by J. N. Chaney
14
Dash gave the small group of people huddled in the Park a reassuring smile. At least, he hoped it was reassuring. He was still new to this whole diplomatic side to his job as Messenger. It would be easy to fall into the manipulative and somewhat cynical charm that had served him so well as a courier, but these people were genuinely scared, and probably suffering from all sorts of lingering trauma. Benzel and Wei-Ping had found them hidden aboard the derelict Verity ships after the battle, gently taken them off, and brought them back to the Forge for—
That was the question, wasn’t it?
“My name’s Newton Sawyer,” he said. “But everyone calls me Dash. I just wanted to welcome you to the Forge, heart of the Cygnus Realm.”
“Never heard of you,” one man muttered.
Another said, “Who cares? They got us out of that shit.”
“And we’re glad we did,” Dash said. “And now you’re probably wondering what comes next. That’s entirely up to you.”
“Can’t go home,” the first man who’d spoken said. “Home’s gone.”
Dash nodded. “I know. That’s why you’re free to stay here, as long as you’d like. If you do, though, we’re going to ask you to help us out. We’re fighting back against the Verity—those are the bastards who attacked you and were holding you. More importantly, we’re fighting back against the Golden, the Verity’s masters.”
“Count me in,” a woman said, but others among the crowd didn’t look so sure.
“Like I said, it’s up to you. If you don’t want to stay, then as soon as we can, we’ll take you to an inhabited planet or station, and you can go your own way. In the meantime, you’ve got the run of this part of the Forge, including this park our people have built here. Just don’t eat anything without talking to Freya over there.” He ended on the most charming smile he could muster, then left the newcomers and joined Leira, Viktor, and Ragsdale.
“We have to screen the hell out of these people before we trust them with anything but their assigned hab space and this park,” Dash said.
Ragsdale gave a firm nod. “Already on it. The trouble is that a few of them just have no records. If they did, they were destroyed when the Verity attacked wherever they were from.”
“If we can’t be entirely confident they’re clean, then they can’t stay. We just can’t risk any more spies or saboteurs.”
“That’s an advantage the Verity have,” Viktor said. “They’re not interested in the welfare of these people, so they’re not worried about any of them being spies.”
“That’s true,” Dash replied. “And it’s going to stay true, because I’d never ask anyone to subject themselves to that as an agent for us.”
“Damned right,” Leira said.
They left the new refugees with Freya—and several Gentle Friends, armed with concealed pulse-pistols, who’d keep a discreet eye on the situation. They made their way to the main infirmary, which was crowded with more refugees, as well as injured from the battle.
“Let’s hope we have no big medical emergencies,” Dash said, eyeing the dreary throng of ill and injured. “We’re packed to the bulkheads in here.”
They were. Every treatment table was occupied, so that some patients were sprawled on gurneys, or even on stretchers on the floor. Had it been a conventional facility, Dash knew, it would have been bedlam, with doctors and nurses bustling about, calling out instructions and orders and questions, people moaning in pain, some probably panicking. But Unseen tech precluded all that. The interconnected treatment bays were quiet and purposeful, with automated systems working away to deliver therapies and treatment.
“There are adequate peripheral facilities to deal with any likely short-term needs,” Custodian said. “Moreover, sixty percent of those being treated here are responding well and can soon be discharged.”
Dash watched a robotic arm move a device along the arm of one of the Gentle Friends, which was scorched and blistered with a plasma burn. The woman saw him watching and shrugged.
“Doesn’t even hurt,” she said.
Dash stepped up to her bedside and examined the burn. Second degree, third in a few places. The pain should be excruciating.
“Really?” Dash asked. “Are you sure you’re not just being all stoic about it?”
The woman gazed at her seared arm. “Do I look that stoic? I mean it doesn’t actually hurt, thanks to whatever Custodian did.”
“Your nervous system is a relatively straightforward organo-electrical network,” Custodian said. “It is simply a matter of selectively interrupting its electrical impulses.”
“Simple for you, maybe,” Dash said, then he gave the woman a smile and moved on.
Dash and the others wandered among the injured, visiting everyone, even stopping to spend a moment with those who were unconscious. One such casualty halted him short.
“He’s Clan Shirna,” Dash said.
“Yeah, he is,” Wei-Ping replied. “We pulled him from the wreckage of that Shirna battlecruiser, the one you and Amy attacked first, along with that big Verity battlecruiser. It was called the Grinding Heel, by the way.”
“What a charming name,” Leira said, rolling her eyes.
“Those two ships were awfully damned big and powerful,” Benzel put in. “In case I hadn’t mentioned it before, you guys doing as much damage to them as you did, right up front, probably made the battle for us.”
Dash nodded. Benzel didn’t know how right he was. After all, Dash had seen what would have happened if they hadn’t effectively knocked those two big capital ships mostly out of the fight right at the outset.
“Anyway, as far as we can tell, this was the only survivor,” Wei-Ping went on. “Custodian figures that he might literally be the only survivor from Clan Shirna, in fact.”
“Aside from that woman—what’s her name, Sur-natha?” Benzel said. “The one we’re holding as a prisoner, anyway.”
