To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  Unsettled, she returned her attention to the map and tried to ignore what was happening. It was out of her control, in any case.… There! A certain pattern of stars struck her. She stopped, and a bell-like tone seemed to echo in her head: confirmation from the Soft Blade. And Kira knew she had found what she was looking for: seven stars in the shape of a crown, and near the center, the old, red spark that marked the location of the Staff of Blue. Or, at least, where the Soft Blade believed it to be.

  Kira stared, at first disbelieving and then with a sense of growing confidence. Whether or not the xeno’s information was up to date, the location of the system was more than they’d had before, and for once, it put her—and humanity as a whole—a step ahead.

  Excited, she began to announce her discovery. A loud beep interrupted her, and dozens of red dots appeared scattered through the holo of the system projected in the center of the room.

  “More Jellies,” said Nielsen, a fatalistic note in her voice.

  3.

  “Goddammit. I don’t believe it,” said Falconi. For the first time, he seemed at a loss for what to do.

  Kira opened her mouth and then closed it.

  Even as they slipped into normal space, the red dots began to move, burning in all different directions.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t believe it,” said Gregorovich. He sounded oddly puzzled.

  “What do you mean?” Falconi leaned forward, the usual razor-edge returning to his gaze.

  The ship mind was slow to respond: “This latest batch of uninvited guests is behaving contrary to expectations. They are … calculating … calculating.… They aren’t just flying toward us, they’re also flying toward the other Jellies.”

  “Reinforcements?” Nielsen asked.

  “Uncertain,” Gregorovich replied. “Their engine signatures don’t match the ships we’ve seen from the Jellies so far.”

  “I know there are different factions among the Jellies,” Kira offered.

  “Perhaps,” said Gregorovich. Then: “Oh my.… Well, then. Isn’t that interesting?”

  The main holo switched to show a view from elsewhere in the system: a live feed of three ships converging on one.

  “What are we looking at?” Falconi asked.

  “A transmission from Chelomey Station,” said Gregorovich. A green outline appeared around one of the ships. “This is a Jelly.” Red outlined the three other ships. “These are some of our newcomers. And this”—a set of numbers appeared next to each ship—“is their acceleration and relative velocity.”

  “Thule!” Falconi exclaimed.

  “That should not be possible,” said Vishal.

  “Indeed,” said Gregorovich.

  The newcomers were accelerating faster than any Jelly ship on record. Sixty g’s. A hundred g’s. More. Even through the display, their engines were painful to look at—bright torches powerful enough to spot from light-years away.

  The three ships had jumped in close to the Jelly they were pursuing. As they converged, the Jelly released clouds of chalk and chaff, and the computer marked otherwise invisible laser bursts with lines of red. The intruders fired back, and missiles streaked between the combatants.

  “Well that answers one question,” said Nielsen.

  Then one of the three newcomers shot ahead of its companions and, with hardly any warning, rammed the Jelly ship.

  Both vessels vanished in an atomic flash.

  “Whoa!” said Trig. He walked in from the corridor and sat next to Nielsen. He’d changed out of his power armor, back into his normal, ill-fitting jumpsuit. A foam cast encased his left wrist.

  “Gregorovich,” said Falconi, “can you get us a close-up of one of those ships?”

  “A moment, please,” said the ship mind. For a few seconds, a piece of mindless, waiting-room music played through the Wallfish’s speakers. Then the holo changed: a blurred still of one of the new ships. The vessel was dark, almost black, and shot through with veins of bloody orange. The hull was asymmetric, with odd bulges and angles and scabrous protuberances. It looked more like a tumor than a spaceship, as if it had been grown rather than built.

  Kira had never seen anything like it, and neither, she thought, had the Soft Blade. The unbalanced shape gave her an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach; she had difficulty imagining a reason for constructing such a twisted, lopsided machine. It certainly wasn’t the handiwork of the Jellies; most everything they built was smooth and white and seemed to be radially symmetrical.

