The Woman Who Spaced Cruelty Valiant

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The day after the hounded robots’ arrival, Miles accompanied Kat in the small hatch beside the bubble pier. There, he attached himself to the steel rope that the young woman had cautiously tied on a shiny winch. Once ready, they both jumped on the opposite side of a detachable metal hexagon, and joined the silent vacuum of space.

“You good?” Kat asked over the screeching radio. Just in case, she patted Miles’ cuboid visor.

“You trust this old equipment?” Miles worried as a fan behind his neck sent out another blast of filtered air with the strong smell of camphor. “My front has ridges. Ridges. It’s particularly confusing.”

Kat walked along the edge of the hexes to the area of the veil scheduled for maintenance. “Believe it or not, current gear is subject to programmed obsolescence,” she replied. “You can’t trust a suit designed to rip on a set date you know nothing about.”

“This is even worse than your cockroaches story. Humankind sucks.”

She chuckled. “Yeah… These sets are from a time when we as a species still had a true purpose.”

“Fighting the communists?”

“Space conquest.”

Miles prudently followed Kat on the narrow frame, apprehending every step and keeping an eye on the freezing lifeline. After a while, Ballou’s owner kneeled, and started making slight movements with her arm. That way, she unfolded a metal extension from her wrist. A knitting pin appeared at the end, from which squirted a transparent thread. With a few finger motions, Kat ran the pin along a thin, clearly visible tear in the mantle, and weaved in structural stitches. Her polymeric work glimmered like a diamond.

“That’s pretty cool…” Miles admitted. “The veil and all.”

“Isn’t it? That’s because it’s French-made. Ancient. Ugly. Expensive. But top of the art.”

“What about me? Can’t I knit the veil?” Miles asked, not fully unaware. Kneeling too, he tried to copy Kat’s gesture. Nothing happened.

“Unfortunately… no,” she replied. “But take the video-gun in my satchel. It will help us see the stressed areas where I need to apply the points.”

Having never heard of a video-gun, Miles happily complied and pulled a short broom ended by a curling iron from Kat’s backpack.

“That was a sweep, for disabling landmines,” she explained.

Intrigued, Miles pressed a brown button that acted as a trigger beside a small Aiken monitor. The gadget beeped. On the glass screen, the hexagons appeared as shaky orange lines. The old program portrayed the veil as a mass of yellow dots. In some places, the gadget colored the dots in red, mapping the wear and tear cracks invisible to the naked eye.

“The gun’s battery’s feeble, so we shouldn’t dawdle,” Kat said.

He nodded and pointed to the area to be repaired.

“Another thing…” she said before also charging him of applying a coat of lacquer to the longer sutures, protecting them from cosmic radiation.

After his first attempt, Miles asked: “How am I doing?”

“Entirely wrong!” his partner exclaimed as he incorrectly spread the glaze on the next stitches.

“How come? That’s how I used to paint my ship back on Canyon Creek. Round movement.”

“You’re not splattering a ship! Our job here is closer to surgery than mechanics,” Kat huffed, cleaning the crusting lacquer with a metallic brush. She showed him the correct longitudinal movement. Her attempt wasn’t perfect. But still seemed to be of better quality than Miles’. “See? Slow and steady. You need to be gentle.”

“Thanks.”

A modified Chinese sweep in one hand and a lead spray in the other, Miles shouldered Kat. Despite his efforts, his work first remained slightly below mediocre. But in the last forty eight minutes, the exact running length of the Otis Blue album—which they were both listening to—Miles’ skills greatly improved to ‘slightly above mediocre’.

“Not your best day with a broomstick,” Kat mocked him as they almost reached the landing pad after circling the equator. “But that’ll do the job.”

“Sweepers and needles ain’t exactly on my range,” he taunted her in return.

Kat turned around, putting her hands on her hips. “Well. First, screw you, Cyber Macho! Second, space knitting wasn’t my job either until my stupid siblings decided to die for an even stupid Cause. I’m a bio-engineer. I grew potatoes and tomatoes! And I grew them pretty well! Pretty damn well, if you may ask, Mr. Red Swan.”

Miles laughed, before spraying a perfectly thin layer on the last strain shining. “I think we’re done!” he exclaimed. Proud of his work, he expected a pat on the shoulder. But when he stood up, however, he saw that Kat was staring worriedly at the outskirts of the satellite airlock. “What’s going on? Oh crap… not again…”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

It felt like a scratched disk. Over the top of the stolen ambulance, hovered a heavy-armed fighter, strangely wearing the Alliance’s coat of arms. A bounty hunter had made his way to the Rings.

“He sniffed the SOS…” Kat said with a quavering voice.

“I’ll take care of it,” told Miles, walking towards the ominous ship. He fell for his badge but remember he lost it a long time ago.

“What are you implying again?” Kat stopped him as front beams blinded them.

“Classic intimidation technique. Let me out that asshole.”

