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In honor of the upcoming anniversary of the disaster at Xanadu, His Majesty Prince Philip White has announced a royal memorial ball, to be held at the the royal capital city on Io.
Many extended members of the royal family are expected to attend, along with corporate leaders and foreign dignitaries representing the interests of all the independent colonies from throughout the solar system.
Prince Philip says the aim of the event is to set aside political differences, and come together in memory of the lives lost that day:
“The history of the conflicts between the Terran Empire and the Independent Colonies and Nations has for too long been written in blood.” Prince Philip said in an official statement earlier this evening. “I wish for everyone to come together, mourn together, and empathize together. Let this ceremony be the first step towards a lasting peace in our time.”
Critics are calling the move cynical, an empty gesture towards the rest of the solar system. One citizen from the Earth Moon, Luna, writes:
“Peace in our time. Bull-(EXPLETIVE EXPUNGED)! Peace in our time. When the Imperial mechs came rampaging through the cities, was that peace in our time? That shithead prince is planning something. The whole thing stinks.”
Sources were unclear whether Prince Philip would extend an invitation to his estranged sister, Lady Cordelia Phylis White.
-Segment broadcasted on Galaxy News Network
Lady White leaned back in her chair and scowled at the long-range video feed beaming directly into her retinas. Lingering cigarette fumes swirled and danced around the smouldering wreckage of Lt. Rio and the M4GPIE-equipped Cutlass. Things had very much not gone according to plan.
Dark Star. Fucking Dark Star. Of course it was Dark Star. Of all the obstacles she could have run into, all the rag-tag good-for-nothing lowlife mercenaries across the entire solar system, she just had to stumble ass-first into the one group who could possibly stand up to the might of the Tigris.
It was almost too perfect. A critical piece of infrastructure, located far out in a backwater sector where the nearest help was weeks away, at minimum. Expensive and isolated, an easy win for a lone military group hungry for another feather in its cap. Whoever sicced Dark Star at Syrio Station knew Lady White would be forced to respond.
But how could they have known she’d be in the area? Moreover, who the hell could afford this many Dark Stars in the first place? Whoever it was had deep pockets, and access to secure military intel, and a strong motivation to humiliate her.
There was only one person who had all three.
“Vanessa. Open a secure comms line. My eyes only.”
“Of course, my lady. With whom?”
Lady Cordelia Phylis White took a long inhale from her cigarette. When she spoke, her voice was as toxic as the smoke in her lungs.
“Why, with my dearest brother, Philip.”
“Patching him through now.”
A few moments passed. A rectangular section rose out of the top of the desk to reveal a video call screen, already displaying Philip’s bald, infuriatingly puerile face, sucking the last of the grease off of his fingers after a hearty meal. A disgusting habit.
“Why, if it isn’t my dearest sister!” He stuck his thumb back in his mouth, and then wiped it on the napkin tucked into the collar of his shirt. “As you can see, I have just finished the day’s luncheon. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Lady White tried not to gag at the grease stained rag dangling below Philip’s chin. “Cut the shit, Philip.”
“Oh?” Philip asked, playing coy. “You should cut your boorish attitude, dearest sister, it doesn’t suit you, ohohoho!” Philip’s toadlike laugh always infuriated his sister. “Have you managed to retake Syrio Station yet?”
Lady White scowled. “Forces from the Tigris are working to recapture the station as we speak, brother.”
“Is that so?” Someone off-camera offered Philip a tray of hors d'oeuvres. He took one gently between thumb and forefinger and swallowed it, crumbs of flaky pastry falling and clinging to the napkin in his shirt. Lady White struggled not to wretch. “That’s not what my mercenaries are telling me.”
Suddenly, Philip’s video cut to a live-feed from a mobile frame, a Dark Star logo clearly visible in the corner. The heavily-modified Cutlass was kneeled motionless on the ground, shattered cockpit armor falling off in chunks. The pilot inside was slumped against the restraint harness, KIA. No vital signs detected.
