Pink Noise - Leonid Korogodski [34]
No, it was something else that killed her.
Interfacing with her suit, they probed its “black box.” The smart suit’s circuitry was working still. The records were intact. She wasn’t shot, nor did she fall down to her death. She died in flight.
Asphyxiation, Nathi said. She ran out of oxygen.
It should have lasted her a long, long time. Enough to reach the nearest Flamethrowers base.
But she promised to come back.
Or to die trying.
It wasn’t hard to see what must have happened. She had called for help, held off the enemy before the Needle, and then tried to take the castle back. A desperate attack. No, several. Her suit’s records showed she had recharged nine times at the Needle and was on her way back to the front when—
Nathi imagined what it would be like to go back into a hopeless fight, over and over again, just as you knew your oxygen was running out, as you felt life leaving, as you gasped for breath—yet kept on going.
He suddenly was struck by how alien the very thought of breathing had become. And yet, they may still die, if they ran out of energy—same as Nanny.
Look, her Dragonclaws still have some charge, the girl said.
Bending over her Nanny, she unfastened Dragonclaws from a lifeless left hand. Several blueberries rolled out of the palm, with tiny fragile stems—unbroken.
She kicked the armored corpse hard. Pain blossomed in her naked foot. Damn you. This wasn’t a good time to let the tears flow. You were sworn to kill me!
Thank you. The girl bent to kiss her Nanny one last time—two lips against the helmet’s fiberglass, over unblinking eyes. I will return, to pick the blueberries.
She took the other claws and armed herself. Too large in size at first, the wrist harnesses shrank down to fit snugly over a child’s hands. The laser waveguides wrapped themselves around both arms to reconnect between her shoulder blades to the charger column. Sorry, Nanny. I’m a better model.
The girl waited. Nathi knew for whom. A child no longer.
The ELF pounding against his mind grew more insistent. Soon, the “incantation” would be over and he might lose any advantage of surprise. He marveled where had their exhaustion gone.
She fought until her final breath, he said. Would we do any less?
Her mental image smiled. Her lips of glass stayed frozen. No point to hide. They’ll find us anyway, from radio transmissions.
Not if I send them out with different delays in different directions. He smiled back.
You’ll have your hands too full for that. Besides, they may have found us already.
True. At least, without having to maintain invisibility, he had more nanobots at his disposal. More computational resources.
They may try to lead me, he said. Like, you know, back when…. At the spy node, when he went “sleepwalking.” He may hallucinate again—they’d make him.
But this time, I won’t leave you, she said. I will guard your back.
She turned one of her claws to point right into their eyes.
Should it go ill, she said, you’ ll never be a slave again.
He opened himself—
NAOMI RODE A STORM OF HER OWN CREATION, ASTRIDE a current of hundreds of megaamperes, singing. Jacked into the ship’s awareness, her own body given over into the DareAngel’s care and her senses switched over to experience the “body” of the ship, she felt the thrill of a plasma river washing over the screen of the magnetic fields, the ecstasy of channeling a raging stream of energy that roared inside her, through her.
Outsiders—from civilians to Fleet officers from outside the Dragon Guard—asked her sometimes who had it worse in battle, they or their ships. Some of them thought that it was cruel to subject a self-aware being to a much higher risk of losing at least part of their mind. The