Red was bleeding into her eyes as the screen silently flashed. The steel walls were creaking, buckling and ejecting steam, while the wrought chains rattled from the ceiling, those wrapped around her arms sinking into her flesh. Chione’s skin was simmering in the sweltering heat. Sweat beads formed rhythmically on forehead, shoulders and back. With all the callouses on her hands, grabbing the levers again sent a stinging pain through her fingers, but she pressed on. This cockpit was her hell, but it would not beat her.
“Fridge! Where the hell are you?” The voices were garbled with static.
“Heading 180/30, obviously!” Chione spat, “I’m on their guy’s tail.”
“You’re burning up. Reconvene with Bog. That’s an order––”
Chione gripped harder onto the lever handles and pushed them forward, speeding her machine faster into the empty black void. She threw her own weight into the steel, sliding forward over the hard floor and scraping her knees until they were red. But it gave the machine the needed boost. The enemy was centred on her targeting screen. A small fighter craft, dashing one way and then the next next, flitting about as if it knew exactly the lag and delay of her crosshairs. Nostrils flared, brow pressed, wires of her own damp hair flying about her face, Chione leaned in.
With a yank, she pulled the left lever down and twisted it. Her machine’s left arm in turn whirred up, sending a grinding noise throughout her cockpit. With her own finger, she pulled on a latch inside the handle –– and the mech pulled down on the trigger of its massive rifle. In a circular motion, like a gatling gun, bullets sprayed out, flying across the perimeter and almost grazing the fighter craft. But the target was skippy, narrowly missing the attack. And the recoil from the gunshots slowed down Chione’s momentum
“Gah!” Chione yelled.
She’d had it. She smashed the monitor in front of her, cracking the glass and inadvertently cutting her skin. No pain. The targeting was off and she grabbed the handles again. Slowly she brought the mech back to speed. She leant even further, so much that her arms strained against the controls, and peered through the round viewport. A flare of solar light, smeared by the thick synthetic glass, burned around the silhouette of her prey, which was still racing away just ahead. She reached above, taking grip of a heavy metal device affixed above, and pulled it down along its axis. In turn this brought down a tall arm on the machine’s back, lowered by hydraulic piston. Atop its end, a thick antenna shaped like a drill –– and blue sparks crackling around it.
Flipping open a box on the side of her handle, Chione’s thumb now hovered over the trigger. She waited until the fighter was dead centre.
“I’m going to fuck you!”
She jammed the button. The cone at the end of her machine’s excavator arm erupted in light, though without a sound, as an erratic white-blue beam shot out. It hit. The enemy fighter wasn’t able to dodge in time, and the laser tore clean through his bulkhead, with internal failures cascading into a large but silent explosion. Chione had won.
The moment fell on her, and she realised how heavily she was breathing and how hard her temples drummed. She let the levers fall back, the machine no longer accelerated but drifted at constant speed. She would need to turn around to rendezvous with the other Shtrafs.
Beeping filled the chamber. Her cracked monitor came alive and the radar showed a pulsating ring around a central circle — her own— and was now filling the screen with a multitude of other dots. She looked through the porthole again. More fighters, hurtling her way, and behind it, a starship suspended in space.
And Chione was alone.
Chione Boreavna Eosides was a beautiful young lady, the daughter of a minor official named Boreas. In the sun, her hair shone white, although it was more silver indoors, and her eyes dazzled blue in every light. As the winter of 83.3 melted away, the social season was coming into full swing on Kratia Prime, making it an exciting time for Chione. At nineteen, she was soon to be a debutante.
On the morning of the important day, the girl was up by the first light of dawn. The Eosides were not wealthy enough to retain maids, although Chione used to have a nanny (she was far too old for such things now), so she went through the meticulous routine of preparing for the day by herself. She drew the bath, bringing the water to the right warmth and foaminess, and proceeded to carefully scrape and render her skin smooth, soap her hair, and then dry herself as the tub emptied. After tying her mid-length hair into a braided crown, she dressed herself in a chiffon white frock.
“Darling?” her father called from downstairs. “Breakfast is laid, should you like to come down?”
“Coming!” Chione called back.
She went over to the wall-tall window and drew the blinds, letting in the morning sun. The grass was green and softly rustling, and the pasture extended all the way to the horizon. Chione breathed in and smiled.
Downstairs the table was laden with a basket of freshly baked batons and croissants, surrounded by butter and jam. Boreas, a wide man with a mop of grey hair and a brushy moustache, was fiddling with the knobs of his transceiver, attempting to cut through the garbled signal. Chione Boreavna took a seat next to him, laying her hands on her lap and looked at him in silent expectation.
When he noticed her, he sat up and quickly said, “aha, don’t wait on my account! Eat, eat. It is your special day, of course!”
She smiled, and reached to partake from the hearty basket, while her father went back to figuring out his device. At last, the sound came in clear, a man’s monologue mid report:
“… so High Command is certain that Chornyy will fall to the Demesne space fleet by the month’s end. But Kratian cruisers have penetrated enemy defences and launched a wave of ballistic strikes on the Demesne planet of Violette, a regional capital. The enemy entity has warned reprisals on us in return.”
“Bah, well I could have told you that,” Boreas said with a chuff.
