The Tarantula Nebula

by David Kantrowitz

  Whilst Ari had originally been the exclusive expert on the Faith’s computer systems, her shift in interest to combat simulations had allowed Dana to wrest the title away, however unintentional the act was. The only thing that Ari understood better than anyone was the code she had written to allow their human technology to interact with Seth. Dana often forgot that Seth was still contained in the small, basketball sized orb on deck two, since he had so well integrated himself with the ship. Ari had become so disengaged from programming, in fact, that Dana doubted she could even keep up with herself and Christie any more.

  Dana felt a pang of adrenaline in her gut. Her worries about her friends on the surface refused to go away, no matter how entranced in other thoughts she was. It seemed like an unnecessary risk to go to such lengths to upgrade their weapons, since being able to better defend themselves had no impact upon Umber’s predicament. If Dana had her way she would scrub the mission entirely, content to either explore the galaxy back closer to Earth or to simply return home and triumphantly display the Faith to NASA. So far, Seth had dutifully followed their orders, but Dana wondered how he would react to any order counter to his mission. Even if the others didn’t return, Seth might refuse any path that didn’t work towards liberating Umber. Regardless of what Seth’s reaction would be, if the others were killed the first thing that Dana would do is get the hell rid of...

  Byron entered the bridge, interrupting Dana’s thoughts. She leaned forward and pretended to look busy. She and Ray had a weak spot for Byron, not so much that they were outwardly friendly to him but just enough to prevent them from keeping him locked in the hold.

  “Do you mind if I hang out here?” he said.

  “Not really. I just checked in with the team. There isn’t anything interesting going on right now.”

  “Oh.”

  Byron sat in the chair the furthest away from Dana.

  “There’s coffee in the galley if you want it.”

  “I just came from there, but thank you. There’s no view down there, you know. This is much nicer.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You know, you and I never really got a chance to talk.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “You know, have a chance to get to know each other better.”

  Dana stopped playing around with the computer and turned to face Byron.

  “Do you think I’m going to be nicer to you than the others?”

  “I had hoped you’d be civil.”

  “That firefight the night we left Earth was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. If you really were responsible for leading the CIA to us, then being civil is going to be a stretch.”

  “I made a mistake. I wanted there to be a confrontation, but I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

  Dana raised an eyebrow. “As far as I know, that’s the first time you’ve admitted fault for what happened.”

  “Is it? Well, it’s true. If I could take it back, I would. But you have to admit that there was no other way I could have gotten aboard, what with the way Christie thought about me.”

  “You’re damn right about that. You could have stowed away without bringing the wrath of the CIA down upon us, though.”

  “I made a mistake. What’s done is done.”

  Dana turned back to her console.

  “I wouldn’t worry about this ship or the crew if I were you. It’s becoming increasingly likely that we’re going to shove a few credits into your pocket and leave you on Residere Beta with a copy of the local classifieds in hand.”

  Byron smiled. “Then what does it matter if we talk about ourselves a little?”

  “What part of my past could you possibly be interested in, Byron?”

  “File that under the same comment I made about civility.”

  “Fine, I’ll answer one question, if it will make you happy.”

  “What made you decide to join the mission?”

  Dana turned to face Byron again. It was an excellent question. It allowed her to put whatever spin she desired on the answer while at the same time it did not require much personal information. Still, a bit more context would be nice.

  “What have the others told you about me?”

  Byron laughed. “Do you seriously think the others would have told me about you if I’d asked? I only know that you joined the crew sometime after the initial infrastructure was synthesized, and that for some reason a friend of yours named Levi complicated the mission. You obviously have a great deal of skill in astronomy and communications. Other than that you’re a blank page. On the other hand, your picture of me must be quite colorful, even if most of that information came from people who don’t like me.”

  “My opinion of you is based solely on my own contact with you. What the others think is similar because we’re all good judges of character.”

  “Fair enough. What’s the answer?”

