The Drift Wars

by James, Brett

  Peter worked with several others to install a catadioptric telescope. They wouldn’t be able to see much, just the main cities, but they could monitor the traffic to and from the planet, which would hint at where the spaceports were—important details when planning an attack.

  Once the telescope was in place, Peter volunteered to monitor it alone, and the others were happy to leave it to him. They hauled out a week’s worth of supplies and left him to set up camp. Peter patched into the telescope and spent days watching the homeworld’s lazy spin.

  The homeworld was backlit by the sun—so beyond a crescent of light along the right edge, it was cloaked in perpetual night. Several large landmasses floated on even larger oceans, with two sizable deserts in the middle and a white frost at the poles. There were a few dozen cities, which lit up as they rolled into the twilight and winked out as they passed deeper into the night. Somewhere just beyond Peter’s sight, their sun would again rise. He tried to envision what that might look like.

  The images he pictured came from his own memories: the forests and rivers of Genesia, and the pungent, fertile smell of farmland. The third race, he decided, was much like his own—warm-blooded, planet-dwelling folks. They probably weren’t Riel at all, not as Peter knew them, but some other race entirely that was aligned with the Riel.

  His thoughts eventually fell on Amber. Their life together was a shallow memory. While he could still describe what she looked like, he could no longer call up her image in his mind.

  Was she still sending letters? He hadn’t checked his mail in months. More important, he thought, who was she sending them to?

  Certainly not him. He knew that now. It hadn’t been him on that ride to the spaceport, and her special good-bye belonged to someone else.

  It doesn’t matter, he decided. I’ve haven’t lost anything; her love was never mine.

  It was time to let go, to put aside those borrowed feelings and make room for his own.

  — — —

  Peter used every fiber of muscle, his own and his suit’s, to pull the cable taut. He hooked the looped end around an L-shaped door handle and released it gently, making sure it held. Then he pulled himself across the main cabin to where the cable joined with a spring that was welded to the opposite wall. Everything looked good.

  He walked to the dark corner where the bodies were piled. Only a few dozen left, he assured himself, lifting the top one. “J. Barberis” was stenciled in white on its back. The suit rattled as he moved it, and he peered into the visor; the body had frozen and shattered, its remains floating inside like frosted rubies.

  “You’re next, brother,” Peter said, thinking back to the man this had once been.

  He hooked the suit’s arms over the cable, aiming it at the hole in the ship’s side. Then he pulled up the standard funeral service onto his visor and read:

  God of unceasing change,

  We are always unfinished,

  And you are not through with us yet.

  Peter had cleared the ship of anything that could be unbolted to lighten the load for the journey, but he’d put off the corpses until the end. Rather than just tossing them out, he rigged up a catapult to make sure they went far from sight. They had been piled inside for three weeks now, and he never wanted to see them again.

  As for the funeral service, partly it was to pass the time—charging the batteries with just the one solar panel was a slow process. But, more than that, the ceremony differentiated these men from the rest of the garbage he had to clear out.

  We journey to the other side,

  To find your warm embrace,

  Peter had recovered ninety-two suits, all but three, which should have been twelve more than he needed, but he had to check the batteries for damage. Each suit contained six, distributed in the arms, legs, and torso. That balanced out the weight but, unfortunately, also increased the odds that one had been hit during the attack. So far, one in five wouldn’t hold a charge and, unless that ratio improved, he would come up short. According to the manual, being even one short was too few.

  But while the spirit passes,

  The body remains.

  And with it, the memories of family and brothers.

  Peter had stripped the first few suits of anything that might be useful, but the one thing that he really needed to replace—the heating coil in his suit—was built into the ceramic casing. It would be impossible to switch suits without an airtight room; he would freeze solid before he had even undressed.

  The short in his heating coils had grown worse. His batteries barely lasted an hour now, and plugging them into the charger meant delaying the rest.

  And so, my brother,

  I send you on to greener pastures,

  And stay behind

  To guard all that you loved.

  He closed the service and grabbed the L-shaped door handle. He turned one side, freeing the wire loop from the other. The spring recoiled, whipping the cable forward and launching the body into space. He watched it fly away, catching glints of sunlight as it spun into the distance.

  It was strange to hold funerals for men who might be alive and well back on the base, with no memory of their own death. But Peter felt it was important. He had served with these men for three months. Their bodies could be replaced, but their memories were dead forever.

  Honoring their remains showed that each life had value, that their bodies weren’t just empty shells to be used and replaced. And if their lives mattered, then maybe Peter’s did too. All he wanted was for this struggle to mean something, that it was more than just bringing intel to Command. He wanted to believe that someone back there was waiting for him. That someone would be glad to see him.

  It didn’t seem like too much to ask.

  — — —

  Peter returned from his outpost at the telescope to find the ship buzzing with news. The men had managed to tune in to the homeworld’s video transmissions, picking up their news and entertainment and giving them their first look at the third race.