“Target secured, sir.” One of the mercenaries barked over the radio. “Bringing the M4GPIE to the extraction zone now.”
“Your mercenaries?” Lady White slammed her fist against the surface of her desk. “You little scheming rat bastard fuck!”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about, dearest sister.”
“It was you.” She snarled. Of course it was him! Who else had pockets deep enough for the most expensive mercs in the empire?
“I suspect the official reports shall be rather different, I’m afraid.” Philip gloated, pretending to check under his nails for dirt. “As I understand, Syrio station was captured by forces unknown. The Tigris was called in to assist, but after failing to retake the station, my very dear Euphrates was called in for reinforcements.”
Shit! Philip and the Euphrates were already in the area. Lady White knew she had to act quickly, before the M4GPIE slipped out of her grasp.
“This isn’t over.” Lady White hissed, and hung up the video call. She crunched her hand into a hard fist, as if trying to crush all of her pent up rage in the palm of her hand, then relaxed, exhaled, and stood behind her desk. She pulled her officer’s peaked cap out of a desk drawer, and fixed it firmly over her head, and draped her admiral’s greatcoat over her shoulders.
“Vanessa!” Lady White hissed. “What is the status of the next LCR unit?”
“Ready to be deployed at once, my Lady, but our latest neuroplast profile is almost a month old. It could cause issues with-”
“I don’t care. Can it pilot a mobile frame?”
“It should be able to, my lady, but the gap in memory could-”
“Excellent.” Lady White interrupted Vanessa a second time. “Deploy the 42nd to retrieve the M4GPIE. Immediately.”
“I dunno, Nem, I’m just worried about her, that’s all,” Kudelia sighed into her cup of shitty coffee. “Ever since we dropped onto Luna, she’s been acting fucking weird.”
“Yeah, no fucking shit she’s acting weird. She tried to murder the two of us in a combat test, remember?” Nemessia leaned back against the stiff plastic bench of the Tigris’ galley, poking a plastic fork into something that had been labeled “scrambled eggs” in the steam tray.
“That’s exactly my point, Nem.” Kudelia took a sip of her coffee and grimaced. She set her cup back down, reached for two packets of artificial sweetener, and continued, “this ain’t like her. I know the Luna drop was your first flight with the 42nd, but I've been flying with Jackal close to two years now. She’s always been, well…”
“A stuck up bitch?” suggested Nem.
“A woman focused on her career.” Kudelia said matter-of-factly. “But you saw her in the shower, too, right? She looked liked he hadn’t washed herself in weeks.”
“Yeah, smelt like it too. So what?”
“So,” Kudelia insisted, “something’s clearly wrong with her. I think she needs our help, Nem.”
Nemessia rolled her eyes and groaned. “Fuckin… whatever. She doesn’t give two shits if we live or die, so why the fuck should I care about her?”
“Because, Nem, squadmates have to trust each other. If she needs us, we should try n’ be there for her.”
Nemessia rolled her eyes and groaned. “Oh, spare me the big fuckin’ mama-bear act, Del. You wanna hold hands and sing kum-ba-ya together, be my fuckin’ guest. I have combat sims and paperwork and shit to do today.” Nemessia scooched her plastic chair back and stood, taking her tray and turning towards the garbage can. “You comin’ with?”
“Some other time, Nem. I still need to order more PSMART ammo.”
“P smart?”
“Yeah, Piezoelectric Self Maneuvering Assault Rounds, Thermal.” Del took another sip of coffee. “Talk about a backronym.”
“You’ve been firing smart rounds?”
“Only on special occasions. They’re expensive, and the fab shop on board doesn’t have the parts for ‘em.”
“So where the hell are you getting them?”
Kudelia winked. “Didn’t you have somewhere to be, little birdie?”
The last remnants of Nemessia’s morning crankiness melted away, and a wry grin appeared on her face. “Squadmates have to trust each other, don’t we?” Nemessia winked once and placed her tray on top of the garbage can before turning towards the galley exit. “I see how it is. I’ll catch you later, Del.”
