—————
Serendipity decided they should leave at parentnoon, when the sun was down but the gas giant still loomed full and bright. Technically, parentnoon was just solar midnight, but at its peak, the broad disk of the giant was almost as bright as Halfway’s more distant star. The giant would wane as Halfway Point spun round it, giving them a chance to reach Independence in near darkness now, rather than waiting thirty-six hours for the next solar eclipse.
Even in the shimmering auroral gloom, the shift in topography was stark: behind them, bare jagged mountains scraped the gas giant’s clouds; around them scrub Dresanian bushes grew on sloping hillsides . . . and beyond, a forest of glowing balloons loomed over a vast plain.
As they grew closer, Dresanian brush ended and rough earth began. Creatures like bees buzzed around the slope. A raucous flock of chirping things like birds wheeled about, landed as a flock—then turned themselves inside out, revealing flowers which the buzzers pollinated.
“If you’ve got a force field, activate it,” Sirius said, unlatching his helmet wedge and flipping it up and over to seal his head. He lifted the edge of a flower: the creature had planted itself, roots digging into the earth. “You don’t want spores like that rooting in your lungs.”
“Agreed,” Serendipity said, tapping her shield brooch—and pulling out a scarf and wrapping it about her mouth, just in case. Leonid, Sirius, and Norylan stared at her, and she shrugged. “Shield filters work best against microscopic objects.”
Soon Independence loomed over them, a hulking shadow in the mists lit faintly by its running lights. A ghosting of bioluminescence lit the mounds of earth thrown up around it, like frozen waves, making Serendipity feel like they were rats swimming towards a giant buoy.
“Didn’t the running lights die when the glider blew?” Sirius asked.
“Radiation has died down,” Serendipity said. “They might have reboarded the ship, started to effect repairs—”
“Or at least posted guards,” Sirius said.
“Well, that’s just great,” Leonid said. “Any thoughts on how to get past Toren?”
Serendipity called up the schematic of Independence in her metaspace viewer and studied it. “It looks like our best bet,” she said, “is to make for the opposite slope, climb the torn radiator panel to the Engine Module proper, and board through one of the service airlocks.”
“I was about to suggest the same thing,” Sirius said. “That will get us to cargo control.”
“You have the schematic of Independence wired into your head too?” Leonid said.
“No,” Serendipity said, finding the emission blade, a katana sixty meters long, set in an induction housing atop the Engine Module. “But I’ve got a program called a solver that’s great with mappings. It’s projecting Independence’s refits onto Deliverance’s schematics.”
“Fantastic,” Sirius said. “Maybe that will help us with repairs. Let’s go.”
They skulked around the ship, carefully crossing the shifting earth of the impact rut while avoiding direct line-of-sight with the camp. A couple of bored boys threw rocks at the base of the ship: perhaps Toren had posted them there as guards once the radiation had died down.
From the opposite slope, Independence hulked in the mist like a castle. Its bent radiator panel stretched toward them like a crazy-tilt drawbridge, made of black metal shingles a meter long. They climbed onto the panel quietly, trying not to attract the attention of the guards.
Halfway up, Serendipity’s hooves slipped. Leonid and Sirius caught her centimeters from the edge. They froze there, in silence, struggling with her weight, the guards far below. Then tiny little Norylan scampered down, planted his hand-like feet in the shingles, and pulled her back up.
«Thanks, young one,» Serendipity whispered. «Don’t wear yourself out.»
“How can he possibly be that strong?” Leonid muttered.
“Andiathar have strength,” Serendipity murmured. “Humans have endurance.”
At the bend of the panel, the four of them hopped over cracked shingles. Then the radiator angled up steeper, and they climbed up slowly on hands and knees. Finally they reached the twisted knot of metal where the radiator panel had been half torn out of its housing.
