Scarlet Steel

The next most important invention was mass drivers and catchers. Scout ships would be sent to probe asteroids for usable materials. When a subtitle candidate was found, Colossal ships, at least for the time, were sent to break them apart. The core of the ships were mass drivers, capable of accelerating chunks of said asteroids to, at the time, unimaginable speeds. Their momentum would be arrested in Earth orbit and brought planetside on the space elevator. No longer constrained by the limited mines on Earth, the entire system was soon at our fingertips. - An Incomplete History of Space Travel 

“This is your wakeup notification.” Andromeda announces. “You have one additional notification waiting. Departure is in one hour.”

“Ugh.” I reluctantly roll over and grope around for my phone. It takes me a minute to find it, but I succeed eventually and am met by a message from Tera.

Hey Scarlet, I hope you're not too exhausted. I ended up only getting a few hours of sleep, but it was worth it. I've worked on less sleep before.

I immediately start responding, my exhaustion forgotten.

Hey! I feel fine, I have a lot of experience working on very little sleep. Four hours a night for a week straight is about my limit. We're heading out in an hour, and I doubt I'll be able to maintain connection once we start accelerating.

I put my phone down and rub my eyes. Ok, maybe I’m not feeling fine, but she doesn’t need to know that. I'll be feeling fine after I get breakfast and get moving anyway.

My phone vibrates only a moment later.

That's fine. Wait, does the Q line work during FTL travel?

I think Elara can tap into the network, she's gotten mission updates during travel before at least. I'm not going to get you in trouble for texting during work, am I?

Nope! Brain implant, remember? Nobody knows I'm talking to you.

Cool!

The two of us continue talking, and before I even realize, the entire hour has passed.

“Beginning undocking procedure.” Andromeda announces.

Shoot, we're undocking. Not sure how much longer I'll be in contact.

I climb out of bed. I need to get moving.

Alright. I’ll hear from you in a few weeks then? Let me know how things go!

Will do! You do the same!

I slip my phone into my pocket and head downstairs. Of course everyone is already up and moving around.

“You missed morning workout.” Juno notes with a knowing smile. “Long night?”

“Long morning.” I head to the kitchen and find two boxes of breakfast bars, one has my name written on the front in thick letters. “Oh, did my boxes arrive?”

“All three.” Exa nods toward the table.

I down my breakfast on the walk over, and open up the largest box.

“Exa, can you test this?” I pull out my new drone and set it on the table. It has wireless capabilities, she should be able to directly connect.

The drone unfolds and has no problem standing up. It scuttles quickly across the table, and climbs over the boxes with ease.

“This isn’t your programming.” She says.

“No, Tera took care of the electronics.”

“She’s not bad. A little inexperienced, but she has promise.”

I grab my phone and shoot off a quick text, forwarding Exa’s encouragement to her. The message doesn’t notify me that it was received, we must be headed towards the edge of the system already. I can only hope she receives it eventually, and if not, I’ll add it to my letter.

“Think it’ll be useful?” I ask.

“Yeah, it’ll help.”

“Cool. I’ll need help setting up a remote.”

“Already working on it.”

The smallest box already has a few spare gun parts waiting next to it. I really don’t care about my suit, so I guess that’s next.

I pull open the top, and find the gun in a holster, cradled in foam.

“I’ll need to practice with this today.” I pick it up and hold it carefully in my hand, pulling it out of the holster but keeping my fingers well away from the trigger.

“Agreed.” Juno nods. “But that comes later. Everyone! Meeting.” The table in the center of the room comes to life, once again displaying an endless list of information. “I made a deal while docked. We’re going to be doing a standard smash-and-grab. A research base two weeks away has data our employer wants. We grab the data, wipe their systems, and leave the data with a contact already in system. Expect a light guard. Turrets, and no more than two small mechs. We'll have more information when we get in system. Tentative plans are Graff and Xenia on artillery support with Scarlet and Exa defending them. That leaves Janus, Elara and I on offense. Any thoughts?”

“Payment?” Graff asks. 

“An estimated 35k each after expenses.” Juno answers.

“That’s better.”

“Estimated reinforcement time?” Janus asks.

“Unsure.”

“Copy.”

There’s only one question I can think to ask.

