Fire Flare

by Chris Ward

  ‘You good-for-nothing lowlife space worm scum. Do you have any idea what trouble you’ve caused?’

  ‘Good morning, General,’ Beth said, adopting her sweetest come-home-to-the-parents tone. ‘I do apologize for our behavior, and I promise we’ll do whatever we can to make you comfortable. However, in the meantime, we’d like some advice on our current situation.’

  ‘Why should I help a group of hijacking ass turkeys like you?’

  Beth scowled at the box. ‘Don’t forget who took who prisoner. And who was offered to the Shadowmen as a decoy. If I wasn’t enjoying the conversation so much, I’d be inclined to toss your head out of the airlock.’

  ‘You’ll never achieve anything. You’re a bunch of space pirates.’

  ‘No, we’re not.’

  Harlan5 paused the general for a moment and lifted a finger on his one remaining hand. ‘By definition, technically we are.’

  ‘You be quiet too. Put the general back on.’ As Harlan5’s mouthpiece once again crackled with the general’s transmission, Beth continued, ‘I don’t care what we might or might not be. We’re stuck inside the Trillian orbiter with a bunch of injured and sick refugees on board. Surrounding us is a blockade of half the Shadowman space navy—’

  ‘It’s technically only an expedition force,’ Harlan5 said, pausing the general again. ‘Despite the overwhelming difference in numbers—’

  ‘I told you to shut up, Harlan. I’m talking to the general.’

  Harlan5’s eye light twinkled. ‘As you wish.’

  Beth clenched her fists as the mouthpiece crackled. ‘And even worse, two of our crew members have disappeared on a mission into the orbiter’s core.’

  ‘Well, that was stupid. What idiot decided to do that?’

  Beth winced. ‘Your son.’

  ‘Well, why doesn’t that surprise me? That good-for-nothing stain on a dead bug’s ass—’

  ‘—who saved my life when you left me to rot.’

  General Grogood’s voice fell momentarily silent. Harlan5 rubbed his mouthpiece as though the general’s words made it ache.

  ‘So he went into the orbiter, did he?’

  ‘Yes. And now we’ve lost contact. However, we’ve unfortunately received a transmission from the Shadowman fleet waiting outside. That they haven’t come and flushed us out yet is something of a miracle.’

  ‘They’re scared of it.’

  ‘What?’

  General Grogood’s voice had taken on a reverential tone, as though the anger was finally out of his system. ‘We had just pulled out of a first engagement when they turned their guns on it. The orbiter reacted. They lost nine ships.’

  ‘What do you mean it reacted?’

  ‘Their barrage damaged it enough to destabilize Dynis Moon’s atmosphere, but it let off a pulse of energy—that’s the only way I can think of to describe it—which destroyed nine of their battleships. Ripped them apart.’

  ‘Like a defense mechanism?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what if we could set it off again?’

  ‘You mean fire on the orbiter? You’re crazy. It would take you with it. The very last thing you want to do is use your guns. This isn’t some machine. It’s hundreds, perhaps thousands of millennia older than any race in the Estron Quadrant, yet if you examine it, it looks like it could have been launched yesterday. It’s immaculate. And do you know why? Because it’s continuously evolving. It’s a self-repairing and replicating machine, but to even call it a machine is to show the Trill a lack of respect. It’s beyond a machine. It’s not even A.I. It’s something beyond anything any human or contemporary off-worlder race has ever created.’

  ‘So how do we fix it, or get it to do what we want?’

  In the murky glass tank, General Grogood smiled. ‘If I knew that, we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we?’

  Beth sighed. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘If the Shadowmen have assembled outside, then going out there is probably our worst choice. If we can untangle the ship without damaging the orbiter, I think we should take the option that my worthless son and his colleague took. Go farther in. An oyster protects a pearl, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What’s an oyster?’

  ‘It’s a—’

  Beth lifted a hand to silence Harlan5’s interjection. ‘Never mind. Let’s try it.’

  ‘We have to free the ship first,’ Harlan5 said, reverting again to the general’s assumed voice.

  ‘What would you suggest, General?’

  ‘Ever had an octopus-based life-form wrap itself around your arm?’

