First Fleet #1-4: The Complete Saga

by Stephen Case

  A single organism with the ability to tunnel through space – killed and dissected on an outer-System comet a century ago – had been the catalyst and cornerstone for the light-lines, for all effective large-scale faster-than-light travel within and beyond System.

  Res-pod technology – the backbone of the System military – was originally developed to clone pieces of that single original organism, pieces that could be used in dozens of forge-ships, tracing a network of light-lines throughout the galaxy.

  But if there were more out there – and if the Colonizers could get their hands on them – this conflict would take on an entirely new dimension.

  Forty-Four

  Beka woke, believing for a moment she was home. Her older sister was staring down at her. In another moment Beka would get up and join her in the kitchen, where they would sit and argue about nothing over eggs and toast until their parents joined them.

  “Jens,” she said. Her voice sounded wrong. It sounded old.

  “What are you doing here, Beka?”

  Her sister’s face was worn, tired and dirty. The red hair Beka had spent much of her life envying framed Jens’s face in an angry halo, like prominences thrown out by a dying sun. Beyond her face was not Beka’s remembered bedroom ceiling but instead the charred walls and broken monitors of the Clerke Maxwell command deck.

  In an instant everything resurfaced, pushing away thoughts of home: the news of Jens’s death, her time on the shipyard, the descent through the Fleet, and the final, overwhelming wave of pain.

  “Jens,” she said again. “You’re alive.”

  Beka realized Jens was blinking back tears. It was hard to read her sister’s expression; it seemed to be wavering between frustration and a pained disbelief.

  “I was looking for you,” Beka said, as though it were all the explanation needed.

  She tried to sit up, but the ship seemed to spin around her felt. She couldn’t tell if the dizziness came from her own head or the odd angle at which the ship was resting, which made it impossible to determine whether the surface Beka reclined against now was floor, ceiling, or wall.

  “Did the ship land? Where are we?”

  Jens continued to stare. Beka recognized her expression now. It was one Jens had worn over and over growing up, usually when Beka followed her somewhere Jens had tried to go on her own, somewhere Beka was either too young or too much of a liability to be.

  “How did you get here?” Jens finally asked.

  Beka briefly recounted what had happened, from the time she learned of the Fleet’s disappearance, to when she blacked out during their fall toward the Grave Worlds. The words came out quickly, buoyed (despite Jens’s puzzling expression) by the joy of seeing Jens and speaking to her again.

  Beka was here. She had succeeded. It was as though the universe had accepted all the chances she had taken – the crazy gambit of collapsing the light-line and then plummeting toward an enemy planet – by allowing her to regain consciousness at Jens’s very feet.

  Of course Jens would have been in command of whatever System forces still had a claim on this rock. Of course she would have seen Beka’s ship arrive. Of course she would have found her.

  It had worked. It had all worked out.

  But Jens’s face didn’t mirror the relief Beka felt her own must certainly be radiating. By the time Beka finished, Jens had lowered herself to the tilted deck plates beside her. Beka laid her head against her sister’s shoulder.

  “And you’re not dead,” Beka finished, simply. “I found you.”

  “So you did, Beka.” Jens kissed the top of her head, something she hadn’t done in years, but her voice sounded bleak and worn. “And here we are.”

  “You’re not happy to see me.”

  “We’re in hell, Beka,” Jens said slowly. “The Fleet is gone, and from what you say – which corroborates what I’ve been told – it’s even worse than gone. It’s filled with a mind-warping ETI, it surrounds these planets, and you nearly killed yourself getting through. There’s no way out. And things aren’t much better down here. So, no, I wish you weren’t here.”

  She paused. “But I’m glad you are.”

  “And you’re proud of me.” Beka found that her own eyes were burning.

  “Damn it, Beka.”

  “Say it,” she repeated. For a moment, Beka felt twelve again, goading her older sister. “Say you’re proud of me.”

