Wastes of Space

by Darcy Town

  Rake picked up the syringe with unsteady hands, the need inside all-consuming, taking over. “I have plans to…to quit, but not yet. I can’t yet. I have to.”

  “Rake, you don’t need to explain. Just feel better.”

  He nodded, staring at his vein. “We’ll talk after…”

  “Rake, stop. Do what you need to.” Ravil rolled over to her side. She dropped her sunglasses to the floor and stared at the wall. She heard him lay down on the cot, the material squeaked as he moved to get comfortable. He sighed. The syringe hit the floor and rolled into the corner. His limp arm hung over the edge of the cot. His fingers twitched as he settled into a non-responsive stupor.

  She turned and stared at his hand. She held in everything until she made herself numb. She hated what went on above her, but she didn’t hate him, she couldn’t hate him. The thought startled her. She no longer despised him. In fact, she rather liked him, and she wanted him to be better. She wanted to help him, but there was not a thing she could do.

  Pain spread through her muscles in a dull ache. She stretched, but the feeling stayed. Her headache notched up in intensity, feeling as if someone stabbed a spear from her left eye to the back of her head. She rolled to her other side to get comfortable. Her skin itched, her throat burned. She frowned. She must have heatstroke or something. “Stupid hot place.”

  Ravil got to her feet and stumbled towards the container that held the water. She pulled out a bottle and drained the entire thing. She took another and slipped back onto her cot, grabbing her old hoodie on the way. She took a deep breath and smelled Rake on it. She used it as a pillow and rolled from side to side, trying to find a way to rest that didn’t irritate her skin.

  This itching was beginning to drive her nuts. She pulled up her shirt and stared at her stomach. She frowned and poked at a red raised dot. She spied another one near it, then another. She lifted her shirt higher. The dots covered her skin. They itched just looking at them. She scratched at them, but that made it worse. She drank water and panted. She touched her head and her fingers came away covered in sweat. “What is this?”

  She scratched her legs, her fingernails scraped bumps. She rolled up her pants to mid-thigh—more dots. She made a face and sat up in the cot. “What is going on?”

  Her fever spiked. She grew faint and she fell off the cot. She hit her head on the floor of the ship. She smashed her sunglasses and the plastic cut her forehead. Ravil closed her eyes and saw stars. She pressed her palms into the floor and pushed off. Her world spun and she slumped to her side. She blinked, trying to see clearly.

  She reached for the bunk, but could only manage to pull her hoodie down. Ravil tugged it towards her, clinging to the cloth like a lifeline. She stared at the bunk hopelessly. She doubted she could climb up even if she could make it over. She’d never been this weak in her life.

  She stared at the ceiling and worked through her symptoms. She couldn’t imagine the air temperature had raised that drastically in so little time. The water had been bottled, but she felt sick like the time she had eaten a bad meal. Her pupils dilated. “Sick?” Panic lanced through her stomach. “I can’t be sick.”

  She gasped from the pain. Ravil slammed her palm onto the floor and bit her lip, her skin burned as if on fire. She stared at Rake’s limp hand hanging off the edge of his bunk. The invisible strings in the air brushed across her fingers. As she looked towards him, the empty space called to her. Why now? What was changing? Was she changing?

  “No!” She sucked in air. This had to be something else. She took a deep breath. No reason to panic, she didn’t need to panic. There was a rational explanation for this. Light danced across her vision. Ravil closed her eyes. The grinding ache increased as her bones began to shift. She gnashed her teeth. “No!”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t be going through a stage shift now, not already. She spoke into the ground, “Not now please! Wait! Why can’t it wait?”

  Ravil already knew the answer. She felt safe. Her body had waited for that feeling of safety to move out of stasis, but it was not just that, she winced. She was around an adult male that was unattached, an adult male whom she found attractive, but most importantly, an adult male she trusted. Apparently, it didn’t matter to her body that Rake was a different subspecies that she couldn’t even mate with. Her feelings had jump-started her growth.

  There was no point in doubting it. Her immune system was down and the shift always came preceded by illness. Sirana had made that clear. Being sick was her only warning, but Ravil hadn’t paid attention to the symptoms. “Idiot! Stupid! Calpsan said not to care, not to trust him, to remain wary.”

