by S. J. Madill
With a wave of her hand, the air around her sparkled and came alive. A sphere of light grew around her: a holographic projection, quickly filling with data. Tables showed the status of the ships in her fleet, and lines showed their movement. Everything was on schedule.
She turned halfway around, her kinetic bandage clicking under her coat. Her armoured shadow Irasa stood two steps away. Behind Irasa, Colonel Mwangi stood at attention, awaiting her orders. Both in their places, where she needed them to be.
She stepped back to the railing. The holographic sphere moved with her, modifying its display based on the direction she was facing. She leaned forward, the bandage clenching tight around her midsection. "Captain Para?"
One level below, the Kaha Ranila's commanding officer had been speaking to one of his junior officers. The junior officer stepped away, while Para looked up at her. "Mahasa. We are about to emerge from FTL. The ship is ready to proceed with your orders."
"Very well, Captain."
Even from up here, she could see the brief flash of distaste on his face. His eyes went to the railing near her left hand. "Blue gem, Mahasa."
"Blue gem. Understood."
She'd discussed her plan with the fleet's captains. Some of them — like Para — weren't happy about it. Neither was she. Shooting at the Horlan, or the Bezod, or the humans, was one thing; turning their weapons on their own people was entirely different. Going to war with family, in the name of peace. All because some power-hungry Pentarchs chose it, and others failed to stop it. Just the latest absurdity the universe had thrown at her.
Zura looked down at the railing near her left hand, at the unlit line of gems. When all was ready, and the weapons crews had their targets, one of those gems would light up blue. She would fire the weapons. If Palani were to die today, the blood needed to be on her hands and no one else's. A few more ghosts coming to haunt her sleepless nights was of little consequence; she'd barely even notice them in the crowd.
A flash of light, a moment's sensation of falling, and they were out of FTL travel. The stars sprung back into points; to the right of the Kaha Ranila, the small blue star gave off a cold, feeble glow. To the left, the smooth grey ball of the system's second planet leapt into view: the location of the Palani Reserve Fleet.
More flashes of light, as other ships appeared nearby. First was the gleaming Kaha Terra, her flagship's sibling, a kilometre-long blade hanging in the stillness. Trios of frigates arrived, flying in precise formations. Their timing and position were good; an orderly arrival was a promising start for the battle to come. She turned her attention to the holographic projection surrounding her, pulling out her handkerchief as a tickle started in her chest.
Her field of view was filled with data: things invisible to the eye were drawn in glowing lines. Arranged around the grey planet, like a partial ring, were the rows of dormant ships of the Palani Reserve Fleet. The Palani people's legendary might from ages past, silent and still, waiting for the day they might once again be needed. Dreadnoughts, frigates, patrol ships, and others. All of it ancient, all of it ready to return to duty on a few days' notice.
Her display showed activity near the Reserve Fleet: the forces of the Temple were already here, working to reactivate several dreadnoughts. With a wave of her hand, the holographic projection shifted. She looked down on the system from above, zoomed in on the parked dreadnoughts. Small shuttles swarmed around three of the leviathans, as well as around several nearby frigates. Two frigates already showed power levels rising in their reactors. The Temple had been busy. And so they should be. She knew most of their senior officers. Over the centuries she had worked with them, fought alongside them, bled with them. But now they'd made their choice — putting their religion over their people — and she was prepared to kill them all.
Something new on the display. She moved her hand, and her display shifted.
There they are.
The Temple's fleet was approaching: a hundred and fifty frigates spreading out. Moving to put themselves between her ships and the Reserve Fleet. No words had been exchanged; none were needed. They knew she'd come. She had to. They would fight, and whoever won would have access to all the ships parked around the grey planet. The entire power of the once-mighty Palani, ready to be turned against its own people.
Zura coughed again, and tasted blood in her mouth. The bandage clattered, and a wave of numbness floated somewhere in the back of her mind. She spat into her handkerchief. There should be pain — it should be excruciating — but she didn't feel it. Instead of weakness, she felt strength. Power. Abundant energy, like she was a teenager again, ready to jump over the railing and fight the enemy single-handed. In her mind, she could easily imagine it.
