by Ian Cannon
Tawny unstrapped her blaster belt and hung it in her locker. She said, “I thought we were dead weight there for a minute.” The locker whisked shut and auto locked with a tiny beep.
Ben went to her and wrapped her up in his arms. “Never.” He kissed her. She laid her head on his chest, eyes closed momentarily.
Sireela’s tiny voice excitedly declared, “I like that one more better, anyway!”
They looked over. The girl inspected the security bike nestled in its corner. Her curious eyes fished across the bike’s contours, inspecting its angles, its low, sleek design. She absorbed it with a visible sense of understanding, as if her new, little mind was putting together a rare logic, understanding the thing’s nature, its systems and operations.
Tawny and Ben looked back at each other. He asked, “What happened?”
She nudged a chin at the girl. “She just knew.”
Ben looked back at the girl. She had her hands on the bike, exploring its lines. He said, “Well, thank the bi-gods for that.”
“How’d you get out?” Tawny asked.
He gave her a disgruntled look. “It wasn’t easy. And,” he paused looking up toward the main hold above. “We got cargo.”
She gave him a speculative look and said, “What do you mean?”
“Come on. I’ll show you what I—”
The girl screeched, horrified. They both jerked a look over, startled. The bike’s carapace had been engaged. It telescoped over the girl in the blink of an eye and enclosed her in its vacuum seal over the bike’s operation controls. Her screams were muffled from within.
Ben jumped across the bay and punched the release button. The carapace xylophoned back off her revealing a spooked little girl who’d seen as much of the bike as she’d needed.
“You okay?”
She nodded, wide-eyed. “Uh-huh.”
“Come on, little one.” He picked her up off the bike and swung her down onto her feet, and they went to the lift.
The lift took them up to the main hold and opened. Tawny’s face went shocked.
There they all were. Eleven of them.
A few of them sat together on the floor by the far bulkhead grouped tightly together. Others huddled into a big lump at the starboard cubbyhole gawking around at their new environment. Two of them were at the bow sitting on the steps that led up to the main passage, arms around each other’s shoulders with their heads pressed together. They were all scared, finding security in each other.
Orphans.
The further away REX sped them from the danger of a collapsing colony station, the more they relaxed, for the most part. They were all a bit shaken, but resigned to their new environment. It wasn’t the first time. This place was actually cooler than the last. And they were alive.
Sireela’s face lit up and she called, “Jeruu!” She bolted over to one of the other girls—a scrawny little Stathosian girl obviously happy to see her as well. They sat down together and started playing Tip-a-tee—a hand game where they sat facing each other indian-style and progressed through a series of slapping palms, tapping their laps, crisscrossing arms, mirroring each other.
“How’d you get them here?” Tawny said.
“They got separated from their adults,” Ben answered her. “They were in the corridor. Heh—they were in the way. It was just faster to herd them than to go around them.” She looked up at him, he looked down at her. He shrugged and capitulated modestly, “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t leave them. Had to get them out, right?”
She put a hand around his waist and nuzzled her head onto his shoulder. “You’re amazing,” she said.
He grinned and said, “Well, I’m not the one responsible.” They looked at each other. “That message in a bottle? Someone sent it. Who?”
She agreed. “And why?”
“Right.”
“I’ll get them settled,” she said. They were orphans. She was an orphan. They all spoke the same language. “You go talk to REX.”
REX was a machine. Ben was an operator. Maybe they spoke the same language, too. “Yeah, I’ll find some answers. In the meantime, how about we try delivering cargo to our next stop again?”
“Good idea.”
Controlled Space
Trade Lanes
The Planet Molos
Malice 1 approached at speed, rumbling like a space god from the dark. With the moon approaching and Molos looming large and alive just beyond, the city-ship began the slowing process. A vessel the size of Malice 1 took a greater distance than most to drop to approach speed.
The intumescent face of Dalus showed swollen and vibrant through the control stage’s atmosphere membrane, as though it were hanging in the nearby sky. Controllers at their drive stations carried through with their work like automatons mind-wiped and reprogrammed to follow orders. They could see the remnants of a churned atmosphere where the tonnage of Haven Crest had stirred the skies. Other than that, and a field of scattered debris fluttering through space, there was no sign left of the colony.
The lead controller glanced to the top of the command Dias. His matriarch was absent. She was not on her throne, not on the bridge. Lead control tapped his comm controller on the shoulder, gave him a nod. It was time to hail their matriarch who was enjoying the games of her city, and inform her that they approached ground zero: Target obliterated.
Xantrissa reclined comfortably back into her cathedra, one elbow on the rest, looking on from the royal balcony of the Aphrodisia battle arena. She wore her characteristic grin, crooked at the ends of her lips with sinister, amused eyes. Her chosen man-slave was below in the pit wearing a half-armor suit with one shoulder bare, belly muscles rolling under a fatless frame. She liked what she saw.
