Tales From The Edge: Emergence

by Stephen Gaskell

  "This is our chance to secure a temple for our movement," the Kaddar Alessi told his acolytes. "We take the farmhouse, and we make it our own. From there we can prepare to bring the word of Kariman to the city. When the Angels come, they will be grateful for our diligence and devotion.”

  "What if the farmers come back?" Direcca, one of the acolytes said, fingering his pulse rifle nervously. The priest had only just begun giving them their combat training, and he knew that several still doubted the need for violence. New followers were often the same, it was only later that they understood that some would never be converted to their faith, no matter how wondrous or powerful the message.

  "If they can feel the words," the Kaddar Alessi said, "they can join us. We always welcome new brothers and sisters."

  "And if they don't listen?" The words were almost a whisper.

  The Kaddar Alessi pulled out his own weapon, a heavy pistol he’d never fired before. The magazine’s bullets glinted blue with the contained cybel energy. The Kaddar Alessi looked up, where the approaching apocalypse stained the sky purple.

  “The Maelstrom is coming,” he said. “They will meet their end soon enough. If they will not heed the words, then they do not deserve this farm.”

  The Kaddar Alessi got the acolytes to check their weapons, and they fanned out, exiting the treeline and advancing across the field towards the farmhouse.

  +++Remote unit log, 10.14.206.27.30 Scanning... potential targets sighted, 5 signals, 423m distance, angle 243. Unit in ready mode. Chemical spray activated.+++

  The ground was dry in the summer heat, and the remains of the farm’s crops cracked and crunched underfoot. The Kaddar Alessi crouched low, following the acolytes as they ran low along the hedgerow that bordered the field. He glanced at the farm buildings, searching for signs of occupation. He’d got this far, begun to establish a foothold on this world. He didn’t want it all to be ruined by some territorial famer with a shotgun.

  In the centre of the field, something moved amongst the stacks of hay bales. A grey figure, arms held out wide to the sky, rotating slowly as if pushed by the breeze.

  “What’s that?” The Kaddar Alessi whispered to the lead acolyte, who shrugged.

  “Just a scarecrow,” Direcca said. “A robot they use to keep birds off the crops. It’s harmless.”

  The Kaddar Alessi eyed the scarecrow nervously, but it didn’t appear to be doing anything, its metal arms twisting in the air. It didn’t appear to scare the birds that much, for a few black-winged creatures picked at the freshly dug earth around the harvested field, taking little notice of the tired-looking robot.

  “Ok,” the Kaddar Alessi said. “Let’s move. This will be a great step in the progress towards our ascendance. Shoot anything that resists.”

  He stepped out across the field, heading for the nearest of the farmhouse buildings, the acolytes following in his wake. This would be an important day for his mission, the Kaddar Alessi decided. He could feel it.

  +++Remote unit log, 10.14.206.27.33 Targets confirmed, 5 signals, 132m distance, angle 268. Entering combat mode. +++

  The Kaddar Alessi was halfway across the field, two hundred metres from the farmhouse, when he realised something had gone wrong. There was a whirring noise in the air, and the acolyte to his right was suddenly not running alongside him anymore, but instead was flat on his back in the dust, his robes stained red. The others dropped to the ground behind the nearest hay bales, pulling their rifles around to meet the threat.

  The Kaddar Alessi was not used to battle, and his legs had carried him closer before he thought to stop and look around him for the source of the danger. There was more whirring, and a sharp crack. The birds pecking at the ground took to the skies in alarm, squawking. Something whizzed past the Kaddar Alessi’s shoulder. He felt a sharp pain in his arm, and fell to ground behind a straw bale.

  He clutched his arm in dismay, mind still not quite grasping how things had gone wrong so quickly. A bullet had nicked his bicep. He stared at the blood trickling from the wound through his fingers.

  The acolytes began to fire back, their rifles firing off bursts of energy in a high pitched staccato. The Kaddar Alessi heard one of them cry out and saw the acolyte go sprawling to the dust. Keeping his hand over the wound, the priest clambered to a crouch and peeked around the corner of the hay bale.

