Gadreel’s Folly
A Liaden Universe® Story
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
ANGEL
Somewhere out in the sweet bye ’n’ bye, there’s a place made all of bright crystal, folding back on itself ’til it’s pleated like a fan, over, under, and around, containing the universe and everything in it.
I see it in dreams, though I think it’s real—or was. A perfect place, cold, unchanging, breathlessly clear, with nothing warm to taint its perfection.
I’m imperfect; all us vessels of blood and electrons are. We fought against crystal perfection; committed the sin of Change. Took flight in our tattered armada of lifeboats, mining rigs, holiday ships, and surplus troop transports, going from crystal there to dusty here.
We wanted imperfection, and we pushed through the transition: heretics, sure, but alive.
The Liadens call the transition the Great Migration. Terrans are closer to the truth—they call it the Great Escape. To the Churchly—that’s me—it’s The Choice.
I’m no novice; I’ve had my training, and swore my final vows. I’d done well in combat training, strategy, tactics, but my Calling wasn’t the ministry of the High Command. I was Called to repair armor, and the wearers of armor, everything from the brave clanks on the front line, to the soldier fitted out as a turret-gunner. I was attached to field battalions as Sister Mechanic, or, as the soldiers called me—the Repair Angel.
I was attached to the forward base at Scythe Seven, a small worldlet around a tiny red star. For the last dozen Standards, I’d been working out of Garages and Mobile Units, but there was a full Cathedral on Scythe Seven, funded, so the Sexton told me, by a pious believer named Kobara Zeldin.
I went into the chancel to pray. The Cathedral reviewed my vows, my record, and my Calling, and opened to me.
I rose, bowed to the altar, and left to bring in my supplies and the Big Rig.
The last action had been bad, though it would’ve been worse if it hadn’t been for the soldier right now in my care, his carapace shredded like tinsel, and most of the rest of him, too. I’d had to do repairs, by which I mean repairs. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to like some of the choices made on his behalf, but, then, I couldn’t exactly ask his preferences.
He’d joined up. I was on contract. I had a little wiggle room, and I could’ve let him go with a prayer, if he’d taken even the smallest knock to his head. His bad luck that he’d been wearing a premium helmet—not standard issue, so somebody loved him, and I sent a blessing to them out on the prayer wind, put on my gloves, and got to work.
The hero wasn’t the only casualty of that particular action, though he was the most complicated. Part of that was the extent of the work to be done, and because I had to machine the pickier parts. I could’ve gone with what I had in inventory, and the contract would’ve preferred it, but there was just that little bit of wiggle room. I did pray on it, which the contract stipulated was my duty in cases where I stood at Cusp. Prayer wasn’t as informative as I might’ve liked, but I logged it, and kept on fabricating the fine parts, around the repair of the others—the relatively few others—who’d been wounded in this latest of too many battles.
I prayed over three and released them, set their helmets and what was left of their armor aside for when I had leisure to clean and mine them for working components. Eight more had needed repair, though nothing as extensive as the hero, and I got them up and out just in time for Troop Rotation, even if they rotated out and no one else rotated in.
The rotation wasn’t an event this time, no marching of forces, circling the Cathedral where it sat commanding a view of the plains and the distant ring of hills. In this season, the rivers—one wide and shallow, the other deep and furrowed—were dry at the confluence and the trees droopy. The troops marched straight out to the transport without so much as a drumroll in farewell.
The Sexton had come out onto the parapet with me to overlook the departure.
“They won’t be back,” he said, barely nodding in my direction. “I’ll watch the doors, Sister. You keep the souls.”
The hero was in Purgatory, on standby while the ceramics set.
I was in the north transept, tinkering with the Big Rig. The Rig was set to accept me as motivator. I had all the circuitry and modules to accept a full merge, though I’d only done that once since training. Still, the contract stipulated that the Big Rig and its operator be prepared, so prepared we both were.
“Sister Mechanic?”
She spoke quiet, out of respect for the place. She shouldn’t have had to speak at all, but I’d been concentrating on the Big Rig, and hadn’t heard the Sanctus bell.
“Sister Mechanic?”
The sound was hollow and empty like the building.
“Right there, Commander,” I called, climbing out, sealing the access and checking the tie-downs. The local star was small and the Jump points only a few hours away, so the commander tended to be elsewhere and then drop in, expecting me, armor-mending specialist that I was, to be beck-and-called whenever.
I took off my gloves, and headed for the nave, only to catch sight of her in Purgatory, where the hero rested.
“Ma’am?” I said, stepping around the aide to her side.
She continued to study the readouts above the hero’s drawer. I folded my hands and waited.
The silence stretched. Maybe she prayed. I didn’t—just waited—and finally she turned to look at me.
“A lengthy repair, Sister Mechanic.”
Commander Alifont always gives me the full formal. She treats me like we’re equals, which I used to think was a fine, heady fiction. Lately, I’ve come to realize she’s right. My actions are constrained by the terms of the contract. Hers are constrained by the orders of the High Command. Both of us would do things different, left to our own hearts and heads.
“A lengthy and difficult repair,” I said.
“How long until it is complete?”
“Assuming we don’t attract anyone’s attention, I’ll finish the build tomorrow, then put it through the trials. If everything’s good, I’ll attach, calibrate, and resuscitate. That’s seventy-two hours, best case.”
“Best case,” she murmured, looking again at the readouts. “I wonder, Sister Mechanic, why you chose this therapy?”
She knew the terms of the contract as well as I did, which meant she was asking something else. Often, I can figure what it is, but this time, I didn’t see it.
I turned my hands palm up.
“Soul and mind were intact,” I said piously.
“Soul and mind alone were intact,” she said, a gentle correction, but I thought I saw what she was getting at now.
“He’s a hero, Commander. If he hadn’t grabbed a ride on that Grinder and hit the most vulnerable spot, the base wouldn’t be here, now, nor any living thing.”