  Dana sighed. “I worked for an organization called the American Space Transmission Research Association. It is funded entirely by educational grants from universities and works directly with those schools to provide academic opportunities for their students. Actually searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence was nothing more than a side effect of the educational arrangement. The only people who thought detecting signals from other worlds was actually important were the few paid staffers like my former colleague Levi Marks and myself. We detected signals from Seth before he even landed on Earth, and I convinced Levi to help me pin down the source. By the time we found it, Seth had already helped John, Ray and Ari create the ship. It turned out, by the way, that Seth was unintentionally emitting those radio signals every time he conducted a significant matter-to-energy transfer. Things like emerging from superspace, integrating the steel and aluminum from the USS Portland, and transporting items from the surface all created a signal that Levi and I were able to track and follow. When we found the Faith, we were both rather impressed. However, that Levi and I had different ideas of how to proceed from there.”

  “Let me guess. Levi wanted the government to oversee the construction.”

  “No, Levi wanted the government to completely assume the mission. He didn’t think that we had the skills necessary to tackle the mission. He also didn’t think that keeping a discovery of this magnitude from the people of Earth was right.”

  “Don’t you think he had a point? Perhaps a larger crew with more skilled technicians and diplomats would have been better.”

  “If the government was in charge of this mission, they’d bring along a political agenda. They’d be bound by the responsibility to represent the United States in the best possible light, and to make friends with everyone they ran into or face dragging Earth into a conflict it couldn’t possibly be ready for. I think that if this ship was manned by a crew working for the United States government, Umber wouldn’t have a chance in hell of being liberated. They’d take one look at the political situation out here and end up kissing the SUF’s ass like it was ambrosia. Hell, it’s foolish enough for us to be going up against the Zendreen. If they find out we’re from Earth, they might direct their ire towards our home planet. Imagine that.”

  “I’d rather not. Honestly, I think an independent group like us is the best way. Too bad we don’t get along better.”

  “The only person who has any trouble getting along on this ship is you.”

  “So Levi went to the government. What happened?”

  “He blabbed all the information he had to them. He knew our names, which was enough for the CIA to put surveillance teams at each of our residences. He was responsible for Ari getting kidnapped, which required an even greater risk to get her back.”

  “I would have let them keep her.”

  “Tell that to John and Ray. They’re all old friends from way back. I guess it’s pointless to try and explain loyalty to somebody like you, though.”

  Byron stood up. “Speaking of kissing ass, I’m not capable of much more. If you’re going to continue to throw insults my
way, perhaps I’d be better off having a conversation with Tycho.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Fine. Enjoy doing whatever you were doing. I’m going to go get some air.”

  “Fine, you do that.”

  Byron exited the bridge. Dana turned back towards her console. Byron may have been an irreconcilable jerk, but he did force her to contradict her earlier thoughts. If she didn’t like Levi trying to get the US government involved, how would returning home and contacting NASA be any different? Umber would be screwed either way. Dana realized that her only loyalty was to the human crew; not to Seth, the ship, Umber or even herself. With that, the thought of the team getting wiped out on Alpha became so terrifying that Dana stood straight up.

  “Screw the Talvanium! It’s not worth it! I’ve got to stop them.”

  Dana crossed the bridge to the communications console. Before she activated it she realized what Byron had just said. She also realized that they’d never bothered to lock out the ramp controls.

  “God damned annoying little prick!” she cried, and ran after him.

  12.

  Residere Alpha. If there was a nastier dump of a planet in the cloud, Fernwyn hadn’t been there. She was sitting cross-legged at the edge of a town called Metzqual, staring off into the desert countryside. The sun had set a little while ago, and she was treated to a view of the gas giant and the nebula that was normally obscured on Beta by light pollution. While she got a perfect view of the Residere planetary neighborhood twice a day on her commute to work, there was always something different and more pleasant about seeing things from planetside. Alpha had a mood all of it’s own, and Fernwyn found it suited her perfectly at the moment. Her three year old memories of the place were still accurate; in fact, she wondered if anything significant had changed at all. It was still the same collection of the worst that the Tarantula Nebula could throw at it. It was still one of the best places to make yourself disappear, too. Ironic, then, that the SPF had half of it’s training academy there. It sure wasn’t the fun half.

