by M. R. Forbes
“I was ready to kill you, and here I am. I suppose that makes us something.”
“Considering where we’re going, perhaps it makes you an idiot?” Trin said.
“That’s a given,” Uriel replied. “I think the same can be said for any of us.”
“Speak for yourself,” Pik said. “I’m here because I think it’s fun.”
“You just reinforced my sentiment.”
“No, I didn’t, I… hey!”
“You seem to be getting more comfortable with your situation,” Abbey said, looking at Trinity.
“I’m trying,” she said. “I would rather have my original self back, but there are some benefits to this form.”
“Why don’t you take a turn?” Pik said, motioning for her to sit. “I haven’t been able to move her at all, even with this.” He wiggled the fingers on his metal hand.
“I think I’ll pass,” Abbey replied. “I wouldn’t be able to win without using the Gift.”
“So?”
“So, that’s cheating.”
“It’s okay, Queenie,” Trinity said. “You can’t cheat that much, I’m resistant to the Gift, remember?”
Abbey put up her hand in the same position as Pik’s. She could feel the Gift responding to her, flowing from her to where Trinity was sitting. She rotated her arm on her elbow, bringing it down. At the same time, Trinity’s hand was shoved in the same direction, pinned to the table a moment later.
“I win,” Abbey said, smiling.
“You cheated,” Pik complained.
“Void agreed to the rules. Have any of you seen Gant recently?”
“I believe he’s still hiding in his mad scientist laboratory,” Uriel said.
“He hasn’t come out in hours,” Pik added. “I think something’s bothering the little furball.”
“I’m sure something’s bothering him,” Abbey said. “I’m going to try again to find out what it is. I need him operating with a clear head. I need all of you operating with a clear head. If you have something you want to say, come to me and say it. Remember, we’re family?”
“Even me?” Uriel asked.
“You’re like the annoying cousin that nobody likes because he’s always asking for money for selfish indulgences,” Abbey replied. “But yes.”
“You have me pegged already, do you, Queenie?” Uriel said, smirking. “Maybe I’ll surprise you in the end.”
“I hope so.”
Abbey slid down the ladder to the lower deck, making the short walk to Gant’s workshop. She wasn’t surprised to find him in there, hunched over one of Jequn’s teleporters. It was in pieces around him, and from the few parts on the ground, it didn’t seem all that complex.
“Gant,” she said, getting his attention.
“It looks simple, doesn’t it?” he replied, pointing at the device. “I think most of the design is subatomic. Unless you can get me some fancy goggles, I don’t think I’ll be able to do much more than slap an amplifier on it and hope it doesn’t get our body parts all mixed up.” He chittered softly. “Though I would pay to see Bastion react to having one of Pik’s legs.”
“I take it the Brimstone didn’t have any fancy goggles?”
“Unfortunately, no. One of the Seedships might have, but we were in a hurry.”
“Gant, we should talk.”
“Not this again.”
“You’ve been sulking since you entered the wrong code for the subnet. It’s pretty much the most basic mistake anyone can make, and you’re treating it like the end of the world.”
Gant stared at her, reminding her how adorable his face was. He looked away.
“Gant, we’re supposed to be friends. Best friends.”
“Damn it, Queenie. I don’t want to burden you with this. Why won’t you let me deal with it on my own?”
“You typed a key wrong. Why is that a burden?”
“It’s not about the typo, Queenie.”
“Well, duh. We’re in this together, Gant. All of us, but especially you and me. We can’t run away from this, but maybe we can fight it together.”
“You can’t help me,” he said. He still wouldn’t look at her.
“Maybe I can?” she replied, putting a hand on his shoulder.
He spun around, pulling himself away. “I’m dying, okay?” he growled.
“What? How can you know that?”
He stared at her, backing up a few steps. “I’m sorry, Queenie.” He looked at the ground. Then he looked back at her. “There’s a reason most Gant don’t leave our homeworld. We’re simple creatures.” He tapped his head. “Simple minded. Most of us have no sense of adventure, no desire to do very much with our lives.”
