Ship of Ghosts

by David Bischoff

  Even as Crichton’s head spun with possible plans, something started to move from behind the enemy lines. It was dark and black and spindly. That’s all that Crichton could make out before a blast from D’Argo’s Qualta Rifle struck it. The black thing shrugged off the fire and moved forward again. As the smoke cleared, Crichton could make out its form. It looked like a tarantula. Barbed legs hauled it along, radiating from a dark bulb of an irregular body.

  “A grab-bomb!” said Aeryn.

  That didn’t sound good. Crichton’s immediate reaction was to have a blast at it himself. He let off a spray of fire, but the spidery legs kept moving.

  “Save your ammunition,” said Aeryn. “It’s a close-in fighting device used for just such situations. Frell! We’re going to have to retreat.”

  Crichton didn’t have to be told what that meant. This area formed a bottleneck, and the three of them were the cork that kept the marauders from fanning out into the other areas of the ship.

  However, knowing the efficacy of Peacekeeper tech, he could pretty much guess what being in the general vicinity of an exploding grab-bomb might do. Peacekeeper tech was anything but gentle.

  Then, from behind them, swarmed a group of twenty DRDs. Crichton watched, astonished, as they zoomed past like an angry bunch of beetles. The first to reach the grab-bomb flashed with laser-cutters, prying the thing off the floor. Like a running back in football, another immediately scampered up. Five of the DRDs lifted the grab-bomb up and clamped it down onto the back of the newcomer. The valiant DRD then scurried toward the position where the hull of Moya had been breached.

  Before he could even analyze what was going on, Crichton’s instincts drew him back for cover. There was an explosion; some DRDs scrambled back and others were hurled back in the wake of the billowing mass of fire and smoke.

  “Moya does have defenses!” he cried excitedly. “Kamikazes!”

  A voice called out from behind him: “With a little nudge and guidance from a superior military mind!”

  There, hovering above his flock of DRDs, was Rygel in his ThroneSled, looking absolutely regal.

  “Rygel!” said Aeryn. “I thought you liked to avoid the heat of battle.”

  “I know the wisdom of proper discretion in certain matters,” replied Rygel. “However, I am a Dominar! And even I would rather go out in a blaze of defiance than be imprisoned by Peacekeepers again.”

  “Good job,” said Crichton. He peered around the corner. Four Peacekeeper bodies littered the docking bay. But some of the cutter’s crew were still alive and dangerous. Fire sang from behind a bulkhead, glancing off the bottom of Rygel’s ThroneSled and blasting down a corridor to sizzle out into Moya’s steelskin interior. Rygel toppled off his ThroneSled, thumping onto the floor. A figure bounded past them, blasting. Such was the concentration of blasts now that they all had to duck to save their lives. Such was the figure’s speed that by the time they put their head up again, it was already disappearing down the curves of Moya’s corridor.

  “What or who was that?” said Crichton.

  Aeyrn took a breath. “That’s Captain Sha Sutt.”

  And before the others could object, Aeryn ran after her.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Aeryn! What do you think you’re doing!” cried the radiovoice in her ear.

  Aeryn didn’t respond. She was taking care of something she should have taken care of a long time ago, and she’d need to save all her breath and all her energy to do it. She didn’t cut off communications because she might need her comrades later. Now, though, what she needed was full concentration on following her nemesis.

  It was Sha Sutt, after all, and not only was she Augmented, she seemed to know exactly where she was headed.

  As she ran down the corridors of Moya, Aeryn could hear Sutt ahead of her. She seemed to be slowing a bit, probably not expecting anyone to be following her.

  As the air rasped through her lungs, Aeryn wondered why Sutt was headed more deeply into Moya. Then the footsteps stopped altogether. Almost gratefully, Aeryn slumped against a wall, fighting to keep her breathing silent. Sha Sutt was around the next bend.

  “Leviathan crew.” A voice rang over the comm link, and Aeryn recognized the cold, dead tone of Captain Sha Sutt. “You should be informed that I have a device of enormous power embedded on my person. I have now reached a point in the Leviathan directly transactional with a vital life-node transferral artery. In other words, should this device explode, it would kill your ship—and anything on it. You may well point out that it will kill me as well. I am prepared to die. Are you? Throw yourselves on the mercy of the Peacekeepers. Or be destroyed. Here. Now.”

