Iron Writer: Flowers    Van Norris opened his eyes and looked at the dark grey sheen of the ceiling in his quarters aboard the SRAN carrier Sonic Dive. His alarm clock was going off, buzzing sharply through the room and echoing across the metal walls. It pierced his senses and forced him to wake up. The man groggily rose to a sitting position on his bed and looked at the alarm clock with a groan. It read 5:45 AM.    He smashed the clock's alarm button to turn it off, then flung his legs over the side of the bed and onto the slick floor below. The bare soles of his feet caught it and friction kept him from sliding too much. He yawned, stretching his arms, and looked into the mirror. He looked like hell, but Van always did when he woke up.    The Lieutenant Minor threw his nightclothes off and lazily onto his bed. He would make it later; he had a patrol shift today and had no intention of waking up a few minutes early to make a bed. He walked towards the walk-in shower built into his quarters and fumbled for the light switch, throwing it on and then shrinking back as his eyes protested the sudden brightness of the fluorescent lighting.    After his eyes adjusted, he stepped into the shower. He looked at black break in the white tile with tan speckles, where the radio was housed, and flipped it to the only radio station for men in the Merge Dimensional Armada, Radio Merge KMDA. The end of a song by the Western country music band, "Fuck You, Bitch," was playing. He tuned out the rustic lyrics about shoving a large bore automatic pistol down someone's throat and turned the hot water on. The entry of Western artists into the genre had been interesting, but he still disliked the sound of country altogether.    He ran a hand through his short blond hair. He had fifteen minutes to get changed and into uniform, then another fifteen to eat breakfast. The Sky Riders Aerospace Navy always started "day" patrols early. It was something of a misnomer, and everyone from the command staff of the armada to the enlisted men knew it. The Unbound never paid attention to day and night on groundside in space.    The disc jockey on Radio Merge interrupted as the song ended. "Good morning to you boys waking up for the day patrol! It's 5:48 in the morning, and the Unbound are restless. Talina Svensgaard had a cinnamon roll for breakfast."    Van blinked and paused while scrubbing soap on himself. The morning DJs were flipping insane, he decided.    "Grand Admiral Conridge has reported that he also had a cinnamon roll for breakfast, and that it was good," the disc jockey said. Slash was her name; she was a former Sky Rider, retired when a shrapnel blast in her fighter sliced her left leg off at the calf. Van also knew for a fact that the Grand Admiral of the Merge Armada reported his breakfast to the radio station every single morning.    "And now, just for you boys and girls on anti-pirate patrol," Slash continued, "the single by Dyluck Good Band, ëUnder the Stars.' Enjoy."    Van finished showering, but left the radio playing as the alternative rock of Dyluck Good filled the small quarters of the Sky Rider. He flipped the lights in his quarters on, his eyes adjusted to them this time, then quickly began freshening up and changing into his uniform: a dark blue overcoat with no collar, dark blue with gold buttons and white tops on the shoulders, a black high-necked shirt, a black belt, white pants with a red stripe up each side, and knee-high polished black boots. He grabbed the white officer's cap with the gold insignia and black brim, but left it in his hand instead of putting it on.    The officer reached into the shower and shut the radio off, interrupting the very end of the Pandoran rock band's song. He then turned the lights off and walked to the door of his quarters. It slid open, and the lights inside turned off automatically. He walked into the hall of the Sonic Dive and looked around. The immediate change in atmosphere struck him. Instead of the still and fair quiet of his room, people were already moving throughout the halls; some just starting the day shift like him, and others just ending the night shift.    He took a brisk left face and began walking down the hall. Onboard the Tritoch-class carrier, anyone who was walking through the halls usually had somewhere they had to be, or had finished a shift and were returning to their quarters. He only nodded to them, saluted in the case of higher-ranking officers, or returned the salute of lower-ranking soldiers. He generally ignored entirely the groups of joking officers and enlisted, headed to rec facilities or mess halls; they were off duty, anyways.    The officer reached his destination, the Standby Mess Hall. The Sky Riders Aerospace Navy had taken up the habit of having three messes: one for officers, one for enlisted and non-commissioned officers, and one for both when they had a short amount of time before duty. Some people insisted the quality of the standby mess halls' food was lower than the others, but Van never noticed.    They still made a bitching brownie.    He walked inside the mess hall and looked around. A few food servers were standing behind the service counter and the assorted foods placed out in front of them; their shifts were different than those of the flight crews, and they still had two hours to go. Van pitied them; most of them looked half-dead from working overnight. He got in line and walked up to one.    "What'll it be, Lieutenant?" the airman asked, his eyelids drooping.    "A glass of orange juice, two slices of toast, and a brownie ala mode," Van said in a neutral tone. He had seen some officers try to be excited and friendly to the overnight food service workers, but he figured if he were handing food to people who just woke up at six in the morning, cheerfulness would make him want to punch them in the face.    "All right," the man said. He reached into the counter and handed the plates with the requested food to Van, then turned and poured a glass of orange juice from a machine. It was supposedly ëfreshly squeezed,' but Van figured that fresh had a very different definition in military jargon than it did in the dictionary. SRAN orange juice tasted like dung, but it was still good for the body.    "Here's your freshly squeezed orange juice, sir," the man said, handing the glass to Norris. He pitied him even more for being required to remind him that it was ëfreshly squeezed' by the SRAN's protocol.    "Thank you, Airman," he replied, taking it and placing it on his tray. He turned and walked into the sitting section, where he spotted the two crewmembers of the Commanchero-class gunboat he was captain of, Carbunkle Three. He was surprised, but not by their presence.    Airman Grand Sarah Malone was a short woman in her middle twenties, a bit thick and muscled in frame but still with a rugged attractiveness. She wore her brown hair pulled back and into a single loose ponytail. The woman was clad in the white on blue SRAN uniform worn by enlisted and non-commissioned officers. She had a bit of a reputation that Van had heard more about since arriving on the Sonic Dive. The woman had been the only surviving member of the five Carbunkle Three crews on the carrier before Van's.    Airman Double Minor Henry Dowington was a thin man of average height in his late teens. He had red hair and skin still tanned from the surface; Malone and Norris both had skin paler than most from spending several years in space. He was clad in the same blue and white jumpsuit as Malone. He was also fresh out of the training camp, and had seen a grand total of six missions. He and Malone had gotten along shakily.    It thus surprised Van that Dowington had his hand overtop Malone's. It further surprised him that she was blushing over this, instead of removing the boy's head and shoving it up a choice orifice on his body.    "I was really nervous, after coming out of boot camp," he said.    "So was I," Malone replied. "It's natural."    Van remained still and watched the unlikely couple. They had yet to notice the presence of their commanding officer, and he figured it was a good chance to find out something about the two soldiers underneath his command. Something that would make him want to regurgitate his food, as it wound up.    "You know, I thought you were a real dumbass when you first showed up," the woman continued, laughing.    He was, Van thought.    Henry looked a bit mock hurt. "Maybe I was just a bit clueless, but I wasn't a dumbass," he said in a joking tone of voice. "And even if I am a dumbass, I did a good job of getting your attention."    Because women are insane, the officer mused to himself.    She smiled. "You're not so bad, now."    He would have to remember to tell Airman Malone to have her eyes checked.    "Thanks," the boy replied with a grin. "It's been weird out here, but having you around the last few weeks has really helped. I don't want to be too forward, but I . . ." He paused, smiling awkwardly. Van's stomach twisted around itself and tried to shove bile into his throat in protest. "I think I ó"    "I know," Malone smiled back. The two lovers began to lean towards one another.    Van coughed. "Ahem."    The two enlisted blinked and doubled around, snapping to attention and saluting their commanding officer at his suddenly noticed presence. With the tray in his hands, he could not perform a salute, and he kept the small grin tugging at his lips from manifesting. "As you w ó" He quickly stopped short, realizing he did not want them doing as they had been. "At ease," he corrected.    "Thank you, sir," Malone said a bit awkwardly, sitting down.    "Ah, yes, thank you, sir!" Henry repeated loudly, taking his own seat.    Van placed the tray at their table and sat down as well. "I hope you two don't mind if I join you," he said in the most neutral and calm tone he could muster.    "Not at all, sir," Malone said. She took the cup of black coffee sitting on her tray and took a sip. Van noticed her lip quiver a bit in protest; it must have gone cold during her love confession with Dowington.    The Lieutenant took a bite one of his pieces of toast. "That's good to hear. Are you two ready for your patrol?"    "Of course, sir!" Dowington replied, his face still flushed red with embarrassment. "We, ah, just happened to get up earlier to make a date before the patrol, sir, is all."    "Nothing wrong with that," Van replied, getting to work on his second piece of toast. "Were you planning on telling me about you two being . . . well?"    Malone blinked. "Of course, sir."    "You're by no means required to," Van said. "Just curious." It was something of a test; he wondered if they would volunteer such information.    