This Starry Deep

by Adam P. Knave

  I scanned the board again and tracked her team’s progress. They were in formation, spreading out slowly as they went. It was a solid move: spread out slowly enough and the enemy might not notice, focusing their plans on a much tighter group.

  The enemy ships also flew in a formation. They were using a simple flying V to come in straight and fast, by the looks of it. That could be good. Even if they had darkened a few systems, they hadn’t met serious resistance from the military, not yet. Perhaps their tactics extended only to planetary movements and not to full-on space combat. Then again, if Hodges was keeping things from me, and I could tell he was, this may not have been their first meeting after all.

  We had a numbers advantage, though: thirty of our best fighters to fifteen of theirs. But their ships and pilots were unknown, in terms of both capabilities and firepower. It wouldn’t do to get cocky based on numbers.

  “Flight group, you’re almost in visual range. Deep Water, invert formation once visual range is achieved. Over.”

  “Sir, we don’t know what their visual range is,” Bushfield pointed out. Damn, she was right. I told her so and backed off.

  The enemy group scattered a few seconds later, spreading out impossibly fast. They seemed to skitter across space, markers flickering to keep up. “Scatter!” Bushfield demanded over the radio. “They’re too damn fast, find a target and take it out!”

  “Deep Water, report, what do they look like?” I asked, seeing Hodges lean in over the board.

  “Sending visual data now, sir,” she said. I could hear the tightness in her voice. No one likes being asked to stop trying to stay alive long enough to send a picture back home. Intel was as crucial as anything this time out, though, and she knew it. She just didn’t have to like it.

  “Sir,” some technician behind me said, and I turned to see a series of pictures lighting up along the wall. The ships were thin, coming down to a long nose cone that didn’t quite seem practical. Four wings sprouted, one every ninety degrees around the ship. I could see the engines, one at each wingtip.

  “Enlarge that as best you can,” I told the tech. He nodded and the image zoomed, losing quality as it did. There was enough detail that I could make out what looked like joint points under the engines. That’s how they moved so blasted fast.

  I didn’t think I wanted to meet the pilots who could take that sort of G-force for the whip turns those ships looked designed for. Maybe they had gravity tech, too, but even then, gravity adjusters in a ship that small would have trouble adjusting fast enough to keep the pilots in one piece. Trying those moves in anything bigger than a pack would be deadly. I didn’t know what we were looking at, or who.

  “Deep Water, be advised, the ships’ engines are on the wing tips. Take those out and…” I started to relay.

  “Copy. We’ve been trying to get a target lock on one, but they’re so damned fast,” she said. She spoke quickly, distracted. I needed to shut up and let her do her job.

  “Left wing, close in, try a three-sided box, Hammerhead, come over the top and let’s do this. Engage, guys. Engage!” she yelled. I took half a step back, watching the formations of ships sweep and change, and just listened to the chatter.

  “Cap’n, they’re too damn fast…”

  “Shut up, Tommy. Get in there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Deep Water, this is Echo Chamber. I got one of these things on my tail. I can’t shake him.”

  “I got Echo, Cap’n. Highball out.”

  I watched as Highball made a sharp cut - his engines must have screamed bloody murder at him for the move - as he shifted around to close in on Echo Chamber. I couldn’t see the actual ships, but the way that the light indicating the enemy ship had just reversed, I could only begin to imagine how the engines must be able to rotate fully around and what kind of stress that would put not only on the pilot but on the ship itself.

  Regardless of stress, the ship had reversed itself and took out Highball. I watched the light marking his position go out, listened to the cries of shock. Those cries were quickly followed by a stone-cold death confirmation by Deep Water. Bushfield was a pro. Of course she was. Same with the rest of her group.

  As Highball died, hopefully quick enough that he didn’t feel it, Echo Chamber turned around and started to fire. The enemy ship followed Highball to the grave. No one cheered.

  “This is Deep Water to strike group. Reform and wedge. Repeat, reform on me.”

