Fleet of Knives

by Gareth L. Powell

  Then Addison screamed my name, and the spell broke. I still had her and Lucy to care for. I shook my head as if trying to clear it, and then began to haul myself upwards as quickly as I could, trying to ignore the noises that came from below.

  When I reached the opening in the shaft wall, Addison grabbed my collar and heaved me over the lip, onto the stone floor of another corridor. Then, as I squirmed away from the edge, she leant out and let fly with a barrage of plasma bolts that seemed to singe the very air around us.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  ONA SUDAK

  I was on the bridge when we reached our target, clad in the immaculate white uniform the Fleet had provided for me. The spherical walls were all showing the same picture: a wraparound view of the space surrounding the ship. I could see a wash of stars, the distant, tumbling wreck of an old freighter, and the nearby bulk of the Nymtoq colony vessel.

  We are detecting fragments.

  “What sort of fragments?”

  The view expanded, until I was looking at a broken, twisted body, shaped something like an armoured spider with nasty-looking claws.

  There has been an incursion. This proves it. The site has been infected, and must be sterilised.

  “I don’t understand.” On the screen, it was hard to judge the size of the creature. For all I knew, it could have been the size of a house spider. “What is that?”

  A parasite.

  I made a face. “What kind of parasite? What does it feed on?”

  It lives in the higher dimensions, and draws sustenance from the enemy. When the enemy erupts into our universe, these creatures detach from its body and feed on living organisms. They are barely intelligent, but they are voracious. Their presence here is not a good sign.

  “Any trace of the Trouble Dog?”

  Beside me, the bear-like avatar grumbled deep in its throat, and its words appeared in my mind.

  Nothing as yet.

  “That’s strange. She should be here.”

  If she is, we will find her.

  To either side, I could see the other two knife ships holding formation. Between the three of us, I was sure we were more than a match for anything we might meet—even a clawed spider. And much as I felt a certain creeping fondness for the Trouble Dog, I knew a partially rearmed Carnivore stood almost no chance against us. She had rescued me from the Gallery, and brought me back to stand trial. And to show my gratitude, I would at least allow her the option of surrendering. Not that I expected her to accept such an offer—Carnivores were notoriously stubborn, to the point where some captains speculated that rather than being grown from a fusion of human and canine DNA, the ships had instead been cultured from the most obstinate pack of mules ever to trudge the Earth. But I would, at least, give her the option.

  “Broadcast a message on an open channel,” I instructed the avatar. “Tell the Trouble Dog to divest herself of weaponry and submit to the orders of the Fleet.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  TROUBLE DOG

  Fuck that.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  SAL KONSTANZ

  “Captain.” The Trouble Dog’s voice whispered in my earbud. “We’ve got company.”

  “The Nymtoq?”

  “Worse.”

  “How many?”

  “Three.”

  I stopped walking.

  “Are you in danger?”

  “I’m keeping the Restless Itch between me and them. They haven’t found me yet, but if they spread out, I’ll have nowhere to hide.”

  “Damn.”

  Ahead, Clay paused and glanced back questioningly.

  “It’s the Marble Armada,” I told her. “They’re here.”

  She made a face, and then went back to scanning the corridor for more immediately tangible threats.

  “They know I’m here somewhere,” the Trouble Dog said. “They’re broadcasting a request for me to surrender.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “What do you think?”

  I smiled. “Okay, keep out of sight. We’ll try to locate the survivors from the Lucy’s Ghost and get back to you as quickly as we can.”

  “You’d better make it fast. I don’t know how long I can remain hidden.”

  “Do what you have to,” I told her. “If you have to run, then run. You can always come back for us later.”

  I broke the connection. We both knew if she left she wouldn’t have time to return before the Nymtoq vessel arrived. And neither of us could predict how things might play out once the impulsive, hawk-like aliens discovered human trespassers on their precious death barge.

  I started walking.

  “We’d better hurry up,” I said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  JOHNNY SCHULTZ

  Somehow, we found our way into a slippery-sided duct beneath the steel mesh of the corridor floor. The space was cramped and we had to lie on our backs, but at least we were comparatively safe for a moment. Our arms and legs were shaking from the climb, and from the shock of losing three comrades in as many minutes. But nothing seemed to have survived Addison’s plasma barrage, and we could take a moment to rest. A moment to lie there under the floor and try to calm our racing hearts and slow our panting breath; a moment to gather our strength for the next—

  A sob forced its way through my closed lips. I tried to stop it, but it pushed its way through. It was a whimper of impotent grief that seemed to fill the tiny space in which we huddled. Angry with myself, I struck my fist against the rock wall. And then, I drew breath and sobbed again, and again. And I kept on sobbing until Addison squirmed up beside me and took my face in her hand, squeezing my jaw shut and smushing my lips.

  “Quiet,” she said. “You’re scaring the kid.”

  I glanced at Lucy. She was lying on her tummy watching me, with her chin resting on her hands. Her expression was one of polite, girlish interest.

  “She’s okay.” I was talking through Addison’s fingers. My voice felt ragged and hoarse. “And anyway, she’s not a kid. She’s older than both of us.”

