“Send me.”


    Alicia stood ‘at ease’ but didn’t feel it. Bishop Commodore Judith Yu was tall for someone of advanced age and old-Earth descent. She had been the headmistress of a Christophite Convent School before heeding the holy call-to-arms, and every kiloton of that schoolmarm scrutiny was being brought to bear across the altar. The ceremonial whip—fastened to her vestments by a Kevlar sash—only enhanced the effect.


    “I am sending you, Priestess Pilot. The other you.”


    “With respect, Bishop Commodore, the other me died in a nuclear fireball. That specimen in the hospital biovat is a broken shell.”


    “Precisely. Why would I send a fresh clone? As much as it pains me to admit it, Priest Captain Quinn’s plan has a certain symmetry. You get your punishment, I keep my best pilot, the Martians get their pound of flesh. The peace holds.”


    From the corner of the private chapel, Mallory grinned like the rat that got the cXeese. Alicia supressed the urge to punch him in the throat.


    “I can offer him…” She corrected herself. “Can offer the Martians something the damaged me cannot.”


    “And that is?”


    “Single combat.”


    Mallory sniggered. The Bishop raised an eyebrow, but Alicia held her gaze. “I will challenge their best pilot to single combat, mech vs mech. The two of us will head to a remote part of the planet, and fight until…


    “Priestess Pilot,” said Mallory, stepping forward. “I know your father was an old-school Christian, but this is not the Middle Ages. One cannot simply…”


    “My plan also has ‘symmetry’,” snapped Alicia. “I get my punishment, and the Quinn Family get their precious profitable ‘peace’.”


    “Do you really think the Logistics Choir is going to waste another ?mech, let alone more ectogenic resources on re-cloning and resyncing you when you lose this ‘single combat’? If there is anything left to resync…”


    “I have no intention of losing, Mallory. And when I return…”


    “Enough!” The Bishop unhitched her whip and placed it on the alter. “Priest Captain Quinn, step outside.”


    Mallory bowed low to kiss the tip of the whip before leaving. The smirk never left his face.


    With him gone, the Bishop snapped her fingers. Hermetic shutters clanked open. Daylight streamed through wall-to-ceiling stained-silica glass windows.


    “Alicia, come here.”


    Alicia stepped around the alter and stood by her superior. Mercy Base was a series of connected dropships parked by a waterfall in one of EXO19’s Moss Zone valleys. The sunlight filtered through spray, spores, and stained silica, creating a rainbow effect that reminded Alicia of the peafowl on her father’s farm. The vantablack of her jumpsuit and the Bishop’s vestments swallowed the light whole.


    “You said ‘him’”.


    “What?”


    “You said that your current clone could offer him single combat. Are you aware of a specific MMC pilot you wish to challenge?”


    Alicia considered lying, pleading post-ectogenic brain fog. But the old headmistress was too astute for that. “I believe the pilot from the skirmish is still alive.”


    “Implausible. He survived the crash, sure. But Pilot Priest Pérez killed him during your medevac. Direct proton lance hit, as confirmed by telemetry data from both of his ?mechs.”


    “He lives.”


    “How?”


    “The Saint has granted me visions…”


    The Bishop looked down at Alicia. “Do you really believe that?”


    “No.”


    “Then you’re asking me to grant this request on a hunch?”


    “I’m asking you because it makes sense.”


    “You think peace will be achieved through combat?”


    “Single combat. If you want peace, prepare for war.”


    “As Mallory said, this is not the Middle Ages.”


    “Yet the offering of human hostages is permissible?”


    “Remember yourself, Priestess Pilot…”


    “Remember yourself, Bishop Commodore! Why are you letting Mallory and the Logistics Choir call the shots? Why is the tail wagging the dog?”


    The older woman turned to the glass. The ethereal light sparkled in her eyes. “I don’t like that jumped-up brat any more than you do, Alicia. But this war has gone on long enough.”


    “If it went on a little longer, we would win. We have the better mechs, we use clone pilot pairs…”


    “We are outnumbered five-to-one. True, our technological advantage has allowed us to run riot for two decades, to carve out space for ourselves among the stars. We have broken the Martian monopoly on humanity’s future; we have ensured a multipolar universe.”


