by Holly Ice
A wave drew my eye. Mum beamed and mouthed a silent bravo while Rima’s comm called further names.
Applicants rose to their feet in twos and threes as they got over me being shortlisted and focused on their own chances. The rest of the room didn’t get over it, nudging their partners or muttering under their breath. So much for making a difference, or was it merely shock?
I shook it off, good and bad, and assessed my competitors. I had to think ahead. Strategise. Most shortlisted applicants were tank kids through and through, but one or two, like Ashoka, came from sympathetic families. Whether there would be enough for me to get through group training, I didn’t know.
‘And, finally, Quinn Murphy.’
Quinn. His maintenance friends clapped him on the back, but he only had eyes for me. His lips were a flat line, without a breath of humour, but it wasn’t because I was shortlisted. He wouldn’t care about that. If we were still together, he would have encouraged it. Could he be worried?
I offered him a smile.
‘Okay, that’s enough gawking.’ Rima shut off her comm and beckoned us. ‘If your name was called, follow me.’
Chapter 5
We settled in a brightly lit meeting room on the research deck. Scientists weren’t present, but we had to be here for a reason. I struggled to find it. There wasn’t a gym on this level, and research knew as much about where we were going as nav at this point.
Rima stood against the grey back wall, her expression grim. Sabine stood beside her, overall sleeves tied around her waist to reveal the white tank top beneath and her thick, sculpted arms. She eyed the giddier applicants and shook her head. Disappointment, or disapproval? Either way, she sobered the room.
‘Welcome, and congratulations for getting this far,’ Rima said. ‘This group contains a mixture of skills and personalities, but you’re not yet ready to face Ristar. Basic groundwork isn’t enough.’
She let this sink in, and it needed to. For generations, we’d been taught how to pilot the lander and how to record relevant data on the ground. Why wasn’t this enough, and what was left to learn? Had the committee avoided more specific training until after the announcement of our final approach? Dad said they’d waited as some might die before arrival, but training could have happened… no, the committee would have struggled to get an accurate picture of team prospects. Even five years ago, most of us shortlisted had been children.
I bit my lip. Whatever the logic, the decision meant we had less than a year to prepare. Was that long enough, and what did research have to do with it?
‘Ristar may have oxygen, likely water, and gravity not too dissimilar to Earth’s, but this won’t be easy,’ Rima said. ‘This is an alien environment with many unknown variables. Sabine will be your mentor through the extensive physical, mental, and academic training which will prepare you for the ground’s dangers, whether that be toxic pools, debilitating disease, corrosive fungal spores, or simply extreme weather.’
Sabine nodded. ‘Training also informs the selection process. You may be shortlisted, but we’ll thin the group yet.’
‘Cuts are due after key exercises, but final team numbers are undecided, so impress us,’ Rima said, smiling. ‘Oh, and treat Sabine and your fellow applicants with respect. You may be in competition, but this is a team mission. You’re expected to work together.’
Mumbles met her orders, but Rima left the deck with a small wave. That left Sabine to explain what all this really meant. We weren’t in research purely for training.
Sabine planted her hands on her hips. ‘There’s something Rima forgot to mention. This mission requires system nanites.’
An older man jumped to his feet, fists clenched before I’d even processed her words. ‘That’s an insane risk! Why wasn’t it on the recruitment poster?’
I wouldn’t call it a risk, but he was right – this wasn’t the advertised experience.
‘The committee decided to be… tactful about their use.’
‘Tactful? More like secretive. I’d never sign up for nanites!’
Perhaps that was the point. He wouldn’t be alone in hating system nanites. Dad used reprogrammable external nanites for hull and engine repair, but system nanites had murdered billions and made Earth and the solar system uninhabitable when they’d spread destructive code. The nanites on board the Courage were stripped back to untainted code, and we’d had no problems with their use externally, or in dozens of cancer patients over the last five hundred years, but the stigma remained.
‘The committee made their decision.’
The man grunted. ‘We’re the best you’ve got. Why risk us?’
