by Claudia Gray
This is just one more of the many reasons he needs his body back.
Soon, he promises himself as he shuffles sideways to sit in another of the three positions available to him. At least it changes his vantage point. You’ll return to Haven and reclaim your body before long.
If he could find hope in that equipment pod bay, surely he can find it within a Smasher.
Several hours later, Noemi returns to the docking bay. She’s wearing her simple black utilitarian garb again, and by now her hair has grown back in. It’s still extremely short, but not too short to get rumpled. Even through his grainy vision, Abel can tell that she looks like herself again: determined, alert, strong. This is the Noemi he fell in love with.
The impending challenge threatens them; so does the greater war. Until they’ve overcome these dangers, he must find hope where he can.
“Hello there,” Noemi says. Her smile is wistful. “I miss your face.”
“I miss many parts of my body.”
She laughs. “I bet you do.”
Was that perhaps a double entendre? Abel hopes so. It would be good to feel that he was making some progress in learning how to flirt.
Though in this body, there’s a limit to how much progress he can make. It’s like trying to be sexy while wearing a bulldozer.
On the nearby control panel screen, Noemi brings up the same image Harriet and Zayan must see on the bridge—the space just within the Haven system, the Gate an enormous circle of silver in the background. Blurry as the black-and-white, two-dimensional is for Abel, he can make out the basic elements of the scene.
As they’d predicted, a large group of Vagabond ships—hundreds, if not thousands—has already gathered. Some of these are vessels filled with would-be migrants to Haven, stalled by the size of the gathering and the uncertainty of what’s going on. Others have responded to the messages that were sent out, expressing their dissatisfaction with Krall’s disloyalty. Probably some ships are here only to rubberneck; the showdown to come will fuel galactic gossip for years to come.
At least a few of them must have come to defend Krall. Abel imagines they’ll find out which ones soon enough.
Noemi says, “Long-range scans show the Katara approaching. It’s showtime.”
No sooner has she spoken than comms begin to chime. From her place beside Abel, Noemi opens a channel. “Am I speaking to Dagmar Krall, the supposed defender of the Vagabonds?”
The screen shifts to an image of Krall on her bridge. Her hair, normally worn free, is severely tied back into a knot. Given his current lack of visual clarity, Abel cannot determine her expression.
This conversation isn’t between the two ships alone; every Vagabond ship that wants to listen in can do so.
(Given human curiosity, he imagines most of them want to.)
“Yes,” comes the defiant reply. “This is Dagmar Krall, leader of the Krall Consortium, and I demand to know who dares—”
“Who dares call you out for what you actually did?” Noemi cuts in. “That would be me, Noemi Vidal. Vidal of Genesis.”
“Then you should appreciate that what I did was part of the pact between my Consortium and Genesis. That it was necessary to protect my people.”
“Oh, like you protected Abel?” Noemi folds her arms. “The guy you welcomed into your group and then betrayed? Wasn’t he one of ‘your people’?”
Krall meets her gaze without flinching. “Yes. I did that to Abel. I regret that it was necessary, but I had no other choice.”
Abel, who’s hulking just out of sight, is discouraged. They’d hoped to provoke Krall into reacting harshly and unwisely, which would further weaken her authority. Instead, Dagmar Krall sits as straight as a queen on her throne.
She continues, “My first duty is to the Vagabonds in my Consortium. Their first need is a place for them and their families to call home once their spacefaring is done. I doubt any one of them would hesitate to sacrifice their lives to give a home to all the others; certainly I wouldn’t. One life is a small price to pay for the prosperity of thousands.”
Fishing for loyalty. Praising her people. Krall’s clever, Abel thinks.
Noemi’s clever, too. “Easy for you to say when it was Abel’s life on the line, not yours. And it’s not smart, putting all your trust in Genesis, because Genesis doesn’t trust you. Any of you. Trust the one person here who grew up on Genesis and understands the culture. Outsiders aren’t welcome.”
