by Amy Spahn
“We’ve got all the DNA models saved. You can compare them for yourselves. If you really need proof, we’ll all go back to Thassis and do a fresh analysis of your DNA against ours. But the answer is the same. This is where you came from. This is where the real Haxozin abducted your ancestors, and this, I think, is the real thing you’ve been seeking all this time. Security.”
“It’s true,” said Vinlin. “We can finally stop.”
The other Haxozin began to murmur.
The Sovereign surveyed the room, then glared at Thomas. Thomas couldn’t see his eyes, but he felt the glare all the same. “Even if all you say is true, even if we came from here, why did your ancestors not see fit to protect ours?”
Thomas frowned. “What?”
“You allowed enemies to take us away.”
“They were aliens. Do you know how many people go missing in any given year? There was no way to know aliens were involved.”
“No,” said the Sovereign, “not if you were all living peaceful, content lives here, forgetting us.”
Slow horror crept through Thomas’s mind. “You’re not going to see reason, are you? You’re so bitter that you’ll lash out at anything in front of you. Even if it’s trying to help.”
“Our anger is justified.”
“Your anger,” said Vinlin quietly. “Not ours. Not anymore.”
A hissing sound came from the ceiling. Thomas’s head snapped up, eyes riveted on the air vents. The carbon monoxide.
The distraction came at just the wrong time.
A trainload of metal and muscle crashed into Thomas, throwing him up against the far wall. His gun fell and slid beneath a row of desks. Then the Sovereign’s hands closed around his throat, and a white halo flashed around his vision as the metal-clad fingers pressed against his windpipe. He struggled to throw off the attack, but his feet dangled off the floor, and his sight rapidly darkened. Panic set in.
“Liars,” hissed the Sovereign, the crimson metal helmet inches from Thomas’s face. “I will take at least one of you with me.”
Hands that could snap metal chains like twigs tightened around Thomas’s neck.
* * *
Burning, aching, pain everywhere. Matthias groaned and tried to focus his eyes, but his vision swam. People shouted, the ground shook—no, not the ground. You’re on a spaceship, silly—and his body throbbed. One voice, deep and gruff, rose over the others, and the sounds came to Matthias through a long tube: “Enjay linding jots.”
Matthias giggled. Those weren’t real words. The vocalization hurt his throat, and he swallowed a fit of coughing. His ears popped.
“Engage landing jets!” Ivanokoff repeated.
Oh. That made much more sense. And now Matthias remembered—the Endurance was crashing. Except not anymore, because he’d fixed it. He was a genius. He’d never say the word out loud, but he knew it. That was enough. He smiled, but didn’t risk another laugh.
Apparently he wasn’t so smart, though. His chest and face felt like they were on fire. The hot pain was distant, felt through a translucent wall, but still there. He recognized that as a bad sign, but couldn’t find enough room in his mind to care. It was too full of things like breathing. Yes, his brain had finally quit on him. Lazy slacker.
Except the grey on his face hadn’t reached his skull yet. The infection wasn’t fast enough for that. So why was his brain starting to shut down?
Through the bonfire of pain, he registered a hand on his arm. A woman’s voice. “Mattie? Stay awake, brother. Stay awake.”
Hi, Maureen, he tried to say, but his throat still ached, and all he managed was another cough.
A sharp jolt shook the entire ship, and Matthias’s body left the floor before crashing down again. The pains on his skin flared, as if doused in oil. He swallowed a scream. Let it roll off. Let it roll off.
The shaking continued. Voices shouted from all directions. Then, mercifully, the rattling stopped, and the pain faded to a regular throb.
“We’re down!” cried someone, somewhere. “Computer’s offline, but we’re on the east shore. Sand’s half buried us.”
“I smell smoke,” called someone else. “We might have a fire.”
“Evacuate!” Ivanokoff ordered. His voice was too loud, and it thrummed in Matthias’s ears, which were trying to muffle themselves again.
“These burns are really bad. He needs a hospital, now!” That one was Maureen. Matthias wondered who she was talking about.
