[story] Saber Chase

[Dartz]

Another long one.

Jet's been using a puppet for six years at this stage.... walking around with one or both and holding two conversations should be attainable with practice. More complex things are tougher, and she still slips up from time to time.

Trying to introduce the stone as an abandoned industrial complex (Like the enrichement center really).... with a few people living in it, so it feels big and vast and very empty. There's a lot that isn't used, and nothing to do with it. It's also supposed to be pretty unremarkable as far as asteroid mines go. I'd assume there'd be plenty using a similar design.

And I need to have some character moments.... Maico needs footage of all residents.

And this is pretty much exactly what Ford built, minus the cannon

The engine roared through open pipes, wind howling and lapping over the top edge of the windshield. High intensity lights illuminated a hundred metres of tunnel with a cool blue light. Black voids hid behind rises on the tunnel floor and wall. It seemed the speeding Warthog could just drop down and dissapear forever into one.

Maico clung on for dear life.

They weren’t even going that fast, but something about being buckled in to an unwaved tank of a car that was a little unnerving.

“Yeah.... “ Ford carried on with her story. “So we came second because our engine burns oxygen. Still, it was an honorable second for something put together to lug broken down gear through rough-cut tunnels,”

It rode over a bump. It seemed to Maico that those big fat tyres and two tonnes of battlesteel flattened them out entirely rather than rode over them.

“It’s nice,” she sputtered out, shivering.

“Sorry there’s no heater,” said Ford, completely failing to comprehend why she was shivering like jelly in an earthquake. “It broke yesterday,”

No ‘wavium. No slapstick effect. No safety foam. No inertial dampers. Just six hundred burning horsepower, two tonnes of metal and plastic, a solid rock wall looming out of the gloom, screeching tyres, a fabric harness, a transparent carbon windshield and her face.

“What if there’s something in the tunnel?”

“I can stop in the distance I can see.” Ford assured her. “I’m not a lunatic driver like some other people on this rock. And if she’s down here, she’ll avoid us.”

“Jet? Isn’t she aboard the Rinna Kazamatsuri?”

“Yepperoni,” Ford nodded, “And she’s supposed to up in the control room too,”

Maico glanced over at her, then at her files on Jet. Her face was a mask of confusion lost in a maze of puzzlement, hidden behind a light application of mortal unease.

“How?”

“The beautiful redhead you met earlier is Jet’s puppet body,” said Ford, quickly.

Maico blinked. “Jet’s an AI?”

That rumour was true?

“Well,” Ford shrugged.... “ask her, she knows what it is. She’s got cyberparts that let her run a puppet body the same way AI’s do.”

“Oh. But of course...” Maico said again, “Excuse me,”

She hurridly noted some of her thoughts down. This changed a few things. It opened the door to a few new possibilities, some of which made no sense whatsoever.

She’d stopped being afraid of the drive.

“What brings you out here?” Ford asked her.

Okay, play this cool.

“I’m chasing up some information on the Knight Sabers. I think Jet might know something,”

“Oh,” Ford shrugged her shoulders, returning her full attention to the road, “Well it’s her fandom, not mine so I can’t help you there,”

“Can you tell me about Jet’s body? The puppet,”

“It’s no secret,” said Ford, unbothered. “It’s A.C. built, about six years ago. Jet got it for a party she was invited to on Genaros, and kept it because it was a handy thing to have. It’s got no exotic features or anything weird. Anything else is private,” There was a giggle under her smirk.

“I mean, what can she do with it?” Maico pressed.

Ford gave her an odd look out the side of her eyes. “Just stuff. Normal people stuff.”

“But of course,” Maico said, again. Being evasive. Why?

Ford gave her an odd look. Yes, I do say that a lot, thank you very much. And I’m sure you have your own personality quirks too, Ms. Sierra. She made a few notes on her headset and....

A hard tyre-squealing turn derailed her train of thought, sending it spinning down the tunnel as the Warthog jerked left underneath her, pinning her to the frame momentarily.