  She should have run the first time she felt unwell, but she had wanted to stay with Rake. She didn’t want to part with him, her reasons no longer confined to being afraid of being alone. She felt good around him. But good feelings or not, this was bad.

  She took a deep breath and focused. She had to get away from him. Out of proximity, the change might halt, just like Calpsan had said. She pulled at the air, but the strings would not respond to her. Her gift would not allow her to run from him.

  “Fine.” She would do this the slow and hard way. Ravil crawled towards the door. Her arms and legs scraped along the bottom of the shuttle, making her skinned knees bleed. The cut on her forehead added drops of blood as she pulled herself along. She reached the door and lunged for the handle. She hauled herself up by it and climbed until she reached the keypad.

  She punched in the numbers she’d seen Rake hit before. The door unlocked with a hiss and a change of lights. The door swung outwards and she hung on, swinging with it. She dropped to the ground and continued her crawl. She pressed her cheek against the cool floor and pushed, leaving a trail of sweat and blood on the ground. She headed for the exit, but she couldn’t make it out any longer. Her vision blurred the wall into a mass of gray. She collapsed on her side and stared at the ceiling lights.

  Ravil groaned and threw up her water. She scratched at her itching stomach as her mind raced. She struggled to recall the basics of what Sirana had told her. Navigators grew in leaps and bounds, not in a gradual process like these Wasters. Her body was in flux, between stages. Would she mature in hours, in a day? How long was she going to be sick? Why hadn’t she paid attention to Sirana’s lessons before?

  Her skin tingled and her muscles ached as her blood burned. A line of fire raced along her spine from the crown of her head to her pelvis. She blinked back tears and wiped her eyes. Her fingers came away streaked in blood. She stifled a scream. She tasted blood in her mouth and panicked. Bleeding was not a symptom of a stage shift. “Why? Why am I bleeding?”

  Ravil stared at her fingernails; blood red, they left spots on the floor where her hands touched concrete. She turned towards the water she had puked up, it was swirled with red. She blinked and salty, blood-tinted tears hit the floor. She scratched at the ground. “I can’t undergo a blood bond now. I can’t!”

  Ravil coughed up blood and crawled further away from the ship, fueled by fear. Sickness would pass. The stage shift would end eventually, but a blood bond for a Navigator was irreversible. There was no going back. She convulsed as her blood type changed to match Rake’s. Her heart fluttered, its beat matching his drug-slowed heart rate. She held her sides. “It’s not possible! This can’t be happening! I can’t do this! I can’t bond with him!”

  This was all a bad dream…Ravil grasped at her last shred of hope. She was hallucinating from the sickness that was it. This was not really happening, she must be confused. She nodded and held onto that thought. She focused on what she knew: Navigators bonded to their pilot when they flew solo together for the first time. She smiled. She’d never flown with Rake in a ship. They had never made a jump together—

  “Oh, fuck!” Her stomach twisted in knots. She had flown with Rake on the night they first met. She’d fled into the in-between and taken him with her. She cupped her hand over her mouth and cried into it, “That was an accident. That�
�s not fair, it shouldn’t count!” Her blood burned in response. It counted.

  Ravil laughed weakly and hit her head on the concrete. What good would crying or running do now? Her connection to Rake grew in her blood, thrummed through her veins. There was no place far enough to hide, no force strong enough to break it. She was his Navigator and she would be until she died, or until he did and even then she’d follow him into death.

  In one stupid action, she’d ruined everything her guardians had worked and died for. She’d never make it to the Resistance now and even if she did, she couldn’t bond with one of their pilots. She was Rake’s, locked, bonded, and finalized.

