by B. V. Larson
The more he read about where they would go, the more it appalled him. He was no stranger to extreme danger, but this went way beyond crazy... and they were in an unarmored civilian ship that could barely defend itself. That ship also contained people he cared about very much.
The others were Breakers, so they’d signed up for the risk, but not Chiara and certainly not Belinda. He desperately wanted to head back to Utopia, commandeer a real warship with a complement of battlesuited marines, and head for Hell’s Reach fully equipped.
But there was no time. The short gestation period for Korven-implanted larvae meant they might only have a few days to find the women and get the disgusting things removed—though how, he had no idea. It wasn’t as if they had an autodoc or a thoracic surgeon aboard.
Loco stood and stretched the kinks out of his neck and spine, glancing at the countdown chrono. Three hours in, three to go. He headed for the cargo bay.
“At ease. Relax, guys,” Loco said as men reflexively scrambled to their feet. “I’m not General Paloco right now, just the ship’s first lieutenant.” Even so, everyone stopped what they were doing and waited for him to say something.
The space was crammed with people and goods. Cargo lined the walls, forming shelves where men sat or reclined on bedrolls. The gravity had been dialed down to one-third to make it easy to climb, less likely to fall. The air felt close and fetid despite the extra air scrubbers and oxygen, and the toilet pod stank faintly of human waste and disinfectant.
Loco pushed open the door to the passageway behind him, hoping to improve the air. “Sorry about the conditions, but it was either this or drop you off somewhere—and I know you want to help get our people back.” He almost said our women. Breaker policy was equality of the sexes, of course, but the plain truth was, human males were still hardwired to protect the females.
There was no need to ramp up their primitive battle-urges on that score... yet. He wanted to keep them as dispassionate as possible.
“I know Captain Jilani gave you an overview of Hell’s Reach already, but I’m going to give you my own take on it. I’ve never been there before—has anyone here?”
They all shook their heads.
“I won’t sugar-coat it. This might be the most dangerous place we’ve ever encountered, not only because of what it is, but because of our sheer lack of equipment, intel and preparation. I seriously considered diverting home, even with the delay. Frankly, I’m not sure which gives us better odds—but the pressure of time wins out. Breakers don’t leave Breakers. Alive or dead, we’re getting our people back. We won’t commit suicide, but we’ll be taking some big risks. Anyone have a problem with that?”
The Breakers growled in general agreement. “We’re with you, sir,” Chief Sylvester said earnestly.
“Good. So here’s the deal: Hell’s Reach is a nebula. Not a friendly, calm nebula like the Starfish, but a hot mess. Thousands of proto-stars keep it churning with plasma. It has new, volcanic planets wandering around. Rogue asteroids. Electromagnetic storms, ion storms. Vortexes and gravity twists. On top of that, there are reliable reports of... things living in this region of space.”
“Things?”
“Bizarre things. Huge spacegoing animals. Sentient beings made of plasma living in the proto-stars. Lithomorphic life something like the Crystals we fought. Ice monsters. Other things, weirder than weird.”
“And we’re going in there?”
“We have to, Chief. That’s where the Arattak data says our people were taken by a Korven ship. They’ve been moved to a Predator base. We have almost no information on this base—why it’s there, what’s in it—but we have to suspect the worst.”
“The Korven are monsters!”
“Yes, they are. They’re as evil as anyone we’ve ever known. Their entire culture is based on predation—kidnapping, implantation and murder. Some of us have nightmares about being forced to kill our fellow humans—people on the other side of a war or some miners like we just left. We might have to fight humans again someday. But this is different. When you kill a Korven, you’re killing a monster. The only nightmares you should have are for those that got away—those that will keep on preying on ordinary people who just want a peaceful life. Like our families back home on Utopia.”
The eleven Breakers stared soberly at Loco, drinking in his impromptu speech. He hadn’t planned to make it, but these guys were spacers, not soldiers or marines. They weren’t used to shooting their enemies personally. He could see it in their haggard faces, in the way they’d twitched and blanched at the dead miners sprawled in the passageways. They needed to be absolved in advance for the violence and death they might deal out.
