Kicking Ashe

by Pauline Baird Jones

“You look better.”

  Than what? He blinked, unsure how to respond. Though her face was in shadow, she appeared unharmed. He frowned. Not even a scratch. Was this a side effect of the time events? How could they be unharmed when his ship was all but rubble?

  “You look…well.” It was not possible for her to look better.

  “Thank you.” She shifted a bit, so that the gray light fell on her face, and he saw her lips curve in a small smile. “That was quite the ride.”

  “Yes.” He shook his head. “My worst,” he admitted.

  “Really wish it had been my worst.” She made a face. “How sad is that?”

  “The big bang?”

  She half shrugged, half nodded.

  The air felt chilled coming in through the escape hatch, though seeing her nullified its effects. “We should have tested the atmosphere for viability before you breached the hull, though I am offline—” He fingered his wrist controls, tapped them, and was surprised when they connected again. Not a lot of data. Some was better than none. He ran down the list. Perhaps not. Life signs and in/out of atmosphere threat detection were both severely limited. No position fix available. Main power gone. Limited emergency power. No damage assessment possible with the bulk of his ship off the grid. Did have a report of an open escape hatch. One would almost think the system had a sense of humor.

  “I hope it is better out there than it is in here.”

  “Take hope from the heart of man and you make him a beast of prey.”

  She looked a bit startled, as if she had not planned to say this, then shrugged and stepped back to give him access to the hatch. He had to scramble past her, fight more than gravity to manage it. Despite it all, she still smelled of flowers and yes, hope. As he drew level, her scent cleared the nasty from the air for several seconds and he found he did not care what was out there as much as he should. Color crept into her pale, lavender cheeks and the look in her eyes made his heart fill with hope. Time slowed, but he knew it was not an outside event this time. It was her and the man he became when he drew close to her. He became better, felt stronger, able to—

  —leap tall buildings in a single bound?

  This voice was not her voice, it was not his. It was ironic. Male. Who—the time theory expert. He stiffened, eased past her, as he glanced around. “Your expert is…” The words trailed off when he failed to find anyone to go with the voice.

  Ashe’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Lurch? He’s fine.”

  “Where—” The question died when his gaze intersected with the view outside the ship. Ice dug into all the places he’d been warm and halted all thought. He grasped the sides of the hatch, blinked. Shook his head. It could not be. His gaze traversed the terrain from one side to the other, then tracked back, finding the familiar in the horror of the unfamiliar. How could this be?

  “What is it? What’s wrong—other than the obvious?”

  Her wry tone helped give him his voice back, though he had to force the words past an obstruction in his throat. “It is Keltinar Prime.”

  “Your capital city? But—” She eased in beside him, peering over his arm at the bleak cityscape.

  “How is this possible? I was here—”

  “We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.” He looked at her, caught surprised on her face. “What I mean is, I don’t think we’re in the same time when you were here.” Perhaps he looked skeptical, because she added, “You saw us shifting through time during the battle.”

  “I saw us shifting through something,” he conceded. He turned back to the city, tracing the skyline with more care. “I see no obvious battle damage.” It appeared to be crumbling into the ground, though it would take a closer survey to know for sure. If knowing were possible.

  “I’ve heard stories of weapons that take lives, not buildings.” She propped her shoulder against the bulkhead. “The atmospheric readings could indicate a nuclear, or neutron, winter.”

  “You think my people did this to themselves? Or the Zelk?” That was a more palatable thought, if the destruction of his people could be palatable. He brought the readings forward and studied them. “There’s no element not natural to Keltinar in these readings.”

  “Could mean it’s self inflicted. That we got tossed into the future.”

  Not a future he wished to see. Everyone gone. Everything gone. Timrick. He searched the near horizon for signs of the waves incoming. Would have welcomed one right now if it took them from this bleak future. Even if it took them back to the Zelk? Perhaps. “Are we stranded here?” How did one get home from home that wasn’t home? From the future?

