Remnant

by Dwayne A Thomason

  Now ships of various kinds, transports, cargo ships, smaller independent shuttles, hovered here and there. Last of all came the station, descending about her, slowing, and then still. The strange whine dropped in pitch and volume and then ceased.

  Eltar was still well visible within her plane of view. Vares station was far too low for a natural geosynchronous orbit. Instead, its position was maintained artificially permitting the majestic view of the blue and white planet dominating the bottom of her field of view.

  Ashla took a deep breath. “Wow.”

  Cel put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on.”

  Ashla took the ladder back up to the cockpit and dropped into her chair. She pulled her safety harness down and buckled in. Once Cel was in her seat, Ashla sealed the cockpit and raised the ladders.

  While waiting for the skylift’s command center to talk, Ashla went through Luna’s preflight checklist again, this time for spaceflight.

  “Lunar Seed,” came the fried voice, “we are ready to vent your cargo bay and open the doors on your command.”

  “Affirmative, skylift three. We are sealed up and ready to launch.”

  “Copy that.”

  Ashla listened as the room vented its air. The cargo bay door flashed and then returned to plain metal, then it pushed away and slid open.

  “Cargo bay is vented and open, and you are clear to disembark, Lunar Seed.”

  “Thanks for the ride, skylift three. Lunar Seed out.”

  Ashla unlocked the landing gear and fed power to the inertial engines. Her control stick became more agile as a series of joints in the mechanism unlocked, permitting her a wider range of control. Flying in zero-g was a lot different than flying in atmosphere, offering more varied options but also different challenges.

  She lifted on the control stick and her inertial engines pushed her aloft. Ashla lifted and locked the landing gear and maneuvered the ship out of the bay, keeping the main engines at zero and thrusting with the inertials.

  The cargo bay she was in didn’t face outward into space, but inwards toward the station where, normally, a boarding bridge would extend so crew could load and unload the cargo. Ashla found herself having to do a lot of fine movements to get Luna free from the station’s embrace.

  As she navigated Luna out into the wide open void, Ashla felt a sea of stimulus threaten her sanity. She smiled at it all. She’d flown something like seven hundred simulated space flights in the safe arms of a flight pod down in the palace. And though those pods were meticulously engineered to make the experience as real as possible, they were sorely lacking.

  Ashla could feel the difference in the way her control motion inputs effected thruster output. She could feel the difference in the way Luna felt around her, in the way her hair floated in zero-g—once Luna was out of the skylift’s artificial gravity—even in the way Luna turned.

  Cel sighed, and Ashla glanced at her through the mirror screen. “What’s wrong?”

  Cel looked up at her, then down at her link again. “I am...obliged to inform you that your planned 10:15 landing has been pushed back to 11:15, so you’re free to...fly about for an hour.”

  Ashla smiled again. She looked over Luna’s controls and gauges like they were all new toys to play with.

  “Thanks dad,” Ashla whispered, and fed power to the throttle, feeling rather than hearing Luna’s main engines come to life.

  An hour later Ashla brought Lunar Seed into the station’s landing bay eighteen, following a familiar set of vector readouts and guidance information. The bay was massive, obviously intended for a bigger ship, but empty other than several clusters of neatly stacked crates, and a small army of Meritine guardsmen and officers.

  Ashla set Luna down, opened the cockpit and dropped the ladder. A familiar face greeted her as she hopped out of her seat.

  “Good day, Ms. Vares,” Jindo Vosh said, an impish smile curving his thick, dark lips. “Welcome to Vares Station.”

  Ashla dropped her helmet onto her seat and dropped down in front of Jindo. “Don’t you think it’s going a little overboard naming both the starport and the station after my dad?”

  “On the contrary,” Jindo said, leading Ashla with a pointing hand. “After all it was your father who pushed through the program that replaced all our ancient space elevators with the skylift system. It’s only fair—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Ashla approached the rear of Lunar Seed, where Cel was talking to one of the Meritine officers, Captain Ilix. Ashla tapped a button on her link and the small storage compartment in Luna’s aft opened. She pulled her dress, neatly folded and packed into a vacuum sealed garment bag, and then closed the storage compartment again. By then, Cel and Ilix turned their attention to her.

