NightPiercer

by Merry Ravenell

  Clotho snuggled closer to her, and their mother pulled her fluffy tail around them like they were still little pups. Lachesis rested her chin on her mother’s shoulder and resisted the urge to throw her head back in a mournful howl. She’d never do this again. She’d never do any of this again. While she absorbed every shred of it, her father started to contact the rest of their extended family to put together a send-off breakfast the day she left.

  “We will see each other again, in the next life.” Her mother nuzzled her ears.

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I have to,” was the reply that came with a scent of grief so intense Lachesis closed her eyes and cowered into her mother’s pelt.

  Rainer

  She poked at her breakfast. Nobody else at the long trestle table tried to convince her to eat. Her bunkmates had heard the solemn news the previous night, and by breakfast, everyone on her meal shift knew. Even the kitchen staff had heard. A cinnamon roll—a rare, exquisite delicacy—had somehow appeared with her meal. Complete with white-sugar icing and a little orange zest.

  She managed two bites before it lost all taste.

  “It’s bullshit is what it is,” someone whispered to someone else.

  More gossip whispered its way down the tables, including the juiciest tidbit of all. A shuttle had been spotted on its way from NightPiercer several hours earlier. Not scheduled, no cargo manifest, no cargo crews ordered to wait for it.

  “Whatever is coming in on that shuttle Command doesn’t want us to know,” the person next to her whispered.

  The cargo bay staff had supplied the details that her scheduled shuttle to NightPiercer was the return route of a normal mail run put on the calendar three months prior. The shuttle today was not expected.

  “If we’re still here,” her neighbor whispered nervously, lines of strain around his mouth, “if it’s this hush-hush, it can’t be good.”

  “If something were that wrong they wouldn’t be able to keep it this quiet,” Lachesis whispered back.

  “Then what could it be?”

  That was easy. “What if NightPiercer has figured out how to get telemetry on Earth and everyone’s comparing notes on if it’s time to go home?”

  Her neighbor’s face lit up, and he clapped his hand over his mouth before he yelped, and a scent of joy and anticipation rose up from him. “You’re right,” he said in a quick, hushed whisper. “They’d keep that really quiet until they were sure.”

  She hadn’t heard anything, and she dealt with Ark’s Telemetry all the time working on LightBearer, but that didn’t mean they gave her all the data. Telemetry on all the ships had been unable to accurately image Earth for years. Or at least they thought they weren’t able to accurately image Earth, since the readings made no sense.

  After Earth’s pole shift, its magnetic field and Van Allen belts had gone insane. Far worse than anyone had ever expected, and the motley fleet of ships had moved to the far side of Mars. The chaotic magnetic and gravitational pockets, and the intense magnetail streaming off Earth, had chased them even further out towards Jupiter. Nobody could tell if Earth’s dynamo was still in its chaotic state, or if the Telemetry instruments had malfunctioned, been damaged, or were inherently faulty.

  None of the ships had been designed to be more than lifeboats: get off Earth, drift about, go back. The ships were already well outside their design envelopes. The thrusters used to hold their position put constant micro-stresses on the hulls, coupled with decades of exposure to radiation, the solar wind, Jupiter’s magnetosphere, and random space dust had strained Ark’s hull in ways that had only been partially anticipated. Sensitive Telemetry instruments getting blasted and no longer functioning properly didn’t surprise anyone.

  The problem was none of the ships had enough fuel to jaunt over to Earth for a closer look, and if Earth was still spewing out radiation like it wanted to be a neutron star, the ship would get torched. It was a one-time, one-way trip.

  She managed another bite of her cinnamon roll, then offered it to her neighbor. He took a tiny morsel, then passed it to his neighbor.

  She licked a bit of sugar off her fingers, and movement at the front of the mess caught her eye. Someone had just strode inside, and it was their bearing that commanded her attention. He wasn’t another early morning sap dragging themselves in for the left-over algae cakes.

