Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (72 page)

“I do,” Alice replied. “More than ever.”

“Release the Clever Dream and all the
artefacts of your past, become a part of his life, because that
sacrifice will reward you more than anything else in the end,”
Jason Everin said.

“Couldn’t he jump aboard the Clever Dream?
It’s a great ship, I mean-“ she trailed off as she watched Jason’s
disapproval grow. “No, huh?”

“No,” Jason replied.

“Adventure?”

“More than you can imagine, but at a cost,”
Jason said.

“What kind of cost are we talking here?”

“The necessary kind, but few sacrifices will
be meaningless, if that’s any consolation.”

“But, adventure,” Alice said with a cheeky,
sidelong look.

“Adventure,” Jason agreed.

“When do I start?” Alice asked.

“Right now. Your framework systems just
surged. You’re already whole,” Jason said. “Best of luck.”

* * *

“It’s just not that easy to kill a version
three,” Alice said as she felt the last of her body surge back into
being. Regenerating was different the second time. She was aware
that her body stored up energy and quietly repaired damage to her
fabrication systems before repairing and reviving her all at
once.

She wrapped her legs around the nearest
soldier’s knees and tripped him with a jerk. His weapon was in her
hand the next moment, and she sprayed the squad ordered to guard
her with weapons’ fire.

“I told you we had to shoot her up again!”
shouted one soldier to another as a pair ran for their lives.

Alice wanted to rage on, to press the fight,
but thousands of soldiers were mustering around the top of the
installation. She grabbed her pack, ignored the few things that
fell out, and sprinted for the edge of the crater.

Energy bolts lit the shaded area, turning
spots of gravel to glowing char. All the command and control units
she wore were destroyed; she had no idea what was waiting for her
past the massive upturned slab of concrete jutting out of the earth
she was running for.

She rolled behind it and blasted a pair of
frameworks, one of which shot her twice, only slightly singing her
first layer of skin on her hip and shoulder. The framework soldiers
would regenerate quickly, but she knew she had at least a thirty
second head start.

Alice ran into the forest of wreckage,
highly conscious of her shredded vacsuits. She needed more
protection, going on completely armour-free wasn’t an option. The
sound of large pops behind her prompted her to zag and dodge behind
a large pillar. Her instincts proved right, as a pair of explosions
flashed behind her, sending a wave of heat outward that was so
harsh she could feel it around the corner. “Something like that
really will kill me, I can’t regenerate if I get slagged.”

She pressed on, putting distance between her
and the large crater base. Alice enjoyed the challenge of moving
through wreckage and rubble and did so well, but she was becoming
weary of the jeopardy. A nagging desire to find a place near the
shoreline, where there was less for the frameworks to fight for,
and settle in for a rest was growing.

A roar overhead prompted her to look up just
in time to catch a glimpse of the Warlord sweeping by overhead.
“Hey, Dad!” she shouted.

She heard two percussive sounds that
reminded her of metal bars striking each other, only much louder,
and the Warlord dropped two metre wide, barrel-like mines that
exploded into hundreds of finger-length missiles that screamed
through the air into the crater. Fire and thunder filled the sky
above the crater, and she watched the Warlord bank, slow down, and
return to the site even as it burned.

“I should have asked Jason if I get another
XO-99. Some extra firepower would be awesome right now,” Alice said
as she squeezed through a jumble of cargo containers. She stopped
as soon as she was through the tangle of big metal crates,
listening to the popping sounds of rounds striking the pile behind
her. A loud creak warned her that it was about to collapse, and she
moved out of the way, cringing.

A framework soldier climbing through the
crush of crates made eye contact with her a moment before the cargo
pile collapsed, sending dust and debris in all directions. When the
mess was finished falling in on the frameworks trying to follow her
while firing from the inside, she asked herself, “Why do I get the
feeling I’m headed in the wrong direction?” Alice pulled two
command and control units out of her pack and slapped them onto her
wrists. She connected with them effortlessly as they powered on and
looked at the tactical map.

