They leaned into one another for a minute, before separating and turning their featureless heads toward each other.
<Thanks,> Kelly said softly. <That was nice…to feel…like a person.>
<We’re not machines,> Rika replied. <Even if—> she paused, forcing her emotions under control. <Even if we never look human—like women—again, we still are in here.>
She reached out and tapped Kelly’s chest above where she knew their augmented hearts beat, beneath layers of armor and tech. Beneath the mech.
Kelly stopped and her body sagged. <I need a moment, go on.>
<No,> Rika replied, and returned to Kelly, wrapping her in an embrace. One vaguely human arm, and one gun mount with a GNR-41B were wrapped around her friend, her sister. They stood like that for several minutes, before they heard a footfall nearby.
Both women snapped out of their reverie and realized that Silva stood a meter from them.
<OK, girls. I could use a good hug right now too, but we have to move. Daylight’s wasting, and I want to hit the HQ and be on our way before nightfall.>
<Sorry,> Rika said. <Sorry I’m not strong enough.>
<Shit, Rika,> Kelly laughed, the sound warbling slightly in their minds. <You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever seen. You can bitch at me all you want, I won’t forget you leaping onto that K1R and saving my life.>
<Oh, yeah?> Silva asked as she beckoned the other two to follow her. <I didn’t hear about that. Sounds like a good story.>
They took off at a quick trot again as the sun began to set on the western horizon, and Kelly told a rather embellished story of how Rika all but tore the K1R limb from limb to save her.
Eleven minutes later, they approached the coulee where the battalion HQ once lay. They had a pretty good idea of what they were going to see long before they reached it. Their rad-counters had been registering increasing levels for some time, and before they got within five klicks of the camp, they passed into an area where the tall grass had been burned away completely.
The coulee was a shallow depression in the prairie, only forty meters deep in the center, with a small stream winding its way through—or what had once been a small stream. Now it was a slow flow of sludge and ash.
The broken skeletons of trees and transport vehicles were scattered through the coulee with no small number of corpses lying among them.
<OK, split up,> Silva said. <Rika, take the west end of the camp; Kelly, you take the east. I’ll work through the center.>
The women wordlessly split off, and Rika jogged through the ashen terrain to the edge of the coulee above the eastern end of the camp. The slope’s incline was gentle here, and she worked her way down, ignoring the bodies she passed.
Most looked like they had been fleeing the camp—she supposed the battalion HQ probably had some advanced warning before they were taken out. Rika wondered how the Niets had fired a tacnuke at the HQ that the air-defense systems didn’t detect and shoot down. Maybe it was a high-velocity artillery round, or maybe it was a high altitude drop, or a captured K1R turned rogue…she would probably never know, but it didn’t stop her from wondering.
The eastern end of the camp was the motor pool, and she passed a long row of troop transports, several light tanks, and an H82 mech—one that allowed for a regular human pilot. She eyed it, wondering if her SMI-2 body could fit within the massive mech’s cocoon. The extra protection would be nice, but it would also make for a dangerously large target out on the prairie.
Stealth was team Hammerfall’s most powerful weapon—one that she wasn’t going to trade for all the 50mm cannons, tacnukes, and ablative armor in the world.
Just beyond the H82, she spotted a spare cannon for a K1R and a Gatling Gun mount for a J22 model laying on the ground near a toppled stack of crates.
<I found the armory,> Silva called over the link. <Fully stocked. Looks like we’ll get our ordinance up to snuff again.>
<I found an H82 and some K1R supplies. Going to hunt around and see if there’s anything for us here,> Rika added.
<There isn’t shit out this way,> Kelly said. <I’m coming in to you, Silva.>
<Kay,> Silva replied absently.
Rika looked over the crates, trying to find one that was the right size for SMI-2 parts. Normally she would have scanned the RFIDs, but the nuke had hosed those, and burned off the shipping plas labels as well. She pulled down a few crates that were far too heavy, digging into the stack, then found one that looked right.
