Tethered Worlds: Blue Star Setting

by Gregory Faccone

  "Ret vectors, quick. Khai, we've got to shoot these first two!" It would be a tough shot for her with a battle rifle and no smart barrel, but once again, this was an area where her incredible reflex time would serve them well.

  The first two blasted around either side of the ship, making no effort to coordinate with the other four. The tactician in him couldn't help but think that idiotic. Since they were pressed against the back of the ship, it was going to be hard for the drones to get a direct hit unless they swung out into open space. They did, and the thin air made their turn wide.

  Jordahk configured the hunting grister for its rudimentary scattershot and nailed his drone on the second firing. It half-exploded away from them. He heard the battle rifle shooting next to him. It fired three times with no success. Khai's seeker drone turned toward them, which made it an easier target. The fourth shot shredded it.

  "Max, move us along the hull."

  The next four learned from the first. Two came close along the ship. They probably wouldn't be able to turn sharp enough for a direct hit, but close explosions might mess them up. Two flew farther out for a direct approach. His arm jolted with the final arc his bracer would produce. Khai's went off at the same time, and before them the two close-approach drones combusted into an obscuring fireball, flinging debris.

  Their bodies were pelted, but combat armor was designed to resist all but direct hits. The other two drones were obscured. They would have to shoot using only ret vectors. That was trust, but it also might help, getting your own judgment out of the picture and aiming along the mathematically sound leading.

  Jordahk willed his grister to a wider scatter pattern, but it was unresponsive and lifeless. He missed having an autobuss. He fired faster than he should have but didn't panic. He could hear Khai's battle rifle thumping at the same regular beat. His indicator disappeared, and another shock wave slammed them. He moved to the other and got off a shot, getting a glancing blow on it before Khai covered him, her dented scutum held out.

  Khai's body slammed into his, as if she had tackled him. They were crushed against the hull as temperatures spiked. But the hellish second passed, and they were alive to know it. Khai discarded the last broken bits of her scutum. Half of her suit surface was self-repairing, the camouflaging action gone. Its scales moved almost organically in some reordering process.

  "You ever intercept a seeker drone before?" Jordahk asked.

  "No."

  Yet under these conditions, and without a smart barrel, she had managed to shred one. Why was he still amazed? He noted the heavy was still perched by the hatch, before turning his attention toward a way out. "What's going on in there? Were getting the dross kicked out of us."

  "Humberto is hurt," Aristahl said. "The Aurora is coming up slow. See if you can make your way to the front ramp. Give me a minute."

  The heavy was moving, the sole remaining Polis suit staying close, likely for seeker drone protection. Jordahk and Khai pulled themselves together and jetted, keeping the corvette's silhouette positioned as a shield. A stream of small explosions echoed off the ship near them. The rate was familiar. Shots that missed the hull blew up near them by proximity.

  "Ingots, he's got a sheller too? In addition to a quick-charge, consecutive-fire suit rifle?"

  "Are you saying it is unnecessary?" Khai asked.

  "Uh, yeah, unless you're facing a battalion of combat bots. Who is this guy?"

  The heavy maneuvered around the ship, almost hitting them a couple of times as they edged toward the front.

  "Just give it up," came a nasty voice over the general comm. "You don't have anything that can even touch me." It was Vanquo Vaporean. "You two owe me a compy."

  "What're you talking about?" It was a lame retort.

  "Yes, fools. I figured out it was you. It'd be a loss to spatter that mystic brain of yours." They danced around the ship again. "Look at it. The only Hesperus seen in two centuries. There's no way you'll get it out of here. I've got two ships up there just waiting for its nose to peek out. Damaging such a piece of art would be far more of a shame than even your brain."

  "Pops," Jordahk said over the secure comm.

  "Aristahl is indisposed," Barrister said. "See if you can get near the front ramp."

  "Even if they do get it started," Vanquo said, "they won't leave without you. And I'm not about to let you up the ramp."

  Jordahk grit his teeth. The man was a step ahead. But knowledge was a two-way street. "You've got all the answers, don't you Archiver?"

