Chapter 6: A New Life

Mr. Rica and Natha both sat down after having finished shaking hands. “Very impressive, Natha,” he said, still shaking his head in disbelief.

The body double turned to me. “Mr. Rica is impressed by your presumption to call his play like that.” He smiled a brilliant smile, his face relaxed, his eyes sparkling as he enjoyed the respite from his role. He rolled his head back to look at the body guards. “Tami, be a dear and go collect our esteemed employer.” His accent had shifted as well, raising in pitch, but smoothing out, falling into a more confident tone. Tami nodded in response; the other girl simply stepped out and fell in behind.

“Mary,” Natha said, “Escort them to the hanger and back.”

I curtsied, “Of course.” I turned and led the two women out of the room and down the hall, back towards the hanger. I was uncertain about leaving Natha alone in the meeting room with a man I did not know. I quickly summoned two of the marines on guard duty to stand outside the meeting room, unobtrusive, yet close enough to help if something happened. I also summoned the security feed up in my cortex, letting me keep an eye on the situation as well.

Tami was quiet and relaxed as she walked along behind and a little beside me. She already knew where we were going and didn’t need me to show her. At this point it was simply curtesy and security for her employer. The other woman was still a mystery; she was somewhat fluid, but still rigid, and her facial expression never changed from the neutral expression it wore. She didn’t carry herself with the cocky grace of a trained fighter or with the efficiency of a soldier nor the clumsiness of a normal attendant. She seemed just not quite any of these. She always bowed the same way, stiff, formal, and untrained. I didn’t know what to make of her.

I watched the two marines make it to the meeting room door, which I had left open. One of them looked inside and gave a salute to Natha, who nodded an acceptance. At that, the marines snapped to attention on either side of the door, their deck guns cradled on straps across their torsos, sidearms on their thighs.

We reached the hanger and found a squad of pilots running laps around the perimeter and a group of voidmen refueling Mr. Rica’s yacht. I led the two women to the base of the boarding ramp and stopped; Tami stopped on the other side and the other woman walked up the steps and pressed a button next to the door, then turned and waited. The door opened and Mr. Rica stepped out and was led down by the unnamed woman.

I curtsied as Mr. Rica came to the bottom. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person, Mr. Rica,” I said, bringing my eyes back up as I finished the courtesy. Tami had also bowed, but much stiffer and with less courtesy. The other had not bowed at all.

“That was a wonderful call you made. Was it just the timing of the communications?” The double did look just like Mr. Rica, but the real Asuna Rica looked much more like his pictures. His face was the same structure, his skin and eyes the same colour, his hair the same cut. But he looked older, more weathered. His hair was uncombed, leaving the shape less distinguished than the double. His skin also didn’t have the moist, well-maintained shine, and his eyes were mischievous and intelligent instead of observant and calculating. He also smiled like a man who would never acknowledge the problems in life. He looked kind and ambitious.

“This way, please,” I said, extending my hand toward the hanger exit. “It was several things, really,” I added while we walked. “The timing was a big part of it. But what got me thinking in the first place was your double’s statement about not drinking till after the contract was signed. That was quite different from what was in your personality profile.”

He nodded slowly. “I see. We’ll have to work on that. Can you obtain this profile for me?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have clearance to give you the file. That will be entirely up to Natha. Would you like me to ask him?”

“Not just yet,” he said, contemplating the option. There was a pause as we walked down the corridor, then he asked, “Do you remember anything from before coming here?”

My heart skittered and my tongue felt heavy in my mouth. I suddenly felt hot and cold at the same time and a strange, uneasy darkness crept into the sides of my vision. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said as politely as I could. “Natha has raised me here to be the best possible assistant I can be.”

He made a sound of acknowledgement and nodded once. He was very bad at hiding his expressions, though; his eyebrows dropped and his eyes tightened; he didn’t believe me and was still thinking about it.

I curtsied to the marines and they saluted as we walked in between them. I sent a dismissal to them to return to their original posts. When we entered the room with Natha and the body double, both stood. I curtsied deeply to Natha and said, “May I introduce your honored guest, Mr. Asuna Rica.” I turned back to Mr. Rica, “And may I formally introduce you to Natha.”

