Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy's Edge: a space opera anthology

by Nick Webb

  Everything on Yulia was dead. Not even flies came out to feast on the cadavers.

  A dull, persistent ringing filled the air, as though the voices of the millions that had died on Yulia had joined in one relentless cry.

  The city of Sunan had been the last to fall. The plasma artillery the locals had hidden deep in the forest had done very little against the Yaxees’ PPBs‌—‌pulse propulsion bombs. Wrapped in a thin shell of titanium and suspended in a perfectly spherical magnetic field, one microgram of Quarium had vaporized the whole city in a matter of seconds.

  It had taken less than 48 hours and nineteen PPBs to wipe out the whole planet. One week later, flames still marred the crests and pinnacles of the mountain peaks, and black plumes of smoke drifted off the cliffs and over the ocean.

  Sunan had crumbled to dust. The holes of cracked open buildings gaped into nothingness, torn steel cables strummed in the breeze.

  Hyleesh’s boots left deep prints in the dry soil. His heart was heavy, yet his soul empty. He’d come searching for survivors but he’d found none.

  Yulia wasn’t his planet, the dead weren’t his people.

  So why was he here?

  A deep, low rumble resonated from the north side of the shore. Hyleesh squeezed his weapon and gaped at the trail of dust and black smoke rising in the distance. The rumble grew closer until it became the distinct roar of half a dozen SATVs‌—‌special armored tactical vehicles.

  They’re here.

  The realization that he wasn’t alone on this stranded planet left him strangely indifferent. He poised his weapon, planted his boots, and stared at the wreckage of Sunan as the wake of black smoke grew bigger.

  Five-foot tall tires tore through the collapsed structure of the wharf, squashing bloated bodies and digging out sand as they propelled forward. Hyleesh counted five fully armed vehicles and three mosquitos‌—‌small, air-land tanks that came equipped with all-terrain crawler legs and rotor blades for rapid take off. A sixth SATV lagged behind. It was much larger‌—‌a twenty seater at least, Hyleesh reckoned, and, unlike its tan companions, this one was completely black.

  Black, like the Yaxee death.

  They detected Hyleesh at about twelve hundred feet away. The black SATV slowed down while the rest of the vehicles veered in his direction and picked up speed until he was completely surrounded.

  Hyleesh looked up at the darkened cockpits and didn’t move.

  Eventually, the engines died, and the wind blew away the last whiff of exhaust.

  “Soldier,” a metallic voice called from one of the SATVs. “Identify yourself.”

  He was wearing a plain soldier uniform. He’d forgotten about that. He stuck the butt of his rifle in the sand and removed his helmet.

  The wind howled from the smoking cliffs. The voices of the dead rang in his ears. Hot air blew sand and ashes in his face, the salt on his lips making his skin prickle.

  The cockpits of the five smaller SATVs popped open. Rope ladders dropped out of the top, and soldiers climbed down the vehicles carrying weapons, drills, pipes, and other pieces of equipment.

  The black SATV at the back whirred. A lateral door lifted, and a platform lowered to the ground. The face remained in shadow, but the uniform Hyleesh recognized immediately‌—‌black with red insignia on the shoulders and sleeves, as official missions mandated.

  General Zika, a.k.a., the Yaxee death.

  Sleek ankle boots walked down from the platform and into the sand. A silk cape whispered in the charged air. The face came out of the shadow. It was a scarred face, hard, with a crooked nose and skin so thin you could trace blue capillaries pulsing beneath it. The eyes were as clear as ice.

  “Captain Weber,” General Zika said. “What a surprise to find you here on Yulia.”

  “I would say so,” Hyleesh replied, watching the soldiers form a ring around the two of them. “Quite unexpected to find any presence at all here on Yulia after the last deadly raids.”

  A proud sneer twisted Zika’s thin lips. He waved a gloved hand at the devastation around them‌—‌the bodies washed to shore, the ruins of Sunan, the burning cliffs. “Indeed. I’d say the disinfestation was successful.”

  A foul aftertaste filled Hyleesh’s mouth. Bastard.

