“Wait, are we—”
The hull opens to space and Brisbane is flushed out along with the bots and fragments of the Ragtime. He may have been screaming, from pain or fear, or both.
There’s something in front of—
He slams into a waiting ship and bones crack, which, in his narcotised state, he does not even feel.
He opens his palms and grasps whatever will hold him.
“Good. Good,” says Carmilla. “Welcome to the Clandestine.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Ragtime: Shell
Shell and Fin arrive at the bridge, and Ragtime seals it after them.
“Ragtime, can we shut any of these alarms off? I have a headache. One would think dying would be more peaceful than this,” says Shell.
“Can we also have some music? I don’t want to die to the hum of engine vibrations,” says Fin. “Where’s Joké?”
“Scratch that. What hit us?” asks Shell.
“There is a trio of ships, skiffs, in near-planet orbit keeping time with us. From their chatter, they are not here from Bloodroot. This isn’t our rescue. One of those ships collided with us. That same ship is now attached to us. Also, like I told you, we’ve been boarded.”
“Why?”
“They’re from Lagos,” says Lawrence.
“Of course they are,” says Shell.
“So… we’re saved?” asks Fin.
“No,” says Salvo. “Three skiffs can only take a few of us.”
“Make that two,” says Ragtime. “One of them is gone.”
“I don’t like this. One bumped into us, one is suddenly absent and the other is on standby. We don’t know if they have the same problem as Ragtime, and Ragtime is still acting weird. We should be prepared. Just in case. Nothing has gone right in this voyage, and for once I’d like to be in front of a problem, rather than reacting to it. Do we have any weapons?” asks Shell.
Fin raises his rifle.
“I mean, other than light arms,” says Shell. “I didn’t see any on the schematic, but—”
“I am not fitted with weapons,” says Ragtime. “I’m a transport.”
Salvo says, “If I may, Captain, it makes sense for us to wait. Perhaps they are trying to help. Being inept doesn’t mean they’re hostile.”
“I’m not worried about them being hostile. I’m worried about Brisbane and whatever demonic AI he infected us with. We already know they are hostile. What if this… ineptness is Brisbane trying to take control? It doesn’t matter, though. We have no weapons, hence have no choice. We’ll have to pray they have a strategy because I am not leaving without my passengers.” Shell disarms her rifle. “And—”
A fresh wave of alarms and new vibrations.
“What now?” asks Fin.
“I’ve been instructed to lose altitude. I’m doing the burns right now. We’re going to crash into Bloodroot,” says Ragtime, uninflected, inhuman.
“Instructed by who?” asks Shell. “Fuck that. Override.”
“Override rejected,” says Ragtime. “Protocol Omega in effect.”
Lawrence yells, “Override exploit Lima-Alpha-Golf-Oscar-Sierra-zero-zero-five-seven.”
“Override rejected,” says Ragtime. “Protocol Omega in effect.”
Shell feels her blood go cold in her veins.
“What’s Protocol Omega?” asks Fin.
The seal opens and Joké sails in. “Um, there are strangers on board. Does everybody know this?”
“We know,” says Lawrence. “Are you all right?”
Joké smiles. “Aren’t I always?”
Fin kisses Joké and keeps hold of her. “Captain, Shell, what’s Protocol Omega?”
“You’ll see in a minute. Uncle Larry, Salvo, Ragtime’s compromised again. I need you to get in your ships right now. No pre-flight checks, just be ready to burn as quickly as possible.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Bloodroot: Ragtime
Four hundred kilometres above planetary surface, the Ragtime races at twenty-eight thousand kilometres per hour, matched by the Lagos team, the Rowdy latched on to the fore torus and the Pica keeping time. Unseen by the naked eye, the altitude starts to drop, the velocity decreasing.
Explosive bolts pop silently in space, starting with Torus 1. It detaches from the truss, which itself splits off into nodes.
The foremost section containing the airlocks, and made of three nodes, is attached to the Equivalence and the Decisive. It lives intact.
