by David Ryker
The man swayed slightly as he spoke and sniffed hard to unblock his nose. Clough felt his hair curl and his authority wilt.
“This attack, gentlemen”—he gestured upwards to the bridge and tried to appeal to their better angels—“will be the making of this fleet. Every tiny detail, every individual atom, has to be perfect.”
The men laughed, and Clough plunged on.
“Where are your uniforms?” he piped. “When your grandchild asks you where you were at humanity’s greatest moment, what will you tell them?”
“Probably won’t mention how I’m dressed.”
Clough prickled, realizing that he was the butt of the joke.
“Humanity’s greatest moment…” he moaned, “and you’re ruined on engine oil. Hmph. I think I know all I need to know about you. Fix yourselves up, sharpish. Think of your grandchildren.”
Clough clicked his fingers. The two men looked at one another and stepped forward. They loomed over him, plastering his pristine uniform with their insolent breath.
“Not sure that’s your concern, off-ice-er…” The drinker dragged out each menacing syllable as his friend snickered.
“You two…” He thought of his father and wagged a finger in their faces. “I will be speaking to your commanding officer immediately!”
They leaned back against the wall, shrugging. The man with the half-overalls pulled out a flask and filled his friend’s mug. Clough wagged his finger one last time, felt like he’d won, and walked quickly away before the rush of victory evaporated.
“I will take this right to your superior,” Clough shouted. “Perhaps even to Commander Fletcher himself!”
The idea appealed to him. The commander was on deck, many floors above these two men.
“Right to the top!” He thrust up a hand. “The commander listens to me!”
Clough stopped inspecting the little details. If the disobedient crew respected him that little, what chance did he have with renegade specks of dirt? The two men dominated his thoughts. His empty threat inflated; the more he walked, the more convinced he became that he was actually going to tell Fletcher. By the time he was halfway, Clough had never been more adamant about anything in his life. Their defiance would not stand. It was practically a mutiny.
Make a name for yourself, he thought. Something to tell others. Something to make them respect you.
Clough was so lost in the bottomless lake of his father’s judgment, he hardly noticed as he scanned his gold wriststrap to grant himself access to the deck, stepped inside and looked up at the stage. When he told Fletcher about those two insubordinate men, he might be able to wrestle back some respect. Just one iota of respect, he thought, hiding himself in the shadows, that’s all I want. He’d joined the Fleet, become an officer, and even won a posting on the flagship, and people still treated him like an unwanted little brother.
As Fletcher stalked around the stage silently, everyone watched. Clough found a dark corner and basked in the commander’s aura.
“Clough.” Fletcher spotted him.
How does he make my name sound like an accusation?
“Yes, sir?” He hated the sound of his shrill voice.
“Is everything well?” Fletcher focused on his projection. He must have smelled me. Time to tell him about those men. It’s rife with insubordination of the highest order, sir!
“It’s… fine, sir.” Even as he’d lined the words up in his head, he knew he’d never say them. “All in order.”
A coward’s answer; Clough sickened himself.
“Everything?” Fletcher did not turn around.
Clough heard his own treacherous mouth flapping, searching for an answer.
“Spit it out, man.”
“Err...” Clough imagined the two men and couldn’t say anything. “Good luck, sir.”
“Hmm.” Fletcher shook his head. “We won’t need luck, Clough.”
That was it, the dismissal. He knew I was lying. He probably planted those men there to see what I would do. Why couldn’t I say anything? Clough stepped away from the stage and found himself a space where he wouldn’t be seen. The occasional words pierced the gloom of his own self-loathing.
“…And we are to be right at the vanguard.”
Fletcher’s eyes glistened greedily on the other side of the projection. They’d tracked the Symbiot escapees to Istria, surrounding them with the largest Fleet humanity had ever assembled.
Chatter and electronic squeaks filled the theater. Stretching up into the top rows, people sat at workstations, monitoring every ship’s every detail. They filtered information down a layer at a time, moving it closer to the stage until it reached the right point of the hierarchy. Only the most pressing information made it to the officers surrounding the stage, who decided whether the data merited Fletcher’s attention. Very little made it through; the commander liked the stage to himself.
