“Command is gone Ivanka.” I subvocalize into a throat mic that she and I always use for recon.
“Let me guess, another crater.” We have found nothing but large detonation craters around the Moiriax system where the stolen A-M mine charges were being stashed or stored. Tens of thousands of Imperial Citizens are estimated to have been killed.
I shake my head, “No, a team in Ash found headquarters with several dead cats, Merc. Inc. phase burns, and cauterized dismemberment.” On the plus side, more than a thousand cats died from the blast in the warehouse they had been mustering in, and their ship in orbit (hiding in the mining dock) was crippled from detonations as well.
“Ah, Penny did say she would be ruthless if we were working with the cats.” I suspected Penny could be ruthless, but she doesn’t seem the type to detonate the bombs and kill many thousand of her own people. “The plasma sword and pulse pistol are almost her trademark. I wonder about the bombs though. Why let them detonate?”
Ivanka doesn’t answer as we continue to check Syndicate hideouts on Asphodel, hideouts that aren’t just craters of course. Our biggest loss so far seem to be a research facility on Asphodel and headquarters in and around the Ash Duchy. The Astorian Scottish Highlands Duchy and City have been very sympathetic to an independent mentality and some low-key Empire subversion. Though the two previous leaders of the Syndicate went out of their way to look down on the now Empress, Ivanka and I have made efforts since we recovered to operate within Penny’s allowance for organized crime and other mercenary ventures.
Svetlana and Natalia suffered the pains of hubris and delusion by first traumatizing a hyper-intelligent sociopath in Katelynn O’Connell, and a woman with the kind of conviction that is a hair’s breadth from justifying war crimes as a means to an end.
“It does bother me. She would absolutely sacrifice another population’s civilians, but it’s hard to think she would bother rescuing ten million refugees just to sacrifice thousands to win a war. It makes more sense to me that the Herrat stole something they didn’t understand. Penny did save the Navy and her two most populous cities.”
/Smolensk, report./ Ivanka demands.
/S-1, location cratered/
/S-2, location secure, two friendlies opened fire and were put down./
/S-3, location cratered/
/S-4, multiple heat signatures, several large and running hot. Please advise./
I identified early that the Herrat run hotter than we do. It’s only 3-5 degrees, but it’s enough to show up on a thermal scan, especially when the furry bipeds tend to wear fewer clothes.
“These seem to be the last surviving cats on this moon, what do you want to do?”
“I want to throw gas down there and seal it up, but perhaps I should give our countrymen a chance? What if they are tied up or being coerced?” She’s trying hard not to be such a cynic, but thinking the best of people was never her style, assessing talent and usefulness was her strength.
“All depends on if those are the kind of people you want in the Syndicate after we restructure.”
She nods.
/S-4, if you can seal the location, gas them. If not, Aluminum-PTFE powder can/
/Roger, S-C/
“Sorry, Petra. There’s a good chance that one or more of them sold us out.”
I snort at the guilty look on her face. “I think Penny may have infected you with morals, it certainly was not me. While I am a medic, my primary desire is to reduce suffering. If you kill them quickly, I have no qualms. But then, I have come to terms with you being unscrupulous at times.” I shrug at the thought of her moments of brutality. “I am with you ‘till the end Ivanka, because I know you will never betray me.”
She pulls me quickly into a rough kiss and disengages to lock eyes with me. “Never.” Ivanka’s intense, possessive look warms me and sends flutters down my body.
“Comrades, as used to your PDA as we are, we have two more moons to clear.” Smolensk Cell’s only symbiote user interrupts a moment that might have degraded to debauchery.
“Da. We expect heavy resistance as well.” Our command squad’s pilot agrees.
Ivanka gives them both a death glare before storming back to the shuttle.
“Do you all have your med injectors?” I ask the other four members of S-C squad.
“Jones and I used our stims to get through the night.”
I sigh, stim injectors are by far my best selling product for mercenary and military use especially. “Just remember, if you take another before sleeping, you’ll be in a coma for a week after it wears off.”
“Yes mom.” They draw out ‘mom’ while smirking at me. Back home, giving that kind of lip to a drug dealer would have found them stabbed and bleeding in the gutter.