“And she’s human, not actually Clan Shirna, even if she does claim to be Nathis’s adopted daughter,” Leira added.
Dash narrowed his eyes at the unconscious figure, and the reptilian features he remembered so well from Nathis, their bitter, but now long-gone enemy. “Custodian, what makes you think this is the last survivor of Clan Shirna?”
“An analysis of casualty rates, versus the expected demographics of the Clan Shirna population. There is some uncertainty, of course, but the likelihood of this being the sole surviving member of that faction is approximately eighty percent. If there are other survivors, they no longer constitute a viable population, and will not for a significant number of generations.”
“So, except for this guy, Clan Shirna is dead,” Dash said.
“That’s what it amounts to, yeah,” Wei-Ping replied.
“And what are his chances for recovering?”
“He suffered severe trauma. His chances of recovery are approximately fifty percent.”
Fifty-fifty. He survives, or he doesn’t. Except it wasn’t especially funny, this time.
“So could we use this bed for one of our own people, who’s more likely to survive?”
“Yes, there are several candidates,” Custodian replied.
“So pick the worst of those and give them this bed.”
“What do you want to do with this guy?” Wei-Ping asked.
Dash shrugged. “Get him out of the way. Otherwise, I don’t care.”
Benzel and Wei-Ping just nodded. Leira looked at Dash with concern, but he spoke before she could.
“These bastards allied themselves with the Golden, mainly to grab some power and make some credits, remember?”
She stopped, looked back down at the unconscious figure, then nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
And that was that.
They carried on, reaching the other end of the main infirmary, and Dash turned to Benzel. “Okay, this was the easy part. Now for the hard part. Where are our dead?”
Benzel frowned. “Custodian has them in stasis. Why?”
“You sure about that?”
“They’re not going to be hurt if you give them a pass, you know,” Wei-Ping said.
But Dash gave his head a firm shake. “No. I want to see them. I’m always going to want to see them, from now on. To pay my respects.”
The others continued to look doubtful but started to turn away. Dash stopped them by carrying on. “Look, over the past while I’ve started to realize I’m more than just the Messenger. For good or for worse, I’m the leader around here. It's not something I ever especially wanted, certainly nothing I ever asked for—but there it is.” He looked back into the crowded infirmary. “I’m really starting to realize what that actually means. These people—I’m responsible for them. The decisions I make are going to go a long way in determining if they live, or if they—yeah, if they die. And if they die, I want to—”
Dash stopped, shaking his head. This was really hard to put into words.
But Leira smiled and touched his arm. “No, I get it. You want to thank them and say goodbye to them.”
Dash nodded. “Yeah. That’s it exactly. They’ve given up everything for what we’re trying to do here. I owe them this.” He returned Leira’s smile. “Sometimes I think I’d be lost without you, you know.”
As soon as he said it, an image of the wrecked Swift shoved its way into his mind. He shoved it away just as hard.
Benzel nodded again, this time in a way that said yeah, he got it, too. They left the infirmary and led them to the morgue.
The door was sealed, and they had to ask Custodian explicitly to open it. “This is because there is a low-power stasis field operating in the compartment,” the AI said. “It suppresses biological activity. Think of the nerve-impulse blocking I describe earlier, except applied to all life processes.”
“So your heart would just stop beating?” Wei-Ping asked.
“Yes. However, the cessation of electrical activity in your brain would be a much more immediate cause of death.”
“You know, I realize this is going to sound really inappropriate, considering why we’re here, but can we weaponize that?” Benzel said. “It sounds like it could be devastating if you could, say, hit even just part of a ship with some effect like that.”
“It is not a practical application of the technology,” Custodian replied. “The field generators would require too much power for the effect, which would be restricted to too small an area, and all of it would require considerable miniaturization.”
“Well, it was worth a shot,” Benzel said.
“Okay, Custodian, open the doors,” Dash said.
The door slid smoothly open.
Beyond was a compartment about fifteen meters by ten, empty of anything except racks of shelves. Most of them were empty.
But ten weren’t. Dash walked to the first body, enclosed in a black polymer bag. A data chip attached to it lit with a name and other particulars when he touched it.
Dash recognized the name. He’d been one of the Gentle Friends. And that was all Dash knew about him.
He looked at the bag. It concealed a man who had died barely into the beginning of his life, in his early twenties. Dash wondered about him. What had his childhood been like? How had he ended up in the ranks of the Gentle Friends? Did he still have family somewhere? Had he fallen in love with anyone? Kissed anyone? Been easy to get along with? Funny? A miserable asshole? Some of both?
None of that mattered, though, did it? Because it had all died with him.
Dash let go of the data chip and it went dark.
He went from body to body, spending a moment with each one. Leira, Benzel, and Wei-Ping waited a discreet and respectful distance away. As he touched each data chip and it lit up with an identity that had once been a life, Dash found himself growing angrier with each corpse.
By the time he reached the last one, he was seething, a deep, primal rage boiling inside him. He wanted to strap himself into the Archetype, go find some Golden or Verity or Clan Shirna, and destroy them. He imagined not doing with missiles or the dark-lance, but with the mech’s power-sword, with its fists. He wanted to slam them repeatedly into the works of the Golden, smash them, break them, tear them down.
