Hekate's Call, Chapter 22

The bar's lights were awfully dim. Another scuffle from the last week had knocked out another lamp or two. It set the mood better that way, anyways. Hid everyone's bruises from getting knocked around all day in their cockpits. Charlotte was three drinks in with a fresh faced newbie, barely out of his imperial uniform, barely got his fucking wings, under her arm. The rebellion swelled with cute little things like him every time Charlotte took the field.

It was a good night.

That was until Elisabet Crater walked in like she belonged here. She was wearing imperial leathers – her fucking officer's uniform – in a known rebel dive. Nobody made a move though. Nobody wanted to get a god damn orbital called down in the middle of the fucking civvies.

She strolled straight up to Charlotte with a smile and roused Charlotte's arm candy with a tap on the lips. "Has anyone explained the concept of a missing stair to you, little boy?"

Well, that was this one done, then. Charlotte pushed him to his feet and sent him along before he could ask too many questions.

"What the fuck do you want, Crater?" She snipped as Crater made herself comfortable in the freshly opened seat. "Also, don't fucking talk to me in that uniform. Didn't you go private, anyways?"

"You're about to go private too," Crater had that smug look on her face. The one she always had before something went terribly wrong for someone. "Your little uprising isn't going to last long with you on the posters."

Crater picked up what was left of the boys drink and sniffed it before ordering a new one. Always knew how to get her little digs in, huh? Charlotte didn't need to fuck with anyone's drinks. It just made them bad lays.

"How you figure?"

"Seventeen have stepped forward, so far."

Charlotte could feel the blood run cold. Oh. That. That was a high number, and would sound really bad if it got out. They would get quashed though. Charlotte was the poster girl and everything. What was wrong with a bit of cruising?

"You'll make a better martyr than you do a hero," Crater leaned one arm on the bar, eying up the bartender. "I could make it go away when we were in the military together. But I can't cover for anymore."

Oh shit. This was bad then. Fuck. None of those men complained when she had them against the wall, why start now? Seventeen was a bad number. She knew how the ex-imperial officers would look at it. Some selfless act of heroism in a battle. Rebel hero Charlotte Fellows slaughtered while defending an orphanage or something. All of a sudden all the eyes in the room that kept drifting to her felt like needles.

Charlotte turned back towards the bar and leaned into Crater. "Fine, you got my attention."

"Let me finish my drink, and then we can get out of here."

Now was not the time for this petty bullshit, Elisabet. C'mon. If there was anything the woman liked more than winning, it would be news to Charlotte. But letting her revel in them was the only way to keep her off your ass. She sure wasn't looking forwards to working under her again.

Everything fell on Krystyn. Elisabet would explain that she's the field commander and that these things are her responsibility. It was mostly bullshit, but Liz had overburdened herself more than ever before with this whole job. The Commander, CEO, and President of Hekate's Call had always been the kind to take on more duties than she could manage. That was why Krystyn was willing to sit through meeting after meeting, fill out mountains of reports – falsified or otherwise – and organize trainings.

The debriefs were hard though. It always felt like a personalized dressing down for Krystyn's specific failings as a pilot, as a field commander, and often as a person. But she put up with it because nobody looked out for her the way Crater did And because she had nowhere to go back to if Crater ever decided to stop protecting her. Besides, Krystyn had never screwed up so bad that Crater couldn't just slap her on the wrist and sweep the issue under the rug.

It still sucked a tremendous amount of ass though.

This one was awful. The usual suspects guest starring Dr. Kyrnn tormenting an air scrubber with cigarette smoke, and Velia for some reason. Velia had displaced Vigil, sitting on one of the two small couches in Crater's office with an arm draped around a quiet and deferential Ilina.

Crater made a show of humiliating Ilina in front of everyone. Played the whole audio log and made her little cuts as it played. "I believe this moan was you straddling the missile," she said with a smile like cracked ice.

It was wholly unnecessary for the proceedings. But it had to be someone, and if it wasn't Ilina who could it be but Krystyn?

Krystyn was used to it. Ilina would say she was used to it, but she still flinched every time Crater, or Velia, or Manya nipped at her. She didn't deserve it. Especially when she was just recovering from another week in the in-between. Talk about kicking someone when they're down.

Dr. Kyrnn came to Ilina's rescue. Krystyn would have, but she was occupied during the fight and couldn't make sense of what was happening in Ilina's battle logs. She had her own criticisms too. But at least someone was on her side.

