Ragamuffin

by Tobias S. Buckell

  Etsudo cut his crew out of the loop and subvocalized his reponse through the lamina at her so only she could hear. “It’s illegal technology, yes. A gift from my father,” Etsudo said. “A device that allows me to upload minds into a controlled environment, simulate and rewrite their activity, and write the changes back.”

  “Why does this seem familiar?” Nashara mused.

  “You’re dangerous, but now I know how to protect myself. I do abhor needless violence, but I can’t have Deng rewrite my mind because he suspects I’m a traitor.”

  “Etsudo, I’m getting a déjà vu feeling about this.” Then suddenly Nashara groaned. “You got into my head with this thing when I came aboard to interview, didn’t you? What did you do?”

  “Just a memory wipe. And a little trust. You needed a little trust. Because I’m going to need your help, need you here as crew.” Another dangerous criminal to add to his motley collection.

  Bahul and Fabiyan had remained silent for it all, just watching him.

  “What now?”

  Etsudo shut her off. Jiang Deng was screaming for his attention. When he tapped into the lamina, Deng appeared, his face cut and bruised, the screen filled with smoke.

  “Get clear of the area,” Jiang Deng said. Three men in plain gray uniforms stood behind him. “The Wuxing Hao mutinied or is under outside control, they’re firing on us. We’re moving on to attack the craft.”

  “I know about the takeovers,” Etsudo said. “We managed to resist. Deng, you can’t take this all on with one ship.”

  Deng stepped forward quickly and raised an arm toward Etsudo. “Help me, please.”

  The three men all stepped forward together at the same time and pulled Deng away. Deng screamed as he disappeared, then fell silent with a loud smack.

  All three of the new feng turned to Etsudo and spoke together. “You are ordered to attack with us.”

  Etsudo checked the Shengfen Hao’s flight path. “You’re crashing the Shengfen Hao into the craft?”

  “You’re going to pay for this,” Nashara’s voice broke in. “This environment you have me trapped in better be nailed the fuck down, because if it isn’t, I’m going to worm through your security and rip your mind apart.”

  “I’m serious and honest.” Etsudo looked outside as they dropped closer. The Shengfen Hao flashed through the inky dark, missiles hitting its hull. “I’m not a monster like that.”

  “Etsudo . . .”

  The Shengfen Hao hit the side of the alien craft and Etsudo flinched. His few remaining drones showed ripples spread out, along with a gout of flame and debris vomiting into space. All along the ragged gash white ribs held the rocky exterior on. The thing looked more grown than built, as if were some giant animal coaxed to grow into the form of a habitat-like spaceship.

  Deng had gone to his death doing his duty. Would it be Etsudo’s soon? Deng had not gone to his death willingly.

  “She’s broadcasting in Morse code with the ship’s lights!” Fabiyan said. They cut her off, stored her, frozen, for later investigation.

  Etsudo sighed. “She probably warned them, didn’t she?” He’d had a good plan. Creating an anti-Nashara to negate any threat Nashara posed to the lamina of the forty-eight worlds.

  “Here they come,” Bahul muttered.

  Yes. And now the question was, could Etsudo outrun them back to the upstream wormhole?

  It took fifteen minutes to determine that the Ragamuffin ship coming after them was gaining. Slowly, very slowly. But gaining.

  “This the Magadog,” he was told. “Stand down to be boarded or get destroy. You choose.”

  If he could get back to the wormhole, through the Ragamuffin security screen of chaff and mines, then he would have safety.

  Hongguo ships were broadcasting their IDs as they streamed out and readied themselves. Support had started to arrive, and not a moment too soon, Etsudo thought.

  The more chaos, the more ships, the more likely he could dodge attention, keep his head low, and slip back out toward the rest of the worlds.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Pepper stood in front of the clear curtain of goop as John helped Jerome slow Xippilli’s bleeding. A waste. A waste. And Pepper could tell John was having troubling wrapping his mind around it.

  “That last impact?” John asked. “That whole ship. How bad was it?” The control room, buried safely deep in the heart of the Teotl’s nest ship, had vibrated and shaken for a full minute.

