by Jay Allan
What was left of it.
The gray contacts on the grid weren’t asteroids, they were drifting chunks of debris. Gina dialed up the throttle to get a closer look, and as they drew near, they saw the gray bracket pairs resolve into dark, jagged pieces of the station. The larger pieces were riddled with holes.
“They’re all dead,” Alara whispered.
“Yeah, and so are we. We have 6% of our fuel left,” Delayn said.
Alara shook her head and tears sprang to her eyes. “We came all this way for nothing!”
“Well, we’re here now, and there’s no going back, so we’d better see if there’s anything we can salvage from the wreckage,” Gina said.
“Like what?”
Gina met Alara’s gaze as Tova turned—the red eyes of her helmet glowing ominously as she gazed up at them from the gravidar station. “Like a chance of survival,” Gina replied.
Epilogue
—THE YEAR 0 AE—
The shell fighter set down on the surface of the exoplanet not far from an active volcano with a river of glowing magma running down the side. Destra let out a long breath and scowled at the inhospitable landscape. She’d set down on a dark field of ice, which glittered like black glass. Between the fiery magma flows and the ice fields, the world was bound to be either too hot or too cold, but never anywhere in between.
Destra shook her head and abandoned the cockpit to go check on her patient. By now he should have been waking up, and if not, she’d have to wake him. They both needed to eat something. Destra felt her stomach growl painfully at just the thought of food, and she stumbled along the darkened corridors of the fighter to find the officer she’d rescued.
She ended up bumping straight into him in the dark and both of them fell over. Destra winced at the pain which shot up through her spine as she hit the deck. The man cried out and began panting heavily from the much greater pain of his injuries.
Destra sighed and searched for him in the dark. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I . . . I don’t know,” he wheezed. “Where am I?”
She found his hand in the dark and squeezed it in an attempt to reassure him. “You should have stayed on the gurney,” she said.
“Who are you?”
“I saved your life. Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
“I’m Destra,” she said. “Destra Ortane.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m . . .” he panted once more, obviously struggling to catch his breath. “Hoff,” he said. “Admiral Hoff Heston.”
“Admiral?” Destra blinked and she recoiled from his hand as though it were a snake.
Hoff chuckled, but it came out as a wheeze. “Yes, not that it matters. An admiral needs a fleet to be an admiral, does he not?”
Destra frowned. “I . . . I suppose so.”
“Where are we?” Hoff asked with his next available breath.
“I don’t know. Some barren rock in the middle of nowhere. We’re out of fuel. I stole a Sythian fighter and escaped Roka to come here, but we didn’t get far.” Now it was Destra’s turn to laugh. “It looks like we’d have been better off on Roka with the Sythians.”
“Hmmm,” Hoff grunted. “Well, let’s see, shall we? Does this fighter have a cockpit?”
“Yes, but it’s almost as dark outside as it is in here.”
“Lovely. Help me up, would you?”
Destra found the man’s hand once more and hauled him to his feet. She helped him along the corridor, letting him lean heavily on her as they walked to the cockpit. As they emerged in the transparent dome, the admiral let out an appreciative whistle, his head turning every which way to study their surroundings. “Well, you’re right about one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“We’d have been better off on Roka. I believe you’ve landed us on Ritan. I can’t think of a less hospitable place to be stranded.”
“You know where we are?”
“Don’t get too excited. It’s habitable, but only just, and only if you have a nice bio dome to live in. The temperatures are consistently twenty below, which is balmy considering the planet’s distance from the nearest sun. The ice fields are riddled with rictan burrows, and the skies are filled with giant, carnivorous bats. They feed on the rictans and the ice walkers which roam the surface looking for edible moss growing up near the geothermal vents.”
“So the air is breathable, then?”
“You might choke on sulfurous fumes, but it is breathable, yes.”
Destra sighed. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Hoff shot her a skeptical look. “You might not still be saying that after you’ve been outside.” He nodded to the viewports as another spurt of magma shot high into the sky from the volcano they’d landed beside. “If there’s an uninhabitable class of habitable planets, then Ritan’s it, and lucky you, you’ve found it! The only thing which would make Ritan worse would be if the Sythians have already discovered it. They’d love this place. Cold, dark, filled with deadly creatures to make good sport for their hunts. . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Perfect for the bug-eyed kakards.”
Destra turned to look out at the dark, malevolent vista of Ritan. “How would we know if they were here?”
Hoff turned to her with a smile. “Well, that’s just it—you wouldn’t. We never did see them coming. It was The Invisible War.”
“And we lost,” Destra said, shaking her head.
“No,” Hoff wheezed. He turned to her with a mad sparkle in his eyes, which was just visible in the dim light. “The war is only over when we’re all dead. That’s what they were after,” he said, nodding as his gaze slowly drifted away from hers. They won’t have won, and we won’t have lost until they’ve killed every last one of us, and I have every intention of out-living them. I’ll do it,” he said, nodding once, defiantly. “Even if I have to put myself in stasis for a thousand years.”
