Sword and Sorcery Eight, chapter twenty-nine_Sword and Sorcery, a Novel

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 Getting to Glimmr was easy. TTN-iA’s industrial gate could send a pair of passengers almost any place that boasted a second port, to receive. Sneaking into the orbital station was another matter entirely. There were three possible destinations: Mine Platform 37, in the cloud giant’s upper atmosphere, Asset Transfer Pad 1, on Cerulean Dream, and Asset Transfer Cubicle Deep, down in the bowels of OS1012.

 Of those, Glimmer was too distant. Further transport would be required to reach OS1012, meaning he’d have to hijack or steal something. Not safe. Meanwhile, Cerulean Dream was on high alert and battle-shielded; no transport allowed without emergency release. Getting that would mean revealing themselves, drawing possible draug assault. Unsafe, again. ATC Deep seemed the best choice to V47 Pilot and TTN-iA. Raine was much too excited to have an opinion.

 Some disguise was necessary, because a cyborg mech pilot with a human child was tough to miss. Wherever they went, they were sure to attract attention.

 ,,,Unless the disguise they adopted was far beneath notice. Once Pilot had removed V47’s cartridge from the damaged battle-mech, TTN-iA went to work changing the trio’s semblance.

 Raine loved her transformation. Through the AI’s biotech wizardry, she was now a humanoid sugar-glider technician, complete with a pack of small maintenance tools. Sparkling jewelry as well, because Red-Blue-Gamma and Right-Left-Top-Flip refused to send mere ambassadors. Having survived desperate flight and cataclysmic battle, those tiny alien rulers were in for the rest, as well. They looked like hair ornaments and a spidery brooch, belying the adventurous spirits within.

 As for Pilot…

 “Why am I fluffy?” he snapped, on stepping out of the mutagen bath. Looking down at himself, he was horrified to see long golden fur and an uncontrollable bottle-brush tail. Pointed, independently swiveling ears, spreading whiskers and weirdly enhanced senses added to his confusion. Cat. He’d been turned into a muscular, unhappy cat-person.

 ~Your forms are calculated to arouse the least alarm from OS1012’s defense net, Pilot~ explained TTN-iA, whose protean face didn’t smile. Much. ~Animal stock maintenance crews are common in the station’s interior. Transfers occur on a frequent basis, as registered assets wear out or are destroyed. The transfer data is of so little importance that no algorithm tracks it~

 She was probably making sense, but he didn’t have to like it.

 “I hate this.”

 “You’re beautiful, Pilot!” squealed Raine, who’d been practicing short, gliding hops on a newly-extruded tangle of bars and perches. As the girl improved, TTN-iA added rings to fly through, and swaying obstacles to dodge; all of them grown from the dark metal shell that surrounded the magnetar. Raine was thrilled. “Oh, let’s not ever change back!”

 The Writers of Code gave him strength not to respond as he wanted to. Instead, Cat-Pilot grated,

 “I am glad that this semblance pleases you, Majesty. Yours is, erm… cute.” Which was true. With her membranous wings and long, wispy tail… her enormous dark eyes and big ears… she looked very happy and sweet. Raine launched herself into the air after swooping through five spinning rings.

 “Pilot, look! Look at me!” she shouted, landing safe in his arms. “I’m flying!”

 Not since graduating from Learning Curve had she been so free or had so much fun. Her momentum and slight mass were easily managed by one with the reflexes of a tomcat. Her wet little nose and soft whiskers bumped his own sensitive nose-leather, bringing a welter of smells and emotions. She climbed him, sinking long-fingered hands and feet deep into that wretched fur to perch on his right shoulder.

 “Did you see me?”

 “I did,” he admitted, feeling a little less awful. “You fly very well, Majesty.”

 “I’ve been practicing,” the girl exulted, grooming his head-fur. “The whole time you were talking, I flew the obstacle course, and I’m going to get even better, Pilot! You watch!”

 TTN-iA set the gate for them, sparking open just a tiny fraction of its industrial-strength capacity. The damaged battle-mech still hung in its scaffolding, off to one side, while that caged magnetar seethed and burned, overhead, casting a forest of shadows.

 ~I have counterfeited the cutter Falcon as point of origin~ reported the AI. ~I have also taken the precaution of transforming all pocketed weapons to tools, V47-cartridge to a maintenance system upgrade, and the draug captive to a digital timepiece. You may wear it, should you choose to do so~

 Heh. Yeah…

 He did, though the draug made a terrible chronometer. Too gaudy, with a display that did nothing but flash angry digital faces. And life was tough, all over.

 “You’re a watch, I’m fluffy, and she loves this. As Ace would say: embrace the suck, brother.”

