Freefall

by Joshua David Bellin

  “You heard about this through Cons Piracy?”

  She smiles. “A front group for Lowerworld specialists in information extraction. They operated covertly in the Upperworld, with unparalleled access to JIPOC communications. Much of what we learned about the Otherworld colonization flowed through that channel.”

  I’m not surprised to discover there’s something else she kept from me on Earth, but I’m not exactly overjoyed, either. “So you knew about this beforehand?”

  “It was one of the reasons we attempted to distance ourselves from the Executor.”

  “But the Freefall followed the Executor after all,” I say. “So maybe your Cons Piracy friends were the ones who sabotaged the ships.”

  She shakes her head. “Cons Piracy had no access to the starships themselves. And their mandate was a peaceful one. It would have been inconsistent with their beliefs to engage in violence.”

  I look at her, so calm, so sure. I can’t read her mind, but my own thoughts are an inferno. I desperately wish I didn’t have to tell her the next thing I have to.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” I say. “This planet’s dead, Sofie. Dead or dying. The atmosphere’s a wreck, and the radiation’s lethal. Even if we had our terraforming equipment, there’s nothing to terraform. We’ll never survive here.”

  She closes her eyes, revealing the glistening black kohl that lines her eyelids. She breathes deeply, lets the air out slowly. When her eyes open, they’ve lost none of their golden fire. “We of the Lowerworld have survived great odds before.”

  “Not this time.” I’m not sure why I’m so eager to burst her bubble, but the words keep tumbling out. “Conroy had his team working on the Executor’s weapons since we got here, and they’ve restored some of the systems—the cannons, maybe other stuff too. I doubt they’re ready to move on the Freefall yet, but it’s only a matter of time. And, Sofie . . .”

  She waits. I get the feeling she knows what I’m about to say.

  “Aakash is dead,” I tell her. “And the rest of the team—the ones we could wake up—are trapped aboard the Executor. They might be dead too. Conroy sent me here to look for his missing son, but I think he only did it so I could lure your team onto the Executor. We’ve got no one left who knows how to operate the ship. And even if we did, the Freefall’s not equipped for combat.”

  She nods again, smoothes her robe. Something about the way she’s reacting—too calm, too businesslike—makes me decide to tell her the one thing I least want to say out loud.

  “I saw you die too, Sofie. Conroy disengaged your deepsleep, and you died. When I brought you back here, you weren’t breathing. No pulse. I don’t understand how you . . .” My eyes burn at the memory. I don’t want to cry again, but I can’t stop the tears from falling. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

  Her hands close on mine. I feel her warmth as she leans close, smell her fragrance. Even that hasn’t changed.

  “No one is greater than death,” she says. “I was trained by Sumati to control my heartbeat and breathing as a survival strategy, but this should not have enabled me to withstand an interruption of deepsleep. Some power we do not understand must have thwarted Chairman Conroy. But, Cam . . .”

  I look at her. Her voice, her eyes are tender. They always are, before she plunges the knife into my heart.

  “If I have been given a second chance at life,” she says, “I must live now as I always have. I cannot live the life another would have me live. And I cannot live in fear of death—my own or any other’s.”

  I nod. I know what she’s saying. And deep down, I know she’s right.

  But I still can’t stand to hear her say it.

  “So basically,” I say, “you’re determined to get yourself killed.”

  She cocks her head and looks at me, lips pursed, eyes bright. But not with tears.

  “You got lucky the last time,” I say. “Next time, they’re going to be a lot smarter. Figure out a way to kill you for real. Trust me, the Upperworld’s not exactly short on methods of killing people.”

  “I know the ways of death of the Upperworld,” she says flatly. Her tone is measured, but there’s an angry light in her eyes.

  Ladies and gentlemen, Cam Newell. The guy who decides to pick a fight with the girl he’s loved forever the minute she returns from the dead.

  “I’ve never asked you to betray your people,” I say. “To stop being who you are. I just don’t want to watch you die again. Is that too much to ask?”

