"Flight leader, Eagle flight, we have visual contact with target. ETA now fifteen minutes."
"Eagle flight, flight leader, we copy," Eile replied. She glanced at her navigator-bombardier. Maj. Sonne Hiver nodded back. "Confirm fifteen minute ETA. You are cleared to arm. I repeat, you are cleared to arm."
"Wilco, flight leader. Eagle flight out."
"Almost there," Eile remarked.
Maj. Hiver, whose callsign was Sunny, nodded again. "Ten beers says we won't get the bastard until after the first run."
Eile grinned, though Sunny couldn't see it as it was hidden by her flight mask. "Yer on, sucker."
Sunny giggled. Eile reflected, not for the first time, how odd she was. Surprisingly silly and girly for a serving Air Force officer, she was nonetheless the best navigator in the service. She had been transferred to Eile's squadron just a year before, and she proved her worth on her first mission. Eile assigned her to her own Intruder because she wanted the best by her side. She had an almost intuitive grasp of navigation, and was able to calculate even complex targeting equations in her head. Since she joined the team, the squadron's mission success rate had jumped a hundred and fifty percent.
Now she needed her even more than ever. The consensus among the think tank eggheads was that the Walker was a berserker, a machine designed to kill and destroy. They speculated that it had been developed either as a doomsday weapon or as a way to eliminate possible interstellar threats and potential competition. They couldn't say whether its appearance had been a random landing or a targeted strike, but they estimated that just one Walker could clear the continents of all life in a year.
Fortunately, there was hope. A salvage mission by the Navy managed to recover material from the ocean floor that they believed came from the Walker after it crash-landed. That was confirmed by comparing it to material recovered from the nuclear detonation site. Analysis of the material revealed that its structure was built and maintained by nanotech robots no bigger than bacteria, which explained how it was able to repair itself even after being blasted by a nuclear bomb. Somehow, a group of scientists managed to reprogram a collection of nanobots to demolish the Walker's substance rather than rebuild it. Those had been packed into a warhead installed in the Tomahawk they carried. It was hoped that when the missile struck the Walker the nanobots would be released on impact and would destroy it. It was a gamble; no one knew if it would work, or how long it would take, though the principle had been proven using the recovered material. But gamble or not, it was their best hope. If it failed, their only remaining option was to try to make a direct hit with a ten megaton bomb, but there were those who didn't believe it would work.
The radio broke into Eile's thoughts. "Flight leader, Eagle flight, ETA five minutes."
"Eagle flight, flight leader, roger, cleared to engage, repeat, cleared to engage."
"Wilco, flight leader. Out."
"They're getting into position," Sunny reported.
Eile couldn't see it, they were still too far away, but she imagined the Eagles breaking formation to reassemble into a vertical rosette. Six planes would form a ring around the seventh, creating a large face from which to fire a massed salvo. It was necessary to break through the Walker's defenses.
It had only a two-layer barrier, but it was formidable. The first layer consisted of a field of aerial mines called Poppers. About the size of a softball, they floated in a torus around the Walker. Though only one Popper occupied a cubic meter, the field was made up of multiple staggered layers that closed all gaps. They exploded on contact, but the thickness of the field ensured that even a missile was likely to hit at least one while trying to penetrate, and no aircraft had ever made it through unscathed. Despite their size, they packed a wallop; just one could destroy a fighter, and three or four could bring down a bomber.
Experience had shown that only when enough Poppers had been destroyed could aircraft get through the field; the magic number was eighty-five percent. Military analysts had also discovered that it wasn't necessary to attack the whole field. Once a Popper was placed, it stayed in its place until destroyed. Hence, if a section of the field could be reduced to 15% intact or less, aircraft could make it through. The vertical rosette was designed to accomplish this. When they got close enough, they would fire their fragmentary AMRAAMs, and with any luck they would blow a hole through the field.
After that came the second layer, a ring of satellites each the size of a weather balloon. They were called the String of Pearls because each satellite was a featureless, smooth, pearly white ball. If anything got past the Poppers, the Pearls would emit an electromagnetic pulse that would fry all semi-conductor circuits in range, effectively disabling any electrical and computer system. The Eagles were specifically hardened against the EMP, as was her Intruder. Hopefully they would survive long enough to take out the nearest Pearls with their Phoenixes. That would clear the way for the Intruder to make its bombing run against the Walker.
