Land of the Dead

by Thomas Harlan

  “Incoming!” The ship rolled aspect, jets of propellant erupting along her flanks. A second later the decking vibrated violently as the dorsal point-defense erupted—clouds of counter-missiles erupting from the launch racks; beam nacelles discharging, the smaller gun-pits hammering away with ballistic munitions. The Khaid missile cloud staggered, nearly two-thirds of the incoming birds shattered or knocked aside. Konev’s spoofing pods and emitters whined into high-output, sending another sixth of the sprint missiles into electronic catatonia, or off into the void, chasing phantoms.

  The dorsal armor took the rest head-on. Koshō felt the ship lurch, hammered by nearly a hundred impacts. Huge swathes of shipskin went dark, ruptured, and the damage control board—just visible off to her left—flared red along a jagged S-curve. The ship crabbed behind the plume of threads she’d picked out.

  “Chu-sa, we’re down to minimal load on the external batteries,” Konev reported. “I’ve no shipkillers left on the rails and resupply is backed up. Magazines three, four, and seven are off-line.”

  The bridge was filled with a sea of beeping alarms and the tense chatter of damage control teams reporting in. Only Holloway was still turned towards her, finger pressed to his earbug, his face growing longer by the moment. The Thai-i shook his head. “Chu-sa, he orders you to retrieve the capsule.”

  “What does the Prince offer in return? What does he have to say to me?” Susan’s voice was Kelvin-zero cold. Holloway flinched back, saying nothing.

  “Konev,” Koshō said levelly to her weapons officer, “let the next wave of missiles break on this plume”—her stylus indicated the formation—“don’t engage them with point-defense so far out. Be frugal—we’re a long way from a Fleet depot.”

  “Hai, kyo!” The Russian nodded, then tried to focus on the threatwell. Susan turned back to the Pilot. “Well?”

  “Chu-sa, I didn’t tell him what you said!” Holloway was obviously terrified at the prospect of bartering for the life of a member of the Imperial household. Susan’s expression hardened. Holloway shook his head. “I cannot, Chu-sa.”

  At least he has enough gumption to say no to me.

  “Very well.” Furious, Koshō overrode the comm channel from her console. A sharp close-up of the Prince appeared on her holo. He had aged a little since the last time she’d seen him. “Hello, Sayu, can I help you?”

  “Yakka?” Xochitl grinned in a strained way. “Get me out of here!”

  “I’m sorry, did you say something?” Desperate to keep her heading and velocity, Koshō finessed the Naniwa around a spiral of filaments, and now the wreck of the Tlemitl was dead ahead. She aimed the battle-cruiser a quarter-point off, intending to slide directly over the shattered dreadnaught. “Did you ask me for help?”

  “Yes,” the Prince hissed. “Please, Yakka, slow down and pick us up. I’ve got a capsule full of men.”

  “Do you?” Koshō kept her face impassive, throwing in a little shrug for good measure. “Sycophants, bodyguards, a concubine or two … just like in school, eh? I’m so sorry, Sayu, but Regulations are very clear—evac capsules are recovered after the battle is over.”

  “Yakka!” A glint of real fear was in his eyes. The Prince licked his lips as he slumped back in his seat. “What do you want? If you’re going to tithe me, tell me how much! Give me a chance.”

  “I’m not asking you for anything, Sayu. I’m just doing my duty.” She finally let the tiniest fraction of old, old anger leak through into her expression. “Sit tight, and we’ll be back for you after the—” Koshō stopped in midsentence. Behind the Prince, she suddenly caught sight of a familiar profile—sandy hair, a habitual hunch; the man’s attention was far away, working some problem on a console—in the second chair.

  Helsdon.

  The Prince’s eyes followed her gaze. “My engineer is reprogramming the sensor-suite here. To detect the weapon’s knives, but our equipment is not—”

  “One moment.”

  Susan closed the channel with a fierce, sharp motion. “Pilot, assume maneuvering on my mark—three—two—one. Hold current course for the next eighteen seconds.” She ignored Konev’s curious stare and whipped through the personnel manifests of the ships reported on station. Helsdon’s record popped up a moment later. She skipped through a lengthy entry detailing his assignment to the Calexico and his ordeal in the wreck. One of my old Cornuelles is in trouble. That, I will not have.

