by Dan Worth
He was standing in a gallery, a long chamber whose outward face was completely transparent and formed from a single piece of material. Dozens of other Bajenteri stood with him, observing the scene and dressed elaborately, as if for some occasion. The nearest – male - turned to him and spoke.
‘This is going to be some race, huh?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Come on Varish, what’s up with you? One too many, celebrating last night? You should follow my example sometimes and know when to quit!’
‘If I followed your example I’d have gone home with those two dancers and the marriage promises I’ve made would have counted for little,’ Quickchild heard himself say. ‘Tyrunin? Who is this?’
‘Your best friend, Okallik.’
‘He called me “Varish”.’
‘Yes, your name it would seem.’
‘I’d… completely forgotten it. Tyrunin, how could I forget my own name?’
‘A good name too, Varish. It means “lucky warrior”.’
‘It’s who I am. How could I? Damn it!’
‘Hey Varish! Hey!’ Okallik was prodding him. ‘Stop staring at the floor, the race is about to start. You’re not going to puke are you?’
‘Hah, me? Not likely, I’d never hear the last of it from you. Besides, I have a bet on this race: Kirchad to win.’
‘That’s the spirit! Wouldn’t want to miss your ship losing to mine would you?’
Varish looked more closely at the scene outside. Space around the habitat reef was dotted with a series of rotating rings that marked a tortuous course around and through its haphazard structure. A line of small but sleek and powerful looking craft hung in space outside the gallery.
A hushed silence descended upon the assembled throng as a pattern of lights counted down, then flashed to yellow. The craft sped away from the starting line and the assembled spectators went wild with excitement, the action relayed to them via huge holographic displays.
The race looked insanely dangerous. The tiny ships jostled with one another as they wound their way through the pattern of hoops at breakneck speed. Quickchild saw two of the front runners suffer a glancing collision and drop out of the race.
‘Tyrunin, how much of this is from inside my head?’
‘Most of it, I’ve filled in the gaps a bit. Biological memories are notably sketchy and vague on visual detail.’
‘Okallik mentioned me getting married. Any idea who to?’
‘I am still trying to deduce that, alas that section of your memory was more severely corrupted. Please be patient.’
‘Well, I’ve waited longer than the lifespan of some stars so yes, I can be patient.’
‘Perhaps other memories may trigger a reaction from you?’
‘Yes, show me more.’
The scene faded out as Varish’s ship won and Okallik clapped him good naturedly on the shoulder. It was replaced with more squalid surroundings. Varish found himself face down in the mud of a trench, his leg felt wet and painful. Reaching down to examine the source of the pain, his fingers came back stained with his own blood. It was soaked into his uniform, oozing from a wound where a glancing shot had penetrated the armoured greave around his lower leg. The suit itself had been transformed from its original grey into a mish-mash of browns and blacks by the dirt and blood, and it had become pitted and scarred by use. His shaking hands gripped a magnetic rifle of some sort.
The air was filled with noise; energy weapons tore the air, artillery and bombs thudded in the distance with a sound that he felt rather than heard, whilst the deafening crack of orbital laser bombardment could be heard closer by as the air was incinerated by the beams.
The trench was filled with bodies, some alive and huddled, others on the verge of death, others dead and many maimed beyond recognition. The air stank from the corpses and the blood and the acrid smell of burnt chemicals and people.
‘What, what the hell is this? Where are we Tyrunin?’
‘The siege at Trippanak. You were there, during the Belt War. You don’t remember?’
‘No, no I… I don’t think so.’
Tyrunin sighed. ‘I had hoped the memory might awaken primal animal instincts you had long forgotten: fear, terror, the urge to survive, perhaps leading to an awakening of your old persona.’
‘Well you’re correct about the first part - shit!’ Varish threw himself flat as a shell landed nearby, showering him with more mud. ‘What happened here?’
‘The war had been dragging on for some time, it was an old conflict when you were born but the fighting was always remote. You joined up, probably from some misplaced sense of duty or your own foolish youthful aggression. Trippanak had rebelled against us. It was one of the many minor conflicts that preceded the plague and our final collapse.’
‘And?’
‘The initial attempt to seize the capital’s space-port was a disaster. The indigenous population had seized a large quantity of our own weapons and used them against the assault force. You and twenty five thousand other troops were besieged for several weeks and suffered tremendous casualties before a relief force arrived. You were one of the lucky ones, in a manner of speaking.’
‘How did it end?’
‘Like this: watch.’
Varish scrambled to the lip of the trench and peered cautiously over. Assembled a kilometre or so away was a gigantic and very well equipped army consisting of tens of thousands of well dug-in troops, armoured skytransports, AG war platforms, strider tanks and banks of artillery. Raptor flyers swooped above them like hungry birds, darting forward to deliver a volley of ordnance before retreating behind the army’s protective shielding and air defences. Varish gawked at the sea of armour and mechanisation that greeted him. They could have finished this several days ago but they were taking their time, making the defenders suffer as they slowly picked them apart.