“You’re not like that.”
“Not completely. I had some spirit for adventure, but otherwise, I wasn’t all that bright. Maybe leaving was proof.” He forced a laugh. “I joined the Republic Navy as an Engineer. I wasn’t a particularly good Engineer, either. Some stuff happened, blah, blah, blah. I wound up getting transferred to a research facility somewhere in the Fringe, along with a few hundred Gant who had been taken off Ganemant. I found out later they were sold to the Republic Armed Services.”
“Sold? That’s illegal.”
“Simple-minded,” Gant repeated. “Easy to trick. Easy to manipulate. Anyway, the Republic was trying to make us smarter. To what end, I’m not sure. I was in a separate group with the Gant they considered more advanced, I guess because we left home base. Not that it mattered. They started experimenting on us. All of us. Injections, mostly.”
“The Gift?” Abbey said.
Gant shook his head. “It would fit nicely with our current narrative, wouldn’t it? I don’t think so. The liquid definitely wasn’t blood.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t have to do with the Gift. You’re immune to it. Like, completely immune. It won’t even touch you.”
“Oh, that. We have stories about the Gift on Ganemant. Legends. I always thought they were bullshit until Trinity showed up on Drune to kill you. It’s not anger that makes me immune, though it certainly seems to come with dealing with those assholes. I suppose all Gant are immune to the Gift. Kind of the opposite of the Trover, I guess.”
“That’s amazing if it’s true,” Abbey said.
Gant shrugged. “It’s come in handy a couple of times, that’s for sure.”
He paused a second before getting back to his story.
“Anyway, one of the scientists was a Terran woman named Eliza. She was kind. Compassionate. A lot like you. She befriended me, and you know how that goes for Gants. She managed to get me passed over for some of the trials. Trials that killed. Then she got me put on one round in particular. The one that worked. After the injection, she gave me access to the Galnet and set me loose. I found I could absorb anything and everything with one viewing. The shit they gave me turned me into a living computer. I went from being a near idiot to having an unparalleled absorption rate and intellect.
“Eliza and I got closer because of it. Much closer. I helped her improve the sequencing, with a goal to make it compatible with humans. We wanted to become the smartest creatures in the galaxy, and use our intelligence to solve everything.”
He sat down. His eyes were sad. The fur on his face was frazzled.
“Then the RAS got cold feet on the program. They didn’t just pull the plug. They sent special forces to snuff it out. No witnesses. No survivors. They killed Eliza. You know what happens to a Gant when their alpha dies. Only I wasn’t a regular Gant. I killed them. All of them. When it was done, I didn’t know what else to do. They came for me later, shot me with tranqs and shipped me to Hell. I don’t know why they didn’t kill me. Maybe there’s a connection to Thraven there, somewhere? Maybe he wanted me to kill for him? Or maybe they wanted me to wake up and know Eliza was dead, and that I wasn’t, and wouldn’t be. Maybe they wanted me to suffer.”
“I’m sorry for what you went through,” Abbey said, moving toward him. He put up his hand to keep
her back. “I didn’t know.”
“I know. That’s why I’m telling you. But that’s not the most important part. The effects of the sequencing, we never knew if they would be permanent. But now I know. I can feel it, Queenie. I can sense the intellect slipping away. The knowledge slipping away. I’m not physically dying, but I’m dying all the same. I don’t want to be the Gant I was before. I don’t want to live like that.”
“I’m sure you won’t forget everything. Maybe you won’t be over-competent at everything you do, but I’m sure there will still be things you’re good at.”
“That’s easy for you to say. I don’t know if I can live with knowing what I lost. If I look at a device like this and can’t figure it out, but know that there was a time when I could have.”
“You can. And you will. I need you, Gant. The Rejects need you.”
“I won’t be the same.”