“Got to love that cutting brake!”, Ford whooped.,

“Warn me before you do that!” Maico snapped at her.

“Sorry...” she said wearing a cheery smile that clearly wasn’t. The engine barked and snarled and seemed to shake the walls around them, picking up speed fast. “We’re almost there anyway. And we’re ahead of the cargo lift. I just have to drop the two exocomps off at the shop and we’ll head on up,”

Three minutes later, they stopped for a moment outside a hatchway. Ford had to get out to open it, giving Maico a chance to explore the truck a little. A small part of her felt the rising urge to just scoot over across the centre console, make the little red needle on the blue-green tachometer dance, ease out on the clutch and roar off away on her own.

Ford Sierra. Not just a gearhead, but a petrolhead, Maico mused.

The light outside was painfully bright for a moment. Ford hopped back aboard, crawling the truck outside, before jumping off the close the hatch again. Maico could see that they’d come out metres away from another hatchway.

1 CARGO LIFT: MAIN BAY. 20 TON

It opened by sliding down. Anika bolted out, running hard, followed by the human cargo inside to spilling out, led by a dark-haired, slim Japanese woman in leg warmers and a sky-blue dress stolen straight out of the 1980’s. She had an exocomp with her, painted a bright fire-engine red.

“Follow the red exocomp,” she ordered, her voice sharp and clear over the murmur of the crowd. “We’re down in the workshops. The elevator to the accommodation block is straight across the floor. Don’t get separated or you’ll get lost.”

Someone in the crowd complained about poor layout and long lift rides. There were murmurs of assent.

“We’re sorry about that, but try to understand that Frigga isn’t designed to be a hotel,” said the anachronistic leader. “Your apartments will be assigned when we get up there.”

Thirty people in deep-blue Stellvia Security uniforms moved out, following their team leaders. They were wearing dark shoulder patches of Ultima station. Mixed in with them were a few from other branches; Maico picked out quite a few from Administration and Medical too.

She snapped a few shots of them.

The gamers among them made themselves known by gawking at the Warthog.

“Yeah. It’s real.” Ford bragged. “Big block!”

“Can we have a go?,” a voice asked from the crowd. A hand went up from one of the administrators.

“If you don’t mind personally signing the invoice we send to Noah Scott for a replacement when you wreck it, then yeah,”

“Deal!” came the answer.

Ford seemed almost surprised for a moment. “Give your name to Kotono then. I’ll get to you later then.” she promised with a smirk. “Anyone willing to take that kind of responsibility deserve their shot,” she told Maico, aside.

The dark hair woman... obviously Kotono.... was laughing as she took his name. Noticing Maico, she waved at her with a big, toothy grin on her face.

Maico obliged, snapping her photograph. “Nice to be recognised,” she sighed. Contentment was warm and soothing in her empty belly. And Ryan will be able to take a model off it.

“Kotono!” Ford called out.

“Yeah!”

“There’s still no power to apartments above number 90 yet,”

“Now you tell me!” Kotono snapped back at her

“Not my fault.” Ford held up her hands “Complain to Jet,”

Kotono pushed a button on her headset to open a new channel.

“TITANIC mode 2 emergency shutdown test in ten minutes,” a boys voice announced through a speaker mounted over the elevator door. “Power and communications may fail in certain compartments.”

“Because TITANIC can use live ordinance, we have to test it’s abort modes before we begin a major exercise.“ Ford told her, before Maico asked. “Customer safety is our highest priority here at Survival Shot,”

She was looking right down Maico’s camera as she said that.

“But of course...”

It was another short drive through lit corridors. Designed to accomodate mining machinery needing service, they had little trouble with the warthog. It was all industrial. Blue and white half-and-half painted walls.... still on the original coat.... a bare concrete floor, chipped and potholed in places enough to let the steel liner underneath become visible.

There were some repairs.