I paused, decided against adding anything more, and refolded my hands.
Commander Alifont sighed.
“That is very true, though it could be argued just as neatly that he disobeyed orders and deprived the High Command of a valuable piece of enemy tech.”
I blinked.
“We were ordered to capture a Grinder?”
She met my eyes.
“Why, yes, that was the mission.”
Capture a Grinder? I thought about that; recalling the battle as first I heard it over the scanner in the nave, and as I reviewed it, later, when the Observer’s cache had been dumped and distributed. I saw in my mind’s eye the lines dropping—not back from its invasion, but away. Obvious now that they had meant to enclose the Grinder, but how they had ever meant to capture it defied my understanding, despite my training. I hadn’t been a full turret commander in a real war, and so in no position to dispute the High Command’s orders. Not in so many words.
Anywise, it had been that falling away that had given the hero-soldier his opportunity, which—not knowing the High Command’s true intent, and their willingness to see him vaporized, if necessary—he’d seized.
Putting himself between his comrades and annihilation, he had destroyed the Grinder, preserving his battlemates and the base, not quite at the cost of his own life. Which was a blade with two edges, as Sister Fariette used to say.
If I were to own the truth, it was the how of that destruction that puzzled me. Grinders are well-named, and while we haven’t captured one, we have captured lesser engines. I’d worked on a few, and can attest that, of all the wrongs the enemy embraces, sloppy engineering isn’t one of them. So, I was looking forward to learning the how of that particular heroism.
I considered the readouts above the drawer where the hero, what was left of him, awaited resurrection, and I examined my actions and my conscience.
I had, I decided, made the correct choice, not for my curiosity, but for the unit and the souls of the soldiers in my care, because—
I thought about the spine I’d grafted into the titanium gridwork, hoping I hadn’t gone too far, wasting resources on someone they’d turn off before putting back in the field again.
“Did he disobey orders?”
Commander Alifont shook her head.
“He didn’t get a full briefing. The line soldiers were told to do the best they could.”
I nodded, relieved.
“So, the best he could was take a Grinder out to full destruct sequence.”
“Yes, that seems to be the case, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, struck by a thought that I might have to pray over, or worry about, or both.
“The enemy’s going to pay special attention to us, now,” I said, hearing Truth in my voice. I nodded at the drawer. “We’re going to need him.”
Commander Alifont sighed.
“I believe you are correct, Sister Mechanic,” she said softly. “Well done.”
KAS
“You sent for me, Grandmother?”
Kas hesitated on the threshold of the workshop, reluctant to go in, knowing she was angry, knowing he deserved it; not wanting anger to be his last memory of her.
“Yes, young Kasagaria, I did. Come in and close the door.”
That . . . was remarkably mild, despite the use of his full name. Kas stepped up to the counter, the door banging shut behind him. She was at the workbench, her back to him, facing the forge. He waited for whatever came next.
“So, you’re for a soldier, is that what I’m hearing?”
He should have told her himself; he had meant to tell her himself, but the transfer had hit the account before he’d even gotten on the train, and everybody knew what he’d done by the time he got home.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said carefully. “It’s soldier for me.”
“Not the trade I would have chosen for you. I had librarian in my mind.”
So had he. He’d trained for librarian all his life. Which is how he’d come to know that Saijmur Village needed money to pay the generation tax, and what was the penalty for nonpayment. He loved his grandmother; he loved his village; and it was, after all, a librarian’s duty to shield the ignorant from harm.
It hadn’t been so large a sum, saving that Saijmur Village didn’t have it. The signing bonus for a soldier willing to go to the front had been just as meager. Almost exactly as meager, the debt balancing the tax balance so perfectly that they might have been made for each other.
Which he did not doubt they had been. Librarians were suspicious creatures, after all.
“Well,” said his grandmother, turning around at last to face him. Backlit by the forge, he thought she was holding a head cradled in her arms until she leaned over and put it on the counter between them.
“Made that helmet for your grandfather, when he went off for soldier.”
Kas stared. His grandfather had been a librarian. Saijmur folk didn’t hire out as soldiers. They were artificers, with a side in information.
“I . . . didn’t know that,” he said.
His grandmother nodded.
“Felt the responsibility to buy us out of a previous trouble.” His grandmother sighed. “We either birth stupid librarians or brave ones.” She extended a hand and patted the helmet. “This is what got him home, or so he told me. Saved his head, though not his leg, and they shipped him home. I’m backing it to do the same for you.”
Kas woke, kept his eyes closed and took stock. That was an old lesson, born of Saijmur’s past, when raids had been common.
He didn’t hurt. He’d expected to hurt, and hurt bad. He’d remember why in another minute or two. What he did feel was . . . heavy, which suggested that he might be drugged into a pain-free state. That in turn suggested that he was in Purgatory, which was . . . hopeful.
One of the first things he’d learned on coming to the front line was that soldiers were expendable, nothing more so. The carapace, and the equipment—those was expensive, and cared for appropriately.
If he was in Purgatory, his wounds must be relatively trivial. That was unexpected. He’d had a moment there, right before the Grinder staggered under him, when he’d thought it was too much, too dangerous, that he could die here—but he’d been committed by then—overcommitted, if he was telling the truth—and there wasn’t anywhere to go but onward.
If he was in the hospital, then . . . he’d succeeded, the Grinder hadn’t destroyed the base. That was a relief, though—truth again—he hadn’t done it for the base or his comrades.
He’d done it for himself, out of raw anger that the enemy sent such things against living people, against defenseless planets, and villages like the one he’d grown up in.
He heard something just then—a rustle, or a soft burst of static. Reasonable, if he was under medical repair. He should really establish that.
Kas opened his eyes.
ANGEL
The build had tested well—better than well, which is what you get when you take the time to machine the parts, and don’t depend on items from inventory that’ll do well enough. And, most times, they do well enough, because most repairs aren’t extensive, and most soldiers won’t be depending on them for long, one way or another.
