by Zach Winderl
Closing his eyes, Atom brushed the surface with his fingertips. He traced back and forth over the painted lines of the God’s Hand Galaxy.
“I said the hand, Atom,” Kozue said with impatience.
Atom’s eyes snapped open, but he followed the AI’s guidance.
Running his fingers over the nebulous hand, he frowned as he traced the edge of the pinky finger. “There’s a tiny dent just off the edge here.” He looked up to the others. “Hither, take a feel.”
Kneeling down beside Atom, Hither leaned in close to examine the table from several angles before running her hand over the surface.
“That’s not an irregularity,” she said as she laid her cheek on the wood and squinted. “It looks like someone used a punch. It’s very slight, but it’s there and it doesn’t look like an accident. See how there’s no drag to it and the dent is dead on?”
“That’s a straight shot.” She rose to her feet and looked around. “Do we think that’s what we’re looking for?”
“Koze, run that point against the astral map,” Atom said as he hopped to his feet.
The AI hesitated. “It is in close proximity to a small system well beyond the outskirts of the Skins.”
“Inhabited?”
“Firm. It appears to be under loose control of the O-Sue Han.”
“Meaning?”
“They lay claim to it and have a han presence, but being so far outside the travel lanes, the Nemo System seems to be on its own. It appears the major system industry is scrapping. My estimation is that the remote location plays into the illegal salvage market.”
“Well, we have a system to burn for.” Atom turned to look over the bodies laid out in their neat row. “Now, what do we do with these people?”
“I say call it and burn,” said Daisy as he stepped up beside Atom.
“That would peg us,” Lilly replied. “They will have marked our arrival. They know we’re here and when they find these bodies the local authorities will put these deaths on our heads, even though we found them this way.”
“We could wait,” Byron chipped in.
Margo wandered over and took Atom’s hand, worming her way between the captain and the pilot.
Atom sighed. “Why do things always have to be so complicated?”
“Probably a good idea for us to actually take this to the authorities,” said Hither as she wandered back over and took a seat on one of the fluffy chairs.
“How do we explain moving the bodies?”
“Protect Margo?” She shrugged. “We needed to be out of the cold and didn’t want to leave them sitting where the poor girl would have to look at them. Or just being civilized and laid them out proper.”
“They’ll still be mad, but it should work,” Atom scooped Margo and made for the ramp. “Daisy, Shi, flip that table back so it’s not quite so obvious what we were looking at.”
***
Atom strolled through the hatch to the One Way Ticket, rubbing the crusty snow from his face. “Let’s get properly settled,” he called out as the others started to wander away. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here, but I don’t want the weather to kick anything loose.”
He froze.
A grenade bounced. Metal tinked against metal as the small sphere hopped along a haphazard path across the hold floor like a fleeing kangaroo rat.
Atom felt the breath suck out of the room in a collective spasm as all eyes tracked the erratic journey of the fast-moving grenade. In an instant too brief for reaction, he tried to anticipate the detonation point and figure an escape route for any of the crew.
Wide eyes.
Bouncing metal sounded almost like tinkling glass.
As the rudimentary AI guided the grenade to the point of maximum damage, Atom leaned in front of Margo. He scowled at the artificial, sporadic hopping that made bouncers so deadly.
The grenade slowed.
The crew tensed.
Leaning back from the center of the room, they held their breaths as the grenade paused, mid-hop, to scan the hold. These grenades tracked movement, keying in on the panic its metallic clinking tended to inspire. The crew, however, remained frozen. As if seated at a Russian roulette table, they hung on a razor’s edge, waiting for the next bounce. Or not….
The grenade dropped, bouncing with greater force against the plasteel matting of the floor and leaped chest-high in the air.
Atom slapped Margo to the ground, just as the shockwave slammed into him.
***
“Margo,” Kozue whispered.
A few months shy of her third birthday, Margo perked at the familiar sound of her mother’s voice. Crouched with her hands over her ears, she cracked open her eyes and looked around.
