Tyche's Deceit

by Richard Parry

  “Harlow,” said Nate. “What are you doing? Wasn’t that your boss?”

  “Yeah, but she wasn’t my friend,” said Harlow. He was looking around the inside of the cargo bay. “I love what you’ve done with the place. Also, she would control your mind.”

  “Good luck to her,” said Grace, coming alongside Nate. “He’s stubborn.” But she linked an arm with his, leaning close. “Go. I’ll make sure we don’t leave without Kohl.”

  “Go where?” said Harlow.

  “Harlow,” said Nate, “have you ever had a plan so big it couldn’t be disguised?”

  “Not really,” said Harlow, looking at Grace. “Was the Resistance a part of the plan?”

  “We’re free-styling a little,” admitted Grace.

  “This plan,” said Harlow, narrowing his eyes. “Does it involve killing the bugs?”

  “Of course,” said Nate. “Ain’t no alien scum going to take over the neighborhood.”

  “Go amaze me,” said Harlow.

  “Copy that,” said Nate. “Now, I need my sword.”

  • • •

  The problem with the sword wasn’t that Nate didn’t know how to sword fight. Wearing the Emperor’s Black meant he’d had the best training money could buy. The style of fighting they used — it being in accordance with ceremonial events, packed with delegates, politicians, and other high class, cold-blooded humans — favored small hand blasters to lower collateral damage, and swords for close work. The uniform had been slung with the blaster low on the right hip for easy-out drawing, the sword hilt over the right shoulder. Blaster in the right hand, sword in the left hand, and you could dance with the devil or his bride, near or far, as the fancy took you. The blaster had caused him some concern, because he was left-handed, but his instructor had explained — in painful detail, as Nate wore the brunt of practice sword bruising — that any idiot could shoot a blaster in either hand. It wasn’t an elegant tool. You looked down the barrel, pulled the trigger, and if you missed, you kept pulling until you solved your problem. But a sword needed a more delicate touch. You couldn’t use a sword like that. If you’re left-handed and try and use the sword in your right? It felt like swinging a tennis racket, not a sword.

  Nate could still shoot just fine. His right hand was working more or less how it always had. Where things came unstuck for him was that his left hand had been replaced by an uncomfortable hunk of metal. It didn’t hold the sword right. He’d worked out his metal hand had learned to shoot without his say-so, and that was working out okay. It’d be nice if the hand learned to fight with a sword, but it’d be nicer if Nate was right handed. The reason was that the swords’ masking of esper effects on him — their ability to read his mind, for example — needed skin contact. Metal wouldn’t do.

  Still. He could still hold it, even if it felt like a tennis racket. He hit his quarters at a run, the door slipping open in front of him. He took in the mess — those Republic assholes — and then kicked open the sea chest at the foot of his bunk. The sword was still there, which improved his mood. He grabbed the hilt with his flesh and blood hand. Time to find the flight deck.

  • • •

  He slipped into the acceleration couch beside El just as she was firing the drives up, bringing the Endless systems online. Kohl had slipped inside the ship — if by slipped you meant ran inside with insects on his heels — and now they were clawing sky. “Hey,” he said, a little out of breath.

  “Are we going to have a problem?” said El.

  Nate thought about that. “I don’t think so.”

  “Because there’s two things going on here. The first is, Hope’s acting weird. But that’s not why we’ll have a problem.”

  “Okay,” said Nate. “Can you fly faster?” He was watching the holo stage in the middle of the flight deck as fighters closed on their position. One in the lead had been marked in bold for some reason, the designation A-113 bright and clear.

  “The second thing that’s going on here is that I don’t think you’re telling me everything,” said El.

  “Well, that’s true,” said Nate.

  “Which is why we’ll have a problem,” she said. “It’s been a long fucking day, and I’ve been knocked out by Hope’s dead wife, and I don’t know how I should feel about that.” The Tyche kicked them both back in their chairs as the engines roared, the ship shaking with the vibration. The nose was pointed towards the sky, the moon visible, full and wide in the night sky. “She wasn’t dead when she knocked me out.”

