Zero

by J. S. Collyer

  Hugo swallowed. Without thinking he hunkered down next to the younger man who buried his face in his arms and shook. The adrenaline was ebbing, leaving a cold, empty nothingness behind. He wanted to cry too. And kick. And scream. But he just sat next to Webb as he trembled and stared at the bulkhead without seeing it.

  ɵ

  “Hugo. Hugo wake up.”

  Hugo blinked. The sweet blankness of oblivion fled. His vision blurred and then focused in with a snap that brought with it a crashing wave of pain. He coughed and doubled over, groaning.

  “Shit,” came a familiar voice somewhere close by then hands were on him, sitting him back up. “You fucking moron. Why didn't you say you were hurt?”

  “What's happening?” Hugo gritted. Webb was bent over him, face tight with concern. “Webb, I'm fine. What's going on?”

  “We're being hailed.” He tried for a ghost of his old smile but it came out looking tired and wretched. “Time to face the music?”

  Hugo blinked at him. “I suppose so.”

  Webb nodded and crawled to the escape pod’s control panel. There was a mumbled exchange whilst Hugo blinked at the shadows above him. The pod shuddered and changed course and the Assertion appeared in the viewscreen. Webb made a show of steering though the lock the flagship had on them wouldn't be something he could steer out of if he tried.

  There was a clunk as the pod docked. Webb bent down and got Hugo's arm over his shoulders and they heaved themselves upright just as the doors hissed open. They held each other and staggered into the heaving docking bay.

  “Kaleb,” Harvey rushed over to them. “Are you okay?”

  “What's happening?”

  Harvey shook her head, taking his weight off Webb who she was eyeing warily. “It's not over,” she said. “They're without their leaders now, but Pharos's fleet are Service-idiots born and bred. They'll die rather than be taken under arrest for mutiny. But the Sincerity has broken through the line, more ships are arriving and they're already planning the move into the strip for clean-up.”

  “What about Tranquillity?”

  “The Resolution missed it,” Harvey said. “Just. I heard that the impact took out some of the outlying environment controls, but nothing vital. They'll be able to stabilise.”

  “Good.” Hugo straightened up off Harvey but then leant heavily against the nearest bulkhead. “Webb?”

  Webb was still stood where he had stepped out of the pod, staring around the docking bay. Damaged fighters were crushed in at every available berth and more were arriving. Medics were swarming over the scene, pushing lifter-gurneys and helping pilots down from cockpits. There was blood and burns and bones jutting out of flesh and the air was filled with gasps and cries. The battle could still be seen raging in the distance out of the docking bay’s drift shield and viewscreens. The silent dance of flashes, bursts of flame and the starlight glinting off wreckage seemed to fill all space.

  “Hugo,” Harvey muttered in his ear. “If I were you I'd get yourself patched up by a medic here and get the hell away. Command is after your blood. Both of you.”

  “Oh good,” Hugo murmured. “Glad we're going to get the credit.”

  “I'm serious, Hugo. I could get you out on the Phoenix -”

  “Captain?”

  Hugo turned to see Rami and Bolt approaching. Their flightsuits were rumpled and blackened in patches. Rami's hair was plastered to her forehead and her eyes were red but otherwise she was deathly pale. Bolt looked exhausted and angry.

  “What?” Hugo asked, so sharply that Webb snapped his attention back.

  Rami glanced between them all.

  “What is it, Anita?” Harvey said, voice low.

  “The Zero...” Bolt started, then stopped.

  “What's happened?” Webb said, voice cracking.

  Rami swallowed, glanced at the floor and took a breath. “We lost her.”

  “How?” Hugo breathed after a silence like stone.

  “During the attack on the Resolution,” Bolt intoned. “She went in for the communications matrix just as the stern blew.”

  “More? Sub?” Hugo croaked.

  Rami just shook her head, lips a thin line and hands clenched at her sides.

  “No,” Webb mumbled, looking dazed. He brought his hands up and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. “No...”

