Heritage Lost

by S M Wright

  "I'm sorry I can't do much else." Katya wiped the sweat away using the edge of her sheet. "I wish I could do more." But if she didn't change the registration, their gambit would fail, and then who knew where they'd all be. Maybe they would find a discreet doctor on Gilga.

  Content he'd be comfortable, Katya changed into less restrictive pants and joined Mina in the cockpit. The teenager, who sat in the pilot's seat, pointed to the small worktable not far from the hatch.

  "Rein put the registration chip over there." Mina pulled her legs up to her face. "How's our little guest? You never said how you came by him."

  "I've had a bit on my mind." Katya climbed onto the worktable's tall seat and reached for her tool tray. "I stumbled across him while leaving the bridge; that's all I know. He might have a fever."

  "Do you think Rein is right? About him, that is."

  "I doubt he's dangerous at this age." Katya reached up and adjusted the light over the station.

  "Is there anything I need to do?"

  "Keep watching the consoles. Beyond that, give me quiet. It's a tricky business rewriting a registration chip."

  Katya gripped a small instrument from the tray and opened the chip with it, exposing the wiring and circuitry. Cut wires and burnt circuit boards would be red flags. She plunged the tip of the instrument under one of the clamps and nudged it up a fraction of an inch. Since registration chips were not built with ports, she would create her own.

  "What's his name?"

  Katya flinched, the tip of the instrument jostling, almost hitting the sensitive circuit board. "Pardon?"

  "His name—the little boy's?"

  "No idea." Katya placed the tool on the table and reached for connector wires, a roll of electrical tape, and a knife. "He didn't exactly come with a name tag. Now let me—eh—" She grunted, pressing her hand to her temple after a sharp prickling sensation dug in. The circuit wavered in front of her.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Just. Let. Me. Focus," Katya hissed between rubbing her head. She needed sleep. The headaches were because of that and accentuated by the stress that'd been dumped into her lap, or she potentially had a concussion. Forcing her hands down, she rolled her head from side to side. A slight ringing hovered in the background, and it wasn't coming from the consoles. She had definitely hit her head hard.

  Mina cleared her throat as if to say something more, but she ultimately remained fixated by her console. Katya bowed her head and picked up one of the wires she had removed from the tray. Using the knife, she cleared away the plastic on both ends, exposing the wires beneath before using a set of pliers to connect them to the registration chip. Next, she produced her slate and unscrewed the bolts that held the back on. Once its circuit board was visible, she attached the wiring to the proper nub and turned on the power; the screen turned blue before the main menu appeared. She did a search, looking for connections and an encryption key box popped up.

  She launched another program in the background; it was black market tech, but Katya had been able to justify it while stationed on Reznic. A seedy planet required such tactics to stay on top of the criminals; one needed to break through various types of encryptions to find and seize contraband, plus terminate the occasional species trafficking rings and other criminal activities. Symbols flashed across the encryption key box until all the slots were filled. Katya pressed the check mark and held her breath until the next screen came up, containing registration numbers, crew names, past history, and other data pertaining to The Maelstrom. She had a small window of time to make changes before the Magistrate software on the chip shut her out—the Magistrate had always been keen to prevent tampering, illegal thefts, and false reporting, rolling out sophisticated programming that, like the hackers themselves, continued to evolve.

  She switched The Maelstrom to Royal Justice, a matching Boita that had been decommissioned and sold. It had been sold repeatedly, according to the rumor mill. So the odds were great that its whereabouts had been buried under piles of Magistrate paperwork, thus less likely to draw too much notice. More importantly, she remembered its registration number.

  Next she changed the crew list. She chose the name Clementia, an old primary school friend of hers, for herself and changed Rein's name to Ferrutius. All good Magistrate names. She picked equally bland, run-of-the-mill surnames. She added Mina to the roster as Hilaria—her absence now might catch notice. Designation changed to miscellaneous cargo.

