by Tony Daniel
“I don’t know,” Larai said. “Captured a ship before? Maybe that’s why we’re here? Revenge?” She shook her head. “Justice.”
“Reckon there are more prisoners?”
I didn’t hear Larai answer. The comms channel chose that moment to spit out more noise.
“What?” I said.
“I said did you hear—” She whirled, fired. The plasma left a glowing pockmark in the wall. “Something ran past us!” Then she was gone, back toward the hall. I followed, cursing to myself, but glad to leave that place and its terrible meal. Suit systems relayed an amplified model of the tunnels around, ghost paths off suit sonar showing the way around corners. I heard Larai shoot, saw the flash of plasma fire backscatter off the walls. When I caught up with her, she was standing in the middle of the hall, in an arch opening onto a massive space. At least, it felt big, I couldn’t see the roof in my suit lights, even with my vision enhanced.
“Where’d it go?” I asked.
“Where do you think?” she hissed, jabbing her burner at the room ahead.
“Shit.” I didn’t like the look of it. We’d climbed a fair way since reentering the ship—and seen almost nothing in all that time—but this spot were so exposed, and there was only us two.
There weren’t nothing for it, but had I known what were out there, I’d have liked to stay in that arch another hour, or gone back down and out again. I don’t expect to be quit of the memory until they put me back on ice. But I didn’t know that, and I opened my damn mouth. “We got to make a break for it.”
“What?”
“Well, we can’t stay here.”
“If there’s anyone out there, they’ll see us. We should turn out the lights.”
“Then we won’t see shit. These things live in the Dark, Larai,” I said. She swore, but in that way she had where I knew she agreed with me. She was all pale looking in the scant light, like one of Them. “You ready? Your shield still good?”
“Took a bit of a hit on the way outside,” she said. Then, “Yeah.”
I checked my disruptor, keyed up the spotlight under its slit of a barrel, and hurried out into the Dark at a jog. Larai moved past me soon enough, but held pace just in front of me, which was good. I still had my helmet, so my vision were better. I could see ahead more clearly. Even so, I didn’t see the others until we were on top of them.
Until they screamed.
There must have been half a hundred of them, all gathered around the foot of a huge, black stone, between the arms of some shrine or altar built in the grotto. The darkness stretched out forever around us, and even the door we’d come through were lost. Red lights burned remote as dying embers on the arms of the shrine, cast upon the carved surface of the black monolith. Were they praying to it? Or only sheltering themselves, hoping to ambush us as we went by?
These was no soldiers. These was others like the one I’d shot in the back, dressed in simple clothes and not armor at all. But they was still monsters, still with slitted noses and black eyes the size of my fist, like I’d walked into some goddamned tomb. Larai fired before I could think, taking down two, three, four. The beasts hissed and drew back. But they didn’t draw up like I expected, using their height to scare the piss out of me. They shrank down, away. Some fell over the others to get away.
“Wait!” I shouted, and were surprised when I didn’t sound scared. I sure felt scared. “Larai, wait.”
“What is it?” She’d backed up so we stood almost shoulder to shoulder. I reached up and unsealed my helmet, letting the mask slot back properly. “What in Earth’s Holy Name . . . ?”
“They ain’t soldiers. Look.”
Without the flattening of the helmet’s vision, I saw what they was. Monsters, yes, with glass fangs and those horrible, melted-skull faces. But with my own eyes I could see the way their nostrils flared, eyes wider than seemed possible. They was scared. Same as me. Or maybe their scared is different. They ran, scattered toward exits I could only guess at. The noise they made—high and cold—I haven’t stopped hearing it. I put my helmet down on the floor, lowered my weapon. That’s when I heard it. Shots. Plasma fire. Yelling.
Soldiers. Legionnaires.
Humans.
We stood there stunned, watching them go—watching still more huddle against the black monolith or against the arms of the shrine. I must have turned my head for two seconds, but it were enough. I heard Larai scream even as something huge hit me full in the side, and I went down with one on top of me. It shrieked like metal tearing, like cold wind.
