Ayan grabbed the low shag of the carpet with her good arm and pushed with her good leg. Her suit protected her arm and thigh from being knocked around, but there were so many breaks that she found herself biting her lip and smothering a scream at the new rush of sensation. Aside from her broken bones and bruises, her burnt belly felt like it was ready to split open. Tears squeezed through her tightly closed lids the next time she renewed her efforts.
“That’s a metre,” Ayan said, fighting for breath. Inhaling too deeply made her stomach rage and breathing too quickly made her broken limbs jostle and sent shocks of pain throughout her body.
She closed her eyes for a moment and was rewarded with the memory of Jacob’s imitator, leering at her, saying “I love you,” using his voice. “I’m going to kill you for this, Wheeler,” she said. She pressed on with renewed vigour, gritting her teeth at the pain every time she repeated the pattern of gripping the carpet to pull, and raising her good leg to push herself towards the communicator.
The last metre was the easiest. Her head tapped the overturned lamp and she sighed with relief.
Her vacsuit had expended all but the smallest amount of power resisting the force of the explosion, and when she motioned the command to open her faceplate, it couldn’t unlock. After a few moments' fumbling, Ayan found the manual release button for her visor. It was just a slightly hardened part of her suit under the chin, and she had never used one; the memory of the emergency latch was from her predecessor, the first Ayan.
The seal didn’t break at first, even though she heard the material try to separate. With some pushing and pulling, she got the transparent faceplate halfway up her face, so she could talk into the communicator clearly. Ayan pressed the CALL button and hoped. Lights flickered on, and the hologram of the concierge’s head appeared.
“Can I help you-“ he started before he fixed her with a shocked expression. “Oh my God, are you Ayan?”
“Looks like he’s got something,” Ayan heard Jason say in the background.
“What happened? Are you okay?” asked the young concierge.
“No,” Ayan croaked. Tears surged forward, and it didn’t matter to Ayan whether they were from relief or from desperation - she hated the fact that they came at all. She wanted to be stronger. “Send medics.”
“They’re on their way,” the concierge said. “We were trying to find what room you were in, but the scanners in that section of the hotel have been down since the UCW left. I sent soldiers-“
The Concierge was shoved out of the way, and Laura appeared instead. “We’re coming Ayan, there should be someone there soon.”
Ayan breathed a shuddering sigh of relief as she looked out to the window. Laura offered light conversation, not probing into what had happened, just making her best efforts to distract Ayan while help was on the way. She half listened, looking to the rose-coloured view through the generously proportioned windows. The tall buildings outside looked more like ancient monuments in that light, standing the test of time against a backdrop of rolling, dusty hills that were just starting to find a hint of green in the valleys.
The thoughts going through her mind were not ready to be shared. The last two hours were an education, a violent return to reality.
Sprawled out on the floor of that ruined room, Ayan regarded her previous attempts to get into fighting shape, to form an understanding of Tamber and the conditions there, as well as how she was trying to make a civilisation out of their band of refugees in an entirely new light.
Changes had to be made, and it would start with her. Ayan caught herself letting her eyes close when the memory of the eager android Jake returned and she flinched herself back to wakefulness. “Why did it have to be him?” she asked the empty room.
“What’s that?” Laura asked.
“The one they sent to attack me looked like Jake,” Ayan told her, squeezing her eyes closed. She was already tired of breaking down, whether from emotional or physical pain, it didn’t matter. “I stopped him,” she said, unable to stop a new wash of tears.
“I’m sorry,” Laura offered genuinely. “I’m so sorry.”
It was the last thing she had a chance to say before the doors were forced open and Carthan soldiers rushed in with a medical team in tow.
Chapter 17
Evening Descends
Shamus Frost couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a moment to watch an eclipse. It was only a phenomenon of perspective and the movement of celestial bodies, but the one above him was somehow special. The busy sky and the myriad ships that traversed it were tinted in hues of red and purple as Kambis appeared to block out the sun. Frost knew it was Tamber, the moon he stood on, that was moving, and the colour was a result of light passing through Kambis’ atmosphere, then through Tamber’s, but for once the knowledge didn’t spoil the illusion. The view from where he sat was incredible.
When he spotted the old lift leading to a gangway running along the roof of the main hangar they were rebuilding the Samson in, he wanted to check it out. However, the need to remain anonymous was far more important at the time, and he didn’t want to stand out as the only worker peon that was exploring. When things settled down after the nearly two thousand workers who had been sealed in their vacsuits for weeks were told they didn’t have to remain hidden, he took the opportunity to take that lift up all the way. From the gangway, he watched as everyone below was given the next twenty hours off. Relief became celebration, and he knew it would be an evening to remember. He found a hatch leading up, and he made it to the roof of the hangar in time to catch the light show of the eclipse.
