WARDEN 4

CHRONICLES OF A CYBORG BOOK 4

Isaac Hooke

Contents

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

About the Author

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1

Rhea strode beneath the arching hallways of that government office known as Parliament Building. Around her, corridors occasionally branched off into other rooms and hallways.

Will was with her, along with Horatio and Renaldo. None of them had any weapons—at Aradne’s main gate, they had been forced to give them up. When they later reached the perimeter of the parliamentary area, they’d also been required to surrender any electronic devices other than AR goggles. Their bodies had been scanned for hidden gadgets, and when the searches turned up negative, they were allowed inside.

Rhea had been a bit worried that the scans would pick up the nano technology that inhabited her body, but apparently while dormant the machines were indistinguishable from the metal of her armor.

She wore a hooded cloak as usual, but no other clothing underneath—she didn’t need any, since her sleek, lithe robotic body was essentially genderless, with no genitals, and only small bumps in the breast region. It was like she was wearing a suit of polished, skin-tight plate armor.

Two armed robots provided escort on either side—the machines had made it clear from the very beginning that they weren’t there for her protection, but rather to ensure she didn’t get up to no good.

Another robot walked ahead of her, leading the group. This machine was entirely unarmed and possessed a video screen attached to its head. On the screen, a woman’s face droned on about the purpose of each room, and any history associated with it.

Mayor Grandas had arranged this guided tour of the Parliament Building for Rhea. Ordinarily the dome-shaped structure, along with all the surrounding governmental grounds, were off limits to ordinary citizens, but since Rhea was hardly ordinary—she had the digital key to the city, after all, and a direct line to the Mayor—it took only a quick call to set things up.

The guide robot droned on as it led them into a smaller hallway near the heart of the structure. DragonHunter, a sympathetic hacker from Rust Town, had procured a security camera map of the compound from one of his hacker friends in Aradne. Horatio had integrated the data with their HUDs, so that whenever Rhea glanced at her overhead map, she saw all the camera locations marked off. It was quite useful, because the actual micro cameras embedded in the walls were the size of pinpricks, and very difficult to detect without special equipment. She’d essentially have to operate her vision in zoom mode the whole time, while piping in the video feed from Will or Horatio into a different portion of her HUD so she could view herself from their perspective and still navigate—a rather disorienting way to walk, to say the least.

In addition to the surveillance cameras, the map also indicated the wireless access points of the local encrypted network, which was inaccessible to her. These wireless nodes weren’t to be confused with the standard access points, similarly scattered throughout the building, that connected the building to the outside Internet.

The roof was relatively low here, compared to the rest of the compound; according to the map, a local access point awaited ahead at the convergence of two intersections.

She saw it a moment later: a tiny square-shaped object secured to the ceiling.

That one looks like a good candidate, Rhea transmitted over the encrypted mental channel she shared with her companions. There’s only one camera nearby. DragonHunter, any luck?

Nope, DragonHunter replied from where he was safely holed up in his Rust Town residence. He had tried to take control of the cameras as he had done when she’d broken into city hall, but he’d quickly reported that their cybersecurity forces had patched the backdoors. When Rhea departed, he was attempting to find a workaround. Sorry. You’re on your own.

I’ll take care of the camera, Will sent.

Rhea nodded.

Tilting her upper body away from the hidden camera, she focused on her bicep, and the nano machines there curled the armor backward, revealing the hidden compartment within. Her armor had hidden the stack of small disks inside from the sentries who had scanned her at the parliamentary perimeter earlier—to their scans, the devices would have appeared to be part of her integrated circuitry.

She glanced at Will.

He was casually walking up to the wall, as if pretending to be fascinated by the hidden camera there.

“What are you doing?” one of the armed robots asked him.

“Is this a hidden camera I see?” he said loudly. “I love cameras!” He started waving at it as he continued to approach.

“Step away from the wall,” the armed robot ordered.

But Will ignored the command.

Rhea waited until Will’s face was pressing right up against the pinprick-sized hole in the wall, then she slid three disks from the stack. These were upgraded variants of the CommNixers she had used when she’d infiltrated city hall. DragonHunter had found a flaw in the code of the security robot models known to patrol these grounds; by transmitting a particular sequence of packets directly into their comm nodes over the same robot-to-robot network the machines utilized—which bypassed certain security checks—the upgraded CommNixers would trigger a reboot. She’d have to attach the disks to their heads to do it, but once contact was made, the robots would remain offline for a full minute while they rebooted.

The armed machines raised their rifles and pointed them at Will. “Step away—”

Rhea tossed two of the disks at them in rapid succession, then swiveled her body toward the guide robot and launched the third.

The magnets activated in midair, so that when the devices clanged into the heads of their respective targets, they held fast.

The robots instantly slumped.

Rhea sealed her right bicep armor and rushed forward to the wireless access point.

She focused on her left bicep as she neared, and the nano machines slit the armor open to reveal another hidden compartment. With two fingers, she tweezed out the dongle within.

She peered past the left and right sides of the intersection that held the access point, and confirmed no patrols were incoming.

Horatio joined her and positioned himself beneath the access point. He clasped two polycarbonate hands together, forming a makeshift step. She took it, and the robot hoisted her upward, toward the device hanging from the ceiling.

She slid the dongle into the matching female connector on the access point. Blue lights began to flash upon the smaller device.

Rhea had done something similar before in city hall, installing a cyberintrusion payload into a comm node to track down Veil. However, the networks of most buildings in the parliamentary district were isolated from one another, which made sense, considering city hall was technically owned by Aradne, while the United Settlements government claimed Parliament Building. Thus, to get the data she needed it was necessary to install another payload here.

She nervously glanced down either flank of the intersection. Rhea knew more robots would be sent to investigate—three machines rebooting at the same time in the same area would be flagged by the AI for investigation, especially considering Will was blocking the closest camera with his goofy face.

So far, the intersection remained clear. She gazed at the three robots that accompanied the party: still another twenty seconds before they reactivated.

She returned her attention to the dongle above her. The lights remained blue.

Come on, she urged it.

Ten seconds remaining.

Five.

Come on!

The device turned green and she instantly removed it. She leaped down, slid the dongle back into her arm, and raced back to the other robots with Horatio. The nano machines sealed the compartment in her bicep.

Will stepped away from the camera as the robots reactivated. The machines glanced around, seeming confused. The two that carried rifles lowered them.

Renaldo, ordinarily so dark-skinned, appeared extremely pale in that moment.

The stamp of heavy feet announced the imminent arrival of more machines. Turning toward the access point, Rhea watched as several combat robots rounded the bend.

The two closest robots must have received orders to scan everyone again, because they ordered the group members against the wall and proceeded to search them once more.

Meanwhile, the other robots gathered beneath the wireless access point. One stood on the back of another and disconnected the device from the ceiling. Obviously they intended to investigate it for tampering.

DragonHunter… are we good?

We are, he replied. The robots won’t find anything. The self-propagating code already deleted itself from the source access point. It’s hiding in a random comm node nearby. The next time Khrusos sends a communication, he’s mine.

Khrusos never made public appearances anymore, well, not in-person ones, anyway. Holographic appearances were his preferred method these days. Some said he didn’t live in Aradne at all, but some other city or settlement, maybe even a fortified compound somewhere in the Outlands. Either way, the Parliament Building was the hub of the United Settlements, so all meetings, orders and so forth that Khrusos issued would have to be routed through the data center here. DragonHunter claimed he would be able to figure out Khrusos’ ID based on the contents and headers of the data passing through the mail and message servers. Once the hacker had the ID, it wouldn’t take much to suss out the President’s location.

At least that was the theory.

“You may step away from the wall,” one of the escorting robots announced.

Rhea was relieved—the machines hadn’t detected the hidden compartments in her biceps.

She turned around in time to watch the other patrol march away; one of the robots carried the disconnected access point with it.

Renaldo was sweating buckets, and he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Well that was fun. But can we continue the tour now?”

The guide robot happily obliged and led the party forward. It began droning on about the history behind some painting hanging in the hallway. Rhea tuned out its monotonous voice.

They passed the intersection, and the hallway began to widen. The ceiling became arched once more. She passed an interesting room, which was filled with various small curios—statues, bottles, tapestries. The guide robot was saying something about how that room contained all the items given as gifts to the President from other world leaders over the years.

The sight triggered a memory.

She stood inside that very room, or one similar to it, surrounded by bottles, gem-encrusted chalices, and other gifts. The familiar hologram of the white-robed man floated before her, the tassel of that red belt dangling from his waist, and the golden medallion hanging from his neck.

“I have a new task for you, Dagger,” the man said.

“What must I do?” she asked.

“The leader of Chile is arriving a day early. Handle him.”

And then the memory was gone.

Rhea blinked. She stood in the hallway once more, and continued walking, leaving the room behind.

Handle him. And there was that name, Dagger, again.

Rhea wasn’t sure what to make of it. But one thing was certain: when she found Khrusos, she was going to make him tell her everything.

They entered a wide, columned atrium whose glass walls exposed the right side to the buildings beyond. Benches set between the pillars allowed visitors to take a seat and admire the well-manicured lawn of the park just outside. Rhea wondered who would actually use these benches, considering the public wasn’t allowed anywhere near the building or the park. Probably visiting dignitaries and their retinue.

The guide crossed the room, leading the group across an aisle that led between the pillars. Rhea checked her overhead map: the tour was almost over, judging from the proximity to the exit. That was good, because she was eager to get out of here and go home, before the security forces decided to arrest her after all.

A robot was tending to a potted flowering plant that hung from a pillar beside her. The machine accidentally snipped away one of the flowers, a beautiful, purple tulip, and Rhea paused as she walked by, bending over to scoop it up.

She heard a loud thwack, and the robot clattered to the floor beside her an instant later. The head had melted away entirely, leaving behind a smoking, jagged neck.

“Sniper!” Will barreled into her and threw her to the ground behind the pillar. “That was meant for you!”

Horatio also took cover behind another pillar nearby, while Renaldo and the guide robot dove behind different benches.

The escorting sentries switched to defensive postures and raised their rifles to scan the buildings beyond the atrium.

Will’s dreadlocks had wrapped around her face, so she swatted them aside and peered past her cover. She spotted the hole punched into the floor-to-ceiling glass. She risked only a moment’s glance, and pulled back again just in time, because a plasma bolt whizzed by next to her head, cutting a small chunk away from the side of the pillar.

“Stay down!” Will said.

“This is why I don’t go out in public,” she told him.

“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir, Dude,” he replied.

She heard two more THWACKS in rapid succession, and the combat robots toppled to the floor. Big, smoldering holes had been shot through their chests, right where their AI cores resided.

“How cruel,” Horatio commented.

She checked her overhead map and noted a security camera on the ceiling. She leaned forward to shield her lower body with her torso, and then activated the nano machines in her legs; the armor in her thighs peeled back, revealing the final hidden compartments where she’d stowed her Ban’Shar knuckles.

“Let Aradne security deal with this,” Will told her.

Three more bolts came in, cutting into the pillar, and forcing Rhea to retreat even further from the edge. The blast hole was quickly expanding… soon she and Will would be forced to leave cover entirely.

“We don’t have time to let security deal with it!” She retrieved the knuckles and the openings sealed.

Securing the knuckles over each hand, she stood up. Then she stepped away from Will and into the open.

She spotted the glow of three plasma bolts coming from beyond the glass.

Noting the source, she activated her Ban’Shar.

The bolts punched through the glass, collided with her plasma disks, and bounced harmlessly away. She tried to angle the Ban’Shar to reflect the energy back toward its source, but she hadn’t had time to properly line them up, and instead the bolts crashed into one of the nearby benches—thankfully not one of those harboring Renaldo or the guide.

She dashed forward, racing between the pillars. She reached the floor-to-ceiling window and leaped. She held the Ban’Shar in front of her so that the plasma melted through the glass upon contact. As she passed through, she tucked in her legs to avoid having her feet catch on the bottom edge of the gaping hole she’d created and lowered them again before landing.

She hit the ground at a run and continued toward the source of the blast: a small administrative building of some kind. Four stories tall.

More bolts came in, and she deflected them. This time she managed to send one of the attacks back into the building, and it plowed into one of the walls.

As she sprinted toward her target, she zoomed in on the upper floors. She saw the rifle barrel protruding from one of the fourth-floor windows.

Her peripheral vision remained at normal zoom, which allowed her to detect movement straight ahead.

She reverted her eyesight in time to watch turrets finish erupting from hidden recesses in the grassy ground before her. At first, she thought the three turrets were going to target the sniper, but to her surprise they swiveled toward her. She was forced to defend against the larger bolts they launched.

“I’m on your side, idiots!” she shouted, angrily using her Ban’Shar to deflect the attacks.

But they continued to fire. She swerved toward them, and as she weaved between the three platforms, she cut off their turrets with her Ban’Shar and disabled them.

She swung the plasma disks back toward the building in time to defend against the latest round of attacks from that quarter.

Police and security drones converged on the building as she grew near. The octocopter drones targeted the fourth-floor window with their wicked laser turrets: at least some of the security forces were getting it right.

The attacks from that window ceased as her assassin no doubt retreated.

She reached the building’s main doorway and rushed inside before the octocopters could change their minds and start attacking her as well.

There was a security robot standing at the bottom of the stairs, and it tried to stop her, but she cut away its rifle and gave it a good kick, sending the robot flying behind the counter.

She bashed in the stairwell door and raced up the zig-zagging flights.

I hope he takes the stairs…

She got her wish a moment later, because her assassin was barreling down the steps and she nearly plowed into him. She caught a glimpse of a man in a black robe; the hood was raised so that only his bearded face was exposed. A thick pair of black AR goggles covered his eyes. He had tossed the sniper rifle.

She swung at him with her Ban’Shar, converting them both to swords. But his hands moved in a blur to his waist, fetching a pair of hatchets hanging from his hips that she hadn’t noticed in her first glance. The tips of the small axes lit up as electrolasers activated, coating them in plasma, and he used them to bash aside her swords.

As with Veil’s attack in the caves of the Emerald Highlands, the plasma prevented the blades from disintegrating upon contact with her Ban’Shar. Rhea’s Ganymedean weapon deflected the energy, causing the hatchets to bounce well back, but her foe merely altered the impetus to bring the blades back in from different angles, forcing her to remain on the defensive.

He moved so fast that Rhea could barely keep up, even with her nano-enhanced body, and she was stunned when the assassin cut off her right hand, deactivating the blade it held.

He was just too fast. As her severed hand clattered to the steps, she transformed her remaining Ban’Shar from a blade into a shield. That was better… the circular disk offered a much wider area of defense as compared to the blade, and she deflected the flurry of blows far more easily.

Should have done this earlier…

She retreated down the stairs beneath that attack. Meanwhile, she activated the nano machines in the stump of her forearm, focusing on creating a new blade, one made from the armor of her limb. While she deflected those relentless hatchet attacks, her forearm and bicep shrank as the nano machines transferred material forward, to the tip, where they slowly created a blade.

She retreated two flights before she felt that blade was long enough to be of use. And then she tried to press the offensive.

She shoved forward, slamming her shield into him. He couldn’t stop the rush with his plasma hatchets, which bounced away harmlessly, and it was his turn to retreat. The plasma disk caught the hem of his robe, burning through it and cutting away some of the boot—and likely the toes—within.

She momentarily slid aside the Ban’Shar and lunged at him with her newly created blade, but he sidestepped and bashed at it with one of his plasma hatches, breaking off the upper half.

From around the next flight above him, an octocopter buzzed into view.

He spun around and threw one of his hatchets at it and the drone crashed into the wall.

He turned back to face Rhea, just in time to meet the jagged remnant of the blade that she plunged into his belly. He staggered, and before he could strike at her with his remaining hatchet, she swung the Ban’Shar around in an arc, cutting his head from his body.

She slid the blade free, and the headless form collapsed.

She deactivated her Ban’Shar and dropped to the steps beside the body. She rested her head against the concrete wall and instructed the nano machines to begin retracting the blade.

She realized she’d forgotten to check for security cameras first. In the heat of battle, she’d deployed her nano machines without a care for who might be watching, wanting only to save her life. But now she could afford to be cautious again… she wanted to keep the machines to herself, at least for the time being.

She halted the transformation and glanced at her overhead map. She was relieved to find no security cameras on this flight: her nano machines hadn’t been witnessed by any prying eyes.

She restarted the blade retracting process.

Will and Horatio arrived. Renaldo was behind them, panting.

“Another one of Khrusos’ assassins?” Will asked.

Rhea nodded. “Has to be. This has to stop.”

“It will,” he told her. “You’ll see to that, soon enough.”

She smiled weakly. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I do appreciate it.” She heard the stamp of robotic feet and the buzzing of drones and raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you brought company.”

“Uninvited,” Will agreed.

Three octocopters flew into view above, at the top of the flight of stairs. They trained their laser turrets upon her and the others.

At the same time a group of combat robots appeared below, at the bottom landing. They, too, had their rifles pointed at the party.

The nano machines had finished retracting her temporary blade by then, leaving her with an even smaller stump of a forearm than before. She raised it in surrender, along with her good arm.

2

Rhea sat in the confinement area with Will, Horatio and Renaldo. She stared past the bars at the blank wall of the hallway beyond. She considered replacing it with some augmented reality background, but there were none she really liked any more. The Ganymedean lake held no comfort for her—that world was long dead, and she was permanently banned from setting foot on the moon. Nor did she wish to look at the portrait that portrayed her standing victorious atop a pile of dead Hydras, as she hardly felt heroic at the moment. No, a blank wall was just fine.

“Arrested for harboring a concealed weapon,” Will said. “And disturbing the peace. Gotta love it. Considering I didn’t do either.”

“Our charges are slightly different,” Horatio said. “We’re accused of being accessories.”

“Same diff,” Will said. “An accessory to disturbing the peace, and harboring a concealed weapon? Never heard of such a law.” He sighed and glanced at Rhea. “We seem to find ourselves jailed often when we hang around you, Dude.”

She shrugged.

“The Warden has friends in high places,” Renaldo said confidently.

“Also enemies,” Will said, giving her a significant glance.

Renaldo seemed to have missed that glance, because he insisted: “The mayor will get us out.”

“Really?” Will said. “How do you know her mayor friend hasn’t been mind-jacked by some other crime lord? Aradne is chock full of them, I hear, and Veil was only one of the major players. If you thought Rust Town was bad, try looking up some of the outstanding arrest warrants in the Aradne police database.”

“Last time I was in a cell like this, I was scheduled for a mind jacking myself…” Rhea commented.

“Ah, the good old days, huh?” Will quipped.

She shifted, putting her arms down to reposition herself, momentarily forgetting that one of those arms ended in a stump. She glanced at it. Still wanting to keep her nano machines hidden, she was waiting until she returned to Rust Town to initiate repairs.

“The mayor will get us out,” Renaldo said again, more for his own benefit than anyone else, Rhea thought. “She was acting in self-defense. There’s nothing illegal about that. And besides, the Warden eliminated a dangerous assassin for the city!”

“An assassin that she drew here by virtue of her mere presence,” Will said. “And killed with a concealed weapon. We’re lucky she’s not charged with manslaughter. She might be, yet. Then we all become accessories to that.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t frighten the human,” Horatio said. “You’re causing his stress levels to spike.”

Will glanced at the Wardenite. “Sorry bro, wouldn’t want to make you feel stressed out or anything.”

Renaldo wiped the sweat from his forehead, revealing wet underarm circles. “Stressed? Who’s stressed?”

Rhea heard the thud of hard soles on the laminate floor.

Mayor Grandas appeared. He was accompanied by two robots.

“Disable recording,” he told the robots.

The machines nodded.

The mayor was dressed in his usual expensive-looking, perfectly fitted suit. His well-groomed black beard seemed shaved a little shorter, while his hair was longer, though still combed backward and impeccably coiffed. His too smooth, flawless features reminded her of a cyborg’s—or a man who had undergone rejuvenatics a little too often.

“You’re free to go,” Grandas announced as the bars slid aside. “I had them release you on a technicality.”

Rhea raised an eyebrow. “Oh really. Well, I’ll take it.” She stood.

“Yes, because technically, you didn’t harbor a concealed weapon,” Grandas continued. “It was hidden inside your body. So in essence, your body was the weapon. And that’s hardly concealable.”

“That’s the same as open carry, isn’t it?” Rhea asked.

“Not really,” he replied. “But that’s where the technicality comes into play. Body parts and AR goggles are the only electronics devices allowed. Since your body was the actual weapon, and the robot sentries authorized your entry, they essentially granted their seal of approval for the ingress of a deadly weapon.”

“I have a feeling the laws are going to be changed shortly…” Rhea said.

“There’s actually a law already in place regarding the concealment of weapons inside one’s body,” the mayor admitted. “But again, the onus is on the security guards to detect it. Besides, you didn’t harm anyone, except the cyborg sent to kill you; indeed, you wouldn’t have used your weapons at all if the attack hadn’t occurred. Since intent plays a big factor, it wasn’t difficult for me to convince the judge to let you off.”

“So, we just had a trial we weren’t a part of…” Will interjected.

Grandas shrugged. “It happens more often than you realize. We’re working on judicial reform, but it’s a slow process. Though I admit, the current system was useful for jailing the councilors who helped plan the bioweapon attack against Rust Town. We’ve begun paying reparations to the settlers for that attack, by the way.”

Rhea nodded. “Renaldo filled me in. Every bit of money helps.”

The mayor bowed his head, interpreting her words as a thank you.

“He also mentioned that you were doing it mostly to win votes in the coming election,” Rhea finished.

The mayor shot Renaldo a dark look and the Wardenite shifted uncomfortably beneath that gaze.

Finally, Grandas sighed. “I’d be lying if I claimed my intentions in the matter were completely humanitarian.” He paused. “You know, you could have asked me to help you with whatever it is you needed to do in that parliament building.”

“You did help us,” Rhea said. “By granting us the tour in the first place.”

“It was something illegal, wasn’t it?” Grandas said.

Rhea didn’t answer.

Grandas smiled nonchalantly. “Well. I just hope you don’t get yourself into trouble deeper than you can handle.”

“Who me?” Rhea asked innocently.

The mayor turned to go.

“What about my Ban’Shar?” Rhea pressed.

The mayor paused. “Oh. You mean these?”

He reached into his pocket and retrieved the pair of knuckles. He dropped them into her extended hand.

“Thank you,” she said.

“How did you conceal these inside your body, by the way?” he asked, his gaze drifting to her torso as if searching for hidden panels. Or perhaps using it as an excuse to admire her lithe figure.

She shrugged. “I didn’t conceal them. I simply used my womanly charms.”

He smiled, returning his eyes to hers. “I’m sure you did. Well, cyborgs have all sorts of hidden chambers in their bodies, so I suppose it’s not surprising. This is why robot and cyborg visitors are usually denied entry to the parliament, even among diplomats. Either way, I suggest you hide them the same way on your return trip. Otherwise, they’re likely to be confiscated, either here, or on the city streets: they’ve been entered into the database of disallowed weapons.”

“Noted.” She glanced at Will and Horatio.

The pair stood in front of her to shield her from the mayor and his robot companions. At the same time, Renaldo stood up to block the security camera in the cell. Rhea had the nano machines prepare the compartments in her thighs, and when the slits appeared, she stuffed them inside, and the armor sealed.

“Well then, my merry men, let’s be off,” she said.

“I’m not a man,” Horatio said, sounding miffed.

The mayor smiled knowingly. “Good luck to you, whatever you plan. I have a feeling you’ll need it.”

* * *

Rhea sat in the conference room of her headquarters in Rust Town. Renaldo, Miles, Brinks, Jairlin, Horatio, and Will were present. DragonHunter was also present, joining the conference in person, rather than via his usual remote hologram.

Now that she was away from prying eyes, and in the company of her most loyal, faithful men, she reached behind her with the stump of her hand and rested it on the wall of the cargo container. She willed the nano machines to emerge, and tiny vents opened in the skin-like alloy of her forearm. The machines crawled out, skittering across her stump like ants until they reached the wall. At that point they dispersed, burrowing into the metal surface, cutting out the shape of a handprint in the process. A soft sound, halfway between a chitter and a tinkle, emitted from the wall as the nano machines worked: they were smelting and reforming the metal, creating internal circuitry and servomotors while at the same time continuing to extrude the base handprint, shaping it in three dimensions. Her stump gently moved away from the wall as a wrist formed underneath, along with a section of her forearm that was missing.

It took a minute or so until she had a fully formed hand, which appeared to be embedded in the wall. She could wiggle the fingers and thumb and feel the cold metal surface of the cargo container underneath, but when she tried to pull the hand free, she could not: it was still attached somewhere at the palm. So she waited.

She heard a soft snap and the nano machines began retreating across her hand toward the forearm. Small vents began to open, not just in the forearm, but the hand itself. The nano machines retreated into these vents as she removed her fully formed appendage, leaving behind a three-dimensional handprint in the metal wall.

The join between her forearm and the new hand section was seamless—it was impossible to tell where she had taken damage. She lifted her hand to her face and squeezed it into a fist. She opened it to examine fingers, and when she was certain all the nano machines had crawled inside, she rested her arm on the table. She was a bit leery of this new technology still, and didn’t want to accidentally loose any of the nano machines into a world unready for them, even though she knew it was essentially impossible for the technology to escape her body, let alone reproduce on any sort of exponential scale.

“Those things still disturb the heck out of me every time I see them,” Jairlin said. “It’s like creepy crawlers coming right out of your skin. Doesn’t that bother you at all? That you have all these tiny, squirming things living under your skin?”

“No,” she said. “Strangely, it’s almost comforting. Natural even, like a part of who I am, or who I’m supposed to be anyway. It’s not all that different from a human body, which is inhabited by all sorts of microorganisms, both inside and outside, not all of it as beneficial as my nano machines.”

“I usually try not to think about my gut flora,” Jairlin said.

“Just as I don’t think about my equivalents,” she said.

“I wonder if you can use them as a weapon?” Brinks said. “I mean, imagine if you rested your hand on someone’s face, and ordered the nano machines to rearrange it?”

“They’re designed not to harm living tissue,” Rhea explained. “One of the failsafes the Ganymedeans programmed in.”

“What’s to stop you from simply absorbing an entire ship and making it your body?” Will nodded at the three-dimensional handprint in the wall. “The same way you turned that section of metal into your new fist. Am I correct in assuming the nano machines can self- replicate?”

“You are, but that’s where the second failsafe comes into play,” Rhea explained. “There’s an iteration limit built into the machines. This limit prevents them from reproducing past a set number. Basically a check the Ganymedeans put in to prevent the tech from running amok and devouring their whole moon.”

Miles seemed unconvinced. “So you say. But how can we be sure the failsafe is working?”

“Because you’re not dead yet,” Rhea stated.

DragonHunter sat back. “All of this begs the question: what if these nano machines can be hacked, and their failsafes disabled? Theoretically, you could cause the end of the world. It’s a dangerous technology.”

Rhea stared at him in shock, because in that moment she realized what weapon was used in the Great Calming. It wasn’t conventional explosives or nuclear weapons, it was nano machines run amok: programmed to terminate after reaching a certain radius and level of destruction, selectively wiping out cities across the planet.

She wasn’t sure how she knew this, or why, but it meant there was a chance she had indeed participated in the Great Calming.

If that was true, she reminded herself she wasn’t that person anymore. She could never do such a thing, not now.

“What’s wrong?” Miles asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She forced a smile, and when she realized her hands were shaking, she hid them under the table.

Will leaned in. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just… I guess seeing those nano machines made me feel kind of queasy after all.” She turned her attention back toward DragonHunter. “So. You said you had news?”

“Yes,” DragonHunter said. He glanced upward. “Have you activated the Faraday cage?”

She nodded. “No signals are getting in or out of this room.” She was used to this behavior from the hacker. He was very paranoid when it came to signals security.

DragonHunter slumped slightly in relief at her words. “Okay. Good.” He swallowed. “So then, the news. I already have Khrusos’ ID.”

Will arched an eyebrow. “Really? I’m surprised you were able to contain your excitement. You have a predilection for showing off to the Warden here. You know, proving how good you are and all.”

“Oh, I am excited, believe you me,” DragonHunter said. “But also wary.”

“Yeah I know, you like your Faraday cages,” Will told the hacker. “Well anyway, congratulations, that was a quick ID extraction.”

“You hire the best hacker, you get the best,” DragonHunter proclaimed. “Khrusos routes missives through the parliamentary network at least three times a day, so his ID wasn’t hard to track down.”

“Have you pinpointed his location yet?” Rhea asked.

“I have. Get this, Khrusos doesn’t even live on Earth.” DragonHunter leaned forward. “He’s staying as a guest of the Paramount Leader Qui Fon Chin, in the presidential palace on Mars!”

3

It took Rhea a moment to process the news. “As a guest, or a prisoner?”

Horatio exchanged a pointed glance with Will. “That would explain why the policies of the United Settlements have been slowly aligning with those of the Martians and Chinese over the past several years. He often praises the Martians in his nationwide addresses, pointing them out as a prime example of sustainability.”

“You think Qui Fon Chin mind-jacked him?” Will asked.

“It’s certainly a possibility,” Horatio said. “Though I have a feeling Khrusos is there of his own free will. He was last sighted in person on Earth fifteen years ago. He might’ve moved to Mars any time since. Everyone wants to live on Mars, after all, though few can afford it.”

“What’s so special about Mars?” Rhea asked.

“It’s a utopia compared to Earth,” Brinks said. “As Aradne is to Rust Town, Mars is to Earth.”

DragonHunter shrugged. “The Mars domes aren’t any better than Aradne, honestly.”

“Maybe so, but at least Mars won’t be running out of water anytime soon,” Will said. “I can understand why Khrusos would move there.”

DragonHunter rubbed his chin. “You suggested Khrusos might be mind-jacked… but I say it’s more likely Khrusos chipped Qui Fon Chin than anything else. While I was in the parliamentary servers, I used the opportunity to download a few classified documents. Okay, I admit it, a lot of classified documents. Anyway, after reviewing some of the most recent communiques between the office of Khrusos and the Martian government—which rules China, in case any of you are unaware—Khrusos obviously played a big hand in their most recent policies. He seems to be responsible for the cyborgization push of recent years, for example.”

“The cyborgization push?” Rhea asked.

“The Chinese government offers financial incentives and tax breaks for people who give up their bodies and transfer their brains into cyborgs,” Horatio explained. “As part of an overall program designed to reduce the water footprint of the average man and woman.”

“Yes, that’s the one,” DragonHunter said. “The office of Khrusos has also pushed the Chinese to implement specific water rationing and recycling programs. When the program first started, I heard thousands died from dehydration because the rationing was so strict. They’ve since eased off, with a focus on recycling, but only after Khrusos signed off on a deal involving billions of dollars of United Settlements water reclamation technology. Also, I don’t know if anyone noticed this, but recently the Chinese always vote with the United Settlements on matters put forth to the High Council.”

The High Council was the official ruling body of Earth, responsible for all decisions that globally affected the planet, and served as the interface between Earth and the remaining governments of the solar system. It was composed of five member nations: the United Settlements, China, Russia, Chile-Argentina, and Persia.

“He definitely seems to be China’s puppet master,” DragonHunter continued. “All of the aforementioned policy changes began after he moved to Mars, incidentally.”

Will nodded. “So, he moved to Mars to infiltrate the Chinese and consolidate his control over the High Council then. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s begun similar infiltration operations against the other members. Whoever controls the High Council, controls Earth.”

“I think he has designs on the entire solar system,” DragonHunter said quietly. “He essentially has Earth and Mars already. The Galileans are next on his list, judging from the military options he’s asked his team to look into.” The latter was the general term for the colonists who lived on Jupiter’s Galilean moons, including Ganymede.

