Monday, April 21st, 2679

"Private Wyeth, it’s time to wake up. HEY! Get up!"

"Yeah, yeah. I’m up," I moaned and turned over. Susie mumbled something in her sleep I didn’t catch.

"Oh, no, you don’t Abby! Wake up! It’s 0330, and Sergeant Thawell is expecting you at 0430. Rise and shine!"

You’re not supposed to shoot the messenger, but at 3:30 AM, Emily Post was fast asleep and wouldn’t hear the gunshot.

"Computer, deactivate internal voice mechanism."

He chuckled. "Not that easy, kid. You did that once, and once is all you get. The only way to get me quiet is to get out of bed and trudge out that door."

"Mike? Shut up."

I must have drifted off again, because suddenly I heard Thawell’s gravelly voice chewing rocks right next to my left ear.

"Where ARE you, Wyeth? We’re waiting! It’s 0445 and I’m sending Hernandez up to your quarters now with the override codes. You better be decent!"

He no sooner finished speaking than there was a pounding on the door and I heard it open. I leapt out of bed, grabbing a pillow to cover my front. I did wear clothes to bed, sort of. They were cloth, and they hung on me after a fashion. But strong argument could be made about their purpose, or lack of.

"You just stay out there, Drew! I’ll be ready in.."

"HA! Gotcha!" Mike laughed triumphantly. "Now get moving! It’s 0335. Oh, by the way: Good Morning, Abigail!" He laughed again and shut off.

"Abby? Are you up?" Susie was propped up on her elbows in the half light, looking toward me. Because of my skills in the puterverse and our close friendship, Susie and I had been roommates for two years now.

"Yeah, I’m up. Sorry about the noise."

"You stayed up too late again, didn’t you?" she yawned. "You’ve _got_ to cut down your time in the puterverse when you pull early duty. Sooner or later, Mike will run out of ideas, and you’ll oversleep. Again."

I harumphed and pulled out clean clothes. Snatching up my sidearm and holster, I headed down to the showers, thinking back to the first - and only - time I’d been late to duty. Thawell gave me such a splendid five minute cussing out on the uselessness of a soldier who reported late that I couldn’t help but admire him. The man had a true gift. He never once repeated himself. I should have taken notes, he was that good. After I finished an additional ten hour shift cleaning the hanger, I had to look up at least a half-dozen of his words. Three weren’t even listed. One was illegal.

I made it to the hov carrier with plenty of time. I’d met up with Sarah, Kate and Lena in the showers as usual, so we were in a group when we showed up at the armory to get issue. Dusty passed out short-range laser rifles to each of them and a nullifier and quiver of holoknives to Sarah. Since this was a combination rescue and quick strike raid, Sarah had left her heavier armor stowed away, and had on only four layers of micro armor. I didn’t get any extra ordinance. My skills lay elsewhere tonight.

Thawell was waiting for us at the hover carrier and nodded as we entered. We went in and settled in for departure. They took seats along the starboard side, mine was the one at the terminal, port side, just behind the cockpit.

The hover was capable of holding twelve personnel and three crew. It was the size and roughly the shape of a small bus, though of course it used an inverted gravity ion drive. It was completely enclosed and sagged slightly in the front, where it was plated. Entrance was through a ramp in the rear. With us on board, there were still four more to go, not counting Thawell. It was normally pretty crowded, but since this was a raid using light equipment, there was extra room in case we could pull out some ripes. While we waited, I fired up the terminal and began reviewing the night’s mission. Following protocol, I kept the field tight, forcing me to keep my head still as I viewed.

By the time I had finished, the last of the team was on board and buckled in. Thawell locked up and the hov moved off. The craft moaned and creaked as it passed through the pressure shield. The terminal flicked off for several moments as all access was cut off, then resumed normal operation once we cleared the negating field. The hov leveled out as it reached the top of the shielded ramp and moved out onto the desert floor. Through the front portal we could see the darkness of the arid wilderness. There were no lights of any kind, not even navigational. We were kind of stuck up about our privacy. I looked up through the top portal and saw the pitch black of the desert night sky, dotted with thousands of stars. The total elimination of pollution made for spectacularly clear air. The vehicle started ambling off to the north. Too much speed would leave a heat trail. It would be at least five minutes until we cleared the mine field and could begin phased travel. As I said, we were pretty touchy about our privacy.

"All right, listen up." Thawell’s grating voice called for all our attention. I looked at tonight’s squad. Besides my three friends and I, there was one other woman, six men and Thawell. Pretty even split. I knew them all quite well, and could probably give the mission briefing as well as Thawell. Of course, if I tried, Thawell would dump me off while we were phasing and let me swim home through solid rock.

