Firewyrm

by Erik Schubach

  Spike saw us come in and poked his head up from his little bed then whimpered when Graz gave a toothy grin. That woke Max. He blinked then sat up. His smile was genuine. “Knith! What brings you back? Have you made any progress on your investigation? There's been a lack of information as the news waves are following another Enforcer, a big Grindle, I forget the name, as he forges ahead. Is he your partner?”

  Doh! I almost slapped my own forehead. I'm still not used to having a partner. And I had just ditched him again this morning inadvertently. I nodded, “Lieutenant Keller.”

  “Yeah, that's it. Here.” He made a hand motion and a screen bloomed on the wall by his desk, Eileen Brightleaf and Leviathan Network News crews were out in... was that Delta-Stack? And Daniel was feeding them all sorts of assurances that we were progressing swiftly on the case, and then a bunch of official sounding nonsense about what we were doing.

  I realized that where I forget that I have a partner, he didn't. He was drawing them away from me on purpose, leaving me free and unencumbered to run the real investigation. I owed the man a fruit basket... and an apology.

  I thought, “Mother?”

  She replied in my head through the helmet interface, “I've already coordinated with him for you this morning, asking him to draw off the attention while you followed your hunch. Possibly in your voice.”

  “I love you.”

  “Of course you do, what's not to love?”

  I asked him, not telling the full truth, “I was wanting to speak with two of your crews just to be thorough, about anything they may have seen around the fire site and the damaged Airlock that has the repair dome.”

  He nodded, “Of course. Though we didn't have anyone in that area, but a crew passing by may have seen something. Are you wrapping things up now?”

  I nodded back, “Just dotting my I's and crossing my T's. Only need to speak with...” Mother scrolled the information to me, “Alpha Zero Seven and Alpha One Three. Then I just have to go out to look at the damage when my ride can get to me. It's all looking accidental.” Unlike the Fae, I could lie real good.

  He typed something on a virtual keyboard then said, “Zero seven just left on a trunk repair, and thirteen should be landing in the next hour or so. I can have one of the crews take you out on a tug to check the area out if you don't want to wait for your ride.”

  This man was probably the most helpful bureaucrat I've ever had to deal with. I was just sorry that I'd be binding one of his crews by law when this was all over with. “That would be great, Max, if it doesn't interrupt the work schedule. I know you're already spread thin here.”

  He waved it off, “Hey, as I said, we're both civil servants here, Knith, I'm sure you're no stranger to long hours and hard work.”

  We exchanged deranged smiles then chuckled. The man was the type you'd knock a few brews back with as you shoot the shit. When all of this was over, I was thinking about inviting him to the weekly card game on the Underhill with Mac and the crew.

  He led us back into the bay, Spike keeping a wary eye on Graz, who swung two fingers from her eyes toward the dog. Max let out a shrill whistle and that crew who looked familiar to me, turned from where they were preparing one of the tugs that were equipped with two claw-like arms that were used to move around the giant scales.

  One of them came jogging over in the long bounds of someone used to moving quickly in the reduced gravity down here in the D-Ring, exo-assist braces on his legs and back making his strides more powerful. “Deep, I need your crew to take the enforcer here out to do a EVA reconnoiter around the fire area up on B.”

  The man looked unnervingly familiar to me as he just looked me up and down, that slight imbalance which most skin jockeys had in their eyes shone brightly in his. He looked at Max like he were asking him to spontaneously turn into a bunny or something. “You sure boss?”

  “Just take her where she wants to go. Keep your crazy to yourself, Deep End.”

  The guy flipped off his supervisor then did a curtsy to me, making a sweeping ushering motion, “After you, enforcer.”

  I rolled my eyes and held out a fist, Max bumped it and said, “Ow.”

  I looked at my armored hand, “Oops, sorry. This won't take long, I promise.”

  The guy Max called Deep End said, “Today sometime would be nice, princess.”

  I sighed then covered the distance in four bounds, arriving at the tug just before him. He cocked an eyebrow. “Pretty comfortable in reduced G for an up-ringer.”

