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

by Nick Webb

  He stormed out of the bathroom and scanned the area with his flashlight. It wasn’t an echo. It was a squeak, recurrent, from somewhere down a dark hallway studded with broken beams and fallen furniture.

  His lips were parched, his throat so dry it hurt. The last effort in the bathroom had left him drained of energy and dizzy.

  Yet the squeak kept calling. There was no air moving, no draft. Hyleesh held the flashlight like a poised rifle and started down the hallway. All doors had shattered, all rooms looked the same‌—‌collapsed ceiling, smashed furniture, wreckage everywhere.

  The squeak got louder. Whinier, in a way. More demanding.

  You’re imagining things. They’re all dead. Nobody survived.

  He got to the last doorway, the last hole in the wall. He flattened against the wall, an old instinct from his military training, then pointed his flashlight. In the unyielding darkness, two red dots bounced off the light. And they blinked.

  Sacred Kraal.

  Hyleesh clipped the flashlight back to his jacket and entered the room. It had been a moan, not a squeak. A dog, of all living things, trapped under a slab of concrete that had pinned the poor animal’s hind legs. Despite all odds he’d survived. His eyes were crusted with pus, his nose split in the middle and caked with blood. And yet there was still life in him. Hyleesh crouched by his side and the dog barked and licked his hands, his tongue rough and as dry as Hyleesh’s own lips.

  “I’m not sure what I’m saving you from, buddy,” Hyleesh mumbled, clearing the debris accumulated around the animal. “I think right now the chances are slim for both of us.”

  He lifted one of the beams that had dropped from the ceiling and used it to lever the slab of concrete. As soon as it yielded a few inches from the ground, he kicked a metal shelf underneath to keep it off the dog’s legs.

  The dog didn’t move.

  “Come on buddy, you can do this.”

  Hyleesh pulled gently on his forepaws, dragging him out of the trap, and then assessed the damage. The dog’s hind legs were gone, clamped under the weight of the concrete. Ironically, it had also prevented the limbs from bleeding, saving his life. How he’d survived the massive radiation and explosion, though, was a complete mystery.

  The dog licked Hyleesh’s hand and moaned. Something clinked from his collar‌—‌a small, round medal with a plastic keycard attached to it. The medal said”Argos” followed by a call number.

  “Argos,” Hyleesh said. He patted him behind the ears. “What a trooper.”

  He removed the keycard from the dog’s collar and examined it. It had a magnetic strip and a barcode printed on the back. He stood up and swept his flashlight around. No standing doors left. Whatever the keycard had given access to, it was useless now.

  Argos scraped the ground with his front paws and licked the tip of Hyleesh’s boot.

  Hyleesh stooped down again. “What does this‌—‌”

  And then he saw it, right as he leaned forward and the beam from his clipped flashlight fell on it‌—‌a trapdoor. The concrete slab had fallen on it (and on Argos), hiding it. Hyleesh moved the dog and shone his light on it. The keycard lock had been smashed and the door had caved in.

  Hyleesh tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry.

  He could still make it to his ship. How far into the city had he come with the mosquito? Maybe in half a day he’d get back to the shore. Maybe he still had it in him, enough energy to make it. But he had to leave now.

  Argos let out a soft cry.

  Hyleesh nodded. “You have friends down there, don’t you?”

  His ship’s instruments hadn’t detected any survivors. But then again, they hadn’t detected Argos’s heartbeat either.

  Hyleesh set the flashlight on the ground, beam pointed underneath the slab of concrete, and removed his jacket. He retrieved the beam, stuck it under the concrete, and then heaved and pushed until the slab inched backward. Satisfied that there was enough room for him to access the trapdoor, he crawled under the slab.

  Crushed by the heavy weight, the cardkey pad was jammed. Luckily, the locking mechanism had failed and it took Hyleesh only a little pushing and prodding for the door to yield.

  As soon as he pulled it open, the odor wafting out of the door killed his last hope of finding anyone alive. It was so strong it brought tears to his eyes. He took a deep breath, and leaning through the hole, shone the flashlight down below. It was a five-by-five bunker, no more than six feet deep. A coffin. The light swept through a rack of shelves brimming with canned food and water bottles that had been miraculously undamaged. He was about to relate the good news to Argos when the light caught something that made him freeze.

