But The Stars

by Peter Cawdron

  Angel sits with her back against a pristine, glossy white panel. Her naked body looks old and frail. She’s taking oxygen from a mask strapped around her bowed head. She’s lost both her arms. Exposed bone reaches down from her swollen right shoulder, failing to reach a phantom elbow, while her left forearm has been severed at an acute angle, leaving a mess of bloody pulp where her wrist should be.

  Mags has lost her legs. Dante blinks rapidly, barely able to process what she’s seeing. Her best friend is horribly scarred. Her thighs are stumps, withered and grotesque, but the wounds have closed so there are no exposed bones.

  Piss and shit seep across the floor, mixing as they run to the lowest point in the room. Mags is shaking uncontrollably. Her head jerks in spasms as a medic crouches beside her. He’s taking her vitals and trying to administer some kind of advanced IV into her arm.

  Naz is standing in front of Mags, staring down at her with a blank expression on his face, watching as the medic works on her. He’s whole, with no sign of physical trauma, but his mouth hangs open. It’s as though he’s trying to bite into an apple. His fingers twitch by his side. Dante’s confused, unsure what he’s doing—what he’s thinking. It seems his brain is disconnected from his body and somehow rebooting.

  One of the other medics has Zoe and is leading her away. She’s exhausted, dragging her swollen, bare feet across the slick floor. With her head low and her arms hanging limp by her side, Zoe edges toward the exit from the module. Dozens of tubes hang from her back, but they’re organic, extending out of her skin, growing out of evenly spaced lesions running up and down either side of her spine. Dante looks at the others. They all have them, scrunched up behind their backs. She shifts slightly, feeling the same organic tubing on her back.

  “No. No. No.”

  “Hey, it’s okay,” the medic says. “You’re okay now. Everything’s going to be alright.”

  She breathes deeply. The medic flashes a pen light in each of her eyes, checking her pupils for a response, knowing it’ll reveal her state of consciousness.

  “Where did you come from?” he asks.

  “I—ah...”

  “What ship?”

  “The Acheron.”

  “Not possible,” the medic says, looking at something on a three-dimensional holograph rising from his wrist-pad computer. A hologram? Dante’s never seen anything like this.

  He continues, saying, “The Acheron was destroyed in the first wave. What’s the name of your starship?”

  “Starship?” Dante says in a daze. Although it’s an apt description, she’s never heard their exploration craft referred to as anything other than a spaceship.

  “You’re in deep space,” the medic says. “Between stars. How did you get here? Were you on a cruiser or a warship? What’s your colony ID?”

  These are terms she’s never heard.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Just the name. You don’t need the full sequence.”

  “The Acheron. It’s the Acheron. I’m from the Acheron.”

  “You catching this, boss?”

  “Get her back to the Empyrean,” is the cryptic reply.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  He pauses. “The Acheron has been listed missing for over four hundred years.”

  Dante’s silent.

  The medic asks. “How are you guys even alive?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  Dante tries to raise her arm, wanting to push a few strands of straggly hair from her face, but her joints ache and she can’t move her arm more than a few inches without pain surging through her shoulder. Her fingers are as thin as sticks, while her wrist is swollen and oversized. She looks down at her forearm. It’s thin and straight, as though there’s no muscle or tendons whatsoever. She’s a skeleton with skin clinging to bare bones.

  The medic seems to realize what she’s trying to do and carefully pulls her hair back, gently pushing it in place with his thick gloved hands.

  “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “What about the others?” Dante asks as the medic gets her to her feet. “Benson and Mac?”

  “The other men?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re stable and just ahead of us.”

  She shakes as she steps forward. Walking is painful. Nerves catch beneath the bones in her feet, forcing her to hobble.

  “Where are we?” she asks.

  “You’re on an adversarial dreadnought.”

  Dante’s having trouble thinking straight. Her mind is a blur of confusion. Life is coming at her too fast.

  “Ad—?”

  “Enemy,” he says, breaking it down for her. “The bad guys.”

  “Enemy? The aliens on P4? Is this WISE 5571? Are we still in orbit?”

