Auric

by Leslie Chase

  “We won’t be attacking their worlds,” Miira said, trying to put a reasonable spin on the plan. “As you say, the ship is akedian. They are our equals, aren’t they? Taking an akedian ship doesn’t go against the Code.”

  There was nothing directly untrue about what she said. That didn’t make it right, either.

  “An akedian ship crewed entirely by humans might as well be a human ship,” I insisted. “And if it carries the riches you say it does, Zaren, its loss will cripple the colony world they are traveling to. Thousands will die, perhaps more.”

  “Better thousands of humans than thousands of prytheen,” Coran said, baring his teeth. “Our first duty is to our people, Auric.”

  Before I could answer, Zaren raised a hand. “Peace. We all hear your words, Alpha-Captain Auric. The time has come to decide our course by vote — if we delay, we will lose our chance to strike.”

  I ground my teeth but nodded. Hopefully my words had swayed some of the council of captains.

  Zaren voted for his proposal, followed by Coran and Miira. I cast the first vote against. Layol, Terasi, and Vindar looked pained as all attention turned to them.

  Come on, I willed them. Make the right choice. The one our ancestors would have made. Victory isn’t worth dishonor.

  Terasi was the first to speak.

  “Auric has a point,” she said reluctantly. “The humans haven’t attacked us, and they are too weak to be good foes. Leave them be.”

  She didn’t look happy about her decision. Her scouts had borne the brunt of recent fighting, and she’d lost her mate to the halverans. It wasn’t easy to give up a simple way to rearm the Band. I nodded my respect to her for the hard choice she’d made.

  Vindar and Layol looked at each other silently, neither wanting to speak first. I glared at the pair of them: if they abstained it would be three votes to two in favor of attacking the humans. I needed their support to block Zaren.

  I saw the regret in Vindar’s eyes when he turned back to me. Guilt mixed with a stony determination not to admit it. My jaw tightened — I could see what was coming and had no way to stop it.

  “Zaren is right,” Vindar said. “The humans don’t matter. We need their resources more than they do.”

  And with that, we’d sentenced thousands of innocent colonists to death. My heart pounded and I closed my eyes, trying to master my emotions.

  This is wrong. Killing the innocent and the helpless is no part of the warrior’s way. I could almost hear my parents’ voices as they taught me right from wrong. Did none of the others listen?

  A warrior stands between the weak and those who would harm them. That was the first tenet of the Code.

  “It is decided,” Zaren said, no longer hiding the feral hunger in his voice. For Vindar this was a regrettable necessity: for Zaren, a chance to hunt prey that would not fight back. “I will lead the hunt against the human ship. For the next few days it will be at heartstar 571 — I shall lead the attack before they can recharge and leave.”

  “No.” I spoke quietly, but with enough intensity that the others all fell silent. Opening my eyes, I saw the six holographic faces staring at me. “The Silver Band exists to protect the weak, not to prey on them.”

  “The Council of Alphas has spoken, Auric,” Terasi said. She sounded unhappy about it, but she backed the majority. “Whatever we feel about the decision, it is made. The Code binds us to uphold it.”

  She was right. We’d all sworn to obey the decisions of the Council — it was one of the ways our ancestors had stopped the endless war between our clans long enough to get into space. But what did it mean when the Council voted to break the Code?

  If whatever path I chose meant dishonor for me, I might as well take the route where I didn’t kill innocents. The humans deserved no part of what Zaren had planned for them.

  I powered up my ship, fingers moving in the familiar ritual I’d performed every time I’d entered battle. This would be the first time I’d armed my weapons against the Silver Band, though, and I was surprised that my hands didn’t shake.

  Do the right thing, not the easy thing, my mother had always told me. This might be the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I couldn’t let my reluctance stop me.

  “Alpha-Captains,” I said. “I will not submit to this decision. Do not test me.”

  Zaren’s face was as still as a stone carving, but Coran’s smile gave him away. They’d hoped for this — hoped I would balk at their plan and fight them. Rebel, leading my forces against Zaren’s and giving him the perfect excuse to purge my followers.

