Tyche's Deceit

by Richard Parry

  “Not your father, Harlow,” said Nate. He tucked himself down behind Harlow, got his arms under Harlow’s shoulders, and heaved. He dragged his friend back to where he’d left Grace. About halfway there — it hadn’t seemed so far on the first trip — the air car choked, sparked, and there was a rumble as a new fuel source was found by the fire. Nate looked up, caught sight of the pillar of fire blazing out of the windows of the air car, red and white stretching towards the heavens.

  This is how it ends. At least Grace was safe. He gave a last heave, hauled Harlow up. Nate shielded him with his body, started back towards Grace.

  The blast caught him in the back, helped him on. Tossed him like a discarded toy. Into quiet, cool black.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  GRACE FELT THE memory of something hot and loud, but also like the rush of surf over her submerged body. As if the surf was made of fire and metal and the rage of destruction. She felt the rough grit of the ceramicrete underneath her, the cool air around her, and thought, I’m alive.

  She sat up in a rush, her hair falling over her eyes. Pushing it back, she saw a pile of fire and ruin that could only have been the air car, a circle of black and grey visible around it where an explosion had left sooty fingerprints against the ceramicrete. The wreckage was thirty meters or more away, which left questions. How did she get here? How was she alive? Grace lowered her gaze, picking out the still forms of Nate and Harlow. Nate was out like a has-been prizefighter, and he was on top of Harlow, his head against the ground — must have knocked it when the blast went off.

  Her breath caught, and she scrambled over to him. “Nate. Nate!” Her hands found his face, her fingers stroking it for a second before she realized what she was doing. She pulled her fingers back like they’d been burned, then — cautiously, so no one, not even her, could mistake the intent — reached out again, brushing a lock of hair away. She then felt under his jaw for a pulse, and — thank you, thank you, thank you — found it. Grace got up, all efficient motion, pulling Nate off Harlow. She leaned him against the metal of a shipping container before crouching down in front of him. “It was you who got us out, wasn’t it?” She wiped hair from her face again. The grit and smoke made her eyes water. Harlow. She moved to retrieve Nate’s friend.

  Harlow was awake, but no one was home behind those eyes. She could feel a scramble of half emotions that didn’t form in the right ways, a kind of noise like hearing four different holo shows at the same time. She blinked it away, tried to close her mind from his, because the last thing she needed was her own thinking scrambled. As she dragged Harlow next to Nate — sweet Jesus he’s heavy — she caught a glint from the dark, reflecting the fire behind her.

  Grace walked towards the reflection, tracking whatever it was as it gleamed in the firelight. It was a vertical sliver of reflected flame, and she couldn’t make sense of it until she was almost on top of it. It was her sword, or what was left of it. The blade was stuck into the ceramicrete like a promise, the handle up and ready for her hand. For her. She reached down, fingers curling around the grip she knew better than any lover’s embrace. Lovers had always been fleeting. But her sword? It was a constant, a reminder of what the world would do to her. And what she could do to it in return.

  Grace pulled, the sword coming free of the ground with a small chime. The blade was still less than half as long as it should have been, its normal length paired down to something a shade longer than a good knife. No longer the katana she knew how to dance with, this was more of a ko-wakizashi. The blade still held promise, but it was a backup weapon now. It had been a long time since Grace had drilled with a companion sword. Her father had never given her a matched daisho, a pair of swords meant to be worn together. He’d never given her anything; she’d stolen this from under his nose. If stolen was the right word, because you couldn’t steal something that was a part of you. He’d always frowned at the use of a short sword, calling it a scrapper’s weapon. Fit for mongrels and those who couldn’t keep a firm grip on the sword that mattered.

  She held it up in front of her. Scrapper, huh? Mongrel, huh? So be it. She’d just need to get in close. Shorter movements. Be the little dog in a big dogfight. She gave it a twirl, feeling the altered weight and balance, then held it close. Thank you for coming back to me. This sword was the only thing that had stood by her.

