This Starry Deep

by Adam P. Knave

  I knew that bird ship wouldn’t give up after only one shot so I started to take basic evasive maneuvers. Nothing fancy, the Hang On couldn’t do fancy - it could hardly do simple.

  Another shot rocked the ship, this time along the starboard side, which meant they’d noticed one of our engines struggling and had decided to help it along to its demise. I started to roll us again and kept weaving as best I could.

  I wondered about my GravPack. It was rated for a one-man field, and could extend to maybe three times that if it had to, but could I wire it so it would extend the field to the entire ship? Probably not. And if I didn’t get the whole ship, we’d be torn in two. Then again, maybe not.

  “Bee,” I said, looking over at her. Her face showed me no fear, only determination. Somewhere in there she’d gone from scared, mousy woman, afraid of the other members of her own gang, to someone who wanted to live badly enough to do what it took. Perfect. “I need you to pilot for a few minutes. Just a few.”

  “I can’t fly the ship,” she said simply.

  “You’ve been watching me. Just keep doing things like I’ve been doing and it’ll be fine. I’m going for a walk.”

  Kem cried out, “You’ve leaving us?”

  “Not going far,” I told him. “I think I have a way to save us, but it’s dicey and requires me to do it from outside the ship.”

  “How will we know if it works?” Bee asked.

  “If we suddenly speed up, and I mean way up,” I said as I adjusted my helmet, “let go of the yoke and trust me. I’ll be steering from out there.”

  “What? How?” I didn’t see who asked, it was someone on the crew of nine people who I didn’t know. How did I not even know all of their names? Shameful. I’d apologize when we landed.

  “I’ll explain on the ground, just trust me.”

  Bee shifted into my seat and started to steer, “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said, refusing to add the reason why: if this didn’t work, we’d be dead.

  I left the airlock, hoping the pressure would hold since we hadn’t tested it, and found myself in space again. Home. I moved to the top of the ship, pulling forward until I was almost at the viewport. Landing on the ship proved easy enough, and I pulled my blaster and fired behind me at the bird ship I knew was out there. At any sort of real range I couldn’t harm it, but maybe it didn’t know that.

  I extended the field of my GravPack as far as it wanted to go normally and then pushed it. The HUD lit up red with warnings and I pushed the field farther. I inched back along the ship and got the field aligned over the entire hull, with maybe a centimeter to spare.

  My GravPack would need a bit of work after this, but I’d at least be alive to fix it. Grabbing my blaster again, I burned two handholds for myself and holstered the weapon so I could grab on. Then I selected my target - the planet - and pushed the GravPack into action. It whined, I could feel the vibration along my back. They weren’t supposed to do that. I didn’t even know they could. I wondered how long before it exploded and what I would feel when it did.

  No time for that. I had a ship to accelerate. Bee stopped fighting my direction quickly and I gave it everything I had. Steering wouldn’t be pretty, no finesse, but all I had to do was get us into orbit and get back inside the ship.

  The engines whined, giving thrust uselessly, but we’d need them going and hot when I turned off the field. So long as they didn’t burn out. Come on, Bee, come on, think of it. Turn the engines down but not off. Come on, I chanted to myself for a full three minutes until the engines died down to a steady hum.

  Bercuser came up far too quickly. We were approaching it at impossible speeds and I’d have to bring us back down to the speed the ship had been going in order to give it a chance of landing. I knew the GravPack wouldn’t hold on through a landing, which meant the ship had to be going slow enough to stop itself. It would stop, regardless, but I preferred one piece to splattered face first into the ground.

  I spun the ship so we faced away, engines pointed at Bercuser, and took us down low enough for the planet’s gravity to tug. Cutting the gravfield, I took a good look, mapping our relative position in my HUD - once I got back inside, I would be flying literally blind to our destination for a while.

  Back inside the ship, everyone was trying to not panic except Bee. She sat there, still determined, trying to project it to everyone else. They seemed happy enough to see me.

