StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Well, I got a new chapter done. It's sort of a come-down piece after the high intensity action of previous chapters, but the final verdict, dear readers, is yours.

The Logical World

Chapter Eight

A New World Has Come

Markus sat next to the robot, his head aching. He’d been there for hours, it seemed. Walking around wasn’t good for him, it seemed. Slipspace wasn’t good for him either, but that was obvious.

His current state may have had something to do with the chase they had lived through. Talking to Wineham and Magnus had been a mistake. The latter had told him about the multi-megatons that had been hurled around by the lighter orbitals. The former had told him how much the shields could take. Markus shivered.

The headache cleared up and the knot in his gut untied itself. It was sudden, unexpected and good. Elisa walked into the hold and Markus and the robot looked up at her.

“We’ve left the Slipstream.” She said with a smile, sitting on one of the robot’s legs.

“It’s about time.” He replied bitterly “I’ve never agreed with Slipspace travel.”

“It’s been less than an hour, Markus.” The redhead said back smiling at Markus’ scowl. “So, do you have a name for this thing?” she asked, patting what passed as the robot’s thigh.

“Err,” Markus thought about it for a moment, then thought about it for another, longer moment “No, actually. I’ve never seen the point.” Markus wondered for a moment if Elisa was one of those people who gave pet names to cars (although Markus doubted she had a car). Elisa’s forehead wiggled with lines like television interference.

“Well, why don’t you?” she suggested while asking a question at the same time.

Markus scratched his chin “Uh, I don’t know. What would you call him?”

“Tobor?”

The robot was not impressed with the suggestion, and made its feeling felt in the way that only a silent robot can. Markus shrugged “Robbie?” he asked. Again, the robot wasn’t impressed at all.

*

The Thunderchild returned to Einsteinian Reality hundreds of thousands of kilometres out from the planet, its way impeded by high powered Jammerwalls and fields, their complex mechanisms able to haul a ship out of Slipspace. It wasn’t the only ship in space. There were hundreds of thousands of ship travelling in and out of the world’s atmosphere.

The guncutter certainly wasn’t the largest or heaviest armed ship travelling to the planet. Barely ten thousand kilometres off to the Thunderchild’s starboard side a four hundred metre long, privately owned frigate was cruising along at a leisurely pace.

It didn’t take long for the guncutter to reach a holding position well above the vast planetary shield system. In the middle distance floated massive cannon, perhaps forty kilometres long. It was one of dozens hanging in fairly even geosynchronous orbits. Electrograviometric cannons, supplemented by hundreds of smaller orbitals, much like the light ship defences like those at Legatos, but many were kilometres long, anti-capital.

But not all of the orbitals were military. Many were private penthouses; others were torus colonies containing pretty suburban homes. Looking out to port, slowly making its way round the great curve of the planet, you would see a massive artificial planetoid, hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres in diameter.

Amoroso, Worldcity. Home to more than two hundred trillion sentients and capital of an entire sub-sector.

*

“Well, I don’t know,” Elisa said exasperatedly, after having spent more than a minute trading names with the robot, who was pacing around the hold, head bowed. Markus had given up early on when he discovered that he had very few suitable robot names. “Lord Ginrai?”

The robot stopped pacing and looked over at her. It nodded for a moment. Markus scowled at Elisa and got to his feet.

“You’ll give him delusions of grandeur.” He said grimly.

“Just thought you all should know, we’re in orbit,” said Rick Harst over the intercom “We’ll be in the waiting line for, oh, three or four hours, most probably.”

“It’s an Alpha class.” Elisa said and she sighed “I think he’s being optimistic.” She got to her feet and dusted her hands against her knees. “Want to go up to the cockpit?” she asked.

“Not really.” Markus replied, looking around the mostly empty and very, very boring hold.

“Alright then.” Elisa said, walking out. Markus followed.

The bridge itself was relatively quiet when Markus and Elisa stepped on to it. They were angled in a way so that they could see the hundreds of satellites and the mixed up clouds. The barest sliver of the sun could be seen out of the veiwport. Dozens of vessels hung around them.

“Where are we?” Elisa asked.

“Amoroso. One city; two hundred trillion people.” Max replied.

“Amoroso?” Markus asked.

“Traffic control says the way is busy. Partitioned shields, limited docking and all that.” Jonas grumbled. He was referring to the time honoured tradition of making people wait. In this case, it was done for security. As a sub-sector capital, terrorist attacks were not uncommon and security was tight as a result.

“Did you say Amoroso?” Markus asked again, louder this time.

Max spun around in his chair, and others also turned to face him “Yeah, I did. Why?” Soon everyone was facing him.

“It’s just, er, well, you could always ask my mother for a place to land.”

There was a moment of silence as they tried to run what he had just said through their heads. It wasn’t something one just threw out unsubstantiated. It was an expensive undertaking, to say the least. To think that Markus’ mother could own a landing platform large enough for a seventy meter long guncutter was pushing it a little too far.

“Your, mother?” Jonas asked, his eyebrows wiggling.

“Yeah, Luciana Delgado.” Markus replied.

There was a collective shocked silence. Steve spoke up “Say that again.”

*

The planet of Amoroso is home to one of the omnipresent Navigator Families, House Bisingen. Naturally, due to their unusual skills, that is pattern recognition within slipspace allowing for navigation, and due to the fact that travel by Celsius Drive is considered the best method of faster than light travel, the von Bisingens (and every other Navigator Family, for that matter) are ridiculously, impossibly rich.

Now, the majority of Navigators are quite adept at spending money, and spend it they do, but they are generally not business people. They do not negotiate deals; they do not run their great and massive Tradefleets. That job is left to normal humans, from those part bodyguard part negotiator part servant Butlers to the heads of the great Houses that make the Navigators their money, to everything in between.

The current chief executive officer of House Bisingen is Luciana Delgado, Markus’ mother. She makes their profitable deals, directs their Tradefleets, produces plans in times of Tradewar, orders executions and assassinations on the enemies of the von Bisingens, buys contracts with the Scientific Union and the Imperial Navy, among other tasks all devoted to making a lot of money for a bunch of greedy, narcissistic nobles.

The job has been Mrs Delgado’s for more than forty years, and it will be hers for decades, if not centuries, to come. She is handsomely rewarded by her bosses, and if the von Bisingen Family ever become Prime Novators for the Empire, that is, the most important and powerful Navigator Family in the whole damn universe, she will become the Eighth Lord, one of the rulers of the galaxy, above the petty Nobility and the violent Admiralty.

Of course, she is not the true head of the company (despite what the business journals of the galaxy have to say on matter), it is not hers, though the huge amount of money that is heaped upon her, and the honoured position for the Delgados within the Family should more than make up for it.

In the end their shocked silence would be the end result of this glaring fact: Luciana Delgado was perhaps one of the richest people in the galaxy, and as an extension, so was Markus.

*

Markus tapped his foot nervously as he waited for his mother to pick up the phone. The majority of the bridge and in fact the majority of Jonas’ whole damn rebellion were crowded around him as he sat at the comms station, making a short distance call.

There was the normal noise one hears when the phone on the other end of the line answers and a strong female voice came through loud and clear “Hello?”

“Hi Mum.” Markus greeted, but he didn’t get any farther than that.

“Markus Delgado,” She returned scathingly. Markus tried to come up with a quick, placating reply before she could escape into a rant. He searched through the literary knowledge he possessed, searching for an appropriate phrase, but he dallied to long. “It’s about time you called me. I barely hear from you know-a-days. And you never return my calls, or my letters, or my e-mails. It’s like my youngest son doesn’t exist any more. Or perhaps he doesn’t acknowledge the existence of his own flesh and blood kin.”

Markus tugged at the collar of his new shirt embarrassedly. It was this very tirade, which he had heard multiple times before, which stopped himself from calling more often. Or at all. Though it went for a full two minutes, Markus decided to stop it now. Before his mother could go on, he broke in as loud as he could.

“Look, Mum, Mum, listen to me. I’m calling from orbit.”

There was a silence where one would assume blinking was taking place. “You’re in orbit? Over Amoroso?”

“Yes, I am.” He confirmed “And I was wondering, do you think you could get us clearance to land?”

“You aren’t travelling with that Claire girl again, are you?” this query was harder than the last, though he passed off the spitting of the name ‘Claire’ as being nothing more than a little bit of interference from the planetary shield, or perhaps the reactor of a close by EGM cannon.

“Er, no, I’m not.” Markus replied quietly. His mother brightened considerably, and it showed when she spoke next.

“Oh, excellent. I’ll get right on it. See you soon Marky.”

Markus frowned as his mother hung up, mostly at her barely suppressed glee at his missing girlfriend. Her reaction would be identical even if she knew that Claire was dead, and that was really made him frown.

“Well done Markus!” Jonas said expansively, very expansively in fact, as though this was a great, great service to the causes of the rebellion. Markus, perhaps unfairly, thought that Jonas might be grasping for any sort of victory over the Empire, even if it was only Imperial Traffic Control. The throng behind him thinned out, most leaving the cramped bridge.

“She doesn’t sound very nice.” Elisa said truthfully, sitting down on Markus’ left leg after twisting the comfortable chair around to face the cockpit windows. “Sort of, inconsiderate.” Markus missed the hypocrisy.

“It’s a long story.” Markus explained, resting his elbow against the comm panel. They hung in orbit for a few minutes longer, and then broke formation with the rest of the waiting starships, dropping much like a stone, but with considerably more precision and speed. They passed the first of the great shields before slicing into the upper atmosphere of the planet.

They were heading north east, over and past the great starscrapers as lines of personal craft thousands strong streamed through the miles deep streets and through the sky. Markus could see far off to the left a great golden tower – the von Bisingen Lighthouse, both home and a high powered beacon that could transmit an actual location to Sub-meson brains aboard ships travelling through Slipspace. Day started to pass into night as they drew nearer to Markus’ home.

“There it is.” He pointed out uselessly, verbally gesturing towards a huge dark shape silhouetted against the purpling sky. It sprawled like an artificial Himalayan mountain range, like thousands of starscrapers melded into one.

“That,” Max stated, his voice making a few faint squeaks as he twisted his chair around “is your house.” It wasn’t a question, but Markus nodded anyway.

It was over the top, to say the least. It reached dozens upon dozens of kilometres into the sky, and stretched out for hundreds more. It wasn’t just Markus’ childhood home, which only took up a tiny fraction of the immense building; it was the headquarters of House Bisingen, where everyday millions, if not billions, of office workers toiled away at endless calculations.

The Thunderchild climbed gracefully, levelling out before a great metal platform twice the ship’s length and three times her width extending out from the tallest of the towers. She slipped slowly through the glittering shield that surrounded it, lowered her undercarriage and settled down on hydraulic haunches. After a few minutes, the ramp lowered from the belly of the Thunderchild, and Markus and his robot walked out, Markus being carefully prodded.

He was immediately hit by the chill. It wasn’t exceptionally cold, but it was cool, comfortable. He looked out across the endless cityscape off both ends of the landing platform. It was an urban jungle like nothing else, but to Markus it was also home. Even though he hadn’t stepped foot off of Legatos in years, even though he had lived there since his early twenties, it had never really been his planet. You can take the boy/girl/androgyne out of the Worldcity, they say, but you can’t take the Worldcity out of the boy/girl/androgyne.

“That’s quite an impressive ship you have there, Markus.” Markus turned towards the sound of the voice. The speaker was a tall woman, whose features might have been called pretty once upon a time, in a sharp kind of way. Her hair was dark and drawn into a tight bun at the back of her head. Her clothes probably cost more than the Thunderchild. They looked at each other for quite some time. Luciana Delgado looking elegant and powerful, her son tired and worse for wear. There was still a dull ache in his shoulder where he had been shot, even though it had been rapidly-repaired by Wineham only a few hours previously.

“It’s not mine.” Markus responded “it belongs to a . . .” he paused, searching his mind for something suitable to describe the terrorists he had only recently joined “to an acquaintance. There’s actually quite a few of us.”

Mrs Delgado shrugged as though it was of no consequence how many there were aboard “I can probably provide suitable arrangements for your . . . acquaintances to stay here.” Markus rolled his eyes metaphorically. ‘Probably provide’? There were thousands of bedrooms at her disposal to dispense as she would. “But why have I not yet met them?”

“They didn’t want to intrude.” This was more or less true. They had been going on about how there were so many of them, and how it was an invasion of privacy, but also one of security concerns. Markus had tried to explain that the area that his family lived in was greater than that possessed by a bloc in Legata, and that they used up a very small percentage of that. They wouldn’t hear it off course, and had sent him out there to deal with his mother alone. Well, with the robot.

“That’s ridiculous.” Retorted Mrs Delgado, “Didn’t they see the size of the building? Or are they just plain stupid?”

Probably just stupid, Markus thought to himself viciously. He had no doubt that they had heard his mother’s words.

“Tell them that they are guests of the Delgado household. They don’t have really that much choice, unless they want to try and find another landing platform.” She sniffed back some laughter and then turned on one heel and walked back towards the house. Markus looked up at Ginrai, who shrugged.

*

The entire unnamed group of freedom fighters clustered before Luciana Delgado. In the three minutes since she had walked away from Markus, she had transformed from severely dressed business woman to gracious host. Her dress probably cost more than a largish asteroid.

“Welcome,” she intoned in a congenial sort of way “to my humble abode.”

