A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

by Alex White

  “Elizabeth Elsworth, prisoner.”

  “That’s cool, man! How long have you been a prisoner?”

  “Today is my first day.”

  He sized her up, grinning like a happy cat. “I bet you’ll be good at it. You know the problem with prisoners?”

  She shook her head.

  “They should really be called ‘prisonees,’ don’t you think?”

  Okay, so he’s crazy. The looks make up for it. She nodded politely, glancing back to see Orna roll her eyes. Boots opened her mouth to respond, but Didier silenced her with a finger.

  “I was in the middle of something when you came in,” he said, tracing a green glyph in the air. It looked like the usurer’s mark, which could transfer life force from one vessel to another, but not quite.

  Usurers were able to heal all wounds at great cost to themselves. The practiced ones learned to take life force from plants and animals, acting as a conduit between the wounded and the soon-to-be victim. They often lived for hundreds of years, became the wealthiest doctors, or on some planets, started cults.

  But if Didier was a usurer, he’d be the ship’s doctor. For that matter, what was Malik’s power again? Sleep?

  “I bet you’re wondering,” he began, peering through the sunboxes, “what that mark was …” He opened one up and snatched a series of grasses from the soil lightning-fast. Boots couldn’t believe her eyes as she watched him go from box to box, sticking his hand directly into accelerator rays. It certainly explained his calloused fingers.

  “Don’t you dare bother him about that sigil,” whispered Orna.

  “Why would I?” she whispered back.

  Once he’d gathered a bounty of tender vegetables and herbs, each kissed by perfect health, he returned to them. “I’ve got a malformed mark.”

  Boots flushed. She hadn’t meant to stare, certainly not if he had problems. She’d never appreciated anyone prying into her arcana dystocia, and wouldn’t dream of putting that on someone else.

  And, for the first time in many years, something about it made her feel less alone. A wellspring of conflicting thoughts roiled through her head as she tried to think of what to say. “I don’t, uh … I mean—”

  He waved off her grimace. “Oh, you’re worrying too much. I can still cast, but I can only sense life. Can’t move it around. You can imagine how disappointed my folks were, man. Thought they were going to get a doctor and got a gardener instead!”

  His immediate honesty kept her on her back foot. “I, uh, didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories.”

  He winked at her. “It’s only a bad memory if I wanted to be a doctor.”

  She feigned a stretch, sneaking another peek at his body as she did. “Well, I’d best get back to languishing in my cell. I think Sokol here is going to murder me if I hang around any longer.”

  Orna idly inspected her fingernails. “Haven’t stopped thinking about it since you opened your mouth.”

  She bid the cook goodbye before stepping out of the mess and into the cargo hangar. Boots’s jaw hit the floor.

  Suspended from scaffolding, in pristine condition, was her old fighter: a 2870 edition Midnight Runner with the X-20 strike package. Not hers specifically, because that one had been blown to pieces. Most of it had probably burned up in Clarkesfall’s dead atmosphere.

  The twenty had a first-in-class cockpit with rock-solid telemetry, engagement planning, and comms. Her old twenty had even been able to pick up ground signals when Kinnard—

  She jammed her hands in her pockets. “Whose is that?”

  “Mine,” said Orna. “I don’t need him much, but we like to keep him around. The thing is a relic.”

  “Holy cats; I take back half of what I said about you, Sokol.”

  Boots looked around the cargo bay, finding the place littered with spare cores, cabling, tools, and all manner of containers. Someone didn’t know how to put away her toys. “Did you restore all that by yourself?”

  “Yeah. Got him in perfect working condition, just like he’d rolled off the line yesterday.”

  “May I, uh …”

  Orna regarded her for a long moment, her icy eyes unreadable. Without warning, Ranger surged forward and swept Boots off her feet. Its arms were rough, and might leave a few more bruises to go with her current ones. She was about to complain when the armor leapt, rocketing them up the scaffolding to rest at the boarding ramp. It gently placed her on the catwalk.

