The sword! I’m such an idiot. Maybe I do need an AI again, just to help me remember where I left my head.
“I thought you’d be a lot tougher,” Fiona hissed as she slithered into the center of the room, coiling her long tail around herself. “She said you’d be a challenge. That’s why she gave me some wonderful upgrades.”
“Well,” Sera replied, grasping the hilt of the sword and pulling the blade over her shoulder. “I’ve got an upgrade right here.”
“I’d hardly call a sword an upgrade,” Fiona scoffed. “Would you like a shield, too? Maybe a sling.”
Wouldn’t mind a shield, Sera thought. I’ll have to add that to the costume at some point.
Sera had practiced swordplay only briefly at the academy, but remembered the basic techniques—at least when it came to fighting someone also wielding a sword. They had failed to teach the best tactics for medieval weaponry versus giant snake-women.
Fiona laughed as Sera drew near, and her tail lashed out again. Sera brought the blade up, batting the scaled appendage away, then swung the sword in an arc. Her aim was true, and the blade cut into the tail a meter from its end.
“Bitch,” Fiona spat. “Do you have any idea how much something like this costs?”
“Mine was free,” Sera replied with a grin. “Well, I guess I stole the original…sort of.”
“You stole your costume?” Fiona didn’t know what to make of the statement.
“No,” Sera grunted as she lunged forward, slashing at Fiona’s tail, cutting deep in to the leathery surface in a new location. “I stole my skin.”
Fiona shrieked and rose into the air, looming above Sera momentarily before coming down onto her head with claws extended.
Sera had expected the attack; it wasn’t the first time Fiona had made that move. But it was the first time since Sera had her sword. She swung the blade up as Fiona came down, driving it through where she thought the prelate’s abdomen would be.
Fiona screamed and fell to the ground, her tail writhing as she clutched the wound with her clawed hands.
“You just had to do this the hard way,” Sera sighed as she knelt beside Fiona and touched her forehead, delivering a stream of nano. Sera skirted around the woman’s brain and connected with her hard Link port, infiltrating Fiona’s external memory stores, looking for who she was working with.
The nano Sera delivered also nullified the nerves and artificial lace running down Fiona’s spine, paralyzing the prelate.
“What are you doing?” Fiona hissed.
“Just taking a peek in your memory, I want to know for sure who ‘she’ is, though I have my suspicions.”
Sera found it: the memory of Fiona coming home, the confrontation with the shadowy figure. She didn’t even need to wait for the figure to step out into the light. She knew the voice the moment she heard it.
Elena.
Something slammed against the door. “Open up!”
“It’s not locked,” Sera called out. She didn’t think it was, at least.
Then her hearing picked up on a whispered statement from the other side of the door. “We think she has the empress. If you have a clear shot, take it.”
Shit!
Sera looked at the windows, then at the sword at her side. She took a deep breath, grabbed the blade with both hands, and ran for the window.
The blade shattered the glass, and her armored skin protected her from the shards as she flew out into the night, four kilometers above the planet’s surface.
INCITATION
STELLAR DATE: 08.12.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Intrepid Space Force Academy
REGION: The Palisades, Orbiting Troy, New Canaan System
“Stars, it was great to talk to Moms last night, wasn’t it?” Saanvi asked as the last of the other cadets left the restroom.
Cary pulled the soni-cleaner from her mouth and set it next to the sink. “It was,” she agreed. “Even though it’s only been a week.”
<Did she sound rattled to you?> Faleena asked.
“It was text-only,” Saanvi replied. “It didn’t sound like anything.”
<I know,> Faleena said evenly. <But she used the QuanComms just to say hi. That’s not the sort of thing one does if everything is OK.>
“Well, maybe this was just the first chance she’s had to talk with us since the attack at Khardine. That must have rattled her a bit,” Saanvi said.
“Fal,” Cary said, shaking her head and looking at herself in the mirror. “It’ll take a lot more than a starship blowing a hole through a station a klick from mom to rattle her nerves.”