The image in her mind repeated itself: the same scene of her jumping over the railing, again and again, the vision stuttering until all the versions of her imagination merged into one.
Déjà vu. They're here.
She knew it before she saw it in the projection. A stutter in time, as a dozen jump-capable ships arrived in the system. Brand new ships from McLean-Irvine, here in the service of their Temple employers. They'd been waiting to be called, and had leapt here from any number of systems. Arriving together, behind her.
You've surrounded us. Well done.
The holoprojection showed her: ahead, one hundred and fifty-one Temple frigates moved to bar her way. Behind, twenty-two brand-new McLean-Irvine cruisers approached. In between, her own fleet: two dreadnoughts, and thirty-three frigates. She hadn't brought enough ships to defeat the enemy, and they knew it.
Zura stood up straight, and tried to take a deep breath. She couldn't. The bandage clicked angrily as she felt gurgling in her lungs. She coughed into her handkerchief, blood momentarily filling her mouth and sinuses. Her wet cough was loud, and she saw Captain Para glance up at her. Palani ship bridges were quiet and calm, unlike human ships. No excited calling out and responding to the obvious; no eager jargon-filled recitation of data that was on everyone's screen. Officers and crew calmly went about their duties, stopping only to look up at the coughing Mahasa above them.
"Nsal 'neth." She spat into her handkerchief. She felt no pain, only numbness, but knew what her body was saying.
In front and behind, the Temple and McLean-Irvine fleets crept closer, nearing the extreme limits of weapon range. Not long now.
Down below, Captain Para reacted to an update from one of his officers. He nodded to them, then turned back up toward Zura. On the railing next to her, one of the gems lit up with a bright blue glow: the targeting systems had locked on.
Zura stared at the blue gem. A lifetime of service had brought her here. One futile, bloody conflict after another, all leading to this moment, this greatest failure of her people. Others had failed, leaving it to her to seal their shame. A shiver of cold ran down her left side. This is necessary.
She pressed a gloved finger against the blue gem.
Far below her feet, a series of vibrations made the giant ship tremble.
Zura looked to her right, past the holographic display filling with extra contacts, toward the Kaha Terra alongside. Underneath the dreadnought, dozens of points of light fell out the bottom, tumbling a short distance before abruptly stopping and holding position. More lights followed, a dozen at a time. Out of sight below her, her own ship was doing the same: dropping swarms of glowing weapons that slowed to a stop and waited.
Her holographic display blossomed with the hundreds of new contacts. As the Temple and McLean-Irvine fleets saw what the dreadnoughts were doing, they began to move: spreading out, giving themselves room to evade.
Below the Kaha Terra and her own ship, the last weapons fell out the bottom and took up formation in the clouds of their siblings. Then they vanished: the clouds of weapons winked out of existence.
Zura waited. She still felt cold, though it wasn't from fear or from pain. She reached inside her open coat and touched her handkerchief against the kinetic bandage. When she withdrew her hand, the h
andkerchief was wet with blue. Nsal 'neth. I'm leaking again.
Far off in the distance, a single light flared, like a tiny new sun. Another followed, then dozens more. Throughout the neatly-arrayed ranks of the dormant Reserve Fleet, hundreds of explosions burst in silent clouds of orange, yellow, and white. The holographic display erupted with activity, showing the parked ships flying apart as a rippling wave of explosions tore through the ranks of ships. Dreadnoughts and frigates, erupting in flame as FTL torpedoes struck their unshielded hulls, tearing the ships apart.
She sighed. There wasn't going to be a battle; there was nothing to fight over. All the ships of the legendary Palani Reserve Fleet, destroying themselves in a spreading wave of explosions and debris. The might of her people; the fleet that had underpinned their safety — and their hubris and arrogance — forever gone. Because, she told herself, it was necessary.
Zura leaned over the railing, one hand clutching the bloody handkerchief, swallowing the taste in her mouth. "Captain?"
Captain Para looked up at her. Like most of the officers and crew, he was visibly shaken. "All targets destroyed, Mahasa."