  He was tall and wearing a dress uniform—a NightPiercer one. A long coat the color of sooted steel fell to his knees, with black knotted spears slashed across his left shoulder like a wound. Three bars wrapped around each arm’s cuff. White leather gloves, tall boots so polished he probably shaved in the reflection. A dark green sash wrapped across his chest from right shoulder to left hip, tied in an ornate knot. The rare fabric bore various insignias and medallions.

  Chasing after him were two of Ark’s security staff without a clue what to do with an invading senior officer from another ship, or what happened if he got out of control.

  And he looked like he could have gotten out of control very quickly: tall, strong build but a fluid ease the warned he could strike like a viper if needed, and a way of walking that welcomed anyone to try him. Even from a distance his eyes were such a piercing shade of emerald they betrayed genetic engineering, and his hair the color of loam, cut close. He was unreasonably attractive in a raw way, like a half-finished marble statue.

  He stopped dead-center of the trestle tables, back taunt and drawn, and glanced to one side, then the other. The harried security staff didn’t get closer than five strides, and one of them spoke hurriedly into his comm.

  A few people started to get up.

  “Sit down,” the officer said, the command as sharp as glass.

  They crumbled back into their seats.

  Lachesis stood, mind humming, skin prickling. She stepped over the bench and started down the aisle. Her heart beat against her throat. He noticed her instantly, and his predatory gaze traced her every cautious movement.

  “You appear to be on the wrong ship, NightPiercer,” she said as she walked, slowly, towards him.

  His face smoothed in a feral smile, and his posture shifted to the coil of a predator stalking prey. “Am I? I certainly hope not. That would be a grave piloting error on my part.”

  His scent drew her the rest of the distance. Silk, leather, wool, ozone, male, wolf, ferocity, sex.

  “I know you,” she whispered. She knew that scent. She’d only smelled it once before in her life, but it’d hooked itself into her nostrils three years ago, and here it was again.

  He moved closer. He inhaled, and said, voice low, rough, hushed, a strange light in his equally strange eyes. “I know your scent. In the shuttlebay of my ship. Three years ago.”

  She’d been on NightPiercer a few times doing mail runs to get her pilot certification, but she’d never gone any farther than the small holding room off the bay while cargo had been unloaded.

  Something wanted her closer to him. She resisted, but he did not, a single-half step had them almost touching. The folds of his silk sash brushed her breasts. The urge to touch him burned her fingers. Run her hands over his hard lines and strong frame, push fingers into his sinew and tendons to sample their strength, bite down on his ear—would he yelp or growl?

  He placed a hand on the side of her face. His fingertips curled into her hairline, and pushed her head very slightly to the side, exposing the long curve of her throat and the tattoo on her neck. Some restless, howling part of her sighed.

  “What’s going on!”

  The moment fractured.

  She blinked, then yanked her head straight as he dropped his hand, and his face turned into a controlled mask, and his scent diluted with anger.

  The wolf spun on his heel, one arm extending behind him to shield her from the side, and his quiet growl send a tremor along her nerves.

  Security had arrived. Half a dozen of them. The one in charge pointed at the wolf. “You’re on the wrong ship, NightPiercer. We let that shuttl
e dock, then you assaulted two of my staff on the way here and—”

  The wolf began to pull off his gloves. They were gorgeous, but very old, the stitching along the palms having been altered to fit his broad hand exactly. The boots were new, but the creases around the ankles betrayed they were well broken-in. “I am Commander Rainer of NightPiercer. I have come to escort my wife, Lachesis of Ark, personally across the expanse. Considering this is a family matter and I am an officer, I do not need to file a diplomatic request. You would agree I would be a very poor husband if I expected her to cross the darkness alone.”

  “Your wife?” she exclaimed.

  Rainer’s gaze slid sideways towards her. “Yes, my wife. Hello, dear, lovely to make your acquaintance. We’re leaving now. As in… now.”

  He tucked his gloves into the pocket of his coat.