"Hunter's behavior is indicative of a simple feedback loop," the better-forgotten sin of the universe began. "I didn't expect the combat feedback would flow back across the bridge unfiltered. No neural hook should be able to flow back to the pilot but that's what you get when you start sticking wires in people's brains."

Manya laughed at that. Made some comment about Carrion. Nobody paid attention to her.

"Yes, I am aware of your distaste for neural hooks," Crater rolled her eyes as if they'd had the same conversation a million times behind closed doors. "Luckily, I don't have to care about the safety of contractors."

The next steps for Ilina were practice and tuning. Despite Morian's defense, both Crater and Krystyn agreed they shouldn't have fielded her in an untuned machine. No surprises there. Meaner than she would have liked, but it had to be said.

The conversation moved rather swiftly through Vigil's troubles. They were nothing new. The Scandal was a melee machine and it needed to be up close. Zero-g operations and dealing with something ranged and fast like the enemy machine wasn't something she was expected to have the tools to deal with. Even still, the procedure mattered. Addressing it mattered.

Manya did everything right, as always. Special credit given for never putting anyone on the team outside of fire support range. No matter who was engaged, Manya could cover them. Keeping constant eyes on the target from the second it entered range, feeding back information about the machine. Her teamwork with Ilina was applauded in particular.

"Quite the pair you two make," Crater hummed and said with a knowing little sneer, "Perhaps we should focus on some pair strategies between you two."

When it finally came to Krystyn there was a lot more to review. Usually she was saved for last so that Crater could take her time taking her apart, but today there were too many developments. Everyone was stumped where to even begin with everything that happened.

Mechanics reports were baffling. The Problem With Inertia returned to the hanger more reinforced than when it was deployed and all the internal systems that should have been damaged had self-repaired. The head engineer in mechanics, Taitle, reported that the Inertia per specifications wasn't capable of this. A system analysis from Orchid reported that the Inertia was operating to specifications.

That meant that The Problem With Inertia was lying. Everyone hated when steel lied.

Crater moved things along before anyone could dwell on it. "Dr. Kyrnn, as loathe as I am to ask your advice, do you see any issues with the Inertia or it's pilot?"

It was an odd thing that Krystyn had only just caught. Elisabet never referred to pilots by their names when speaking with Kyrnn. Steel first, flesh second. Could mean anything, really. Probably dehumanizing the pilots for Kyrnn's sake. Ilina had mentioned that Kyrnn had attachment issues to pilots like a lot of scientists did with their mice.

"Have I mentioned I hate neural hooks?" Morian let out a final smoke ring and began wandering towards Crater's desk and started patting herself down with one hand looking for a portable ashtray.

Ilina tilted her head back slightly, opened her mouth, and held out her tongue as the cigarette approached. Just watching it sent a shiver down Krystyn's spine and filled her mouth with the taste of ash. Kyrnn pretended not to notice Ilina's trained response as she pulled out her pocket ashtray and snuffed it. Ilina closed her mouth once the cigarette was no longer near her, like a little automatic machine.

"The Inertia's pilot has its taste now, so they'll tap into the machine's power again, no matter how much I advise them not to." The monster leaned this way and that, making cartoonishly loud pondering sounds. "I need to install a proper hook in the pilot, internal, as a safety measure. I won't clear the pilot to sortie until then."

"Do it as soon as possible," Crater said dispassionately, writing something in one of her little books.

Excuse me?

No.

Excuse me?

Krystyn had never felt rage so strong in her life. She was a pilot. An ace pilot. A person. Flesh and blood. Not some component in one of Elisabet's inventory spreadsheets. You don't get to just install something in her. Liz knew exactly how dangerous those augmentations were too.

"No. I won't do it."

Crater tapped her pen on the desk in sequence, letting the no sink in. "This poses a problem," she said eventually.

That's right. Without Krystyn in the field, who's going to call the shots? Who's going to write after-action reports? Who's going to do all the little tasks Crater was too busy to do herself?

"Ilina," Liz smiled and waited for Ilina to glance over to make eye contact. "Morian tells me constantly how capable you are, and we've all seen your tactical acumen. How would you like a promotion? It will come with a pay raise, of course. A significant budget surplus just presented itself."