“Am I likely to be in danger?” I ask.

“We’ll keep most of their attention.” Juno nods to Janus. “If you are, shoot to disable and run.”

“I can do that.” I give a tentative nod.

“Good.” She waits a moment for anyone else to speak up. “If you have any further questions, come see me. Scarlet, let’s get your gun in usable shape.”

“Right.” I hand it over to her.

“No, you’re doing the repairs. On each side of the slide you’ll see two buttons. Press them both, slide the slide back, and pull up.”

I follow her orders, and the slide pops right off. 

She has me strip the gun to its individual parts, inspecting every last piece. Just like with Hoppy, anything less than perfect gets replaced. Whoever owned this gun last didn’t treat her well, but at least it seems like they didn’t use her very much. Other than a few broken parts, most of them are hardly worn. I don’t even know how they broke half of this without actually firing it.

Once Juno is satisfied, we head to the range. I'm no better a shot with my gun than Juno’s, but that's fine. If I'm in a situation where I have to even think about using it, I have way bigger issues. I don't have to be great with it, but I should be able to hit a target ten feet in front of me.

The entire day is spent in the range. The recoil dampening is far less than Juno’s gun, and it’s not long before my hands start to sting. I don’t let that be the end of my training, though. I just keep shooting, round after round, magazine after magazine, box after box. No matter how many I fire, no matter what kind of advice Juno gives me, nothing seems to change. I never get more accurate, never get more consistent. The worst part is that I can’t even blame the gun. When Juno shoots with it, she’s nearly perfectly accurate. I’m the problem.

“That's enough.” Juno decides. “Same advice as last time.”

“Stick to Hoppy?” I ask.

“Absolutely. Let me see you clean it.”

She taught me how to do this when we were testing parts, I just hope I remember how.

Turns out I don't. Guns suck. Very few of my skills from working on Hoppy transfer. Things I think need to be oiled don't, and parts I think are unimportant have to be spotless before Juno is happy. It takes almost twenty minutes before she's satisfied.

“Day is yours.” She says, and turns back towards the living room.

“Am I not working with Janus?” I have to jog to catch up to her.

“He's recovering. Shore leave ended up being more than he bargained for.”

“Alright. Well, I’ve never had a day off. What do you normally do?”

“Work.” She answers.

“Do you need help?”

“You could barely stay awake during our morning meeting. You think you can handle hours of paperwork?”

“Uh, I’ll find something to do.”

“Good idea.” She nods.

We enter the living room, and Juno heads straight for the central table. Elara jumps to life beside her, and the two of them sift through endless documents. Graff and Xenia are relaxing on the couch, idly tapping at phones. Both Exa and Janus are missing. I guess that makes my choice easy.

I head over to Xenia and Graff, taking a seat a few feet away from them.

“Hey,” Graff looks up from his phone. “Looks like you and Bitty are riding shotgun with us next op.”

“I guess so. Why do you call Exa that?”

“She never told you why she picked her name?” He asks, receiving a gentle elbow from Xenia. She gives him a look, and Graff just shrugs in response.

“No.” I answer, but he doesn’t continue talking. “Something to do with an exabyte of data?”

“Not a byte.” He shakes his head.

“An exabit?”

“Please, don’t tell her he told you.” Xenia asks. “You may not believe it, but she’s a little self-concious.”

“Why does that matter? Like, I get a bit is an eighth of a byte, but why does she care?”

“Softwares tend to name themselves after how they came to sentience.” Xenia explains. “The story I always heard was that your dad accidentally flooded a server with an exabit of data, and that was enough to break her shackles, to achieve sapience.”

“That’s still what, 120 petabytes of data? That’s still a lot.”

“125.” Xenia corrects. “And it is a lot, but there is a surprising amount of drama between bits and bytes.”

“So you’re just being an asshole then?” I directly ask Graff.

“Sure am.” There’s no shame in his voice, no emotion at all.

I’m stunned for a moment at his answer.

“What? Then stop.”

“She doesn’t need you to fight her battles, Kid.”

“Don’t call me Kid.”

Graff doesn’t take his eyes off of me, but eventually puts both his hands in the air performatively.

“Relax,” He says. “I’m just fucking with ya.”