"Wyeth." I pulled up a solid hologram in the middle of the group. Thawell continued. "Okay, here’s the target. It’s a riping facility located inside a legitimate parts factory. Ninety percent of the personnel and equipment manufacture solar shielding for the ball chasers. They are NOT the target and must be treated as innocents. No weapons except when necessary, and only disabling charges can be used. Marks!" A big man in the back with a swarthy face and slow smile looked up. Cradled in his right arm was a heavy caliber slug gun. "You use that cannon tonight anywhere outside of a real fire fight, and I’ll issue you a popgun like Wyeth’s. Permanently." He smiled his slow smile and looked over at me. I smiled back. Aaron was my wing man on nearly every mission - Sarah was my other wingman - and a better one I couldn’t ask for. Unless it was for someone whose eyes, smile, and voice didn’t set my heart to thumping. Thawell continued.

"As I said, ninety percent of the area is legit. It’s the other ten percent we want to take out. That section is located here," I magnified the display and let it flow in the direction most of us would be taking to break in. Their eyes followed it carefully, as though their lives depended on it, which it did. Our target was buried deep inside the complex, an intentional ploy to use innocents as shields. NATech Supreme didn’t miss much. Including cover up, I thought. It had taken me nearly two weeks to pin this facility down, and even then it was because I got lucky. That made this pretty hot property.

"We’re looking for a total clean-out. It’s unlikely we’ll find any rescueable ripes, but if we do, it’s SOP. The rest will need to be sacrificed. May God have mercy on their souls." A few crossed themselves. "The location is cross planet, higher latitude. Total allowed mission time is twenty-two minutes." Several surprised looks at the longer than normal time. Thawell jerked a thumb at me. "Our resident girl genius has a couple of new tricks, so we get an extra six minutes. Use ‘em right."

"Sergeant?" the pilot called back softly. The hov’s drive was completely silent, and even a vehicle equipped with a MacDonald phaser could travel almost without sound.

"Yeah, Gibbons?"

"We’ll be slipping in three minutes. Phasing travel time is twenty-seven minutes."

Thawell looked back around at us. "Okay. We’ll use tri-team plan beta. Wyeth, you’re non-activate tonight, so Hacker, your tri-team is number one. Marks, you and Grominski gotta ghost. No ripe pickups for you." I was normally the anchor member of Company A’s top tri-team, making me second in command during the actual mission, but would stay behind tonight. It wasn’t wise to let a sharded Cue view unrescued ripes in riping facilities since it could cause a pretty wicked episode. It had been nearly eight months since my last shard, but that wasn’t long enough for me. Never again wouldn’t be long enough for me.

Thawell seated himself and buckled up. I had maybe two minutes left of full interface, so I did a final check of the night’s mission logic, running just under one million scenarios in ninety seconds. Simulation result gave us a 97.9 percent chance of success with no casualties. Not bad, but it could be better. I started tapping out...

"Shut ‘er down, Wyeth," Thawell barked.

I shifted over to flat display, set voice interface to most sensitive, then settled back to await the phase. The atmosphere grew warm and dry and brittle as the unit charged. I looked through the front portal. The pilot, guided by unseen markers, reached over to a box. He lifted the box to reveal a switch, which he rotated, then left his hand on. He waited a moment longer. Ahead, the desert flowed smoothly by.

"Phasing...five.. four.. three.. two.. one." He pressed the switch.

Everything became very hazy and translucent. I looked up at the top portal, not really wishing to see the insides of the pilot and co-pilot. The night sky shimmered through the metal, then I felt the pilot depress the controls and we dipped into the desert sand.

Like a submarine diving into the sea, we sank into the earth. But where in a submarine you are only surrounded by the elements, during phasing, you become part of the elements. Perfected about a century ago, phasing shifted the molecular makeup of the phased object and allowed it to pass through solid matter. The idea was not new, it had been the stuff of science fiction stories even in my old life. But now it was science fact. What had not been anticipated was the difficulty in navigation. Nor was the visible effect ever seen clearly, pun intended.

When phasing, everything became ephemeral and took on a translucent effect. The result was that you could see everything in a limited visual range at all levels. When I was first oriented on the effects, I became very self conscious that the guys sitting behind me could see all of me. No worry, because it turns out they can see all of me; each layer of clothing I had on, my skin, internal organs, flesh, bones, even through to the clothing on the other side of my body. Not exactly the stuff of fantasies. Disquieting seemed hardly a strong enough word. I had looked only once, and it was more than enough. I now passed the time with my terminal display, which was hard enough, with its multi-holophasic guts visible as well, to keep my attention.