The Rowdy starts to fire burns, drawing away the intact torus from the main mass before the cascade of detachment gets that far.
The other Ragtime torus at first seems to be disintegrating, but it is breaking into lifepods. The pods have no navigation and drift in all directions, inertia holding them together before other forces shear them off. A large percentage of them are drawn into Bloodroot’s gravitational well, where many cannot maintain a favourable re-entry angle and bounce off the atmosphere. Some stay in orbit, others carom off, breaking free, bound for parts unknown. There are collisions, to be sure; brief, undramatic. Others fall to Bloodroot, tragically burning up. Still others accidentally enter at the right angle and deploy parachutes – unfortunately, to uninhabited sectors of the planet.
Those who die go quietly, sleeping their sleep, dreaming their chosen dream, until, sooner or later, the light of their existence is extinguished.
The Decisive breaks free from the Ragtime.
Chapter Thirty-four
Decisive: Lawrence
“Go into the Ragtime node. Close off the airlock. I think Brisbane is going to make them ram us again, so I’m going to engage, buy you and the rest some escape room.”
“Action Governor,” Joké says. Subdued. The first time he has ever seen her truly serious.
“I’ll be all right. I’m just going to distract them with fancy flying. The Decisive is useless here, anyway. Ion thrust won’t work in atmo, which we are about to hit.”
She says nothing more, unlatches herself and hugs him. No body warmth through the suit, but he feels it.
“Go on, girl. You’re wasting time.”
She is gone and Lawrence feels parts of her lingering; tendrils of spirit, Lamber magic.
He detaches and orients with quick burns, then heads for the Pica.
At first, he doesn’t know he’s been hit. A glancing blow from a detached pod that spins the smaller ship about and makes Lawrence dizzy. He puts his helmet on. All indicators red. The second and third collisions, he anticipates. The space around what’s left of the Ragtime is like an asteroid field. Definitely a fuel leak somewhere. Right. There are worse ways to die and worse places. Joké, I love you.
“Decisive! Decisive, come in,” says Shell.
“Hello, Ragtime One.”
“Get out of there, we can still—”
“No, you can’t. You need all the fuel and you’re already in the pipe for an atmo slice. Even with Salvo at the helm, you’ll be cutting it fine.”
“Uncle Larry, come back.”
“Callsigns only on an open channel, girl. Your daddy taught you better than that.”
“Uncle Larry…”
“I am where I need to be, Captain. Concentrate on getting planetside. Tell Joké to feed the carp for me. Decisive, out.”
He cuts the radio. Damn girl has his eyes stinging.
He is flying blind, he does not know where he is, monitors and sensors all over the place. He might be slingshotting into the sun for all he knows. Would that be so bad? Probably suffocate before getting there. Was going to suffocate on the Ragtime anyway.
Joké.
The power cells are down to nothing. Even the short burn fuel is gone.
Something new happening, like someone stirs a hornet’s nest, and the pods scatter, then more impacts.
Nothingness…
Chapter Thirty-five
Ragtime: Shell
Salvo asks everybody to strap in.
Shell reckons the chances for survi
val at fifty-fifty. Probably an optimistic estimate. She finds some oxygen candles and thinks they’ll extend their lives long enough for them to be crushed to dust on some Bloodroot mountain range.
“Captain, Joké didn’t copy,” says Salvo.
“Concentrate on landing,” says Shell.
“I can help,” says Ragtime.
“Shut up,” says Shell. “You do nothing. When we land, I’m magnetising your Pentagram.”
She exits her pod, moving like a spider and dodging flying debris. Even Frances whimpers, wrapped in Velcro.
Joké is just hanging at the airlock. At first, Shell takes her for wounded, but the woman just stares into space.
“Joké…”
“I loved him,” says Joké.
“He might make it,” says Shell. Sounds false even to her.
“Um, no. This is where he dies, this is how he dies. I’ve seen it. I saw it a long time ago,” says Joké.
