Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  “James?” she said.

  He sat up, gingerly touching his side. His fingers came away bloody.

  James stared at the crimson stain on his fingers. His shirt was wet, as was his knee.

  “James!” Noa said again, alarm ringing in her voice.

  “They have a sickbay,” he heard Chavez say. “Commander, I can take him there—”

  “I’m fine,” James said. And he knew he was, without even touching the wound in his side. He’d felt a brief shock when it had hit him—a sensation of danger, and warning—but strangely no pain.

  Noa put a hand on his shoulder. “James, you collapsed outside—”

  “I slipped on the blood on the elevator floor,” he said, climbing to his feet. “But the wound is minor.” The wound in his side didn’t hurt at all. He was more annoyed by the relative chill of the Ark interior.

  Tugging his arm, Noa said, “No, Chavez is taking you to medical—”

  James could feel the thrum of the Ark’s engines beneath his feet, and heard the sound of bullets outside on the hull. Pulling her hand from his arm, James met her eyes. “I’m fine—courtesy of my augmentations.” He didn’t know that, but it was as good a hypothesis as any. “We don’t have time to argue—and you’re shorthanded as it is.”

  At his words the thrum beneath his feet increased in intensity. Manuel’s voice cracked from a round circular grate in the wall. “Commander, I’m in sickbay, but on my way to engineering, Ghost is in command there—”

  Ghost’s voice cracked over Manuel’s. “I’m working on the ground defenses. As soon as I get in, your darling brother is going to go to work getting me out.”

  “Can he really shut off the ground defenses?” Chavez said. “Without ethernet access?”

  James’s eyebrows rose. “He got us this far.” But how … it still nagged at James.

  Noa touched a red button beneath the grate, as they’d all learned to do in Ghost’s lair. “Understood. On our way to the bridge.”

  As she released the button, Chavez stared at the speaker. “This ship is so primitive. Maybe we can set up a local ethernet—”

  “We have to survive the next twenty minutes, ensign,” Noa snapped.

  James realized he was still staring at the speaker, mulling over Ghost’s mysterious access to the mainframe, and whether they might have only scant minutes to live. Even if Ghost could shut down the ground defenses, they still had an armada to face. Noa was already walking over to a sliding door of the airlock they were now in. A moment ago, he’d heard the worry in her voice—heard her heart race at impossible speeds when she’d thought him injured. Apparently she’d recovered from the shock of thinking him near death. James followed her past the airlock, and Chavez followed him.

  Moments later, Noa summoned the lift that ran through the center of the ship from engineering to the bridge. As they waited, James looked around and located the hatches in the walls, floor, and ceiling that could be lifted for access to maintenance passageways in case the lift did not come. As he did, he couldn’t help but notice faded drawings painted on the walls—stick figures of men, women, and children; plants in pots; hearts and crude stars. All the drawings ended at about the level of his waist. He remembered his last visit to the Ark as a child—the tour guide had said that the Ark had been a family ship. During the voyage a few children had been born. They’d been allowed to paint on the walls … and yet, people of the same philosophy that would allow such humanity had just shot at him for being … for being …

  He gripped his side where the blood was rapidly drying, a testament to his frailty, his humanity. They believed he would be the end to the human race. His gaze shifted to Noa. Her chin was high, her shoulders squared, her dark skin in sharp relief with the pale gray walls. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she’d gone with Kenji … his vision dimmed. It would have all been over then … everything …

  His vision went completely black. The thoughts in his mind stilled to all but one. Everything, what?

  Metal screeched below them, and the engine grew louder. Chavez jumped, and Noa looked down sharply.

  “Is that normal?” Chavez said.

  The lift opened, and Noa stepped into the small cylindrical space. The ceiling was shaped like an oblong pill. Noa’s eyes slid to James’s.

  “Sure,” she said, raising an eyebrow as though daring him to contradict her. In Japanese she muttered, “I have to keep morale high.”

