Rika appreciated the small lie, but she knew he’d like to have real sex. She would too, especially at times like this when it felt like her insides were on fire.
Rika tamped down her urges as much as possible and smiled. “Who would have thought a stone-cold killer like you was such a romantic?”
Chase’s smile faded. “I’m not a stone—what would make you say that?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Chase.” Rika frowned, wondering what about her statement had rattled him. “We’re all killers. It’s what we do.”
“I know, but sometimes…sometimes I’d just like to forget that. Don’t you want this to end someday? Do something else with your life?”
“Like what?” Rika asked.
It wasn’t the first time Chase had made comments like this, but she could never get him to elaborate on his feelings—instead he would just shut down. This time, she tried a different tack.
“I’m a war machine. It’s what I do, I’m not in the ‘get old with great-great-grandchildren at my knee’ profession. I’ve accepted that.”
“What if I haven’t?” Chase asked.
“What does that mean? I thought you liked being in the Marauders.”
Chase sat up, still straddling her. “I do like being in the Marauders. It’s a good job, we seem to be working for the good guys, so that’s nice. And I’m with you, which is what I want most. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in this outfit. We’re more than just killers, Rika.”
“Of course we are; we’re a family. Basilisk, and now M Company. We’re saving people, Chase. My people.”
Chase nodded. “And after that?”
Rika pushed an errant lock of hair out of her face. “I don’t know. I don’t think that far ahead. I’m not too sure I can succeed at what’s laid out ahead of me now.”
“And what’s that?” Chase asked.
“I want to drive the Nietzscheans out of Genevia,” she replied, her voice lowering. “I want to kill every last motherfucking one of them, scour them from the stars.”
Chase’s eyes widened, and Rika realized her statement came across with more vehemence than she’d intended.
“Why?” he asked. “What did Genevia ever do for you?”
“It made me this,” Rika said, lifting her right arm and rotating her wrist. “It made me strong and powerful. Did it abuse me? Yes. But what would have happened to me if I wasn’t turned into a mech? There weren’t a lot of survivors from the world where I got convicted. Becoming a mech may have saved my life.”
Chase nodded soberly. “Yeah, I looked Kellas up. They got hit hard. But still…why do you love Genevians so much? They aren’t that accepting of mechs.”
“Chase.” Rika reached up and touched his face. “You’re Genevian. So is Leslie, Barne; stars, everyone in M Company is. The Old Man. We’re all Genevian.”
“Do you need all of them? Am I not enough?” Chase clasped her hand in both of his. “We could flee deep into the cluster. Past the edge of FTL. Nietzschea won’t bother going into the inner empire; it’s not worth the effort.”
Rika frowned. She couldn’t understand why Chase was saying this, he wasn’t a coward. She’d seen him in combat multiple times, and he’d never backed down from a challenge.
“What’s brought this on?” she asked. “The Marauders are our family, we can’t just abandon them.”
“A family that’s going to get you killed,” he replied.
“Is this because we got shot down? Are you worried that I’m going to die?”
“Yes!” Chase almost shouted. “You did almost die. If your crazy pilot hadn’t dived under the ocean, you’d be toast. Don’t you see that?”
Rika shrugged. “I guess…though we might have survived that, too. Stars, people die from all sorts of stupid shit all the time. I won’t live in fear just because of what could happen.”
“What will happen,” Chase corrected.
“What do you mean?”
“We all die, Rika.”
There was a sadness in his voice that told Rika there was some story, some trauma from his past that he’d not yet shared with her.
“What is it, Chase? What’s got you thinking like this?”
He rolled off her and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. “Nothing—other than what we’ve already gone over and over and over.”
Rika rolled onto her side and clasped his hand. “Chase, I want to spend my forever with you, but this is what I have to do right now. It’s who I am—I’ve accepted that. But I promise it won’t last forever.”
“How can I believe that?” Chase asked. “You’ve gone from loathing what you are to loving it.”
