by Matt Levin
“We still haven’t talked about our plan once we’re planetside,” Nadia said quickly, in an effort to paper over the developing silence.
“Our initial destination should be New Modrin,” Derek said. “The Horde leadership is concentrated there. If you wish to speak with the allchief, that’s where she will be.”
New Modrin. Like the naming of their settlement New Arcena, it begged an obvious question. “What happened to the original Modrin?” Nadia asked. She thought she remembered something about it from the primers, but it had been over three months since she’d read them. Longer than a season back on Earth, which meant plenty of time to forget.
“Destroyed,” Derek said. “By our own hubris. Our first allchief started a war with the Union that we couldn’t win. The destruction of our capital was retribution from the Union military.”
“He’s leaving out the part where the Modrin settlers scared the rest of the planet into forming a mutual defense organization,” Boyd interjected.
Nadia tensed, fearing a sharp rebuke from Derek. None came. Nadia wasn’t sure whether that meant Derek agreed with Boyd’s assessment of his people’s history, or whether he was weary from over a week’s worth of bickering.
“They were the only settlement that didn’t have a self-sustaining system of agriculture,” Boyd continued. “So they raided the rest of Ikkren’s productive colonies until they got their strategic opening. When the Union moved in, Modrin demanded payment for protection from the government.”
“So...the Horde started off as a protection racket?” Nadia asked.
“It started off as the egotistical dream of a madman,” Derek said. “Our old allchief thought he could unite Ikkren behind him and lead them on some crusade against the rest of the system. Which is why he started the war.”
“And...how did it end?”
“With his death. Our current allchief killed him in combat, took his place, and ended the pointless bloodshed. His dreams of a united planet were only realized through his death,” Derek said, his eyes boring into the center of the table. He snorted at the irony of his own story.
“Exactly,” Boyd agreed.
Their concurrence was so remarkable that Nadia didn’t dare comment. She simply sat back and enjoyed the hiss of the oxygen. Or the low singing of the missile scrambler.
An alert blared, informing them that they were about to breach the Ikkren atmosphere. The three of them headed for the cockpit. Boyd placed his coffee tumbler on the edge of the sink, making sure its magnetic bottom fastened to the steel countertop, while Nadia and Derek kept their half-full vessels with them.
In the cockpit, Nadia strapped in to the co-pilot station, while Boyd sat behind her and Derek took the controls. Ikkren filled the entire cockpit viewscreens, its hues of white and brown and the occasional splash of frosty blue looking like a tapestry draped over their ship.
“We should be hitting air in any second,” Derek said. Nadia and Boyd both checked their straps.
Derek knew how to fly mid-sized vessels thanks to his training in the Horde’s raiding force, Nadia had learned, which meant that he could guide their ship through the descent rather than relying solely on the vessel’s autopilot. Even though Nadia knew that the Exemplar was more than capable of flying itself, she had to admit there was something comforting about an actual human manning the controls. And if Boyd objected to Derek flying their vessel, he had kept his concerns to himself.
Derek pressed his control stick forward a millimeter, and they breached the atmosphere. Nadia felt the straps alternate between digging into either of her shoulders. The turbulence had been jarring during her descent into Calimor, but this time she felt less jittery.
Last time, the autopilot had taken them on a steep descent through Calimor’s atmosphere. Derek, on the other hand, kept them above Ikkren’s cloudline for a considerable amount of time. The slow, gradual descent took half an hour, but the turbulence was considerably less violent than it had been last time.
When they finally breached the cloudline, a jagged mountain formation became visible. Unlike the deep, winding canyons of Calimor, this range only occupied a small portion of the landscape. Inside a hollowed-out crater in the center of the mountains were the unmistakable remnants of a long-abandoned settlement.
“That,” Derek said, angling the Exemplar past the mountains, “was the old Modrin.”
Nadia felt the thrusters fire beneath her as they continued their descent. In the shadow of the mountain range, a large settlement came into view. This one was very much alive, with caravans going both in and out from a central gate. Nadia had expected air traffic, but from the looks of it, the only ship in the sky was theirs.
If Derek had radioed in their approach, he had done so silently. The Exemplar continued its downward arc, circling over what Nadia figured was New Modrin, until they hovered only a few hundred feet off the ground in a clearing just outside the settlement. The ship lurched beneath them, and the landing gear extended.
Derek angled the vessel’s nose one last time, pointing it directly at New Modrin’s gate. The settlement’s exterior walls were a mixture of polyethylene and wooden repair patches, with the occasional black mesh draped over repair sites in progress. He finally landed them with a jolt. The engine shuddered and went silent.
All three unstrapped themselves from their seats. “Ready to get skinned alive?” Boyd asked with a sigh. Derek rolled his eyes.
“Last time we made planetfall, we were getting shot at within five minutes. I’m hoping it can only go up from there,” Nadia said.
Derek led the way to the airlock. Ikkren was unique among the three outer rim worlds in that it had a naturally oxygenated atmosphere. But even if their enviro-suits weren’t necessary for survival, they were necessary for comfort. Nadia had reviewed the annual temperature range on Ikkren. Naturally, they were making planetfall in the dead of winter, and even the daily highs were still lower than anything Nadia had experienced before.
