Heritage Lost

by S M Wright

  She tilted her head down. The opened hatch from earlier waited not far below. It spurred Katya the rest of the way. Once she had extracted herself and her new companion from the maintenance shaft, she ran, ignoring that stabbing in her side.

  The hangar bay corridor, however, was empty. Where was he?

  "Rein!" Katya shouted, continuing toward the decontamination room. No answer. She flicked on the com. "Is Rein on board?"

  "Yes," Mina answered. "He just came. He said you were on your way."

  "I’ll be there momentarily."

  The line closed—then Mina shouted: "Hurry! Another ship's broke FTL. It's coming at a steady speed."

  "Understood."

  She darted through the warship and didn't stop until she was shielded by The Maelstrom's decontamination door. The toddler stirred at the pressure change and the bursts of spray. It wouldn't harm him—at least she hoped it wouldn't. She knew too little about Oneiroi physiology, only that they were humanoid.

  With the spray fully dispensed, the second hatch opened. Pulling back the blanket, she found a pair of eyes staring back at her, albeit sleepily. The blanket fell back into place as Katya ousted her helmet and flung it onto the locker room bench.

  "Rein," Katya said over her com while rushing to the cockpit. "Fire up the FTL; we're going to need it."

  "Already ahead of you."

  She bashed her knee on the ladder in her haste to get on the catwalk. Mina wasn’t ready to make a blind jump, even if luck played a greater role than skill and experience. Katya grimaced and pressed her free hand against her forehead. Her vision wavered, lines forming under the migraine's assault.

  No time for this.

  She stumbled along the catwalk, taking steps through the pain. The throbbing became manageable by the time she had reached the cockpit door.

  Pounding her passcode into the panel, she swayed in through the door.

  "You're back!" The teen’s arms bubbled with energy as if she’d like to hug Katya.

  Mina never did as Katya detached the child carrier and handed both it and the sleeping toddler to her before tossing the pack to the side. Launching herself at the helm, Katya unclamped The Maelstrom from the Aletheia and sent them into full reverse.

  "How far off is the ship?"

  Mina shot over to the navigation console, toddler still in hand. "Coming in fast. They've registered our presence."

  "Rein, how long on the FTL drive?" she called over the com system.

  "Give me a few more seconds!"

  "Copy that. Putting distance between us in preparation for a jump. Everyone take your RMP pills." She flipped off the com system and nudged her head toward Mina. "Get me mine. We should have a liquid variety for the kid."

  "What is he?" Mina shifted him and the carrier.

  "Get the pills. I'll explain later."

  Mina rested the boy in her seat and went to the cabinet, where she removed a pill container, a bottle of water, and a needleless syringe. She handed the water bottle and then one of the orange pills to Katya. Despite its awkward size, Katya swallowed it with a large gulp of water, shuddering as it went down and threatened to stick. She extended the water bottle back to Mina who took her own pill.

  Charging the thrusters, Katya raced toward open space, away from the Elite juggernaut bearing down on them. While doing so, she launched a program, which cycled through the necessary algorithms, preferably loading a destination fast enough to prevent the necessity of a blind jump. A nice short jump. That's what they needed. One with less chance of them becoming space debris.

  "He’s dosed up and strapped in." There was a pause. "The other ship . . . they're broadcasting their credentials and charging their FTL drive. They'll be on us—"

  "You will stop," a mechanical voice cut through their com system, “and wait to be boarded."

  Katya's stomach dropped when a Magistrate A-Class warship loomed above them.

  "They’re charging—they’re charging their weapons.” Mina swiveled from her station, eyes bulging in her face. “They're going to kill us! What the—"

  We know too much.

  Katya dug into the side of her mouth with her teeth as she careened away, throwing The Maelstrom into zigzags. Those Breks were Magistrate—all Breks were. What if the Oneiroi weren’t dead when their fellow Elites arrived? What if the Breks had—but then what had killed the Breks? Katya prodded the bloody bump that’d formed in her mouth’s lining.

  "Rein," Katya called.

  "Punch it!"

  Purr kitten! She pushed the thrusters, rocketing the Boita above the warship.

  "We're going to die!" Mina shouted.