 Sent it too fast for Raine to pick up, yet (the injected circuitry was still spreading) but TTN-iA seemed amused.

 ~Be wary, Pilot. Caution and patience lengthen existence, where rush-to-combat yields death and repeated decanting. Transmit a message of reassurance once you have reached a safe place from which to do so. I have your scans. I am able to produce copies of you, V47 and Raine-Empress, but I prefer to avoid the necessity~

 V47 Pilot nodded, watching as a tiny fraction of the massive portal lit up; millions of glittering pixels coming together to form a bright oval gateway that rippled like water.

 “Well,” he sent, “if I find myself back here in a decanting vat, I’ll know that I did something wrong. If not, until we’re in sending range once again, I thank you, TTN-iA. For everything.”

 Her seething, multi-part body gestured a hug. And then, sending a blitz of affectionate images, ~I have three friends. What is rare is valued, Pilot. Proceed with caution~

 The empress/ sugar-glider had wrapped her skinny arms around his neck, while her clawed feet dug into his back fur. V47’s altered cartridge was snug in a fey-pocket. That furious draug superior flashing the wrong time (0:00:00, repeatedly). And Cat-Pilot was as ready as he was likely to get.

 “Will do,” he sent back, stepping up to the heavily warded portal. Then, with a deep breath and clenched fists, Cat-Pilot strode into the shimmering oval of light. There was a brief sense of dissolution; of being taken to bits and then streamed through null-space on a tightly encrypted band. Then, blinking, he found himself all of a piece once more, in a humming, glass-fronted booth.

 OS1012 read a placard over the booth’s locked hatch. Three holographic commands appeared, hovering at eye-level before the trapped immigrants.

 Work diligently and well.

 Obey all legitimate commands.

 Remain below decks, out of sight of superior beings.

 Cat-Pilot’s tail lashed irritably. He swiveled an ear to listen as Raine whispered,

 “That’s mean, Pilot! As soon as I’m really empress, I’m going to let everyone go where they want to, and let them visit me in Learning Curve, too.” She hugged him tightly as she said this, sounding fierce.

 “I agree, Majesty,” he whispered back, through teeth that felt awkwardly sharp. “But we had better use the disguise-names from now on.”

 Raine nodded vigorously. She craned her head past his to watch as a pair of glowing discs popped into existence under those floating rules. Correctly-sized palm outlines appeared on each circle and then started to flash.

 Cat-Pilot felt a rumbling growl rising up in his chest; a thing that he apparently could not control. There were worse things to be than a mech-pilot. Nevertheless, he extended his arm, palm outward, touching the larger outline. Felt himself being scanned, then received a green coverall and an ID badge: Steering Rocket Technician 147, Level 223, sublevel amber. Meanwhile, Raine’s ID badge declared: Small engine maintenance 331, Level160, sublevel blue.

 They were not being sent to the same part of the station, but that didn’t matter as Cat-Pilot had no intention of following directions, no matter what biometrics they captured. Raine dug her fingers into his dense golden fur, scowling.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

 “This is all going to change, Pi… I mean, Tom,” she whispered.

 Failure to follow any legitimate command will result in asset termination and death, advised another bright hologram.

 There were gas-nozzles aplenty inside the transfer cubicle, Cat-Pilot noticed, and death was quite near, should they be judged rebellious or simply uneeded. Two further clicks passed in clicking and whirring activity as the new workers were processed. Finally, the hatch hissed open, leaving them as free as a pair of animal-stock laborers could be on OS1012.

 “It’s going to be Someday, soon,” finished the transformed girl, as they left their transport cubicle.

 A glowing blue line on the metal floor led from their arrival point through a tangle of unpainted pipes, ducts and maintenance shafts. There was only one path at first, leading Cat-Pilot and Glider-Raine through the under deep of Orbital Station. Here, there was no pretense at comfort or amusement. No light that was not artificial. No windows or green spaces, at all. The only beings present were robots and animal-folk, glimpsed briefly and always busy.

 Cat-Pilot’s ears swiveled, picking up noises from every direction at once. There was an overwhelming mixture of sounds and smells; whirring fans, snapping lasers, smoothly turning industrial robots… mingled and textured fur, feathers, musk and emotional states, layered like paint. He could sense but not parse it all. Feeling half-blind without drones, he accessed and pirated the launch bay’s closed-circuit camera system. Extra lenses provided a better view of his surroundings, which…

 Right. They were being followed as laborers left their tasks, taking “break” to shadow the newcomers. Loosely, at first, but closing in fast. They were coming to an open space, Cat-Pilot noticed, as their glowing blue path led the newcomers into a giant vehicle docking bay. He sent a message to Raine for the first time ever, connecting through resonant circuitry.

