The Drift Wars

by James, Brett

  The fighters closed in, near enough to see through his farce. He was certain that they had—they were aimed right at him—but he had to play it out. Certainly the Riel knew about this ship and certainly they were keeping an eye on it. Were they expecting him? Was it a trap?

  The ships arced upward, passing over the hallway, so close their exhaust buffeted the glass. And then they were gone, shrinking into the distance. Peter reached the ship; its door was wide open. He allowed himself a smile, but it didn’t last.

  There was a flicker of movement, something fluttering behind the ship. A large piece of metal swung up and over the hull, pressing against the roof. Another came around the front. Giant, red-skinned fingers gripped the cockpit and the ship rolled back on its mooring as it took the weight. A monstrous golden eye rose up in front of Peter; the lustrous cornea rippled as the iris tightened to an angry dot.

  — — —

  Peter staggered backward as the Typhon rose on its spidery metal legs. It had a devil’s face, with pointed teeth and shark-smooth red skin that turned black at the top, resembling hair. Thick horns curved out from its forehead, one of which was half broken. The creature towered into space, looking down at Peter through the dock’s glass ceiling. It spread its heavy arms, either for balance or to attack.

  The very sight of a Typhon usually made Peter freeze with fear, but he now saw it with clarity; it wasn’t some terrible, nightmarish demon. It was a manufactured soldier, just like Peter. It was dangerous and horrifying, but it could be killed.

  It’ll have to be, he thought.

  The Typhon gazed down at him with the same curiosity that Peter had witnessed in the central hub. It was curious what he was. Curious why he was here. It stretched a leg out and tapped the glass overhead. The noise was deafening, the point chiseling the glass. Peter forced himself to remain still. The creature tilted its head, perplexed by his inaction.

  There was no point in dashing for the ship; the Typhon could tear it apart. Peter backed up calmly, smiling casually at the Typhon. He got about twenty paces before the Typhon’s face twisted with anger, its mouth opening as if to roar. Peter turned and ran.

  The Typhon leaped onto the hall, which bowed under its weight. Then it jumped again, landing right over Peter and driving its spiked feet at him on both sides. Glass shards flew through the room and a sharp-pointed foot grazed Peter’s back. He ran faster and the Typhon chased behind.

  Metal legs jabbed through the glass around him. Peter ducked under one leg, then hurtled over another. A third caught his calf, slicing through both suit and flesh. Peter staggered and fell as another knocked the back of his helmet. He rolled with the fall, coming up on his feet, but another leg blocked the way. The Typhon, watching through the glass, withdrew the leg to let him pass.

  Why doesn’t it just kill me? he wondered. It had enough weaponry to wipe out a regiment. Peter thought back to the base’s hub, to how the Typhons had toyed with their victims before killing them. Toyed with people. Fury welled inside Peter, but he held it back. Anger wouldn’t help. He needed to be cunning.

  He strode toward the base, taking measured steps, an easy target. The Typhon curled up to pounce, shaking with excitement, eyes riveted on Peter.

  Peter tightened the focus on his rifle and aimed at the airlock. He held down the trigger and used the beam to draw a circle around the doorframe. The Typhon shifted its legs, eyes wide.

  The doorframe was glowing orange when the first clip ran dry. Peter swapped in the second without taking his finger from the trigger. The Typhon pounced.

  Peter hopped forward as the metal legs sliced through the walls. He sprinted at full tilt and the Typhon bounded after him, batting at him like an oversize kitten.

  The second clip ran dry twenty feet from the airlock. The doorframe glowed like a bright red lasso. But the floor was no longer shaking. Peter looked back.

  The docks were ruined, a twisted metal frame that spiraled into the distance. The Typhon was perched on top, looking first at Peter and then at the airlock. The weapons at its midsection—machine guns and rocket launchers—ratcheted forward.

  Does it know? Peter wondered.

