“It’s my birthday and I’ll dance if I want to.”
Lance Corporal Amy Goodall appears in the Rough Passages stories Powerhouse and Nightmares, and returns in the novel The Sharp Edge of Yesterday
From Powerhouse:
The Marines snapped to their feet. The floor shook underfoot. All of them had the hardened skin, thick muscles, and heavy bones that defined their T-series designation. They didn’t look alike, but they didn’t look human either.
Lance Corporal Amy Goodall stood front and center. She was a T1A, twelve feet tall from skull to toes, which made her easiest of the squad to identify. Her armored skin was a dull gold, and so were her dorsal spikes, and her claws did not retract. The scientists originally responsible for labeling rollover classes hadn’t been compassionate men. T stood for troll.
She’d left behind family and career when onset hit and her body twisted and changed, same as every other soldier in Mercury. She’d been a professional dancer before rollover.
From Nightmares:
Amy danced solo across the empty floor. Twelve feet tall, gold and leathery from top to toe, she pirouetted once, twice, and a third time, then began a series of soaring leaps that took her around and around the floor. The maneuver ended with a bound to the center, where she came down hard enough to shake the walls. Just as the song ended, she struck a pose: back arched, one leg stretched behind, hands overhead, claws extended.
Art by Daniel Govar