“Good to meet you in the flesh,” Mr. Rica said, stepping forward and shaking hands with Natha.

“Yes, very good to properly meet you.” Natha wore a smile that showed complete adoration for the man, but his eyes continued to watch me. “Mary, go fetch that bottle of Alpha Prime.”

“Yes, Natha,” I said as Tami and I seated Mr. Rica and Natha respectively. I immediately headed to the parlour and used my cortex to have the auto-attendant prep two glasses and ice. I grabbed the bottle from the shelf under the auto-tender and walked back in the other room where I slid open the auto-attendant and retrieved the tray.

Natha and Mr. Rica were already talking about marines, pilots, and additional equipment that would be inside the second contract, but stopped as I set the tray down. “Mr. Rica, have you ever tried Alpha Prime before?” Natha asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“No,” he said slowly. “I’ve wanted to, but it’s surprisingly hard to get in the Eridani system, and I haven’t been curious enough to spend the time to seek it out or pay the exorbitant shipping cost from the Centauri systems.”

“It’s fascinating why it’s so different.” The small round of ice clinked sweetly as I placed one in each glass, then poured the thick, dark, sweet-smelling liquid over the top. For just a second, I resented both the men in the room for being able to have something so fine. Shame rushed up to replace that feeling; how could I resent my betters? I owe them all I am.

“Yes,” Mr. Rica said. “I understand that it’s brewed and aged for a year on Alpha Prime, then shipped to Proxima Secundo, where it’s aged for another four years in a climate-controlled warehouse.”

“Yes,” Natha continued as I handed the glasses to each of them. “The high gravity on Proxima Centauri Secundo pulls more sugars and flavors from the wood, but also causes the wood to absorb more of the alcohol. You end up with a more complex flavor and a deeper colour.”

Mr. Rica took a slow sip, then sat back and exhaled. “Certainly not as strong as I expected, and smoother than any whisky I have ever tasted.” He took another sip as I stepped back to my place behind Natha, envy slipping back up into my emotions. I quickly squashed the feeling and compartmentalized it into the back of my mind.

“Breathe deeply, focus on the task at hand.” I focused as much as I could on the staff in my hands, on my stance, the wide set of my feet, the bend in my knees, the upward curve of my hips, the center of my mass in a straight, unmovable line. I screamed as the knife cut into my shoulder and I dropped to the floor where I instinctively reached up and grabbed the wound.

“Mary, you weren’t focused. When something disruptive enters your mind, put it in a box and push it to the back. You will deal with it later. The middle of a battle is not the time. You need to be able to focus on the wellbeing of your men and the mission.”

I removed my hand and expected blood to have drenched my skin and clothes, but everything was still clean and white. “Pick up your staff and get back in position.” Master Jon walked around in front of me holding the nano-inductor he was using to simulate weapon wounds.

I picked up the staff and stepped back into the horse stance, breathing out slowly as I relaxed every muscle in my body. The memory of the pain was still fresh in my mind, although physically it had already faded. “Focus on the pain for just a moment, isolate it, and lock it away. Compartmentalize it.”

The knife slashed across my back and I screamed again, dropping my stance and falling to one knee. I tried to push the pain away and stand back up into my stance. But the knife came down again across my other shoulder and I screamed yet again, collapsing from the pain.

“It doesn’t matter how much you may not want to do your task, how much pain is involved in completing it, or how distasteful what you’re doing is, it is your duty to complete it. To be able to do this, you must learn how to set aside yourself and push through.” I was standing again, but before I could even properly get into stance, the knife came down across my back again and I fell to the ground.

Master Jon sighed and sat down in front of me as I crawled up into a sitting position. “At some point, you will have to fight for your Master, and you must be able to push the pain aside.” I wiped the tears from my eyes and nodded. “And not just physical pain,” he continued, “Sometimes it will be emotional. Just lock it up and push it to the side.” I nodded and tried to separate the pain from the past and what I was currently doing.

