Hekate's Call, Chapter 25

There was still daylight as Hekate's Call set up camp under a devastated overpass. Tomorrow would be operation day, which meant that they were going to be having a bunch of meetings tonight and then break early and tune up their machines, and rest. For the first time on the mission everyone set up their own tents close to each other, and huddled around a micro-heater to go over it again.

They had two targets. Independents, not affiliated with the union forces, who have been a threat to the company's profits. Amberstahl and Termite. Ilina had gone over every log that the company had provided of their tactics a dozen times. The teamwork came naturally and bordered on uncanny at times. A pair that worked that tightly and that fluidly together was inherently terrifying.

Ilina's plan would work. The ambush location was ideal, and if Ilina and Manya set off early enough in the morning they could set up with plenty of time. An exposed space in a high-walled canyon between two mountain tunnels. There was a derailed train taking up a lot of the space, making it hard to maneuver through.

When the Company thought about logistics and routes, they took one look at the derailed train and assumed the route was unused. Except rebels loved paths like this. They could make space enough for trucks, and most mechs were maneuverable enough to slip though, and it would still look unpassable for the majority of uses. It minimized exposure while still using existing infrastructure, which meant less work for their tunnel rats.

It was exactly how Ilina would plot a route, and she learned from experts on both sides of these kinds of conflicts.

The meeting covered the usual questions and concerns. What if they have backup? What if something goes wrong? Everything was in the playbook Ilina wrote up. It wasn't a script, like Manya liked to call it, but a flexible guide for responding to threats. The more information Ilina could gather about an enemy force, the better the playbook could be. She was confident in this one.

Ilina stuck close to Krystyn as the meeting broke, bumping up against her gently.

"Not gonna go sleep with Manya?" Krystyn said. It was hard to read if she was jealous or teasing.

Ilina had been spending the nights with Manya because she could have candy, but she needed a clear head now that they were in range of action. "Not tonight. Mind if I stay with you?"

The past few days were delightful. Teased during the day while they marched, and played with at night. She was so lucky that things evolved in this direction. Manya was terrifying, but the candy was so good. Plus she was being gentler with her factory tricks so Ilina hadn't had any horrific nightmares sleeping next to her. Maybe if Manya and Velia got closer then Ilina could have more on the Gestalt. That would be nice.

There was something about Krystyn that was bothering her, though. It kept nagging at the back of her mind. Krystyn brushed it off as needing to concentrate, but would it be the same thing when she didn't have that excuse?

She slid into the tent ahead of Krystyn, making herself comfortable in the small space. Krystyn eventually returned, awkwardly maneuvering around Ilina and wrapping an arm around her. She confirmed her suspicions when she tried to roll to face Krystyn.

"There's not enough space in here," she grumbled as she pushed Ilina back into place. The same way Velia used to when they shared a single in the barracks. The same excuse.

Illustrious's voice was sleepy over the radio. Apparently when she realized Ilina wasn't going to come up to stay with her she'd packed up her tent and slept in the WFH. Do we even know when these losers are going to come through?

Hunter sat atop the WFH as it crawled up a steep cliffside to get to the ambush position. The Again in Hell had been in the process of optimizing for a while. With each passing second, another ghost's voice appeared in her head, a little more fluid and distinct than her first time piloting it. She almost missed the question amidst the voices.

"Later today," she said into her radio. That was the only answer she had.

The union forces were supporting the two independents for this operation, but all that gave them was the current target, and when the operation would take place. She'd put together the potential routes from their previous know location to the operation site and picked this one out. The Company had expected them to ambush the targets during the operation but that just invited more risk as far as Hunter was concerned. Having to run interference and protect whatever critical infrastructure there was while killing the two targets was a mismatched set of win conditions that did not favor Hekate's Call.

Once they'd arrived at the location, Manya settled into a position behind some rocks overlooking the gap between the tunnels. Hunter hopped down the rockslide netting on one of the walls, torn in places but otherwise well-preserved, and began her work. There was signs of trucks coming through, split between the open path and a rougher path through some of the toppled train cars and containers. But they weren't recent. That confirmed this was a union route, but that the targets hadn't passed through yet. The entrance was big enough for both machines to squeeze through. One of the train cars that partially blocked the tunnel had been dragged sometime after the last rainfall to make space for them.