“Because…maybe deep down, where I’m too scared to admit it…I think I want to have my great-great grandchildren at my knee someday.”
Chase turned his head and met her gaze. “Mean it?”
Rika nodded, feeling her eyes grow moist. “I think I do. I really do.”
THE MEET
STELLAR DATE: 04.24.8949 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Hittis City
REGION: Iapetus, Hercules System, Septhian Alliance
“Nice place David picked for his date with Dala,” Kelly said, gesturing out the window as the three SMI-2s settled into their seats at Charlie’s Pasta and Chips.
Rika looked across the street to the restaurant David and Dala would be dining at. It wasn’t too fancy, simply named Hammurabi, but not having ‘chips’ in the name took any establishment up a notch.
“Not the sort of place our kind can visit,” Keli added.
<Remember,> Rika cautioned privately. <We’re regular citizens, we can go anywhere we like. Believe it. Own it. It’s the best way to blend in.>
Keli didn’t reply, but nodded as she picked up her menu with gloved hands.
Rika pulled her robe’s long sleeves back and did the same. She felt naked without her gun-arm, something that both Keli and Kelly had confessed to as well, but they were all still carrying rifles under their robes. Keli had called them their ‘security blankets’.
Rika shifted her weight carefully, keeping one leg extended under her chair to support most of her weight. She wasn’t too worried about the seat collapsing, but it wasn’t an idle concern for a mech. When they were scoping out a good location, the sturdy steel chairs at Charlie’s Pasta and Chips had played a major part in their choice of establishment.
<You three just better remember to order my takeout. I want a fettucine alfredo, and their lasagna. Plus those fresh kettle chips everyone raves about in their reviews,> Leslie chimed in.
<Whatever you say, LT,> Keli said cheerfully.
<Stow that glee,> Leslie retorted. <If I’d known it was going to rain like this tonight, I would have volunteered one of you for overwatch.>
<Would you say it’s raining cats and dogs?> Rika asked with a snicker.
<Stars, not you, too.>
<I can’t help it.> Rika got her mirth under control. <Scarcliff does it so much that they spring to mind all the time now.>
<Well, the next girls’ night out needs to involve less of me freezing my ass off out in a storm.>
<Noted,> Rika replied.
The three women reviewed their menus, looking over the options and discussing them casually while each kept half an eye on the restaurant across the street, where David now waited for Major Dala.
“Stars. I think I’ll just have the spaghetti and meatballs,” Kelly said. “If you count the time I was on ice, I haven’t had a good spaghetti in…what, ten years?”
“They had it in the galley just last week,” Keli said as she perused her menu.
“Right,” Kelly nodded. “I think you missed the part where I said ‘good’ spaghetti.”
“Are you besmirching our ship’s cooks?” Keli asked. “Because I’m in love with all of them.”
“Points for using ‘besmirching’,” Rika commented.
�
��No, no besmirchment—is that even a word?—intended. They didn’t have the right sauce, is all. They should have waited for fresh tomatoes before trying it. Their menu here says all ingredients are locally sourced and that they make their sauce fresh each day.”
Keli shrugged. “OK, that’s good to see. Maybe this place is more than just the joint with the strongest chairs.”
<I swear…I’m going to turn off the comm channel,> Leslie groused. <I’m salivating up here.>
Rika saw a waitress approach—not human, but an automaton good enough to fool casual observation. She wore a short blue skirt and white blouse with ‘Mary’ on her name tag. Rika thought her legs were a touch too long for her torso, but not so much that you’d notice at first glance.
<Maybe she’s the discount bot,> Niki commented. <From the defects pile.>
<How do you make a bot’s legs too long as a defect?> Rika asked. <Seems deliberate.>
<Well, maybe they were meant for a taller model.>
<Poor waitress-bot, made from spare parts.> Rika shook her head.
“What can I get for you ladies to drink?” the subtly misshapen waitress automaton asked as she set three glasses of water on the table.
