by Mark Wandrey
When she opened the bathroom door, attenuated scents told her Drake was still around, Ripley and their mother had left, and Rex hadn’t been home since morning. She considered locking herself in her room and getting back to work on the half-melted engine she’d nabbed, but too much restless energy surged through her for that.
With a low growl, she grabbed her ear buds, shoved them in for a visible excuse to ignore everyone, and stalked back out of the house toward the office. Dailey, the crotchetiest of Silent Night’s flight line mechanics, would still be at work. Unlike the majority of Humans, he could be relied on to point her toward something that needed fixing without wasting her time, or his, with useless words and overexplaining.
Diagnosing and solving a problem would settle her thoughts as it always did, and she’d be something like fit company when everyone gathered back at home.
She stopped short of the hangar, eyes widening, a fresh scent barely registering against the conglomeration of fuel, Human, and machine. Forgetting Dailey for a minute, she turned her head, narrowing her eyes, working to trace it back toward the source…There.
A few minutes’ trot away from the flight line and toward the office.
“Shadow!”
“Sunny!” Her brother leapt up from his crouch, loping forward to meet her with his tail low and fast.
“You’ve been gone awhile.” She bumped his shoulder, not quite a punch, and dropped her jaw in a grin. “Get bored out in the wild?”
“Never. Knew you’d come tracking me if I was any later.”
“Ripley, probably. I’d just knock down the wall and take over your room.” Sonya studied him, deciding not to ask the questions crowding her mind. She loved her siblings, she did, but they were all just as weird as Humans, sometimes. Shadow most of all.
“That’s my Sunny. No need for adventure when you can get more space for projects.”
Usually that would have landed as the banter it was meant as, but on this particular day, Sonya’s ears flattened, and her mouth snapped shut. She shook her head, trying to ward off the anger, but she saw Shadow notice, and his silent concern grated more.
“Speaking of projects, I interrupted yours, and I’ve got to get back to mine.” She tried for a neutral tone and nearly had it. “Glad you’re back, Shadow.”
“Sun…” he started to say something, one ear twisting back before he shrugged. “Glad to see you too.”
She murmured something and trotted away, swallowing back the growl trying to rise in her chest. If only they’d been raised anywhere but Earth. Sonya couldn’t picture their lives without Dana and Alan, even on the worst days, but she could have done without Humans as a whole, ruining her day with their offhand squeals.
Hands clenched into fists, she stalked past Dailey, grabbed a slate with the latest checklist, and busied herself reading through the day’s traffic. Somewhere in there would be something to distract her.
* * * * *
Chapter 2
Brisbane Australia, Earth, Cresht Region, Tolo Arm
Dana looked up from her slate as Alan entered. “You catch Shadow?”
“Red-handed.”
“He tell you some furphy?”
“No,” Alan said and shook his head. “He admitted he’d been woop woop, out Alice Springs with some Aboriginals.”
“What are we going to do with him?” She looked suspicious. “You did ground him like we talked about?” When Alan went over to his desk and made like he was looking through papers, she put her hands on her hips. “Bloody hell, Alan.”
“He’s a good kid.”
“He’s an alien.”
“He’s your son.”
Dana sighed and nodded slowly. “I know, and I love him, but that doesn’t change what he is. Different species, different motivations. We don’t completely understand them—we may never. He needs to understand consequences.”
“Do you regret our decision?”
“Never for a minute,” Dana said emphatically. “They’re as much my kids as if I birthed them. I love all five. I think I would have died if Shadow hadn’t recovered when he got that sickness. But like I said, it doesn’t change that they’re not Human.”
“I hoped this Coshke their leader talked about would come and get them, only nobody did. Then they got older, and…” Alan shrugged.
“They became ours,” Dana said. Alan nodded.
“I put Shadow to work on the cafeteria project as payment.”
“You’re too easy on them,” Dana said. Alan nodded again, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Then he sobered.