Sabine sighed. ‘Countless reasons. Rima’s list of dangers wasn’t exhaustive. What if you need nanites to compensate for low oxygen levels, or to catalogue and combat a disease we have no immunity to? We need the team and the lander to come back in one piece. If they don’t…’ She spread her hands.
No doubt as she intended, my mind filled in the details. We only had one lander. If the crew perished and the lander didn’t return, the committee had to decide whether to land the colony ship or remain in orbit. Nanite data and analysis far exceeded human observations and maximised the team’s survival chances. Nanites would also send the ship frequent data on team member locations and health via their comm unit and the lander, even after death. That was invaluable.
‘Is this our decision to make?’ the man asked.
‘If you won’t swallow nanites, you’re no good to me.’ Sabine encompassed the room. ‘So, who’s too cowardly to “risk it”?’ She met my eyes and held them. ‘How about you, kin kid?’
‘I’m in.’
‘Glad to hear it. Does that go for everyone?’
Ratan tried to waylay the older man, but he brushed past Ratan and Sabine on his way out. He wasn’t alone. A few around our age left, and five from older generations.
Sabine let them go. ‘That everyone?’
No one else moved. A few nodded. Either they weren’t as paranoid as the others, or they’d felt pressure to stay.
Sabine pointed to us as she did a fresh head count. ‘Shortlist is down to… seventeen. Congratulations. You are the real stars of this crew.’ Sabine allowed us a smile, but it soon slipped. I got the sense most did. ‘One at a time, as per committee law, you’re to go through the first door on the right of the simulation room. You’ll watch a cautionary video and agree to the procedure. A waiting scientist will administer the nanites.’ She put her hands up as one man muttered something about having seen it before. ‘You will watch the video again, know the risks, and take the nanites, or leave this mission. Clear?’ She waited for his nod. ‘Good. We’re going alphabetically. Errai, it’s time to prove your mettle. Everyone else, partner up and meet me in the simulation room.’
* * *
I’d heard stories about this clinical room over the years, retold tales of cancer patients breathless with fear over targeted nanite injections. Some required health to be summoned with sedatives, which seemed… overdramatic. The room was small and stark with a metal table, chair, and a large screen on the far wall which said ‘Please sit’, but by no means was it scary or claustrophobic.
The chair scraped across a metal grate as I pulled it out to sit and wait. Few tank kids talked about their more personal videos, though many must mention Earth’s demise. For their parents, it was an immediate threat. I knew the history, but was seeing it worse?
‘Please sit’ faded to show Earth, spinning on its axis. From space, it was a blue-and-green orb, covered in thousands of lights, spread across countries and continents. The world lapsed into a bluer version. Less land, more lights, more ships in orbit. Greens developed a grey tinge – a sign of Earth’s polluted final years – and the image zoomed, closer and closer, to city level, to house level, to the inside of a woman’s kitchen.
Her windows were dusty, covered in dark muck, yet the ceiling was higher than those in the Courage, her countertops thick and well made, a sickly garden
out the grimy windows behind her, all sprawling yellow grass with no flowers. I knew from old films that she came from money, and yet she coughed into her sleeve so hard her eyes reddened and her chest wheezed. Her skin was milky pale and her hands shook. Still, she squared with the camera after the fit, as strong-willed and elegant as any film star.
‘I suppose that illustrates what we face.’ Her voice choked out. She cleared her throat. ‘My name isn’t important. What’s important is what gave me late-stage cancer.’ She pinched thin hair from her forehead and pulled, dislodging the chunk. ‘Nanites caused this. At first, we thought our latest jump in nanotechnology had endless applications. We used it for everything. We eradicated over ninety percent of diseases with semi-effective treatments for the rest.’
