Mecha Rogue (16 page)

Matt couldn't think of anything to say. After his growing up knowing HuMax were monsters and Corsairs were the enemy, Dr. Arksham's low-key common sense seemed almost surreal.

“As for you and your decision to defect?” Arksham continued. “I'll say only one thing: good for you. It takes a strong person to see the truth. And stronger to act on it.”

Dr. Arksham had Ione get up on the exam table and went through his usual doctorlike things, running tests on a slate with displays too complex for Matt to understand. When he was done, he sighed.

“You have a fever,” he told Ione. “Thirty-eight point five Celsius.”

“That doesn't sound bad,” Matt said.

“HuMax body temperatures are cooler than human norm, so she's running two and a half degrees above basal temperature.”

“And?” Ione asked.

“And that's all, so far. Whatever genomic alteration method they're using, it's very, very subtle. Not virus-based at all. I can't detect it. We're either looking at prions or—” The doctor broke off and shook his head. “Or nothing. Nanomachines are fantasy.”

“So she might just have a fever?” Matt asked.

Dr. Arksham shook his head. Very slowly, as if speaking to a very small child, he told Matt, “HuMax don't get sick.”

Don't get sick? No colds, no flus, no cramps and pox? Matt frowned. He didn't know that about HuMax.

“Then why are there HuMax doctors?” Matt asked.

“When HuMax were made, humanity wasn't so concerned with, well, what they used to call the ‘end-use conditions.' When we get old, all sorts of nasty epigenetic-based abnormalities crop up.”

Helluva price to pay for not getting sick. Matt looked at Ione, but she just returned his gaze steadily.

“So, what does her fever mean?” Matt asked.

“It means something is going on. Something very much not normal. Something profound. I'm sorry.”

“What's going to happen?” Ione asked.

Dr. Arksham looked away. “I wish I knew.”

“How long do I have?”

A quick head shake. “I wish I knew that too.”

* * *

The days slipped away with endless regularity under the unchanging star-speckled black sky. No work to do, no duties to perform. The asteroid never fell under attack. Hector Gonsalves assured him the time would come, but Matt wondered how long he'd pay Matt and Ione to do nothing.

Matt watched retransmitted UUN news and tried to ignore the growing itch to get back in the Demon. He wouldn't let his withdrawal symptoms go as far as they had gone the last time, he told himself. But that didn't mean he had to run back to the thing every day.

Watching Union news was like seeing transmissions from another universe. In the Union's world, all was right and proper. The Unicrats had won big in the elections, on promises to expand the Core Worlds and increase funding to even the most far-flung colonies. The Corsairs were mentioned only as a distant threat, easily countered by the valiant Mecha Corps. Again and again, the Union repeated the same lies: only the Union had Mecha. Mecha were the surgical instrument protecting the Union from the predatory Corsairs. No force could stand against Mecha.

Boy, will they get a surprise if the Cluster follows in Rayder's footsteps!
Matt thought. With mental interface technology and hundreds of those segmented silver Mecha, they'd cause total panic if they ever hit a Union world. In time, they might even build up enough of an advantage to take the Union down. But that wasn't the way to right Union wrongs. Dictatorship under the Cluster would be no better than the current leadership, if they routinely used mind rape in their interrogations.

Beyond that, the media was dead boring, except for the football from Eridani, where the game always seemed to be a point of planetary pride. Ione watched the news and some of the games with him for long hours without comment.

Then, one night when Matt was drifting off to sleep, she said, from the other side of the room, “I don't understand your world.”

“It's not my world anymore,” Matt said.

“Your people.”

“They're not my people,” Matt protested.

But was that true? He still watched their propaganda. His every thought revolved around how he could fix what was wrong with the Union. Why did he care? Good people were right here, all around him. Maybe better people, overall, than a culture that condoned the torture of people like Ione.

“I'm sorry,” he told her.

“For what?”

Matt shook his head. He had nothing to be sorry about. He was the hero here.

Or was he? Would it have been better to let Ione die than be turned into whatever she was going to become?

“About my people,” he told her.

Silence for a while. Only Ione's soft breathing, and the almost-inaudible wheeze of the ventilators.

“My people have done worse. I've heard the stories.”

It was Matt's turn to lie quiet for a time. Who really started the war? he wondered. Humans, when they created and consigned HuMax to brutal lives on frontier worlds? Or HuMax, for using violence to change their fate?

“We're all just people,” Matt whispered. “Why can't we act like it?”

There was the soft rush of covers on the other side of the room. Ione came to look down at him, her face a charcoal sketch in the starlight from their window. Her lips pressed softly against Matt's.

