Cyber Dreams 4.49 - The Heavy Hand of Justice

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-Plum

Juliet made quick progress through the pirate vessel at first, steamrolling a couple more intersections where Mary’s crew, human and synth, tried to stop her, but then, quite a bit slower than Juliet would have expected, they locked down the ship, closing all the bulkhead doors. Up to that point, she’d been operating almost instinctually, a fog of fury and sadness driving her. She refused to look at the corpses she left behind, refused to consider the idea that she was out of line. Juliet heard Angel talking to her, listened to her directions, and watched as she populated her mini-map, but she felt detached.

Despite the ease with which the Atlas suit responded to her movements, it didn’t feel like her. It was almost like she was along for the ride, watching through the camera feeds while it pounded through the corridors, launching concussive missiles and spraying hot polymer slugs into the ragtag defenders. When the bulkhead door ahead of her slammed shut, and red lights and sirens filled her senses, she was forced to pause and think, to allow her actions to catch up to her. While she stood there, more numb now than sad, angry, or guilty, Angel highlighted a menu on the suit’s UI, showing her the deployable attachments available besides the data prong. One of them was a high-intensity plasma torch.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, selecting the option. She held up the suit’s right arm, watching as the nozzle deployed from the forearm plating. It sparked to life almost immediately, and she approached the bulkhead, noting that Angel had highlighted the four places she should cut to sever the bolts holding it locked to the housing. In less than a minute, she’d sliced through them and, more easily than she could have imagined, lifted the Atlas’s heavy right leg and kicked the bulkhead door open. It broke out of the housing and crashed to the plasteel floor beyond. Juliet took two steps, already sighting another bulkhead door a dozen meters ahead, when a comm request lit up on her AUI.

“Mary Moon is trying to connect to you.”

Juliet thought about it. Did she want to hear what the backstabbing, murderous pirate boss had to say? Almost against her will, a faint glimmer of hope flared to life in her mind—was she calling to tell Juliet she’d been bluffing? Was Nick still alive? “Accept.”

“Lacy! What the hell are you doing? You’ve killed half my crew, and now you’re wrecking my ship!”

“I told you what to do if you don’t want to die. Offer’s still on the table. Anyone I find in the mess hall on their knees, unarmed, will not be killed.”

“Why? Why, you fucking bitch!” Mary’s voice was strained, incredulous, and Juliet couldn’t reconcile the tone with the woman who’d just threatened her and told her she’d murdered her friend.

Even so, she took the bait, slowing her march toward the next bulkhead door as she replied, “Are you insane? You killed my partner and tried to board my ship!”

“I told you! He was a fake! You want to work with a guy who’s lying about his ID? A guy trying to infiltrate us? He wasn’t who he said he was!”

Juliet scowled, dark thoughts rising to the forefront as Mary extinguished her faint hope. “You should have held him and asked me about it if you didn’t want to make an enemy. Enough bullshit—if you want to live, do as I said. I won’t speak to you until you’ve complied.” Juliet cut the comms and jogged toward the locked door, already redeploying the torch.

Several minutes later, when she kicked the door open, she saw two synths, each strapped with something that looked like improvised bombs, sprinting toward her. Angel responded before Juliet could, unlocking the magnets on her suit’s feet and firing the maneuvering jets, sending her flying backward, away from the charging synths. Juliet lifted her left-hand autocannon as she soared, firing a stream of rounds into the two synths. A white flash signaled something powerful blowing up, and then the suit’s filters cut it out, and Juliet was in the dark for two full seconds.

She felt a jolt, felt the impact gel cushion her, then, staticky at first, the suit’s cameras came back online, and she saw the hallway ahead had been greatly expanded. Venting pipes, ripped plasteel, and smoke rapidly being pulled away revealed a massive rip in the ship’s hull, exposing the black void of space beyond a dozen meters of ripped ship innards. Juliet realized she was on the ground, sitting against the bulkhead wall she’d cut through earlier. She maneuvered the Atlas suit upright and looked at the status display—no damage. “She just about destroyed her ship trying to blow me up.”