Master Jon stood up and walked around me, “Good.” I had stopped crying and was sitting on my knees, relaxed.

“Now, take the knife from me.” I opened my eyes in time to see him stab down at me and plunge the holographic blade of the nano-inductor into my chest. The pain was intense. I grabbed his hand with my right; I pulled myself up and him down at the same time as I turned and stepped past him, crossing my elbow against his, collapsing it. My vision had become dim around the edges. All I could see was the handle and Master Jon. I stepped back, pulling his hand down to pull him off balance and disarm him. Instead, he twisted and stepped in, sliding the blade across my chest. The pain flared even higher and I passed out.

I woke to the sound of Master Jon being scolded by one of the med techs. “You’re too hard on them; they may be durable, but even they have limits.”

“I need to be hard on them; I’m here to be hard on them. If I’m not, they will never get to their full potential.”

“You don’t need to break them.”

“Why, that way we can weed out the ones that are too weak. It’s not like they’re even human anymore.” Master Jon sounded angry, but there was a note of sadness in his voice.

“They’re more human than you are at this point.” The med tech sounded very angry.

I opened my eyes and watched Master Jon. The tension started in the arch of his foot and his arm started to come up, but then he saw me watching him and relaxed again, dropping the strike. “She’s awake,” he said and walked over to me. “How do you feel, Mary?”

The med tech pulled up a display from his watch and kept glancing between it and me. “I’m sorry I failed, Master,” I said and quickly pulled myself around into a kneeling position, my face in the mat. “I feel so ashamed that I have been unable to do what your expert skills are showing me that I must.” I felt like crying again, but not from the pain that still lingered in my chest. “I’m a failure of a student, Master.”

“No.” Master Jon’s voice was stern and strong. The anger and fury of earlier had been channeled into a solid strength and determination. “Sit up. Take those feelings of failure and shame and shove them into a box in the darkest recesses of your mind.”

I tried. I tried so hard to move them away and visualize just the box that I found myself no longer thinking about the pain, or the shame, or the failure. The knife came down at me and the med tech yelled out a protest. But I grabbed his knife hand, redirecting it up, and launched myself under his arm, throwing him over my shoulder as I went. With a single step, I turned as he came back down and I wrenched the handle from his hand.

He smiled, “Very good.”

“Mary,” Natha said, “please pull up a copy of the standard armed forces hiring contract for Mr. Rica.” I nodded, pulled the document out of the file server, and quickly edited it to the numbers they had been discussing. I swiped the data tab across the back of my neck and handed it to Tami, who swiped it onto the tablet. Mr. Rica went over it and signed his personal encryption key to the document before handing it back on the same tab.

“Thank you, Natha,” he said as they stood up, reached across the table, and shook. There were a few more pleasantries exchanged as we all walked back to the hanger to board the captain’s yacht of the Patrician’s Star.

At the bottom of the ramp, Natha grabbed my arm. “As soon as you step on that ramp, you belong entirely to Master Asuna Rica. He becomes your sole owner and his orders are to be placed above all others, even mine. You will be locked out of the station’s systems. Do you understand?”

I nodded. Everything but the fail-safes would be overridden. I would never connect to the station’s network directly, or even indirectly, again. I would likely never see Natha again; this left me both relieved and anxious. I understood all of this, but Natha’s orders no longer overruled Master Asuna Rica’s either.

I walked up the ramp and entered the yacht; anticipation, anxiety, and elation rolling around in my stomach.

The portal was smaller than I expected and I felt as if I needed to duck to enter, even though I didn’t. The three hulls of the ship were visible in the way the portal sealed. One crewman closed and locked the hatch behind me and another pointed toward one of the seats where Master Rica already sat. The seats were nice, pure luxury. Nothing I had been in had ever been this nice; even the simulators with their holographic projectors did nothing to express how exquisite everything was. The upholstery alone was a work of art; each seam was perfect, every stitch was tight and even, and the soft vat-grown leather was perfectly molded to fit pretty much any body type in a comfortable embrace.