  She faced her future with despair. She knew Rake’s friendly feelings did not extend to caring for the sick or wounded. He had already made it clear how much of a liability she was to him. Her bond wouldn’t change him. He wouldn’t feel any different when he woke up. He wouldn’t even know this bond had occurred. She was sure he’d leave her as soon as he woke, that was just who he was. He would take his chance and run. He could leave and be free, while she would be chained to him until she died. And she would die soon…

  Ravil stifled tears. Maybe she would die from the illness and not have to face what she’d done. She curled into a ball, her cheeks pink with shame and fever. She’d heard of Navigators forced to fly with Empire pilots to bond them together. That was the status quo, but she’d never heard of a Navigator accidentally choosing their pilot by not thinking clearly. She was possibly the most stupid Navigator alive, or to have ever lived.

  If Calpsan were here now, he’d have beaten her up and down the length of this warehouse. He’d warned her about trusting and caring for Rake, and she had gone ahead and done it anyways. Now she was aging because of it and she had bonded to him. Two things Calpsan had expressly forbidden, she’d failed him twice.

  Ravil smacked her face. Why had she held onto Rake when she made the leap? That he lived, it was impossible! She punched at the ground. This wasn’t her fault! No one could have foreseen this, not even Calpsan. Rake shouldn’t have lived through it!

  Ravil burst into tears. She had been a fool, an idiot, a child. She should have listened to Calpsan. She could practically hear him yelling in her ears. If he’d been here, he’d have sent the fear of death into her, literally. An image flashed through her head. Rake would have shot his face off if he’d tried that around him.

  Ravil smiled and held onto that idea. Rake her protector. He would remain so until she woke to the harsh reality of him gone for his next fix and meal. Her eyelids slid closed and she fell into a fever-induced delirium.

  ***

  Marx, Kennedy, and Lincoln eyed each other; they crouched behind an overturned couch. The plaster and wood around them was riddled with bullet holes. Marx was missing two fingers. Kennedy’s face was dusted with gunpowder. Lincoln licked his lips. “We just want to talk.”

  The bounty hunter responded with another blast of gunfire over their heads. “Fuck you. I heard about your talks with the other survivors of that night. I won’t talk to government hounds like you.”

  “Hounds?” Kennedy hissed. “We are not hounds! I am not hound!”

  Lincoln silenced Kennedy with a glare. He stayed low to the ground. “We are just looking for a—”

  “Fuck off!”

  Marx licked his bloody finger stumps, clotting the blood with his saliva. “We don’t have a need to harm you. We just seek a child. Tell us more about who it left with, this Rake, and we will leave.”

  There was silence. The bounty hunter reloaded his weapon and watched them through his rigged network of mirrors. “Rake?” He held his bleeding stomach, claw marks scratched through his chest. The bounty hunter was dying, but he wasn’t going to let them finish him.

  Marx nodded. “Yes a Rake.”

  “I don’t know any Rake.”

  “He is fighter,” Kennedy added. “Killed many marines!”

  “Oh, that guy.” The bounty hunter opened his case of grenades. “I can tell you where he is.”

  Lincoln smiled at Marx.

  Marx nodded. “See.” He wrapped up his bloody finger stumps. “So where is he?”

  The bounty hunter smiled. “That guy’s a con and a whore. He’s on a street corner somewhere or in a brothel.” He hefted a grenade. “Or Hell for all I know.” The bounty hunter pulled the pin. “How about I send you there?”

  Lincoln frowned. “Directions will suffice—”

  The apartment exploded. The three Hunters were thrown into the street. The trio landed on their feet and crawled backwards away from the burning building.

  Lincoln stared at the flaming wreckage. “It committed suicide?”

  Kennedy frowned. “Prey never suicides!”

  Marx pulled a nail out of his arm. “Wasters do. Some find it preferable to take their own life over having it taken from them.” He licked his new wounds. “Interesting is it not?”

  Lincoln nodded. “Quite, I will add it to our Codex. I do not believe that trait was catalogued yet.”

  Marx rubbed his eyes. “You are an information collector as well as a tracker?”

  Lincoln nodded. “Information collection was my primary responsibility before being pulled onto this task. Our database on these creatures is so slim. This adds an interesting aspect to the hunt. How often would you say they—”

  “Talking! More talking!” Kennedy glared at them. “How can you be calm?”

  The pair looked at him. Marx shrugged. “Young one, now we will do what these creatures call sleuthing.”

  Kennedy snarled. “What is that?”