“Margo, I need your help,” Kozue spoke with hushed urgency. “I need you to listen to my instructions and follow them carefully.”
Instinct and her father’s shielding body had driven Margo into a little ball behind one of the few crates stacked near the hold wall. Pressed low, she shifted to lift her head and peeped around the corner of the crate.
“Behind you is a vent,” said Kozue.
Margo pulled back and turned to the wall.
“I’m going to open the vent,” as she spoke the vent hissed open. “I need you to crawl inside. Go now.”
On all fours, the girl monkey-crawled into the darkened vent.
“Good girl,” the AI said with relief.
Margo crouched in the air vent. Spinning to look back into the hold, she caught sight of her father lying motionless. Half hidden by the crates, he had taken the brunt of the concussion for her. As the vent slid shut, Margo caught sight of a figure in red armor step through the open hatch with an assault blaster sweeping the hold.
“There are ten of them,” said Kozue.
Margo turned, stood up in the low vent, and started walking.
“Ten.” Margo reached up and trailed a hand along the ceiling, while holding up three fingers on her off hand. “I’m Fiver.”
The girl grinned up at her mother.
“I know, dear.”
Trotting down the air duct, Margo began humming a haunting, old lullaby to herself. Kozue guided the toddler through the vent system and up to the bridge by illuminating the crawl-space with a soft glow in the direction to go. As the girl approached the final vent, Kozue opened the spiraling, metal maw.
Margo peeked from the opening.
“It’s safe, Go. They are all down on the lower level,” Kozue chided. “I need you to look under Shi’s console.”
“Shi?” Margo lit up with a beaming smile as she wandered to the empty pilot’s seat. With a little shimmy, she clambered up into the seat and began tugging at the yoke. Staring out into the snowy twilight, a mock dogfight erupted in Margo’s mind. The smile disappeared, replaced by intense focus as she pretended to blast enemy ships from the starry Black.
“Not that one, love,” Kozue retained her mother’s patience. “The other seat.”
Margo stopped playing and looked behind her. She stood up in Daisy’s seat and looked around. Surveying the narrow bridge like a lookout on an old sailing vessel, she spotted Shi’s communication station and pointed as if she had spotted land.
“Chair.” She grinned as she hopped down.
Galloping over to the chair, she spun the seat in a slow circle.
“Good,” Kozue prompted. “Now, look under the desk. There should be a gun that’s just the right size for you.”
Margo spun the chair again.
“Look under the desk, Go,” the AI goaded. “Quickly, look under the desk.”
Bending sideways, Margo peered under the chair.
“The desk, Go, the desk,” the patience in Kozue’s voice betrayed her AI circuitry in the face of imminent violence. “You must move faster, my lovely. They are coming up the stairs.
“Desk, Go. Look. Under. Desk.”
Margo righted herself and dropped to all fours to crawl under the desk. Twisting to look up, she found t
he gun strapped to the underside of the console. With a few jerks against the bindings, she pulled the arc blaster free and emerged from the cubby like a game hunter with the pistol cradled in the crook of her arm.
She hefted the pistol to her shoulder and approached the door in a childish crouch, imitating Shi’s rifle stance.
“Careful, girl,” Kozue whispered in her ear. “There’s a pair coming up the fore stairs now.”
“Yummy, pear.” Margo dropped the muzzle of her gun to the floor.
“No, there are two enemies coming up the stairs.”
“Oh.” Resuming her scowling war-face, Margo hefted the gun and peeked around the corner to the galley hatch. “Bad men on stairs.”
“They are moving slowly.”
Margo shifted along the wall, doing her best to imitate a shadow. A dark ringlet drifted over her eyes and with exasperation, she dropped the gun to the deck and smeared her hair back with her damp palms. Then, retrieving the gun, she crept forward with renewed concentration. Hunching her shoulders, she aimed the gun at the corner by the galley hatch.
A head and an assault blaster poked up from the stairwell, forcing Margo to flatten herself into the doorway of the captain’s cabin. With exaggerated intensity, she sighted down the barrel.