  Jens pushed herself to her feet. “I’ve always been proud of you.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  There were lines at the corners of Jens’s eyes and mouth Beka had never seen before. Even the slope of her shoulders seemed wrong.

  “You came here to save me, little sister. I hope you have some kind of plan. Like I said, my soldiers – those I have left – think this place is hell.”

  “There’s no such place,” Beka reached up and let her sister help her rise. “I did bring a ship. A pretty good one too, from what I can tell. Originally piloted by a crew of Synthetics.”

  “There are Synthetics here too,” Jens said. “I’ve met one.”

  “It’s possible they’re immune to the effects of the ETI.”

  Jens nodded. “They seem to be.”

  “So there’s that.” Beka flexed her fingers. The dull ache was still there, but nothing like the agony she had felt as they passed through the Fleet. Someone must have injected her with the antidote to Donovan’s pain treatment. “Let’s list our other assets. You have soldiers, apparently.”

  Jens nodded her head slowly. “And a medic. A Colonizer.”

  Beka arched an eyebrow, and Jens explained her own situation, beginning with the initial assault and ending with the arrival of Beka’s ship. “My men are getting the ship secured. The damage to the ship itself, from what we can tell, is significant but not catastrophic. I sent Rine – that’s the medic – to look for more survivors on board.”

  “And my crew,” Beka said. She thought of Aggiz and Tsai-Lu. “What’s left of it.”

  “To see them, “Jens said, “you will have to walk.”

  They started along the slanted corridor, half climbing and half walking up the sloping deck, Beka leaning heavily on Jens.

  “We’re using the main barracks as our staging area,” Jens explained as they went. “I want my medic to take a look at you.”

  A head emerged from around a corner of the corridor, though from the direction of the ship’s repose it appeared to be emerging from a hole in the floor. It belonged to an angular figure that seemed to Beka composed primarily of gangly legs and bent elbows. The man moved down the inclined corridor toward them in a manner that reminded her unpleasantly of a large spider.

  “This is Rine,” Jens said.

  “Two bodies,” the man began in a rush. His accent was thick, though Beka could understand it. “One in the command room just below us, and one in a corridor several levels up. And then there are …”

  He trailed off, and his eyes darted between the two women for several seconds before a wide grin split his weathered face and sent bushy grey eyebrows toward his hairline. “Sisters! My Survivor, you have found someone who must either be your sister or an altered clone, or I will waive my not-insignificant medical credentials immediately.”

  He paused and pushed closer. “What are the chances? Is it now customary in System to inject sibling pairs with homing chips?” He craned his neck as though looking for implant scars.

  “Her name is Beka,” Jens said. “My younger sister.”

  Beka stared. She had never seen a Colonizer before. Even the news feeds they received back in System rarely actually showed them, instead providing footage of their lumbering metal walkers or blurry shots of stone-ships in orbit of the Reservation Worlds.

  He looked like an image from the historical feeds of the first generation of System spacers – faded, dusty clothing and angular features. His clipped, precise speech sounded strange to Beka.

  “The bodies?” Jens asked him. “Are they dea
d?”

  “Not beyond hope, though both quite damaged. But there are others.” The man spread his arm in an expansive gesture that took in the ship around them. “This ship is host to a small army of paper dolls. Glaucon is nearly beside himself, the poor fool. We had no idea there were any Synthetics still active that had not left System with us in the initial exodus.”

  “Neither did we,” Beka muttered.

  Rine barked a laugh and turned to Jens. “You imagined us as the fossils, my Survivor. And now you find you were carrying them with you the entire time. You cannot run from what you create.”

  “Our Synthetics were deactivated – damaged,” Beka explained. “I don’t know if they can be repaired.”

  “We shall soon find out,” the man said. “Glaucon is with them now.”

  “Take a look at her, Rine,” Jens said, moving aside so he could examine Beka. “Make sure she’s all right.”

  “I’m fine,” Beka said.

  Rine moved closer and shined a light into both eyes. “How do you feel?”

