Ragamuffin

by Tobias S. Buckell

  Jamar shrugged. “Grandpa Jamal was never a leading type. Just wanted to deliver people to a promised land. He lived on Earth, before they cut themselves off. He told me how things were like back then, our nations still struggling, still ceding to the other larger nations. He believed just one planet of our own and we could break all that to start anew.”

  “Sad, if you think about it,” Nashara said.

  Jamar turned. “Sad?”

  “Sad. Sad that they agreed to do the old superpowers a favor and keep working on illegal technologies while hunkering down in their little planetary reservations,” Nashara spat. “We were fall guys.”

  Jamar looked startled. “That’s harsh.”

  Nashara snorted. “Sure they’d give us a planet, while they kept orbitals overhead and control of the wormholes. We were their goddamned little experiments, Jamar, and they all should have guessed that from the beginning. And if it all went wrong, well, no need for the Hongguo to come, they’d start the job from up on high so that they didn’t get discovered.”

  Jamar pulled himself closer to her. “You come from New Anegada or Chimson?”

  “Chimson.” She missed it. Missed beaches and swimming and the skies and the dark red forests.

  “My grandparents were in Chimson,” Jamar said.

  Nashara looked at the aged plaque. Jamar deserved to know her little secret. “After the Hongguo destroyed the wormhole, Chimson built a starship. A true starship, not one of these little things that pops around using the wormholes. They loaded it with ten of us who could live long enough to reach the nearest wormhole, and each of us had a weapon we were to bring to New Anegada, to help them.”

  “Does this have something to do with why you won’t help me pilot my ship?” His breath brushed her cheek. It smelled of protein bars and juice.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Jamar sighed and let go of her. Nashara stepped back. “All ten of us were women, Jamar. We gave up our wombs and in return were fitted with quantum computers running intrusion devices that can overpower lamina and make it extensions of our minds. It would be like being one with your ship, but anywhere. Your mind replicates, copying itself endlessly until you have control of all it is in contact with.”

  He looked at her, face pained. “Your wombs?”

  “I saw what happened to the other nine when they attacked the Hongguo who intercepted our ship. They destroyed the Hongguo ship, but their bodies died as they took over the Hongguo ship’s lamina. It’s a bomb. You can’t unexplode it, and when it happens, you are that lamina. You’re no longer human.”

  “Ragalamina isn’t Satrapic lamina.”

  “Which could make it worse.”

  “Or better.”

  “There’s only one way to find out, Jamar, and I’m not willing to do that right now. I want to deliver this thing inside me to someone who can study it. I don’t want to pull a trigger on something that’s wired right into my head. So I’m going to have to stick with you and help you survive so I can do that.”

  “You know, even with your weapon, you couldn’t help New Anegada. I was there in the closing moments.” Jamar tapped the plaque.

  “And?”

  “The battles were all but lost, the planet being bombarded. The aliens had cloned human assassins and soldiers as ground troops. We kept a lot of this stuff quiet; many wouldn’t know that the Hongguo didn’t shut the wormhole leading to New Anegada down. We did. And the wave of electromagnetic energy that hit everything left the Queen, even on the other side of the wormhole, dead until we got towed. Whoever is left on New Anegada is probably living in the Stone Age. The Teotl no doubt suffered the same fate.”

  “Teotl? Is that what they called themselves?” Nashara asked.

  “No, that was us. The first time we saw a Teotl warrior with a flayed human skin as a cape . . . it’s the Azteca name for god, and it was a comment that stuck.”

  “You think we’re destined to drift between the wormholes, dodging about underfoot everything else?”

  Jamar looked at her. “We seem to have a better success rate when doing that, yes. Come with me.”

  He found a downshaft, turned them around several times, and led her to a series of air locks.

  Nashara looked in through the windows. “Shuttles?”

  “Shuttles.” Jamar looked up at her, thoughtful. “When it really gets bad, I want you to promise me you’ll save the crew.”