But regardless of the success of the mission, the Eagles were not expected to survive. Eile had made participation in the mission strictly voluntary, but she had been made proud when all her pilots volunteered. Those that were flying with her now were chosen by lots, except their leader.
"Flight leader, Eagle flight, in position, standing by. Three minutes to contact."
"Eagle flight, flight leader, roger."
"Flight leader, target acquired. Pickles going hot. Two minutes to contact."
"Eagle flight, copy. Fire at will, repeat, fire at will."
"Wilco, flight leader. Ninety seconds to contact. Fox three."
"First salvo away," Sunny reported.
Eile waited anxiously for the results.
"Popper field 98% intact," Sunny reported.
"Flight leader, sixty seconds to contact, fox three."
"Second salvo away." Pause. "Popper field 95% intact."
"Shit, this isn't working! Eagle flight, fire all missiles, repeat, fire all missiles."
"Copy, flight leader, wilco. Thirty seconds to contact, fox three."
"Third salvo away."
"Come on, come on!" Eile muttered.
"Popper field 90% intact," Sunny squealed, anxious.
"Dammit! Break off, Eagle flight, break off!"
"Negative, flight leader, we still have our cannons. We'll get you through. Five seconds to contact. Eagle flight out."
"They're going in!" Sunny yelped.
"Aw, cripes!"
"Eagle three, gone. Eagle five, gone. Popper field, 88%. Eagle six, Eagle two, gone. Popper field 85%. Eagle four gone, Eagle seven gone, Popper field 83%."
"Eagle one, break off! That's an order, break--"
"It's too late!"
Eile saw a small fireball bloom in the distance.
At first too shocked to speak, Eile soon felt rage boil up inside her. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" She knew the odds of Eagle survival were low to begin with, but it seemed so senseless for them to throw away their lives like that. They were good men and women, most with families. For a moment, she found herself hoping she wouldn't survive, so that she wouldn't have to inform their loved ones.
"Status," she ordered. When Sunny didn't reply, she turned to look. Sunny was staring out the window as if stupefied.
"Major!" Sunny jumped and looked at her.
"Status!"
Sunny looked at her instruments. "Popper field 80% intact."
Not enough; nowhere near enough, Eile thought. "Jesus, we're not gonna make it." And she didn't know what hurt most, that they would fail their mission, or that Denver would be wiped out.
Read the rest of the story [https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/336463-the-denver-walker]
From "Rhapsody in Orange"
The sight of Differel looking up from her desk stopped them in their tracks. She sat hunched over, leaning on her arms braced against the desktop. For a moment she almost looked like a zombie. She was haggard and disheveled, with heavy bags under her bloodshot eyes, her stringy, lifeless hair
ragged and unkempt as if she hadn't showered for several days. It wasn't simply a matter of letting herself go; they had seen that before. It seemed indicative of a failure of will, as if she didn't care anymore. Eile glanced at Sunny, and from the look on her face she could tell she understood just how bad a shape Differel was in.
The aristocrat leaned back in her high-backed chair and rested her head against the padded leather. "What are you two doing here?" She looked and sounded weary, as if she had very little energy left.
"We haven't seen much of you lately, except in the Dreamlands," Sunny said as she closed the door, trying to sound airy, "so we just decided to drop by."
Eile decided to go along with her. "Yeah, Dracula was kind enough ta give us a lift."
She closed her eyes, as if the effort to get irritated was too much for her. "You two never were good liars. Aelfraed sent for you."
"Aw, cripes. Yeah, yer right, but he's worried about you. They all are, and now that we've seen you, so are we. Geezus, Diff, what's happened?"
She opened her eyes a crack. "That's none of your business."
Eile could feel herself getting angry, but she reflected that if she could a rise out of the blue-blood, that might snap her out of her malaise. "Like hell it is. We wanna help you."
Differel leaned forward and removed a cigarillo from the desk's humidor. Eile knew she used smoking as a defense mechanism, so the fact that she was getting one seemed a good sign. But she didn't like the way her hands shook as she lit it with her father's lighter.
