by J. N. Chaney
For a third time, he sank his awareness into his talisman. This time, he embraced the echoes of terror, and loss, and lonely despair imprinted into it, using them to drive away any uncertainty—or compassion. What he was about to do had nothing compassionate about it.
Thorn’s perception raced out of the Gyrfalcon, into the empty nothing that was space. Grimly, he pushed his focus on, until it finally touched the two Nyctus ships that were his targets.
Machinery. Mechanical process, electronic systems, the flow of electrical current, the stellar roar of nuclear fusion—
He ignored it all. It was just noise. What he sought was right there.
Thorn seized thoughts that weren’t his, alien and mostly just an abstract jumble, and yet still familiar. They were thoughts shot through with purpose, with cruel and deadly determination. They were the thoughts of the squid commanding the bigger of the two ships.
Thorn latched onto those thoughts, and—
They killed my family.
They killed my daughter.
A roaring flame of rage kindled in Thorn. He rode it, a tide of incandescent hate, and began to push his sphere of influence outward, spinning like the disc of a youthful star system. At the front of this column of will, Thorn drew the power to him, through him, and into every fiber of his being, knowing it belonged there among the threads of his soul.
He was alive. He was, even there in the blackness, at home.
Thorn pulsed with the strength of a magic so ancient it tore at the nature of space, and in that terrible awareness, he could sense thoughts—
—the Nyctus. Their minds, open to him. Their hearts, filled with fear at the battle going far differently than they imagined. They were used to victory—swift, sure, and total—and this upstart ship with the rogue magician made them nervous, deep in places where they hid forbidden concepts like loss and cowardice.
Their fear fed Thorn. The magic made him vengeance incarnate, and with the inexorable power of a neutron star, Thorn reached into the depths of their ships and pulled.
Confusion, stunned shock—terror—all of these and more shrieking in the void as Thorn shifted from ghostly presence to fearsome reality, if only for a flashing second of unalloyed magical destruction.
But it was enough. More than enough, really.
Thorn yanked himself away, his consciousness falling back in on itself like a collapsing star. The Gyrfalcon’s cockpit slammed back into existence around him with, for him, an audible whoosh as the blood sang in his ears. Thorn sucked in a desperate gasp of air, fell back, and tried to remember how to breathe.
“Uh—”
He rolled his head toward the sound, not easy in his crash helmet. Mol stared back, her eyes wide and white all around.
Behind him, he heard Brid say, “Holy shit,” in a tone more breath than voice.
Thorn blinked, shook his head, then glanced at the tactical display. An inset window held a zoomed image of the two Nyctus ships Thorn had just ravaged with magic. Myriad small objects drifted and tumbled around them.
Their crews. All of them, from each ship. Thorn had moved them all into space.
He just watched the bodies drift. It was one thing to experience it in the visceral moment, from atop a soaring pillar of magical power. To see his handiwork this way, though—the stark reality of it, detached from the ’casting itself—
They killed my family.
They killed my daughter.
Thorn looked at Mol. “I’ve killed as many of the bastards today as I can. The rest of them are up to you, Mol,” he said, his voice a dry rasp.
She stared an instant longer, then nodded and threw her focus back into the battle.
“Glad you’re on our side,” Mol muttered.
The two remaining Nyctus ships slowed their approach, their maneuvers becoming cautious, almost tentative. Thorn knew why. They’d seen what happened to the companion ships, so they knew that a powerful Starcaster was aboard a quarry they’d considered easy prey. The shaman who’d been trying to line up a KEW ambush back in the debris cloud had woven a magical barrier around them, desperate to keep the Starcaster’s horrifying power at bay.
Thorn smiled, mirthless and cold. Yes, be afraid. Be very afraid, you monsters.