He tensed, a thousand thoughts arcing like lightning in his mind.
She's HuMax! She's sick! She's—she's—

Matt kissed her back, hard.
We're all just people.

After what seemed like an endless and perfect time, Ione pulled back. Her eyes sparkled in the reflected starlight.

“I could go back to my bed,” she breathed.

“You could,” Matt said, and pulled her closer.

* * *

The next day, Matt and Ione shared a late breakfast. Her hand was soft in his as they drifted into Pedro's Mess, the cafeteria-style eatery near their apartment. Matt half expected to see amused glances from Esplandian citizens, but nobody even gave them a second look.

Just people, he thought. Good people.

But something still ate away at him. A funny idea that had come to him while lying awake in the early morning, listening to Ione's soft breathing. A big idea. One that might change everything for everyone.

After breakfast, Matt went to see Captain Gonsalves in his office. It was a cramped little room much like his quarters in
El Dorado
. Etched rock walls, expensive wood furniture, and a holotank showing Esplandian,
El Dorado
, and a handful of ships near the giant asteroid. Hector's brother, Federico, was also there, a slightly older, fatter, and significantly more stressed-looking version of the captain.

“I finally meet the latest stray you brought home,” Federico said to Hector, crushing Matt's hand in a strong grip.

“He's more than a stray.”

Federico laughed. “You could never resist a sad story.”

“He has an important role in the defense of Esplandian and
El Dorado
,” Hector protested.

“About that,” Matt said. Both men turned to him, as if suddenly remembering he was there. “Are you really secure, hiding out here at the edge of the Union?”

“Yes,” Hector said, without hesitation.

“You aren't worried the Union might find you someday?”

“They haven't in two hundred years,” Hector shot back. “Why would that change?”

“Technology. Technology always changes. What happens when they work out a new kind of deep-space sensor and find your hiding place?”

Federico shot a tense glance at Hector, who pretended to ignore him.

Matt pressed on. “If they find you, they aren't going to care about the nuances of good Corsairs and bad Corsairs and independent Corsairs. You're Corsairs, and you're too close to the Union. You know what they'd do.”

Hector gripped the edge of the desk and looked down, not speaking. Federico licked his lips but said nothing.

“And you know how it'd come out. You won't have a chance against a team of Demons, even with me leading the charge.”

“So why don't we let you go now, Former Major, and save some of the public funds?” Hector said, trying for levity.

Federico put a hand on his brother's shoulder. “What would you suggest we do, Mr. Lowell?”

“You can't outfight the Union,” Matt told them. “So you have to change the Union.”

Federico and Hector both looked at each other and bellowed sudden laughter. “Change the Union? Tell me how that'd work.”

Matt grinned. He'd thought a lot about that. They had recognized his value as a Demon pilot, but they hadn't thought about his value as an information resource. All the incredible places he'd been. All the stuff he was forbidden to talk about.

“First, we'd go to Jotunheim,” Matt said.

“The HuMax capital world?” Federico asked. “The location was lost in the Human-HuMax War. Everyone knows that.”

“My father found it,” Matt said. “He worked for the Union Advanced Research Labs. And I've been there.”

Hector laughed. “Kid, you and I have to go fishing someday. You have the best stories—”

But Federico was studying Matt intently, as if weighing the truth of his words. He cut off his brother. “What if it's true?”

“It's a real place,” Matt said, struggling to keep his words even. “There's a huge city there, with technology beyond the Union. Beyond the Cluster.”

Hector and Federico shared a grim look. “Dealing in tech is messy. You'd trade with the Cluster? Last Rising is worse.”

“We'd use it for ourselves. We can show everyone the Union created the HuMax!” Matt's voice rose as he saw his chance slipping away.

Federico chuckled. “Everyone knows that.”

“Citizens of the Union don't!”

“You don't get it,” Hector said, shaking his head sadly. “Meddling in Union business isn't part of our charter.”

“Even when the Union will eventually meddle with yours?”

Silence in the room for a time. Finally Federico said, “Where is this planet?”

“You aren't thinking—” Hector began.

“Just getting info.”

Matt went to the holotank and punched in the coordinates his father had hidden for Matt's eyes alone, all those years ago. The false-color points of light blurred by, finally centering on a binary system of a miniature black hole and a pale white dwarf star. Floating tags called out the gravity well and radiation profile for the system in angry red.

Federico leaned forward and pointed at the tags. “Would
El Dorado
take that pounding?”

Hector shook his head. “Doesn't matter. That's a five-, maybe six-week trip. One way.”

Matt's stomach sank. With their slow-recharge drive, it would take forever to get there.

Federico shook his head. “Out for twelve weeks? We can't do it.”