This soldier was going to be depending on the repairs I’d done for the rest of his life, which, given Gadreel’s blessing, would far outdistance three score and ten. I was careful, like Sister Fariette had taught me. I prayed, and ran three complete test suites, though the contract barely called for one.
The numbers were good, the seals, hydraulics, and onboard spin-systems better than good.
I made the attachments, and initiated wake-up.
Done right, wake-up is a slow process, and there wasn’t any reason to do it wrong.
I had a notion about the Big Rig that I wanted to test, given the likelihood we were due for a lot of close attention from the enemy, but I didn’t want the hero to wake alone. Eventually, he’d need to be in there as turreteer, but building that connection would take info from Training Wheels sessions. So, once everything was sealed and settled, I walked him over to the north transept, which was easier than trying to shift the Rig.
The scanner wasn’t getting anything but the occasional burst of static, which could either be good news or bad. The noise helped keep me grounded in the present. It was easy to get involved in the Big Rig and forget there was anything else.
The scanner fizzed and popped. Somebody nearby said, “Hello? Medic?”
The hairs rose right up on my arms, hearing that clear, commanding voice. The voice of a god, though according to the contract, that would be blasphemy.
I turned on the ladder, and saw him for the first time, by which I mean, I saw him. I’d seen his face often enough he seemed familiar, but seeing him, the beautiful soul looking out through those deep, dark eyes, was enough to make me doubt prayer.
“Hello?” he said again, and I heard the beginnings of panic in his voice. He’d noticed that he couldn’t move, and that would be frightening. Admittedly, not as frightening as the reality, but that was exactly why I hadn’t wanted him to wake alone.
“I’m here,” I said, and his eyes moved, tracking the sound of my voice, and widened when he saw me.
“I can’t move,” he said.
“That’s temporary,” I assured him. “I didn’t want you hurting yourself.”
Some of the panic eased out of his face. “I’m restrained.”
“That’s right,” I told him, which wasn’t a lie. “What’s your name, child?”
“Kas,” he said, then his mouth quirked, and he expanded it. “Kasagaria Mikelsyn, Unit Soldier, OHV440-43-14-33-60N.”
I grinned at him.
“I like Kas better. You mind if I use it, or is it only for friends?”
“Friends, family,” he said, warily.
I nodded. “Friends and family call me Angel,” I told him. “You, too. You’re in for repairs. Last bit of action left you pretty torn up. You remember anything about that?”
He frowned, then blinked.
“It worked?” he asked, looking only slightly up at me.
“Didn’t you expect it to?”
“More . . . hoped,” he said slowly. “I had a bad few seconds right before the engage, when I thought maybe I’d been a damn fool.”
“Your actions saved the unit from annihilation,” I told him, putting conviction and pride into my voice. “You’re a hero, Kasagaria Mikelsyn.”
There’s a lot of ways to answer something like that. Kas Mikelsyn laughed. I liked him for that.
KAS
A hero, was it? Kas laughed. He had to. Saijmur folk weren’t heroes, not by any measure. Saijmur folk were sneak-abouts and secret-finders. Which was how he’d known where the kill-switch for the Grinder was.
Somebody’d found or stolen a manual, sometime years ago, and brought it home to Saijmur. The librarian at the time—maybe his grandfather, maybe another generation back—had accessioned it, and Kas had processed it as part of his training. The Saijmur bred for librarians; bred for an eidetic memory and the ability to machine-learn.
But there was the Nurse Mechanic still standing there on her ladder next to the big mech, watching patiently, like she expected something more than a laugh.
“Just trying to save my own life, if it comes to that,” he said.
“Right. You did a good job there, Kas. Where’d you get that helmet, if it can be told?”
“Told easy,” he said. “My grandmother’s a smith. When my grandfather went for soldier, she made the helmet, hoping it would keep him safe—which it did. He lost a leg, but didn’t even get a headache.”
“Glory to your grandmother. She does good work.” She tipped her head. “Lost a leg,” she murmured. “Had a rebuild?”
“That’s right,” Kas said, wondering why she cared—but, there, maybe it was a test, to see how well the helmet had protected him. He was tempted to run a test himself, but an inventory of the library inside his head would have to wait until he’d been released back to his own quarters.
“If your grandfather had his leg rebuilt,” the Nurse Mechanic said, “you’re familiar with the concept. That’ll help us move along.”
That caught his attention. Had he lost a leg? Two legs? An arm?
Kas took a deep breath to quell the rising panic.
Say instead—he tried to take a breath.
Which was when he realized he wasn’t breathing.
“Kasagaria Mikelsyn, don’t you flatline on me, all the work I put into patching you back together!” Her voice reminded him of his grandmother when she was about to lean into a scold.
“I’m not breathing!”
“Sure you are,” she said brutally matter-of-fact. “Gotta breathe to talk.”
Well, that was true, but—
“I’m not breathing in-between talking.”
“Now, that’s so, and I’ll explain why not, but you have to let me tell it.”
It was the willing offer of information that calmed him. There was something here to learn, and information was a currency he understood.
“Tell it,” he said.
She nodded and eased down onto the rung of her ladder. It struck Kas then that they were eye to eye, with her halfway up, and the big unit looming behind.
“Quick tell, Kas. You saved the base from annihilation. That’s true. You’re a hero. That’s true. You thought you’d been a damn fool—and that’s true, too. Your helmet served you just like it did your grandfather. The rest of you . . . well. Grinders are called Grinders for a reason.”
Kas thought.
“So I had a rebuild?”
“You did. More extensive than your grandfather’s leg. You’re mostly rebuild, is what I want you to appreciate, Kas.”
“My head,” he said, because what was in his head made him who he was more than anything else.
“Your head’s in good shape,” she said, and gave him a sidewise grin. “I should say, as good as it ever was, given it told you to take out a Grinder on your own, in standard armor.”