“No, maybe you won’t. But how do you know that you won’t be better in some ways? None of us are perfect.”
“I’m supposed to be. I don’t want to go back to what I was before. I just don’t want to.”
“How long do you think you have?”
“I don’t know. A few months?”
“Anything is possible in a few months. Maybe you can create another injection? Who knows? Even if you can’t, you’ll still be a valuable member of this team. The one thing I know for sure is that if you give up and give in, we all lose.”
Gant looked up, staring at her. His expression changed, lightening somewhat.
“You’re right, Queenie. It helped just to tell you about all of this. And it helps to know you’ve got my back.”
“Will you be okay?”
“I need some time, but I think I will.” He held up a piece of the teleporter. “I’ll do what I can with this. How long until we reach the Keeper?”
“Forty-six hours.”
“That’s a long haul.”
“I know. If you need me, I’ll be easy to find. The ship isn’t that big.”
“Me, too, Queenie. If you need me.”
Abbey moved forward, reaching out. Gant reached out, too, accepting the embrace. They hugged for a moment, and then Abbey pulled back.
“I’ll check in on you later.”
“Roger, Queenie. Thank you again.”
33
“Thirty seconds, Queenie,” Bastion said, glancing back at Abbey.
He was obviously nervous, his eyes wider than usual, his eyebrows up, his forehead beaded with sweat. He had been uncomfortable almost the entire trip, even more of a pain in the ass to deal with than usual, and that was saying a lot. Before Azure, Abbey had found herself growing a fondness for the pilot that went beyond casual. Now? She wasn’t sure she could handle him if he couldn’t handle the stress.
But what the hell was stressing him out so much, anyway? He was an accomplished drop jockey. He had flown into the shit dozens of times. Even as a Reject, they had been in deep on multiple occasions. Why had he picked this time to be the time he started to crack? Why was he so damn worried that they might not survive?
She had been tempted to ask him if it had anything to do with her. If he had anything he wanted to get off his chest. He joked about being into her, but she could also see past that facade to the honest emotions beneath. He cared about her. That was fine. She cared about him, too. She cared about all of her Rejects, as any good Queen should. But like Gant, there was a part of him that was still distant. A piece that wouldn’t commit and seemed to be causing a problem.
There was nothing she could do about it. She had put out enough fires already, and had used the long period in FTL to do as much as she could to build her strength. The naniates were multiplying inside of her, increasing her power slowly and steadily. It was a rate that would never be enough to take on Thraven single-handedly, but she had no intention of doing that right now, anyway. The Republic had to hold out. Kett had to hold out. If Don Pallimo was on their side, there was a much better chance that they could.
There was nothing she could do about that, either. The Rejects were committed here and now, to finding the Keeper of the Covenant. She had a feeling she knew what she was going to find. A Seraphim like Charmeine, with the Blood of the Shard giving them near-eternal life, charged with protecting the promise the One had made to their race. The Shard had told her to retrieve it and to use it, and she could only think of one way to do that.
The Rejects weren’t going to like it.
Neither was Kett.
She didn’t care.
“This is your Queen speaking,” Abbey said, opening a company-wide comm channel. “We’re about to drop out of FTL. You’re all suited up, and you had damned well better be secured. Nerd, Pudding, are you active?”
“Ready and waiting, Queenie,” Erlan said.
“Aye, Queenie,” Phlenel replied.
They were manning the Faust’s gun batteries, allowing Bastion to focus on the flying. The rest of the Rejects were outfitted in lightsuit or battlesuit, full helmeted gear with external life support just in case, strapped into the hull near the exit and ready to drop wherever they found themselves. Charmeine had warned her the Keeper wouldn’t be kind to any visitors regardless of allegiance, and she was trying to be prepared for the worst when she had no idea what the worst might be.
She stood in the cockpit between Bastion and Ruby, her hands clasped together in front of her, the Gift flowing across her body, her feet planted on the floor. Bullets weren’t the only offensive weapon on the star hopper. She just wished they had a starfighter or two to help them with the ingress.
