Icemaiden
Jarra Deyne carefully adjusted the knobs on each joint of her powered armor hardsuit while it hung on its carriage in the back of her cloudship. She leaned back to look at it again. It was a fine piece of machinery. It was pink and slate gray, a hard armor shell made of weathered metal. It was scored with scratches, carbon-scoring, and the remnants of earlier repairs. The helmet had six green sensors on the front for vision and other information. The sensors and the shape of the faceplate gave her an arachnid aura. The arms and legs looked firm, solid, and thick. Each had large plates of armor and intersecting, mechanical joints. It had an elegant, smooth quality despite its size.
The hardsuit was capable of throwing a punch with fifty pounds of force behind it, or move at sixty miles an hour or more when calibrated correctly. If not calibrated right, it could shatter her skeleton and rend her muscles and flesh apart. She didn’t want that. Her hand idly glanced over the scar on her leg from the worst accident she’d ever had.
She pulled a wrench from one of her belt loops, and carefully clicked each knob and dial into place, before twisting to lock them. The woosh of air pressure that was vented out of the suit was a satisfying noise, not least because it was an indication that she had done this part of her job correctly. She wiggled her suit's fingers and smiled in satisfaction.
Her suit was ready to wear, so she spun the carriage around so the back faced her. She did last looks to make sure things were good, and then stepped inside. The suit folded up around her legs, and the bottom half clicked into place. Then she slid her arms and fingers into the available sleeve, and was satisfied when they responded smoothly to her motions. The back and shoulders closed around her, and the armor’s pins moved, pistonlike, into the appropriate chambers. Another woosh of steam emerged.
She put her helmet on, making sure her shock of purple hair didn’t get caught in any of the touchpoints that connected the helmet to the rest of her suit. She’d had a few issues with that, too. Just about any injury, save the fatal ones, you could endure when wearing a hardsuit, Jarra had suffered.
She could mark her life by her injuries. She had scars and broken bones from hardsuit jobs, burns from cooking with cheap supplies, and strained muscles and nasty scrapes from her crashball career.
Today she was hoping to finish this job on time and with nothing new added to her medical history. She didn’t like to do things like this, but it was simple: bring in a fugitive who was affiliated with “international anti-government religious extremists.” That sounded a lot like a euphemism. But she was handing this fugitive over to her own government, at least, not to a fascist dictatorship. It wasn’t the most ethically sound job she’d ever performed, of course. But it was a big payday. Maybe she could finish the payments on her hardsuit or her ship, go independent, and do whatever she wanted. If only she knew what that was.
With her helmet securely in place, she did her last few checks. She was armed: Attached to her armor, she had vibro-axe with a wide blade, a primary gun and sidearm. Both were heavy caliber weapons that were nicknamed “bonebreakers” because their extreme recoil made them impractical for use outside a hardsuit.
Jarra descended into a round compartment on the underside of her ship, Pond Eel II. There, she began to attach herself via her armor to a small platform, really just enough space to stand on where the feet are attached. It had a tall central pole that her armor also clipped securely to. At the top were two handles, each with plunger to manipulate. The entire platform was wired to the ship by an extremely long, extremely dense metal coil. Almost half the Pond Eel II’s interior was taken up by storing the series of gears and pulley that allowed the cable to follow the platform in freefall, and pull it back up again. In lieu of a parachute, the platform had retro-rockets to gradually slow the descent. Getting it right could be tricky. For Jarra, it was second nature.
She barely reacted as she made sure the ship’s autopilot was engaged, or as the red lights and alarms sounded when the platform was ready to descend. She flicked the final switch on the interior wall of the well she stood in, and then undid the last latch on the bottom of it. The countdown sounded as it always did, and her platform gave way.
The first time she did this, she was terrified. She was about fifteen and finally allowed to try it for herself. The rushing wind, the fast approach of the ground, the churning, yawning sound of the metal cable slowly unspooling behind you: it was sensory overload. The rational response was to panic. Having done it many times now, Jarra simply stood still, watching her numbers come in, knowing exactly the right time to engage her rockets and signal the spool back on the ship to stop. She came in for her landing with perfect timing, more or less. She didn’t break her neck, so even if the platform got a little dinged in the descent, she considered it a success.
She landed on a rocky island under a cold gray sky. Not too far away was Scotland, where she could drop off her quarry after the job was finished. It was a fairly bleak place, coated mostly in moss and with several abandoned structures in place. People used to live here, but not anymore. Jarra secured the platform in place by slamming a metal stake into the rocky ground with her hardsuit’s built-in steamhammer. On her left arm was a revolver-like cylinder containing six such spikes. In a pinch, it could be reloaded with other materials.
There was only one place to go that had any signs of human activity, namely the telltale flattened grass indicating where a cloudship had once landed. Jarra followed that clue and found a cave opening. There was nowhere to go but in.
The cave system was clearly thoroughly excavated. After only a few feet, the rockwork gave way to thick slabs of brute force steel, almost like the ore of the rocks had been refined directly into the structure. There seemed to be almost no gap between the two, a seamless transition from cave to what Jarra would call a base, or maybe a lab. At the end of the metal corridor that the cave became, here was a gate. To Jarra’s surprise it opened with the push of a button, with no audible alarms or security.
Behind the gate, the walls were thick concrete and plaster with the calming seafoam green of a hospital or lab. It was an unusual choice for such a place. As she walked, she realized, she saw no evidence of any recent human activity. Not even dirt trailed into the complex. She kept her smaller gun drawn, but at her side. Maybe this would be an easy one.
Jarra kept her guard up as she got further into the facility. But rather than traps and security systems and defenses, her trip deeper into the bowels revealed nothing except the first evidence that there was anyone here. She started noticing loose wiring, blinking lights, and the remnants of molten metal that indicated that doors had been cut through with a high-powered torch and removed manually. Scrape marks on the floor seemed to indicate crates or other items being hauled in one direction. Every day was locked, so Jarra just followed the path of the ones that had been cut open.
