Blue Guardian

by S. J. Madill

  Hold, she wrote. Wait for me. This sort of thing kept happening, and Miller kept dealing with it the same way. A new approach was in order.

  Handing the datasheet back to Irasa, Zura stood up and turned away from the sea. "Call the shuttle. It's time to head back."

  Testing her knee, she set off across the plaza, looking at the stairs that wound up the cliff face. Hopefully, the 'Fuckitall' would last another several hours, until she got back and dealt with this shipping issue. With luck, she'd be back at her apartment before the headache started.

  With luck.

  * * *

  Amid swirling clouds of dust thrown up by the shuttle's engines, Zura stepped off the stern ramp. Her feet hit the ground before the shuttle touched down.

  Zura tugged at her gloves, pulling them on tighter as she approached the landed freighter. A few people were standing around the rear of the vessel.

  It was one of the ugly — and elderly — human-built 'FreightStar' ships, some of which had seen a century of service. Not long by Palani standards, but ancient by the standards of humans, who rarely built anything to last more than a few years.

  The humans had an expression, something about 'form over function'. The ugly, utilitarian 'FreightStar' ships were entirely about function; the designer apparently hadn't known that 'form' was an option.

  Steam fizzled and bubbled from a vent as Zura walked along the side of the vessel. The ship made constant clicking and pinging noises as the hull and its countless external fittings warmed up after the cold of space.

  The ship was covered in crude welds, mismatched metal plates, and bent and clamped pipes. It was a document of mediocrity, showing a century or more of hasty, barely-effective repairs. That the thing still ran at all was a testament to sheer determination and stubbornness.

  Zura rounded the back of the freighter, through a wafting cloud of water vapour. The battered stern ramp was down. Inside the rear of the freighter were stacks of shipping crates, with barely enough room for a person to squeeze between them.

  Councillor Lang stood a few paces away. Behind him half a dozen colonists waited, their hovering loaders giving off a low hum.

  A disheveled human sat on the ramp, his legs stretched out in front of him. He looked like any of a thousand human spacers Zura had seen: untidy appearance, worn clothes, and an air of self-confidence that almost universally proved to be unfounded.

  The spacer scrambled to his feet when he saw her, his eyes going to her and then looking over her shoulder at the hulking Irasa. "Jesus," he breathed, "they grow 'em big." He looked back at Zura, swallowing. "General Varta," he said, trying to sound at ease. She just stared at him, and his bravado seemed to melt away. "I'm Lucas Newton," he tried again. "My friends call me—"

  "I don't care," interrupted Zura. So many spacers thought themselves charming. So few were. She pointed at the datapad he held, making a beckoning motion with her finger.

  As she plucked the offered datapad from his hand, she noticed Councillor Lang approaching. He put his hands on his hips, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her. "This is taken care of, General. Councillor Miller—"

  Zura didn't look up from the datapad. "I know. Councillor Miller is rejecting the incoming shipment and will be placing a new request for the correct goods." She glanced up at the pilot. "Mister Newton, your ship has been running well?"

  Lucas seemed surprised to be asked. "Yeah," he said, turning to look at the battered, soot-stained hull behind him. "Old 'Kadala' here, she's been running great. Just the other day—"

  Zura looked up at the freighter, feigning interest in something on the top of the hull. She squinted her eyes, as if trying to see something clearly. "'Argonaut' reactor, Mister Newton? Is that secondary vent opening properly?"

  "Huh?" said Lucas, looking from her to the ship, trying to gauge where she was looking. "Secondary vent? You can see that from here?" He leaned back, craning his neck to see over the back of the ship.

  Lucas stepped on one of the cargo crates, reaching up to pull himself higher. He was nimble, she had to admit. He climbed the stack of crates until he could see over the top of the hull. "I don't know if—"

  "How was the trip?" asked Zura, trying to sound casual the way the humans did, with an upward inflection.

  Lucas was holding on to the hull with one hand, reaching forward with the other. With his fingertips, he could barely touch the secondary vent. "The trip?" he replied, distracted. "Not bad. A little bullshit at New Tofino, but that always happens."

  "Always happens," repeated Zura. She kept reading through the ship's manifest on the datapad.

