Tethered Worlds: Blue Star Setting

by Gregory Faccone

  I can do this.

  He only needed to interact with an existing piece. It wasn't like he was creating new mystic tech. That was risky, something his father could testify to with first hand consequences. Altering simple mystic devices to do the impossible was fraught with danger. Mystic works of the highest end, those created to do the impossible, had rules all their own.

  He reached out to tell the controller to turn off, something it was designed to do. It sounded like a harmless enough task, but he couldn't sense it. The hard air barriers began oscillating a new pattern. Advancing now looked like it was going to leave him exposed to the foamer turret for too long. He took a deep breath and started a serpentine dash up the hill.

  Surprise allowed him to dodge the first foamer pellet. He responded with his own shot. It hit wide, the orange puff flaking off the heavy-duty snipe screens bracketing his father. There was no way he would reach the next shield before the foamer fired again. He built momentum during the recharge second and juked. The expected pop was followed by a concussion below him. His legs were knocked out from under him, and he tumbled forward.

  Something was wrong with his feet and he couldn't get up. In a second, the turret would fire again. In desperation, he rolled like a log, just getting into the lee of the next blue-tinted silhouette. A foamer pellet whizzed overhead, exploding just past him.

  Jordahk dropped the grister and reached to his belt. A special section came loose. He found the safety switch and thumb-stroked on a palm-length, tanto point knife. The handle filled out to an ergonomic shape, which was helpful as Jordahk hacked at the blob of foam hardening quickly between his feet. After a few intense seconds, he managed to heave his legs apart, but one of his treaders was now a misshapen blob of nearly hardened, orange foam.

  The blade wasn't a monomer knife. That would have made short work of this predicament. But it was long chain, and very sharp. He whittled feverishly at the blob, starting with the parts that made it most difficult to walk. But every stroke became more difficult as the foam finished hardening. He worked the knife in below his heel before it stopped moving, completely stuck. Standing up, he pounded on the knife with his other treader. The block of foam finally came free with the blade stuck fast.

  "The knife too?" he grumbled. "Soon I'll be using a club."

  He stood unevenly on his partially clumped treaders and tried to force the image of the mystic controller into his brain. If he could only calm himself for a second. In a burst, the entire hill seemed reflected through foundation space in his mind. It was dotted almost evenly with dull glows, and a clump of brighter ones on the hilltop. He realized the glows represented the energy powering the hard air shields and his father's equipment. One couldn't reach out so to scientum technology, but energy was energy, and it seemed to cause its own dimensional wake.

  Jordahk closed his eyes. His body felt distant as the mystic vision refined. A faint ghost of the foamer turret appeared, illuminated by lines of energy pointing to it. He followed one in his mind until he reached the controller. The mystic device coalesced into sudden, sharp focus. He could sense its workings and reached out for the switch. It clicked to his satisfaction, but the energy flow continued.

  Refocusing, he saw another switch, and then another. The controller was a collection of interconnected switches. The glowing yarn of energy wound through it in a complicated tangle. He closed his eyes and flowed with the energy. He passed one unused switch after another, finally arriving at the active gate. He pulled it shut with more force than intended, and the ghostly image of the foamer faded away.

  Opening his eyes, his mind adjusted to the stark gray of winter, such a contrast to the colorful but hard-to-describe mystic vision. He bolted up the hill, or at least that was his intent. The reality was a rather ungraceful hobble atop foam-clumped treaders. But that didn't matter with the foamer out of action. No sooner had the thought occurred when he sensed energy flow through the controller again.

  "What?"

  Stumbling into a course change, he dove behind the nearest shield just as an orange explosion of foam hit.

  "That's no simple controller, Dard," Jordahk said to his father, using the Adams Rush colloquialism.

  "Oh, this old thing?" Kord said with mock innocence. "It's a salvage piece off an old mystic frigate. It's a plasma conduit router for shield controllers."

  Jordahk shook his head. No wonder the device was so complicated.

