“Permission granted,” said Falconi. He pointed. “There’s room for you in the port hold. Feel free to move whatever you need.”
“Sir, yes sir.” Then Hawes motioned with one hand, and a loader bot moved to the front, pushing a pallet with a containment bottle suspended from shock-absorbing springs within a metal frame.
Kira resisted the urge to leave. None of the planet-based spaceports she knew of were allowed to sell antimatter. If the magnetic bottle failed, the resulting blast would not only destroy the port (while also setting off the antimatter contained in the other parked ships), but also take out any nearby settlement, town, city, etc. Hell, Earth didn’t even allow ships equipped with Markov Drives to land unless they off-loaded their antimatter onto one of several refueling stations in high orbit.
The presence of the containment bottle seemed to make Falconi nervous as well. “Down the hall to the ladder. My machine boss will meet you there,” he said to the bot. He gave it a wide berth as it floated past.
“One more thing, sir,” said Hawes. “Sanchez! Bring them up!”
From the back came a Marine leading the bots that carried the long, plastic crates. On the sides of the crates were printed or stenciled lines of red text: Cyrillic on top, English below.
The English said RSW7-Molotók and was followed by a logo of a star going nova and the name Lutsenko Defense IndustriesRM. And bracketing both the English and the Cyrillic were the black-and-yellow symbols for radiation.
“A gift from Captain Akawe,” said Hawes. “They’re local-made, so they aren’t UMC equipment, but they should do the trick in a pinch.”
Falconi nodded, serious. “Stash them over by the door. We’ll get them to the launch tubes later.”
In an undertone, Kira asked Nielsen, “Are those what I think they are?”
The first officer nodded. “Casaba-Howitzers.”
Kira tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. The missiles would be packed full of fissionable material, and fission scared her nearly as much as antimatter. It was the dirty, nasty form of nuclear energy. Shut down a fusion reactor, and the only radioactive materials left were those that had been made radioactive by neutron bombardment. Shut down a fission reactor, and you had a deadly, possibly explosive pile of unstable elements with a half-life that meant they would stay hazardous for thousands of years.
Kira hadn’t even known the ship had missile launchers. She ought to have asked Falconi exactly what sort of weapons were installed on the Wallfish before they’d gone after the Jelly ship.
The Marines filed past, the thrusters on their suits producing small jets of vapor. Trig, who was next to the captain, stared with big eyes, and Kira could tell he was bursting with questions for the men.
A few minutes later, the Entropists showed up, travel bags in hand.
“Imagine seeing you here again,” said Falconi.
“Hey!” said Trig. “Welcome back!”
The Entropists caught hold of a grip on the wall and dipped their heads as best they could. “We are most honored to be here.” They looked at Kira, their eyes bright sparks beneath the hoods of their robes. “This is an opportunity for knowledge that we could not possibly decline. None of our order could.”
“That’s all well and good,” said Nielsen. “Just stop talking double. It gives me a headache.”
The Entropists again inclined their heads, and then Trig led them off to the cabin where they would be staying.
“You have enough cryo tubes?” Kira asked.
“We do now,” said Falconi.
After a flurry of final preparations, the door to the starboard hold was closed and Gregorovich announced in his usual, demented way: “This is your ship mind ssspeaking. Please make sssure all your belongings are sssafely stored in the overhead compartmentsss. Lash yourself to the massst, me hearties: decoupling commencing, RCS thrusting impending. We’re off to parts unknown to tweak the nose of fate.”
Kira headed to Control, slipped into one of the crash chairs, and strapped herself down. The rest of the crew was there, save Hwa-jung—who was still down in engineering—and Sparrow—who was recovering in sickbay. The Entropists were in their cabin, and Alpha Squad was in the port hold, still locked into their exos.
As the Wallfish’s RCS thrusters gently pushed them away from Malpert, keeping its tail end pointed away from the station to avoid frying the dock with residual radiation from the rocket’s nozzle, Kira sent a text to Falconi:
The captain’s fingers started tapping the side of his leg.
Across the room, she saw Falconi make a subtle face.
She chewed on that for a moment.
A faint snort from Falconi.
That wasn’t as reassuring as the captain seemed to think it was.
Another, sharper glance from Falconi. <*I* run the Wallfish, thank you very much. And yes, I’m very okay with Gregorovich. He’s gotten us out of more scrapes than I care to remember, and he’s an important and valued member of my crew. Any other questions, Navárez? – Falconi>
Kira decided it was better not to press her luck, so she gave a tiny shake of her head and switched to the view from the outside cameras.
When the Wallfish was a safe distance from Malpert, the thrust alert sounded, and then the main rocket fired. Kira swallowed and let her head fall back against the chair. They were on their way.
2.