  The surroundings on Alpha that were Fernwyn’s current concern reminded her of many specific memories of her three week stay as a police recruit. Some of those memories hadn’t been recalled since they’d been formed. Fernwyn realized that she’d forgotten about most of the experience as soon as it was complete. This stood in stark contrast to her normal reaction to survival and combat training. Typically she enjoyed that sort of thing, but the three weeks she’d spent on Alpha did not fall into the same category.

  The distinct smell of ionized air on Alpha was the strongest catalyst for her memory. The nights she’d spent out in the field during survival and combat training were some of the loneliest moments she’d ever experienced. It was the culmination of a hard fight in her life, a battle that was waged on two fronts. One, her time spent as a bounty hunter had lent her a mean independence streak. This resulted in Fernwyn either saying something inappropriate to an academy instructor, or in forcing her to swallow her pride so deeply she almost couldn’t stand it. Two, as a genmod she had faced unreasonable prejudice from both the instructors and other recruits. Soundly kicking the crap out of every obstacle laid in her path was her best and most satisfying revenge.

  Fernwyn stood up and stretched her legs. She’d had absolutely no luck questioning the folks in town, probably due to her status as a genmod. She wasn’t stupid enough to show up in uniform, but her physical appearance was still unmistakable. Either nobody in town had ever heard of Talvanium or they were playing dumb out of spite. She hadn’t run into any Z'Sorth, which wasn’t a surprise since they were usually asleep after sunset. The only break she got was when a drunk Residerian had wondered into the bar she’d been in and mentioned seeing something strange on the edge of town. Fernwyn bought him a drink and he happily described seeing a portal to a room open up out of thin air and five people emerge. He may have been full of shit, but it was the only thing that she had to work with. After getting a cardinal direction out of him she headed to a rocky outcropping to take a look.

  That was thirty minutes ago. Fernwyn took a deep breath of the cool air and thought about her recon efforts. Metzqual was the closest town to the largest source of Talvanium. Unfortunately the mine of interest was no longer in operation, which meant that anybody who wanted to get there would have to walk. Fernwyn glanced over her shoulder back at the town. It was a mystery to her why anyone would fund the buffer zone over that pile of crap.

  A noise and a flash of light brought Fernwyn’s attention to her front. At first her mind couldn’t get around what she was seeing. A horizontal shaft of light had appeared about ten meters over the desert, forty meters from her vantage point. The shaft grew into a rectangle, and she realized she was looking into a space that hadn’t been there before. A ramp lowered until it touched the ground. Inside was evidently a cargo bay, and a single figure stood at the top. Fernwyn hit the deck and reached for a pair of binoculars she had in her backpack.

  The figure was a male of the same species that she’d seen on the complexium’s security recordings. He could easily pass for Umberian except for the lack of hair on his ears. He was either a Residerian genmod like Fernwyn or another race entirely. The latter was much more likely. The figure walked to the bottom of the ramp. He took a breath and smiled. He seemed rather at peace with his surroundings, and kicked at the dirt absent-mindedly.

  Another person appeared within the cargo bay from a long staircase on the port side. She was obviously female, and carried a long arm of some sort. The woman hurried down to the ramp and began yelling at the man. Fernwyn swore silently and rapidly adjusted the volume on her translation unit.

  “...the hell do you think you’re going, Byron?” the woman was saying.

  “I said I was going to get some air,” the man named Byron replied. “So what?”

  “So what makes you think you’re allowed to leave the ship?”

  “Nobody said I couldn’t, Dana.”

