“You don’t own the company, but you do have leverage.”
“No one can fly Midnight Sun like me. That’s all the leverage I have.”
“You’re more than just a damned pilot. You’re the ship’s symbiote. Isn’t that why I hardly ever see you anymore?”
“I’m seeing you now through the cameras. And we’re talking, aren’t we?”
“When did you last leave your command station, Blue?”
“This morning.”
Sun exited at Deck 13 and, ignoring the Goltar naval technicians swarming past, headed for the med-bay. “When did you last spend an entire day away from your post?” she said aloud when the passageway was clear.
Blue hesitated. “Three months,” she replied in Sun’s head.
Sun glared at the overhead. Blue would be watching her through cameras hidden somewhere along the recessed equipment channel that ran through its center. “What is it you do there? A ship shouldn’t have its captain on deck for every watch.”
“It’s never dull,” Blue said defensively. Sun could picture her little sister giving a defiant shrug. Somewhere inside, the battlecruiser’s captain was still an echo of the little girl she’d grown up with. “When we aren’t needed to run shipboard operations, we play simulations.”
“Simulations?” Sun frowned. This was news to her. “What simulations?”
“Space battles. I tell you, sis, I wish you could play with us too. Maybe we can link you in. By comparison, it makes the CASPer sim scenarios seem like throwing dice and moving cardboard counters around a sheet of unfolded paper. It’s such a blast.”
“In these space battles, are you always commanding Midnight Sun?”
“Obviously. We’re a team. But we command other ships too.”
Sun paused on the threshold of Med-Bay 13. She hated the obligation that drove her here, but she loved the man inside. At least, she’d loved who he’d once been.
“I realize this is going to make me sound like a hypocritical ass,” said Blue cautiously, “but I’m worried about your obsession with Branco. You have duties to the living. Your marines need you.”
“You’re right.” Sun pushed the access stud and waited for the door to slide open. “You do sound like an ass.”
The corpsman inside gave Sun a respectful nod and vacated the med bay. There was only one patient here today, and there was nothing he could do for Branco.
“You’re also wrong,” Sun said once the door had closed behind her. “My marines don’t need me. You should have seen Jex in action today. He’s got a little of your…unorthodox approach. Between him, Cleggy, and Top, that’s more than enough to look after our little band of survivors.
“If we’d moved closer to Earth after the Raknar job, we could have picked up mercs running from Peepo’s occupation. We could be fielding a battalion by now…Two. God knows we’ve enough funding. Instead, we’ve barely got half a platoon. And a half platoon doesn’t need a major.”
Branco was lying in a recessed medical bed. An hour ago, the walls of his self-contained unit had wrapped around him to cocoon him during hard thrust. Deep in his lower consciousness, had Branco known he’d been in a battle? Did he even know she came here whenever she could? Doctor DiMassi insisted that the best they could do for him was slow his metabolism as much as possible to delay his dying. It meant he’d slept through the whole battle, of course, but his body had been made to endure five Gs, same as everyone else.
She placed a hand on his blanket and gently felt the outline of his stumps, her pitifully inadequate way of sharing his pain. Mercs lost body parts. It happened. Often new ones could be regrown, or prosthetics added. If you had the funds—and Branco did—you could even get specialized prosthetics for CASPer pilots. None of that helped. A wasting disease had taken hold of him in the stinking jungles of Rakbutu-Tereus. All the doctors could do was fight a rearguard action while it rotted him away from the inside out, buying time for her to find him a cure.
She choked back a tear.
Branco was a merc. He’d known the risks of what he did. But by the end of the Raknar job, he’d been taking those risks because he thought he’d been fighting for Earth.
And it was closer to Earth that she’d heard rumors of a possible cure.
“Blue, listen to me! For the last time, we should be with the Four Horsemen. For Earth.”
