Exodus

by Jamie Sawyer

  “Little bit of warning next time,” I suggested.

  “Sorry about that,” Zero muttered. “This is the Kronstadt Gate.”

  “That’s nice, real nice,” Lopez said.

  “It was discovered before the Alliance figured out how the Gates actually work, and what they are,” Zero went on. “The original expeditionary force thought that it was a quantum rift. Of course, it doesn’t demonstrate the same non-baryonic spectral output as a Q-rift, so I really don’t know what they were thinking …” She shook her head, laughing to herself. “They must’ve been crazy. Of course, now we know otherwise. The Gate has been fully mapped: it leads directly into the Maelstrom.”

  Novak gave another sigh, pride leaking out of every pore. “Is best Shard Gate in whole Alliance.”

  “Soon, it might be the only Shard Gate in the Alliance,” I added.

  “It looks …” Lopez started, struggling to find the right word, then settling on: “disturbed.”

  “It is,” Captain Lestrade said. “This system is drenched with ship-to-ship communications, much of it unencrypted. Lots of sailors are talking about the Gate’s emissions. It appears that they’re at an all-time peak, as though the Gate is open permanently.”

  Pariah became animated at that, lurching to the tactical display to absorb the data there. I could feel the wave of emotion coming off the xeno as it panned its head back and forth.

  “The infected Kindred mass on the other side of the Gate,” P explained. “But they are not the first to come here.”

  Dozens of bio-ships—or rather their remains—floated in the vicinity. Several blackened hulks sat in orbit around Kronstadt, absent of any detectable life signs. Readings suggested that just as many had been vaporised or reduced to nothing more than space debris. With a stab of sympathy, I realised that at least one ark-ship had been destroyed out here. The husk of that vessel had been drawn into Mu-98’s orbit like another planet.

  “The last war-fleet to come through was Red Fin,” Zero explained. “They tried to make contact with the local Navy assets.” She swallowed nervously. “But it appears that the Alliance fleet has been issued ‘shoot first’ orders.”

  “So they weren’t even infected?” Lopez sighed. “This is some bad shit.”

  “There have been several incursions,” Zero continued. “Six recorded in the last month, in fact. The Alliance Navy are holding the line, but who knows when the next wave will come.”

  P looked up, a deathly serious expression on its face. “Soon,” it said. “We feel them.”

  “They’ll have some resistance when they get here,” Captain Lestrade said. “The fleet is waiting for them. The Alliance Navy has a cordon around the inner planets.”

  There was a long moment of silence as the Jackals took in the mustered fleet, the final and only line of defence between the Krell and us. In other circumstances, I’d have found the Navy’s battlegroup impressive. Three dreadnoughts were moored at high reach. Portable fortresses, the dreadnoughts were the flagships for the rest of the Alliance fleet. Then there were the battlecruisers, corvettes, gunships—and everything in between.

  One of the Alliance dreadnoughts—a bulldog of a warship, with a battle-scarred hull and the name Io’s Last stencilled on her hide—was tasked with overseeing the Gate. Even at this distance, we were registering a dozen active weapons signatures, trained on the Gate and surrounding space. A swarm of fighters, gunships and shuttles flitted about the enormous ship, creating a safe zone that covered Kronstadt’s six moons, and space lanes between the Last and some of the other warships.

  “Which brings us to our next problem,” Captain Lestrade said. “The Navy has complete control of the Mu-98 system. Nothing is getting in or out, not without their knowledge.”

  The Firebird was still dark, but it was obvious that the Navy battlegroup were monitoring space traffic in the area. If we revealed ourselves to the Alliance fleet, there was a damned good chance that we’d be facing a court-martial. We’d endangered Alliance personnel, stolen equipment, hijacked a ship. And for what reason? We were chasing unverified intelligence on the say-so of a dead man …

  “So how are we going to do this?” Feng asked.

  “Getting down there isn’t going to be a problem,” I said. “But we can’t use the Pathfinder suits to evacuate Dr. Locke. The armour is a one-way ticket. Without a shuttle, we won’t be able to get Locke off-world.”

