I wiped sweat out of my eyes and stared at the controls. Dusko was right; the engine was red-lining. I cut the thrust back to just below red. Stardust raced backward and my corrections became more frantic. At this speed, even a graze might wreck us.
“One kilometer to go,” Jaelle yelled.
Stardust came out of the tunnel like a cannonball. I cut the forwards, kicked the ship into spinning on her singularity axis, and as the nose came round, I threw in the mains and we were all pressed back in our seats, save for Maauro.
“Climb, baby, climb,” I begged.
“Any sign of hostile fire?” Jaelle asked.
“No,” Maauro replied. “But now that we are out, we will be detected by the main scanners. I can do nothing about that. It’s a main combat system and fully shielded.”
Maauro’s head cocked to one side. A gesture I knew meant surprise. “I am detecting a signal,” she announced. “It is the Collector.”
“Doubtless calling to her ship for aid,” I said, eyes darting over the controls.
“No, Wrik, the message is for you.”
“Put her on,” I said, after recovering from my surprise. I checked my readouts; we were at max thrust, arrowing for the starlines above. I had no idea how far or fast we’d have to go to escape the Artifact’s time-bubble. I only knew the Guild ship had done so a century ago. But the Artifact had been asleep then.
The screen derezzed, then I saw Ferlan. Her face was smudged with soot, but her usual calm resolve shone through somehow. In the background, Marcel and some other Guilders stood with leveled weapons, peering out into hallways and gesturing furiously.
“Hello, Wrik. I am glad you are still alive.”
“Madam Ferlan,” I returned.
“Are you safe? I see you have regained your ship.”
“Safe may be overstating it.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“What’s your sitrep?” I asked
“Quite hopeless, I’m afraid. We fought our way back to the area below my ship before being herded into what looks like a storage area. Warriors have now appeared and destroyed our vehicles. Our weapons are depleted. We have had no success in trying to communicate with the Infestors. Worse, we are running low on power for the dampeners in our helmets. Some of my people have succumbed to Infestor control.”
“Any chance of help from your ship?” I asked
“They sent in a rescue force, but we have not heard from them. I can no longer raise my ship.”
Maauro walked over to stand next to me. She stared at Ferlan.
“Ah, Maauro, I have so many regrets at how I handled you.”
“Apologies will not get you my aid.”
Ferlan smiled. “I did not request your aid, young lady. I was merely regretting that I did not try to honestly befriend you. It might have prevented disaster. Still, the habits of a lifetime are hard to break.”
She turned her attention back to me. “I fear I am beyond help. You remember that I told you that sometimes we must ask the universe for its judgments?”
“Yes.”
“It appears that the judgment today is both harsh and final.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s the truth. I’d help if I could.” The others all stared at me as if I’d turned into a Kandalorian firebat.
“You are a sweet boy, Wrik. Forget about the past, a lesson I learned too late.”
“Is there any message…to anyone?”
“No. Farewell, Wrik. Please forgive me.”
“Done, Villain.”
She laughed. “But I will not return the name you gave yourself. If it was ever deserved, it no longer is.”
The men behind her fired a ragged volley, then shouted and grabbed their heads. On the screen I watched Ferlan’s face go slack. Behind her, the remaining guards and Marcel stopped moving and dropped their weapons. Ferlan still faced the screen and I thought I saw a horror in her eyes, but she, too, turned and marched off, following the others.
“It seems the Collector has been collected,” Dusko said with a cold smile. “My account with her has been squared by the Powers.”
I looked at Maauro. “Is there nothing we can do?”
She shook her head. “No, Wrik, even if there was time, we lack the power or forces to effect a rescue.”
“What about their ship?” Jaelle asked. Answering her own question she played the screen controls. We saw Ferlan’s ship lying on the Artifact’s surface.
“Too late,” Jaelle said.
Hummel’s ramps were down. The space-suited crew was marching out into captivity, compelled toward the ring of Infestors, also in the suits, that had surrounded the ship.
“I am reading power spikes,” Jaelle said.
“Confirmed,” Maauro said
“We’re for it now,” Dusko said. “They cannot capture us and they cannot afford for us to get away.”
I grabbed the controls and hit a random vector burn in an evasive pattern. “Maauro can you do anything with ECM?”
“I’m integrated with the ship’s systems and emitting jamming signals but Wrik we are close enough for visual firing. They can blanket this area of space. Can you get any more speed out of the Stardust?”
“Only a few percent. Everybody take hold. I’m going to be exceeding the AG field’s safety parameters. Maauro, can you give me any warning?”
“Guesstimates on when they should fire based on their weapons and tech,” she replied.
