The Boundary Zone

by A. B. Keuser

  Whether that was because she was Kindiran, or because she was the only one alive with any chance of stopping her brother from destroying what remained of the Ka fleet….

  Cable gave Raza a strange look and the woman dropped her hand from Mack's arm. With the boom of her Ka name once more, she flinched and half turned for the door. "I have to go. I'll come back as soon as I can shake Nrog and I'll send you over to Aaron's ship via particle beam. I'd tell you not to touch anything, but if you don't have the gene sequence, it won’t work anyway."

  Cable gave Raza a strange look and the woman dropped her hand from Mack's arm. With the boom of her Ka name once more, she flinched and half turned for the door. "I have to go. I'll come back as soon as I can shake Nrog and I'll send you over to Aaron's ship via particle beam. I'd tell you not to touch anything, but if you don't have the gene sequence, it won’t work anyway."

  Cable kissed her gently on the forehead, "Be careful out there."

  "I will.” She stepped out into the corridor and took three steps before Nrog was on her.

  "Where were you?" He stared at her, the scales on his chin had puffed out like a jagged beard.

  "I had to use the lav facilities." she lied smoothly. "And I need a walk, my legs were getting stiff up there." As if to prove her point, she set off toward the command center at a fast clip. Nrog, with his long legs, was able to keep up without any problems.

  "The lights were a nice touch, KaRapp is pleased with your progress, but he wants more."

  Mack stopped, turning to face him and letting all her frustration out. "He's asked me to find a way to make all the ships work off a central command.... that’s damn near impossible. He knows that as well as I do. He's asking for miracles I can't provide."

  Nrog stepped back sinking into a half bow and kept his eyes on the floor. "I understand, KaZie. It is only..."

  "What? Does he want me to fight his war all on my own? You're a smart crassicau, you've survived this long in the galaxy. You cannot see this as a winnable situation. It is folly if there were more than two of us and if we had the crews to fill these ships. Then, perhaps I would agree with him, we might be able to win this thing. But as we are, we cannot. What he suggests would mean the true end of the Kas. All of us. You've spent your whole life waiting for some miracle to return us to you, you have to understand that this is not the way my species continues in the cosmic game we call life."

  "Life is not a game."

  "No, if we lose this battle, we will not respawn at the beginning of the level."

  His brow furrowed and she realized Nrog might not have had access to the war-sim games pushed out on human children for a hundred creds a pop. She decided it didn't matter.

  "I am doing all that I can, but we are not an army. Even with what ships Maeltar and whoever else A— KaRapp has brought to the table, I see no end that will win us our freedom."

  Nrog looked at her for a long moment before shaking his head in dissent. "KaRapp is here to fulfill the prophecies. He will deliver his people into the new age of enlightenment and he will destroy the cancer that is the human race."

  Mack had to keep herself from sighing too heavily. Nrog was an ally--albeit a hostile one.

  He might be stuck on some religious hokum, but that didn't mean he couldn't help her. It just meant she’d have to be careful about what she said, and she would have to keep Cable and Raza out of sight.

  "We are a peaceful race, Nrog. We don't want vengeance, we simply want a chance to live."

  "Sometimes you say things and I wonder if you are really Ka at all."

  In response she swiped a hand over the panel to her right and let the doors close him out. She'd had enough of his orders. He could wander the ship all day and not find Cable - he could only open a handful of doors on the entire ship, and she would use those against him if she could manage it.

  She made her way to the interface and slid her hands onto the cool skin-like surface.

  Time slowed once more, but instead of facing the full gamut of the ships' captains, she saw only the face of KaMin. "I knew you would return soon. The ships are restless, even under your care."

  "They aren't the only ones."

  As her memories of what had transpired since her last visit to the ships filtered between them, she knew she knew KaMin had seen her question.