"Everyone's been trying to help me." She stood in a slow, cautious manner. It was almost painful to watch.
"I don't need help." She walked around the chair towards the back windows, pausing for a moment to steady herself. "I need understanding and acceptance," she concluded before continuing on.
Sunny walked around the desk to be with her, and Eile followed. "That's what Eile meant," she said in a soothing tone.
She turned to face them, her visage grim as death. "No, you're like the others. You won't believe me either. You'll just laugh, or feign sympathy as you plot to have me committed."
Eile finally lost her temper. "Dammit, Differel, do we hafta spell it out, again?! We're yer friends! We're not gonna laugh at you, or question yer sanity; we will try ta help you anyway we can. But you hafta level with us. Now, come on, what's wrong?"
She gave them a desperate look, as if she really wanted to believe them. "I...don't know--"
A lilting, child-like voice wafted through the air. "Aw, go on, tell them." It was followed by a giggle.
Sunny whipped her head around trying to locate the source of the voice, but Eile was more disturbed by Differel's reaction. She went rigid, as if having a seizure, and bit off the end of her cigarillo, which dropped on the marble floor in a small shower of sparks. She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace and jammed her fists into each temple.
"Who said that?"
Differel snapped to attention and stared at Sunny in utter disbelief. "You...you heard that?!"
"Wellllll, yeah, naturally," Sunny said, her eyes wide with wonder. "Who is she?"
Differel charged straight at her and grabbed her by both arms. "You really heard her?!" She shook Sunny hard enough to whip her hair around her head.
"Cut it out!" Eile said. "Let her go, we both heard it!"
Differel threw Sunny at Eile and backed away from them. "How do I know you're not lying? How...how do I know you're even real!? Maybe you're just more hallucinations! Merciful God in Heaven, I may actually be going mad!! I can't live like this! Dear God, please, make it stop; make it stop--"
Eile strode up to Differel and slapped her across the face so hard she turned her head and knocked off her glasses. The blue-blood glared a look of outrage and slugged her in the mouth. Eile flew back and Sunny caught her before she fell.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?!?"
"You were wiggin' out!" Eile replied as Sunny put her on her feet. "I couldn't think of anything else ta do."
Differel made an effort to calm herself, but still stared daggers at her. "Hmph. Well, it worked, but never do that again."
Eile tested her jaw. "Don't worry, you've gotta a right cross that can fell an ox, lady. So what's going on anyways?"
Differel took a moment to retrieve her glasses and head back to her desk. "It started a fortnight ago. I heard the voice for the first time as I was falling asleep. I awoke, but no one was in my room, and I assumed it was just a dream. But I heard it again, louder and clearer, the next night, and then the next night, and the night after that."
She paused to select another cigarillo and light it; Eile noted her hands still shook. "It kept talking to me, night after night, incessant, more frequent and longer each time, until I could barely sleep. Meanwhile I started hearing it during the day. It would break in while I was on the phone, in a meeting, receiving a report; then when I was reading or exercising, or just trying to relax. I never know when I'll hear it, or for how long." She put her hands over her ears as if trying to deaden some cacophony. "And I cannot block it out; no matter what I try, it breaks through my thoughts and hammers at my brain like a pile driver."
She dropped her hands and turned to look at them. "That's when I told the others. I hoped Vlad had been aware of it and would vouch for me, but he denied knowing anything. They tried to be sympathetic, but they were convinced I was merely suffering from stress."
She took a deep, rattling breath. "I almost believed them, but then I started seeing her! At first it was in my dreams, then I would catch glimpses of her in halls and rooms, just flashes out of the corners of my eyes. But then she started leering around corners and through windows, popping out from behind furniture, standing just inside when I opened doors--Vlad never saw a thing!"
She took another rattled breath. "By then I was deteriorating rapidly and I was sure they would pack me away to a sanitarium any moment. I was becoming paranoid; thank God you two are here now, because I doubt I would have lasted another day."
"What does she look like?" Sunny asked.
Differel gave her a sharp look. "What?"
"The girl you've been seeing; what does she look like?"
