by Cally Black
Everything ends in blood.
But not this. Not when I’m so close.
JUST MAKING IT WORSE
‘Yoisho,’ Song says, holding her bleeding lip. ‘I hope you’re right about this.’
Her watch alerts.
‘It’s Atala,’ she says.
‘Tell the captain to call off the attack. Tell him you’re going in to negotiate,’ I say.
‘Am I?’ Song asks, frowning at me like maybe she’s changed her mind about the whole thing.
‘If your own rockets don’t shoot you down!’ I yell.
Song wipes the hair from her face, lifts her wrist and takes the call. ‘Captain Atala, sir, I am currently entering the zone of the triple freighter structure. Please cease firing.’ She takes a breath. ‘In my capacity as master of prospects, I am initiating negotiations with the Garuwa. It is my advice to Starweaver Shipping Corporation that the only way to continue our shipping ventures in this region is to negotiate with the current owners. Please therefore ask your rockets to return to the Jolene before they destroy our chances of peaceful negotiation.’
‘Song!’ says Captain Atala. ‘This is not the plan of action we are taking. Get yourself out of the way of our rockets or you will be killed.’
I’m too busy swiping at controls and clacking at levers, trying to fly this thing, to even look at Song. That last hit damaged the little flyer maybe. I don’t have as much control anymore.
‘Sir,’ she says. ‘Starweaver cannot afford to wage war. We are in the shipping business. Let me do business.’
‘Return to the Jolene immediately!’
‘Call off the attack or you will cost the company, and you will forever be on the wrong side of history!’ Song shouts. She slaps her watch off as if she’d like to be slapping Atala.
I nod at her. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’
On the little screen, there’s hardly any space now between our dot and the dots that are the Jolene fleet.
I shove my face almost into the screen, trying to measure the gap with my eyes. ‘What’s going on?’ I say.
‘What?’ Song asks, pushing her face in beside mine. She pulls my floaty hair out of her way. The gap’s smaller. We’re slowing down!
‘Can you get it moving again?’ Song asks and reaches for the overhead paddles, flicking them like that’ll work. I haul at them too, cos it just might, but the gap keeps getting smaller.
This was all for nothing! Shit.
But then the new hive looms out of the dark. First we just see the pale roundness of the plate-shaped freighters, orange from the glow of a heap of stars shining through the swirls of a nearby dust cloud. The freighters are stacked up in a way that makes me think more of space stations than things that move. Dark columns stretch down in arches, adding a bit of hive structure to them, keeping them locked in tight, it seems. A hive sits on top, already looking fully formed.
The little flyer groans and strains and takes another hit, rolling off-course for a moment before swinging back towards the stacked freighter hive, like it knows where to go. It’s picking up speed again, like it smells home and can’t wait to get there. I take my hands off the controls. Another hit and the little flyer squeals like it’s hurting.
‘What’s happening?’ Song asks.
‘I think the hive is pulling us in,’ I say.
‘Tāmāde,’ Song mutters.
Giant black words are painted either side of a massive black tendril that’s coming down from the hive and hanging onto the bottom freighter. ‘Hey’ on one side and ‘Delilah’ on the other.
My heart crawls into my throat at reading the name of Gub’s freighter.
On screen, the little dots that are Jolene flyers are spreading out behind us, like they all want to get a clear shot at us.
‘No!’ I whistle. Not when I’m so close. Not when my little Gub is there, just ahead.
The hive-three-freighter-thing is huge now. Right here, but impossibly far away. It’s pulling us downward, to the underside, like it wants us to enter the bottom freighter’s landing bay tube, Delilah’s landing bay. As we go under, we see the whole underneath is coated in a thick black layer of hive skin.
Then the black skin lights up. The whole underside’s now grey in a blast of light, except for a black circle that is our shadow. Behind us! The rockets! ‘They’re firing on us!’ I scream. We’re dead now.
Long seconds stretch and bend as death reaches for us. The first bolts of light skim past us, giving Song time to grab my hand, squeeze. More shots pass us.
The light hits the hive-coating on the hull of the Delilah, and bursts and smokes, and on screen five small rockets from the Jolene are lined up behind us, like a queue to follow us in. They’re using us!
