Starfire, A Red Peace

by Spencer Ellsworth

  “Bill made us do a bath.” Kalia’s face twists. “I told him I wasn’t going to bathe with Toq, but he said we had to. I haven’t bathed with Toq since we were really little.”

  “It’s okay,” Toq said. “I like it.”

  “You almost peed in the water.”

  “But I didn’t. I got out in time.”

  I’ve learned, by this point, not to say things like What kind of catch can afford to bathe separately? I guess that’s what happens planetside. Kalia can just go ahead talking about life like we’re all eating off the same banquet table.

  “I wanted you to come. I’m going to give Toq a reading lesson. You should sit with us.”

  “Not now, kids,” Bill says, as a couple of lights go on in his monitoring screen, and I can hear that apprehension. “I need you to come see the Suits.”

  The kids tremble, and I put my arms around them, for all that I’m relieved he just saved me from a reading lesson. “It’s okay,” I say. “The Suits can hack that black box. The code that Quinn knew. Then we’ll figure out where your dad wanted you to go.”

  “I . . .” Toq is trying hard not to cry again. I hug him close against me. He’s mighty warm, and shaking. “I don’t like it. It was Quinn’s. I don’t want anyone else to touch it.”

  “I know, but with Quinn gone, we’re going to have to hack it. Quinn would want us to know what’s on there, honey.” I stroke Toq’s hair. “Go on and cry. It just hurts when you keep it in.”

  Bill is patient, thank the stars. He waits while the kids get up, all slow and trembling. I don’t think they like talking about that fancy black box. Reminds them too much of Quinn. I can’t blame them. He was a good kid. Stupid, but good. And going by his talk, he knew more about this whole situation than these kids did. Maybe he even knew how this nonsense was supposed to work, all about heading out of known space.

  We cross the living space of the station. Kalia is clutching the black thing, and Bill’s running lights shine off the inscribed letters and fancy curls on it. The door to the hangar takes up one of the walls, and as it slides open, some of our warm air gets sucked out. The air’s always colder and thinner in the hangar, when Bill can even afford to pump atmos through there.

  Bill’s normally got crates stacked as high as those Swiney Niney buildings in here, but this morning, there’s only a few crates scattered about the floor, Bill’s ships and ours parked at the other end of the floor, a mess of steel and busted circuits and gear matter for the Suits to play with, and Bill’s ship-sized water tanks. Haven’t seen the place look so empty before.

  One of the Suits scuttles across the floor.

  This one en’t too bad, as far as the shivers go. It’s big, but it looks a bit like a man. Well, a man and a bug, and a bit of machine, and . . . never mind, it’s a shiver all the way. It’s got a man’s torso, and a man-sized head, with a visored helmet. Man’s arms, though they’ve got various spidery extensions. You can see a bit of a man’s face through that visor, with actual human eyes, though they don’t blink, staring just straight ahead at us for so long they make my own eyes start to hurt.

  Instead of arms below the torso, he’s got long girders, run with wire, ending in flat pads for walking. Seven of them, making him look half man, half white spider. He’s got all sorts of spanners and welders and hack-arms built into the arms above the pads. Easy to work from a lot of different angles.

  The Suit sounds human when it says, “Do you have the data?” Flat and boring voice, even though it’s twitching like it’s eager to get the data, and that voice could have come from any typical scab, not one hacked to bits and mixed up with junk scraped out of all the galaxy’s dumps.

  Kalia holds up the black box. The Suit raises its arm/leg/whatever, and the pad that served as a foot shifts, rotates, and folds up inside the girders that make up the lower part of the leg. A bulb, covered in running lights, rotates back out, and a couple of clamps extend from the bulb.

  “Give it over,” I say to Kalia. The Suit’s clamps take it from my hand, and little sensors emerge from those clamps. The sensors are like live wires; small cords, dancing across the surface of the black box, looking it over for ports. They find a couple of spots I didn’t even realize were there—must be hidden ports in those fancy letters—and then the Suit’s circuits start humming, and the little clamps squeeze. A series of numbers flashes across the Suit’s visor.

