by Dan Worth
‘So I gather. This place has quite a reputation, and there seem to be plenty of locals here, which is generally a good sign.’ He glanced over the side and watched the brightly lit buildings on the riverbank slide slowly past.
‘It certainly beats eating ship’s supplies doesn’t it?’
‘No kidding, if I ever have that stew again it’ll be too soon.’
‘You think the galley staff would mind their captain setting the menu?’
‘What if they didn’t have a choice?’
‘Now there’s a thought. Maybe I should issue an order for more culinary variety,’ she laughed.
They studied the menu for a while and ordered the wine and food, then talked some more about work whilst they waited. The starters arrived and the conversation lulled whilst Ramirez and Chen tucked into their dishes. The food was good, utilising ingredients from all over the Commonwealth. It was surprisingly generously portioned too which, Ramirez noted wryly, was just as well when he considered how much this meal was costing him. He was still unsure if this was a date or not. Chen had noticed his silence and his thoughtful expression.
‘Something the matter, Al?’
He gave a short laugh and looked at her. ‘I was just thinking. Michelle, you’re a bit of an enigma you know that? I still can’t figure out what makes you tick.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I can be a little remote at times. Please don’t take it personally, that’s just me. It’s the way I am.’
‘You just, well, you don’t seem to let your guard down very often that’s all. I realised the other day that apart from work I don’t actually know that much about you.’
She stared down at her plate and fiddled with a piece of uneaten salad with her fork.
‘Well, I suppose part of it is just because of my job. Being in command I have a certain image to cultivate you know? But part of it is, I suppose, I’m scared of getting hurt if I get too close to anyone. I was never popular when I was young; too snotty and too much of a workaholic I think, so I tended to insulate myself from the world. I did let someone in once before, hell we almost got married, but that ended badly.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘Ah well, it was my own fault really. He was an idiot, and I couldn’t see it I was so desperate to make it work. I bet you have them queuing up though, hmm?’
‘Well you know I’m too much of a gentleman to possibly comment,’ he joked.
‘I know all about you Alvaro Ramirez, and about you and Ensign Williams and the borrowed shuttle,’ said Chen and winked at him.
‘Oh dear God. You knew about that?’ said Ramirez and gave an embarrassed laugh.
‘I’m the captain. I make it my business to hear things. Also, Lieutenant Singh is very vigilant when it comes to keeping an eye on his sensor readings, even when we’re docked,’ she chuckled and took a mouthful of her wine. ‘It made his day I can tell you.’
‘You didn’t think of reporting either of us?’
‘Well, no. No-one else needed to know, I think Baljit kept it to himself and why would I want to needlessly get rid of two capable crew members?’
‘Thanks.’
‘I told you before. I’d have been lost without you these past few months.’
‘So you did Michelle.’
‘You’re a good man Al, a friend as well as a trusted colleague.’ Her hand brushed his.
‘Well I... thank you.’ She is paying me a lot of compliments tonight, thought Ramirez, and that’s only her first glass.
‘Now wipe that sauce off your new tie before the waiter arrives.’
‘Oh hell,’ he said and dabbed at the red blob already soaking into the silk.
The Tiber Swan docked just upstream from the falls to allow its guests to depart. There was a fleet of taxis awaiting its arrival, but for Chen and Ramirez it within walking distance of the hotel. She took his arm and he escorted her the short distance back to the Falls Tier and thence to her room. She unlocked the door and beckoned him in.
‘Al, do you want to see the view? It cost me an extra thirty credits a night so I might as well share it.’
‘Alright, why not,’ he mumbled and followed her inside.
She took him by the hand and led him onto the balcony and its panoramic view of the falls, the river and the glowing outlines of the city’s towers.
‘Thanks for a lovely evening Al.’ she said. ‘That was fun. I needed that.’
‘My pleasure, honestly Michelle.’
‘I had a wonderful time thanks to you,’ she said, then leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. She smelt of perfume and the wine they had drunk earlier. She took his arm and they stood and looked at the view for a moment. He noticed that she was trembling slightly.
‘Michelle what’s the matter?’
‘You were right, you know. Haines has picked me to start a war for him. I have to think of a way for us to get through this in one piece.’ She turned to look him straight in the eye. ‘Now I’ll need you more than ever.’
She leant forward and kissed him full on the lips.
‘I hope you don’t mind Al,’ she murmured.
‘No, not at all,’ he said then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer.
Chapter 9
The cabin was in shadow. Katherine sat with the data pad on a small fold-down table and read the log voraciously. Despite Maranos’s ever- present daytime, the train and its occupants were plunged into near darkness.
They were in the deep desert, having travelled south some two thousand kilometres through a landscape which had become progressively dryer and harsher. Jungle had given way to temperate forest, then to rolling plains of low vegetation, then to dry brown scrubland and thence to desert - and what a desert!
