Threshold of Victory

by Stephen J. Orion

  But really it wasn’t some group of trained specialist soldiers he felt betrayed by, it was just the one.

  He wanted her to be here now for more reasons than he knew how to express. If not to save him then at least to justify why she hadn’t, to observe his last moments, to validate his existence, to mourn his end and perhaps to carry his memory. It was raw emotion, and he wanted to scream it to the world, to make it a case, a demand for her presence, but as the lead Mauler levelled its rifle at him he had time for only one word.

  And so he screamed her name, and it emptied from him with such force and torment he thought his soul would go with it. But it didn’t.

  Nor did oblivion take him.

  He heard no sound. Perhaps he was in shock, or perhaps his mind was already cringing away from the impossible pain it had predicted with such certainty. Regardless, the arcom with its lupine features and grey paint left silent sparks as it skidded across the metal deck on its knees. It crossed out of the main corridor until it halted just meters away, its left arm cocked with the bulky forearm completely separating him from his attacker.

  Fire bloomed around the arm as a round stuck it, plating shattered away and blacksteel super structure splintered apart to leave the gauntlet hanging by a single ebony tendon. Flakes of searing hot metal showered down around Tarek, a few scratched and burned him, but he knew, at that moment, he was standing in the safest place he had ever been, for though he had no idea what would happen next, he knew that she did.

  And her rifle breathed silent flame over his head, taking down the pursuers he hadn’t even known were emerging from the corridor behind him, and all he felt was a wash of heat. She rose and stepped over him, pivoting in one motion. A round whipped through where she had been a moment ago and struck high on the wall. The explosion sent out a rain of deadly shrapnel, but pieces that might have cut Tarek in two, were deflected instead off the impenetrable hide of the she-wolf. Again, he felt the warmth of it, but compared to the searing heat he’d felt when his canopy blew, it was nothing

  He watched her fire again, holding the weapon one handed and sweeping it like she might have been underlining something on a chalkboard.

  And then it was over. Tarek fell to his knees and felt the tears streaming down his face. They were neither tears of sorrow nor of joy – he had already emptied out all the emotion he had – these tears fell out of him because there was simply nothing left to hold them back.

  He looked up at her and just barely had the presence of mind to thumb his helmet comm. “Kyra,” he said reverently, “the Wolf-Lieutenant.”

  ****

  Rease was fighting to catch her breath. Even for her, the intervention had been tense and the shattered arm of her machine spoke to that. When was the last time she’d taken a hit?

  But somehow it didn’t matter; she’d paid the debt, cleared the ledger, and perhaps in some small way, made up for Connor and others who’d come before, who she dare not name. They were with her in this moment, ghosts of the people she had dared to get to know, or failed to push away. They weren’t angry, and perhaps it would have been easier if they were because she felt the weight of their love and she almost couldn’t bear it.

  “Kyra,” he said, “the Wolf-Lieutenant.”

  But it wasn’t just him. It was all of them, and it wasn’t just those words, it was ‘Luperca’ and ‘Nuke’ and ‘Sister’ and too many names to bear.

  She licked her lips and opened her mouth to say something, unsure what it would be but aware all the same that something had to be said. Before she could find the air to express, another arcom came charging up the main corridor and another behind it. More would be coming, and they needed an answer too, and their answer could not come from a shattered soul with ghosts on her shoulders.

  So she did what she always did, she took the ghosts and she re-imagined them as plates of armour. She surrounded herself with them until nothing fragile or vulnerable shone through. The fleetest protected her legs, the smartest were her helmet, the most watchful she wore on her back, the bold and enduring shielded her chest and the dependable, like Connor, were her arms. But they could not have names nor faces because those things had weight, and heavy armour was no good.

  She shed the face and the name that had been Connor, and in return, she offered the same trade that she had given the others. The promise that she would see this war won, and that no price would stop her.

  After a process spanning a half dozen beats of the heart her original response was gone.

  “Andrew, the Puller of Some Seriously Whack Shit.” She forced a practiced smiled to put that special tone in her voice and held up her arcom’s mangled arm. “Don’t think you won’t be paying to fix this.”

  ****

  Constellation Carrier CNS Arcadia

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  Lieutenant Ucoo was on her way to the junior officers’ mess to grab a quick lunch. Because the Little Quarter Deck didn’t know how long the ship would be on alert, the defensive reserve had been split into two shifts to ensure half the squadron would always be in, or near their fighters. That said, even those on the ‘down shift’, like Ucoo, had to be ready to sprint back to the hangar in the event of an attack.

  As she rounded the last corner towards the mess, she saw one of the black coats coming from the other direction. He had a surprising paunch for a military man and a jolly white beard that somehow offset the intimidation factor of the Commander’s oak leaf insignia on his lapel. Besides the CAG, senior officers were a rare sight for lowly pilots, but in the last few days she’d seen the Captain, Colonel Cormento and now a commander. If things kept up, she decided it would be time to break out officer rank bingo cards.

  As she was about to pass him, the Commander looked up from his data slate and smiled a silent hello. She was about to return the smile along with a salute when he miss-stepped and fell to the deck in an unceremonious tumble. The data slate flew through the air, and Ucoo instinctively shied away before her rational brain took over and she reversed to catch the pad awkwardly.