“Never forget why we’re risking our lives. For our fellow Breakers. Maybe some of you think we’re doing this mainly to get Admiral Engels back, but I give you my word: a Breaker is a Breaker, and I’d fight just as hard to get back a bunch of raw recruits. Are you ready to do that, gentlemen?”
“Yes, sir!” they spoke in unison.
Loco commandeered the entertainment screen mounted on the overhead and inserted the data stick. “Then let me tell you all about Hell’s Reach. Turn up the air scrubbers and oxygen generators to maximum, and somebody go tell the badgers to join us.”
The briefing and discussion took most of the rest of the time until transit. While the badgers hadn’t been to Hell’s Reach either, they had plenty of secondhand stories to tell.
By the time he left the cargo bay, Loco felt like he had a pretty good handle on things.
Cosmos, was I wrong, he thought when they transited in and approached the nebula.
A wall of plasma and dust confronted the little ship, with a surprisingly distinct boundary—something magnetic, said the reports. The bean-shaped nebula sat at the inner, galaxy-center-facing edge of the spiral arm, with nothing but empty space surrounding most of it. Unfortunately, the Arattak data Chiara had acquired didn’t specify the coordinates of their destination. Rather, it gave an entry point and a route based on landmarks—spacemarks?—so they couldn’t take a shortcut.
“God, I really don’t want to do this, Loco,” Chiara said as she stared at the nebula’s wall. “I’ve done some batshit crazy things fighting the crimorgs, but this is beyond any of that. I’m not sure Cassie can take it.”
“We have the shields. We have our brains.”
“And if we were using them, we’d run back to Utopia and get a dreadnought.”
Loco ran his eyes over Chiara’s tense profile. “You’re the boss-lady. Your call. I make it two or three days at best to reach Utopia and return—not counting any prep time for a ship we commandeer.” He didn’t point out how that might destroy his credibility with the spacers aboard, after his sobering speech about getting the lost Breakers back.
She took a deep breath, let it out. “Fuck it. Let’s go. Who wants to live forever? I know where I’m going when I die.”
“To Paradise? You’re already the mayor.”
“Funny.” She leaned across to kiss him, tasting of that herbal tea she often drank. “I don’t want to die anywhere else but in your company.”
“That sounds like a saying.”
“It is. Shakespeare.”
“I’ve heard of him.” Loco was startled, but pleased. “I feel the same way.”
She eased the throttles forward. “Here goes nothin’.”
“Should we activate the shield?”
“Sure, on lowest power... just to give us some buffer against the wall effect and dust.”
The ship passed through without a bump and the universe shrank. No longer could they see across light-years to the distant shining stars. Now, their view was reduced to mere thousands, sometimes even hundreds of kilometers, the equivalent of a man walking through patchy fog.
“I’ve laid in the course,” Loco said. “You sure it’s wise to follow these directions from your rat buddies?”
“Supposedly these are Arattak directions, with Rodentia notes and modification
s. I believe they are on the level—and what choice do we have? Besides, there are easier ways to screw us than sending us to our doom in Hellheim if that’s what they wanted to do.”
Loco grunted noncommittally. “First waypoint in two hours. You or me?”
“I’ll take it. You go hang with your troops.”
“They’re yours too.”
Chiara fixed him with a flat, skeptical stare. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You’re the military hero. I’m just a leather-clad rogue and a woman besides.”
“Now who’s bullshitting?” He left, thinking that if Chiara could fill in the odd holes in her usual confidence, she’d be a great leader. The longer he knew her, the more he saw the wounds beneath the mask—but the more he saw, the more she seemed to think he’d turn away.
Loco resolved to never turn away. She was the one for him. He’d never thought he’d say those words, even to himself, but he thought them now: I love you, Chiara.