  “Surely we aren’t going down there in our real skins?” Lopez ventured.

  I shook my head. My neck, ribs and everything else still hurt, and that wasn’t an option. “Not even I am that crazy,” I said. “We’re going to treat this like an infiltration operation.”

  “Sounds risky,” Lopez objected. “Too risky.”

  “Not if we use simulants.”

  “But how we do that?” Novak asked. “You say yourself, we have no shuttle.”

  I focused the tactical display on the nearest fleet of starships. It was made up of a dozen or so haulers and freighters, loosely grouped together for security. Not all of the traffic in the area was military.

  “We’re going to board a refugee ship and take a ride down to Kronstadt. Once we’re on the surface, we’ll find and secure the asset. Then we’ll take another transport back into orbit, rendezvous with the Bird, and jump system.”

  Zero twisted her lip, thinking on that. “The Firebird’s neural-link array has a decent range. We would need to shadow you from a safe distance, to maintain connection with your simulants, but it’s possible.”

  Captain Lestrade approved. “This could work,” he said. “If we can get parked in a low orbit, we may even be able to watch you with the Bird’s scopes. That could provide some orbital intelligence.”

  “But the sims are assault-types,” Lopez complained. “What about weapons and armour? There’s no way a refugee ship is going to let us aboard in combat-suits.”

  “Girl wants her big guns, yes?” Novak laughed. “You want to try out this Pathfinder armour!”

  “Of course I do,” Lopez admitted, “but it isn’t that. The sims are bigger, meaner, better than humans. We join up with a refugee fleet and bodies like that … Well, I can’t see it working.”

  “We won’t be in uniform,” I argued. “We’ll take some shipboard fatigues, maybe some sidearms from the ship’s armoury. We can dirty the bodies up. The disguise won’t be perfect, but if we encounter any trouble we can extract back to the Firebird and bail out.”

  Novak and Feng nodded in agreement—no doubt eager to make the next transition—but Lopez was still unsatisfied.

  “How are we going to get aboard a civilian ship?” she queried.

  “We will steal one,” Novak suggested.

  I shook my head. “No one’s stealing anything. These are Alliance citizens, and those ships are all they have. We’re not taking them by force.”

  I watched the dark outside, the ever-expanding morass of debris that circled the outer rim of Mu-98 system. Closer now, the Firebird’s AI had detected several emergency broadcasts. I selected one of those signals.

  “We use an evacuation-pod. That’s how we get aboard a ship.”

  Zero grinned. “This sounds like it might actually work.”

  Even Captain Lestrade looked a little bit impressed with my ingenuity. “The Firebird has four pods. We could modify one, remove the identifier. It wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny—not for long—but it’d pass a cursory inspection.”

  “Then that’s the plan, Jackals,” I said.

  Lopez crossed her arms over her chest. “Can I at least load up the Pathfinder suits, and fresh skins, just in case?”

  It would be a wasted effort, but if it made Lopez feel better, what the hell?

  “You do that, Lopez, although I hope we won’t need them. Sixty minutes to transition, people.”

  Sixty minutes later, the Jackals were strapped into the emergency crash couches inside one of the Firebird’s evac-pods. I sat up front with Feng, watching space through
the shielded view-port, with Novak and Lopez in the rear.

  “Get settled in,” Captain Lestrade suggested. “Running final checks.”

  “I take it this is going to be bumpy,” Lopez griped.

  “That’s about right,” I answered. “Try holding on to something.”

  “Real cosy …” Lopez muttered.

  “Cosy” was an understatement: the evac-pod was made to contain six crewmen in real skins, not four simulants. Lopez fidgeted noisily behind me, unable to get comfortable in the safety webbing.

  “At least now we know how Ving felt,” Feng added.

  “Great,” sighed Lopez. “That’s exactly what I needed.”

  “You’re clear for launch,” said Lestrade.

  “Copy that. Good to go.”

  Zero remotely keyed the ignition sequence. “Launching.”