A second figure swept around the first with military precision and took cover in the storage-bay hatch opposite the stairwell.
Margo tightened her tiny hands on the arc-pistol and dug the grip into her shoulder.
“Clear,” the first figure growled.
The second soldier ghosted into the hallway. His light armor glistened in the dim lighting of the upper deck. Moving with cautious steps, he shifted forward. His rifle drifted from alcove to alcove, three storage bays on the right and the cabin to the left. His feet moved by rote as his helmet swiveled with slow automation.
Margo leaned out, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
A burst from the soldier’s assault blaster ripped into the wall above Margo’s head even as the electric bolt slammed into the man’s leg and blue lightning danced over the surface of his armor. In a macabre rendition of the dancing death, the man arched his back and involuntarily squeezed off another burst from his rifle that bit into the floor at his feet.
Before the twitching body dropped to the deck, Margo vanished into the cabin she shared with her father, moving at Kozue’s direction, fading back into the atmo system.
As the vent swished shut behind her, the toddler heard the rush of metal shod feet.
“Good girl,” Kozue crooned. “Now you need to climb the ladder beside you.”
Margo looked up into the darkness. Kozue raised the lighting enough to see the six rungs leading up to another low air shaft. Clutching the pistol to her chest, Margo made slow progress climbing the ladder and by the time she stood in the upper tube, the hallway below stood empty.
“Well, we missed that opportunity,” Kozue said with simple recalculation. “Follow the lights, dear. There are a few of them in the galley.”
With her words, a line of pale work lights twinkled left at the intersection.
“Think you can shoot more than one?”
Margo shrugged and hugged the arc-pistol to her chest as she clambered through the ventilation tube. Following the glow, she made her way to a vent in the ceiling of the galley.
With painful slowness Kozue eased the vent open.
“What in peklo took Merf out?” a voice seeped up from below.
“Burned if I know,” a rough, woman’s voice answered. “Bannie said it was a little shadow. Maybe this boat’s got a wisp.”
“Wisps don’t kill folk.” The man’s voice hung somewhere between statement and query as Margo leaned forward to watch the two soldiers below. “Least I en’t never heard of such. They might lead you into death, but en’t never heard tale of them right ending a boke.”
“That’s an electro-bolt wound.” The woman pointed down the hall toward the bridge.
The two soldiers, their light armor a matching, crimson hue that marked their regiment, stood facing each other beside the long booth set into the galley wall. With trained caution, they covered both entrances to the galley, their posture relaxed, but alert.
They stood ready, directly beneath the vent.
Indistinguishable from her counterpart buttoned up in armor, the woman flipped up the visor on her helmet to expose her face and take in her surroundings with natural eyes. “I don’t like this,” she growled as she brought her rifle to her shoulder and trained it down the dim hallway. “Toks didn’t give us any hint we’d hit anything more than a root breach.”
“She di’n give us nothing.” The man flipped his own helmet open and thumbed a stim-tab into his mouth.
Margo watched in fascination as a shiver coursed through the man. She crouched in the darkness above, chin resting on her knees as she studied the pair below. Then she drew the arc-pistol to her shoulder. Her almond eyes narrowed as she sighted down the short barrel.
Before Kozue could prompt her, the toddler squeezed the trigger.
The gun chuffed and a burst of arc-bolts slammed into the unsuspecting soldiers below.
“Well done,” Margo heard the nod of approval in her mother’s voice as convulsions threw the pair into each other, igniting a secondary shower of sheet lightning as they intertwined.
Armor melted together, leaving a smoldering grotesquerie of flesh, metal, and plasteel for someone else to find.
“Ten.” Margo beamed as she leaned back from the vent and turned her small body in the narrow confines of the duct.
“No, dear,” Kozue corrected. “There are seven soldiers left.”
“Ten,” Margo reassured her mother’s voice with a confident smile.
“You need to keep going, Margo.” Kozue closed the vent with a soft hiss.
***
Rough hands jostled Atom.
He wandered the edge of consciousness. With rubbery legs dragging behind, he felt himself hauled across the floor.
