Tales from the Edge: Escalation: A Maelstrom's Edge Collection

by Stephen Gaskell

  Without breaking stride, the Fleetguard Captain marched on Ephraim, who was still extricating himself from his attack on Rundark's downed suit. Each burst of charged particles, at much lower velocity than they would be in a real battle, burst on contact with the heavy armour, sending up sparks. Cortesi was canny, Jax saw, focusing his fire on Ephraim's weapons, rendering them deactivated.

  The Heavy-Gee powered into a standing stance to meet Cortesi's charge, but the checkered soldier had already adjusted his attack, sliding sideways just as the disarmed heavyweight stepped forward to meet him. In an elegant move more suited to a dance floor than a battlefield, Cortesi slid through the gap between Ephraim's leg and the arena wall, pirouetting to face the Heavy-Gee's unprotected back. A burst of pulsed fire to the neck was enough for Ephraim's suit to decide it had suffered enough damage and slowly dim, leaving the heavy suit still standing, but dark and immobile.

  Cortesi raised his arms in victory, certain that he had emerged the winner of the contest. The crowd, thinking the same thing, began to chant the name of the legend.

  What followed Jax would never forget. Kerr, the mobile scout, had not been rendered completely out of the tournament by Cortesi's previous attack. One arm lay unusable at her side and her jump jets only fired sporadically, but it was enough for a desperate leap across the battlefield just as Cortesi emerged from behind Ephraim's shadow. Kerr's leap intersected with Cortesi and the impact threw both of them to the ground, rolling off in separate directions.

  With no gun to hand and such a light armoured frame, it seemed impossible that the Sigint's attack would do anything to hurt the larger suit, and indeed for a split second after the collision, it looked like Cortesi would simply stand up and blast the newcomer away like he had two of the other Champions. But then a great explosion of light erupted from the chest plate of Cortesi's suit, throwing him halfway across the arena. The ornate black and white suit slumped to the ground, systems overloaded, and just like that the fight was over, as suddenly as it began.

  Jax looked in confusion at his father, who laughed.

  "Proximity mine," he said. "Kerr must have had it in her hand when she leapt. Clever move, to catch someone like Cortesi out."

  The smallest Champion landed in a crouch and the jump jets on her back extinguished. She sheathed her lightning gun in the sleeve of the suit's arm as they rose to their feet, lifting her armoured fists to the air in victory. There was a moment's pause whilst the assembled crowd caught their breath, and then the announcer's voice reappeared.

  "Ladies and gentlemen of the Faal Remnant, I give you your champion of champions, recon specialist of Red Nova Fire Team and chosen representative of House Ocallan, Brianna Kerr!"

  The crowd erupted in noise, a cacophony of cheers. The front panel of the scout suit swung open to reveal its pilot. Her blond hair was matted to the side of her head with sweat, but she was beautiful. She removed one of her arms from the suit's controls to wave to the crowd.

  Jax clapped Brianna's victory along with the rest. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt a surge of pride that these incredible warriors were out in the toughest places in the galaxy, fighting on behalf of him and the rest of the citizens of the Remnant Fleet.

  It was at that moment that Jax decided he would one day become a Lorican Champion.

  THE DAUGHTER OF ARIN

  ★

  by JON COOPER

  For Aynushka Rafel, life's looking over before it's really even begun. The last of the freighter ferries carrying refugees away from the Edge has left, and she seems condemned to see out her dwindling days attending to her ailing father. Then a courier from the fabled Comm Guild shatters the peace of their home...

  AGAINST ALL ODDS, she'd managed to beg something they could enjoy together in the final days. The Maelstrom was only weeks away, and the sky was filled with its roiling purple glow from horizon to horizon. The great maw was specked with insect blots of the last freighter ferries shuttling refugees to the lone gate at Arin's Star. These were the unrecorded final days of an abandoned planet in an unremarkable system, and Aynushka had already accepted that her fate was to remain and die here with her father. At least today she had found something that could finally make him smile again.