“Later, Nem.” Kudelia waved her friend and squadmate goodbye. She finished her cup of horrible coffee, unlocked her phone, and scrolled over to the notes app, opening a file labeled SHOPPING_LIST.TXT
- PSMART ammo,
- Hard drives, with movies pre-downloaded (see movie_requests.txt)
- Soap, shampoo, and conditioner.
- Earth snacks (popcorn, mini fish-shaped crackers, fruit gummies)
She double tapped the screen to bring up the keyboard and added one more entry:
- COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!
The Tigris’ intercom clicked on with a familiar feedback screeching sound. “All hands, all hands,” Vanessa announced, “Combat stations, level one. This is not a drill.”
Kudelia’s body acted on its own, thousands of hours of drills and training kicking into gear over her conscious mind. She slammed her breakfast - serving tray, utensils, and all - into the garbage chute, and took off sprinting down the corridor towards the locker rooms.
Vanessa’s voice continued over the intercom. “42nd Armored Cavalry, proceed directly to flight deck. 101st Heavy Mobile Engineers to the briefing room. Repeat, this is not a drill.”
Panic began to overtake the non-combat personnel. Logistics officers huddled together like clusters of penguins, doing their best to squeeze one-by-one through the narrow bulkheads leading towards their living quarters. A young electrician working in the corridor went white as a sheet and then fainted, dropping her toolbox on the foot of the janitor next to her, who cursed and swore and hopped on one leg.
Poor non-combat guys, Kudelia thought. Must be scared half to death. Kudelia thought back to her first deployment, years ago, and how terrified she felt on her first sortie. No matter how many drills she did, nothing had quite prepared her for the real thing, the real, genuine knowledge that an explosive, violent death could arrive at any second. And that was from the point of view of a Mobile Frame pilot. Must be even worse if you aren’t a pilot. Either you get hurt or you don’t, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.
Kudelia finally arrived at the locker room, where Nemessia was already halfway into her EVA suit, sitting on a bench and reading a document off a clipboard.
“There you are, Del,” Nemessia grunted. “Took you long enough.” She carefully folded the paper and slipped it inside the clear pouch on the thigh of her suit.
“N-n-nem,” Kudelia stammered. Nemessia topless was always enough to stop Kudelia dead in her tracks. Her small, petite breasts perfectly complimented her thin, svelte frame. The sleeves of her EVA suit were tied around her waist, revealing just the barest hint of abdominal muscle visible underneath her smooth, delicate skin. Losing Bulldog had been hard for Nemessia, but Kudelia had relished the chance just to hug her friend as she mourned, to support her, to run her fingers through her beautiful silky hair, to gain her trust and help her smile again, to spoon her, to kiss her, to appreciate the sounds she made when she -
“Hey! Horndog!” Nemessia scolded, snapping her fingers in Kudelia’s face. “My eyes are up here. Focus.”
“Right, sorry, sorry, I just…” Choosing not to embarrass herself further, Kudelia bit her lip and turned toward her locker, and started changing into her EVA suit.
“Jackal, bring yourself online.”
Lieutenant Cassandra Rio, callsign Jackal, shuddered as her NMIS (Neuro-Machine Interface System) began to activate. Up and down her spine, dozens of analog and digital cables slid neatly into their respective ports, the connections finalized with a familiar click-hiss sound. The Lieutenant squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself. A thousand icy needles wrapped around her every nerve as the NMIS linked itself to her body.
Jackal opened her eyes again, and she and Blade Dancer were one. She drew one of the swords from the “golf-bag” scabbard at her left hip, and felt the weight of it balanced comfortably in the palm of her hand. Sunlight glittered off of its polished edge. She put it back in its holder, and sent a wide area pulse to scan for friendly IFF signatures.