But she didn’t want to hear it yet, so he wouldn’t say it.
Not yet.
In the cargo hold, the Breakers avidly watched the screen showing the glowing gases ahead. They all turned to him as he entered. “At ease. Nothing to report. We’ll be at the first waypoint in about two hours.” He made a production of setting his chrono’s stopwatch to give them a little warning. “Suit drill. Go!”
The cargo hull exploded into controlled chaos as each man grabbed his suit and pulled it on. They buddied up and helped each other fit and test.
“Forty-eight seconds. Not bad, but not good. I want it under thirty. Chief Sylvester, perform a random suit drill every hour or two until everyone is under thirty seconds. Twenty would be even better.” There. That should keep them busy and alert.
He checked on Belinda. She was following his instructions so far about avoiding the male Breakers by hanging out with the badgers, playing cards mostly. He could hardly ask such a social woman to remain in solitary, or only interact with Loco and Chiara. He played a few rounds with them, partnering up with Bel for games of Hearts.
Once the two hours was up, Loco entered the cockpit, ready for the first waypoint. “Anything happening?”
“Maybe. I was just about to call you.” Chiara gestured at the main screen. “Those rocks are doing weird stuff.”
Loco saw what she meant. Ahead, the active sensors showed hundreds of asteroids in a pattern far too regular for the usual belt or cluster. They formed a geodesic shape, a modified globe several kilometers across, and tenuous, slow-moving bolts of lightning crawled along ionized pathways between them in a...
“A Crystal network. That’s what it looks like,” Loco said.
“I never saw one, so I’ll take your word for it. Are they dangerous?”
“The Crystals sure were, but these... ” He worked his console, wishing for a military-grade sensor suite. “They’re rock, lithomorphic. But not pure crystals. If they’re azoic life, they’re probably about as similar to Crystals as two random organics are to each other. Power levels are low, but they’re rising. And some of the rocks are coming our way, slowly.”
“I’m turning away. The info we have doesn’t specify these particular Lithomorphs, but it does mention reports of azoic life in the nebula—some of it harmless, some that attacks on sight.”
“Huh... ” Loco brought up the comms application. “We’re being hailed, more or less. Coming through as text, translated from machine code, so they must’ve had contact with the outside before... or maybe they listen in on the galaxy. Lots of radio waves. Interest. Pretty. What? Why? Single words, simple concepts, mostly.”
“Looks like they’re curious, but we’re not here on an exploratory mission. I’m keeping our distance and swinging around to get back on course.”
Loco considered. “You know, you can never have too many friends, especially in a dangerous place like this. I’d like to respond. See if I can communicate.”
Chiara compressed her lips and scowled. “In my experience that’s asking for trouble.”
“The only way to have a relationship is to take some risks.”
She shot him a glare. “Always trying to slip something in, huh?”
“Only to you, babe. Seriously, though—all first-contact situations are tricky, but they can pay big dividends—and we’re all alone here. What if these... these Lithoids can help us? What better than to have a local friend who knows the terrain?”
Chiara’s mouth thinned further. “No. Not at the cost of endangering all our lives.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n boss-lady.” He sketched a salute, which she ignored, but he thought the corner of her lips might have twitched.
The rock formation continued to extend a salient of groundcar-sized rocks toward them, connected by the network of electric flashes and pulses, but they easily outran it, skirting the cluster. Loco’s comms screen continued to text:
Hello?
Return!
Play.
Interested.
Intrigued.
Harmless!
What what what?
Why go?
Don’t go.
Return!
He read the words aloud as they appeared. “Doesn’t seem dangerous.”
“Neither is a curious grizzly bear until he wants to see what’s inside you.” Chiara pointed at the main screen. “Look.”
Three more clusters similar to the first appeared ahead, and the spherical active sensors showed nine others approaching from all directions, though at a leisurely pace.
“I’m running between them,” Chiara said, accelerating and plying the controls. The ship shuddered as more spaceborne material slammed into the shield, some of it making it through to strike the nose.