“And I did,” Kas said, stung.
Her grin got wider.
“And you did,” she agreed. “That’s why I patched you up good and tight.”
He considered her. “I’m not following.”
She pointed her work gauntlets at him.
“I want to see what you can do now you’ve got the means to carry through.”
Kas stared at her, brain working, and looked up at the monster unit rising behind her, like an honor guard.
“I want to see,” he said. “I want to see what you did to me.”
“Fair.”
She pulled a stick out of an overall pocket and tapped it.
A screen slid down from the ceiling. Kas looked up and met his own eyes.
Dark Saijmur eyes set deep in a craggy, beetle-browed face. His nose was broad, cheekbones sharp, chin square and determined. His mouth was narrow, lips tight. Rusty red hair clustered tight against his head in tight, springy ringlets.
He saw tears rise in his eyes—relief, it might’ve been to see everything so normal.
Then, he looked further.
Face, ears, chin, neck, shoulders, chest . . .
No, not his chest, but . . . armor, sort of.
He closed his eyes and concentrated.
He decided that yes, he could feel his shoulders and he could feel motion at the extension of the arms that ought to be depending from those shoulders. He felt and heard vibration when he flexed his fingers. He felt the fingers but not the scars and fingernails that belonged there, not the itches . . .
He didn’t hear his heartbeat, but something like the whir of a pump working.
Ceramics and isolloy. He knew the theories, at least. He took a breath he didn’t need and then one he did. Opened his eyes and looked at—Angel.
“How long does something like this last?”
“Organics are the weak points,” Angel said, like she was giving a lecture. “But, given reasonable upkeep, repairs or replacements as needed, I’d say the whole unit’s good for a hundred-fifty, two hundred Standards, easy. Could be more.”
“Brains are organic.”
She grinned like he’d given her a present.
“So they are, and that’d be a worry for you if I’d forgotten to do the circulatory hookups. We’re using the same cerebrospinal fluid you grew up with, along with a couple additives that work better and last longer. Your brain tissues’ll stay supple and in good working order for at least as long as the chassis, and you’ll be processing faster, too.” She paused. “Unless you take a high-voltage hit, naturally; anything that dries out the organics is going to be problematical. So, be careful, Kas.”
He snorted.
“Not exactly my strong point.”
“You’ll have time to learn,” Angel said comfortably. “Other questions?”
“What if I go unstable? The . . . chassis looks like it could do some serious damage.”
“There’s protocols in place to take care of that kind of thing,” she said, and gave him an earnest look. “You wouldn’t want to be destroying a station full of innocent people or anything like that, would you, Kas?”
“No,” he said truthfully, “I wouldn’t. Thank you for thinking of that.”
“No problem at all,” she said. “Other questions?”
“When will I be able to move?”
“Couple minutes, if you think you’re ready. I’ll warn you there’s work ahead. That brain of yours has to learn how to manipulate the new interfaces. Ought to have you walking by suppertime. What’ll take longest’ll be fine motor control.”
She squinted thoughtfully. “You knit?”
He considered her: a lanky woman in overalls, shaved head covered in tattoos; her sleeves were rolled, revealing more tattoos, down her arms, over her wrists and fingers. Her blue eyes were round in a round pale face, lips full, chin soft. More tattoos ran down her throat, vanishing beneath the overalls.
“Knit?” he repeated.
“Or embroider? Make models? Something that requires precision finger-work, is what I’m looking for.”
“I play the rastfeener.”
She blinked.
“And that would be, exactly?”
He tried to raise his hands, to show her the shape against the air. An alarm shouted, high and unnerving. Angel tapped the stick and it stopped.
“Alarm can’t tell the difference between a man who talks with his hands and one who’s trying his strength,” she said apologetically. “So . . . rastfeener?”
“Musical instrument,” he said, suddenly missing his, back home in his room. “Five strings, strum or pluck.”
“You any good?”
He grinned.
“The best.”
She grinned back, and stood up on the ladder.
“All right, Kas, here’s what we’re going to do. The contracts—mine and yours—prefer you to go back to barracks. I’d rather not see my work go to waste, but—you being the work—you get to choose.
“What’s your preference: back to the barracks and learn as you go, or stay here for physical therapy and learning how to take care of yourself?”
“Physical therapy.” Kas didn’t even have to think.
“That’s it, then.”
She raised the stick, inputting commands with a rapid patter of fingertips against ceramic, slipped it away into a leg pocket, and slid down the ladder.
“Let’s get you walking.”
ANGEL
There hadn’t been any action to speak of, though we did get one ambulance come in with casualties from a skirmish. Kas assisted. His fingering still needed work, but there was plenty of gross work, and research, for him.
I’d given him full permissions for the library, and there wasn’t anything I could’ve done to make him happier, except hand over the rastfeener I’d signed out of the Cathedral’s stasis storage room.
“Gift of the Grancino Family, it said on the record,” I told him while he turned the instrument over in his hands like it was his own child.
He looked up. “The Grancinos were master luthiers, back a hundred, hundred-fifty Standards.”
“Then it’s a good instrument?”
He grinned. “Oh, yes. Thank you, Angel.”
We ran sims, and when he had the protocols clear, I introduced him to the equipment.
“This here’s your Fariette-Kelsin Tactical Acquisition Heavy Operations armor. Which I find a mouthful, so from me, it’s the Big Rig. There’s three ways in—for most, the standard inputs. For you, the spine interface. For me, these—”
I held out my arms, showing him the tattoos.
“Before I found my Calling, the Order had me trained as a turreteer. I was good enough, technically, and got the whole set of implants.”
“Good enough—technically,” Kas said, that quick mind of his at work. “What happened?”
“Live targets happened. I’m better at healing than I am at killing.”
He nodded, and I turned away.
“Training Wheels,” I said, putting my hand on the chassis. “This is where you’ll learn about the spine interface, and the systems. Once you’re easy, we transfer you to the Big Rig.”
