16.21 Gigahertz

Maria

She awakened slowly, the numbers echoing in her ears.

sixteen twenty-one gigahertz

She blinked, staring blankly into space, realized it was not space at all but the sleek black console of her Apocalypse.

Her Apocalypse? No, she thought. It belonged to someone at the Antipode Imperial Garrison, someone long dead. She had pulled his radiation-charred body away from the console herself, buried the man under a cairn of rock out in the Mercurian sunlight, to lay forever beneath the barren rock he had given his life trying to protect.

sixteen twenty-one gigahertz

The computer interface was standard Imperial issue despite all the Cybrid tech she had scavenged and replaced the original components with. Cybrid computers, Cybrid reactors, Cybrid weaponry, all were more efficient than the human kind. There had not been any weaponry left on the vehicle anyway, the Cybrids had gutted the vehicle and the rest she had found abandoned in the base's ruins.

sixteen twenty-one gigahertz

A light blinked on the console, and she glanced at it, her eyes as black and harsh as the console, as the daylight sky outside.

"What." she said, voice cold.

"Incoming," Icey's voice, washed out by the solar wind, crackled over the comm link.

"Prepare."

"Out."

No acknowledgement given, none needed. They knew each other well enough for that, had fought together long enough.

She tapped another control. "Del."

"Yes?"

"Incoming."

"Aye..." the young woman said tiredly. "Bug's ready."

She switched off, not acknowledging.

Fighting for survival, for vengeance, they had more important concerns than pointless chatter.

sixteen twenty-one gigahertz

She shook her head, clutched her temples as a stabbing pain lanced through them. It was too bad her cybernetic brain did not give her immunity to headaches.

"Sixteen twenty-one," she whispered to herself.

Not thinking, not considering what she was doing, she pressed controls blindly, in rapid sequence. The Apocalypse's reactor (scavenged from a destroyed Adjudicator) whined to life, the engines began pumping. With a press of one final key the Apocalypse's power unleashed into its legs and it strode toward the cavern opening.

She heard Del call her name, but it was distant, unimportant.

She piloted through a haze of tears, only a tiny red dot on her sensor display burning into her eyes.

"Switch to passive sensors!" Icey cried. She ignored the plea, drove on in a straight line at maximum speed.

sixteen twenty-one gigahertz

The pain in her head became hotter, brighter than the blazing Mercurian sun. She moaned softly, laid her forehead against the console.

"Lock warning," the hated Cybrid duotone voice of her computer said.

She sat bolt upright, her face devoid of emotion, turned toward the starboard. Recluse, she thought, angry but disdainful. The Cybrid would not be so stupid as to attack, and she did not carry enough ammunition to waste on it.

The Recluse was screening a convoy of Adjudicators. Tall, menacing metal shapes, long, bowed legs, shoulder-mounted weapons pods. Six of them.

And between them--

sixteen twenty-one gigahertz

With an anguished cry, she pressed the Apocalypse to the limit of its speed, powered up the electromagnetic pulse cannon, activated the launchers for the Shrike missiles she had ripped from those Executioners shortly after her home, her husband and daughter, her very life had been taken from her--

sixteen twenty-one gigahertz

Sunlight flashed in her eyes, a reflection off a polished red surface, its gleam enhanced by the explosions of the missiles she fired. Metal shrieked as she tore into the nearest Adjudicator, rammed into, through it, the legs neatly severed by four electromagnetic pulse cannon and a Shrike, the main body of the hideous machine falling to crash on the rock with a thunderous boom, then more light as its reactor exploded.

How can I fight without seeing? she asked herself, as her vision was blocked by the tears.

sixteen twenty-one gigahertz

----

"Maria."

She awakened, crying, not wanting to face the reality but not wanting to fall back into her dream and have it play out to its terrible conclusion.

Del and Icey sat beside the bed, each holding a hand, offering what comfort they could, which was little.

"Sixteen twenty-one gigahertz," she whispered.

Icey nodded slowly, stood, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "There is something you need to see," he said softly.

She nodded miserably, freed her hands from her friends' grip, and rubbed her temples. She sat up slowly, stood.

They led her to the thick window, gestured. Her eyes closed, and she choked back a sob. "Sixteen twenty-one gigahertz," she said sadly. "He rigged the emergency beacon to transmit at the frequency one of my organomech centers runs at... If he ever needed me I would hear and go to him."

"The beacon was damaged in the battle at the garrison," Icey said. "It transmitted at a lower frequency and did not affect you. But when the glitches started tinkering with it they restored its programming, and you could subconsciously detect the transmission even though it was not sending a coherent message."

She nodded once, shortly. "Six Adjudicators, three Recluses, and two Seekers," she snapped suddenly.

"Yes," Del said.

"You know what I told you."

Del glared at her. "I don't care."

"Nor I," Icey added.

"You will not risk yourselves for my sake again is that understood?"

"Nope," Icey said. Del shrugged and shook her head. "You gave up the chance to leave this place for our sakes," he said. "We would give our lives for you as you would for us and I will hear no crap about it."

"If you do that again I swear I'll shoot you myself," she said quietly.

"I'll dodge," Del snapped.

She glared at her, then shook her head. "Understood."

"Good," Icey retorted.

She turned to the view port again, stared into the bay that now had one more vehicle in it. The lights gleamed off the red shoulders, the Antipode Imperial Garrison insignia, off the transparent cockpit that was empty inside.

The same lights shined brightly off the tears rolling down her cheeks as she read the name on the Apocalypse, thought of the man who had owned it.

In red block letters on the front of the shoulder was the name Wolfe...

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