Breathing or movement was difficult; imagine being caught in a large sandstorm. But the advantages far outweighed the discomfort. Properly shielded, a phasing vehicle could travel at high speeds completely undetected. There were only three known dangers. First was phase unit failure, with pretty abrupt and final consequences. Second was the inner core of the earth, which while not fatal in and of itself - heat had no effect on a phased object - the massive density slowed passage down to a crawl. It might take years to penetrate. And with the glow of the superheated iron core, it could be blinding for both man and sensors, making navigation impossible.

The third, and most possible danger, was phased mines, such as we used. It had been disastrously proven that two objects can reside in the "same" place at the same time, but three could not. When two objects, one actively phased, came into contact with each other, nothing occurred. But if two actively phased objects meet in a third stable object - unless the phasing frequencies were within one ten-millionth of a hertz - there would be an incredible explosion. So to prevent unauthorized entry, some facilities were now using phase mines. These small, phased objects were located in a half-sphere pattern close enough to prevent intrusion but far enough out to not damage the facility they were guarding if they were set off. And because a military force would obviously lose all surprise appearing outside the field, a phase mined facility was safe from secret infiltration. Fortunately, phased mine fields were difficult, dangerous and expensive to maintain, so there were relatively few of them. We had one only because of successful raiding.

The target we were advancing on was not mined, but it had a huge advantage defensively; innocent workers. For as much as we had NATech Supreme’s measure, they had ours. We had never wantonly used force against anybody except armed NATech soldiers. We directed our energies against machinery, facilities, and data; never flesh and blood, and NATech knew it. So they buried their riping factories and bio-physical manufacturing facilities and other targets deep inside cities and legitimate work areas. Ruthless but effective. What made it worse was that most of NATech military forces had no qualms about opening fire in these populated areas. As a consequence, our mission time was severely limited to minimize conflict. We needed to constantly come up with ways to complete our missions. I had a couple of ideas for this one. I focused my attention to the fuzzy display, constantly blurred by rock.

"Okay, Mike, let’s play for a while." Having the speed of a sleepy tree sloth, I relied on voice interface. This was only a small problem; voice interface wasn’t the preferred method of access - direct mental connection was - but it would work. Mike was my virtual partner in the puterverse. I had created him way back when I was John Wyeth, but only as a high speed assistant with very rudimentary and artificial judgment. He didn’t even have a form. He was quite different now, much more real.

"Hiya, Abby! Playtime, huh? Are we finally hitting the Denver ripe facility?"

"Uh-huh. Are the weather patterns over the northern Rockies still following?"

"Course they are! It’s what you asked for, isn’t it?"

"Don’t get uppity, with me, Mike! I think Dusty’s still looking for a new puter for his armory. You want to finish out existence as Agnes?"

"Perish the thought! One screwed up girl around here is enough!" For some reason, Mike was fascinated by my circumstances, and when he wasn’t asking me questions about the experience, he was making comments about it. Before I could say anything, he chuckled. "Just kidding! This is what we’ve got so far: I downed the Anchorage and Idatana nets six hours and forty-one minutes ago. They thought they repaired the damage and brought them up three hours and six minutes ago. That was the signal to bring them back down again, taking the Seattle net with them. Now they don’t know what to do. We’re on perfect schedule, with some wicked storms spread out across the northwestern section of North America. The pots on to boil, Abby! Shall I take out the Denver weather net?"

"Yes, please. How long until we can generate lightning over the target, and what are the three most likely scenarios?"

"The lightning is easy; three minutes for the weather net breakdown, five minutes until storm conditions, then five more until lightning can be triggered, using the suddenly malfunctioning shield regenerator as a lightning rod. So, thirteen minutes. Shall I bring the regenerator down, now?"

"Um..no. Let’s give them time to evacuate, but not enough time to effect a repair crew. I don’t want to fry anyone. Bring it down in fifteen minutes."

"You got it. Now as for the three most possible scenarios, the first two are pretty much unchanged. One has us succeeding with target elimination and rescuing a few Ripes. The other has mission success but no rescue. Between the two, they have 95% probability of being most likely. The third one is the tough one, Abby. I’ve looked it over and I think the major battle scenario is not possible. The more likely scenario, with a 3.6% probability is a major intervention, with mission success but possible loss of life."

"What casualties?"

"I’d guess three to four on our side. Their side? Unknown but substantially higher, with 78% being military personnel, 20% ripe, and less than 2% innocent."

"Very well. Notify Sergeant Thawell of our latest projections." He wandered off to let Thawell know. The sergeant could call off the mission for any reason, but probably wouldn’t for this. From a cold, military point of view, this was very acceptable risk. If I told myself that enough, I may even believe it.

"He said it’s a go, Abby!" Mike reported cheerfully. He still hadn’t quite gotten over the excitement of missions. Which made sense, because I hadn’t either, despite my concerns about loss of life.

