722 Kilometers Beyond Federacy Borders
April 13th, Stellar Year 2146
".:Undertaker to Valkyrie, radar jammer is online. SHADE is active. No problems to report:."
".:Valkyrie copies. Looks like your blip's gone from all our scanners, Shin. Nothing on thermals or infra-red either. You're quiet as can be:."
".:Roger that. Approaching target now:."
It stood to reason, the universe being a sentient creature with a cruel sense of humor, that the one night they needed it to snow was the only night it didn't. The sky was clear tonight. The stars stood vigil while the moon cast pale light. Tracts of snow and the dusted heads of pine trees all shone in brilliant silver.
Undertaker tread up the blanketed incline of the mountain summit and left a trail of broken crust, deep tracks that wouldn't fade until the next snowfall. But Shin was still about 170 kilometers off from Shourei's Para-RAID signal. With any luck, the patrols wouldn't range this far out to see the tracks. And if they didn't, they'd never find him.
Because Shin would leave no other traces.
The SCATTER Multi-Wave-Jamming Device mounted to the back of his Feldress could mask a unit from active sensors, such as radar. It allowed even a several-ton war machine to sneak within spitting distance of an enemy position, at least under the right conditions. Shin used it during the rebellion for countless ambushes and night raids on rebel soldiers. He was comfortable with its capabilities.
However, the massive steel canister mounted where his cannon used to be was new to him altogether. It was a heavy drum, probably a repurposed fuel-tank if Shin had to guess, with a blocky portion at the back that stretched out and down to cover the engine block. The whole construction overflowed with wires, pipes, and day-old spot-welds.
Grethe called this junky prototype the SHADE - the Sonic/Heat Active-Emissions Disruptor - and explained that in addition to dampening the sound of the engine, the device could collect all of the Feldress' heat output inside the canister, which was internally cooled and shielded from thermal and infra-red sensors. For as long as the shielding held, Undertaker would give off no thermal footprint.
It had a theoretical run-time of three hours (Shin figured in practice it would probably be closer to two) until the pooled heat needed to be dispersed, preferably in a concealed location. In combination with SCATTER, the SHADE rendered Undertaker invisible to all the most common forms of electronic detection.
When Shin helpfully informed Grethe that she mixed up the E and D in her acronym, she flicked his forehead.
Undertaker crested the summit and stopped there, perched atop a sparse layer of alpine foliage. Shin scanned the distance. He zoomed his optics over a sweeping expanse of snow-blanketed plains, his view pushing further and further, revealing fitful pockets of human existence, abandoned buildings and concrete rubble all painted silver by moonlit snow. At the outermost edge of his magnification pockets became full-on ruins. Only atmospheric haze and the horizon line itself lay beyond that.
So this was the Republic of San Magnolia.
He'd have to get closer to see more of it, though he doubted he'd find a better vantage point than a mountain's summit. Even a relatively short one.
".:Shinei:."
Kiriya's voice. Shin's eyes flitted to the corner of his Reginleif's projected HUD to see that he'd been switched off to a private connection.
".:Kiriya:."
".:Can you hear them?:."
",:There are two patrols twenty kilometers east, one fifteen north, and one forty south. Nothing to the west. The Republic must have that area under control:."
".:But you can't hear a drone's voice if it's in stasis, correct?:."
".:Correct:."
".:Bear in mind it is nightfall. There could be any number of units in hibernation mode. Stay on guard, and remember that this is a reconnaissance mission only. Avoid combat-:."
".:I'll be careful, Kiriya:." Shin cut in, restraining most, if not all of the bluntness from his tone. 'You mother hen,' he added beneath his breath.
".:…I would not have to 'mother-hen' you if you weren't so reckless at every waking minute:." Kiriya replied glumly.
It took Shin a moment to process how Kiriya managed to hear that little comment. Shin hadn't meant for it to be; he'd rather not leave anything like that on the cockpit's mission recorder, knowing Grethe listened to the audio logs at the end of each operation. And that she was an interminable gossip.
Then he listened deeper to the sounds around him. More accurately, he became aware of their absence.
