by Alex White
“It was self-defense, sir, I swear,” she said with less enthusiasm than the statement required. It’d been a long day, and it felt nice to trudge up the cargo ramp toward her warm bunk.
“I’m glad you three made it out okay. The others are waiting in the mess for a debrief.” He took a drag and grasped her hand, clapping her on the shoulder.
“If you make my jacket stink of smoke, sir …” she said, ducking back a bit.
Cordell flicked the cigarette to the deck, where he crushed it underfoot. “The authorities had a lot of questions, but they weren’t forthcoming with any answers. They were asking why you killed a government agent, Boots.”
“Oh, I didn’t kill him. Missus Aisha Jan had that honor.”
Cordell cocked an eyebrow at the pilot, who smiled politely. He would’ve grilled Boots harder, but to Aisha, he said, “As always, thanks for looking out for them.”
“She was working overtime today,” said Nilah.
“Sir,” said Boots, “I hate to rush the awards ceremony, but I’d like to get the ship buttoned up. I think it’s time we got off this rock.”
The captain gave her a quizzical look but complied, mashing the door closed. Boots watched the whining cargo ramp seal them off from the outside world.
Once they were safely inside the dock, Boots tapped her prosthetic arm and smiled at Cordell. “Maybe those Special Branch stooges didn’t want to share info with you, but I’ve got a gift.”
She popped off her hand and slid out three smaller data cubes, each twinkling with the bright lights of the cargo bay. They were the kind used for capturing and transferring records, and in plentiful supply at the archives storage.
“Your present is … exported classified data, I’m guessing?” asked Cordell.
“Bingo.”
The captain shook his head. “The cops are going to have a field day with this. You know the forensic mechanists will figure out the theft eventually. I take it there are some good answers in here worth putting us in legal jeopardy?”
Nilah stepped forward. “Not exactly, sir. The records are heavily redacted, but with the help of a skilled datamancer …”
“It was a gamble,” said Boots, and the captain’s eyes lit up, though he tried to play it cool.
Cordell nodded. “All right, then. Let’s convene in the ready room and discuss it.”
The four of them joined the other crew in the mess. It still warmed Boots’s heart to see the place once again packed to capacity, though if they took on any more crew at this point, they’d be stepping all over one another.
Aisha leaned into the crook of Malik’s arm, and Orna held Nilah’s hand. Boots smirked; the captain was going soft to allow those kinds of displays during a briefing. The fact that Armin hadn’t complained meant there was a real policy shift going on—it was usually Armin’s job as first mate to be the bad guy.
“I know all of you are anxious to find out what happened,” said Cordell. “Miss Elsworth, you brought home the prize, why don’t you fill us in?”
“First off,” she began, handing Armin the three crystal cubes, “these are for you. Redacted records of Maslin Durand, the Children of the Singularity, and any bank transactions we could find that were blacked out at secret clearance. We copied everything as quickly as we could before the cops got there. Maybe you can make some progress.”
He took the cubes without complaint.
“Also, you guys owe me a ship-to-ship lancer round,” said Boots. “I left mine in the archives so I could fit the data cubes.”
“Have Miss Sokol sort you out,” Cordell replied.
Boots looked into the eyes of her compatriots one by one, not sure if she was excited or filled with dread by her news. “We’ve finally struck a nerve again. We were attacked by a powerful caster, maybe one of Henrick Witts’s gods.”
“How do we know that?” asked Armin.
“Just like a datamancer to ask for proof, sir,” chuckled Boots. “First off, we were attacked by a huge, demonic shadow creature, which sliced open poor Miss Brio’s leg.”
“An unlucky scratch,” said Nilah.
Boots rubbed her artificial wrist. The limb was too light without the lancer round in it. “The creature was fast and deadly, and we barely escaped with our lives.”
“Just for argument’s sake,” said Armin, “what if it was an animal you haven’t seen before, like the sirathica?”
“The spell cut out when I shut down the imagers,” said Nilah, before hastily adding, “uh, sir. Someone was using the security system to scry on us and manifest the spell in our presence.”
