This Starry Deep

by Adam P. Knave

  After that? All I’d have to do is break into a Gov battle cruiser, find one person, and escape again. It took my mind off being hunted myself, at least. I left the ship to fly itself for a while and went to count my ammo stores.

  Chapter 16– Jonah

  I GAINED CONTROL of my rapid descent with about thirty feet to spare. As the ground rushed up to greet me, my HUD came up and I quickly selected a stop and hang, equalizing my own mass against all the large fields near me. With a planet under me, the GravPack switched itself automatically to planetary views. At least I wouldn’t have the planet itself being the only attractor.

  I floated down to a soft landing, coming to rest in the middle of a street. It wasn’t subtle. With an invasion on my heels, I didn’t see the point of subtle. People stared and they stared hard. A guy no more than half my age, with a shoulder-length shock of purple hair, walked right up to me, trailed by some friends.

  “Hey, you for real, hombre?” he asked, turning to his friends and laughing. They all laughed after half a beat. If they hadn’t looked quite so hung out to dry I would’ve considered them a gang.

  “Pretty much,” I said, ignoring his tone, “wanna tell me where to find the local enforcement around here?”

  That got me another laugh. “You want us to ring up the Badges?”

  “That gonna be a problem?” I asked. I didn’t have time for a pissing match. I knew it. He just annoyed me.

  “Is it gonna be a…oh man,” another laugh, followed by his right hand sliding into his pocket. “Walk away, man, just walk away.”

  I shook my head at him and his friends. I really didn’t have time, but then, I didn’t think they’d take much of my dwindling supply anyway. We locked eyes, me and the laughing fool. Then his hand whipped out of his pocket. The snap of a wrist and a knife blossomed there, in his fist. I grinned but didn’t make a move.

  He took a swipe at me, which I dodged just by leaning back a bit. As I leaned, I brought both my arms up fast. I grabbed his knife arm at the wrist with my own right hand, pulling him in and yanking his arm across his body. My left hand came up, palm out, and smashed into his elbow, bending it the wrong way hard enough to pop it out of joint.

  He howled in pain, dropping the knife even as his knees gave out from under him. I still stood there, shifting my gaze from him to his friends. “I’ll ask again. One of you know where to find anyone who works for the Government, maybe? Some, uhh, Badges?”

  They looked at me blankly, like they weren’t sure what to do. No. Time. I pulled my gun and let it hang heavy in my hand, pointed at the ground. I didn’t speak, just let the menace of the gun say everything for me. I could see they wanted to try attacking, all at once, but were thinking better of it.

  Turned out I didn’t need their help after all. Sirens rang out instead. Above me. I glanced up and saw the cruisers circling, ready to descend. I went up to them instead. The mini-gang watched me rise and ran in to grab their fallen leader.

  “REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE.” I winced a bit at the volume but stopped my ascent and looked at the police cruisers. There were three of them, each one venting smoke as they hovered there, their lights flashing. At least they cut out the sirens. “RETURN TO THE GROUND,” they told me, at the same ear-splitting volume.

  So I did. They followed. When they landed and got out of their vehicles I remained standing, holding my hands out, palms up, my gun securely in its holster. “I need to talk to someone in charge,” I told them.

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ll see a judge eventually,” one of the four cops said to me. Great, these guys seemed as helpful as the gang did. Still, I had to try.

  “My name is Jonah Madison. I’m with the Gov. There’s a battle raging in your planetary vicinity. Invasion is imminent. Let me speak to someone who can deal with this.”

  All that little rant got me was guns drawn. I kept my own holstered. Zip ties came out and the cops approached me, warily. “I think we got a nutter, here,” one of them said. They were, to me, just nameless uniforms. I knew they had a job to do, but so did I. Mine would save their lives, theirs would help ensure they died. No choice.

  I blinked to call up my HUD again and selected the tallest towers I could see. I knew there would be no way for these guys to keep up with me, so I took off as fast as I could manage, setting my personal field to a nice three feet. That’d be enough to keep me from hitting a building and also make sure no local flying wildlife made things too interesting for me.