“Increasing shield power.” When the shield was dialed up enough to keep all the strikes off, Loco checked the module’s power projections. It had an auxiliary generator and its own capacitor bank, a really good piece of equipment, probably better than standard Breaker gear. If he made it back, he’d recommend Murdock buy some and reverse-engineer them. “We have about an hour at this rate of power consumption.”
“Okay,” Chiara said. “Looks like we’re past the herd of Lithoids, but they’re still following behind like a bunch of interested goats.”
“Maybe that’s not so bad.”
“What if the goats attract the wolves?”
“What if they’re more like dolphins helping the poor sailors in trouble?” Loco asked.
Chiara crossed her arms. “We have no evidence either way, so let’s quit talking about it.”
“What else is there to do but talk? I like to talk. I’m a talkative guy. It’s one of my better qualities.”
She pointedly said nothing.
“Spoilsport. When is the next waypoint?”
“Three hours if we keep just ahead of our looky-loos. Can we stretch the shield power that long?”
“I think so, if we keep up active sensors and you steer for the thinnest areas. Gonna take some active management.”
“Do it.” She sat forward and concentrated on avoiding the densest zones.
The comms screen continued to protest without letup. These Lithoids were nothing if not persistent. Maybe they didn’t get tired. Maybe movement generated power for them. They certainly seemed to be more and more energetic, not less. On the other hand, they weren’t combining into megastructures or generating singularities, so they didn’t seem to share those properties with the Crystals.
He wondered what might have happened if the Crystals hadn’t been so intent on seizing dry rocky planets and wiping out organic life, and had instead gone exploring—and found Hell’s Reach. It might’ve been a paradise for them.
Maybe there was a metaphor in there somewhere. It was a big universe. It should be big enough for everyone to find their own paradise without trying to kill each other all the time, he thought. But there always seemed to be some predator with burning ambition lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce.
The Breakers would
never be out of a job.
Three hours later the Lithoids were still following in thirteen distinct groups. Loco was happy to see they didn’t combine like Crystals. Rather, the original cluster remained closest and the rest gaggled behind, swooping and flying around each other. He thought they might be playing, cavorting.
They passed through the waypoint, a quadruple proto-star that formed a broad gate. As they emerged from the brightness, they found themselves among thousands, perhaps millions, of slow-moving structures—no, Loco realized, creatures, their bodies so thin and transparent as to be barely there, like jellyfish floating in a clear ocean.
“Shit,” Chiara said. “We flew right through one of those things! I was hoping we wouldn’t need the shields for a while.”
“I’ve got ’em on minimum so they’re recharging slowly. The rocks are still behind us. Let’s see what they do... ”
They ignored the jellyfish, their individual rocks moving around or the organic creatures shifting aside in a harmless dance. The Lithoids even seemed to avoid discharging their lightnings near the critters.
“What’s that?” Chiara pointed at a detector screen.
“Something big, moving faster.” The bogey grew quickly, becoming huge and approaching like a mobile cliff the size of a planetoid. Around it smaller somethings arrowed like attack ships. “Trying to get a good image... ”
The synthesized sensor picture he captured showed a thick, blunt torpedo the size of a fortress, surrounded by smaller torpedoes of a different shape and composition. Some of the smaller ones even seemed to be hitching a ride on the larger—and the larger thing was moving through the jellyfish, scooping them into its huge open maw. The smaller ones darted around attacking their prey with mouths like buzz saws, leaving chunks of vaporous meat spinning through the void. “I’m gonna call those ‘barracudas,’” Loco said.
The jellyfish barely reacted. They moved away, but seemed incapable of resisting the attacks. Maybe these were the equivalent of plankton, a species that survived by reproducing and spreading, not by fighting or running.
“I’m staying well away from that thing,” Chiara muttered, angling downward to pass under—not that there was truly any under and over in space, but they’d long ago established a navigation grid for reference, and that’s how it looked to Loco.
