by Wesley Chu
Kuo chose not to engage any further. Her exo wasn’t designed for precision, and the savages were too intermingled with the monitors to safely target. Her relationship with Director Young was strained as it was. She would rather not have to add friendly fire to his list of grievances.
She saw a small mass of the savages waist-deep in the brown ocean, retreating into a building on the far side of the field. “Save a few to interrogate,” she broadcasted, and launched toward them, covering the hundred meters within a second. She landed on the roof of the building and shot a trunk straight down. Tweaking the current of her exo, she wrapped the entire building in her field and electrocuted all the living things inside. Her levels dropped precariously from that maneuver, but not enough for her to care. These savages had killed a Valta operative. In her eyes, this was unforgivable.
“Find Hound Three’s body,” she ordered as she headed back to where the bulk of the monitors were rounding up the survivors.
The monitors had captured forty savages and killed about three times that number. Her own casualties numbered twelve monitors and the hound.
“This is Hound Two,” a voice crackled. “You should see this, Senior Securitate.”
“On my way.” A few minutes later, Kuo arrived at the hangar to see scattered collie components littering the floor. The savages had been busy. It looked like they had been building a ship of sorts. That must be what set off that alert that attracted her hounds. Were they trying to escape by air even with a Valta blockade over the region? She found her answer when the hound led her to a stack of discarded parts off to the side.
She scoffed; of course. They were after collie stealth modules. This information fell in line with the recent reports of the savages ambushing only the monitor patrols. That must mean they’d succeeded in scavenging a working mod. Kuo suppressed her irritation. This complicated things. It also posed new questions. What did the savages intend to do with a stealth ship? Surely they wouldn’t be able to ferry their entire tribe away without being caught. Where were they going, then? Did the fugitive and the temporal anomaly plan to escape on their own and abandon the savages? Possible, but unlikely. By all indications, the anomaly was rather attached to the tribe.
Kuo waited for the rest of her forces on the ground to complete their survey of the space port. There was entirely too much ground to cover and too few forces to do the job. Chances were, much of the evidence had already washed away with the tide. All they had to show for the night’s work were three dozen prisoners who ended up not even being who they were after.
This tribe that had been hiding the anomaly had been incredibly resourceful in keeping their movements a secret. In the past six months, even while the Co-op had rounded up thousands of these savages to question, only a handful—less than five confirmed—had been Elfreth. In every single case, these savages had chewed a poisonous weed that killed them before Kuo’s people could torture them for the truth. In fact, the only reason they knew that three of the five were Elfreth was because they found the weed on their corpses after the fact.
Ewa landed next to her a short while later. “The grounds are cleared, Senior. At this point, we believe the targeted tribe has escaped our blockade through the skypaths.”
Kuo pulled up the map of the region on her AI module. “The land south of here, called the Long Island, is mostly flooded and uninhabitable. If they continue down the skypath, it banks west toward…”
“… the Mist Isle,” Ewa finished.
Kuo gritted her teeth. If that was the case, and the savages were able to reach the island, then her project had just become exponentially more difficult. She hardly had enough personnel as it was. If the Co-op had to open a new front onto the Mist Isle, then she would need to double, possibly triple her current resources.
“Prep a Valkyrie,” she ordered.
“Yes, Senior. Destination?”
“Chicago. We’ll need more monitors. Many more, and if that fool Young denies me, I’m going to skin him alive. While I’m gone, recanvass this region. I want around-the-clock sorties sent south and westward originating from this location.”
Ewa hesitated. “South to the ocean. How far west? Our Valkyrie rotations are already near capacity.”
“All the way to the Mist Isle.”
FIVE
THE WRECK
The two monsters met in the heart of a debris field littered with centuries of twisted wrecks deep inside the Ship Graveyard. James stared through the Frankenstein’s small window slit as it pulled closer to the corpse of the famed and briefly-feared CP Godzilla. The monstrosity was so large, James lost sight of the stars. A few minutes later, the collie entered one of the huge tears on the Godzilla’s body and proceeded through a dark tunnel deeper into its bowels.
Grace poked her head next to James and made a face at the hundreds of protruding jagged metal edges pointing at them like teeth.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” he said.
“An impressive waste, you mean,” she scoffed. “I bet this stupidity was the idea of some politician with a Napoleon complex.”
“What’s a Napoleon?”
Grace looked him up and down, and smirked.
The Godzilla, named after some mythical monster in human lore, was the largest ship ever built. Commissioned during the height of the Core Conflicts, it was the Core Planets’ solution to bringing an end to the devastating war that had dragged on for nearly fifty years, taking a billion lives. It was supposed to be a ship so powerful and imposing that no faction would dare wage war against them ever again. Its design and silhouette were echoed like that of a monster or demon from the old Greek legends. It was heralded as the ship to end all wars.
The Godzilla’s supremacy in space had lasted a full half battle. During its first and only fight, the Outer Rim fleet realized that it was literally impossible to miss hitting the gigantic ship. They focused their fire on certain critical areas and, like a human being, once the ship’s internal organs failed, the rest of the whole soon followed. The damage in certain critical systems cascaded to others and, as the battle wore on, the Godzilla became a crippled sow, too injured to fight effectively, yet too large to retreat. The original builders were right about one thing; it did usher in a new era of peace, though not the way they had imagined.
