Small Steps

A Mobile Suite Gundam: The Witch from Mercury story

PART FOUR

"To Stand..."

From the co-pilot seat of Miorine's VTOL, Simon surveyed the landscape that was passing below them. "I haven't been to these training grounds since my army days."

"So this really is owned by the army like Elaine told me," Miorine said. "I was wondering how we got to use it."

"She has some clout with the army. The Adneda academy's affiliated boys' school has a cadet program. She said that next year Adneda will be starting up its own program. Anyway, the army doesn't use it much. The mobile suit company is more or less a token force, pretty much used just for disaster relief."

"Look." Miorine pointed. "They're already in their starting positions." There were two lines of large trainer suits separated by an expanse of mixed meadow and woodlands.

They landed at the helipad. A path led to a ramp going down into a bunker. They walked through an opened hatchway into the bunker. It consisted of a single room, with the slit window on the opposite side of the space just above ground level. The monitors below the window were active, showing maps of the region and mobile suit telemetry.

Two students in their Adneda school uniforms with the long dark skirts bowed and directed them to the table. What was presumably a map table of the situation room had been transformed into an elegant tea service: white tablecloth, china, the works. Elaine and her other two guests rose to greet them.

Miorine made the introductions. "Simon, you've already met my wife. This is our friend and colleague Sabina Fardin.

Sabina bowed. "A pleasure, sir."

"Likewise. Will the two of you be participating in the exercise?" He had obviously taken note that Suletta and Sabina were in flight suits. They also had team ribbons around their heads, red and blue respectively.

"No sir." She and Suletta shared a quick, fond smile. "We each have trained one of the teams, but we will only be observing. We are showing them our support in the traditional manner."

"Miorine told me the two of you have been back from space for just half a year. That's a pretty tight training schedule for these girls, if I may say."

"That is largely thanks to the cyberbrain system, sir. For pilots with sufficient proficiency, it accelerates the learning process."

The mock combat soon began. They all sat at raised chairs where they could view both the slit window and the monitors. With their tea, of course.

When the first detonation came, loud even through the thick bunker armour and glass, Simon turned to look at Miorine to find her already smiling wickedly at his surprise. "Was that live fire?"

"Just ceramic rounds," Suletta said with a very different, reassuring smile. "They shatter on impact, no penetration. But being hit is still noisy in the cockpit. It can be pretty scary."

Like the rest of them Simon had mostly been looking at the monitors until any suits actually showed up in their field of view. Miorine had been dividing her attention between those and Simon himself. He watched with the focused, calculating attention of somebody who understood the implication of what he was seeing.

After several minutes and a lot of noisy live fire, a brief buzzer sounded. "Blue team took the flag," Sabina declared.

"I concur," Suletta said. The two of them stood and shook hands, both smiling proudly on behalf of their respective teams.

The two of them contacted their respective team leads to confirm that the exercise was over and all participants had sounded off with no reported issues.

Elaine rose and gestured to the table. "Perhaps we can sit down and relax." She turned to the senior of the two attendants. "You can leave us now." They bowed, wished everyone a good afternoon, and exited through the hatchway, closing it behind them.

"Truly remarkable," Simon said. "They moved and fought just like infantry squads. They all consented to use the cyberbrain system?"

"All these girls have used a cyberbrain for over a year. Most of our students have them now. Any stigma surrounding them has all but vanished."

"You can take at least some credit for that." Miorine said to Elaine. "Encouraging your students to use them and be open about it has had a big impact."

"Some are more open than others." Elaine smiled. "I have noticed that longer hair worn loosely has become more popular. It seems at least some of our girls do not like to show off their devices the way some boys like to show off their custom gear."

"It won't be long before their use is all but ubiquitous," Miorine said. "Simon, there's something I need to tell you. I have taken the liberty of explaining your hidden agenda to Sabina."

"Indeed?" Simon looked over to Sabina. "May I ask how you fee about our subversive notion?"

Sabina took a very short moment before answering, as if collecting thoughts that had been long since carefully considered. "When I went into space I thought I had left behind a backward place. But my notions of Spacian prosperity did not survive contact with the reality. So much of what they have they owe to this world. They should be made to at least acknowledge that. I don't think that can happen until Earthians can speak to them from a position of strength. I would like to support your cause in any way I can, sir."

"Call me Simon, please."

"Thank you, Simon. Please call me Sabina."

"Sabina, I have to ask you. Am I wrong in thinking this new system could become the linchpin of our agenda?"

"I think it could. Both in our trials at Jeturk Industries and here at the school we have successfully brought novice pilots up to a level where they are all but ready for combat. It takes longer than the in vivo Permet systems, but not prohibitively so." She drove home her point with a more emphatic tone. "With additional training, the best of them could hold their own against mobile suits operating at high Permet levels."

"This is all rather under the radar right now," Miorine said. "But Jeturk will be offering this to their customers before long, and people will begin to understand its implications."

Simon regarded her with knit brows. "Do you intend for GUND-ARM to enter that market?"

"I want GUND-ARM to supply Earthian polities who will fight for their citizens, not for the highest bidder."

He smiled. "In short, you need those polities to become your customers."

"Not necessarily right away. There will be some development needed to make more advanced suits, we can finance that ourselves. I have already made a start on that. But ultimately nothing less than regional alliances will have the resources to support the sort of large scale production we will eventually need to do."

"Still, there is no denying that the mobile suit developers in the Fronts have a head start," Simon noted.

"I have an idea of how to even that up," Miorine said. "I'm putting out feelers to see if I can find locate any remnants of Ochs Earth."

Simon did not look as surprised or skeptical as Miorine had expected. Ochs Earth was the company that had developed the Lfrith suits which had been used in the terror attacks on the Asticassia academy. In the aftermath of that and of the destruction of what had been presumed the last of their mobile suits at Quinharbor, the company had dissolved and its always secretive members dropped from sight. The company had an almost legendary status, they were the subject of a host of conspiracy theories regarding who they really were.

"Do you have any leads?" he asked.

"Not as yet. But that's more long-term. For now, for what we want to do as our first steps, we can take care of that with the resources we have."

Simon looked thoughtful. "I wonder if an existence proof is what we need to get the ball rolling."

Miorine was unsure where he was going with that. "How do you mean?"

"How quickly could you develop a mobile suit that would be effective against light labour suits armed with off-the-shelf cannon and gattlings?"

"We practically have that right now."

He smiled. "How would you like to break the embargo on the Oceania region?"

Miorine was taken aback by the question, but only for a moment. "I see. Nobody else will help them with their blue-sea piracy problem, so you want us to help them."

Simon nodded. "Yes. And more importantly, help them help themselves."

"I thought you operated locally, that's right on the other side of the planet."

"It's a hotbed of Earth independence activism, which is the main reason the Fronts and their cronies embargo them. They can't even get labour suits for love or money. Half the Earth Independence League's members are from there and a lot of them are in the governments, so I have contacts there."

"I have some contacts in the region myself. I'll send you my list, if they intersect with your contacts that could speed things up."

Simon looked surprised. "Your business extends to there?"

"We've recently sold some exoskeletons in the area." Miorine smiled. "We got some very stern letters of protest from various trade associations. I just forwarded the letters to my customers with a note saying if they don't care they I don't care either."

Simon laughed. "That probably made you some admirers over there."

"I guess one bottleneck is that we only have two qualified instructors for the new system." Miorine glanced at Suletta and Sabina.

"Renee has tried it out a couple of times," Sabina said. "The others have expressed interest."

"Then getting them trained up is our first priority." Miorine smiled. "I'll bet they're all itching to get back into the saddle."

"Then it looks like we have our action plans for the moment," Simon said with the manner of adjournment. His tone now became less formal. "Suletta, it is unspeakably late but let me congratulate you on the birth of your daughter. I trust she is well?"

Suletta beamed happily. "She is very well, thank you! I'm sure Miorine has already shown you pictures so I'll restrain myself."

"I'm afraid our agenda keeps pulling you from her, I appreciate the sacrifice."

"She's in good hands. My sister Eri is looking after her."

Simon's eyebrows came up. "Ah yes, Miorine has told me about how she is mobile now."

Suletta grinned. "Yes, she's got this really cute gynoid body!"

"We might have you to thank for inspiring Eri to try manipulating her physical form in ways that she hadn't really considered before," Miorine said to Simon. "It has really transformed her life."

"That's wonderful to hear. I hope she continues to push the boundaries of her extraordinary existence."

"She's tried some different robot bodies," Miorine confirmed. "Unfortunately they mostly did a hard crash straight down into the uncanny valley and soon got cannibalized for parts. As to her more experimental bodies... well, perhaps the less said about that the better."

"The six-limbed one was neat," Suletta said. "It could stand up and use the top four limbs as arms, or go down and walk on four legs lie a... Miorine, what was it called?"

"A Centaur, but it was actually inspired by some old fantasy series I'd never heard of. It was rather unstable so it turned out to be one of those ideas that looked good on paper but did not survive contact with reality."

Simon gestured to encompass all present company. "Perhaps there is something to be said for the human form after all."

"Yes," Miorine agreed. "Evolution is smarter than we are."

They spent a few more minutes enjoying the opportunity to speak of less weighty matters. At length, Elaine received notice that the participants in the exercise were ready to greet their guests. They walked outside where the two teams were lined up next to each other, in front of their trainer suits. They both paid their respects to Simon and Miorine. Then it was time for Sabina and Suletta to go debrief their respective teams. From a respectful distance, Miorine could see that the debriefing was mostly the teachers praising their teams for their performance. Suletta's team looked rather dejected and apologetic. But she worked her magic and cheered them up, even hugging one who seemed on the verge of tears. It looked for all the world like a coach consoling her losing team at a sports tournament. Seeing this with a backdrop of mobile suits marked by the powdered remains of the live rounds that had impacted them, it was both adorable and surreal.

It occurred to Miorine that some of these girls would be old enough to join the military in less than a year. It was true she had met former child soldiers not much more than half their age. Nevertheless, they all just looked so impossibly young.

#-#-#-#-#

The open-top off-road car and the uniform of its driver both bore the insignia of the new island militia. He was driving Miorine up toward the tip of this spit of land that consisted of mostly sand and palm trees. Their destination lay ahead, a tall construction site tarp structure that enclosed a space large enough to span a good part of the spit. The young driver brought them up beside the fabric building. Miorine thanked him, stepped down from the car and walked over to a part of the tarp that formed a man-door. The heavy cloth fluttered a little in the light breeze, emblazoned with the universal signs telling people to keep out. Miorine pushed the cloth aside and stepped within the enclosure.

There was one fairly large work shed within the steel frames that supported the tarp structure. But the space was dominated by five mobile suits packed closely together. The suits themselves were identical to the ones issued to the militia. But the rocket packs on their backs were larger, long-duration rockets. Only the pilots who had been the militia mobile suit company's instructors were qualified to fly these packs.

Miorine walked over to the shed and entered through the man-door. Conditioned air wafting over her came as a relief from the heat. The space was well-lit but her eyes still needed to adjust from the glare of the noonday sun. The nearest corner of the shed had a line of desk chairs facing a long table against the wall that held a more or less contiguous array of monitors underneath windows. Only one of the chairs was occupied. It was Sabina in her flight suit. She just turned in response to Miorine's entry and nodded a greeting. "How is the council feeling?" It was a question motivated by the understanding that the civilian leadership was likely the weak link in the act of defiance they were participating in.

Miorine gave a little smile. "They're nervous. It's hard to blame them. But they're still resolute."

"That's good to hear."

Miorine looked out the window. "I have to wonder about this camouflage. Isn't it a bit obvious just from the size? We're practically advertising the presence of a mobile suit platoon."

"This is not where the pirates' attention will be directed. And it is only obvious if they are expecting them."

Only the infantry militia training had been done here, by professional trainers. The mobile suit training had been done secretly in Rio by Sabina's team. Very few people on the island knew that the militia mobile suit company was already on active duty.

Miorine glanced at the empty seats. "So where are the others?"

"On the beach."

Miorine frowned. "I know we are not expecting to be called upon, but aren't we taking a rather lackadaisical attitude here?"

"I am very certain we will not be called upon."

"I just hope nobody from the Council makes a surprise inspection. Our presence here is the only thing giving them enough confidence to go through with this."

There was just the hint of a smile on Sabina's face. "The militia spotters are not just watching out for the enemy."

Miorine frowned. "I hope we're not fostering disrespect for the civilian leadership."

"More than one Council member have children who have joined the militia. Those children harbour the same mix of respect and skepticism for the previous generation as any others."

Miorine laughed. "I've been on the giving end of that, and no doubt I'm destined to be on the receiving end one day, so I take your point."

"Are you staying on the island for now?"

"My meeting with the seasteaders isn't for two days, so there's no reason to leave just yet. Still no sign of them I take it?"

"No, but based on past behaviour today is the most likely day."

"I hope the girls are not leaving you here alone all the time."

"We take turns." She smiled. "They said to send you out to the beach when you arrive."

"I don't know, I'm enjoying the air conditioned space. People go on about tropical islands but I've got mixed feelings."

"The view is nice."

"Well, since you're twisting my arm. I'll see you again before I leave."

She walked over to another man-sized flap in the side of the fabric building that faced the beach and passed through. Sure enough, past some palm trees and about ten meters away there was a line of beach chairs facing the inlet. Miorine walked over to them. Sure enough, Henao, Ireesha, Maisie and Renee were sitting in a row. They were all in different styles of skimpy swimsuits and sunglasses, with a variety of drinks sitting in the beach chair armrest cup-holders. They all greeted her. "How come you're dressed so formally?" Renee asked.

"It's called a sundress." She also had a sunhat, shoulder bag and sandals. "There's nothing formal about it."

Renee grinned. "I'll bet you've got a string bikini under there."

"You wish. Can you really pilot a mobile suit dressed like that?"

"She had to pilot one naked once," Henao deadpanned.

"It was an emergency! And I wasn't naked, I was wearing panties!"

"And?"

"And what?"

"My point exactly. You were legally indecent."

"They say the mobile suit can read your micro-movements better that way," Maisie said cheerily. "Maybe we should make that SOP."

"That's a myth," Henao said wearily.

Renee gestured to one of the two empty beach chairs. "Why don't you get a drink and take a load off?"

"Okay." Miorine went over to the drink cooler box, got herself a bottle of sparkling water and went to sit down. Sabina was right, the view was tremendous. The inlet formed by this spit and another one across from them spread out in front of them. To the left was the small city which was the main settlement of the island and the capital of this particular archipelago in the southern hemisphere of the Oceania region. It was a typical warm, sunny day with great fluffy cumulus clouds rolling across the sky.

"We've got bets going on when they show up," Renee told her. "Today is the odds favourite."

"I'm loathe to anticipate the caprice of a pirate," Miorine said.

"They've been very predictable," Henao pointed out.

She was right, and there was a reason. A week ago the island leadership publicly announced that they would cease sending their weekly cryptocurrency protection tribute to the pirate gang who had been blackmailing them for years. The pirates had sent an ultimatum, which had been immediately rejected by the Council. Yesterday had been the deadline they had set. One thing pirates in the region prided themselves on was the punctuality of their retaliation. Up to now they had little reason to be more cautious or deceptive in their tactics.

It was exactly this sort of systematic humiliation that had driven the islanders' acceptance of this act of defiance. They had been itching for payback for a very, very long time now.

For a while they just drank in the intoxicating surroundings. Every now and then Maisie would point out a cloud that looked like something weird. Renee told a couple of off-colour jokes she had heard from her trainees. At mention of trainees, Miorine directed the conversation in that direction. It sounded like they had been having altogether too much fun lording over the young militiamen and whipping them into shape. There had been many more volunteers than positions to fill, so the whittling process had been just as brutal for the trainees as it had been a blast for their instructors.

Miorine already had an idea how that had gone down. Sabina had supervised the training and had done much of it herself. The others had worked in pairs, Maisie with Ireesha and Renee with Henao. Just thinking of it Miorine could barely suppress a smile. The poor young recruits had been tossed unceremoniously into the wild neurodiversity of Sabina's team, and only the strong had endured.

Ireesha, who had been silent until now, was the first to spot them. She pointed and just said "There."

They all used their binoculars. Miorine's was a civilian version of their naval image-stabilizing binoculars, the ones Aliya had recommended for bird-watching. She saw three conning towers emerging from the waters of the inlet. All at once all of their phones were sounding alarms. The militia had spotted them too.

The three submarines surfaced and the big clam-shell doors on their upper hulls opened up. An armed labour suit with bolted-on armour plates and rocket pack emerged from each submarine and walked onto the hull just behind the conning towers. Almost as one they all blasted off, went into a brief ballistic trajectory, then fired rockets again for a soft landing on the beach just on the other side of the city.

"Those labours don't take rocket packs," Renee pointed out. "Kudos to their techies, putting that together. But damn, they'll be way off-balance."

Another set of three suits emerged and rocketed to the beach, then another.

Maisie laughed. "Look at how they're bunching up! It's a circus!"

"None of our boys are firing," Renee said, sounding relieved.

"Just like we told them," Henao said with just a hint of satisfaction. "Wait until they're all on the beach."

Four suits had launched from each boat, which is what Miorine had been told was expected. They started to walk toward the city.

"Okay," Maisie said, like she was anticipating a cricket pitch. "Right about now I think. Three, two, one, BAM!"

There was no way to tell where that first shot came from. Then there were more. Then the militia mobile suits all came into view at once. Some stepped from around the port warehouses that had been evacuated for days now. Some came from where they had been lying behind beach houses right in front of the pirates. Some rocketed up and over to the spit of land behind the pirates.

The pirates were in the open, crowded together, surrounded, and in the crossfire of an enemy that outnumbered and outgunned them. They didn't stand a chance.

In seconds half of them were down. The remaining ones began to return fire. The barking of their cannon and the squealing of their gattling guns sounded like a paltry thing next to the withering fusillade they faced.

One of the last remaining pirates made a desperate jump back to the submarines. He promptly drew the fire of half the militia suits. His rocket pack was hit and he went spinning.

"Oh look, he's going to hit the boat!" Maisie said. "Wham! Right into the door! That one won't be submerging again!"

The other two submarines were closing their hatches, presumably in preparation for a crash dive. But with the pirate suits neutralized, all the militia mobile suits were now directing their attention to the submarines. They all angled up their massive assault rifles and fired the attached grenade launchers. In seconds, founts of water erupted around the submarines. Rounds that hit them exploded on impact, leaving gaping holes that could be seen from here.

"Cavitation hull," Henao commented. "Inlets for magneto-hydrodynamic propulsion too. All that stealth gear won't do them any good now."

One of the submarines that had almost closed its clam-shell doors suddenly exploded, seeming to split in half. Maisie fist-pumped. "Kablooey! Bullseye on the magazine, right through the door!"

The sub with the jammed doors soon suffered the same fate. The third one actually did manage to submerge, but multiple trails of surfacing air bubbles attested to the water it was rapidly taking on. Soon that too stopped. "They'll be on the bottom by now" was Renee's assessment.

Militia amphibious armoured cars rolled into the water from the beach, rotated their wheels to water-fan mode and sped out to where the subs had gone down, presumably on the off-chance there were any survivors to pick up.

Miorine set aside her binoculars. "Well, I guess the cat is well and truly out of the bag now."

"And how," Renee agreed.

"No more plausible deniability," Henao said with just a hint of irony.

"GUND-ARM mobile suit sales, open for business!" Maisie said, raising her glass. "And Sabina Team expert pilot training, beat you into shape with a smile!"

Ireesha got up, walked over to the cooler and opened the lid on the cooler box. She pulled out a bottle and turned around. With the backdrop of the columns of smoke rising from the ruined pirate mobile suits, she spoke for a second time, perhaps innocently encompassing her reaction to the day's events.

"Anyone else want a beer?"

#-#-#-#-#

It was the first time Miorine had ever called for an immediate meeting of the GUND-ARM board with mandatory in-person attendance. Since Miorine had arranged for ChuChu to already be Earth-side, Miorine was actually the furthest one from Rio, so they ended up waiting on her.

Miorine walked into the board room with Sabina, Renee, Maisie and Suletta in tow. Their meetings were always casual dress, but today Miorine was in her business suit. So was Suletta, only the second time she had worn hers. Eri was not with them, she was back home taking care of Elnora. But Miorine had already got her input on today's agenda, so she had declined participating remotely.

Everyone greeted them warmly. For some it had been a while since they had met in person. Nika had Chloe with her, so Maisie happily offered to take charge of Chloe and take her to the next room. Maisie was becoming something of a godmother to the toddler, so Chloe showed no objection at all to being taken from her mother.

It was all perfectly normal, all as per usual. But Miorine could feel the undercurrents of unease. They could sense that something was up, especially when Miorine asked both Sabina and Suletta to take seats at the table.

Miorine sat at the end of the table. "Again, thanks for being here and sorry for the short notice. I'll start with the obvious item. We sold light mobile suits to the Solomon Republic and trained their new militia as a deterrent against pirates. Everyone now knows that deterrent has failed. They are now in open conflict. The pirates have backed off for now. But they were obviously getting outside support, one way or another from the Fronts. What happens now will depend a lot on what their supporters decide to do."

She looked around the table. "I can imagine you are thinking that this did not go as we had intended and we've made a bad situation worse. There's something I need to come clean on. The Council intended from the beginning to defy the pirates. They want to fight them and win, and that is what they intend to do. That is exactly what I intended to help them do."

She let that sink in for a few seconds. She saw various levels of puzzlement and disbelief. Nobody looked happy.

"Before we talk about that, there is one more thing I need to tell you all. It will set the context for what I have done and what I propose to do."

She laid it all out for them. The Hidden Agenda, how she found out about it and how she had been preparing to play her part in it. In some cases she was very specific. At various points one or another of them had raised concerns that GUND-ARM might be on the slippery slope to developing weapons of war rather than just weapons for paramilitary deterrence forces. Miorine let their be no question about what she was telling them now. She had been anticipating this from the beginning. And now that the pieces were falling into place, it is something she had been actively pursuing.

"There is one final thing I have to tell you. I cannot name names or give specifics yet, but before I flew here I was at a meeting in one of the seasteading polities in the region. They plan to announce a defence alliance encompassing the entire Oceania region. But they need a commitment to develop and provide military hardware. I have already made that commitment."

She leaned forward and folded her hands on the table. "I'll just make it clear, I know this is not what any of you signed up for. But this is the direction I intend for GUND-ARM to go. If there are any objections, now is the time to raise them."

Till was the first to speak. "If we start arming these alliances, how do we know they won't just go to war with each other?"

"We don't. It could happen."

"Wouldn't we just be putting more weapons out there?" Lilique asked, a worried expression on her face. "Wouldn't that be making things worse?"