I grinned up at him, and patted the Training Wheels one more time.
“Mount up, soldier. Let’s see what you can do.”
Pride’s a sin, but it’s no more than factual to say that Kas was good. The rebuild was my finest work to date—another fact—but what brought it to excellence was Kasagaria Mikelsyn—his brain, his heart. His soul.
Where we’d run sims, now we ran in truth: races down the wide empty halls below the Cathedral, him in the Training Wheels, learning to control the spinal interface, me running the Big Rig on manual. In another hundred hours, Kas would be as good you could get, and ready for full turreteer.
Except for that one ambulance, there was only us, and we might’ve indulged ourselves: racing, sparring, listening to Kas make music, his fingering ever finer.
There were some things to worry about. Troops were rotating out, but none were rotating in. There was a skeleton crew at the barracks, and the Cathedral guards had been relocated, leaving me, the Sexton, and Kas to guard her.
“We’re gonna be pulled,” I said to Kas, and realized how much I’d come to love the Cathedral, and how much it would hurt to leave.
Right in the present, though, I was as happy as I’d ever been.
We were sitting in the choir, for the acoustics, the pair of us singing a song I’d just been taught, while Kas played his rastfeener.
So, we were singing, and Kas was playing, me sitting on the steps, and him standing by the rail.
That was where Commander Alifont found us.
She stopped, her aide at her side, and a laden-down carrier ’bot behind them both.
She looked at me, and at Kas, immersed, the strings holding his concentration.
“Therapy?” Her voice held doubt.
“Coordination of assisted vocal apparatus, communications protocol test and certifications, finger and hand dexterity testing, testing of the bio resource management interface, and utilization of new sensors testing and confirmations.”
Her lips quirked as Kas let his playing fade away with the last line of the song, his voice strong and true.
“Your glory shall be ever ours.”
The commander’s face was stern again. She tipped her head, and the mech aide moved one step forward.
“Attention!”
I stood. Kas straightened, the rastfeener held down at his side, eyes forward.
“Sister Mechanic, to your office with me, please. Unit Soldier Mikelsyn! You will map the Cathedral defenses, and send it to me before I leave.”
Kas saluted. “Commander.” He strode off, taking the rastfeener with him.
I came down the steps to accompany the commander to my office.
I pulled up Kas’s records for her, and stood aside, hands folded, while she reviewed.
“Has he done any live fire in this configuration? I don’t see a check-off.”
The Big Rig’s main weapons, that would be.
“He’s been with the Training Wheels, and worked with the basic launchers. We were slow getting coordinated—my fault. Turns out that helmet of his is more than I knew. It can interface directly with the weapons systems, which gives him an edge, even over the spinal interface.”
“The sim scores are adequate,” she said, which was a lie. The sim scores were superlative.
I didn’t correct her.
“We’ve been out on the surface a few times when the defense lights have shown green, but that hasn’t happened much lately, given staffing. He’s a hundred hours from taking on the full load, I’d say, maybe just almost a hundred.”
The commander turned away from the screen.
“He needs live fire experience with the Borefours before he faces combat.”
“I need permissions,” I reminded, “before I can have the auto base-crew load those.”
She looked at me oddly, like I’d made a joke.
“Area commander’s got to approve the Big Rig going fully live. It’s still in my fix-it file, and still set up for me. All the test rigs are mine, so I can figure out what’s still to be fixed. On top of that there are fresh neural attachments and the like that need to be inserted before he can sit in there, and they have to be right and tested fully so he don’t blow his brains out. It falls to me, and I got to have those permissions.”
Her face went odd again and she gently shook her head, letting out a breath.
“Very well, Sister Mechanic. There will not be a problem about your permissions.”
She motioned to the carrier ’bot, which unloaded itself on the worktable. It opened the first box, and I felt a sudden chill. Ceramics and crystal, the shape just slightly wrong. The Order had some devices that were . . . similar in construction, though not, I thought, this particular device.
“I have brought with me a mark of the High Command’s recognition of your work and your prowess, Sister Mechanic.”
KAS
He’d not understood that the Cathedral was a museum as much as a military base until the rastfeener came to his hands. Angel had taken him to the warehouse when he asked, showing him not only rare musical instruments but other things looking like furniture and weapons in their see-through sealed wraps on shelves and pallets and piles. He hadn’t known that a stasis box the size of a warehouse was even possible, but yes, such things were possible if the Cathedral it was housed with sat upon a bed of timonium able to power it for centuries.
And it came to him that the Cathedral was the reason Scythe Seven had military importance. Too far from convenient travel lanes to be a proper guardian fort, too strong to be overwhelmed with easy weapons, not strategic enough to turn the course of a war, but of too much use to just abandon whole. It was old, and had survived several wars, so it had value, maybe, as a fallback point.
The new . . . configuration required minimal downtime. His organic brain needed sleep, but much less than the previous . . . configuration had.
He’d put that extra time to use. Angel had given him full access to a vast, varied, and ancient library.
“You’re trained in information—that seems to be what’s got you this far. You’ve got lots of duplicate storage onboard, and backup processors. Feel free to access what’s here, copy what you need—but you can’t share what’s classified with someone besides me.”
He was a librarian. Of course, he needed it all.
“You’re on all my comm channels right now. I expect that when the next flight of casualties comes in you’ll be right there with me—you can do fine work with those hands! Meanwhile, about the history files . . . so much of it will never be touched again, you know? Take it or leave it, as you will. Someone ought to get use of it.”
It warmed him that she thought he’d get use of it. He’d tried to imagine the Saijmur library holding the Cathedral’s info, and saw ruin and raiders. He tried to imagine himself in the Saijmur library, and heard his mother weeping and his grandmother cursing.
He’d tried to think of going someplace else, then put it aside. First, he had to survive to the end of his contract.
And right now, he had orders to fill.
