by David Ryker
“My ship,” Loreto repeated, surer of himself this time. “Tell me what happened.”
He heard the strange rustling of their communication.
“Shi-p.” The leader stretched out its hands, drawing invisible shapes and the mist rose up and took the shape of the Vela.
“My ship,” Loreto jabbed a finger into his chest. “What did you do to it?”
The ghostly Vela took form, two meters long, and began to fly around the room. The crew watched it, awed.
“Thy form-er light re-store, Ad-mir-al.”
Loreto kept his eyes away from the ship and watched the Exile leader. He turned to his bench, exasperated.
“Anyone?” he asked. “Anyone getting any of this?”
They tore their eyes away from the misted Vela for half a moment to shake their heads.
“Sur-ge,” the leader rasped again, “on the soul rid-den strings of the stars.”
“What?” Loreto checked with his crew. “What does that mean?”
They mumbled nothings as the rustling, alley-wind sound of the Exiles’ speech filled the room. Loreto turned to see the leader’s clawed fingers tapping at the side of its mask.
“As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
The voice had changed. It was no longer synthetic, a crackling, croaked approximation of slow human speech. This sounded like a recording being played back to the humans. Then, one of the other Exiles stepped from behind the leader and bowed before Loreto.
“Ve-la,” it said, in that slow rasp. “Gentle aw-ful stirrings. A bruised ship, we read your strug-gles.”
The ghostly Vela floated down from the ceiling and came to rest between Loreto and the aliens.
“I think, sir,” Cele said from the bench, “I think they’re saying they read our ship, like they were in our networks…”
Her eyes turned back to the floor as she spoke, almost ashamed of guessing.
“Is that true?” Loreto asked the Exile leader. “You were in our ship?”
He tried to speak in careful, simple sentences but it was hard not to spill out every single thought in the hope of getting half an answer.
“Ad-mir-al.” The leader’s mask shimmered and the two pallid lights swelled inside. “Mach-ines break like dawn new. To teach… to soar, to fight.”
Loreto threw his hands into the air. He could feel the desperation of it all, turning his throat dry, throttling his thoughts. These weren’t answers.
“Listen,” he said bluntly. “I need help. I need a whole lot of help. Last time I was here, you told me things. I need to know more. I need to know how to stop those… Symbiot things. Tell me what the hell they are!”
He made sure not to shout. He made sure not to worry his crew. He made sure to be as respectful as he possibly could. But he could feel his own anxiety getting the better of him, tightening his throat and worrying his lungs. Talking too long to these Exiles made his thoughts uncomfortable and made the inside of his skull itch. He began to massage his temple.
“Just give me something I can use,” he asked. “Please.”
The two pallid lights in the leader’s mask dimmed and blinked and vanished. The other Exiles hung their heads.
“Shame, Ad-mir-al.”
Loreto worried for a moment that they could read his thoughts, that they had somehow uncovered the deep dishonor and guilt he pressed upon himself every single second. Then, he corrected himself. There had been something in the grumbling tone, just a hint of remorse. They’re talking about themselves, he realized.
“Shame doesn’t kill people,” Loreto said as he swiped at the spectral ship. “Shame doesn’t corrupt human bodies like that. I saw it. Tell me what happened.”
The leader turned to him, its scrawny shoulders crunching into a pained shrug, its suit tightening and contracting and almost ripping apart at the seams. It knelt, holding up a hand as a single blue light appeared in the depths of the mask, swelled and took up most of the space.
“Our… shame… Ad-mir-al,” it growled.
“I don’t want shame.” Loreto felt the frustration. “I want straight answers!”
“Sor-ry.”
“For what? For Symbiot? For bringing them here? For my ship? For something else? Damn it, what the hell do you mean?”
Loreto felt the crew’s eyes watching him. It wasn’t good to lose his cool in front of them but he felt so frustrated. The answers he wanted were there, in front of him, but he just couldn’t decipher these damn twisted puzzles.