  “Recovery crews, stand by,” Koshō announced abruptly. “All stations—we’re slowing to one-quarter speed. Damage control crews, stand by. Prepare for missile impacts! Socho Juarez—get down to the forward boat-bay with a medical crew and an honor guard. Now!”

  A flurry of acknowledgments came back to her, settling on her shoulders and in her heart like evil crows. Relieved of having to fly the ship for a moment, Susan sank into her combat chair, her heart filled with great foreboding. If Naniwa is lost because of him—if even one of my men dies on his account—there will be no death evil enough for this cursed Prince.

  * * *

  Just forward of the command chair, Gretchen suddenly roused herself, straightening up as though from a deep sleep, and looked around, blearily aware of an immediate world of physical things she could touch and feel once more. Her whole body was buzzing, as though millions of tiny golden bees were dancing just beneath her skin. “We’re stopping?”

  “We’re slowing, but don’t let the navigational updates stop,” Koshō replied. There was a surly edge to her voice. “We’re taking aboard survivors from the flagship. As soon as they’re secured, we’ll have to press on.” She considered the threatwell, seeing that the latest Khaid barrage had outlined the thread-veil in spectacular manner. But beyond the illusion of safety, the enemy was in motion.

  Gretchen frowned, memories of the immediate past finally forcing themselves past the brilliant geometries which had filled her sight, informed her hearing, and ordered her thoughts. “You called him hot water?”

  The corner of Susan’s mouth twitched. Her eyes slid sideways, checking to see if anyone was standing close, then she said: “On the Hill of Grasshoppers, Old Chapultepec, you could not keep your child’s name, and you could not yet take an adult name. So the Sisters chose one for you. Randomly, they said, but they always picked ones which fit—or we grew to fit them, I suppose. He was sayu—water almost boiling, hot enough to scald—and they called me yakka, which is—”

  “—annoying little girl.” Gretchen finished with a grimace. Her head was throbbing. She groped for her medband, mashing the override glyph, hoping for a flood of cool relief.

  “Or in a gruesome tale my grandmother was fond of telling on stormy nights, a goblin.”

  THE WILFUL

  From a discreet vantage inside a cloud of radioactive debris leaking from one of the broken Khaid destroyers, the little freighter waited to see if the raiders would dare to cross the Barrier in force. Hadeishi watched the situation unfolding on their jimmied-up holocast with interest, forefinger smoothing his ragged mustache. The Khaid squadron had resorted to pitching missiles one at a time into the Pinhole.

  “They’re stuck,” Tocoztic offered, looking up from the Fleet identity packet. “They’ll never get anywhere that way.”

  Mitsuharu raised an eyebrow. “In comparison to the Khaid commanders I’ve encountered before, Thai-i, this one is the very model of a modern naval officer. He is circumspect, wary, and mindful of the resources he has to hand—which are greatly reduced from considerable strength.”

  “We would do no better, Lieutenant,” De Molay remarked, only her eyes visible above a pile of blankets Tadohao had brought up from the living quarters. “They—my sources—say the guardians of this place are like whipping knives, and they move from place to place, unaccountably.”

  “Interesting.” Hadeishi looked across the darkened bridge at the old woman. “Perhaps their pattern mimics the changing currents of some ancient sea. And the dreadful weapons drift like shoals of kelp on an unseen, ethereal
wind.”

  “Or schools of stinging jellyfish, O poet,” De Molay retorted. She was tired and cold, despite the blankets. “Dare we continue with your good work while they are fishing?”

  “Not yet. They are in motion again.” As they watched on the holocast, the Khaid squadron began a maneuvering burn. Soon the majority of ships withdrew from the area around the Pinhole entrance. The lighter vessels that remained began quartering the area of battle, apparently recovering survivors. “They will not go far. They know something valuable is here—even if they do not comprehend what that might be.”

  Mitsuharu looked expectantly at the old woman. “Do we know, Captain?”

  De Molay avoided his eyes, taking a long drink of hot tea. “These raiders seem to have come out of nowhere. What do you suppose brought them here in such numbers? And at just the right moment to encounter and destroy so many Imperial ships?”