  There was a stomach-churning lurch as the pod fired from the Firebird’s belly. Without a gravity-drive, everything not strapped down was in freefall. Space slid by outside.

  “That’s a safe launch,” Captain Lestrade said. “Firebird adopting retreat pattern.”

  The pod’s console showed Lestrade’s progress, as he took the Firebird into the cover of a nearby moon. The captain had a difficult line to walk, or fly as the case may be. He needed to be close enough to maintain the neural-link between the sims and our real bodies, but not so close that questions would be asked by any potential saviour. We didn’t want this to look like a scam or ambush, after all.

  The pod slowed. My stomach settled.

  I flexed an arm, felt the simulant muscles respond. Usually, when I made transition, the war-hunger filled me. This was different: there was no thrumming in my blood, and the body felt without purpose. I was made for war, not infiltration. No combat-suit, no null-shield: this was not the Sim Ops that I knew. We didn’t even have proper weapons. Each of us carried a single Widowmaker pistol, a basic semi-automatic kinetic. I was the only one with a comms capability, via the wrist-comp strapped to my arm. Using that, I opened a channel back to Zero, in the Firebird’s Simulant Operations Centre.

  “Comms check. Do you copy, Zero?”

  “That’s an affirmative. Firebird copies.”

  “We’ll keep comms to a minimum,” I decided. “Don’t want any potential rescue ships becoming suspicious.”

  “Copy that,” Zero agreed.

  “I’ll send a sitrep once we reach Kronstadt. But until then, comms-quiet.”

  “Understood.”

  I removed my earpiece, folded away the device’s stalk. The small communicator was usually my lifeline to the SOC, from which Zero could provide operational intel. That sort of data could make or break a mission. But fugees didn’t carry military-spec comms tech, and so I had to let it go. If we really needed her, Zero could home in on the comm signal, send assistance via the Firebird. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  “This is never going to work,” Lopez argued. “We look like freaking giants.”

  “Lots of colonies have oversized gene-types,” I said. “Humanity comes in many shapes and forms, Lopez. Not everywhere is as boring as Proxima Colony. Boreham’s World, for instance.”

  “Never even heard of it,” Lopez answered. “Sounds made up.”

  “And you’ve heard of every occupied planet in the Alliance, huh?” Feng countered.

  “Exactly,” I said. “And as it happens, it is made up. But we’re dealing with civilians, and no one is going to have the facilities to check our identities. All we need to do is get onto a ship.”

  Each of us was over six and a half foot tall, and Novak in particular was especially big. But beyond height and build, there was nothing to identify us as Army. We all wore shipboard smart-suits plundered from the Firebird’s lockers with the crew badges and insignia removed, of a type that were found on a million civvie starships.

  “Are you worried people will recognise you?” Novak asked Lopez. “It happened on farm, yes?”

  “This is different,” Feng said. “Lopez got recognised because she was in her real skin.” He turned to look at her now. “I don’t think the Senator himself would recognise Lopez without all her bodywork …”

  “Fuck you, Feng.”

  It was true that there was little risk of anyone recognising Lopez as she was now. Her simulant body was almost twice her real skin’s mass, the features of her face a better copy of Lopez before she’d gone under the knife.

  “Maybe the new haircut is making her cranky,” Novak suggested.

  “I think it suits you, Lopez,” I said.

  As a final precaution, I’d insisted on Lopez’s hair being cut short. It didn’t exactly reflect fashion on the Core Systems, unless having a craggy bob—fringe quite obviously hacked with a pair of shipboard safety scissors—had suddenly come in style. The Core had some crazy fashions, but I doubted this was one of them.

  “We’re going to be on Russian soil,” Lopez said. “You’re the one who should be worried about being recognised, Novak. Probably all kinds of gangers down there. Maybe we’ll meet some of those Sons of Balash assholes.”

  Novak narrowed his eyes and grinned. “Can only hope.”

  In his real skin, Novak was a walking skin-canvas. But his sim was completely tattoo-free, and it was almost disconcerting to look at the pale flesh of his face and head. His hair was shaven, showing the contours of his head.