Enough screwing around. Krystyn jumped out of her seat and took a heavy step towards the woman's desk before getting intercepted by her guard dog. Vigil snarling and getting ready for a brawl.

"You're going to fire me?"

"If I cannot field you, then you and the Inertia are just cost sinks." Crater let out a sigh filled with that faux sympathy she loved to use. "And unless Dr. Kyrnn approves your medical, I can't field you. I really wish you wouldn't make me the villain here."

She and Crater hadn't gotten into a proper shouting match in a long time. Or perhaps ever, depending on how you defined it. The woman had never felt the need to rise to Krystyn's incitements. It was always Krystyn fruitlessly trying to stand her ground knowing that Elisabet could see fit at any time to toss her when she wasn't useful anymore. She had to be worth protecting, worth supporting. They may have been war buddies, XO and subordinate, but they were never friends.

In the middle of their exchange, Morian clapped once, loudly, before speaking. Her voice had a scalpel's edge, perfectly sharp and precise, silencing the entire room. "Hunter is trying to speak."

Crater had dropped her pen. Uncharacteristic trembling in her fingers, unable to properly grip it. She quickly folded them to hide it before anyone but Krystyn could see it. The woman went pale as a ghost for a moment before composing herself. The whole room had turned to Ilina except Krystyn, so it was unlikely anyone else saw the moment of weakness.

"Of course," Elisabet steadied her voice as best she could. "I'm sorry that Krystyn has been speaking over you, I had no intention of ignoring you. Go ahead."

Ilina was staring at the floor and leaning deep into Velia. "I can't command and pilot the Again in Hell. It moves too fast and requires my full attention to pilot. I'm sorry." Her voice began trembling slightly as Velia nuzzled her, "I'm sorry. I can't."

"That's understandable," Crater offered a forced smile. "I didn't expect you to take it. You're a contractor and you have enough on your plate as is."

The room remained silent. Everyone pretended to wait to see if Ilina had anything else to say, but they were all really waiting for Morian's permission to continue. There was this baleful presence she could seemingly turn on like a switch that suddenly made all those stories about her crimes and sins throughout the ages seem so much more plausible.

"We've covered everyone's next steps," Kyrnn smiled and leaned over towards Ilina, ruffling the girl's hair just so. "I think anything that's left to say is best left between the two of you, wouldn't you say, Elisabet?"

"That's correct. The rest of you are dismissed." Elisabet turned her attention solely to Krystyn and said with the same icy voice and smug smile as she always did when her prey was cornered. "You've been told your options here. I don't have anything else to say to you. The choice is in your hands now."

The both held their positions until everyone else had left. There was a certain degree of honesty that was only available when they were alone together. She tried to avoid it as often as possible but dire circumstances.

"You're afraid of Kyrnn."

"So are you," Crater leaned back in her hair and rubbed her temples with a gloved hand. Even Krystyn could sympathize with the relief she must have felt when the doctor left the room. "She wouldn't sign on unless she had the final say on pilot health and safety. Contracts are promises, and Morian won't abide a broken promise. I field you and she walks, and she takes Ilina with her, and Vigil's performance gains stop. And then we're left spinning our wheels just like we have been for the past six years."

Krystyn sighed.

Symeon Vigil, huh?

Elisbet Crater wasn't a dreamer, or at least nobody thought she was when she started Hekate's Call. When she started putting out calls, everyone answered. Not just imperial aristocrats with heavy wallets, either. Mechanics and pilots. She already had Symeon Vigil, some clone-pilot every merc company wished it could afford but couldn't, and Manya Carrie, one of the best pilots to ever grace a battlefield, by the time she marched into that rebel dive for Krystyn. Liz even had a machine hand picked and waiting just for her.

If only Symeon Vigil hadn't turned out to be damaged goods.

Maybe they'd all be eating delicacies and drinking the expensive stuff instead of printer slop. After six years on FN-04-06, or fucking nowhere as Ilina called it, it felt like a stretch.

"What's the deadline?" Krystyn asked, dreading any answer that wasn't never.

Crater shook her head. "We're already overdue. We need tangible results before we get back home or it's all our heads on the block."

Krystyn laughed, beside herself. "Heyyyy, at least the reforms went through, huh? Otherwise we'd be in debtors prisons for the rest of our lives."

Crater flashed her a grin and it was almost like old times again. Like they were friends.

"Get the fucking surgery, or we're all dead."

It was just like old times, actually.