by Barry Kirwan
Micah shook his head. “Sorry.” He stared into Starkel’s coal-black eyes, finding no trace of compassion there. Micah felt a wave of calm. “Go ahead, just –”
Noise erupted all around, like termites crunching through wood, amplified a thousand-fold. Micah flinched.
“Shit!” Angel shouted through the din. “They’ve arrived early.” She looked away for a second – Micah guessed she was accessing data via her resident, telemetry from her ship.
“Fuck, two ships – they sent two ships.” Angel turned to Starkel.
Hannah came out from behind Micah. “Now you need me.”
Everyone stared at Starkel, his pistol aimed between Hannah’s eyes. The muscles on his forearm bulged.
Hannah stood her ground. “They’re calling us. If we don’t reply in one minute they’ll open fire on both our vessels.”
Angel laid a hand on Starkel’s wrist, lowering his arm. She didn’t take her eyes off Hannah. “Don’t try anything clever.”
“We’re probably all dead anyway,” Hannah said. “The bridge – quickly.”
Micah and the others tailed Hannah as she raced up the ramp to the empty bridge. Two blue-black, starfish-shaped vessels filled the viewscreen, spinning slowly about their axes. The points of each limb of the two ships glowed a dull, throbbing red, growing in brightness with each pulse. Hannah rapped commands into her console, then regained her breath. “Okay, nobody say anything, not a sound.”
Micah watched, enthralled, as Hannah started speaking what he presumed was Q’Roth – a cross between walking over dry autumn leaves, and throat-clearing after chewing razor blades.
He stood with his back to his Captain’s chair, and glanced at Angel. She shrugged, looking distinctly unhappy. Starkel’s disruptor kept Hannah in its sights. So, neither of them have any clue what she’s saying to the Q’Roth vessels.
“Give me your pistol, Starkel.” Hannah shouted. Micah gaped at her. Hannah rolled her eyes. “Look, there isn’t time. I’ve told them I’ve captured a rival to the Q’Roth in the Games, plus your ship. They’re going to send a holo-avatar here to scan us, to check my story.”
Starkel flared. “I’d rather die than –”
“Then we will all die!” she screamed at him. “We have about fifteen seconds of life left.”
Angel pried the pistol from Starkel’s fingers and tossed it to Hannah.
“Thank you,” Hannah said, then produced another pistol from underneath her console. “Sorry,” she said, “no time to explain. I told them there’d been a fight onboard.”
Micah wondered what she meant, as he watched her right thumb skim down the handle of a Q’Roth pistol he’d not seen before. Without warning, she fired at Starkel and Ramires almost simultaneously, followed by Zack as he levelled his rifle at her. She jumped down from her dais and whipped the butt of Starkel’s pistol across Angel’s jaw, sending her sprawling unconscious to the floor. She faced Sandy and Micah. “Kneel! Both of you, now!”
Micah winced at the bodies lying sprawled around him, blood dripping from Angel’s slack jaw.
“I said NOW!”
Sandy tugged at his elbow and they both dropped to their knees.
Hannah soaked up beads of sweat from her forehead with the back of her forearm. “Do not speak. Do not look at her when she arrives.”
A swirling purple haze fizzed out of nowhere in the centre of the bridge, forming a familiar shape to Micah, one he’d hoped never to see again. First to materialise was the matt-black trapezoidal head, the lower edges tapered toward the neck, giving it the overall shape of a rectangle that had been stretched down at the middle, like the silhouette of an open book. Six diagonal slits, three on each side of its face, oozed vermillion wax, like weeping sores; eyes of some sort. A rhino-like armored thorax appeared, followed by its upper pair of barbed legs, like those of a praying mantis. The rest remained mercifully obscure, the projection only half complete.
Sandy tugged his elbow again and he remembered he was not supposed to look.
He listened at the rapid, staccato conversation between Hannah and the holo-avatar. At one point the Q’Roth issued a hiss like cold water hitting hot coals, and Micah sensed they were arguing. Abruptly, the avatar vanished.
“Quick, we don’t have much time.”
Before Micah got to his knees, Sandy sprung up, lunging at Hannah with her fist. But Hannah was quicker, and whirled around Sandy, deftly trapping her in a neck hold from behind. “They’re just stunned, Sandy,” she said. “Tell her Micah, use that thing inside your head.”
