33

Deep in the noisy, industrial bowels of Orbital Station 1012, V47 Pilot and Raine took their leave of the genuine animal-folk. They'd delayed a while before setting off, promising to do all that they could to prevent the next purge. Beast assets weren’t supposed to breed or linger past usefulness, but they did, hiding cubs, the injured and elderly down in the space station’s thumping and rattling guts. Pest control robots took care of all that, periodically wiping out unwanted vermin with poison gas or electrified decking… a thing no one else cared about, until now.

“There will be no more purges,” Raine had promised the anxious creatures, and she meant it. She was a sugar-glider small engine mechanic, now. Able to soar and glide and climb onto her friend, Pilot. He was a grumpy, beautiful fluffy gold cat-person; a steering rocket technician who didn’t much like his new form.

She had intelligent alien jewelry: Red-Blue-Gamma and Right-Left-Top-Flip. He had a transformed draug superior turned into a digital bracelet, and three zipping camera drones. There was food, too, which was important, for Sugar-glider empresses got very hungry, a lot. They hadn’t wanted to take provisions from the animal-folk, who had to scrounge for each extra bite, but Raine accepted a can of sugary nectar, along with some protein strips for Pilot.

“Wonderful,” he grunted, gnawing the leathery treats without enthusiasm. Meanwhile, Raine flipped onto her back, gripping the can with clawed hands and feet as she drained its syrupy contents.

“That was so good,” she exulted, licking the last few drops from her muzzle and bouncing upright. “When we come back… We’ll come back this way, right, Pilot? I’m sure we will… When we come back, I want more fruit nectar!”

That might have been their last can, but the animal folk refugees didn’t begrudge her the gift.

“Return soon, Your Majesty,” said the rabbit girl, softly. Her name was Shirelle, and she had large, dark eyes in a grey, furry face. “We trust in you and in Someday.”

Raine-glider handed the empty can to a young armadillo and nodded.

“I will find the station’s command deck and take over control,” she said fiercely. “Pilot will help me to do it. Then everyone will be free!”

They parted on friendly terms (except for Pilot and that shaggy hulk of a wolf engine-cleaner, who had threats they intended to act upon, soon).

“Hide yourselves well,” Pilot advised them. “Our doings may trigger alerts or an unscheduled security sweep.”

The muscular wolf-man growled nervously, his ears flat back and his teeth bared.

“You are dangerous, and this foolish stunt risks all our lives. You should be dropped in the nearest incinerator tail-first, except… what have we got to lose but a few more days in hell?”

“Enough, Arondyr!” chided Shirelle. “For the first time since legend, something good may actually happen. Believe, love. You have to believe.”

The lupine mechanic rumbled disgustedly but broke eye-contact with Pilot. He sneezed, pointedly looking aside. After that, Raine and her guardian went on their way, leaving the beast-folk to scurry for new, safer hiding spots. The fugitive pair soon left Outer Maintenance far behind, creeping up and across the station’s vast interior.

Raine-glider rode on Pilot’s left shoulder mostly, sometimes launching herself to perch on a metal railing or section of pipe for a quick look around. Red-Blue-Gamma stayed on her head, flashing comments to Pilot, but Right-Left-Top-Flip wandered about, some. The Block-worlder’s hooked tiny legs felt like a comb as Right-Left-Top-Flip scanned their surroundings and tapped out relevant thoughts, along with a tactile map.

Safe, that’s what she felt. Safe and surrounded by trustworthy friends, even in this noisy place, where gears as large as cities turned very slowly, moving shafts that seemed to span time and space.

“What’s all this for, Pilot?” she wondered, half sending, half speaking aloud. It seemed bigger than TTN-iA’s magnetar shell, and very much busier.

“It’s the solar panel control system, Majesty,” Pilot told her, adding, “As OS1012 orbits Glimmr, the panels have to adjust their position to catch whatever light is available. There are a lot of them. 12,355 on this hemisphere alone, and they are very large; 117 miles wide, each. It takes a great deal of mechanical force to move them around.”

A great deal of noisy mechanical force. The air, walls and ground thrummed with energy; whirring, clicking rumbling and screeching in a way that only a lot of snuck-in circuits shielded her from. The constant noise and vibration were there, but her nanites and Pilot’s donated circuitry prevented madness or tissue damage.

