Gunmetal Dark
By Angelina Vansen


RATING: NC-17 in this part for sex and death.
CODES: J/7 overall
SUMMARY: After Kaine and Mia escape from the Citizen bunker, Colonel Filer must figure out her next move. If you haven't already, please start from the beginning.

13.

"She's here!"

Voices, above her.

"Get the light!"

A beam on her face.

She was pleased; her arms were tired and her muscles hurt.

"Hang on, Colonel, we'll get a rope to you!"

Noises above, more shouting. Then the rope slithered past her, brushed her cheek as it fell. She lunged for it and held on, bracing her legs against the slippery rock.

Her soldiers pulled her up; she came out of the hole and fell onto the tiled floor with the wet slap of a landed fish.

Several hands reached down, helped her stand. Several faces looked at her with big, grief-filled eyes. White faces, pinched with misery.

"Report," she said. Pushed wet hair off her face. Despite her appearance, her voice was clear and strong, and it made several of her soldiers flinch.

No one answered. Glances passed between them. They shifted foot to foot.

"Report!" she demanded. "Did they escape?"

"Yes, Colonel," replied Flau. He stood beside her and licked his lips nervously.

"How many dead?"

"Twenty ... so far, I think ... some of them ..."

She nodded curtly, lips tight. "Did you find Cibb? She was killed in my office."

Flau nodded.

"Good. That's good. And you found bodies, yes? No one appears to be missing?"

Everyone swallowed.

"No, Colonel."

"Good. That's good," she said again.

Filer pushed between her soldiers, wet boots squelching. She marched down the corridor towards the main body of the base, the others at her heels.

"What's the status of Truestar A?"

"Functional, Colonel ... all but a few systems. The main one being the heating, but ..."

"No wonder it feels like a morgue in here."

"Uh, yes, Colonel. Leemann has a team on it right now."

"Leemann?" she interrupted. Leemann had only been second in command of the Truestar team.

Flau nodded gravely.

"All right," she said, stopping to address the group. "I'll need a change of clothes before we can do anything. Set up a meeting in fifteen minutes. My office. Department heads ... Leemann obviously. Dock?"

She looked at Flau. Flau shook his head.

"All right ... not ... not Dock. Vich, then. Samm?"

Flau nodded.

"Good. What about Magg?"

Flau nodded again.

She licked dry lips, heart pounding. "S-sergeant Shar?" she asked. She held her breath for the answer.

"Yes, Colonel."

She exhaled. Nodded to Flau. "Set it up, soldier," she commanded.

He nodded again, took his team, and left.

Filer went to her office. She had spare uniform there, spare boots, too. She washed in the adjoining bathroom, rinsed the rancid Sluice water out of her hair.

It had been disgusting down there, truly revolting. The last place she intended to die. Thankfully, she was a strong swimmer, and she'd fought the current until she'd got a purchase on the rocks underneath the hole. There, she had clung, stubbornly, for almost an hour. There had been no way she was going to drown in her own execution pit.

No. If Doctor Kaine Sigg could survive it, she had been determined Colonel Sparta Filer would.

Now, dressed, dry, with her hair tied back, she sat down at her desk.

Her terminal bleeped for attention; a report waited for her. It was the casualty report, the death toll. She scrolled through the twenty-two names on it, the details of their injuries, how each of them had died.

Unpleasant reading. Filer had known every one, could bring each of their faces to mind. Her soldiers. Her men and women. Good Citizens who had died defending her bunker.

At least their families had bodies. At least they had something to grieve over.

She poured a drink from the bottle she kept in her desk and swallowed it in a single gulp. Had another for good measure.

She would need to keep the cold at bay if Leemann didn't get the heating fixed.

The door buzzed. Her department heads waited outside. The screen showed Vich and Leemann, dirty and dishevelled. Sergeant Shar hugged herself, arms crossed over her breasts.

Filer buzzed them in, and they filed into the office in silence. Sat down in front of the desk. Nervous glances. Tired eyes.

Shar stared at the interrogation chamber; Filer hadn't bothered to put the holographic wall up, and Cibb's blood still trickled through the tiles and into the drain.

Filer ignored her gaze. Stood up and walked around the group of officers in slow, measured footsteps. A full circuit of her office. Back behind her desk.

She leaned over it, palms flat on the polished wooden surface.

"What happened?" she whispered.

For a moment, no one breathed.