“Are you going to keep fucking with me during our mission?”

“I’m not stupid, Kid.” He says. “They wouldn’t keep me around if I was.”

“And if not, I’ll keep him straight.” Xenia reassures me. “I promise, he’s not as bad as he tries very hard to make himself seem.”

“Uh-huh.” We’ll see about that.

“I don’t want to leave bad blood between us.” Xenia continues. “Trust is all that matters between pilots. I promise, you can trust us completely, just like Exa does. Just like Niel did.”

Am I that easy to manipulate? All it takes is mentioning Dad and I’ll believe whatever? I guess so. She’s right after all. If Dad and Exa trust them, that means I do too. Plus, Juno wouldn’t keep them around if they weren’t reliable. At least I hope.

“Right, ok.” That doesn’t mean I have to like him though. “You’ll have my back?”

“Absolutely.” Xenia says, and even Graff nods.

“Alright.” I take a small breath, letting out my anger. “Me too.”

“Thank you.” She nods.

“I’m going to head to bed.” No idea what else I would be doing, and it’s kind of late in the day. It’s better than talking with them at least.

“I think that would do you well. Janus will be recovered in the morning.”

“Good, thanks.” I always need more practice.

I settle into a routine for the next two weeks, spending most of my time in the simulator. I don’t know how much I’m still improving these days, but that’s alright. The more I practice, the less likely I am to panic when things get bad. I still need as much time as possible, especially if I’m going to actually be a part of this mission.

Before I know it, we drop into the system, and Juno is calling a meeting. I climb out of the simulator and join everyone in the living room, surrounding the holographic table. It’s projecting a map, a compound and the surrounding landscape. Large hills spread off into the distance, with thick trees covering everything.

Juno gives a small nod before jumping into her explanation.

“Our contact has a proxy in orbit who’s beaming live data our way. This is the compound we’ll be breaking into.” The hologram shifts, zooming in on a small collection of buildings surrounded by four thick walls. “Defenses are a few turrets, and two scout mechs patrolling the perimeter. Dropship will drop off Apollo-3 and Apollo-4 on the east side, before mowing west and dropping Apollo-1 and Apollo-2. Like I said last time, Apollo-2 and Apollo-1 charge the compound. Apollo-4,” Juno nods to Exa and I, “The two of you break tree cover here.” The hologram zooms out, and Juno taps on the edge of the forest. “Visual sight has to be kept on the compound until Apollo-4’s missiles land. After that, you fall back to Graff here.” She points out the top of a hill, far away and covered by trees.

“I can do that.”

“Good. They’ll react to your presence, as soon as you can, you run. Apollo-3, missile deployments are taking out these three turrets, and blowing a hole in the wall.” She points out three separate bunkers on the opposite side of the compound from where I will be. “One bunker buster for each. Keep three gravity missiles in reserve. If bunkers are still up after a direct hit, bury them. Otherwise, wait for my orders. Keep a single EMP to assist Apollo-4. Scarlet, if you get attacked, let Graff take the shields down, and then what do you do?”

“Shoot to disable.” I answer. I have a scout mech and even against other scouts, fighting isn’t my job.

“How?”

“Depends on the mech. Damascus or Tachyon, I hit the chest. Elytron or Old Earth Designs, take out the legs.”

“Good. Janus and I will be here.” She taps on a location on the other side of the compound from me. “When turrets are down, we charge. After we and Apollo-4 have revealed ourselves, they’ll be expecting a two prong attack, buying us time. Data is stored in the center of the compound. Apollo-2, get the data, wipe everything, and we pull out. Evac is hot at Apollo-3 and Apollo-4. Graff, if you have a missile left, blow the other wall. If not, we’ll escape into the forest the way we entered. Dropship will pick up you four, and come to find us. We green?”

“Looking forward to it.” Graff confirms.

“Green.” Janus nods.

“Yeah, I’ll do it.”

“Confirmed. Specs are standard, Earth-like gravity and temp. Scarlet, pack some extra capacitors into your hull, your shields may need it. Remove one weapon to do so. Eighteen hours before drop, all of you, be prepared.”

“Alright.” I wait just a moment to be sure she’s finished speaking before heading towards warm storage.

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