Darkspace Calamity

by Christopher Bodan

  Betty shook her head. “If they’re not aiming for the arboretum, why are they attacking us at all?”

  Cordelia shrugged. “I don’t think that they care about the passengers, but I don’t know what they really want. If we figure that out, we can beat them.”

  Betty rolled her eyes and fired another burst from her huge rivet gun. “One minute you’re surprised that pirates are bad people. The next minute, you’re running this fight like you’ve done it your whole life. You’re a very strange chee.”

  Cordelia moved to a crouch as her rifle beeped. “Well, I am only about a year old.”

  “Oh. That explains a lot.” Betty started suddenly and put a hand to her ear, speaking low. “Okay, people,” she shouted a second later. “We’re leaving. Get that wrecker free, and then push up the left side. We need to get to the small food court, like, yesterday.”

  “I can clear the way,” Cordelia said, and immediately rolled clear of the loader. She heard Betty shouting something at her but could not make out the words. An instant later she saw what the mechanic had meant when all the corsairs rose from cover and charged. Cordelia flipped a conversion switch on her rifle and pulled the trigger. Fins popped up around her gun barrel, and a vortex formed an inch beyond the muzzle. All the pirates in a wide cone in front of Cordelia began to shriek as the force of the gun’s suction pulled them off their feet and spun them like leaves in a sewer drain. She stepped back behind the cargo loader, her barrel just clear of the machine, as the first attackers began sailing past her at bone-shattering speeds. Some slammed into the far wall, others into the scattered debris, and no few smacked into the loader.

  Vance rose and stepped purposefully into her vortex. As he flew through the air, he angled his flight directly toward Cordelia. She ducked and heard him strike the loader, but the impact sounded wrong. Glancing out, she saw that he had locked his claw arm into the machine. Yellow-gold esper danced over his skin like sunlight. His broken nose straightened and healed. A missing tooth grew back, and the bent struts in his arm straightened out. She released the trigger, ending the vacuuming effect.

  Vance gained his feet in an instant and dove across the loader. He shoved her off balance with his organic arm and wrapped the mechanical one completely around her torso. “‘Ello, love. You and me’ve got business to discuss.” He turned, using the loader as cover against the scattered shots from the pit crew, and sprinted back for the far passage. “Come on, lads,” he shouted. “Time to go.”

  ***

  Malya waited with Harker by the last shuttle, counting the pit crew as they ran by. Smoke billowed from some of the upper decks, and the princess felt a new sense of urgency. Lug appeared from around some rubble, hauling what looked like a half-dozen injured people. Despite the burden, and his almost comically small legs, he navigated the wreckage superbly—benefits of being a salvage and repair robot.

  Malya shouted to him, “They ours?”

  Lug nodded, and she ushered him aboard. A second later, Betty scrambled clear of the debris and jogged toward them. Her rivet gun hung loosely from her shoulder, and she looked exhausted.

  “You the last?”

  “Yeah, boss,” Betty gasped. She sank down, hands on her knees, and just gulped air for a few seconds. “Lots of—” Coughs wracked her for a moment. “Smoke. Lots of smoke back there.”

  “The passengers?” asked Harker as the mechanic straightened up.

  Betty shot a look at Malya, who nodded, but the pit chief still looked warily at the pirate captain. “Safe as they get, I reckon. They’re still in the arboretum. We were holding the door, but the pirates attacking us broke off just after you called.” She coughed again. “Weirdest thing.”

  “Who lead them?” Harker asked.

  Betty kept frowning at him. “The chee said his name, but I don’t remember it. Bronze . . . somebody, maybe? Big guy, with a replacement arm. Ugly piece of work, too, but incredibly strong.”

  “Golden Vance,” Harker muttered. “And that is an apt description of him.”

  “She was talking about the arm,” Malya said, and turned to Betty. “How many did we lose?”

  Betty shook her head, and her solid, calm expression cracked for a second with grief and fatigue. “Eight, including the chee. Remember the chee Rin spotted? She came with us to help. Pulled the biggest friggin’ gun I’ve ever seen a single sentient carry out of thin air and knew how to use it. The pirate—” She glanced at Harker. “Vance, I guess. He got in close, grabbed her, and ran for it.”