“We’re just so lucky the war never got here. The fighting in South America and Texas? It’s enough to make you chunder just thinking about it.”
“Makes me sick, too,” Dana agreed.
“I wanted to help.”
“I know, dear.”
“With most of the company on contract, what did we have?” He shook his head. They both knew all too well. Less than a platoon, and no real transport. A single ancient Phoenix-class dropship, and no starship. They’d sat and watched the war play out on Tri-V. “We have to find out why the lads haven’t reported in.” The war had ended a month ago, and he’d immediately sent out a message, but with the speed of messages in the Union, it might not have even reached its intended destination yet.
“No ship,” she reminded her husband. “Without Starbright, what can we do? Hiring a ship is too expensive. I’ve run the numbers a hundred times. We’re almost broke, and now we hear we can’t take contracts?”
“Yeah, we’re short on options.”
“At least the CASA finally gave us the bloody waiver,” Dana said.
Alan nodded. They’d applied to independently service light orbital traffic right after the war ended. The starports in Melbourne and Sydney were both still largely non-functional. They couldn’t produce hydrogen because the cities’ fusion power plants were at low output. F11 stores on the planet were nearly exhausted.
The Australian authority that controlled who could land where was called CASA, Civil Aviation Safety Authority. Like most Aussie government, it didn’t work fast. However, constant complaints of orbital operating companies in the region finally got CASA to respond and authorize Silent Night to use their private orbital class facility to service ships under 1,000 tons. Since they had a small fusion plant that had been serviced just before the war, they had plenty of power to make hydrogen.
Alan looked up through the building’s roof as a rumble rolled across the complex. “Something will come along. It always has before.” The compound vibrated as a shuttle’s landing motors roared; the first shuttle was landing for service.
“Ripley is excited to visit the shuttles as they go through,” Dana said.
“I’m sure she is.” Alan made a face. The money they would make from selling fuel would hardly pay for the F11 being slowly consumed in the reactor. Still, it was better than nothing. “Still no sign of Rex.”
* * *
Ripley shielded her eyes against the shuttle’s bright descent motors. She marveled at the design, unlike anything used by Humans. When it came to shuttles, Humans preferred shuttles with aerodynamic surfaces, which would approach in a glide path, then use rockets or jets to slow their landing, more of a STOL. This alien shuttle was a flattened sphere and only used rockets to plummet straight down.
“Wouldn’t want to be around that thing if a motor fails,” one of the ground staff said, eyeing the descending shuttle skeptically.
“Union tech is more reliable than Earth tech,” she said. He nodded but seemed unconvinced.
The engines’ sound changed from a roar to an ear-splitting scream. Ripley turned up the feedback on her ear protection, specially designed for the shape of her head and exceptionally sharp hearing. Turbofans were particularly hard on her ears because they had dangerous sound spikes in the ultrasonic that Humans couldn’t register.
The shuttle waited until the last second to increase power and slow before droppi
ng six pairs of spider-like landing legs. With a thump and groan, it settled to the ground like a big fat cane toad. The rockets cut as soon as it was all the way down. The ground crew, professionals that they were, waited a long 10 count before moving in.
The shuttle had a pair of heavy loading ramps, one on each side, which were lowered by powerful hydraulics. Ripley could tell the ship had been designed for heavy hauling and fast landing. It wasn’t efficient at all. Ripley took her slate and walked over as the ramp began to lower. When a Jeha slithered out, she was a little surprised.
“I was not expecting a Zuul,” the alien said, its clicking language rendered into English by Ripley’s translator.
“I wasn’t expecting a talking millipede,” Ripley countered. The Jeha reared up a bit, massive segmented antenna waving in surprise. “You’re requesting 120 tons of hydrogen?”
“Correct,” the alien said.
“Our rate agreed upon is 100 credits per ton, and a 50-credit ground service fee.”
“I am aware of the charge,” the Jeha said. “It is outrageous.”
“You are welcome to go elsewhere for your fuel.”