That was important, because the enormous space was in grinding, confusing, constant motion. Their rotating-drum “floor” turned, and the overhead spider-walks shifted position to match. Great chains rattled through hawsers. It was like a puzzle chamber in Learning Curve, but a whole bunch bigger. There wasn’t much lighting though, as no one official or important was meant to be down in the bowels of the station.

They had left the painted blue guide strip behind them; were instead following the animal-folk’s promised scent trail. Raine could only pick up a little of what was nearly a conversation to Pilot.

“A lot of warnings about the upcoming region, Majesty,” he rumbled and sent. “There are robot and cyborg guards posted there, as it is near a Master-level emergency exit. We will need to be very cautious.”

“You can smell all that?” she demanded, climbing the top of Pilot’s head to peer at him, upside-down.

“I… yes, strangely. There are alarm scents for each sort of danger. Time, I can guess by the age and strength of the scent. Responses are overlaid in a sort of picture of person and message that’s hard to describe with words.”

…But his sending helped to fill in the blank spots. As a sugar-glider technician, Raine was more visual than her transformed cat-person friend.

“I will stay close and be very quiet,” she promised him, digging her claws deeply into his fluffy gold fur.

“Not sure that ‘quiet’ matters much here… But see; there are lenses and motion sensors placed to catch unauthorized trespassers, Majesty,” he responded, inside and outside her head.

She did see (in flickers) a detailed map of the level, with all of its cameras and their limited fields of view.

“Ohhh…!”

“Exactly. Try to go bungling straight through, and we’ll be picked up and dealt with immediately, unleashing hell on the beast-folk.”

Raine nodded tensely. She stayed on Pilot’s shoulder as Right-Left-Top-Flip skittered around for an echo pulse scan of their rear. Very cautiously, they entered Solar Panel Transmission Q3, moving through a short, hot tunnel from the drive system to a huge contraption of vast, nested gears and long axels.

Pilot stuck with the walkways and gantries, mostly. He had to drop underneath and proceed hand-over-hand whenever they neared a camera mast or a biological-motion sensor. His three commandeered drones spread out for a wide-angle view in the meantime, producing another layer of data on top of those scent trails.

A candle-mark passed. They successfully edged around two sensor posts and a lens array, triggering no alarms. Pilot, Raine and the alien ambassadors were now a bit more than halfway through that immense, clockwork transmission system. Pilot was working his way along, dangling from a bridge that spanned a gulf the size of Challenge Gully, in Learning Curve. A hungry pit of chewing gears and screeching fly-wheels thundered red-hot, down below.

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Then it was that the transformed draug acted, flashing a warning glow from its polished green digital face. The alien dissident was worn on Pilot’s left wrist. Helpless, till now. The cat-cyborg snarled words that Raine didn’t know, but which left a searing impression. The flashed message (Alert! Alert! Unauthorized intrusion!) was feeble, but it reflected from enough surfaces to reach and interest the walkway’s sensor.

A dismal siren howled. Strobing lights started up, whirling and pulsing like staccato red lightning.

“ALERT!” shrilled the Solar Panel Security System. “Possible incursion detected on level 30, maintenance walkway 221!”

“Hang on, Majesty!” sent Pilot, over the howling and thundering clamor. “I will float down to that cam shaft and run its length.”

…Which seemed thrilling, unsafe and terribly exciting to Raine. Meanwhile,

“Get that drek watch off my arm!” he snapped.

Raine clung tight to his fur with both feet and one hand as Pilot swung himself outward, then dropped. With her free hand, she yanked the draug-bracelet off and over his wrist. Waved it by Pilot’s face as they swooped like leaves, heading for a long and slow-churning axel.

“Got it, Pilot! Now what?!”

“Now… urf… hold it out over the transmission system. Good. Thank you, Majesty.”

They’d landed on a miles-long, slowly rotating shaft. Pilot broke into a sprint as security robots and drones started sweeping the walkway above. It was like racing over a rolling log in the River Fun section of Challenge Gully, except without power-up fairies or music, thought Raine.

Pilot magnetized his half-boots, providing a better grip, but slowing their progress. Addressing that transformed, dangling watch, he growled,

“Flash again, and she drops you, insect. You can continue to warn the air and the gears all the way down, till you’re crushed.”