“This is my moon. My problems. My remit,” the woman snapped, adjusting her eyeshade.

“I just wanted to help…”

The dark shadow of a slightly overweight man in a stitched Police suit from Defiance emerged from the spacecraft with a machine gun in hand, and jumped on the veil. Once within a few alveoli of Kat, he invited himself onto the communication channel the young woman had opened.

“Greetings, ma’am…” the Belter bounty hunter said.

“Bonjour.”

“Bonjour. I’m Detective Valance. May I ask if you’ve seen any bots roaming around?”

“Just mine.”

“More precisely, I’m looking for a couple,” the man insisted. “Under the Techno-Senator Kansas’ Agreement between the Rings and Mars. The war didn’t overrule it.”

“Haven’t seen any dating robots here, sir. Haven’t seen much at all in months, even.”

“You’re indeed far from civilization down here.”

“That’s the plan.”

The hunter played piano on his grip, turning the headlights off. Valance deactivated his tinted visor to reveal his features. He was a cyborg with a steel jaw struggling to transcribe his unhealthy smile. “Far from the combat zones too.”

“Lucky us.”

“Lucky you.” He stopped, looking down. “Then would you mind explaining to me why there is a military Techno-ship anchored below your veil? That one—there—badly repaired.”

“My brother’s simply home, bounty hunter…” Kat said, puffing her chest out.

“Really? A medic on leave from the T.M.S. Congo?”

“That’s right.”

“The same T.M.S. Congo the League blew up around Hyrrokkin a week ago. That T.M.S. Congo?”

“Kat…” Miles interjected.

“Is this fellow your brother?” the man asked, stepping further. “Can’t he talk for himself? Does he speak Solarian English, or lost his tongue while deserting like a rat?”

Kat swung her arm, as if hoping to slap the hunter in the face. Confident, Valiant didn’t even look to dodge the obvious attack. A stupid mistake. For Kat’s stinger expelled a polymer thread. The makeshift rope wrapped around his rifle's barrel like a lasso.

“What the—” Valiant cried as the weapon sprung from his arms with a flick of Kat’s wrist, twisting his index finger in the process. The surprised man then toppled forward, his left hand immediately moving towards the holster he was hiding behind his thigh.

Miles tried to warn Pierre’s sister. But she had already struck the edge of the man’s visor with his own machine gun’s butt. She knew exactly where to hit to break it in one blow.

Speak about programmed obsolescence.

Detective Valiant screamed, yet no sound ever reached Miles’ and Kat’s ears. Space immediately froze the gaging man’s throat. The vacuum immediately emptied his throat and lungs, all the way to his butthole.

Swinging the gun like a baseball bat, Kat restlessly bludgeoned the remaining plexiglass. The Alliance man was thrown into the void, his magnetic boots still anchored to the frame. He went flying for a few moments, struggling to pull down the metal flap that could save his life. When he finally managed to shield himself, however, he was carried too far to hope to return to Ballou without thrusters.

“Holy smoke! That ain’t your first rodeo…” Miles acknowledged, seeing the woman throwing the gun at his forsaken owner.

“It was. Unfortunately, the war around the Rings lured its load of scum already. But, this time, ‘beetles gotta stay out of our garden’—like my grandmother said.”

A trickle of sweat ran down Miles’ cheek, and his instinct was to bring his hand to it. It bounced against the plexiglass of his visor. “Job done?”

“Job’s done.”

“It means sweet potato pie?”

Kat turned back, smiling. “I’m going to bake a fresh one. It’s well deserved.”

“Didn’t do much. You’re the one fixing a moon shield and sending boosters waltzing all the way to Planet Nine.”

“Two slices for me then… only one for you.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Next time a scummy Alliance man shows up, you’re in charge of the ass-kickin’?”

Miles bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted to talk to Kat about his other old job but decided to restrain himself after glazing at Valiant disappearing in the dark. “I’d be happy to do that,” he simply went on. “But perhaps, for now, we should be dealing with the guy’s ship or something.”

“That one will be for Uncle Tom. It’s brand new,” the moon owner heaved, heading for the little airlock near the pier.

Once inside and the air back, both removed their heavy helmets. With a flick of her glove, Kat ousted the drop of sweat that was beading on Miles’ jaw. The man floundered with his oxygen tanks that barely fit in the cramped bubble.

“Thank you,” he said, exhausted by the space walk.

“You’re welcome,” Kat responded immediately. “Would you mind if…” She paused, struggling with her velcro suit.

“Sure. Let me help.”

The zipper down, he found himself with the woman closer to him.

“Allo?” Someone invited themselves into the chat room. “Mr. Beef Jerky? Mother Ballou?” Tatyana said.

Kate reached for her mic embedded in her collar. “What’s going on?” she immediately asked as Miles stepped back the best he could.

Judging by the teenage nurse’s tone when she answered, Miles immediately feared the worst for Pierre.