The light tan leather and red seams of the seats both contrasted and complimented the clouded glass tables. The white walls, with red accent molding, were duplicated in the pattern and colour of the soft carpet on the floor. And this was simply the yacht; there was a whole interstellar cruiser to see.

Master Rica waved me into a seat across from him on the port side, a clouded glass table between us. “Nice, isn’t it?” He sounded like a child showing off a new toy, excited and expectant.

Bowing my head, I answered, “It’s beautiful, Master.” I buckled myself in, noting that Master Rica had already done the same.

“Do you want a drink or something to eat? I realize you didn’t have anything during the negotiations.” He actually sounded concerned.

“You are too kind,” I said, bowing my head again. “After I have seen to your needs, I will see to my own. A Mary can actually go nearly ten days without food or water, so please do not concern yourself with any of my needs past what I need to satisfy you.”

“Heh, are you sure you’re human?” he asked with a quizzical half-smile, his forehead knitting together in concern.

“Oh yes, simply the best example available. I will never betray you, I will follow every order you give me to the fullest possibility, and provide every ounce of training and knowledge I have to further your endeavors. I will take care of every physical need, whenever you require; every action I perform will be to advance your endeavors and personal fulfillment.”

“Yes, so you and Natha have said.” His smile had shifted to a more political one, less genuine but more physically appealing. His eyes, on the other hand, still glowed with questions; his quizzical nature was never far away. “We’re picking up a platoon of thirty marines and one wing of fifteen pilots, all with Tigers. How will we carry the extra forty-five men and all the fighters?”

He was testing me, although it was quite simple. “A support frame will be attached to your ship. The Marine Dropship will attach to the frame and act as quarters for the marines and pilots during the transportation. As it is fully equipped for habitation of fifty personnel, they will need minimal, if any, resources from the primary transport. The only reason the support frame is needed is because the Dropship does not have a jump drive and is incapable of interstellar travel; and although technically possible, interplanetary is ill-advised due to the time it would take on conventional drives.

“The fighters will also be attached to the frame by their cockpit segments making them accessible for using during transport. The support frame itself will be powered and pressurized by dropship, although it will be fitted to the standard hatch couplings on your cruiser to assist in the event of a failure.”

When I paused for a moment to see make sure he was following, he asked, “What happens if we’re attacked, you said the fighters could be used; so they can launch directly from the frame?”

I nodded and smiled, lowering my head again. “Yes, Master, that is accurate.” There was a lurch as the yacht lifted up and out of the bay doors into open space. We were still spinning at the rate of the station, carried by the inertia of its spin, and in orientation of what was always down, so gravity didn’t seem to change. Once we were well outside the station, I saw the Patrician’s Star floating out in the black, a gleaming white elegant curve. I continued my explanation, “In the event of an engagement the support frame will be depressurized as soon it is clear, then decoupled form the cruiser. Once the pilots are suited up they will head to their fighters and launch. After the marines are in void suits the dropship itself will be depressurized and will decouple form the frame once all of the fighters are launched. This will cause fire control issues for the enemy as there will be multiple targets instead of one and increase maneuverability for everyone.”

“I understand that military vessels depressurize during operations to increase chances of survival, but what happens if the dropship detaches first?”

“The dropship provides power and atmosphere to the support frame, if it is inoperable than those resources can be pulled from the primary transport, in this case the Patrician’s Star. But if it is already decoupled from the cruiser than the fighters will not be able to launch as there will be no power to the docking clamps.”

“They cannot launch at all, that seems,” he paused for a moment, scrunching up his face trying to find the right word, “inefficient,” was what he finally settled on.

“It’s not that they cannot launch, it’s just that it is much slower. The pilot would need to prime each of four clamps manually and use the emergency manual release on the canopy to get into the cockpit mount. Once inside he can then use the batteries in the cockpit segment to start the power-up sequence on the fighter and disengage the now primed clamps. The cockpit will finish seating after the fighter has entered freefall and is simply floating in conjunction with the support frame.”