"All right. We should be breaking through in about twenty minutes. Have the commandant phone in from his lunar vacation home and ask for an important conference with... with... what’s his name?"

"Captain Garber."

"Right. For Captain Garber and the two lieutenants. Put the call through in, say, twenty-five minutes. That’ll give us time to disembark. Make him really ticked off."

"Check! He’ll be chewing nails! Anything else?"

"Not right now. I’ll talk to you in twenty."

"Twenty it is! And may I say," he dropped his voice down to a smooth, silky octave, "you look ravishing tonight, my dear. I just love what you’ve done with your spleen." He shut off quickly, laughing his brash laugh.

I giggled and would have shaken my head, if I could. I had pointedly made Mike my age to help me keep perspective. He could be pretty gross sometimes. But he could be a darling, too.

#

Half an hour later, I wasn’t thinking how sweet Mike was, I was thinking how slick he was. We’d broken through in an abandoned part of the warehousing district. Slightly populated is normal for a Sunday night, but a false radiation leak about two miles upwind caused for full evacuation. Mike talked the security puters into liking us, so we were undisturbed. Parked alongside an old building in the pouring rain, we couldn’t have been seen from 100 meters.

The squad was already ten minutes gone, leaving just the hover crew and myself. I paced the deck back and forth, waiting impatiently for word, but knowing there couldn’t possibly be any for at least another ten minutes, and that would be word of the mission’s cancellation. I sat down and hugged my knees, staring out the lowered back ramp into the rain and lightning. I wished I was with them.

Suddenly, the sky lit up and there was a flash on the horizon. Mike whooped excitedly. I could almost picture him jumping up and down, pumping his fist.

"Wow! That was great! Direct hit!" He started laughing. "Yes! Oh, yes!"

"What? Mike, what? Give me an image!" A blurred image showed up in the middle of the deck. The crew turned to look. There were huge flames spouting out of a ruined stack. The bottom half glowed a dull red.

"Is that the shield regenerator?"

"It sure is, sister! Man, can we call ‘em or what? We picked up a 2.6 gigawatt bolt perfect! No reported injuries, fire crews responding but not yet arrived. Perfect, Abby!" The pilot,

Gibbons, slapped me on the back, grinning widely, and I had to admit to a certain sense of accomplishment.

"Well, so far, so good. How’s the conference going, Mike?"

"Not bad. I’ve got ‘em blaming each other for stuff that didn’t even happen. The captain’s already busted one the lieutenants to sergeant. And I’ve shunted all emergency calls and alarms to that hot subroutine we wrote. They still don’t know the generator’s been hit. The way it’s.. uh-oh!"

"What? What!"

"I just lost contact, Abby! I think they’re on to us!"

"Okay. Wait a minute." I thought furiously. They probably knew they’d been duped, and would immediately suspect the riping area as the target. There wasn’t any other explanation, unless.. unless.. I had it.

"Mike! Slip into their financial records and scrounge up some dirt, especially on one of those three. We’ll make ‘em think that’s what we were after."

"Abby! I can get it, but I’m not going to be able to get a patch into any kind.."

"I know!" I slipped into my seat. "I’ll be right there. Just get me something to work with. And let them trace this call. Corporal!" This to Gibbons. "I think this place might be getting scanned or searched pretty quick. They caught on a little faster than I expected. I’ve got a couple more decoys, but I don’t know how well they’ll work."

"Very well, Abigail. What makes you think they’ll search here?"

"Because I may have to make us one of those decoys if they find out the generator is hit. Stay clear of this terminal." My puterverse access was such that anyone coming into the field risked severe injury, possibly death. "Access," I said. All terminals gave me immediate puterverse entrance on request.

The hover disappeared and a vast plane spread out before me. A boy with a metallic green shimmer and hazy features ran up to me. It was Mike. His hard breathing told me he finally had to work hard. He probably enjoyed the challenge.

"Abby!" he gasped, bent over and whooping for air. "I got it! Looks like both the lieutenants have been shaking down the employees for credits." He stopped to catch his breath.

"That’s nothing new. They all do that. I’m surprised the Captain isn’t doing it, too."

"He is. But he’s also swiping credit from his two lieutenants, a definite no-no, even for NATech. He’s using an alias and has the file locked. Here’s the key." He held out his bare hand. A flash of rainbow light and a smell of lilac, and the key appeared. I touched it and its shimmering colors washed over me, painting me with its palette and scenting me with lilac. We headed off toward the facility’s main system entrance.