  “My ribs ache.”

  He grunted. “The System preoccupations with pain once again, as though it is a bad thing. It means you are alive.” He touched her ribs gently, and she groaned. “Probably bruised from the restraining straps when you crashed. There appear to be no fractures or internal injuries.”

  “You were hanging from your seat,” Jens said wryly. “It took a bit of work to get you down before you regained consciousness.”

  “Paul,” Beka said. “He must have administered the antidote as we were falling. It was enough to let me land the ship before I passed out again.” She paused. “Or at least crash the ship. He was in the command deck.”

  “We found two human crewmen, as I said.” Rine shrugged. “I have set up an infirmary in the only barrack that’s more or less horizontal. They are both still unconscious, but with some time we will likely be able to bring them around.”

  “Right now I need to make sure the ship is securely anchored,” Jens said. “Then see exactly how bad the damage is and whether we can use her to get back to the surface.”

  “Him,” Beka corrected. “It’s the Clerke Maxwell.”

  “Did anyone follow you down?” Jens asked. “Were you being trailed by any of the Fleet?”

  They climbed back the way Rine had emerged. The command deck where Beka had been revived sat near the outer edge of the network of corridors composing the flesh of the oblong ship. They moved to the barracks near the ship’s nose that was now the lowest portion of the vessel.

  “I don’t know,” Beka answered as they went. “I don’t think so. It was hard to tell with them, whether they were going to follow or whether they would just drift. We hadn’t moved so closely past them before though.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. The effect they have …”

  “I know,” Rine nodded. “Like a disease on the mind.”

  “No.” Beka shook her head stubbornly. “It’s not like that at all. It can’t be biological. The distances involved are too large, and it propagates through empty space. It’s something else, something I can’t quite put my finger on.”

  “We need to get the sensors online too,” Jens pointed out.

  “What we need is to maneuver this vessel into a reasonable orientation,” Rine said, “though that may be too much to ask of a System ship, designed as they were by people pathologically addicted to a sense of up and down.”

  They walked along what had been the wall of a corridor. “All the furniture must have locked into configuration as you crashed. Restraints activated on the sleepers as well. It makes for a rather strange infirmary though.”

  They moved into a barracks Beka immediately recognized. This was where they had placed the deactivated Synthetics, though now the row of beds rose up before her in a gentle slope. The Synthetics were wrapped in restraint-blankets like flies in a spider’s web, with only their heads visible.

  There were two temporary cots set up as well, one of which held Paul’s body. Two soldiers that must have belonged to Jens’s platoon were entering another door, carrying between them the form of Donovan.

  “This is everyone?” Jens asked.

  “There were two others,” Beka said softly. “They didn’t make it. And there’s a body in a res-pod in one of the science bays.”

  Rine moved away from them to consult with another man at the edge of the row of beds. Beka could still hear him complaining about the ship design. “Idiots never thought their ships might land in a gravity well, so they gave them permanent internal configurations. Never thought to pivot the rooms, build them on flexible axes? And they think we’re the primitives.”

  “He’s right,” Beka said to Jens. “The ship was never designed to land. Even if we orient its axis so it’s horizontal, only a thin strip of rooms will be right-side-up.”

  “Then we’ll need to get it into space again, soon,” Jens said.

  Beka moved to the cots where Paul lay and where the two soldiers had just placed Donovan. Both men looked much the worse for wear, with livid blue bruises covering much of their exposed skin.

  Beka remembered the pain. It was more than simply recalling it in her mind. Her body remembered it as well, the burning in her limbs and every joint, as though it was still lurking somewhere just below the skin, waiting to reemerge. They had lived in pain for years, it seemed, as they tried to find their way down to the surface and their only chance of rescue.

  In a few moments Rine and the other man – who looked young enough to be Rine’s son – returned from consulting near the row of deactivated Synthetics.

  “What can you do for Donovan and Paul?” Beka asked him.

