Forgotten Tigers and Other Stories

by Annie Bellet

  The sun dropped, no longer visible, and the shadows stretched like evil fingers across the landscape. Ahead larger shadows loomed, buildings, Roshni realized. Hope Tree. The bandits had circled north and hadn’t actually made it very far.

  “The middle,” the old man shouted. It sounded far away and hollow through the rushing of the wind and her own blood in her ears. “Everyone is in the middle.”

  They reached the outskirts and she jumped Sham over a low fence, nearly unseating their passenger. Ahead was an open area crowded with people and bounded by large standing stones that glowed faintly in the twilight. The stones were old, cracked from too much use, from warding too many people against the onslaught of the Dark. Even as Sham charged forward, Roshni watched one light wink out. Someone screamed.

  “Maa? Why have all the lights gone out?”

  “No,” she whispered. She’d failed before, on the Darkest Night. She hadn’t known what a lightbringer was, what she could do. She’d let her family die.

  But not these people. No more screaming shadows for the Dark.

  Roshni reached for the memories of light, the time before the night that haunted her. She found her fourteenth birthday cake, blue and white candles blazing over the marshmallow frosting that wasn’t Halal at all. A concession from her mother. Outside, the Christian’s holiday lights had blanketed the neighborhood in a web of blue, red, green, white, and gold. Light everywhere.

  Sham plunged past the crumbling stones and into the crowd.

  “Grab me, touch me!” Roshni shouted. “Touch each other. Think of light.” She reached into the man at her back, catching his lightning bug in her web. Then she thrust the web outward, the way she had always put light into ward stones. But instead of stone she used what Allah had found most perfect. Blood and flesh and bone.

  Silence fell as her brown skin started to glow and the light spread out down her arms and into the people who crowded near. It washed over all of them like a cleansing wave and Roshni felt the Dark retreat as a flame was kindled inside each body, fed on memories.

  “Not all lights went out,” she murmured.

  * * *

  “What if you meet more men like those bandits?” Alma twisted her hands in her skirt as Roshni prepared to leave.

  “I have my sword, and Grimalkin.” She felt the tiger waiting for her out in the dry summer grass beyond the settlement.

  “Where will you go?” The old man, whose name she learned was Carlos, stood with Alma and Angelo as Roshni checked her saddlebags one last time.

  “Everywhere,” she said, clasping first his hands and then Angelo’s. She stiffened for a moment as Alma hugged her but smiled as the woman let go. “I need to awaken the light in everyone if I can. Perhaps someday we’ll starve the Dark.”

  “And then our children will see the stars,” Alma said softly.

  Angelo turned his face up to the pale blue sky. “Think the stars are still there?”

  Roshni raised her own gaze to the sky, closing her eyes as the sunshine warmed her face. “Yes,” she answered, the events of the previous night echoing in her mind. “Not all lights go out.”

  * * * * *

  Singing Each to Each

  Taisia pulled up her third to last magnetic lure as the bloody sun sagged low in the white sky. She’d made a good haul of the Piezo crystals, the palm-sized six-sided clear stones that littered the floor of Nonna-6’s shallow sea. Nearly thirty were carefully wrapped in cloth and placed in the chest next to her cot on her flat-bottomed troller. They’d earn her a nice sum when she returned to Cape Sozhalet.

  If she returned. Taisia found it harder and harder each day to think about the future. None of the possible futures had Rana in them.

  Her line snagged on a thick patch of black sea grass and she swore aloud as the thin fluorocarbon cut into her gloved fingers. She’d have another blister for the collection. The line whined against the pulley and then came free. The lure on this section had pulled in a crystal, but one unlike Taisia had ever seen. The glint of purple fire as the stone caught the sunlight almost made her drop the line.

  She rubbed the crystal on her canvas pant leg. It stayed purple. Stripping off her left glove, she scratched her thumbnail against the slightly striated surface, wondering if this anomalous object was some kind of odd impersonation of the regular Piezo crystals, the way iron pyrite had tricked people long ago.