There were two ominous looking sentries at the entrance. They were huge, helmeted behemoths, staring out of solid face plates. They were as unmoving as Vermont granite, but could respond with crushing attacks on the slightest provocation. Unseen, but far more deadly were several worms buried under the surface. I couldn’t avoid them completely, not in the short time I had, but I could mislead them. Getting in should have been tricky, but I had prepared for this and laid out my paths a week earlier. Just as we were about to pass through the main entrance, I created a hole in the ground and stepped in. I floated gently to the floor, five meters down. Mike followed. It was tempting to press on under the entrance, but the worms would be on me at once. As soon as they penetrated my lilac smelling armor, I’d be exposed and locked out for good. Worse, the worms would latch on to my presence and follow me when I tried to leave. It would take precious minutes to detach or destroy the best worms.

To give them something to do, I called up a panel from the side of the hole Mike and I were in. I captured a holo display of the immediate area, then twisted it along both axis. I then warped the time frame, sending it into a one-minute loop with random trapdoors to reroute the unsuspecting worms. Next, I shunted communications to several trinary code subroutines I had written. Finally, I whipped up three dopplegangers of Captain Garber and placed them at various entry points in my warped reality. Knowing what was coming, Mike grabbed my free hand. It tingled with electricity and pulsed warmly. I closed my eyes and activated my model.

Although I couldn’t see it, I know what happened. I temporarily warped the reality of this corner of the puterverse. The worms very quickly got busy, tracking the equally busy dopplegangers and sending their warning off to my subroutines which came up with appropriate instructions that led them to the trap doors. The warp would probably last two or three minutes.

We cut through the sewer computer system and accessed the main server via the maintenance routines. After that, it was easy to cut through one fire wall and enter the secured channel into the private accounts. Knowing I was running out of time when the three of them would be together, I slipped a hand into a nearby terminal. Mike took a position about two meters up the line and poked his hand in as well. I located the search paths I was certain they’d be using to trace the call. I located the trace, then rerouted it to the Captain’s private quarters making it look like he’d intended to false trace it to the commandant’s. It made no sense, they already knew the call was faked, and with a moment’s thought, they’d figure out there was no way the call could come from either place. But I was betting that emotions would be pretty high in that little room, and they’d be reaching for their guns before accessing their brains.

"Worm coming through, Abby! Five seconds!"

I felt a shiver that meant the worm was nearly on me, so I withdrew quickly and sealed it up. Mike’s high sign meant I’d made it. He waited a moment to cover up any tracks I’d left - as a creature of the puterverse, Mike was immune to worms - then also withdrew. We headed back to the surface. I thanked him and exited.

The plain collapsed in on itself, and the interior of the hover reappeared. Gibbons was looking at me intently from his pilots chair, his gun strapped on.

"How’d it go, Abby?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I’m not sure, Corporal. I got away with it, and placed the trap before they traced the call. But if they don’t kill each other, they will trace it here. I had to give them the real trace for me to find them. If they took the bait, we’re fine. If not, well, it’s better we take them on out here..."

"..than our people take on everyone over there. Good thinking. Jamison!" The co-pilot looked up from his scanner. "Let Mosser do that. You and Abby keep an outside patrol. One hundred meters, separate routes, three minute check-ins. Go!"

I was already pulling on my light armor and headset. The interior of the hov sucked in the night’s darkness as Corporal Gibbons cut all lighting. I stepped out first into the soaking blackness and went to my left, away from the building. Jamison was right behind me. He was new to the team, but seemed competent enough. Instead of heading between the hover and the building, he walked over to me.

"Are you going to be all right, uh, Abigail?"

"Huh?" I looked around at him. "What do you mean? Of course I’ll be okay."

"It’s just that we might run into some muscle, and I thought, well." His voice trailed off uncertainly. "Well, I just want to let you know, you know, that..."

"How sweet! Thanks, Charles, isn’t it?" He nodded. "Thanks, Charles, but I think I can handle things that go bump in the night. You take forward, I’ll take aft. Shout if you come on anything. " I smiled in the darkness and rain. "And Charles? Read the mission personnel dossiers next time, okay?" I smiled at him again and moved off.

I was soaking within seconds. My light armor would deflect most projectile and some energy fire. And it was flexible enough that I could use my smaller, more pliable body to its full advantage in hand to hand combat. But the armor covered only my torso and did nothing to hold off the rain. The gel even seemed to soak it up.

I took a careful reconnoiter around the dark warehouse. Behind me, the hover sat in complete darkness. I worked my first circuit, meeting Jamison halfway. We continued on, checking in on occasion, and met again at the hover. Ten minutes had passed. Another ten and the squad would be back. If anything had gone wrong, Mike would let Gibbons know, who would in turn tell us. We stepped out about twenty meters and repeated. I’d gone about a quarter of the circuit when my headset crackled.

"Five. Light. Point one twenty ninety."