  A hand.

  Hyleesh stuck the butt of the flashlight in his mouth and lowered himself inside the hole. Underneath blue covers, he found a mother and child huddled together against the wall. Their faces were bloated, their skin green and purulent. And yet that gesture‌—‌the child embraced by her mother’s arms‌—‌frozen in the moment of death, carried such tenderness, such humanity, it made Hyleesh rewind back to his own childhood back on Aplaya, back when the world was a big playground and his dad the hero of his dreams. Back when he still believed in his people, his origins, himself. Back before one woman opened his eyes and made his world crumble.

  He spotted the air vent above mother and child. He waved a hand in front of it but no air was circulating. They had been spared death by the bombs only to die asphyxiated in the very place that had saved their lives.

  He sighed and dropped the blue cover back over the bodies.

  Argos yelped. A slight tremor made the bunker walls vibrate. The cans on the metal rack rattled.

  Fuck. The place is going to collapse soon.

  Nothing he could do about the mother and child, but Argos, back on ground level, was still alive. And so am I, he thought, grabbing as many water bottles as he could hold. He crawled back out of the hole, uncapped the first bottle and poured it in Argos’ mouth. The second one he gulped down in huge mouthfuls, splashing the last of it on his dust-caked face. He put the rest of the bottles on his jacket, knotted the sleeves together, and swung it over his shoulder.

  He then inhaled, gazed back at Argos, and bobbed his head. “This is going to hurt, buddy,” he said, leaning over to pick up the dog. “But believe me, you don’t want to be left here either.”

  Argos yelped as Hyleesh snuggled him against his chest, careful to tuck the stumps of his injured legs underneath. He moaned, then leaned his face against Hyleesh’s chest and closed his eyes. For the rest of the hike back out of the building, the dog didn’t make another sound.

  “Your job is done, buddy,” Hyleesh said, patting him. “You didn’t save their lives but you saved mine. Your job is done.”

  * * *

  The shore was deserted. Tire tracks and trenches of sand were still visible where the men had set their portable labs to test the water.

  Hyleesh set Argos on the sand and uncapped the last bottle of water for the two of them to share. He squinted at the sky, still orange and overcast with smoke from the cliffs. If he was right, Zika had moved his men to the opposite coast, eight thousand miles away. If he was wrong, he and Argos were dead. He swished lukewarm water in his mouth and considered the odds.

  Even if Zika and his men were indeed eight thousand miles away, the moment Hyleesh pulled his ship out of her hiding spot, it would take seconds‌—‌minutes at most‌—‌for the soldiers to pick up the new signal in Yulia’s atmosphere.

  No chance if they were closer than that, still on this side of the ocean.

  On the other hand, sitting here waiting for death to come wasn’t going to help much either. He watched Argos’s ribcage steadily rise and lower with labored breathing, his auburn coat tight over his bones. The poor thing needed food and medication. Hyleesh’s stomach growled. Hell, he needed food too!

  He stuck the empty water bottle in the sand, smacked his lips and said, “Ready to roll, pup?”
/>   Argos flicked an ear but didn’t reply. Hyleesh didn’t think he would, he was just happy to finally have somebody he could talk to. And even without words, the dog’s eyes alone told a million tales.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Hyleesh said, pulling his left boot off. He’d been wearing them for so long, for a moment the mildew smell of his dirty socks covered the fishy stink of the kelp and the bodies rotting on the shore.

  “Don’t complain, buddy,” he told Argos. “It’s part of my infallible plan to keep this secret. And unreachable.” He pushed a hand inside the boot and pressed his finger pads against the inner sole. A light blinked to the side of the boot. “Recognition successful,” an electronic voice said. “Initiating request.”

  Hyleesh grinned. “That’s how I talk to the Orion. Through my boot. And I have to be close enough, it wouldn’t hear me back there in the city. Short-range radio waves. Primitive, I know, but safe. Had I kept the signal going throughout we wouldn’t be here to tell the story, buddy.”