"Like me," the voice said. Eile turned with the others and saw a girl fade in from nothing as she pirouetted across the room towards the desk. But Eile realized she wasn't a girl at all. She looked like a late-twentysomething woman who dressed and acted like a child. She was short and petite, which added to the illusion, but there was a maturity of face and figure that belied her playacting. She was dressed in what looked like a Sailor Moon senshi uniform like some kind of cosplayer, except over it she wore an open cape-like coat. She also looked fairly normal, except for the baroque style of the clothes and ornaments, and the fact that everything about her was in various shades of orange: costume, hair, eyes, lips, cosmetics, fingernails; even her skin had an orange tinge to it instead of pink.
As she approached, she giggled, warbled, and bubbled laughter, until she came to a stop just in front of the desk and faced them, a huge grin on her face. She jammed the index fingers of both hands into her cheeks and cried, "Ain't I cute?!"
She acted and sounded like a lunatic, which, Eile realized with shock, was exactly what she was.
From "Jigsaw Dragon"
Eile Chica crouched behind one of the pylons at the foot of the stairs. She turned her head to shield her face from a tongue of fire that lanced past her hiding place.
"Are you ready?"
Eile glanced across the causeway. White-Lion was hunkered down behind the opposite pylon.
"Yeah, as ready as I'll ever be."
Another gout of flame interrupted them.
"Okay, on three," White-Lion said after the fire dissipated. "One, two, three! Let's go, partner!"
She rose and dashed out onto the first step as Eile watched. Looking up the stairs, she held out her staff and shouted, "Halon!" A milky-white, concave shield appeared in front and slightly above her. A stream
of fire shot down from the top of the stairs. It hit the shield square in the center, but instead of penetrating, the flames spread out along its surface and flickered off the edges.
White-Lion gestured. "Come on!"
Eile ran up behind her, trying to keep low. Together they advanced up the stairs, while the fire covered the shield.
Eile couldn't see anything through the flame, but as they climbed she saw the shield go from white to yellow to orange. Her stomach knotted in cold fear; she expected it to collapse at any moment. If that happened, they would be incinerated to char before they even felt the heat.
It seemed to take forever to reach the top of the steps, as the shield turned a dull red and then glowed a molten cherry. Finally, White-Lion came to a stop. She pulled her staff back; the shield retreated towards her and turned to orange as cracks began to appear. Eile broke out in a cold sweat and her mouth dried up. If this doesn't work..., she thought
"Kii-yaaah!" White-Lion threw the staff forward. The shield jumped away from them and rammed the source of the flame. It shattered and dissolved, but it extinguished the fire as it threw a figure back.
"Go!!"
Eile charged around White-Lion, up the last few steps, and between two more pylons.
She lifting her broadsword and roared. "Rrraaauuugh!" The figure recovered and threw itself at her. It had a body like a cross between a velociraptor and a dragon, including sickle foot claws and a long, sinuous tail, but minus the wings. The head, however, looked like that of a milk-skinned, sable-haired woman with ice-blue eyes.
The dragon-lady got in the first blows, leaping up and raking at Eile with its claws. She parried the hands, but the sickle-claws skidded over her breastplate and the steel scales covering her belly. She danced back then sprinted forward, swinging her sword. The dragon-lady blocked the short, wide, thin blade with its arms as it raised its tail. She saw it had a spike on the end, and her opponent held it poised as it looked for an opportunity to strike.
Cripes, this is like fighting five people at once! "I don't know how long I can hold her off. Move!"
"Right!" she heard White-Lion say, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a streak of gamboge hair move around the outside of the pylons to get to the plateau behind.
Sunny Hiver paused after she clambered over the edge of the plateau and stood up. Looking back, she watched as Braveheart and the dragon-lady struck and parried, slashed and blocked, while they waited for an opening to deliver a crippling blow. Braveheart wore a furious expression of intense concentration, though the vivid fuchsia locks that framed her face made her appear comical. Her long ponytail of seal-brown hair waving like a flag didn't help either.
"Dammit, White-Lion, go, go!"
Sunny turned and jogged further onto the plateau as she searched for their quarry. It was as big as a gymnasium, and sheer granite cliffs enclosed three sides. At the far end, she spotted something, and sprinted