Chione glanced at her father, although he remained engrossed with the report. This was the latest in a pattern. Her father always needed to know the latest with the military operation against the Demesne. When she had asked about it, he simply said he needed to be aware if it affected his department. But she wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Father…?”
But Boreas was now scribbling something impromptu on a napkin. It made the girl recoil. You weren’t meant to deface the kitchenware. Curiosity overpowered her and she leaned over, trying to make out her father’s etchings. Violette bombing legal? Ask Janssen in Justice dept. But no sooner had she glimpsed the words than Boreas snatched the serviette up and folded it into his waistcoat like a handkerchief. As he patted down the pocket he looked at her as if nothing had happened.
“Ah, my darling Boreavna. I will have to abandon you this afternoon. I must file one of the planning briefs for the office. Can I trust you to look after yourself until this evening?”
“Well I’m not a child anymore. The girls wanted to meet up on a ride so that’s where I’ll be.”
“Quite good, quite good,” Boreas said, nodding a little too emphatically. Once again he tapped his pocket. Perhaps he didn’t realise Chione was still looking.
After her father left for the town, Chione went around to the stable annex, where the gorgeous chestnut steed Voivode was milling about. The girl fed him some oats and patted him along his strong neck, and as he nibbled he gently nudged her shoulder, prompting her to giggle. The Eosides couldn’t afford maids, and poor luck had forced them to part with some of their lands. But if there was one luxury they could keep, Chione was pleased it was this — though it had taken her father some convincing.
After grabbing a helmet and crop, as well as throwing a tweed jacket over her white dress, Chione launched herself onto the horse and set herself in a side-saddle. They rode out into the grassy fields, the soft wind flowing through the short length of her hair. Voivode went into a careful trot, knowing just how far he could muster without unseating the girl. Soon enough the country manor was a distant speck, while another pair of equestrians emerged into view.
“Boreavna!” exclaimed one of the young ladies also riding side-saddle
“Hello Chione!” said the second.
Despite a broad, dimpled smile, this girl was unsteady, constantly clutching at the reins while her horse made unsettled footsteps.
“Olga, Maria,” Chione greeted them. “Isn’t this such a great day? The weather’s perfect!”
“Perfect for you two maybe,” Olga said with a languid roll of her eyes. “I don’t see why I can’t be in the debut this year. I’m very mature for my age! Look, I’m teaching my senior how to ride!”
“I-I’m handling it,” Maria whimpered, though her bully of a ride was bristling even more.
“Such an ingenue,” Olga tittered, “she’ll look so good at the ball and I won’t even get to see her!”
Chione laughed, “we’ll come see your debut, Olga, don’t worry.”
“Girls,” Maria let out, “I’m actually not sure I––waaaagh!”
At last the horse had had it. He cantered off, bolting with such force as to throw Maria off to the grassy ground. Olga gasped and jumped down herself, keeping her own, far more pliant horse by the reins.
“Oh dear, are you okay, Maria?”
“I-I’m fine,” the girl managed to say with a face full of dirt. “But Arthur….”
Chione looked off, where the black horse was silhouetted against the lighter colours of the field and sky. Olga scowled while Maria cried. Olga’s family would punish them all for this.
“I’ll get him,” Chione decided.
Olga muttered, “don’t be ridiculous he’s gone.”
But Chione took a firm hold of her reins and ––after taking a hesitant breath–– grabbed the hem of her skirt and hitched it up. She swung one leg over and sad fully astride Voivode’s saddle. The horse dug at the ground with a hoof, as if he knew what was coming next.
“Chione!” Maria gasped, and even Olga looked at her in shock. Riding astride was one thing, but her thighs were showing too.
Chione just furrowed her brow and locked her focus on the stallion Arthur. She kicked, and Voivode sprung to action, riding at a hard gallop and kicking the ground rhythmically in a four-beat. Dirt and mud sprayed as he was going so fast. The wind rattled past Chione and the forces were enough to make her slip an inch back in the saddle. But with a squeeze of her knees and a clench in her core, she held on. Arthur was closer and closer.
She leapt from the saddle. The rush of motion almost sent her flying and her heart clattered in its cage. She caught onto the big black horse, almost slipped, but held tight. Her face tensed as she struggled to pull a leg over, but once she did she pushed herself upright. Gripping onto the withers, she wrangled Arthur to make a full turn, while Voivode kept behind them in hot pursuit.
In no time the galloping pair returned to the girls. She pulled back, bringing both horses to a canter, then trot, then a full stop. As Chione jumped down, and returned Arthur’s reins to the awestruck Maria, Olga put her hands on her hips and gave a harumph.
“That was far too reckless, Boreavna!”
“Aha, probably,” Chione scratched the side of her face, “I’d definitely have to miss the ball if I failed that jump.”
“Not that!” Olga pointed to the other girl’s thighs with an almost trembling finger. “You rode astride! So unladylike. What about your…”
The girl looked both ways, although the grassy plain was quite empty save for them. She leaned in anyway:
“What about your virginity?”
“Come Olga, no one saw—” Chione stopped herself, furrowing her brow as she then asked, “That? Seriously? It’s never torn down there when I rode him before.”
Maria gasped, “wow, Chione you’re so amazing. I’d never be able to ride like that!”
“Great, now she’ll want to do it,” Olga sighed.