‘They’re following!’ I yell. We’re leading them in. Letting them in so they can blow the landing bay apart.
‘Tootoopne! They’re following us in! I’m so sorry!’
I thought I could help, but I’m just making it worse. If this flyer wasn’t here, the Garuwa would never open the landing bay tube. I’m stupid for thinking I could stop this battle, make them talk, save Gub. Nobody’s gonna listen to a runt-arse, rag-bag teenager.
Then Tootoopne whistles through the comms. ‘Lead them in, little one!’ she says, calm as. ‘The hive is waiting.’
YOUR WINGS STILL DIDN'T GROW
We’re sucked up into the blackness, into the centre of the Delilah, into the vast tube leading to the airlocks, also coated in black. Hive black. Ahead, there’s a haze. The haze speeds down the tube to meet us. I’ve never seen it move like that before. The wire slice to my brain lasts just a moment, but Song screams and grabs her head, floats up off the wall.
‘It’s okay,’ I say, and pull her shirt. Pull her close, so the hive can see me here too. ‘It’s the hive, she wants to know you.’
Song looks at me like I’m crazy. Then she relaxes, she breathes, she’s okay.
The landing bay airlock opens, lets us in, cycles us through.
Other ships are still right behind us, cycling behind us, but they don’t come through. They’re held there, stuck in the haze of the hive gate. She won’t let them through.
Tethered in the curve of the landing bay sit a few human rockets and a few round Garuwa flyers. And waiting for us to touch down are a mix of human engineers in grey Starweaver uniforms and Garuwa in squad gear.
When we land, it’s the human engineers who run to tether the flyer to the floor, and Garuwa who salute us as we stumble from the flyer. And I’m having trouble understanding how it is they’re working alongside each other like it’s no big thing, when outside, humans and Garuwa are locked in a deadly battle.
‘Weku!’ the Garuwa salute, like I’m important.
‘They’re right on our tail!’ I whistle, and lean back into the flyer, check the screen. Heaps of rockets are being drawn into the base at the bottom freighter. They’re firing. Spinning and firing back on themselves, then stopping. The haze is spreading out past the bottom of the hive. Swallowing up all the rockets trying to follow the other rockets that tailed us in. Dozens and dozens of rockets, stopping. They’re trapped in the haze! Trapped in the extended hive gate.
Song’s sitting on the floor of the flyer. I grab her hand and help her out.
‘Weku!’ Wooloo swoops down from above and I run at her, hug her around the middle, so tight my face aches pressing into her armour. ‘You funny little thing,’ she whistles.
‘What’s happening?’ I whistle. ‘Where’s Gub? Where’s Tootoopne?’
‘Come on,’ she says, and points up to a small tube tunnel heading back towards zero, something new, leading the opposite way to the airlock. I grab Song’s arm and bound across the landing bay, me knowing what’s coming, but she squeals beside me when a Garuwa grabs her arms and hoists her into the air.
Wooloo grabs my arms and flies me up to the tunnel. I’m heavy at first but as we get opposite the airlock, where rockets sit frozen and the gravity hits zero, I�
��m nothing in her claws and she pushes me off up the tunnel, sets me gliding towards the other freighters and the hive top. Song’s floating beside me, turning slowly, arms and legs out like that’ll stop her spinning. When I take her hand, it sends us both off-course towards a wall. I grab a rung, get my foot to it and push us off up the tunnel.
Wooloo sails past us both. ‘Your wings still didn’t grow!’ she whistles, and leads the way past the other freighters’ landing bays, the Roxanne’s and the Tiffany’s, empty and dark, to the base of the hive.
I grab Wooloo’s claw when she holds it out and she pushes me towards some rungs, so I can pull myself in until there’s some gravity and floor. Enough to bounce along, then, finally, to walk. Ahead is the haze of a hive gate.
‘Is this okay for her?’ I ask and nod my head at Song.
Wooloo gives her a side-eye look. ‘Maybe,’ she says.
‘Did she say, “maybe”?’ Song asks as I drag her towards the gate.