“Yes. It was a spectacularly-failed Hail Mary.”

Somehow, Angel’s reply broke through Juliet’s dour mood, and a corner of her mouth tilted upward. “Was that pun intentional?”

“I . . . must take credit for that one.” Angel expanded Juliet’s incomplete mini-map in her view and added, “The explosion opened the deck below. Judging by this ship’s original schematics, I think it will lead us to the reactor room.”

Juliet started toward the hole, her feet once again magnetic. “Open comms to Mary again.”

“What?” Mary’s voice sounded harried, breathless. Was she running somewhere? Did this ship have a shuttle? An escape vessel?

“One more chance, Mary. I’m going to blow your reactor. If you don’t surrender and try to flee, I’ll blow your shuttle or whatever out of the air. I’ve got a rack of SRMs on that little medical ship, and they won’t miss at this range, I promise you.” Juliet didn’t know how believable her bluff was, but she hoped her show of force thus far would add some credibility to the threat.

“What do you want? I can’t bring him back to life!”

“I told you what to do. You’ve got five minutes, then it’s game over.” Juliet dropped through the gaping hole in the decking, trusting Angel to propel her through the ripped plasteel to the deck below. Light as a feather touching down, her huge, metallic feet clicked against the plasteel, locking her in place.

“You promise you won’t kill us?”

“The only way more of you will die by my hand is if you keep attacking me.”

“Fine! Fine, bitch!”

“Connect me to the ship’s cam feeds. When I see you all in the mess hall, I’ll stop the meltdown. You’ve probably got about four minutes.” Juliet continued to pound her way down the hallway, following Angel’s dotted line on her mini-map. She didn’t cut the comm connection this time but stopped speaking. As she rounded a corner and saw a heavy bulkhead door ahead with the universal signs for radiation and active reactor, she hurried her pace. She’d just redeployed her torch when new vid feed windows appeared in her AUI.

“She did it. I am connected to the ship’s camera system.”

“Do you see the mess hall?” Juliet paused, her torch half a meter from the plasteel door. The vid feeds cycled quickly, and then Angel expanded one to show her a low, dimly lit dining area with half a dozen bolted-down plasteel tables. Two men, a woman, and a synth were on their knees at the center of the room, and she could see several pistols and rifles on one of the tables. “I don’t see Mary.” Juliet extended the torch and began to slice the spots Angel had already highlighted for her.

“Stop wrecking the ship, dammit! I’m on my way to the mess!”

“She can see me in the feed? Can you cut her off?”

“Not yet. I’ve deployed Fido through the connection, but he’s still battling his way through the ICE.”

“Is he faster than you would be?”

“As fast, at least. He’s more . . . specialized.”

“And he doesn’t have me distracting him, hmm?”

“Well, I don’t consider you a distraction.” Juliet wanted to smile at that, but she didn’t—her face didn’t want to listen to the impulse, and instead, she frowned more deeply, moving the torch to the next bolt. She’d cut through two of them, much thicker and heavier than the other bulkhead doors, when she saw Mary appear on the vid feed. She threw a shotgun on the table and proceeded to the area where the rest of her surviving crew knelt. She didn’t kneel; instead, she collapsed inelegantly onto the floor, sprawling out with a horribly angry expression.

Juliet stopped her cutting and retracted the plasma torch. Even with the torch’s prodigious energy use, her suit was still at ninety-two percent. She wanted to know more about the batteries and everything else in the high-tech power armor, but she had other fish to fry. As she gazed at the biggest of them, with her golden eyes and her mismatched but high-end cybernetics, a fog of rage began to cloud Juliet’s vision. She must have stood that way, seething, for several seconds because Angel spoke up, “Are you okay? Mary has signaled that the route to the mess hall is open.”