  "Years of solitude, trapped in our ships, has changed us, KaZie. There was a time we hated all humans simply for the blood that ran in their veins. I will not lie to you there are two among us who would still rather see the race of humanity expunged from the galaxy."

  "The individuals of a race should not be held accountable for the sins of the whole. Cable and Raza do not hate me for what I am."

  "No indeed. They both still love you very much."

  Mack didn't know what to say to that."

  "KaDen can hear them, where you left them... they are worried for you... and they both believe what you told them." She smiled as Mack thought of their plans for Aaron. "We cannot fault them for taking the same action we would have... had we the chance. He killed his ship’s captain. On our worlds, murder is met with a punishment in kind."

  "An eye for an eye makes the world blind."

  "An archaic Earth saying.... It is interesting how humans cling to their mother planet, a place most of them have never seen, a place most of them think of as utopia. I wonder why they left their utopia?"

  "Because they had to."

  "Because it was not the Eden they claim." She smiled and let a memory flash through Mack's mind. "I have been there, young one. The prophecies say—"

  "I don't want to hear about the prophecies. I want to right what is wrong with as few casualties as possible."

  "A noble goal, but war always comes with a cost."

  "Why does there have to be a war? Why can't we take what's left of our race and find a place... find a way to start over."

  "You would have us run from the place we have always known as home?"

  "The thirteen of you know it as home. The ones to come... the ones that will continue the Ka legacy.... they will know the home we make for them."

  She nodded, in the slowed pace of the ship's mind, it seemed to take forever. "I will convince the others. And I will make KaDen see that your Humans can be trusted, but know that if they harm him, he will retaliate in kind."

  Kenzie nodded, and let herself fall out and up from the connection.

  Removing herself from the mind was not as bad this time. She managed to stay standing, but the nausea still lingered. She moved to the door, only to find Nrog waiting, his hands tucked behind his back like a fleet soldier.

  "Where are you going?"

  "He wants weapons doesn't he?" She said as she moved past him and bit her tongue to keep from cursing when he followed her. "There are things I cannot do from that command center - which is why this ship normally has a full crew complement."

  Nrog dogged her steps all the way to the gunnery ports, but thankfully left her there without comment. No doubt headed to report to her brother.

  She looked at the weaponry and took a step back. With the organic nature of the ship, she'd almost forgotten it was armed to the teeth. She'd stopped thinking of it as a warship, after all, several hundred Ka had called it their home at one point. She turned to the ammunition stores. They were paltry at best, though she knew all the ship needed was a few days orbit around the planet to replenish them. She didn't know if that would necessarily be a good thing.

  Ka tech was notoriously efficient. It was why so much of fleet’s hardware had tried to emulate it - and usually failed miserably.

  As she took in a deep breath, she looked to the cluttered room around her, spent shells lay next to gun ports... when they'd abandoned ship, the gun crew had not bothered to sweep up after themselves. She kicked the casings toward the recycle hatch, knowing they'd fall into the system waiting for materials to replenish them.

  She had no clue what she was doing in this part of the ship. Her lie had put
her in a strange position, go to the gunnery, or let the crassicau on to the fact that something was amiss. And now, she had nothing to show for her lie but boredom and a handful of shell casings.

  "What I really need is a way out of here without having to deal with Nrog." She said it out loud in frustration, and suddenly a door she hadn't seen opened leading her into a small corridor cramped by spongy looking pipes arching overhead. Mack tried not to think about the fact they looked like intestines.

  "I suppose I have you to thank for that, KaDen?"

  As if in response, the door on the other side of the pipes opened and she made her way quickly through. Doors opened in front of her and closed behind her and soon she found herself in an access way with a rigid stairwell running up it. Wind rushed about her and she knew she was in the ships airway. Why there was a stairwell in it, she didn't think she cared to know.

  "Up or Down?" She asked herself, hoping KaDen would come through with yet another answer. He did not.

