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  Oh, God. He longed to tell Emerald how much he loved her, like his own daughter, sometimes maybe more since she needed it so much more. But that would just make it harder for her to leave. “Damn you, you idiot!” he cried. “For once in your life, listen to me, you foolish child! Go! That’s an order! Go!” She jerked her head back as though he’d struck her, and gazed at him with a look of shock and betrayal and abandonment, tears pouring down her face, looking like the little girl he’d met nine years ago, just minutes too late. But she was listening. “You have too many other lives to save,” he told her, ramming each word home.

  It got through to her. It was the only thing that could have. She was bawling at the top of her lungs like a baby as she turned away. But she turned away, and she ran. Arkady tried to call out his love to her, to say good-bye, but the radiator panel finally tore free with a final, mournful groan.

  Arkady accepted the inevitable, finding peace. His old comrade had served him well, but it had reached its limits. At least the breaking of the radiator meant that its remaining pieces would fall free and put no more strain upon the habitat. At least he’d gotten the people out. That was what mattered. He’d just done his job, done what came naturally. He knew Pavel and the kids would understand.

  He just prayed, with his last thought, that Emerald would.

  2

  The Troubleshooters

  Demetria habitat

  In orbit of Ceres

  “… And it is with great pride that I promote Emerald Blair, the Green Blaze, to the status of full Troubleshooter, with all the rights and responsibilities that the title entails.”

  Emry tried not to wince at the applause. At least it was subdued and respectful; the audience before her, consisting of fellow Troubleshooters in full uniform alongside TSC staffers, their families, and assorted dignitaries and reporters, understood what she had lost in order to gain this early promotion. Many of them had been as close to Arkady as she had been, if not more so.

  Yukio Villareal had probably been closer to Arkady than anyone but his husband. The two men had been fast friends and allies for over twenty years. But his voice remained calm and commanding as he spoke, capturing the crowd’s attention as it always did. “And it is with equal pride that I confer upon our newest Troubleshooter a commendation … only her first, I’m sure … for service above and beyond the call of duty in preventing the Neogaian bioterror attack on our Terran cousins. While we mourn the thirty-seven souls who were lost in the disaster at Chakra City, including one of our own most cherished members, we owe Emerald Blair our deepest thanks for ensuring that the toll was not far worse.”

  Only Emry’s wish not to embarrass Sensei Villareal kept her from resisting as he placed the medallion around her neck. The whole thing was a joke. All she’d done was track Krieger’s scent in an unthinking rage, like the predator he aspired to be, and beat him savagely until the local police had pulled her off. He was still in the hospital, under top security. Maybe incidentally she’d stopped him from infecting more than two ships, whose occupants had been successfully quarantined and were undergoing treatment, but who might have to go through life with some interesting cosmetic changes. Some had suffered severe allergic reactions to the foreign proteins produced by their virally altered DNA; if the viruses had been unleashed on Earth, the consequences would’ve been far worse than the Neogaians had apparently believed. Preventing that had earned Emry this commendation. But all she’d really done was lose control again, with the usual consequences to human life and limb. The fact that the victim had been a terrorist and murderer didn’t make it any better. She’d been acting on impulse, not thinking enough about anything other than vanity and wisecracks. She’d let herself grow complacent. That couldn’t happen again.

  She hadn’t even remembered the other Neogaian cultists until the police on the scene had asked her in haste to explain the situation. They’d alerted their search parties to retrieve Bast and Taurean, only to find them gone. They had escaped in the confusion, perhaps with the help of the fourth terrorist, who was never found. They were now back home in their own habitat, sheltered by its government.