  “You never made it to WISE 5571,” he says, raising her arm over his shoulder and helping her along a corridor. “The Acheron stopped transmitting mid-flight, roughly fourteen light years out from WISE.”

  Looking into his glass visor, Dante can see a dizzying array of information flickering on the heads-up display, including the flightpath of the Acheron. Dates, text and diagrams flash before him as he picks what he should tell her.

  “We thought you guys were long dead. Intel suggested you were boarded in transit, possibly years earlier, not long after your slingshot around the dwarf, while you were still in hyper-sleep. Comms were cut. We assumed the Acheron was lost. Until now.”

  “No, no, no,” she says. “We were there. We spent years in 5571. We explored the gas giants and their moons. And P4. We went down to the surface. We saw them.”

  “No one’s seen them,” the medic says, shaking his head softly within his helmet.

  “We did. We were on P4. I swear.”

  The medic adjusts his grip on her, hoisting her a little higher and gripping her under her shoulder as he drags her on.

  “I saw them.”

  “What did you see?” he asks.

  “I—”

  Dante’s unsure of herself. Her forehead aches. Her throat is dry. Everything feels wrong. She wants to believe him. She wants to trust him, but she can’t. Instinctively, she feels defensive, saying, “I saw stars.”

  “Stars?” the medic says, not understanding. There’s talking inside his helmet. Rapid. Panicked. Someone’s yelling. Screaming.

  “Get down,” he says.

  The medic shoves her to one side, pushing Dante into an alcove by a blast door. Dante feels overwhelmed with anxiety. Her heart flutters. She’s lightheaded. It’s the loss of control. She doesn’t even know this guy’s name and yet she’s supposed to trust him with her life. Instinctively, she fights to stand up, not wanting to be boxed in, but he rests his hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down. She’s too weak to resist for more than a few seconds.

  Dante slumps to the floor as he peers around the edge of the thick door frame. With her back to the wall, she has a chance to look around. Control panels line the wall next to an external hatch, only they’re at chest height. The size of the hatch itself is a little over six foot, being roughly four feet wide. The lower lip is less than a foot off the ground, having been set at a practical height—easy to step over while still providing structural integrity.

  It’s then it strikes her.

  The dimensions are all wrong. Well, they’re right. They’re not alien, not unless there’s been some crazy statistical anomaly on a cosmic scale and aliens have roughly the same dimensions as the average person. Everything screams human. It’s then she sees what’s been apparent around her all along, writing plastered on the various wall conduits.

  Signs. Words written in English.

  Auxiliary Fuel Line

  Pure Oxygen

  Atmospheric Recycling

  Mains Electrical

  Communications Panel

  Fire Suppression System

  Life Support

  “No,” she says, clawing at the medic’s arm, desperately wanting to break free. “No, no, no.”


  “She’s panicking,” he says, talking to someone over the radio. Dante can’t hear the reply, but she can guess at the response from his motion, reaching for a needless injector in the medical kit hanging from his waist. He’s going to sedate her. Dante bats at his gloved hand, sending the injector tumbling across the deck.

  “Stop, damn it,” he says, grabbing her by the throat. He lifts her up and shoves her hard against the bulkhead. In her weakened state, he could easily crush her windpipe. “You’ll get us both killed.”

  Explosions rock the superstructure of the alien spacecraft, only it isn’t alien, it’s human.

  “Listen to me. Listen carefully,” he says, getting right up in her face, with the glass of his helmet pressed against her nose, looking deep into her eyes. “This is an exfiltration. You’re on an enemy ship. You’ve got to trust me.”

  He releases his grip, but his fingers remain around her throat.

  “How can I trust you,” she says as stars drift past the airlock window. “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “I’m Coe-Voy, okay?” he says, pointing at a name tag on the front of his spacesuit. “Augustus Coe-Voy. Are you happy? You have a name. For now, that’s all you’re getting.”

  He spins her around, grabbing her by the back of her neck and marching her forward in front of him. Coe-Voy’s fingers are like a steel vice, not giving her any leeway, keeping her head up as he forces her on.