  “Don’t raise your hand against the Silver Band,” Terasi pled. “We will have to kill you, and you know that you don’t have the numbers to win.”

  That was true. Perhaps one in ten of the warriors gathered here had sworn to follow me, and not all of them would join me against the rest of the Silver Band. If I fought, it would be a pointless, one-sided battle.

  There were other ways to defend the humans than fighting. Turning my fighter away from the fleet, I aimed at deep space and pushed down the throttle. Engines roared beneath me as I accelerated hard, opening the distance as fast as I could. Jumping this close to the other ships would risk dragging them with me — I needed space between us.

  “I do not wish to fight you,” I said into the comms as the Council dissolved into shouting. Behind me, their ships turned to pursue. “If I have to, I will, but that’s not my desire. I will warn the humans and get them to safety.”

  Heartstar 571 was too far away to safely reach in a single jump, but safety was the last thing on my mind. The ship’s computer protested as I laid in the course and overrode the limiters.

  If I burned out my drive getting there, so be it. I would save the humans or die trying.

  Energy bolts snapped past my ship as the drive wound up to launch me into hyperspace. Zaren wasn’t letting me go this easily, and some of my followers were maneuvering to protect me from his. The Silver Band’s fleet dissolved into chaos behind me. Good; with luck, that would delay pursuit and give me more time to speak with the humans.

  An energy bolt snapped into my hull, tearing through the shield and burning out sensors. Not a fatal hit, but I couldn’t afford any more. Time to go.

  My hand hit the hyperdrive switch, and the universe dissolved around me.

  With a snap, I reappeared in reality. A different starscape greeted me, a single bright sun close by, and I snarled in triumph. Damaged from the hit, it was a miracle that my fighter had managed to jump across the vast distance between the stars like this.

  An even greater miracle had led me to arrive in easy reach of my target. The massive akedian ship orbited nearby, soaking up the heartstar’s energy and charging its batteries. My sensors told me it was nearly ready to jump, and that gave me hope. If I could convince them to flee, the humans might yet escape the Silver Band.

  I glanced at the damage report that flashed up on my screen and saw that my luck wasn’t all good. The thrusters were damaged. So was the communications array. And the solar collectors were ruined: even this close to a heartstar, my batteries weren’t recharging.

  That meant my ship wouldn’t jump again. So be it — I’d leave with the humans or not at all. At least I’ve got time to act, I thought. Zaren and his minions would follow, but they wouldn’t risk their ships as I had. Their jumps would be more cautious, slower, safer.

  Which gave me time, but not much. I set my sights on the humans’ ship and accelerated as fast as I dared — the sooner I could reach them, the sooner I could save them.

  The ship ahead of me was typical of those the akedians leased to newcomer races — blocky, bulky, and primitive. Old and worn out, on its last legs. Easy prey for attackers, and taking a chance just being in space. Its drive would take weeks to recharge, and I was fortunate it was nearly ready to jump.

  “Thank you, blessed ones,” I said, hitting the communicator and scanning for transmissions. Nothing broadcast on any frequency I could hear. Wer
e they blind to my presence? Or just slow to react?

  Doesn’t matter. I need to talk to their leader, and if they aren’t answering the communicators we’ll speak in person. I ignored the warning lights and pushed the thrusters further, impatient to reach them. Acceleration was unsteady and I grimaced at the thought of trying to do any complicated flying with my fighter in this condition.

  I’d covered half the distance to the human ship before a scanner sweep caught me. Pathetic — they were hardly keeping an eye out at all. The humans would be no challenge to Zaren and his warriors.

  If I was going to save them, I had to get the human ship out of the system before the Silver Band arrived. Otherwise they were doomed, and my hopes with them.

  I flicked on the transmitter and winced at the howl of static that filled the cockpit. Error messages filled my display, and I had to mute the channel.