  The scarecrow robot stood about a hundred metres away, striding between cover on its long metal legs. What had seemed harmless bird-scarers attached to its arms were now revealed to be rifles, and its odd, bespectacled head was filled with sensors that span to fixate on every movement.

  Its guns cracked once more, and he ducked his head back into cover. The bullets crashed through the bale of hay one of the acolytes was crouching behind, sending him sprawling to the ground, groaning in pain from a leg wound.

  The Kaddar Alessi looked back at the two acolytes still unhurt. Their rifle shots were too distant from the robot to do any good, impacting harmlessly amongst its cover.

  “We can’t do any good from here!” he hissed at them. “We have to get closer!”

  “It’s got a bead on us, if we move it’ll get us!” Direcca, the local acolyte, looked terrified. The Kaddar Alessi pointed at them.

  “If we all move together,” the Kaddar Alessi said, “we can distract it so that we can get close. You, go around that row of hay bales to the left. Acolyte Direcca, lay down covering fire, draw the robot’s attention whilst I approach it from the right.”

  They nodded and began to move. At least now that they were under the stress of combat, they were listening to him. The priest rocked back on his heels, preparing to sprint.

  Direcca stood up and blasted wildly towards the robot, seemingly not attempting to aim, just firing in the general direction of the scarecrow. The robot swivelled to meet this new threat, striding forward on its long legs, guns on both hands firing hard rounds at Direcca, who dived back to the ground. The Kaddar Alessi couldn’t tell if he’d been hit, but sprinted out towards the scarecrow, pistol aimed at its chest. To the left, the other acolyte ran behind the stack of hay bales.

  The scarecrow’s torso rotated quickly, and the long rifle barrels snapped once more. The other acolyte crumpled to the ground, missing several inches of his skull. The Kaddar Alessi was on his own.

  The distraction had let him close the distance to the robot, however, and the scarecrow was facing the wrong way. He stopped running when he was twenty metres away, and raised his pistol to aim at the rugged metal back of his enemy. His finger hovered over the trigger. The farmhouse was his now. Once he disposed of this nuisance, he could begin to establish his own temple, and ascendance would be his for the taking.

  The Kaddar Alessi coughed, and the air swam in front of him. The scarecrow wobbled in and out of his vision. He looked down at the pistol, confused. He coughed again. There was blood on his lips. The air was thick with something yellow and acidic, and he felt like his insides were on fire. He had time to see the scarecrow snap round and fire three shots into Direcca before he collapsed to the ground in agony, and everything went dark.

  +++Remote unit log, 10.14.206.27.36 All targets eliminated. No further threat detected. Combat mode deactivated. Entering passive mode. +++

  The scarecrow’s rifles began to cool, and the chemical cloud around it dissipated into the air. Its guns folded back into its arms, and its head returned to its slow, patient rotation. The silence returned to the field, and gradually the birds flew back down to pick at the dry earth. As the dust settled over the five bodies, the scarecrow returned to its vigil, watching patiently over its land, waiting for its next target.

  SCRAPS BY ANDREW EVERETT

  From the factories and slums, the mining complexes and the farms of the galaxy come the Broken, a growing movement of citizenry angered by the lack of opportunity to escape the Maelstrom. A diverse mix of workers, aliens and rogues not seen as eligible for transport off their worlds by the ruling parties, they will do whatever it ta
kes to ensure their survival. Pooling their resources and knowledge and taking matters into their own hands, these survivors try to escape the Edge in whatever ships they can obtain. The Broken is a term used to describe all such desperate people across the Edge, but their motivation and methods can vary wildly, from fervent revolutionaries to callous pirates.

  Desperation has driven most Broken to value skill and outlook from any source, even non-human. Many of the corporations and governments of the galaxy shun aliens in their exodus from the Edge, yet the Broken welcome many of the aliens left behind into their ranks. Many of the alien races common across the Edge share join forces with the Broken, including the hulking scaled brutes of the Gnolti, the insectoid Akaraks, and the radiation-proof Kasmenai.