Sergeant Shar cleared her throat. Filer wasn't surprised; it was always Shar who spoke for the group.

"As you know, Colonel, they sent a Softsuit down."

"Yes."

"Yes. It came in through the elevator shaft. Into the hangar. It took a hostage, took control of Truestar A and uh ... rescued your prisoner."

Filer did not break contact with Shar's brilliant green eyes. She let the silence continue until the Sergeant felt compelled to speak again.

She liked Shar's voice. It was light. It was little-girl-lost. Not a military voice at all.

"They escaped back through the shaft just after 0400."

"Really."

"Yes, Colonel."

"A Softsuit. One Softsuit."

"Yes, Colonel."

"And it came down the elevator shaft, through the hangar. Took a hostage, came to my office. Killed the hostage. Escorted me to the Sluice. Rescued the prisoner, dropped me in the river, and walked out of here?"

"That's right, Colonel."

"Right. Right ... so would you care to explain, Sergeant Shar, when you had a complement of one hundred and seven men and women under your command, why I have a casualty list with only twenty-two names on it?"

An indrawn breath from everybody present.

"Where the hell were the rest of you!?" Filer roared.

Sergeant Shar's gaze did not flicker. It steeled, all the warmth drained out of it.

"I withdrew my soldiers. We barricaded and took up defensive positions along the bunker's perimeter."

"You should have been fighting it!"

Shar shook her head. Not angry, not defensive. Soft. "I'm not letting my people fight Softsuits in close quarters," she said gently. "It's suicide, Colonel."

"There was only one of them!"

"This place isn't designed for combat, you know that. It's difficult enough to defend in simulations, against our own people. Softsuits ..."

"Softsuit. One Softsuit."

"And twenty-two soldiers who didn't make a dent. I don't think they hit that thing once. What am I supposed to do? Let our people die for nothing?"

"You were supposed to defend the bunker, Sergeant."

"It wouldn't have made a difference. We would have just had more dead soldiers."

"Colonel, with all due respect ..."

This was Vich. Interrupting.

"Yes?" Filer turned to him, turned away from Shar.

He shrunk in his seat under the force of his Colonel's glare. There was a little tremor in his voice.

"This ... this is a secret bunker, ma'am. It was designed to remain undetected while we hacked the Network. These high profile prisoners ... the high risk operations ... we weren't meant to be undertaking that sort of thing."

Silence. Next to him, Shar set her jaw. Looked at her hands. Magg closed his eyes.

Filer straightened, pulled herself to her full height. Tugged the hem of her jacket.

"Is that what you think?" she whispered. "You think I risked too much?"

"Colonel, I ..."

"No, that's fine. You're entitled to think it was too big a risk. Three Stars and the Citizen military ... they'd probably agree with you. I know I'm acting on my own here, and I'm disobeying orders. It doesn't sit easily with me, either."

"Colonel, I'm not questioning you. I'm just trying to offer a little perspective."

That amused her. She let out a short bark of laughter. "Perspective." She rolled the word over her tongue, tasted the sound of it. Each vowel and consonant. Shar shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"Corporal Vich, who is missing in your family?" Filer breathed.

Vich swallowed.

"Sister? Brother? Parents? Your wife, maybe?"

He nodded. "Wife."

"Mmmm," Filer cooed sympathetically. "Missing in Action, right?"

"Yes."

"Yes. Us too. My brother. Sergeant Shar's husband. Magg's daughter. Samm's brothers. Leemann?"

"M-my sister, Colonel. My twin sister."

"Leemann's sister. They say Missing In Action. They say that, don't they. So many of us, all being told the same thing, like it's an explanation, like it's an answer in itself. Just ... Missing In Action. And they never come home. And their bodies are never found. And we just carry on with our minor incursions, cutting their communications, hacking the Network. Being the pathetic Citizen Army. And all the while, their Softsuit squadrons get bigger and bigger with the bodies of the people we love, and nobody says or does anything. Even our own government denies it."

The sound of her voice in the silence of her office, rattling out words like machine gun bullets. Emotionless. Flat. Deadly.

The others gazed up at her, wide-eyed, emotional. In her thrall. She felt good. Powerful. She felt right.

"There's your perspective, Vich," she spat. "I am the only one fighting for the people we love."

Vich nodded, wordless. Pursed his lips.

"All right," she concluded. She'd had enough of this. "Anything else?"

Nobody spoke.

"Good. You're all dismissed."

