by J. N. Chaney
Turn the key, pull it up, turn it again, push it down. That was all it took.
She glanced back at her tactical display, which was running at minimal power and showing a volume of space only a couple of hundred klicks around her. So, not only was she handcuffed with her feet fastened into place in that fighting ring, but the lights were also off, leaving her surrounded by confounding darkness.
Thorn felt Skydancer Two’s desperate hope begin its long, one-way slide into resigned despair. The woman was alone, in a dead fighter, deep in Bilau space. He desperately wanted to reach out to her, to show her she wasn’t alone. But Thorn couldn’t Join with a non-Starcaster, not this far away. He knew only one person who could do that, and she was the one person he didn’t want to drag into such a grim situation.
Thorn hung on the knife-edge of dilemma for a moment, twisting in indecision. Anything he did here would suck.
He finally blew out a sigh.
Morgan, are you there? I need your help.
Stinger Three loosed her last pair of Killshots, one targeting a Bilau light cruiser, the other an orbiting platform that may or may not be a valuable target. But it didn’t matter. She’d knocked out all of her primaries and was now free to pick targets of opportunity. And there was no way she was going back to the Corregidor with usable ordnance still on board.
The cruiser managed to knock down her Killshot with its point-defenses, and she cursed. The orbital platform wasn’t so lucky, though. The missile slammed home, making the platform stagger then start a long fall out of orbit and toward an inevitable end against the unyielding rock of the asteroid.
Her wing reappeared, sliding back into the slot behind and beside her. “Hey, Stinger Three, how are you doing?”
“I’m empty, except for about half my railgun ammo. You?”
“Same. I think it’s time to head home, huh?”
As soon as he said it, the recall beacon lit up, summoning the surviving Goshawks back to the rendezvous point, the RV, and pick-up by the Corregidor.
“Seems like Skydancer Lead thinks so, too.” She glanced at the tactical display. More Bilau fighters had scrambled and were closing in like an angry swarm of hornets. They had just enough time for recovery by the Corregidor and then a hasty retreat.
“Hey, I don’t need to be told twice,” she said, yawing the Goshawk onto a new course, away from the asteroid and the pocked, glowing debris fields that had once been Bilau installations.
The Goshawk settled into its new trajectory. Stinger Three seized the moment to finally relax, allowing herself a momentary breather—but only a momentary breather. As her flight instructors had driven into her, the op was finished when you took your boots off and fell into your rack, and not a moment before.
“Hi there.”
Skydancer Two yelped and turned. She wasn’t sure what the actual last thing she’d expect to have seen would be, but a little girl wasn’t one of them.
She shook her head. “So I’m hallucinating now. Great.”
Actually, you’re not, a somber baritone said, except it somehow came from inside her thoughts.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m seeing little girls, and now I’m hearing voices. That sounds like hallucinating to me,” she said.
Again, it’s not. It’s magic.
“That’s my dad,” the little girl said. “He asked me to make it so that he could talk to you. This is the only way I know how to do it.”
I’m Thorn Stellers, Lieutenant Commander. I’m a Starcaster aboard the Hecate.
“Stellers. Oh. The space wizard.”
He felt a glimmer of amusement. Space wizard?
“Yeah. That’s what we call you Starcasters. So I’m really talking to you?”
With the help of my daughter, yeah, you are. She’s acting as a sort of conduit. A bridge. A—He paused. It doesn’t matter. We can talk. That’s what matters.
“I’m Morgan,” the little girl said. “I guess you’re in trouble, huh?”
“You might say that, yeah. But it’s nice to, um, meet you, Morgan.”
“What’s your name?”
Skydancer Two leaned back in her g-couch. During an op, she wasn’t used to thinking of herself as anything but a callsign. That was an operational security thing. But she suspected that this op was probably over.
“I’m Tannis.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
Skydancer Two gave a tired smile. “Thank you.”
