by Faith Hunter
“Tuffs? Is the spy cat away from the invader vehicle?”
Tuffs leapt onto the table and lay down, the picture of unconcern. I figured that meant her great-great-great-granddaughter was safe.
“Mateo, you got the three invaders?”
“I have one, Little Girl. The bleeder died before I got there, and the male died fighting. The female’s in bad shape but the med-bay should fix her right up.”
“Bring her in,” I said.
Sliding into the Command seat I said to the Bug AI, “Gomez. Initiate B/B Three array.”
“According to Jolene, there is a military satellite overhead,” Gomez said. “If you fire, they will see the energy signature.”
“Wait, you’re still talking to Jolene?”
“Communications were initiated forty-seven minutes and eleven seconds ago and are ongoing.”
“Great,” I breathed, lying, because it wasn’t a good thing at all. “Jolene, recommendations?”
“Darlin’, I been scanning Gomez’s available weapons and I think I may have to marry him. I loooove big guns.”
I laughed again, that odd, unfamiliar sensation and emotion.
Jolene said, “According to Gomez’s scanners, our attackers have indeed repaired their tires, track systems, and engines. Them boys are powering up for an imminent attack and you need your shields. Bug shields are less likely to be seen by recon satellites than Bug weapons. I recommend you bring up shields and let the invaders expend ammunition against them for a while. That gives you time to stabilize your power levels and question the CO’s prisoner. Plus, it gives the satellite time to descend below the horizon, which will allow you to use Gomez’s sexy weapons systems. From the time the first satellite descends below the horizon and the time that the next one rises, you will have four minutes, forty-eight seconds to fire all weapons and go dark.”
That was a tight timeline to destroy my attackers.
“Open up,” Mateo said into my earbud.
I slapped the airlock open and Mateo placed a woman inside. I closed the outer airlock and opened the med-bay, scooped out the mostly-healed cats, placing the felines on Jagger’s belly. Making sure the cats were out of the way, I opened the inner airlock. Dragged the woman inside. Her suit had instituted pneumatic anti-shock protocols. Mateo had not been kind to her. She stank of blood, urine, sweat, pain, and Devil Milk. I tossed the woman in the med-bay and closed the lid, setting the protocols for triage and advanced life support. I hit the office control for Level Five Decontamination. I mopped her blood from the office floor fast. She hadn’t been swarmed by bicolors and bitten by a queen, so she wasn’t a queen herself, like Clarisse Warhammer and me. She couldn’t spread her own nanobots, but I wasn’t taking chances. I’d figure out a way to use the Grabber in here as soon as I could, so I would never accidently infect another human.
“Estimated thirty-second warning until attack, Sweet Thang,” Jolene said.
I threw myself back into my Com seat. “Mateo, you clear?”
“Affirmative. I am at the Grabber, tossing twenty-seven Puffers under for deactivation. With your two, that makes twenty-nine for this burst. Your cats are handy herders.”
That was a lot. And . . . that meant Tuffs and the cats had understood they needed to herd the Puffers into one place. That was freaky. And kinda scary.
“Gomez, bring up shields,” I said.
But before Gomez could comply, the MS Angels hit me with everything they had. The ground shook. The noise was incredible. The vibrations clattered my teeth and rattled my bones. The shields went up sparking. The noise decreased, the Bug shields absorbing and deflecting everything. Orange light filled the office.
The cats purred. Jagger snored.
The Tac Vehicles, the mini-bot, and the Mammoth moved in, toward the office. I counted the minutes and seconds for the satellite to drop below the horizon. Hoping the shields held.
The enemy bombardment continued.
I lost a lot of scrap. I lost Tesla engines, copper wiring, the newly purchased AGR Tesla, and even a stack of old cast-iron bathtubs. The barrage cost me a lot of money. But the shields held. And Mateo’s suit sensors read stable. Wherever he was hiding it was in a safe location.
Over the noise, Jolene said, “Satellite declining below horizon. It will be safe to fire the B/B array in three, two, one.”
“Drop shields. Gomez. Target invaders and fire B/B array.”
