by S. J. Madill
"They're not going back to Earth," said Dillon. "They're looking to get away. What about the other two?"
"Both systems were mapped in Survey Twelve, sir. Named Twelve-Delta and Twelve-India. Both have one world with breathable atmosphere, but only Delta is habitable."
"Any colonies on Delta?"
"No, sir. Not currently. It used to have a mining colony, abandoned fifty years ago."
"Well," said Dillon. "Only one place marked habitable. I think that's where our kids are headed. Thoughts?"
Kalla held up her display, showing data for the two systems. "Looks good to me, sir."
The Chief shrugged. "I'm always in favour of going to places where we don't die, sir."
Dillon looked at Tremblay, who seemed surprised to be solicited for his opinion. "Aye, sir. Delta sounds the most likely."
"Sir!" said the sensors technician. "Tango Two just disappeared. Went to FTL, sir."
Dillon stuck the end of his pen in his mouth. "Hmm. I wonder if Mister Missile has figured out the same thing we have. We might meet them at Delta, so be ready for that. Helm, lay in a course to Twelve-Delta, and get us underway."
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ontelis rode the elevator up the side of the Great Dome, his eyes fixed on the half-open scroll he held in his hand. The same images played over and over, every few seconds repeating. The text of the reports was the same every time he read it; but he kept rereading it all the same, as if hoping that the facts would somehow change.
Behind him, through the narrow transparent windows of the elevator, the grounds of the Temple continued to fall farther away. The sky was growing dark blue as if bruised and battered by the storm looming nearer in the sky. The faint hope of an early spring, in the thin shoots of grass down below, was about to be silenced under another thick blanket of suffocating snow.
The elevator stopped, and the door opened to the Chapel of the Pentarchs.
The other four were already there. He had been slow in arriving, his speed sapped away by his mood. Another conversation he didn't want to have, with people he didn't want to see, about truths no one wanted to face.
The backs of the other Pentarchs were turned to him, all of the council members facing the far end of the room. The same images as on his scroll were playing on the wall, larger-than-life views of one disaster after another.
The great Balhammis half-turned at the sound of the elevator, giving Ontelis a brief nod.
Ontelis nodded back, walking slowly across the floor. He had caught himself shuffling earlier, dragging his feet as he paced the length of his office, and now made a point of walking more carefully.
"Grim news," said Balhammis.
"It is," said Ontelis. "We almost had them. Do we know if—"
Balhammis had turned back toward the large display. Again and again, they watched the same ship emerge from dilapidated human space station, before erupting in a massive fireball. "They bought passage on that ship," said Balhammis, his deep voice rumbling and impassive. "And then it exploded."
Pentarch Threnia turned toward the giant, her face was flush with blue; Ontelis could see the barely-contained anger in her eyes, and heard the tightness in her voice. "Were they on the ship, Balhammis, or not? After the explosion, did anyone find—"
"After the explosion, Pentarch Threnia," interrupted Balhammis, "there was complete chaos on the station. Wreckage from the Bezod ship struck the dock area, causing additional death and destruction. We have lost contact with all our agents on the station except one: they have not yet been able to confirm whether the Elanasal and the human were on the ship."
Ivenna's smooth white head was turned up toward the display, a smile on her face. "No," she said. Ontelis thought she sounded half asleep. "No," she repeated. "The Most Holy was not aboard. He cannot have been. The Divines protected him."
"I hope so," whispered Ontelis. If humans killed the Elanasal Palani… He shook his head; he needed to stop thinking about that. "I have heard from Ambassador Estelia. The Exile and Commander Dillon believe the prophet is still alive, and are still pursuing him."
Threnia scoffed out loud, gesturing at the screen. "It matters not," she said.
On the wall of the chapel, the images changed. A serious-looking human government official, his hands white as he clutched at a podium, was denouncing the Palani people as a whole. Ontelis had learned the English language used by the humans — ridiculous as it was — and the other Pentarch had studied it, as well. But even without knowing the language, the messages were clear enough. The Pentarch were now referred to as a 'repressive theocratic regime' by the human defence minister. Another commentator called them a 'criminal junta' whose actions were 'thuggish and uncivilised' in eliminating illegal human colonies.