Then the maneuvering warning light lit and captain came on over the comms. “We’re about to start maneuvers to rendezvous with the Patrician’s Star. This will take about twenty minutes from our current location. Please be advised that gravity will be constantly changing as the maneuvering jets fire. Please remain seated with your belts buckled.”

“It doesn’t matter that I have one of the best private pilots, this always makes me nauseous,” Master Rica said, shaking his head, “but it is the cost I pay for space flight.”

“Would you like me to get you an anti-nausea aid from the medical cabinet?”

“No thank you, Mary; that will keep me awake for hours, and once we get back to the ship I plan on turning in for the next eight to ten.”

I respectfully turned my face down showing my consent since I could not curtsey while seated. “Do you have any other questions about the Transportation Support Frame?”

“Just how long it will take to install?”

“It should not take more than ten hours to attach and be fully loaded. Most of it is standardized and able to attach to the standard couplings on your cruiser.”

Master Rica nodded his understanding and stared out the portal in silance. “Master, if it pleases you, would you authorize my private key for use on your ship’s network?”

He turned to Tami and nodded his consent. He said nothing more but turned and stared out the portal at the dwindling port. Barely a kilometer out and the rocky surface of Natha’s asteroid station looked tiny and far away, as if it was fading into my past.

My thoughts were cut short by the sudden lurching of inertia as the captain spun the ship and cut the main drive to maneuver. It wasn’t even enough of a change to make my braid float away from the back of my neck, but I felt it in my stomach and in the back of my mind. There was a flash of panic, like I was falling over, and then it was gone. I watched Master Rica’s eyes go wide for a moment and I could see the panic and nausea flash across his face. I glanced over and saw Tami tense her face for a moment as well, but she seemed better trained in handling the shifting inertia.

Pulling the transfer tab from the secret slot on my dress, I swiped it across the nub on the back of my neck, willing my Cortex to transfer my private key. I asked, “Tami, if you could please install this,” as I handed the tab across the aisle. She swiped it across her tablet and did something I couldn’t see, then handed the tab back. “Thank you,” I said, bowing my head about half way, as is proper for honoring a favored servant of equal rank.

The tab now contained a copy of their internal certificate. This completed the handshake with the network and I felt my Cortex connect to the yacht’s local net; I could also see the link to the Patrician’s Star. There was a multitude of data available, and a multitude of things to start going over. The first priority was the lack of security between the subnets. There was no secondary level of authentication between the yacht and the main ship. If, for instance, someone hijacked the yacht, they could auto-dock to the Patrician’s Star without so much as a security check.

I immediately noticed that I had full access to everything from engineering subroutines up through security clearance for the galley pantry. I top-level administrative access, only two others shared that level, Tami and Captain Nesmith. Mr. Rica had full schema access that gave him unrestricted and unmonitored access to absolutely everything.

While security like this is normal, default, and common practice, it is also a huge vulnerability to have a single private key allow such unrestricted access. I will need to talk to Mr. Rica about moving Schema rights to a non-centralized key-ring, requiring multiple users’ keys to grant schema level authority. I will also need to go through all the personnel files and create a list of employees who may be possible security risks. Also, the firewalls, general passwords, access points ... Just on the electronic side, there was an enormous amount of work that needed to be started. And that’s before studying the physical security, cameras, automated systems, personal routines, lovers. So much will need to be discussed on our trip home.

Home.

One word, one thought, and yet it threw my mind out of balance. I’m heading home. To a new home. One not on this station, or in this planetary system, or even in the same solar system. It won’t be the same sun as here. Even though the sun here is little more than a very bright star against the blackness of all the others. Here the sun is little more than a point of reference for navigation. In about a week EST I would be on a new world where the sun would be brilliantly bright and in the sky. There would be a sky over my head instead of hard ferrous rock. I’ve never seen a sky other than in simulations and images. What would it be like to have nothing overhead? To look up into a void and not fall into it. To have real gravity produced by mass instead of simulated gravity created by the spin of the asteroid. Here, if you stop moving, you can feel the world spinning you, trying to fling you through the floor and out into the vast void of eternal night. But on Eridani Delta, the gravity will be created by mass. Real gravity trying to pull you down to be crushed in its core. What must that feel like? We’ve been hypnotically trained out of agoraphobic tendencies, but still, for everything to be so open seems almost unreal. And yet, it also seems familiar and right to be able to stand on my feet and stare up into the blue and feel the heat of the sun on my face...