  “This might take a bit, for it to run the hacks,” Bill says, but as soon as he finishes, the Suit’s flatly human voice speaks.

  “Too tightly protected. Take it to the mainframe.” It drops the box.

  I grab the box before it falls. “Hey! Be careful with that!” Kalia hollers.

  “Mainframe,” I say. “Where’s the mainframe?”

  The Suit doesn’t answer for a moment, processing something. And then it says, “You are not permitted.”

  I’m about to slap the thing, metal or no, and Bill grabs my arm. “It’s okay, Jaqi.” He pulls me back, whispers to me. “I know where a mainframe is.”

  “How the—” On the scale of secrets, the location of Suit mainframes is up there with the color of the emperor’s underwear.

  “It’s . . . it’s not a nice place. We’ll be safe, though.”

  “Safe? What if the Suits want to hack you up for spare bits?”

  He half smiles. “It’s the Engineer’s place, and he always honors a bargain.”

  “I en’t never heard of no Engineer.”

  “Never you mind.” Who’s this Engineer? Some intermediary with the Suits? I’m about to ask, but Bill clenches his jaw, purses his lips. Familiar, that. Means he’s got a thought, and not sure whether to say it.

  “What?”

  “You en’t coming, are you?”

  “I . . .” I mean to say I don’t know. Bill’s always said I don’t know en’t worth much but the “no.”

  Z approaches us from the back, and, as usual, breaks up the mood. “I have heard what you will say. For enough money, I will go with you to this mainframe.”

  “Oh, that’s good, en’t it? Cuz if there’s one thing I have, it’s a catch,” Bill says.

  “Your water is worth money,” Z says. “Your tech. Your connections.” He crosses his arms. “You need me. You will find money.”

  “All right. All right.” Bill’s staring past us. Into the main room of his place, at the comfortable chairs, the wooden table. The rack of guns. That guitar, the neck all worn down from years of playing. His place, he carved out of rock his own self. “I got a couple good ships, besides that heap you brought in.”

  “Hey, that heap’s running real nice, thanks to us,” I say.

  “Hope so, because it’s all yours,” he says to me. “Wish I could give you more.”

  “I en’t . . .” I want to say I en’t going to leave you. But it sticks in my craw. Normal life. It sounds too good. I look at the kids, real long. They’ll be running forever, while I finally get to stop running.

  That’s when the Suit, with even worse timing than Z, looks at us and says in that flat, almost - human - but - for - the - deadness tone, “I am sorry to report that a ship has come through the node, without codes. We have been unable to stop it. It appears to be a Belthuin assault-class. We will arm defenses.”

  Vanguard.

  -12-

  Araskar

  I STAND AS CLOSE as I can to the NecroWasp in the bay of the ship. It sure is ugly, and not in some casual way, like a black eye, like that ecosphere was. This is ugly high art. This is the core of ugly, around which all other ugly orbits. The way those segmented eyes pop out of the head, a little too far, straining all the veins around the lids, the way those mandibles stick unexpectedly out of the human parts of the head, leaving a kind of crusty torn skin around the edges, the way that head doesn’t quite sit right on that neck and it has to really pop the muscles to keep that head up . . . damn, it’s so ugly it’s beautiful.

  I might be a little stoned.

  “So,�
� I say. “You’re all mine.”

  It doesn’t say anything, but I get the distinct impression it is listening.

  “We’ve got a little mission. Heh. Really, really little.” Strains of music twine around my head. Little notes soar over my head and come to rest in front of me, vibrating deeply along the lines of the universe, tickling my skin. The music is avoiding this monstrosity, though, the notes swooping and ducking away from his ugly mandibles. “We’re chasing a couple of kids, and if you and I are separated, you need to watch those kids. They are not for Death, you understand?” It cocks its head, which causes a vein to stand out in bright relief under the skin. “The kids. Not for Death. If you must kill to protect them, you kill.” I poke its chest and immediately regret it. It feels like poking a rotten mushroom. “Don’t let anyone get the kids with a soulsword, with a shard. I promise you I will send plenty of other folks to our Necrotic Lord.”

  It’d be nice if this thing nods. I decide that its cocked head is close enough.

