by M. D. Cooper
“Think they’ll pursue us in?” Cheeky asked as she rose from her seat and stretched her arms.
“Undoubtedly,” Finaeus said.
Hank added.
“But if we make it to Star City, we’ll warn them and their element of surprise will be gone,” Finaeus said.
“What can they do to us in the dark layer?” Cargo asked. “We’re travelling at a third the speed of light in a lightless void. There’s no way for them to maneuver or boost in here—not efficiently, at least.”
“Well, they could use grav-missiles,” Finaeus said with a shrug.
“Gravwhat?” Cheeky asked, her eyes widening.
“You know…how you can use gravitons for propulsion in the DL…well, you can make missiles that work in here. They have to be light, with powerful grav generators, but throw a nuke on the tip and you’ve an effective dark layer weapon.”
“I didn’t even know such a thing existed,” Cargo said quietly. “Is this Transcend tech?”
Finaeus shrugged. I think some Inner Stars civs have them too, but I know for sure that the Orion Guard has them.”
“How do you detect them in the dark layer?” Cheeky asked, sitting back in her seat and pulling up her displays. “All we can detect in here are gravity waves bouncing off dark matter.”
“That’s what you’ll have to do to find them.” Finaeus said. “They won’t move like dark matter—obviously.”
“What about our stasis shielding?” Cargo asked. “Can we even use it in the dark layer?”
Finaeus worked with Sabrina to tailor the sensor suite to detect graviton emissions to their rear, while Cheeky used targeted grav emissions to pull them onto a different trajectory than the one on which they had entered the DL.
The minutes stretched into hours, and Cargo was beginning to think that perhaps Finaeus was being paranoid about dark layer missiles when a warning lit up on the display in the holotank.
“I have a contact…I think,” Cheeky said her voice breathless. “It’s coming up behind us. No, there are more, three at least.”
Sabrina offered.
“They’re out of range,” Cargo said. “Beams diffuse here very quickly.”
Sabrina replied.
“How close?” Cheeky asked.
“Probably a thousand kilometers, maybe less,” Finaeus replied.
Cheeky whistled. “Sooo…when they’re up our ass, pretty much?”
“About that,” Finaeus said with a snort.
Sabrina said.
“Weapons free, then,” Cargo said. “Your discretion.”
The three blips on scan turned into four, then five. The missiles were approaching quickly and did not take long to pass the one-thousand-kilometer matter.
“It’s like a dark matter tunnel in here,” Cheeky said. “The stuff is all around us. If those grav-missiles get too close we’ll have nowhere to go.”
Sabrina whispered over the Link,
Weapons fire lit up on scan, optical beams lancing out into the deep black of the dark layer. Two hit their targets, and the indicators for the missiles seemed to grow wider on the holotank and then disappear.
The other three kept coming, somehow evading Sabrina’s shots until they were less than one hundred kilometers away. Sabrina’s shots hit two more, but the last one evaded her once more.
“Shields!” Cargo shouted, and Finaeus snapped the stasis shield into place moments before nuclear fire splashed over the ship.
The entire ship lurched and Cargo was flung from his chair.
“What the…” he stammered as he rose to see Finaeus half way across the bridge. Cheeky had been strapped into her seat and was still in place, though she shook her head.
“We hit the wall,” she said in an awe-filled whisper. “The dark matter, we hit it and we survived.”
Finaeus was swearing under his breath as he pulled himself up and rushed to the scan console. His eyes widened when he saw the readings and he turned to Cheeky. “Shit-shit-shit-shit! Get us out, now!” he screamed.
Cargo had only a moment to see what looked like all of the dark matter around them moving—writhing—before it was gone and they were back in regular space.
“Are we safe, did we bring one with us?” Finaeus asked, panic filling his voice.
Finaeus reset the ship’s scan configuration, and Cargo watched as their picture of normal space improved. No strange monsters appeared to be with them.
They were safe. For now.
MOTHERHOOD
STELLAR DATE: 11.19.8938 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Manhattan, Star City
REGION: Star City System, Perseus Arm
Jessica finished tucking the dough on the last roll and examined her handiwork. Twenty rolls in four rows of five. Enough for everyone in the family plus one left over for Trevor, who always wanted a second, no matter how full he was.
She sprinkled some cinnamon on eleven of them. Not everyone liked cinnamon on their buns, but those who did wouldn’t eat them without, and the others wouldn’t touch the ones with.
“You spoil them all too much,” Iris said as she walked into the kitchen, carrying a tray that she set down on the counter.
“Me?” Jessica laughed. “You’re one of the ones who won’t touch a bun unless I sprinkle it.”
Iris shrugged and her skin sparkled as she grinned. “Well, I guess you spoil me too much as well.”
Jessica was glad that Iris had decided to participate in The Dream as a distinct person. Raising sixteen children had been hard enough. Doing it with just two parents would have been well-nigh impossible.
