Trailblazer – Dream of Eden
Someone like Taylor.
Veda pondered that.
Someone willing to do whatever it took—to endure any personal sacrifice—to change what she couldn't bear.
"We've got nothing here," Lily affirmed. Veda watched through the cameras in her mask as Genesis' projection and Sundancer poked around the abandoned camp. "Were they here? Probably, but they're not here anymore. Looks like everyone cleared out a few days ago."
And Silver Mask had not appeared at Miami or Guam. Two of her associates had instead, both of whom surrendered.
"There's another phase to whatever this is," Veda determined.
"I'm still getting blanks on the colony," Dinah confirmed.
"If they're not stealing a ship—long shot as that was—how?" Lily looked around. "Did they maybe build one? That dump ten years ago included all the schematics, right?"
"I doubt it."
Veda reviewed various records. Thousands in an instant.
Dinah concurred, explaining, "The kind of material and technical expertise needed to construct a ship and a launch mechanism, even a small one, would be obvious. Those kinds of things come from somewhere. They need to be moved. Processed. Constructed. You can't hide that sort of thing easily and even if they did, Veda would be able to find it."
"What if we misunderstood the intent?" Tieria asked. "Perhaps the sole goal was to set up multiple insurgent groups from Africa to destroy themselves. That seems to be what has happened."
Yes, it was.
"Except Silver Mask didn't surrender," Dinah pointed out.
"And the F-Driver is still missing," Veda insisted.
They couldn't take the risk.
If they stole it and kept it, then there was a plan for it. Trevor said they might be dealing with someone like Taylor. There was merit there. Tricking the last big warlord in Africa into putting himself in a vulnerable position and then killing him. Taking out radical militias and terrorists.
They would all oppose the construction of a space elevator in Africa.
Such a thing would bring the AEU and others down on them, but how did Silver Mask pull off getting so many groups to unwittingly walk into each other? The missing Leos weren't equally distributed. Did she use them as bribes to secure support?
And a dozen of them were still missing.
"I think we're missing something," Trevor mumbled. He stood off to the side with Kimaris, ignoring nearby reporters and looking out toward the launch rails. "Listen to the idioms she used again. There's a theme."
"Growth," Tieria stated immediately. "I noticed that as well."
"Learning from mistakes. Taking things to heart. Doing things for yourself." Trevor nodded. "This is someone like Taylor, so we should stop looking for selfish motivations and start looking for selfless ones."
"You think so?" Lily looked around the camp again. "I know Taylor liked making a scene but this is getting people killed. She was always careful to try and avoid that."
"Like Taylor," Trevor corrected. "Not literally—"
A call came in and Veda promptly answered it.
"Claire? Is—"
"I'm sorry."
Veda sat up in bed, staring at the door ahead as she spoke. "What happened?"
"Th—They just kicked the door down. I don't know how they found us."
Veda was already guessing. She accessed traffic and security footage, promptly identifying two vehicles. Claire and Doormaker had retired to a small town in Norway. It was quiet and peaceful. It was what the two of them wanted after the final fight against the Titans and Veda had spoken to neither of them in years.
How did Silver Mask even find them?
Swinging her feet over the edge of the bed, Veda stood up and lifted off the floor. Reaching out she began picking her clothes out of the air while accessing emergency services and directing them. "What happened?"
Claire inhaled, clearly trying to calm herself. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "They said—She said, a cape in a silver mask? She said if we opened a door for them, they'd leave and everything would be fine. I tried to warn you but she knew about the panic button somehow!"
Veda froze in the air, hands behind her back trying to put a bra on.
She gave them that button just in case. No one—absolutely no one but Dinah—knew about it. Her servers were secure. There had been no breaches. Not even an attempted breach.
"Where?" Veda asked. "Where did they ask to go?"
Claire swallowed, audibly holding back tears. "I'm sorry."
"Claire."
"The colony."
Veda spun, grabbing her pants and kicking off the wall to slowly sail toward the door. She quickly connected Dinah and Trevor in, letting them listen.
Brenden sat up in the bed behind her slowly. "V? What's—"
"The colony is being attacked," Veda said.
That woke him up and he left the bed and reached for Dodge's mask near the ceiling. "I'm coming."