  “Deep Water, this is Captain Madison: don’t do it.”

  “Repeat, Captain?”

  “Don’t form up, they’re too fast for you to wedge through. Stay loose and pick them off.”

  “Sir,” she told me, “they’re swarming. Honest-to-God swarming. If we try a pick-off they’ll weed us out. If we form up we can cover each other.”

  “Damn it, this is an order. Stay loose!”

  “Negative, Deep Water out.”

  I looked at Hodges, who only scowled once again. “Hodges, damn it, they’re going to suicide if they try this!”

  “Captain Madison,” he said, “you’re here to advise, not demand.”

  “I’m here to make sure these kids don’t die!”

  “Stand down, Captain.” And with that Hodge straightened, removing his hands from the edge of the table. I wanted to punch the wall. Or Hodges. Maybe both.

  Instead I watched the board. The ships were forming up, quickly, as the enemy moved around them. If the enemy was following a pattern in their movements, it wasn’t immediately apparent. I could sense something at the edges of it, though. Obvious pattern or not, the movements didn’t look good.

  “Hodges,” I asked, keeping my voice cool, “what planet are they coming up on, anyway? How far out is this wave?”

  “Trasker Four,” he said, not bothering to look at me.

  “That’s a system and a half out,” I said, “there’s no way we’ll get there in time to provide assistance to the strike group.”

  “They won’t need it, Captain,” Hodges said.

  We went back to watching the board and listening in to the group’s chatter. It didn’t matter. What we were listening to, it became obvious, would be a live recording of their last moments alive. Boxed in, not able to re-scatter fast enough, they were being picked off by the enemy ships that outclassed them handily in speed and maneuverability.

  I didn’t want to watch, not from afar. I wanted to be in it, then maybe I could make a difference. But from where I was, what good could I do? None, just hearing orders barked and radios squelch as they exploded. I tried to give advice, but my options were as limited as theirs. More so, really. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see and I couldn’t help and all I could do was try desperate attempts at second-handing a battle strategy against an enemy I didn’t understand.

  A muscle in the corner of my jaw twitched and I felt my anger rise again. Hodges. If he had given me all of his data, maybe this would have played out differently. His secrets, whatever his agenda was, were costing a lot of good men and women their lives. They also cost me time I could be looking for Shae. Unacceptable.

  Hitting him just then wouldn’t have solved anything, though. As much as I wished different. But something else might work.

  “Deep Water, this is Madison. Do they follow you?”

  “Are you…Yes, sir. They follow us.” I knew she wouldn’t like this next part.

  “I need you to lead them away from Trasker Four. Can you force them along our vector?”

  “While we have a few ships left, sir, I suppose so. But there’s no way you can get us reinforcements in time.”

  “That’s my problem. You have your orders.” I started toward the door. Hodges called after me.

  “Captain Madison! You can’t leave the battle deck! What are you doing?”

  “Saving who I can, General,” I spat at him, “if I can. Court martial me later.”

  The door slid shut behind me and I knew it wouldn’t be more than seconds before Hodges himself came fo
r me or security found me in the halls. Nothing for it. I had a purpose.

  Chapter 10– Shae

  MY HEAD THROBBED. It was a good throb, the kind that told me I was alive. I had that much going for me. Not much else. There was something blocking my eyes and muffing my hearing. My breathing was being stifled both in and out. A hood; had to be.

  I tensed my arms and legs, joint by joint. Nothing felt broken or damaged, but someone had managed to secure me really well. My arms and legs were each strapped down to whatever platform pressed against my back. Other straps pulled tight across my chest and hips and knees. They’d left my neck free, not bothering to lay a strap across my forehead. They’d left me upright - I could tell by the ease with which I swallowed - and I didn’t feel particularly drugged.