The SHADE seemed to do more than just dampen the Reginleif's engine. It outright silenced it, alongside the dozen other little noises Shin had grown used to hearing over his years of Feldress operation. The whir of actuating servos, the thud of multi-ton legs upon the ground, the little clicks of components in motion had all been replaced by smooth, nearly-silent whispers of metal-on-metal. Hence why Kiriya could hear even his most faintly whispered insults.
A burst of crackling static in his Para-RAID signaled another connection being made.
".:Hey now boys, what are you two doing on a private channel?:." Grethe said exasperatedly. ".:We're in the middle of an operation, Kiriya. I can't have you taking our star player away from us:."
".:I was just reminding Shinei to be careful. Because he very often isn't:."
Shin was slightly offended by this.
".:I see. Regardless, there are protocols to adhere to, Kiriya. You can't just drag him around as you please. Besides, I can tell him that myself:."
"But unlike you, Shinei would actually listen to me:."
Shin was very offended by this.
He found his hand tightening on the drive-stick. Could it ever not be deeply annoying when people talked about you like they weren't aware you could hear every word they said? And also - really? What combination of arrogance and delusion made Kiriya think Shin would ever listen to him? Why would he listen to either of them, rank notwithstanding?
".:Cutting comms:." Shin said, and did it before either of them could argue.
When their voices were gone, the quiet insisted upon itself once more. Shin sighed. He liked both of them, he really did, and despite himself he appreciated the levity they brought with them. Even Kiriya, the book-thumper that he was.
But somehow it didn't feel right to hear their voices right now. Below his annoyance (which was itself of the fond, sweetly-suffering variety) lay something deep and cold, almost dreadful. It had been in him a long time, but it was growing stronger the longer he traveled on this journey. Stronger with every kilometer closer he came to his brother's final resting place. It rejected voices. Perhaps it even rejected sound itself.
So Shin carried on in silence.
Carried on across the fields of snow, legs breaking the icy crust without a sound. Carried on past the first fitful pockets of hollow ruins, glassless window like glaring eyes, bitter wind passing through them in voiceless whispers. Carried on past the wrecked hulls of Legion drones and sand-colored Feldress he didn't recognize, most mangled into cruel, twisting metal shapes. One had been sliced open at the canopy. Shin glanced dispassionately through it and saw a headless skeleton within, wreathed in weary, snow-plastered fatigues.
But he did not carry on past the overturned hull of an abandoned cargo container. He should have. It should not have been significant to him. And yet Undertaker stopped before it all the same, crimson optical sensor scanning the length of it. It was just a container like any other: its shape like a scaled-up breadbox, rusted at the edges where the protective coating had begun to flake off, pooled with ice inside from years of rain frozen-over.
And yet he stopped for it anyway.
Nii-san, he caught himself thinking without really knowing why. I'm on my way.
—
At some point it stopped being theory and became a simple fact: the Legion could adopt new strategies.
Although they were often complacent about it. And why wouldn't they be? Any army that didn't have to worry about manpower, production, recruitment, sluggish bureaucracy or the whims of a fickle population, had more than enough space to be complacent. But even with all their advantages, the Legion still did, on occasion, have to adapt.
Shin hears the sudden bloom of voices in his mind.
.:It hurts! Ithurtsithurtsithurts!:. .:Mama! MOMMY!:. .:killmeKillmekIlLME:.
A dozen maybe, coming out of stasis all at once to scream out their final litany. It's the same kind of ambush that nearly took him out two hundred kilometers ago - but this time it isn't for him. Undertaker lays hidden in the shadow of a decaying highway overpass, its engine restrained to silence like an animal bating its breath, and Shin knows by instinct that he hasn't been seen.
But the same can't be said for whoever pilots the tan-colored, narrow-legged Feldress on the roof of that decrepit office tower.
A Grauwolf explodes from the tower's window in a shower of concrete, stabs one blade-arm through the wall and then another as it climbs its way up. Two Ameise emerge at the top of another building on the opposite side of the street. Their guns burst alight and the Feldress whirls, returns fire, dual machine-guns blazing. More come from behind. Another dragoon on the other end of the tower. A Lowe shatters an entire convenience store as it crawls onto the street, cannon spinning onto target.
Shin watches from over a hundred meters off. His hand itches toward his drive-stick, foot falling to the accelerator.