  Metztli, still keeping well clear of the humans, said, “We lost many eggs, but not enough to damage our bloodlines. The nest is trying to repair itself, but our power source is failing. It is over. We need evacuation before the nest dies and kills us with it.” Metztli waved at the curtain and it showed chaos. Ripped ship, a massive gaping hole. Thankfully the Shengfen Hao had not hit straight on, or the nest would have broken in half.

  But it was still a mortal blow.

  “They rammed us with a whole ship. Who are these people?” John asked.

  Pepper sighed. He should have been excited that some of the original founding members of the Black Starliner Corporation still lived, still guided the Ragamuffins out there. He should have been standing with John talking to old friends, old faces, trying to figure out what to do next.

  This transit should have been good, damnit.

  Pepper looked back at the dying Xippilli.

  Malik, one of the ringleaders of the whole BSC project, grayed out ’fro and all, looked back at him.

  “Mr. goddamn Andery,” Pepper said.

  “Don Andery now, moving up. Pepper? You for real? I hardly believing my own eye here.”

  “Damn straight. It’s good to see you.” So many years, distant memories.

  Some disturbing ones. Malik and Pepper had fought the Teotl in the first war fiercely.

  Malik turned offscreen, then back to Pepper. His skin turned a shade browner as the bio-goop he was projected from rippled. “Wish I could say similar, but you return complicate things, man.”

  As if Pepper didn’t have a few things he was juggling himself. “Who’s attacking us? We need your protection.”

  “The Hongguo. They turning weird, man. Weird. But that ship that hit you were the last for now.”

  Pepper had no idea what the Hongguo were. But three hundred years meant a lot had changed. And now wasn’t the time to catch up. Not yet.

  Another dim boom rippled through. Metztli whimpered. “Another breach . . .”

  There wouldn’t be much left of the Teotl nest ship soon, Pepper realized. It was literally falling apart.

  “Listen, Pepper, you evacuate in a suit, or pod, and we go pick you up, hear?” Malik said. “Just keep signaling.”

  Pepper leaned closer to the sheet. “Malik, we have to protect this craft.”

  “What you talking about?”

  “This is advanced Teotl technology we have total access to own here.” Pepper turned to Metztli. “We have to tell them what this ship can do to wormholes if you want their help.”

  Metztli held up a tentacle. “Wait.” It closed its eyes. “Okay, it will be allowed.”

  Pepper face forward. “Malik, we can close and reopen wormholes with it, if you capture it. Malik, I don’t know what numbers you have for an attack, but get every ship you can over here.”

  “Pepper . . .” Malik looked down. “Three century I ain’t seen you. You asking me to walk into the heart of a Teotl megaship like this?”

  “Yes.” Pepper stared at him.

  Malik shook his head. “You the big man. I go trust you on this. But only because it’s you, you hear? And Monifa of the Pride go skin me.”

  “Get the ships over here,” Pepper said. “Get the captains over here for a grounation and board us. There is a docking bay at the center of the forward axis we came in at.” It was zero g, and they weren’t accelerating.

  “Anything else?”

  “Bring me guns,” Pepper said. “Lots of guns.”

  Malik spread his
hands in an “of course” gesture.

  “And watch out for the Azteca, they’re probably going to be somewhat jumpy,” Pepper said.

  “Azteca?” Malik asked. “What the hell you talking about?”

  “We’ll explain when you get aboard,” Pepper said.

  Metztli watched the curtain of goop fade to translucence. “I live to see the end of my race.”

  “No.” Pepper looked at the alien “I called a grounation. Our captains will be there, or at least near enough to talk and to discuss what happens next. We need your help with your technology, and you’ll have a chance to speak your piece to them all. Take good advantage of it, but realize most of these ship captains will be somewhat antagonistic. Your cousins waged war on them, and there are many who will remember it.”

  “Thank you,” Metztli said.

  There was no favor being done. Pepper intended to own the Teotl craft now. The Teotl had nothing but their technology to stand on for bargaining.

  “So now we should make our way out to the docking bays, meet the captains there,” Pepper said.