  Before I could firmly process it, I left the cops behind in a blur of motion. Not smart, though. I knew it to be a dumb move, even as buildings rushed by. Sirens sounded below me and I cut a hard turn, selecting buildings at random and trying to think. But I wound up just cursing myself out long and hard while I ran.

  Ten seconds on a new planet and I’d managed to push for a fight and get on the wrong side of the local law. I wanted to think maybe I set a new record – that would at least have made me feel productive - but I knew that dumber had been done. By me.

  More sirens sounded behind me. What they lacked in speed they tried to make up for with numbers. Great. Nowhere to run. So I went higher, shooting straight up. Clear of the buildings, squirting out from the overabundance of the city, I flipped over and pointed myself back at the street. Ten cruisers drove after me, climbing as best they could, sirens and flashers going. Gravity reclaimed me and I fell, letting myself go.

  I tucked my arms against my side and dove straight as an arrow. The cops couldn’t react in time and I turned myself, like a spinning arrow, winding through their cruisers. Wind screamed past me and the ground promised me a deep kiss. I denied it, selecting a target at random and pushing off at the last second, my body flipping horizontal just inches above pavement.

  Sirens squelched closer, and there was no need to look back and see that they were still giving chase. No need to check if they were being cautious or not as they followed, either. They were - nothing on this planet could turn like me, and they didn’t want to slam into anything. The chase stopped interesting me, however, once I realized what else I could see.

  The gang members stood and watched, whooping with glee, unsure of who to root for but screaming their damn fool heads off regardless. No officials tried to stop them, fine they were busy with me, but the thing of it was that the gang members didn’t seem to have given running a thought, not seriously. They didn’t care if the cops hung around. No fear, no flinching, these gang kids looked immune.

  Admittedly, they could’ve just been too dumb to think, but their posture suggested different to me. And that told me who really sat in charge around these parts. Oh, hooray. Still, you go where the power sits if you want to get things done.

  Flying low to the ground, still able to reach out and trail a hand along pavement if I wished, a plan blossomed in my mind’s eye. A tight loop brought me back along the other way. Right back at the cops. More importantly, right back at the gang members who still watched, ducking as cop cruisers flew close over them. Their hair caught in the wind and wash from the cruisers, and the gang kids closed their eyes and laughed. They loved watching this.

  As I went by them, I dropped my field for a second and grabbed the guy who’d been about to try and start a fight. Hooked him around his waist and started to climb. He loved watching this all - I wondered if he’d love being in the thick of it. His screams told me he did not. I bit back a laugh and poured on the speed for real, extending my personal field to ten feet. Too close to a building and the field forced a turn. We pinballed through the city at uncomfortable speeds.

  “Stop screaming,” I told my new best friend as I gripped him tighter. “You won’t die unless I screw up, and I won’t screw up if you stop screaming in my damn ear.”

  He managed to clamp his mouth closed. Good boy. We kept moving, the city a blur. I doubled back, flew around a few different blocks, and otherwise tried to make sure we couldn’t be followed. Somewhere about two minutes into it, he threw up. Luckily he was still facing down when
he did. The last thing I needed was this kid’s vomit on my thinsuit.

  “You’re gonna have to do me a favor, kid,” I told him. “I need to speak to the grand poobah, all right? Whoever signs your checks. You lead me to him and this joyride stops.”

  I looked at him, taking my eyes off our course and trusting my field to keep us alive without attention for a few. He shook with fear, and I saw he really was just a kid. A kid shaking with raw terror. I could’ve felt bad for him, if he hadn’t threatened me for asking a question earlier.

  I gave him a hard rattle. “Come on, we don’t have all damn day. Where am I going?”

  “Man,” he said weakly, “I don’t even know where we are.” Well, that posed a problem. I didn’t want to slow down enough for him to get his bearings yet, and I didn’t want to climb high enough for us to be easily seen by the cops, either. Well, maybe if I pulled off another climb and dive it would be all right.