It felt almost like a maze, but there was only one direction to go. At the end, she found a door. It had no lock, just a simple pressure pad, and it opened with ease. She found herself in a large room, clearly a lab or engineering station, with materials everywhere. It wasn’t in disrepair exactly, but it was crowded full of machines and other items. Looking deeper, she saw a few other rooms at the end of the lab area. Four glass windows revealed smaller sublabs, she thought. One was covered by a black cloth barrier on the inside. When she stood in the middle of the room, she finally noticed some activity from one of the smaller labs.
There was a woman. She had shaggy blonde hair and a lab coat on. Her legs were clad in shiny dark tights, and her back was to the window. She seemed hard at work on something. Sparks were flying around her every few seconds. Around the edges of the table there were lit candles, wax melted and congealed as far down as you could see. Jarra walked slowly in her direction, hoping to catch her by surprise but not shock her.
It was hard to be stealthy in a hardsuit. Jarra was only a few feet away when the woman turned around suddenly. She lifted a pair of goggles off her eyes. She was the most beautiful woman Jarra had ever seen. She had sharp blue eyes and red crystal earrings. Circling her neck was a tattoo of thorns. Her lips were soft but full, and shiny. Lip gloss? Jarra didn’t really know makeup. It was working for her, though.
“Hey. Sorry. I’m here to escort you to some government agents. You’re in trouble,” Jarra said. The woman scowled. She dropped what she was holding, which looked like some kind of soldering gun, and came out from the small lab room. From the front, Jarra could now she was wearing a black leather miniskirt and a buttoned white blouse. Her ears were studded and looped with more piercings, as was her nose. She had rings on several fingers, and tattoos visible almost everywhere. Sigils, snakes, runes, and flowers stuck out, but there were clearly more.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the woman said. She was undeterred. “You’re some kind of bounty hunter? Absurd. Absolutely absurd. I should kill you.”
That was enough. She was hot, but Jarra wasn’t going to be insulted. She lifted her gun and pointed it in her direction.
“Try it, if you really want. I still get paid if you’re dead,” Jarra said.
“But not as much,” the woman said. That was true. It was only half, which was not enough to pay off her debts, and she’d have to kill someone. Jarra did not like killing. If she had to, she had to, but she never relished it.
“Why don’t we agree not to kill each other?” Jarra said. Hesitantly, she lowered her gun.
“That voice…” the woman said. “My god. I know who you are.” Jarra watched as her fingers twitched, and she was momentarily worried that whoever this woman was, she was much more dangerous than she seemed.
“You do?” Jarra said.
“Jarra Deyne. The crashball player. They used to call you Mother Superior,” she said. Jarra instantly rolled her eyes, not visible in the helmet. God damn.
She had been a professional crashball player for years. It was a mixed-gender sport with a variety of weight and strength classes represented on a given team. Jarra played second point, whose job it was to stop the runner from advancing to third, by way of combat. Blows to the head and chest are forbidden, but everything else is fair as long as they remain in the second point bounds. The martial arts experience and tactical knowledge she had gained through her career had served her well as a hardsuit op.
“Mother Superior” was a nickname she hadn’t heard in a long while. It started after she had engaged in a little trash-talking, saying the Tokyo Swarming Crows “didn’t have a prayer” of getting past her. It evolved from there. Helsinki Milkcaps merchandise with her face in a nun’s habit flew off the shelves. Occasionally, she found some of the old shirts in one of her own closets.
“So you know me and I don’t know you. Wanna fix that?” Jarra said.
The woman walked forward, and Jarra was a little embarrassed to have a gorgeous woman get into her personal space.
“Lynette Ysidreau. I’m a sorceress. They sent you here because people are afraid of what I do. It’s a trumped-up charge. You knew that already, I suspect,” she said. “In fact, I don’t think you want to do your work at all. But it’s the only thing you’ve ever done. Work for men who tell you what to do, where to go, who to fight. And what do you get in return? A pittance. Correct?” she said.
Jarra didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t used to this kind of conversation. These situations usually ended with her being shot at. If she talked like this, it was late at night at the bar after a shitshow went down. When she and other veterans would talk about getting out of the game, giving it all up.
“Look, I came all this way, and I have to fulfill this job because my suit—“
“I can fix it,” Lynette said. “I can improve it. I can do things with it you haven’t dreamed of. Me and some other relevant experts. But you have to give all this up. The cop bullshit.”
“Freelance peacekeeping operative,” Jarra said.
“Euphemisms. I know what type of woman you are,” Lynette said.
Jarra turned away, putting up a hardsuited hand to her current target. “Enough. I’ll give you credit for trying psychological manipulation, that makes you smarter than most of the people I encounter, but this is not—“
Lynette took a step closer, boldly getting into Jarra’s face despite the presence of weapons. Jarra could easily kill her, if she chose to. “I know it’s not a debate. And I won’t be going with you. If you want to come with me, you can. I’m willing to take that chance on you,” she said. “My research is scary to people. The afterlife, dark magic, things beyond our understanding. Our ancestors sometimes had the right idea, although they didn’t have the ability to understand everything we do now. I’m not asking for a commitment, although I guess I am asking you to blow up your life. But do you like your life?”
Jarra looked at Dr. Ysidreau for a while, not moving. Neither of them moved. Then, Jarra reached for the vacuum seal on her helmet and released it, pulling her helmet up and off. She could make direct eye contact with this woman and see how she felt. Not a great system, and one that had failed in the past, but she did it anyway.
“Are they scared of you because you want to turn all this—“ she gestured to the paranormal artifacts and books along one wall. “—into a weapon?” Jarra said.
“They’re scared because I don’t. I don’t see… spells, summoning, contact, as a new frontier in warfare. I see it more like art. A bridge to human understanding. Science is a tool to make things. Magic… if I can call it magic, it’s more like a tool to understand things. Deeply. I want to understand you, Jarra Deyne,” Lynette said. She held her hands out in an open gesture, and if not for the hardsuit, she could have easily reached over and touched Jarra’s face.