Hector nodded. “Sorry, Former Major. My brother's right. We have shipments to make, and other responsibilities. And I don't think anything less than one of the Union's armored ships could last long there—” Hector broke off, looking at the entrance to his office with a horrified expression.

Matt turned to look. In the doorway hung Ione. Her face was flushed and blotchy, alternately bright red and pale white. Sweat streamed down her temples, and dank locks of hair crawled down her cheeks. Dark sweat stains gathered at her neck and armpits. Drops of her perspiration had peppered her simple light blue blouse.

“Matt,” she breathed, grabbing the doorway, her eyes rolling back in her head. Her grip slipped off the door frame, and she floated into the room.

Matt shot to Ione and caught her in his arms. Her entire body was sodden, and she was hotter than any human being he'd ever touched. She shivered in his arms and her eyelids fluttered open.

“It's okay,” Matt told her. His voice was strange and high-pitched; it seemed to come from very far away. Maybe because it was drowned by the other voices screaming in his head:
Is this my fault? What's going to happen now? This changes everything!

“Not okay,” Ione rasped.

“I'm sorry!”

“Don't be,” Ione told him. “All just . . . people. Worth it for that.”

Matt couldn't say a word. He could only look into Ione's bloodshot gold-and-violet eyes, sparkling with admiration for him.

“I'll get you to the doctor,” he said, flying out the door, down the hall, down any hall, with Ione pulled tight to him.

“Hope I remember you,” she said softly.

“You will!”

“Hope I don't become . . . a monster.”

“You won't!” Matt yelled. “You won't!” Hoping it was true.

11

HIT

The rough rock tunnels of Esplandian rocketed by as they rushed Ione down to Dr. Arksham. When they reached him, he took one glance at her and barked, “Cooling!”

Arksham's assistant rooted through a jumbled mess in a closet and came up with a large, semitransparent bag. They shoved Ione in, strapped her down, and plugged it into a power supply. The plastic immediately began to chill, sweating droplets of condensed water. Ione moaned and struggled, her eyelids fluttering.

Arksham did a bunch more doctorlike things and frowned at the readings on his slate. Matt wished he'd taken a premed course or two back on Aurora.

“What's happening?” Matt asked.

“What do you think? Your Union friends' genetic rewrite is starting!” Arksham snapped, not looking up from his slate.

“They're not my friends!” Matt yelled.

Arksham's gaze came up to meet Matt's. A momentary flash of anger passed through his HuMax eyes. Then he frowned and shook his head. “Right. Sorry. It's just . . .”

“Just what?” Matt wanted to grab the old superman and shake him.

“Just that we have to keep the fever down. And stay calm. We can manage her while she's in this state.”

“What happens when the rewrite is finished?”

Arksham sighed. “I told you. I don't know. But I can try to keep her from being killed by the process.”

Dr. Arksham's assistant helped bundle Ione onto a table and strap her down. Matt watched helplessly, wondering what he should do. It felt like his fault—but he'd already done everything he could to make it right. Why did he feel so guilty? Because of his association with the Union?

Or something else? Guilt for leading her on, for not breaking contact with her as soon as they'd been rescued?

No. That wasn't it. He didn't know what was in his future. It was as likely as not that Ione was part of it.

But was this someone he actually wanted to spend the rest of his life with? If this was really love, would he even be having thoughts like this?

Or was love actually a spinning jumble of emotions, feeling so deeply so many things, something he couldn't really analyze?

I'm stuck again,
Matt thought.
Like with my father on Prospect. The day he died. Am I going to lose someone I love—again?

“Is there anything I can do?” Matt asked Arksham.

“Unless you picked up a medical degree since I saw you last, no.”

“I could—”

Arksham pushed Matt toward the door. “Go.”

Matt stopped himself at the door frame, looking back at Ione's bundled form. Dr. Arksham saw the direction of his look, and his expression softened a little. “I'll let you know if anything changes.”

Matt nodded and drifted off down the hall. He had no appetite for lunch, so he went up to see Hector again. The office was closed, with a sign that read
BACK TOMORROW
.

Matt thought briefly about hunting down the captain, or his brother, but he realized that was just a dream. No matter how much he talked, they simply didn't have the capability to go trolling for superhuman technology on the edge of explored space.

Matt made himself stay away from Dr. Arksham's office, but he couldn't get his mind off Ione. His dinner sat untouched; his Union news spooled past unwatched. When he finally fell into a fitful sleep, it was interrupted by dreams of Mecha Base, rocking under the continuous impact of debris from the Maelstrom it was hidden inside.

Boom
.