Mol made a satisfied sound as she closed in. A single Gyrfalcon fighter against a pair of much bigger ships should still be a hard, tight battle, whose outcome was far from certain. But Mol seized the moment, capitalizing on their fear, launching a quartet of missiles and racing in behind them. The squids finally opened fire, but the multiple targets diffused their effort; Mol dodged, spun, and rolled the Gyrfalcon, nimbly avoiding what fire did try to target the fighter. She knew she had to move fast, turning the clash into a knife fight, the type of battle the Gyrfalcon did best. Any moment, that shaman was going to realize that the fearsome Starcaster had utterly exhausted themself and recraft his own power into something far more offensive than a simple, protective shield.
Thorn forced his head around. Bright little stars blossomed behind his eyes. It took grim effort, but he was able to avoid greying out completely.
“Brid. Dart. If that shaman decides to get aggressive, it’s up to you guys to stop him,” he said.
They both returned anxious nods. “We’ll do what we can,” Brid said, but there was little certainty in the words.
Mol pushed the Gyrfalcon through a hard, banking turn, using sheer engine power to emulate an atmospheric maneuver. The frigate spun into view, shooting down the last of their missiles, but it didn’t matter—they’d done their job. She rolled the fighter to the right, pitched up, and applied a blast of thrust that disrupted the Nyctus firing solutions. A pair of rail gun projectiles flashed through empty space that had, only an instant before, been full of Gyrfalcon.
“Little late, boys,” Trixie sang out.
“Hush, you. Too early to preen,” Mol said.
“Not preening. Just that good,” Trixie answered with what sounded suspiciously like a sniff.
“Still better than punk,” Thorn muttered, and Mol snorted as she deftly pitched the fighter back down, and opened fire, raking the frigate with a torrent of rail gun rounds that tore through its hull, blasting clouds of venting atmosphere and spinning debris from its far side.
Something clipped the Gyrfalcon, slamming it through a half-spin and starting a tumble. Thorn recovered from the shock of the impact, turned to Mol, and found her strangely slumped in her g-couch. He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, then saw her broken harness. It had given way during the hit and, judging from the impact cracks in her helmet, let her head slam against the bulkhead beside her.
Thorn cursed. “Trixie, get us under control and give me a target—”
“On it!”
Trixie fired a staccato series of thruster bursts to stop the fighter’s wild gyrations, then spun it back into firing position. Thorn gripped the co-pilot’s side stick, touching the trigger for the rail gun. As soon as he did, fire control switched to him from Mol, earning a grin as he closed his hand over the trigger.
“Magic is good, but sometimes, you just need explosives,” Thorn said.
The corvette swung into the rail gun’s field of fire, the reticle turned green, and he squeezed the trigger. The Gyrfalcon shuddered as hypervelocity slugs poured from her rail gun and ripped into the enemy ship. Depleted uranium penetrators tore along its length and flung it into a slow spin, trailing a plume of atmospheric gases that feathered away in seconds. An instant later, something detonated, blasting the midships portion apart and breaking the squid ship in two halves that gleamed with chaos.
“Trixie, get us the hell out of here,” Thorn snapped. “Any direction. Any.”
“You got it!”
Trixie turned the Gyrfalcon and applied thrust, accelerating away from the remains of the battle. The tactical display no longer showed the magical carnage he’d wrought on the other Nyctus ships, but it didn’t matter. He could see it clearly in his mind, could see—and,
for just an instant, remembered feeling—all of those squids dying in the cold void of space.
As they hurtled away from the remains of the battle, Thorn unlatched his harness and saw to Mol. Fortunately, her crash helmet had done its job, taking the brunt of the impact. She opened her eyes when he called out her name, blinked slowly, then gave a nod that made her wince.
“Is she—?” Brid started, but Thorn cut her off.
“She’s fine, at least for now,” he said, then clambered back into his g-couch. They couldn’t let down their guard yet; there might be more squids around.
And if there were, Thorn would kill them, too.
“We’ll clear this field if we have to,” Thorn said.
“Were you a farmer?” Brid asked.
Thorn’s answer was loaded with menace. “No, but I’ve done my share of harvesting.”
“Okay, Mol,” Thorn said. “Take it easy. We’re going to get this helmet off, so just sit still.”