Ontelis felt his ire rising, in spite of himself. Thugs? Uncivilised? The Palani had already been in space for a thousand years before they found the humans. On their first discreet visit, the most 'civilised' of the human cultures were building giant stone pyramids to help their kings safely reach the afterlife. While the Palani explored the cosmos, bringing art and culture to the endless void, the humans lived in squalor, the strong and powerful using violence to subjugate and enslave the weak.
His shoulders felt unnaturally heavy. He reached up his fingers to pinch at the bridge of his nose. How his head ached, how his heart ached for what was to come.
Ontelis watched as new images showed on the giant displays. Streets on human planets, filled with noisy protesting people, waving placards calling for violence against the Palani. Some of the signs — some poorly written in Palani script — denounced the Palani people and called on them to overthrow the Pentarch. Racist chants filled the air over the sound of yelling and the wail of police sirens.
After a few long moments, Threnia gestured again, and the chapel went quiet. The room fell into silence, even as the hate-filled human faces continued to shout at them through the display.
Balhammis turned his head to look down at Ontelis. "Have the human governments responded to your attempts to communicate?"
Ontelis smiled up at his old friend. There was sadness in the giant's eyes. He gave a pained smile in return; a wordless apology to the giant. Ontelis shook his head. "No, Balhammis."
Pentarch Threnia stepped in front of the display, turning to face the rest of the Pentarch. "The humans," she said, an angry tension in her voice, "are becoming increasingly toxic and hostile. It would be foolish to hold out much hope for peace." Her eyes went to each of them in turn, to emphasise her point. When her eyes met Ontelis', he saw pity in them. That made it worse; that made his failure seem complete. When your opponent pities you, how poorly have you done?
Threnia must have seen something in his eyes, because her tone abruptly softened. "I regret this situation. But in order to protect our people from the threat of human aggression, I propose that we begin an emergency mobilisation. All available funds must be diverted to ensure that we can prepare as many ships as possible, to defend the home worlds." She looked around again, this time avoiding Ontelis' eyes. "Are we agreed?"
One by one, the others agreed, leaving only Ontelis. His eyes were back on the display, seeing the same angry human faces shouting at the camera, holding the same cruel messages on their signs. The Palani people would have seen these images. Those who hadn't, soon would. They would see the hatred in the humans' eyes, and they would feel afraid.
"I approve," he said quietly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
"How long now?" asked Heather.
Elan heard the fatigue in her voice. He felt it too. At least he thought he did; everything had become a little uncertain in his mind.
Heather had turned the pilot's seat to the left, facing the same display he'd been staring at on the wall. He sat on the floor beside her chair, leaning against the opposite wall, hugging his knees to his chest.
He struggled to focus on the display. Sleep was beckoning his mind, but his heart was pounding in his chest and it was unsettl
ing. He vaguely knew it all had to do with the loss of life support; that there was too much carbon dioxide in the shuttle's air. There was a name for it in the human language, but he couldn't remember it.
Right, he thought. The time. Heather asked about the time.
Putting one hand on Heather's arm, he pulled himself forward to study the screen. "About a minute," he said. He leaned back.
"Thank god," said Heather. She was slumped in the chair, head bobbed to one side, her eyes closed. "This has been the longest six hours of my life." She paused, and Elan saw her jaw moving as if she were chewing on something. "No offence," she said, "it's not the company. It's just…" she trailed off, not bothering to finish her sentence.
"Oh," he said out loud. "A minute. Better sit up." He grabbed at the arm of her chair, pushing her arm aside, and pulled himself all the way to his feet. The effort left him panting, his heart thundering in his ears. "C'mon," he said, pushing at the pilot's seat. "Turn back to face the front. You'll have to do pilot stuff."
"Yeah," she said, shifting herself in the seat. With the whirr of a motor, the pilot's chair turned back to face the controls. As soon as it stopped, there was a jolt and a yelp from Heather as the seat harness tightened, forcing her upright, back against the seat. "Whoa," she said, "I'm awake now. This chair is evil." He saw her scanning the console in front of her. "So which planet are we going to land on?"