“I must be insane for listening to you,” Jarra said.
“Maybe this is the first sane thing you’ve ever done,” Lynette said. “That’s how I felt when I… touched the other side.” She took off her labcoat, revealing slim shoulders that moved with dignity. She gestured for Jarra to follow. They walked across the warehouse lab to the covered glass window. Punching the keypad, Lynette opened the door. Inside it was what looked to Jarra like a basement apartment, with a beautiful but worn rug in the center of the room, old furniture in mismatched colors, warm amber lights along the wall. Books and monitors took up one wall; a bed, with a curtain around it, sat in the opposite corner.
“This is where I’ve been living. Making my plan. Preparing. Waiting for the perfect person to come along. A collaborator. You have a ship out there that I can jailbreak so no one can track you. I have an entire life, if you want it. Or one job. All the money you could want. Repairs, improvements to your hardsuit. And it would just take one job, for me. With me,” Lynette said.
Jarra holstered her gun. “Why should I trust you?” she said.
“Why should you trust the men who sent you here? The greedy pillagers who keep access to your suit from you. The fascist collaborators who want to turn me over to American Imperium soldiers to be locked in a labor camp prison. The CEOs who run it all. Who have exploited your labor since you were a crashball player, and to this very day,” she said. “They hate you and I the same. We’re nothing. What I’m offering you is the chance to make it even.”
“What is it that you’re going to do?” Jarra said. “What is this plan? What are they so afraid of?”
Lynette grinned, her mouth full of sharp teeth. “I want you to help me kill the President with a magic sword.”
President Shood of the American Imperium was venal, corrupt, hateful, and ignorant. He was vain but ugly, thin-skinned but cruel, slovenly and careless but demanding of perfection in others. He loathed women, foreigners, and anyone else who threatened his fragile notion of white masculinity. He was, in many ways, the average American man. Private corporations made the important decisions, but day-to-day indignities and bigotries were inflicted on the people of the world by Shood and his morally hideous minions.
Jarra lived far from America, in what used to be called Siberia. Now, it was part of the Northern Division of the Free Nations Coalition, more commonly called the “Arctic Pact” after the treaty that had brought them together. To resist the overwhelming tyranny of the American Imperium and its allies Russia and China, smaller, democratic socialist countries throughout the world had joined together with open borders, universal basic income, and other benefits to their citizens. That included the overwhelming number of refugees following wars and climate crises, as the great world powers continued to consolidate power in the hands of just a few.
To those citizens still trapped in totalitarian countries, the Coalition could seem like a utopia. To those who lived there, it could feel like merely a creative extension of a bureaucracy designed to keep fussy people placated and inconvenienced, rather than truly taken care of. Jarra lived in a harsh environment, surrounded by refugees and their descendants. Her own grandparents had met while fighting in the Finnish Foreign Legion, during the Siberian War. That conflict was still sometimes called the “War for Nothing,” fought as it was over hundreds of miles of frozen wasteland. But for Jarra, it was home.
She thought of that as she took off in Pond Eel II, with her fugitive-turned-collaborator in tow. Was she out of her mind? Was this an insane idea? It almost didn’t matter. She slapped in the memory tube Lynette had made into the port on the side of her console, and the tracking, navigation, and communication of the ship were cut off from any tracking. She sighed, and closed her eyes trying to steady her mood. Her job was a bad deal, and she had put up with it for too long because it was easier than trying to change it. It was time for a change.
It made her think back to her twenty-sixth birthday when she first seriously started to consider transitioning. It wasn’t a decision to be made lightly, exactly, but advances in medical technology and social progress had made things a hell of a lot easier. Within a few days of making her decision, she started hormone therapy and had a new wardrobe custom-made. The hormones were delivered first in a patch and then a sort of implant, which she still had to this day. She rubbed her left shoulder, under which it was located, and remembered the flood of feelings, the way she had to recontextualize everything that her life had been. Was she really doing that again?
Jarra had taken off her hardsuit already, and allowed Lynette to walk around the ship under her own recognizance. She was not following the typical threat protocol. Was it just because this was a hot, domineering woman who could tell her what to do? And tell her not to listen when other people gave her orders? She didn’t know. Talk about thinking with your junk, Jarra thought, and reflexively rolled her eyes.
She sat down on a palette, in only her underwear and a t-shirt. She looked over at Lynette who was busy working at one of the ship’s console and a portable mini-computer that she’d brought with her. “Why did you trust me? I could have just kept you handcuffed and turned you in and gotten my reward with absolutely no penalty,” Jarra said.
“Then that meant you were always going to take me in, and I’d go in alive, at least. But I just thought if there was a one percent chance you were actually sympathetic it was a risk worth taking,” Lynette said. “I was right.”
“I feel like I’ve met you before. Maybe just someone like you…” Jarra said.
“Or maybe we’ve known each other from the start. You don’t always have to see someone to talk to them, or even talk to them in order to know them. There are other planes for us, too,” she said.
“‘Us’? Like citizens? Humans?” Jarra said.
“Women,” Lynette said. She turned back to her work curtly, as if to signal that the conversation was over.
While en route in the Pond Eel II, Lynette explained their quest. She pulled up a video on the ship’s monitor, which was for navigation and communication, but Jarra mostly used it to watch TV. It was grainy, compressed film footage of Russian soldiers loading crates onto trucks.
“Fifty years ago, Russian soldiers looted thousands of artifacts from Scandinavian countries during the Siberian War. Some of them have never been returned. Mostly, they’re just trinkets. Of historical interest, or personal significance to local people, but not of any intrinsic value. However, a few are more interesting…” Lynette said. She waggled her fingers around on a phone and pulled up some new images.
“This is the only known photo of Icemaiden, the sword of Skuld. She was a half-elf princess who waged war against her evil brother-in-law. She commanded an army of the undead and other creatures to reclaim her throne,” she said.