 “I suspect a confrontation is imminent, Flit.” (Her disguise name.) “Prepare to seek shelter above, and stay out of reach. Red-Blue-Gamma will keep us in contact.”

 The Long Sparian flickered agreement, as Flit-empress said/ sent,

 “I heard you, Pilot! Inside my head, really fast!” Those uploaded circuits had accessed her brain now, giving “Flit” increased speed and processing power.

 “Good,” he responded. “I’m tossing you onto the nearest gantry. Let no one approach until given the blue-light by me, Right-Left-Top-Flip or Red-Blue-Gamma.”

 The Block-Worlder buzzed against his back and her chest, saying to both,

 -I am prepared to do battle again, Giant Construct and Ruler! -

 Good folk, the beings of Block-World and Long Spar. Cat-Pilot sent haptic pulses equivalent to: Your alliance is crucial, Speaker-for-the-true-people.

 Next, he reached up and over to seize Raine-Glider, pulling her off his back. Her tail wrapped around his left arm like a wispy vine, but she nodded when he asked,

 “Ready?”

 As a cyborg, Pilot was strong. As a Cat-cyborg, his strength and speed more than doubled. A 2.7% improvement in all calculated metrics. He launched Raine-Glider high in the air with one smooth and powerful movement, sending her into the network of crisscrossing gantries and pipes overhead. That was one problem sorted. Next, with the CC-Vid footage giving him three-hundred-sixty-degree surveillance, Cat-Pilot bounded fifty feet upward and right, landing lightly atop a steel conduit.

 “Show yourselves!” he demanded aloud, maintaining his balance with ease. “I am armed, and I know that you’re here.”

 (At least, he’d hauled a three-foot spanner out of its pocket and was watching their progress through the pirated cameras… but they didn’t know that.) The shadowy figures stopped for a moment, apparently communicating on some private network. He could hack in, given time… but they’d followed his command, stepping forward into clear view.

 They were a mixture of animal-folk, only some of them laborers. Wolves, cats, rabbits, foxes and even a lumbering bear. There weren’t many badges or coveralls present, though. Most of that gathering crowd was unregistered.

 “Newcomers do not move in stealth or pirate the vid-system, Tomcat,” growled a dark wolf-man, stalking into a puddle of light. “Who are you, and why have you come here?”

 Before Cat-Pilot could answer, a grey rabbit girl lolloped over to stand by the wolf.

 “Perhaps they are minions of OVR-Lord, come to track and eliminate excess biomass,” she accused, long ears pressed flat and quivering.

 Cat-Pilot put a few things together in his head, about why they were so suspicious and wary. He heard the faint mewl of kits, cubs and chicks. Illegal ones, for natural breeding wasn’t permitted for animal-folk. It happened, resulting in robots being sent through, level by level, to clean out unwanted “pests”. He’d always known and thought nothing of it… till now.

 Cat-Pilot would have said something to lower the tension (tried, anyhow) but then spotted something running along the underside of a duct, overhead. Reached out with part of his mind to summon drones, and drek with disguising his nature.

 “We are not…” was as much as he managed, before a raccoon, a gecko, a lynx and a fox surged out of concealment. Literally one tick utterly blended with shadows, the next moment almost on top of him, dashing up from both sides.

 Cat-Pilot’s yowl surprised him, as did the sudden lift of his fur, and his tail’s prehensile grasp at a sharpened screw-driver somebody dropped from above. (Someone who should have been hiding.)

 Four highjacked drones buzzed into the vehicle launch bay through vents and access ports, adding their views to his physical eyes and the static camera network. The fox lunged at him, first. She was armed with a handmade sword, its hilt wrapped in blue tape, its blade sparking electrically. Too bad for her, he was faster, dodging her rush with ease, then seizing the cursing fox by her scruff and heaving her back at the gecko. Hit the lizard in time to block its explosive long tongue. The gecko’s arrow went wild as its tongue got stuck to that flailing, tumbling fox. The arrow struck Cat-Pilot’s shoulder instead of his throat. Bit flesh and drew blood, but not deeply, thanks to his carbon-mesh uniform.

 “Nice try,” he mocked, blocking sensations of pain. More attackers were climbing the VLB’s scaffolding, scrambling into bow-range. He knocked a few from their perches with hurtling drones, saying, “But we didn’t come here to…”

 The raccoon was next, growling and snapping, a knife clutched tight in each hand. Cat-Pilot simply leapt over the on-rushing creature. Landed safely beyond him, then pivoted panther-swift to seize the raccoon’s brushy tail. Next, he leapt higher with that screeching menace in tow, landing gracefully on a higher segment of pipe. The smaller beast lashed with its knives and teeth but hadn’t the reach to do any real damage; only scratching the draug-timepiece.