“How big is Natha’s station?”

Mr. Rica’s question pulled me out of my reverie with a bit of a shock. I answered without actually thinking, “About ten hundred thousand cubic kilometers.”

He turned back from the portal and looked at me, a sparkle in his eye again, “But how big is that? It’s such a vast number that I can’t imagine it. I need something to compare it to.

Getting some of my composure back I smiled and bowed my head a bit. “I do have to warn you that, since I am no longer in Natha’s employ, I am bound by a NDA and have to limit myself to mostly observable facts.” He nodded and motioned me to continue.

“There really isn’t anything to properly compare it to. The asteroid that the station is carved out of is just about half the size of Earth’s moon Luna. The space carved out is only about a tenth of a percent of the entire volume of the asteroid. Most of it is two kilometers under the surface, except for the docking bays, which are only about five hundred meters in. This depth is to prevent too much radiation from leaking in.”

“That doesn’t sound like a lot.” He sounded more like he was provoking me to an answer than like he actually believed what he said.

“Land area wise, it’s about equal to a district in Olympus City on Mars, but only ten meters high.”

He smiled and leaned back nodding, “That,” he said emphatically, “is pretty big.” He leaned forward again and pointed another question at me. “What’s it all used for?”

“Well,” I said, trying to decide what’s legal to divulge, “only a small percentage of it is suitable for habitation. Most of it is used for resource production. The station is self-sufficient.”

“Really, food and water as well?” He sounded genuinely interested.

“Yes, most of the basic materials, even water, are mined out the rock. Fuels, platinums, iron, most trace minerals. CHON, if you will.” He shook his head, so I elaborated: “Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen. With those four elements, you can make most life-sustaining resources.”

“So, they split minerals into base elements and recombine them to get what they need?” Tami said, jumping into the conversation.

“Only sometimes. There are huge sections dedicated to agriculture; plants, fish, and so forth. There are also the algae vats that do most of the atmosphere recycling. Water reclamation and recycling, as well.

“There are also two fully-automated mining bases on nearby asteroids that mine materials not common on Natha’s station. This allows it to produce pretty much one hundred percent of its vital resources. It’s also a fully functional mining operation and sends regular shipments to Mars and to the Jovian system for production.”

“Natha doesn’t seem like the miner type.” Mr. Rica chided.

I bowed my head a bit and smiled. “Indeed he does not, but the mining gives him a very legitimate reason for being out there and his entire space territory is protected under the Miners Consortium for Civil Defense.”

“Yes, we refer to it as the Right to carry really big guns.”

I laughed politely at the joke. “Yes, given the breadth of space, it was needed for private industries to be able to defend their claims, with force if needed.”

Mr. Rica sat back and stiffened a bit. “Which brings me to my next point. I had originally talked to Natha about a Mary as a cover to get a lower price on the soldiers. His are known to be the best available.”

I had not even guessed. I figured there had been a reason for the purchase of the troops, I was not deluded into thinking I was just that persuasive. But I was a feint?

He continued around my thoughts. “But you were spectacular, and I didn’t want all that work and posturing to go to waste, so here we are. I would like you to lead a small expedition against a rival.” He cleared his throat and waved at Tami, “Please give her the basic run down.”

Tami swiveled her chair to face me directly. “It’s simple. Cyrillic Corp. has a series of mining bases in the Eridani Asteroid Cluster. On one of the mining bases, there is a research center that is working on a micro-machine treatment for telomere decay. Supposedly, they have had success. We sweep in, blow the mining sites out of the water, land the marines on station, and pull all the research they have. Toss out some drones, blow them up, and fake the data recorders to make it look like a massive pirate attack that we were just lucky enough to be close enough to help stop. You know, just not soon enough for it to not be crippling to their mining operations in the system.”