by J. N. Chaney
“Dash?”
“What?”
“I don’t judge.”
Dash smiled in mild triumph. Sentinel never used to use contractions. Everything was is not this, or will not that, instead of isn’t or won’t. Now, they were popping up more and more. It seemed he was affecting her as much as she affected him.
“The ring world is now visible,” Sentinel said. It appeared on the heads-up, a fine, glimmering circle around a faintly luminous splotch. Dash upped the magnification.
“Oh. Wow. That’s impressive.”
The Aquarian ring world circumscribed a perfect circle around an enormous comet, a vast, majestic structure thousands of kilometers across. Dash had wondered what sort of complex, orbital gymnastics its builders had used to allow for some facsimile of the day-night cycle, but the answer was far simpler. Two powerful, artificial light sources swung in a tighter orbit inside the ring, spilling day-bright illumination across two opposite quadrants of the ring, with the other two quadrants fading into darkness. His breath caught at the sheer scale of the structure, not to mention the implied complexity of the engineering involved. It was glorious.
But it left the question hanging, why? Why go through so much trouble building a structure that seemed so fragile, so in need of constant maintenance to keep it all in a stable configuration?
“We are being challenged,” Sentinel said, then a new voice came over the comm.
“—unknown ships, you have entered a region of space controlled by the Aquarian Collective. Identify yourselves and your purpose here, and do not pass beyond the orbit of the outermost planet. Doing so will be considered an aggressive act, and we will respond accordingly.”
Dash frowned. More xenophobes. He was starting to hate xenophobes. Xenophobia made him think of the Golden.
I really hope these guys don’t turn out to be lackeys of those damned aliens, Dash thought. I’ll have to destroy that gorgeous ring world.
“We represent the Realm of Cygnus,” Dash replied. “This is a peaceful mission to, you know, do the diplomatic thing with you guys.”
There was a long pause, then the voice said, “We have no records of a Realm of Cygnus.”
“We’re new. Just formed. Now we’re reaching out to folks like you. We know that an outpost of yours, near Rayet-Carinae, just had an encounter with”—Dash was going to say alien probe, but he decided to hold back a little, at least for now— “with something you hadn’t expected.”
There was another long pause before the answer came. This time, though, it came from a different voice that belonged to the man whose image appeared on the heads-up. He was small, dapper, and handsome, with olive skin, thinning black hair just touched with grey, and a tidy goatee.
“I am Al’Bijea, the Governor and Chief Executive of the Aquarian Collective. I hope you’ll forgive our caution, but we are quite sensitive regarding anyone approaching our ring world.”
Dash nodded at that. Made sense. A structure so inherently unstable, requiring constant attention to keep everything in its proper position and alignment, would probably be really vulnerable to an attack.
He put on his best smile. “Nice to meet you, sir. My name is Newton Sawyer, but my friends call me Dash. I’m the leader of the Realm of Cygnus. We’re a new outfit, and we wanted to reach out to you guys, establish diplomatic relations, you know—that sort of thing.”
Al’Bijea smiled. “You are not a diplomat by background, are you?”
“Gee, how can you tell?”
“Because you are instantly genuine. Real diplomats are never genuine at all.” His smile faded. “We don’t recognize the configuration of your ships. None of them correspond to anything in any registry, and a couple of them are quite unusual.”
“Yup. And that’s only the start of it. Look, I’d really like to talk to you, but I much prefer doing these things face-to-face. I mean, we can keep it to the comm if you want, but—”
“No, that’s fine. I have no problem meeting with you. You will notice there is an outpost station approximately fifty thousand kilometers spaceward of the Ring. That is the Oasis. It is where we normally conduct our dealings with outsiders. I will meet you there in four hours.”
The heads-up flicked back to a starfield.
“He seems nice,” Leira said.
Dash adjusted the Archetype’s trajectory for the so-called Oasis, the rest of the flotilla following suit. “Yeah, he does,” Dash said. “Of course, I’m sure Nathis of Clan Shirna could have seemed nice, too, if he’d wanted.”
