Sabira raced across the wide, armored backs of the war beasts, leaping from one to the next faster than they could awake. She was taking a desperate chance. If she slipped, lost her footing, or just wasn’t fast enough, she could get stomped. But she wasn’t going to let herself lose. Not again.
Grandfather Spear had told Sabira many stories of his adventures when she was just a young mine rat. She had memorized every detail. Later, in the long months and years between his visits, she would daydream about his adventures as if they were her own. Like the time he told her about winning obezya as a young servant. He had gone for the granks.
Even though the creatures were biomechs, they still had an animal nature. It was in their instincts to slowly meander side to side while they slept. If they were kept securely caged and stationary, they wouldn’t stay sedated long. Should something hit them hard enough in their sleep, they woke almost instantly. And a grank always woke up angry.
The key, Grandfather had said, was to land, run, and jump off the beast before it awakened and realized you were there. If it woke and didn’t sense any threat, it would go right back to sleep. If it woke up before you jumped off—and it sensed you—then you could kiss your glyphs goodbye. The grank would take you as a threat and try to defend itself, probably waking up others in the process.
Running across the backs of huge biomechs was much faster than either Daggeira or Cannon could swing from handhold to handhold. Sabira soon took the lead. She had cleared nineteen rows when she heard Cannon.
“You’re both going to be grank chow!” he yelled, swinging down the gantry.
Both?
She dared a quick peek over her shoulder. Daggeira had changed her mind and gone the direct route as well. She was catching up to Sabira fast.
Sabira knew she was the stronger of the two, convinced she was the better fighter. But Daggeira was quicker, nimbler. A better drummer, too. And that irked Sabira almost as much as the fact that Daggeira closed in just two rows behind her.
“Hey, One Tit. Better get your head out of the stars,” Daggeira shouted from behind, “or you’ll end up face-first in grank shit.”
Something blurred past Sabira and nailed the grank she was jumping toward right between the horns. Four bright green eyes fluttered to alertness a moment before Sabira landed on the plate above them. She sprinted over the beast’s wide neck and across its thick, armor-plated spine. As she planted her feet to leap off the rear eye mound, the hind of the war beast bucked with astonishing speed and force. Grank plating slammed into her knee and sent her tumbling back.
Sabira’s right hand flailed and caught a weapons socket in the grank’s spinal column. Her legs tumbled over the edge of the platform, dangling in the air but not touching the ground. She hadn’t lost yet. She tried to grab hold with her left hand, but the grank bucked again and let out a deep, sonorous bellow. The platform slammed up into her ribs and sent her tumbling into open air.
Sabira fell to the pen floor and landed hard on her back and shoulder, crushing the air from her lungs. For a moment her vision swirled and went dark. The grank’s bellowing and the vibration of its thick, bucking hooves quickly brought her back to her senses.
“See you on the other side of the Gates, Stargazer,” taunted Daggeira from somewhere Sabira couldn’t see.
She had lost. A fully awake and enraged grank bucked and stomped less than a meter from her head. And a full herd of the biomech beasts surrounded her, bound to wake up and see what the noise was about at any moment.
“Oh drill me.”
8.
DETERMINED NOT TO get stomped into grank chow, Sabira rolled away from the angry biomech, ignoring the hot, painful protests from her ribs and shoulders. Soon as her feet were under her she was moving. Her vision swooped like a pendulum and took her balance along for the ride. Stumbling forward like a drunk on diggers beer, she bolted as fast as she could.
Granks always smelled strange to Sabira. A pungent mix of biomech oils and musk, tinged with a metallic sharpness that was unlike any of the other biomech drills and transports in the Labyrinth. She had gotten somewhat used to the scent after her shifts on pen duty, but now the stench overpowered her. So thick, she could feel it in her throat.
Armor-plated hide obstructed her view in every direction, and she couldn’t see which way the nearest bulkhead was. Once her wits returned a little more, she remembered all the pods were arranged to face the outer hull, the direction she had come from. She went down closer to the far end of the pens, so she needed to run at the beasts head-on.