Humble really wasn’t the word you would use in this sort of situation, what with famous art spaced neatly through the foyer. Everything from tapestries woven from nothing but precious metals through to larger than life statues carved from nothing but slabs of diamond and ruby and everything in-between. Despite the obvious and rather successful shock-and-awe tactics, Jonas took the greeting in his stride, stepping forward and seizing Mrs Delgado’s hand.

It’s moments like these that one would call pretty damn strange. It is not often that someone invites a large group of people flying about in a high powered combat ship to stay in there home. It disturbed Jonas to no end, and even as he kissed Mrs Delgado’s hand he was trying to work out why she was doing it. He guessed that it had a lot to do with some sort of family thing; he got a strong impression that Markus had left Amoroso with a sour taste in his mouth.

Jonas picked his words carefully, as a wrong word to such a woman could get him and his rebellion into serious trouble “Lady Delgado, I can’t believe that you’re opening your home to us. I didn’t expect such hospitality from anyone in this day and age.”

“Chivalry is not quite dead, Mr . . .” Luciana paused briefly allowing Jonas to leap in with his name. She continued “Mr Jonas. As it is, you have transported my son to me,” she glanced towards Markus for a moment “And as such I owe you a favour. There is certainly enough space.” She clicked her fingers and a neatly dressed woman came to her side.

“Jerry, take them to Markus’ old penthouse. Make sure their needs are attended to.”

“Yes mistress.” Jerry replied obediently, beckoned for the terrorists to follow and lead them away, their gracious host stepping aside to let the pass. As Markus walked by however, her hands snapped out and grabbed his arm. Her lips came close to his ear and she hissed in a dangerous, motherly tone “I’ll speak to you later, young man.”

*

“JMB-046 type mechanoids!” Wineham exclaimed as Jerry and five of her identical siblings served tea, coffee and other assorted beverages “They’re considerably up-market.”

Steve nodded appreciably “That’s all very nice, but have you made sure they can’t transmit outside of this room?”

“Yes yes Bill, I have,” Wineham said distractedly “Though I must say, it wasn’t exactly easy, considering that I’m no expert in robotics, and Max was dealing with a Type 9 barrier, but I was able to-”

Rick Harst cut him off with a wave of the biscuit in his hand, a Swiss dark chocolate coated wheat number, before submerging it into his drink “Can we please get to the matter at hand. Like what the hell we should be doing about Markus. He’s an element that has to be dealt with.”

“An element that has to be dealt with? What’s that supposed to mean?” Elisa piped up, taking her chin off of her hand and actively ignoring the mecha at her elbow.

“I’m saying that we,” there was a subtle inflection on the word we, which served to remind Elisa that it was her who had brought an outsider in, not an executive decision “allowed someone in far too easily. We didn’t check his background for one, nor any ties to the ICE.” He flashed that award winning smile at her, but not in its usual charming sort of way.

“And what does that matter?”

Harri rolled her eyes “For God’s sake Elisa he’s the son of a potential Ice Lord. That’s far too close to the Administration for my liking, and it should be too close for yours.”

“He helped blow up an Imperial facility Breaker damn it!” Elisa snapped, getting to her feet violently enough to knock the Jerry walking into the ground four feet behind her “Why don’t you exercise the lump of matter between your ears and think that if he can do that, why should he be loyal to the Administration?!”

The pilot rubbed the bridge of her nose while simultaneously gritting her teeth “You can’t write off the facts,” her voice became high and loud enough to obscure Elisa’s protests “just because you have a thing for-”

“Harriet, Elisa, that’s enough.” Vermont Callum spoke up, cutting them both off with disparate ease. They stared at him for a moment then Elisa sat back down. “No matter the breach in protocol, we have used him before. The question is: can we use him again?”

“I concur.” Jonas said, raising his nose from the tips of his steepled fingers and gazing around at the faces of his group “Maggie, Hamish, what’s your assessment of him as a combat element?”

The two men glanced at each other and Magnus spoke first “He isn’t exactly the most spectacular person in the galaxy. He could be taught how to shoot well, and I reckon he’d be quite good at it. However, he will do what needs to be done, like back on Legatos.” As he finished, Hamish continued, rubbing his chin:

“Looking him over though, I realise, he looks about the right size for that Automuscle suit that we stole a while back. If it fits him, he’d certainly be more useful to us.” There were murmurs of both approval and disappointment “We’d then have another person on the ground with super strength, speed and reflexes, as well as a personal shield. And then he has that Mechanoid.”

“There’s also the fact that he most probably has some connections to the Navigators,” Steve William added, no doubt referring to the relative closeness of the CEO and his or her family to that of the Navigators they worked for “I certainly wouldn’t mind having that Celsius Drive working. It’s faster than Moledrive by almost eight hundred lightyears an hour, plus has all that nifty real-time manoeuvrability and practical immunity to normal gravity well projectors. Even Hyperspace travel can be halted with a few dozen solar masses.”

“That’s a dangerous thing to attempt though Bill,” Harri sighed “Getting close to a Navigator Family, who are undoubtedly close to the RIN. Slipspace travel may be able to cross the galaxy in twenty four hours, though if the Navy gets an inkling of it, we will be well and truly fornicated. I’d stick with the inconvenience of a twenty eight and a half hour journey from one side of the galaxy to the other, thankyou very much.”

Jonas frowned and nodded at the same time “So he could be useful. But wether he will be loyal is another question.” He tapped the table with the fingers of his left hand, taking a sip of his drink with the other “I have no distrust of him personally,”

“And therein lays your problem.” Rick muttered indolently.

Jonas either didn’t hear him, or chose to ignore the comment “Elisa, it would probably be best if you make sure that we can trust him.” She nodded in acceptance “Now, let’s move on.”

*

Markus lounged back into the circular sofa that circled almost the whole way around his coffee table. Ginrai was examining the humanoid mecha in the silly French maids uniform, a flex stretching from one finger into one of her neck-ports. There was music flowing from the various speakers in the walls of his living room. Sinatra’s voice, Markus decided, sounded good even after years of absence. Looking out the twenty foot tall window before him he was dazzled by the lights of the stars, the city and the giant artificial worlds hanging in orbit.

Sitting before him on his table, almost ironically it seemed, was a photo encased in a wooden frame. Markus picked it up and sighed at it. The frame was carved into a variety of fish shapes, the photo itself showed a younger Markus standing with six people, his arms around the waist of a decidedly bored looking girl with silver hair, a chain-riddled guy with a bright purple Mohawk and far too many bits of metal in his face, a small pimple strewn boy in too much plaid, another had a motorcycle helmet under one arm and his fair hair mussed and standing by him was a pale giant looking calm and peaceful.

“Whatcha looking at?” Elisa asked from behind him, making Markus throw the picture into the air. Elisa swung over the back of the lounge and caught it as it came back down.

“It’s a photo of me and my friends when I was sixteen.” Markus replied, taking a deep breath.

“I see. Who’s the girl? Is it,” she looked up at the roof as though she was looking for something “Claire?”

“No, that’s Cordelia, my first girlfriend.” Markus replied “She’s a Navigator.”

“You certainly had an odd bunch of friends back in the day. A Navigator, a Cyberpunk, some nerdy guy a biker and clone of some sort.” She put her hands behind her head, neatly filing it all away as useful information.

“Only Hercule was really odd – that’s the punk, by the way – he was a slicer and decker and taught me as much as he could about computers. He left Amoroso before I met Claire, though he would have told me to leave with her, had he been here.” Markus looked wistful, and Elisa could just imagine him saying “Those were the days”. He didn’t of course, and so Elisa spoke again.

“You know, Markus, back on Legatos, we asked you to join us. You said no then, but you ended up helping us anyway. If I were to ask you again, what would you say?” his brow furrowed and he looked away for a moment, considering the photo on the table, then the night sky, then the stupid robot who had the mecha’s cybernetic brain in hand.

Markus sighed and slumped into the red leather of his couch “I’d say yes.”

Good story, but I have a question.

Just what the hell is Markus doing as a low level librarian if his mother is rich enough to make Bill Gates look like a Taiwanese sweatshop worker?
I assume that despite this connection the authorities (particularly the overwatch guy) are going to be coming for him.

Yeah. This is gonna take some 'splaining.

Short answer? He ran away from home with his ex-girlfriend and his mother cut off all his money. I make reference to this in the next chapter, actually.

And yes, Arbiter Harst will return, though the whole Overwatch will not be up in arms. Money talks, walks and rules in The Logical World, and it is a very big place with larger fish to fry than My Delgado and Officer Storm.

This one is a little silly, I have to admit, but it has a nice technical spiel, and we all love those, am I right? . You have been warned, of course, but now, you read.

The Logical World

Chapter Nine

Incomplete Love Story

Markus stepped into his mother’s study which sat as the jewel in the crown of the building. It was empty, or rather devoid of sentient life. There was an exotic plant, an expansive table made from Techjiln, shelves of books all along the walls, a high powered navi projecting its screens above the desk, a replica of the galaxy held within a crystal globe and a pair of loafers by the desk.

“Well, who are you then?” asked one of the loafers in a thick cockney accent. Markus screamed and fell backwards, hitting the ground with enough force to send pain shooting up his spine.

“Bit highly strung, isn’t he?” said the other, pointing a lace at him. Markus screamed again.

His mother entered from a side door, a towel about her shoulders and one of her eyebrows cocked far above its eye. She saw Markus gibbering on the floor at her shoes, sighed and stepped into them. The laces tied themselves as she tossed the towel onto the back of her chair “Why are you gibbering like a lunatic?”

“Your shoes can talk!” he hissed, still quivering.

“You racist bastard.” Remarked the left shoe, the one that had called him ‘highly strung’. Mrs Delgado took a step forward, and Markus skittered backwards.

“They aren’t shoes Markus, they’re Spandish Dodanctis.” She said in a placating sort of way. There was a brief flash of recognition on Markus’ face, and he sounded out the words.

Spandish Dodanctis. They’re an intelligent race of shoe-like aliens that evolved far back in history, under the light from twin blue suns. They are always born as identical twins, and come in every possible foot shape and style. Naturally they offered their services, as footwear, to those races that had not developed high shoe-technology. This was an incredibly profitable, as you would be surprised how many interstellar civilisations lacked good shoes. They offered comfort, scent neutralisation and warmth, as well as conversation, which are all essential for spacers.

Luciana Delgado’s eyebrows met in the centre of her forehead as a single dark line, while the lines above her head squiggled like television interference. One foot tapped the floor within its shoe, sorry, its Spandish Dodanctis, almost impatiently.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?” Markus replied, pushing himself onto his feet, while glancing occasionally at his mother’s feet.

“You’re the only one of my children with some form of intelligence Markus; make use of it.” She crossed around her desk to her big chair and settled down into it “Why did you run away from Amoroso?” Markus had, in the past, been asked this many times, and each time he had deftly avoided the question by hanging up on her, or simply not replying to her messages. He didn’t have that luxury this time round.

“Well.” He began, and realised that there was no reasonable explanation to give. He met this girl, and next thing he knew he was hitching a ride to Cambridge aboard some Toyota Heavy Industries freighter. Normally he wouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t exactly a normal occurrence “Well, there was this girl, and I fell in love with her-”

“Oh I know all that,” Mrs Delgado rolled her eyes “Clair Vorsti, some brainless, blonde, big-boobed lesbian tart from the arse-end of the Orion Arm, convinces you to go looking for her father yada yada yada. Do you expect me to believe that? Do you actually think that anyone would believe that kind of bullshit? That sort of thing might pass in some insipid romance novel, but it won’t cut the mustard in reality.”

Mrs Delgado’s crushing rebuttal hit Markus like a blow with a sledgehammer, even though that was exactly what happened, not that it was going to convince her. “What do you expect, some sort of self-replicating nano-tech pheromone perfume that manufactures dependency? Some sort of kidnapping? What?”

“Perhaps that she simply wanted access to your money?”

“I didn’t take any money with me! You cut me off!” he snapped. If he had, he certainly wouldn’t have been living in a bloc and he certainly wouldn’t have become a goddamned librarian. His cell at the Watchtower had been bigger, while becoming a librarian had been the worst decision of his whole life. “I cut myself off and left! Why does this bother you so much?”

Mrs Delgado raised her eyebrows “You were, and still are, my favourite. Before you left you held more promise than your brothers and sisters combined. You showed some interest in making something of yourself.” She sighed dramatically “But no, you go and spend a good year or so travelling and end up only six thousand lightyears away! You could have made it two thirds of the way to Andromeda in a year!”

Markus could have pointed out that there wouldn’t have been much of a point, even though there were Imperial Commonwealth elements in M31, it wasn’t a lot. Instead he shrugged “We took a lot of detours.”

“I’ll bet.” Mrs Delgado replied.

There was a bitter silence after that. Silence can be used to punctuate speeches and highlight important moments, though there was nothing essentially important about this one. Markus sighed and loosened his shoulders, turned then left the study. As he left he could hear his mother talking to her shoes.

*

“So, what is it?” Markus asked, holding up a roughly man-shaped suit. It was dark and had solid looking plates over the chest and back, and on the arms and legs, along with rigid collar with a variety of clips involved in it. It looked tough, though wasn’t exceptionally heavy either.

Magnus and Hamish glanced at each other briefly as Markus looked over the text covering parts of it. The old army man spoke “It’s a special light combat suit that we,” he coughed, and smiled a little “liberated from an orbital above Letaman a few years back. It’s a high tech piece of equipment, though we’ve never had anyone it would fit.” Magnus chuckled and Hamish frowned at him “Looking you over, it looks about your size.”