“Did you trace the signal?” asked Armin.
“Yes, sir. It went in a broadcast out to space.”
Boots nodded in agreement. “Exactly. Whoever was casting those shadows wasn’t even close to us, was capable of sending them across several light-years of distance. That’s godlike magic if ever I’ve heard of it.”
“So they can attack anyone they can see?” asked Cordell.
“Maybe,” said Boots. “Don’t do any live interviews anytime soon.”
“We’d better come up with a countermeasure,” said Orna. “I’ll start working on a targeted disperser for puncturing those spells.”
Armin scratched his head. “You think that would’ve knocked it down?”
Orna nodded. “With enough power, yes. But this rifle will have to be big … like, Charger’s main cannon big. We’ve got the money—just need a few parts to get started. It’ll be expensive.”
The captain thought for a minute, pursing his lips. “Do it. This might’ve been retaliation for Maslin Durand. They didn’t bother us when we were chasing down the midlevel flunkies, but they decided to go after you today.”
“Someone in the Special Branch is working with them, sir,” said Nilah. “The code they used to attack the archives exploited every single weakness like they knew the system in and out. There was a Special Branch bloke in there, too, ready to kill us. This took foreknowledge.”
“We can’t trust the Taitutians, sir,” said Boots. “Present company excluded, of course.”
Cordell and Armin gave each other grim looks.
Armin cleared his throat. “Since you’ve been away from the ship, there have been a few, ah, developments as well.”
Boots’s heart sank at his tone. This would be bad.
Armin gestured for a projection, and a screen appeared before him. He tapped in a query and flipped it to face the rest of the crew.
“This,” he said.
Onscreen, Boots grabbed a woman’s arm against the backdrop of Elba Pool Station. Then, she turned and threw one of the Children of the Singularity to the ground. The video couldn’t have been more than a few hours old, but every news generator on the Link had boosted it to the top of their feeds.
A blink brought them a headshot interview with the cultist. “I had a right to be there. I have a right to my beliefs. She assaulted me.”
Boots opened her mouth to shout at the projection, but thought better of it.
“They know the truth is coming out,” said the cultist, “and they’re afraid of everyone who knows it.”
The projection froze as the story ended.
“I’ve been in touch with our colleagues at the Link data clearinghouse, and the ratings on this story are through the roof.” Armin wiped away the projection and added a few more queries. “More troubling, all stories critical of us have been increasingly well-received over the past year.”
“How many of these stories are there, sir?” asked Nilah.
Armin folded his hands behind his back. “The short answer is a steady trickle. The long answer …”
“It’s a widespread psychological operation,” said Nilah, and Armin gave her a surprised look. “My government is investigating. They knew about this and didn’t tell us. It’s part of what’s on those data cubes, sir.”
“That’s probably why they need the Money Mill—paying for all of this crap they’re throwing on
to the Link,” said Cordell. “Seems to me … there’s a concerted effort among fringe news groups to discredit what happened with the Harrow, and it’s working.”
“Based on these ratings and projections from the clearinghouse,” said Armin, “fully fifteen percent of civilized space may believe that the Harrow was faked. Thirty-two percent believe some part of it was faked. That’s one in three. Based upon all previous intellectual upheavals, we’ve crossed the threshold for a catalytic event.”
“I’m sorry, but what?” asked Boots.
Armin cleared his throat. “If people are exposed to a negative true story about us, we may see a large population calling for our heads. Essentially, the Children of the Singularity are hoping we’ll screw up badly enough to lose governmental support.”
“And I handed them ammunition,” said Boots. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
“It’s easy to miss if you aren’t media savvy,” said Nilah. “Back when I was racing, I used to track the press religiously, and that was only the sports outlets.”
“So what do we do, Captain?” asked Orna. “We’re not exactly equipped to wage a war for hearts and minds.”
“No. That would be fighting on their terms,” said Cordell. “We don’t have to worry about whether the public thinks we’re right or wrong. If we can find this evil, maybe we can pull it out at the root. Everyone here knows exactly what happened. It’s time to go back underground.”