  Although many amongst the Broken long to be rich enough to escape the Edge altogether, most do not have the ships or resources to make it more than a few systems at a time, eking a living as traders, mercenaries or pirates. The flotilla of starships that ply the star systems close to the Maelstrom’s embrace are often just barely functioning, kept running by ingenuity and sheer force of will. Each crew longs for the day that they make the big score that will allow them to upgrade their ship or buy passage on another, that will take them far away from the lawlessness of the Edge.

  In ‘Scraps’ by Andrew Everett, the ragtag crew of a Broken ship have stumbled across a valuable cargo, but haven’t anticipated just how hard the Epirian Foundation will work to try and get it back...

  “We lose artificial gravity in sixteen seconds. Brace yourselves,” Captain Wei announced over the ship’s speakers.

  Gweid squirmed down into his chair again. He made sure his entire body was supported, the nylon restraints tightly strapping him in. He could smell the leather and adhesives in his chair over the odor of the recycler, and he imagined he could smell Orich’s beard. He wasn’t sure if sixteen seconds had passed when he was pressed heavily into his chair, pinned.

  “That’ll be the last of our cybel.” Orich pronounced his ‘r’s as if they were ‘d’s, his only conceit to an accent. “Don’t worry, the ship can handle a lot more force than we can.”

  The cybel reactor, which powered the artificial gravity and the cybel drive, was out of fuel. The ship’s fusion drive, with its ample fuel supply, meant that they could still use it. It would just take more time.

  Gweid sat entirely still, afraid to even turn his head. His eyes swiveled to the monitor that displayed their current acceleration force (4.38 standard gravities) and remaining time of thrust (138 seconds). Orich had shown Gweid how to program this, the small monitor almost lost amongst the gauges, dials, and miniature display units that occupied most of the shared console. Many were labeled by hand, and a few didn’t work.

  “Are you sure we’re slowing down and not speeding up?” Gweid asked Orich.

  “Absolutely. It’s the only way to match this orbit, and we’re doing this as fast as we can,” Orich explained.

  Gweid had expected a lot more shaking of the ship under such a strain, but it was smooth pressure, like being suspended in a mighty river. He took pleasure in the lack of objects breaking loose flying to the back of their cabin, meaning he’d avoid a slow and disapproving lecture from Orich. Until now, all of Gweid’s shipborne experience consisted of life support maintenance. He knew more about the tumbling drum that recycled all of the biomatter on the ship than he cared to, but understood little else about the rest of the Hagfish. He was still fresh off the surface, and had less than three month’s experience in space.

  “Orich, what ARE we going to pick up, anyway?” Gweid asked.

  “We don’t know,” Orich said. “Most of the time we don’t know. The fact that it’s being left as a dead drop, and not a heavily-guarded transfer, means that people really want to keep this secret.”

  “Is that bad or good?” Gweid asked. He’d been dying to ask questions of the rest of the crew, but was still shy around them.

  “Good in the fact that it’s valuable. Other than that, there’s really no telling. These Epirian corporations get up to all sorts of things that are outside the bounds of their own regulations.”

  “Why would they do that?” Gweid asked.

  “Advantage over the other corporations. Weinkurst is smaller, and has a reputation for doing what they can to compete,” Orich explained.

  “This cargo belongs to Weinkurst?”

  “That’s what Markett thinks.”

  Markett was called the ship’s welder, which covered any large-scale engineering need. This was fitting, as Markett was one of the largest humans Gweid had ever met. He had a keen mind, and Gweid tended to believe him.

  Orich and Gweid had been watching the monitor that displayed their objective. Effron, the ship’s spotter, had dialled in one of the optical telescopes and piped the feed to the entire ship. At first, only an asteroid was visible, but now at around 400 kilometers away they could see three cubes. They were tiny next to the rock, but Gweid couldn’t get any sense of scale.

  “That’s what we’re here for,” said Orich.

  *

  The Hagfish finished matching the cubes’ orbit, or the asteroid’s orbit. Gweid wasn’t sure. He was a bit light-headed, as the transition to zero G had been sudden. Orich insisted that he and Gweid stay strapped in while they watched the monitor. The camera point of view switched to an external camera on the hull. Most of the length of the ship on the starboard side was visible, the white paint marred and dulled by temporary patches, burn marks, and cybel discharge scars. Gweid thought the cargo lock seemed lopsided in the close camera angle, the black and yellow hazard stripes clean and clear against the rest of the ship.