  ‘Um, no….’

  ‘Well, goddamn I have. And it wasn’t a pleasant experience. That it was a dignitary from a newly discovered species, but well….’

  Beth found herself smiling. Sometimes it was easy to see where Paul got his mannerisms from.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t all that pleased with the situation, so I gave it a little poke with the stub of my cigar.’

  ‘You burned a dignitary?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t take it all that well, but I explained—rather falsely, but what trade negotiation has ever been based on truth?—that it was a custom of my people. We smoothed things over, and the deal got done.’

  ‘You think we need to burn those wires off?’

  ‘In an ideal world, but obviously not in the vacuum of space. What else have we got? Think, people.’

  ‘A light electrical charge,’ Harlan5 said, briefly taking over his own mouthpiece.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘How light?’ Beth asked.

  ‘Miniscule. We do not want to be perceived as a threat. So light that a human would feel nothing.’

  ‘What could do that?’

  ‘We have a battery charge detector in one of the storage lockers,’ Harlan5 said. ‘It would work.’

  ‘Perfect,’ General Grogood said. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Beth couldn’t help but smile at how bizarre it was to hear Harlan5 switching from one voice to another like a one-person ventriloquist show. ‘Get to it. Who’s going to do your spacewalk?’

  Beth grimaced. ‘I guess it’ll have to be me. I’d have liked a companion, but with Paul no longer here, I don’t have much choice. I doubt there is anyone among the refugees capable of it. Even if there were, none of them are in a safe condition to try.’

  ‘Both Captain Adams and Revel Sind have extensive spacewalking experience,’ General Grogood said.

  ‘They’re currently in the prisoner hold.’

  ‘Well, get them out.’

  ‘They’re in there for a reason, General. If you were a bit more … substantial, you’d be in there with them.’

  ‘I will command them,’ General Grogood said. ‘They respect my author—’

  Beth looked at Harlan5. ‘What happened? Where’d he go?’

  ‘His life support system has fallen to one percent,’ Harlan5 said. ‘It’s necessary to adopt emergency procedures in order to ensure his survival. We need to make a few alterations to get the general back online. In the meantime, perhaps you could try to convince both Captain Adams and Revel Sind yourself?’

  ‘Fantastic,’ Beth said. ‘I can see how well that’s likely to go.’

  Harlan5’s eye light twinkled. ‘Just use the same charm you used on General Grogood. Should work a treat.’

  Beth glared at the robot. After a long moment, she said, ‘If we ever find Paul, I’m banning you from hanging around with him.’

  29

  Caladan

  ‘As you know, I’m a general in the Trillian Space Navy,’ Caladan told Dundtak, as the droid stood impassively in the corner of the cell. ‘I know for a fact that my people are planning to surrender to your new masters as soon as they get the chance. As a high-ranking officer, I’d like the opportunity to switch sides and assist in any way possible. If you could just tell me the code to open the door….’

  ‘That is classified information.’
/>
  Caladan gave a satisfied nod. Yesterday—at least by his reckoning for the passage of time—the information had been “highly classified.” So, his tinkering was working. He was slowly breaking down Dundtak’s security protocols through a mixture of blind luck and intuition.

  ‘Reconfigure command nine-four-six,’ he said, having managed to crack the droid’s voice-activated command sequence. If only he could get hold of a manual, he would be freely roaming about the ship by now.

  ‘There is no nine-four-six command.’

  ‘Sorry, a slip of the tongue. Nine-four-seven.’

  ‘Which language would you prefer? Cycling known languages in three-two-one—’

  ‘No, stop! This one. I like this one. Let’s try sequence nine-four-eight. Reconfigure request.’

  ‘You wish to transfer me to cleaning and general maintenance duty?’

  Caladan shook his head. ‘Okay, scrap that.’

  ‘Guard approaching.’

  At least one thing worked—the early warning system. Caladan had been right that Dundtak was connected to the ship’s security system, and after a little tinkering had managed to get the droid to unwittingly go turncoat.

  ‘Assume guard duty posture,’ he said, slipping back onto his corner seat just as the doors slid open.

  Tor Al’Kanth stood flanked by two other Shadowmen. Even though he was getting used to them, Caladan still gave an involuntary shiver.