  Addison narrowed her eyes, but relaxed her grip.

  “Okay,” she said. “Whatever. But you were scaring the crap out of me.”

  I closed my eyes. I felt battered and washed-out, like a beach after a storm. And embarrassed at having shown my feelings that way. I needed to be stronger than that. But here I was, weaponless and crammed into a crawlspace that would have made a rat feel claustrophobic. If ever I’d needed the luck of Lucky Johnny Schultz, I needed it now. I didn’t have anything else. I’d lost my ship, all but one of my crew, my gun, and my spacesuit… There wasn’t much left. I felt like a brittle autumn leaf, ready to be blown to Hades on the first strong wind. All that was keeping me going was the cold, hard dread of a robot crustacean ripping me into bloody, twitching chunks.

  Images flickered on the insides of my eyelids. I saw Lena Kelly skewered to the deck by a spear-like foreleg; Henri Bernard falling away into the kilometre-deep darkness of the shaft; Vito Accardi lying broken and mangled on the bridge of the Lucy; Jansen and Monk mooching around the cargo decks prior to the collision; Chet curled in his spice-smelling nest; Santos in his kitchen in happier times, juggling herbs and spices; Dalton on the ledge, backing away from the advancing crawfish, his bullets bouncing from its steel hide… They’d all trusted me. They’d all believed the hype. And now they were gone. All of them had parents, siblings, and friends… Vito had a wife back on Nuevo California; Santos had a brother in a monastery, somewhere out among the Spinward Spice Worlds; Kelly had been cultivated in a lab, and adopted by a policeman and his wife; and Dalton had a couple of grown-up kids living on an industrial planet in the general region of the Intrusion. And now I’d have to be the one to tell all those people of the horrors that had befallen their loved ones. I’d have to sit with them and somehow find the words to explain exactly what had happened to the thin, frail bodies that had once housed their father, their brother, their daughter and their husband. How could I look t
hem in the eyes and tell them the truth? How could I saddle them with the real, sinew-ripping revulsion of their deaths?

  I knew people who’d fought and died in the Archipelago War. The ones who’d survived had all lost friends and comrades. How did they cope? What gave them the strength to keep going, to get up every morning and keep on living when so many others had been denied the chance?

  I took a long breath. Sniffed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Addison put her hand on my arm. “Hey, it’s quite understandable. As soon as we’re out of here, as soon as we’re safely on board that Reclamation Vessel, I’m going to have the worst hysterics you’ve ever seen. But until then, until we’re safe, we need to keep our shit together. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.” I wiped my eyes on the back of my sleeve.

  “I know it’s hard.” Dirt had smudged her face, and the skin beneath looked papery and tight, as if stretched thin by the horrors she’d seen. “But if we let it overcome us, we’ll never make it out. And we have to, because I do not want to die here. Not with those things.”

  I squeezed my fists together, digging my nails into my palms. In his own clumsy way, Dalton had been trying to protect us. By drawing the attention of the crawfish-monsters, he’d given up his life in order to save ours. And I’d be damned if I’d sit here crying and let that sacrifice count for nothing. The raw horror of the moment had passed, and in its wake, it had left an eerie calm. I felt like the eye of a hurricane: a small, still point at the centre of a raging storm. Yes, I had fucked up. Yes, my friends were dead. But while the three of us were alive, we had to keep going. We had to slog onwards, no matter how fucking tired and heartsick. The only people that mattered now were Addison and the kid. I had to get them both out of here. I had to find a way to get them off this flying mountain and back to some semblance of human civilisation.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  NOD

  Offspring learn quickly.

  Smart.

  Leave them to scurry round the ship while I work.

  Do work, then rest.

  Then do more work.

  Busy with cable bundle when Trouble Dog avatar appears in engine room.

  “There’s a high possibility we’ll be seeing combat in the immediate future,” the hound tells me. “Standby to repair damage.”

  I want to lie on back and slap all six faces together.

  Ship only just refitted.

  Only just repaired after last fight.

  Only just got nest comfy again, how I like.

  Now what?

  “Who’s fighting?” I ask.

  “Three ships from the Fleet of Knives.”

  “Thought they were friends.”

  Ship’s avatar shrugs.

  “Things seem to have changed.”

  “What about offspring? This was supposed to be shakedown cruise. Not dangerous.”

  Avatar lowers chin. “I’m sorry, Nod. I didn’t choose this. Rest assured, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure your little ones survive. And if worse comes to worst, I’ll put them in a shuttle and try to get them clear of the battle.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. Now, is there anything I can do to help you?”