  Hugo couldn’t seem to get his breath. Heat surged behind his eyes and he could no longer see the docking bay or anyone in it. The pain from his injuries drifted away like smoke on the wind and all he knew then was a blackness opening inside him that threatened to suck him in.

  He was only vaguely aware of Harvey cursing and stepping in front of him just as armed Service security men hurried up to them, weapons drawn.

  “Don't fucking touch them,” she hissed. “I'm warning you.”

  “Marilyn...” Hugo pulled himself back together enough to stand up straight and lay her hand on her shoulder. She was trembling. “It's okay.”

  “It's not fucking okay,” she cried. “In what way is any of this okay?” She gestured wide with her arm, taking in all the twisted metal, wreckage and the people who were burnt, broken and bleeding.

  “Ma'am” the largest of the security men muttered. “Please step aside. These men are under arrest.”

  Harvey stood shaking a moment longer. “This isn't over,” she whispered.

  “No,” Rami put in, hard eyes on the security men. “No it's not.”

  XXI

  As the lights never went off in the brig and he'd had everything, including his wrist panel, confiscated, Hugo had no idea how long he was there. He lay on the bench and stared at the ceiling for hours. He imagined he could hear the flesh knitting over his shrapnel cuts. He spent hours concentrating on the itch and sting of the cut on his face healing, sinking into the feeling of it so that he wouldn't snap and pound his fists bloody on the white walls.

  Every time he closed his eyes there were explosions and blood. More’s and Sub’s faces flashed in front of him, frozen in drift-rictus or with fire eating flesh from the bone. Sometimes he saw Webb’s face, still and grey with rain running down it like tears as soil was shovelled over the closed eyes. Sometimes it was Kinjo’s, ash-pale with empty, angry eyes.

  In the end he kept his eyes open.

  Undetermined days passed, marked only by his visits from the brig medic and a guard with ration bars and water flasks. Sometimes he overheard the conversations of the Servicemen as they changed shifts outside his cell. LIL was overthrown. Eventually. But it was a long and bitter process. All the loyal Service troopers had been killed or evacuated from the Lunar Strip in the first hours of the revolution. The thousands that were left were Pharos's soldiers and, just as Harvey said, fought to the end. It didn't matter that the Lunar Strip colonists rose up and denounced them. It didn't matter that citizens took up arms and joined the Service in taking down the revolutionists' strongholds. They fought on.

  Lunar 1, the only colony with little Service presence to begin with, was the only colony unaffected, although Hugo heard later that thousands of its colonists went to the aid of the rest of the strip.

  It was drawn out and angry and bloody. And so utterly, utterly pointless that occasionally Hugo was racked with bouts of laughter that made his throat burn and his ribs ache and his eyes stream. Then he would scratch at his healing cuts to bring him back into his body and he would gradually calm and lie and stare at the ceiling again.

  Hugo had a feeling the Service had never intended for his arrest to stand. Even the best efforts of Rami and Harvey wouldn't have got a mutiny charge expunged and yet there came a day when the medic came to scold him again for undoing his stitches and she wasn't alone.

  “Kale,” Giles said once the medic had left. “It's over.”

  Hugo wasn't sure what aspect of his life his brother was referring to, but he felt something shake out of him all the same. With it went a lot of his anger, his fear and his pain until all that was left was a spreading numbness.


  ɵ

  He was back in his uniform and wondered how he had ever come to miss it. It felt restrictive. He stared at the wall over the commanders' heads until someone ordered him to be at ease.

  “Where's Webb?” was the first thing he asked.

  His mother looked to Luscombe who sighed. “Gone. Vanished as soon as we gave him his pardon.”

  Hugo swallowed.

  “Have you been discharged from the medbay?” the special commander asked, frowning at the angry cut on his face.

  “Why am I here?” Hugo said.

  “Sit down, Captain,” she said. Hugo took one of the straight-backed seats in front of the panel of commanders. Luscombe looked tired but a little wary. Wilson sat up straight with his hands clasped on the desk, looking determined. His mother, as usual, he couldn't read at all.

