The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  Dash heard movement and turned toward it.

  Nathis was dragging himself upright. The whole left side of his body looked blistered and, in places, charred; the left side of his face was a crimson ruin. But he turned, facing Dash, a cosmic level of hatred burning in his one good eye.

  His mouth worked. What it said was, “You. Die. Now.”

  He flung himself at Dash.

  Dash tried to throw himself aside, but Nathis landed partly on top of him, pinning him. Dash tried to lever himself free, but his arms felt like wet Thalarian spice-noodles. Nathis raised a fist, wobbled, then swung it down at Dash’s face, apparently intent on simply beating him to death.

  Dash put everything he could summon into one, desperate heave. He threw Nathis aside and back, sending him crashing into the bridge’s outer bulkhead, right beneath a vision port.

  Clambering to his feet, Dash looked wildly around for the plasma pistol he’d dropped. It was nowhere to be seen. He now realized some of the grey fuzz obscuring his vision was actually smoke, from whatever the plasma blast had incinerated. A heavy stink of hot metal and burning hung in the air. He turned back to Nathis, just in time for the big—because he was big—Shirna to lunge at him, awkwardly, but still driving Dash back against a console, slamming the air from his lungs.

  Okay, this wasn’t going to work. Even as injured has he was, Nathis was still much bigger and stronger than Dash, who had himself suffered more than a few bruising pummelings of various sorts over the past hours. He had to end this fight fast.

  Dash slammed a free fist against the burned side of Nathis’s face. He loosed a howl of pain and, grossly, charred flesh pulled away, stuck to Dash’s hand. He grimaced, but ignored it, and struck again. Nathis recoiled back, giving Dash a chance to get upright again and suck breath into his lungs.

  Until Nathis’s own fist caught him in the chest. The impact drove him back against the console again; fortunately, his trusty vac suit was thick enough to dissipate much of the blow. Without it, Dash knew Nathis’s punch would have broken ribs. He slid sideways, toward Nathis’s burned side, kicking out as he did. Pain flashed up his own leg, but his foot caught Nathis’s knee, buckling it. Nathis howled and staggered back.

  If Dash was going to win this fight, it had to be now.

  He closed in, crowding into Nathis, grabbing him and flinging himself one way, forcing Nathis the other. As he did, he grabbed the big reptilian arm and twisted it behind him, then kept twisting it, putting what remained of his strength into the effort, bending it until it snapped.

  Nathis screamed and flailed back with his free arm. It caught Dash with a heavy slap against his face that staggered him. Lifting his foot and planting his boot on the edge of the console, Dash drove himself into Nathis, meaning to slam him against the nearby bulkhead and, hopefully, end the fight. Nathis crashed into the viewport instead.

  With a loud crack, the viewport partly shattered. Nathis screamed again, but it was sucked away by the sudden rush of air through the fractured crystal. The fusion explosion must have weakened it, Dash thought, and now it held Nathis tightly, his head wedged through the jagged hole, air howling around it, the pressure not only holding him in place but starting to push him through it.

  Dash stumbled back, wind roaring around him, vapor condensing to mist as the pressure dropped. It wasn’t an explosive decompression—Nathis’s head and shoulders were preventing that—but the atmosphere would keep venting. Fortunately, there was enough that it should take several minutes, giving Dash time to get out of here.

  Nathis wasn’t so fortunate. Exposed to the hard, cold vacuum of space, Dash saw ice forming on Nathis’s head and face as moisture in the venting air froze against his skin. Worse, the air pressure kept pushing Nathis further and further through the shattered port, like a cork slowly being expelled from a shaken bottle of something carbonated. Now his head and shoulders had been forced through and were protruding into space.

  Dash turned away. He really didn’t need—or want—to watch this.

  He saw his helmet sitting a few meters away, so he grabbed it and snapped it back into place. Even compromised, his suit might give him another minute or two of breathable air. That should be enough to get back to the Archetype.

  “Another ship has arrived in this system,” Sentinel said.

  Dash sucked in a breath of thinning air. “Who is it?”