There was no room for all of them to stand, so Sirius climbed up on the narrow ridge of the housing, tapping at the airlock controls while the rest of them waited on a mammoth metal drum. Serendipity cocked her head: the drum was a giant motor, something her solver identified as the radiator panel’s “rotator servo.” It was hard to believe the giant slanted bridge they’d just climbed could actually move. Finally, on his third try, Sirius got the airlock open.
The grey metal of the outer hull was behind them, and they were now in machine-lined corridors, once white, covered in centuries of graffiti. Only the equipment and rigging retained their colors: climbing handles in orange, circuit conduits in blue, warning stripes in red.
After a long slog up a nearly vertical service corridor, during which Serendipity blessed each push-up and chin-up her grandmother had ever forced on her, they climbed into the main cargo control chamber. It stretched at least ten meters up away from them.
“This place is a wreck,” Serendipity said. It smelled of burnt wires, stained with soot, and littered with broken pieces from the glider. She inspected a piece of dangling wire . . . and found it sound. “But it’s actually less damaged than I expected. I think we can do this.”
“The auxiliary helm is up there,” Sirius said, scowling up into the now nearly vertical shaft of cargo control. In normal gravity, the helm was clearly reachable; in zero-gee, it wouldn’t be a problem either. But like this, it was inaccessible. “Maybe on Leonid’s shoulders—”
“Even on her shoulders, with her on hind legs,” Leonid said, “you’d barely reach.”
«I could get up there,» Norylan said. «But I don’t know what to do.»
“Maybe we don’t need to reach it,” Serendipity said, lifting on her hind legs to inspect an instrumented groove in the ceiling, which rose above them like a tilted wall. “This runs the length of the induction housing. My wireless is burnt, but I should be able to plug in—”
But when Serendipity pulled a tensor filament from the back of her neck, she couldn’t make it reach—and couldn’t quite guide it either. She hopped down, Sirius clambered up onto her shoulders, and they tried again. When she slipped, Leonid grabbed her about her barrel.
“Wandering!” Serendipity said, bopping him on the head with a hoof.
“Hey, I’m trying to help here—” Leonid protested, shifting his grip.
“Would you two stop flirting,” Sirius said, trying to thread the wire, “and stand still—”
“Just finish the hookup,” Serendipity said. A light went off behind her eyes as her filament found the port on the induction housing and began negotiating a connection. “Thank you. I’m going to set down slowly—keep play on the filament.”
When she carefully touched down, Sirius handed her a loop of the filament and climbed off her shoulders. Serendipity started rattling off components, and quickly Leonid and Sirius found the equipment she needed to wire together the rest of the circuit.
“They’ll notice when I send a signal, won’t they?” Serendipity asked.
“Sending a message using the emission blade?” Sirius said. “In atmosphere, under that black sun, with this metric gradient? It will light like a torch, and we should expect company. Maybe we should send the signal and run. How long will it take for help to arrive?”
“Depends on if she’s in the shower,” Serendipity said, wrapping the filament with an induction fuse. Then she looked up to see Sirius staring at her bug-eyed. “Maybe thirty to forty minutes . . . or maybe three to four days. Depends on who’s on call, what’s up.”
“Then we’ll have to w
ait, not run,” Leonid said, casually resting his hand on his gun butt. “We need to be close to the source if the signal succeeds, and we need to stay here to try again if it fails. If Toren shows up . . . he has three choices. Help us call for help, mount a challenge . . . or risk a firefight.”
Serendipity stared at him. “Okay,” she said, playing out the filament. “I’m ready.”
Sirius wired up the hyperlink and Serendipity prepared the message; Leonid stood by a porthole, watching the camp while he kept the cargo control door covered. By the time Leonid called out that he saw movement from the camp, they were ready—and sent the signal.
Independence’s batteries discharged. The filament glowed. Serendipity felt a shiver of current, only the tiniest fraction of the energy coursing through the circuit, damped by the fuse. Leonid leaned away from the black circle quickly as a bright flash lit up the porthole.