Still off-balance and dizzy, Sabira stumbled to the next line of granks. Planned to slip through the gaps between pods. The slowly rousing biomechs had their own ideas. Their normal sleep-shuffling became quicker, more agitated. The pods shifted closer together in their lines. The biotubes attaching the granks to the ceiling groaned as they grew taut and twisted. Open pathways between the pods closed in to becomes walls of gray-black plating. She made it through the first line but had to start down the aisle looking for the next opening between pods.
The grank that had been trying to stomp her flat bellowed again, followed by the piercing shriek of ripping ductwork. Two more quick, sharp screeches preceded the ringing clamor of machinery crashing to the floor. The grank was free. It bellowed its triumph before charging into the herd, driving straight toward her.
All around Sabira, clusters of glowing, green eyes fluttered into confused wakefulness. She pushed forward. Dodged her way around yawning maws and thick, shifting legs. The whole herd would be awake soon, and she still couldn’t see the pen bulkhead.
Behind her, armor thudded, and weapons platforms clanged as the freed grank slammed into the others. She imagined the rampaging grank recruiting every beast it collided with into a stampede of angry, armor-plated destruction.
Sabira needed to be out of there. Now. She ran as fast as she could, but was unsure of where to go. Every dodge and turn scrambled her sense of direction further. She could get a better view from on top of a grank, but there wasn’t a single set of closed eyes on any of the beasts around her.
Movement from higher up caught the corner of her eye. She looked and saw Cannon standing atop the gantry railing. He waved madly, directing her to turn right. He was smart enough not to scream for her attention and arouse the soon-to-be-very-angry beasts even faster.
She pivoted and dashed off in the direction he waved. Behind her, two granks stumbled to the side, shoved over by their confused, angry neighbors. A rumbling chorus of bellows echoed through the deck. The charging grank pushed forward a wave of biomechanical war beasts, none of them happy about it.
Something whacked Sabira across the back. Pain shot through her torso, and her legs jellied beneath her. She banged her knee on the floor, almost went all the way down, but managed to bounce to her feet and keep going. Pain speared through her leg with every stride. She caught sight of Cannon again, corrected her course toward the way he directed, and ran on.
The maw of the grank directly in front chomped at her as she circled around, its four green eyes glowing with hunger and agitation. It was still groggy and slow, however, and bit only air. After clearing its flank, the rear eye mound caught sight of her. Its hind legs bucked fast and sharp into the air, then slammed down its wide flat hooves straight at her.
Sabira dodged, avoided being stomped into the floor by centimeters. The impact of the beast slamming down its hooves sent tremors up her legs. Her lungs ached, and she felt like her heart would burst. She dodged again to get farther from its deadly bucking, and she saw it. The pen wall. Maybe seven to nine meters away. Right where Cannon had been directing her, a set of ladder rungs ran up the side to a gate in the railing.
More heavy vibrations rattled through her, and she looked over her shoulder. Wakened, confused, and angered, much of the herd bucked and stomped and bellowed. The noise was tremendous, blotted out the ability to think. Waves of plated hide roiled through the pen. And wit
hin that horrendous wave, a current of three-horned, four-eyed heads came crashing toward her.
“SABIRA RUN!”
Hearing the scream, she realized she had momentarily frozen in terror. By the time she came to her senses again, her instincts had already taken over, and she was dashing for the ladder. A heartbeat later it was gone from her sight, replaced by the thick hind legs of a grank stomping down out of nowhere.
Running far too hard and fast to stop in time, Sabira managed to raise her arms in front of her face before slamming into its leg at full speed. Bouncing hard off the armor, she fell flat on her back. The grank bellowed and stomped in triumph. Sabira rolled out of the way and caught a glimpse behind her. The stampede continued toward her, biomech eyes and horns and maws manically delighted to see their prey downed.
A memory of a voice echoed through her mind. The High Overseer looming above her in the fighting pit, the freshly carved-out heart red and glistening in his hand.
Should you find yourself before the Shattered Gates of Heaven, may the Gods find you worthy of eternal service.