  “It is another Clan Shirna vessel.”

  Dash imagined another corvette or frigate—probably a straggler, late to the fight. It was unlikely Clan Shirna even had a much larger ship in its roster; behemoths like this cruiser were exceedingly rare. “Great,” he said, heading for the exit. “Well, one thing at a time—”

  “No, this vessel poses a considerably greater threat.”

  “Why?”

  But Dash knew why.

  This new ship was vast. It made the massive cruiser he stood aboard look like a corvette by comparison. Dash hadn’t even realized ships that large existed.

  And it was headed straight toward the gas giant.

  Dash took a deep breath—it took him a moment, the atmosphere now passing from thin to tenuous—then let it out.

  “Okay, you know what? That is just totally not fair.”

  20

  But life wasn’t fair, was it? Standing here in the steadily vanishing atmosphere of Nathis’s ship and feeling bitter about it wasn’t going to change the fact that Clan Shirna suddenly had a decisive advantage over him. Even if he could get the Archetype as powered up as it could be, it wouldn’t be sufficient to take on this monstrous battlecruiser. Which was too bad, because that battlecruiser also gave them a tremendous advantage over anyone else, and they might have more than one of them.

  “Are you—or, should I say, is the Archetype ready to fly? Like, can you get free of this ship?”

  “Yes, Dash, it should be possible to break free with relative ease. While you have been away, the Archetype has been regenerating its systems. It is still far from battle-ready, however.”

  Dash started for the door leading from the bridge, the one he’d used to enter. “Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to be fighting that thing. I think we’re just going to be running.”

  Dash stopped just short of the door as a thought slammed into him like one of Nathis’s fists. “Where’s the Slipwing? Have you seen it leave the gas giant’s atmosphere?”

  “No. There is no indication that it has. However, it is difficult to determine anything with certainty, given the Archetype’s present status,” Sentinel said.

  You mean half-buried in a ship, with only its ass and legs hanging out. Dash didn’t say it, but—despite the horrific situation—he still couldn’t resist a smirk at the image. That faded as fast as it appeared. “So Leira and the others—they’re still down there? Inside that planet’s atmosphere?”

  “In the absence of any conclusive data, that is a definite possibility.”

  Dash took a step for the door. “Yeah, worst case scenario, I know. But we have to assume—”

  He stopped again. This time, because something had caught his eye. A device on Nathis’s wrist was flashing.

  It could be anything. It could be a reminder to take some sort of med, or take something out of the oven. But it hadn’t been flashing a second ago. Dash was sure of that.

  On instinct, Dash turned and crossed back to Nathis’s corpse. It had been shoved almost halfway out of the broken port by air pressure, but now sat jammed in place, partly because of his arm, still stuck inside and pressed against the port. The body blocked all but a few small gaps now, too, meaning that while air was still venting, it was more of a mild leak than a catastrophic loss of atmosphere.

  Dash looked at the device on Nathis’s wrist. He recognized it, or thought he did. It was a personal comm, or something much like it, and it indicated an incoming message.

  He couldn’t read the glowing script. But, again presumably thanks to his connection with the Archetype, that didn’t matter. He j
ust knew what it said. It was an incoming message from someone or something called the Prelate—or, at least, that was the closest word his brain could provide for the term.

  “A high-ranking religious authority,” Sentinel said, anticipating his next question.

  “Oh, okay. Thanks.” So this must be Nathis’s boss.

  Dash had assumed Nathis was the one in charge of Clan Shirna. It had never even occurred to him that Nathis might himself be an underling, with higher authorities to whom he reported. It made sense, though, that the guy with the far bigger ship would also have a higher rank.

  Again, on impulse, Dash tapped the receive icon on Nathis’s comm.

  “—again, Brother Nathis, what is your status? We are scanning significant damage to the forward portion of your ship. Advise of your status at once.”

  Dash glanced around at the smashed and seared remains of the bridge. The ship didn’t seem to be out of control, so either it was being operated by automated systems, or crew in other parts of the vessel were still controlling it. In fact, given a ship this large, it was pretty unlikely the only crew were the ones he’d encountered here, on and near the bridge. Which meant, of course, said surviving crew could arrive at any minute, intent on reclaiming the bridge of their ship.

