Falconi rapped the mug against the deck. “Only it wasn’t. My sister was six years younger than me, but I figured she was old enough to take care of herself, so I snuck out and went to hang with some of my friends, same as I would any other Saturday. Next thing I knew—” Falconi’s voice caught, and his hands opened and closed as if crushing something invisible. “There was an explosion. By the time I got back to our rooms, they’d half caved in.”
He shook his head. “I went in after her, but it was already too late. Smoke inhalation.… That’s how I got burned. We found out later my sister had been cooking, and somehow a fire started. If I’d been with her, where I was supposed to be, she would have been fine.”
“You can’t know that,” said Kira.
Falconi cocked his head. “Oh can’t I?…” He picked up the deck of cards, worked the free ones into the middle, and shuffled them twice. “You didn’t kill Alan or anyone else on your team.”
“I did. I—”
“Stop,” Falconi said, stabbing a middle finger at her. “Maybe you are responsible, but it wasn’t a conscious decision on your part. You wouldn’t have killed them any more than I would have killed my sister. As for this goddamn war, you’re not all-powerful, Kira. The Jellies made their own choices. So did the League and this Maw. In the end, they’re the only ones who can answer for themselves. So stop blaming yourself.”
“I can’t seem to help it.”
“Bullshit. The truth is you don’t want to. It makes you feel good to blame yourself. You know why?” Kira shook her head, mute. “Because it gives you a sense of control. The hardest lesson in life is learning to accept that there are some things we can’t change.” Falconi paused, his eyes hard and glittering. “Blaming yourself is perfectly normal, but it doesn’t do you any good. Until you stop, unless you can stop, you’ll never be able to fully recover.”
Then he unbuttoned the cuffs on his shirt, and rolled back his sleeves to expose the melted surface of his forearms. He held them up for Kira to see. “Why do you think I keep these scars?”
“Because … you feel guilty over—”
“No,” Falconi said harshly. Then, in a gentler tone: “No. I keep them to remind me of what I can survive. Of what I have survived. If I’m having a rough time, I look at my arms, and I know I’ll get through whatever problem I’m dealing with. Life’s not going to break me. It can’t break me. It might kill me, but nothing it throws at me is going to make me give up.”
“What if I’m not that strong?”
He smiled without humor. “Then you’ll crawl through life with this monkey sitting on your back, and it’ll tear at you until it kills you. Trust me on that.”
“… How did you manage to get rid of it?”
“I drank a lot. Got in a bunch of fights. Nearly ended up dead a few times. After a while, I realized that I was just punishing myself for no good reason. Plus, I knew my sister wouldn’t have wanted me to end up like that, so I forgave myself. Even though it wasn’t my direct fault—just like it’s not your fault—I forgave myself. And that’s when I was finally able to move on and make something of my life.”
Kira made her decision then. She couldn’t see a path clear from the mire she was stuck in, but she could at least try to fight free. That much she could do: try.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” Falconi repeated softly, and at that moment, Kira felt a bone-deep sense of connection with him: a bond born of shared sorrows.
“What was your sister’s name?”
“Beatrice, but we always called her Bea.”
Kira stared at the oily surface of the chell, studying her dark reflection. “What do you want, Falconi?”
“Salvo.… Call me Salvo.”
“What do you really want, Salvo? Out of all the universe?”
“I want,” he said, drawing the words out, “to be free. Free from debt. Free from governments and corporations telling me how to live my life. If that means I spend the rest of my years as captain of the Wallfish, well then—” He lifted his mug in mock salute. “—I accept my fate willingly.”
She mirrored his gesture. “A worthy goal. To freedom.”
“To freedom.”
The chell made the back of her throat tingle as she took another sip, and right then, the terrors of the day no longer seemed quite so immediate.
“Are you from Farrugia’s Landing?” she asked.
A small nod from Falconi. “Born on a ship thereabouts, but I grew up at the outpost itself.”
A half-forgotten memory stirred in the back of Kira’s brain. “Wasn’t there an uprising there?” she said. “Some sort of corporate rebellion? I remember seeing an article about it. Most of the workers went on strike, and a lot of people ended up hurt or in prison.”
Falconi took a drink of chell. “You remember correctly. It got real bloody, real fast.”
“Did you fight?”
He snorted. “What do you think?” Then he glanced at her from the corners of his eyes, and for a moment it seemed as if he were trying to decide something. “What does it feel like?”
“What?”
“The Soft Blade.”
“It feels like … like this.” She reached out and touched Falconi on the wrist. He watched with caution, surprised. “It feels like nothing at all. It feels like my skin.”
Then Kira willed a row of razor-sharp edges to rise from the back of her hand. The xeno had become such a part of herself, willing the blades into existence took hardly any effort.
After a moment, she allowed them to subside.
Falconi placed his hand over hers. She shivered and nearly flinched as he traced the tips of his fingers across her palm, sending cold sparks shooting up her arm. “Like this?”
“Exactly.”
He lingered a moment more, the pads of his fingers just touching hers. Then he pulled his hand back and picked up the cards. “Another round?”
