Exodus

by Jamie Sawyer

  “Take it easy, Chu,” said Zero. Although I wasn’t quite sure of the detail, Zero and Feng had a thing going on: she was the one to calm the savage beast. “You’re doing just fine.”

  Sergeant Zoe Campbell, aka Zero: some kid I’d rescued from an Alliance colony world during the Krell War, who had grown up to become my friend and eventually join Sim Ops. Smaller than the others, with the physique of a pen-pusher rather than a trooper, Zero was our designated intelligence and operations analyst—the back-room ops manager, if you will. She’d wanted to be a simulant operator, aspired to be just like me, but Feng wasn’t the only one to whom fate had dealt a surprising hand. Zero was a “negative.” Her body had rejected the data-port technology, and as such she couldn’t operate a sim. Ginger-haired and freckled, Zero wasn’t used to being in the thick of the fighting. Our last mission—into the Maelstrom—had given her a taste of how hot things could get. That was surely a cakewalk in comparison to our current situation …

  “Where exactly in Korean space are we?” I asked. “We need solutions, not problems. Give me specifics.”

  Feng worked for a moment, then replied, “Joseon-696.”

  The tremble in his voice pretty much told me everything I needed to know, but Captain Carmine confirmed the rest.

  “We’re in orbit around the third world,” she said. “It’s a prison planet. Goes by the name of Jiog, and if even half of the rumours are true, this place will make Novak’s gulag look like paradise.”

  The curve of an angry pink orb appeared on the view-screen. A sparse band of white cloud claimed the equator, while the surface was sprinkled with vast black conurbations of industry. There was a lot of space traffic out there too, and several orbital facilities. This was not a backwater colony planet, but the heart of a busy, populated system.

  “Jiog?” Lopez asked, looking around the bridge for answers.

  “It’s one of the Alliance’s top three locations of interest,” Carmine said. “The planet’s exact location has been highly classified.” She raised her eyebrows. “Until now, that is. Your man Riggs must’ve known some pretty complex quantum-space equations to jump us here. We get out of this alive, and we’ll get a Christo-damned medal.”

  “Fucking Riggs!” Lopez said. “Fucking bastard! How could he do this to us?” She put her hands to her head in exasperation. “Can this day get any worse?”

  Lopez probably meant that rhetorically, but she got her answer anyway.

  The Santa Fe’s sensor-suite was just about the only thing that still functioned aboard the vessel, and that was currently painting several hostiles advancing on our position. A dozen warships burst through the dark and converged on our location. The lead vessel was an angry black arrow that speared space as it made hard burn.

  “Incoming communication,” declared Lieutenant Yukio. She was a small Japanese woman, and Carmine’s dedicated executive officer. One of only four Navy crew that had survived our last mission into the Maelstrom, and loyal to Carmine until the very last.

  “On-screen,” Carmine said.

  The tactical display filled with an incoming transmission, and the Jackals went quiet. A military officer appeared. Wearing a dark uniform, a tunic buttoned to his neck in the formal Directorate style. The man’s face was hard, eyes dark, and his chest bustled with medals. I knew enough about Directorate protocol to say that he wasn’t Navy, but his exact branch of military service wasn’t clear.

  “I am Captain Mariam Carmine, of the UAS Santa Fe,” Carmine started. “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties, but should—”

  “I am Commander Kwan Ryong-ho,” said the figure, speaking over Carmine. “Your identity is irrelevant.”

  I’d heard of the name, and so had the Santa Fe’s AI. Intelligence on the subject filled the nearest terminal screen, and with growing unease I scanned it. The guy was a walking war-crime: the last of a long line of Directorate dictators and military despots, a relic of a past age. Exactly the sort of person we could do without right now …

  Zero began to babble in a low mutter beside me, “That ship is the Furious Retribution.”

  “They sure know how to pick those names,” I said.

  The Furious Retribution was a huge, ugly ship. They didn’t make them like that anymore. She carried several flight-bays—capable of carrying a whole squadron of fighters—and bristled with weapon points.