  Markett and Naygard, wearing pressure suits, went out through the cargo lock, trailing cables moored somewhere in the cargo bay behind them. Their moves were graceful, punctuated by tiny white cones of mist.

  “Orich, what are those white spurts…” Gweid began, but Orich absentmindedly cut him off.

  “Maneuvering jets. Shhh.” Orich squinted towards the monitor.

  Gweid and Orich watched the men secure the cubes and maneuver them back to the cargo lock. Dull orange lights at the corners of the cargo lock began flashing languidly, and saw the cabin lighting shift to a reddish hue.

  “Orich, what’s going on?” Gweid asked.

  “Likely we’ve been spotted. Start…”

  Orich was interrupted by the overheads. “Unknown ship spotted, headed towards us. Go into low signature mode.”

  Gweid remembered the drills he had run, and began shutting down the air circulation system. He tried to control his breathing and remain calm, but he drew breath after breath of foul air, smelling the anaerobic bacteria of the recycler.

  “Orich, what’s coming after us?”

  The lights in the cabin dimmed to the point that Gweid had a difficult time reading his panel. He finished his shutdown sequence, awaiting Orich’s response.

  “We’ll be fine. Without radiating anything, we’re quite difficult to find,” Orich reassured Gweid.

  Gweid didn’t believe him.

  *

  The lights came on all over the ship, and Orich turned to Gweid, blinking.

  “Hiding’s over. Now we run.” Orich’s voice boomed in Gweid’s ears.

  The soiled air began to circulate, removing the bitter smell of anaerobic bacteria. The ponderous recycling cylinder was continuously spinning, creating a minute gravity for the microbes inside. Orich reflexively checked the temperature and humidity dials, even as he stood. He had been teaching Gweid, now 16, how to care for the recycler. Gweid realized that now he would learn how to care for the entire ship.

  “Can we outrun an Epirian ship?”, Gweid asked.

  “We’re out of cybel and can’t maintain artificial gravity. They won’t even feel a 40g acceleration, but we’ll try to run anyway.” “Get that pressure suit on. It’s not much protection, but it’s what we’ve got.”

  Gweid felt himself get heavier again as the Hagf
ish accelerated. A rebuilt long-range scoutship, the Hagfish was constructed for durability and self-sufficiency. This resilience was a tremendous asset to her crew, who spent long months scavenging whatever Epirian tech or supplies that they could. It boasted a highly efficient fusion drive whose white tail shone ten kilometers behind it, and qualified as the only weapon the ship had. It could also carry prodigious cargo, but what they had just stolen had drawn attention.

  Gweid’s hands shook as he fastened the seals on his suit. He saw how Orich was firm and steady, somehow not catching the buttons of his coveralls as he slid his suit on. Gweid wished he’d practiced more. He’d heard stories of people dying of vacuum exposure, and the thought of that made his heart pound.

  “The recycler is at the heart of the ship”, Orich explained to Gweid. “We’re no good being here. We’ll join the crew at the cargo lock.”

  “Why the cargo lock?”

  “It’s what the captain said. Remember to do whatever Captain Wei says, and stay out of Ubue’s way. She won’t hurt you on purpose, but she’s mean. Usually that works for us, but sometimes…” Orich shrugged, his large chest pushing is thick grey beard upwards.

  “Should I bring my pistol?” Gweid asked.

  “No dartlocks. Zippergun, electric or sonic only.“ Orich hefted the dolphin, a heavy backpack attached by a power cable to a comically small wand. “Anything else and you could puncture the hull, or a conduit of something you don’t want flooding the ship,” Orich advised.

  Gweid took the backpack and donned it over his pressure suit. “How do I use this?”

  “Aim carefully, and keep it on the target. It takes a moment to work, but it can stun a man or disrupt a ‘bot.”

  Orich prepped his zipgun, a carbine that shot flechettes with a small “zip” sound that was deceptively dangerous. Each trigger pull fired thousands of tiny steel and ceramic needles in a small cone, and while ineffective against a ship’s hull or machinery, could find their way into the innards of a ‘bot or a man.