  The girl had her knees up to her face; her eyes were pressed into them.

  "Mina, get your legs down!"

  Katya caught the girl moving out of the corner of her eye before pressing the switch. Her stomach lurched at the increased acceleration. The back of her head plowed into her seat while The Maelstrom convulsed as if it were being torn asunder. The rattling stopped violently, sending Katya forward, her head striking the control console. She heaved before going limp.

  CHAPTER THREE

  There had been a brief moment of blinding light—or at least, the vague impression of one—before . . . nothing. Wincing, Katya struggled to piece together events but failed. The droning buzz in her head muddled everything. A gnawing voice kept talking, like a shrill bird, trying to overcome the pounding in her ears. She groaned and slipped while attempting to obtain an upright position, only she couldn't tell what was upright. Metal, seamed metal. She had to be on the floor. Stupid. How could she have forgotten to fasten—

  She shook. No, someone had grabbed her shoulders and was wrenching her back and forth.

  "Katya!"

  She blanched, but the buzzing lessened, bringing pain to the forefront. Mina didn't let up, her high-pitch, frantic voice driving nails into Katya's battered head. Blinking, she swallowed blood; with her tongue, she prodded around her mouth and found a deep bite mark; meanwhile, memory flooded back.

  All around her and Mina, red lights blinked erratically on almost all the consoles. Would the Boita explode? Swallowing, she climbed off the floor, using her seat for support. Blood traveled down her forehead into one eye.

  "I'll get something—"

  "D-don't worry about it." Katya grimaced and slumped in the chair. Something pulled in her back. She'd probably hit something or twisted it when she had fallen. "What is our situation?"

  "We exited the FTL cycle. We took extensive damage."

  "The Brek vessel?"

  Mina swung back to the sensor display. "Still blank. They didn't follow. The array says we're not far from the Dynaris wormhole. We could take that and go to Gilga, patch ourselves up and regroup, figure out what we need to do."

  The girl had learned well. Katya groaned as she pressed her hand against her forehead, coating it in blood. There was only one flaw in her strategy. "The Maelstrom can't be patched up, Mina. We'll sell her for scrap and go from there. Anything from Rein?"

  "No. I think the entire com system’s shorted."

  "Of course." Katya stiffened and swept around, exhaling. The restraints still guarded the Oneiroi child. All tension evaporated from her body, leaving only fatigue and pain. "Is he all right?"

  Mina nodded. "He slept through it."

  "Good." Katya touched the console in front of her, dismissing several of the warning lights: FTL drive dead, propulsion system barely functional, communications fried, steering damaged . . . the list went on. "Mina, send over the course to the wormhole; it's the only way we're getting anywhere."

  The course arrived, though slower than normal. Good. The wiring wasn't completely fried. Holding her breath, Katya activated the solar sails; they pulled, a grating sound emitting in the cockpit. Then the lever vibrated as it straightened the sails. She slumped over, releasing her bated breath. While a relief, the sails' functionality had taken a hit during and after the jump, according to the data before her. Despite a
ll the red flashing at her, the old girl would get them through the wormhole and to Gilga.

  She tested the autopilot feature, which, like most of the main console, proved functional and took the coordinates. Katya grimaced at the amount of radiation leaking from them.

  "It's bad, isn't it?" Mina drummed against the dead communications console. She had her lower lip pinched between her teeth. "Are we going to blow?"

  "No, but we're leaking radiation." Katya dismissed more warning lights. "We're a bright blue dot on everyone's screen." A Reznic slur exited her mouth. Privateers, Plasovern, and their ilk would be drawn to them like scavengers seeking easy prey. "With luck, no one will cross our path, good or bad."

  Rubbing her eyes with both hands, she compiled a list. Her head ached. She willed her mind away from the rows of dead, the rooms of them . . . there was too much to do before they reached Gilga to dwell on them. She massaged her jaw. A wave of lightheadedness hit her as she pictured them joining the Aletheia's crew.

  "What—" The hatch's opening cut Mina off.

  Rein stumbled in, limping. Blood trailed down his neck from a cut along the side of his face. "The FTL's junk, complete and utter junk."