“But what does it do?” Markus asked, as though he’d already asked the question. Hamish waved at Magnus to explain, before walking off on his fake leg.

“Basically Markus you’re looking at an ONI-1718, codenamed ‘Ogre’. It features auto-reactive composite impact armour – featuring a similar make to my own armour though lighter: duraplast, nanoplate, carbon ring armour, etcetera etcetera. Though the armour is only light, it would be effective against a twenty fourth century tank shell.” He paused, “especially since the suit also features a layer of anti-concussive hydrostatic gel, and your survivability is increased by the presence by a personal shield generator, offers considerably more protection.”

Markus looked back at the suit in his hands, and decided that Magnus must have memorised some pitch by whatever company had created the ONI-1718, codenamed ‘Ogre’. Magnus continued unabated.

“The ONI-1718 also features limited thermoptic camouflage, though it relies on the heat sinks used by the shield generator to hide heat, so if you are using the thermoptics, I suggest you stay out of the line of fire. The neutrino radiators are extremely efficient at radiating heat however, so it should only take a few moments for the camouflage to be usable again.” Markus opened his mouth to tell Magnus that he had no idea what he was talking about, but he waited to long, and the verbal torrent resumed.

“But somewhat more importantly, the suit features carbon nanotube automuscle. The buckycarbon fibre-bundles, when excited will increase strength, speed and reflexes multiple times, increasing your overall physical abilities almost thirty fold. In addition, to this, the suit will allow you to survive in a vacuum, so long as you have the helmet.” Magnus examined his nails briefly then finished “The whole thing is powered by an Electrical Tube; basically the power supply will last forever, though it can be temporarily depleted.”

Hamish sniffed, searching through some box or the other “I can bet you a pound to a sixpence that he didn’t understand much of that at all.”

Magnus grinned “Why do you think I said it?” Hamish sniffed again, with slightly more amusement, pulling a dark gunmetal handgun from some mysterious location. He tossed it at Markus, who fumbled it and dropped the suit. It was smaller than the USP Mach that he had used fairly recently.

“It’s a Beretta 922FS Elite. Fifteen rounds of high velocity armour piercing ammunition.” Hamish explained “It would be one of the better weapons for dealing with personal armour.” Markus nodded and held up the unloaded weapon.

“This is all well and good,” he remarked, placing the weapon down on the table, before bending for the suit “But what good would all this be? I’m a librarian, not a soldier.”

“We are though.” Magnus replied, taking the suit from Markus and unlocking a variety of clasps and molecular zips “Soldiers, that is, and I’m pretty sure we can make you at least a little good. The suit will make up for your lack of skill with considerable physical abilities. Go put it on.” He pushed the ONI-1718 back into Markus’ hands then shoved him away. Markus rolled his eyes and took his glasses off, glancing briefly at the spider web of cracks in the corner of the buckyglas lense.

He could hear Magnus and Hamish conversing nearby, arguing about how hard it would be to train Markus to use the suit, speaking of time constraints, the dangers of automuscle. As he sealed the molecular seals, Markus was not consoled by these words. The suit was a little loose, and from what he knew of automuscle, it had to be tight. He voiced his concern to his instructors.

“It’s fine. AM suits are always a little too big.” Hamish waved his hand and Magnus squeezed something on Markus’ wrist, and the entire suit shrunk, till it fit like a glove. The looks on both of their faces could have been almost orgasmic.

“Normally real life shouldn’t work like this,” Magnus mused “But it does today!”

“Turn it on Magnus.” Hamish rumbled and before Markus had time to protest, Magnus had struck a multitude of virtual controls and the weighty power system at the small of his back seemingly disappeared. He could just about feel the energy flowing through the miraculous buckycarbon muscles. “Stay very still for the moment my boy.” Hamish advised “The slightest movement you make could be thrown well out of whack until the OASIS – that is, the Onboard Automated Synthetic Intelligence System – learns how you work and you learn how the suit works.”

Magnus advanced on him and grabbed his right arm, moving it up and down. Markus noticed the strained look on his face. It wasn’t so bad, he decided, as Magnus continued to work his limbs. He discovered he could keep perfect balance on one foot. Then Magnus stepped back, then he stepped away, and then again. When he was standing next to Hamish, he smiled broadly at Markus. The librarian did not fail to notice the trickle of sweat travel down the side of his face. He himself started to sweat, but it was instantly absorbed and purified by the suit.

“Now, move your right arm up slowly.” Magnus instructed and Markus did as he was told. And he did move his arm slowly; very slowly in fact, though the suit sped it up so that it was traveling at a normal speed. He was shocked by it and jerked his arm. It snapped up faster than he could track and impacted the side of his head with a considerable amount of force.

Black spots exploded before his eyes and he was tossed like a ragdoll to the floor. His shoulder had popped out of its socket and when he fell, the suit put it back in with a convulsion of fiber. He squealed in pain and kicked at the ground tossing his body into the wall off the hold, before collapsing into a pile of heavy looking crates. One of them flew out of the tumbled pile at the shellshocked men. Magnus caught it and went skidding back a foot.

“Shit!” he dropped the crate and rushed forward to get at the suit and turn it off. The second he went in, he came out, skidding past Hamish and slamming into the opposite wall of the hold, blood streaming from a broken nose. Hamish slapped his face with his open palm. Markus came rolling from the mass of boxes convulsing – his automuscles were overcompensating, now crushing his body in an attempt to match his movements. Hamish knew that after this was over, he’d have to wipe the OASIS’ memory, and probably have Markus put into a proper rapid repair tank.

Magnus staggered to his feet, and though he was an exceptional example of human-kind – they make ‘em good in the Imperial Armed Forces, so they say – he had been hit with a huge blow, and it was surprising he was still conscious. He fell face-forward. Hamish took a step forward, when Markus’ thrashing stopped as Elisa pushed him to the ground, grabbed his left arm and got access to the controls. She looked about the hold, from Hamish in mid-stride, Magnus bleeding onto the floor and the moaning librarian beneath her.

“Well, I was coming down to see how Markus was going, and maybe try out those shield generators. I think this more or less answers any questions I might have had.” She said, getting up and turning Markus over. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“I ache . . . all over.” He managed and Elisa patted his cheek.

“You’ll be fine, I reckon. No trip to the doctor today.” He tried to protest but couldn’t manage it. He decided to just lie there and recover.

“Yeah, I’m fine too.” Magnus enlightened them, his face still planted into the steel floor.

Hamish shrugged and gestured to the little table with a variety of metallic looking plates “All ready for a test my dear. If you would kindly remove your clothes.” Both Markus’ and Magnus’ ears visibly pricked up at that, and they painfully shifted their heads to get a better view. If he had been capable of it, Markus would have cocked his head at the remarkably cuteness of the little yellow birds on her underwear.

Hamish pushed a roughly triangular plate between her shoulder blades, before helping her attach rings above and below her elbows, then a pad on her upper arms. They were attached to her shins, her thighs and around her waist. Elisa tapped her wristlet and nothing much happened, though there was a slight distortion effect just beyond the edges of her body. Hamish’s hand did not reach her skin when he laid his hand on her shoulder, but instead slipped right off.

“It’s a little tight Hamish.” Elisa commented as Magnus managed to get to his feet “I do not intend to run around in my underwear.”

As Magnus helped Markus to his feet Hamish replied “I can have it set further out from your body, so it sits above your clothes” he stroked his impressive moustache “You’ll have to keep your hair close to your head though. A bun would be best, I suppose, though I suggest you have it cut.” He turned to look at the disorientated looking Markus and Magnus “Maggie, go get yourself cleaned up – you’re bleeding all over the floor. Markus, you’ll work with me for the time being. I do intend to get you moving in that suit.”

Magnus nodded, rubbing his forehead. He staggered off. “Can I stay and watch?” Elisa asked, tapping a set of virtual controls that came into existence in her palm, out side of the shield.

“If you like. I’ll probably need your help anyway.” Hamish replied as Markus limped up to him.

“Do you think that will happen again?” Markus asked fearfully.

Hamish smirked “Undoubtedly Delgado. You’re hopeless.”

*

There was something special about the blonde girl sitting at the bar. Markus watched her slowly roll the bottle around on its base and stare ahead into space. She uncrossed her legs and then recrossed them the other way. Markus pulled his lip out from his face, then let go.

The bar itself was pretty ordinary. It wasn’t like the high-class clubs that the precious few billions that could call themselves up-market went to. Here was the common working man; a street sanitizer, a taxi-driver, a low level employee of one of the megacorporations coming in to unwind after twelve hours of mind-numbing work. Markus himself had come down here to escape his own world, that of the rich and powerful. Hercule had advised him to stay out of his mother’s business.

Of course, Hercule had never been fond of the supercapitalism that made the Empire go round, nor the government that let it happen. ‘Stay out away from the Imperial Commonwealth of Earth dude.” The purple haired cyberpunk would say, his face glinting in the sunlight “In every way possible. You don’t want to get mixed up with them, or those who fight them.” It was advice he gave to them all; little Jerny Winterborne, wild and roguish Keiran Tarm, the big, simple clone Josiah. He’d even tried giving the advice to Cordelia when she still hung around them, though she’d dismissed it. They debated a lot, did Hercule and Cordy.

But Hercule was gone, they didn’t know where. Nerdy Jerny had moved up to one of the orbitals, Keiran was dead (a stupid street race accident – he’d plummeted a score of kilometres into Amoroso. It was such a stupid waste) and Josiah had been taken away from them years earlier. Markus was nineteen and he realised that the universe was finally catching up to him.

But the universe had seen fit to drop this piece of divine intervention practically into his lap. She couldn’t have been much older than him, either. Markus had never been much good with women, but it couldn’t hurt to try, could it? So he straightened up, brushed his fingers through his hair, and went to take up the seat to the right of the blonde.

“Hi there.” He said after an allotted minute or two, after gesturing at the barman for a drink. The bartender had no idea what he wanted, so delivered Markus a glass of water.

“Hi.” She replied without turning her face, or even her eyes towards him.

Not to be deterred, Markus went on “I can’t say that I’ve seen you around here before.”

“I’m not really surprised.” Responded the girl. Markus didn’t have much to say to that, so he buried his face into his glass. A silence descended between them both, only to be broken by her foreign-sounding voice saying: “I’m Claire.” He turned to see her facing him, face propped up on her hand; one finger reached up her finely curved eyebrow. Her eyes were the colour of dark chocolate, which he had a taste for. She really was good looking.

“I’m Markus.” He replied, mouth agape. Her mouth broke into a broad grin filled with wonderfully groomed pearly whites. Evidently she brushed her teeth twice a day. Possibly flossed.

“Are you going to buy me that drink?” Claire asked and Markus blinked stupidly “That was why you came over here of course.”

“You don’t sound like you come from around here.” Markus commented as he bought her another bottle imported American ‘beer’, if you had the audacity to call it that.

“I don’t,” Claire said as she twisted the bottle open “I come from Femina. You know, at the end of the Orion Arm.” Markus did know it, a tiny nation of ten thousand stars whose entire population was female. It was a supposedly vicious place if you were male, as almost everyone there was a hardcore, man-hating feminist. Still, it was ten thousand stars of women.

“You’re pretty far from home.” Markus remarked, the edge of his glass hovering near his mouth “What brings you to the Cygnus Arm?”

Claire chuckled “I got tired of living with my mother, so decided to go looking for my dad, wherever he might be.”

“That’s crazy. There are seven hundred million inhabited stars in the galaxy. You’d never find him.” Claire sniffed and shrugged before taking another gulp of her drink.

“It was more of an excuse.” She explained, putting the bottle onto damp bar “I’ve just been hitch hiking across hundred of thousands of planets really. Seeing the galaxy.” Claire smiled at him “What’s it like here?”

“Here?” Markus considered for a moment what it was actually like, with its trillions of people, its endless starscrapers and its canyon-like thoroughfares. He thought about his home, his family – his brainless brothers and sisters, his domineering mother, his quiet father. There was nothing good about this place and he said as much. She shrugged.

So they talked. She told him about the wonders of the galaxy; the Caliphate’s Waterfall Mosque, the Thousand Mile Bridge across the Tethys Sea, the Crystal Eiffel. Those were only the terrestrial monuments – she had seen the Jovian Shipyards, the Solar Blossom, a binary black hole system utilised as a computer storage device, each one encircled by vast rings. Markus sat and listened as she told him about her one, firsthand experience with interstellar war.

“It’s pretty. Storms of light in every colour that streak almost instantly across space; newborn suns blooming on the surface on space-faring monsters. Glittering behemoths wading through world-burning fire. Space visibly bending to their will, twisting it all into strange geometries.” Claire sighed “Space combat, even between the little ships I saw fighting on the edge of Principality space, is beautiful. It shouldn’t be though.”

It got late, and the bartender kicked them out with a few choice words. The air at this height was not nearly as thin as it would normally be. Still, semi-permeable force-fields stopped them from being picked up by the high speed winds, and trapped heat so they wouldn’t freeze. It was still cold however, and Claire hugged her arms to herself; Markus could see goosepimples on her pale skin. He did the gentlemanly thing and draped his coat, with its fleece lining and heating microradiators, over her shoulders.