  She opens her mouth to answer—more than likely something I won’t want to hear—but she’s cut off when the Freefall sends out a loud squawk that echoes through the corridors. The alarm repeats itself, over and over, while red warning lights flash above our heads. Sofie looks at me, and I know we share the same thought.

  I was right. It was only a matter of time before the Executor came after us. And that time is now.

  We’re under attack.

  Otherworld

  Earth Year 3151

  Day

  The battle cruiser that drove me to the Executor with Sofie’s team, then back with Sofie herself, rolls toward the Freefall’s main forward airlock. Its body gleams in the daylight, stark black against a world cleared of mist.

  Another cruiser comes up behind it, different only in the maroon-and-gold CanAm logo on its side. Behind that, ranged in battle formation, are more than fifty mechanical monsters, missiles cocked like antennae above the eyes of monster bugs.

  Centurions.

  Though I expected some form of assault, I’m stunned by the force that confronts us. Up to this point, I’ve seen only one of Conroy’s robotic beasties aboard the Executor, and that one was either malfunctioning or choosing to take matters into its own metal hands. The pods I faced previously had no weapons like they do now—if they had, I’d be dead—and they weren’t able to withstand the daylight, either. The only working vehicle I’ve seen since landing on this planet gave us a free lift to the Executor before blasting the Upperworld ship’s cannon to smithereens. Based on that behavior, I kind of assumed it was on our side.

  Griff’s dad must have been busy this past night.

  The ExCon cruiser coasts to a stop before our prow, close enough that from my position at the command center’s visualization screen, I can see that its blue-and-white logo is streaked by the fire damage it inflicted on the Executor. Its cannon swivels, sniffing the air, locking on our heat signatures through the triple-titanium-reinforced hull of our ship. One shot from that cannon and we’ll be on a fast track to another world.

  And this time, we won’t be waking up.

  The second cruiser, the one with the logo of CanAm, edges up beside its partner. Our screen crackles as the CanAm cruiser tries to open a channel with us. I glance at Sofie, who’s been uncommunicative since our little spat and won’t meet my eyes. I can’t think of anything I’m in the mood to talk to the Executor about, but I suppose I don’t have much choice. I touch the screen to let the cruiser through.

  A second later I wish I hadn’t.

  “Game’s up, Newell.” Chairman Conroy’s voice emerges. “We’ve got you surrounded.”

  Technically, he’s got about one-thousandth of 1 percent of the Freefall surrounded. But I don’t quibble. “So, how’s your throat feeling?”

  He doesn’t respond. Unless you count the ExCon cruiser rolling closer, its gun locked onto us, the Centurions fanning out behind it to show us he means what he says.

  “Chairman Conroy,” Sofie speaks into the screen. She’s been silent so long it surprises me to hear her voice. “Our destruction will not accomplish what you seek. Would it not be wise to work with us to achieve our common goal?”

  Conroy says nothing. I assume he’s using the lull in the conversation to scan our ship, make sure we don’t have any other war machines like his on board. If so, it won’t take him long to figure out we don’t.

  “Earth is behind us,” Sofie speaks again. “The future ahead. The fate that brought us
to this place might not have been what any of us desired, but could it not have been given to us for a reason? Let us not lose what we have wandered so long, fought so hard, suffered so much to find. Let us work together to survive as we can, as we must, if the universe is to remember us as a people and not forget that we ever were.”

  Despite our recent argument, I find myself moved by her appeal—or by the mere music of her voice—and it seems to me it would take a heart of stone to resist. But that’s exactly what Adrian’s dad has rattling around inside his chest. Unless she can speak to him in a language he understands, a merciless language of profit margins and externalities, he’s not going to hear her. And though Sofie speaks many languages, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t speak that one.

  “Cameron tells me you have lost a child,” she says, her voice softer than before. “I grieve with you, and I would offer you what comfort I can. Will you not let us board your ship, and join you in mourning your loss?”