A blasting hiss disturbed her memory. Jets of pink mist flooded the pen. The rumble and bellows of the stampede submerged into the gas. All their charging and bucking ceased in an instant. Soon they stopped moving altogether. Sets of glowing, green eyes winked shut all around her.
Sabira rolled painfully to her feet, though most of her didn’t want to move a muscle. Pink mist floated around her head, formed swirling eddies when she breathed. The mist didn’t affect her, other than a acrid taste in the back of her throat. She patted the hard flank of the grank she had charged right into. Deep in sleep, it made no response to her touch. Just behind her, the first beast that had awakened now slumbered, quiet and motionless. Close enough for her to read the glyphs of ownership and designation stamped across its face. The war beast had been stopped only a meter or two from the young servant girl stupid enough to awaken its fury. A jumble of biotubing, waste vacs, and sleeping monsters trailed behind it. Blue-black grank shit was everywhere. The reek poked hard at her gag reflex.
“Trickster’s asshole. We are so drilled!” shouted Cannon, the tendons of his neck straining furiously. His voice echoed in the vast silence of the pens.
“Hey there, Stargazer One Tit.” Daggeira looked down over the railing at Sabira through the mist, eyes agleam with self-satisfaction, a gloating smile smeared across her face, the emergency tranq-gas button still clutched in her hands.
“I win,” she said.
9.
SABIRA WANTED TO hate her—badly wanted to hate her—but couldn’t really. Daggeira did what she needed to win. Anyone who’s ever walked out of a pit respected that.
Still, more than once she fantasized about choking Daggeira out until her eyes bulged and her face swelled purple. Especially when they had to spend shift after shift vac-tubing up a lake of noxious grank shit.
It was slow, monotonous, and disgusting work. Grank shit and biomech oils were splattered all over the deck. First, they had to reassign a line of grank pods to another pen. Then clean the beasts. Back to the first pen to waste-vac up the mess. Then bring the granks back to the original pen, and start on the next line of pods.
With each step and twist Sabira took during cleanup, the coarse membrane of the sanitation suit rubbed at the burn scars on her back. Brought a scrape of agony to every movement. Servants called the scars the nine eyes. The sacred symbol of the Holy Unity, three smaller triangles aligned to form a larger triangle, had been seared into their flesh by Warseer Ahzk Vohg as punishment for the grank pens. Until the burns finally healed, pain would be the overseer for all three of them.
When they had reported the disaster to their rank, Caller Arrow, none of them blamed the others. Not even Cannon. He said they were playing obezya and woke the granks. So the three skins of the right arm shared the punishment equally.
Sabira wondered if the other two hated her for being the first to go for the granks. Hopefully, they gave her the same begrudged understanding she gave Daggeira.
Sabira couldn’t make out Cannon’s and Daggeira’s faces with the respirators on, but their body language said they were in just as much pain. Especially Cannon, who she had to admit was the least deserving of punishment. He cursed nonstop, agitated and wriggling in his membrane suit.
“Don’t be such a whiney little mine rat,” chided Daggeira. “You’re only making it worse.”
“Did you grow up in Medic warrens? What’s that? No?” asked Cannon. The respirator made his big, round eyes look like they protruded from his skull. “I know what I’m doing. I didn’t spend my life milking cugs.”
“Boy, you’re in the Servants now, better toughen up,” said Daggeira.
“Right, and how many glyphs you got again?”
“See me now, Can. I make rank before you. Remember it,” Daggeira replied.
“I’ll remember you knee deep in grank shit with the nine eyes on your back.”
“Same as you.”
“Same as all of us,” said Sabira.
“Look at Stargazer. She’s not crying,” said Daggeira. “Even with one tit, she’s got more balls than you, Can. Really. Prod burns not so bad. Believe me. Hells, they didn’t even bind us. That’s when you know you’re . . .”
“My name is Sabira. Not Stargazer. Not One Tit. Sabira.”
“Don’t let her get to you,” said Cannon. “Daggs just misses milking cug teats so much that she gets sad you only got one for her to yank on while she cries about her old hen back home.”