  “Look,” said Falconi, and he switched the holo back to a view of the system. All across 61 Cygni, the red dots were streaking toward Jellies and humans alike. The Jellies were already altering their courses to face the incoming threats, which meant—for the time being—the Wallfish had some breathing room.

  “Captain, what’s going on?” said Trig.

  “I don’t know,” said Falconi. “All the passengers back in their hold?” The kid nodded.

  “Those ships aren’t the Jellies’,” said Kira. “They’re not.”

  “Do the Jellies think they’re ours?” said Nielsen. “Is that why they think we’ve been attacking them?”

  Vishal said, “I don’t see how.”

  “Neither do I,” said Falconi, “but seems there’s a whole lot we don’t understand right now.” He tapped his fingers against his leg, then glanced at Kira. “What I want to know is whether they jumped in because of that signal you sent.”

  “They would’ve had to been waiting just outside Sixty-One Cygni,” said Nielsen. “That seems … unlikely.”

  Kira was inclined to agree. But it seemed even more unlikely that the newcomers would have arrived at that exact moment through sheer chance. As with the Jellies showing up at Adra, space was too big for that sort of coincidence.

  The thought made her skin itch. Something was wrong here, and she didn’t know what. She opened a message window on her overlays and sent the captain a text:

  His eyes widened slightly, but otherwise, he didn’t react.

 

 

  For a minute everyone was silent, watching the display. Falconi stirred in his seat and said, “We have permission to dock at Malpert. Kira, they know we have intel, but I didn’t tell them who you are or about your, ah, suit. No reason to put all your cards on the table at once.”

  She smiled slightly. “Thanks.… It has a name, you know.”

  “What does?”

  “The suit.” They all looked at her. “I don’t understand all of it, but what I do understand means the Soft Blade.”

  “That is so cool,” said Trig.

  Falconi scratched his chin. “It fits, I’ll give it that. You’ve got a strange life, Navárez.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she muttered to herself.

  Another alert sounded then, and in mournful tones, Gregorovich said, “Incoming.”

  Two of the newly arrived ships were burning straight for Malpert Station. ETA, a few minutes sooner than the Wallfish.

  “Of course,” said Falconi.

  4.

  For the next two hours, Kira sat with the crew, watching as the strange, twisted ships spread through the system, seeding chaos wherever they went. They attacked humans and Jellies indiscriminately, and they displayed suicidal disregard for their own safety.

  Four of the newcomers swept through the antimatter farm situated close to the sun. The ships raced past the ranks of winged satellites, blasting them with lasers and missiles so that each exploded in a flash of annihilating antimatter. Several of the satellites had point-defense turrets, and they managed to score hits on two of the attackers. The damaged ships promptly rammed the turrets, destroying themselves in the process.

  “Maybe they’re drones,” said Nielsen.

>   “Maybe,” said Gregorovich, “but unlikely. When cracked, they vent atmosphere. There must be living creatures swaddled within.”

  “It’s another species of aliens!” said Trig. “Has to be!” He nearly bounced in his seat.

  Kira couldn’t share his enthusiasm. Nothing about the newcomers felt right to her. Just the sight of their ships left her feeling off-balance. That the Soft Blade seemed to have no knowledge of them only compounded her discomfort. It surprised her how much she’d come to rely on the xeno’s expertise.

  “At least they’re not as tough as the Jellies,” said Falconi. It was true; the newcomers’ ships didn’t seem as well-armored, although that was offset by their speed and recklessness.

  The two tumorous ships continued to bore through space toward Malpert Station. As they and the Wallfish neared, the Darmstadt and a half-dozen smaller vessels again took up defensive positions around the station. The UMC cruiser was still trailing silvery coolant from radiators that had been damaged while fighting the Jellies earlier, but damaged or not, the cruiser was the station’s only real hope.

  When the Wallfish was five minutes away, the shooting started.