“I know some of the old-timers believe in elves, but isn’t that just a kids’ story?” Jarra said.
“It may well be. I can’t say how much is true. But the sword is real, and its abilities, when attuned properly, are tremendous. It is, indeed, a magical sword. Some will say ‘cursed’ because men love to assume magic that harms them is cursed. It’s just that only certainly people are qualified for using it. I can’t obtain it myself because… it requires a warrior’s touch,” Lynette said.
“So I’m your warrior? Get the buff bitch to swing Excalibur around for a bit? At least it’s a challenge,” Jarra said.
“Indeed. According to medieval manuscripts, it was sealed inside a black coffin along with a skeleton in full armor. Anyone who attempted to claim the sword was found dead, usually violently. The Russian army didn’t even try to open it. They sealed it away, beneath this church—“ Another click, another new image, an old photo of a church. “— which was bombed near the end of the war. It’s in ruins, but that reliquary chamber underneath should still be intact. I believe with my help, you can retrieve the sword.”
“And then we’re going to fly to Florida, kill the president, and escape in a yacht,” Jarra said, repeating back to Lynette the plan she’d presented earlier.
“Between the two of us, we have everything we need. The sword is helpful, if not strictly necessary. The propaganda value is immeasurable,” Lynette said.
“You sound like a cultist, but I believe you,” Jarra said. “Lucky you for being hot.”
“What?” Lynette said.
“You. Hot. You look like a model. And that ink and piercings are really sexy, plus those weird shiny tights,” she said. “I thought that was the whole thing. You knew I’m into chicks, so you use yourself like a honeytrap…”
“No…” Lynette said. For the first time her voice did not have the clipped assurances of a test proctor. “I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not hot. The tattoos are mostly part of my work. They’re ritual designs, and some to commemorate new knowledge I’ve gained. You— you are attractive, obviously. In fact, I was worried that was clouding my judgment on trusting you. It wouldn’t be the first time someone used sex appeal to bring in a bounty.”
Jarra rotated her shoulders backwards. “Me?” was all she said. The two women stood silently.
“Is this a good time or a bad time to mention there is a sex magick ritual connected to this sword?” Lynette said, pivoting back to her detached and formal way of speaking.
Jarra flew the Pond Eel II over the Rubblelands, what Arctic Pact folks called the war-ruined parts of Siberia and northern Russia that were now their territory. They fought hard to obtain them, but so many miles were ruined and generally not fit for human habitation. It was nostalgic for Jarra. She used to come out to places like this with her older cousins, and her first couple girlfriends, and just go exploring. Skeletal concrete structures were good for general tomfoolery and for “training” with airsoft rifles. With the girls, it was also an easy place for prolonged hookups, as long as they didn’t mind fucking in a tent.
The flight was an easy one, essentially overnight, with most of it done on autopilot. As they approached their final destination, they were cut off from most communication signals, so Jarra did the last leg herself. The coordinates of Lynette’s church were easy enough to fly to. The outline of what had been a church and a few remaining stone structures were visible from above. Rather than deal with her wired platform, Jarra just landed the ship on the frozen dirt. The sun was out, but it was bitter cold.
They emerged from the ship in appropriate gear. Jarra wore her hardsuit, and Lynette wore a brown leather ensemble that made her look like an adventurer from an old steampunk show. Her jacket was lined with wool and her gloves were very stylish. She wore a tight-fitting black mask over the bottom half of her face. God, she was hot. It was genuinely distracting.
“I intend to be with you every step of the way, darling. I’m not asking you to take on risks that I wouldn’t,” she said. “Let’s go.” Jarra got to work, cutting away some concrete and brick with her vibroaxe to get a clear path into the basement. Illuminated by lights on her hardsuit, it looked like death and decay. Dirt had seeped in from every crevice, and it seemed to Jarra that no human being had set foot here in a long time.
Inside, on a tile floor that was cracked but intact, lay the black coffin. It looked as solid as ever. Lynette crept carefully behind and pulled out a small, but clearly heavy, piece of black stone. She groped around the coffin for a second before finding what she wanted. She slid her stone into an opening, and then kept her palm on flush on it. The intricate spiderweb-like design tattooed across her left hand and up each finger began to glow green.
A hum emerged from the coffin, getting louder and louder until the lid began to move. Jarra didn’t react, until she realized: it was being opened from the inside.
“Lynette, run,” she said. “Run now. Don’t argue.” The other woman looked at her, and for a moment, Jarra saw fear in her eyes. That was new. She ran past Jarra and climbed out of the opening, back into the open air. Jarra readied her axe and the gun in her suit’s hip holster. The heavy coffin lid slid onto the ground with an obscenely loud crash. Crawling out was an armored skeleton, animated by a cloud of vapor, like an aura of visible breath. The figure was nearly as tall as the basement’s ceiling. Jarra wondered if just gunning it down was the right move, or if getting it out into the open would save her from being trapped herself.
A hoarse, frost-bitten voice spoke: “Why do you seek the sword of Skuld?”
“To kill an evil man. A hater and abuser of women,” Jarra said. Why was she talking back instead of just shooting? The armored skeleton leaned down to be eye level with Jarra, or it would be eye level if her face weren’t hidden in the helmet.
“Very well. Fight me. Claim the sword for yourself.” It turned around and reached into the coffin, pulling back an item and showing it to Jarra with an open palm. It was a black scabbard that matched the image Lynette had shown her earlier. The skeleton affixed it to the back of his armor. Then, he reached back in the coffin, and pulled out another sword. This one had an opaque blue blade that almost looked like glass, and it was easily over a foot long. It looked like nothing Jarra had ever seen.
“Fucking Christ,” Jarra said.
“No. His magic will be of no use to you,” said the skeleton, and, gripping the blue sword with two hands, immediately swung it at her with incredible strength. Only through the hardsuit’s speed and impulse booster did she avoid the blow. Staying in the basement was out. She scrambled up the gap she’d created and ran. Not caring about a fair fight at this point, she clipped her vibroaxe to her belt, and took her rifle off her back.
