Starship Doi

by Alex Deva

  "Why?"

  He said the first thing that went into his head:

  "I was bored waiting. I wanted to see what the inside of this ship was like." It wasn't even a lie.

  And then, the voice asked him a question that he really, really didn't see coming.

  * * *

  Porter's and Willard's suits suddenly began to pulsate, squeezing their carotid arteries, diaphragm muscles and some very specific nerve bundles. They couldn't speak, they couldn't breathe, they couldn't move, and it took them no more than a few seconds to completely lose consciousness. Exactly the same thing that they tried to do to the men in the brig, had then been done to them.

  Aram and Mark came out of the dark, slowly floating towards the unmoving soldiers, waving debris out of their way.

  "What the fuck?" whispered the Dacian.

  "No idea," said Mark.

  Six shapes were now floating in the brig: the two empty suits, the two unconscious soldiers with their still-pulsating suits, and the two prisoners, undressed.

  As they entered the cone of light coming through the still open door, they looked at each other.

  "Fuck me, what the hell is that?" asked Aram, pointing at Mark's mid-section, curiosity and amusement mixed into his voice.

  The Englishman looked down at his pelvis.

  "What?" he asked innocently.

  "Is that what you have, in the twenty-first century?"

  Mark looked down again.

  "It's called underwear," he said.

  The Dacian was completely naked, and had no problems with it whatsoever.

  "It doesn't bother you?" he asked.

  "Underwear? No, it doesn't bother me. You're trying to distract me from asking why you had to hit me so hard, aren't you?"

  "Had to make it look real," shrugged Aram.

  "Fuck me, what the hell is that?" echoed another voice.

  * * *

  "Who are you?"

  Gaines checked himself just as he was about to open his mouth. He pictured himself from the outside. He knew what his spacesuit looked like. On top of his helmet, in e-ink, stood his last name: GAINES, in contrasting black on white. On his chest, on the left side, he wore a name tag that clearly read: "STEVEN GAINES, CMDR USAF" and on the right side, another round patch that clearly read: "UNITED STATES SPACESHIP KENNEDY".

  His rank insignia was clearly visible on his chest and both shoulders.

  So, of all the questions someone might have asked him -- someone who, clearly, saw him very well -- the question about his identity was the least likely.

  He tried to think on his feet, to interpret this. Either he was being made fun of, or something very odd was happening. The question had seemed serious, asked in a tone of voice that didn't immediately seem sarcastic or ironic. So, then, what was the point in asking someone who they were, if it clearly said so on their suit?

  In war, each side had to be familiar with the other's uniform and decorations. You were taught about it in early orientation. And, even for a child who might've been unaccustomed to military insignia, the tags were clearly visible and easy to read. So why ask, then?

  Was it a trick question? Was it rhetorical, maybe philosophical? Was it a test? Like a password? Was there a predefined answer? What was he supposed to say?

  It felt very odd. They were not talking to him the way he had thought they would. He had expected hostility, or complete silence, or even physical violence. But he had not expected anything this illogical.

  All these thoughts went through his head in a couple of seconds. Then, he decided to risk a little game.

  "You first," he countered.

  * * *

  It was Aram's turn to look at his own pelvis, where the woman was pointing.

  "That's just me," he said, "but who the hell are you?"

  "Did you just do that to the soldiers?" Mark asked.

  "Yep," she said. "You're welcome, by the way." Then, to Aram: "No need to thank me, big guy. That's thanks enough."

  "I wasn't gonna thank you," said the Dacian. "We could've handled them, we've already done it once."

  "Yeah, on your home turf, and without that hole in your shoulder."

  "Who are you?" asked Mark, again.

  "Come on, let's get out of here," she said. "We haven't got much time. I've rerouted your biotelemetry, and these two guys', but someone's bound to figure it out soon."

  They followed her into the anteroom.

  "Jesus," she said, turning and seeing them still naked. "Grab your suits, you two. No way you're going through the ship like that unnoticed. Especially you, Mr. Aram."