  Zero kept talking. “She’s believed to be the private command post of Commander Kwan Ryong-ho, head of the Directorate’s Bureau of Shadow Affairs.”

  “What’s Shadow Affairs?” I whispered back.

  Zero’s verbal diarrhoea continued unabated. “It’s the Directorate’s internal security force, their equivalent of Military Intelligence. The Directorate wouldn’t even confirm its existence until a few years ago.”

  “Fucking marvellous,” I said. With each word Zero spoke, my heart dropped a little further.

  And she wasn’t even finished …“Remote psych profiling indicates that Commander Kwan is paranoid, confrontational, and prone to acts of sudden aggression. Highly unstable. When the Directorate broke up, the commander seized control of the Joseon system—established his personal domain.” She swallowed, voice dipping. “He’s also wanted in ten Alliance territories for atrocities against humanity.”

  “Our presence here is accidental,” Carmine attempted again, addressing Kwan. “My ship’s navigational computer has suffered a catastrophic malfunction—”

  Kwan ignored Carmine. “You are in violation of the Border Treaty, and your presence within this system is impermissible.”

  “What do they care for treaties?” Feng asked, off-camera.

  The Asiatic Directorate had once been the Alliance’s great enemy—engaged in a cycle of hot and cold wars that had claimed generations on both sides of the divide. But several years ago, the Directorate’s internal power balance had irrevocably shifted: with a number of member states leaving the union. The Directorate lingered, sure, but the beast had been declawed. The result was the Border Treaty.

  It had to be said that there was some small irony in Kwan’s response. The Koreans had never agreed to any damned treaty, and the breakup of the Directorate had been so thorough that no one had been left to agree to the terms anyway. It had left a ragged line of impoverished and desperate systems between Alliance and Directorate space, which had led to the liberation of several clone-crèches like that Feng had been born into.

  “This really isn’t necessary,” Carmine said. “If we can just—”

  “This discussion is over,” Kwan declared. “Prepare for boarding operation.”

  That last comment wasn’t directed at us, I realised. The bridge of the Furious Retribution was visible behind Kwan, and a dozen military officers, all dressed in black uniform, were busy at tactical stations. Kwan waved a hand at the closest.

  “Wait!” I broke in, unable to let this play out. “This isn’t deliberate! I’m Lieutenant Jenkins, of the Sim Ops Programme—”

  “An officer of the Simulant Operations Programme?” Kwan said. “That is interesting.” He paused, then added, “Do not resist the boarding party.”

  The transmission ended.

  I turned to Carmine. “Can you get us out of here? Q-drive, thrusters: anything?”

  I knew that the chances were slim. The Santa Fe’s quantum-drive had got us this far based on a combination of blind faith and iron determination, and I had no hope that we were going to be able to jump out of the Directorate space anytime soon.

  Carmine stared at her console. “All my systems are locked out.” She shook her head. “Riggs did a proper job on my ship.”

  No one on Carmine’s crew disagreed. Riggs had programmed the quantum-jump sequence that had taken us out of the Maelstrom, and as such he had been left in control of the Santa Fe’s systems for days. I felt a stab of anger and remorse. I’d trusted him, had let him in. This was all my fault.

  “I’ve got multiple hostiles moving on our location,�
� offered Lieutenant Yukio.

  “Do we have null-shields? Weapons? Sharp fucking sticks?”

  “Nothing,” Carmine said. “We’re a sitting duck.”

  “What about the simulators?” Zero suggested. “You could skin up and take on the Directorate.”

  Just mention of the simulator-tanks sent a thrill through me. I could already imagine stepping into the warm amniotic, making transition into a fresh new body. In the tank, everything was all right …

  “I don’t think that you understand me,” Carmine said. “We’ve lost control of all of the ship’s systems. Engines, simulators, the whole deal. That our life support is still functioning is a minor miracle.”

  There were several copies of the Jackals on ice in the Santa Fe’s cargo hold, racked and tubed and ready for deployment. But without operational simulator-tanks, they were just useless meat.

  An alarm sounded across the bridge.

  “We’re being targeted,” Yukio said. “The Retribution is engaging.”