"These weapons would be built by Earthians for Earthians. A strong alliance would have no need for mercenaries, and would have every reason to kick them off their territories altogether. They might still go to war, but at least it would not be a proxy war provoked by powers looking down on them from far overhead."

"Haven't we already started a new war in Oceania?" Ojelo asked in an angry voice. "Haven't we already made things worse?"

"They don't think so." Everybody looked surprised to hear Sabina speak. "The young citizens of the Solomon Republic were practically begging us to teach them how to fight back. The men I trained were proud and happy to be fighting for their people."

"Their leaders felt the same," Miorine added. "They were frightened, but now they have hope and they have pride. That is what we were able to help them achieve."

"It still sounds like we would be doing the same thing as the Front companies," Nuno said. His voice was calm, but his eyes bore into Miorine under knit brows that were an accusation all in themselves. "We would be profiting from war."

"We are where the war would happen," Miorine pointed out. "We can only profit by preventing war. Or by providing the means to bring one to an end."

"Do you really think you can end war with more weapons?" Aliya asked. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to ridicule you, Miorine. I'm just trying to understand."

Miorine gave her a brief smile that hopefully conveyed that no offence had been taken. "No, weapons can't end wars. But I think it really does matter how the weapons get into people's hands. It matters whether a paymaster gives them to mercenaries or leaders give them to their citizens."

"Miorine." Nika immediately got everybody's attention. Her tone and her expression conveyed something deep, like her life was at stake. "I'm also trying to understand. Let me ask you as one mother to another." She put a hand to her breast. "My child came from two people who died fighting a war because somebody told them it was the right thing to do. I don't want that for Chloe. I'm sure you understand. Can you tell me that what you want to do will keep that from happening to them?"

Miorine had to take a deep breath and close her eyes a moment to collect herself. She looked into Nika's eyes shook her head. "No, I can't. All I can say is this. If what I want to see does come to pass then maybe, just maybe, they will never need to fight in a war. And if they do, it will only be to protect their homes and their families, not to make somebody else a little more wealthy."

"What if it makes war more likely?" Martin looked nervously around the table, then back to Miorine. "If we start arming ourselves, won't that make us look more like a threat to the Fronts? What if they decide that they need to start a war before we get too strong?"

Miorine slammed her hand on the table and stood up, making Martin squeak in alarm. "The Fronts wage constant war on Earth precisely to keep us weak! If we are strong then it is up to them whether they want to fight us or bargain with us as equals. But whatever happens you can be sure they won't just leave us alone. We've had a reprieve but sooner or later, one way or another we will need to engage them once again. When the time comes, we need to decide whether we will meet them on our knees or on our feet!"

"You make it sound like they're already on their way," Martin protested. "What if they're not?"

"They are." ChuChu looked sternly at Martin, then around the table. "There are signs. More and more engineers and workers are disappearing into black budget programs, both development and production. I've talked with some of the ones who have come back." She smiled wickedly. "After a few drinks a lot of them forget about their non-disclosures. You hear interesting things. The Great Houses are working on new mobile suits that aren't on the open market but are already in production. Since Jeturk put out their version of the cyberbrain cockpit, all that has gone into overdrive. And that's not all. The Space Assembly League has projects that all point to new drop-ships."

"That doesn't make sense," Nika said. "Their charter doesn't include Earth."

"That's not quite true," Miorine said. "Their charter includes anything that impacts the welfare of League members. That includes any investments they have on Earth."

"Are you telling us they're gearing up to invade?" Nuno asked, sounding skeptical.

"Both the Houses and the League are putting in a lot of work to make sure they have that option if they want it," ChuChu said.

"And the more deterrent we have, the less likely that becomes," Miorine said. "We've already seen that a deterrent doesn't always work. But even if it doesn't, it might still save us from losing everything we have."

"Isn't there a way to defend ourselves without being a threat?" Lilique asked.

"If we can defend ourselves then by definition we're a threat," Till said in answer. "If nothing else, their bottom line is threatened just by being forced to bargain with equals."

"Till is right," Miorine said. "The only way to not be a threat is to be helpless." She could still see people agonizing over this. She sighed and shook her head. "I'm sorry, this is just the security paradox and it's as old as history. I don't have a solution and I don't think there is one. None other than to accept it."

"I just don't want to be a part of the problem," Nuno said. Others nodded, it seemed to be a good summary of the prevailing attitude.

"I don't think we're part of the problem." Suletta looked uneasy at having suddenly attracted everybody's attention. "We already had to fight in a war. I fought side-by-side with all of you. I'm proud of that. I hope we don't have to do that again. But I would if I had to." She suddenly seemed to come to a realization and smiled nervously. "I'm sorry, I should have waited before talking, at least until you knew the reason I'm here."

"The reason?" Lilique asked.

Suletta looked over to Miorine, who smiled and nodded encouragingly. Suletta's smile became just a little shy, but also proud. "I want to start a new GUND-ARM service. I want to start a pilot school."

After a couple of seconds, it was Till who voiced the thought that many of them likely had. "You mean a combat training school for mobile suit pilots, don't you?"

"Yes. I want to train pilots to use the new cyberbrain cockpits." She gave Sabina a brief, fond look. "Sabina and her team will be our first instructors. The new militias that the Oceania alliance want to set up will be our first students. We learned a lot from teaching the students at Adneda academy, and Sabina learned a lot from training the men from the Solomon militia. We have some ideas, I think we can do even better."

"Suletta." Ojelo looked just a little less angry now. "You're all in with this not-so Hidden Agenda, aren't you?"

Aliya, who was sitting beside him, put a hand on his arm and they exchanged a look that he broke first. Aliya looked back at Suletta. "If it's okay, I'd also like to know how you feel about what Miorine is proposing."

Suletta nodded. "Yes, It's okay." She paused and looked down at her hands, which had their fingers steepled together. "I learned about all this the same time Miorine did. I've had a lot of time to think about it. When she told me about what she had been doing since then, I was still thinking about it. There are a lot of things I don't understand. There are probably a lot more parts of this that I don't even know that I don't know... if that makes any sense. But... it just feels right to me. So many people helped me stand on my own two feet again. Now I want to... sorry, I'm not sure how to put it."

"Pay it forward," Till suggested.

Suletta smiled. "Yes, pay it forward. I don't want people to fight, I just want to help them be strong. I think it's the right thing to do."

"Thank you, Suletta," Aliya said gently. "That's all I wanted to hear."

Miorine looked around the table. "Are we ready to get down to specifics?"

They were.

#-#-#-#-#

"Look, Elnora!" Miorine pointed to the big red button on the cockpit front console. "That's a power switch. Can you say power switch?"

From her position balanced on Miorine's knee Elnora pointed and said "Pawa!"

"Very good!"

Suletta was crouched in the open cockpit beside the crash-couch where Miorine was seated. She laughed nervously. "Mio, I don't think she understands."

"Well, not yet. Can we power up?"

Suletta did not look enthusiastic. "If you want."

"You want to push the button? Go on, push the button." Miorine picked Elnora up and held her in reach of the big red thing. After a moment's hesitation her little hand lifted up and pressed against the button. "You did it!"

The interior lights came on and the front screen displayed a twirling GUND-ARM logo as the mobile suit booted up. Elnora squealed in delight. She pointed to the screen. "Gunda!"

"See? She knows our logo already."

"Half the toys you give her have our logo on them," Suletta pointed out.

"You're exaggerating." The boot-up completed and the main menu came up. It identified the mobile suit model number and software version. Miorine read it with satisfaction. Their new high performance mobile suit had been released ahead of schedule, this was the first one off the assembly line. Miorine had insisted on being the first to take a close look.

"Can I register as a pilot?"

"Do you want to take it on a trial run?" Suletta asked nervously.

"Not today. I'll let the experienced pilots do that first."

"Then I guess it would be okay."

Miorine went through the registration process. "Oh, it automatically registered my cyberbrain as well. I was wondering about that. What shall I test? Oh, I know." She pointed. "Elnora, that one closes the hatch. Can you say hatch?"

"Hachi!" Elnora reached out and pushed the button.

"Mio, I don't think that's a good idea..." But it was too late, the cockpit hatch slid down and locked into place. The immersive screens all around them activated, and suddenly they were floating in space. The vast GUND-ARM pilot school hanger was arrayed around them... and more to the point, far below them.

Elnora cried out in alarm. "Miorine!" Suletta quickly picked up the bawling toddler and held her tightly. "Look at what you've done, she's terrified!"

"Ah, sorry. I forgot that would happen." She pressed the button again and the hatch opened. The surrounding screens went back to their default grey.

It took a while for Suletta to calm their daughter down. She was reluctant to hand the girl back to her birth-mother but after some coaxing she relented. "You know, we can leave her with somebody if you really want to play with the system," Suletta suggested encouragingly.

"I thought it would be fun for her," Miorine said, smiling playfully at her wife and bouncing their daughter on her knee. "She might be a pilot one day, after all."

"I'm afraid we might be traumatizing her instead."

"So how old were you when you first learned to pilot a suit?"

"I don't even remember."

"My point exactly. Oh, you want to play with that? It's a joystick. Can you say joystick?"

"Miorine! That's-"

Elnora grabbed the left joystick and moved it around. There was a shudder and through the open cockpit they could see the mobile suit's left arm shoot straight out in front. It was trying to respond to Elnora's random movements, but without the associated body monitoring it was making crude guesses as to the pilot's intent. The arm moved around in a haphazard fashion. Elnora watched with fascination. "Look, see? You made that move!"

Suletta hit a button and the arm returned to its rest state. She took a deep breath and gave a great sigh of relief. "I've disabled movement function."

"But she can only move the arm with the joystick," Miorine protested. "That should be okay, right?"

Before Suletta could answer, their security detail for the day rose up the ladder to the access platform and peered inside the cockpit. Henao fixed her world-weary look first on Miorine and then on Suletta. "Her hormones kicking in again?"

"Miorine, that could have been dangerous," Suletta scolded. "Sorry, Henao. That must have surprised you."

"Not really. Between the baby she's holding and the one inside, the neurotransmitter cocktail pumping through her head must be epic." She pointed at Miorine's abdomen and addressed herself to it. "Kid, try to ease off the chemical warfare, okay?"

"Can we get down now?" Suletta pleaded.

"I suppose so. Oh, first can we maybe register Elnora as a pilot?"

"Of course not!"

Miorine felt bad about asking that. They had both heard Prospera's story about how Eri had registered as a pilot to their experimental Gundam at the Vanadis base when she was not much older... and had gone on to innocently kill several attacking mobile suit pilots. "Sorry, I was kidding. Let's go."

Miorine was not here just to test out their new mobile suit model. She was assisting with the administration of the pilot school, so they proceeded to their scheduled meeting. Of course word had got around so everyone they met along the way congratulated them on having a second child on the way. Here on the hangar floor they mostly encountered the maintenance crew, but they all seemed to be on a first-name basis with Suletta.

An open-top cart took them to the administration building. The hangar had been the only large building on the property when it was purchased, it had been a leftover from an old mega-project, still being used for storage and sometimes repair of heavy labour suits. The rest of the campus was a rather rough and ready affair put together with prefabricated buildings or sections. An adjacent undeveloped parcel of the property provided space aplenty for most training, but live-fire exercises had to be done by arrangement at the same army testing range that the Adneda academy had borrowed.

The other participants were waiting in the meeting room. Sabina chaired the meeting, which was a fairly routine review of supply and cash flow. Miorine was self-aware enough to know that a confluence of influences were imposing on her right now, so she made sure to behave herself.

Right up to when she sprang the surprise on them. She checked the time. "Sorry to interrupt, but there's something I think we should see right now. Can we put the RNN feed on the screen?"

Sabina looked puzzled but complied. They tuned into ongoing coverage of the day's major topic. Today was the last day of a conference being hosted by Rio for the leaders of all the major polities in the South New World sector. As the commentator was saying, any moment they were expected to file out to the empty table currently being televised and make a joint statement. Miorine could see that everyone was wondering why they were watching this. They were expected to have dealt with some fairly prosaic economic matters, with some hints they might discuss the ongoing expansion of the Oceania defence alliance.

Shortly, the leaders all filed in, accompanied by a blizzard of flash photography. As host, the President of the Rio city-state took the dais to speak. The Jackal was dressed in his usual khakis and beret.

His face was uncharacteristically solemn. "Today I am pleased to make the following announcement. All those present here have agreed to form a new defence alliance. The terms have been set, and we will be signing them shortly."

When the new flurry of camera flashes died down, he spoke for just a few minutes, speaking of the need and the benefits of the alliance, and praising his counterparts for their bold action. Halfway through his speech the big red BREAKING NEWS banner started scrolling across the bottom. When he was done the leader of the Amazonia federation came to speak next. "I think you get the gist," Miorine said.

Sabina muted the broadcast. "Were you expecting this?" she asked Miorine.

"Yes, I was."

"How did you know?"

She smiled. "A little bird told me. It also told me that over the next few days most of the major powers in the region will be announcing the creation of new militia programs. It is at least weeks or months to come but at some point they will be approaching the school for requests to train on next-generation mobile suits."

"Miorine." Suletta looked a bit worried. "The mobile suit that GUND-ARM just put out is the last one that is even on the drawing board. You won't have anything new available for a long time."

"Today we don't. But tomorrow we will. You and I will be going to pick it up. We leave tonight."

#-#-#-#-#

The whole thing had felt rather like searching for the last surviving descendants in the ruins of a lost kingdom. As their rented executive jet went supersonic and climbed into the stratosphere, Miorine laid it out for Suletta.

Ochs Earth was an entity with a pedigree that seemed to defy all reason. It was unique in being an advanced weapons technology company based on Earth. It had formed an alliance with the Vanadis Institute, a remote deep space research station whose purpose had been developing medical technology that would help the human body cope with the terrible strains of the space environment. Ochs Earth had absorbed and corrupted that technology to create a new generation of Gundam mobile suit that they claimed would not be deadly to the very pilots who flew them.

Miorine's own father had brought that dream to a swift and terrible end by invading the Vanadis Institute, the very act that had sent Suletta's mother fleeing to Mercury.

Ostensibly Ochs Earth had been dissolved. But it showed up again, supplying their new Gundams to Dawn of Fold, a group of Earthian freedom fighters who ended up being conscripted into Shaddiq's mad plan to reshape the Benerit group into some grand utopia that only he seemed to comprehend. Two of their new Gundam models had ended up in the hands of Sophie and Norea, who had only succeeded in devastating the Asticassia academy before falling in battle.

The next time it was Suletta's mother who had hunted down the remains of Ochs Earth at their hidden base of operations in Quinharbor, obliterating it in a fiery spectacle. Once again, whatever was left of them seemed to vanish into thin air.

Now it had been Miorine's turn to hunt them down. It had taken years. On and off she had explored the mystery from many different angles. First by herself, then by soliciting others as her network on Earth slowly grew. The breakthrough had come when she had taken all she knew and passed it to Tunnel Rat, that magician of the digital underworld. He delivered a verdict. The converging evidence had pointed to a dark web entity known as Vaucanson. They knew things and were interested in things that aligned with Ochs Earth.

Miorine had probed, sending inquiries. She wanted to do business. She sent things she knew about their Caliban suit, the one Suletta had used to destroy Quiet Zero, to establish her credentials.

They sent a single response that similarly established their knowledge of the Ochs Earth mobile suit. It then said but one thing. Show us that you support the Hidden Agenda. It was clear that if she did not even know what that meant then they were done here.

Miorine accepted the challenge. She leveraged the network around Simon to tell Vaucanson about the Oceania defence alliance a day before it was announced. They responded. One more example and they could talk.

"Yesterday I told them about the South New World alliance being announced today. They said that if this turns out to be true they would send me the time and place to meet." Miorine held out her phone to Suletta. "They sent that to me five minutes after the announcement."

Suletta read it. "That's where we're going?" It was a city in the centre of the North New World region.

"Yes. It's a high-class restaurant in the city centre where they've reserved a private room. They've told us that they want to meet on neutral ground. And that it has to be the two of us."

Suletta looked worried. "Mio, this all sounds very strange."

"They're being very cautious. They want to make certain we are who we say we are, and not another group who wants to hunt them down again."

"What do they want from us?"

"I'm not sure, I expect we'll find out."

"Is it safe?"

"This place is more than a restaurant, they pride themselves on providing a safe, secure venue for people to be able to meet in private. Pretty much any city has at least one such place. It is an important tool in doing business and nobody wants to have their membership revoked, so nobody makes trouble. I'm confident that regardless of their intentions, we'll be safe there."

She took Suletta's hand. "But this isn't my decision alone. They specifically specified for you to come, but I have my own reason. I've been plunging headlong into this and I need somebody who can tell me when I need to back off. That's you and that starts right now. Do you think we should go ahead with this?"

She nodded. "Yes. If you think it's important, then let's go."

Miorine smiled and squeezed her hand. "You always want to step forward. But promise me you'll tell me if you think we need to step back."

"I promise."

"Okay. Let's try and get some sleep."

The couches reclined to form very comfortable cots, so it was a reasonably restful night. The plane landed soon after sunrise, so they could watch through the windows. The small city was on a plain abutted against a range of mountains to the west. It was early morning and their appointment was not until noon, so they found a cafe to relax in for a while. It set Miorine's mind at ease, just being with her like this. They did not get to do this often enough.

At the appointed time they took a cab to the restaurant. The high-rise building had a wide, elegant reception area on the main floor. They gave their names and an attendant accompanied them on the elevator. The floor they exited on had a restaurant and lounge that were already busy, but he led them down a corridor with a series of doors. He opened one for them.

Tinted glass facing the mountains and an array of pinpoint ceiling lights left the room relatively dim. There was a table with three settings on white tablecloth. The man seated behind it rose to greet them. He was a stout middle-aged man with close-cropped brown hair. His lips spread into just the hint of a polite smile. "I am Vaucanson. Of course neither of you need introduction. Thank you for coming." He gestured. "Please, join me."

The two of them thanked him, and they all sat down. Since he introduced himself by his online handle Miorine supposed that was not his real name. "You suddenly seemed in a hurry to meet. Is there some urgency that we should be aware of?"

"No, we just wanted to minimize risk if it turned out you were not who you claimed to be. With that out of the way, we are on no schedule save yours."

"Then maybe we can confirm a few things. Are you here representing Ochs Earth?"

"Yes. We are interested in doing business with you."

"Likewise. I have gone to great pains to find you, so clearly you did not want to be found by just anybody. Is there anybody in particular you are hiding from?"

Again there was just that hint of a smile. "We are hiding from anybody who wants to keep the Earth weak and helpless. Their numbers are legion, as we have learned from bitter experience."

Miorine looked intently at him. "Your most bitter experiences were perpetrated by my father and my wife's mother. Which leads me to the most puzzling question, why did you explicitly insist on meeting the two of us?"

"Because the two of you are potentially the greatest friends of the Hidden Agenda, and we would like to realize that potential. As to your pedigree, if that is any factor it is perhaps an indicator that both of you are able to rise above the roles that had been set for you."

"It is likely impolite to ask how you found out about the Hidden Agenda so I'll just ask this: what is your version?"

Vaucanson articulated a vision very much like the one Simon had suggested to her years ago. If anything there was just a slight shift in emphasis, from the ideal of collective action to the ideal of regional sovereignty. What Miorine found more interesting than what he said was how he said it. Ever so slightly, he became more animated, less detached.

To the careful observer, he showed all indications of being a believer.

"I have heard more than one slightly different version of this ideal," Miorine confirmed. "They all more or less align with my own current thinking. I am wondering, is this the ideal under which Ochs Earth was founded?"

"No," he said simply. "It is something we became aware of recently, though likely earlier than yourself. Ochs Earth was founded on the desire to give Earthians the means to bargain with Spacians on an equal footing."

"What went wrong?" Suletta asked.

On the surface the answer seemed obvious: they were crushed under the foot of a greater power, not once but twice. But the way she asked it hinted at something different. She was implying – no, more just stating outright – that something had gone wrong long before that.

Vaucanson seemed to pick up on that right away. "What went wrong was that we got greedy and impatient. We pinned our hopes on something that looked shiny and new but was in fact an ancient curse."

"The Gundam," Suletta confirmed.

"Yes. It was just another weapon that was as dangerous to the wielder as to any intended target."

"I've told you my intent is to adapt the GUND-Format to cyberbrains," Miorine said. "Are you not afraid this is another curse in disguise?"

"What you are doing has the feel of something earned rather than something taken." Vaucanson directed his next words to Suletta. "I have spoken to pilots of the Gundams. When I listen carefully, they speak of the Permet levels in much the same way as addicts speak of the hits they crave and the highs they aspire to."

Now his voice softened incrementally. "Pilots of conventional suits speak more in terms of a dialogue between them and the machine, a subtle dance that is learned over time. I imagine the cyberbrain cockpit to be something which extends that even further."

Suletta did not respond, but her thoughtful expression clearly showed that he was onto something.

Miorine sensed it was time to get down to brass tacks. "You already know that I want access to the Ochs Earth Gundam models so that I can adapt them for cyberbrain cockpits. What can I offer you in exchange?"

He had a poker face which indicated they had now entered negotiation. "I'll get the trivial item out of the way. A one percent per-unit licensing fee."

That was just short of being trivial, they were practically giving charity. "And?"

"Just one last thing. A public acknowledgement of this deal with Ochs Earth."

Miorine took a moment to absorb that. "If your name becomes associated with Permet-free mobile suits being sold to the newly forming militias across the globe that will do much to rehabilitate the name of Ochs Earth. Are you reserving the right to do further development and deployment on your own?"

"No." Again, there was that little enigmatic smile. "For our part, the purpose of the name rehabilitation and the money is to provide us the security to simply come out of hiding. We are more interested in how the acknowledgement will impact the way that GUND-ARM is seen."

Miorine had already guessed that. "It will show one and all that GUND-ARM is all-in with arming the new militias, heedless of objection."

"Yes. To the Fronts and the Great Houses we are a detested interlocutor. To the Space Assembly League we are an investment that went horribly wrong. Openly declaring common cause with Ochs would show more than anything that their opinions no longer govern how Earthians conduct their affairs."

Miorine could see the pride seeping through his poker face. But there was also hints of something else. He was anticipating payback for a long-nurtured resentment.

"This will simply accelerate a change of perception that was inevitable, so I have no objection. However, before we proceed any further I am going to need to see some collateral." She leaned forward and looked intently at him. "You'll have to show us the goods."

"Of course. The place we need to go is nearby." His face was transformed by a friendly smile. "But I did ask them to prepare a light lunch for us. It will not take long."

Breaking bread was part of business courtesy, so Miorine thanked him and accepted. He called for their meal to be brought out. As they waited, for both politeness and interest Miorine asked about the local economic and political environment. In his answers, Vaucanson showed hints of being a local who had lived here much of his life. She took note of that. After the food arrived and they had been eating for a while, Miorine inquired about his particular role in Ochs Earth.

