by J. S. Morin
Mriy’s ears twitched. “I think they’ve come across our trail. We should get moving.”
“And what?” Carl asked. “Outrun them? They’ve been in the jungle for six years.”
“Humans go feral when that happens,” Mriy replied. “We need to get you back to the ship.”
Carl held a hand over his heart. “I’m touched, but since when are you an expert on human psychology?”
“There’s truth in every holovid myth,” she replied. After a moment studying Carl, she changed tactics. “On second thought, remain here. Our best chance lies in ambush. We stand a better chance on the attack, and you would—”
“Be useless,” Carl finished for her. “Yeah, I know.”
“Give away my position,” Mriy corrected him. “Kubu, if you would be alert, I may need assistance once the fighting begins.”
“Kubu shouldn’t fight people,” Kubu said.
Carl reached back and thumped him on the shoulder. “Atta boy. No one’s killing anyone today.”
“The choice may not be ours,” Mriy insisted. From a predatory crouch, she waited with knives in hand, each twice the length of her claws.
“Put those away or you’ll end up needing them,” Carl warned. “That’s an order.” He didn’t pull the ‘order’ business often, but if ever there was a time for it, averting a jungle bloodbath was that time.
Mriy grumbled but slid the daggers back into their sheaths on her thighs. One avenue of crisis had been blocked off.
If he admitted it to himself, Carl had some reservations along the same lines as Mriy, but he shunted them aside as unhelpful. If the survivors had become savages since crashing on Ithaca, there wasn’t going to be much use talking to them. But since he could only make things worse by worrying, he studied the plant life instead.
The flowers sported gold and purple blades for petals. The grass-shaped trees cast bars of shadow across the clearing under the setting sun. Puff balls trailing thin green tendrils stuck to the sides of those trees, dislodged by each passing breeze only to latch onto another. The pervasive vines that Carl had cut deflated and shriveled away as the sap spilled onto the jungle soil. A botanist’s dream, any or all of it could have been harmful to human existence. For a spacer, it was a xenobiological hell.
Moments later, a crunch sounded from the underbrush. “They are close,” Mriy hissed in a whisper. “Decide.”
Carl nodded, then stood and took a deep lungful of air—likely contaminated with alien microbes. “Hello! Who’s there?”
Mriy’s eyes shot wide. She ducked even lower behind the cover provided by the tangled vines. Their artificial clearing was scant protection, but whatever made her feel better.
“They are discussing,” Mriy said. “Your voice is unfamiliar.”
Even though it had been six years, Carl was disappointed that he hadn’t left more of an impression on his crewmates. Starfighter pilots held a special place in the naval hierarchy, shy on authority and garnering more admiration than their ranks should have warranted. No one but the flight control and hangar staff paid their orders any mind, but everyone knew who they were. After a battle they often had the best stories, and would tell them for the price of a drink in the rec hall. They were the hub of gossip, the contestants in kill count wagers, and usually the choosers of any fraternizing partners they liked. Pilots made life between missions lively for an otherwise buttoned-down ship. Flamboyant lifestyles hinted at a desperation to live life while it lasted, because pilots counted for the largest share of funerals on board ship.
Given all that and the fact that Carl was a bit of a standout even among the colorful cast of the Half-Devils of Squadron 333, six years didn’t seem like too long a time to be remembered. But Carl held back the indignant reply to a conversation he wasn’t meant to have heard.
Soon enough, the underbrush parted and four men and two women emerged. The men were shaggy haired and bearded, stripped to the waist with rippling muscles wet with sweat. The women were attired lightly along the same vein, but with a hint of modesty. Their long hair coiled into heavy braids. Each of the six carried a sharpened metal pole as a spear, wrapped in leather at the far end from the point.
“Who are you?” one of the women demanded.
A mental roster of the female personnel on the Odysseus flashed through Carl’s head, but to no avail. Six years had fuzzed too many memories and probably changed her as well—whoever she was. “Lieutenant Commander Bradley Carlin Ramsey, Earth Navy, retired,” he said, trying his damnedest to give a proper salute for once.