There was a brief silence, and the couple looked at one another questioningly. Finally, Dowington broke the silence. "Ah, sir? Are you have a brownie for breakfast?" he asked while Van was about to stick a chunk of ice cream covered brownie into his mouth with his fork.    "Yeah." Van stuck the brownie into his mouth and ate it down. The two enlisted soldiers looked at him questioningly, and the officer realized the affirmative would not be enough of an answer. "The brownie is the key to victory."    "It's . . . what?" Malone asked.    "I'm serious. I scored near perfect on every simulator battle with a brownie," Van told them. "Except the last one, because it's impossible to win."    "We won't ask," the woman said, blinking at him.    Van just looked plainly at both of them and licked his fork clean of the last pieces of his brownie clinging to it. He placed it down and took his tray in his hands. "We had better be leaving. We're due in the hangar, soon."    "Yes, sir," Dowington said. He and Malone stood up. The three of them walked to the dish line and place their trays on a conveyor belt that would take them into the dishwasher section. They turned and then walked out of the Standby Mess Hall and towards the nearest elevator. All of them were stationed on decks 4 and 6, which were the designated decks for flight crew quarters; each had elevators leading directly to Deck 5, which held the hangar section on the ship. The elevator doors slid open upon their approach, and the three entered.    The elevator whisked them down to the hangar level. The doors opened to reveal all the chaos of a hangar before a launch: the crews of the fighters, mecha, and gunboats were moving towards their craft, mechanics and engineers were making final inspections, and the flight deck crews trying to get every craft prepared for launch.    The three crewmembers of Carbunkle Three noticed something immediately out of the ordinary with their craft. It was not lined up with the rest of their squadron, but placed off to the side. An Ifrit IV mecha, a humanoid shaped war machine that stood thirty-five feet in height and was made to fly in space, was kneeled down next to the Commanchero-class gunboat Carbunkle Three.    Van knew that the Commanchero-class had been built to carry a single Ifrit IV mecha if need be, but it was never used on a standard mission. It meant that the mission they would be performing today would not be an ordinary patrol. This fact was reaffirmed as they approached where Carbunkle Three and the mecha were situated inside the hangar: two figures usually not seen on a launch were present.    One was Commodore James Perry, the skipper of the Sonic Dive. For whatever reason, he sported a pair of flight sunglasses for the day, which contrasted against his space-paled skin and darkened blond hair; Van imagined he was once an active outdoorsman on the surface. The other was slightly taller than the Commodore, and his stripes marked him as a Commander. The stripes up his pant legs, Van noted, were a dark grey instead of red.    Van and his men stopped and snapped sharply to attention, saluting Perry.    "At ease," Perry replied, returning the salute to the three of them. "Good to see you again, Lieutenant Norris."    "Thank you, sir," Van replied.    The Commander next to him looked him over. "Norris, eh? Like that guy from Porre, about a thousand years ago, on Gate? You related?"    "Somehow or another, I'm not entirely sure, sir," Van answered.    The Commander shrugged. "Ancient history, I suppose."    Van nodded. "Yes, sir."    Jim Perry looked over at the Commander, then back at Van and his crew. "I suppose you're wondering who this is."    "The thought had crossed my mind, sir."    Perry grinned slightly. He was one of the more casual commanding officers that Van had met; he sometimes wondered what some of the more hardassed teachers at the academy would have thought of Perry. "This is Commander John Hilton, SWRI. Strategic Weapons Research Institute. I'm not sure if you heard about them yet, the General Council just recently approved of their creation."    "It's a pleasure," Hilton added.    Van could see the need for the creation; the Sky Riders were still doing their best to escape the image of being the national aerospace navy of the Esper Union and old Fascist Pact. They had mostly managed to, especially with the completion of the EU's own Aerospacy, but they had still been using the Fort Locke Research Group for the manufacture and research of their weapons. The SWRI would change that, he imagined.    "This won't be a typical patrol, then, will it, sir?" Van asked.    "Perceptive," the Commodore replied. "That's correct, Lieutenant. The people at SWRI have a neat little toy for us. They want us to perform the first field test. Considering your record at the academy, I figured you were the man for the job."    "Thank you, sir." It was a chance for a promotion. Van would not argue even if protocol had allowed it.    "Commander Hilton here will explain the technology," Commodore Perry said, standing back and motioning for the lower ranking officer to explain.    