  UNECS had declared a trade embargo against Neogaia, as had the Mars Confederacy, the Cerean States, and most of the major Vestan nation-states; but of course it wouldn’t be universally obeyed and couldn’t be enforced. The Striders clung proudly to their hard-won independence, so getting them to agree on anything was like herding cats. Not to mention the growing population of fringe groups that had emigrated or been exiled from Earth and its orbital space, transhumanists who’d probably sympathize with Neogaia or extremists who’d be busy making trouble of their own. Prefab, auxon-built habitats were easy to obtain and aggressively subsidized by a UNECS eager to ship more people off the overpopulated birthworld, especially the troublemakers who weren’t even welcome within cislunar space. The Troubleshooters kept the peace as best they could, but they were just a private organization who’d squander the Striders’ goodwill and their own resources if they began meddling in how people lived on their own habitats. They’d keep an eye on Neogaia, try to catch any future aggressions, but that was all they could do.

  Except hand out medals to people who didn’t deserve them and try to take comfort in the gesture. Emry avoided letting Sensei see what was in her eyes, instead looking up at the open sky that stretched clear to the far side of Demetria’s two-kilometer-wide habitat sphere (with no heavy skylights or mirrors to hang over her head), and out the annular sun window to where Ceres drifted past on its endless rounds, once every seventy seconds as Demetria rotated. The sunlit side of the dwarf planet was a dusty gray, except for the bright glints where craters or mining operations had exposed fresh ice beneath. On the dark side, beacons and spotlights limned hundreds more of the mines whose ice and organic compounds sustained life for most of the habitats in the Belt and Inner System. Beyond it, so large that its elongated shape was clearly visible even from a third of an orbit away, was the Sheaf: the clustered habitats of the Cerean States, fourteen counterrotating pairs of massive, elongated O’Neill cylinders and a half-dozen chains of smaller Bernal spheres like Demetria, scaffolded together in parallel but spaced widely enough to leave room for their respective sun mirrors, radiators, and support facilities, all adding up to a symbiotic cluster that housed nearly two hundred million people. Around them, at a large enough radius to leave room for future cylinders, she could see the fragmented halo of the Band, the massive ring habitat which, once its parallel toroidal components were all complete and linked together, would become the single largest populated megastructure in Solsys, with triple the habitable volume of the current Sheaf.

  The Sheaf and the Band were the fullest realization of the natural tendency of space settlements to expand over time. The early, small habitats had demanded a regimented existence; birth rates must be strictly controlled, environment strictly balanced, safety protocols carefully followed. As habitats grew larger and more advanced, their ecologies better able to absorb fluctuations, their safety systems more foolproof, their populations given more room to grow, a more relaxed, liberal existence became feasible. More and more, the hardscrabble High Frontier was giving way to a more expansive and cosmopolitan way of life, nowhere more so than in the Ceres Sheaf. It was no wonder that the majority of immigrants from Earth chose to settle there. Particularly since its stable gravity and robust radiation shielding made it a reasonably safe place to live with few or no mods.

  Right now, though, Emry had trouble buying into that illusion of safety. Even the Sheaf and Band were dependent on a few square kilometers of heat radiators, not to mention the sun reflectors, radiation shields, agriculture rings … any of which could be sabotaged in dozens of ways by a successful terrorist group. Really, how good were anyone’s odds of survival in a Solar System where the power of individual humans to wreak destruction kept growing by the year? And what could a few dozen superpowered eccentrics hope to do about it?

  She kept those thoughts t
o herself as she gave her acceptance speech. Instead, she just offered a few boilerplate thank-yous and promises. Even her words about Arkady were boilerplate, since if she tried to express what she really felt—to talk about how he’d always been her anchor, solid and calm and accepting no matter how much grief she gave him, and how she couldn’t imagine going on now without him—she’d surely break down again. She owed it to her colleagues and friends to offer them something comforting, something reaffirming. So she hid behind platitudes she barely heard herself saying.

  Then she was done, and the crowd cheered, and Sensei shook her hand and kissed her cheek. Her fellow Troubleshooters—Sensei, Lodestar, Tenshi, Bellatrix, Tor, the rest who weren’t too busy saving lives to attend—formed an honor guard to escort her offstage, then fell upon her with handshakes and hugs and kisses of both celebration and commiseration. She couldn’t understand why they thought she deserved this. She got away by citing a need for the ladies’ room—only to find it wasn’t an excuse, since as soon as she got there she had to throw up.