"Very well, Captain. Set course to the rendezvous point, and take the fleet to FTL."
"Yes, Mahasa."
She stood up straight, hands still on the railing, and watched out the dome as the ship began to turn. In the distance, the Temple fleet had overcome its moment of confusion, and was attacking. Several of them took shots at extreme range: feeble lines of light probing the darkness. With a flash of light, the stars smeared themselves across the sky and they were safely at FTL.
Zura studied the holographic display in front of her, reading the results of the attack. There would be no reinforcements for either side. She and the Temple would wage their war with the ships they already had, and no others. They would curse her, of course. Perhaps future generations would curse her, too. Let them.
She stayed on the bridge a few minutes more, watching the displays, thinking about her next steps. All the leaders under her — military and civilian alike — would soon know what she'd done. She needed them to hear it from her. Soon, while her body would still let her.
Zura waved her hand, and the holoprojection dissolved. "Colonel Mwangi?"
She'd seen the shock on Mwangi's face, but it had already faded. He snapped to attention. "Mahasa?"
"Arrange a conference. All my commanders and governors. Quickly."
Chapter Thirty-Three
Yaella shifted in the pilot's seat, sitting up straight. Her trashy romance novel wasn't holding her interest. The hero, standing atop a mountain, shouting his love into the wind? And on some far-off world, the heroine hears it in a dream? Pfft. She dropped the datapad onto the centre console.
At the sound of the clattering datapad, Tal looked up from his mug. Bits of plant stuck out the top, including some she didn't recognise. "'Sup, Chief? Don't like the book?"
"It's crap."
"Uh huh." Tal took a sip, the leaves shifting in the mug. She was pretty sure one of the leaves was moving of its own accord. "You know," he said, "I've got a ton of comics you can borrow. I could transmit a few to you—"
She made a face. "I dunno. I'm not in the mood for 'biff-kapow'."
"C'mon," he said, rolling his eyes. "I've been telling you, there's more to comics than that." He peered down at her discarded datapad. "Romance, huh? I've got some great romance comics. Some of them are pretty spicy." He waggled his eyebrows.
Yaella stared at him. "Uh… how spicy?"
Tal shrugged. "How spicy do you want? I mean, I've got everything from 'flirty' to 'anatomy lesson'."
"Ew." Some of her favourite romance novels were spicy, she supposed, but hardly counted as anatomy lessons. "I don't know—"
"Sure," he said. Tal rarely spoke about his personal life — apart from a few fun stories about people he'd dated — but when it came to comics, he could talk for hours. "So what'd you like? Boy meets girl? Girl meets Dosh? Uta meets segmented?"
Yaella's eyes widened. "Say what now?"
"Yup. Whatever floats your boat." He took another sip. Whatever plant had been moving before, it seemed to have stopped struggling. "I mean," he said, "We're not on the network anymore, so I can only offer what's in my own collection."
"Oh." She turned in the pilot's seat, glancing over her shoulder to the empty passageway behind. She was an adult, so why the hell did she feel so self-conscious? "Well, maybe just boy-girl? A story that's… nice?" She cringed inside. "Am I boring?"
Tal held up one hand, giving her his 'I've-got-this-covered' look. "No problem, Chief. And you're only boring if you make it boring."
Her self-consciousness refused to go away. It seemed so stupid: there was a war on, and they were out here in the belly of a giant ship, headed to a lost colony world while she worried about…
"Hey," said Tal.
She looked at him. "What?"
"Look, Chief. Everything's a bit swirly right now, you know? There's nothing wrong with wanting to escape for a while." He pointed at her with his mug. "And, you know, escape can be different things for different people. It's all good."
"Thanks, Tal." She managed a smile. "Sometimes, I wonder if I don't pay you enough. You're also part therapist, you know?"
"Oh no," he laughed. "I'm not qualified for that. And you're already paying me very well." He took a sip. "No complaints here."
"Cool." Yaella shifted back in her seat, looking at the oncoming stars framed in the edges of the Bezod cargo bay. Bucky had mentioned about how generously he and Tal were being paid. She had no idea what had brought that on; maybe his dad was having trouble with some bills or something.
