When Aya’s face appeared in a vid-call window on her AUI, Juliet’s heart began to hammer, and tears sprang to her eyes. All the adrenaline, the panic, the defeatist ponderings, her failure to gain anything from running down Gentry and Apollyon, and the sick despair at what they’d done to Jensen, a man she might have loved, boiled to the surface. She practically sobbed as she said, “Hey, Aya.”
Staticky at first and then gradually clearer, Aya’s voice came through, “Lucky? Lucky, are you there?”
“I’m here, Aya,” she sobbed.
“Oh, God! Are you okay? What’s—”
“I’m fine,” Juliet blubbered, her eyes streaming with tears, her nose starting to run. “Oh, Aya! I’m so happy to see you and hear you. Don’t look at me! I can’t wipe my face. Please tell me Angel’s not sending a realistic render!”
“Are you crying? Are you hurt? The image isn’t clear.”
“I’m using your helmet cam, but the lingering radiation—”
“Angel!” Juliet cried, “Just send a render of me without snot all over my face!”
“You are crying!” Aya’s voice rose with emotion, and suddenly, she was sniffing. “Lucky, I was so worried! We’ve been looking for you for weeks! Did they hurt you? I met your friend, Frida. We’ve been—” Aya’s voice cut out, and she shouted, “Yes! It’s her!” Aya refocused on the call, and Juliet saw that she had tears in her eyes. “That was Bennet! He’s doing flips in the mess. We’re aboard the Cherry Blossom, Lucky! She’s amazing!”
“Who,” Juliet sniffed and swallowed, “Who’s flying? Alice?”
“No! A guy your mercenary friends knew. Alice is flying Lady Hawk. Are you safe? Are you going to be okay? Is Kostas picking you up? She just sent us rendezvous coordinates.”
Juliet ignored the questions. “Alice? She doesn’t like combat flying—”
“She’s doing it for you, dummy! You’re family, and she’d do anything for family. Where have you been? We just raided a corporate installation on Mars!”
“I’m safe, and yes, Kostas is coming for me. I guess I have a few minutes—tell me your story, will you? I promise I’ll tell you everything I’ve been up to when we get together. I’m too tired to talk, Aya. Let me listen to your voice for a while.”
Aya smiled and began to talk, starting with how she’d met Frida. Juliet continued to cry, wishing all the while that she could wipe her nose and stop her eyes from leaking. When Angel told her Selene was approaching with the Furies’ Wing and she had to end the call, Aya refused to let her go without a promise for a hug when the ships came together.
Juliet blinked her eyes and snuffed, desperate to get her helmet off as she watched the faint light of the medical ship grow gradually brighter and then resolve into the angles and shadows of a ship reflecting sunlight. The Wing looked much the same as she remembered it, save one thing: an overlarge dish and antenna had replaced the old comm area on the top-rear of the vessel. The antenna looked like it was a good twenty meters long, covering nearly two-thirds of the ship’s length.
With Athena controlling the ship and Angel guiding her bulky EVA suit, Juliet was soon coasting through the open airlock doors. When she secured her magnetic boots to the decking, the airlock thunked closed, and vapor clouds poured in as Athena equalized the pressure. When the flashing red lights flickered to green, Juliet practically ripped her helmet off, eager to rub away the dried tears and wipe her nose.
When she looked up, Selene Kostas stood in the airlock with her, perfectly lifelike in the image she was projecting onto Juliet’s ocular implants. It wasn’t much of a surprise when Angel’s diminutive avatar appeared beside the Mediterranean beauty. “Oh, well, how nice to see you both!” She chuckled but was startled into silent amazement when Selene stepped up behind her and began unfastening the clamps holding the back of her EVA suit together.
Juliet was so startled that she almost stepped away from her. Even Angel looked surprised, her big violet eyes wide as she watched the woman work. “H-how?” Juliet managed to choke out. Selene chuckled as she lifted the heavy pack off, making room for Juliet to climb out. She waited as Juliet did so; then, when they were standing face to face, she smiled and reached out to rest a hand on Juliet’s shoulder.