“It’s true.” Saanvi nodded as she twisted her hair into a bun. “One time, she got attacked by a wild boar while we were out riding. West Wind reared and knocked her off, and she fell onto a pair of rattlers. She used the rattlers to kill the boar.”
“Seriously, Saanvi, that story gets more insane every time you tell it,” Jill said as she entered the restroom.
Cary laughed. “Yeah, I don’t recall mom using the snakes to scare the boar. I thought she tore the tusks off with her bare hands.”
“So I like to embellish a little. Moral of it remains the same: Mom is not easily rattled.”
Cary chuckled. “No pun intended, right?”
<I guess she just misses us,> Faleena said with a wistful tone. <Stars know I miss her. Angela, too.>
“Two years, and we’ll get our commissions and be out there,” Jill said. “It’s going to be weird working under mom, though.”
Cary snorted. “Imagine your poor CO, having the Marine Commandant’s daughter to care for. You’re going to give that poor man or woman a lot of sleepless nights.”
Jill shrugged and pulled her long, blue hair back. “They’ll have to suck it up. I’m not taking some support role just ‘cause of who my mom is.”
“I hear you there,” Cary replied with a resolute nod.
* * * * *
“Remember, you’ve got this in the bag,” Cary said, and gave her friend and encouraging smile.
“OK, Cary, I’ll ask her tomorrow,” JP said with a resolute nod.
“Awesome! See you later, JP,” Cary said as she turned down the corridor that led to her final class of the day. She’d only walked a dozen paces when Faleena spoke up, her mental tone filled with urgency.
<Cary, Nance is missing again.>
<Where?> Cary asked.
<Same place, Savannah Park on Ring Nine.>
Cary made a quick one-eighty in the corridor and turned back toward the main sweep and the maglev platform.
<Should we tell Saanvi?> Faleena asked.
<Let’s take a gander down there first. See if there’s anything to get worked up over.>
<You’re going to miss your next class,> Faleena cautioned.
<This is more important,> Cary replied, though she was biting her lip, worried about what the consequences would be—from the instructors and from her father.
She took a maglev to Ring Nine, willing the train to go faster all the while.
Cary hoped that maybe Nance just liked to sun herself in the Savannah, and did so in a location where monitoring was knocked out.
She imagined that when she arrived, Nance would be taking a nap on a rock, Cary would see her, no harm, no foul, and she’d just be a few minutes late for class.
When the maglev stopped, Cary rushed off and raced down the sweep to the Savannah Park. She wove in and out of the crowds; many of the men and women down here were in their second or third year, and a few looked askance at a cadet rushing past, but no one stopped her or called out.
When she reached the park, she slowed. “Which way, Faleena?”
<I’ll guide you,> her sister replied. <It’s about half a klick in.>
Cary walked at a brisk pace through the low scrub. She didn’t want to look too suspicious if she ran into Nance just casually strolling around.
<Here we are,> Faleena said as Cary reached the Victoria memorial.
“R
eally? There’s no monitoring around the memorial?” Cary asked.
<From what the logs show, it was a bit of a tactical error in a Marine boot exercise. They had put a stasis shield around the pillar, and the newbs that rolled through had lain down a lot of electron beam fire. Toasted a whack of the sweep’s electronics. Their DI hadn’t properly cleared electron beam usage—though he thought he had. Just one of the wrinkles on a new station with new facilities.>
<Really?> Cary asked. <How could he think he had clearance when he didn’t?>
Faleena’s avatar shrugged. <He sent everything in and got preliminary acceptance, which was later denied by Colonel Chester. But the DI didn’t get the denial.>
That in and of itself seemed suspicious to Cary. <How long ago was that?>
<Mmm…huh…that was the live fire exercise I’d mentioned before, but this information says it was three weeks ago. Weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet,> Faleena replied, perplexed. <Huh, look at that. The maintenance requests keep getting routed to the bots for Ring One, and they respond that they don’t do work on Ring Ten, and that just bounces back to one of the message relays and never makes it back to the requestor…. Cary, I’m still pretty new to all this, but this strikes me as highly unusual.>
Cary gave a soft laugh as she walked up to the pillar. “Yeah, just a bit.”
