Lieutenant Fusilier in The Farthest Reaches

[open_sketch]

I decided to skip going to the officer's mess, still having no idea how to navigate the byzantine social requirements. I was still in the range well past dark, after all the off-duty shooters had come and gone again, working my way through the training courses.

"Okay. Single opponent humanoid level three, again." I said, pacing back to the center of the sparring ring, carefully monitoring my footing. I felt a grinding resistance in my joints, I'd been working so hard I'd worn the lubricants off the working surfaces faster than they could be reapplied, but I knew I probably had a few more hours before I was at any risk of serious wear. And I had more than the battery to spare to get through tomorrow.

"Ma'am, if you don't mind me saying, it's nearing midnight. You've been here fifteen hours."

"I'm well aware, Dorothea. Just put it on." I said. Terry's shift had ended, and I'd presumed he was asleep by now.

"Yes, ma'am." she replied, and there was the crackle of the holograms forming again, the single duelist with mirrored gear, pistol in one hand, sword in the other. I raised my blade in a defensive guard, adjusted my stance, and the program started.

This time, I didn't jump forward into the attack, the first of the mistakes I'd been making. I inched forward, keeping the point of my blade moving while focusing on hers. When it angled in for an attack, I batted it aside, punching my guard towards it: the trick to a good parry was to intercept close to the tip of their blade and the hilt of your own, taking advantage of the difference in leverage. The blade was smacked aside, but this time I didn't immediately try for a strike. It was just a probing attack, trying to bait out predictable aggression, so I iInstead responded with my own, trying to reposition our blades so I had the advantage, so I could seize the moment.

Our blades touched, jumped, I lunged low and then immediately leaned back as their swing came inches from my face. I saw my opening as the shadow tried to pull back to a defensive stance, coming forward with a smooth strike off my last, and when our blades met I stepped inside their guard with my pistol pressed to her gut.

Force screens would easily disperse almost any laser blast, but not if it came from inside the field. I put a blast through where her batteries would be, and the target flopped over, disintegrating into dancing motes as the hologram faded from the ring. Finally. If I could do that a dozen more times, I'd turn it up to level four.

I looked up to Private Dorothea behind the controls, noting the look of concern in her eyes, and I couldn't help but see how… orderly she looked. Shiny finish, clean lenses, sharp lines. I suddenly remembered how I looked in the mirror.

I shut off the blade.

"Alright, I think I'm done for the day. Thank you, corporal." I said, making safe my pistol and stashing it in my belt, sheathing my sword. "Tomorrow, I'll make level four."

I set back out across the dark base, cutting near the streetlamps, trying to ignore the grinding feeling in my knees. That'd be gone by tomorrow morning at the latest, and it wasn't hampering my mobility, but it wasn't at all pleasant.

I moved through the door, climbed the stairs, and was halfway to the small servant's room before I noticed that, as a temporary fix, somebody had dragged a field battery into the room and set it up on the bedside table, my power cable laid out on my bed. My ratty old uniform was hanging nicely in the corner, freshly cleaned and pressed, which made me realize that it hadn't been yellowish after all, it had simply been inundated by dust that the faded pink had taken on a salmon hue.

I didn't particularly care for the idea of sleeping in a giant bed in a massive, empty room, but it felt like an insult to ignore the hard work of the machine who'd dragged the battery up here and tried to make it nice for me. I stripped, leaving my clothes laid out on the dresser where it'd presumably be taken for laundry, plugged into the battery, and collapsed against the overstuffed pillow, feeling very small. You could easily, easily fit four more Doras on here. Four of any machine, really.

Maybe those secretaries, with the glasses. A giant bed would be entirely practical with four cute Sarahs to share it with.

Hell, I'd settle for one.

I'm not exactly sure what I'd do if I had one, mind. I mean, I'd spent more than enough time in a barracks to have heard a fairly exhaustive set of options, but I hadn't exactly had much hands-on experience, if you will. Precisely none, actually. It was generally accepted wisdom among the machines that Theos and Doras dating one another was all kinds of a bad idea for unit cohesion and morale (not that it didn't happen sometimes), but meeting other machines meant going off base, and going off base usually meant spending money.

The only non-military machine I knew was April, who I'd met entirely by chance while waiting for a ship. I'd dropped the crush I'd had on her early on, seeing as she'd had the same boyfriend for twenty years at that point. They were still together, it was insufferable. She'd sometimes offer to set me up with one of her friends, but I'd always put it off, worried about my schedule or the costs. Always saving, always training, I'd just tried to put it to the back of my mind.

The sudden, cold fear that I'd stumbled into some juvenile morality play washed over me. Did I really, seriously just trade all happiness and companionship for a life of non-stop work, and then once I'd accomplished my goal realize that the real wealth lay in companionship and stopping to enjoy life and getting laid with hot bespectacled receptionist machines? Was I such a cliche?

But then I realized I was being silly. I was a decorated Dora in a fresh new officer's uniform, I had a salary probably only matched by the servants of the Regents, and I sort of knew how to use a sword. I was to lesbians what sunlight was to vampires. If I eased up just a tiny bit and put myself out there, I'd probably wear out the actuators in my fingers.

Just as soon as I was settled in my new position, then I could relax and pursue other things.

… it would probably also help if I stopped looking like somebody'd run me over with a wagon.

---

"Come now, an orderly line. There's only four of you, how hard could this be?"

I looked at the new ensigns that Sergeant Theo was trying to wrangle, all of them busy looking around with wonder at the dock or the base or the assembled soldiers we borrowed from 3rd company coming to escort them. One of them at least started to get the idea that she ought to be standing at attention because there were officers coming, but she rather jumped the gun, holding her hand to her temple as we were still most of the way up the street.

"My God, they're babies." Beckham bemoaned, looking at them with a sort of dawning horror. "We weren't that bad, were we?"

"I wasn't." I pointed out smugly. I'd come out the box knowing how to salute.

"Oh, don't worry you two, you're just as bad now." Captain Murray said, stepping out in front of the ensigns. A second of them got the message and snapped his best salute (4/10, try again kid), but another just looked at her blankly while a third was tracking a fast clipper passing over the station dome with a complete ignorance of the world around her.

"Ensigns! Salute!" Sergeant Theo insisted, and finally, they stopped fidgeting so damn much.

Ensigns were, essentially, cadet officers, youngsters trying on the jacket to see if it fit. For the majority of them, it didn't: three out of four ensigns served two or three years, declined to test for Lieutenant, and resigned their commission. But the minority that stuck with it were the Army's future leaders, so training them was an important and noble duty.

But by the stars they were an infuriating and useless bunch. Especially in the first few weeks, arriving with nothing but their new uniforms, swords you desperately hoped they didn't know how to turn on, and heads completely empty of all rational thought. I'd had a comrade back in 4th company who'd speculated that ensigns were actually shipped to the regiments in a maximally pitiful state in order to motivate the rank and file machines to protect the poor dears, and then shuffled out or promoted at just about the exact moment they stopped being endearingly naive.

"Think about it. We're not scared of much, but we know when we're losing, and we don't exactly want to die, do we?" she'd said, and I'd shrugged.

"Sure. I much prefer being alive to the alternative."

"Right, and if some idiot lieutenant is ordering us to charge into grapeshot or something, and there's no good reason, maybe we ignore him and wait it out. What's he gonna do, have the whole section court-marshaled?"

"I mean, maybe, yeah." I said, and she'd waved a dismissive hand.

"Nah, but look. They take two adorable teenagers, dress 'em in red, and shove them toward the objective, we're going to escort them into a black hole before we let anything bad befall the poor bastards. They're too stupid not to go, and we're too stupid not to follow."

I always thought her reckoning of the motivation was far too cynical, but I will concede she was not at all wrong about the dynamic.

We returned their salute, and the sergeant managed to convince them that this meant they were to put their hands down while we stood and judged the two. Though obviously I'd never done it from this perspective, I'd seen this exact since dozens of times, both as one of the privates escorting the new officers in, and more than once as the sergeant trying to corral them.

"I'm Captain Elenora Murray, I command 9th Company of the 7th Regiment of Foot, your new unit. These are Lieutenants Miles Beckham and Dora Fusilier, they're your immediate superiors." she explained, before going on to the typical speech about the regiment's honour and expectations for their behaviour, explaining the day ahead, that sort of thing.

I tried to look serious and not pay too much mind to their staring as they rattled off their names: the overly enthusiastic girl with the frizz of red hair was Ensign Sumner, the boy who was fidgeting on the spot with nervous energy was Ensign Kelly, the girl who was trying to look unimpressed with everything was Ensign Darley, and the boy who seemed permanently dazed was Ensign Brodeway.

"Right, any questions?" she asked, and immediately hands shot up.

"Why've we got a machine lieutenant?" Ensign Kelly asked, and Captain Murray glanced back at me, expecting me to answer.

"I'm not, actually. I just got careless at the firing range when I was an Ensign. They had to rebuild my whole body." I explained. "I miss having skin."

I wish I could have captured the look on Lieutenant Beckham's face as he bit his lip and tried ever so desperately not to laugh, and equally the looks of abject horror which passed over all the ensigns. Suspended them forever in a hologram for all to see.

Captain Murray had finally explained, as we moved down the docks, why this portion of the ritual always seemed to involve the officers spewing so much bullshit. Turns out there was a reason beyond just hazing the ensigns, though that was a significant part of it. All them would arrive with preconceptions from novels and plays and the stories of their older siblings about what the Army was like, and it was important to disabuse them of their preconceptions by, essentially, jerking them around until they didn't know what was true.

The ensign who didn't know what they were doing was much less of a danger to themselves and others than the ensign who was absolutely convinced they knew what they were doing.

A few more basic questions were answered with abject lies before we set back out on our way to the base, and I fell in with Lieutenant Beckham to discuss the question that would probably define a great deal of our next two years or so.

"So, who gets who?" I asked.

"I haven't a clue, they all seem hopeless. Got a pick?" he asked.

"I'll take Sumner." I volunteered, and he scoffed.

"You would. Check her over for circuitry next inspection, no ensign's that eager. I'll take Brodeway."

"He doesn't quite seem all there, does he?" I said, a little concerned. He was probably just a little shocked or something, but still...

"Good, a thinking ensign is a dangerous one." Beckham said seriously, "And… I'll take Darley, you take Kelly? That way it'll be even."

"Works for me. Good luck with your lot."

"Likewise."

---

Over the next week, I settled into a proper routine, finally. I'd wake early in my giant overstuffed bed, vacate the house as soon as possible, and head to the officer's mess in the morning. This was part of a clever plan on my part: I could use presence here in the more casual setting of early breakfast to learn the norms of the officer class before making an attempt at returning at dinner, and to be socially present at least a little.

The plan was working so well that I was rapidly becoming fast friends with Lieutenant Diana Kennedy from the Royal Artillery, notable early bird and leader of one of the regiment's two permanent detachments of heavy guns. The other, under some other lieutenant and its captain, were currently deployed with 5th Company, 10th section A, and 1st section B at a rimward mining colony, a precautionary garrison in case they too managed to piss something off below the surface in the hunt for minerals and gems. Kennedy was charming, funny, and greatly enthused with large explosions, which were all traits I deeply approved of.

She was also kinda hot, for a human. Now wait, it's not like I was going to do anything with that, but I do have cameras, and it has not escaped me that the sorts of machines I fancy are modelled quite closely the fairer half of the human species. She had a lovely little tumble of fine curls and a broad smile, features and complexion that suggested ancestry in the Indian subcontinent, and a little scar on her chin from a badly recoiling piece that she refused to have removed. She was no secretary machine, but I certainly didn't mind her company.

… yes, I know it's weird. I'm in a very strange place right now, leave me alone.

Once breakfast was over, I'd head to the office, and then invariably detour to the ensign's quarters to find out why one or more of our new officers was late. Still, they were already starting to improve, and we'd then spend the rest of the day devising work for them to do and trying not to go stir-crazy ourselves waiting for our troops to arrive from all over the galaxy. Usually, past lunch, Captain Murray simply pointed me to the range so I'd stop poking around the office for stray tasks, and saddle me with the ensigns to oversee their arms training.

This was a questionable choice, seeing as I gained no benefit from simple exercise and was still learning to use the weapons myself, but it did mean I had the advantage of being utterly tireless, allowing me to wear out our young officers with whatever program I devised such that, not only would they get into any kind of shape whatsoever, but they'd also be too damn tired to cause their attending corporals much grief and, perhaps, they'd fucking sleep.

Once the ensigns shuffled off to dinner, I'd stay a few more hours to practice more. Running the holographic drills, but also my first practice duels against my fellow officers. I was still losing, but I wasn't losing so fast or so frequently. I was starting to get hits in, and each one filled me with such pride that it carried me for the rest of the day.

As I lay alone in the overstuffed bed, the field battery humming softly on the bedside table, I started to feel a curious feeling return, the one I was worried I'd left behind. The feeling that I was where I was supposed to be.

The first of our Theos and Doras, of my command, would be arriving tomorrow, and I looked forward to it.

 

[open_sketch]

Up early, polished and dressed smart, I found myself craning my head to glance out the window of the mess, scanning the blue sky of the dome for the ships moving just outside it, my processes spiking every time I saw one.

"What has you so nervous, Dora?" Diana asked, glancing out the window with me. "You look positively shaken."

"First batch of transfers arriving today." I said, tapping my thumbs against the worn wood of the table with solid little thunks. "Soldiers, my soldiers! Means I actually have to start being an officer instead of just playing dress-up."

"Ah, relax, you'll do fine." she said, waving a fork dismissively, What's your section NCOs look like?"

"Well, I've only seen the forms, but they look like a solid lot. Senior sergeant's a Theo from the Prussians on exchange, quartermachine shuffling in from the 35th Sussex, got a corporal promoting out of the 73rd Perthshire, and get this, the one of them's a Yank." I said.

"Oh, that'll be fun."

"First machine officers, now American corporals, Army's going to the dogs." I said, putting on my best Genuine Human Officer voice, "Next they'll be making us wear brown and amalgamating regiments, mark my words."

