The Worst of All Possible Worlds

by Alex White

  Nilah ratcheted down Teacup’s cover, securing her bot for the voyage. Unlike Charger, it wasn’t smart enough to follow her every second of the day and had a tendency to make a mess after a few hours. Her bot plugged in, she made her way toward her room.

  Orna’s and Malik’s hushed voices wafted down the hallway in the corridor by Nilah’s quarters. She couldn’t make out much, but she clearly heard her fiancée say, “She’ll obviously need some help, Doc. The thing with her dad—”

  A heavy step from Nilah, and both parties turned to face her: Orna impassive and unreadable, Malik wearing an obnoxiously kind expression. Nilah hated that look; it reminded her of the face Harriet Fulsom used to make whenever Nilah crashed out of a race. It said, Bad luck, sweetheart. I hate that for you.

  “I’m fine, you know, sir,” she said.

  “Clearly not,” Malik replied, “and that’s okay.”

  “Doc and I were thinking—” Orna began.

  “—I’d rather not be put to sleep tonight,” said Nilah. “If that’s what you were about to suggest.”

  “You don’t have to endure the nightmares,” said Malik. “I can suppress all of that.”

  “I don’t want any help with my demons.” Nilah brushed past them. She hadn’t meant to sound cold, but she was so rushed. There were things to do; she had duties on the ship to attend. “Just want to get to work.”

  “I was thinking I could take those on, babe,” said Orna, stepping forward and taking her hand.

  Nilah stared at the meeting of their fingers, surprised at the sudden blurriness brought on by a tear. She wouldn’t look her fiancée in the eyes, for fear of bursting into sobs. “Please, I don’t want a break. I don’t want to be nightmare-free. Right now, they’re… Dad is probably…”

  The thought of someone striking her father hit her as hard as any punch she’d ever taken, and she winced.

  “I don’t want to sleep, okay?” she said, pushing down the panic, frustration, and grief. If she was too emphatic, the doc might knock her out right there for her own good. “Can’t we get to finding my dad already? I don’t even know…” She swallowed and looked up to Malik. “I’m not sure where to start. You always have good answers. Where do I start?”

  “The captain has been coordinating with Special Agent Weathers,” said Malik. “Until we have a response from Compass, we’re simply spinning our wheels. I wasn’t being facetious when I said the best thing you can do right now is sleep. You’ve taken a shock, and the sooner you admit that, the better.”

  But Nilah didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. Her father certainly wasn’t comfortable in some bunk. She looked pleadingly at Orna.

  “Doctor Jan, it wouldn’t be fair to ask Miss Brio to step away from her duties.” Orna pulled her in close. “I’ll watch her. I’m sure you and Cap have a lot to plan.”

  Malik nodded at Nilah. “If you need something, even if it’s just to talk, come see me. Pay attention to your work, and Miss Sokol is to relieve you if she sees you doing something unsafe.”

  “I’m not going to bollocks things up, sir. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “Miss Brio, I’m not worried about you screwing up and breaking something.” His kind smile sent another little crack across her heart. “Your safety is my only concern here. Take care of her, Miss Sokol.”

  “That’s the plan,” said Orna, and Malik departed. “Let’s get to work, babe. Grav drive broadcaster alignment. Get to it.”

  Nilah looked at her sidelong. That was some serious maintenance, and it wasn’t due for another two weeks. Over time, the metal fins on the drive would get wavy and misaligned, and they’d have to get in there and straighten them by hand. Orna called it the “knuckle grater” on account of the number of cuts it’d bestowed upon her. The task would take two hours and at least as many kilos of water weight in the sweaty chamber.

  “I was going to inspect the life support junction boxes by the bridge,” said Nilah.

  “Those are easy, and we can do them whenever. We’re in the Flow, the one place you never do any heavy maneuvers,” said Orna. “Perfect time for an alignment.”

  Nilah gave in. And when she emerged, dripping with sweat, gloves frayed and bloodied in places, Orna assigned her to scour the spare main drive nozzles. Then they checked the reactor couplings on the Compass-issued jump drive, a procedure that required hours of heavy torque, interspersed with precision threading of contacts—enough to jangle her nerves.

