The word ‘tomorrow’ had never before held such a significant importance for Marilin.

With days that repeated themselves as easily as an old world clock completed a cycle, she had never felt uncomfortable, bored or disgruntled with a lack of change. Whether her days consisted of a book on the windowsill, or another day of the same study with the same teacher, the normality of something that could be expected was a comfort, not a problem. Marilin had, however, experienced change in key points in her life, and she had realised the satisfaction of what she had read as ‘great change’ in her childhood book, first at the age of eleven years old.

---

“Mother, I’ve finished my book.”

Marilin and her mother were alone in the kitchen, which occupied most of the single room cabin. Throughout the years she had lived in it, every usable space had been converted to some use- an impressive feat, she thought, considering her family’s limited possessions. As her mother stood looking at the small countertop preparing the day’s soup, Marilin was, like almost every day, curled up on the windowsill and reading.

“Mother, I don’t know what to do.” Marilin closed the book with a thud in an attempt to reiterate her previous point.

“Read the book again.”

Marilin grumpily reopened to the first page, curling up tighter as her eyes moved to the snowstorm that was brewing outside- almost wishing that she was out helping, instead of reading the first page, which she had remembered to heart. Instead, she was rarely allowed outside, hostile stares and isolation reminding her that her weak body made her little more than an unhelpful burden.

“What was the last sentence?”

Her mother’s voice was so dull and flat that Marilin took a second to realise she had even been asked a question. Nevertheless, she was taken by surprise. When was the last time she had talked to someone? Yesterday, when Laura had told her to shut up and read. When was the last time someone asked her a question?

She had never been asked a question.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Marilin replied, voice quiet from the unusual turn in events.

The chopping never stopped. While the cabin was usually always silent, in that moment, Marilin remembered that the knife thudding on the wooden board was akin to the repeated fall of a guillotine. Her mother’s mouth twitched, like she wanted to ask a question, but had retracted it. An onion fell prey to the dull blade as another thud sounded through the room.

“What is the far better thing you have done?” asked Mother, after a long period of silence.

Marilin did not respond.

“You will know, one day.” said Mother as the onion fell and was replaced with the potato, which was sitting rather idyllically on the countertop. “I’ll make sure of it.”

It had been a week since anyone, at all, had spoken more than a single sentence in succession to Marilin. Without a shred of understanding, Marilin read the first words of her book repeatedly in an attempt to try to vainly make sense of her mother’s words. Itwasthebestoftimes Itwasthebestoftimes Itwasthebestoftimes Itwasthebestoftimes

“What is your far better rest?” Another question, shot out and breaking through Marilin’s distraction like a bullet.

“I-”

“-than you have ever known?”

“I-”

“My girl, there is no better rest. Not in this life, and not beyond. You will grow up, settle down, perhaps play around with this fickle emotion called love, and die, just like all the others.”

Marilin had yearned for someone to talk to her for as long as she could remember, but she was not sure if she appreciated it at this moment.

“You have been to the streets. People are dying not only from hunger and sickness, but despair. People toil everyday to survive, until one day they realise when they work the plough that there lies no gain, nothing to look forward to in the next day, week, year. That, my girl. Not the cold, not the hunger, not the sickness. Not even the police. That is what kills.”

The chopping stopped.

“My girl, you have, already, done a far, far better thing than anyone in this wretched land could have hoped to do. I will make sure you know, one day.” Mother eyed Marilin for the first time since speaking, her gaze, bordering on sympathy, forcing Marilin to helplessly look back.

“But, my girl, there will be no better rest, no better place, for you to go.”

---

It was just like any other night- the straw mattresses were set up as close as possible to the stove, in an attempt to ward off the permanent chill that occupied the winter. Outside, even with the windows shut, Marilin could hear the racket and ferocity of a restless snowstorm that would be buffeting the city. Tonight would not be a good one for the people on the street.