  “The hell I am!” she snapped.

  Rainer ignored her, and informed the Security chief, “Also, according to The Agreement Between Ships, Command staff are recognized across ships. Your guards need an education that attacking a superior officer is a capital offense. They’re fortunate I stopped at putting them through some panels.”

  “Females aren’t transferred between ships,” the Chief said.

  Lachesis told Rainer, “Go back to NightPiercer. There has to be a mistake. Females don’t get shipped off for breeding, and they don’t get shipped off for marriage.”

  Unruffled, he stated, “There’s no mistake, and a delay is not optional. You’re coming now.”

  The sheer artistic proportions of his silhouette were like an old-Earth sculpture. The silk sash across his chest was old, or was new and had been dyed with that particular shade of green that supposedly had gone extinct fifteen years earlier. The bars and bands of rank were very old, but the medallion stitched under the shoulder bars was new, and featured the hammer-and-flame of Engineering. Plasma scars ran from the base of his skull, behind his ear, under his jaw and down his neck to disappear under the stiff collar of the coat. Over the burns a war-form mark had been re-tattooed.

  “Please don’t make me throw you over my shoulder. I hate having to be an old-world brute.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Rainer brushed his left cuff over his wrist. He had an exquisite antique mechanical watch. “You are Lachesis of Ark, or else this will become awkward.”

  “You know I am and—”

  “We’re leaving. Now. Are you walking, or am I carrying you out of here like so much grain?”

  She barred her teeth at him and snarled. “Try me. War-form isn’t pretty.”

  He paused, and a little grin tugged at the corner of his otherwise schooled expression, and a sparkle of interest entered his green eyes. “That would be interesting. I’ve never had a female try to put her claws through me.”

  He seized her right hand and swiftly yanked it up to his lips to brush a mocking kiss across her fingers. “I assure you, all that would happen is our uniforms would be ruined, and you will still be on that shuttle. You are my wife, and I am your husband, and this is about to become a diplomatic incident.”

  She tried to yank her hand back. “It’s already a diplomatic incident. I’m not your wife! I’m supposed to be the mother of your spawn!”

  “Ah, yes, there is a story to that. Now, it’s not quite a diplomatic incident, but we’re getting there.” He glanced about, dismissed the stunned mess hall as a non-threat, and Security of only minor interest, and pulled her after him.

  She balked.

  His grip tightened, and he growled. A tremor ran over her bones and rattled her joints, but she held her ground, and this time he hauled her forward.

  Clotho.

  If she caused more of a scene, she’d still be shoved onto the shuttle, and her little sister would have to take the heat for it.

  She moved after Rainer. “I haven’t packed. I haven’t said goodbye to—”

  “There’s enough time built into this little outing for you to retrieve a few things.”

  “I can’t just leave without saying goodbye to my family,” she protested, trying to hang on him to slow their pace but failing.

  “It can’t be helped.”

  “It can be!” She broke into a jog to keep up with his long strides. He kept looking around like he expected the walls to attack them. “How do you know your way around?”

  “I memorized the important sections of Ark before I came here.” He glanced around again, notably at the ceiling, then continued on his way.

  “I’m not leaving without saying goodbye to my family. All of them. I’ll never see them again!”

  “You keep acting like you have a say in this,” Rainer said with dark humor.

  “I do have a say in it! I’m Livestock Crèche, it’s the middle of a breeding cycle. Ark isn’t going to let you just take me like this!”

  “You also keep speaking like you think anyone will listen. They didn’t listen to me, and I’m the Third Officer of NightPiercer. What makes you think they’ll listen to you?”

  His frosty tone chilled every blood vessel in her skin.

  “Exactly,” Rainer told her silence. “You’re about to find out what Civilization Management really thinks of you and I.”

  A Hive In Trade

  Two of her bunkmates were in the bunk. They jumped up as Rainer propelled her inside. He glanced at his watch again. “Two minutes.”