  Coe-Voy has a gun. Although it’s not directed at her, the sight of it causes her heart to race. She can see it out of the corner of her eye as he shoves her on, keeping her out in front of him but off to one side.

  “This was supposed to be a snatch-and-grab. Twenty minutes max. We should have been able to stay under for that long at least. They shouldn’t have seen us.”

  It’s apparent to Dante that Coe-Voy’s talking to someone else.

  “What the fuck went wrong?”

  Coe-Voy adjusts his grip, shifting from the back of her neck to her shoulder, pressing the palm of his hand directly into her shoulder blade and pushing her on regardless of the pain she feels in her feet. They stumble down another corridor with the lights flickering, threatening to plunge them into darkness. Dante loses her footing as the craft rocks under a series of explosions. Thunder seems to break above them. In the confined space of the walkway, the change in air pressure comes in waves, striking her in the chest and shaking her to her core. Her ears feel as though they’re blocked, muting the sounds around her.

  “You’ve got to buy us some time,” he yells.

  A change in the pitch of his voice indicates he’s talking to someone else when he adds, “We’ve got hostiles inbound. Coming from the aft observation deck. You are clear to engage. I’m rerouting through armament. Extraction point is navigation.”

  Something rushes into the corridor from a side room, turning away from them, not seeing them in the shadows. Coe-Voy doesn’t hesitate. He fires. The sound is deafening, savaging her ears, causing Dante to grimace at the violence being unleashed in a fraction of a second. Something is someone. Blood splatters along the wall, spraying out from a head wound. A body crumples, falling to its knees before keeling forward. What’s left of the man’s head crashes to the metal grating. Brains ooze out of his shattered skull.

  “I—I don’t understand,” Dante says as Coe-Voy pushes her on, directing her around the body as it twitches on the deck. “These are your men. This is your ship.”

  “Not anymore,” he says, leading her into the armament staging area.

  Row upon row of missiles lie stacked from floor to ceiling. Unlike torpedoes or aircraft missiles, they’re box-shaped, having no need for aerodynamics in space. At a guess, Dante figures what little shape they have is more for efficient storage than any actual flight dynamics. No effort has been made to seal the components in any kind of protective shell. Instead, fuel cells and propellent tanks are visible within a thin metal frame, with reaction controls mounted on either side. The only way to determine which way the missiles are facing is by the large engine nozzle at one end. Biological warning symbols adorned the various warheads, which surprises her. She’s never seen anything like this.

  Shots ring out, causing her to wince.

  “We’re on your six,” Coe-Voy says to someone somewhere ahead of them. Dante’s still trying to figure out where the shots are coming from as the thunderclaps echo around them. It takes her a moment to realize the shots aren’t directed at them.

  “This way,” Coe-Voy says. He shifts her around, wanting more control of her motion. Coe-Voy’s got a firm grip on her, wrapping his arm over her back and under her armpit. As he’s bigger, stronger and taller than her, he tends to lift rather than lead her, dragging her through the bowels of the warship.

  “What’s happening?” she asks.

  “We’re flanking them,” he says, squeezing her tight against his slick spacesuit, keeping his gun out in front of him. “Jonesy is pinned down. Stay here.”

  Coe-Voy pushes Dante to the ground. She doesn’t need much encouragement. Her weak legs crumple beneath her. Peering around the corner, Coe-Voy steadies his aim, leaning against one of the missiles and firing a volley of shots.

  “Go. Go. Go,” he yells, and for a moment, she thinks he’s talking to her. Dante struggles to get to her feet, pulling on the frame of a missile as her legs tremble beneath her. She’s expecting him to grab her, but he’s talking to someone else ahead of them. “Then leave him. I’ve got one. Go! Get back to the dock.”

  “Who?” she asks, grabbing at his arm, instinctively understanding something has gone horribly wrong.

  “One of the men,” Coe-Voy replies, not naming him probably because he doesn’t know himself. He simply says, “Damn mule won’t follow orders.”

