Exsol Ch 03

Naz traced her fingers along the outline of Marielle's collarbone. The older woman continued to pay her no heed, her fingers tapping steadily on a keypad and eyes fixated upon the diagnostic screen in front of her. She decided to escalate a little, leaning forward on Marielle's shoulder and running her fingers along the side of her lover's neck.

"Naz, I know- aaah!" Marielle squeaked a little as Naz dragged the finely kept nails of her left hand a little more firmly against Marielle's tender skin. She wished that she was able to have all of her nails like that, but the compromise she'd arrived at with Miya was that she made aesthetic decisions about the left hand and Miya got the right.

"Do any know?" Naz asked, smiling softly as Marielle squirmed a little and finally tore her gaze away from her work.

"Yes, sweetie, 'any' does know that you want my attention." Marielle looked over at her with a coy smile and deliberately interlocked the fingers of her biological hand with Naz' so that she couldn't prod or tickle her. She raised an eyebrow at Naz, inviting her to elaborate on her cryptic comment in spite of the sarcastic answer Marielle had given.

"Only guessing... belief..." Naz grinned, leaning in and kissing Marielle on the cheek. "You believe my desire...?"

Marielle snorted out a soft laugh. "I know you want my attention, kit." She reached up, threading her mechanical fingers through Naz' fine hair and scratching at her scalp until Naz hummed softly and closed her eyes. Marielle used her complacent state to gently dislodge Naz and set her down on the seat next to Marielle's desk that wasn't her own. When Naz opened her eyes, Marielle was sitting back down at her desk, glancing back at her screen.

"And as much as I'd love to blow off work and pay attention to you, I've got a deadline to meet." Marielle gave Naz a sad smile and went back to tapping away at her keypad.

Naz decided to leave her alone, and went into her own hand terminal to pull up some vocal exercises. Before long, the rhythmic sound of Marielle tapping on her keypad was drowned out by the accompanying music coming out of Naz' hand terminal and her singing and following the instructions of the vocal drills. When she and Miya were alone, she often sang softly and tried to follow along with the melody of Tempest surging inside of her, but she felt like she could not do it justice. If human beings could sense and interpret Tempest as music, then she figured there must be a reason for it. She accepted and embraced the reality that no matter how deeply she believed, she may never advance either her or the ExSol's understanding of Tempest by even a little. But even accepting that, she believed there was more to understand, and perhaps knowing more about music would play some small part.

"Naz, sweetie?" Marielle raised her voice to get Naz' attention, and she looked over at Marielle, realizing that she'd been lost in thought.

"...Yes?"

"Your terminal is beeping, kit." Marielle smiled at her and gestured towards the little piece of technology sitting in Naz' lap. Sure to her comment, the music and voice drills had stopped, interrupted by the repetitive beeping of an incoming connection request. Naz stared at it for a few seconds before Miya's exasperation rose to the surface and she answered the call.

"Yeah?" Miya asked.

"Ay, Miya." Wasseim greeted her, recognizing Miya by tone alone. "Y'secure?"

"Mari's here," Miya responded, glancing up at Naz' girlfriend who was pointedly ignoring her.

"Hey, Marielle, what's yer clearance level again?" Wasseim asked, raising his voice a little.

"Ninety four, I think?" Marielle answered absently. "I'm not really listening anyway, I'm busy."

"Ugh. close 'nuff," Wasseim sighed impatiently. Miya scowled at that comment. He was the one always lecturing her about security protocols, after all. "GovGen wants us to brief 'bout a long-range mission fer ya. Come 'round office four, prep the manifests ye'd need." It wasn't really a question and he didn't phrase it like one.

"Inbound, Uncle," Naz replied cheerfully, closing the connection. She went over to kiss Marielle on the cheek, earning a smile and an affectionate hand-squeeze from her partner before Marielle went back to her work.

Office four, as it was called, wasn't terribly far from Marielle's house and worshop, so Naz opted to walk. As she made her way through the quiet streets, her terminal buzzed again with an anxiety-laden text message from her uncle asking her when she'd be arriving. She ignored it, since she was only a few minutes away anyway.

"Natalya," Naz greeted the soldier working the door and she gave a nod of acknowledgement as she punched in the security code to admit her.

"Knight Major is in the conference room," Natalya said, opening the door for her.

