by TJ Berry
She grabbed a second cable and tied it around a server shelf that was bolted to the floor. She leaned back out of the door as if she was going to rappel down the side of the ship.
Please be careful, a fall from that height would be disastrous. Take care, said Kamis.
“I always take care,” said Jenny. She let the cable slip through her fingers. The plastic coating on the cable slipped through her fingers faster than she’d intended. It was sort of a controlled fall instead of a climb, but there was no time to worry about it.
She used her shoulder to shove away from the Stagecoach Mary. She slipped faster. She could do this, sure, but it wasn’t any type of easy. She dropped a few meters and slammed onto the two-person skimmer parked next to hers.
The skimmer was all sexy angles and curves and she slid down it another five meters. She hit the metal floor with a grunt.
“Brilliant,” said Mary in her ear.
Well done, said Kamis.
“And you wanted to tip the ship over,” said Jenny, her chest heaving.
She untied her chair, unfolded the hinges, and pulled herself into it. She straightened her jacket, wiped the sweat out of her eyes, and rolled to the exit – where she found five stairs up to the hallway. Navigating the world in a chair meant doing everything on the hardest difficulty setting.
“There’s a ramp at the other door,” said Mary. Jenny rolled that way. Of course, the ramp was for rolling cargo. Because why would we ever give a thought to accessibility on a ship full of disabled vets? Bloody Reason.
She rolled into the hallway, holding herself up in an officer’s erect posture. Her back twinged where the spray skin pulled at her burns.
People ran down the hallway, bumping her chair as they passed. Some of them had put their uniforms on. Others still wore the soft jumpsuits they slept in.
She tapped a touchscreen on the wall, pretending to check the status updates coming in from all over the ship. In reality she was looking at the map. The engine room was two floors down from here. Of course.
Lights above stairwell doors glowed red, indicating that there was no atmosphere beyond. It would take a moment for the airtight bulkhead doors to come down and seal the bottom floors where the breach was located. The elevators were the same. She’d need to wait until the shafts were airtight again before they came online.
She tapped through real-time updates until she found a working elevator. All the way aft. About as far from the engine room as you could go. She cursed her terrible aim with nullspace energy and rolled toward the back of the ship. At least it was all flat.
She reached the elevator with a green light above it. A couple of the Kilonova’s personnel were waiting there already. The elevator pinged and opened. It was cold and smelled like a hot frying pan. She rolled in among them and tapped the panel for the engine room.
“That’s an old uniform… sir,” said an airman on her right, eyeing her up. Jenny knew how to deflect his suspicion.
“Don’t be a wanker. I was in my lover’s quarters, you know, getting laid, and I just grabbed what I could find in a hurry,” she said. “An old uniform at the back of the closet.”
“Who’s your lover?” asked the other airman.
“The commander,” she said, guessing that whoever held the second in command spot was fair game. The boys raised their eyebrows and gave her some kind of unreadable look. Thankfully, the door opened at that moment and she escaped further scrutiny.
Without the proper credentials to get inside she waited outside the engine room, thinking. In the end she decided to take the most direct route. She knocked.
The security officer who opened the door was looking at eye level, so she missed the patu coming at her temple until it was too late. She fell face-first into Jenny’s lap with a grunt. Jenny pushed into the room, dragging the officer along with her and shutting the door.
It was the same engine room design as the other Reason ships she’d been on. Hand-carved FTL cabinet mounted on the wall and sublight engines laid out behind it. The FTL was off but she could still catch the barely-perceptible smell of cooking meat pies. That wave of nostalgia for home and family always lingered around unicorn horn – and it was slightly different every time. As if burning through the horn released the memories of the unicorn who had grown it.
She opened the cabinet. There were two pieces of bone-like material on the shelf inside. One, a traditional pearlescent unicorn horn, the other a dull brown chunk of chitin as thick around as a finger.
She grabbed both the unicorn horn and the foreign object and held them both.
“This is all wrong,” she said.
Don’t– began Kamis.
“It’s fine. The drive is off,” she said, tucking them deep into her jacket pocket.
But you are not an ordinary human, said Kamis. You are coursing will nullspace energy. The horn will amplify your thoughts regardless.
Jenny spun her chair and came face to face with a frowning security officer.
“At ease, lieutenant,” snapped Jenny, trying to roll past.
“This is all wrong,” said the security officer, grabbing Jenny by the wrist and dragging her and the chair toward the door.
“You’re under arrest for tampering with an FTL drive,” said the security officer, pulling plastic ties from her belt. “And for impersonating an officer,” she added, looking down at Jenny’s poor excuse for a modern Reason uniform.
Before Jenny could pull out her patu, or even get her hands around this woman’s neck, both of her wrists were tied behind her back, tight enough to bite into the spray skin.
The security officer pushed her down the chaotic hallways. Crew members shouted orders and ran past with repair equipment. Injured people helped more gravely injured people toward the medbay. Young cadets gathered in doorways, whispering to each other and crying. She felt a pang in her chest because she’d caused this.
As the barred door clanged shut, Jenny tucked herself into a corner of the brig. They’d confiscated her chair so she was stuck here until they decided to give it back.