  Zika’s eyes narrowed. “Still. What’s the infamous Captain Weber, son of the pluri-medaled Colonel Weber, doing here? I believe your father is in Sarai right now. Weren’t you supposed to be with him, leading your own battalion?”

  Hyleesh hooked the helmet under his arm and picked up his rifle from the sand. “I’m headed back there,” he lied. “I had to come in person to let you know that you made a mistake, General. There’s no Quarium on Yulia.”

  Zika’s eyes widened, the ice in them hardened. One of the soldiers came out of the lines. “General‌—‌”

  Zika flicked a hand in the air. “Go start testing the water. Now!”

  The troops scrambled off, their gear clanging on their backs. They set the tools down on the sand a few yards away and started shoveling. Two men waded into the water and collected samples.

  “I don’t know where you get your information, Weber,” Zika said, watching them. “I trust my intelligence. We had information that pointed to a Quarium reservoir here on Yulia big enough to destroy the entire Old System. We tried to negotiate with them. They refused.” He waved a hand at the ruins of Sunan looming in the distance and shrugged. To him, what happened next was the natural consequence the people of Yulia brought upon themselves.

  “If they had that much Quarium,” Hyleesh interjected, “how come they never used it to defend themselves?”

  Zika squinted, one of the blue capillaries in his temple bulged. “It was a matter of time. We were faster.” He gave Hyleesh a long, hard look and then added, “I suggest you stay out of this, Captain. Sarai will be a hard enough nut to crack for you and your father. May I get you an escort to your ship?”

  Hyleesh sent one last glance to the men working on their Quarium quest and shook his head. He could get to his ship all right. The problem was that Zika’s men were in the way. He swung the rifle over his shoulder, shook the sand off his boots, and walked away.

  “Good luck with the Quarium quest, General,” he called. “What planet are you going to destroy unneccesarily next?”

  He spotted a shadow peeking at him from the open door of the black SATV. It waited for him to pass, then slid out of the vehicle and ran to the general. Hyleesh turned and recognized Egon, Zika’s closest counselor, a skull face that never left his patron’s side. His black gown and aquiline nose made him look like a crow. He probably made love to the General, too, when slaves weren’t around to provide such services.

  Egon cupped a hand around his ashen face and whispered something in the General’s ear. Whatever news he delivered, it didn’t look good. Zika’s eyes darted to Hyleesh.

  “Come back, Weber!” he called.

  He heard it in the general’s voice. Word’s out. Hyleesh flashed a nonchalant smile while quickly assessing his options. The General didn’t buy the smile. Egon had already turned to the soldiers, probably mouthing orders in his radio mic.

  Hyleesh dropped his helmet, ran to one of the mosquitos, and climbed into the small cockpit.

  “Traitor!” yelled Egon. “He committed mutiny!”

  The soldiers dropped their equipment, grabbed their weapons, and ran back. Hyleesh worked the mosquito’s controls until the engine whirred and the aircraft took off, its robotic legs retracting under the fuselage.

  Hyleesh had never flown these gadgets. The aircraft was so light compared to his sturdy ship he could feel the wind rocking him right and left. He pulled the collective and steered back toward the city. A flurry of HPNs‌—‌high power neutrino beams‌—‌skidded against the fuselage, causing all sorts of emergency diodes on the dashboard to flash.

  Hyleesh pushed the throttle and increased the velocity. The aircraft rattled and swung forward. Two other mosquitos flanked him, closing in on
both sides. Hyleesh saw them coming, jerked the collective, and dipped the aircraft down and forward. The two mosquitos slammed one against the other, and pieces of metal ricoched off Hyleesh’s windshield, denting it. One of the colliding aircraft lost two rotors, tilted, and flew off sideways. The other one continued its pursuit.

  The SATVs followed from the ground, black wakes of exhaust trailing behind them. As soon as Hyleesh entered the space above Sunan, though, the big vehicles slowed down as they painfully crawled over piles of rubble.

  Hyleesh dropped in altitude and begin to zigzag through the crooked skyline of the city. The other mosquito was relentless. Hyleesh dipped under a partially fallen overpass and squeezed between its broken pillars, but his pursuer was just as agile.