  During this speech, Aeryn inched along the side of the wall and managed to peer around it. Fortunately, Sha Sutt was facing away from her. Unfortunately, it was obvious that Sutt was not bluffing.

  Her right leg—the prosthetic that had replaced the leg she’d lost on those training exercises—was exposed, the fastener down the outside undone all the way up to her hip. Lights and machinery sparkled on that hip: the casing was off. Sutt was punching in numbers on a control panel on her thigh. Aeryn recognized the telltale lumps and nodes of a Concentrate—a particularly nasty explosive device Peacekeepers sometimes planted as booby traps. Yes, indeed, if she pushed the button on that, there was absolutely no doubt it would rip the guts right out of Moya.

  Obviously Sutt had no idea that Aeryn was watching her. Aeryn might have been tempted to lift up her gun and blast her, but she well knew that Peacekeeper devices had deadman switches. A blast at Sutt would detonate the explosive. No, there had to be another way, and Aeryn knew exactly what that was. It was a slim chance, but there was no choice but to take it.

  “Sha!” she called. “Sha, it’s Aeryn Sun, right behind you.”

  The Peacekeeper spun around. Aeryn ducked to avoid a blast, but none came.

  “You are fast and you are smart, Sun. I should have remembered that,” said Sutt. “Now I need a response—or I’m going to blow us all up.”

  “That will make no one happy, Sutt. Crais and the Peacekeepers will never know what happened. Crais will just keep searching for us—all his life. Peacekeeper goals would be circumvented. You would be doing everyone a disservice. Especially yourself.”

  “You’re just buying time, Sun. Surrender, or you die.”

  “If you set off that device, you’ll die too. You don’t want to die, Sutt. You want me to die. And you know what? I’m more than happy to die—if I have a chance to save my friends here.”

  “Friends? What nonsense is this?”

  “I’m not going to explain. I’m just going to make a deal with you—provided my friends, the crew of this Leviathan, agree. And by the way, I’m more than happy to assure them that you not only have the ability to blow yourself and Moya’s insides up, but you’re insane enough to do it.”

  “Good. You tell them that.”

  Aeryn unhooked her comm unit. “You’ve been listening, I hope,” she said to the others.

  “Yes, we have, Aeryn,” Aeryn heard Zhaan answer. “We are most concerned.”

  “It’s all true. You should be concerned. So let me state my conditions. And explain to you. Sutt has a private vendetta against me, and her most cherished goal is to watch me die. However, if she blows up that bomb of hers she’ll die before me—now won’t you, Captain Sutt? And you’ll have that one thought—what if something went wrong with the bomb? What if it malfunctioned and you died—but I survived?”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “Is it? But you’re just like Crais. Too hot-headed to see straight.”

  “What would you know about Crais?” snarled Sutt.

  “You think I don’t know about Crais? You think everyone doesn’t know? He’s known throughout the Captive Worlds for stamping his little foot when he doesn’t get his way, isn’t that so? And recruiting young female adjutants into his service. But what price do they pay for their blind loyalty? How come they never live long eno
ugh to reap their rewards? He uses them to do his dirty work—by whatever means necessary! And if that doesn’t kill them, he does it himself—before they become too powerful. He sent you after Crichton, didn’t he, Sha? Even though it might kill you and everyone on your ship? And now you’re going to blow yourself up for him? Sha! You used to be smart!”

  “Lies! Miserable lies!”

  “Are they? One thing more. You’re not going to be able to take certain revenge on me unless you choose to live—a while longer, anyway.”

  “Revenge—then you admit it! You did leave me for dead!”

  “No, Sha,” said Aeryn. “If you had just investigated you’d have found that I was the one who insisted on looking for you. You’d been counted dead by the others.”

  “Another lie!”

  “I’m ready to make a bargain, Sha. Your quarrel is with me. We fight alone. Your friends don’t carve up my friends until you and I have had it out—and in turn, my friends will let your friends live a bit longer. Agreed?”