It was a seemingly endless sea of dust and sand, blasted rock and searing, unrelenting heat, against which the carriage’s air conditioning struggled. The train thundered on over windswept flats, boulder fields, dust basins and mile upon mile of rolling dunes, its energised sand plough and slipstream generating a rising gritty cloud that swept up from the track in its wake.
They saw few living things. The tracks followed the route of the old desert pilgrim road that snaked from oasis to oasis, from one dusty collection of dwellings to another. Anyone with the money now took the train and few animals of any great size inhabited this region. For the past two days now they had been crossing a region known as the Alreda Sea; an elongated bowl the size of a nation, like a gigantic thumbprint on the face of the world. Where the pilgrim road had skirted this region, the bold architects of the railway had gone straight across - the tracks supported on sturdy A shaped stanchions that were anchored to the bedrock.
The Alreda Sea was aptly named: it was filled with dust to a depth, it was believed, of several kilometres in places. The dust was so fine that it flowed like water and would likewise drown anything that fell into it. Like all seas it had its fair share of storms; cyclones of airborne dust that germinated at the sea’s centre and swept outward, depositing tonnes of fine particles upon the surrounding areas, and occasionally revealing the mummified remains of luckless travellers and animals lost centuries before.
A storm such as this was at its height just now. Having blown up several days earlier, it had grown to cover hundreds of square kilometres. The train, immune to its effects, had plunged straight into the heart of it. The view from its windows now consisted solely of a boiling mass of brown that swept past the carriages at breakneck speed.
Katherine sat and watched the swirling dust from time to time. The view was vaguely hypnotic; dark swirling patterns of twilight and darkness were lit occasionally by violent flashes of lightning, generated by the friction between the airborne particles, which for brief instances highlighted the structures within the clouds. Dust accumulated on and around the windows, until the drifts grew too big and they were swept away by the rushing air.
The darkness had subdued everyone. Rekkid sat in his cabin, cramming Dendratha religion and cult
ure. Steven spent most of his time on the observation deck reading one of the books he had stored on his data pad or watching the storm. For Katherine it was an ideal opportunity to read some more of the ship’s log, it provided more than an ample diversion.
She started at the beginning. As Rekkid had already told her, most of the early entries were remarkable only for their age, concerning routine details of life aboard ship. She followed the Khostun’s tour of duty beyond the Empire’s borders and her crew’s decision upon their return to side with the reactionary forces under the command of the staunch imperialist, Sky General Vostick.
Katherine even watched the few video recordings that had been stored in the log’s memory banks. It was impossible to understand them. Quickchild had been unable to translate the soundtracks, since it was not able to correlate pronunciations with the written records without further sources of reference. But Katherine watched the recordings anyway purely out of curiosity. Cortill and his crew looked remarkably similar to Rekkid, though they were more stockily built and slightly more hirsute.
It had been their bodies that they had found aboard the wreck. Their dead faces had been frozen and desiccated beyond immediate recognition, but she recognised the pips and markings on their uniforms. She found the recording eerie. Katherine had seen many ancient corpses in her time, but few had come back from the grave to haunt her quite so vividly. Cortill seemed quite an energetic and enthusiastic person, especially in the earlier recordings. She imagined she could see why he inspired such loyalty in his crew. She felt some sorrow at him having met an untimely fate.
The later recordings were rather different. They were filmed in poor light and Cortill looked drawn and partially starved. He seemed under a great deal of stress and wept openly on one entry. Katherine could only guess at the reasons, but no doubt he was about to face the end that she knew awaited them all, whatever it had been. With a sense of melancholia she returned to the written entries, marking a few of particular interest as she went.
65.2/07/6781
Sixty two worlds have now been purged of traitors. ‘Excising the cancerous growth to maintain the healthy body’ Vostick calls it. I myself am not so sure. Such extreme measures seem unnecessary and barbarous. A number of the crew share my suspicions. This war is going too far. We hear that anarchy now reigns in a number of core systems and that the rule of law has broken down completely. There are rumours that in desperation, starving Arkari feed on Arkari in those systems cut off from the core worlds by the fighting. Tomorrow we go into battle once more against the rebels to seize their primary base in the Vansithra belt. We have good intelligence that indicates that their fleet is scattered elsewhere and Vostick has massed the greater bulk of our fleet to strike at it.
78.3/07/6781
The intelligence we received was false. We walked straight into an enemy trap. Upon our arrival at the Vansithra base we jumped straight into the midst of a mine field, losing the flagship and Sky General Vostick within the first moments as well as a number of other vessels. Disorganised and panicked we could offer little resistance when the enemy fleet fell upon us and routed our forces. It was only with luck that the Khostun avoided the worst of their attentions. We managed to turn the ship around and jump out of the system. I commended my crew for their good conduct, but I fear our cause is lost. Our leader is gone and a significant proportion of our forces have been wiped out.
43.2/09/6781
The war continues to go badly for us. Without Vostick’s leadership we are diminished. Every battle we fight is at best a rearguard action, at worst a suicidal bloodbath. Today we attempted to defend the Rirgant system and were overwhelmed in a matter of hours. Captain Karseir rammed her vessel into the lead enemy destroyer. It was a brave but ultimately pointless act. They have many more destroyers, whereas we have a precious few. We have retreated to the rallying point in the Vinnra system for repair to our forward batteries.