  "I'm not getting back into that suit thing," growled the Dacian. "I don't like what they can do to me, now that I've seen it."

  "They'll be safe now," she said. "I've disabled the restraint procedures on their signatures."

  They just stared at her.

  "Just trust me," she said again. "And you really, really can't just float naked through an American cruiser, I don't care how cool you are."

  They looked at each other, then floated back into the brig, grabbed their floating suits -- they had indeed stopped pulsing -- came back, and started to put them back on. The woman noticed the crashed helmets and said:

  "Damn, you must've really tried hard. Go back and get their helmets too, you'll need them."

  They disappeared and returned again after a few seconds, carrying Porter's and Willard's helmets.

  "Are they dead?" asked Aram.

  "No, just unconscious," she said.

  "You didn't say who you are," said Mark.

  "Yeah, I know, sergeant."

  Mark stared at her and said nothing.

  "Why are you helping us?" asked Aram.

  "Orders," came the simple answer.

  "From Gaines?"

  "No," she said. "Not from Gaines."

  Aram didn't catch on right away, but Mark did.

  "You're a mole."

  "I'm a what now?" she asked, not understanding.

  "An undercover agent."

  "Oh. Yes." She looked him straight in the eyes. "I'm a mole."

  Mark helped Aram to zip up and secure his helmet, then they looked at each other. Aram's helmet had a label that read "WILLARD".

  "Hi, Porter," he said to Mark.

  * * *

  "You came here, you go first," said the young girl's voice.

  It felt like a surreal game to Gaines. Feeling slightly giddy, he said:

  "My name's Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln," and he prepared for the rebuke, or the laughter.

  But it never came. There was only silence for five full seconds, and it was followed by an ever more surreal reply:

  "I'm Doyner."

  Gaines' American brain automatically took the word, as the voice pronounced it, and converted it into its most likely American transcription. It sounded like a reasonable, if not very common, English or American last name.

  He had mockingly given the name of a famous American president, and the girl simply gave him her last name in exchange. No rank, no affiliation.

  Had he still been in contact with the crate, he could've accessed the cruiser's data link and run a search for the last name Doyner. Cross-referenced by gender and age, maybe he could've found something useful. But he was incommunicado, so he simply resolved to do that later.

  He didn't know what to make of the strange dialogue. If it was a practical joke, he didn't see the point of it. Not that he expected to understand Eurasian humour. So he decided to risk it and push on.

  "Hi there, Doyner. I'm the pilot of the transport above. I was told to deliver you a message."

  "What message?" said the young voice.

  "Yeah, I'm supposed to deliver it in person," he said. Then, pushing it: "To the captain of this ship."

  Again, he didn't really expect to be taken seriously. Just as he hadn't when he said his name was Abraham Lincoln. Was there really anybody in the world who didn't live in a cave and didn't know about Lincoln?!

  But t
hen, was there really anybody who might run a ship like this and not be able to read his name tag?

  "Wait," said the voice.

  As opposed to what?!

  "Sure," he said out loud.

  * * *

  "Why are you doing this?" asked Mark.

  "I told you. Orders."

  "What year is it?"

  She stopped, turned and looked at him, squinting a little.

  "You really don't know?"

  Mark thought he had nothing more to gain by lying.

  "Not a clue," he said.

  "What year do you think it is?"

  The Brit took a deep breath and looked around, as if looking for a calendar on the wall.

  "Has to be at least twenty-two hundred," he ventured.

  She looked at him in awe.

  "So, it's true," she said. "You really are from the twenty-first century."

  "I was born in seventy-five," he said. "Nineteen seventy-five, that is."

  "I'll be damned," she said, softly. "I bet you have some story to tell."

  "So what year is it?" he insisted.

  "Twenty-three forty-three," she said.