"Phrasing," Veda replied.
The door opened as her avatar approached and she brought her legs up and pushed them into the pants. Grabbing a handle on the wall, she started the relay system and accelerated down the hallway at speed.
The shuttle was still on course.
It wasn't a very large ship. Much of the interior space was given to systems and machines. There was enough room for comfortable accommodations for twelve given that a journey to the moon took several days. Half of that were crew. The other half consisted of Veda, Brenden, Danny, Orga and Mikazuki.
It was a joint project between Yashima, Anaheim, and the newly founded Zeonic. Japan was rebuilding rapidly and wanted to try and take some kind of lead in space development. The shuttle was a proof of concept of a redeployable water-landable spacecraft.
As her avatar went down the hall, Veda accessed the colony systems and began looking.
The interior was a vast space, mostly brown and gray. While it spun at speed on the outside, the interior appeared still and quiet. There were hills and basins, but they were mostly dirt. The shuttle was ferrying the seeds she needed to start adding grass, trees, and brush to the colony landscape. The water she'd hauled with her from the asteroid belt, but it remained in storage.
There was nothing to see in the barren landscape. Three separate city centers were present, all oriented to reach up and connect to the central pillar running the length of the colony cylinder. They were littered with cameras. Veda rapidly checked them all searching for any sign of anyone or anything that shouldn't be there.
"Claire, how long?"
"I—I called you as soon as they went through." She spoke at a frantic pace, slurring her words as she went. "They had mobile suits. A dozen, I guess. These big cases too. They used the suits to carry them through the door."
"Are you or Doormaker hurt?"
"N—No. No they went through and they apologized."
Apologized? "Silver Mask?"
"Yeah. Her."
Veda muted that line. "Dinah."
"Claire and Doormaker haven't been active capes since the Titans. There's no reason to know they exist, let alone how to find them."
"How does this cape keep knowing things no one should know?" Trevor asked. "First Lisa's old name. No, even how to steal the F-Driver before that. Now Claire and Doormaker."
"A thinker power that provided them with information that's been hidden," Dinah proposed. "Maybe the ability to know things they need to do what they want."
"They're on the colony?" Trevor inquired.
"Yes."
Veda found them.
She hadn't even thought Doormaker could reach this far. Apparently, she'd been wrong.
"They're in the commercial district establishing a perimeter. About two dozen armed men and thirteen mobile suits." She watched them through a dozen cameras as they went. One mobile suit turned in Silver Mask's direction and shot a camera. "And they're trying to disable security."
Veda reconnected. "This isn't your fault, Claire. I have emergency services coming. Sit tight."
"Okay."
Veda kept the line open but focused her efforts. In the asteroid belt, her systems began reaching out and searching with renewed vigor.
"What can we do?" Trevor asked.
"Not much," Dinah admitted. "I'm going to ask some questions, but Veda…"
"I know," Veda replied.
At the end of the hall she left the section of the ship with rooms for sleeping or eating and entered a lounge.
Orga and Danny raised their heads.
"I thought you were going to bed?" Danny asked. "Something…"
He trailed off as he saw her face while Orga looked out the window by his seat and searched.
Veda accessed the cockpit and spoke aloud to the pilots. "Please alter course to the following coordinates. There is an incident at the colony. I will send the Ptolemaios to meet the shuttle and guard it."
The pilots glanced at each other and then got to work. "On it."
Veda accessed the controls of the Ptolemaios and spun the ship around. It accelerated, leaving the colony behind as it detached the towing tether. Veda wouldn't take any chances with Danny, Brenden, or Orga. The ship couldn't support any people on it even after she'd rebuilt her initial launch vehicle into a more proper ship, but it could defend the shuttle just in case.
The shuttle's trajectory and velocity altered, Danny and Orga raising their heads as the ship moved around them.
"What's up?" Orga asked. He'd grown out a stubbly beard the past few years.
"The colony has been invaded," Veda revealed. "I need to deal with it."
"The same people who've been causing those problems since yesterday?" Danny asked.
Veda nodded, hesitated, and admitted, "I believe they intend to attack the moon. They stole the F-Driver, and they have mobile suits."