“The Elder Council has made us promises,” Krall says. “They’ve offered us places to live.”
With a shrug, Noemi replies, “Maybe some members of the Consortium will find homes there, but most of you will always be ‘offworlders,’ and the current leadership will find any excuse it can to throw you out.”
“We won the Battle of Genesis. They owe us for that.”
Noemi shrugs. “I’m the one who brought you into the alliance in the first place. I’ve served Genesis my entire life. But they threw me offworld when they realized I’d—that I’d had too many artificial organs implanted for them to consider me human anymore.”
It’s not the whole truth, Abel thinks, but it is as close as Noemi can get without an overly long digression. The point she’s making is fundamentally true.
Noemi adds, “If Genesis isn’t willing to let one of their own wounded soldiers live there, how likely do you think they are to welcome you?”
“That’s a chance we have to take,” Krall says. Her voice has taken on an edge. “How much longer does Earth have? Not even a century, according to most estimates. Billions and billions of people have to find other homes, and most of the worlds of the Loop can’t house enough of them. Haven, down there—those of us who’ve had Cobweb might find a future there, but that’s a minority. A new Gate is being built in the Kismet system, but who knows if the planet on the other side will even be habitable? For the large majority of us, Genesis is our only hope. We have to trust them, and you’ll forgive me if I can’t endanger the future of my people for the sake of one mech.”
The signal crackles with interference. Abel would frown if he had a mouth. Interference is odd, this far away from a planet with no mass communications systems yet. Either there’s been a sudden surge in solar flares or—
—or someone is deliberately interfering.
In the background of the Persephone bridge, Harriet whispers, “Oh, crikey.”
Zayan must’ve split the screen views, because at the bottom, Abel now sees a small group of exosuited warrior mechs on approach from Haven, pointing directly at the Persephone like an arrow of steel.
“Transmission to all vessels within Haven system,” says an artificial, metallic voice. A number appears on-screen, suggesting the rough amount of credits it would take to purchase a small moon. “That’s for the ship that brings proof of the destruction of the Persephone.”
Noemi’s fingers cut the audio just in time for her to mutter, “Ooooookay. Turns out there’s a flaw in our plan. A major one.”
“I doubt Gillian Shearer has foreseen our greater strategy,” Abel says. “Mansfield’s probably only trying to kill me. Given my actions and statements within the Winter Castle, Professor Mansfield must have realized my soul survived. He knows I’ll attempt to regain my body, which means he won’t feel safe until he knows he’s obliterated me completely.”
Krall’s voice comes through comms, though she’s not speaking to the Persephone, only to her Consortium at large. “Everyone hold. That’s an order. We’re not bounty hunters, especially not for the likes of the people who tried to steal Haven from the galaxy.”
“Maybe you aren’t,” says another voice, coming from the captain of one of the many ships swarmed near. “For that amount of money? It’s worth changing careers.”
“Same here!” yells another.
“Oh no,” Noemi mutters. “No, no, no.”
But her protests are useless. Abel can see two ships peeling off from the Consortium, heading in his direction. Another ship follows—th
en another.
Noemi opens the channel to the bridge. “How many hostiles are we looking at?”
Zayan answers, “We’ve only got a couple dozen coming in for the attack—the rest are obeying Krall, which is a good thing, I guess? But it would only take one of them to blow us to smithereens. What are we going to do?”
“We evade and see if we can’t pick up some defenders.” Noemi half turns to the door, then looks back at Abel. “If you even think about tossing yourself out an air lock or some other heroic-sacrifice crap, I swear to God I’ll make you regret it.”
“No heroic-sacrifice crap,” he promises. “Got it.”
For an instant, Noemi almost smiles. But then she rushes through the air lock door, once again becoming a soldier preparing for battle.