“Okay, Mr. Bones. Let’s rock,” she said. She watched as it climbed slowly through her hole, squeezing tightly to fit his much greater size. She opened fire. She squeezed off short bursts, rounds plinking off its armor and occasionally damaging it. She got closer, but so did he. She was going to stay well out of range of that sword if she could help it.
Keeping that in mind, she strafed him, pouring rounds into its body and watching as only a handful made dents. She grabbed her heavy pistol and aimed carefully with both hands. She remembered her early hardsuit training: In a life or death fight, your goal is to end the encounter as soon as possible. Shoot to kill. Aim for the head.
Jarra blasted high-capacity rounds into its head, watching the helmet spin around and pieces of it fly away. It reared back with that sword again, but she was going to take a chance. She approached, getting just close enough, and fired. Again, and again, and again, until finally, she launched a round that shattered the skull, went straight through the helmet, and blew the skeleton’s head several feet backwards. The hand carrying the sword stopped. Everything stopped. Then, the blade of the blue sword shattered like ice and fell to the ground. The skeleton fell to its knees.
She approached it, slowly and hesitantly. It didn’t move. She saw the Icemaiden scabbard on its back, and detached it. She heard the same voice from before, echoing in her head.
“Use it well or die in shame, in the name of Skuld, Queen of the Dead, Lady of Night,” it said.
“Sure thing, pal,” Jarra said. With that, both the armor and the skeleton shattered like icicles on a warm day. Jarra pulled Icemaiden from her scabbard and held it aloft. The harsh sunlight glinted off it. Lynette ran over and beheld her quarry.
“Incredible,” she said. “Centuries old and it looks brand new. You still don’t believe in magic?”
Jarra watched as the skeleton and armor disappeared fully into broken chunks of ice. “Uh, yeah,” she said.
Lynette handed the sword back to Jarra. “Your blade, my warrior. This belongs to you, to wield,” she said. Jarra took it and slid it back into its scabbard.
“Can you attach this thing to my hardsuit?” Jarra said. “I don’t wanna damage it, or anything…”
“I can do much more than that, darling. Let’s go… we have some work to do before we claim our prize,” she said.
They docked the cloudship at a discrete aerial truckstop near the Finnish coastline. Jarra took the opportunity to rest, sleeping in the overhead compartment underneath the gunnery turret. Lynette spent her time working. Jarra didn’t understand any of it, but after she caught up on her sleep and got one thousand marks worth of food to eat, she watched her work. It was fascinating to see the rituals in action. It could look like hokum from time to time, but there was enough glowing and humming and floating objects to remind Jarra that the world was far more complicated than it seemed.
Lynette etched runes into Jarra’s hardsuit and weapons. She activated charms that would activate shields and other defensive measures. She used her own blood, candle wax, and other materials to craft curses and spells that would play a role in their direct action in a few days. One of the strangest things was watching her enchant Icemaiden. She said she could heighten its natural abilities. She secured a blue gem to the base of the blade, hammering it in slightly but locking it in with a magic seal. It didn’t have to be fully secure, she said. Once Jarra activated the enchantment, the seal would break and the gem would shatter into essentially worthless rock, like it was never there.
She went at that task for several hours. Jarra finished her feast, slept some more, worked out, and even watched a late-night movie on TV, a classic from the old days. It made her laugh to see a world so hung up on gender roles. They had no idea what was in store for them. These days, ten percent of people have their sex changed. They were at the truckstop for several days. Jarra made sure Lynette got sleep and food, too, but she didn’t push it too hard. If the woman wanted to work, she’d let her work. It was pretty fucking important after all.
It was late in the evening of their second full day there, when Jarra came back from another jog around the habitation ring to find Lynette nervously pacing. She didn’t have any kind of project in hand, and in fact, had mostly packed up her things. They had resolved to pack everything into rectangular storage crate that could expand into an emergency raft as part of their escape. By now, the crate was nearly full. Lynette had a cloth with a chalk pattern drawn on it, a few specialized candles, and a red robe on the small worktable she had spent so much time at.
“Get some rest if you have nothing to do. Pacing won’t help. Or burn off your energy in a productive way,” Jarra said.
“Like sex?” Lynette said.
Jarra couldn’t tell if she was joking. “I mean, probably not a good idea to get close to anyone here who could help the authorities…”
Lynette rolled her eyes. “Are you committed to the dense jock act? You’re intelligent. You don’t fool me, love,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” Jarra said, getting irritated.
“Why would I need to have sex with a stranger here at a truckstop?” she said.
“I don’t know, because you’re horny— oh,” Jarra said, realizing halfway through what Lynette meant. The other woman was making eyes at her in such a way that made her meaning much more clear. “Um. I don’t just—“
“I know,” Lynette said. “Could we just… discuss it? I want to be fully honest with you, but it might be complicated to explain. But even more than that, I would very much like to sit with you, and just be present. I know this has been a lot. I’m exhausted. I imagine you are as well. Could we at least rest, together? Before we take the plunge, so to speak.”
Jarra stretched, trying to piece together exactly what Lynette meant. But it did sound nice. And she did feel strangely at peace with her around. Normally she hated people in her space, but Lynette being here didn’t bother her. The ship was incredibly cramped, but it felt cozy.
“Yeah. Come to the rear cabin,” she said. The two women clambered into the relatively tight space. It was primarily just a bed, with a small radio transmitter, bookshelf, and a “portion-sized” refrigerator and microwave that could fit one or two meals or drinks. It just had bottled water and beer now. Jarra got in first, wedging herself into one corner and making plenty of space for Lynette.
“We’ll have to figure out the best arrangement, won’t we?” Lynette said.
“Yeah. Make sure there’s room for my thighs,” Jarra said, and smiled. Lynette looked down to see, close-up, her partner’s muscular thighs, and there was an audible hitch in her breath.