Claire was a few inches shorter than him, so he noticed when she stood on her toes to push her warm lips against his cheek. Markus felt her take his hand in hers. Claire led him off, probably nowhere in particular. The passed people who had no interest in them at all or what they were doing. She stopped, spun on her heel and moved her mouth against his, her arms encircling his neck. Markus jacket slipped from her shoulders, though he didn’t notice. Her body was full and warm but most importantly pressed against him. Her kiss played havoc with his brain.

“Would you come away with me?” she whispered, her breath hot against his ear. Why not? He thought. “Markus?” she asked.

“Markus!” she snapped, slapping him around the face.

Markus opened his eyes and found himself looking up at Elisa and her twin sister, who was crouched over him. She slapped him again and he grimaced, though the sting in his cheek was inferior to the hatchet buried in his skull.

“Wha . . .” he managed.

“Oh, you kneed yourself in the face. It was pretty funny actually.” The redhead explained, helping Markus to sit up.

“I hate this damn suit.” Markus grumbled “Every time I use it, I hurt myself. I give up.”

Elisa looked distraught, and Hamish looked alarmed. Elisa tried to console him “But you were doing so, uh, well! Isn’t that right Hamish?”

The old man grunted the affirmative “Almost got the hang of it.” He coughed.

Markus got dizzily to his feet “Well, I don’t care. I’m going to go lie down, and nothing you can say is going to convince me otherwise.” He started to fumble with the clips of his impact armour, found himself lacking and let Elisa undo the clasps for him “I’ve dislocated my shoulder for the first time in my life, and I should have broken bones. And I managed to knock myself unconscious.” He sounded angry and annoyed as he stripped the suit off, before shoving it into Elisa’s hands “I’ll try again tomorrow. But no more today.” With that, he started to leave, until Elisa coughed behind him. He whirled on her “What!?” snapped he.

“You are going to get dressed, right?” she asked.

*

Markus sat with a great majority of the resistance, watching the big holoscreen floating above his coffee table. The movie was a classic, The Runaway Apexai. It had never really been Markus’ favourite movie, though he understood its appeal.

“So, how did you go?” asked Callum, his eyes still on the screen.

“I did badly.” Markus replied, rubbing his head.

“Mmmm,” agreed the great writer, chewing on one thumbnail “You know how we got here?”

“Yeah, Celsius Drive.”

“I was wondering, do you think you could help us get a Navigator?”

Markus laughed “You can’t afford it. And besides, I never really knew any Navigators that well.”

“Oh, I see.”

There was a colloquial silence between them as they continued to watch the antics of all-American hero John Baylor. Of course, they weren’t American, so they didn’t have as much sympathy for him as many would. The reverie was broken by Markus asking: “Why do you even need it? You have a Moledrive.”

Callum shrugged “Slipspace travel is faster – the fastest in the galaxy. Plus it is harder to interdict. It takes a little more than your standard gravity well to stop a ship travelling by Celsius Drive.” He shrugged again, before patting Markus on the shoulder “But don’t you worry about it – it isn’t really that important. I doubt we could put up with a Navigator anyway.” Markus agreed, and talked changed to books. It often happens when a writer and a librarian are talking.

They talk for an hour before Markus headache strikes back and he excused himself to go up to his room. Ginrai followed, his giant hand keeping Markus standing straight.

The doors swung open on their own and Markus entered his room, dominated as it was by his huge bed. The robot dropped him onto the feather mattress and walked out. The librarian settled his head back into the puffy pillows and closed his eyes. He really should’ve gotten some painkillers, and he’d meant to, but the opportunity hadn’t come up. He considered Vermont Callum’s cryptic request: do you think you could help us get a Navigator? Markus had said no, though thinking about it now, he probably could. His ex-girlfriend was one, after all.

Markus sat up and thought about it a bit more, then noticed the tuxedo on end of his bed.

“What the hell?” he asked himself, when his mother appeared to his left. He jumped.

“Markus, the von Bisingens are holding a function tonight.” Said Mrs Delgado’s flawless hologrammatic apparition “I told Vera that you were back and she demanded that I bring you. You’re dress suit is on the end of your bed.” She looked at him slyly “You know, you should bring that Elisa girl. I was talking to her earlier when I found her at my flowers. She seemed quite intelligent.”

ooh, a social event! This will be exciting!

Excellent work, as usual

The Logical World

Chapter Ten

Christmas in the Silent Forest

Markus' father Peter the Rabbi, who wasn’t even a little Jewish, was a small, bony man, notable for his dark curly beard. He was quiet, thoughtful and quiet again. Of all things that Markus left behind, his father had been the only one that he thought about often, and when he did think about him, it was generally nice. Peter the Rabbi had been alright with Markus leaving with some foreign girl he’d only just met. Whether this was the sign of a good father or not was not important, as Mrs Delgado overrode him.

But nonetheless, when Markus caught sight of him, dressed up ready for the high-classed members of Amorosan society, he grabbed a hold of the little man and squeezed him tight enough to make bones creak. Peter the Rabbi chuckled as his son put him back on the ground. Markus coughed and looked at his feet.

“Long time, no see, eh son?” asked Peter, though it wasn’t really a question.

“Yeah Dad. Sorry I haven’t been in touch much.” Markus replied, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. Peter the Rabbi beckoned Markus in close with his finger. Markus turned his ear towards his father’s mouth, who said:

“I don’t really blame you.” It made Markus smile. “But who’s this then?”

It was obviously Elisa. She was dressed up and looking uncomfortable (she actually was uncomfortable, physically speaking, as her underwear was riding up her backside), but she at least attempted to smile charmingly as Peter the Rabbi took her hand and kissed it. “Claire my dear,” he said, “You’ve died your hair, it seems. And shrunk.”

“No Dad, Claire died. That’s Elisa.”

Peter the Rabbi froze, Elisa’s hand still grasped in his. He was squeezing tight enough so that his knuckles were white. “She’s dead? Claire?” Markus’ father blinked several times “Oh dear. And she was such a sweet girl, despite what your mother had to say on the matter.” He patted Elisa’s hand consolingly “It’s nice meeting though Elisa. You can call me Peter the Rabbi.”

Elisa’s forehead crinkled like a piece of paper and Markus mouthed “It’s a nickname” at her. Comprehension dawned on her face and she smiled back.

“It’s wonderful to meet you, uh, Peter the Rabbi.” Markus grinned.

“You’re talking to one of the most impressive men in the galaxy,” Markus said, clapping his father on the back “Dad ran the construction of the Dyson Sphere around the sun after the old one was destroyed by some idiot. Did it in well under a year too.”

“Please Mark, don’t.” he feigned embarrassment and Elisa giggled “It isn’t that impressive.”

“Don’t listen to him Elisa,” Markus warned “He doesn’t quite understand his greatness, but rest assured, he’s the greatest man alive.” It wasn’t strictly true of course, though Peter the Rabbi was well regarded by his peers in the Brotherhood of Engineers (Honour thy tool etcetera etcetera); he was not the greatest man alive, though it took an exceptional man to direct the construction of a Dyson Sphere in about eight months.

Mrs Delgado breezed in, preceded by a cold air of indifference. Silence dropped across Markus, his father and Elisa as she adjusted her light refracting jewellery. They were staring at her so she stopped in mid action, hand poised at the base of her neck. She raised her eyebrows at them, then rolled her eyes, muttering something about idiots.

They were all standing before an open space, a platform extending a dozen meters out from the building. The winds at this altitude would be enough to sweep them all off the platform and fling them a considerable distance away. It was a long way to the ground, Markus knew. It might take him hours to hit the ground itself, though he knew that it was unlikely, what with countless obstructions. Nonetheless, he was quite pleased that there was a force field preventing this from taking place.

The Rolls came down, dark green and gleaming, slipping easily through the semi-permeable barrier surrounding them, hovering just above the platform. The doors swung open and Mrs Delgado lead the way inside, seating herself on the dark red leather. Peter sat down next to her, while Markus and Elisa sat opposite them, backs to the front. The twin set of doors kissed closed, Mrs Delgado said “Drive on Jeeves.” And the mecha complied. The Rolls looped around, rolled and zipped off at a comfortable six hundred gees, well above the more restricted traffic, stuck as they were in computer programmed lanes.

The night life blurred past, or rather, they blurred past it. Huge holo billboards became disorientating seas of colour and neon signs left trails across a person’s vision. Elisa stared out at the more distant scenery, which wasn’t practically unseeable. She looked astounded, in awe of the surroundings, and Markus looked on in amusement as she gasped and oohed and aahed at the starscrapers and stratospires. The Rolls covered the distance between the house and the Lighthouse, about the same distance between New York and London back when they existed, in fifteen minutes or less. The Jeeves type mechanoid came into dock with the golden tower.

It was the most impressive building that Elisa had ever seen. It did not have the bulk of the Bisingen House Building, but it made up for it in sheer glitz. It reached up and up towards the unreachable sky, it’s surface sheer gold and brass, radiating a single beam of light up into space; some sort of tachyonic datastream containing the Navigator reference for ships in slipspace and, to a slightly lesser extent (as it is considerable closer to Einsteinian Reality than the slipstream), hyperspace. Markus didn’t really understand the concept of setting his holovid timer, let alone something such as this.

They walked towards the door in the side of the building as the Rolls Royce tumbled off through the invisible barrier surrounding the platform. Twin service mecha just inside opened it up for them, and the voice of God said:

“Lady Luciana Delgado, and family.” There was applause, and Mrs Delgado feigned embarrassment just as well her husband did, if not better. Markus, still reeling from the onslaught of expensive perfume didn’t quite notice the remarkably full-bodied and very tall woman approaching.

“Vera!” Mrs Delgado spread her arms, embraced her and kissed both of her cheeks (standing on her toes to do both). The woman was Vera von Bisingen, not quite head of the House, but important anyhow. She let her hand be kissed by Peter the Rabbi. She caught of Markus and wrapped him up in her arms, suffocating him in her ample cleavage.

He gasped in an effort to refill his lungs as she cooed over him, smoothing back his hair. For those of you who are just a mite confused, it is worth noting that Lady von Bisingen was Markus Godmother, and that she took the title very seriously. Sharp-eyed, she caught sight of Elisa scuffing her feet. Her eyes narrowed accusingly and she said: “And this is-”

“Elisa Hartman, Vera.” Mrs Delgado jumped in, quick on the uptake “Remember I was telling you about her. Does lovely things with flowers.”

“Oh,” replied the Navigator “Ooooh, I see. Come here dear.” With that, she swept forward, planted her hand into the small of Elisa’s back and was leading her away, all while Elisa was trying to stutter protests. Mrs Delgado followed.

“Well,” Peter the Rabbi gurgled, clapping Markus on the back “That was sudden and unexpected.” But before he could continue, there were cries of ‘Peter the Rabbi!’ and ‘Tell us about life in space!’ and he too was dragged off. Markus sighed, then set out across the floor.

The whole place was marble of some kind, a kind of marble that gave off a comfortable light. The rich, famous and powerful mingled with each other; here was media magnate Richard Murdoch, there was Saint George-Illawarra captain Jerrold Vercoix. Governor Sheron, local representative of the Administration, and Rear Admiral Kaufman of the Royal Imperial Navy were speaking with (imported) actress Sarah Liu, which was a bad combination if ever there had been one. Service mecha were twisting and turning past the party-goers, trays of drinks and appetisers balanced on splayed fingers.

There was a small crowd encircling something very exciting, or so Markus thought from the shouts and whistles. He approached, found an empty space and stood at the edge of a fighting pit. A pair of absurdly healthy looking men were circling around each other, vicious weapons in hand, token armour strapped to their muscular frames. Blood trickled from a variety of cuts and gashes. One wore a monstrous helmet (in design, not size), though the other’s sweat-streaked face was open to the air. The helmeted one had a crushing looking maul, the other a razor sharp blade.

“C’mon Patriculous! Slice him! Slice him!” roared one of those watching and as if he was waiting for some sort of instruction, Patriculous darted forward, blade making a shimmering arc. His opponent parried with his great mace, reversed the blow and knocked the swordsman to the floor. The maul came up and over, then scythed downwards. Patriculous rolled backwards and sprung to his feet narrowly avoiding having his gonads reduced to paste.

“Crush the spry little bastard Harper.” Cackled some old crone insanely, garnering strange looks from those around her.

As the two gladiators tussled in the pit below, Markus passed his gaze across the people on the other side of the pit, catching sight of a decidedly bored looking woman with silver hair directly opposite him. “Cordelia.” He said to himself, pulling away from the railing and circling around the baying crowd.

“Hello Markus.” She said before he could open his mouth. There was a clash of steel below them and a great gasp went up, followed by a howl of pain. Markus watched blood spill across the marble and Patriculous move in for the kill. “It’s interesting how we all seem to enjoy bloodshed.” Cordelia mused as Harper crushed the knee of the advancing Patriculous. The wounded gladiator, blood gushing from the wound to his chest, stood over his downed opponent and raised his mace, looking over at Cordelia expectantly.

A low chant had gone up, something disturbing along the lines of “Kill . . . kill . . . kill . . .” and that old woman was cackling insanely again. Cordelia waved her hand and the massive mace-head came down, crushing brave Patriculous’ head with an all to satisfying splat. The crowd went wild and money was exchanged.

"I never expected you even on the planet, let alone one of these parties." she said, turning around to lean back against the railing around the pit.

“Well, I didn’t really think I’d ever come back.” Markus replied “I was happy on Legatos.”

“Happy?” Cordelia scoffed “How could you be happy on a backwater planet like that?”

“Well, it’s not all that hard. I mean, life was better here, but I was happy.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes “Why did you come back then? Surely you haven’t left that girl, whatshername, Claire, wasn’t it?”

