Tailspin, page 77
I’d seen him many times, I knew his station; I knew what his accomplishments were in M-Corp. But approaching this bear of a man now, I wanted to shy away yet again.
Malaki walked straight, as tall as I had ever seen her, but within five feet, she stopped, and I glanced at her. Her eyes watered, and she ran at him, throwing her arms around him even if they didn’t fit.
General Canlas held my eyes with his as he held onto his sobbing daughter. I wouldn’t look away from him. I couldn’t.
“Shh,” I heard him whisper. “Come on, you’re stronger than this.”
When Malaki turned to me, her eyes didn’t say she was strong; they wobbled with emotion. She begged me closer. I moved in, though it felt seriously uncomfortable. She pulled me to her side, and I eased her away from her father.
“Please,” General Canlas said. “Follow me.”
I nodded at him when he turned and walked away, back to what looked like a waiting helo. I lifted Malaki’s chin up so she had to look at me. “I need you.”
“I need you, too,” she replied, wiping her eyes.
My hand slipped into hers, and I squeezed. “Let’s go.”
We followed her father into the large helo and hopped into the back. This was plush, but I noted something else about it. Something very different. “No pilot?”
General Canlas shook his head. “All our pilots are busy, very busy. This is run by M-Corp’s finest AI.”
“It couldn’t help with the fire?” I asked.
“No.” He shook his head. “Nothing can react to fire, especially that kind of fire, like people. It’s smart, but it can also be downed really easily by the right attack off of any creatures outside the walls.”
An AI like that…had to be top tier, level five. Only a few were in existence. I knew it. I glanced at Malaki, who at least now sat straight and rubbed her eyes. “We good to talk in here?” I asked him.
“Yes,” the general said. “No one has any surveillance in here at all.”
Malaki sat back a little, her eyes closed.
“You disobeyed orders,” General Canlas said, aimed at me.
“Si—”
He put his hand up. “Let me finish.”
I lowered my head and caught Malaki’s worried frown. “Sorry, sir.”
“You disobeyed orders, and I must publicly address that later. For now, I want to commend you for your actions.”
“Father?” Malaki asked, looking back at him.
“It would have crossed to the power plants. It would have done more damage. Though it went for you and your friends instead. You managed to stop it, and it retreated. You hurt it badly, Airman Korolyov. You’ve allowed us the time to get in and deal with it properly.”
“And saved our fireteam and others,” I stated.
“Yes,” he said. “All but one. Medic Niko Rise.”
I heard Malaki suck in a breath once more. General Canlas leaned forward. “It was not your fault,” he said. “You did everything physically possible. The both of you.”
It was the way he looked at me. “You saw it?” I asked. “The feed?”
The general nodded, but I saw the flicker of Josef staring at me. I glanced at Malaki, feeling my face scrunch.
“What?” she asked.
On the inside, I begged he wouldn’t tell her. Wouldn’t admit it to anyone, ever to what I had done.
General Canlas held his breath and then let it out very slowly. “Airman Korolyov and Medic Rise fought valiantly with everything they had at their disposal. Your friend Niko may have lost his life, but he lost it so all of you could survive.”
I let my eyes close for a second, feeling the lids squeeze. The tears gathering there fell out and down my cheeks.
“What you both did was pure insubordination, and you will be disciplined for it. But,” he said, “I need you out there, both of you.” To Malaki, he said, “As much as you fight my orders and the fallout will be real, I respect your decisions. I trust you.”
Malaki looked from me to him, back to me. “What are you saying?”
“I can’t say this anywhere they’re watching; they’re listening. I will say it once only. You and Rus together are what this world needs. No matter what happens, I will support both of you, always.”
“All the fighting, the arguing?” she asked. “It’s—”
“It’s not all true. I need them to think I don’t trust him. But I do. He has skills no one’s seen before. He locks in with any drone without any issues, ever. No one else has ever been able to do that.”
Apex, I said. That’s on you.
Yes, it is, but I’m nothing without you.
At my side, Malaki shook her head. “You—”
“Always.” The general’s face wasn’t that of a general but that of a father now.
All I could see from him then was love for the woman beside me, the woman I adored more than anything else in this world. Who I loved as my partner, my best friend.
I had to do it. I had to break the silence. “What do we do now, sir?”
The general’s face was back, and he tapped on his screen. “You need to take a break. Your whole squad needs a break. It won’t be long. You’ll be back out there before you know it. But I need to settle this with M-Corp.”
“The hesacha?” Malaki asked.
“I’ll be meeting with the others later today. We’re putting a plan together to take it out. It looks like it will lick its wounds for a bit, too. You did good, the both of you.”
“We didn’t kill it,” I said my fists curling. “It will still go for the power plant, the food.”
“No, you didn’t, but you did more than anyone else had. Give yourself some credit. We learned more with you out there than in the weeks previous with your actions, even as stupid as they were.”
“You knew it was there, though.” I cringed as I said the words, but I was furious. “You’ve been preparing to take it down. You should have hit it sooner, not wait till it was too late!”
