The Vela: The Complete Season 1

by Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, SL Huang

This war was coming no matter what she did. All she could do was push at the scales with one tiny finger and hope she could make a difference.

  She turned her stride toward her office, moving so fast Ifa had to trot to keep up. “I want real-time updates on Uzochi’s ships piped to me,” she instructed to Ifa’s rapid nods. “Our equipment here should be able to pick them up by now. We’ve got to have people queued and ready. If this devolves into a riot, we’ll lose everyone. And I need information on where Hafiz is at all times. They cannot be allowed to run this show—what?”

  Ifa had stopped. He stared at the handheld in his right hand, his brown eyes wide, for a few seconds looking every bit the young child he was.

  “Ifa, talk to me!” Soraya barked.

  “It looks like—it looks like it’s only one ship,” Ifa said, strangled. “And it’s not coming here.”

  “What?” Soraya couldn’t connect what that might mean. Uzochi had been down on Gan-De building ships—Soraya and Asala had been in the factories, and Uzochi had said she’d launched the ships. This didn’t make any sense. If Uzochi was only out for herself, why not just escape on the Vela? She and Hafiz had always proclaimed they’d be taking the camp. They’d promised Camp Ghala’s freedom.

  Even among all the other lies, Soraya couldn’t wrap her brain around the possibility that they would leave the refugees to die too.

  “I’m not sure . . .” Ifa’s forehead wrinkled as his fingers zigzagged on the screen, trying to find information.

  “Give me one of those.” Soraya grabbed the other handheld and did the same. Ifa was right. The real-time tracking they were getting of Uzochi’s ships—or ship; she must have been sending out false transponder signals to make it look like a fleet—showed clear on the handheld. Now that the signal was closer, they could detect it as only one ship after all. And Soraya wasn’t an expert on orbital mechanics, but she knew the lanes from Gan-De’s surface to Camp Ghala, and Uzochi . . . Uzochi was pointed well away from the camp, toward an empty region of space.

  What in all the blazes? Uzochi must be saving herself and her people, and fuck the camp, she’d let them all go to hell in the sights of Khayyam and Gan-De.

  Soraya hadn’t thought her despair could mount any further.

  The handheld flickered in her grip.

  “The nets—” Ifa said, smacking the side of his handheld, and then both their screens lit up to show none other than Hafiz. Their eyes sparked with wild abandon, and their mouth was contorted in a ravenous smile.

  “Greetings, Camp Ghala,” they boomed, and the sound came from every interface panel, every screen. “I have marvelous news for you all. We are about to escape this doomed system and build our own new world! Suited to us, made great in the image of Hypatia, Eratos, and poor, extinct Samos. I have procured technology that will rescue us from our dying sun.”

  They reached down below screen level and came up with cupped hands, cradling none other than one of Uzochi’s vomit-inducing cubes, its insides swirling into everything and nothing. Hafiz stroked the top of it like they held a small furry creature instead of something capable of tearing open the fabric of space.

  “Gentlefolk, this strange device has been created by Uzochi Ryouta, daughter of the exalted Vanja Ryouta herself, and it is our salvation. With these, we shall open a tunnel through space and time to a promised land, one not ruled by fear or ice or the cruel grip of planets who would leave us to die while they wallow in their riches. My people in the Order of Boreas are distributing these cubes all over Camp Ghala, to every ship that can fly free and traverse space, so that all of you may follow. Come with me to found a new land, a land of hope, a future for your children and grandchildren. Come with me and claim our destiny!”

  The image winked out.

  “Fuck,” Soraya spat.

  Uzochi hadn’t been building ships with the cubes inside them. She’d been building the cubes alone, and she’d already smuggled them here. Through Hafiz.

  Who now had control of them. Uzochi and Hafiz had been three steps ahead the whole way.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck—Camp Ghala didn’t have more than a handful of spaceworthy ships, even counting paltry weaponless cargo boats. Not unless you included the camp itself. The rooms and halls they’d painstakingly kept bulwarked against deadly breaches every day, with blood and sweat and bullheaded desperation.