  I climbed again, pushing against the planet hard. The kid screamed, probably because he thought I was going to drop him, and didn’t stop until I rattled him again. We stopped once, high enough for a pretty view. As pretty as I bet things got around here, smoke and buildings and a general dank air about the entire city.

  “Now, find a landmark and get your bearings. We’re going down, and fast, in about ten seconds,” I said. “Once we get back to street level you need to give me directions, good ones and fast ones, or,” I jangled him, “I’ll have no need for you. Got it?”

  His body went stiff as a board, except for his head, which nodded like it sat attached to a spring. He got it. Good.

  I turned off all connecting fields and let us drop with the force of gravity, turning myself and clutching him hard to my side. My arm ached. He was heavy. No, he wasn’t all that heavy, I was just old. You never think about how hard it can be to carry another human under one arm for an extended period of time until you have no option to drop them. Used to be no problem, I could lug guys like him around all day. Now my shoulder ached with the force of history and injury.

  “Where are we going, kid?” I asked as I stopped us once more, only a few inches above the ground. “Come on!”

  “L-left,” he said, and threw up again. Kids. But I listened and moved as quick as possible. Slower than I wanted, but he needed time to tell me my next turn. Not used to high-speed maneuvers, this one.

  I doubled back a few times, looping whole blocks, warning him before I did so he wouldn’t lose his bearing again and force us to start over. He got better as we went, I admit, and pretty soon he started threatening me again.

  “Why you wanna go and find the Boss, man?” he asked. “He just gonna kill you, like I shoulda done,” he said, adding, “left, then the first right.”

  “Don’t make me give in and drop you.”

  “Ha! You can’t, can you? Then you’ll never find the Boss! You need me, old man.” He laughed again and sighed. He was right, of course, but that didn’t do anything other than make me want to drop him more. But no, I hung on, arm burning with the stress of it, and kept flying. I picked up a bit more speed with every other turn, letting him get used to it.

  Soon enough, and yet after what felt like years, he told me to pull up short - we were there. I stopped and set us down on the ground, feet first. “If you’re lying…”

  “Why would I lie? You wanted in, you’ll get in. I want to see you die. This will be where you die. Get it?”

  “Oh yeah, I get it,” I said. I didn’t bother to keep the contempt and boredom out of my voice. I worked my shoulder, carefully so he couldn’t see, trying to ease the pain some. No use in letting him know I hurt. “Then again,” I said, moving behind him and drawing my weapon, “I have a fast trigger on this. So let’s just go, all right?”

  I let him lead the way, keeping far enough back that he couldn’t grab or slam into me quickly. Their security was - as expected, frankly - sad and small. But he treated it huge, which told me all sorts of things. The prospects for how great their leader was shrank by the second. Also, as a nagging voice in my head wouldn’t stop reminding me: I had no time. None. A fleet grew closer to the planet by the second and once they got here, nothing else would matter. We’d all be dead equally, and Shae would be alone, wherever she was.

  We walked past guards who didn’t know any better than to laugh at the situation their friend had got himself into, happy to leave him being frog marched by me. So secure that nothing would ever take them on and win, they only took care to mock their friend being held hostage by an outsider. These guys seemed to be idiots. The fact that they were also the idiots in charge didn’t escape me. Something was keeping this place down and until I took that out, I couldn’t save the people.

  Carefully and silently, I switched my gun to the lowest possible setting. Not often I did that, but I didn’t want to kill anyone and if my guess was right, a good hard stun from this baby would do as well as death for my purposes.

  “All right, old man, we’re here,” my Sherpa told me. He shoved open a thick metal door and entered a room that, at best, could be described as less squalid. They’d done it up like what they imagined a throne room to be. Dank, greasy rugs hung along the walls and flickering lights set into long poles cast shadows around the room. A few guys stood around giving the air of being guards, but I could tell they had no formation and no training. They looked as though they had rushed to their places when the door started to open, not that they had been standing guard all day.