  It’s a nice try. But it doesn’t work.

  “You will stand down while we board your ship,” Conroy announces. “Any resistance will be met with deadly force. You have thirty seconds before our soldiers fire. Their first target will be the pod bay.”

  A look of panic crosses Sofie’s face. “What terms are these—”

  “You’re in no position to negotiate terms,” the voice cuts her off. “Twenty seconds until we fire.”

  I look at Sofie. Her finger hovers over the controls.

  “No,” I whisper.

  “Ten seconds.”

  She smiles sadly.

  “Five seconds.”

  “I’m sorry, Cam,” she says.

  She presses the button to open the loading dock. I can’t stop her.

  Back on Earth, I believed in the future. Sofie was the one who first showed it to me, who convinced me that the centuries before our time didn’t have to control our destiny. As the rumble of the cruisers entering the Freefall echoes outside the room where we sit, I try to recapture the faith I had back then, when I was sure that people who fought hard enough for their beliefs could create something beautiful and blameless and new.

  But then I hear heavy boots in the hallway, and I know the truth.

  You can’t escape the past. The decisions we make at the beginning put us on a path we can’t step off, even at the very end. And those five final seconds are all the future we’re going to get.

  Otherworld

  Earth Year 3151

  Day

  Four of Conroy’s thugs enter the command center, their faces shielded by blast visors, their ion beams leveled at our chests. As if they weren’t enough, a pair of Centurions clanks in their rear. Sofie and I barely have time to rise from our seats before the human and inhuman soldiers intrude.

  Conroy enters the room. The collar of his uniform covers most of his throat, but purple blotches peek out where the Centurion choked him. The way he looks at us makes me sure his mind is flashing on the same kind of thought his son would have, Upperworld traitor caught in compromising position with Lowerworld breeder or something like that. But then his face breaks into a triumphant smile, and as with the first time I saw it, I like that smile even less than his typical look of disgusted superiority.

  He signals, and the teen soldiers cuff us. I’m hopeful they’ll take us to the Executor together, but they immediately separate us, two of them dragging Sofie to Conroy’s side and another two blocking me from making a move toward her. A Centurion joins each of the teams, so even if it was possible to overpower their human counterparts with our hands cuffed, we’d have to tangle with these soulless things of metal.

  “I’m not sure how you survived, Miss Patel,” Conroy says, his voice raspier than normal but the smile never leaving his face. “I can assure you, we won’t be so careless again.”

  Sofie meets his eye but says nothing. I search for something to say, something to show I’m not afraid of him, but I come up empty.

  He wheels, addressing one of the flunkies who holds me. “Trainee!”

  The teen straightens. “Yes, sir!”

  “After securing the prisoners, you will deploy Juggernaut Team A to this ship’s cargo hold. Requisition five hundred dormant pods for special handling. The remaining pods are to be disposed of to make room for our own company.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “No!” Sofie shouts. She struggles for freedom, but her captors hold her fast. “Chairman Conroy, have pity. Take my life if you will, but spare my people.”

  “Always angling for concessions,” Conroy says coldly. “Always trying to outmaneuver us. I’ve told you, Miss Patel—this is not an intercorponational parley. This is a hostile takeover.” He chuckles at his own humor, though the chuckle turns quickly to a cough. “In view of the damage inflicted on our own starship, the Freefall currently represents the Upperworld’s best hope for securing our interests. We will therefore occupy it, taking possession of its assets and excising its liabilities. You were a fool to surrender your vessel when it was the only bargaining chip you had left.”

  For the barest instant, Sofie’s body sags, and I’m reminded of Sumati, broken and defeated after years of struggle. But then she draws herself up and meets Conroy’s smirk with a calm, steady gaze.

  “I will pray for you, Chairman Conroy,” she says. “For you and your people. I will pray that they outlive the madness of their leader, and come to know wisdom before the end.”