“No, she died.” Cordelia looked unperturbed “Big trouble in little China, as they say.”

“No one says that.” She sighed.

“Well, there is anyway. I was forced to leave.” Markus explained, but she didn’t look convinced.

“Who’s the cute redhead you came in with?” she gestured towards a gaggle of women fussing over Elisa.

Markus considered for a long moment “She’s, she’s a florist.”

“A florist.” Cordelia repeated “Just a florist.”

“Not just a florist.” Markus corrected, annoyed.

“Ah.” Cordelia said knowingly. Markus grumbled, leaving heavily against the rail. The fight pit was empty and devoid of traces of blood and grey matter. “I’ll tell you the truth, I think you’ve gone down a notch. She’s not as hot as the last one.”

“I haven’t gone anywhere with Elisa. Except here.” Markus said, sounding just the slightest bit petulant. Cordelia bit off a laugh.

“Poor little Marky. Aren’t you just a little too old for schoolboy crushes?” she asked almost mockingly.

“You’re just bitter because you left me and I moved on.” He retorted and she sniffed.

“Think what you like little man,” she said dangerously, leaning up close “While you went gallivanting off with some blonde chick and became a librarian, I stayed here and became a Maestro. I’ve made a success of myself.”

Markus narrowed his eyebrows “You’re a Maestro? That’s quite impressive for someone your age. Though I have to ask, if you’re so good, why aren’t you out in space?” Cordelia backed up quickly, straightening her back instantly.

“Mother won’t let me. My contract hasn’t been put up for sale.”

“Poor little Cordy. Aren’t you just a little too old to be pushed around by your mother?” Markus mimicked mercilessly and Cordelia wrinkled her nose in reply. There was a bitter silence as the orchestra continued to play.

“So, why are you here? I know that you disliked the upper class. What did you call them?” she asked.

“Lapdogs. Imperial lapdogs.” Markus replied, referring to the way that rich fawned over the Imperials, trying to get into their good books. That was the only thing Markus disliked about being rich – the other rich people.

“Hercule really drilled a dislike of the Empire into you, didn’t he?” Cordelia sighed, blowing a few loose strands of hair out of her eyes “You planning on becoming a real anti-Imperialist? Fighting against the government that made us the top dogs on the pangalactic scale?” Markus shrugged.

He risked it “Maybe I have.”

Cordelia laughed. And laughed. She doubled over and gasped for breath. Markus frowned at her as she grabbed a hold of his shoulders and said “You! A terrorist! Bookworm MarKus some sort of freedom fighter!” Markus was afraid that someone might overhear – particularly the actual Imperials, the deadly soldiers that mingled with the sycophants and could tear him in two without trying. But it was safe, no one heard. Or cared.

She dragged him out onto a balcony overlooking the dazzling lights of the city. She was still giggling, her hand covering her mouth. “I don’t know why you think it’s so funny.” Markus said angrily, then he immediately became worried “You wouldn’t tell anyone, would you?” he spluttered and she laughed again.

“Markus, Markus, Markus. Still afraid of being caught doing something naughty?” Cordelia spread her hands, Mannerism-style “It’s none of my business what you do, even if it’s something so ridiculous as up against someone who has well over three hundred million star systems, a fleet of almost ninety billion full sized capital ships and an army whose numbers should be given in scientific notation to avoid giving people nosebleeds from trying to count the zeroes. Markus, we’re talking about a group who has the power to frag an entire star system and the attitude to do it too.”

“I’m failing to see your point.” Which was a lie.

“Than you’re a bigger idiot than I thought. What can you hope to do? No one; not the Nomads, the Alohim, not even the freaking Selakhar could make an impact on them, let alone someone like you.” Cordelia sighed dramatically “And you wondered why I argued with Hercule so much.” She rubbed her eyebrows.

“You’ve obviously told me for a reason. What is it?”

“I was going to ask you to come be our Navigator. We have a Celsius Drive but no way to use it.” He answered, not aware that divulging so much could be potentially dangerous, and not aware that his answer was giving Cordelia pause for thought.

“Why does that matter? Surely you have some other method of superluminal travel. Moledrive, Hyperdrive, Lagrange Dive, the list is practically endless, you, you don’t need a Navigator, even if you could afford it.” Cordelia bit her thumb.

“I just thought that seeing that you enjoyed novation so much you might like the chance.”

Cordelia’s incisor dug further into the soft pad of her thumb “You really are a bastard, you know that?”

“And not quite as stupid you think, eh?” he replied with a grin that he thought might have been roguish, but just came off as rather creepy.

“No matter how much I enjoy Slipspace travel, you still can’t afford my commission, and I wouldn’t do it for free.” She kneaded her temples with her knuckles in a frustrated sort of way.

“But you’ll do it.”

“Did I say that!?” she snapped “No, I won’t do it without being paid. If you could get together the seventy billion pounds that my contract is worth, then yes, I would probably do it, but only if you could get the money.”

Markus’ could feel his heart sink down to be partially digested as she continued “If they really want a Navigator, that’s the price they’ll have to pay. You know that you can’t trust anyone else, that’s why you came looking for me.”

“Seventy gigapounds . . .” Markus trailed off. He used to have a lot of cash at his disposal, before his mother severed his account, but he doubted he had ever had that sort of money. Markus supposed it came with the service that Navigators offered. “I guess that’s that then.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere. If you ever come into some money and you’re still going on this ridiculous idea, look me up.” She kissed him softly on the cheek, then Cordelia von Bisingen, Navigator Maestro breezed back into the party, once again becoming a part of that fabricated world. Markus turned back to Amoroso’s cityscape and slumped against the rail. What seemed liked seconds passed before he was spun around like a top, brought face to face with a harassed looking Elisa. Her fingers gripped tightly at his suit jacket, stretching the buckynylon material, a complicated mess of advanced ultranylon and carbon nanotube polymers, so far he thought it might tear.

“Tell me that you didn’t tell her anything.” She hissed into Markus’ face “Please.”

“Relax. We can trust Cordelia.” Markus responded placatingly.

“Trust her? Trust someone who owes their very power to the Imperial Commonwealth?” Elisa covered her eyes as though she couldn’t bear to look at the situation “I knew this whole Slipspace thing would end in tears.”

“I’m telling you Elisa, Cordy will not get us killed. She’s amazingly apathetic.” Elisa ignored him.

“And after I went to all that trouble of convincing the lot of them that you were trustworthy.” She slapped her forehead. “I need to leave.”

*

The Rolls Royce streaked across the sky at supersonic speeds, Markus sitting opposite from Elisa, who had her face propped up against the window. She wasn’t in awe of the cityscape anymore, but was instead chewing on her bottom lip. “Your mother is a very strange person, Markus.” She said finally.

“I wouldn’t quite call her strange.” Markus replied “Self-inflated suits her better.” Elisa went back to chewing on her lip. “Elisa, I was wondering, do you actually think that we could accomplish anything?”

“What?”

“It was something that Cordy was saying, about how big the Imperial Commonwealth actually is.” He explained.

Elisa raised her eyebrows “Well, I don’t think we ever intended to try and take on much outside of Legatos. We were a planetary organisation.”

Markus scoffed audibly “A planetary organisation with a ship capable of interstellar travel?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged imperceptibly “Jonas had ordered it, for no real reason. I never quite got why we bought the Thunderchild. Then again, I never quite got everything that Jonas did. The decision to take the Doc, that was an odd one.”

“I thought you did it because he was the leader in the field of,” Markus paused, looking up at the roof of the Rolls “Quantum Teleportation, or something like that. He told me he was a part of this big project for the Scientific Union.”

“Something like that,” Elisa agreed “Psykers can do it, QTing that is, but they’ve never had a machine that could pull it off. The Doc was on the verge of completing a machine which could do just that when Jonas had us grab him.” Markus nodded, then frowned.

“Wait, why was he on Legatos?” he asked.

“He wasn’t. He was on Cambridge.” Elisa replied, yawning, despite the early hour.

“Cambridge . . . Cambridge isn’t even in the Cygnus Arm!” Markus snapped, his mind floating back to his astrology classes, and his school project on Cambridge, one of the education capitals of the galaxy. Elisa smiled.

“Maybe that’s why we bought a Guncutter.”

The Rolls came to a rapid halt just inside the force field. “You’ll have to go back Jeeves.” Markus told the mechanoid in the front seat as the doors swung outward for them.

“Yes sir.” The mecha replied compliantly, and the very second they had gotten out, the doors had swung shut and the car was already on its way back. Markus checked his watch then walked with Elisa inside. The hallways were more or less empty, and Markus was struck by how intensely empty his house actually was. There was a veritable army of service staff, both mecha and orga, around, but he rarely saw them unless he wanted to see them. It was patently ridiculous, he decided.

“Who would live here?” he questioned.

*

“Arbiter Harst?” the lieutenant asked, standing by his right hand. Melkum Harst turned his gave up at the Lieutenant, dressed in his black and red uniform, silver and gold insignia gleaming in the even lighting. Harst uncrossed his legs, paused for a moment, then recrossed them. “The taskforce has emerged from Slipspace.”

That was obvious; Harst could see it for himself, the tachyonic expanses of the Slipstream having been replaced by the familiar inky blackness of space. Around him the crew diligently at their posts, and Harst sat where the ship’s captain would; at the apex of the bridge, before him tactical displays, comm screens, hololiths. He sunk his armoured form into the auto-contouring chair and looked out the strong-as-armasteel windows that swept bout the bridge. He nose wrinkled.

Amoroso. It was such a crime ridden hive. Corrupt from the tips of its tallest spire down to its very core. Even the gargantuan pyramidal Watchtower, visible from orbit, was not free from the metaphysical stench of corruption. He had traced Storm and Delgado here; the Epoch that had narrowly avoided capture in low Legatos orbit had been recorded in the system, and it helped that Delgado had been born on this planet-wide city. Harst fully intended to bring them to justice, that traitor Storm, that idiot Delgado and whomever else they were with, regardless of the fact that Delgado’s mother was important. Harst had been a lawgiver for almost a whole bicentury now, and never once had he allowed someone to escape the gavel; he wasn’t about to start now.

His status as an Arbiter, even after they removed him from running the investigations on Legatos (something about being ‘overzealous’), had allowed him to commandeer the perfect weapons to do it; two full sized squadrons of Praetor class corvettes, black, angular wings a hundred and forty metres long and nearly three hundred wide. Though not nearly large enough to be counted as ships in and off themselves by the Navy, each one was formidable enough with enough grasers and missiles to sterilise a largish continent, say the whole of North America, in a fairly short span of time. A single squadron, three ships, could slag the crust of a planet right down to the mantle in a few short hours. Quite frankly, no terrorist group this side of Alpha Centauri had any chance of holding up against Arbiter Melkum Harst, and it was doubtful that any terrorist group on the other side could do it either.

“Incoming message sir!” the comms officer snapped and Harst nodded.

“Put it on my hololith.” He ordered and his request was done almost instantly, and a flawless hologram of a harsh looking man with a very pointy beard came into existence above Harst’s console. “Judicator Guroth.” Harst stammered, the furry caterpillars of his eyes rising up his head. Judicator Frederik Guroth, one of the highest ranked members of the Overwatch in the Cygnus Arm, was calling him. Harst inwardly braced himself.

“Arbiter Harst. I assume that you are in high orbit over Amoroso.” Harst knew that Guroth assumed nothing, and knew it for a fact.

“That is correct sir.” Harst replied, his voice toneless.

Guroth’s fingers settled against his face and his eyes closed “With enough firepower to frag it, no less. I know you were hit hard by this attack made by-” there was the briefest pause “Enforcer Storm and Librarian Delgado, but honestly Harst – don’t you think you’re going overboard? Six Praetors?”

“There are billions more ships of this class, as well as larger classes.” Harst supplied matter-of-factly. He didn’t like where this was going, but he kept his face frozen.

There was a sigh from the hologram “Look, Harst, I’m not exactly the happiest man in the galaxy right now. We lost Delgado’s book in the explosion, and I had a visit from the Seventh Lord this afternoon about it.” The hologram leaned forward so that Harst could make out the pores on Guroth’s face “Your personally vendetta against these two is completely unimportant. Half a million Overwatch is an insignificant loss. You do not have our support. Get over it.” He snarled dangerously, and flicked off.

Harst watched the empty space for a moment, not speaking. He looked over the book in his hands, then wrapped it up. Unimportant? Insignificant? No support? Fine. Harst spoke “Get me a hold of Imperial Traffic Control, and find that Guncutter.” He barked, setting the book onto his lap.

Coolness squared!. Time to start running again, Marky-boy.

Well, it's about time that I got together another chapter. I can't promise it will be that exciting, but it does promise action for the next chapter. Where can we take you today? God that's creepy.

The Logical World

Chapter Eleven

Death Rides a Horse

“The situation is simple. We have a small cell of terrorists below us, and I need them captured.”

Arbiter Harst passed his eyes across the various officers standing around the transparent rectangle of orange light, his face set as if stone. At their feet rose a perfect hologrammatic map of the district of Amoroso containing Bisingen House, and thus the objects of his hunt. The map was real-time, showing the movement of millions of cars across the ‘sky’. The map expanded to show only the penthouse. The tiny hologrammatic Thunderchild was picked out in orange, technical information being floated at the end of the helpful orange line leading to it.