I thought about Soren, about the meal we had found . . . about my Minah and the boy. The creature’s arms were like iron about me, fingers wedged between the plates of my armor and the underlayment, tearing. I felt a clasp pop somewhere about my ribs. For a moment, I’d forgotten the disruptor was in my hands, forgotten the creature was not armored. Its breath hissed in my ear, and I thought it were going to bite me. I fired, insulated from collateral nerve shock by my suit. The creature went limp as a sack of wet oats, and I peeled it off me, staggering to my feet again.
Another of the creatures had Larai pinned down. Her burner’d been knocked away, and it had each of her wrists in its huge, long-fingered hands. It stooped over her, its face near to hers. I remembered their snarling, jagged teeth, and didn’t hesitate. I were done hesitating. I squared my shoulders and fired. There were a flash of blue light and it fell on top of her.
Better to fight. Always better to fight.
I kept my disruptor raised, circling away from the shrine and the crowd of demons. Slowly. Sounds of fighting and gunfire came from up the hall. “Over here!” I cried. “Over here!” Then more quietly to Larai, “You all right?”
“Help me up!”
The beasts nearest me turned, unsure where to go. I could see the fear in them eyes, and knew it were fear like mine. One saw me and froze. Larai said something, but I couldn’t hear her. I was watching the creature. Its huge eyes. Its horns. Its white hair tangled on its shoulders. It looked at me a good long time, flinching away. Not knowing why, I held out my free hand, above my head. I smiled. It cocked its head, took a step forward. Then I saw the stains about its mouth, on its chin. Red stains on the blue-white face.
“Carax, what are you doing?” Larai hissed.
“Quiet,” I said, and moved slowly for my sabretache. I fished the strange doll out and held it out, keeping my disruptor primed, aimed at the floor beside me. The child—I don’t know why I think it was a child, for it was taller than I was by a head—inched forward, raising its own hands, reaching for the doll I held. I weren’t going to shoot. Monster or not, man-eater or not, I wasn’t going to gun a child down. Fighting for the Empire was better than letting these monsters eat us, but I knew where I draw the line. I glanced at the helmet I’d left on the floor, then back to the creature. It looked me in the face, eyes narrowed, teeth bared.
And then it had no face. Only smoking ruins.
I don’t think it were Larai who shot it. I think it were one of the others. One of the bone-colored Legionnaires in their red tabards looking like the enlistment posters. Faceless as the creature were now.
But they was a human kind of faceless.
Christopher Ruocchio is the author of The Sun Eater, a space opera series from DAW Books, the first novel of which, Empire of Silence, will be out in 2018. He is also the Assistant Editor at Baen Books and a graduate of North Carolina State University. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
A TALE OF THE GREAT TREK WAR ABOARD THE STARSHIP PERSISTENCE
Brendan DuBois
There are big ships. Then again there are really big ships. Imagine a vessel so huge that terms like “port” and “starboard” denote not just sides of the ship, but sides of life, of culture. Given enough time in the dark between the stars, might they not also become sides in a war for precious resources? Victory often goes to those who dare, and in such a situation the most daring of all might be the warrior who can literally think outside the b
ox. Or, in this case, outside the bottle. Outside, where the distant stars shine on the just and unjust—and on Port and Starboard alike.
In Year 219 of the Starship Persistence’s voyage from Earth to Destination, I found myself one late watch in a wide access tube once designed to be used for automated deliveries from one division to another, following the squad ahead of me by the flickering lights from the battle lanterns strapped to their waists. It was hard to tell how long this access tube had been used—the railings were still shiny and looked like they were ready to move along transport drones at any moment—but one of the armed members of our squad was a rating in logistics and said this tube hadn’t been used in decades, especially since it eventually transited to Port.