Within minutes cargo control began filling up—two boys and a slip of a girl who’d been working in the cargo section, a larger troupe of boys from the camp, Andromeda—and then Toren, who swaggered into the room with a bruised and battered Artemyst on his arm.
“What the hell have you done now?” Toren said with disgust, seeing the four of them. He squinted when he saw Norylan, but quickly he recovered his swagger. “I thought I told you to run for the hills and never come back.”
“Actually, you wished us luck,” Serendipity said, backing up. She even played up her limp a little bit, though the frog of her hoof was nearly healed. Toren soon had her cornered in what had been the forward wall of the cargo control chamber. “But I’m done running.”
“Oh are you now?” Toren said, pulling his arm out of Artemyst’s shell-shocked grip and pushing her away. He glanced at Sirius and Leonid, who stepped up to either side of Serendipity, grim, arms folded. “Well, if you want to stay, we’re going to live by my rules—”
“No, we’re not,” Serendipity said. “This isn’t the Frontier. This is an Allied world—”
“The hell it is,” Toren said. “You chased us off our homeworld, but not this one—”
“I didn’t chase you anywhere,” Serendipity said, hands raised. “We both ran together. Your ancestors didn’t flee the Dresanians. They fled Halcyan’s Syndrome, the disease that ravaged Earth and nearly killed my great-to-the-nth grandmother, the First Centaur—”
“So?” Toren said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“She didn’t start out as the First Centaur. Her disease made her experiment with genetics. She wouldn’t have remade herself without it—and I wouldn’t be who I am,” she said. “We’re children of the same war. Without it, you wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have these legs.”
“We’re not the same at all,” he growled, stomping towards her. “Your ancestors stayed and let the Dresanians turn you into things. Our ancestors made the human choice: we didn’t let the place change us; we left and explored until we found someplace better—”
“You’re a spacer, master of the skies, and I respect that,” Serendipity said, leaning away deferentially, so her upper torso angled back over her horsey body. “But I was raised in a gravity well, with all four feet planted on the ground. So there’s one thing I don’t do.”
“What’s that?” Toren said, looming over her.
“Hit like a girl,” Serendipity said, unfolding an explosive right hook on his chin.
Toren toppled backwards, arms splayed out. Two boys leapt upon Serendipity, but she knocked them down with two quick punches, then spun round, barrel knocking aside two more that tried to leap on her from behind. When she turned, Toren was rising. She drew her knife.
“Weaponsmaster!” she said. “Hold our steel. We have a challenge on our hands.”
Toren stared at her from his sprawl—then snorted, drew his gun, and tossed it to Beetle. Serendipity tossed the knife. Toren levered to his feet, shifting, tensing, as a knot of boys closed around them, shouting; Serendipity relaxed, eyes on him, taking a deep calming breath.
Toren screamed and leapt upon her.
This wasn’t like aikido practice, or a karate match, or even a cage match, all of which had rules, a certain polite rhythm to them. Toren had no rules, he just roared and came windmilling at her, a tornado of fists and kicks, always on her, shrugging her blows off, never giving up.
With someone this tough, Serendipity had no choice but to take him apart.
For all his strength, Serendipity could punch harder, so she pushed him back, out of grappling distance to the midrange, where she could land really solid jabs and kicks. He led left, so she started nailing his left thigh with fore roundkicks, each time feinting for his ribs, then punishing the muscle. Soon he started to limp, to favor the leg—then drop his hands.
Serendipity kicked his extended hand, hard. Toren howled and twisted back, hobbling. Serendipity followed, rearing, kicking his hands down with her forelegs as she sprang forward with her hind legs. While he staggered, she seized his head—and kneed his face.
Toren stumbled backwards, dazed but not out, and in that brief pause Serendipity felt the opening for her cage training. She stayed reared up, nimbly pushing his hands aside with her forelegs. That surprised him, and when he put all of his attention on fending her legs off, she snapped one hand out, cupping it behind his head, controlling his movement.
Then she really started punching.