Kiriya's words rebound in his ears. The mission is reconnaissance, not combat. It would be more than just a mistake to get involved; it could invalidate everything they'd worked toward. Grethe's advice does the same, echoing with unhelpful reminders that the SHADE's shielded canister is coursing full of coolant - flammable coolant - and was not built with durability in mind. The unknown Feldress isn't his concern. It could even be called a blessing that they drew out this ambush for him.
Undertaker aims for the tower and fires its wire-anchors.
The unknown Feldress does the same, scuttling on spindly, desert-tan limbs to the edge of the roof, evading the slash of a Grauwolf before leaping into the air, shooting wires to the building across the street. The anchors catch, the Feldress flings itself to the structure - and the Lowe on the street fires its cannon not at the mech, but at the connection where its wires lead.
The wires are shattered. The Feldress tumbles, tailspins for all of two seconds before it strikes the building and shatters straight through it, cloud of concrete dust spewing out into open air.
Undertaker ascends, pulled by wire toward the tower.
Shin breathes once in and once out, and at the bottom of the exhale he releases his anchors. Tension slackens. A moment of calm. Inertia alone guides the Reginleif on its upward arc, slowing as it reaches the apex. Shin is reminded, inexplicably and all-too-briefly, of a tire-swing and a river far below, of a hot sunny day and a cold summer night. Of a girl he killed with one bullet between the eyes.
.:Please… don't forget me:.
Undertaker lands with a phantom's silence. Drifts across concrete. Sparks shower as its heels grind the stone, but the screech of metal is lost beneath gunfire.
A Grauwolf to the left, back turned to him. Another not far off. Shin's hands become a blur.
Dart and stab, one blade in and the Grauwolf dies, its voice winnowing at the same velocity as the mercury blood spraying across the ground. Undertaker barrels to the next, glides low to sever the legs, and as it falls the Reginleif spins and whirls and slices a seamless gouge through its flank. Two Ameise open fire from the building across the street. The Lowe switches targets.
.:don't forget me:.
Pings of steel as rounds flicker off the cockpit. The cannon's thunderclap roar. A scream and whistle as the shell flies overhead.
Shin leaps off the rooftop, down upon the Lowe, down toward its canopy. Its machine-guns turn to fire, and in the air he cannot dodge. Lead tears into the Reginleif's lightly armored underbelly. Holes punch through the floor of the cockpit, bullets screeching, metal pings of ricocheted rounds. One tags him, slices the outer edge of his thigh, a wound that causes warmth but no pain.
He lands on the tank-type's canopy, shudder of impact through the cockpit, instant jolt of the clutch below his foot and the stick in his right hand. His left hand flickers on the gun controls. Pile-driver, select and trigger, simultaneous detonation.
All four piles explode, pierce metal,
.:-dontforgetdontforgetdontforget-:.
and the Lowe sags dead. Its voice falls silent.
The two Ameise leap down to the roof of the convenience store, scuttle to the edge where their guns can gain an angle. They're ten meters away from him. They won't miss.
But neither will Shin.
"You realize what you're suggesting is idiotic, right?" Grethe says, a look of exasperation that doesn't quite manage to conceal the manic glimmer in her eyes. "The canister is fragile, Shin. FRAGILE. Do you really want to fill it up with-"
"Mounting your stealth system means losing my cannon. I need some kind of weapon to replace it."
"Look, it's not only dangerous, it's inefficient. Liquid nitrogen is a better coolant across the board, and if you get shot it won't-"
"Can you do it?"
She looks at him. Sighs theatrically. But no matter how theatrical she makes it, she can't quite hide the smile on her face. Grethe is, through and through, the very best type of inventor: the dangerous type.
"Well of course I can do it. But that doesn't mean I will."
"Sounds to me like you can't."
Her eyebrow twitches, and that's when Shin knows he's won.
A circular port opens on the front of the canister about the radius of a drink can. A steel barrel shunts through it, short at just four inches, ending in a flared muzzle, blued at the edges and stained with carbon fouling. The Ameise level their guns, align the sights-
And get doused by a jet of flames.