As she lay in silence, the sounds of the storm soothed the rest of her family to sleep, the absence of cold snow on their faces a comfort that was deemed a luxury for so many others. She had the thickest wool blankets out of any of the people on the ground, sleeping- the cold made her sick, and as her mother said- “Better you annoy me now than annoy me more later when you fall ill. Again.”

Looking at the ceiling, a patchwork of numerous materials that did it’s best to keep out the weather, Marilin wondered that she had never thought of what her mother was like- where she grew up, how she ended up here. Did she grow up the same way that I did? How did she say these things to me yesterday, if she couldn’t read? Or go to a school? Did she never try to rise up, earn a keep in the Inner City? Why am I so different from everyone, if she is my mother?

Marilin threaded her fingers through her hair, dull brown strands falling and interlacing through the gaps in her hand. A single spear of moonlight, piercing a shallow gap in the drawn curtain, shone into her eye from the outside- through the snow, the fabric, the house, to her. As the rest of her family snored, Marilin got up, ruffling her hair as the cold stabbed her like a freshly sharpened blade when she exited the blankets.

The moon was shining strong tonight; the snow fell down in ferocious blankets, but even it could not deter the white ball that hung listlessly in the sky. Through the white haze, the lights of the city- the Inner- shone bright like hopeless beacons against all odds, ignorant of the suffering of those outside.

“There will be no better rest, no better place for you to go.”

Something clicked, much like the hammer of a rifle just before it ignites a pan of powder. Shuffling through a shelf, Marilin retrieved the beaten book- the one that she had cherished so much, for so many years- and ripped out the first and last page. She had already committed the rest of it to memory, and the two pages were all she needed.

Wrapping herself in the thick woolen blanket, fashioning it into a sort of makeshift shawl, she put on her boots- the pair she had worn to and from the Ration Office- and opened the door.

The action was met with grunts and groans as the little warmth that was huddled in the one-room cabin was engulfed by the freezing wind that rushed inside like a torrent of water. With a click, a thud, and another click, the door shut, as quickly as it had opened.

When was the last time she had been outside? It had been weeks- no, months. As the incessant snow pelted the hood of her makeshift shawl, she took a first step. Trudging ever so slowly as the cold, so much more present now, pricked her pale cheeks like needles.

Towards the lights of the City.

---

Marilin couldn’t sleep.

I should’ve known this would happen, she told herself. Needed to take more medication. She didn’t want to feel sleepless, especially not…

Tomorrow.

It had turned into her favourite word overnight.

She reached to her PAD, strewn somewhere on the floor, finding it under the screen of a book after much seemingly futile searching. Fiddling with the controls, she turned up the heater setting up another few notches. She absolutely despised the cold.

Checking her inbox quickly, she jabbed her arm out into the open and threw her PAD on the floor again, huddling into a ball under the many layers of blankets. Forcing her eyes shut, Marilin waited for daylight, relishing the taste of the change that would come tomorrow.

---

“Oh my, I’m sure that you’re excited!” bubbled a lab assistant that Marilin didn’t even know was on the Academy grounds. Enthusiasm spilt from her voice like a leaking tap. “I sure would be. To be able to pilot one of the Earth’s most elegant fighting machines! With only three years of education, no less! Oh, I could imagine!”

Far more calm than the one walking alongside her, even Marilin was having trouble maintaining an acceptable level of composure. Not everyone could simply have the opportunity that she was having.

Apprehension and excitement the previous night had driven her to envision a secret entrance that opened up to reveal a hidden lab of sorts, so she was slightly disappointed when they were quite clearly heading to the Academy garage- a facility that was very well large enough to accommodate three full Spirit Striders. Perhaps there was a lab, but she would not be seeing it. Yet. She smiled at the thought.