"A nightmare." Diana said, shaking her head sadly, "Seriously though, don't you worry. Good NCOs are like a cushion for a young officer's mistakes. I mean, you ought to know that better than anyone, right?"

"I suppose. So, worked out the bugs on the new flying guns yet?"

"I wish. Bloody useless suspensor fields, burnt out two more coils yesterday. I'm halfway to bolting them to our pedrail wagons and calling it a day…"

---

When Antares Base was established for the 7th Regiment of Foot, the regiment had only consisted of three line companies and half-sized Grenadiers and Skirmishers. Additional space had been annexed over the years, but things were starting to get a little tight, which is why, while the rest of the regiment were practicing larger-scale drills on the main field, we were mustering together the first shipload of troops. Right now, that consisted of a gaggle of transfers being divided up between the two sections, four wagonloads of long crates containing the new recruits, and assorted civilian support milling about behind them doing their own thing.

Most of the transfers were just wearing their shirts and grey trousers, awaiting their new 7th Regiment of Foot coats, but about a third were dressed in a multicolour palette of uniforms from across the galaxy. A few coats in blue or green, some in red who were presumably from the Commonwealth, and two from even further afield whose uniforms didn't resemble European ones at all. Coat-switching was a bit of a ritual, some diplomatic thing so officers knew where their soldiers came from or somesuch.

Thought there were still about twenty soldiers missing, being shipped in from who knows where, for the most part this was the company. The Ensigns were already there ahead of Beckham and I, 'supervising', by which I mean they were standing and gawking at all the strange machines.

"Ensigns! Is everything shipshape?" I called, and Kelly turned and saluted sharply.

"Yes, ma'am!" he said, then his smile faded as he saw the look in my eyes.

"Then fix it, ensign! This isn't the Navy, we have standards." I said. Sumner started to laugh, and I turned to her. "Ensign, where's your gorget?"

She glanced down and winced, looking utterly mortified. Heh.

The first thing I did was find my NCOs, rattling off their serial numbers from the ledger. When I glanced back up from the clipboard, there were six machines standing in front of me, four British transfers and two blue coats as expected. One the light blue of an American, with red facings, and the other the very dark blue of a Prussian. Though something was off about… her.

"I'm sorry, I think I was expecting a Theodore Füsilier?" I said, looking her over. Good lord, they built her so straight and vertical she literally looked like a ramrod.

"That ist my name, ma'am." she snapped, her eyes not so much as twitching. Were her lights not on, I would have thought she was a statue.

"... why are you a woman?" I asked, and I could hear one of the corporals suppress a snicker.

"Theodore ist a woman's name. In German, the masculine ist Theodor." she explained. "I go by Theda usually."

"... sure. Why do you have a weapon, Sergeant?" I asked, indicating to the bizarre rifle that, for some reason, was slung over her shoulder. "And what the hell is it?"

"I was programmed to never surrender my weapon unless I was being issued another, ma'am." she replied, and I could swear there was hostility in her voice. Maybe it was just her accent, but I had been a sergeant long enough to know pissed off at someone voice. "It ist a needle rifle."

"Well, we'll get you a proper musket tomorrow and send that thing home." I said. Imagining you could just show up at a line regiment with a rifle, ridiculous.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sergeant, you're a Theodore at least, right?" I said, turning to the junior sergeant as I rechecked my ledger. I didn't know how they did serial numbering in the 35th, but his sure had a lot of zeros in front of it.

"Last I checked, ma'am." he said.

"Good. Just... curious, how old are you?" I asked, and I could see the slightest bit of smugness in his eyes.

"Two hundred eighty-six, eighty-four days, ma'am." he replied.

"My stars, man, you're from 1882." I said, impressed. Second generation machine, first generation soldier. They didn't get older than him. "How long you've been a sergeant?"

"Took over for Sergeant Thomas in 1926, ma'am." he said, "Great man. One of the last flesh-and-blood NCOs. 'Course, I was in the 3rd back then."

"Well, it's an honour to have you." I said, mind reeling. He'd been a sergeant 18 times as long as I had, seven times longer than I'd been alive. That was humbling.

I worked my way through the corporals, a Theo and a pair of Doras from other regiments. None of them would meet my eyes, and the way the second sneered out ma'am I knew she'd be trouble. I was already frustrated and I hadn't even gotten to...

"And… the American soldier." I said, looking him over. According to my ledger, he was Theodore Rifleman, because fusilier was too old fashioned for the rebels apparently.

"Not a soldier, ma'am. A marine." he corrected instantly.

"Did you not hear me explain to the Ensign that we're not the Navy?" I said, already exasperated. "You know what, fine. Any questions?"

Nearly everyone raised a hand except Old Theo and the American.

"... alright, Sergeant Theda, you ask it."

"Vhy do we have a machine officer?" she asked.

"I won it in a card game." I snapped. "Any relevant questions?"

"It's relevant…" one of the corporals muttered quietly.

"Is this going to be a problem?" I said, looking over the line. Old Tom and the American shouted 'No, ma'am!', while everyone stood stock still and said nothing.

"... we have machine officers. We're like the French." Corporal Rifleman added.

"Thank you, Rifleman." I snapped. "I'm serious. Permission to speak freely, all of you. Just say it. I want to hear it."

"Frankly, ma'am, your uniform doesn't fit." Sergeant Theda said sternly. The corporals added affirmations, nodding along. "Officer's have to think of more than themselves."

I could feel the metal in my hands creaking as I balled them into fists a moment, before I could rationalize it. It's fine, I asked them to say it, it's what I was expecting. I had no right to be angry.

The feeling passed.

"Thank you. Sergeant Thea, get our transfers sorted and start unboxing the recruits. Get on it." I said, trying my damndest to keep my tone even, and they moved.

I stalked away, trying to suppress the twin emotions battling for control of my processors. One, the building frustration at the fucking audacity of these machines to treat an officer that way… and the other, the clawing anxiety that it was only proper. That they were right.

Why should they respect me? I was one of them, just with delusions of grandeur.

"You alright, Lieutenant?" Kelly asked, his hands fidgeting. Sumner was looking similarly nervous.

"I'm fine. It's fine." I insisted, standing to watch the machines as they were organized into teams to start carrying boxes down. "Everything's fine. Lydia, have them line the new ones out on the field in a nice line, two ranks, will you?"

Ensign Sumner nodded and strode off, getting the sergeant's attention and laying out the line in the field. The first machines were being pulled out of their boxes, limbs stiff, and lifted awkwardly into position.

At least they'd listen to her.

---

Finally, after about twenty minutes of work, the twenty-odd new machines were lined up, the transfers at attention in the row in front. They were of a design unfamiliar to me, very modern, their faces smoothly transitioning from steel to the glass of their eyes. They were tall, even taller than the last batch, but narrower, a bit slighter. I imagined they didn't have so many bulky plates. Maybe six foot one?

The last three generations of machines were trending taller after a century of them getting smaller, and most soldiers were upgrading to match. At 5'7", I was the shortest soldier machines had ever been since they started being machines. The analysis after Fomalhaut showed that making machines smaller targets, the rationale for bringing down the size (the first generation machines had once been 7'6", not that you'd know it from looking at Old Theo), was perhaps not the important factor.

Smaller machines didn't reach as far with bayonets, and they hadn't figured that'd be relevant with modern laser musketry. It was a costly mistake.

"Horace, do you know how to boot up a new machine?" I asked Ensign Kelly.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, Lieutenant." he said, suddenly coming into awareness that I was speaking. The boy was incredibly distractible: he'd probably seen a bird or something.

"Right, we're going to start flipping them on back to front, left to right, once they get them set up." I explained, handing him one of the stacks of paper on my clipboard. "Honour goes to you. When they come to, hand them a contract and tell them if they sign it, they'll be in the 7th Regiment of Foot, 9th Company, A section."

"Thank you, lieutenant." he said, beaming as he set off with the papers in his hand. This was a normal duty for an ensign, but might as well make it seem special.

As he started to go through, the first machines lighting up and snapping out an automatic salute, I glanced down at my ledger, looking up to compare it. It was about that moment, seeing them all lined up, that I noticed something of an imbalance in my section.

"Hold up. Beckham, how many Dora's you got? Just line troops, not NCOs." I called out across the field to where A section was likewise starting to boot up.

"Uhh…" he swept along the line, counting it out with a finger. "Huh. Only twelve. Bit odd, isn't it?"

"I've only twelve Theos myself. Bit off parity, isn't it?"

He put a hand to his chin, staring back and forth between the two groups, counting them again, then he suddenly smacked his own forehead and strode over to pull me aside.

"I just gave you the top half of the transfer forms when we were divvying up the line troops." he whispered, "And I'd done about a dozen, I suppose."

"And..?" I asked, not following.

"It was alphabetical. A comes before E!" he hissed.

"So what do we do? Do we swap some?"

"You want to write up all those section transfers?" he asked, then rolled his eyes before I could even get a word in, "I don't. It's fine. It'll get evened out in the shuffle soon enough."

Fine. I didn't need any more problems.

With all the machines now activated, and not a contract turned down, I took a moment to steady myself, then strode out to inspect the line. Still wasn't the full number, but this was it. My section. My command.

"My name is Lieutenant Fusilier, I'll be leading this section. If you couldn't guess, I'm something of a fan of the regulations. But if we follow them, we won't have any problems. "

Dead silence. I could see eyes wandering, the looks of bemusement and confusion among the new machines. The unease. Not all of them, but maybe half, already concluding I didn't belong.

"I know you're all thinking it, so let me explain. It was a mistake in the paperwork. If you see a human walking around in a private's uniform, let me know so we can switch back." I joked. Maybe I could seem likeable, and that'd be a start. Something I could build to respect.

The nervous energy remained in the formation. I was already exhausted by this.

"Ensign Sumner, lead the formation to the depot and get them their jackets and kit. Inspection with the Captain at 1100." I ordered, and as the formation was led away by the young officer, I found a patch of wall and leaned against it, my processors racing.

"Say, Dora, you'll never believe this." Beckham said, leaning next to me, "One of my Theos is from the Koreans, of all places. Strange little bugger, but… say, you look a little out of it. Anything I can do?"

"Get me some paint, pink or brown? I have an idea for making them respect me." I sighed.

"Oh, stars, come now. You'd look terrible. Even worse, I mean. Like one of those painted Roman statues." he said cheerily, nudging my arm playfully, "They'll get over it, it's just new is all. Nobody does well with new things, man or machine alike."

"I hope so. Just… you know, I thought I'd get more pushback from the officers, but most of them have been pretty good. Except you, why are you being so nice all of a sudden?"

"Because we're still on the same team, you know." he said, "I don't mean half of it. The other half, though, I very much mean those parts."

"Well, nice to know. Just… between this lot and the Abbys at the bloody estate they've dropped me into, I'm starting to think I misjudged who the opposition would be."

"Honestly, I think you've got it all wrong." he said, "You lot are helpful to a fault if you're anything. If they're pushing back, it's because they think something's wrong and people are at risk. You prove to them you're still a busy little worker bee like the rest of them, they'll shut up."

"I hope so." I said wearily. "Stars, I need some music."

"If that's machine for fetch me a brandy, right there with you." he said.

Out in the field, the colour sergeant was sorting out the civilian contractors and sending them off to wherever they needed to be to support the company. At least that wasn't my problem. We just stood together for a while, not really knowing what to say, and I simply stared at the grass and watched my internal clock tick by toward 1100.

"Heads up, Dora. Incoming dead ahead." Beckham whispered, and I looked up to see a slight machine striding towards me. She was dressed in a simple red coat with a corporal's stripe at the breast, and with a long black skirt and delicate white gloves. "Your aide, I think?"

She stopped before us and came to attention, saluting smartly. I returned it with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, which was not much.

"Corporal Miriam, reporting for duty ma'am."

"Good luck with that." Beckham said, and he strode off, leaving me to figure it out.

 

[open_sketch]

Nitpick: the US Marine Corps was extremely small potatoes prior to World War One. Given that the point of departure appears to be prior to the Crimean and American Civil Wars... I am honestly surprised they survived as an institution, being as how they played second fiddle to a Navy that would itself have been largely abolished unless this setting went for steampunk Space 1889-style warships by the late 1800s, which is admittedly possible.

Click to shrink...

I decided I wanted the Marines to be the US thing on the grounds that the Space US probably has state militias who actually do arm and train civilian machines in the event that Real Bad Shit happens, and then for everything outside of Space US Territory they have the Marine Corps. So where US space overlaps spinward, rimward, or otherwise unexplored space, there are Marines making sure there are no freaky old automated armies or hordes of alien bugs setting out to eat Americans.

There are 600% Space Navies and they 700% consist of spaceships with wood-panel hulls and massive decks of broadside lasers.

 

[open_sketch]

"Hello. Lieutenant Fusilier." I said wearily. I very nearly extended a hand to shake hers, before realizing that might not be the protocol between mistress and servant the way it was between peer machines. "Sorry, it's been a long day."

"It's a quarter past ten in the morning." she said flatly, clearly unimpressed.

"I am well aware." I said, leaning back. "A lot has happened in that time, most of it quite recent."

"Of course, ma'am."

I stared at her a while, looking her over. Never interacted much with a Maria, just in passing while trying to reach an officer or something. She looked like a neoclassical statue carved perfect and smooth, the light subtly scattering through the glass of her casing. There were no rims or edges to the lenses of her eyes, they just projected seamlessly onto her face, no flicker or fuzz or scanlines. She was delicate and beautiful, and in any other circumstance I very much wouldn't mind her presence.

"Go ahead. Ask me." I said, resigned to it.

"Ask you what, ma'am?" she said.

"Why there's a machine in an officer's uniform? " I snapped, the frustration all pouring out. "Why you're working for a bloody Dora."

She just raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, why is there a machine in uniform?" she asked, clearly just humouring me. Ugh.

This wasn't fair, I shouldn't be taking out my frustration with the Theos and Doras on her. I ought not be frustrated at all. I ought to be chipper, optimistic about this new opportunity. I ought to be happy for the help. Good humoured. Ought ought ought.