Juliet turned and began clomping back up the hallway, watching her mini-map as Angel updated it. “Are they all in the mess hall?” Her vision was enhanced through the suit’s cameras and sensors—she could see temperature variances inside walls, even around corners, showing up as blue and red, so she wasn’t too worried about ambushes.

“I don’t see any signs of pirates on any available camera feeds. The coverage of the ship is less than optimal, however.” Juliet pounded toward an open-shaft lift, saw it wasn’t present, and that the access panel was flashing red. Rather than try to get around the security or demand Mary send permissions, she stepped into the shaft and let Angel fly her up to the correct level. When she clicked down onto the plasteel again, she looked at her mini-map and saw she was on the last stretch of corridor to the mess hall.

The Atlas nearly scraped the ceiling with its head. Still, it fit well enough in the new corridor, and Juliet watched the feed, noting how the angry expression began to fade on Mary’s face, replaced by something like dread as Juliet’s power suit clomped and clanged its way closer and closer. When she was just ten meters from the mess hall door, she heard a series of clicks behind her. She turned her head, spinning the vid feed to display the view behind her, and a red flashing arrow indicated a proximity alert to the rear. She barely caught a glimpse of a figure clad in a black, fully enclosed environmental suit before a blinding pain erupted in her chest, and she coughed a mouthful of blood.

If it weren’t for the red lights flashing, Angel screaming at her to turn around, or the glimpse of her attacker, Juliet would probably have lingered, dumbstruck by the strange pain and reaction. Luckily, all those things combined to send a jolt of adrenaline-fueled panic through her, and she spun, reflexively swinging the Atlas suit’s sledgehammer of a fist in a wide arc. As her view recentered, and she saw the corridor whirling in a blur, she caught sight of her assailant again, trying to dodge backward, but too slowly—her giant, mechanical fist caught the side of his shiny black helmet and flattened his head against the plasteel wall. The helmet shattered, sending hunks of polymer-coated plastic and glass flying. The impact sprayed the wall in a semi-circular pattern with blood and . . . other things.

Juliet coughed again, and this time she couldn’t stop. It felt like she had a lung full of water, and each cough sent shivers of blinding pain through her chest and back, spiking up and down like her nerves were on fire. “Juliet!” Angel cried, “You’ve been stabbed, and your coughs are making it worse! The nanites are working to deaden your nerves so you can stop. Try to hold your breath!” Almost like magic, the tickling, burning need to cough subsided, and Juliet sucked in a shaky breath. She couldn’t feel if her lungs were full, but she felt her stomach expand. When it pressed against the impact gel, she held it.

As she held her breath, she slowly turned back toward the mess hall, raising her left arm and pointing the barrel of her autocannon at the doorway. She didn’t know if there was more to this ambush, but she wanted to be ready. She had a rearview feed prominent on her AUI, and, thinking about that, she wondered how the attacker had gotten past Angel and the suit’s proximity warning. How the hell had she been hurt through the armor?

“I’m going to use the impact gel to manipulate the blade that’s impaling you. I’ll flex it against the metal and work it out, but it will take some time. You can’t feel it, but I’ve already started. In twenty seconds, we’ll pause so you can take a fresh breath. You’ll probably cough out more blood, but don’t worry; the suit will deal with it.”

Juliet couldn’t speak, but she could subvocalize. “How am I stabbed through this armor?”

“I don’t know! A monoblade? A plasma-tipped lance? Some kind of high-end vibroblade?” Angel paused, then said, “Breathe now!”

Juliet let out her breath, and just as Angel had predicted, she felt wet, gurgling, hot blood pour out of her mouth. It was exceptionally weird not to feel it in her throat or chest, not to be coughing or gagging. The nanites must have disabled a lot of nerves. She inhaled another shaky breath, then waited as Angel continued to work on getting whatever had impaled her out.