  The cockpit hung open before her, its familiar pilot’s seat scuffed in unfamiliar places. A sharp sting of nostalgia struck the strength from Boots’s legs as she approached. The last time she’d flown, she’d been blown from the skies. Her eyes darted to the twin thrusters, where her call sign would’ve been painted, but she found nothing.

  She peeked under the raised windscreen and found the consoles operating in standby power. It had a charged eidolon core, and probably could’ve scrambled at any second.

  “Did you upgrade the power plant?” she called down. “These twenties are finicky.”

  “No,” said Ranger, in Orna’s voice. “All parts are factory originals from various vessels. The systems are one hundred percent Synotix and RVC.”

  “Rook Velocity hasn’t been around for years! How did you get them?”

  “There are a lot of graveyards on Clarkesfall. Salvage ops.” Ranger clanged over to where she stood and offered a hand. “Are we done?” Orna asked.

  Sighing, Boots took the creature’s claw. She wrapped her arms around it and braced—the bot was far from gentle. Ranger marched to the edge and jumped off, buffering his fall with the thwomp of descender boots. Safely on the ground, Boots loosened her grip and climbed off, careful not to slip on the residue of phantoplasm now coating the floor.

  “Why’d you restore this thing?”

  “We occasionally need short-ranged engagement capability. The captain and I partnered on the cost.”

  Boots chuckled. “Sure, but there are cheaper ships if that’s what you want … and I’m guessing you’re a mechanist, so you can find better quality. Lots of civvy crews have—”

  “I used to see them flying by when I was …” Orna’s eyes rose to the rafters like it was an open sky.

  “When you were a kid?”

  Orna glared. The MRX-20 was the standard fighter of the ADF. So she’d lived on Clarkesfall as a child, in Arca no less. Boots had seen a lot of kids bear the unfair costs of global total war, and could only imagine what that did to Orna.

  Orna crossed her arms. “The captain thought the Midnight Runner was the best option.”

  More of Cordell’s obnoxious nostalgia. Boots chortled. “Well, yeah, but your captain is a sentimental sucker. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be on your ship, would I?”

  That wisecrack was the wrong move. The second Boots insulted Cordell, Orna iced up colder than a comet. Every muscle in her exposed arms tensed like she was going to tear off Boots’s head with her bare hands.

  “Back to your bunk,” said Orna, her voice surprisingly emotionless.

  To Boots’s dismay, Orna led her toward the stairs, Ranger following shortly behind. The quartermaster opened the door for her captive, and Boots stared into the dim illumination of the metal stairwell. It yawned before her, and she couldn’t help remembering what Orna had said about there being no cameras in there. She wouldn’t take her on a tour of the ship just to kill her, would she?

  As soon as the door shut behind them, Ranger hoisted Boots by the collar and slammed her into the steel bulkhead like a rag doll. Lights flashed behind her eyes as the battle armor pinned her by the neck with its forearm. Orna leaned against the railing, chuckling as she drew her high-caliber slinger from its holster at her belt.

  Apparently murder was the plan after all.

  “What—” are you doing? were the words Boots meant to say, but they caught in her pinched windpipe.

  “Good boy, Ranger,” Orna said. She sidled alongside Boots, placing the slinger’s barrel to her temple. “I made a ne
w round, and I’ve been thinking of testing it out. I call it shadowflash; as in, there’s a flash, and all that’s left is a shadow.”

  Shouldn’t it be flashshadow, then? Boots cursed herself for thinking that instead of looking for a way out.

  With her free hand, Orna stroked Ranger’s backplates. “What do you think, boy? If she tried to attack one of us, how would she catch a slinger spell?” She adjusted the barrel’s angle so she could paint Boots across the stairs themselves. “Maybe she ran up that way, trying to get to the bridge?” Orna moved to the other side, jamming the barrel into Boots’s ear. “Or maybe she tried to make a break for her old Midnight Runner. That seems more plausible.”

  “The … captain …” Boots coughed.

  “Would never know. I think he was torn between killing you and this idiot plan. I’m the quartermaster, and I decide what’s on this ship.”