She stared at DragonHunter. “What military options?”

DragonHunter returned her gaze uneasily. “Well, in one of the classified documents I saw, he asked the Defense Secretary to consult with the top generals and admirals to put together a plan for the invasion of Ganymede. The Defense Secretary is coordinating with his Chinese counterpart, and they’re working on a plan with a scale that hasn’t been seen since the aftermath of the Great Calming.”

“They’re going to fight for water again,” Rhea said softly. “When they should be expending their resources cooperating instead.” She thought of the Europan colony of Centaar on Ganymede, and imagined it turned to rubble, like the Ganymedean geodesic dome she’d visited. Was that the fate of all who tried to colonize the water-rich moon?

She glanced at Renaldo. “Get in touch with Targon. I want him to bring us to Mars as soon as he’s available.”

“You won’t be allowed to debark when you reach Mars,” Horatio said before Renaldo could reply.

She gave the robot a defiant look. “Why not?”

“Visitors from Earth need to apply for a special visa,” Horatio replied. “Processing can take up to six months.”

“Well I’m not waiting six months,” Rhea said. “This assassin threat needs to end right now. As do these war plans.”

“You won’t be able to change a thing,” Will said. “Khrusos isn’t going to listen to you.”

“I was very convincing with the mayor of Aradne…” she said.

“Yes, but only because you removed his mind jacking chip,” Will told her.

“Maybe Khrusos is chipped, too,” she insisted.

“I doubt it,” Will said. “Your words will fall on deaf ears, trust me. Just like when you tried to convince the Europans to donate water to Earth.”

“But I didn’t use force then…” Rhea said.

“Yeah? What, you’re planning on waltzing into the presidential palace on Mars, one of the most well-guarded facilities in the solar system, and storming into his office? And once you’re there, jabbing an X2-59 under his throat and demanding he stop sending assassins? Oh, and while he’s at it, can he please arrange a deal with Ganymede for water to boot?”

Rhea gave him a cold look. “I have a nanotech-enhanced body. Ban’Shar that can deflect all energy weapons.”

“Yes, you’re powerful, but you’re not invulnerable,” Will said. “Remember how we first found you: your head and shoulders chucked out with the trash. All it takes is one mistake on your part, and that’s it, no more Rhea. You get hit here—” He indicated her forehead. “Your brain is lost. Look at what happened to your hand in the last fight.”

“You could try official channels again,” Renaldo suggested.

“Khrusos’ office has ignored all the messages we’ve sent,” Rhea said. “It’s obvious he intends to continue ignoring me. No, I have to go there and confront the bastard. And use force to get what I want.”

Will was shaking his head. “Worst idea of the century.”

“We could try publishing the accusations again,” Jairlin said.

Rhea had created a video where she implicated Khrusos in the attempts on her life and had her Wardenites disseminate them across the mainstream video sites, since she was personally banned from them. But the uploads were always deleted moments after publication, even from the alternate streaming sites she had access to, like Subversenet.

“No,” she said. “I’m going to Mars.”

Will threw up his hands. “First Ganymede, now Mars. When does it end?”

She ignored the comment and glanced at Renaldo. “Arrange for the transport.”

Renaldo nodded.

“This merchant of yours, is he willing to take you as unregistered passengers?” DragonHunter asked. “As in, no entry on the manifest at all? Because without visas, they’ll send you back to Earth.”

“He’ll do it,” Rhea said. Though she wondered how she’d sneak through customs, considering that all crates offloaded from the vessel would be scanned.

She studied DragonHunter. “By the way, we’ll need a way to infiltrate the Martian presidential grounds, and the palace itself. Despite what Will implied, I do want to minimize the use of violence as much as possible.”

DragonHunter nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. But no guarantees: there never are any in the hacking world.”

“There never are any in the real world, either,” Rhea agreed.

* * *

Rhea relaxed in her spartan quarters deep underground. The chamber was essentially a bunker, located three floors beneath the main headquarters the Wardenites had built for her in Rust Town. The rest of the HQ above ground was a series of cargo container whose perimeter fence was watched by robots and men 24/7.

She sat on a sprawling bed that took up most of the room. Beside her was a nightstand and clothes closet. The hatch to the room was closed, which sealed the Faraday cage. A tiny vent in the wall piped in breathable air.

She’d applied a localized virtual decoration—the heroic portrait that depicted her perched atop the stack of dead Hydras, with her X2-59 raised high. It reminded her of what she was capable of when she put her mind to it. Reaching Khrusos wasn’t going to be easy, and she needed all the reminding she could get at this point, if only to calm the doubts that ate away inside her.

Will was right, she wasn’t invincible. She had Ganymedean technology on her side, but it would still take all of her focus and determination if she wanted to reach the leader of the free world and make him submit to her demands. She would be relying on training that she couldn’t even remember, the muscle memory of the warrior she once was, ingrained into her subconscious mind.

Make him submit. She wasn’t entirely sure how that would play out, or if Khrusos would even keep his word when their meeting was done. She feared she might have to kill him, though she had to wonder what sort of tyrant would replace him. The office of president was supposed to be an elected position, but Khrusos was a masterful politician, according to what she had read online. It all started with the Ganymede Countermeasures Act, declared after the Great Calming, which he had used as an excuse to turn himself into a Caesar.

To lend his reign an air of credibility, he had members of the House pass the act. Citing the ongoing negotiations with the Europans for access to water, these loyal House minions kept extending his powers annually, so that Khrusos had remained in office for the past thirty years. It was almost in the president’s best interests to keep the negotiations with Ganymede going. Too bad the public was left in the dark about how crucial those negotiations were, and how close Earth’s water supply was to running out.

Two other members of the High Council had similar strangleholds on power: the presidents of Russia and China. But at least they weren’t holding Earth’s water supply hostage to maintain that power.

She thought about the palace that housed her enemy. It was located in the city of Hongton, capital of Mars. She wondered if she’d even be able to penetrate it, she, this intruder from old Ganymede, hated enemy of Earth. If she was discovered, Khrusos would probably summon every combat robot in the city to join in the attack. Well, the defenses surrounding the palace were formidable in and of themselves, or course, though there was precious little about them online.

Her heightened hearing detected a clanging sound coming from outside, as of a person descending the rungs to her level. She accessed the remote interface of the cage and disabled it. Immediately she connected to the main network, and on her overhead map Will’s dot appeared.

She accessed the external security camera and confirmed it was Will. She unlocked the door.

“Come in,” she said when he was about to knock.

Will opened the door and peered inside. “I just heard from Renaldo. Targon’s agreed to bring you to Mars. And he won’t document you or the other passengers who tag along. He’s about a week out.”

“Good news,” Rhea said.

“After that, it’s only five days to Mars,” Will said.

Rhea nodded. “Not bad, considering…”

Will sat on the bed next to her. He gazed at the wall directly in front of him, where Rhea had hung the augmented reality painting. “Is there a picture here?”

“Uh huh,” she said.

“Care to show me?”

“Nuh uh,” she said with a smile.

Will chuckled, then became serious. He sighed. “You’d think, being the leader of the free world, Khrusos would resort to more civilized methods of dealing with you.”

“Like arresting me?” Rhea asked.

“Exactly,” Will replied.

She shrugged. “Maybe he wants to keep it off the record. Maybe he’s worried arresting me will piss off a few people.”

“And people won’t get pissed off if you’re assassinated?” Will asked in disbelief.

“Sure they’ll be pissed off,” she agreed. “But not at him. Not if they don’t know he’s the one who ordered the hit.” She paused. “It certainly reveals a lot about his character, that he’s chosen the assassination route, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Will said. “Makes you wonder how many of his political foes he’s had taken down over the years. I know I won’t feel bad when you bloody his nose.”

“So you believe in me now?” she said.

He glanced at her, his face serious, but then apparently he couldn’t resist a smile and quickly looked away. “Not really. You don’t stand a chance.”

“A-hole.” She roughly shoved his arm.

He shrugged. “I’m just being realistic. But uh, you know I’m coming with you, right? I’ve talked to Horatio. He’s in, too. Miles, Brinks, and Renaldo also. They’ll come at least as far as Hongton, anyway. Not sure how many of us will be joining you in the palace, though: I have a feeling you’ll do better if you don’t have too many of us around to distract you.”

“I’ll have enough trouble protecting myself, let alone a team of Wardenites,” she agreed. “By the way, there isn’t all that much room aboard Targon’s vessel, in case you forgot.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Will said. “I tried telling the others, but they insisted on coming. We’re going to be thoroughly packed in.”

She hadn’t reenabled the Faraday cage, so when a call appeared on her HUD a moment later, she received the notification immediately.

She accepted the call and DragonHunter’s hologram appeared before her. She shared the feed with Will.

“What’s up?” she asked. “You’ve found a way to infiltrate the Martian presidential palace?”

“Not exactly,” DragonHunter said. “I’ve been continually monitoring dispatches from the office of Khrusos, thanks to the little cyber payload you installed for me, and I got some bad news. I just found out that the Martian government issued a warrant for your arrest.”

“Guess we spoke too soon about Khrusos not arresting you,” Will commented.

Rhea glanced at Will. “He knows I’m coming.”

“Potentially,” Will agreed.

“Thank you, DragonHunter,” Rhea told him. “I appreciate the heads-up.”

“Yeah, you’ll also want to liquidate your current headquarters ASAP,” DragonHunter said. “Because you see, Khrusos also issued an arrest warrant for you on Earth as well. Aradne security robots are en route to your present location at this very moment. Several divisions of them, in fact. It looks like they’re not going to take ‘no’ for an answer…”

Rhea shot Will an urgent glance, then told DragonHunter: “Thanks.”

“Welcome. Good luck.” He disconnected.

Rhea got up, but before she could even gather her belongings, she received a call from Renaldo.

“We have a problem,” Renaldo said.

4

Rhea had been walking to the closet, but she stopped in her tracks. “Let me guess, we’re surrounded by robot troops.”

“That’s right,” Renaldo said. “Take a look. This is from a Wardenite on patrol outside.”

She received a share request; when she accepted, a video feed filled her vision. She forwarded it to Will.

The live footage depicted the headquarters as viewed from the rooftop; the Wardenite doing the transmitting was standing at the edge, overlooking the sprawling cargo containers of the lower levels. Beyond the Texas barriers that formed the perimeter of the compound stood different divisions of military robots: two-legged mech divisions, equipped with electrolasers, missiles, and plasma turrets; smaller robot infantry divisions, armed with shoulder-mounted RPG launchers and forearm-mounted rifles. The defensive laser turrets positioned at intervals atop the Texas barriers mostly targeted the bigger mechs. But some were pointed upward.

Glancing overhead, Rhea understood why: hundreds of octocopter drones hovered in place like a swarm of locusts frozen in time, their deadly laser mounts dangling underneath, tracking the Wardenites scattered across the compound grounds.

The main entrance to the compound was closed, with the defending robots there having replaced the concrete barrier that served as gate, effectively locking out the enemy. Until the mechs decided to bash their way inside, that is.

As she watched, one of the armed Wardenites used a jetpack to thrust to the top of the concrete; he hovered there, waving his rifle menacingly, and shouted at the robots, telling them to go away. The iron monstrosities neither answered, nor budged.

Rhea had seen enough. She dismissed the video feed.

“Gather all who’ve volunteered to go to Mars, and get down here as fast as you can,” she told Renaldo.

“Will do,” the Wardenite said, and disconnected.

From the closet, Rhea retrieved her hooded cloak, along with her utility belt, which contained a holstered pistol. She donned the cloak, attached the belt, and abandoned her remaining belongings—which were just clothes anyway. There would be water, food pills, and other supplies waiting in the SUV.

She willed the nano machines in her legs to part her thigh armor and retrieved the Ban’Shar from the storage compartments within. She slid them onto each palm, then left her quarters, entering the neighboring chamber with Will.

“I’m going to grab my gear,” Will said. “Give me two secs.”

“Wait,” Rhea said. “There’s gear in the SUVs.”

“Not mine,” he told her as he clambered the rungs on the far side of the chamber.

When he vanished from sight, Rhea went to the rightmost wall and felt around until she felt the grips for the hidden panel. She squeezed, and the locking latch disengaged, allowing her to slide the panel aside.

The small tunnel awaiting beyond edged into view.

Along with the humanoid cyborg that had been standing there waiting for her.

Rhea leaped to the side as it fired a plasma pistol, but was too late, and the point-blank bolt tore off her right arm.

She activated the Ban’Shar of her remaining arm, and cut upward, slicing the pistol away. Then she lifted her thumb, causing the plasma disk to transform into a backward-facing blade, and plunged it into the cyborg’s metal torso.

The assassin fell drunkenly to his knees.

Rhea removed the Ban’Shar and deactivated it. She rested her palm on his metallic shoulder and allowed the nano machines to flow forth.

The ant-like robots swarmed over her foe, and she grinned maliciously as they devoured the metal of his torso. Some of the machines traveled back into her body, and transferred the material to her other extremity, so that little by little, her severed arm regrew.

The light winked out in those eyes as the cyborg’s power source failed, and her would-be assassin slumped against the dirt wall of the tunnel.

She gazed searchingly into the tunnel beyond, looking for signs of attackers. She activated a LIDAR burst to map the darkness, but the white polygons that overlaid her vision indicated no further opponents. The Wardenites had created the tunnel to offer an escape from scenarios precisely like the present one, where the headquarters became surrounded by an insurmountable force, though the thinking at the time had been to protect her from the onslaught of some crime lord or other resourceful assassin who wanted to collect her bounty, not an entire military force. Also, the designers apparently hadn’t considered that an assassin might actually discover the backdoor and use it to gain entry almost directly into her chambers. That meant the guards who surreptitiously watched the exit were likely dead.

I got lucky, Rhea said. If he had attacked me in my sleep…

Then again, the cyborg was probably planning to do exactly that. The assassin had reached the wall panel and decided to wait until nightfall to attack. His plans had been ruined by the arrest warrant.

Still lucky.

Rhea remained in place, letting her nano machines extract the necessary metals from her attacker. She wondered when the others would return. She kept glancing between the rungs that led to the chamber, and the tunnel, keeping an eye on both.

Finally, her arm was fully formed. The nano machines automatically retreated back inside of her, and the tiny vents in the surface of her skin sealed.

She retrieved the remaining Ban’Shar knuckle from the hand of her severed arm and attached it to her newly built one. The nano machines that existed in the lost arm would have permanently deactivated as new ones were created from the cyborg—part of the limiting mechanism programmed into them.

She returned her gaze to the tunnel, sparing only a glance for the desiccated assassin she had defeated.

She heard the clang of boots descending the rungs.

She drew her pistol and trained it on the ladder. She glanced at her overhead map. The blue dots indicated Renaldo, Brinks and Miles.

She kept her weapon pointed at the rungs anyway, just in case.

Renaldo slid into view, followed by Brinks and Miles.

She holstered the pistol.

“What happened here?” Brinks asked.

“Another assassin,” Rhea replied nonchalantly.

“They’re everywhere,” Miles commented.

“I don’t mind,” Rhea told the albino. “It’s good practice. For Khrusos.”

Miles nodded. “But the question is, how many robots from the contingent above have made their way into the tunnel?”

“The assassin would’ve wanted to deliver the bounty himself,” Renaldo replied. “Which means he would’ve preferred no interference from Aradne security… so I doubt he told them and was likely very careful not to let them follow him.” He kicked at the body. “What happened to him, by the way?”

“Looks like you ate him for lunch,” Brinks commented. “You used your nano machines on him, didn’t you?”

She shrugged.

Renaldo looked up, as if listening. “Jairlin tells me the security forces are tearing down the Texas barriers.”

“Instruct the Wardenites to surrender without a fight,” Rhea told Renaldo.

The man nodded.

“Will, get down here,” she sent, glancing at her overhead map. He was still on the top levels, close to his quarters.

“On the way,” Will replied.

She heard thudding and loud bangs coming from upstairs.

“Sounds like they’re ransacking the place,” Brinks said.

“Will…”

“Coming,” Will transmitted.

She nervously followed his dot as it descended on the map. Horatio was with him.

She heard footfalls on the rungs.

“My map shows Will and Horatio,” Brinks said.

“Yes, but the military are known to use spoofing technology,” Renaldo said. Something that Rhea had known instinctively.

They all aimed their guns at the ladder on the far side of the room, ready to fire at any infantry robots that might show up. Instead, it was really Will and Horatio. They both wore backpacks.

Rhea and the others lowered their pistols in relief.

“Sorry,” Will said, raising his hands placatingly. “Had to drag Horatio out of his VR game.”

“I was just about to be crowned leader of my guild!” Horatio complained.

“You robots and your weird online games,” Miles said. “I almost shot you, by the way.”

“On purpose or accidentally?” Horatio asked.

“The former,” Miles replied.

She turned toward Will. “Did you get the CommNixer pistols?”

“Of course.” Will reached into his pack and produced one of the requested pistols. “Want yours now?”

“Hold onto it for me,” she said.

The weapon was a smart pistol, capable of firing multiple CommNixer disks at different targets simultaneously. Program in the targets ahead of time, point it in their general direction, and squeeze the trigger—the pistol handled the rest.

Horatio had worked with DragonHunter to come up with the design. The pair had also modified the range of the CommNixers themselves, so that a given disk need only attach within a meter of the designated target in order to disrupt the communications signal.

The weapon was great for shutting off surveillance tech like security cameras. She had originally intended to use the pistol on Mars, but it looked like she would be needing it far earlier.

Rhea stepped over the body of the cyborg and entered the tunnel. She kept her pistol pointed in front of her, leaving the LIDAR active so she could see in the dim light.

Will followed just behind her, and when he stepped over the body, he commented: “Another assassin?”

“How’d you guess?” Rhea told him.

“They keep coming out of the woodwork, don’t they,” Will said.

Horatio, on drag, replaced the wall panel behind the party, and the way forward became completely dark; the LIDAR wireframes that outlined the tunnel guided her.

“Disable external network connections,” she ordered. That was to ensure none of them automatically connected to the Internet when they passed beneath wireless access points, should a signal somehow manage to get through. Connecting to the Internet would allow them to be tracked.

Rhea’s comm node was internal, while the comm nodes of the others were built into their AR goggles or visors. They would be relying on wireless mesh networking going forward, which allowed their comm nodes to connect without any Internet coverage.

“Hey, shouldn’t someone else take the lead?” Renaldo said. “I thought we weren’t allowing you to put yourself in any danger?”

“Considering that none of you will be able to do anything except serve as cannon fodder if we’re attacked in here, it’s probably best I’m in the lead,” Rhea replied.

“I think we were just insulted,” Will quipped.

“Do you have a weapon that can transform into a shield at the squeeze of a hand?” she asked him.

“I see your point,” Will replied. “Still, Renaldo is right, you shouldn’t be in front. Let me squeeze past. I’ll make a deal with you: if someone attacks, I’ll drop to the ground, so you can still take the brunt of the impact.”

“Kind of defeats the purpose of assuming the point position, if you’re doing it to protect me…” Rhea said. “Besides, if you drop down in front of me, and I block a plasma bolt, there’s a chance it could deflect right into you. Especially if I only have microseconds to react. So no, I’m staying on point.”

She kept her overhead map active. Though she had no Internet connection this far underground, her position still updated thanks to her internal accelerometer, and she watched the blue dots of the party creep underneath the streets and cargo containers that surrounded the headquarters until they reached an adjacent neighborhood two blocks away.

The tunnel sloped steadily upward.

Ahead, sunlight poked through a long, horizontal line, where the exit hatch was open a crack.

“Seems our assassin friend forgot to shut the door,” Will commented.

Keeping her pistol in her right hand, Rhea activated the Ban’Shar in her other, employing disk mode. Then she approached warily.

When she reached the exit, which was built into a horizontally sloping shed of sorts, she manually gated her vision, drastically reducing the brightness levels so that the horizontal line of light nearly became invisible.

Wait, Will transmitted on a mental channel over the mesh network. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right. I’m coming in on your right. When you kick open that door, you go low, I go high.

How about I go high? she returned, not liking the idea of Will exposing himself above her shield.

Fine, he replied.

She felt him brush against her right elbow, and knew he was in place.

With her foot, she shoved the sloping metal door open to reveal the empty street beyond.

Since she’d already gated her eyes, the sudden change in brightness didn’t blind her, and she swept her pistol from left to right.

Meanwhile, Will had dropped to one knee beside her, and was similarly scanning the neighborhood from the ground.

The streets proved empty, while the lean-tos and cargo containers lining it were completely still. Apparently everyone had either retreated inside when the robots swept through, or they had gathered on the southeast perimeter of the neighborhood to watch the assault on her headquarters.

She could hear a distant buzzing, and the occasional clattering thud, like a toppling Texas barrier.

At her feet, the two Wardenites who had been planted to guard the exit lay dead next to their front operation—a shish kabob kiosk. Large plasma holes were burned into their chests, and their weapons were only half drawn from the holsters.

“Bill and Philip,” Renaldo said sadly. “They were good men.”

Rhea looked away. Though she didn’t know them, she still felt grief: the men had essentially died for her.

She gazed farther down the road. The getaway vehicle was still parked in the expected location.

She raised her hood over her head and leaned forward to peer past the upper edge of the shed that harbored the exit. That shed was squeezed between two cargo containers, and past their rooftops, toward the direction of the compound, she could see octocopter drones hovering in place—the source of the distant buzzing.

She quickly ducked once more and pulled her hood lower around her face. Then she emerged from the opening and, keeping close to the walls of the bordering cargo containers, she moved at a crouch toward the vehicle. There were no security cameras here—the Wardenites had specifically chosen this neighborhood for the exit because of its lack of monitoring.

Will and the Wardenites followed close behind her.

She reached the vehicle and unlocked it via the remote interface, which she was able to access via her mesh network. Then they piled inside.

The vehicle activated, and drove forward slowly, staying close to the bordering line of cargo containers. She was happy with the speed—any faster and they might draw attention to themselves.

The vehicle reached an intersection and turned northwest, heading away from the compound. Though she couldn’t see the headquarters itself, Rhea kept an eye on the drones above it via the righthand rearview mirror, and she watched the octocopters recede.

When the vehicle turned onto a side street and the drones vanished from view entirely, she exhaled in relief. Still the vehicle maintained its slow pace—spy satellites were recording everything from orbit above, and they definitely didn’t want to seem in a hurry. She kept expecting a drone to come over at any moment, to investigate them or to order them to step outside for identification purposes, but evidently the robots were still ransacking the compound and hadn’t concluded she had escaped yet.

The vehicle ground to a halt next in a neighborhood that was still only partially rebuilt since the Hydra attack. The Wardenites had chosen this district for the safe house again because of the lack of cameras.

On the dashboard in front of her sat a special AR visor designed by DragonHunter; this visor had a comm node that bounced data across hundreds of different encrypted nodes across the world, with each node providing a spoofed location and ID, making it almost impossible to trace. That cyber obfuscation technique was similar to what Veil had used when she had Mayor Grandas send messages on her behalf. It was also highly illegal.

Rhea retrieved the visor and handed it to Horatio, who slid the device over his own built-in visor.

“How’s it look?” she asked.

“A moment while I pull up the Sat Displacement Map,” the robot answered. That was a satellite position calculator, used to compute the positions of spy satellites based on the hour of the day. Horatio had all the satellite positions stored internally already, courtesy of DragonHunter, but the robot used the obfuscated visor to augment that data with live drone information—the other Wardenites would be keeping watch on the skies, and marking out the positions of any nearby UAVs, even those traveling at high altitudes overhead.

“I have two spy satellites overhead,” the robot said. “They have a partial angle on the street. There’s also a high-altitude drone in a holding pattern above the compound. I’m aggregating the data feed with that of the satellites, and as usual, I’ll mark the ‘go’ and ‘no-go’ zones on your HUDs and maps.”

She received a share request. After accepting, green swaths appeared on the overhead map, surrounded by red. Both areas revolved to follow the movements of the satellites and the drones.

On the street outside the SUV, the ground in front of the lean-tos on the right became hued green, as did the walls of the lean-tos themselves. Everything else outside was red. The green bands slowly grew slimmer with each passing moment as the spy satellites continued up the horizon.

The team members distributed the canteens and rations stowed aboard the SUV and exited the vehicle on the right side, entering the green zone. They proceeded at a hurried crouch, following the ever-thinning strip of green that resided next to the buildings.

A narrow, pedestrian only side street opened on the right. It was completely green. The group sprinted along its tight confines, until they arrived at the safe house: a nondescript lean-to, indistinguishable from all the others. The only reason she knew they arrived was because of her HUD, which overlaid a blue dot on the door.

She knocked on the door. A thin panel slid open at eye level, and wild eyes stared back at her. Then the door opened, and an old man with disheveled hair beckoned them inside.

Rhea and the others entered and took shelter on the far side of the lean-to, which opened into a common courtyard shared with the other buildings nearby. If she needed to escape in a pinch, the rooftops were low enough for her to reach in a single vault with her powerful legs. Horatio would make the jump, too, but the rest of her friends would probably have to stay behind, if it came to it.

The old man distributed refreshments, and was very reverential toward Rhea, constantly bowing before her, and proceeding any questions or comments with “begging the Warden’s pardon.” She smiled patiently at him, not wanting to offend the man, but also not wanting to encourage him. Truly, such treatment made her uncomfortable.

Horatio only donned the special AR visor periodically to get updates from the other Wardenites. The robot would put it on, and after receiving a situation report, Horatio would immediately remove it, shutting down the connection. After all, while the cyber obfuscation technique was nearly impossible to trace, there was still a chance that a determined enemy could find them, if he, she or it knew what to look for. Horatio intended to minimize that risk, at Rhea’s encouraging.

“Just heard from Jairlin,” Horatio said after about an hour of maintaining such sporadic contact. “We can’t stay here. The security forces are engaging in house-to-house searches, expanding outward from the neighborhood of the headquarters. They’ll eventually search every lean-to and cargo container in Rust Town.”

“We have to leave,” Rhea agreed. “When are they scheduled to reach this neighborhood?”

“According to the data Jairlin shared with me, we have until tomorrow morning before they arrive,” Horatio said. “It looks like they’re concentrating on the neighborhoods southeast of the compound first.” That would be opposite Rhea’s current location. “Apparently, a woman matching your description was spotted flagrantly leaving the area. Jairlin claims credit for arranging that.”

“He does look strikingly like our Warden,” Will joked.

“Very funny,” Rhea said.

“The security forces have also barricaded all routes leading into and out of Rust Town,” Horatio said. “And they’ve heightened patrols of the perimeters.”

“That makes leaving tricky, but not impossible,” Rhea said.

“Where do you want to go?” Will said. “We have a week until Targon arrives. We’ll have to lay low until then.”

“What about Aradne?” Miles said. “The mayor owes you, doesn’t he?”

“Too many cameras,” Rhea said.

“Mars won’t be much different,” Brinks offered.

“Yes, but the difference is, we have to go to Mars,” she told him. “But we don’t have to go to Aradne. It’s not worth the risk in my option. There are other options.”

“Like…?” Brinks pressed.

Rhea thought about it, then revealed her plan.

Brinks nodded. “Works for me.”

“Though it’s not like we have any other choice,” Will added. “The question is, when do we leave?”

All eyes turned toward Horatio.

After a moment, the robot said: “The spy satellites will be in the optimal position for our escape shortly after midnight. Or about five hours before the security forces are scheduled to arrive.”

“Then after midnight it is,” Rhea said.

5

Darkness fell, and Rhea waited until after midnight to lead her men outside. They took the front street, which was completely hued green on their HUDs. Dim light from glow lamps allowed them to see without having to use potential location-revealing tech like LIDAR.

They moved on foot, heading northwest, away from the ever-expanding search perimeter of the security robots. They kept close to the walls of the surrounding cargo containers and lean-tos.

Drones patrolled overhead, looking for them, and the party occasionally had to take cover in alleyways, or behind other freestanding structures like benches or stands. Apparently a curfew was in effect, so if a drone caught them, the gig would be up.

Only a few of the Wardenites who had remained behind at the compound had been arrested—for interfering with a police search—and the remainder had been allowed to go free. These men watched the skies from the windows of lean-tos scattered throughout the settlement; some of them operated drones of their own. In this manner, the Wardenites were able to continue transmitting the positions of enemy UAVs to Horatio via the obfuscated AR visor, which the robot used in combination with the spy satellite data to update the areas safe for passage.

Horatio ran the visor in ping mode, which meant it connected to the Internet every fifteen seconds to update. It was more dangerous than the ten-minute update intervals Horatio had been employing earlier, but it was either that or risk running into an enemy drone. The spoofing technology in the visor was still working perfectly, according to DragonHunter, but that didn’t ease Rhea’s fears.

They finally approached the Texas barriers that enclosed Rust Town. Though they had kept well away from the official exits, which were cordoned off, the entire concrete wall section ahead was red, thanks to the increased patrols of the perimeter by UAVs. However, a section of that red swath was slowly becoming green as one of the drones responsible slowly moved on.

Rhea led the team into an alcove between two cargo containers to wait it out. She kept an eye on the overhead map, and in about a minute a portion of the Texas barrier, and the street leading up to it, turned green.

She peered from her cover, confirming that the route was a go.

Time to move, she transmitted over the mental channel of their mesh network.

Sticking to the green area of the street, the group hurried from cover and rushed to the Texas barrier. By the time they arrived, the green swatch had already begun shrinking.

They quickly helped each other over. Too weak to pull himself up on his own, Renaldo had to hold onto Horatio’s back while the robot carried him to the top and down the other side.

Rhea was one of those giving boosts to the others, so when the last of them had gone, she leaped up, grabbed onto the top of the barrier, pulled herself over, and leaped the entire distance to the ground.

They quickly disseminated into the ruins of the city beyond the settlement, taking cover in the remains of a mid-rise building as another UAV swept past.

When it passed, they continued into the shattered streets, keeping to the green zones. Because there were no glow lamps out there, the light levels were low, forcing the team to move very slowly. Rhea and the others activated their night vision, which was a passive sensing mechanism, and that helped. More than once she avoided slamming into a protruding rod of rebar or other obstacle thanks to said night vision.

Soon the jagged and broken skyscrapers were towering above them, eating up the stars. That was good, because it meant they were far less exposed to the satellites and the patrolling drones. Indeed, the way forward was entirely green. But also bad, because the streets were even darker, with their night vision barely penetrating in some places.

None of them dared use LIDAR, but since Will had some map data cached from the last time he traveled this way, they didn’t have to: Will shared the data, which caused the view to partially fill out with white wireframes. He warned them that the ruins could have easily changed since his last visit—pieces were always crumbling away from the skyscrapers, and sometimes buildings collapsed entirely.

Will also launched Gizmo, which he had repaired since the encounter with Veil, so that it could track any UAV scouts the Wardenites in the settlement couldn’t see, thanks to the skyscrapers that now blotted out the sky. The drone ascended silently, until it was above the altitude of the highest building, and then proceeded to shadow the party from above.

Horatio led. The robot kept its hands held in front, in case the map data had changed. Horatio also aggregated the positional data from all three sources—the satellites, the Wardenites, and Gizmo—to compute the final map of go and no-go zones, which updated every fifteen seconds. Though Gizmo was too small to be detected by the spy satellites, the drone was careful to stick to the green zones nonetheless, Rhea noted.

Thus, they made their way through the ruins of the city that had once thrived before the Great Calming, the city that Rust Town and Aradne had replaced. They were officially in the Outlands, even if the rocky plains of said region were still a few kilometers out.