Her officers stood. Exchanged glances. Moved for the door.

"Magg," she called.

"Yes, Colonel?"

"I'd like to inspect the damage to the hangar. Escort me?"

"Yes, Colonel."

He waited dutifully at the door, back straight and very military. She waited for the others to leave and allowed him to lead her down the main corridor.

Outside, soldiers were busy. They moved back and forth, carried toolkits and comsets and pressure cleaners, grim and tense. Her two medics, Gallard and Sander, passed her with a bodybag between them.

"Colonel," acknowledged Gallard. Sander nodded. They headed toward the infirmary.

Inside, the hangar was a hive of activity. Teams worked on the lighting rigs, on the damaged vehicles, cleaned the blood from the walls and floor. Leemann's people hung in cradles, wired to the Truestar control plates.

The place smelled like war, like death and gunfire, a scent that chilled and excited Filer in equal measures. It had been a while since she had smelled it.

Several bodies still lay where they had fallen, covered by opaque sheets.

"The worst damage is the elevator," Magg told her sombrely.
He walked ahead of her across the hangar.

She followed him. A large plastic sheet had been erected over the elevator doors, blocking what was within from the casual viewer. Filer brushed it aside.

Inside was carnage. Blood spattered walls, charred and twisted metal, and the smell of burnt flesh. Several of her soldiers lay in ruined pieces on the floor of the car. Torn bones white and blood red. Limbs blown off torsos. Skulls with bullet holes. Burned.

Filer closed the plastic curtain and stepped out again.

"The Softsuit dropped something explosive in here?" she asked, swallowing a sudden rise of her own bile.

Magg shook his head. "It shot those soldiers. Our people threw a combomb in there to flush it out of the shaft."

Filer nodded grimly. Looked about her. "I'd say it worked," she muttered.

"Yes, ma'am."

"All right, thank you, Magg. Go back to your team."

"Very good, Colonel."

She left the hangar and went to the infirmary.

As she suspected, the dead had been laid out here by Gallard and Sander.

Shrouded, on trolleys. Three neat rows of them, plastic labels stuck to their chests. Filer's breath caught; each label read:

KIA

One letter. One word. Killed. The air was still with the thrill of it. She couldn't move.

"Hello, Colonel," said Gallard. He stood by the wall, labelling the body he and Sander had just brought in. His voice was cheery, but he was a field medic. He was used to the dead and dying.

She nodded. "As you were."

He went back to his work. He whistled, a slow tune that echoed over the drone of the CleanField. He made notes on a comset. Sealed the sheet to the trolley with bakertape.

That whistle! It lifted the hairs on the back of Filer's neck as it rose between the plain white walls, through the whispering air from the metal vents. She walked slowly across the room, between the bodies.

Death. Yes, she had missed that smell. Missed the way it tickled her senses, teased her with its dark guarantee. One day, it told her, she too would die.

Nothing sharpened her sense of purpose quite like it.

Something caught her eye. In the corner of the Infirmary, a body without a shroud. A body wearing a Softsuit.

General Menendez. In all the excitement of the past few hours, Filer had forgotten him. So, apparently, had Doctor Sigg; she'd abandoned her lover to his fate.

The Colonel walked towards him, between the inert rows of her soldiers' bodies. Menendez's eyes were open, but unfocussed. Occasionally, he blinked.

Her scientists had given him the most rudimentary of programs: basic motor functions, reflexes, nothing more. Her scientists weren't capable of much more than that.

The screen above his bed monitored his ports, checked the interfaces between the Orgbrain and the Softsuit, the relationship between the Orgbrain and the Mirror.

Filer stared at the readouts, at the scan of the Orgbrain, its microscopic spindles bored into the lobes of his brain. It was beautiful, in a way, a delicate membrane sitting on top of the brain, gossamer thin, so simple and yet holding such perfect mystery.

Did it talk? Filer knew that Tenkatech people, people with Augbrains, heard constant chatter from machines around them, like voices.

The Citizen government denounced the use of Augbrains, implied that to have one was tantamount to being a slave, but in reality, Tenkatech were winning the war because of the Augbrain. They were making the advancements, inventing the Softsuits, the better computers and the better weapons because they weren't afraid to bend the rules, even when it came to their own biology.

In reality, Augbrains were no more powerful than a comset, but because they plugged into the user's brain, the intuitive capabilities were huge.

This Orgbrain, however, was something else. So classified that even someone of Kaine Sigg's standing didn't know about it. So advanced that even she had been mystified by its operation.