  Sergeant Craft met Peter at the door and led him straight to the monitor. The others had already seen it, but they gathered around to see Peter’s reaction. At first Peter took it for a joke: the third race didn’t just resemble humans, they were humans. At least they looked exactly the same.

  “How could they…?” he started, not sure of what to say next.

  “We first saw this three days ago,” Craft said. “So we’ve already asked every question you could think of. It’s answers we don’t have.”

  — — —

  Peter hurled the soldering iron across the empty cabin and howled in frustration. He pumped his stiff hand and stared at the mass of wires and solder that had been his sole occupation for the last nine days. It was a molten mess; Peter had no idea what he was doing.

  The suit batteries were complicated. They had chips inside to regulate the power, and unless he wired everything correctly, he got nothing. The manual had instructions, but they read like pure gibberish. The suit had given Peter a course in basic electronics, teaching him to strip and solder wires, but the electrical diagrams, intricate maps of lines and symbols, were beyond him. He used the pictures as a rough guide and hoped for the best.

  The lead wires, those that actually carried the power, had to be wired in sequence, while the auxiliary wires, which controlled the chips, had to be run in parallel. Some wires led directly to the engine, while others were connected to the other batteries. Peter labeled each wire with tape, but by now there were hundreds of them, crossing and re-crossing each other. The chaos was overwhelming.

  He gently laced the two power leads out from the spaghetti and wired them to one of the remaining batteries. There were sixteen left, which was still five shy of what he needed to fire the engine. He knew this for sure; he counted them daily. That left one opt
ion: to use the batteries from his own suit. He didn’t know exactly how that was going to work, since he also needed those batteries for his life support, but he’d figure it out when the time came.

  Peter twisted the leads onto the pigtails that he had already soldered on the battery, then did the same with the six auxiliary wires. He wrapped each of the connections with black tape to keep them from shorting and stacked the battery with the others in a metal box. He started to count the batteries but gave up with a sigh.

  He walked across the room and retrieved the soldering iron.

  — — —

  The videos of the third race sparked a heated debate among the marines. Some felt the discovery so important that they should return immediately to report it. Others insisted that they should wait until the survey was complete. The latter group won, arguing that knowing what your enemy looked like wasn’t nearly as important as knowing how to kill them. The team stayed another two weeks.

  A small fleet of warships was waiting at the edge of the solar system. The ships were sleek, ceramic-hulled, and unlike any Peter had seen before. Peter’s ship tried to run, but the Riel blocked them with lazy ease. A single ship closed to engage. The battle was short and decisive. Peter alone survived.

  This he owed to luck. When the first missile exploded, it drove a cabinet at him, pinning him to the wall. By the time Peter worked himself free, the battle was lost and everyone dead. He remained hidden for as long as he could, hoping the Riel would leave before his oxygen ran out.

  — — —

  Peter flipped the six batteries out of the charger, then, in three fluid movements, switched them with the batteries in his legs, arms, and chest, which he then slapped into the charger. The exchange had taken only eight seconds; after days of practice, that was as fast as he could go.

  His goal was to bring both sets of batteries as close to full as possible, but his heating coils had degraded such that they would suck his batteries dry in only a few minutes.

  He was gaining time with each flip-flop, but the margins were tight. When he started this an hour earlier, his empty battery took five minutes to charge. Now, nearly full, it was going to take only forty-five seconds. Soon he would find out if this entire gamble was going to pay off. Not a gamble, he corrected himself. It wasn’t gambling if you had nothing to lose.

  The charger’s timer fell to single digits, and Peter placed his hands on the batteries. It hit zero, and he flipped the batteries out, again switching them with the ones in his suit. The charger clicked back on, counting down from thirty seconds.

  Peter had planned to do this yesterday but had procrastinated, wasting time trying to pull power directly off the solar panel with the hope of keeping the batteries inside his suit. The experiment had been a disaster: something inside the panel fizzled and, for one heart-stopping moment, Peter thought he had ruined everything. Fortunately, the charger still worked. He decided to stick to the original plan.

  The timer dropped to zero, and he again switched the batteries. This time it started with twenty-two seconds. Peter’s heart raced. He looked toward the bow of the ship, in the general direction of the Drift.

  A few hours earlier he had moved around the ship with a small bundle of batteries, manually firing stabilizers and steering at the shortest course to the Drift boundary. It was a broad target, but it was also millions of miles away. If his adjustments were off by even a hundredth of a degree, he would miss it completely.

  If he did reach the Drift, then the rest was up to providence. He could end up anywhere inside, and without power he couldn’t even produce a distress signal. He would be just another hunk of trash floating through a vast empty space, hoping someone would notice him.

  Peter almost missed the countdown. He frantically switched the batteries.

  Twelve seconds.