“You’ll both be crying when I make rank before either of you,” said Sabira. “Conqueror see me, I’m going to be caller, maybe even first drum of my own crew while you two are still cleaning up grank shit and squabbling over tits and balls. Just watch.”
“Challenge accepted, Stargazer,” said Daggeira.
“Better watch out for Sabira’s temper, Daggs,” warned Cannon. “She’ll be stuffing you up the vac-tubes next.”
“Oh, Stargazer isn’t anything I can’t handle.” Daggeira turned to face Sabira. “So that’s what you want, then, to head your own crew?”
“What I really want is to attend a warseer,” said Sabira, “and bring Divine Will to the galaxy, of course. But first things first.”
“Careful what you invoke the Gods for, Stargazer,” said Daggeira. “The more you want in this life, the more the Gods demand in sacrifice. And the Gods always demand Their sacrifice.”
“So what is it you want, Daggs?” asked Cannon.
“Victory, of course.”
“That’s why you woke up the granks, right? Just so you could win,” said Sabira.
“Wait, you woke the godsdamned biomechs up on purpose?” exclaimed Cannon.
“Of course.”
“And I was your sacrifice to the Gods,” said Sabira, “for your victory. Is that it?”
Daggeira didn’t answer.
“Star Father’s balls, why did I get stuck with you two? Why couldn’t I have been assigned to the left arm?” said Cannon. “See me, you two need to stop thinking like Pitters and start thinking like Servants. Otherwise, we all end up as dinner for some vleez vermin. Victory or defeat, life or death, that belongs to the crew now. End of story. If you can’t get that, you need go back to the Labyrinth to milk cugs or dig mines or pop out broods or whatever shaft will have you. Just stop drilling my life to hell and back.”
“Fine, fine, don’t melt your face off.” Daggeira turned back to her waste-vac.
“I see you, you’re right,” said Sabira. “It’s just too bad though.”
“What is?” he asked.
“It’s just that Daggs and I drilling your life to hell is pretty much the only drilling you’re likely ever going to get.”
10.
AFTER EIGHTEEN YEARS of being nameless, the irony of having both a true name and a nickname wasn’t lost on Sabira. Though many servants had nicknames, unlike her, most of theirs were abb
reviations of their name glyphs. But Sabira had earned hers for good reason: She never tired of stargazing. Losing herself in the endless black and countless, shimmering stars always calmed her.
The Holy Unity and the Monarchy existed deep within a dense star cluster. Light from thousands of nearby stars smeared across the black, bright and crystalline in every direction. Every direction except one. Before her loomed the great and holy Shattered Gates of Heaven, a glowing crimson wound stretching billions of kilometers across the milky glare of the inner star cluster. The red nebula was sacred and forbidden space.
Did the Gods gaze back at her? Did They see her, Servant to the Divine Masters, enforcer of Divine Will?
When most of her crew was off shift, spending their privileges on pillows and diggers beer, she cherished her time on the deck as she cherished her name. If allowed, Sabira would spend all her time there. All too often, though, she spent her shifts in the gray corridors and storage bays of the inner decks, always enclosed by ceramic-lined walls and ceilings webbed with conduits, shafts, and biotubing.
She remembered lying near her brood-sister on a high scaffold in Warrens Zevna, gazing up at the cavern’s rough ceiling just beyond their reach. Their imaginations struggled to picture what a sky would look like. What would it mean to see forever? Now she knew the truth of it, what forever really looked like, and understood how utterly her imagination had failed in the attempt.
A year had passed since Sabira had seen her sister. Sabira had unexpectedly gotten the chance to visit briefly with her after finishing a year of Servant Discipline and before shipping out. Her first brood had been crawling all over her. By now, her sister had likely been implanted with the next brood already. But her nameless brood-sister was Sabira’s past. The crew was her brood now. Still, she often reminisced about her sister back beneath the rocks, wondered if they’d ever meet again. If she’d ever hold her sister’s broods on her lap and tell them about her adventures among the stars, just as Grandfather Spear had done with her, even if they weren’t Sabira’s blood.
Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven Page 5