“If you knew he would die here, why did you let him come?”
“Because this is the moment, the one time, when he feels most alive. You are most alive when you accept your death, Michelle Campion. He welcomed his death like the warrior he was. Nobody has the right to take that from him, no matter how much we loved him. Besides, time may be spherical, but it’s not mutable. If it’s happened, it’s happened. Anything else is silly stories for children.”
Tears break off from her eyes into the air.
“I need you to strap in, Joké. This is about to become the bumpiest ride for you. Have you ever been on a planet?”
“I’ve, um, been on a large mining asteroid. Does that count?”
“Hoo, boy. Okay, straps first. Come on.”
Better heat shields would be nice, but the Ragtime was never built for atmosphere. It comes apart. The radiation shields help, and there is some aerodynamic slowing, but it’s not enough. Entry is rocky, but they slow to subsonic speeds, which is the first hurdle to survival. The hull must be paper fucking thin by now. The noise is killing the inner ears.
“Ragtime, fire all retros,” says Salvo.
“You are not authorised—”
“Do it, Ragtime. Now,” says Shell.
“Wild Curses, but this AI is tedious,” says Fin. He looks rigid with fear and Shell remembers he hates space.
The ship judders and violently negotiates descent, like a giant is playing tennis with it. The shocks rattle the teeth and agitate the brain.
“Deploying parachutes,” says Salvo.
There is a pop and a jerk, but the descent continues.
“Salvo?” asks Shell. She wishes she was in the shuttle with them and not hugging Joké, who seems to be in a trance.
“The first parachute… the wind took it,” says Fin.
“What’s our speed of descent?”
“You don’t wanna know,” says Fin.
“Deploying secondaries.”
This does slow them, but Shell knows it means no runway slowing because that’s what the parachute was for. Not that there would be any runway waiting for them.
“Brace for impact,” says Salvo.
“We’re about to hit the ground?”
“Stray pod! Brace, Ragtime One!”
Silence.
Chapter Thirty-six
Bloodroot: Peole
“Launch all shuttles! Launch all the fucking shuttles!” Peole gesticulates wildly.
“It’s too late. They won’t get there on time,” says Coker.
“Launch!”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Lagos: Beko
“Panopticon view,” says Beko, and Lagos complies.
Lagos Bridge is ready. All Dyson elements linked and circle formed. The bridge is opaque, prepared to transmit. The comm satellite pulses through.
“There’s a MaxGalactix ship prepping for bridge transit. Callsign Sinistral. There’s a message,” says Lagos. “Pseudo-autonomous.”
“Play it,” says Beko.
“I hope you have something for me,” says the captain.
“I am going to give you the gift of oblivion, Sinistral. We are cowards. There’s a Yoruba saying, eni ebi ri l’ebi npa. Hunger only kills those who hunger finds.”
“What the fuck—”
“They’re in the bridge by now,” says Lagos.
“Goodbye, Sinistral,” says Beko.
“Don’t play with us—”
“Do it,” says Beko.
The Dyson elements detonate one after the other, and the bridge dissipates into a relativity storm, twisting and turning light and colour. Then the cameras go.
“Did it work?” asks Awe.
“Lagos Bridge is inert. No singularity signature. No wormhole. No Sinistral.”
And no more link to the rest of humanity, thinks Beko.
We are alone.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Bloodroot: Clandestine
The Clandestine is burning.
On the ground, but burning. Hydrazine producing yellow smoke – toxic, but luckily Brisbane landed in woodland. Trees for miles around. Animals, maybe; no humans.
Having dragged himself out of the Clandestine, he lies supine on a gentle rise. What leaks out of him bears no resemblance to blood. The sky is beautiful, criss-crossed with shooting stars.
I am a bag of liquid.
His bones are not just broken, they are shattered, maybe powdered into sand in some parts. He cannot see out of one eye for the swelling. He cannot hear anything, and he is sure that his middle ear has suffered irrevocable damage.