  When she emerged, she found Villareal hovering nearby, pretending to check his silvery hair and Errol Flynn moustache in a reflective wall panel. “I told you I didn’t want the medal,” she said.

  “What we want and what we deserve are rarely the same thing, Blaze.”

  “How about what Arkady deserved? What his family deserved?”

  “They’ve always understood. Pavel and the kids, they’re exceptional people. Strong. You have to be, to have a Troubleshooter in the family. So few of us find mates, or keep them … Arkady was luckier than most.”

  “Oh, great pep talk for the new kid, Master. So I’m doomed to be alone, huh?”

  “No, Emry,” Sensei said, reaching for her shoulder. “We have each other.”

  But she pulled away. “It’s all right. Maybe that’s the way I should be—just depend on myself. Goddess knows nobody else can.”

  “Emerald.” His voice became stern. “You know there was nothing you could have done to save him. It’s a miracle he slowed the collapse enough to allow your escape.”

  “Nothing I can think of,” she said, talking over him. “Not so far. But what if one day I wake up and I realize there was something I missed, something I could’ve done differently?”

  “I’m sure you will.” She stared. “Because the more you go back there, the more you’ll rewrite the memory to suit your sense of guilt. But you have the hard data in your buffer,” he reminded her, lightly tapping her temple. “Don’t lose it. Even if you can never bear to replay it, to watch it—and I wouldn’t ask you to—just remember that it’s there. Let it anchor you with the truth that you did nothing wrong. If you can’t believe that in … other cases, at least believe it in this one.”

  He stroked her hair with bionic hands more sensitive than his real ones had been. “You know why I encourage the flamboyant side of what we do, right? The nicknames, the colorful personas, the media attention?”

  She smiled just a bit, the reminder of their old joke bringing an echo of amusement. “Because you read too many comic books as a kid?”

  He smiled back. “No more than you. What’s the real reason?”

  She recalled his old lectures. “Because power breeds mistrust. You wanted us to be inspiring, not intimidating. An army of mods would only create fear, but a league of superheroes is another matter.”

  “That’s right. We first Troubleshooters … we came along at a time when the Striders needed heroes to believe in, so they made us that. Something larger than life, iconic, pure.” He shook his head. “After the war … when the allies retreated into nationalist bickering and power grabs … that symbolism they’d projected onto us was one of the only things they still agreed on. We knew that need for heroes wouldn’t last indefinitely—but we took it and nurtured it, built on the mythology of the Troubleshooters, so that we and, more importantly, you could hold on to the Striders’ trust as long as possible.”

  “Is that why you made me go through with this? Made me look like a hero when I’m not?”

  “No, Emerald. Because you deserved it. I know it doesn’t feel like that to you, but that’s exactly why you do deserve it. If we’re to be worthy of that trust we’ve earned, we need to be able to question ourselves. To face our mistakes and our flaws openly, so we can keep ourselves honest. Your capacity for questioning yourself is part of what gives me so much confidence in you.”

  He clasped her shoulder. “But as with most things, you tend to overdo it. Self-doubt is responsible, but self-flagellation is merely an indulgence. Keep your balance, Green Blaze. Don’t overcorrect.”

  “I understand.” She placed her hand over his, gave a brief reassuring smile. “It’s all about control. I won’t lose that again. I won’t let myself,” she added firmly.

  But Sensei didn’t seem reassured.

  Vanguard habitat

  5:3 Kirkwood Gap, Outer Belt

  Eliot Thorne replayed Emerald Blair’s speech on the soligram stage, studying her every expression and movement as he circled the solid projection. Beside him, Psyche did the same, but not so silently. “She shouldn’t be so hard on herself,” she said. “She did really well, considering. She’s even stronger than I expected.”

  “Given who her father was, I expected no less,” Thorne replied. “Though it is gratifying to know our genes remain dominant when crossbred.”

  She pouted at his solemnity. “You don’t sound gratified. Cheer up! She did everything you hoped for, and then some.”