    “And the Artefacts?”


    As if on cue, the wormhole crossed the narrow strip of sky between the valley cliffs. Both women bowed their heads and waited until it had disappeared before speaking.


    “The peace talks will decide their fate,” whispered the Bishop. “It is likely that both sides will keep the Artefacts in orbit around their respective EXOs. The deep space Artifacts are in dispute…”


    Alicia slammed her palm onto the glass.  “We should control them all! The rest of humanity wasn’t even going to use them until Saint Christopher martyred himself in the Great Cascade!”


    “Alicia.” The Bishop turned to face her. “On the journey to EXO19, I was looking through old yearbooks from the Convent School I used to run. A quarter of the students—and half the staff—are now dead, consumed by this war. You think only of revenge, for what happened to your father.”


    “And can you blame me?!” Alicia fought hard to hold back the tears as the memories flooded her freshly cloned mind.


    ***


    Sorin Eminescu—along with his infant daughter—had fled the Martian refugee camps to escape the anti-Christian pogroms that followed the Great Cascade. The rioters didn’t care about the schism, the difference between Christianity and the Christophite sect. They just saw ?s, and Olympus Mons turned a blind eye. Sorin never said what had happened to Alicia’s mother.


    Alicia never asked.


    When the authorities reluctantly declared the wormholes open, Sorin built a farmstead on EXO001. Alicia’s childhood was peaceful, spent amid crop fields, peafowl pens, grassy plains and low rolling hills. She did her chores, read the Bible, and honoured her deaf father by being his ‘ears’—listening out for the howl of the gerwolves that occasionally descended from the northern forests to harass their peafowl. Sorin would go out with his rail-carbine and return with a gerwolf fang for Alicia’s collection. Always look danger in the face, he would sign to her. Never run. His eyes would drift to the picture of her mother, framed on the mantlepiece.Stolen story; please report.


    Never run.


    On her tenth birthday she was submerged in a tepid brook in the name of Christ. But her gaze was already upon the circles of nothing that crossed the sky, day and night.


    Where did they lead to?


    War came to EXO001. Streaks of red and gold crisscrossed the night sky. In her sixteenth year, two Mantamechs landed in the crop fields. Alicia had learned about mechs from spherifilms, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight of those huge grey humanoids. Each was as tall as the grain silo! A metallic voice blared through the farmstead. “We are the Martian Manta Corps. We suspect this dwelling of harbouring munitions for Christophite terrorists. You will evacuate to the surrounding hills while we complete our search. This is your first and last warning.”


    She signed the message to her father. But Sorin Eminescu wanted to look danger in the face. He told her to head for the hills without him. I have to stay with you, she signed to him. Mechs don’t have lips. How can you talk without your ‘ears’? But he shoved a day pack with money, food and water into her arms and told her to leave.


    She secretly followed him. Watched from behind a hedgerow as he stood, defiant, in front of one of the Mantamechs, his arms crossed, looking straight up at the camera on its ‘head’. He didn’t speak or sign, but Sorin Eminescu’s message was clear. This is my home. I’m not running any more.


    The Mantamech raised its right thruster-leg. There was a pneumatic hiss, a dull crunch, a scream. Her scream. She wanted to break cover, rush the mechs, to pound them with her bare fists…


    A wormhole passed overhead.


    Alicia stopped herself.


    Turned.


    Headed to the hills.


    Walked for two days to the trade launchpad at EXO001City.


    Used all the money in her day pack to purchase transit on a shuttle heading for one of the wormholes.


    Worked and begged and fought and charmed her way through the EXOs for a whole year until she arrived on EXO007—one of a handful of worlds fully under Christophite control.


    Gave a blood sample at a Church clinic.


    Received an implant.


    Walked into their mirror cathedral on sore heels to be baptised for a second time.


    Floundered beneath the River of Spacetime, even as she clawed her way out of the ectogenic sac on the altar, naked and reborn.


    Watched as they pulled her corpse from the water, lifeless and blue and donned in a tungsten vest.


