by David Ryker
I smiled nervously, and he looked away, gurgling in his throat.
Up ahead I could see the backs of the four pilots’ chairs. At the front left was Volchec, hands on the controls. Next to her was Everett in the co-pilot's seat. Behind her was Alice, and behind Volchec was Mac. Fish and I were sitting on the fold out seats fixed to the wall next to the door to the cargo hold.
It was obvious Volchec and Everett would get the front two seats. Volchec was in charge and Everett her direct subordinate — both were the most experienced ship pilots, too. I’d hung back next to the door while the others chose their seats. Mac had gone straight for the one behind Volchec, and Fish had headed for the one next to him. Had Alice let him, she’d have been stuck next to me. She figured that out in about five seconds. It took her three looks. One at Mac, one at the empty seat next to him, and then one at the seats at the back of the cockpit. After that, she elbowed Fish in the gut and shoehorned her way into the seat before he could get to it. He hissed at her, and she hooked a thumb at the two at the back of the cockpit without saying anything.
I didn’t think she’d said a word all day. On that front, all I could do was wait. One more glance at Fish told me that he wasn’t going to be much conversation either, so I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
I could hear Volchec instructing Everett to prep us for hyper-jump in the ether, and wondered what it would be like. I figured it would be like getting kicked in the ass, like my first blast-off from Genesis in the troop transport, what seemed like years ago — but was actually just a little under five months. It didn’t, though. It didn’t feel like anything, except someone pressing on my eyeballs. They squeezed into my brain and ached. Everything distorted in the cockpit slightly, all the straight lines bending, and then the stars visible through the cockpit window, a wraparound panel of glass, tiny pinpricks of lights against an endless blanket of darkness all flared and glowed, and then disappeared.
Everything was dark beyond the glass and the faintest whine rang in the hull as everything vibrated minutely at the frequency of the ship. It sang like a tuning fork as we sailed through a dark ocean.
Volchec turned in her seat and looked over us, her ragtag crew. She smiled for a second before she spoke. “That’s it, kids — nothing else to do now. It’ll be a couple of days until we reach FSS sixty-three forty. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”
I was shocked. I thought hyper-drive was an instant thing. “A couple of days?”
Mac snickered, but she just shrugged and then grinned. “Space is a big place.”
The tension in the cockpit was thick for hours. Mac and Alice barely spoke — just a few words here and there to break the silence, none of which were friendly. Fish didn’t speak at all, and considering I’d not had my implant yet, I couldn’t make heads or tails of his gurgles and head cocks. I often just found myself smiling, but then stopped doing that in case it meant fuck you in Eshelleen. Up front, Everett and Volchec were swapping war stories, and that was hardly a conversation I could chime in on. I tried to sleep, but it was still early, despite the total disorientation that came with the utter blackness outside the windows, and I could feel the force of the speed pulling on my brain just enough to keep me awake. I could feel my teeth tingling, too, and no matter how many times I ran my tongue over them, it wouldn’t go away.
I became aware of a low groan coming from Fish, and a strange clicking noise. I turned to find him staring at me, lips peeled back over his teeth. He was tapping them together quickly and then holding them apart. He’d let out a low breath and then repeat it.
I stared at him blankly. “You okay?” I asked, trying to discern what the hell he was doing.
I could hear Mac chuckling to himself. He turned around in his seat and stared at me with a wide grin on his face. “He wants to fight you,” he said, nodding.
“Fight?” I cocked an eyebrow, looking from Fish to Mac and back. Maybe one of those smiles did mean fuck you. I swallowed, trying not to stare at Fish’s pointed teeth, and trying even harder not to think about how they’d feel sinking into my skin. “What did I do to piss him off?”
Mac laughed a little more. “Piss him off? He’s not pissed off, he’s bored.” Mac shrugged awkwardly in his seat. “Eshellites like to fight — it’s a bonding thing. Builds trust. Lets them get to know their friends. I wouldn’t worry, it’s just sparring. First to draw blood wins.”