“You are… a specimen,” Lynette said. “Magnificent in all respects.”
“You’re saying that to me? You’re like a supermodel goddess goth witch genius,” Jarra said. They both smiled at each other and tried to find other places to look.
“I want to show you something,” Lynette said. She laid out her black cloth with the chalk markings, and found a place on the empty bookshelf to place her candle. She lit it, and the room was washed in beautiful amber light. “There is a ritual. A bonding practice, for warriors and witches alike. Women who fight. It’s a sex magick ritual, but… Jarra. I want you very much. I want you to participate in this with me because I believe in our mission, and I truly, genuinely, desire you. If it’s not something you’re comfortable with, that’ll be the end of it. But I think it could help us in our upcoming task, and… bring us enormous pleasure. I want both. Very, very much. I only want to do this if you feel the same way.”
Jarra bit her thumb. “The pleasure part, uh, yeah, I want that. But tell me about the ritual,” she said.
Lynette cleared her throat. “It’ll connect us. We’ll be able, to a degree, communicate via telepathy. Hear each other’s thoughts. And our magic will be shared. My tattoos and runes and sigils, that energy will be channeled to you, and the runes and sigils I’ve added to your equipment. We’ll be stronger than we are now. Able to work in concert. I’ll be able to shield you, protect you, enhance your fighting abilities. And you’ll do the same for me,” she said.
“That sounds like it’ll help a lot,” Jarra said. “What do we do?”
“It’s relatively simple… we just need to combine a few ingredients and make a special sigil that we share. A symbol of our own. I have a few ideas, but we have time to figure it out,” Lynette said. “The ingredients are… bodily fluids, candle wax, bone ash… I have some of these here. But the fluids should be our own.” She unrolled the black cloth and started to pull items from it. A needle, a small clay jar, and some curled up fragments of parchment. On those, Lynette had drawn some ideas for a symbol.
One was two snakes curled around a sword. Stylish, but a little bit martial for Jarra’s taste. Another had a pentagram overlaid with the silhouette of a rabbit’s foot. Nice, but didn’t feel appropriate for the bond they’ve developed. The third was a stylized wolf’s head with a rose in its jaws. Jarra felt a surge of connection as she looked at it.
“This one,” she said, holding the parchment scrap to Lynette.
“I thought that might speak to you. It certainly does to me,” Lynette said. “Are you ready?”
Jarra just nodded. Lynette moved to get her supplies in order, and then spread out her cloth in full on the pillow. Without needing to talk, they started to get undressed. This is how Jarra usually went about this. She didn’t want to waste her time with awkwardness or trying to be theatrical about it. People knew what they wanted, and they would talk about it so both or all participants knew, too. It didn’t have to be complex.
Jarra was only wearing panties and a tank top anyway, so she was naked within a second. Her scars felt especially visible by the warm light of the candle. She watched closely as Lynette undressed. She was methodical and purposeful. Swift motions and folded clothes. True to form, she had even more tattoos that were previously hidden. Her back had a large, intricate design that looked like a summoning circle, and the front of her torso had multiple intersecting images. She had a few scars of her own, too. She was unbelievably gorgeous. She got into bed and the two of them sat up, facing each other.
“Where do we start?” Jarra said. She held her knees up to her chest out of shyness and a desire to give them both ample room.
Silently, Lynette took the cup and placed it between them, holding it up with her feet. She removed the two long, sharp sewing needles she had placed there too, handing one to Jarra. She wet it with her lips and then held it in the candle’s flame. “First, we’ll sterilize these…” she said. “And then, gently prick your thumb until you draw blood. Push a little deeper than feels right.” She waved the needle in the air to cool it off, and she demonstrated. A sharp jab into her thumb, and she squeezed out a few drops. She kept her thumb there, letting any additional blood dribble out.
Jarra repeated her actions as close as possible. It was surprisingly painful, but she felt a sense of satisfaction as the warm blood trickled out. The two women kept their eyes on each other, and shared shy, awkward smiles. Lynette removed her thumb and licked it, cleaning her wound slightly.
“Now, wax,” she said. She picked up the candle and watched as beads of melted wax swirled. “Your chest, Jarra.” Jarra leaned towards her, head held back. Lynette drip drip dripped beads of wax on her and watched as the other woman winced. She handed the candle to Jarra and got into a similar position. She decided to deliberately accentuate her breasts. Jarra noticed.
Jarra dripped four small droplets on, one landing much lower than anticipated deep in her cleavage. Lynette took the candle back, and surprising Jarra, snapped off all the melted and congealed wax from the bottom of the candleholder, and even broke off an entire large piece from the bottom. The lit candle was less than half the length when she put it back in its holder. Then, she stuffed the two rejected parchment designs in the bowl, and put the excess wax on top of that. The parchment with the chosen design was delicately lit aflame and then placed in the bowl. The paper was consumed quickly, but the small flame seemed perfect to slowly, carefully, melt the wax into the ingredients already in the bowl. Lynette placed it back on the shelf, safely apart from the bed.
“The last ingredient is the really fun part,” she said. She spread her legs, sensually licked one finger, and slid it inside herself. The slick sound rang obscene to Jarra’s ears, embarrassing, thrilling, and arousing. She pulled it out and showed Jarra up-close how wet it was. Then, she went to the bowl, scraped her finger along the edge, and lt her own wetness drip slowly into the mixture. She repeated the process several times. Jarra was hypnotized. They had barely touched each other, and her libido was overwhelmed.
“Your turn… do you want to do it, or can I?” Lynette said.
“You can do it…” Jarra said. “Please.” She positioned herself comfortably, legs spread. She was a little nervous about this. Her surgically perfected pussy did everything a traditional one did, but she had no idea how Lynette or her ritual would react to it.
Lynette licked two fingers and delicately slid them inside Jarra. For good measure, she also kissed her. Jarra moaned, much louder than she intended to. When Lynette pulled her fingers out, she licked one while locking eyes with Jarra. Then, she rubbed the other on her little wooden bowl, and it intermingled with the other ingredients. She continued, drawing more and more from Jarra with each go.