"I am a non-voting member of the board," he answered. "My background is in academia as an historian."

"That sounds like an unusual background for running a technology company."

"My specialty is military history. I did not get far in academia because I always refused to specialize on specific eras. My desire to study the grand sweep of trends in human conflict branded me as a hopeless dilettante."

"Do you think that gives you some insight on how mobile suits fit into that grand sweep?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "When we get to where we are going today, before we see the goods so to speak there is something else I can show you. Perhaps it will help answer your question."

He clearly intended to table that discussion for later so Miorine did not press further. When they had finished eating he took them down to the underground parking garage. They walked a short distance along the parked vehicles and he pointed. "This one is mine."

The big red car was... odd. It was a big rectangular shape with sharp corners, resting on four oversized black tires. The whole thing gave the impression of great bulk, but rather than a heavy utility vehicle it seemed to promise both luxury and speed. In front of the windshield was an enormous long hood that could have housed the power core of a large mobile suit. Miorine supposed most of it must be for storage, though having it in front like that made little sense.

Suletta seemed fascinated. She quickened her pace, took a brief look inside and pointed. "Mister Vaucanson, is this an electronics-free vehicle?"

He smiled. "Good guess. What tipped you off?"

"There are no screens. No sensors either."

"I hadn't thought you might share my retro car hobby."

"I didn't know it was a hobby, but on Mercury the umbrella settlements had electronics-free emergency rovers for operating at daytime temperatures."

"The retro car movement here has its origins in old support communities that prepared for an anticipated wartime, which I'm sure must make no sense to you at all. These days it is just a hobby."

Suletta pointed through the window. "Does the floor lever control a gearbox?"

"Yes, in conjunction with a clutch pedal."

"Why don't you take the front seat," Miorine suggested. "I'm sure you'd like to see it in operation." They were clearly bonding over this, which was certainly a plus for their establishing a good working relationship... but mostly, Suletta just seemed to be having fun.

Vaucanson smiled at Suletta. "I'd offer to let you drive, but you need a special license."

Since there were just the two great heavy doors, getting into the back seat took just a bit of squirming. It was exquisitely comfortable, if a bit cramped even after Suletta adjusted her seat forward... on a manual slider, no less.

Between the front seats Miorine saw Vaucanson insert something like a padlock key and twist it. An electric motor whined briefly as if it were straining mightily, and then there was an explosion. Or that is what it felt like. Miorine expected to see smoke and was quite prepared for an emergency exit. But Vaucanson showed no reaction to that or to the subsequent rumbling that was felt as much as heard, a steady thrumming that seemed to lightly massage her down to her bones.

"Is that a piston engine?" Suletta asked in surprise.

"Yes. Nine-litre V8."

They exited the city and drove up into the foothills of the nearby mountain. Shortly after they entered wild woodlands the road ended at a semicircular tunnel that went right into the mountainside. It was covered by a pair of gates made from heavy bars that swung aside for them. To both sides there were large signs with the universal symbols for radiation hazard, chemical hazard and bio-hazard, along with text in Lingua and three other languages warning to stay out. "This facility started life as a military base. When we took ownership it was a hazard dumping site. We quietly had the materials moved out for disposal in space, where most hazardous waste goes these days. We cleaned it up, but as far as everybody else is concerned it's still a hazardous waste site."

The tunnel was dimly lit with an overhead line of lamps. The chipped concrete gave way to rough rock. They passed through a set of blast doors that looked like they had not been closed in ages. Where the tunnel widened out they parked next to some utility trucks and disembarked.

The whole place looked ancient. It really did feel like the remains of a lost kingdom.

There was a large vehicle tunnel that continued on but now that they were on foot they took a slight detour. The new hallway they entered was smaller and lower, clearly not for vehicles. But it was not just a corridor. It looked more like a museum. Along both sides, the walls were lined with glass walls that had objects behind them. There were more objects laid out lower to the ground on long tables in front of the glass.

"The items in the inert gas enclosures are originals," Vaucanson explained. "Everything in front are replicas, you can touch anything you want."

"Did you collect all this yourself?" Miorine asked.

"This is the work of generations, started by one of my predecessors." He walked over to the left side and picked up some sort of odd rifle that had a steel bar fitted across it that was pulled into a shallow arc by a thin cable. A similar item was on display behind the glass, though that one looked truly ancient, much the worse for the passage of time. There were no signs or labels anywhere, the objects were left to speak for themselves. He showed them the weapon he held. "This is a crossbow. As far as we know, it was the first weapon that was ever banned." With his free hand he picked up a large wicked looking dart with a shaft. "These quarrels were designed to penetrate that." He used it to point to the other side of the hall. Over there was shown something that had caught Miorine's attention as soon as they entered the space. Behind the glass was a full set of shining steel armour, mounted on a man-sized frame.

In front of that, a bipedal robot wearing a similar set of armour sat in a chair. On some signal from Vaucanson it stood up, executed an elegant bow, and sat down again. "Hard to believe that knights could actually move in their shining armour, but it was remarkably well-designed. All that intricate design wouldn't do much good against one of these. The powers that be depended on the knights for security, so they tried banning crossbows, with limited success."

"Is this the same?" Suletta had picked up a pair of items that had been next to the crossbow. The first was a wooden bow longer than she was tall, curved into a shallow arc by a string. The second was an almost equally long arrow.

"That is a longbow. It was a weapon mastered only by a lifetime of practice, hunting and competitive shooting. But this," he hefted the crossbow, "this I could teach you to use in a day."

"It sounds like a good metaphor for Permet versus cyberbrain cockpits," Miorine suggested.

"That is very apt," Vaucanson agreed. He smiled and pointed to the bow in Suletta's hand. "The thing is, in the hands of an expert, that could shoot twice as fast and twice as far as any crossbow. You could say it is a case where the tortoise beats the hare."

Further down the hall, Vaucanson picked up a more ordinary looking rifle. "These muskets were even easier to use than a crossbow. They came at a time when industry was learning to do mass production. Instead of a small number of professional soldiers they could mobilize entire countries. That was one of the ages of total war."

"Is that how you see cyberbrain cockpits?" Miorine asked. "A weapon that can bring about total war?"

"They could escalate the scope of war. That's always possible. But they can also change the balance of power between different classes. That is what muskets and more advanced firearms did. After they arrived, kings and emperors gave way to parliaments and republics. Of course there were many other factors, most of which are above my pay grade. But the weapons definitely had an impact."

They moved on. Miorine hefted an impossibly heavy rifle. "That is a large-calibre rifle that is now banned for anything other than big-game hunting," Vaucanson explained. "Assault rifles are all small calibre now."

"So that it is less likely to kill?" Suletta asked.

"Yes, though not necessarily out of the goodness of their hearts. Enemy wounded are more of a burden on their logistics. The reasons for banning weapons can be complex, they are driven by competing interests."

Further on there was a mannequin that had been fitted with a cloth uniform and a breathing apparatus. "There was a time when these gas-masks were being issued to millions of soldiers. Other than small-scale use by the occasional two-bit tin-pot dictator here and there, poison gas hasn't been used since."

Suletta took off the mask replica she had tried on. "Is there a treaty? Like the one against projectile weapons in cislunar space? I remember the Asticassia school checked Ariel for those."

"Any explicit treaties long since expired. It's more of an informal agreement now, I guess you could call it a taboo."

There were some enigmatic, featureless cone-shaped objects in an enclosure further along. "Thermonuclear warheads. The fissile materials and detonators have been long since removed, of course. Having even working parts for these is a capital offence pretty much everywhere."

"Could you even call those weapons?" Miorine asked. "They're just instruments of double-suicide."

"Yes. Not long after these showed up, everyone realized that from then on the most powerful brute-force weapons we could make would always just be instruments of collective suicide. Total war just was not an option any more. Combinations of treaties, conventions and taboos would always restrict how wars were conducted."

Miorine pointed to one of a series of items on display further down the hall. "Taboos like that one."

"Indeed."

There were several of them on display, all behind glass. Nobody would even want to make non-functioning replicas of these any more. There were different types lined up, some on wheels, some on legs, some obviously meant to fly. In the age when they were used they all had their names. But since then, everybody knew them by a single name, the greatest taboo of them all. Slaughterbots.

There was no need for Vaucanson to elaborate, it was now part of the collective memory, an assumption that was just the air they breathed. One and all agreed, only a madman would unleash a weapon that killed without human intervention. Down that path truly lay collective suicide. Advanced automation was what let them do things and build things orders of magnitude faster than could be done in the past. But every schoolchild could tell you why there had to be a human in the loop for every important decision.

Suletta immediately identified the next display, clearly a scale model. "It's the MS2 Centurion."

"That's right," Vaucanson confirmed. "The first really successful mobile suit. We've now come full circle. The knights in shining armour have returned. The battlefield is once again dominated by a small number of highly trained professional warriors who use very expensive weapons that only a few are able to master."

Miorine pointed to the enclosure on the opposite side, which was empty. "I see no equivalent to a crossbow here."

Vaucanson smiled. "Perhaps one of your cyberbrain enabled suits will fill the role. That remains to be seen."

Miorine wondered if the final display was some sort of joke.

On the left was a male peacock that had been arranged by the taxidermist to have its tail feathers fanned out behind it on full display, its eerie array of eye-shaped feathers iridescent under the enclosure lights. On the right were a group of stuffed... Miorine wanted to call them weasels, but the fur colouring was wrong.

"They're meerkats, one of the most violent animals alive. Most meerkats die at the hand of other members of their species. If there is any animal other than us who practices something like total war, it is them."

"I think I see what you are getting at here." Miorine pointed to the peacock. "They practice the opposite of total war. Their disputes are settled by a contest of performances where nobody gets hurt."

"That's the general idea. Nobody gets hurt, but there is still a cost. Those ridiculous feathers require an enormous expenditure of resources, and leave them so much more vulnerable to predation. The risk of death is still there, it's just hidden."

"So calling it peaceful is a lie."

"Yes. Believe it or not, there were some among us who looked to the duelling system at Asticassia as a model for the future of war. The contest would be decided and the battle would end when what amounted to a symbolic flag was taken."

Miorine's face was darkened by a deep frown. She stepped closer to her wife, they exchanged a brief look of understanding, then looked back at their host. "We both have seen firsthand just how catastrophically that illusion can break down."

"I expected you would appreciate the paradoxes on display here. With that, perhaps we should proceed to what you came here for."

They entered a tunnel that was hundreds of meters long, but barely tall and wide enough for the five mobile suits lined up. Miorine recognized them all. She had known what to expect, but... had not been prepared for the feelings invoked by seeing them all here, towering over her. I should have thought of this.

Miorine stepped over to stand close beside her wife. They pretended to just be evaluating the goods, as it were. But Miorine was just waiting. Slowly, Suletta's breathing became less laboured, her tension eased. Miorine glanced over to Suletta, who looked back and just nodded. I'll be okay.

Miorine looked over at Vaucanson. "Forgive me, you've shown us exactly what you said you would. We... have some personal history with all these suits. None of it good."

He nodded in understanding. "So I take it you recognize them all."

"Yes." Miorine did recognize them, but she let Suletta spoon-feed the names for her as they walked close underfoot the suits.

"The Lfrith." It was the one piloted by Suletta's mother at Vanadis, which she used to escape to Mercury.

"The Lfrith Ur." It had been piloted by Sophie. It was the place she died.

"The Lfrith Thorn." Likewise, the suit that became Norea's tomb.

"The Lfrith Calibarn." It was the suit Suletta had piloted against Quiet Zero, the one that had left her paralyzed.

"So, you really did have at least two of each model," Miorine said.

"We always left a spare. Technical designs are fine, but the end product itself holds its own sort of memory. In other tunnels here we have also preserved the key manufacturing tools. And of course all the associated specifications and test data."

Miorine looked up at the nearest suit. "We'll need to go to the cockpits and confirm the systems, then I think we will be ready to proceed." She smiled, hoping to lighten the mood. "We seem to have the place to ourselves. I'm guessing we won't be seeing any other Ochs Earth members and won't be learning any of your real names until the deal has been announced."

He returned her smile. "You clearly understand our situation."

Before they flew back home, Suletta managed to puppy-eye her way into taking Vaucanson's car for a spin at a local racetrack. Using her delicate condition as an excuse to beg off, Miorine let the kids have their fun.

#-#-#-#-#

"We need to stop meeting like this," Kenanji said as he sat down on the padded bench opposite Miorine in the booth.

"Then how should we be meeting?" It had become one of their running jokes over the years. As often as they could, they planned on being in Rio at the same time, and each time they would meet at a different restaurant, never the same one twice. And the more obscure the better. Miorine had long since developed enough of a local network to get good advice on the best places, and they had not been disappointed yet. Rather than some of the dark, quiet intimate places this one leaned more toward the bright, noisy open places. But their corner booth was private enough.

They both had reasons not to draw attention to these meetings. It was not quite consorting with the enemy, but increasingly it might be perceived as something adjacent.

He was delighted to hear about her big piece of personal news. "Another six weeks and she goes into the nest," she said in response to his query.

"Soon you'll have two to take care of. You and Suletta will be busy."

"We get a lot of help from Eri. And from Sabina's team."

He gave a warm smile. "It sounds like they're a lot more than your security detail now."

"They always have been, really. Even more so since Elnora showed up. Suletta and I had been tossing around the idea of asking one or more of our friends to be godparents to our children. But something like that just seems to be happening all by itself."

The waiter came to take their order. They both already knew what they wanted from the online menu, so it just took a few seconds.

"Is the pilot school keeping Suletta busy?" Kenanji asked.

"Yes, she's devoting pretty much all of her time there. She's taken a hiatus from the leagues, that broke a lot of fans' hearts. She was a few weeks in the Europa region, consulting on a new pilot school that's being set up there."

"It went well?"

Miorine laughed a bit. "It appears so. The dean had actually asked her to teach there, they wanted her to move there in the worst way. It might not have even been a bad idea for either of us, GUND-ARM does a lot of business there and I've flown out there more than she has. But it looks like we have dug down roots here, neither of us were keen on the idea of moving."

Kenanji seemed rather amused at that. "That's a turn of phrase that most Spacians would not even understand. The two of you really have... what was that phrase?"

"We have well and truly gone bush."

"Yes, that's it. I'm not surprised to hear she is in such demand, I've been hearing really good things about her school."

"I know about the Dominicus observers who showed up, I presume you have been speaking with them."

"They were very impressed, but they weren't sure what to make of it."

"How so?"

"They were astonished at how early students were recruited as instructors. Some were doing instruction even before they had completed their program. In any other school I know of that is unheard of."

"That's an idea which goes back to the children's schools she had founded." She smiled. "Suletta was about the only one who thought it would work with such a demanding subject matter. It hasn't always worked out well, the senior instructors have to keep an eye on things. Particularly looking for personality conflicts."

Kenanji nodded in a way that confirmed she had a witness. "Some of the units I served in were all personality conflict all the time. Everybody thought they were the top gun or deserved to be."

"I can tell you that being humbled by some real top guns is a character building experience." She related her story of testing out a new labour suit with Suletta, Sabina and ChuChu, and ended up hearing a couple of Kenanji's similar tales of woe.

"Our observers noted a distinct lack of grandstanding at her school and they were trying to figure out why. There was something I'd been wondering about."

Miorine did not think she was mistaken in noting a subtle change in tone. Kenanji was asking out of genuine curiosity. But now he was also gathering intel. "What's that?"

"I was wondering whether these relationships of particular instructors and students persist across time."

"They often do, it is encouraged. It is an idea Suletta inherited from her experiences on Mercury, but she was also inspired by what we saw at a boarding school where she started a pilot training program. The idea has even been influencing the units that the pilots eventually go serve in."

"You mean fighting as two-ship elements?"

"Yes, but a bit more than that. I think of it as a kind of Knight-Squire relationship."

"My, you really have been digging deep in your reading."

She smiled. "Digging even deeper, it makes me think of the sorts of relationships you would see among Spartan warriors."

He looked skeptical. "That one is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?"

She shrugged. "I might have a perspective that biases me to the notion, but perhaps I'll just leave it at that. There was somebody at Ochs Earth I met who had a very long-term perspective on military matters, so I've had that on my mind."

The look they exchanged showed an understanding, she had just given her consent to address the elephant in the room. Kenanji spoke less casually now. "Your announcement took a lot of people by surprise. Everyone had assumed that at best there might be some leftover data to scavenge. But an entire management team, engineering team, a development site nobody even knew about. It gives you a head-start nobody expected."

Miorine also spoke more seriously. "I'll be honest, their name comes with a lot of baggage. But our investors and our customers have responded positively. And we already have results with the cyberbrain cockpits to point to. We've shown that a Permet-free alternative to the Gundam is possible."

There was a pause before he answered. His expression and his tone changed again. He was no longer gathering intel. He was speaking to her personally. "A lot of people are nervous, Miorine. The Ochs Earth deal, the cyberbrains, the schools, the militias, the alliances. It's all happening quickly and it all seems to be pointing in the same direction. Earth is arming itself."

Miorine had no reason to dispute the point. "I can see why people are nervous, Kenanji. I spent most of my life looking at this from the Spacian side. The two sides are so dependent on each other, and up to now Spacians have dictated the terms. But now it looks like we want to be treated on an equal basis, suddenly things aren't so certain any more."

"I can tell you the question people are asking themselves, are asking us." He pointed to himself, by implication meaning the Dominicus intelligence service. "They're wondering, who's in charge down here?"

To Miorine's ears it was a nonsensical question, but she had to take it seriously. "Who's in charge? Kenanji, there are billions of people divided up into hundreds of individual polities. Even if they form the largest alliances that are even remotely conceivable there will be dozens of them. Who do they think could possibly be in charge?"

Kenanji looked at her intently. "How about you?"

Again, she tried her best to take the question seriously. "Me? At best I am riding a wave, something that has been moving long before I got here and will roll through regardless of how I ride it. If I happen to be in the centre of the wave that is only because of the people that helped me get here, all the way from my lousy father to the people on the tips of my company's supply chains."

"I'm wondering if there's anything we can do to alleviate people's fears over what's happening."

"I've been trying to reach out to any Spacians I can," Miorine said, trying not to let her frustration show. "I've wanted to start more collaborations like the ones you and I had, to save the child soldiers and the work slaves. But every time I run up against somebody's vested interest and they won't budge. So I go back to forming collaborations with other Earthians, because they'll actually listen, and they have a stake." She pointed up. "People up there have grown so used to us being on our knees. Now we're trying to stand on our own feet. If they don't even want to hear our point of view then I don't know any way to do that without making them nervous."

"I'm not saying you're wrong. But I'm worried about a backlash, and not just from Spacians. Already some mercenary outfits are being evicted from places that have got tired of hosting them and now have the muscle to back up the eviction. They're starting to realize that eventually they'll have no place to go."

"I know about that, it's started to happen in this region too. The smart ones are joining local militias."

"That's what the sensible ones are doing." He knitted his brows and looked sternly at her. "But Miorine, you have to understand. Being a soldier of fortune isn't always about being sensible. You've made enemies among them, and now they're being backed into a corner. You could become a target."

"I'm not unaware of the risks," Miorine said softly. "I don't expect all this to go smoothly any more than you do. But this is the new reality, and one way or another people will need to get used to it."

Kenanji regarded her for a moment. When he next spoke he sounded more insistent, almost imploring. "I had to send you and your friends into battle once. I've always hoped you would never have to do that again. But the forces converging around you are dangerous. You're not just buying and selling any more, you're a player in the world's power game."

"I was borne into dirty power politics that could turn violent. One of his competitors tried to assassinate my father. I know the stakes."

Kenanji sighed. "Well at least your eyes are open." He smiled. "But let me be just a little bit worried about you."

"I appreciate it. But tell me honestly. I really do beat my head against a wall trying to talk to Spacians in their natural environment where they should be comfortable. Why won't they listen? Do I have a provincial accent now? Am I talking funny?"

His manner relaxed a bit. "You're just telling them what they don't want to hear."

"All I try to tell them is that there is so much that we could do together. It just takes some listening and some honesty and some courage. Is that such a tall order?"

"Sometimes it is."

The food arrived. Kenanji's face lit up. "This looks even better than I had expected."

"And a lot bigger." Miorine's order was rather more modest. "I'm dying to see if you can finish that."

"Who do you think you're talking to?"

When they were done, they both agreed it would be another four-star review. Anonymous, of course.

#-#-#-#-#

Working remotely from the desk in their bedroom was Miorine's favourite way to go. It was on the opposite side of the house from the living area, so with the walls set to be transparent she was surrounded on three sides by their lake-shore property.

It made saying no to people so much more refreshing.

To be fair, it was Martin who was saying no to the customer. They had insisted he kick the issue upstairs. His face on the screen appeared just mildly stressed. It looked like he was getting used to being the one who had to say no.

"Whatever way you look at it, even with the outsourcing and the licensing agreements we can only build capacity so fast," Miorine pointed out. "Demand is outstripping supply, it's as simple as that."

"They're accusing us of favouring their larger neighbours," Martin said.

"Their neighbours are only larger customers because they are part of an alliance and they negotiated a contract to supply all members of the alliance. That is our preferred way of doing business."

"They are noticing that so far it is our only way of doing business."

"New alliances are starting up all the time, we can barely keep up. We also favour places that are promising for opening up new manufacturing capacity. Why don't you have a look at their entries in the global supply chain database and see if there is anything that matches what we're looking for. If so, suggest that and see where it goes."

"Okay. They were also asking about the Lfrith suits."

"Tell them the same thing we tell everybody else, still under development, no commitment to a timeline. No promises we can't keep, okay?"

"Got it. I guess that's it for now."

"Okay, don't let them get you down."

Miorine got up and stretched. It was time for a break. She walked down the hall and into the living area. She had left Elnora here with Ireesha when she started work. Eri was here, but she was downstairs working on some new robot. Ireesha said she had brought something for Elnora to play with, Miorine wanted to see.

They had the coffee-table in the living room covered with an inordinate number of little plastic rods and multicoloured blocks in various shapes with holes in the sides. Is this what I think it is?

"Mommy!" Elnora cried. From her toddler-time perspective no doubt her mother had been gone forever and a day.

Miorine picked her up. "What have you been making?"

"Molly-cules!"

"Molecules?"

"Yes!"

She crouched down and set Elnora back on the floor. "Can you show mommy?"

Elnora pointed to a set of three balls joined at an angle by two rods. "That's water!"

Ireesha pointed to the centre ball. "Do you remember what that is?"

"Oxygen!"

"And that?"

"Hydrogen!"

"Very good."

"Look Mommy!" Elnora picked up a pair of joined balls. "This is Cyanide!"

"And what is cyanide like?" Ireesha asked.

"It's icky!"