Far above and behind her were the lightly-armored mobile frames of the 101st combat engineering division. Their machines were small and scrawny, and carried little more than short range personal-defense weapons - unsuited for any real engagement against enemy armor. They survived mostly on speed alone. Each of the 101st’s frames was equipped with an enormous rocket booster, nearly as large as the rest of the mobile frame alone, designed for interplanetary shipping or heavy industry in zero-G.
Today’s mission objective was simple. Syrio station, a key antimatter mining station tucked away in the outer regions of the asteroid belt, had been captured by unknown hostiles, probably another group of rag-tag SLF bandits. The mobile frames of the 42nd would engage with the enemy and create an opening for the 101st to regain control of the station’s infrastructure. Oh, and if you have the time, Lady White had added, make sure you pick up the downed friendly machine. Don’t worry about the pilot, she’s KIA already.
The Lieutenant flipped her radio online and gave the order.
“This is Jackal. All systems nominal. All other callsigns, activate NMIS.”
What was the deal with this downed friendly, anyways? Probably some dipshit ace pilot wannabe from another squadron thought she could charge in alone and win before anyone noticed she was gone. Another hotshot with dreams of glory, reduced down to a bloody smear on some rock in outer space. Pathetic.
Jackal felt an electromagnetic signal as the rest of the 42nd Imperial Armored Cavalry Squadron came online. The Mobile Frames’ IFF was synchronized across the squadron and told her everything she needed to know without so much as a word. Imperial protocol dictated that the voice communications were strictly for relaying orders or for emergencies only. This suited Jackal just fine. Getting too chummy with the rest of the unit only got in the way.
One-by-one, Jackal received the check-in messages from the rest of her team.
This is Ursa. All systems nominal. Glad to see you’re feeling better, Rio.
This is Corvid. All systems nominal. Ready to engage when you are, Lieutenant.
Jackal paused, waiting for the rest of the 42nd. She knew Ursa's Arctos and Corvid’s Pop! Goes the Weasel were flying below and behind her, but where was everyone else?
Against her better judgement, she flipped her radio back on. “Is this it? Where the hell is the rest of the 42nd?”
“Do you really not fucking remember?” Corvid spat back.
Lt. Rio closed her eyes and tried to remember. Where had she been? Aboard the Tigris, presumably, but what about everything else? She couldn’t remember being briefed for this mission. Everything felt fuzzy and indistinct. When the shape of an outline, a fact, something real, began to form in her mind, she reached out to it, only for it to swirl and distort and slip through her fingers, as shapeless as flowing water.
Her head hurt. She took her hands off the controls and rubbed the spot on her helmet over her temples. Focus. Waves of flowing memories roared and roiled, a horribly familiar miasma stretching to the horizon and beyond, yet somehow still just beyond her reach. She saw another place, another time, another life, another girl walking through the snow with her holding her hand, the same girl, bruised and bleeding and coughing and dying on the surface of the moon, flecks of frozen blood glittering in the sunlight like rubies against ghostly white skin as she turned away from her, and she was alone again, alone, with nothing but inky black guilt and shining red blood staining everything she touched. Alone.
“Jackal!” Corvid snapped at her over the radio. “What the hell is wrong with you!”
I don’t know. “Nothing, I’m fine.” She cleared her throat and switched back to her squad-leader voice. “Focus up, we’re approaching the target!”
Without warning, a searing orange beam of light jolted through the empty space in the middle of the three pilots from the 42nd, before disappearing just as quickly. Jackal felt the warmth of the projectile as it soared past her armored face before disappearing into the abyss.
An enemy railgun. She could smell the vaporized tungsten slug. Without a word, the three pilots rolled and spread apart, scanning the asteroid below for the source of the shot. Sensors showed a trail of vaporized tungsten gas pointed directly at the largest rock, a miles-wide chunk of antimatter alloy crawling with thousands upon thousands of spiderlike mining drones, each easily large enough to hide an enemy mobile frame.
The volume of fire slowly increased as the 42nd approached the mining site. It was impossible to count exactly how many there were, hiding amongst the mining equipment, continuously firing and repositioning, disguising their heat signatures in a sea of automated diggers and crawlers. The three pilots danced and twirled around the incoming fire; none of the enemy weapons were any serious threat at this range. Just enough to keep a pilot on her toes.