She pulled up the local schematics for the ring and saw that there was a maintenance tunnel access at the base of the pillar.
<Can you pop it?>
<Sure,> Faleena replied. <At some point, Odin is going to notice a preponderance of atypical activities from me, you know.>
<Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen ‘til after we figure out what’s up.>
The access hatch gave a snick and popped open. Cary lifted it and dropped down into the tunnel. She made a guess as to the best way to go and moved down the tunnel until they came to an intersection.
<Left.> Faleena advised.
<What makes you say that?> Cary asked.
<Call it a hunch.>
Cary shook her head. Faleena seemed to be making a lot of decisions by gut instinct lately. From what she understood, that had to do with the evolution of new interconnectivity in the AI’s mind. Her sister’s ability to make deductions and intuitive leaps would only increase over time.
Cary followed the left-hand passage and passed an auxiliary comm relay panel. It was a secondary, hard-wired backup system, not the more elegant waveguides used elsewhere.
The existence of the panel was entirely unremarkable, but what caught her attention were the scuffmarks along its edge. The backup systems were tested regularly, but the station was far too new for this amount of physical access to an auxiliary system such as this.
She felt a similar sentiment from Faleena in her mind, and pulled open the panel to reveal a small bundle of clothing and a flow armor application canister.
<Holy shit!> Cary exclaimed.
<This is a bit on the incriminating side,> Faleena admitted.
<I think we should tell Dad about this. He’ll want to know,> Cary said.
<Absol—Damn! The Link just crapped out.>
Cary tried to access the Link as well, and got no response from any local networks.
<Shit, you’re right. What the?>
“Cary? Dammit, why’d it have to be you?”
Cary spun around. She didn’t see anyone, but she knew that voice. “Nance?” she asked. “Nance? What are you doing? What’s going on with this skulking around shit?”
Nance’s face appeared before her, flow armor pulling back down to her neck. “I’m sorry, Cary, Faleena. It won’t let me let you go.”
“What won’t what?”
<Her nanocloud is attacking us!> Faleena shouted in Cary’s mind. <Run!>
Cary turned and ran as fast as she could, outpacing the nano in the air around them. Behind her, she heard Nance swear, and assumed that the woman was giving chase; though the armor masked her sounds.
<Can we combat her? We have cloud dispersal for our nano, too,> Cary replied.
<What do you think I’m doing?> Faleena retorted. <She’s good, though. Really, really good.>
Cary turned one corner and then another, suddenly realizing that she had no idea where they were. They had accessed the local schematics over the Link, and now that access was gone.
<Get around that corner,> Faleena directed. <I’m going to do a power surge and ionize the air. Maybe I can take out some of her nano.>
Cary complied, and a shower of sparks lit up the corridor behind her.
“Nice try, Cary,” Nance said, her voice echoing down the maintenance tunnel. “But this isn’t something you can fight. You’ll have no choice but to submit to it.”
“What is ‘it’?” Cary shot back, moving down a side passage as she heard Nance’s voice grow louder.
Nance laughed. “Wouldn’t I like to know. It calls itself the Caretaker. It put something inside me…something I can’t resist.”
“Can you try?” Cary asked. “I fully endorse resisting whatever it is that’s controlling you—especially if it wants to do something to us.”
Nance rounded the corner, her body visible now, as the flow armor had taken on a matte-grey appearance from the neck down.
“I’ve been trying for years…sometimes I thought it was gone; it had left me or died out or something, but ever since Cereleon Station in Perseus, it’s been fully alert…up in here with me the whole time.” Nance tapped her head as she finished the statement.