He’d been too caught up in everything to process the background data projected by the resident. He stared at the pistol in Hannah’s hands, draped around Sandy’s necks; it was set on stun.
“Sandy, she’s telling the truth. Let her go, Hannah, and tell us what’s going on.”
Hannah released Sandy, pistol at hip height. Sandy’s hands were shaking. He put a calming hand on her heaving shoulders.
Hannah backed away and leaned against her console. “You’ve no idea how exhausting it is using their language, and as for arguing with them… Sandy, I’m sorry, but they’re all unharmed. I didn’t want to stun you, well, for obvious reasons – she waved her pistol at Sandy’s ‘bump’. There should be something in the med-kit to rouse them, we need to work fast.”
“This had better be good, Hannah,” Sandy said, glowering.
“Okay.” Hannah addressed Micah. “I know about the Games, all Alicians do, we plan to compete in the next ones in three hundred years’ time in a different Grid quadrant. There are certain rules of engagement. I told the captain of the lead vessel that I had captured the Mannekhi contestant, a known rival of the Q’Roth entrant, but that I demanded trophy rights. It means guaranteed eligibility for the Alicians to enter next time. I said I would only hand Starkel over after the Q’Roth commander had contacted the Games authorities and submitted a formal evidenced request for entrance by a new species.”
Angel came round, sitting up, cradling her jaw, glaring at Hannah, but listening intently. “It’s plausible, Micah. I have something similar planned for humanity if we win.”
“The Q’Roth captain – well, she was furious, and only dimly aware of the Alicians as a newly Q’Roth-patronised race. Q’Roth hordes are nomadic, tribal, even. The various tribes don’t always stay in touch.”
Sandy had roused Starkel, who climbed to his feet.
Hannah continued. “We have ten minutes, then a boarding party will arrive. Before that time we have to destroy one of their ships, release the Star-piercer, and jump, blowing up the second Q’Roth vessel with the transpatial mine you so generously attached to our hull.” She nodded in Angel’s direction.
“And how do we take out one of their ships?” Angel stood, helped up by Starkel, a bloodstain tattooing her chin.
“I was hoping the name of your vessel, Star-piercer, wasn’t just cosmetic?”
Angel nodded. “Where’s their weakest point?”
Hannah turned to her console and indicated on the viewscreen an inner ring on the central body of one of the ships. “There. Penetrate that point and then get the hell out of the way as fast as you can. I told them I would take the Star-piercer and hand this ship and its Knarll – excuse me – all of you here, alive for them to do with as they please.”
Micah helped Zack to his feet. Ramires had already come to without Sandy’s help. “Zack,” he said, “can you fly this ship in your condition?”
Zack rubbed his chest. “Ugh. No problem, just get me to my seat.”
He and Sandy helped Zack to his fighter-jet chair. Once there he began tapping controls.
Micah walked up to Angel. “Nice meeting you,” he said. “You’d better go. Good luck.” He shrugged. He wanted to tell her about Earth, that it was gone, but there was no time, and it wouldn’t help her.
The corners of her mouth rose. “Thanks.” She paused and spoke in a low tone, just to Micah. “It’s probably none of my business, Micah, but my
resident is attuned to emotional patterns, and, well life is short out here, so here goes.” She leaned close and whispered something in his ear.
He drew his head back, his eyes widening. He nodded, and parked it for later.
Starkel strode up to Hannah, holding out his hand. She slapped his disruptor into his palm. He quit the bridge without glancing back.
Angel paused at the exit. “Goodbye everyone, it’s been … an education. The Mannekhi have a saying – shit happens fast, death happens faster. Get used to it, it’s a jungle out here, and we’re just dumb wildebeest.” She nodded to Micah. “Good luck, you’re going to need it.”
Micah turned to the rest. “Stations, everyone.”
He took up his chair. “Hannah, can we power up the jump engines without them noticing?”
Zack answered. “The engines have been charged for weeks. We just need a few seconds to bring them online.”
“Show us the Star-piercer, Sandy.”
The viewscreen shifted. After a minute, the javelin-shaped ship, soap-bubble colours sliding down its shaft, edged gracefully away from their airlock.
