The ship’s external monitors, shown on screens all throughout the orb of the cockpit, show cars full of soldiers and equipment hanging around the ship. The staging area is chaos.
Pepper lines the ship up and fires it up. It shudders and caroms its way down the tracks. It speeds up, heading for the wormhole leading to Dawn Pillars.
“Pepper?” you ask. “What are you doing? This thing can’t go through a wormhole.”
“These ships used to do it all the time,” Pepper said.
“Yes, when the wormholes were in orbit. Now they’re deorbited. We’re going to drive this thing through that hole and out into a train station that’s on a planet’s surface.”
“I know.”
There was, you could hear, a sort of boyish satisfaction in the tone of Pepper’s voice.
*
When you pass through, there was that familiar kick in the gut. And the sudden resumption of gravity, yanking down on you again.
And then it all turns bad. The walls flexing and bending visibly. The creaking superstructure that then began to give up creaking and just start screaming.
There is what feels like a mile of sliding, and tumbling, and then darkness as the energy systems on the ship all fail.
Someone is chuckling in the background of the debris and shaking and… yes, that’s an explosion somewhere nearby crackling the air.
The next kick isn’t in your gut, but to your helmet, which cracks and falls away. And then you pass out.
*
A lot of men make a point of arresting you when you wake up in quiet, very clean and modern feeling hospital wing. They’ve vacated other patients and have what looks like a small military guarding you.
No one is happy.
Very grave people are making very important, and measured, but Very Serious accusations. People wearing very expensive suits who look perpetually constipated.
No one is sure what, exactly, to charge you with, but ramming a spaceship through a wormhole into an urban world has repercussions, they explain.
You ask about Pepper, but they pretend not to hear you.
On the second day, when you’re able to get up and walk, you stand by the window and look out over the city. And you see the wormhole and the central train station. And you note the long furrow in the parks and space around the wormhole made by the massive spaceship, the ruined hulk of which rests at the end of the giant, debris-scattered, ploughed mess it has created.
You helped do that.
No wonder they’re pissed. At least four buildings have been subject to a rapid and unscheduled demolition by spaceship.
You’re going away for a long, long time.
But was it worth it?
You hear mutters from some of the soldiers guarding you that the League managed to overwhelm a couple of worlds this way. There’s fighting with the Xenowealth breaking out. It’s the League’s last stand. And they’re going for broke.
Which means that even if you helped delay them, those surviving soldiers, even without the benefit of surprise, are still going to try to shove through that wormhole any minute now.
*
You’ve been stripped of your volunteer rail militia communications equipment by a surgeon who cuts out the implants. A formal letter declaring you persona-non-grata has arrived. You’re stripped of rank, pay, and your pension has been scuttled.
That is your afternoon. The Rydr’s World embassy liaison has you sign here, there, and here, and here again to formalize it.
They will not be helping you find legal counsel in the upcoming fun.
But after the glowering liaison leaves, one of the guards taps your shoulder. “Legal’s here for you,” he says, and points out a room.
Inside is Pepper, dressed in a suit, holding a briefcase.
As the door closes behind you, he sets the case down and opens it. “So, I’m here as a Xenowealth ambassador,” he tells you. Inside are citizenship ID chips, a few wads of hard currency and some gold coins, and several wads of explosives.
You don’t bother to ask how he got all that up here.
“You can’t follow me directly anymore,” Pepper says. He motions for you take everything but the explosives. “But these chips are a new identity anywhere in the Xenowealth, and starter cash. Go on a vacation. Start a business. But just one favor, Vee?”
“Yes?”
He’s shoving the explosive into the wall, careful to point the shaped charges in the needed direction. “Don’t ever work for someone who demands you stand still and do nothing.”
“I can do that.”
“If you’re not interested in a vacation, call the person on that card. Tell her I recommended you. She’ll know what that means.”
You nod.
Pepper walks over, pushes you behind him, and blows the wall off the side of the hospital. “Apparently,” he shouted, “even the diplomats can’t get these guys to let you go, so I have to get involved. I hate administrivia like this, but I wasn’t about to leave you to pay the price for my little joyride.”
He’s holding out his hand. You’re not sure what the hell comes next, but you stop near the edge and look out over the city, the wormhole, the train tracks, and the destroyed ship, and then take a deep breath and jump with him into the air.
*
Five adrenaline-fueled hours later, you’re on a train by yourself, wired, jittery, and feeling the kick to the gut as your train indolently passes through a wormhole on its way deep into the Xenowealth.
You flip the plastic business card Pepper gave you around.
Nashara, it says. And there’s the contact info.
So there’s the question. Do nothing? Take the starter cash. Settle in somewhere. Start a business? You can do anything.
Or make the contact.
What will you do?
Biographies
Alex Bledsoe grew up in West Tennessee, an hour north of Graceland (home of Elvis) and twenty minutes from Nutbush (birthplace of Tina Turner). He now lives in a Wisconsin town famous for mustard and trolls. Find more of his iconic hero Eddie LaCrosse in the novels The Sword-Edged Blonde, Burn Me Deadly, Dark Jenny and Wake of the Bloody Angel.
Emily Care Boss is a role playing game designer, writer and editor living in Massachusetts, USA. Through her independent publishing company, Black & Green Games, Emily publishes Breaking the Ice, Shooting the Moon, and Under my Skin, winner of the Audience Award at Fastaval 2009. Her essays on role playing game theory have been published in Push Vol. 1 and Playground Worlds, from the 2008 nordic Nodal Point conference. Emily edits the RPG = Role Playing Girl Zine, annually featuring essays and articles on and by women in gaming. You can find Emily and her games at blackgreengames.com.