He knew the information by heart. There had been plenty of time to study the sparse data in the ship's navigation system. It called itself a 'planetary database', but that was generous in the extreme. The system they approached was known as 'Survey Twelve India'. He expected his own people had once given it a different, equally romantic name, millennia ago.
There was one world in the so-called 'habitable zone', where water could be found in liquid state on the surface. Not too hot, not too cold. According to the database, the atmosphere was safe to breathe, and thus suitable for refreshing a ship's air supply. Yet it was specifically listed as 'not inhabitable', which he didn't understand. If it had safe air and liquid water, why would it be uninhabitable? "The second one," he said. "We want to land on the second one."
"Got it," said Heather. She was shaking her head and clenching her hands, probably trying to wake herself up enough to land the ship.
He held onto the back of the pilot's seat, reaching forward to tug at the harnesses. "You strapped in tight?" he asked.
"Yeah, very much," said Heather, slowly turning her head to look at the straps. "Where the seat goes, I go." She craned her neck, trying to see him. "What about you?"
He knew she'd ask, and he knew he didn't have a good answer. It was a one-person craft, after all; it wasn't intended to take passengers. Anything more than a gentle bump, and he might become a projectile inside the ship.
"Right here," he said, hoping he sounded confident. Behind the pilot's seat, on the wall where he'd been leaning, were two folding shelves for small cargo containers. If he curled himself in a ball, he might fit on one of them. The fronts of the shelves had some fabric cargo netting, intended to keep containers from shifting. "If I tangle myself in the netting," he said hopefully, "I should be fine."
"You sure?"
He couldn't keep it up. "No," he admitted. "But it's the best there is."
"Elan?" Now he could hear the worry in her voice. "Come here. Let me see you."
Elan put one hand on the chair's headrest, and the other high on the cockpit window as he leaned forward around Heather's side.
The chair had pulled its straps tight, holding her fast against the seat. "I can barely move," she said, twisting her head, looking for him. Her face and hair were dirty, and she still wore the same battered jacket and clothes they'd acquired on the station. "Hey," said Elan.
"Hey, yourself." She managed a smile. "A month ago, my life was pretty dull. Now look at me. I gotta land a stolen shuttle on an alien world, or else me and my alien boyfriend — and our child — are going to die." She had a lopsided grin on her face. "Not bad, huh?"
He wasn't sure what to make of that. Her face had somehow become unreadable. "Regrets?" he asked.
"Hell, yes," she said without hesitation. "I should've met you sooner." Her grin turned wistful. "And we should've made out more."
Elan laughed in spite of himself. A month ago, he would've said his life was dull, too. Worse than dull. Everything had been scripted, routine, and safe. And now… he leaned forward, putting one hand on Heather's face, and his lips against hers. She kissed him back, desperation behind the intense human heat of her lips.
With a flash of light and a winding down of the ship's engines, they emerged from FTL travel. The right side of the cockpit windows was filled by a blue-white wall of furious light, its radiance flooding the small ship's interior. "Ack," said Heather, pulling away from him. "Star. So where's the second planet?"
Elan leaned back against the wall of the cockpit, as Heather eased the stick to one side and the ship rotated away from the star. "Oh my god," she breathed.
Like a giant eyeball in space, the planet stared at the star behind them. A circular blue ocean was at its centre, blue rivers running toward it like veins. White clouds swirled away from the ocean, stretching across barren brown ground toward the horizon. A ring of ice rimmed the planet, hints of frozen storms at its edges.
"Oh," said Elan. "It's tidally locked. Same side always facing the star. One side an eternal furnace, the other side eternally frozen."
Heather shook her head. "That's the creepiest thing I've even seen. So where do we land? On the day side?"