“What does it want?” Cary said instead, walking backward as Nance slowly advanced.
“It’s using me to wipe out the shells Myrrdan left behind. Following a trail to find him.”
“Myrrdan?” Cary asked, shaking her head. “Myrrdan died back in Landfall. Jessica killed him.”
Nance shrugged. “Well, Trist did it, but yeah, it was a joint effort. But by then, Myrrdan had spread himself. That was just a spare shell that they killed; a useful pawn to sacrifice when the game wasn’t going his way. That’s what we all are, you realize—pawns.”
<Is she suffering some sort of breakdown?> Faleena asked.
“Pawns of who?” Cary asked Nance as she continued to move backward down the tunnel.
“Damned if I know,” Nance said. “But they’re powerful. They do whatever they want. And right now, my remnant is telling me that I have to convert you.”
<I don’t like the sounds of that,> Faleena said, a note of panic in her voice.
<You’re telling me.> Cary’s back hit something, and she turned to see that she’d reached the end of the tunnel—there was no way out. “Shit,” she whispered.
“It won’t hurt,” Nance said. “You’ll feel really good afterward—the remnant will help you.”
Cary watched Nance draw closer. Her voice was calm and even, but Nance’s eyes were wide with terror, as though she was just as horrified by this as Cary was.
Nance raised her hands, and filaments of nano—so many that they were visible to the naked eye—streaked out from her hands and hit Cary in the chest.
CONFRONTATION
STELLAR DATE: 08.12.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Maintenance Tower, near Imperial Palace Complex
REGION: Alexandria, Bosporus System, Scipio Empire
Tanis shook her head as all her senses rushed back inside of herself and the nanoprobes went offline.
<The air in here is heavily ionized. We can’t send out new nano, and the Link is toast.>
<At least the armor—> Tanis cut her statement short as the flow armor’s stealth mode failed, unable to cope with the lingering effects of the EM.
Still, there were only so many places her enemy could be, and Tanis steadily approached the far corner of the level—the only area the nano hadn’t reached.
Easing around a tank, she saw Di
ana standing in the middle of a well-lit area between two rows of tanks. The empress’s eyes were wide, and there was a chain wrapped tightly around her neck, which was connected to a crane above. Diana’s arms were cuffed behind her back, and she stood on the balls of her feet to keep enough slack in the chain around her throat.
“She looks good golden, doesn’t she?” a voice called out.
Tanis recognized it at once. “Elena. Show yourself.”
“No, I don’t think so. Like I said, I was hoping for Sera. I’m fairly certain I could take her one on one; she doesn’t have the same drive she once did. But you? No, I’m not so foolish. Going head to head with the great Tanis Richards is not on my bucket list.”
“You’re not on mine, either,” Tanis replied. “But I’ll make a space.”
“Funny, Tanis. You have to ask yourself…What are you willing to do to save Diana? If she dies, it’s a certainty that you and Sera will not fare so well. Sure, you may get off world, but your alliance with Scipio will be over before it even started.”
“I thought we’d become friends,” Tanis said. “I introduced you to my family; you broke bread with us, Elena. Is this the real you? Or was that?”
Elena’s voice came from a new location, and Tanis realized she was speaking through remotes.
“I was a spy, Tanis. That’s just the sort of thing spies do. As for the real me? Who knows. I haven’t been the real me since the day I joined The Hand. I’m pretty sure she’s long dead.”
“You could find her again,” Tanis said. “Jessica did. She spent a long time in deep cover and came through it.”
“Seriously, Tanis? It took Jessica a hundred years and the death of her wife to get through that shit. Who’s got that sort of time?”
“We all will, once this war is over. It’s a pointless war. Trying to control the advance of humanity, like Kirkland wants to do…It won’t work. It’ll create an eternal conflict.”
Elena’s voice shifted to a new location. “I don’t think so. Orion has peace, there’s no corruption. Garza will ensure that spreads to all the stars.”