As soon as she stepped outside, the cold assaulted her body. She felt the residue of mucus in her nostrils freeze almost instantly, causing a slight tickling sensation. Having spent all of her life on an increasingly hot Earth, the temperature-controlled environment of the Preserver, and now a month on the mild Calimor, she found herself without the words to accurately describe the violent cold of Ikkren.
Some instinct within her caused her to laugh, although the wind also chose that moment to scream past their vessel, so she wasn’t sure either of her companions heard her.
As cold as the planet was, it was also dry, so the layer of snow wasn’t particularly thick. The surrounding landscape looked like a brown-and-white marble. The ground felt harder than it looked underneath her boots. As she stepped toward the gate of New Modrin, the sound of her footfalls alternated between the wet squish of the mud and the soft crunch of the snow.
As Boyd and Derek followed her at a distance, she took in the view of the surrounding landscape. Other than the looming mountains to the northwest, everything else seemed flat. She had seen Ikkren’s iconic blue forests and vegetation during their descent, but everything in sight was barren. The few streams that existed appeared to be mountain runoff, disappearing into trickles within visible range. The Natonus sun still shone in the sky, although it was noticeably smaller than it had been on Calimor. Nadia wished she could feel at least some of its heat.
Even from an initial survey, Ikkren seemed equal parts mesmerizing and savage. She saw written in the land both what had attracted a small group of hardy settlers to travel here, as well as why the rest of the system had reason to fear them.
She approached the gate of the settlement. Just as she turned around to ask Derek if there was some kind of passcode, the gate opened with a groan.
Directly inside, there were two men dressed in the same combat suits as Derek. Nadia was surprised at how different they looked from her crewmate. One had cool olive skin, while the other’s resembled the deep brown of Vincent. She was sti
ll conditioned to think that militaries typically encompassed a single ethnicity. The Natonus System had a way of challenging those assumptions.
They both placed their arms across their chests, clenching their hands into fists and slamming them against their shoulders. Nadia, puzzled, was about to raise her arm to mirror the greeting, but Derek walked forward and repeated the gesture. She realized they were greeting him, not her.
Derek and the other two then all placed their hands on each other’s shoulders, forming a human triangle. Boyd caught up and flashed her an uneasy glance.
“We heard about Calimor,” one of the two men said. “It must have been a good fight.”
Derek nodded. “We are no longer hemmed in,” he said. “That is the most important part.”
“We would love to hear all about it,” the other gate guard said.
“Maybe later,” Derek said. “But for now, we need to make our way toward the warship.”
Nadia and Boyd exchanged confused glances. “Er...warship?” she asked. Other than small raiding gunships and transports, she wasn’t aware the Horde had much of a navy left after the war.
As Derek led them away from the gate, her confusion dissipated. At the center of the camp, a half-destroyed husk of a Union frigate had been dug into the ground of the central plaza. “That’s definitely sending a message,” Boyd said.
“It’s a sort of...tradition,” Derek said with a shrug. “We had something similar in the original Modrin. Although the first one was decorated with the skulls of an old enemy. I think this one’s more inviting without them.”
“Ten natons says you and I are about to be hull decorations,” Boyd whispered.
Derek led the way into the mouth of the destroyed frigate, past decks and war rooms repurposed into hallways and offices. She and Boyd attracted plenty of stares, although Nadia couldn’t tell what marked them as off-worlders so distinctly.
“Don’t we need to schedule a meeting?” Nadia asked as Derek led them up to what must have been the old CIC.
“We’re a tight-knit people,” he said. “Our allchief always keeps her door open.”
They entered the CIC. The far wall had been blown out, although insulated sheets stretching across the hole kept the heat in. At the center of the small room, alone at a circular desk that looked like a repurposed command console, was a tall, muscular woman with pale, ghostlike skin and blond hair almost as light as her complexion. She wore her hair long with various strands braided.
“This,” Derek said, clasping his right hand to his left shoulder, “is Allchief Tori Hyrak. The leader of our people. And commander of the Horde.”
Tori rose to her feet and regarded Nadia severely.
Nadia stepped forward, unsure whether to attempt the same hand-to-shoulder greeting the Horde used. She decided against it. “It’s my pleasure to meet you,” she said. “I am Nadia Jibor, emissary of the refugee population.”
The absurdity of the situation hit her. Here she was, in a camp surrounded by battle-hardened raiders, in the skeleton of a warship they had brought down during a bitter war, looking at a woman who had gained her position through killing her predecessor. It was something Boyd might have concocted in his worst nightmares.
And despite it all, “I am here to discuss the further peaceful cooperation of our peoples” was what Nadia went with.
CHAPTER 23
* * *
It surprised Tanner how good it felt having a shoulder to lean on. In the month since Tanner had made contact with Onyx via the screen terminal in his dead coworker’s apartment, they had been talking on and off through a secure channel on Tanner’s wrist terminal. It was touching that Onyx gave Tanner his personal attention, since Offspring membership had grown to well over a thousand in recent weeks, the man had told him.