  I let him keep his air of superiority since they were doing me a favor. I pointed at my chest, “Enforcer armor.”

  He grinned, accepting the lie, since in his head, I couldn't possibly have beat him. I was just at home in any gravity since I have trained for decades for combat and emergency situations in zero G, micro gravity, and enhanced gravity like the A-Rings. I didn't need my armor to navigate quickly down here.

  I looked at the big guy with his shaved head, he looked so familiar. He saw me looking and he smiled, not in a friendly way, and most of his front teeth gleamed of metal. Why hadn't he just had new ones grown for him instead? Then I remembered what I had just learned about their pay and realized he probably couldn't afford new teeth, especially because I could see the tell tale bulge of a med tech bio-pack under his shirt. He's had cybernetic organ replacement, again not being able to afford new ones just being grown for him.

  He said as we paced up the ramp, which doubled as a door, up into the belly of the tug. At least here is one place the government didn't cut corners, the skin jockey tugs may not look pretty, but they were beasts of burden that were almost indestructible. Their top of the line, industrial robotic arms made them look like mechanical monsters.

  There were two smaller craft, maintenance rigs, that looked like miniature versions of the ship, just grafted to an EVA suit and heavy loader exoskeleton with magnetic treads and mini thrusters to keep them in contact with the Skin, as well as two additional, standard issue EVA suits with twenty four hour air supplies were secured beside the rigs.

  The center of the bay had racks that held three of those immense Skin panels, and on the opposite wall were racks full of parts, tools, and even a diagnostic rack. These tugs were impressive smaller cousins of the maneuvering assist tugs that helped in the Turnover Event when I was a little kid.

  Two other skin jockeys turned around from where they were securing a panel. The lanky woman froze for a moment then stood up straight, eyes narrowing. Besides the exo-assist braces on her legs and back, she looked to be unmodded.

  The other man had one cut rate cybernetic eye, I could read the electromagnetic signature from it as old fashioned infrared beams swept over me to feed data to the iris to focus on me. He didn't look any friendlier than the other two.

  Deep End held up a hand, like he was stalling them. “Legs, Gripper, the boss wants us to give Enforcer Shade here a ride outside. We're happy to, aren't we?” How did he know my name? Max hadn't said it.

  They furrowed their brows then started to smile. Legs said in a raspy tone, “Of course.”

  Then she elbowed Gripper when his brow furrowed even farther, almost swallowing his eyes completely. “Oh... yeah.”

  Deep End told me as he leapt over me, and landed on the catwalk ten feet above, then up another level to go into the cockpit, “Better strap in up here. Maintenance tugs aren't as smooth as your fancy up-ring vehicles.”

  I sighed and followed suit. I had a four to five foot vertical leap unassisted in the light gravity down here, so my armor servos gave me the additional boost to mirror his moves. They likely could have flung me the entire distance but I didn't want to try and fail in front of this cheery bunch.

  The other jockeys followed, Legs saying as she looked at my armor as she landed beside me, “Well alright.” She pushed past me, Gripper doing the same.

  We stepped through a small airlock onto the bridge. It felt a little cramped with the four of us, but it did h
ave seating for six. They were already strapping in with obvious ease of someone who has done it for years as Deep End started spinning up the plasma drives. I heard the ramp door clang into place below us.

  Oh space me naked, he wasn't going to wait! I sat in a seat across from the other two, and fumbled with five point strap linkage. Graz was wrapping her arms in my hair as she said with urgency, “Umm, Knith?”

  I muttered, “I know,” as I activated my mag boots just in case but slammed the buckles home just as the ship lurched and swung around fast enough to make me want to re-visit my recent eating choices. Then we were lunging forward toward the closing inner bay doors.

  Didn't he see they were closing for another tug already? I grabbed the arms of the chair, and heard metal groaning in protest as it started to bend under my grip. And we slid through the opening with just inches to spare.

  We came to a hovering halt beside another tug and when the warning lights signifying hard vacuum started flashing and the outer door cycled open, Deep End slammed the controls forward and we shot out of the bay like the hounds of Faerie were on our tail.

