Rhea ran a hand across the glass. Beyond, the two devices almost seemed to call out to her. “They’re not inert. They’re just waiting for their proper owner: a Ganymede warrior.”
She punched through the glass in a sudden fit of rage. How dare they stow such a prized weapon in a museum? A weapon like this was meant to be used.
An alarm sounded.
She reached inside and slid her hands into the brass knuckles, which yet floated in place, waiting for her. When her fingers were secure, she formed them into fists, and the knuckles ignited: disks of plasma erupted from them, cutting through the glass fragments that remained.
She removed her hands and examined the translucent blue disks. They reached past her elbows and extended a similar distance in front of her arms. They hummed loudly. Hungrily. Like the rotors of a drone, but deeper.
“It shouldn’t be possible for her to operate them!” someone was saying. “They have no power source.”
“Apparently you’re wrong about that,” Will said.
Rhea glanced at him. Dressed in the museum’s livery, a woman stood next to Will and Horatio. She wore a horrified expression.
“How did you—?” the woman asked.
“It’s biometrically encoded to my brain,” she replied. “Only a Ganymedean can activate such a weapon. Human, or cyborg.”
“But no Ganymedeans…” Her expression became even more alarmed when the realization dawned on her.
The stamp of metallic feet echoed through the museum’s corridors—the slow, heavy bounding of robots. In moments two security robots hopped into view between the other exhibits.
“Drop your weapons!” one of the robots said. The rifle barrels built into their arms were pointed directly at Rhea and her humming disks.
Rhea cocked her head. “Make me.”
“No wait—” the museum official began.
But the robots opened fire.
Rhea was already redirecting the disks to intercept the plasma shots. The bolts struck them, and she deflected blasts easily. Will, Horatio and the official ducked as the bolts shot past into the wall.
Rhea rushed the robots. She moved at a bounding crouch, taking purposeful, arcing steps, holding the disks one atop the other so that her entire body was protected. The robots continued to fire, but the shots bounced away harmlessly from the glowing circles. Well, the impacts weren’t so harmless to the other exhibits the deflected bolts struck.
When she reached her attackers, she stood up and swung her arms sideways. The glowing edges slammed into their necks, beheading the robots. She followed up with a downward swing, leaving a molten red line down their middles. The headless bodies separated vertically, split in half, and the constituent pieces clanged to the floor.
More footfalls came from the south and she spun to face her latest aggressors.
A man who Rhea assumed was either the curator or the head of security arrived with five more combat robots. “What the hell is going on?”
Rhea bore her teeth in a rictus. “Come to dance?”
“Stop!” the woman official next to Will said. “This is all a misunderstanding!” She stood up and bounded toward the curator. “Don’t fire!”
“The only misunderstanding is that you’re stealing from my ancestors,” Rhea said. “And from me. This is mine now. My inheritance. My heirloom. I’ll destroy all of your robots if they don’t back down. I’ll destroy your entire museum.” Full of rage and bloodlust, in that moment she fully meant it. In fact, she was ready to take on the entire colony.
The curator hesitated. He glanced at the woman official, then toward the robots. “Stand down.”
The robots lowered their arms. Their weapons didn’t retract, Rhea noticed.
She stared at them a moment longer, then let her fingers relax. The moment she ceased forming a fist, the disks evanesced.
Will and Horatio stood up from where they were ducked on the floor and bound-walked to her side.
As the rage left her, she realized what she had almost done.
She gazed down at her hands in confusion, and let the weapons fall away.
“Arrest them,” the curator said.
“Hey, now wait a second—” Will said.
In moments the three of them were surrounded. The robots bound them and led them away.
The robots loaded them into a waiting van and transported them to a local jail.
So it was that only half an hour later Rhea found herself sitting in a cell across from Will and Horatio. The bars of the cell were made of traditional metal, rather than some force field of plasma or other high-tech barrier.
Force fields such as the ones she was thinking of could prevent matter from passing through, but energy, as generated by plasma or laser weapons, could readily penetrate. The denial of energy was beyond any existing technology available in the solar system, and yet she’d just used a force field type of weapon that could deflect lasers and plasma bolts both. Lost Ganymedean tech, its workings unknown, abandoned to a museum.
How did you know how to use those things? Will asked over a mental channel. Or what they even were, let alone that they were biometrically encoded to your brain?
I was wondering when you’d ask her, Horatio sent.
Hey, I wanted to give her some time to calm down, Will said. He turned toward her once more. So, how did you know?
She wasn’t sure why they bothered to use mental communication. The Europans knew who she was now. Still, she played along.
I don’t know, Rhea returned. I just… knew. And when I picked them up, muscle memory took over. I knew how to fight with them. To a degree anyway. Enough to kill. She paused. I’m a killer. I’ve come to realize that now.
No, Will sent. Back there you said you were a warrior. If that’s true—which I believe it is, given everything I’ve seen you do—there’s a difference.
Is there? Rhea gazed off into space and was silent for several seconds. And then: Ban’Shar.
What? Will transmitted.
Ban’Shar, she repeated. That’s what they’re called.
Guess you’re having those flashbacks you wanted, Will said.
Not flashbacks, she said. But some memories are undoubtedly being triggered.
Undoubtedly, Will commented drily.
