Interzeit: A Space Opera (19 page)

“Its suppose to be fluid, no one who lives on LC 3, calls it Lunar Colony
3
, or LC 3 for that matter. If you talk about it like that, everyone will know you’re a foreigner immediately.”

“What do they call it then?”
Lei asks
, “If it’s not called Lunar Colony
3
, then why does everyone else call it that?”

Iza waves both hands flippantly over her head, “It’s all the bureaucrats and technocrats that set up this whole scam. They hardcoded into the most of the systems with these IDs, and no one in charge cares to waste the time asking the citizens what they prefer. So everyone said, screw that, and
started calling it whatever they wanted.”

“So I what do I call it?” Lei asks again,

“Ugh! You don’t understand, huh?” Iza groans,

They get ushered in by the docking computer without hassle, once their safely back in the dome, Iza flicks the top down again. They drift through the small parking area, and head out into the street.
Lei immediately notices
a more divergent liveliness hear compared to Kovksygrad.

The planning is more haphazard, with different blocks and areas having wildly different layouts, and designs, but paradoxically sharing many redundant purposes with each other.

She recognizes some of the buildings are built with the distinct motifs of the deep spacer. They pass a plaza with large thick walls,
made of the same material
Tian
Shan
builds junk deflectors out of. Further down the street there is a glass pyramid with
an
iron wrought gate strangling its
perimeter.

They turn left away from it before she can get a better look at the exotic piece.

“Kind of a shit heap right?” Iza asks as they clip along,

“It’s charming,” Lei disagrees, “
It could use some trees though
.”

Iza la
ughs, “It could use trees…ah
,
I’m
saving that one for later.”

They cut near the border of the dome, Lei half expects them to exit again, when Iza makes a sudden turn onto a si
de street,
then turns again
. The street continues ahead,
burrowing into the edge of the dome there
sloping downwards
.

They glide into the tunnel, the lights grow dim, the path primarily lit with small amber colored numbers, giving off an aura of a sort of pseudo candlelight.

They come to a gate, this one manned by an actual team of guards. They have the gray sash of the Lunar Protectorate over beige all purpose fatigues. Large rifles strapped to their backs, their faces give of a clashing somber look, a look that Lei is familiar with, but almost se
ems contradictory in the moment
with
Iza
there.

“Miss Sato,” one greets her, “Very good to see you, I’m happy you’ve made it back to base in one piece.”

He looks briefly at Lei, “I assume this is the honorable Lei Liang.” He gives her a respectful bow that Lei tries and fails to replicate from her sitting position.

He waves them through the large metal maw parting, and consuming them.
They drive a little further down, when it finally opens up to a parking area. They do so, and exit, Iza guiding her into the complex.

“Commander
Plaskin,
is going to want to meet you, give you a whole big speech. Interfactional cooperative blah blah blah, the long and short of it is that the Cabinet and many factional leaders want a closer working relationship with all of our militaries and mech pilots.

The moon was chosen due it being close enough to Earth for a quick reaction, but far enough away to n
ot seem like an occupation.
”

“Makes sense,” Lei agree,

“Great! And don’t talk too
much,
she hates talkers, fun, and all that stuff.”

Lei agrees
to try to contain her sarcasm, and boisterous ways, Iza guides them both to a large room with a window watch the gray moonscape horizon. It’s rippled, but untouched by the hands of mankind, giving it a serene almost dead sense of perfection.

Lei meets
the
commander,
though they get along fine, Iza was not inaccurate with her description.
Gruff,
and no-nonsense Plaskin gives her a detailed and dry break down of the cooperative efforts. She outlines that they will all be training together, and sharing best practices.

Lei inquires
to the status of her mech, Plaskin informs her that it
’
s still in transit, but she does have something for her.

Curious, Plaskin leads her to
a storage
closest, it slides open, and she sees a shiny new
Anthrion
. Its “eyes” flutter on, and its voice is unmistakable.

“Miss Liang!” it says, “I’m so glad to see you again. From what I’ve heard I was quite brash, and apologize for any trouble I caused you. Of course my old body was destroyed befor
e those memories were backed up
.”

“No need for the formalities Bas
i
l!”
Lei says
happily, embracing it. She lets it goes, “You should come along, you have many days that you’ve missed,
syncing
to the ionics will take some time.”

“Very good,” it agrees, breaking down into its arachnid form, linking into her pilot suit’s ionic array.

Iza watches the reunion from across the room,
cupping her hands over her mouth
, “Gross!”

…

The next few days are a nice change of pace for Lei. Free to explore the Protectorate with most of her time, her duties are quite limited. The only thing required of her, is to supervise Izanami’s training, which despite her attitude, Lei enjoys thoroughly.

Iza’s mech, Skyking V, or as she refers to it “Vee” is a new twist on a classic design. It’s a much lighter
model,
its armor plating is contoured along the curves of the machines body, giving it a slender almost thin look.

The old weapon system was ditched completely, the rocket pistol design
,
from Lei’s perspective
,
must have been too old school, or perhaps the Lunar council did not trust their pilot.