I turned and moved back toward the hover. Gibbons message was short and cryptic to avoid interception. He told us there were five soldiers, lightly armored, and one hundred and twenty meters off the starboard side of the hover. I pulled my gun, but didn’t charge it. I wanted to wait until just before I fired. Many patrols had energy detection equipment, normally heat sensors and night goggles. The rain took care of the first and Mike could falsify the second, but when playing this game, there’s no point in taking unnecessary chances.

"One position ten point one." I was letting the others know I’d be in position, ten meters from the attackers, in one-tenth of a minute.

"Two position ten point two." That was Jamison.

"Three position ten point one. Four position fifteen point one. Five position twenty heavy point two. Six position twenty heavy point oh." Mike used four different voices, sending out signals just in case they were listening in.

I snapped on my charger and stared into the rain. At first I couldn’t see them, but eventually, I made out four separate shapes. That made the fifth one a lurker. Standard NATech recon party. I lifted the gun and aimed at the one in the lead. He was a big enough target at ten meters. I started to gently squeeze off a shot when Jamison spoke up on my left.

"That’s far enough, gentlemen! Drop the weapons."

The fool! Instead of dropping their weapons, they used them. Fighting down the temptation to cuss him out, I snapped off my shot and moved toward him, keeping low. The largest of the group fell heavily. I saw a quick beam from where Charles was, and hoped he moved. Another one went down, but the other two were closing in on Charles. I ran to him. I heard the boom of a slug gun.

I made about half the distance when I slammed into the fifth guy, the lurker. He was slightly built, but still larger and heavier than me. His arm clouted my gun hand, and the gun clattered off. He’d been trying to shatter my elbow, but hadn’t accounted for my small size, so he hit more gun than me. It numbed my left hand momentarily, but was probably worse for him.

I had maybe five seconds before those other two caught up with Charles. Lurker swung a viscous hand at my neck, to break it. But this motion was the complement of the first, so he had not adjusted for my short height and quicker speed. As a result his attack, already high, was easily dodged. He still raked it across the top of my head, ripping off my headset. I had no time for finesse, so I jammed my open palm into his nose, sending the slivers of bone into, well there’s no point in getting graphic. He dropped, making a sick gurgling sound. I passed by him, knowing that he was dying. I’d been lucky. I was so intent in getting to Charles that I had forgotten about the fifth man. Had I been a full grown woman, that oversight would have cost me my life. Of course, had I been a full grown woman, I wouldn’t have forgotten in the first place.

I ran to where Charles had fired from, but there was no one there. I stopped and turned in a circle, listening. I brushed my soaking hair back from my ears - my ponytail had come undone when I lost my headset - to better hear. At first, nothing but the slam of rain on ancient concrete and the lonely grumble of far off thunder.

A lighting bolt raked the night, and the pieces of the sky thundered its protest. In the flash, I saw the frozen struggle of man to man combat. They were in front of me, about ten meters distant. Away from the hover. Jamison may be new, but he had his priorities right. I just hoped he would live long enough to receive the compliment.

Charles was in a bad way when I came upon the little group. He was on his knees, being held by the throat. His main attacker had his arm raised for the killing blow. The second one was scrambling for a plasma rifle that had fallen. Charles’ attacker was the immediate danger. I pulled my boot knife and engaged.

I slammed my foot against the side of his left knee and knocked his left hand from Charles’ throat just as his right arm came slashing down. He screamed as the knee buckled and tore. I stepped inside between the two, and he screamed again as his descending right arm impaled itself on my extended blade. Leaving the knife transfixed in his gushing forearm, I stepped around him, using him as a shield from his friend’s attack, and shouted at Charles to get down. The wounded man had his gun holstered, and I couldn’t tell what type it was. I took a big chance and drew it, hoping it was a slug gun. I wouldn’t have time to wait for a charge. The second man was aiming his now charged rifle.

For the second time in as many minutes, I was a lucky girl. Projectile based, and standard NATech issue. Holding it in my left hand, I brought the heavy gun up along his back as he slumped, snapped off the safety, and fired.

The slug was a little high, but not too high. The man with the rifle, just a blurry outline in the bucketing rain, jerked back as if tugged hard by a rope, dropping the gun. He probably dropped it involuntarily, but that still made it his smartest move yet. I was about to fire a second - and final - time, but didn’t need to when the rifle fell free. Keeping an eye on both men, I knelt beside Charles, who was lying on his back.

"Are you all right, Charles? Are you wounded anywhere?" I earnestly ran my free hand over him, looking for injury. He stared up at me, oblivious of the attention.

"You. . .you just killed those two. You took them out like they were recruits."

"Maybe they are recruits. Anyway, they’re not dead." I raised my voice so they could hear. "Unless they want to push their luck." The nearest one wasn’t going to; he was too busy clutching his left knee with his left hand and holding his heavily bleeding right forearm against his body. The other one was lying very still.