  “Ms. Vares,” Captain Ilix said, his face smooth and emotionless, “are you ready for your presentation?”

  “I just need a place to change, Captain.”

  “Officer Vosh.” Captain Ilix pointed. Jindo nodded.

  “This way.”

  Jindo led Ashla across the landing bay to an adjoining set of restrooms. “We’ve already checked them. Go on in.”

  Ashla nodded, passed another pair of Meritine guardsmen, and entered the door marked with the ancient symbol for the ladies’ room. She didn’t lock the door behind her. It wasn’t like someone was going to accidentally butt into a restroom occupied by the daughter of the system’s governor. Ashla expected every a soul within a hundred meters was wearing the cyan and crimson of the Meritine.

  She opened the garment bag, pulled out the dress, and put it on. Ashla had little choice in what she wore for such a public occasion. Every detail was chosen by a team of staffers to make sure it would have maximum global appeal. Ashla was used to the lack of freedom in this, so instead, she turned it into a surprise, a game.

  Today’s surprise was a long white gown that seemed to suggest shades of color as the light fell on it, made of layered horizontal bands of the shimmery material. On top of this went a royal blue jacket split three times from the waist down. The jacket and the dress worked together to make an elegant, beautiful, yet professional ensemble. Ashla enjoyed the sight in the mirror, the way a hint of her clavicles showed, the way the jacket hung about her. The bag contained no jewelry, so Ashla wore none. She placed her flightsuit into the garment bag, zipped it up, and headed out.

  Jindo was waiting outside the ladies’ room alongside Cel and Captain Ilix. Ashla approached them. Whatever conversation they were having before was now concluded. Cel and Captain Ilix nodded.

  Jindo turned to Ashla. “Well, Ms. Vares, good luck. I look forward to seeing you wield those big scissors.”

  “Can’t we ever cut ribbon with something exciting?”

  Jindo chuckled. Laughter came so easily to him. Ashla smiled. Jindo turned to Cel and Ilix, nodded, and strode off.

  “It’s time for us to go too, Ms. Vares,” Cel said.

  Ashla sighed and nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Cel spun on her heal and led Ashla across the landing bay. They weren’t the only ones leaving. Most of the rest of the guardsmen and -women were moving on to their places. Only a small handful of officers would stay here to secure Luna.

  Ashla followed Cel through a single door opening out into a long corridor. It was wide, plain, with gray carpets, benches and big potted plants to either side and strips of plain white lights along the ceilings. The only thing suggesting that Ashla was in a station rather than some large conference hall on Eltar were the regular protrusions into the corridor where emergency doors could close in the event of depressurization.

  “You see these bulkhead projections?” Cel didn’t wait for an answer. “These make for good cover.”

  “So?”

  Cel stopped in front of one of the potted plants. Its pot was huge, almost a meter in cube, though a little shorter. Cel knocked on the pot. “These pots make for decent concealment. They won’t halt weapons fire for long, though. The bulkheads are better.”

  Cel contin
ued down the corridor. Ashla stopped to knock on the pot herself. They were covered in some kind of faux gold leaf but they seemed made of some kind of concrete. Another junction came and they turned a corner. Ashla followed but didn’t need Cel to know where she was going. She had studied the floorplans herself.

  “Worst comes to worse, upend one of these benches and use it to conceal you.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Cel stopped short. Ashla had needed to push to keep up and now she had to kick a foot out in front of her to stop. Cel turned around and looked down at her.

  “What?”

  “I asked, ‘why are you telling me this?’”

  Cel frowned, her brow crinkled in confusion. She looked away and then back at Ashla. “To save your life, should the worst happen.”

  Ashla sighed, her best impression of an annoyed tutor. “Ms. Numbar, I know you’re new here, but I’ve done dozens of these public events. Nothing ever happens. If you’re unlucky you’ll have to rummage through some dumpsters for a bomb that doesn’t exist.”