  Dante pushes between Coe-Voy and the missile rack, wanting to see what’s happening. Two other rescuers are about eight rows ahead of them, arguing with someone standing out of sight. From where she is, Dante can see aging hands jabbing at them, pushing them away. As they jostle, one of the crew from the Acheron comes into view.

  Benson.

  He’s old and stooped, with a hunch where his spine has deformed just below his shoulders. Alien implants hang from his back, still oozing nutrient and slime and whatever else kept him alive all these years. His body is ghostly white, while his arms look frail, with flabby skin hanging from the bones. Like her, he’s naked. One of the rescuers is appealing to him to remain calm, the other is prepping some kind of medical device, probably a tranquilizer.

  “Benson!” she yells. “Go with them.”

  Benson turns, looking at her but not recognizing her. He’s perplexed. He steps out into the walkway as the two rescuers crouch beside some equipment, trying to stay behind cover. Gloved hands grab at his wrist, but he pulls away.

  Two pencil-thin pulses of light cut through the air, causing it to glow for a second as plasma bolts form like lightning, lashing out at the rescuers. One hits high on the back of a helmet, slicing through it as though it were tissue paper. Blood sprays out from within the glass dome, dotting the inside of the visor with a fine red mist. The other strikes the second member of the rescue team, hitting him in the back and bursting out of his chest. With his suit punctured, blood erupts from the man’s exposed rib cage, spraying the missile rack. He falls to his knees and then to the floor as Benson wanders on oblivious, lost in the haze of waking onboard the dreadnaught.

  “Benson, get down!” Dante yells as Coe-Voy pushes her roughly behind him, shifting to the other side of the corridor, wanting to find better cover.

  “Please,” she says, with her eyes locked on Benson. For his part, he’s oblivious to the carnage around him. He steps over the outstretched arm of one of the fallen rescuers, smiling with a strange, dislocated sense of relief at seeing Dante. A brilliant, blue-white beam of light cuts through his chest, coming from behind his shoulder blade and bursting out of his sternum. Benson looks down at the gaping wound and seared, smoldering fle
sh. Smoke drifts from his chest. He’s caught in disbelief, unable to comprehend what has happened. His lips move as he tries to vocalize, but no sounds come out. He wants to step forward, but his legs betray him. He looks up at Dante with a plea for mercy in his eyes, but there’s nothing she can do.

  Benson collapses slowly to the deck. Rather than falling flat on the ground like the others, he crumples like a marionette with its strings cut. His arms flay out wide as he folds over, falling face first. Benson comes to rest with his knees pointing down at the deck and his hip up in the air. Blood seeps from a twisted pile of skin and bones. There’s no movement.

  A knot rises in Dante’s throat, choking her. Tears form. Her frail, naked body trembles. Dante sobs, overwhelmed at the loss of her friend. She struggles to understand what just happened. The sheer pace of events is overwhelming.

  “I—I can’t,” she says, looking past the thin glass visor and locking eyes with Coe-Voy, wanting to rush to Benson’s side if not to offer medical assistance then to grieve. “I can’t go on.”

  Coe-Voy is solemn but firm. “We have to keep moving.”

  Dante’s lips tremble but she can’t speak. Words simply refuse to form regardless of how hard she tries. She mumbles. Saliva seeps from the corner of her mouth.

  A soldier runs into view, but he’s not wearing a spacesuit, being dressed in what appears to be this century’s version of combat fatigues. Instead of jungle camouflage, he’s wearing a disruptive set of crisscrossed thick stripes in a variety of grey shades, perhaps to make him difficult to distinguish in the shadows. Smoke drifts from the barrel of his rifle. He crouches, checking the bodies.

  Coe-Voy doesn’t hesitate. With a single shot, he blows the man’s head off. Coe-Voy’s round must hit in the center of the man’s skull as his head seems to vaporize into a red cloud. Blood oozes from the cauterized neck of the soldier as he collapses next to Benson.

  Dante’s in shock at the sheer scale and speed of the violence unfolding before her. Coe-Voy pushes her down a side row. The barrel of his gun is near her arm, radiating heat.

  “Got to go,” he says, shoving Dante ahead of him.