  Argos agreed with a soft bark. He would’ve wagged his tail if he’d still had one. Hyleesh patted him then stared eagerly at the horizon, his jaw tense. It was always a gamble. This exact moment of waiting, of nothing happening and yet about to happen, the notion that something could go wrong and he’d be stranded on a dead planet waiting for his own death.

  A black wave swelled, making the horizon curve up. Half a smile tugged at Hyleesh’s lips. And then it happened. The wave burst open and the ship surged out of the sea, streams of water washing down its hull and back into the ocean. She turned her sleek, pointed bow to the shore and lowered her lateral pylons. A small impulse and she was drifting elegantly over the surface of the water.

  “Ha!” Hyleesh shouted. “There she is!” He slid his left boot back on, scooped Argos into his arms, and sprang to his feet. “Argos, meet Orion,” he said as the ship glided to shore. “She can be quite stubborn at times, but she’s undoubtedly the most beautiful ship you’ll ever board.”

  A flash at the horizon caught his eye, bringing him back to the urgency of the moment. As soon as the ship reached them, he prompted the bridge to lower, jumped, and activated the lift.

  “Emergency take off,” Hyleesh shouted, cutting off the AI navigator’s automated greeting. He set Argos in the cot closest the cockpit, hastily promised to take care of his wounds once out in space, and then slumped in the pilot’s seat. “We have exactly eight minutes to leave Yulia’s atmosphere unharmed.” He engaged the drive and flipped it to max. “I want you to reach flank speed in sixty seconds,” he told the navigator.

  “This will cause a significant use of fuel and‌—‌”

  “Just do it!”

  “Yes, Captain. Calculating fastest route...”

  The 3D rendition of the surface of Yulia assembled itself over the dashboard. A sound blared and a red dot started flashing behind the ship’s avatar inside the hologram.

  “A tracker,” Hyleesh said. A metal shell equipped with tracking software installed and designed to explode once it reached its destination. “Damn it. How fast is it moving?”

  “Approaching the sound barrier,” the navigator replied.

  “Then be faster!” Hyleesh snapped. He grabbed the helm and slewed the ship around. The red dot on the screen replicated the Orion’s movements almost to the inch. The navigator calculated the new route.

  “Keep it second guessing our direction until we have a better plan,” he told the navigator. No chance to lose the sucker, the only way was to destroy it.

  Think quickly! Trackers were not only incredibly fast, but they were able to fool self-aiming software, too. As tempting as it was to try the Orion’s sophisticated artillery, right now it was more important to use his ammunition wisely.

  He pulled up a new screen, rotated the 3D image, and assessed the planet’s surface.

  “About to break the sound barrier,” the navigator warned. “Requesting permission to go over four g’s.”

  “Permission granted,” Hyleesh replied. Back in his cot, Argos yelped.

  “I’m sorry buddy, hang in there!” Hyleesh called.

  The tracker was still at their heels. He had to lose the sucker and get out of Yulia’s atmosphere before the signal reached Zika’s men.

  He spotted something on the 3D screen and tapped it. The image enlarged. “What am I looking at?” he asked, the rattling of the ship under the high g’s making his voice shake.

  “Haimai volcano,” the navigator replied. “Active. Last week’s Quarium bombs caused a new eruption.”

  A new eruption, Hyleesh thought. Perfect.

  He balled his fists around the helm and pulled, overriding the current route. “That’s where we’re going.” Hyleesh highlighted the coordinates of the volcano’s mouth and copied them into the new route.

  “New route is discouraged,” the navigator protested. “Volcanoes on Yulia release high concentrations of bromine chloride, which could damage‌—‌”

  “Override.”

  The rattling of the cockpit got louder. The ship stopped swerving, locked the route in, and started a nosedive into the volcano’s mouth. The tracker closed the gap. It was a bet Hyleesh was willing to make. Those little machines were resilient and virtually indestructible, but they had limits, too.

  The bridge windows darkened as they got covered in ashes.

  “Pull out of current route in thirty seconds,” Hyleesh ordered.

  “Calculating,” the navigator replied. “In twenty-eight seconds the ship will be too far deep‌—‌”

  “Override.”

