The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  “Yeah, well, if they didn’t detect it on Nathis’s body and try to recover it, they would have come after us. Think we could actually get far enough away from them to use it if they were chasing us at full speed?”

  “Quite possibly not,” Sentinel admitted.

  Dash frowned at the debris cloud. Was some of that shredded metal the Slipwing? What if she had been pulled out of the planet along with the gas plume? Had he just destroyed his own ship and killed everyone aboard?

  With a sinking feeling, he turned his attention to the planet. But it was vast and would take a long time to search—far longer than he could hope the Slipwing would survive, even if she hadn’t been destroyed by the Lens.

  “It may be possible to detect their emissions, if they remain intact,” Sentinel said.

  “How?”

  “By circumnavigating the planet, while conducting a broad-spectrum scan, it may be possible to separate your ship’s emanations from those of the planet.”

  With a flicker of hope, Dash turned and raced toward the gas giant. “Okay, then. Let’s do this.”

  He fell to within a few thousand kilometers of the uppermost clouds, then turned and started a fast orbit. He accelerated, meaning the Archetype wanted to actually break orbit and take off into space, but kept applying power, keeping her in an almost perfectly circular trajectory around the planet. It burned extravagant amounts of power, but there was no point saving energy if he couldn’t find the Slipwing in the first place.

  So far, there was nothing. Just the natural emissions from the gas giant, a wash of radio noise, and electromagnetic clamor. “Could they have actually already broken free, Sentinel? Maybe from the far side of this planet, so they could escape the Clan Shirna ships in its shadow?”

  “Possible, but unlikely. They would have been detected eventually, if only from their exhaust trail. I can find no such indication they have escaped.”

  Dash said nothing, just nodded grimly and carried on, searching.

  The vast planet scrolled quickly beneath the Archetype. Under other circumstances, Dash would have been utterly enthralled with the experience. It was as though he sped over an enormous plain of striped and banded clouds, and huge storms themselves larger than most planets. But still, there was nothing.

  No. Wait. Something poked out of the background noise of the gas giant—a tiny spike of emissions that were different.

  “What’s that?”

  “It could simply be an anomaly within the planet,” Sentinel said.

  “Yeah, like the Slipwing, maybe? It would count as an anomaly, right?”

  “It would, yes.”

  “Okay, then. The source of it seems to be…which way? Ahead of us, and to the left—there it is.” Dash adjusted his course, aiming directly toward it. The Archetype’s power reserves were once more falling into critically-low territory, but there was no choice. If it was the Slipwing, she might only be moments away from destruction. He had to do this now.

  Fixing himself on the source of the anomaly, Dash dove into the gas giant’s atmosphere.

  Tenuous wisps of cloud shot past the Archetype, slowly coalescing into more continuous streaks of cloud. Winds began to buffet the Archetype. As the atmosphere thickened, gas began to pile up ahead of him, heating up from the friction of his passage. A regular ship would have had to align itself carefully, finding that sweet spot between too shallow a reentry angle, which could bounce you off the atmosphere, and too steep, which could overwhelm your ship’s ability to shed heat.

  The Archetype seemed to simply work around all of that, letting Dash maneuver, and even slow, at will. He reduced the speed of his plunge into the gas-giant’s depths, letting the shockwave accumulating ahead of him dissipate. At the same time, he steepened his descent, plunging directly toward the emissions radiating from what he was now convinced must be the Slipwing.

  “Can you open a comm channel to them?”

  “Your ship’s ability to communicate under these conditions is limited, as a result of its relatively primitive technology,” Sentinel said.

  “Primitive, huh? Aren’t you the judgmental one?”

  “Insofar as I am making a judgment, yes, I am.”

  Dash shook his head. “Never mind, Sentinel. Just keep trying. I want to let them know I’m coming for them.”

  “Understood.”