They neared the outskirts of the ruins; beyond, the land was completely red—in full view of the spy satellites.

The team was forced to retreat inward, toward the Aradne wall. According to Rhea’s overhead map, a swath of green lay immediately adjacent to the wall, all along its outer edge. That was the cover they needed.

“We could stay here, and wait for our ride to Mars,” Renaldo suggested.

“No,” Horatio said. “It’s better to stick to the Warden’s plan. While we’re in the green now, tomorrow morning this entire area will be red. Unless you’d like to hide inside the ruins of an unstable building?”

“Ah, no thanks,” Renaldo said. “We follow the Warden’s plan.”

As they grew closer to the Aradne wall, Rhea called a halt. She retrieved the AR visor from Horatio and made a call to DragonHunter. Voice only.

“Were you able to take the wall’s external cameras?” she asked. He’d taken them before, to allow the mini tankers to return undetected from the pipeline, but when she’d told him about her latest plan, he’d warned her that he wasn’t sure whether or not the cameras were still his.

“Like a stallion takes a filly,” DragonHunter replied. “I found out that city employees tried to patch the software a few weeks ago, but apparently they didn’t realize I installed a sandbox. So these dudes, they go and log into my sandbox, install a patch, and call it a day. Meanwhile, the real environment remains unpatched. So yeah, still mine. I never lost the cameras. You won’t be spotted.”

“You’re certain?” she pressed. “Because we have the CommNixer pistols…”

“I’d advise against using them,” Will said. “Especially in a rather quiet area like the city outskirts. When a bunch of cameras go down in a row, that’s a big red flag to any observing AI.”

She disconnected and returned the visor to Horatio.

They continued forward, leaving behind the cover of the skyscrapers, sticking to the go zones, until they were walking inside the green band next to the Aradne wall. It towered to their left, blotting out the stars.

She often searched the sky nervously as she advanced, but no octocopters came racing to their position.

Will had no cached data of this area, but DragonHunter routed the LIDAR from those cameras through to Horatio, who in turn distributed it to Rhea and the others so that they could see in the dark. Even so, Rhea kept her night vision mode active, because Horatio still only connected every fifteen seconds to get the latest LIDAR data, whereas Rhea preferred a more regularly updated feed. It would take only fifteen seconds for a drone, infantry robot or bioweapon to spot her and move in for the kill. If she couldn’t see it, she couldn’t defend herself. Unfortunately, her night vision didn’t penetrate the current darkness very well anyway.

It took them another hour to reach the point where the broad pipeline from the ocean met the wall. The pipeline had been elevated to help protect it from attack by bioweapons, and the region located immediately underneath was very much in the green, and it would remain so day and night.

Rhea borrowed the visor from Horatio and called DragonHunter once more. “So, we’re here. Tell me you’ve dealt with the sensors.” Motion sensors were embedded beneath the pipes, meant to warn city employees of potential sabotage, or attacks by bioweapons. They would trigger as soon as Rhea and the others stepped underneath.

“I have,” DragonHunter replied. “I went the old-fashioned route, like last time, relaying a bribe on your behalf to a few of the monitoring station employees. They’ve promised to look the other way.”

“How can we be sure they’ll keep that promise?” she asked.

“Oh, they will, don’t worry,” DragonHunter assured her. “They’re big Warden fans. They’d never betray you.”

With a sigh, Rhea thanked him and disconnected. She returned the visor to Horatio, and the party proceeded into the gap between the pipeline’s underside and the ground. If there were active motions sensors, they would be triggering at that very moment.

But the station employees must have really been fans, because no security forces arrived. Either that, or DragonHunter had given them a lot of money.

The party continued eastward, until the city wall no longer ate up the stars, and was a tiny smudge against the sky. Because they had moved out of range of the LIDAR from the city cameras, she decided to rest before going any further. Thus, the party made camp.

And that had been her plan. Now fulfilled.

Gizmo landed on top of the pipeline and kept watch on the plains. Horatio also stood guard, keeping an eye out from underneath the pipeline.

In the morning, they continued onward with first light, intending to put as much distance between themselves and the city as possible. The area immediately underneath the pipeline remained green, while outside it the rocky plains were always red. The motion sensors overhead flashed continually, but no security forces, city contractors, or otherwise ever came to investigate.

The party intermittently passed the long, wide supports that held up the pipeline on either side. These supports combined to form an arch overhead, providing just enough clearance for a small vehicle to travel underneath.

“We should have brought the SUV,” Renaldo complained. He was panting.

Rhea glanced over her shoulder at him. “We would’ve had a bit of trouble leaving the ruins… the green zone next to Aradne’s wall wasn’t wide enough for a vehicle.”

“I suppose not,” Renaldo said.

“Come on, a little exercise will do you good for a change,” Will said. “You’re used to sitting down at that virtual desk of yours all day…”

“We’ll be doing a lot of sitting shortly,” Rhea added. “So enjoy the exercise while you can. We’ll be cramped aboard a ship for five days. Plus, we have to wait for it to arrive.”

“I can’t wait,” Renaldo cracked.

As the day came to a close, Rhea decided that they’d traveled east far enough, and called a halt.

“We’ll wait for our ride here,” she announced.

Renaldo had fallen behind, so when he finally arrived to find the party seated, he said: “So we’re done for the day? You’re not just waiting for me to catch up?”

“We’re done for the day, and the trip,” she said. “The shuttle will pick us up here.”

“Thank goodness.” Renaldo flopped down. “I don’t think I could take another day of this. Marching. It’s for the plebes!”

Miles arched an eyebrow. “‘Plebes?’ Correct me if I’m wrong, but you do live in Rust Town, don’t you? We’re all ‘plebes.’”

“No,” Renaldo said. “We’ve moved beyond that. We’re Wardenites now. We mean something. We have worth.”

Miles snorted. “So you say.”

Renaldo glanced at Rhea. “Besides, I’m not like you, Warden. I tire easily. I don’t have a body enhanced by nano technology.”

“Our bodies aren’t enhanced by nano technology,” Miles said. “And you don’t hear us complaining.”

Renaldo waved him away and popped a fat pill. He downed it with a swig from his canteen.

“How long did you say we have until our pickup?” Brinks asked.

“Six more days,” Rhea replied.

Renaldo burped loudly.

“It’s going to be a long wait,” Brinks said.

6

The days passed slowly. Rhea didn’t mind. It gave her a chance to mentally prepare herself for what was coming. She didn’t know what would happen when she arrived on Mars to confront Khrusos. She didn’t know if she would survive it. All she knew was that she couldn’t live this way, always on the run.

Before they’d left the safe house, Renaldo had arranged for the delivery of extra rations and water, so the team had more than enough to last for the week. After all, it wasn’t like they could simply tap into the pipeline for their hydration needs, as the ocean water was unprocessed, and much too salty.

On the second day, Rhea borrowed the obfuscated AR visor from Horatio and called DragonHunter. “So, any news on our pickup provider?”

Targon wasn’t going to personally handle their pickup, because his transport couldn’t handle atmospheric reentry. That meant a third party would have to convey Rhea and her team into orbit.

“I’ve arranged for a shuttle, yes,” DragonHunter said. “A personal transport, actually. From a subscriber to your SubverseTube channel.”

“Oh really?” Rhea asked. “You’ve vetted this subscriber, right? He’s not some random dude?”

“I’ve checked him out,” DragonHunter replied. “He’s legit. But don’t be alarmed when you board the shuttle and find it unmanned. Our subscriber friend wants to keep a low profile.”

“He’s scared of getting caught with me aboard,” Rhea said.

“Exactly,” DragonHunter said. “You understand.”

Rhea frowned at his sarcasm.

“This way, if you’re caught, he can claim the shuttle was stolen,” DragonHunter added.

She folded her arms, though he would not see, since the call was voice-only. “You didn’t publish a public call for transportation on my SubverseTube channel, did you?” Though DragonHunter didn’t have access privileges to her account, she wouldn’t have put it past the hacker to break in.

“No, of course not,” DragonHunter said. “I’m not going to announce your plans to the world.”

“Good,” she said. “So how did you find this ‘generous’ subscriber?”

“Simple,” DragonHunter said. “I scraped the comments from all your uploads and did some background checks on the usernames using some special look-up algorithms of mine. Basically, I filtered for those with the highest incomes. After creating a short list of twenty, I sent a mass email to them all, and reviewed the five replies.”

She sighed. “I guess I have no choice but to trust this guy.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve forwarded his name and address to the Wardenites, so if he betrays you, they’ll mess him up,” DragonHunter promised.

“That’s not necessary,” Rhea said.

“Tell that to your Wardenites,” DragonHunter commented. “Oh, by the way, got some news on the hacking front, for when you finally reach Mars. First of all, something you should know: on the red planet, you don’t really have to worry about spy satellites. There are very few. Unfortunately, cameras are deployed everywhere throughout the city. And I mean everywhere. So you’re basically constantly spied on anyway. You’re going to have to employ your CommNixer pistols liberally. I’m sending a map of all known camera positions. This data is recent as of yesterday, but it’s possible there are some cameras we missed.”

The data downloaded slowly. While she waited, she pulled up the map of Hongton and overlaid the different positions. As the dots representing the cameras began to fill out, she realized DragonHunter was right: they were everywhere.

“I’m not sure we have enough ammo to reach the palace,” Rhea said in dismay. “You’re going to have to deliver more CommNixer disks.”

“Actually, I won’t,” DragonHunter said. “There’s a pedway system that runs underneath Hongton. The cameras there use outdated software, so I’ve been able to hack them with the help of a contact I have in the city. I won’t get into the intricacies of breaking into a remote system over the Delay-tolerant network that spans our solar system, but needless to say, it was difficult.

“Anyhoo, with the aid of my contact, I installed man-in-the-middle software to scrub you from the images in real time once you get there. I’ve also included full face and body scans of your companions into the 3D dataset, so they’ll be blanked out too. You’ll be able to activate this software by transmitting the following data to the cameras when you enter the pedway.”

She received a share request, and accepted, storing the data locally. It took a while to download, because of how slow the network was, thanks to all the different obfuscation points the connection passed through across the world.

“You will, of course, have to avoid the cameras built into the AR goggles of unsuspecting passersby,” DragonHunter continued. His voice digitally distorted slightly, because the download was still taking place in the background. “If you can do that, and stick to the pedway system, you’ll be able to reach the palace undetected. I’m sending over route information that will take you almost to the front doors. But be advised: once you emerge, you’ll be exposed to the city’s camera systems again, and you’ll be on your own. Also, if I were you, I wouldn’t connect to the local Internet when you arrive. Like here, the government can use it to track you, by ID. Their infamous social credit system won’t allow you aboard any public transport if you have your comm node disabled, so you’ll have to travel on foot.”

“Noted,” Rhea said. “Anything else?”

“Well, I do have a detailed map of the different hangar bays,” DragonHunter said. She received another share request and accepted. “Most of them have a maintenance door you can use to skip customs. There are ten cameras in each bay which you’ll have to disable first. You’ll have about a minute after the first camera goes down until security drones arrive. So be quick. Once you’re through the maintenance tunnel, you’ll end up in the terminal. Proceed to the lower levels, and you’ll find an entrance right to the pedway system. There are more cameras on the way you’ll probably want to get rid of.”

“Got it,” she said. “That it?”

“That’s about it for now, yes,” DragonHunter said. “If anything else crops up, I’ll keep you posted.”

“Thank you,” she said, and hung up.

Since connecting to the Internet was too slow through the specialized AR goggles, they spent their time playing localized VR games and experiences over their wireless mesh network. Rhea chose the game Robot Wars, because it was the only one she was any good at, after having trained against Targon for a good month during the back and forth trip to Ganymede.

“Better enjoy it while you can,” Will told her after one particularly harrowing loss to her on his part. “Once we board the Molly Dook, Targon’s going to wipe your arse over the bulkheads.”

“We’ll see,” Rhea said.

Gizmo spotted bioweapons in the distance on the fourth day, and for a while the team was worried they’d have to clamber on top of pipeline to get away from them, and thus reveal their positions to the spy satellites. But the Werangs eventually wandered off. The party members weren’t numerous enough for their scents to attract the creatures at that range. Though if the party had even a couple more members, that might have been the tipping point.

Will joined her after the bioweapons had gone. Rhea usually sat a little apart from the others—she liked her space—so the two of them were guaranteed privacy, at least on the eavesdropping front.

“So, how are you holding up?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said. “Though I’m getting a little sick of Robot Wars.”

He chuckled. “I noticed. Too much winning will do that to you.”

“It’s not a challenge,” she agreed. She flashed him a grin. “Still, you can never win too much.”

He looked at her sidelong. “I’m trying to resist the urge to remind you what Targon’s going to do to you in the game…”

She shrugged. “Maybe I won’t play.”

“Oh, you will,” he said. “You’ll be too bored not to.”

She smiled, letting her gaze roam the distant plains.

“I’ve been meaning to ask; do you feel any different?” Will asked. “In that new body and all.”

She glanced at him. “Maybe at first. It’s been a few days now. I’m used to it.”

“You told Jairlin the nano tech doesn’t bother you but is that really true?” he asked.

“I don’t really think about it, except maybe when I use them. Do you think about the intricacies of your body when you go about your daily life?”

“No, I guess not,” Will admitted

They were quiet for a time.

Her eyes drifted to the virtual decoration she had placed on the inside of one of the supports that held up the pipeline.

“It’s a portrait,” she told him.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“You always ask what augmented reality overlays I have active,” she said. “My virtual decorations, as you call them. It’s a portrait. Of me, made by a fan. A victory pose atop a pile of dead Hydras. Here.”

She enabled public overlay sharing so that he could see it too.

“I look at it when I need hope,” she said. “When I need to remind myself what I’m capable of when I really put my mind to it. When I focus all my energy on a goal.”

The two stared at it in silence for a time.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Will said. “Here’s mine.”

A hologram appeared in front of her. It, too, was a portrait, framed by exquisitely carved cherrywood. It depicted two happy people, a man and a woman, and the young boy between them. The child couldn’t have been more than eight to twelve years old.

“My parents,” Will explained. “I hang it up in every room I call home. Seeing them gives me strength as well. Reminds me of the person I want to be. Whenever I’m not sure of something in my life, I ask myself, what would my parents have done? It’s because of them I came back to fight with you in Rust Town, when the Hydras attacked. It’s because of them I’ve done a lot of the good in my life.”

“They raised you well,” she told him.

He nodded. “I just wish I could have done more for them.”

She reached out, and squeezed his hand reassuringly, then released it to gaze upon the plains once more.

“It’s so quiet here,” she said. “The calm before the storm.”

“We still have five days to Mars once we’re finally aboard the Molly Dook,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but I’ll be crowded into the same room with you all,” she said. “Here at least, I get a chance to relax alone, by myself. This is my last chance to do that. This is my calm before the storm.”

“I hear you.” He folded his knees close to his chest and rested his arms upon them. “I’ve been wondering something.”

She glanced at him. “Yes?” There was a strange tone to his voice. Almost… accusing.

“Why did you get so distant in the conference room, when DragonHunter suggested how bad it would be if your nano machines were hacked? You’re worried that’s actually going to happen, and you’ll be responsible for the end of the world?”

“More than that,” she said. “I believe it has already happened.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“It was Ganymedean nano machines that caused the Great Calming,” she said.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“I just do,” she replied.

He studied her, then spoke slowly, as if carefully measuring each word. “That doesn’t necessarily mean you were involved…”

She smiled sadly. “No, but there’s a good chance I was, and you know it.”

“You seem to be taking it well, if that’s true,” he said.

“I try not to dwell on it too much,” she said. “If I did, the guilt would destroy me. Instead I try to focus on how I can help humanity, going forward. Make reparations for what I’ve done. That means finding a way to bring water from Ganymede, to Earth.”

“Ganymede isn’t the only place water exists in the solar system,” Will stated.

“No,” she admitted. “There are other sources. Though Ganymede is one of the easiest to harvest, considering we already have the infrastructure in place on the planet, courtesy of the Europans.”

“When you have your little heart-to-heart with Khrusos, I’m sure you’ll bring up the water issue,” Will said.

“I’m sure I will,” she agreed.

“Assuming you even get close enough to talk to him,” Will said. “There’s that little problem with the Martian government having issued a warrant for your arrest and all…”

She tapped her lower lip with one finger. “I almost wonder if I should allow myself to get arrested. Just so I can get close to him more easily.”

Will laughed. “I somehow doubt he’d come visit you in your jail cell. And even if he did—for whatever twisted reason—let’s just say, if you intend to convince Khrusos to drop the bounty on your head, and to sign an agreement with the Europans, doing so from a jail cell is hardly what I’d call a favorable bargaining position.”

“I suppose not.” She sat back. “Scratch that idea.”

“Consider it scratched,” he said.

She stared at the rocky plains. “I remember a time when I thought I was going to be a salvager, living a nomad’s life, roaming the Outlands, dodging bioweapons to get my salvage. How did we get here, to this place? Hunted by assassins. On the road to confront the most powerful man in the solar system?”

“You know how,” Will said.

“Because of a little mark upon my head?” she asked. “A mark that has since been sanded off?”

“Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we can’t run away from our past,” he said. “Eventually it catches up with us, and we have to face it. Just happens that in this case, your past is a little bit more… complicated, than everyone else’s.”

“I’ll say,” she told him. “Sometimes I just want to crawl into some cave in the Outlands, and simply disappear. Like Veil tried. But I know that eventually I’ll be hunted down. Just as I hunted down Veil. So this is the only option for me, as much as I’m afraid of it.”

She gazed at the portrait her fan had made. “I just hope I have what it takes to end this. I just hope I can be that brave, heroic woman again.”

“You don’t have to be that brave woman,” Will said. “Because you are her already.”

She looked at him, and smiled wanly. “Am I? Sometimes, I’m not so sure.”

“Yes, but when it matters, you are sure,” he said. “That’s what I like about you. When the crap hits the laser array, you’re always the first one to stand up and fight. You’ll do good, on Mars. I know you will. You’ll find a way to stop Khrusos, even if that means killing him.”

“Sadly, that’s what I’m afraid of most,” she said.

“What, that you’ll have to kill him?” Will asked.

“No, that I won’t be able to stop myself,” she replied.

* * *

Rhea enjoyed the final few days on Earth, and she was almost disappointed when DragonHunter called to announce that Targon was waiting in orbit.

The personal shuttle craft of the rich SubverseTube subscriber arrived. It was a big, chunky thing, with ostentatious wings and big gold lettering on the sides that had been partially plastered over to make the words ineligible.

“I wonder what that once said?” Horatio asked.

“‘Welcome To Your Doom,’ probably,” Renaldo said.

“Let’s go, before Aradne security arrives to investigate,” Rhea said.

“What, you think it’s suspicious that a personal shuttle would be landing next to a pipeline for no apparent reason?” Will asked.

“We can send a transmission, tell them the passengers had to take a pee,” Brinks said.

The shuttle had landed next to the green zone beneath the pipeline, so that when the door hatch flung upward, the green extended all the way to the ramp, shielding Rhea and the others from the prying eyes of the satellites as they loaded up. That would probably only further draw suspicion to the craft. She hoped they wouldn’t be stopped in orbit.

The shuttle departed a moment later. True to DragonHunter’s word, the vehicle was unmanned.

She gazed through the cabin windows, searching the horizon for signs of Aradne forces, but saw none.

“Rhea, the rentals,” Will said. He and the others were standing near the opposite cabin wall, where the assemblies of several spacesuit rentals hung from pegs.

She joined them, and together they helped each other don the provided rentals, as required by protocol.

Rhea didn’t need a spacesuit, of course, since her nano machines could form a translucent pressurized dome around her head; also, she suspected the same machines had reinforced her body with the equivalent of BNNTS—hydrogenated Boron Nitride NanoTubeS—to protect her sensitive internal circuitry from cosmic radiation. But she would follow the necessary protocol, if only to appease Targon, who likely wouldn’t let her board if she tried to enter without one of the rented suits. She’d likewise have to be suited up when she debarked on Mars, as per the decon procedure, which involved an intense scan for contagions. She’d done it before on Ganymede and doubted the red planet would be any different.

The shuttle continued to accelerate, finally entering orbit without issue. The craft proceeded toward their rendezvous with Targon’s transport.

It arrived after half an hour and lined up with the Molly Dook’s personnel hatch. The cabin shuddered, and Rhea turned toward the aft section, where the shuttle had a matching hatch. She watched it slide open.

She unbuckled and shoved off from her seat. As she passed through, Targon was there to greet her, also in his suit. He wore his usual jetpack.

“Hello again,” she transmitted, forcing a smile. It was customary to transmit when suited up, because the external microphone-internal speaker system combinations built into the helmets gave sound a tinny quality.

“Hello.” He returned. He didn’t bother to smile at her from behind his faceplate. He seemed agitated, more than anything else. “Get aboard. And be quick about it! Got customs coming to do a search!”

“Can’t you just leave orbit?” Brinks asked.

“Not unless I want me engines shot out!” Targon broadcasted. “Now get aboard!”

Will met Rhea’s eyes. “Guess they thought our shuttle was a little suspicious after all.”

She nodded. “Looks like I’m going to get arrested whether I like it or not.”

7

Rhea entered the cargo hold, crowding inside with the others.

Meanwhile Targon sealed the hatch that led to the shuttle, so the craft could be off.

“I just finished talking with the shuttle AI,” Targon transmitted. “It’s agreed to intercept the customs vessels. They’ll be wanting to board it, too, so that’ll buy us some time. Now someone come out here and help me.”

Rhea couldn’t reach the outer hallway—the others packed into the hold with her blocked the way. Horatio was closest to the exit, and emerged to assist Targon, who wasn’t visible from Rhea’s current position.

She requested permission to access Horatio’s cameras, and the robot accepted, allowing her to observe from its viewpoint.

Targon applied some sort of rod device to the deck and twisted. A panel lifted from the floor, and he left it floating in place in front of him. He proceeded to the left a pace and similarly removed another panel. He tossed Horatio a second rod, and the robot helped detach more floor pieces. Alcoves big enough to hold a human being lay beneath each—well, a folded up human being, anyway.

When Targon and Horatio had revealed six such alcoves, Targon transmitted: “Get out here and pick a cubbyhole!”

The Wardenites emerged from the hold in single file and pulled themselves into different alcoves in turn. Rhea floated along at the rear of the group.

“How can we be sure the customs personnel won’t detect us?” Will asked as he lowered himself into one of the recesses.

“These deck panels contain thermal masking technology!” Targon replied, as he secured a floor piece over Brink. “Best in the business. Plus, anti-scan tech that will thoroughly obfuscate the interiors. Trust me, ye won’t be discovered. This little craft used to belong to drug smugglers, ye know. Bought it from the impound. Now duck yer heads! And robot, get inside as well!”

Horatio ducked into the last remaining alcove, next to Rhea.

Targon moved from alcove to alcove and reattached the panels with his rod device. Rhea ducked her head when her turn came; the floor piece descended above her, locking in place and plunging her into darkness.

It was lucky she wasn’t claustrophobic. Well actually, that wasn’t entirely true. She didn’t quite like being cramped into such a tight space, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Without vision, her hearing seemed to take over as the dominant sense, and she was more aware of her inhales and exhales, which seemed loud in her helmet.

“Shut off yer comm nodes,” Targon transmitted. “Don’t be emitting signals that will give ye away!”

She obeyed, and lost contact with her companions.

She heard a muted thud—it was picked up by the helmet’s external microphones and retransmitted to her ears via the internal speakers. No doubt it was Targon, brushing against a bulkhead as he jetted past overhead, likely to the cockpit of the Molly Dook, which he called the “bridge.” Then there was only silence.

Several minutes of quiet passed. She heard the occasional clang as someone shifted in an alcove nearby. Those soft noises were a comfort, and reminded her that her friends were still there, similarly confined.

When her entire alcove shook, she knew another vessel had attached to the hull. Another vibration a moment later alerted her to the opening of the main hatch.

She heard intermittent clangs above as individuals shoved off or landed against different bulkheads or floor panels. She did not hear any voices, of course—Targon would be wearing his spacesuit, as would any members of the boarding party, if they were human anyway. She wasn’t sure what the protocol would be if the customs personnel were robots, as Horatio was required to wear a suit when transferring between vessels after all. But even if they were unsuited, their voices would have to be transmitted over a comm channel for Targon to hear in his helmet.

She heard nothing for several moments. Then a distant tapping sounded… a repeated staccato, like that of gloved fingers probing somewhere nearby. The sound gradually increased in volume, as if the customs official responsible was slowly getting closer, tapping his, her, or its fingers across the different deck panels.

If she had a human heart, it would have been beating faster. As it was, Rhea couldn’t help the increase in her breathing.

I’m going to be discovered.

She twisted the righthand glove of her spacesuit, opening it. As soon as the seal was broken, her suit’s internal life support system deactivated. She removed the glove and let it float beside her. She did the same with the lefthand glove.

She did this to expose the Ban’Shar, so that if she had to activate the knuckles, she wouldn’t needlessly destroy the gloves in the process.

The intermittent taps continued until they seemed to be coming from directly above her. She had the impression the customs official was trying to discern if the deck was hollow. Then the tapping ceased entirely.

Rhea froze, preparing for the worst. She held her breath. Silence never seemed so loud.

The tense moments ticked past.

One second.

Two.

Three.

And then the tapping came again, sounding softer. It continued to recede in volume—evidently, the customs official had moved on.

She exhaled in relief.

But then a loud thud came from directly above. She activated her LIDAR and white polygons outlined the alcove. A portion of the metal sheet over her head had bent inward, forming fingerlike depressions where strong digits had wrapped into the panel. Apparently at least one of the customs officials had remained behind, and it was a robot, judging from its strength.

The panel jerked upward violently, and she found herself gazing into the featureless face of a machine, as she had guessed. It was only inches from her own. And it was wearing a space suit.

Instinctively her hand shot up. She smashed through the glass composite of its faceplate and wrapped her fingers around its head. She squeezed, hard, and considered crushing its face in her grip, but something stopped her.

She hadn’t realized it, but apparently she’d authorized the release of nano machines well before she raised her hand, because they began flowing from her fingers and onto that metallic head an instant later.

The robot apparently didn’t have weaponry built into its forearms, because it drew a service pistol and attempted to point it down into the alcove at her, but she grabbed the weapon with her other hand and ripped it free.

Meanwhile, her nano machines crawled into its head via tiny openings: the vents comprising the mouth grill; the small gap between the antennae and the forehead.

She heard a muted clang as another robot shoved off from somewhere, likely toward her hiding place.

She threw the current robot back and it hurtled upward to strike the overhead hard. It repositioned its body, as if intending to shove off from the ceiling, but then it simply ceased moving and floated lifelessly in place. Her nano machines had taken effect.

She braced her body against the partitions of her alcove, ducking lower as she waited for the second robot to show itself.

The robot’s suited upper body floated past above her—it had its pistol pointed downward, into her hiding place.

She shoved off from the deck, activating the Ban’Shar knuckle in her left hand in disk mode to protect herself as the robot opened fire. She deactivated the Ban’Shar the instant before colliding with the robot, and gripped its gloved wrist, forcing the aim of the pistol aside.

At the same time her other hand shot up and she punched it through the faceplate. As with the first robot, the nano machines were already waiting on her fingers, and they swarmed the head, entering through the gaps and vents in the metallic skin.

As the robot struggled in her grasp, she spun her gaze about, searching for other opponents, prepared to use the machine as a shield against any customs officials that remained. She was also ready to activate her Ban’Shar. But the corridor proved empty save for Targon, who watched next to the cockpit entrance—it appeared only these two had boarded.

The robot abruptly went still and floated lifelessly in her grasp. She released it, shoving it away from her. She floated backward until she rested against the bulkhead above her former alcove.

She reenabled her comm node.

“What did ye do?” Targon asked, jetting forward.

“There was just the two of them?” Rhea said.

“Just the two,” Targon agreed.

“Let the others out.”

Targon retrieved the necessary rod. “What have ye done? We’ll be hunted all the way to Mars now. And if we somehow manage to reach the planet, Martian security will destroy me engines before we can even land. This isn’t good. Not at all. We’ll have to surrender, ye know.”

Targon used the rod to open the remaining floor panels. The Wardenites activated their comm nodes as they emerged.

Will floated to one of the disabled robots. “What happened?”

“I introduced the robots to my nano machines when they discovered me,” she said.

He glanced at Targon and taunted: “Guess the anti-scan tech these drug smugglers of yours had wasn’t the best in the business after all. Which would explain why the ship was originally impounded.”

Targon conceded the point with a drop of the eyes and a quick nod.

“So, what now?” Renaldo said. “We can’t just leave orbit. Not with a pair of damaged customs robots aboard our vessel. More security vessels will be arriving soon to check on them. We’re going to be arrested.”

“We could run,” Brinks suggested. “Take shelter in the asteroids until we find a different ship.”

“They’ll outrun us,” Miles said.

Targon threw up his arms. “That’s it. I’m ruined.”

And then the robots shifted in their spacesuits.

Rhea spun toward them, prepared to attack again.

The robots turned their heads to her. The movements were synchronized, and almost… expectant.

“What can we do for you, Mistress?” one of the robots asked over an open channel.

Rhea cocked her head and couldn’t help a malicious grin. She looked at Will.

“Did you know this would happen?” Will asked.

“No,” she replied. “I was acting instinctively. Apparently, these nano machines have more abilities than I was aware of. Far more abilities.” She returned her attention to the robots. “Go back to your ship, and report back to your superiors.”

“What shall we say?” the same robot asked.

“Tell your superiors the cargo checks out,” Rhea said. “There are no stowaways aboard. The shuttle was merely delivering supplies. Himalayan sea salt. If they ask you why the delivery shuttle landed near the pipeline, you can say the owner is an ardent collector of light field volumes.” Those were recordings of three-dimensional space that captured all light coming into a given area, so that the scene could be faithfully reproduced in virtual reality. “And he wanted to augment his collection with a view from beneath the pipeline. If your superiors inquire about your faceplates, tell them they were accidentally damaged during exit, due to a pressure mismatch. You will delete the logs of this conversation.”

“Understood,” the robot said.

She added one final instruction. “Once you are aboard your ship, continue obeying orders from your immediate superiors, until you hear from me again.”

She returned the pistol she had taken from the first robot and the two machines departed. The Wardenites flattened themselves against the bulkheads as the robots passed. It seemed obvious to Rhea that the men didn’t really trust them and didn’t want to allow the machines to get too close.

The hatch closed behind the robots and a moment later she felt the temporary vibrations as their craft broke away.

“Well, that was interesting,” Will said.

“You really think they’re going to follow through with what you told them?” Miles asked.

“Guess we’ll find out,” she replied to the albino. She glanced at Targon. “Set a course for Mars.”

She collected her gloves and entered the cargo hold. She set up her sleeping bag, securing it to the deck between the crates.

The others joined her and followed her example.

Targon jetted inside a short while later. “I set a course for Mars as ye asked. So far, customs is leaving us alone. Whatever ye did to those robots, it seems to be working.”

“Thanks for risking your neck for us,” Rhea told the man.

“And ye better not forget it, Warden!” Targon said. “I’ll be expecting ye to make up for this with many, many Robot Wars sessions.”

“I’m looking forward to it actually,” she said. “However, I have a request. While I’m okay with you recording all of our gaming sessions so you can stream them when you get back, I have to ask that you don’t rebroadcast what happened with the robots just now.”

Targon seemed hesitant. “But that was the best part!”

“Maybe,” she said. “But if people see that, a lot of them won’t understand. They’ll think I’m… I don’t know, an abomination. Dangerous.”