Zack cracked his knuckles. “Now we get to see how good a pilot Starkel is.”
No sooner had he said it than the craft spun about at its mid-point, and shot like a crossbow bolt straight through the inner ring of the nearest Q’Roth ship, vanishing out of sight.
“Holy crap!” shouted Zack. His fingers crashed onto the dashboard in front of him, a dull whine rising rapidly throughout the bridge.
“Now, Zack!” Hannah shouted.
Zack’s fingers danced over his console. “Just a few seconds…”
Micah and the others watched explosions erupt where the Q’Roth ship had been punctured, spreading like cracking ice across the entire vessel.
“Zack?” Micah said. The second ship backed off. Its starfish points intensified from a dull red to bright white in a second.
“Zack! For God’s sake –”
Micah hated jumping. Every time, it felt like dying, or drowning. Everything turned the colour and texture of mercury. During these transits, he couldn’t breathe, or rather, simply didn’t breathe, as if his body instinctively knew it would be very bad if he did. There was no sound, and the eeriest thing was that he could see everything in his field of vision until it completely whited out. This time he saw a red streak lance towards them from the Q’Roth ship on the viewscreen, frozen in space-time. He wondered if the beam would somehow follow them into Transpace. The quicksilver texture of everything around him increased until he found it difficult to distinguish anything. He knew they were outside of time, but no one knew how long each jump actually lasted. His mind slowed too, hanging up, as if he was about to say something, or about to think something. He remembered a Zen koan – what is the sound of one hand clapping? Right now, he thought, this is it.
They snapped back into normal space. Micah lurched forward, resisting the urge to vomit, gasping for breath. The viewscreen showed a new set of stars. He twisted to Hannah. “Did they follow us? Did the mine get them?”
She brushed a strand of ginger hair from her eyes. “Yes and … yes. They went in – they’d ID’d our destination code – but they never emerged.”
Micah sank into his chair, looking out at the stars. Angel was right, things happened too fast in this galaxy. He heard a dull thump.
“Er, Micah?” Sandy said.
He twisted around to Sandy, and followed her gaze to Hannah’s console. She was on the floor, unconscious. Ramires’ wiry frame stood over her, his dark eyes projecting out from beneath goat-black hair. “She’s dangerous,” he said. “We need to decide her fate.”
Micah sealed his cabin door.
“Are you okay?” Sandy reclined on an easy chair opposite him while he perched on the edge of his bed.
“Me? You’re the pregnant lady around here. It’s been quite a day, Sandy. How about you?”
“What did Angel say to you, just before she left?”
Micah tugged off his boots, and let them thud onto the metal floor. “Nothing of any importance.” But it had been, since it had given him new hope, but he wasn’t sure he could trust Angel.
Sandy leant back on the sofa-like chair. “You’re one rubbish liar, Micah, but okay, I’ll humour you. I’m betting she told you to kill Hannah.”
Micah lay on the hard mattress, kneading tired eyes with the backs of his knuckles.
She pressed on. “Why did you vote to keep her alive, anyway?”
He propped himself up on his elbows. Sandy obviously wasn’t going to let him sleep. “She saved our necks today. We owe her one.”
Sandy snorted. “Along with Louise, she wiped out two thousand humans, Micah. She’s a long way from being in credit. And you saw how fast she moved today, and how quick she thinks.”
Yes, the Alicians really are an upgrade. We need to catch up – pronto. “She’s still useful. Without her, I’d feel compelled to turn right around and head back to Ourshiwann.”
“The others clearly disagree.”
“Captain’s prerogative. It’s not a democracy. Anyway, you abstained.”
Sandy nudged his shin with her boot. “Can’t have you sulking for the rest of the trip.”
She got up, standing over him, her legs gently making contact with his knees. “But she’s Alician, Micah. Ramires was right, we’ll never be able to really trust her.”
“Scorpion, eh? That’s what Zack called her.” Micah was dimly aware of Sandy’s physical proximity. But she’d said it a thousand times: it’s not going to happen.
“They’re both more experienced than you, Micah. Maybe you should listen.” She sat next to him on the bed, her hands in her lap. She placed one on his thigh. “Be a bit more cynical, Micah, like Blake. It’s quite attractive, you know.”