  "Archiver? Is that what you think? I'm disappointed. Hmpf. They are a blunt instrument, and operate within a rotting government."

  "What?"

  "You really don't know, do you?" Vanquo said, smugly. "It's a testament to our organization's artful guile."

  Kord's words about wrongly assessing the enemy rang in his ears. "Imprimaturs?"

  "Those half-proxy dolts? A narrow-minded, puny bunch. The future doesn't belong to them. It belongs to those with the vision and cunning to take it."

  Jordahk tried to move closer to the ramp. A string of exploding shells barred his way. "I know you want to tell me, so don't drag it out."

  "You should have been one of us. Too bad. What would you do with one Hesperus anyway? Throw it away in some pointless battle? The Artisans shall master its secrets."

  Artisans?

  "We are everywhere," Vanquo continued. "We are the real mystic power, and rising to take the reins like the Sojourners never would!"

  Jordahk shook his head at the irony of the universe. Why was it everyone wanted to become the Sojourners of a new age... except the Sojourners? He half-expected Judicum to come out and smite the man with a mighty blow, but whatever it was, its means and motivations were opaque. Plus, this was the real world, not the virtual battlefield.

  The ramp lowered barely a half-meter, and three beetle-shaped seeker drones flew out in succession. The Artisan roared in anger rather than fear as he and the Polis suit reverse jetted to buy intercept time.

  Another object was tossed back toward Jordahk as the hatch closed.

  "I have warmed it up for you," Aristahl said. "Use the offense/defense shell. Khai-aLael, stay at his back."

  Jordahk snagged the strange looking object while their opponents were occupied. Khai took the hunting grister and grabbed a hold of his pack. The object was the size of a short rifle with four large spars sticking perpendicularly out of the barrel forming an "X" shape. But as the resonance pads in his gloves made contact, he knew instantly what he had. An autobuss. One older and truer than his last model, and it was already half configured for something powerful.

  The offense/defense shell?

  He had four legacy shells in his sling bag now—the two once red-hot shells created at Khai's "birth," and the two his father had found. Ek-Hein's shell, the twin to the one he used on the egress, the one that had almost killed him, he left at home. He ran his hand along them, feeling their character through resonance. One of the shells from Khai's chamber almost shocked him. It had an inexplicable, energetic feel he had experienced nowhere else. Another, one his father had given him, felt black-and-white, hot and cold at the same time. It matched Aristahl's description with sudden clarity.

  The autobuss hinged open at the breach of its own accord. Into its hungry maw he jammed the shell, getting a glimpse of its platinum, numenium, and even a touch of osmium. This shell was a doozy. The autobuss, which a second ago felt like it was running out of fuel, became supercharged. The air whirled around it, and the universe pushed him toward the solidifying phenomena around the barrel.

  "Whoa. Stay attached back there." He grunted at the sudden strain of trying to keep from collapsing into the darkening whirlpool of emptiness. "Don't let go."

  He heard the synth sound of bracers arcing and explosions. His mind, already distant from the physical world, observed the last Polis suit moving slowly toward the back door hatch on automatic. The suit was charred and still, its rifle gone. Aristahl's seeker drone
s were hot.

  The barrel of the autobuss felt like a solid rod whose only purpose was to control this phenomena. It was the axle upon which the disk of swirling distortion turned. Jordahk expended considerable strength just holding station against the two-dimensional shearing which acted like a circular shield before him. Gyrating tendrils of distortion grew off the edges.

  The Artisan came around the front. There was even more power in his suit.

  "His suit is part mystic," Khai said.

  Jordahk sensed the truth in that. It was hybrid, and Vanquo had mystic ability. The cold plasma around his suit appeared warm now, something usually reserved for spaceships and military craft. The man was actually wearing a wendell on his back. The plasma verged on temperatures requiring shield controllers. He might be immune to seeker drones altogether.

