by Mick Fraser
Angela chuffed at the word “beat”, but did as she was bid. Once properly geared, she slid the Gauntlet onto her right arm.
Illith tapped the floor with her foot twice, and a hidden trapdoor slid back. A large chrome chest rose through the new opening. From within, Illith produced what looked like metal arm-guards and mesh gloves. She pulled them on and faced Angela.
“How do you switch between the dual states?”
Angela indicated the dark jewel in the right palm. Illith shook her head. “You should not need that. The Amp can resonate with the device – this much I know of Founder tech. Six-Tails suggests it should be a question of will.”
“Well then Six-Tails should try it.”
“That attitude is unbecoming, mystraal. Ignore the switches, and try to summon the Braid. Do so now.”
Angela rolled her neck, biting back her irritation. She opened her palm and concentrated, felt a spark of heat at the base of her neck, and the Braid unfurled in its blue state.
“This form has the most utility. You will find that its power is finite, but rechargeable. Use the blue for mobility and combat; the orange is only be used when you wish to do harm. You must always be clear on which state you need for a given situation. The orange will deplete the Braid’s power reserves much faster than the blue. The same applies to all cold-light devices. Try to switch states, without touching the jewels.”
Concentrating, Angela focused on the blue ribbon gently fizzing where it draped against the panelled floor. She envisioned it turning from blue to orange, and for a split second it changed, but then quickly turned back to azure. Angela swished it this way and that, and tried again. This time it flickered between the two states, the orange kicking up a spit of sparks and leaving a small scorch mark on the floor. She looked apologetically at Illith. The Silsir nodded. “Again.”
She shook herself loose, lifted her arm and swung the Braid in a wide arc like a dancer’s ribbon. It was weightless, the movement smooth and unfettered. She tried a flourish, twirling it in an intricate pattern before her. As she swirled it around her body, she felt the urge to move, and she spun with it, body and leash rotating in unison. She pulled it down, swung it up, tracing a cobalt figure-eight in the air. Closing her eyes, she allowed the rhythm of the Shadowstar’s heart to beat through her feet, up her legs, filling her veins as she twirled the Braid above her head, a rotor of light. An energy built in her breast, lending lightness to her steps, and she let herself go. In her mind there was music, pulsing with every beat of her heart. Illith was forgotten as she leapt around the sancto, the Braid switching blue to orange and back again with every twirl. The hypersuit gave her speed, poise; the Amp enhanced her natural grace. She felt, for perhaps the first time in her life, the sum of her parts. She allowed herself to drift into a pirouette, the Braid surrounding her, the unheard music charging her. She was quickened. Elevated. Exultant.
As though bidden by something unspoken she suddenly remembered her instructor, and brought herself to a graceful stop before Illith, the Braid coiling about the Gauntlet, gently pulsing. Her left arm was outstretched, her front leg straight, all her weight on the other. As cheesy as she knew it was, she couldn’t resist curling the fingers of her left hand, inviting Illith to come get some. The Silsir obliged, leaping towards her with a jumping kick that Angela ducked. She spun around Illith, swaying beyond the reach of the next kick. Unfurling the Braid, she snapped it towards her instructor, who dodged effortlessly, producing through apparent sleight of hand a black cosh. It extended mechanically to around two feet long, and generated a halo of yellow light at one end. When Illith stepped back and produced a second rod, Angela arced away towards the chrome chest. There were two more there, in leather harnesses that held them against the inside wall. She slid one out, wondering how to activate it. As Illith approached at speed she felt a small switch on the side and pressed it – the rod extended, and she flipped it in her fingers so that she held it inverted.
Illith was upon her in a heartbeat, and she barely managed to block the first two blows. She swayed back, swung the Braid, but Illith caught it on her left-hand rod, pulling Angela in close to deliver a stinging blow to her temple. She flicked the Braid loose, swinging clumsily with her own rod. Illith blocked it, knocked it to one side and retaliated with two more body shots. Angela staggered back, swearing.
“Ouch,” she hissed, raising her own rod. “Not a fan of these.”