  He slapped the last battery into his rifle, switched to rapid pulse, and fired right into the Typhon’s eye. The gun wouldn’t do any real damage, but he hoped to piss it off. He did.

  The Typhon leaped at Peter, landing on the glass overhead. It ripped the hallway in half and shoved the back part away—along with the escape ship—to squeeze inside. It shot forward, legs closing around Peter like a giant claw.

  Peter dropped the gun and body-slammed the airlock. The door fell away, glowing metal strands stretching like taffy from the molten frame. The Typhon’s legs pierced the walls, shredding it as they clamped together, coming at Peter on all sides. The spiked points zeroed in on his head and chest, then suddenly stopped.

  The Typhon’s space-cold legs had frozen the molten doorframe on contact, trapping the legs in a metal ring. Its joints twitched harmlessly against Peter’s suit.

  The Typhon twisted and bucked, shaking the entire room. In moments it would tear the whole wall out, but Peter was already on the move.

  He rolled, turning upside down and using his boot magnets to run up the underside of one of the Typhon’s legs. He dove for the disk that separated the metal from the meat, grabbing the edge and flipping smoothly to the top.

  The Typhon’s machine guns strobed and its rockets flared, but too late. Peter jumped inside the circle of weaponry. He didn’t doubt that the monster would turn its weapons on itself, but it didn’t seem able to.

  Peter swung his feet onto the Typhon’s rugged stomach. It was as hard as rock and, he was happy to discover, iron-rich. His boot magnets locked to the red flesh and he sprinted up its torso. He ducked a swipe by one massive arm and dodged left to avoid the other.

  He sprung off the chest, caught the chin in both hands, and leap-frogged over the snapping teeth. He landed on the bridge of the nose; the giant eyes crossed to look at him. A large hand swatted at him, but it was too far away.

  Peter pulled the last explosive from his belt, ripped off the cover, and slammed it down with both hands, dead center on the Typhon’s forehead. He twisted it in place and then pulled, flinging himself forward.

  The moment his hands were clear, he triggered the charge and flipped around to watch the explosion. The monstrous head blew apart, disappearing in a cloud of black blood.

  The Typhon’s body struggled for another minute before realizing that it was dead. Peter sailed off into space, his own laughter echoing painfully inside his helmet.

  [20.74.9.72::1938.7493.738.8D]

  Peter twirled slowly off into space. He locked the motors in his suit to blend in with the other debris and watched the base shrink into the distance. No one investigated the dead Typhon for two hours. After that Peter was too far away to see.

  A flurry of shuttles ran between the Riel battlecruiser and the remains of the base. Were they studying it? Stealing food? Whatever they were doing, Peter hoped they would finish soon.

  He was desperate to link to Linda, to find out if she was okay, but to transmit when the Riel were nearby would be fatal to them both. Instead he studied the shuttles and tried to fathom what the Riel were after.

  A flat chunk of the base’s hull floated past. Peter got a hand on it and pulled it in front of him.

  — — —

  By the tenth hour Peter was a wreck. His air was half gone and he had floated deep into space; the base was the size of a coin. Shuttle activity had continued nonstop, and he worried that the Riel were moving in.

  He worried about Linda too. Had he sealed her suit properly? Minor leaks were common and easy to fix, but Linda had no control over her suit. By now even the smallest leak would have bled her air tank dry.

  He tried no
t to imagine Linda suffocating, but he couldn’t escape it. There were few distractions, and the need to contact her itched under his skin.

  — — —

  After two more grueling hours, there was a swarm of light as the fighterships and shuttles returned to the battlecruiser. The cruiser, a distant needle under full magnification, rotated to face the Drift boundary.

  A translucent blue cone grew from its bow, drilling a hole in the orange haze. The massive engines fired, as bright as any sun, and the ship plunged in, heading back to its own universe.

  The hole closed behind it and all was still.

  — — —

  He managed to wait another fifteen minutes before opening the comm.