Murmurs went up among the crew. Most of them had friends and family. Boots had her distillery, but her employees would take care of it as long Ai paid them. The only true friends Boots had were in this room.
“I’m not asking,” said Cordell. “This is for your own safety.”
“Okay, sir,” said Boots, “but how do you propose we disappear from one of the most guarded spaceports in the galaxy?”
Cordell smirked. “You start with a single-use, unlicensed jump drive, which we happen to have.”
Boots frowned. “You put a jump dump on this ship? Our quartermaster approved this?”
Those boosters were the purview of smugglers and pirates—highly unstable and often damaging to the ship. They ran off tanks of impure eidolon crystals, which would vaporize in the transfer like an ancient flashbulb. Intergalactic authorities would often come upon pirate vessels with a failed drive, a spherical void in their ship where the engine room once was. The crew, of course, would be long dead.
Orna shrugged. “It’s the captain’s money. He wanted the ability to disappear at any time. I just had to certify its safety.”
“Where did it come from?” asked Boots.
“Got it off an arms dealer in the Murphy Belt,” said Orna. “It’ll jump.”
“There are probably a thousand imagers on us right now. If even one of those lenses catches us spinning up to jump, they can find us like we found the Harrow.”
Cordell smiled. “That’s true. That’s why we’re going to have to paint the satellites on our way out—a straight shot down the lens with our laser designator to blind them.”
Boots pursed her lips. “Of course we are, sir. Why not sabotage Taitutian state property? This sounds like a fantastic idea.”
“I’m so glad you’re on board,” said Cordell. “All crew to ready stations. We jump in two hours. If you’ve got messages to get to friends and family, get them out now.”
Boots leaned against the wall of the engine room, watching Nilah and Orna scurry about checking connections. Charger handed them tools and buzzed loud complaints at Orna whenever he found something he didn’t like—which was almost constantly.
Every time the bot winced, Boots’s stress level doubled. She didn’t fancy getting vaporized by a faulty crystal, or ending up sucking vacuum in near orbit. She’d done a lot of shady crap in her lifetime, but an unlicensed jump wasn’t even remotely on the agenda.
The jump dump didn’t look like it belonged in the Capricious’s well-maintained space. It reminded Boots of a waste compactor—a filthy aluminum cylinder, battered and pockmarked, attached to the main drive core.
“I hear you!” growled Orna, banging the spanner across Charger’s forehead.
The bot snatched it out of her hand and tried to adjust one of the couplings.
“Charger, no!” shouted Orna. “Bad!”
“Listen to your mother, Charger,” Nilah added absentmindedly. She was absorbed in her own tuning operation on the other side.
Nilah glanced up at Boots. “You don’t have to stay here. Did you send out your messages?”
“Sure,” said Boots. “Checked in on Ai. It said the stills are operating at seventy-eight percent efficiency. It was a touching moment for both of us.”
“Har,” said Orna, grabbing an arc-stylus from Charger’s waiting claws.
Nilah frowned. “Boots, you know we might be underground for months. Maybe you should actually tell someone.”
Boots laughed. “Who? Everyone I care about is on this ship. Who did you call?”
Nilah looked up, mentally checking people off a list. “Oh, Dad and Mum, Kristof, Lana—”
“Who’s Lana?” asked Boots.
“Her Link agent,” said Orna, in a tone so icy that Boots thought better of asking anything else about it.
“Okay. Who did you message?” Nilah asked Orna.
“Oh, I’m the same as Boots,” said the quartermaster.
Boots snorted. “You’re agreeing with me? Should I mark my calendar?”
Orna torqued down one of the cable connectors, grunting as she did. “No one to call, babe. Just you, and you’re here with me.”
Nilah stopped working. “That’s really sad. You two need to make more friends.”
Boots crossed her arms. “I take issue with that. I don’t need to make friends for the sake of making friends. That’s stupid. People from our world aren’t exactly social butterflies.”
