Matt turned to Soto, there at his side. He’d stood with him a year ago in front of the Union Prime via FTLcomm as she explained they’d have to sweep the whole thing under the rug. He knew there were secrets. More than secrets. Deep, dark, buried things, orchestrating all the happy public relations to keep the Union on an even keel. Or worse.
If anyone would join him, it would be Soto.
Soto looked to one side, then the other, his face twisted in a rictus frown. It was as if he was trying to deny the whole thing with a gigantic shake of his head.
Finally Soto’s eyes rose to meet Matt’s. “You believe in these . . . Corsairs?”
“I believe in people having a right to their freedom. And I believe they deserve not to be lied to by the people they trust to lead them.”
“Mikey and Marjan were here last week,” Soto told Matt. “If you’d been here when they were—”
“It would have been bad.”
“They would have recognized you! What would you do?” Soto still didn’t look at him.
“I’d escape.”
“And if you couldn’t?”
“I’d do whatever I needed to do,” Matt told him.
Soto’s eyes finally rose to meet Matt’s. “You believe so much—in Corsairs?”
Matt just nodded slowly. Anne began to speak, but Matt put a hand on her arm to silence her.
“Why are you taking this kind of chance?” Soto asked.
“Because I need you. It can’t be just me.” And a decorated hero of the Union was one of the most important allies he could have.
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Same thing you’re doin
g here. I just thought you might like doing it for the right team.”
“Corsairs don’t have Mech—” Soto began, then bit back his words.
“We have Mecha. A lot of them like you’ve never seen before.”
More silence. In the Faraday-shielded room, it was total and absolute.
“You’ve had your doubts,” Lena said, her soft voice suddenly loud. Everyone turned to look at her.
“Lena,” Soto said.
The sergeant came to put her hands on Soto’s shoulders. She looked him in the eye, and waited until he met her own.
“You don’t like this assignment. Admit it.”
“Lena, I . . .” Soto trailed off and looked at Matt, almost as if for support.
Got him, Matt thought, his heart hammering hard with excitement.
“I know about the new training camps,” Matt said.
Soto nodded. “Bag of shit, they are. Knocking these kids through in half the time, man with knife versus shark-style.”
“You weren’t easy on us,” Matt said.
“They don’t care here. Dead, insane. Doesn’t matter. We’re losing nine out of ten. Three out of ten dead.”
Matt frowned. “I thought Roth was under additional oversight.”
“He is. But it’s not about cadets. It’s about the big goal. They’re mobilizing for a bigger operation than Pushback, but I don’t know much more than that.”
Time for the offer. “Come and train our guys. I’ll give you as much time as you need.”
Soto shook his head, his eyes bright and uncertain. “How can I trust you?”
Matt nodded. Time for the third video. He showed them the programmed Last Rising crew, and the ongoing release procedure. Soto watched the video twice, then looked up at Matt with new respect.
“You’re doing this?”
“Yes. I am.”
Soto looked at Matt with an expression of mixed awe and distrust. He seemed completely unable to speak.
“If you don’t go, I will,” Lena told Soto. She turned to Matt. “I assume you need Mecha controllers on your staff.”
“Lena, hold on!” Soto snapped.
She turned to him. “You’ve had your doubts. It’s time to do what’s right.”
“Can I think about it?” Soto asked Matt. “Come back in a week—”
“The Union’s going to review the records here, match up their faces, and come asking hard questions,” Lena said. “It might not even take a week.”
Matt nodded. For all he knew, the Union was Displacing warships into orbit right now. “It’s now or never, Major.”
“Colonel,” Soto corrected.
“Actually, if you join us, you won’t have a rank. Or we can make one up.”
Soto looked shocked. “What are you, then? Prime? President?”
Matt laughed. “I haven’t even thought about that yet.”
Soto stared long and hard at Matt, as if trying to decide whether or not he was kidding. Finally he nodded. “If you want me, I’m your man.”
Sergeant Stoll stepped forward. “I volunteer as well, sir.”
Matt grinned. “There won’t be any ‘sirs’ where we’re going.”
Lena and Soto both looked completely confused, which caused Matt to break into laughter again.
Just before they left, though, Soto put a hand on Matt’s shoulder and bent close to say, low and serious, “If I don’t like what I see when we get there, you won’t live thirty seconds.”
* * *
Back on Esplandian, Soto stared up at the grand array of Mecha, his mouth hanging open. Their firepower had swelled as the integration of Last Rising personnel continued. Dozens of Aesir, their Hellion-like Mecha, stood in ranks on either side of the dock, their smooth black curves a stark counterpoint to the rugged rock walls. Matt’s Mecha pilots trained in Aesir, except for the handful of captured Hellions and Matt’s lone Demon. Deeper in were racks of silver-segmented Loki.
“It’s not polite to stare,” Lena Stoll said, giving Soto a sidewise grin.
She’d opened up during their transit on El Dorado, asking Captain Gonsalves tons of questions about his home, his vocation, his ship, his political philosophy, and Corsair economics. Gonsalves had seemed thrilled to have her as an audience, and went on for hours.