“I think we finally have enough… there’s one last step,” she said. “And then we seal it with a kiss, but let’s not stop there.” Lynette brought the bowl between them and blew out the tiny embers of flame that remained from the paper, she mashed the ingredients together with her fingers until they combined into a grayish, paint-like paste.
“Remember our design? With this… we draw it on ourselves. We’re making a pact. Chaining ourselves to one another. And making love will make it stronger. The longer we go tonight, the more we make each other come, the more suited we will be to complete our mission. The stronger we’ll be. Do you want that?” Lynette said.
Jarra had to collect herself. “Yes, so much,” she said.
“Where do you want our emblem? I can put it anywhere,” she said.
“My back,“ Jarra said. “I always wanted a tattoo back there, but I couldn’t afford it. Jarra turned around, wiggling her hips and ass a little bit just to tempt Lynette, if she could.
Lynette stuck two fingers into the bowl and brought it to Jarra’s skin. It was warm and sticky. Lynette drew two half circles, and a trapezoidal shape representing a stylized wolf’s head. A zigzag of lines formed the wolf’s jaws. The rose required a little more effort, but she managed.
“I’ll have to take your word for it, that it looks good,” Jarra said, as she sat back up. “My turn?”
“Oh, yes. I want it right here, love,” she said, and she pointed to her chest. She made a circle indicating that Jarra should cover as much of her breasts as possible with the insignia. Jarra swallowed as she looked, and nodded vigorously.
Jarra was never much of an artist, but she did her best. She drew in large, swooping lines. Even though she’d only seen the design briefly, it came to he naturally. Even drawing the rose, with its overlapping lines, was easy. She brushed her fingers past Lynette’s nipples, and luxuriated in the noises she made. Soon, the circular sign was complete. Jarra could have sworn it made a sizzling noise like a steak being seared, and flashed a reflective color, as soon as she was done. It was either magic, or the intoxication of the moment.
In her mind, sparks flew. Like a zap from some faulty wiring at first, it mellowed into an easygoing warmth that suffused her entire body. She looked into Lynette’s eyes, and their minds spoke. Not in words, but in pure emotion, color, shapes, and tones. She was frozen for a time, and had to slowly adjust.
They watched each other carefully and found the link between them. Like a mental embrace. She didn’t need a psychic link to know the other woman was attracted to her, but what an intoxicating, enriching feeling, to feel it. She had never felt so hot in her life. She could feel, intimately, just how Lynette felt, and just what she intended to do the rest of the night. The two women escaped into each other’s arms, bodies locking together in passion.
For forty-eight hours or so, they lived in that reality, as new lovers who were newly addicted to each other. Sometimes, their mental link touched on aspects of the assassination plan, but mostly, it was far from their minds. They went on a date, enjoying the nicest restaurant at the cloudship station. It was still a dive bar, of course. They made love, vigorously and without shyness. There was no need. They belonged to one another now.
As the time ticked away, the reality of what they were going to do became clearer and more pressing. They planned. They practiced. They trained. Each movement and step was accounted for, each contingency given due time. There was no room for error, if they wanted to get away with their lives. Even with all their practice, there were unknown elements that could change the entire trajectory of the plan. They had once chance.
It was a warm November morning off the coast of Florida. Jarra was on Pond Eel II hovering far out, above international waters. Lynette was on land already, undercover in the president’s press pool. She had forged credentials and a disguise that covered up her various tattoos and other immediately identifying marks. Beneath Jarra, in the ocean, was the boat on which they’d make their final escape. The plan was to speed through the ocean on this yacht, abandoning Pond Eel II and blowing the engines. Destroying her beloved transport felt more a definitive break with the past than planning to kill a world leader.
Jarra waited. She sat in the cockpit of Pond Eel II, already wearing her hardsuit sans helmet. She had to be ready to go at the exact perfect time. She and Lynette were in constant contact through their psychic link, a form of communication that couldn’t be hacked or intercepted in any way. When the time was right, the plan would begin. If it worked, the plan would end as they drove off on the yacht across the ocean until they reached the friendly port in Liberia where they would regroup. If it failed, they would surely both be dead within just a few hours.
Lynette puttered around in the mass of reporters being penned, pushed, and prodded along by presidential staff handlers. They were escorted from place to place and room to room, given time to shout their asinine questions and rewarded or punished depending on how much they flattered the regime. So many reporters came and went that no one even noticed Lynette. She was just another mouthpiece.
She went over the math in her head again and again. If Jarra was late, the whole plan would fall apart and Lynette would be dead. She bit her thumb as she watched the president’s staff flit back and forth. Finally, she heard the footsteps outside of staff preparing for the traditional ritual of shouting questions at the president as he walked from the residence’s back exist to his waiting helicopter. That was the vulnerability that Lynette had pinpointed. She concentrated in her mind, he thoughts like a focused beam.
Now, Jarra. It’s time.
Jarra accelerated, cloudship roaring to life and taking off straight towards her destination. Her thoughts were so focused on Lynette that she didn’t have to send a specific message, just sending wave after wave of warmth, connection, and righteous anger.
Lynette was herded out with the rest of the reporters and they waited. Waiting, waiting, waiting. She was trapped in between dreadful anticipation and appreciating the last moments before she blew up her life. Reporters spoke, shuffling back to front in a gesture to fairness, although tall, imposing male reporters repeatedly made a point of taking up space well after they’d had their chance. If she really were a reporter, she’d find the whole process to be hugely frustrating. She was just stuck with disgust for the entire institution, including the press.
The president emerged, surrounded by a gaggle of toadies in dark suits. Lynette’s loathing and fury were palpable. The questions began to be shouted, and he responded with his usual worthless pap, grudges, and score-settling. She could feel each and every step. She flattened her left hand into a plank in her pocket, and watched.