Abel lowers himself as much as he can in this bulky body, the better to study the screen that shows the battle. The Persephone is unarmed. Twenty-six—no, twenty-seven Vagabond ships are incoming, with a variety of weapons and shielding. That would mean nothing if the Katara would defend them; the Katara is a massive ship with many weapons and a near-impenetrable hull. But for the moment, Dagmar Krall remains out of the fight, unwilling to fire on her own people.
The Persephone cannot possibly defend itself.
Abel can envision flight patterns that could help keep them alive, but no human pilot—even an experienced pilot and mech hybrid like Noemi—would be able to implement the course changes quickly enough.
He could, if only his current body weren’t so clumsy and large.
If only his body were something else altogether…
But it can be.
Abel reaches out through the Tether, seeking contact. Soon he senses something with the comm bandwidth and memory to hold his consciousness—the largest, most active input on the ship.
Which is the ship.
He imagines the propeller plane from Casablanca once more. It worked last time—and it works again. His consciousness leaves the Smasher and flows into its new home, like fresh blood pumping through unfamiliar veins. Every circuit, every part, becomes one with Abel, his new machine body.
I no longer own the Persephone, he thinks. I am the Persephone.
When he locates the sensors, he looks through them and can see again—this time in stunning detail and range, more than he ever could in his original body. He can even see in multiple directions at once. He brings more and more systems out of automatic mode until they’re under his direct control. The deep chill of outer space surrounds him, but without damage or pain; the sensation is delightful.
Internal sensors—check. He can see the bridge now, where Noemi, Zayan, and Harriet are all in various states of panic. “Each system is going down, one after the other!” Zayan shouts. “What the hell is going on?”
“Maybe they’re scrambling our signals?” Noemi takes the captain’s chair, desperate to regain control. She doesn’t yet know she’s in safe hands.
Abel finally finds the engines. He would’ve thought they would seem roughly analogous to his legs or feet, a means of locomotion. Instead, it’s their fire he feels, blossoming in the place he thinks of as his heart.
33
EVERY CONTROL LIGHT AND DISPLAY ON THE BRIDGE flares brighter, then dims, erratic changes without meaning. Noemi’s gut drops. She has no idea what’s happening to the Persephone, but it doesn’t take a master pilot to figure out that your ship controls going haywire is an extremely bad sign.
“We’ve got three enemy vessels coming in fast,” Harriet says, as evenly as any combat pilot. “Any ideas?”
Noemi jabs at the controls, but the helm’s not responding. The Katara and the array of other ships around them still aren’t attacking, but they’re not moving in to defend the Persephone either.
I knew our plan was a gamble, but I thought we’d make it a little further than this!
Her primary goal hadn’t even been to start a fight with Krall or anyone else, only to reveal the true reason not to trust Genesis—but it doesn’t look like Noemi will get a chance to say so. They went straight from posturing to arguing to this.
The ship’s mag engines flare to full power. She turns to ops, where Zayan sits, and he shrugs in confusion. If he didn’t make that happen, the ship did it itself, and as far as Noemi knows, the next thing it might do is explode.
Instead, the Persephone accelerates straight toward the attacking ships.
Both Harriet and Zayan cry out. Noemi’s battle training lets her stay calm on the outside, but tells her that within a couple of seconds, they’re going to smash themselves to atoms—
The Persephone banks at the last moment, skimming low across the largest enemy ship’s surface. Noemi startles when she sees a small weapons array in front of them on that ship’s hull, anticipating the collision. But the array turns out to be too lightweight to stop the Persephone. They smash right through it before taking a sharp left to hit another array, then whipping around the side of the ship to knock an entire weapons array loose from its moorings. Impact warnings light up the ops panel across from her, but even from her place at the helm, Noemi can tell the Persephone has taken only the most minor damage.
As for the other ships, they’re holding fire. They can’t shoot at the Persephone without hitting the other ship, too, and Vagabond loyalty is too strong for that.
We’re… okay, Noemi thinks in bewilderment. How are we okay?
