Interzeit: A Space Opera (18 page)

The crowd parts out of his, way and they march through the large hangar.

“What are we looking at systems wise?” Nol asked,

“Light frame, the flight systems are interesting, looks like we could get a pretty good fly time, but…” The AI thinks,

“The weapons are so-so, lacks a bit of a punch don’t you think?” It asks,

“I don’t know, so far it feels like we’ve got a rifle, and oversized emitter of some kind.” Tomson answers,

“Yea, I know how you feel about rifles.”

“Boring,” they say simultaneously.

The 01 reaches the launch pad, they crouching into a braces squat. The operators began a count down to launch, a sharp wave of adrenaline hits
Nol, he smiles as he becomes more and more intoxicated.

“Any
cannons,
or missiles?”

“Some kTon missiles, practically rocket drones, but there’s less than a dozen.”

The platform launched upwards as the countdown reached zero. Nol strained against the G force, as they rushed out of the abyss with terrifying speed.

“Good flight systems huh?” Nol asked rhetorically.

The sling shot launched them out of
the
now open silo, hurtling them into the sky.
Nol ascended higher over the surface, the sky clear blue, and overwhelmingly bright. He laughed maniacally as the ground shrunk from under them.

“
EDF
-01
, this is ground control, please proceed to marked target,”

“Sure,”

The path was
marked,
he saw the parabolic fl
ight path, as a segmented curve
leading off into the distance, ending in an inverted triangle marked “60KM”.

They carved though the troposphere with tremendous speed. Nol felt the Gs squeezing him unconscious, his implants lit up, sending regulating impulse throughout his body. His connection to the machine in was in full effect now.

Some part of his mind was present that he was in a seat, but the machine’s sensors, multi-faceted and enhanced were firing, and he felt as though he were really loo
king through its eyes.
The wind rippling against the aerodynamics of his metal body.
Then there was Clara who was part of the same nervous network and more, handling all of the complex statistical and systems feedback, working constantly in her personal colony of his mind.

The destination came into view in dizzying quickness. Nol cuts rockets, throwing his feet forward. The reverse thrust kicks out of the
mech
’
s
front rockets, and they skid, slowing
in a slide.

They descend into a large field, several media drones swarm around them as they touch down. The sensors pick up a contained crowd, and pulpit event happening a few miles off. Nol wondered i
f any of his fellow survivors were there
, if they knew it was him that was returning.

“Fire when ready,”

His view filled up with glowing targets, hovering over several crafts of different sizes and shapes. He drew the rifle, blasting into them with practiced precision. Drones, tanks, and bunkers all blew to shreds with the satisfying zip of the plasma rifle.

Several of the vehicles blinked into life, launching after him. Nol laughed as the planes banked in from one side spraying bullets into his side. 01 boosts forward, launching into the air. He twists around firing back at them reflexive
ly, the flurry clips one of them
, bringing it down into a fiery wreck.

The other drones broke into a swarming evasive action.

“Shit…” Nol muttered, trying to get a good lock, “Hit them with something Clara,”

“Firing,”

A missile fires from his shoulder pods, it runs the drones down quickly, exploding into a large sphere. The explosion sends the rest flying in all directions and pieces.

They cut the main rocket, gliding down back to the ground.

“Let’s mix it up a little,” He mutters.

He stows the rifle. Several drone tanks light up, the targeting system assigning his new active targets.

Nol grasps the emitter handler, the design straightforward, almost a sized
up clone of the one given to him
by Polystratus. A strange feeling, he wonders if Berkant had something to do with it, the AI recognizes it as well.

He holds it, his arm tingles with warmth, its influence concentrating on it heavily.

“Yes!” It hums in his mind.

Flashes of the
past,
and past nightmare contortions, ever changing brutal re-impressions, Nol grits his teeth, launching into a spinning flight towards the tanks. The Emitter screeches into a burning red blade. It swings dangerous, tracing trenches into the ground as they spin and speed forward.

The blade rips through his reckless roll, he pulls out as they explode, stabilizing, crashing into the ground.
His crushes them under foot, reaching and tossing another like a paper weight.
They begin locking in their artillery strikes at close range.