“No CIWS,” Ursa observed. “No flak, no SAMs, nothing. Something’s fishy.”
“Yes,” Jackal agreed, flatly. “Corvid, stay on my six, and get ready for close combat. Ursa, stay back and provide fire support while we sweep the LZ. Keep those sensors open. We need to find the target.”
Jackal felt a flicker of acknowledgement through her NMIS as the three pilots broke formation and arrived at the asteroid. She drew a sword from the holster, and felt Corvid rack a shell into her shotgun.
The swarm of mining drones ran by the pair, barely steering far enough out of the way to avoid colliding with the two frames. Despite all the damage to the infrastructure, the diggers and crawlers continued unabated. Motion and heat sensors were beyond useless. Dozens upon dozens of contacts appeared and disappeared from sensor range every second.
Jackal grinned wickedly. She always relished in the anticipation, the rising tension, the eerie calm before the storm. At any moment, the enemy would make themselves known, lunging at her, attacking her with gun and missile and fist and tooth and claw, and she would be ready. She would be more than ready. Ready to block and parry and boost and reposition, re assess the behavior of the target, and counterattack. Ready to launch herself at them with her whole self, her whole being, becoming one with the whirlwind of blades and strikes and kisses, of grabbing hands and probing fingers, of gentle whispered praise and vicious mortal taunts broadcast over radio. Ready to assert herself, her strength, her dominance, and ready to win, to stand over the pathetic weaklings begging for their lives, and she would thrust into them, stab them, penetrate them, kill them, feel the lifeless twitching of their mechanical corpse while the light drained from her eyes.
She held her sword in a defensive stance horizontally in front of her cockpit, and diverted some extra power from her reactor into the signal processing suite. As the sensors’ sampling rates increased, the amount of information flowing into Jackal’s brain doubled, then tripled, quadrupled, and the world around her slowed to a crawl. The frantic skittering of the mining drones was a calm, even trot. She could feel a blip on her radar, a gentle touch on her back, a ripple moving over still water. There, behind her and to her left, towards her non-sword arm, where she was most vulnerable. Clever.
The extra heat signature stood out like a sore thumb. Something huge, mechanical, crouching and skittering behind the mining drones. The long-range mass spec sensors picked up clouds of gas - carbon dioxide and water, mostly, with some trace amounts of ozone and other incompletely-burnt hydrocarbons. Chemical rockets, priming their pumps before they began to fire.
The enemy was going to charge her position. Jackal stepped back with her left foot and pivoted towards the threat.
She felt something wet dripping on her face and over her mouth. She licked it. It tasted warm, metallic. Nosebleed. The first warning sign of neurological strain. Any further, and she’d start cooking her brain inside her skull.
Jackal sent the message to her squad mates over the NMIS network.
>CONTACT!
Reality sped back up to normal. The enemy frame, an olive-green hulk of rectangular armored plates and white hot boosters wielding a diamond-tipped spear, exploded out of the crawler drone and came flying at her. A classic maneuver, one Jackal had defended herself against a thousand times before. She raised her left leg and stomped, deflecting the point of the weapon down into the rock below, and counterattacked, removing the enemy’s offhand arm with an upward slice to the shoulder.
Fucking idiot, thinks he can catch me in an-
Jackal didn’t have time to gloat. The huge enemy machine dropped its spear and lowered its shoulder, charging into her, chemical boosters still firing at full blast. Blade Dancer’s cockpit armor creaked and groaned while Jackal struggled to catch her breath, the wind knocked out of her, ignoring the damage warnings blaring in her HUD. Pain flashed over her neck and shoulders, again and again, as the enemy machine continued ramming her forward, blasting through rows and rows of mining drones, each impact as gentle as a semi truck and as delicate as a chainsaw.