  “Peter?” Linda’s response was both urgent and thick with disbelief.

  “It’s me,” he said.

  “I…” she stammered, “I can’t believe you made it.”

  “We both made it. How do you feel?”

  “Cold,” she said, “it’s very cold out here.”

  “We’ll get you warm soon. It’s all over.”

  “Yes,” Linda said, “I saw them leave. You made it.”

  “We made it,” Peter said, embarrassed by how eager he sounded. He had a lot to say, a lot to explain, but he wanted to wait until they were together.

  “I’ll get us a ship,” he said. “You keep watch. If you see anything, anything at all, just say ‘incoming’ and then go radio silent. You got that?”

  “Got it.”

  Peter tried to think of more to say but couldn’t. He turned back to the wrecked base.

  — — —

  Peter raised the piece of hull over his head, used his stabilizers to aim directly away from the base, and heaved with all his might.

  Tossing the debris in one direction sent him in the opposite. He turned to watch the base approach, but his speed was so slight and the distance so great that he had to use his suit’s tracking system to see that he was moving.

  — — —

  A half hour later his boot magnets clicked to the base’s hull. He stayed on the edge, jogging to the Section 13 docks. The airlock door had been cut away and the dead Typhon removed. Do they know we’re still alive? he wondered. He looked out at the white ship. It floated nearby, the broken hallway still attached. Was it a trap?

  Peter decided to leap. It would have been safer to get a fresh rocket pack, but he didn’t know where to find one and he’d rather not go back inside to look.

  He sprang from the hull and soared through space, catching the framework and scurrying to the ship’s open door. The interior was like a standard shuttle—a single room behind the cockpit with three rows of seats and room for cargo. But the scale was minuscule; the ship was designed for someone half his size.

  Sakazuarians, Peter thought. Or whatever they’re called. He crawled to the cockpit. He was too large to fit, so he leaned in, squeezing his shoulders through the doorway.

  The controls looked simple enough. There was a stick for direction and a throttle to control the speed. He poked around the console, pressing the most likely buttons, and the engine hummed to life. He then released the dock and flew the ship in a slow figure eight, getting the feel of it.

  “Linda?”

  “Still here.”

  “I need you to talk, so I can triangulate on your signal.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just keep transmitting.” Then, as an afterthought, “Tell me a story.”

  “I can see the promenade deck from here,” she said.

  “The room with all of the windows?”

  “Yes, that one. I was married there.”

  “What?” Peter blurted. He cut the comm, suddenly short of breath. They were married. It was several minutes before he could reopen the link.

  “—ter, are you there?” Linda asked, spooked.

  “I’m right here,” Peter said. “Everything is fine. Tell me about it.”

  “I don’t know if—”

  “Please.”

  “Okay,” Linda said. It was a few moments before she spoke. “Nobody had ever been married on the base before, so we made up our own ceremony. You had proposed to me right after officer training, but it took weeks to arrange everything. We kept it a secret as best we could, afraid of what the General would do. But even that was fun, sneaking around and talking in code. We called it the Event.

  “The morning of, the other nurses surprised me with a dress. They had sewn together some old uniforms and made a train out of bedsheets. It was horrible, but it was wonderful. You should have seen it.”

  Peter’s fists were tight, mangling the throttle. He forced his hands open, raised them to the air, and tried not to punch anything.

  “Peter… I mean, my Peter, ordered the promenade deck shut for repairs. Chiang San officiated and all of your sergeants were there. We even had a honeymoon of sorts, locked in the cargo bay of a naval destroyer. The ship spent three days pretending to chase an enemy scout while we… It was amazing, Peter. It was a gift.”

  Peter cut the comm.

  — — —

  He found Linda among the wreckage below the base. He parked at a distance, not trusting his piloting skills, then tethered himself and leaped. He kept the comm shut as he pulled her to the ship and stowed her in the back. He left her in the suit. The ship’s not safe until I check the airlock, he told himself. But he knew better.