  "I see we have both upped our defense," Vanquo said. "Let's just see if you've upped it enough." Four more seeker drones roared to life off his back. The man was like a jetting arsenal. The seeker drones raced off in pairs to either side, looking to circumvent Jordahk's one-dimensional shield.

  He didn't feel the adrenaline rush that would come normally. His mind was half within the whirling, and the whirling feared nothing.

  "Take the two opposite the ship, Khai-aLael," Jordahk said. He heard his voice distantly. Those two would be easier to hit. The others would come in fast over the corvette, leaving little intercept time.

  He had become completely confident in Khai's abilities. He heard the hunting grister barking. It was so much better for intercepting seeker drones then a battle rifle. She shredded one and actually had to wait a second for her bracer to arc the second. Not even a smattering of debris reached them from those two.

  On the other side, Jordahk felt himself reaching out to the approaching pair. He couldn't turn the shield away from Vanquo, yet he felt a confidence not his own that it wasn't necessary. He went with it and reached out even harder toward the two incoming. The dimensional shield became more active at the edges, and two tendrils extended outward, flailing like sea creatures.

  The tendrils intercepted the two rocketing drones and pulled them into the dimensional maw. Two flashes followed, and the whirling became more defined.

  He let go of that fatiguing burst of concentration and tried to put forth a strong outward appearance. Just maintaining this dimensional shield much longer would exhaust him. He lowered the phenomenon just enough to look over it and saw the first bit of uncertainty in Vanquo's eyes.

  "I see you're of an old line," Vanquo said. "It's not too late to join us. Our kind was meant to rule over the proxies."

  Uncertainty crept into Jordahk's consciousness. The universe blurred around him, and he heard whispers. Some seemed as far away as another star while others were as close as his own soul. Some whispers said Vanquo was right, that the line of Thule-Riss Quext was different, and its power could force enlightenment upon a foolish generation who didn't appreciate what they had.

  The part of him that cried out for justice liked that. Some did need to be "instructed." How could free societies continue without those willing to uphold them? Why was he fighting so hard against the grain? He stopped straining to maintain the dimensional shield. It shrunk in size. The tendrils along the edges raged with dissipating energy.

  With the strain lessened, he heard other whispers. His grandfather. Though the words were not clear, Aristahl's vigilance, diligence, and never-ending discipline were communicated. Jordahk experienced an insight as to why the man was so careful and tight with his control.

  He heard Khai-aLael. She said his Sojourner name, but with such confidence. The Sojourners... A memory flashed. It was the image of his own face in a hospital room. His irises flecked with platinum. But the old whispers were not totally banished.

  Everything you imagine could be yours.

  "That's not me!" Jordahk roared.

  His ears cleared, as if water poured out. Everyone was speaking to him. Vanquo, Aristahl, Khai-aLael, even Max. And somehow he sensed Wixom watching. Closely.

  "All right, I'm back. Everyone be quiet for a second." He opened his crystal panes and breathed the air. Although thin, its frigidity was refreshing. It smelled of smoke and battle, and it revived him like a cold slap in the face. "Vanquo, just let us out of here. We'll settle it another day."

  The man's smirk of triumph contorted into anger. "Fool!" He aimed his offense arm.

  Jordahk raised the shield as the firing started. The suit rifle's consecutive fire pounded the shield like an asteroid-busting hammer. The shield flashed white four times a second, but the tremendous energy was caught and trapped in the re-solidifying whirling. Jordahk strained to control the additional energy.

  He heard Vanquo curse as he cut loose with the sheller. The fire rate was slower, but the energy absorbed was greater. White flashes burst on a shield that grew stronger and harder to control with each hit.

  Vanquo jetted to change his angle, but Jordahk sensed where he was and moved the shield between them. It absorbed round after powerful round. His body crackled with energy. His skin pricked with pain, especially his arms. Lights flickered to life along his body like fireflies. His suit was... coming apart.

  "Drakking upstart!" Vanquo yelled. "You don't know the far-reaching power we wield."

  Breach alerts blared as his father's suit began to disintegrate. Swirls of glowing particles moved over his contours. Burnt bits of suit floated down like dark snow.