The leader seemed to sense the admiral’s anger and approached the center of the room, laying his spindly fingers on Loreto’s left shoulder. The hand was as light as a feather but he could feel the grip tightening like a vice.
“Ad-mir-al,” came the death rattle from the leader’s mask. “Look.”
Loreto stared into the mask and saw nothing but a melancholic abyss. The leader stepped back and he saw the remaining Exiles twisting their hands in complicated shapes. The currents of the swirling mist quickened. The Vela appeared once more, this time smaller.
“Vel-a,” it said and then laid its longest finger on Loreto’s chest. “Ad-mir-al.”
“Those are names,” Cele whispered from the bench. “Ask about names, sir.”
“What do we call you?” Loreto echoed the girl’s idea, staring deep into the smoky abyss behind the Exile’s mask.
“Of the Hang-ed Tree,” came the raw-throated rumble as it pointed to its own chest.
Of the Hanged Tree, Loreto repeated to himself. Is that a translation or a chosen name? He didn’t have time to ask. The leader flicked its claws and the Vela vanished into a pall. Behind, the other Exiles conjured a new scene to life.
Loreto staggered back as the mist rose up from the floor like raindrops falling in reverse. The tiny specks swirled around and joined together until there were a thousand tiny ships filling the room, each the size of an eyeball.
“Those are the ships that attacked us,” Hertz stated. “I’ll not forget them in a hurry.”
All those little dart-shaped fighters, Loreto thought as he wandered among them. But in greater numbers.
“These are the Symbiot ships,” he announced and looked at Of the Hanged Tree, who drew a vertical line in the air.
The darts grouped together, bunching up in a tight swarm just like the one which had rattled past the Vela. They flew up into the high ceiling, flying among the ribbed surfaces of the walls which joined together above them like a chapel roof. As Loreto lowered his gaze, he saw another collection of ships forming out of the mist on the floor. This one he recognized instantly as the Exile fleet.
The two forces began to collide. The darts streamed toward their enemy, meeting a barrage of cannon fire. But before the Symbiot fighters could reach the battle, the Exile ships seemed to fold in on themselves, collapsing and twisting up into a tight knot and then vanishing. They appeared seconds later in a distant corner of the room, a few of the dart-shaped fighters taken along for the ride. These were gunned down quickly and then, slowly, the entire spectacle happened again and again.
“They’re showing us something,” Loreto said aloud, announcing the obvious.
“It’s their history,” said Cele. “They’re trying to outrun the Symbiot but they keep getting caught.”
“Every time they jump,” Menels groaned. “Look, they take a few of the Symbiot every time.”
“But never as many as when they appeared next to us,” Loreto massaged his head. “Are we right? Can you understand what we’re saying?”
He looked straight at Of the Hanged Tree, whose finger drew the vertical line. Loreto nodded and turned back to the misted shapes. Cele, now on her feet, began to wander through the crowded battlefields.
“Now,” she said, the excitement clear in her voice. “Look, they’ve added new ships. They’re fighting the Symbiot.” More ships formed from the cloud. Strange designs, like crabs made from rusted metal, which streaked toward the Symbiot forces and attacked them h
ead on. And then other fighters that looked like mosquitos or dinner plates or rabbit ears began to attack. They all halted, their wreckages floating high above the crew’s heads, after they lost their fights.
But they did not evaporate as Loreto had expected. Instead, the Symbiot fighters moved around them and, soon, the mosquitos and the rabbit ears were flying again. They moved differently; they still bore their wounds from before, but then they set off in chase of the Exile Fleet, which had hid up among the rafters. Loreto didn’t need to be told twice.
“They reanimate their enemies,” he said. “Or reuse them. I don’t know. But whatever they kill, they can take it over.”
His thoughts rushed back to Olmec, the dead humans that had attacked them and the defense bot which had keeled over, its internals filled with black corruption. He shivered, feeling cold for the first time on the Exile ship.
“Ad-mir-al,” the leader barked, “our shame, see.”