  From the gunnery, the barracks were two levels down, but she needed to stay away from there until she was fully ready to get back to them. If Nrog caught her down there again, he'd start snooping, and a suspicious crassicau was one thing she did not want on her plate just then.

  Taking hold of the bony railing, she pulled herself up the tight spiral, deciding she would see just what this ship held, from top to bottom and figure out how it could help or hinder her.

  The tight spiral was dizzying and she stepped out several turns from the top.

  Air brushed against her skin, a whispered warning, and she paused. The corridor was dark, no bands of pulsing energy to light the way, but there was something there. Something she needed to see… even if KaDen didn’t want her to.

  Hand trailing along the ridged wall, she kept her pace even.

  But the corridor wasn’t an outlet to another passage. And the door separating her from whatever it was, stayed closed, despite her touch.

  “Are you going to let me in?” she asked, not bothering to look up or away. “Or will I have to pry this open?”

  There was a pause, the door constricted… and then unfurled, and she stepped into a round chamber that made her blood run cold.

  Where the rest of the ship was hard, this was soft. Like tissue instead of stone. And the sickly feeling that washed over her was one she’d taken from a stolen memory.

  Bundles of nerve-like cording traveled down the walls, up the floor, and into a structure that resembled a chair only because there was a body seated in it.

  She’d heard of the chamber before. They called it Imadaha. One of the things her history texts had managed to get right. Its purpose though….

  She walked a slow circle, careful not to step on the dark tendons, the kazahan’s neurons.

  This was its brain. The man seated before her, its soul.

  KaDen’s head rested on a muscular cushion, his eyes closed, a tangled web of tissues wrapped around his neck.

  In the darkness of the chamber, his skin was ashen, his hair dark as the void. But those eyes moved.

  Stepping forward, certain she’d be stopped by some safety protocol at any moment. But nothing stood in her way as she moved to his side, pressed her fingers to his wrist.

  He was alive--as impossible as that was--vulnerable. His shallow pulse, steady breathing… the icy feel of his skin. Shuddering, she turned for the door.

  Again, it didn’t open.

  Glowing beside the door, a misshapen hand formed on the wall and, swallowing her worry, she pressed her own to it.

  KaDen’s voice fluttered into her mind, and she flinched away.

  If it was the only way to get out….

  Her palm rested against the soft surface and heat pulsed across her skin as KaDen chuckled through her synapses again.

  This is the price we paid to protect those we loved. It was one we accepted, one that wasn’t enough. Don’t forget this place. You are not the only one who will sacrifice.

  She yanked her hand away the moment escape was possible, and ran back to the spinal stairs.

  Five levels down, she finally stopped, and leaned against the too-warm wall. She wasn’t afraid of KaDen. She wasn’t afraid of the ship. But the body in that chair….

  Blowing out a long breath, she straightened her shoulders and followed the wide, arching corridor until they opened into rec facilities and an empty kitchen.

  Mack would not have been surprised to find the ship had metabolized anything left in its stores before it had gone bad. The ship was almost living after all.

  She salvaged a few things here and there, a cleaver from the kitchen that looked as though it was made of sharpened bone; a curved, hexagonal racket for some sport she couldn't even begin to guess the name of; and her favorite find, amongst the officer's quarters, a Makeup kit. It was discreet enough, and she'd had a bad boyfriend once.... the sort of guy you learn to use what you've got to protect yourself against.

  Before she knew it, she was back at the command center - a part of the ship she knew all too well - with her loot in hand. And Nrog was still nowhere in sight. She supposed her long bouts within the confines of the command center had left him with the opinion she took a long time to do anything. As far as she was concerned, that was a very good thing.

  She slipped into the command center and dropped her stash in the doors beyond that lead to the captain's office. She didn't personally understand what good it was to be so close to the bridge, but she was not a soldier. The fleet may have made her an officer, but she would never actually be their kind.