It felt like an old abandoned factory, even with the lights on. It was just a little bit creepy in a way she couldn’t place. A little post-apocalyptic. The air was subtly un-fresh, dry and feeling somehow ancient.

They stopped outside Ford’s personal workshop, where Maico had to wait again while Ford offloaded both broken down exocomps. A little guilty, she offered to help, but Ford waved her off. It didn’t take too long.

“TITANIC mode 2 emergency shutdown test in one minute,” the boy repeated his announcement, attenuated and echo’d through a maze of concrete-fasciad walls. “One minute to shutdown,”

“What is TITANIC?” Maico asked, really just sating her own curiousty. “I heard Anika mention it,”

“It’s our computer system. It runs just about everything around here, including coordinating the drones for the exercises, and exocomps doing maintenance, and mapping other sectors and....” she stopped, furrowing her brow. “... well it might be easier to list what it doesn’t run.”

Three exocomps hummed by, heading down a side passage.

“It’s perfectly safe anyway,” Ford assured her. “It’s non-sentient. Just something that got bodged together to keep the lights on,”

They stopped outside another hatchway, getting off the truck and leaving it parked up. Ford opened it with a high squeal from hinges pleading for oil. It swung wide open, clanging against something outside, sending a deep shudder through the floors and walls as if it had struck some cymbal on God’s drumkit.

Maico felt her stomach tighten as a draft of cold, stony air rushed in to embrace her.

Ford stepped out with a curt, “Follow me, it’s a shortcut,”

“TITANIC emergency shutdown in progress,”

She stepped out, and into a waist high railing made of thin steel tubbing... cold and chilling and sending a icey bolt of fear right through her body. She yelped out in fright, seeing nothing but black beneath her... a small shaft of light emanating from the door behind.

“Don’t worry,” Ford chuckled. “Grav plating is in the gantry itself. If you fall off, you fall onto Friggan gravity, which is a lot gentler.”

Ford was holding a maglight.

Behind her, the outside wall of the workshop. She could just about make out the hard edges of bridges and girders in the gloom. Support trusses flew towards a wall lost in the black.

“We’re going to climb up the outside. Maintenance access.”

“We’re in another hole like the landing bay,” Maico gasped.

“Yeah... that’s it. Just like the landing bay. They filled this one with prefab buildings and covered it over up top. You wouldn’t know it from inside.”

The hatch slammed shut behind her like a tomb’s lid. It boomed in the cavern. Maico couldn’t estimate fathom how deep it was. It might’ve been infinite.

It might’ve been possible to fall over the edge and never be found. It might be possible she’d get pushed.

Only Ford’s flashlight lit their way up the steps.

Footfalls on steel echoed and resonated around them, coming thundering back off distant walls seconds later. It was all very Aperture Science. Maico could feel the hair on the back of her neck bristle, her heart doing it’s best to jump right out her mouth.

Something was following her in the shadows, she was certain. She was being silly.

They crossed a roof, chains rattling beneath her hands. Steel was cold and most, with a slight weathered fuzz to it. Far above, something was creaking. A catwalk reached out into the blackness. A meter wide, with thin steel railings Maico dearly wished she could just cling on to and never let go.

It intersected with a cage lift running inside a truss beam, reaching up into the gloom. She glanced behind, and could see no trace of the tunnels she’d left. A nip of fear bit her on the neck, a rising lump catching in her throat.

Hairy caterpillars were gnawing away inside her stomach.

“We should’ve stayed inside,” she said, a quiver rising through her voice.

“This is faster,” Ford stated.

“Vanish ‘faster’. I don’t want to fall down there”

She pointed a finger down the void. All the way down.

“Don’t worry. Once you pass the railing you’re on Frigga’s natural gravity. With full atmosphere in here you can glide down to a gentle landing in under ten minutes.” She grinned wide, “I’ve done it. It’s great fun, You almost float”

Maico’s whole body bristled at the idea. They all float down here, Maico. Something in the back of her mind warned her.... it was the sort of darkness that could hide anything.