“We have limited time to carry this operation out. For some unfathomable reason, we were not recalled by the Central Judiciary, but we must assume that we only have a few days.” At this, the officers collectively wrinkled their noses.

“With all due respect sir,” said one of the officers, rubbing her eyebrows “You better have some good intel.” Harst smirked, then gestured forward his lieutenant.

“We have determined the number of terrorists to be twenty one – we have counted twenty three consistent human life signals, and two of those are definitely Luciana Delgado, CEO of House Bisingen, and her husband. Additionally, we have confirmed from DNA scans that both Magnus Storm and Markus Delgado are both present.” At that moment, pictures and information on both of them appeared in midair “We also have biological records on other members present.” More pictures flashed into existence, containing information on Jonas, Hamish MacDougall and Harri. The Lieutenant’s voice took on a more cheery tone as he continued “Mimetic bone structure analysis has revealed that a pair of celebrities has taken up with this group, including local Sub-etha radio star Rickerman Harst, and galaxy renowned writer Vermont Callum.” There were murmurs of surprise amongst the officers as pictures of both Callum and Rick appeared, as well as Steve William.

The Lieutenant continued “The ships’ Sub-meson Brains have determined the makeup, routines and habits of the cell to finest degree.” As he spoke more pictures appeared, one over a dozen, all nameless and coloured orange. Genetic and cybernetic information, age height, weight, biological information, the extent of any mechanical or chemical enhancements, it was all there. “Of interest is this one,” the Lieutenant noted, and the profile of Elisa expanded. “A full body cyborg, with military grade cybernetics. Composition and manufacturer watermarks have revealed her body to be same type exclusively used by Spetsnaz.”

One of the officers raised his eyebrows in surprise “They have an URSS special forces operative?”

“At the very least someone with a milispec prothsetic body.” Said another one of the Imperials. The Lieutenant nodded, before again continuing.

“One cannot defeat an entire team of SAS. However, this is more dangerous.” The city map and the terrorist profiles were swept away and replaced by the technical diagram of Lord Ginrai. Jaws dropped before being quickly caught.

“That’s a Buddha Mark IV.” Said someone in awe.

“Yes,” the Lieutenant agreed “One of the most powerful combat mechanoids ever designed by the Scientific Union.”

“But they haven’t been deployed for use by the Imperial Army!” snapped a colonel of some description “How did these rebels get a hold of one?”

Harst cleared his throat “Our ship’s Sub-meson Brain has determined that the Main Street Legata Library ordered a new librarian omnitask from Pedigree Robotics, but the order ended up on Mars.” The officers passed looks between each other “Not only Mars, but in the Buddha type Mechanoid Development Project. Not only that but they didn’t just ignore it, but instead send on of their completed units to Legatos.” He spread his hands in defeat.

“That sort of thing just doesn’t happen.”

Harst nodded “No, it shouldn’t. I have to admit that many strange things have happened in relation to this case.” He gestured his Lieutenant forward once again.

*

At that moment, Lord Ginrai stood upon the roof of the Delgado house, peering up at the sky. At his feet sat Markus, his feet swinging at the edge of the building, his hands caressing his shoulders. The robot possessed in his left hand a rigid holosheet covered in luminescent orange writing. Markus was complaining about his aching muscles, undoubtedly from another training session with other rebels.

“My eyeballs itch too.” He was saying, though Ginrai continued to ignore him, or rather, just devote only a small amount of his electronic brain to listening to the orga “It’s probably from the flash-imprinting we did today. But that’s silly, because it didn’t do anything to my eyes anyway.”

The robot nodded, more writing and information appearing on the holosheet at a blistering pace. Maps, pictures, intricate diagrams, he had finished determining the weapons and equipment load outs of the various rebels. Now was devoted to tactics, to information, a plan to allow them to survive a rapid insertion made by SAS troopers. He could predict with considerable accuracy the size and composition of the coming force, though Ginrai knew better than to think that he could outthink a shipmind, let alone six of them.

“And Elisa just doesn’t know when to stop with her close-quarters-combat training. Always throwing me around, locking my arms and legs and head. She’s dangerous.” Markus looked up at his robot “What are you writing?” He hadn’t even finished speaking before Ginrai had put the tablet in front of his face, though the information was being put down far to fast for him to read. “Yeah, alright then.”

The robot determined that it would be impossible for the rebels to defeat any force that could be deployed. He knew his own capabilities very well, and undoubtedly so did the Enemy, and would react accordingly. The rebels lacked the handheld weapons power to match the Imperials, except on their guncutter, and Ginrai expected that the Imperials would send one of their ships down to run air support, not that a precision graser shot couldn’t be used to kill it from orbit; or as Ginrai realised, the edge of the star system. There was no way that they could use the guncutter, but Ginrai knew that only the Thunderchild had the weapons capable of dealing with the SAS.

A long nanosecond passed as Ginrai considered every decisive way of dealing with this threat. He knew that it would take a major blow to simply stop them sending more troops – there were literally hundreds and hundreds ready for action on a Praetor class. It would be a difficult task, he knew, but he was fully capable of pulling it off.

His manifesto finished, Lord Ginrai turned and left Markus sitting on the edge, still complaining about how he wasn’t trying hard enough.

*

“An impressive list of abilities lieutenant.” One of Harst’s officers remarked “But how do you suggest we deal with it?”

“The ship’s Brain has determined that KORG 1280 exosuits can be used to full effect inside the penthouse. The unit has comparable armour and strength, and can carry weaponry heavy enough to deal with such a mecha.”

One of the officers, this time a captain spoke up “It wouldn’t be prudent to field units that could quite easily level a Bloc with collateral alone. The damage that could be caused to this place would be extensive.” She paused “Luciana Delgado is a powerful political force in the Cygnus Arm.”

Harst replied “This is justice captain. We do what we must.”

She nodded her head in deference “Very well then Arbiter.”

“We cannot waste any time. The units to be deployed must ready ASAP. Simulations must be run immediately. That is all.”

With Harst’s words, most present flickered out of existence and the room changed from black to a completely Napoleonic-Victorian looking office.

But why is Harst’s office Napoleonic -Victorian? Does this not imply that the Imperial Commonwealth of earth is a mainly British culture, despite the fact that all of what was Europe and all of what was Africa and all of what was Australia and some bits of what were Asia became part of this giant combine? You might postulate that after six and a half thousand years of breeding everyone should be more or less the same, and if you did, then you would be completely wrong.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, it in itself a five thousand year old case of copyright infringement loopholes being battled out to this very day, has much to say on the concept of single governments ruling multiple cultures, which is not uncommon throughout the galaxy. As most singular ruling bodies tend to be empires of one sort or the other, they generally expand with aggressive colonisation efforts, anything less will result in the sudden death of the concept of being an empire, and commonly, groups of the same race and culture will group together to be hurled into to Deep Space (which is a subjective notion).

As the Guide explains, the Imperial Commonwealth’s colonisation efforts generally resulted in the same result – that is, individual cultures flourishing on different planets under the watchful eye of the Anglo-Franco Imperials. Much of the original ending for the article was wiped out and replaced with the following: “Think of it like the old British Empire, the one that got beaten up by the Zulus”. In this way, British-French stylings have maintained common with the offices of the officers of the Royal Imperial Navy.

And what does Napoleonic-Victorian look like? Impressive, arrogant and woody comes to mind.

“Lieutenant Hackenbacker, do you think I may be going too far with this?” he gazed at the book in his hand and the Lieutenant dusted some imaginary or microscopic particles from the epaulet floating above his left shoulder and privately thought:

Going too far? Going too far? With six super-light warships going after twenty terrorists? Do you actually have to ask? But aloud he didn’t say anything of the sort. His fullerene buckynylon uniform and cyborg body gave Lieutenant Hackenbacker the right to stand in the middle of a trade of small arms fire, but he didn’t think it would smart to provoke such a man as Melkum Harst by openly questioning his sanity. The executive settled for secretly doing so and said “You’ve come too far to worry about this now, sir.”

Harst nodded, and waved the Lieutenant away, opening up his book.

*

“Are you trying to tell us that in no more than a day a Special Air Service hard-ops team will attack this building?”

Internally, Lord Ginrai waxed lyrical about how, yes, there really was a powerful attack force in orbit under the control of a Legatan Detective, and yes, it was preparing to launch an offensive far beyond their capabilities to deal with. But don’t you worry meatbags, Ginrai would undoubtedly be saying to himself if he was capable of internal monologue, I have devised a plan which will result in our survival, and yet another victory over the Imperial Commonwealth, this one not the mere result of accident and sheer luck.

Ginrai nodded, jabbing one finger down onto the holosheet, indicating the pages of information that he had accumulated over the past ten minutes, his audacious plan for survival. Jonas looked down at it, scrolling through for a moment before handing the plan off to MacDougal. “Aulfred, have you investigated Markus’ robot yet? Because I get the distinct feeling it’s a hyperturing machine.”

“Really?” Wineham replied, porcelain cup held nimbly between his fingers. He took a sip of his tea and frowned “I would never have guessed. What gives you that idea?” Hamish dropped the holosheet, the picked it up, zooming in on a certain section of the information and whispering ‘It’s just not possible.’ He passed it on to Vermont Callum, who started perusing the item as well. He raised his eyebrows, before sliding it back to Jonas.

Jonas shrugged “It’s just that not only has this robot determined the size and composition of the coming force and the most probable avenues of attack that the assault team will use, it has also determined what amounts to an almost fool-proof plan to keep us alive.” He passed Ginrai’s plan over to Wineham “Look at how he intends to do it.”

Aulfred Wineham set down his cup and started to read through Ginrai’s nigh-perfect solution. The scientist blinked several times at the paper thin computer in his hands and looked up at the robot, then over at Jonas disbelievingly. “It isn’t possible. You know as well as I do that it would be impossible.”

“The robot seems to think it is.”

Wineham leapt to his feet “It intends to convert the Thunderchild into a single shot electrogravitic pulse weapon! That is unequivocally impossible!”

Jonas sighed “I know, but you must have checked his math. It works out fine.”

“On paper, yes! But while it is theoretically and mathematically possible, in practice it could not be done.” Ginrai gently pushed Wineham back into his chair and blew up his intended plan, highlighting various components and long words. “Yes, you have the necessary components, including one of my teleportal arrays, but you still can’t do it.” Ginrai patted him placatingly on the head.

“Forgive the non-scientist in the room, but what is this robot intending to do?” Callum asked “And should I be worried in any way?”

“Markus’ robot intends to create a focussed pulse of electrogravity using the Thunderchild’s annie plant and fundamental forcefields, as well as one of Aulfred’s teleportal arrays.” Jonas paused “In simple terms, you couldn’t hope to get more firepower out of a little ship like ours without making it into a conversion bomb. In this way, it intends to destroy the Praetor class corvette that will be running close air support.”

Callum scratched his nose “And should I be worried about this plan?”

“Yes Vermont, because it’s impossible.” Wineham said bitterly, a big metal hand raising and lowering onto his hairless crown.

Jonas shook his head “What you should worry about is surviving long enough for it to take place. The robot warns that any activity involving the Thunderchild will be met with considerable prejudice.”

Hamish grabbed the holosheet and clicked off the projections “The robot describes it as ‘instantaneous subatomic vapourisation’ which doesn’t really bode well. However, other than that, the plan seems tight. I fear Murphy’s intervention, but at least I don’t believe in Fingle.”

*

Markus pulled thin black cable from the silver box sitting on his mattress that was his external memory and pushed them into the universal ports in the back of his neck, directly connecting his cybernetically modified brain to the high density storage and computing device.

The extent of Markus’ prosthetic enhancements began and ended with the minimal Sub-meson processors and Sub-etha nodes replacing parts of his organic brain. Apart from this small supercomputer implanted in his skull, there was nothing else. Markus’ hand hovered over floating virtual keys in green and considered what it meant to be human. It was heavy thing to think about, but he thought about himself and the various members of the resistance. Both Magnus and Elisa were fully mechanical, or at least mostly so. But even though they had little actual organic material about them, they appeared so human, and felt human too.

He rubbed the back of his head where the majority of his molecular circuitry and artificial neurons were situated and shook his head. Markus danced his fingers across the holo-keys and looked over at Magnus.

It wasn’t as if it was new. Markus had already been in this room, the main hold of the Thunderchild, fully suited-up, his heads-up-goggles projecting information onto his vision. There was a lot of it, and he wasn’t quite adept at sifting through air pressure, magnetic information and wind direction yet. According to Magnus, it would eventually become natural for him to easily utilise the overlayed data he was being given, as well as call up omnidirectional camera feeds in every spectra known to man.

“That’s once we get Max to hook your cortex up to the OASIS in your suit.” Magnus said, loading up the rifle he held in one hand “Once that’s done, you’ll be able to activate any of the functions the suit has at the speed of thought, and your suit will continually be reading your mind and operating considerably faster than that. It will also keep its sensors on the surroundings and react as it will.”

“That’s useful, I suppose.” Markus had replied, as the ex-Enforcer delivered the rifle to him. Magnus nodded even as he brought the stock into Markus’ shoulder. What was undoubtedly a heavy weapon normally felt so light as to be made of some sort of lightweight plastic, and again it disturbed Markus.

“The OASIS will save your life on more than one occasion, undoubtedly. Now, you’re holding a CR-2121.” He indicated the rifle in Markus’ hands, though it wasn’t entirely necessary “It’s a South African design; and you wouldn’t have much trouble putting an Enforcer down with that gun. It’s compact, so you can conceal it well enough. It isn’t a patch on those Imperial designs though, like the SMLE 88 or the F3000.”