Hilton nodded to the three crewmembers. "We're calling it the Strand Stabilizer," he explained. He motioned to one of the wings of the rounded Commanchero-class, where a cylinder had been mounted under it. "If you're familiar with the way a Strand works, there's the large ones that ninety-nine percent of space travel uses. We then have the smaller Strands located randomly throughout each dimension. These usually can only fit smaller ships, like Black Demon-class ships and the like. They're also very unstable; they tend to just blink in and out of existence. We haven't used them, so far, because if you go through them, you don't know that you'll be able to get back. They're less stable than a man who spent six months in the trenches at the first Hosluftgrad. With the Strand Stabilizer, we're hoping this will change. It works by forcing a shape on the Strand, and holding it in place. But it can only do it for half an hour, maybe an hour tops."    "Not very long, sir," Van replied.    "Exactly, Lieutenant. Use will still be limited, but no longer out of the question," the Commander stated.    "We've picked the Strand you'll be using, Lieutenant," Commodore Perry interrupted. "We already shot a probe through it; it leads to Mana. Once there, you'll make a sweep on a predetermined path, it's in your ship's nav computer, then come back, all within twenty-five minutes."    "Understood, sir," the Lieutenant Minor said. He glanced over at the Ifrit IV and blinked as a realization hit him. "Sir, if the Strand Stabilizer will be mounted on the gunboat, then why the Ifrit?"    "That will be part of the sweep, Lieutenant," Perry replied.    "Very well, sir," Van answered with a nod.    "Commander Hilton will be piloting the Ifrit IV, and along for the ride, to observe the stabilizer in action," Perry told him. "You'll remain in charge of the ship and operation, he will oversee the deployment of the stabilizer and Ifrit IV."    Van nodded. "Yes, sir."    A crane on the hangar lifted the Ifrit IV mecha up and placed it inside the cargo and limited use hangar bay of Carbunkle Three. Perry turned from watching it and looked back at the three of them, a grin on his face. "We've cleared you a launch path already. You're clear to go, Lieutenant."    "Thank you, sir," Van said with a salute. Perry returned the salute sharply. Norris then turned to face the two people under his command. "Airman Malone, Airman Dowington, we're going to launch. Man your stations." The two saluted and walked to the ladder into the Commanchero-class ship.    Commander Hilton nodded to him. "Excellent job, Lieutenant. Let's be off."    "Yes, sir." The two officers climbed inside the pilot area of Carbunkle Three; like all Commanchero-class gunboats, the inside was a half-oval; it had two stations at the front, one for the pilot and one for the co-pilot/gunner, then one in the center for the captain of the ship. Van took the seat in the center, while Dowington took the pilot's seat and Malone took the co-pilot's. The two lovers smiled at one another after sitting down. Hilton, who was forced to stand, just blinked.    "Airman Malone, are we clear for launch?" Van asked.    The woman checked her console. "Yes, sir."    "Airman Dowington, you have the all clear. Launch," Van ordered. He sat back in his chair as the young man threw the thrusters of the ship online. Carbunkle Three jolted slightly, then smoothly tore out of the hangar. The void of space opened before them, countless stars glistening against the all-engulfing field of black.    The four member crew of the ship maintained a brief silence as Henry brought the ship up to cruising speed, and banked it away from the dark grey, rectangular form of the Sonic Dive in the distance. Van then looked back at his rookie pilot. "All right, Airman, the route we're taking should be in the nav computer. Maintain that path and tell us when we get there."    "Yes, sir," Dowington answered.    The ship turned a bit and went at a slight angle, but the artificial gravity inside the Commanchero-class vessel kept them as though they were standing upright. It always felt different than real gravitational forces, Van thought, like a person was leaning back or forward just a bit more than usual. After spending four years in space in the academy, he had gotten used to it.    The commander of Carbunkle Three looked through the forward view screen. The Merge Dimension's asteroid belt was rapidly approaching them. The Strand was nestled inside the asteroid belt, then. Hilton coughed, interrupting the silence of the room. "I'm going to change into my jumpsuit," he said, and then excused himself from the ship's bridge.    Van silently turned back to watching the screen. Dowington had brought them into the asteroid field, and gently banked the gunboat from the path of a massive asteroid. The Lieutenant Minor glanced at a side view screen and briefly watched the dark brown, crater blasted rock fill the view of their port side. His view of it grew a bit closer; he turned back to the forward screen and realized that Henry had brought the ship up and closer to the asteroid to avoid one coming in faster.    Commander Hilton reentered the room, dressed in a white on blue pilot's jumpsuit, sealed for the vacuum of space, and with the helmet of it tucked underneath one arm. "We should be nearing the Strand," he stated.    "Almost, sir," Dowington replied.    From behind a large asteroid looming in front of them, a speckle of blue light caught Van's eye. As the asteroid drifted away, he could see the Strand revealed; it was much smaller than most of those he had seen, but held the same features: a brilliant blue glow, strikingly opposite of the single specks of light and immense field of darkness that filled the void, and even of the rounded asteroid rocks.    