Delagarza said nothing, letting his expression speak for him. Kayoko gestured at the rebels next to him. His back tensed, ready to make a move, but the two men lowered their rifles and nudged him toward Kayoko’s home.
Taiga was a different beast than the one Delagarza had left months ago, back when he was merely Samuel Delagarza, ‘ware expert and fast-talking prospector.
These streets weren’t empty, but they were devoid of the nervous life of the tourist and the hustler making their luck in them. Instead, armed rebels roamed around, their spines straight and in high alert, their partial power armor buzzing with the hum of repurposed reg-suits and battery packs.
He saw a couple tanks, nothing like the urban titans that roamed upper Alwinter, but old ones, versions not seen since the old Earther wars. Machine gun nests covered the corners and oversaw kill-zones covered in mines and razorwire. Mortars and other small artillery vehicles were better hidden, but Hirsen pointed them at Delagarza when he caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye.
Most of the rebels, despite their weaponry and armor, carried the tattoos and implants of former gangers, perhaps not even a year away from that life.
Taiga’s recycled air carried the stench of sweat, gunpowder, and fear. A battle was coming. It would be a decisive battle if not a particularly close one.
Kayoko’s home had been designed in classical Nipponese fashion, with said fashion being, perhaps, the only feature older than Kayoko herself in the entirety of Taiga Town. Unseen servants, perhaps machinery, parted the wood panels that covered the house’s entrance as Delagarza and his rebel escort approached. Their footsteps came muffled against the tatami floor. They didn’t leave their shoes at the doorstep, a particular breach of manners that life in Dione made a necessity. The risk of frostbite took precedence over politeness.
Dragons stared at Delagarza as he passed, drawn with ink over the sliding panels of the house’s doors and walls. Unseen life-support machinery filled every nook and cranny with a warm summer breeze, no buzz or hum that Delagarza could hear. Kayoko could afford the extra expense of quiet living.
She waited for him in a yellow room, bare except for an elm table with short legs, teacups, and a pot over it. Nanny Kayoko sat on the floor at the other side of the table, a steaming cup waiting in front of her. She was dressed in a pink kimono that made her look as graceful as the flowers across its silk. And as fragile.
“You’ll have to excuse me not waiting for you,” she said. “But I had no notice you were coming, and I’m afraid I’m not young anymore. Tea?”
Delagarza sat opposite her as the two rebels left the room at her urging. “Shouldn’t you be leading your rebellion?”
She dismissed his words with a wave of her hand and poured him a steaming cup of tea. “Ah, I’ve people to do that for me. All that can be done is being done, I assure you. It’s hard to lead an underground resistance with an all-seeing God hovering beyond the sky, its mind set to destroying us. That an old lady chooses to spend her last moments enjoying a facsimile of the tradition of her ancestors is not going to change the end result.”
Joseph Clarke and his ships are about to kill that ship you fear so much, Delagarza thought. He could imagine the countdown. Twenty five hours until Sierra’s arrival at Dione, the fight with Vortex sure to come long before that. He wondered if the firelights would show up in Alwinter’s night.
He took a sip out of the cup she offered him. It carried a grass-like aroma and tasted of green and the ocean. “I need a transmitter,” he said. “The EIF is calling to Hirsen, but I cannot answer without one.”
She paused to drink. “We have a long distance radio transmitter here, but the Vortex will listen to anything you say. If you want encoding, you’ll need to go to our headquarters, where we have the ‘ware you need. I’ll have Cronos show you the way. Maybe you’ll beat the enforcers to the punch.”
Delagarza nodded. At the back of his mind, Hirsen ran some numbers and clicked a metaphorical tongue in disapproval. We have to get out of Taiga, and fast. They’re running on borrowed time.
“I’ll tell Cronos to bring you the transmitter. Is there anything else, Samuel?” Kayoko asked. She texted a short string of instructions from her wristband and looked up, expectantly, like she could read Delagarza’s mind.
“Hirsen’s wondering,” Delagarza said slowly, “why you haven’t been forthcoming with him about your investigation.”
“Maybe if Hirsen saw fit to oversee conversations I have with his own body, I’d be more keen to share with him,” Kayoko said. No hesitation on her part. Her old eyes glinted with mischievousness.
“I know about the junkyard,” said Delagarza. “You’re keeping Newgen’s spaceship there. What for?”
“To investigate it, of course,” she said. “You wish to know what I found?”
Delagarza nodded. His cup lay forgotten on the table, half-drunk.
“More questions,” Kayoko shrugged. “Data that made no sense, either the mistake of faulty equipment or a mystery that far exceeds the capacity of my team of scientists.”
“We have no time for vagueness,” Delagarza urged her. He could see Hirsen’s projections about the enforcers’ advance. Those amphibian teams they led came straight from Vortex infiltration squads, Tal-Kader’s answer to Earth’s marines.
As if to punctuate his words, a tremor shook the room around them like it was made out of cardboard. Delagarza’s cup spilled green liquid over the tatami pads.
The sound of a firefight erupted in the distance.
“Indeed, Samuel,” she said. She placed a tense, white hand under her kimono, breast-high, and took out a black data chip from a hidden pocket. “You wish to know why I didn’t tell Hirsen? Greed, Delagarza. Plain old greed. If I had more time to study that ship, I’m sure I’d have become as powerful as the great CEO of the Edge’s oligarchs. Imagine what I could’ve done for my people. For Dione.”
“I’m sure your reasons were all pure and noble,” Delagarza said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
“None of that matters now.”
She handed him the chip. He pocketed it.
The next tremor was more violent. Delagarza looked up, wondering if the ceiling would come down on them.
“Just answer me one last question, Samuel. Ask your invisible passenger if you must,” Kayoko said, behaving like the tremors and the now clearly audible firefight outside didn’t exist. “What do we know about the universe that can make a ship three decades younger than it should?”
Delagarza blinked. He almost forgot about the incoming battle. “What?”
“Hand the chip to the EIF’s best experts,” she smiled. “See if they can crack the riddle. If they can’t…ask the Mississippi. No, don’t ask me to be clear. It’s just woman’s intuition is all. An educated guess, from an old fool who spent too much time gazing at the sky.”
The paper door slid and Cronos entered the room. He was carrying a handheld device the size and shape of a portfolio. “We need to leave, Nanny,” he said. “They’re coming.”
“I can’t run, my dear,” she said. She stood and winced as she did so. “But I figure that won’t stop you from trying to protect me, will it?”
“No, nanny,” he said. “We’ll die to carve a path for you.”
Kayoko nodded, accepting Cronos’ loyalty with humbleness. “Then I won’t insult you by ordering you to leave me behind.”
Delagarza grabbed the transmitter from Cronos. It was heavy, but Dione’s low gravity made up for it. He could run with it if he had to.