Illith gave her a hostile smile. “Shock-rods have their uses,” she said, before attacking again. This time Angela arced to the Silsir’s back, wrapping the Braid around her opponent’s ankle and pulling hard. Illith lost her footing but regained it mid-air, spinning gracefully and retaliating even as she landed in a crouch, spinning and taking Angela’s legs out from under her. Angela hit the deck hard, her shock-rod clattering from her hand and the Braid coiling itself around the Gauntlet.
She looked up at Illith. “I know, I know,” she said, breathless. “Try not to think of it as losing.”
“Oh, no,” Illith corrected her with a grim smile. “That one you definitely lost.”
CHAPTER 28
~DOWNTIME~
WHEN SHE RETURNED to her chamber three hours later, tired and slightly bruised, she found Gaelan waiting outside. She waved weakly, and the Avellian smiled.
“Don’t look so worried,” she said. “I came to… apologise, I suppose. For before. I was concerned. You read me right.” She shifted uncomfortably. “And I brought you this.” She held out a package wrapped in cloth, which Angela took, palming her door switch and ducking inside. She placed the Gauntlet and the gift on the table beside the door and removed the cloth. It was a display stand of some kind, made from segments of curved metal. There was a switch in the base, which Angela pressed. A faint blue light appeared inside. Carefully, Gaelan placed the Gauntlet inside the device; it floated, suspended in the blue light. Angela smiled. “Wow!” she said with feeling. “That’s impressive”
“I thought a weapon such as that should be respected, displayed, when not in use. Winston tells quite the tale about how you saved his tin on Nix. It doesn’t mean we’re best friends or anything,” she added sternly. “It’s just how we apologise where I come from.”
Angela nodded. “Right. Of course. Well, apology accepted.”
For a moment Gaelan hesitated, her white bangs falling in front of her face. She brushed them away and Angela caught her strange, striking eyes. They were solemn, and endlessly deep. She went to speak but Gaelan gave a half-sincere smile and cut her off. “You should thank Dizzy, too. He helped me build it. He’s on downtime right now.”
With that she turned and left, pausing in the doorway and half turning back before disappearing off down the corridor. Angela watched her strut away before leaving the room herself, resolving to find and thank Dizzy.
The pilot’s quarters were on the level above, near Illith’s and Drenno’s. His door was decorated with a pair of long-barrelled pistols, crossed as they would be on a pirate’s flag. There were smudges of oil and grease around the touchpad and a drum of something viscous and pungent just outside, below a tool-bench hung with a handful of stained utilities. Aiming for a clean spot, she knocked lightly.
“Come in!” the To’ecc called, and Angela palmed the touchpad. His door grated open to reveal a room occupied in equal parts by machinery and shrubbery. The right side of the room was like a small, self-contained jungle that seemed to have grown around a hammock-like bed; the left-hand side was a workshop, littered with workbenches, vices, greasy monitor screens and scattered tools.
Dizzy himself sat on a chair at the centre of it all, back to the door. A screen in front of him was showing some kind of home movie. Angela saw Rathe and Six-Tails on-screen. “Am I interrupting?” she asked.
The To’ecc finally looked around. “Oh, it’s you,” he said cheerily. “I had assumed it was Drenno with more busy-work.” He indicated the screen. “Watching some old vid-caps.”
Angela walked
forward to stand beside him. “Who took them?”
He chuckled. “Gaelan did. She used to record everything when she was younger. Always had a camera in her hand.”
“Huh. That’s hard to imagine.”
Dizzy looked up. “She wasn’t always a sullen teenager. She used to be full of vim, always smiling. I guess life with us lot drummed it out of her eventually. Understandable, really. This was six years ago, give or take.”
On the screen, Gage and Rathe were bent over a workbench, fixing something, when Gaelan, behind the camera, crept up and shouted. Rathe jumped like a bomb had gone off, turning and laughing, while Gage shooed her away, irritated. Rathe admonished the Auton, scooping up the adolescent camera-woman and spinning her so the recorded footage became blurry and shaky. Only their laughter was clear. Angela realised she was smiling. “I’ve never seen this side of her. She blows hot and cold with me.”
