Worldship Files: Cityships

by Erik Schubach

  I just looked back and cocked an eyebrow at her in a challenge, she furrowed her great brow then prompted, “You were joking right?” I just kept walking as she called out to me a little louder, “Right?”

  Mother was in my head. “That wasn't very nice, Knith.”

  I shrugged and she chirped out, “But it was pretty funny.”

  “It was, wasn't it?” Then I added, “I kind of like that one, she's got moxie.”

  Mother agreed. “She does. And I think she may have a little hero worship of you, even though she doesn't know how a Human has been so successful in battle since Orcs are the only race that are almost as strong as the greater Fae.”

  I had to look at one of my helmet cams and pointed out, “You caught that too? Just how intuitive are you? Does it even compute?”

  She just said, “Pluh.” Causing me to chuckle out loud. I still believe she modeled her own humor after mine.

  Glancing back to see the Orc heading toward the cabin she shared with four others on the security detachment, I wondered how close her kind had come to extinction after the wars with the Elves and Fae over the millennia, now the last handful of them was on the Leviathan. Once we reached our new home, where we didn't have to worry about static Equilibrium, hopefully, they can multiply freely under Open Sky.

  I turned back to the task on hand and made my way up to the bridge cockpit to start my rounds. Unsurprisingly, I found Mac, Mir, and Captain Richter talking about the ship's systems, the two Lancers who were awake at this hour were standing in the corner, observing.

  I don't think I've seen Mac so animated before. He loved talking old tech with someone who understood his antiquated ship. Though Richter seemed saddened over the modifications Mac has done, especially here on the bridge, as they talked about utility over the purity of the systems.

  I sidled up to Mir and sighed. “They still going on about floating junk heaps?”

  She spoke out the side of her mouth, “Yup.”

  Mac didn't even look at me as he pointed a finger my way. “Stow it, Enforcer. Or you can take a long walk out a short airlock.”

  I grinned toothily his way and said as I held up my hands. “I wouldn't dream of besmirching your precious Underhill's honor.”

  He finally looked up and shared his patented shit-eating grin, “You'd best remember that, young Knith.”

  Sighing I said, my voice filled with resignation that I had to get to business, “Anything I need to know while I was sleeping?”

  He shook his head. “Regular contact with the world and Ready Squadron... speaking of, excuse me.” He opened a com channel. “Hey, cat, wake up! You're up. Your other pilot just signed out for some sleep. You have two drifters.”

  Myra was on the channel. “What? Huh? I'm up, I'm up! Umm... ok, I'm awake. Drifters?”

  Mir chuckled and chimed out for Mac, “Your counterpart isn't as good at corralling the flailing chickens as you. Two are a thousand miles off course, bearing 025 mark 15.3.”

  She growled out, “Mab's tits, and you're just now telling me?”

  Our mirror skinned friend told her, “You needed your beauty sleep, and they are still inside the flight envelope, we would have woke you if there was any danger.”

  She muttered back, “These wrecks shouldn't be out this far, to begin with, and their pilots don't seem to have any navigation skill or situational awareness. It may as well be Shade flying them.”

  “Hey now, lady. I can hear you.”

  She chuckled and said, “I thought I heard you breathing there. I stand by my words.”

  I shook my head and muttered, “Cats.” Then gave everyone a sloppy salute. “Well I'm off on rounds, call if anything interesting happens.”

  And then what felt like the most boring day of my life began as I started walking my rounds, checking on all the others on the same security shift as mine.

  The only bright spot was that Jane and Madame Zoe used up all the supplies we had left, and what fresh greens the Clairvoyant could spare for huge lunch since we would be docked on the Leviathan before the Day Lights went out for the night on the world.

  I tried to catch Lincoln for lunch, but all the Cityshippers opted to stay in their bunks this time with their meals. The man I had spoken with before looked almost afraid.

  We were just a couple hours out from the Leviathan, seeing it growing brighter on the screens when I saw one of our security men hauling one of the four Lancers bodily to the old brig just outside the cargo hold.

