by J. N. Chaney
Tanner didn’t need to say anything else. The Hecate’s Helm Officer immediately fired the drive to full power, while Engineering started the countdown to activating the Alcubierre drive. Thirty seconds later, the Hecate and her consorts vanished from normal space, hurling themselves into warped bubbles of space-time within which they were, technically, motionless. It was the Alcubierre bubble that propagated through space at a transluminal rate, carrying the ship along with it. The logic of it twisted Thorn’s mind, the way magic probably did with people like Tanner and Scoville. It seemed like cheating around the limits of relativistic physics via a loophole—which it was, really.
Tanner turned to Thorn. “Good work, Stellers. You probably just saved our collective asses.” A hint of a grateful smile played across Tanner’s face, a fact that seemed to annoy the man.
Thorn shook his head, clearing away the last cobwebs of his ’casting. “I don’t understand, sir. What do you mean?”
“Fire ships, Mister Stellers.”
Thorn just kept staring. “Fire ships?”
“An ancient weapon. Take some old ships, fill them with flammables and explosives, then suicide-run them into your enemy. Why else would the Nyctus have ghost ships so determined to close on us? Hammer-and-anvil means that they were trying to catch us in a ninety degree crossfire, so no matter which way we turned, we’d be flanked.” Tanner turned back to the main viewscreen, now rendered utterly blank, thanks to the Alcubierre bubble separating them from normal space. “A solid tactic—and a ruse. They would have run those fire ships of theirs in as fast as they could and then collided with us, detonated them, whatever. It would not have been a desirable outcome.”
Thorn settled back in his seat, letting the residual effects of his magic trickle away. It was immensely gratifying to have been able to do something with ’casting that seemed, on the surface of it, anyway, to have been so valuable, even if it did end up with them running away. But his thoughts didn’t linger long on that and instead went back to that horrifying voice in his head. It had been unlike anything he’d previously experienced from the Nyctus minds he’d touched.
We see you.
We know you.
I know you too, Thorn sent. And that’s going to be a bigger problem than you can ever know.
We will know. You will understand.
Thorn let his mental laugh ring harsh across the miles. Not in time to do anything.
It was a flat truism that not all ’casters were created equal. The battery of tests intended to determine a potential Caster’s aptitude wasn’t just pass or fail; it gauged the Caster’s capabilities and strength as well. Of course, it also became pretty evident in situations like this.
Kira watched as a group of neophyte ’casters ran the obstacle track. They were members of a recruit course being run at Code Nebula at the same time as Kira’s upgrade course. This was the first day they were allowed to use ’casting to help them climb the walls, cross the ropes and beams, crawl over or under the razor-wire entanglements, and avoid the laser trip beams that would fire a barrage of painful darts if broken. The Recruits were given no guidance or constraints on how they used their ’casting—which is why a small cadre of experienced ’casters watched them warily, to reign in some magical effect gone awry.
Kira couldn’t watch for long. She had a task of her own—running a tortuous cross-country route, without being briefed on the route. They had to use Joining to lift the specific turns and distances from the minds of their instructors, while trying to make the mental intrusions as unobtrusive as possible. It was, quite literally, a psychic navigation exercise. Kira had stopped at the top of a sandy slope overlooking the obstacle course to re-strap a loosening gym shoe, which gave her a moment to watch these brand new ’casters in action.
She saw a girl of eighteen or nineteen years stop at the base of a four meter wall, concentrate, and then lift herself on a swirling column of air, up to the top, and then over the obstacle. Kira grunted in approval, but the mood was short-lived when the girl lost control of her Casting and plunged unceremoniously into the dirt, chin first.
“Ouch,” Kira muttered. The girl had fallen three meters, but in true youthful spirit, bounced up, spat, and began moving again.
The next member of the course behind her, a somewhat chunky young man drenched in sweat, stopped and tried to mimic what he’d just seen her do. He raised a strong wind, whipped up a bunch of dust and debris—and that was it.