  "Luckily, the sails are operational, below par but operational. They should get us to Gilga. We've got a full docket before that. Are you up to it?"

  Mina stared at her with her large brown eyes while Rein wiped blood from his face.

  Katya smeared her own blood away from her eyes and then left stains on her suit's exterior. "We need to make The Maelstrom look like a civilian-bought decommission, converted into a cargo ship. Everything Magistrate—uniforms, layouts—it all needs to be changed or put out the hatch. On Gilga, we'll sell her as scrap and get a suitable replacement. We can't afford to keep her; she ties us to that ship."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Rein stopped rubbing his leg and stiffened. "We contact the Magistrate, we clear this all up. Nothing’s changed."

  Katya laughed, wincing with the action. "They were prepping to shoot us. We were on that ship, and they know it. We saw what they didn't want seen."

  "We don't know that. They probably went on the offense with us because they thought we were looting a high-tech military vessel." Rein waved at the child. "Which we did. What were you thinking when you grabbed him? The Oneiroi belong to them." Rein widened his stance. "What are we going to do with it? We can't keep it—"

  "He's a child. What would you have had me do? Leave him to die along with the rest of his family?" Katya rocked onto the balls of her feet. "Open your eyes, Rein. Plasovern doesn't have the armaments to do that amount of exterior damage on an A-Class warship—let alone board one, line up its inhabitants, and execute them. We are talking not just about Elites but Oneiroi. No entity, outside of the Medzeci Empire and the Magistrate, has that kind of power. If it was Medzeci, we would've seen one of its warships." She swept a strand of blood-soaked bangs from her one eye.

  Rein scrunched his face, a vein protruding in his throat. “Not everything is a conspiracy!”

  "That is rich coming for you. Who was it on Reznic saying they were using vaccines to sterilize people?" He balked, but Katya continued, "Then there were the Breks on the ship—"

  "They could've been killed by anything. They could have been investigating, and then the Brek warship left pursuing something, possibly whatever murdered their compatriots."

  Mina cleared her throat. "So this is an Oneiroi?" she poked the boy's cheek once before retracting her finger. He, meanwhile, remained still.

  "Yes." After pushing Mina's hand down to her side, Katya unfastened the child from the seat and picked him up, resting his head on her shoulder. She faced Rein. "There are too many things off with this. We might be little more than collateral damage, if . . ." If she could bring herself to voice her suspicions.

  "The Magistrate did it?” Rein finished. “Why would they attack their own ship? Why risk losing their interrogators? It makes no sense."

  “You used to say Reznic’s drug lords were being supplied by the Magistrate and were feeding money back into it via war profiteering.” Katya flared her nostrils. “You’re only shying away from this because it’s ugly. You just want to keep your head down and carry on. Forget the bodies—”

  “Damn straight I want to forget them!”

  “I can't do that. Are you really willing to risk it? That we won't end up just like them? The heavy fire on the walls was on par with what the Breks carry."

  He remained silent, hand pressed against his wound, eyes flicking around the cockpit like some caged animal.

  "I might be able to learn something with the data I took from the ship, but the Breks deleted most of it."

  Rein ground his teeth and placed more weight on his good leg. "So we rid ourselves of all the Magistrate trappings. Then what? Scrap won't buy us a suitable replacement."

  "I've been saving up for a ship of my own."

  Rein's eyebrow rose, causing the muscles in her arms to tighten.

  "I'm thirty-four, and I'm practical. I know I'm facing the end of my career, not the beginning, so I've been saving money into a Novarti account."

  "It'll be worthless. The Magistrate will freeze any account with our names on it; there's no way the Breks didn't ID us. Mina may be the only exception since she's not on the official roster."

  "I'll think of something, but in the meantime, we've got a lot before us." She shifted the boy so most of his weight rested on her other hip. "I'll be along after I get him situated and checked out. He might've been hurt during the skirmish. Rein, go ahead and get to work on the changes. Bring The Maelstrom's registration chip to the cockpit, and I'll hack into it . . . give us a new story."