"Unseen Blessing," Naz touched Natalya on the arm as she walked past her into the building. Someone else was posted just outside the door to the conference room, and as he spotted Naz he cracked the door opened and whispered something to the occupants. As Naz approached, he nodded at her and opened the door for her. Her uncle was inside, as Naz expected, but there was someone else inside as well.

"Captain Nazmiya," Himiko Yamane, the Governor General and head of the Abrandian state addressed them by their combined name. She was sitting there with a cup of tea gently steaming on a coaster while her uncle stared at the large display screen that dominated the far wall. A map of the continent was on display with little information pins over various points of tactical interest.

"Unseen Blessing, Governor General," Naz replied warmly, dipping into a curtsy that was probably not appropriate military discipline.

'It's not. You're supposed to salute,' Miya clarified. The fact that Miya knew meant that Naz knew it too, but it was Miya's instinct that brought that knowledge to the surface of their consciousness. Military protocol would never be instinctual for Naz.

"So," Wasseim broke into the greeting with a cheerful smile, pretending to be oblivious to the tension in the air in an attempt to break it up. "GovGen 'n I want you 'n Titan to consider hittin' a River metal refinery. We're tryin' to send a message t' the Hallucians. Let 'em know what Titan's capable of."

"You heard of the recent incident, I assume?" Himiko asked, shooting a cold look at Naz and completely ignoring her uncle's diatribe.

"Heard shooting... Important?" Naz asked, remembering that there had been a bit of an uproar late yesterday. They'd been on patrol in Titan but there'd been too much confusion over the comm channels and nobody had given them specific instructions. There'd been rumours and speculation amongst the rank and file when Miya had brought the machine in to dock, but nothing consistent

"You should have been briefed on that," Himiko scowled, shooting a look at Wasseim.

"Didn' label 'er 'datory fer pilots. Naz' in 'er rights t'skip it." Wasseim took a seat across from Himiko and fiddled with his hand terminal, making a few minor adjustments to the display on the wall. He played up his slang a bit, probably to provoke Himiko's ire onto him and off of her.

"Well, this is our response," Himiko said, shooting another distasteful look at Wasseim, taking his bait. "I want you to send a resounding message, one that undermines faith in the Hallu's military."

"So we're to leave the precursors' sad little creations as a pile of molten scrap and dust?" Miya asked, her interest piqued at the prospect of combat. She took over and straightened up her posture, letting a little grin creep onto her face.

Himiko's brow furrowed a little at that. She was clearly uncomfortable with Nazmiya's duality. Seeing Miya come out the way she just had had clearly perturbed her.

"S'the idea." Wasseim confirmed, slurring together his first two words until it was almost a hiss. This time, Himiko kept scowling at Miya, not taking her uncle's bait.

"Let us off the leash, give us permission to fully engage and we'll get it done," Miya grinned wider, ignoring the tension. She hated rationing ammunition and fuel rods for the reactor. Besides, she enjoyed getting under the Governor General's skin a bit.

"We shall assess," Naz interrupted, retaking control and settling into a more relaxed, serene posture. "Miya, correct. Untether us?"

"Ye, ye. restrictions lifted, ay GovGen?" Wasseim sent her the files containing the scouting reports on the mining operation that he wanted them to attack. The information appeared on their hand terminal and the two of them started to look through it as their uncle and Himiko exchanged looks.

Nazmiya studied the files and scouting reports intently, analyzing the outpost's defenses and various means of defending itself and its means of calling for reinforcements. Talon was the dominant autonomous network on the planet, and its ability to reinforce facilities was far more impressive than River's. Still, River had some significant holdings on the northern part of the continent, near the Gate controlled by the Federation of Hallucia. Reinforcements would be aerial, flying drones most likely but perhaps a medium troop carrier. Nazmiya made a point in their notes about stocking Titan's extra stores with anti-air missiles. The two of them worked in tandem, tasks like this required their expertise and experience, not their individual personalities.

"Across the network..." Naz mused silently. She thought of the vast network of Gates that connected the precursor's planets to one another. The network itself spanned hundreds of worlds at least, though only two dozen had been colonized by humanity before the machines had awoken and the Bereaver had closed off the Gate to Earth. ExSol society only spanned fourteen worlds now, worlds that Himiko probably had aspirations towards.