I turned my attention back toward Fish, who wasn’t stopping. Every time he clicked, his mouth opened a little wider and the clicks became a little less gentle. “You ever fight him?” I asked Mac, not looking away from Fish.
“Oh, a long time ago. Not since. Guess he figured everything he needed to know from our first go around.”
“What was it like?”
Mac twisted back in his chair. “Find out for yourself. He’s not going to stop until you agree, and eventually, he’ll stop asking so nicely.” Mac shook his head and nestled back into his seat.
I hung my head and then shook it. I had no idea what an Eshellite would be like to spar with, but looking at the sharp teeth in his mouth, the spiny fins on his head, and the hooked claws on his long, bony fingers, I didn’t anticipate that it would be a walk in the park. “Fine.”
Fish made a reasonably jovial bubbling sound and unstrapped himself, heading for the rear door. Mac had his head half turned, grinning. Volchec and Everett hadn’t registered, it didn’t seem like, and Alice was as stoic as ever, just facing front.
I unlatched myself and followed the Eshellite. He pressed the pad and stepped onto the catwalk beyond. It ran in both directions until it hit the outer hull, and then descended to the floor of the cargo bay via two sets of narrow steps. The bay itself was long and more than wide enough to spar in. Hell, you could do cartwheels around the fucking thing.
Fish let himself down the steep steps, using the rails to fling himself down the bottom half. He landed softly and sprang forward toward the back of the bay, where he turned and stood, waiting for me. I curled my hands over the catwalk rail and stared down at him, wondering if there was any way I could talk him out of it, and if so how I might go about communicating that. He looked lithe and fast and like he really enjoyed this sort of thing — and losers don’t usually have fun when sparring. The last fight I’d been in was with Jonas, and he’d well and truly handed my ass to me. I thought about him, and about how I was never going to see him again. He’d been included in that very long list of those who’d died when the Falmouth went down. I for one was glad I wasn’t going to cross paths with him again. I couldn’t speak for anyone else, and didn’t have time to think about it just then. I clenched my jaw and tried to think back to exactly how the hell we’d managed to get out of there, Alice and I. It was a mixture of Volchec’s balls and sheer luck. If one of those shells or strikes had hit the hull in the right place, or at the right angle, we’d have been dead. Sucked into the vacuum of space or vaporized where we stood. I looked over my shoulder at Alice’s chair, but she wasn’t looking back. I wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t know what I could say — because honestly, I didn’t know what was really wrong. I mean, I figured that she was pissed that I’d taken the credit for the rescue attempt, that I’d snagged the promotion she’d been champing for — but hell, I thought it was going to be a punishment, not a leg up. I’d tried telling her that already, but she didn’t seem to be buying it. All I could do was let her cool off and hope that she came around.
Mac got to his feet and headed toward me, grinning. He was shooing me down into the cargo bay with a sadistic smirk on his face. It didn’t make me feel any better about the situation.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, cracking my neck and heading for the steps. I got down and shrugged off my Federation flight jacket, tossing it against the wall. It slumped into a pile on the bench that ran down each side, the stitched arrow denoting my promotion gleaming silver in the dim lights of the hold.
Fish watched me approach without any hint of worry or a
ngst. He stood lightly on his feet, and though being at least three inches shorter than me, I didn’t feel like he was small. His body was shorter than a human’s, his legs and arms longer, neck stouter, and head wider. I narrowed my eyes, measuring him, figuring the distances of his reach, where I could hit him that would be soft — where would hurt the most.
I saw no soft patches, and as I stepped into range, a very cold shiver ran down my neck.
My fists curled instinctively, and I sank into my knees a little, right foot forward. Federation combat training was a mixture of martial arts styles and self-defense from Earth and further afield, that was supposed to be a match for any humanoid creature, but I had no idea how an Eshellite was going to fight, or how I was supposed to defend against it.
The short answer was that I couldn’t.