  Hafiz had known exactly what they were saying. Ghala’s own residents would slash it to pieces from the inside, and heaven help anyone left among the shards.

  The air had begun to vibrate around her and Ifa, shouts and pounding feet and exclamations. All Soraya’s hopes of preserving order shriveled and fled. Camp Ghala was about to become a stampede—a stampede to break itself apart and race after a power-hungry leader’s nebulous promise.

  • • •

  Niko woke disoriented.

  They were in some sort of med bay—where? What had happened? All they remembered was diving at Cynwrig, and then the certainty that they had failed . . .

  They pawed at the medicated wraps across their chest and shoulder, wincing when they tried to bend their left arm. Everything was stiff and achy, but the tickling itch was familiar. Someone had given Niko nanite shots.

  Niko nodded to themself, satisfied by matching sensation to expectation. A full thirty seconds later they started guiltily. They were in the Outer Ring. The health care that was available on any corner in Khayyam . . . they knew it often couldn’t be come by out here, for blood or money. Which meant someone had used precious resources to heal Niko ahead of anyone else.

  A few months ago, they might not even have realized.

  Memory flooded back, and they scrambled for an interface panel, desperate to orient themself. It only took a few minutes of scrolling network traffic for Niko’s eyes to widen, their breath quickening in their still-twinging chest.

  Hafiz. Uzochi. Father and the Khayyami fleet. General Cynwrig, swooping up from the planet. Soraya, commanding into the void, frantically trying to set up a paper-thin line of defense for the very people who had betrayed her, because her only focus was on saving innocent lives to the end.

  A flashing notification popped up on the screen.

  Niko stared at it for far too long before realizing it was their notification. From a spider search they’d set up ages ago on one of their accounts, before even leaving Khayyam. The search had finally untangled something.

  They sat up so fast their whole body throbbed in protest. They had to go find Asala.

  • • •

  Soraya’s office had devolved into chaos.

  She shouted into three different screens, trying to track everything on three more and failing miserably. Hafiz’s people were apparently installing the cubes on ships for their own loyalists, but also tossing them out to random followers with no rhyme or rule. Fighting had already broken out across the camp. Reports poured in of Hypatians getting stabbed or shot by the Gandesian security forces. Reports came in of riots, dead bodies—dead Gandesian guards, dead Boreas rebels, dead refugees.

  “Ifa! I need a team to cut Hafiz’s people off from where the defense ships are prepping. Mangatjay, do we have more exact intelligence on where Hafiz is smuggling the cubes in from? Dammit, I want to speak camp-wide five minutes from now. If Hafiz can . . .”

  Hafiz had appealed to the people’s thirst for survival. Maybe Soraya could appeal to their better natures, convince the people to police their own violence, to reach out and help their neighboring clans evacuate so that the maximum number of people could try for space and Uzochi’s future before the camp broke apart in orbit.

  “Soraya?”

  “Not now—Niko?” Soraya hitched in the midst of seven different trains of thought. “You’re looking better.”

  “Sorry to bother you, but I’ve been trying to reach Asala, and the nets are pretty jammed up. I can’t seem to raise her.”

  “She’s probably on the defense-force comms. We put them on their own communications grid; it’s mo
re encrypted—or not much more, but anyway, it’s the best we could do. She’s going to come back through here any minute now on the way to launching; you can catch her in person.” Soraya turned back to her screens. “Niko, I’m sorry, I need to—”

  “I think I can help.” Niko limped in without asking and began tapping at one of the screens. The display inverted itself into a stream of code. “Is this—never mind, I got it. I can improve the encryption net, but signal speed is going to be the higher priority. Where’s the defense force’s IFF protocol?” At Soraya’s blank look, they smiled slightly. “Identify-Friend-Foe beacons. Right now the defense force is going to shoot itself out of the sky accidentally. I’ll slot something in fast. How long before they launch?”

  “Twelve minutes,” Soraya said. She knew she was staring—she didn’t have time to stare—but she couldn’t help it.

  Niko gave her another quick, lopsided smile, their fingers still moving. “I just finished an apprenticeship with Khayyami intelligence, remember? I know some things.”