“Strong words for an injured man stranded on Ritan.”
“Injuries heal. And we can make Ritan work for us until a rescue comes.”
“A rescue?”
“My fleet will be looking for me. I got cut off from them during the evacuation and had to eject from my corvette, but when I don’t arrive, they’ll come looking.”
Destra snorted. She didn’t voice her opinion on the likelihood of a rescue out here, on a barren rock off the space lanes. Lightning flashed on the horizon, briefly illuminating the icy surface of the world, and Destra thought she saw a dark silhouette fly by overhead. Her thoughts turned to the predators Hoff had spoken of—the rictans and the bats, and she grimaced, thankful at least that they had the Sythian fighter for shelter. But sooner or later they’d probably have to venture out. Even if only to find food. Her mind cast back to Digger’s pet rictans and she wondered absently what they’d taste like, and if it would come to that.
It probably will, she thought.
It was going to be a long wait for a rescue.
As if voicing her thoughts, Hoff turned to her and said, “We should take stock of our supplies. We’re going to need weapons, armor, and masks to filter out the soot and ash. I hope this fighter of yours came well-equipped.”
Destra frowned, her eyes still on the distant horizon as it flashed with lightning once more. “So do I, Hoff.”
So do I.
_o0o_
DARK SPACE CONTINUES WITH
Dark Space III: Origin
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jasper T. Scott is the author of more than ten novels, written across various genres. He has been writing for more than eight years, but his abiding passion has always been to write science fiction and fantasy. As an avid fan of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, Jasper Scott aspires to create his own worlds to someday capture the hearts and minds of his readers as thoroughly as these franchises have.
Jasper writes his books from Central America and offers his sincerest apologies and regrets for his long absence from the rat race, but to all the noble warriors who venture out daily into the wintry cold on their way to work or school, he sends his regards—you are braver than he.
TITANS
EDWARD W. ROBERTSON
-o0o-
TITANS
EDWARD W. ROBERTSON
Copyright © 2012 Edward W. Robertson
All Rights Reserved
_o0o_
03:27:15, 09/27/2200
I had a friend, once. A father. To me and many others. Like all fathers, he had some stories he wouldn’t tell his children. The story of his brother Arthur was one of them.
In telling it, I betray him. But there’s someone who deserves to hear it—who needs to hear it.
Like all children, I hope he’ll forgive me.
1
Not all lives are created equal. Some are as lofty as the Pyramids, gold-capped and eternal. Others are such long slogs of gruesome misery you’d gladly swap places with a boiling lobster. You better hope you’re born to the right parents and era, and for your luck to hold out. You only get the one.
Unless you’re like me.
My 96th life was better than most. Medieval history professor, NYU. One book on the early history of karate in Okinawa’s Ryukyu Kingdom—well-received. Consistent favorite in the student polls. All told, it was just enough to get me invited to the New Year’s Eve 2199 party at Wetta Tower and thoroughly ignored by all the actors, land barons, bassists, and state senators exchanging jokes and cloud-contacts. Fine by me. Their complete indifference toward me left me free to pursue my favorite pastime: drinking all the host’s best booze.
Cold brown glass in hand, I threaded from the kitchen, brushing past a woman whose dress was held fast with tape, sweat, and wishful thinking. Music clanged. In bygone days, the balconies of highrise parties had supported ecosystems all their own, bustling colonies of smokers, chippers, and the hangers-on who gravitated toward such people, but these days, prohibition had killed the outdoor sub-parties dead, leaving the balcony utterly vacant. Good place to be alone; I had no intention of smiling from the walls until someone finally acknowledged my presence. Much too old to care.
The transparent plass door retracted soundlessly. A fist of wind socked my nose, choking me, bearing the salt of the Upper Bay. Headlights glittered 243 floors below. A shoe scraped, startling me. To my left, a man leaned against the balcony rails.
“Oh,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
“At a party?” the man said. “Do you know what parties are?”
“Places where women gather to ignore me?”
His smile arrived a moment later. “How inefficient. They could be doing that from home.”
Something was off about his eyes. I leaned in for a closer look. “I’m Rob.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“How would you like a job, Rob?”
“Those things? Afraid I’ve already got one.”
He shook his head. “An important job.”
“What could be more important than teaching America’s youth about pre-Elizabethan sewage systems?”
“Saving their children from universal enslavement. Still no? Then how about the chance to learn where you came from?”
“South Brunswick?” I hoisted my bourbon. “Why do you think I’m drinking?”
The man’s irises seemed to swirl. “Athens. Or was it Susa? Ur?”
My blood ran as cold as the wind. Something in me clicked over. Something primal. I sized him up. Plainish white face. Faint scar below the left eye. Jacketless despite the freezing heights. Gusts of wind teased his hair across his forehead. A conservative halfvest wrapped twice around his chest, functional yet not puritanical. Could be an academic with enough dress sense to survive at private parties. Possibly that stolid type of European born with the knowledge all is temporary, fashion most of all. But there was something more knowing to him than that. Self-made billionaire? So fabulously, tower-owningly, fuck-you rich that dressing down reinforced how none of the rules applied to him.