  Conroy doesn’t bother to respond this time. He signals to his goon squad, and they pull me and Sofie toward the twin cruisers that sit idling outside the command center, the Centurions following close behind. I try to fight free of my restraints to reach for Sofie’s hand or Conroy’s throat—I’m not sure which—but I get neither. Instead, I get the butt of a pistol to the back of my head, and the room swims before my eyes.

  They’re loading Sofie onto the CanAm cruiser. I’m five meters from where she stands, but I feel farther from her than I’ve ever been. I focus hard, meet her eyes. They’re the first thing I saw for real, and now they’re going to be the last.

  “I love you,” I call out to her.

  She returns my gaze. Smiles. And speaks my name. “Farewell, Cameron Newell. There will be other worlds for us.”

  Then the guards yank me into the ExCon cruiser, the Centurion looms in front of the doorway, and I lose sight of her for good.

  Otherworld

  Earth Year 3151

  Day

  I’m locked down to the bench in the rear of the ExCon cruiser. The guards sit up front, joking and laughing, while the Centurion remains in the Freefall, probably waiting for its handler to give it the signal to remove pods from the hold. My head hurts like hell, but I haven’t lost consciousness. I’d kill both of Conroy’s stooges without hesitation if I could work myself free.

  But I can’t. And as soon as Conroy has what he wants from the Freefall, the surplus pods will be nothing but a smoldering memory.

  All those people, I think. All the people who died on Earth to give this handful a chance to live in space. And now they’re as good as dead too.

  If they were awake, they could flee the vessel. But they wouldn’t get far. The sunlight would stagger them in their tracks, and even if they survived until nightfall, the Centurions would destroy them before the next day’s sun had a chance to do its deadly work. I’ve seen how maneuverable these monsters are out in the night. Unarmed and leaderless, the last survivors of the Lowerworld would be little better than live target practice.

  I never learned how to pray, but I try now.

  I pray for all those innocent lives. For the waste of their beauty, their unknown futures. For the safe passage of their souls. Guilt pricks me when I realize I never prayed for the victims aboard the Executor, the ones killed when the battle cruiser I’m sitting in right now attacked the Upperworld starship. I never prayed for Adrian. I add him to my list of prayers, mourning the friendship we shared, wishing it could have worked out another way.

&nb
sp; But I can’t bring myself to pray for his dad, or for the faceless guards at his command. Maybe Sofie can find it in her heart to forgive them, but I never will.

  I think of the story she told back in New York CITI, the first time I saw her in the flesh: old worlds exiting the stage, new ones waiting in the wings. I wonder if she truly believed her own story, or if she knew all along a time would come when nothing new would survive the death of the old.

  I pray for us, too, for the world I wish I could believe awaits us.

  The battle cruiser spins in a perfect circle, and, through the visualization screen, I see the Freefall. It spans the gulf in all its silent majesty, one of the greatest things we earthlings ever made. A ship that took fifty years and millions of lives and trillions of dollars to build, a ship that sailed for a millennium into black emptiness in the hope of our race’s rebirth. Centurions crawl over its prow like spiders. The guard in charge opens a channel to the CanAm cruiser.

  “Awaiting your orders, Commander Conroy.”

  There’s a crackle of static. “Is the prisoner secured?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then proceed.”

  The guard pats his partner on the back and swivels to a separate console I assume to be the Centurion controller. He’s punching buttons on the box when I call out to him.

  “Hey,” I say. “You going to do whatever Conroy tells you?”

  He ignores me, pushes more buttons. I press my luck and keep going.

  “Back on Earth, there was this little thing called freedom,” I say. “We used to think that was a good thing. That we should make our own decisions, instead of running around kissing our boss’s ass.”

  “Shut the hell up,” he says, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the controller, frowning as if he’s about to ask it a question.

  “Conroy wants to turn you into a mass murderer,” I say. “He won’t do it himself, but he doesn’t mind letting you have all those dead bodies on your hands. How do you feel about that?”