And that, Kira thought, was the difference between a natural talent and a latent one that had to be coaxed out of its bearer by training and practice.
Trainee Wixcombe, are you enjoying your little vacation?
The voice cracked in her mind like a whip. It wasn’t Narvez, though, as she’d expected it would be. This was Lieutenant Commander Fielder, a snappy, short-tempered man who oversaw most of their Joiner-specific training. He was a seasoned vet, but a replacement due to the depleted corps left behind from the Nyctus attacks.
She finished strapping up her shoe, then stood and resumed running, leaving the little tableau of ’caster recruits behind. As she pounded along, she saw Rainer up ahead, jogging and glancing back. She was a young woman from a high-g world called Carpathia. Shorter than Kira by almost a head, her loss of height was offset by a corresponding increase in girth; Rainer was built like a barrel: round, squat, and sturdy. Kira knew the taciturn Hammer could probably arm wrestle any two other members of the course simultaneously and beat both. She paid for it, though, with legs like tree stumps that inevitably consigned her to last place in any sort of run or competition that involved speed. That explained how Rainer could have started this run in the first group to depart, and Kira could have time to lollygag around with her shoes and still catch up to her.
Rainer glanced back as Kira pulled up behind her, then edged aside to let her by. Instead, Kira fell in beside her.
“Don’t let me hold you up, Wixcombe,” Rainer said, her voice a bass rumble.
Kira had to smile. Not a hint of breathlessness from Rainer. It wasn’t a case of her not being in shape; she could probably run like this all day. Her lagging was more a matter of her having to pound out two steps for every one of Kira’s.
“You’re not holding me up,” Kira said, her own voice taut with exertion. “I just thought I’d drop by and say hi.”
Rainer gave her a sharp look. “If you’re planning on being all noble and sacrificing and shit like you were last week at reveille, and deliberately come in last so I don’t have to, don’t bother. If I’m last, I’m last, and I’ll take my lumps.”
Kira shot a glance back at Rainer, then shrugged. “Fair enough. Good running to you, ‘caster,” she said, then sped on, leaving Rainer behind with a jaunty wave.
“Hey!”
Kira looked back. Rainer was giving her a sheepish look.
“Sorry, Wixcombe. Don’t mind me, I can sometimes be an asshole for no particular reason.”
Kira slowed, letting Rainer catch up. “Yeah, I see that. And—” Kira paused to take a couple of breaths. The trail had started an incline, rising into a stand of looming frond trees. “And I wasn’t going to come in last place just to save your ass anyway. I’ve only got one noble sacrifice in me per course.”
Kira watched Rainer sidelong as they ran. Instinct had told her that blunt and direct was the best way to talk to this woman. But she wasn’t sure; she’d never met another Carpathian before, so maybe they were all about convoluted, subtle, and nuanced conversation.
“Good running to you too, Wix,” Rainer shot back, suddenly grinning.
Blunt and direct it was, then.
They labored up to the crest of the high ground, into a clearing among the frond trees. The afternoon sun crashed down on them as they emerged from the shade along the trail; bright, merciless, hot. Both of them jogged to a stop. Two trails left the clearing ahead of them, one continuing more or less straight ahead, the other taking off to the left, rising over some rock outcrop, and headin
g toward even higher ground.
Kira shaded her eyes, then took a series of breaths, hands on her hips. She needed a pause to catch her breath before trying to read Fielder, or one of the other instructors, for the right way to proceed.
“That way,” Rainer said, pointing straight ahead.
Kira looked up from her doubled-over stance. “You’ve already . . . Joined an instructor and found that . . . out? Holy crap, that was . . . fast.” Kira’s breath hadn’t yet caught up with her.
Rainer shrugged. “Nah. There was a map hanging on the wall of the company orderly room. I got sent there to drop off some papers by Narvez, and saw it.”
Kira straightened, shaking her head. “Shameful. That’s cheating.”
“Well, aren’t you honorable.”
Kira smiled. “Nope. I’m actually impressed. That’s the kind of skullduggery I can admire.”