  The boom was familiar. Light lit the dark clouds from the top. The whistle of the incoming falling reached them before it broke cloud cover on a fiery track that could intersect with their position.

  Ashe’s hand covered his, gripping it despite her calm tone. “This might be the exception to the family saying.”

  He looked at her, one brow arched in the question he did not know how to ask.

  “There might just be a good day to die.”

  SEVEN

  Ashe stared into the impact crater, with no clear memory of how they’d made it down the side of Shan’s ship to terra awful. Even Lurch felt speechless after the really near, near miss. One minute they’d felt the heat from the meteorite, and by the next there was a big hole just shy of the outer saucer rim of Shan’s broken ship. If Time aimed it, it did a good job. Dead center of an intersection. Three crumbling buildings on three corners of it and Shan’s ship embedded in the fourth.

  The heat from the crater was a welcome change from the dank chill. But, as it had before, it did not emanate as much heat as it should have so soon after making landfall. At the crater’s heart, something black and ragged in shape, sent a thread of steam straight up. Not even a tiny flicker from a random wind. The air appeared as dead as the landscape. At least there wasn’t another her in the crater.

  Shan held a hand out, testing the heat. “I believe it is safe to descend.”

  They scrambled down, side by side. When Ashe slipped, Shan steadied her, then kept a light clasp on her elbow until they reached the bottom. She took comfort in the touch, felt warmth flow from that spot to the rest of her.

  Shan nudged the ragged chunk of what looked like metal with a booted foot, then flipped it over. Inhaled sharply at the partial name visible through the black soot. His free hand curled into a fist, the other tightening on her arm.

  “Zalis—” Ashe looked at him.

  “Zalistria.” His tone sounded as dead as the city around them.

  “Your missing ship.”

  He nodded, turned in a slow circle, his gaze on the skyline where several more meteorites punched through the gray clouds. All fell in the same general direction, and though she could not see a clear pattern in the way they arrived. It appeared that the bubble of wrong time was still stalking them. Were they already the epicenter? Or in shifting there mode? And when they were back in the bulls eye what would Time throw at them this time?

  She needed a way to fix their position, so she assigned the direction the fallings were tracking as “north,” with them holding the south position. The ground underfoot shook from the impact, but the rubble around Shan’s ship didn’t react. Seemed their time amoeba was a bit pissed. She couldn’t blame it. She didn’t like this place either.

  At first the whine seemed the same as the others, but then it changed, slowed. Meteorites couldn’t slow. “That’s a ship.”

  “Yes.” He scanned the sullen skies, his head angled to listen. “I believe it is Zelk.” The engine faltered, stuttered, then died. “And it’s in trouble.”

  “Welcome to the party,” Ashe muttered. The never-ending party. “The end” had become as theoretical as Time itself—which could keep it going a lot longer than she could. Wished they had some sensors. Be helpful to get a read on that ship. Possible it was the one they’d damaged, the one that had a human on board, though Time could probably send any one of them thei
r way. The ship did seem to be going against the flow of the meteorites. The current location of the epicenter perhaps?

  An emergency respirator hung from her neck and she lifted it for a whiff—and a break from the nasty crap air. The whiff was all she took because the filter wouldn’t last forever and they had no clue how long they’d be stuck here. Or what effect further time shifting would have on their equipment.

  Ashe followed Shan up and out of the crater, paused at the rim staring at his ship. She walked to one side, then another. That’s odd.

  Indeed.

  Based on the angle of the ship, there should have been a defined trajectory of damage along the block of buildings behind it. Only there wasn’t. It looked like Shan’s ship had grown into, or appeared in, the side of the building, though the integration had not been neat, based on the tumble of debris on either side. Maybe exploded into the building was a better description. Thankfully the intersection was almost at street level, though that was the only thing she found to be grateful for. Her gaze intersected with Shan’s. Okay, the other thing.