  James remembered standing below the elevator, contemplating not jumping—all would have been lost if he’d given in to the sense of inevitable failure. Raising an eyebrow of his own, James said, “Perfectly normal sound.”

  “Are you sure?” Chavez asked, metal limbs creaking as she shifted on her feet.

  “I’m a historian,” James said. “I have studied these ancient ships.”

  It was the most blatant lie he’d told in his life—or at least since he’d awakened in the snow—it felt oddly liberating. Noa’s eyebrows rose and he thought he saw the hint of a smile on her face. There was a ding and the lift door opened. They stepped into a space scarcely larger than a coffin. James stood to one side, Chavez to the other, and Noa stood sandwiched between them facing the front. The door shut, but the lift did not move. “Bridge,” Noa said, looking upward.

  Nothing happened. Chavez drew against the wall. Eyes flitting side to side, she held the pistol in her hand so tightly her hand shook. James saw what looked like a small gray door on the wall just as wide as his hand, and about as tall. He opened it, revealing some buttons. James pressed the one that was the highest. The elevator started to move. Touching his chest, James said to Chavez, “See, historic spacecraft, my specialty.”

  Chavez’s shoulders loosened and she grinned.

  “Well done,” said Noa, the edge of a smile definitely on her lips.

  Looking up at the ceiling, James said in Japanese, “I hope we’re going to the bridge.”

  Noa coughed just as the lift jerked to a stop. The doors did not open. Instead, the ceiling slid away, and the walls dropped.

  17

  They were standing in a beam of light, in a circle of stairs much like the one that led out of the rain catch, but not so high. The bright sun outside made it lighter on the outside than in, and Noa had a perfect view of the city. In the distance, she saw smoke rising. For the first time since the skirmish outside the Ark, she thought of the protests Manuel had promised. Her hands turned to fists at her side. The uprising, the ‘civil disobedience’ that was distracting the bulk of the Guard forces, had turned violent. She had no doubt that the protesters would lose … and also, that they were probably responsible for the relative ease with which Noa and her people had made their way onto this ship. “Make this work,” Noa told herself. “For all of them out there.” She must have said the words aloud, because Chavez turned to her sharply.

  “It will work,” said James, and then he added in Japanese, “and if it doesn’t, it is better than the alternative.”

  Noa thought of Ashley and the scars where her prosthetics had been pulled off, of little Oliver somewhere down the decks, and the man standing beside her whose mind would be picked apart. She felt herself turn to liquid steel. She shifted her gaze back to the bridge. At the top of the short stairs were six chairs tilted backward. Two for the pilot and co-pilot, two for passengers on either side of those, and two for the gunners manning the cannons.

  Eliza poked her head around the seat next to the pilot chair. “Hurry! The engines are almost ready to go.”

  Gunny poked his head out from the chair for one of the cannons. “Guns are still charging.” His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was completely red from fire retardant, except for where it had been washed away with tears.

  “To the other cannon, Ensign,” Noa commanded, striding up to the captain’s chair. She didn’t bother asking Gunny if he could see well enough to fire—he was the only one on the ship that had any experience firing a cannon. Granted, that had been with grou
nd cannons that were far more maneuverable, and he’d never had to allow for changes in gravity or firing at near light speeds … She pushed those thoughts to the side as she snapped herself into her chair. James snapped himself in beside her in the co-pilot chair. Manuel and Ghost both had experience that would have made them better co-pilots—but they were needed in engineering. As soon as he was secured in his seat, James started swiping at buttons. Screens in the instrument panel in front of Noa sprang to life with grainy images from outside of the Ark.

  “It doesn’t have a data port link,” Chavez said, as though she didn’t quite believe the holos she’d practiced at Ghost’s place had been real.

  “The red button fires,” said Eliza. “You can practice maneuvering the guns if you press the little blue button next to the screen.”

  “Screen?” said Chavez. “Oh, right, no neural interface … the screen is so tiny.”