“You gotta be shittin’ me,” a deep voice grumbled from one of the survivors. “It really looks like him. But it can’t be; squadrons were all out. This must be some sorta test.” The man hefted his spear and leveled it at Carl.
Raising his hands in surrender, Carl took a step back. “Hey, I hate tests. Pretty sure I didn’t grow up to become one. We just hit this rock, so I don’t know the backstory once the Odysseus disappeared.”
The woman who first spoke put a hand out to stop the spearman. “Wait. You’re telling me that the squadrons survived? You didn’t just get sucked along with us and dumped on some other part of Hades?”
“Hades?” Carl echoed.
“Azrael thought it up,” the spearman said, looking into the sky with a thoughtful expression. “Thought it was a good name for this place. Not how I’d pictured hell…”
“Who’s Azrael?” Carl asked.
“Hold on,” one of the spear-wielding men asked. “The real Commander Ramsey should know that.”
“Maybe he’s a spy,” said another.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” the second woman said. “The navals know Azrael. Why would they send a spy who claimed not to?”
“To make us believe he came from off-moon?”
“But we don’t.”
“We don’t?”
“Squadrons were out. Either this guy ain’t a Typhoon pilot, or he should be dead.”
“We won,” Carl said, judging it an appropriate time to interject. “We won the Battle of Karthix. I got a medal.”
“You,” the first spearman said, jabbing a finger at Carl. “Got a medal. Way I hear it, there was no way anyone could have survived that battle. Navals made that clear as microlens.”
The navals. Why was he calling someone naval? Wasn’t everyone on the Odysseus part of Earth Navy? Were these deserters post-crash? Carl decided to run with it. “The fuck do they know? I threw naval rules and regs out the airlock the minute Commander Roquefort decided to try surrendering. I took command of the squadrons, and we gave ‘em hell. Nine of us survived, but none of them did.”
“You expect us to believe—”
“We dusted the carrier,” Carl said. “There was no place for anyone to go. Not a star-drive left in the system and a dead world below us. We orbited that rock for days before Search and Recovery picked us up.”
“I believe him,” the first woman said. She thrust her spear into the soft jungle soil and stepped forward, hand extended. “Sergeant Gayle Messerschmidt, Earth Marine Corps.”
Marines! For the first time he looked closely at their shoulders. Each bore an insignia he knew well; Tanny had a tattoo just like theirs, only hers wasn’t obscured against sun-darkened skin. Lost jigsaw pieces shook into place in Carl’s memory: the special detail assigned to guard the experimental tech. Carl shook her hand. “Azrael… one of the star-drive mechanics? Jesus, it’s been years, and I didn’t exactly hang around the star-drive.”
Messerschmidt gave a curt nod. “Who’s the xeno?”
“Mriy of clan Yrris,” Mriy said. “My world is like yours, and its name is Meyang.”
“New protectorate?” one of the marines asked.
Mriy’s ears twitched back, but another marine answered before she could object. “Nah, just remote. I did a tour there. Nice place, if you like rustic. Natives are dangerous as hell—no offense.”
Mriy flashed her fangs. “None taken; we are.”
/> There was a quick round of introductions as Carl met Corporals Joyce Tsukov, Tam Xiang, Robby Phan, Luis Vasquez, and Draven Martz. None of the names sounded familiar, but that didn’t surprise him. Carl had his own flock of subordinates, rivals, and admirers in those days. There hadn’t been much incentive for him to wander the far reaches of the ship to meet everyone.
“Biggest damn dog I’ve ever seen,” Vasquez said, jerking his head in Kubu’s direction. “He gened up or something?”
Mriy muttered something Carl couldn’t catch, but Kubu nodded and said nothing about not being a dog.
“Nah,” Carl said. “Off-world breed and just a puppy.”
“Why would a rescue team bring a puppy for a tracker?” Messerschmidt asked.
Carl chuckled. “Who said anything about rescue? We crashed. Besides, full-grown we wouldn’t fit him on our ship.”
“Well, keep him under control,” Messerschmidt ordered. “Azrael can decide what to do with him. Come on.”
“Where we going?” Carl asked.