“Well, everyone knows ye are dangerous…” the merchant said. “Ye are the Warden, after all.”

“Please, do this for me,” she said. “I don’t want my enemies to know what I’m capable of.”

Targon sighed. “All right, all right, it’ll be our little secret. But ye are going to have to make up for it with some memorable Robot Wars games, I tell ye!”

“I will,” she promised.

“I want all of yer friends involved, too.” A gleam came to his eye as he ran his gaze across the Wardenites. “Fresh meat.”

“They’re looking forward to playing you,” she lied. “By the way, how did the other rebroadcasts go? You had quite a lot of footage from my last time aboard.”

“Went well,” Targon said. “I made a little money. Not as much as I was hoping, which explains why I’m still in the cargo hauling business. But it was decent. Enough to pay off a few of me monthly loan installments, anyway.”

“Good,” she said.

“So, when are we going to have our first game?” the merchant pressed.

“Later,” she said. “Let me get settled.”

“How about seven o’clock?” Targon asked. “Assuming we haven’t been reboarded by then.”

“We won’t be,” she replied. “And seven is fine.”

“Seven it is.”

“Excuse me,” Renaldo said, raising a tentative hand. “I don’t play VR games.”

“You’re going to play Robot Wars and like it, me boy!” Targon said. He nodded at Will. “Just ask Dirty Hair here.”

Will scowled. “Don’t call me Dirty Hair.”

Targon surveyed the Wardenites. “The entire bloody lot of ye are going to play. And if ye don’t, I’m spacing ye all.” With that, he jetted from the hold and the hatch closed.

“Is he always so… grumpy?” Renaldo asked.

“Only when he nearly loses his ship to customs,” she replied.

When he was gone, she removed her gloves again, and this time the arm assemblies of her suit as well, letting them float in front of her. Then she compared her bare forearms.

“What are you doing?” Will asked.

“Checking something.” She held her arms toward him. “Do you notice how my right forearm is slightly smaller, compared to the left? That’s because its material was used to create the nano machines that entered the robots.”

“Do the nano machines you gave up count toward your iteration limit?” Will asked. “As in, can you make more to replace them, along with the lost material in your forearm?”

“I believe the nano machines permanently integrated themselves with the robots’ AI cores,” she answered. “And thus destroyed themselves in the process. So in theory, those I gave up no longer count toward the iteration limit. But let’s find out.”

She tested the hypothesis by resting a hand on the bulkhead beside her and willing the nano machines to emerge. They did so and began collecting materials. Her forearm enlarged as nano machines returned with those materials, and the limb slowly returned to its previous girth. When her right forearm was the same size as the left, the nano machines abruptly ceased harvesting and retreated inside the vents in her metal skin.

She withdrew the hand, leaving behind a shallow imprint in the bulkhead.

“Theory proved,” she said.

“Your merchant friend isn’t going to be too happy when he sees you’ve left a handprint in his wall,” Will said.

“It’s not very deep,” Brinks said. “I’m sure the merchant won’t mind. He seems fond of the Warden.”

Rhea shrugged, then unstrapped herself from the deck. She repositioned a pile of crates in the zero G, securing them instead in front of the affected bulkhead so that the handprint was hidden from view.

She turned toward Will and smiled. “He can’t be angry about what he can’t see.”

8

Rhea got in trouble the next time Targon visited.

“Why are me crates moved?” the merchant asked. He promptly set about moving them back and discovered the handprint. “What’s this? Are ye eating up my hull with those metal insects of yours?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I wanted to check something.”

“Well, check it when ye are off me ship, please!” Targon said. “I’m granting ye a free ride, and yet ye go about disrespecting the very vessel that carries ye! Insufferable!”

“I’ll play you in Robot Wars now,” she said.

He opened mouth as if to continue to harangue, then his expression softened as the words registered. “Really? Ye intend to play now?”

“I do,” she said. “Let’s start it up!”

He clapped his hands together excitedly. “I’ll get it ready! Thank ye kindly, Warden.”

“We’re good then?” she asked.

“What?” Targon was already on the way out and paused to look over his shoulder at her. “Oh! Yes, yes, it’s just a tiny scratch. Easily repairable. I’m not too fussed about it.”

“You certainly seemed fussed a moment ago,” Miles commented.

Targon ignored him and jetted excitedly from the hold.

Rhea glanced at Will, who shrugged. “Don’t expect me to join you.”

“Come on, you can’t let me face him alone, not in the first game,” she said.

“Actually, I can,” Will said.

“Horatio, will you join me?” she pleaded.

“Of course I will,” Horatio said. “I’ve been pondering my defeat at his hands since our last voyage, and there are several new strategies I’d like to test.”

“Great!” Rhea said. “Anyone else?”

“I’ll give this game of yours a try,” Brinks said.

“I’ll have to pass,” Miles commented.

“Me too,” Renaldo told her. “Like I said, not a big VR gamer. I’m sure the merchant will force me to play eventually, but I’d rather delay that moment for as long as possible.”

“All right,” Rhea said.

And so she played Targon. The merchant teamed with Brinks, while Rhea paired with Horatio. It was one of the best games of her life, with a brilliant stratagem employed midway through by Horatio, but she still lost. It served as a bitter reminder that no matter how well-equipped she thought she might be, when she finally faced Khrusos, there was still a chance she might lose.

And so the days passed. She continued to play Robot Wars with Targon to make him happy. The others began to join in, finally caving under the constant goading of the merchant.

“You really think he’ll space me if I don’t play?” Renaldo asked.

“Doubt it,” Will replied. “But then again, you never really know with these merchant types. We’re in interplanetary space, after all. A lawless place. He could get away with it scot free.” Will was being sarcastic, but Renaldo seemed to take him literally, because the Wardenite joined in when Targon started the very next game.

While her days were devoted to the game, at least she had the nights to herself. Often, she couldn’t sleep, and simply stared at the ceiling. The game was partly responsible—it often put her in a hyperactive state—but nerves played a bigger role: what awaited her on Mars always loomed foremost in her thoughts.

During one of those sleepless nights, Horatio floated next to her sleeping bag and strapped himself to the deck.

She turned her head toward him, and said, with a volume loud enough only for his sensitive hearing: “How did you know I was awake?”

He matched her soft volume. “I could see your eyes open in the dark.” He paused. “Your play style has worsened these last few days. That first game you gave it your all. But not so much in subsequent sessions.”

“I’m too distracted,” she said. “I can’t get my mind off what lies ahead. I’m sorry, I’m not the best teammate to have in Robot Wars at the moment”

“Don’t be sorry, I’m sure it’s making our host happy,” he said. “Still, I can understand. You’re only human. Or your mind is, anyway.”

“Was that a compliment or an insult?” she asked.

“A little of both,” Horatio admitted. “You’ve come a long way… becoming so much more than the mind-wiped, helpless cyborg whose torso we found lying atop a rubble pile outside Rust Town.”

“I have, haven’t I?” She gazed at the virtual portrait she’d positioned on the overhead directly above: the heroic painting of her standing atop a bunch of dead Hydras. She’d set the portrait to glow so that she could see it regardless of the actual light levels: one of the benefits of AR tech.

“I just hope I can continue to live up to the high expectations you all have of me,” she continued.

“You will,” Horatio said. “We’re worried that we ourselves won’t live up to your high expectations.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “Because I don’t have any. I plan to face Khrusos alone.”

“You know we won’t let you,” Horatio said.

“This is something I have to do myself,” she said. “You’re welcome to accompany me to the palace. But I’m afraid that I’ll be going in on my own.”

“We shall see,” the robot said. “When this is over, you plan to return to Earth, I assume?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Probably. Why?”

“I think it might be interesting to stay on Mars for a while,” Horatio told her.

“You’re welcome to,” she said. “Assuming the government lets you.”

“Well, considering the Martian government seems to be inexorably tied to Khrusos at the moment, something tells me it will be a mess by the time you’re done.”

“Really, what makes you say that?” she asked, letting innocence fill her voice.

“Oh, just a hunch,” the robot replied sarcastically.

* * *

Miles watched as the eyes of his companions defocused and they all entered Robot Wars. He smiled and got up. Let them play their stupid game. He was done playing.

He unstrapped himself from the deck and shoved off toward the exit. He reached the hatch, and opened it, cringing at the loud moan of metal. He glanced over his shoulder, but no one had noticed, immersed as they were in that game. His eyes fell on the woman.

She was no longer the Warden to him, though he might still call her that openly. No, to him she was simply the Ganymedean, now. The traitor.

She had participated in the Great Calming and might have even been directly responsible. She had admitted as much in the cave after defeating Veil, when she had stated the black container in the tunnels beyond had been part of her vessel: an invasion ship from Ganymede that the people of Earth had shot down.

He felt no remorse over what he was about to do. None at all.

He exited the cargo hold and left the door open, not wanting to risk closing it and causing that metallic groan again.

He shoved off and headed down the corridor in the opposite direction of the cockpit, toward the aft hatch. He wanted to make sure there was as little hull between him and outer space as possible, and that hatch was his best bet.

He landed on the bulkhead next to it and retrieved his portable transmitter. He tuned it to an open channel and placed it next to the hatch. Then he hit the “transmit” button.

“My name is Miles Falasthorn, ID 548245,” he said. “I’m sending this transmission from the Molly Dook, a merchant class vessel from Earth, bound for Mars station Hongton. Though the passenger manifest is empty, you might be interested in knowing that in addition to myself and several other passengers, there is also a woman known on Earth as the Warden. ID 845146.”

With that, he ended the broadcast. He hid the transmitter once more, feeling like a great burden had lifted from his chest.

Now he could enjoy the rest of the voyage in complete relaxation.

Now he was free.

Your days are numbered, Ganymedean.

* * *

Rhea accessed the external cameras as they approached Mars. With Targon’s permission, of course.

To the starboard side, she could see the small grey dot of the massive satellite the Chinese had placed at the L1 Lagrange Point—a location of gravitational equilibrium that allowed the satellite to remain between Mars and the sun at all times, with zero fuel expenditure.

The satellite generated a powerful magnetic dipole that kept the solar radiation away from the planet, preventing the solar wind from stripping away the atmosphere the Chinese were slowly restoring. The device essentially functioned as an artificial magnetosphere, playing a similar role to the ring network that once protected Ganymede. When the Martian atmosphere built up further, it would also contribute to the planet’s protection, blocking galactic cosmic radiation courtesy of the water molecules in the air—there was a reason hydrogen was chosen as the major constituent of BNNTS fabrics, after all, interspersed as it was throughout the nanotubes.

Until then, the populace would remain inside the many geodesic domes scattered across the planet. The biggest such dome was Hongton, the Molly Dook’s destination. It also happened to serve as the capital and was the seat of the Chinese government.

The red planet loomed in the distance ahead, and it became bigger by the hour, until it dominated the view in front of them. Soon, all she could see was that red, pock-marked surface, as the Molly Dook made its final approach. The red coloration was due to the iron-rich minerals predominant in the crust.

Before the Chinese began their terraforming operation, the thin carbon dioxide atmosphere came in at one percent the thickness of Earth’s. These days it was closer to three percent—it would take another five hundred years before the Chinese brought it to levels on par with her homeworld.

And while three percent might still seem insubstantial compared to Earth, reentry friction still posed a significant problem. Rhea remembered asking Targon about it.

“Is a shuttle going to pick us up and bring us to the surface?” she inquired.

“Nope, me girl,” Targon said. “I’ve had the underside of me Molly Dook sprayed with PICA just for this trip.”

She frowned. “PICA?”

“Phenolic-Impregnated Carbon Ablator,” he replied. “It’s a heat shield. Had it done in Earth orbit.”

“And how thick is this spray-on coating?” she asked.

“Oh, a few millimeters,” he replied.

“That doesn’t sound very reassuring,” she told him.

He shrugged inside his suit. “It’s all we’ll be needing. Now if we were landing on Earth, of course, that’s a different story. No coating would save me ship from a descent into her hellishly thick atmosphere.”

Rhea still wasn’t entirely convinced. “Well, if you’re sure…”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t take me ship into the Martian atmosphere if I didn’t think it was safe,” he said. “I’ve used the coating a thousand times. Saves me the trouble of finding a shuttle. PICA in combination with a little strategic deceleration is all we’ll need to survive reentry. The shield will be burned away, of course, thanks to ablation… I’ll have to acquire a new coating when I return to pick you up. I consider it the cost of doing business with the red planet.”

Targon angled the nose of the vessel upward, and the Molly Dook began reentry. The camera feed became tinted orange, courtesy of the super-heated plasma that formed around the vessel.

She felt the slightest shift in G forces and knew Targon was activating reverse thrust to slow down. The inertial dampers would prevent her from feeling anything worse. In fact, while the dampers were operational, she rarely felt any forces at all.

On the camera feed, she saw bright sparks appearing in the orange plasma. They traveled upward, quickly vanishing from view.

“What are those sparks?” she asked over the comm.

“Sparks?” Targon asked.

“In the plasma,” she clarified.

“Oh, those… pieces of the heat shield burning away,” he explained cheerily.

She and the others all wore their suit rentals, mostly out of a concern for safety rather than to satisfy any protocol: she was scared to death of a hull breach during reentry. Her recent flashback of a doomed Ganymedean vessel plunging into the Earth’s atmosphere didn’t help matters…

And then the orange tint receded and the Molly Dook was through. She was relieved that the transport hadn’t burned up along with its heat shield.

Soon the geodesic dome of Hongton became visible on the surface ahead, and she adjusted the zoom level of the camera to get a better view. The panes were translucent, like the old Ganymede domes, because the magnetic dipole filtered most of the harmful radiation. The specialized glass, a patented composite of polycarbonate and BNNTS, deflected the remaining radiation, including cosmic rays. The Chinese had supposedly invented that glass, but she suspected they had stolen it from the Ganymedeans.

She could see skyscrapers inside and was reminded of a typical Earth city. Drones roved to and fro like a cloud of insects in the air above them.

But then the camera feed shut off.

“All right, it’s time for ye to get into your hidey-holes,” Targon transmitted.

According to the merchant, from time to time ships were chosen for a random search. If that happened to their vessel, they didn’t want to be caught lounging about the cargo hold.

Rhea and the others left the cargo bay and once more hid inside the deck alcoves in the hallway beyond. They remained inside their suits.

Targon replaced the floor panels, plunging each of them into darkness. “Comm nodes off.”

Rhea disabled her comm node. She had folded her knees against her chest, and now she hugged her arms around them as she waited for the landing. Gravity had returned a while ago, and she was firmly glued to the bottom of the alcove. The suit didn’t feel too heavy.

Before securing the gloves, she’d retrieved the Ban’Shar from the storage compartments in her thighs; they sat firmly around her knuckles, ready to be deployed if the situation warranted. The feel of the metal bands pressing against her palms was comforting.

In a few minutes she felt a deep vibration: the ship had touched down in a hangar bay inside the dome. That hangar would be pressurizing at this very moment.

She waited, and after several minutes she heard the clangs as Targon walked past overhead—clangs that were retransmitted by the internal speakers in her helmet. Another vibration came—no doubt the hatch opening, and the ramp deploying. More muted clangs reached her ears but receded as Targon evidently left the ship.

She felt a final vibration. That could only be the cargo bay doors opening. The freight would be removed by large, robotic arms. She heard muted thuds for the next ten minutes as that cargo was unloaded, and then nothing.

The team members had agreed to reactivate their comm nodes five minutes after it sounded like the cargo had been completely unloaded.

She waited the prerequisite five minutes, and then turned on her comm node. “Targon, is the coast clear?”

The merchant didn’t answer.

“He’s long gone,” Will said.

“He left without saying goodbye?” Rhea asked. “That’s odd. I expected he’d want to give us a proper send-off, you know, gloating about how good he is at Robot Wars and all.”

“I suspect he had good reason to leave,” Horatio said. “Likely lingering in the hangar bay would have aroused suspicion.”

“You’re probably right. But who’s going to get us out of these—” She shoved against the panel above her and was shocked when it lifted. “Targon forgot to secure the floor panels.”

Since the panels weren’t secured, the party members readily left their hiding places, and replaced the floor pieces beneath them. As she pulled herself out, Rhea noticed how light she felt: Mars was roughly half the size of Earth, and much less dense, putting the gravity at 0.38 G, or roughly a third that of her home planet.

“The atmosphere is pressurized,” Horatio transmitted. “We can remove our suits.”

“Is that really a good idea?” Renaldo asked. “If security catches us, who’s to say they won’t open the hangar bay doors and space us?”

“That’s quite illegal,” Horatio replied.

“Sure, but you never know with the Martians…” Renaldo said.

“It’ll look kind of odd if we walk the streets clad in spacesuits,” Rhea said.

“We’ll certainly attract attention…” Will said. “From the police.”

She took a moment to survey the interior of the Molly Dook. The exit hatch on the aft quarter was still open, and a ramp led down: she could see the gray wall of the hangar outside. To her right, the door to the cargo bay was also ajar. She took a few steps toward it. While gravity was one-third that of Earth, she didn’t quite bound-walk like on Ganymede, though her constituent parts did feel significantly lighter, as did the spacesuit. She’d certainly be able to jump a lot farther and higher than on Earth in this environment.

She reached the hold and tentatively peered past. She was ready to duck from view if the robot arms were still at work, but the mechanical limbs were nowhere in sight, and no crates remained in the hold. On the far side the doors were still open, and another gray wall awaited beyond.

“It’s clear,” she said.

The Wardenites spread out in the hall and cargo hold to remove their suits. When Rhea had doffed the bulky thing, she donned the gray uniform she’d picked out, which covered up her metallic body. She slid her brown cloak overtop and raised the hood, pulling the fringe low about her face.

Beneath the cloak she strapped on a utility belt, which had holsters for both the CommNixer pistols and ordinary blasters. Then she went back into the hall and removed the deck panel near the cockpit, revealing the special crate Targon had set aside. Inside were blasters, CommNixer pistols, and ammo bags containing spare disks for the latter weapons. She took one of each, sliding the pistols into her holsters, and securing a small bag to her belt. The others likewise geared up.

She returned to the hold, went to the opening, and unsheathed the CommNixer pistol. She overlaid the locations of the city’s security cameras onto her overhead map, using the data DragonHunter had provided, and sent those positions to the pistol to prime its aim. Then she leaned out from the cargo hold and aimed in the general direction of the closest cameras. She squeezed the trigger, and the smart pistol micro-adjusted the aim of three of the five muzzles, rotating them into place before releasing one disk for each of the three cameras in that direction.

The disks shot across the room and attached within one meter of each camera. That was good enough to block their signals.

She repeated the action on the left side of the hold, and this time four disks released. She leaped up, grabbing onto the upper rim of the opening, and slid the pistol past the dorsal portion of the craft. She squeezed the trigger without looking, and two disks released.

She let go of the rim and leaped down, landing softly on the hangar floor. She couldn’t help but smile at how light she felt.

This is the perfect planet to engage in a fight.

She held the pistol out past the starboard side of the Molly Dook and fired without looking. One more CommNixer launched.

She glanced at her overhead map, which indicated the cameras she’d tagged.

“That’s the last of them,” she said. “Let’s go before security gets here.” According to DragonHunter, that would be in another forty seconds, courtesy of airborne drones.

The others began to leap down behind her.

“That’s too high,” Renaldo said from the upper edge of the cargo hold.

“Dude,” Will said. “You weight three times less.” He shoved Renaldo forward.

Renaldo waved his arms for balance, then plunged. He fell at a bad angle, so Rhea caught him out of the air and set him down.

“Thank you, Warden,” he said breathlessly.

She nodded and leading the way, hurried between the other merchant vessels parked in the hangar bay. She kept the CommNixer pistol in hand for the cameras that awaited in the maintenance tunnel.

“Let Horatio go first,” Will said, coming up behind her.

“No,” she said. “I have the Ban’Shar.”

For once Will didn’t argue with her.

She reached the maintenance door with ten seconds to spare. The tunnel beyond would allow her and the others to bypass customs entirely.

The door was locked, so she stepped aside while Will fired at the handle with his plasma pistol. The handle, and part of the door melted away, leaving a gaping hole surrounded by orange hot edges.

She immediately stepped in front of Will and kicked open the door.

She found herself standing face-to-face with eight robot shock troops. Their forearm-mounted rifles were all aimed at her.

The clanging of feet behind her alerted her to the approach of more soldiers. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted several combat robots emerging from one of the parked merchant vessels, where they had been lying in wait.

Security drones swooped into the hangar bay from the main exit and took up positions in the air around the surrounded party.

9

Rhea turned her attention back to the fore, and the eight shock troops waiting there.

“Get down!” she shouted.

She dropped the CommNixer pistol and deployed both Ban’Shar.

The robots on both sides opened fire. She crouched, and redirected one Ban’Shar toward the troops behind her, and kept the other in front. Plasma bolts bounced off the blue disks that were her shields. She deflected some of the bolts into the robots in front of her, and meanwhile kept the rear disk angled slightly upward, to avoid a random deflection hitting her companions while she wasn’t watching.

From their positions on the floor behind her, the Wardenites opened fire, firing at the rearmost troops.

Rhea leaped forward, toward her enemies, and bashed her shield into any that stood in her path. The energy tore through them, dissolving the metal, and leaving behind dismembered body parts whose edges glowed a bright orange.

She transformed the weapon into a sword, and sliced across, defeating the remaining foes. A quick glance farther down the tunnel told her that more robots were coming.

She returned the Ban’Shar to a shield and deflected their attacks.

“Concentrate on the tunnel!” she told her companions as she retreated from the opening, and back into the hangar.

She swerved out of the line of fire of the tunnel, and raced into the hangar, toward the remaining robots from the transport. They had taken cover behind the same vessel.

Some of the Wardenites continued to pin down the robots there, covering her. A few bolts still targeted her, but she deflected them with her Ban’Shar.

Around her, some of the unarmed drones littered the floor, while the remainder buzzed about overhead, trying to dodge the Wardenite fire.

She took a running leap and jumped, easily reaching the top of the transport in the lower gravity. She vaulted to the other side and leaped down.

She transformed the Ban’Shar into twin blades as she fell toward her enemies.

The surprised robots tried to turn their aim upward but she plunged the weapons into the two closest, and swiped sideways, passing the blades through their bodies and into the robots immediately beside them.

She transformed the blades into disks to deflect the attacks of the remaining four robots, sending the bolts flying into two of them. She finished the remaining pair in two quick rushes.

Then she hurried out from behind the transport and toward the maintenance tunnel. The wreckages of the remaining drones lay scattered across the floor, courtesy of her Wardenites. Most of the men had gathered around the tunnel opening and were firing their plasma pistols liberally inside.

Rhea rushed right past them without pausing, trusting entirely that they’d cease firing. She held both Ban’Shars in front of her.

She deflected the bolts of the four robots that were still standing deeper in the tunnel.

“Hey!” Will shouted.

A bolt skimmed past her right shoulder from behind, narrowly missing her.

“Sorry,” she heard a distant voice say. Miles. “Got distracted.”

“You could have killed her!” Will was saying.

She tuned them out and thought no more on the matter. Accidents happened in the heat of combat.

She managed to deflect two bolts into the torsos of a pair of combat robots, and when she reached them, she mowed down the final two, so that they joined the wreckage of the others.

Her comrades were fast coming up behind her, so she continued forward.

“Dude!” Will called.

She glanced behind her, and he tossed her the CommNixer pistol that she’d abandoned at the entrance. He’d topped up the ammo.

She switched off her right Ban’Shar to catch it, and then swung her arm forward. She targeted the next camera ahead and took it out.

A bigger robot stepped into view from a side passage ahead. Two-legged, lacking arms. With forbidding-looking plasma turrets protruding from either side of its head, and RPG launchers mounted to the top of each leg.

“Stay back!” Rhea called over her shoulder.

The big robot unleashed its RPGs. Rhea ran forward, wanting to put as much distance between herself and her companions as possible. She sheathed the pistol and reactivated her remaining Ban’Shar, so that she had two shields to protect her.

The grenades struck her shields and detonated. She was shoved backward by the released energy, and the lower hem of her cloak and underlying outfit burned away. She hardly noticed and kept moving forward. If this had been Earth, she would have been pushed back a lot farther. But it was Mars.

She felt almost invincible here. It was similar to how she’d felt on Ganymede.

Have to be careful, not let myself grow overconfident.

She reached the robot and ran between its big metal legs. She slid her Ban’Shar disks outward as she passed, slicing through each limb entirely, and the robot collapsed behind her. She spun around and flung the disks down into its torso, cutting it in half.

The other Wardenites joined her and leaped over the wreckage.

She continued forward, pausing next to the side corridor from where the bigger robot had emerged. She peered past, holding her disks in front of her.

More combat robots were lying in wait, and opened fire.

She deflected the bolts, taking down three of them, and rushed the remainder. The Wardenites terminated another two with their plasma pistols before she reached them, so she only had four to skewer when she arrived.

When that was done, she surveyed the passageway, confirming that no more robots awaited, then turned around, a grim smile plastered across her lips.

“Try not to look like you’re enjoying yourself so much,” Will commented.

She took the lead once more, switching one hand back to the CommNixer pistol.

“They were waiting for us!” Brinks said from behind her. “In the hanger!”

“It seems obvious Targon betrayed us,” Miles commented.

“Wonder how much they paid the bastard,” Brinks said.

“Won’t be enough, for when I get my hands on him!” Rhea exclaimed.

From ahead, she could hear a muted alarm of some kind sounding in the terminal.

Pulling her hood low, she shot out another camera, and then rotated the Ban’Shar back into her hand before kicking open the door to the main terminal. Unsurprisingly, a ring of combat robots awaited. They all opened fire.

Moving in a blur, she deflected those bolts and executed a gymnastic routine from her muscle memory, which allowed her to flip behind her attackers. She beheaded two of the robots in midair with the edges of the disks, and when she landed, she continued swerving between them, employing the weapons to deadly effect. She transformed the Ban’Shar back and forth between swords and disks as suited the moment, an artist at work, her Ban’Shar the brushes, the robot soldiers her canvas.

Meanwhile the Wardenites were firing at the next group of robots that were rushing in from deeper in the terminal, and protected Rhea’s back.

Rhea finished with the latest group and turned to face the next. The alarm blasted loudly in her ears, but she hardly noticed it. She dashed forward to meet the machine rush, leaping over the random citizens in the terminal who had dropped to the floor to avoid getting shot.

She sprinted right up to any of the machines that opposed her and tore them apart if she wasn’t able to deflect their fire back at them. Some of the robots tried to take cover, hiding behind pillars or benches, but she hunted them all down with a grim smile on her face.

“Dude, let’s go!” Will shouted above the alarm.

She glanced at Will and saw that he was gazing nervously at the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that formed the main entrance to the terminal.

She looked that way: several two-legged walker robots were entering, forming a long line just inside the terminal. They were all armed with RPGs. Rhea knew they weren’t going to fire those weapons, not in here, not while so many civilians had yet to evacuate. Then again, this was Mars…

“Got more behind us, too!” Renaldo said, slamming shut the door to the maintenance tunnel.

“This way!” Rhea said, herding her companions toward the escalators that led to the lower levels. She kept her Ban’Shar directed toward the walkers, in case they did decide to open fire.

They did not. But they did give chase.

She took the lead and raced down the escalator. Her companions used their CommNixer pistols to shoot out the latest cameras.

“What’s the point of disabling the cameras?” Renaldo shouted. “They know where we are anyway!”

He was probably right. But Rhea didn’t answer, letting her companions continue to shoot at the cameras, so that they could at least feel like they were doing something to help.

She reached the lower levels. People were running frantically all around her.

The pedway was just ahead, according to the map.

Another group of combat robots emerged from the pedway.

Rhea didn’t slow. While her companions unleashed their weapons, she drew the fire of the robots, performing a series of acrobatic somersaults while deflecting their shots with her Ban’Shar. She landed in their midst and transformed the weapons into swords. She spun, tearing through the machine bodies. A group of them rushed her, and she leaped toward them, swirling her body as she did so, so that her blades cut into them like a horizontal rotor. When she landed, the sliced up remnants of the robots dropped to the floor all around her. It was over.

She leaped over the wreckages and into the pedway system. No more robots awaited within the tight confines.

“Let’s go!” she said.

At the top of the escalators behind them the walkers were appearing. Along with armed, airborne drones.

The Wardenites quickly piled into the pedway behind her.

The alarm wasn’t as loud here, but a red light intermittently flashed on and off.

“So many dead robots,” Horatio said. “Our enemy uses them like cannon fodder!”

“He does indeed,” Rhea said.

“Why don’t you convert some of them to your side?” Brinks asked. “Like you did the customs robots?”

Rhea glanced over her shoulder. “No time.”

“She’s right,” Will said. “You saw how long it takes.”

“Yeah, but we could use ourselves a robot army right about now!” Brinks said.

She raced through the concrete walls of the underground pedway system. The ceiling was about twice her height, with glow lamps embedded at intervals to provide ample illumination, and red lights still occasionally flashed among them. The passage was wide enough to fit ten people abreast.

There were a few other people in the pedway, but they all ran directly away from her. Either they had seen her terminating robots firsthand, or they’d noticed other citizens running away with fear written plainly all over their faces; it was also possible they’d received a warning of some kind on their augmented reality goggles.

There were ordinary delivery robots in the pedway system as well, some humanoid, some tread-based, and these all turned to face the wall as Rhea passed to let her know they intended no harm. She ignored them. But Miles blasted at a few of them.

“Can you stop that?” Horatio asked.

“Why?” Miles replied. “It’s fun.”

“Should we activate DragonHunter’s camera hack?” Will asked.

Rhea glanced at her overhead map: a security camera would soon be coming up.

She shook her head as she ran. “There’s no point. It was designed for a stealth scenario… and there’s nothing stealthy about this. We’re being chased by robots—essentially mobile cameras, feeding the city’s AI a constant stream of positional information. The AI knows where we are. If we use the hack now, blocking our images from the camera, we reveal the presence of DragonHunter’s code, essentially for no reason. The AI will track down the code and remove it. I’d rather save the hack for another day.”

“Assuming there is another day!” Will said. “All right, I’ll go ahead and disable the camera.”

He went ahead and fired a CommNixer at the incoming device, which was only just coming into view.

They continued past it. Several meters ahead the walls widened to form an underground concourse of sorts.

Behind them, the airborne drones swooped inside the pedway. Rhea dropped back to protect the rear of the party. Just in time: the drones unleashed plasma fire on approach.

Rhea deflected the bolts. “Take cover in the concourse ahead!”

The party members dashed into the concourse. Flashes behind her alerted her to another firefight taking place there. Rhea couldn’t help, not yet.

Ban’Shar in hand, she raced toward the hovering attackers. She deflected the attacks, sending a bolt straight back into the lead drone. She leaped onto the leftmost wall, shoving off to pass in front of the next drone, which she promptly rent in two.

She landed on the floor and immediately vaulted onto the rightmost wall, pushing off again to fly at the next drone, which she also split in half.

She continued to zigzag in that manner, using the lower gravity to assist her, bouncing from floor to wall to floor again, leaving the wreckages of falling drones in her wake.

When she’d reached the last of them, she turned around and hurried back to the concourse. She raced inside.

It was a food court, with fast-food outlets lining the walls. She noticed that CommNixers resided next to all the cameras she spotted, courtesy of her companions. Speaking of the latter, her Wardenites had taken cover behind tables, chairs, pillars and garbage receptacles at random positions in front of her.

Across from them, combat robots were similarly entrenched. Both sides were pinned and exchanging fire.

Plasma bolts came in at her from the enemy side but bounced harmlessly away from her energy shields.