  There was a control wheel directly in front of Noa. Ignoring it, Noa focused on the buttons and dials laid out on the dash. She pressed a button. As soon as she did, the sound of hissing pipes and Manuel’s shouts of, “Make sure that coolant pipe isn’t leaking,” filled the bridge.

  “Engineering, are we ready to go?” Noa asked, as though they had a choice.

  “Hold on, Commander,” Manuel said. And then she heard him call out, “Timefield generator array?” and someone else respond, “All units online and operational.”

  Manuel continued down his checklist. “CO2 filtration system?”

  Another voice responded, “I … uh … think … yes, the light is green.”

  Gunny whispered what sounded like a prayer under his breath; Noa bowed her head and silently echoed it.

  “Manuel …” Noa said.

  “We’re ready as we’ll ever be, Commander,” the engineer responded.

  “Ghost?” Noa asked.

  “Still working,” Ghost grunted back.

  “We have to go now,” said James. “They have … I think those are ground cannons?”

  Noa looked at the screen he was pointing at. “They wouldn’t fire on a national monument, would they?” Noa asked, staring at the blurry image and at the same time diverting the engine power to the antigravs and main thrusters.

  A whine sounded from below.

  “That doesn’t sound right,” said Chavez.

  Not answering, Noa gritted her teeth. She wasn’t precisely sure if the Ark had ever been tested since it had been refitted at the Republic’s order. “No time like the present,” she muttered to herself, and then louder said, “Belt in, everyone!”

  Manuel’s voice filled the bridge. “All in.”

  Kara’s voice cracked over the speaker. “Oliver and I are belted in in sick bay.”

  “Let’s go, then,” said Noa. Grabbing hold of the steering bars and one hand on the throttle, she said a prayer, the same one she’d used in the Asteroid War in System 6.

  Interrupting her concentration, 6T9 said, “Shouldn’t we be alerting the authorities to the dangerous rebels taking control of the museum?” Noa’s heart caught in her chest. Of course, 6T9 didn’t think that the Guard had fired on them. If he had thought he was with the real rebels, he probably would have turned himself in.

  “Dangerous rebels?” said Gunny.

  “They shot at a child!” said 6T9.

  “So that’s how he’s rationalizing it,” Gunny said, as though to himself.

  “How can you rationalize shooting at a child?” 6T9 cried.

  “Shut down,” said Eliza.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the ‘bot, and slumped forward in his seat.

  Noa pulled back on the throttle. There was a shearing noise. Nothing happened. She swore she heard the entire ship collectively taking a breath.

  And then an earsplitting roar filled the bridge, and before Noa could even glance down, her back was slamming into the seat and they were hurtling toward the clouds.

  The force of the Ark’s acceleration pushed James’s body into his seat. His eyes watered, and his skin felt tight, his hands reflexively grabbed the arm rest. The pressure on his lungs was too intense to breathe. He wondered if something had gone wrong. Sixty seconds into the sky, the G forces suddenly lessened. The dome of the sky above their heads was still unblemished, perfect—but he knew the armada was up there, waiting.

  “Fire cannons, now!” Noa said.

  The ship rocked in rapid succession four times as plasma fire ripped out of the vessel. As the beams sped away, they fanned out.

  “That should clear our path,” Gunny said. “Plasma will play havoc with the external sensors of anything that isn’t outright destroyed … We’re in the clear.”

  From the intercom there were cheers, and James wanted to smile, too. The ships in their immediate trajectory would be incapacitated, unable to fire or move, and they’d be in the way of any other vessels that might fire on the Ark. The Ark would fly right through the “donut hole” left by the cannons, and jump to light speed.

  “Now all we have to do is blast out of the atmosphere and hit light speed,” someone said.

  Unfortunately, the timefield bands couldn’t counteract substantial gravitational forces and shoot them through space at the speed of light.

  “We’re ready for it!” Manuel shouted. There was another cheer.

  James craned his head to look at Noa. He wanted to congratulate her. To tell her she’d been right and he had never been so happy to be wrong.