Fractal. That’s what was wrong with his eyes. The irises were a repeating pattern of green waves, shrinking rapidly as you approached the pupil until the borders between green and black were as fuzzy as the soft side of Velcro. But there was something deeper, an unnaturalness beyond the cosmetic surgery. I saw nothing animal there.
In a sense, I was recognizing one of my own. In their way, they’re more godlike than human; depending on what kind of shell they feel like locking themselves into, the clanking crabs, they’re perfectly capable of rolling beneath the scalding crush of Venusian skies, swimming in the icy swirl of Europan seas, or cruising through the black vacuum itself.
A deep-down part of me knew what I was seeing, but I’d been out of the game too long. That night, I didn’t trust my instincts. Probably, it was for the better.
“How drunk are you?” I said.
“Denial is only a viable strategy when there is any doubt.”
“Very drunk. If there were an empty pool in front of us, you’d be diving in for a laugh.”
A long sigh escaped his nose. “We know who you are, Robert Dunbar, who isn’t really Robert Dunbar. Or any of the other people you’ve dressed up as for the last 2000-odd years.”
He’d paced between me and the plass door. Same invincible plastic they used in the domes of Mars, the owner had bragged. The den beyond was empty. I tipped back my head and began to circle him. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and my partner. You could call him my employer, but he doesn’t pay me. Mainly because he doesn’t need to. Or have any money. But I think he’d expect me to work for nothing even if he did.”
“Well, now it all makes sense.” As I circled, he turned with me, putting the black and glistening rails to his back. “What happens if I say no?”
“I come back and keep coming back until you agree. Or, violence.”
“Then let’s cut to the chase.”
Anyone watching would have thought I was crazy. Things used to be different. We lopped heads off like wheat and kings feted us with feasts. Meanwhile, exposing my identity meant a fate worse than death: sliced into slides by Rickman Medical or their Thai competition so 122-year-olds could fork over the last of their children’s fortunes in hopes of living to celebrate their 123rd. Threats, blackmail, exploitation. I’d made my decision about what to do any magi bearing those gifts centuries before Jesus had received his.
I launched a front kick straight for the man’s gut.
My kung fu had gotten pretty rusty since I got bored with it in the 2160s, but my kick had drive and snap and speed. Everything you’d need to kick a man over a balcony and into half a mile of empty space. Without breaking eye contact, the man turned his hips. My foot clipped his side and carried past; I’d overcommitted. He grabbed my leg, pulled me into my own momentum. We banged into the rail and the world tipped. I grabbed wildly, snaring his halfvest. The stars and the light-painted clouds wheeled past me, replaced by the black thrust of towers, thousands of bright apartment windows hosting hundreds of bright parties, and the headlights of the minicars far, far below.
We fell.
Wind gushed past my face, stealing my breath, smearing my eyes with tears. The man struggled against me. I hugged him tighter, as if hoping to squeeze inside him and hide between his live
r and pancreas until the worst was over. The cuffs of my pants slapped madly against my ankles. The banded windows of Wetta Tower blurred past my face, a mosaic of shadow and light.
So this is how it would end. Puddled across the sidewalk. A million days of memories particulated across Battery Place. I’d seen the ziggurats of Babylon, the birth of Athenian democracy, the death of my wife Demostrate. I’d heard a world without gunpowder or internal combustion or broadcasts. Helped build the dikes that saved Manhattan’s shores. In a module in Martian orbit, a grain of sand had split the hull and raw vacuum had tugged against my eyes and lungs. One of countless times I’d expected, at last, to die. As always, two emotions wrestled for my heart: consuming, shitless terror, and the most peaceful relief you could ever imagine.
The man wriggled against me. “Aaarrrgh!”
“What?”
“Aaarrrgh!”
The wind obliterated his words. I scrabbled for his head, twisted his ear directly against my mouth, and screamed, “This is your fault, you stupid ass!”
He bumped and squirmed until he faced me, belly-down to the approaching earth. Arms battered by the raging wind, he yanked at his oversized halfvest. Uptown, the green and red spire of the Empire State Building reached eye level. We were ten seconds chronologically and halfway geographically into our descent. In a few more seconds, we would make the biggest spectacle of our lives.
The man wormed an arm beneath my vest and pressed his face against my ear. “Hang on like you’ll die if you don’t.”
His vest streamed behind him. I grabbed his belt, wrapped an arm around his neck, tangled my legs into his. His free hand fiddled with his belt buckle.
“What the hell are you—” My breath jerked from my lungs; my ribs creaked. I gasped and gagged and blinked tears. The howling wind subsided to a stiff breeze. The peaks of skyscrapers drifted leisurely past. Above us, a dark triangle of fabric blacked out the clouds.
“You’re awfully impulsive for an old man,” he said at normal volume.