“To see Azrael,” Vasquez replied. “He’s in command out here.”
Carl tried to keep his rolling eyes from attracting the ire of his new companions—or captors, depending how things played out. “I mean where? My feet are fucking killing me, and I wanted a high-orbit estimate on when I can—” he stopped himself before saying crash. “Take a load off. I’m a pilot; hell, I’m a retired pilot. I’m not cut out for this jungle bullshit.”
Vasquez chuckled. “Better get used to it. Azrael says this moon doesn’t turn temperate for about five hundred klicks toward the nearest pole. And with no tech, there’s no getting off this rock.”
Carl pointed to one of the spears. “I see you pulled some salvage from the wreck. What’s the highest P-tech you’ve kept working?”
“Basic chem,” Messerschmidt replied. “Ballistics work fine. Some elastic properties. Tactical armor still protects, but only in passive mode, and it’s too hot to wear for more than a few minutes. Basically, we’re back to the stone age.”
“In theory,” Carl said. “If we could get tech working, how much is left intact on the Odysseus?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Messerschmidt said. “Because there’s no way that would happen. Besides, no one’s gone aboard in years.”
# # #
The corridors of the Odysseus nearest the mountain were an obstacle course of twisted metal and jutting rock. Portions of the ship had been peeled like a carrot as the battleship had stabbed into the mountainside. In places, there were signs of debris having been cleared—polymer steel panels leaned carefully against walls and holes down to the mountainside where vast swaths of scrap had been dumped.
Esper led the way as Mort’s stubborn ball of light bobbed along at her shoulder. The ship had a stale, moldy scent, and the air was too thick and humid to breathe deeply. The saving grace was when a breeze from the jungle would force its way into the wreckage through a nearby breach.
“What are we looking for?” Rhiannon asked from the rear of the procession. “This place looks stripped. They’ve been here six years. Don’t you think they’d have gotten anything useful out of here?”
“Maybe,” Tanny replied.
“They were just trying to survive,” Charlie said. “We’re looking for the good stuff.”
The good stuff. Esper shook her head so slightly that she hoped no one would notice. However many lives lay in the jungle graves Mriy had reported, she couldn’t imagine that all the bodies had been recovered from the crash. The whole front section of the ship was buried in the mountainside. This was a gravesite as much as a shipwreck. A thousand or more souls lay unmarked within its confines. Some navy officer had probably lied to all their relatives about what had become of them.
“What?” Rhiannon asked. “So we’re going to carry gold doubloons down to the Mobius and hope Mort and Roddy can get us off this weed-farm?”
Charlie laughed, a strange tittering that reminded Esper of a squirrel she’d seen in the New Los Angeles Zoo. “Not gold, tech. Blaster rifles, comm gear, sensor arrays, computer cores… hell, the spare parts in the maintenance bays could set us all up for life.”
“Lucky us,” Esper muttered. “A thousand dead, and we claim their things.”
A hand grabbed Esper by the upper arm and yanked her back. Before she could protest that she was just thinking of the price of their riches, a ceiling panel creaked in a sudden gust from outside and gave way. Esper cringed at the deafening clatter as the polymer steel sheet slammed to the floor where she was about to step.
“Careful,” Charlie said, offering a quick smile before releasing Esper’s arm.
“But how did you…?” Esper began. There had been no warning. Charlie already had hold of Esper’s arm before the first sound from the precarious ceiling panel. Had she reacted to the noise, it would already have been too late.
“We’re all friends here,” Charlie said. “Guess it doesn’t hurt to let you in on the secret. I’m a determinative precog. Comes in handy for a pilot.”
“A what?” Rhiannon asked.
“Beats me,” Tanny replied.
Charlie took up the lead, stepping gingerly onto the fallen panel and into the shadows cast by Esper’s light. “I get a feeling for what’s about to happen. As soon as it can’t be stopped, I can see it coming. Free will fucks it up, so the less I’m around other people, the clearer it gets. If we’d shored up that ceiling, maybe even given someone a boost just to steady it until the wind died down, it might not have fallen. Soon as it was locked into fate, I knew it was going to fall.”