  "I never said it was simple," Kord said. "You did buy yourself a second before I was able to reset it."

  Reaching out, he sensed the controller again. His eyes were just closing when he noticed the shield tint red.

  This just keeps getting better.

  Two seconds to trace that glowing yarn and find the right switch. He had never lost contact with it, but mystic vision with his eyes open was more difficult. Too many distractions. He decided not to run. He looked up the hill through the hard air. Traveling over the glowing yarn was like being on a psychic amusement ride. He twisted and turned for what seemed longer than two seconds. He found the switch just as red dropped out of his vision, and flipped it.

  His shoulders tightened in anticipation of being hit, but no shot was fired. He hobbled to the next shield while his father reset the controller again. The foamer came on in about half the previous time, messing up a perfectly good plan. Trying to increase his speed, he heard a pop and felt a punch in his shoulder. He staggered to the ground, keeping his feet just long enough to get to the next shield.

  He brushed at the foam, but it was sticking already, and he found he could only lift his left arm about halfway.

  "You're going to have to do better than that," Kord said. "The resets are only going to get faster."

  A spike of irritation rose, but Jordahk let it go just as fast. It was a strange way of showing love, but he knew that was what his father was doing. The man would have made a great general, always changing the field of battle to his advantage.

  The shield tinted red, but this time Jordahk retained his mental grip upon the controller. With a fierce determination just short of anger, he grabbed hold of the glowing yarn and squeezed it along with anything it touched. A burst of sparks emanated near the turret, and his father leaned over a chunky piece of metal.

  Eyes burning with determination, Jordahk walked straight up the hill, his eyes never leaving the device on which his father worked. It grew clearer in his mind with every step. When it reset, he squeezed that line as well, resulting in another burst of sparks. He kept walking.

  Jordahk was close enough to get a clean grister shot, but he was also past the last shield, with no place to hide if the foamer came back online. After a longer period than those previous, the switch did reset. But now, reaching out showed a dozen glowing lines in an impossible tangle. His father was using every circuit on the switch at once. Tricky.

  Kord stood, grasping hold of the foamer. Jordahk pointed his grister at the mystic controller, not that he could shoot it through the snipe screen, but rather as a means to focus. His jaw clenched as his mind gripped the entire foundation space reflection of the controller. With both hands, he crushed it.

  The turret's barrel leveled at his chest just as a cascade of mini explosions erupted on the chunky controller. It jolted into the air, falling to the ground in a gush of sparks. That got his father's attention. Jordahk seized the opportunity and changed the aim of his grister, stood still for a clean shot, and tagged his father on the upper chest through the snipe shield gap.

  Kord flinched with the hit and ceased his efforts. He relaxed and even smiled.

  Jordahk thought his father was weird that way. The man almost seemed happier when he got beat in their various head-to-head competitions.

  Each step up the remaining hill, though an ungraceful hobble, reinforced victory. Certainly Jordahk felt more victorious here then he had after the poppers or the blockhouse, despite the beating he had just taken. When he reached the top, his father came down from the turret and they
grasped forearms.

  "I should've recorded that for entertainment," Kord joked. "You have a flair for the dramatic."

  Jordahk didn't think of himself that way, despite the evidence. He tried to do things directly. "Nice dilemma with that switch. As if interaction with mystic wasn't uncomfortable enough."

  "You were pretty comfortable with your prized autobuss."

  "That was different. It did the job reliably and simply."

  Kord shook his head and looked Jordahk in the eye. "Nothing the Sojourners made is without complication."

  The truth of that statement hung in the cold air.

  "These scenarios were about more than timing," Jordahk said. "You put an unexpected twist in each one."

  "The universe isn't going to fight fair, son," Kord continued, more serious now. "Son" was a term his father seldom used, and it riveted Jordahk's attention. "If you take nothing else from this day, remember, don't get locked into your initial assessment. The fullness of a threat may have yet to be revealed."

  His father often said tactical things like that, but this one felt personal.