“There is no elsewhere,” the Jeha countered, “as you are well aware. If my ship in orbit does not get the fuel, we are stuck in this backwater hell-hole of a planet.” Ripley waited and stared at the bug. “Fine,” it said finally and held out its Universal Account Access Card, or Yack, as most Humans called them.
Ripley took the card and slid it into her slate, triggering a transaction of 12,050 credits. She held the slate out to the alien, who touched the screen with its antenna, verifying identity. The credits were debited. “Thank you,” she said and handed back the card. The alien clicked something that didn’t translate and went around Ripley to watch the fuel transfer.
Ripley waved to the ground crew, who immediately began attaching the hydrogen transfer umbilical. In only a minute the fuel was being pumped aboard the shuttle. While the transfer was taking place, she walked around and studied the craft. It lacked any aesthetic touches at all. The rounded hull was carefully formed in segments and welded together with precision. According to the GalNet, the Jeha were a non-merc race, ship builders of some renown.
She ran into the Jeha—whom she assumed was the pilot—near one of the engine pylons. “Can I ask you a question?”
“I suppose,” the Jeha replied.
“Why does your shuttle design have no aerodynamic surfaces?”
“Some worlds don’t have atmosphere,” it explained. “Why bother?”
“Because some worlds do,” she replied. “Having a lifting body or wings won’t detract much from a shuttle’s function, and it will decrease operating costs in an atmosphere.” The Jeha turned its black beady eyes on her. “It looks nicer, too.”
“Looks nicer?” the Jeha asked. “Who cares how it looks?”
“Fueling complete, Ripley!” the crew chief called out.
She turned to ask another question of the Jeha, but it was already heading for the boarding ramp, its legs propelling it in a constant wave-like undulation. “Rude bug,” she said, and followed the ground crew to help them secure the fueling cables in their underground storage. They barely got the blast shielding in place and had cleared the area before the Jeha fired the ascent engines, and the shuttle lumbered back into the sky.
Ripley touched her radio transmit button. “Did that Jeha request clearance to take off?” she asked.
“No,” the traffic controller replied. “Is the crew okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine.”
“Should I file a complaint with the government?”
“The Terran Federation is still getting its act together down here,” Ripley said. “By the time anyone can do anything about it, the bug will be long gone.” She made a note from now on to have the ground crew tie down each shuttle so the craft’s crew knew they couldn’t simply blast off when they felt like it.
Word had gotten out, and she was busy all afternoon as a parade of various shuttles flitted in and out of Silent Night’s mini-starport. She had her hands full moving cargo for the shuttles as well as fueling them. Most of the cargo was goods for evacuating mercs, though no actual mercs. The fuel was mostly to be sure the three big hydrogen bunkers didn’t run too low. Silent Night’s little fusion plant could only turn seawater into hydrogen so fast.
Her most enjoyable service call so far was a shuttle from none other than the Winged Hussars, one of the Human Four Horsemen. The most famous merc units on the planet, the Horsemen were descended from the only four merc units to come back alive from the first time Humans went to space. She liked the Hussars the best because they were a space navy unit—and a dardy one at that!
The other bonus was the Hussars had aliens in their unit. Lots of them. The pilot of the shuttle was a reptilian elSha, and its copilot was a Human woman. Not only did they get along, but from their interaction, they seemed to be the best of friends. The shuttle was a unique design proprietary to the Hussars. A big delta wing design with foldable canards, it also had shields and dual ventral/dorsal laser arrays. They’d delayed leaving almost an hour to give Ripley a personal tour.
“You grew up on Earth,” the copilot asked, “didn’t you?”
Ripley had been schooled by her parents to volunteer as little as possible to outsiders about her and her siblings. The woman had long, blonde hair almost the same shade as Ripley’s fur. She looked stunning in her black coverall uniform with the blue stripes down the arms and legs that denoted a pilot. “Yes,” she admitted. “My parents saved us on a contract.”