Without hesitation she jumped onto a chair and then leaped from table to table, holding the Ban’Shar in front of her as she headed directly toward the enemy positions.

A combat robot tossed an energy grenade at her, but she batted it away with her Ban’Shar and it exploded harmlessly a few meters beside her. More grenades came in, but this time she deflected the bombs at those who had thrown them. She steered away from the resultant explosions and rushed the remaining robots. She converted her right Ban’Shar into a sword, and kept the left in shield form as she proceeded to weave among the enemy, blocking with her shield, and impaling with her sword, killing with such ease that it almost seemed too easy. She considered trying to convert some of these robots to her side, but decided against it, since the returns would only be diminishing—for every one she converted, ten more would arrive.

“Let’s go!” Rhea shouted at her companions when the last of the targets had gone down.

But then from ahead, on the eastern side of the food court, twenty more combat robots piled inside.

The clatter of heavy feet came from behind, along with the humming of angry bees: on the western side of the food court another twenty shock troops appeared, with a similar number of armed, airborne drones accompanying them.

Too many.

“This way!” She dashed toward one of the food outlets and took up a position in front of it, deflecting the attacks from the robots and drones to the west. Meanwhile, the Wardenites sprinted toward her, firing as they ran, targeting the robots on the eastern side, forcing the enemy there to take cover behind tables and pillars.

The Wardenites vaulted over the counter of the fast-food outlet in turn, and ducked underneath. When the last of them was over, Rhea leaped across the counter as well and joined them.

Will led the way, crawling into the back area where automated cooks prepared the food, and then crouching as he headed toward the back door. He opened it a crack, and then peered through.

“Clear!” He shoved past and entered the employees-only hallway.

“Go!” Rhea said.

The others followed Will into the tight hallway, and Rhea brought up the rear behind Renaldo.

The hallway could fit two of them abreast, but they ran in single file.

Rhea deactivated her right Ban’Shar and unholstered her plasma pistol instead. She kept glancing over her shoulder as she ran.

It didn’t take long before the airborne drones swooped into the hallway behind. She shot them down in turn and deflected a few bolts that came in with her Ban’Shar.

The passage took a hard left, and soon the drones were out of view.

“Drop!” Will shouted.

The men dropped, but Rhea remained standing; she tilted her Ban’Shar to the front in time to deflect against the plasma attack launched by a walker robot that blocked the way forward.

The men opened fire from their positions on the floor, and Rhea leaped over them, carefully placing her feet until she was past Will and heading for the walker. She kept the Ban’Shar in front of her to deflect its attacks and fired over the top with her pistol; by the time she reached the robot, it was completely disabled, and toppled to lean against the wall on one side.

Rhea squeezed past it. “Come on! We have to get to the palace!”

The men got up and forced their way past the wreckage of the large robot.

She rounded a ninety-degree bend, only to find herself facing down another two-legged walker, twenty meters ahead; between its iron legs she could see more walkers, all lined up in a row. Had to be at least twenty of them, if not more, blocking the corridor all the way down.

She quickly crouched behind her Ban’Shar as the lead walker opened fire, and backed away until she stood at the intersection of the two corridors, while she decided what to do. From the passage beside her came the buzzing of drones. The men dropped again.

She redirected one of her Ban’Shar that way to protect herself from the drone attacks; she kept the shield angled upward to avoid killing her men with an accidental deflection. It was a relief that the drones targeted her only, even though the men were firing back at the airborne machines.

“Warden,” came a voice from beside her.

Keeping her Ban’Shar in place, she glanced that way.

A door had opened in the wall. A man stood there. A black robe clung to his thin frame; the hood was raised, its low hanging hem hiding his face.

“Come with me, Warden,” the man pressed urgently. He glanced both ways.

Rhea continued to take fire, but her Ban’Shar held. “Who are you?”

“A friend!” the man said. “Now come!”

His voice was strangely familiar…

“I have to get to the palace!” she told the man. “Can you take me?”

“No!” he said. “You can’t enter the palace. If you do, you will die.”

“I won’t die,” Rhea said, deflecting more bolts. “I can take on an entire army!”

“You said that the last time,” the man said. “You don’t know what technology Khrusos possesses. Technology he has hoarded, stolen from Ganymede. Trust me. You will die. If not in body, then in mind.”

“Who are you?” Rhea asked again.

Still he did not answer. She returned her attention to the walker robots that blocked the path in front of her.

“I can take them!” Rhea insisted.

“You can, perhaps,” the man said. “But what about them?” He nodded at the Wardenites still lying flat on the floor beside her.

More and more airborne drones continued to join the fray, so that the air above the Wardenites became a thick mass of plasma streams. She could smell the ionized particles.

“Dude, make up your mind!” Will said.

“I’m not coming until you tell me who you are,” she told the newcomer.

The man hesitated, then raised his hands to lower the black hood.

He was square-jawed, with an aristocratic chin and high cheekbones. He had a shaven head.

She recognized him instantly. He had been in the very first flashback she’d ever had, while observing the Parliament Building through Gizmo’s camera feed. In her memory, he’d been wearing a golden medallion around his neck, above white robes, with a red, tasseled rope girthing his waist.

Do not fail me in this task, my Dagger, the man had said to her in the memory.

Seeing the recognition in her eyes, he nodded, and lifted his hood once more. Then he turned around and entered the thin passageway beyond.

She’d looked up images of Khrusos, so she knew this wasn’t him. But was he truly a friend, like he claimed?

The incoming plasma attacks made up her mind for her.

“Follow him!” she said.

She remained in place, holding off the attacks while the Wardenites crawled past her one-by-one into the passageway that had opened.

When the last of them had gone through, she backed inside after them, and the door automatically sealed behind her.

10

The door behind Rhea began to glow red in the center from the impacts it was taking on the other side, and she quickly backed away. As she moved farther away from it, more doors began to seal behind her, further fortifying the passageway and ensuring the escape of her and her companions.

She spun around to face the forward direction. The roof of the corridor was low, almost brushing the heads of the taller members of the party and wasn’t any wider than the employees-only passageway she’d just left, so that she and her companions were forced to travel in single file. She gazed past the Wardenites.

“Where are we?” Rhea asked, projecting her voice toward the black-robed man who guided them.

“The secret underground passages of Hongton,” the man at the fore announced. “The robots cannot come here. They’re programming won’t allow it.”

“Doesn’t seem to stop them from firing at the wall…” Will commented.

In the distance, the corridor was dark, but overhead lights activated in turn as motion sensors detected the advance.

“Who made this?” Horatio asked.

“The Martian government designed this place for its officials, in case of an attack,” the man explained. “It connects all the major government buildings and leads to a series of underground bunkers. I’ve coopted one of them for us.”

“Won’t the city’s AI know we’re here?” Rhea asked. “Considering the robots watched us enter…”

“It will know,” the man agreed. “However, it will not reveal this knowledge to anyone. This is part of its programming and is meant to prevent betrayal in the event the city falls. Would you want the AI of your city capable of revealing your hiding place to the enemy? You’ll also notice there are no cameras in these halls. No one knows we’re here, and the only way we’ll be discovered is if we stay here long enough to encounter the weekly inspectors. That gives us a few days.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Will said. “If I was part of the city’s security operation, and I knew the AI wouldn’t report on anyone who fled into the underground tunnel system, this would be the first place I’d look.”

“Yes, except no humans are part of the city’s security team,” the man said. “Everything is handled by machines. It’s the law here, in fact: robots are impartial, and can’t be bribed or otherwise corrupted. They’re the perfect law enforcement officers. There are, of course, a handful of party officials who know about these tunnels, and they’ll put two and two together. It’s possible they might even come looking for us in here. But since they can’t bring any robot bodyguards with them, I doubt it. More likely they’ll send in bounty hunters, of a cyborg ilk. And we may have to face such bounty hunters at some point, this is true. Or these party officials might simply decide that we’re better off left alone. I suppose we’ll see. It really depends on how long we intend to stay here.”

“Where are you taking us?” Rhea asked.

“A safe place,” the man replied. “Somewhere less claustrophobic, where we can talk.”

The group continued through the tight corridor, which occasionally turned right or left ninety degrees. Side passages began to branch off, but their guide ignored them, at least at first. Finally, he turned down one such passage, and took stairs down into darkness. Overhead lights kicked in when the motion sensors detected them.

The stairs opened into a wide room. Lights activated, revealing an auditorium of sorts. Seats were set in neat rows along a sloping floor to a stage below.

The steps continued downward, forming an aisle between the seats. The robed man started to lead them down this walkway.

Rhea glanced at Horatio. “Keep watch in the corridor outside.”

Horatio nodded, then climbed back up the stairs and out of the room.

Meanwhile, she and the others followed the robed man to the stage.

He beckoned toward the chairs. “Have a seat.”

The man crossed the stage, sitting behind a desk next to a podium.

Rhea and her companions seated themselves in the first row next to the stage.

“So, what now?” Brinks asked.

“Now he’s going to tell us who he is,” Rhea said.

From behind his desk, the man glanced at the Wardenites in turn. “Are you sure you want to do this here, in front of your companions? Perhaps we should ask them to leave, for a little while.”

“They are in my deepest confidence,” Rhea said. “They’ve been with me through thick and thin. Anything you say to me, they deserve to hear.”

He pursed his lips, then: “My name is Burhawk. I am your mentor. I trained you to be what you are.”

She arched an eyebrow. “And what am I?”

Burhawk stared into her eyes, unblinking. “President Khrusos’ most skilled assassin. At least you were, once. He sent you to dispatch his greatest enemies. You helped him consolidate his power.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Rhea said. “Considering I’m a hated Ganymedean.”

“He captured you when you came to Earth with the others of your moon,” Burhawk said. “Like the remaining prisoners of war, he wiped your mind. But when it became obvious you still retained certain fighting skills and abilities, despite the wipe, he assigned you to me. And I trained you as an assassin.”

“I don’t believe it,” Rhea said.

“Why do you think you have muscle memory for swords and throwing knives, and all the acrobatic skills an assassin might need?” Burhawk nodded at the weapons that hung from her hips. “Did you have the same muscle memory for those pistols, or did you have to learn them from scratch?”

She didn’t answer, but he did have a point. She remembered the countless hours spent training on the pistol, whereas she had needed no training whatsoever for the X2-59. She instinctively knew how to use the bladed weapon.

“That’s only because I’m a Ganymedean warrior,” Rhea said. “We have weapons that are similar.”

Burhawk nodded. “Your Ban’Shar. But still, think about it: how similar is an X2-59 to the energy weapon that is the Ban’Shar? The weight and feel are completely different. The former has some actual heft in your palm—you can feel its position even with your eyes closed. Whereas the latter is almost weightless, and if you’re not keeping track of its every movement, you’re liable to slice off one of your own limbs.

“I’m the one who trained you on the bladed weapons. That has nothing to do with your warrior heritage. Why blades? Well, for one thing, we didn’t have access to Ban’Shar. For another, you were an assassin. Swords and throwing daggers are the assassin’s weapons, easily forged from common metals after entering a city. This allowed you to subvert the weapons ban common to most big cities and settlements. As a former Ganymedean warrior, it was easy enough for you to adapt; you took to the sword readily, as the forms were similar to what you learned wielding the Ban’Shar, even if the weight was drastically different. It took me only a few weeks to turn you from Ganymedean warrior into Khrusos’ personal killing machine.”

“So this is why she called me the Dagger of Khrusos,” Rhea said. “Veil.”

“That would be why,” Burhawk agreed.

Rhea cocked her head. “If you’re my mentor, someone who trained me to be the Dagger of Khrusos, doesn’t that mean you serve him?”

“I do, or I did,” Burhawk agreed. “But I’m retired now. You’re part of the reason of that retirement, in fact.”

She waited for him to explain, but when he didn’t, she told him: “In the hallway outside the secret tunnel, when I told you I wanted to get to the palace, you said I would die. I responded that I could take on an entire army. And then you claimed I said that ‘the last time.’ What last time?”

“You tried to kill Khrusos,” Burhawk said. “It’s a long story.”

Rhea gestured toward the empty auditorium. “We have time.”

“Some.” He leaned back in his chair on the stage and set his palms down on the table. “We wiped your mind. We filled the void with very specific indoctrinations, training you not only to be an assassin, but to follow the orders of Khrusos without question. Your every quiet moment was spent reflecting on how grateful and devoted to Khrusos you were. Despite all of this, eventually Khrusos began to lose control. Eventually, some of your memories began to come back.

“It started little by little at first, as sometimes happens to those who have been wiped. Everyone’s brains are wired slightly different after all, so it’s not guaranteed the wipe will catch every memory, especially for someone like you, a Ganymedean: you’re part of a human population that has lived away from Earth long enough to have evolved almost into an entirely separate sub-species. So it’s not surprising the wipe didn’t entirely take.

“These memories were triggered by certain sights and smells, and slowly, over thirty years, you finally put together who you were. You kept it to yourself, hiding it from even me. But then you reached a tipping point. I don’t know what it was, you never told me. It could’ve been something Khrusos said to you, or some memory that triggered. Whatever the case, you tried to assassinate him for it. And failed.

“That was when he ordered your destruction. You fled to Earth in a shuttle craft. But his men caught up with you, boarding your vessel before you could land. You fought bravely against those who came to take you in, but eventually succumbed. You fell, hurtling from the craft, your body shattered, plunging into a canyon. I was there, watching in my own craft inside that canyon: Khrusos ordered me to witness your death. But when you fell into that rocky defile, I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. I didn’t have the heart to let you die. Though I called you Dagger, you had become the daughter I never had. So I accelerated and managed to scoop the remnants of your body out of the air with my craft. Then I fled, undetected by the others.

“I reported to Khrusos that you were slain, your body lost in the canyon. He ordered me to find it. I ignored that order, and instead hid you. When I could not produce your body, Khrusos informed me that I no longer was in his employ. When I returned to Mars, I was never to set foot in the presidential palace again. That was fine with me. I had grown weary of this work. In any case, back to you… you were unconscious after the fight. I stabilized you as much as I was able, and arranged another memory wipe, because I knew that otherwise you would only return to try again. When it was done, I destroyed the robot that applied the wipe, then I set you down in the ruins next to the closest city, near a pair of salvagers I’d sighted in the area. When they took you, and I saw that you were safe, I departed.”

Rhea stared at him for several moments after he finished. “So you’re the one who wiped my mind? When I was unconscious, and basically dying, my body ripped to shreds…”

“It was for your own protection, and frankly I shouldn’t have bothered, because here you are,” he said. “I thought I’d have at least another thirty years before you arrived. I was wrong. I’ve been following your career closely, ever since you made a name for yourself in that Hydra attack. I’ve even tried to help you, now and again, so I suppose it’s not surprising that you’d find your way here so quickly.”

Her brow furrowed. “Help me? How?”

“Do you remember, when you penetrated city hall, a lone drone dropped a pistol to you?” Burhawk said. “And then, when you were scheduled to be chipped by the mayor, your binds magically opened? That was me, in both cases.”

“So that’s who it was…” she said.

“Yes,” he told her. “Just as I’m helping you now, by stopping you from continuing down this path.”

Rhea studied him. “Except you can’t stop me. I have to see Khrusos. I need to make him understand I won’t have his assassins hunting me down for the rest of my life.”

“It’s not Khrusos who wants you assassinated,” Burhawk said offhandedly.

“What?” she said, sitting up. “Of course it is.”

“No, you’re mistaken,” Burhawk insisted. “My contacts in the palace tell me he was amused more than anything else when you first cropped up in the slums outside Aradne. Imagine that, his Dagger had become the Warden, Defeater of Hydras, Protector of Rust Town. According to my sources, he was no longer angry at your betrayal, and wanted you back. I’m not sure what he planned… keep in mind, he doesn’t know you’ve been wiped. Perhaps he intended to mind-jack you.

“Either way, I believe he expected you to return of your own accord, at the very least to try killing him again. But when you didn’t, I think he grew impatient, and ordered your arrest to accelerate the process. He might have thought he was protecting you as well, because I’m sure he’s heard about the attempts on your life by now.”

“So wait,” Rhea said. “You’re certain he didn’t place a bounty on my head?”

“I am,” Burhawk told her. “I’m good friends with the man who took over my position as Liaison to Assassins. He assures me Khrusos has laid no bounties on your head. Personally, I believe the president regretted his hasty decision to have you executed in the first place. He often spoke of you fondly, so I can imagine he misses you.”

“So, if it wasn’t Khrusos, then who is it that wants me killed?” Rhea asked.

Burhawk shrugged. “You’ve always been hunted by assassins. Since the day you started working for Khrusos you became a target.”

She shook her head. “Well, this was all great and everything, but I still need to talk to Khrusos.”

“Why?”

“First of all, I want to see if I can convince him to sign a deal with the Europans for access to Ganymede’s water,” she said. “Second of all, I want to know why I turned on him. Why I tried to kill him. Unless you can tell me.”

“Ah.” Burhawk smiled sadly. “As I said, I don’t know. You fled after your failed assassination attempt, and when I found you, you were unconscious. I decided your reasons didn’t matter, since I would be wiping your mind shortly anyway. It would also prevent me from having to lie to you if you ever confronted me about it, like just now. But if Khrusos tells you, it will only make you want to kill him all over again. You know that, don’t you?”

She stared at him for several moments, then tapped her chin. “You said I was captured when I came to Earth with others from Ganymede. What was my original mission?”

“That I don’t know,” Burhawk replied. “Only Khrusos can tell you that.”

“There you go,” she said. “Another reason why I must see him.”

Burhawk sighed. “Obstinate, stubborn Dagger.” He spat the words as if he was cursing. “Well, if you’re really intent on doing this, then at least accept my guidance.”

“You’re going to betray your former boss?” she asked.

“What he’s doing to Earth, what’s he’s done…” Burhawk shook his head. “No one deserves to maintain power after such atrocities. He led us into a war we could not win and gave up when the water could have been ours. He’s a fraud. A sham. I used to idolize him. I realize how misguided I was. I stayed on, serving him all these years, only because I hoped the Khrusos I had met in my youth would return. But he’s long gone, replaced by the twisted, power hungry thing that now sits on the High Council. He will doom Earth. By the time he dismissed me, I was more than ready to go. This is why I will help you. Why I have helped you.”

“So, it’s settled then,” she said. “You will visit Khrusos. And you will help me.”

Burhawk stood up. “I will help you. But bring your Ban’Shar. One of you will die during the meeting.”

“We’ll see,” she said. “I’ll need to know what sort of defenses Khrusos has at his disposal in the palace. I’ll also need to know where he is, inside.”

“It’s not hard to find him,” Burhawk said. “He’s essentially taken over the entire palace. The Martian Paramount Leader doesn’t even live there anymore. As for defenses, I’ll tell you what I know. But before we do any of this, there’s someone else I want you to meet, first. Someone who might change your mind.”

11

Rhea followed Burhawk and the others through the winding corridors of the secret underground passageway. He paused next to a storeroom containing several black robes. He distributed them to the party.

“Put these on,” he said.

Rhea swapped her existing hooded cloak for the robe, and let the hood hang low over her head. The others likewise donned the fabrics.

“Disable your comm nodes,” he said. “That way there’s no chance of your IDs being scanned. Oh and, wear the hoods of the robes low, like your Warden and myself. After your little scuffle at the terminal, the city’s AI will be watching for your faces.”

“Won’t we stand out, wearing these?” Will asked as he raised his hood. “Unless everyone dresses this way.”

“There’s a growing number of people on Mars who do dress this way, yes,” Burhawk said. “They’re part of a privacy-conscious movement sweeping the planet. The robes are meant as a form of protest and prevent the facial recognition technology from registering and identifying their features. There’s a piece of legislation waiting to pass that will ban such attire, but it’s still legal at the moment. Just as the city can’t force us to connect to their wireless networks to reveal our IDs. As an added bonus, the robes will also conceal your weapons: the fabric is lead-lined. Remote scans won’t penetrate.”

When they were all dressed, Burhawk continued to lead the way through the corridors.

Rhea was close to the center of the group, following behind Miles. Will was just behind her.

“Do you think he’s telling the truth about all this?” Will asked softly, placing his head close to her shoulder.

“He does seem to have intimate knowledge of my situation that no one else should,” Rhea replied, at an equal volume. “He knew that a drone gave me a pistol in city hall, and he knew that someone unlocked my handcuffs. That’s something only a handful of people are aware of. You, Horatio, and the Wardenites in this corridor. No one else has that knowledge.”

“Still, I don’t trust him,” Will said. “He could be leading us into a trap.”

“Why rescue us from the robots, only to lead us right back to them?” she asked. “Or to Khrusos himself?”

“Because he might want to claim the bounty on your head,” Will said. “It might be true that Khrusos didn’t set that bounty. Or it might not. Either way, I doubt this dude cares, as long as he collects.”

“I remember his face,” Rhea said. “If that counts for anything.”

“I don’t know, does it?” Will asked. “Do you remember if he was a friend? Because that’s the more important memory…”

“That, I don’t,” she replied. “But if he truly did help me at city hall, and prevented me from getting chipped, then he’s someone we can trust.”

“He might have been doing that for other reasons,” Will said. “Again, you don’t really know him, or his motivations.”

Rhea shrugged. “We’ll just have to be on our toes.”

“Come on, I hear the sarcasm,” he said. “Don’t be naive about this.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic,” she told him seriously. “I meant what I said. We’ll have to keep on our toes. And I intend to.”

“Good,” Will said.

Burhawk soon led them to the surface, emerging in a minor governmental building. The corridor they stepped into had no cameras, according to the map data she had. And there were no robots waiting to accost or record them.

Burhawk led them into the street beyond via a back door. A quick glance at her map confirmed once again that no cameras resided nearby.

He led them down a ramp and to the sidewalk, where they passed by a group of sentry robots standing at an intersection. The machines didn’t accost them, probably because the Wardenites kept their heads bowed.

Around her, skyscrapers towered in the air, and after the robots were well behind her, she risked an upward glance to take in the view. The buildings were very much like the crystalline towers of Aradne, but much taller, glittering brightly beneath the sun’s rays. She supposed that with a geodesic framework enclosing the city, thus limiting growth outward, the only direction the builders could expand was up, at least until they reached the inner boundaries of the dome. Some of the skyscrapers in the center of the city reached so high that they almost touched the glass ceiling. Beyond that glass, the sky was a bright red.

She lowered her gaze, because there were a lot of drones buzzing overhead, and while many of them were couriers, she didn’t want to risk having her face recorded by any of them.

A few roadside sellers offered miniature versions of the dome: tiny buildings duplicated inside crystal balls, minus the geodesic lines composing the larger framework. When the miniatures were shaken, small particles would float into the air, simulating snow.

The road traffic to her right seemed dominated by delivery vehicles. There were some self-driving buses and taxis, but her party couldn’t use them: the social credit system of Hongton required active comm nodes in order to board public transportation. At least according to DragonHunter.

On the sidewalk, delivery robots and remote-controlled androids composed much of the foot traffic, though there were also locals, both human and cyborg, who looked to be of Chinese descent. They didn’t wear parkas like on Ganymede—the inner environment here was a comfortable seventy-one degrees Fahrenheit, as the Martians didn’t have to worry about melting through the crust, which was made of iron-rich rock rather than ice. Because of the warmer air, the dress code seemed fairly casual, and dominated by bright colors; the youth wore clothing shredded so badly that she could often see their underwear.

“And I thought grunge was bad on Earth…” Will quipped.

The biceps and thighs of the humans she saw were smaller than usual, given the adaptions their bodies had made to the lower gravity. However, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the human limbs she had seen on Ganymede, which appeared outright skeletal.

The gaits of the passersby were identical to that of humans striding across a typical Earth city, again no doubt because of those muscle adaptions. However, the cyborgs and robots among them had a certain bounce to their step, which Rhea and the others possessed as well. After Rhea pointed it out, she and the Wardenites were careful to mimic the gaits of the human residents instead. And because the robes they wore were so bulky, no one would be able to tell how well-built their frames were underneath, compared to the typical Martian.

As she continued along the pavement, she noted a good number of privacy-conscious individuals wore black robes with the hoods pulled low, like Rhea and the others, which made her feel less out of place.

She remembered DragonHunter’s warning regarding the cameras built into the AR goggles of passersby, cameras that the city’s AI was very likely to tap into, and she purposely tilted her head away from anyone who walked by, be they human, cyborg or robot. The others were doing the same. She and her companions also made a point of keeping their heads down when passing any of the cameras marked out on the map, or when walking underneath the roving security drones that traveled to and fro overhead.

As she walked those streets and spotted the different robot sentries standing guard at every intersection, a plan to take the presidential palace began to form in her head.

“How much of a lag is there between the time a robot records something on the street, and the time it actually sends the data off to the main AI for processing?” she asked Burhawk.

“Because there are so many robots and security cameras transmitting throughout the city, you can imagine it uses up a lot of bandwidth,” Burhawk said. “So the robots have to queue. In ordinary circumstance, it’s about one minute for any particular robot or camera. Though groups of robots can jump the queue in a time of crisis. So, for example, if there’s some sort of robbery, or some wanted criminal arriving in the terminal, the robots and cameras in the immediate area can have their queue positions bumped up, dropping the lag to less than a second if necessary. Meanwhile, other robots in the city will have their transmission lag doubled. It can be good for diversions.”

That only made her plan all the more viable. And it wasn’t even the diversion part that excited her.

She put the idea in the back of her mind to let it simmer. She’d share it with the others when the time was right. She still needed to know what kind of defenses she could expect to find inside, and what sort of weapons Khrusos carried on his person. Burhawk claimed he had hoarded Ganymede technology. That could pose a problem.

The man led the group to part of the city where the buildings were only mid-rise, versus all-out skyscrapers. Here, personal air pods weaved to and fro among the buildings, at a height just above the drones. They were probably self-driving, like similar vehicles on Earth.

At the bottom of these mid-rise buildings were often different stores, manned by robots: a clothing store, a refrigeration shop, a power cell stand. Most of them lacked any obvious inventory, but no doubt 3D printers in the back printed up purchases on demand. Delivery drones or robots would park in front to receive any completed orders, then take flight or walk away with the parcels.

There was occasionally a cafe or restaurant as well among the stores, but these were mostly empty save for a few customers. The staff were automated.

Higher up, the buildings contained residential suites with balconies and windows. There was always at least one lobby nestled between the stores of the first floor, with a locked door that led to the elevators or stairways providing access to those suites.

Burhawk stopped in front of one such door. His eyes defocused, and Rhea had the impression he was temporarily reactivating his comm node.

He spoke a moment later. “It’s me.”

The door clicked open.

Burhawk glanced over his shoulder at Rhea, giving her a significant look, then he stepped inside.

Confused by that look, Rhea followed.

“Do I know this person?” she asked as she followed him up the first flight of stairs.

Burhawk didn’t look back at her as he said: “That remains to be seen.”

After climbing several of those zigzagging flights, Burhawk stepped into the hallway of the fifth floor. He proceeded to the door directly in front of the elevator.

It was ajar.

He pushed it open and entered.

Rhea followed. The air with was hazy, and smelled of sweet spice, as if someone was burning incense.

The kitchen was close to the entrance, and she walked past the island with Burhawk and the others, entering the living room next to it.

The furniture was old and threadbare, as if the owner could afford only hand-me-downs. The curtains were closed, blocking out much of the light, so that the room was dim and murky.

Seated on a tattered couch beneath the curtains, past that swirling haze, sat a woman with her head bowed so low that Rhea couldn’t see her face. Long black hair hung down on either side of her head, further concealing her features.

She was dressed in a loose-fitting, long-sleeved blouse, paired with sweatpants and runners. Metallic hands were visible beneath the sleeves of the blouse, hinting at a potential cyborg. On the coffee table in front of her, an incense stick burned in a tray.

“Min,” Burhawk said.

The woman looked up.

Rhea recognized her immediately.

Like Rhea, she had eyes that were much too big, and a mouth too wide, to be human, which sent her face into the uncanny valley. Her other features were relatively normal: a button nose, thin brows, high cheekbones. She was the very same woman Rhea had seen in the flashback that had come to her on Ganymede, when she had been exploring one of the destroyed domes of her people.

“Sensei,” Rhea said, lowering her hood.

Min glanced at Burhawk. “I thought you said she was wiped?” The woman even sounded the same.

“She has been,” Burhawk said. “Believe me. But her memories seem to be coming back faster than before.”

The woman nodded. “It happens sometimes in subsequent wipes. They fail to take entirely. The engrams of the mind adapt, the weakest are sieved out, leaving only the strong.” She looked off into the distance. “The memories that are used most are likeliest to remain: the muscle memories of the body, and of the tongue.”

“Teacher,” Rhea said, returning the woman’s focus to her.

“Don’t call me that,” Min said. “Never call me that.”

“Why?” Rhea said. “It’s who you are.”

“You don’t understand,” the woman said. “I’m the one who set the bounty on your head.”

Rhea switched to an attack posture and activated her Ban’Shar.

12

“Why?” Rhea said, her voice little more than a hiss, like the drawing of a blade from its sheath.

The other Wardenites followed her lead, unholstering their hidden pistols; some pointed them at Burhawk, others Min.

The Ban’Shar had cut through her long sleeves when they emerged, and the constituent plasma disks tinted everyone blue in the swirling murk.

“I didn’t realize your mind had been wiped at that point, nor that you were free of mind chips,” Min said. “Burhawk told me this only recently. I had already quadrupled the bounty on your head by then. I thought you were still Khrusos’ pet. His Dagger. When I saw you on the streaming sites, fighting those bioweapons—the Hydras—I believed it part of some campaign to increase the president’s popularity in some way. That you would reveal to the world that you fought for him all this time, and that he was the one who ordered you to protect Rust Town, or some such garbage. I was wrong.

“Even when Khrusos issued the warrant for your arrest, I still thought it some ruse… some big show to recall you in a manner that would deter assassination. But then your mentor came to me. I nearly killed him”—Burhawk snorted at that—“but something held my hand. He said he had been trying to track me down for years. I didn’t believe it when he told me you had attempted to assassinate the president, nor that he had personally seen to your subsequent mind wipe. I laughed and told him never to return. But then a few days later—today—I saw footage of you fighting against the security robots in the space terminal. That was when I knew I had made a very big mistake.”

Rhea stared at the woman for several moments.

“So you posted the bounty to kill the Dagger of Khrusos?” Rhea asked. “And not the Warden of Rust Town?”

Min nodded. “That is correct.”

Rhea tentatively deactivated the Ban’Shar. But she remained in a battle crouch. Will and the others lowered their weapons.

She glanced at Will. “Why did Veil tell me it was Khrusos himself who posted the bounty?”

“Dunno,” Will said. “Maybe she had unresolved business with the president and wanted you to conclude that business for her.”

“I can tell you why,” Min said.

Rhea and Will returned their gaze to her.

Min continued: “When I posted the job, I used the alias ‘Harbinger 59,’ a reference to a Trojan Khrusos made many years ago, which allowed him to hack into the Department of Defense and consolidate his control over the space navy. I knew there would be a few bounty hunters applying for the job who would recognize the alias, but I never thought any of them would actually believe it was the real Khrusos. Apparently there were: such as Veil.”

Rhea studied her old sensei.

“So I’m not the last Ganymedean after all,” Rhea said after a moment.

“No,” Min agreed. “There are a small network of us left. A handful, scattered throughout the solar system.”

“What was our original mission?” Rhea asked. “When we came to Earth? I remember escaping from a Ganymedean ship burning up in reentry, and nothing more.”

“Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to recall what our mission was, even after all these years,” Min said. “Khrusos is the only one who knows.”

Rhea cocked her head in confusion.