  Hadeishi’s lips twitched, closely observing De Molay. “Why—it could only be treachery, Captain. But now—they know there is a prize to be won, as well, and I do not think they will wish to give it up.” He lifted his hand, palm up. “The Khaiden Kabil Rezei commanding this hunting pack has paid a dear price—he will want payment in kind. And this—weapon—if it is such, would make him more than a chieftain—it would make him king, or emperor.”

  “I doubt they have the means to mount a long campaign.” The old woman made a circular gesture, encompassing the whole of the kuub. “It’s very expensive to field three squadrons in this wasteland, no matter how rich you are.” Then she peered curiously at Tocoztic, who had made a strangled noise in reaction to something he was reading.

  “The prize is too great,” Mitsuharu replied. “When you are a pirate, the taking of even one treasure ship can secure your clan for a lifetime. If left alone indefinitely, these Khaiden will find a way, even if they have to bargain with Mictlantecuhtli himself and take his skull and meatless bones for their own.”

  “A cheerful assessment.” De Molay gulped the rest of her tea and indicated the holocast. “Now only two remain.”

  Hadeishi leaned forward, tapping through the various sensor logs and displays. Neither ship matched anything in the commercial registry, but then he suspected these were a brand-new class, quite possibly the first the clans built and fielded themselves. They’re surely not stolen from us, not with those drive signatures and hull outlines. And they don’t look like anything the Kroomākh would build—they would be the most likely power to sell the Khaid some heavy metal.

  “Battleships—probably the least damaged,” he said at last.

  De Molay shrugged. “If they remain near the station wreckage, then we will know they are playing watchdog. After all, any ship that exits might reveal the gap in the Barrier.”

  “And would be attacked.” Hadeishi thought of the lone battle-cruiser they’d seen escape on long-range scan. That ship had vanished into seemingly clear space, by which he assumed the weapon was actually blocking passive scan on some level. There is a hidden pocket here, tucked away inside this wall of knives. “Against these Khaid we need at least a heavy cruiser. Anything less will only buy us tea in Yomi. Thai-i Tocoztic, switch your panel to run sensor analysis. We must be about our business.”

  The Thai-i pushed Mitsuharu’s identity papers away with a scowl. “You lost your ship!” he said in an accusing voice. “You were discharged from service by the court of review! And you still—”

  De Molay glared at the pilot, but Hadeishi’s rueful laugh cut him short.

  “You were aboard the Falchion, Thai-i?” Mitsuharu gave the young man his full attention.

  Tocoztic nodded stubbornly. “What does that—”

  Hadeishi drifted his hand across the holocast controls. A section of nearby space expanded, revealing the scattered wreckage of a heavy cruiser. “There she lies,” he said sadly, grief plain in his voice. “A fine ship, now gone to destiny, to die in the service of our lord.… I fear, Thai-i, you are the last of her officers to survive.” Mitsuharu fixed him with a steady, unnerving stare. “Have I done you disservice, by saving you and your men from death? Did you wish to join your ship, your Chu-sa, your fellows in final repose, in this funereal pyre of cooling plasma? That is a noble end.”

  “No!” Tocoztic drew back, horrified. “A useless death—”

  “And there you have my own desperate strait,” Hadeishi said quietly. “My ship died—as yours has done—yet I lived. Do you know the Hagakure of Tsunemoto?”

  “Of course,” the Thai-i replied huffily. “It is required reading in the Academy.…”

  “Have you hit your target?”

  Tocoztic frowned, not grasping the reference. “I do not—It is an old text. Written by one long dead. How do those legends apply here?”

  Mitsuharu nodded. “An excellent question. Tsunemoto relates the words of a vain young samurai: ‘If you die before striking your enemy, then you die the death of a dog.’ Many believed this to be a truth, and thereby found cause to avoid battle, to avoid sacrifice, to avoid risk. What did Tsunemoto say to those men?”

  Tocoztic’s face turned a rather mealy color. “I am Méxica. I am not afraid of death. I am an officer and sworn to sacrifice my life for the Emperor.”

  “He said: If you put death foremost in your thoughts, if you resolve yourself to death each time you wake, then you will always strike your enemy with the utmost force.”