“Dash, are you okay?”
He looked up, unaware he’d just been standing motionless and staring intently at the last body. Leira stood beside him, worry etched onto her face.
Dash realized his fists were clenched and relaxed them. It took effort. Finally, he nodded—or meant to, but actually ended up shaking his head.
“Am I okay?” He looked around at the bodies. “No, I’m not.” He turned back to Leira. “But I will be. And then we’ll get on with the war.”
“You know what you need?” Benzel said. “A drink. Freya’s got a new batch of plumato wine. Or, if you’re really brave, we’ve got some stuff our folks brewed up on the Herald.”
He glanced at Wei-Ping, apparently waiting for her take on whatever concoction the Gentle Friends aboard the Herald had come up with. She shrugged.
“It’s awful,” she said. “But it’ll get you drunk.”
“We call it fusion burn,” Benzel said, then nodded at one of the bodies. “Tirel over there was a master at making the stuff. Or at least making it drinkable, anyway.”
Dash looked at the body of Tirel. Except he wasn’t just a body, was he? He was still a person. He still meant things to people. And that kept him alive, at least in a way.
The thought made Dash feel a little better. He gave Leira a grateful nod, then turned to Benzel and Wei-Ping and said, “You know what? Yeah, I could use a drink.”
“I think we all could,” Leira said, following Dash and the others back out of the compartment they were using as a morgue. The door slid silently shut and sealed again behind them.
As they walked away, Dash briefly thought about the inside of that compartment, the door now closed, the lights off, plunging it into complete and silent darkness.
Fusion burn was right, Dash thought. With emphasis on burn. He’d drank some pretty raw stuff in his time, but the Gentle Friends’ makeshift liquor was right in the top ranks of harsh, crossing a line from raw to barely drinkable.
As the hot shower water played over him, sluicing over his skin, he resolved to never actually get drunk on the stuff. One drink made his head tingle and left a slightly bitter dryness in his mouth that he was sure resulted from having lost a layer of skin inside his mouth. Even opening his mouth into the shower stream, letting hot water bubble and gush through his mouth, didn’t blunt the feeling.
He watched the last of the soap swirl away down the drain between his bare feet. His shower was done—except he hadn’t really decided to take one to get clean, had he? In the shower he had no demands on him except to stand still and let the water rinse away his exhaustion. It was a refuge of sorts, and now, it was over.
“Messenger, if you have a moment,” Custodian said.
Dash blew out a sigh. So much for that.
“Yeah, just give me a second here,” he said, tapping the control that shut off the water, then stepping out and into a warm-air drier. It took only seconds to waft the water from his body; he slipped on a clean pair of shorts and padded into his private quarters.
“Okay, Custodian, what’s up?”
“The Horse Nebula and the Void Stalker have sent a message to the effect that they are returning to the Forge following an engagement with the enemy.”
Dash paused in the middle of pulling on a sock. The two mine layers had been dispatched a couple of days previously, on another of their ongoing missions to mine systems the Forge passed as it advanced. The aim was to deny easy access to the systems by enemy forces, while giving an early warning if they tried, a sign that they might be attempting to outflank the Forge.
“Show me a star chart,” Dash said, tugging on his other sock and standing.
A holo image appeared, showing where the Horse Nebula and her consort had been opera
ting, and the current location of the Forge.
“The mine layers were attacked shortly before they translated out of that system,” Custodian said. “They had almost completed their mining tasks and confirm that at least two Verity corvettes were attacked by mines, and one was badly damaged or destroyed.”
“How are our people?”
“Minor injuries only. No deaths.”
“Good.”
Dash studied the chart, rotating it with a wave of a hand to get the full, three-dimensional perspective. “So if they ran into enemy forces there,” Dash said, pointing at the system in question, “then the Verity, or the Golden, or whoever’s behind it, seems to be trying to work around our left flank.”
“Yes. The mines are proving quite valuable for securing our flanks.”
“Yeah, they are.” Dash crossed his arms and frowned at the star chart in thought. “Okay,” he finally said. “Let’s get more drones patrolling out to our flanks and push them out a little further. If they do try coming at us, I want as much warning as possible. Also, make sure Benzel and Wei-Ping know about this.”
“I have already briefed them.”
Dash nodded. “Of course you have,” he said, and turned to finish getting dressed.
“There is one other matter,” Custodian said.
Dash pulled on shirt, paused, and sighed. “Isn’t there always. So what is it this time?”
“The injured member of Clan Shirna died just a short time ago.”
“Really.”
“Yes. I thought you would like to know.”
“Okay, then. Just go ahead and space the body.”
“Do you wish to be present when that is done?”
“Nope. No one does. Just have one of your maintenance remotes do it.”
“If I may make an observation, your lack of concern over the death of what is likely the last member of an entire race stands in marked contrast to your concern for the dead in the morgue.”
“Damned right it’s markedly different.” Dash snapped the waistband closed on his trousers. “Why, does that bother you?”