With a low thud,a sliding door hissed open to welcome the two people that awaited it. Supported by elegantly welded buttresses that towered to the roof, the rocky and uneven walls of the Academy garage greatly emphasised it’s underground location. Large electric winches hoisted large cranes, carrying spare parts or carriages filled with people and drones alike. Swarming over like flies, they worked on two Spirit Striders that lay in rectangular hangars. Numerous retractable and moveable walkways around the edges flitted about, lifting little figures onto different areas of the giant machine. A cacophony of noise rushed in like a storm as soon as the doors opened; the walls were soundproofed, as not to disturb the students above. Tracked vehicles milled about the floor, parts strapped to their backs as shouts reverberated throughout the large expanse of space. Being one of the few facilities in the country that was fully kitted for Spirit Strider maintenance, it was not uncommon for the garage to contain a Spirit Strider or two. Both Spirit Striders in hangars, side by side, were almost identical, with only minor differences- both were of the Bucharest-class, looking alike to two sisters getting makeovers.

“Marilin! Knew you would.” Sir waved over to her from the ground floor. Standing on the upper gangplank, Marilin peered down on the massive spectacle below. At least two hundred people, milling about only two Spirit Striders as if they were enormous warships sitting in dry dock.

“You ready?” Sir had returned to his usual calm and jovial demeanour, greeting Marilin when she and the lab assistant made their way down from the elevated entrance. He eyed the two Spirit Striders in their hangar. “Not even I’ve ever gotten the opportunity to pilot one of these beauties. You’re lucky, for sure. Even with the rebellion, every cloud has a silver lining, eh? He slapped Marilin on the shoulder, something that had become customary of him.

“Thank you, sir. I won’t disappoint you.” replied Marilin, face beaming.

“And I know you won’t.” He finished with a crisp Shiinevaarean salute. “Jennifer, make sure the pilot gets to her craft, yes?”

The lab assistant returned the gesture. “You got it. Now, Marilin, was it? Come along.”

Having only been to the garage once, on a lesson to familiarize students with cockpit controls, Marilin found it a very changed place. Aside from the drones, machines and people milling about the grounds like it was some sort of marketplace, the garage was filled with the incessant mumble of talk, alerting beeps and whines of machinery. A couple of staff, recognising her uniform, stopped to quickly salute. Word was already spreading.

Jennifer led Marilin through the crowded space with utmost confidence, striding through the stone floor like a princess. Must be special for her too.

“Hey! Hey! Oi, over here!” Marilin faced the source of the noise, but instead found an empty, open cockpit. A loud groan of frustration, audible enough to be heard over the noise, resumed. “You! I’m talking to you! Bloody hell, are the kids these days deaf?” Another groan. “Heavens, are you a crippled bear? Coo-ee!”

Assuming that it was not directed to her, Marilin had kept walking, but the commotion it was causing in the garage forced her to look up, again at the source of the noise.

“Heavens, yes! You! I’m talking to you!” An accusatory finger confirmed Marilin’s suspicions. “Come over here!”

Jennifer smiled and pushed her towards the figure.

Obscured inside a pilot suit- one that Marilin noted was pressurized for high altitude combat- the figure had now exited the cockpit and was furiously waving, balanced and perched like a bird of prey on the left pauldron. Judging from the voice, she would have guessed the pilot was female, but under the relatively bulky suit, it was impossible to tell.

“Do I have your attention now? Yes? No? Merde!” Marilin, now fully attentive, managed an awkward wave. Making her way towards the pilot, the figure disappeared again into the cockpit. The shouting had caused quite some commotion, as heads turned back and forth between the two pilots. A pathway naturally formed, as hands raised in salute and the entire environment quieted a notch.

As all gangplanks were occupied, Marilin stepped on the right hand of the Spirit Strider, reciting something that had been taught to her two years ago. When there was no remote cockpit access available, pilots could wire their PAD to remotely lift themselves upwards with the machine’s right hand. Having never performed such a manoeuvre, Marilin felt exhilarated. With a holler of “Hold on!”, she stepped into the uneven surface of the metal hand, positioning her right foot in a central circular groove. A shout from the cockpit sounded as she braced herself. “Lifting!”