I want to discuss what happened in nullspace, said Kamis.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Jenny, pulling her legs up one by one so that they were level on the bench.
I’m going to insist. What happened was an unfortunate accident. You didn’t intend to tear the ship apart. I could feel that you were only trying dislodge the navigational beacon. I know you didn’t intend for anyone to be hurt or killed.
“Thanks,” she said.
It’s common for new necromancers to have poor aim. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. When you went to dislodge that beacon, I told you to use the smallest amount of force at your disposal. And I know, from inside here, that you did. You tore this ship in pieces and it was a tiny fraction of the energy you were able to gather, said Kamis.
“Yep,” said Jenny, trying to make it clear that she did not care and that this conversation was having no effect on her whatsoever, no matter how much tension he felt inside of her body.
What I’m saying is that you are able to process and utilize the same amount of nullspace energy that a necromancer who has studied for decades would be able to harness. You need to be extremely careful how you use your abilities. In fact, it would probably be wise for you to avoid using them altogether until we can meet up with the Bala and find an experienced trainer who could show you how not to end up with accidents like those, said Kamis.
“Told you so,” Jenny mumbled, leaning her head back against the wall.
She had to pee but, at that moment, she wasn’t feeling particularly like doing it in front of Kamis. Besides, Reason toilets never quite worked right in space.
I’m sure you have the best of intentions, but even the most basic of manipulations could ripple out and cause injuries to people around you, he continued.
Jenny suddenly sat up. “I heard you the first time,” she said. “And for the record, it was your idea for me to use
my powers, so don’t pin that on me. I told you numerous times that I had no idea what I was doing and you assured me you had it handled.”
I didn’t. I’m sorry, said Kamis, and she felt his regret as keenly as her own.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Banner Day
As the sun hit its zenith and the sky burned crimson, Gary wobbled his way from the hospital to the central square of the village. His legs had completely regrown overnight but the muscles were still weak and stringy. Kaapo held his arm on one side for most of the walk, but let go as they approached the place where everyone had gathered. The circle of Bala opened for him.
“…it is imperative that we strike first, before the humans are able to locate our settlement and target it.” Findae had been in the square for the last hour, trying to sway the population toward activating his orbital defense weapon. Most of them nodded along in favor, but there were a few holdouts among the more influential Bala.
In particular, the angels were not in favor of killing anyone. And along with them went the fairies and most of the elves. The common folk – like faun, pixies, and house spirits – were ready to blow the humans out of the sky. The dwarves were suspiciously absent.
“We have time to take considered action,” Gary said, facing his father. “There’s no need to fire on their ship until they make their intentions clear. They’ve done nothing aggressive so far.” Gary struggled to stand on his own without falling over.
“Are you planning to negotiate with your captors? Tell me, what did you get in exchange for your freedom last time?” asked Findae.
It was a fair question, but beside the point.
“If we don’t want to become the same as the humans, we cannot be as cruel as they are,” said one of the angels. “We must take the high road.”
“Look where the high road led us last time,” said a faun whose horns had been shaved down to nubs. Unlike unicorn horn, those would never grow back. “Blow them up.”
“Turn the other cheek,” replied an angel.
“We already have,” said Kaapo, turning her face so the splash scars from the marsh were visible to the angels. “Every time we play fair, they break the rules and win. It’s time for us to start breaking the rules too.”
The crowd cheered and the angels conferred with each other in furtive whispers.
“Sorry,” Kaapo said to Gary. “I’m not on your side.”
It didn’t seem like a lot of the Bala were.
“There are people I know on that ship,” he said, in a last-ditch effort to get her to reconsider. “Good people like Bào Zhú, who fought for the Bala at Copernica Citadel.”
“There is no one I care about on that ship,” said Kaapo. The Bala around her voiced their agreement. He knew that being a leader was not about getting people to like you but he didn’t seem to have the ability to sway anyone to his cause. All those times his father had exhorted him to step up and lead – perhaps he simply wasn’t meant to be a leader at all.
“Let’s put it to a vote,” said Findae, because it was obvious that he had the numbers to win. “All in favor of making a first strike against the Reason?”
Hands, paws, tentacles, and other limbs went into the air. Even a few of the angels put up their graceful arms. It was clear that nearly everyone was in favor of destroying the humans. Findae didn’t bother to hide his satisfaction.
“Then it’s settled, I’ll head into orbit immediately and hit them as soon as they drop out of the null,” he said, heading back up the unicorn’s mountain. Gary stepped in front of him.
“If you’re going blow up the Kilonova, at least allow me to go up with you,” said Gary.
“You’ll try to stop us,” said Findae. “Know that I am resolute. I have the will of the Bala behind me.”
“Then it won’t matter if I’m there. I won’t be able to convince you otherwise, and I certainly can’t overpower you,” said Gary.
Findae glanced down at his son’s gaunt new legs. Gary saw a flash of concern that disappeared after a moment. “Fine. You can come. But don’t touch anything and don’t try to intervene,” said Findae. He raised his head and let out a whinny that echoed across the village. One of the pixies peed on the ground in a shower of sparkles.