  Mark closed his eyes. He knew it would be hundreds of years into the future, but somehow the knowledge only really started to affect him once he actually knew the number. He tried to make the subtraction, but found that he couldn't do it. It was a simple arithmetic operation, but the digits were a big swirl inside his head, and he couldn't get them to obey him.

  A part of his mind told him, so that's how Doina and Aram must've felt.

  "You're three hundred and sixty-eight years old," helpfully announced Aram. "Well, that explains why you have to wear underwear."

  "Yeah," said Mark, softly. "Look who's talking about age."

  "You ok?" asked the woman.

  "I'll be fine," he said.

  "I need you to pay attention."

  "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. What?"

  "Take off your glove, give me your hand."

  "Why?"

  "Just do it, sergeant."

  "Will you stop with the sergeant already? I've been retired for over three centuries."

  "Yeah, once in the army, always in the army."

  "Aren't you in the Air Force?"

  "Same diff," she said.

  "Why isn't it the Air and Space Force by now, anyway? And hey, what's the deal with those guns? What happened to gunpowder and bullets?"

  "Or arrows?" intervened Aram, half-serious.

  "Ha!" she exclaimed. "The US Air Force's always had a space division, since it was created after the second world war. No need for an extra initial in its name. And the guns are electric. They're close-quarter. Gunpowder is much too dangerous in space. You might shoot the other guy and blow yourself to bits at the same time. Flechettes are short-range, break on impact, have a great rate of fire, and still work wonders on human bodies. They're smaller, so you can fit more to a mag, and all you need is a power cell in the gun, which lasts for months. No sparks, no heat, but most importantly in low-g..."

  "...no recoil," he finished for her.

  "Welcome back, sergeant."

  "Why didn't it work for me?"

  "You actually had your hands on a chip gun? Hey, that wasn't in the guys' reports. You need to wear an actual USAF space suit to use a chip gun, you know. It's not enough to just squeeze the trigger. Gun doesn't feel the suit on you, won't do squat. Now will you give me your hand? I only need to leave you a note."

  Mark unfastened his left glove; she took his palm, pulled out a pen and started scribbling on his skin. Aram leaned in, interested.

  "Still using pens, I see," Mark said, more to the benefit of the Dacian.

  "Get above these coordinates," she said. "It's a Chinese geostationary space station. You'll find friends there. It's all I can say at the moment."

  "Won't you get court-martialled for this?"

  "Nah," she said. "I sincerely doubt it."

  "Really? Why?"

  "It's war," she said. "I'd probably get thrown out the nearest airlock, without any trial at all. Lucky if they shoot me first."

  "You're risking that to set us free?"

  "You'll understand later," she said.

  It was Aram's turn to speak.

  "What war?"

  She stopped, looked at him quizzically, then answered.

  "Well. United States versus the Eurasian Union. This is the Moon War, people. Moon has mines, Eurasians were mining them, Americans were providing transport, then Eurasians developed their own transport, the Americans felt a little left out so there you have it. In a nutshell."

  "What happened to the UN?" asked Mark.

  "The what?" It was the woman's turn to not understand.

  "The United Nations. America and Europe were allies."

  "You've got a lotta history to catch up with, sergeant."

  "For the last time. Who are you?"

  She rolled her eyes and finally answered.

  "My name is lieutenant Jessica Lawry. I'm the ship's targeting officer."

  XXVII.

  Gaines sat on the bomb again. Not because he needed to; there was nearly no gravity in the airlock. But because he wanted to conceal it somehow, even though its menacing presence was undeniable. Or maybe he felt that, by turning it into a chair, he made it look less threatening.

  He had brought a copy of the controlling device in his suit pack. It emitted short bursts of code at randomly preset intervals. If the bomb was to miss one of those bursts, it would arm itself and then go off thirty seconds later. They'd probably see it from Mars.

  He congratulated himself for having brought the remote with him. With the airlock closed, no radiation of any kind seemed to be able to get in or out. He would've really hated to be locked in a room with an armed tactical warhead and only half a minute to disarm it.