“I see,” Loreto replied. “But how do we beat them? You’ll help us, right? We can defeat them once and for all.”
The leader’s long finger hovered in the air and traced a horizontal line for the first time.
“No?” Loreto couldn’t believe it. “What do you mean? No? Why wouldn’t you help?”
He ran across to the leader, staring into the dead center of the smoke-filled mask. His desperation pulled at his muscles; he wanted to reach out and choke this silent, guttural thing which brought nothing but bad news.
“They can’t,” Cele said quietly from behind them.
“What?” Loreto didn’t look away from the Exile.
“They can’t help,” she repeated, walking below the Exile Fleet made of mist. “Or they won’t. See, they only take a few Symbiot ships with them every time they jump. Those forces either feed on the resources around them and attack or they call in the rest of the forces from across the universe. Everyone who fights them ends up dead.”
“Sym-bio-t,” Of the Hanged Tree whispered in that hoarse, synthetized voice. “Then, Lev-iath-an. Worse, of all things. Then, dead.”
Behind the leader, the other Exiles shifted skittishly. They understood what had been said and it riled them, moving them back toward the walls. Loreto saw lights behind masks turning scarlet and deep blues, rotating in different directions. For the first time, he felt they had lost their discipline and their sense of unity.
“You’re scared of something,” he told them. “But this time, we’re going to help you. We’re going to eliminate these Symbiot things once and for all. And then you’ll be safe.”
The crowd of aliens held out long, shriveled fingers and all drew horizontal lines back and forth restlessly in the air. The misted ships around them vanished and the sound, their language which sounded like dry leaves being blown down a cold alley, filled the room.
They’re arguing, Loreto thought. They’re scared. Even if one or two of them could be convinced to help him, humanity would stand a better chance of not… He remembered the bodies on Olmec, his imagination extrapolating that fate to everyone in the Federation.
“We bide,” the leader announced, turning back to the humans. “Cent-uries long, we wait. Pat-ience.”
“Patience doesn’t help me,” Loreto told the room, looking over the leader’s shoulders, trying to find anyone else he could convince. “I’ve got one dead colony and an enemy loose in my system. God only knows where they are.”
The Exiles formed up into ranks again, a tight line across the only exit of the room. Their hands were flat by their sides, as though they were robots whose batteries had expired.
“Actually, sir…” Loreto recognized Hertz’s resigned pessimism. “We do know where they are…”
The admiral turned back to see his captain nervously tugging at his beard.
“Fletcher, sir,” the man continued. “They’ll be wherever he is. He sent out the call.”
Damn. Loreto kept his curse to himself. He’s right. Fletcher’s assembled our entire military to take them on. All those fleets, all those people.
“Exactly!” Loreto spun back to the Exiles, determined to turn this into a positive. “We’re taking on your enemies now. Our entire military! Everything we’ve got! If you help us, we can crush them, right here and now!”
He could hear the desperation in his own voice and he looked away as Of the Hanged Tree raised a finger and began to draw the horizontal line. Loreto’s hand reached instinctively for his temple and pressed hard and rubbed, trying to get his thoughts moving. Nothing happened.
“Please.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Just give us something.”
He looked up to see the alien’s mask without any lights in the mist, just a churning void he could never hope to understand. Loreto wanted to smash the mask, to see the true nature of these… things. But he knew he would never get off their ship alive.
“Ve-la,” the voice rasped. “Our gift, use wise-ly.”
Loreto thought instantly of the surging power levels on his ship, of the record time in which they’d made it to the Pale. Far above and beyond anything he’d ever dreamed his rickety old battleship could accomplish.
“It’s not enough,” he told the Exile. “It won’t be enough. Not to beat what you showed us.”
“You owe us!” Cele shouted as she dashed to Loreto’s side. “You invaded us!”
A brief flash of pride in the girl gave way to concern. As much as Loreto appreciated his crew standing alongside him, and as much as he agreed with her sentiment, accusing the aliens of bringing a plague down upon them felt wrong.