Shin squeezes down the trigger. His pale face is painted in shades of scarlet as firelight shines brilliant on his HUD, an infernal torrent spewing over the store's roof. The scout drones' voices warp into something like screams as the flaming coolant (now isn't that an oxymoron) rolls over them. It sticks to their hulls like glue and melts their circuits into slag. The ammo cooks off in their machine-guns, exploding in bursts of shrapnel off their shoulders. Barely two seconds pass they give one last shudder, fall still and die.
His finger holds the trigger as he pivots, flame-jet whirling to engulf the form of a Grauwolf charging at his rear. Undertaker dodges left and the dragoon passes by, outlined in a fierce scarlet that abides no shadows. It turns for another charge, then slows, then drops dead in a molten tumble.
There's another dragoon sprinting toward him. It dodges effortlessly around its comrade's burning corpse. Shin trains the burning jet upon it, wreathes the drone in a shell of fire - but it'll be a second too late before it dies. He pulls back on the drive-stick, tries to angle his high-frequency blades to parry, but the canister is too heavy. His movements too slow. The dragoon's blade-arms are crossed and swinging.
The world slows. Shin's thoughts are quicksilver.
It won't kill me. Canister's in the way. It'll take the first hit for me, and I can dodge before it follows with the second. A blade won't set off the coolant.
He'll survive, but the SHADE will be destroyed, and without it the mission will get that much harder. Not to mention Grethe will whine at him for breaking her prototype.
Well, she'd do that even if I didn't, he thinks, and smiles faintly as the blades come down.
Three things share the same second:
The first: A bloom of flame and flash on the Grauwolf's chest, bare meters from Undertaker's nose, so bright an explosion it burns a sunspot in Shin's eyes; The second: a dull whoomph from a distance behind him, quiet a noise compared to the one right before him, but not quiet enough that his sharpened senses would miss it; The third: a screaming metal crash as the Grauwolf is launched back by the blast, falls on its silver-steel ass and skids across the street, throwing sparks.
.:AAaarrAahhGHHAAahHaHhhrgh!:.
Shin shifts the gun-stick, centers his reticle on the shuddering drone. He concentrates the flame on the twitching drone and does not relent until it's dead. His eyes are dull, his face pulled tight as he listens to its electric screams. He hates them. They sound far too human.
And when that final echo of its voice fades away, first to electric static and then to nothing at all, Shin is greeted by silence alone. He turns Undertaker around to the direction he heard that second, smaller explosion.
Bearing 178, distance 40.
A human figure, a tall girl with dark skin and one dark eye, the other a sheer white orb. Her left side is coated in blood from the waist down. A spent rocket launcher is perched on her right shoulder, curls of vapor rising off the muzzle, cloud of propellant smoke billowing behind her in a swirl at her feet. The girl makes eye contact with Undertaker's optical sensor. Raises her bloodied left hand in a two-finger salute. And then the hand falls slack at her side. Her eyes flutter shut. The launcher tumbles off her shoulder as she collapses.
—
Shiden stood on an edge of some kind.
Well, 'laid' might be more accurate, actually. With how she felt, standing probably wasn't gonna be in her cards for a little while. Her condition was pretty fucked. She knew that much, if not much else. She couldn't see a damn thing, unless empty blackness counted as a thing. Couldn't hear or smell either. She could damn well feel though, given all the pain, and clearly she could think (no matter what some smartasses might have to say about her), so she knew she wasn't dead. But she got the feeling it was a pretty close call on that.
Speaking of feeling -
Every part of her felt… cool. And not in the 'aviators at high noon' way either. More like 'wearing sunglasses at night.' Her body felt tepid on the inside, lukewarm like a slab of meat on the cutting board. And she was weak. It felt almost like being really hungry, but different somehow. Grosser. She felt shaky in a way that made her want to squirm or stand or run, and it was kinda pissing her off that she couldn't.
There was a random memory she came back to sometimes, though she never knew why. From a time when she was five years old and went to a butcher's shop on the outskirts of town. She remembered sneaking into the backroom and seeing a pig carcass hanging off a rack, and before she could think about it, she reached out and touched it.
If she could move her hand right now, run it across her skin, it would probably feel about the same as the pig did back then. A little too smooth, a little too cool, and a little too stiff. All the tiny changes that added up when something stopped being living and started being meat.