It was like nothing else she had ever felt before- not like an elevator, not like any aircraft or ship. Feeling weightless for mere seconds, the fingers intertwined to form a cradle of safety, obscuring her view and allowing air to rush past as the hand raised up. Having never been on one herself, Marilin envisioned the experience to be akin to riding on a spacecraft.

“Hey. You. What’s your name?” The figure reentered her view, emerging from the cockpit with a small wrench and a cloth. Still wearing a pilot suit and a helmet, it was difficult to discern any other details.

“Marilin Everton, third year student at SAMPC. It looks like I will be a pilot today.” Remembering the previous time she had been needed to give her name, she oddly felt both uneasy and jovial as she spoke. It seemed that the cockiness she had gained overnight from yesterday’s pronouncement had not yet worn off. “I assume that you are the pilot of this Strider. What is the name of you and your craft?”

The fingers of the Spirit Strider’s hand folded back, revealing just how high up in the air the cockpit lay. The figure in front of her eyed Marilin up and down, as if it was considering whether a book was worth reading. After a pause, the figure disengaged the helmet and flicked it off. Another pause, longer this time. It was her time to stare.

“Why do you look like you could be my mother?”

The pilot collapsed into a fit of laughter. Yet, it was true- with the same brown hair, pale skin and blue eyes, it was like looking at a reflection- in a decade, perhaps. A wicked grin split the face of the pilot as she observed Marilin’s perplexed expression.

“I like you.” Composing herself, the woman proffered a hand, which Marilin stiffly accepted. “Call me Aemilia. You are correct in many regards- I am the pilot of the SMIF Argus, third of the Bucharest-class. No need to tell me your name. I’d be guessing your classmates are still in the dark, but you’re all what we’ve been talking about. You don’t find ‘third-year’ and ‘pilot’ in the same sentence often, and I for damn sure never have.”

“It’s a great pleasure. I’m honoured to meet a true pilot, in person.” Facade of confidence gone, Marilin now spoke with a new vigour that came from the heart. “My supervisor has told me about you. I hope that we can serve together in the future.”

“Likewise, comrade.”

Staring at the giant holding her in place, Marilin sighed admirably. “You have a beautiful craft. One that has seen many battles, battled many enemies, survived many adversaries. No doubt.”

Aemilia laughed again, this time making a sound that sounded much like a wind chime. “You did not tell me that one of our comrades was a poet. Well said, well said.” Aemilia placed her hand on Marilin’s shoulder and looked along, at her craft. “I can never forget the first time that I stepped in and went for a ride. How do I describe it? I suppose it wouldn’t be wrong to say...that I felt like myself.” Marilin nodded. “That I was my Strider, and my Strider was me. Does that sound confusing? I bet it does. You’ll understand when you get in, place your hands on the controls, and fuse together, almost become one being.

“My first mission was five years ago, in Australia. You know that place, yes? After the ocean ate up so much land, there weren’t many places to go. I guess that’s why everyone who resisted against us went there, because it wasn’t under yet. The coalition who was there, they didn’t have Spirit Striders. Only we do, thankfully. What they did have was jets- aircraft of another era, something that’d get chaffed by our point defense almost any day. But they had many. So many.” Aemelia looked onwards, eyes lost in a haze of thought. “They had been giving our forces a tough time for months, and Central decided to do something about it. You would know about a Spirit Strider’s point defense, no?”

“Best in the world. Unmatched.”

Aemelia smiled. “I believe that they are the reason why Spirit Striders are so powerful. We can dance, but a bullet will always find a way. Always.” A pause. “Central wanted us to scout ahead of the invasion force to screen for aircraft and eliminate them. The rebels were well hidden, for a desert. We had marched ahead for twenty minutes, maybe, before I saw it.