  He stood stock-still, his gaze condemning her. Oh, there'd be trouble down the line; she only hoped she'd have the higher cards when it reared its head. After grabbing the bag, she nudged past him, only halting when his hand went to grab her arm. At her dour expression, he dropped his hand.

  "Watch yourself, Katya. He may be a kid, but he's still an Oneiroi, capable of putting you under his spell."

  "I'll be careful."

  Katya bypassed him and carried on to her quarters. Under his spell? Laughable. The boy so far had mostly slept. Even in the maintenance tunnel, he hadn't made a peep where most children would have been screaming their heads off. His lips moved in his slumber. So dangerous. Though, if he were older, she would be leerier. The Magistrate's dogs, interrogators most heinous. Those who entered their domain often didn't leave it sane or alive, and the Oneiroi kept their secrets to themselves and their uninhabitable, Magistrate black-zone planet.

  That impenetrable veil now presented a challenge. Shifting him, his head lulled into the crook of her arm. Breath escaped him in rapid huffs, reminding her of a panting dog. He was burning up; however, there was only a minuscule amount of sweat. She guaranteed even an intensive search on the Net wouldn't turn up basic, cursory information on his species. She doubted its seedier avenues, known as Intortus, offered anything legit, beyond so-called facts that were bolstered with little more than hearsay and fanciful tales.

  She thumbed in her passcode, and the door swished open. Items had fallen from their places during the jump and were strewn across the floor. A vase from Riau, which her father had given her several years ago, had shattered on impact; the water that had been in it created a pool while the flowers lay bruised. Eh, Papa, what would you say? Such a fine display of the Riauts' glassmaking lost. He'd be devastated. The gift had been forced, and she had always assumed he'd forgotten her birthday again, despite having picked it, and grabbed the nearest item. With six children and a mind that flitted from place to place, it was understandable. He tried but could only do—remember—so much.

  She laid the boy on her bed before stripping the spacesuit off, allowing the white cotton top underneath to breathe.

  "Now"—she returned to bed—"let's see what's wrong with you."

  His skin radiated heat like a mini furnace as she r
emoved his shirt. No wounds evident on his body, except for minor scratches on his arms and several dully colored bruises, some a deeper shade of purple than others. Placing him on his stomach revealed more bruising on his back, but no blood. She removed his pants and found him still in diapers. Katya frowned. He should be old enough to not need them, yet there they were as if taunting her for every time she'd passed niece and nephew to someone else. There'd be no passing the buck now, though it posed another problem. There were no diapers on board. Scrunching her face, she sniffed, exhaling when met only by the scent of powder. Thank the celestial bodies.

  She lifted his legs, finding more bruising. The boy lacked muscle mass throughout his body, much like a veal calf. No wonder he couldn't stand.

  She furrowed her brow. "Were you abused?" She recalled the photo, the affection in which they had held him, held each other. A well-crafted lie? She dismissed the thought.

  After redressing him in his clothing—somewhat dampened by sweat—Katya tucked him into her bed. They would get new clothes for him and diapers at Gilga, along with food an Oneiroi could eat, likely a matter of trial and error. She walked to the bag and dumped out its contents. She placed the stuffed toy she'd grabbed on the ship—a fuzzy, hoofed animal that she was unfamiliar with—under the covers next to the boy. She then set the family photo on her table with the bag's blankets.

  Two children's books, presumably written in the Oneiroi's language had also been in the bag, along with a hardback leather journal written in a small hand in the same language, ten diapers, a spare change of clothing, wipes, powder, and another toy. She lifted a dome thing, inspecting it from each angle before pushing a small button at its top. Little lights shot out creating celestial shapes on the wall, which danced around as music played. She pressed the button again and the shapes disappeared with only the music remaining. A third time, the lights returned with the music absent, while after the fourth hit, the device completely deactivated.

  She added it to the table, her hand lingering on it. The boy slept fine without it; however, she could not deny something was wrong with him. So pallid, breath exiting his mouth in manner she could only describe as unnatural. His black curls clung to his forehead. She clenched the device, then released it. She had no understanding of pediatrics, let alone the physiology of an Oneiroi child. Their medical supplies were limited, not geared toward one so young. Katya withdrew the duvet from the child, leaving only the lighter sheet.