Ireesha held her finger up. "Here's a hard one. We made ammonia. Can you make ammonia?"

"I remember!" She proceeded to look for the balls she wanted and started joining them together.

Miorine looked at Ireesha, who seemed very pleased with herself. "She's just learning the alphabet, you know. Do you really think she'll remember any of this?"

"Says the one who wanted her to pilot a combat mobile suit."

"You're misrepresenting what happened."

Of all Elnora's de facto godparents, Ireesha was the one who had stepped up to task of co-parenting with greatest gusto, surprising everybody. She opened up to the little girl in a way Miorine had never seen from her. The young woman's face was usually a placid mask placed between the cascades of her wavy long brown hair, but became animated whenever she spoke with Elnora. It was a remarkable transformation.

All of the girls on Sabina's team had their own way of caring for Elnora, no two of them quite alike, some working better than others. Miorine's idea to find a godparent had been motivated by the desire to find... oh just go ahead and say it, an influence from somebody with a little more normal background than either of her parents. It turned out things were leaning rather in the other direction. Well, if Miorine was really going to tout the benefits of neurodiversity then rather than fretting about it she had better just accept it. At any rate, there were days where she was sent to a nearby private daycare to benefit from being with professional caregivers and other children her age.

Elnora proudly showed off her ammonia. Ireesha got her working on methane. She pondered the girl working diligently, her hand to her chin. "I'm wondering if it was too early to introduce organic chemistry."

Miorine sighed. "Ireesha, listen to what you just said."

"It's definitely too early for a chemistry set."

"I should think so. Has she eaten and had her nap?"

"Both."

"Then maybe we can make lunch."

That was a trigger word for Elnora, meaning she could do something on her own for a while. "Can I watch Moon Princess?"

Miorine patted her head. "Yes, you can."

They set her in a place where they could keep an eye on her from the kitchen. "She was really having fun. Thanks for getting those."

"I was having fun too. I wish I could be here more."

"You have other kids to take care of at the school, so you have to share the load."

"That's getting more fun too. But never as fun as here."

"How's your understudy working out?"

"He's doing his own instruction now. I hope he stays and applies to be a permanent instructor."

Miorine really had never heard her say that about anyone before. "You like him?"

"He's a good pilot."

Miorine decided to leave it at that. She sort of got the impression that Ireesha was becoming quite close to her understudy. But Miorine knew that she was in no way shape or form qualified to be a matchmaker. The love of her life had been essentially dropped in her lap, so asking her about how to find love was like seeking investment advice from a lottery winner.

"You're cutting those too fine," Ireesha observed.

"Right." Miorine was experimental in the kitchen, but she found that pilots were anal about following recipes... they probably were treating it like a preflight checklist.

Ireesha's phone rang with an alarm signal. She quickly pulled it out and looked at the screen. She frowned.

"Problem?"

"It's warning about the transport Blackhawke is doing today."

"So?" Weeks ago the Rio government told the Blackhawke mercenary group that the land leases on their bases would not be renewed next year. It was a sign of the times, more and more mercenary groups were being told that they were no longer welcome. She recalled that one of their bases was being vacated today. "Good riddance to them."

"One of their convoys was diverted because of a road accident. It will be passing nearby and you have that merc units on proximity alert. That's why we've only been alerted now." She looked at Miorine, clearly waiting for instruction.

Miorine had a bad feeling. It's probably nothing, just a coincidence. But... "I'd feel more comfortable if Sabina's team was here with the school's fast-response suits."

"Should Suletta come with the Lfrith?"

"I don't think-"

There was a series of muffled pops. They seemed to come from overhead but all around them. "Did you hear that?" Miorine asked.

Ireesha stepped away from the counter and assumed a combat stance. Her placid face scanned all the windows. "There." She pointed up. "Multi-spectrum chaff."

Something was floating down, sparkling and barely visible. It was everywhere.

"We've lost signal." Ireesha's phone clattered on the counter. Her gun was held up in a military grip. Miorine had not even seen her draw it. "We should get to the panic room."

There was the scream of rocket engines and three mobile suits came straight down and landed hard right in front of the three glass walls that faced the outside, shaking the house.

Miorine activated the cyberbrain Permet link emergency broadcast mode. It was a well-practised move, as was the sub-vocalization that followed. 'We're under attack! Three mobile suits! We need-'

All three mobile suits stepped forward then kicked out at their respective windows. Tons of safety glass shattered and exploded into the room as blinding white torrents of tiny pellets. Miorine barely threw her arms up when it hit with shocking force, bowling her over, leaving her lying stunned on the glass-covered floor. Her ears were ringing but she heard things. Wailing. Elnora. Ducted propellers. A troop transport.

Somebody was hauling her to her feet. Ireesha. "Get Elnora below."

"What-" But she was already running and rapid-firing her gun. She saw what Ireesha was running towards and shooting at, a squad of armoured soldiers with face-shields down, advancing quickly into the room. She had an instant to note their odd dual-barrel assault rifles when they all fired at once with precise single shots. Ireesha's body convulsed and she went down.

"Wait!" Miorine shouted, advancing with her arms up. "We won't resist!" Her raging mind bifurcated as its attention was torn apart by her wailing daughter and her friend lying face-up on the floor. The tiny part of her analytical mind that remained noted the lack of blood. One of their dual guns had non-lethal rounds. Of course they were not here to kill everyone, if they were it would already be over. What do they want? Kidnapping for ransom?

She stopped right beside her fallen friend just on time for the lead soldier to come up in front of her. This one had his rifle slung. He flipped up his face-shield to reveal a scowling, angry face. "Remember me?"

She did not remember the name, but she did remember the face. He was the commander of a Blackhawke training camp. One of the men she had put into a Permet cockpit and subjected to the highest level it would go. "If it's money you want we can take care of that right now."

He moved with blinding speed, Miorine barely saw it coming. The hammer-blow to her abdomen was hard enough to lift her off her feet. She came down hard on the glass-dusted floor, already doubled over. Everything inside her felt utterly wrong. The impossible need to scream had nothing to do with the physical agony. Oh God. Oh no.

He lifted her roughly into a sitting position and jabbed something into her neck. "Not your average knockout juice. Enjoy."

A new sort of agony spread out from where he had injected her, this one an acidic burning that spread with shocking speed. He prepared to lift her up when suddenly there was shouting and then shooting. Not the dull reports that had brought Ireesha down but the sharp crack of supersonic rounds. "Report!" the commander shouted, hoisting his rifle. There was confusion on his face, like he was trying to understand what was happening around him and what he was hearing on his comm link.

Whatever he had injected her with was no anaesthetic at all, it seemed to just paralyze her with the spreading pain. Almost. She could turn enough to see where the noise was coming from. A soldier flew into the room from the hallway, tumbling end over end, almost hitting his fellows. His body seemed broken in some odd way.

Something rocketed into the room. It was a mass of tentacles, whipping around like flails, bowling men over.

"Freeze!"

Eri's robot body stopped moving. Miorine could see the commander pointing his rifle. It was not pointed at Eri. Fighting the agony and despair, Miorine guessed what was happening. He's pointing it at Elnora.

She saw movement in the corner of her eye. He saw it an instant later and turned. Ireesha was almost on top of him. How can she still be moving? He shot her with a full burst at point-blank range. This time blood sprayed everywhere. He immediately turned back to face Eri, who was already leaping straight at him. There was a dull report and Miorine barely saw a tentacle swat something away. Then he was swathed in tentacles. They savagely pulled him apart in a torrent of blood. A second after Miorine registered that he had fired a grenade, it went off. It seemed like something hit her. All she knew was that it had been too far away to kill her instantly.

"Miorine!" It was Eri. Tentacles wrapped protectively around her.

Miorine tried to speak but could not. Protect Elnora, not me.

There was suddenly new sounds she knew all too well. Heavy beam weapons. One of the mobile suits came crashing down, then another. The remaining men were running away. A familiar mobile suit came down right on top of them, crushing them underfoot and shaking the house again.

There was a new set of noises that was much softer but closer and more ominous. In an instant she understood what was happening but there was nothing she could do.

The roof collapsed down on them. There was a blow to her entire body, then blackness.

#-#-#-#-#

Miorine woke to an unfamiliar ceiling. The surroundings were something that seemed to be from a distant past and yet all too familiar, somehow they were now seen from a different perspective. This time she was the one in the hospital bed. Just as the recollection of why she was here came flooding back, she became aware of the hand that had been holding hers and was now squeezing, and a familiar face came down close to her.

"Mio?" Suletta said softly. "Can you hear me?"

"Leta?" Miorine's bed was already propping her up, so she did not need to move much to sit up straight. She was weak, it took effort. There was no serious pain, but the motion provoked a series of aches and just a feeling of wrongness.

"Take it slowly," Suletta said gently. "You've been hurt, but you're going to be fine." She took Miorine by the shoulders, as if to help her stay sitting up and hold her steady.

Miorine put a hand to her abdomen. "Leta... everything feels wrong." She looked desperately into her wife's eyes. "Tell me."

She could see it in Suletta's eyes even before she spoke. "Mio, you lost the baby. There was nothing they could do."

Which meant they had to take her out. Miorine knew her mind was going to spiral down a hole, imagining how that had been done, what it looked like. While she still retained some power of speech, she asked. "Elnora?"

"She has a concussion. We're waiting for her to wake up." Miorine saw her own despair reflected in her wife's eyes. Her mouth came open, she was desperate to ask more, but any question she could ask simply invited new reasons for agony. Suletta seemed to be guessing at what she was trying to ask. "Ireesha didn't make it. She... she saved our daughter."

Miorine clenched her eyes shut and bowed her head. "No." No, she didn't save our daughter. I killed her. Because of what I've done, I've killed both our children.

She felt Suletta wrap her closely in an embrace that was gentle but also firm enough to hold her in place, as if she anticipated what Miorine knew was coming. Her next breath came in as a shuddering rasp and then burst out again as a long, agonized scream. Then the next breath was the same. Then the next. She just kept screaming and screaming until she could not. Then she was just crying, her body wracked with great uncontrollable sobs. When she could not even do that any more she just sat there trembling in her wife's arms, every breath a gasp that her racing body desperately told her that it needed but that the core of her being just as desperately wished would be her last.

She had no idea how much time passed. By the time Suletta spoke she was just numb, utterly drained. "Mio, do you want me to set you down?"

Miorine's answer was to feebly put her arms around Suletta's waist. She could not look into her wife's face and still say what she had to say. This had to be like the confessional of an ancient faith, where there would be only a voice, only words. Her voice was hoarse and tiny. "I tortured that man. The one who shot Ireesha. I put him in a Permet cockpit and I set it up as high as it would go. I almost killed him. I did kill another. I did it to others. I told myself it was justice. They were child killers. But it was all for me. I was lashing out at them. For what happened to you."

She knew that Suletta would never judge her, so she delivered her own verdict. "I am nothing but a monster. How could I have thought I can be your wife? How could I think that I deserve to have children?"

She could feel Suletta gently stroking her long hair with one hand. "You are not a monster. You are the one who slays monsters."

Suletta was not wrong. But she did not take the next step. Miorine exposed what she was missing. "I've become what I was trying to fight."

There was just a moment's pause before Suletta responded in her calm, gentle voice. "I've killed too. I did it again, when I came to our house, when I saw what they were doing. I just kept killing until there was nobody left. I haven't even thought about it until right now."

The challenge to Miorine's verdict stood there before them. If you are a monster then so am I.

Miorine did what she had done before. Layer by layer she stripped away all the impossible questions that yielded no answers, the deluge of dilemmas that the world assailed them with, all the doubts and fears and paradoxes. She pulled it all away until all that was left was the only thing that really mattered. All that was left was what she was holding in her arms, and the ones she had held in her arms.

She let go of Suletta, who leaned back and just gently held her shoulders, looking into her eyes once more. Miorine was the first one to voice the fear they saw in each others' faces. "What if she never wakes up?"

"I woke up. She will too."

"Can I really ask for two miracles?"

"You know what we say about miracles." There was confidence in her voice but also desperation, pleading. I need to hear it. I need to know that you believe too.

Miorine could say it, even as her voice trembled with all her doubt and dread. "The miraculous... just take a little longer."

#-#-#-#-#

"I see four mommys!" Elnora said brightly.

"That's good." The doctor slowly moved her raised finger back from in front of the toddler's face. "How many do you see now?"

"Two!"

"Very good. We're all done."

Miorine and Suletta moved from where they had been standing behind the doctor, to get out of her way as she stood up. It was not the first time they had made this test into a little game. Suletta reached out and picked Elnora up. "That didn't take long, did it?"

"It was easy!"

"So what do you say to the nice doctor?"

"Thank you, Doctor!"

Suletta took her out of the living room of their on-campus suite while the doctor gathered her equipment and put it into her carrying case. She reviewed the results with Miorine. It was a testament to how much progress had been made that Miorine and Suletta were not both here anxiously hanging on every word. They were simply confirming that there were no relapses. Gradually, the check-ups would become less frequent.

The early days had been hellish. They had to make the risky decision to go ahead with a cyberbrain operation. It was almost unprecedented for a child her age. Progress had not been immediate, but when it came it had accelerated rapidly. With assistance from the cyberbrain, the induced neurogenesis had left no traces of her brain damage.

By now Miorine knew to avoid any nagging speculation about how Elnora might have developed differently without the injury. That was a rabbit-hole without any bottom.

Miorine thanked the doctor for her house-call and saw her out. She greeted the guard outside the door. Miorine had met him before and already knew his name, but he was knew so they chatted for a bit. Like most of the newest batch of students he was already a member of the local militia in his area, and was here hoping to qualify as a pilot.

They had repaired the house on their estate, but had not been there since that day. Miorine was still unsure whether she could ever move back there again. The nightmares were coming less frequently, so it was something she might be able to consider before too long. It was just so comfortable being here, surrounded by hundreds of people armed to the teeth, all of whom practically worshipped the ground Suletta trod and any of whom would lay down their lives for her or for her family.

As expected, she found both Suletta and Maisie in the bedroom playing with Elnora. They were flying little quad-copters in formation using gaming consoles. Or trying to, anyway. "Steady hand, steady hand," Maisie intoned. "That's it! Formation flying is important, isn't it Suletta mommy?"

"Yes," Suletta agreed. "Oops, we crashed!"

"That's okay," Maisie assured her. "Now that Miorine mommy is here, we can try the finger-four formation!" On Maisie's continued insistence, Miorine joined in. The four of them did eventually get that formation right.

Maisie was dealing with the loss of her lifelong friend in her usual perpetually sunny-faced way, most obviously by taking up the slack in Elnora's care left by Ireesha's absence. Her disposition had not been seen to waver much more than the tiniest blip. Her eulogy at Ireesha's service had been emblematic of her approach. At great length she had gleefully related a litany embarrassing mishaps in her departed friend's life, many of them shockingly personal, many of them leaving everybody unabashedly laughing. She ended by proudly relating the details of her utterly kick-ass death. It had been so strange, and so utterly perfect. If it were anybody else, Miorine would have worried that she was not waving but drowning. Where grieving was concerned, she concluded that one size most emphatically did not fit all.

Soon it was time for Maisie to take Elnora to the base daycare for the afternoon. She just gave Miorine the briefest of querying looks. "You go ahead," Miorine said. "We'll see you later." It was not as hard as it had been, watching them leave. Suletta put a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her, letting Miorine know that she was proud of her.

It had taken a long time. For months, Elnora could never be out of Miorine's sight. Miorine would sleep in the same room, take her everywhere she needed to go, everything. Even now, unless Suletta was with her it was hard.

"Can we watch your interview from yesterday?" Suletta asked. "I couldn't watch it live, I was doing a class."

"Sure. I'm reasonably sure I didn't embarrass myself."

"One of my students told me he thought you killed it."

Suletta joined her on the couch, one arm around her and the other holding her hand. In fact Miorine was confident about the result, and watching it presented no surprises. It was not her first public appearance since the attack, but the others had just been quick interviews from the hospital towards the end of her recovery. This one was much longer. Of course they touched on the tragic result of the attack for her family. But the focus was on the Blackhawke outfit, and the threat of the mercenary groups.

Public outrage over the incident had been swift and loud. The Blackhawke leadership continued to insist it had been a rogue group who had concocted some plan to hold Miorine and possibly her family for ransom, maybe even negotiate a reprieve of the group's eviction from Rio. The answer that most people were giving to Blackhawke was: you do not have a rogue element, you are a rogue element.

The backlash was being felt far beyond Rio. The process of evicting mercenary groups from their bases was accelerating. Many were disbanding, their members often joining new militia units. It had taken Miorine a long time to even care. She had no delusions about her own role in bringing about what had been visited upon her family, and felt no right to blame anybody else.

"You looked really good," Suletta assured her when they were done watching. "How did yo feel?"

"I actually felt okay. Mostly I was just feeling something missing."

Suletta squeezed her hand, showing that she understood. For something like that Miorine would have her whole security detail with her, and now there was one less. ChuChu had come straight down when she heard the news, and had offered to take up the slack. It would have been a great comfort. But Miorine still wanted her eyes and ears in space, ones she could trust. Guel had come as well. Partly he had looked as devastated as if he had lost his own child, partly he had looked like he wanted to find somebody to blame, somebody to kill. Somebody else. Her father... well, she was about the only one not shocked that she had to content herself with a video call.

"Till did an interview the day before last," Suletta said.

"Yes, I saw." He was still acting CEO of GUND-ARM. It was a role he was able to slip into quite easily, since he had effectively been taking over much of Miorine's work as she juggled that with her family life. Having her out of the picture for a while had caused little disruption. The one aspect he was less comfortable with was becoming the public face for the company. He did a good job, but Miorine could see it was not something he would choose to do. He was no doubt eagerly awaiting her return. Miorine felt confident that she would not need to keep him waiting much longer.

"He called me again yesterday."

Miorine sighed. "I wish he would stop."

"He's worried you're not telling him everything."

"I guess I can't blame him. What do you think would set his mind at ease?"

"Maybe seeing you in Rio."

"That sounds like a good idea." Miorine had been more or less cocooning here at the school, yesterday's interview had been one of her few excursions. "I'll call him and suggest a dinner."

"Okay." Suletta kissed the side of her head. "Want to relax in the hot tub?"

"Sure."

When they were done dressing, Suletta lay down on their bed. Her smile showed that she already knew what Miorine wanted. Miorine crawled onto the bed, laid down along its width and rested her head on Suletta's abdomen. She reached up and very gently stroked her wife's belly. There was just the merest hint of a bulge. They exchanged a blissful look.

Suletta had been the driving force behind taking this step. She had pushed past the doctors warning her about the risk factors. She had pushed past Miorine's counsellor, worried about how it might rouse resentment over how Miorine could never bear a child again. She had pushed past their friends, all wondering if it was just too soon. And she had even pushed past Miorine, who felt so utterly unworthy of this gift. Somehow she alone realized that this was the one thing that could restore what Miorine had lost, what had been so utterly shattered on that day.

Hope.

Elnora's recovery had certainly become a source of hope for them. But for Miorine it had mostly felt like fixing something that she had carelessly broken. This was something different. It was proof that the two of them were still able to bring about new life.

Miorine stopped what she was doing and just put her hand down on the bed. "Leta?"

"Yes Mio?"

"When she comes, I think we should refer to her as our second child."

Suletta looked intently at her. "Not our third?" she asked gently.

"No, I don't think so."

Suletta reached out and stroked her hair. "Don't you think we should talk about that?"

In response, Miorine sat up. She faced her wife in a way she had not done in a long time, with a straight spine and a steady gaze. She said something that had been a long time coming. Far, far too long.

"Yes. I'd like to talk about it."

#-#-#-#-#

"Is it my imagination, or is the hood looking a bit livelier since we were here last?"

"I think you're right," Marsh agreed. "It's been a few years since your last face time with Tunnel Rat."

He parallel parked his car on the street. This time they were almost right in front of Tunnel Rat's office. It seemed that even here the protocol and considerations for meeting a long-time business partner differed from those of a first-time meeting.

Marsh got out and opened the back door for Miorine. He was relaxed, but she could sense in the constant movement of his eyes the zone of awareness he always kept around him. She had reached out to the family to have him ride shotgun for her, because he knew the area and was a familiar face. He was in his white suit as before. She was somewhat less radically dressed than the last time she had been here, there really being no need to make a first impression any more. Certainly no braids this time. But she had worn the lace boots, just on general principles.

There were three boys lounging on the steps in front of the door. As Miorine and Marsh approached, they all stood up. They were not quite standing at attention, but somehow it kind of had that feeling.

"Hey Marsh," one of the boys said, in perfect Lingua. "Heard you'd be bringing around a guest today."

"Heard right," Marsh answered.

The boy addressed himself to Miorine now, in a sort of rough but deferential way. "Glad to see you're out and about."

She smiled. He obviously knew who she was. "Thanks."

"That was some messed-up crap that got dumped on you, real shame."

Behind the almost ritualized roughness of language she could sense the sincerity, so it was only proper to respond in kind. "It is what it is. I'm just moving on, you know?"

"I heard that. Won't hold you up no more, have a good one."

They ascended the narrow, musty staircase. The big dark-skinned man who opened the door was the same one who had been here before.

He smiled broadly. "Hey Marsh. You taking good care of this little lady?"

"With my life, brother."

"Good to hear." He moved aside and addressed himself to Miorine. "You go on in now, bossman's waiting. Marsh and I will get caught up out here."

"Thanks."

Neither Tunnel Rat nor his room had changed a bit. He waved. "Hey, great to see you again. Long time."

"It's good to see you again. Sorry, I've been very neglectful in making courtesy calls."

"Hey, you're like the busiest lady on the planet." He gestured to an empty seat.

She shut the door and sat down. "Thank you for your message. It seems you've been working on my behalf, above and beyond our business."

For a while now she had been paying him what amounted to a subscription fee, to be her eyes and ears on the dark web. His service had proven valuable, allowing her to track down Ochs Earth among other things. But then all of a sudden he had sent a cryptic note saying he had found something pertaining to the Blackhawke attack on her home, something best discussed in person.

He gave a dismissive wave. "It wasn't just me. When folks heard what those psychos did to our Tomato Angel they were right pissed. Since I was the one had face time, people reached out and I coordinated. Real big team effort here, lots of top-flight names doing serious digging. This is personal so won't leave you in suspense, bottom line somebody hired them." He took a tablet off the table, turned it on and slid it over. "Executive summary cued up. Folks you know, I think."

Miorine picked up the tablet and examined the screen. There were four names. "Yes. I know them all too well."

"Take your time perusing the particulars."