Lei felt like many people around the base didn’t trust Iza due to her flagrant disrespect, but she had yet to give Lei a serious reason to
do so
. After all, she knew too well the pressure of being “The Pilot”, having to fill the role for your people, trying to pretend to be something fantastical and unreal.

To Izanami’s credit, she was an incredibly talented pilot. She maneuvered through her training exercises without any hesitation or break in pace. To take advantage of this impeccable timing, the lunar engineers installed blades on Vee’s shoulders, elbows, and hips.

Working similar to a chariot blade, she would slash past several targets in quick succession, or spinning and crashing through them entirely, the
blades
sizzling hot blue without resistance.

Far from the only weapons at her disposal, Iza chased the thrill of swishing and weaving to anything else. After a day of observation Lei caught up to her as she was leaving the changing room.

“Hello,” Lei said with a polite smile,

“Uh, hi,” Iza spat, rubbing her hair with a small towel.

Lei followed her.

“What’s up?” Iza asked, “Need help getting around the city?”

“Thank you,” Lei answered, “Perhaps later, I wanted to ask you how training was going. I’m very anxious myself to join you.”

“Its going well, the controls still
stick
a little bit going from a hard left to center orientation. I keep telling the techs that, but they still haven’t fixed it.”

Lei nods, listening, Iza grows paranoid of her follower
’
s overly courteous manner and intent. The awkwardness built up as the conversation continued, until Iza was at her limit. She twirled around pointing at her accusingly.

“What is it? Huh! You’re being weird!” She says

“Well, it seems like…”
Lei hesitates
, “How do I say this…it seems like they haven’t given you much combat training here.”

Iza’s face twitches against her will, her permanent tell of being angered.

“Why are you telling me this
? Shouldn’t you be asking Plaskin and her lackies about the minutiae of my training regime?”

“I wanted to help you, not them,” Lei responded, “Have you had much target practice
?
I know a fe-“

Iza punches
, decking Lei in the mouth, cutting her offer short.

“Who needs combat training now spacer!?” She shouts
,

Lei rolls with the pun
ch spinning out and away
, she dabs her face coming back with only saliva.

“Basil, please take a walk,” She says,

“Of course Miss Liang,” it answers, unfurling from her pilot suit.

The anthrion clatters to the floor and scurries off in the direction of her living quarters.
L
ei loosens
up staring
into Iza, whose faces shifts between fury and anxiety from second to second.

“You brat…you punch me, the least you
can
do is make me bleed,” Lei says, her voice dipping slowly into a deep sadistic candor.

“Let’s find out then, who really needs training,” She continues.

Lei circles around Iza, slowly creeping closer in long wide orbits. The tension builds as Lei dares closer and closer. Iza finally snaps
,
making the first move. She charges suddenly, swinging a wild hook.
Lei shuf
fles
back, leaning, clearing
the punch easily.

Then she throws herself forward smashing a straight right fist into Iza’s delicate face. She slams onto the tile floor with a thump, her head knocking against it, throwing her senses and consciousness all out of tune.

Lei pulls
the dazed girl onto her
feet
with a tight fisted grip. Iza winds
up another punch, but Lei goes
forward slamming her against the wall. Iza throws out a panicked flurry of punches, but with her entire body pinned they bounce off Lei weakly.

Suddenly she reverses the pin, and pulls her. With a nimble turn, she sweeps Iza back to the ground. She puts a knee into her small chest and leans onto her.

“You are very talented Sato, but you are unaware of your weaknesses. In battle, your opponent will not be as kind in pointing them out. We’re going to work on your marksmanship.”

Lei let’s off her, and helps her to her feet. Izanami stares at her through a swollen eye. Lei’s face returns to its tranquil smile, “I’m ready to be shown around the shit heap now.”

Iza leads her towards the exit shaking her head in disbelief, “You’re
…
Maybe you won’t be so so boring after all.”

They left, and Iza gave her a proper tour of the different regions of LC3. A sort of interfactional reserve it was split into a TianShan quarter, and a
Kuipterra
n quarter on different ends of the dome. The LP rules still applied of course, but behind closed doors
,
people were given a wide berth on how they conducted themselves.

Whether on principle or pragmatism, it was hard for Lei to tell, she scarcely saw security officers of any kind wandering the streets.
Indeed without any compliance officers around, it was hard for her to intuit the general nature of the people.

They came and went flaunting norms that others enforced, people crossing the street in careless droves, forcing traffic to move around them. The sky traffic in itself was also very aggressive and ever changing, crafts of all kinds constantly searching for the best, most open space to fly through.

Iza laughed at Lei when she asked how dangerous flying was. She was surprised by the narrow misses, and slips the drivers sometimes moved through a scant dozen meters above them. Any wrong collision could wreak havoc on the ground, but the natives themselves walked around the buzzing hive of machines without a second thought
.

It was a sort of attitude that reminded Lei of Vesta
, especially with the free zone
.

The big difference being the free zone was catered by machine corporations of various
measure
. The orderly towers were striated, leaving a literal top down control systems and contingencies on the activity on the streets. Meaning things, like transit in particular were conducted away from humans for their own safety.