Devil May Care Ch. 02

"So," the man said, his American accent perfect. It gave no hint if he was Russian MVD, Chinese secret service, or the Brazilian ABIN. "If you move, those whirlers will activate. It will not be pretty."

Loki did a measurement. If those are M2s, then he's out of the blast radius. Barely.

M2s - like K9s - were technically batteries. Spring-spools contained in folded space. But where K9s were, as the name suggested, nine kilometers long, M2s were, logically, two meters long. Two meters of wire cabling, unspooling at relativistic speed, would turn Dey and Loki and some of the computer room into so much finely minced meat.

The man quickly dumped the computer cores into a belt pouch, each one vanishing into warped space. Once he had finished, he turned back to Dey, then grinned and turned to go. The M2s started to blink faster and faster.

Who wants to bet those are on timers?

[Of course they're on fucking timers - they go off just as he gets to the exit, and get a nice distraction,] Dey thought. The problem with teleportation was that it wasn't teleportation. It was warping space so that the space before her was shorter. She'd still be stepping over the M2s, and they'd still go off. Then, an idea came to her mind. She tensed, readying to jump.

Oh no, Loki thought.

[It'll work,] she thought.

I know, I just wanted to say I... he paused. If it doesn't work, it was an honor, DeShane.

[Likewise,] Dey thought.

Then...

She leaped.

Her belly slammed down onto the whirlers and they unspooled at the speed of light.

And, slightly faster than the speed of light, the space between her belly and the whirlers - in fact, the space between the whirlers and the rest of the room - expanded outwards. It was a fantastically complex warp bubble, generated by dozens of implants and orchestrated by an AI who, if he could, would have been sweating buckets. But then the field snapped away and Day landed, belly first, on four meters of unspooled cables. She pushed herself up, then sprinted forward, her feet pounding as she ran out of the door.

"Asshole!" she shouted.

The spy looked over his shoulder, but he was already skidding around the corner. Dey shrank the space between her and the wall, slamming into it shoulder first. She overcorrected, skidded, then ran after him.

[Cadet Gallagher, what is going on?] the booming, bass voice of Colonel Star rang in her ear.

Spy, sir! She said. The fucking cook has his hands on the whole set of nascent AI cores.

The entire base started to whir and howl with alarms. But the man was already reaching the door to the underground hanger. The door started to shut - but then he was through. Dey sprinted towards the incredibly narrow space, then through it, the warp field expanding outwards to give her plenty of room. The man, looking over his shoulder, seeing her coming, drew his pistol. But rather than aim at her, he aimed at five techs who were working on one of the VTOLs.

"Fuck!" Dey hissed. She snapped out her arm, firing in a single movement. Her grapnel wrapped around the ankle of one of the men and he yelped as she yanked on him. His back smashed into the floor and he took out the legs of his friends, piling them all on the ground. The microwaves smashed into the upper edge of the VTOL, popping off metal plates and filling the air with sparks. But that had bought the spy time.

He reached one of the scout-bikes that the base kept for training. He thumbed on the hover-engines, and the bike whirred into the air, then shot towards the exit. The man veered to the side, tossing another M2. This one slapped into the side of the door closing off the hanger.

Dey ran to one of the scouts, springing onto it. Muscle memory, burned into her by the past few weeks of training, set her hands into the activation cycle. She flicked on switches, touched buttons as the hover engines whirred to life. Gravity negation, jet turbines, and micro-gas thrusters all clicked and spun up, bringing the bike into the air.

The M2 went off.

When M2s didn't spool into nothingness, they were a damn impressive lightshow. Filament spun fast enough to compress oxygen in the air and ignite it, while slapping into the door's metal. Friction and sheer force turned a circle two meters wide into red slag while also mincing it into thin sheets. Bits of molten steel and charred carbon went flying inwards, leaving a nice hole out onto the Mojave desert.

Well.

The bad guys knew where the base was now.

The man shot through the hole.

Dey hesitated, then reached out towards one of the prone techs. His service pistol sprang from his holster and slapped into her palm. "Thanks!" she shouted, then used her free hand to accelerate towards the hole. She leveled her pistol and fired - twice. The bullets whined past the spy. He looked back, then twisted around to fire his microwave gun at her. She veered to the side as far as she could - and since she didn't cook, she figured he had missed. The ground behind her didn't look disturbed - but it was earth, not metal. She hit the ventral jets and her scout-bike shot over a boulder that it would have struck. She landed, now only fifty meters to the back and left of the spy. She scowled and leveled her pistol again - firing two short bursts, snapping out the shots. The wind, movement, and erratic swerving of the other guy kept throwing Loki's target adjustments.