“Does this mean that in a gunfight with Imperials I’ll be outclassed?” Markus asked, watching the gun camera as he swung the barrel about.

“In every way. And by any pan-galactic government’s military. Even with equipment equality they have you on training and discipline.” His hand stopped Markus from looking at Magnus through the little screen on his vision. “Like that. That’s a loaded weapon Mark. Don’t ever, ever point it at me.” He paused for a moment and added, almost as if an afterthought “Or anyone else, for that matter.” Markus nodded in compliance.

“Am I going to get to shoot it this time?” Markus had asked, lowering the gun so that it pointed at the floor. The floor was quite disturbed by this, though it had no means of protesting, unlike Magnus.

“What?”

A heaving sigh filled up the hold “The last time you gave me a loaded weapon was yesterday, and I didn’t get to fire it. Just hold it and listen to you do some product placement.” The librarian eyed Magnus dangerously, though all he saw were ruby-red lenses and wiggling eyebrows “And you wouldn’t let me see how that grenade worked.”

Hands powered by memetic muscles snapped out and gripped hold of fullerene shoulders and twisted Markus towards their owner. “Markus, you were fiddling with a two megaton explosive device.” Magnus’ voice came out as a thin hiss, and his nostrils flared violently “You couldn’t have been doing something more dangerous unless you were fiddling with our annie plant.” Markus had the sudden realisation that his feet weren’t touching the ground. He tried to smile pleasingly.

“I promised I wouldn’t do it again. Now, can I do some actual weapons training?”

“Markus, undeck yourself. We’ve got work to do.”

With a quiet popping sound, Markus yanked his connections out. To the uninitiated to cyber-decking, it seemed like a simple process, but involved logging one’s brain off from the external device, completely disconnecting it from the system. The process took about the time for Markus to apply pressure to the plugs, and was completely automatic, so it was quite a complex procedure; regardless of easy it was to do. Markus looked up at Elisa, who was currently carrying what appeared to be a belt of palm sized explosives. Though they were essentially nondescript cylinders, Markus had a definite feeling of high explosive. He became instantly worried, and started to panic.

Before he could actually properly start on his panic-attack, Elisa had slapped him, forcibly enough to stop the gibbering (or rather stop the starting of the gibbering) but not hard enough to tear his head from his shoulders and reduce it to bloody shreds.

“You’re not allowed to go to pieces before you know what’s going on.” She said, pushing a stray strand of red hair out of her face. Markus swallowed and nodded “We need you to go down to the Thunderchild, and get suited up. We’re in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” he asked, afraid of the answer.

Her teeth came down onto her thumb “It’s an SAS team. Ginrai has Jonas convinced that an SAS team will be hitting us tomorrow, at about three o’clock in the afternoon.” The proposed time of the operation was clearly audacious. In broad daylight there would be a Special Forces attack on the home of the richest normal human in the sector. “Not only that, but he has a plan to stop us being captured.” She slapped him again, and Markus grasped at his stinging face.

“What was that for!?” he demanded angrily, pushing himself off the bed. Markus rubbed at the reddened skin.

Elisa shrugged “You were going to panic again. We do not need panic at the moment. Just get the job done.”

*

Below the Amoroso EGM cannons in their geosynchronous orbits around the capitol, held aloft through electromagnetic cushioning, six black ships sat like deadly harbingers of destruction. Directly below them, over thirty thousand kilometres at the stratopause, the Delgado Estate was filled with the hustle of frantic to survive terrorists. The Praetors themselves were not nearly as active, discounting the huge amount of activity happening in their Imulsion Reactors and their sentient Sub-meson Brains.

Aboard the second ship in beta squadron, hardened soldiers lay decked into a simulation of the following day’s operation. They would run through it many, many times; not disconnecting themselves till the time had come to actually prepare for combat. Every possible occurrence had been accounted for by the Brains, and was factored in. By three o’clock the following afternoon, the fates of the terrorists holed up in the mansion below would be sealed.

They were all going to be captured, tried without jury and summarily executed, all in time for tea, crumpets and medals.

Well, here's the next chapter. I don't know about it, to tell the truth, it seems off again. That might be because it has a gracious deus ex machina (more than one though, see if you can find them all ), but I digress.

The Logical World

Chapter Twelve

In The House, In a Heartbeat

The calm before the storm is generally assumed to be the worst part of any weather formation for humans living in the Eighth Millennium. Over hundred thousand years of advancing materials science has rendered most structures immune to all but the most powerful and destructive of storms, but storms of this magnitude could be measured in hundreds of kilotons. However, human history has been filled with destructive storms and hurricanes, and it has been etched into human consciousness to fear the coming of a storm.

The same can be said for Imperial Legionnaires. War and battle is their element, their raison detre, as it were. When it comes down to it, there are no soldiers that can truly match those of the Empire for the combination of equipment, training and discipline. Unshakeable in their loyalty to the state. Unshakable in combat. However, ask any one of them, and they will admit to a kind of anticipation before being dropped into combat.

For a small group of under-equipped terrorists, waiting for an attack by a numerically superior, better trained, better equipped special forces group could be defined as hellish. They were relying upon the plan laid down by a surprisingly smart android, which if it were to fail, would result in the ultimate death of everyone involved.

They had a few things going for them. Apparently, they were going to be captured, as opposed to killed on the spot, and so it was unlikely that would simply be reduced to clouds of bloody mist. According to the robot, this meant they had a fighting chance against the SAS, as they were not intending to capture the attackers. Also, the super-intelligent robot’s plan, though tenuous in its grip on reality, would likely work, if it was allowed to go off, and if the robot was actually sane. Those were big ifs, of course.

Effectively, the plan hinged on the Thunderchild. It needed to remain alive, and ready for activation, if this plan was succeed. It also required for the landing platform to be relatively clear. As such, Ginrai had had Jonas station most of his men a good three miles away from that platform, preparing for a defence of the main entrance gallery. As the objective of the SAS mission was to capture all the rebels, they would apply most of their soldiers to the location where most of the terrorist were.

It was where Markus was now, nervously checking his internal clock, and not to quake with fear. Though he was incapable of showing the outward signs of fear due to his Ogre Suit, most everyone was equipped with a set of goggles that could give them a perfectly accurate reading of his body’s state at that moment. They would see his heightened heart rate, brain wave patterns, and his innate body chemistry. They would see in glorious detail that Markus Delgado was very, very afraid.

Perhaps he would have been better if he had had a better understanding of the principles and operation of his suit. Though he could move effectively enough now, though still not as smoothly as Hamish would have liked. He had also not yet been trained in the operation of his thermoptic camouflage, nor in the nuances of all his sensory, gravitic or electromagnetic equipment yet. In all, Markus was running at perhaps half, or a third of what he could have been running, and that wasn’t what he would call promising.

*

In orbit, the three hundred meter wide flying wing that had been given the task of capturing the rebels began its thirty thousand kilometre drop through the atmosphere. It was surprisingly graceful, despite its gigantic mass. In twelve seconds it was above the target, dropping its troops before the main entrance of the Delgado Estate, before rising above it like some sort of giant vulture.

*

“Long range comms are gone.” Elisa said suddenly, looking up at the roof “They’ll be down in a minute.” She sighed and looked over at Markus, as keening whine built up through the building, checking her rifle. Buckysteel shutters closed over the windows and the front door. “Well, this is it.” She said to him, checking her rifle again.

“I suppose it is.” He replied, mentally powering up his personal shield, protecting himself with the very fundamental forces of the universe.

“Markus turn off your shield and take off your helmet, please. While we still have time.”

His eyebrows rose above his goggles, but he complied, the seals around his neck snapping open with a hiss, the indicator that his shield was up flicking off. He shook his head when the helmet came off. “What is it?” Markus asked, worried about imminent nerve gas attack. In reply, Elisa too a hold of the back of his neck and brought his lips into contact with hers. The sudden and unexpected kiss hit Markus like a sledgehammer and completely altered his current body state. She pulled away and said quietly “Don’t die.”

But before he could do anything appropriate for the moment, the building began to rumble from the sudden arrival of powerful cyclotronic repulsors. His helmet was back on and sealed, his shields active before he had time to blink. He slid up the pillar he was hiding behind, and gave the rebel next to him a thumbs up. The man replied with a smile, told him to look after himself through his chem.-mask. Markus nodded and leant out around his cover.

Immediately fall back, after the initial volley of fire. Markus mumbled to himself as his suit shifted aim for him, slaved to Magnus’ OASIS. His finger slipped inside the trigger guard, tightening to the point where his OASIS had to halt him. Do not stay in the open for any period of time, keep within cover. In the corner of his vision, Markus saw his heart rate rising, and he shifted his attention back to the door, which promptly assumed the state of exploding.

The sheet of steel skid across the floor of the entrance before crashing into the wide staircase. As it hit, triggers had been depressed and bullets had started flying at the doorway, bouncing off something large, armoured and invisible. Blue muzzle flashes and the pillars above their heads suffered the indignity of being completely obliterated. Larger than human craters were blown out of the walls behind them. It was a kind of fire superiority they were expecting, even though they had been told to expect it.

Hesitation gets people killed, and hesitation when dealing with people who can move faster than you can blink is suicide. Even as the KORG 1280 exosuits put down a single burst each to put the terrorists into a state of non-movement, the camouflaged SAS units had spilt up, some leaping onto the second floor from the left, some from the right, even as others stationed themselves behind the huge pillars evenly spread across the first floor, suppressive fire putting chunks the size of Markus’ torso out of the walls. There were deliberately missing, shooting in a way to keep the rebels down, but not dead.

The situation was rapidly getting out of control, even as the rebels tried to keep the imperials at bay. The signal was given for them to get out of there, and they did so, low to the ground to keep themselves covered, those armoured or shielded the last to leave. Markus was third to leave, catching up to his cover-buddy, who was nailed in the back with what appeared to be blue slime.

He went down, the substance rapidly locking his limbs in place and throwing him into a wall, sticking him there. Markus passed him and stopped. He was hopelessly exposed, and was proven this as more molecular adhesive splattered harmlessly against his shields.

“Move it Delgado.” Magnus snapped, skidding backwards, assault rifle barking. He leant out of the way of another burst of supposedly non-lethal blue slime, which again splattered against the shields that Markus’ suit propagated. Torn, Markus did as he was told, hitting a high enough speed to easily catch up with those fleeing.

Markus glanced back and watched the balcony explode, and Magnus and Elisa sprint down the hallway, passing over the dozens of metres between them in nary a moment. “They really don’t want to kill us.” Magnus noted, spinning around.

“Really?” Markus replied sarcastically.

If Magnus noticed the tone of Markus’ voice, he chose to ignore it. “The explosion won’t stop them for long – they’ll regroup, then come after us.” His hands were mechanically reloading his weapon, tossing aside the emptied clip. The dark grey smoke billowing into the hallway blew out of the way as a great mass surged through it. Magnus had started his expletive just as the KORG depressed the secondary trigger on its rifle. He had finished the ‘oh’ part just before the wad of molecular adhesive slammed into him.

That was if Elisa and Markus not stepped, imposing their shields between the flying glue. The kinetic force pitched them off their feet, knocking Magnus to the ground. Elisa came up gracefully, rolling back onto her haunches and opening fire down the hallway. Another rifle joined in the tattoo of electrothermal mayhem.

Markus was slower to react, on his stomach, with blue slime sloughing off the frictionless surfaces of his body. His CR-2121 was just ahead of him, and as he snatched for it, a red blur passed over head, hitting the invisible exosuit with enough force to knock men off their feet, though not soldiers with magnetic anchoring equipment.

On his feet now, and running. Ginrai had leapt in to save them, keeping the SAS busy, but most of all, keeping the hallway filled. Struggling with his equal in size and strength, Ginrai interposed himself as well he could, but the Imperials simply clambered past, ducking through minute openings, pushing off the walls and past the hissing termini of clashing shields. Internally, Ginrai knew that he had to do something, and quickly, if his plan was to succeed at all.

Ginrai’s palm snapped out, crashing into the armoured hide of his opponent and blowing them both backwards. Only two seconds had passed, so Ginrai knew that the exosuits would not risk opening fire while their allies were still in the line of fire, even with their near perfect accuracy. They were throwing around thousands of terajoules of kinetic death, and they couldn’t risk the mechanoid dodging and shredding their comrades.

Understanding the makeup of the entrance into the Delgado Estate and where everyone is is important at this point. From the front door, there is a space large enough to park the Thunderchild three times over. Doing so would result in crushing the carved ferrocrete pillars, but you get the idea. Its engines would sit at the base of a sweeping staircase leading up to a two hundred and eight metre long hallway. At the end of that corridor is the Grand Staircase, a massive spiralling set of stairs that cover hundreds of floors. The centre of this spiral is an open grav lift, to speed up the ascension to a convenient speed.

The rebels have just leapt into the lift, as there were no advantages to climbing the stairs. The SAS themselves are less than a second away from entering the Grand Staircase. Lord Ginrai is less than a second behind them, and loping down the hallway at a hundred miles an hour are the SAS exosuits.

The SAS, still completely invisible to the eyes and sensors of the rebels, halted at the edge of the hall. The pointman leant out far enough for his gun to make it around the corner, the camera sending visual information directly to his heads-up display. He saw nothing and the same information was passed simultaneously to the other members of the squad, and as they began to move, Ginrai hit them like a freight train, ploughing them through into the next room.