  “Fool’s crystals,” she said, smiling to herself as the surface of the purple stone scored beneath her nail in a way a real Piezo never would. Rana would like it; she was obsessed with all things purple. Taisia would save this one out and . . . The thought died in a wave of black grief.

  No Rana to return to. No Rana anywhere.

  The wind picked up without warning, slapping wavelets against the sides of her boat and pushing salty wisps of foam into the air as beneath the dark green water the black grasses stirred uneasily. It was nearly storm season on Nonna-6 as the bigger moon swung back into close orbit and played havoc with the tides. Not the kind of weather for a flat-bottom boat. The boat hit waves of any size with the grace of a fat kid taking a belly-flop.

  Taisia dragged her mind back to her task. Her feet shuffled over the roughened deck as she went back to her lines, tucking the purple impersonator crystal into her slicker pocket. Best to get the lines in before dark.

  Later she sat on deck, eyes closed, the purple crystal in her hand. She hated the nights, sitting alone with the cold stars and the white-capped black sea and her rose-scented memories that still chased her half a galaxy away. She’d hoped that coming here; here to a place where Rana had never been, would be enough.

  Other people had lost someone they loved and they still went on. Taisia knew, because she’d tried to stay in their old life on the warm turquoise seas of Homeworld. She’d faced the eyes of old friends as their gazes moved from sympathy to pity until those gazes eventually turned away with helpless shrugs and mouthed apologies. As though a low level telepath like Taisia couldn’t read their surface thoughts, the guilt and relief as they cut ties and pulled away, like ships seeking calmer waters.

  Home was where the heart was. Her heart was dead.

  Slumped against the side of her boat, Taisia dreamed. Black hair brushed her breasts and a cinnamon-skinned hand with half-moons of dark earth under the nails touched her lips as roses bloomed in her mind. Roses had been Rana’s favorite and she’d taken the image of them blooming along with their scent-impression as her signature for introducing herself to other telepaths.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Don’t you know you are dead?” she whispered to dream-Rana as she pushed away the petal-soft press of skin on skin.

  Singing woke Taisia. It was still dark, the sea a soft rhythmic shush against her boat, the air alive with a low hum that undulated through the wispy white mist. The air was thick with the scent of rosewater and salt. The impression in her mind was so strong that she almost called Rana’s name as she knelt up, searching for the source.

  Her left hand felt heavy and warm and she realized she still clutched the purple crystal. It pulsed now with eerie light. Taisia lifted her hand with effort and took a deep breath. The crystal was definitely the source of the roses. She shook her head as though she could shake off this as a dream as well.

  An irridescent lavender and violet and royal purple light bloomed in the air above the boat, a swirling sphere like the giant paper holiday lanterns she used to float over the bay as a child.

  The fabled ghost lights of Nonna-6. Taisia had never seen one, not in two seasons of fishing for Piezo crystals. She’d figured they were like St. Elmo’s Fire, some kind of electrical phenomenon caused by the elevated gravity, the charged particles in the mists, and the heavy salinity of the cold and shallow sea.

  No one had mentioned they gave off a psychic signature, little trails of thought and feeling that brushed her mind with warm fingers as tangible as smoke. She knelt on the deck, clutching the purple crystal as it pulsed in time with the pulsing of
the ghost light, her mind frozen as the alien fingers tugged and pulled along her memories, fishing through her grief the way she fished the seas for crystals.

  The soft hum changed, turning upward in tone like a question. Then longing flooded Taisia. For a bare but infinite moment the seas were gone, the boat was gone, and the world around her changed. White sky, red sun, and all was deep green ice. The air crackled with the bitter-sharp smell of ozone as balls of iridescent beings crashed together far above the surface and a rainbow of six-sided crystals hailed down, smoking into the ice. The sky spun, the ice melted, and Taisia was back kneeling on an empty boat.

  “No home,” Taisia whispered. “No going back.” She and the light found the moment of understanding. They have both felt the deep grief of a life forever altered. They both lived with the bones of their dead.

  The light more literally, she realized. The clear crystals were dead eggs, or as near to it as the ghost light could make Taisia understand. She looked down at the warm purple crystal, the one that hummed and shimmered in her fingers, softer and very much alive. The light had come for it, this last spark of hope in its lonely wanderings over the salty graves of its kind.