A barrage of plasma warheads impacted further down the trench incinerating the living and the dead alike, and even the ground they lay upon in a flash of blinding white. Blood-chilling screams indicated that some had at least temporarily survived the attack. The smell of cooked meat wafted down to Varish’s position. He felt ill from the stench.
A shadow fell upon the scene, Varish looked upwards. Descending over the battlefield was a star shaped ship. Five pointed, its golden hull tens of kilometres across, appeared to shift as if molten. Varish knew in his gut what was coming, he looked up at the vast ship: the energy flickered across its surface was gathering to points of blinding intensity. Then it utterly destroyed the besiegers.
Varish watched as beams of intense, focused energy poured from the ship, raking the ground around their position time and time again. Soldiers and vehicles caught by the onslaught were destroyed in an instant or tossed high in the air, end over end by the shockwaves to land broken upon the ground. The city behind them was pounded into dust, nay atoms, by the ravaging inferno. Rocks, buildings and metal turned molten under the firestorm and all else was blasted to ash. The sound was of such a skull-splitting volume and intensity that his senses could barely comprehend it. Varish felt the bile rising in his throat. In terror he threw himself flat into the mud, instinctively trying to hide, trying to bury himself, hands scrabbling at the slippery loam.
He was experiencing the simulation and reliving the memory at once as he recalled it, his mind living in the present and the past in one, the horror of the bombardment magnified. Though deep down in his mind he knew that the firestorm could not harm him, he couldn’t help himself as he was overwhelmed with fear and the memory of that fear experienced long ago. Putrid mud filled his mouth and nostrils as he screamed himself hoarse in terror, yet the maelstrom did not touch him. When finally it relented he lay there sobbing.
‘Make it stop! Please, no more! Please!’
‘Seen enough?’
‘Yes, oh fuck, make it stop. I remember this now. I remember the nightmares and the weeks after when I couldn’t stop shaking. Please, not again.’
�
��Very well.’
‘She held me, she helped me through it all afterwards… when, when I was consumed by guilt because I survived.’
‘Who did? Who helped you?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Try to concentrate.’
‘I will.’ Varish wiped tears and mucus from his face.
‘Let’s get you out of here.’
Again the scene changed, to a vista of almost inconceivable proportions. Varish was sitting in the passenger seat of a small craft with Okallik at the controls as they crossed a gulf between curving walls that resembled a planetary surface. One wall was close behind them; its concave surface seemed almost flat due its vast size, whereas the other was a huge distance away, its appearance rendered parabolic by the perspective.
Varish strained to peer about and take in the view. They were crossing the interior of what he believed the Humans termed a Dyson sphere. It was an artificial habitat with the living space placed on the inside surface of a sphere with the radius of a planetary orbit, that had been built around a star. This in turn formed a habitat of immense proportions with the atmosphere clinging like a thin veneer to the inner surface. Varish had heard of such constructions as a purely theoretical concept, but he hadn’t remembered until now that he’d actually been inside one, perhaps lived on one.
The little ship was approaching another craft that hung in the space between the sphere’s surface and the star. It was similar in appearance to the one at Trippanak, though sleeker, shaped like a vertical star about a horizontal core that tapered at both ends. It was smaller too, a couple of kilometres in length, though it dwarfed the tiny shuttlecraft. Against the backdrop of the inside of the sphere it was but a mere speck. It had a name, the Sun Rider.
Other ships floated in the vacuum too, arranged in neat stacks and patterns in the space between the central star and the land. Hundreds upon hundreds of them; some military, others civilian and commercial. The sphere served as a giant dock, a floating safe haven for ships and beings of all kinds and a hub of trade in the region.
‘And this is, Tyrunin?’
‘Bivian sunsphere in the Rajatti system. Impressive isn’t it?’
‘Very. Were there many of these?’
‘A great number I believe, though even in those heady days their construction was something of an undertaking. I’m sure you can see why.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Yes, it was.’
Varish watched the clouds move across millions of kilometres of green and blue surface, bathed in the sunlight, seas and continents larger than surface area of most habitable planets, mighty rivers as long as comet tails.
‘I suppose it’s all gone now?’
‘Yes, of course.’ said Tyrunin, with a detectable note of sadness.
‘That ship we’re heading toward; care to tell me about it?’
‘Why don’t you ask Okallik? He is piloting this shuttle after all.’
Okallik grinned at him, Varish grinned back.
‘That’s some ship, I wish I was married to a woman who owned one of those,’ said Okallik with a note of envy.
‘She doesn’t own it, she’s just the captain. The navy owns the ship.’
‘Hah, yeah right. But it’s her ship though, for all other intents and purposes.’
‘You have a point there,’ Varish chuckled.
‘She likes to give orders then? Eh? Bet she has you attending her every command.’
‘Ahh… something along those lines. I seem to do a lot of household chores.’ he chuckled.
‘That’s not what I was referring to Varish, you know what I…’
‘Hey, that’s my wife you’re talking about Okallik!’ he made to jab a punch on Okallik’s shoulder and missed. Okallik laughed noisily through his nose as he fended off Varish’s blow.
‘Sorry, maybe I crossed the line, so to speak.’
‘Okallik, you crossed the line years ago and stayed on that side ever since. Why apologise now?’