  Orna brought her the roughest possible jobs, making sure Nilah didn’t have one spare minute to think, one spare muscle to twitch, and exhaustion had long fought off her anxiety.

  Orna stumbled to their workbench and flopped into one of the chairs. “Now, we’re going to swap out the superheating elements on—”

  “Save it, love.” Nilah sat down beside her and rested her head on Orna’s sweaty shoulder. “Just hold me.”

  Orna’s muscular arm encircled her.

  She sighed. “Still can’t stop thinking about him. I’m going mad, love.”

  “You’ll be in good company. We’re all a little crazy.”

  “I knew they might kill me when I stood up to them… but Dad—”

  When Nilah opened her mouth to speak again, Orna shook her head. She took her hand and led her back to their quarters. Turning the lights low, Orna pulled her to the bed and gently removed her clothes like she was a baby. Then she pushed Nilah back against her cool pillow and pulled the sheets up to her chest. Orna sat next to her, stroking the hair from her eyes and caressing the scars across her cheek.

  “What happened to your father?” asked Nilah, shutting her eyes and trying to concentrate on her fiancée’s fingertips alone. “You never told me.”

  “I’ve never told anyone. Tonight isn’t a good—”

  “Please.”

  It was manipulative of Nilah to ask about the quartermaster’s past in her current state, and she knew that. At the same time, she desperately wanted some answers to long-burning questions. Perhaps it would help her stop thinking about what they might be doing to Darnell Brio.

  Orna took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and for a few long seconds, Nilah wondered if she’d get her answer.

  “I’m from a little town called Handler, at the southern tip of the Arcan subcontinent. It was on the coast, and there was a military base there—I can’t remember which branch, but my dad was a contractor. I was a little brat, always skipping school and running off with my stupid friends, dragging my little brother along. When the famine hit, though, they started rationing food, and the school lunch was usually the only meal around. We stopped skipping after that.

  “We were all in the cafeteria when the air raid sirens started blaring. The Kandamili Navy had parked off the coast, and they were shelling the town. I guess they thought they’d take out everything, just to be sure they got the base. At first, the thumps were far off. Parents started showing up and grabbing their kids, even though they weren’t supposed to.

  “Then it was just me… and my little brother, and my teacher. My mom was this, like, crazy control freak, and after a couple of hours we knew she was dead, because… if she was breathing, she would’ve come and gotten us, too.”

  Orna sniffed, and Nilah creaked an eye open to find her sitting on the edge of the bed with her elbows propped on her knees.

  “Dad wasn’t like that,” said Orna. “He was one of those rah-rah patriot types who’d have run to the base to help his military buddies. But he didn’t this time. I still remember the look on his face when he came through the cafeteria door—his cheeks were so puffy and red, and he told me Mom had been hit in the first barrage. I remember this feeling like… like I’d been punched in the chest. Then a round hit the school.”

  Nilah reached out and pulled Orna’s hand to her, holding it against her heart.

  “That’s where I got most of this,” said Orna, gesturing to her face before wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve. “That first wave of s
hrapnel from the crumbling walls and beams sliced into every part of me. It cut through my clothes. I was just happy to have my eyes shut, because I’d have a set of implanted optics today if I hadn’t.

  “Or I would’ve died in the wasteland. Without eyes, that was a lot more likely, and it probably would’ve been better. Joshua, my brother, died instantly. I didn’t see what happened to him; he was standing by the windows when it struck.

  “There was a cave-in, and that was the first time I saw a dead body. We had these emergency lights, my teacher’s hand was sticking out from under this beam, and he was just… gone. My dad was on top of me, crushing the life out of me, and he kept whimpering.

  “When I got out from under him, we were trapped in this minuscule space with a handful of uneaten food. And you know, if that first blast had killed him, I would’ve been happy. He couldn’t move his legs, and he wouldn’t stop bleeding. I’ve done some low things, but I think it was the most merciless thing I ever did, helping him tie those tourniquets.”