“We didn’t know till you arrived. We had suspicions. We only put a plan together these last few days. Because of your squad’s footage, your X1’s view of the fires has been something else and we’ve been able to see that hidden fire, that mutant.”
I tapped my head. My headache had almost gone, but now, ugh, it niggled the back of my neck and I massaged it. “The X1 and the X16,” I said. “Without that, you’d not have had those views.”
“You still need better tech,” the general admitted.
“I do,” I said, knowing I needed the X-Series TAP. “When can you get it to me?”
“I don’t know. It’s still misfiring. Just know that we—that they—are trying.”
“We?”
He nodded to Malaki. “We,” he said. “M-Corp’s finest scientists are working on his prototype.”
“It’s not really the X-Series, is it?” she asked him.
“No,” he finally admitted.
“What is it?”
The general looked at me. “It’s very experimental tech, a blend of species, if you will.”
“Species?” Malaki asked and glanced at me, taking my hand in hers she squeezed. “What do you mean?”
The general closed his eyes, sucked in a breath, then opened them and pulled up a 3D image of my body. My tech. The X1 threaded through my skull, my brain, my whole nervous system. The X16A linked to it, the keystone at the back of my neck all in green. The orange flashing lights around my TAP wasn’t part of the same tech and clearly wasn’t happy.
“It’s integrated. DNA and core components come from a sapient creature, a creature that has proved not only compatible with this tech, but with us.”
Malaki swallowed. “Apex?”
“Apex.” I nodded.
Silence spread over us all.
“I told him I wanted the best DP I could ever have, with any tech he needed. I never expected this.” Malaki looked away. “This is insane. I’m only a pilot without a good DP, but you, you’re something else entirely. You probably don’t even need me.”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
Malaki shrugged, and I looked at her father, who also shrugged. At least I could see where she got that from. “See what we have to put up with?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, I know exactly what you have to put up with,” I said. “Mal,” I addressed her. She didn’t move. “Malaki,” I said with more force. “You are not just a pilot. Understand you’re my pilot, and I’m your DP. We need each other. Understand?”
“She understands,” General Canlas said. “I understand. I—I honestly thought you only wanted to be with my daughter because—”
“She’s your daughter?” I asked, then added, “And because she’s hot?”
I saw his face pale, and Malaki hit me. “Ass—”
“—hole.”
“You’re still not into her like that?” he asked.
Shit, he told Malaki we’d had this conversation before. “No,” I said. “Believe me when I say this. I adore and I love your daughter. I would do anything for her. I would die for her. But I do not want to be with her in that way.”
“She not good enough for you?” His face changed.
Oh, fuck, I’d said the wrong thing. “No, no, sir, not that at all.”
Malaki started laughing then, and I was so glad to hear that. Not just because it meant he was joking but because it meant our pain was mitigated for a brief moment.
Seeing the general laugh with her, I had to laugh, too. “You got me there,” I said. “You really got me.”
“It was priceless,” he said. “Son, if you both ever decided to get together, I’d be the first to congratulate you. My grandkids would be the smartest in Artem. But I see in her what I saw in myself at her age. The sky’s the limit. Go for it.”
Malaki took my hand in hers again. “Don’t worry, we will. With your backing, know that no matter what, I won’t ever stop.”
“Me neither.”
“For Niko. For anyone who needs us out there.”
When her tears flowed again, I pulled her to me and hugged her tight.
89
Malaki had cried, but I had not; I couldn’t. I was so fucking angry. I should have done more, I should have been better. I wasn’t.
The last few moments of Niko’s life played over and over and over in my mind, and each time, it killed me on the inside just that bit more.
We’d been ordered to rest, and the squad had been separated for physical and psychological treatment. The brief with our superiors here was exactly that, very brief.
The doctors ran through tests. They tried to get me to talk, but my responses were basic. I did not show them my emotions. I hid them. I didn’t want them to see me suffering; it was hard enough I was suffering without them making my life worse.
Malaki and I met up, and she hung off my side, limp. All of the fight in her had gone. All of the fight in me had gone the moment I pulled the trigger and that bullet shot towards my best friend. That view I’d never forget, no matter how much I’d tried to scrub it from my brain.
Apex had tried to talk to me, but I shut him down too.
When I was with others, I was as blank as I felt. No responses. When I was alone, I curled into a ball and couldn’t do anything else but not function.
General Canlas had wiped all my files from my system and the drones. They’d been locked away as top-secret, highest-level clearance ever. I was glad. It meant I couldn’t go over Niko’s death with the clarity of a drone camera. I was only going over it again and again with my own memories.
Apex wouldn’t help me in any way, either. He refused. He also wouldn’t talk much about the whole ordeal…how the drone operation went, how it was so easy.
General Canlas did know more about me, about him, than I did—and I wanted answers. Like right now. I was never going to get them.