She still hadn’t figured out quite how the girl, apparently named Morgan, could be sitting with her in the Goshawk’s cockpit. There simply wasn’t room. She should be sitting half-in and half-outside, but here she was, apparently able to fit perfectly well. But she didn’t.
Skydancer Two shook her head. She knew almost nothing about magic, but she knew it was definitely a thing, so this strange fitting but not fitting must be a thing, too.
Tannis, you can call me Thorn. So what’s your status?
“I think the technical term for it is screwed,” she replied, looking at the trigger for the scuttling charge.
Is there any way I can help you? Would it help to talk to an engineer, maybe?
“An engineer might be able to tell me what’s wrong, but I sincerely doubt they could do anything about it.”
Okay. Then what I can do is use magic to pull you back here, to the Hecate.
“And what happens to my poor old Goshawk here? The automated scuttling system is as offline as everything else. The only way I can activate it is manually.”
Shit.
“My thoughts exactly. That is, unless you can do your space wizard stuff and bring me home between me hitting that trigger and the charge detonating.”
There was a long pause. She looked at Morgan, who frowned. “Dad? Did you hear that?”
Thorn finally answered, his tone sorrowful. Yes, I did. And the answer is, no, I can’t.
Skydancer Two smiled again and nodded. “Didn’t think so. Oh, but thank you anyway, sir.”
For what?
“For being honest with me. You could have said, I’ll try, or there’s a pretty good chance. Hell, you could even have said, sure, I can do that. No way I’d have known the difference, right?” She smiled again and closed her eyes. She was tired.
“But you decided to tell me the truth. I appreciate that,” she went on. “But do not beat yourself up about it. The day I strapped one of these fighters to my ass is the day I accepted I’d likely die in one. In other words, I regret nothing.”
Her voice trailed off as a proximity alarm sounded. A Bilau fighter had pulled up close and was hammering her with scanners.
“I think it’s almost time for me to check out, sir,” she said.
Is there, I don’t know, anyone I can—
“Talk to? Pass a message to? Tell my wife I love her, that sort of thing?”
That finally made her tear up. She lifted her visor and wiped her eyes. “Nah. If she doesn’t know it by now, she never will—”
A hand took hers. Morgan had reached out and, somehow, held her hand with the feel of warm skin on skin, despite her flight glove. “I’m so sorry,” Morgan whispered, tears suddenly brimming from her eyes.
“Actually, sir, you can tell my wife something. Tell her I died with a sweet girl holding my hand. And that that made it a whole lot easier.”
I will.
The Bilau fighter sidled in closer. As it did, it swung its shark-like prow directly toward her. Skydancer Two, who was also called Tannis, saw the gaping snout of a projectile weapon line up on her canopy. The bastard was going to try a point-blank, precision shot to kill her but leave most of the Goshawk intact.
Just what I would have done, she thought, reaching down, turning the trigger on the scuttling charge, then yanking it up and twisting it again.
She turned to look at Morgan and smiled.
“Thank you, Morgan. And thank you, Thorn, too.”
Still smiling, she shoved the trigger down.
Thorn
opened his eyes. The hard reality of the witchport surrounded him, unchanged since the op began.
He had no more active Joinings.
Wait, no. Not true. He did have one.
Inside his thoughts, he heard Morgan weeping.
22
Thorn had desperately wanted to pry himself away from his duties long enough to spend time with Morgan. Guilt wracked him over pulling her into the Goshawk pilot’s death, despite the fact that everyone who knew about it, from Densmore to Tanner, had insisted it had been the right thing, the human thing, to do. But the only person whose opinion really mattered was Kira, and he braced himself for the worst when he told her about it. He’d expected her to lash out and accepted that he deserved it.
“I—I was Joined, and so was Morgan and the pilot—” Thorn began.
“She already told me about it,” Kira said. “Not long after it happened.” Her tone was colored with a deep sadness. Death had come too close to their daughter, if only through the mind of a lost pilot.