  I strained to listen through my hood for any noises. A soft electrical hum cycled and an air scrubber clicked on and off slowly. I pegged it as a ship. Something big, too. Big enough to have space to leave one woman in an empty room. I couldn’t, of course, tell how big the room was, not for certain. Still, the change in sound when I turned my head, even muffled, was enough to suggest an open space.

  Using each limb in turn, I tensed and strained slowly, testing to see how secure the straps really were. Secure enough, it turned out, that nothing budged. I curled my fingers into my palms and tried, with my left hand, to then inch my fingers up under the wrist strap there. If I could get to my wrist, there was a tiny patch of skin under which lay an emergency beacon. A quick burst would let Jonah know where I was.

  I turned my wrist around as much as I could and felt a bandage there. Hell, they might have done a passive scan and picked up the beacon. If they had, it would’ve been easy to remove. I took a deep breath, strained by the hood, and exhaled slowly. No choice but to wait for their next move, whoever I was waiting on. I knew everything I would get to know from where I was. Now it came down to a matter of time. They wouldn’t leave me here to rot like this, too much work had gone into securing me. If they wanted me to go to waste in a box, they could have just dumped me in a box without lashing me to a table first.

  The fact that they obviously wanted me alive, even for a little while, coupled with an educated guess that they knew who I was, helped. Removing that beacon was their mistake. It meant they probably thought my biggest threat came from my darling husband, the hero. They’d regret that, later.

  My breathing filled my consciousness for about an hour, as I waited. Muscles relaxed, mind in a simple meditation loop. Random exertion wouldn’t get me any closer to free. After that hour or so of waiting, I heard a door open. Smells hit me first, something not-human. A biological smell, one I couldn’t quite place. Nothing I’d encountered enough to cleanly identify, at least. That left a wide-open field.

  As they came closer, I could hear nails against the floor and a stride that spoke of long legs. The smell got closer, as did the sound, and soon enough I felt claws against my head. Gently, not trying to gouge chunks of skin off, the claws slid against me, gathering up some of the hood to drag it free. The fingers felt inexpert, almost clumsy.

  I kept my eyes closed when the hood came off, not wanting to blind myself. I opened them slowly, letting the light stab my senses in a somewhat controlled fashion. I tried to look down first, assuming any lighting source would be above or in front of me. I caught sight of the feet that made the claw-like clicking noise and changed the word “claw” in my head to “talon.” The feet were leathery and long-toed, each having two toes pointing forward and one pointing back: bird’s feet.

  Sure enough, as I let my gaze wander up the body of the alien in front of me I took in a bird’s body: lightly feathered, long limbed and overall thin. Vestigial wings hung beneath the arms. A sharp bird’s head stared back at me, the eyes to each side of the face, just forward enough to grant good line-of-sight vision.

  There were four of the aliens, each taller, on average, than a human. They looked at me and then at each other, beaks opening to chirp and chitter away in some language I’d never heard. Which made sense, really; there was no record of a species like this. If they were our invaders, then they were also something brand new.

  “What do you want?” I asked them four times in different standard languages. One of them, a standard trading language from out around the far-spun end of the galaxy, hit. I kept going: “Why am I here? What do you want from me, can we help you?”

  I wasn’t, honestly, a fan of that last question. Still, the polite thing often proved the most useful. Ask if they need help, if this is a misunderstanding, and then when it proves to be very intentional, blow someone to hell.

  “We require information,” it said to me, accent thick and slurring. Recent language acquisition, that beak had trouble with some of the sounds.

  “Me too,” I told him, her, or it, whatever this bird was. One major rule of being captured: don’t act like you’re inconvenienced. Present yourself as part of a conversation and sometimes, if they’re new, you can get lucky. They get sloppy. Sloppy gets you free.

  “You will tell us of your home system,” the bird said.

  I laughed. “I doubt it.” I took a minute to glance around the room. Simple, standard room, sadly. No clues to be found: empty except for me and the flock in front of me, metal walls, recessed lighting in the ceiling. Any number of species from any number of systems could have built it. “Where are you from?” I asked, relaxing my head against the board I was secured to.