She set up a bunch of wire traps, remembering each number's position around the arena-to-be. It was the same tech as her grappling hooks, just not a part of her suit. One side was pre-mounted to a position with a hook, and would fire the line across the canyon and pull taut. She could tangle up enemies and catch them by surprise. She made care to make sure that they weren't obvious.

The ambush was ready after she'd finished cleaning her own tracks. The Inertia and the Scandal were waiting over the upper ridge and would descend on the enemies. Manya would kill anything that tried to retreat through the tunnel after it boxed itself in. Nobody was concerned about the targets making a dash forward. If Hunter ran into this ambush she would assume forward was rigged with traps. She was pretty confident that one of the targets worked on the same kind of saboteur's logic she did.

Manya. Want some candy to calm your nerves, little Hunter?

Charlatan. Radio silence.

Candy would be nice. Hunter's head spun a little bit at the idea. But she needed to focus. She couldn't operate the Again in Hell like that. She needed to be solely focused on her body and the fight. It was why she could never take Charlatan's place as the field commander, even if she wasn't a contractor.

And then Amberstahl was in the middle of the canyon. It happened so fast that that she could have missed it. A stupid, spindly thing. A glass orb for a head on a long segmented noodle of a neck. The limbs all looked like that too. Its orb raised, tilting upward with a hand to block out the sun and checked the surrounding hills. And then it glanced to a specific point in the railcar path like it was speaking to someone standing there. Termite was there.

Manya, almost singing. Two in the killzone. Identifying. No license data. Reactor signatures... Both targets confirmed.

Charlatan. Begin.

She really didn't have to use the radio because the moment the word had left her lips, the Inertia was over the ledge and falling down the canyon towards the Amberstahl. It would have been such an easy day if they died to the falling steel ball like a cartoon, but instead it slipped out from under it at the last second – which admittedly was also much like a cartoon. Cartoon characters fighting on a railroad track. Hunter cracked a smile at a thought.

The Scandal was next down the cliff. It had more horizontal movement, trying to land where it assumed Aberstahl would be hammer-first. The ground exploded as the spindly thing cartwheeled back and readied its own weapon. The dust kick-up from Heaven's Hammer blocked Hunter's vision for a second and prevented her from tripping it up with one of the wire traps.

Watching the thing move in the company-supplied battle logs was one thing, but watching it in person was something else entirely. It was fluid in a way that bodies weren't, but had an incredible sense of balance to prevent the stupid maneuvers from tangling it up. It was also fast. Really fast. Faster than any machine Hunter had ever seen in actual combat.

Hunter had already begun moving silently across the top of the rail cars. If she was lucky she could catch Termite before it could offer any support. The Again In Hell's camo was the same type used by the WFH, so she wouldn't be spotted if she moved slow-enough, and even if she made a break for it, it would be difficult to track her without heavy sensor-assistance.

The Inertia and the Scandal were something fierce in close quarters though. The Amberstahl's double-sided spear moved to perforate the lightly-armored Scandal, but it was already rolling past the Inertia back-to-back to get out of harm's way. It cut through the Inertia's barrier with easy for now, but there was that awful all-encompassing grinding as the ferrofluid splashed about the rail cars, eating through them like acid and incorporating them.

The Inertia had gotten so much scarier since Charlatan got her head cut open. The Inertia was now almost constantly doing three or four things at once. Building a barrier, moving and attacking, setting up those awful jagged spike traps, regenerating. It was a threat that nobody could ignore, and that nobody would be able to compete with as the fight dragged on.

Hunter paused. The vibration of the train cars she was running along had changed. Termite was moving. It was an armored and hacked-up forklift with a large grinder and a shrapnel cannon. The arena was too narrow for it to fire past Amberstahl, which meant that its operator would try to threaten the Scandal from behind while the Inertia was busy with the other bug.

It couldn't shoot the Scandal. Between the charge time on the capacitors and reloading the thing, it would be too vulnerable to the Scandal if it actually fired. It was a diversion, meant to pull the Inertia's attention so Amberstahl could get to the Scandal. It was a common tactic. If it was going to fire, it was to open an ambush to alert enemies to the threat of the shrapnel cannon, but if Termite's pilot was smart they'd know Hekate already knew about it.