Miorine's mind was cast back to the events leading up to the Quiet Zero incident. One of the key drivers had been Peil Technologies. From her perspective their sins were legion. They had been surreptitiously building new Gundams. As if that were not enough, they had created a set of Enhanced Persons to pilot them, essentially clones of their top pilot Elan Ceres. They had then proceeded to unceremoniously dispose of all of them save the one who got away. They had then conspired with the Space Assembly League to use their doomsday weapon to gain the upper hand in the aftermath of the destruction of Quiet Zero, something Suletta had paid a terrible price to prevent.

The company had been run by a quadrumvirate of women. Nugen, Kai, Nevola and Goineri. Nobody knew much about them, other than that they were old enough to have been running the company for decades. The consensus was that they had been using radical longevity technology.

Miorine examined the materials that followed. A lot of the computer and networking details that it was pinned on went over her head. But the general pattern was clear enough. A series of inquiries put together a set of converging evidence that pointed to communications between the quadrumvirate and a Blackhawke base. One key had been a private investigator hired in her area, presumably to confirm her movements. Another had been a cryptocurrency service for people who did not want to manage their own passwords. It had all just been an accumulation of people being less careful than they ought to have been.

There was no clear-text communications that had been uncovered, so no indication of motive. It could be for ransom money. Or it could be simple revenge. Miorine's dissolving of the Benerit group had left them essentially bankrupt.

Miorine looked back up at Tunnel Rat. "This all looks very solid. But nothing that can be proven."

"Yeah, especially considering some of the sources."

He did not need to explain. Some people had hacked into the Blackhawke base, others had hacked government intelligence services, others regulatory agencies. Just possessing this information could expose somebody to some very serious retribution. She could see why he had suggested an in-person meeting.

"Does anybody except you have the whole picture?"

"Nope, just you and me now."

"Let's keep it that way."

He looked surprised. "You not going to move on this?"

"Let's say I'm playing a long game. Can you keep an eye on them?"

"Goes without saying, that's part of your subscription."

"I see you've already got this on an encrypted cloud. I'll just grab the quick code." She used her phone camera to get the link. The site prompted for her to make a pass phrase. She texted Three Norns and a spare.

"Saw you on the news," he said, clearly sensing that the business was done. "You got two little ones now, right? Everything solid?"

"You know. The new one cries all night and craps all day. It's wonderful."

His face fell a bit. "I feel like I dropped the ball on this one."

"You shouldn't," Miorine said emphatically. She gestured at his tablet. "I can see how even connecting the dots after the fact was well-nigh impossible. There was no way anyone could pick up on this in real time." She smiled. "We can't find everybody's secrets all the time, right?"

"Sad but true."

As Marsh drove her back home, Miorine contemplated what she was feeling. She had been here before, so this time she knew the lay of the land. The trick was not to bury it, but to hang it up, right out in the open. Like an old well-polished weapon hanging over a fireplace it would always be there, infinitely patient. Ready to be picked up, whenever it was time for the hunt to begin.

By the time she got home it was just a part of the background, barely noticed in passing. Once she picked up little Athena for her feeding, it was simply forgotten. There were more important things to deal with, and more delightful things to savour. There would be many, many more of both.

#-#-#-#-#

"Mio-ma!" Elnora called from the bedroom of their hotel suite. "Have you seen my cyber?"

"You left it in the bathroom, sweetie," Miorine called back from the living room couch.

"Glad mine's a different colour," Athena said in a voice that wouldn't carry.

"That was a good move," Miorine agreed in a similar tone, continuing to brush their younger daughter's hair, winking at her in the room screen set to mirror mode.

Athena had straight flaxen hair that she wore down to her waist. With her pale blue eyes and pearly skin, she was something like what Miorine would look if she were not just all white and silver like a ghost. In disposition, she was perhaps something like Miorine would be with much less of a temper.

Her very first, brand new cyberbrain was a prime example. There had been no temper tantrums, no whining, no nagging. Just relentless, calm tempered argument. Again and again and again, a process of chipping away that hinted at almost inhuman patience. It had actually culminated in a day when she sat down the whole family and showed them a carefully prepared presentation. Charts, graphs, risk analysis, the works. They had finally relented. They flew to a jurisdiction where the age limit for the cyberbrain operation was twelve and there was a clinic with a long, near-perfect, independently verified record.

Athena had soon tried out a cyberbrain cockpit and had taken to it well. But that was a footnote for her. She was already two grades ahead in her studies, and burned to advance even more quickly. It seemed like she wanted to understand everything down to its core, and she wanted it now.

They switched positions and Athena returned the favour to her mother. They referred to this as their primate bonding. Miorine's hair had long since grown out to the same length she wore it in school, so it took about the same amount of work.

Suletta entered the room, still towelling herself dry, looking a bit flustered.

"Leta-ma, you're dripping everywhere," Athena scolded.

Suletta was looking around the room. "Have you seen my-"

"Right there." Miorine pointed. "Nora took yours accidentally."

"I know, she said." She picked up her cyberbrain and put it in place. "Will these really be okay scuba diving?"

"They're rated for a hundred meters," Miorine assured her. "By the way, aren't you worried about the open window?"

Suletta yelped and clutched the towel against her. "Should I be?"

"Not really, we've got an ocean view," Athena said. "Haven't you looked yet?"

The placid waters of the great ocean that encompassed the Oceania region stretched out beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass doors that led out to their balcony. The doors were open to admit the warm breeze. They had not arrived at the seasteading colony until late yesterday, since the supersonic transport from Rio had to land at a nearby island and the journey had to be completed by hydrofoil.

Soon Elnora walked in, now in her swimsuit like the rest of them. "Are we ready to go now?" She looked very eager.

With her wavy auburn hair worn down to the shoulder, hazel eyes and just ever so slightly darker complexion, Miorine's birth-child took a bit more after Suletta. In height and build it appeared she would settle out to be something more like her donor-mother. It all seemed rather backwards, but in truth the selection of birth-mother did not govern anything much beyond the mitochondria. In disposition one could make a case that she was much like Suletta but with both more confidence and more recklessness.

One had only to look at her piloting career, which was an odd thing to say about somebody who had not long ago become a teenager. Where most children leave behind them whole sets of clothing they outgrew, Elnora left behind a pile of cockpit adaptations, resizing the couches of ever more advanced suits that had never been intended for a pilot so young and so small. If nomad children of old had grown up in a saddle, she had grown up in a crash-couch.

She had crashed plenty of times, and had even hurt herself. But she almost never made the same mistake twice. Miorine had long since stopped fretting over her frantic need to spread her wings and soar. It was what she was meant to do.

They made their way to the part of the floating colony where the vast array of cultured coral reefs spread out before them, just under the surface. Their scuba gear was waiting for them at the rental shop. The diver in charge confirmed their qualifications. Miorine and Suletta both had EVA suit rating, so getting their scuba licenses had required just a day's instruction. Elnora and Athena had taken lessons in Rio in anticipation of the trip. It had mostly been at Elnora's prompting, but Athena was not averse to anything that included some technical challenges.

Once they were suited up and checked out, Elnora was the first to establish the Permet link with the rest. 'Okay, all together now... one, two, three!' They all flipped backwards at the same time and plunged into the water. Miorine found herself drifting down into...

A magical wonderland.

It was an unbelievable riot of colour and gentle movement. So serene and so alien. It seemed like it could have been here for millions of years.

Miorine knew the history. The natural coral reefs had been all but wiped out. Some yet remained. But almost all the current ones were like this, clinging to structures that had been put there for no other purpose. This one was almost a century old, some were older.

She had to wonder, was this just a flash in the pan? Or could they really make something that would last far into deep time?

Their two girls had quickly gone off together. She established a private Permet link with Suletta. 'Is this even more alien than Mercury?'

'No. It's alive. I thought it would feel like drifting through space. But I feel at home here.'

'You're right. Space never felt like this.'

They did not so much explore as just drink it all in. There were other divers that they passed now and then, but for the most part it was just the two of them traversing a transplanted web of life. It made Miorine wonder if they could learn to transplant Earth's web of life to spaces beyond in a way that was not just a facade.

The kids were late getting back. Miorine contacted them.

'I spotted a whale!' Even sub-vocalizing, she could hear the fire in Elnora's belly.

'You'll never catch it and you'll be running out of air. Get back now or no dinner for you.'

'Told you so,' Athena added.

At the restaurant, Athena explained it to her sister. "The colony's anchors pipe sediment from the sea floor and eject it at the surface. The nutrients support a whole ecosystem that goes for miles. Whales hang out here for the food."

"I still think I could have caught up."

"Maybe with a sea scooter. I think you can rent those."

The dinner was such an extravagant array of seafood, Miorine had to wonder if they were sampling the very things they had just been swimming among. Wherever her species went, it was always the apex predator.

Before they were done, Miorine had to leave. "It's time for my meeting." She slipped on the armband that identified herself as a staff officer in the Rio militia. Her main reason for coming here was to liaise with one of her counterparts in the Oceania militia. Apparently an idiosyncrasy of many seasteading colonies was that they tended to work in the evenings instead of the days, leaving the daylight hours free.

"Do you think you could swing letting us try their undersea-capable suits?" Elnora asked eagerly.

Miorine stood up. "Because you were late I'm missing dessert. Know some shame."

Athena raised her hand. "If Nora can't go, can I?"

"Tina!"

"I'll see what I can do."

"That's not fair!"

"Honey, you're going to start a fight," Suletta scolded.

"Fine, but I expect to have my dessert waiting for me when I get back."

The militia base was just a short light-rail ride to a different module of the colony. She identified herself at the security gate and was ushered to a small meeting room. A tall, brown-skinned woman with short straight black hair rose from her chair. "Hello Miorine, it's good to see you again."

"Hello Anahera." They shook hands. Like Miorine, Anahera was in a business suit, her armband being her only designation of rank. This had become a very common practice worldwide. Uniforms tended to be generic and only provided when dictated by practical considerations.

"Did your family have a good time today?"

"Yes, we took your advice." They had met more than once before, Anahera knew a bit about her daughters and had recommended the scuba diving.

They got down to the first order of business. The first joint exercise between the South New World alliance and the Oceania alliance was in the planning stages. The political hurdles had been cleared, so now it was a matter of deciding the scale and nature of the exercises.

Underlying all of this was the delicate question of whom exactly they expected to be allied against. The official answer was, potentially anybody. The real answer was, forces dropped from orbit.

Miorine presented a suggestion where the opposing force in the exercise would enter the arena in heavy transports that do a fast dive from high altitude. It was not a perfect simulation of an attack by drop ships, but there were also suggestions for how to compensate for that to make it more realistic. Anahera had a few questions, took some notes, and promised to send the proposal up the chain.

Anahera smiled. "I can give you that tour of the shipyard now."

It was the mutually agreed signal. They were going to show her what she had really come to see.

They did indeed take a VTOL over to the separate floating module that held the shipyard. Like most seasteading modules it was hexagonal in shape. This one was open on one side to admit ships into the sheltered port within. An adjoining hexagonal module was completely roofed over.

Miorine did get a quick tour of the shipyard, mostly for appearance's sake. They then crossed over to the second segment. The security at this entryway was more strict. They were issued tight wristbands that would monitor their movements, and could not be removed anywhere else but here without raising an alarm.

There were rows of mobile suits that had never been seen in public. Miorine pointed to one that was particularly bulky. "That's the one?"

"Yes," Anahera confirmed. "Operates down to five thousand meters."

It was not a GUND-ARM suit. Like most regions Oceania had its own arms industry now. More than any other, theirs had been borne from the needs of their particular environment: the ocean. A good part of the global industry were former GUND-ARM partners who had exercised their option to go independent. Even putting on her CEO hat Miorine acknowledged how healthy that had been for everyone. Nobody liked a monopolist, and GUND-ARM had long since washed away that label. And some of their competitors had gone in surprising directions, such as leaning into various sorts of asymmetrical warfare. Her own company had borrowed from their ideas more than once. They were like a pool of comedians engaging in mutual joke theft... that was the running joke, anyway. So if there were conflicts of interest stacked on top of each other here, there was really nobody else who had much grounds for complaint.

"I know a suborbital booster when I see one," Miorine quipped. A set of mobile suits had almost comically large booster packs attached.

"That will be a real surprise for drop-ships," Anahera said by way of confirming her assessment. "Hit them from behind when they're most vulnerable."

There were more levels below this one, where actual construction of mobile suits and other weapons was taking place. It underscored the point that was easy to understand but hard to internalize until you had seen it: many of these seasteading complexes were like icebergs, with a surface footprint that only hinted at the great volume of living and working space hidden underneath. It was something that a Spacian might find even harder to internalize, coming from an environment where everything was naked to space and visible to anyone who looked.

It was all very interesting. But this was not really what she had come to see either.

They took an elevator to a sub-basement. Then they walked through a tunnel that connected to a third hexagonal module, hidden below the surface. At the entrance to the module, they went through full-body scanners and had their electronics and cyberbrains confiscated. Behind the door was another short hallway. Two armed guards stood near the door at the far end. Miorine and Anahera passed them and approached the door. To either side of the door was what looked like a sort of helmet at the end of an adjustable arm that stuck out of the wall. Each of them approached one of the scanners and lowered it onto their heads. It did retinal and brainwave scans while they entered pass-codes on numeric keypads. They also spoke voice-print phrases. Anahera went first, hers was in a local language that Miorine did not follow. Miorine's was a phrase from a poem which she spoke in its original archaic form. "Miles to go before I sleep." There was the sharp, low metallic sound of multiple heavy bolts unlocking, and the thick metal door swung in.

Beyond was a small metal balcony and railing that seemed to hang in empty space. The door closed, and the only light was from the illuminated sign over the door. Almost comically it was an exit sign. Like there was anyplace else to go.

Anahera turned to face her. The dim light beside them starkly illuminated her grim face. As expected, before the show and tell they would take the opportunity to speak where privacy was assured.

"The Oceania alliance command sent a private query to the Space Assembly League." The vast empty space swallowed her voice with only the merest hint of an echo. "We've received no response."

"Same for us."

One of the first acts of the newly reconstituted Benerit group had been to send notes to all Earth polities where companies were using technology licensed from Earthian partners of the previous Benerit group. They were claiming ownership of those licenses and demanding both back-pay and then either continued payment or relinquishment of the licenses. The Space Assembly League had soon sent notes indicating their support and warning of the consequences of non-compliance. Both parties were ignoring any regional alliances, not recognizing them in any way.

In public, nobody on Earth was taking it seriously. But there was mounting evidence for what many suspected might be coming next.

"Do you know any of the major players?" Anahera asked, obviously asking about both the League and the new Benerit group.

"Only by reputation. The new group is made of entirely of bit players from the original Benerit group. Their President is simply somebody acceptable to everyone else. There is no clear counterweight to the League. So the Assembly League seems to be calling the shots, and it's mostly new faces there." She gave a lopsided grin. "I'm afraid that I am as much in the dark as everybody else."

Anahera regarded her with an almost pleading expression. "Do you think there's any hope we can come to terms?"

"I'm pretty sure I can get a meeting with the League Chairman. He seems to have a solid power base, so if he'll listen there might be hope."

"If worse comes to worst, I think we're more ready than we were a year ago."

"By far." A year ago a major conflict had erupted across the central Eurasian uplands. It had been short and sharp. With both sides using state of the art weapons on a large scale, the casualties and devastation had mounted at an appalling rate. A peace deal had been brokered by a third party, and things had more or less returned to the status quo. The lesson for one and all had been very clear: no winner was ever likely to emerge from any major conflict between large alliances.

There seemed to be a mutual agreement between the two of them that they were done, and it was time. Anahera reached out to the wall and pushed a set of rocker switches. One after another, rows of lights in the ceiling far overhead illuminated more and more of the cavernous space. Even with all of them on, the enclosure was still dimly lit. But its contents were clearly visible. Row upon row of orbital boosters.

Miorine perused the vast array of tubular rockets. She had known what to expect, but having it right here in front of her finally made it real for her. "So, this is what insurance looks like."

Anahera sighed and shook her head. "This is what a crazy-ass hail-Lona looks like."

#-#-#-#-#

The enormous curved screen at the front of the General Assembly room of the Space Assembly League reverted to the Assembly League logo, as Miorine's presentation came to an end.

She returned to the podium. "In conclusion, I believe it is clear that in the long term restricting the technology license rights of the current holders will only serve to hamper economic growth right across the entire human sphere. On the other hand, allowing the rights to be retained will allow unprecedented collaboration opportunities for all members across Cislunar space and beyond. You need only look at your own recent growth to see how the economic boom on Earth has boosted prosperity across all the colonies. We have every reason to let that continue. Thank you."

After a moment, there was a brief round of polite applause from most members. What had she heard it called somewhere? Golf applause or some such thing.

She was facing the complete gathering of delegates, representing all the Fronts and colonies across the Solar System. Both the voting members who paid for the privilege, and the non-voting members who only paid indirectly via their trading partners who passed the expense down the pipe. Privilege and power were bought and sold here just as surely as in the commercial entities they purported to govern. It was a vast network of official committees and unofficial cliques that was burdened with a tremendous momentum.

Miorine was hoping that she might succeed in steering that momentum ever so slightly in the right direction. Her position in the Rembran group had won her the right to speak to the Assembly. But it was another meeting on which she was pinning her hopes.

In the green room behind the stage, a man with a badge marking him as one of the Chairman's staff entered and exchanged murmured words with the handler she had been assigned. Her handler walked over to her and smiled. "Lady Rembran, the Chairman would like to speak with you," she said politely.

It seemed that her father had come through. "Thank you, it would be a pleasure."

She made note of the fact that the room she was ushered into was a small windowless lounge adjacent to the Chairman's office. It was the sort of place for meetings that never officially happened. There were four square armchairs facing each other, three occupied. One was her father, another was Guel Jeturk. They were the ones whose clout as heads of the two largest of the Great Houses had got her into this meeting.

"Thank you for joining us, Lady Rembran" the Chairman said with an excruciating politeness. He gestured. "Please, have a seat."

"Thank you, mister Chairman." She sat down opposite him. Chairman Clark was a slim, middle-aged man with sharp features and brown hair worn just long enough to show it was wavy. He had an intense gaze and a stern expression that seemed to be locked in, giving the impression of a man with a mission.

Of course Miorine had done her homework, spending hours poring over his speeches, records and analyses of his career and his actions. She had quickly come to the conclusion that it did not really matter who he was. Chairman Clark was simply the one who had percolated to the top during the tumultuous years that had followed the Quiet Zero incident and her disbanding of the Benerit group. He had done so mainly because he was well aligned with the prevailing attitude of the Spacian elites, and had been most adept at tapping into their Zeitgeist. She felt that she could look into his face and project what she saw there upon all the people she had just finished speaking to.

They were angry. And something more, something she needed to address.

"I had just been speaking with Lord Jeturk and your father about your speech," the Chairman said. "The consensus appears to be that it was exactly what we had been expecting to hear."

"I always feel that in public I should stick with the facts and figures that we can all agree on. It's a starting point that lets me hear how people feel about those facts."

"And how do you think we should feel?"

She appreciated the question, it allowed her to an avenue along which to reach the heart of the matter. "It is pretty obvious that most people here feel cheated, like something was stolen from them. In my experience many Earthians can sympathize with that feeling."

He did not hide his displeasure at her answer. "They sympathize, yet they wish to retain what was stolen. Don't you see a contradiction?"

She made note that he was still counting her among the Spacians. But rather than implying any sort of solidarity, it was more like he was branding her as an apostate. "Arguments about who owes what to whom and why will not change anybody's feelings on the matter. There is hardly a person alive who does not feel that they were wronged by somebody at some point. I'm more interested in finding how we can get past that and find common projects that can bring us together."

His smile was dripping with bitterness. "Your main project appears to be orchestrating an arms build-up."

"Soldiers of fortune have been a scourge to the Earth sphere for generations. We wanted them out, and the reality is that they were not going to leave politely. Not unless they knew we were serious." She had effectively just placed herself squarely in the Earthian camp, unabashedly accepting the label of apostate.

He barely hid his contempt. "We keep hearing about your citizen militias. You eschew uniforms and traditions, like we are supposed to believe you are just some loose agglomeration of weekend warriors. But we know a standing army when we see one."

She kept her focus on the Chairman, but even just in Miorine's peripheral vision she could sense the unease in the men to either side of her. Guel in particular seemed anxious to leap in to her defence. But they held their peace, as she had asked them to.

"I well understand that you feel threatened by the new reality on Earth. It would be easy for me to point out that Spacians have proven to be far more dangerous to each other than anyone on Earth has ever been. But that is just more facts and figures, I am here to acknowledge your feelings."

Miorine leaned forward a little, looking intently into the Chairman's eyes. "You feel angry, you feel cheated, you feel threatened. That is all quite obvious, but there is also something else. It was something I did not understand when I dissolved the Benerit group that Spacians had invested so much of themselves into. I still did not understand it when I decided that I need to help Earthians take their fate into their own hands."

His contempt was now tinged with sarcasm. "Since you appear to have the answer now I will repeat my question. What is it you think we are feeling?"

"Humiliation." She let that sink in for a moment. "To be slapped in the face, to be laid low in front of your peers, to be unceremoniously tossed out of the winners' circle. It masquerades as anger or as a sense of injustice, which is exactly what makes it so insidious." She put a hand to her chest. "It can eat you from inside before you even realize it, but it can also be tossed aside if you know it for what it is."

"You talk as if from experience." The subtext was painfully obvious: how could the pampered scion of a Great House understand humiliation?

It was her turn to smile, not one of bitterness but of understanding tinged with irony. "I lived under a sort of systematic humiliation you could barely understand. I was the glittering prize in a contest that was the obsession of everybody around me. I was the bride promised to the victor. All I could think to do was to lash out or run away. But I found another solution. I chose my own bridegroom and never looked back."

She gestured to the two men at either side of her. "These two were the primary instigators of my humiliation. They both still treat me like a little girl and I find it unspeakably annoying. But I am also able to feel love and respect for them, because I know that they really never meant me any harm."

She leaned back and did everything she could to take any aggression out of her body language and voice. "Mister Chairman, through my actions I have thoughtlessly caused humiliation to so many and I am sorry for that. But I never meant you any harm. I still don't. I was able to toss aside my own humiliation, and it was the best thing I ever did."

He glared at her. "You make it sound so simple."

She shook her head. "It is nothing of the sort. But I think it is worth the effort because I have experienced something far, far worse than humiliation and that is loss. The loss that comes from even the smallest of wars. Both on Earth and here in space we have seen the sort of loss that a major war brings to all of us. You are a father so I'm sure you understand what that could mean."

Her hand went over her abdomen, over a womb that had been brutalized and broken. "I would gladly abase myself before my worst enemy for the rest of my life if it would bring back what I have lost. The people of Earth have suffered this sort of loss for generations. They all understand in their bones what war can bring, and they do not want it. They are willing to do much to ensure peace. The one thing they will not do is surrender. But they will listen to anyone who is willing to return the courtesy."