  He swallowed hard and watched the tracker on the screen, now only a few hundred feet from the stern of the Orion.

  Twenty more seconds. Eighteen. Lights started flashing on the console.

  “Temperature reaching maximum tolerance,” the navigator said. The Orion screeched deep from its engine. “Temperature over maximum tolerance.”

  Ten seconds. Hyleesh patted the console. You can do this, baby. I know you can.

  Five.

  Four.

  The rattling got louder. Then the ship swerved back up, the g’s greying Hyleesh’s vision. He fought to keep his eyes open, his knuckles white at the controls. The pixels in the 3D screen flickered and for a moment he lost the connection. His eyes strayed back to the bridge windows, tears of condensation etching through the layer of soot.

  Then the image came back, the ship’s avatar fast shooting out of the volcano’s mouth.

  “Where’s the tracker?” Hyleesh mumbled. He tried to draw a deep breath, his lungs squashed by the pounding g’s. He couldn’t hear Argos anymore‌—‌the dog would’ve likely passed out by now.

  “Tracker not found,” the navigator replied. “Metal residues detected around the volcano’s mouth.”

  Hyleesh exhaled a sigh of relief and grinned. “Excellent. There’s your tracker. Too dumb to change its course in time.” He slowed the acceleration by two g’s.

  “Hey buddy, how you doing?” he called to Argos. Five more minutes and he’d be able to unstrap from his seat and attend to the poor lad.

  “Reroute to outer space,” he ordered.

  “Request denied.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Not enough fuel to break Yulia’s gravitational field.”

  Hyleesh set the ship back into cruise and slumped in his seat. He could always land and search for fuel on Yulia. With all the stranded ships he’d seen around Sunan’s spaceport he was sure to find one with a still intact tank. But that would take‌—‌how much longer? Two hours if he acted quickly. Plenty of time for Zika’s troops to find him.

  “New alert detected,” the navigator chimed in, interrupting his train of thought.

  “What now?”

  He saw it on the screen before the computer replied. He tapped open a new window and selected the Orion’s tail view.

  Forget two hours. They were here now, already visible on the horizon.

  Tinted in orange by the setting
sun, a row of five shiny objects glimmered above the clouds.

  Stingrays.

  Five fast approaching Stingrays and not enough fuel to break out of Yulia’s grav field.

  “Damn it.” Hyleesh rapped his fingers on the console and considered his options. A tracker was a piece of cake compared to a fleet of five Stingrays.

  “What do you say, Argos?” he called. “Any tricks up your sleeve against Stingrays?”

  Dogs don’t have sleeves.

  The console bleeped. “Incoming message. Source: YX3RTZ.”

  Hyleesh recognized the code. “Play message,” he said.

  Zika’s voice came into the cockpit loud and clear. “Why, hello, Captain Weber.” A chuckle. “My men kept saying you were dead. But I knew better. I recognize talent when I see it. Too bad it’s all wasted on you. Sooner or later the rabbit has to come out of his hole. So, what do you say? Shall we settle this argument civilly? The Kraal reassures me it’s your last chance.”

  The Kraal, the Royal Commander in Chief. The word must’ve reached Hyleesh’s father too at this point. He wondered what he was thinking, betrayed by his own son.

  No. He betrayed me. No turning back now.

  It was the last resort. But he had no other choice.

  He pressed a button.

  “Recording message,” the computer said.

  Hyleesh leaned into the mic. “Charming to hear your voice, General Zika,” he said. “Always puts me in a good mood. Would love to have more time to chat with such a refined being as you are, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand half the things I’d have to say. Like, why there cannot be any Quarium on a planet like Yulia. But by now I’m sure you’ve seen the evidence yourself. Too bad, isn’t it? Because you see, you just wasted thirty thousand tons of Quarium to destroy a planet that, alas, has none. And now you’re going to have to wait another twelve months before you can make enough pulse propulsion bombs to destroy your next target. That’s sort of ironic, isn’t it? Well, let me help you out and send some your way.”

  Hyleesh released the recording button. “Send now.”

  He gripped the impulse lever and then tapped the weapon console.