  Some of the buildings that had survived the bombings started crumbling as the two mosquitos flew by. Hyleesh zipped through a narrow alley and debris from the facing towers started raining down on them. Something hit one of the rotors, making the aircraft spin. The other mosquito flew over him and pried at the rest of the rotors with its robotic legs. Hyleesh plummeted. He popped the windshield, unbuckled, and moments before the mosquito touched ground, he jumped out of the cockpit and through one of the open windows of the closest building.

  The aircraft shattered in a cloud of fragments. The engine exploded, flames shot high up between the two facing towers. Hyleesh never knew what happened to the other mosquito. The heat wave blasted through the broken windows, lifted him up, and slammed him several feet away. He rolled on debris, shards piercing through his skin and heat lapping at his feet. A rumble shook the walls around him. He felt the quiver from the ground and ran, right as the ceiling collapsed and a thick cloud of dust and debris enveloped him.

  * * *

  Quarium. The word echoed in his head like a bitter medicine. Quarium was energy, power, wealth. Death. This unique molecule only existed in remotest parts of the galaxy, in the seabed detritus of icy cold oceans. That’s where the Yaxees had first found it on Aplaya‌—‌their home planet. No, not home. The one they conquered and settled on after destroying their own.

  Because that’s what the Yaxees were.

  Destruction.

  Something hard pressed against Hyleesh’s ribs. His throat was dry, his tongue chalky. He rolled over and coughed until it felt like his lungs were turning inside out. Then he closed his eyes and collapsed again.

  Warmth awakened him. A pencil of light brushed his face, dust motes dancing in it as though they had a life of their own.

  They didn’t. Nothing on Yulia had life anymore.

  He ran a hand over his cheek and his fingers came back white with dust. He was lying under a slab of concrete that had fallen on a metal cabinet and shielded him from the rubble that had followed. With some labor, he managed to roll to his side. The pencil of light was fanning through a small hole. He grabbed a piece of brick and scooped out dirt until the hole was wide enough for him to crawl through.

  The sudden light made him wince. He stood up, dusted off his clothes, and cupped a hand around his eyes.

  In broad daylight, his view of what had become of Sunan was dismal.

  The city skyline was gone, replaced by dune after dune of rubble. The wreckage was visible all the way back to the ocean, where a yellow smear of fog draped the horizon. The two buildings he’d flown into had vanished, replaced by the hill he was standing on. Peaks spiked out of the debris here and there, like solitary soldiers left standing in the desert.

  He wondered how much radiation still lingered in the dust, how much was getting into his bones, his lungs, his flesh. The sun was harsh on his dry skin. He longed for water, for a shower, for his ship.

  His ship.

  The thought pumped adrenaline back into his veins. He scrambled down the pile of rubble and back into what was left of a street. He found the jammed rotors of the mosquito on the ground a few feet away, stuck into a lump of twisted and charred metal. There was nothing left to salvage. One thing did grab his attention, though.

  Tire tracks. Everywhere.

  There was no way to mistake them. At least two feet in width, these were tracks left by the SATVs.

  They came looking for me.

  How long have I been out?

  The sun scorched his eyes, still he craned his neck up, shaded his forehead with his hand, and scrutinized the sky. No white wakes marring the orange-tinted ether, only whiffs of sickly clouds blown away by the wind. Were they gone? They wouldn’t have found any trace of Quarium on this shore, Hyleesh was sure of that. But would they have left Yulia completely?

  Unlikely.

  There were three major oceans on Yulia, all black in color and icy cold‌—‌the telltales for Quarium deposits. Zika wasn’t going to give up until he’d drilled holes in all the shores on Yulia.

  Unless during the testing they’d found his ship, in which case they’d still be at the shore ripping it apart.

  Damn it.

  He had to get back there fast. He started down the street walled by crumbled slabs of cement when a wave of dizziness caught him. He doubled over, fighting the nausea. He’d gone too many hours‌—‌maybe days?‌—‌without food or water. His vision blurred. Ghosts of heat swirling up from the debris made him jump.

  Just a mirage.

  Have to find water. Have to.