“Do you know what a bee looks like? No, you wouldn’t. Bees can’t survive in this country’s damn cold, even if they existed anymore. When I was a little girl in France- before I moved here for my education- I was in an orchard with my brother, an apple orchard of all things. It was a time of the year where the flowers were open, blooming to welcome a change of season. Oh, the smell. I would give so much to be there again. Now it is gone, and nowhere in the world will people grow apples like that again.” She smiled weakly. “My brother had gone inside to fetch a pair of pruners- back then, we would take care of the trees by hand, not like now. We had a shed in the orchid, where we kept all our things to take care of the plants, but we did not know that a bee’s nest-”

“I’ve seen them, in pictures. The bees, bees nest.”

“Yes...they were messy things. They had made their home on the corner of where the shed connected to the orchard wall. The bees, they hate anyone who gets in their way, and attack them mercilessly. Worker bees, their soldiers, they die when they sting, did you know that?” Marilin had never heard of such a thing. “They are suicidal, willing to give their lives for a hopeless cause. I did not understand why.”

Aemilia sighed, leaning over the side of the cockpit and staring at the passersby and the work staff as they fiddled with the two Striders in the hangar. “My brother, he was a clumsy one. The pruners we had were old- they were long, the blades short and stubby, but the handles longer than batons. As he walked out, the edge of one the handles tipped and bruised the side of the nest, ever so slightly. The first thing that happened was the buzzing. One thing I learnt only after is that bees respond to vibrations in the hive, and that in a matter of seconds, a single incident can be passed on from one, to hundreds of soldiers. First it was one, then twelve, then thirty, then…” Aemilia looked at Marilin in a way that almost seemed like she expected a response. “Why would hundreds of people, flying in these obsolete little planes, even come to certain death? The point defense system and its other machinery compose almost thirty five percent of a Spirit Strider’s total mass- it was meant to stop, and it stopped. Those little bees, flying to sting and dying, in their hundreds. Hundreds. What sort of belief could drive a person to commit such a suicidal act?”

“We cannot hope to think the same way our enemy does, Aemelia. This is war, and they are losing. Desperation is such a strong emotion. It bends and chokes the mind like bees would defend a nest against a hornet, destroying rationality so effectively that one will take any risk as long as there is a sliver, any chance, at all- of success.”

“Third year, huh…” muttered Aemilia under her breath. She coughed. “There are still questions I cannot answer today, even after five years have passed. What I know for certain, is that that day, this machine-” Aemilia caressed the side of the Strider’s cockpit, as if it were a cat. “Saved my life. You could not have known if you were not there. It is a scene that cannot simply be described with words alone. Beam, after beam, Argus let me survive what I thought was impossible. I could say that this beauty simply does not only allow one to witness and control tangible power, but to cheat death- in a way no simple person could.”

“Cheat death...what amazing things.”

“I owe Argus my life- a debt that is yet to be repaid. We have never lost a battle, though there were times where death’s grasp prickled ever so close, times where there were so many and hope was so bleak it was as if it never left Pandora’s box…” Aemilia smiled ever so slightly, though her eyes remained listless and blank. “Argus is more to me than simply my fighting machine. It is something that has traversed with me through thick and thin, something I hope that will never stop.”

“I truly hope that that is something I will be able to understand, one day.” Marilin looked alongside her compatriot.

“Yes, child, you will. I see great potential, great talent, great resolve.” Aemilia brightened suddenly. “I didn’t just call you up here to talk. You know why you are here, no doubt? Of course you do. Hold on!” She reached into a compartment on the left side of the cockpit, retrieving a small object that could fit into the palm of her hand.

“Is that?”

“Yes.” Aemilia had long fingers, and she clasped their hands together, dropping a small object that Marilin had yearned to hold for the longest time.

The key was beautiful; it’s blade may have been slated and functional, but it’s head started as a simplistic diamond, morphing towards the top to the wings of a falcon. In the middle a carefully adorned hole was carved to resemble a shield, a barrier to protect its user from harm. In the middle, as if suspended in space and time, lay a single, tiny blue sapphire, its depths the colour of the deepest ocean.