Matt’s slate chimed, again and again, as they toured the docks. Matt looked at the screen and sighed. Everyone knew he was back, and there were a thousand decisions to make. He knew why Federico didn’t want the leadership job.
Soto looked over his shoulder at the slate. “You really are their leader, aren’t you?”
“He told you that,” Lena said.
“How should I know?” Soto looked genuinely pained. “Nobody even salutes anyone here!”
Captain Gonsalves, who’d come up to join them in their tour, laughed. “The kids do, when they’re playing Corsairs versus the Union. But only when they’re playing the evil Union.”
Soto’s face compressed in brief anger. Then he sighed and addressed Matt. “So, what percentage of the Corsairs do you lead?”
“I don’t know,” Matt admitted.
“You don’t know?”
“We don’t have a complete census,” Matt explained. “Hell, we don’t even know how many of the Last Rising crew will join us as we release them from their programming.”
“Most of them,” Gonsalves said. Anne nodded in agreement. “I’d say, all told, the Esplandian Nation will end up being about a third of the Corsairs.”
“Esplandian Nation? Is that what you’re calling it?” Soto asked.
“I guess so,” Matt said. “I hadn’t really thought about that either.”
Soto frowned. “Names and symbols are important, Matt. Esplandian isn’t bad. If I remember right, it’s a fictional land in Spanish legend. That will connect to a lot of the Union—and, more importantly, it makes the Aliancia predisposed to like us.”
“We have good relations with the Aliancia,” Gonsalves said.
“But what flag do you fly?” Soto said.
“Flag?”
“You’re not going to use the Corsair thousand-daggers flag, or Rayder’s symbol?”
“I hadn’t thought about that either.”
Soto stopped Matt with a hand. “You’d better start thinking about it! This stuff is important. The better you present yourself, the better chance the Union will accept it.”
Matt swallowed and nodded. Soto was right. He couldn’t just play it by ear. A lot more had to be added to the plan. Which meant even more decisions.
Soto seemed to realize the weight he was laying on Matt’s shoulders. He looked around and changed the subject. “So, where are these kids you need trained?”
16
LUCK
Soto and Stoll fell into Esplandian life as if they’d been born on the asteroid.
Soto worked with the Last Rising Aesir pilots, grumbling at first about the differences between the Aesir and Hellions, then finally conceding that yes, maybe the Aesir’s weapons systems (a single micromissile that straddled the line between Fireflies and Seekers, and a single antimatter annihilation weapon built into the right arm of the Mecha) were simpler and easier to master than the Union Mecha. Unfortunately, the Aesir also lacked neural buffering, so they were as addictive as Demons. Documentation on their Merge ability was sparse, but it seemed that they fell somewhere in between a Hellion and a Demon in overall capability.
Matt stuck to his Demon, in the few times he went out. The Aesir were no match for it. He could take out an entire squad by himself.
But add the Loki to the equation, and things got dicey. Their neural disruption capability edged the balance of power to the Aesir. Matt was always able to prevail in the end, but Soto had a simple, blunt expl
anation for that:
“The kids are crap,” he told Matt. “They have way too much to unlearn. They’ve probably been programmed in some way or another their whole lives.”
Matt told Soto to see if anyone from Esplandian wanted to try the Mecha. Soto posted the job, but he was surprised to see very few takers even at “hazardous duty” pay grades.
“They know about the addiction,” Gonsalves said. “They’re not willing to throw their lives away for an infernal machine.”
“It’s only a mental addiction,” Soto grumbled.
“Is it?” Gonsalves asked. “Unless he was just being dramatic, I saw Mr. Former Major here pass out from withdrawal.”
Soto looked away.
“There are ways to manage it,” Lena Stoll said. “We can minimize the risk. All Mecha Auxiliary once piloted Mecha, and we do not require Mesh.”
“But you want it,” Gonsalves said.
“Desires can be damped,” Lena said, almost as if she were emphasizing her impassive demeanor.
Gonsalves sighed. “It’s a rough chance, no matter how you paint it.”
“We’ll bring in new pilots from other Last Rising worlds,” Matt said.
Soto groaned. “Which will be just as shit as the ones we have here.”
“There’s an ace in every team,” Matt told him. “It’s your job to find them.”
“Great,” Soto said, bitingly sardonic. But Matt knew, deep down, Soto was enjoying the challenge. He’d find the aces. And he’d train them.
And, with any luck, they’d be ready before the Union struck them first.
* * *
One eighteen a.m. Dr. Arksham’s office was completely silent, except for the low rush-and-tick of Ione’s respirator.
Matt sighed and rubbed his eyes. Ione’s cheeks were deeply sunken, her eyes almost lost in their sockets. Her life support’s coolly glowing screen showed all bodily functions optimal: breathing at sixteen breaths per minute, blood oxygenation within normal limits, and pulse at a strong sixty-five beats per minute. But those healthy numbers were a fiction, something imposed on Ione by the machine. Without the respirator and cardiac maintenance, she’d already be dead.