The last of the chell didn’t taste quite so good as Kira downed it. What the hell was she doing? Alan … “I think I’ve had enough.”
Falconi nodded, understanding.
“Are you going to tell Hawes about Carr and the Maw?” she asked.
“No reason to yet. You can file a report when we get back to the League.”
Kira made a face at the thought. Then, heartfelt, she said, “Thank you for talking and listening.”
Falconi slipped the cards back in his pocket. “Of course. Just don’t give up. None of us are going to get through this if we stop fighting.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
2.
Kira left Falconi brooding in the galley. She debated going straight to Itari and trying to talk with the Jelly. (Would it even be awake? Did Jellies sleep?) But as much as she wanted answers, right then, she needed rest. The day had left her exhausted in a way no amount of AcuWake could fix. Sleep was the only remedy.
So she returned to her cabin. No messages from Gregorovich were waiting for her, nor would she have answered them if there were. Leaving the lights off, she lay on the bed and sighed with relief as the weight came off her throbbing feet.
Falconi’s words—she couldn’t bring herself to think of him by his first name—were still running through her head as Kira closed her eyes and, almost at once, fell into a dreamless state.
3.
A bell-like tone echoed throughout the Wallfish.
Kira tried to bolt upright and struggled as she remained pinned to the mattress, held in place by tendrils of the Soft Blade. The 2.25 g’s of thrust had let off, leaving her in weightlessness. If not for the xeno, she would have floated off in her sleep.
Heart pounding, she forced the Soft Blade to relax its hold and pulled herself over to the desk. Had the sound been in her imagination? Had she really slept that long?
She checked the console. Yes, she had.
They’d just jumped to FTL.
EXEUNT III
1.
They had escaped, but they weren’t safe
.
Kira checked the ship’s records, unable to believe that none of the Jellies or the nightmares had overtaken them.
One of the Jellies had headed after the Wallfish a bit over an hour ago, closely followed by the two remaining nightmares. The three ships had been only minutes away from opening fire on the Wallfish by the time it transitioned to FTL.
In order to leave Bughunt as quickly as possible, the Wallfish had executed a hot jump, transitioning to FTL without taking the time to properly cool the ship. To do so would have required shutting off the fusion drive for the better part of a day. Hardly practical with hostile ships so close behind.
Even with the drive extinguished, the heat radiating from it—as well as the thermal energy contained within the rest of the Wallfish’s hull—would quickly build up to intolerable levels inside the Markov Bubble. Heatstroke would become a very real risk, and soon afterward, equipment failure.
Kira could already hear the life-support fans running harder than normal.
It wouldn’t be long before the Wallfish would have to drop back into normal space. But it almost didn’t matter. Whether in subluminal or superluminal space, the ships chasing them were faster than any human-built vessel.
They’d escaped, but it still looked like the Jellies and the nightmares would catch them. And when they did, Kira had no illusions of what would happen next.
She couldn’t see how they were going to get out of the situation. Maybe Falconi or Gregorovich had an idea, but for herself, Kira thought the only option would be to fight. And she had no confidence in her ability to protect the crew, much less herself, if more of the xeno-like nightmares attacked.
Her throat tightened, and she forced herself to take a breath, calm herself. The Wallfish wasn’t taking fire. It wasn’t being boarded. Better to save her adrenaline for when that was actually the case.…
She had just started for the door when the bell-like tone sounded again. So soon? Was something wrong with the Wallfish? Out of instinct born of far too many trips on spaceships, she reached for the handhold next to the desk.
The stump of her arm swung past the hold, missing it.
“Fuck.” Momentum nearly spun her around, but Kira managed to catch the hold with her left hand and stabilize her position.
A faint tingle passed across her skin, as if the electrical charge of the air had increased. She realized they’d just dropped back into normal space.
Then a thrust warning rang out, and she felt the wall press against her as the Wallfish turned and then began to burn in a new direction. “Ten minutes until next jump,” said Gregorovich in his warbling whisper.
Kira hurried straight to Control. Falconi, Nielsen, and Hawes glanced at her as she entered.
The lieutenant was pale and hard-faced. If anything he looked worse than the previous day.
“What’s going on? Why did we stop?” said Kira.
“We’re changing course,” said Falconi.
“Yes, why? We just left the system.”
He gestured at the ever-present holo in the center of the room. It showed a map of Bughunt. “That’s the point. The Jellies are jamming the whole area, and we’re still inside the jamming. That means no one saw us drop out of FTL, and since the light from the Wallfish will take over a day to get back to Bughunt—”
“No one knows we’re here,” said Kira.
Falconi nodded. “For the time being, no. FTL sensors can’t pick up sublight objects, so the assholes chasing us aren’t going to see us when they fly past, not unless—”
“Not unless,” said Nielsen, “we’re really unlucky and they decide to drop back into normal space to take a look.”
Hawes scrunched his forehead. “They shouldn’t, though. They don’t have any reason to.”
Falconi gave Kira a look from under his brows. “That’s the idea at least. We wait for the Jellies and the nightmares to go by, and then we blast off in a different direction.”
She frowned, mirroring Hawes’s expression. “But … won’t they pick us up on their instruments as soon as we leave the jamming?”