  Jordahk thought himself a lot less naive since the Egress Incident. They had confronted the machinations of those willing to cheat to further their ambitions. There should be a more powerful word than "cheat" when lives were on the line. Perhaps "treachery." It was sobering.

  The siblings Glick and Cranium had joined him in an impossible fight. They went from hired crew to trusted friends during their few short months together. Joining him on a foolish... ah, daring spacewalk to the egress was above and beyond the call of duty.

  Glick fought with the selfless intensity of a berserker to keep them alive. But even that was only half successful. Her brother was killed after partially achieving his mission to hack open the egress. It was gut wrenching. He could still see the last look on Cranium's face. Further relationship possibilities with Glick died with her brother. Frozen forever like the pink crystals of his blood, scattered in orbit.

  Oblivion pursued Jordahk as well when he asked a mystic legacy shell of great power, crafted by a Sojourner, to do the impossible. He had to reach out, venturing successfully into foundation space beyond his touch for the first time. His old autobuss, loaded with the legacy shell, drifted only a few meters away. He nearly burned himself out linking to it. In that encounter, he delved where only mighty Sojourners should.

  The potential to do so was allegedly passed down from his grandsire, through the efforts of his grandfather, to him. Whether true or not, his eyes were horribly seared, and his brain subjected to catastrophic temperatures. But he got the shell to do the job, and the egress was stopped even as his autobuss was propelled into the empty reaches of the Earth system.

  Thankfully, the details of what happened were known to only a handful of people. Two of whom were dead, including the Iron Commander who had so capably executed their bold fleet strategy. Jordahk could continue to live his life in anonymity.

  "It's unfortunate all our training has become so relevant," Kord said.

  His parents had confronted the power-hungry and evil even more directly than he, right here in these very woods. One-on-one, plus bots. Their opponents were either dead or had beaten a hasty retreat. His mother believed a self-serving nature was the default state of humankind, and all had to resist it or be led down dark paths. Jordahk knew it could be hard to do the right thing, and he wondered, not for the first time, if most of their trouble was from those who made the easy choice.

  Standing unevenly on his partially foamed treaders, he reached up with the one arm that could still move and deactivated his hard air helmet.

  "Oh, you're not done yet," Kord said.

  "Huh? Hasn't my butt been omni-kicked enough?" And considering where Goldie had shot him, it wasn't just his butt.

  "Come on, Jordahk," Kord encouraged with an understanding smile. "Head up to the free-run course and finish strong. We'll all go have a nice dinner afterward, assuming no injuries."

  Jordahk rolled his eyes, but smiled in dutiful acquiescence. He hobbled up the hill wondering what could be done about his foam-encrusted, misshapen treaders.

  Down around the bend was the entrance to hectares of rough territory not easily accessible without a flyer or fanpack. It was dominated by huge rock deposits and festooned with trenches and fallen trees. The arability terraformation that allowed fertility on Adams Rush apparently didn't take beyond a couple tree types in this region. The lack of bramble made it suitable for hiking, although one was likely to spend more time jumping and climbing.

  One of their portable, self-folding tents was set up at the start of an area they referred to casually as the free-run course. Solia walked out with a smile for her "rescuer." She was obviously no worse for wear after her encounter with that "evil," kidnapping bot.

  He was happy to see her doing well. It had not even been a year since her father, Isadore, was assassinated in the Egress Incident. Her mother, a contract spouse, had visited for a few weeks and even encouraged Solia to join her off-world. But the girl had become very close to the Wilkrests. She was more than a family friend.

  "Apparently, these woods aren't as safe as I thought," she said.

  "Yeah, I hear the machines are trying to take over."

  He found it easy to joke with her. Though buoyed by their interaction, if he looked hard enough, sadness and perhaps loneliness still hid in her eyes. He kicked a rock, trying vainly to dislodge the foam.

  "Let me get that for you." She stepped into the tent and returned with a small sprayer. "It's the least I can do for my deca-noble hero."