Interesting mobile suits at that. While the invaders were destroying the security systems, there were far too many to completely deny her video to examine and Veda got a very good look at their Leos, especially the four that had been heavily modified by a tinker. The remaining nine Leos were operating in trios, all guarding a pair of large containers she had lost direct sight of.
The F-Driver most likely.
"I need to deal with this," Veda said. "Please wait."
Danny grimaced. "What about—"
"I will not allow an attack on the moon. They will fail."
"I can get Barbatos."
Mikazuki came in, following behind Brenden as he fitted the last piece of his armor on.
"If you want," Veda said, "but guard the shuttle. I've had the pilots alter course and the Ptolemaios will meet you a few hundred kilometers from the colony."
Mikazuki nodded and turned on his heel.
Dodge came over to her side, a hand going to her avatar's shoulder. "What do we do?"
Veda glanced toward the window.
His hand on her shoulder was steadying, her constant ruminations over whether or not she really understood intimacy or valued it aside. She questioned that a lot but that seemed normal. Almost everyone she talked to about relationships related to her constant uncertainty and the swirl of comfort it surrounded.
Relationships were weird. But worth it.
"You wait here," Veda told them. "I'm going to resolve the situation."
One way or another.
A few hundred kilometers away from the colony, Veda fired up a series of reactors to full.
The Archangel's thrusters ignited, and the ship accelerated. It dwarfed the Ptolemaios in size, and the towers she'd built to haul the colony with it. The aircraft carrier-sized ship ran heavy. She'd loaded its vast interior space with materials for the colony. Water storage. Minerals. Some raw materials. Three sister ships were in construction already with the next four colonies, the start of a supply train that could keep the megastructures materially secure.
Deep in the Archangel's hull, she accessed a locker and input a 1024-bit hash key. The locker responded and opened, mechanical arms reaching in and rapidly assembling the stored components.
"Veda?" Danny asked.
What would Taylor do?
Easy answer.
"Let me try to talk to them," Veda replied.
They'd gathered in a group out in the street and a camera on the central pillar had a direct line of sight.
The modified Leos bore aesthetic flourishes that made alterations unclear. One was red with a T-shaped visor and long rifle. Another was green with a lance. The third was also green and with significant armor and bulk added to the arms. The fourth looked the least like a Leo, also with a T-shaped visor. Painted white with a shield and large cannon mounted on opposing shoulders.
Veda took special note of the large pods on the back.
Additional thrusters?
She designated them for quick reference in the IFF system.
Leo-W
Leo-R
Leo-B
Leo-G
Simple enough.
Veda didn't see any obvious tinkers among the armed men and women simply loitering around. There was a cape operating a computer connected to the containers they'd brought with them. She couldn't see inside, even when she switched to other camera modes.
Did they even have the F-Driver? Was all of this simply a ruse for some kind of message as Silver Mask had claimed?
One way to find out.
"Hello," Veda said through the colony's internal com system. "Welcome to Eden."
Heads raised, and some guns. They pointed about in search, but Silver Mask looked directly into the nearest camera. Which was over a mile away from her.
"Veda," she said.
"I'm afraid I don't know your name," Veda replied. "We've simply taken to calling you Silver Mask."
"That will do," Silver Mask replied. The mobile suits started to close in around her, the armed guard becoming more guarded and wary. "I apologize for the intrusion."
"I admit, I half expected you to resort to further idioms."
"They served their purpose."
Her accent had cleared up. It was still there and quite strong. Sierra Leone. The southern part of the country. Former country. It didn't really exist anymore but the people were still there.
"And you're now adopting a position of greater clarity?" Veda inquired.
Silver Mask chuckled. "Fewer idioms."
"I see," Veda attempted. "We've had a hard time trying to discern your specific goals… The two capes you sent to Miami have surrendered, by the way. The girl has slight injuries but she'll survive thanks to Mercury jumping in to save her."
Silver Mask lowered her head, the expression on her lips flickering. "Good." She looked over the floor. "They didn't want to come this far."
Veda's avatar squinted while Danny, Orga, and Brenden watched.
"You're not doing what you're doing to hurt anyone," Veda pressed, "are you? It's not your goal."
"Only the mad revel in suffering," Silver Mask mumbled grimly. "And the 'mature' place themselves above it as though age has brought some insight that immunizes them to the experience."