She unlatched it and prised the lid off. Bingo!
Inside the case lay a right arm for an SMI-2 mech, plus the toolkit to pull off the old arm and attach the new one. She rifled through several more cases until she finally came upon a fresh set of SMI-2 armor plating.
<Rika’s parts store, we deliver,> she called out to Kelly and Silva. <I just need to find a sled, and I’ll be right over.>
She cast about, knowing that the squishies would need a hover sled to move this equipment. She rounded the crates and saw a smaller case lying on its side. The words “Advanced Field Biological Repair Kit M7.1 – Limbs” were stamped into its metal shell.
Rika wasn’t familiar with any Mark 7 repair kits. The one she had used to re-enforce her missing thigh muscle—which still throbbed—was a Mark 5 field kit.
She popped the case open and saw two hollow cylinders. One looked about the right size to fit around her thigh, and the other would encompass an arm. A single card sat in the case and she picked it up. The instructions were simple: they directed the user to clear out any biofoam and other repair tech from the wound, and then slide the cylinder over the limb.
Rika looked down at her leg and frowned. This was probably going to hurt. A lot.
Using her field knife, Rika cut out the biofoam until she got to the re-enforcement rod. She took a deep breath and gave it a twist, unlocking it from its mounts, and carefully pulled it out, whimpering in her mind as the waves of pain tore through her leg and up her body.
She quickly scooped the rest of the biofoam out while she had the nerve. When the crater in her thigh was reasonably clear, she opened the cylinder up into its two halves and then closed it around her thigh.
The pain was instant and excruciating. The only other time Rika had felt anything like it was when her limbs were being sawed off—though somehow this felt even worse. She fought it for a moment, terrified it was simply cutting off the limb, then blessed darkness rolled over her and she knew no more.
* * * * *
<Rika! Rika!>
Something was shaking her, and Rika fought against consciousness as it returned. Couldn’t she just sleep in a bit longer?
<Rika! Wake up!>
Rika’s vision snapped back on as her augmentations forced her to full awareness. Her right thigh felt like it was on fire, and Rika looked down to see the metal cylinder still wrapped around it. As she tried to focus on what was happening, an indicator on the cylinder flashed green, and then it split into two pieces and fell off.
<Well, shit!> the voice said, and Rika looked up to see both Silva and Kelly standing over her.
<Your leg!> Kelly gestured down at Rika’s thigh. <It’s healed.>
Rika looked down, and saw that Kelly was right. Where there had been a gaping wound exposing muscle and bone, there was now just the smooth matte grey ‘skin’ all the SMI-2 sported under their armor.
<Stars…> she muttered, and ran her hand over her what passed for her flesh. She moved her leg and could feel the muscles beneath bunching and stretching just as they should.
<You can’t flash clone muscle that fast,> Silva said. <It must have put in some sort of artificial stuff.>
<Great,> Rika grunted as she stood. <Just another part of me that’s a machine.>
<You’re the one that decided to clamp the strange metal cylinder around her leg,> Kelly said with a chuckle. <It’s good, though. You won’t be limping along in the back anymore.>
<Funny girl,> Rika
said as she picked the smaller cylinder out of the case. <Your turn.>
<Oh, hell no. I saw how your vitals went nuts when that thing did whatever it does. You’re not putting it on me. Look, my arm’s fine; just a crack in the armor and a tear in the skin,> Kelly said as she stepped back and waved her ruined arm in protest.
<If there’s hardly any damage, then it won’t hurt that much,> Silva said. <We need to be at full operation efficiency if we’re gonna make it to Denmar.>
<Fiiiine, get it over with, then,> Kelly said and held her arm out.
<First let’s get this twisted mess off you,> Rika said, and grabbed a tool from the crate containing the new arm. She inserted it into a slot near where Kelly’s artificial limb met the mounting socket set into her arm, and gave a solid twist. The tool caught for a second, and then the anchor bolts popped out of Kelly’s arm. Rika pulled them out and twisted the cybernetic arm off. She then unlatched Kelly’s armor around the shoulder and pulled the plates off, exposing her grey skin underneath.