“Sing out when you think they are going to fire.”
“Do you really want me to sing?”
“Maauro!”
“I am merely trying to lessen the tension. I know I am not to sing.”
“You picked a fine time to play with humor.”
“Dodge in five, four, three, two, one. Now!”
I slammed gyros, throttles, and everything else that Stardust had, while pulling the dampeners on the reactor. The ship leapt faster than she had even at her builder’s trials. The AG field couldn’t cancel it all and gravity pulled at us. My vision grayed, but that didn’t stop the universe from lighting up around us. A salvo from the Artifact ripped through space. It wasn’t any weapon I was familiar with, but I had no doubt it could shred Stardust in an instant.
“How long before it recycles?” I yelled to Maauro, despite the giant sitting on my chest.
“Between 3.5 and 3.77 seconds. Its fire control system now knows our best evasive action.”
“Then we’re dead.” I said, an ashen taste in my mouth.
“The power spike from firing may help us,” Maauro said. She altered the screen’s view aft. The Artifact glowered at us.
“Yes,” Maauro said. “It begins.”
“What?” I said. “I don’t see…”
On the screen, the Artifact seemed to waver as if seen through intense heat. It shimmered and storms of power played over its surface.
Jaelle grabbed my shoulder. “Look.”
On the shimmering surface of the Artifact, the engines of the Collector’s ship flared with full power. The huge ship flung itself off the surface but its climb was wild, the ship bucked and rolled, nearly striking a tall tower near the edge of the landing zone.
“Are they escaping?” Dusko demanded.
“I cannot raise them,” Maauro said. “There is no way to know who or what is aboard.”
“They’re not emitting any ECM or telemetry,” I said, scanning my instruments. “It may be some automatic system misfiring. That ship is just going ballistic.”
“Shall we intercept?” Jaelle asked.
Maauro shook her head. “No, whatever is going on in that vessel is beyond our power. I do not believe any Infestors are aboard. Their command personnel are deep in the Artifact. Drones would not flee on their own.”
The Artifact seemed to tw
ist and shudder and brilliant light surrounded it.
“Hold on,” I shouted.
The Artifact blazed with an unbearable light and then vanished. Power from it, ripping through the fabric of the universe, battered Stardust as it rolled in the disturbed space-time.
My chair restraint failed and the seat lurched forward, Maauro’s hand snapped down, holding the seat in its track, or I’d have been smashed on the instruments. Someone screamed. Our senses were hammered by unfamiliar sensations, brilliant colors, metallic smells, until it seemed that the universe was coming apart.
It took me a minute to reorient myself and realize the sensations were fading, normalcy was returning. It felt good merely to breathe. I looked up at the controls and saw many yellow warning lights, no reds.
“The Artifact is gone,” Jaelle shouted.
“Maauro destroyed it,” Dusko said. “Quite the little destroyer is our Maauro.”
“It may be destroyed but I doubt it,” Maauro said.
“What?” Jaelle said.
“I could not corrupt the systems sufficiently to self-destruct the Artifact. Given time I would have been able to string together enough systems to accomplish it, but we were too hard-pressed. I infiltrated the navigation system. The Infestor drive was transdimensional, as was the Murch drive. I accessed those memories I had of the Murch drive which I worked on for days. Using that knowledge, I was able to essentially tip the Artifact out of our space-time. Where it has gone, there is no way to tell. But it is highly unlikely we shall see it again. Infestors are once again gone from my universe.”
“Since it seems we are to live,” Dusko said, leaning on a bulkhead,“one wonders what follows?”
I set up the course toward the outer edges of systems and the warp points back to civilization then pushed back from the controls. “I don’t know. I’ll think better with a drink in me.”
Maauro disappeared to return with containers of beer and the green-bottled drel that Jaelle preferred. She joined us in opening a canister. We savored the cool drinks and the simple sensations of being alive. Jaelle checked the nav-instruments and whistled at something. I looked over her shoulder.
“According to the ship’s observations of the quasars we use for a universal clock we have been gone in the gravity well of the Artifact for over five years.”
I shook my head, almost unable to cope with any more strangeness. I wondered how much longer I could stay awake before crashing. Only the pain from every bruise and strain I’d acquired in the last few days was keeping me awake. Dusko looked in similar shape. Jaelle too stood hollow-eyed with fatigue and tension.
“Well, Maauro,” Jaelle said. “It would seem a lot of our plans depend on you.”
To my surprise she shook her head emphatically. “I wish to make no more unilateral decisions. Please tell me your own wishes before considering mine.”
“Not to get killed,” Dusko said promptly.