"Then listen to this. What we are demanding is ours by right and is not negotiable."

"Well then, if we cannot reach an agreement then, regretfully, we might just have to part company. We could certainly agree to disagree and go our separate ways. That would be a rather sad outcome. But it would certainly be better than any alternative."

"That is an interesting point of view." The Chairman stood up, prompting his guests to do likewise. "Lord Rembran, Lord Jeturk, Lady Rembran, I will have to leave you now. Good day." Without another word he exited the room. It was the closest thing to storming out of the room that was consistent with the dignity of his station.

When the door was closed, leaving the three of them alone, Miorine glanced at both her companions. "I really hope I haven't made too much trouble for you with this."

"No more than was already there," her father assured her.

"I'm not sure how much good it did," Guel said.

"I planted the seed of an idea, that was all I was expecting to do." She smiled. "But I do believe that I have overstayed my welcome, perhaps we should give them their room back as promptly as we can."

They took the shuttle back to the Asticassia Front. The two men stayed strapped in their seats but Miorine floated around above them, working out her restlessness and clearly annoying the flight-attendant. The three of them talked business. The Rembran and Jeturk houses had not been invited into the new Benerit group, which pretty much branded it as a sort of rump parliament. The group was clearly meant to remain in the thrall of the League. It was going to hurt their positions, but they had been able to negotiate a non-member special status that did not leave them entirely shut out. Their growth had been steady of late, Jeturk mainly because of their cyberbrain development and Rembran mainly from its position as an umbrella for GUND-ARM. Of course things were rather more uncertain now with the Benerit group's ultimatum to its predecessor's former partners.

Openly, most were speculating about the possibility of economic sanctions or outright embargoes. Few were acknowledging the possibility of anything worse.

They had quite the entourage waiting for them at the exit gate. Miorine made a note of the groupings. Suletta and Elnora were with Felsi and Vim. She knew that Vim had been planning to take Elnora out for some mock combat in the academy training suits. Athena was with Lauda and Petra, no doubt back from their tour of the academy.

Suletta was the first to float over to her. They kissed. "Your speech was great."

"It didn't put you to sleep?"

"They didn't let you talk long enough for that."

"That's not a compliment." Elnora and Vim had floated over. "You two did the exercise?"

"Yeah, I got my ass handed to me," Elnora groused. "Space combat is way different, the sims don't do it justice."

"Hope you weren't showing off," Guel said to his son. He sounded half joking, but only half.

"Didn't need to," Vim said with a lopsided grin, playing the strong silent role with just a dash of irony. He was in every way a chip off the block, it was like seeing Guel from his school years. Just minus the shock of red hair.

Elnora showed her tongue. "The result was a lot different on the ground."

"Can't argue there. You weaponize terrain like an animal."

"That's Proud Panther to you." That was her moniker in the junior leagues back home.

Miorine looked over to Athena. "So, you got a good look at my old stomping grounds?"

"Yes," she said brightly. "Lauda and Petra spent the whole day, we saw everything."

It was a nice acknowledgement of gratitude. "So you haven't changed your mind?"

"I definitely want to enrol."

Following the normal age requirements that would be years away yet. But she was on an accelerated program and exceptions had been made before. If she was serious, it could happen sooner. Miorine smiled. "You would make us proud."

Athena faced Miorine's father and folded her hands in front of her. "Grandfather, I hope that I can depend upon your patronage," she said formally.

"Of course," he said. "I'm sure you'll do well."

Miorine jabbed a finger at him. "If you try and concoct any sort of demented matchmaking game for her like you did for me then I swear I will sell your legs for scrap."

"Mio-ma!" Athena sounded scandalized.

Her father just looked sternly at Miorine. "Finding her a proper match is your responsibility, not mine," he said in perfect seriousness.

"She's one of our girls, I trust her to find a proper match herself."

"I agree," Suletta said emphatically. "Definitely no duels. I mean, that worked out for us, but it's no way to choose a partner."

Miorine noticed that Elnora and Vim were looking even more awkward than Athena, so she decided to show mercy and change the subject. "Well, Guel is the only one of us who will actually eat shuttle food so I'm famished. I hope somebody has made dinner plans."

They had. Guel hosted them at the Front's top restaurant. Miorine mostly got caught up with Guel's family, but she noted where her children gravitated. Elnora was grilling Vim on the finer points of deep space mobile suit operations, and Athena was grilling her grandfather on what things to focus on for the Asticassia entrance exams. Sponsorship was a necessary condition for admission, but not a sufficient one. Standards were strict, especially for the administrative program where piloting skills alone could not get one any sort of special pass.

There was one piece of news Miorine found somewhat disturbing. Vim was an understudy in a pilot apprentice program with Dominicus. It appeared that schools on Earth were not the only ones trying to emulate the practices at Suletta's school. But what concerned Miorine was that in the new order of things Dominicus was more tightly coupled to the League.

Looking at Elnora and Vim talking happily, Miorine contemplated the possibility of them finding themselves on the opposite sides of a war.

Her thought was interrupted by a more immediately concerning development. "Overnight in a micro-gravity shelter?" she repeated back.

"Sure," Vim said reassuringly. "Eating and sleeping in the free-fall environment, you experience it in full. That's what separates the tourists from the ones who are all-in."

"I'm game," Elnora said happily.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Felsi said. Her expression suggested it was for the obvious reason that her son was proposing some sort of zero-gee camping trip with her friend's daughter.

Athena raised her hand. "I'd like to try it out too, so I can chaperone them."

"And what makes you qualified to be my chaperone?" Elnora asked icily.

"I'm still waiting for my hormones to kick in, that's what."

"Tina!"

"Tina, that was rude," Suletta chided.

"I agree," Miorine added. "But a valid point nonetheless."

After some further negotiation the plan was approved. One and all seemed to agree, in some cases grudgingly, that Athena was wise beyond her years. Miorine attributed much of that to her almost dizzying array of effective godparents. Even more than with Elnora, the members of Sabina's team and the old Earthian House had participated in her upbringing. She always loved learning, but just as much she loved getting her hands dirty. She probably knew more about mobile suit maintenance than Elnora.

The dinner broke up, and with the kids going on their excursion Miorine and Suletta had the Rembran suite to themselves. After this number of years together, they had both long since learned the signals for when their partner was feeling needy. Miorine had not even been consciously aware that she was putting out those signals, not until Suletta showed that she had heard. Then there was simply nothing they needed to say.

Long after Miorine's body had stopped racing, Suletta's expression became just a little anxious. It was like there was something she wanted to ask, but was looking for the words. "Mio. Do you think it's going to be okay?"

It was a moment before Miorine answered. She cradled Suletta's face in her hand. "I think it's going to be up to us to make it okay."

#-#-#-#-#

The deadline on the ultimatum was five hours away when the call came.

They were in the command and control room of the school, which was usually for directing live-fire exercises but had now been commandeered as a militia situation room. Suletta, Elnora and Miorine were in their flight suits and armbands. So were Sabina and her entire team. They had all been placed on alert as soon as the League ships had started dropping down from high orbit. The room's main screen was divided into four: a cislunar space chart, a South New World map, a militia situation update feed, and a civilian news feed. They had been watching these for hours.

Miorine's phone indicated she should go to a secure area before taking the call. In anticipation, a debriefing room had been set aside. "No interruptions," she said to the armed guard outside the door. He nodded in response. She closed the door, locked it and moved to the opposite side of the room. She pressed the talk button.

The commander of the South New World alliance came on the screen. "Are you secure?"

"Yes sir."

"The meeting is over." The commanders of the largest alliances that represented over ninety percent of Earth regions had been in an emergency video conference. "We sent a message to the League and they have agreed to receive an envoy. The only choice that was acceptable to everyone is you."

She had expected that to happen. "I understand."

His face became even more grave. "The League added a condition, they wouldn't say why. They want your wife to accompany you."

Miorine let that sink in for a moment. "I can guess why. They see her as a witch. As the witch. Even after all this time, they're still afraid of her."

The subtext was clear enough. They wanted her out of the picture, in a place where they could control her. "I'm sorry that I have to make this an order."

"She would have begged to come anyway, sir. I doubt I could have said no."

"We are still rejecting their terms," the commander confirmed. "I am sending you the ceasefire term options. They are the same as the drafts you already reviewed."

They appeared on her phone. "I have received them, sir." She already knew the contents. There were five different sets of proposed ceasefire terms, ranged from demanding something close to unconditional surrender to giving the same.

"If hostilities begin, all the commanders have provisionally agreed to abide by whichever terms you sign, if they are consistent with the situation on the ground."

"Understood. I will do all I can to make sure it doesn't come to that."

"That is our hope. You can leave for the Rio spaceport immediately." Miorine knew him to be a man of faith, so his next words did not come as a surprise. "I will be praying for you. Go with God. Signing off."

"Thank you sir. Signing off." She was appreciative, but it was not a way of thinking she could wrap her head around. Perhaps because the only one she came close to worshipping was sitting in the next room.

Suletta took the news calmly. She simply nodded. "I understand."

They knew this might happen, but still nobody else looked as if they liked the idea one bit. Sabina approached them. Her expression was profoundly conflicted, like she was caught in a superposition between being a fellow officer and virtual family. "Miorine-"

"Denied. I want you here." She stepped forward, looked up into the tall woman's distressed face and squeezed her arm. "We will be back."

They both exchanged a fierce embrace with Elnora, then headed to the airfield. They had been ordered to leave immediately, but they allowed themselves one detour. Athena and Eri were alone in the officers' lounge. They were two of the civilians sheltering at the base, mostly family of staff and trainees. They were not in the underground shelters with the others right now precisely because they knew there might need to be a quick goodbye on the way out.

Eri was in a heavy, robust robot body over two meters tall, with an oversized power backpack and all covered in black armour. Since the incident at their estate she had become rather obsessed with exploring options for combat and had eventually settled on this. The shoulder-mounted weapons arrays were tilted back to their rest positions. Miorine had seen what she could do with those at the firing range. Anybody making trouble here was in for a world of hurt.

Athena's stoic expression did not break. "I know we can't help worrying about each other. I'll do as I'm told while I'm here. You won't need to worry about that."

"I'll take care of her," Eri said. Her head with its sensor array tilted. It was astonishing how much body language came through this hulking beast. "Miorine, Did we provoke this?"

From the time that Miorine had changed the direction of GUND-ARM, right through to now, Eri had participated fully. This was the first time she had raised any question of whether they were doing the right thing.

"We've always given them alternatives. We still are."

As they came through the hangar the ground crew handed them their helmets. The two-place VTOL supersonic interceptor was waiting on the tarmac. Suletta took them into the air and accelerated swiftly. They were at the spaceport in a matter of minutes.

The orbital transfer elevators across the world had been shut down since the ultimatum was issued. The spaceport staff confirmed that the orbital station under League occupation had authorized the special transfer. Their lonely elevator car rose into the air. Once the acceleration phase was done, the flight attendant directed them to the VIP lounge and brought them drinks. She was impeccably polite, but Miorine could see how frightened she was. She bowed and left them.

"I wanted to tell her it's going to be okay." It seemed Suletta had picked up on that too.

"I don't know what it is they want from you," Miorine said, wanting to get right to the matter at hand. "It might be they just want you off the battlefield. But they might try to use you against me."

"As a hostage."

"Possibly." Miorine took her hand. "I only agreed to this because there is no safe option right now. We are both in danger no matter what choice we make."

She nodded in understanding. "What should I do?"

"I'm hoping you won't need to do anything. Just watch, listen and think about what our options are. They are calling the shots, but we get to decide how we respond." She smiled. "And don't be afraid to tell me if I'm doing something stupid."

At the orbital station, a squad of stern-looking League soldiers took custody of them and guided them to a shuttle. Miorine did not ask where they were going and they did not say. But it was not long before Miorine could see their destination through the window beside her seat. She recognized the ship. It was the League's flagship, a new dreadnought-class battleship. As soon as they boarded their cyberbrains were confiscated. It was breaking the promise of continuous contact, but Miorine was not surprised so she raised no objection.

The reason for the confiscation quickly became clear. To Miorine's surprise, they were escorted straight to what was obviously the fleet control centre.

It was a large space with a high ceiling. The far wall was covered by a screen, most of which showed a map of the Earth covered with icons showing countless ships in orbit. Most of the floor level was occupied by row after row of operators, dozens of them, all with active monitor screens of their own. Toward the back of the room, where they had just entered, was a table whose glowing tabletop showed a similar map, only this one showing what was clearly designated targets on the Earth's surface.

There were two people by the table. One was the Chairman, standing with arms behind his back, greeting them with a satisfied smile. The other was an elderly woman who Miorine had only met briefly once by video conference in a debriefing following the Quiet Zero operation. She was the grand admiral of the League fleet. Her hair was grey now and her face a bit more wrinkled, but the same strong features remained. Her profile could be described as classic, her forehead and nose formed an almost perfect straight line, like what one would expect to see on a coin that depicted the queen of an ancient empire. She spared the new arrivals just a quick appraising glance, then returned her attention to the other screens at her workstation beside the table.

Miorine made a quick assessment of the situation. Somebody here was so supremely confident they wanted to show their winning hand right up front.

"Miorine Rembran. Suletta Mercury. Please, join us." The Chairman gestured to a spot in front of the table. Miorine and Suletta pushed themselves forward, drifted, then set the magnetic boots of their flight suits down on the floor where he had indicated. "I brought you here to give us one last chance to reach an agreement."

"If you have new terms to offer, I am ready to listen," Miorine said calmly.

"Your phone has local access." He pulled out his phone and worked it.

Miorine's phone beeped a message signal. She opened the message and scanned it. She noted that the opening page also appeared on a panel of the room's main viewer, to the right of the great world map. It was an official offer being put on the table. "These are the same terms you offered before. They are just as unacceptable now as they were before."

"Do you have a counter-proposal?"

"Only the same one that was already offered."

His face darkened. "You must understand by now that this is not a bluff." He glanced at Suletta then back again. "You both have military training so you understand the meaning of what you are seeing."

"Of course, we both know how to read these charts. I can see that your entire fleet is in low Earth orbit, with drop-ships ready to deploy." She glanced at the table. "Predictably, you mean to secure our arms production facilities." It was what the alliance leaders agreed was the most likely opening move.

The Chairman did not react to the suggestion that they were making an easily predictable move. "We mean to confiscate facilities that have been illegally using our technology to arm outlaw organizations that are not even registered as our legitimate customers."

"The technology is legitimately owned by the companies employing them, and their customers are polities that you yourself have diplomatic and commercial relations with." Miorine's voice became more stern. "At any rate, we both know you have not surrounded the Earth with all your brand new weapons just to resolve a licensing issue. Your goal is to re-establish dominance of the Earth sphere."

"You had better understand that this is your last chance. Are you really going to make us force the issue?"

"Is your son part of the attack force?"

The Chairman looked only mildly surprised by the question. She knew that his son was a Dominicus pilot, and that it was a source of pride for him. After a moment's silence, he answered. "Yes, he is."

Miorine shook her head. "Don't do this. We could both lose our children this day, along with so many others."

"You have left us no choice."

"There is always a choice."

"It seems we have wasted each others' time. How unfortunate." He worked his phone again. "Admiral, you have permission to begin the operation."

"I have received your permission," she said formally. She tapped her screen and then spoke in a very firm voice. "Attention. Operation Mercury is a go. Repeat, Operation Mercury is a go."

Miorine and Suletta exchanged a look. Miorine's eyebrow came up. Suletta did not respond, she just looked calm and alert. But Miorine believed there was some understanding in her look. In the midst of this terrible historic march of folly, they could acknowledge that somebody in the League command had an odd sense of humour.

The room was suddenly transformed. Operators who had been on standby were now all busy giving orders. Miorine simply stood and watched. It seemed that the two of them were going to be allowed to remain and watch the operation unfold.

After a few minutes, the Admiral turned to the Chairman. "All drop-ships are now in transit."

The Chairman glanced over to Miorine. "We do not wish to hurt anyone or to damage anything. If our forces do not meet resistance, they will simply occupy their designated targets and direct their evacuation."

"I see."

"We have opened a link with the Earth network. You can use your phone to contact anyone."

"I understand."

He was starting to take on the manner of a parent trying to reason with a petulant child. "We really can resolve this without bloodshed, all you need to do is stand down."

"I understand."

He looked very annoyed now. His attention was diverted to the main screen. A number of red signals had shown up, indicating presumed enemy actions. The timbre of voices in the room changed subtly. They were no longer directing traffic, they were directing forces on a battlefield.

Miorine understood what she was seeing. The bogies were mobile suits with sub-orbital boosters. There were not many of them. Most of the landings were going to be uncontested down to the low atmosphere. But a threshold had been crossed. Everyone in the room understood they were now at war.

More red marks showed up on the charts. Then more. Then they were everywhere. Most of the drop-ships showed as being under fire. Some showed as releasing their mobile suits early at higher altitude. A few were replaced by a signal lost icon. But more and more were showing as landed.

"All ships are grounded," the Admiral reported. All of them showed as having their forces in active engagement. Miorine noted that, as expected, they had left a strategic reserve in orbit. At this point the Admiral's main job would be to judge when and how to deploy that reserve.

Miorine found that her eye could not help but linger over the icons representing the active engagements in the Rio sector. It was tempting to bring this all to an end, frighteningly so. It would be so easy to surrender. She recited a mantra she had come up with long ago, perhaps the closest thing to faith she could muster. Foundations of time and space, grant me patience and grace.

An operator's amplified voice came from the Admiral's workstation. "Priority request," he said crisply.

"On screen," the Admiral responded.

On a screen to the left of the main map display, what had been a list of units with their status was replaced by a camera feed from a cockpit.

The pilot looked and sounded in a complete panic.

"We have taken massive casualties!" he shouted. "We need reinforcements now! I repeat-" There was a sharp explosion and for a split-second he was thrown aside violently enough to be just a blur. Then the picture was replaced by a black screen with 'signal lost' in blood-red characters. It was immediately replaced by the camera feed of another force commander. But before he could even complete his own frantic request the screen had been split into four so that other incoming requests could be added. Then it was split into nine. Then sixteen. Then twenty-five. Even as they appeared, some were being replaced with the same 'signal lost' panel.

Miorine watched the Admiral. She was no longer paying attention to the camera feeds, which were now reduced to an incoherent cacophony. She was watching the charts and bringing new displays up on her own screens. Miorine could see that she was neither panicked nor indecisive. She was doing exactly what she was supposed to do. She was trying to understand what was happening, what exactly she would be sending her reserves into. The operators on the floor were no doubt trying to find that out and incorporate what they found into the data that was available to her.

The charts were showing a simple story. Every single unit on the ground was asking for reinforcements, highest possible priority.

"What's happening?"

Miorine had been ignoring the Chairman. She looked at him now. He was in a cold sweat, and his arms were trembling. He spoke again, this time more emphatically. "What's happening? What is this?"

"We are losing contact with more and more drop zone commanders," the Admiral answered almost incidentally, still focused on the information being sent to her.

The Chairman now looked more angry than afraid. He jabbed a finger out at Suletta. "Is this some new witchcraft of yours?"

"I can't do anything from here," she answered calmly and politely. "I didn't cast any sort of spell. I just taught people now to be strong. Then they taught more people. Really, that's all it was."

He redirected his angry gaze to Miorine. "You've been lying all along, haven't you? You've been building new Gundams, or some worse abomination!"

She shook her head. "We have no Gundams. You still don't understand what you are seeing." Miorine tried to emulate Suletta's simple resolve, but could not help letting the contempt leak into her voice. "You thought we were just weak and divided. But it was only the divisions of a family that is often as not dysfunctional, one that comes together when they have to. That is what we are."

She continued in a clear voice with ancient words from a forgotten world. "One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will."

She let her eyes alone speak to the rest. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

To stand.

"Mister Chairman." The Admiral faced him directly now. The room had become eerily silent. The operators on the ground were mostly just looking at each other. It was like they no longer had anything to do. "We have lost contact with all forces on the ground. Our long-range surveillance is not detecting any ongoing action. But to minimize any further casualties, if the envoy has an option to call a ceasefire, we should pursue that."

"There won't be any more casualties." Suletta now had the full attention of both the Chairman and the Admiral. She continued in a voice that was sad, almost apologetic. "If our forces really have stopped shooting, it is only because there is nothing left for them to shoot at." She directed her gaze at the Chairman. To a mother who had lost a child, the meaning of her expression now was crystal clear. "I'm so sorry."

"Admiral." The voice of a different operator came at her workstation. "A new group of signals, already on the screen."

A series of red icons were appearing on the map, all of them in the deep oceans. They were quickly spreading like a pox. In seconds, it appeared the oceans were alive with them.

"What have you done?" The Chairman looked accusingly at Miorine. "What new violation is this? Have you resurrected atomics?"

"No," Miorine said. "I am certain that in a few minutes when the first ones break the atmosphere, your sensors will confirm that they are not atomics."

"Signal to all ships," the Admiral announced. "Prepare for redeployment and mobile suit assault."

She had correctly guessed what was on the way. As Miorine had promised, in minutes they had confirmation. Permet signals indicated that all incoming boosters held mobile suits. The charts also showed their projected targets. All of their orbiting ships suddenly had countdowns attached to them. Estimated times of contact.

The Admiral was now giving orders almost continuously. Miorine could follow what she was doing. It was too late for her ships to try to pull out of Earth's gravity well and escape. All she could do was try and redeploy them in a way to support each other against an attack that was coming from completely unexpected locations.

The Chairman glared at Miorine. She felt just a touch of admiration for how he was trying to put on a brave face. "Do your pilots even know how to fight in space?"

"I guess we're going to find out."

"Well ours clearly do not!" The Admiral's voice had carried across the room with stunning force. She glared at the Chairman with open contempt. "Half of these snot-nosed hotshot pilots you've saddled me with have exited their drop-ships before we even had a chance to redeploy them. Where they are now they are going to be cut down piecemeal!" She did not bother to repeat her suggestion of a ceasefire.

"There is another option." Miorine worked her phone. The message with the League's proposed terms had been up on the main screen this whole time. It was now replaced by Miorine's counter-proposal. It was the most draconian of her five options. The front page stood there, right beside the chart full of icons with countdowns whose minute-counts were now mostly in the single-digits. She held her phone out to the Chairman, showing the proposed terms ready for them both to approve. She removed all trace of resolve from her face and her voice. In its place was a message from a machine, a pitiless insensate algorithm that was presenting them a menu which had exactly two options.

"Do you require an armistice?"

#-#-#-#-#

They could see the columns of smoke from miles away. Suletta was in the co-pilot's seat of the Rio militia VTOL transport, with Miorine in the jump-seat behind her. The transport had been waiting for them at the Rio spaceport as Miorine had requested. That request had been the second item of discussion as soon as Miorine had re-established contact with her commander. She had not even needed to ask him the first item, he told her as soon as she saw him appear on her phone screen.