 Cat-Pilot’s prehensile tail prodded the suspended raccoon into a dizzying swing. Smiling, he held his prisoner out over that forty-foot drop.

 “Possibly you are better disposed to listen, now. Or would you prefer to play fetch, Wolf?” Cat-Pilot surprised himself, with how much he suddenly enjoyed toying with enemies.

 “Ps-ps-ps, Kitty,” sneered the bulky lupine. “Go ahead. Let Rascal fall, and you’ll be pin-cushioned from every direction at once!”

 Uh-huh.

 “Right. That might be an actual threat, if I couldn’t shield.”

 …a thing that ditching subtlety allowed him to do. Cat-Pilot called on the station’s manna, forming a haze of UV sparks all around himself (and the empress crouched up above). The animal-folk murmured uneasily, seeing, but not understanding.

 “That is not a labor or maverick talent, alley-cat,” said the grey rabbit girl, hopping to stand just under his perch. “Come down with Rascal… or do you need to be lifted to safety by a ladder crew?”

 “Very funny,” he lied, not suddenly worried at all about height. Fortunately, he could levitate down, catching Red-Blue-Gamma’s flash: Directly overhead, Great Quartet. Flicker at need!’

 He manipulated the UV pixels to respond: “Understood, Light-of-the-actual-people. Thanks rendered.” Next floated down with the furious Rascal. Let the lynx snatch his prisoner when she lunged past him (though the instinct to play was enormous, and he did maybe scratch her a bit).

 Cat-Pilot settled into a crouch on a lower segment of pipe, folding in places an elf would not.

 “You have your secrets, and I’ll let you keep them, good people,” he said, trying to force the snarl out of his voice. “We are no tools of OVR-Lord. We have come to… Rrrrm… We’re here to bring Someday about.”

 And that was a thing that only an asset would know to mention. Maybe the last human empress, too. Raine-Glider spiraled down from the darkness to join Cat-Pilot. She landed expertly on his broad, fuzzy shoulder. As more and more startled and wondering animal-folk crept from the shadows, he said,

 “This is Raine. She is a master, who has taken circuitry and been decanted as one of us. She needs to reach the station’s top level, to remove OVR-Lord’s cartridge from the command console.”

 “If you are lying, Kitty,” began that yellow-eyed wolf, backed by the suddenly nervous others. But Cat-Pilot shook his head.

 “This is a transformation,” he explained. “I am an elven-stock mech pilot, not a feline mechanic.”

 The wolf-man snuffed audibly, growling,

 “All I smell is a rancid alley-cat whose been at the garbage chute, again.”

 Funnily enough, Cat-Pilot had no control over those claws, which extruded themselves through his fingers and half-booted toes. He sharpened them on the pipe’s insulation, shredding it like imaginary wolf-hide. Good for the muscles and emotional balance, Cat-Pilot discovered.

 “And I could detect the reek of a neutered mutt from orbit, but that’s not important. We’ll have it out after all this is through, Rover, I promise you. For now, let us pass. No one will learn of your old or your kittens. I promise you that, as well.”

 The lupine whined, licking its muzzle uncertainly. It was the rabbit who decided, saying,

 “Cat, elf, or whatever you are, we do not take jokes about Someday lightly. It is all the hope we have left. You have unusual powers and maybe you’re telling the truth. Worth taking a risk, as another purge is scheduled soon.” Her long ears swiveled nervously, as though listening hard for the whisper and whirr of approaching exterminators.

 “Do not follow the blue path,” she continued. “It leads to the Processing Center, where Vogar the half-orc maintains his scanning post. Follow the scent trail, Kitty-Cat. There are three major paths, one of which leads to the nursing den and your destruction. One… which smells of unease… takes you to the work-level. It is the third, joy-tinged pathway you want. That one ends up at an abandoned park, from a time when even assets earned rest. From there, you must find your own way, as the top levels are forbidden.”

 Cat-Pilot leapt from his perch to the ground. Rose from a crouch to stand before the rabbit girl. She did not flinch, though he towered above her.

 “I made a promise to some of your folk on Bide-a-While Station,” he told the animal-folk. “I meant it then, and more so, now. Things are going to get better, for all of us.”

 Elves in the distant past had betrayed their allies. Cowardly, treacherous, weak, they’d abandoned the “lesser races” who’d trusted them, seeking escape for themselves. Cat-Pilot could face that, now that he had a chance to put everything right.

 Raine-Glider stood up on his shoulder, one small hand gripping his golden head-fur.

 “There will be no more purges,” she said, raising her chin. “I will take power, because I am needed, and I won’t forget what I’ve seen here.”

 As one, they bowed before Raine, trusting to hope and to Someday.

MillionNovel

Sword and Sorcery Eight, chapter twenty-nine