“Perhaps I need to engineer a side-effect for over stimming? Anal leakage? Painful urination perhaps?”
“We’re sorry Doc, please don’t. Don’t listen to these meat heads. The stims are the only things that don’t feel like crap after. I could use another mutation damper. Especially if we’re headed to Elysium.”
I wouldn’t actually carry through with the threat, as I don’t care for unnecessary suffering, but people have started to abuse the concoctions I’m creating and it grates on me.
Ivanka orders our squad back to the shuttle and tells the whole cell to meet us on Clotho tomorrow morning. The crystal factory is a high-priority item in the Empire’s infrastructure, and the mining orbital around the gas giant the moon orbits is also a key target where she thinks the Herrat had a ship hidden after the mining contractors bailed.
In less than an hour, our squad arrives in the Moiriax system and find that the mining orbital has been obliterated. The Herrat must have taken a store of bombs to transport to other location when there was a detonation heard across the Empire. A brief scan shows that significant atmospheric debris is present on Atropos and Clotho, with Lachesis largely free of signs of massive explosions. Atropos being a worry as a colony moon, and Clotho being one of the Empire’s most prolific industrial moons.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
“Command team, we’re going to a flyby survey of Atropos to see if we get any distress signals beneath the cloud of interference. Unless we receive such a signal, our priority is securing the Crystal factory. If the Herrat are still concentrated on the moon, we will wait for Kursk and Voronezh cells to assist.”
With each cell being a platoon of well-equipped insurgents, levying a company-sized force would be the largest force we’ve ever fielded. With Penny lifting the tier limit for purchasing military arms from the Merc. Inc. warehouse, I’d give us even odds against a battalion of level 35 cats—even if they would destroy us in 1-on-1 combat.
***
“Auntie Jenna, please?!” It’s not fair! I’m level nine and I want to help!
“Zia, honey, I’ve agreed to train you, but there is no way I’m taking you to the Wilds before you’re at least novice 5 in at least one fighting style. I’d also prefer if you had an elemental affinity to novice 5 as well.” She’s been harping on this all day.
“Fine, can we just start then? I’ve seen Momma use a sword and guns with a brawler-type of fighting? Is there a blades brawler kind of thing?”
“Of course you want to get in close. Your mother insists on it too, despite being a very powerful magic user.” She sighs and shakes her head. “Yes, I do know a brawler-style blade fighting style that would work for your size. It’s an in-and-out endurance style of fighting though, not a stand and face the assault. That work for you?”
“Auntie! I’m a blink Pixie, that sounds perfect!” I squeal a little bit and jump towards her. She dodges, but then I blink into her and hug her anyway.
“Oof, I forgot how weird it is to fight someone that can teleport. Now lets pull some blades from the warehouse and see what suits you?”
I squeal again as I get to play with knives today! Mom would never let me . . . no, she probably would. Not guns though, she made a point not to use guns in front of me. They do seem more dangerous to the inexperienced than a knife. Momma has let me help cook before, so it won’t be totally alien.
Jenna transfers a table with at least two dozen blades on it and I get the feeling I’ll be learning how to use several of them. “Okay, Zia. I want you to handle all of them. Give them a stab and slash on this hide dummy and see how they all feel. All of them.
Some of them are far too big for me right now, but most of the knives feel okay until I hit resistance of the target dummy. The hunting knives 15-20cm long are very utilitarian and feel more like tools than weapons. Stilettos and dirks don’t feel as versatile as the dagger options, and many of the short swords are a bit heavy for me at the moment. I inspect the two that felt the best in my hands.
The leaf-bladed weapons feel good in my hand whether I’m stabbing or chopping, and though slightly awkward with slashing—as it tries to cut deep around the leaf—it seems that it would just take more practice to learn how to slash with it as effectively as chopping or stabbing.
I look over to my Aunties, who appear to be engaged in a heated conversation, and shrug at their divided attention. Ah well, I guess I’ll just practice with the two I like. Twenty minutes later, arms tired and honestly tired of fumbling about without instruction, I turn back to fetch a few utility knives and work to find which of these I would prefer. This one takes a long time to figure out as so many of them perform similarly. The three I liked, I inspect.