  But he found her frowning. “Do you hear that?” she said.

  James opened his mouth, about to say no, when from below he heard a loud shearing noise.

  “Oh, dear,” said Eliza.

  “What happened?” said Gunny.

  Ignoring him, Noa said, “Manuel, that was the timefield generator array, get it back online!”

  James’s hands tightened on the armrest. Without the timefield bands, they’d never make it out of the atmosphere.

  “I’m trying, I’m trying!” Manuel said.

  “Going to do a gravitational turn, hold on,” Noa said. “Performing calculations.”

  “A what?” said Eliza.

  Noa just growled, so James answered for her drawing data from his historical records of early space flight. “We may be able to get out of orbit if she uses Luddeccea’s spin as a slingshot … if she gets the angle right.” But they’d miss the donut hole created by the cannons.

  “Oh, I remember, the ship has an onboard computer that can—”

  “I have a computer onboard my shoulders,” Noa said. And of course she did. She was a pilot in the Fleet of the Galactic Republic; such apps would be standard. James saw the instant Noa’s own navigational app finished the calculation. Her head snapped back, her eyes widened, and then she depressed the control wheel. The Ark leveled off at a more horizontal angle, and the chairs they were on all pivoted so that everyone in the bridge was right side up.

  “I’m not a damn bat!” Ghost’s voice cracked from the radio. Apparently, not all the seats on the Ark could remain orientated to Luddeccea’s gravitational pull.

  “We’re not going to have a clear path,” Gunny said, his voice hushed. “And the cannon needs to recharge … ”

  “I could divert some power from the timefield generators,” Manuel’s voice cracked over the line.

  “No,” said Noa. “If we don’t hit light speed, this is all over!” Her chin was dipped low, her nostrils were flared, and James could see the muscles and tendons in her arms.

  Ghost’s voice cracked over the radio. “The armada is using older, non-ethernet dependent communications. I can’t take the ships down that way … but I can try to scramble their detection and ranging instruments on the surface. It could create confusion.”

  “You do that!” Noa ordered. She gave her head a tiny shake and muttered, “The heavy cruisers won’t be able to turn around that quickly.”

  Noa nodded. James could see the steering bars in her hands vibrating to the same rhythm beneath his feet. He looked out at t
heir trajectory. As the atmosphere became thinner, the ambient noise within the bridge dropped a few decibels—they were leaving the friction of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon-dioxide molecules behind. After the roar of takeoff, he felt as though the cabin had grown hushed. The sky was rapidly changing from crystalline blue to the velvet black of space. He’d never experienced a takeoff that was as beautiful, and he wondered if it was because he suspected it might be his last.

  “What do you see in the scopes, co-pilot?” Noa said.

  James looked down at the screen showing the view directly above Prime, behind and above them. Six giant cruisers were clustered around Time Gate 8. He tilted his head. Of course they would be grouped around the station. It was controlled by aliens … or demons, or djinn, in the estimation of the Luddeccean authorities, anyway. His head ticked to the side.

  Time Gate 8 had its own defenses. It was evenly matched with the cruisers and their small squadrons. His head ticked again. Four of the cruisers were dark … the station was dark, too. Time Gate 8’s ring should have been lit from within. So aliens didn’t need light? Had they been routed? Motion on the screen caught his eye. “Eight small fighters heading this way.” They looked like delicately gliding snowflakes at this distance.

  “We should be able to take a few hits from a small fighter,” Gunny said.

  Noa’s eyes dipped to the screen and then up to the window. “Five seconds until they’re in range,” she ground out.

  James could do nothing but watch helplessly as the snowflakes approached. His grip tightened on the armrests.

  “Four seconds,” Noa said, although she needn’t have, the countdown was playing out in his mind now in giant numbers.

  “Three seconds,” Noa said. Her voice was steady and calm, as though the situation was under control. His voice would be that way too … it always was that way … even times like now, when he wanted to shout, to scream, to frown, or to cry. The armrest snapped beneath his fingers.