“Ohhhhh, drinks!” Kelly proclaimed. “I’ll take…one of your cinnamon martinis.”
“I’ll have this thing you call the cherry bomb.” Keli stabbed a finger at the menu.
“Just a glass of your best white bubbly for me,” Rika said when the automaton-waitress turned to her.
“OK, you got it. Cinnamon martini, Explosive Cherry Bomb, and a glass of our Atrium.”
The three nodded in turn, and Mary gave a nod and turned, walking to the back of the restaurant to prepare their drinks.
“Why make automatons look so perfectly human?” Keli asked. “Everyone can tell what they are.”
“Not around here, they can’t,” Rika said. “Thebans don’t mod much—at least not the ones that live on planets. They might not be able to spot a bot like our Mary.”
“Weird,” Keli replied. “Of course, I haven’t seen the inside of a restaurant for about as long as Kelly. Stavros didn’t really let us eat out a lot. And by ‘a lot’, I mean ‘ever’.”
“I imagine,” Rika said with a nod. “Stavros wasn’t much of a ‘let anyone do anything’ kinda guy.”
Keli’s eyes widened and she nodded in agreement. “Glad you put him down.”
“Was actually Barne that fired the shot,” Kelly said as she set her menu down.
Keli raised the glass of water that sat before her. “Well, when I get my drink, I’ll raise a toast to the Top. May his days of taking out evil dictators never end.”
“I’m sure he’d echo that sentiment,” Rika said, turning her gaze out the window once more. She didn’t really need to watch for Dala’s approach. Leslie would let them know when she spotted the Major, and David would confirm when she joined him.
“What was it like?” Kelly asked after a minute of silence stretched between them.
“It?” Rika asked.
“Being out in the world. After the war.”
Rika looked at the two women seated across from her and sighed. Both had been injured in the war, and subsequently found by Stavros. Neither saw the end of the fight with the Nietzscheans—saw their leaders surrender or flee. Neither had to live in the shattered remains of their nation amidst a populace that hated them
“It sucked balls,” Rika replied. “Lots of balls. All the balls. I guess it would have gone better for me if I’d joined an outfit like the Marauders—or even a gang of some sort. But I was stubborn. I wanted to try to make a go of it as a civilian.”
“Now that doesn’t surprise me.” Kelly grinned, the smile actually reaching her eyes. “You never could let go of an idea once it got into that head of yours.”
“Wish I’d been on a team like yours,” Keli said. “Kelly’s told me all about Hammerfall. You ladies kicked some major ass back in the shit.”
Mary returned as Keli spoke, and set their drinks down. “Are you ready to order, or are you still looking over the menu? Oh! I forgot to recite the specials.”
<How does an automaton ‘forget’ the specials?> Niki asked. <Is the NSAI defective, or does someone think this is a clever way to sell the daily deals?>
<Beats me,> Rika replied. <If folks around here can’t tell it’s a bot, maybe it does work—or maybe it’s randomly variable behavior, or something.>
<I guess. I don’t usually run into NSAIs managing simple tasks like this,> Niki replied. <Usually they’re managing things like magnetic fields on a tokamak reactor or something.>
Keli said she’d like to hear the specials, and Mary began to rattle them off.
<I would have thought that you talked to NSAIs all the time,> Rika commented as she half-listened to Mary’s recitation.
<I’ve spent most of my time on starships. You’re only the second person I’ve been embedded with—though we’re not neurally embedded, like a real AI pairing would be.>
<I guess there aren’t many NSAIs trying to sell you on the Chicken Bolognese on a starship.>
<Not so much, no.>
<What’s it like to be neurally embedded?> Rika asked, as Mary finished the list, and Keli hemmed and hawed.
<We use logic?> Rika chuckled. <I wouldn’t have thought AIs considered many human decisions to be logical.>
<Well, for the most part, humans believe that their reasoning is valid. If this, then that, and therefore logical. Most of the time, the truly illogical things you humans do are for entertainment—which makes them something that you enjoy. Therefore, it’s logical for you to do illogical things, because gaining amusement is healthy for your minds, and thus logical.>
<Huh. You used the word ‘logic’ so many times it just became a morass of syllables. Is that logical? Rika asked, then shifted her attention to Mary to order a plate of spaghetti and chips.