    ***


    “You think only of revenge,” repeated the Bishop. The sun was beginning to set behind the valley as another of EXO19’s short days drew to a close. “But I must consider the safety of Mercy Base, and the whole Christophite flock. The Martians need their pound of flesh, and while your other clone is alive, my hands are tied.”


    “Revenge is just individualised justice,” whispered Alicia.


    Judith snorted. “The eunuchoids are prepping the other clone for transit. I suggest you go and say goodbye to yourself.”


    ***


    Alicia didn’t go straight to the hospital bay. Instead, she headed for the refectory. She craved the company of her ?mech squad.


    She found Faythe/Faythe, Carlos/Carlos and Francis/Francis halfway through Saint’s Grace at the second-evening meal. “…and may you guide us through the River of Spacetime. Amen.”


    When they opened their eyes, all six abandoned their wine and fungal paté to embrace her. Carlos’s hugs took the longest, and his second clone’s lips quivered by her ear. She pushed him gently away before he could speak. She wanted company, not complications.


    Back at table, they all did their best to ignore the spare chair next to Alicia.


    “What was it like/what was combat really like?” said Faythe/Faythe, eagerly stumbling over her words while trying to keep both her red ponytails out of her wine bulbs.


    “She’s seen it all before, right?” One of Francis winked at her as the other bit into a bread roll generously slathered with paté. He was bald, but one of him had a crescent-shaped birth mark across the right side of his large head and did the talking for both of him. “She’s a veteran of the Ragnar?k Brigade’s assault on EXO012…”


    “That?” scoffed Alicia as she scooped up a bulb of wine, losing herself to bonhomie and braggadocio. “Those pirates were nothing. This guy was good…”


    “Clearly not that good!” said one of Carlos, hotly. The other Carlos looked sullen.


    “Just the one guy?/In both Mantamechs?” said Faythe/Faythe, before literally stopping herself. “I thought MMC pilots didn’t use clone pairing…”


    “Oh, I took care of his wingmate,” said Alicia. The wine was making fast work of her virgin liver. “Spliced her with the lance on the first pass!”


    “Bet he was pissed,” sniggered birthmark-Francis. “Infidels can’t clone like us…”


    “WON’T clone,” corrected Carlos.


    “Yeah, what’s with that?” said Faythe/Faythe in stereo.


    “Some kind of ethics thing, the Declaration of Tharsis or some such…”


    “So, no Ectogenesis?”


    “No immaculate birth…”


    “Gross/sinful!”


    Listening to her squad’s banter, Alicia felt the warm rush of familiarity. But something—someone—was missing. She was missing. It wasn’t the same without a clone, without someone to bounce her thoughts off. As the wine flowed, she felt increasingly overwhelmed in the conversation.


    She stood up to leave.


    “Going already?” slurred Francis.


    “Yeah, I need to check on…”


    “We get it.”


    “And just so you know…” started Faythe.


    “…we think what Mallory is doing sucks,” finished Faythe.


    “Yeah,’ said Francis, slamming a meaty fist onto the table. “Fuck the peace!”


    “FUCK THE PEACE!” they all roared, and both of Francis got to his feet.


    “?MECH CRUSADERS! FOR THE SAINT!”


    “FOR THE SAINT! OOH-RAH!” they chorused, then downed the rest of their wine bulbs.


    “Thanks…” whispered Alicia, trying not to tear up for the second time that day.


    One of Carlos caught up to her in the doorway. A glance over his shoulder showed the other looking on.


    “Alicia, are you ok?”


    “Well, my other self is being sent as a sacrificial lamb to the Martians for an ill-thought-out peace brokered by out-of-touch elites, but other than that I’m fine.”


    The look on his face made her immediately regret her caustic tone. Carlos Pérez was a decent man—a few years older than her in years but decades in temperament, all old-Earth chivalry. He was good looking in a homely way—chiselled jaw, wine dark eyes, body toned and compact beneath his vantablack jumpsuit. Perhaps that was why she’d kissed him back, that night after they first landed…


    But he was just too much. Every day since that kiss, she could feel his eyes tracking her around Mercy Base. Could hear the question implicit in every one of their strained interactions. He was like a gerwolf puppy, both of him. And Alicia just wasn’t much of a romantic. She liked her paramours edgy, competent, and gone in the morning.