[Think we can teek his bike out?] she asked.

Don't want to risk it - if I fuck up, I can jam your hand into a prairie dog hole and rip it off.

Dey nodded, then swerved - putting a small ridge between her and the spy as he fired at her with the microwave pistol. She swore, then did some back of the handle calculation. She looked forward, and Loki shrunk space. She felt her arms and her skin buzz - the energy required to shrink space for her and her bike was more than what was normally used. But it got her forward and ahead. She hit the ventral jets again while slewing to the side. She hit the ridge, bounced over, then soared through the air.

For a moment, she hung overhead. Then she kicked off her bike, thumbing the engine off at the same time.

The bike dropped like a stone, right into the path of the spy. He veered, overcorrected. The underside of his bike skidded out from under him and he hit the dirt and sand of the Mojave and skidded almost fifteen meters before coming to a stop.

Loki canceled Dey's mass. She floated in the air like a dandelion seed. But she could already feel the K9s in her back starting to run along the edge of their power reserves. She aimed at the ground and fired. Her grapnel slammed into the dirt and caught. She spooled herself down and landed with a thud. She heard a quiet chiming in the back of her mind - Loki muted it.

We're down to fifteen percent power, then we're just on backup power supplies and the RTG, he said.

The RTG - a radiothermal generator - was contained in a dimensional pocket right below her breasts. The pocket kept the radiation from cooking her, and the RTG provided enough power to keep her essential implants, like the containment units for the K9s, operating until her death. And a few centuries after that. But since it provided constant, slow power, it was kind of useless for, say, dodging bullets.

The spy started to stand. His entire left side looked like it had been shredded. But the blood that she expected wasn't flowing. It had fast clotted, turning half of his entire body into a hideous scab. He lifted up the microwave pistol - then scowled and dropped it. It had been pulped.

"What the fuck are you?" Dey asked.

He grinned. "My masters - and no, not telling - took me to the Perseus Mumblers. You don't want to know what the Mumblers ask for, but my masters provided it. In exchange, the Mumblers...took me." His eyes were strangely empty, now that he wasn't acting. He cocked his head to the side. "Do you know what it is like, on the other side of the event horizon of a black hole?"

Dey hefted up her pistol. "I've seen the remake," she said, quietly.

The man smirked. The scab sloughed off, revealing pink, pristine flesh.

Dey's hands didn't shake. She was gripping the pistol too hard.

The man took a step forward. Dey shot him. The bullet slammed into his chest. He staggered, then kept going. She shot him again, then again. The bullets tore through his chest and painted the sand behind him black. But then his palm closed around the barrel and the last bullet blew through his knuckles. A finger hit the ground, but he was already scabbing over. His head smashed into Dey's face and she staggered backwards - then ported backwards and to the side, her palms touching the desert dirt.

The place where she had stood now had a big glob of burbling, hissing acid on it. The man spat the residue off his lip, which were burned and scarred and scabbing.

[Got any ideas?]

That burned another percentile off our power supplies, Loki muttered.

[Okay. This guy's got acid spit, but he's not using any more M2s. He's gotta be out.] She stepped to the side as the man regarded her. He looked like he was considering what to do as well. [I say we bubble him.]

You'll need to get a good blow in. We can't just rip his face off from a distance, you'll need at least three DV generators in contact with any of these locations, Loki said, creating three target markers - one on his sternum, one on his gut, and one in the center of his forehead. Dey nodded. Then she advanced. The man lunged forward. He swept his palm out, claws bursting from his fingertips. Dey caught his wrist. His knee came up, rushing towards her chest. She rolled backwards. He spat and she rolled to the side. The acid splattered the ground. She kicked with her leg, throwing sand over the acid to try and damp it out. Then sudden pain lanced through her arm. She looked down and saw a few flecks were eating into her flesh.

[Deaden that!] she howled, her mental voice edged with agony. The pain went to...ignorable.

The man grinned at her. He didn't seem to care his lips were bloody ruins now.

Of course he doesn't. He's insane, Loki said.