The heat of the long day hadn’t subsided yet, but Frost kept his hood down. A bead of sweat would occasionally roll down his face and catch in the scruffy grey beard he’d grown while he was incognito. The air was always swirling around, thanks to the ships and smaller craft flying as near as a hundred metres overhead, but that only heated the air, and lent it fragrances of burnt fuel and that of superheated thrusters. He claimed many times that it was his favourite smell in the universe, but that was untrue. It smelled as bad to him as it did to everyone else, but Frost, the name and the guise he put on for the benefit of his men and himself, loved all things mechanical, all things that gave men the power to live and fight between the stars.
The criss-crossing lines of light around Kambis became brighter as more of the sun was blocked out. The lines represented large ships and beneath that were radial cities. While they were hiding, the solar system was coming to life. Millions were arriving in every kind of craft, in every condition, from as many as nine sectors of space. There was a time only years ago when he would have broken from the Samson crew, taken Stephanie with him if he could have, and turned the coalescence of humanity into a grand opportunity or two. Fleecing the desperate was easy. Immoral, he knew, but not all desperate people were poor people. He could make a fortune and disappear into the crowd effortlessly. He’d done it before, when it was far easier to track someone down.
He looked down to the settlement the Triton crew had built in the space they’d managed to rent from Patrizia Salustri. It seemed so big when he was down there, walking amongst the people. From where he sat, near the edge of the huge hangar, it was impossible to ignore how tiny it really was. They had a few slips, had erected walls where older barricades had fallen down using scrap metal and a couple of smaller stripped vehicles. There were two heavily guarded gates, and he could see a great deal of security officers below, patrolling the habitat and work areas. They were little black dots amongst a shifting sea of people in grey, yellow, red, green, and blue vacsuits. Aged shipping containers, some stacked three high, were converted into buildings. Most people didn’t have a bunk on a ship; they lived in cramped quarters, sleeping on small cots. The interiors of those homes were constantly improving, thanks to creature comforts they stripped from the Enforcer, but there was never an improvement in how much space they had to work with.
The slips they called home were full
to capacity. Even the fighters had to stack when they weren’t being prepped for a mission, an operation that was so delicate that he was glad it wasn’t his job.
Thin towers made from more scrap reached up slightly higher than the roof he was sitting on. They were emitter towers that they started building while he was on the Enforcer. The energy shield would be tested tomorrow, and he was glad he’d be able to show his face, because he wanted to congratulate Laura and her team on a job well done if it worked. If it didn’t work, he wanted to dig in and help. So many people beneath him bought into the illusion of safety that numbers brought.
Ships crashed every day in Port Rush, thanks to the removal of many autopilots that were tied into the functions of artificial intelligences. The shield would protect against most impacts, and it could be moved if they had to relocate. He’d heard that the negotiations led by Ayan turned out better than expected. The rumour that they would have their own island in the fresh water sea was spreading through the settlement like wildfire, and Frost couldn’t picture what the scene below would look like if the whole settlement was relocated to some oversized beach. He wanted to see it though, and that led him to a realisation that slowly brought a smile to his face.
He had no desire to leave. The call to war didn’t make him nervous. He felt he was at peace for the first time he could remember. He had a purpose, was part of a crew, he was respected, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel like he was alone. The people he would be fighting for were all there below him. He was so far above they looked no taller than the last joint of his thumb, but he was close enough to make out what they were doing.
With bare faces, they gathered into groups. Little ones darted between those clusters of old and new friends. He could see Minh picking up a young lad and showing him the inside of his fighter, his dad looking on with crossed arms and a smile Frost supposed must have been there. In the early weeks of work, a couple of hundred people left. More than half returned with the realisation that it was much worse outside.
There was sadness in the first month, when most of the messages reaching out to family and friends started yielding results. Most of the replies were from governments, or from close friends who had unfortunate news. Billions were dead all across human civilisation. That brought sorrowful news for most, and solidified their desire to remain a part of the Triton crew, even without the ship.
Most of the slaves they’d rescued didn’t have homes to return to. The Order of Eden had taken entire solar systems and the Eden Fleet, more massive than anyone could have imagined, stood sentry. It was rare that Frost felt fortunate to have only one surviving family member – a sister who hadn’t gotten back to him yet. She was a great ways off, so even if she survived, he wouldn’t get a response for another ten or so days. He hoped for the best, and tried not to think about it.
Frost looked to the sky as the sun’s light finished disappearing behind Kambis. The scene below lit up as most of the people still wearing their vacsuits turned on their work lights. Stripes on their arms, backs, chests, and shoulders glowed brighter the further they were from other similarly dressed workers, and dimmer as they stood closer, so they always walked in a safe level of luminescence. “Now that’s somethin’ to see,” he said to himself. It was a strange, beautiful light show from his vantage point.
He tapped his real command and control unit, the high powered one from his time on the Triton, and called Stephanie’s ident using silent mode. He projected her hologram onto the roof beside him, and watched her dig through a box. Seeing her extended the life of that smile that had grown on his face.
Stephanie pulled a long, simple, stretchy dress with slits part way up the sides out of the box and she held it up against herself. “You’d turn heads in that,” Frost said.
She let the dress slip back into the box and smiled at him through her comm unit. “Ash is sharing a bunk room while her quarters are being rebuilt, so she’s picking through her stuff and handing a few things out. I think she gave me all her Slink Fit clothes, from the looks of it.”