  More than anyone else, it sounded like—including Asala, for all her skill in the pilot’s seat. Soraya recovered herself, thinking fast. “Go down one level and find Mangatjay. Tell her you’re replacing her as the point person for the fleet, on my instruction. You don’t need to wait for my authorization; do whatever you can—everything.” An impossible hope burst in the back of Soraya’s brain. “Niko, do you think you can hack the Gan-De orbital weapons platforms? Interfere with their signals or something?”

  “Um.” Niko stalled like a surprised groundmouse. “I can try? Can your people get me some equipment?”

  “You’ll have everything we can give you. Niko, this—it could save us.”

  Niko blinked a few times. Then they nodded so decisively it was almost a salute and grabbed one of the handhelds, working as they hurried toward the door.

  But then, suddenly, they turned back. “Soraya, the thing I need to tell Asala—can you?—it’s important. Just give her this file.” They swiped a directory folder from the handheld they held over to one of Soraya’s. “It’s—I found her sister. I haven’t looked through it all yet, other than to see that yes, she’s alive, but Asala—she should know before she goes out there, that she’s got family to live for. I . . . It’s probably better coming from you anyway. I don’t think she wants to talk to me right now.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Soraya said. “I promise. Now go. And, Niko? Thank you.”

  Niko gave her another shy smile—as far as she could tell, the most genuine one she’d seen from them—and was gone.

  “Soraya?” Mangatjay popped up on one of her screens. “I have camp-wide for you anytime you want it. Everything’s haywire right now, so we’re going to have to hold the signal strength. Tell us you’re going before you do.”

  “Give me a sec.”

  She muted her screens and tried to order her thoughts. She’d never had Hafiz’s charisma, but holding this camp together had always required her to be half-diplomat. She could do this. Hold them all together at the very end, with words, and drag them across the finish line into the chance at a new life . . .

  A shadow leaned in at the door. “Soraya? Anything last-minute for me?”

  It was Asala, on her way to launch.

  “Oh—yes. Niko found—” She pawed at her screens, locating the file.

  And froze.

  Dayo Sikou, contracted Hana avett Medeina, read the filename.

  Niko wouldn’t have known what that meant, but Soraya did. And in an instant, in a heartbeat, all her last wild hopes for the inhabitants of Camp Ghala teetered on the point of a needle. The only time a person’s name was ever listed that way was when they had entered the Gandesian military via an indentured visa.

  Indentured visas to Gan-De hadn’t been offered in years, and even when they had, they’d been few and rarely available—and, as far as Soraya was concerned, pure poison. They’d offered little more than a life of slavery as cannon fodder in the Gandesian armed forces, and ruthlessly required stripping the entrant of all their prior humanity, including their name. For all that the visas had been a toxic human rights violation on paper, the slots had been highly coveted and rapidly snatched up, with excessive bribes changing hands to get first in line . . . and Great Mother, but Soraya understood. She could never judge someone for that shred of hope for something better.

  Dayo had risked that hope. She’d been renamed Hana, Hana avett Medeina, the Gandesian matronymic for one who is a ward of the state—an ancient word for the mother planet serving as label for bastard, orphan, other. And now Soraya was asking Asala to go out and fight in a battle where she might end up shooting down her own lost sister.

  She should know. Soraya should tell her, now, so she knew what it would mean to take up leadership of their defense force. But if Asala knew . . .

  Camp Ghala already only had the barest chance at survival. If Asala changed her mind, said no . . .

  If Asala said no, they would have no chance at all.

  Soraya quietly put a hand over the corner of her screen, hiding the file from view. “Never mind. It can wait. I’ll see you on comms.”

  “We’ll blaze out in strength, that our clans become safe,” Asala quoted with calm confidence, and was gone.

  Soraya hunched like she had just been socked in the stomach. She knew the line—everyone did; it was from one of the most famous plays written in the Outer Ring, a classic historical told in verse and chorus. And it was about fighting and dying, not for patriotism or ideals or duty, but for family.

  Asala thought she was protecting the only thin proxy of family she might reach for, the refugees of Hypatia. Instead, Soraya was sending her against her own.