  “That’s not good,” Harker said. “If Vance grabbed your friend, it’s because he feels she’s worth something.”

  Betty shrugged. “She’s a robot maid. Maybe he’s got vacuuming to do.”

  “He certainly does, but that’s not the reason.” Harker shook his head to dismiss the thought. “There isn’t time now. Get aboard. I’m told the paladins have just arrived.”

  Betty put up her hands. “Wait, wait, wait. Who is this guy, and why are we running when the cavalry just showed up?”

  Malya grabbed her friend’s shoulder. “Long story, not now. This is Captain Harker. He’s a pirate.” Betty’s eyes went wide and her hands went to her gun, but Malya squeezed her shoulder tighter. “We’re going with him because he says he can stop the Calamity with our help.”

  Betty froze. “And you believe him?”

  “I—” Malya stopped. Without Mr. Tomn, without the urgency of the moment, without the feel of Sedaris supporting her, all her reasons for joining Harker sounded so silly. But Mr. Tomn had been certain, and when she thought for a second, so was Malya. Harker just might be able to stop the Calamity. “Yes,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I do.” She shrugged. “And besides, I promised Mr. Tomn I’d try.”

  Betty nodded. “Good enough for me. Let’s go.” She trotted onto the shuttle as Malya stared after her.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it,” Harker muttered to her, “that feeling when someone you value and respect just accepts your word and follows your lead? I’ve commanded ships for more years than I care to count, led some of the finest men and women in the galaxy, and that feeling still gives me shivers.”

  “I don’t—” Malya swallowed. “What if I’m wrong?”

  “Then you’re wrong,” he said, smiling, “and a lot of people you love may get hurt or worse. But someone has to make the choice, and they clearly think there’s no one better than you to do that.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Consider that they may, actually, be correct. But consider it on the shuttle.”

  Malya clung to the wide viewport behind the pilots’ station as the shuttle pulled free of the Tranquil Wind. She watched as two pirate ships sparred with two enormous cruisers painted in the colors of the Order of the Shattered Sword. Around one of the paladin cruisers, the drive flares from assault shuttles flickered to life as they raced toward the stricken starliner. The corsair vessels broke off from their delaying action with the cruisers, chased by plasma beams. The Shattered Sword ships immediately turned their heaviest guns on the few pirate ships still lingering near the Wind. The buccaneer attack began to disintegrate before the force of the paladins’ response.

  The ships that had engaged the paladins moved to meet up with a large, sleek vessel that had stayed on the far side of the starliner. Malya studied the ship as their shuttle approached it. Long and black and clearly built by people with an alien design aesthetic, it moved gracefully into their path, still sheltered from her would-be rescuers. The crest on its prow matched Harker’s crew.

  “You’re a very interesting pirate,” she said to her host.

  Harker smiled, but the shuttle pilot clearly heard her and laughed out loud. “Princess,” she said as she angled into a bay opening like a scoop from the pirate ship’s ventral section, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  “They’re moving,” Harker muttered with a growing frown.

  She glanced out the viewport and saw that at least one of the other pirate vessels had begun to maneu
ver away from the starliner.

  “And Kate will know we’re running.” He activated his communicator as the shuttle slipped into a spacious hangar. “Mr. Digby, we’re aboard. Send the signal and get us into slip space immediately.” He flicked the comm off and called to the whole cabin. “Brace for transition.”

  Less than five seconds later, the entire ship shook as the slip drives sliced open a hole in the fabric of the universe and pushed them into a tiny gap between dimensions. A ‘rounding error in creation’ Malya had once heard it called. Riding in an isolated reality at staggering speed, moving like a tiny soap bubble on the surface of a much larger bubble, the ships plunged into a world of shifting colors and smeared afterimages, separated from reality only by the barest film of mathematics. She felt their passage even out and let go of a breath she had not realized she was holding.

  Harker turned to her, smiling through his obvious fatigue. “Welcome to the Marianne,” he said. “Come. Let’s get you and your people settled.”

  Malya nodded and looked around at her disheveled, stained, injured, and exhausted pit crew. “Settled would be good.” She blinked. “Oh. We left all of our luggage.”