There were two framework soldiers still
chasing her, coming around the corner only metres away. Alice
pulled a rifle free of the pack and leaned out from behind cover
firing her rifle on its highest setting. The stock was hot to the
touch after a few seconds, but it served its deadly purpose. The
frameworks wouldn’t be standing up for at least a minute. The
weapon had been damaged, and couldn’t be trusted.

Alice pulled her old vacsuits off and
sprayed a fresh, dark rust coloured one on. “Sure it can’t protect
me from too much, but it’s better than trying to run across a
battlefield naked,” she said to herself as she pulled a pair of
blade shooters from the pack and loaded up on ammunition.

“I’m coming, Dad,” Alice said, opening a
channel to him. She broke cover and started running back towards
the crater, firing both her weapons at the incoming framework
soldiers, forcing them back. “I’ve got a few friends, too.”

“We’ll be ready,” he replied.

Alice slid down a broad culvert and rolled
out of the bottom, firing a spray of suppressive fire, catching a
framework in the neck and head by pure luck. She thought of what
fact she could send him to prove that she really was his daughter
and remembered the perfect thing. It wasn’t a phrase at all, it was
how she felt right before she died on the Triton, right before she
decided to let go and use her father’s memory to upload herself to
a Regent Galactic communications node and figure out how she could
fight the war in her own way. There was a unique feeling as she
reached out to him and began to upload her packaged
consciousness.

Her comm unit’s screen garbled as she used
it to reach out to him, and send that same feeling in his
direction. “You know it’s me, right? You’ve gotta recognize me
now,” she said when she was sure she’d done her best.

The silence on the channel was enough to
drive her to distraction by the time he replied: “I do. I’m
coming.”

“Nah,” Alice said as she took an energy bolt
in the shoulder and whirled to riddle her assailant with explosive
blade shots. “I can make the last ninety metres. You just get ready
to storm the castle.”

Alice’s tactical scanner spotted four more
frameworks moving so they could flank her as she ran for the
crater. She was just starting to plan an approach when a stream of
explosive rounds rained down from above on one of the enemy
positions, obliterating them and their cover.

A Ramiel fighter dove and swerved overhead,
breaking from several Uriel fighters headed towards the crater.
“This is Tempest of the Skyguard,” a female voice announced over
her comm, “I’m your cover.”

“I think I love you,” Alice said as she
sprinted towards the crater.

The Ramiel fighter came in for another pass
and ripped the landscape out from under the other pair of
frameworks lying in wait for Alice with a mini-missile.

Oz let the smouldering Triton rifle drop
behind him from atop the decimated hover truck he knelt on. The
charging chamber and barrel were both white hot, warped thanks to
over seventy three minutes of near constant firing. He accepted
another from a runner. “How are our rounds coming?” he asked as he
let loose at a group of four framework soldiers moving to join a
larger mass who had taken refuge behind an overturned
transport.

The barrage made the frameworks hesitate a
little, stepping back from the first one whose legs were mangled by
Oz’s careful shooting. He fired a burst at each of their heads and
spread their skull matter across the ground beside them. “That’ll
take a minute to recover from,” he said.

Two loader suits repurposed with roughly
built flak guns took the opportunity to run for the security of the
wall. One was peppered with rounds before he made the jump while
the other leapt over cleanly. The pilot turned the loader around,
climbed a support and reached back over for her partner.

“Heavy support on sector twenty-three!” Oz
called as he tried to press the framework soldiers firing on the
failing loader suit. The pilot was opening the chest hatch so he
could flee the failing armour. The suppressive fire drove most of
the frameworks back behind cover, and the pilot chanced an escape.
He was one of Frost’s loaders from the Triton gunnery deck, Timothy
Dillon. He reached for the loader suit stretching over the wall for
him, and it caught his vacsuit-clad arm.

Three shots ripped through his legs and side
as his partner pulled him over the wall, but according to Crewcast,
he had a good chance of making it; the stasis systems were already
taking over. Their infirmary would have to take care of him, the
medical system on Timothy’s comm unit was burned out from
over-use.

The portable energy shield beside Oz took
several shots. The runner flinched, Oz didn’t. He checked the line
leading from the truck’s batteries to the small shield generator
and saw the power reading was good. “Where’s my cover?” he
shouted.