  It’s a fun curiosity. Half my scabs have already come down to get a look at my new pet. Terracor hasn’t said anything, which means he’s not bothering, or I’m just confusing him. Whatever the case, I float along nicely to my room.

  I just took a couple of pinks. The day of withdrawal was good for me. I was up to five or six pinks at a time before. I have more control now, ai?

  Which is how, when I see Rashiya waiting in my room, I just smile. “Come for the view?”

  “Get in here,” she says. “I’m sick of this.” She grabs me by the shirt. “Let’s just pretend, for an hour, that I don’t still think you’re a bastard.”

  She doesn’t say much after that, though she makes plenty of noise. Once we’re lying there exhausted, and my body is enjoying a much nicer comedown than it’s ever had, she clutches my chest, rakes her nails across the skin. “Don’t be stupid anymore, Araskar.”

  No comment on that. “Let’s go back to Irithessa,” I say. It’d be nice if it was dark in here. The nonoptional lights are starting to hurt my eyes. “Drop this Vanguard thing. Go into public service.”

  She laughs. “What are you going to be?”

  “Well, before I had to get pieces of my hands replaced,” I say, “I was going to be a musician.”

  “A cross, playing music?”

  “That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” I say. “Show the galaxy that we’re sentient. No music, no art, and any cultural context needed was on the data dump when you were first sparked up.” I hold up my hands. Only two synthskin fingers, truly, and they don’t give me the trouble my leg does. Holding those chords always killed my hand, though.

  “You know, when my father came online,” she says, “crosses were still being encouraged to read. There was a whole program. You read a certain amount of literature, wrote a few papers, got a small certificate of schooling.” She leans into me.

  “Ha,” I say. “There was a sea change on the Empire’s part. I went from vat to violence in a week.”

  “Well, you were still made high quality.” She squeezes my high-quality parts.

  Barathuin and I read our first book when we were trying to find our names. It was a collection of stories from the First Empire, and just about every cross raided it for good names. I can still hear his voice. Barathuin. A warrior-king of the First Joria Epoch, who slew the thunder-beast. And me. Araskar. Some random soldier, and it doesn’t say anything else about him. I like the sound of it, though.

  He laughed at me. You do know what “scar” means, pretty boy?

  “Your children will have that chance now,” she is saying. She lifts her head up. “Once this is all over.”

  There’s not much to say to that. We’ve never discussed children, given what we’ve seen of the universe. I finally say, “Consolidation won’t ever end.” And there’s that old Marine in my head again. Not till the whole galaxy goes dark.

  She gets up, throws on that thin, circuit-laced bodysuit that gives her a personal protection field. “So, you’ll be in charge of aerial support on this mission. I’m taking your division for the burrowing pod.”

  Hang on. I had to have heard that wrong. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Hell no! I’m not even a pilot!”

  “You trained with the Moths in boot,” she says. “Bolt up, sit back, feel the instincts, and let the Moth do the work. I don’t want you to engage directly. We need someone like you calling orders.”

  “I won’t— I should be with you!”

  “I’m sorry, Araskar. Terracor asked for recommendations, and I recommended that you stay back for this one. Coordinate the flyers. Make sure that nothing gets in or out.”

  I stand up. “I’m not taking this. I’m not on the pinks.” My tongue slurs on the lie, but I ignore it.

  “I believe you,” she says.

  “Then let me go in with my slugs.”

  I think for a moment she’s going to change her mind. Then she says, “Araskar, we don’t trust you. Manage this. Then we’ll see what you can do on future missions.”

  “Damn it, I don’t deserve this.”

  She cocks an eyebrow. “We’re just taking down a few minor defenses and snatching a few kids. You really all that worried about your slugs?”

  “I’m always worried.” I grab her shoulder, tighten my grip harder than I should. “Promise me you won’t hurt those kids. We can’t hurt children.”

  I can’t tell if she’s lying. She sure can’t tell when I’m lying. They say the original Jorians could reach into each other’s minds, read them like a navigator reads the nodes, in the invisible currents of the Starfire that drove them.