  "Vent's just bent," said Lucas. He jumped down from atop the crates, landing on the ramp with a resounding clang. Wiping his hands on his pants, he was about to say something else, but it seemed to fade on his lips when he looked at her. "Oh. Uh, sorry for my language, General."

  Zura handed him back his datapad. "I've said worse," she said. "Unload everything, and you're free to go." She pointed at the waiting colonists with their loaders, and gestured toward the cargo. "Unload all of it," she called to them. "Put it into storage."

  Lang stepped in front of her. His lips were pressed tightly together into a thin line. "General," he hissed, "what are you—"

  "I'll speak to you in a moment, Councillor." Zura nodded at Lucas as she turned away. "Safe travels, Mister Newton."

  The spacer gave a small but theatrical bow. His charming smile couldn't hide the confusion in his eyes. "Thank you, General."

  As the loader crew walked up the ramp with their loaders, Zura took a few steps further away. Lang stayed with her, his face growing redder. When she stopped, he stood in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest. "You're interfering."

  Zura kept watching the loader crew. "I am." She blinked as the first tightness of a headache gnawed at the base of her skull.

  Lang leaned in closer, his blue eyes staring up at her through tightly-furrowed brows. "We have rules, General. We have a process. It exists for a reason."

  "To prevent decision-making, Councillor?"

  Lang rolled his eyes, sputtering as he gestured toward the ship and the loading crew. "What are we going to do with a hundred tons of deep-sea diving gear?"

  "Keep it safe, Councillor."

  "What?"

  Zura looked at the older human, with his wrinkled, bright red face. Pulling his brows together deepened the lines around his eyes. "Keep it safe," she said, "until the correct supplies arrive."

  Lang's mouth fell open. "What? We're holding it hostage?" He shook his head, unfolding his arms and waving his hands in front of her. "No. No. The Colonial Office policy is very clear. We send it back with the freighter, and—"

  "And the freighter captain sells it," said Zura. "He stopped at New Tofino, but the stop wasn't logged. He's already not following your process, Councillor. He's looking out for himself."

  "We won't put up with your—"

  "Good," said Zura, looking Lang in the eyes. "Go ahead. Get angry, Councillor. This colony is months behind schedule. You should be furious."

  Councillor Lang looked away, his teeth clenched together. He took a few deep breaths, exhaling through flared nostrils, before calming down. "So what are we supposed to do now?"

  "Call your Colonial Office and make them listen." Zura paused a moment, fighting to keep a grin from creeping on to her face. "Or would you prefer that I called—"

  "To hell with you," said Lang, turning away. "We don't need you."

  "Good," said Zura. "Now prove it."

  Chapter Twenty

  Zura's mind swam through familiar waters. The same dreams, the same nightmares she'd had for centuries. Faces she'd known, now caricatures of themselves, screaming and crying and pleading at her. All of them, victims in some way to things she'd done; choices she'd made. Or so she understood; dreams carried their own reality with them: rules accepted during the dream that were absurd to the waking mind.

  Warmth invaded the waters of her dream, and t
he images began to fade from view. She fought it, trying to delay wakefulness for a while longer, but it was insistent. Her increasingly feeble struggling, her weak lashing-out, could not hold her under the surface of sleep. She floated upward.

  Zura tensed. Someone was in her room. In the dim glow of the bedside light, she could see someone at the far wall, bending down to pick something off the floor. Zura rolled out of the bed and up to her feet. "Who are you?" she demanded.

  It was a human woman who stood up straight and turned toward her, standing in the shadow. "You've got quite a backhand, General."

  Doctor Singh held an injector pen, her other hand nursing her wrist. Her skin had a warm glow in the dim golden light. "Good morning."

  Zura was still trying to make sense of everything; it felt like her mind was struggling through thick mud. "What is going on, Doctor?"

  The grin faded from Singh's face. "Yaella came to get me. Said you were on the bed moaning, and she couldn't wake you up." Singh held up the small injector. "I gave you a shot of Migrelafaline."

  She must have seen the confusion in Zura's eyes. "It's for migraines," she added. "I'm going to let Yaella know everything's okay, then maybe we can sit down and talk for a moment?"