The man stood poised with an exaggerated sword in his hands. It was as broad as his torso, as long as he was tall. He’d been hopped up on Floxa-roids and power-ups, psycho-drugs designed to give him the feeling of an unkillable war machine. They caused blood to infuse his tear ducts and dribble down his cheeks. Blood tears. It made Xantrissa grin, eager to watch him perform.
She initiated a command from her subcutaneous arena control device, and the gate across the arena drew open. The man-slave’s enemy combatant stepped forward, a very large bio-droid—a biod—mostly machine with an organic core. It stepped forward on two power piston legs. It swung a net in one large, mechanical hand teasing Xantrissa’s man-slave with it, and a steel club in the other. Perched at its top was the exposed brain of its organic element. It was just a pink, pulsing nodule sitting in the pan of a topless helmet. And it was exposed. The man-slave’s solution was clear. Smash the brain, kill the biod. Easier said than done.
The crowd ooh’ed and awe’d as the two competitors approached flashing shows of strength. Driven by the chemical in his blood, the man-slave rushed forward with a tremendous bawl of aggression, and the fight was on.
“My Matriarch,” Paleron said in her ear as he moved to his seat next to her.
She put a finger up shushing him and looking curiously at the arena floor. She wished to evaluate her man-slave’s initial attack. The man swung the sword in a heavy, powerful arc glancing the blade off the biod’s shoulder plating throwing a sheet of lightning into the air and coming down on his feet. His teeth were bore and he slobbered maniacally.
She made a content sound and said to Paleron, “Yes?”
He adjusted nervously and said, “We have evaluated imagery of the attack from our data net drones.” He stopped talking, unable, or unwilling, to say more.
She said, pressing, “Yes?”
“We were able to accumulate visuals of the destruction.”
She made a firm, smiling look, still watching the fight rage below. Her man-slave came in low this time cleaving one of the biod’s feet off. It fell like timber, thundering down. “Yes?”
“The destruction itself is impressive, my Matriarch. You will be pleased.”
The man-slave fended off a wicked shot from the biod’s club, rolle
d across the dirt and got to his feet.
Paleron swallowed nervously, said, “But there was, uh, er, something discerning.”
Her teeth gritted as she watched on. The man-slave leapt to his feet, came down burying his heavy blade into the biod’s torso unleashing a swath of green biotic fluid. The stuff splashed to the floor.
Paleron said, “There was apparently, uh …”
The man-slave recoiled the blade, swung fully around only to meet the biod’s club full-on. Xantrissa made a discerning face, said, “Go on.”
“There was forewarning.”
Her face constricted into an angry look.
The biod wrenched the man-slave by the neck, lifted him off his feet.
“And the N’halo?” she said through clenched teeth.
The biod slammed the man-slave down exploring dirt into the air and pinning him under a knee.
“We, uh, have reason to believe, madam…”
The club went up, hesitated in the air like a spire.
“That the N’halo …”
The club came down smashing the man-slave’s head into a flat, brainy pancake.
“Escaped.”
The crowd yelled in ecstasy. Xantrissa looked down pulling in a long, slow breath. Anger seethed inside her making Paleron shrink in his seat, expecting anything. She rolled her head toward him revealing that her icy, colorless eyes had flushed red. Paleron forced a swallow.
“N’halo…” she hissed.
“Escaped,” he said punily.
Her eyes narrowed. Breath deepened, became constricted.
Another voice called, “Matron!”
She snapped out of her fury, looked up. Junn Re’Tok stood across the royal seating area wearing the all-too prideful long coat and ornamental sash of an Aphrodisia seat councilman. And he looked like he had a bone to pick. Xantrissa was hardly in the mood.
She greeted with cutting words, “Councilman Junn Re’Tok.”
“How dare you, Matron; allow the service union to extend the gaming cycle and then suggest I conscript their members into my security contingent?”
She stood slowly, seeing in her mind’s eye a chance to expel some of the rage inside her. “Go on,” she whispered.
“It’s intolerable! I must have an assembly.”
“Or?” she asked lowly.
“The whole of Aphrodisia will fall into political dysfunction.”
She nodded meanly, her brow sharp and heavy. Junn Re’Tok recognized her anger, realized he’d stepped across a boundary. He sank back with a nod, turned and left. In a single motion, Xantrissa swiped up the whip at her side, reeled back and let fly a crack. The tip wound itself around Re’Tok’s neck and jerked him to her. Everyone flinched. He found himself staring into those red eyes with her hand wrapped around his throat.
“How dare I?” she roared.
His lips drew back revealing teeth cinched together, his eyes wide and terrified. “My Matriarch,” he wheezed, “please forgive my. Be-be-behavior. I serve only. In your. Name.”
“I care not for your trifles, Re’Tok. You approach me in this fashion again,” she waved the stock of her whip before his eyes making them follow it back and forth frightfully, “and you will taste the true sting of my whip.”
He said, face turning purple, “My love. Is only yours. My service. Is only yours.”
She released him sending him stumbling backward. She said, “You live.”
He came to full height blinking and rubbing his throat. “Thank you, my Matriarch. I ask complete forgiveness.”