Except that wasn't exactly right either. She wasn't quite all the way to pig-on-a-rack yet, even if she was close. And even if her insides felt gross, she could feel some kind of warmth on her skin, settling in from outside. It was a good kind of warmth, steady, pleasant, crackling…
Crackling?
Shiden focused to let her thoughts simmer off.
She could hear again.
Only faintly, though. The sound of a fire, pops of wood and the gentle crack of burning kindling. Breathing, her own as well as someone else's. A slow and steady, gentle breathing.
That was all for awhile. Her whole world was that sensation of warmth pushing back the tepidness in her arms and legs, the sound of fire and the sound of breathing. She thought she should have been a bit more impatient to get up, get moving, find out what the fuck was going on. But she wasn't. She felt surprisingly fine with staying like this a little longer. Which was really saying something; Shiden rarely felt fine with anything related to staying put.
Then, gradually settling in like it was pushing through a thick layer of cloth, she heard a voice.
"-it's fine. Don't worry about it…"
"Kiri… -ssion's still going as planned… no one saw… right…"
"She's still alive, but… -ly hanging on when she saw me. Doubt she'll remember any…"
"-just going to make sure she'll surv-"
"…be gone before she wakes up."
Not if she had anything to say about it.
Scholars argued if the sleeping mind could exert conscious control over the body. This debate was not aided by the fact that sleep itself was already a murky domain to the sciences, regarded with much apprehension and very little certainty. Some said it couldn't, believing the brain to be in a state more or less of hibernation during sleep, incapable of active effort. Some argued for the power of the unconscious mind - that territory tread by the likes of Freud and Jung - and claimed that though the unconscious mind was, by its nature, un-conscious, it was still a facet of a person's being. And if the unconscious mind could influence dreams, and if dreams could influence heart rate, respiration, even sweat production, then was that not in and of itself control of the body?
Shiden Iida had nothing to do with this research, didn't know anything about it, and wouldn't have cared even if she did. Whether she was asleep or dreaming or whatever else didn't matter to her; she wanted to get up and confront whoever the hell had dragged her next to that fire. She didn't want to thank them, God no, but she did want to get in their face about it. And when she wanted something, there wasn't a force in the universe that could stop her.
By sheer force of will she pushed back against whatever veil had brought her to this edge between life and the grave. Whether that was blood loss, exhaustion, or fucking death itself, she didn't care.
And it worked. Because of course it did. She felt her senses sharpen one by one, first that feeling of touch and warmth, and then her hearing. Next her sense of smell: sharp scent of smoke, just faint enough to be pleasant; the sticky iron-rust-salt tang of drying blood; something else beneath the other two, faint but distinct, a scent like a mix between gunpowder and summer wind, plants and pollen and river-dew.
Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy. She forced them open.
She saw the fire first, built out of broken furniture and old paper. She saw the boy next.
She saw him in profile. He sat at the other end of the room, leaned against a wall and looking out the window, his hand on a silver device affixed to his cheek and ear. A Para-RAID, if she had to guess. He was dressed in a sharp uniform, a flight suit, but she only noticed that tangentially, and not at all the insignias on the lapel. It was his eyes that struck her. They were a sheer, crimson red - and so cold. Like someone had frozen two disks of blood and stuck them there.
People said Shiden's eyes were striking. They were heterochromatic, one dark indigo, the other such a sheer shade of silver-white that from a distance it seemed to have no iris at all. Her Personal Name, Cyclops, was even based on them. So yeah, she had some good peepers. But this guy was on another level. His eyes caused a chill just from looking at them, let alone being looked at by them.
The rest of his features, sharp jawline, youthful face juxtaposed by cheeks already slimmed of baby-fat, she noticed piece-by-piece as he spoke to whoever was on the other end of his Para-RAID. But no matter what else she saw, his eyes were always the most distinct part of him, like the rest of his face was sculpted around them.
"-yes, I know," he said. For one insane moment, she fought the urge to shiver. His voice was even colder. "I'm not sorry for what I did. I'm… tired of watching people die. No, I won't let it compromise the mission. I'm sure she doesn't remember much."