<Wow, you’re pretty good at that,> Kelly commented.
<Hold out your arm,> Rika responded.
Kelly complied, and Rika fitted the cylinder around her stump of a limb, watching as it clamped down and began to hum.
<Motherfucker! Sweet stars, fuck that aaghh fuck!>
<Tell us how you really feel,> Silva chucked.
<Damn, I never knew you were a sadist,> Kelly grunted over the Link.
Rika was impressed that Kelly didn’t pass out; though the repairs the kit performed on her were far less extensive. Five minutes later, the cylinder came free and Kelly held up her arm, which looked as good as new—well, new for a mech.
Silva attached the new arm to Kelly’s socket, and they quickly used pieces from the full armor set that Rika had found for repairs. Ten minutes later, they were ready to get on the move—rearmed, restocked, and eager to get out of the coulee, and away from the corpses filling it.
<We should stop at the satcomm tower,> Rika said, pointing at the stubby tower near the center of the camp.
<It’s half melted now,> Silva said. <We won’t be able to raise anyone on it.>
<Yeah,> Rika nodded. <But what if it has a stored message, or some sort of intel about where we can get a ride off this rock?>
<Smart girl,> Silva nodded and led the trio to the tower.
The base of the tower was hardened and contained a communications computer, which should have survived the blast. Silva opened the cover and Rika and Kelly shared a glance as the soft glow came from its holoscreen.
<Lets see what’s in here,> Silva said as she entered a manual code and pulled up the latest orders.
<Supply…deployments…oh…oh shit…>
<What is it?> Kelly demanded.
<There was some sort of encryption compromise. They switched to a new set of channels and encryption keys—ones we don’t have,> Silva said with more than a little worry in her mental tone.
<So they were getting your messages, but ignoring them because you were using compromised encryption?> Kelly asked.
<I guess,> Silva replied. <Wait, there’s one final burst in here…Oh fuck! Oh fuck!>
<Spill it!> Rika said, more than a little worried about what else could upset Silva so much.
Silva looked up at the other two members of Hammerfall. <They called for planetary evac…six hours ago.>
<What’s our window?> Rika asked.
<Last dustoff around here is in Denmar, in a little over three hours,> Silva replied as she stood.
<Then what are we waiting for?> Kelly asked.
Silva nodded and kicked the comm unit, smashing the computer inside. <Hammerfall, let’s roll.>
EVAC
STELLAR DATE: 12.02.8941 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: City of Denmar, Naera
REGION: Parson System, Genevian Federation
The three women crouched behind the ruins of a factory on the edges of the city of Denmar. Parson’s light was just beginning to fill the eastern sky as they checked their weapons and loadouts for the final push.
They had already fought their way through several platoons of Nietzschean soldiers in their mad dash to reach Denmar on time. However, an entire army of the enemy now lay between them and the evac point.
Rika peered around the edge of the building at the maelstrom of weapons fire that arched between the advancing Nietzscheans and the retreating Genevians.
<Easy,> Rika said, her mental tone sounding as tired as she felt. <Looks like just a hundred-thousand Niets between us and our ships. No biggie.>
As she finished speaking, a blinding flash of light lit up the buildings around them, far brighter than Parson’s orb shone at high noon, before disappearing and leaving everything looking darker than it had a minute before.
<Starfire?> Kelly asked.
Rika checked her rad-counter. It hadn’t spiked, so the blast hadn’t been an electron or proton beam. An orbital plasma shot was the most likely answer. She peered around the corner again, and saw a stretch of molten ground three hundred yards away.
<Yup, looks like it. Ours too.>
<Nice of fleet to help out for once,> Silva added. <Let’s not waste their little gift. Get a move on!>
Rika wished they still had drones, but their eyes in the sky had been lost when they first engaged the Niets at the edge of Denmar an hour ago. Now they had nothing but their vision to rely on—though with IR and UV overlays, it was still better than what any stock human came equipped with.