Charles had a some cuts and bruises but was otherwise unharmed. Leaving him to tend to his former attacker, I checked on the rifle man. He was alive, but wouldn’t be much longer. I knelt beside him and he looked up at me.

"Wasn’t too smart, waiting for the rifle to charge, was it?" He coughed blood.

"No, it wasn’t." I took his hand and he smiled.

"Taken out by a little girl! I suppose it’s just as well I don’t make it. The guys would never let me live it down." He looked at me. "A little girl. How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"So young. So young."

"Is there someone you’d like me to contact? NATech won’t."

"I know they won’t. You’d. . . you’d do that?" He shook his head with wonder when I nodded. "That’s classy. Yeah, tell my sister, Colleen, that I wished we’d emigrated now." He choked out where I could contact her and was silent. I thought he was gone, but he opened his eyes slightly and smiled.

"I’d always thought I’d die in a buddy’s arms, saying something really impressive and memorable. I think this is better. I only wish..." And then he died.

We took the wounded man back to the other two. Both were down but breathing. The lurker was out in the rain, somewhere, but he wasn’t coming back. I went toward him to locate my gun, which had been knocked clear. It took me about five minutes, but I found both my gun and headset. The first was fine, the second shattered. I holstered the gun, tossed the headset, and headed back to Charles. He was listening to his headset, then frowned. He pulled it off and shook it, fiddling with the limited controls.

"Did you lose the signal?"

"Yeah, I see it picked up a crack during the fight. Water must have leaked in. Doesn’t matter. I got most of the message." He continued messing with the headset.

"So?" I said expectantly.

"Sorry. That was Corporal Gibbons. He said they’ll be back in five minutes, and we should report back immediately. That’s when it cut out." He looked down. "What about these three?" He paused. "And wasn’t there a fifth one?"

"Uhhh.. yeah, there was. I don’t think he’ll be bothering us." His eyes widened a bit, so I hurried on. "As for these guys, two of them will be out another hour or so. And this one..." I let my voice trail off. The wounded man looked at me.

"Hey, I’m no coward, but I’m not an idiot either. I’ll fight you for a paycheck, but getting killed makes it hard to spend ‘em."

"At least your living expenses would go down. Come on. We’ll get you fixed up at the hov, then put you out for an hour or so." He nodded, then grimaced from the pain. We tossed their weapons off into the darkness and picked up the wounded man.

We headed back to the hov. Charles took most of the man’s weight, with me helping as best I could. We walked in the darkness and growing thunderstorm. Maybe I overdid it just a bit, bringing down the Anchorage, Seattle and Idatana weather nets. Mother Nature was loose and flexing her muscle.

We hadn’t gone too far, this guy was big, when we heard the high whine of approaching skimmers above the pounding rain. I hoped everyone was safe. I wondered if there were any ripes. I hoped so. I wasn’t worried about sharding. Not in this kind of environment when seeing ripes. It was the combination of seeing a lot of them in a hostile environment, or seeing a ripe that was very similar to a previous ripe of your own that could cause a sharding episode, and even then it was rare.

By the time we reached the hov, the first four of them were pulling up. Two of them were riding double. So there had been some ripes they were able to get out. I could tell they were both women, maybe twenty or twenty-five years old. They were both staring around, as though in a daze. They each wore uniforms, but from their bagginess it was easy to see the uniforms didn’t belong to them.

I heaved up under the man’s arm, holding him around his waist. We staggered on. No one had seen us yet. We were just stepping into the light.

"Uh, people?" I called out. They all turned and looked. "Kudos all around and everything, but could we get a little help here?" Two of them came over and took the man. I straightened and walked up to the ramp. I heard a scuffle behind me and turned.

Both of the girls were clinging to the men that had carried them. One had partially slipped out of her borrowed uniform and showed a lot of shoulder. They were pleasure ripes; creatures who’s minds had been riped to obey the whims of whomever owned them. Obviously embarrassed, the men were trying to peel them off.

"Please! Look, this isn’t right, uh, miss." Gregg Wagner sounded both flustered and flattered by all the attention. I laughed.

"Well, Gregg! Quite the ladies man, aren’t you?" The girl looked at me.

"Abigail!" Gibbons voice was sharp. I jumped at his tone and turned around. He was staring. "What are you doing here? Didn’t you hear my message?"

"Sorry, Corporal, no. I lost my headset, then Jamison, here," I jerked a thumb at him and turned back to smile at him, "broke his like a rookie." Jamison smiled sheepishly and I winked at him to let him know I was just kidding.

The two girls were now close to me. They were on their knees, still clinging to the men who were trying to get on board. I could hear the nearest one pleading with Wagner. The other one just sobbed quietly.