“Yes, sir.” Clough recognized Smith’s smug voice, a greasy tall man who sucked on his teeth. One of Fletcher’s favorites. “We’re almost in position.”
“Excellent.” Fletcher focused on his projection, captivated by his own ship.
“I must say, sir, if I may,” Smith continued, “that what you’ve done is incredible. A first in the history of humanity.”
Smith then led the entire deck in applause. Clough joined in; his silence would have been noted. Fletcher lifted his palms demurely and closed his eyes as his lips affected a satisfied, bloodless smile.
“Thank you, thank you. What we will achieve today will live on in history.” Fletcher projected his voice powerfully into the rafters. “There is little which needs to be said: their numbers are fewer, their knowledge of the environment nothing compared to ours. They cannot compete with the indomitable strength of our people!”
The room exploded with applause. Standing, people threw delirious, joyful hands in the air. Clough clapped but it did nothing to hide the churning nausea in his stomach, his shredded nerves cutting and running like a flood of a thousand rats scuttling across a sea of shattered glass. There was something wrong. I’m a coward, that’s it. He bit hard on his own thumb and savored the pain; punishment for his weakness.
All that confidence he’d felt marching around the ship he now recognized as pompous indignance. Nothing to do with dying in battle. Even the thought of telling Fletcher about the engine room collapsed under the slightest scrutiny; another lie he’d told himself.
As Clough dived deeper into the shadowy corners of his own pity, activity echoed down from above. A hush, moving between people like a wave. It nearly reached the stage before someone saw fit to hit an alarm. Red light filled the theater and the warning siren blared; Fletcher didn’t move. On the holo-projection, shapes began to appear from the surface of the planet.
The clamor of the theater took over and people moved fast, their adrenaline pumped by the cacophonous alarms. Clough only watched; he didn’t want to get in the way. He’d read about these moments.
The enemy ships appeared in a ceaseless spiral from the surface of Istria. Not just a few hundred fighters, realized Clough. They rose up and up, arranging themselves opposite the human forces in a loose swarm.
“This is it then, people,” the commander boomed, snatching the attention of the entire room. “More of them than we thought. But not enough. They’re assembling; ready yourselves.”
As soon as he spoke, the panic in the room evaporated. Fletcher’s confidence was infectious; it spread like a disease and soon everyone was sick. But Clough felt immune, his nerves still scuttling across his stomach. I haven’t eaten today, he remembered. So there can’t be anything to throw up.
As the crew entered battle stations, he watched the projection. The enemy ships kept coming, he noted, hundreds of them. He felt his page vibrate. A high-priority message, addressed to multiple recipients. Sent by Admiral Loreto, he read, confused. He’d heard Fletcher mock the man. Probably a cowardly transmission, trying to steal a slice of the commander’s valor. No one else s
eemed to have noticed the message. Fletcher had banned pages on the bridge. He found them distracting. Loreto had said to expect a few ships at best, the damned fool. Clough thrust the page back into his pocket, not wanting to incur the commander’s wrath.
The crew were glued to their terminals, Fletcher hovering over them like a hawk. Only Clough watched the enemy forces lining up, nagged by the sensation that something wasn’t quite right.
“Sir!” he stepped forward, his fear momentarily forgotten. “Sir!”
“Clough?” Fletcher sounded almost surprised. “What is it?”
“Those…” He pointed at the projection. “Those are our ships!”
Human ships appeared among the enemy forces; Clough recognized them right down to the insignia. Mining vessels and trace gate patrol ships. Fletcher shrugged.
“Traitors, is it?” He spoke loudly, addressing the crew more than the problem. “Those colonies simply do not know what is best for them.”
Another cheer but Clough stayed silent. He inched toward the door and stumbled, his nausea overwhelming. He didn’t want Fletcher or the other officers to see the paleness of his face as his stomach wrenched and turned. He wanted to win their respect.