Their children were safe. Everything else was details.

Some of those details had come trickling and then poring in to Miorine's data feed on the militia network. They were appalling. More than twenty percent dead across the board. Some of the League's newest mobile suits and pilots were hell on wheels. Units that engaged them had suffered up to fifty percent dead. It was a miracle they had maintained unit cohesion right to the end. Miorine did not want to think of what would have happened if the engagement in orbit had proceeded. The end result would have almost certainly been the same, but the price would have been even more horrific.

It was cold comfort that all of this was a lot better than the ninety percent plus dead they had inflicted on the invaders.

There had been so many unknowns in their defence plans, so many untested elements. Different alliances had different approaches, but the common element everyone had agreed to was to immediately throw everything into one drive that would maximize shock and speed and chaos and fog of battle. It was a strategy that was all but guaranteed to devastate the Earthian forces something close to what they needed to inflict to stop the invasion cold. Almost nobody had surrendered simply because nobody had been given enough time to even contemplate that option.

She had also been keeping an eye on the growing list of enemy pilot dead that were being identified as support units combed the wreckage of shattered ships and suits, often as not relying only on the IDs from the flight data recording boxes. Her dread grew as the low end of the age distribution kept creeping down. The Dominicus units were not the only ones who had obviously included some of their pilot understudies in the first wave. It was the child soldiers all over again.

Just before the communication blackout had set in, she had sent Guel one last message imploring him not to let his son go. She knew how it had been dividing his family, with Guel being the most conflicted. She hoped beyond hope that reason had prevailed.

A condition of the armistice had been passwords giving transparency to financial transactions between Front enterprises and their Earthian counterparts. It would almost certainly uncover the ongoing economic warfare they had continued to conduct. But when the access came, Miorine had immediately looked into one particular set of financial actors. Sure enough, the former quadrumvirate of Peil Technologies had been padding their nest with funds embezzled from their Earthian subsidiaries. She cut and pasted the summary to a letter that had been sitting in her mailbox for years. It included information she had gathered when she had access as president if the Benerit group, detailing their clandestine Gundam program and the Enhanced Person pilots they had incubated and culled like lab rats. It also included a redacted version of the information Tunnel Rat had sent her, linking them to the attack on her estate. Plus information he had since gleaned on black market organs and tissues obtained for their ongoing longevity treatments. And finally his latest guess about where they had gone to ground. She posted it to her social media feed, one of the most followed feeds on the network, with no comment other than the title: Who are the real witches?

It just seemed like the right time.

"We've been given an approach vector," the pilot announced.

Miorine had been here before, when the huge factory building they could see beyond the columns of smoke had begun operations. It was a GUND-ARM factory putting out their latest generation of mobile suits. The pilot put them down on the top of a grassy hill with a scattering of trees around its base, one of the many green spaces in this area that was only lightly built up. It was outside the perimeter of the drop zone where the action had taken place. All forces had now long since stood down, but the drop zones were still being cordoned off pending a thorough combing of the battlefields. During the battles there had already been nasty surprises, from both sides. There could be more.

A lone mobile suit was standing on the hill. Miorine recognized it, a custom version of their Lfrith model. The armour was pitted and scorched in multiple places, showing the locations of beam shots that the GUND Form shields had not been entirely successful at deflecting. The pilot was waiting for them, standing on the grass in front of her suit.

Miorine was the first to embrace her. Elnora was already a little taller than she was. Miorine's visceral joy and relief could not entirely wash away the part of her that railed against the backdrop of their reunion. Her daughter was almost certainly not yet full-grown, and yet she had just emerged from the bloodbath whose aftermath stood around them.

Miorine contended herself with just stroking Elnora's face, then she stepped back. She watched from the side as it was Suletta's turn to silently embrace their daughter. They stepped back and Suletta just held her gently by the shoulders, smiling down into her upturned face. Miorine sensed it, the extra bond these two expressed. It was not just a meeting of mother and daughter but of teacher and student, mentor and protege.

The look on Elnora's face was complicated, difficult to name. When she spoke, her voice also conveyed profound ambiguity. "I made Ace, Leta-ma." The meaning of that in the context of what had just happened was clear to all of them. It meant five dead pilots, at the very least.

By contrast Miorine could read the meaning behind her wife's response like it was written down. She smiled and kissed Elnora's forehead. I'm proud of you. Then her face fell into a mask of profound sadness and regret. Once again she embraced Elnora gently. I'm sorry we had to make you do this.

The three of them talked for a few minutes. There were some specifics, about what had happened to them since they parted. But it was mostly just to assure each other that they were okay, and that all their other loved ones were still okay. Like Miorine and Suletta, Elnora had been given permission to set aside time for this reunion. But she was still on standby, so she soon contacted Sabina, her squadron leader. She confirmed her assigned place, got back into her mobile suit and flew away.

"Look." Suletta pointed to the sky. There was a tiny fireball trailing smoke. "That's one of the drop-ships."

The terms of the armistice was that the League forces could withdraw their ships and mobile suits. But they would have to strip the mobile suits of all their weapons and leave those behind inside the drop-ships. The Earthian forces were then ordered to enter the drop-ships and program them for re-entry. The autopilots had all their safety subroutines disabled, and were explicitly programmed to re-enter at an angle that would ensure they burn up in the atmosphere along with all their contents. Earthians regarded drop-ships for mobile suits as weapons despised almost as much as slaughterbots, their existence was not to be suffered. Any ships on the ground that were not already destroyed in combat were having their shields and keels shattered with shaped charges, so they would be no good for anything but scrap.

They watched the fireball pass across the sky until there was nothing left. Miorine could not muster any feeling of satisfaction. "I wonder if this is another act of humiliation that they will never forgive us for."

"It's hard to believe anybody would be thinking about that right now," Suletta said sadly.

Yes, it was hard to believe. Maybe the horror of what they had unleashed on each other today would make all the rest irrelevant.

Miorine's phone gave an alarm. She looked at the message. Her heart sank. She had been hoping beyond hope, but in vain.

"What is it?" Suletta asked gently.

"Vim is dead." Miorine couldn't look at her just now. She wondered how she could ever look them in the eye again. The alliance forces were sharing their battlefield investigation data with the League in real time. Was the League passing it along to families already? Did Guel and Felsi already know? Miorine tried to imagine how they would feel, how she would feel if Elnora... and how countless people would be feeling over the coming hours and days.

"Mio?" Miorine suddenly realized that Suletta had her firmly by the shoulders. She had not even realized that she was close to falling over. She looked up into her wife's eyes. Suletta looked calm but concerned. Miorine clutched at her, the only judge she really cared about. She hardly knew what it was she wanted to ask, it just came out of its own accord.

"Have I done the right things? Have I been a good person?"

Suletta hesitated before replying. "Mio, what is it you're really asking me?"

In other words, give me a question there was some hope of answering. But Miorine had no such question, only more impossible ones. "Not since the day I almost lost you have I felt in my bones that I might have just brought my whole world to an end. I want to know... what have I done? Have I helped usher in the greatest peace we will ever know? Or have I pulled the trigger on the final war to end all wars?"

Astonishingly, Suletta's lips spread into a warm smile. She spoke with confidence.

"Neither. You've done neither. You've just taken another step."

Miorine's gaze turned to the remains of the battlefield in front of them, columns of smoke still billowing up from various wrecked war-machines. "There are so many people who will never be coming back. What else have we lost forever?"

Suletta joined her in contemplating the aftermath of their Pyrrhic victory. "It may look like the end of the world. But it's just the end of the day."

The setting sun on the horizon seemed to agree. But it was far from being the end of their day. "They have accommodated us patiently, but we've been keeping them waiting long enough. We should get to our debriefing now." She looked at her wife and managed an ironic smile. "It's probably going to go all night."

There were more steps to take before their day was through. Many, many steps to take before they would be through.

#-#-#-#-#

"It appears we have both come without escorts this time," Simon quipped as Miorine approached their assigned dinner table.

"My better half is here," Miorine assured him. "But she is escorting our daughter at one of the war-hero tables. She sends her regards and her regrets."

Simon still looked dapper in a dinner-jacket. But she could see that he was in a wheelchair that was discreetly transformed into an ergonomic chair. Age was catching up on him. But his voice was still strong and clear. "I am delighted to have your company once again, but it seems scandalous you were not invited to join them."

She sat down. "I proactively declined to avoid any awkwardness. Only those who excelled in combat and their escorts should be there."

"I suspect your role was even more substantial in bringing about the outcome we are all celebrating tonight."

"I could put that right back to you." Her tone became more playful. "So, when are you coming out?"

He smiled. "Perhaps I'll write a memoir. But as more and more of our hidden history comes to light, I suspect I too will find that mine was a smaller role than we suppose. But tonight is for those who put their lives on the line."

"No argument."

The Jackal was pulling all the stops out. The ballroom of the Presidential Palace was packed with as many tables as they could fit. And this was just one gala of many. On the one-year anniversary of the One-Day War, there were celebrations across the globe.

The aftermath of the war had thoroughly exposed much of what both Earthian and Spacian leadership had been doing in preparation for the expected conflict. As such, hidden agendas and secret networks had become all but superfluous. Nevertheless, the two of them had been keeping in touch. There was therefore little they needed to catch up on in terms of their personal and family circumstances. Conversation soon shifted to larger scale matters.

"Does it seem to you that we are premature in our celebration?" Simon asked.

"It feels more like it has been a long time coming. We did not do anything great, we just averted something worse. That's still worth celebrating."

The shock and horror of what happened that day and the dread of worse to come had taken almost this long to make room for the possibility of anything else. Paradoxical comfort of sorts eventually came from the realization that most everybody felt the same way. Right from those who sheltered within earshot of battle to the furthest colonies from which Earth was barely a naked-eye object in the window, few doubted how united they were in guilt and regret over their shared folly. Fewer still imagined there could be anyone left who harboured notions of a victory that would be worth the price. So far, everyone seemed to agree that there would be no more victors. There would only be those few left standing, most of whom might very well envy the dead.

"It seems the celebrations beyond Earth are a good deal more muted," Simon noted.

"But still not entirely absent. The Armistice saved at least as many of their lives as ours."

The shakeup in the League and the Benerit group had been almost as severe as what happened after Quiet Zero. The League had a new Chairman who better represented the changed mood among the colonies. A younger generation barely remembered a time when Earth was less a partner or trader, and more a beast of burden or strip-mine.

Simon nodded. "That is true. But there is certainly a lot of resentment that remains."

Miorine could not disagree. But that was not the whole story. "You know what I was always taught about Earthians? That they are soft and lazy and complacent. The air they breathe and the water they drink are given freely by Mother Earth. She wraps them in a warm, safe cocoon. But we have to labour hard for every breath we take, all the while being assailed by the hellscape that lies beyond the cocoon."

Her tone softened. "The thing is, I never felt resentment over that, I just felt pride. I saved my resentment for the greedy moochers all around me, the ones who felt entitled to exploit Spacian and Earthian alike." She gave a satisfied smile. "From what I've been hearing, that point of view is beginning to take hold."

"The period of mourning is coming to an end for most people, I think. Their thoughts are moving more towards how we should move on."

They exchanged a look of understanding. They both had been fortunate, their families had escaped unscathed. But they both had friends who were not so lucky. Miorine and Suletta had personally brought Vim's remains to Guel and Felsi. They had been to visit each other since. Miorine was no stranger to the sort of loss they were feeling. Lately Felsi had been confiding options that they had been considering, like adoption. On their last visit Miorine had taken them to a school for war orphans that Suletta had help set up. It was planting the seed of an idea, maybe something would come of it.

Miorine made an up-down gesture to suggest the heavens above and the Earth below. "We have been in something like two solitudes for so long, it's still so easy to blame the people on the other side of the fence for everything before we've even put our own house in order."

Simon smiled. "Oh, I think the solitudes run a lot deeper than that. Your characterization of Earth as a fragmented, oft dysfunctional family hits the mark."

"I've been wondering, how does the new reality on Earth match your vision?"

"About as well as can be expected. The fig-leaf of citizen militias formed to oust our would-be overlords has finally wilted and fallen. We have armed as a deterrence against each other no less than against threats from space. All I can hope is that the deterrence works most of the time."

Miorine nodded. "I wish it were otherwise, but I think that having an existence proof of how badly things can go when it doesn't is exactly what will help people make sure that it does." And no less, it was proof that it was possible to step back from the brink.

"I had been hoping it would not come to that," Simon said sadly. "But it could have been so much worse. It could easily have spiralled out of control."

"Not as easily now as it was before, I think." Simon looked intrigued at her statement. "Perhaps my background at Asticassia biases me, but I remember the mobile suit pilots around me then as being something like mad dogs. In particular the Gundams seemed to bring out the bestial in them."

She smiled fondly. "But then I met Suletta. She was different. She has taught people to be different. The new cyberbrain cockpits seem to help as well, the pilots are no longer exposed to maddening pain. The new generation is less like a bunch of arrogant knights-errant and more like a row of soldiers marching in lockstep."

"It seems your appreciation of our deep history has deepened."

"I owe much of that to somebody I met with in Ochs Earth." Her description of the remarkable subterranean museum she had toured was interrupted when a waiter brought their wine. They seemed to be getting theirs earlier than everyone else. The bottle had already been opened to breathe.

"This is a special vintage I brought for the occasion," Simon explained. "It was bottled in the year that the South New World alliance was ratified."

He gave her a solemn look. She could guess the meaning. It was the year that she had lost her baby. He was giving her the option of whether to speak of it.

Or to speak of the fate she had dealt out to those she thought responsible.

Simon tasted the wine and nodded approval. As the waiter filled their glasses, Miorine gathered her thoughts.

The reaction to the bombshell message she had sent out regarding the old quadrumvirate of Peil Technologies had been swift and terrible. Within minutes, the message "Burn the witches!" had multiplied into apparent infinity. People already out in the streets celebrating the announced armistice had erupted in anger. The mob had shown up at their doorstep scant minutes later. The mob had been just organized enough to pass and carry out the sentence in short order. For the first time in centuries, women named as witches were burned at the stake. All their various and sundry longevity treatments had proven no match for a bonfire. The pictures had gone out from hundreds of phone cameras to millions of viewers, showing from every possible vantage this fiery orgy of righteous wrath. They all got a very, very high approval rate.

No arrests were made. Nobody had the nerve.

Miorine saw no need for any sort of preamble. "After the news came of what happened I spent hours watching the videos, trying to figure out how I should feel about it. Many people still think of my wife as a witch. Our children too. If circumstances had been different, it could have been them burning there. It was victors' justice, pure and simple."

She shook her head. "But no matter how I try, I cannot muster any guilt or shame or regret. If I had lost it all, if I had not even my dear wife left, I know that I have it in me to just burn it all down until there is nothing left. I do not go there only because there are people to pull me back."

Simon raised his glass. "May you never be alone."

She smiled. They clinked glasses and drank. The querying look he gave her left her the option of answering how this vintage tasted in either the literal or metaphorical sense. "It's very good." She set the glass down and allowed herself just the merest hint of a satisfied smile. "It tastes like something that has benefited from being well-aged." She also meant the wine.

#-#-#-#-#

Miorine walked into the Rembran House lab building on the Asticassia campus where she used to grow her tomato seedlings. Athena had warned her to expect radical changes. But seen up front the reality was astonishing. She looked around. "Tina, are you here?"

"Under here, Mom." Athena slid her mechanic's creeper out from underneath the great torus-shaped mass of wires that dominated the room. She smiled. "You're early."

"The Dean has nothing but praises for you. It got repetitive so I decided I'd heard enough."

Athena sat up on the creeper and stood. "That's good, right?"

Miorine walked over and kissed her cheek. "That's as expected. The only surprise is here. Did somebody give you a cyclotron?"

"No, I'm making a DT fusion torus."

"That's... kind of old-school."

"The DT reaction is the bread-and-butter of generation starships."

It was an idea that had been her obsession since long before she had enrolled here. Even as a junior she had already made well-attended presentations on some of the finer points. Colonies in the outer solar system had long depended on fusion power in place of solar, but the reactors were still delicate and had limited lifetimes. It was generally agreed that something more robust would be required for habitations that expected to spend centuries alone in interstellar space.

"Are you trying to make something that will last longer?"

"The opposite. I want to make a simple one that is easily replaceable. These are all refurbished or recycled parts."

Miorine lightly touched Athena's face with her fingertips. "Unwashed parts, apparently. You've got grease on your face."

"It's vacuum sealant." Her orange coveralls were also stained black in places.

"That really does sound low-tech."

"The idea is to depend only on technology that can be maintained and replaced by people with limited technical knowledge. After I've got it working, my next step will be to get the House members to build another, unsupervised."

This space was clearly Athena's private domain. But unlike Miorine, her daughter had actually recruited fellow students into House Rembran. They worked in the House's new assigned hanger building, mostly on the GUND-ARM mobile suits that been shipped from Earth. That included a custom Lfrith suit that Athena had trained on for a long time.

They still had a duelling system at the school, though with more civilized restrictions on what sort of stakes were allowed. Recently somebody had challenged Athena over some perceived insult. Athena had sent the family pictures of the result. Nobody had found any reason to challenge her since.

Miorine looked around the room. "How are you going to deal with the radiation?"

"Water. When I'm ready to go I'll line the walls with fish-tanks and operate the torus remotely."

Miorine gave a little smile. "Those poor fish."

"They'll actually be for algae, radiation-resistant varieties. It will be to support my biosphere. Want to see?"

There was a small mirror in the middle of a wall. Athena touched a button next to it and the mirrored surface became transparent. The adjacent room was even more busy than this one. Much of it looked like a very crowded greenhouse, with rows of plants and seedlings growing under lamps. The walls were mostly covered with water tanks, some with fish floating around and others opaque with algae that were clearly being lit from within by embedded lighting units.

"Moving the algae tanks out here will allow me to expand it and make it truly self-sustaining. My ultimate goal is to have it powered by the reactor and have the House subsist entirely off what we grow here."

"Including you?"

"Of course."

All of this would likely solidify her reputation as being the up-and-coming mad scientist of the school. Miorine kept her eye on the public forums that the Asticassia students used. Some were expressing their assessment of her daughter in different terms. After the One-Day War, Miorine's public challenge to contemplate the question of who are the real witches had been taken up and was still ongoing. Athena had been branded as a chip off the block of a real witch... and most of those were actually not referring to Suletta. Miorine still did not regret what she had done. But she had to acknowledge that it was yet another decision whose consequences were being visited upon her children.

"I'm glad to see that you're at least growing some plants here. I had the place full of tomato seedlings."

"I do have a tomato plant. See over there?"

"It looks lonely."

"Later I'll have room for more. Sorry, none are ready to eat yet. All I could offer now is shrimp with insect protein spread. Want to try?"

"Hard pass."

"Earth slang," Athena called her out.

"Your speech has been slang-free, I see you're being careful."

"If I followed your lead, most people here would just get confused. I only use slang to be obtuse with people who deserve it."

Athena was here under the patronage of her grandfather and House Rembran, but it was no secret that she grew up on Earth. There were actually multiple Earth companies who had won the right to sponsor students here, including GUND-ARM. Like Athena they did face some discrimination from Spacian students. But it was different from the way it had been in the days of the original Earth House. Rather than being looked down upon, they were often looked upon with a mix of suspicion and trepidation. Miorine found it amusing how it seemed like it had only just recently dawned on them that Earthians far outnumbered Spacians. The obvious solution of having more Spacians was manifesting as both a growing pronatalist bias and relaxed immigration policies. Miorine had been very happy when Guel and Felsi had leaned into this trend. The cadre of House Jeturk students now included two of their adopted children.

"Speaking of obtuse actions," Miorine pointed to the ceiling. "I've been wondering about that."

Soon after she entered the room, Miorine had noticed three silvered balls floating just below the ceiling. Even a cursory observation made it clear that they were moving in a way that simulated orbital mechanics.

"They're suspended and propelled by electromagnets embedded in the ceiling. They are running as simulation of the three-body problem. It resets to new random starting state when any two of them collide, or any of them is ejected beyond the perimeter."

Miorine did not even need to ask what had inspired this, it was part of her longtime obsession after all. "Even I know that the stars in the Alpha Centauri system will be in stable orbits right up to when any of them leaves the main sequence."

"I know. It was more just an engineering exercise. Before the torus is ready to go I'll probably have some House members build a new one in my bedroom. It will be a good exercise for them."

"So you'll have to rough it in the barracks," Miorine quipped.

Athena shrugged. "I've done it before, when we pull all-nighters on a project."

"If you do actually go on this expedition, that will be permanent."

"It depends on what variant is decided on."

Miorine had seen the various proposals. The most ambitious of them envisioned a fleet of next-generation Fronts that in total would house tens of millions of people in a low density setting that would be indistinguishable from an Earth environment to all but the most discerning eye. It would be like breaking off a big piece of human civilization and giving it a gentle push so that it can slowly drift over to the nearest star system.

But there would be nothing there to greet them except rock and gas. Gravitational-lens telescopes and relativistic micro-probes had long since proven there was no planet there that was remotely habitable, even with radical terraforming. And after generations of searching nobody had found anything like a habitable planet within the range of their great swarm telescopes. At least within their neighbourhood of the galaxy, Earth was unique.

She gave her daughter a look that she knew was full of annoying mother-love. "I try to imagine what it would mean, not having the possibility of returning to Earth even for a brief time. You would be condemning yourself to forever being imprisoned in something like..." she gestured to encompass the Asticassia Front around them. "This. Won't you regret that?"

"Not really. These Fronts were our first attempts to build new homes for ourselves. The next ones will be better, and the next better still. The Earth is just our first world, that's all."

Miorine sighed. "It seems so pointless. We could surround the sun with enough Fronts to blot it out and still not have used even the merest fraction of the resources in the solar system. Why are you so anxious to go orbit a different star?"

Athena did not quite roll her eyes, but it was clear this was one of those cases where her mother just did not get it. She pointed up to the floating balls that stood in for a trio of stars which were forty trillion miles away.

"Because it's right there Mommy."

#-#-#-#-#

When the family had taken on a project of designing and making an electronics-free vehicle for the estate, they had consulted with some local retro car enthusiasts. This had immediately plugged them into a global network of people who built and drove their own retro cars. There was a tradition among many of them that they would rent out their vehicles to fellow owners who had the right street cred.

They had not heard from Elan in months. But within minutes of receiving a note saying that he had finally found the elusive lake from Norea's sketchbook they had booked the flight. Before embarking, Suletta had sent a note out to a member who was in the area. It was not the first time they had availed themselves of the tradition. Suletta always asked with such humility and politeness. But nobody was going to say no to Red Tiger.