“You’re the one not listening. And we all know why. I’m sorry Branco didn’t make it out of the jungle in one piece. It would have been better if he’d died there because he’s dragging you down with him, and I know he wouldn’t want that. Branco would understand what we’re doing, Sun. We are fighting for Earth. Here, with the Goltar.”
“No, we’re fighting for the Goltar.”
“We’re doing both, big sis. It’s efficient.”
“Don’t ‘big sis’ me,” she raged at the room. “I don’t know who you are anymore, but you’re not Sun-Yin Midnight.”
The lights flickered angrily. “In all the years since we left, you’ve never used my name.” Over the pinlink, Sun felt her sister’s rage building. “How dare you, Sun? We must leave no trail. It’s not just our sakes but we mustn’t let them get to Mamma. You say I’ve changed but look at yourself! Don’t you care about her?”
“Mamma’s dead.”
The lights went out.
So too did the myriad background noises of a working starship. The only noise was the fifteen beeps every minute from Branco’s heart rate monitor; the only illumination, the diagnostic readout over his head.
A hum returned as the air scrubbers spooled. Much of the med bay equipment had switched to local backup power, and she heard non-critical systems rebooting, the background hums and clicks of the ship.
“Blue?” she queried.
“You’re lying!” Blue’s voice thundered through speakers hidden in the bulkheads. “You’re trying to hurt me. I know you’re lying because you would have told me as soon as you heard.”
“I tried to,” Sun answered bitterly. “You weren’t listening. You shut me out, remember?”
Would her words push Blue over the edge? Sun began to fear retaliation. She’d never been frightened of her own sister before.
After a long silence, though, Blue pinlinked her reply, her words stripped of emotional nuance. “How did she die? Who? How do you know?”
“I’ve spies seeking info on…various things I wish to know. Things I can’t find for myself, kept away from Earth while we interdict Veetanho supply worlds. I was scared for her. Earth was an alien-occupied world, Blue. Weren’t you worried about her?”
“Swear to me that you’re not just saying Mamma’s dead to get me to jump to Earth.”
Rigid with fury and pain, Sun stared at the dying man and squeezed his hand. I’ve lost her, she mouthed at him. A tear finally escaped her eye.
“I’m sorry,” said Blue through the speakers. She seemed to realize she had gone too far. “Forget I ever asked that. Please, was it…starvation? Execution? Who do we need to kill?”
“There’s no one. No one except Peepo and the Guild. Mamma was just another civilian caught up in a shooting war; collateral damage during a battle in São Paulo.”
“Brazil?”
“Yeah. She sold everything after she was awarded our death benefits and bought herself a comfortable retirement in the warmth. You know how she always had a hankering for South America.”
“I want to see Earth,” said Blue. “I need to place flowers and say a prayer over her grave. But it changes nothing for the moment. We’re at war, and I think we are in the right place to free Earth.”
“And I think you’re being used. Me, Betty, Kenngar and the CASPers, we’re just a few stragglers who haven’t yet been claimed by attrition. It’s you they want. You and this ship. What’s so damned important about this ship?”
“Midnight Sun is a powerful and unique naval warship.”
“Bullshit. She’s all that and more, but that’s not why the Goltar treat you as
a critical asset. There’s something else. Something specific the Goltar want from you both that they can’t get any other way.”
Blue didn’t immediately reply, and that suited Sun just fine. She shut down her pinlink to her sister and blockaded the PA speakers in Med-Bay 13. If Blue wanted to talk, she’d have to use the shipwide emergency address system. Or get out of her damned gel bath and come see her in person like a real Human. A real sister.
Sun heard movement from the med bay’s antechamber and turned, expecting to fend off a corpsman come to check on the power fluctuations. The being slithering toward her was not Human, however.
Aboard ship, the Goltar wore a stretched sheath that allowed them the flexibility of movement, while providing access for the suckers along the length of their seven limbs that their many forms of locomotion demanded. They appeared wholly uninterested in color, other than the redness of their beaks, which many of them enhanced with cosmetics. In fact, the uniforms of sheer, elastic fabric made them look as if they’d stuffed themselves into latex gloves, or “condom pants,” as Turnaround liked to put it.