The Darmstadt followed some hours behind the Wallfish. Repairs and the need to take on a rather substantial amount of food for the crew had slowed its departure. Still, the cruiser would catch up with the Wallfish by the following morning.
It would take them a day and a half to reach the Markov Limit, and then … Kira shivered. And then they would go FTL and leave the League far behind. It was a daunting prospect. Work had often taken her to the very fringes of
settled space, but she’d never ventured so far as this. Few people had. There was no good financial reason; only research expeditions and survey missions went out into the vast unknown.
The star they were heading to was an unassuming red dwarf that had only been detected within the past twenty-five years. Remote analysis indicated the presence of at least five planets in orbit, which aligned with what the Soft Blade had shown her, but no sign of technological activity had been picked up by the League’s telescopes.
Sixty light-years was a staggeringly enormous distance. It would put a significant strain on both the ships and the crews. The ships would have to pop in and out of FTL numerous times along the way to shed their excess heat, and while it was safe to stay in cryo for far longer than the three months it would take to reach the distant star, the experience would still take its toll on both mind and body.
The toll would be greatest for Kira. She wasn’t looking forward to enduring another bout of dreaming hibernation so soon after arriving from Sigma Draconis. Lengthwise, the duration would be similar, as the Valkyrie had been far slower than either the Wallfish or the Darmstadt. Kira just hoped she wouldn’t have to starve herself again in order to convince the Soft Blade to induce dormancy.
Thinking about what lay ahead wouldn’t make it easier, so she pushed it from her mind. “How is the UMC reacting to us leaving?” she asked, unclasping her harness.
“Not well,” said Falconi. “I don’t know what Akawe told them back at Vyyborg, but it can’t have made them happy, because they’re threatening us with all sorts of legal hellfire if we don’t turn around.”
Gregorovich chuckled, and his laugh echoed through the ship. “It’s most amusing, their impotent rage. They seem quite … panicked.”
“Can you blame them?” Nielsen said.
Falconi shook his head. “I’d hate to be the one who has to explain to Sol how and why they lost not only an entire cruiser but also Kira and the suit.”
Then Vishal said, “Captain, you should see what’s happening on local news.”
“What channel?”
“RTC.”
Kira switched to her overlays and searched for the channel. It came right up, and in front of her, she saw footage of a ship interior recorded from someone’s implants. Screams sounded, and a man’s body flew past, collided with another, smaller person. It took Kira a second to realize she was looking at the inside of the Wallfish’s hold.
Shit.
A knotted, writhing shape swung into view: a Jelly. The person recording focused on the alien just as it threw something off-screen. Another scream rent the air; that scream, Kira remembered.
Then she saw herself fly past, like a black spear from above, and grapple with the Jelly while a long, bladed spike sprang from her skin and impaled the thrashing alien.
The video froze, and in voice-over, a woman said, “Could this battlesuit be a product of the UMC’s advanced weapons programs? Possibly. Other passengers confirmed that the woman was rescued from a UMC shuttle a few days before. Which makes us wonder: What other technology is the League hiding from us? And then there’s this incident from earlier today. Once more, a warning to sensitive viewers: the following footage contains graphic material.”
The video resumed, and Kira again saw herself: this time attempting to subdue the purple-haired Numenist. He smashed his head back into her face, and then she stabbed him, not so differently from the Jelly.
From the outside, the sight was more frightening than Kira had realized. No wonder the refugees had looked at her the way they did; she would have also.
The reporter’s voice-over returned: “Was this a justifiable use of force or the reaction of a dangerous, out-of-control individual? You decide. Ellen Kaminski was later seen being escorted to the UMCN cruiser the Darmstadt, and it seems unlikely she will ever face criminal charges. We attempted to interview the passengers who spoke with her. This was the result—”
The footage resumed, and Kira saw the Entropists being approached in a hallway somewhere on Malpert. “Excuse me. Wait. Excuse me,” said the off-screen reporter. “What can you tell us about Ellen Kaminski, the woman who killed the Jelly on the Wallfish?”
“We have nothing to say, Prisoner,” said Veera and Jorrus together. They ducked their heads, hiding behind the hoods of their robes.
Next Felix Hofer appeared, holding his niece’s hand. “The Jelly was going to shoot Nala here. She helped save her. She helped save all of us. As far as I’m concerned, Ellen Kaminski is a hero.”
Then the camera cut to the woman Inarë, standing on the space dock, knitting away with a smug look on her face. Her tassel-eared cat peeked around her nest of curly hair from where it lay across her shoulders.
“Who is she?” said Inarë, and smiled in the most unsettling way. “Why, she’s the fury of the stars. That’s who she is.” Then she laughed and turned away. “Goodbye now, little insect.”