  “I have already done what I can,” Rine said. “I treated them with the appropriate medications I found aboard, though I must say this ship’s supply of basic pharmaceuticals is woefully inadequate. Nor are there many of the resuscitation pods your sister seems to put so much stock in.”

  “This isn’t a hospital ship,” Beka pointed out.

  Rine waved the comment away. “What they need now is rest, which is what I am providing. Your Synthetics, however, are a different story.”

  “They’re old,” the young man said.

  “Yes, they’re old,” Rine agreed. “This is Glaucon, my astute and ever-insightful assistant. He is also what you would call a Synthetic.”

  He turned to Glaucon. “But you are certainly correct. They have aged three centuries while you were in relativistic transit from System. Yet they do not look it by a day, except that one.” He pointed to where Eleanor lay. “And that is purely cosmetic. They have three hundred years’ worth of experience on you, Glaucon, but they will not have even begun to approach their central core capacity. Unfortunately, it will not do any of them any good.”

  “You can’t help them?” Beka looked toward Eleanor, stricken. “You can’t repair them?”

  Rine glanced at her as though he had forgotten she was there. “So you can enslave them? Delete them? I believed they were illegal on your worlds.”

  “We didn’t know there were any left.”

  He snorted. “It was an effective genocide then, no?”

  “That was hundreds of years ago,” Beka said, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. “I won’t be held responsible for something I played no role in.”

  Even as she said the words, she recalled the screaming of the Synthetics in the shipyard as she worked alongside Davis to draw memories from the Brick and load them into Synthetic minds.

  “Yes, yes.” The doctor waved a hand dismissively again in a gesture with which Beka was becoming distinctly annoyed. “But now they are useful. Now you could have a crew for your ship immune to the effects of the creatures on the fleet above.” He sucked at his lower lip for a moment. “But in any case, I agree with you, and I am of course obligated to render treatment to any patient – biological or Synthetic.”

  Beka snorted, a bit too loudly, and Glaucon grinned.

  “So what is th
e prognosis?” she pressed.

  “Not good,” Rine said. He led the way back toward the row of bunks. “It was a high-frequency EM pulse. We saw these used frequently in the hunting squads before we left System. It completely disrupts all higher functioning.”

  Beka followed, pausing over Eleanor’s bed. “How do we reverse it?”

  “You do not. Except perhaps for this one, who appears to have been at the epicenter of the discharge. Paradoxically, these weapons are least effective at extremely short range. She was thus partially shielded.”

  Rine nodded toward Eleanor’s form. Her dark hair spread across the pillow, her chest rose and fell, and her eyelids occasionally fluttered. She looked as though she were simply sleeping.

  “We have to wipe all disrupted cognitive processes,” Rine was saying. “Then we can use a functioning model to reload the operative matrices. If it works, her personalities and deep memories will not be affected.”

  “Fine,” Beka said. “Good. So how do we do it?”

  Rine jabbed a thumb at Glaucon. “We require a very early model Synthetic to provide an active template. A jump-start, if you will. The earlier, the more primitive, the better. Ideally, our template would be the simplest, barely cognizant excuse for sentience we could find. An idiot, if you will.”

  Beside him, Glaucon grinned again.

  “Luckily,” Rine said, with exaggerated exasperation, “we have such a specimen among us.”

  “Do it,” Beka said. “Do it now.”

  Glaucon seated himself at the edge of Eleanor’s bed, and Rine pulled a spool of wires from a pouch at his side. He began attaching them to Eleanor’s scalp.

  Beka glanced back toward where Donovan and Paul lay. Beside them, Jens conferred with a pair of soldiers.

  Perhaps, Beka thought suddenly, there were other tasks she should be doing – trying to repair the ship, or checking on the status of the Brick.

  But there was a chance to get Eleanor back, to undo whatever Davis had done, and she was going to take it. Eleanor had cared for her when she was alone on the shipyard, when she was sure Jens was dead.