  He stumbled inside a building. The top floors had shattered, but the ground ones were still standing. Holes gaped where once had been doors and windows.

  The reek of rotten flesh negated the respite from the cooking temperature outside. Walls were missing, beams had fallen from the ceiling and scattered on the ground, together with shoes, torn fabric, and other clothing items‌—‌some with their original owners still attached to them.

  His brain didn’t even register the horror. He moved on automatic, desperately searching for water. He stumbled on broken desks, chairs, torn cables, shattered pieces of electronics, and tripped on a hard object, crushing it under his boots.

  An empty plastic bottle.

  There was a metal cabinet lying on its side nearby; he opened it. Its contents had been completely pulverized. Bits of broken plastic, electronics, and office supplies‌—‌everything had reduced to fine dust. The massive radiation released by the Quarium propulsion bombs had completely wrecked everything, bodies and objects alike.

  He banged the cabinet door. It had once contained water bottles and now all there was left was a small plastic cap that quietly rolled to his feet.

  Hyleesh sighed.

  There has to be something drinkable. Any kind of drinkable.

  He waded deeper into the building. The inner rooms were windowless, no ambient light from outside. He dipped a hand in his pocket, fished out a flashlight, and clipped it to his uniform lapel.

  Primitive but good enough.

  After deserting his own troops, he’d gotten rid of all the electronic paraphernalia that could make him traceable. As much as he missed his flexible-screen SmartComm and all the useful apps it came with, his fellow Yaxees would’ve already found him and killed him if he still wore one of those around his wrist. He found the bathroom stalls, and for a short moment the unmistakable reek of urine covered the stench of rotten flesh. He tried the sinks, his boots crunching on a layer of mirror shards. Without electricity, the photovoltaic cells that controlled the faucets were useless. He grabbed a broken pipe and banged against the taps until he knocked them all off the wall. Not a single drop of water came out of the pipes.

  Hyleesh roared in frustration, thirstier than before. What had he done to himself? He had a good life, captain of one of the best trained corps in the Yaxee army. He was a young promise in his fleet, bound to quickly climb to high military ranks, just like his father...

  His father.

  His father was a rapist and killer.

  Once banned from the galaxy for destroying their mother planet, the Yaxees had become powerful again thanks to Quarium fusion. They rebuilt their military fleet and expanded their domain
. Cities on Aplaya flourished and doubled in size. But they wanted more. And when the neighboring planet Yulia threatened to use Quarium too, panic spread through the Royal Council. Quarium was too powerful to let other planets use it.

  Yulia was ruled by anarchists, the land marred by a history of political instability.

  Hyleesh’s father was one of the members of the Royal Council who’d voted for war. “Three billion people, three major oceans, enough Quarium to destroy the entire planetary system,” he’d said in front of His Majesty, the Kraal. “We will attempt to resolve this peacefully by demanding that they surrender the Quarium. If they refuse, they will face the consequences.”

  The Kraal signed off the Council’s decision and gave the order. Zika and his fleet were deployed. The inhabitants of Yulia refused to let the Yaxees land on their beautiful shores. The planet was exterminated.

  And now they’ll learn that there’s no Quarium.

  Yulia was too cold for that, too old of a planet. Only Andrameis planets had Quarium, but Yulia was older than Andrameis, older than any other world in the two-star system. The planet had originated from Salis, the smaller star. A handful of academics pointed it out. They were shunned, ridiculed and disbelieved. One was found assassinated inside his home.

  Hyleesh’s father was a rapist and killer. And now a mass murderer.

  When Hyleesh learned the truth, the propulsion bombs were already on their way to Yulia. By the time he made it to Yulia, his ship’s instruments didn’t detect a single heartbeat on the entire planet. Not a soul had survived the massive extermination.

  And now he was going to die of thirst on a brittle dry planet.

  He kicked the sink, cursed, and slammed the pipe against the wall. It dented the cement then bounced off the floor with a clang.

  The clang echoed.

  Hyleesh sighed and dropped his head to his wide palms.

  His ship was his only hope. He had to conserve enough energy to get back to his ship.

  The clang echoed again. And again.

  Hyleesh held his breath.

  Echoes don’t last that long.