Tonight, and every night since, sleep wasn’t happening, though we’d been ordered to rest. Fuck rest, who needed that? The crackling and smell of burning would stay with me for years. I didn’t think I’d ever forget it. Even if someone offered to take my actual memories, should I let them? What would that do but hurt, leaving us without the love and the friendship that made us us?
I lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling. The brief window let in the eerie light from outside, the orange glow of the fires still visible in the distance.
No, Niko deserved better. He deserved to be remembered for both his tenacity and his drive. Without him, we wouldn’t have gotten away from that monster.
The face of that hesacha would also stick with me for life.
News had spread fast. They’d suspected that this was no ordinary fire. No sooner had they put out one side than the other would sprout again.
To my surprise, lying in my rack, not having eaten all day, Justin knocked. I looked up at him with hatred fueling every thought inside me. If only I’d had their money, gotten the better TAP, better responses.
I couldn’t even speak to him.
He kneeled at the side of my bunk.
“I’m heading out,” he said. “With Silao.”
“What?” I stuttered. “We’ve been told to rest.”
“I’m good at convincing people I’m all right when I’m not,” he said. His voice was shaking slightly, his posture so very wrong. His honesty worried me, but I understood it, all of it.
He put a bottle next to my pillow. “Do Malaki a favor, pull your finger out your ass.”
I closed my eyes, but felt his hand touch my shoulder.
“I mean it, she needs you, and…”
I looked into his face. This close I could see every emotion, but he couldn’t add anything else to that. He let me go.
“Drink up, that thing cost me a fortune.”
I glanced at the bottle, went to pick it up, and he’d gone. The drink tasted of cookies and cream. Rich, thick. It had everything in it my mind and body needed, mostly for my mind. I felt a clarity coming back to me that hadn’t been there for a while.
I heard a soft rustle from one end of the dorm, then another click.
There was a weight on the end of my rack a moment later. “Mal?” I asked, noting her obvious form in the firelight.
“I need to do something,” she said. “I can’t sit here doing nothing.”
Tears stained her face, her hair sticking to it. I reached out and wiped it out of her eyes. “Think we can sneak out for a walk?” I asked.
Malaki took my hand in hers. “You dressed?”
“Never sleep out of uniform,” I said. She knew I didn’t. Not while we were technically on active duty.
I slipped out of bed and hesitated, putting my boots on. They were squeaky. Instead, I held onto them and led her back out of the dorm to the corridor before I put them on. “They’re not stupid. They’re tracking everyone around the base.”
“I know,” she said. “They’re too busy at the moment.”
“Oh?” I quirked an eyebrow at her, adding, “Justin and Silao are going back out.”
Her face fell. “Come on.” She pulled me, and I stumbled over, still putting my left boot on.
“Where to?”
She didn’t answer, just kept on walking, so I followed.
We left the dorms, the open parade ground, and she walked straight past the officers’ bunks, too.
After another five minutes, I asked again, “Mal?”
“Sorry.” She looked back at me, then pointed at the old hangars sitting at the far back of the base.
“The museum?”
“Only place we can get a signal.”
When she held up one of her hand-crafted radios, I frowned. “Walter give you that?”
“Was something to play with on my downtime. While you were recuperating after the operations. It was kinda fun listening in on people, stuff from all over Artem I had never heard before. Normal stuff.”
We were still going to get in trouble; I knew it.
Before long we were at the massive double doors to the old helo museum in the next few minutes. I knew she’d gravitate to it the moment I saw it. That was before we got scripted into fighting this fire. Even if we were vastly under-experienced.
Finding the hesacha, that had been pure coincidence. Right place, totally wrong time.
“Keep watch?”
I turned around and looked back at the rest of our base. “Not much going on out there.”
“They launched the Angry Rhinos thirty minutes ago.”
I swallowed. “From Ocean Oil Fields?”
“No, they landed here yesterday in a prototype I’ve never seen before. They’re calling it the AH44.”
It was kinda funny watching her wiggle her ass fiddling with the door, but my heart raced. The door beeped at her, and I glanced as she opened it.
“How?” I asked, but she was already slipping inside.
I cursed and glanced over the base once more. There wasn’t a helo on the deck. Not one. We’d been ordered to stay out, to rest. How Justin managed to get back up, I’d no idea.
I’d heard the whump of blades as they reached enough velocity to take the birds into the air. I just hadn’t expected all of them. Ours included. Who had the hell taken ours into the air? I had questions, so many questions.
“Mal?” I almost shouted after her, slipping into the hangar after her.
It was as pitch black in here as out there, and I stumbled over my feet.
Malaki caught me. “Careful.”
I straightened myself out and adjusted once more to the darkness that inevitably surrounded me in this world. My HUD found the little particles of light I could use to see.
“Better?”
“You know it,” I replied.
“This way.”
I followed her as she wound her way past some of the displays we’d seen on our tour. Then she stopped by a back office and put her hand on the door. I watched, perturbed, as it opened for her.
We both went inside, and she put a side light on, just bright enough to light most of the office up.
“This used to belong to Master Relic,” she said. “Was his engineer’s office.”
“A long time ago, right?”