"Definitely. Himiko would never be satisfied with just Abrandia. Now that she has Titan, and us, she sees what is possible." Miya didn't share Naz' reservations with their role in an Imperial venture in a moral sense. She didn't care for it only because she wasn't sure how starting armed conflicts benefitted the two of them specifically.

"...Perhaps... fail the mission?" Naz floated the idea.

"We can't. They already think we're crazy. Unreliable. Uncontrollable. This is a tune we should dance to, Naz."

"Titan useless, without us. Only our song, sufficient."

"That only protects us so much, along with our uncle's sentimentality. I don't doubt that the Governor General is searching for a way to replace us with someone else. See the way she looks at us?"

Nazmiya didn't fight and argue over their conflicting ideas. Instead, the two trains of thought collided with one another, impressed themselves upon one another, and Naz' will simply... took precedence. Miya grumbled slightly as she was defeated, but accepted the loss without further contestation. The two of them didn't, and couldn't exist or function without the ability to resolve their conflicts decisively.

Nazmiya's Tempest fluctuated at the conclusion of the disagreement. Their hand terminal was special-made and had no magnetic parts in it, but two others on the table nearby weren't made for someone with Nazmiya's rare Ascension. The fluctuation created a wave of magnetism that pushed on the metal parts in the other terminals, sending them skidding across the table to clatter onto the floor. One of the lights in the room flickered slightly at the same time, and Wasseim's chatter cut out for a second as the eyes in the room looked towards them.

"...Apologies." Naz murmured softly.

"Anyway..." Wasseim continued, clearing his throat and grabbing Himiko's attention away from Nazmiya. Much as people were aware that Tempest was a sporadic and inconvenient Ascension, it was still disconcerting for people when Nazmiya involuntarily threw metal objects around the room as though they were possessed.

The two of them continued to work and Wasseim and Himiko continued bickering about a few small details. They submitted a mission profile to their Uncle within minutes, omitting the request for an extra rack of anti-air missiles. It would be simple enough to over deploy the stockpile that Titan normally carried and then retreat when radar picked up incoming airborne reinforcements. The mission would be an embarrassment to Abrandia, and Miya could avoid putting the two of them in any real danger. With luck, perhaps the blame for the embarrassment would fall upon someone else, but that didn't matter. Naz had no care for what the Governor General thought of her, and Miya only cared because it might be an inconvenience.

"...Fine, just use your judgement, Knight Major," Himiko raised her voice a little as she stood up. She looked over at Naz one last time before leaving, a trail of frigid air seeming to linger behind her. Wasseim exhaled through his teeth as she left, and then slowly plodded over to Naz and sat down on the table next to her.

"Y'allright, Naz?" he asked.

"...Fine, Uncle." Naz replied, putting her terminal down and looking up at him curiously.

"Still gettin' that cough?" Even as he asked, Naz did notice a shortness of breath, a constriction in their chest. It was never completely beyond their notice, but also persistent enough that they often forgot about it.

"We are," Naz nodded and looked up at him purposefully. The city hadn't had access to the cystic fibrosis medication Nazmiya needed for over a month now.

"We'll get yer meds. Chem shipment should be comin' in soon." Wasseim scowled a little, and shook his head. Naz knew there was very little her uncle could do to get shipments safely through the Gate network and it frustrated him much more than it frustrated her or Miya. Wasseim looked down at his terminal and tapped a few buttons in the following silence. Naz' terminal beeped softly and she looked down to see that their uncle had approved their assessment of the mission, shortage of missiles and all.

"No wheels of Empire, turn. Our gaze, freezing, petrifying." Naz smiled a little bit, more for Miya's sake than for their uncle's bit it seemed to relieve him a little anyway.

"Let's just hope it doesn't blow back onto us."

"Tempest's song will guide... Have faith."

***

Nina pushed open the door of the med bay with a bundle of clothes fresh out of the 3d printer under her arm. Dawn was sitting up in the bed that had been set up for them in the med bay, reading something on their hand terminal. Dawn had been in bed for a few days and the ghost of stubble was beginning to show across their scalp and brows. When Nina tossed the bundle of clothes to them, Dawn eagerly sifted through it and pulled out the binder they'd ordered. The binder they'd been wearing to compress their chest had been ruined by both the bullet hole and the auto-doc cutting it open to perform surgery. They'd been self-consciously covering themselves with a blanket since recycling the tattered garment in a truly compulsive manner.