  “We have something important to discuss with you,” she said. Hugo didn’t answer. His mother’s face didn’t change though Luscombe frowned. “The colonel has been going over the history of the Zero project with me,” Special Commander Hugo continued. “It is extensive. And complex. Probably even more so than your time with it allowed you to know.”

  Hugo still didn’t say anything. Part of him wondered where she was going with this but the larger part of him didn’t care and wished they’d send him back to his cell.

  “Captain?” her voice hardened as his silence lengthened.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Are you paying attention?”

  “You’re telling me things I already know,” he said, adding a muttered ‘Ma’am’ when her eyes hardened.

  “Whatever has happened, you’re still an officer, Kaleb Hugo. Please act like it.”

  “I’m still an officer?”

  “Just,” Luscombe grumbled. “Now listen up, will you?”

  Hugo inclined his head slightly, though the numbness making his chest tight did not shift.

  His mother regarded him for a moment longer whilst Wilson looked amongst them all, uncertainty showing in the lines of his face.

  Special Commander Hugo straightened in her chair and continued. “Now, whilst Admiral Pharos concocted the Zero project for her own wayward means -”

  “To keep her own son an unwitting political prisoner.”

  His interruption barely caused his mother to pause, “The principle is still sound,” she said. “In the aftermath of this uprising, the Orbit is only going to get more fractured. We need the Zero -”

  “It's gone,” Hugo said, the numbness in his chest flaring for an instant then dissipating again as quickly as a fireball in a vacuum. “Most of its crew, too.”

  His mother pursed her lips but did not blink. Luscombe fidgeted in his seat, once again shooting him a I-stuck-my-neck-out-for-you glare.

  “I am aware of the losses,” the special commander continued. “But those that remain…you, Lieutenant Rami, Crewman Bolt. Even Dr. Spinn…” She held up her hand. He hadn't been about to say anything but what he thought must have shown on his face. “Between you all, you have years of experience, contacts and... an alternative way of thinking. We need to assimilate the practices of the Zero into the essential functions of the Service. But above-board. Well funded. With proper back up and support.”

  “An official level of the service for undercover operations?” Hugo asked

  “Yes,” replied the special commander.

  “It's a way forward, Hugo,” Luscombe said. “And we want you to to run the show.”

  “It won't work.”

  “Why not?”

  “The only reason the Zero managed what it did is because it wasn't Service. It was in drift. Underground. The crew, the ship. None of them were ever entirely yours.”

  Wilson and Luscombe exchanged glances. His mother kept her heavy gaze on him.

  “So show us,” she said. “Help us understand. We need proper investigation and processes to bring every level of offender to justice. No more loose operatives dealing out death and judgement under the guise of vengeance.”

  “If you're talking about the Splinters -”

  “Hugo,” Luscombe growled, leaning forward. “The Orbit's fucked up. We're fucked up,” the other commanders stiffened but Luscombe bulled on. “I know this probably better than you. But this is the first time the Service has been given a big enough kick up the arse to consider that maybe, yeah, better measures should be in place to monitor and resolve it all. You have a chance to make a real difference here.”

  Hugo stood. “It's not that simple.”

  “Captain Hugo,” Admiral Wilson called just as he reached the door. Hugo turned. The admiral was stood, hands behind his back, eyes open and measured. “I understand you have lost a lot. You may even feel that you have lost your faith.” Hugo looked away, his hand on the door panel, but just stared at the metal. “You don't have to believe me,” Wilson continued, “but I will tell you that I understand. I will also tell you that what you’ve lived through makes you special. It makes you strong.”

  “I don’t feel strong,” Hugo murmured.

  “Those with strength rarely do,” Special Commander Hugo said. “It is something they live with. Carry. It makes them bigger than themselves and gives them reasons not to be defeated, but they don’t always know why.”

  Hugo turned. His mother was looking right at him, as were the other commanders. He finally felt something stir inside him. “My ship and two of my crew are gone. Those that are left have been arrested and re-hired too many times already. My commander…” he swallowed, held Erica Hugo’s gaze and tried again when he could trust his voice. “My commander was betrayed and killed then betrayed again. And all for nothing. This isn’t my fight any more. I don’t know that it ever was.”