“You really think so?”
Dash sniffed. “Nah, he was an asshole. Let’s just hope that Al'—um. Al'bee—”
“Al’Bijea,” Sentinel put in. “It would probably be best to know how to at least pronounce his name.”
“Sure. Anyway let’s hope this guy doesn’t turn out to be as big an asshole, or at least a nicer one.”
Dash settled himself at a table of dark, almost purple wood polished to an insanely deep shine. It, like the rest of this station called Oasis, seemed to be designed to convey a sense of weighty solemnity and elegant dependability. It was also obviously meant to showcase the Aquarians’ engineering expertise, one entire wall of this meeting room a window, giving a spectacular and perfectly framed view of the distant ring world.
It was all welcoming, and comforting, and clearly where the Aquarians would meet with prospective clients who wanted to contract their comet-mining services. Hell, there were even potted plants, and carpeting so plush and thick Dash wanted to kick off his boots and just scooch his socked feet into its cozy softness.
Viktor, who’d travelled aboard the Ardent, Benzel’s flagship for the mission, moved to the window wall and studied the ring world. Leira just looked around the room.
“This is really fancy,” Leira said. “I wonder if Tybalt would go for a luxurious makeover like this for the Swift.”
“Such elaborate materials and objects, all of a purely decorative nature, would interfere with the efficient operation of the Swift,” Tybalt said, his tone bordering on offended.
Leira sighed and looked at Dash. “How long did it take Sentinel to figure out when you were kidding around?”
“What makes you think she does?”
“I have become quite adept at discerning your attempts at humor—” Sentinel started, but Dash cut her off.
“Let’s hold off airing our dirty laundry until a more appropriate time, okay?”
The door behind the opposite side of the polished table slid smoothly open, admitting the man named Al’Bijea into the room to take a seat. A natty woman with a pleasant smile Dash could tell was completely insincere followed him in and sat beside him. The door stayed open long enough to show Dash that at least a squad, and maybe a whole platoon, of heavily armed security personnel lurked just outside the room. Dash recognized faces from at least a half-dozen systems, more than a few of them well-known to specialize in hiring out tough, aggressive mercenaries.
As the door finally slid closed, Al’Bijea began, “Mister—Sawyer, was it?”
But Dash raised a hand. “Please, like I said, my friends call me Dash.”
Al’Bijea gave a thin smile. “And are we friends?”
“I’d like to be, yeah. Kind of why we’re here, in fact.”
“Well, I would like that very much, too.” Al’Bijea gestured to the woman beside him. “This is Aliya, my personnel assistant. Once we have addressed the general nature of your requirements for our services, she will work with you to finalize the details.”
Dash opened his mouth to start explaining how they weren’t here to contract comet-mining services, but the glorious view of the ring world behind Al’Bijea snagged his attention.
Al’Bijea glanced back, then smiled.
“The Ring is impressive, isn’t it?”
“Very,” Dash said.
“I am quite proud of it. I built it—with the assistance, I must admit, of some well-funded families, but I built it. I suppose you c
ould say it’s mine.”
“You should be proud of it,” Dash said. “It’s an amazing achievement.”
“It must be an ongoing hassle to maintain it in a stable orbit,” Viktor said. “While also keeping those light sources orbiting properly, and all around a comet that couldn’t have much gravitation to keep it all in line.”
“An astute observation. Honestly, for the amount of maintenance and control input it requires, it is more ship than world. But I believe that makes it only more impressive.”
“Can’t disagree,” Dash said. “Of course, that means it must be pretty fragile, right?”
Al’Bijea’s face hardened slightly. “In the normal course of things, no, it is quite stable and durable. And it is well protected against things that would not be considered…normal.”
Dash smiled. “Okay, just to be clear, we’re not here to threaten you, or because we’re a protection racket or anything like that. We are here with a warning, though.”
The hard look remained. “And what is—the Realm of Cygnus, was it? What is the Realm of Cygnus here to warn us about?”