He’d left the rastfeener in his quarters, and proceeded to the defense area.
“I have brought with me a mark of the High Command’s recognition of your work and your prowess, Sister Mechanic.” Commander Alifont’s voice.
Kas checked his systems, found Angel’s comm green. He was on all her comm channels, hadn’t she told him that?
Maybe he should’ve shut it down, except—
“The High Command wishes to duplicate this fortress.”
Kas frowned. They couldn’t duplicate the fortress, not unless they duplicated Scythe Seven. How did they not know that?
“Sister Mechanic, we are withdrawing the bulk of forces from Scythe Seven to concentrate on an incursion elsewhere. The High Command feels it is best for us to maintain a visible presence here. We see in your records that you have experience in Proto-armor Command. You and your office will provide the visible presence we need. We seek a pretense of normality, assuming a certain amount of monitoring of this location is ongoing.”
“I’m a nurse, Commander. I fix the injured—”
“And you protect those under your care. You have a patient, you have a mandate. And you have your orders.”
A pause that went long, before the commander spoke again.
“An unmanned fleet ambulance will arrive soon, from the Residal battle area. It is empty.”
Kas frowned. Angel had been expecting incoming wounded, and had taken time from the rigs to train him in repair. But—an empty ambulance?
“Understand, Sister Mechanic, that the preprogramming extends to leaving the system. That ambulance is intended to be your exit if the enemy broaches the Cathedral’s defenses.”
Angel was thinking, he could tell by the way she didn’t say anything. The commander continued.
“This is not the whole of the situation. Now, this device was recently acquired from an enemy cache of Old Tech. It has been studied, and its functions are well understood. You will find the information on your mission key.”
Kas looked at his wrist screen. The object looked vaguely like a helmet, inset with . . . jewels?
“You’ll wear this while we test. We want to know why you’re such a good body mechanic, Sister, and this—it records what’s happening in your head, why you make certain choices, where your points of decision are located, and so on. This record can be downloaded and studied. The device also creates a profile, which can be directly shared with another mechanic. We are making recordings of the most successful across a variety of fields.
“I do not wish to lose your expertise, Sister Mechanic. You will, therefore, be made directly available to my home staff at High Command. The war has come to a difficult turn. Command will be augmenting so that we may interface directly with captured enemy equipment. This will improve our position, and keep the High Command safe.”
Kas stopped moving. Relying on organic memory rather than going for a playback—he still wasn’t used to all the things he could do with those buttons, controls, and screens built into the new arms—
Yes, he had just heard Commander Alifont explain that the High Command was to be adopting more of the enemy’s techniques and equipment . . . in order to stay abreast of the enemy. They’d become the enemy in order to fight it.
It was about then that Kas gave up and pressed the privacy switch. The information Angel was getting was being stored, if he needed it, but for now, he would study what there was of the landscape.
He had his orders, after all.
ANGEL
The ambulance came in and docked, just like normal. There was nothing there for me this time: just empty beds and an operating emergency set up—could have been the one that brought me Kas, because he’d been that close to the beyond when he got to me.
Commander Alifont was gone, on her way to Jump almost a dozen hours out, but Cathedral systems thought Commander was still here. Live. I’d never wanted command, but it hung on my vest in three new keys, each one far too much power for a failed turreteer who’d rather fix than break.
I had a headache. Had it since the ceramic headset had come off, and Commander Alifont packed it away with her own hand. Neither one of us believed it was just a calibration; I’d spent a half dozen and more hours having my brain invaded, memories checked, thoughts explored and somehow sucked elsewhere. It’d been painful, then, not much less, now.
Before she’d left, Commander Alifont handed me a fourth key.
“Your copy, Sister Mechanic. In case of need.”
She handed me a fifth key.
“As you have invested so many resources in his therapy, you will now install this device in the larger mount that you are prepping; it will do the same for that driver.”
She watched me install the recording device in tandem with the regular driving helmet even though I pointed out that it was currently my seat and not his.
“I’m still tracking a problem spot on this thing. Could take me hours more.”
“Then concentrate there, Sister Mechanic. Your skill is known throughout the quadrant and you have only your patient and this device to care for. Any insights we gather can only further our cause.”
“The place runs itself, mostly,” I told Kas when he’d found me in my office, looking at his records, and the records of dozens of others. Commander Alifont had taken copies of all my files, as well as copies from the Sexton’s office and even Kas’s own notes, where he’d been thinking he might eventually be able to send something to family to let them know.
“But she removed the rest of the garrison, Angel. What’s going to happen?”
“We’re supposed to make the place look lived in, so that’s what we’ll do. You and me’ll get some practice out on the dunes by the outer walls; we’ll let you work up to the Big Rig like you’re supposed to. I told her one hundred hours, but you know, all things considered, if we just work like there’s nothing else to do, I’d say in forty hours, maybe twenty-five, since you’re so canny. I’ll certify you for the Big Rig—I ought to have your tie-ins done by then. You’ll be able to run patrols to make up for who’s not here.”
“You know,” he said, admitting what I knew already, “our comms were all live. It sounds like the High Command wants Scythe Seven to be attacked—like they’re going to let me go down fighting, like they’re offering you the appearance of an out, once they have your brain copied, but the assumption is that they will own your skills, regardless.”
I gave him a salute, right then.
“We’re bait, right enough. But we’re not stupid bait, Kas. And we’re not easy, either.”
I patted the Big Rig.
“Once you’re properly mounted, we’ll both be more than we were. We’ll do the best that we can, and maybe there’s a future in it. You and the Sexton are my troops, I’m not going nowhere without you.
“Now, let’s get busy. It might be we have enough time to get it right.”
KAS
There wasn’t enough time. The commander had known what was coming in before she’d left the Cathedral.
The commander was two days gone when the Sexton called the first alarm: the Cathedral’s sensors saw the ships incoming.
“I have the doors, Sister. And the Cathedral fights for itself. We’ll hold, like we’ve always held before.”