"... The court-marshal sentenced me to three years lieutenant for my crimes." I said, and a bit of warmth came back to my processors. "My apologies, I'm not handling my frustration as well as I ought to. That was very unfair to you."

"No apology needed, I can imagine you're under a lot of stress in your position." she agreed, "How can I help?"

The slightly flare of frustration again, that was the question wasn't it, but I clamped down once again. She was trying to be helpful, I ought to be receptive and productive. Ought. If I was thinking clearly, I'd express my problems in an even-handed way rather than bottling it up and turning it to frustration.

"To be entirely honest, I'm not entirely sure." I admitted. "I don't rightly know what servants do, in a general sense, and even less sure which of those functions might even apply to me."

"That's quite alright, I have been wondering about that myself. I'm not exactly going to draw you a bath, fetch your breakfast, wait your table, make you tea or mix your drinks, and I imagine you don't need hairdressing or makeup." she said, listing it all without pause, "Though… I daresay you could benefit from some cosmetic attention."

"That has been on my mind." I admitted, "Still, that's a long list of duties you can't do. What's left?"

"Managing your wardrobe, helping you dress, handling light laundry duties, attending candles and fireplaces, packing your luggage, maintaining and applying your jewelry, and care for plants and pets." she listed, "And, chaperon duties? I sorted that one under possible, but improbable."

"My wardrobe is this and a ratty old uniform I won't be wearing anymore, everything I own fits in a small box, I don't own or wear jewelry, I have no plants, and the ensigns already have minders." I said, "And believe me, I do not need any more help when it comes to maintaining celibacy."

"Then I shall be the best candle-manager I can." she said confidently.

"Oh." I muttered, feeling really rather incredibly guilty. "I hadn't known it would be this bad. I more or less agreed to bring you on because apparently it's important for the office."

"Well, those are just my official duties. I tend to find new things to do for every officer I work for." she said, "I've managed medications, carried golf clubs, acted as a translator, covered up an affair, taken dictation…"

"Wait, I'm sorry, what was that last one?"

"Oh, I helped a young lieutenant write letters for a while while she was in hospital. Lost two fingers to a railgun." she said cheerfully.

"A-ah. Right." That was not the one I had meant. "So, I'm sure we'll figure out something, right?"

"I have faith." she confirmed.

---

The rest of the day passed both agonizingly slowly. The two sections, looking smart in their new red coats and shakos and with shiny new muskets in hand, lined up on the parade ground for the captain. A short speech was had, weapons were inspected and test-fired in volley for the first time, there was a brief run-down of the regimental traditions and hierarchy, then the officers took lunch.

I spent that time sitting awkwardly under a tree near the field, trying to think of duties for Miriam.

After lunch we held our first exercise, maneuver training with 4th Company, a challenge both for soldiers to keep formation and for officers to respond to the vague holographic shapes representing enemy formations projected out in the field. All the officers were expected to take particular initiative during this time: it was better to be bold and maybe make a mistake now, and see it play out, than do the same when there were real stakes.

It was here I made my first blunder, because of course it was. In the third exercise, my section was put out on the far left flank, with our company guns behind us. Thinking myself clever and imitating a formation I'd practiced with the 4th, I ordered a pivot so the section's light guns behind the line could fire diagonally into the heart of the enemy columns while the soldiers could still see their targets directly in front of them.

Unfortunately, this was far too sophisticated a move for a unit so new, and I did not do a good job relaying my orders. It took B Section so long to redress the line that we gave up what could have been a dozen volleys on an advancing foe, which, as Major Gaynesford called across the field, "Tends to get a formation very much killed!"

It was hardly the worst mistake of the exercises, Beckham managed to outright block our company guns trying to cover an advance soon after, but I could very much tell the judgement from troops and officers alike was far harsher directed at me than at him. So much so that I couldn't help but notice from then on that when I relayed orders from Captain Murray, Sergeant Thea only actually called the orders once A-section started moving to show they'd also gotten them.

When I asked why she delayed, she claimed she wanted to ensure she'd heard it right. When I was a sergeant, I'd very much used that excuse when ensigns doing tactical training made obvious blunders, to give them time to reconsider. I considered calling her out on it, but then I decided the only thing that could make it worse was being seen by other officers and troops having an argument with a subordinate.

When exercises finally came to an end and the soldiers free for the night, I pulled the infuriating Prussian machine aside as she headed to the NCO barracks, literally coming around a corner to catch her off guard. She snapped into an instant salute, so quickly that her shako tumbled to the ground, and I made a point to 'accidently' kick it away before she could grab it.

"Don't think I didn't notice that stunt, Sergeant. If you undermine my authority like that again, I will have you flat-packed to Keplersburg, I swear." I growled. "I give an order, you follow it."

She just stared back at me, that same unnaturally still, piercing gaze.

"Yes, ma'am, of course." she said cooly, "After all, we were made to obey orders, weren't we?"

I took a step backward, because if I hadn't, I would have instead taken a swing at her.

"You're out of uniform, sergeant." I said, watching her pick it up and dust it off before she hurried on. I then spent the better part of a minute standing stock-still behind the barracks, trying to will the anger away. No point to it, not productive. I could write her up for insubordination, but she and I both knew that doing so would make me look incompetent, unable to control even my most experienced soldiers, and lose me even further trust with the Theos and Doras. Strip her of rank, she could afford to wait a century to get it back. Drive me out of the job, that's that.

"... and that's probably why we used to have flogging." I muttered sourly, stalking to the range to take out my frustration on some holographic targets.

---

When I arrived back at number 18, well past dark, I'd managed to burn off all the anger, and all that remained was the simmering anxiety that things were already falling apart. My section didn't trust me, my NCOs hated me, my staff resented me, and honestly I was starting to hate myself too. I'd done thirteen years as a sergeant without ever getting this angry at a subordinate, and I had managed some truly, frighteningly dense soldiers in that time.

When I got to my room, tossing my hat roughly to the corner of the room, I found myself pacing the floor around my best, feeling too wired to sleep and too tired to think. I wanted to do something. I wanted to work, to feel like I was contributing, and right now...

Right now I had to face the fact that there would be less misery, discordence, and disruption in the world if, in my place, there was a human officer. Even a vastly more incompetent, ignorant, and fickle officer would have the singular, undeniable advantage of belonging, a factor that no amount of training or studying or spending could convey onto me.

For the briefest moment, I found myself calculating out the number of days left in my obligatory service period before I could sell my commission. I was immediately disgusted by myself, I banished all further thought, but I did.

"Seems like your day got even longer, ma'am."

I'll admit, I jumped. Miriam had somehow materialized behind me without making a sound, and the sudden intrusion of her voice into my thoughts nearly gave me kernel panic.

"Stars! Don't you know how to knock?" I half-shouted, trying to slow my rushing fans to an even pace. "They should get you training skirmishers, I swear."

"My apologies. Moving about discreetly is usually valued in my line of work." she said. I noticed she was holding a tray in her hands, on which were cylinders of some kind. "By the way, some unmarried officers prefer I call them miss rather than ma'am, despite Army conventions. Would you prefer that?"

"I… don't have a preference. What are those?"

"Recording cylinders. I can't mix you a drink, but I can assemble you a playlist. Given the day it looks like you've had, can I recommend Massenet's Meditation? It's very soothing." she explained. "I know soldiers prefer harder-wearing records, but the sound is much better on these."

I felt, at this point, utterly lost, so I just nodded.

"Music sounds good." I admitted, and Miriam gestured to the plush chair in the corner of the room. I sat hesitantly, and she quickly moved through the room, dousing the main candles and switching on the fireplace, which buzzed to life in a holographic haze.

"Do you have a colour preference? Studies generally indicate a deep blue is most relaxing." she said. The colour shift on holographic fires was only ever relevant for me for signalling purposes, so I agreed, and she adjusted the dial until the flames were a deep azure glow. She then opened a compartment in the wall for the cylinder, and a moment later the music started, emitted from seemingly everywhere in the room at once.

I lay my head back on the leather of the chair, and just listened.

Miriam moved around to stand where I could see her, and after a moment I realized she was signing to me. 'Can you understand BSL'.

"Of course?" I said. Being able to sign was a vital skill in a battlefield with deafening weapons. She looked frustrated a moment, and signed again. 'Deaf, sign back.'

I signed 'Yes'. She must have turned off her hearing so she could remain alert around the music. That was clever…

Stars, this chair was comfy.

Reaching down, I pulled off my boots, and Miriam stepped forward to take them neatly to the door. I felt a little like I was floating, like I was lying in water and being pulled slowly along by a gentle river, made all the more absurd by the fact I was too dense to float. For the first time all day, actually, for the first time I could remember, I didn't feel a need to do anything. I just wanted to exist, in this chair, relaxed, content. Just enjoy the music. And perhaps...

'Could you get me a book?' I signed. 'Surprise me'

Miriam returned a minute later with a slim novel in her hand, a bookmark she laid on the arm of the chair, and a candle which affixed to the back such to give me light to read by. I cracked it open and checked the title page: it was The Mirage by one Lynn Mason, published 1911.

I'd only read a handful of books in my life, all borrowed from fellow Doras once they were finished with them, and they were mostly modern books written by machines, for other machines, usually very specific ones. Thinking on it, I don't think I'd ever read one where the protagonist wasn't a heroic Theodora Fusilier, saving the day and getting the guy with good cheer, loyalty, and initiative. They were fun enough, though I never found them worth spending money on, and I'd always sort of assumed the literature officers were always reading were the same, just for humans. Self-insert fantasies.

This was not that.

With the music already having me feeling tranquil, detached almost, the book swept me immediately into its setting and characters. The book was a series of three short stories about a then-contemporary family in Manchester, four generations from 14 to 120 years old, all having experienced vastly different standards of living. The great-grandmother had worked in a textile factory, her husband nearly a century dead in a riot, and each subsequent generation had seen their fortunes increase to the point where they were quite nearly a study of different social strata, each clinging to the habits and expectations of their youth.

The titular Mirage was the feeling all of them had that it was too good to be true, that reality was going to snap back to the way it was when they were young. And yet for all that it was warm and hopeful, going out of its way to show how each generation had met and bested the fears of the one before, with mechanical aid, of course, and that all those generations of fears were making room for one of hope, as their teenaged son kept dreaming of the stars.

I was just starting the third story when Miriam got my attention, tapping her wrist. I checked my system clock, it was nearly midnight. I should sleep. She slowly tapered off the music as I stood hesitantly, wobbling a bit, my limbs stiff. I hadn't been properly inebriated since my first few years, before I started saving up instead of blowing my pay on cover charges and jukeboxes.

I will admit, despite my embarrassment, I did appreciate the help getting undressed and my uniform hung, given my lack of coordination. And that there was somebody turning off all the candles so I didn't have to grope around in the dark for it. As the door to the servant's quarters closed and I felt myself slipping off to sleep, all the issues of the day seemed so very distant.

Tomorrow was a new day. A new chance.

 

[open_sketch]

"Ensign, your cuff is for displaying rank, not wiping brows."

"Sorry, it's just so hot…" Sumner muttered back, blinking the sleep from her eyes. It really was: either the weather controller was in a sadistic mood today, or something on the station had broken and we'd all be overheating to death in an airless void in short order.

"Have you forgotten your climate control? Just… tap your cuff button, subtle like. The CO is coming." I whispered, and I I could see her fidget trying to get her hand to the controls without looking like she was moving too much.

Getting the unit in position had, fortunately, not been overly difficult. Though I fully expected Sergeant Theda to be scheming to find ways to sabotage me and get me replaced with a proper human officer, I had confidence that she'd never tolerate ill-discipline or sloppiness in the unit as part of that process.

Thankfully, inspection and CO's parade went off without a hitch beyond that. Despite our insufficient numbers, our Theos and Doras made a fine sight lined up with the rest of the regiment in fresh new uniforms and shiny weapons, particularly the two beautiful revolver cannons on their tripods. Lieutenant Colonel Harrison gave me a small nod as he passed on his horse, which filled me with a giddy pride at a job well done.

The days orders that followed saw the 9th Company going through more basic drilling, including the first proper musketry drills. Soldiers came out of the box knowing how to point and shoot, and with a fair intuitive understanding of the timing and action, but many of the subtleties were lost on them, and in any case, practice made perfect.

I'll say this for Sergeant Theda: she absolutely knew how to lead a unit through a relentless pace, and she had an attention to the smallest mistakes I could only admire. She ran troops through numbers drill, where each step called was a motion or stance in readying, firing, reloading, or cooling weapons, and she'd walk up and down the line between integers correcting the smallest deviation in posture from the arms manual, which I could only presume she stayed up reading.

"Say, Fusie, you quite alright?" Beckham asked, shading his eyes as he watched his section fire another volley into the target wall. "Blast it, is 6.2 a good enough average deviation at three hundred paces?"

"It is if we're fighting something twelve feet five inches tall." I said. Either our guns weren't calibrated properly, or our machines weren't.

"Well, I'm optimistic. I'm sure they can find us some particularly towering buggers out there in dire need of a good lasering." he said, "You know, I would have thought new machines came out the box better than this."

"How well do you think you could fire a musket if all you'd done is read about it?" I pointed out, "More or less the same thing. We'll just have to have it drilled out of them."

B-section crackled off another volley, and a giant spectral 6.0 floated into existence down the field. These were snap shot drills, shouldering and firing in a half-second as one would do from the march or after working the action, but it was still dire.

"And to think, that's with the seasoned machines bringing the average down." Beckham said, frowning. "I dread to think what it would look like without them."

Well there's a thought.

"Sergeant, halt a moment!" I said, walking out toward the line. The muskets raised skyward, and I walked up to the unit, staring across the kilometer of well-trodden grass at the target zone, a floating line four feet off the ground. Theda gave me a look that was very much why are you meddling with my machines, but she said nothing.

"I want to conduct an experiment quickly. Theos and Doras who came out the box yesterday, step back and shoulder your weapons. Everyone else, close up, up front here."

The machines shifted, slowly at first before Theda repeated the order in a bellow and they raced into position. There were now a dozen machines forward with weapons at the ready, and about twice that standing back watching.