She let the wisps of her hair fall to the floor. ‘We took it for a miracle, and it was, for a few years, until people began to die. First in Asia, then Europe, Australia, the poles, and then the space stations, the Moon, Mars.’ She rested her hands in her lap. ‘I’m sure if this mission succeeds, you’ll wonder why nanites turned on us. The truth? We have no idea. Our fail-safes failed and pre-nanite treatments, which used to be semi-effective, only slow the cancer. We do know the glitch is limited to internal nanites, those permanently in our systems, but we only have maybe another few months to work out why.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t think we will succeed, which is why I sent my DNA code, along with hundreds of other scientists’ and academics’, to populate the tanks of the Courage spaceship. Please, consider the risks of nanites. Use them sparingly, and don’t make the same mistakes.’
The screen cut to black. My mind worked to link her words with the histories I’d been told and the reports I’d read. None spelt out why nanites had failed. This video seemed to explain the omission: they’d had no time to find out. We might never know why.
I took a deep, shaky breath. No wonder people came in calm and left sedated. This wasn’t a small thing to digest. We don’t know why nanites killed. It explained why cancer sufferers sometimes refused to accept the short-lived, targeted nanites offered to them, even for a seventy percent chance to save themselves. The unknown was scarier than the disease.
The truth was shocking but… it wasn’t our truth. Whatever had happened on Earth, our nanites were safe, lesser, coded by one of the best scientists of their time, and we had used them far longer without issue.
A scuff startled me, and I swung around.
It was Eli, dressed in gold-and-white shift coveralls. As Mum’s friend, he’d usually greet me with a smile, but today he was sombre. He carried a glass filled with water. It was clear. I knew better, but, strangely, I’d expected the water to be black or silver, glowing, or showing some sign of what lurked within.
‘This is it?’
Eli placed the glass on the table. ‘This is it.’ He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Are you ready for this?’
I was. Nanites were necessary. That had to trump any misplaced trepidation, but my nerves had to know one thing before I gave the tiny robots my trust. ‘Will they be permanent?’
‘No, they’re programmed to last for one year.’
‘And after?’
‘They deactivate and flush from your system.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘They will.’
‘But if they don’t?’
He sighed and glanced at the door he’d come through. ‘We have a chemical which switches off their code. It’s far from ideal to cease their function from one second to the next but… they’ll become inert.’
I nodded, picked up the glass, and downed it.
* * *
I’d never been inside the simulation room. It was tucked behind a thick locked door, off limits to all but the most important experiments. The inside walls were padded but the floor was hard. Odd, though the others seemed too busy to take it in.
Sabine had put them to work. They were slick with sweat, circling each other, kicking and punching as they went. Elbows and knees were used too, especially by security students.
Yara was a flurry of pain, her partner taking heavy hits into the pads. She threw all her strength into each punch and kick, twisting her body with perfect technique, despite her quick footwork.
Other pairs were clumsier or punched too soft, particularly the eldest applicants, those from research or health who had been admitted for academic over physical ability.
Fitness was important for the mission, but did Sabine expect us to reach security standards? If so, she’d be waiting longer than we had left. But she wasn’t hovering or spitting insults and instructions, so she must have consideration for where we stood. And if what elder participants were doing was acceptable, Sabine should be pleased with what I could do. I didn’t have perfect technique, but I could throw a punch that made Ludis stagger, and I had stamina.
‘Errai, you’re back.’ Sabine nodded. ‘Good, I thought you’d swallow.’
‘What do you mean?’
She smirked. ‘The nanites, kin kid. Or did you wimp out?’
‘No, I drank them.’ Though it didn’t feel like I had. The glass could have held pure water based on my body’s non-reaction, but Eli assured me the effects were cumulative.
‘Excellent. Pair with Yara. Maria, you’re up next.’
Yara’s partner dropped her pads to the floor rather than pass them to me but didn’t move for the door.
‘Scared, Maria?’ Sabine crossed her arms. ‘Do you have less courage than a kin kid?’
The slim middle-aged woman swept damp hair from her forehead and marched for the door. Yara didn’t look up. She tightened the Velcro on her gloves and adjusted her stance. The perfect soldier.
I caught Sabine’s eye as she turned to leave. ‘I’d rather you use my name.’