  “I know,” said Nate.

  “And Kohl is running into danger. Not complaining about it at all.”

  “I’ll admit, that is strange,” agreed Nate.

  “So what haven’t you told me?”

  Nate thought about that, then he clicked on the comm. “Hope?”

  “Yes, Cap.”

  “It looks like you’ve coralled the Torrington off from her fighters. That right?”

  “Yes, Cap.”

  “Could you undo that?” said Nate. “I need to talk to someone.”

  “You realize—”

  “I know what’ll happen,” said Nate. “You’ll undo whatever you did, and for a little while, El will swear a lot—”

  “Fucking shitballs,” said El. “That fucking destroyer is right above us. What do you want me to do?”

  “More than usual, anyway,” said Nate. “Because there will be fighters up our ass. But then when I talk to who I need to talk to, that will stop.”

  “Will that be good?” said Hope.

  “Mostly,” said Nate, “but only after we blow up the moon.”

  “That sounds hard to do,” said Hope. Her tone was doubtful. “Our ship isn’t huge.”

  “It’ll be easier if we get someone else to do it,” said Nate, “which is why I need to talk to someone. And Hope?”

  “Yes, Cap.”

  “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the dog.” He clicked off the comm. The holo stage flickered once, twice, and then they were out of the Torrington’s comm loop. He looked at El. “I need you to keep going towards the Torrington. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, but we’re gonna get turned into slag. In a few minutes, we’ll be close enough for her to give us a little love tap. No atmosphere in the way from any energy weapons, and she can fire some serious ordnance at us. I mean—”

  “I get what’ll happen,” said Nate, “but in a few minutes the Torrington won’t be there.”

  “This I got to see,” said El.

  “Then watch this,” said Nate, and typed on his console. The message was short: They are in the moon.

  He waited for no more than five seconds when his holo lit up with a reply. You’re joking, of course.

  He looked out the window at where the Torrington would be, then smiled. Not about this. Is your ship secure?

  I need two minutes.

  “Two minutes,” said Nate.

  “That’s cutting it fine,” said El.

  “Trust me,” said Nate.

  He caught her look, head turned sideways against the hard G of their escape burn. That look said I do, but do you trust me? But all El said was, “Yeah, sure.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE SMELL NEVER changed. It was fear borne on the wind — or, in this case, recycled by the Tyche’s life support systems. Sure, they said the filters kept the air clean, but Grace could tell when people were scared. Not just the fear/fear she got from them in waves. No, it was more. Something animal. The fear could turn to anger in a second, blow up in your face worse than a skipping reactor. And, if you played the ace in your hand right, it could be a force for change.

  Let’s hope that ace isn’t a joker.

  The hard burn of escape velocity hadn’t helped. People had been straining to not create the world’s worst mosh pit in the base of the hold as the Gs piled on. They’d been clinging to cargo webbing as best they were able. Grace had been with them, trying to push back out feelings of
calm/relaxed, buffeting the waves of fear/pain/terror. She’d never tried it before, but figured that if the Intelligencers could control minds, maybe she could control emotions. It felt like trying to balance her way through kata for the first time, but without an instructor. In a dark room. While drugged. Whether she helped or harmed was difficult to know, but at least they were all still alive.

  The Tyche had flattened out, thrust easing. They would dock soon, just for a moment, and she needed to be prepared for that. There were a lot of things that could go wrong. A lot of things that weren’t in the plan they’d banged out with Karkoski.

  She was standing over Amedea’s unconscious body, Chad on the opposite side. He had a thoughtful expression on his face, not fear at all. When his eyes met hers, they were calculating, but not like a snake. Like a human, wondering what the fuck was going on. “You’ve got a plan.”

  “Yeah,” said Grace. “We’re under contract.” She paused, then nudged Amedea with her toe. “Not under her contract.”