Trevor was right.
She was like Taylor.
"Why are you really here?" Veda began analyzing the containers.
Did they really bring the F-Driver? Could it all be a ploy? Some plot to get attention? The fact they'd brought mobile suits with them made that sound a lot like wishful thinking.
Suddenly, the colony security system returned and an alert startled Veda. Doors were opening across the interior space, leading a direct path to the exterior docking ring. She accessed the control system and tried to close the doors. At the same time, the colony's positional thrusters fired, pushing the entire megastructure downward and toward a destabilizing orbit.
sys.0001-e/ access denied
Veda's avatars all blinked at once.
That was impossible. How could they possibly—They didn't breach the security system. They put in the right keys at every security check and seized it? No one could do that it would take—
"Nothing is impossible," Silver Mask taunted. "However unlikely, however improbable…"
She raised her head back to the camera and snapped a finger. The cape working by the containers stepped back and the sides fell off. There was no F-Driver. There were pieces of it. Veda identified them quickly, but they'd been ripped off and attached to something else.
If Veda had to guess, a bomb.
"There is always a path to victory."
Veda broke back into the system in an instant. She tried to stop the sabotage, but the thrusters overloaded and exploded as she did so. The colony hurdled backward, sailing at a slow but inevitable pace.
"You want to crash the colony into the moon," Veda realized. No. No that would never work.
"If I can. We both know you can stop it."
"Why?"
"Because home is not where we live," Silver Mask answered. "Home is where we belong."
So much for no more idioms then.
"The colony's position has been destabilized," Veda informed the shuttle. "They're attempting to crash it into the moon."
Orga and Danny both flinched, worry flashing over their faces.
"Can they do that?" Brenden asked. "Why not use the towers to get the colony back into position?"
"Yes, but that is what they want." Veda grimaced her processors whirling as she began maneuvering the ships around the colony. Their tow hooks either snapped or dragged the tuggs as the structure began to move. Reversing that momentum would damage them but it would prevent the crash. "They've turned the F-Driver into some kind of bomb or missile."
The airlocks were almost all open and the systems disengaged. Even now that she had control back she couldn't close them.
"They've made a route to the colony exterior. They want the towers busy saving the colony so they can get outside and shoot it at the moon."
"Will that work?" Orga asked.
"I will not give them the chance."
The towers weren't the only ships she'd built.
Behind them, the Archangel pivoted and flew up the length of the colony. The Leos had taken hold of the weapon on either end, turning the contents of the two containers into an apparent missile. The invading party formed a column, Silver Mask stepping back to approach the white variant they'd brought with them.
"Why?" Veda pressed. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because nothing will change," she answered, "if we keep waiting."
Veda blinked.
Waiting? Did she mea—No that wouldn't be it. The world was still changing rapidly. It wasn't perfect or flawless, but it wasn't standing still. Nothing was. Countries reforming. Law enforcement getting a handle on villains. Heroes becoming accountable for their conduct. People across the globe pushing for reforms and changes to the systems around them.
Everything was changing still. Not everyone was actively involved but—
Veda's heads snapped around, every avatar turning in unison in the same direction.
The moon.
"The Shards," she said. "You're addressing the Shards."
"You cannot hide from the world," Silver Mask replied, "and they cannot pretend they are not a part of it any longer." Her hands tightened. "And if they continue lingering in their complacency, then they have no right to be here. Not after everything they've done."
That—
Veda oriented the Archangel to face the colony's base and the ship's momentum carried it onward ahead of the colony. If worst came to worst, she'd sacrifice the Archangel to intercept the missile.
At the same time, she positioned the ship, the hangar doors of the port launcher opened, folding back as a launch rail extended. Veda lowered the suit from an elevator into the hangar and then guided it forward with a team of Helpers in cradles.
"I don't understand," she attempted, addressing Silver Mask again. "What will this achieve? It's not—"
"They are not entitled to peace. I won't wait for the war to come."
"What war?"
"The war that fills the void of uncertainty and fear."
"You don't know that," Veda accused.
"I know that," she replied bluntly. "I've seen it." She grabbed the edges of the white suit. It opened from the back and she swung herself around into it. "I've lived it. Those who wait praying to be saved die, and those with power that watch are complicit."