The To’ecc gave a sardonic chuckle. “Of course she does. She just lost the closest thing to a grandfather she’s ever known, and she’s only ever had this motley crew to teach her how to handle things like that. We forget she’s only nineteen, and she’s not a soldier. A fighter, maybe, but no soldier.”
“Is that why you’re all taking it so well?”
Dizzy waved his hand and the vid-cap paused. He seemed to weigh his words and Angela wondered if she had offended him. Then his reptilian face smiled, and she relaxed. “You need to understand where we’re from, Angela. We’re Harlequins, all of us except Gaelan and Gage – and Gage was something much, much worse. We’re used to losing brothers and sisters. Service forged us, and the rebellion galvanised us. Losing as spectacularly as we did will do that to you. We don’t even know how to grieve any more. But if you think we’re taking it well, you haven’t been paying close enough attention. Believe me, you put Drenno and Illith in a room with Varo right now, you won’t be able to watch what follows.”
“I meant no offence.”
“Not offended,” he replied, smiling and gesturing for the playback to continue. “Did you want something, by the by?”
“Just to say thanks, for the gift. Gaelan said you helped to make it.”
“I did. But she’s almost the techsmith Gage is; I didn’t have to do much.”
She smiled at his modesty and gave a slight bow of her head. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “I’ve got an appointment with Six-Tails.” He waved at her absently as she left the room – only to walk straight into Gage coming the other way. She was immediately on the back foot, and the Auton’s expression didn’t help matters.
“I’m sorry,” Angela said. “I didn’t see you.”
“I’m not going to bite you, Earthborn. I was… preoccupied.”
“How are you?”
Gage watched her a moment. “Winston says you saved him. On Nix.”
She felt uncomfortable. “I suppose I did. I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“The Mechanid is… dear to me.” For a heartbeat or two it seemed she would say more, then she simply straightened, sweeping past as though the corridor was on fire. Angela watched the Auton slink away, and sighed heartily.
“I miss London,” she grumbled, turning to head towards Medical. “I really, really miss London.”
FROM her seat on the operating gurney, Angela watched Six-Tails work. He was leaning over the bench opposite her, his huge form casting a shadow so wide he needed a little flashlight on his spectacles to see clearly. He was terrifying up close. Even as she had the thought, Angela felt guilty. He had shown himself to be, for want of a better word, a gentleman so far. Slightly angered with her own involuntary prejudice, she cleared her throat.
“So,” she said, uncertainly, “Dizzy says you were a Harlequin, too?”
Six-Tails nodded absently as he inspected a transparent tablet. Angela could make out the symbols that she now knew spelled her name.
“That’s right. I was a trauma surgeon for years. When the rebellion happened, I was stationed on Kebra. It’s a moon of Orren, and one of the first settlements to take up arms against the Scepterists. I didn’t want to get involved. I was ordered to stand down, await further instructions... When people started dying, well. Old habits, I suppose.”
He crossed the room, holding up the chart and tapping the screen a few times with one claw before setting it down and picking up his spectacles. “How are you finding it here?”
Angela chuffed. “Um... I don’t know. It’s different.”
He laughed as he held one huge finger to her wrist. “Hell of a family, right?”
“It’s a wonder you haven’t killed each other.”
He nodded sagely. “Well, that’s the training, mostly. The Harlequins were a multi-racial force, with operatives from every sentient race in the Reach. We all had to learn to put certain things aside. Take me for example: where I come from the laws are much simpler than the ones the Founders imposed. On Prenor, if you can take what you want, then you deserve what you want. We’re a warlike people. In the Harlequins I learnt to live and die for the person next to me, not just for some ancient tribal ideal. I still hold to the old ways of my people, but I learned what it’s like to be relied upon as an individual.”
“Was that hard?”
He picked up a small device and shone a light in her eye. “Not as hard as losing people you’ve come to love.”
She brushed the device away. “You lost people...”