“Wow,” the woman said. “I’m Lieutenant Jane Kowalczy. My family helped found the Hussars.”
“So you own it?”
Jane laughed. “No,” she said. “The Cromwells own it.”
“How does that work?”
“It’s complicated,” Jane said, then changed the subject. “One of the Egleesius captains is a Zuul, you know. Captain Drizz of Nuckelavee. He’s a pretty cool guy.”
“Are there a lot of Zuul in the Winged Hussars?”
“I don’t know how many,” she said. “Hold on.” She closed her eyes, and Ripley realized she had pinplants. “Personnel records say 48 Zuul. That’s not a lot. I know many are in security and the marines, though. Pegasus had a whole Zuul platoon, but they were killed in the war.”
Ripley was sad to see Jane go, and she wondered what it would be like to sign up with the Winged Hussars and fly away into space with them. They wouldn’t care she wasn’t Human, and might not even care she hadn’t been raised by Zuul. Sonya was always worried they were trapped between two worlds. Ripley tried not to let it get to her. Still, her tail hung low as the Hussars’ ship took off.
* * *
Shadow shook sweat from his head and sighed. The afternoon heat was higher than normal near Brisbane. It didn’t help that every time a shuttle came in, it sent blasts of rocket exhaust everywhere. He straddled a truss on the new cafeteria’s roof, a hammer in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He could see a pair of the local kids’ dogs under a shelter near the motor pool. He felt for the primitive animals; not being able to sweat properly must suck.
Dogs were a problem for him and his brothers. Their parents hadn’t been able to ban the animals from Silent Night’s compound, though Shadow suspected Alan had tried. The simple truth was Zuul looked a lot like German Shepherds, at least in the general design in their heads. Of course, the similarity ended there. For one, Zuul had reversed knees. Shadow considered it a common-sense design; it allowed his people to leap, turn, and accelerate in ways no Human could match.
Their internal physiology was close enough to Humans. Most mammalians in the galaxy were as well. Heart, liver, lungs, something like kidneys, a lymphoid system, etc. He’d read a lot about it in school. Earth was an interesting planet—only a member of the Galactic Union for a century, however they’d been close to colonizing their star system without Union tech. So they’d written a lot about how many r
aces resembled terrestrial life so closely.
Shadow wasn’t much of a study on many subjects. He wasn’t called to one thing or another like his brothers and sisters—his calling was more transcendental. However, he did like biology to some degree, and he had to agree with the scientists. It was interesting that he could eat the food on Earth just fine—there were plenty of things he and his siblings could eat that would give a Human worse than a gut-ache. In fact, any race in the galaxy that couldn’t find something to live off of on Earth—meat, vegetable, or other—would be considered an exotic.
Either way, he didn’t hate dogs on Earth. He didn’t like them, either. Usually he and his siblings tended to cause a dog to go berko. Their parents had a video of Shadow and the other pups trying to engage a company member’s Great Dane in play. Reportedly the dog had never been the same until its dying day.
The real problem was every bloody Human who encountered him and his siblings tended to treat them like dogs. Talking down to them was common. Sonya was the worst at dealing with it, and Rex’s response was to crack the shits. Humans couldn’t usually tell when Sonya was moping, but it was easy to tell when Rex started snarling—and he was a big bloody Zuul.
Shadow clipped the water bottle to his tool belt, grabbed the pneumatic nail gun, and went back to work. Bang, bang, bang, check to be sure the runner was secured, scoot down, nail again. As long as he kept up a routine, it was good, mindless work, which let him think about the trip out woop woop.
The Aboriginal holy man had said Shadow had a calling, and suggested he consider spending more time with him. Of course, he couldn’t. Their age was part of the problem. Shadow and his siblings were only 14 years old; adult for Zuul, according to GalNet, but barely teenage for Humans. They were citizens of Australia, thanks to the Porters’ multi-year legal fight when Shadow was young, but that didn’t change that the age of majority was 18 on Earth. If Shadow took off, the Porters could and would have him hauled back.