"Sergeant, run the drill three times with this lot, and then switch." I said, taking a step back. "I want a proper assessment of the damage."

"... yes, ma'am. Make ready!"

Two minutes later, I had two new averages. Our experienced soldiers were shooting at just 2.1, evenly spread above and below the targets. By contrast, the newbies were, for the most part, consistently shooting high, on the order of about nine feet or more. I wondered if it was maybe something about the design of their shoulders or something, biasing the spread consistently above the line instead of more evenly inaccurate when they snapped the guns to their shoulders.

"There you have it, we have to work on aiming lower. Sergeant, you have to work cut out for you." I said, indicating. "Carry on."

It wasn't a huge thing, it would have been worked out once we got to individual shooting drills that this was a problem, but catching it here in the formation drills meant we had a head start on correcting it, which mean the unit would be ready for action fast. Which meant we'd be more useful sooner in case something happened.

I walked back to Beckham with a spring in my step. Feeling useful.

"Your new Theos and Doras are aiming high. I think it's something in their shoulders. We're going to have to train them out of it."

"Well, that's a problem. Should probably tell the manufacturers, right?" he said, drawing forth an apple from his cartridge pouch and polishing it on his jacket.

"We all have habits we need to break." I said. I felt a strange pang of envy for a moment, to have something like that to do with my hands while we stood and talked. "Beckham, you've seen any action yet?"

"Depends on what you mean by action, I suppose." he said, taking a bite. I waited patiently for him to swallow. "I was in garrison in the coldest icebox they could find rimward after somebody thought he saw an Invader and caused that big panic a few years back, and then they had had us culling this awful critter at Vobion or somesuch, helping the Australians. Great big tripod bird things, nasty stuff, but that went south before I got there and we just huddled up at the fort walls and took potshots for two months."

Wait a tick, I recognized those deployments. Only one unit was at both.

"... Beckham, were you in the Coldstream Guard?" I asked, and he gave an affirmative sort of shrug. "Bullshit. I don't believe it."

"Dad's a major there, legacy pick. Generations back at this point, I don't even remember." he said casually. "Big family thing."

"Why the hell'd you give that up and come here?" I asked, flabbergasted. Was it money? I'd looked it up, I knew the commissions for Guards regiments were as much as three times more expensive than elsewhere, and it was extremely exclusive.

"Because vacancies in the Guard are once in a bloody epoc." he said, looking over his half-eaten apple as though trying to determine where best to bite it next. Satisfied, took another chomp out of it, talking around chewing. "Spent six years in ensign, missed out on the total of two vacancies in all that time, and I told my dad the family tradition could jog on and bought the first Lieutenant commission that came up."

"Stars. I had no idea it was that bad." I said.

"It wasn't all that. It's just cluttered with all the richest and most connected sorts, not much different from other regiments other than that, and they stay in forever because nobody wants to give up a chance to rank up." he said, "Used to joke with my mates that the purpose of the Guard regiments was to get the real smug pricks away from the regular Army. Been a while since they were really an elite of any sort."

"Sure, but what about the ranks?" I asked, and he shrugged.

"Theos and Doras." he said simply, as if that were all there was to it.

I wanted to argue with him, because getting into the Guards was a big deal for a machine, you needed to apply with an exceptional service record. There was a Theo from the 7th who managed it when I was five, and the others threw him a going-away party that basically became a spontaneous, leaderless midnight parade through the city.

(Or so I heard. I'd taken advantage of the empty base to get some range time on a revolver cannon.)

But Beckham really didn't seem to see a difference. He must see us as totally interchangeable, and I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Ideally, we would be, wouldn't we?

"Can't imagine your father is too happy about it all." I said instead, and he gestured vaguely, taking a final bite from his apple.

"You got that right. Really hoping I fall into the lap of a beautiful woman with a lovely bank account sooner rather than later, because right now… how long was it to make Captain on our salary?"

"Discounting our mandatory expenses, nineteen years and two hundred and sixty-three days. Provided we save everything else." I said.

"Right, well, lemme just do a quick bit of my own math given my expenses… mhmm, carry the one… ah yes. I ought to make captain by the time I'm a brisk six hundred and a bit, I think." he said. "Can't wait."

"Wait, what? I thought human families, like, pooled money. Or something, I'm not clear on the details." I said, confused.

"It's called disinheritance, Fusie. He's a right prick, what can I say? I've got aunties I can probably call on for a few thousand pounds in a pinch, but I'd rather not bother the poor dears."

"Why didn't he just refuse to pay?" I asked, and he chucked.

"Oh, he did. My ensign's commission in the Guards was worth more than my lieutenant's commission here, and I had enough left over for my pistol, a small yacht, and a respectable liquor cabinet."

The sheer scale of money that humans dealt in casually never ceased to amaze me.

"Well, I'm sorry to hear about all that." I said. He waved it off, and then, with a few steps to get leverage, threw his apple core far out into the field.

"Say, if you pop your clogs, who gets your stuff?" he asked.

"A Theo or Dora's personal effects get auctioned off to their unit if they haven't left it to a comrade or sweetheart." I explained. It was weirdly solemn for something that sounded so callous, basically a way for friends to get mementos of the fallen machine.

"I wonder if they'd auction your commission to your mates, then."

"Huh." Hadn't thought of that.

I looked back over at my unit, watching another ripple of laser fire pulse out.

"Good news. We are now qualified to fight things eleven feet two inches tall." I drawled.

---

The next morning at breakfast, Lieutenant Kennedy joined rather late, looking somewhat rough.

"You alright, Diana?" I asked, as she accepted an enormous cup of tea from her aide and blinked stiffly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I slept terribly's all." she said. "Insomnia."

"I don't know what that is." I said simply.

"I'm bad at sleeping."

I wasn't aware that was a thing humans could be bad at. From my experience with ensigns, sleeping was a default human state from which wakefulness was a deviation.

"Well, keep practicing, I suppose." I said neutrally, not sure what else there was to say. Kennedy, in the midsts of drinking her tea, made a very funny sound and began patting at her face with a napkin.

"Oh my God, Dora, I was drinking!"

"... my apologies. Did anything happen to prompt this insomnia?" I asked, as she patted the front of her uniform to chase away the beads of tea rolling down it.

"I guess. Oh, you would have missed it, the Duke's extended an invitation to the officers at his end of summer thingy again."

"Thingy?" I asked.

"Ball. Biggest social event of the season in this sector, great big party, dancing, dinner, so forth. We knew he was going to, this was just a formality."

"Is that what has you… insomnia-ed?" I asked,

"I guess? I didn't have a great time at the last one. My date abandoned me to talk to another girl, and I got lost in the palace trying to find the way out. Nightmare." she explained, sprawling heavily against the table. "Complete nightmare."

"Do you have to go?" I asked, and she nodded against her arms.

"Yeah, it'd be a huge insult to turn him down. He's the duke, and the base is kinda technically his? We gotta keep him happy." she said, "It's mandatory."

"... does mandatory include me?" I asked, dreading the answer I knew was coming.

"Machindatory?" she offered, and when I chortled she continued, "Yeah, I think it's also machindatory. It's on the 15th, you have to be there by 1600, which means you ought to arrive either fifteen minutes before or after but not at 1600, okay?"

"Wonderful." I said, trying not to externalize the screaming.

 

[open_sketch]

"Welcome home, miss." Miriam said, taking my hat and weapons to hang up. "How did things go today?"

"Is covering up a murder one of the duties you can perform?" I asked wearily, pacing down the hall. She followed with a little tap tap tap of footsteps, thus proving she, in fact, did something to not make sound when she wanted to.

"I'd have to know the details of the crime." she said, still chipper as ever as I leaned against the table in my useless dining room. "But perhaps. What's got you in the murdering mood?"

"Senior Sergeant Theda. The Prussian I told you about. She's on a quest to find exactly what counts as insubordination and park her ass right there on the edge." I said, staring up at the ceiling and only just noticing the intricate floral patterns in the tiles. "The Theos and Doras basically do their utmost to pretend I don't exist, and she enables it."

"Such as?" she asked.

"Well, she's apparently reading the regulations ahead of me, because, for example, turns out the rule is that a salute is required when they 'recognize the presence' of an officer within six paces, so long as they aren't doing manual work. So she's told the Theos and Doras, and now a lot of them always just happen to be facing away as I pass." I explained, pushing myself back to standing and pacing about the room. There were a lot of strange devices in the kitchen for the cook to use, none of which I understood whatsoever, but they sure were interesting to look at.

"So they have plausible deniability, and it means if you want to be treated with the basic respect of your office, you have to insist on it every time." she summarized. "Have you called her out?"

"Yes, I pulled her aside during marksmanship training, told her I wouldn't tolerate it. She pretended not to know what I was talking about, but said we could put the Theos and Doras through remedial training on saluting. Which would very much not endear me to the troops, nor address the root issue."

"And you can't write her up… why, exactly?" she asked. I shrugged off my jacket and she took it without comment, folding it respectfully over her arm.

"Well, it's disrespectful they're doing it on purpose, but soldier's not noticing you to salute is thing that happens sometimes. If I wrote her up, it'd be very easy to spin it as me making mountains out of molehills." I explained, "And that's basically her goal. Make me miserable enough to quit, or prompt me to bring it up in official channels on shaky ground where the Theos and Doras, or the other officers, will see it not as a sergeant being insubordinate, but as me being, you know, jumped up, entitled, glitched..."

"Hmm. Alright, I understand your murderous impulses, miss. Name a time and place, I'll bring the shovel." she said wryly. "Do you have anyone on your side?"

"Old Theo's solid, but the quartermachine's realm of authority is mostly in gear, not discipline. And Ensign Kelly's aide likes me, but that's the yank, nobody gives a shit about him. And… I don't know what's up with Beckham. I think he both sympathizes with me and finds it funny."

"Yeah, I don't imagine he'll be much help. I thought you said Captain Murray liked you?"

"Yes, but I don't know… honestly, I don't know why." I said, "You know, when I would talk about my plans among the Theos and Doras, they'd make it sound like the humans would hate having a machine among their ranks. But they mostly seem either supportive, amused, or just confused."

Miriam looked askew at me, and I shrugged helplessly.

"I don't understand humans, I guess."

"Well, I do." Miriam said, "And you must remember that nearly every human family has the same story about climbing from misery, right? And when they did the world didn't collapse into malthusian chaos like they expected. So when they see machines out of place, they often don't see a disruption to the order of things. They just see themselves."

I considered that a moment, thinking of the book I'd finished yesterday. The great grandmother's stories of the textile mills and poorhouses and public hangings told to wide-eyed children who could never imagine a world so cruel.

"And we're worried the mirage will fall apart if anything is out of place." I summarized.

Miriam shrugged, and I pushed myself away and started down the hall toward the study. Not because there was any reason the study was better for this conversation, but because if they were going to give me this massive complex to live in, I was going to make an attempt to use it.

"That's the thing, isn't it? She's not doing it just to be cruel, though it sounds like she very much is being cruel. She sees you as a danger, an existential threat to… all this. So… prove her wrong?" Miriam offered, keeping pace behind me.

"Sure, I'll just do that." I said, sitting down in one of the overstuffed chairs in the study. It creaked a bit disconcertingly, probably not exactly designed for an armoured war machine to sit in. Miriam vanished a moment to put away my coat someplace (presumably disappearing into the catacombs of the estate I was sure existed), and returned a moment later.

"Speaking of out of place… I heard you have an invitation to a ball." she said.

"How'd you..? that's your job, right. I do." I admitted. "I very much do."

"And you have no idea what it's going to be like." she summarized.

"Actually, I've got a decent idea." I said, "There's an honour guard from the 7th there every year, consisting of the most decorated and disciplined Theos and Dora in the regiment."

"So that's been you every year, huh?"

"For a decade or so. I thought they'd finally seen the resentment in my eyes, but I realized recently that it's more likely they'd seen the wear and tear." I said. "So I know the basics. There's the mixer where names are announced, then they go off to dinner and I stop the privates from hitting on the house staff in their absence. After that, we go back to the ballroom, everyone dances with everyone else for a while, and then there's usually some work convincing the more enthusiastic guests to get some sleep before they embarrass themselves."

"You've more or less nailed it, yes. The mixer, we simply must get you looking your best and you must try not to break any major social convention, which I think you can manage. The dinner… will be awkward, but you'll survive."

"And I should have no trouble with dancing if I just stand to the side and act like a statue, right?" I said, and Miriam winced. "Oh?"

"... remember that thing about humans seeing themselves in us?" she said.

"My stars, you don't think one of them would ask me to dance, do you?" I said, feeling utterly mortified. "They wouldn't!"

"They very well might, if you're alone. The whole thing is that if you're there and single, you're eligible. That's the implication. There are some unwise young men who'd do it, and there's just no good answers in that situation."

"I would think no would bloody well-, oh, wait. I understand." I said. Humans did stupid shit sometimes, stuff that would ruin their reputation, especially once they had a few drinks in them after dinner. A good machine avoids enabling them as much as possible. "Yes, let's avoid that. So I slip out before the dance. Nobody will notice."

"You're going to be a guest of some curiosity. They'll notice."

"Alright… a ruse, then. Have me called back to base for something, make up a reason why I must leave. Stage an emergency?" I offered. I had no idea what such an emergency could be that would specifically just call away a lieutenant of 9th Company, though.

Miriam just looked at me disappointed.

"There is another option." she said, "Take a date. The invitation has a plus one, after all."

"... Let's go back to the fake emergency idea. Trust me, it would be easier." I said, wincing.

"Come now, we'll find you a nice machine. I know some wonderful boys who'd love- hmmm." I was shaking my head rather desperately. "Is it the date part or the boy part?" she asked, sighing.

"The boy part." I said.

"Well, to each their own I suppose, more for me. If you really can't stand the idea, I do have a few friends who very much indulge that particular inclination, I'm sure one of them will be game. What's your budget?"

"I beg your pardon?" I said, not entirely sure what she was insinuating, but not liking it anyway.

"Letters to my sapphically-inclined friends aren't free, and they'll need a dress suitable for the event. Moreover, we're going to have to get you fixed up at least a little if you're going to be presentable."