Alaka’s son returned fire from his position
behind a steelcrete slab, forcing the frameworks with a good shot
on Oz back under cover.

“Your ammo will be a few more minutes,” the
runner replied.

“Materializer fourteen is burned out, we’re
down to one.”

“Who got that ammo?” Oz asked.

“Commander Rice’s unit,” the runner replied,
choosing his moment to run then dashing back towards the
hangar.

“Ladies first, I guess,” Oz said to himself
as he took aim at a framework leaning a little too far out from a
chunk of an upturned landing platform. The platform and frameworks
hiding behind it were ripped to shreds as a battered Uriel fighter
strafed in low. Oz had just enough time to recognize the skull and
crossed samurai swords emblem on the nose of the fighter. “Hello,
Samurai Squadron,” he said into his comm.

“How goes the war?” Ronin replied, slowing
his fighter down and landing it abruptly behind the wall of their
shelter.

“I keep running out of ammo, burned through
two rifles. It’s a gallery shoot for the most part,” Oz replied.
“You’re going to have to join me up here, bring guns.”

Minh-Chu was out of the cockpit of his Uriel
fighter in a moment, carrying a fresh Triton rifle. He climbed up
the side of the hover truck and got in position behind Oz. “Which
area are you covering?” he asked.

Ground crews started looking over his
fighter, which had more than one hole and a burned out engine pod.
“Sector twenty one, but I’m monitoring a lot more. Marking it on
your tactical,” Oz said. He returned fire at a framework that broke
cover to rush the no-man’s-land between the wreckage of the shanty
port and the Triton Settlement wall. He fired wildly, trying to
frighten his foes back behind cover as he made his run. There was a
box in his other hand.

Oz’s shots along with those of several other
defenders riddled the framework female and the bomb she was trying
to deliver exploded in a white and blue flash. A nine-metre section
of the wall was blown inward, crashing against the side of the Day
Hauler, one of the ships they hadn’t gotten around to working on
yet. The hull held up, but the breach in the wall had to be
repaired. “Third time today,” Oz said, intensifying his fire at the
frameworks with an easy shot at the gap. Four loader suits were
already on their way to move armour plating ripped from one of
their oldest ships, Jayne’s Run, to begin repairing that section of
the wall.

“Have any of those soldiers made it to the
wall with one of those bombs?” Minh-Chu asked, joining in with his
own rifle.

Oz cringed at the thought. “No, but they’re
effective against the wall for fifteen metres, now I’m stuck here
covering our maintenance guys while they try to rebuild that.”

A runner arrived with a heavy crate of
cartridges slung on his back. “Framework killers,” she announced,
handing Oz four cartridges. “Our last mass materializer is
dead.”

“So, that’s it?” Oz said.

“No, we got thirty five thousand rounds out
of it before it went,” she replied with a grin.

“Finally, a lucky break,” Oz said. “Now make
sure you and the other runners tell our guys we only got thirty
five hundred,” Oz said. “The frames might have a surprise up their
sleeve.”

“Yes, Sir,” the runner said, moving on in a
hurry.

Oz pulled his clip of explosive rounds and
chucked the fresh framework killer clip into his rifle. “Lay down
cover fire to the right, give the left a chance to think they can
take a shot.” He could tell Minh-Chu was struggling, trying to
figure out which of the hundreds of targets Oz was talking about,
and he marked the frameworks on his tactical system. “Sorry, I’ve
been doing this for so long that I forget there’s anything else,”
he said.

Minh-Chu’s aim left something to be desired,
but he was out of practice. Oz had been practicing for hours, and
he sent bursts into his targets the moment they broke cover in
attempts to take a shot. To his great satisfaction, the frameworks
twitched and died. “How are things up top?” Oz asked.

“I thought you’d get the signal from here,”
Minh-Chu said.

“We haven’t gotten much since the Leviathan
pulled into orbit. Something has been jamming everything outside of
the atmosphere,” he replied. “I’ve been hoping to hear something
from the Triton.”