The war ended six months later once news of the Godzilla’s destruction reached the rest of the solar system. The resources consumed to build the behemoth had bankrupted the Core Planets, not only in terms of raw materials and manpower but also of spirit and resolve.
Now, almost two hundred years later in 2512, the corpse of the Godzilla had found a second life. The ship was so large that, even destroyed, most of its body was still intact. Nestled deep inside the Ship Graveyard, where no government or corporation ruled, it had become a haven for pirates, smugglers, and factions who wished to stay outside of corporate and planetary laws. Dozens of small thriving colonies now lived inside its body in isolated compartments that could still sustain environments.
James noted several large menacing guns trained on them as they passed. He had been here a few times, though never on ChronoCom work. The Wreck Colonies, as they were known, had formed a loose coalition government and forbade any time salvaging on the Godzilla. James could understand why. The ecosystem of the Wreck Colonies was at the mercy of a slowly-decaying ship constantly being bombarded by debris and the corpses of other ships. Any small ripple in the chronostream could be devastating to Godzilla’s current occupants.
“To the hideous-looking vessel,” a voice drawled over the comm, “We found five separate ship signatures on you: three from ChronoCom, one from Valta, and one from Europa Planetary. All of them are disallowed here at Bulk’s Head, or the rest of the Wreck, for that matter. You’re either lost or you suck at masking your shit. In any case, prepare to get blown out into space for being stupid. Goodbye.”
James rushed to the console and slammed a fist on the comm button. “Bulk’s Head, this is the independent Ea
rth vessel Frankenstein. We do not belong to any of those entities. Ship signatures are from cannibalized vessel parts. Please verify and do not shoot. We are here on business.”
There was a long pause. James fixated on the antiship cannons trailing them as the seconds ticked by. At this range, one blast would blow them into dust. Hell, with the way the ship was welded together, a hard kick to the hull would probably knock a few panels loose.
Minutes ticked by as the collie hovered right in front of a cannon’s muzzle. They waited to see if it’d charge up and incinerate them to cosmic ash. James wiped the sweat off his brow. He had his exo powered all the way up, ready to shield Grace for an escape, but he doubted that’d do much good. He looked over at Grace, who by this time had gotten bored staring at the big gun and had gone to the storage bin to get a snack. The old woman had already cheated death once. What did she care about another brush with it?
Finally, after James was almost sure they were going to just get blown up, the voice came back. “You guys got the scratch for payment?”
“We do,” James replied.
“Good. You’re in Dock Wu. As a precaution because of your multibanned signatures, we’re going to search you. Exit your”—there was a chuckle—“craft with your hands up, register your weapons and bands, and declare your cargo. If you don’t plan to do any of the above, save us the hassle by telling us now so we can blast you. Otherwise, you’ll just piss us off and it’ll just get worse. By the way, have your bribes ready. There’ll be five of us.”
“Loud and clear,” James said, releasing the bands on his wrist and laying them out on the bench.
A blue light flashed in the darkness, followed by another farther down the tunnel and another after curving around the bend. James steered the unwieldy collie after the lights, letting the trail of blue beacons guide them through the maze. Along the way, he noticed several more hidden cannons locked in on their ship. This maze was the first of the Bulk’s Head colony’s defenses. There were many stories about corporation police chasing pirates into the maze, only to get lost and never come out again.
After a dozen twists and turns, they finally reached what looked like a dead end. James turned the collie to the right and floated into an expansive cargo hold. A large bay door on the left wall halfway down the room swung inward, and a beam of light flooded them from the opening.
James moved the lumbering Frankenstein into the space. Once parked, he waited for the door to close and for the yellow light to turn blue, indicating recompression of the room. He signaled for Grace to follow him as he opened the hatch and stepped outside. He inhaled, noting how much of a struggle it was to take a full breath. He had forgotten how difficult it was to breathe in some of these artificial atmospheres, which often had only a fraction of Earth’s oxygen levels. Grace was having an especially difficult time catching her breath as her nearly hundred-year-old body struggled to acclimate to the environment.
They waited at the base of the Frankenstein’s ramp, hands raised behind their heads. A group of men in patchwork clothing, looking more likely to rob them than anything, rushed in with guns raised. They moved in an organized fashion as three of them kept watch over James and Grace while the other two searched the collie. The three men roughed up James, pushing him around while patting down his clothing and rummaging through his pockets. They gave Grace decidedly lighter treatment when she shot them a stern look. The former High Scion had an uncanny ability to sometimes put people—even thugs—on their best behavior.
Eventually, after the men had finished combing the ship and taken their bribes, James and Grace were allowed to go into the next room, where they had to pay their security fee, an exception fee, hangar service fees, five disavowed fees, and last, a you-look-like-trouble fee just so they could continue in.
Grace fumed as she checked their scratch. “Isn’t the whole point of being autonomous from government that you don’t have to pay exorbitant taxes?”