“This whatcha want?” she snarled between punches, between breaths. She felt adrenaline surging within her, ancient fight-or-flight reflexes struggling to take over, but she fought it, trying as much to control herself as to control Toren. “Wanna get beat t’death by a girl?”
“I’ll kick your,” Toren roared, trying to throw her off, “kick your ass—”
“Spent six years training,” she spat, “under the greatest martial artist in history—”
Toren popped her in the chin unexpectedly, struggling to get free. “I’ll eat your face—”
“Settle down,” Serendipity said, jabbing in his face again, jerking him around until he was completely off balance, “or I’ll throw you to the ground and step on your head.”
That got through to him. Toren’s eyes went wide as he realized she could do it—and what it would do to him. “You wouldn’t. Don’t—don’t you do it—”
“Kill you?” Serendipity asked. He jerked away, head tugging against her hand, and with the sudden jerk she felt her nostrils flare. “I can do it,” she snapped, punching him, even as she was struggling to get control. Blood flew as she smacked him again. “I will do it—”
Then Leonid’s arm was grabbing hers. “Don’t,” he said. “He’s not worth it—”
With that touch on her arm Serendipity realized just how angry she was. She’d seen this: even with trained fighters who were good friends, sparring could turn real ugly, real animal—and this was far more than sparring. Serendipity let out a breath, trying to calm herself.
But the intervention made Toren struggle more—and then Artemyst grabbed his arm. “Stop, Toren, stop,” she said. “I think she means it—”
“Aren’t you going to do something?” Toren screamed at his weaponbearer.
“You said stay out of challenges,” Beetle said. “That you’d deal with them yourself—”
“And I have a force field,” Serendipity said, arm slipping Leonid’s grip and springing at Toren. “By the time Betelgeuse cracks it, I’ll be scraping your brains off my hooves—”
“Dammit,” Toren said. “Dammit—”
“Is this how you want it, Toren? Might makes right?” Serendipity said. “To get beaten to death by a girl and have her take over just because she’s the biggest and strongest?”
Toren’s bloodied eyes stared into hers. He caught her arm, trying to fend her off. They struggled, swaying there, Toren desperately giving it his all and Sere
ndipity quietly holding back, drawing calming breaths while she matched him strength for strength.
Finally, Toren said, almost whispered, “No. That’s not what I want.”
“Me neither,” Serendipity said, fist still poised over him. Not true: right now, she wanted to bash Toren’s head in. But no matter how much adrenaline rattled through her, she had to be better than that. The fight she’d set out to win was moral. The street brawl she’d let it turn into was anything but. “So . . . can we stop fighting?”
Toren’s eyes tightened. “What do you want?”
“Respect,” she said. “Not just for me. No more me versus you, boys versus girls, Allies versus Frontiersmen. No more halfway people either—everyone treated the same. All of us equals, all working together to survive.”
“Of all the crazy,” Toren said, flinching back from her fist. “You’re crazy!”
Serendipity raised a hoof over his head. “Consider the alternative.”
Toren’s eyes narrowed. His muscles tightened. Slowly, he began to relax.
Then the room exploded in a flash of blue fire and a thunderclap of ice.
—————
As the cold blue flames dissipated, Serendipity didn’t even need to look to see what had happened—and who had arrived. The tensor fire was the remnant of a long-range teleport; the displacement thunderclap left veins of frost ice over every surface it touched.
At the center of the veins of ice, a centauress rose, layered in armor like an armadillo made of razors, bearing a double-ended scythe with black blades. “I am First Captain Porsche Lynne Kirkpatrick Saint George,” her grandmother said. “Here, I am the Dresan-Murran—”
Shocked, the weaponsmaster fired his blaster. Her razor armor deflected the gold energy, spraying it over the room. Now burn marks were woven through the frost on the walls, everyone was screaming, and her grandmother raised her scythe, twin mirrored blades gleaming as—
“Stand down,” Serendipity said. “I didn’t call you here to slaughter children.”
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