  “Miss me?” I asked Bee as she moved over and let me grab the controls. “Nice work on cutting back the engines.”

  “Sorry it took me so long to think of it,” she said.

  “No, I should’ve mentioned. Look, doesn’t matter, if we land.”

  “We’ll land either way, won’t we?” she whispered to me.

  I laughed and nodded, knowing everyone else would be wondering what could possibly be funny. Bee shook her head reproachfully at me but couldn’t hide her own grin. She’d picked up a taste for this madness fast.

  We went down into the gravity well, ass first and blind. My HUD gave me approximate distances based on my earlier readings and I flipped us back around, hoping I was guessing right.

  Close to right, at least. A little too low and way too fast, the ground rushed at us. We hadn’t built this bucket to fly in atmo at all. Never thought of having to land it on a planet, I figured the worst we’d have to do would involve a space docking.

  I aimed for water and came in low, hoping to skip us to a stop and beach us before we kept going into whatever lay past. We hit with a bone-rattling thump and soared - thump, glide, thump, glide - until we hit land hard. Everyone, myself included, got thrown from where we were. Not from our seats, we were still strapped in: the seats themselves ripped free from the floor.

  It hurt like hell, but we stopped moving. We had landed.

  Chapter 21– Mud

  THE DOZIER LOOMED at the edge of my scanners. I didn’t want to get much closer without a fully formed plan. Their sensors outstripped mine, so if I could see them, even just barely, they could pinpoint me without breathing hard.

  The best bet would be to go in presenting something much smaller than my ship. I hated GravPacks, didn’t carry one (though Dad wanted me to, and made sure I’d been trained on them), so that was right out. I did have a standard EVA suit, and they had small pressure jets but worked best short range. No, I needed a diversion.

  Then it hit me. A diversion, my EVA suit, and a few munitions. Easy. I set myself a course in the other direction, looking for a few big rocks. Nudging them back toward the direction of the Dozier rattled my seat a bit but worked fine.

  The rocks drifted off and would reach the shield range of the Dozier in about a day. Not fast enough by half. But before I tried to speed them up I’d have to be outside. My ship sat outside of their scan range, so I put it in a hold-and-wait pattern. The power would be on minimum but hot enough to leap to a full burn in seconds if I whistled.

  My EVA suit was clumsy and annoying, but a thinsuit didn’t have any propulsion to it. Once in the EVA, I had to find a way to secure my bags in such a way that they wouldn’t tear free. Sadly, with only one person this proved to be the hardest part of the plan to date. Couldn’t leave the bag, though, even if it would’ve made life easier. Assuming Mom and/or Dad was being held by the Gov against their will, chances were high there would be some blowing up of things to be done. Can’t do that with no munitions. So they came with me in two bags strapped to my body.

  The bags hung badly and got in my way, but I couldn’t throw them onto my back because I’d need to put the pressure jets there. I holstered one sonic pistol on the inside of the EVA suit, and a second along the leg of the suit itself. The outside one had a much larger stock-and trigger-assembly, built for the clumsy, or those with pressure-gloved hands.

  I kept the helmet of the suit kinked so I wouldn’t start running down my air. This was all routine stuff, annoying but easy enough. The rest of the plan got worse as it wen
t. I did a final systems check on the ship and then on my bags. The rocks drifted the right way, the ship felt steady, nothing left but to do it.

  My helmet hissed and flooded with slightly less humid air than I liked. I didn’t need my goggles yet, but a half-step down in atmo mix would make it last longer. I sniffed deeply to get used to the annoying tang this suit produced. I’d have to strip down the whole suit to fix it and never found the time. One of those problems that’s only noticeable on the rare occasions I used the suit. Easy to forget. Until I was in the suit, and then it became a priority. Probably a hose seal somewhere, nothing life threatening, just annoying.

  I realized I was stalling. To hell with that. The airlock cycled around me and I checked my readings. The armband on my EVA suit read fine, I could control the ship on a limited basis from it. Enough to get this job done.