"I currently have five pounds, eleven shillings, and eight pence to my name." I said. My total pay in the 29 days since I'd purchased my commission.

"Oh. We will have to get creative then." she said cheerfully.

 

[open_sketch]

Checking the schedule over in the office the next day, I couldn't help but groan a little.

"What's the matter there Fusie? Not enough work for you?" Beckham said.

"No. Void exercises." I said, setting the ledger down. "All afternoon, 1230 to 1800."

"Oh, lovely. Haven't had a jaunt outside in a while." Beckham said, and Murray perked up too. "What's the fuss?"

"Easy for you lot, just put on a helmet and seal up." I complained. The high collar of an officer's uniform would snugly affix to the bottom of the little oblong globe helmets and the uniform would lock and stiffen to keep positive internal pressure, and they'd be right as rain. "Not nearly so fun for us."

"I didn't think machines needed to breathe, do you?" Ensign Kelly said, twirling something in his finger. I was pretty sure it was a safety tab from one of the disposable missiles that 4th Company had been training on yesterday, left discarded in the grass. "Whatsit matter?"

I was about to answer when I saw Ensign Sumner perked up, looking eagerly at me with a smile on her face. Her I know that! face.

"Lydia, go ahead." I said, and she looked like she was going to burst with pride.

"Machines don't breathe, but they still need air. They use a system of liquid coolant inside their bodies to whisk heat from their processors and other working parts, then run that to a heat sink and silent fans at their back and collar, usually." she said, clearly reciting something she'd read. "But in vacuum, there is no air to use for cooling, so instead these systems are tied into backpack radiator units."

"Very good," I said approvingly, "and therein lies the problem. The Leynthall Model 2130 pack issued to our Theos and Doras was, we think, designed by a human who'd never have to wear it. It looks nice, but the panels jutt out too far for close formation, they do not cool very well because of thermal overlap, and they have this stiff steel frame that's dreadfully uncomfortable."

"Really? I've never heard a complaint, and I did six months of void ops." Captain Murray said, and I laughed.

"They wouldn't complain to you, ma'am. Um, sorry." I was still breaking the habit. "It's mostly just a bit of a pain, and nobody's bothered to design anything better yet. When I was a corporal we did a joint operation with the frogs, and we ended up nicking their radpacks whenever we had to go outside."

"I'm not exactly seeing how armoured bulletproof machines get uncomfortable with some metal pieces and suchlike." Beckham scoffed, raising his teacup to his lips. "Didn't really associate it, you know?"

"Any machine that's been in for a couple years is going to have three scuff marks on their backs, shoulder blades and mid-spine. That's where the pack digs through their coats and into them." I said grimly. I couldn't even imagine what mine looked like, if they were at all visible through the other damage.

"... well that's not right." he said, honestly looking a little disgusted suddenly. "Good lord, I hadn't a clue. Captain?"

"That's awful, yes. I really wish somebody had brought this up. I have a brother in the War Office, I'll write him. Surely something could be done." the Captain added, genuine concern on her face. "And I'm worried the Theos and Doras think they need to keep something like this quiet. That's awful."

"Now hold on, it's just a bit uncomfortable, it's not-"

"I think my dad buys solar sails from the Leynthalls?" Ensign Kelly said hesitantly, "Perhaps I can relay a message through him about the pack's problems?"

"Wait a tick, Kelly as in the shipyards?" Beckham asked, and he nodded nervously, "Stars, man, I bought my yacht from your old man not a month ago. Small galaxy, huh? Send my regards."

"... seriously?" I said, looking around the table. "Just like that? Do all humans know each other?"

"Of course not." Captain Murray said, shaking her head. "Though… is your father Philip Joesph Kelly, vacation estate in the Carina Nebula?"

"No, that's my uncle?" Ensign Kelly said, "I've been there though, few years ago. Bit boring…"

"Well, my husband goes golfing with your uncle…"

---

Antares City looked quite a bit like a large snowglobe, with docks radiating out around the rim. The void training fields were, appropriately, simply the underside, a section about two miles square which had no particularly sensitive parts or working components. In the far distance, you could sometimes see space workers clamouring over the station-keeping thrusters, radiator arrays, and other esoteric machines which jutted like great towers from the surface, but most of it was simply flat, empty steel plating.

The field was divided into a variety of sections for different purposes. Some were flat, others had rises and dips built in. One section was even covered over in wooden planks in imitation of a ship's hull, as while the Royal Marines were most likely to do any space boarding action, transported Army units were expected to lend assistance. The wood surfaces, a relic of the Second Age of Piracy, prevented magnetic locks and boots from adhering to the hull.

But today, training would be happening in the Sandbox, a large, dusty field simulating the conditions of a dead planet or moon, complete with the ability to rapidly sculpt artificial, hills, craters, and rocks. Combined with different paragravity settings, the reflective mirror to change lighting conditions, and the holographic emitters, just about any kind of low-atmosphere environment could be simulated.

So there I stood, fidgeting uncomfortably and silently in my radpack while trying not to fidget with the wire that connected my wireless to my throat speaker. The entire regiment, everyone who wasn't deployed, was out for exercises today, with 9th Company being loosely assigned to guard the guns while everyone else engaged in more complex exercises. This was the first excursion outside for more than half our machines, after all.

We had just reset for a new exercise, attempting to manage an attacking line across the field under 33% gravity. Fighting on surfaces like this was hard, just moving alone was a challenge. The ground was deceptively slippery and it was easy to stumble or fall if you didn't move carefully, and one soon got a feeling for planning your next half-dozen steps to maintain the loping gait you needed. Keeping this up in formation was a nightmare, and so drills were constant.

As I watched another of my new Doras eat dirt while returning to formation, her leg slipping out on the fine powdery surface and sending her tumbling sideways to the ground, Lieutenant Kennedy got my attention with a wave of her hand.

'How's your back?' she signed, a look of concern on her face behind the glass of her helmet.

'Fine' I signed back, a little annoyed. Word had gotten around through the officers about the M2130 packs, and I was honestly getting a little annoyed at their concern. Yes, it was uncomfortable, but I'd live.

"Alright everyone, if we're in position, we're going to be making this one a low-light attack." the voice of Major Gaynesford crackled through the wireless, and the mirror mounted above the field began to shift, diffusing the light of Antares into a flat twilight. My unit, not thirty meters away, became little more than a set of shadowy shapes against the ground, the only thing standing out being the eyes of anyone glancing back and the teal glows of the ensign's field generators, sparking on interaction with the dust at their feet.

Movement was difficult, but communication was a nightmare. With no air to propagate sound, you were down to sign language, signal lights, laser pointers, and the wireless. It was even worse when I was first activated, as the wireless systems only began to be introduced about fifteen years ago.

"A-section, I want you down at the rim of the crater to delay any incoming threat to the guns. Right at the lip." Captain Murray said, her voice barely audible through the wireless. "B-section, the right flank if you please. Be ready to screen, but do try to give the guns a good field of fire."

Signing luck to Lieutenant Kennedy, I strode back to my formation, drawing my sword. I glanced to the ring at the top of my sword's grip and toggled through the options with my thumb until I found the one I wanted, then I held the sword aloft and triggered the small button on the underside of the guard. Alternating pulses of yellow and white light flowed up the blade, and a moment later both ensigns copied the signal, and then the NCOs pulling ahead of the unit. I'd had to ask Ensign Sumner for help programming the signals in my blade, unfortunately.

Everyone began to move, a clumsy, awkward stagger, and I could see Sergeant Theda trying desperately to get the soldiers to close ranks as their gaits brought them apart. Behind us, the guns began firing, suddenly casting the whole scene in bright flashes that threw our shadows ahead of us. I let them move until we'd made about seventy paces from the battery before signalling a stop and pivot, leaving us diagonal to the line and in a line two deep. I walked to the outer edge so Kelly and Sumner could still see me while facing forward, staring down into the murky darkness of the Sandbox.

To our left, the 'attack' was proceeding, troops formed into tight bunches trying to work their way forward under the reduced gravity. As they began to close, every other section would slow and fire a few quick bursts of laser fire up the hill toward the vague holographic foe while the others pressed forward, alternating to try and disrupt the enemy fire while still making good time forward. Lieutenant Kennedy's guns were sweeping the enemy line, the flying guns burning sharp lines through the enemy while the gravitic howitzers threw out bombs that exploded into submunitions high above.

A Dora near me at the section suddenly perked up, pointing out to the field, and I noticed her fellows doing the same, pointing out toward the edge of the ridge on our far side. Following her finger, I saw it, dust blooming up over the edge, something moving along it and sending up a cloud of dust which hung unnaturally in the reduced gravity.

I squeezed the switch at my throat to trip my microphone while toggling the pointer function on my pistol.

"Look alive, I've got dust over the left hand ridge, about nine hundred yards." I warned, pointing my pistol up and flashing twice towards the ridge. "See it?"

"Got it, Fusie. Flanking calvary you think?"

"They are moving awful fast." I confirmed, following the propagation of the smoke cloud. Given the way it was rolling down the edge, I imagined it was the (holographic) enemy aligning themselves along the edge of the ridge for a movement on our guns. Not many of them, but at least a company in size, exactly the sort of force you'd throw out to threaten a battery.

Properly, we ought to have skirmishers there to confirm, but such was exercises with a half a regiment.

"Lieutenant Beckham, pull back to the reverse slope of the crater." Captain Murray said, and I glanced back to see her and her section moving from the edge of the crater toward my position. While the forward lip was better for disrupting skirmishers and harassing formations, the reverse would force calvary to go around. "B-section, they'll come through you if anywhere, I'm coming to you."

"Acknowledged."

If I had time, I should like to get my revolver cannons to the ridge with A-section, but the attack could come at any moment, and the worst place for them was between us alone. Instead, I signaled for a chevron formation, essentially one-quarter of an infantry square arrayed toward the enemy. You couldn't form a proper square with just a section, but you could put your tripod guns in the center of the formation and hard to get at without going directly through the densest stack of steel-armoured machines or taking a long flank that exposed you to the fire of one of the sides and the guns.

I shifted back with the unit and repositioned myself near the center just as the enemy, such as they were, came over the top of the ridge. The vague shapes were insectoid, clearly inspired by some of the more alien war machines we'd encountered at the rimward front, and they skittered low and fast toward us. This wasn't like the much more precise holographic forms of the sparring ring, these were a sort of indistinct mass, a suggestion of a formation of perhaps a hundred foes, its details amorphous and fleeting.

I raised my sword in anticipation to call for fire as they closed, holding for the most effective time. If you fired too early, the beams would dissipate with distance, and you'd be caught refilling coolant or switching rods as they reached your line. Four hundred yards would be good, three hundred best.

I could see Sergeant Theda glancing back at me, glaring. She wanted to fire early, I could tell, she was from a military which used magnetic rifles whose effectiveness did not drop off with distance (but whose rate of fire was fixed and much slower). All her instincts were telling her to order the volley.

I signed no as emphatically as I could, taking a step toward her. Her head locked forward, her arm remained raised.

At about three hundred and fifty yards, I signalled to fire, my sword flashing red, and Theda's hand chopped forward. There was a blinding series of strobes down the line, shots at simulated high power, and a huge cloud of coolant billowed out, pulled spherical by the vacuum. The revolver cannons began pulsing, a shot every half-second over the heads of the front rank, and as they overheated the weapon was cranked around, discarding a red-hot heat sink into the dirt and continuing to fire as the crews slotted in another.

A moment later, concurrent with our second volley, A-section lit up into their flank, and the shape of their formation shrank and grew ragged as it closed, simulating dwindling numbers. They were getting closer now, a hundred and fifty yards as the coolant started to grow thinner and the muskets started dumping heat directly into the rods. Pulses of light flashed up and down their line from short ranged weapons, and a few of the machines in front of us had their training packs buzz indicating they'd been hit, so they lay down and the unit tried to close up around them.

If we were going to activate bayonets, it ought to be soon.

Glancing over the heads of my Theos and Doras, it didn't look necessary. The formation was slowing, and less were dropping with each volley as it became less dense (the individual shapes were not targets, the formation was simply a target line as before, casualties calculated by odds and deviation from the center). As they grew to a halt, the front ranks panicking or locking up or whatever, I toggled my sword over and ordered walking fire.

The formation began shifting forward, edges first until it was a solid line. They couldn't exactly walk and fire in the low gravity, but they could shoot, bound two steps while the capacitors recharged, and fire again. Guns were opened and rods replaced, littering their wake with red-hot heat sinks as they kept up the pressure. With the enemy closing on what was supposed to be their charge and a solid base of inaccessible fire behind them, the holographic formation began to roll away from the section.

I turned to see Captain Murray had, at some point, come to stand beside me, an enormous grin on her face as she watched the line move. She signed 'good work', and in that moment, I felt invincible.

 

[open_sketch]

The officers all filtered together through a pressure lock, and though I had no particular need for the slower process they used, it wouldn't do to have me reenter the station with the troops. We crowded in and everyone sat down on the chairs on either side, while I stood awkwardly in the corner, and Lt. Col. Harrison pulled the hatch behind us.

"Good day's business, I'd say." Major Gaynestown said through the radio, looking over us all. "Lieutenant, you can take a seat if you like."

"Can't, actually. The pack." I said, pointing with a thumb behind me.

"Oh, blasted thing. You should buy yourself a better one while the War Office gets it figured out." he said, shaking his head.

"Blast it, Henry, what happened to you?" I heard Beckham ask, and followed his eyeline to an officer who was, head to toe, covered in grey dust, with just a small portion of his helmet cleared so he could see.

"Took a nasty bit of a tumble going up the hill." he said, his smile just visible beyond the sticky dust, "Rolled a good fifty yards, it's hard to stop once you get going."

"As usual, you're all free for the night, dress code's relaxed for the mess." Harrison said, trying to wipe the dust from his jacket. It just stuck fast to his glove and smeared further. "And my apologies to your housemaids."

"Fusilier, you going to be joining us for once?" Lieutenant Duncan called over the group, and there were a couple of chuckles from the assembled group.