  He kept his hands on the batteries as the seconds dropped, and he swapped them back. Again the timer read twelve seconds. This was as close as it was going to get. He counted aloud with the time, jogging in place to keep his legs loose and warm.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Peter popped the batteries from the charger and slid them into a mesh bag at his waist. Then he pulled the batteries from his own suit and did the same—he was going to need all the power he could get, and his suit’s insulation would keep him warm for several minutes. He raced toward the hole in the side of the ship.

  It took forever. His artificial muscles, stiff from lack of power, fought him every step of the way. Worse still, his right arm wouldn’t move. He had no idea when it had gotten hurt—between his artificial muscles and the painkiller from his Life Control System, he had no way to notice. He cursed the suit for hiding this from him but knew it was his own fault. He should have done a dry run.

  He was sweating when he reached the engine, and the cold was seeping in. The box of batteries was strapped to the engine, with twelve sets of leads hanging over the edge. He fished a battery from the pouch, using his foot to hold it down as he awkwardly twisted the wire with his left hand. He did a quick wrap with the tape, dropped it into the box, and started on the next one.

  He made it through eight batteries before his fingers were too stiff to grip the wire. He slapped his hand against his thigh, forcing the blood in, and managed to finish one more. But the tape got mangled, sticking to itself more than anything else, and he finally just tossed the whole jumble into the box. He scooped the tenth battery from the bag, but it slipped from his hand and floated away.

  There was no point in chasing it or trying to wire in the last two batteries. He had to press on.

  Peter had strung his homemade screwdriver around his wrist, and it took a minute to maneuver it into his hand. He pressed the back of his fingers to the engine case, tightening them to the screwdriver, then dropped onto his back and shimmied under the engine.

  Using the screwdriver, he tapped the tiny preignition button, and the indicator light blinked yellow as the engine ran its self-test. The manual said this could take from fifteen seconds to two minutes.

  Peter’s body shook uncontrollably. He pedaled his legs in the air, trying to raise his body temperature, but he was losing heat far faster than he could hope to generate it. Space was just too cold.

  The yellow light turned solid green. The engine had passed.

  Peter jabbed at the ignition button, his hand trembling so badly that it took three tries. Sparks flew from the batteries, and the box danced as they exploded inside. But the ship began to vibrate, and the engine’s exhaust glowed from deep within, warming up. He had done it.

  As Peter relaxed against the hull, his eyes fell on a coil of rope at his feet. He jerked up—he had forgotten to tether himself to the ship. A white blade of light shot from the engine, the tip fading into the distance. The ship began to move, leaving Peter behind.

  Peter dived for the rope, ducking below the engine’s blazing exhaust. He drove his good arm through the coil, but the rope unspooled around it. He twirled his arm, bringing the rope between his fingers, but they wouldn’t close. He clamped it between his knees, but it slipped through. The coil was running out; the ship was speeding away.

  Peter kicked a leg up and spun, swinging it over the rope, then scissored it back down and twisted. The rope slid up to his crotch and wrapped around his legs like they were a mooring cleat. The knot tightened, snapping his legs together. Peter was flipped head over heels and jerked forward. He slammed into the hull, bounced off, and swung toward the ship’s center—straight at the searing white tachyon exhaust. If he touched it, it would shred the suit from his body.

  He kicked at the hull to straighten himself, but his reflexes were tuned to his artificial muscles; lacking their strength, he only face-planted. His visor scraped across the hull, then struck something with a deafening crunch. Peter b
lacked out.

  He woke up a moment later. He couldn’t see much because a thick rod—one of the ship’s sensors—had punctured his visor right between his eyes. The sensor curved up, either into his skull or over the top. Peter didn’t feel any pain, but he wouldn’t expect to.

  His visor wasn’t leaking air and, between the rod and the rope, he was held firmly to the ship. He tried to look ahead, but all he could see was hull.

  Peter wasn’t cold anymore, only tired. It had all been so much work, but he was done. He could relax, maybe even take a nap. Felt like he hadn’t slept in days.

  Wake me up when I’m home, he thought. He couldn’t wait to get back, to open his eyes and find Linda looking down at him. He missed her. He never wanted to be away from her for this long again. Or this far.

  It was a long trip back. He hoped to sleep the whole way.

  [14.08.2.78::3948.1938.834.2D]

  “Ah, there you are,” the voice said. A friendly voice. A man’s voice.

  Peter opened his eyes, blinking against the white light. The man who looked down at him sagged with weight and was bald except for a laurel of white hair. He gave Peter a fat smile, his teeth as small as a baby’s.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.

  “I…” Peter cleared his throat; it was burned raw. “The engine fired. Am I home?” Peter tried to sit up, but his right arm didn’t move; it was gone, his shoulder nothing but a nub.

  “Easy, son,” the man said, laying a firm hand on Peter’s chest, then looking back over his shoulder. “How about that?” he said. “The boy wants to know if he’s home.”

  Peter craned his neck and saw two other people: Linda and her supervisor. Neither looked happy.