He focused on her a moment, then raised the device back to her eye. “We all have. If you lived through the rebellion at all, then you lost people. My Fist was on the Silver Soul, with another Captain named Drenno. Most of us were wounded or dying, and Keera needed to get her daughter off-ship. She had time to send two, and the Shadowstar had no surgeon. She ordered me into the halo, and by the time I was back on my feet, the Silver Soul was gone, along with everyone I’d ever called a friend.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We all knew what we signed up for. And we’ve all tasted the same bitterness. We’ve learned to rely on each other.” He chuckled. “Well, except Gage and Shim.”
“They don’t get on?”
He looked at her over his spectacles as he put on his stethoscope. “It’s an old feud. Gods and monsters, Angela. They’ve their reasons for hatred, we all have. Drenno lost his wife, Gaelan lost her mother. Dizzy lost his ship. Illith lost her family.”
Angela sat back. “Family?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Hard to believe, I know, but we were all someone else before we were Firebrands. Seems like an aeon ago now.” Six-Tails removed his stethoscope and sat back. “You’re ticking along,” he said, by way of prognosis. “How’s your implant?”
“Itches sometimes. I can live with it.”
“And the Reach? How are you finding it out here?”
She stared at him blankly. “I, well, how do you think? I mean, the crew are hardly welcoming. Drenno hasn’t crossed my path for two days, and besides Shimmer and Illith, I haven’t seen much of anyone since coming back through the blockade.”
“We can be an insular group,” he said.
Angela chuffed. “That’s an understatement.”
She fell silent as Six Tails wrapped a band around her arm and tapped the console; the band inflated, taking her blood pressure. The tightness wasn’t quite painful enough to take her mind out of the doldrums. It had been a little over a week since she left Earth, though she realised she hadn’t been counting the days. In fact, it could just as easily have been a month. Her life before felt like a dream, and it was growing hazier with each passing hour. Could she go back to it now, as much as she wanted to? Could she live a normal life again, knowing what she knew? Even if she went home this instant, she would always have that knowledge, and that knowledge… shit. Best case scenario, it would drive a wedge between her and the rest of humanity. Worst case, it would drive her insane.
Six-Tails had just finished his assessment when they were summoned, along with the rest of the crew, to the br
idge. They left the med lab together and made their way there as quickly as possible. With Six-Tails beside her, Angela didn’t need the coloured lines to reach her destination, but she followed them anyway. When the service elevator doors dinged open they found the crew waiting for them. Angela quickly took her seat at the underside cannon controls, returning a cursory nod from Shimmer. Through the main viewscreen she could see a large blue and mauve world, around which several moons rotated. The smallest one was ringed on the viewscreen, and she figured that one was Oraclus.
“That’s Oraclus,” said Drenno, pointing. Angela smiled to herself. “It’s an “artifex”, an artificial moon. Seraph Guin built it herself over the course of about five centuries.” As they drew closer, Drenno pressed his touchpad, bringing up an enhanced view of the moon on the viewscreen. He zoomed in on a spot in the northern hemisphere, where a blob of light slowly came into focus as a great city. “And that’s Skyhearth, where Guin resides. Unfortunately, she refuses to build a hangar there, and since Oraclus has no roads and everything is connected by rivers, we’ll be docking here—” he indicated a much smaller cluster of lights nestled in a dark forested area nearby— “at Tanglethorne, and we’ll take a Rivercutter down into the city.”
He zoomed back out, and turned his chair to face Angela. “Guin is old, and powerful. The Faraan live longer than any other race, including the Founders. She’s kinda like the Queen here; even Evayne gives Wishbone a wide berth. She’ll help us, but she has... eccentricities. You’ll see for yourself. Be polite, and when in doubt let Shimmer do the talking. She and the Seraph are old, old friends.”
“Friends is not entirely accurate,” Shimmer replied, laying a hand softly on Angela’s arm. “But we have a shared history.”
“It’s a waste of time,” Illith growled. “We should be heading to Seth, not visiting this old demon. She’ll have nothing for us but riddles and rancour.”
Drenno disagreed. “She might have something for Angela. She knows more about the Founders than anyone in the Reach.”