  He could disarm it, of course. He could connect to it using his data tablet and enter a combination of fourteen letters and digits. But that was only a last resort, and certainly not something he would want to do while under the power of those strangers.

  The warhead was strong enough to vaporise a chunk of the Moon, yet it hadn't even made the object of conversation. Very strange.

  To say that the situation was confusing was an understatement. Gaines could have coped with pretty much anything he'd tried to predict on his way from the cruiser, and he'd done his best to predict pretty much everything. But not this; so far, everything that he'd seen, heard or otherwise witnessed had been unpredictable.

  He'd been told to wait; he had no other alternative, since he had no control on the airlock above. That young girl -- a most unlikely presence in a super-advanced warship -- might have not bothered; yet, she had.

  "What did you do to my friends?"

  Startled, Gaines jumped clean off the bomb, and in the low gravity of the airlock, he hit the ceiling, hard, with his elbows, which he'd brought up in instinctive self-defence.

  "Ha, ha! I mean, sorry..."

  He turned and pushed himself back down; at first, he tried to attach some dignity to the manoeuvre, but then he saw her.

  She was only a child. She had shoulder-length black hair, most of it tied back, and wore a simple, undecorated black costume and... no shoes.

  With her hand over her mouth, partly to hide her guffaw, partly in fright at seeing Gaines' reaction, and big, round, dark brown eyes, she floated gently just on the other side of one of three rectangles on the round wall, now opened. The American made a show of putting his hand over his heart and rolling his eyes, and ostensibly abandoned any pretence at composure.

  "You scared me out of my pajamas," he blurted, disguising his true reaction in the first kiddie-friendly expression he could dig out.

  "Sorry," she said. "Didn't mean to."

  He carefully placed his feet on the floor. It wasn't magnetic and his boots didn't stick, but he knew his way in a low-g environment. Even floating, he was still the taller one, but short of bending his knees, there was nothing he
could do to balance the proportions.

  It seemed to him that she was watching with more curiosity than kids usually reserve for foreigners. She was watching him as if he was an animal at the zoo. He didn't know how to interpret it, and he classified it as yet another very oddity.

  They watched each other in silence for a few seconds.

  "Erm, what was it that you asked?" he faked innocence.

  "Yeah," she said, changing her composure. Becoming serious and slightly jutting out her chin, she repeated:

  "What did you do to my friends?"

  Of course, he'd had time to prepare a response, one that was in line with his act so far.

  "Me?! I didn't even see your friends. I'm just a crate pilot, that's all."

  "Are they alright?"

  "Boy," he avoided the answer, with a crooked smile, barely letting her finish. "You sure gave us a beating, a while ago. Who flew this ship like that?"

  She fell right into the trap.

  "I did," she said, smugly. "And you deserved it for shooting at us for no reason!"

  He raised his hands in defence, which pushed him downwards a little. Even as he did that, things were gathering just a tiny little bit of shape inside his head. Either this little girl was lying, or she really was the pilot-in-command. If she was lying, he'd catch her soon enough. But if she wasn't...

  "Hey, don't look at me. I just follow orders, like I said. I don't know who did what, and to whom and why. But I saw most of what happened, and I gotta say, like one pilot to another, you know? That was some pretty awesome flying."

  She looked at him, trying to hide a smile and biting her lower lip, and then, still somewhat unexpectedly, she said:

  "Thanks."

  Gaines displayed a brilliant smile and said:

  "You know, if you want, I can take you up in the crate and you could show me some of those amazing moves, what do you say? Nobody needs to know!"

  Her face darkened, and she started shaking her head, as if Gaines had suggested something completely unfathomable:

  "No... no. I'm not going anywhere. When are my friends coming back?"

  "Sure, no problem," he said, with the same fantastic smile. "I don't know about your friends, but I'm sure they're fine. I only wanted to, you know," and he winked at her, "maybe learn some tricks, know what I mean?"