  CHAPTER IX

  GRACELING

  1.

  The attack was swift and vicious. The two malformed alien ships dove toward the Darmstadt and Malpert, each from a different vector. Bursts of smoke and chaff obscured the view, and then the UMC cruiser fired a trio of Casaba-Howitzers. They weren’t holding back.

  With a violent juke, one of the aliens dodged the nuclear shaped charges. It continued past, on a collision path for the station.

  “No!” Nielsen cried.

  But the alien ship didn’t ram Malpert and explode. Rather it slowed and, with its remaining momentum, coasted into one of the station’s docking ports. The long, malignant-looking ship smashed its way past clamps and airlocks, wedging itself deep into the body of the station. The vessel was big: nearly twice the size of the Wallfish.

  The other ship didn’t manage to avoid the Casaba-Howitzers, not entirely. One of the spears of ravening death singed the ship’s hull, and the vessel careened off deeper into the asteroid belt, streaming smoke from the wound burned through its flank.

  A group of mining ships separated from the rest of the defenders and gave chase.

  “Now’s our chance,” said Falconi. “Gregorovich, get us docked, now.”

  “Uh, what about that thing?” said Nielsen, pointing at the alien ship protruding from the edge of the station.

  “Not our worry,” said Falconi. The Wallfish had already cut its engines and was moving via thrusters toward the assigned airlock. “We can always blast off again if we have to, but we’ve got to fill our tanks back up.”

  Nielsen nodded, her face tight with worry.

  “Gregorovich, what’s happening on the station?” Kira asked.

  “Chaos and pain,” the ship mind replied. In the holo, a series of windows appeared, showing feeds from within Malpert: dining halls, tunnels, open concourses. Groups of men and women clad in skinsuits ran past the cameras, firing guns and blasters. Billows of chalk clogged the air, and in the pale shadows moved creatures the likes of which Kira had never imagined. Some stalked on all fours, as small and lean as whippets but with eyes as big as her fist. Others lurched forward on malformed limbs: arms and legs that looked broken and badly healed; tentacles that kinked and hung useless; rows of pseudopods that pulsed with sickening fleshiness. Regardless of their shape, the creatures had red, raw-looking skin that oozed lymph-like fluid, and patches of black, wire-thick hair dotted their scabrous hides.

  The creatures carried no weapons, though more than a few had boney spikes and serrations along their forelimbs. They fought like beasts, jumping after the fleeing miners, bearing them down to the floor and tearing at their guts.

  Without guns, the monsters were quickly cut down. But not before they killed several dozen people.

  “What in God’s name?” said Vishal, his horrified tone matching Kira’s own feelings.

  Across from her, Trig looked green.

  “You’re the xenobiologist,” said Falconi. “What’s your professional opinion?”

  Kira hesitated. “I … I don’t have a clue. They can’t be naturally evolved. Just, I mean, just look at them. I don’t even know if they could have built the ship they used.”

  “So you’re saying someone else made those things?” said Nielsen.

  Falconi raised an eyebrow. “The Jellies, maybe? Science experiment gone wrong?”

  “But then why blame attacks on us?” said Vishal.

  Kira shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Sorry. I haven’t got the faintest idea what’s going on.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” said Falconi. “War.” He checked something on his overlays. “The captain of the Darmstadt wants to meet with you, Navárez, but it’s going to take them some time to dock. They’re still mopping up out there. In the meantime, let’s refuel, refit, and get the folks out of the cargo hold. They’re going to have to find another way to Ruslan. And I’m going to start making calls, see if I can get my hands on some antimatter. Somehow.”

  2.

  Kira went with Trig, Vishal, and Nielsen to help. It beat sitting around waiting. Her mind churned as they floated down the shaft in the center of the Wallfish. The vision she’d had from the Soft Blade about the staff … the being the xeno had thought of as the Highmost hadn’t looked like either a Jelly or one of the malformed newcomers. Did that mean they were dealing with three sentient species?

