by C. Gockel
“Transport reverse grav plating,” Jack ordered, across the general channel. “Team activate magni-grip.” Flipping on the magni-grips of his own boots and suit, Jack fell to his knees and aimed his launcher. The grav plating went from moon-like gravity, to anti-gravity, lifting objects from the ground, including the transport.
In his sites he saw Basu, locked onto the tetrahedron vehicle by his magni-boots, swinging a grav staff at one of the invaders. The enormous armored alien went soaring backwards above the first two creatures Jack had fired upon. It crashed through the icy wall of what had once been a decorative waterfall from the first terrace into the parkland.
“Dropping directional phase blast grenade,” Song said. There was another flash, Jack ducked his head, and both Song and Basu curled protectively. A millisecond later Jack felt the blast. His monitors screamed, but his suit held. Directional blasts read friendly signals and theoretically protected them, but the blasts weren’t perfect. He looked up to see it had done its job. Song and Basu’s vitals were still good, and the invaders had been blown back behind the ice wall of the waterfall with their comrade. Seized by inspiration, Jack ordered, “Turn the plating back on. Fire on the terrace. Melt the water and bring it down between us and them. I’m retrieving the civilians!”
Not waiting for a response, Jack charged.
Someone said, “I’m not getting any life signs,” but his feet were already moving and his mind was set. In the periphery of his vision he saw water spilling from the second terrace, freezing almost instantly, and making another icy wall to lock in the invaders but not fast enough. Jack kept running.
“I’m helping,” the pilot of the transport said over the comm. Jack was dimly aware of it lifting and turning to aim its guns at the second terrace.
“Bring the whole thing down!” cracked over his comm. “Trap them beneath it.”
There was the light of plasma fire, bright enough for Jack to see the civilians the aliens had shot at. Three figures. A woman who’d been blast through, her body severed, a man whose face mask lay on the ground, his face covered in frost, and another shape … Jack flipped on his helmet light.
“Sarg get out of there!” rang in his ears, as Jack stared down at a child, wrapped in an ad hoc enviro-suit: a plastic bag over blankets. Both had slipped to the kid’s waist. A too-large oxygen mask was dangling off his face; there was no way it could have ever fit him. The ground trembled, and Jack was dimly aware that the second terrace must be toppling, but his eyes were locked on the kid. Before Jack had even thought about it, he’d scooped him up.
The pilot’s voice cracked in his comm. “I’m getting crazy readings from the rubble. I think they have an explosive device.”
Spinning around, he saw the transport hovering above the alien ship, its landing gear extended, ready to land for him. Jack shouted, “No, no, pull out.”
“Opening keel airlock, turning off grav plating moonside,” someone said, and Jack saw Basu and Song turn off their magni boots and leap up into the keel.
The ship was coming toward him. Moving as fast as he could, the frozen body locked in a death grip, he felt the ground rumble. Turning off his magni boots, he leaped toward the forward landing strut, and turned on every magni point on his suit and boots midair. He and the kid collided with the landing gear, and Jack said, “I’m in. Get us out of here.”
His comm crackled. “No, you’re not. You’re on the landing gear!”
But the pilot had already flipped on the anti-grav in the ship and in the plating, and the ship was spiraling upward.
Jack saw the rubble from the terrace erupt. Flipping off his magnis, grabbing hold of the edge of the landing gear storage space, he pulled himself and the kid up one-handed. “Lock us in here,” Jack said, pressing himself against the ceiling, holding the kid against his side, praying there would be room. The landing strut retracted, pushing against his chest, and stealing his breath. His launcher was pressed against his lower back. He felt rubble pound against the vessel and the underside of the strut, and just before the door to the space slid closed he saw four shapes crawling from the remnants of the second terrace. From the distance, the vaguely hominid aliens had the geometrical edges and gleam of skin-plated “insects.”
“Ah … Sol,” he whispered, releasing a long breath. Their sun had not betrayed them.
The hatch sealed and his helmet’s comm crackled. “Sarg?”
“I’m alive,” he replied. The ship shuddered as though it had been hit.
“Pressurizing,” said someone and his suit’s helmet monitor erupted in lights as air was pumped into the cramped space.
He turned to the child, or the corpse, and cursed himself. The face mask still dangling from the kid’s neck was too large for a seal, his skin was radiating cold. He’d probably died long before his parents had from suffocation, freezing, or a combination of both.
The ship shook again, but over the comm someone said, “The cavalry has arrived!” And there were hoots on every channel.
“Look at them go!” someone called out, and Jack closed his eyes for a moment and just breathed.
A light went on in his helmet, telling him it was safe to open the seal. He let the visor slip back and cursed at himself. It was stupid of him to pick up the kid’s body, but he couldn’t leave Isaac on that cold rock, and he guessed he couldn’t leave someone else’s kid either. He knew how illogical that was.
The corpse’s eyelashes fluttered in the air currents in the small space. Jack blinked and the corpse’s eyes opened wide.
“Sorry,” said the boy.
Jack banged his head on the ceiling.