His floor.
Drifting. Eyes rolling. Open. Cracked.
He watched the floor of the hold whisk by, flowing like a liquid dream.
Feet below. Four feet. Armored feet. Light armor.
They dumped him in a heap, tossing him against a wall like offal. Atom’s eyes bounced open as he landed. The soldiers trotted back to round up the others, and like sacks of grain, piled them around Atom.
He tried to move, but found his hands zipped tight behind his back.
“Atom,” Shi whispered without moving her lips. She lay with her face pressed into Daisy’s ribs. “You ‘live?”
“More than dead.”
“I can’t focus my eyes.”
“Mine are floating too.” Atom tried to blink some clarity into his vision. “I think they must have slipped us a trank after the conk. You bound?”
“Firm,” Shi grunted. “Not sure why. I’m full gassed, no limb control.”
A ripple of gunfire echoed from the upper deck.
“Who’re they shootin’ at? Ain’t we all here?” Shi tried to look around, but only managed to slip her head into Daisy’s armpit.
“Don’t think so.” Atom squinted. Moving his head with care, he counted four still forms mingled with them. “Margo’s not here and we’re missing someone else.
“Koze, is Go with you?” He strained against his restraints.
The only response came as a fluctuated ringing, deep in his ears. He tried again.
“Ain’t gittin’ nothin’ either,” said Shi. “Could the trank block Kozue? Or maybe a local jammer?”
Atom blinked and fought to drag his eyes back open. “The concussion probably scrambled our pans. I’d guess we’ll need a hard reboot to align the interface, but that’s on our end.” He turned his attention to the hold, trying to keep his eyes in focus and half-closed at the same time.”
Three soldiers stood near the side hatch. They huddled their heads, deep in discussion. All three wore crimson ligh
t armor. The tallest of the three—Atom judged her to be the leader based on tone and stance—stood with her helmet tucked under her arm.
Atom studied the woman. A familiarity tickled at his mind.
The woman turned her sharp featured face and caught Atom’s stare. Before he could dredge the recesses of his mind, she raised her blaster and fired off a quick pair of stun shots. Pain arched Atom’s spine as the mild electro-bolts slammed into his chest.
He recalled stifling a scream as the world faded to black.
***
A yelp jolted Atom back from that darkness.
Unlike the previous surfacing, Atom rose from unconsciousness to immediate and full alertness. He surveyed his surroundings with a practiced eye, tested his restraints, and formulated possibilities. The armored woman still stood beside the hatch, but she had donned her helmet. Atom recognized her height and stance despite the concealing helmet.
She stood alone, blaster held loose, but tense in her readiness.
Moving with subtle care, Atom kept his head drooped as he nudged Shi with his knee. The gunslinger remained motionless. Atom studied her and detected the slight rise and fall of her breath. He noted with amusement the drool-fall she fed down the side of Daisy’s shirt to pool below on her bunched-up poncho. Relieved, Atom turned his attention back to his captor. Tension hunched the woman’s shoulders. Even as the hold remained silent and still, the woman stepped back, her movements defensive and calculating.
Atom watched her with puzzled fascination.
Before he could act, another cry echoed from the upper landing of the aft stairs. A pair of troopers stumbled down the steps. Somehow, they managed to keep their footing as they fled some unseen terror.
As they sprinted across the deck towards their beckoning commander, the lead soldier thrust his hands out to halt his momentum against the inner hatch. But the hatch flashed open. Atom imagined the look of surprise as the man stumbled forward, overbalanced, to plow face-first into the outer hatch. A dull crunch reached Atom’s ears as the soldier crumpled to lie motionless on the floor inside the hatch.
The outer door hissed open, unleashing an icy blast into the hold.
A few steps behind, the second soldier continued in flight. Just as she touched the boundary of the outer hatch, the doors snapped shut. Like a ship-shear in a scrapyard, the doors crushed into the soldier, catching her in the midriff and crumpling armor as easily as aluminum foil in the hands of a toddler.