Micah rubbed his eyes again, he felt so tired. Why was she doing this? It wasn’t like her to tease him, not physically anyway. “You mean like Vince, don’t you?”
Her hand tensed, and withdrew. He realised what he’d just said – she’d been in love with Vince just before Louise had killed him. Idiot! “I’m sorry, don’t know why I said that.” He sat up, but she was already standing, brushing down her tunic over her bulge. She smoothed her black pants. He watched her hands as they stretched the elastic fabric over taut thighs.
“Neither do I, Micah. You need sleep, evidently. Good night.”
“Sandy, wait, just…” The door closed behind her. He slumped back down on the bed. Shit. He should have listened to Angel’s advice. He stripped off, lay down and rolled over onto his right side. He reckoned he could sleep standing up if necessary. His eyes fell on the pendant Antonia had given him two months ago; a lifetime ago. He was sure she’d have someone else by now, or maybe Kat and Pierre had found their way back. His eyes closed of their own accord, and he freefell into a deep slumber.
Micah stirred awake in a fug of sexual arousal. Completely dark, Sandy lay next to him, naked. She kissed him hard, her hand taking his and bringing it down between her legs, feeling her wetness. Her mouth travelled down his torso until he gasped with pleasure and surprise, his head arcing backwards into the pillow. She came back up and kissed him again, ravaging his mouth. She grabbed him and slid down onto him. He groaned in ecstasy. She writhed atop him, one hand between them playing alternately with herself and him, the other reaching behind her. He rose up to kiss her breasts, his hands squeezing her buttocks. It had been months – he knew he couldn’t hold on for long. Pressure built in his groin. He whispered, half-grunted “Sandy” but she plunged forward, pushing her breasts into his mouth, her hair raining over his face. The shakes started. But something was wrong. His climax approaching, he reached in front and stroked her belly, felt the tight sinews, the flatness...
“Lights,” he yelled. The lithe young Alician on top of him rode him like she was breaking in a horse, flaxen hair tumbling down her shoulders, half masking her face. She wrenched herself forwards and seized his wrists, pinning th
em to the bed next to his head, while she moved up and down on him faster and faster. Her mouth locked onto his, her tongue lashing inside. Too late… She thrust her pelvis down onto him, grinding her mons pubis against him as he came. She quivered as her body wracked into orgasm, synchronising her contractions with his every spasm. He shouted out, nothing coherent, a long animal cry. Arching his back one last time, he shuddered like a shutter in a storm, until it abated, and he collapsed backwards into the pillow.
She buried her head into his shoulder, released his hands. After a pause, he placed them around her back, until the post-orgasmic tremors subsided.
She raised herself up on her muscular arms. “She’ll never sleep with you Micah, you know that.”
Not now, at any rate. “Why did you sleep with me, Hannah?”
“You saved my life today.”
“You … didn’t have to.”
“I have needs too, Micah. Alicians are a matriarchal society. The genetic enhancements increase our hormonal activity. When we want a male, we take one. The others on this ship want me dead. Besides, like it or not, you’re the alpha male here.” Her feline eyes hunted his. Micah looked sideways. Abruptly she dismounted, while he was still inside her, causing him to take a sharp intake of breath. Instinctively he grabbed her buttocks but she pulled off him. “Want me to go, Micah?”
“No… Maybe… Yes. Too much today. Sorry.”
“I understand. You know where my quarters are.”
She bunched up her clothes and headed for the door. As it slid open, Sandy’s silhouette appeared from around the corner, barefoot, in a short dress. She and Hannah both froze. Sandy spun around and disappeared out of sight. Hannah, naked, carrying her clothes under one arm, turned back to Micah. “Sorry, Micah. Really.” The door closed behind her.
“Me too.” He lay there for an hour, trying to think of some form of words he could string together to say to Sandy. During the rest of the night he went to her room three times but she wouldn’t answer. At 5am ship-time he gave up, surrendering to fatigue. He’d lost her, for good, he reckoned. He’d always assumed he’d never had any real chance with her. But as he drifted off, exhaustion almost numbing the pain, Angel’s words played back to him, based on what her resident had shown her, re-affirming that something precious and irreplaceable had just slipped through his fingers. “Micah, Sandy really likes you, you know that don’t you?”