“Skullduggery? Are we channeling those old Earth vids where the, you know—” Rainer mimed waving a sword around.
“Pirates and shit like that? Yeah, sounds about the right era. Regardless, well done,” Kira said, then trailed off as a mental flicker, like a distant voice you could hear but not quite understand, tickled the edges of her awareness. It was an instructor, maybe Fielder, giving the training area a psychic scan to stay updated on his students’ progress. Kira’s own mental defenses had bristled at the touch, snapping into place to protect her from an intrusion—the mental equivalent of a gag reflex. She was going to let it go at that—
But, instead, decided to try a little experiment.
“You coming?” Rainer asked, taking a pace toward the trail ahead. “Or are you still catching your breath?”
Kira raised a finger. “Just gimme a sec.”
Using the emanation of Fielder’s thoughts like a beacon, Kira let her own awareness be drawn to it. The instructors had gone to great pains to point out that they’d deliberately not defend themselves against attempts by the students to lift the correct course layout from their minds. The point of the exercise was to test their ability to read remote thoughts while exerting themselves physically. No doubt a future incarnation would have them trying to slip by the instructor’s mental defenses, probably at night and in the rain, too.
There. Sure enough, there it was, a conceptual understanding of the course, punctuated by memories of trails and junctions through the frond forest, like frozen images or brief, staccato bursts of video.
The trail ahead that Rainer had seen marked on the map wasn’t the right way. She pointed up, to the left-hand path. “That’s the right direction.”
Rainer put her hands on her hips and frowned. “Not what the map said.”
“I know.”
“Why would they have a map in the orderly room showing the wrong course?”
“Maybe it was something else—” Kira began, then stopped, narrowing her eyes. “Wait. Have you ever seen a map hanging in the OR before?”
“No, but I don’t make a habit of hanging out with the company brass.”
Kira nodded. “Same, but . . . it’s just too convenient.”
“What, you think it was a setup?”
“Forcing us to choose between trusting a strange map or our own Joining?”
Rainer nodded. “Damn good point, Wixcombe.”
“It’s Kira.”
“Okay, Kira. I’m still Rainer.”
Kira chuckled. “Okay, so I guess we’re going that way,” she said, turning toward the left-hand trail. But it was Rainer who didn’t move this time.
“You know, I’m not the only one who would have gone into that orderly room. In fact, now that I think about it, there were more than a few little errands to drop stuff off there. Remember, just yesterday Max got sent there to go pick up some papers that turned out not to be ready? So Narvez got pissed over it, then sent Wylie back—”
“Yeah.” Kira nodded. “Yeah. I can think of at least two or three times the day before, too.”
“Sneaky bastards, aren’t they?”
Kira nodded again. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“That we’re going to stay here and make sure that anyone coming behind us doesn’t go the wrong way because they saw the map?”
For a third time, Kira nodded. “Yeah.”
“Means we’re definitely gonna be last,” Rainer said. “Or at least I am, because you can just take the lead right near the end.” She shrugged. “Whatever.”
This time, Kira shook her head. “Nope. We’re crossing that finish line at exactly the same time.”
“Up to you. I won’t say no to some company on the extra shit duties, though.”
5
Thorn clattered into the quarters he’d been assigned at Code Gauntlet, one of a bunch of rooms—although airless cubbyhole was probably more correct—reserved for transient personnel. The Hecate had finally been pulled back from patrol duties and was now stood down, starting a series of upgrades to her point-defense systems and sensor suite that would take her offline for at least a week. All non-essential personnel had been disembarked to keep them out of the way.
And a Starcaster was, apparently, near the top of that non-essential list.
Not that Thorn really minded. He might have had more expansive quarters aboard the Hecate, but he also shared them with two other junior officers. This might be a glorified closet, but as an officer he was entitled to better accommodations than the sprawling, dorm-style barracks that were home to all but the most senior enlisted personnel.
So he had walls. And a door. And that meant privacy.