Then on the bridge viewscreen, superimposed in the same typeface for a text-only message, appear the words HOW AM I DOING?
“Abel,” she breathes. “Abel’s doing this!”
Harriet hasn’t quite caught up. “How’s Abel flying the ship from the docking bay?”
Noemi’s grinning more than she has in a long time. Maybe ever. “He’s not flying the ship. He is the ship.”
A soul can’t be chained, she thinks. The soul is limitless. That makes it more powerful than any physical body can ever be.
They bank again, skimming along the bottom of the Katara, using Krall’s ship as their shield. Zayan whoops out loud, and Harriet begins to laugh.
Abel has done it all. Noemi thinks it’s the closest thing to a miracle she’s ever seen.
The new part of her brain whispers that she could get even closer to this miracle, if she’s ready.
Taking a deep breath, Noemi closes her eyes and opens her mind—reaching out with her own tech, trying to make wireless contact with the ship. She won’t be able to claim it the way Abel seems to have done; she still needs her body. But maybe she could potentially tap into some functions, sense what’s going on even if she can’t control it.…
In the darkness behind her eyelids, a sort of reality begins to take shape—if shape is the right word. She can sense it around her, know its dimensions, but it’s not the sort of thing she can see. Maybe this is how bats perceive things through sonar. Regardless, Noemi is surrounded by the inner intelligence of the Persephone, fording rivers of power and data, feeling it flow past. Her physical body still exists—is still in place in her seat at ops—but that reality seems trivial compared to the digital one.
A flicker of energy curls around her—warms her, surrounds her—
Abel?
—Of all the gin joints in all the world, she had to walk into mine—
She can’t laugh here, but she thinks he senses her joy. Show me how to steer this thing.
—An excellent plan—
The exact sensation is indescribable, but to Noemi it seems sort of as if Abel were standing behind her at the helm, his body warm against hers, his hands caressing her arms all the way down until their fingers entwine. They move together, as one, sending the Persephone soaring around to shield itself with the Katara. The ship skims close to the Katara’s surface, so much so that no Vagabond ships can fire on them without risking the Katara, too. Even the Vagabonds who don’t belong to the Consortium don’t want to risk the wrath of Dagmar Krall.
This is the perfect strategy, she thinks.
—
Perfection is impossible in reality. This is, however, extremely effective—
Noemi’s never been this close to anyone. It’s not about bodies, since Abel doesn’t have one. She hasn’t had sex yet, but she already senses that any physical closeness would be only trying to mimic this intense intimacy between her and Abel—two minds separated by only the finest film of electrons. His love for her radiates through every circuit, every chip, and she knows he can feel hers, too.
Can he tell the difference between her programming and her heart? Can he show her the line between what she only feels because of Shearer’s commands, and what she’ll feel always?
—We mustn’t forget to fly the ship—
Oh, right, we’re in a battle.
She can sense Abel’s amusement as he “steps back”—still tied to her, but turning his attention to other things. Noemi takes sole charge of the helm, in order to free him up.
Through sensors she can feel the point of an arrow—fighter mechs, coming at them, no doubt deployed by the Haven vessel. Oh no, she thinks. Other ships can’t target us when we’re this close to the Katara, but Queens and Charlies can. Abel, can you stop them with one of those scrambler beams?
—I’m not sure, Abel says. Being the ship while simultaneously using the beams—it’s a complex set of tasks. Still, I suppose I must try—
But just then the arrow changes shape. It shifts from an arrow to a circle, just for two full seconds. Then the mechs fly straight toward the center of that circle, colliding with each other in one flash of destruction.
Did you do that? Noemi thinks.
—I did not, Abel replies. Perhaps the mechs received an aberrant signal from the Haven surface?—
Realization lights Noemi up like electricity. Virginia! Virginia must’ve managed to tap into their signal! She’s still alive and she’s giving Shearer hell.