James grinned. “Funny. You just called it a tax. Let’s just call it what it is: a bribe to a bunch of greedy assholes.” One of the guards overheard and glared. “Sorry, no offense,” James added, not really meaning it.
The guard shrugged. “None taken. We are a bunch of greedy assholes, and we’ll be right here to take your exit bribe when you leave.”
They exited the hangar and entered the main residential levels of Bulk’s Head. Other than the fact that it was inside the dead hulk of a ship and controlled by pirates, the colony seemed almost like any other, except for the fact that everyone they came across was armed to the teeth. This particular colony was under the protection of the Puck Pirates, one of the larger and more dangerous pirate conglomerates in the solar system. Few corporations or governments were willing to incur their wrath. It was almost never worth the hassle.
Bulk’s Head was one of the larger travel hubs in the Wreck, so most people paid them little attention, though a few did give Grace a second glance. Not many people survived to her age in places like this, though the glances probably had more to do with the fact that she carried herself like the High Scion of the Technology Isolationists instead of just an old woman walking through the crowded halls of a pirate den. James reminded himself he’d have to have a talk with her about this soon, lest one of these bandits decide she must be someone worth robbing or kidnapping.
“Is it going to be a problem that you have a sizable price on your head?” Grace asked when he threw back his hood.
“That’s one of the few things I don’t worry about here.” James chuckled. “Bounty hunting is one of the few laws they strictly enforce. Most of the guys here have prices on their head. If they were to allow it, the Wreck would implode within a matter of hours.”
James felt safe as they crossed the different levels, passing the merchant district, slavers’ quarters, import markets, and made their way through the busy passageways to the residential levels. He didn’t completely let his guard down, though. Crime was still high, and people often disappeared in the middle of the night. The bounty on James’s head was large enough that it could tempt someone to risk Puck Pirate justice. Greed made men foolish and reckless.
The two rented a small one-room residence just big enough to sit together without having to crawl over each other, yet not large enough for both to sleep at the same time once the bunk was lowered. The room’s oxygen usage would also be an issue. Each residence was allocated a certain amount of air every day. Anything past that would incur overage charges.
“I do not understand.” Grace frowned when he explained it to her. “Why is air so expensive, and wouldn’t air just flow inside once you open the door?”
“Air has to be constantly recycled and filtered in the colonies, especially older places like this that constantly leak.” James pointed at the dim blue lights lining the door. “Sensors at the door measure oxygen intake and count it against our allocation. We pay daily penalties for going over.”
“I studied the Wreck’s economy on our way here,” said Grace. “It’s large enough that there are opportunities for points of entry, but small enough to be manipulated. It’ll be a fun puzzle to solve. I should be up and running in no time.”
James headed out the door. “I’ll start getting a lay of the land on a possible salvager. Maybe I can find a doctor, an ex-chronman, or an illegal jumper.”
“Keep an eye out for an access hack as well,” she yelled after him. “And stay away from the bars.”
James looked up and down the rusted and warped hallways and randomly picked a direction to stroll to get to know his new environment. Familiarity with his surroundings would be important in case things went bad, and if Grace’s plan to manipulate the market succeeded, they might make some enemies. He hoped she knew what she was doing. He stopped himself. Of course she did. Grace always knew what she was doing, and in this case, she had to. Their success depended on her.
It had been months since James had last walked among civilized people in the present, if he could call pi
rates and smugglers civilized. The place was surprisingly clean for a pirates’ den, though to be honest, after living underground in the ruins of wasted cities, any place seemed clean. Still, Bulk’s Head struck him as pretty civilized, up until he rounded the corner and saw a corpse decaying in a back alley.
He continued on, first mapping out the paths near their residence to make sure they had multiple routes to the Frankenstein if they needed to make a quick escape. Then he toured the main halls and different sections of the colony, mentally categorizing the vibe of each place, making sure to mark down points that might prove useful.
He continued upstream against the busy crowds, getting bumped constantly at intersections. It had been a while since he last was in a space station. Funny, he didn’t remember ever having to deal with this before. Then he realized: he was no longer of the tier. For so long, he had taken for granted the aura of fear surrounding chronmen. Now, no one gave him space when he walked down the halls; no one paid him any deference. For once, he was as invisible as he had always wished to be when he was a chronman. He was just like everyone else, a commoner. A nobody.
And he hated it.
More and more people shoved past him, pinballing him into others who reciprocated by pushing him into even more people. James resisted the urge to lash out. He took a breath, remembered his new place in the world, and followed the flow of traffic. The more he explored the colony, the more depressed and suffocated he felt. The place reminded him of a mixture of Himalia and Mnemosyne Station, two of his least favorite places in the world. Though in truth, most stations these days looked like this.
Before he realized where the crowds had taken him, he found himself in front of one of the colony’s many seedy bars: the Drink Anomaly. Of course he would end up here. The temptation was strong. If he was smart, he would keep walking. Grace had found one of his liquor stashes in the hold one night on the way to the Wreck and berated him so loudly her voice echoed across the entire ship. She had thrown Sasha’s name at him over and over again, bludgeoning him with her sickness.