Dey panted, then snapped out her fist - a feinted punch towards his face. He spat, but she wasn't where he had expected. She darted to the side and slammed her knee into his gut. Not enough generators - but it staggered him. She smashed her palm into his jaw, forcing his teeth together. Acid sprayed around his teeth, and she saw a fleck of it splash along the back of her knuckle. More agony. She ignored it.

Instead, she fired her grapnel.

The grapnel, designed to drop a hundred meters off, punched through the soft tissue of his jaw, hit the roof of his mouth, skidded, and bust out of his left cheek. The claws deployed, digging into his eye socket and jaw. He howled in fury - but not pain, his eyes flaring with rage. The next surge of acid got caught on the grapnel, melting and dissolving the metal like Styrofoam caught in a warm rain.

"What's the matter?" Dey hissed. "Cat got your tongue?"

She put three of her fingertips on his forehead.

Loki created a bubble of warped space in the middle of his brain. Blood and bone went flying in every direction as his head exploded. His headless body staggered backwards, blood dribbling around his neck. Then he fell onto the ground. Dey staggered backwards, pain screaming through her body from a few dozen lacerations and impact sites. Then she grabbed her pistol.

The army VTOL arrived as she was putting rounds in his chest.

She wasn't even a hundredth of a way through the clip.

###

Laying in a hospital bed with a regen-patch on her shoulder and arm with a purple heart and a commendation for valor was just as smugly satisfying as Dey had expected. She pretended to watch the news reports on the continuing shooting war in It's a Trap - aka Trappist-1, aka Ya'ii, aka half a dozen other fucking names - while Loki, being Loki...ate her out.

She needed being eaten out.

A lot.

His tongue plunged into her sex, his nose rubbed her clit, and his nice, thick middle finger plunged into her sex. Dey's eyes unfocused - no longer able to see the battle lines and reports on the harsh fighting taking place around the Chinese colony on Trap-A.

"Dey?"

Dey blinked.

Fong, Muller and Martinez stood in the doorway, looking fresh and peppy in the dress blues, their buttons polished, their hair done straight. They all looked at her as if she was a fucking hero - their eyes shining.

"Holy fuckballs, you assholes got off Ceres?!" she asked, her voice tight as she tried to not moan. What? Just because three of her old roomies showed up was no reason for her to ask Loki to stop fingerfucking her. Don't be silly.

"We got liberty for the week - we're all graduated," Fong said, grinning as he walked around the bed. "You're the loser whose going to be in bed for a month and half while we all get postings."

"Mmm grEAT!" Dey managed to not buck her hips desperately. Somehow. Loki had added a second finger, and his thumb was caressing her clit. Not that this stopped his tongue from circling her sex, then sliding in. Physics didn't have to apply when you were an AI. Hence why, when they did fuck, his cock was big enough to have caused actual physical damage.

"You okay?" Muller asked.

"She's obviously getting her freak on," Martinez said, grinning. "Man, I've seen Halo, I know that AI are banging."

"Loki is not Cortanna-" Dey cut off that word before it became 'Cortanaaaaaaaah.'

Fong sighed. "My aunt got evacuated, you know?" He smiled. "She'll be okay."

Dey sighed, and in genuine relief, said: "Good."

"And we all applied for the same berth," Muller said. "Since we're all fighter pilots, we wanna be on the one of the C-4s, uh, I think it'll be the Biden. She's the newest four deck carrier, you know. Only takes the best." He puffed up his chest.

"Of course," Dey smiled. "Don't win any wars without me, okay?"

Fong shook his head. "How did you get injured, anyway?"

"Classified," Dey said. "if I told you, I'd have to KII-ill you." She closed her eyes, grinning slightly. She disguised the fact she was closing her eyes to hide the flutter as Loki licked her clit by laying back in bed.

Fong snorted. "You are getting banged, aren't you?"

A quiet ahem drew all of their attention. The three new Lt. Jgs saluted as Colonel Star stood in the doorway. He nodded to them. "Dismissed," he said. Dey's old roomies hurried to go. Colonel Star stepped into the room - and Loki, because he was a smart boy, stopped eating her out. Fun was fun, but Colonels were rarely fun. Especially after what happened.

Colonel Star smiled at her. "You did well, Cadet Gallagher. But don't think this is going to get you out of the rest of your training."

Dey smiled, shyly. "I didn't think it would."