"Please, let me be with you. I’ll be good! I’ll always be good. You can do whatever you want. Just please..." The second one started making similar pleas.

I felt my blood rush to my face. There was a roaring in my ears and I was suddenly dizzy. My knees went weak, and I sagged. I heard footsteps and Charles grabbed me by the shoulders.

"Abigail! Are you all right? What’s wrong?"

For no reason, I smiled and held him close.

"Nothing’s wrong. What would you like me to do? Can I take off this stuff and cuddle with you?" I started to take off whatever it was that I was wearing. I heard a high sound and saw some lights getting close. The lights were pretty.

"Abigail? What’s wrong with you?" said the man holding me.

I was scared. "Is there something wrong with me? I’m sorry. Tell me what it is and I’ll get better. Please, let me have another chance." I started crying and dropped to my knees to hug him. He jumped back.

"Oh! Please let me make it up!" I cried. "I’m sorry! I’ll be good. I promise."

No! What’s happening to me? I . . I can’t control ..

Some other man took me by my shoulders and picked me up. He was very big. I looked into his eyes and smiled at him. Was he my new owner?

"Wyeth! Snap out of it! What’s wrong with you?"

"Why is everybody telling me there’s something wrong?" I wailed. "I’m sorry, I’ll be good. You can punish me, if you want. I even like it, if you do. Or you can.."

Someone else held me, but this time it was a pretty lady. She was sad and mad. I knew because I could tell.

"Oh no! She’s sharded! Why didn’t you get her away before we got back? We called through ten minutes ago!" she said with a mad voice.

I’ve sharded? Oh no! As who? Terror filled me.

"We tried to get through but.." said the man in the big floating thing.

"We both lost our headsets in the skirmish," said the man who I wanted to hold me. I smiled at him, but he didn’t see. I’d try later. "I’m sorry, Sergeant, we didn’t know."

"All right!" said the big man. "We’ll get her home and take care of her there. Let’s mount up! We’re going to have company soon. Treat that wounded soldier and give him a two hour nap. We bug out in three minutes! Kate, take Abigail’s station on the terminal. See if you can get her puter pal to help us. Sarah, can you take Abby?"

"Just try and stop me." said the big, pretty girl holding me. She looked down at me. Her eyes were wet, but she smiled.

"Come on, Abigail. Let’s get you on board." She tugged me onto the big floating thing. All the people looked sad. I wondered why.

My head hurt so much, it was impossible to think. Why was I acting like this? Why was I thinking what I was thinking? I desperately wanted answers, but it was so hard to think.

"Okay," I said and was happy. Maybe she was going to be my new owner. "I want to make you happy."

She looked at me, then helped me find a seat. It was hard. Then she took off my big clothing. Then I started to take off the rest of my clothes, but she stopped me, grabbing my wrists. I looked up at her, not knowing what she wanted.

"Didn’t you want me to undress for you?"

Her face got red. "NO! I don’t want you to undress. . . just what kind of girl are you?" she asked. So I told her and her face got even redder and she got madder.

Did I just say that out loud?! I don’t feel good. Shut up! Shut up!

"Do you know what we’re going to do now?" she asked me. I giggled and shook my head. I’d be happy to tell her what I like to do now. It didn’t matter

NO! Don’t you DARE think that! Don’t you dare! I tried to fight off the thought, but was completely helpless. Whoever I was now had total control of us.

to me whether she was . .

"We’re going on a little ride. Under the ground. We’re going to do something called phasing. Do you know what that is?" I thought about it then shook my head. I reached out my hand to touch her leg, but she slapped my hand real hard, making it tingle and feel good. She looked at her hand and looked sad. Then she shook her head like she was mad.

"What the hell are you doing, Sarah?" said the big man. "You don’t have to be so rough!"

"I - I’m sorry, Sarge," said the big girl. Her name was Sarah. "I don’t know why, but I had an uncontrollable urge to hit her." I reached for her again and she looked at me. Her eyes said she wanted to hit me and I was happy. But then I was sad because her eyes stopped saying that and she took my hand.

"Stop that, Abigail. I want you to behave."

"I am behaving! I like being good. Are you my new owner?"

"No! Uh, no, I’m not! Oh, Abby!" She held me close, but didn’t seem very happy. Maybe she was sad that she didn’t own me. The big man stepped up behind her.

"Take your seat, Sarah. We’re bugging out in one minute." The big door went up and closed and the big man sat down. The pretty girl let me go and put straps and buckles on me. I knew she wanted me to stay in my chair. I knew that because she put straps and buckles on me.

"We’re going on that ride now, Abby. I’ll sit right here. You’re going to feel heavy and everything will look different and strange, but don’t be scared. I’ll be here." She sat on a seat behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. The big thing jerked and moved and we all went on a ride. It was very scary.

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