  She hadn’t meant to look at it. After all, anything a black coat Commander was carrying was almost certainly classified above her. But she’d had to glance down to adjust her grip and what she saw stole the breath from her. It was a cryotube, a dead Mauler inside it providing a sense of the massive scale, and next to it a very human-sized ladder. She felt dizzy, nauseous, was this in the gateship? Why was it in the gateship? What the hell was a gateship doing in Mauler hands?

  Tearing her gaze away, she saw the officer had levered himself up onto one knee and was regarding her intently. He smiled that same warm, friendly smile that was so rare on a military ship. “Unsettling isn’t it?”

  Ucoo could only nod carefully.

  “For you especially, I’m sure,” his tone was like his smile, warm and friendly, but at those simple words, Ucoo felt her world spinning out of control.

  Don’t say anything about the gateship, Phillips had told her as soon as they’d returned, they’ll lock you up for collusion.

  Would they? It seemed extreme, but the people the Exodites left behind had been known for their extreme measures — that was the reason for the exodus in the first place. And so, she’d deferred to his knowledge of his own people and stayed silent, and he’d done something to the flight recorders. For all that, this man somehow knew.

  But how much did he know? How much was he decoding from her reaction? How much more did he suspect? Lies were such prickly things, and that was why Ucoo preferred the truth; you couldn’t mess it up, and if someone misinterpreted it, it was their fault, not yours.

  The officer took the pad back from her as though it might have been nothing more explosive than a supply report, his demeanour somehow entirely unaffected by the sweep of emotions that surely breached all attempts to keep a steady and sure face.

  “You were going for lunch, right?” he said. “Why don’t you join me. We’ll have some san
dwiches and exorcise some daemons?”

  “I’m on alert ten,” she countered weakly.

  In truth she wanted to go, to come clean. Whether it meant a black mark or even prison, at least it wouldn’t be for lying. Lying felt like collusion.

  “Oh you’re fit and young,” said Lyle. “I’m sure you could get back down here in a heartbeat and besides…” He looked over his shoulder towards the door to the junior officers’ mess. “You’re not going to make me go in there, where I’ll make everyone uncomfortable with my atrociously sinister uniform. No, that simply wouldn’t do.”

  With that, he turned and headed past her towards the lifts. “Come, Lieutenant. Sandwiches await.”

  ****

  As a junior Lieutenant, Ucoo had never been into the senior officer’s mess before, and it was an entirely different place. To begin with the phrase ‘mess’ didn’t seem to apply, everything was too clean, and instead of one rambunctious room, it broke down into three. The first was an elegant dining chamber with stately furnishings and table dressings. The second was a kitchen, mostly sealed off from the other rooms except for a small window in the wood panelled walls where food was passed through.

  After collecting a plate of neatly triangled sandwiches from the serving window, the Commander led her to the third room – a small lounge of plush chairs organised into pairs and trios, with coffee tables between them. One full wall was a hand-painted mural of the Arcadia herself, and the ceiling was a tinted skylight that put a settling blue hue over the ugly stew of Bryson’s atmosphere. The room wasn’t large, but there was only one other person in there, reading from a data slate with a cup of tea by his side.

  “I have of course been tremendously rude,” the black coat said, putting the tray down on one of the coffee tables and offering her a hand. “I am Commander Lyle, and as you’ve already guessed, I’m Naval Intelligence.”

  Ucoo took his hand and shook it, a trickle of sweat creeping it’s chill way down her spine. “Am I in trouble, Commander?”

  He looked at her, then down at the plate of sandwiches, then back at her with a raised snowy eyebrow. “I can’t imagine so. If you are, I’m making a terrible mess of things.”

  She smiled despite herself and then sat down when he gestured to one of the chairs.

  “Alright Lieutenant, let’s get the big thing out of the way first.” He took one of the small triangles and sat opposite. “Despite your…” His eyes flicked briefly to the other occupant of the room and then back to her. “…commanding officer’s best efforts, I’m certain you’re the one who first identified the Mauler vessel as a gateship. That gives us both the shivers because that means the Maulers are using Exodite technology. Combined with the ladder, we face the frightening possibility that your people and my people are already at war and we just don’t know it.”

  The Lieutenant only nodded. She picked up one of the sandwiches, but she didn’t take a bite. Her appetite had disappeared long ago and having her fears put into words wasn’t alleviating the problem.

  “If that’s so, why are you here?”

  She looked at him uncertainly. “You invited me?”

  “Not in this room, dear,” he corrected gently. “I mean in this war.”

  “I was… a volunteer. We have barely any military, and I saw the pictures from Bristol, Cadence, Asara and I thought… I just didn’t want those monsters coming to my home and now…”

  She paused, the words ‘it seems we made them’ were somehow too large, too jagged to issue forth from her throat.

  Lyle did not press her. “You did volunteer, didn’t you?” He smiled graciously. “And not just you, your nation volunteered. It gave us the technology to make the arcoms, to upgrade our power systems, our tracking and detection systems. If we’re enemies, why have you done so much to help?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It came out as a whisper because it was either that or a scream, and she was worried that would break her. It didn’t matter what the Commander said because, ultimately, someone was making the monsters and that was something people didn’t do. Something Exodites didn’t ever do.