  “I hear you,” said Chad. Now they weren’t in an alien terror dungeon, she could see the lines on his face were more dirt than anything else. Given time, he might pass for anyone else. He might pass for a normal person, if only the Intelligencer inside him could give up on trying to control people.

  Grace frowned. If only she had Nate’s sword. But no, he needed that. The Ezeroc would comb the ship, trying to find the captain’s mind. To find out what he was up to. So, Grace needed to be what she always had been, right under the surface. A liar. But she needed to lie to herself. She tried on a lie: you don’t love him. Hell, you don’t even like him. Hard, but if she repeated it often enough… “The glorious Republic isn’t as unified as you might think, Chad. They’ve got their military, and their ships. They’ve got a lot of ships. But what they don’t have is a unified high command. Because the aliens, Chad. The aliens came in here and cored them out.” She shrugged. “I guess you all thought you were top of the food chain, being the few humans who could read and control thoughts. Then this big alien menace moved in, and their whole race can do it. That’s a problem.”

  “It’s a problem,” agreed Chad. “What’s the plan?”

  “Our contract was that we’d blow up their base on Earth,” said Grace.

  He laughed, then sobered as he saw her face. “You’re serious.”

  “You tell me,” said Grace. “You’re the one who can read minds.”

  His eyes unfocused, like he was doing Endless jump math in his head. Then he shook his head. “I can’t … see.”

  “Neat trick,” said Grace. “The thing is, you can’t lie to someone who can read minds, right? You just need a bigger truth. All Amedea could see was that the great and glorious Republic had us on a job. And that interested her. A small crew, the mighty bending low to offer coin to the needy.”

  “You planned that?” said Chad.

  “Fuck no,” said Grace. “Amedea was a complication. We were hoping someone in the Republic command structure — someone pulling the strings — would notice what we were doing. And then we’d find the head of the snake.” She hefted her broken sword. “Cut the head off.” She turned the sword in her hand. “Turns out, things are a little more … complicated.”

  “Nuanced, I’ll agree,” said Chad. “So what now?”

  “I’m playing with half a deck of cards and I’m blind in one eye,” said Grace. “But I figure, we’ve got a chance. If you assholes can stop trying to fucking control people for half a minute, you might be useful. You might be useful enough to save the human race. See, Chad? We’re right at the part where our plan ran dry. We would call in the Torrington, if she wasn’t here already. Light up the alien fuckers with some nukes. Turns out they’re living in the moon. The moon is useful—”

  “The moon,” said Hope’s voice, from a speaker in the wall, “is important.”

  Grace sighed. “How long?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Hope’s voice, the speaker making a click like it was turning off.

  “Who the hell was that?” said Chad.

  Grace smiled. “That was Hope.”

  “Like, that’s her name, or…?”

  “It’s both, I think,” said Grace. “We can’t blow up the moon, so we’ll need to be a little more circumspect.”

  “I don’t think I like where this is going,” said Chad.

  “Me neither,” said Grace, “but I figure the alternative is you dying in a Republic reprogramming facility.”

  “Well then,” said Chad. “Let us know where you need us. I’ll talk to the others.” He grabbed Amedea under the arms, pulling her away.

  Grace smiled as he moved off, the tired expression saying I need to sleep but also said maybe we won’t kill each other, maybe the bugs will do it for us, but at least we’ll be fighting together for a change. She turned to the airlock. Time to lie a little more.

  • • •

  “You can’t come in,” said Grace, leaning against the airlock door. This time, she was on the other side of it, in the clean, well-lit boarding bay of the Torrington. There was a squad of Marines looking very serious and not at all concerned about the half-sword she had in one hand. Lieutenant Karkoski was facing Grace, arms crossed, looking pissed off. Finally, she’s showing a human emotion.

  “Grace Gushiken,” said Karkoski, “behind that airlock are fugitives from justice.”

  “That is true,” said Grace. “You still can’t come in.”