“The time to strike is here, gentlemen.” Fletcher’s words echoed around the theater. Clough swallowed and held a hand to his mouth and listened. “We will strike before they are ready, lest we give them everything they want!”
“Approaching full readiness, sir,” said Smith.
Fletcher pumped up his chest and refused to wait.
“Fire now,” he said and started to hum, ever so softly.
The force of the cannons shook the ship. Not just the Pyxis, Clough saw: every gun in the Fleet fired. But the steady stream of enemies continued up from the planet. He stumbled closer to the projection and stared at the human ships. They were wrong, almost broken, riddled with strange holes.
Another barrage was unleashed, again and again, hitting against the enemy shields until one of the eerie human ships exploded. Fletcher smiled and Clough felt his stomach flip again, unable to shake the sensation that something was wrong as the crew cheered.
Where can I go? Clough felt the need to be anywhere else. The escape pods called to him. But if I Fletcher wins and finds me later, I won’t survive. He won’t kill me, he’ll just make sure everyone knows that I’m a coward. He pictured his father’s face on hearing the news.
Clough clutched desperately at his pristine uniform. It was all he had. He wanted to wear it home and talk to girls and see people he’d grown up alongside in Providence, cherishing their expressions. Take a pod now and he’d never be able to do that. He’d rather be skinned alive.
As his stomach knotted like a nest of angry vipers, Clough turned back to the projection. More of the human ships joined the swarm, a loose wall which Fletcher hammered his cannons against. The real enemy, those Symbiot ships, lurked behind. It was wrong, it was all wrong.
Then the Symbiot fired through their human shield, ripping through the ghost ships, killing their own, creating a wall of debris between Fletcher and Istria. They fired again, this time their cannons piercing through the wall and into the Fleet. Clough saw allies evaporate. Shields should have held, he knew. But they didn’t.
“No!” Fletcher shrieked. “Target the ships behind!”
A curd of bile caught in Clough’s throat and he bent double and held his stomach. Fletcher’s orders fell on deaf ears as he desperately re-arranged his forces, strategizing, cursing.
Clough fell to one knee, picturing the escape pod. He couldn’t, he’d never live it down. None of them could. They were all trapped on the ship by the same force, prisoners to their own honor.
Another human ship vanished and Clough dropped entirely to the floor. His stomach hurled up its empty wares onto the floor with a splash. He caught the look of disgust on Fletcher’s face but the commander didn’t have time to comment.
Clough rolled and felt the bile seeping into his pristine uniform. He found himself on his back, staring up at the stage beneath the shimmering cobalt shapes. The human ships and their enemies, more and more dying, blinking out forever.
“No surrender!” Fletcher screamed. Clough imagined his father and his mother and home. He saw the projection above him. The entire Fleet was fleeting, he laughed to himself, drunk on everything.
Fletcher’s face caught the light. The dark eyes and the short eyebrows and the heavy jaw. The moment froze and Clough saw it all. The madness and the fury, the thrust of a hand up into the air and he knew, then, that it was hopeless.
A cloud of spittle burst from the commander’s mouth, flying through the projection. He roared; the enemy cannons fired again. Clough thought about his father and the world went all white.
17
Hess
The projection died and Saito stared at the tender horizon. The two suns sunk heavy over a bloodshot sky, waiting for the dark. Hess put up a finger as Alison began to talk, wanting the silence to settle. The world was a worse place now and needed quiet.
“Wow.” Ghoulam slapped his thigh. “Your boy didn’t do too well, Saito.”
The Spartans laughed. Not even an alien invasion could thaw the cold forever war between their people and the Senate. Their infectious joy almost cracked a smile on Hess's face and then he remembered how many people he'd just seen die. They weren't all Earthbound idiots up there. But Saito's ashen face soothed his soul, that he could not deny. Still, the true gravity of the situation—the apparent death of Fletcher's entire Fleet—escaped him. It might never find him. Perhaps humor is a Spartan coping mechanism. The more he reveled in the abject hopelessness in Saito's face, the more he emphasized with the fear and fright.