The boy blinked at him. “It took me a while to warm up and restart this body. You called?”
For a moment, Jack stared in incomprehension, and then he remembered saying Sol’s name.
Sol swallowed. “I’m not sure how much I can help Jack. I’m getting dim, it’s hard for me to talk to the other stars, flare, or even feel the tug in the waves of your enemies, but I can try.”
“It’s alright,” said Jack. “I don’t need anything.” He heard more cheering over his comm.
Sol looked at the landing strut pinning Jack to the ceiling, and his eyebrows went up.
“They’ll let me out in a bit,” Jack said. It was a good thing sometimes the landing gear compartment had to be accessed during space flight to check the magni-coils and grav grips, or he’d be squished and they wouldn’t have been able to pressurize the chamber. He heard thumps overhead. His helmet comm crackled and someone said, “You okay in there Jack? We sustained some damage and you might have to wait a while.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Jack responded.
“Why did you call me then?” said Sol.
Jack had “called” because Sol had saved them. They were going to dock with Habitat One, where Kathleen and Isaac were safe, and then the four operational habitats would turn toward Oort, and blast off to friendlier stars. Hundreds of thousands of lives had been saved, and Sol was lost, and in that moment, Jack had felt it, the vast chasm of grief and anger and despair he always felt when he lost a brother in arms.
All that was way too heavy. “I missed your sparkling conversation.”
“Oh,” said Sol, he took a long breath. “I’m not feeling very sparkling at the moment.”
“That’s okay.” He stared at the boy … alien … sun. “Can you stay?”
Sol blinked rapidly, looked down at his hands, and flexed them. “Yes … this body is self-sustaining.” His lips parted for a moment, in an expression Jack had seen on Isaac’s face on Christmas morning, and then they formed a mulish line. More coolly, he said, “How long were you thinking?” His voice was that of a child, but his inflection was old.
“Until the body isn’t self-sustaining anymore, I guess,” Jack replied. The zephies had turned to ash … the sun didn’t have to, not yet.
Sol’s eyes went wide, and then that hard-line returned to his lips. Jack knew that he was talking to a bil
lion-year-old being—or a little bit of one—but it was like watching Isaac’s expression when he realized that although yes, his parents had shelled out for the new holo he wanted, he could only watch it if he took a bath first. Staring at a point at his feet, Sol said, “I would like that—times move so slowly in these bodies of yours. The body was very dead, but there are shadows of this body’s memories. Those people were his family, they were from Earth—”
Explained the poor disaster preparedness, Jack thought.
“—I’d be an orphan, a burden, and after what I did to your people…Being in your bodies I understand now the pain and fear I caused.” He shook his head. “There is no reason for you to take me in.”
Jack sighed. If Jack were Kip he might launch into a long story about humans touching zephies, or even just about friendly fire. But he never liked long discussions, especially when the answer was blazingly obvious.
“You’re overthinking it,” Jack said.
Sol looked at him through narrowed eyes.
The comm in his helmet crackled. “We’re going to go ahead and lift the plating instead of trying to drag you out. Don’t need your plasma rifle backfiring if we use too much force.”
“Much obliged,” said Jack.
He heard thumping above his head.
The plating cracked open, spilling light into the dark space. Reaching out, Jack ruffled the hair of the star that had set people on fire, driven them mad, and saved them, too.
The plating lifted completely away and the maintenance workers gasped when they saw Sol blinking. “You have a survivor!”
Jack wasn’t sure yet and held his breath.
One of the guys threw out a hand, to Sol, “Hey, kiddo, it will be alright.”
Sol stared at it.
“Come on,” Jack said gruffly. “You’re our sun.”
A woman in a medic uniform put down a hand too. Everyone went deathly quiet until Sol put up his hands and let himself be lifted into human light.
FIN
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* * *
Read more sci-fi by C. Gockel. Check out the books in her bestselling Archangel Project Universe. Start the series with Archangel Down.
Also by C. Gockel
The Archangel Project
Archangel Down (free ebook)
Noa's Ark
Heretic
Carl Sagan's Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe: A Short Story (free ebook)
Starship Waking
Darkness Rising
The Defiant
Android General 1
Admiral Wolf
Supernova
I Bring the Fire
Wolves: I Bring the Fire Part I
Monsters: I Bring the Fire Part II
Chaos: I Bring the Fire Part III
In the Balance: I Bring the Fire Part 3.5
Fates: I Bring the Fire Part IV
The Slip: A Short Story (mostly) from Sleipnir’s Point of Smell
Warriors: I Bring the Fire Part V
Ragnarok: I Bring the Fire Part VI
The Fire Bringers: An I Bring the Fire Short Story
Atomic: A Short Story
Magic After Midnight: A Short Story
Rush: A Short Story
Take My Monsters: A Short Story
Soul Marked: I Bring the Fire Part VII
Magic After Midnight I Bring the Fire Part VIII
Other Works
Murphy’s Star: A Sci-fi Short Story
Friendly Fire: A Sci-fi Short Story
Let There Be Light: A Sci-fi Short Story
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