Then, there was a loud Pop! and the heat of combusting gas, and Jackal skittered to a stop. Wheezing, struggling to catch her breath, she ran a quick damage scan. Torso armor was heavily damaged, but still functional. The reactor was still running, but cooling and RCS boosters were completely kaput. She struggled to her feet, groaning in pain. With the coolant offline and no boosters, the Blade Dancer was little more than a walking time-bomb counting down to overload, but the limbs and the sensors and the NMIS still worked. She could still stand her ground and fight. For now.
She drew another blade from her golf bag. Some yards away, the enemy that had charged her lay face-down in the dirt. Flames jumped and danced from the ragged, charred hole where the chemical boosters once were.
Pop! Goes the Weasel stood over the burning wreck, and racked its shotgun. The empty casing that fell to the ground was red - incendiary flechettes. Just the thing for bursting a tank of kerosene and LOX.
“Like popping a big, ugly tick,” Corvid bragged over the radio. “You alright Lieutenant?
Pop! Goes the Weasel, Cassie thought. Heh.
“I’m fine.” Jackal said, curtly. “Cooling and boosters are inop, but the reactor is stable for now. I can still fight.”
“You’re not even hurt?” Ursa asked, her tone tinged with a hint of genuine worry.
Actually, Jackal was hurt. Each inhale brought a sharp, stabbing pain coming from somewhere on the left side of her chest, and there were tiny flecks of blood on the inside of her helmet’s visor. Most likely a cracked rib or two, but nothing lethal.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, wincing.
>NMIS_RESONANCE
Jackal could feel Ursa’s worried expression even through the faceless Mobile Frames. Their disgusting looks full of pity, like she was some wounded dog about to be put down rather than let the poor thing suffer. The thought stung worse than her broken rib.
Jackal didn’t have time to wallow. A long BBBRRRRRRTTTTT of cannon fire struck the ground, somewhere off to the left, and then moved in a wide horizontal arc across their flank. Ursa was laying down covering fire from above.
>INCOMING!
Instantly, the enemy was upon them. Nearly a dozen mobile frames clad in bulky green armor emerged from the swarm of mining drones and attacked, kicking up huge clouds of dust and smoke grenades. The enemy would emerge and attack from her front, and Jackal would move to parry, only for another melee blow to strike her in the spine, or the back of her knees, sending her stumbling, blindly, through a whirling dervish of mechanized violence.
“Where the hell is our covering fire?”
“Kinda busy up here!” Ursa responded, panic rising in her voice.
Jackal could feel the Arctos’ status through her NMIS. Hundreds of burning micro damages across the face and arms and hulking tower shields - incendiary flechettes. If one of those struck a chemical booster, the 42nd’s fire support was toast.
“Corvid!” Jackal barked. “Get up there and reinforce Ursa!”
“But Lieutenant,” Nem protested, “I can’t leave you alone down here, you’ll -”
“Orders, Ensign! Go!” Corvid boosted away without another word, heading to intercept whoever was skirmishing with Ursa.
Jackal sent the message over NMIS:
>TRUST ME.
Jackal poured more power into her sensor suite, and time slowed to a crawl again. She could feel a drop of blood running out of her nose and onto her upper lip. She deflected another enemy blow, took a step back, and watched the scene unfold around her.
>REACTOR TEMP: 90%
The increased sensor power saw through the smoke and dust and debris as easily as glass. Three hostiles, wielding stun batons and pistols, circled her, strafing and rotating back and forth to avoid catching the occasional burst from Ursa’s cannon.
Everything was slow. The enemies moved slowly, each repositioning step or each defensive boost stretching out for agonizing seconds at a time. Jackal held her sword low, in an aggressive thrusting stance, and attempted to charge, but Blade Dancer was slow too. Far, far too slow.
Jackal’s sword and the enemy’s baton bounced off of each other harmlessly, as if retreating from a casual high-five. Over her shoulder, her sensors told her the second enemy was poised for another slashing attack, and she barely, just barely, pivoted in time to deflect it.