“Strange, that’s the last thing I’d think she’d pass on,” Frost said.
“I know,” Stephanie said. “I’m going to hang on to this stuff for a while. I think she’s just worn down from only being able to talk to me this whole time. The buddy system seemed to work for a lot of people through this anonymous crap, but I don’t think it’s done her any favours.”
“She didn’t link up with a couple of other people?” Frost asked. “Even I linked with the maximum.”
“Eight people?” Stephanie asked.
“Aye. Why?”
“I guess I’m just surprised. I thought you’d enjoy the break.”
“What can I say? People need people,” Frost replied.
Stephanie pulled another garment out of the plastic box, and he had trouble figuring out what kind of clothing it was, but couldn’t help noticing that there wasn’t much to it. “That’s true, especially for Ashley,” she replied. “I’m hoping she feels better after sleeping for a shift.” She dropped that garment back into the box and looked at him through her comm. “If you come down quick I think I’ll have time to model a few things for you before our cabin mates get back.”
“On my way,” Frost said, standing up. He took five steps towards the hatch and broke through a panel in the roof. “Bollox! I knew that was there!” he said as he tried to manually set his flimsy workman’s vacsuit for a fall. His command and control unit had difficulty connecting to the suit as he plummeted through the open air.
“Shamus!” Stephanie shouted as she realised what was going on.
Time ran fast as he fell through thirty-five metres of open air. His comm unit flashed green and he felt the suit change the moment before he hit.
Chapter 18
Farewells
“We still tell stories about you, our little Ash who bought her freedom and became a pilot,” the small image of Frederick Andie said. Ashley sat cross-legged in her bunk, with a small bag and a duffel in front of her. She’d just finished checking her incoming messages when one more appeared from Frederick, the older gentleman who raised her when she lived as a slave on the Gamrie estate.
“I was so glad when I got your data burst,” he went on. “I was so worried you got caught by something like so many other people. The Sand Rhumerie, the resort in which I was head chef, survived very well. The dispensers seemed a little peevish once they were infected, but they couldn’t do much harm. Bumped Gilly, one of our guest services girls, on the head something awful, but that was the worst of it. A few other resorts that specialised in the human touch fared very well, as did the poorer quarters in the cities. It seems anyone who couldn’t afford anything with an artificial intelligence had the best chance of staying clear of this while our government got to work on putting the mad droids down. Grand House Gamrie is gone, burned to the ground by those serving bots the Lady bought right before you were packed off with Master Gamrie on his star yacht. The slave quarters got off fine, most of them are here now.
"With most of the federal and provincial governments crippled, we’re holding a new vote, and it looks like one of the equality parties will get a majority, so we expect slavery to be outlawed sometime early next year, on this world at least. I watch for you or your captain to appear on the Stellarnet, and I’m not the only one. So many people wonder where he is, what’s he’s doing and if he’s going to hold up the promise he made to take the fight to the Order of Eden. They have booths here now, where they sign people up, putting them on the path to paradise, so they say. It costs sixty eight thousand credits here, so only a few people I know have signed up. They go in, get tests, pay, and I never see them again.” He rolled his eyes, in just such an exaggerated way that reminded her of all the times he caught her doing something he didn’t approve of when she was younger. A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep inside.
“Happy message?” Finn asked as he entered the eight bunk cabin. The bunk beds seemed to
o white and new. They were from the Enforcer, installed only a week before. The rest of the cabin was still bare in most places, all the cables and tubing was plainly visible running tightly against the walls and ceilings.
Ashley paused the playback and nodded. “Fred, his transmission finally got here.”
“I remember you telling me about him,” Finn said as he dropped his duffel bag onto the bunk across from hers. “That must be a huge relief. I’ll let you get back to it.”
Ashley didn’t hesitate to continue the playback, her attention fixed on Fred’s head, hovering above the smooth navy blue sheet on her bunk. “I hope there’s some truth to what the Order of Eden is promising, but I can’t help but side with those people who write ‘hate fate’ everywhere. It’s graffiti, but it gets people thinking about that little Prophet’s 'better fate for mankind' rhetoric, it gets people talking, and some of them wonder when they’ll see more about your captain leading a charge somewhere. I have to admit my reasons for watching for him are more selfish than most. I’m looking for a glance at you, little raven. Not so little anymore, but you’ll still be that girl the Gamries dropped in my lap because they couldn’t get her to stop fidgeting.” He smiled at the fond recollection. The message cut out for a moment then continued with his head turned differently, indicating that he’d cut something out. “This is getting long, so I won’t keep you. I only must say that you have nothing to worry about. Everyone you knew and loved here are well; I’ve shared your message with them and they want the best for you.” He said it almost like a presenter, but he always had a slightly stiff air about him. “I hope you’re where you want to be, and doing something you believe in. If you ever need to retreat, there’s always room for you here.” The recording ended and Ashley added it to her long-term storage.
“Little raven?” Finn asked. “I don’t mean to pry, but I couldn’t help but overhear.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework Page 12