  “We need to get Xippilli on a stretcher of some sort,” John said. “If we can get him aboard one of the ships, we can probably still save him.”

  Ah, Jerome, Pepper thought, letting himself shake his head. A man, and yet still not quite in control of the mess in his own head.

  He couldn’t stop thinking of Jerome as the young kid he’d first met at carnival and rescued from the Azteca so long ago.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Jerome helped Pepper strap Xippilli onto a length of sturdy, weblike material that stiffened into a stretcher. Metztli had one of the dangerous spiked-skin Teotl deliver it, and with a smile Pepper kept his rifle trained on the Teotl until it left.

  “Metztli.” Pepper held up the button in his hand. “Your head if you play with me on this trip to the docking bays.”

  “No tricks. Our lives are in your hands.”

  Xippilli groaned as John and Jerome lifted him up, and Pepper walked ahead behind Metztli and his snaillike chair.

  The odd procession left the control room for the corridors, taking tunnels known to be secure and airtight.

  It took the better part of a slow hour to get to the elevators leading to the bays. They all piled in, and Jerome relaxed.

  In the tunnels he’d been waiting for an attack. By Azteca under Teotl control, or by one of the dangerous Teotl.

  Now it was just Metztli, still collared.

  And the dying man. Jerome knelt and checked the cloth tied down across Xippilli’s stomach.

  What a horrible thing.

  His stomach flip-flopped as he felt himself grow lighter. Jerome looked around the elevator, windowless and claustrophobic. “I feel funny,” he said.

  “We’re getting to the center of the nest,” Metztli explained. “Closer to the center, the spin doesn’t create gravity. We float.”

  “Ah.”

  And as Metztli predicted, Jerome found himself bouncing off the floor and feeling dizzy.

  Globules of blood broke free from Xippilli’s bandages and floated in the air between them all.

  “They actually go be able to help him?” Jerome asked again. “Maybe,” John said. “Maybe.”

  Metztli ripped his collar off so quicky Jerome didn’t realize what had happened. Pepper spun and kicked off the roof, dodging Metztli’s attempt to place the collar around Pepper’s neck.

  “Damn it.” John pulled a pistol free from its holster, but in the close quarters Metztli had him beat, a free tentacle snapping out to grab the gun.

  Jerome shrank back, pulling Xippilli’s stretcher with him and trying not to bounce off the wall toward them as he did so.

  Metztli filled the whole center of the elevator, tentacles writhing as Pepper tried to overpower it. “If you keep struggling, the gold tips contain neurotoxins deadly to humans, and I will use them,” Metztli hissed. “Now that I finally have freedom, I can act to better serve my kind. Do not forget our desperation today.”

  Everyone froze. Metztli’s gold-tipped tentacles hovered a hair’s breadth away from all their necks.

  “I always wondered why tentacles,” Pepper said.

  “Zero-gravity self-defense is more practical in this physical form,” Metztli said.

  “More to you than I suspected.” Pepper looked somewhat bemused.

  “Different forms for different purposes,” Metztli whispered. “I need you all under my control, to bargain with. Your leaders might choose to save you and leave us for dead. I cannot watch my kind die. Your life seems valuable to these humans we’ve encountered.”

  “That’s fair. I understand you.” Pepper kept his hands out. The two stared at each other. Jerome tensed. This would be it.

  The elevator shuddered to a stop.

  “Get out,” Metztli ordered. Jerome looked back and forth at the two, then started to try to move the stretcher out. Metztli twisted its torso and looked at Jerome. “No, leave him.”

  Jerome turned back. “We can’t. He dying.”

  “He’s useless and a waste of resources. We don’t need it to control the Azteca, leave the body.”

  “No.” Jerome wrapped his arms around the stretcher. He’d shot the man. That was a beef between humans. The aliens would not be doing any killing, they did not rule everyone as they thought.

  Metztli snapped a tentacle in Xippilli’s direction and Jerome flinched.

  “Oh, shit,” John said.

  Jerome looked down. A small puncture in Xippilli’s neck released a tiny pinprick of blood into the air.

  “No, no.” Jerome twisted around and stared at Metztli. “I don’t understand.”