That meant Amberstal was alone. Hunter's prey. She started firing off the wire traps she'd set before. Several of them close to the ground to trip it, and several at higher angles to tangle up the arms.

"I'm on Amberstahl," Hunter snapped into the radio. "Termite's on Scandal."

Illustrious, quietly. I wouldn't wanna get near that thing.

That was more than fair. Amberstahl was an existential threat to everyone. It's blades were still cutting through the Inertia's shield faster than it could put it back together, and it only needed one hit to the cockpit to put it down. That was what it was aiming to do too.

The wire traps didn't even slow the stupid bug down. The moment the staff came into contact with the first wire in its path and got caught, it adjusted and whirled the weapon with supernatural grace and cut all the wires in its reach and pushed back the creeping blood the Inertia was trying to get under it with.

"Good call," Hunter forfeited as she turned on her heel to take a run at Termite.

It still hadn't fired the cannon. Instinctively, she knew that Termite wouldn't. Threaten with the cannon and make some space for their partner. When Hunter put it in her line of sight she realized that it had been playing catch with the the Scandal. A Scandal in Heaven was tearing up rocks, pieces of train car, or other debris and tossing them. Termite was carving through the haphazardly positioned objects, but couldn't get a consistent line of fire on the Scandal.

Hound had improved. Creating cover, laying down suppressive fire with its rifle, and keeping itself positioned close-enough to the Inertia that they could switch again if they needed to. It was a flawless performance for the role that it had fallen into, keeping Termite and the cannon busy.

Illustrious, shouting over the horrific cacophony of the stalemate. Third reactor signature coming up the cliff. No line of fire. Commander, advise.

Charlatan, responding in kind. Hunter, pick a target and kill it. Now.

The problem was that Hunter had her feet on the ground. In the air, there's no time to think of every tactical option available to everything on the field. When she was airborne, there was only whatever decision would get her to the next second, the next decision. Her head was bogged down with combat calculations and the ghosts had jumped on that, expanding her experience with their own. Stupid. Stupid machine. She needed to act, not think.

Time to kill some bugs.

The Again In Hell could move faster than Ilina could on her own. It felt more natural now than it did when she first piloted it. She was used to trusting her body with all her experience and knowledge to act. Hunter imagined the goal, and her body moved to achieve it on its own, and her body was capable of so much more now.

She set off the wire traps on Termite's side. It wouldn't trip up that thing, but the wires were useful for other things. Hunter moved so fast her forced oxygen system had to kick in during the thruster-assisted leap into the air and onto the first wire. She used it to catapult herself forward to the next, and then the next.

Hunter's approach was low to start, just overtop of the cover that the Scandal had laid down. The Termite came into her sight and she tossed a pair of spike charges toward its feet, detonating them on impact. It toppled onto its back from the blast while Hunter ascended on the wires as high into the air directly above it as she could.

The Again in Hell had a folding axe. The haft extended to twice its size, and the blade shifted outward and extended down. From the shape of a fire axe to an executioner's axe. From her experiments, Hell's axe was best used after building up as much momentum as possible.

A strange machine crawled around the rock face and into view. Four legs and two long gangly arms rocking back and forth steadily like some kind of titanic stickbug pretending to be a radio tower, with a large satellite dish as its face. She recognized some objects mounted to it that could have been weapons, but it didn't matter.

Again in Hell screamed in its thousand voices to run. Every fearful ghost said to turn away or run at the sight of the monster. Hunter was already at the peak of her jump, twice the height of the new insect, but it was moving quickly. She needed to crush the ant as it was scrambling to right itself, bisecting it with Hell's axe like the fall of a guillotine.

Except she never began her descent. She hung, frozen in time. The beginnings of a strange thread of light had begun flowing from the stickbug's face-dish. Like the score of music in every real and unreal color. It was beautiful and blissful and made her heart dance in ways she couldn't describe.

The Hell said nothing had changed, but she could hear screaming over the radio. An unending wail. Time hadn't stopped, but it seemed to. She broke her perfect form to tilt her head so slightly and her inner ear responded with a sickening and violent feeling. A primal feeling.