"I would love to. As you all know, eating human food with the mouth that I have is among my passions." I said, shaking my head. "Unfortunately, this is my only suitable outfit."

"Next time then." he said, as I started to notice the hissing of air become audible. After a few more minutes conversation, the candles above the door turned green, and I finally disconnected the coolant pipe and pulled it out of my collar, shivering from the action and the stray freezing cold drops that raced down my back. All around me, helmets were being removed and people were starting to shuffle out, and I eagerly shed the radpack, stretched, and headed home.

Miriam was waiting at the door, as usual, shaking her head as I stood.

"You're on thin ice with the housemaids already. Go around the back to the servants entrance, I'll see you there in a few minutes." she said. I stepped by as she walked out, then I stepped around the back of the estate. There was a lovely little garden there which I hadn't even noticed before, and a machine was trimming the hedge that ran around the property.

"Morning, ma'am!" he called, and I acknowledged him with a wave. He wasn't even on any staff I knew of, must have worked for the base. Bizarre.

I found my way to the servant's entrance down a short set of steps and waited. After about fifteen minutes, the door swung open to reveal Miriam with a large canvas bag in one arm and a large blue housecoat folded over the other.

"Clothes in the bag, housecoat on." she said, hanging them up on the hooks beside the door and disappearing back inside. Sheepishly, I stripped, trying to do so carefully in order to not get any more dust on my person, and shrugged into the housecoat. It was very, very soft on the inside. Boots off, I gingerly stepped inside, noticing I was in the servant's room I'd seen before, just from the other end of the hall. Rooms to my right, the door back into the house at the far end, a small table at which Thomas the mechanic stood.

"Evening, ma'am. Nice housecoat." he said, looking up from his book.

"Thanks. I haven't a clue where it came from." I admitted.

"Good news, by the way. I got approval from the base to install an outlet in your room. I'm going to do it day after tomorrow while you're out at the ball." he said as I stepped past, and I thanked him in a mumble, feeling very out of sorts. Miriam was waiting for me on the other side of the door, and she did not look pleased.

"Do you have any clothes other than that uniform and the pink one?" she asked, as I headed to one of the water rooms for a cloth. There was still dust on my face.

"I have my civilian dress, I suppose." I said, ducking inside. I wet a rag and peered at the mirror, and it didn't look too bad until I ran the cloth over my cheek and suddenly noticed how much brighter it was. "It's not exactly fancy or anything, though."

"It'll have to do. You have a date." she said, snatching the rag from my hand. "Have you got tomorrow's schedule?"

"Not much to do… urgh. We're doing formation bayonet drill, some training with the ensigns? But nothing in the evening." I said, wincing as she aggressively wiped at the plates on my neck. She scowled, and I saw the rag sail into the sink in front of me before she began attacking the problem with a fresh one. "Now what's this about a date?"

"Hold on a moment. Have you talked to that sergeant of yours yet?" she asked, making a vain attempt to get the dust out of my hair.

"Not yet, I didn't want to make an issue before void training, it's dangerous. Tomorrow! Now, why do I have a date?"

"One of my friends wrote back, you're very lucky, she's a sweetheart. But you have to meet her beforehand, obviously, you can't bring a total stranger as your guest." Miriam said, and I shuddered as she cleaned off the cable port at the base of my skull. "As for tomorrow, I managed to get you an appointment with my detailing girl on incredibly short notice, and we're going to see how much damage they can undo for two pounds four shillings. Was your uniform sealed?"

"No, I didn't bother- two pounds what? What the hell?" I protested, trying to twist in my seat. She gripped my shoulders firmly to keep me in place, surprisingly strong for a woman literally made of glass.

"Miss, you look like you fell from orbit. We will not be able to make you look presentable by any means, but they wouldn't let you in that hall as a servant right now, nevermind an officer. It'll be well worth the money. Now, come, off with the coat, I won't have you getting moon dust on Beatrice."

"Beatrice?" I said, squirming out of my coat, "So she's a seamstress then?"

"Not any longer. You'll like her, she couldn't just stick to her job either. Good lord, it's all down your back. Seal your uniform next time!"

"I had to leave the collar open for my speaker…"

So there I sat, housecoat hanging open and feeling a little like a kitten caught out in the rain as Miriam aggressively tackled with clingy static dust with a seemingly endless supply of damp cloths. I'll admit, none of my fantasies about being undressed around a Maria much looked like this.

Eventually, as she was finishing, I saw her step back a moment in the mirror, looking at me, her eyes soft.

"Miss, if you don't mind my asking, what happened to your back?" she asked. "I wasn't going to say anything, but…"

"Oh. Yes." I said, feeling rather awkward. "Well… it happened a long time ago. I don't like to think about it."

"Hmm. Alright." she said, stepping back to work. "I'll say, I don't think fixing it is quite in your budget yet. Constance is a genius, but she isn't a miracle worker."

"Where did you get this housecoat, anway?" I asked, but she was already stepping out.

"Miss, where's that civilian dress you mentioned?" she asked from the bedroom, and I told her to look in my trunk. I heard the sound of the latch and some rustling, and then a gasp.

"It is twenty years old." I mentioned sheepishly. "And was free when I got it."

"Well… it shall have to do. We have half an hour yet, let me get my sewing kit."

---

An hour later, I found myself climbing nervously out of a cab in front of a small building downtown in my newly mended dress. Miriam had, at record speed, shorn the high collar off with a pair of scissors and made a flawless seam at the remains to bring the neckline 'vaguely into season' and affixed a white bow at the neck which she got from who-knows-where, and promptly shoved me into a cab she'd presumably arranged for with three pence in my hand.

I stepped to the door, finding the three pence was what was needed for the cover charge, and went inside to find some very light music playing, trying to get my bearings. I hadn't been in a place like this ever: when I did used to go out, it was to places a lot more… well, rough and tumble. If anything, it reminded me vaguely of the cafes I sometimes heard officers talk about. The interior was clean, simple, minimalist almost, with small booths, and machines were sitting, reading, talking quietly, playing cards, chess, and other activities I didn't recognize. One, sitting the corner alone, had a stack of papers beside her, and was tapping her fingers against a strange device sitting in front of her.

She certainly looked like a Beatrice. Very, very tall, sort of awkwardly spindly, perfect for reaching around clients or measuring even the tallest, with long, delicate fingers and a socket for a magnifying lens over one eye. She was made of a combination of brass and white glass plates, though I noticed that one of her forearms was a marbled green, and dressed in a lovely pink and white dress. Her hair was a bright mess of coiling curls, anodized to a bright orange.

She was very unusual looking, but I couldn't say she wasn't intriguing. I stepped to her, hand raised awkwardly.

"Excuse me, are you waiting for somebody?"

"Yes, a… are you the Theodora I'm waiting for?" she asked, her voice immediately pegging her as American, and I nodded, sliding into the booth as she indicated. At no point did she stop tapping at her strange device, her fingers resting on a half-sphere of push-buttons, and I realized that below it was a sheet of paper that was moving in time with the clacks, letters appearing.

"Let me begin this rather awkwardly by asking… what is that thing, and what are you doing with it?" I said, instantly feeling like a giant idiot.

"This is a Hansen Writing Ball. It never really caught on, people prefer their letters hand-written for the most part, but when volume's what matters, it helps quite a bit. My apologies, I'm on a deadline." she said, still tapping away. She thumbed a plunger on the back of the device, and it shuffled the current sheet aside and opened the holding claws for another, which she slid in with a smooth, practiced motion. It reminded me a little of a gunner changing heat sinks on a revolver cannon, the same instant, unhesitating action.

"You're a writer, then?" I asked, remembering Miriam mentioning she wasn't working her original job. She nodded, pausing a second before resuming the rapid taps.

"Yes! And I rather bit off more than I could chew this month. If I'm going to take a night off, I've got to make up about ten thousand more words." she said, frowning. "Do you read much?"

"Can't say I do, though I'm reading more these days." I said. "What do you write?"

"I do a variety of serials for the red tops and a few, um, other periodicals. It's very popular stuff, they usually get printed together later. And some other stuff, I guess, ha!" she said, pausing a moment to scan me over. "I was told you're a lieutenant? Impressive. You look sort of rough though."

"Uh... very recently a lieutenant. Had to save for a rather long time." I admitted, feeling a bit awkward at her bluntness. "My finances are somewhat in recovery from purchasing the commission."

"Ah, that's why you're wearing a thirty-year old dress with some hasty modifications. Whoever did it was in a bit of a rush, huh? Whatever, you make it work." she said. She finally paused a moment, taking her hand away from the typing ball and cupping her chin as she looked at me. "Stars, you've been through a lot, though? The scars are very evocative. Mysterious. Mhmm."

"Uh, yes. Thank you?" I said, unsure how to handle this. Was this what dates were supposed to be like? As best I knew, we were just making sure we wouldn't kill one another at the event itself. "So how do you know Miriam?"

"One of her previous officers was a huge fan. Though, uh, that's a huge secret so don't tell literally anyone." she said casually, back to tapping away. "Why'd you want to be a lieutenant? That's for sure a human-only thing over here?"

"Uh… well, not entirely, as you can see." I said nervously. "I just always thought I'd be more helpful leading and taking responsibility. It's my way of trying to contribute more."

"Oh, I totally get that." Beatrice said, switching her papers again. "Sorta started writing that way. Well, no, I started writing because I was bored. I was working for this family for a while but they kinda became a bit reclusive for a bit, some kind of social drama, I don't know, and suddenly I was only working like six hours a day because they didn't need so many new fashions or anything, so I took up writing to fill the time. Started passing it around my friends, soon found out the whole staff was reading it and were super excited, bringing energy back to the whole place."

"Oh, that's lovely." I said.

"Right? I felt so accomplished, and realized I was doing far more good raising spirits and giving people escapism than I was making clothes every once and awhile. Though…" she paused her tapping, glancing under at her sheet. "Still do sometimes. Just for myself. And friends. Clients sometimes. But mostly writing. And there we go?"

"Oh?" I asked.

"Fifteen thousand. That's it for the day." she said, pulling her hands away from the writing ball like it was superheated and stretching out. "So… seen anything exciting out there? Anything that'd inspire any stories?"

"Well… would you like to hear any about the rimward frontier?" I asked, and she perked up, her eyes wide.

"Would I ever!" she beamed.

---

"Next matter. We need somebody to shoot the ensigns."

"Hell, I'll do it." I volunteered.

"Nah, that's not right. It ought to be one of us." Beckham said, "Something disconcerting about a machine doing it, right?"

"Come to think of it, Dora, you need to get shot too." Captain Murray pointed out. "It's only fair."

"Let's make it even then. I'll shoot the ensigns, Miles shoots me?" I said, and everyone around the table nodded.

"That works, I suppose." Beckham conceded.

"Well, best get it done. Lunch is in a bit. Pistol's by the door. Make sure it's the right one."

"That'd be a bit of a thing to explain, yes." Beckham said, grabbing his coat. "Dear Mister and Missus Brodeway, funny story…"

I plucked the pistol out of its box and made sure to check it over carefully, in full view of everyone to make sure we all saw which one it was, before leaning my head out. The ensigns were sitting around the little outdoor table, laughing obnoxiously at something.

"Ensigns! It's time to get shot!" Beckham announced, and they came over eagerly, excitement on their features. "Make sure you've got your hats!"

I flipped off the safety and the pistol whined in my hand as it charged up.

"Right, who's first!" I asked, and three hands went up. "Really? Not you Ellen?"

"I'm not exactly eager, no." Ensign Darley said, wincing.

"Oh, come on. Won't be so bad." Kelly said.

"Yeah, I heard it's just like falling asleep." Sumner insisted.

"Alright, Chris, you're up." I said, and Brodeway shuffled over to the side to make a clear target.

"Any last words, sport?" Beckham asked, barely able to contain his laughter.

"Miles! That's awful." I said, a little horrified.

"Nah, just do me." Broadway said with a shrug, and I leveled the pistol at his chest and fired. He didn't throw his hands up or anything dramatic like that, he just folded over and fell stiffly onto the grass, writhing slowly.

"Uuurugh.... Fuck." he moaned, slowly rolling over. "Fuuuuck…"

"Oh, stars." Sumner said, "I think it didn't work. Hit him again."

"Nah, that's about right." Beckham said, prodding Brodeway with his foot. "You feel like you're going to get up?"

"Bleggh…"

"Right, who's next!" I asked, as the charging light of the pistol turned green. "Lydia?"

"I didn't realize it would be like that…" Sumner said, looking down at the fallen Brodeway, who was clutching his chest and twitching slightly.

"Come on, it won't be so bad." Kelly insisted, stepping forward. "I'm ready."

I shot him too, and he pitched forward with a groan into the grass, spending the next several seconds struggling to turn over before seeming to give up.

"See, that looks really unpleasant." Sumner said nervously. Darley rolled her eyes and shrugged with a resigned expression, and I hit her too. She sort of locked up and fell slowly, like she was suddenly too tired to stand. "Mmmhm. Yeah. I'd prefer if not."

"Sorry, you have to. I do too, even."

Wincing, Sumner nodded and closed her eyes, looking away. I hit her, and she staggered and sprawled out onto the grass limply.

"Well, that's done." I said, turning the pistol around and handing it butt-first to Beckham. He checked the coolant levels, nodded, and pointed it at me, and I could see my expression reflected in the lenses at the muzzle. "Make it quick, will you?"

"'Course, Fusie. Night-night." he said, and he pulled the trigger with a flash.

Being stunned isn't like it is in the books, where you just blue screen and pitch over fast asleep for as long as the plot requires. I don't exactly understand the science, but it's some sort of disruptive rapid electrical pulse which plays havoc with any voluntary motor actions. You don't feel any pain or anything, but instead you simply feel very numb all over and even the smallest motions feel very, very difficult. You can, with some effort, roll over or even crawl a short way, but fine motor control in particular is very hard, and balance is utterly impossible,

It doesn't put you to sleep, but there's very little else to do but take a nap for the next twenty minutes as you wait for the effects to wear off. You'll be a little slow and shaky for the next hour or two, but that's why we did it before lunch.