  ‘Your presence has been requested on the flight deck,’ Al’Kanth said. ‘Commodore Al’Tinth wishes to take audience with you.’

  ‘How delightful,’ Caladan said, standing up. ‘Let’s go then.’

  With Dundtak trailing behind like an obedient dog, Caladan followed the guards through the ship. The flight deck, as he had expected, was overwhelming in size. Dozens of Shadowmen worked at terminals on several levels, while the view-screens encompassed a panoramic view of the stars. Through a rear view-screen, the rest of the ship was visible, a grey-black mass stretching several Earth-miles in their wake, at the far rear a glow which came from thrusters large enough to incinerate the Matilda with a single acceleration flare.

  ‘Greetings, General,’ Commodore Kal Al’Tinth said, his grin widening to encompass the entire width of his tiny head. ‘You will now witness the capture or destruction of your fugitive friends. Behold.’

  The Shadowman waved a spindly arm at the view-screens. Caladan wasn’t immediately sure what he was looking at until he realized a number of the dots he had assumed were stars were in fact moving space battleships.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit cowardly to bring up the rear?’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t a commander lead from the front? That’s what I would do.’

  ‘We must be cautious in the event that your friends have any more surprises planned,’ Kal Al’Tinth said. ‘You have caught us unawares too many times.’

  Caladan gave an apologetic shrug of his shoulder. As Kal Al’Tinth turned back to view the star field and his battle fleet, he glanced at the weapon holstered on Kal Al’Tinth’s belt. His wrist was tethered to his feet, but the bond wasn’t as tight as they had been during his initial capture. He felt certain that with a bit of maneuvering he could probably get hold of the gun, but there would be thirty others trained on him before he could get off a shot. And that was assuming it wasn’t touch-sensitive or had some other security protocol.

  ‘Behold, the Trillian orbiter,’ Kal Al’Tinth said, pointing at a growing mass in the star field’s center. ‘Bringer of life to Dynis Moon for millennia. Destroyed in a moment of unbridled power.’

  Behind the pompous words, Caladan detected a hint of regret. Perhaps, inside that spindly, nightmarish body, there was room for at least a little heart.

  ‘Why not finish it off?’ Caladan said. ‘Why leave it sitting there? Weren’t your guns enough to blow it out of the sky? Come on, now. It’s practically an antique, yet you couldn’t destroy it?’

  Kal Al’Tinth turned towards him, bulbous eyes flaring, mouth widening in a sneer which sent shivers down Caladan’s back. He wondered what he was trying to goad them into doing, but—not for the first time—his mouth was taking over, leading him on journeys with destinations he couldn’t yet see.

  ‘We had respect for you in battle,’ he continued. ‘You came with a formidable force. Yet, really, you’re just cowards. You hid behind the Bareleon Helix while it was rampaging, but now it’s gone, you’re exposed.’

  Kal Al’Tinth’s eyes flared again. ‘Silence.’

  Tor Al’Kanth leaned forward and said something in their native language. Caladan picked out one word which he had heard pretty regularly, one Dundtak had translated as “kill”.

  Kal Al’Tinth said something back, then made a gesture that sent prickles all over Caladan’s body. Instead of shaking his head like a human might, his head remained still while his entire body twisted from side to side.

  ‘No,’ he said, looking at Caladan. ‘I want the fool to watch.’

  The orbiter was now close enough for its features to be visible. Like a giant injured butterfly, it had a central column with two massive sails to either side, hundreds of Earth-miles across. For thousands of years it had reflected the distant light of Trill Star onto Dynis Moon’s surface, working in perfect tandem with another identical orbiter on the Moon’s opposite side, creating a climate in which humans and other off-worlders could prosper. Now, one wing hung bent and limp, the orbiter crippled.

  Nearby, a Shadowman seated at a terminal shouted something up to Kal Al’Tinth. The towering Shadowman raised his arms as he replied, and the seated Shadowman made a strange crouching motion with his upper body.

  ‘Allow the droid to translate,’ Caladan said to Kal Al’Tinth. ‘I wish to understand.’