  Outside the ship, I hit the pressure jets and floated quickly over to the rocks. I grabbed one and used the jets to start turning it. Over-rotated and I had to maneuver it back a bit. There we go. I faced my body away from my ship with the rock between us.

  I hit the remote trigger and closed my eyes. No noise, of course, but a flash of light and I was set spinning and hurtling toward the Dozier. A few more flashes and there were a lot more rocks, all of them smaller now, speeding more or less the same way. I hoped my impromptu meteor shower worked.

  At least for part of the trip, clinging to a rock would get me a bit of the way in unnoticed, but the Dozier would have shields that these rocks would dust against. The rest of the way, I’d have to manage it alone. Assuming I could get past the shields myself.

  My EVA suit had a Gov tag on it, legal and everything, so the shields should part for me, but they’d also log my entrance. I could bet on that being strange enough that they’d investigate quickly. So I had to ditch the tag. Which is where phase three of my plan came in.

  As the rocks and I got closer to the Dozier, the pressure jets on my EVA suit fired, changing course for the rock I clung to and bumping against others along the way. Then I stripped out of my EVA suit, reslung my equipment bags across my chest, and proceeded to rip the bulky suit and smash it as best I could with rocks I found. My thinsuit kept me fine, and the backup remote for my ship came online fine. Systems still checked. We were just heading out of my ship’s scanner range, but while it could still see my rock garden, I had my ship relay data on us. Everything was drifting right where I wanted it.

  Everything approached the shield limit of the Dozier. I held my breath as the leading rocks turned to dust against those invisible shields. Me, the rock I clung to, and the EVA suit, ruined and held tight, slid right by. In that second the Dozier logged our approach. I kicked off the rock hard, leaving the EVA suit on it.

  If everything went as planned, they would soon get a rock hard against their hull. It wouldn’t do any damage, but they’d wonder how it got there, go check, and find the suit. That’d match the log. Then they’d waste a few hours checking and rechecking where the suit came from and where the person in it had vanished to. The suit’s condition should make them assume the worst.

  By the time they straightened it out it would be too late. If everything else went right. That felt like a mighty big “if” as I drifted toward a side hatch on the ship. I couldn’t just blow the hatch or the entrance scanner. Either one would bring everyone in the ship with a weapon running right for me. I had to be sneaky.

  I reached the hatch and grabbed it tight, looking over the scanner. It’d take an ID tag at close range or an input security code. Both would be logged, of course, and I needed to come inside in a way they couldn’t trace back to me. So I detached the scanner plate itself and let it sit there, wires stretched like umbilicals.

  A few tools from one of my bags and I rerouted power to bypass this plate. They wouldn’t notice the shunt for a while, long enough for me to work. Once the plate sat lifeless, nothing stopped me from grabbing the wires that fed the data channel back to the server that would do checks against the plate input and allow the door to open or not. I put those input wires into my own scanner and fed it a bit of test data. Routine stuff that wouldn’t be noticed. Everything came back green.

  Perfect. They weren’t in a heightened security setting. Grabbing the door wires instead, I sent current through them. Too much and the doors would detect a problem and go into full lockdown. Too little and they’d try to alarm the doors with a malfunction flag. I tried to remember the exact settings for Gov hatch charges. I knew it was one of two numbers and took a stab in the dark.

  I sent the current and waited a second. Then another. Nothing, not a twitch. That was bad. Over or under? Under. The door would flag a malfunction the second I hooked it back up. But I had to hook it back up or they’d notice that, too, the same as a malfunction flag. I’d screwed myself.

  I sent another power burst and the doors twitched and the hatch cycled open. I hooked the scanner pad back up, taking care to leave one of the power couplings frayed and loose. Just loose enough so it shouldn’t engage. They’d notice, but with the EVA suit causing them mysteries, they might not notice for a while.