She coughed. More blood inside her visor. Shit. She had to end this, and quickly. Ursa and Corvid were still engaged high above her. There would be no covering fire.
>REACTOR TEMP: 95%
She attempted to boost up and back to reposition herself, only to get an ERR_NO_RESPONSE from her thrusters. She would have to stand her ground and fight.
Faster. I have to be faster.
Just like her last op on Luna, chunks of armor began sloughing off of Blade Dancer, trailing strings of red-brown hydraulic fluid and coolant and god-knows-what-else behind them, like a skeletonized carcass emerging from a pile of so much raw, bloody meat. Cables and wires and hydraulic lines, all stained artery-capillary-blood-red, twisted and intertwined with the titanium-polymer-alloy ribcage that protected the fragile cockpit, nestled between two halves of a nuclear-fusion reactor, a cardiopulmonary system that inhaled oxygen and exhaled violence.
>REACTOR TEMP: 98%. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN IMMINENT!
The third mercenary charged at her, his shoulders hunched low for a spear-tackle. Jackal pirouetted and drove a sword through his back, penetrating the cockpit, and pinning him to the ground, where he lay, twitching, bleeding.
She drew another blade, shifting her weight towards her next opponent, when the message came into her HUD:
>REACTOR TEMPERATURE CRITICAL! INITIATING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN
Everything became cold and black as all of her sensors, signal processors, and life support systems shut off all at once.
So this is it, then. She sighed. Beaten to death on some stupid rock by some lowlife no-name merc. Pathetic. She braced herself, and waited for the end to come.
It did not. Her suit switched to emergency life support, enough oxygen for at least a few hours. The handle of the cockpit hatch glowed iridescent red in the cold dark vacuum. A second chance! She undid her restraints with a clean, practiced precision, and yanked the cockpit hatch emergency lever.
She could feel the pop-pop-pop! of explosive bolts, and then winced at the bright light as a section of the cockpit floor opened beneath her. It was barely, just barely, wide enough for her to crawl through, head-first.
She emerged from a jagged, burnt, exploded gash at the front of Blade Dancer’s pelvis assembly. She stood, shakily, on her own two feet, not used to the sudden disconnect from all of the cerebral balancing drivers and motor servos. She breathed in the deep, dry air, as if appreciating it for the first time. She exhaled. The mist from her breath mingled with bloody splatters inside of her helmet’s visor.
Off in the distance, three green signal flares. A retreat signal. The remaining Dark Star mercs fled the scene, chased away by Arctos and Pop! Goes the Weasel. Maybe they were cheering, or celebrating. She couldn’t hear them over her suit’s personal radio link.
Something blinked in her HUD. A private line, open only to Lady White.
“Good hound!” Lady White cooed in her ear. Jackal felt a tingle up her spine.
“Now, puppy, this next part is very important,” she continued. A puppy. Why did that word excite Cassie so much? “I need you to go to the downed friendly unit, and plug in your NMIS. Just for a moment. We need to check that it still functions. Can you do that for me, girl?”
Something in Jackal stirred. Before she had any time to think, her body obeyed, fragile human feet walking dutifully towards the corpse of the downed friendly unit.
It was a funny thing, walking in space. The airtight layers of woven carbon poly-fibers in her suit protected her by sealing her away from her surroundings, a purgatory micro-climate for one. The only sound was the steady hiss from the oxygen regulator, the only sensation the burning glare of sunlight at her back. She couldn’t feel her feet hit the ground in the asteroid’s reduced gravity, couldn’t feel herself being dragged, silently, invisibly, one foot in front of the other, forward.
It lay on its back, rib cage and sternum smashed wide open, vivisected by god-knows-what.
Jackal stepped up to the cockpit.The pilot was KIA. Whoever they were, their EVA visor had shattered, and the face inside had become swollen and bloated beyond all recognition. Cassie stood in front of them, and started undoing the restraint harness.
The dead pilot had their name tag embroidered on a patch on their chest. LT C. Rio, it read. What the fuck? Someone had stolen one of Cassie’s extra EVA suits and taken the prototype for a joyride, only to get killed.