She flicked her wrist at him sending him away. Her gaze drifted to Paleron. Her little man had delivered stinging news. Their attack had failed. N’halo was still alive.
And Ae’ahm be damned, her man-slave failed her in the ring.
It boiled inside her. It grew. Became an uncompromising creature.
“Junn Re’Tok!” she boomed.
He turned to face her, horror bristling from his face. “Yes, my Matriarch?” he said with a small, broken voice.
“I changed my mind.” She spun around and thundered another shot with her whip, full-force, no resignation. The tip throbbed a sudden plasmic red.
He screamed, “No—please!”
CRACK!
BOOM!
He exploded into pieces.
He was a puffy, little man. And a fool, to boot. Now he was splatter. His pieces flapped and flopped to the floor in a wet circle of sinewy gore.
When the moment settled, everyone went nervously back to their business, and left Xantrissa standing there heaving mad. Her glare turned slowly to Paleron. “Find her, Paleron. You find that little Sarcon witch!”
He performed an exaggerated nod and said, “Yes, my Bitch.”
She started to storm away, but stopped, her eye caught. There was a passerby. A woman. A privateer. Tall. Long curves. Physical-looking. Xantrissa pointed her out and said, “That one. My quarters. Now.”
Paleron said, “Shall I dispense with your current bed slave?”
“No. I will have them both.”
Documented Space
Trade Lanes
Once they got back on course, REX displayed the sheets of code as three-dimensional renderings over the holopad in shimmering clarity. It was a cube of text that scrolled up and down, even rotated along its Z-axis. Lines of language ran in and through it geometrically. The alien code was highlighted yellow and threaded throughout.
Ben had been studying it as it ebbed and moved. He finally asked, “So how’d it get in your drive code?”
“Beats me, Cap,” REX said. “Whoever sent it knows how to read engine, I guess. And they figured a way to signal into my command capacity.”
“Yeah, but who’s they?”
“That’s a tough one. Whoever they are knows how to get a comm signal to communicate with my drive code. Never seen this before.”
Ben scratched his head. “That’s crazy. Those are two completely different languages. That’d be like tap dancing in Universal tongue.”
There was a long silence as the two minds, one humanoid, the other artificial, processed together, in silence. Finally, REX said, “Hmm.”
“What?” Ben said.
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“Explain that.”
“I suppose I could code speak with them by motion. Motion commands go through the engine code, right? I suppose I could learn to tap dance, if they could learn to translate my motion code into a verifiable language.”
Ben stood upright with his arms folded, staring into the holo-display. “That might work. But there’s one problem.”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
So they said it together, at the same time, “DPM.”
Dot Product Manifold.
They both knew, whoever sent this message had to have been present when the fire coordinates were given. That would have been within Golothan space. But that was three billion miles away, or rather just under three light hours. By the time REX received the warning, Haven Crest would have already been destroyed.
Unless…
They were able to relay the message through the Dot Product Manifold data comm system—a system-wide net of hyper-light comm satellites that condensed energy streams into pure negative mass to accelerate them through vacuum at several hundred times faster than light. It worked for data streams, but not positive mass material, like space ships. All it took was a tensor field coil and a whole bunch of science that Ben didn’t understand. Nevertheless, a Dot Product Manifold (DPM) satellite was the only way to communicate over beyond-light distances immediately. A ship’s drive systems, like REX’s, could receive DPM comm signals, but transmitting was different. Hearing their mystery friend would be simple. Talking to their mystery friend would be difficult, at least it would be with his drive system.
Still …
“It’s worth a try, REX,” Ben said.
“Yeah, they’ll receive my response eventually, if they’re even listening,
” REX said. “Bummer, huh?”
“Well, they caught our attention once. If they do it again …”
“I’ll be ready.”
Someone stepped into the cockpit from behind. Finally, he was about to get some alone time with his wife. Ben said over his shoulder, “Hey, baby.”
He heard laughter. It was light and chipper with a squeal trapped inside it that no adult could emulate. Ben jerked his head over. It was the little girl. Quite boldly, she stepped around the co-pilot chair and took a seat grinning from ear to ear and staring at him.
Ben said, “Uh—hi there.”
She waved at him.
He said, “you’re not supposed to—”
“What?” She said looking up at him with dazzling, innocent eyes full of wonder and curiosity.
He melted. It was nearly like being defeated. “Oh … nothing,” he said.
She giggled.
“So, watcha doing?” he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders and looked around at all the control panels. They were all splayed out before her, above, to the sides. “Just looking,” she said.
“Just looking, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Pretty cool?”
“Uh-huh.”
Ben nodded, a bit uncomfortable.
She said, “Lots of control things.”
Ben chuckled. Control things. The beautiful simplicity of a child’s mind.
“It’s like his brain,” the girl said still switching her gaze across the cockpit.
Attention caught, Ben looked over at her. “Whose brain?”
She said, “He’s happy.”
“What do you mean?”
“He likes you. And he likes Tawny.” As an excitable side note, she offered, “I like Tawny, too!”