  The sword, and Nate. He was still here. She remembered the touch of his skin under her fingers, and immediately wanted to forget. Because that could never be. Nate would never want a mongrel like her. She rubbed her face, ran a hand through her hair, and made a noise like a growl. That kind of thinking wasn’t helpful right now. There were bigger problems. Center. Focus.

  Grace stretched. Well, this is fucked. The Ezeroc were out here. Nate was down, Harlow was useless. She had half a sword, and their backup was a city away in a starship that had a hole in the side. She looked over at the warehouse, a shadow in the remains of the light from the burning car. If Harlow was right, inside that warehouse was Amedea. Inside that warehouse were other espers. She closed her eyes, listening to the night.

  Grace Grace Grace Grace Grace!

  She opened her eyes. Well, there was that. Espers or no, the warehouse was filled to the brim with a bunch of angry space insects. She looked down at Nate, her face softening, then clicked her comm. It gave a flat chirp, the noise of not-okay, but El answered. “What’s up?”

  “Got a problem,” said Grace.

  “Big or little?”

  “Big,” said Grace.

  “Republic?”

  “Ezeroc are here,” said Grace. “There’s a warehouse full of bugs. Nate’s down—”

  “Nate’s down?”

  “It’s okay,” said Grace. “He’s okay. He’s okay, El.”

  The line hissed with static. “Well, that’s something.”

  “It’s not much of something,” said Grace, “because he’s out cold.”

  “Doesn’t sound okay,” she said.

  “It’s a smaller problem than a warehouse full of death creatures,” said Grace. “Death creatures who want to core our minds out like a pumpkin on Halloween. You get me?”

  “Clear as a bell.”

  “Our air car is smashed—”

  “Funny story. Ours too.”

  “You get shot down?” said Grace. “I figure this place has some kind of automated defenses. They don’t like visitors.”

  “Nah,” said El. “We ditched and blew up a reactor downtown.”

  Grace thought about that for a while. “Look, I think that sounds like a good time, but it’s not useful detail.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So, it’d be helpful,” said Grace, “if you could come pick us up. Before the bugs come out and core our minds.”

  “Small issue,” said El, “is that our ship isn’t holding atmosphere right now. Hope is swearing, and Kohl’s outside trying to cut tethers free, and—”

  “Elspeth,” said Grace. “Death creatures. Death. Creatures. Get the fucking ship in the air.”

  “Copy that,” she said, and the comm clicked off.

  Grace! Grace! Grace!

  “For crying out loud,” said Grace, feeling tired, worn thin. She shouted, “Don’t worry! I haven’t forgotten about you fuckers!”

  There was no noise, no vocal response. But her eyes picked out movement in the gloom, the side of the warehouse opening like a treasure chest, dark promise inside.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  HER COMM CHIRPED. A happy sound, like a small bird, if birds were mechanical and lived inside a computer in your visor. Hope flicked the visor back, sucking in a lungful of air. The haze of welding smoke curled around her, making her cough. She was alone in the cargo bay. The Tyche was empty, or almost: just El up top, doing important Helm stuff. Kohl was outside swearing. And here Hope was, in a cargo bay where a bunch of people had died. Bloodstains still on the decking, mopped by a lazy hand (Kohl’s?), dark crumbs flaking off when you walked on them.

  Which
Hope didn’t want to do, because it felt wrong. Not that she was religious — thinking people were up there in the sky with a big invisible friend was silly. But if religion was real, if God was real, that would have been a comfort, because it’d mean Reiko was up there too. But the whole God-thing just didn’t make sense. Hope had flown across all that hard black, the space between stars that people called the heavens. There wasn’t anything out there but dust and radiation. No, she didn’t want to walk over where people had died because it felt disrespectful. She figured she could still respect people after they were gone without worrying about them living forever in a cloud.

  “You’ve got Hope,” she said to her comm’s chirp, but she wasn’t feeling it. Not anymore. Not … without Reiko. Because that’s what Hope had been hopeful about.

  “Yeah, we’re dusting off in five,” said El, her voice sounding as tired as Hope felt. “Cap needs us.”

  “I heard,” said Hope.

  “You were listening in?”

  “No, I never listen in.” She flicked her console, the recording of Grace and El’s conversation deleting with a swipe. “You know me. Just minding my business.”