  "Khai, let go."

  "I will not."

  He could feel her no-suit. It was a cool pocket amidst the storm of particles. His suit systems completely failed. It went dark and fell to pieces.

  "Sorry Dard."

  Had he come back from wherever only to realize that he couldn't control what was happening? The pain made it increasingly difficult to concentrate. He grunted as his pack fell away, the process allowing glowing particles to scrape and sear his back. Khai put her hand on his shoulder, and the particles steered away.

  "You need to release it," Aristahl said.

  Jordahk embraced the thought, and immediately four more spars extruded off the autobuss barrel in front of the others. Suddenly, it was a true barrel again, hollowing out and extending. The whirling shield moved forward to the muzzle. His blood felt like it was burning in his veins as the thing no longer a pistol reconfigured.

  Vanquo saw what was happening and stopped a heated communication. "I know the power of an autobuss, and I also know its limits. If you want to burn your brain out, so be it." His full metal scutum shrank by a third and thickened. "And I'll make use of this air." The outline of a second shield unfolded on the same arm in front of the metal one. The space within that outline tinted blue. Hard air.

  The entire chamber shook with thunder.

  "A ship above," Aristahl said.

  "Don't mind my friends," Vanquo said. "I just wanted them to know this exact location." A strange contraption on his offense arm unfolded. Two industrial looking "U" shapes connected to form a large rectangle. Within them a hint of orange formed. It radiated energy.

  "That's spaceship temperature plasma shielding," Max said.

  "A little something I modified off an owl." Vanquo crept closer. "Unless you're building a destroyer, you haven't a chance. Give it up while you still have a brain."

  Jordahk tried to push the whirling energy into the growing offensive system. Every time he squeezed one area, another expanded away.

  "You need to push it all at once," Aristahl said. "You can do this. Hurry."

  Aristahl's power reached out somehow, and the shield re-stabilized, resetting for Jordahk to have another go. He took hold the entire shield, wrapping his mind around it, and squeezed. It was a tremendous effort with no visible results, yet he knew he had made a difference. He built up his strength and did it again. The shield circumference didn't shrink, but the energy felt ordered.

  He kept the shield between himself and Vanquo as the man unleashed another volley, perhaps in an
attempt to distract. But the new ordered nature of the shield swallowed the impacts and distributed the energy more easily than before.

  "Fool! Do you want to die?" Vanquo shouted.

  His voice was growing closer.

  The second set of four spars grew bigger and thicker with each of Jordahk's compression efforts, but the shield size remained stubbornly consistent. He had one more giant push in him before exhaustion. One more push before Vanquo was upon them.

  It was surprising that some part of his mind remained clear. Was he getting better at this? Maybe, but Khai-aLael was also touching his back. In a flash he realized she was absorbing some of the strain.

  I won't let her pay because of me!

  He made an incredible push, and the entire whirling compressed to pulper thin. All of the writhing tentacles along the edge stood straight out and froze. They retracted in staggered waves toward the center, and the shield shrank down into the barrel. The spars channeled and unloaded massive forces.

  "It's beyond you!" Vanquo exclaimed.

  A thick beam of dimensional blackness, a stretched-out version of the whirl, extruded out of the barrel as the shield was absorbed. It plowed into Vanquo, stopping his momentum and pushing him along the leading edge. The hard air flashed white and the shield mechanisms bent. By the time he slammed into the wall, its frame collapsed in a rush.

  The blackness pressed next onto the full metal scutum. It crumpled into the beam.

  "Not possible!" Vanquo raged.

  The black distortion continued to pin the Artisan and slammed into his last shield, the warm plasma rectangle. The beam fractionated upon it, thwarted. Bits of rainbow plasma splintered into the thin air. Jordahk gripped the autobuss as he was pushed back. He could hear the jets on Khai's no-suit firing to hold him steady. He willed every last bit of autobuss energy into the beam. All of the spars shrank into the barrel, exhausting everything left.