  He had suffered. He deserved some respite from his woes. When she was practically a child, he had worked for the Epirian Foundation here on the garden world of Arin, at the research station cloistered high in the mountains. When the Maelstrom was still only a smear in the sky, he'd told her stories of how his scientific work could save millions of lives, and as a child she had believed every word. Soon came the sound of the shouting through the walls at home, and for reasons she was never told, her father didn't work for the Epirians any more. Soon after, her mother stole their savings and when the Epirians abandoned the planet they left the useless and reviled behind. His health deteriorated, and for the last ten years her purpose in life had been to keep them both fed and happy. What other choice did she have?

  But today she'd get a smile out of him. She jogged back through the deserted townscape, skipping over rubble and keeping one hand lightly pressed against the small block in her pocket. It was something to hang on to. The final freighter ferries were leaving that night, and then it was only a matter of time before they were swept away by that lightning tide. Would it be quick? At least she had a little pleasure to share in this exact moment. She was pretty sure that Bibs, the stall owner who had swapped two blown-out node capacitors for the treat, had only agreed to the trade out of pity. Good of him – he'd have doubtless made more profit on it at the gate. Perhaps he'd wanted to make her happy in the same way she wanted to cheer her father. But then again, perhaps it was just plain old pity, trickling down from him to her.

  They still lived in the housing district the Epirians had built for their employees. Thick lines of low, utilitarian houses sprawled about her, mostly untouched by raiders. The broken windows and forced locks in the complex were mostly Aynushka's doing – after all, if her father's colleagues had blacklisted him after his dismissal, she felt justified in raiding the supplies they'd left behind. What were they going to do? Report her?

  She unlocked and opened their front door, dumping her rucksack and squeezing around the accumulated piles of salvage that filled their halls. She didn't want to waste any time. She knew he'd be upstairs, probably asleep, and while she was far too old to burst in and start bouncing on the bed, the temptation was there if only to see his face. Thumping gracelessly up the stairs, she called to him as she padded quickly down the landing, throwing open the door to his bedroom.

  'Dad!' she called, 'you'll never guess what I...'

  That her father was slumped at the side of his bed was a shock; it was the man standing over his deathly-still form that made the fury swell within her. He was wearing light, burnished metallic armour, standing next to the computer console her father had kept next to his bed and occasionally whispered numbers into, deep into the night. As Aynushka's words stalled in her throat he disconnected his wrist-link with a bleep and turned to face her, a blank, uncaring sheet of mirrored glass where his features should have been.

  Her instincts kicked in. Who he was and what he wanted were irrelevant – she hadn't been looking after her father all these years to see him struck down by some passing thief.

  She roared and pounced, but the thief stepped deftly to one side and was already at the door before she'd recovered. She pelted back, but he was already leaping down the last few steps and dashing to the door with an unnatural speed. She rattled down the stairs after him, but by the time she'd reached the front door there was only her decrepit and deserted home town, the same as it had been in living memory, waiting to greet her.

  She grunted at the sky like a beast and kicked the wall from sheer frustration. The pain in her foot cleared her mind, and with that clarity came the image of her father, fallen and helpless upstairs. She dashed back in, her priorities clear.

  After checking he was st
ill breathing, she carefully turned him over. Laid low on the floor he looked older and frailer, his rags hanging off him and his hair thinned around the temples. There was no sign of blood or bruising, and she winced when she felt how light he was. Moving him, he gave out a thick-lipped mumble and his eyelids fluttered. When he finally opened his eyes his pupils were wide, and Aynushka shushed him when he tried to speak.

  'Shush, stay calm. You'll be OK. I just need to...'

  He grimaced and pressed his palm on the floor to sit up. He fought when she tried to make him sit back down.

  'They came,' muttered the old man. 'All these years I've been working, and as soon as I perfected it they came. They must've been monitoring me all this time... Oh, Nushka!' Some inner strength bubbled within him, and when he looked up with his lined eyes they were softened by sadness. 'Nushka... This isn't how I wanted to say goodbye.'

  'Goodbye? Dad, what did he do to you?'