“Oh,” the woman said. “Yes, you wouldn’t know this. Like you, my mind was wiped. I became a slave of Khrusos, and lived in his palace on Earth, until moving with him to Mars. Also like you, I began to remember. But when I finally realized who I was, rather than trying to assassinate Khrusos, I took the more prudent course of action and ran away, going into hiding.”

“Why did you want to assassinate me, a fellow Ganymedean?” Rhea asked. “Yes, I was the Dagger, but I was also your sister. One of your pupils at that.”

“You were my greatest student,” Min said. “I couldn’t bear the idea of you continuing to serve that beast. I remembered you as you were, and the thought of your skills being perverted to perform such evil deeds was too much for me to bear. If I couldn’t kill Khrusos, at least I could kill you, his favorite pet, and thus free you from his servitude, and deny him his most powerful weapon. It was cruel, perhaps, but I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.”

The woman’s gaze drifted to Rhea’s exposed hands, and she stood up, coming closer. She didn’t lift her eyes from those hands. Something strange glinted within them, but for only a moment. Rhea wasn’t quite sure what it was. Greed?

“This technology was believed lost,” Min said. “May I?”

She extended her fingers, and glanced at Rhea, as if requesting permission to touch her.

Rhea nodded.

Min touched Rhea’s hand, and slowly intertwined her smaller fingers between Rhea’s.

The touch was intimate, yet also probing.

Rhea was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and was about to ask Min to let go, when the woman squeezed, hard. Rhea attempted to pull away, but Min held fast. Rhea couldn’t move her fingers at all—and she certainly couldn’t form them into a fist, meaning she could not access the Ban’Shar of that hand.

She considered activating the opposite Ban’Shar, but held back for the moment, mostly out of respect to the woman who was once her teacher.

“Let go,” Rhea told her.

Will looked between Rhea and Min, seeming unsure of what was going on, and obviously wondering whether to intervene. Her other companions seemed equally confused.

Will finally raised his pistol, and looked at Rhea, waiting for her to give the signal. The others followed his lead.

The nano machines inside Rhea began to activate of their own accord. Vents opened up in her hand, and the metal insects began to flow onto Min’s fingers.

Rhea suddenly understood what Min was doing: by touching her, the woman had somehow gained control of her nano machines. As her former sensei, of course it made sense that she would know things about the technology that Rhea didn’t.

Perhaps Min was merely making a copy of the nano machines. Duplicating them, so that both of them could harbor the technology. But no, that didn’t make sense, given what Rhea knew of the iteration limit. A memory somewhere at the back of her mind told her that the machines had to be made in a special lab, and could not be duplicated in the field, only transferred.

So Min could only be trying to steal the technology away from her, and once the woman had taken them all, they would be gone. Permanently.

For a moment, Rhea considered simply giving up the technology to her former sensei. After all, Min had years more experience than Rhea, and would know better how to use the machines. That she had taken control of them from Rhea attested to that knowledge.

And yet Rhea couldn’t help the sudden building anger she felt. The woman hadn’t even asked. She thought merely to take the technology from Rhea. Force it from her. As if Rhea would ever let another person treat her this way.

No, Rhea refused to give them up. Not even to her former teacher. Rhea was as good a carrier as anyone for the nano machines. What she did not know, Min could teach her.

Thus, filled with anger, Rhea activated the Ban’Shar of her other hand. She converted it into a blade and pressed the tip into the neck of her former sensei. “Release me!”

The Wardenites stepped forward threateningly, keeping their pistols pointed at Min’s head. Burhawk stepped back in shock.

The woman’s chin finally darted up. Her eyes met Rhea’s. They were filled with defiance and greed. She did not let go.

“You might have been my mentor once,” Rhea said. “But that was years ago. I’ve come into my own. If you don’t let me go, I will kill you.”

Min seemed to notice the Ban’Shar blade for the first time, and the pistols trained on her head. Her expression softened, becoming sad.

She released Rhea’s hand and backed away. When she reached the couch, she slumped back down.

Rhea deactivated the Ban’Shar and glanced at her Wardenites. “At ease.”

Her companions had kept their pistols trained on Min the whole time, and reluctantly lowered them.

“I didn’t know that was possible,” Rhea said. “Stealing nano machines from another.”

“There is much you don’t know about the technology,” Min agreed. “You should give it to me.” That gleam of avarice flashed in her eyes once more.

Rhea gave her a fake smile. “No thanks.”

She bent over to touch a metal chair leg and replenished the nano machines she had lost, which would have the added effect of deactivating any of the technology Min had stolen. The leg dissolved, and the chair toppled over.

Rhea stood to meet her former sensei’s eyes once more.

Min lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry, my sister. Forgive me. I yearn so much for what was lost. I shouldn’t have done that…”

“Happens to the best of us,” Rhea commented reassuringly, though she wasn’t quite sure she meant it. She thought of something. “What was my name?”

“Your name?” Min said.

“Yes,” Rhea said. “On Ganymede. When I was your student.”

Min frowned. “We didn’t actually employ the real names of students during training. I only know your training designation, which is four-forty-four-C. Sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rhea said. “I have a new name, now.”

“Yes… Warden,” Min said.

“Teach me how to use this technology,” Rhea said. “I want to know what you did when you grabbed me hand.”

Min hesitated, then glanced at the Wardenites, who gave her dirty looks. She sighed, then asked Rhea to give her some of the nano machines so she could show her. Rhea did so.

“It’s a matter of reaching out with your mind,” Min said. “Through the skin and feeling the minds of the machines. Touch my hand.”

Rhea did so.

“Do you feel anything?” Min asked.

“The texture of your palm,” Rhea said. “Fibrous. Patterned. Warm.”

“No,” Min said. “With your mind. Forget the tactile sensations of your physical body. Concentrate on the world beyond the physical. The nano technology is designed to communicate with your mind-machine interface on a graviton band. You will not feel a thing with your body. Become one with the nano machines in your fingers. Communicate with their technology. Only then will you sense the living machines inside me.”

Rhea closed her eyes and tried to do as the sensei asked. She ignored the sensation of Min’s hand in hers and tried to focus on the world beyond the physical.

Finally, she opened her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Come on, you know how to do this,” Min said. “Or you did, once. It’s just that this particular ability hasn’t seen as much use as your other skills over the past thirty years. Try again. Focus. Leave your eyes open this time. Look through my palm. See inside me.”

Rhea kept her eyes open this time and stared at Min’s fingers. She imagined the living machines inside her hand, envisioning them as vibrating at a certain frequency. Then she visualized the nano technology inside Min’s palm, and in her mind’s eyes, she had them oscillating at that very same frequency.

And then she felt them.

She released Min’s hand, shocked.

“You sensed them,” Min said.

Rhea nodded.

“Now touch me again,” Min said. “You are to continue doing so until you detect the machines inside me without thinking about it.”

And so Rhea touched her hand once more and released it when she sensed the machines. Then she repeated this again and again, until she no longer had to visualize the nano machines, and instead perceived them only a few moments after she gripped Min’s palm. She was building up the muscle memory. Reinforcing the neural connections of engrams that were weak from disuse.

“Now that you sense them upon touch, take control of them,” Min said.

Rhea wrapped her hand around Min’s. In an instant she recognized the throbbing of machine life within, the hundred or so power sources of each individual nano unit, pulsing with energy. They seemed to be speaking to her. Yearning for her.

“Command them to join you,” Min said.

Rhea did so and was thrilled when the metal insects poured out of Min’s hand and back into her own.

When it was all said and done, she wasn’t certain how useful this ability would be, given she wasn’t fighting Ganymedeans, and the technology was deemed lost. Still, it was good to know. Especially if someone stole a portion of them from her again.

Min didn’t have anything else new to teach her. Transforming the body, repairing, taking control of standard human AIs, Rhea knew all of that already.

Thus, when she was done her lesson, Rhea turned toward the woman. “I have a favor to ask.”

Min arced an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“As my sister, and a fellow Ganymedean, will you help me confront Khrusos?” Rhea asked.

“I’m not sure we want her with us,” Will said. “Not after what she just tried to do.”

“She made up for it after, by teaching me,” Rhea told him. “Besides, she’s my sensei. She trained me. You give her a proper weapon, it’s like having another version of me in the party.”

“What makes you think I want to help you?” Min asked, straightening defiantly on the couch.

“Because you hate Khrusos,” Rhea replied. “You tried to have me assassinated merely because you thought I still served him. So of course, if you had a chance to confront him, you’d take it.”

“I’d prefer a chance to kill him,” Min murmured. “But that isn’t possible.”

“See?” Burhawk said. “Even she understands how impossible the task before us is.”

“I only want to talk to him,” Rhea told the both of them.

“Khrusos won’t talk to you,” Min said. “You’ll never get close to him. Not until your mind is wiped, or you’re chipped. That’s the only way.”

“So you won’t even try?” Rhea said.

Min sighed and slumped once more. “I…. I’m not your sensei anymore. I haven’t fought in years.”

“But the muscle memory never goes,” Rhea said. “The mind-machine interface sees to that. We’re cyborgs.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Min said. “You don’t know how our brain works. Our minds are human. If we don’t practice something, we’ll lose it. Sure, it might take a little longer than an ordinary human before it’s gone, but in the end, without use it still goes.”

“But we can learn it again, faster than before,” Rhea said.

Min pursed her lips. “This is true.”

“I can give her some weapons training,” Burhawk said. “If you like.”

Rhea glanced at the man. “Probably a good idea. If she agrees to join us.”

“I still think we should leave her behind,” Will said.

“I agree,” Miles said. His eyes were full of hatred as he gazed upon the woman. Was he angry because Min had dared lay a hand on Rhea? Or because of something else…

Before Rhea could consider the thought further, Min said: “My entire life, I have sat back and watched as Khrusos destroyed everything that was dear to me. My world. My students. You. I will come. I must. But there is something you should know. And this is very important. Khrusos can neutralize your nano machines. In his throne room, where he resides, he possesses a special beam that can pass straight through the Ban’Shar.”

Rhea glanced at Burhawk, who nodded.

“That beam is part of the defenses Khrusos possesses,” Burhawk said. “It is based on Ganymedean technology. He has multiple beam turrets situated throughout the throne room. I can provide a map of them, but those turrets are omnidirectional, so even though you know where they are, it will be very difficult to get close to him.”

“Then I’ll bring a different body,” Rhea said. “One that doesn’t contain nano machines.”

“The beams will disable an ordinary machine body as well,” Min said. “You will be frozen in place if you are hit. Helpless for what he does to you next.”

“Then I’ll dodge the beams,” Rhea said.

Min glanced at Burhawk for confirmation of that.

“They can be evaded,” Burhawk said. “They emit a telltale glow moments before firing. Your first goal upon entering the throne room should be to disable them.”

“This begs the obvious question,” Will said. “Are ordinary humans affected by these beams?”

“No,” Burhawk said. “But there are plasma cannons in the room as well. Operated by an advanced AI—you humans react and move much too slowly to stand a chance. I suggest you and the men stay outside of the throne room and guard our back, at least until we can clear both the beam turrets and plasma cannons. Unless you want your Warden to divert precious energy defending you…”

“Does Khrusos have similar beams and cannons located anywhere else in the palace?” Rhea asked.

“No,” Burhawk said. “There are some plasma cannons lining the outer wall, but that’s about it. There are no turrets in the halls. Even so, there are still a plethora of defense robots roaming the grounds, making up for that. They’ll gather the instant an intrusion is detected.”

She studied Burhawk. “You are cyborg, correct?”

“I am,” he said. “I am one of those who will go with you to the very end.”

“I’m coming, too,” Will said.

“No, you’re not,” Rhea told him. “You will stop at the door to the throne room. At least until we can clear the turrets within.”

Will frowned but didn’t contest her.

“How do we know Khrusos will even be in this throne room of his when we arrive?” Horatio asked. “Do we know his schedule?”

“He never leaves the throne room,” Burhawk said. “It’s his permanent residence. He conducts all business for the United Settlements, the High Council, and Mars from within. He eats there, sleeps there, defecates there.”

“Interesting way to live,” Brinks commented. “Sounds like a pigsty.”

“It’s one of the cleanest places you’ll ever see,” Burhawk said. “Along with the deadliest.”

“The door to the throne requires a special entry code, if I remember correctly,” Min said.

“Yes, I can handle that,” Burhawk said. “I know how to bypass the code, even if it’s been changed. But the question is, how are we even going to get close to the throne room? It’s guarded at all hours. When I said there was a plethora of robots on the grounds, I wasn’t kidding. That isn’t something to be taken lightly. There are so many places where you can be pinned down and fired upon from multiple angles. I highly doubt those glow shields of yours will be enough. We’re going to need an army…”

They were all looking at Rhea expectantly. “I have an idea.”

She revealed the plan that had been simmering inside her head.

13

Rhea strode beneath the crystalline skyscrapers with Will and the Wardenites. They wore their black robes, the raised hoods pulled low about their heads. As usual, Rhea and the others were careful to match the gait of the locals, and they kept their gazes diverted when passing security cameras, or other foot traffic.

A pair of sentry robots stood at the corner of an intersection ahead. They had their backs to her, and observed the passing vehicles, and pedestrians. Instead of having rifles barrels built-in to their forearms, they carried actual separate weapons.

Hidden beneath the canopy of a street-side cafe, Horatio watched the sky from across the road, and transmitted the locations of any nearby security drones that hovered overhead. She checked her map, and confirmed no airborne drones were nearby, and that the closest security cameras had a poor view of what she intended. Indeed, the bodies of the robots would block her almost entirely from said cameras.

Her two preconditions satisfied, she broke away from the Wardenites and approached the intersection. When she arrived, she glanced both ways, confirming no other robots were nearby. She lingered behind the sentries, waiting for the foot traffic to pass, then checked her map one last time. After verifying no drones had arrived since the last glance, she stepped forward and placed her hands on the cold shoulders of the robots. She already had nano machines deployed and at the ready, so that when she made contact, several of the tiny metal insects flowed onto her targets.

She removed her hands as the robots turned around, and she dropped her gaze to conceal her face in shadow.

“Can we help you?” one of the robots asked.

It would take a moment for the nano technology to reach the AI cores from the shoulder area, so Rhea shook her bowed head and simply said, in an altered voice: “I mistook you for someone else.”

She inclined her head lower before turning about and quickly walking away.

She hid in a side alley, where the other Wardenites were waiting for her.

“Did it work?” Will asked.

“We’ll know soon enough.” She peered past the edge of the alleyway.

The robots had returned their attention to the road and seemed unaffected. As the seconds ticked past, she was beginning to fear that the nano machines had failed to take, but then the heads of both robots bowed suddenly. Their arms drooped downward as well, so that they nearly dropped the rifles they carried.

They remained frozen like that for the next minute, as if powered off. A passing man paused to rap one of the robots on the head with his knuckles, and when it didn’t respond he shrugged and moved on, muttering something. Her sensitive ears picked up: “Only in Hongton.”

After a full sixty seconds had passed, the robots raised their arms and heads once more, standing up straight. They began to look about, as if searching for someone.

“There we go.” Rhea confirmed no airborne drones were watching, then stepped from cover and went to them.

“What can we do for you, Mistress?” one of the robots asked.

She gave them their orders and ended with: “You will delete all logs of this conversation.”

She smiled inside as those words left her lips. The robots had a one-minute lag time between their recording of external data, and its transmission to the central AI: the conversation would never reach the city’s main computer.

“Understood,” the robot said.

Rhea momentarily activated her wireless mesh network, setting it to minimum transmission range, and recorded the remote IDs of the two machines. On the overhead map the indicators of both robots changed from red to blue, marking them as hers.

With that done, she disabled her network once more, turned around and left.

She rejoined the Wardenites, and they retreated. Horatio mirrored their route on the opposite side of the street, ready to resume his skywatching when the next opportunity presented itself.

Thus, she continued through the city, keeping her hood pulled low, and converting different robots to her side as the opportunities presented themselves. She usually went for pairs of sentries standing close together, but occasionally she converted a larger walker, or a drone hovering low to the ground, always from behind. Sometimes the robots seemed angry that she had touched them—especially the walkers—and demanded that she enable her comm node and lower her hood. In those later instances she always refused them, stating in an altered voice that it was her right to wear her clothing as she wished.

She always strode away regardless of what the machines demanded, giving the nano machines the time they needed to work. Once a walker actually followed her, and she was worried it was going to shoot her down, but then it promptly froze as it rebooted.

Horatio occasionally disabled an unfortunately placed camera with a CommNixer to enable a conversion. Horatio did this by subtly tossing the magnetic disk with his hand, rather than relying upon the more conspicuous pistol.

Rhea paused next to metallic structures now and then, such as benches or lamp posts, to surreptitiously replenish her spent nano machines. Will or one of the other Wardenites often screened her body with their own if there were any cameras around. Upon walking away, she would leave subtle handprints in said metal.

She was careful to move to a different neighborhood after taking a certain number of robots: the city’s AI would be wondering why robots were rebooting with an alarming frequency in a particular neighborhood, and in addition to running diagnostic checks to look for viruses and so forth, it would also start beefing up security. It would also likely lower the transmission lag time for machines in the area… if that happened, and the AI realized a certain black-robed Martian was speaking to the robots right before they rebooted, then anyone wearing a black robe in the neighborhood would be stopped for questioning, and likely forced to reveal their faces, regardless of the legality.

She knew she had converted too many robots in one particular neighborhood when Horatio reported an increase in the number of airborne drones surveilling the skies there. She quickly vacated with her companions, and from that point on, out of an abundance of caution, she started converting only a single robot per neighborhood—she was worried the AI would begin dropping the transmission lag time to zero for a given area the instant even one machine rebooted. She also only chose robots that were positioned perfectly relative to the closest cameras, so that Horatio didn’t have to risk deploying CommNixers.

Thus, it took longer than she had originally anticipated to accumulate her robot army. By midafternoon, as the rendezvous time approached, she reluctantly stopped the process and headed toward the palace with her Wardenites.

“You think we have enough?” Will asked her.

“What we have will have to be,” Rhea replied.

“We could probably spend a few more days doing this,” Will said. “If you think it will help.”

“Not a good idea,” Horatio said. “The longer we delay, the greater our chance of discovery. The AI has recalled at least some of the robots for a physical examination by now. They’ll be opened up… and the AI will realize what we’ve done very soon, if it hasn’t already.”

“Horatio is right,” Rhea said. “We have to make our move now if we want an audience with Khrusos. One that’s not from a jail cell.”

She reached Palace Square close to the appointed time. Though it was essentially a large traffic circle with a fountain in the middle, vehicles and couriers weren’t allowed in the square, so that left out most cars and other delivery robots. But there were a few cyborg and human pedestrians, probably tourists, given their builds—which were more muscular than the typical Martian.

The fountain at the center of the square had a statue depicting the Paramount Leader. It towered into the air, dwarfing smaller statues of mermaids. Water spouted from the mouths and tails of the latter.

“Well, the Paramount Leader certainly is fond of himself,” Brinks said.

“Honestly, given what I’ve heard, I was expecting a statue of Khrusos,” Renaldo commented.

“He likes to share the limelight, apparently,” Will said.

“Or maybe he’s just happy being the puppet master,” Rhea told him.

“Much like you, Warden?” Miles asked.

She glanced at him and arched an eyebrow.

“Your robot army…” Miles clarified.

She nodded. “I understood the reference. I’m just wondering what I owe your recent insolence to. It seems you’ve been upset with me for a while now.”

Miles lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been… stressed.”

She decided to accept that answer, for now. He had reason to be stressed, considering they were all about to risk their lives.

They proceeded to cross the cobblestoned square. Among passersby, no one else wore black robes here, which made Rhea feel a tad conspicuous. If the main AI was watching for citizens clad in black robes, courtesy of Rhea’s little reboot experiments, it certainly wouldn’t let the lot of them approach the Presidential Palace.

But no machines intervened.

Ahead, the ribbed iron wall that surrounded the palace thrust from the ground, towering into the sky. Wicked turrets protruded at regular intervals atop the structure, and scanned the square below, as if ready to atomize aggressors. Beyond the turrets, armed drones circled in holding patterns.

Poking up from beyond the wall were the spires of the Presidential Palace. Tall, lithe things covered in iridescent tiles that glinted in the sun.

She focused her gaze directly ahead, toward the main gate—a chain link fence set amid the wall. The gate was big enough to allow vehicle traffic in two directions, and in fact, Rhea could see two distinct lanes demarcated on the palace grounds beyond.

The fence was currently closed, with two large walkers standing guard on either side. These intimidating war machines had multiple turrets projecting from either side of their torsos. They were essentially gunships with legs.

“Has anyone else ever noticed these Martian walkers look like chickens?” Brinks asked.

“Ostriches,” Will replied. “They look like ostriches.”

“Somehow, making fun of them doesn’t make them any less forbidding,” Renaldo said.

“No, it doesn’t.” Will glanced at Rhea. “You know, I’m going to be glad when this is finally over.”

“It’ll be over, one way or another,” Rhea agreed, her voice grim.

They loitered in the square not far from the walkers, and pretended to be admiring the fountain; they were careful to keep their faces angled away from any cameras, including those that might reside in the observing robots nearby, or the AR goggles of tourists.

At the designated time, Burhawk and Min strolled into the square and joined them. They were also dressed in black robes.

“Did you get her the weapons she needs?” Rhea asked Burhawk.

Burhawk nodded. “An X2-59 and a pistol. She didn’t need any training with the latter.”

Rhea glanced at Min, who shrugged.

“I’ve gotten quite good with a pistol in recent years,” Min said. “It’s the X2-59 I was a bit rusty with.”

“I spent the afternoon getting her up to speed on the blade,” Burhawk said. “She learns amazingly fast.”

Min shrugged. “Isn’t much different from a Ban’Shar, except for the weight. Speaking of which, I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about giving me one of the knuckles?”

“No, I haven’t,” Rhea said.

“Too bad,” Min said. “We would have made a great team. It would have been like old times. Though I suppose it will be anyway. Master and pupil, fighting side by side once more against the hated enemy of the Ganymedean people: Khrusos.”

Rhea caught Miles glaring at Min, and when the albino noticed her gaze, he quickly lowered his eyes.

“And how about you?” Rhea asked Burhawk. “Arms?”

“Got an energy rifle hidden beneath my robe,” Burhawk answered. “Procured from a black-market dealer. Also got myself a pair of X2-59 equivalents, strapped to either wrist, along with several smaller swords and throwing knives belted to my hips.”

Will whistled. “You’re going all out today. Like the assassination mentor you once were.”

Nearby, the chain link fence slid open, wide enough for an infantry robot to emerge. It walked right up to the Wardenite party. Rhea and the others were quick to look down.

“Move along,” the sentry said. “There is no loitering in the Palace Square.”

“Yes, sorry,” Rhea said in her altered voice. She and the others turned around and pretended to make their way toward the far side of the square. Meanwhile the sentry retreated back to the palace grounds, and the fence sealed behind it.

Before she had gone very far, she heard the clang of metallic feet to the south, at the edge of the square. When she glanced that way and saw the long line of robots approaching—her robots—she understood why the sentry wanted to clear them out. Its master, the main AI, was worried about collateral damage. Or perhaps it feared her robed group was somehow involved in this uprising.

“Wow, did you get so many of them?” Will commented. “Seems like a lot.”

“They’re not all mine…” Rhea told Will.

She activated her comm node. She didn’t connect to the local Internet, and kept her maximum transmission distance within five meters for the time being—there were no enemies close enough to receive her signal, and hence record her ID. But she was still well within receiving range of the wireless mesh network generated by the incoming machines. As such, when she glanced at her overhead map, she saw the data she was looking for: the dots representing the units she’d marked earlier appeared in blue, whereas the indicators of the robots not belonging to her were red. On her HUD, the machines directly in view were also further differentiated by outlines, with those that she owned colored blue, while the opposing units were red.

She made note of the enemy positions: in the air above her troops, armed drones controlled by the main AI circled in holding patterns. Some of her own octocopters were among them, and from the looks of it, they hadn’t yet revealed their intentions, as none of the other drones seemed to be paying them any heed.

There were also several walkers and infantry units traveling alongside that weren’t hers, shadowing the advance.

The AI was no doubt preparing to open fire with these escort units, to disable the machines that weren’t responding to its commands. She suspected the AI wouldn’t let her robots get much closer to the palace and was probably waiting for Rhea and the others to clear out before issuing the order to open fire. And if the Wardenites didn’t get out of there fast enough, the AI would probably issue the order anyway. Or perhaps Khrusos himself would.

Sorry to disappoint you, Khrusos, she thought. But we’re not leaving.

She increased the range of her wireless mesh network and switched to directional mode, focusing on the foremost of her troops. She was trying to avoid leaking her ID to the surrounding antagonists: it wouldn’t do to be shot at before she could even set foot in the palace grounds.

And although she only targeted a subset of the robots with her transmission, she knew they’d rebroadcast it on to the others under her command.

“Rush the gates,” Rhea transmitted to her army. “Fire at will.”

14

Rhea watched the robots under her command dash forward. The machines unleashed their weapons at the same time, targeting the turrets that lined the upper walkways along the wall, along with the overhead drones, and the enemy units shadowing them on either flank.

The opposing octocopters and ground troops returned fire. As did the turrets lining the walkway overhead. And the two walkers next to the gate.

Rhea and the others pretended to take cover next to the wall.

“Don’t target the walkers next to the gate,” Rhea transmitted to her steel minions.

The robots obeyed her instructions, and concentrated their fire on all the other units, including the turret platforms on the wall. Meanwhile her troops continued to race across the square toward the gate; their ranks opened up as they reached the fountain and were forced to steer around it.

Rhea left the Wardenites and dashed toward the closest walker guarding the gate. The machine was distracted by the incoming machines, which it pounded relentlessly with those gunship-like turrets. She touched one of its thick metal legs, transferring nano machines into the solid material.

The iron monstrosity turned toward her in confusion, but she was already racing toward the next walker. She weaved behind it and touched one of its legs, too. This particular war machine didn’t bother to turn toward her, as it was fully occupied with engaging the incoming troops. Rhea took cover behind it, so that the other walker couldn’t target her, and waited.

The two war machines stopped shooting, and their heads bowed.

They reactivated as the foremost troops of her robot army were almost at the gates and turned toward her to receive their orders.

“Enter the palace grounds,” she ordered above the din. “Clear the way for my minions. Destroy all aggressors.”

"Yes, Mistress,” the walkers replied in unison with their deep voices.

They spun toward the chain link fence and fired at it with their plasma bolts, forming wide, gaping holes whose edges glowed orange hot. The walkers slammed their bodies through these apertures, breaking away the remaining portions of the fence. They opened fire at the enemy troops and plasma turrets awaiting beyond.

The foremost troops reached the open gates and began to pile inside. Rhea signaled her men, and they activated their wireless mesh network.

“Stay close!” she transmitted.

She let her hood fall to her shoulders and activated her Ban’Shar.

Then she raced inside with her robots.

The Wardenites, along with Min and Burhawk, opened fire at the enemy units as they joined her. Octocopters fell smoking from the air. Enemy infantry units toppled with big holes burned into their chests.

Rhea kept in front of the men and followed behind the machine troops in front of her. These troops acted as a wedge, breaking deep into the waiting defensive line of enemy robots.

Behind them, the omnidirectional turrets that lined the walls of this section had been destroyed, so she didn’t have to worry about attacks from that quarter. There was still the occasional enemy octocopter up there, however, so she kept one of her Ban’Shar disks angled upward.

Turrets had emerged from hidden compartments in the ground ahead, but most of these had been taken out, save for one. The robots defending the palace had mustered at that particular turret and were mowing down Rhea’s machine troops by the dozen.

“Dig in!” she ordered her troops. She didn’t bother to directionally limit the transmission, as there was no point in trying to hide her ID now: the enemy knew who she was.

Her robots instantly took cover, dropping behind the wreckages of fallen machines, or using other features of the inner grounds for cover, such as topiary and trees. The instruction was meant for the Wardenites as well, and a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that they, too, had taken cover. The Wardenites were targeting the enemy troops that flowed through the gates from the Palace Square beyond.

She sprinted for the turret that had caused so much trouble to her army. A ring of enemy walkers, three deep, stood around it, guarding. That ring in turn was surrounded by infantry robots.

She smiled grimly as she approached.

“Cover me!” she ordered her troops.

She weaved and leaped between her own units, keeping one Ban’Shar before her, and the other held above her. She zigzagged as well, to avoid enemy fire, but deflected her share of bolts. Attacks from her allies streamed by, knocking down opponents in her path, and drawing some of their fire.

She reached the ring of infantry robots and swung both Ban’Shar down to cut through them. She shoved past the next two infantry robots, holding one Ban’Shar in front of her, and one behind to protect her exposed back. The robots in front of her couldn’t get out of the way in time, and a circular pattern was carved through them courtesy of the plasma disk. Their remaining parts broke apart as she shoved past.

She slid beneath the legs of the first walker in front of her, sliding the edges of her disks into the mechanical limbs on either side. She brought one Ban’Shar up over her head to deflect the point-blank turret attack unleashed by the next walker and swung the other forward to cut through the underbelly of its steel torso.

She continued forward to the next walker, weaving to the side, and slicing through its leg with the edge of her Ban’Shar.

She stepped past the falling wreckage, converting one Ban’Shar to a blade, and keeping the other in disk mode to protect her flank, and charged the turret. It unleashed those bolts at her relentlessly, but she approached at a fast crouch, her plasma disk shielding her, and leaped to the side at the last moment, cutting across with her bladed Ban’Shar, and slicing off turret barrels.

She was at the center of the ring of robots then, and targeted by all of them, so she converted her blade back into a shield and began rotating rapidly to deflect all the fire her enemies launched at her. She sent those bolts flying back into the machines that launched them, and in moments she had downed all of the walker units.

Only a few of the smaller infantry types were yet standing, and they made easy targets for her troops. And for her.

“Turret is down!” she sent when she had skewered the last of them. “Forward!”

She waited for some of her robots to rush past her and take the lead, then joined them. Streaming across the vast lawn of the palace, her units were like army ants, eager and willing to die for their queen.

Will was at her side. “Nice fighting back there!” He fired at an octocopter overhead, and it crashed into the road ahead. “But next time, can you let your robots do the dirty work?”

“What kind of a leader would I be if I was afraid to dirty my hands once and a while?” she said, deflecting the plasma bolt of a walker unit right back at it.

On the other side of Rhea, Min let off shots with her pistol, and used the X2-59 whenever an enemy robot got too close.

Horatio pulled ahead, and liberally unleashed those dual-fire rifle barrels attached beneath the forearms, downing octocopters and infantry units alike.

To Rhea’s right, a robot lunged at Burhawk from behind a bush and knocked his plasma rifle away. Burhawk activated his X2-59 equivalents and split the robot in two, then retracted one of the electrolaser-coated blades to fetch a throwing knife from the belt at his hips. He launched it at the next robot, and the blade turned a bright blue as plasma coated it. When it struck its target, the robot in question spasmed, sparks of electricity traveling outward from the impact point. Burhawk scooped up his rifle and finished it off.

She checked on her Wardenites. Brinks, Miles, and Renaldo fired constantly into the fray. Renaldo didn’t seem to have trouble keeping up for once. She supposed the threat of imminent death was enough of a spur to keep him moving.

Rhea continued forward. The Presidential Palace sprawled before her: the front facade proved a series of colonnades supporting the upper levels, which were dotted with balconies. Security robots fired down from the heights, forcing Rhea to keep one Ban’Shar held forward. At the four corners of the building, she could see the tall spires that had been visible from the square outside.