  He circled around to the cargo bay and landed with extreme care, using quick taps of the thruster. He unloaded Linda, leaned her against the ship, and opened the comm.

  Neither spoke at first. When they eventually did, it was awkward. Peter wanted to discuss supplies and living arrangements, but Linda wasn’t interested. The base’s life support had completely failed, so Peter left her in her suit and got to work.

  First he inspected the ship, checking the solar panels, water reclamation, and oxygen generators. Then he loaded it up.

  Being in the cargo bay meant that finding supplies was as simple as opening crates. Peter stuffed the ship with a year’s worth of food, a couple extra suits, a crate of batteries, and two of every type of weapon he could find. Experience had taught him to be prepared.

  He tore out the backseats and laid in a full-size mattress—no doubt intended for some officer’s quarters. It was going to be a long trip, so they might as well be comfortable.

  Peter worked quickly, worried about what the Riel had left behind, then loaded Linda and flew the ship back outside. When they were safely distant from the base, he released her from the suit. She crawled into the bed, stretching her muscles and inspecting her bruises without comment.

  — — —

  Peter had been fiddling with the Nav computer for close to an hour when Linda squeezed under him and into the cockpit. She was just small enough to fit inside, and it turned out she knew a bit of Sakazuarian.

  “You’re sure about this?” she asked.

  “It’s our only choice,” Peter replied.

  Linda brought up the autopilot, keyed in a quick sequence, and the ship began to move. Peter watched the base shrink in the rear monitor. First it blended with the other stars; then it disappeared completely.

  — — —

  Once they were at speed, Linda peeled off Peter’s suit and attended to his wounds with the ship’s medical kit. The painkiller she injected made his skin tingle and made him all the more conscious of her touch. Her hands felt soft, even as she stitched the bullet hole in his arm and the long, deep cut in his calf.

  “If you really think this is your last body,” she said, “you might want to take better care of it.”

  — — —

  It took five weeks to cross the Drift, most of which Peter spent lying in bed, drugged and healing. He wanted to climb back into his suit
to numb the pain, but Linda wouldn’t allow it.

  “Your suit’s drugs are too strong. They don’t heal you, they only keep you operational.”

  So Peter accepted the pain and held out as long as he could before asking for another injection.

  He had nothing to occupy his mind—the room didn’t even have windows—so he spent his time fretting about Riel patrols. Linda avoided him, shutting herself in the cockpit except to tend his wounds or feed him.

  The food came in cartons of raw powder; lacking the equipment to reconstitute it, she simply mixed it with water. The result was a chalky paste. There were a few flavors, but they all tasted like ground flour.

  A couple of weeks into the journey, the sterile smell of antiseptic gave way to the acrid smell of their bodies. The ship lacked a shower, which Peter found odd, given the length of the journey, and they had to clean themselves with wet towels.

  Peter’s own smell embarrassed him, but he was attracted to the sweet coarseness of Linda, which added to his feelings of awkwardness.

  — — —

  The muted tension of the trip was broken by the reappearance of the Drift boundary—they had reached the border to their own universe. Peter, fully healed, squeezed his head into the cockpit and chatted with Linda about what lay beyond the shimmering curtain.

  Next Peter went though the familiar routine, strapping both of them flat to the mattress.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ve done this before.”

  Linda nodded, dubious, and then the hull began to shriek.

  Peter was surprised at how easily his new body handled the crossing; he felt no more than a sinking feeling, like he was nodding off to sleep. Linda didn’t fare as well.

  She lay still at first, eyes closed, then let out a low moan. Her body started to shake, as if the ship were passing through heavy turbulence. Bruises appeared on her neck and arms, seemingly caused by nothing. Peter called to her, but she didn’t seem to hear. When they finally reached the other side, he ripped off the straps and sat her up. She doubled over, gasping for breath.