Time hadn't stopped.

She was falling.

While she scrambled to right herself in the air and flare the Hell's boosters she could only hear Hound's wailing over the radio and somewhere beneath it Charlatan's voice.

You reprogrammed the dog with a fucking basilisk?! You stupid, cheap bitch!

Could she fire her grappling hooks? She tried, but didn't feel them connect with anything. On the way down she crashed into a wire and felt her body contort in ways it wasn't meant to. And then her helmet feed went dark as she hit the ground, tangled in her cables. The Again in Hell was rebooting.

Something picked her up by the tangle of cables she had gotten wrapped up in and carried her away. The sounds of combat had mostly stopped, and the only sounds she could hear were the ones she was making herself as she struggled fruitlessly, blind, against the cables.

Hekate's command structure had come down from the Gestalt to take up temporary residence planetside for the duration of the contract. Crater had brand new dark and dreary little office from which to do her endless paperwork and negotiate with the company with. Which made it so much easier to go and scream at her when Krystyn needed to.

If Krystyn had wanted to she probably could have kicked the door off its hinges, but that would just give Elisabet reason to ignore her. So, instead, she just shouldered it open and slammed it behind her.

Liz didn't even look from from some expense report she'd been reading through when she said, "They have already called to negotiate a prisoner exchange, and I have already turned them down. There will be no negotiation and no rescue operation. Eliminate the two targets at point B. Don't screw this up again, Charlotte."

Eliminate the two targets? What? No. Ilina was taken by that thing. "We have to get her back," Krystyn started.

"There will be no rescue operation," Crater repeated, definitively. "Ilina Falke was a contractor, and she signed liability wavers. She understood the risks. We have to complete our job."

Evil chose the perfect moment to march into the room with all the professionalism of an Imperial officer. Velia followed quick on her feet and shut the door calmly behind them.

Dr. Morian Kyrnn walked with purpose into the center of the room. No teetering or tottering or silly little skips. She wore an oppressive, single-minded aura that stole the breath from Kystyn's lungs.

"Get her back," was all she said. No hesitation, none of her sing-song playfulness. An order.

"As I just told Zechs," Crater's voice poorly hid a rising anger, "there will be no rescue operation for a contractor."

Kyrnn didn't move. "Look at me, Elisabet." She didn't look up. "Bring her back to me."

"Or else what?" Crater finally stood up and looked to Morian. "Get out of my office, Kyrnn."

"Bring. Her. Back."

Crater pushed her chair out of the way and made her way around the desk to get in Morian's face. The greatest mistake the woman had ever made, judging by what happened next.

"I don't take orders from you!" Her voice almost reached a petulant, childish scream before it was silenced.

Clap. Clap.

Loud, echoing claps. Exactly two of them in perfect time. Almost deafening in the small room. The first one stunned Crater the way it did the first time Kyrnn had done it. The second clap dropped the commander to her knees.

No, it was worse than that. Crater knelt so perfectly poised in front of Morian, with her fists balled so tight in her lap shaking like she was being held by something. Like a fucked up binding spell. It was Elisabet's eyes that made Krystyn's heart stop. Empty, glassy orbs. Not a sign of feeling or emotion in them despite the welling tears. Like the freshly dead.

Necromancy.

The doctor took a deep drag of her cigarette until she triggered another coughing fit. She held it above Crater's head. She opened her mouth like it was being forced by invisible hands. Ilina had done the same so many times, but without the panic and fear in her eyes, like it was an instinct programmed into her very core.

Kyrnn ashed it with a tap, before putting it back in her mouth. When the cigarette was far enough away, Crater's mouth closed. Like a machine. Like Ilina.

"You will always take orders from me, dear," the Necromancer's voice had an edge to it. A waning edge, but present. As if she had never wanted to resort to this. "I taught you how to do this, and showed you how effective it is. And you still fucked it up."

Crater nodded. Her lips twitched, trying to form words. I fucked it up, she seemed to mouth.