She watched the vid feed of the mess hall and saw Moon back on her feet, staring at the door, pacing in a slow circle. She must still have access to the cameras; she must have seen her ambusher fail. Now she had Juliet outside her door, pointing an autocannon her way. Juliet looked at the rear camera feed again, and as she let her gaze linger on her dead assailant, she saw where he’d come from. A wall panel was slightly ajar, and she could see the color-coded conduits behind it. He’d hidden there, among the pipes and wires.

“He’s the one they called Mister Galaxy,” Angel said out of the blue. “Note the cyber arm and pieces of shattered visor. Angel highlighted pieces of shiny plastic and the bulky, blue cyber arm that wouldn’t fit in the environmental suit.

Juliet thought about how he’d threatened her, how he’d programmed the synths on the pirate base to ambush her. “Well, that’s one creep I won’t shed any tears for.”

“Breathe again. This should be the last time.” Juliet exhaled another mixture of air and blood, then inhaled as deeply as possible. “I have some disturbing news, and I’m hesitant to share it with you.”

“Huh?” Angel’s statement took her by surprise, and Juliet began to wonder if she was in more trouble than she’d thought from the injury.

“I have access not only to the cameras but, perhaps sloppily, they gave me access to recorded footage. I’ve found Nick’s body and a recording of his . . . questioning.”

Juliet felt the blood drain from her face, felt her heart freeze in her chest. “Show me.”

“I don’t think I should.”

“Show me!”

“No, Juliet!” Angel’s tone of finality was one that Juliet had never heard from her.

Absurdly, she asked, “Can you even say no to me?”

“I guess I can! I won’t show it to you. It’s horrible, and I just wanted to tell you that it was this man, Mister Galaxy, the most awful, horrible person I’ve ever seen, who hurt Nick.” Something clattered noisily behind her, and Juliet whirled just in time to see a double-edged, wide-bladed sword with a long, two-handed pommel fall to the ground. “You can breathe now; the nanites are closing the bleeding vessels, so hopefully, you’ll stop coughing blood soon.”

Juliet was having a hard time focusing her thoughts. The way Angel had described the “Mister Galaxy” creep told her more than she wanted to know; Angel had seen some bad people in their time together, and if she’d decided he was the worst of them, then poor Nick must have had a horrible, horrible time with him. She couldn’t stomach the thought as hot tears began to flow out of her eyes, joining the blood leaking out of her mouth, being absorbed by the gel around her cheeks and neck.

She stooped to grab the sword in her big but surprisingly nimble right hand. “What’s this?” she asked, perhaps in an effort to distract herself from the thoughts of Nick.

“I believe it’s a particle disruptor. It uses powerful bursts of energy to generate a focused field that destabilizes atomic bonds. Its drawback is the immense energy required; he likely unloaded the full charge to pierce the suit a single time.” Juliet contemplated the weapon for a few seconds. Her mind kept fighting to go back to Nick, to try to picture him being tortured. She tried to banish the thoughts with memories of him happy, alive, smirking, and joking. An orange readout flashing and then turning green brought her attention to the suit’s diagnostics, and she saw that the armor and gel had repaired themselves.

Juliet stepped closer to the dead pirate and lifted her right foot, pressing him against the wall, then she reached down with the power armor’s left hand and grabbed his blue, plasteel cybernetic arm. With a single jerk, she pulled it off his body, ripping it out of the flesh at the shoulder joint. Carrying his sword and arm, one in either hand, she stomped to the mess hall door. “Tell Mary she’s got two seconds to open this door.” Almost immediately, the door slid open, and Juliet stomped through in the hulking black power suit.

The kneeling pirates shrank back. The two synths watched her placidly, and Mary Moon, still on her feet, had the nerve to smirk at her. “I said kneeling!” Juliet growled, lifting Mister Galaxy’s arm and hurling it at her. Perhaps purposefully, she failed to consider how dangerous a six-kilogram hunk of plasteel and metallic alloys could be when thrown by an Atlas Combat Exoskeleton.