Jennifer Brozek is an award-winning author and editor, slush reader and small press publisher. She has been writing roleplaying games and professionally publishing fiction since 2004. She has won awards for both game design and editing. With the number of edited anthologies, fiction sales, RPG books and the one nonfiction book under her belt, Jennifer is often considered a Renaissance woman, but prefers to be known as a wordslinger and optimist. Learn more about her at www.jenniferbrozek.com.
Tobias S. Buckell is a Caribbean-born SF/F author and NYT best seller who now lives in Ohio. He is the author of Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, Sly Mongoose, Halo: The Cole Protocol and over forty short stories in various magazines and anthologies. Pepper, from the story here, is a recurring character from Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, Sly Mongoose, and several of his short stories. His next novel, Arctic Rising, is due out sometime soon from Tor, and he’s working on his next book. Find him at www.TobiasBuckell.com.
Jesse Bullington spent the bulk of his formative years in rural Pennsylvania, the Netherlands, and Tallahassee, Florida. He is the author of the novels The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and The Enterprise of Death, and his short fiction and articles have appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies, and websites. He currently resides in Colorado, and can be found online
at www.jessebullington.com.
Matt Forbeck has been a full-time creator of award-winning games and fiction since 1989. He has designed collectible card games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, board games, and toys, and has written novels, short fiction, comic books, motion comics, nonfiction, magazine articles, and computer game scripts and stories for companies including Angry Robot, ArenaNet, Del Rey, Adams Media, Simon & Schuster, Atari, Tor.com, Boom! Studios, Ubisoft, Wizards of the Coast, Games Workshop, WizKids, Mattel, IDW, Image Comics, and Playmates Toys. His latest novels—the critically acclaimed science fiction thriller Amortals and urban fantasy Vegas Knights—are on sale now, and his next one, Carpathia, ships in March. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.
Will Hindmarch’s writing has appeared on the pages of The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and numerous other books and magazines. In addition to writing and designing games, Will aims to write one of everything else. When not writing, he probably should be. Find him online at wordstudio.net.
Editor and Stone Skin Press Creative Director Robin D. Laws is an author, game designer, and podcaster. His novels include Pierced Heart, The Rough and the Smooth, and The Worldwound Gambit. Robin created the GUMSHOE investigative roleplaying rules system and such games as Feng Shui, The Dying Earth, HeroQuest and Ashen Stars. He is one half of the podcasting team behind “Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff.” Find his blog, a cavalcade of film, culture, games, narrative structure and gun-toting avians, at robindlaws.com.
Jean Rabe tosses tennis balls to her dogs when she isn’t writing. When she isn’t editing, she tugs on old socks with them. She’s the author of more than two dozen fantasy and adventure novels, more short stories than she cares to count, and she’s edited 20 anthologies … yep, she’s got some age to her. Among her novels are The Stonetellers and Dhamon series from Wizards of the Coast. She’s currently delving into the mystery and science fiction genres. She got the idea for “Stalking in Memphis” by taking a course on Egyptian Symbolism at her local museum. Visit her website at www.jeanrabe.com.
Christina Stiles is a freelance roleplaying game writer/editor from South Carolina. Her most recent publications include Open Design’s Streets of Zobeck, Kobold Quarterly, and Dark Deeds in Freeport. She is co-author of the Origins-Award-nominated Faery’s Tale, a roleplaying game for children, and she is currently completing a game adaptation of Faith Hunter’s Rogue Mage novel series with Faith Hunter, Raven Blackwell, and Spike Y Jones.
Greg Stolze is 41 years old and, while generally shy and sulky, he overcompensates entertainingly for crowds of strangers. His novels include A Hunger Like Fire and Ashes and Angel Wings. His nonfiction account of nearly dying from stupidity got him second runner up in the Outrider Press 2006 Anthology, but no way is he doing that again. In 2009 he won the Richard Eastman Fiction Award for his story “Regret, With Math.” You can read that for free online at www.gregstolze.com/fiction_library/ along with lots of other stuff. Also, he designs games.
James L. Sutter is the author of the novel Death’s Heretic, as well more than twenty-five short stories for such publications as Apex Magazine, Black Gate, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death. His anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of such SF luminaries as Larry Niven, William Gibson, Cory Doctorow, and China Miéville with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James has written numerous roleplaying game supplements and is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, creators of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com.
John Scott Tynes is an award-winning game designer and writer in Seattle. He currently designs Xbox 360 videogames for Microsoft Game Studios. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Pagan Publishing and Armitage House and his best-known projects include Unknown Armies, Puppetland, Delta Green, The Unspeakable Oath, and Call of Cthulhu D20. He has served as a film critic, videogame critic, graphic designer, web designer, videographer, and screenwriter. His film The Yellow Sign is available on DVD from Lurker Films and his novel Delta Green: The Rules of Engagement litters the shelves of used-book stores worldwide. He is very fortunate to have married the love of his life, Jenny, and to have a brilliant daughter, Vivian. He smokes a pipe and drinks brandy from a snifter because by God, someone should.
James Wallis is a games designer and author with fourteen books under his belt. He’s best known as the founder/director of Hogshead Publishing Ltd, the largest publisher of roleplaying games in the UK in the 1990s, but he’s also been a TV presenter, magazine editor and Sunday Times journalist, a university lecturer and an award-winning graphic designer. Previous fiction includes titles for the Black Library, Puffin Books and Virgin Publishing, and his game designs include the storytelling games Once Upon a Time and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen. These days he runs the games consultancy Spaaace and lives in London with his wife and 1d4-1 children.
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