I cannot give any more. I am a bag of liquid that used to be a man. I am not dying; I am dead. Clara’s little boy, dying here on an alien world, staring up at an alien sky, alone.
“Get up,” says Carmilla.
“You’re still functional?”
“I am classified as a soldier, Brisbane. You wouldn’t understand. But you don’t need to understand. Just do as you’re told. Get up. There’s a suitable transmitter within walking distance.”
“I… I can barely crawl.”
“Then it’s within crawling distance. Come on.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Bloodroot: Salvo, Shell
After impact, Salvo gets out of his seat and checks Rasheed Fin’s pulse. Rapid, but strong. There is breathing – a bit shallow, but steady. He’s alive.
At the same time, he’s checking readings from whatever sensors are still functional in the Ragtime. He hails the AI; no response. He checks the stability of the structure against which they have come to rest. Nothing troubles the gyros. He checks for fuel line integrities and any toxicity leak. Tanks were empty; nothing to worry about on that front.
He lifts Rasheed Fin out of his seat. The floor is not exactly horizontal, but Salvo corrects. He opens the hatch to the Ragtime’s airlock. Michelle Campion, unconscious, hanging from her straps. No blood. Pulse good, breathing good.
Of Joké, there is no sign.
Salvo lays Michelle Campion and Rasheed Fin next to each other and explores the nodes that made it to Earth. Frances the Lupine is there, staring at him, tongue lolling.
Ragtime AI does not respond to a second hail. There is smoke billowing from somewhere, but it also moves towards an air current, so Salvo follows.
What would have been aft is an open wound in the hull.
They have landed on Bloodroot’s inhabited continent, so there’s that. The Ragtime-Equivalence mating has landed and rests on a limit marker, a squat stone obelisk. A drag mark has excavated the topsoil in a line that extends far beyond the limits of Salvo’s vision. He re-enters and carefully lifts Rasheed Fin out, then Michelle Campion. He whistles for Frances the Lupine and sets off to find a water source.
The wolf sprints away at top speed, and, from the work he did previously, Salvo knows Frances the Lupine is running an exploration subroutine for environmental awareness.
When they return, Joké is standing guard.
“I am not ready for a planet’s gravity,” she says. �
��I’m aware of my body, more than I ever have been.”
“You’ll get used to it,” says Salvo. She confuses him. Sometimes she is not there at all. Physically. She shares phase space with the Lambers, but Salvo can see them clearly. Why not Joké?
Salvo makes a fire from wood he gathered with Frances the Lupine. He also has an assortment of leaves, ferns, berries, fungi-like growths and moss that might be edible. Rasheed Fin starts to stir and Joké begins to swap oral body fluids with him. Salvo looks away.
He enters the wreck, cobbles some bits together and comes outside with his creation. He activates it and it rises, blinking, ten, fifteen feet. He is unsure of the range, but it’s transmitting on multiple bands, cycling.
“Beacon?” says Michelle Campion.
Salvo had not been aware she was awake. “Affirmative, Captain,” he says.
She sits up, glances at Rasheed Fin and Joké kissing, and turns back to Salvo. “Ragtime?”
“Unresponsive.”
“I want… owww, my head. I want a tracking device. Brisbane was leaking Exotics. I want to track him.”
“Captain, he probably did not come down anywhere near here. He could be on the other side of the planet.”
“I don’t care where he is right now. I think I know where he might want to be, and I need to have adequate warning. Plunder the data from Ragtime and build me a tracker.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Frances comes back from a foray, shaking droplets from his pelt, a fish clamped between his jaws.
“Water!” says Michelle Campion.
The entire human contingent follows the wolf back to what must be a tributary of a river or a streamlet. This does not stop them from stripping off their suits and clothes and jumping into the freezing cold water, screaming and laughing. They drink, they frolic, they swim. Salvo does not think it advisable for people who have had serious physical trauma to jump about, but humans are strange.
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