“Just don’t land on your face and you’ll be fine,”

The reporter whimpered a little, before following Ford into the lift. A cage door slammed shut behind her, hissing and rattling. The lift launched with a jolt, Maico grabbing out for a smooth steel handrail.

Truss-beams flashed through the beam from Ford’s flashlight. Distant glimmers winked out of the black where the light reflected back off bare metal.

Keep your mind off it, Maico. Try a question... any question.

“You both worked with the Roughriders for three years, right?” she managed to get out.

Wind roar deepened as the lift continued to accelerate upwards.

“Yup,” Ford confirmed. “We had to to pay for this place somehow, which left us in a pretty uncomfortable place since we were scheduled to start a week after news of the A-team incident broke,”

“Do you think that incident may have been the genesis of the Knight Sabers?”

“Dunno, really. Ask them.”

I think I am asking them, Maico didn’t say. “If the Roughrider’s reputation was taking a hit, maybe someone thought they could fit into that space?”

“Ben got annoyed and made a bad call. Everyone’s done it. I’ve done it. And if anything, it was the UBA who made their hay while that particular sun was shining.”

“Did Jet train and equip the A-team afterwards?”

“Yeah,” Ford answered, cautiously. She knew exactly where this was going, that much was obvious.

“Would they be typical of her training style?”

“Yeah,” Ford repeated after a few moments, “And she trains people the same way here. And the Panzer Kunst train people the same way on Grunthal, if this is going where I think it’s going.”

“Well, can you blame me?” Maico smiled at her, cheekily.

Ford turned to face her, her expression dead serious and set in stone.

“Well I’ll tell you exactly what Jet’ll tell you. We don’t give out our training details to anyone.”

“So they were trained here,” Maico probed.

“I never said that,” Ford stated. Right into her camera. “Look, we’re nearly there. Let’s keep going on up and get back inside,”

Her voice warmed up just a little. It sounded like an offer. It might’ve been her asking for a way out. Maico glanced out into the darkness. The hulk of something that might’ve been a crane was veiled away in the black, at arms reach or maybe meters away.

“How did you afford such this place?”

“Was worthless, really. Three hundred grand. Even all this construction,” she knocked on the cage wall, “..would’ve cost too much to scrap, so it was left here, and sold to someone who had a use for it all.”

“It still seems like a pretty good deal to get all this, for the price of a mundane house,”

“it’s all legit,” Ford assured her, with a sour gleam in her eye. “Straight up.”

“I wasn’t implying otherwise...” Not intentionally really.

“The amount of dipshits who do pisses me off,”

“I just heard you had a little help in the auction house....”

“And there was nothing illegal about that. We met Sylia there, and asked her to help us out by discouraging the competition, that’s all,”

Confirmed! Sylia Stingray is a friend. Maico felt ready to explode inside. There it was on camera.

“How big is this place anyway?” she shifted the subject.

“We’re about a mile up now. This pit’s about as wide as Grovers Corners, and a little deeper,” Ford explained, obviously glad for the change. “They dug where the ore was and there’s eight of these around the rock. Four on the surface where they dig open-cast style, and four sub-surface where they hollowed everything out. One became the landing bay, this became the accommodation block, another is Survival Shot, and the rest are empty until we get more money and ideas.”

The lift jolted to a halt. If Maico’d had any lunch, it would’ve just kept going straight out her mouth.

“And here we are,” she beamed.

The cage door opened, and Maico didn’t want to cross another catwalk. She sucked it up and followed. Coming to another steel wall with a hatch in it. Maico winced at how bright it was, a cold rush of air pushing her into the light.

“Watch out!” a voice shrieked by. Maico felt the draft of whoever it was passing, chased by the scent of strawberries

Blinking, she caught momentary sight of a flame-haired figure running full pelt past her.

“Anika...” she mouthed. “Faster my butt! Anika beat us up here,”

“And she was running hell for leather to do it,” said Ford, pointedly.