  The clouds had continued thickening; now the Archetype plowed through featureless pink-grey, a deep gloom that stripped away all sense of movement. Every few seconds, a flurry of ice crystals hissed against the big mech’s hull. After a few moments, the clouds abruptly ended, and Dash emerged into the clear. Hundreds of kilometers of it—a vast, empty gulf yawning above the next layer of clouds far below. Colossal flashes of lightning erupted from them, forks of searing blue-white up to a thousand kilometers long leaping from cloud to cloud. The density of the gas continued ramping up, transmitting blasts of thunder that vibrated the Archetype’s hull.

  The pressure increased. Now it exceeded standard air pressure and kept rising. Dash grimly plunged downward, steepening his descent even more. The distant cloud-tops below loomed close.

  “Can you raise them on the comm yet, Sentinel?”

  “One of their emissions seems to be a modulated radio-frequency transmission. It is far from coherent.”

  “Let me hear it.”

  There was a hiss of static, then a faint glimmer of something that sounded like a voice. Then came more static, followed by a loud, squealing crash as more lightning detonated beneath the Archetype.

  Dash angled his plunge even more severely. The clouds beneath raced past, partly due to his speed, but partly because they were moving, being whipped by winds that abruptly slammed into the Archetype, buffeting it about. Lightning forked out of a cloud, stabbing up into some point now above Dash.

  “Sentinel, is that lightning strong enough to hurt this thing?”

  “Unlikely. The Archetype is designed to withstand much greater inputs of energy.”

  That was good, but what about the Slipwing? It was his ship, but he wasn’t sure. Sure, garden-variety lightning of the type generated by a thunderstorm on nearly any Terrestrial-class planet wasn’t much of a threat, but these bolts were enormous. It was just another reason to not fly into a gas giant, something he’d never really imagined putting the Slipwing through. At worst, she could skim the edge of the atmosphere, scooping up hydrogen for fusion fuel, but he’d only done that once and the fusion drive had to be overhauled afterward.

  The pressure mounted. Dash punched into the cloud layer beneath and was hit by a barrage of wind gusts that shoved the Archetype up and down, side to side. But the faint radio emission was becoming clearer.

  “Any…assist…deeper…”

  It was all he could make out. But he recognized Leira’s voice right away.

  “Leira! It’s Dash! I’m coming for you!”

  There was a garbled word, followed by another, then another ear-splitting crash of discharge. Dash had no idea if she’d heard him. He drove the Archetype ahead and down even faster. Now he could feel the pressure pushing against the Archetype, transmitted through its hull, then its connection to him. He shot through the clouds and emerged, again, into a clear zone. Waxy hydrocarbon snow whipped around him, while the atmosphere—now a toxic stew of methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide—bore down on him oppressively. Still, he raced on.

  Almost there.

  “Leira! Can you hear me?”

  “Dash…you?”

  “Yes, yes, it’s me! Hang on, I’m coming for you!”

  “What…” There was another crash of lightning-static. “…pressure…much time…!”

  “I know! I’m almost there!”

  “Between your maneuvers after disengaging from Nathis’s ship, the return journey to this gas giant, and your subsequent dive into its atmosphere, the Archetype’s power reserves are reaching a point of concern,” Sentinel said.

  “What does that mean?”

  �
�The Archetype has sufficient power to extract itself from this planet’s atmosphere. It is not clear if it can do so while attempting to bring your ship with it.”

  “Can we…I don’t know, just bring them aboard the Archetype?”

  “The Archetype is only designed to provide for the needs of the Messenger,” Sentinel said. “More fundamentally, there is no way to transfer those aboard your ship to the Archetype. Exposure to the atmosphere at this depth would be instantly lethal to members of your species.”

  Dash shrugged. “That’s okay, I didn’t want to lose my ship anyway.”

  The pressure built. Dash’s stomach fluttered at the thought of the Slipwing being exposed to these conditions. She was a tough ship, but this was an even tougher environment.

  “Dash, can you hear me?”

  “Leira?”

  “Yes…” Then came a crash of lightning-static. “…are you?”

  “Almost there. Hang on.”