  Nilah gave her a squeeze but said nothing. Armin had once told her to “just listen” to Orna, so she did.

  “He wouldn’t take any of the food or water. I couldn’t go get him anything in that tiny pocket, and every time I screamed for help, it was like an ice pick in my brain. The rubble was hot, and it reeked of my piss, and the only fresh air was a little hole on one side. I slept next to him until I couldn’t stand his feverish heat.

  “That was the first week. At least, I think it was. Maybe it was only a few hours. I started to hallucinate. He kept asking me for help, and I couldn’t do anything for him. He told me he hated me and my greedy little mouth. So… that’s how Dad died, dehydrated and delirious and certain I’d follow. Every so often, the rubble would shift, and I’d start crying again, because I knew that was it for me. But the end never came.”

  Orna looked at Nilah with haunted eyes. “Instead light spilled inside, along with the coldest, freshest air I’d ever breathed. When I could finally see again, I found a rescue bot standing over me, holding a slab of concrete the size of a car. It was covered in these aid packs, and when it pulled me out, it gave one of them to me—enough supplies to live for a month if I was careful.

  “It gave me a blanket, then turned around and started walking away. I chased after it, but I was so exhausted that I fainted. When I woke up, it had come back for me. I put everything I had into my glyph and slapped my hand onto it. The bot’s security singed off the skin on my palm.”

  Orna took her hand away and held it up so Nilah could see the smooth scar tissue. There were so many old wounds, and every one had a different story.

  “But I got him,” said Orna with a bitter smile. “That’s how I got my beautiful Ranger.”

  The slow huff of the ship’s air cyclers seemed to grow to a deafening volume in the silence that followed.

  “You’ve done some big things,” said Nilah. “Gotten pretty lucky a few times.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So we’re going to rescue my father.”

  Orna regarded her in the dim bedroom light. “I’m going to keep you safe. Hopefully, we can… I don’t know…”

  Nilah yawned, and Orna stood to go.

  “I still have actual jobs to do,” said the quartermaster with a weak smile. “Not just the tough stuff.”

  Nilah’s heart leapt, and she snatched Orna’s hand back.

  “Please stay,” she said. “I need to feel something other than this.”

  For a brief time, they both got lost in each other, light-years away from Henrick Witts and the monsters lurking in the darkness.

  Chapter Five

  Wavelength

  Hey, Nilah! It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?”

  Sharp’s smiling face filled the projection, and only then did Nilah realize how much she’d been worried about him in the time since they’d parted. She’d met the deep-cover Taitutian agent on Hammerhead, in the Children of the Singularity’s combat recruitment school, the Pinnacle. Because of him, they’d been able to identify numerous undercover cultists throughout the galaxy and clean house. The last time she’d seen him, he’d vowed to murder the Special Branch agents who’d sold him out.

  “Sharp,” she croaked. “Good to see you’re still with us. Were you able to find some closure with the Special Branch?”

  Nilah had slept like the dead for the past two watches before Cordell finally roused her to come to the bridge for a “special message.” She’d found the crew already assembled, standing around Sharp’s translucent torso.

  His smirk was a lot more charming when they weren’t prisoners inside a cult compound. “Let’s just put it this way: if you read about a diplomat and her two attachés dying in a tragic flier accident… it wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t tragic. I’ve got some news for you.”

  That cleared the fog out of Nilah’s head. “What?”

  “First off, we were able to locate and secure your mother and stepmother.” He shook his head. “I’ve got them both stashed in a safe house with two of my most trusted guys. It’s not the best idea, but I can arrange a call if you’d like.”

  Nilah hadn’t known her stepmother, Theodora, for very long, and they weren’t close. Bitter divorce proceedings and a strained childhood had robbed her of her love of Maxine, her biological mother. It’d been a maelstrom of sex, lies, and money, sold to news outlets and smeared all over her family as a teen, causing a rift that had never healed.

  “I expect they’re getting along terribly,” she said.

  “It’s as bad as you’d imagine. Maybe your dad can sort it out when we get him back.” Sharp paused, growing serious. “I’ve got news. It’s not like we have eyes on him, but—”

  “But you know where he is,” Nilah finished, a little too urgently.

