When the president pinned the gleaming medal on Rita’s chest, he lauded her as an angel of vengeance on the battlefield and declared her a national treasure. She had paid for that medal with the blood of her brothers and sisters.
She didn’t shed a tear. Angels don’t cry.
5
Rita was redeployed. The name Full Metal Bitch and the awe it inspired rippled through the ranks. A top secret research team was created to study the time loop. After poking, prodding, and probing Rita, the lab coats drafted a report claiming it was possible that the loops had altered Rita’s brain, that this was the cause of her headaches, and half a dozen other things that didn’t actually answer any questions. If it meant wiping the Mimics off the face of the earth, she didn’t care if their space-feeds split her skull in two.
The president had given Rita authority to act with total autonomy on the battlefield. She spoke less and less with the other members of her squad. She had a rental locker in New York where she stored the medals that kept pouring in.
6
Rita was stationed in Europe. The war went on.
7
North Africa.
When Rita heard their next assignment would be on some islands in the Far East, she was glad. Asian corpses would be a fresh change from the usual blacks and whites of the Western front. Of course, no matter how much raw fish they ate over there, the blood still came gushing out the same shade of red when a Mimic javelin ripped up a man and his Jacket. When all was said and done, she’d probably tire of seeing them, too.
8
Rita was familiar with cormorant fishing, a traditional Japanese technique. The fishermen tie a snare at the base of the trained cormorant’s neck just tight enough to prevent it from swallowing any of the larger fish it catches, and then play out enough rope to enable the bird to dive into the water and fish. Once the cormorant has a fish, the fishermen pull the bird back and make it spit out its catch. Rita felt that her relationship to the army was a lot like a cormorant’s relationship to a fisherman.
Rita was in the army because that was how she made her living. Her job was to go out and kill Mimics and bring their corpses back to her masters. In return, they provided her with everything she needed to live and took care of life’s little annoyances without her ever having to know they were there. It was a give and take relationship, and in her mind it was fair.
Rita took no pleasure in the notion of being the savior of the earth, but if that’s what the army wanted, so be it. In dark times the world needed a figure for people to rally behind.
Japan’s quarantine line was on the verge of collapse. If the enemy managed to break through at Kotoiushi, Mimics would swarm the industrial complex on the main island. With the cutting-edge factories and technologies Japan brought to the table lost, there would be an estimated 30 percent drop in the effectiveness of the Jackets they used to wage the war. The ramifications would be felt throughout the UDF.
Without someone to interrupt the tachyon transmissions, the battle would never end. Technically it was possible to drive them back with an overwhelming show of force. After several loops the Mimics would realize they couldn’t win, and they would withdraw with as few casualties as possible. But that wasn’t the same as defeating them. They would simply retreat beneath the ocean, out of humanity’s reach, and gather their strength. Once they had assembled an insurmountable force, they would attack again, and there would be no stopping them a second time.
Fighting a war with the Mimics was a lot like playing a game with a child. They had decided they were going to win before the game had even started, and they wouldn’t give up until they won. Little by little, humanity was losing ground.
The duration of the Mimic time loops was approximately thirty hours. Rita repeated each loop only once. The first time through a battle she assessed the casualties her squad sustained; the second time through she won. In that first pass she could see what the strategy was and learn who died. But the lives of her friends were in the merciless hands of fate. That couldn’t be changed.
Before each battle, Rita secluded herself to clear her thoughts. One of the privileges of her station was that Rita had her own private room that no one was allowed to enter.
Rita’s squad understood that the thirty hours before a battle were a special time for her. The average soldier in the squad wasn’t aware of the time loop, but they knew that Rita had her reasons for not wanting to talk to anyone in the time leading up to battle. They kept their distance out of respect. Even though space was exactly what Rita wanted, it still made her feel alone.
Rita was admiring the sparkling waters of the Pacific from her perch in the sky lounge. The only structure on Flower Line Base taller than Rita’s tower was a nearby radio antenna. The tower was practically begging to be the first target when the Mimics came ashore. You could only laugh at the audacity of locating an officers’ lounge in such a vulnerable location. This was the trouble with countries that hadn’t been invaded yet.
Japan had largely managed to escape the ravages of the war. If the island had been located a little further from Asia, it would have been reduced to desert long ago. If it had been any closer, the Mimics would have invaded before moving on to the continent. The peace Japan enjoyed all came down to luck.
The area set aside for the officers’ lounge was needlessly large and almost completely empty. The view it afforded of the ocean was fit for a five-star hotel. By contrast, the heavy duty pipe-frame bed that stood in the middle of the room seemed to have been chosen as a joke.
Rita pressed a button. The liquid crystal embedded in the blast-resistant glass opacified, obscuring the view. She had chosen the officers’ reception room for her quarters because it was a place the other members of her squad weren’t likely to visit. The operating systems embedded in the bodies of her squadmates had been programmed for war. They wouldn’t set foot in a building that made for such an ostentatious target. Rita didn’t care for it much herself.
To allay her fears, a Japanese tech had explained that the glass was interwoven with carbon fibers, giving it strength on par with the shell of a Jacket. If the stuff was so great, Rita wondered why it didn’t seem to work that well on the front lines. At least here she was alone. The next day she might have to watch one of her friends die. She didn’t want to have to look them in the eye.
A soft knock roused Rita from her thoughts. The glass at the entrance to the lounge was also embedded with liquid crystal. It was set to opaque with the rest.
“I don’t appreciate distractions within minus thirty hours. Just leave me alone.”
There was no reply. She sensed an odd presence from the other side of the door. It felt like a small animal being hunted by a pack of wolves, or a woman being stalked down a dark alley. It could only be Shasta.
Rita pressed the button. The glass cleared to reveal the petite Native American woman standing at the door. First Lieutenant Shasta Raylle was older than Rita and, technically, outranked her, but the Valkyrie didn’t have to bend over backward for any engineer. Still, Rita found Shasta’s deference and politesse endearing.
Thud.
Shasta bumped her forehead against the glass. She’d mistaken the suddenly transparent glass for an open doorway and walked right into it. She was holding something in the hand she pressed to her head. She crouched on the ground, trembling like a leaf. It was hard to believe the brain in that head could be so brilliant. Then again, maybe that’s how geniuses were. Some people called Rita a military genius, and she wasn’t all that different from everyone else. The only thing about her that was especially unique was her ability to focus. Shasta’s thoughts were probably consumed by whatever it was she held in her hand, just as Rita’s were by the coming battle.
Rita opened the door halfway. Shasta’s glasses were still askew from the impact with the glass. She adjusted them as she stood.