  Dash suspected the only reason they hadn’t already was the damage done by impact of the Archetype—smashed, torn, and twisted structural components simply blocking the way forward from the rest of the ship.

  So he had unknown time against a lethal enemy, who might come boiling through space with vengeance on their minds. He had a punctured viewport at risk of causing catastrophic decompression, leaving Dash with a rapidly deflating suit and no options other than a horrible death. That assumed he wasn’t blown into space along with it, to tumble among the stars for eternity as a frozen corpse.

  Or would something else disastrous happen, like the hull buckling, or the fusion drive breaching, or even a failure of the translation drive’s anti-deuterium containment?

  “You know, there are a whole lot of ways I could die here,” Dash said to the air. The air did not answer, but Sentinel did.

  “Which is why I strongly recommend that you evacuate now. Return to the Archetype and make your escape before this ship suffers a critical failure, or the Clan Shirna battlecruiser enters firing range.”

  “I doubt that the Prelate over there, whoever he is, would fire on one of his own ships,”

  “Religious zealots such as those of Clan Shirna are not known for their thoughtful restraint.”

  “Ah, yeah, good point.” The AI was right. He had no reason to stick around here. Not only was he needlessly endangering himself, but he also needed to do something about the Slipwing, if she hadn’t managed to get free of the gas giant.

  So why was he still lingering here, staring at the comm on Nathis’s wrist?

  Because I’m on the verge of realizing something important, something I might be able to use to make this whole situation better.

  Dash bit his lip. If whatever it was didn’t stop flying around inside his brain like a skittish bird and just land already, and soon, he’d have to jump ship, literally. A solution stalked him from the edge of awareness, like a forgotten memory fighting to resurface in a lifetime of images and experience.

  A tremor shuddered through the deck under Dash’s feet. He didn’t feel any acceleration, although the dampers might be preventing it. If anything, it felt like the impact of a high-density weapon.

  “What’s going on, Sentinel?”

  “It appears to be a structural instability in the forward part of this ship’s hull.”

  “A structural…? You mean it’s starting to come apart.”

  “In the most essential sense, yes.”

  Dash narrowed his eyes, then exhaled slowly. The bird fluttered as much as ever, so he turned toward the exit.

  Wait.

  He looked back at Nathis.

  He has a Lens. The Ribbon had showed them that.

  Where was it?

  And just like that, the bird landed.

  Dash hurried back to Nathis’s corpse. He’d probably kept the Lens on him. Dash hoped, anyway. If he’d locked it away in some secure part of the ship, then so much for that. But if he had it on him, or it was at least nearby, then Dash had a chance to retrieve it. Which he had to, because he could not leave Clan Shirna in possession of one of the damned things. Besides, it might give Dash the edge he needed.

  He dug through anything even resembling a pocket or pouch on Nathis’s sleek, leathery uniform, but found nothing. Well, so much for that.

  Of course, half of Nathis had been pulled through the smashed port and now hung in space like a grotesque decoration affixed to the side of the ship.

  “Okay,” Dash muttered, “this is going to suck.”

  He grabbed Nathis’s legs and pulled. He might as well have been trying to pull apart a bulkhead, though. The air pressure against the body was probably hundreds of kilograms, far more than Dash could ever move on his own. Dash strained one more time, and another shudder vibrated the deck, ending a long, low groan of some structural component protesting under loads it had never been intended to bear.

  “I recommend haste,” Sentinel warned. “The Archetype is likely to survive the failure of this ship’s structural integrity, but you—"

  “Are a squishy meat-bag. Yeah, I know.”

  Dash stopped to gasp in some of the thinned air. This wasn’t going to work. Maybe he could remount the Archetype, move around to this port, and grab Nathis’s body with it.