  Additional changes followed, such as previous destinations and cargos, until the system kicked her out. Without a registered Magistrate program, it would be too risky to repeat the break-in. Eventually, the chip would short circuit itself.

  "Get used to the name Hilaria, Mina. You might be using it for a while."

  "Why couldn't I pick my own? Hilaria." Mina stuck out her tongue.

  Smiling, Katya removed the wires from her slate and the chip. "Not enough time for that. At the wormhole, we'll go over our story together and thoroughly." Katya resecured the back on her slate before closing up the chip. "When we get to Gilga, it'll be important not to talk too much." The girl rolled her eyes at that. "With the ship in the shape she's in, the fewer questions we have to answer, the better. Rein will do likewise."

  Mina snorted. "Now that you don't outrank him, how are you going to keep him in line?"

  "Let me worry about him. Continue your duties here. And keep an eye on the displays! If there are any changes in our systems or if our friends appear, report in immediately. I'll be helping clear out unwanted items. Eventually, we'll have to do some exterior work." Katya could have flinched at the last part: Exterior work had never been her favorite task.

  "How long do you think the exterior work will take?"

  Katya shrugged. "We'll do it while we're moving. With the clamps, we shouldn't have a problem. In all honesty, we can't afford to sit about and do it." She opened the door to the rest of the ship. "We don't want to dine with Elites. Stay vigilant, Mina. We're counting on you while we're working." A smile tugged at her face again. "No earphones."

  Mina's face reddened, and she stuttered excuses. Katya, meanwhile, shook her head as she walked away. The door closed behind her with a whoosh. With the threat of Elites attacking, she welcomed any levity.

  Before catching up with Rein, Katya revisited her quarters. Inside, the boy had pushed off the sheet. Grabbing a hand towel, she dampened it with cold water from her bathroom's small sink. The space bore only the necessities: a toilet, shower stall, and sink. Once thoroughly soaked, she squeezed out the excess water. As the water pinged against the metal sink, she realized he needed fluids. She grabbed a nearby cup, filling it before returning to her main room.

  The bed sank under her weight as she wiped the towel across his face, both removing sweat and cooling him. Setting aside the towel, she propped him up and pressed the cup's edge to his mouth. As she tilted it and the water entered his mouth, he stirred, gulping down the liquid. Katya rubbed his back in a circular fashion while he drank—then he went limp.

  "No, no, no . . ." Katya yanked the mug away, and water pooled from his mouth. She maneuvered him into a position where the rest hit the floor. Damn it, kid. His pulse still beat strongly, and her own heart resumed its normal pace.

  Satisfied that he wasn't choking, she laid him onto the bed and draped the cloth across his forehead. To clean his mouth, she used the edge of one of her blankets, which she found herself clutching. Something was extremely off about the kid, and Katya had a sinking feeling no doctor on-world would be able to treat him.

  Katya forced herself to her feet. She had other matters to address, ones that were within her realm of power to fix. She opened her footlocker.

  Uniform tops and bottoms greeted her first. Katya smiled, remembering the joy of trading out academy brown for the polished blue. She traced the ribbons that marked her service and the pendants displaying rank. They were meaningless now, but she had fought hard for each and every one of them. Katya closed her eyes before she
tossed them into a pile, along with her diploma and other documents regarding her service. Little remained in the footlocker now. She had never been one to buy civilian clothes; the ones she did purchase were worn under her uniforms and largely consisted of plain white tanks and T-shirts. Of course, there were the khaki mechanic pants and a few items her sister had insisted on sending her, often handmade.

  She closed the lid and stood. Nothing else in the room connected her with the captain who had boarded the Aletheia—only the items given to her by her father, brothers, and sisters remained, but those were personal, not items others could tie to a Magistrate captain. She picked up an old framed photo and examined her much younger self in academy brown. The dreams she had held sprang to mind. So optimistic, overly naïve. She'd pictured a long career, moving through the Magistrate's ranks, eventually commanding a much larger vessel, but all she had been given were ground posts before ending up in command of The Maelstrom, the joke that it was.