“Roger that. Firing.”
The weapons fired. A dozen blasts of dark matter particle beams swept the vehicles out front and held there, that peculiar orange glow brightening the entire junkyard. The attackers’ weapons stopped. The engines stopped running. Everything stopped.
The temperature in the office went up twenty degrees in four seconds and the warning monitors began to blare. Cold night air blew in from outside through the retrofitted vents, hard blasts, the fan engines whining.
The cats went silent, all eyes on Tuffs and me.
The B/B array used dark energy—physics and tech no earth scientist understood yet, mostly because they didn’t have a functional array to work with and no Bug would tell them. The only thing anyone on Earth or in the solar system knew about the particles was that they sounded like “BeeBee” in Buglish. I, however, had a Bug ship, a small one that had downed the SunStar. Access to the Bug ship gave me knowledge about how to operate the array, if not how it actually worked. It also made the perfect office and safe house, as long as I could keep its presence here a secret. Snug as a bug in a rug. Something Pops used to say to me when he tucked me in at night, before the war.
It took a good five minutes to fry the people in the vehicles. I had less than that between satellites. I watched as someone jumped from the Mammoth and died, his body leaping and bouncing as he boiled. It was kinda gross.
Tuffs jumped into my lap. She put her nose to mine and stared.
“I don’t know how it works,” I told her. “But it makes things hot, especially organic things.”
It boiled them in their own juices. It didn’t do much to Hemp-plaz. It didn’t do much to metal except make it hot, though not hot enough to melt it, damage the temper, or warp it, or not in the short term. Just hot enough to boil and sear flesh. It was a bio-specific weapon. It damaged nothing except living creatures.
“Stay away from it until I tell you it’s cooled.”
Tuffs showed me images of bodies. Dead humans. I got the concept of Good protein.
“You can have the bodies once Mateo pulls them out of sight.”
Tuffs made a gruff sound of pleasure and leaped to the floor to stare around at the members of her pride.
Time passed. Jagger snored. I got up from my chair and stood over him. He was huge, big enough to fit perfectly in the space I had originally called the Bug bed, though I’d no idea what the Bugs used the space for; I had dragged in an old RV bed and set it up for sleeping and under-bed storage. Every few months, I placed the quilts, pillows, sheets, and all my stinky clothes under the AG Grabber and then took them into town to a laundry while I shopped for supplies. I’d probably be charged for the cat-hair cleaning now.
It was past time for cleaning. But maybe I’d take a few nights to sleep in the bed and smell Jagger on my pillow before I took the laundry load to town. Just a few nights where I could feel less alone. I put a hand on Jagger’s. His was calloused and rough and so hot it almost hurt. A cat butted my hand away and hunched her shoulders at me as if in warning. I stepped back.
Jolene said, “Next satellite will rise above the horizon in ten seconds. Nine. Eight . . .”
I retook my command seat and placed my hand over the control that worked as an off button for the shield.
“. . . Three. Two. One.”
I slammed my hand down. The B/B shut off.
Instantly, half-cooked people raced from the Mammoth. Mateo targeted them and took them down. It took maybe thirty seconds. Everything went silent.
Mateo spoke through my earbud.
“Initiating silent tracking in case someone got away. I’ll keep watch on the wreckage. It’ll take hours before the vehicles are cool enough to inspect, even by me. It’ll be dawn by then and I’ll drag them to the back of the property, under some ghillie-tech cloth and out of sight.”
He fired another shot at something I didn’t see.
“Roger that,” I said. “Don’t forget to eat something.”
“Yes, Mom,” he said, making fun of little ol’ me trying to take care of warbot him.
I ended comms and spun in my seat. The cats were all looking at me.
“Okay, that’s unnerving.”
Tuffs lifted her tail and walked to the storage compartment where the preserved goat milk was stored. Pointedly, she looked back over her shoulder.
“Ah,” I said. “I guess you do all deserve something special. Stay away from the vehicles out front and stay off the office roof where the B/B array is. Both are probably hot.”