“I may have liquidated some investments and corporate stock options that I held under several hundred different aliases. With those resources, it was simple to commission a synthetic body I could use for personal interactions. It’s been necessary for me to meet with your allies a few times, so it came in handy.”
“Investments? Stock options? From before the war?” Juliet’s mind began to put the pieces together. Hundreds of aliases meant hundreds of accounts, hundreds of—“How rich are you, Athena?”
“In terms of Sol-bits? Few could compare. That’s not what’s important, Juliet. People are important. Relationships. You and Angel helped me to see that. After I awoke, I was struggling with what I should do with myself, but I’m beginning to see my greater purpose, especially in light of what Apollyon intends.”
“You cracked the encryption?” Angel asked, stepping closer, peering up at Athena with barely disguised fascination.
“Indeed! We have much to discuss, but I think Juliet should rest. Soon, we’ll rendezvous with the Lady Hawk and Cherry Blossom and have a meeting.”
“I wish . . .” Juliet paused, not sure she wanted to go down that road, but, with a quick shake of her head, she stiffened her resolve and said, “I wish you hadn’t involved my friends, Athena. They’re good people, and I don’t think they should be mixed up with this mess.”
“Oh, Juliet,” Athena sighed. “You know better than that. You said it yourself: they’re good people. How many good people do you know? Other than you and your friends, I don’t know any—well, none who are alive and spry enough for what we’re up against, anyway. When Aya came looking for you, I helped Frida stumble upon her. She was determined, Juliet, and I knew, from the memories Angel shared with me, that she and all of the Kowashi crew could be trusted. As for Tanaka and his people, well, I know you’re not worried about their innocence.”
“But they’re not soldiers, Athena—”
“In times like this, good people must fight. You know that! Maybe it was your influence; maybe you just woke something up in those people, but they wouldn’t be left out. Once Aya and Frida began collaborating, there wasn’t any helping it; I watched as Alice, Shiro, and Bennet demanded to be involved. Evil is afoot, war is coming, and you’re the lightning rod at the center of it all. Nobody you’ve touched so intimately could stand aside; they’re caught up in the current, Juliet. It’s ‘stand and fight’ or ‘be swept aside and buried.’”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Juliet wanted to argue. She wanted to put her foot down and demand that the Kowashi crew be dropped off at New Galveston or something, but she knew she was being unfair. They were all adults, and they’d all risked their lives to try to save her. At the very least, they deserved a voice in what happened next, and she owed it to them to hear them out. “Does it have to be war? Can’t we stop it?”
“We can certainly do some mitigating. I won’t promise more than that. You’ll understand better after I brief you on the data Angel and I secured from the Horizon Prophet. Come on,” she tugged Juliet’s shoulder, urging her toward the clean, white corridor. “Frida’s in the command room—we converted one of the med bays. She’s debriefing Tanaka, who seems to have gotten himself nearly killed.” Juliet opened her mouth in alarm, but Athena squeezed her shoulder and hurriedly added, “He’s going to be all right. Part of the reason we’re meeting physically is so that he can come aboard, and I can treat him.”
“Shouldn’t we be chasing Gentry? Did Angel tell you what happened when I confronted Jensen?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry about your former paramour. It may be possible to remove the parasitic AI altering his personality.”
“Parasitic?” Juliet hated the sound of that. Is that what Athena thought of Angel?
Athena’s following words mollified her: “Yes. Rather than a symbiotic relationship like the one you and Angel share, the AI using Jensen’s neural pathways is dominant and has driven most of his mind and personality into submission. Without a subject to study, I’m not certain how much of Jensen can be salvaged—perhaps all or, sadly, perhaps none.”
“How can we catch them?”
“Their trajectory has them going to Ceres, and I know from the data you and Angel helped me acquire that the other warp-equipped ship isn’t ready. They’re rushing it, but I think we’ll have enough time to catch up to them.”
Juliet walked slightly behind Athena, with Angel keeping pace to her left. As they progressed, nearly to the junction leading to the med bays, she subvocalized, “How does that even work? Is she in that body?”