The leader’s mask turned slowly from side to side, taking in both humans. Its fingers moved quickly, assembling from the mist a low fidelity map of the edge of the Federation.
“To scann-er,” the rattle of words announced. “On-ly void.”
They scanned our systems and found nothing resembling advanced life, Loreto told himself. He knew what the alien meant, growing more accustomed to their way of speaking. Or maybe they were improving. Still learning our languages but they’ve mastered insults. There’s nothing quite like an alien species telling you your tech is practically non-existent on the universal scale, like we’re ants trying to invent the wheel.
“Please.” Loreto waved a hand through the map and it disintegrated. “I’m asking you. Just help us. For one battle. And then you can flee.”
The finger drew a horizontal line.
“You’re already decided?” Loreto asked, feeling the weight of the world collapsing onto his shoulders.
“Fate decides, Ad-mir-al,” Of the Hanged Tree croaked.
Loreto didn’t even ask what that meant. He walked back toward his crew and looked into their faces. Hertz and Menels and the rest stared back at him, still sitting obediently on the bench. There was no more help they could offer him, no more analysis. He recognized the pain in their faces and knew he’d failed them.
They began to move uncertainly on the bench, shuffling and staring past Loreto. They can’t even look at me, he told himself, not that I blame them. But Hertz began to raise a stout finger, pointing over the admiral’s shoulder.
“I know that ship,” he declared, standing up.
Loreto swung around. Behind him, the Exiles conjured up shapes from the mist. Their first creation felt familiar and then it dawned on him: Fletcher’s ship. Others appeared alongside it, all taken from the human fleet.
Oh God, Loreto thought. It’s happening, it’s happening right now. He knew he should run back to his shuttle, that he should try and escape back to the Vela and warn Fletcher of what was about to happen. He could visualize every step of the journey back and knew he’d be sitting at his desk, desperately waiting for the comms to connect and that nothing would happen. It was already a lost cause.
He stood beneath the ship created from mist, his morbid fascination rooting him to the spot. Loreto felt utterly helpless.
16
Clough
Make a name for yourself, Bingham.
Clough had been hounded his entire life by his father’s words and they followed him, howling with laughter, through the Pyxis hallways as they readied for battle. Make a name for yourself and stand up straight. Clough walked faster, hoping acceleration could pass for self-reflection. If he could see me in this uniform, he would definitely be happy.
This was the final inspection; everything had to be in perfect order. As his polished shoes clapped against the polished floor, he tucked his fingers into every corner and turned a close eye to tiny details. Commander Fletcher had personally selected him for this task. Clough, he’d drawled, make sure my ship is flawless. We shan’t meet the enemy unclean.
The ship carried the weight of expectation. Nobody loitered; they moved with purpose. Clough marched through the canteen and the crew quarters and found nothing to complain about, only the haunting thoughts of his father. He wished he had more menial worries.
The sound of laziness reached him. Two men—engine room workers, glorified mechanics, pip-necked and feckless—snorting, laughing, being boisterous. Clough’s eyes narrowed and he straightened his back and adjusted the cuffs of his uniform.
“Gentlemen.” He mimicked Fletcher’s voice. “Do we have nothing better to do?”
Immediately, he noticed how much taller they were. The one on the left leaned against a wall with his overalls stripped to the waist, the sleeves knotted just above his hips. The other held a metal mug and sipped at it while he stared. Little evil eyes, Clough thought. Even from five paces, the metallic moonshine tang wrinkled Clough’s nose.
“We are all-hands-on deck, gentlemen,” he continued, trying to stare down two men at once. “Is there something I am missing?”
The drinker turned to his friend and shared a derisive snigger. He sank whatever was left in the mug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It wouldn’t just be drink. It was remarkable how easily narcotics could be smuggled aboard a Federation ship.
“Nothing going on, officer.” He turned the mug upside down and clear liquid dripped onto the floor. “Ready as ever.”