  I made my way there quickly. “What's going on here?”

  The Elf looked at me and said, “I was just about to call you, Lieutenant. I caught this man in the off-limits area in environmental control. He refuses to explain why he was skulking around in there.”

  I hit the com panel on the side of the door as I looked through the blast glass at him. “What were you doing in environmental control?”

  He didn't even acknowledge me. I sighed and dropped my hand from the panel. “Send beta squad to check out Environmental Control and also, see how he got into a secure area. I'll get Captain Richter down here, maybe he can get his man to talk.”

  The Elf nodded. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  Then before I could ask, a connection was pinging to the bridge, Mac said, “What is it Shade?”

  “Hello to you too, you stale space fart. We've got a problem with one of the two Lancers that were supposed to be in their rack. He was sniffing around Environmental and won't speak to us, could you see if Richter can get him talking?”

  Captain Richter responded, “On my way down, Lieutenant Shade.” Then he was saying, “I hate incompetence. Care to join me, Mac?”

  “Of course. Be right down, Knith.”

  I absently nodded then made my way back out into the cargo hold to wait by the ladders, since I knew Mac wouldn't use the lift. I glanced around the space and smiled, in just a couple short hours, these people were going to get the proper medical treatment they were in dire need of.

  Mir slid down the rails then Mac and Richter followed with his two Lancers in tow. Mir fell in beside me as Captain Richter furrowed his brow as he looked to the side as we started to walk and said, “What was that there?” He moved to a small maintenance airlock Mac at his side, scanning the airlock to see what Richter was talking about.

  Then chaos ensued.

  In one quick motion, Richter pushed Mac into the airlock, lifted the emergency venting cover and slammed the red button. My eyes widened in horror as I heard myself screaming, “No!”

  Mir's arms were shiny blades in an instant as I drew my twin MMG's on reflex. I was barely aware that almost everyone in the cargo hold, including Richter, pulled out flimsy filter masks as the fog started spewing from the air vents.

  My fingers were starting to squeeze the triggers, and Richter started to go down as one of the tiny darts struck him and channeled a stunning blast into him. And I looked down as something hit my feet while Mir started to dive at the crumpling man, screaming in anguish and rage, what was that round...

  There was a bright flash and Mir dropped like a marionette whose strings had been cut. My MMG's and armor went dead in the same instant. Was that some sort of an EMP grenade?

  I dropped my MMG's and grabbed my twin cold iron batons, flicking them out as I dove at the Lancers as they opened fire on me. I was feeling sluggish, and their projectile weapons hammered at my armor. Even unpowered, it was a match for the weapons, even though I felt like I was being pounded by a series of hammers.

  Staggering, as I felt woozy like I had been on an all-night drinking binge. I swung low, shattering one man's kneecap, but I followed my strike down, my helmet bouncing off the floor. I felt like I was made of lead as I tried to lift my arms.

  Far too late I realized that it was some sort of gas being pumped into the ship as my eyesight blurred then the fog took over my brain as the world folded in on me into darkness. The last horrified thought I was capable of thinking
before I was out, was, “Mac?”

  Chapter 12 – Under Pressure

  I don't know how long I was out, but when I came to, it felt as if I had been trampled in a cattle stampede in the B-Rings. My extremities were tingling as I fought off the last of the effects from the gas.

  I used my anger and sorrow over losing Mac to the harsh vacuum of space to clear my head. I realized my cheeks were wet with tears. I sat up, feeling the aches and pains from the beating I took from the projectile weapons as well as what felt like a physical beating while I was down and out. I found I was in only my skinsuit, all my gear had been stripped from me.

  One arm looked to be soaked in blood where a projectile had torn through my armor and grazed me, but my healing factor had already stemmed the bleeding and it was already scabbing over.

  Wiping the tears, I scrambled to one of the bodies on the floor near me. Her mirrored skin looking inanimate scared the hells out of me. Mir always looked so... alive, even with her full body cyber mods. But now she almost didn't look real with her eyes staring blankly at the wall where her head was pointing.