“Oh, for—I haven’t even talked to her. Is she okay? Or did I, I don’t know. Did I do some sort of lasting harm to her?”
Kira smiled. “She’s not made of starlight, Thorn. Think of what that girl’s been though, and how much it didn’t screw her up. She’s tough. Unfortunately, she’s also used to death. But I think that, in this case, you did exactly the right thing. As sad as it made her, she told me she was glad she got to help this poor woman in her last moments alive.”
Kira paused, then smiled again. “Actually, she asked me to make sure you were okay.”
That made Thorn swell with a little pride—but it was tinged with sadness. It spoke to a Morgan who should just still be a kid but wasn’t anymore.
He didn’t have time to brood over it, though. A summons arrived from Tanner, pulling him to the Hecate’s CIC. Thorn had managed to get his feelings back on an even keel by the time he arrived there, but he still had a question on his face at the unexpected call from Tanner.
The Commodore didn’t make him wait. “Stellers, you and Bertilak are going for a little trip.”
“Sir?”
“The Allied Stars Council and Fleet Command both agree with the Meksun. Three Bilau are going to be captured and placed in cryosleep. And you and Bertilak are going to be the ones to do it.”
Bertilak fussed with the Jolly’s controls. As he did, he glanced at Thorn, who sat in the copilot’s seat, elbows resting on the console, his chin on interlaced fingers.
“You’ve been a lot more introspective than usual since we left, my friend. Is there anything you want to talk about?” Bertilak asked.
Thorn leaned back and sighed. “No. And yes.”
“Ah. Well, then I’ll mind my own business and also offer to help.”
Thorn smiled briefly, then waved at the screen. Their quarry, a fat transport, plodded along ahead of them, a single corvette as escort. Thorn had been Shading the Jolly as they approached, and they were nearly close enough to start their attack run.
“It’s everything about this,” Thorn finally said. “We’re going to pretty much randomly pick three Bilau out of a population of billions, then wipe out the rest. Technically, it’s not genocide. But it really is, isn’t it?”
Bertilak shrugged. “No. And yes.”
Thorn rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know. I’m just getting tired of it all. So many civilians, so many innocent lives lost. So much property destroyed. So many kids forced to grow up without getting a chance to be kids—”
“Thorn, you just need to love Morgan for who and what she is, not regret who she might have been. Do that, and you’ll just miss more of her life, then regret that…”
Thorn looked at Bertilak for a moment, then smiled. “For a big green alien guy, you have some excellent insights into how to human properly.”
“Being a big, green alien guy is an advantage when it comes to that. I’ve got the outside perspective.” Thorn opened his mouth to reply, but Bertilak held up a finger. “And, we’re now in firing range of that Bilau escort. I’d be happy to keep discussing the ethics of war and Morgan’s situation with you, but—”
“We’re here in the middle of Bilau space to do a job, yeah, I know.” Thorn sat up. “Anytime you’re ready, Bertilak.”
The alien nodded, then tapped at the controls, accelerating the Jolly directly toward the corvette’s aft port quarter. Bertilak watched his display, then nodded. “Okay.”
Thorn dropped the Shade. An instant later, Bertilak opened up on the unaware corvette. Twin streams of emerald pulses slammed into it, ripping its hull open. Its drive lit, though whether intentionally or because of the damage, Thorn didn’t know. And he didn’t care. He’d let Bertilak take care of it, while he kept an eye out for any other trouble.
Bertilak spun the Jolly as it swept by the stricken corvette, pouring more fire into it, raking it along its length. Its power died, and what had just seconds ago been a sleek warship was now just a drifting hulk. Bertilak immediately reoriented the Jolly and began closing fast on the cumbersome transport.
“I hope this isn’t where we find out that we’re about to board a troopship,” Thorn said.
“If it is, then we’ll just destroy it and go find another target.” He glanced at Thorn. “They’re Bilau, so they’d all have to die eventually, right?”