  “And you think you can stop us,” said Karkoski, giving a glance towards the Marines. “You.”

  “No,” said Grace. “You’re not coming in because you want to live.”

  “I—”

  “And they want to live,” said Grace, nodding in the general direction of the Marines. “They want their kids to live, if they’ve got them, or when they get them. And you want your family to live. Where are they?”

  Karkoski narrowed her eyes. “Who?”

  “Your family.”

  “I don’t see how that’s important.”

  “Play along,” said Grace, pushing black hair out of her face with a tired hand. “Just because … look, Karkoski? It’s been a long day. A long, long day. It’s not over yet.”

  “You’ve brought me the heads of the Resistance,” said Karkoski. Her voice softened a whisker. “You’ve done enough.”

  “Let’s say that’s right,” said Grace. “Ain’t no one on our ship who wouldn’t like to rest. But there’s a thing you haven’t considered. The aliens, Karkoski, are in the moon. The moon is a big rock. You can’t just punch it out of the sky.”

  “We could,” said Karkoski. “We’ve got the weapons for it.”

  “I had a talk to our Engineer,” said Grace. “It’s not a question of punching. It’s a question of debris. The moon, if you blow it in half, will rain moon rock into the Earth’s atmosphere, ending all life as we know it.”

  “I see.”

  “Tides are a thing we need as well,” said Grace. She waved a hand. “I didn’t understand it all.”

  “What do you suggest?” said Karkoski.

  “A new contract,” said Grace.

  “The price?”

  “Hell,” said Grace, “this isn’t going to cost you much at all.”

  “Why do I feel this will cost me more than I know?” But Karkoski’s lips twitched into a shadow of a smile, the hint of something that promised better dealings in the future.

  “You need us, Karkoski. You need all of us. For what’s to come.”

  Karkoski stood there like a human-shaped stone. Impassive. Unreadable to normal eyes, except for the roiling doubt/concern/fear coming off her. “What about Captain Chevell?”

  “Nate?”

  “Yes. Is he … on board with whatever you’ll talk to me about?” She looked at her immaculate boots, then met Grace’s eyes. “I notice he’s not here.”

  “He’s not here because he’s busy doing captain stuff,” said Grace. “Truth, there was a conv
ersation we had. But when I said Intelligencers were the only way that all of us wouldn’t die, well. He’s letting bygones be bygones for a spell.”

  “Die? All of us?”

  “Could happen. The important thing is that the only defense we have against an alien race that can control all our minds are Intelligencers,” said Grace. “They can … shield us. Run interference, while we do what we have to do.”

  There was silence in the boarding bay, the Marines standing like stones, Karkoski not twitching even a little bit. “Tell me your plan.”

  “Okay,” said Grace, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “First, I’ll need a new sword.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  NATE DIDN’T GO into Engineering often. Not because he was afraid of it but because Hope needed her space, and so he’d given it to her. He’d worried she wouldn’t like the noise or the heat, but she’d loved it. She’d always loved it. Right until now.

  As he sat with his back to the reactor — Hope’s trick with the Ravana still paying it forward — he watched her work on his leg. Her pink hair hung limp. No, that’s not it. It’s that she’s not bothering to push it aside anymore. “Are we going to be okay?” he asked.

  “You did a number on it, that’s for sure,” she said, one panel open, wires in her hands. Some of them were scorched and charred. “I mean, if you don’t mind me skipping the cut and polish—”

  “Not what I meant, Hope.” He wanted to lean forward, but figured on that being the wrong approach. “I meant are we going to be okay. Not my leg. Not me. Not the Tyche. Us.”

  She wasn’t looking at him, still staring at the wires in her hands. She had stopped working though, the cables just lying across her palms. “Yes,” she said, in a way that made him think no.

  “Good,” said Nate. “Can I tell you a story?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to tell it,” said Nate. “It’s been chewing at my insides like a cancer. And you don’t talk back much. Not like El. And you … care, I guess. I don’t know. Do you?”