Maico bit her lip and kept following.

“TITANIC shutdown complete and stable. Commencing restart sequence,” the same boy’s voice announced.

“This way,” Ford indicated with a nod.

All the corridors looked alike. They felt like solid stone under her feet. The same half blue, half white concrete walls. A painted mural of smiling children playing in arcadian fields had faded and flaked. A child’s face was chipped away.

NEW BIRMINGHAM. FOUNDER’S DAY 2015.

It was a sharp reminder that people had once lived in these gaunt passageways. Families, children. It was all very Pripyat. A trio of exocomps stopped and appeared to stare at her, while sharing a wordless discussion between themselves. Tool-ends chattered and clicked, camera’s zooming in to inspect the pink-haired newcomer and her head-mounted hardware.

Ford shoo’d them on back to wherever the hell they were supposed to be.

“Useful things, but Hell’s Bells are they a pain sometimes,”

Another long corridor, this one clearly cut straight through the rock and guarded by a foot-thick door. A chevroned yellow sign warned that it was liable to close without warning.

Another pair of exocomps scooted by, taking an inconspicuously conspicuous look at her.

Followed by another pair going in the opposite direction, doing the exact same thing a few seconds later.

“Where those the...”

“Same ones.” Ford finished for her. “They’ve found out about you and they’re curious. Very few outsiders are allowed outside, so they want to know why you’re so special,”

“Are they sentient?”

“Sentient, yeah, barely. Sapient, no. Like dogs; really, really stupid dogs. They’re part of TITANIC so they’ve got something of a thing going through that.”

Another door. Utterly unremarkable except for a small brass plaque mounted on it.

REACTOR CONTROL

Ford tapped it open with the toe of her boot,

“Guest’s here!” she called out.

Maico followed her into a room that seemed to be 1989’s idea of what 2022 would look like, rather than the genuine article. It was dark, lit only by the ambient light coming off of hundreds of annunciator lights switching between neutral yellow, alarming reds, or cool green and blue tones.

It had that deliberately ‘futuristic’ feel to it, while being instantly dated by a wall filled with individual guages, glowing tactile switches and curved display screens that couldn’t possibly by CRT’s, but sure looked like them. Anyone sitting in front of one had the text written on it projected across their faces.The rear wall was given over to what seemed like three maps of the base, switches and individual lights. A few Stellvian’s surrounded a dark-haired boy who was showing them how the local hardware worked. Two others in their ‘Administration uniforms were hesitantly poking at things.

Switches thunked and keyboards clattered, and displays came out in text and vector lines. How...old. It was the bridge of what people thought starships of the future would look like, rather than how they actually turned out.

She recognised Miyuri Akisato standing in the centre of all things immediately, looking distinctly uneasy in what appeared to be a brand new uniform. Jet Jaguar seemed to loom over her, neon reflections wrapping around her armour.

“Maico, you made it,” she grinned warmly at her. “Just take a seat anywhere and give me a few minutes,”

“Maico?” Miyuri chirruped, glancing over at the door. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,”

“I’ve been promoted,” Miyuri announced. Reflections of a hundred little LED’s across her glasses were no match for the light of joy that came on behind her eyes. “New station commander for Ultima when it opens. We’re doing crew training here,”

“Ooh, congratulations! If I’d known I would’ve brought a card or something.”

“Thanks,” Miyuri blushed, just a little. “It’s no problem. And you haven’t answered my question,”

Maico’s camera caught Ford whispering something into Jet’s ear. Maico herself didn’t spot it.

“I’m following up a story,” she explained, being deliberately ambiguous

“Well, you’re just in time to bear witness to my command debut,”

“Speaking of which,” Jet interjected, as gently as she could manage, “I think it’s about time we handed over. Give everyone some time to get used to using our gear.”

“Uh,” Miyuri gave her assent with a quick nod. “Since we’re not scheduled to begin for another two hours, that would be a good idea.”