<Contact!> Kelly called out, and her GNR-41B sniper rifle snicked quietly as it let loose a trio of projectile rounds.
Rika spotted the enemy: a solidary Nietzschean in medium combat armor. The rounds from Kelly’s GNR slammed his chest plate; the first two ricocheting off, before the third finally cracked the armor and turned his insides to mush.
<Nice shot,> Rika commented.
<There’s more ahead,> Silva said, and a squad of Nietzschean soldiers lit up on their HUDs, easing along the wall of a half-destroyed building. Lucky for the three women, the enemy was moving in the opposite direction, assuming that nothing had survived the starfire to their rear.
<Engage or avoid?> Kelly asked.
<Let’s pass these ones by,> Silva said. <We only have forty minutes to make it clear across Denmar, and we can’t waste time duking it out with every Nit we see.>
<I don’t like the idea of an enemy at my back,> Kelly groused.
<There’s a whole Nit army here,> Rika replied. <If we make too much noise, the enemy’s gonna be standing on your back.>
<Fine,> Kelly sighed as they slipped through the diminishing shadows, moving toward the river.
When they finally reached it, Rika was amazed at how large the river had grown. It was the same water they had slipped into back in the hill country, but now it stretched over a kilometer across. Her HUD gave her spectral analysis, and she saw that the water was much more saline than when they had languidly floated in its currents.
<High tide,> she commented to the team.
<Looks like it. Good for us. Puts the water right up to the embankment ahead,> Silva replied.
Kelly shook her head. <Too bad there are a thousand Niets between us and it.>
<Think they’ll just let us through if we ask nicely?> Rika asked.
From what they could tell, the far side of the river was still held by Genevians—or at least the amount of weapons fire arching over the water suggested it was. The trio was so close to safety, yet even on their best day—a day when they weren’t exhausted and running low on ammunition—they couldn’t best a thousand Niets.
<What about drains?> Rika asked. <They must have storm drains that
go into the river.>
<Good thinking,> Silva said, and ducked back behind a low stone wall toward the closest street. They found several storm drains, each too small, until Kelly called out from the corner of a wide intersection where she stood by a drain slot in the curb.
<Here! We can crack open a party onto this thing to widen the opening up. It looks big enough down below,> she said as Rika and Silva approached.
<Do it,> Silva said.
Kelly twisted a party grenade apart and spilled the thermite packets onto the ground. Then she spread them out across the area she wanted to melt. Once they were arranged to her satisfaction, Kelly manually activated the trigger inside the grenade’s shell and the thermite packets flared to life.
“Hey!” a voice called out from down the street. “What are you doing there?”
<Shit, take cover,> Silva ordered and Rika dove behind a car, while Kelly and Silva crouched behind one of the buildings. Neither the car nor the building offered much cover, but they couldn’t go far from the hole they were making if they wanted to get down it before the enemy was on them.
Rika slid her GNR under the car, using its sights to see who had called out. What she spotted was a half-platoon of Niets, all in heavy armor, advancing down the middle of the street. Rika relayed the finding to her team, and then prepared to fire. Her nerves were shot—too much adrenaline and too many bio-stims from her augmentations. She took a deep breath, lined up her weapon, and fired seven bursts in rapid succession.
Four hit, and three tore the feet right off the enemy they struck. The enemy platoon scattered to the edges of the road. With any luck, their newfound caution would buy team Hammerfall enough time for the thermite to do its job.
<Another ten seconds,> Kelly estimated as Silva fired a salvo and then threw a party down the street.
The Niets returned fire, and their armor piercing rounds tore through the car Rika was using for cover. She thanked the stars that penetrating the vehicle slowed the projectiles enough that they bounced off her armor, but at the rate the enemy was firing, there wouldn’t be enough of the car left to slow their shots down for long.