  She locked back the hammer, and the slinger emitted a high-pitched whine that rose until it disappeared out of human hearing. Ranger wrenched Boots’s face so that her nose was mere centimeters from Orna’s. Her eyes bored into Boots’s, her expression that of a child torturing an ant.

  “You’re just cattle now. I can butcher you whenever I want.”

  “I … know where the”—Boots gasped—“Harrow is.”

  “For your sake, I hope you do.”

  Ranger shoved once more and stepped back, leaving Boots to slide to the ground, hacking her lungs up. She had about a million things to say back to Orna, but none of them seemed wise.

  The quartermaster loomed over Boots, her muscled arms tense with fury. “This is the captain’s ship, but it’s my home. I ought to at least take a hand for what you did to us.”

  Boots rubbed her neck, then touched the delicate gash on her cheek. “You did shoot me with two knock rounds.”

  She smiled. “So I did.”

  A low rumble shook the walls, and Boots jolted as all the lights went red and klaxons wailed.

  “Battle stations! I repeat, battle stations!” came Aisha’s voice. “Combat gravity engaging in three …”

  Orna slapped the armor’s shoulder. “Ranger, get suited up!”

  “Two …”

  Ranger wrenched open the door to the cargo bay and loped away on all fours, his claws screeching against the deck.

  “One. Combat gravity engaged.”

  A feeling of semi-weightlessness washed over Boots, one she knew all too well from the bad old days. Combat gravity was one eighth what it was normally, to give the crew the chance to get around in large leaps. Falls were less deadly, and crew were less likely to show up to their stations winded.

  Orna wrenched Boots by the collar and yanked her to her feet. “Get up.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Your cell is too far. You’re going to wait this out on the bridge.”

  Boots and Orna burst onto the bridge, which had become a maelstrom of activity. Cordell stood at the captain’s station, his chair folded into a hidden panel in the floor. Armin, the first mate, frantically punched at terminals, bringing the combat displays online. On the second tier, Didier traced a glyph and sunk his hands into a pair of mechanical sleeves. Servomotors lowered a helmet over his eyes, and a pale, lime-green light bled out around the seams.

  On the lowest terrace, Aisha sat glued to her console, the antique flight stick in her nimble hands. Stars wheeled across the glass canopy, and Boots didn’t see the enemy until two fighters came screaming past.

  “What’s she doing here?” Armin shouted the second he saw Boots.

  “Easier than the brig,” spat Orna. “Watch her, because I’m going out.”

  Through the open door to the bridge, Boots saw Ranger’s chest and legs pop open, revealing a cushioned seat and a plethora of heads-up displays. Orna jumped inside, then the armor snapped shut and stormed away in the direction of the nearest airlock.

  “So she’s finally decided to use the battle armor as actual armor,” said Boots.

  Armin drew his slinger and gestured to a chair. “Strap in and shut up.”

  Cordell traced his shieldmaster’s glyph, and a series of matte gray panels lowered around him, nearly hiding him from view. “All right, people, let’s get this done!”

  A three-dimensional projection of the Capricious and the surrounding hundred kilometers spun into being from the aether, filling up the vaulted space in the center of the bridge. A crystal ball emerged from the wall, and Armin slammed his hand against it, still keeping his weapon trained on Boots.

  “Resonance reflections are negative,” he called. “Life signs?”

  “Scanning,” replied Didier, his head locked in place. “Got ’em, man. Relaying to the aggregator.”

  Five pings flashed up on the display, circling the Capricious like a pack of wolves.

  “Five bandits,” called Armin. “Hotel eight-fiver-three, carom one-four-six, distance fifteen hundred!”

  Going to be coming in from above us. Boots knew Cordell’s strategy—the Capricious was a marauder class, used for dropping into combat zones with supplies and reinforcements. The toughest part of the ship was his belly, and unlike normal ships, sensitive gear was housed on his back. With a good shieldmaster like Cordell and a set of amps, they could protect the support gear and prolong the engagement until the police arrived.

  Cordell splayed his fingers, and a set of two large, white discs appeared on the display, hovering above the Capricious. Those were his shields, amplified through high-powered defense systems to deflect even the best spells. He whipped his arm around to block a strafing run from the closest fighter.