Stupid, pathetic asshole.
She grabbed the corpse by the arm and flung it out of the cockpit, aided by the asteroid’s low gravity.
She sat in the pilot seat of the downed friendly unit. The controls were still live, and the reactor was still online. She flicked her personal radio back online. “Friendly unit heavily damaged, and the pilot is KIA, but the reactor and controls are still working.”
“Good, good,” Lady White responded. “Plug your NMIS into the M4GPIE system. We need to make sure that’s still working.”
Jackal found the M4GPIE controls, and thumbed the SYNC READY button. Cables and sensors clicked and hissed into place along her spine and shoulders. She shut her eyes and braced herself for the icy electric sting that always came with NMIS boot-up.
She waited. The pain never came. Instead, all the memories came back to her, the shower, skipping breakfast, Xander, all of it, slotted neatly back into place within her brain, as if the memories had never been missing.
She sent a message to her digital partner.
Xander, you there?
There was no response.
Jackal shrugged, and flicked her radio back online. “Lady White, this is Jackal. M4GPIE is functioning normally.”
Mission Accomplished.
Hours later, back aboard the Tigris, Cassie lay in bed, staring at the dent where her forehead had struck the bottom of her overhead storage bins. She sneezed. A fine red mist sprayed around the point of cranial impact. Another nosebleed.
She had visited the ship’s physician after debrief, and he had warned her about the symptoms of prolonged neurological strain: nosebleeds, blurred vision, nausea, cluster migraines, tinnitus, dementia, heightened aggression, the works. He had given her some foul-tasting iodine-protein tablets, which helped, but didn’t quite eliminate the nosebleeds.
A small price for victory. She had won because she was willing to sacrifice her health to win. Winning was all that mattered. She smirked to herself, and got up to get more tissues.
Her tablet lay on her desk, still gently blinking its blue notification light. She shoved a pair of tissues up her nose, and opened the message:
FROM: TIGRIS COMMAND
TO: LT. RIO
12 AUG 5314, 06:12 AM
SUBJECT: NEW ORDERS
MESSAGE BEGINS:
Lieutenant Rio, you are hereby ordered to report to -
Cassie glanced at the clock on her wall before reading the rest of the message. It read 23:15. The message, presumably orders to deploy with the rest of the 42nd, was nearly seventeen hours old. It had been a long fight, sure, but how could it have gone on for that long?
She tried to think, running over the day’s events. She’d showered with Corvid and Ursa, then deployed with Xander in the M4GPIE, then….
Her ears rang, and her head began to ache. Exactly what happened next was a blur. She had…. Re-deployed in her old Blade Dancer? But how? She didn’t remember returning to the Tigris. She didn’t remember re-launching. Come to think of it, she didn’t really remember how she got back to her room. It was clean, she remembered her pathetic, desperate struggle to take a shower and clean her room, and yet….
She did remember the bloated, disfigured corpse in the cockpit. Whoever it was had stolen one of her EVA suits. Her nausea swelled, and she fell to her knees, gagging. Blood soaked through the tissues in her nose and over her lips, into her mouth.
The metallic taste was too much. She stuck her face in the garbage can and puked. Or, tried to. Her body dry heaved, abdominal muscles clenching and tightening, but nothing came out of her. No relief. Nothing.
She remembered skipping breakfast. Fucking idiot rookie mistake. She stumbled back to her bed, dragging a bottle of water and the empty garbage can behind her, in case she did manage to upchuck something.
Her entire body felt like shit, like everything was just a little out of proportion with everything else. Her joints ached. Her vision blurred, and her nose bled. Her stomach growled and heaved, hunger pangs mixing with nausea and muscle cramps. She forced down a sip of water. It did not help, at all.
Another memory came back to her. The sharp, burning pain of Lady White’s cigarette on her palm. She looked down at her right hand.
The burn scar was gone, without a trace. As if it had never happened to her.