He chose that moment to look back in her direction. His red eyes widened fractionally when he saw she'd come awake, lips parting slightly before he closed his mouth again, looked back out the window.
"Cutting comms."
Silence. Even the sound of his breathing had gone quiet, though she could still see his chest rise and fall. He said nothing and did nothing. Just looked at her impassively with those cold red eyes and unflinching face.
Shiden's arms were sluggish and leaden. She made them move.
She forced her hands under herself and pushed, muscles straining until she managed to shuffle back, put her back to a wall, supporting herself just enough that she could at least pretend to be sitting upright.
"Bet you…" she started to speak, but stopped herself. Her voice was far too small. She forced a breath into her lungs and held it, let it go after three long seconds, and felt stronger.
"Bet you must be a real ladykiller with a face like that."
The boy raised an eyebrow.
"That's the first thing you say to me?"
Shiden smirked. "Well I'm sure as hell not gonna thank you. That'd make it sound like I owe you or somethin."
"I saved your life."
"And I saved yours right back. Weren't for my rocket, you'd be sidewalk meat right now."
"I would have been fine," he said brusquely.
Oh there's some heat, Shiden thought, her smirk itching into a grin. Your eyes ain't so cold when you're angry, huh?
"That Grauwolf was gettin' pretty close to you, ya know."
"It would have done some damage, but it wouldn't have killed me."
Shiden rolled her eyes. "Sure, whatever you say ladykiller. But I don't owe you any favors."
"I never said you did." He sighed and ran a hand through his Onyx-black hair. "Christ. Maybe Kiriya was right."
"Is he the guy that was tellin' you you shoulda let me die?"
"You're admitting I saved you, then?"
"I never said ya didn't. Only one of us here's been in denial, in case you haven't noticed."
Now it was his turn to roll his eyes.
"I suppose it's a good sign if you have enough energy to be arguing like this. You lost a lot of blood. There was a piece of shrapnel about this big lodged in your kidney." He held up his thumb and forefinger, spread about four inches apart.
Shiden glanced at her stomach and saw that her fatigues had been stripped off, her tank top torn at the midriff. A thick of sheaf of bandages was wrapped around her waist. She poked her finger at the wound (her hand, she noticed, was entirely coated in dried blood) and winced. The ache was tender. The wound ran deep.
"A chef and a doctor, huh? You really are a ladykiller," she teased.
"Chef?"
"Roasted up those Legion pretty good." She mimed sweeping a flamethrower in her hands like she'd seen on the old war movies they found from time to time. "We've done some pretty crazy shit out here, us 86. Built it too. But nothing like that."
"Right. That," he said blandly. "What were you doing out here, exactly?" he asked, not-too-subtly switching subjects.
"Patrolling. Got told the Legion picked up some new ambush tactics not too long ago, I was looking for places where they'd spring a trap. Guess I found one." She smiled ruefully. "You?"
He gave her a blank look.
"C'mon, dude, I told you my business, now you gotta tell me yours. 'S only fair."
He sighed. "Are you able to move? You must be, if you can make jokes."
Shiden winced internally. The thought of moving made her want to die. And that was only like 20% hyperbole. But she wasn't about to show him that.
"Yeah. Gonna need a hand, though."
Without another word he got to his feet and crossed the room toward her. The instant he stood to move, she noticed something even more striking than his eyes: his stride. It was lethal. Balanced with grace and poise, a straight-backed but fluid posture that would have been fitting in a throne room or on the battlefield alike.
Except-
Except it wasn't all the way there, was it? There was a hitch in his step. Not exactly a limp, but close to it, and whatever this guy had going on that made him walk (move, she amended. He didn't walk, he moved) like that, it wasn't enough to hide it. He stood over her and put out his hand, and before Shiden took it, she saw that it was trembling. Not much, but enough for her to notice, especially when every other part of him was as still as endings.
"You're injured," she noted, eyes flitting to a bandage wrapped around his thigh.
"Just a flesh wound." He flicked his hand in a gesture for her to take it.