She checked the dash: only a few minutes to go. "All righty," she said. "I'm going to go tell Ocean we're almost there."
"Mmm hmm," said Tal, mumbling into his mug.
Yaella climbed out of the pilot's seat and headed up the passageway, turning toward Ocean's escape pod.
As she crouched in front of him, he opened his eyes. "Captain."
"Hey, we're almost there, okay? So…"
"Thank you, Captain."
She studied his expressionless face. Was that it? No reaction? No outpouring of emotion? "Uh, Ocean…"
He watched her, but didn't say anything.
"Look," she continued, "Is this… difficult for you? Are you happy? Sad? I wanted to come here because I thought it would be important for you."
He shook his head. "I don't know." Something about him was more unsettling than usual, and it took her a moment to figure it out. "Sorry if I've asked this before, but would you mind breathing sometimes? Just for my sake?"
"Of course." He started breathing. "I had hoped that finally learning what happened to my people would provide meaning. Instead, I feel…"
"Sad?" offered Yaella.
"Anxious. Pointless. Alone."
She reached out and touched his arm. "Hey," she said quietly. "I can't imagine what it's like, being the last of your people. I guess we're a poor substitute for what you've lost. But you're not alone, okay? We're here. I'm here."
There was no movement of his eyes, no change in his breathing, nothing in the arm under her fingers. "I appreciate the sentiment, Captain."
"Yeah." She gave his arm one last squeeze, then rose to her feet. In the time she'd known him — since she'd first seen him across a prison camp — he'd stayed behind his impenetrable wall. He'd recently given hints of what his life had been, but the wall remained. Is that what centuries of solitude did? Left someone almost incapable of happiness and warmth? "C'mon," she said, taking a step back. "As soon as we're in the system, we're going to land and look around."
* * *
She barely noticed when Niner came out of FTL. When she glanced up at the windshield in front of her, the starfield had been replaced by a grey-and-brown globe. Something about it looked odd. "No clouds," she said.
"Huh?" said Tal, perking up. "Oh, neat."
Behind them, Bucky was at the engineer's
station. She could hear his puck tapping on the console. "Got a scan here," he said, almost to himself. "Huh. Planet moves slowly. A day here is ninety-two Earth days; their year is over four Earth years. No radiation, but no oxygen either. Very thin atmosphere."
Yaella raised an eyebrow. "They couldn't have intended to land here."
"They did not," said Ocean, close behind her. "This is not their intended destination. They must have had a navigational error."
"Okay then. Can we see their ship? Anything to show us—"
"Got it," said Bucky. He whistled. "Wow, they picked the worst possible spot to land on this planet. And that's saying something."
Yaella checked over her shoulder. Ocean stood behind her seat, one hand on her headrest, staring out the windshield. Behind him, Lanari and the Admiral were talking quietly to each other.
"C'mon, Tal," she said. "Let's land and look around."
"Will do, Chief."
As Tal focused his attention on the controls, she saw that contented look in his eyes. Sometimes, it was hard to tell whether he was under the influence of some plant or other. She wasn't sure whether to envy his calm, or to be exasperated by it. Whatever the case, he flew a lot more smoothly when he was on something.
The Blue Guardian came in on a gentle angle, easing down toward the planet's surface. Gracefully-rolling waves of sand were interrupted by jagged rocks, before the plains resumed their endless spread to the horizon. Just as she started to wonder if the plains would go on forever, the ship slowed. "There it is," said Tal.
At first, it was difficult to spot: just a dark speck on an otherwise featureless brown plain. But the speck grew as they approached, expanding against the thin blue horizon. The shape stretched and took on details, and as they drew nearer she could see the size of it.
It was a ship, and a big one at that. Hundreds of metres long, with boxy structures along a tubular backbone. The ship had landed hard: its nose was shoved into the ground, and its back was broken in several places. As Tal brought the Blue Guardian in to land nearby, Yaella could make out other details: some of the boxy structures lay near the broken hull, with trails of footprints near a side hatch. Not far from the ship lay several rows of dull red rectangles.