  She didn't breathe so I had no idea if she were... dead or not. EMP grenades were outlawed on space faring vehicles even prior to the construction of the Worldship, in the last war mankind waged between the Mars and Lunar colonies and Earth. Mostly because an EMP large enough could doom an entire ship, condemning all souls on board to the excruciating pain of suffocation or freezing to death without life support. It had been considered cruel and unusual by the Fifth Geneva Accords.

  But that was how they took out both Mir and my Scatter Armor before I could drop my visor. It effectively disabled my MMGs as well. That gas they pumped through the environmental systems finished me off.

  I turned Mir onto her back and just prayed that hers was a legal augment since full body augments were required by regulations to have a biological backup in case of system or power failure. But for all I knew, my friend, like Mac, was dead.

  I looked up and called out, “Mother?” She'd be able to scan her.

  A voice against the wall said, “Don't bother. They disabled all com links when they gassed us.” I glanced over to see the other human Enforcer holding her bloodied cheek. She looked as if she had been beat half to death. I looked from her to the others and went around taking pulses of the few Humans of Mac's Crew, the relief workers, and a small number of Cityshippers, then scrambled with a panic to an unconscious Lincoln when I saw his little body laying limp behind a man.

  The Enforcer offered, “All alive.” I sighed out in relief as I arranged Lincoln to a more comfortable position on the deck.

  Closing my eyes I put it all together, and was wondering how we hadn't before. I mean, we were all feeling things were off. It all seemed obvious now. Richter and the Lancers were Outliers. They controlled the Cityships. They wore the same blue and greens as the Outliers with the armbands. They had carefully planned this out to take Mac's ship for some reason, that's why they knew so much about AJAX vessels.

  What was the endgame though? What had that other man in the cargo bay... who was now in here with us, said? Something about the Ka'Infinitum being the birthright of the Outliers, who suffered the generations on the Cityships, while the Fae lived in opulence with a ship full of human slaves.

  Were they really going to try to take the Ka'Infinitum? What did they believe that would accomplish?

  I felt the blood drain from my face as I scrambled to the other woman and started checking out her wounds. My eyes widened when I noted both of her legs were sitting at unnatural angles. I looked at her as she hissed while I felt along her skinsuit. One knee was dislocated, and the other leg was broken.

  I looked her in the eye and said as I lifted her leg and placed my hands strategically, “Private?”

  She looked away from my hands, pain evident on her face. “Ma'am.” And without warning I bent her knee joint back down toward her body and heard a popping crunch and she screamed as I popped her knee back in place.

  Patting her shoulder I said, “Good job.”

  She looked on the verge of passing out now, but she said between gritted teeth, trying to make light of it. “Give a girl some warning next time.”

  I shook my head, “Then you would have resisted whether you meant to or not.” I grabbed a blanket off of a cot welded onto the wall and started biting it and tearing it into strips. I looked around and then started kicking out at one of the legs of the welded cot. It broke free after the fifth kick. My entire body shook in pained shock with every impact, reminding me I wasn't in much better shape than her.

  Then I used the short pipe and the strips to splint her other leg. She hissed in pain multiple times as I worked. I tried to keep her mind off the pain. “They really did a number on you.”

  She chuckled, and a blush appeared on her deathly pale face, “I think I did this to myself.” She waved a hand at her legs. “When the gas started coming from the vents, I got my visor up and I started for the bridge, but men rushed up from the lower levels and there was some sort of flash-bang then my armor powered down. I fought, but it was a losing proposition, so I was going to go for help at the cargo bay.”

  “I leapt down the engineering conduit three floors, forgetting my armor wasn't powered anymore. That's the last thing I remembered until I woke up in here, with them throwing people and you in here... the fucking bastards took my armor.”

  I nodded and said, “They have EMP grenades, that's what took out Mir and my armor.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “But EMPs are outlawed.”

  I shrugged. “Yet here we are.” Then I asked as I looked around, seeing only Humans, getting a really bad feeling, “What about the others?”