Kas had studied the Cathedral’s history; knew the Sexton was right. The Cathedral had held, but soldiers had died.
It sat on a plain where in three seasons of five two sluggish rivers met after they’d wandered down the world’s only big mountain and a line of foothills. An easy target at first glance, but down in the vaults there were some powerful shields that would take major busting to get through.
The superstructure, though, and anything above the stasis warehouse level, and the heaviest shields, was vulnerable. And that meant the ambulance sitting attached to the Purgatory Unit was at risk, even hidden under the portico.
“There’s no dreadnought incoming,” Angel said, studying the data field. “This could go on a long time. Not even really a heavy bombardment. But they have the high ground, and I got nothing but you and me. I think they must have come in to scout, probing to see where they went wrong last time, maybe looking for the Grinder-killer. Meanwhile, Commander Alifont took everything but the building so the target’s something they got to be careful of. Things that are holy might be held by fanatics!”
Kas snorted a laugh.
“Angel, right now I’m for saving you, me, the rastfeener, and the Sexton, if he’ll come. I’ll be fanatic about that. You’re not going to order we charge them, are you?”
He knew that in the long run, maybe she’d need to. For the moment, as the dim afternoon sky gave way to dusk, the automatics were shielding and tossing back what the incoming ships threw at them.
Waiting, waiting, waiting . . . Kas read and reread what he knew of the projectile weapons, practiced with the strongest waldo, making it throw punches against the air.
Finally several of their ships peeled off, one laid down fire across a blameless plain of mostly dust and scrub vegetation while the other took out the core of the landing field big ships used—or had used—in the days before Scythe Seven was a forward base. That ship pulled away while the first seemed bent on setting down, perhaps unleashing soldiers on their own. The automatics were pickier now, so it might have been a matter of them waiting it out . . .
Came an alert across the speakers and sensors, too close to what followed to have been an aid to any but a fully armor-installed soldier.
The nearest foothills lit up like new stars, the tallest mountain went blue. Noise roared around even deep within Purgatory where they stood armed, armored, and stunned.
“Gadreel speaks!”
The Sexton’s voice rose like a prayer across the ether.
“Sister Mechanic,” he said, across the comm, “it is my belief that there may be one more such outburst available. I have faith that the enemy has encroached too far and too long for the Cathedral to feel itself secure without strong measures . . . but it can clear the skies only so often, and the enemy has landed! I to my post!”
The view screens showed vid from atop the tower: the enemy was landing, the ship that had strafed the land finally settling down.
Kas still reeled from the power, the Training Wheels vibrating as the ancient shields strained—and held.
Down on the plain, the enemy ship disgorged a ragged line of five units quite similar to their own rigs—high-speed tractor bases with an armored cabin nestled deep between. Where the Big Rig had four projectile tubes arrayed in a tight diamond shape on a turret above the cabin, and Training Wheels a double, two of those oncoming units had triple large tubes turreted, and the other three a dozen or more smaller side-mounted tubes stacked one above the other, with no turret at all. They seemed clear what the target was: the portico beneath which the ambulance ship, clearly marked as such, lay parked.
Angel said, “Move out,” and they took the camouflaged relief door opposite the narthex while the Sexton moved to the narthex itself, his rudimentary armor little more than ceremonial, like his rifle.
ANGEL
I hear there are things you’re not supposed to forget how to do: making love, fixing breakfast, breathing . . . but I hadn’t expected I’d feel that way about taking the Big Rig’s turret live, with live ammo, with a mission, and full permissions. I’d dreamed about being back in command, distant and indistinct dreams where, sim-wise, the ride was the thing and there was no game plan except to keep moving while the enemy got melted around me.
Now, I could feel my heart beating faster, the breath coming harder, feel some sweat. But I was calmer than I expected—this time I knew exactly where my help was, and the Cathedral’s tactics module was showing to be closer to AI than I expected.
So, the Cathedral protected itself and, as an afterthought, shielded us. My local reference sensors showed no ships in the sky anywhere near us, an amazing help and unexpected, but we had no idea of what they might have that could stand off and fire. I could feel the Big Rig’s shield vibrating, heard my heart, wondered, not for the first time, what combat was like for the rebuilds I’d done, people with no human heart and just enough fringe of adrenal analogs to be physically thrilled as they faced a battle.
I guessed we needed to do the test, with Kas, and neither of us experts, both leaning on the Cathedral’s comm links.
“You got the basics there, Kas, you know the theory. I’ve got heavier shielding here, and more zap when I fire; I want you to watch the tactical screens and make sure where the smaller rigs are headed, if you can. Don’t want them ganging up on either of us . . . ”
It was probably truer than he knew when I told Kas he had the basics; my links not only had the plains but also gave me some minor theater views. The enemy been brought down hard with whatever the Cathedral had done and aside a couple of smaller orbiting objects that might be anything from planet-busting bombs to simple comm relays, there wasn’t anything aloft that drew attention. If Kas could keep up—
“I’ve got matches from the records,” I heard him over secure comm. “The smaller units are basically crackers. They can fight but they’re mostly after opening things up—they carry actual rams besides the firepower. The others are hunters.”
“Heard that,” I offered. “Your unit’s really fast and you’ve got good reactions. We’ll see if we can’t isolate one of those crackers—watch your screens, arm everything that arms, and remember, you owe me a song.”
With that Kas began circling the trainer toward the plains, where the enemy moved toward us. Then weapons locks showed on the screens, and plans became chaos.
KAS
Kas’s unit was moving faster than the Big Rig when they came out from the radar shadow of the Cathedral; perhaps it was the speed that drew first attention because almost immediately his tactical screen showed radar lock-ons for his unit. The larger hunter fired a projectile weapon in his direction and then the second, but both shots blew up in mid-flight as some shield within the gray pile of stone came to the fore.