“Well, Frigga’s yours so. Give the order,”

Miyuri smirked at Maico, then swallowed what was obviously a lump in her throat, “Alright, stations people,” she said, keeping her tone flat and mild.

The operators bustled away from the boy, taking seats that would normally be left vacant.

Jet spoke.”...we should be able to handle that. I’m in the control room so I can send the data down personally.” She stopped, a self effacing grin creeping across her face. “Sorry, wrong one,”

Ford groaned.

“Mackie, forward our orbital data to the Rinna Kazmatsuri, including the gravity survey. They’ll be departing to orbit in a half hour,”

The boy sighed, “And you’re not riding on Anika for being late. I don’t get paid enough for this.”

“I don’t pay you at all,” Jet shot back.

“Exactly!” he cried out. “In clear violation of article 13 as decided at Alphacon. Artificial Intelligences are entitled to equal renumeration for their work and labour. This is an atrocity!” he thumped the panel. “This is a crime,” he thumped it again. “This is slavery!”

“And we don’t charge you for food, board, biomass, power lodgings....this little projects of yours, oh and I pay for your maintenance too” Jet reminded him in deadpan tones. “So all told I think you’ve got a cushy deal going on,”

The Stellvians were staring in bewilderment, not sure if they should laugh or not.

“Careful Mackie,” Ford warned through a chuckle “You remember what happened last time?”

The boy glared sourly “Fine!” he huffed, plonking himself back on the chair, machine-gun typing something out.

“He’s just being a brat for the camera because most of the Stellvians are men,” Ford told Maico, quietly. “And Jet’ll let him get away with it,”

“But of course...”

That was awkward. Miyuri was giggling nervously. There were whispers among the operators, a shared joke drawing hushed giggles and a frustrated tut from Ford who’d obviously heard something she wasn’t expected to.

The one they looked at was Jet. Who was obviously not quite all there right at that moment. She was concentrating hard on something else.

The hatchway clanged open again.

“SorryI’mlateeveryone!” a voice breezed in, tumbling over itself.. A scent of strawberries and chocolate chased her in. “I had to mix them by hand,”

“Mix what?” Miyuri asked. There was hope in her eyes.

“Chocolate Brownies for everyone!” Anika announced. She had herself dressed in a snappy-looking uniform, a cross between a Senshi fuku and what might’ve been a Space Patrol jacket with a valkyrie patch on the shoulder. Something about it was devastatingly cute on her with a wonderful pink braid across the chest..

“About time,” Mackie huffed.

He was gone out the hatchway like a lightning bolt, leaving his chair spinning. He stole one on the way out for good measure.

“Oh I really shouldn’t...”

Miyuri still did. She snatched a few for herself, while Anika doled out the fair share to anyone elso who wanted some. She found herself becoming instantly popular. Maico was ready to eat the entire bag. All by herself, she was that hungry. She got two.

The rest, she dropped on a spare table for general enjoyment. Within arm’s reach of herself, naturally.

“Maico, if you want to talk,” Jet said, between mouthfuls, “I have about an hour or two free right now,”

That right there was the plan. Tire her out, and get it over with while she was tired.

“I’d like to get some rest first,” she answered, forcing a long yawn “And get something real to eat,” Her gut took that opportunity to gurgle and snarl. It wasn’t a lie.

“Alright. If you’ll wait a few minutes, I’ll show you to your apartment. There’s should be food and stuff down there, if you can cook. We’ll talk when the exercise is finished.”

There was something about her speech... it sounded a little like she was talking while driving. Most of her attention was obviously elsewhere.

“Thanks,” Maico smiled softly at her.

She passed the time filming Miyuri handling the departure of the Rinna Kazamatsuri, with Anika steadily guiding her through Friggan procedures while the others got used to a very different user interface . It was boring, but someone would buy it. Maybe Frigga would themselves, if they wanted to use it for advertising.

Or not, if her suspicions were right.

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?