54.1/10/6781
We are on the run once more. Vinnra has been overrun with enemy ships. We were lucky to escape the surprise attack and slipped the noose before it could be pulled tight around us. We suffered some damage to our rear manoeuvring thrusters. Our technical adepts are attempting a workaround.
2.7/01/6782
Still no end in sight. We are in full retreat towards the [north-eastern] sectors. The enemy seems to be corralling us into an ever smaller area of space. Perhaps we can make a stand, though I suspect they are trying to drive us into one place in order to kill us all.
We received notification that the [Senate] or what remains of it, held a lengthy session in which we were officially pronounced war criminals and enemies of the Empire. It seems that we have little chance of any mercy if we surrender. Reportedly, the death toll from this war now exceeds forty trillion and evidently we will be made to pay personally. We have heard that our families have been rounded up and deported aboard transport barges. What is to become of us loyal Arkari? Are we all to be slaughtered? I thought of my wife last night, I have not seen her for nearly three years now and I now wonder if I ever shall. The morale of the crew is at its breaking point, as is mine.
-Attached File-
Arkari Imperial Senate – Official Declaration on the Rules of War Regarding the Militarists
It is the ruling of this Senate that those Arkari who have defied the wishes of the elected government of the Empire, who have acted against the interests of the Empire and its citizens and subjects and who have committed numerous despicable acts of unprecedented barbarity, shall be deemed war criminals and enemies of the Arkari Imperium. Unless a general unconditional surrender is reached they are to be given no quarter. They and their families are to be purged from the Empire forthwith.
Astani Durdino, Pro Consul to the Emperor Viritan Argentil. 1.3/01/6782
34.02/01/6782
It seems a number of vessels have refused to surrender despite the warnings given. All were destroyed on sight by government forces. We are still being driven before the fleet and our numbers are dwindling.
44.09/01/6782
The end has come at last. We received word last night from our own remaining commanders that we are to surrender unconditionally. It is with bitterness that we must accept this. All we have fought and died for has been in vain and there is worse to come. Upon surrendering we are to proceed to the [north-eastern] borders of the Empire, or what is left of it. There we are to be banished from that which we tried to save. We hear rumours - that some kind of portal has been reactivated, an ancient device of unknown alien origin, and into it we are to be cast. To what fate we do not know.
I told the crew, they took the news better than I had hoped. Many refuse to give in: they believe we can still save ourselves. Perhaps they are right.
23.10/01/6782
We received two transmissions today. The first was from the enemy Dreadnought Kanthishu, demanding our surrender. With a heavy heart I complied. They will monitor us as we proceed to the designated co-ordinates of our sentence.
The second transmission came from my old friend Urtiss. Though we fought on opposite sides he still wished to speak with me. Our conversation was awkward, though dare I say emotional. He also sent me a recording of what awaits us. He said that he owed me that much for our long years of comradeship, despite everything.
There was an icon inserted into the text denoting a link to another file. Katherine selected it. A recording appeared on the screen. It appeared to show two suns; one close to the camera, the other further away at an angle. There was an unusual cross shape of light between the two, its two longest arms pointing at each star. Katherine zoomed in on the strange pattern of light, but there was too much glare and the image was of too poor a resolution to determine what it was. She pulled back again to study the whole picture.
The background stars looked odd too, there seemed to be far too great a number of them. Now she could see that many of them were moving, she zoomed in on some of the dots; they weren’t stars, they were ships. Warship
s: thousands of them. A convoy of lights appeared to be heading for the cross formation, flanked by a great number of larger vessels. One tried to break away. As it did so a beam of light suddenly leapt from one of the escorts, causing the wayward ship to tumble lazily before exploding.
There was a series of galactic co-ordinates and a system name attached. Quickchild’s translation had helpfully transposed these into the modern equivalents. The footage had been taken in the Fulan system. Katherine gazed at it in amazement, wondering at the coincidence.
The door opened suddenly; Katherine had forgotten to lock it. She hurriedly closed the data pad. Steven poked his head around the door.
‘Ever heard of knocking?’ she said testily.
‘I oh, ah sorry. Umm there you are.’
‘Yes, so it seems.’
‘I… uh, was just off the dining car for a drink. I wondered if you wanted to come, but if you’re working well…’
‘No, no actually I could do with a drink. I’ve been at this for a few hours now.’
‘What are you reading?’
‘Oh, it’s stuff about the dig really. Local history. Religion and stuff.’ Hurriedly, she packed away her piles of notes and the data pad before he could see them and stepped out in into the corridor.
‘Yeah, Rekkid’s all wrapped up in that,’ said Steven. ‘I couldn’t coax him away from it. I said did he want a drink, he asked if I meant an alcoholic one. When I said no he told me to bugger off and buried his nose in his notes again.’