“No time.” Ivanokoff. Now closer. Through the fog in his eyes, Matthias could just make out two human-ish shapes in the air above him.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m not trained for this kind of injury. We’re losing him!” Maureen sounded hysterical. Matthias tried to reach out to comfort his baby sister, but his arms wouldn’t move.
Another head-and-torso blob moved into the mist above Matthias. This one had a long, pointy nose. “We need to stabilize him long enough to reach a hospital. Do we have any more of the zombie drug?”
Maureen said, “Yes, from the research we did, but why would—”
“Get it,” said Ivanokoff. “Now.”
The Maureen shape disappeared. Matthias tried to wish her good luck, wherever she was going, but his throat ached and let out only a croak.
His eyelids felt heavy. He let them close, blocking out the foggy shapes. There hadn’t been much to see, anyway. His brain was working harder now to keep his chest moving. It was such hard work. Maybe he didn’t need to do it anymore. The pain was fading, too. This wasn’t so bad. All he’d had to do was let it all roll off. Let everything roll off ...
Something jabbed into his skull, a slender puncture just behind his ear, but he barely felt it.
Everything—pain, fear, worry—all of it was rolling off his—
* * *
In the seconds after Thomas’s neck bones groaned, but before they could actually splinter, the office exploded.
No, that wasn’t quite right. For one thing, no shockwaves threw Thomas across the room, and for another, nothing was on fire. Maybe it was just his ears that had exploded, a loud sound deafening them under the pressure of the choke.
The Sovereign’s grip lessened, and Thomas gasped in air. Then the enormous man crumpled forward, pinning Thomas against the wall with his weight. For a moment Thomas thought he’d be smashed, but then the Sovereign rolled off him. Thomas, no longer pinned, fell and landed with just a slight jolt through his ankles. He staggered against the wall, his throat on fire, his pulse pounding in his temples.
The Sovereign landed on his knees, then keeled the rest of the way over and lay sprawled.
Thomas’s hands found his throat and he focused on choking down mouthfuls of air. Next time he looked in a mirror, he was sure he’d see a ring of red marring the dark brown of his skin.
The pain in his chest eased as his lungs filled again and again. The white fog slid back from his vision. Thomas realized he didn’t feel lightheaded; the air he sucked in was pure. The carbon monoxide should have filled the room by now. He glanced around and saw the source of continued ventilation—he’d left the door open when he charged in. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for the building’s circulatory system to compensate for the gas.
So why had the Sovereign dropped him? With another choking inhale, he looked around for an explanation.
Commissioner Wen stood in a shooter’s fighting stance, hands clasped around the grip of a pistol. It wasn’t Thomas’s—she’d probably retrieved it from one of the desks. Her hair had fallen over one eye, but ferocity burned in the eye he could see. Her lips were set in a thin, determined line.
Thomas peered down at the fallen Sovereign. The back of the man’s helmet showed an entry hole.
Thomas looked back at Wen.
A year ago, she’d chewed him out and thrown him onto the worst posting possible, because he’d shot a valuable enemy and killed him.
Her visible eye flicked its gaze from the Sovereign’s body to Thomas’s
face. They stared at each other in silence.
Slowly, Thomas gave her a small nod.
A long pause.
Then she returned it.
Thomas only broke eye contact when one of the Haxozin near the rear wall cried, “You killed him!”
Wen spun, weapon aimed at the ground, but ready. “He was strangling one of my people. What matters is he’s not here to refuse reason anymore. Our offer stands. Surrender, and you can all come home. Keep fighting, and we’ll keep at it too until one or both of our kinds is dead.”
The Haxozin who’d spoken took a step forward.
An energy blast ignited the carpet right in front of him. The flame burned itself out immediately, leaving a hole chewed through the rug and exposing the metal underneath.
Then a voice boomed out of the vents around the ceiling, coming from every direction at once. “If you don’t take her offer, your kind in this room dies first.”
Thomas scanned the vents. “Areva?”