He also had access to comms—the first such access that wasn’t locked down for operational security reasons, in fact, since about three weeks ago. Since Kira abruptly left Code Gauntlet, and then he’d been yanked onto active duty aboard the Hecate and couldn’t even contemplate sending a personal message.
Until now.
Thorn tossed his duffle bag on the bed, which was squeezed beside the terminal and the tiny, stool-like chair attached to it.
“Small, but at least it’s charmless,” he said, then rolled his shoulders, feeling some tension begin to release. Having any sense of permanency at all was an improvement over the shiftless life of someone who’d lost everything at a young age.
Clearing his mind, he drew in a breath and spoke to his terminal. “Open a comm message,” he said, and the terminal lit up.
“Real-time or remote comms?” the terminal asked.
The AI voice was curt and crisp; nothing like Trixie, the AI that oversaw Mol’s Gyrfalcon fighter aboard the Apollo. He let himself spend a moment wondering how Mol and Trixie were doing, then shook himself back into the moment. Thorn’s mind was drifting, and a glance at how his bed suddenly looked told him why.
“Remote only.”
“State recipient name, location ID, and security classification.”
“Lieutenant Kira Wixcombe, Code Nebula, station ID . . .” He couldn’t remember the specific comms ID, which was just a string of digits. He shrugged. “You’re supposed to be artificially intelligent. It’s Code Nebula.”
“Location ID accepted.”
“Good. Security classification is . . . unclassified but personal.”
“Low priority assigned to message. Ready to record.”
Unclassified, personal messages might be assigned low priority ratings automatically, but it struck Thorn that, for most people, personal messages to friends and family were probably the highest priority. Still, arguing with an AI was a losing game, so he let it go.
“Kira, it’s Thorn. I’m here, in a jumped-up version of a shipping container, but I’ve got a bed and a place to think.” He exhaled, choosing his words carefully. “When you get this, things will have changed, and changed again. I think—I think that’s how our lives are going to be until we kick the last Nyctus back across their systems and remove their ability to ever harm us again. I don’t know when that will be, or even if that will be, but we’re not kids anymore. I’m not even sure
I’m entirely human, sometimes, given how other ON personnel look at me. You know what I mean, given that you’re a Joiner and people can sense your ability, sometimes. Sense it and resent it. When you come back out into the stars to fight, I’ll be here, and I will need your Joining. So perfect it. Be as strong as you can, and bring that will—the will I saw you use when we were young? That kind of iron. Bring it with you, out here, to us, and to me and everyone else fighting our way across this bloody path.” He let a long breath out, rubbing his face with a hand. “I’ll be here. Be safe, and come help us win this fight. Even when you think you’re alone, you’re not. I’m here.” Again, he paused. “End message.”
When he was done, Thorn reviewed it. It was hardly poetry, but it was from the heart and would have to do. He confirmed transmit, downloaded the transmission confirmation, and leaned back, eyes closing, if only for a moment.
Transmit implied the message was now on its way at light speed to Kira. But a message from here to Code Nebula would take eight years to arrive, and Thorn didn’t have that kind of time. It would be downloaded into a data module with a multitude of other messages, then carried by courier ship beyond the twenty-five light-year soft barrier. He had no idea when Kira would actually receive it—days certainly, and possibly longer.
“Time for the rack,” he said, sleep coming to him like a wave he couldn’t escape. His last thought was about learning to hover. It seemed like a skill that would come in handy.
Sometimes, magic had uses other than making things go boom.
Kira was pretty damned sure the floor of the platoon office really didn’t need to be scrubbed with a toothbrush, but here she was, on her knees and doing just that long, long after the rest of the class had gone to bed.
As she dug the bristles under the edge of the baseboard, Kira wondered how Rainer was getting along. Rainer’s particular critical task consisted of using a coffee mug to transfer all of the water from one 170 liter drum, to another. This task, which took punishment to new levels of tedium, absolutely had to be performed before either of them could even contemplate falling exhausted into their racks.