Raine felt that flexible metal bracelet vibrate in her hand. She squeezed harder, making the best threatening scowl that a sugar-glider could manage. The draug bracelet’s screen went dark, but Raine stayed vigilant. Right-Left-Top-Flip clattered down to her hand to pulse insults, calling the draug “inert” and “motionless”. Meanwhile, Red-Blue-Gamma transformed itself into a concave, crystalline dish. Matching the precise wavelength and frequency of the sensor’s comm, the Long Spar ambassador flashed: System error. All clear. Stand down.

Pilot ran faster, occasionally hurtling joists and big, tightly riveted barriers. The cat-cyborg’s arm muscles bunched and flexed underneath Raine. The horizon shifted wildly as Pilot rushed along that huge, rotating axel. His flared, fluffy tail acted like a rudder, helping to keep them balanced. Raine held on with one hand and bobbed like a kite, whooping aloud.

Red-Blue-Gamma’s spoofed all-clear worked a treat, once the alien figured out the correct phrasing. Then it was down to a long, pelting run. Pilot had to dig his claws in, riding the shaft over and around when his drones warned them of roving camera-eyes. He clung hard to ridges, holdfasts and seams, panting harshly, as they were dragged sideways, under, then back around again, passing over a gulf filled with violently clashing and spinning machinery.

…and Raine had never been so excited, felt so awake in all her short life.

“That was fun, Pilot!” she squealed, when at last they came to the end of that rotating drive shaft and onto a safe bit of engine cowling. “Can we do it again?”

The big golden cat-cyborg had flung himself down full-length. His breath rasped and his silver-blue eyes seemed to be all pupil. He lifted his head to stare at Raine for a moment, before grunting,

“I am… pleased to hear… that you are… enjoying yourself… Majesty. But we… do have a… task to… perform.”

He was exhausted, she realized, absorbing raw manna in harsh, sucking gasps. Next, Pilot wasted a bit of that power conjuring water for them to drink. It was fizzy and sweet, because he remembered and cared.

“Pilot,” she said, wriggling across to bump noses. “I love you.”

That brought another stare. The drink flask passed between them, and then Pilot replied,

“Thank you, Majesty. I have come to love you, as well.”

He didn’t just speak, but sent, and his words were true. No layers, no hidden codes, no firewall. Fact. Raine smiled and then grew serious, as an awful thought occurred. She clambered into the crook of his arm, saying,

“I have a question, Pilot. It’s very important.”

“I am listening, Majesty, and I will try to answer as well as I can.” He was no longer panting, so that was good.

Red-Blue-Gamma and Right-Left-Top-Flip had been resting and refreshing themselves with radiation, plastic and metal scraps. They seemed to be having fun, too, which made Raine feel better. But…

“So… I grew up in Learning Curve, Pilot. I had a whole life there. Mum and Da, Pinky and Sylph and all my teachers and friends at Challenge Academy. It was all real to me, until graduation day. Then everything ended, and I woke up in a vat on TTN-iA’s shell. Will…” she swallowed hard, fighting the urge to cry. “Is that going to happen to me again? Is this just more training for being an empress, Pilot? Are you real, or will I wake up all alone again?”

Her little clawed hands and feet buried themselves in his golden fur, clutching hard as she whispered,

“I don’t want to come out of simulation and find that you guys are all gone, Pilot, like I did with Mum and Da and my whole life! Please tell me you’re real!”

Red-Blue-Gamma flashed soft and comforting lights. Right-Left-Top-Flip gently massaged her back. As for Pilot, the big cat-cyborg leaned forward to bump noses and mingle whiskers again, sharing breath-scent. He said,

“I am no writer-of-code, Majesty. I cannot say what is real and what isn’t… but I certainly feel alive, to myself. Also, I have other versions, Val and Miche, and they are facing trials of their own, which seems like a lot to include in a training sim.”

“And me?” asked Raine-glider, wide-eyed and interested, resting her hands on his chest to look directly at Pilot. “Are Right-Left-Top-Flip and Red-Blue-Gamma there, too?”

“I am increasingly certain that you and they are, Majesty. That everyone is. We’re all trying to accomplish our bit of something incredibly vast, I think. But, once this is done, when you are securely in place here, we can access Learning Curve and find your people again.”

She hugged him, nodding and squeezing her eyes tightly shut against prickling, wavering tears.