  She caught her lips between her teeth. "Don't think of it as a gift from me. Think of it as a well-deserved turn, not fully what you deserve, but it'll at least get you away from here." Perhaps not a joke, but still a far cry from what she'd envisioned. Better than Reznic though, hence why Valens had pulled every string his own last name granted to ensure this one last gesture.

  She removed the picture from the frame and placed it in the footlocker, sliding it between her white tanks. Another photo, more candid, followed it. Her and Valens. She only regretted that the effects of the illness had already begun to present themselves physically, ensuring that the image served as a constant reminder of an end. As she reclosed the trunk and straightened, she noted that the boy's face had smoothed, void of the crease lines, and he appeared to be in a much sounder sleep.

  "I'll be back."

  Katya picked up the pile she had created and left her quarters, heading toward the garbage chute. They were objects, created artificially, not important. Her hands tightened around her load. She reached the chute and thumbed it open, then stood, staring into the black abyss. This was happening too quickly. The bleakness of the garbage chute enveloped her. Beneath, a simple garbage disposal unit would incinerate everything, leaving behind only ash to be jettisoned.

  Pressing her forehead against the metal above the opening, Katya steadied her uneven breaths, trying to push away thoughts of a future that resembled the chute: dark and obscure. What of those dreams? Gone. If they'd ever been more than pipe dreams to begin with. Her life might be over along with them. The Magistrate felt like a limitless territory. How could they hope to hide in it? Katya knocked her head against the metal. Why did she have to board that ship?

  Her thoughts drifted to the boy, and she squeezed the pile before thrusting it into the chute; it plummeted out of her grasp, and there would be no retrieving it. Katya remained transfixed, left to hope that a set of high-power burners wasn't waiting for her. A chuckle escaped her throat, even as tears prickled at her eyes. Ironic how she had once placed ex-Magistrate pilots turned to cargo pilots or smugglers as little more than those who couldn't make the cut.

  She shut the chute's door and turned to find Rein watching her, no doubt thinking her hysterical. She drew herself up and clenched her jaw as she dared him to say something, anything. The blood had already dried along his hairline, matting sections of it. His gaze remained a moment longer before he started to leave, saying, "We need to change the paint work. Gear up."

  She dusted her hands against her shirt and walked beside Rein. "What's been done?"

  "I've been removing little things, stuff with The Maelstrom's registration number on it. I've also cleared out what was in my room." Rein extended his hand. "Do you have the chip?"

  Nodding her head, Katya placed it into his hand.

  "I'll replace this real quick." He nudged his head toward the cockpit. "What are we going to do with the navigation system?"

  "It will meet an unfortunate accident prior to our landing. With the shape the rest of the ship is in, it won't be unbelievable. The com system is already a lost cause. I switched the The Maelstrom to the Royal Justice on the chip. It shouldn't catch unwanted attention."

  "It bodes ill to change the name."

  "We're already in bad straights. What more can be heaped on us? Besides, we won't be on The Maelstrom for much longer. The bad luck will be on someone else."

  "Have you determined how we're going to unload this scrap heap?"

  "Still working on it." He said nothing, but the area between his shoulders tensed. Katya continued as if she hadn't noticed. "Oh, by the way, your cover name is Ferrutius."

  "Someone you knew?"

  "There were a ton of Ferrutiuses in my primary days through to my academy days. I picked names that are common, forgettable. The only one that held any personal meaning to me is the one I choose for myself, Clementia. She was a good friend from primary and intermediary. We still keep in touch from time to time, less so now. Our paths diverged, I suppose you could say." Her path had diverged from a lot of her friends'.

  "What did she go on to do?" Rein asked.

  "She married right after intermediary. She has two kids—a boy and a girl."

  "Do you wish you had settled down?"