  Hwa-jung joined them on the ladder on her way to engineering. When Nielsen asked about Sparrow, the machine boss just grunted and said, “She lives. She sleeps.”

  At the starboard hold, a babble of shouted questions met them as Trig spun open the wheel-lock and opened the door. Nielsen held up her hands and waited until there was quiet.

  She said: “We’ve docked at Malpert Station. There’s been a change of plans. The Wallfish won’t be able to take you to Ruslan after all.” As an angry roar began to build among the assembled refugees, she added: “Ninety percent of your ticket price will be refunded. Should be already, in fact. Check your messages.”

  Kira perked up; that was the first she’d heard of a refund.

  “It’s probably for the best,” Trig confided to her. “We weren’t really, uh, welcome on Ruslan. It would’ve been kinda dicey getting down to land.”

  “That so? I’m surprised Falconi is giving out refunds. Doesn’t seem like him.”

  The kid shrugged, and a sly little smile spread across his face. “Yeah, well, we kept enough to top up on hydrogen. Plus, I grabbed a few things while I was on the Jelly ship. Captain figures we can sell them to collectors for a whack-load of bits.”

  Kira frowned, thinking of all the technology on the ship. “What exactly did you—” she started to ask, only to have a squeal of rotating metal joints cut her off.

  The outer wall of the cargo hold hinged open to reveal a wide jetway that joined the hold to the Malpert spaceport. Loading bots sat waiting outside, and a handful of customs officials stood anchored nearby, clipboards in hand.

  The refugees started to gather up their supplies and head out of the Wallfish. It was a difficult task in zero-g, and Kira found herself chasing after sleeping bags and thermal blankets to keep them from flying out of the hold.

  The refugees seemed wary of her, but they didn’t protest her presence. Mainly, Kira suspected, because they were more focused on getting out of the Wallfish. One man did come up to her, though—a lanky, redheaded man in rumpled formal wear—and she recognized him as the guy who had jumped after the girl during the fight with the Jelly.

  “I didn’t get the opportunity earlier,” he said, “but I wanted to thank you for helping to save my niece. If not for you and Sparrow…” He shook his head.

  Kira dipped her head, and she felt an unexpected film of tears in her eyes. “Just glad I could help.”

  H
e hesitated. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you?”

  “… A weapon, and let’s leave it at that.”

  He held out his hand. “Whatever the case, thank you. If you’re ever on Ruslan, look us up. Hofer is the name. Felix Hofer.”

  They shook, and an odd lump formed in Kira’s throat as she watched him return to his niece and leave.

  Across the hold, angry voices rang out. She saw Jorrus and Veera surrounded by five of the Numenists—three men, two women—who were shoving them and shouting something about the Number Supreme.

  “Hey, knock it off!” called Nielsen as she kicked herself in their direction.

  Kira hurried toward the fight. Even as she did, one of the Numenists—a snub-nosed man with purple hair and a row of subdermal implants along his forearms—butted Jorrus in the face, smashing his mouth.

  “Hold still,” said Kira, snarling. She flew into the group and grabbed the purple-haired man around the torso and pinned his arms against his sides as they tumbled into a wall. The Soft Blade gripped the wall at her command, stopping them.

  “What’s going on?” Nielsen demanded, putting herself between the Numenists and Entropists.

  Veera held up her hands in a placating matter. “Just a small—”

  “—theological dispute,” Jorrus finished. He spat a gob of blood onto the deck.

  “Well not here,” said Nielsen. “Keep it off the ship. All of you.”

  The purple-haired man wrenched against Kira’s arms. “Ah feck off yah hatchet-faced bint. An you, let me go, yah walloping, misbegotten graceling.”

  “Not until you promise to behave,” said Kira. She relished the feeling of strength the Soft Blade gave her; holding the man was easy with its help.

  “Behave? Ah’ll show you behave!” The man’s head snapped backwards and slammed into her nose.