  All I’ve got are her eyes, steady and green as two cold stars.

  “We’ve got five minutes to report, and fifteen minutes to node-drop,” she says. “We’ll take your pet. That thing is so ugly a few shards might improve it.”

  A simple change of orders, and everything goes to shit. I hate to even think it, but I did this to myself.

  * * *

  Jaqi

  “How far out are they?”

  “The node is jammed,” the Suit says, ignoring me. “We are attempting to open.”

  “I can get us through the node,” I say. “Just hold them off while we get on-ship.”

  “The Suits can only hold them off for a bit,” Bill says. “I’ve got two mounted guns on the rings, and they’ve only got a half load of shards in them. I’ve got . . . nothing else, except the gunner ship, and except what’s in there.” He points toward the rack of guns hanging in his main room.

  “Me and Z will have to hold them off. You much of a shot, Z?” I ask him.

  “I can shoot,” he says.

  “You’re going to have to. Get out,” I say to Bill, to Kalia, to Toq. “Get out the second the Suits can open the node.” I try to smile for the kids. “Don’t worry, Z. I’ll hold your hand.”

  “I’ll pray, Jaqi,” Kalia says.

  Well, I reckon that might work as well as anything else I’ll do.

  Bill’s Keil-118 gunner sits at the far end of the hangar. Good ship, from back before Keil started churning out substandard stuff. All rivets and steel chopped out of good earth and melted down, no synthesized bits. Bill runs back into my room. Z runs for the gunner ship. “Keep up!”

  I don’t complain, for once. I run with him.

  The gunner ship is not much bigger than Z. Cockpit, two engines directly to the side, auxiliary wings, folded in now, for flying in atmos, and a gun pod slung underneath, with two fat, gleaming barrels, all fused steel. A thick tank of shards sits under the engines. The tank is the only weak spot—shielded as it is, encased in a thick layer of metal, one good shot would still blow the little ship to pieces.

  I heard once that the galaxy was all projectile weapons, before some genius figured out how to shard an atom—shave electrons off unthunium and tear folks to pieces much more efficiently. Must have been a nicer place, when you just got a piece of metal lodged in your
meat, rather than shards tearing flesh and melting bone before they burn themselves out.

  Why am I thinking about this now?

  They should have made crosses not to think about stupid things before battle.

  I grab the ladder. Z takes a long look at the pod. “I will not fit in there,” he says. He puts one of them massive hands on my shoulder, like he’s supposed to be comforting. “I saw you shoot. You be the gunner.”

  “Me? I’m a pilot. En’t no sniper.”

  “You have shot Vanguard. I have not.”

  “If you’re trying to be funny, Z,” I say, “this is a bad, bad—” Bill’s hangar starts to open over us, and the atmos screams right out. Z’s up the ladder and in the cockpit quick as death. I jump into the pod. “—time.”

  Z was right about not fitting. I’m crammed in there, my knees touching my chin. I grab two levers just in time to twist crazily as we go up, ship shaking from the force of the atmos pushing at us. The ship rises as air leaks out of the hangar. Z’s got the thrusters on full, shooting us up hard, too fast, and then he fires the stabilizing thrusters, trying to get his bearings, spinning us around in vacuum. He’s a terrible pilot—or maybe that’s my stomach doing flips.

  Bill’s asteroid falls away below us. Surrounded by clear plasticene, I’m suspended in the dark, with only this monstrous gun, silent except for the hum of the engines above me. To my right one of the rings rises, a white arc through space, and as Z swings the ship around, I see the running lights of the Vanguard ship, a blot against the Dark Zone’s black sky. Tiny specks of light are spilling from the Vanguard’s cruiser. Gun barrels are blazing away from Bill’s stabilizing rings, and shard-fire cuts a wide red path across space, lighting it up like we’ve just ignited a star for this place.

  My throat is aching, and it en’t just because my knees are pressed against it. Sweat is rolling down my back, for all that it’s cold in here. I don’t want to die like this. I don’t even remember what that burning trick was I used to shoot the Vanguard before.

  Z must hear my panting up in the cockpit. He says, “If we die, we will die in blood and honor.”