  “I apologise,” the Commander said after a moment. “I’m indulging in a game I play with some of my protégés, but there are quite enough keen intellects speculating about those topics at present. For now, let us put aside ‘why’ and deal with today’s problem.” He nodded towards the bow of the ship. “Today this gateship presents a very real danger to us, and anything you know about gate travel could save many lives, yours and mine included.”

  “Okay…” Ucoo took a deep breath and set her untouched sandwich back on the plate. “Gate travel was unfinished when your people found us. I did not think about it before, but they… stopped talking about it in the news after the Great Reunion. I only discovered that they had a working prototype because, four years ago, I was commissioned to do a painting of it.” She gave a wane smile and looked at the depiction of the Arcadia. “It’s probably in an officer’s lounge.”

  “I can imagine. I saw some your work on our fighters; it’s very good. This gateship though, who built it?”

  “We did, or rather the Solace Exploratory Aerospace Council. They are our government’s major ship builder.” She paused. “It looked very different to this ship though.”

  “Of course,” Lyle waved the comment away. “Mauler ships are designed to be ugly. It’s part of the show. Did they say anything about how it works?”

  “They didn’t give me technical details, but they let me join a government tour group. The presenter said: where a normal ship cannot approach gravity wells except by hyperspace inlets, the gates create their own tunnels.”

  “Do you know its range at all?”

  “I did not take notes, I was there to paint. I remember that it wasn’t long.” She rolled her lip in thought. “They did say they could make one with a much greater range. I think they said a gate at either end would help.”

  “I’m going to ask some more questions, but before that I was wondering, if I got you some materials, do you think you could draw the ship you were asked to paint?”

  ****

  Thirty minutes later Ucoo left the senior officers’ lounge. She was past feeling scared, past feeling uncertain, now she just felt hollow. She was glad to have told them, glad it was no longer a dangerous secret she carried, but she knew the fear was not really gone, not for good. It lurked beneath her weariness, wrapped in concern for her people, and biding its time.

  “Sister.” A voice greeted as someone fell in step with her.

  She glanced over to see Todai Desla, the leader of Embassy Squadron. His greeting was not of the Constellation Navy. It was not even particularly common among the Exodites. It was an old greeting, from a time just after the Exodus when idealism overwhelmed practicality many times over.

  “Lieutenant Commander,” Ucoo said, twisting to give him a salute.

  He dismissed the gesture with a wave. “I was concerned. I saw Commander Lyle take you away, and it gladdens me to see you unharmed.”

  Of course, I was unharmed, she wanted to shout, we’re on the same side! But suddenly that certainty wasn’t certain anymore, there were lines where she’d never seen them before. Instead she simply nodded.

  “It is always troubling when officers harass us lowly pilots. Have we not done enough?” He attempted a smile but there was a bitterness that wasn’t quite subsumed. “What did this one want?”

  Something about the question made the hairs on Ucoo’s neck stand up. The way it was crudely coupled onto awkward pleasantries from a man who had shown nothing but disdain for her squadron until now. Her instincts told her to evade the question, but she was tired, tired from battle and tired from lies, and truth, and revelation.

  “He asked about the gateship,” Ucoo said.

  “Of course, it is on everyone’s mind. Have you ever seen one like it?”

  “Once.”

  “Ahh,” he nodded knowingly. “And you told him this?”
/>
  “Should I not have?”

  “Well, our secrets are our secrets, are they not, Sister?”

  Finally, she stopped and rounded on him. “The Constellation are our allies. We do not keep secrets from our allies, do we Brother?”

  “Our allies? Really?” He hooked a thumb into his pocket. “Is that why there are no Exodite officers? No Exodites among the Peerage?”

  “That’s because we’re serving in their military.”

  “Yes, we are serving aren’t we?” He stepped back. “Good day, Sister.”

  Chapter IX

  Mail day

  Mauler Gateship Tagged ‘Bandit-Nine-Zero’

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  Rease watched through her monitors as the two shuttles entered the hangar and set down beside the wrecked Snowhawk. The hangar was unoccupied save for herself, Tarek, and the two marines who had him under watch. Even if they weren’t aboard an enemy vessel, his presence gave her plenty of reason to want to stay buttoned up in her damaged arcom.

  He would want to speak. They always did, to gush something gracious at their last minute reprieve. In her arcom, she was distant, removed, and thankfully he’d taken the hint: sparing them both any awkward attempts to communicate with her over the radio. She recognised her efforts were a delaying action, but she had no idea how to handle him right now. She wasn’t sure what people expected; it didn’t feel like the typical ‘Rease saves embattled colleague once again’ would do. What was the narrative? Were they supposed to be a fairy-tale couple now, rescuing each other again and again, fighting back to back? That’s how it would go if it were a vid, but she couldn’t reconcile it with what people wanted, what motivated them. The Legend of Luperca was built on self-reliance and people liked the implications of an unattached Kyra Rease.