  “More than agreed, Sun. Come at me.”

  “But you’ve got that leg with a barrel of tricks, haven’t you? Let’s try it my way. I’m going to put my gun out there in front of you like this.” She slowly put her weapon down on the floor and pushed it out for Sutt to have a look at. “I go for it, and you go for me. Is that fair?”

  “That sounds just fine, Sun. I’ll wait right here for ten microts … which is as much time as it takes me to finish setting the device…”

  Aeryn didn’t give her time to finish her sentence. She dived for the gun, grabbed it, and tucked herself into a streamlined gymnast ball, rolling with exercised speed. A blast from Sutt’s rifle singed her leg, but she came up and let off a blast from her own weapon.

  The bolt missed, but it was enough to slam Sutt against the wall, knocking away her gun. As she slid down, she reached toward her leg to detonate the device.

  “No!” cried Aeryn. In a single swift motion she pulled her laser-pistol from her boot and sliced through Sutt’s leg, severing the prosthesis from the living tissue. It fell with a terrible thud on the floor. Now she could shoot Sutt without setting off the device. She levelled her pistol.

  “Wait!” cried Sutt. “For friendship’s sake! We were friends once.”

  Aeryn glared at her enemy, her pistol still pointed at her heart.

  “For friendship’s sake,” said Sutt, “I’ll tell you that you shouldn’t be shooting me, you should be disarming the device—it’s set to go off in sixty microts.”

  Aeryn looked down at the prosthetic leg. In a sliver of a microt, Sutt had pressed a place on her hip, and a new leg, as thin as a spider’s and shining with steel, shot out. She hopped to her feet and backhanded Aeryn with a glove that felt as if it were made of iron, sending her sprawling to the ground. “For friendship’s sake!” she said, and she scurried like a daddy-long-legs down the corridor. Aeryn had time to fire off a single shot. There was a screech, but Sutt continued down the corridor and around the corner, leaving a thin trail of blood.

  “What’s happened?” came D’Argo’s voice from the comm. “Sutt just went by faster than a Pulbian scuttlespider—she’s heading for her ship. While you were occupied, I’ve done away with the rest of her crew. Should I kill Sutt before she gets aboard her ship and takes off?”

  Aeryn felt old. “No,” she said wearily. “Let her go.” She seized the leg on the floor and studied it. Sure enough, the numerals were clocking down to a detonation. Aeryn knew enough about Peacekeeper equipment to realize that Sutt had not been lying. She wished, though, she knew enough about the tech to turn the damned thing off.

  She examined it more closely. If she could just—

  D’Argo appeared before her. “The bomb?”

  “About twenty microts to go!” Aeryn shot back. She reached over to grab the device. However, unexpectedly, the leg spun around and hopped into a standing position.

  “Fifteen microts!” it said. Tiny arms grew from its side. Ocular devices rose up. “Fourteen microts.”

  The Qualta Rifle fired.

  “D’Argo! No!”

  Aeryn’s warning was too late. The bolt smashed into the detached robot leg and hurled it into the wall. It did not go off. Yet.

  “Ten microts,” it said.

  That was when Pahl arrived.

  “These Peacekeepers can be quite troublesome,” he said. “I’ve done an analysis. Having spent millennia as energy-creatures, we are quite familiar with matter and energy.”

  The Nokmadi moved forward calmly.

  “Two microts.”

  He put his hand into the leg.

  “One microt.”

  There was a buzz.

  Aeryn held her breath. The moments passed. It was two microts past the moment of promised detonation, then three, then six: the device was still whole and they were all still alive.

  Pahl arose and showed them his hand, glowing a fierce cherry red. “Yes. I thought I might be of help. I neutralized it. There will be no explosion to harm any of you—or us, come to think of it. Now, can we continue our voyage to the Nokmadi homeworld?”

  EPILOGUE

  The Nokmadi stood in a row, staring at the vu-screens. They look like zombies, thought Crichton, newly emerged from their graves and not quite knowing what to make of the fact that a great wasteland of nothing lay in front of them.

  Silence filled the bridge of Moya, the silence of tragedy, loss—and eternal melancholy.