  “Mm. But as a Troubleshooter. Not a Vanguardian.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted? I mean, after I went to all that trouble to get that tip to Medvyéd anonymously.…”

  Thorne smiled, clasping her shoulder. “You did well, Psyche.” She basked in his praise. “Our prodigal son’s daughter has done the Troubleshooters proud, and Earth will be suitably grateful—and suitably alerted to the dangers of their isolation. They will respond as anticipated—and that will in turn provoke the response we seek.”

  Psyche turned back to the soligram, stroking its simulated hair. “I’m sorry she lost a friend, though. A face that beautiful shouldn’t be so sad.”

  “Don’t let it trouble you, my dear. She has survived worse.” He paused the image and leaned forward, gazing into those immense emerald eyes. “As she will survive the trials that face her in the months ahead. And finally, when she is left with nothing else, she will still have us.”

  TSC Headquarters

  Demetria

  As Emry attacked her, Koyama Hikari felt the battle peace descend over her and reminded herself not to kill her best friend.

  Normally, killing Emerald Blair would be far more easily said than done, but she had been running herself ragged since her return from Earth space. She trained relentlessly by day, and at night, instead of sleeping, she wandered the streets searching for random criminals to beat up—in between picking up random men to fuck to within an inch of their lives.

  It wasn’t Kari’s place to judge, though. After all, it had been Emry who’d taught her the value of excess. Even as Sensei Villareal had carefully taught her how, when battle came, to master the cool, methodical monster her father had placed inside her, Emry had helped her learn that it was all right to relax and go crazy the rest of the time. Penance didn’t have to occupy every minute. Kari hoped that after the workout, she could remind Emry of that lesson, perhaps talk her into shuttling over to the Sheaf for a girls’ day out full of shopping and playing and man-watching and dressing up and showing off and dancing and other fulfilling wastes of time. She certainly wouldn’t mind if the evening ended with some male company for the both of them, so long as she could get Emry in the mood to have fun with it, to let the sex be healing rather than merely distracting. She was demure by nature, but Emry was good at pushing her past her inhibitions.

  Right now, though, it was time to concentrate. When Emry had called to invite her to a “workout,” her tone had made it clear to Kari that thi
s would be a full-on bout, no punches pulled. Both Troubleshooters were in full light-armor costume, Green Blaze versus Tenshi, letting them cut loose with all their raw power.

  Of course, Emry was bigger and far stronger than Kari. But Koyama Saburo’s gengineers had designed his daughter’s body to be durable, flexible, and lightning-quick, and her brain to be preternaturally aware of every bit of it. As she was overcome by the tatakai no heiwa, the heightened serenity and awareness they had substituted for her fight-or-flight instinct, she felt her consciousness descend and spread throughout her body and beyond. The mind, the hand, the air it flew through, the flesh it struck, the gravity that sculpted its arc, all were one, all were within her soul. Yet at the same time she was outside of it in a sense, her body striking and reacting without conscious guidance. It was a Zen oneness with creation; it was a distributed AI network integrated with her nervous system, regulated by a cerebellar implant containing every martial-arts principle known to humanity. They were the same thing.

  Kari observed from a detached place as her body battled Emry, meeting fury with patient precision, brute force with gentle deflection. When an opportunity presented itself, she struck, hand or foot drawn to the optimal point of impact as inexorably as a cherry blossom is drawn to the earth. When she was struck in turn, she accepted the energy as a part of her, let herself be the conduit through which it flowed back to its source, as the rain striking the river returns to the sea. This was her father’s ideal, with one exception—through careful biofeedback and a spot of reprogramming, the Troubleshooter Corps had helped her retrain her instincts to incapacitate rather than kill. He would have found it dishonorable, a daughter defying her father’s wishes. The Vestan yakuza, unlike its Earthly counterpart, was a family business, a change Koyama Saburo had deemed necessary to maintain its Japanese purity in the multicultural Belt. Koyama had nominally kept it all-male as well, but in his eyes that had made Kari the perfect stealth assassin, a passive, decorative nonentity until she struck. But Kari had not wished to become a living weapon, even though rejecting that fate had meant betraying her beloved father and fleeing her home.