  Except the comm on the body’s wrist was still blinking, demanding attention. Once that battlecruiser saw the Archetype come to life and start moving around, he’d have much bigger problems than retrieving the Lens from Nathis’s body—if it was on him in the first place. Although, knowing what he did about Nathis, it was unlikely he’d leave it anywhere anyone else could grab it. Moreover, if he’d needed to evacuate in a hurry, he’d want to have it close at hand.

  Dash saw a pocket on Nathis’s chest. He didn’t know, of course, if it held the Lens, but if Dash had to put credits on it, that was the pocket he’d bet on. It was within easy reach, too. Except, of course, the remains of the view port prevented it. It might as well be on the other side of the gas giant.

  “Dash, the Clan Shirna battlecruiser is under high acceleration, its trajectory in-system.”

  “Yeah, the Prelate, or whatever he is, has run out of patience, I guess.” Dash scowled at the viewport. All that stood between him and where he was sure Nathis’s Lens was, was a few centimeters of transparent composite. He turned his scowl onto the wrist-comm. No doubt the impatience came from a lack of a response from Nathis. Maybe he could buy a little time to do something.

  Dash tapped the comm, reopening the channel.

  “—assume that you have been compromised. The device must not fall into the wrong hands. If you are receiving this, you will do everything in your power to protect it until our arrival.”

  Dash cracked open his faceplate, wincing as his ears popped from a pressure drop—just enough to tell him that the atmosphere was still venting. But it also told him that his suit was retaining some pressure, so that was good.

  “Can you make it so I reply in their language?”

  “If you wish.”

  Dash took a breath—a deep one, because it was the only way he took in much air at all—then unmuted this end of the channel.

  “This is Nathis,” he said, trying to make his voice as close to the menacing growl he remembered as possible. Remarkably, though, his mouth and throat said something entirely different, shaping his voice into sounds and rhythms that were entirely alien to him. “I am here. I’m okay. Not compromised. I have things under control.”

  A long pause followed, and Dash frowned.

  Then he heard, “What is the status of that machine embedded in your hull?”

  “Oh, that? Well, I’m proud to say that Clan Shirna is now the proud owner of a�
�” He was about to say Archetype, but Nathis probably wouldn’t know it by that name. “I’m calling it a titan, for now.”

  “The one who had been piloting it—the human you named Sawyer, also called Dash—what is his status? The Prelate is anxious to interrogate him.”

  Dash winced. Yeah, well, I’m not anxious for that at all, myself. “He is dead. I killed him.”

  “The Prelate will not be pleased. He wants to know what Sawyer knew, and to whom he may have communicated it.”

  “Oh. Well, um, sorry, but it was him or me, you know?”

  Which is true, Dash thought, looking at Nathis’s freeze-dried corpse hanging halfway into space. Maybe not in the way I’m implying, but it is perfectly true.

  “The Prelate will be informed. We will be in weapons range in just over ten minutes. We will be able to rendezvous with you in perhaps three times that. Maintain your current trajectory.”

  “Okay, sure.” A heavy tremor shook the ship, ending on another of the low, menacing groans, followed by the high-pitched squeal of something metallic ripping apart. “Look, we’ve taken a lot of damage here, I’ll get back to you.”

  Dash shut down the channel.

  He had ten minutes, or whatever the Clan Shirna equivalent of ten minutes was, and no matter what unit of time he was dealing with, it wasn’t much.

  Better think fast, Dash. The Prelate and his ridiculously large ship were rushing toward him, venting atmosphere and starting to fall apart. And he couldn’t forget the Slipwing, still likely in trouble in the gas giant’s depths somewhere.

  Dash looked at the viewport. He could think of only one way to get at the Lens.

  “Yeah,” he said, snapping his faceplate back into place, “this is going to truly suck.”

  Dash checked the vac suit’s tether one last time. A flexible cable, it unspooled from an enclosed drum on the suit’s belly, wire-thin but exceedingly strong. It was intended to help anchor someone moving or working outside a ship, in zero-G, when they didn’t want to have to stay focused on not inadvertently sending themselves drifting off into space. Now, it was—Dash desperately hoped—going to prevent both him and Nathis from doing exactly that.