What was it? Where had it come from, and how had Tenkatech managed to create it? It was so different, so radical, so advanced. It was unlike anything that had preceded it.

Filer had no doubt that it was the key. Understand the Orgbrain, and the mystery of the Softsuit would also be revealed.

She was sure of it.

When she left the infirmary, her mind was buzzing. She patrolled the cold corridors of her base for a while, letting the thoughts build. Nodding at her soldiers without seeing their faces.

The Orgbrain was an infinite resource. They had cloned it from a few cells taken from the dead Softsuit Menendez now wore. It hadn't been difficult. The Orgbrain had known what to do all by itself, growing into place, drilling into the subject's brain, forming the perfect device within minutes. Her scientists had been literally open-mouthed. Speechless.

None of them had known how it worked; they knew only that it had.

Within minutes their subject, a soldier killed in an accident, had been breathing again.

Of course, he had died when they had tried to fit a Softsuit and remove it, but for a moment, there had been hope. Actual hope.

Filer had become addicted to that feeling. To believing they were breaking ground here, that she and she alone was doing something about the Softsuit situation.

Back then, her troops had worshipped her. No one would have spoken to her the way Vich did in her office this morning; they obeyed her without question. She would deliver Kaine Sigg. She would break the Softsuits, bring back the missing. Everyone had been convinced that it was time to stop hacking and start fighting back.

Now it would take something big, something huge, to make her soldiers believe that way again.

Filer stopped walking. She knew what she had to do.

And of course, she knew where she was. In front of a door, her fists tight balls by her sides.

SERGEANT A. SHAR
Private Quarters

Filer knocked softly. Hung her head, looked at the floor.

She heard footsteps, and then Shar opened the door, dressed in a robe. Her hair was brushed and shiny, tucked behind her ears. She was getting ready for bed.

The Sergeant looked so small without her boots; she barely reached Filer's shoulder. Her pale green eyes stared up at her commanding officer, big and wide in her attractive round face.

"I ... I thought you might be off duty," Filer said.

Shar nodded. She held the door open.

Filer went inside. The room was softly lit and smelled of skin cream. The jar was open on Shar's desk, and the Sergeant went back to it, smoothed some into her hands. Rubbed it into her face.

She did not speak. Did not look at her guest. Carried on as if her commander wasn't there. Filer stood by the edge of the bed, her jaw clamped and teeth tight. Watched the cream rubbed in lazy circles, melting into Shar's skin. Her soft, sweet skin.

Filer watched her. Filer loved watching Shar.

The room was full of steam from a recent shower, eucalyptus. Twentyberry. Lily of the valley. Warm and welcoming.

Fully moisturised, Shar drifted about, turning off her lamps. She had brought them from her house, the little house in Heny where she had lived with her husband before the war.

Filer knew this. Filer had heard all about it.

Shar went to her bedside table, to the stills in the pretty brushed-tungsten frames that had been a wedding present from her parents.

Filer knew all about this, too.

Shar pressed kisses to her fingertips and her fingertips to the lips of the people in the stills. One at a time. One kiss for her husband, for dark-haired, dark-eyed Ols who was Missing In Action. He was a kind man, Filer knew. Filer knew everything about him.

One kiss for Shar's daughter, for sweet plump Kimber, eighteen and already fighting on the last Citizen moon. Goodnight, Kimber. She loves you, Kimber. Wherever you are.

A bedtime ritual. Filer had seen it so many times. Shar's love. Her prayers, her tears. Filer watched it as she always did: in silence.

By the light of the last lamp, Shar's eyes glittered huge and green as she turned to Filer. She circled closer while Filer stood, straight-backed.

One hand, laid on Filer's shoulder blade, a small hand with small fingers, touching. Actually touching. Filer let out the breath she didn't know she had been holding.

Shar sighed too, sadly. Her cheek fell between Filer's shoulders, pressed to her spine. Her fingers traced a slow line down Filer's arm to hold her hand.

Human contact. Actual flesh.

It was too much. Too lovely. Shar's skin, smooth, the brush of her soft robe and the heat of her body through the layers of their clothing. The sweet smell of her hair. Filer couldn't take it, couldn't bear it, it was overwhelming.

She stepped away and tugged off her own jacket, unbuttoned her own shirt. Shar reached for her. Looking at Filer's body, not at her eyes.