  For a second, Cel looked ready to reply, and Ashla knew it would not be polite. But then she gave Ashla one more frustrated look, and turned around. She led Ashla six more steps then turned back around.

  “The reason ‘nothing ever happens’ is because dozens of highly trained people work very hard to make it impossible for something to happen. But despite all that, we don’t relax until you’re safely home. So pay attention, and, with luck, you can go on thinking nothing will happen after today.”

  Cel turned and continued. Ashla considered her options for replies but came up empty. At last they came to the hospital. A pair of simple double-doors stood beside a plague telling Ashla she had arrived, had she not seen the pair of Meritine guardsmen waiting there.

  They both looked at Cel and Ashla. One of them whispered something, something Ashla couldn’t hear but certainly everyone on the security team could. Something like “the princess has arrived.” Ashla frowned.

  The men stepped aside. The doors opened and Ashla was greeted by a small crowd of doctors and nurses. They applauded as she entered. She went through the usual greetings. This is the hospital administrator, this is this doctor, this is that research specialist, blah blah blah. Ashla greeted them all with smiles and proper greetings. Some smiled because they were honored to meet an important dignitary. Others smiled because the alternative was rude. Ashla played along.

  Once the greetings were out of the way, they all moved to the front of the hospital, meters from where they would cut the ribbon. Then the doors opened, revealing a bright exterior and a cacophony of voices. Events like this drew large crowds, and not press alone. The large forum was a space station’s version of a town square on Eltar, except the blue sky above was synthetic. Tall buildings surrounded the square, reaching to the sky, which was only a few stories tall here. The square was full of people, many holding links up to record the event. The only empty spot was the large portico leading to the hospital. Two smooth, round columns stood on either side of the portico, and it was between them that the wide, red ribbon stretched.

  Ashla stepped forward and waved to the crowd. She was greeted by a wave of hoots and cheers. Cel led her to one of several chairs on the portico, and took up her position right beside her, standing. The other VIPs, administrators and big-name doctors and researchers filled the other chairs.

  The lead administrator, Doctor Goizel Sokaiya, stood right behind the ribbon. “My fellow citizens of Vares Station and Antarus. Today...”

  His speech was boring. Ashla didn’t let her feelings on the matter change her smile at all. She had seen and officiated dozens of events like this one, first with her father, and now on her own. The importance of such events always seemed overstated by those involved, as if they had to justify themselves to all the media that showed up and all the people who watched.

  A new hospital was always a good thing. This hospital in particular would speed up research into some of the deadliest viruses in the galaxy but did people really care about some hospital in one of two hundred something stations in this system alone? And did people think one new hospital was going to suddenly cure Z13 or something? Ashla doubted it.

  She heard her name and stood up on cue. Ashla stepped forward into the limelight next to the lead administrator and curtsied to the crowd. Another wave of cheering erupted as she stepped to the fore, along with a few whistles and one “we love you Ashla!”

  There was an awkward pause, then Ashla laughed, and the crowd and the administrator next to her laughed in kind. A doctor in scrubs and a labcoat brought a massive pair of scissors and handed them to the administrator. He angled the scissors over the ribbon and made room for Ashla to grab hold as well. Ashla looked out and smiled her sweetest for the dozens of links, not to mention the more specialized recording devices.

  “1,” the administrator whispered into Ashla’s ear. “2.”

  Boom.

  An explosion ripped through the portico and Ashla went flying. Time seemed to slow down. The world around her turned to bright, flashing lights and a screaming ring in her ears. She realized she had left the ground before the explosion happened. Something had grabbed her arm. A familiar vice-like grip.

  Ashla came to herself. She was lying on the floor in the dark. She tried to get up and found a heavy weight pressing her down. She panicked, screamed, then the weight lifted. It was Cel. Ashla turned back to where she had stood a moment before. A massive hole existed where the floor once was. It looked like a yawning mouth with jagged teeth of shredded metal and a bifurcated tongue of ripped plastic.