  Lurch did the nanite version of clearing his throat as another impact tremor rattled her teeth. The Zelk ship? One could only hope it crashed worse than they did. Why the Zelk? There’d been no sign of them until post-tsunami/disrupter. No sign of them in Shan’s time line in the other realities that they knew of. Of course, they didn’t know that much about Shan’s past in any of the alternate realities. Not really. But until now, the theme that ran through it was girls—lack of mostly.

  And who ever targeted him.

  True. Was that the intersection point? The Zelk point, so to think? Of course, knowing it was an intersection point, if it was one, didn’t help that much. She frowned. Something about the Zelk bothered her, oh, who was she kidding? Everything about the Zelk bothered her, starting with their creepy hide and moving onto that camo.

  We need to know more about Shan, about his life. His enemies.

  Besides you, you mean? It didn’t shock her when Lurch ignored her. He’ll expect me to talk first. And when I do, he might not speak to me ever again. Ashe sighed, though it meant she’d have to inhale some more nasty crap. Back on the ship, he’d looked at her like maybe he could believe her. He’d looked at her like he’d seen her and he liked what he saw. How long had it been since anyone saw her, let alone looked at her like they liked her? She wasn’t that old, but she still had to go back pretty far for that, like to her parents, and they had to like her. It was a rule or something. Around Shan, she almost felt like she could figure out who she was, and wasn’t it a shocker that she didn’t know? Cause she thought she knew. But she didn’t. Didn’t know she had to see herself through someone else’s eyes to see things she’d not known were there. Had to be tested to her toenails to find out stuff, too.

  Could have sat down and cried and hadn’t. That surprised her a bit. She’d liked the idea of being a hero up to the point it started to suck. She could give up, just sit down and refuse to play with Time. Only she couldn’t. That surprised her, too.

  A meteorite punched a hole in the broken road in front of them. Shan spun, pulling her to the side, shielded her body with his until the tremor subsided. When it seemed safe he straightened, though he did not release her. Smoothed her hair off her face, his hand lingering for a moment on her cheek. She wanted to thank him or something. Not that they had time for something. Or anything. The pace of the meteorites seemed to be picking up. And that last hit had been way too close.

  We will all need to survive long enough to talk.

  It did make the whole getting-to-know-Ashe seem a bit moot-ish. And if they did survive, would Time quit kicking their trash around the universe long enough for some note comparing? Some actual problem solving? It did feel like it had a hate on her. And don’t tell me it is Shan that Time hates. Shan wasn’t there when we faced the tsunami.

  It does seem, however, as if it is Shan’s life that needs sorting.

  How do you “sort” a moving target? She said we hoping he wouldn’t take it personally. Cause she didn’t mean it personally. It was just a fact. Like being hosed. Too bad she couldn’t whistle up a time wave to sweep them somewhere better. One of the family sayings was to always keep trying for a better deal. Find a way to better the odds. Something niggled at the edges of her mind.

  “You know this city,” the words were slow, her thoughts churning toward something.

  “I knew this city, but I do not know this city.”

  “But the layout is familiar. You recognized it as your main city, as home.”

  “What do you think of?” He spared her a quick look. “I recognized the sky line.”

  “Is there a better…place?” She groped for something just out of reach, a sense, a feeling that this was not where they needed to be.

  “Better?”

  He didn’t have to sound quite so incredulous. She knew what she meant, just didn’t know how to explain that to him. With a nudge from Lurch she got it. “A place that means something to you? Your former home, maybe?” Home, the place where one was born could be a powerful time anchor. Or a place of huge instability. But since they already had unstable, it couldn’t get worse, could it? Forget I thought that.

  He frowned, studied the area with different eyes, not the warrior, but the native son. She could see he wanted to ask, but he knew, like she did, that this sucked. Blind retreat sucked, too, but a strategic retreat was within the family guidelines, even if she couldn’t, quite, see the strategy in this retreat just yet.

  “It is that direction.” He half nodded toward her self-assigned north.