Niki just groaned in response, and sent Rika an image of eyes rolling in exasperation.
<OK, OK,> Rika replied. <I guess it makes sense. I mean, it does to me; I just didn’t think it would make sense to an AI.>
<Well, that’s part of why we spend time with humans. It’s not to serve you, but rather because there are some things that are better experienced than taught.>
“So, what was your favorite mission, Rika?” Keli asked once Mary departed.
<I’m going to come back to this later,> Rika told Niki. <I want to understand more about what you meant.>
<Sure, I’m not going anywhere.>
Rika considered it for a moment. “You know, I really liked our mission on Parsons—I mean, except for the part where you died, Kelly. I could barely think about it for years afterward. But now…now it’s one that I can actually look back on. We kicked some major ass.”
“You saved my life twice on that mission, Rika.” The corners of Kelly’s eyes glistened, and she gave a short sniff before shaking her head. “I’ll never forget you standing atop that K1R, firing your rifle into it until it let me go.”
Keli’s brow lowered. “A K1R? Why were you fighting one of our own?”
Rika pursed her lips, and Kelly replied. “Fucking Niets turned it against us. Bastard—”
“Was a poor bastard,” Rika interrupted. “He didn’t ask for what happened to him. I gave him a good death.”
No one spoke for a moment, and then Kelly laughed. “And those are the ‘good’ memories.”
Rika stretched a hand across the table and took Kelly’s, then grabbed Keli’s as well. “No, the good memories were times like this. Sure, we didn’t have Mary bringing us the best chips this side of the cluster, but we did have each other. That was the real ‘best part’ about Hammerfall. And now we have the Marauders.”
“Rika’s Marauders,” Keli said with a silly grin. �
�Shit Captain, why you such a big sap? Don’ you know we rust if we cry?”
“You might have to see Bondo about that,” Kelly smirked as she wiped a gloved hand against her cheek.
<I love listening to the three of you bond as much as anyone,> Leslie interrupted, <but I thought you’d want to know that Dala is approaching the restaurant.>
Rika looked out the window to see Dala, exiting a ground car and rushing through the rain to the restaurant across the street.
<I see her. Looks damp.>
<That dress doesn’t look like any sort of uniform, either,> Keli commented.
<I guess David made more of an impression than we thought.> Rika nodded appreciatively. <I’ll admit, I hadn’t given him that much credit—at least, not that specific type of credit.>
<I guess Dala likes ‘em smart,> Keli added.
<Could be that she’s going to spill the beans and wants to make this look like a date, in case anyone is following her,> Leslie suggested.
Rika wondered about that. It would be an interesting twist. Or it just could be that Colonel Zim was as much of a hardass as Rika suspected, and Dala was happy for any excuse to get out.
<She’s here,> David advised on a separate channel. Rika hadn’t segregated him as a slight, she just didn’t want to distract him with their banter—though with his mods, he probably could focus on what was necessary well enough.
Still, he’d confessed to being a poor actor, and Rika didn’t want to tax him. <Remember. Ease her into sharing. Don’t force her. If things go well, broach the subject of talking with me. Doesn’t have to be now. I’m here for a ‘just in case’ scenario.>
<You got it, Captain,> David said, a waver in his voice belying a measure of uncertainty.
<I’ll be listening, so if anything comes up that I can help with, I’ll offer a suggestion. But I’ll keep my chatter to a minimum.>
The rest of the team was listening in on the conversation, though Keli and Kelly kept up some verbal chatter about the weather on Iapetus so that it didn’t seem like the entire table fell silent for no reason.
David provided a feed from his eyes on the team’s net, and Rika tapped into it, overlaying it on the right side of her vision.