Big hit. A really big rock. There shouldn't be anything that big in a stable orbit. Maybe they'd strayed from their ideal parabola.

BOOM
.

Even bigger. Nothing that big should hit them. Ever. Matt had a sudden vision of Mecha Base shattering under the impact.

Matt's eyes fluttered open. His ears still rang with the last impact. It took him a second to realize where he was. On Esplandian, the Corsair asteroid. Night. His room was dark. Ione was at the doctor's. Strange red light flashed on his internal comms screen.

Strange red light? Matt sat up. In their external window, a large cloud of dust rose over the rough surface of Esplandian. It rolled against a block of brightly lit windows, glowing with internal light. Above the dust was the irregular outline of a new asteroid. This one wasn't any simple Displacement Drive ship, though. Half covered with armor plate, and crisscrossed with scaffolding, it was clearly a warship.

It wasn't a dream.

Esplandian was under attack.

* * *

“Mr. Lowell! Former Major! Wake up, it's time to earn your keep!” Captain Gonsalves's voice screeched through Matt's flimsy apartment door, over the pounding of his fist.

Matt ducked as Captain Gonsalves's security team exploded through the door, shattering the opaque plastic.

Gonsalves looked Matt up and down, noting his interface suit. His expression went instantly from total panic to serious concern, the chameleon feat of a man used to managing people.

“You need to be on a ballistic shuttle to
El Dorado
,” Captain Gonsalves said, pushing Matt out the door.

“Who's attacking us? What do they want? How many are there?” Matt said as the rough stone corridors blurred past. They were heading down to the main docks. “I saw an armored asteroid! Is it Union?”

“Probably Last Rising, don't know, the one you saw ain't the only one, and probably not, in that order,” Gonsalves said. “So far, it looks like they're just making sure we're paying attention. I'm sure we'll hear about the glorious opportunity to join their faction shortly.”

They continued down to the docks, taking a shortcut through a small tunnel bored perpendicular through the main shafts.

Matt's Perfect Record parsed Gonsalves's answer, and he shot back. “Last Rising? Are they like the Cluster? How many ships total?”

“First two questions: probably, and worse. We think there's four ships. All armored.”

“Last Rising is worse than the Cluster?”

Gonsalves nodded. “The Cluster doesn't go in for the big hammer so much. But I hear they like to brag. If they talked about you, Last Rising might have come around to see if our Mecha pilot came with a Mecha.”

“Who the hell is Last Rising?”

“A new faction. Real powerful. They move into a system, put the hammer down, and next thing you know, everyone's singing their praises. Like they're all brainwashed. Bad, creepy fuckers.”

Matt nodded. Corsairs, just like in the Union movies. It was almost a relief. “It won't happen to us.”

Gonsalves laughed. “Love your spirit. But what's one Mecha going to do against four Displacement Drive ships?”

Matt grinned. “You'd be surprised.”

“I'm gonna buy you lobster dinners for a year at Rodrigo's if you can turn this around.”

They plummeted into the main dock. Matt and Gonsalves were packed into a small pod that looked almost exactly like a standard escape vehicle—except for the heavy-duty fusion rocket stretching five meters out its backside. Dense foam sandwich seats smothered Matt as the hatch closed.

The idea was to shoot the pod across to a matching fluid-damped receiving dock on the
El Dorado
, as fast as possible, so the Corsairs wouldn't notice—or, if they did, they wouldn't have a chance to react.

Acceleration slammed Matt back painfully in his seat. His skin stretched and puddled against the sandwich cushions. His vision went instantly gray, before he slid into the complete darkness of blackout.

Next he knew, the hatch on the pod was opening. His ears rang and his vision didn't work quite right. It was like seeing through red haze. Captain Gonsalves's sandwich cushions unfolded, exposing a bruised and unconscious man.

“Captain!” Matt yelled. Gonsalves didn't respond, so Matt pulled him along out into the corridors. The lights were low; the
El Dorado
was still in idle mode.

“Did you get the number of that truck?” Captain Gonsalves said, rousing, as they reached the secure dock.

“What?”

Gonsalves waved a hand. “Old Earth saying.”

“We're here,” Matt said, cycling the lock.

“Here where?” Gonsalves looked blank. The trip had hit the older man a lot harder than Matt. Matt made himself speak slowly and simply.

“We're on
El Dorado
. I'm gonna go out in the Demon. When I use the Zap Gun, the EM noise will probably cover your powering up.”

Captain Gonsalves nodded, still looking confused.

“Power up,” Matt said. “We'll need your firepower.”

“Esplandian has firepower too.”

“Call your brother. Get it online. All of it.” Matt shoved Captain Gonsalves toward the bridge and launched himself toward his Demon.