  “The Directorate are firing missiles on us?” Lopez asked, looking down at the scanner-feed.

  “Hell, no,” I said. “That’s the boarding party.”

  On the tac-display, smaller signals began to coalesce and take shape. They were being fired from the Furious Retribution: crossing the void of space between our ship and theirs in a heartbeat. To the uninitiated—and I had to remind myself that the Jackals hadn’t fought the Directorate before—they looked very much like missiles. But I knew otherwise. These were troopers wearing flight-rigs, hard-suits specially adapted to the rigours of a starship boarding action.

  “We can’t let them onto the ship,” said Feng.

  “You’re Directorate, Feng,” Lopez said. “You’ll be just fine.”

  But Feng’s face had drained of all colour, and he shrank inside his fatigues. “Do you have any idea what the Directorate does to traitors? Because that’s what I am to them: a traitor.”

  Lopez went quiet. There was no smart quip to that.

  I didn’t add anything to the discussion, because morale was already at an all-time low, but it wouldn’t be much better for Lopez. Once they found out who she was, and her connection to the infamous Senator Lopez … She would be as much a prize for the Directorate as Feng.

  Carmine took control. “Lieutenant Yukio, prepare to erase the Fe’s memory-core. Burn the data-stacks.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Yukio said. “Burn initiated.”

  “How long will it take?” I asked.

  “T minus ten minutes until complete purge,” Yukio said.

  “I don’t think we have that long,” Lopez implored.

  “Riggs’ shuttle is leaving the system,” Zero said, frowning. “See: it’s flying away from the fleet.”

  Riggs had stolen the Santa Fe’s only shuttle. That was a Warhawk model, incapable of supporting its occupant for more than a few days. It had just broken away from the Fe, and contrary to my expectation was actually taking a course out-system—avoiding the Directorate attack group altogether. What was the bastard doing? Riggs’ betrayal was beyond doubt, but to whom he was defecting: that was still open to debate.

  “He planned it like this,” I said, my eyes flashing between the tactical display and the monitor showing Riggs’ progress. “It was a fucking trap.”

  “What about Pariah?” Zero said. “It’s still in Medical.”

  Pariah was the only talking—and truly thinking—Krell that I’d ever encountered, and I knew that its value to the Alliance was immense. It was a unique communication bridge between us and the Krell Collective. But more than that: Pariah had become our ally, and had assisted us several times during our mission into the Gyre. As of now, the alien was still hibernating in the medical bay, recovering from integration into the wider Silver Talon Collective. I had no way of knowing whether the failure of the ship’s energy supply had interfered with that, but I knew that Pariah needed to be warned about the Directorate.

  Carmine read the expression on my face, and sighed. “You’ve grown too attached to that fish,” she said.

  “I didn’t hear you arguing when P saved our asses in the Maelstrom, Carmine.”

  “A fish is a fish,” she muttered back at me, but the words didn’t have much force, and I knew that she didn’t mean it.

  “P needs to be warned,” I said.

  “All right,” Carmine replied, unhooking herself from her terminal and staggering to her feet. “Then you need to get down to Medical and see to it yourself.”

  With that, the spartan bridge crew—four Navy staffers, including Carmine—jumped from their terminals. Carmine unclasped a carbine from under her console, the antique Fabrique Multiworld MN rifle that had become her trademark weapon and earned her the nickname “Carbine.” She looked impossibly old, but also impossibly stubborn.

  “This is it. This is where it ends.” She loaded her rifle, braced it across her chest. “We’ll cover you.” Carmine fixed me with her gaze. “You get back and I don’t, tell my daughters that I love them.”

  She reached out a hand and opened it. Inside, she held the tri-D picture of her family, crumpled with age. I took it.

  “I swear,” I said.

  “We don’t have time for a long goodbye, Jenkins. Go, now!”

  “Defend the bridge,” I said. “Break out the armoury. Jackals, you’re with me. We’ll move on Medical.”

  The Jackals filed through the Santa Fe’s corridors, bouncing and twisting as the ship’s artificial gravity field failed. The overhead lights had gone the same way: emergency bulbs flashing. The Fe was a smaller Alliance-pattern corvette, barely a warship at all, and she surely wasn’t made for this sort of frontline activity. But then again, few ships were. This was a mission-fatal incident. The Fe wasn’t coming back from this, and we all knew it.