“Thank you.” Breath stolen from her, Marilin struggled to speak.

“Welcome. It is a pleasure to be your comrade. Your craft is to the left, in the opposite hangar. With our Striders and looks, we’re a little like sisters, hmm?”

“Sisters.”

———

It was everything that Marilin had imagined, and more- a truly beautiful thing.

Everything from the Bucharest-class was there. The cockpit, built into the head of the chassis, was placed on a bevel that allowed a full rotation. However, it’s flexibility was also a prevalent weakness- something that was shared with all Spirit Striders. Sarinium was a material that had come into play with the ambitious mining of Mars a few decades previous, and had completely changed the face of warfare- for those that could afford it’s ludicrous price.

With incredible durability, sarinium like many things in life, was a double edged sword. Hailing from the rocky depths of Mars, its extreme toughness was befitted by its seemingly singular weakness- an intolerance to heat, which Marilin thought to be incredibly ironic when in comparison to the sickness that afflicted her own body. A projectile, travelling at supersonic speed would not be able to make more than a dent in a plate of sarinium, but the heat created by the striking of the materials together was enough to begin to cause the sarinium to disintegrate due to its low melting point. By having the sarinium form a skeleton inside a Spirit Strider, far from the impact point of any weapon, the craft could achieve a level of structural integrity unrivalled by any other combat vehicle, and make the Spirit Strider’s flexible caricature of the human body physically possible.

The limb and head joints of a Strider- a well known weakness, were not simply waiting to be exploited. Enormous pauldrons, carved into a rounded leaf shape and engraved in the pattern of a cross, were strikingly indicative of the Bucharest class. Equally elegant vambraces and greaves were both ornate and functional. Two giant spikes jutted out of the back like the wings of a bat, comprising the firing points of the devastatingly effective point defense system. The entire craft was armoured, most heavily around the joints, to create what was considered by so many to be a work of art. Most salient of all, however, were the heavy arms systems that the Strider- a formidable weapons platform- was equipped with.

A sixty millimeter chaingun, an enormous and brutal weapon in it’s own right, was built into the left arm, forming the Strider’s permanent weapon fixture. It’s right hand, however, was free, and could wield an assortment of arms that varied from smaller calibre weapons that could wreak havoc on more minor targets, to swords that were more economical in their ammo consumption and could temporarily be charged with superheated sarinium to be able of cutting through even another Spirit Strider’s thick outer shell. Such large weapons of destructive potential may have been unimpressive on their own, but mounted on such a maneuverable and dextrous platform was a change akin to day and night. They were elegantly deadly machines.

There was a single difference on this particular craft- the thing that Marilin assumed would be what differed her experimental craft from that of a production model. In between the two spikes that housed the point defense system, a single oblique, trapezoidal prism, slanting downwards, was nestled in between several smaller units that were mounted around the back of the craft. While interesting, it was something that would possibly hinder the Spirit Strider’s dexterity in combat. However, it did not subtract from the Strider’s unique beauty- it only added to it.

It was a beautiful nightmare.

The frontal section slid back on a rail system, exposing the cockpit temporarily for entry, almost like the raising of the door of a giant oven. The internals comprised numerous controls in a surprisingly spacious area, considering how small the head looked from the outside. Accessible easily from the gangplank, Marilin hopped forward and repeated the motion that she had practiced for the past three years.

---

In a way, Aemilia was right. As soon as she sat down in the seat and racked her fingers on the controls, she felt a jolt in her mind- something that told her that she was in firm possession of the greatest fighting machine on the planet.

Having been sickly all her life, Marilin could not have hoped to see combat as a regular soldier. With a Spirit Strider, she had gained a beast tool could translate her will into power, in a way her own body never could.

The machine was her, and she was the machine.