"Attacking the Shards is not the answer," Veda warned. "You're creating the very thing you fear!"
Silver Mask looked up one last time.
"If they cannot act for peace, then they are waiting for war. It's time to choose… I'll make them choose. They can accept us, or they can stand apart from us. They can't have it both ways and they can't throw the world into blood and death for their own gain and act like they don't have a debt to us."
Their own gain, she said. She'd listened to Taylor's video revealing the Shards. Knew their motives.
"Change is difficult," Veda pleaded. "It takes time."
"The world can't be changed by words alone, and some of us don't have time."
Veda pulled the trigger, firing the hangar contents out of the ship and toward the colony.
The drives spun up, bursting with light as the eyes flashed. Veda closed the airlock as soon as the suit flew through. Once the lock was sealed, Veda opened a direct route through the docking assembly to the colony interior.
"Trevor was right," Veda mumbled, bowing her head.
"About what?" Danny asked.
"Silver Mask. She's the same kind of person Taylor is… Not exactly the same, but similar."
"Can you stop them?"
Veda magnetized the launcher and looked down at her chest.
Choose. Debt to pay. She'd killed the warlords who ruled her world. She'd set them against those who stood by and didn't do enough to stop them. Now she targeted the Shards, who set it all into the motion.
The powerless against the powerful.
Like Taylor, and David. And Leet.
"Of course, I can."
Marida had lied when she said she couldn't reach the Shards. Veda noticed immediately. It was why she lied that vexed her though. What possible reason could there be?
The Shards adopting an isolationist stance had crossed Veda's mind. That they'd withdrawn and focused on themselves and their own problems. Taylor would tell them all the ways that could go wrong, but Taylor wasn't a dictator. If the Shards elected to go quiet she'd try to persuade them but not forcefully.
Did Silver Mask know something?
"I will stop them. Even if they fire the missile, I'll direct the Archangel to intercept it, but it would be best if they didn't."
Silver Mask kept knowing things she couldn't possibly know. They used the correct pass keys to infiltrate the colony systems. Veda had those keys cycling every few seconds. It was impossible to hack them unless you somehow knew the exact key needed at the exact moment.
Spontaneous access to necessary information? The theft of the F-Driver. Claire and Doormaker's location. The pass keys needed to bypass the colony security system Veda herself devised. Silver Mask kept knowing things she couldn't possibly know so maybe. Maybe she knew something more.
Path to victory, she said.
Fortuna.
"How do you stop them?" Danny asked, worry clear on his face.
The launcher charged fully and Veda began opening a series of airlocks into the colony interior.
"The colony was not the only thing I brought back with me."
The suit burst into the air, flying along the length of the colony's central pillar before diving.
The sound barrier cracked and one of the Leos looked up moments before it was crushed into the ground. Veda grabbed the suit's rifle and wrenched it away, whipping it around and striking the second suit in the team with the butt. As the suit stumbled back, a beam saber shot from its mounting and Veda sliced the third Leo at the knees and sent it falling.
A back kick launched the second backward, sending it and its pilot tumbling.
Veda warned as she turned on the other suits as they leveled their weapons.
Silver Mask's white suit raised its shield and gun. "What would Newtype do, faced with a world trapped waiting under the boot of overwhelming power?"
Taylor?
Simple.
"What she believed." Veda's voice softened. "You have no right to do this."
Memories flashed through her mind, chief among them the face of a girl who gave up everything to get everyone else the world.
Silver Mask was like Taylor.
But she wasn't Taylor.
Taylor wanted true peace.
Silver Mask complained, but she was immature.
"Taylor offered the world the future," Veda said. "What do you offer?"
The mercenaries readied themselves.
"Reality," Silver Mask said.
Like Taylor, if she had never changed from who she'd been in the beginning. Bitter and broken. Afraid.
Releasing the limiters, the exterior locks blew free, revealing her suit's face as brilliant green light poured out in rolling waves, illuminating the words and names on its shoulders.
Celestial Being.
Gundam.
Stargazer 00.
"I understand you," Veda offered. "I am sorry."
Taking a beam saber into her suit's second hand, Veda swung the blades out and burst forward as a dozen FANGs shot from the ring mounted around the flywheel.
"You and I cannot agree."