Tanner had never been the kind of person who would stay up late talking to friends, much less make many in the first place. Sure, he had tried a few times in secondary school. Mostly failed. His romantic life had been even more hopeless. He couldn’t remember the last relationship that had lasted more than a few months. And after their parents died, taking care of Rebecca always took priority.
Tanner had always assumed that others’ lack of interest in him was due to his flat personality or his unimpressive looks. He had surprised himself, unleashing these traumas on Onyx during one of their late-night chats. The other man had listened and sympathized. Understood. And then Onyx had given Tanner clarity.
Tanner suddenly snapped back to attention. He had been lost in his thoughts for so long that his desk terminal shut off to save power. He looked to his right, at the empty desk still vacant since Jake’s self-immolation. Figured. No one on the job market was stupid enough to jump aboard a sinking ship of an industry like colonial supply.
Briefly craning his head out the office doorway to confirm no one was coming, he went through the saved conversations on his wrist terminal with Onyx.
Our society is careening dangerously out of control, Onyx had written. That could explain why so many of your female classmates or colleagues rejected you. They’ve been seduced into thinking lucrative careers and casual sex are the keys to fulfillment. You’re a good person, Tanner. I can tell by the way you’ve been caring for your sister all these years. But women these days have failed to see you for your real worth.
Tanner had felt a strange emotion emanate from his chest after reading that message. It was hard to remember the last time he’d gotten genuine affection from anyone besides Rebecca. Maybe there was still time for him to come out of his shell.
And that’s why we should fear the arrival of the newars, the archived message continued. Everything’s already crumbling around us. People just care about money and status. We’ve forgotten what it means to be a society. If we let the newars integrate, they’ll destroy any chance we have of fixing ourselves.
It was getting harder to disagree with the Natonus Offspring’s view of the refugees. He had taken Onyx’s advice to pay more attention to the organization’s political content. He had never really given the philosophical question of what to do with the refugees much thought, but now, he was realizing just how calamitous their arrival could be.
Natonese society was already becoming isolated, atomized, and distrustful. Bringing in the refugees would be like releasing a pack of feral animals in a hospital ward. The problems with the newars were almost too many to count.
First, even though the Union had claimed that they hadn’t found any trace of major communicable diseases aboard the newar cryo vessel, that struck Tanner as the kind of thing governments always lied about. The refugees could be plague-infested mongrels and the Natonese people would be none the wiser.
And on top of that, Tanner felt increasingly certain that this wave of refugees wouldn’t be the last. Sure, they were only 40 million strong, but what about the next cryo vessel that showed up? Would Natonus be open to whatever hundreds of millions the galaxy threw at them?
Lastly, Tanner was becoming increasingly skeptical that the refugees could integrate into Natonese society. They were no doubt loyal to their old nations back on Earth, and they bore the old ethnic phenotypes that had long since disappeared in the Natonus System. Tanner had come to find either sickly pale or disgustingly dark skin revolting.
Sure, Natonus was divided. But all of them—no matter whether they were part of the Union, the Horde, the Junta, or even the Syndicate—were Natonese first and foremost. Tanner had never voted in an election, and had skipped the settlement charter referenda, but now he regretted his previous apathy.
The sound of footsteps right outside Tanner’s door got his attention. “Hey there,” one of his coworkers—Tanner had forgotten his name—said. “Everything okay?”
A bead of sweat dripped down Tanner’s forehead. It wasn’t like his coworker could have seen the messages on Tanner’s wrist terminal. But there was something exciting and nerve-inducing about his growing involvement with a secret society like the Offspring.
“Boss just called a staff meeting. Rumor is, it’s good news.”
The market for colonial supplies had been dry for so long that Tanner had forgotten the words good news. It felt strange hearing those words come out of his coworker’s mouth.
He pushed himself up and followed his colleague down the hallway. The walls felt closer to him. Another one of the perks of the exercise regimen he had been keeping up for almost two months. He felt his body better filling out the space around him, like the hallway was framing his torso. He enjoyed that feeling of power.
Arriving at the conference room, Tanner’s colleague held the door for him. A dozen of their other coworkers were already inside, conversing in low tones. Two women closest to the door turned their heads and eyed him over.
Either subconsciously or consciously, other men were acting more deferential to him. Mirroring him, doing small favors for him, asking for his approval. Meanwhile, it was hard to ignore all the stares he got from his female coworkers.
He entered the room without thanking his coworker for holding the door. These people’s superficiality made his chest tighten and his muscled arms spasm. Tanner had been working at Veltech for years, having been ignored or talked over the entire time. Maybe people really were that easy to manipulate. Physical strength translated to social dominance.
His manager walked in with a too-full cup of coffee that sloshed from side to side as he walked. A few droplets splashed on the man’s shoes as he moved toward his seat at the head of the table. Tanner stifled a laugh.
Most of the other employees leaned forward and placed their hands on the table once their boss sat down. Office life had turned them all into slouchers, Tanner reflected as he gazed down the line of humped necks. Tanner straightened his own spine and crossed his arms beneath his chest.