  Her ears stopped ringing, replaced by something worse, the echoing screams of hundreds of people. She looked for the administrator who had stood within hugging distance. Where was he? Had he—

  Ashla looked, and gasped. A lump of flesh and blood in a familiar suit lay crumpled against one of the columns. Ashla panicked, withdrew within herself. But Cel lifting her to her feet knocked her out of it.

  “We’ve got to go!” Cel shouted in Ashla’s ear. Ashla became aware of another noise, small arms fire. She looked, but Cel cut off her vantage. She was shielding Ashla from the combat while half-dragging her along. Ashla saw two Meritine guardsmen rise from the darkness and the wreckage, they fired out into the crowd, fired at the people who were firing at Ashla. There was a flash and a crack and one of the guardsmen had a hole in his cyan uniform, dead center of his chest. The man gritted his teeth and howled, but continued firing. At last Cel dragged Ashla into the hospital and slammed the door control. Ashla took one last look of the insanity before the heavy, windowless doors slid shut.

  They could block her vision of the calamity beyond but served only to muffle the sounds of people screaming and fighting. Of people dying.

  Chapter Ten:

  That Devises Wicked Plans

  Salazar guided the Jessamine into her berth in Calasat Tower, the monstrous three-kilometer tall building at the center of the city of Angora, supported by a complex web of contragravity engines as much as by metal and nano-carbonates.

  He flicked a few switches and the Jessamine’s six legs protruded from underneath her, unfolding. Landing room in the city was at a premium, so Sal had the tendency to rent a smaller berth. As long as he could get the ship in and out without hitting something, the ship didn’t care how big her room was. But that meant that Salazar had to land a K-scale transport into a tight space with the howling winds of high-atmosphere climate trying to shove her around. Sal did this, wearing a smile on his face.

  The bridge crew were all gone, packing and prepping for their shore leave. The last of them to leave was Kahula who, after getting the clearance for Salazar to land, always speaking in her strange, over-enunciated accent, left the bridge without requesting or receiving permission. Sal wondered, again, why he chose a female bridge crew.

  Once Sal had the Jessamine landed and locked, he prepped her systems for automatic authorization so tech crews could rech
arge her life-support systems, empty the trash bins, etc. Once done, he grabbed his own daybag from a small storage cabinet overhead and left the bridge. He took the forward ladder down and stepped out onto the decking of the tower.

  Salazar walked over to the opening in the Jessamine’s berth. The blistering cold winds outside didn’t touch him as Calasat Tower kept its bays covered by the energy shields standard on starships and space stations. He put his hands on the cold metal guardrail and looked across the city. The Jessamine’s berth was not the highest, but it was high up there, and he had to look down onto the rest of the kilometer-tall buildings. The flying vehicles created floating rivers amongst the city’s great towers.

  Sal had always thought of Angora as a massive, human-sized beehive, with contragravity-lofted transports zipping around it, though he had heard that once in its long life its buildings had been the loci of a web of wide bridges back before the Alliance had discovered—or re-discovered—a cheap and economical form of contragravity.

  Salazar turned and found his crew all staring at him. They were somber. Word had traveled that the dead man they had left to rest amidst the void was a friend of his. None of them knew Lekem, but they knew Salazar, and they weren’t about to celebrate their shore leave in front of him.

  “Keep your links close,” Sal said, showing his. “If something happens and we need to leave in a pinch, I don’t want to leave any of you behind.” Sal shook his head. “What are you waiting for, a medal ceremony? Sawk off!”

  The crew laughed. A few made rude gestures. They dispersed in twos and threes. The kid lingered, holding a briefcase in one hand. Thumbing through his link with the other. Sabella lingered too. Once the others were gone she stepped up to Sal. Her usual smirk was fake and awkward.

  She lifted her link, took Sal’s hand, the one holding his, and tapped the two devices together. Sal’s link chimed reception of something. Sabella could have messaged the information to him but chose a more personal touch.

  “This is where I’ll be staying, if you need...you know.”