He unlatched her crash helmet, then gently lifted it off her head. Even that bit of movement made her wince and groan.
“Usually, when my head feels like this, I earned it the night before,” she said, offering a weak smile. “No burps, either. Small favors and all that.”
Thorn lifted the helmet, giving the impact crater, and star of cracks radiating from it, a holy shit look. “Looks like it lived up to its name,” he said.
“Crash helmet indeed,” Brid said, and Thorn nodded in thanks. Some tech was as good as advertised. Like a bucket made to keep your brain from scrambling.
Dart lifted the broken g-harness rig. One of its mounts, where it bolted into the g-couch, had snapped cleanly through. “Looks like metal fatigue. Some shoddy maintenance I guess.”
Thorn shut him up with a glare. “I’ve flown with Mol for three years, now,” he snapped. “There’s nothing shoddy about the maintenance she and her tech do on this fighter.”
“Sorry, you’re right, that came out wrong,” Dart hastily replied. “It was probably a hidden microfracture in the piece that broke—maybe even a manufacturing defect.”
Thorn kept his gaze on Dart for a moment, then turned back to Mol.
“You, my dear, need to rest.”
She shook her head, then blurted out, “Ow, shit!” She gave Thorn a disapproving look. “I’m the pilot. This is a ship that flies under the control of, you know, a pilot. That kinda means that—”
“It means that Trixie can take over for the time being,” Thorn said. “She can fly us from point A to point B, right?”
“As long as it doesn’t require anything too fancy,” Mol admitted, her tone grudging. “She’s awesome, but piloting isn’t her primary function.”
“I’m glad you specified that awesome part,” Trixie said. “Otherwise, my feelings might be hurt.”
Mol gave the control panel a fond smile. Trixie was actually buried in the Gyrfalcon’s engineering bay, in an armored container well-hardened against EMP, but everyone tended to treat the panel as her face.
“The regs,” Mol went on, “say she has to be under human supervision unless she’s flying in a state of—” She stopped, wincing. “Shit. Anyway, unless it’s a state of emergency. So someone has to be in the pilot’s seat while she’s flying.”
“I don’t mind,” Trixie said. “I enjoy the company. Okay, now for the big question. Where do you want to go?”
“Well, home, of course,” Brid said.
Thorn glanced at her, then shook his head. “Nope. We’re going to check out that next system along the Pool’s trajectory.”
Brid and Dart exchanged a glance. “Uh, sir,” Brid said. “Shouldn’t we get Mol back to proper medical attention? That helmet might have stopped her from smashing her head open, but she obviously still took a pretty bad knock.”
“I’ll be fine,” Mol said. “There’s no way this mission’s gonna be cut short just because I’ve got a headache.” She grimaced, adding, “Even my hair hurts.”
“Now that’s a hangover,” Thorn said.
“We also expended about half our rail gun ammo, and we only have two missile reloads left,” Dart said. “If we get into another fight we can’t avoid—”
“Then we’ll deal with it,” Thorn said. “Those squids weren’t hanging out in that ring of rocks just for the hell of it. They were either on station there, or were sent there to intercept us. Either way, it means there’s something they don’t want us to see—and I’m thinking it’s in that next system.”
“We’re not even in their space, though,” Brid replied. “Are we?
Thorn sniffed. “Really? You’ve seen charts of what they consider to be their space?”
“We’re on the far side of what we think is their space,” Mol put in. “We really have no idea who’s where back here. Hell, we didn’t even know about the Danzur until—” She stopped and rubbed her temple. “Shit. I’ll say it again—ow.”
“Anyway,” Thorn went on, “I want to see what’s in that next system. If it’s nothing, we’ll go home.”
Brid and Dart exchanged another look, then Brid shrugged with false deference. “Your call, sir.”
Thorn regarded them in silence, breaking it just before things got awkward. “Yes, it is.” He looked back at Mol. “You are going to lie down and try to get some rest. For the time being, you can leave the flying to us.” He glanced at Brid and Dart. “Two hour shifts. I’ll take the first one.”