Fish jumped forward, rising into the air in front of me without warning, and slammed his elbow into what would have been my head, had I not thrown my arms up at the last second. The blow was like being hit with a steel bar. Pain rippled through my forearms and made my fingers go numb.
Before I could even yelp, or move, though, Fish was low. I saw his black eyes swimming under my still raised guard, and then he lashed out, stepping sideways and turning. He swiveled past me like a dancer and stopped on my right.
Everything was still for a second and I drew a short, sharp breath, trying to process what had just happened. Then I felt it — the seeping warmth. Then came the pain.
I looked down and clutched instinctively at my stomach, at the blood running over my hands. I staggered sideways and then fell, clattering to the floor, pressing at the slice marks across my midriff, trying to staunch the blood pouring out of them, blind panic seizing me all at once.
I swallowed hard, feeling my heart hammering in my throat. My vision pulsed, and nausea slithered in through the open claw marks.
In the gloom, Mac appeared overhead. He was laughing. “Don’t worry, kid,” he said casually, lifting his shirt. “He got me with the same damn move.” There across his own skin were four thin white lines — old scars that told me what mine were going to look like in a couple of years. “I wouldn’t fret too much.” Mac laughed and shook his head. “Fish is a goddamn surgeon. The cuts are shallow and clean. They’ll heal quickly.” He tossed a towel onto my chest and I pulled it down, pressing it into the cuts.
I closed my eyes and lay my head back against the cold steel of the bay floor, breathing slowly, listening to Mac’s voice drain away as he and Fish headed back up to the cockpit, both joking about something like I had hadn’t just had my stomach shredded. The exercise had been at my expense, and I didn’t like it.
Everett walked into the meager living quarters under the cockpit an hour later to check on me. I’d found the first aid kit, which was substantial. Likely due to the fact that this ship was usually used for transporting dignitaries and Federation brass. As a result, everything was of higher quality than I’d been used to thus far in the Federation. I was lying back on one of the beds, reading up on Eshellite history off one of the pads stationed on the comms desk. I’d shed my torn-up shirt and cleaned the wounds — which Mac was incidentally right about. Fish’d barely broken skin — but that didn’t stop them hurting like hell. I’d dressed them with an antiseptic gel that formed an airtight, rubbery layer over the slices that slowly shrank over the course of a few days to help cuts bind together. It was a field dressing, but about as good as they came.
I looked up as Everett hobbled in and sat herself down on the bed opposite. “How’re you feeling?” she asked.
I stuck my bottom lip out and laid the pad down. “Been better. Serves me right, though.”
She smiled softly. “Yeah, going hand-to-hand with an Eshellite is no walk in the park.”
“You ever subjected yourself to it?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Me? No — but that’s because I’ve got sense, and I paid attention growing up.”
“They taught you about Eshellites in biology class?” We’d never had the luxury — most of our biology classes were on microbes, evolution, and everything else that would help a budding group of terraformers on a colony planet like Genesis.
“Hardly. I taught myself.” She squeezed her mouth into a tight line. “Not a lot, but enough to know that they outmatch humans in a fist-fight.”
I gestured to my stomach. “Fists? Hardly. Where did you grow up?” Right now I felt like Everett was the closest thing I had to a friend, but I realized I didn’t know a thing about her, other than the fact that she was a bit of a badass, a goddamn hero, and she’d missed out on being a mech pilot.
She sat back, stifling a wince. “Nowhere you’d know.”
“Try me.”
“Notia.”
“You’re right, I’ve never heard of that planet.”
“That’s because it’s not a planet,” she said, smirking. “It’s a space station. A big beast of a thing. Couple million strong — all species and races. It’s a trading hub, mostly, but seeing as it’s floating in Federation space, it’s governed by them.”
“Were you conscripted?” I perked up a little.
“No — signed up of my own accord if you can believe it,” she laughed.
“I can’t.”