  “Almost here…how?” Leira asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I don’t think…” CRASH. “…survive…we’re almost at crush depth…” CRASH. “…engines out, something happened, it was like the whole planet shook.”

  Yeah, that would be me, sorry about that. Dash only thought it though.

  “Just hang on. I’ll be there.”

  Dash saw the Slipwing racing along ahead of him, carried by a thousand kilometer-per-hour gale between towering walls of cloud. He angled toward it.

  “What…” Leira’s voice said, the stunned surprise evident even through the hiss of static. “…that you?”

  “Yeah, this is me. Hang on.”

  Dash coasted up to the Slipwing, slowing himself relative to her, then came to a stop.

  The gas pressure shoved hard against the Archetype. The Slipwing’s hull must be popping, creaking, and groaning, clearly about to fail. It must have been terrifying to be aboard her. And now he saw why she was relying solely on radio comms. She was missing her full comms array, along with some other bits and pieces Dash just took for granted. But she was still intact—for the moment, anyway.

  “Your ship’s hull integrity is now within the uncertainty envelope of pressure differential,” Sentinel said.

  “You mean she could go poof at any second.”

  “Poof implies an explosion. This would be an implosion.”

  “Just give me every bit of power you can.”

  Dash moved until he was almost touching the Slipwing. Reaching out, he snagged the side of it with the Archetype’s enormous hands. He rotated until he looked upward and away from the vast and stupendously hostile depths below and lifted both himself and the Slipwing back toward space.

  The Archetype shuddered, trying to rotate around the sudden off-axis thrust. He found he had to go slowly, worried that he might damage or even destroy the Slipwing if he tried to shove her through the atmosphere, still far denser than water, too quickly. It just prolonged the agonizing uncertainty, the anxiety that disaster was an instant away.

  The Archetype faltered; her power reserves almost exhausted.

  Dash gritted his teeth. Absolute vacuum and crushing pressure, all within…what? An hour? Now that would be something to put on his resume on the Needs Slate, if he wanted to advertise himself as a walking bad luck charm.

  “It is uncertain if sufficient power remains to return both the Archetype and your ship to a safe depth.”

  “So, do something about it, Sentinel!”

  “It is possible to extract power directly from the singularity source aboard the Archetype, but in the absence of additional power cores, there is a significant chance of serious damage.”

  “Wait, you’ve had access to more power all along?”

  “You have shown a clear penchant for assuming inordinate risk. This is not something I would normally condone, as it falls outside the normal operating parameters of the Archetype.”

  “So, you’re willing to chance it?”

  For the first time, Dash heard the AI falter. “I…do not recommend this course of action.”

  “But you’ll do it?” he asked.

  “If that is your wish, Dash.”

  “You’re goddamn right it is,” he affirmed.

  Power surged through the Archetype, tapped from the unimaginable radiation of the singularity, the kugelblitz buried deep inside her great hull. Dash could also feel the power tearing at the Archetype’s systems, not properly channeled or constrained, shredding her conduits. More than a moment of this, he knew, and the Archetype might be irreparably damaged. The AI was right. This was a terrible course of action. Absolutely, ridiculously risky.

  Just the sort of thing I would do.

  “I really have rubbed off on you, haven’t I?” he asked Sentinel.

  The AI didn’t answer. But the power suddenly coursing through the Archetype lifted both it and the Slipwing at ever increasing speed. They soared through the cloud layer above, and now they erupted from it, trailing a plume of vapor, and raced ever higher.

  “I must terminate—”

  “What you’re doing, yeah, I know,” Dash said. “That’s fine, if we can make it the rest of the way to orbit on what we have left.”

  “It would appear that that is possible.”

  Despite his aching weariness, his jabs and flashes of pain, and the pounding agony of his burned leg, Dash chuckled.

  “Just don’t want to admit I’m right, do you?”

  The AI didn’t answer. That just made Dash chuckle even more.