  Katya bowed her head. The once. But they'd never been forced to cross that bridge, the disease rendering that decision null before it was needed to be made. From time to time, she'd reflect on it, debating whether she would have forsaken her career. It was only a matter of time before they'd been exposed. Given Rein's hardening expression and crossed arms, Katya assumed they had already been.

  "I don't regret it at all." Her posture loosened. "It was never my calling." She passed him, heading toward the locker room.

  He stood still, but she could feel his eyes on her. He made no comment.

  In the locker room, Katya tugged on her secondary suit. As she slid her left leg in, her calf muscle tightened; her attempts to stretch it only made it worse. Her head bobbed as a wave of exhaustion washed over her, a certain chill greeting her lips. A few more minutes. She would sleep then before they reached the wormhole. As she yawned, her eyes closed, and she almost gave into the fatigue that wrapped itself around her like a snake squeezing consciousness out of her body, beckoning her to curl up on the bench and join it. The headaches would be banished with just a few hours of sleep. She straightened when a door to a locker on the other side closed.

  "Ready to go?" Rein called.

  "Yes, just need to get my helmet on. Do we have paint that will do?"

  "Yes. I also have the clamps and tethers ready to go."

  The two moved to the decontamination chamber before spending the next two hours changing registration numbers and examining the full extent of the damage rendered by the semi-blind jump: namely, missing chunks of metal. None were in essential places, but it would severely cut down on the ship's value. Katya shuffled toward one of the few remaining identifiers, a set of bright red stripes that marked the ship as an active-duty military vessel, when her vision clouded. Her legs and arms shook against her will and grew clammy. Moments stretched while she seized. The paintbrush—she released it. Hands grabbed her and pulled her backward, her feet dragging against metal, where the clamps kept them. The back of her head roared, deafening everything. Light, a pure white as if her retinas were being torn asunder—then blackness.

  Warmth seeped back into her lips, spreading to her limbs. As Katya lay on something hard, she realized her helmet was missing. Where had it . . . it had been important.

  Blinking, her surroundings came into focus, and she made out Rein standing above her, panting. "Are you all right?"

  Katya brushed her bangs from her face. Her muscles still tingled, tightening and relaxing. "I need to lie down." She tried to sit up, but Rein's hands held her in place.

  "You are."

  "In my quarters." She propped herself.

  Rein steadied her, helping her stand. "Take it easy. I think you have a concussion . . . you need to get res
t. Here, let me get you to your cabin."

  Rein practically carried her there, putting her down in front of the security panel. At the panel, Katya hastily put in her code, obscuring it with her hand.

  "Do you need help getting your suit off?"

  Her face threatened to redden, but she shook her head. "I can handle it." She stepped into the room. "Give me a half hour of sleep, and then I'll come back to help."

  Rein glanced at the Oneiroi child in her bed before accepting her words and leaving to finish the job. Katya sighed and shut the door. She yanked her suit down and then kicked it off, discarding it on a chair, rougher than necessary. Rein hadn't scaled an emergency tunnel up several levels, Katya brooded. She ignored the fact that they'd both smacked their heads.

  She stripped off her sweaty clothes next and put on her sleepwear. The concussion theory seemed likely. She dragged herself to the bed, swinging over the child until she was between him and the metal wall. In her head a list ran, items checked off, others not. After propping up her pillows, she rested her head on them. The world around her swayed. It'd be nice not to think for a while.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Katya curled onto her side to silence the gnawing emptiness of her gut, only to stop when a weight anchored her in place. Groaning, she stretched under the object, her one hand reaching to push it away. Hair. The boy. She jerked her hand back. Realization dawned on her. Concussion. There'd definitely been one.

  To prove that point, the room spun as she propped herself up using her pillows, setting the boy to the side. At some point during the night, besides crawling on top of her, he'd kicked the covers off, leaving her a small sliver. How hadn't the chill woken her?