“Thanks,” Esper said.
“Don’t mention it,” Charlie replied. “Bailed me out of enough spots in my Typhoon days.”
“Wouldn’t other fighter pilots fiddle with it?” Rhiannon asked. “I mean, if you can’t tell what they’re going to do, how would that help?”
“Dodging debris from a fresh kill, feeling equipment failures coming, that sort of thing,” Charlie replied. She took a corner and paused to wait for Esper to bring the light around. They were finally heading into the interior of the ship, hopefully away from the worst of the hull damage. “But the thing is, it does work seeing sentients. You don’t think about it much, but there’s neural hysteresis, synaptic transmission time, and reflexive action. You see a ship change course. I see a pilot’s neurons fire to move his hand on the flight stick to fire his maneuvering thrusters. It’s not a big difference, but it’s an edge.”
“Wow,” Rhiannon managed.
“If you can do that, why were you second fiddle to Captain Heroic?” Tanny asked.
Charlie shook her head in disbelief. “Blackjack never told you?”
“Told us what?” Esper asked.
“Squadron 333 was a dumping ground,” Charlie said.
“Wait, I thought you were the elite Typhoon squad,” Rhiannon said. “That’s the way Carl always seemed to put it.”
“Nope,” Charlie said. “Well, at least not at first. Blackjack was the model citizen of the bunch. He might have had a loose tongue and a limp salute, but he got shit done. When he took command of the squadron, he recruited from the disciplinary docket. Most of us were second-chance cases. All of us could fly, but that’s not the only thing the navy cares about. Samurai and Wolfhound both did time for insubordination. Hatchet decked his flight chief. Most of us would have been out of the navy or in lock-up if not for Blackjack requesting us.”
“How about you?” Esper asked. She wanted to hear something reassuring, especially after the way Tanny had reacted to Charlie coming aboard the Mobius.
“Psych eval,” Charlie said with a soft sigh. “I never could tell what they wanted me to say. The whole thing was one big, biased trap, and I told them so. They didn’t want to hear it. But Blackjack had someone on the inside at the mental health division—hmm, I never thought about it, but I wonder how he… never mind. Anyway, he got to me and put in a request for transfer before I got written up. I retook the test, and
he coached me on passing.”
Rhiannon snickered. “That’s rich.”
Esper shot her a glare, and Rhiannon clammed up. Carl wasn’t a model of sanity, but Charlie didn’t need to be the butt of that joke. In fact, hearing someone who’d known him as a navy officer put Carl in an entirely different light.
Charlie stopped at a door. “Give me a hand with this.”
Without technology functioning properly, a slide-into-the-wall door was an inconvenience. But naval engineers had at least made provisions for loss of power, and there was a shallow vertical channel at belt height for use as a handhold.
“Step aside,” Tanny said, shouldering her way to the front of the group. It was nice to see her finally able to contribute. She had been out of sorts since the climb up the mountainside, snippy even by her standards.
Hooking her fingertips into the channel, Tanny leaned and heaved but only managed to pull herself upright. For a second attempt, she braced one foot against the doorframe, but her grunt of exertion yielded nothing but noise. A few deep breaths later, a third attempt resulted in an awkward silence as her three companions avoided provoking her.
Tanny stepped back and lunged into the door, butt of her fist hammering the steel with a hollow thud. Esper made a mental note to check on her later, in case she’d broken anything. “Fuck this thing. We’ll have to find another way.”
Charlie nodded. “I have the layout memorized. I can get us to the other side of this door at least three other ways. Shame we can’t just pry this thing open. Would have thought that’s what a marine would be good for.”
“Hey! Now wait a—”
Esper cut off Tanny’s tirade before it got out of hand. “Easy. She didn’t mean anything by it. Maybe give it another try. You were making a lot of noise, but I thought I heard it budge that last time.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Rhiannon said.
“Me either,” Charlie agreed.
“Humor me?” Esper asked, fixing Tanny with an imploring stare. That trick always seemed to work for Kubu.
Tanny seethed out a sigh. “Fine. I’ll give it another try.”