"No," said Elan. "I don't think so. Look at those storms. The ocean is constantly boiling off, the clouds headed to the dusk, where they rain down and the water flows back. Somewhere at the edge, I think." He turned his attention back to the display, one hand grasping a rail as the other began to poke at the screen. There must be a way to coax more information out of the computer, he thought. Surface temperatures, dangerous areas. "I bet the winds will be crazy. Probably blowing away from the ocean at higher altitude—"
"Yeah," said Heather, gently steering toward the planet. "And blowing back into the eye farther down. This is going to suck."
"I know," he said, as a red warning stripe appeared on the display. He froze when he saw it, and his stomach turned to lead. "By the Divines," he breathed, his voice barely a whisper. "It's that ship. The same one that—"
Another warning appeared, this one with a familiar countdown timer. "They've fired a missile again, Heather."
Last time, when the other ship had fired on them, Heather had been a nervous bundle of panic. But not now, he noticed. She sighed, and the sound of it unsettled him. "I'm sorry, Elan. I'm just…"
He felt it, too: a the feeling of unexpected calm. Even panic eluded him, despite the increasingly shrill bleating from the ship's computer. Elan calmly folded down the cargo shelves and climbed into the middle one. "Do what you can, Heather. I trust you." He curled himself up, feeding his arms and legs through the gaps in the cargo net.
Heather's voice was quiet against the alarms, but he heard her words clearly: "I love you, Elan."
His heart jumped into his throat. Elan realised he'd never told her how he felt; he'd never said the words out loud. He wished there had been more chances for them, more time. "I love you too, Heather."
The cockpit was suffused with an angry red glow. Quivering licks of fire surrounded the ship as it started to enter the planet's atmosphere. Elan found himself watching the beautiful flames writhing around the cockpit windows. Thoughts fell away from his mind one by one, leaving him feeling at peace in a way he'd never known before. When the ship suddenly lurched, he didn't feel scared. The cacophony of warning sounds was muffled by a deafening roar, as the flames outside the window billowed and twisted as the craft began to tumble. Beyond, he could see the brownish mass of the planet's barren continent, its rivers headed toward a boiling sea, then the star soared into view, before leaving again as they rolled toward the
planet once more.
The ship rocked and shook violently, as the dark side of the planet loomed closer and closer. They tumbled toward the frozen land of shadow; the only movement he could focus on was Heather's right hand, twisting the stick from side to side as her hair swept about her head. He couldn't tell if she still had control, but she hadn't given in. She hadn't surrendered, not even as the ship spun like a top, descending closer to the planet's permanent land of dusk.
The ramp at the rear of the ship popped open and was promptly wrenched away. A pounding fist of air shoved its way into the interior. Elan took a breath of frigid air, then another, and it all came into focus for him. The ground rushing up towards them, the howling of the wind. Panic immediately rose in his stomach.
On the first bounce, which he barely felt, the far wall of the ship caved in, its display shattering and spraying plastic debris everywhere.
On the second bounce, the rear of the ship was shoved in. The cargo net tore and he was violently thrown from the shelf. A spray of icy water splashed the cockpit from below, as a deafening blast of icy air came in from above. His last thought was of home. He dreamt about showing Heather the beauty of a Palani winter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
"Six and a half hours," said Dillon, chomping on his pen. "They should have been here by now."
He saw the Chief nod, but she didn't look up from the supervisory console. Once they'd started the trip to planet Delta, Dillon had retired to his cabin for a few hours of rest. The trip would only take the Borealis two hours, but it would take six for a standard Juliett-class ship. An hour before the Juliett was due to arrive, he'd got back up, had breakfast in the wardroom, then sent Tremblay and the XO to their bunks.
The Chief, of course, had remained on duty the entire time. She claimed that running for days without sleep was a special skill taught to new ships' chiefs. Maybe so, but he knew caffeine also had something to do with it. She consumed more coffee than anyone else on the ship, which was saying something. He thought of his friend Sap, the red-skinned Dosh who had taken such an unexpected liking to it. Who would've guessed that coffee was dangerously addictive to Dosh? It wasn't as bad as Jaljal brandy, that caused immediate liver failure in humans, but still, these little cultural minefields kept coming along and complicating relations between races. Like a Palani prophet getting a human girl pregnant. He shook his head. Goddamn it, what a mess it had all become.