“Looks like you figured out what feels good, two main weapons and three backups? Hmm, didn’t like the slashers? Okay, we can work with that. Pick some all-rounders, which is good for brawling, and the two combat knives are good choices. Lets start with two Xiphos and that chisel-tipped Tanto.”
Auntie J. transferred another Xiphos to the table and let me hold both of them. The 40cm blades were like short swords to me, but were significantly lighter in form than the much sturdier Gladius. She strapped a small pouch and a sheath for the Tanto to my right leg and told me to engage the dummy with both blades while she got her sparring gear on.
My teacher comes back with a pair of enchanted gloves on, and I bet that they’re spelled to resist slashing and piercing. We spend the rest of the day walking through forms at various speeds to ensure I can learn both the minutia and the effects of positioning the blades correctly. She talked a little about being disarmed and deciding to pull out a backup blade or continuing to use one plus a utility hand in a more brawling that knife-fighting style.
As I think she’s about to dismiss me from the lesson, she shouts “Defend yourself!” And she lunges at me with a knife hand. I blink to the side and move to slash up through the inside of her arm with my right hand while trying to stab her in the back with the other. Jenna spins and steps away as she grabs my slashing blade, kicking out into my stomach causing me to loosen my grip on my right hand sword. She flings the blade away and advances on me with loosely held fists.
I jump back from a grabbing lunge and blink underneath the lunge to slash her hamstring and draw my Tanto. I continue to move through the attack, an attempt to get out of range on the far side, but she squats into the tanto so it doesn’t slash her knee and palms my hair to smash my head into the ground.
“Auntie . . . “
“No need to thank me. You did good, but some things are obvious. Lets watch a Holo-replay.”
She shows me the fight once full through just to get me into the situation and seeing the fight from another PoV. I can already tell more from the replay than I learned in the fight. Dang, she might just be a really good teacher.
“Zia, your strength is abysmal. However, with your instincts and your blink ability, we have a lot to work with. Don’t make that face young lady.”
What face am I making!? She’s condescending me, what should I be feeling.
“You have never picked up a blade with a violent intent, yet you made me sacrifice a hard wound to subdue you. That’s impressive. But lets talk what weapons could have worked better, or what approach would have worked better with your load out.”
BAAAHHH! I can’t believe I failed so quickly! She did say that I showed promise though, so maybe don’t toddler tantrum right away? Yeah, that sounds good. Listen to the women you asked to train you. Auntie knows, and Momma would agree. Okay, Zia, take the mind lumps with the mind lumps.
“Okay, sorry, child thoughts. Please continue.”
She smiles at me and nods. “This blink is where your big mistake happened.” She pointed to the blink where I ducked under her arm and tried to slash her armpit.
“You are simply too close to use this weapon to do what you tried to do with the strength you have. A 6-in dagger would have hit the artery and punched through far enough, but only a sharp piercing blow would have done it. So, with your Xophis, blinking a step further to step in and extend under my arm could have hit my heart. Getting that close, your offhand could have been use to hobble my calf or knee with a weight aided thrust or a twisting chop.”
She shows me with some wire-frame manipulation of my holo-body, the modeled actions are choppy and sloppy, but I get the message. I see what she’s talking about, especially about the smaller piercing weapons.
“Do I need to re-visit the punch daggers?”
“No no. That’s the wrong direction I think. I think you need to train the transition, and some spatial training like your mother has. Until then though, I want you to hit the sandbags and feel out what distance your strength comes at and how close you want to switch out to knives. Then, we’re going to start training Krav Maga and other MMA until you can integrate knife skills into these brutal, disabling martial schools. Novice 5, remember. And you NEED to message Instructor Beecham to discover your elements. Blinking likely carries a space affinity, but there’s no way for me to tell. I’m a Body Mage, not super helpful.”
“Body Mage? That sounds like too many romance novels, Auntie.” Dr. Summers snorts in the house, clearly hearing me.
“No! no, fine! Physical enhancement Mage. Jeeze. Embarrassing me in front of my Girlfriend!”
I giggle at how innocent my big tall Auntie is, and how easy it is to make her blush. Dr. Summers laughs with me and she waves me in for some aether infused food as a reward. My family is kind of awesome, but super crazy.