His friend laughed giddily before fixing his attention on the cockpit displays.
‘Hey we’re almost there, don’t disturb me,’ said Okallik, a look of concentration on his face.
Varish swallowed the comment about his friend already being disturbed as he watched Okallik manipulate the controls of the craft with a swift deftness, whilst he simultaneously exchanging navigational chatter and friendly banter with the Sun Rider’s traffic control. Okallik brought them in under the ship and into a docking bay, through a portal that flowed open and shut as the shuttle passed through the skin of the warship.
The pair stepped out of the small shuttle and looked about the bay. Its walls were smooth and seamless, punctured only by the various hatches and consoles that dotted its otherwise flawless grey surface. The bay was full of small ships and stacks of equipment but largely devoid of people, save for a few service constructs that busied themselves with maintenance tasks. Varish showed their boarding clearance chit to a deck officer who directed them toward a transport tube. This in turn whisked them through the bowels of the ship up to her quarters.
Her. Her name… Varish tried to remember. There was something there in his mind, a vague impression rather than an image or a name. It was tantalisingly just out of reach.
The transport deposited them in a broad curving corridor lined with identical doors set into the smooth walls. Varish walked along the numbered doors with Okallik on tow until he found the one he wanted: the one to her quarters. Having reached it, he stood for a moment with a lump in his throat before knocking gingerly on the matt grey metal surface. There was a muffled female yell from within, then an agonising wait until she came to the door and opened it.
The door slid back and Varish was struck dumb. In the open doorway was the most perfect woman he had ever met, at least to his eyes. He remembered now, he remembered everything. Meeting her again was the key to a whole other section of his mind. She stepped forward, slipped her hands around his waist and kissed him.
‘Hello Varish. I see you brought that reprobate with you. Gods, you look like shit. What did you catch whilst I was gone?’
He fell to his knees with a sob. Irlani looked at him in amazement mixed with concern. She bent forward and helped the trembling Varish to his feet. Okallik moved away, mumbling something about giving them some time alone.
‘Varish, what’s the matter? Are you alright?’
‘I… I’m fine I think. It’s just been such a long time since I’ve seen you I’d forgotten….’
‘I was gone a week Varish. You sure you’re alright?’
‘Yes. It’s just that I’ve missed you and…’
‘Why don’t you come inside?’ she took his hand and led him into her quarters. He held her for what seemed like eternity and remembered.
Irlani was everything Varish had ever wanted in a woman. She was not only physically attractive, possessing a poise and grace that few others could match, but it was her personality that excited him so. She was strong, independent, witty and intelligent and with a sense of humour as sharp as it was irreverent. He had fallen for her immediately and still desired and loved her as much now, if not more, than when they had first met.
It had been almost a year after Varish had joined the army. Recently promoted to squad commander but yet to see any action, he had been ordered to attend a formal inter-service gathering on a floating concert barge inside Bivian sunsphere. Uncomfortable in his stiff formal garb and bored by the collection of stuffy dignitaries, he had been entranced by the sounds of an animated conversation coming from the other side of an immense ice sculpture carved in the predatory shape of a Jefretian Icefang.
Peering around the slowly melting predatory shape he had caught sight of a striking young female star-ship captain expertly regaling a largely male audience with anecdotes that were not only witty, but rather off colour and seemed to largely concern the exploits of herself and her crew.
The males seemed to hold the woman in awe. Not only was
she obviously attractive to them, but each tale they themselves offered was bettered in return by a story that surpassed their own not only in the telling, but in the daring, humour or absurdity of the events recounted. Varish had realised he was staring at her with his mouth open as if in a trance. Shutting his gaping jaw quickly before she noticed he quickly resolved to try his luck with the headstrong captain. Youthful and arrogant, he saw no reason not to try. To his total amazement she fell for him also, and he couldn’t believe his good fortune.
From that point on they were as much of an item as their respective careers permitted. Varish learned what it truly meant to love a woman unconditionally. He had had other relationships before but all had left him feeling unsatisfied somehow, as though there had been something absent from the arrangement. He had found many of the women physically attractive but had cared little for their personalities, finding them shallow, weak, foolish or dull. Irlani was none of these. He admired the fact that she stood up to him intellectually, that she joined in his debates and started ones of her own, that she told him dirty jokes and that she knew more well chosen put-downs than he, that she was brave beyond belief and that she did all of this whilst maintaining a certain feminine poise and beauty. He came to love her more than he had thought possible.
When he had narrowly escaped death at Trippanak, Irlani had stood by him whilst he recovered from injuries that were more mental than physical. She had held him through the long nights when all he did was cry out and weep and clutch his own head in despair. Her presence had been a rock to which he clung and thus prevented himself being swept away on a tide of guilt and fear. They were married soon after.
Varish spent much of the rest of the day in Irlani’s quarters, in her arms. No gesture he could make or sentence he could utter could adequately express the loss he now felt. When after hours together they lay entwined and exhausted he spoke to Tyrunin.
‘Are you still there?’
‘Of course.’
‘I know… I know none of this is real, but gods it feels so good.’