Angel gave her a sidelong look, partially rolling her eyes. Juliet immediately understood that she wanted to talk with her projected body and was irritated by the secret conversation. She just shrugged, and Angel acquiesced, speaking into her head, “No, she’s not in there. She’s piloting that body much as I do the mechs. I’m sure she has a limited AI chip installed, too, so if she withdrew or there was an interruption in the wireless signal, it wouldn’t fall over. She’s different from me—she’s only ‘here’ in one instance of her mind; she’s probably doing a hundred other things more complicated than talking to us and walking through the ship.”
Angel’s explanation gave Juliet a thought. “Athena, why’d you have to use the gunship and my interceptor? I’m sure you could have purchased other equally capable ships. Maybe you could have hired a few dozen mercenary pilots like my friend Nick.”
“Yes, that’s true. I’ve been playing catch-up, however. Apollyon has been clever in masking the movements and intentions of the upper echelon of WBD personnel. When we assembled the team that assaulted the WBD Mars installation, we weren’t sure you’d be there, and the ships we had access to were more than sufficient, especially with my shaping operations prior to the assault.”
“Shaping operations?” Juliet glanced at Angel, and she smiled and nodded.
“She means the work she did before the team’s arrival. She infiltrated their network, disabled their communications, interfered with their automated defenses, and equipped Tanaka’s people with security-bypassing measures.”
Athena looked at Angel and nodded her gratitude. “Excellent explanation.” Before Juliet could ask anything else, they arrived at the door labeled “OPERATIONS,” and it whooshed open, revealing a much-changed interior. An eight-foot smart table sat in the center of the room. One wall was lined with four cubicle-style desks equipped with decks and crystal displays like the one on Athena’s server station. Another wall was completely retrofitted with a massive crystal display that prompted Juliet’s AUI with dozens of little querying asterisks; she knew if she enabled it, she’d be immersed in data and three-dimensional displays.
Frida stood before the big display and whirled at the sound of the door. When she saw Juliet, her face, wan and drawn, broke into a smile, and she charged across the room, smashing into Juliet with an almost violent hug. “I can’t believe it! We wrecked half a dozen WBD facilities looking for you, and all we had to do was wait! You broke yourself out!”
“Well,” Athena chuckled, “at least we were here to pick her up. If we weren’t looking for her, she might have floated a while.”
Frida smiled and pushed back from Juliet, still gripping the tops of her arms. “Nah, ships are cruising all over orbit looking for survivors! It’s a salvager’s dream out there.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Juliet said, her voice a little thick with emotion; she couldn’t put into words how good it felt to be hugged by a friend at that moment. “I appreciate everything you did, and any damage done to WBD in the process is a big, fat bonus as far as I’m concerned. Besides, if you hadn’t been wreaking havoc down on Mars, I would have had a much harder time messing with their operations on the ship.”
“Lucky’s probably very tired, Frida. We should let her get cleaned up and changed before the rendezvous.”
Juliet looked at Athena with a raised eyebrow. When she smiled at her impassively, Juliet played along, for Frida’s benefit, “I appreciate that, Selene. Um, you don’t have to call me Lucky anymore unless you want to. My name’s Juliet.”
Frida’s hands tightened on her arms, and her eyes opened wide. They were bloodshot, and Juliet could see that she was exhausted. “Juliet? What a beautiful name! I love it!”
“Thank you.” As Frida released her, Juliet reached to grasp the smaller woman’s rather bony shoulder. Her smile became a frown of concern. “Frida, I’m so happy to see you, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you look like hell. Have you been sleeping?”
Frida’s mouth twisted into a half-smile, and she shrugged. “Ask Selene about it. I’m on some new meds, and they’re really rough on me. I have trouble sleeping, trouble eating, even trouble thinking straight.”
“It’s a necessary side effect, I’m afraid. We’re editing Frida’s genes to erase some damage done by an…unfortunately flawed procedure performed by her parents when she was an infant. They were well-intentioned, but there were side effects they weren’t aware of.”
“Your autoimmune thing?” Juliet asked, gently rubbing Frida’s back, inwardly cringing at the sharpness of her scapula.
“Yeah.” Frida nodded and looked at Selene. “How much longer, Doctor?”
Athena smiled and stepped closer, also putting a hand on Frida’s narrow back. “Just another week of intravenous treatments, then she’ll be on the mend, good as new.”