    “Look, I’ve got a lot on my mind. But thanks for your concern. Seriously, it means a lot.” She smiled and started to walk away down the central base corridor. Carlos matched her pace, his voice lowered.


    “You should know that we think Bishop Yu has made a serious error of judgement here. A very serious error. We’ve discussed…options.”


    She stopped and faced him. “Options?”


    He hesitated. “We could temporarily, er, relieve the Bishop…”


    “What you’re talking about is treason, Priest Pilot Pérez.”


    He lowered his head. Bad puppy. “I’m sorry. It’s just we’re all so upset…”


    “Goodnight Carlos.”


    ***


    The hospital bay seemed crowded. Both biovats stood vacant. Alicia’s damaged self was propped in a wheelchair as two eunuchoids prepped her for transit. Mallory watched over the proceedings, tapping at an e-ink tablet strapped to the sleeve of his vestments. A sneer spread across his face as Alicia—the fresh clone—walked in.


    “Come to bid yourself farewell, Priestess Pilot?”


    Alicia looked into the bloodshot blue and green eyes of her former self. She was heavily sedated, so there was no direct connection. But something still passed between them.


    She turned to Mallory, allowing her bottom lip to tremble. “C…can I have moment? Alone with…myself?”


    The Priest Captain made show of consulting his tablet, then nodded. “There is a power in mercy, Priestess. Something you would do well to learn. Perhaps the MMC will be as merciful as me and give her—you—a quick death.” He whistled to the eunuchoids who paused their ministrations and followed him out of the bay.


    Alicia stepped up to her clone, wondering how much of her was still in her. Clone pairs generally slept synced, so that one didn’t psychologically diverge too far from the other. It had been several days since they’d been one/one. Were they still the same person?


    She stood behind the wheelchair. Pressed her cheek to her hair, damp from sweat. Wrapped her arms around her neck. Tightened her grip.


    CRRRRRACK.


    The alarm from the medical monitor sent the eunuchoids rushing back in. They saw Alicia’s head flopped forward at an angle, with Alicia standing behind with a blank look on her face.


    Mallory was close behind them, his rat face purple with rage. “WHAT DID YOU DO?! GENDARMES!”


    Four officers of the Christophite Gendarmes burst in. Their black tactical suits and carbines made the hospital bay even more crowded. One of the eunuchoids clutched its bald head and rocked back and forth in horror, while another tried to comfort it.


    “Arrest the Priestess for murder!” yelled Mallory.


    “Technically, it’s not murder,” said Alicia.


    “Then…suicide! A mortal sin, outside of martyrdom!”


    “I’m still here, aren’t I?”


    “Then…damage to Logistics Choir assets!”


    “Don’t lecture me on ‘assets’. You were going to sacrifice me.”


    “You’re a liability! Gendarmes, detain her in the name of the…”


    “Gendarmes, stand down,”. Mallory’s head snapped around as the Bishop made her way into the bay.


    “Stand down?!” Mallory gestured at the limp Alicia clone in the chair. “She’s just killed our only chance at peace!”


    Judith Yu assessed Alicia—alive and dead—with a cold hard stare. “Then I guess it’s lucky we have a spare. Priest Captain Quinn, authorise the dispatch of one ?mech with the full non-nuclear suite of armaments and a crash corset calibrated to Pilot Priestess Eminescu’s specifications.”


    “WHAT? Why?”


    “I was willing to sacrifice her broken half. But I will not allow another young consciousness to be snuffed out without a fight.”


    “Then let’s clone her and send…”


    “We don’t have time.”


    “She’ll die anyway!”


    “At least this way, it’s fifty–fifty.”


    “At least…” purred Alicia.


    “But…”


    “You’ve heard my decision, Mallory,” said the Bishop. “Execute it.”


    As Alicia filed out behind Judith and the gendarmes, she whispered to a gawping Mallory.


    “There is a power in mercy, Priest.”