  Zura just nodded, lowering herself until she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She watched, her brain slowly moving into gear, as Singh slid the bedroom door open a crack and said something before closing the door again.

  The doctor slid the room's small chair across the floor, stopping in front of Zura. Sitting down, she crossed her legs and leaned back. Her eyes made contact with Zura's; in the light from the bedside, the dark brown of her eyes turned to a shade of gold.

  Zura wanted to throw Singh out. The humans presumed too much; they all did. They thought they had all the answers. Their confidence in their collective abilities went beyond arrogance. They—

  "Should I go?" asked Singh. "The look on your face says you'd like to set me on fire right now."

  Zura realised she must've been scowling, but didn't change her expression. "Why are you here, Doctor?"

  "Like I said, Yaella came to get me. She said—"

  A small shake of Zura's head. "No, Doctor. Why are you here? On this colony?"

  "Ah," breathed Singh, rolling her head back a little. "Well, I guess…" She thought a moment. "I guess I'm getting away."

  Zura had viewed the doctor's records. The Palani records were complete, but in the human databases she no longer existed. Whoever had deleted her from the human databases had done a very good job. It would have been very expensive to hire someone with that level of skill. "Did you commit a crime, Doctor?"

  "What?" laughed Singh. "No. Heavens, no." The grin stayed in the corner of her mouth even as the mirth fell away from her eyes. "No. Like I said, I was on the Borealis when we went on that mission." She shrugged. "People came to identify me with it. Everything I've done since then has been compared to it. I wanted my life back."

  Zura raised an eyebrow. She was surprised at the doctor's readiness to speak about herself. But then, most humans were more open about their lives than the Palani. Perhaps, like everything else, it came back to their short lives: a need to form connections, to share their lives right now, while they still had time.

  "Your turn," said Singh. "Why are you here, General?"

  "Because I was ordered to come here."

  "There's more to it than that, isn't there?"

  Zura nodded. "There is."

  Sensing the doctor wanted to know more, Zura changed the subject. "Tell me about that," she said, pointing at the injector pen.

  Singh looked down at the device in her hand, as if just discovering it there. "This? Like I said, it's Migrelafaline, a painkiller designed for migraines. Migraines, I have recently found out, are a leading side-effect for Palani coming down off Fuckitall." Those golden eyes were looking at her again. "I understand this is the second time you've had this experience with Fuckitall?"

  "It is," admitted Zura.

  "And you didn't come to see me. I could've given you some of this last time."

  "I've been in pain before," said Zura.

  "So I gather," said Singh, gesturing at where Zura held her arms in her lap.

  Zura looked down. Her grey-and-white undersuit extended down to mid-thigh, leaving her arms and legs bare. Scars marked her arms, like vandalism on her skin. Her legs were clear of marks, the skin white and taut. Except for her right knee, which was covered in the dots and lines of surgical scars.

  "It looks like your knee was injured," said Singh, "and attempts were made to correct it. Am I close?"

  "Yes and no," said Zura. She paused a long moment, looking into the doctor's eyes. Trust was a precious commodity: difficult to create, and so easy to destroy. Jealously guarded; not given freely. "This was no injury," she said, patting her hands on her legs. "These aren't the legs I was born with." Zura patted her hand on her right leg. "Number four," she said. She tapped her left leg. "Five. Same with my arms. Three, I think," she said, holding up her right hand. "If you scanned me, you'd see the rest."

  "May I scan you?"

  Zura shook her head. "No."

  Singh cracked a grin, which Zura hadn't expected. "You're going to be a difficult patient for me, aren't you, General?"

  "I'm not a patient."

  The doctor stood up, rolling her eyes as she straightened her jacket. "I'll take that as a 'yes' then?"

  Singh took two steps toward the door, pausing with her hand on the handle. "Call me if you need anything, General. I'll come to you."

  "La," muttered Zura, as the doctor slid open the door and exited into the living area.

  A human doctor. It wasn't what she wanted. Alien hands, alien medicines, alien technology. The humans' barbaric past wasn't far behind them, and now they would presume to provide care to a Palani? Like an old Pentarch had once said, a 'human doctor' was more correctly a veterinarian.