  “Kaleb,” his mother stood. Luscombe and Wilson watched her come round the table to stand in front of him. He met her eyes as they searched his, not recognising the look in them. “Fighting for a better future is everyone’s fight.”

  Hugo felt a trembling start to take him from the feet up. He couldn’t find any more words. But his mother never looked away and when she put a hand on his shoulder it was warm. His trembling stilled.

  “I believe in you, son,” she said.

  “The time for taking orders is over for you, Captain Hugo,” Luscombe said after a pause. “Time to start building your own destiny. It’s up to you if you build it just for yourself, or for everyone.”

  Epilogue

  The wine was good. It tasted sweet and light and danced on Hugo’s tongue just as the music from the orchestra rose and fell in his ears and the couples in their fine suits and gowns swung around the polished dance floor. He took another mouthful then tipped his head back and drained the glass earning a reproving look from Harvey.

  “If you pass out I'm not carrying you home,” she mumbled.

  He didn't answer, just carried on staring round the room. “It's wrong, isn't it?”

  “What is?”

  “This,” Hugo said, gesturing around the ball room whilst grabbing another glass of wine from a passing waiter.

  Harvey shrugged. “They want to believe things are changing. Is that so bad?”

  “Things won't change.”

  “They will if you make them,” she said, sliding up next to him. Her hair had grown out long enough to be mustard-coloured once more and was clipped up from her face with diamond slide. Her gown was rich and black and swept the floor but she stood like a spacer and her eyes were wide and open and knowing. It comforted him. She smiled and took his hand then looked back over the ballroom. “So how many people in this room are you related to?”

  Hugo grimaced. “Altogether? About thirty.”

  “Fuck,” she muttered and he felt her hand tighten in his. “Do I have to talk to them?”

  “Don't bother,” he said with a half smile. “I don't.”

  His mother stood near the platform spot-lit from the medal ceremony, resplendent in silver silk, talking with his father and Giles and two more of his brothers. Gil
es saw him looking and raised a glass in his direction. The smile on his face was genuine. Hugo lifted his glass to his brother in return before draining it and grabbing another.

  “If you hurl on my dress I'm never speaking to you again.”

  Hugo smiled, twirling the glass between his fingers and enjoying the burn of the alcohol in his throat. “I think I need some fresh air,” he said. “I'm okay,” he added, seeing the concerned purse of her lips. “I'll be back.”

  “You better be,” Harvey muttered. “I still have no idea how to talk to these Service types.”

  “Relax,” he said, bending in and kissing her on the temple. “You're going to be great at this.”

  She muttered something into her wine glass that he didn't hear. He smiled and strolled away, skirting the edge of the dance floor and moving out the arching doors and onto the terrace. The night breeze was cool and real, like nothing any colony system could replicate. Sydney was a stretch of lights blinking below the glittering bands of the skyways and beyond them, the stars.

  He ambled further down the terrace, trying to get away from the music and climbed a fire escape to the next level of the Memorial Music Hall. He emerged onto a smaller terrace that was dark, the ballroom beyond it locked up and silent. The breeze was even stronger up here and it swept away the cheerful tune from below out into night. Hugo sighed and loosened his collar, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.

  “Nice suit.”

  Hugo started, clutching at the wall. He blinked into the gloom and froze. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was invited,” Webb chuckled, straightening up from where he'd been leant against the fire escape and pacing forward.

  “Invited to the ceremony,” Hugo mumbled. “For your medal. Not to skulk about on the roof and scare me to death.”

  Webb shrugged as he came out into the pale light from the skyways.

  “Funny, isn't it?” he said “They want to give me a medal for the same thing they arrested me for.” His hair had grown long enough to tuck behind his ears. He looked more like the man Hugo remembered first showing him around the Zero, though there was something different. There was more tension in his poise, not so much of the easy grace. His smile was still ready, but it was harder.