Five stoneships soared down to the planet’s surface. They were too big to hover over the settlement all at once, so they hovered offshore, waiting for their turn to pick up their Bala crews. Stoneships were wild and unpredictable on their own. It took the harmonizing songs of the dwarves to guide them into battle.
The Jaggery was the last ship to arrive on land. It edged close to where Gary and Findae stood and spun on its axis to show everyone all of its sides, preening for the gathered audience. The cargo bay door opened. What had once been a utilitarian space with cargo tie-downs was now a bright and airy vestibule hung with fabric banners for each of the unicorn houses. They swayed in the breeze, calling attention to the plush velvet embroidered with silver threads. These banners had been in storage on the Jaggery for decades, it was exhilarating to see them in place again.
The villagers were also delighted to see a small remnant of Bala history that had been salvaged from human rule. They pointed at crests for long-dead unicorn families, as well as houses for which their clans had once been aligned with – which was of course the entire point of hanging the banners in the main entrance to the ship. Findae was no fool.
The display was comforting, but it was also very old fashioned and a touch jingoistic. The era of unicorns had passed and perhaps it was time to allow another race to step up and lead the Bala.
Boges waited for them inside of the Jaggery. She was freshly washed with hair and beard braided.
“Boges, it’s good to see you,” said Gary. She nodded, but did not meet his eyes. He still didn’t understand why Boges had frozen him out.
“Is everything in place?” asked Findae.
“It is,” said Boges.
“Then let’s get underway.” Findae padded through the ship’s lush undergrowth toward the cockpit. The dwarves had reversed all of the modifications the humans had made to their stoneships. It smelled good; like rich dark soil and the sweet wet heat of a tropical rainforest. The cockpit was now bare of seating and the FTL cabinet was back up front where it belonged. Gary stood against the instrument panel, which thrummed with bubbles and life. The ship was, once again, content.
Gary checked a liquid-filled vial on the wall to ensure that the gravity was going to stay on when they hit orbit. A rumble outside told them they had just passed the speed of sound. He hadn’t even realized they’d taken off. It felt perfectly calm in here. Gary wished they could just keep flying and never go back.
He read through the vials and tubes holding various liquids and gases, each telling a different story of the health of the ship and its occupants. One hourglass-looking instrument had tiny black pebbles inside. It counted out every being on the ship. Usually it was full with all the dwarves in the walls; however, now it held just a handful of tiny stones – three from those who had just come on board, plus the dwarves in the engine room, singing their ancient song to guide the ship.
The vial for the overall health of the ship ran clear with liquid. It was a huge change from the chunky green vomitus that was there the last time he had been aboard. The liquid bubbled and gurgled happily. There was no talking AI on the Jaggery. Stoneships communicated hundreds of meaningful data points, but talking wasn’t the only way, or even the best way, to make oneself understood.
“Everything in working order?” asked Findae. He’d been watching.
“It’s good to be home,” said Gary.
“Your home is the planet,” corrected Findae.
Boges moved toward the small door in the cockpit that led to the dwarf tunnels in the walls. Gary rested a hand on her diminutive shoulder.
“You’re always welcome to stay up here,” said Gary.
Boges looked up at him in surprise. He was confused to see her blink away tears.
“I have things to do in the engine room.” She ducked into the dwarf door and closed it behind her before he could ask what was wrong.
“Find them,” said Findae.
Gary didn’t appreciate being barked at like a crewmember. That seemed to be the only tone his father used with him. Nonetheless, he flicked a spot on the wall to turn on the ship’s viewscreen. Being Bala, the Jaggery had access to the nullspace as good as any living creature. It would be able to see the human’s necromancer just as Gary had been able to. The ship navigated around obstacles in the null all the time.
Gary put his palm flat onto the wall of the ship and spoke to it.
“Find the Reason ship that is traversing nullspace toward our location,” he said.
Stoneships were both embarrassingly simple and infuriatingly hard to control. You simply asked for what you wanted and the ship, if it felt like it, would follow your commands. Humans preferred buttons and levers, with their wires and sparks. Though they were not necessarily more reliable.
The ship didn’t make any sound in reply, but Gary felt the crackle of alertness in the air. A searching or waiting sensation that got under his skin. The ship was looking.
The viewscreen blazed to life with a wash of color. The Jaggery muted the light down to a level that was not painful for physical eyes. They could make out an oval blob on the viewscreen. The ship focused on it and the blob resolved into the Reason ship. The other four stoneships floated in a rough formation above the Bala planet, awaiting orders.
“There,” said Findae. “They’re just past the dying sun. They will drop out of nullspace within the hour.” He squinted and looked closely at the image.
“That is a new class of ship,” he said. “Not like any that I’ve seen before.”
“Looks like they went back to the drawing board and started from scratch,” said Gary. There were even hints of stoneship in the design, certainly in the lack of aerodynamics. “I kind of like it,” said Gary. “They finally figured out that aerodynamics don’t matter if you’re not landing. Good for them. Another few millennia and they’ll figure out how to drop their consciousness into nullspace without horn.”