Granted, half the families on the block helped out, coming over to babysit, or taking a few of the kids in their homes so that the parents could get some time alone.
Even so, Jessica knew she couldn’t have done it without Iris. There are only so many children you can cradle at once; being able to touch all of their parents meant a lot to the children.
Jessica threw a dishtowel at Iris, who caught it deftly and draped it over the sink’s faucet.
“Gonna take a lot more than a dishtowel to take me out.”
“I don’t want to take you out, just need to knock you down a notch,” Jessica replied.
Iris shrugged. “I always knew I’d make a great organic; being human is a piece of cake.”
“Except you’re not organic,” Jessica said with a snort. “You don’t even make much of an attempt at it.”
Iris gave a soft laugh as she turned to the chill unit and grabbed several condiments. “Like you can talk. Here, or back in the life, you were never much for vanilla.”
Jessica couldn’t argue with that. She hadn’t changed her appearance when coming into The Dream. Her skin still glowed, she still needed her daily time in the sun; plus, she could shock people if they deserved it—like the boys when they got in a fist fight that went too far.
Iris had perseverated for some time—well, more like three or four minutes—about her appearance. In the end, Trevor had suggested that she just mirror Jessica—something that Jessica had vehemently opposed, and lost.
Iris had decided not to go with the same coloring, and instead adopted a light blue with hints of silver, especially when she let h
er skin sparkle.
Trevor, of course, was delighted—not that he ever slept with Iris. Jessica wasn’t certain if it would bother her, but she decided it was best not to find out.
“Stop staring at my ass and take the meat out to Trevor,” Iris said.
Jessica snorted. “Are you talking about me, or the burgers?”
Iris winked as she set a jar of pickles on the tray. “Maybe a bit of both.”
Jessica grabbed two pans, one loaded with hand-made burger patties, and the other clean for the meat after it had been cooked.
“Hey, Moms, you coming?” Tanis asked as she stuck her head in through the patio doorway. “The boys managed to wrestle dad to the ground for once. I think he needs you to tag him out with the grilling duties.”
Jessica snorted. “I’ll take that trade. He’s better on the grill anyway.”
Tanis grinned. “Dad likes to cook when there’s danger involved. At least, that’s what he always says when we go hunting.”
Jessica handed the trays to her daughter and kissed her on the head. “Go set these by the grill. I’ll rescue your father.”
“Sure thing, Mom,” Tanis replied.
Sometimes Jessica wished she hadn’t named her oldest daughter Tanis.
When she had been eight, the girl had wanted to know more about her namesake. After Jessica had shared the stories of Tanis’s exploits, her daughter had begun to mold herself after Jessica’s old friend.
Given that The Dream allowed any possibility—especially for their children—who knew they were in The Dream—her daughter Tanis was now a spitting image of the flesh-and-blood Tanis. Jessica would never deny her daughter the choice of being who she was, but Jessica knew that at some point, when she met Tanis in New Canaan it would be bittersweet to see the image of her own daughter.
She looked back at Iris, who caught her eye and gave her an encouraging smile.
Jessica nodded absently. Though she had been with Iris for many years, they had never grown as close as other AI pairings. Certainly not as close as Tanis and Angela—though they were a different matter.
That had changed during their time in The Dream. Jessica now viewed Iris as her best friend. Everything about their time in The Dream had been positive—barring the bittersweet knowledge that it would eventually end—but her deepening relationship with Iris had been an unexpected boon.
Jessica followed Tanis out onto the deck, watching her daughter’s blonde ponytail bob—just as her namesake’s had so often done, and looked out upon her family.
Sixteen children. Eight boys and eight girls. Enough to take the places of all the vacant Bastions, and finally relieve Eleven.
Tanis, the oldest, was twenty-six. At least in Dreamer years. Outside the dream, she was less than two days old.
Their youngest was Troy, a boisterous young man of eighteen years, only sixteen real hours old—or so Iris told her.
The brood had known for some time what their destiny was, why they were created, and what they must protect. Trevor had been especially determined to ensure they knew their value. It was why he had insisted that the children integrated into the society around them, go to school with other children, get to know the people who were dreaming their way to ascension.
Trevor, her wonderful mountain of a man, was currently buried under all eight of their sons—and three of their daughters—on the soft lawn in their back yard.
“OK, you scoundrels. Your father has to cook the food for your hungry stomachs, so let him be and see if you can take your dear old mom down.”
Amanda looked up at Jessica and grinned. “You think you can take us, Mom? Dad outweighs you three to one, and he didn’t stand a chance.”
Jessica chuckled. “Your father fights fair. I don’t—you should know that by know.”
“I’m just fighting for air,” Trevor wheezed from beneath the pile of their children, finally able to crawl free as they rolled off him.