  To her great relief, Sharp nodded. “We’ve tracked them to a compound on Hakrost.”

  “It’s a backwater world,” said Malik, pulling up the information from the Link with a gesture. The red planet hovered beside Sharp’s disembodied head. “No local government. Blixish jurisdiction, but it’s mostly frontier.”

  “It’s a snake den,” said Sharp. “You can’t trust anybody here, and all the townships are so small that they’re suspicious of newcomers. Hell, I’d barely call this a colony.”

  “‘Here’?” Nilah repeated. “You’re already on Hakrost?”

  He nodded. “My partner and I dropped in last night. We’re getting things set up for the recon team.”

  Nilah looked to Cordell. “So we’re going to join Sharp, yeah?”

  The uncomfortable glance shared by everyone else answered that question.

  Cordell cleared his throat and rocked on his heels. “Miss Brio, we’re requested at the Fifth Fleet’s Task Force Sixty for immediate debrief. If we attacked with that cube in our possession—”

  “You’d be doing exactly what Harriet Fulsom wanted,” Sharp finished. “We have to assume this is a trap.”

  Nilah balled her fists, yet retained her composure. “Well, what else are we supposed to do? Let my father die?”

  “Of course not,” said Malik. “But I think you need to listen to what Mister Sharp is proposing.”

  Glancing up at the projection, Nilah nodded. The night she’d seen Harriet’s video, she would’ve fought them without bothering to hear Sharp’s ideas—but all the fight had been used up. She was too numb to spike the conversation.

  “The whole galaxy owes you a debt,” said Sharp, “and I’ve got the biggest bunch of badasses under my command. I’m talking about a deadly strike insertion team like you’ve never seen. Local law enforcement is basically nonexistent, so extradition will be that much easier.”

  Nilah crossed her arms. “Harriet Fulsom can teleport the heart out of your chest. I’m not sure badasses will do the trick.”

  “If she gets her skull cored from ten klicks out, I don’t think her powers matter much,” said Sharp. “We’ll sweep in with a jump-capable carrier, blast everyone
between us and your dad, and jump out from inside their compound. The resulting atmospheric shock wave will obliterate the entire installation.”

  Cordell nodded. “Which leaves us free to link up with Compass and the Fifth Fleet, handing over the data cube.”

  “And I’ll drop your dad right into your lap,” said Sharp.

  “What’s so bloody important about this cube that the Fifth Fleet can’t wait?” asked Nilah.

  “Boots is working on that,” said Malik, “but you know it’s important enough for one of the gods to send her own daughter. Every minute this thing isn’t in the hands of the proper authorities might be a life lost. Let’s allow Mister Sharp to do his job, eh?”

  In reviewing the faces of her crewmates, she found a lot of people hopeful that she’d accept the plan. Orna, Cordell, and Malik were obviously on board. Boots kept her expression flat, and Jeannie and Alister rarely seemed happy about anything. The only one who appeared unconvinced was Aisha, but Nilah couldn’t imagine her jumping in to help debate against her husband.

  “So you lot want to know what I think of this idea?” asked Nilah, frowning.

  Cordell nodded. “Miss Brio, I have never asked any member of my crew to validate my plans once I’ve decided on them. However, this is your father we’re talking about here. If I tell you how to call this, and I’m wrong, I’ll lose one of the most talented crew members I’ve ever had.”

  Sharp nodded. “As members of Compass, the Special Branch can’t force you to take either action, but… if you decide to come to Hakrost yourself, I want you to find a dead drop for that cube. You can’t let Harriet take it off your corpses if things go badly.”

  “And I won’t allow any member of the crew to review the contents,” added Cordell. “We’d drop Malik on Harvest, where he could get it to the Fifth Fleet without us. It’d be too dangerous for one of you to know its secrets.”

  “What?” asked Nilah. “Why?”

  Alister stepped up. “Because if I can pull the thoughts out of your head, so can they. Knowing what’s on the cube could be as bad as handing it to them, in the event that you’re captured.”