He'd been there, in the wildest depths of his despair, sitting in his apartment on the night he’d lost the election, enough narcotics on hand to kill an army and a burning desire to end it all. The only thing which had anchored him to the world had been the imagined look on his mother's face, how she might have reacted on learning her son had committed suicide. He couldn't bring himself to endure the imagined disappointment of his deceased mother, couldn't allow her ghost to blame herself for her son's failings. Hess didn't dare imagine the specters needed to keep Saito sane in this moment.
“You see the star-side flank collapse?” One of the Spartans re-enacted the battle with his hands. “Guy didn’t even draft cover.”
“Weak shields,” another noted. “Could hardly take a hit.”
Laughter and rumbles of agreement rolled around while the men from the Senate sat silently stewing. Hess struggled to tell the Spartans apart. The men and the women both wore simple clothes. Not the expensive, tailored suits which were so common on Earth, or their derivatives found across the colonies. They didn’t even seem to have any military clothing, which surprised him, considering their reputation as belligerents.
Instead, each person seemed to be clothed in a similar set of muted white overalls. Variously, their clothes were covered in stains or clean or, as Hess began to notice, had been stitched with miniature patterns around the collars and cuffs. These were waterfalls or lilies, the same naturalistic features which set the Spartan buildings apart from those in Providence. But none of the differences seemed assigned to any particular social class, at least not one he’d discerned in his brief time on the planet.
Hess avoided mentioning this to anyone; it felt rude to poke and prod into cultural specifics when part of a diplomatic delegation. But that did not prevent him creating his own theories. This was an engineers’ planet, he told himself, delighted in its commitment to a common, shared goal. They wanted to dress differently than other systems, they wanted to dress the same as one another, and they wanted, at all times, to remind themselves of their key strengths: their togetherness, their cleverness, and their separation from the rest of the Federation.
While Hess appreciated their clothing, he was less convinced by their personal grooming. So long beneath the twin suns, their skin ri
chly tanned and their hair dark. Most people—both men and women—shaved their heads close enough that only a light fuzz remained. While most of the Senate delegation made frequent trips to the laser-cutters, expensive machines which perfectly sliced every single hair on a person’s head, the buzzcut approach of the hosts seemed brutish in its simplicity, something he could not bring himself to condone.
“Hey,” Ghoulam shouted to Saito, “if you want a fleet, we know your money’s good.”
The Spartans laughed harder and harder, their accents tumbling up in pitch at the end of each sentence, turning everything into a question.
“Price just went up!” one added.
“Yeah, tripled!” shouted another.
“Nah,” Ghoulam added. “Price is independence and nothing else!”
And they laughed harder than ever while their guests watched on. Hess tasted the tension seeping into the room like the cloying humidity just before a thunderstorm. They'd seen those cannons cutting through Fletcher’s Fleet without breaking a sweat. Sparta wasn’t too far from Istria, only a few trace gates. They should be as scared as everyone else. Hatred made a fine fuel but it burned out all too fast.
Hess saw Saito snap in slow motion. The man’s face twitched once and then twice. His lip curled up into a snarl, his eyes squinted and he rose up from the chair and crossed the room. The president snatched a heavy chair and threw it against the long window. A crack spread across the glass like a spider’s web bristling in the wind.
“They're dead!” Saito cried, his throat hoarse and harsh. “Dead!”
Ghoulam and his people let their laughs linger. The entertainment had changed. Hess saw a tear glistening at the corner of Saito's eye and wondered for a moment just how good a friend Fletcher had been.
“Those people died today.” Saito's voice cracked. “Died for you. Not that you’re grateful. Where’s your respect?”
Saito looked down and Hess knew he wanted something else to throw. He recognized that rage and anger; the urge, in times like these, to just scream and destroy in equal measure. An unmatched, untamable emotional turmoil.