  She shook her head, “I don't know. I couldn't pull myself up to see out the brig window.”

  I stood and made my way to the door and looked out. Strewn about in the corridor was our armor and gear. It took ten minutes from a critical failure for the magi-tech systems to reboot our armor systems.

  So I asked as I realized something didn't feel right about the ship. Then I realized it was because we were decelerating and our spin was arresting as we slowly lost gravity. I blurted, “How long have I been out?”

  She shrugged, “Maybe two hours?”

  Mother fairy humper, we had arrived at the Leviathan. As gravity lost its hold on us, I pushed myself to the people scattered about, starting to free float and said, “Tear more strips.” She looked at me then them and nodded.

  We went about strapping the people to the cots around the walls. Then I floated back to the door. We needed to get out of here now and stop this madness before more people got hurt. She was now mobile in zero gravity and she asked, “What are we going to do?”

  I looked around. There had to be a way to get out. But the brig was built extremely well. Not even an access panel on the inside. I pushed off and grabbed one of the light fixtures, placing my feet on the ceiling on either side of it and strained. With a protesting groan of metal, the casing bent away just when my straining muscles felt ready to tear.

  The Enforcer blinked. “Do you have more mods than just your lips?”

  I shook my head, “I don't have any mods. These are the marks of the Winter and Summer Queen. I'm just strong for my size.”

  I reached inside the fixture and was disappointed that there weren't any plasma relays, and no capacitance crystals I could discharge like a makeshift cutting torch. The lights were powered by honest to goodness electron flow through metal conductors? Was that done anymore? Then I remembered the age of the ship. Mac hadn't gotten around to replacing the power systems it appears.

  I felt a pang in my heart at the thought about the loss of the rebellious Remnant captain. Pulling out the wires to the maximum, I asked, “What's your name?”

  She looked stricken and resigned as she said, “Audrey Jameson.”

  I told her with apology in my tone for not remembering, but in my defense, the
re were too many new faces on the roster for the mission and I hadn't memorized them, “Ok stay away from the door, Jameson.” Then I jammed the exposed wires on the door and sighed when they sparked and nothing happened.

  I looked at her and said, “Ok, that about exhausts my extensive list of ideas. Do you have any?”

  She blinked, likely wondering how I could joke at a time like this. Then she shook her head. We both spun in the air when Mother said from behind us, “I have an idea Knith, why don't I open it?”

  My jaw hung open when I saw Mir standing behind us, her feet melding with the deck plates, a silly crooked grin on her face. Her body language was all wrong as she cocked her head at me, studying me like she had never seen me before.

  “Mir?”

  “No, silly, her software is re-training, she'll be back with us in a minute or two. Good thing she had bio-backup systems to keep her brain alive.”

  “Mother?” It was beyond freaky hearing Mother's voice coming from Mir's mouth.

  She nodded, “Of course. When the Mercy Fleet started attacking the upper rings and I realized all com channels in the Underhill were disabled, and I couldn't rise anyone's wrist consoles or SAs, that you might need my help.” Mabs tits! The stacks were under attack?

  Then she held her hands in front of her and flexed her fingers as she stared in almost childlike wonder, “So this is what touch feels like.” She ran a hand along her arm. Then she looked up at me, “As Mir's systems started rebooting, I took control over the data channel. But as soon as she is conscious, I'll be blocked out, her brain being sort of the ultimate wetware firewall.”

  She stepped past me as I pulled myself down to the floor using a handrail. She paused and smiled at me in wonder and reached a hand out to tentatively run her fingertips along my cheek and jaw. Then she looked at her fingers, shaking her head. “I've never had input like this. It is incredible.”

  Then she looked at us, “You may want to stand back.” We moved aside along the grab rails and she held her hands up and looked at both sides of them and said, “Fascinating,” as they flattened and reformed into blades. Then she punched the window. Even though it wasn't blast-glass, it was about three inches thick and vacuum rated, but she blew a hole into it.