The reporter’s voice-over returned as the image of Kira impaling the Jelly filled the display again. “The fury of the stars. Who is this mysterious Ellen Kaminski? Is she a new breed of supersoldier? And what of her battlesuit? Is it an experimental bioweapon? Unfortunately, we may never find out.” The view shifted to a close-up of Kira’s face, dark-eyed and threatening. “Whatever the truth, we know one thing well-certain, saya: the Jellies must fear her. And for that, if nothing else, this reporter is grateful. Fury of the Stars, Starfury—whoever she really is, it’s good to know she’s fighting on our side.… For RTC News, this is Shinar Abosé.”
“Goddammit,” said Kira, closing her overlays.
“Looks like we’re leaving at just the right time,” said Falconi.
“Yeah.”
Across the room, Trig smirked and said, “Starfury. Ha! Can I call you that now, Ms. Navárez?”
“If you do, I’ll hit you.”
Nielsen tucked several loose strands of hair back into her ponytail. “This might not be the worst thing. The more people know about you, the more difficult it will be for the League to hide you away and pretend the Soft Blade doesn’t exist.”
“Maybe,” said Kira, unconvinced. She didn’t have that much faith in the accountability of governments. If they wanted to disappear her, they would, regardless of public sentiment. Plus, she hated the exposure. It made acting with any sense of anonymity difficult to impossible.
3.
With the Wallfish on course and under thrust, the crew dispersed throughout the ship as they continued to ready it for the trip to come. As Trig said, “It’s been ages since we went superluminal!” There were supplies to reorganize, systems to test and prep, loose objects to store (every pen and cup and blanket and other miscellaneous item the UMC had left out after searching the Wallfish had to be secured prior to the extended period of zero-g they were about to embark upon), and scores of tasks, small and large, that needed attending to.
The day was already getting late, but Falconi insisted they prep while they could. “Never know what might happen tomorrow. Could end up with another batch of hostiles breathing down our necks.”
His logic was difficult to argue with. At Hwa-jung’s request, Kira went to the cargo hold and helped her uncrate the repair bots they’d received from Malpert Station: replacements for the ones lost when they boarded the Jelly ship.
After a few minutes of silence, Hwa-jung glanced over at Kira and said, “Thank you, for killing that thing.”
“You mean the Jelly?”
“Yes.”
“You’re welcome. I’m just glad I was able to help.”
Hwa-jung grunted. “If you hadn’t been there…” She shook her head, and Kira saw unaccustomed emotion on the woman’s face. “Someday, I buy you soju and beef as a thank-you, and we will get drunk together. You and me and little Sparrow.”
“I look forward to it.…” Then Kira said, “Are you okay with us going after the Staff of Blue?”
Hwa-jung never slowed as she removed a bot from its packaging. “We will be a lo
ng way from space dock if the Wallfish breaks. It is good the Darmstadt is with us, I think.”
“And the mission itself?”
“It needs doing. Aish. What else is there to say?”
As they were finishing with the last crate, a text popped up in Kira’s vision:
She helped Hwa-jung dispose of the excess packaging, and then Kira made her excuses and hurried out of the cargo hold. Once in the main shaft, she said, “Gregorovich, where’s the hydro bay?”
“One deck up. End of the corridor, once left, once right, and there you shall be.”
“Thanks.”
“Bitte.”
The scent of flowers greeted Kira as she approached the hydroponics bay—flowers and herbs and algae and all manner of green and growing things. The smells reminded Kira of the greenhouses on Weyland and of her father fussing over his Midnight Constellations. She felt a sudden longing to be outdoors, surrounded by living things, and not trapped in ships that stank of sweat and machine oil.
The aromas multiplied as the pressure door swung open and Kira walked into a bank of humid air. Aisles of hanging plants filled the room, along with dark, sloshing vats that contained the algae cultures. Above, nozzles misted the rows of greenery.
She stopped, struck by the sight. The bay was not unlike the one on Adrasteia, where she and Alan had spent so many hours, including that last, special night, when he had proposed.
Sadness wafted over her, as poignant as any scent.
Falconi stood near the back, bent over a worktable while he trimmed a plant with a drooping, wax-petaled flower—white and delicate—of a sort Kira was unfamiliar with. His sleeves were rolled up to expose his scars.
That Falconi had an interest in gardening wasn’t something Kira had expected. Belatedly she remembered the bonsai in his cabin.
“You wanted to see me?” she said.
Falconi clipped a leaf off the plant. Then another. Each time his shears closed with a decisive snip. All of the plants had to be reprocessed before entering FTL. They couldn’t survive unattended for such a long trip, and moreover, keeping them alive would produce too much waste heat. A few special ones might get put into cryo—she wasn’t sure what sort of equipment the Wallfish had—but those would be the only ones saved.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Page 34