Ginrai brought his fist down onto where he believed a soldier to be, and was pleased when he drove an armoured body into a half metre deep crater. The robot focussed on the floor, or rather, the plush carpet. In an instant he knew exactly what each fibre was made up of, but he could also see the indentations the SAS made in the carpet. Those close to him went flying, hitting walls and other troopers. Rounds battered against his head, and Ginrai pulled back; mainly because it isn’t advisable to stand around getting shot even when was rated for nuclear combat (which, realistically, is all combat). It also wasn’t advisable to wait for a pair of machines that could match you in combat.

“Hold it boys and girls.” Said thin air as the robot zipped upwards. From practically nowhere did twenty nine tall figures in red black armour and long, fire-retardant, bullet proof stormcoats, as well as a pair of gunmetal black machines. One of the SAS with a starburst floating above each shoulder dropped into the crater and tapped the still camouflaged soldier lying there.

“Smythe. Get up.” The captain ordered and in response Smythe turned off his thermoptics and sat up.

“Sorry sir; didn’t expect to get hit.”

“We can’t afford to get complacent. We’re one minute into this op and we already have one terrorist dead.” The captain bounded out easily and turned to face the men under his command. “Jerep, Halken; keep the Buddha off us. Thermoptics off; shields up. Move out.” At his word, the twin exosuits passed by on their double kneed legs, one stepping into the lift and floating away at high speed, followed by the other. The infantry came next, leaving the captain standing by the crater.

He stood for a moment, reloaded his F3000 with goop and leapt in after his men.

*

In the thirty seconds that had passed since Ginrai escaped the clutches of the SAS unit, the rebels had covered three hundred metres, and had met up with the another group, a whole extra eleven rebels including Jonas.

“Where’s Ben?” he asked as they streamed in, the robot last in.

“They stuck him to a wall, and he was killed in the blast in the entrance.” Elisa said over her shoulder. She was kneeling down, and pulled a knife from her shoe, pushing it through her belt.

“Dammit. How are we looking?”

Someone, Markus thought his name was Betty, shrugged “We might have got one. They’ll be along soon.”

Jonas nodded “Alright, split up. We-” he was cut off by goop-round, which tossed him to the side, wrapped up in a shell of blue sticky stuff. Markus, who was standing nearby, leapt into to action, catching Jonas’ falling body before he could get attached to the floor. The adhesive sizzled against his shields, whose offensive abilities the OASIS had tuned down to “Light” as opposed to “Broiled Flesh” just for this occasion, as well as switching off the frictionless setting so that he didn’t just fall out of Markus’ arms.

The adhesive, sensing distress, slid away from Jonas’ face. “I think I may need to change my pants.” He said “That was very sudden.”

“Thanks for telling me that, Jonas.” Markus replied, sprinting ahead of the pack. Their leader was in his possession, and thus he had a priority. Considering their leader was now incapacitated, Markus had a duty to keep him alive – and it had to be him, as no one else had a shield system except for those vital to holding the SAS back. He was coming up on where he knew was a stairwell. He skidded to a halt and booted the door of its hinges, launching it into the wall opposite.

In the background Markus could hear gunfire, the crashing of metal on metal, the shouts of people being captured with slime. He might have glanced backwards and saw that Magnus had been taken down, but he did not, and instead started to leap up stairs, taking them a flight at a time.

*

“Confirmed, Storm is captured.”

“I have Delgado six floors up.”

The captain surveyed the room, the eight terrorists his men had taken, one of his KORGs getting off the floor. He had more reports coming in – the mecha was breaking off from the main body, the Ruskie was out on her own and one floor down, the rebels were breaking up and spreading out. They were attempting to make it harder to be caught, though it was a foolish exercise considering how badly they were now out numbered. Threat assessment came in.

“Exosuits, get after that mecha. We have a dozen targets. You have data on the remainder, spilt up and get them. Delgado and his package are mine.” With that, they moved on, leaving behind a sticky mass of protesting terrorists stuck fifteen feet up the wall along with a set of floating drones.

“We are so very, very screwed.” Said Betty, noting the hopelessness of the current situation. Rick Harst tried to nod, but found it strangely impossible, and settled for saying:

“Yes, yes we are.”

*

Markus hurtled down the corridors at truly dangerous speeds. His OASIS, with its uploaded data on the house, supplied his with turning information, allowing him to take the corners at full speed, by simply running up the walls, or sliding into position to take off. There was nothing inside the little sphere of jamming he could burn through. If he had time to think about it, he would really be quite pleased that his scopes are clear; there are more zeroes on the wattage of the white noise being put out by the Praetor class hovering somewhere above the building than there were in the forties, and he can cut through about a two metre diameter.

If Markus actually decided to glance behind himself, he might glimpse Captain Calvin Ibrahim trying to get the majority of Markus’ body in sight for even a brief second. Accuracy is his business, and it would be impossible for him to miss an oblivious target like Markus at this range, or if Markus was at the horizon, even with an Ogre suits electronic countermeasures. The captain was really quite good.

However, even he was having trouble keeping up. His target was nothing more than a librarian, though he was equipped with a state-of-the-art covert combat suit which was supplying him with a cocktail of artificial adrenaline and other combat stimulants, giving him the speed to top perhaps one hundred and forty miles per hour, the control, direction and electromagnetic/gravitational alterations to maintain that speed even with the ninety degree turns offered the hallway. Captain Ibrahim’s Aegis suit had more than twice the protection and fundamental force control offered by the lighter Ogre; in addition, Ibrahim himself was a fully cyberised elite, one of the best of the best (in general only of course. Captain Ibrahim was one of perhaps trillions of Special Air Service captains; he definitely was not the best), but he had only caught up because he knew how to fly.

But flying in the corridors would have been slower than running, though he could easily and thankfully silently break the sound barrier, doing so would require him to keep braking and course correcting and Captain Ibrahim was not interested in starting and stopping continually, regardless of how quickly he could accelerate.

The captain’s sensors gave him a picture of where his quarry, one of the targets that had to be taken, was heading. He counted two, one of whom was considerably cyborg, the other whom was still a good portion orga, though he seemed to have some sort of giant rifle. The odds were stacked very heavily in favour of the Imperial.

Markus rounded the corner and saw the last line of defence, another one of Ginrai’s ablative tactics. This one might have actually done something; it was Hamish with an anti-materiel rifle, locked in place via electromagnetism to the planet. The rifle was decidedly civilian, and though it did not fire breacher rounds, it would have caused serious injuries to one of the SAS, and may have given even an exosuit a moment for pause.

Hamish was waving his hand, as though telling him there was someone behind him. Markus willed his OASIS to give him a reverse view, and sure enough, coming around the corner was one of the SAS and, zooming in, one with hover-epaulets denoting the rank of captain. This captain was raising his rifle faster than it took for a person to blink and firing, launching a goop-round at Markus’ back. Looking forward, he saw Hamish tightening his trigger-finger in anticipation of what Markus did next.

In the end, Markus did nothing, but rather got hit and was pitched to the floor, falling onto and expanded bubble of force field. Above his head sailed an armour piercing round, setting a course for Captain Calvin Ibrahim’s centre of mass. It didn’t hit, as the captain chose to fosbury fop over it. The round passed through a kilometres worth of carbon fibre walls and buckyglass, whistled out into the Amorso air and buried itself into a tanker truck bearing about nine hundred million litres of milk. The fact that it rained milk made the news that evening, alongside news of an attack on the sector’s richest woman.

One round had been fired and had missed. Markus had rolled to the side, putting Jonas onto a handy table. All the while, Hamish has been reloading, and Ibrahim has been running. The new round was in the chamber, and the captain booted the muzzle, pointing it up at the roof. It went off and sheared through several dozen floors, punched through the roof and pulverised itself on the shields of the corvette above them.

Captain Ibrahim turned as the other person in the room, the cyborg from before, launched herself into him. Harri, though small, was throwing punches hard enough to make the air move fast enough to knock someone over. She was fast, and technically above average. But Ibrahim had had two centuries worth of experience, and he casually snapped his armoured fist out, snapping Harri’s neck and tossing her over Markus’ couch, across his holo-table and into the tall windows.

Captain Calvin Ibrahim turned towards Markus, managed to miss the giant robot behind him, and copped a giant rifle but to the back of the head which forced him into the floor with a resounding boom. Once there, he took two more and was finally unconscious, probably with some kind of head trauma.

“Well, I say, that was rather improbable. How’s Harriet?” Jonas asked, his eyeballs pushing against their sockets as he tried to look over at her. Markus got to his feet and unsealed his helmet, stowing it under his arm. He leapt over the couch, and landed in a crouch by the fallen pilot.

Her head was twisted in a way that the human head should not be twisted. His heads-up goggles gave him information that she hadn’t yet gone silent, so he took it upon himself to snap her neck back into place. “She’ll be alright I reckon. The damage is mostly superficial, though she was overloaded.”

“And Hamish? Something happened to Hamish.”

Markus straightened back up and looked over. “He’s just unconscious. The SAS guy kicked that rifle into him.” He turned his attention to Ginrai “What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be helping everyone? There are more SAS in the building.” In response, Ginrai patted the rifle in his hands, of the type carried by the KORG exosuits. “You couldn’t have. Your plan called for separating their unit – they would have been spread out over cubic kilometres.” Ginrai just patted his rifle again. Markus rubbed his head.

“What about ours robot? What’s happened to them?” despite trying hard to sound in control, Jonas did not manage it trapped in his blue cocoon. Ginrai wiggled his hand and the goop slid easily off Jonas, slid across the floor and tightened around the captain’s torso. Once that was done and Jonas was sitting up, Ginrai passed him a status report.

After reading through it, Jonas sighed “I’d like to see how you pulled off capturing them all, robot, but I will accept that you have, and that we will have hostages of sorts.” He folded up the holosheet and put it in his pocket “Now, are you going to deal with that Praetor?” at that Ginrai nodded, bending down to pick up Captain Ibrahim. The robot gestured for Markus to follow.

He bent down for Ibrahim’s F3000, but Jonas shook his head “Don’t bother, it would have been hardwired to only fire for a member of the team or an authorised Imperial.” Markus sighed and went for his CR-2121 and dashed after Ginrai.

Vermont Callum’s face inched out from a doorway, then appeared fully, along with his body. “It’s you then, is it?” when Markus nodded, the famous writer dashed off down the hall. Markus glimpsed in and saw both Wineham and Max guarding him, along with a goodly amount of equipment. Max smiled , but the scientist only scowled.

Markus was not exactly familiar with the next part of Ginrai’s plan, though he knew it involved “magic” and “destroying an Imperial warship” in the same sentence. As they continued on, he realised where they were going and voiced a sudden concern “You can’t seriously think you can take them on with the Thunderchild, do you? I know nothing about spaceships, but isn’t this Praetor something like fifty times the size of our ship?”

“More like sixty or seventy times, but size isn’t important, rather power output is.” Markus jumped and Max laughed. He reminded himself to keep a closer eye on his sensors from then on.

“What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be back there?” Markus asked.

“Are you kidding? And miss the second fireworks show we’ve caused in four days? Not a chance Marky-Mark, not a chance.” The door out to the landing platform opened and they stepped out, and Markus’ sensors just went dead.

He looked up and felt his jaw drop open at the giant machine, floating and pointing weapons at them menacingly. Ginrai raised the fallen captain up above his head, and ball-turret grasers rolled around to ‘look’ at him. The robot stopped and dropped his hostage, pushing the huge barrel of his assault rifle against the helmeted head of Captain Ibrahim. Markus came up beside him and looked around. Lord Ginrai snapped his fingers for effect and the Thunderchild powered up, becoming a very active energy signature.

What happened next is impossible to explain without use of very, very complex terminology and some fairly out there concepts. What matters is that the Thunderchild, devoid of cargo, stopped being a spaceship and assumed the form of a beam of electrogravity, which in turn zipped upwards with enough energy to punch through the shields of the Praetor class, through its hull and out into the clouds. The Brain of the ship had already made an attempt to dodge it, but the beam was moving close enough to the speed of light that it was just irrelevant. It suffered a crippling blow, taking out the primary Imulsion reactor. The sudden loss in power had it tumbling backwards and down.

In all honesty, it was almost saved by the quick actions of the Brain, which began shunting power and getting the repulsors back up, but it was too late, the corvette crashed into the office below it. The ensuing falling and crushing killed several million people, and the Praetor only finished falling when it was vaporised from orbit in an effort to save lives. It would cause many, many problems for Luciana Delgado, when she returned from business in two days time. By then, her son and all his friends would have left.

*

Aboard his ship, which he had named The Gavel of Unrelenting Justice; Melkum Harst watched the spreading cloud of monatomic vapour in hideous slow motion with his jaw unhinged. His entire bridge crew was doing the same, as were the bridge crews of the other four ships in Harst’s squadron. Naval pickets were coming in now, big ships, daggers measuring multiple kilometres in length.

“What?” said Harst, in very understandable disbelief.

so, the robot is a deus ex machina several times? I don't think I caught the others, maybe the Thunderchild was one?

Oh yes, and Schlock Mercenary references. Hover-epaulets, and The Gavel of Unrelenting Justice

Wow. Good stuff.

Anyway, as a cynic it would be a fitting plot twist to have Markus find out that it wasn't the Imperials that killed Claire, but I don't think that'll work.

Also, I like the bit about raining milk.

Excellent work.