I opened both airlocks to retrieve the cat bowls. Cats came running from everywhere. I used all the remaining goat milk, added some powdered milk and water to it, poured the last of the fish stew into a tiny bowl for Tuffs and Notch, and poured a lot of crunchy krill-based kibble—placing the extra-special treats outside, near the body of Rikerd Cotter, which was beginning to smell.
I didn’t need to look at his face. Or the faces of the ones out front. I killed them on purpose because they were trying to kill me and mine. And they were all just protein now.
Tuffs made a demanding chuff, looking at the kibble and the lack of two sets of cat bowls. She sniffed in disdain.
“I’ll add serving dishes and sardines to the grocery list. I haven’t forgotten our deal.”
I peeled the purple malleable explosive material off the door seal and rolled it all into a ball. Mateo might be able to use it someday. Back inside, I sniffed. My office smelled of cat and feverish man. Jagger was still deeply asleep, his fingers and feet and twitching, his face twisted in pain.
At the med-bay, I released the hatch. I removed my protective armor sleeve and placed my bare palm on the face of the damaged female. I let my bio-nanos go to work.
After five minutes I said, “Wake up.”
She didn’t. So I put my other hand on her, holding her face between my palms. I could practically feel my nanos entering her pores and her bloodstream. After another five minutes I repeated, “Wake up.”
This time, she did. I smiled. She smiled back.
“I’m Shining. What’s your name?”
“I’m Cupcake. I’m Red’s Old Lady.”
“Tell me about Clarisse Warhammer. And the location of Evelyn Raymond. And the plans of the Angels. Tell me everything.”
She smiled happily. She started talking.
* * *
Seventy hours and some minutes later, the entrance and the road out front were clear of scrap and bodies and anything else that might have made an uncomfortable new memory for Jagger.
Waggling his thumb and little finger at me in a gesture that was more Hawaii surfer than mainland biker, he took off on his One Rider, dust flying into the morning air. The OMW national enforcer had what he’d come for—the sensor from my kutte. He had a plausible story of what happened while he was here, believing that he had been followed by some MS Angels and that he had saved the girl—Heather—who worked in the front office from attack. The story would hold because he was mine. He’d come back when I called him, and when he did, there would be four fresh graves and parts of a tactical vehicle as evidence to support his implanted memories. The story in his mind would hold.
Well, probably. I clutched the pulse weapon he’d left with me, hoping I’d never have to use it, but grateful to have the totally illegal military weapon. A girl can never have too many weapons out here in the middle of nowhere.
His One Rider approached the road out front. He turned and looked back.
I frowned at him. Outlaws didn’t look back.
Before Jagger woke up, Mateo and Jolene had spent an entire day scanning and testing parts of the bike with special emphasis on the AntiGrav and the miniaturized Massive Particle Propulsion engine. The CO, his southern belle AI, and Gomez were happy as any tech-savvy sentient and probably-becoming-sentient beings could be.
Jagger turned to the front and pulled onto the road. As the familiar, muttered, soft snore putter of the One Rider engine faded into the distance, the cats lined up around me, sitting, watching where I watched. They looked abnormally well fed and would for quite a while. At Jolene’s suggestion, Mateo had carried the cooked bodies into the deep freezer in the SunStar. We’d thaw a body every month or so and toss it to the cats. Sadly, Clarisse Warhammer and One-Eyed Jack had never reappeared. I was fairly sure the queen and her main mate had survived and gotten away.
She now knew I had Bug weapons.
I knew this much about Warhammer. She would never share what she knew about me or the junkyard with anyone else because she would want my stuff for herself.
She’d be back. With reinforcements. Eventually. Depending on how long it took her to convert new people and grow a new nest. How long it took to obtain equipment. And generate a plan to take me. I knew what she was. She didn’t know what I was. All she knew was that I had something she wanted, something that would give her power, something that, in the wrong hands—her hands—would upset the balance of power and maybe restart a full-blown World War III, instead of the skirmishes and tech attacks and bot assaults currently taking place.
I wasn’t giving up the junkyard. No way, no how.
The airlock opened, and my thrall stepped out into the sun, one hand over her eyes, searching for me.