So she did, and with an effort that felt like shoving ten of Sisyphus's boulders up a goddamn mountain she managed to stand, wobbly on her feet until he slouched to pull her arm around his shoulder. They left the room together, and left the fire to burn itself out, stepping into a shadowed hallway. They came to a flight of stairs. She wasn't shy about leaning against him on the way down - probably would have tumbled and snapped her neck otherwise. She wasn't feeling very stairs-worthy right now.
Wasn't much between them other than his jacket and her ripped tank top. She could feel the firmness of his build, sleek muscles and broad shoulders. She caught herself wondering idly if he thought anything about her own assets pressing against his chest.
(she was proud to report that they were big for her age, and perfectly proportioned, in her not-so-humble opinion)
She continued to wonder, mostly in vain. Ladykiller's face definitely wasn't giving anything away.
"What's your name, ladykiller?" she asked just as they reached the lower floor's landing.
"I don't think I should tell you," he said.
"Oh, right, you're on some super secret spy mission, huh? Guess you gotta be, if you've come all this way from the Empire."
Disappointingly, his eyebrows didn't even shift. She was hoping for some kind of reaction at least - knowledge of the Empire's survival was, at this point, a very open secret among the 86. But it was still a secret, and one that shouldn't have reached the Empire itself. Yet ladykiller seemed to take it in stride the same way he would a weather report.
Maybe she should mention that other guy's name next. The one who came before. That might get a reaction.
They came to the next room, a large office forum filled with old cubicles. Most were destroyed now, furniture tumbled all around. Shiden looked up to see her Juggernaut in a crumpled heap in the room's center, embedded in concrete rubble and a layer of crushed powder, stick-thin legs splayed out, canopy popped open. A thick trail of sticky, semi-dried blood coated the cockpit, running out in a trail downstairs to the ground floor.
"Is your Feldress capable of moving?"
"Maybe. Probably not. And I'm definitely not. It's hard enough to pilot a Juggernaut when you're healthy and sober. Probably rupture all my stitches if I tried it right now."
He seemed concerned by that.
"Do you have any way to signal for rescue?"
"Well, I had a radio, but I think it got smashed at the same time my Juggernaut did."
He furrowed his eyebrows, looking tensely at the ruined Cyclops, all bent metal and stench of burnt wires.
"I could carry you back to your base in mine," he said. "But I can't risk being seen by any of your people. I might be able to drop you off somewhere close, where they would find you on patrol, but…" his voice trailed.
"Hey ladykiller, you're over-thinking it. Why don't you just bring me back to your base? Where that Kiri guy's at?"
He looked at her like she'd grown a second head.
"Are you volunteering to be taken prisoner?"
She shrugged. "What's the problem? Not like you're gonna kill me or anything."
"And how would you know that?"
"If you were gonna kill me, you woulda done it when I woke up and saw ya. Or you just wouldn't have patched me up in the first place."
Despite being offered a free prisoner, he sure looked ungrateful about it.
"Alright, let's say I wouldn't kill you," he said, Shiden knowing full well he wouldn't. "But you don't know anything about the people I work with. What would stop them from putting a bullet in your head and burying you in the snow?"
She flashed him the brightest, most charming grin she could manage. Admittedly, with her face it probably looked closer to threatening than persuasive, but A for effort, right?
"You'd stop 'em, obviously."
His only response was a crease of barely-restrained annoyance in his eyes.
"There's a saying some smart guy said way back when, yeah? I read it in a book I think. It goes something like, once you save a guy's life, you become responsible for it. Seeing as you hauled my ass out of the fire, what do you think that means?"
"That you're full of it and I should drop you and run?"
She laughed. And promptly stopped laughing, because it fucking hurt to laugh.
"Well, yeah. But you're not gonna do that, are you?"
"I have no idea how you have so much confidence right now."
"Look, I'll even sweeten the deal. Since I saved your ass too, that makes this whole responsibility thing a two-way street. If you bring me with you, and promise not to let that Kiri-guy shoot me in the domepiece, I'll help you out. Give you information and stuff. That's what you Empire guys came here for, right?"
He narrowed his eyes, flitting them over hers for a moment that, again and inexplicably, forced her to fight off a wave of shivers. By God they were so cold. He looked away, again at the ruined Juggernaut. Then he started to walk, pulling her along with him toward the stairs. He didn't seem to realize he was treading through her half-dried blood trail.