“Hi.” Again the booming echos from every wall.
“No one can see you?”
“No.”
Thomas nodded to the approaching soldier. “That means she can shoot you. I wouldn’t push her.”
The soldier backed away from the smoldering carpet.
Wen looked at Vinlin. “Who’s the second in command?”
Vinlin pointed to a soldier wearing armor with one silver line on his chest. “Atrik.”
“What’s your choice, Atrik?” said Wen. “Leave the room alive, or not?”
Atrik looked around for help but found no support from his fellows. His armor rustled as he folded his arms. “We ... we surrender. And ... I want to come home.”
Wen rewarded him with a small smile. “You can. Get over here and contact your ships.”
As Atrik crossed the room to call off the war, Thomas clapped a hand on Vinlin’s shoulder. With the thrill of near-death wearing off, he felt giddy. “Earth’s a nice place, but it’s a bit crowded for some. If you want another option, you could always join the team preparing to start a colony on Triton. Neptune’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”
* * *
They liberated the captive officers locked on the other floors and funneled orders throughout the solar system, beginning the logistical nightmare of clean-up. When Thomas, Commissioner Wen, and the others stepped out of the building, a bright sun was beaming down. Thomas couldn’t see the hundred-some ships in orbit, but he knew the Haxozin stars were powering down and allowing UELE vessels to dock with them. Their skeleton crews were surrendering, to be brought back to UELE bases for questioning and then, with luck, integration into society. Thomas breathed deep, letting the sea salt air fill his chest and cool his skin. For the first time in over a year, he felt light.
It took only a few minutes before a dark speck in the sky grew larger and resolved into the descending form of a UELE spacecraft. Thomas didn’t recognize it, but when it landed and opened its airlock, he did recognize the woman who stepped out.
“Commissioner.” Captain Nandoro flashed a salute to Wen. “Everything’s under control up there.”
“Good work,” said Wen. She paused when the rest of the crew began to stream out of the ship. In addition to uniformed UELE there were muscled thugs, plain-clothed civilians, and even a few faces Thomas recognized from the list of ex-Uprising operatives. Disaster debarked among them and scowled at the bare parking lot. Maybe he thought it needed some begonias. The thugs who had nearly assaulted Thomas ran past, and Disaster stumbled and waved a fist at them.
Captain Nandoro swept her hand across the group. “Meet the Enceladus reserve, Commissioner. When we didn’t have enough backup from Earth, they volunteered to run unstaffed consoles, calibrate torpedoes, and keep us flying.”
Wen opened her mouth, then closed it.
Thomas grinned. “Irregular, but effective.”
Nandoro’s face fell. “Captain Withers, I don’t know if you heard yet, but your ship—”
Thomas’s heart stopped. He knew the face she was wearing, the tone she’d adopted. “No,” he said.
“I’m sorry. They were falling upside-down. None of us saw whether—”
“Captain!”
That booming voice could only come from one person. Thomas spun toward the gate and nearly buckled in relief at the sight of his first officer striding across the parking lot. “Ivanokoff! What happened?”
More of his crew trickled in through the gate—Archibald Cleaver, vacuum in tow. Chris and Joyce Fish, in the midst of a squabble. Ramirez, coffee pot in hand. With each face, Thomas breathed a bit easier.
Ivanokoff stopped right in front of Thomas. “We crashed. Matthias saved the ship. We walked from the shore.”
“You crashed on the beach?”
“Da. It was the only open space.”
“Not in the water?”
“I do not do swimming.”
Before Thomas could ask his next question, Areva appeared from the crowd (how long had she been there?) and leapt onto Ivanokoff. Thomas expected a flurry of passionate kissing, but the two shared only a chaste peck before holding hands and staring into one another’s eyes.
The flow of people through the gate ended. Thomas scanned the faces of his crew and his stomach sank. “Ivanokoff, where’s Matthias? Where’s Maureen?”
Ivanokoff’s face fell.
* * *
The hospital wasn’t as large as the one on Thassis. The room Thomas entered had only enough space for a bed and a chair. Maureen sat curled in the latter, asleep.