  Tor Al’Kanth snapped something which meant ‘Silence!’, but Kal Al’Tinth shook his head and spoke in the common language. ‘It may be of some entertainment for you to watch your people captured.’

  On request, Dundtak rumbled forward. As Shadowmen called out information, the lumbering droid translated in a broken robotic voice: ‘Fighters launched from Battlestation 173. Reconnaissance only. Hold your fire. Repeat: hold your fire. No, do not engage. Repeat: do not engage. Hold your fire, do not engage. Dropping tracker now—mayday, please report: request assistance—wait; hold, hold, hold—fugitives sighted: do not engage! Unexpected movement detected inside the orbiter. Retreat—retreat—retreat!’

  As Dundtak relayed the commands in a haphazard, delayed manner, Caladan watched as a sense of panic set in among the Shadowmen a few seconds before he understood what was going on. A technician called Kal Al’Tinth over, and the Commodore disappeared down a flight of steps, leaving Caladan standing beside Dundtak, Tor Al’Kanth, and his guards. On the view-screen, something was happening to the orbiter.

  It appeared to be expanding.

  ‘Turn, turn, turn!’ Dundtak translated, shifting excitedly from side to side. ‘Get out of range!’

  Caladan realised with horror that he was witnessing some kind of explosion. For a moment he remembered that his friends were hiding inside the orbiter and felt a pang of horror, then two of the most distant dots on the screen plumed with light, and he understood that he had far greater problems to address before he could consider anything else.

  The orbiter’s explosion was destroying the fleet.

  As alarms blared, the massive command ship started to turn. The growing ball of light that had been the orbiter swung to the left as they banked right. Other ships were exploding, their soundlessness making the explosions more horrific. With the sudden lurch of the ship, Caladan was thrown off his feet. He rolled across the flight deck and tumbled down a set of steps, landing almost in the lap of a technician tapping frantically at a screen. As he hit the base of the technician’s chair, the Shadowman toppled onto him.

  Hideous bugs crawled across his face. Caladan clamped his mouth shut to avoid screaming in horror. The Shadowman, seemingly also horrified, scrambled to get up. A weapon holster brus
hed against Caladan’s hand.

  In the chaos of the orbiter’s explosion, he would get no better chance. Caladan pulled the gun free, angling it with his tethered hand. It only took one glance at the insignia on the side to see that it was a stolen weapon, one far more comfortable in a human hand than that of its thief.

  The first blast cut through the tether from his wrist to his feet. The second blew a hole through the technician’s chest. In a moment Caladan was on his feet, firing into the crew before they could take evasive measures, hitting monitor screens where he couldn’t hit bodies, wanting to disrupt them as much as possible before he was inevitably cut down. He swung around, seeing Tor Al’Kanth sprawled across the floor. The Shadowman, his face contorted into hate, pulled a weapon from his belt and aimed at Caladan, hissing something Caladan couldn’t understand. As Al’Kanth fired, Caladan rolled sideways, ducking behind a computer terminal as it blew out. The alarms were blaring so loud now he could barely hear the proton blaster fire as he shot wildly overhead, causing light fittings to explode and rain glass and plastic shards down onto the panicking crew.

  ‘Dundtak!’ he shouted. ‘Override one-zero-one. I have reassumed command!’

  The droid made a droning sound, and Caladan wondered if the command he had figured out over hours of tinkering, trial and error, and endless mistakes would actually work in a real situation. Then, to his relief, the droid said, ‘It is understood.’

  The droid lumbered towards him as Al’Kanth lifted his blaster and fired. The shot ricocheted off the droid’s casing and blew out a strip light overhead. As wires and parts rained down, Caladan rushed for the door, shooting out its lock. Dundtak was rolling towards him. He looked up once at the view-screens where the plume of light from the orbiter now filled half the night sky, then at the hideous scowl on the face of the Shadowman who had tortured him.

  ‘Sleep tight,’ he muttered, gave the Shadowman a wink, then blew off Tor Al’Kanth’s head.

  He raced down the corridor, unsure where he was going, just needing to get away from the flight deck before guards could assemble and cut off his escape. He ran through a blast door, waited a moment for Dundtak to catch up, then blew out the lock, sealing off the corridor.