  We covered the distance to Medical just as the first breachers boarded. There was a muted thump through the Fe’s space frame, and a pressure wave went through the deck, through the whole damned ship.

  “They’re using demo-charges,” I said. “Sounds like it came from the bridge.”

  “Do you think that Carmine is all right?” Lopez asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Just move.”

  Controlled atmospheric depressurisation followed. All around us, in the various sub-chambers that branched off the Fe’s main corridor, pressure hatches began to close. At least those were still operational, either because they were being driven by some AI sub-routine that Riggs hadn’t managed to subvert, or maybe because the Directorate were being careful not to lose atmosphere. If it was the latter, I knew that wasn’t out of any sense of humanity; rather, they wanted live captives.

  Medical was plastered in red light. The simulator-tanks sat powerless and empty, so much useless metal and plastic in our current situation. Zero’s operations console was also dead—the various monitors from which she would ordinarily be able to observe the mission now blank.

  “In, in,” Novak said, herding Lopez and Feng into the chamber.

  “Get that door sealed,” I yelled.

  The Russian did as ordered, and the blast door slammed shut. The door was six inches of reinforced plasteel but it didn’t make me feel any safer.

  Pariah’s hibernation capsule was still powered, although the device’s control panel was filled with error messages and warning codes. No time to examine what any of those meant; instead, I just rapped a knuckle against the armourglass canopy.

  “Wake up, P.”

  Inside the glass tube, the pariah-form had folded in on itself. Six long limbs, each tipped with claw-like appendages, and a barrel-chested body that was covered in a scaled hide, Pariah gave ugly a whole new meaning. Granted, the xeno was no more and probably no less attractive than the rest of its species, but we had to serve with this particular fish. Its eyes were shut tight, head resting against the inside of the capsule. Awkwardly grafted to the alien’s chest was a voice-box, a device that allowed the alien to communicate with us. Pa
riah was the brainchild of Dr. Claus Skinner, also known as the Fleshsmith. The doctor had been killed by the Black Spiral on North Star Station.

  “Do you hear me, P?” I asked, angrily now. “Wake up!”

  Suddenly, Pariah’s eyes snapped open, and it stirred inside the capsule.

  “Jenkins-other,” it said through the control console. “We are in hibernation. Our wounds are not yet healed—”

  “Yeah, well, healing will have to wait. We’re in some pretty bad shit here, P.”

  The alien paused, then said, “Define ‘bad shit.’”

  “As in ‘fucked beyond reason,’” Lopez shouted back.

  She unholstered her pistol—a weapon given to her by her brother, which had saved us on North Star Station—and braced at the hatch, ready to fire on intruders.

  There was another boom through the ship’s frame, closer now. The air temperature immediately dropped, tasted of burning. My ears prickled with the shift in atmosphere. The ship’s failing life-support system was struggling to compensate.

  “You felt that, right?” I asked.

  P lethargically opened its limbs. “We felt that.”

  “There’s a lot I should’ve told you,” I said. “I—I don’t know how much you know about the world outside North Star Station, or what Dr. Skinner taught you, but you need to know that this situation is critical. We’re being boarded by Directorate forces. They’ll want to take us—and you—prisoner.”

  “What is ‘Directorate’?”

  “There’s no time to explain. All you need to know right now is that the Directorate are the bad guys, and they are enemies of the Alliance. They’ll want to know what you know. You cannot engage with these people. Understood?”

  The alien writhed inside the tank. “Human-other rivalries are not our concern,” it said.

  “I’m not asking you to take sides,” I said, speaking faster now. “I’m telling you that these guys mean business. If you’ve learnt anything from me, then know this: do as I say, and don’t answer their questions.”

  P considered that for a moment, and I noticed how badly injured it was. Lacerations laced the alien’s body, impacts pocking its carapace. Zero was no medic, and although she had tried her best to heal the fish, it needed time. It was in no fit state to fight.