The Messenger

by J. N. Chaney

  And he was breathing, pulling air into his lungs, gasping it back out. He fumbled with his faceplate, popping it open, being rewarded with a blast of air like the reverse of a sudden decompression, along with pain in his head so blindingly keen it yanked a sharp groan, almost a shriek, out of him.

  He levered himself up, so he was sitting.

  “You have very little time to get away from this region of space,” Sentinel said.

  “You…ah, fuuuuuck…do it. Can you? Fly…fuck meee, that hurts…fly away?”

  “What trajectory?”

  “Don’t…care. Just…shit…just go!”

  The Archetype shuddered and rumbled. Dash stabbed at the helmet release on his vac suit but missed. It took him two more tries. He finally yanked the helmet off and tossed it away with a clatter. For a while, he just lay on the floor, breathed, and tried to sort out which pains seemed to be the worst.

  Then he sensed movement around him. He saw the ruins of Nathis’s ship, the bow spinning toward the gas giant, the midships and stern tumbling in the opposite direction. Both would soon be pulled into the massive planet and incinerated. But he also saw the massive battlecruiser sliding into view, flanked by a pair of corvettes and a single frigate, all that remained of Nathis’s flotilla. But everything was rotating, making Dash instantly queasy.

  Shit. He turned and dragged himself toward the cradle. He had to get control of the Archetype and go looking for…a ship. His ship. Shit. What is its name again?

  “It’s a ship, I think? My ship?” Dash asked the air, his words uncertain.

  “The Slipwing,” Sentinel said. “Also, I have launched the Archetype on an unpowered trajectory, with a severe spin. This is intended to make it appear as though the Archetype was simply thrown clear of Nathis’s ship and is now just drifting away.”

  Dash reached the cradle, clawed at it, then dragged himself into it. It immediately embraced him, enclosing him. The searing blasts of pain abruptly subsided, and the desperate need to breathe faded. Dash took a couple deep breaths, simply enjoying the sudden absence of utter agony.

  “Okay,” he said, “that whole thing I just did? The fusion explosions, and ships falling apart with me aboard them, and vacuum stuff? I never need to do that again.”

  He took a moment to just sink back.

  But something plucked at him. There was something important. Something he needed to do. Something about…

  Like another explosive decompression, it all came rushing back to him. He looked around and realized he was still only a few kilometers away from the Clan Shirna ships.

  “Oh. Sonofabitch.” The enormity of his position came rushing back like a returning tide, and Dash felt his adrenaline spike all over again.

  Dash turned and launched himself away from them, driving the Archetype as fast as he could. It ceased tumbling and smoothly accelerated away from the gas giant and the flotilla of ships. They hadn’t come after him because they’d probably assumed the Archetype was derelict, something they could retrieve at their leisure.

  They had no idea how wrong they were.

  “Are we far enough yet, Sentinel?”

  “No.”

  The Archetype had regenerated a lot of its power while it had been embedded in the side of Nathis’s ship, but its reserves were still far below optimum. It didn’t matter. Despite the cost in power, he flung himself into unSpace, raced through it for a count of three, then translated back. He emerged back into real space millions of kilometers from the Clan Shirna ships. The gas giant was now just a disc he could cover with his thumb.

  Hopefully, this would be far enough.

  “Okay—” he started to say, but was cut off by a sudden…change…in the space he’d just left.

  The Lens was, in essence, similar to the Archetype’s distortion cannon, but orders of magnitude more powerful. It could generate a massive gravity well inside a star, causing its outer layers of superhot plasma to collapse, falling against the star’s core in a colossal implosion. This was essentially what happened naturally in a supernova; the compressed plasma would fuse into a host of much heavier elements, then rebound in a titanic explosion.

  Which is what happened back near the gas giant. Dash had set Nathis’s Lens to generate a huge gravitational distortion, which is what he now stared at, awestruck. He couldn’t see the Clan Shirna ships, of course, but he didn’t have to. Instead, he saw an abrupt surge of gas yanked out of the giant planet, as though something had reached down, scooped up a vast handful of its atmosphere, and pulled it into space. Which, in fact, it had.

  And then, as suddenly as it happened, it was over. The enormous plume of gas went still, protruding hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the huge planet’s flank.

  Dash let out a breath. It was…unlikely probably didn’t even begin to cut it…that anything had survived that. Everything for tens of thousands of kilometers around Nathis’s drifting body had almost certainly been utterly pulverized.

  Hopefully, that didn’t include the Slipwing.

  With an excruciating mix of hope and dread, Dash started back in-system, back toward the epicenter of that massive blast of gravity.

  Nothing remained of the Clan Shirna ships except fragments. Most were about the size of Dash’s fist, and few were larger than a cargo pod. It was a wrenching sight, even if they had been vicious, xenophobic assholes; the aftermath of the blast, the way the ships had been so thoroughly pulverized, left Dash gaping.

  It hadn’t just been the ships, either. Mixed among the cloud of debris was what amounted to gravel—the remains of at least one of the gas giant’s moons. And then there was the vast cloud of gas that had been ripped out of the great planet, wisps of which shot through the debris field like reaching fingers. They had already begun to smear, though, as the gas giant’s own, formidable gravity exerted itself. Eventually, all of this, the wreckage of ships and moons alike, would be pulled into the huge planet and vaporized in its atmosphere. It would be a meteor shower that would probably go on for decades.

  “There was no need to allow the Lens to destroy itself,” Sentinel said. “You could have used it remotely, instead of setting a trap the way you did. It is intended to be used at a safe distance from a star, after all.”

  “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.”

  “There you go.”

  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 her?

  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.”

  It’s better than doing nothing.

  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 o
f 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. A few moments, then 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 else…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.”

  Right now.

  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, slowi
ng 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 caught it in the Archetype’s enormous hands, then rotated until he looked upward, away from the vast and stupendously hostile depths beneath him.

  Dash 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? Why, you son-of-a—”

  “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.”