  “Right. Okay, so you know what’s going on.”

  Hope coughed again, waving a hand in front of her face to clear smoke. The manipulator arms of her rig whined in sympathy, the ends clacking as they looked for metal to hold, to weld. “I know what’s going on. But I dunno if you do.”

  “Hope, we don’t have time—”

  “Hey!” said Hope. The brittle exterior she had patched over her soul cracked a little, and she bit her lip. She tried to hold in the tears and swallow the pain. She managed it long enough to get a few more words out, but they sounded hard and tight in her ears. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I’d love to go off saving everyone else’s world. You know, when my wife is dead.”

  “Hope—”

  “No, really El. That’s not it. It’s this.” Hope clicked the console on her rig’s arm, bringing up full visual. She played the scene out for El. “What we’ve got here is a big hole, right in the side of the Tyche. You walked through it. It’s not such a big hole now,” she pointed at a piece of metal welded over half the aperture, “because I’ve put some of this scrap in place.”

  “What about the original hull—”

  “No, great idea. Tell the Engineer how to fix the ship. Don’t you think I’ve tried?”

  The comm went silent.

  Hope bit her lip — again — and this time it hurt. She’d bit too hard, and tasted copper and disgust. At herself, or the people who’d hurt her Tyche, or the people who’d shot Reiko—

  Reiko is dead, and you will never feel the love of her arms again.

  —or the people who had the cap, or Grace. These people who crewed with her were Hope’s last real friends in the whole fucking universe. El didn’t deserve her anger. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing pink tinged with grease out of her eyes. “Sorry.”

  The comm was silent a little longer, long enough that Hope figured quick-worded El had signed off, gone to get a cuppa joe or something stronger, leaving little ol’ Hope to her misery in the hollows of the ship. Not where the bright shiny lights lived up on the flight deck, but where the dirt and noise were. But El hadn’t gone, and when she spoke, her words were softer than before. “No, Hope. I’m sorry.”

  Hope rubbed at her face, feeling wetness under her eyes. Damn smoke. “What for?”

  “It’s not for telling you how to do your job. I mean, sure, that was a total dick move on my part. You’re the best Engineer I’ve ever flown with—”

  “Come on, El, this isn’t a cheer-up-Hope session—”

  “Because that’s the truth, make no mistake. No, I’m sorry that we haven’t had time to raise a glass. To sit down, and tell stories about your wife. I wish I’d known her. Sure, I figured I knew about her. The cap and I, we looked into Reiko. We touched her life from afar, tried to work out why you’d been sold up the river like an offering to an angry god. I reckon I know the story well enough, but it don’t matter none. Not a bit.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No. What matters is you, and your stories. So, let me make you a promise.”

  “What kind of promise?” said Hope. “I don’t know there’s much to say.” She rubbed more water coming from her traitorous eyes.

  “We’ll sit down and honor our dead,” said El. “You and me. Steal some of Kohl’s liquor and drink until we can’t stand. We’ll do it in the hard black, the sound of the universe around us. We’ll give Reiko a Viking funeral, Hope, telling stories until there’s no words left.”

  Hope studied the hole in the ship, the dark sky and spaceport visible through the gap. She watched Kohl, running around outside like a mad ant, sawing off the tethers holding the Tyche to the heavy earth. Hope thought about El, leaning forward to speak into the comm, all the way up on the flight deck. El, who trying to get the ship to fly again, so they wouldn’t have more dead to mourn. So that the … Viking funeral … would be for just one person. “Okay,” said Hope. “Here’s the problem. The chunk they cut out of the hull? It was a piece of the cargo bay airlock. The main one. The big one. They screwed it up, El. I don’t know why they did that, but it wasn’t nice.” Of course it wasn’t nice, you idiot. They were trying to destroy your home. Steal your secrets. Capture and maybe kill your friends. She started over. “It’s a big hole, El, and I’ve just got my little rig. If we had a shipyard we’d be able to fix it up real quick. We ain’t got any friends left in the whole universe, so it’s just me, and my rig, welding metal on metal. It’s not finished yet.”