‘Don’t worry, Wooloo likes to joke around,’ I say, and haul her into the gate with me. Song falls to her knees, her head in her hands, and I’m pushed into the hive without her. I go back to get her but the haze is like a big soft wall, stopping me from even pushing a hand into it to grab her.
‘Song!’ I yell. ‘You’re here to save the humans from the Garuwa, but also to save the Garuwa from the humans!’
‘Tamara!’ she screams. ‘Help me!’
‘Song, please! I’m right. This is about peace. If you believe, the hive will know you mean no harm.’
Song screams, tears roll down her face, then she nods, keeps nodding. Closes her eyes and finally crawls into the hive behind me, but I don’t have time to check she’s okay, cos above me is the shiny black armour of Tootoopne, gliding down to the base of the hive.
WHERE DID YOU GO?
My heart sets up thudding like it’s going to burst. My body shrinks, like I can never bow low enough to please Tootoopne. My arm shoots up, me whistling, ‘Tootoopne!’ like I lost all control.
She swoops in gracefully. So tall. So thin. Black armour polished, reflecting green and purple.
‘Weku,’ Tootoopne says, and strides over. Rests her palm on my shoulders, claws scritching at my shoulder blade. Amazing grey eyes with orange flecks, staring down at me.
I drop my salute. ‘Are you here to make peace with the humans?’
‘The humans who are attacking us?’ Tootoopne asks. The scar under her eye twitches.
‘Yes,’ I say, never mind she’s made her point. ‘This one I have with me, she can speak to the shipping company. She can make deals. She can get them to stop the attack.’
Tootoopne tilts her head, studies Song as Song stands up. ‘We have managed to slow the attack for now.’
‘Her name is Tsongo,’ I say.
Tootoopne salutes Song.
Song smooths her hair, straightens her shirt, gets back to herself as she takes a deep breath, then salutes back.
‘We will be the guardians of this space forever,’ Tootoopne whistles. ‘Those who come here must pay to enter, and pay to take our minerals. Then long after our minerals are mined and gone, our children will buy minerals from passing humans, mining the space beyond, to keep our hives fed. This is the only way to deal with humans who will keep coming.’
I bob. She’s right. I hardly believe it, Tootoopne is out for peace. But she’s beating the humans at their own game. They’re all about owning stuff and money, and with money, Tootoopne and all the Garuwa will be the biggest puppet-masters around. Never mind that she can’t wrap her tongue around a human word, she’s learned humans perfectly.
I translate Tootoopne’s words for Song in case she didn’t understand them all.
Song bobs her head. ‘Then we will talk,’ she says in slow Garuwa. ‘The fighting will end. We will be friends.’
Tootoopne laughs softly at Song’s careful Garuwa. ‘You are the best teacher, Weku,’ she says. She looks down at me like I’m one of her children. And I feel like one of her children, safe in her care as she blinks slowly at me. Brown eyelids sliding down over her pale eyes and back up, so much patience shown to me. So much power on my side.
Tootoopne walks to the wall of the hive and waves me over. She rests her palm against the wall.
I rest my hand on the hive, but I’m no Garuwa, so I sink to the floor, flat on my belly, arms and fingers spread wide, fingertips pushing into the warm holes. The floor softens under me, breathing warm air over me. I press my ear against it. The hive shudders and howls in pain, in the distance, like a child crying out in the night. And it is a child. It’s a new hive. It’s a hive that needs to know humans, not just to guard against them like the other hives, but to let them into the freighters below, to live and to work, like they’ve already started doing.
Already it knows me somehow, like part of it came from Tootoopne’s hive, and it whispers to me, Welcome home, little one, welcome home. It warms my heart so much, I want the floor to suck me down and hold me there in that deep safe warmth, and it does, cos soon Song is calling and hammering the floor above my head, and I am in a world of white.
‘Tamara! Tamara! Are you okay?’
Tootoopne is sha, sha, sha-ing softly and the floor keeps hugging me tight, soft and warm, crawling into my mind like it wants to be my best friend and know all I know. I whisper to the hive, ‘Please help us find peace. The people in the rockets that hurt you are just doing their jobs. If you spare their lives, they will remember. They will see your kindness and tell other humans. The time for war is over.’