“For the record, I still think I’m fine to fly,” Mol said, her tone decidedly grumpy.
“For the record, I don’t care.” Thorn smiled and pointed into the cramped cabin behind the cockpit. “Now, sleep. Go.”
Mol curled her lip, then offered Thorn an exaggerated salute. It would have come across as sarcastically as she meant it, if not for her cringing, clutching her head, and groaning.
Thorn sniffed. “Serves you right.”
“Okay,” Trixie said. “I’ve got a trajectory plotted to get us out of this system, and I’ve mostly got the parameters done for the Alcubierre hop to the next system. I just need someone to give me the go signal.”
Thorn smiled, then touched Mol’s shoulder. “It’s still your ship.”
She returned a look that was both grumpy and grateful. “Go ahead, Trixie. You have control.”
The drive rumbled to life, and the Gyrfalcon began accelerating on its course to the next star system.
15
Thorn moved aside so Brid could clamber out of the pilot’s seat, then settled himself into place. They were taking two hour shifts overseeing Trixie, which mostly just meant making conversation with her. The fact was that the AI was a far more capable pilot than any of them, so she didn’t really need much overseeing.
“Anything I should know about?” Thorn asked.
Brid started, then relaxed. “Not in particular, no. Trixie seems to have everything well in hand.”
She made her way back into the cabin, which had been configured for sleeping, and folded herself into her bunk. Thorn fastened the g-harness, which had been replaced with the only spare aboard. He’d honestly been surprised to find even that. How often did g-harnesses fail, anyway?
“Hey, Trixie,” he said. “How about you? Anything up I should know?”
It took her a few seconds to answer. “Don’t think so. We’re about four hours from our Alcubierre hop. Otherwise, as long as no other Nyctus show up, we’re pretty much just flying in a straight line. Even I can do that.”
Thorn smiled. “If it makes you feel better, Trixie, I don’t believe for a second you need me sitting here watching over you.”
“Appreciate that, boss.”
He let his head drop back against the g-couch, giving a faint sniff as something occurred to him—he and Trixie had a lot in common. Even three years into the fight, Starcasters were still viewed with suspicion to outright contempt by the crusty officers who still thought magic was a mere distraction from the real business of waging war. In the same way, regulations required a hum
an to oversee an AI, even if that human knew absolutely nothing about piloting. It wasn’t a regulation, as much a desperate attempt to hang onto a past that had become obsolete.
Magic was here to stay. So were AIs. Both were having a growing effect on the war, and that made more than a few of those traditionalists . . . uncomfortable.
“To hell with them,” Thorn said.
“An interesting statement, especially without any—” Trixie began, then abruptly stopped.
Thorn narrowed his eyes. “Trixie?”
“Right here.”
“You cut yourself off.”
“I did?”
“Yes. You said that it was an interesting statement, without any—” He made a chopping motion with his hand. “And that’s as far as you got.”
“Huh. My log file records me finishing that with, —without any context.”
Thorn sat up. “You don’t make errors, Trixie.”
“No, I don’t. And as far as my log file is concerned, I still haven’t. You sure you just didn’t mishear me?”
Thorn hesitated. He was—but he wasn’t. He’d only had a couple of hours of down-time since the enormous exertion of the battle, and he was feeling pretty dragged out.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s more likely than you screwing up, that’s for sure,” he said.
“Incidentally, what were you talking about? To hell with whom?” Trixie asked.
“What? Oh, just muttering to myself.” He let his head drop back. “I was thinking about all the people who distrust—hell, even resent—Starcasters and AIs, both. There are still way too many of them.”
“Oh, well, you won’t get any argument from me. To hell with them, indeed!”
They flew on in silence for a while, Thorn just letting the white-noise background of the Gyrfalcon’s myriad systems lull him into a meditative state. He could feel his capacity for magic, almost completely exhausted by the battle, starting to firm up again. A spell of contemplative mindfulness would help—as long as it didn’t turn into him falling asleep, of course.