  Wonderful. The blast hit the communicator. I growled, my fingers tightening on the controls as I fought down my frustrated rage. It could have been much worse, I told myself. If the shot had hit the engines, the hyperdrive, or the life support system, I’d have no chance of finishing my self-imposed mission.

  But every moment counted. Zaren’s forces were on their way, bringing death and destruction with them. If the humans were still here when they arrived…

  I tried not to think about that. Better to focus on stopping them. Zaren would take a route that let him recharge his fleet at another heartstar, and that gave me time.

  While I couldn’t transmit, at least the receiver was working. A distressingly long time after they’d seen me, a message arrived, weak and crackling. The human spoke first in some language I didn’t know, and then in stilted, barely understandable Galtrade.

  “Captain Donovan of the Wandering Star,” the human said, his accent atrocious. “You? Stop approach.”

  Urh. How do the humans not know how to speak? Again I wondered if I was doing the right thing. To rescue these people who didn’t even know the common language of the stars, I’d given up everything.

  Everything apart from my honor. That would have to do.

  Bracing myself for the noise, I tried the transmitter again. No luck. I could hear but not speak. My jaw tightened again as the human repeated his greeting. It sounded as though he was reading from a script. Even if I could answer, I doubted it would do me any good: this Captain Donovan wouldn’t understand anything I said.

  The ship was close enough to see with my naked eyes now. A blocky, bulky thing, it was covered in landing pods, hundreds of them. Solar collectors spread wide like gigantic wings, catching as much starlight as possible. Deep inside, the jump drive was soaking up that energy, readying itself to throw the ship across lightyears to safety. I ground my teeth in frustration at the sight. If only I could tell them to go now.

  Perhaps, if they saw me as a threat, they’d run? The problem with that was that if I opened fire, I risked damaging something important. I powered up my weapons anyway — the humans ought to detect that, and as far as I could see, their ship was unarmed. Captain Donovan might withdraw rather than face even one raider attacking.

  No luck. The broadcast came again, but nothing changed. I had to speak to these humans, and with my transmitter broken that meant landing on their ship. With damaged thrusters that wouldn’t be easy.

  I tried to match orbits with the Wandering Star, only for the thrusters to rebel with a howl of warnings. The damage was as bad as I’d feared and slowing down wasn’t going to be easy.

  Cursing under my breath, I tried to wring as much performance out of the engines as possible. The Wandering Star was coming up too fast, and my pilot instincts screamed at me to swerve. I held my course.

  If I went past, it would take too long to come back around. I’d have to risk a landing now, and trust fate.

  The large, flat expanse of the Wandering Star’s deck stretched ahead of me, starlight gleaming off it. I aimed for the center, decelerating as much as my damaged thrusters allowed, and braced for impact. The cockpit’s forcefield held me tight in my seat as the deck raced up to meet me.

  Landing gear crumpled as I slammed into the deck. With a horrible grinding noise, my fighter skidded, and for a moment I thought I’d crash through the raised bridge at the rear of the akedian ship.

  Hauling at the controls I tried to decelerate. The thrusters barely responded, the ship’s deck tore under me, but I managed to slow the skid. I just hoped it would be enough.

  The last thing I remembered was the bridge looming over me as the ship slammed into it. Then blackness.

  3

  Tamara

  This wasn’t the first time I’d seen an alien ship. Of course not. They weren’t exactly common on Earth but getting a job on a spaceship meant spending time in orbit, and that meant aliens.

  Even the Wandering Star was an alien ship, though it was the kind of cheap worn-out junk that the akedians would sell to us. One day we’d learn to make our own ships, something better than this. Until then, we were stuck with the cast-offs aliens would sell us, at least for interstellar flights.

  The ship that had plowed into the main deck was different. Small, sleek, hungry looking. Like an eagle compared to the clumsy albatross we were flying. It was the size of a small airplane, yet it had its own hyperdrive. The Wandering Star’s drive was bigger than the whole ship, and probably less powerful too.