  The same direction the meteorites liked, the direction the Zelk ship appeared to be going when last sighted. Might mean that was the right track—in a bad way. She sighed. “Wish we hadn’t bent your ship.”

  “I think the lower bay might be intact if we can get to it.”

  Lower bay. Right. “Because?”

  “There is an in-atmosphere craft, stocked with additional emergency supplies.”

  “Oh, we are so going to get to it,” Ashe felt her optimism make a minor comeback, “because the impossible—”

  “—just takes longer.”

  His grin shaved years—and layers of grim—off his face. He hadn’t forgotten his brother. Signs of shock lingered around his eyes and in them. She respected that. He wanted to help his brother. She’d want to help hers, even though they’d also top her list of suspects. Could Timrick be on the Zelk ship? Keep your enemies close. They are easier to find and shoot.

  If they survived this adventure, it might be interesting to figure out how many family mantras involved shooting.

  Ninety percent give or take a tenth of a percentage point.

  How can you not know exactly?

  They seem to be fluctuating with time.

  So your time databases aren’t updating, but the family mantra list…is?

  It is a mystery.

  “We might be able to reach that side of the ship from inside the building.”

  Ashe followed him around the crash debris field, then along the parallel street. Dust puffed into the air each time his boots made contact with the cracked surface. Her boots probably did, too, but she wasn’t looking at her boots.

  You are not looking at his boots either.

  She had been, but apparently that didn’t count. Though there was no safe place anywhere, it was still unnerving to walk down the street with meteorites punching steadily through the clouds. The whistle of the incoming meteorites blended into a keening wind sound, like a winter mirska, howling through dead streets and broken windows—but failing to lift even a particle of dust—though their walking did disturb the dust. Creepy-plus. The sky was intermittently lit by the meteorites, though that light failed to pierce the murk close to the ground. Did that mean night approached? How to tell with the heavy cloud cover and the total lack of atmospheric data? Was it an effect of time out of synch?

  Lots of questions. Zero answers. That didn’
t stop her from worrying at the edges of all of them, since she had nothing to distract her except pretending it was Shan’s boots she watched as they walked. Like the buildings, weeds had attempted a comeback here in the street, but had withered into spidery lines creeping out of the cracks like hands waiting to grab them. The wind sound paused, which was creepier-plus, only to be broken by the rumble of thunder. Maybe it was just a bad weather day, but Ashe had a feeling this was as good as it got.

  Shan stopped in front of the sagging entrance to the building they’d hammered and now wanted to enter. She stared into the gray rectangle, saw what might have been the remains of a door hanging off one side. Make that needed to enter. No way she wanted to go in there.

  Maybe to stall, she asked, “What was this street like, you know, before?”

  Shan half turned. “It is much changed, but I believe the main thoroughfare was just over there.” He shifted. “Our seat of government was there.”

  “What would have been along here? Shops? Apartments?”

  “No one lives—lived in the city. All lived in strata. These would have been offices.”

  It wasn’t a pretty skyline, kind of didn’t look like it had ever been anything but regimented, all the buildings variations of the same shape and style. “Was it ever pretty?”

  “Pretty?” He stared at her.

  “The Garradians are big on pretty. Even our battle birds are—” the slow, incredulous arch of his brows slowed her, but couldn’t stop her from finishing, “—pretty.”

  He blinked, then turned away. “No. It was never pretty.”

  My mother didn’t have a garden. The comment had felt odd at the time, okay, still felt odd, but seemed to mean he’d glimpsed a time with a garden.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” He touched the jamb of the doorway, gave it a slight push, as if testing its integrity.

  “Everyone should have a little pretty in their lives.”

  He stilled, shot a flickering smile her direction, then gave a slight shake. “I will go first.”

  “I’m smaller and lighter,” Ashe felt compelled to point out, though she didn’t actually mind not going first into the creepy, crumbling building. Not that she wanted to be left alone on the creepy, crumbling street either. Got her first annoyed look from Shan and raised her hands in capitulation. “You should go first.”