  Harker waved the care away. “Never fear. We can accommodate you, I believe. Provided no one objects too much to our livery.” He chuckled as he led her down the exit ramp. “Besides, it means Kate won’t leave empty handed. That will count for nothing, of course, but I’ll try to remind her of it should we ever meet again.”

  Malya halted mid-stride, nearly falling from the ramp. Not until she heard those words had it occurred to her that she might never see Cerci again, that she might never race again, or hear her father’s lonely undertone in his weekly messages to her. She might never see Ulyxis again, and that thought struck her more forcefully than she felt it should. What was Ulyxis to her but the planet she came from? It represented only burdens and duties and all that was stultifying and wrong with the Alliance. And yet, her heart still chilled.

  Mr. Tomn bounced up in front of her. He did not smile or say anything reassuring. He simply touched her leg, looked in her eyes, and nodded.

  Betty shuffled down the ramp. “What have we gotten ourselves into, boss?” the pit chief muttered, eyeing the Marianne’s crew.

  “I wish I knew, chief,” Malya replied. Then squared her shoulders and started forward. “But we’re in it neck-deep now.”

  Chapter 5

  Lucky Chance, Mezzio system, Alliance Space

  Kisa sat cross-legged in the center of her small ship, slowly swishing her tail. The tonnerian’s meditations often wandered, especially when she could spend time just floating deep in real space, and she enjoyed the sensation of drifting perceptions. She felt her black feline-like cypher Scratch reclining on her lap and sharing her trance. The creature’s vastly alien mind provided a comforting familiarity to Kisa. She could feel Mihos, her obsidian cat-shaped relic, curled on a pile of cushions against one of the round chamber’s walls. She could hear the sound of fabric rubbing as the draperies on the walls and tapestries depicting key events in Doctrine history drifted in the ship’s ventilation breeze. And she could feel the deck plates vibrate as Fiametta approached, shifting the plush maroon and gold pillows strewn across the floor. She brought her mind up enough to interact with her friend but still retain her calm trance.

  Fiametta stopped at the room’s airlock. Kisa could feel the other woman’s unease and suspected it related to the force barrier above them, currently the only thing between them and the blackness of space. Or possibly not. She carefully probed at Fiametta’s emotions and detected an imbalance different from her usual state. For all the six cycles that the human had accompanied Kisa—ostensibly as the Doctrine’s official ‘monitor’ for its only Relic Knight but really as her willing cohort—she had grown to know Fiametta well. From her affinity for fire magic, love of adventure, seeming immunity to the aura of ill luck that Kisa unconsciously radiated, and even the strange affection for her wizard’s hat, Kisa thought she had her best friend figured out. But now, feeling the edges of the human’s agitation, she found that she still had more to learn.

  Perhaps she was watching the crystal array that seemed to grow from a graceful jade and onyx urn in front of Kisa. The crystals flickered and glowed softly, shifting with her thoughts as she guided the ship. Perhaps it had to do with the message.

  Kisa licked her lips and cleared her throat. “What did Squall have to say?” she asked without opening her eyes.

  She could hear Fiametta shift to lean against a wall and the half-smile in her friend’s voice. “She says that Star Nebula Corsairs have captured the Source.”

  Kisa frowned and forced her eyes to remain shut. “That’s strange, for her. The Source is a myth.”

  “I thought so too,” Fiametta replied, sounding a bit more serious. “But it’s not like Squall to make that sort of thing up. She’s certainly never done that with me, and she wouldn’t make a near-panicked call to her old friends just for a joke.”

  Kisa sighed. “No, that doesn’t sound like her. But she’s been gone for a long time now. People change.”

  “Not like that,” Fiametta said. She moved a bit and, by the sound of it, sat on one of the cushioned stools. “Ask yourself this: isn’t it a little strange that she’d tell us and not Calico Kate? She was rushed, clearly, and sounded genuinely frightened. I think she only had time to make one call. She’s been an unrepentant pirate for cycles. Whatever they’ve found, it must be something truly powerful, or supremely dangerous, if she’d rather see us have it than Kate.”