  “Hunting, but not based on samples, based on clues.”

  “What is a clue?”

  Marx hopped up. “This Rake is a whore, in brothels, we start our search there.”

  Lincoln nodded. “We can split and cover more ground.”

  Kennedy fumed. “Only I have sample! I am only one with individual tracking! You are subspecies Hunters only! You cannot find him! Only me can find him!”

  Lincoln gripped his shoulder. “We all have this Rake’s physical description, Kennedy. The man we seek is not Asian. We have his height and build and he is superior to most with weapons. If we find anyone with that physical description, we interrogate them and take a sample of his blood for you to try.”

  Kennedy smiled slightly. “Anyone resembling?”

  Marx brushed his suit off. “We yes, you will not need to.”

  Kennedy paced. “What if I want to?”

  Lincoln shook his head. “No, you search with speed, hoping to run into this one, while Marx and I search slowly, one person at a time. You will perhaps run into this Rake randomly.”

  Kennedy looked unsure for the first time. “We split? I split from you?”

  Lincoln nodded. “You will be fine.”

  Kennedy shivered. “But how will we talk?”

  Marx held up a cell phone. “With these.” He handed Lincoln and Kennedy one each. “Let me show you their use.”

  ***

  Ravil dreamed and as she dreamed the blood on her skin and under her nails reabsorbed into her body. Her skin color faded from ivory to pure white. She twitched. Her bones fractured and slowly lengthened. Her baby fat burned off to fuel the process; she grew thinner, weaker, and lighter. Her eyes raced underneath her eyelids as she tried to follow a fever dream.

  Her dreams were no longer represented by an organized flow of numbers and distances, points and stars. She did not dream of the place between, the blue pathways. Now her dreams were odd, colored, and loud. These flashes of images and conversations interrupted her normal space for sleep, the down time that allowed her spirit to slip into the in-between for study. Her mind struggled to make sense of what it was being assaulted with.

  Ravil saw Calpsan’s disapproving face. Sirana stood in the background, glowing red, on fire, bickering with Calpsan to leave Ravil alone, to let her be herself. A sticking point the two had always quarreled over. Ravil never understood the fight. I
n her subspecies, there were no children, no adults, one was a Navigator that was all; the stages of appearance were that only—appearance.

  Paulos pulled her away from the pair. The tall, yellow-skinned Rexos dropped to her side, his purple eyes luminous in the darkness. He smiled and pulled his long, yellow hair into a ponytail. “What have you done this time to set those two off so?”

  Ravil blushed and tried to explain it. Paulos flopped to his back. “Ravilaea, no wonder Calpsan is in a state. Don’t worry over him though. You still have to live your own life.”

  She gazed at Paulos fondly, wondering why he had been willing to die so easily. He sighed. “For you, love, for you.” He smiled and the skin around his purple eyes crinkled. “We would have been a great flight pairing I think, a good bond.”

  She couldn’t escape the guilt of what she’d done. Paulos patted her hand. “Stop that, focus on getting better, Ravil. Stop agonizing. You are very sick, but your life is not over yet. It is just beginning. Your new stage is waiting.”

  She could not shake the feeling she had done something wrong. Her guardians had died to get her free and she had wasted everything they had done. He frowned, but said nothing.

  She sank deeper into guilt. All three were dead, gone. Their purpose and reason for death severed by her stupidity. They could not even live on through her accomplishments, for what could she accomplish on such a backwater place with a pilot that had no ship to fly?

  ***

  Rake dreamed of his childhood sweetheart. Straw-colored hair, blue eyes, tan skin with a pink scar above her eyebrow. She hummed and stared at the sky with him while he talked about flying. They wore matching cadet uniforms. They were young, just turned teenagers, full of life and excitement.

  She began to cry. He frowned and reached for her. She didn’t want him to leave. Rake didn’t understand. He had never left her and he would never leave her. He wanted only two things in life, her and to fly in the stars.

  Her image faded and he found himself alone under a clear night sky, the moon out large and luminous. He heard crying. Her crying. He turned, wild with panic. He slipped and landed in blood. There was so much of it, everywhere, red, thick, clotting. It was his.