  She felt how fragile it was. Her fingernail scored it, her hands, strong from a lifetime of hauling lines, could destroy it. Why should this alien creature have hope when her’s has drowned in the maelstrom of her loss?

  The light’s song turned to distress, the keening scream vibrating her ears and causing her heart to skip and thud.

  Even without the psychic resonance, she would know that sound anywhere. Her throat pulled tight as her mouth opened, the same whine of loss cutting past her lips and Taisia heard the harmony in her heart. Apparently suffering was universal.

  She clamped her aching jaw shut and looked down at the purple crystal again. It pulsed, the rose-water mist rising from its striated surface.

  “So is love,” she murmured.

  Eyes hot and blurred with tears, she tossed the purple crystal underhand into the night. The ghost light swirled and caught it. With another soft brush of psychic fingers, it turned and danced away into the dark, its contented hum fading away like the last chord of a lullaby.

  Taisia knelt on the cold deck until she could no longer make out any hint of violet light among the stars. Then, her old knees creaking in protest, she rose and stumbled to her bed, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her slicker.

  When the dream came as it always came, she buried her face in petal-soft skin and slid her calloused fingers into hair as black as the sea-grass.

  “Hello love,” her dream-self whispered. “I have a story to tell you.”

  * * * * *

  Nos Morituri Te Salutamus

  Commander Moira Ilvic closed her eyes as the tiny transport, a Pigeon class that was all speed and no room, slipped through the protective net surrounding the target planet. The Spidren had planetary nets that were more like spider webs, thick strands of energy that shifted and changed, impossible to see or predict until you were right on top of them. A small and agile enough ship, with a pilot who flew on the mad blend of instinct and raw skill, could thread the needle and slip through.

  Pilot Prime Nazar was one of the few who could pull it off, which was why she was the only person Ilvic had conscripted for this mission. The only one beside Ilvic herself who wasn’t given a choice. Ilvic could see that Nazar wasn’t happy about the mission, but the pilot was a good soldier, she’d do her duty. As Ilvic would do hers.

  It didn’t matter she would have volunteered. Any chance to kill Spidren was a chance worth taking.

  The Pigeon vibrated and rumbled in complaint as her pilot brought her down to rest on one of the tall spires of rock that marked the western edge of the debris field. Ilvic had decided to land her retrieval team on one of the mesas and rappel down. It would give the ship vision of the surroundings and some small protection if, or when, the Spidren found them.

  The ship settled and the electronics went dark. The bright sunlight blinded her for a moment as Jang pulled the cargo door open and everyone unstrapped, checking side-arms with the nervous energy that always came at mission start. They’d made it to the planet surface unscathed, so objective one was complete.

  Somewhere directly west lay the remains of the cruiser Starwolf, with her ship’s recorder intact. On that narrow cylinder was the hope of the Fleet, the proverbial Golden Egg. Captain Wulfsen had taken down one of the black widows, a Spidren mothership, before he was blown out of the skies over the former colony planet Ilvic had just landed upon. No one knew how he’d done it, but his ship would have a record of all communications on the bridge, of all actions taken and commands given. The United Fleet Intelligence were certain they could piece it together and perhaps turn the tide of a war that humanity was losing chunk by chunk.

  Ilvic waved everyone except Nazar around her. Nazar knew to stay in the ship under all circumstances, no matter what was going on outside. The pilot was one of the keys.

  “The debris field is two klicks west. The ping from Starwolf’s recorder puts it in that location. We’ll ping again when we are close, but until then, all electronics dark. I want the subvocals on standby. Let’s not attract Spidren attention until we have to, understood?” She looked at each member of her team, meeting each set of eyes and liking the calm she saw there. Every one of these six soldiers had seen surface combat against the spider-like aliens. Each one had volunteered. She saw no second thoughts on their faces.

  “Jang and Haasen stay with Nazar and cover the ship. Be ready with the pulleys to bring us up, we might be coming in hot.” She nodded at them. Haasen and Jang weren’t the best shots or anything, but they were the most stable, the most senior and sturdy of the group. She couldn’t afford any panic up here if things went sideways.