“I’m going to start yapping right about now, Queenie,” Bastion said. “Because I can’t handle flying into this any other way.”
“Do what you need to do,” Abbey replied. “Just get us there alive.”
“Wherever there is. Ten seconds.”
Abbey pushed the Gift out, spreading it around her. Her skin tingled from its presence, her shardsuit alive with motion.
“Bennett,” Bastion said.
“What?” Abbey asked.
“The fourth oldest tree on Earth. It’s in California. A western juniper. Something like four thousand years old. My father brought me to see it once.”
“Oh frag,” Pik said. “Not the damn trees again.”
“Shut up,” Bastion said. “At least I have an appreciation for my father and his interests.”
“I appreciate my father,” Pik replied. “Well, I appreciate that I don’t have to ever see him again.”
“As I was saying. I remember when my old man brought me to see Bennett. It was a warm day. The sun was shining…”
The Faust came out of FTL in a flare of disterium, cutting through the mist and out into space.
“Oh frag,” Bastion said, forgetting about his story. “What the hell?”
Abbey stared out at the space ahead of them. It was split by what appeared at first to be a small planet, but on second thought wasn’t a planet at all. It had clearly been built by an intelligent race, not made from dust and time.
A space station? A starship? Something else?
“Queenie, I’m getting a massive surge of readings on medium-range sensors,” Ruby said calmly. “They appear to be spacecraft of some kind.”
“Yeah, fragging thousands of them,” Bastion said, staring at the same grid. “And they’re coming this way.” He looked back at Abbey. “What did we just get ourselves into?”
Abbey could see the ships ahead, moving out from across the face of the massive structure, merging in front of it and vectoring their way.
“Nerd, Pudding, standby for my signal,” Abbey said. “Imp, quit whining, start flying.”
“Maybe they’re friendly,” Pik said.
The Faust’s shields flared as the first of the lasers struck it. It was followed by a dozen more.
“I don’t think so,” Bastion said.
“Imp, get us to that station,” Abbey said. “Nerd, Pudding, fire at will.”
“Queenie, you might want to hold onto something,” Bastion said, his hands tightening on the Faust’s control yoke.
“I am holding on,” she replied, glued to the floor by the Gift.
“Well then, here we go.”
The Faust rocked to the side, making a hard vector that caused the entire ship to shiver and Abbey to grimace at the sudden force. At the same time, the batteries on the ship began to come alive, rotating and firing on the quickly closing targets.
She could see them a little better now. They were small and wedge shaped, with a pair of lasers mounted on either side of what appeared to be a thick forward spike. It was hard to tell as Bastion flipped the Faust over and dove away from the mass, but she didn’t see any sign of a cockpit, and by the size she had a feeling the things were unmanned.
She also had a feeling she knew what the spike was for.
The Faust’s shields continued to flare around them as the swarm began to break apart, swirling out ahead of the ship to cut them off. Abbey glanced over Ruby’s shoulder, noting the shield levels as they continually readjusted. Power wasn’t dropping all that fast for the number of hits they were taking.
“They’re weak lasers,” Ruby said. “I do not believe they were intended for combat.”
“Well, that’s great fragging news,” Bastion said, his hands in constant motion as he guided the Faust. “Maybe-”
The Faust rocked hard to the side, the force shoving him against his restraints and causing his hands to slip on the yoke. They slipped for a moment before Bastion recovered, getting them back under control.
“What was that?” he said.
“They’re trying to ram us,” Abbey said. “Don’t let them.”
“Don’t let them? Have you noticed we’re outnumbered a thousand to one?”
“Have you noticed you complain too much?”
“Don’t let them,” Bastion muttered, refocusing on his flying.
One of the ships ahead of them vanished in a flash of light, hit by the plasma being spewed from the rotating cannons. Another vanished near it. Then a third.
It was nowhere near enough.