She passed another fountain, behind which some of her robots had taken cover to fire at the balconies, and continued past. She climbed the stairs that led underneath the main colonnade, which sheltered her from those balconies.

Some of her mechanical troops had taken up positions on either side of the front doors, which sat askew their hinges; enemy troops fired at them from inside, pinning them.

With one Ban’Shar held directly in front of her and the other behind, Rhea raced right past her troops and plowed through the front doors. She worked her way through the enemy robots that formed a semicircle just inside, cutting off heads, and slicing through torsos. One of the robots, a walker, managed to strike her in the leg with its foot, and she was sent careening to the side, sliding across the floor. She spun her Ban’Shar toward it to protect herself, but a moment later it was shot down by plasma bolts as Will and Horatio entered.

She heard a clatter to her right as the constituent parts of a robot that had been split in half toppled to the floor. It had been lurking behind a pillar, and no doubt had been ready to fire its built-in plasma rifles straight through her brain.

But Min stood there above the robot, next to an open window she’d evidently utilized for entry. The X2-59 she’d used to slice open the robot glowed with electrolaser plasma in her right hand. In her left, she held a pistol.

When Rhea met her eyes, she gave her sensei a grateful look. Min bowed her head, then turned to fire off her pistol at the next approaching robot.

Rhea glanced at her overhead map and took stock of her remaining troops. All the Wardenites were still alive, but her robot army had been reduced by about half.

“Those of you still outside, take up defensive positions on the doors if you can!” She highlighted the alternate entrances on her map, to clarify that she wanted all access points guarded. “Don’t let any more of them in! Those of you already inside, with me!”

And so she fought her way through the hall to the throne room. Burhawk and Will were at her left. Horatio and Min at her right. The other Wardenites followed behind her, with the remaining robot troops forming a defensive circle around them. Two of the robots moved ahead of the party, acting as scouts. They headed west.

Pillars lined either side at intervals. Between them, tapestries or paintings hung from the walls. Occasionally a bust stood upon a pedestal. Rhea didn’t pay any of the art much heed, as she was too intent on looking for enemies.

The scouts took cover behind pillars as plasma fire came from ahead. Rhea broke away from the others to face these latest attackers: a pair of walkers standing at the main entrance to the throne room. The iron monstrosities unleashed a steady stream of plasma fire at Rhea, which she deflected back at them with her Ban’Shar. As the robots collapsed into smoking piles of slag, a black slab slid over the arched entrance, sealing off the throne room.

Rhea and her companions hurried toward the black seal.

“Hm, don’t like the looks of that.” Will fired repeatedly at the blockage as he approached, causing red heat circles to appear. The incandescent patterns quickly faded when he ceased firing, and otherwise left no marks in the material.

When Rhea arrived, she took a run at the black seal, swinging her Ban’Shar disks into it with all her might, but the weapons bounced away. She nearly cut off one of her legs in the ricochet, but quickly opened her hands, disabling the Ban’Shar.

She took cover behind the wreckage of one of the walkers, along with the other Wardenites. The robot troops meanwhile formed a defensive half circle around the party, crouching behind nearby pillars.

More infantry units appeared down the hall, and her companions opened fire with their robot allies, pinning down the aggressors.

“Burhawk?” Rhea asked. “The door?”

“Working on it,” Burhawk replied.

She switched to her plasma pistol and joined the others in firing at the distant enemies.

“This palace was built around the wreckage of a Ganymedean starship,” Burhawk explained. “The core, right here, is mostly impenetrable. It’s the perfect place to build a throne room.”

“If the palace was built around the wreckage of a Ganymedean starship, that implies the architects weren’t able to move the ship,” Rhea said, thinking of the wreckage she’d found in the Emerald Highlands. “And yet, they were able to seal a door.”

“The Martian scientists managed to link our door interfaces to theirs, but little else.” Burhawk paused, then shook his head. “The codes have changed. I can’t open it this way.”

“Maybe you can open it?” Will asked her, hinting at what she’d done in the Emerald Highlands.

In theory, her mind-machine interface was able to interact with Ganymedean technology in ways ordinary human tech could not. She focused but couldn’t detect any remote interfaces. Nor did any holograms appear.

She glanced at Min. “Anything?”

Min shook her head. “I have nothing. If there was an interface here, it’s long since been disabled.”

“There’s another way,” Burhawk said. “Hurry.” He scooted out from behind the wreckage and continued past the doors, moving further west.

Rhea holstered the plasma pistol and reactivated her Ban’Shar.

She and her companions weaved between the pillars, following Burhawk. They utilized “leapfrog” tactics: one group of Wardenites and robots would lay down suppressive fire, while the other group relocated. Meanwhile, Rhea also deflected any plasma bolts that came her way.

Burhawk paused before a tapestry-covered wall. The tapestry bore the big, smiling face of the Paramount Leader Qui Fon Chin. Rhea stood behind him and deflected any bolts that came his way. The others took cover behind nearby pillars.

“I told you the throne room was built around the core of a Ganymedean starship,” Burhawk said. “Well, that core wasn’t seamless… there were openings in its bulkheads. Gaps filled over with walls that are like papier-mache in comparison. Or hot butter, before the Ban’Shar you wield.” He beckoned toward the tapestry.

Taking the hint, Rhea took a run at the tapestry. When she reached it, she carved a glowing hot circle into the fabric and the wall behind it, using the edges of her Ban’Shar disks. The round section of tapestry dropped away, leaving behind plastered-over bricks whose outermost edges still glowed incandescent. She deactivated the knuckles long enough to slam a shoulder into the center of that white-hot circle, causing the wall section to collapse inward, revealing the room beyond.

She held one Ban’Shar in front of her, and another behind her as she studied the expansive, vaulted interior. A red carpet bisected the marble floor, traveling from one side of the room to the other. Tapestries, paintings, and pedestals lined the walls, much like the hall out here. However, the central area was devoid of any furniture, and there were no pillars to block the view, or to provide cover. On the far side, she could see a series of stairs leading to a platform that held a metal box. The dimensions of the latter were roughly in line with that of a small vehicle. There was no sign of Khrusos, or any other occupants for that matter.

She viewed all of this from a slightly off-center angle, of course, given her current position relative to the actual entrance.

“Where’s Khrusos?” Rhea asked, leaning first to the left then the right as she peered past the edges of the circular hole to check for potential assailants hiding next to the interior wall. There were none.

“He is there,” Burhawk replied. He had taken cover behind a pillar as the incoming fire from the hall hadn’t lessened.

She glanced at Will.

“It’s a trap, of course,” Will said.

She nodded. “It always is.”

She selected three of her robots and commanded them to enter. She followed, vaulting over the bottommost section of the gap. Burhawk, Min, and Horatio came next, while five more robots brought up the rear. The purpose of the latter machines was mostly to give the beam turrets something else to target other than herself and her cyborg companions, but she hadn’t told that to Horatio, who most certainly wouldn’t have approved.

The remainder of her robots stayed behind with the Wardenites. They would watch her back, and protect her human companions, at least until the automated plasma cannons could be disabled. Then, in theory, everyone could enter.

She advanced slowly, focusing on the stairs ahead, the platform they led to, and the metallic box at its apex.

“Khrusos resides there,” Burhawk said, nodding at the box.

15

Rhea continued to advance cautiously into the throne room. Flanked by Min, Horatio and Burhawk, she followed the three lead robots toward the staircase on the far side. She occasionally glanced over her shoulder, past the five robots that followed, letting her gaze fall upon the entrance she had made, but her companions were doing a good job of holding the outside attackers at bay.

Burhawk had shared the locations of all the disabling beam turrets, along with the plasma cannons and she had them marked on her map. So far, none of those weapons had made an appearance. Burhawk promised they were hidden behind panels in the wall, ceiling and floor, structures that had been built on top of the base starship framework.

The robots followed the path Rhea had laid out, one that gave the hidden turrets a wide berth. She wasn’t certain whether or not she should simply rush the closest turret, and destroy it before it could open fire, so at least she’d start the fight with a slight advantage. As she neared the center of the chamber, she considered doing just that, when panels throughout the room began to open in the wall, floors, and ceiling.

She transformed one Ban’Shar into a blade and raced forward just as a beam turret emerged. It was a pyramid-shaped, menacing looking thing, its metal polished to a burnish.

She cut through it, destroying the turret.

Other beam turrets in the room emitted telltale glows, indicating they were preparing to fire. Rhea switched to the gymnastics of her muscle memory, and somersaulted forward, twisting her body around the long, thin beams that cut through the air. Beside her, Min was likewise maneuvering. Horatio and Burhawk dodged as well, leaping out of the way. The robots tried to do the same, but two of them were struck, and fell.

“Choose your targets!” Rhea shouted.

She picked off a target on her map and marked it in green. Other turrets became similarly marked off as her team picked the remainder.

As she raced toward her selected turret, a plasma cannon fired nearby, and she deflected the blow with the Ban’Shar she’d kept in shield mode.

Ahead, the beam turret glowed a bright white as it prepared to fire at her again.

She leaped upward, arcing over the beam that appeared, and struck down with her sword as she landed, rending the turret in two. Then she deflected another plasma attack with her Ban’Shar and raced toward the next target she had marked.

Three disabling beams came in at her at once. Rhea somersaulted rapidly forward, landing on her hands, then her feet, then her hands again, narrowly avoiding them all. Then she shoved herself upward as a fourth beam activated somewhere above and to her left. She twisted her body, forming a U in midair, and the beam just missed her.

She landed on her feet and leaped into the air immediately, avoiding two more beams. She easily reached the ceiling in the lower gravity and slammed her Ban’Shar into the turret that had fired a moment before.

When she touched the floor, she bounded forward, and took out two more turrets in rapid succession, just as they began to glow with firing intent. She swerved between two plasma cannon attacks, deflecting a third plasma bolt with her Ban’Shar.

She glanced at her overhead map. There were only three beam turrets left, according to the map. Meanwhile, seven plasma cannons remained untouched.

Horatio had been hit by a beam, as had Burhawk, and the two were frozen in place. Min yet stood, along with three other combat robots. The remainder of Rhea’s mechanical troops had been hit, either by the beam turrets or the plasma cannons—the work of the latter evident in the smoldering wreckages scattered across the floor. Rhea was thankful the plasma cannons didn’t target Burhawk and Horatio to finish the job started by the disabling beams, but it made sense that the cannons would concentrate on the most dangerous targets first.

Rhea deactivated one Ban’Shar and unholstered the pistol from her belt, as the remaining beam turrets were halfway across the room. She raced toward one of them, firing at it, while Min concentrated on another, and the combat robots fired at a third.

Rhea released five shots, but still the beam turret hadn’t gone down—it was taking quite a few more hits than she expected, spoiled as she was on the quick kills of the Ban’Shar. The turret returned fire as she approached, and she dodged the attack, along with a second beam launched by another turret nearby. She deflected two incoming plasma bolts to boot, continuing to fire at her target the whole time. Finally, she melted it into oblivion.

Min destroyed the other turret, while the combat robots handled the third. Unfortunately, the latter robots were mowed down by the plasma cannons, so that left only Rhea and Min.

“Just the two of us,” Min said, racing past her to charge a plasma turret. “Just like old times!”

“Too bad I don’t remember these old times you speak of!” Rhea said.

“You will!” Min responded.

Rhea fired at the plasma cannons with her pistol; they were much easier to destroy than the beam turrets. She kept moving, dodging and reflecting plasma bolts. Min and Rhea spread out to make life more difficult for the cannons.

And then, when there were only two plasma cannons left, Rhea suddenly froze. Her joints simply wouldn’t respond.

Min was running toward her. Behind the sensei, a diamond-shaped turret that hadn’t been marked on the map emerged from the floor.

Behind you! Rhea tried to transmit over a mental channel, but her comms weren’t responding.

The beam struck Min from behind, and her companion froze.

No doubt a similar turret, or turrets, had emerged from somewhere behind Rhea to strike her down. Burhawk’s map had not been complete.

The two remaining plasma cannons kept pointing at her, threatening to fire. But they did not.

Several seconds passed. A minute. Rhea could hear shouts from outside, and the occasional clang of metal as a robot fell, so she knew the attack had not yet let up. She was waiting for Khrusos to make an appearance, to mock her, but nothing happened.

Perhaps he’s already fled.

She could see Min’s eyes looking at her, pleading with her, so Rhea knew that her companion was yet conscious, like herself. But otherwise, the two could not communicate.

And then she heard footsteps behind her. At first, she thought Khrusos had at last presented himself, but then the plasma cannons swung toward the newcomer.

The footfalls increased in pace. The cannons fired. Small plasma bolts came in answer, as of those fired from a pistol, and slammed into one of the cannons. In only a few moments it went down.

The remaining cannon fired repeatedly, tracking some moving target she couldn’t see behind her. She thought it had hit that target when the cannon stopped tracking, and instead fired repeatedly at the same angle. But then return fire came a moment later. She suspected whoever it had been tracking was taking cover, probably behind the wreckage of one of the robots, and someone else was providing suppressive fire from the entrance.

Sure enough, the turret shifted slightly, no doubt to attack the source of the covering fire, but then more plasma bolts slammed into it from the side, and it went down.

The beam turret behind Min began to fire now, too.

Will appeared beside Rhea. He took a head-on hit from the disabling beam, but of course it didn’t affect him as he was human. He fired at the turret, but instead of sitting there taking the blows, it immediately retracted into the floor. Will shot past Rhea’s shoulder, likely causing the remaining turret to similarly withdraw, because he stopped firing a moment later.

“I got you,” he comforted her as he lowered her to the floor. He dragged robots in front of and behind her, to protect her from the beam turrets should they emerge before he could finish what he intended.

He doffed his backpack, letting it fall to the floor, and removed a canister. He opened it up, sprinkling the contents out onto her chest.

Metal insects crawled outward in all directions. They bored into her torso, vanishing inside her. She had collected a good ten percent of her total nano machines before the battle, stowing them in that container. She hoped it would be enough.

Inside her, they spread out, reactivating her body parts—consuming their destroyed brethren, remaking her damaged circuitry, and producing more of themselves in the process, so that she would soon be back at her iteration limit.

First, she could move her right shoulder, then bicep, forearm, and finally her wrist and fingers. Her left arm experienced a similar revival, as did her two legs, and finally her hips, neck and face.

She glanced at Will, who nodded.

She stood up in one smooth motion. Two new dots appeared on her overhead map, courtesy of the positions Will transmitted, which corresponded to the new beam turrets. She ran toward the closest.

The beam deployed as she arrived, and she cut the turret in half. Behind her, the second beam had already resurfaced, and Will was firing at it. The turret ignored him and targeted Rhea.

She somersaulted out of the way, and switched to her pistol in one hand, so that she could open fire at it with Will. Together the two of them reduced it to a smoldering pile.

Will joined her side and glanced at the entrance. “Not sure how much longer they can hold out there. Where’s your friend Khrusos?”

Rhea glanced toward the steps leading to the metal box. She started walking that way. Will joined her.

She slid the pistol back into its holster but did not reactivate her rightmost Ban’Shar. The leftmost, however, she kept enabled, leaving it in disk mode.

They passed Min and Burhawk. The two of them were still frozen in place, their bodies locked into the last postures they’d assumed before the beams hit.

“You can’t revive them with your nano machines?” Will asked.

“I’d have to give up my nano machines entirely,” Rhea explained. “And I can’t trust that they’d give them back if I did so.”

“You can trust Horatio,” Will said.

“Are you certain?” she asked, dead serious.

Will considered for a moment. “Actually, you’re probably right. Hang onto them for now. We’ll repair these dudes manually later.”

She climbed the steps with Will, crossed the platform, and halted before the metallic box.

“So, Khrusos?” Rhea said, addressing that box. “Are you going to come out? Or are you going to make me destroy your throne?”

She transformed her disk Ban’Shar into a sword, and pointed it threateningly at the metal box, which reached just to her upper chest.

Miles emerged from a hidden panel in the wall behind the throne. Will pointed his pistol at the man.

“No,” Rhea said, lowering Will’s hand. “Miles, what are you doing?”

Miles didn’t answer. He merely stared at her; his eyes filled with hate.

She heard a buzzing coming from the metal box. A small panel slid forth on top of it, and a human head ascended into view from within. A male. The face appeared bulky, with fleshy lobes in place of cheeks. He sported short-cropped hair, with a beard that reached well below the chin. The rest of his body remained hidden inside the throne.

Rhea recognized the face from pictures she had seen online.

Khrusos.

16

At a loss for words, Rhea merely stared at the head of Khrusos protruding from that metal box.

“My good friend Miles informed me you knew the positions of all my beam generators,” Khrusos said. “So I took the liberty of moving two of them. He also warned me about your little robot army. I decided not to stop it. Think of it as penetration testing. Qui Fon Chin now knows what he has to work on improving for the next attack. Some might call it an expensive test. I call it entertainment.”

Rhea glared at Miles.

“Yes,” Khrusos said. “Your loyal Wardenite Miles told me everything. How your mind has been wiped once again. You have no memories of the fantastic working relationship we once had. This means I don’t have to chip you, like I originally planned. Unless you intend on killing me again, of course.”

“That depends on what caused me to kill you in the first place…” Rhea said.

Khrusos continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I suppose I should have merely chipped you when you betrayed me, instead of ordering your execution. Death seemed a mercy at the time. The light goes out in one’s eye when one is chipped. I didn’t want to take away your fire, which I so dearly enjoyed. But I could have simply removed the chip when I grew bored of your tamed state. I blame it on the anger of the moment. I didn’t like what you did to me.”

His gaze drifted to the room behind her.

“Your Wardenite told me about Burhawk, too,” Khrusos continued. “It was a mistake to let him live after he retired. I see that now. Then again, he did lead you right to me. So perhaps it wasn’t a real betrayal, after all, but a man doing a favor for an old friend.” He smiled brightly when his eyes alighted on the sensei. “And Min! It will be good to have her returned to my inner circle. I have missed her so very much, like yourself. A fresh mind wipe is probably in order however…”

Rhea stared at him, unsure where to begin, now that she finally had the president of the free world before her. The man who had captured her, wiped her mind, and turned her into his greatest assassin.

The man who had eradicated her people.

She decided that the water crisis was the best entry point, as it was the most important. “We have eight months before water runs out on Earth. The Europans have—”

“Is that why you’ve come?” he interrupted, seeming astonished. “To intervene in an affair which is none of your concern?”

“Of course it’s my concern,” she said. “Earth is my adopted homeworld. You need to sign the deal with the Europans. They want to help Earth, but you keep vetoing their proposals.”

“The Europans offered to sell water at cost, but you don’t understand, at cost is still too much,” Khrusos said.

“Why, because you’d rather the people of Earth die of thirst than negatively affect your coffers?” Rhea spat.

“They’d have us entirely at their mercy!” Khrusos told her. “Once we agree, and become dependent upon them, they’ll very likely jack up their prices. They’ll butcher our economy. Make us give them all our technology. If I agreed to their pitiful terms, Earth would be ruled by Ganymede and the Europans, not by us.”

“Yes, but at least you’ll still have an economy, and a planet to rule,” Rhea said. “It will take time to build up the infrastructure necessary to transport water to and from Ganymede. If we start now, we might just meet the deadline. But if we don’t… without the systems in place to transport water, mass deaths will occur. You know this, and yet you still refuse to act.”

“There are stockpiles of water that will last for many years to come,” Khrusos said dismissively.

“Yes,” Rhea agreed. “Stockpiles. For a select few cities, and the upper echelon of residents who reside within them. What about the rest of the world?”

That had been a guess on Rhea’s part, but Khrusos’ next words confirmed it.

“So?” the president said. “We’ll be instituting a mind digitization program. Those who cannot afford the price of water will be offered free digitization. We’ll save their minds now, and at a later time in the future, when the technology matures, we’ll restore their minds into neural networks so they can live anew. They won’t even realize they’re merely copies. That’s the future of humanity. One that I am building towards.”

“That’s a fantastic solution,” Rhea said, her voice oozing sarcasm. “Let everyone die. And then restore their minds into neural networks. The originators of those backups are still dead.”

“Yes, but their legacy will live on,” Khrusos said. “That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Why waste money on water when digitization is far cheaper? The High Council of Earth agrees with me on this matter.”

“A High Council you mostly control,” Rhea said. “And even if you didn’t, how can you justify a handful of people deciding the fate of billions?”

“It’s been this way for thousands of years,” Khrusos replied. “A handful of people, sometimes only one, have been responsible for the lives, and deaths, of millions. It’s how we’ve been able to achieve our greatest advances.”

“And our greatest tragedies…” Rhea said. “I can’t let you do this.”

“You can’t stop me.” Khrusos gazed defiantly at her. “You tried, once, and failed. If you try again, I’ll make certain that nothing remains of your mind to wipe. You were my greatest employee. My best friend. You can be both, again.”

Rhea stared him down. “Can I? But you forget, you wiped my mind so you could fashion me into this friend of yours. So you could turn me into your killing machine.”

“The only other option for one such as yourself was death,” the president said. “I saved you. Gave you everything you had. And yet you turned on me.”

“What did I do?” Rhea said. “And why did I do it?”

He pursed his lips, as if considering revealing this.

“Well?” Rhea pressed.

“How do you think you got your original suit?” Khrusos asked.

She arched an eyebrow. “My original suit?”

“Yes,” he said. “A suit very much like the one you wear now.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I got it from Ganymede. My people.”

“When we captured you, there wasn’t much left,” Khrusos said. “You had been ripped apart by the plasma attacks. Your nano technology was destroyed. We put you back together, gave you a new machine form. But shortly thereafter, you got your Ganymedean body back. Your nano machine suit. Do you want to know how?”

“Sure,” Rhea said.

“After your ship crashed, we let the surrounding land cool into what is now known as the Emerald Highlands and sent drones in to explore. We discovered the black box, but when we tried to move it for further study, we couldn’t… it was utilizing some kind of gravimetric technology unlike anything we’d seen before, increasing its weight by ten thousand times. We had nothing capable of lifting it. We tried to break in next, but nothing worked. Laser drills. Plasma cannons. Explosives.

“But then we decided, why not use a potentially easier resource? We had a lot of Ganymedean prisoners. Mind-jacked, or wiped and indoctrinated, like yourself. We tried them one by one. All of them, until we found a prisoner who had access. That’s right. You opened the cube for me in the Emerald Highlands. We extracted what we could, which wasn’t a whole lot. But it did give us samples of the Ganymedean nano technology that we could study, courtesy of you. Yes, you walked in there, and when you left, you were clad in your Ganymedean suit. You gave us the nano machines.

“Our military scientists studied them, and came up with a counter, one that eventually allowed us to turn them against their owners. The war ended at that point: the entire Ganymedean race was eaten alive by their very own creation. Thanks to you.”

Rhea shuddered at the thought. That would explain why her world fell so quickly, if it was true.

And then, suddenly, she remembered.

“You caused the Great Calming…” Rhea said. “Not the Ganymedeans. You used the nano machines I gave you to destroy half the cities on your own home planet. You killed billions of people.”

Khrusos stared at her for a moment, then burst into a laugh. “Very good. Your memories are returning quickly this time. You and your team came to Earth to assassinate me. Instead, you only provided me the means, and the excuse, I needed to defeat your people.”

Miles stared at Khrusos in horror at the news.

“Eventually, we captured more ships, such as this one.” He beckoned at the throne room around him. “But yours was the enabler. Yours was the one that sparked, and ended, the greatest war of all time.”

Rhea’s eyes defocused slightly as more memories came to her. “Yes, I see it now… I was part of the crack team sent to stop you. Though we were at war with Earth over the frozen oceans of Ganymede, we believed there was another way. We didn’t want you to slaughter your own citizens. We didn’t want you to destroy half of Earth. We never wanted that. And when it was done, you blamed us. Saying we planted the nano machines. When it was you. You originally planned to use nukes, but that would have been harder to blame on us. The nano machines were a far more convenient excuse.”

“Yes, they were,” he agreed. “It made it quite easy to blame the Ganymedeans, and rally Earth to war.”

“You killed us all,” Rhea said. “When we were the ones who tried to save Earth. From you.”

She was aghast at what this man had done, and knew there could be no mercy, not for him.

“I wasn’t expecting the war to decimate our forces so severely,” Khrusos said. “I was hopeful the moon, and its water, would be mine. But those damned Europans had to go and ruin everything. When it became obvious we’d lost the moon to them, I had my scientists begin developing the digitization tech that would save humanity. Thankfully, we’d bought ourselves thirty more years by halving the population, which is another reason I did it, by the way. To save the world, I had to destroy it.

“You might be wondering why the nano machines we used in the Great Calming didn’t destroy the entire Earth… that’s because the scientists programmed them to self-destruct after expanding to a certain radius. This meant that there would be remnants of the cities left behind… the ruins that exist today. A reminder of what the Ganymedeans had done.”

“What you had done,” Rhea growled.

He ignored her. “After the war, I had the scientists destroy the lab samples used in the creation of these machines. I also pushed the High Council to sign an agreement with the governments of the solar system, outlawing the use of nano machines in all fields, from warfare to medicine. They are too dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“Such as yours?” Rhea said.

He nodded in apparent appreciation of the jab. “But back to my point. Not only have you trespassed in the shared residence of myself and the Paramount Leader, unlawfully hacked and killed our robots, and employed forbidden weapons, but your body itself is highly illegal. You are in possession of dangerous, world-destroying technology. By law, it is my right to confiscate it from you, as it is the right of any citizen of Mars. Do you give up this body willingly?”

“What do you think?” she asked.

He smiled widely. “I was hoping you’d resist.”

“Oh, I’m going to do more than resist, a-hole.” She stepped forward and, scarcely able to see for the blind rage she felt, she swung her Ban’Shar sword in a wide arc that cut off his head.

It flew from the throne and bounced three times before coming to rest on the platform. Its movements had seemed a little too heavy for the lighter Martian gravity, as if it was made entirely of metal.

“Now do him, next,” Will said, nodding at Miles.

“No.” Miles raised his palms defensively. “I didn’t know.” He nodded at Rhea. “I thought she caused the Great Calming. I’m sorry.”

Khrusos’ laugh abruptly filled the chamber. “You really think I’d be foolish enough to expose my brain to you?”

The floor began shaking. Rhea and Will backed away, climbing off the platform and down the steps. Miles did the same, though he kept his distance from Rhea, as if afraid she would strike him down next.

The throne began unfolding. The platform and the stairs next to it pulled inward, toward the metal box, and long, spiderish legs emerged, followed by a metal thorax, and a head lined with mechanical tentacles.

The platform and stairs continued to turn themselves inside out, emerging from that box, feeding the growing form, until the transformation was complete and a gargantuan, tentacled metal cyborg loomed before Rhea. It was like a giant spider with the head of a squid pasted on top.

Meanwhile, nothing remained of the former stairs, platform and throne.

“Are you impressed with my size?” the monster, Khrusos, boomed. “Why do you think I moved to Mars? The lower gravity can support a much larger body frame. And I do like so very much to be big, in all senses of the word!”

The colossal form of Khrusos approached. Those thin feet slammed into the marble floor, sending cracks spidering outward.

“Get back, Will!” she shouted over her shoulder.

Get back.

This was a battle only she could fight.

Khrusos would pay for what he had done to Ganymede, to Earth, and to her.

17

Rhea continued to back away. She was careful not to retreat toward Min, Burhawk and Horatio, as it would be all too easy for the three to suffer collateral damage in the fight. Miles and Will were keeping well back, hugging the far walls. Meanwhile, her other companions were protecting the entrance.

Khrusos swung three tentacles at her.

Rhea instinctively leaped backward, but not far enough, and one of the tentacles clipped her leg, sending her spinning away. She deactivated the Ban’Shar so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

When she landed, she instantly clambered to her feet and slammed her hands together. She activated both of the Ban’Shar, and formed a single, extended blade. She held it menacingly before her.

Should have done this at the beginning. I’m not the seasoned warrior I once was.

Meanwhile Will was shooting his pistol, striking Khrusos in the flank. The big, tentacled cyborg ignored the impacts: the blasts didn’t seem to be causing damage anyway.

Khrusos swung a tentative tentacle at her.

Rhea sidestepped, cutting off the limb.

It fell away, clattering harmlessly to the floor.

To her horror, the tentacle reformed a moment later.

“You cannot kill me, Dagger,” Khrusos said.

Two more tentacles came in, and she dodged them acrobatically, slicing at the same time. The appendages dropped away, but once again, reformed.

“Don’t you understand?” Khrusos said. “My scientists have had thirty years to study your Ganymedean technology. Thirty years to incorporate it into ours. I’ve saved the most valuable discoveries for myself, of course.”

He lunged for her as he spoke those latter words, and two thin legs came stabbing down at her.

Rhea leaped backward, and swept her blade wide, slicing off the bottom portion of those limbs.

Khrusos tilted forward, off balance, but quickly recovered, retreating.

Rhea pressed the attack, leaping forward, swinging wildly, but Khrusos withdrew his legs, and their tips reformed.

A tentacle bashed into her side, and she was sent flying across the room. She struck the wall and landed on the floor.

Khrusos was already rushing toward her.

She got up and narrowly jumped out of the way. Khrusos crashed into the wall.

Rhea cut off portions of the closest limbs, but another leg impaled her thigh, skewering her to the marble floor. She cut off the leg and retreated with the tip still embedded in her thigh. Limping.

She deactivated her Ban’Shar and slammed her palms into the metal spearing her thigh, shoving it through. Her nano machines sealed the hole, drawing on the surrounding material, so that her overall thigh circumference thinned. She’d have to replenish the lost nano machines sometime. The marble floor wouldn’t help her, but one of those severed metal tentacles would make a good candidate…

She swerved toward one of them, but Khrusos was already leaping toward her.

Rhea bounded forward, using the lower gravity to her advantage, and maneuvered between those tentacles and legs so that she was underneath the thorax. Then she leaped high and stabbed the blade into the underbelly.

In response, Khrusos splayed his legs wide, crashing his thorax into the floor, crushing Rhea between the metal and the marble. He lifted his heavy body, and Rhea remained on the floor, her blade sliding free. She started to get up, but before she had made it to her feet, Khrusos was already smashing his thorax down onto her once more. He did this again and again, battering her.

Her body was continually shrieking, as her nano machines digested materials to repair the damage to her servomotors.

She heard a shout from her right as Khrusos was lifting his body for yet another slam attack.

“Hey asshat,” Miles said. A steady stream of plasma bolts slammed into Khrusos’ side at near point-blank range. Miles had collected Burhawk’s rifle and was unleashing it from almost right underneath the big cyborg.

Khrusos sidestepped, momentarily taken off guard by the attack, and then swiped at Miles with one of those legs. The blow sent Miles flying across the room. He hit the marble wall so hard that a blood stain was left behind on the surface. When Miles slid to the floor, he didn’t get up.

Miles had likely killed himself, but the act had brought Rhea the time she needed to escape from underneath Khrusos. The big cyborg slammed his body down once more, but Rhea vaulted free. She was smaller and lighter than before, thanks to the battering she had taken, and was very easily able to vault onto the closest legs of Khrusos. In three quick bounds she had clambered onto his back, and she stabbed her combined blade down, sinking it deep into the cyborg’s dorsal quarter. She ran forward, dragging the blade, widening that gash.

In response, Khrusos leaped upward, intending to repeat what it had done to her on the floor, with the ceiling.

But Rhea was expecting that, and she pulled the blade free and leaped off. Khrusos succeeded only in bashing himself against the bare ceiling.

Rhea deactivated her Ban’Shar to hit the floor rolling, and then clambered to her feet. Khrusos landed amid several of her fallen robot allies, crushing them. Min, Horatio and Burhawk were also nearby. It was sheer luck they weren’t trampled as well.