‘You’re in my programme. I’ll call you whatever I like. Now, spar with Yara.’
Great. As usual, I’d overestimated authority, but she was in charge, so I approached Yara. There were no flaws in her technique, nothing I could exploit, which meant her hits were going to hit hard.
I bent to strap on the pads and adopted my preferred stance, more weight on my back leg than the front. This was going to hurt.
Yara threw the first kick lightning fast, hitting my forearm more than the pad. I veered backwards, sweeping my arm to defend two incoming punches. Their force pushed air past my face, making me blink, and then I was ducking. A foot rushed toward my left ear. It missed by a hair.
‘This isn’t a death match!’
‘I said your gym practices were tame. Now move!’
Sabine hovered, so I gritted my teeth and kept light on my feet to dodge blows, but Yara moved too well to avoid forever. She had the weight and stamina advantage, as well as security sector training. Meeting the gap was impossible. Sabine must know that.
A jumping kick hit my pad dead centre and pushed me back. She followed up while I was off balance. I tried to twist away but was on one foot when a spinning kick pummelled my stomach. I fell backwards and collided with Ashoka.
He caught my shoulders. ‘Careful. Yara isn’t as easy to partner as Ludis.’ He pushed me to my feet.
‘Any useful tips?’
‘Duck.’
Toes scraped through my hair. I blew out relief: without the warning, she’d have smashed my nose.
I stepped back while Yara’s foot was caught, forcing her to hop to keep her balance. She pulled free, tearing my hair, and her other foot flew for my face. I got my pad up in time to avoid two black eyes and a broken nose, but the force sent the pad into my face and me to the floor. I hit hard, butt first.
Other fights slowed until the thwacks stopped. They’d paused to look. For the second time today, I was the centre of attention.
Had Sabine purposely paired me with Yara to get my ass kicked? I pulled up my knees and stared at my padded hands. I wasn’t a match for her, but if Sabine and the crew were ever going to respect me, I had to do better. So I got up and fielded Yara’s next
punch, kick, kick, punch. I watched her core for sudden movements, hints to the next hits. I’d work for this.
Sabine touched Yara’s shoulder, halting her attack. ‘Maria’s back. You’re next.’
I hauled in breaths and blasted them out, too tired to smile. I’d done well, but the break was welcome. I could regroup and battle someone more on my level.
Yara slipped free of the gloves. ‘Will I have a more challenging partner after?’
‘Stay together for now. You’re teaching Errai to keep up.’
Keep up! I wasn’t trailing through lack of effort.
Yara shrugged. ‘As you like.’
I gritted my teeth but focused on Maria. She was colonial studies, so she had less physical training. If Sabine wouldn’t let me spar with the others, doing well against Maria could be the only way to make an impression and halt this kin kid nickname before it became Sabine’s favourite new habit.
Yara was quick to pass over her gloves and quicker to get to the door. Maria was a slower fighter and I got in hits, but Yara was back before I regained Sabine’s attention. I wasn’t ready for a round two.
‘Ready?’ Yara asked, her grin breaking into her cheeks.
She’d be well rested while my butt was tender from the fall and my limbs were shaking with fatigue. I squared off anyway, readied my stance, and caught something out the corner of my eye. I focused on my periphery. It was Sabine, nodding to Yara. But why?
A bright blue glove connected with my jaw and lifted me off my feet, throwing me a good metre backwards. I flapped my arms, but the pads dragged through the air and I went down hard, my head bouncing off the ground and my skull ringing. For a moment, my vision went black, and then dizziness swarmed in and kept coming as feet advanced. One blurry set. Yara’s? Was she coming in for the kill?
‘Okay, that’s enough. Help her up,’ Sabine said.
Velcro ripped and Yara offered me a gloveless hand.
I took it and used more than a little of her strength to pull to my feet. A minute or two later, the stars receded and I felt stable. ‘What was that for?’ I puzzled over the nod they’d shared. ‘I wasn’t ready.’