  Pausing at her ship’s observation deck, she stared out at the other ships. Stars glittered around her seemingly close enough to touch, and the bright light reflecting off the nearby planet bathed her in an ochre glow. It would have been beautiful, had she not been a prisoner.

  With a fortifying breath, and a quick glance down the hall for Nrog, she set about her search of the lower levels.

  Twenty-Nine

  Cable kept himself in constant motion. There wasn’t much to do since Kenzie had left them basically prisoners. He trusted that she wasn’t somehow in on Aaron’s plan, but confinement was never easy.

  Raza had changed and pulled a rubber ball from her vest pocket and was bouncing it off the bulkhead in front of her--the only hard place on the walls.

  The rhythmic thud was like a metronome, until Stacy reached out, caught it, “Stop pacing. You’re making me think of a cat at the zoo, and I don’t want to be trapped in a cage with one of them.”

  Raza laughed when he paused, and Bezzon shot the three of them a quick glance before he continued to stare, wide eyed at their surrounds.

  “If I stop moving, my muscles stiffen, and it only makes it harder to get going again.”

  “You know, Kenzie looks like she’s pretty well off here. We could have gone back for a quick medical check,” Raza said.

  “We both know we couldn’t have. Not without busting through a heck of a lot of red tape to get here in the end.”

  “All I’m saying is, you aren’t as young as you once were.”

  “Why do you think I allowed you three to tag along? Senility is the only explanation for that.”

  “I thought it was because you figured Kenzie would still be pissed at you and wanted us as a buffer.”

  He twisted and winced as he heard the biomesh tear. Raza heard it too, and glared at him before she reached for the medi-pack in her bag.

  “I’ll do that. You and Stacy do some recon. We need to know what we’re up against, in case Kenzie can’t get back to us before someone else does.”

  “All due respect, sir.” Stacy said, “We threw our ranks out the window when we followed you on this fool’s errand. Raza stays, I’ll take Darius with me.”

  The subbie didn’t look overly excited at the prospect, but he didn’t argue. Just pulled his gun more tightly to him and followed her out the door.

  Raza worked on him roughly, but he didn’t complain. He was making her redo her
work. He’d be pissed too.

  “You took that pretty well. Was playing station master that life-altering?”

  “Let’s just say Kate Stacy’s particular way of taking orders would have amused Aaron.”

  “Hell, it amused me.”

  “I’m not going to do much sneaking or fast moving.”

  “It’s alright boss. I get it. You need me.” She stuck her tongue out at him and stood, stretching and tucking the ball back into her pocket. “What’s our plan of attack… once Kenzie gets us out of here and onto Aaron’s ship, that is?”

  “I haven’t a clue. I figured we’d play it by ear.”

  A touchpad on the wall came to life, distracting Cable from her next question. He moved toward it, feeling oddly like a moth with flame, and reached out to touch it. His hand hovered over the palm like indentation.

  “Do you think that’s wise?”

  Cable shrugged and pushed his hand into the indent. “It’s better than sitting here doing nothing.”

  It was surprisingly warm, almost like he was touching skin. The console molded around his hand like the memory foam they made crash capsules out of. Nothing happened.

  He turned to look at Raza with a shrug when a slice of pain shot through his hand, and the ship sucked him into his shoulder. His knees buckled as a grunt escaped his mouth.

  Hello Cable.

  “What the hell?” He looked up to Raza. The look on her face was not at all comforting.

  Cable felt as though the ship was eating him.... and maybe it was. He pulled against the suction that kept him in place and tried everything he could to keep the pain at bay.

  It felt like tendrils were shooting through his skin as though roots were setting into place.

  If you stop struggling, it will hurt less.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "Cable? What's going on?"

  I am the ship. I am KaDen.

  The fact that his brain was being hijacked by the ship made him even more nauseous. "I think I'm going to throw up."

  Just as the pain spiraled into a white hot glimmer, the ship released Cable's arm and he fell forward. The floor caught him like a punch in the face.