  'He took everything, Nushka. Everything but you. All these years I've been working on it, keeping it secret even from you. I hoped the knowledge would be enough to buy us onto a ferry freighter to the gate, but the Epirians couldn't let it die here with me. So they came to take it. They came to take my last hope.'

  'Dad, I don't understand...'

  He looked down, unable to meet her gaze.

  'You've got to go, Nushka. They've corrupted my files, the backups are all useless now. He's got the only copy now. That knowledge, my life's work... Aynushka, you have to understand how invaluable that is!'

  'What is it?'

  'A simple device programmed with a set of subroutines that allows for much easier filtration in the cybel converters used in the engines of many, many starships. It won't work in the tunnels, but for planet-hopping it increases efficiency some sixty-five percent! Faster sublight ships using less fuel! Do you realise the incalculable number of lives that could be saved? You've got to follow him, get those blueprints back...' He groaned as he struggled to his feet, and she helped ease him up as he crossed to the console. He chuckled lightly – a laugh, but not the one she had been hoping for.

  'The Comm Guild,' he said. 'Tricksy devils, but they're not as smart as an Epirian programmer. When he tried to download my algorithms, my honeypots hacked his percom. Here.' He pulled out a drawer and delved within it for a moment, eventually pulling out a slim, battered wrist-link which he pressed around her arm until it clicked into place. 'Don't lose this. It was linked to my console. Get this comm-link within a metre of his and you'll download everything he's got. Priceless information on the safest cybel routes, and more importantly, the device schematics and the programmes for the engine grid. You can save millions of lives, Nushka, if you just go now, get the last ferry off Arin...'

  'We haven't got the money, Dad!'

  'I scrimped a little. Another little lie that you'll have to forgive me for.' His fingers clicked around the light keys on the console and suddenly the strap around her wrist beeped appreciatively. 'I've transferred the credits over to you. More than enough for a ticket. A last gift from me to you. His manifest is there too, the only unencrypted data I could get. Just follow the courier, and stay close. That way you'll be safe.'

  'I can't just leave,' she began, and her father whipped around with quickness and a fury she'd never seen in him before.

  'And what would you have me do, Nushka? Hm?' His breathing hissed through his nostrils furiously. 'Have you die here with me here, on this abandoned rock? Or would you rather us both save the lives of billions?'

  It was the only time he'd ever raised his voice to her in all these years, and it stung like a slap.

  'Make a choice,' he roared. 'Go!'

  'Bibs gave me this,' she said, and before she made her way to the spaceport to catch the last ferry from Arin, she gave her father the small block of chocolate that she thought would make him smile.

  *

  The gate was a world away from the cramped and unpleasant ferry journey. Noise and smells and motion like she had never seen before, the massed ranks of the dispossessed swelling as the Maelstrom drew ever nearer. There were thousands upon thousands of them, shouting, pleading and bartering anything and everything to escape. Each of the huge, pillared chambers she passed through echoed with the desperation of impending death. But Aynushka had a purpose. She'd made her promise to her father.

  According to the courier's manifest, he was now on board a ship named the Hesperus VII, a civilian freighter headed for the Meleagris Straights. She had, of course, heard the stories about the ships that preyed on the lost. Slavers and pirates offering salvation who would lead the lost to a life far worse than the terror of the Maelstrom. Perhaps, she thought sadly, that was why he'd never tried to escape with her before – but if the Hesperus had a courier on board, surely it was safe. Wasn't it?

  The gigantic vidscreen that listed the departures told her that the Hesperus was in dock 16 of this section. She ignored all pleas for help and the curses as she barged people out of the way, intent on finding the ship as quickly as possible. She knew she would likely never see her father again, and she had to make his sacrifice count for something.

  Three men in ramshackle uniforms stood before the boarding ramp at dock 16. A queue of refugees shuffled listlessly forward to prove their worth. Most were turned curtly away, and the one desperate woman who started screaming and beating the chest and face of the officer who had rejected her was quickly seen off with a trio of drawn weapons. There was little trouble after that.