He fires the emitter in retaliation destroying the ground, leaving burning craters in
remembrance
.
They drift around the remnants, no new targets appear for a few minutes, the dust settles slowly.

“Take a look at this!” The AI says,

He follows its intent, his vision telescoping forward. He sees it a gray mech drone. Not just any drone, the drone. His heart raced seeing the frame once again.

“What the fuck?” He answers

“I can’t believe this.” The AI agrees,

“Shut up!” Nol
says
,

It lights up with a new target reticule.

“Engage the mech drone when ready Nol.” The operator hums in his comms.

“Lock missiles, on me,”

The AI silently complies.

Nol drops the live emitter on the
ground,
it hisses and sizzles the earth beneath it with a clattering thud. Re-drawing the rifle he looks at the far off target, cruising slowly towards him. He breathes deeply, clearing his mind.

The first shot sails true, the
m
ech alters its course subtly, slipping passed.
He escalates firing fully automatic blasts of plasmatic fire. It gets clipped as it
dodges,
the ground and trees exploding into splintering smoke around it.

It fires back weakly, the bullets clatter against his hull,
he
ignores them carelessly, focused totally on the chaotic burst of fire flitting back towards its origin.

Finally he clips its leg, causing it to stumble into a slow boost. Nol nails it three more times swatting it to the ground.

“Fire…” he growls,

A missile launches from a discrete point in the mech’s shoulder. It
fl
ies
away, cresting in a gentle
parabola,
they erase the machine from existence. The effects of space in fast motion, it
’
s sent to the dust, the infinite separation of finity.

An undeniable rush flows through Nol. He watches the smoke clear.

“Nice work Tomson,” It says,

Many times successes are unexpected. They come at a time of greatest darkness, or failure. There was a project of this kind on the moon. Before the Lunar Protectorate had been conceived, the moon had long been a place of cooperation and unity for the nations of Earth.

One such project was the “solar ring”. Designed to be a constant power generator, once completed it would be able to power the Earth and more. Work began on this, and with cooperative experiment between Pacific, and BRIC nations, a strip of fifty miles was commission. A fleet of self assembling solar drones were dropped onto the lunar surface. Following that material
was
imported
in steadily over time
.

Despite being slow initially, the rate at which the drones could put together the array was rather impressive given the technology of the time. There was certainly no miracle in this test project, but once it was finally up and running, steady projections of repayment were calculated within half a century.

This break even point would the make the arrays tremendously profitable. As the decades continued and returns hel
d, the illustrious point grew
near and nearer. Soon the
rest of Earth decided to join in on the project, not wanting to be leave money on the table.

The ring grew and grew as more nations and corporations bought costly multi-billion dollar expansions for the ring.

T
he array
grew into a
diverse interlocking root system of panels. From different eras, they varied in shape, size, and material.

It became a new kind of investment entirely, similar to the then burgeoning asteroid reconnaissance and exploitation market.

Everything was going well enough for the global economy in this way, the moon became a symbol of unity on Earth, pro
mpt
ing some to catch the fever of a new frontier, lifting up and away from the grim and tightening constrictions of a densely populated world.

Things held steady until an underfunded physics experiment conducted in
Schengen produced the world’s first contained fusion reactor. Small in scale, the story was nonetheless shot into the veins of the internet communication system, and the world liked what they saw.

The diminutive artificial sun captured the imaginations of peoples, and nations followed. There was a great divestment from the solar ring project, the prizes of energy plummeted quicker than predicted due to the new avenue, causing many of the smaller countries leveraged
in the solar ring
to fall into severe debt.

The International Courts ended up settling the matter with a cheap buy out of their stocks. The
BRICS
and
Pacifics
worked with the
United Nations
to repurpose the array entirely.

Energy exports were scheduled for sever
e
ramp down.
Paradoxically the coming fusion boom allowed cheaper and easier access to reusable ships and rockets, letting the newly formed “International Lunar Development Project” begin sending heavier machines to the moon and in great quantities. Many self-sustaining robotics projects were performed, leading into the first off-planet colonies. They merged and grew over time, but the solar ring would eventually become the bed rock of Kovskygrad, the “Lunar Capital”.