“Mum and Da will love you so much, Pilot… and Red-Blue-Gamma and Right-Left-Top-Flip, too. I can’t wait for you guys to meet each other!”

He scratched behind her ears as tiny bright lights and soft little thumps laughed agreement.

“Hopefully, I will be back in my own form by then, Majesty,” he began, first stretching out all of his muscles, then licking the fur of his forearm. “I…”

“Oh, but you’re beautiful this way, Pilot! We both are! And I can fly! You don’t want me not to be able to fly, do you?”

Pilot heaved a long sigh. Then,

“I believe I can teach you to levitate, Majesty… But if these forms are what you prefer…”

She clamped like a magnet and hugged him again.

“I do! I do! I want to be a glider and you a cat forever, Pilot, and live in Learning Curve whenever I’m not being an empress. Promise? Promise that’s what we’ll do and always be together our whole lives?”

“Interesting notion,” came a new voice, as seven figures materialized on the vibrating surface around them. Elven-stock mech pilots, they were; wearing old-fashioned cybernetic armor, each with a death’s-head mark on their chest plate. Five males and two females, all of them grim. “What is your scheme, who are you, and why are you sneaking through the station with a draug, beast-man?”

V47 Pilot shot to his feet, sweeping Raine into a shielded fey pocket. Not totally safe, but the best he could manage.

“It’s the entertainment Division, Majesty,” he sent, on a tight, coded frequency. “Friends, I think… though they may not know me in this form.”

“Ace,” he said to their tall, dark-haired leader. “You took me out of the system, and I’ve been transformed into a maintenance-asset, but I’m… I am a messenger, created to treat with the draug by your ally, V47 Pilot.”

A short, intense-looking female stepped forward, then, saying,

“Not likely. I know Jan… V47 Pilot. I gave him his drekking name, cat. He wouldn’t be crawling around the machine pits without his AI, hauling a draug and some aliens. Try again. If this is another under-asset rebellion, it won’t last any longer than the last one did.”

Pilot’s tail lashed. His pointed ears had gone flat back to his head, but he tried to reason rather than argue.

“Dethknell, I don’t know how to convince you except to say that I’ve watched every Rogue Flight episode 12 x 10^4 times, even the fan-service lame ones. Or to say that there was a slingshot, past tense and broken, and that Brother was not only innocent, he was right.”

A big, blond male came out of their circle to glare at the nervous cat-cyborg.

“We intercepted a weird alert, followed by three failed stand-down commands before somebody figured out how to turn off the system. We thought we’d investigate and arrived to find you. Anyone can access the show. It’s on public feed, kitty-cat. Nice try. Next?”

“Any elf can,” corrected a burly, kind-seeming male. This one had brown, scruffy hair and a facial scar. “The shows are accessible to their target audience, Icebox. Animal-folk watch the Stario Super-Maintenance Adventure Hour, not Rogue Flight. I advise that we all stand down before somebody makes a colossal mistake. For the record, I think he’s telling the truth.”

“Or believes that he is,” mused Ace, coming to stand beside Icebox (the scowling blond). Next, turning to face the cat-cyborg once more, “You said you’re a messenger. Aye, that. Where’s the real V47 Pilot, then?”

Pilot’s ears switched partway forward, as he struggled to control fur that wanted to bristle and a yowl that tried to creep up from inside of him.

“He is trapped in the Master’s refuge,” admitted Pilot. “I hope to help V47 retrieve him and then… go away or just be destroyed, I suppose. I was transformed because it was the safest way into the station with OVR-Lord down, and a draug fleet less than half a light-second away.”

Ace narrowed bright blue eyes, shaking his head.

“Transformed. Right. Only way to find out if you’re telling the truth is to reverse transformation, which will disintegrate you, kitty, if this isn’t just a disguise… and you still haven’t explained the draug and those aliens, along with whoever you’re trying to hide in your fey-pocket.”

The Rogue Flight team were high-level assets; mech pilot actors with little patience for an animal underling. Things might have gone terribly wrong. Raine was ready to fight, but all she had was a sack full of delicate tools. On the other hand, V47 Pilot had three drones plus his own claws and teeth, against seven well-armed and ruthless virtual elves.

Then the realms clicked closer together in space. Tremendous power flowed like lightning between them, and everything changed.