  Jang, middle-aged with the slight softness of jowl and his jet hair turned mostly silver, was one of the refugees from the Kang-mur fleet and had joined the United Fleet as a Lieutenant Tertiar. Haasen was the physical opposite of Jang, a tall, hard blonde man who had been only Ensign before this mission.

  Now they were all Lieutenant Prime rank. It had been one of Ilvic’s demands to Command, though she’d framed it as a request.

  “Move out, stay glacial, and maybe we can send a few bugs to Davy Jones’ locker,” Ilvic said with a ghost of a smile.

  “Yes sir,” came the soft chorus. Lieutenant Commander Anders, her second in command, was the only one who managed to return her smile, thought it didn’t touch his moss-green eyes. She met his gaze with what she hoped was solid confidence, but she knew Anders would see right through her. She’d almost not let him volunteer, but he’d insisted. He needed revenge on the Spidren as much as she. Some things weren’t in her control.

  They attached lines to their combat vests and checked the pulleys. They’d rappel down manually, using the old-fashioned catch-locks to slow their descent the thirty meters or so to the valley floor. Ilvic kicked off first and dropped down, her boots scuffing the red and tan striated rocks as she let herself slip down the thin chord. An ancient river had carved its way through this valley, leaving a majestic canyon full of spires and mesas. This world had once held half a million colonists across its four continents.

  Then the Spidren had come. Less than a third of the colonists had been successfully evacuated. Ilvic imagined children’s laughter in the sound of the sluggish river below, heard cries of the dying in the high whistle of wind through stone. She shrugged off those thoughts. No time for the past. Only the now.

  Khemett, Qazi, Orujov, and Anders reached the ground moments after she had. She motioned for them to move out in tight formation, keeping to the shadows of the tall stones. Orujov carried her sniper rifle, a BFG 50c, slung over her back, its matte black length jutting up like an antenna. Ilvic hoped they wouldn’t need the sniper’s skills, but she’d never been one to put all her credits on hopes.

  Thin mist wafted off the river, carrying the scent of rotting grasses and cutting into the d
ry hot wind that blew down the valley. No clouds marred the sky and the afternoon sun cut long shadows across the yellow grass where it hit the boulders that littered the landscape. Ilvic’s team moved as quickly as they could, alert to each shadow, each lurking rock.

  Spidren resembled spiders out of nightmares when unfolded, but in their resting state, their shells took on a chameleon’s ability to mimic the surroundings. It would be easy for the unwary to mistake a Spidren for a large rock out here. Ilvic wanted no surprises. She tossed a pebble at each rock as they approached, Anders comforting bulk to the side of her with his side-arm drawn, loosely at the ready if the rock turned out to be a bug in disguise.

  They reached the rim of the debris field without encountering any bugs, the only sounds the shushing grasses and their armored vests creaking. The Starwolf had left an impressive crater in the wide plain. In the fortnight since she’d gone down, the land hadn’t recovered. Chunks of acid-melted Aerogel rose like used candles from the blackened earth. Twisted metal decorated more scorch marks and furrowed the ground, as though someone had taken a giant can-opener to the inner workings of the cruiser. A huge chunk of ship, still recognizable as ship, rested just ahead. Ilvic hoped that was what was left of the bridge.

  It was time to risk another ping. Electronics attracted Spidren, something about the hairs that covered their heads and stomachs. She’d sat through a few lectures on Spidren physiology, but had zoned out until finally some brave soul had asked the only question any of them cared about: “How do we kill the fuckers?”

  Turned out the answer was a shot to their singular, multi-faceted eye. Worked like a charm. A giant meaty explosive charm. Ilvic wished there was such a simple answer to stopping Spidren ships. Hopefully that was what Captain Wulfsen had discovered.

  Ilvic pulled out the small black box with its two inch screen as she crouched low enough that the grass tickled her chin beneath the chin-strap of her helmet. If there were Spidren in the area, this ping would draw them like moths to flames. It was a risk she had to take.