She cocked her head a little and shrugged. “I spent most of my childhood shoveling up Cargan shit at the livestock markets to make enough credits to eat. It’s not uncommon for kids to get left on places like Notia.” She shrugged again, more emphatically this time. “A roof over my head, couple square meals a day, and a chance to make something of myself? Humph, sounded like a pretty good deal to me.”
“Even with that seven percent survival rate?”
“The other option wasn’t worth thinking about. I joined the minute I could, hopped a transport, and never looked back.” She pushed herself back onto the bed, wincing slightly, and leaned back against the wall, staring at the ceiling. A smile crept over her lips after a few seconds. “You know, when the Falmouth went down, I thought that was it — the end, for me, for everything. I never expected this.”
“You deserve it — you deserve more.” I corrected myself, trying to say it with as much positivity as my stinging chest let me muster.
“Do I?” She turned to me, her voice more cutting than Fish’s claws. “How do you know what I deserve?” The words dripped from her tongue like poison and I felt bad for saying anything all of a sudden. “I’m a station rat. A vagrant. I spent my whole childhood lying and stealing just to get by. I don’t even have a name.”
I crumpled my brow. “What do you mean? Your name is Everett. Demeter Everett?”
She scoffed. “That’s the name I wrote on my application. Everett was the name of a guy who owned a store on Notia — a store I robbed from so I could afford enough credits to get one of these.” She rolled her sleeve up and showed me her arm, the barcode there. The tattoo that might as well have said property of the Federation. All kids born into Federation colonies or on Federation ships got one, denoting them as Federation Citizens. It was an ID tag above all else. Something that would have let her sign up without a serious vetting process. They were attainable via unconventional means, if you wanted one, and had the credits. I guessed Notia was the sort of place you could seek that sort of service out. “They aged me up two years so I could sign on, let me choose my own name, too.”
“And you chose Everett?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, to remind me of where I came from.”
“So you’re actually… how many years old?” I sat up on the bed, interest piqued.
“And why do you need to know that?” she laughed.
“Curiosity?”
“Nosy, more like.”
I shrugged, suddenly finding a new affinity for her. She was like me in a way — a spit-out. Someone who didn’t choose her life or her upbringing, but someone that just dealt with the shit hand they got. Except hers was even worse than mine. At least I grew up with somewhere to live, with a future ahea
d of me. She was an urchin — abandoned by God knows who on the way through the vast ocean of space. Dumped off the side of a ship and left as a kid on a space station in the middle of nowhere. Hell, it made her even more impressive. I wouldn’t have known from her hard-nosed, straight-laced exterior. “I wouldn’t call it nosy. Let’s say interested.”
“Call it what you want. I’m not telling you either.”
“Why are you telling me anything at all?” I dropped my voice a little. “I mean, does anyone know? Surely, if the Federation were aware—”
She cut me off, holding her hand up. “Yeah, they would. But you can keep your mouth shut, right? Or did I make the wrong call?” Her voice was hard suddenly.
“No, no, you didn’t. You can trust me,” I said, trying to sound reassuring.
She softened. “Good.” She paused for a second, mulling over the words. “And I told you all this because we’re the odd ones out here.”
“What do you mean?”
She stared at the ceiling. “Those guys up there. They’re not like us. Volchec — she’s spent the last few hours telling me all about her career, all her war stories. She comes from a lineage of Federation officers. She was born on a Velevon in a real hospital, raised in a real house with a real family, went to a real school — played on real grass, with real friends. Had everything given to her. At twelve she was sent to a Federation academy — boarding school for Federation kids. Given the best possible start in life. She could have done anything, but she decided to follow the path of her father, her grandmother before that — to go into the Federation and make a difference in the galaxy. You know she transitioned in at staff sergeant. She never saw active duty as a grunt — never charged into battle in the Ground Corps — not like us, wading through shit for everything we get.” Everett shook her head, trying to keep the scowl off her lips. “Guess that’s what being born with a silver spoon in your mouth gets you, huh?”