It was a city of lush green zones, sheltered with thick pressurized walls. The low gravit
y lent itself towards unusual an
d bending
buildings,
the transit was cheap and efficient.

T
he city was glowing, bright white lights with soothing shades of peach, yellow variation. The whole place was enveloped in this ethereal glow, darkening down to deep reds and purples during the “night phase” of the solar day.

It was night phase when Lei was released into the city from the processing dock. TST had arranged lodgings for the night, and she sorely needed them. Feeling drained, she had slept little in her cramped ship, making even the Tiger West cockpit seem like a suite.

She taxied a ride from the dock, and sailed through the neon space night listening to the humming bass of the drone
’
s computer terminal.

The outer city was encased in a large dome structure, she had traveled through several redundant ones on the way in, but now on the inside something in their construction, their overlapping angles and bends seemed to meld them together into a single l
ense, looking out into the spacescape.

Safe to breath in, and of hospital temperatures, it shared many things with your typical space colony, or perhaps it was the colonies that were based on its time tested design. However your relative perspective, as Lei grew nearer into Kovskygrad, the newer it became.

Heading towards the superstructure that was the “true” city, was a journey of accelerating mechanical thickness. The large and many shaped city itself had lay
ers of drones roving across it,
performing maintenance
, seeking problems around the clock
.

Once inside, there were much fewer transport crafts. Large and self-contained, the
place was
a technocolored plaza that stretched on and on. The structures in the ceiling bent and morphed shifting from scene to scene from dark skies, metal caves, to space itself.

The vibrate energy and nightlife stirred Lei as she trudged through the corridors, but her tiredness simply bred slight resentment and envy from them. Finally as she reached her “quarters” which in reality was a mid-luxury hotel, she collapsed. She stripped quickly, barely making it and out of a shower before fall
ing
asleep, still half-wet.

Lei woke some time later, she rubbed her face sleepily, grasping for the shore of consciousness like a drowning animal. After several minutes of comatose loafing, she finally moved her stiff body into animation.

She had no other clothes with her aside from her pilot’s jumpsuit
.
Th
e tough fabric had seen better days
. She pulled it on slowly
. He
r
room came with a small tea machine, and soon her
body slowly coursing with the restorative powers of the moon’s favorite stimulant drink.

Her ionics had several messages from her contact in Kovskygrad. They had grown impatient about two hours earlier, and had taken to spamming her with grotesque and vulgar words (and images). Lei chuckled at the thirty-two unread messages, and decided she had kept her contact waiting long enough.

They were supposed to meet at the cross street of La Grange St and Kepler Ave, Lei was already on Kepler, but La Grange was a good six blocks north. She messaged back that she would be there soon, but decided to walk the distance anyway.

The low gravity was hilarious to her, as the scornful looks of contempt from the diminutive
Kovskyites
shot her way each time she obnoxiously leapt through the air.

Despite such trouble, it was entertaining, it felt almost like she was in zero G, but a reluctant tug on her legs downwards always ended her leap in a large slow drifting terminus.

One fool hardy leap shot her in the middle of the road, where hovercrafts of a variety of sizes and elevations hurled similar epithets her way while weaving around her drifting body. She landed in the street, her knee buckled and she fell completely.

A hovercraft charging her direction flick
ed
on its lights in warning. Lei stumbled to her feet, but the craft ramped up in speed instead of braking. In panic Lei jumped out of the street. To say she overshot the walkway would be generous.

Still rising, she crashes harshly into the side of a tall sleek building. She almost ping pongs straight back into the path of the car, but catches a
ledge
in time to
set herself down
on the walking path.

She sees the hovercraft brake as it crosses her path, and spin out. The craft lifts on one side and slides into a 180
degree
stop, parallel to the walkway.
Lei ungracefully clatters
to the ground near it.
It’s a sleek yellow and black number without a top.
The driver exits, slamming the door harshly.