  “Jerome.” Pepper shook his head. “Don’t.”

  Jerome had thought he’d started to understand the Teotl somewhat. Understand what horror they’d faced fleeing through the wormhole. Sympathized.

  But now Jerome felt anger bubble. He shoved the stretcher forward at Metztli, bracing his feet on the doorjambs. Creatures. Foul, disgusting creatures. Manipulative killers.

  “There has to be a cure,” Jerome shouted, as Metztli wrapped its tentacles around Xippilli and rotated in the air, throwing Xippilli and the stretcher against the wall and flying into Jerome while dragging Pepper along in the air like a puppet.

  The impact knocked the air out of Jerome.

  Metztli wrapped a tentacle around Jerome’s neck while holding onto the doorjamb with another tentacle for leverage.

  “Jerome, do not do anything,” John said.

  Jerome hung in the air with Pepper, breathing hard. They always looked out for him. His dad and Pepper. Even risking their lives for his mistakes.

  Now Pepper was a hostage and at risk, and if the creature could kill Xippilli as casually as it had, it might well kill John for being not as valuable as Pepper.

  It was time for Jerome to create an opportunity. Time to right things.

  He screamed and twisted, snatching the collar out of the air and opening it. He managed to get around the raised tentacle and pushed the collar hard against Metztli’s face. It cut deep into the Teotl’s flesh and left eye, but as Metztli thrashed, the collar sliced into Jerome’s hand. His thumb floated free with a burst of blood.

  Jerome felt a quick, stabbing prick on the side of his neck.

  Pepper hit the Teotl in the head, a crunching punch that Jerome could almost feel.

  Fire ran down his chest and into his stomach. His eyes blurred from the immediate rush of pain.

  “I’m sorry,” Jerome told his dad. “I’m really sorry.”

  Metztli hung in the air, knocked out or hopefully dead, tentacles limp, as John grabbed Jerome.

  Jerome tried to say something else, but already his jaw had locked, and he could only see his father’s face as John leaned in.

  John squeezed Jerome’s hand as he convulsed, looking around in confusion. Tears welled up and drifted free of John’s eyes.

  “Pepper, kill that piece of shit.” John looke
d over to his side. “Kill that thing now.”

  Jerome wanted to apologize, to hope they’d be okay.

  And maybe it would be. People coming out of the wormholes had incredible skills. They might yet save both him and Xippilli, and Jerome would fall asleep and wake up somewhere nice and clean, well rested, fixed, several days from now.

  Yes, that would be nice, he thought.

  Very nice.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Pepper watched Jerome’s last spasm and bit his tongue until he tasted salty blood.

  John looked at him, tears still leaking.

  “Not yet,” Pepper said, hating himself. “We need Metztli.”

  “Why? What the hell do we need that thing for?”

  Being the calm one, eyes on the prize, really stank right now. “Because we need this ship, John.”

  “Fuck them.”

  “John . . .” Pepper didn’t have words. He moved over, grabbed John’s head, and touched his forehead to his old friend’s. “We bring . . . the body . . . with us. We take care of things, like we always do. Right?”

  John nodded slightly.

  “Okay. We take care of things first.”

  John looked up. “I hate that calm you have.”

  Pepper tilted his head. “Okay. But just get your son, let’s move on. There is time for grief later.”

  John pulled away with a sob and grabbed Jerome’s body, which Pepper looked away from.

  Grief.

  There’d be a reckoning later. A full reckoning. Pepper pulled the Teotl closely.

  These aliens, with their focus on adaptive personal engineering and sublimation of self to the greater good, were effective and dangerous. Ultimate survivors. They communicated and made you think of them as human. Words.

  But they weren’t human.

  No.

  Or at least, not human enough to realize that John and Pepper would not easily put this behind them.

  Deep, slow breaths.

  Then he yanked the collar out of the unconscious Teotl’s face and pocketed that. Jerome had shown quick thinking, there. He’d done good. Stayed on his feet. Pepper admired that in a person. Jerome had been a young man with a mess for a past, but had pulled through and been dumped into a bizarre situation.