Without color or insignia to distinguish rank and role, it took a long time for Sun to tell individuals apart. She learned to tell the differences between their bony head crests. If she was guessing correctly, this individual was Lieutenant Mishkan-Ijk.
The alien clicked its beak and transmitted a low rumble through its legs.
“Is there danger?” translated the pendant around Sun’s neck. “Is anyone damaged?”
“A systems glitch, Lieutenant. It won’t happen again.”
The Goltar lifted itself up beside Branco’s bed and peered down at him through an eye heavily recessed behind a bony socket. “The damage is not yet repaired. This compartment’s communication system is compromised.” He adjusted his skull plates to regard both Branco and her simultaneously. “My apologies, Major Sun. I realize now that the communication disconnect is deliberate. You wish privacy with your loved one.”
“That is correct. I thank you for understanding.”
The alien shifted its bone structure again, now contemplating Sun with both eyes. It made no move to leave.
Sun frowned at this frank observation. Why was the Goltar here anyway? They rarely had a reason to be on this deck. “Just passing were we, Lieutenant? It is Lieutenant Mishkan-Ijk, isn’t it?”
“No,” the alien replied. “No, on both counts.”
“Okay, pollywiggle. That’s enough. State your identity and your business.”
The Goltar stuck out its fat tongue, which resembled a stumpy version of its limbs. It looked faintly disgusting but it was a Goltar show of amusement. “Pollywiggle. Some of Sergeant Jex’s Suffolk humor survives the translation matrix. I like this new Human. Major, I came here to see you in private, knowing that whenever you are reunited with this ship, you first visit former Trooper Branco. As for who I am. Forgive me, but I spoke unclearly. I am Mishkan-Ijk. My rank was returned to me a few moments ago, although I still wear the extra syllable in my name as penance for speaking my mind too openly.”
“Congratulations, sir.”
“Thank you. I have requested that you and your non-Goltar marines now report directly to me. My request was granted, and that makes what I’m about to say a little easier.”
He slithered a limb into Branco’s unit and curled it around his brow like a cold compress made from a plastic bag filled with chopped octopus tentacles. “We should be proud of our ability to manipulate the universe, Major. It is knowledge hard-won and long in the learning, yet we are not masters of the universe. Even my race has not conquered disease.”
“You can’t fix Branco. I understand that, sir.”
“Which is why you should revive him and tell him the truth about his status and his prospects.”
“Not yet, sir. There is a cure out there in the galaxy. It’s just a question of finding it.”
“I admire your optimism. But hope pushed too far becomes delusion, and that leads to poor decisions. Doubtless a cure exists, Sun, but the galaxy is large, of such size that even a member of an ancient race such as mine freely admits it’s barely comprehensible.”
Sun didn’t reply. Didn’t look at the Goltar. She just wanted the alien to go away.
“When I ask you to revive him, I prefer not to do so as your commanding officer, but as your respectful colleague.”
“Branco is on the books as a Class I Armorer, which means that until such time as we ever return to Tau-Rietzke, he reports directly to Captain Blue. If you want to end his life, it’s my sister you’ll have to persuade to revive him. But I warn you, if you do, it will be over my dead body.”
Mishkan-Ijk withdrew his tentacle from Branco and adjusted his position so all seven limbs were slightly bowed. Sun had seen Goltar do this before launching an attack.
“I have studied his file,” said the newly reappointed lieutenant colonel. If he was angry, the emotion wasn’t being conveyed by Sun’s translator pendant. “Saisho Branco is a brave and accomplished man. He is not to be preserved as a…how do you say it? As a vegetable until he slowly grows old and dies anyway. If Branco was of my race, he would wish to be revived, stabilized as best we can, relieved of the worst of his pain, and his star allowed to burn out brightly and briefly while it still can.”
“What do you know of the race called Wrogul?”