“Well, excuse me,” said Nilah, grimacing and returning to her job.
Boots and Orna exchanged meaningful glances.
“Okay, no,” said Nilah. “See, that’s exactly what I was talking about back when we were on the bridge, Boots.”
“What?”
Nilah frowned. “You’re doing that Fallen refugee thing again with my girlfriend, making me feel like I’m not one of you.”
“You’re overthinking it,” said Orna.
“Don’t tell me I’m imagining things,” said Nilah, standing up straight. “I’m not from Clarkesfall, and you two are. Fine, I get it.”
“It’s just a connection we have,” said Boots. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
“I’m not worried about it. I just want to be included.”
“You weren’t ‘included’ in the Famine War, so count yourself lucky,” said Orna. “Am I right, Boots?”
“Don’t ask her to back you up,” said Nilah.
“Okay,” said Orna, throwing her arc-stylus at Charger, who caught it. “I’ll ask Lana.”
Nilah and the quartermaster stared each other down, sparking harder than the power couplings before them. Boots looked from one woman to the other, wide-eyed. Whatever was going on here, it was above her pay grade.
Orna’s eyes darted to one side. “Charger!” she bellowed. “No!”
The bot had managed to get two of the bolts off its breastplate and was revving its ventral exhaust ports with obvious relish. Orna banged off in its direction, shouting obscenities and threatening to weld the plate in place.
Nilah stared into the mess of cables, not looking up at Boots.
“I’m going to be honest,” said Boots, “no one should ask me for relationship advice.”
“But I take it you have some?” Nilah asked, attaching a set of probes to one of the sockets.
“She needs to talk to you about this Lana thing. You need to talk to her about the refugee thing.”
“Genius,” Nilah replied, rolling her eyes. “Thanks, mate.”
It’d been stupid to open her yap. In the past twenty years,
she hadn’t been rolling in men, and she’d never carried off a romantic relationship of any stripe. It simply stung her to see Nilah and Orna bicker.
“I’m pretty sure the captain needs me on the bridge,” said Boots.
“Look, I’m sorry,” said Nilah. “I’ve just—you know, never loved anyone before. It sucks.”
“Since I’m older, I’d give you some sage advice, but we both know I’m a moron.” She smiled at Nilah, who couldn’t be moved to return the gesture, but nodded. Boots stepped out of the engine room and closed the door behind herself.
When she reached the mid-deck, she ran into Malik.
“Have you seen Nilah and Orna?” he asked.
Boots gave him a thin-lipped smile. “They’re working super hard. Probably best to give them space until it’s time to take off.”
“We’ll need one of them on the bridge. Surely the preparations are complete by now.”
How could she warn him that he was walking into a raging conflagration between two lovers—without disrespecting Nilah and Orna’s privacy? Those sorts of tiffs weren’t supposed to occur on a military vessel, and the captain and first mate wouldn’t want them to happen now. But it felt wrong to interrupt … whatever was going on.
“They’re that way,” said Boots, pointing toward the engine room. “Good luck.”
Malik gave her a quizzical look but said nothing. He went his way and she went hers.
She looked in on the Ferrier twins, who were busy securing their quarters for launch. Every cabinet had to be closed, every loose object put away. They didn’t have a place on the bridge, no launch duties to speak of, and so their job was simply to stay out of the way.
“You good?” she asked.
Alister sneered. “We’ll miss this world, what with all the sightseeing we got to do.”
Jeannie shrugged. “Captain Lamarr wouldn’t let us off the ship. Security, you know, ma’am.”
“We’re valuable assets,” grumbled Alister. “Maybe one day, we’ll be actual people in his eyes.”
Stifling her annoyance, Boots nodded and took off. Was everyone in a terrible mood?
She arrived at the bridge for preflight checks with Cordell, Armin, and Aisha—her job was scramble readiness. The thought of a sortie during egress from Taitu was laughable. It was the heart of civilized space. If a fight did break out, they’d be surrounded by the Taitutian Planetary Defense within minutes.