Filer pulled the belt of the robe Shar wore, untangled the knot and let it fall open before her. Clean skin, dark nipples, plain military-issue microfibre briefs.

Filer's arms went about Shar, but it wasn't an embrace. Her lips pressed her head, but it wasn't a kiss.

Shar pulled her to the bed and fell on top of her, thighs spread over Filer's thighs; her breasts were big and soft and Filer couldn't get her hands onto them fast enough, couldn't hold or squeeze or touch enough of them.

Filer was so lost. So dizzy. Shar was an unquenchable thirst, an unstoppable flood. Hands everywhere, passionate hands that groped and nipped with short, sharp nails. Her mouth breathed words onto Filer's neck, hot words, mumbles of approval and groans for more.

Filer gave her more, willingly, happily. She dug her hands into Shar's briefs, groped her through them, though she did not remove them. That would be too much like sex.

This wasn't sex. It wasn't. Filer told herself it wasn't as she bit down on Shar's nipple, wet it with her tongue. Breathed the scent of her skin cream.

Above her, Shar arched, hair falling into her eyes. Orange lamplight bronzing her white shoulders. Filer reached for her, breathed across her lips without kissing her. They never kissed. Kissing was for lovers, and Filer and Shar weren't lovers.

Filer had no time for sex, and Shar was married. It wasn't love, either. How could any of them, any Citizen, fall in love when there were so many people missing?

Shar was skin, soft and warm. She was something Filer could hold on a cold night. Filer was something Shar did not deserve, a punishment and a denial.

Shar cried out, her light, childish voice rising as Filer's hands brought her to a climax. Pain and pleasure. Release and bondage. Her hands snatched at Filer's, squeezed harder and then harder still.

Her orgasm finished and she let go. She rolled to one side, not touching Filer any more. Not anywhere. Not at all.

Filer felt the heat from Shar's body cooling on her skin. The sweat of her grip still on her hands. Heard Shar's panting, saw her breasts heaving in the bed beside her.

Filer stared at the ceiling. Waited for it. Waited.

"I'm sorry," said Shar.

Filer closed her eyes. There it was.

"I'm so sorry," Shar said again.

Filer swallowed. "Don't be sorry." She always said that.

Shar fell silent. Rolled again so her back was to Filer, the line of her spine like a wall.

Filer waited. Mouth dry. Sex throbbing unfulfilled between her legs. Waited for it.

Shar sobbed.

Filer closed her eyes. Clenched her teeth. She'd been waiting for that, too.

She sat up, buttoned her shirt. Picked up her jacket, dusted it down.

Shar cried, curled into a ball on her bed.

Filer sealed her boots. Straightened. Smoothed the knots from her hair.

"Arden," she said gently, using Shar's first name.

Shar did not respond. Her face in her hands in the pillow.

"Sergeant!" Filer snapped.

Shar jumped. Looked at Filer with swollen eyes.

"There'll be a meeting in my office. Tomorrow morning at eight. All Senior Officers. We have to discuss the future of this operation."

Shar's mouth trembled. "Yes, Colonel."

Filer nodded. Tasting the taste of Shar on her lips, the skin cream that now tasted chemical and bitter.

She turned and left Shar's quarters. Her hands shook; she clenched them to control it.

Tonight was worse, she thought. She paced the length of the corridor, back toward her office. Shar always cried, always tried to apologise, but tonight was definitely worse. Her sobs had been hopeless. Helpless. Agonising.

It was the Softsuit, the dark reality of the twenty-two bodies lying in the infirmary. Filer knew it. What hope did Shar have now? What hope did any of them have?

No more. Filer slammed the door to her office. Sat at her desk, palms down on its surface, fingers spread. Looking at her hands in the bright light, the bones in her hands. The veins beneath the skin.

How much was that worth? Her government thought everything. They prized biology above all else, and so many had died. So many were missing in its name.

She turned her hands over, watched the pulse beating in her wrist. Was it worth one more life? Was it worth hers? Her government would think so. Her government, her commanding officers, the twenty-two soldiers who had died this morning, they all believed it was worth the sacrifice.

She clenched her hands into fists. Strong fists, the muscles tight in the heels of her hands. It was worth it. She thought of Kins, her brother. Ols, Shar's husband. Kimber, Shar's daughter. She thought of the woman in the Softsuit who had invaded her bunker and dropped her into the Sluice last night.

Whatever it took.

Tomorrow, she would make her plans.


CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 14


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