Consequently, we were soon sitting around the office table, all moving slowly. The ensigns seemed drowsy, leaning against the surface or cradling their head in their arms, trading off yawning intermittently. For my part, I was bright and alert, but having rather a lot of difficulty moving my limbs about properly. It's a good thing I didn't need to eat or drink, or I'd have smacked myself in the face more than once, I imagine.

"Wasn't so bad, was it?" Beckham asked, to collective groans from the group.

"Didn't hurt, at least." Broadway said, squinting against the sun.

"It sorta feels like when your arm falls asleep, but everywhere." Darley said, trying to drink her tea while propping her head up with one hand. Some of it tricked down her chin and into her cuff, and she set the cup down while squirming uncomfortably.

"So now you see that we can't just go stunning people willy-nilly. Especially if they're standing on a hard surface, they might hurt themselves." Captain Murray said, hiding her smile behind her own teacup.

"Couldn't we have learned that in a classroom?" Sumner complained, and I found myself agreeing as my twitching hand clattered against the wood of the table.

"Experience is the best teacher." Murray said sagely. "Miles, after lunch take the youngsters out for a brisk march, that'll wake them up."

"Surely Dora wants to do it." Beckham said, and I tried and failed to make a rude gesture his way with a shaky hand.

"Not for the next hour I don't." I said, trying to keep my voice from modulating too badly. "I'm going to go get the week's reports sorted, if that's alright."

Murray nodded, and I got up stiffy and started walking to the desk set aside for me. I settled in, read over the quartermachine's report while I waited for my limbs to stop shaking, then glanced up at the runner posted by the door.

"Theodore, will you fetch the Senior Sergeant, please?"

 

[open_sketch]

I busied myself with the least interesting of the ledgers while I waited, humming to myself as signed off confirmations to requisition new supplies. Just in yesterday's void exercises, the section expended 12 gallons of musket coolant, 41 heat sink rods, and 9 focusing crystals. And we were to order a new box of 500 cleaning rags after the subsequent regolith removal. Stars.

"Lieutenant."

I glanced up to see Sergeant Theda standing there at sharp attention as usual, her silhouette framed perfectly against the doorframe, her eyes glaring down imperiously, everything about her regulation-perfect from her buttons to her stance. It infuriated me how impressed I was by that.

"Sit down, Sergeant." I said, sitting back against the chair, tenting my fingers. Trying to imitate Lieutenant Duncan the few times I'd had cause to step into his working space at the base. Theda stood stock-still a moment, as if trying to decide what to do, before opting to pull out a chair and sit.

She looked so awkward sitting down. Like she was trying to hold attention even while seated, perched like she was trying to get minimal ass-to-seat contact, like she wasn't sure how one was supposed to interact with a chair. Oh, it was delightful how uncomfortable she looked.

But I needed to stop gloating or being antagonistic. That was the problem in the first place. As Miriam had said, I needed to convince her that I still cared about the same things she did, and I'd have a much harder time doing that if I looked angry, entitled, petulant.

"Sergeant, I want to dispense with the bullshit and talk to you. Dora to Dora." I started, leaning forward a bit to try to look engaged. "I know you don't much care for me as your lieutenant, and I'll admit I've not much cared for you as my senior NCO. But seeing as that isn't likely to change in the immediate future-."

She twitched, just the slightest amount. I swear I saw it.

"- we're going to have to come to a detente." I concluded.

"I don't rightly know what you're talking about, ma'am." she said coolly. Just as I expected her to. Had to make things difficult. Urgh.

"Of course not." I said, trying to keep calm. I had no idea how this one woman could make me so angry, but I just kept reminding myself of Miriam's explanation, trying to think away the feelings. "Tell me, why did you become a Sergeant?"

"I was told I would be well-suited at the position by a superior. I accepted the promotion once it was offered." she said simply.

That… was not the answer I was expecting. Good lord, was there any personality in there at all?

"Why did you accept?" I asked, now a little curious. What was going on in that processor of hers?

"Did you call me in here to ask me my life's story?" she asked, and I shrugged as casually as I could.

"Maybe."

"... I took the promotion because I believed I would be of more use in the position given my experience." she said simply. "No other reason."

"Would you believe me if I said the same thing about my commission?" I asked. She stared at me, clearly turning it over in her head.

"To be entirely honest, no. I have read your record. You are a third my age, and you must have started saving decades ago. You applied because you wanted to and nothing more." she responded tersely. "Because you wanted power we weren't designed to wield."

I admit, I had to suppress my amusement at her increasingly smeared W's in her last sentence. You really heard both V shapes in the letter.

"You're right on every point but that one." I said, shuffling in my chair. "I don't want power. If I can be frank, I'm terrified of it. I have nightmares about being like the old nobility, of abusing my authority. I worry constantly about it, I always have."

She looked askew at me, her eyes softening just a moment, for the first time I'd ever seen. It was brief, but unmistakable.

"What other reason would you have?" she said. Her glare was different now. Not a stare to intimidate an enemy, but a focus on a particularly vexing puzzle or difficult chess position.

"Because power is hand in and hand with responsibility, and that is what I've desired. I've always wanted to do more, contribute more, to take on as much as I could and then push myself more." I explained, the words coming naturally. And I realized, as I did, that it was true, it was the reason I'd always had trouble articulating. "Surely you can understand that?"

"I can." she said, her glare hardened again, "I think I misunderstood you, Lieutenant. You aren't power-hungry. You are merely terribly misguided."

"... you know what? I'll take it." I responded with a shrug. "And I'm sure if you're right, I'll see the error of my ways soon enough. In the meantime, do you really want to introduce nearly a score of new machines to military discipline through the disrespect of an officer, even a misguided one?"

"I resent the implication, ma'am, but I will see to it that no disrespect of the office is tolerated." she said firmly.

"Very good, Sergeant. Dismissed." I said, and she snapped to her feet. With a respectful and entirely regulation nod, she turned and marched out, her boots snapping crisply against the floorboards as I watched her leave.

… I'll say this for the rat bastards at Krupp: their machines look awfully good on the retreat.

---

The moment my duties concluded for the day, I found myself spirited by Miriam back downtown, this time to an engineer's office, apparently arriving within moments of my appointment. I had barely sat down when I was standing again, met at the door by a short and curvy engineer who beckoned me in, screwing her monocle in place as she looked me over.

"Dotty, here she is, and I did warn you." Miriam said, and as she did I could see Dotty's face falling, her articulated mouth pulling her face into a grimace.

"My stars, woman, were you perhaps made in a blacksmith's forge or the like?" she said, her voice a mix of concern and abject horror. "You look like somebody forgot what they were doing halfway."

"I'm flattered." I said, wincing a bit as she pulled me down for a closer look.

"It's worse than I feared, and certainly worse than you budgeted for. And you're going to the Duke's? What's your salary?"

"Six shillings a-"

"Fine, we'll call it a loan. Congratulations, you are officially a charity case." she said, gesturing to a chair beyond, around which were lights and a variety of intimidating machines I very much didn't understand. The door closed behind us, leaving Miriam in the waiting room and myself in the clutches of this madwoman.

"What an honour. What is all this?" I asked, climbing nervously into the seat and staring around.

"They are the tools that will make you look like you were built this century, dear." she explained, stepping up onto a stool to get a closer look.

"I was built this century."

"Yes, but you certainly don't look it. Well, we don't have to worry about anything under the collar, though we will polish if you like. First thing's first, we simply have to do something about those scars…"

"Whoa whoa, hold up." I said, holding up a hand. She recoiled a second, staring down at the fingers with a sneer (she could sneer! I'd never see a machine who could). "I like the scars. I earned them in battle and I think they make me look… you know… accomplished in my field."

"They make you look like you own a particularly ill-tempered cat." she responded, "But if you're sure, we can work with it. What about this… discolouration?" she said, poking at my cheek.

"That can go. Fix up whatever else you want, I like the scratches." I said protectively. Before today, I thought they were just part of my general run-down appearance, but under the threat of removal I suddenly realized how attached I was to them.

"... I can work with this. Hell, I can even clean them up, make them pop a little. Yes… we can work with that. How's your pain tolerance?"

"I have a two inch deep, six inch long gap in my thigh which I did not notice until three hours after it happened." I said flatly.

"... Alright, damn. Come back to me after you've collected some more pay, we'll take a look at that. For now, here's what I'm going to do. We're going to remove your faceplate and use a process called electroplating to build back up some parts of your face which have been worn away and fill in some- some of the divots and such. We're then going to go over and polish the whole thing back to a sharp finish, then temper it."

"Even with my pain tolerance, this sounds like some rather extreme things to do to my face." I pointed out, and she laughed.

"Oh don't you worry, you won't be wearing it. While we're at it, we'll get you some new hair, clean that up a bit. I think we're going to remove some of the plating over your neck, and most of the components of your speaker. Get some new rims stamped out for your eyes, I think I still have that machine in the back. Does that all sound alright?"

"... what are you going to do with my scars?" I asked nervously.

"I was thinking of perhaps highlighting them. Gilded, perhaps?"

"That feels ostentatious." I said, and she nodded.

"Chrome, then. It'll stand out impressively from the darker steel, but look naturalistic."

"Alright. That all sounds good." I agreed, and without ceremony she reached down under the edge of my chin, feeling along the inside of my jawline until she founded the latches. With a click, it came loose, accompanied by a momentary sharp pain, and a second later she was lifting away my faceplate. It looked so strange, without my eyes in it.

"Oh, just a question, would you like to see what you look like without it? I have a mirror here. Some machines find it a bit thrilling." Dotty asked.

"Oh… I'd rather not. I already know what that looks like." I said, a bit pained. Didn't like to think about it.

"... fair enough, ma'am. Now, my assistant Dorothea will take over here for your hair and such, while I handle this." she said, bustling away to another room with my face clutched in her hands. All the exposed sensor points were tingling strangely in a phantom sensation.

"Hello, Lieutenant." another voice said, and a new engineer leaned into view. She looked and sounded blessedly less mad. "Dotty's a bit much, but she's a genius. To be honest, I'm not sure what colour your hair was when it was first installed, but a nice silver-gold ought to fit. Do you like this sample?"

"... do what you think is best. You're the expert, I just wear it about." I responded.

---

"Alright, cameras on, Lieutenant!" Dotty announced, and the world blinked back into view staring at a mirror held about a foot from a face.

From my face.

"Stars, that's me." I said. Not a question, it was undoubtedly familiar, but… more.

More symmetrical, more even, less rough, yet it wasn't the face I was manufactured with, the one I remembered. The softness that years had worn in was now deliberately sculpted, much finer and more consistent, yet clearer and better defined. There was a proper sheen to me now, and the scars, once rough-edged lines dragged around my face, were now brilliant lines that gleamed in the candlelight.

I turned my head, watching as the light properly reflected off a smooth surface, without the murky patterns of unevenly worn metal and finish. Details were picked out, my lips were fuller and brighter, and I swear there was just the slightest hint of bronze in my cheeks and across my nose hinting subtly at blush. My hair didn't look much different, save that it was much more lustrous and even. And finer, a much thinner wire.

They were still my features, but now, they were also the features of an officer. Rather than looking worn down, I looked rugged, yet noble. I felt hot.

"You like it?" Dotty asked.

"I think I very much do." I said, studying closer. "Say, the scanlines rather stand out a bit more in my eyes now, don't they? In contrast, I suppose."

"Come back once you've paid off your bill, and we can talk about it." Dotty said cheerfully.

 

[open_sketch]

The Duke's Palace was an everpresent element within the city, looming at the outskirts. From the base, it's upper roofs and the enormous glass dome of its ballroom were just visible over the rooftops of the city, gleaming in the sunlight of the solar reflector high above the station. I didn't know much about architecture, save that I knew it was very impressive, and dwarfed the other two manors on the station (that being the McMillan family, the industrialists, for whom April worked, and Douglas estate, who I understand own some of the shipyards). My understanding was that there were dozens of guest wings in the palace for visitors, each larger than the building I lived in, plus a dizzying array of other rooms for whatever strange purposes humans found.

The night and day leading up to the party was underlined by the increased traffic to the station, such that from the edge of the base closest to the rim of the dome I could see a sea of masts from all the solar sail clustered about the docking ports.

The morning, spent on musket safety drills and instruction for the highest power settings (which is to say, if you're going to shoot at high power, you best be aware of everything within twenty feet or so of the target), was filled with increasing nervous anticipation on my part, especially with no sign of Kennedy at breakfast and with Beckham making a point to ask every inane question he could about my new face. Finally, though, we broke for lunch, and the officers began to race off for their final preparations.

(The Theos and Doras were, god help us, being given leave for the next thirty-six hours. All of them.)

I returned to Number 18 briefly to ensure my uniform and self were both in as top a shape as I could get, then flagged down a cab and proceeded out into the city to pick up Beatrice from her apartment. She rented a respectable little room in a rowhouse, space for a bed and desk and every other inch overflowing with stacks of paper and wall-to-ceiling shelves of her previously published materials, and opened the door in her dress. Her eyes went wide when she saw me.

"Stars, Lieutenant. I didn't know you were going to go get a whole new face for the occasion." she said, looking askew at me. "Wow."

The dim little pink bulbs under her cheeks flickered to light a moment and I felt a thousand feet tall. And her? Like I knew I was gay, but stars. She had this bottle green dress, same as her mismatched arm, with little toggles and bows in a metallic brass that perfectly complemented everything about her. This might have been a last minute arrangement, but I was pretty happy with how it was turning out.

We got back into the cab and made our way across the city, the anxious energy of it building in the cab. The driver had looked at us like we had screws loose when we told him we were going to the palace, to the front gate moreover, but without complaint he spirited us in that direction with a clatter of Jansen's linkages, and we both desperately tried to keep cool.

"... nope, can't do it. We're going to a fancy party! Full on fancy party!" Beatrice said, so excited she was tapping her feet furiously against the floorboard of the cab. "As guests. Oh my God, this is absurd, isn't it?"