I was desperately trying to keep notes of what we were doing and where we were going, but after two hours of travel, it was pretty hard to do much except note “Bulkhead 4-G-14 successfully passed,” followed by “Bulkhead 4-G-13 successfully passed.” The squad consisted of fourteen members of the crew and myself, Avery Conrad, yeoman in the Public Affairs Office, which consisted of me, me, and . . . me. But the captain wanted a firm recording of what was going to happen during this war, and that was my job. As she had told me earlier, “We still don’t know what happened during the Event, years back. A lot of the computer files were overwritten, scrubbed, or bleached. What scraps of paper writings and notes that survived say still doesn’t make sense. Yeoman, your job is to record a good, accurate story of this conflict, so future generations will have a clear idea of what happened.”
With that, I had given the captain a snappy salute, and said, “Aye aye, ma’am,” which was why I found myself in this wide yet smelly and dark access tube, tagging along during one of the first clashes of this war.
Up ahead there was a sudden bunching of lights and some harsh whispers, and I swallowed hard, mouth dry. I had gone through the usual weapons and hand-to-hand combat training when I was younger, but I was lax when it came to working out during my regular duty. I had no illusions of my bravery or my strength. I was just there to witness, and secretly, I was also there to run away if a battle were to break out.
I’m no hero. Just a guy who writes things.
I moved ahead and pushed my way through, and three battle lamps were aimed to the deck. There was a smooth joint on the deck and on one side was a line of blue paint, and on the other side—to where we were headed—was a line of gold paint.
Our squad’s leader, Petty Officer Blake, whispered, “There you go, shipmates. We cross that line and we’re passing from Starboard to Port. We’re officially going into enemy territory. Be ready, now . . . and spread out!”
So we spread out in a line and I remained in the rear, along with a cute electronics specialist named Mary Young, and she whispered to me, “I’m so scared. How about you?”
“Stick with me,” I said. “It’ll be all right.”
She nodded, holding a lance in her hand that was almost as long as she was tall, and I didn’t bother telling her that by sticking with me, I would ensure her safety by making sure she would run back with me once fighting broke out.
The squad had on the usual blue jumpers and helmets, and the weapons were a mix of lances, swords, and a few power guns. Being stretched out like this, I could almost enjoy the curious sight of seeing bobbing lights ahead of me, stretching out in one long chain. Electronics Specialist Young, walking along with me, whispered, “It looks like a test strip line up there.”
I was going to ask her what a test strip line was when we were hit.
The end of the access tube collapsed and spotlights flicked on, and somebody yelled out “Ambush!” and the fight was on.
I was at the rear and I’m ashamed to say that Electronics Specialist Young reacted better than me, and with lance in her hand, she yelled and raced forward. The sudden light blinded my eyes but after a few seconds, I was able to make out what was going on.
The access tube had been sabotaged somehow so the Gold Crew knew we were coming, and could collapse decking and bulkheads to open us up to an attack. They were above us on support beams, in a curving line, and they sent down arrows, long spears, and there were two powered weapons that chattered at the crowd of Blue Crew members.
Most didn’t have a chance, dammit, and there was a cry of “Retreat! Fall back! Retreat!” and that’s what we survivors did, running back down the access tube, heading back to Starboard, the light from the ambush fading behind us, the bouncing battle lanterns only lighting our way, until we ended up at the Bulkhead 4 terminal, where there were corpsmen and others stationed to help us.
I think maybe there eight survivors, including me.
And not including Electronics Specialist Young.
A few hours earlier I had been called into Captain Quinn’s quarters as she was having a meeting with her department heads, from astrogation to propulsion to hibernation maintenance to farming and about a half dozen others. When she noted me she asked me to take a seat in a far corner, which I did, and with notepad in hand along with stylus, I sat there and waited to see what the captain needed.
Which was direct and to the point.
She unfolded a tiny sheet of paper and said, “At oh-eight-hundred this morning, we received a final message from Captain Xi following the cessation of negotiations. The message says, quote, Qù sĭ ba, unquote, which, I believe, roughly translates to ‘go to hell.’”