  Then the man was calling out over his shoulder, “B-Ring fire area, enforcer?”

  I nodded, “Yes, please. I appreciate the ride.”

  I looked to the others, “Legs? Gripper?”

  The woman said as she took off her heavy leather gloves and flexed her fingers, “He runs the tug's arms. I'm the EVA specialist with the Rigs.” Ahh, I thought she was Legs because she was so lanky, but it was more practical than that. I didn't want to ask about what Deep End's name meant then.

  I hesitated when I saw her rubbing her palm where the flesh ended in a diagonal line and cybernetic replacements for the other half of her palm and her four fingers began. I tried to not react as I realized why this crew looked so familiar. They were the skin jockeys Lord Sindri had sent to kill me in the back corridors of the Underhill. All of their new cyber-gear was courtesy of the beating I and Mir gave them.

  They must have transferred to the Alpha stack after the incident in case I came looking for them. But as much as I would have liked to, they had attacked me on a Remnant vessel, thus outside the laws of the world, so I couldn't.

  I tried to act nonchalant, “So that would make Deep End...?”

  She snorted, “He's just fuckin' nuts.”

  We sat in an awkward silence after that, them watching me with amused malice, until Deep End called back. “We're here. Setting down next to the repair dome. Legs, why don't you take our guest down and help her into an EVA suit.”

  Yeah, no way in hell that was happening. I can see it accidentally having an unfortunate catastrophic malfunction. Mother was in my head, “Knith, is everything ok? Your heart rate has increased alarmingly, like it does when you're fighting.”

  I thought, “Not now.” I couldn't exactly tell her who these people were over the helmet's neuro interface, it could only pick up surface thoughts, not detailed explanations. She made an affirmative sound.

  As I unbuckled myself and stood quickly, my mag-boots holding me to the deck as I moved quickly to the little airlock, I said, “No need, just drop the ramp for a girl?”

  I hit the door control, cycling it closed in Legs and Gripper's faces as my visor raised. And before they could re-cycle it I hit the decompression buttons for the airlock and bay beyond. My armor reconfigured to emergency EVA mode. A thirty minute oxygen timer started in my heads up display as Deep End said over coms, “What are you doing, Shade? Are you insane?”

  I said, “No, I'm fine. This isn't standard Enforcer armor. And I won't need a ride back, I've got a ride. Thanks.”

  I had to take the stairs down each level, as I heard the bay starting to repressurize. They were going to come after me. I clomped over to the door controls and said, “Mother? Open the bay doors. Override authorization, Battalion zero four.”

  With the woosh of depressurization of what little air they had already started pumping back in, the hard vacuum light started flashing again and I stepped onto the ramp and clunked my way down until I stood on the Skin. Only then did my brain catch up to me. Mab's tits, was I crazy? I was outside in the hard vacuum of space!

  The door raised and Deep End pinged my coms, “Ok, you crazy Enforcer, I sure hope you know what you're doing.” Then the Tug flew up just missing me as they took off up toward the A-Ring.

  I just stood there a moment until Graz said, “Flat out crazy. Of all the nulls on the world, I get stuck with the one with a death wish.” Then she addressed me directly, “You stupid big!”

  I nodded, unable to disagree as I whispered, “Pretty much,” as I stared up into the blackness between the Stacks to the nebula, shining in all its glory to remind me just how small and insignificant I was. I swallowed and whispered, “Mother?”

  She sounded amused as she said, “Commander Udriel has been informed and will be here for pickup before you finish your inspection.”

  I nodded and right on cue, Myra was on coms. I sighed and accepted it. She offered no pleasantries, “You're certifiable Shade.”

  I whispered, “That's the general consensus circulating here.”

  She whispered back, “Why are we whispering?”

  I hadn't realized I had been until then. I said normally, half in question with a little waver in my tone, “I just felt that I didn't want the universe to notice me out here, with only my Enforcer armor between me and oblivion?”