"More than a little, yes." I agreed. "I hadn't really considered this element of the job much, you know. I was very much focused on the leading part and sort of… well, to be honest, sort of assumed that I just wouldn't be a part of the other bits."

"Well, that's because you're English or whatever. In America, this isn't super weird. But also, Americans don't really have giant fancy parties like this. It's seen as aristocratic." Beatrice explained.

"Well… that's because it literally is." I said, a little confused.

"American humans don't terribly like thinking of themselves that way. The, uh… they had a bad time with both their last sets of aristocracy, yours and theirs." Beatrice said, wincing a bit. "It's not talked about. Point is, it's not weird for management machines and officers and the like to mix a bit more with humans. But here, stars, that's just not done."

"... that's a good accent, wow." I said. She sounded exactly like April for a second. Usually when machines tried faking an accent, it sounded… well, incredibly fake.

"I've lived in British space for sixty years now, I had the accent installed. Sometimes I'm doing research and I don't want to be the outsider American so it's helpful." she said.

"What kind of research do you do?" I asked, curious. I still had no idea what she wrote.

"Well, not all my books can be about Beas, you know. I talk to other machines to get an idea what makes them tick, what they value, what their jobs are like, so I can write books for them. Usually get the manuscripts read over by a few to make sure it seems right, you know? Everyone's different, sure, but we are made on patterns." she explained. "So if I was writing a book about Doras, you'd bet I'd want to talk to as many Doras as I could."

"That makes sense. So… is this trip going to be research?" I asked.

"Well, not deliberately. It's was kind of a favour for my friend Miriam at first, and now it's kind of a oh my God, I'm going to the palace with a machine officer sort of situation. But things that happen to me tend to end up in my books anyway. Often kinda by accident? Once or twice I've written about stuff I've been going through before I realized I was going through it!"

"I'm not entirely sure how one does that." I said, and she shrugged.

"Me neither!"

Traffic slowed as we needed the front gate of the palace, choked by all the cabs filtering in. Most were of the sort used in the city, pulled by horses with linked, articulated legs, but there were horses with wheels, hydraulic legs, pedrails, tracks, air cushions, or even modern repulsor coils, all attempting to form an orderly line for arrival and shuffling past one another.

"What the bloody hell is that?" I exclaimed, and Bea leaned over to see what I was pointing at. Crossing the street ahead of us was a cart pulled not by any sort of horse I recognized, indeed not pulled by anything mechanical at all, but instead drawn by four incredibly bizarre and frankly alien beasts that it took me a moment to recognize from ancient paintings. They looked very different (and somewhat sickening) in motion.

"Those are like, horse-horses. The original sort." Bea said in awe.

"Bizarre." I said, feeling a little uncomfortable as I looked at the straps and blinders of the beasts dragging the cart along. Animals shouldn't be treated like that. "I don't think I like that much."

"It probably isn't too bad. They might be genotyped to not feel it." Bea said, sitting back on her chair. "I can't imagine otherwise."

Finally, the cab deposited us at the doors, and we both had to take a moment to marvel at the baroque extravagance before moving in. I offered an arm to Bea, and she linked hers with mine as we approached, doing our best to look dignified and very much in place despite how very much out of place we were.

At the door was two of the soldiers from the 7th in their smartest uniforms standing at attention, and a doormachine who looked at us with more than a little confusion.

"Um… name?"

"Theodora Fusilier and guest?" I said, as though that wasn't obvious from the look of me. The machine scanned through his ledger, flipping a few pages before nodding, but then he looked back at me.

"Why's there a machine officer, then?" he asked.

"Excuse me, this is a skin condition." I retorted. He looked bemused a moment before one of the guards leaned in just a little.

"That's our Lieutenant Fusilier from 9th Company. Let her in, will you?" he whispered, and the doormachine shrugged and checked it off.

We pushed past through the door, every inch around us covered in gilding, molding, paintings or curtains, trying not to look too overwhelmed by it all. This was normal for humans, right? Well, maybe a bit more than normal. There were a few wide-eyed teenagers who couldn't help but gawk at the sheer scale of it, and this was just the entrance.

We made our procession then from the entrance into the reception hall, which was an enormous space which felt twice as tall as it needed to be, flanked by two curved staircases each wide enough to march a regiment up in column. Suspended above us with absolutely no visible means of support was a chandelier dotted in thousands of dancing candles, cycling slowly through colours, each revealing new details of the enormous hall.

All around were people: humans talking, moving, greeting one another with drinks in hand. Machines scurrying about delivering refreshments, guiding guests, carrying messages. It was as chaotic as any battlefield I'd ever marched across, and felt nearly as dangerous.

Then, as we passed through the doors, a butler made eye contact, just briefly, and he announced my name. A handful of eyes glanced toward the door, and were it not for Bea on my arm pulling me forward, I think I would have cut and run on the spot, a full route until I was back safe in my old cot in the NCO's barracks.

I scanned the hall desperately, desperately for any red jackets, and the sight of Beckham and another officer standing about in the corner was like spotting one's regimental standard in the fog. I made a beeline there as fast as I thought was respectable, trying not to bump into anyone along the way, and I'll admit his dumb, mocking smirk was a lifelife.

"Fusie, you actually made it after all! I had five pounds on you doing a runner." he said, looking me over.

"You haven't five pounds at all, you liar." the other officer responded, shaking his head. "Evening lieutenant. I think this is our first proper introduction?"

I froze up, unsure what to say, but fortunately Beckham was there to make it worse with his usual charm.

"And you never told me about her, my God. Bit embarrassed you're already showing me in that department." he said, looking her over. "Somehow, the least surprising part of you is that you're a lesbian."

"Stars, Miles, do you ever think about your words before they escape your mouth?" I asked, flabbergasted.

"Not usually. Miles Beckham, Lieutenant in the 7th. This is my good chum Lieutenant Henry Rubin Turner. You have him to thank for inflicting me on you, Fusie, he's the one who wrote me about the opening in the 7th."

"I had to get him somewhere where I could keep an eye on him. We've been friends ever since he was a little boy and I was very confused." Turner said, and they both laughed at their in-joke which I very much did not understand. "But yes, greetings and all."

My stars, they're clones. They found the most irritating man in the world and decided to craft a second, just to see if the galaxy could withstand it.

"Uuuh… Lieutenant Dora Fusilier, as you probably guess. And this is…"

"Beatrice Tailor. Charmed." she said, extending a hand dainty. Was that a thing? Was I supposed to do that thing? I was unsure, so for the purposes of safety I decided to do nothing but look as stoic as I could.

"How long have you known our stainless-steel subaltern, then?" Beckham asked, and she laughed a very charming and very fake laugh and I realized, at some point, she must have researched this exact circumstance for a book or something.

"Oh, just a few days." she said, and worrying desperately about what they might make of that, I quickly changed the subject.

"Have any other officers made it yet?"

"I think Gaynestown is somewhere thataway, and last I heard the CO is with the Duke proper someplace." Turner said. "Plus there's some ensigns… somewhere. It's probably fine."

"I saw Lieutenant Duncan by the balcony." Beckham added. "Oh, and Lieutenant Kennedy, just for a moment. Looked a bit dazed."

"She's had terrible luck at parties. Probably because she isn't allowed to stand far back and blow them up." Turner added with a laugh. "Poor girl, really, a damned shame."

Turner plucked a glass off a passing tray which may or may not have been intended for him as more names were called out over the assembled halls. We were shortly thereafter joined by a confused and lost looking gaggle of our Ensigns, who had been spirited here as a clump and then flatly abandoned by their aides.

"What you've got there, Ellen?" Beckham asked, and I glanced over to see. To my absolute horror, Ensign Darley had somehow secured a glass of something or other from a server, and now they were all gathered about it, quietly daring each other to drink.

"Oh, nothing lieutenant." Darley responded, the drink shielded from Beckham's uncaring gaze as he shrugged and returned to his conversation. She quickly passed it to Sumner, who stared wide-eyed at the contraband.

"Come on, Lydia, it won't be that bad." Kelly insisted.

"It smells quite strong, compared to ciderkin." Sumner said, "I don't think we ought to. Or maybe just in small sips."

"What, you chicken? Come on Lydia!" Brodeway insisted, nudging her arm. With a wince, and before I could stop her, she threw back a considerable portion, and then screwed her whole face up, sticking out her tongue.

"Oh stars, it's foul! Why do people drink this dreck?" she said, a shiver going through her whole body. A curious Brodeway snatched it from his hand, took a sip, and nodded.

"It's alright."

I was distracted at that moment by a voice I thought was calling my name, and I turned to see Lieutenant Colonel Harrison approaching, accompanied by an old man I presumed simply must be the Duke of Arcturus, and unusually with a youth of perhaps fourteen dressed similarly. They both had similar features too, if separated by a century in age, sharp and hawkish. I was aware the title had changed hands recently, but I had no idea what that meant, and my loose understanding of human ages sort of indicated there ought to be at least one or two generations between them.

And, most intimidatingly, there was another figure in a red jacket accompanying them, with a pair of layered sashes and a chest full of medals, her yellow left eye not quite matching her green right eye due to a hasty field transplant. Her, I recognized: Lieutenant General Elliot Sybil Andromeda. Our boss, the general of the entire Arcturus sector, and the most decorated officer currently serving.

The rule is that you don't salute indoors, you have to be wearing headgear to salute, but I swore I felt my arm twitch.

"Lieutenant Fusilier! Wonderful. I was just telling the Duke about you." the Lieutenant Colonel was saying, gesturing warmly. I froze up on the spot.

"Hello. Evening. General. Duke." I said, each word disconnected and meaningless, the extraction of which from my speakers felt like it had to be done with tongs from a safe distance. Did I address the child? Should I look at the child? Something in my processors screamed 'Do Not Look At The Child' and I made a titanic effort to look everywhere else instead.

Then I followed the chain of their eyes looking and realized I needed to introduce my date.

"This is Beatrice. Taylor. My date." I concluded stiffly, praying for death.

"Lieutenant. I'll admit, I was surprised to hear about your promotion. Haven't had an officer come up from the ranks since I was a junior officer myself." the General said, regarding me with an absolutely unreadable expression. "The Lieutenant Colonel passed me your service record, I remember seeing a report about your action at Fomalhaut. I'm glad to have such an officer in my sector."

"Th-thank you ma'am. Uh… General. Lieutenant General." I stumbled, to the amused smiles of everyone around me. "Old habits."

"I'm glad to have you as a guest. Please enjoy the ball." the Child said, his voice a little uneven.

"Thank you." I said, unsure what I was doing, and we all stood awkwardly.

I was saved further horror by a chime that seemed to quiet everyone in the hall, and everyone began moving with purpose toward a set of doors nestled between the stairs. I vaguely recalled that this indicated the start of dinner. As the group moved away, I felt all the tension leave my body, the same happening to Bea beside me.

"Oh my god, that was General Andromeda. Oh stars, she's read my record. Aaaaah." I said, feeling my hands shaking. "She remembers who I am."

"That kid was the Duke. Like, of the whole thing. The city." Bea added. "Oh stars, I feel a little faint."

"We'll get to sit down now, I think…"

We followed into what turned out to be an enormous dining hall down a short set of stairs, another room of absolutely stunning overextravagance with massive tables laid out in long rows.

"So… do we just sit?" I asked, and Bea shook her head.

"I think we'll have been assigned a spot. I imagine the officers all sit together, so let's go there." she said, indicating to where a section of red (and a single blue) coats were milling about. It soon turned out there was no real seating beyond specific tables, so I and Bea found a spot opposite of Captain Murray and her husband, a lovely looking man in a black suit and small glasses who smiled at us as we sat. Moments later, Kennedy made a dash for the empty seat nearest us, sitting in a rush.

"Dora, thank the stars. This is a nightmare." she said, staring shocked in the seat. "I hate this sort of thing. Oh my God, Dora, your face!"

"Uh… is that approving or-"

"I just… you look amazing. Compliments to the, uh, face-smith?" she said, smiling. "Who is, uh-?"

"Um… this is Beatrice Taylor, my date. Bea, this is Lieutenant Diana Kennedy of the Royal Artillery, she's a friend." I said, indicating beside me. Bea gave a nervous little wave in response.

"... lovely to meet you." Diana said, looking at me strangely. I felt a little self-conscious suddenly: I knew it was a bit unusual taking another woman to an event like this, but I had presumed it would be utterly overshadowed by the unusualness of being at such an event at all as a guest instead of staff. I hoped this wouldn't affect our friendship.

Further introductions went around as more people filtered in: Captain Murray's husband was Albert, I met Lieutenant Duncan's fiancee, I learned so many names they all promptly fell from my head. A curious machine with the servers came by to ask us what exactly we were doing here, and confirm we didn't want anything, though I made a point to ask him for two empty glasses. Food and drinks started arriving soon after, and we did our best not to be too awkward while everyone else was eating.

As part of that desperate attempt at distraction, I began scanning the room, taking in all the people crowded around. The tables seemed themed beyond just the officers: my best guess were locals, guests both British and foreign, relatives of the Duke, and a table of honour with all the most important guests which included the Lieutenant General and Lieutenant Colonel. It wasn't a surprise to see that Bea and I were the only machines sitting down, but it was stark none-the-less.

As expected, as dinner progressed, the first toasts arrived, and this was the genius of the empty glass. It was apparently acceptable for those attempting who had given up drinking for their health to toast as such, and given that pouring a beer into my workings would probably not be optimal for my functionality, it seemed a reasonable substitution. Bea was quite impressed by the solution as I guided her through the first, which made me feel very confident indeed.

Nearing the end of dinner, when our restlessness was at its apex (Bea had started idly twirling a fork between her fingers with, I will admit, very impressive manual dexterity), I noticed a red-coated Maria, an officer's aide who bore the same heterochromia as the Lieutenant General, move swiftly up along the table and lean to her. Her face changed, a look of concern, and she turned and spoke quickly to Lt. Col. Harrison. The two of them got up and swiftly left, servants descending to remove their plates, and I turned to Bea just as there was a great shuffling around us. Before I could speak, however, I felt her take my hand.

"Dinner's ending, Dora. Would you care to dance?"