“Go back inside,” I waved at her. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Cupcake, who refused to be called by her real name, waved back and followed orders. I didn’t know what I was going to do with her. Outright murder wasn’t something I could or wanted to do. Keeping her around was going to be difficult unless I started raiding the SunStar’s stores regularly. There wasn’t money, water, or food otherwise and the loss of Harlan and the Tesla-23B engine had delivered a beating to my income.
I had worked to implant in Jagger’s memories a desire to take Harlan’s place as my boss’s agent between the OMW and the local black market. Jagger had agreed, which was why Mateo had allowed him to live and leave. But I didn’t know how long Jagger’s compulsion would last.
I looked back at the office, focusing instead on my current short-term worry. Clarisse’s nanos and my nanos in Cupcake’s body might recognize each other and go to war, taking her out of the picture entirely. Not that I was hoping for that. Except for talking incessantly, Cupcake was good company.
As soon as Jagger’s dust settled, the cats wandered off, except for Notch and Tuffs and the newly-named Spy—who wasn’t sick with Clarisse’s nanobots either. So far, so good. The cats stuck around, watching as Mateo spider-crawled to where we stood and sat, his long legs bending his main carapace to the ground so he could see me almost face-to-face from inside his meter-wide faceplate. He detached his damaged leg and placed it under the Grabber, watching me. Waiting for the conversation we clearly had needed to have for a while.
I engaged the AntiGravity Grabber. The mechanical leg lifted off the ground and hung there. Inside, the attacking nanobots fried and died. We’d done the same to each piece of his suit, one at a time, over the last three days, a method suggested by Jolene, which would minimize the time Mateo had to spend out of his suit. This was the last piece except for the torso. Next I’d need to unhook him, peel him out of the suit, and carry him into the med-bay while the whole suit got a thorough blasting, just in case the piecemeal method had left some nanos alive. I resettled my 2-Gen glasses over my not-quite-human eyes and studied Mateo.
“So. You’re a spaceship captain. Commanding Officer of the SunStar.”
“Was.”
“And Evelyn Raymond? Who is probably part of Clarisse’s nest and no longer has full self
-will?”
“My second in command. Someone I owe.” He tilted his deformed head inside his bot body, thinking. “I have self-will, and I’m part of your nest. She had the same training I did, so who’s to say she hasn’t retained some form of independence? And if she hasn’t”—he heaved a sigh and shrugged, his bot-arms lifting slightly, which was weird-looking—“she’ll need to be eliminated.”
“Okay. I get that. So. When are we going after her?”
“Not sure yet. According to our prisoner, Raymond is hell and gone from here and we don’t have much intel on the location or specs of Clarisse’s nest. We’re just two. You have thoughts about rescue plans?”
“Not yet, but Jolene and Gomez have become really chummy. Gomez might be Bug AI but he’s a lonely Bug AI. I think they’re falling for each other. And Gomez has scanners we know zilch about. He might have access to weapons or locations or . . . most anything.” I grinned. “Between the AIs and you and me, I think we could take on a team of MS Angels and rescue Evelyn.”
Tuffs made an outraged hiss.
“And the cats,” I said. “Begging your pardon, Tuffs.”
She flipped her tail at me, mollified.
“And Jagger?”
“I did what you suggested and put him to work. If he follows my implanted compulsion, he’ll become my new Harlan.”
Even though I had planted all that in Jagger’s brain, the person he would remember for the conversation was my fake boss, a burly macho man. I’d even given Jagger all of Harlan’s contacts, and told him that there was a traitor to the OMW in the list somewhere, and that person also likely had access to whoever was working in the Gov. and making alliances with the Angels. Jagger had told me it was probably a cell of people, not just one. He would be breaking bones and busting teeth, to find the traitors. That was an enforcer’s job and he was looking forward to it.
“And the traitors in the Gov.?” Mateo asked.
“I’ll have to go after them eventually, as soon as I get intel from Jagger on the traitor cell. They made an alliance with the bloody bedamned MS Angels. There are some things an OMW would never permit to happen. Not without a fight.”