  “Who the hell is this guy!” Sonja demanded, tumbling off the end of her bunk and headed straight for Rainer, boot in hand to smack the invading Commander around the head.

  “Her husband, Commander Rainer of NightPiercer.” Rainer side-stepped a swing. “Please don’t do that.”

  Sonja took another swing. He let her hit him this time. Dusted off his shoulder. Ducked another. The other bunkmate tried to point out that attacking a superior officer was a bad idea, then wrestled her to the ground.

  Lachesis barely heard them as she stumbled towards the trunk at the foot of her bunk. She’d half-started to pack the previous night, but it’d been too depressing. Almost all her clothing was Ark-issued because cloth was so rationed. She grabbed a few things so she wouldn’t be naked, a few small trinkets she’d acquired, and two small pouches containing various datachips.

  After a bit of hesitation, she left the precious paper card and envelope. So much for treasuring it forever. Maybe someone else would enjoy having it.

  After another moment of hesitation, she pulled her comm from behind her right ear.

  She had to do this for her family. She had to walk out of this ship and onto that shuttle and into this craziness. Because if she acted like some feral crazed bitch, it’d be bad for everyone, and she’d still be shoved onto the shuttle.

  “Lachesis.” Rainer summoned her.

  She slung her small bag over her shoulder.

  They made quick time down to the cargo bay. The usual foot traffic in the corridors hastened to get out of Rainer’s way. The wolf had an aura and expression that pushed people aside. Or, in her case, compelled her numb acceptance of her situation. Everything she owned tied up in a little bag like she was one of those tramps in old movies that stowed away on trains. Bindle. That’s what the little bag and stick was called. A bindle.

  The snub-nosed shuttle, plated with tiles made of a flexible and radiation-resistant graphene-carbon-nanotube compound, over a reinforced steel-aluminum-titanium alloy hull, waited for them. The shuttle’s belly was smooth, allowing for just the loading ramp, but a bulge like a camel’s hump rose off the back, giving enough clearance for the generation disc and two small nacelles. NightPiercer’s shuttles always reminded her of spindly-legged maggots.

  The bruises and marks of years of traversing the void scarred the shuttle’s hull. The tiles were mismatched, some a darker shade than others. Those were the newer ones, while the faded ones were blasted and bleached from radiation and solar wind. There were scorchmarks from unexpected solar wind or cosmic blasts or Jupiter belching radiation, and little pockmarks
from collisions with debris.

  Rainer barked for the cargo crew to get away from the shuttle and increased his pace. She allowed him to pull her along, staring up at the tail assembly instead. NightPiercer’s shuttles weren’t that different from Ark’s, although they had different drives. Ark used primitive nuclear drive cores for its shuttles. NightPiercer had had time to build scaled-down magnetic/ion drives. The nacelles looked different from the ones she’d seen before. Longer, broader, and the disc seemed larger as well, and not nearly as weathered.

  Rainer hauled her up the ramp into the shuttle’s belly. Just as she stumbled onto the main level the ramp began to close. He wasn’t wasting any time.

  The shuttle’s belly was empty. Rainer took off his sash and coat and secured them in a small alcove clearly meant for that purpose. He loosened the collar of his white shirt.

  She gave him a sideways look. “Where are the pilots?”

  “That would be us. You have left seat. You’re a pilot and you’ve even done NightPiercer runs. You know the route.”

  “I’ve never flown a NightPiercer shuttle. Obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “You flew this? Solo?” Aside from the fact flying a shuttle solo was a needless challenge and just not done, she would have liked a few hours to get used to the idea of having to spend her life unsupervised with him.

  Rainer walked to the flight console and brushed his palm over a biometric scanner. The console illuminated as the computer’s boot sequence started. While the computer booted, he took off his boots and socks. “Every good engineer knows how to pilot a shuttle. Sit.”

  “How good an engineer are you?” she asked bluntly. Just because he was Engineering with three bands didn’t mean he was the best.