  “To embrace death so readily! I don’t—This has nothing to do with—”

  Hadeishi’s face suddenly became calm and still, as though the grief and weariness and fear etched in his features had been washed away by a sudden, unseen rain. His eyes were upon the holocast, looking far beyond the puzzled face of the Thai-i. De Molay’s attention snapped around, following his gaze.

  “Stand to battle stations!”

  Before the command was fully uttered, De Molay had activated the ship’s internal alarm. Tocoztic jumped, startled by the blaring sound, and then switched all his attention onto the pilot’s console. Thousands of hours of Imperial drill seized him up and put his hands, his thoughts, his entire purpose on the right path.

  At the limit of their sensor range, a Khaid destroyer nosed through the dark towards them.

  THE LAND OF THE DEAD

  The Naniwa’s acceleration faded off a point, and under Koshō’s gentle direction, the battle-cruiser slid around a particularly dense accretion of the veils. Beyond this—to her surprise—there was nothing on the navigational display. No queer, interlocking geometry of billions of infinitesimal razors, only emptiness. The Chu-sa blinked, easing off on the engines, dropping her acceleration to almost zero. The ship continued to speed ahead, but she left her velocity undiminished.

  “I think we’re clear,” Anderssen announced to a hushed bridge crew. She took her hands away from the corroded bronze rectangle. As she did the threatwell’s sketchy, alien display faded away—showing only a few trailing quantum distortions at the edges—and then, nothing. The normal navigational plot flickered in and out of view, and then stabilized. A moment later, keyed up by Chu-i Pucatli, the long-distance camera feeds appeared on the main v-displays behind the threatwell.

  There was a hiss of surprise from nearly every member of the bridge crew. Susan smoothed back her hair and then turned to the communications officer. “Chu-i, pipe this to all of the news displays shipside. I’ll make an announcement momentarily.”

  Then the Chu-sa turned to consider the long-range scan display now building on her console.

  The plot confirmed what the eye beheld. Beyond the Barrier, deep at the heart of the kuub, the protostellar debris folded back to reveal three diminutive stars in a tight cluster. Between their sallow pinpoints, the hard white slash of an ejection jet speared “up” and “down,” bisecting the visible universe. Illuminated by its radiance, towering plumes and great walls of dust glowed with a brilliant, jeweled fire. If the gravity scan was to be believed, the rosette of stars concealed an infinitesimal black hole in their center
. On the ship’s plot, the gaudy roil of an accretion disc spiraling into a maelstrom of distorted gravity reached out to lap around the suns. The dim stars were shedding long sinuous trails of mass, drawn down into the hidden maw of the singularity.

  The sound of the main bridge hatch cycling open was jarringly loud in the silence.

  Koshō looked over her shoulder, seeing an exhausted and work-stained Oc Chac limp onto the bridge. His combat armor—a necessity for engineers working in the midst of battle—was scored with dozens of impact dimples on the battle-steel. The Mayan’s face was uncharacteristically open, his lips parted, the muted glare of glowing night reflecting in his eyes.

  “Mictlan,” the Sho-sa sighed. “Beneath the cold lands of the north from whence Quetzalcoatl retrieved the bones of the first people, a tomb filled with decay and rivers of ash, where reigns the dreadful god Mictlantecuhtli, his face covered with a bony mask, sitting amongst owls and spiders, ruling the land of the dead: The destination an unfortunate corpse must strive towards for four long years: first through a whirlwind of knives, then against icy winds, daring all the dangers of the underworlds, at last to cross nine waters and dissolve into the void. A dreadful place where the living dare not tread.…”

  “Approximately three light-years from us—three superjovian brown dwarfs in perfect balance,” Susan said quietly, fingernails brushing across the navigational plot. The images tightened, zooming in. Her med-band was pulsing, flooding her with stimulants to keep onrushing fatigue from overwhelming her mind. The tension of battle and headlong flight was beginning to fade, leaving her entire body throbbing with pain. “And a singularity at their center, drinking their mass like blood.”

  At the navigational console, Gretchen stirred—tearing herself away from the wonder resplendent before them—and looked back to Koshō. The civilian’s face was fairly glowing with desire.