  Maybe someday a poet would write a tragedy about this day. In it, Soraya was sure, she would be a villain.

  She took a shaking breath and keyed Mangatjay to take her camp-wide.

  “Attention, Camp Ghala. This is Soraya. Many of you know me and have learned to trust me. I’m asking you to trust me one more time, to take you through this day so we can all find a future, together. Think of your neighbors. Think of . . .” Her tongue twisted in on itself. “Think of your families. We will rebuild this community as one, but only if we do not tear each other apart today, this last day.”

  She glanced at the small inset picture of her face that was being broadcast all across the camp, her tired eyes and skin sagging in fatigue, and wondered if anyone else could see the lie of her.

  She only had to live it one more time.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m asking the following of all residents of Camp Ghala . . .”

  Episode 9

  The Battle of Gan-De, Part 1

  Yoon Ha Lee

  As a sniper, Asala had grown accustomed to relying on herself. She'd spent hours, sometimes days, in Khayyam's petty internecine battles, lying prone while insects crawled over her and bit or stung any exposed flesh, miserable beneath the unrelenting sun and praying the dust wouldn't foul her equipment. In her head, she kept a tally of every person she'd ever assassinated, alone or as part of a team. As a Gandesian poet had said, The stars may be numberless, but we number our dead.

  Even so, as a sniper, she hadn't been completely alone. At first, the rest of her unit had made remarks on how the stuck-up clannie was keeping to herself. Then she'd been reassigned to Captain Ekrem's company. She hadn't trusted him, exactly; she'd learned the hard way as a refugee that kindness or consideration often carried the bite of condescension. But Ekrem had made a point of treating her as a competent member of his company—he'd been quick to grasp how good she was with a rifle—and she still remembered how he'd brought her an approximation of a Hypatian sweetcake to congratulate her when she made corporal. The cake had tasted too sweet, and crumbled too readily, without the characteristic delicate fragrance of the flowers used to flavor the genuine article. But in all her years on Khayyam, only Ekrem had thought of such a gesture. And gradually, because of his leadership, Asala had l
earned that she could trust her comrades.

  Here, she had no such surety. After all the years she'd relied upon Ekrem, he'd betrayed her faith in him. She did not know what she would do if she had to face him in combat. It wouldn't be the first time a Khayyami president had taken to the field; most of them came from the military for a reason. With any luck it wouldn't come to that, but she knew that there was no such thing as good luck in a battle. Not the kind you could rely on, anyway.

  The silence of the racing dart's cockpit was a dangerous deception. For all her skills as a pilot, Asala had never fully adapted to combat in space. The ships' walls and the dark distance between you and death made it too easy to believe in the illusion of your own safety, to forget your soft and bloody body in that bloodless expanse. As a sniper, Asala knew that just because you couldn't see danger didn't mean it wasn't about to shoot you in the head.

  She started the preflight checks, forcing herself to pay attention to every guttering light on the displays. That wasn't reassuring, but since this was the ship she had, this was the ship she had. No sense wasting energy cursing the situation. Better to take reasonable precautions and move on.

  Time to see if the comms channel worked. In theory it should be encrypted, but whether the protocols would keep Gandesian forces from listening in was an open question. “This is Agent Asala, in command of Camp Ghala defense forces,” she said. “All pilots, check in by roster number.”

  She began reading off the numbers. The gabbling chaos that followed didn't surprise her but did made her appreciate the work of people like Soraya—or Ekrem, back in her army days—all the more. She had to raise her voice more than once over the scrum. Pilot Two's proposed trajectory was going to take him right into the path of Pilot Twenty-Three, which she hadn't thought possible. Standard operating procedure required they at least file their initial launch paths with Station Control, but Station Control was distracted by the coming dissolution of Camp Ghala.

  Soraya had promised her thirty-eight spaceworthy starships and volunteer pilots. Asala had her suspicions about just how “volunteer” they were, but no matter. Either they would survive the battle to come, or they wouldn't. All she had to do was hold off the Gandesians long enough for Uzochi's ships and their wormhole-generating cubes to arrive from planetside.