“That word does not translate. Describe them.”
“They are rarely seen. Aquatic, though I believe they can lift themselves out of water for brief periods. I have heard tales told of an incredible ability to manipulate objects around them. To—and I don’t fully understand, but their limbs or tentacles are able to…”
“Vibrate? To pass through physical barriers to reach inside in ways that seem impossible.”
“You do know of them.”
The color drained from the alien’s beak. Sun had never seen that before. “Nothing good can come of chasing that chimera. These Wrogul, as you call them, are dangerous. They will not help Branco. They will destroy him and you with him.”
“I have to try, sir.”
“No, you do not. I know you Humans. You won’t believe what I tell you. Your hope is too strong. So, let me put it a different way. Even if these Wrogul wished to be found, and even if they did not corrupt your soul worse than this disease has corrupted Branco’s flesh, you would still not reach them in time to save him. Let your mate live, Major Sun, I beg you. For his sake.”
At long last, Mishkan-Ijk turned and slithered away, but he had not quite concluded. “It is better that this choice comes from you,” he said as the door opened. Then he was gone.
“Is he right?” she whispered to Branco.
Old arguments surfaced in her mind. Many times, she’d wanted to revive him, to let Branco know his situation, to let him make his own choices. Just to hear his voice. But DiMassi had been clear: the stress of revival would significantly reduce his lifespan. As a guttering candle, he could eke out another year, maybe two. But wake him up, and he’d burn like a magnesium flare.
None of that gave her the right to decide for him.
She cupped his face in her hands and kissed his cool lips. “I can’t help being selfish,” she told him. “I want you back. To stay.”
“Major!” called Mishkan-Ijk.
She hadn’t heard him come back, didn’t look up from Branco. “Forgive the intrusion, but you should reconnect with the ship. A freighter has just emerged carrying data traffic. It’s good news. The kind that should be celebrated…with one’s dearest friends.”
Sun removed her blocks and linked up with her sister.
“What’s happened?”
“We won. The Earth is liberated. Peepo is fled or killed. And from what I could make out, a Goltar fleet followed Peepo’s elite reserves into Sol System, linked up with the Four Horsemen and Cartwright’s Raknar, and helped turn the tide of battle. We’re headed back to base, sis. Back to the biggest celebration party in Human history.”
&
nbsp; “We won,” Sun whispered, her gaze never leaving Branco’s face. It didn’t feel like a victory, not yet, but she felt hope stir faintly in her breast.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty
General news.
Current affairs.
Articles on the latest gear and clothing fashions that subtly advertised products from megacorps.
Piggybacking these info slugs on the back of interstellar gate traffic was such an efficient form of information transmission that most people took it for granted. Indeed, it was a wrench when it was suddenly taken away—such as when you were shot down over a remote jungle planet and left for dead in the mud and slime.
Data packets addressed to specific individuals incurred much higher fees to transmit and receive. They also took longer to find their destination and pass through local cyber security screens. So, it was ten minutes after the news of Peepo’s defeat that a data packet addressed to Sun found her drinking a cup of chilled tea in her quarters.
The message came from Casselgux, the Zuparti investigator scouring the galaxy for a cure to Branco’s ailment, and charging a fortune to do so. Her team had been tracking a Wrogul surgeon by the name of Molina, but the trail had run cold for now. For a fat fee, Casselgux offered to initiate a second line of enquiry centered on a world called Azure.
With trepidation running down her spine, Sun checked the coordinates of this Azure, hoping it wasn’t the planet she knew of that name.
“For fanden!”
She laughed to be swearing in Danish. If Branco could hear, he’d double up at her pronunciation, but agree that it had all gone to the Devil. Sun knew Azure Colony. It was a Human colony. Why in the entropy-sucking universe would a mysterious alien race be linked to a minor Human world?
Most likely, they weren’t. Casselgux was probably stringing her along until the money ran out. Sun didn’t have to look at her yack to know that her funds had almost run dry.
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