  Kisa’s frown deepened. Fiametta was using logic to box her into doing something she hadn’t chosen to do, and probably to do it for all the right reasons. Again. Kisa gritted her teeth.

  “There’s more,” Fiametta continued. “Squall didn’t encrypt the message or wait for a secure channel; this is how I know she was rushed. It looks like Alliance Security intercepted the transmission.”

  Kisa groaned.

  “They’ve already dispatched a ship and ordered that we rendezvous with it immediately or leave Alliance space.”

  Kisa dropped her head and opened her eyes. The last red and orange lights faded from the crystals. “Fine.” She stood abruptly, dumping Scratch with a screech, and glared at the stars overhead as though this had all, somehow, been their fault. From the corner of her eye, she could see Fiametta hiding her smile. Kisa finally shook her head and triggered the armored hull to close over the force field with a wave of her hand. “Fine,” she said again and turned to Fiametta. “Did Squall say where they were?”

  Fiametta shook her head as she rose and followed Kisa to the far end of the room. “No, but if the corsairs were busy grabbing something like that, I imagine we’ll hear about it pretty quick.”

  “You’d think,” Kisa muttered. She moved some pillows to uncover a secondary control interface and tapped a short sequence into the keypad. The computers unlocked, and half a dozen holographic displays blinked to life around them. She brought up images of the surrounding space. A small purple wedge appeared, clearly on an intercept course for them and closing fast. “Well, they’re taking this seriously, at any rate, which means we should too.” She rubbed her nose. “I’m getting a quick shower. Put out the welcome mat, would you?”

  Fiametta nodded, grinning, and hurried out.

  Twenty minutes later, Kisa stood at the bottom of her ship, waiting for the large airlock to finish cycling, and trying not to fidget. Fiametta waited much more calmly, arms crossed, her pointed wizard hat flopping coyly off to the side. She did not exactly appear relaxed, but she certainly seemed more accepting of the delay and forced passenger. Kisa wondered at that. Maybe it was just because this was her ship, and she liked the idea that she decided who came aboard and who didn’t, but the whole situation rankled her. If the Source, whatever it was, was so important, they needed to get after it, not wait to pick up some stuffy Alliance rep with nothing better to do than get in the way. The airlock hissed and tu
rned, and Kisa let out a long breath. Finally. Then she stared at the person who stepped through.

  The first description that came to Kisa’s mind was bubbly. The athletic, pink-haired woman nearly bounced into the ship. She had a pair of almost bottle-shaped pistols riding on her hips, and she smiled like she had just arrived at the best party in the galaxy. A small, three-tailed, foxlike cypher looked out from behind her legs. The woman shook Kisa’s hand with what the Relic Knight could only call exuberance. “Hello, hello. You must be Kisa. I’ve heard an awful lot about you, and I’m super glad to finally meet you. You’re a legend in the Alliance, believe it or not.” Kisa, rarely at a loss for words, could only nod as the woman absolutely beamed. “I’m Candy.”

  “Oh,” Kisa managed. “Of course you are.”

  Candy blinked questioningly.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Kisa said quickly. “It’s been a strange day. I meant that there aren’t many Alliance reps that, um, match your description. So you have to be Candy.”

  “Guilty as charged. I’m—” Candy cut off mid-breath as her eyes landed on Fiametta.

  Only then did Kisa feel the waves of cold radiating from behind her. She dropped the Alliance Knight’s hand and stepped back. Fiametta regarded the newcomer with a fixed expression of neutral pleasance, like someone waiting her turn in a dentist chair but determined not to flinch.

  Fiametta nodded at the Alliance rep. “Candy.”

  The Knight nodded back. “Fiametta. You, um, look well.”

  “I am, thanks. You seem as enthusiastic as ever.”

  Kisa glanced from one woman to the other. She could almost see the air crackling between them. “So, um,” she said. “You, ah, you two know each other, then.”

  Neither looked at Kisa, but both nodded. “Candy works for Alliance Security,” Fiametta said, her voice firm and controlled. “She’s one of their better agents, apparently. A roving troubleshooter.”

  “I do get to travel a lot,” Candy allowed, her voice every bit as controlled. “One of the few perks of the job.”