  The inner airlock was much easier to bypass. It assumed you’d gotten in by normal means. A quick rewire and power shunt and the air cycled and hatch opened. As it did, I suddenly wondered if anyone would be on the other side at the wrong second.

  Too late to worry, and thankfully no one was there. I retracted my thinsuit’s helmet and put my goggles on to keep my eyes moist. I hated this air mix, but I was pretty sure someone would notice if I changed it.

  I was inside one of the Gov’s bigger battle cruisers, unnoticed for now. I felt like it shouldn’t be that easy. I stood there and looked around, finding a dark corner to crouch in. My thinsuit blended colors with the wall, as did my face. The needles hurt, but the needles always hurt.

  Something felt off. Sure my intrusion was smooth, but this really did feel too smooth. I hid and considered my options. Now that I’d managed to get inside I had to locate Mom at least. I would also need a map of the ship. Both these things would be in the same place: any decent-sized communications room. Which were all, of course, staffed and secure.

  Getting in kept proving to be the easy part. Though I couldn’t work out why everything felt off. The hallways seemed too deserted for a ship this big out of dock. What could be causing that, when no alert was ringing?

  Oh. Right. Mom. Or Dad, or both. If they’d escaped, then the ship wouldn’t want to go to high alert and give them the chaos as a cover. By staying at normal running mode, except for shifting personnel out of the way, they could hope to lull them into a false sense of security.

  I loved that anyone thought that idea would work. But it really was how the Gov thought this stuff through. Didn’t mean I was right, though. The theory held water for now, but I’d need proof. Easiest way to get proof would be to find my parents.

  Which took me right back to finding a comm room. That wasn’t exactly hard. Any ship this size is required to have at least one comm room per level, if not two. I grabbed my sonic pistol and slapped the access plate with my other hand.

  My entire plan was to go in shooting and lock down the room. I could secure it on the way out and go from there. Messy but it’d get the job done, and I felt like I was wasting time doing anything else.

  The door opened and I raised the gun, aiming it into the room. My finger twitched against the trigger and I felt the sonics go off, rumbling into the open space. Right into the sonic-shielded plate of the guards posted inside.

  Didn’t expect that, but it confirmed that at least one parent was out and about. They’d try for the comm room, Mom had done it once. So they must’ve staffed them with guards, hoping to catch her. They weren’t expecting me. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

  Sonics wouldn’t work and now I had to secure the room, and fast, before they could radio me in. Best way would be to leap right at them. So I did. Tackled one of the guards, shoving him down into the other. A sonic s
hot going off right against his helmet seam blew it open and rattled his brains enough to take him down. Which left his friend and the comm techs.

  The techs were easy, two shots and they were out. My arm started to feel rubbery from the bits of bounce back the sonic pistol gave off. The second guard got a good whack in and my head bounced off the desk. I cursed and punched him in the helmet, which hurt me more than him.

  Changing tactics, I grabbed his helmet and smashed it against the desk a few times until it cracked open. Then I tried punching him again. Much better. He dropped and I brought myself up into a crouch. They were all out, but not for long.

  I slapped the door panel and shut myself in with them. I started to play with the comm panel. Not long now until I could find what I was after.

  Chapter 22 - Jonah

  I GOT EVERYONE out of the ship as fast as possible. Not very fast, truthfully, considering we needed to roll our chairs over with us in them and then fight broken straps. The hatch, too, gave us trouble, bent and snarled, but I cut it open with my blaster and we could taste fresh air again.

  Bercuser. The fog drifted around us and I remembered the first - and only - time I’d stood on this planet. Years ago, not long after we had adopted the Newt, Shae and I pulled a mission to “The Strangest Planet in the System,” as they’d dubbed it. No one had understood an ounce of what went on here, no one dared to land and find out. So they sent us. Turned out they were a nice bunch of folk, once you got used to them. Pretty much like any other.

  I tried to remember the place and kept coming up blank on finer details. Too many worlds, too many years spent dealing with problems just like this one, and everything started to both run together and shuffle to the back.