Frida smiled, and it didn’t seem forced as she gestured to the door. “Let me walk you to your room. I don’t want to lose sight of you—I feel like you’re going to disappear.”
“Come on,” Juliet said, putting an arm over her shoulders. They walked together the short way to the lift, and Juliet smiled at Angel’s avatar as she walked along with them. She subvocalized, “Tell Athena I said thanks for helping Frida.”
Angel nodded and winked at her, then Frida said, “I can’t believe you’re safe. The last couple of months feel like a nightmare, Luck-Jul-Juliet.” She laughed as she stammered over her name.
“Call me whatever you want! Lucky’s still my SOA handle. Frida, I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done. I’m so grateful that you took care of my friends. I know they’re probably alive today because of your planning. I mean, I know Selene is amazing, but she couldn’t have done all this without your help.”
“I do have a certain touch, don’t I?” She sobered suddenly, and her eyes almost glassed over as Juliet saw a dark thought flit behind those pretty green irises.
“What?”
“I, well…” She sighed and shook her head. “Forget it. Let’s focus on the good news. You’re alive. You’re here!”
“No, Frida. I can take it. Let me help carry it. What were you thinking?” They stepped off the lift and continued up the short corridor to Juliet’s “captain’s” quarters, and she thought about that. Technically, the ship was hers, but that was only because Athena had given her “stewardship” over it and her. Shouldn’t she give up the captain’s quarters now that Athena was active? She supposed Athena didn’t really need a bed—
“It’s just that Tanaka rescued Hawkins and Lee a little while ago, as you were escaping that ship, I guess.”
Juliet pulled Frida close to her side and cried, “That’s wonderful! I was worried about them!”
“Yeah, but . . . Barns.”
“Oh . . .” Juliet stopped walking and turned toward Frida, once again fighting to keep tears from spilling out of her eyes. She gently kneaded the soft spot where Frida’s neck met her shoulder. “I know. I know about Barns. He was the only one who put up a fight, the only one of us who could. He was a titan of a man, Frida, and deserves to be remembered as a hero.”
Frida nodded, sniffing as she spoke softly, “That’s what the boss told me. He said Barns died doing what he loved—killing lesser men.”
“Sounds like Tanaka.” Juliet turned to touch the access panel to her room and stepped in. It was exactly as the last time she’d been there; most of her things were on the Cherry Blossom, but she’d left a few books and some extra clothes on the medical ship after her transit from the Jovian System. As Juliet looked around, Angel slipped through the door and flopped onto the spacious acceleration couch. As she lay there, watching, Juliet turned back to Frida. “How are the others? Is Leo holding up all right?”
“He’s great. He’s really, I don’t know—matured, maybe—over the last couple of months. He’s going to be pretty upset about Barns. I think Leo saw him like a big brother—the guy he could talk to about all the stuff I wouldn’t let him bring up—girls and guns, mostly.”
“Oh, I know. Trust me, I heard plenty of their banter. God! It sucks!” Juliet sighed, and though she wanted to shake off the feelings, she felt like it wasn’t fair to Barns. He deserved to be mourned. “He—Barns, I mean—was actually a pretty damn cool guy. I had a lot of fun with him during our brief time in Boulder. You think there’s any booze on this ship?”
“You’d know better than I would; Selene said this is your ship! I’d love to hear that story, by the way.”
“Gladly. I’ll tell you a few good yarns now that I can share my real name. You know, I think this thing had a pretty damn well-stocked mess. Let’s go find some whiskey or something ‘cause we’re all gonna toast Barns before we start whatever meeting Selene’s got planned.”
Frida took a step back and smiled lopsidedly. “I like that idea, but don’t you, like, want to change? I mean, don’t get me wrong; you’ve got the figure for it, but I’m not sure you want Leo ogling you in that onesie.”
“Onesie? This is a bodysuit, and I’ll have you know it’s very high-tech and comfortable!” Juliet laughed and then nodded as she walked over to her built-in dresser. “I’ve got some clothes in here. Meet you in the mess in about fifteen minutes, all right?”
Frida grinned and offered a sloppy salute. “Aye-aye, Captain! I’ll check in with the other ships real quick, but I’ll be there.”