  She walked up to him, pulling off her cap. Her fair-skinned face brightened under the sky's even illumination. A flaxen, braided ponytail fell across the petite features of her nose, chin, and breasts. Halfway down its length, it made a sharp color change to deepest brown. The style reminded Jordahk of his mother's affinity for long braids. It was no surprise since the two had become close over the last year.

  A short spurt from the sprayer on Jordahk's caked shoulder turned the foam to dust and then inert gas in scant seconds. He rotated his arm in exaggerated freedom.

  "You don't have to," he said.

  Solia crouched and applied the spray to his treaders. It was a great relief as he settled onto even footing.

  "I won't tell if you won't," she said.

  He was about to order the treaders into running configuration when he remembered his AIs were still "locked." He bent to set them manually and bumped heads with Solia as she stood. They both took a step back and chuckled. It was something out of a comedic epiVAD.

  "I could've handled him, you know," she said.

  "Who, Goldy?"

  Solia wasn't one to be pitied, or thought weak. He was used to how formidable Kord and Vittora were, but to her it might be an intimidating standard. Perhaps she even thought him intimidating. Maybe he was compared to average long adolescents spending their days buried in the social nexus. But Jordahk's tactical skills, while growing, were still no match for his experienced, highly-trained parents. And his fledgling mystic knowledge, compared to his grandfather's, was just enough to hurt himself.

  "I bet you could've," he said, "you're tougher than you look."

  Her quick eyes darted to his, to see if he meant it. They were about the same age and she could read him well. The distant crackle of ice was the only sound heard for a few seconds until half her mouth came up much like it had in the cabin.

  "The sun's setting, Jordahk," Vittora's steady voice interrupted. He and Solia both stood straighter. His mother must have a line of sight on them from somewhere above on the rocky course. "Would you care to try and keep up with me in the dark?"

  "Veritas, no," he said. Of course his mother wasn't going to miss participating. She was going to be as hard or harder than anything that had come before, and there were no lighting conditions in which he could keep up with her.

  He finished configuring his treaders. The weight was distributed evenly up t
o his knees, and the soles reshaped for running flexibility and rock climbing. Solia surreptitiously touched a small, pharma doser to the back of his hand, and a light blue circle faded quickly into his skin.

  "You're going to need the extra oxygen," she whispered.

  Jordahk raised his eyebrow, then grinned and trotted off toward the rocky outcroppings to hide her act of kindness. He didn't need his AI's detailed updates to feel the clarity and energy infusing his system.

  "You've got one minute to get to the eastern gate," Vittora said.

  He picked up the pace. The fastest route was difficult enough without rushing. He followed a meandering path, then leaped onto a slope of dark gray rock. Few holds presented themselves as he scrambled up. Even his configured treaders lost their grip once, and he slid down several meters before lying flat to stop his momentum. His bare palms and hard air helmet scraped against the cold rock. Resuming a more reasonable pace, he made it to the top without further incident.

  Before him was a wide, rocky ravine. A smart rope hung from a tree, angled and holding unnaturally in position for him to grab. When grasped, it went slack. He jumped and swung with abandonment. The wind whipped around his helmet, and he felt it bite his fingers. Reaching the other side askew, he let himself fall, roll, and then staggered back into a trot.

  He bounded side-to-side up a stone, V-shaped crevice, coming at last to his destination. Someone obscured in a long cloak and hood stood waiting in the rocky clearing. On one side, the mountain reached ever higher. On the other was a valley, whose far end rose to the next hill.

  The figure's garment was a dark red so cold that it carried hints of purple. While there was no way any sort of red should be able to blend into this environment, somehow hers did. Nobody on Adams Rush held themselves quite like her.

  "Hello Mother," Jordahk said, trying not to breathe hard.

  A reputation had grown around her since the Egress Incident, since she had dispatched the traitor Ermine Fuiret. To Jordahk, it seemed a healthy respect, but in the eyes of others he observed, "fearsome" was more accurate. She had lost one of her greatest assets, being underestimated.