  At the head of the room sat a slightly raised stage with a starliner’s command chair bolted to the center of it. A throne fit for a child. And a child sat there, no more than twenty-five. He commanded his domain with an eye toward cruelty. His eyes swam with it, lank hair drifting into his line of sight and hanging there like crappy curtains. This was a man I was supposed to respect, who the rest of these chumps actually did.

  I didn’t even wait to get his name. I called up my HUD display, selected the ceiling and the edge of the stage in a tight sequence, and turned my pack on. I shot into the room like missile. Up and then down in a short arc, leaping over everything between myself and the boy in charge. I landed on the edge of the stage and watched his eyes grow wide.

  Yeah, he must have been the smartest guy around because he saw me for what I was: hurried and not in the mood. His fear brushed by me, not anything to relish or dwell on, just another factor as I raised my gun and fired on him. He slumped in his seat and went dead limp. I shoved him out of his chair and sat down.

  “Now, who’s smart enough to tell me what’s going on here? We don’t have much time,” I said airily.

  They stood there, gaping at me. Brilliant. “Listen! We don’t have much time. Bring me the bright folks who can speak, or I’ll shoot the rest of you and call it a day!” That got them to move. They didn’t know who I might be, but they respected power and anger well enough.

  One of the guards who ran out of the room calling for help and screaming about the situation must’ve gotten the attention of someone who gave a damn because a bunch of kids ran into the room, armed. They saw their leader, looking dead, which he’d go on looking for an hour or so at least, and stopped. I just sighed.

  “There is, right now, an invasion force coming to wipe out this planet,” I said, not caring if they all followed or not - I knew someone in the crowd was bound to understand. “I need ships, I need to restore off-world communications, and I need all of this right now!”

  One guy in the back worked his way through the crowd. “We don’t have ships,” he said glancing toward the ceiling as if, by saying it, a ship would land right there in the room. No such luck.

  “Who does, kid?” I asked, waving him forward. They were just buying my bid for power. I had hoped they would, but there are days you don’t think things will go according to plan until after they have. “And how do we warn the planet?”

  “We—well, we don’t,” he told me. “Off-world communications and transportation are forbidden by the Council. Wait,
but then who are you?” Oh, a smart one indeed.

  I grinned at him, “Exactly. I didn’t just - well, no, actually I did just fall out of the sky. And now I need to get back up there and take as many of you as possible.”

  “But we’re at war with the Red Blood,” he told me. The crowd murmured agreement, tinged with anger.

  “And you’re…the…” I dragged out, feeling my way.

  “Stone Hammer!” the room shouted. Stone Hammer and Red Blood, sure, why not. Little gangs fighting over control of a world that didn’t even know it was already dead.

  “Wonderful. Well, Stone Hammer, you make me proud today. Why, when I came to this world I knew I had a choice between Red Blood and Stone Hammer, and I can see I chose correctly,” I lied happily. “But now I need you to prove me right one more time. We need to make the Council understand the invasion is real, and I need a ship to get off-planet.”

  They muttered amongst themselves for a moment and I let it drag out. As they came to the realization that their new leader might just be serious, I added the capper. “And I need it all done inside two hours.”

  That part they really didn’t like.

  Chapter 17– Shae

  I WOKE UP GROGGILY. Sonic blasts give me a hangover, I swear, though Jonah thinks that isn’t possible. It is, because I get them. I tried to not move my head - and kept my eyes closed, opening them would only make me hurt more - and took in my surroundings by feel.

  They’d decided to tie me down better this time, I’ll give them that. I was seated and secured at the wrists and elbows, as well as across my chest, hips, knees, and ankles. The chair itself felt bolted to the floor, of course. I gave in and moved my head a bit, wincing, and found they’d left my neck and head free. If they knew about the hangovers I got from sonics I would have thought them right cruel for that oversight, but they couldn’t have.

  I opened my eyes and silently thanked whoever had locked me in here. The room sat pitch dark. Bad for escaping - I couldn’t see a damn thing - but great for my head. Light would’ve been anything but helpful.