  Epilogue

  Dash settled into the Slipwing’s pilot seat with a groan. Despite the slick comfort of the Archetype’s cradle, the familiar contour of the seat against him was, somehow, even more comfortable.

  “You look like hell,” Leira said, smiling.

  “Yeah, well, you try some exposure to hard vacuum and see what it does to your complexion.”

  He did look like hell. Aside from his severely burned leg, Dash was covered with bruises, his skin was spider-webbed with crimson streaks of vacuum-induced hemorrhaging, and both of his eyes were severely bloodshot. Leira leaned in and hugged him anyway. It made Dash wince and yelp.

  “Easy, woman,” he said, and she pulled back, still smiling.

  “Sorry,” she replied. Then she shook her head and added, “Actually, no, I’m not. It’s so good to see you again, Dash.”

  From behind him, crowded into their accustomed places, Viktor and Conover both nodded like the creepy bobbleheads Dash had seen some pilots stick atop their consoles. “You showing up when you did—that was a miracle, Dash,” Viktor said. “A true miracle. We were—well, let’s just say that’s the first time in my life I’ve truly tried to find peace with my imminent demise. And I’ve been through some serious shit.”

  “So that—what did you call it?” Conover asked. “The Archetype?”

  “Yeah,” Dash said, bemused that the kid had managed to look concerned for him, but had then gone right to the technology.

  “So that machine is actually Unseen tech? And somehow you’ve bonded with it?” Conover asked.

  Dash glanced out the viewport. The Archetype loomed alongside the Slipwing, both in a high orbit over the gas giant. He’d already given them the thumbnail version of everything that had happened from the time he’d left them aboard the Halfwing. As he had, he’d found himself shaking his head at his own story. Almost dying, finding the mech, leaving the galaxy, almost dying again, coming back to confront Nathis, and almost dying yet again.

  “God,” he’d said, interrupting his own tale. “I almost died a whole bunch of times.”

  Now, he looked at Conover and nodded. “Yeah. I’m the Messenger, it seems.”

  “Because you stumbled across that Archetype? That makes it sound like it was somehow—I don’t know, fated to happen.”

  Leira, still smiling, shrugged. “Maybe it was.”

  But Conover scowled. “There are no mystical, guiding powers affecting the universe.”

&nb
sp; “That’s right,” Leira replied. “Dash just happened to crash-land on the one comet in the Pasture containing this thing, in a way that gave him access to it, so he could reach it right before he died.”

  Even Viktor had given a what look. “What were the odds of that even happening?”

  Conover crossed his arms. “One hundred percent, because it did happen. No matter how unlikely, it was just a coincidence.”

  The kid tried to sound absolutely certain but didn’t quite manage it.

  “I don’t know,” said Dash. “I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe I wasn’t fated for it at all.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Leira.

  “Well,” he continued, trying to put his thoughts into words as best he could. “I guess I’ve been thinking that there are only so many kinds of people in the universe, you know? So many personalities that all tell different stories. Some are bad, some are good, but most are a little bit of both. I can’t say where I fall on the scale, but I suspect that that machine looks at me and thinks that I’m not all that horrible. Maybe that’s all it took, you know?”

  “You think it chose you because you aren’t a terrible human being?” asked Conover.

  “In a sense, I guess,” Dash continued. “Hell, who even knows? But all I can say for sure is that I’m nothing special. I’m just a guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time, and I got lucky, and maybe the Archetype saw something.”

  “It saw you were good,” said Leira.

  Dash chuckled at the word. “Good,” he repeated. “Yeah, maybe so. Maybe it just needed a human and I met certain criteria, and goodness or badness had nothing to do with it.”

  “Maybe,” repeated Leira, and she gave him a smile.

  He smiled back.

  “So, what happens now?” asked Conover.

  “Now?” Dash asked. “Well, at this moment, the Archetype is repairing itself. That’s going to take some time, though, so we’ll be here a while. And I’m going to do the same thing—take some time to rest and heal up, because not only do I look like hell, I feel like it, too.”