  They didn’t reply, choosing instead to look at each other and start chirping. I couldn’t understand them, and couldn’t count on inflection meaning the same things it did for humans, but if there were correlations, they were pissed. My refusing to play along must not have sat well.

  “We will leave you to think and cooperate over time,” the only bird to have spoken a language I could understand said to me.

  I shrugged. “You can keep waiting, but it won’t change anything,” I told them, truthfully. I knew I could out-wait them.

  The leader, or at least the one who had spoken to me, turned and the others followed him. The door slid open and they left. Amateurs. The hood was left off of me and the lights were left on. Not smart.

  I scanned the room carefully once they had gone. Nothing looked like it could be recording me. That didn’t mean much, really, but it gave me a bit of hope. Still, they could have tech I never dreamt of monitoring me. No clue.

  Something still felt off, though. If they wanted real information, then this sort of interrogation was truly pathetic. And if they didn’t need it, then why bother? Stalling made no sense, but it fit decently. Which begged question: why stall me, and from doing what, or knowing what? I wasn’t sure, obviously, but I also didn’t intend to stay that way.

  Then I looked down. I craned my neck as best I could, trying to find a weak point in the board I was attached to. It stood up from the floor, tilted back maybe fifteen degrees. Making an L shape against the floor, the plate that secured the board to the floor itself shined, made of the same metal that the board was.

  I was missing something and I knew it. Something in the room, in the aliens - the entire setup and sequence of events didn’t ring true for me. I didn’t know what I was missing, though. So I relaxed again, shut my eyes, and thought. They’d be back, but by then I’d know what was bothering me. I hoped it’d be enough to change the odds.

  Chapter 11– Jonah

  I ONLY HAD a few seconds before someone found me and tried to stop me. Would’ve been easier with Shae by my side. Together there wasn’t much we couldn’t deal with, but no, I stood alone. I didn’t want a fight, not with these guys. They were on my side, and I was trying to save some of their own friends. Still, they’d be following orders to stop me. Put me in a small bind.

  I stopped a pilot on her way by. A hand on the shoulder, a concerned, honest-type look, and she raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Hey, do you know where Mills is,” I asked, “or a pilot named Malik?”

  She looked at my d
ress uniform and name tag, trying to place me. “Uhhh, Malik?”

  “Yeah, nice guy. He was my transpo up here. Left something on his ship, just need to ask him where it is.”

  “Malik left on another dirtside run. Any non-perm cargo would be routed to storage B, I’d check there,” she said. She added a shrug for emphasis.

  “Thanks.” I stood there another second and looked around.

  She laughed - Hanley, her name tag said - and pointed. “Down this corridor to the access drop, down two levels and sternward from there,” she said helpfully.

  “Thanks again, Captain,” I told her, already starting to move. Breaking into a run would be suspicious. Also not recommended, in case my knee went. Instead, I walked briskly, and kept my chin up. I really didn’t want a fight, but I also didn’t plan on being stopped.

  I made the lift, and as I got in I saw security round the turn behind me. Not long now. They’d use the access shafts instead and beat me to the next level. Nothing for it. I tensed as the doors opened.

  Two security guards came up to me, only a few steps away, as I exited the lift. “Captain Madison, please, stop where you are. General Hodges’ orders, sir.” They must have been asked to be gentle. Hodges knew what I planned to do, at least loosely, and hadn’t ordered them to stun on sight. Interesting.

  “Hodges told you to ask all nice, huh?” I kept walking away from them, slowly.

  “We have our orders, sir,” he told me.

  “I’m afraid I can’t stop, boys. I need to go save your friends. Hodges and I disagree about this, but seriously, just let me go, all right?” I knew they wouldn’t - couldn’t, really - but nothing was lost by giving them the truth, either.

  “Lieutenant Mills said you’d tell us that,” the second guard said, “but Captain, we can’t let you…”

  “Mills gave you your orders?” I asked.