Lei looks
up at her looming form. A woman, her hair is strawberry blond, wild and pushed around with pins and clips.
She is chewing
aggressively
.

“You freaking dumbass,” She admonishes, “What are you doing in the middle of the road?”

Lei ambles to her feet, realizing that she’s a few inches taller and substantially sturdier than her would be assailant. She smiles at her with a stupid grin.

“Sorry!” Lei says, “I’m not used to the gravity here, I’m a tourist of sorts.”

“Geeze!”
She replies, “You could have gotten killed.”

She grabs Lei’s jumpsuit roughly pulling at it.

“I can’t believe you’re the TST piece they sent me huh?
Liang right?”

Lei blushes
slightly, and dips her head in a mock bow, “Yes, I am Lei Liang, please call me Lei.”

The stranger gives her a prudish “Hmph,” and hops back into the hover craft, followed by a gruff, “Get in.”

Lei walks around quickly, joining her, they take off down the street immediately.”

“Oh yeah,” she says, “Call me Iza, that’s short for Izanami Sato.” She grins with pride.

Lei nods politely, and tells her that it
’
s great to make her acquaintance.

“Ah come on!” Iza says, “You really don’t know me?” She takes her eyes and a hand off the wheel while still coming uncomfortably fast.

She waves her hand back and forth pointing at Lei and back to herself etc etc, saying, “Come on?!”

“Sorry,” Lei answers, “I do not know much about the inner systems, are you a celebrity?”

“Harsh,” Iza answers, “I won one the
Aitken Race eight years in a row. I’ve been winning
since I was old enough to enter!”

“The…” Lei began, Iza runs her over with more pride.

“I
don’t believe it!” She shakes her head, “Anyway, the bigwigs at the head of LP gave me the new
S
kyking
gig after Naraku died in the…well you know, the thing.”

Lei lights up a little, finally connecting, “I see!
So we’re here to train together
?”

“That’s the idea,” Iza confirms.

“I look forward to that,” Lei smiles,

“Yeah yeah, look, LC 3 is a good two hour trip from where we’re at in Kovksy you know? I don’t like going that slow, so we’re going to cut some corners and speed that up a bit.”

“Sure,” Lei smiles, “I like going fast,”

Iza wrings her face slyly, “Good, strap in.”

Lei complied, Iza messed with several commands on the crafts console, soon
a top closes over the craft, and the familiar hiss of pressurization fills the cabin.

They ascend
in elevation heading towards
an automated
sky hatch
, the computer systems accept Iza’s request without much hesitation,
she
revs the powerful engines as they move slowly through the redundant air locks.

“God…” Iza says,

“What?”

“I love taking tourists off-road,” She cackles maniacally and hammers the accelerator. They
get
going
,
shooting off high above the surface, twisting in exotic looping corkscrews.

To Iza’s dismay and annoyance, Lei remained perfectly calm through the increasingly manic performance she put on. Desperate to impress on her captive, she cracks up the pulse engine to max, and dives straight down towards the lunar surface.

They plummet, the ground racing faster and faster towards them.
The rocky surface growing more detailed by the second.
At the last one, Iza pulls down further, they bank
,
roof nearly scraping the ground into a large loop, and continue heading in their original direction.

This finally cracks Lei’s exterior, she laughs wildly, clutching at her chest for air.

“You’re going to suffocate us, if you keep
doing that
,”
Iza
grumbles.

Lei politely trims into down, trying to contain herself, “Ah…” she says finally, “That was a lot of fun. The Protectorate, they let you drive like this huh?”

“Psh, hardly,” Iza grins, “They’d ground me probably, if they knew. Lucky for me
the
LP doesn’t really care what goes on in the wild zones, as long as you aren’t robbing and killing, its total anarchy.
”

The two make more petty discussion during the remainder of the journey. Clipping fast, Izanami gives up on spooking Lei, and cuts a quick path to the exterior docking gate for Lunar Colony 3. Iza tries to explain while they are docking the intricacies of
Lunar
slang and vulgarity with limited success.