  “Will the ship fly?” said El.

  “Engines are fine, Helm,” said Hope. “She’ll fly, but she won’t like going out of atmosphere. Or, hell, we won’t. It’ll be loud, but we can fly.”

  “Get Kohl inside,” said El. “We’re leaving. You can keep working on the way.”

  “Kohl’s still busy,” said Hope, meaning, I don’t want to talk to Kohl.

  “I don’t want to talk to him either,” said El, and Hope figured she meant you should talk to him because we need him and we can’t leave him behind.

  “Okay,” said Hope.

  • • •

  “Kohl,” said Hope. The big man almost jumped out of his skin, whirling around, the bright point of the plasma torch like the world’s brightest firefly.

  He pulled back an old-style welder’s visor, something he’d scrounged up from ship’s stores, and gave her a glare. “Sneaking up on people will get you dead,” he said.

  Hope shrugged, the rig hiding most of the movement. Dead might mean she could follow Reiko. To oblivion. “Okay,” she said.

  Kohl sighed, clicking off the torch. “What’s up in Hope’s world today?”

  “Cap’s down. Grace is the only one up. Ezeroc are everywhere,” she said. “I think that’s about it. No! Wait. Air car’s been shot down, so they can’t get out. Yeah. That’s it.”

  “Huh,” said Kohl, a rumble coming from somewhere inside his chest. “Okay.”

  “So,” said Hope. “So. El said we’re leaving in five. But that was a couple minutes ago.”

  Kohl squinted at her, then pointed with the plasma torch at the cable. Last one, chaining the Tyche to the ground. A grapple between the drive shroud and the dock bay tether. “This is still a problem.”

  “It is,” said Hope. “Also, the hull still has a huge hole in it, so even if we get to where we’re going, we can’t escape into space. And people can shoot in through the hole.”

  Kohl turned, squinted at the cargo bay door breach. “Need to be a pretty good shot,” he said.

  “Could you make the shot?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Wait. Drunk or sober?”

  “Would it matter?”

  “Not much,” he said. “Give me five more minutes.” The Tyche gave a big, deep hum, the reactor inside coming up to full power. The drive cowls gave a little shake and a cough, a glow emanating f
rom within as El gave the Tyche her warm-up calisthenics. A series of spinning red lights illuminated around the docking bay as the ship’s Helm negotiated with ground systems, readying for departure. Those red lights meant humans, get clear in a universal language. Big thrusters could fire, meaning an instant pile of ash for any carbon-based lifeform. And an Endless Drive making its negative space field — or a positive space field — could turn human tissue inside out, or to pulp, or just a red smear. Kohl turned, like he was waking from a dream, and pointed to the engines. “What’s going on?”

  Hope walked back to the Tyche. “Helm says we’re leaving, so we’re leaving.”

  “Five minutes! C’mon!” But Kohl had already sparked the plasma torch back on, the crackle hiding his words.

  Hope was brought up short in her walk by the entrance of five people into the docking bay. Five people in there was unusual because the ship was firing up, and that made it a dangerous environment. Dangerous in the way that made even Kohl nervous. They did not look nervous. They looked armed. Hope didn’t pause, she just turned in a nice smooth one-eighty and walked back towards Kohl. “Kohl!”

  “Working!”

  “No,” said Hope. “Let’s trade places.” She was already getting the rig ready to shear the cable. She’d be faster at it than Kohl anyway, the only reason he was out here and she’d been in there is because he couldn’t weld like her. Damaging stuff? He was great at that, and these cables needed no finesse. However, it was time for some role-reversal, because Hope wasn’t great at … lifting heavy things.

  Kohl looked up, realized he couldn’t see anything through the welder’s mask, and pulled it off. He took in the five newcomers, looked at Hope, and then jumped on her. She was knocked to the ground — on her best day, she would have raised a tiny 45 kilos on the scales, and that was what just one of Kohl’s arms weighed in at — the air going out of her in a grunt. She was about to yell at him, just as soon as air came back into her lungs, which was taking longer than it should, when a series of bright arcs spat over the top of where she’d been.