She sprinted across the room, toward the far side, while Khrusos slowly approached. He seemed more cautious after that last attack.

Meanwhile Will continued shooting the cyborg from the side, but wisely didn’t get too close to Khrusos, unlike Miles.

Maybe I should get nearer, Will sent over a mental channel. Looks like Miles might have done a bit of damage when he closed the range.

No, Rhea replied. You’ll just kill yourself for no reason. Any damage Miles did has already been repaired. Look at Khrusos. Nothing can stop him. Stay back! And that’s an order.

Like I take orders from you, Will quipped, but thankfully he didn’t get closer.

She paused next to one of the metal tentacles she had severed, and wrapped her palm around it, letting nano machines flow into it, intending to use some of its metal to replenish herself.

To her surprise, the nano insects immediately vacated the material, returning inside her empty-handed.

What’s wrong? Will asked when he noticed her shaking her head.

I can’t take repair materials from the limb, she replied. It’s like something is repelling me.

And then Khrusos leaped at her, forcing Rhea to abandon the tentacle. She jumped wide and activated her Ban’Shar in shield mode this time. A tentacle slammed directly into one of the plasma disks. While the tip of the tentacle disintegrated, the momentum shoved her well back, so that she caused far less damage than she would have liked.

As the severed tentacle retracted, she deactivated her Ban’Shar and grabbed on. She pulled herself upward, and leaped between the tentacles, swinging between them, intending to pull herself behind that head and onto the thorax once more. But as she moved from tentacle to tentacle, wrapping her hands around each, she sensed something she hadn’t noticed before.

Inside each tentacle, beneath her palms, she perceived the pulse of machine life. It was not something she felt with her hand, but her mind. Thousands of individual entities, power sources drumming with energy. Integrated with the circuitry inside that limb, like her own.

That meant Khrusos had nano machines inside him, technology that was running on a communication band her mind-machine interface could readily understand. Ganymedean technology. Likely there were trillions of them inside him. He had taken the Ganymedean technology and increased the iteration limit. It seemed that although Khrusos had outlawed nano machines, he had no qualms about using them for himself.

That would explain the transformation she saw, changing from steps and platform, to the iron monster before her. The reorganization needed at a micro-structural level essentially required the technology. That would also explain how he was so readily repairing himself.

As she pulled herself onto the thorax, her gaze momentarily alighted upon the floor below, and she realized that many of the limbs she’d sliced off were gone: Khrusos had reabsorbed them. Definitely nano machines.

As to why she hadn’t felt them when she touched the severed tentacles: with the limbs disconnected from the main body, the nano machines would have been inactive. But they likely still emitted some sort of signal that prevented her technology from breaking them down for spare parts.

And while she couldn’t use the opposing nano machines for repair materials, perhaps she could take them for herself, commanding them to leave that body, and enter hers…

Indeed, they seemed to be talking to her. Calling out to her.

Tentacles flung around the large metal head toward her and tried to bash her off. She leaped higher, out of the way, bounding up the thorax. Then she knelt, pressing her palm into the base of that metal head.

She reached out with her mind, as Min had taught her, and commanded the nano machines within to join her. She wasn’t certain it would work. Perhaps Khrusos had had his scientist program in some failsafe to prevent such a transference.

But to her delight, a moment later the foreign nano machines began flowing into her arm, augmenting it, widening it.

Khrusos leaped upwards then, and bent his head far forward, essentially flattening the area between the thorax and head so that Rhea was fully exposed for the coming impact with the ceiling. She was forced to roll away, and narrowly avoided the impact with the ceiling.

Fragments fell away from the rooftop around her as she slid down his flank; she let her hand press against his side as she descended, so that she continued to siphon off nano machines. When she reached the bottom of the thorax, she grabbed onto one of the nearby legs, and similarly drained it as Khrusos fell toward the floor.

Tentacles came in at her, and she activated the Ban’Shar shield in one hand to defend herself. But as usual, while she damaged the incoming appendage, the momentum was enough to drive her well backwards, and she was sent flying away. She deactivated the Ban’Shar before landing skidding on the floor.

The nano machines she’d stolen had spread throughout her body, so that she was back to her normal size. A little bigger, in fact.

She expected Khrusos to rush her then, but instead he turned about and headed toward the far side of the room, to the section where the throne and its platform had formerly been located. A large portion of the wall slid upward, and Khrusos made a running leap toward it, tucking in his head and legs so that he narrowly squeezed through, carried by his impetus. On the other side he lowered his spiderish limbs and landed, then turned left, disappearing down the hall.

Rhea was confused. Was he actually frightened?

She glanced at Will, who was lingering near the opposite wall and transmitted: “Get back to the other entrance. You have two sides to defend against now. At least the first entrance offers some semblance of cover.”

“What about you?” he returned.

“You know I can’t let him get away,” she replied. She was already sprinting at her top speed toward the opening where Khrusos had fled. She was worried the wall would seal before she reached it.

But she needn’t have worried. It remained open.

As soon as she passed through, she was struck by a tentacle and sent flying into a group of waiting walkers.

She activated her Ban’Shar blades and swirled, so that the plasma swords tore through her foes. She made short work of them, then turned toward Khrusos.

Her enemy broke right through the wall of the palace, and sunlight streamed in from outside. Khrusos leaped upward, vanishing from sight once more.

Rhea dashed forward, deflecting the energy bolts nearby infantry robots launched at her, and vaulted through the gaping hole Khrusos had torn in the wall. When she was outside, she glanced up, and saw her foe climbing the exterior of the building.

Rhea followed, skirting up the pillars of the colonnade, making handholds as necessary in the marble with her robot strength. She reached the entablature and pulled herself onto the main wall, pursuing Khrusos onto one of the spires that thrust from a palace corner.

Her enemy continued to scale that spire, which dwindled in circumference the higher he climbed. He was heading toward the apex.

She risked a glance down as she chased: below her, the grounds looked quite small. Almost dizzyingly so. She spotted an incoming plasma bolt and activated the Ban’Shar of one hand to deflect it. She switched it off a moment later and scooted around to the far side of the spire so that she wasn’t in the line of fire of whatever had launched that bolt.

She continued higher. Khrusos stood balanced on the apex, which ended in a point, and lingered there, perched like a spider waiting for its prey. A hundred meters above him lay the curved glass of the geodesic dome, held in place by the polycarbonate struts of the framework.

She approached cautiously, at first. But when six octocopters ascended into view, she realized Khrusos had climbed only to draw her out into the open, so that she was in plain sight of the airborne drones.

She quickly dug into the marble surface with one hand, and unholstered her pistol. She shot down one of the octocopters, then sheathed the weapon, switching on the Ban’Shar in one smooth motion to deflect incoming bolts fired in return. She managed to take down two of the octocopters with her deflections and swapped back to her pistol to down the remaining three.

She spotted more octocopters approaching in the distance and holstered the weapon to continue her climb. She increased her pace, climbing the ever-diminishing spire.

When she was still several meters away from Khrusos, her enemy suddenly leaped down, and Rhea was forced to throw herself to the side. She intended to grab onto the spire once more as she fell, because it was wider below her, but one of those tentacles batted into her, and sent her hurtling upward at a terrific speed.

She smashed into the glass of the geodesic dome, which didn’t break, thankfully, and grabbed onto one of the protruding struts before she plunged to her death—there was no handhold, so she made one.

She swung one arm around to grip another strut nearby, so that she was hanging there, spread-eagled, facing the palace. The ground seemed to spin vertiginously below her.

A dark blur drew her attention to the palace.

Khrusos had hurled himself off the spire and was headed directly for her.

She was going to be crushed, her body rendered helpless as she plunged to her doom below. Unless…

She let go of the struts moments before Khrusos impacted her. She timed the release to land on one of his legs, intending to vault off it toward the palace. But she never reached that leg, because another tentacle batted into her, drawing her upward with Khrusos.

The big cyborg crashed into the geodesic dome and tore right through. Glass shattered around her, and polycarbonate beams broke away.

Rhea was carried through by both momentum and the force of the explosive decompression; because Khrusos had batted her, she arced away from him, spinning through the air.

She felt a moment of helplessness as the red landscape spun around her, and she knew death was coming.

But then she landed on the side of the dome. While the impact was hard, and would have killed an ordinary human, she survived because she’d only fallen a hundred meters or so.

She could do nothing as gravity and momentum carried her sliding down the smooth exterior.

She realized her nano machines had automatically activated when she entered the Martian atmosphere, and had constructed a translucent dome around her head, filling the space inside with a pressurized, breathable environment for her brain.

Khrusos was similarly gliding down the dome exterior not far from her. With one hand, she tried to redirect her descent so that she was angled more toward him.

Worried about the dome’s loss of integrity, and the resulting impact on the citizens of Hongton, she glanced over her shoulder and was relieved to see that repair drones had already begun arriving: they fought against the explosive decompression to spray rapidly hardening expanding foam into the gap, forming an emergency patch.

She returned her attention to the convex surface in front of her. The rocky ground below was fast approaching.

Khrusos was well ahead of her and was going to be the first to the bottom, as he headed straight down rather than at an angle like her. However, before he skidded off the bottom edge, he shoved off, vaulting away from the geodesic dome to land a good distance in front of it.

The slope was quickly growing steeper the further Rhea descended, and her slide accelerated. She didn’t want to risk injury, so she turned sideways and slammed a hand into the glass surface, pressing hard with her fingers to slow herself. She scraped a long, thin runnel along the exterior of the glass as she continued downward.

When she judged herself close enough to the ground, she decided to shove off as Khrusos had done. She released the surface and pushed away with both hands and feet, arcing away from the dome toward the rocky terrain below. Beside her, the glass composite gave way to concrete as she passed the annular base of the geodesic dome.

She landed on the rocky, red surface of Mars a moment later; her legs buckled only slightly under the lesser Martian gravity, and she straightened her knees to turn toward Khrusos.

The enormous cyborg was already bearing down upon her. Rapidly. Four of the tentacles shrunk as she watched, merging with the head, only to emerge a moment later as a pair of mandibles that chomped eagerly at the space in front of them, as if anxious to bestow a life-ending embrace.

Rhea broke into a run as well, sprinting directly toward her incoming foe. The wall that formed the base of the geodesic dome wasn’t far to her left, and she swerved slightly closer to it, intending to use it as a springboard of sorts.

She waited until Khrusos was just the right distance away from her, then leaped toward the concrete wall. Her left leg contacted the surface at a height in line with her enemy’s tentacled head, and she let the knee bend almost all the way down, absorbing the momentum of her flight. She straightened the leg, releasing the stored energy and vaulting off the wall, launching herself even higher, so that she arced up and over Khrusos. She timed the jump so that she landed on his thorax.

He had swerved toward her in an attempt to snatch her out of the air, so that she nearly overshot her target, and had to back away from the edge. After doing so, she quickly knelt, planting her palms against the metal surface of her foe. She summoned the nano machines within to join her, calling upon those not just beneath her hands, but the units directly under her knees, and toes as well. Foreign nano technology flowed into her from Khrusos, merging with her. Enlarging her.

A blur of motion drew her gaze upward: a tentacle was hurtling straight for her. She rolled to the side but was too late—the translucent dome that enveloped her head was hit in a glancing blow, and partially shattered.

She rolled to the side as more tentacles came in. Her nano machines rapidly set to work, repairing the dome, so that in only a few seconds pressurization returned, and she could breathe again. It did come at a slight cost, of course, because the machines had taken materials from her chest armor to repair the damage.

Those tentacles kept coming in, not giving Rhea a chance to steal more nano machines—she had to continually dodge the attacks. She activated her Ban’Shar—the knuckles of the weapons were partially engulfed by her expanded hands—and sliced away the tips of the appendages that came at her, but realized the futileness of that when the severed tentacles landed on the thorax and were quickly reabsorbed.

She deactivated her Ban’Shar and continued dodging instead, trying to come up with some sort of plan to purloin more of those nano machines and add them to herself.

Then she realized she didn’t necessarily have to touch Khrusos with her palms to take the technology… had she not drawn out the nano machines through her knees and toes only moments before?

She focused, concentrating on the soles of her feet as she jumped across the thorax, while still doing her best to dodge those tentacles. Every time her feet made contact, she felt the foreign nano technology below her, and she called to it. Soon, with each touch of her soles to the metal surface, nano machines flowed in droves from Khrusos, swarming up into her legs, augmenting her calves, then legs.

She jumped around, continuing to take more and more of the machines as she avoided the attacks; her upper body began to expand as well, starting with her torso, then her arms, neck and head. As she continued to grow, her utility belt broke away, along with the pistols it held. Her Ban’Shar became swallowed by her expanding hands, so that she could no longer activate them.

The artificial skin of her face stretched at first, threatening to break, but then nano machines began to supplement its microfibers, too, so that it didn’t tear away, and instead expanded along with the rest of her body. The translucent dome that enveloped her head also grew.

Growing desperate, Khrusos threw his body to the ground, and rolled over, trying to crush her.

Her bigger body was lighter and less cumbersome than it should have been thanks to the lower gravity, and Rhea was able to readily leap onto the closest leg, grabbing onto it with her hands and swinging upward so that she landed on his underbelly. When she landed, she continued the nano machine drain via her soles.

Because she was larger, and thus made a bigger target, it was becoming harder to dodge the many appendages: she was unable to move away in time when Khrusos wrapped his legs around her.

But she didn’t actually mind. He squeezed tightly, trying to crush the life out of her, but all he was accomplishing was increasing the surface area from which she could draw nano machines. She siphoned them from all sides of her body now, taking from Khrusos’ underbelly, and the underside of the legs that enwrapped her. Instead of her body caving under the pressure, it expanded.

Khrusos seemed to be growing smaller while she became bigger. At first, she thought it might be an optical illusion that came with her own increase in size, but then she realized her enemy’s head was nearly level with her own, thanks to the overall decrease in his body mass. It was physically impossible for him to maintain his previous size, considering all the nano machines she had taken…

Khrusos abruptly released her and staggered away as if he had a taken a mortal blow. He dragged his eight-legged body toward the dome.

Rhea walked toward him relentlessly. She was almost the same height as he was now.

Those tentacles shot out, trying to bash her away, but she merely caught them, tucking them under one arm. She closed the distance and wrapped her other arm around his head and put him in a headlock.

He swung his thorax and abdomen toward her, and pressed his legs against her, trying to break free. He could not.

She continued to drain nano machines from him. She released the tentacles with her other hand and reached under his thorax, wrapping her fingers around the joint where it connected to the head. Then she pulled backward with both arms, bending that shrinking head backward, ever backward… until it snapped right off.

The severed parts fell away, and the headless body capsized; the legs stretched violently into the air for a moment before crimping and spasming.

The head section remained motionless, its tentacles hanging limp on the red Martian rock.

A small, circular panel opened in the middle, and the top of a cylindrical glass tank emerged.

Is that what I think it is?

She gripped the metal tip between her thumb and forefinger and slid the tank free for further examination.

Within, a human brain floated, bathed in a translucent yellow fluid. Billions of fibers ran from the cortex to a small, annular structure at the bottom: the internal portion of the mind-machine interface. Small tubes emerged from a rectangle at the center of that ring, and connected to the brainstem, supplying it with blood.

The external portion of the mind-machine interface was accessible via the metal cap at the bottom of the tank. Several indicators flashed along its rim.

Rhea cocked her head, then pressed her finger into the metal. Her base nano machines swarmed onto the unit, drilling holes and vanishing inside, clandestinely integrating themselves with the internal circuitry. She smiled wickedly as her technology took hold.

The slave becomes the master.

She didn’t see an oxygen canister attached anywhere to the unit, so she estimated she had about ten minutes before the brain died of hypoxia.

She wrapped her large hand protectively around the cylinder, and then carried it toward the dome.

With her free hand, she climbed onto the concrete base, then clambered onto the glass itself. She was careful not to press too hard when she formed hand and footholds, as she didn’t want to puncture or otherwise shatter the glass composite; she left a series of depressions in the surface in her wake.

Inside, several police drones followed her advance, but otherwise, so far security forces hadn’t deployed any attackers into the Martian atmosphere outside the dome. She wondered if they were aware that she held the brain of the leader of the free world in her hands.

She reached the hole Khrusos had made in the dome above the palace, which was completely plugged with hardened expanding foam by then. 3D-printing repair drones were already at work replacing the outskirts of that foam with glass and struts. The police drones hovered among them.

Maintaining her grip on the surrounding dome section, Rhea punched through the foam plug. The closest drones—both the repair and police types—were sucked out before they could compensate for the explosive force of decompression. Fighting against that force, which was like a powerful, gusting wind, she pulled herself through. She took plasma hits from the police octocopters that had moved off to a safe distance inside.

She shoved herself downward, toward the palace; the impetus she imparted with that shove, along with the weight of her heavier body, allowed her to overcome the decompressive force. She landed on the spire and begin vaulting down it, taking big, bounding leaps.

Overhead, the drones plugged the hole with expanding foam once again.

Enemy units swooped in, and she was shot at from all sides. Plasmas bolts came in from the ground below, too. She dodged what she could, and bashed aside any drones that got too close, and quickly made her way back to the bottom of the spire.

She leaped down the final four stories to the ground, and then scrambled into the breach that remained in the palace wall, courtesy of Khrusos’ earlier hasty exit.

In the hallway beyond, she batted away the enemy infantry robots and walkers that attempted to waylay her. Ahead, at the gaping hole Khrusos had left in the throne room, she saw infantry robots lined up, their weapons aimed inside, no doubt pinning Will or whoever else remained within.

Some of them turned toward her as she approached, but she battered them with her fists, crushing and mangling them and knocking them aside. Then she crawled inside.

Within, she stood up once more, and surveyed the room. Will emerged from the far entrance, beyond which he had been taking cover, and waved. She waved back.

“My, my, you’ve certainly grown,” Will transmitted. “I remember when you used to be a wee little girl.”

Her gaze alighted on Miles, who yet lay crumpled near the far wall. The blood stain on the wall reminded her of what he had done for her.

“Watch my back, Will,” she sent, not quite in the mood for jokes.

She went straight to Miles and set down the brain tank.

She sloughed off most of the nano machines she had taken from Khrusos, letting them die. As she shrunk, they formed a thick pile all around her. When it was done, that heap buried her.

She emerged from the mound of dead nano machines, feeling so small now, but also more… normal. She wasn’t quite her usual size, however, as she’d left enough inside of her to offer something to Miles. Something she wasn’t sure he’d accept. Assuming he was still alive.

She approached him. His body was battered. Blood had trickled from his every orifice: ears, nostrils, mouth, even the edges of his eyes.

Miles opened his eyes when she knelt beside him. It took a few moments before they focused on her. His gaze drifted to the pile behind her, and the brain of Khrusos, which remained where she’d set it down.

"Nice fish tank," Miles commented weakly. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Most likely,” she said, holding his hand.

He smiled. A fresh drop of blood trickled from his lips. “I’m dying. But before I go, I just want you to know, I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for betraying you. I made a mistake. The biggest of my life. I assumed something that I shouldn’t have. Let my preconceived notions about you and your kind, drive me to a false conclusion. I betrayed not just you, but all my friends. People who had grown closer to me than family.” He started weeping. “I betrayed you! The beautiful woman who saved my entire city. Oh, I’m glad I’m dying. So glad. I don’t deserve to live.”

“Shh,” Rhea said. “It doesn’t matter. You redeemed yourself in the end.”

“Did I?” he said. “Then why do I feel so bad?”

“Look,” she said. “I forgive you. But let me tell you something. You don’t have to die. I can create a cyborg body for your brain, right here, right now. Eventually, you could look identical to what you do now.”

She wasn’t actually certain she could create an entire cyborg body with her spare nano machines, but she felt confident that at the very least she’d be able to create a mind-machine tank, like the one Khrusos had. She had a blueprint for that, there, in her memories, likely received when she first absorbed the nano machines in the Emerald Highlands. Once she created a tank, they could find Miles a body after.

“But only if you want,” she added. “I can’t force this on you. And there’s no guarantee it will work.”

Miles smiled weakly. “It’s tempting. But I don’t think I could live with myself after what I’ve done. Besides, I’ve loathed machines my entire life. If I become one, I’ll only loath myself, even more than I do now, if that’s possible. But I thank you for the offer.”

“Please Miles, let me try,” she said. “You have to try. You can’t give up.”

“Actually, no,” he told her. “I can. I’m allowed. Let me die. Let me go. Please, my Warden.”

She grinned, tearing up herself now. “You called me Warden again.”

He returned her smile. “Yes. You were always my Warden. I was a fool to think you would ever betray humanity. You didn’t have it in you. You were a warrior of Ganymede, yet you were also a warrior of Earth. I thank you, for saving us all. For saving me.”

“But I didn’t save you,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“You did,” he said. “I’m free.”

With that he closed his eyes forevermore.

She stared at his lifeless form for several moments, then released him and wiped away the tears.

It’s over. Somehow, I survived. Somehow, I won.

She thought of all she had done to get to this moment. All she had lost. Her innocence. The lives of good friends, like Miles.

Was it worth it?

She gazed at the brain floating in the tank beside her and repressed the urge to strike out at it. She needed that brain yet, if only for a little while longer.

She stood up and sloughed off the last of her extra nano machines, so that she was just ordinary sized Rhea once more.

Will joined her. “How’d it go?”

“It went,” Rhea said.

She walked to the brain tank, unfolded the handle built into the topmost cap, and used that to lift the unit with one hand.

"Let's go get arrested,” she said.

18

Rhea sat in confinement with Will, Targon, Brinks and Renaldo. Burhawk, Min and Horatio were also held in the same cell, though their bodies remained frozen, with the beam having disabled every servomotor save those involved with breathing.

“Can’t believe they impounded me ship!” Targon was saying. “The nerve of them! Arresting me for being an accessory to a crime.” He sighed. “I’m sorry again for not warning ye. They jumped me as soon as I left me ship. Didn’t have a chance to send a single transmission before they disabled me comm node.”

“Yes, yes,” Renaldo said. “That’s like the fourth time you’ve told us now.”

“Fourth?” Brinks said. “I think it’s the eighth.”

“Tenth,” Will said. “Not that I’m counting.” He glanced at Rhea. “I still think you should have turned his brain to mush, rather than giving him up.”

Rhea nodded distractedly. She, too, was worried she’d made a mistake. What if the palace technicians discovered the modifications she had made? Khrusos had men who were familiar with Ganymedean technology, after all. Perhaps they would notice the stealth modules she’d installed and transfer his brain to a new mind-machine tank. Then again, it was possible they’d believe any modifications to be artifacts of the nano technology he’d filled his body with. She dearly hoped the latter proved to be the case, and that they wouldn’t move his brain.

“Can’t believe Miles is gone,” Brinks said. “Though I suppose he deserved it. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking when he betrayed us.”

“He wasn’t,” Renaldo said. “And that’s the point. Always think very, very carefully before you do something that will endanger the lives of your friends. Because if you’re wrong, then you won’t be able to live with the outcome.”

"He redeemed himself in the end," Rhea said quietly.

“And what about ye?” Targon said. “Did ye achieve everything ye came for?”

Rhea nodded. “Mostly. But there are a few loose ends I’d like to tidy up before we go home.”

Apparently, the technicians hadn’t moved Khrusos to a new mind-machine tank, because she sensed when he came online a few minutes later.

She looked up and glanced at Will: "He's online."

The door to their cell unlocked and slid aside.

The robots standing guard outside kept their weapons lowered.

Will gave her a knowing look.

“Hey, looks like we’ve been granted access to the jail’s wireless network,” Brinks said.

She glanced at her HUD. Sure enough, the signal had been unlocked. She connected.

She received a call a moment later. It was from Khrusos.

She accepted, and a hologram of a bearded man in a dark suit with a red tie appeared before her. His eyes glinted with unconcealed zeal when he saw her.

"Hello, Mistress,” Khrusos said.

* * *

The next few days passed in a blur for Rhea.

She had Khrusos hold a meeting with the High Council of Earth. The president, on her orders, told the councilors of his intent to scrap the mass digitization initiative, and instead called for a ratification of the water deal with the Europans. He held a vote. The Chinese were in, of course, since he had them in his pocket; Chile-Argentina and Persia abstained; the Russians usually voted with the Chinese, and they did in this case as well, allowing the deal to proceed to the ratification stage.

The Europans signed it a day later, and accepted funding from the High Council to help accelerate construction of the necessary infrastructure, so that eight months from now, when Earth’s supply ran out, a steady stream of tankers from Ganymede would keep the water flowing.

She also had Khrusos release a handful of Ganymedean prisoners he’d kept with him for the past thirty years. They would be returning to Ganymede to start another dome colony. Khrusos had already arranged permission with the Europan government for such a dome as part of the water ratification deal. Some of the funding for the water infrastructure would be siphoned into its construction: Rhea planned for it to serve as a key space port in the water trade, though the Europans didn’t know that yet. If they had, they probably wouldn’t have allowed for it to be built.

Khrusos had Rhea’s streaming accounts enabled across all the major sites, and she personally sent out a call throughout the solar system, inviting any Ganymedeans that were in hiding to come out and join in the construction efforts. During her live streams, people often asked in the chat if she would be helping out, too, to which she always replied: “My fight is done.”

The palace technicians helped Will repair the servomotors of Min, Burhawk and Horatio. When Min and Burhawk were ready, she summoned them to her elaborate guest quarters in the palace, along with Will and Horatio.

“I’ve called this meeting because I want to arrange the transference of power,” Rhea told Burhawk and Min.

Min’s brows drew together. “The transference of power?”

“I want to give you control of Khrusos,” Rhea explained.

“What if we don’t want this control?” Burhawk said.

“Speak for yourself,” Min said. “With the president’s power, I can redress all the wrongs he’s committed against not just my people, but his own.”

Rhea nodded and glanced at Burhawk. “And I’ll need you to accept as well, if only to act as a counterbalance to Min.”

Min crossed her arms. “I don’t need a counterbalance.”

“You do,” Rhea insisted. “Checks and balances should always be in place to ensure world leaders remain on their best behavior. It’s part of any fair system of governance. So I’m asking you two to be co-presidents, with equal sharing of power.”

“I plan to restore the house and senate to what they once were,” Min said. “That will be enough of a counterbalance.”

“Maybe,” Rhea said. “But I’d still like Burhawk on board.”

“Why don’t you simply hold onto the control you have?” Burhawk asked. “You seem to be doing a good job.”

“I agree,” Will said.

“It’s not for me,” Rhea said. “I’m not a leader. Or at least, I never wanted to be one. My goal in life isn’t to rule over others. It’s simply to live life on my own terms. I want to return to Earth. To Rust Town. And live out my days in peace. Take this gift. Use it to make sure corruption never leads to the deaths of so many ever again. But know that I’ll be watching…”

Burhawk and Min exchanged a glance.

“She’ll kick our ass if we misbehave,” Burhawk said.

“Yup,” Min agreed.

Rhea focused on Min. “The other option is to return to Ganymede, and aid in the building of our new dome. If that’s what you want, I’ll find someone else to co-rule with Burhawk.”

“No,” Min said. “I can do more for our people here, pulling the strings of Khrusos. But what about you? Don’t you yearn for Ganymede? Don’t you want to return home?”

She smiled wistfully. “Maybe someday I’ll visit Ganymede, when the dome is built. But until then, Earth is my home. I do admit, I’d very much like to see Ganymede restored to what it once was. But that’s not my fight. Maybe it’s yours.”

She held out her hands and beckoned for Burhawk and Min to grab them. When they did, she shared her nano machines between them, giving them fifty percent each, so that Rhea had none. Their bodies quickly appeared stronger, more hale. With those machines, Burhawk and Min had direct control of the mind-machine interface that held Khrusos.

It was hard, giving up that nano technology. She missed them as soon as they left her body. She felt weaker. But it was necessary. She was done fighting. It was time to go home.

She bid the pair farewell, and headed with Will and Horatio toward the spaceport, where their transport was waiting.

Along the way, Will said: “Can’t believe you’re giving up the throne so easily.”

“I never had the throne,” Rhea said.

“Yeah, but you controlled the man who sat on it,” Will said. “Which is the same thing. But now you’re letting someone else rule Earth, Mars, and the upcoming Ganymede colony through him. I don’t understand it. Why not stay in power?”

Rhea smiled patiently. “I’m not power hungry, Will.”

“Well, you should be,” Will said. “Think about it. What we’re looking at are the seeds of the great Terran space empire. We just need someone who can unite all the colonies throughout the solar system. That someone could be you. You already have a massive following on the streaming networks.”

“You heard what I told Min, it’s not for me,” Rhea said. “I’ll be happy to help out where I can, but otherwise, I just want to be left alone. I’ve fought enough for now.”

Will sighed. “All right. But how can you be sure you haven’t replaced one tyrant with two others?”

“Oh, I wasn’t kidding when I told them I’d be checking in on them,” Rhea said. “And if they fail to be the leaders I thought they were, they’ll be hearing from me. They know I don’t tolerate evil dictators.”

“And so you don’t,” Will agreed. “I just hope that Min chick doesn’t start sending assassins again.”

“If she does,” Rhea said. “It will be her last act.”

“Speaking of which, I’m surprised you’d ever give up power to someone who tried to kill you,” Will insisted.

“As am I,” Horatio said.

“If that’s true, then you two still don’t understand me, even after all this time,” she said simply.

They walked in silence through the uncrowded streets. She was able to relax for once, and not worry about what camera or another spotted her face. The airborne drones overhead were just another source of buzzing, rather than potential attackers.

“So,” Horatio said. “You plan to return to Earth and set up shop in Rust Town. What’s next for you after that?”

“For me?” Rhea pursed her lips and glanced at Will. “I think I’ll finally look into getting those genital attachments Will is always talking about.”

“Ah yes, the genital attachments, the final frontier,” Will quipped.

She smiled. “It’s going to be fun.”

“I’m looking forward to introducing you to all the ways genitalia can be put to use,” Will said, raising his eyebrows twice.

She was going to rebuff him, but then an evil thought came to mind. “I’d love that. By the way, didn’t I tell you? I’m getting the male attachments.”

Will’s expression soured. “Figures.”

She echoed his earlier words as she continued: “I’m looking forward to learning all the ways genitalia can be put to use. So many orifices, so little time.”

“Gross,” Will said.

“What, not interested anymore?” she pressed.

“Nope,” Will said.

“You humans.” Horatio waved a dismissive hand at them.

Rhea laughed.

Brinks, Renaldo and Targon were waiting in the terminal of the space port.

“I be so excited about the coming days!” Targon said. “We’ll be having some memorable games of Robot Wars!”

She patted him on the shoulder. “And so we will, my friend.”

“I get all streaming rights, of course?” the merchant pressed.

“You do,” she agreed. “You always do.”

She and the others donned the spacesuit rentals required by the Martian port authority, then loaded into the Molly Dook.

She settled in the cargo bay with her friends, next to Will.

Before launch, she rested her helmet on the shoulder assembly of Will’s spacesuit. He looked at her, seeming surprised, but she only smiled and nestled against him ever closer.

Yes.

Home.

She was very much looking forward to it.

* * *

This concludes the Warden tetralogy. Like the series? Try the Mind Refurb saga. Trust me, you'll enjoy these too. Find the saga on Amazon at https://readerlinks.com/l/1054459

Or discover how Will and Horatio first met in the prequel novella, Salvage, available for free here: https://bookhip.com/WBMXLC

About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Isaac Hooke holds a degree in engineering physics, though his more unusual inventions remain fictive at this time. He is an avid hiker, cyclist, and photographer who sometimes resides in Edmonton, Alberta.

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