Thorn said nothing and just stood to go get suited up in his vac-armor.
The transport had put up a spirited, if fruitless, defense with its point-defense batteries. Between some precision shooting by Bertilak and Thorn’s careful use of magic, they silenced them, then brought the Jolly alongside the far more massive transport. The docking port adapter took a moment to configure itself to the Bilau airlock, then clamped down and locked. Bertilak led the way into the Bilau transport, Thorn close behind, his sidearm drawn.
They reached a junction of two corridors. A greenish, mildewy fuzz coated the decks and bulkheads in patches. The environmental system of Thorn’s suit told him the air was breathable, but incredibly dank and humid, the way the Bilau seemed to like it. Bertilak stopped at the junction and glanced back at Thorn.
He’d already started reaching out, feeling magically for the minds of the crew. Most of them were forward, probably in the bridge and crew hab, the rest of the ship being mostly empty space for cargo. Thorn pointed to the left.
“That way, but give me a second.”
Bertilak waited as Thorn scryed out the powerplant in engineering, then crafted a Scorch ’casting to incinerate the key power couplings. A few seconds later, the ship went dark. Emergency lighting, dim and grey, came online.
“Just wanted to make sure they didn’t scuttle the ship with us aboard,” Thorn said.
“They might still have explosive charges,” Bertilak replied in a bright tone.
“You’re full of happy thoughts, aren’t you?”
“It’s a gift. That, and great teeth.”
“Your teeth were made by magic,” Thorn countered.
“I stand by my assertion,” Bertilak said, smiling broadly.
They carried on. Thorn unerringly guided them to the crew, his face caught in a half-wince the whole way at the thought of the ship suddenly exploding around him as scuttling charges detonated. But they stayed intact and found the crew huddling on the bridge. Thorn used Hammer magic to rip open a blast door, then Bertilak strode in.
Thorn followed close behind, but the alien still managed to incapacitate two of the Bilau who tried to resist before he’d even fully entered the compartment. The rest quickly surrendered.
It took only a moment to bind them, then render them comatose with a potent soporific gas. That left Thorn and Bertilak staring at nine unconscious Bilau. They needed three.
“Any preference?” Bertilak asked.
Thorn stared at the inert aliens. He reminded himself that this race was itself apocalyptically genocidal, and they certainly wouldn’t be shedding tears if the situation were reversed. But did it matter? Did feeling terr
ible about doing this change the fact that it was exactly what the Bilau had done to the Meksun? How were humans any better?
Sudden fury at the Bilau swept through Thorn. How dare they put him into a position like this one to begin with. He suddenly stabbed out a finger. “That one. And that one. And that one on the end.”
Bertilak nodded. The Bilau were small enough that he could carry all three of them back to the Jolly without too much effort.
They cast off and moved a hundred klicks off. Without a word, Bertilak opened fire, quickly reducing the transport to tangled, glowing wreckage.
Thorn kept his eyes fixed on the destruction playing out on the viewscreen.
“I look at this way,” Bertilak said, powering down the Jolly’s weapons. “I’m made of magic, and even I know they did this to themselves. They must have known it would eventually lead to their destruction. I guess I’ll never understand organics.”
Thorn glanced at him. “I’m an organic.”
Bertilak regarded him for a long moment, then shrugged. “If you insist.”
The three Bilau were tried aboard the Memphis, one of the hangar bays converted to a makeshift courtroom. The trial dragged on for almost three days, Thorn being called on each day to testify about one thing or another, from what he’d found on the dead Meksun planet, to the rescue of his daughter from the Bilau’s clutches. It had been far from the most strenuous thing he’d ever done, but by the third day, he felt completely drained.
For their part, the Bilau insisted that they pretty much put the under into underlings—the classic I was just following orders defense, backed up by a healthy dose of we had no idea what terrible things our superiors were up to. But Kira, monitoring the three as they testified, could tell they were holding something back.