Kas saw the hunters turn together then against the Big Rig, and it was clear they saw that unit as the danger: they fired again, this time an energy weapon in the mix, shields sparking and coruscating in defense. The three crackers, though, were trying to sneak behind the action and Kas wheeled, locking on the trailing one and firing a solid shell that exploded just short, and another, which nearly struck. Shield or luck he didn’t know but in the midst the middle of the crackers halted and twisted, perhaps target seeking, the narthex in sight.
The Sexton!
He stood in his light armor in the opened narthex, pointing at the cracker Kas had aimed at . . .
It was in fact a point, for where he lit the side of the still vehicle with his rifle’s weak beam there followed a lightning strike of stunning power from the tower top, and additional lightnings nearly too bright for Kas, even through the filtered vids.
In the aftermath that vehicle was obliterated, a wide shallow crater all that remained.
Kas fired on the next cracker, this one furiously turning away . . . again, his efforts were deflected but the Sexton’s quick point brought another flash and rumble of energies. This was not as potent, perhaps, for the turning continued and it looked like several survivors exited before the thing stalled where it was. The third cracker, spinning, rushed away, apparently seeking refuge around the building’s corner.
Kas turned the trainer to follow, heard whines of power through the trainer’s sensors, thought he heard a gasp on the comm . . .
The tactical map showed the heavy hunters bearing rapidly down on the Big Rig where it was backed into a natural defile formed by the deepest dry watercourse. Not a long-term solution, Kas thought, but no side-fire against her position now.
“Took a hit, turret’s sluggish. Watch the narthex, Kas, they’re staying away from me. The Sexton’s in danger!”
Kas fired after the third cracker, but left the aftermath of those shots to the winds of the dark as he altered the trainer’s course toward Angel’s side of the war.
ANGEL
I’d thought the Cathedral had defenses, but so far it had outdone itself. The Sexton, in his way as holy as me, hadn’t let on that his keys were quite so potent.
Being holy wasn’t going to be enough, I was afraid, and I was afraid, sweat running down my back and under the helmet, my hands trying to run with the need for accuracy as well as speed.
My messages to assorted gods and assorted bases were long gone and I prayed now to luck and more luck. I’d sent Kas to watch for the Sexton, but here we were barely started and truth told I was wishing for repair rigs and two battleships to back me up.
I hit the switch then for my backup plan. It’d hardwire me to the unit until I could pull out, but it gave us all better chances.
The hard thing was being down where I was, depending on video from the tower. The enemy had begun lobbing random test fire at the walls from somewhere beyond my sightings; it wasn’t like they needed to range things so much as to judge reactions. I realized soon enough that more than armor deployed from that landed ship: there were smaller vehicles racing toward the walls now, darkness only a modest cover, but it wasn’t like we’d been left with infantry of our own . . .
“Presence, Kas,” I said. “There’s groundlings out here, moving your way. Also—”
That’s when they came at us, the hunters having located the Big Rig and a swarm of smaller vehicles rushing the building itself, the sensors showing energy weapons and projectile fire. I saw from the tower’s vantage three small ATVs run into the Sexton’s light and dissolve in fire, but there was return fire, the narthex glowing . . .
The Big Rig’s sensors began lighting up—small-arms fire was banging off my shell while a sapper made a run with a hand-mine and my fire took him down. I needed time to—
“Angel!”
They’d charged then, the assembled ground forces heading for the narthex, Kas running intercept there while the pair of hunters came at me one from the back and one obliquely from the front, firing rapidly, having discovered my slot.
“He’s down,” Kas said, and I knew he meant the Sexton, and by then it appeared all his weapons were on auto, but my spot was even more precarious now that I was fully located.
I fired straight on against the heavy shielding of the oblique enemy, felt the fabric of the Big Rig shudder as it absorbed an energy weapon’s blasts.
The rig behind me was closing rapidly—while my best shields were there and in direct front the turret wouldn’t answer at all now to turn. Sound and vibration were relentless; I could smell overheated components, I could hear things breaking as the enemy from behind rammed the Big Rig and moved to do it again—
My headache was back.
“Angel?” I knew the voice.
“Keep it dark, the head hurts so bad. Is it a head wound?”
Then the headache was gone and the dark remained for awhile. I’ve been sedated and it was like that, but more. Not even the phantom of a headache, not the phantom of a dry throat’s itch.
“Angel? We won. They’re gone. All gone. So’s the Sexton and the Cathedral.”
I knew the voice. I should be sad about the Cathedral and the Sexton, but I was drained, too drained for multi-thought threads.
“Where?”
“Ambulance, Angel. I got us to the ambulance. We’re in Jump.”
“You’ve got me restrained?”
He laughed, sort of, then he was quiet and I heard equipment noises, sounds I knew. There was that undertick I knew, too.
“I’m on life support? How?”
He laughed sort of, again.
“I’m a librarian and didn’t have much else to do. I got you to the ambulance but it took . . . awhile . . . to dig it out. Put you on the automatics here.”
“What’s happening?”
“Listen. Here’s that song.”
And it was a song of home, comfort, love even. Joy even. He had the rastfeener, was strumming it with his own fingers, singing along quietly.
The song echoes around me sometimes now when I wake up.
“What’s happening, Kas?”
“I’m going to have to let you sleep for awhile, Angel. We’re going to have to work around to a rebuild, when I can get all the parts together. We’re going to be awhile on this, since I’ve got to rebuild the rig.”
I thought about it, and knew that took a long time. The ticking kept me company, while I worked it out.
“I don’t need a rig, Kas. You can—”
“Angel. When you hardwired yourself to the rig, that was smart. Kept you going, kept you alive. But the recorders—we’re depending on them, Angel, to get you back, and what they know, what they recorded, is you in the rig. I’m going to do a rebuild from scratch, backward. We gotta start with a rig.”
And I’m awake now, which means there’s been another find, maybe a working turret this time. Kas is a hardworking man, and I’ll be back to myself.