The ground floor was empty. Shiden vaguely recalled seeing a few chairs and shelves and stuff like that before, in those blurry minutes between climbing out of her Juggernaut, grabbing her rocket launcher, and staggering her way to the ground. But there was nothing here now, except her discarded rocket launcher. He probably broke all the furniture to feed the fire upstairs.
He led her to his own Juggernaut, a design that was almost like the ones she was used to, and yet different in every way. It looked stronger, more armored. Crueler, too. Not just on account of the flamethrower on the canopy, the brutal effects of which she'd seen in action, but because of, well, everything about it. Paint, silhouette, weapons. Somehow she thought the whole thing looked like a crawling, headless skeleton.
"There's an auxiliary chair behind the pilot's seat," he said at last. Shiden figured it was probably the closest he'd get to a straight 'yes, I'll take you to my base.'
"It's not comfortable," he added.
"Neither are you, tough guy. Good thing I like it rough."
Shiden did not miss, nor failed to appreciate, the ever-so-faint dusting of pink at the tips of his ears. It was fun trying to figure out what could get a rise out of him, almost like solving a puzzle.
Despite ladykiller's warning, the ride wasn't actually that bad. The seat was cramped and tight, and the safety belt was downright hell on her wounded abs, but she could handle a little pain. He didn't run them through ditches or do a bunch of crazy jumps either. She got the feeling he was driving carefully for her sake, but didn't say it out loud. He'd probably do a barrel roll or something if she did, and while she liked teasing handsome soldiers who made amusing but scarce reactions, she liked keeping her organs on the inside just a little bit more.
"Hey, seein' as you're gonna be tying me up pretty shortly-" He didn't react very much at all to that one, much to her disappointment. "-don't you think it's only fair if you tell me your name?"
"It's unnecessary," he said, being blatantly stubborn.
"Alright I'll start us off, then. I'm Shiden. Shiden Iida, Processor of the 86."
He gave no reply.
"I serve in Halberd Squadron under Captain Kaie Taniya. My favorite food is boar steak. My least favorite food is the slop the white pigs hand us. My hobby is bothering Imperial soldiers until they give me what I want.
"I've only been able to pursue my hobby very recently, but it's been a lifelong passion of mine ever since I first met an Imperial soldier four years ago-"
Undertaker coasted to a stop in utter silence.
There wasn't so much as a squeak out of the joints, but it was impossible not to feel the sudden drop in inertia when the vehicle slowed. She could feel the pressure, the bloom of discomfort in her wounded side, but it didn't go far enough to be called pain. Ladykiller took one long at his surroundings with those cold red eyes before he released the drive-stick and glanced over his shoulder at her, meeting one eye on hers. On the sheer white left.
"Who?" he demanded in a voice that bled pure ice.
Shiden wasn't one to falter or be cowed. Nor was she now, though the chill that ran through her was almost parallel to fear. It was the intensity of his expression that struck her. Her lifetime spent flitting between warfare and the internment camps had shown her a vast range of expressions in people, grief at the forefront of them. What she saw in the one crimson eye he turned to her was grief at a boiling pitch, white-hot and searing, intensified to such an extent it nearly became rage instead.
She winked at him. "Share your name, and I just might tell ya," she said lightly.
For a moment, she truly believed he would kill her.
But the moment passed.
"Shinei Nouzen," he said, voice murdered of all emotion.
Her breath died in the same second as her smile. Oh, fuck, her brain supplied. They had the same last name. There was no way that could be a coincidence. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.
"Who?" he asked again.
"Uh… So, I'm guessing you came here to find your brother, then?" she said lamely.
No reply.
"Yeah, he uh, Rei, he… he talked about you a lot. I can tell he loved you."
"Is he dead?"
"No. Well, I don't think he is…" her voice trailed. "But Shin, your brother, he…
"He betrayed us."
You know what, reader, you're pretty cool if you've gotten this far.
But you're never going to be as cool as Shiden Iida one-handing a rocket launcher while soaked to the bone in her own blood.
This chapter concludes the first act of the fic, out of a planned three. Though of course, plans and me mix about as well as oil and water, so we'll see what happens. I hope it was a good finale! Have a good Saturday.
- Verbosity