Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 Notes: Oooh, fire in the sky! So pretty!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

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Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 

 Photo by Mohamed Fsili

“You…” Kieron’s voice died off as he lost his ability to articulate exactly what he was feeling. He could hear the others arguing, Catie squawking and Elanus shouting and Lizzie replying defensively, but he couldn’t say anything because he could see a light in the sky. It was growing larger, and soon enough he could make out individual fireballs splitting off from it, some of them fizzling out but most of them staying close. He felt Carlisle shiver, and lifted her into a more comfortable position in his arms as he watched the fire get closer and closer.

“Kieron, you’ve got to get farther back!”

“It’s all right,” he said as he watched the door to the compound suddenly flare open. He could see the silhouette of people inside of it, saw them taking their first steps outside. The falling fire dimmed that light, and then as the first person stepped through the door, shouting, gun lifted—

The fire struck.

Kieron had never worked as a mercenary. He hadn’t participated in aerial bombardments, he hadn’t been part of strike teams taking out orbital stations, he hadn’t seen a lot of combat. But he was absolutely sure that, without a doubt, this was the most precisely targeted assault that had ever been levied against a stationary facility from space. It hit the center of the base, a few splashes of fuel erupting up and out, but none traveling more than fifty yards before sputtering out.

The fireball dug its way into the weapons cache, which of course Lizzie knew the location of since Bobby had done all that recon work, and consumed the explosives there, incorporating them into its sound and fury without allowing them to randomize the damage. The fire and heat coruscated outward in shades of orange, yellow, and white, coming to a pinnacle just beyond the edge of the compound itself. A second later the fire contracted, burning itself out and focusing the last of its energy on the center once more.

Everyone who came into contact with it died. Everyone, every single person in the base who’d been watching and tormenting and taunting them, was dead now. Tactically dead, strategically nuked from space, to use an ancient Earth term.

And Kieron and Carlisle were fine. He could barely even feel the heat of the fire through the storm that still raged around them.

“Impressive,” Carlisle said, her voice like smoke. “You have—” she coughed. “Good friends.”

“That was my daughter’s doing,” Kieron said, his voice distant even to himself. That was Lizzie, all Lizzie. She must have run the numbers on his survival and found the odds she liked the best, and then—

She’d acted. Without hesitation, without a second thought, and it had saved his life.

And if she’d calculated wrong, she would have killed him.

Kieron shivered, not out of fear for himself but from fear for Lizzie. If things hadn’t gone this way…if she’d ended up being the reason he died instead of the reason he was saved…she would never have forgiven herself. Lizzie was quiet, far quieter than her sister, but she was no less intense in her emotions.

“Kee?” Lizzie’s voice, tentative and soft, cut through the fog in his mind.

“Baby,” he said immediately. “I’m here. I’m all right. You did it.”

“I saw your life sign, but you weren’t saying anything for a while.”

“I was just…” Stunned. Impressed. Afraid. “Surprised, sweetheart.”

“As long as you’re surprised and communicating,” Elanus snapped over the com. “Catie’s on the way around to you, we’ll pick you up in two-point-three minutes. Any damage?”

“No. Not to me,” Kieron amended as he looked at his mother. “But Carlisle is pretty worse for wear.”

“Catie will fix her up in no time.”

The rest of the crew on Lizzie’s line were being awfully silent. “Status report, Ryu,” Kieron said.

“Nothing to report,” he said, sounding just the slightest bit spooked. “We had the payload ready, but I didn’t even know Lizzie had released it until she told you about it. Lizzie…we agreed we’d talk about it before you deployed.”

“I’m sorry! You would have told me not to do it, though, and I didn’t have time to explain my math to you!”

“Your math had a fifty-seven perrrcent chance of being wrrrong!” Catie snapped. “You could have killlled Kieron!”

“I would never kill Kieron! My math was perfect, look at how it all worked out!”

“I’m talking about your varrriables, not your primes!”

“I’ll show you variables!” There was sudden silence on the coms, and Kieron put a hand over his mouth to silence his sudden snort as he realized that his girls were having a math fight. A math fight over the odds of his surviving Lizzie’s intervention. God, he wished he could get Elanus alone right now to talk about this, and preferably share a drink or ten about it.

“Kieron.”

“Mm?” he said to Carlisle.

“I think you’re going into shock.”

“Mm.” He probably was, slumping back onto the ground and maneuvering Carlisle so she was on top of him instead of soaking up the cold directly. Not that the rain wasn’t freezing, but it was better than lying in a puddle.

“Don’t get comfortable,” she said, irritation warring with something else he couldn’t put a name to in her voice. “You don’t have time for this.”

“It’s shock,” he slurred, “not really…controllable.”

“Everything is controllable to a certain extent. Look at what your kid just pulled off.” Her tone of voice made it clear that she was more impressed than judgmental.

“Mm. Kids are hard.”

Carlisle was quiet for a moment, then surprised him with a laugh. “They are,” she agreed. “They’re the hardest thing in the world. Small wonder I did so little when it came to raising you, when you intimidated me so badly.”

“Mm.”

“Kieron, stay awake.”

“I’m awake,” he said.

“Don’t close your eyes.”

“They’re…open. S’just dark out here.” He was tired. More tired than he should be, after such a clean extraction. Carlisle was in far worse shape than he was; there was no reason for him to be this tired while she was wide awake.

“One minute to you,” Elanus said. “Stay awake, Kieron.”

God damn it, he was awake! It was just hard to stay that way, but he’d do it. If Lizzie could predict how to save his life before setting a base on fire, he could do this much.

She could have killed him, but she hadn’t. They were so lucky. Or she was just that good, just that intelligent. It was frightening, to have a kid so intelligent—a kid who was optimized for combat scenarios. How many people would want her, if they knew what she could do? War-based AIs were incredibly expensive tech, notoriously unreliable despite all their models and training, and here was Lizzie predicting payload, survival rates, and compensating for human reactions.

So smart, his girl. Almost too smart for her own good.

“Stay awake, Kieron.”

He hummed.

“I mean it!” Pain erupted in his left arm, but it was a small discomfort when he was already so cold and wet.

“Kee?”

That was Lizzie. He needed to talk to her, to let her know he was all right. He tried to speak, but couldn’t do it. He was too…too…

“Kee?”