“Let's turn this around,” Matt said, under his breath.

* * *

I'm home,
Matt thought as the rush of Mesh took him. For long moments, nothing mattered—not the Corsairs, not Ione, not even his uncertain future. He was whole and complete, and the warm sun of Mesh illuminated every part of him.

An
UNKNOWN
comms tag flashed bright red as Captain Gonsalves's voice took Matt out of his reverie.

“New info,” Gonsalves told him. “The Corsairs haven't detected that damn ballistic shuttle we just took, or, if they have, they're ignoring it. But now they're jabbering the standard demands:
join the party, you're going to love being part of us, open your hatches to our boarding party, submit or die.
”

“Sounds like a wonderful offer,” Matt said, still happily buoyant.

“I'll stick to the little rock my grandfathers made,” Gonsalves said, his voice low and bitter.

Matt nodded. He understood that. Gonsalves just wanted to live a simple life, not hurting anyone. Didn't he deserve, well, just to be left alone?

Unbidden, a powerful memory came welling up from his past. Running down the dusty corridors on Prospect as his father grumbled about his work. Work seemed so complicated. Impossible. Matt wanted nothing to do with it, ever. He just wanted to remain free the rest of his life.

But life isn't like that, is it?

Matt switched his Demon to external sensors. New overlays appeared in his POV. They showed the relative position and mass of the
El Dorado
, Esplandian, and four
UNIDENTIFIED MASSES
. But that was all it could show him. Just a wire-frame view, a positional sketch.

“I'm going to take a direct look,” Matt told the captain. Using the Demon, he cycled the locks manually and crept out onto the surface of
El Dorado
.

The lock was positioned facing Esplandian's dock, which meant he wasn't immediately visible from the position of the Last Rising ships. Matt shuffle-walked over the surface until he could poke his visor over the horizon.

Two ships were immediately visible, both partially armored asteroids with massive scaffolding for strength. Neither bore any sigils, flags, or insignias. Presumably there were also two warships on the opposite side of Esplandian.

Total overkill. One would be enough to crush the asteroid if they wanted to. Which meant they wanted to capture it.

A whip-thin line of white light flashed from one of the ships to Esplandian. Vaporized orange-red dust clouds fountained up from the surface. One of the tallest buildings rocked visibly, shedding sheets of concrete and steel. When the beam was gone, a large crater glowed dully next to the building.

We can take this down anytime,
they were saying.
Give up now.

“They're getting insistent,”
Gonsalves said over the comms.

“Are you powered up?”

“Yes!” Gonsalves's voice firmed.

“What about your brother?”

“Probably hiding under a desk,” the captain said. “For now, I have your back. Esplandian'll come online when the firing starts, Federico or no.”

Matt grinned. So the captain was the real captain, and the mayor was the figurehead when the captain was away on missions. Gonsalves was a leader of more than he ever let on.

Two more lines arced out from the Corsair ships, cutting figure eights around a pair of tall structures. The brilliant beam glanced one of the residential buildings, which flickered and went dark. Air jetted from the damaged side in snow-white jets.

Matt's anger went white-hot. Enough screwing around! It was time to teach those Corsairs a lesson.

“Do it!” Matt yelled, leaping off
El Dorado
and pulling his Zap Gun in one smooth motion.

Matt pushed his thrusters to full, targeting the nearest Corsair Displacement Drive ship.

Fire,
he thought.

The Zap Gun exploded with energy, erasing his view of the ship ahead. A wire-frame diagram showed deep hits on the scaffolding and armor. Matt kept shooting through the intense light, targeting the ship's docks.

ANTIMATTER WEAPON TARGETING
, his POV screamed.

Matt reversed thrusters and shot back beneath the bulk of Esplandian. On the other side of the asteroid, two more Displacement Drive ships drifted. Matt sighted down the barrel of the Zap Gun and squeezed the trigger as fast as it could recycle, laughing at the immense power shooting down his arm. Spaceship docks vaporized, scaffolding melted and ran like water, and deep gouges scarred the Displacement Drive ship's armor.

This was it. He was invincible. He'd take them out all by—

ANTIMATTER WEAPON TARGETING. LOCKED,
Matt's Pov screamed, changing instantly from targeting to locked. Matt pushed his thrusters past redline, but it was too late. His world went completely white, and he roared in the electrifying pain.

RIGHT LEG FAULT. REGENERATING: 107 SECONDS.

Matt dove for the cover of Esplandian's dock. As he popped out the other side, he had to smile.
El Dorado
's heavy-matter guns were landing heavy impacts on two of the armored Displacement Drive ships. Armor dimpled and caved in as rock disappeared.