  I raise three faces to it. “Try not to get shot.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Me too.” I plant four faces firmly on deck. Point with other two. “If torpedoes come, you dodge.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  ONA SUDAK

  After a career spent on the Hyenas and Scimitars of the Conglomeration Navy, the thing I found most unnerving about being aboard 88,573 was the silence. I was used to the constant background clamour of watches changing, orders being barked, men and women talking, equipment being moved or repaired, heavy boots tramping up and down ladders, the creak and flex of the hull, and the ever-present vibration of the engines. I was used to bustle and activity at all hours of the day and night, but here on the white ship, stillness reigned. The historian, Alexi Bochnak, kept to his quarters, poring over old records dredged from the Fleet’s communal memory, and the ship’s great furred avatar appeared only when the vessel wished to directly converse. I had no idea where it went between such interactions; for all I knew, it simply ceased to exist. Which left the rest of 88,573 as sterile as a white marble sepulchre, devoid even of the ghosts and spiders that might have haunted such a tomb. Standing on the raised dais at the centre of the bridge, I might as well have been standing in the transept of an abandoned cathedral on a desolate and empty world.

  Right now, the curved walls were blank. I had no need of their screens. The feeds coming in from the ships flanking 88,573 were being streamed directly into my mind. I saw through their sensors as they moved apart, their artificial senses raking the heavens for any indication of the Trouble Dog’s whereabouts. They had already detected the incoming Nymtoq cruiser. If the Trouble Dog had fled the area, her wake would have left traces on the roiling mists of the higher dimensions. As no such trace could be found, we had to assume she remained hereabouts.

  “She’ll be behind that rock,” I said, highlighting the Restless Itch. “It’s the only place she could be hiding.”

  I instructed our escorts to move position. If we formed an equilateral triangle centred on the Restless Itch, there would be no place left for the Trouble Dog to skulk. Thus surrounded, she would have to yield. She could not defend against simultaneous and determined assaults from both above and below, no matter how many of her military systems she’d restored.

  “Do not fire unless engaged,” I ordered. “And even then, fire to disable rather than destroy.”

  Wordless acknowledgement came through as a cold, rustling whisper in the depths of my skull, as if the consciousness of the Fleet loitered like a half-forgotten nightmare in the darkness behind my thoughts. I shivered as I felt its ancient, clinical determination, as vast and cool and unsympathetic as death itself. And then all three ships were moving towards their designated stations, and I brought my focus to bear on the curved horizon of the great stone ark, waiting for the familiar silhouette of a Carnivore to rise above its jagged hills like a small bronze moon.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  TROUBLE DOG

  Thanks to Lucy, I had a clear view of the three dagger-like wedges of the alien ships. Since they’d appeared, she’d been feeding me data from sensors on the surface of the Restless Itch, allowing me to track their movements without exposing myself. So far it had worked, but now they were starting to move, and I knew I only had moments until I was exposed, and pinned between overlapping fields of fire.

  “Can you open a channel to the lead ship?” I asked Lucy. If I couldn’t fight my way out of this situation, perhaps I could talk my way clear instead. After all, I’d been the one to wake these ungrateful assholes from their millennial slumber. Without me, they’d still be lost in dreamless hibernation, waiting for a new mission to drop into their metaphorical laps.

  While I waited for my call to be answered, I spent a millisecond preparing a suitable virtual meeting place, so that when the Fleet’s avatar appeared in front of me, we were standing in a snowy wasteland ringed by distant mountains that rose into the lowering sky like blackened teeth.

  The bear-like thing reared up on its hindmost set of legs and barked.

  Greetings.

  “Hello.”

  I’d dressed my avatar to suit the surroundings, in a padded jacket and thick boots. A pair of snow goggles adorned my forehead, holding back my wind-whipped hair, and fingerless gloves protected my slender hands.

  You will surrender.

  “And if I do, what happens then?”

  Your weaponry will be removed, and you will be taken back to Camrose, where you will spend the rest of your life in a parking orbit, watched over by members of the Fleet.

  “I’ll be a prisoner?”

  Your life will be spared.

  A virtual breeze sent thin sidewinders of snow crystals skitte
ring across the ground between us.

  “And if I refuse to be imprisoned?”

  Your life will be forfeit.

  “I see.”

  We are sorry. We mean no disrespect. You gave us our purpose. You convinced us humanity was worth saving. And yet, it is from weapons such as yourself that it must be saved.

  “Believe me, I get the irony.”

  Then how does it profit us to talk further? You must acquiesce.

  “I don’t know if I can. What about my work with the House of Reclamation? If I reluctantly agree to be declawed, will that be allowed to continue?”

  Your services are no longer required. The House is no longer required.

  “No longer required?” I let my head tip to one side. “I thought you guys were all about saving lives.”

  The bear dropped onto its four paws, bringing its snout level with my face. Breath steamed from its nostrils.

  When humanity has been purged of its weapons, we will enforce a moratorium on all higher dimensional travel and communication. Humanity will be confined to its planets.

  “That’s terrible!”

  I imagined all the worlds of the Generality suddenly cut off from each other, spinning alone through space. Some might thrive, but others would falter without outside help. Those requiring the regular importation of essential equipment or supplies would soon find themselves in a precarious position. If they couldn’t improvise a solution to their sudden lack of support, some would starve; others might suffocate or freeze. There were a million ways an artificial biosphere could go wrong. Small research stations and other outposts would find themselves stranded; without viable breeding populations, they’d slowly wither. And even if they were somehow fortunate to live on a planet with breathable air, edible food and potable water, they could still be doomed by the lack of certain medicines, or (in the case of planets around stars with a high UV output) sunscreen.