Dash glanced at Leira, who said, “You had a mining outpost working in the cometary belt of a system near Rayet-Carinae. You may still have a mining outpost there—or not.”
Al’Bijea’s face went from hard, to hard but wary. “Yes, we did have an operation in that area affected by some unknown phenomenon.”
“It was attacked,” Dash said. “Your outpost was attacked by something you probably could barely see, and it did a huge amount of damage that you couldn’t prevent.”
Al’Bijea glanced at his assistant, who shrugged. “All right, yes. Our outpost was attacked. Such things are not entirely unheard of. Rayet-Carinae, which as you note is nearby, is widely reputed to be a haven for pirates.”
“I know. Those three ships out there—the ones that don’t look like giant robots—are crewed by those pirates. They prefer to be called privateers, though.”
Al’Bijea studied Dash for a moment. Dash could see the man’s mind turning over, assessing, then reassessing each new piece of information. He could see that the Aquarian Governor was a quick, clever man, probably difficult to hoodwink or manipulate. It was a good thing that Dash intended to tell him nothing but the truth then.
“The implications of your words are quite menacing,” Al’Bijea said. “I can’t help but think you’re also hinting that we are under threat here as well.”
“Not a threat. An extinction, should they arrive,” Dash said. “One that will affect everyone, not just you.”
“Who?”
“The Golden.”
Al’Bijea pushed back from the table, swearing under his breath. “Those ghosts are going to end me.”
“You’ve heard of them?” Dash asked, surprised.
“In a sense.” Al’Bijea tapped at a console on the table. He eventually pulled up the image of a large chunk of scrap—part of a ship’s hull, Dash saw. Something was inscribed upon it in spidery strokes, in a language Dash vaguely recognized but couldn’t read.
Viktor, though, gasped, a most un-Viktor-like reaction. “This debris—they were attacked?” Whatever the language, he could apparently read it.
“And killed. To the last person,” Al’Bijea said.
Dash managed to puzzle out one of the words. “Wind something, right?”
“The Wind of Heaven,” Al’Bijea said, nodding. “At first we thought it was just a transport, but after some discreet inquiries, we realized it was really a colony ship.”
“I’d actually helped with some of the engineering for its sub-systems,” Viktor said. “Before I hooked up with Leira. The Wind of Heaven left during one of those especially vicious border wars that flared up starting about thirty years ago in the spin-ward region of the spiral arm.”
“Indeed, that was their whole purpose,” Al’Bijea said. “Leaving the strife and conflict behind, finding a new world to settle, and never coming back.”
“The ship eventually vanished,” Viktor put in. “But that’s what colony ships do. I think everyone assumed they’d just decided to cut all ties with civilized space.”
Dash narrowed his eyes at the image of the debris. “How many people were on board?”
“Three thousand, give or take,” Al’Bijea replied.
“And they died in the cold black,” Dash said softly, still staring at the image. “Where did you find this?”
Al’Bijea tapped at the console, changing the display to a star map. He traced a ghostly, silver line with a neatly manicured finger, the Wind of Heaven’s intended route. His finger stopped at a point just above the galactic plane. “Here. We found this, and several other pieces of debris, in the midst of a cometary field we were surveying. We detected more debris smeared along their trajectory.”
“So what makes you think it was the Golden who were responsible?” Dash asked.
“We had occasion to deal with a rather disconcerting group known as Clan Shirna. They wanted to retain our services to survey comets in a region known as the Pasture, on the—”
“On the far side of the Shadow Nebula, yeah,” Dash replied.
“You’re acquainted with them then?”
Dash exchanged a look with Leira and Viktor. “Oh, more than a little, yeah.”
“Anyway, during the course of our dealings with them, the matter of the Wind of Heaven happened to come up,” Al’Bijea went on. “Clan Shirna linked the loss of the vessel to these Golden, but then took that opportunity not to decry this monstrous crime, but to suggest it was—"
He stopped, apparently struggling for the right word. He finally turned to Aliya, who said, “They seemed to believe it was an expression of strength and resolve, and not the wanton deaths of three thousand people.”