  “I’ve put in a call to the nearest patrol,” said Didier. “They say ETA sixty seconds.”

  “Sokol, do you copy?” called the captain.

  Her voice reverberated through the bridge. “I’m here. Heading out the airlock now.”

  “Do not engage,” said the captain. “We just have to hold out until the gate cops catch up.”

  “How long?”

  “Fifty-three seconds,” said Armin, and a countdown appeared on the readout.

  Boots let out a sigh. Five fighters against a marauder was bad, but if they had reinforcements inbound, they’d be all right.

  Then she remembered what Nilah had told her back in the cell about the Fixers getting compromised. Nilah thought the cops had put a bounty on her for no reason, or to slow her down. Worse, Cyril’s statements about a grand conspiracy still rattled around in Boots’s head. Boots hated to sound like one of her delusional clients, but what if all of it was connected?

  “You can’t trust the authorities,” said Boots.

  “Shut up, or I’ll shoot,” said Armin. “They’re targeting our comms first.”

  “On it,” said Cordell, flicking his hand. Boots watched the display as a shield whipped across the surface of the Capricious to block a hail of spell bolts. Cordell winced. “They’re using some pretty quality stuff. Going to be tough to keep this up long.”

  A tiny version of Ranger crawled across the holographic ship. “I’m on the outer hull,” said Orna. “Permission to engage.”

  “Permission denied,” said Cordell, wincing as another shot rocked the ship. “We don’t want to get in the way of the cops. Time until the patrol arrives?”

  “Thirty-two seconds!” called Armin.

  Aisha spun the ship, and stars streaked across the dome as she maneuvered its belly toward the strafing fighters. Boots wished Aisha had been around at the Battle of Laconte.

  One of the holographic ships landed a bolt near Ranger. “Permission to engage!” Orna insisted.

  “Denied,” said Cordell. For a man in his early fifties, he could move like a teenager. He made sweeping blocks across multiple lines of fire, drawing them all into his shield.

  “Fifty-point-eight percent of their fire has been focused on our comms array!” shouted Armin. “It’s not going to survive another hit.”

  “Noted,” said Cordell, moving both his shields to over
lap in front of the set of dishes and antennae that allowed the ship to call for help.

  The three priorities of any ship combat action were: comms, gravity, and life support. Take out comms so they can’t report their location, take out gravity so they get slung all over the cabins, and destroy life support so they slowly suffocate. Against five fighters, there was no way to protect all three systems for more than a few minutes.

  “Eighteen seconds,” said Armin, his eyes pulsing in time with the crystal ball. “The patrol is telling us to deactivate our countermeasures so we don’t catch them in the cross fire.”

  To Cordell’s credit, he said, “Can’t get much more deactivated than this. We won’t shoot the cops.”

  “Deactivate your countermeasures? Are you hearing yourself, Cordell?” Boots unbuckled her belts, gently rising from her chair. “They’re either not coming, or they’re coming to kill us!”

  Armin let go of his crystal ball, locked back the hammer on his slinger, and marched straight to Boots. “Shut up! I’ve had enough of this!”

  Ten seconds.

  “Get back to your station!” shouted Cordell.

  “As soon as I take care of this,” hissed Armin. “I told you to keep your mouth shut.”

  “Put the gun down and do your job! That’s an order!” bellowed the captain, drowning out all other sound in the cabin. The other voices died away, and Armin lowered his slinger, eyes wide. Boots had heard that voice before; it got the results that changed the course of campaigns.

  Three seconds.

  “Yes, sir,” said Armin.

  Two.

  One.

  The alarm chirped in the display, its four zeroes blinking with a painful, incessant noise.

  No one came. Not one jump signal pinged their detection system. Boots looked from Armin to Cordell, both men stunned to see that a patrol had broken its promise.

  “I told you,” breathed Boots, trying to keep the quaver from her voice.

  Armin bared his teeth like a wolf. “So you did.”

  A colossal blow rocked the ship, and it listed, each person growing weightless in the wake of the explosion. The contents of Boots’s stomach surged in the sudden loss of direction.