Unlike the large, immense Strands that were charted out and protected by nations and the Grand Army, this Strand wavered and crackled, changing in size and shape at random. Van saw why they used a small gunboat like his Commanchero-class to test the technology almost immediately; the Strand mostly stayed at a size where such a ship could fit through, but a larger one could be crushed if the stabilizer collapsed and the Strand altered its shape as the ship was passing through.    "Sir," Airman Malone spoke, "the Strand is in range of the Strand Stabilizer."    "Understood, Airman," Commander Hilton said. He was in charge of this part of the operation. "Fire when ready."    Sarah Malone nodded, and threw open a switch on her console. The Strand Stabilizer fired, the cylinder mounted under the wing of the Commanchero-class shooting off. The top of the cylinder broke off into six small orbs, which took positions around the Strand, then crackled with blue lightning. The Strand was pulled into shape, unwillingly, fit into a long slit in space by the stabilizer.    "The stabilizer was successful," Hilton reported. "Lieutenant Minor, take us to Mana," he commanded.    "Yes, sir," Van replied. "Airman Malone, send a report back to the Sonic Dive. Tell them we're entering the Strand and the stabilizer was successful. Airman Dowington, take us through."    "Yes, sir," the two enlisted replied simultaneously. Malone typed a few words into her station, while Dowington began moving the craft towards the Strand. Norris and Hilton watched silently as the stabilized Strand grew closer. The swirling energies inside cast a slight light over the bridge, blue in tint; Van winced a bit at the brightness as the closed in upon the portal.    There was little fanfare as the ship pushed into the energies. A mere bright flash of blue light was all that met them, and then they were greeted with a sight similar to the one they left: flickering stars, swirling asteroids, and the void. Van shuddered; passing through a Strand always made one's fingertips slightly tingle.    "Sir, what the hell is that?" Dowington asked.    Van blinked and took a better look through the forward view screen; he realized that amidst the asteroids, pieces of metal floated about. Some looked like the thick armor of a starship or space station, but others were from an interior; there were habitation modules torn open to space, hallways and facilities of all kinds revealed. Whatever had torn them apart had immense power; most likely, it had taken incredible cannons to do the sort of damage the four Sky Riders witnessed.    Hilton answered Dowington's question. "It's the remains of Kuat Mana Belt Asteroid Refinery Facility Number Five. Facility five, site of the Foreman's Rebellion, Airman. No flowers on their grave," the Commander said.    "Where a hundred and fifty Tasnican miners died," Van added. "I saw the news reports. No one's really sure what happened."    Commander Hilton turned and began to walk from the bridge. "I'll be launching the Ifrit IV. Sweep around the facility and take a good luck. This is history," he said. "Pick me up on the opposite side."    "Yes, sir," Van replied. He looked at Dowington. "Began an arc around the refinery, but don't move in too close. No need to disrespect the fallen."    "Sir," Henry nodded. Hilton walked from the bridge. A moment later, the rumble of the mecha's engines could be heard from elsewhere in the craft, and then the dark blue and white-lined machine was on the outside of the ship. It brought one of its hands up, and then flew off closer to Facility Five.    Van looked at the facility as Carbunkle Three began its arc around the fallen Kuat mining facility. He had still been a cadet in the Sky Rider academy when the Foreman's Rebellion had happened; there had been some worry amongst the staff that it was the second Leviathan War about to start. No one knew what had happened, exactly; there were doubts that it was a Communist uprising, as had been suggested by some. He wondered what Domai Kanavem had been thinking, when the Manaforce cannons used by the Tasnican battlecruisers had torn the facility apart.    The Unbound had said that if you die in space, there would be no flowers on your grave. Looking at Facility Five, Van decided that if you die in space, no one would ever know the truth about you.    "We're nearing the pick up point, sir," Airman Dowington said.    "Understood, Airman," Norris replied. He looked out the starboard view screen, and saw the Ifrit IV that Hilton was in. He realized that it had a strange capsule tucked underneath one arm, flying over the ruined refinery facility. The Ifrit mecha let the capsule go, and then glanced back up at Carbunkle Three, nodding. Its head then turned back down to the capsule, and the two small gravitic cannons mounted on it let loose with a brief burst of gunfire.    The capsule shattered apart, and small, pink flower petals began to float out and around the Kuat Mana Belt Asteroid Refinery Facility Five. The Ifrit IV turned around and the Commanchero-class vehicle moved in closer as the flowers drifted towards the slight gravity created by the rotation of the ruins. Van cracked a grin while looking at the spectacle; for the one hundred and fifty entombed in the ruins, there would be flowers on their graves.