“Shouldn’t,” said Falconi. “I’m guessing the Jellies don’t want the rest of the nightmares to know about you, the Staff of Blue, or anything else at Bughunt. If I’m right, the Jellies following us are going to keep up their jamming, which means they’ll be limited to short-range observations in FTL.”
Kira was doubtful. “That’s an awfully big guess.”
He nodded. “Sure is, but even if the Jellies drop their jamming … You know anything about FTL sensors?”
“Not really,” she admitted.
“They’re pretty crap. Passive ones have to be big, real big to be effective. Not something most ships can haul around. Active are even worse, and it’s active we have to worry about. Range is only a few light-days at best, which isn’t much at the speeds we’re traveling, and they aren’t particularly sensitive, which is a problem if you’re trying to detect Markov Bubbles, since the bubbles have such a low energy state. Plus … Hawes, why don’t you tell her?”
The lieutenant never took his eyes off the display as he spoke, his words slow and deliberate. “The UMC found that the Jelly sensors are about twenty percent less effective directly behind their ships. Probably because their shadow shield and fusion drive get in the way.”
Falconi nodded again. “Odds are the nightmares have the same issue, even if they don’t use a shield.” He brought up an image in the holo of the three ships chasing them. “Once they’re past us, they’re going to have trouble detecting us—assuming no jamming—and every minute is going to make it that much harder.”
“How long until they realize the Wallfish isn’t in front of them?” Kira asked.
He shrugged. “No idea. Best-case scenario, a couple of hours. Worst case, sometime in the next thirty minutes. Either way, it should still be enough time to get out of their FTL sensor range.”
“And then what?”
A flicker of sly cunning crossed Falconi’s face. “We take a random walk, that’s what.” He jerked his thumb toward the aft of the ship. “The UMC gave us more than enough antimatter to fly to Bughunt and back. We’re using the spare to make a few extra hops, changing course each time, to throw off anyone trying to follow us.”
“But,” said Kira, trying to visualize the whole arrangement in her head, “they can still flash trace us, right?”
Gregorovich cackled and said, “They can, O my Inquisitive Mammal, but ’twill take time—time that will allow us to make our most hasty retreat.”
Falconi tipped a finger toward the speakers in the ceiling. “With each jump, it’ll be harder and harder for the Jellies and the nightmares to track us. This isn’t like the trip out here. We’re not going to be dropping out of FTL at regular intervals in what was pretty much a straight-shot flight.”
“We took precautions,” said Hawes, “but nothing as extreme as this.”
Nielsen said, “Once we’re out of sensor range, the Jellies won’t be able to predict when we go sublight. And if they miscalculate even one trajectory or miss even one jump—”
“They’ll end up waaay off,” said Falconi with a satisfied grin. “The Wallfish can cover almost three-quarters of a light-year in a day. Think how long you’d have to wait on a flash trace if you were off by even a few hours on one of our jumps. It could take days, weeks, or even months for the light to reach you.”
“So we’re actually going to make it,” said Kira.
A grim smile appeared on Falconi’s face. “Seems like it. Once we’re out far enough, the chances of any of ’em finding the Wallfish, even by accident, are going to be pretty much nil. Hell, unless they track us to our last jump, they won’t even know which system in the League we’re aiming for.”
The pressure pushing Kira against the wall ceased, and she had to hook the stump of her arm through a handhold to keep from drifting across the room. Then the jump alert echoed forth again, and again she felt the strange tingle pass across her
skin.
“And which system would that be?” she asked.
“Sol,” said Nielsen.
2.
The second jump was longer than the first: forty-three minutes to be precise.
While they waited, Kira went with Hawes to talk with Itari. “You okay?” she asked as they left Control.
He didn’t meet her gaze. “Fine, thanks.”
“Akawe seemed like a good captain.”
“Yeah. He was. And he was crazy sharp. Him and Koyich.… There were a lot of good people on the Darmstadt.”
“I know. I’m sorry about what happened.”
He nodded, accepting the condolences.
“Is there anything you don’t want me to say?” Kira asked as they neared the airlock with the Jelly.
The lieutenant considered. “It probably doesn’t matter at this point, but whatever you know about Sol, the League, or the UMC, keep it to yourself.”
She nodded, lightly pushing against the wall to keep herself centered in the corridor. “I’ll try. If I’m not sure about something, I’ll check with you first.”
Hawes nodded. “That should work. We’re mostly interested in the Jellies’ military—placement of troops, tactics, future plans, et cetera—as well as their technology. Also details on why exactly this group of Jellies wants to join forces with us. So, politics, I guess. Anything else you can dig up would be a bonus.”
“Got it.”
At the airlock, Kira saw Itari floating near the back wall, its tentacles wrapped around itself in a protective embrace. The alien stirred and looked out with a single glossy eye from between a pair of tentacles. Curiosity. To be expected in any sentient organism, but Kira still found it intimidating. The intelligence lurking within the Jelly’s eye was a constant reminder that they were dealing with a creature just as capable as any human. Probably more so given its armored carapace and many limbs.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Page 56