  “Coming up on the main refugee fleet,” Feng said as the evac-pod’s thrusters cut.

  “Activate our emergency beacon.”

  “Affirmative.”

  The fleet consisted of a dozen civilian ships. We sailed alongside them, unobtrusively.

  “Requesting immediate assistance,” I said over the general channel. “Please respond. We are the survivors of an attack by a Krell bio-ship. Please respond. We have limited oxygen. We are able to offer this pod as salvage.”

  We waited.

  A half hour passed, and several ships went with it. They were ramshackle things, patched and repatched, barely capable of flight. No one answered our distress call.

  “What did I say?” Lopez said confidently. “This isn’t going to work. We should get recalled and use those Pathfinder suits—”

  The console chimed with an incoming transmission.

  “What do we have here?” I asked.

  A small hauler crawled into visual range.

  “Her name’s the Varyag,” Feng explained as the ship’s registration and identification data appeared on the evac-pod’s flight console. The ship’s flanks were battered and bruised, suggesting a lifetime among Mu-98’s asteroid fields. “She’s a prospector ship.”

  “This is Varyag,” said a voice. The words were in Standard, but heavy with a Slavic accent. “We read you. The pod is available as salvage, you say?”

  The fish has taken the bait.

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you have anything else to trade?”

  I knew that this was coming, and we’d planned for it.

  “We’ve got four power cells,” I said. We had to play the part: the offer couldn’t appear unrealistic or too valuable. Cells were pretty much universal currency among space travellers. “We’re looking for safe passage to Kronstadt.”

  The voice sniggered. Someone else in the background laughed. “You and the rest of them, lady.”

  “Can you help us or not?”

  “Four cells, you say? And we get to keep the pod?”

  “You heard me. We need immediate pickup. Can you help or not?”

  There was a pause. “All right. You got yourself a deal.”

  “Turning our navigational control over to you, Captain.”

  I cut the comm, breathed a sigh of relief.

  The Varyag was already manoeuvring on an intercept course. Soon our evac-pod was moving alongside the other ship, ready to be taken aboard.

  “See, Lopez,” I said. “All it takes is a little faith.”

  The Varyag’s captain—or the ship’s operator, at least—
met us in the vessel’s dock. He was a little man with leathery skin and a thatch of wild, dark hair, wearing a spacesuit with no ship identifier and carrying an ancient-looking pistol at his belt.

  “Name’s Bukov,” he said by way of introduction as we left the pod. Despite his accent, he didn’t look very Russian at all.

  “I’m Keira Jenkins,” I said. Knowing that these were civilian operators, I had no fear of using my real name. “We were running a mining operation out in the far-orbits. This is all that’s left of my crew.”

  “They grow them big where you come from, then?”

  “Something like that.”

  The man at Bukov’s side—who I instantly tagged as Sidekick—sniggered noisily. A lanky shaven-head brute of a thing, with few remaining teeth, he made no disguise of the fact that he was the captain’s bodyguard. Sidekick had poor-quality gang-tattoos liberally scattered over his face, and Novak eyed him warily. I could imagine him reading every marking on the ugly bastard’s flesh as though it were a secret language that only they shared. Novak—in the sim—had no history to show the other man.

  “We’re from Boreham’s World,” I said. “Extreme height and build are genetic anomalies.”

  “Right, right. Sure.”

  “You want to make a thing of it?” Novak questioned. He glared at Sidekick, then at Bukov.

  Sidekick snorted another laugh, but Bukov just shrugged. “Fine. What do I care?”

  “What do we care?” repeated Sidekick, nodding.

  “We were attacked by those infected Krell,” I explained. “Our ship went down, and we had no choice but to evacuate. The rest of my crew were lost.”

  Bukov circled the pod, making it clear that this was what he was really interested in. It currently sat in a holding cradle, in the centre of a cargo bay, hull still creaking and groaning, taking the stress of adapting to atmosphere. The paper-thin explanation for our presence out here, and where we were from, were largely irrelevant to Bukov. I’d read this situation pretty much right.