  Crichton took a moment to reflect on the events that had led them to this final confrontation with the truth of the Nokmadi.

  A diplomatic council had been held aboard Moya, with the Promised One—Rygel XVI—in charge. Fortunately, Rygel excelled as diplomat as well as savior. His regal tones might have seemed useless before, but when it came to bargaining between two groups who had hated each other for millennia, all that bullying pomposity helped.

  After much discussion, Rygel had negotiated a deal: the Nokmadi ship would return the Dayfolk to their homeworld, and those who wished to stay aboard, either as ghosts or as bodily beings, would let them go without hindrance. Then the Queen and her followers could continue their voyage through the universe. The Queen had promptly declared herself High Priestess of the New Cult of Rygel XVI, and vowed she would spread his fame throughout the galaxies, a promise that pleased Rygel so greatly he almost forgot to continue the negotiations.

  But the most important thing, of course, was that on their home planet the Nokmadi had copies of the maps that would lead the inhabitants of Moya home.

  Moya had arrived at Nokmad, the long-fabled planet of the Nokmadi. The scanners magnified the surface of the planet: cinders, the charred remains of great cities, as though a conflagration had swept over the entire world. Even the seas were gray with ashes.

  “Oh my! Some sort of natural disaster?” said Rygel, hovering in his ThroneSled. “Deader than a moon without a planet!”

  The Nokmadi, heads bowed, filed away back to their quarters. Pahl lingered behind a moment, as if unable to turn his head away from the planet he had sought for so long. His features were etched with pain and loss. “So the conflagration came,” he said. “The core of our planet has always been volatile, and not easily contained. For millennia the Nokmadi have lived with the knowledge that our beloved world might be destroyed by eruptions. Some of us went out to seek the glory of the stars—but others could not bear to leave their home. And now there is no home for the wanderers to return to.”

  “We are very sorry,” said D’Argo. The Luxan’s eyes were filled with tears as well.

  “You cannot understand.”

  “I do understand,” said D’Argo.

  “I understand as well,” said Aeryn.

  The Nokmadi nodded. “Thank you. I forgot that now you cannot get the directions that would take you home as well. But at least you have homes. Our—” He lifted a hand and gestured. “Our home is gone, for ever.”

  Zhaan bowed to him. “We will be happy to do wh
at we can to find you a new home in the galaxy.”

  Pahl shook his head, heavy with sadness.

  “A great tragedy!” reflected Pilot sadly.

  Crichton looked up at the figure of Pilot in the halo.

  “How is Moya feeling, Pilot?” said Crichton.

  “She feels the depths of the loss.” Pilot turned his head for a moment. “In fact, she has a message for the Nokmadi.”

  Pahl looked up at Pilot. “A message for us?”

  “From your ship. As you know, your ship is a gigantic plant, modified for space travel millennia ago. She has a very slow metabolism, but she is not entirely unaware. She has been in communication with Moya. Your ship says that you have not lost your real home. Your home is aboard her, the Navigator, in the World you have created, where your memories create your homeworld anew every day.”

  Pahl’s face was still sombre, but his frame looked a little lighter, a little less worn down with grief. “Please convey our deepest gratitude to our ship, which has indeed been our home for so long. We will return to her soon, and resume our travels throughout the universe. I am beginning to miss her green fields already.”

  “And Crichton?” said Pilot. “Aeryn, Rygel, D’Argo? I know that your goal is to return to your own homes. But for as long as you need to, you have a home here, aboard Moya.”

  Crichton had to smile. “Thank you for that, Pilot. ‘There’s no place like Moya.’”

  “And in the magnificence of my generosity,” said Rygel, “please thank Moya for taking care of my acolytes until they were ready to come into my service. I am prepared to lend them back to her on certain occasions if she promises to—” He was fiddling with his ear, and his voice devolved into a high shriek.

  “Rygel!” said D’Argo. “You sound worse than a screamerbird. Whatever is the matter?”

  “I’ve lost it!” Rygel cried. He toppled off his ThroneSled and scurried around peering under things: the consoles, the central table, the chairs. He got himself in a tangle of royal proportions trying to gaze down his own robes. He sat down and began to bang his fists against the floor in frustration.