This time they had really scored, a pair of big beefy muscle-cars with roaring biofuel-burning engines tuned to perfection. Elnora was setting a murderous pace in the lead car, no doubt being egged on by Maisie and cautioned by Sabina all the while. Suletta matched the pace set by their daughter, keeping their car tucked right in behind. Miorine appreciatively watched her frenetic but precise movements as she steered the car along the tortuous road cut into an almost sheer mountain-side. Renee in the passenger seat looked perfectly calm, just admiring the stunning mountain scenery as the gee-forces pulled them against their five-point safety harnesses first one way then the other.

Sitting next to Miorine in the back, Elan looked like he was having second thoughts about having gone to meet them at the airport instead of just waiting for them someplace near the lake. When he had told them to expect a three-hour drive, they had just smiled. Now he clearly understood why.

"I'm going to be really embarrassed if you can show me that I'm wrong," Elan said, trying to put on a brave face.

"We'll take a vote. But you still get a veto, so you can override us if you decide to. It's the right one if you say so."

"This one really feels right."

"If you change your mind, Eri's offer still stands."

"Thanks."

A long time ago Eri had pointed out that there was analysis they could do of the sketch to find probable matches with actual lakes basis satellite images. As expected Elan had politely declined. Pretty much everybody else including Miorine understood that would just have been missing the point. The person who had set on this journey was not the same person who was now sitting beside her. That would be the case regardless of what he did or did not find.

Eri had accepted that with her usual complaints about the inscrutability of human minds. But Miorine had begun to suspect that more and more her sister-in-law was inhabiting a space that was diverging from her flesh-and-blood brethren. In most respects it was the same old Eri. But she had been slowly, almost imperceptibly distancing herself from the family, instead throwing herself into her work at GUND-ARM. Miorine had a feeling they were all being prepared for some change that Eri alone saw coming. She simply trusted it would be made clear in good time.

Elan braced himself and spoke with a hint of alarm. "It feels like we're skidding!"

"It's called drifting," Miorine said casually. "They do it all the time."

He gave her a look of trepidation. "I hope I did find the right lake, because I'm feeling like it might be the last think I'll ever do."

"So if you are still convinced, what will you do? Just keep travelling?"

"I'm not sure. It's been such a long time since I seriously thought about it."

"Well, you have a lot more options for you now."

The conditions of the armistice had opened up a lot of formerly hidden financial transaction histories, which had exposed a veritable mountain of malfeasance. One of the consequences was to uncover and redistribute funds to the creditors of the Peil Technologies bankruptcy. Elan had been one of the beneficiaries of this veritable windfall.

From the look Elan gave her, that roundabout reference to the fate of the former Peil quadrumvirate had not been lost on him. Her intention had been to give him the option of acknowledging it, or not.

"I'm glad that I can finally thank you for what you've done. I've really tried to set the past behind me. But now I feel like I can really do that, once and for all. Whatever else happens, I'll always be grateful for that."

Miorine smiled. "When we're standing there, at the place you had finally found, I was hoping I could text you the deed to the land."

"You mean you actually checked to see if it was for sale?"

"It would have been such perfect thanks for your finding us our little piece of paradise. But this one is all protected wilderness. Greedy merchants need not inquire."

"I'm strangely relieved."

"You should fly back with us. We can celebrate. Everyone would love to see you. Elnora isn't the only one who's grown up."

Elan smiled. "Chloe still plans on medical school?"

"She's already skipped a grade, so pretty much plunging headlong."

He never showed it overtly, but just because of how often he asked it was evident to Miorine that Elan had a soft spot for Nika's daughter. He had only met the girl a couple of times when he was in the area visiting Miorine and friends. Elan had known her genetic parents back when they come to Asticassia. In particular he had spent a lot of time with Norea in the days before her tragic end. It was pretty clear from the way he spoke of her that Elan had held a torch for her. Miorine had always hoped that somehow he could become part of Chloe's life, if not as a godparent then as another link with the mother whose child Nika had chosen to raise. Maybe now that Elan had reached a threshold, there was a chance of that happening.

"If she keeps shining so brightly, she might get headhunted to space," Elan said. "The adverts are everywhere now."

"There's no escaping it. 'To the stars: A new place for a new start.' Inquire within."

Elan paused to brace himself against a particularly sharp turn before replying. "Skeptical?"

"Everyone oversells, it's part of the game. I'm more annoyed at how recently they wouldn't give an Earthian the time of day."

"You have been instrumental at changing their tune."

"And my head is still throbbing from beating it against their damn wall."

"Well then you should be proud." His expression changed. "Just to let you know, the road gets a lot more winding from here."

"Oh great, this will be fun. Hey Renee!" she called.

"Yeah?"

"Turn that up! We can barely hear it back here."

"You got it." Renee reached over to the stereo deck unit and cranked the music. The sound system was the one component where the prohibition against electronics in certified retro cars made some concession. But strictly analog, no exceptions.

As Elan had promised, the ride was a lot wilder now. Elnora was hardly slowing down at all, and Suletta was right behind her.

Elan really was looking concerned now. "Is this really going to be okay?"

"It's all good." Miorine lowered her shades and peeked over them as she grinned. "You had best believe my girls can get behind anything."

#-#-#-#-#

Their refurbished estate home looked just like it had before it had been wrecked. Perhaps restoring it this way had been inadvisable considering its association with that terrible day. But somehow making that decision had felt like an act of deviance, a sort of divine stubbornness. Whatever the case, it was no longer a source of anxiety for Miorine. Chalk it up to the satisfaction of delayed payback, or just the passage of time.

Or, more likely, the company.

The four of them walked out of the living room and proceeded up the paved path to the helipad. Elnora was the first to spot her. She pointed to the sky. "There she is." Sure enough, the approaching VTOL was now visible in the distance.

When Eri had called to say she wanted to come spend the day with the family, everybody had been elated. They had seen little of her for months now. Miorine had seen her a bit more than the others, but only in the context of managing GUND-ARM in the aftermath of the One-Day War. It was not so much that she was becoming more distant, simply a less frequent presence. This fact had been all but invisible until brought to attention by the fact that her arrival had turned into something of an event.

Miorine could not help but feel that was all part of a process, something of which they would soon be seeing the culmination. She had her suspicions about what that might entail. But she kept her thoughts to herself.

"I'm dying to see her new robot body," Suletta said eagerly as they walked. Eri had told them to expect her to look different.

"I fairly tingle with anticipation," Miorine said dryly. This was feeling like deja-vu all over again.

"Any bets?" Athena asked. "My money is on an arachnid. Eight-leg locomotion is one thing she hasn't tried yet."

"I'll bet it's another swan-dive into the uncanny valley," Miorine said.

"Something with bat-wings," Elnora suggested.

"I know!" Suletta said, raising a finger. "What about a Koko?" That was the mascot character from the Moon Princess cartoon the girls used to watch.

"Getting it to hover like it does in the show would be hard," Elnora pointed out.

"It could be magnetically suspended over a drone," Athena suggested. "Maybe in the shape of a really big Moon Crown." That was a magical artifact from the show.

A mere second after the VTOL landed, all speculation became moot. Eri sprang out of the hatch with a prodigious leap, landed in front of them and struck a pose. "Hi everybody! How's it going meow?"

She was a bipedal furry tabby-cat. Twitching ears, swinging tail, big cat-eyes, the works. Her face was shockingly expressive, both alien and adorable. Her voice was not coming from any speaker, the words were being produced by the supremely mobile black lips and pink tongue. Her voice was clear but just the right distance from a human voice to be a perfect match for what they were seeing.

"Aunt Eri!" Elnora was the first to spring forward and embrace her. "You look so cute! I love it!"

Her action was so natural and had clearly been done on impulse. But Miorine was immediately struck by its import. With some exceptions that Miorine would just as soon forget, it was understood that Eri's robot bodies were not to be the object of physical affection. That had been an unspoken accord. But now that barrier had been effortlessly shattered. One after another, they all got in on the act. Her new body was warm as well as furry.

"I've bought you all presents!" Eri enthused. Her gynoid body operating under an AI had hauled a pair of big suitcases out of the cargo hold and stood with them, waiting for orders. "Let's go to the house so you can try them on!"

"Try what on?" Miorine asked with more than a little trepidation.

"You'll see!"

No amount of prodding from the girls would get anything out of Eri, so they all stood around her with various degrees of excitement or bated breath as she laid down one of the suitcases on the living room floor and cracked it open. She picked up one of the outfits and held it out in front of her. "Ta-da!"

"Cosplay!" Athena cried.

It was a furry cat-suit. Just by the size and colour scheme, Miorine deduced this one was for Athena, which Eri immediately confirmed. Requiring little encouragement, Athena stripped down to her underwear and with Eri's help slipped into it. Eri instructed her on how to activate the tail and ears using her cyberbrain. "Now that it's registered as a cyberbrain device, you can learn how to control the tail and ears," Eri explained. "It won't take much practice."

In short order they all stripped and got suited up. Each suit activation was accompanied by another round of delighted cries as each one was declared just as adorable and just as perfect a match as the last. By the colour schemes that matched skin and hair, there could be no mistaking whose suit was whose.

They wasted no time trying to master the tail and ears. "Whoa, look at Leta-ma go!" Elnora pointed to where Suletta already had her tail bobbing all over the place in a way that somehow seemed utterly perfect both for her and for a delighted tabby-cat. "How did you get that sort of control so fast?"

Suletta laughed and scratched the back of her head nervously. "I guess I'm just a natural meow," she said slipping into her cat-Leta mode.

She and Miorine exchanged just a momentary look, quickly broken before it could be noticed. The meaning had been crystal clear. That was a close one. Nobody else knew about the first cat-suit Eri had gifted them. Or the matching open-front one that Miorine had ordered to fit. They were both in a locked drawer that was only opened when they were absolutely positively sure that nobody else was in the house. It had been with the most profound relief that Miorine had noted these were all family-friendly suits that covered everything up to the neck.

After a while they all gained some modicum of control over their respective exoskeleton accessories. They spent some time trying things, chasing each others' tails or doing coordinated moves. At some point Suletta stopped showing off and just got snuggly with Eri in the corner of the conversation pit couch. Only half faking jealousy, Miorine soon joined them, though Eri insisted that Miorine sit beside her. Before long, the girls also came and snuggled up beside their respective donor-mothers. Conversation drifted between a variety of matters both newsworthy and trivial.

"So do you miss being at GUND-ARM yet?" Elnora asked.

"There are some things I miss," Eri said. Miorine had quickly become accustomed to her new face and voice, they had both already become just naturally associated with Eri. "But it's not as exciting as the early days. Which is a good thing. It's pretty much embedded in the fabric of the planet, almost running itself. I just felt like I wasn't needed like I was before and it was time to move on."

"Even if your book was the only thing that came out of it, that was worth it," Athena said.

"I've got to admit a lot of it went over my head," Elnora said.

Eri's excuse for leaving the company was that she wanted to write a book. Either she had been working on it already or she had written with superhuman speed, because the hefty tome had come out just a couple of months after her resignation and going-away parties. It was an autobiography of sorts, though it only touched on most aspects of her life. It was more of an extended freewheeling meditation on history, evolution, humanity, mind and the nature of consciousness. Miorine had read it thoroughly and carefully. Very much of it had spoken to her in a variety of profound ways, but she also had to concede that some parts had left her suspecting that she was not quite getting the point. It had received rave reviews, though no two people seemed to take away quite the same things. It was like the uber Rorschach test in that way.

"I don't think you ever explained the title," Suletta said.

"Sanctuary?" Eri pondered that for a moment. "I think it's the one thing every living thing understands. We all want it but we also want to step outside it. In one way or another those two things drive just about everything we do."

"The tempest sends us looking for a quiet port," Miorine said. "But when we are in port, the sea beckons us all over again. Something like that?"

"Yes," Eri agreed. Her cat-eyes fixed on Miorine's for a moment, then her gaze shifted to encompass them all. "Now, I can feel the sea beckoning me."

"Are you going to go travelling?" Suletta asked. "Walk the Earth, like Elan does?"

She shook her head. "No, nothing like that."

"Space travel?" Athena asked. "You wouldn't even need any life-support. Just imagine where you could go."

"Eri?" Miorine got everybody's attention with her emphatic but gentle tone. "It's not that either, is it?"

Eri slowly shook her head. "No, not that either." She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. Her face was less animated now, and she did not look at anyone in particular. "I have to try and explain the inexplicable. Over time I have been growing in a way that I cannot even describe in words. Less and less of me has been bound by this world, more and more of me has been spreading out beyond."

She paused, and then continued in what Miorine would almost describe as an apologetic way. "I have been trying to fit this part of myself into the world I came from, but that is becoming more difficult. If I keep trying, I can see that eventually I must fail. I don't know what happens then. I fear that I might gain the power to change this world beyond all recognition, and I fear even more that I could do it without even realizing it."

Her mouth curled into a little smile and her head swayed one way and the next so that her gaze could once again encompass them all. "I have decided it is time to move on. I came here today to say goodbye."

What Miorine said next was to Eri, but was more her attempt to soften the blow for her family. "Eri, if you need to go someplace else to spread your wings fully, then that is exactly what you should do."

Eri smiled and reached out to stroke the fur on Miorine's suit just as tenderly as if it was part of her. "Thank you my dear sister, for explaining in a way that I could not. Yes, that is exactly right. If I try to spread my wings here, I will likely break things in a way that none of us could predict or understand. That's why I have to leave."

"Where exactly are you going?" Athena asked.

Eri directed an impossibly warm gaze at her. "You are always the one who wants to understand everything. I wish I had an explanation for you that would make sense. I really have been searching for the words. My book was part of that, but ultimately it fell short. I'm sorry Tina, but words are inadequate." She smiled a little. "if I tried to show you the math, it would make even less sense."

"Aunt Eri." Elnora also looked like she was struggling to understand, though somehow in a more visceral way. "Wherever you go... won't you be alone?"

Again, that warm smile. "You don't need to worry about that, Nora. I'm not even really a single person any more, not in any meaningful sense. The Eri you are talking to here is just one small part of a larger whole that is acting more and more on its own. That is the real reason I need to leave now."

Miorine was reluctant to ask her own question, but trusted that Eri would at least not give any answer that would make her departing more difficult. "Will there be new challenges for you? Things to explore?"

"Yes. An infinity of things."

"Eri?" Suletta spoke calmly, but Miorine was certain that she was not the only one who could sense what she was holding back. "If you go, you can't come back again. Can you?"

Eri shook her head. "No. No my sister, I can't. Once I sever my link with this world, I can never come back. I'm sorry I have to do this, more sorry than I can say. I've tried my best to tell you why I have to do this. But I don't want to leave you with nothing. I have one more gift for you. For all of you."

She lifted her hand and pointed it at her face. "My gift is this. Once I leave, this body will go to sleep mode. But it can come awake again. I have embedded it with an AI." She smiled. "I call her mini-Eri. But you can just call her Eri. If I switched control of the body with her right now, you would likely be hard pressed to tell the difference." She looked at Miorine and winked. "That is, until my sister-in-law subjects her to the same tests that the doctors gave me when I first awakened."

She addressed herself to all of them again. "That Eri is not sentient, not conscious. She can learn and remember, but she cannot grow. She will always remain as she is. I leave it up to you whether or when to awaken her. I have done everything I can to make her into something that will bring you comfort." She smiled. "If you wish for her to ever be a part of your sanctuary, I hope that she can do that. She cannot love you the way that I do. But if it something you need, then I hope that she can remind you of my love."

"Eri..." Suletta took hold of her arm. It was gentle, but she was shaking just a little. "You're leaving today, right?"

"Yes. I am."

"I have a selfish request." Her lip quivered. Her voice nearly broke. "Can I cry first?"

Eri spread her arms wide. "Of course."

She had to wait for all of them.

#-#-#-#-#

Miorine and Suletta walked arm-in-arm along the boardwalk, dressed in their matching sky-blue bathrobes with thin white stripes, dark-blue sash and sandals. To their left was a thick grove of trees, to their right the great long beach and beyond the lake that stretched out to the northern horizon. The sun had just gone down in front of them, stars would soon be appearing.

Most of the tall bonfires that lined the beach were already lit. The families in swimwear were mostly gone, to be replaced by people in bathrobes like theirs, here for the after-dark party. Or, like the two of them, people who had been swimming during the day had returned dressed for the festival that was to start after the preternaturally late sunset.

"I wonder how this tradition started?" Suletta wondered.

"It could be ten years old or ten thousand. It could be something that started here or from across the ocean."

"In other words you don't know."

"Does it matter?"

Suletta giggled. "I guess not."

In their travels, sometimes they would look up the origins of some cultural artifact they encountered. The lesson Miorine soon took was that if you dug deep enough the answer was that it is all appropriation, all the time, all the way down. Eventually they just stopped thinking much about it.

Once the girls were in boarding school the two of them had toyed with the idea of them both taking a long sabbatical from everything and travelling together. The thing that had finally crystallized their plan was Eri moving on. Everybody had been sad. But somehow it had just felt right, like this was meant to be and this was the right time, the only time. Miorine was convinced that somehow, Eri had arranged things so that everyone would just feel that way. Whatever she had gone to, be it nirvana or higher dimensions, she had left behind the legacy of a legion, and a life closed with an almost painless parting. And after she was gone, the substitute she had left behind was a comfort for them all.

When the two of them were mulling their travel options, they had gone to a dealership for recreational vehicles. They had come across a long-range off-road van which unfolded into a self-contained camper that was cozy for two. Right there in the dealership room, sitting in the cabin of this camper with Suletta's hands on the wheel, the decision had been made by her smiling at Miorine and saying "Let's just drive."

There was in fact some method behind their random-walk style wanderings. The halfway point of their year-long sabbatical found them in the northern hemisphere on time for its summer. The twilight of high summer had found them as far north as they had gone, a place that was billed as the longest white-sand fresh-water beach in the North New World. They had arrived just on time for this annual festival on the shore of a lake that seemed to be an ocean unto itself.

"Aren't you glad I convinced you to go back and change?" Suletta asked.

"Bathrobes do seem to be De Rigueur for this festival. It's a shame though, I was really enjoying everyone ogling you in your swimsuit."

"What makes you think it was just me they were ogling?"

"Yes yes, I've still got the whole Cool Beauty look down pat, you keep telling me. But that's different. When we pass people by I can practically feel the gazes all vectoring in on your pert-"

Suletta nudged her. "Cut it out. You know I don't like that."

"And for you it's not just from the back either. Ow!"

"Stop it." This time it sounded like she meant it. Miorine shut up.

A distant drum had been heard, and soon all the drummers placed in between the bonfires had joined in. A steady beat echoed up and down the beach. People gathered around the bonfires had formed into circles and started dancing in time to the beat.

"Want to join in?" Suletta asked.

"I'd like to watch for a bit first."

"Probably a good idea." She seemed to understand, Miorine wanted to study the dance steps first. Suletta pointed. "There's a seat." It was a log that had been carved into a bench. They sat down.

The confluence of the fires, the drumming and dancing was hypnotic. It was an oasis of light and sound and motion that defied the growing darkness and seemed to stretch off to infinity to both sides.

By the time Suletta spoke, it was an almost startling interruption. "The dance steps look pretty simple." She pointed to their left. "There's a fire they're just getting started, maybe we should go there."

"Okay."

She seemed to sense that Miorine was distracted. Suletta gently took her hand. "You know that no news is good news, right?" she asked gently.

"Of course."

In the city just an hour's drive south of here, they had found a clinic that could give Suletta her regular Permet test. The results would have been sent to Suletta yesterday. It was all routine, and there was no reason to expect any issue at this stage. There was every reason to believe that Suletta had many more good years left. But it was becoming harder for Miorine not to worry. She understood down to her bones how fragile they all were, how easily they could be snuffed out.

Suletta folded her hands in front of her and gazed down pensively at them. Her expression was difficult to read. When she spoke next it was with a voice so soft that Miorine almost had to strain to hear it over the din. "If the day comes when I do have bad news, I have a picture of what it will look like. Some time when we are alone and very close together, I will shyly pull my hair back from the part of my face that shows the first signs from the Data Storm."

She looked intently into Miorine's eyes. "Then I would take your face in my hands and apologize for being the one who has to walk off the dance floor first."

Before Miorine could even begin to process that, Suletta got up, turned around and flashed a dazzling smile that made every cell in Miorine's body tell her with the certainty of revelation that they were both still sixteen years old with nothing but blue skies over green fields in front of them.

Suletta reached out her hand to Miorine. "But not yet."

THE END

Author's Postscript

(Strictly optional, if you want to just chill right now that's fine)

This story pretty much wrote itself. It was downloaded to me from goodness knows where, usually when I was busy trying to get other things done. But I was not entirely truthful about just being its stenographer. All the dodgy, twisted parts are entirely my fault.

The story is something of a departure for me in that it is essentially a biography. Rather than showing characters' lives being caught up in a story, it is more the story of a character's life, or at least a portion of that life. It is Miorine's story, but because Suletta is such a central part of her life it really becomes their story. This is exactly the sort of story I aimed to do, but it presented some challenges. It has less of a logical beginning, middle and end than what I would normally aim for. This was simply because I wanted to cover different parts of their lives, where they were focused on different things. The series, and especially its epilogue, just left so many openings for exploration. I hope that I managed to pull it together into something coherent and satisfying.

There are many things I could talk about but I wanted to make clear that the moral ambiguity in some of the actions Miorine takes in the story are not lost on me. In a different context, for what she did at the mercenary training camps Miorine would be facing a war-crimes tribunal. As it turned out, she ended up facing something far worse. She certainly did not deserve what happened to her, but that is the nature of war. People confronting the brutal unfairness of their world is something that most variations of the Gundam universe have in common. My take on Miorine is that she accepts the rules by which her world works and takes decisive action to exploit those rules. She tries to prevent a war. But she also escalates a cycle of vengeance. She helps the Earthians defend themselves. But she also orchestrates the buildup of a global military-industrial complex and then joins the military side while all the while benefiting from the industrial side, building herself a sort of two-way revolving door between the two. Some might see her as a saviour, others as a self-serving war profiteer. Perhaps neither are wrong.

Miorine and Suletta share one of the most compelling relationships in any Gundam series. Early on it is clear that Suletta is smitten with her new bride. Miorine's feelings are a lot more ambiguous, but they do show through. She is very much driven by anger, so we see those feelings in her singular fury over how Suletta has been manipulated by Prospera. What started as a transactional arranged betrothal became something more, almost without her noticing. Watching that happen was one of the most rewarding parts of the series. Throughout its course the two leads share remarkably little quality time, but the moments they do have are solid gold. That is what for me elevated this series above just being a very good Gundam alternate world.

Finally I want to thank Mark Engels for being beta-reader of this story. His insights were invaluable, this is a much better story thanks to his contribution.