"That's right. You had to come to me to clean up your mess with your clone-soldier. And you still tried to hide exactly how badly you screwed that up," the Corpse Eater's voice was thick with malice now. "You never had the stomach or patience to condition someone properly. Your little toys are nothing more than science fiction junk. No better than those little girls back on FN-4-06 that call themselves Handlers writing poetry about the soul and scaffolding."

Could she run? The door was right there. It was closed. Velia stood quietly in the way. She seemingly hadn't been noticed by either of the two, despite only being a few feet from them. Kyrnn was so focused on Crater, and Velia followed the doctor's focus.

"You will bring Hunter Falke back to me, alive. If you fail to do so, you are going to take out your gun, press it to the side of your head, and pull the trigger. Do you understand?"

The corpse of Elisabet Crater shook violently for a second. The kind of rattling nod of an ill-directed marionette.

Hunt...er... back... or... kill... my...self...

"Good. Show me what that would look like."

Crater's hands broke their position on her knees suddenly, like they had been nailed or glued in place, before searching for her pistol. She never looked away from Morian for an instant, seemingly never blinking either. Cocked the gun and placed it to the side of her head, steadying it with both hands as best she could. The hammer was pulled back and her fingers twitched against the trigger.

"Stop."

It stopped, holding the position. Trembling with a fear buried beneath whatever fucking spell the necromancer was casting.

"If you bring Hunter back to me alive, then we can continue playing pretend. We can pretend that you're a real girl, and that I work for you."

Hunter back... play pretend...

"That's right. Very good." Morian turned to Krystyn, who had stopped breathing at some point like she'd be able to avoid the Corpse Eater's notice. "You remembered your oath, at least. You deserve something for that, don't you?"

Krystyn shook her head. The oath came back to her when it was mentioned. When Crater came for Hunter, she would protect her. But she failed to protect her from Crater.

Kyrnn took a step towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder as if to ease her. "I could hear you from down the hall. You came here to try to get Hunter back. You haven't failed yet. Elisabet will give you whatever you need to retrieve her and I've already taken care of Vigil." She glanced at the glassy-eyed Velia before continuing, "Velia might not be on the same level as Hunter, but I'm sure she can help plan the rescue."

Okay, thanks Necromancer General. Crater was still holding a gun to her head at the woman's command, and Velia wasn't even home in there. She had the same empty eyes as she had in the in-between. What use did she have for a corpse?

Amidst all of that, she couldn't help but ask the worst question bubbling up in her brain. "What if I can't bring her back?"

Kyrnn smiled, wide and unnerving. Too many teeth, so perfectly straight and without defects, all deeply stained by her chain-smoking. "You care about her. More than I do, I think. And for all her faults, Elisabet wouldn't have supported you all these years if you weren't worth it. Put together a plan, make it happen."

There was a weak voice from the doorway and Kyrnn turned to leave. That distant, not-quite-there voice of Velia's. "Doctor, can you show me the stars?"

"Not today, dear," the doctor's bedside manner turned on and suddenly she was a different person. Not the monster that was in the room a moment ago.

"Okay," Velia drifted, "I love you, doctor."

Krystyn stood perfectly still, trying not to look at any of the horrors going on. Not at Crater, kneeling with a gun to her head, unblinking and staring straight ahead. Not at Velia, as Morian tapped her hard on the head like she was dislodging a marble from her ear. She could practically hear it rolling around the way she started swaying too.

Kyrnn's voice, firm but nonthreatening. Assuring. "You love Ilina."

"Oh. That's... right. I love her."

"You hate me."

Velia frowned and her shoulders dropped. "I don't want to hate you."

Kyrnn gripped the side of Velia's head and tilted it to make eye contact with the standing corpse. "You hate me. For everything I have done to you." When Velia nodded, reluctantly, the necromancer tapped the other side of her head twice like she was lodging the marble back in place.

Velia came back to life, swatting the doctor's hands away. "Don't touch me," she growled. Krystyn had really hoped that she would be ignored by everyone in the room until it was safe to leave, but she'd never been that lucky. Velia pushed past the doctor and grabbed at Krystyn's uniform. "You're going to get Ilina back, right?"

Krystyn brushed her hand off. "You're a little late to the party, you fucking lobotomite. Out of my way, I have a rescue to plan."