Dawn's eyes shone with relief as they looked at the newly fabricated piece of clothing but then immediately shot a distrusting look at Nina. She rolled her eyes and turned around, letting Dawn struggle and squirm into the binder without staring at them. Dawn was extremely strange but dysphoria was something Nina understood well enough. Some kind of bodily dysphoria was extraordinarily common amongst ExSols born with an Ascension, and Nina was no exception, having undergone a gender transition herself.

"Thank you, Miss. This one is not exceptionally comfortable in their own skin." Dawn explained quietly.

"Ye. I've got Pulse, m'self. I know the feelin'." Nina turned around to see Dawn stretching and throwing the blanket aside, a warm redness shining just under their skin indicating that Dawn was letting their Zenith burn at a low simmer. Sam hadn't made Dawn wear a sedative brace on their arm which would allow them to incapacitate the pilot remotely, but they had moved Dusk and put docking clamps on the Mech that would keep it grounded. Such medical braces were usually last-ditch resorts, as the Autonomous Networks sometimes forced their way into remote-controlled electronics and took control of them.

"Dawn's task upon this world has gone quite awry, but all is not lost. This one seeks to make a surgical strike into the depths of the Talon fortress. Assistance was never sought, but it could be of use. There is a specific piece of hardware that Dawn has been charged with retrieving, but there will be other riches that this one is happy to relinquish."

"An' you want me to convince Sam and 'rina that it's worth it to attack the fortress itself, eh?" Nina asked, eyebrow raised skeptically.

"Dawn thinks that Miss Sahara has a greater appreciation for what is possible than her compatriots," they answered calmly.

"You mean I'm reckless 'n crazy," Nina snorted.

"Dawn is sure some would say that. Dawn would say that Miss Sahara understands that the lives of the Bereaved are fraught by nature. Safety upon the precursor's worlds is a cruel illusion compared to what our cousins on Earth enjoy."

Nina was legitimately a little taken aback by Dawn's words. Cursing 'The Bereaver,' the Prime Minister of the Earth Coalition who had closed the Earth gate off from the network generations ago was common enough parlance, even if it was considered very inappropriate. Dawn's explicit naming of the Extra Solar colonies and peoples as 'The Bereaved' carried a certain level of solemn sacrilege that made Nina's own casual profanity seem tame. An alarm rang throughout the facility before she could respond, and before Nina could even reach for her hand terminal, the ground shook violently as an explosion roared outside.

"The heck?" Nina grumbled, pulling out her hand terminal. The words Uder Attack. Get to safeyr were on her screen, typo'd in haste. Nina's brain raced. Carrina was asleep, so Twinshya wouldn't be in action, but the outpost's automated defenses had always been more than sufficient to chase off reclaimers like Widows and the like. Talon or even River had never launched an all-out attack on their facility, they never would, they had no reason to. The outpost was of minimal strategic and material value.

"Miss Sahara," Dawn gently put a hand on Nina's arm and she looked at them with fear surging through her. "Let Dawn get to Dusk. This one can repel the attackers."

"What? No, the auto defences can—" Another loud rumble cut Nina off as the building shook. The sound of metal ripping and masonry crumbling was unmistakable and Nina almost lost her footing. "Heck. Come with me."

Nina grabbed Dawn and ran out of the medical bay towards the nearest door. Smoke billowed in the hallway and Nina had to cover her mouth so that she didn't trigger an asthma attack. Squeezing her eyes shut and holding her breath, Nina bolted through the hallway and kicked a door outside off its hinges. She charged out, exhaling through her nostrils with her eyes burning and tearing up. She looked up, hoping to see whatever it was that was tangling with their automated defenses that had gotten a stray shot off.

Nina froze in a moment of complete and utter cognitive dissonance.

A thirteen meter tall and twenty meter long walker robot was methodically climbing the hill that housed their camp. Nina had only seen videos of assault robots of that size, read about them, looked at mockups of what their schematics might be like. They existed on worlds that were the precursor's battlefields, ones that ExSols stayed far away from, for there was no safe haven like Abrandia to be found. Ishtar was a Talon stronghold, a manufacturing and resource center for the autonomous network. Gigantic assault machines like the Colossus Tick before her shouldn't be here, not according to everything that ExSols knew about the precursors. But it was, and it was attacking their camp.