Colonel Star sighed. "But you did perform your duty with the exemplary qualities that we look in our Devils. Bravery, quick thinking, and a willingness to make sure the mission gets done. Plus, the R&D folks are salivating at the idea of getting their hands on someone the Mumblers messed around with." He smiled and sat down at a chair, drawing it over to the space beside her bed. He clasped his hands together. "I feel I owe you this, as you saved five of my people."

Dey nodded quietly.

"We have no idea who sent the spy," he said. "Could be the Chinese. Could be the Russians. Hell, for all I know, it could have been one of our own corporations. Immature AIs go on the market for millions, and if you raise them right, they can work like slaves." He shook his head. "What matters, though...when we find out who sent them, when you are done with your training...I think you'll be a good choice to send to bring these sons of bitches down."

Dey considered.

Slowly.

She smiled.

"I'm fucking in. Uh, sir."

Colonel Star smiled back.

TO BE CONTINUED

Glossary

A.I: Artificial Intelligence

ABIN: Agência Brasileira de Inteligência - Brazilian intelligence and espionage service.

AFG-55: Armalite Flux-Gun, model 55. The standard rifle of the United States Marine Corps. Uses DV Emitters to create magazines larger on the inside than the out, providing millions of rounds per magazine.

AG Field: Antigravity field, produced via spatial manipulation using micro DV Engines.

AR-15: Mid 20th century assault rifle.

ASM: Anti-Ship Missile

Balder: A sentient, distributed intelligence produced by accident in 2019 by Google. Now friends with 90% of the human race.

C-4: Shortening for the C4DCOV9, a four deck fighter carrier used by the USAF. As the United States

Navy still builds surface ocean aircraft carriers, space-based carriers are differentiated by being named after vice-presidents.

Ceres: Dwarf planet in the SOL asteroid belt - primarily used as USAF training facility and staging area.

Cherenkov Radiation: Radiation produced when light slows down on entering a new medium.

D.V.E.I.L.S: DeVilbiss Engine/Emitter Integration/Logarithmic Systems: A highly expensive cybernetic augmentation that uses hundreds of DV emitters and an integrated AI to create super-soldiers.

DI: Drill instructor

DeVilbiss Engine (DV Drive, DV Emitter, DV Engine): The FTL engine used by humanity. Invented by Paul DeVilbiss in 2024, it uses etched superconductors to create negative energy, which warps space/time using the calculations put down by physicist Miguel Alcubierre to model the spatial warp. Miniaturized DV Drives form the basis of a wide swath of human technology.

Devil Troops: Colloquial term for D.V.E.I.L.S augmented troops.

FS-65: Modern American starfighter, often nicknamed the "Starfury" or the "X-Wing" due to its X-shaped chassis.

GPS: Global Positioning System.

Imperial Russia: Autocratic superpower, centered in Russia. Hegemonic aims towards Eastern Europe stymied for the past century by the EU and NATO alliance, Russia has expanded quickly in space. Traditional rival of the United States.

K9/K10/K12: Short for "9 Kilometer" or "12 Kilometer", these mechanical batteries use springs to produce kinetic energy, which is turned into electrical energy and used by connected devices. Shrunk to portable size by DV emitters.

Lt. JG: Lieutenant, junior grade.

M-16: Military variant of AR-15

M2-E13: Standard sidearm for United States Air Force. Uses a K2 energy cell to power an infrared laser, capable of firing an alternate electro-static shock which is functionally identical to a taser.

M2: Also known as a whirler due to distinctive 'whirling' filament wires released by its activation. A scaled down K9, but designed to release its stored power in a few nanoseconds as a destructive combination of kinetic energy and radiative heat.

MVD: Ministry of Internal Affairs—Russian secret police and espionage service.

NCO: Non-Commissioned Officer.

OU-BAC: A long ranged USAF spacecraft. Colloquially called a Light Carrier, the OU-BACs are used to patrol fringe American colonies. Armed with railguns, nukes and a single wing of FS-65s and two air platoons of drone platforms, OU-BACs are potent and flexible craft. Named after Civil War battles.

People's Republic of China: Nominally communist superpower, centered in China. Has stellar territories - several of which have become fully incorporated Prefectures. Maintains cool relationships with USA, but primary competitor is Imperial Russia.

Perseus Mumblers: An enigmatic race of merchants and traders who dwell beyond the veil of a the V616 Monocerotis Black Hole. Named by explorer who got the pegasus and unicorn confused.