Matthias lay in the former.
Bandages covered much of his face and chest, protecting the burns he’d sustained in the explosion. But when Thomas saw the engineer, he still broke into a smile.
The skin that he could see was a healthy copper. No trace of grey in sight.
Matthias stirred and opened his eyes. His signature grin brightened his face. “Hiya, Cap. What happened to your neck? You look terrible.”
“Hey, Lieutenant. Just a fight with the Haxozin Sovereign. What happened to you?”
Matthias shrugged. “I died. You know how it is.”
“Did it hurt?”
“The burns hurt, but after they gave me more of the zombie drug—oops, I forgot you don’t like that word.”
“It’s fine.”
“Anyway, they injected me with enough to override my human physiology and fully turn me. Heart stopped, organs shut down, all of it. After that, my brain kinda stopped processing things like pain.”
“Do you remember anything?”
“It’s hazy. I know they called a medical hover from the beach. I remember wanting to infect other people, just a little.”
“I imagine you weren’t mobile enough to do it.”
“Yeah, blowing up will do that to you,” said Matthias. “I don’t remember much before they gave me the Revixophin and revived me.”
“Did that hurt?” asked Thomas.
“Coming back to life? Nah. Well, maybe a little. They’d treated the burns by then, but they’re still healing. The worst part was feeling my brain slipping away. But it’s a good thing it did, or the Revixophin wouldn’t have worked.”
Thomas leaned against a table in the corner. “Any side effects?”
Matthias cocked his head. “Maybe a few. No urges to bite people or anything icky like that. Why?”
“It’s been a few days since the invasion ended. I don’t know how much news you’ve gotten, but the Haxozin Sovereignty has officially dissolved. The other planets out there need to be told they’re free. The UELE’s putting together crews—a real exploration force, not seat-of-the-pants like we’ve been. I’ll need an engineer.”
Matthias brightened. “Does that mean they salvaged Endurance?”
“No. There was too much damage. They saved the reactor, but the rest of the ship is scrap. I’m sorry.”
It was hard to watch the grief pass the engineer’s face, but it only took a few moments. “I’ll mis
s that engine room. I built the D Drive there.”
“I know.”
“But I’ll get used to a new space. I’m with you, Cap.” The last remnants of sorrow slipped from Matthias’s face. “Hey, it’s kind of appropriate, isn’t it?”
“What is?” asked Thomas.
“Endurance. Crashing. But we all survived. Just like in that story you told about the ship’s namesake.”
Thomas hadn’t thought of that. But it fit. He nodded.
“And you get a new ship. That’s what you wanted when you first got assigned to ours, right?”
“It was. Now I think I’ll miss the old barge. The new barge won’t be the same.”
Matthias adopted a scandalized expression. “Captain, don’t say that word. You’ll hurt the ship’s feelings.”
Thomas laughed. “I won’t say it while aboard.”
He started to leave the room, but paused and looked at Maureen asleep in her chair.
He wanted the same engineer, but his new ship would be staffed with a proper doctor. He had no need for untrained, inexperienced, and often incapable youngsters barely out of high school. Yet he couldn’t in good conscience turn any of his old crew away. “Your sister’s welcome too, if she wants.”
Matthias shook his head. “Sorry, Cap. That won’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t anybody tell you? She just made up her mind the other day. She’s going to medical school next year.”
* * *
Matthias stayed in the hospital for a week, then was discharged to recover at home. His parents fussed over him and Maureen the whole time. Saving the world had a way of making your folks approve of your career choices.
A month later he received his new assignment. The UELE Alegría. He laughed when he translated the name.
Joy.
This was definitely his ship.
A few people would not be joining him on it. Maureen, for one. Archibald Cleaver for another. At 103, with a new criminal record, the ancient man finally decided to retire. Matthias didn’t know what he’d do, but suspected it would involve cleaning. Some habits couldn’t be broken. Matthias would, in a twisted way, miss repairing the decrepit vacuum.