  My hands itched to get a look at it, though I knew I wouldn’t learn much. Our training with the hyperdrive came down to ‘follow the instructions exactly and never use it when the warning lights are on’ — no one expected a human to understand technology like this.

  They were right, too. Alien technology fascinated me, and I’d studied it as much as I could, but most of it was beyond me. And compared to the ship in front of me, the Wandering Star was simple. I could work on a hovercar like dad had taught me, but this was far beyond anything I’d trained on.

  It was magnificent. Swept wings like a hunting bird told me the ship was meant for atmosphere as well as space. The thrusters drew more power than our entire ship, and I could hardly imagine the speed this thing could get.

  There were weapons, too. I couldn’t tell what kind — nothing as primitive as a laser, that was for sure. And a forcefield generator that would protect the ship from anything we could throw at it.

  Which didn’t help you, did it? I ran my hands over the sleek black metal of its hull, wishing it could talk to me. What the hell could tear through these shields so easily?

  Some weapon had punched a hole in the hull, tearing metal like paper. I peered around inside the gap, looking at the mangled tech inside. Most of the parts I couldn’t even identify: what little training I had focused on how to use specific pieces of alien tech, not on general principles.

  “Well?” Captain Donovan said behind me, impatient and nervous. “What are you waiting for, Tamara?”

  He hadn’t used my title since we’d left Earth’s orbit. That wasn’t singling me out — none of the crew who’d joined up to pay our way to the colony got that courtesy from him. Only people who went to space for the love of it counted as crew to Captain Donovan.

  “I’m not exactly trained for this, Captain,” I said. It didn’t work the other way, of course. He expected us to show him the respect due his rank no matter how he behaved. “You can’t just point me at a ship and expect me to know how to handle it. I’m not a first contact expert.”

  The Captain made an unimpressed sound. His perfectly pressed uniform was stretched over his gut, and his neatly trimmed beard didn’t hide the extra chins he’d grown on the trip. We all had our different ways of coping with the long months of flight, and his were cake and sleep. This was the first thing to draw him out of his cabin in weeks, and he looked like he wanted to scurry back inside as soon as possible.

  “Just get the door open,” he ordered. “Whoever’s in here came crashing into my ship and I want to see who it is.”

  Yeah, right. If there was a living ali
en aboard, our brave captain would run and hide, I bet. But if the pilot was dead, he’d be keen to claim the salvage. That would be quite a feather in his cap; any one of a dozen corporations would pay a fortune for access to this technology.

  It might even get him command of another space ship and a chance to keep flying. That was something our captain hungered for even more than the cakes he loved so much.

  I walked around the ship, looking for a way in. There was a hatch, but no obvious way to open it and I could feel Donovan’s impatience building. Pursing my lips, I pulled a pry bar from my belt and tried to slip the edge into a gap.

  No luck. It wouldn’t budge, not even a little. I turned my eye to the panels beside it — there had to be an emergency access point, didn’t there?

  “What’s the holdup? You’re our alien expert.”

  My back was to the captain so I could safely roll my eyes. “Captain, I’m not an expert. I’m just interested in their tech and their language. I’m doing everything I can, but I don’t even know what species these aliens are.”

  He didn’t sound convinced, not that I’d expected him to. But I didn’t care — at least this was a change, something interesting, a chance to look at an alien ship.

  My pry bar pulled open a panel, revealing a lever with an angry red warning label next to it. At least I thought it was a warning — whatever it was written in, it wasn’t Galtrade. It didn’t look like any language I’d ever seen.

  There was only one way to find out what the lever did. My fingers tingled with excitement as I gripped it and pulled hard.

  With a hiss of escaping gas, the hatch popped open. A strange scent escaped, like a cross between dry grass and smoke, and before anyone could say anything I pulled my way up into the ship.

  If I waited, Donovan would send someone else. No way I would let that happen. No one aboard the Wandering Star was qualified for first contact with an alien species but I came closest. At least I was interested in aliens, unlike the rest of the crew.