There’s the sound of human boots stopping next to me.
‘Girly,’ says a gravelly voice. ‘Where did you go?’
THE HUB
The floor lets me go, lifts me back to the surface, and I jump up.
Antonee! Bald head, trimmed beard, soft hazel eyes, bone-white claws on the end of one arm.
‘Weku.’ He grabs me and wraps me in his arms, his old worn jacket smelling of good food and warmth, and for a moment I feel so safe, I forget what I’m here to do.
‘They’re right behind us,’ I say when I remember. ‘A massive fleet of attack rockets from the Jolene.’
‘Yes, bit of a problem,’ Antonee says. ‘We’d hoped to make a deal before something like this happened. Right now most of them are stuck in the hive gate, and the rest have pulled back.’
He squeezes me hard once more, claws clunking on my back. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
‘I thought you were dead,’ I say into his jacket.
Tootoopne waits behind him, head tilted. ‘Tsa!’ she whistles softly. ‘You were meant to stay with the squad, not see the hand. I needed to keep Antonee hidden, and until we could build this,’ she waves her claw at the hive above us, ‘I needed to show his hand.’
I nod, guilty as that all the time I spent hating her was wrong. ‘And now? Do the elders like this idea?’
Sha, sha, sha, she laughs. ‘They are keen for safety, but not sure if something will be lost in making deals with humans.’
Antonee nods. ‘The fact was,’ he says, ‘Tootoopne made me an offer most old men would give their right hands for.’ He lets me go, waves his new claws and gives me a wink. ‘So I did! You remember it wasn’t such a great hand anyway, those ghost fingers always aching. Except for the tattoo. I miss the tattoo but it needed a couple more points added.’ He pokes a fake claw at me. ‘You and Tamiki and my family will always be safe here.’
‘This is a hive for us?’ I ask, never mind that the hive kind of already told me she was for humans.
Antonee nods and grins.
‘And me and Gub get to live here with you and your family?’ I ask.
Antonee nods again.
‘With our own rooms, in a hive who’s gonna look out for us?’ The idea of living, breathing, warm walls, to always keep us safe from the darkness, sets the top of my nose tingling and tears flooding my eyes.
Antonee laughs and hooks an arm around my shoulders, pulls me into
his chest, squeezes me tight. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he says.
Before I can ask about Gub, Antonee holds out his claw to Song. ‘Who’s this?’
‘This is Seoul Song, master of prospects, Starweaver Shipping. I brought her to help talk to Starweaver,’ I say.
‘Ah, that explains why the freighter comms are full of a Captain Atala demanding to speak to Master Song.’ Antonee offers Song a claw. ‘Welcome,’ he says. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, to validate to Starweaver what the Hub is all about.’
Song takes his claw carefully and shakes it. ‘Sir?’ she asks. ‘What is this place all about?’
Antonee smiles. ‘This is a marketplace. A trading centre. Independent of corporations. A giant Garuwa toll booth. A place of peace, with yours truly at the helm. So many people are lost out here. So many just searching for a home.’ Antonee sighs and looks up at the white arching levels above us. ‘This is the Weku Hub.’
‘Weku?’ I ask.
Antonee nods. ‘You started all of this.’ He puts his hand on my shoulder like he’s got something important to say, blinks just like a Garuwa. ‘You were right. We just need a bridge between the differences. That’s what you are, that’s what you taught me to be, that’s what this place is. If negotiations go well, Tootoopne will return to her hive and we will have our own squad of Garuwa to keep the peace, led by Wooloo. And every shipping company that passes through will have their own offices and personnel here.’
He turns back to Song. ‘Right now we’ve got to get in touch with Starweaver and see if they recognise the Garuwa’s claims and want to be part of this.’ He bobs to Tootoopne, and waves Song back towards the hive gate. ‘You’d be surprised at the number of freighter staff who’ve already signed on. Looks like, even if we have to turn Starweaver away, there will be a string of independents keen to service these routes.’
Song smooths her hair, her professional ja’im back in place. ‘How can Starweaver refuse?’ she says.