  Still, this Doctor Singh — she'd been on Borealis. She'd proven herself. Perhaps she was an exception—

  A blue-haired head peeked around the door frame. Zura looked up to see the girl, and lost her train of thought. "What?"

  The girl spoke in a whisper, and Zura couldn't make out what she was saying. "Speak up, girl."

  Yaella cleared her throat, licking her lips before trying again. "Are you mad at me, Mahasa?"

  "Should I be?"

  "Well," said Yaella, her fingers clinging to the edge of the doorframe. "You said not to come into your bedroom, but—"

  "Was the door open?"

  Yaella nodded. "A little."

  "Then you did nothing wrong."

  "I could hear you. You sounded like you'd been hurt. I didn't know what to do, so I—"

  "Child," said Zura. Yaella fell silent. "Child, you did the right thing. Helping someone who's hurt is always the right thing to do."

  A small smile brightened the face hiding behind the door frame. "Okay." She leaned a little further into view. "I'm glad you're feeling better, Mahasa."

  Zura sat for a while, watching the little face that watched her back. "Thank you, child."

  "Do you want some binva?"

  "La," sighed Zura. "Sure."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dim blue light flooded into Zura's bedroom from the window. Outside, a sliver of moonlight lit the colony, casting dark shadows behind the buildings.

  In the gloom, Zura pulled on her breastplate. Pressing her back against the wall, the side latches locked, the sound unusually loud in the silent apartment.

  She'd put on her armour in the dark more times than she could remember. Without an armourer it took longer, but it helped to have something to lean against. She'd once been able to put on her armour one-handed, but back then she'd been younger and more flexible. Trying to do that now would probably dislocate something.

  Two sharp downward raps with her right fist, and the left shoulder plate finally snapped into place. Tucking the small bottle of pills into a pouch on her belt, Zur
a turned her attention to her weapon locker, her gloved finger poking at the tiny display. Two heavy latches gave loud clicks as they released, and the hatch popped open.

  Inside, her weapons awaited her. More sure and steady than any living companions; more reliable than any friend she'd ever had. They seemed to spring from their mountings at the touch of her hands. The ceramic-bladed knife slid into its sheath on her right leg, the sidearm into a holster on her left hip. Grabbing the carbine by its front stock, Zura swept her helmet under her arm and strode from the bedroom.

  Crossing the moon-lit apartment, Zura headed for the stairs. She looked at the time display on the door console. Three minutes since she'd received the call. Better than—

  "Mahasa?"

  Zura stopped in her tracks, turning to look at the source of the sound. Hidden in shadow, Yaella's face peered around the corner from the storage room.

  "Go back to sleep, child."

  The girl's voice had a hint of fear in it. "Is something bad happening, Mahasa?"

  "You are safe, child," said Zura. She tried to make her sleep-cracked voice sound reassuring. "There is no danger here. Just a small problem far away. I'll be back soon."

  "Oh," said Yaella. Zura didn't expect the girl believed her. When she was Yaella's age, any sight of weapons had made her panic.

  "Go back to bed," repeated Zura. She turned and left the apartment.

  Her armour creaked as she made her way down the stairs, the plates tapping against each other as she rocked from side to side. Her gait was uneven, favouring the bad knee as she descended.

  Out the front door and into the night. The moonlight painted everything in the same shades of dark blue, leaving deep black shadows everywhere the light didn't touch.

  The steel steps rang as she lurched down them to the ground. She turned downhill in the direction of the landing pad. Antur fell silently in behind her.

  Intrusion, she'd been told. It'd taken a few moments for Upara's words to form in her tired mind. A ship had been detected in the Corana system. A fairly big ship, Upara had said: a human freighter headed for a landing. Once a core world of ten billion Palani, Corana was now a windswept land of ruins. It was one of the first worlds to fall to the Horlan in the First War, its population unable to evacuate. Outside the cratered remains of the big cities and the scarred countryside, the planet remained a treasure trove of artifacts. Ruins held the possessions and treasures of the billions who once called the world home. Once again, it had proved too great a temptation for money-grubbing humans.