  When Aynushka reached the front of the line she was called forward by the middle of the three officers, a thin-faced man with void-black hair scraped back over his skull to accentuate the curve of his widow's peak. He had pale, suspicious eyes and a tightness to his lips which outright declared that he was not a man easily swayed.

  'We've got to be practical,' he said gruffly. 'What can you bring to the ship?'

  Aynushka stared him down, refusing to be intimidated. 'Does your ship have a computer grid?'

  'Of course. So what?'

  'What if I told you I've got a way to make your engines faster and more efficient?'

  'I'd call you a liar and tell you to stop wasting my time. Next!'

  'No, wait... listen to me. You've heard of the Epirian research base on Arin? My father used to work there, and the Comm Guild courier you've got on board...'

  His face, previously so impassive, registered a look of surprise that he quickly suppressed. 'What did you say?'

  'The courier on board your ship. He stole my father's research and...'

  'Now listen up,' he said quietly, leaning uncomfortably close to her. 'I'm the chief security officer and only I found out yesterday that we've got a courier on board. How the hell did you know?'

  'Because I'm telling the truth. And I've got the software to reclaim the research, as well as all the other data in his cache. And everybody knows how much that information is worth.'

  'Really now,' he said, and his face broke into a sly grin. 'Well, that's very interesting. You'll have to forgive the hard-line approach, I'm afraid. With a bleeding heart we'd be overcrowded in no time, and not everyone who begs for a bunk has an offer like that. What's your name?'

  'Aynushka. Aynushka Rafel.'

  'Pleased to meet you, Aynushka. I'm Benek. Welcome aboard.'

  *

  The Hesperus was not a pretty ship from any angle. It was ragged and patched up, relying on low tech, low energy fixes like welding and plasti-gel to repair the slatted metallic bulkheads. There were no windows and the low ceilings gave the place the feel of a cellar. The whole place was lit with a hellish half-light that kept each shadow and edge indistinct, and the constant hum of the engines mingled with the low babble of human activity to fill the corridors with a chorus of ghost noises.

  While the other lucky refugees had been shown to their various quarters and duties in the bustling main hold, Benek had ushered her to one side and into a ratty cargo bay full of mismatched crates of live poultry strapped to the
floor.

  'I should just go straight to the captain. Surely he's the authority here?'

  'You've not met him,' said Benek, a sour look on his face. 'So you wouldn't understand. It's not like being planetside. There are certain procedures you have to honour here, and the captain's got more to lose than anyone by pissing off the Comm Guild. No, if he's up for doing this, he'll want to do it on the sly. There's no thieving on this ship without his say-so.'

  'It's not thieving!'

  'Perhaps. But it's still a risk. Look, do you want to get your data back or not?' She grumbled assent. 'Well then. I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, you stay here and keep quiet. Trust me, no good will come if some of the scum out there know there's a pretty little girl like you in here, all lost and alone.'

  Once he'd left she checked the door. Locked. With nothing better to do she ate a drab meal of thick, stale biscuits from her supplies. Rest was impossible thanks to the incessant burbling and hooting of the birds and the acrid stench of their droppings, and she found herself pacing endlessly back and forth. The only break in the monotony was a low, yawning rumble through the ship as it passed through the gate and into the cybel tunnels – every second now taking her countless millions of klicks further from home.

  It was some hours later when she heard the heavy clunk of the door unlocking, and Benek's wiry frame slipped in.

  'It's on,' he said. 'But you're gonna have to be quick.'

  *

  The plan was simple. As soon as Benek had left her in the hold, he'd got one of his lieutenants to watch the courier's billet. Having bargained permission from the captain, he said, he'd just discovered from his underling at the monitor consoles that the courier was sleeping and the time was ripe. It was now or never, and having gifted her with a map to the right cabin and a data spike to bypass the door code, he chivvied her impatiently through umpteen service corridors to the elevator that would take her to the upper decks. There was one caveat: She could not get caught. If she did, the captain would deny all knowledge to save face with the Guild, and she'd be left to the courier's tender mercies. It was best to keep this all on the quiet.