  “Promise? I can’t make that promise.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Promise. Nashara, they’re not going to stop coming, and if what you told me is true, you will be their only help if the Hongguo catch us.”

  “Jamar, I’ll die if I unleash this, just like my colleagues did.”

  “You’ll die anyway if the Hongguo catch you,” he hissed. “But at least you’ll die saving someone. You understand? You weren’t sent out here by your superiors to squander this, but to use it to help people. So do so.”

  “And what, get shot out of the sky in a shuttle?” Nashara turned away from the bay windows.

  “If I cover you in enough cast-off garbage to hide your run past a wormhole out in the system and lead them on a chase, you can hide out until this all finishes.”

  “No offense, Captain, that’s just as crazy as my idea. We have Agathonosis, and some time to hunt for fuel. Let me go in there. I’m good at this sort of thing.”

  “Maybe. I think someone is following,” Jamar said. “I’m getting backscatter and echoes every time I sweep the area behind us. Besides, we have no credit here, no sympathizers, not enough to barter for fuel with.”

  “When I said I was good at this sort of thing, I didn’t mean bargaining over price.” Nashara scratched her itchy scalp. Her hair had started growing back in since her vacuum-jumping stunt. The ability to quickly heal applied to that as well. “I’m not just a pretty face here. If there is some sort of insurrection happening in Agathonosis, it makes for a nice cover. Drop me off via shuttle, give me ten hours. If I can’t make it happen, leave me.”

  “You going to skip out on us?”

  “That’s bullshit,” Nashara said. “Don’t try and jerk me around. I owe you nothing, but I’m going to stick my neck out for you.”

  “Did it really need to take you years to get to us? And almost too late now? If you really have a superweapon buried in you, it could have been useful before all this.”

  Nashara grabbed him. “I got delayed in Pitt’s Cross. I couldn’t get the fuck off that shithole without killing people and almost getting caught. I wouldn’t have done much good as a Hongguo test subject, or captured by a Gahe hunting pack, would I?”

  “I’m just saying.” Jamar grabbed her wrists. “You’re still a bit fuzzy around the edges, you’re still complicating our lives, not making them simpler.”

  Nashara let him go. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your routine, but you were deep in it when I arrived, I only hastened the conclusion. Don’t blame me for your problems, I’m trying to help.”

  “By talking us into storming a Satrap’s habitat?”

  “I’m the one offering to do the storming. And if you can pull a better idea out of your ass, I’m happy to go along. You have, however, a limited amount of time to come to a decision because Agathonosis is just a day away.”

  Jamar nodded. “I’m only angry because I can’t come up with a better solution.”

  “You’re in?”

  “Until something better comes up. What will you need?”

  “I know your ship is armed only with an engine and garbage for chaff, but please tell me you have some small arms aboard.”

  “I’ll have Sean and Ijjy bring everything to you.”

  “It’ll be okay, Jamar.”

  He ignored her and drifted off.

  But she wasn’t so sure, though. Messing around with aliens never ended well.

  Never had.

  Sean and Ijjy came to the guest room several hours later towing a large duffel bag behind them.

&nb
sp; Ijjy unzipped it and let the contents float out. Pistols, machetes, a few machine guns, dynamite—all hung in the air in front of her.

  Nashara snagged a machete out of the air and tested the edge with a finger. “Thanks.”

  “You going in alone?” Ijjy asked.

  “An antimatter cell weighs, what, a few hundred pounds in habitat gravity?”

  “Yeah.” Ijjy looked her over. “You got that. But we still think we coming with you.”

  Nashara looked at Sean. “You’re a mongoose-man, I can use your help. Ijjy, I don’t want you to risk your life.”

  Ijjy looked at the nearest pistol. “Oh, see, a whole lot history don’t exist between you and me, I can handle myself, thank you. I coming anyway, you need all the help you can get, and I want make sure we get that damn fuel, seen?”

  They didn’t trust her to get the fuel alone, didn’t trust her not to disappear into the habitat. “Seen. But I run the show.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow. “I know you come from a group of Ragamuffin with all the stuff of legend. Like vacuum protection, bulletproof skin—”

  “Dearie,” Nashara interrupted. She handed the machete. “Don’t. Tell you, if you want to be in charge, draw blood.”