There was a sigh and some whispered words as the impact of those words settled in.
War.
I had been about six or so when there had last been war between Blue and Gold, Starboard and Port, Yank or Han—take your choice. I don’t remember much about that conflict, only that it was over water rations and I spent most of the time hidden in one of the storage chambers in my family’s quarters, and so I wasn’t sure how this latest conflict would shake out.
Who would?
Captain Quinn noted the reactions from the department heads and said, “Come now, people. Stout hearts and stout minds, all right? You are all descended from those who made the big leap back at the Start, and our ancestors then were brave and strong. We all have strong spirits and strong genes. Number One.”
Commander Rex Chambers, sitting at her right side, said, “Ma’am.”
“Execute War Plan Beta immediately. Send out runners to pass along the word.”
“It will take a while for the runners to get where they’re needed. Since we—”
The captain raised a hand. “I don’t need a replay of recent history. That’s what got us into this war. Send out the runners and make adjustments to execute Beta at the appropriate time.”
“Aye aye, ma’am,” he said.
The captain said, “Department heads, take note of Number One’s actions and respond accordingly. Dismissed.”
She stood up and the department heads stood up as well, and they started bustling out and I was pulling up the rear, when she said, “Avery.”
“Captain.”
“Stay behind, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When the room was empty, she said, “I want you at my side, as much as possible, to record what’s going on as this war commences. I want a clear record so future gens will have no doubt as to what happened, and who was to blame.”
“I’ll need an increase in my paper ration.”
She nodded. “You’ve got it. Follow me, all right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Out in one of the main corridors, members of the food production crew were pushing ahead a herd of swine. I moved past them and kept pace with the captain as she briskly walked to Starboard Cafeteria Two and entered the low-ceilinged room. Beyond the fixed table and chairs, and near the shuttered ports where food was served, a number of troops were lined up, draftees from the various departments. They had on dark blue jumpers with gold piping, face masks, and helmets, and carried pikes, spears, and a few powered weapons. The captain looked to me and made writing motions with her hands, and I knew w
hat she was looking for.
I sat down at one of the fixed stools and wrote rapidly as the captain spoke to one of our first raiding squadrons. Overhead some of the lighting flickered. There was not one tube, passageway, or compartment that didn’t have dead or dying lights.
“I’ll make this quick,” Captain Quinn said. “You’ve trained over the years as a fine fighting force, you and the other raiding parties. You and your comrades will be dispatched shortly to do what has to be done for Starboard, for our honor, our families, and our future. I know I can count on all of you.”
She then walked forward, shook everyone’s hand, and then turned to me.
“Yeoman Avery,” she said.
“Yes, Captain,” I said.
“Gear up,” she said. “You’re joining them.”
Later that evening, after I had taken part in the disastrous battle, the captain called together another department head meeting.
This one was grim.
Two of the department heads were missing, replaced by their subordinates. Three others—astrogation, waste management, logistics—had bandages on their arms or heads.
Captain Quinn said, “It seems we’ve had a rough time of it. Number One?”
Commander Chambers looked at a scrap of paper. “Ma’am, all three raiding parties were beaten back. Casualties . . . were heavy. Twelve dead, twenty wounded, at least six taken prisoner. Two of the wounded will probably die later tonight.”
The room was quiet, only the general low hum of the Persistence’s machinery and life-support systems being heard.
Captain Quinn looked to us all and said, “Not a first good day.”
A pause.
“Very well,” she said. “You’re dismissed. Maintain guard posts and quick reaction forces where necessary. We’ll meet again at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow.”
I didn’t want to talk to anyone, or be with anyone, but it’s hard to do that aboard the Persistence. Eventually I crawled into my personal tube and managed to fall into a fitful sleep, until my tube hatch cycled open and in the dim light, I spotted one of the older male chief petty officers looking in.