She couldn’t have planned it better herself. A question about a recent celebrity scandal clearly interested the president, and he turned all the way around, about fifteen feet from the helicopter, to make his opinion known. She looked right at his smug face when she pushed her way to the front.
Jarra! I hope you’re here! It’s time!
Lynette pulled her hand out of her pocket and it glowed like a lightbulb. With a concentrated bust of willpower, she shot a red bolt of curse energy directly at the president’s helicopter. It exploded instantly. A shower of dirt, debris, and smoke descended on the crowd. As the reporters began to run, Lynette marched in the other direction, launching more curse bolts. First, she hit the crowd of approaching Secret Service agents to delay them, and then, the main exit of the residence compound where the president and his agents had just emerged from. Sections of the residence roof caved in, causing more chaos and another explosion inside — a gas leak, maybe? Her heart pounded in her chest every second. She only had so much time. She needed her.
She started to walked towards the president, bullets whizzing past her from behind. Obviously, she couldn’t kill or disable every agent. Any bullets that came close to hitting her were blocked by one of several magical sigil shields that she had readied. Sewn into her clothes, tattooed onto her skin, ritualized by her connection with Jarra. She had done the same with Jarra’s armor. They wouldn’t last forever, so their time was still limited. But it made her stride with confidence, despite the terror roiling inside her stomach.
Then, she heard it. First a sonic boom from the cloudship erupting through the sky, and shortly thereafter, the sound of the rocket platform rappelling down at dangerous velocity. The sound of the wire rippled through the Florida air, and Lynette turned around just as the platform slammed into the ground.
More chaos, more dirt, more smoke. They were in the caldera of a volcano now. Then, with purposeful strides, came a goddess in pink robotic battlesuit. Lynette watched as her girlfriend — why not? — made her debut on the public stage. She walked as if she had nowhere else to be but here.
Jarra was carrying a long box-like machine gun fed by a belt draped over both her shoulder. The burda burda burda of machine gun fire got louder and louder. She saw Lynette to the left and continued firing into the throng of agents by the smoldering wreck of the helicopter until she ran out of ammo. She dropped the gun on the ground.
By the time she reached President Shood, he was already dead. His body had been carved like a chainsaw sculpture by gunfire. Jarra turned to where she and Lynette had hoped there would be press cameras still filming, and then she unsheathed Icemaiden from her belt scabbard. With two slices, she chopped off his head and lifted it by his stringy, thin hair. She lifted the head and sword up in a gesture of triumph. Then, she tossed, the head away like the trash it was.
The rest happened in a blur. Gunfire continued to pound into their blue sigil shields, and they had to endeavor to ignore each bullet that wizzed past their heads or fell in front of their feet. Lynette ran up to Jarra and clipped her belt’s carabiner to Jarra’s hardsuit. Then, Jarra stabbed Icemaiden firm into the ground, and the blue gemstone Lynette had affixed to it shattered. A wave of ice cascaded out from the spot and went up, like an inverted glacier surrounding them in one last shield.
Jarra jetted across the residence lawn to the rocket platform. Gunfire was already chipping away at the ice wall. Once securely attached, Lynette pulled an oxygen mask over her face, and Jarra activated the recoil. The metal wire violently wound, pulling them back up to the Pond Eel II. It was a rough ride, but even getting to this stage of the plan was lucky.
The rocket platform slammed back into the cloudship, and the ice wall visibly collapsed beneath them. Inside, Jarra pulled off her helmet and Lynette took off her face mask off. Even though there was no time, they kissed, like the world was ending.
“Get in the gunpod, we’re not done yet!” Jarra said. She was terrified, but she was grinning. She ran to the pilot’s seat and Lynette climbed up into the gunpod. The twin gatling barrels and pod rose up when Lynette yanked down the lever on the left. She could already see three helicopters trailing them, and one was close. They took off with a start, traveling back to international waters. Lynette started shooting, pouring ammunition into the closest helicopter. Thanks to her magical shields, they could withstand a direct assault from a government attack helicopter. She fired without interruption until the first chopper burst into a twisted mound of flaming wreckage. Two more were close behind.
“One down, two more close, Jarra!” Lynette said over the intership comm. “Are we close?”
“We’re close, babe!” Jarra said. “Get the bastards.”
Lynette turned her cannons to the approaching choppers and fired. She got off a few hits when the guns spun to a stop.
“Fuck! Out of ammo!” Lynette said. “You ready for a light show?”
“Ready and willing!” Jarra said.
Lynette grinned like a shark. She focused her energy on her right hand, and the circuit-like design of the tattoos on her right arm glowed green. She channeled green eldritch energy, drawing on her own lifeforce, and fired it from the guns in a surreal display. Green blasts spilled from both barrels until the remaining two helicopters went down shrouded in green flame.
“We’re here!” Jarra said. She’d heard the explosions and hoped that meant there were no helicopters close. Lynette crawled down into the main body of the ship. Jarra set the ship on autopilot, opened the aft bay door, and entered the self-destruct code.
“Bye bye, old girl,” she said, patting the console. “Let’s go, Lynette!”
Lynette slid up to her and attached the carabiner, thrusting her hips towards her girlfriend. “You just changed the world, babygirl.” They kissed, again. When the time was right, Jarra leapt down, using her hardsuit’s impulse thrusters to elegantly land on the boat beneath them. Pond Eel II glided over their heads and splashed into the water before exploding. The closest thing Jarra had to a home was gone.
They sped away in the boat, Lynette driving. There was much to do, but having evaded the first few waves of pursuers, they could rest, momentarily. Jarra took her hardsuit off and sat down next to Lynette by the steering wheel.
“So what do we do now?” Jarra said.
“We keep going. We kill the rest of them. We destroy the Corporate Council, we take down fascists all over the world. We make men afraid of us. What do you think?” Lynette said.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” Jarra said.
Lynette grinned. “You’re brilliant,” she said.
© Jessica Umbra, 2024
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