“Your safety,” Maauro replied, “is predicated on your behavior. Make no moves against the rest of us and you will be unharmed. I consider you now a provisional part of my network and will not dispose of you without just cause.”
“Thanks,” he said without irony.
She turned to Jaelle. “I have in the past caught you up unwillingly in my compulsions and must make amends for that. Please tell me your wishes.”
“I have no specific plans,” Jaelle said. “I’m a trader and wish to practice my trade. We disappeared for five years. I doubt that anyone is still looking for us. We have the opportunity for a fresh start. We have a mix of talents that can make us very successful. I say we stay together and practice those talents.”
I looked around at Jaelle: beautiful, brave and intelligent. At Maauro, who meant perhaps even more to me in a unique way. That problem I would put aside for another date. Then I looked at Dusko; his pupilless blue eyes stared back. I’d never learned to read such a blank face. His hand was covered in the dressing Maauro had made for him.
“That would require,” I said reluctantly, “you and I to put a lot of unpleasant history in a box and bury it.”
“You believe nothing I say to you,” he replied. “So if I tell you that I, too, am willing to bury the hatchet, you will neither believe me, nor ever trust me.”
I shrugged. “You’re out of a culture with no morals by my standards. Even among Dua-Denlenn, you were a criminal.”
“Yet you cannot accept that we follow our own interests as a moral code. I feel it is obvious that my interests lie with Stardust now. If you can rely on nothing else, rely on this, I am not your enemy while Maauro operates. I have seen her overcome and destroy every obstacle: the Guild, the Infestors, even Time itself. I will not risk her enmity. Trust that, if not me.
“As for the rest.” He raised his burnt hand. “If we score all the damage we’ve done each other, can we not now call it even?”
I thought about it then nodded stiffly.
“Wrik,” Jaelle asked. “What do you want? Her cat-like eyes were easier to read then Dusko’s but the mind behind them was still alien, still new to me.
“I like any plan that keeps us together,” I replied.
“Back to you, Maauro,” Jaelle said.
“Your plans are all fine with me. You are my network and I wish to remain with you all. But there is something more. I was created for destruction, for a war that now must surely be considered done and gone. Since I have become active I have continued to fight and struggle. It may be that this is...how would a biological say it?…destiny?
“If it is, then I wish to use my skills to some higher purpose, to save those in trouble, to defend the weak from the strong, reunite the lost with those searching for them.”
“Hmmm,” Jaelle said, “perhaps a consulting agency of some sort? A trading company would be a good cover for such.”
“You might need someone with extensive contacts and a practical working knowledge of criminal enterprises.” Dusko added.
I raised my drink. “Shall we toast the founding of the Maauro Troubleshooting and Consulting Agency?”
We touched our cups on the future.
—The End—
More from MoonDream Press
More from MoonDream Press
About The Author
Edward McKeown is a writer and editor specializing in science fiction and fantasy with occasional forays into literary and nonfiction. Ed escaped from NY, but his old hometown supplies much of the background to his humorous “Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess” shorts, as his new hometown in Charlotte, North Carolina does for his “Knight Templar” fantasy series. He enjoys a wide variety of interests from ballroom dance to the martial arts. He has also edited four Sha’Daa anthologies of wry tales of the apocalypse and a wide variety of short stories. Find him on Facebook and at edwardmckeown.weebly.com.
Ed is best known for his Robert Fenaday/Shasti Rainhell series of SF novels, set on the Privateer Sidhe.
Books by Edward McKeown
Was Once a Hero in print—foreword written by Janet Morris
Fearful Symmetry in print—foreword written by Claudia Christian
Points of Departure in print
Hidden Stars—the first of the Shasti Rainhell series
Knight in Charlotte in print
On the Case—the Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess Files, coming soon
In 2014 and beyond, comes the Maauro and Wrik Trigardt series from Copper Dog Publishing. Set sixty years later, in the same future as Robert Fenaday and Shasti Rainhell, a new duo challenges the powers ruling the stars, a 50,000 year old combat android and a disgraced rebel pilot.
My Outcast State
Against that Time
The Lost
All the Difference
Legacies
Edited by Edward McKeown, with stories by Edward McKeown:
Sha’Daa: Tales of The Apocalypse
Sha’Daa: Last Call
Sha’Daa: Pawns
Coming Soon:
Sha’Daa: Facets
Copper Dog Publishing LLC
Our Imprints:
Pumpkin Hill Press
To find out more about our imprints and our upcoming releases, visit our website:
www.CopperDogPublishing.com
or our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/copperdogpublishing
My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1) Page 34