  He stared at her. “Blood?”

  “Just a drop. I do have bulletproof skin.”

  He struck, and Nashara rippled out of the way with a shrug. He slashed again, but she grabbed the back end of the blade and flung behind her hard enough to propel her into Sean.

  She casually bent both his arms back behind him. “If I’m going to risk my life for you, the moment I step off this ship I’m your captain, understand?”

  Ijjy started laughing at them both. Nashara let Sean go, and he pushed out of the room.

  “Do I need to prove something to you too?” Nashara asked Ijjy.

  “Lady Nashara I knew you was a sackful of danger the moment I drag you in through the air lock.” He saluted her. “You just bust he ego down a bit, Captain, nothing wrong with it, he go survive.”

  “Good.” Nashara looked at the duffel bag. “Help me repack all this?”

  Ijjy nodded. “Yeah, we go need it all.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Nashara’s stomach flip-flopped. Prefight jitters.

  “Approaching Agathonosis,” Jamar announced. His eyes remained closed, his skeletal frame strapped and webbed into the captain’s command chair. “No navigation buoys, no Port Authority. Oddly quiet around here.”

  It was odd for a habitat to be so silent at the arrival of a ship. They usually had particular preferences about how to be approached, who docked where, and who was allowed to approach. Particularly ones with Satraps living in them.

  The habitat floated high in orbit around Ys, an uninhabitable terrestrial world due to a series of nuclear wars on its surface hundreds of years before humanity ever took its first step into space. A large mirror hung between the habitat and any view of the planet, though, to help light up the interior in addition to the usual sunline.

  “What you thinking?” Ijjy asked.

  “Jamar, any ships docked? Anything floating nearby? It would be easier if we could raid them for fuel.”

  Agathonosis was starting to feel like a graveyard.

  “I’m not seeing anything. This is interesting.” Jamar opened his eyes. The front of the cockpit lit up to display a section of the habitat: a great expanse of gleaming glass down the central curve. Air steamed out of cracks, becoming crystalline as it froze and spewed out into space.

  “The glass is covered in sediment,” Nashara observed.

  “Sludge,” Sean said. “Like the entire ecosphere in there fell apart.”

  “Some kind of attack had to have caused this. The Satrapy would never allow anything like that. They’re control freaks,” Nashara said.

  “Even more reason to be alert,” Jamar said. “This is very strange. We already saw Dragin-Above destroyed by the Hongguo. Could they have done this as well?”

  “Turn on the Satraps? Nah.” Ijjy shook his head. “They loyal to them.”

  “I agree,” said Nashara. “Could be the humans in this habitat revolted, like at Chimson.”

  “But they would at least hail us,” Jamar said.

  “Are you getting anyone?” Nashara asked. “Even the girl?”

  Jamar shook his head. “Nothing. Static and more static. I want to dock us, not a shuttle. We’ll be harder to spot, someone would have to visually check the habitat with drones, and since this habitat is all silent, it won’t pass out a docking list to the Hongguo when they come.”

  “I’m game,” Nashara said.

  Jamar cocked his head. “Yes, a docking would be good after tossing out some garbage to confuse things.”

  “Still think we’re being followed?”

  “Maybe. It isn’t a large Hongguo ship if it is, not a warship, something smaller. Just odd reflective scatter.” Jamar sounded annoyed.

  “Forty minutes,” Sean muttered.

  “Let’s saddle up,” Nashara said.

  Fifteen minutes to dock.

  Nashara, Sean, and Ijjy stood outside the main air lock, with Nashara leaning comfortably against the round seal. Jamar had been angling them around the entire cylindrical mass of Agathonosis toward the far end-cap docks. Occasionally the ship vibrated and shook them around slightly as Jamar changed course.

  “You hear from that child?” Ijjy asked.

  “Not happening,” Jamar said.