“It was, frankly, quite shocking,” Al’Bijea said. “Anyway, we terminated our business dealings with Clan Shirna immediately thereafter. They actually still owe us a considerable number of credits.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t count on them paying up anytime soon,” Dash looked at the Wind of Heaven’s trajectory. Wherever they were going, it was a long way off, and either just on the cusp of the galactic plane, or even outside it. A strange place to start a new life—and a fatal one, as reaching the edge of the galaxy was what probably snagged the deadly interest of the Golden.
Dash turned back to Al’Bijea. “I understand the value of manners and diplomacy and all that, but honestly, we don’t have the luxury right now. What’s your defensive capability?”
Al’Bijea’s face turned hard again, but it was a different sort of hardness this time. The sort of hardness you’d see on a man who’d just received bad news, but also an offer to help with it. “These Golden are a serious threat,” he said.
“Beyond serious. They want to exterminate all sentient life in the galaxy. Clan Shirna, incidentally, were on their payroll.”
“And you believe you can stand against them?”
“With the help of the Unseen, yes. Those two mechs, and those ships out there, were built by them.”
Al’Bijea just stared for a moment. “So it would appear our Ring is no longer the most amazing and sophisticated tech in this system.”
Dash cocked his head. “Huh. I’m kind of impressed that you actually believe us.”
“When you mine comets for a living, you encounter all sorts of interesting things. And that vast comet field called the Pasture was obviously artificial. Only an enormously sophisticated alien race could have constructed it. So, yes, I believe in the existence of the Unseen, and the Golden.”
“Which takes us back to your defenses,” Dash said.
“The Ring itself has three petawatt lasers and other points defense systems, but our fleet is limited. I’m assuming you’re offering, ah, assistance?”
“I am, along with an alliance.” Dash raised a hand. “We call ourselves the Realm of Cygnus, but we’re not about being all ambitious and expansionistic. You guys would remain wholly autonomous, a
nd just be our—let’s say partners, since you’re obviously pretty smart business people. We’d be partners. The only thing I ask is that, given the chance, you kill Golden or their allies. That’s it.”
Al’Bijea gave Dash a long, penetrating look. Dash didn’t look away. Again, it was easy, because he wasn’t actually trying to hide anything. Finally, Al’Bijea stood and stuck out his hand. “Then we were allies before you ever set foot on this station.”
Dash stood and shook his hand, and they both smiled. “So, what happens next in this partnership of ours? From your reaction to my description of our defenses, you seem to be somewhat underwhelmed.”
“Your defenses are fine against any conventional threat,” Viktor said. “Against the technology of the Golden, though, let’s just say, not so much.”
“So, you will help us with that? Shall I expect ships, for instance?”
Dash nodded. “Six, led by my people, who will defer to you and maintain a distance of fifty thousand klicks from your Ring at all times, if that’s what you want. I’ll have them check in with you and link their systems to you for early warning, in case something arrives.”
“These are, I gather, more ships built by the Unseen?” Al’Bijea asked.
“They are. And they’re good. But our people are even better. So you are now our partners, and entitled to everything that entails, including waging outright war on your behalf, if you’re ever attacked by anyone.”
“And where will you be, Dash?”
Dash stared at the map again, touching the silver line depicting the trajectory the Wind of Heaven failed to complete.
“I’m going to find some ghosts.”
6
“You know, it’s a damned good thing this Meld and these systems take care of our, uh, bodily needs,” Leira said. “Otherwise, this would not be a very pleasant trip.”
Dash smiled at the monotony of the heads-up. At one time, he’d been absolutely enraptured at the novelty of experiencing unSpace like he was himself flying through it. Now, it was just boring as hell.
“This is probably the longest trip I’ve ever taken in the Archetype,” Dash said. “So I’d like to say I’m used to it, but, yeah, this is—”