  “Valid answer, carry on.”

  I snorted and she added, “Just ping me when you're about done and I can be there in two.”

  I nodded and Mother said mechanically, “Lieutenant Shade is nodding in the affirmative.”

  “Weirdo.”

  “Ten four. I'll ping you.”

  Then I closed the channel and looked past the dome to the area I needed to look at more closely. “Something appropriate please Mother?”

  A tune called Dancing On The Ceiling by a man called Lionel Richie started to play, causing me to snort as I bopped to the beat. “Well ok... but we need to work on your humor.” If a computer can stick its tongue out at you, her silence accomplished it. See? Redheads.

  I clomped along with only the lights from the Day Lights of the A-Ring above me, and the nebula illuminating the metallic charcoal grey of the skin, my mag boots the only thing stopping me from being flung off the rotating ring into deep space.

  “Can you...”

  “Scanning the micro-etched serial numbers as you walk, Knith, if the numbering is consistent, it is the next scale.”

  Twenty more steps of my slow progress and she said, “This is it.” I nodded and asked, “Do I have power for lights?”

  Graz answered for her, “Power isn't the problem, air is.” Duh, I should have known that. With a thought, powerful beams of light at the sides of my helmet cut through the dark to illuminate the hull, I could see the micro pulses of energy generation from the photovoltaic paint which covered the Leviathan reconverting the light to power for the world.

  I envisioned the panel I had seen and took three long strides forward and saw an almost invisible seam. I paced it off and it was the same size as the jammed airlock from the scrap heap. I slowly walked the seam until I saw what I was looking for and crouched and pushed a small panel and it slid down, then in, revealing a small set of airlock controls.

  I said, “This is the place. Shall we?”

  I ignored the chorus of no's as I cycled the airlock and after it showed negative pressure inside, the door slid down the opening, revealing a smaller than standard airlock. I grabbed the hand holds of the zero-G grip bars and swung myself in, and climbed what felt like up in my new orientation and cycled the door. I sighed in relief and stood on the door then hit the second control, and after a moment external sound started to return as I heard the hissing of the compartment pressurizing.

  Then the door opened. I smiled and went up the short ladder as my armor reconverted to normal, my visor flicking up
and the micro pumps in my suit recharging my air supply for later. I pulled myself up to stand in...

  My jaw must have hit the ground as the door closed after us, because we were definitely not in a large pen for a scared animal. As far as my eyes could see was rocky terrain with lush forests and streams and waterfalls. Were these... were these mountains?

  I could smell air rich with plants and water, but my eyes couldn't completely focus on the amazing landscape that lay before me. I realized as I whispered, “It's magic. This place is saturated with a glamour so powerful I can't completely see through it. They've created a world for Ember... a gilded cage instead of a metal and ceramic box.”

  Graz buzzed out and down to some flowing moss I was standing on. She said in awe, “This looks like the Jotunheim Mountain range in Scandinavia.”

  I blinked at the sight before me, then down to her. She eludes to being old all the time, and Sprites, though possessing limited immortality, usually meet with violent ends early on in life. So not many old ones, who remember the Earth that was, remained. This is the first time she had inadvertently verified that she was one of the ancient ones of her race. Then again, they did protect their pollinators, as they were extremely rare in the tri-sexual species, so her survival was paramount to them.

  Was this what open air was like? Someone nudged my leg as we looked off across the mountains. I glanced over and said, “Hi Ember,” and started to look back toward the amazing illusion in front of us before doing a double take and almost falling on my ass, but my armor's internal gyros stabilized me.

  There standing beside us was the huge Firewyrm, looking far too cute for something so immense and dangerous, her eyes on my hip. I looked from her to my hip then grinned. I pulled out the apple from one of my belt packs, asking, “Is this what you want, girl?”

  Her immense tail swished, sparking the air behind her with unbridled magic flame. I held a hand out, retracting the nano-panels, and she moved forward, letting me place my hand on her immense muzzle. Her silverish hair was soft as down, and it heated up as it was stroked, magic pouring out from the contact.