  “That’s because we’ve been in deep space for the last six weeks!”

  “Hey, if you’re going to force me to follow your rules, don’t blame me if they’re not specific enough.”

  “Get back inside, now.”

  “Or what? Since when does anybody on this ship give a shit what happens to me?”

  “We’d like to be rid of you, more or less. But you know too much. When I said we were considering leaving you somewhere it was just rhetoric. In reality we can’t afford to leave a duplicitous bastard like you behind. Who knows how you could compromise the mission?”

  “I guess you have a point. Perhaps I should have kissed more ass while I had the chance.”

  “Too late. Get back inside.”

  “Or you’ll shoot me? I don’t think you have the guts. Go back inside yourself, and I’ll be in when I feel...”

  The woman called Dana fired a shot from her weapon. The projectile kicked up a cloud of dirt and a loud report echoed throughout the desert.

  “If you think that’s going to intimidate me you haven’t been spending enough time around Richter,” Byron said.

  Byron began walking away. Dana ran down the ramp as fast as she could. Byron realized too late that she was heading right for him at top speed. Dana used the stock of the weapon to smash him in the left shoulder. Byron screamed mightily and fell to the ground.

  “Never underestimate the power of anger, you son of a bitch,” she roared. “Now drag your sorry ass back inside before I find out exactly what I’m capable of!”

  Byron’s expression was of pain and horror. He attempted to get back onto his feet as Dana dragged him up the ramp.

  “Shit,” whispered Fernwyn.

  Fernwyn drew her sidearm and obtained a cartridge from a pocket on her leg. She ejected the magazine and racked the slide, sending a round flying. She dropped the cartridge into the chamber, tugged at the slide to release it, and aimed for Byron. The weapon made a slight pop as she pulled the trigger. She reloaded and holstered the pistol and obta
ined a small device with a screen. It confirmed the successful implementation of her tracking module into Byron’s clothing. The signal was strong. Fernwyn sighed in relief.

  “Wait until the others hear about this,” Dana said.

  The ramp began to close. A moment later the cargo bay disappeared and silence returned to the desert. Fernwyn looked down at her tracking device. The signal had been interrupted.

  “Aw, crap.”

  __________

  Hiking. Christie thought she liked it. Eight hours of hiking with a ten-pound rifle through rocky desert on an alien planet, however... that sort of upped the ante a little.

  On the plus side, the environment was stunningly beautiful, even if it was inherently terrifying. Residere had long since set, and Delta glowed peacefully in quarter-phase high in the sky. Entirely new stars graced the heavens, and Christie’s mind reveled in creating new constellations with them. The air was fresh and cool, with gentle breezes wafting curious and occasionally disturbing sounds to them. For the most part it was silent save for the noise the Earthlings were making. They had not encountered any other living beings since departing Metzqual except for the small flying creatures.

  Spirits among the team were high. Christie doubted that she was the only one fatigued at this point, however. Their plan was to hike almost all of the way to the mine in one go, so the only rest they’d had in the last eight hours were two fifteen-minute breaks. At about twenty-four miles, they would rest for eight hours. Sleep seemed like a good idea before attempting the buy.

  With their radios and watches refusing to function, keeping track of time and distance was difficult. Without Richter’s military experience they would have been completely out of luck. Richter had replaced Ray by John’s side so that the two of them could work together on navigation. There were remnants of a wide road that more or less headed out in the same direction, but time and weather had obliterated it in some areas. When that happened they had to stop every one hundred yards to shoot an azimuth, the compass having been calibrated before leaving town. Finding the road again was always a relief, and fortunately the anti-energy zones had no effect on the compass. It was Christie’s job to keep track of time. Delta had begun to rise right before they’d entered the Z'Sorth shop, so Christie was able to keep track of time by measuring its movement through the sky. The moon moved about ten degrees per hour. She taught the others how to do it but volunteered to keep track herself, at least for now.