  This close to a habitat, space should have been singing with information and communication.

  “You bringing everything?” Sean asked, pointing at the duffel bag.

  “No sense in wasting options.” Nashara tapped the duffel with her foot.

  “The Satrap got you running scared.”

  “You know what a Satrap looks like?” Nashara asked.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “When we hit the habitat in Chimson to hunt down the Satrap, I helped out. They look like giant trilobites.” Nashara held out her hand, palm out toward Sean. She wiggled her fingers. “Creepy crawlies. They found it deep at the center of its habitat in a giant pool, big fucker, several hundred feet long.”

  “And they control minds,” Ijjy added.

  “Rumors,” Nashara snorted. “Chimson’s Satrap didn’t control shit. It’s mounted and shellacked in a museum. Kids visit it on school trips.”

  “Still . . .” Ijjy shrugged. “How you think the Hongguo get the ability to wipe minds?”

  The Queen shook again, then something outside clanged. Pumps thrummed and air hissed, motors whined as locks engaged.

  “Contact,” Jamar said throughout the ship.

  The air lock opened with a hiss. Nashara patted the small machine gun slung by a strap on her hip and the extra ammo clips in her vest pockets. She could feel the two knives with ankle holsters. Good.

  She looked over at Sean. “What’s with the rope?”

  Sean looked down at his waist and the coiled rope hanging from it. “In case we need to tie anything up.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Always useful,” he muttered. “You coming or what?”

  Ijjy and Sean stepped in and Nashara followed. They stood and waited as the air lock sealed behind them. All three faced the metal door leading out.

  Sean adjusted his belt, moving a pair of cutlasses with polished wooden hilts to a more comfortable place on either side, and rested his left hand on the hilt of a barker gun strapped above his crotch. His baggy pants and shirt covered the armor that could seal up in case of vacuum or handle small-arms fire. Protective plastic gave his face, neck, and hair a reflective sheen. It would give him half an hour’s protection from vacuum, but gave him dark circles under his eyes. Nashara laughed.

  “What now?” He turned, annoyed. He tapped the plastic coating. “It save my life the first time the Queen got hit.”

  Ijjy had applied the same stuff.

  “You look like fucking pirates,” Nashara said
as the air-lock door groaned open.

  From the claustrophobic corridors of the ship into the claustrophic corridors of a habitat’s outer skin.

  The habitat had been a twenty-mile-long, potato-shaped asteroid once. Then the Satrap had it baked by solar mirrors, or high-powered lasers, while spinning slowly to create a cylindrical shape. Miners would have bored into it with drills while the center was baked out. And that gave them an immense, livable cylinder that could remain spinning to provide gravity. In several places massive clear diamond patches had been installed so that the habitat’s denizens could look out into space and see the stars when the habitat shut down the sunline to create night.

  How many human lives building the habitat had cost, Nashara didn’t want to think about.

  Inside, the docking area looked like more of the same. Gun-gray metal.

  She tapped the small earpiece as Jamar whispered to her, trying to seat it properly. “I got the girl,” Jamar told them all.

  “Good for you.” Nashara dashed across the mouth of an open corridor to cover and waited for her vision to catch up so she could analyze what she’d seen.

  A brief flash of black. A uniform? “Ask her where we might find some fuel and she could be useful,” Nashara said.

  “You’re cold,” Ijjy jumped in behind her.

  “Don’t mind her.” Sean looked around at the signs on the wall. “Habitat customs is down this corridor. Let’s see what we can find.”

  “I saw something at the end.” Nashara looked at the two of them. “Black uniform.”

  “Could be security,” Sean said. If standard Satrapic design held true, this tunnel out from the air lock led down to another set of reinforced doors that usually housed a booth with a customs agent.

  “Mmmm.” Nashara ducked her head and looked down the tunnel. Nothing now. Clear, she nodded to Sean.

  “From what I remember passing through a few times, Agathonosis is a real insular place.” Sean checked the corridor also, then walked out into it. “The Satrap keep the habitat locked down something serious.”