“Meat’s waiting for you, Dad,” Tanis called from the deck before dashing down the steps to join the circle forming around Jessica.
It nearly brought a tear to her eye to see her children encircling her, their guards up, stances wide, ready to launch into an attack.
Without warning, four of them rushed toward her, at least she assumed four, though she could only see three.
Jessica dropped to the ground and rolled away, sweeping the legs out from one of her children—Kira, it turned out. She leapt to her feet, neatly avoiding Peter’s boot and then swung at Tanis who had made a grab for her.
Tanis dodged back, just in time to avoid Jessica’s fist, but not fast enough to avoid her mother’s boot, which caught her in the side.
“Everything is a feint, Tanis,” Jessica intoned. She had broken through the circle and backed toward the large rock at one side of their back yard. One of the unspoken rules of their combat—at least now that the children were all grown—was that no one could climb the rock and attack from behind.
It gave the parents a fighting chance.
“Good luck out there,” Trevor called as he set a row of burgers on the grill. “They’re hungry for blood today.”
“I can see that,” Jessica said as she looked into the faces of her sixteen children. Some were smiling, some were not, but she could tell that all were ready. Once they had learned that it wasn’t really possible to permanently hurt her in The Dream—at least not with the controls Eleven had put in place—the children had become quite ferocious.
Amanda came forward first, throwing a punch at Jessica’s head, which Jessica avoided before driving her own fist into Amanda’s side.
But Amanda wasn’t there. Her daughter had twisted, and Jessica smiled with approval, spotting Tanis leaping through the air, ready to drive a fist into Jessica’s head.
The fight intensified from there, Jessica fought with every ounce of her being, leveraging every tactic she knew of to hold the children back.
There was no doubt in her mind that, should her warriors-in-training choose to, they could defeat her easily. But by some unspoken agreement, they were not attacking with any more than four at a time.
Then, as she was trading blows with Troy and Peter, she saw Tanis and Kira move to flank her, followed by Jason and Aeryn.
Six! Jessica thought as she took a step back toward the rock. Ready to touch it and signal her surrender.
Then a flash of silver caught her eye and Iris leapt down off the rock to land beside Tanis, driving an elbow into Tanis’s throat, before delivering in uppercut into Peter’s jaw.
“Whoa!” Kira called out.
“Since when do you get two?” Troy asked. “That’s not how the rules work.”
Iris grinned as she took up a position next to Jessica. “In war, there are no rules. You win however you can, no matter what. Destroy the enemy as quickly, and effectively as possible. Now what are you wimps all waiting for? Can’t take down your little old moms?”
“Don’t think either of you are little, or old,” Tanis said as she massaged her neck. She rolled her shoulders and shook her head before grinning. “But maybe it’s time to show you what we can do.”
A second later, ten of their children attacked.
Jessica imagined that all sixteen would have engaged if they could, but that was the benefit of the rock. There simply wasn’t room for them all to come into play.
Even so, Jessica and Iris were being driven back, step by step until their feet were only centimeters from the stone.
irmed.
Jessica ducked a fist that was flying toward her head, only to take another in the shoulder. It spun her around, and her nose came within millimeters of the rock, almost taking her out of the game, but then a roar and a crash sounded behind her.
She regained her balance and saw that Trevor had thrown himself into the fray, knocking down half the children as he charged into them.
“Oh, now it’s really on,” Tanis said, somehow capturing the same hungry look that her namesake so often held in her eyes.
Ten minutes later, everyone was lying on the grass, panting heavily, catching their breath, and wondering how long it would take The Dream to make their bodies stop aching.
Jessica lay with Kira draped half across her, staring up at the sky as her daughter finally managed to push herself upright.
“I think you cracked one of my ribs, Mom,” she said with a pained expression.
“Good, means I was fighting to win,” Jessica said between long gasping breaths.
She caught Kira’s eyes and smiled. Kira didn’t return the look, she was staring at something past Jessica.
“What is it?” Jessica asked as she rolled over, her eyes following Kira’s gaze.
There, on their back deck, stood the crew of Sabrina.
“Oh, hey guys,” Jessica said wearily. “Nice of you all to finally show up.”
EXTENDED FAMILY
STELLAR DATE: 11.19.8938 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Manhattan, Star City
REGION: Star City System, Perseus Arm
“It’s a nice place you have here,” Cheeky said as she skewered a burger with a fork and lifted it onto her bun. “I gotta say, of all the things I expected to see when we passed through the city’s shell, this wasn’t even remotely on the list. I figured you’d just be lounging on a beach, reading a good book. Not…”
“Not raising a family?” Jessica asked with a grin.
“Family? Isn’t this more like a brood or something?” Cheeky asked.
“I think we’re more of a troop,” Tanis said as she sat across the table. “Tanis, by the way.”